Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Accusations of French genocide against Algerians


 * 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 redirect and merge as per editorial consensus on appropriate talk pages. Not here. — Nearly Headless Nick   {C}  11:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Accusations of French genocide against Algerians

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

The speedy deletion of this article (as a CSD G4, also in light of NPOV issues) was overturned at DRV. The article's title and structure raise NPOV concerns. Clearly, some content is useful, and a merge, redirect, or even a rewrite, could be in order. However, no consensus emerged at the DRV about any further action after overturning. Weak delete, as it stands, though obviously the DRV (and I) encourage alternative suggestions. Xoloz 16:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * History of previous deletions An AFD was entered for Articles for deletion/Algerian Genocide 29 April 2006, It was agreed that it should be deleted. The author should not wait a month and then recreate it under a different name. In this case the original author created a new page with similar content to the original during the AFD (see Algerian Genocide Claims from 10:11, 29 April 2006 (UTC)) that was deleted along with the original (see Algerian Genocide from 11:19, 25 April 2006. This page was a recreation of the second page that was created during the original AFD and the next edit after  "Algerian Genocide Claims" was deleted was at "08:30, 22 October 2006. David Falcon (Redirecting to Accusations of French genocide against Algerians)" which I think is more evidence that this article is an attempt to circumvent an AFD.  The current page we are debating  was created with the name Genocide Against Algerian Identiy,  on  02:06, 20 May 2006 by David Falcon, (about a month after the original was deleted) it was moved "18:16, 14 June 2006 . . Deodar (moved Genocide Against Algerian Identiy to Genocide Against Algerian Identity" and moved again  "02:19, 27 September 2006 .  and again: Dmcdevit (moved Genocide Against Algerian Identity to Accusations of French genocide against Algerians: neutral title at least, not sure if this is salvageable.." See above that it was deleted in November 2006 with a speedy deleted and remain deleted for half a year until undeleted in April this year. So I deleted it again as soon as I became aware that it had been undeleted (I was not informed that it had been undeleted). If it remains it makes a mockery of the AFD process. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete the alleged incidents should be narrated somewhere, and a record of notable commentary might wish to record that some people have used the g word. But a list of media accusations isn't an neutral article.--Sandy Donald 20:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * keep if properly sourced, which would include references to the specific use of "genocide" in this context. DGG 01:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC).
 * keep The title alone should not be used to judge an article. That being said I agree with remarks by DGG, and it seems properly sourced at the moment. Bleh999 03:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Simply referencing something doesn't make it neutral. If I were to create an article Accusations of racism made against George Bush and then write about every controversy he'd been involved in, where some commentator had used the word 'racist', would that be NPOV? Of course, all the incidents from Iraq to Gitmo would be notable and, of course, criticism of Bush's involvement in them would a legitimate topic, but organising them round that loaded word would be biased. Now we should have articles (don't we?) on French attitudes and actions towards Algeria - and criticism of them should be recorded (including, in context, any description of them as genocide) - but this is as biased as List of times someone has described the pope as bigoted or Accusations of barbarism against Islam.--Sandy Donald 10:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * There are about 12 daughter articles of 'George Bush' including one called Criticism of George W. Bush and Movement to impeach George W. Bush so I don't think your example about George Bush was a good one. Your example of 'barbarism against islam' is also not good as we have Allegations of Islamic apartheid, Criticism of Islam and Islam and slavery as well as Islamist terrorism not to mention Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid amongst many others including just articles on books or documentaries and redirects. If we were to accept your argument all of these articles must be deleted, by the way I think genocide should be mentioned in this title name, because it has been described as a Genocide by individuals, organizations and some governments (such as the government of Turkey, whatever your personal opinion of them is), the article is not presenting the French actions in Algeria as genocide as a fact, it is an examination of the phenomena surrounding the genocide claim.  Also this title was chosen by an admin to make it more neutral, so if your objection is just the title alone, it doesn't merit deletion.  Reach consensus on the talk page for name change, rather than deleting, btw your arguments sound very similar to Doc glasgow you wouldn't happen to be friends?  Bleh999 00:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of France-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 09:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 09:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I am not a big fan of the title, but I fail to find something better. I'm open to every new proposal, let's not delete the article because of its title :). The reason of the title is that President Bouteflika called these acts Genocide, and some other sources concurred (especially Turkey, for an obvious reason). The reason of the title was an attempt to have some distance from these accusations. On a content POV, some could be merged to Algerian War, but the polemic started in 2006, and putting these events in their own article can help making the issue clearer. I won't vote keep or delete on that matter, because I am really split here. I think the best option won't be a simple "Keep" or "Delete". -- lucasbfr talk 13:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep A topic of period and current debate. Already has some sources. Edward321 03:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, and merge. I note that, officially, the accusations of genocide stems from a 2006 speech by the Algerian president. For now, at least, this accusation should be included in any of the other articles concerning this subject, e.g. Algerian War of Independence and Torture during the Algerian War. -- Steve Hart 23:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Both of those articles are already quite extensive, they are not suitable for merging as we usually split articles that are very long, I don't think that is a good reason to delete this article since it is going against wikipedia policy. Bleh999 06:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * To be more precise: The historical events these accusations are based on, and how France behaved, is covered in other articles. The accusation from official Algeria was brought up rather recently and should be added to one of these articles, for now, IMO. The accusation article is not very long, yet, either. -- Steve Hart 15:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I did not know about Torture during the Algerian War. That might be a good idea to merge both articles (but by reading a bit that one, a big NPOV work seems needed on that one too). -- lucasbfr talk 15:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with what you are saying about the obvious relevancy of the topics, but Torture during the Algerian War that article is specific to one topic, namely torture, maybe it could be renamed to Human rights abuses and accusations of Genocide during the Algerian War, and both old articles redirecting to the newly merged one, maybe then I would support a merge, but I don't see how the topics would fit in the same article otherwise. Bleh999 21:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete See Talk:Accusations of French genocide against Algerians: This is a recreation of a deleted article Articles for deletion/Algerian Genocide. See also Talk:Genocides_in_history this article is a POV fork from a deleted section in that article. Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The article Human rights in the Soviet Union can be considered as a potential template solution. It started life as Soviet genocide which was moved to Soviet persecutions before moving to its current name (see Talk:Human rights in the Soviet Union). A section called "French Aligeria" in the article human rights in Algeria might be a solution to this problem. It would allow the accusations against the French to be set in an historical context of all periods of Algerian history including the post colonial period. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * CommentIt should be noted that Philip Baird Shearer is the admin that speedily deleted this without an AfD contrary to wikipedia policy. I don't agree this should be merged into human rights in Algeria because the French rule in Algeria is considered a different state as per wikipedia norms, besides yet again Philip Baird Shearer is confusing moving the name of the article with a deletion of the content, either you disagree with the title or the content, which is it?  You don't make any sense at all. Bleh999 23:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I also agree that Human rights in French Algeria and Algeria shouldn't be discussed in the same article, these are 2 very different subjects. I note that Human rights in France has a section called Torture and inhumane treatments during the Algerian War that points the reader to Torture during the Algerian War. -- lucasbfr talk 09:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per above-- Sef rin gle Talk 22:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Can I ask which above you are refering to? AfD is more a discussion than a vote. -- lucasbfr talk 09:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep Wikipedia policy is only to delete articles that violate policy not because of personally invested opinions, bias and politics, philip says we should delete it, but why? How does it violate wikipedia policy to report on current events, that is the whole point of an encyclopedia you cannot censor articles because of personal bias and not provide any compelling reason to delete. Look we have Assyrian Genocide and the article even explicitly admits no country in the world recognizes it as a 'genocide' yet the article calls itself a genocide.  Fact is that this article is well sourced and documented, and the only reason to delete it censorship and unfortunately personal bigotry. Recesende 00:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The major reason is that if it remains it makes a mockery of the AFD process. (see History of previous deletions above). The second reason is that the current name makes the structure of the article tend towards a non neutral point of view, if the text were to be placed into the article human rights in Algeria the issued and the recent allegations could be looked at in an historical context  --Philip Baird Shearer 11:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Move and redirect to Controversies involving the Algerian war of independence or something. Don't scrap the whole article if it's just the title that is the problem.--Flamgirlant 01:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge or Rename we should have no articles with titles like "accusations" or "allegations"; they come cheap and are hardly worthy of an encyclopedia. The events that give rise to the accusation and allegation may deserve coverage in an encyclopedia - here perhaps in the Algerian War or if too big to fit a NPOV named Civilian casualties in the Algerian War. Carlossuarez46 21:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I considered your vote to be keep if you just want it renamed, however we have Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid, Allegations_of_Islamic_apartheid. Allegations_of_Brazillian_apartheid, Allegations_of_tourist_apartheid_in_Cuba, Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid, Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid survived 6 AfD and it looks like Allegations_of_Islamic_apartheid will survive too Bleh999 22:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * My !vote is consistent with keep if someone is only counting noses (I hope the closing admin actually reads stuff where there is a true difference of opinion). Why keep it somewhere? It seems to easily pass WP:N, the war is a historical event (how one interprets it seems to be the core of the controversy/accusation). WP has seen fit to not use certain terms as being inherently POV ("cults" comes to mind), unfortunately "apartheid" isn't there perhaps so we don't mischaracterize anything, we're left to parrot whatever terminology the "alleger" or "accuser" uses. Also the whole "allegations", "claims", and "accusations" is troublesome in titles as it is in articles themselves. Is a "claim" sufficient to support an article? I hope not. Many "claims" are based on the loudest voices with the most strident views, and WP would give WP:UNDUE weight to those views. A quick google search for Bush and "war crimes generates 2million ghits, Bush and "war criminal" another 770k, but unless and until Bush is put on trial somewhere for something related to those accusations, I'd venture to say that accusations are cheap and despite their volume an article Accusations of war crimes against George W. Bush would be unwarranted and premature, as would be the 2 million ghits for judaism + evil, 2.3 million ghits for islam + evil, and 2.5 million for christianity + evil, be bases for articles Accusations that Judaism is evil, Accusations that Islam is evil, Accusations that Christianity is evil. Sorry for the long explanation, but it's not an easy keep or delete for me on this one. Carlossuarez46 01:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Those comparisons aren't really valid since those articles don't even exist and we can't even judge them but if they did exist we would judge them on their own merits per WP:ALLORNOTHING, also do we have articles that criticize George Bush, by the way someone else pointed out that the Assyrian holocaust is not recognized by any country in the world, therefore it is really just an accusation as well, and that term is not recognized except online. Should it be deleted?  The fact is that there is no set guideline on what constitutes a genocide for the people that have suffered the events that lead them to call it a genocide.  There is nothing hateful or incorrect about the current title of this article, it may not be perfect but I don't understand the objections of some people, although I do respect what you have said about the 'allegations' articles, but the fact is that the people of wikipedia support articles with such names, expect more to be created. Bleh999 03:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Bleh999 I think you are putting beans up your nose, just because there are some articles that exist on Wikipedia that are inappropriately named is no reason for keeping another one that has all the same problems as the ones you are mentioning. A much better idea would be to suggest that those articles be moved to better names or deleted as is being discussed here with this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That link has no relevancy to what we are discussing, I don't what compelled you to think it did. Besides we judge the content as it is viewed from wikipedia policies, not because of personal bias, maybe you forgot that in your zeal to get this article deleted.  No one has yet stated a valid reason why this article violates wikipedia policies, your own personal opinions aside.Bleh999 19:59, 28 June 2007 (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.