Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2017 Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice team


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was withdrawn by nominator after unanimous consensus to keep this article. (non-admin closure) --George Ho (talk) 21:51, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Addendum : The nominator raised concerns about the notability of the topic, but the consensus found it notable enough for the stand-alone article at this time. --George Ho (talk) 21:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

2017 Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice team

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

The case for deletion is WP:UNDUE. This information is trivial. It is merely a list of press releases about people being hired for a committee. Both Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and Dismissal_of_James_Comey are large and unwieldy as-is, and I don't believe either page would be improved by merging this content. Power~enwiki (talk) 18:26, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep (as article creator) . The history, composition, and mission of the team has been widely reported on, including reporting separate from discussion of the matters they are investigating, since no less than the President of the United States has made false assertions about the prior political activities of its members. bd2412  T 18:49, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Obviously surpasses WP:GNG and every other notability requirement, and the group will get increasingly important as time goes on, so I see no conceivable rationale for deletion. Softlavender (talk) 19:28, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As per the nomination statement, "The case for deletion is WP:UNDUE." The committee hasn't done anything yet, it's WP:CRYSTAL to assume they will. Any necessary discussion can be included on the two pages mentioned in the nomination.  Power~enwiki (talk) 19:32, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Ahem. Vegas Golden Knights. There is nothing WP:CRYSTAL about reporting on an existing entity with personnel who have already been selected (with much press coverage), and the composition of which has already been the subject of public comment. bd2412  T 19:35, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It's still WP:UNDUE then. We don't include the staffing of United States Senate Special Committee on Aging or United States Secretary of Education. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you show me where those have been broadly reported in reliable sources? Where people up to the level of the President of the United States have criticized their composition? If it is undue, then the fault would be with the news media, of which numerous outlets have reported on numerous aspects of this team. Perhaps you can convince them to retract their coverage as undue. bd2412  T 19:49, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * , please familiarize yourself with AfD rationales, of which WP:UNDUE is definitely not one. Please also do WP:BEFORE before nominating an article for deletion. Your comments and rationales seem to indicate that you are acting out of POV/opinion/partisanship rather than out of encyclopedic intent or Wikipedia polices and guidelines. If you take issue with other articles, the place to discuss those issues is the talk pages of those articles. Softlavender (talk) 19:50, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I feel that deletion of the article is my intended goal of this discussion, therefore AfD is the proper forum for this discussion. A discussion on (for example) the Donald Trump page could not cause this article to be deleted. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:54, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I said "other articles" (i.e., the other articles you criticized on your nomination), not this article. Softlavender (talk) 19:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: This appears to be a bad-faith nomination; the rationale statement "It is merely a list of press releases about people being hired for a committee." is blatantly false, as there is not a single press release in the article's 27 citations: . -- Softlavender (talk) 19:57, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I do still feel that WP:UNDUE is sufficient on its own for deletion; WP:UNDUE is part of WP:NPOV, and this article's existence is inherently a violation of that policy. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You are evading the point (your blatant lie in your nomination), and you still do not understand AfD rationales. Your absurd claim now that the article violates NPOV is merely pointing up your own obvious highly biased POV and by extension, again, your bad-faith nomination. Softlavender (talk) 20:26, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Widely reported on team conducting a notable investigation. 331dot (talk) 19:58, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not claiming that this article is not notable. I am listing it as an article that I believe should be deleted according to WP:DEL5 and WP:DEL14 . Power~enwiki (talk) 20:00, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I obviously disagree at least on your latter point, if not both. 331dot (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Read liberally enough, literally every article in the encyclopedia is a content fork of something. If so, to which article should the neutral, reliably sourced information found in this article be merged? bd2412  T 20:05, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Read liberally enough -- obvious liberal bias!  E Eng  22:51, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If you claim the material is not suitable for an encyclopedia, you need to make your case. How is it not? Softlavender (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2017 (UTC)


 * , you can't edit or replace your rationale after it has been responded to and !voted on. Softlavender (talk) 20:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)


 * As the creator of this discussion has stated "I know the consensus on this page will be opposed to this move" I call for this to be SNOW closed. 331dot (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I object, strongly. Power~enwiki (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I have to agree that this unwarranted and bad-faith POV nomination is an absurd waste of everybody's time, and agree that a WP:SNOW close would be appropriate here. Softlavender (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You've accused me of acting in bad-faith TWICE, yet have refused to allow me to try to make improvements. 22:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Power~enwiki (talk • contribs)
 * You can't "make improvements" to an AfD nomination. You can make whatever further comments you desire in the discussion itself, but you can't change your nomination. You can improve the article itself if you perceive it to be lacking. The only way to improve this AfD would be to withdraw it, which you can do since no one has !voted "delete". Softlavender (talk) 23:41, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Very well sourced article on a notable topic which absolutely belongs in wikipedia somewhere.  I'm not certain the title and the framing of the article is the best possible, but don't delete.  --Lockley (talk) 22:51, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. An easily notable and relevant topic. I would be against merging this into the Russian interference article or the Comey dismissal since those are already long enough on their own and the Special Counsel subject works better with an article of its own. However, I support changing the title and rewriting parts of the article to make it clear that the investigation, not the team itself, is the main topic here. κατάστασ  η  00:54, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - Well sourced, notable article. Deserves to stay. Jdcomix (talk) 01:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Clearly notable and well-sourced. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment I note Articles for deletion/Obstruction of justice investigation of Donald Trump was closed as Delete earlier this month. Power~enwiki (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That's because the policy-based WP:CONSENSUS was to delete. You do understand how this stuff works, right? Here there is a unanimous policy-based consensus to keep this article. Softlavender (talk) 07:49, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Please stop making insinuations about me like this on the AfD. Power~enwiki (talk) 08:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That was not an insinuation; it was two statements of fact and a question. Softlavender (talk) 08:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Do I have to turn the hose on you two?  E Eng  09:00, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You might. I'm not sure why Softlavender re-opened this if only to make comments this non-constructive. Power~enwiki (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong keep: I cannot see how this could be interpreted as trivial, when the subject matter concerns an investigation to determine if there is in fact a scandal that is the greatest in the history of the United States. Even if the investigation does not yield earth-shattering results, the fact that this exists makes it notable. D ARTH B OTTO talk • cont 10:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I am in two minds, so the clincher would be...do we have other articles on similar subjects (special investigations teams makeup), if not then I go with delete. As I fail to see this is more notable then any other tram, and would seem POV forky. If the answer is yes I go with keep as this is no less notable.Slatersteven (talk) 12:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I would actually be interested in seeing an article explaining the composition of the teams that investigated Nixon, Clinton, and Bush. We have a Category:Watergate scandal investigators which "includes police, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, members of Congress, journalists, and others who investigated aspects of the Watergate break-in and cover-up", but does not distinguish those who were formally investigating on behalf of the DOJ from those who were "investigating" because they were on a Congressional committee or trying to break a story for a newspaper. Also, I don't recall that any President has ever made public comments calling into question the composition of the DOJ team conducting such an investigation. That is a point in favor of the historically unique situation of this particular team. bd2412  T 16:22, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm no longer opposed to a snow-keep close by an uninvolved admin. Power~enwiki (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Power~enwiki, if you no longer wish to propose deletion you can withdraw the nomination. Since there have been no "delete" or "merge" votes, withdrawing the nomination would amount to a snow close in favor of "keep". To do that, you can simply say "I withdraw the nomination" here at the bottom of the discussion. If you wish you can also strike out (but not remove) your nomination statement. --MelanieN (talk) 16:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The creator of the discussion has, on the talk page, expressly refused to withdraw this, but has conceded the result of this will likely be keep. 331dot (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * keep. an article cannot be UNDUE, only parts of an article, and this would be UNDUE detail in an already very long main article Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The stand alone article 2017 Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice team is in fact the proper response to UNDUE - spin out a subsidiary/child article where there is plenty of coverage of specific aspect of a main article that would bog down the flow of the main article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Very clearly meets notability standards. Issues about POV, if any, should be dealt with by editing, not by deletion. TJRC (talk) 20:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * SNOW Keep Per others. Clearly meets WP:NCasprings (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * WITHDRAWN This is clearly going nowhere. I still don't believe any page that meets WP:NPOV can exist under this title at this time, and thus cannot attempt to improve the article in good faith. I withdraw the nomination, but I encourage a different editor to re-nominate this page for deletion in the semi-near future if improvements are not made.  The assumption by almost all the page editors that this committee will find something is a violation of multiple core Wikipedia policies, and the excessive coverage of trivial details regarding the committee published in the political press should not be relevant content for Wikipedia; perhaps it would be an appropriate topic for WikiTribune.  Power~enwiki (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.