Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al Qiyamah


 * 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 delete.

7 of the people who commented here support deletion while 3 support keeping (though one of the keep voters did not attempt to provide a real rationale&mdash;basically all of the delete voters cited non-notability and/or a lack of reliable sources). On balance I find the arguments in favor of deletion far more compelling, but as this is a sensitive subject connected to a wider dispute some elaboration is warranted.

Irrespective of the bad-faith of the article creator (which seems obvious but is not particularly relevant) there are not sufficient reliable sources for this topic to warrant an encyclopedia article. Really the only source for this story is Asharq Al-Awsat&mdash;a questionable source, but one which is even more questionable when it comes to reporting about Iran (for obvious reasons to which the nominator alluded, though admittedly the author of the piece, Alireza Nourizadeh, is knowledgeable about the region). Essentially all of the ensuing coverage simply echoed the original story without advancing it, and the only media outlets that picked up the story are partisan and themselves of questionable reliability (in addition to the sources provided by Yahel Guhan, which are for the most part not reliable and only echoed the original report, a LexisNexis search revealed a story in the Daily Express but no coverage in reliable sources).

It should be said that even if this story was completely false, had it achieved significant and sustained coverage in reliable sources than it would be worthy of a Wikipedia article. For example had major media outlets picked up on this story and discussed it, or had it been mentioned by key politicians in the Middle East, Europe, or the United States, then more than likely the story would be notable regardless of its veracity. However this does not remotely seem to be the case. As has been pointed out Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and we simply cannot have articles based on one report in a fairly unreliable publication that was echoed in a few places and then went completely undiscussed for close to two years. If this issue flares up again and is discussed more widely in sources which are reliable, there would be no problem with re-creating the article.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Al Qiyamah

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This article is based around a single report in a newspaper owned by a Saudi prince. It describes an alleged secret terrorism plan by the major regional rival of Saudi Arabia, the republic of Iran. This plot does not appear to exist in reliable sources. And according to the leaked e-mails from the recent CAMERA WikiLobbying scandal, here's why the author created it: there is a good way to be productive, help Israel and yet avoid the endless debates in the more critical articles. (we will have to deal with those later) : the method is to start your own article. The advantages are clear - by deciding of the article name you set the context. here is an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qiyamah Once the article is there it is hard for them to delete it (still possible but hard. they will try but don't let them) &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 10:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete I have been watching this article since it was first created, debating back and forth with myself as to whether or not I should nominate it for deletion. I did not due to the possibility of future reports making it notable, but that has not happened. A single news report in a single newspaper (no less a clearly partisan one) does not establish notability. I developed my intention to eventually nominate it if future notability was not established prior to the WikiLobbying issue, so that has no effect on my support for deletion. --Icarus (Hi!) 16:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - Irregardless of the article creators bad faith, it has been poorly sourced and unverified for a year now. Tarc (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions.   -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[ http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49982 ]  Yahel  Guhan  19:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - article seems informative to me. Who created it seems to me irrelevant and "smells" of a vendetta, and not a wikipedian reason to delete an article. Amoruso (talk) 00:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment But only one source in two years, and a questionable one at that, is a perfectly legitimate reason. It raises serious questions of notability and reliability. --Icarus (Hi!) 01:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - the title is WP:NEO, also article was created by a user with apparent bad intentions. Imad marie (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment without recommendation - this is on the edge of a larger Wikipedia discussion, located here. B.Wind (talk) 03:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete It seems nonsense and there are no sources for that (except a baseless article in a newspaper). That article in Sharq-al-awsat hasn't provided any source for its claim. Alefbe (talk) 18:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete This is OR at worst, and non-notable at best. WP is no place for rumor mills.--Zereshk (talk) 20:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Article is mentioned in the following sources which proves its notability as a term:
 * The date of all these articles are July 2006. If it was really a credible news story, independent mainstream media should have mentioned that in the last two years. Alefbe (talk) 21:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * These sources are all mirroring and echoing the same one primary source, the paper Al-Sharq al-Awsaat.--Zereshk (talk) 20:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that the only remotely credible link he dropped was the New York Sun. Newsmax, WorldNetDaily, and an apparent Palevi monarchist blog "regimechangeiran.blogspot.com" are not reliable sources. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 23:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - As Yahel  documents, the term and the report has appeared in print in papers with significant circulation and on the Internet on highly visited sites.  On what basis could this real, documented phenomenon (the existence of the term and the reported plot, real or fabricated, that the term refers to) be justifiably deleted from a compendium of human knowledge?

"To make the article unbiased and to provide the reader with as much verified information as possible, what eleland noted above about the source of the original report should be part of the article. If Al Qiyamah is a Saudi prince sponsored fabrication that has gotten into significant media streams, that is a real, potentially verifiable phenomenon and I can see no basis for deleting it from the Wikipedia. Rather then delete the article, the data which indicates that this real phenomenon (the term and its circulation in significant media streams) may be a political fabrication should be added to the article."

"If an article is created about a verifiable phenomenon by an editor with a political agenda, the proper response is not to delete the article but to expand it so that the reader has access to the information necessary to see the verifiable phenomenon for what it is. Ultimately, if a political agenda was the motivation for creating such an article, the addition of more verifiable information should cause the article to backfire on its creator."

"Note that what the article is about, i.e., what verifiable phenomenon the article describes may change as information is added. Originally, the article was about something Iran was doing. With additional information, the verifiable phenomenon may change to being about the story itself and the uncertainty about whether the story's creation derives from the actions of Iranians or is really a Saudi fabrication.   Kriegman (talk) 20:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)"Protonk (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete: another Wikipedia classic - a whole standalone page based on a single news report from a highly dubious source (those people backing this article need to do a little bit of research into how much of the pan-Arab media works, and how the Saudi-run papers deal with issues relating to Iran). This is cheap propaganda, not a serious encyclopedia article. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and if it was going to be one, it certainly wouldn't be Asharq al-Awsat. --Nickhh (talk) 07:22, 28 April 2008 (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.