Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arab states of the Persian Gulf


 * 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 keep. Going with the "not clean up" crew. Please consider cleaning it up and if you feel it does not qualify for inclusion for other reasons, feel free to nominate again. Missvain (talk) 22:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Arab states of the Persian Gulf

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This is a complex issue. This article was created in 5 November 2005 by @Jungli under the title 'Arab states of the Persian Gulf'. Its introduction stated that: 'The Arab Gulf states are a group of six Arab countries that border the Persian Gulf. These countries are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. These six countries form the members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf'. The article remained relatively unchanged (with the exemption of an WP:WAR) until in August 2013 when user @Insomniaingest included Iraq in the article introduction in a series of consecutive edits while also removing the unsourced claim that: 'Saudi Arabia is a hereditary monarchy with limited political representation'. The 2013 edit hasn't been discussed in-depth until recently in the talk page. The problem is that simply removing Iraq from the article subject would create a WP:CFORK since there already exist two related articles that primarily discuss the six Arab Gulf States: Gulf Cooperation Council and Member states of the GCC. And a single socio-geographical article that discuss the Persian Gulf region Arab states: Eastern Arabia (that also include Southern Iraq). Currently the Arab states of the Persian Gulf article is mainly focused around the GCC nation states. Should the article be up-merged or deleted? — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 20:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 20:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 20:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The main issue with the current state of the article is that its descriptive title subject is not notable (WP:N). There are few sources that group those countries together and this was discussed in the talk page. Moreover, it leads to confusion since its content currently specifically talk about the GCC countries which excludes Iraq in contradiction of the subject grouping (example: The six Arab states...). In fact, Iraq is only mentioned in the introduction to point out that it's not a member of the GCC. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 20:28, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete I fail to see how this is a notable grouping, it's largely WP:SYNTH about a particular set of countries and failing to show what ties them and just them together. It's those that border the Persian Gulf excluding Iran, or Arabian Peninsula excluding Yemen plus Iraq, or Gulf Cooperation Council plus Iraq. But several of the generalizations about these seven countries' Politics, Economy, Peace, or Freedoms (a) can be easily extended to other Arab or Middle Eastern countries like Yemen or Iran and (b) are not generalizable to all of them. I don't see the purpose of this when we have articles on entities more widely grouped and covered. Reywas92Talk 21:23, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Striking my vote in response to User:Goldsztajn's comment. I would note that several of these sources are moreso about the GCC countries or another particular grouping, but with the related articles being more about the political entity of the Council or a geographic entity, they aren't necessarily the best places for a merger. But this article still needs a lot of work to address synthesis and generalizations, without being overly specific either so further discussion here is helpful. Reywas92Talk 19:04, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment:I understand yours and User:Goldsztajn concern, but honestly I'm not sure how keeping the broad subject at its current form can ever help the article break out from its current state. If the article has a potential then sure, I would even be glad to help edit it as long as there's a consensus on which content to use that isn't a simple synthesis of a group of countries. I think currently this discussion would go no where, so we should make the task more straightforward to further this discussion: If there are a number of verifiable sources that merit the current article descriptive title then we should keep it, else I think it’s self evident that the article notability is problematic, that is, if such sources and relevant content are hard to get by.


 * Pointing out the fact that the article title is a common term (as Goldsztajn noted) doesn’t detract from the fact that this term is used in a multitude of different defintions in diffrent contexts that has failed to muster a general subject (as Reywas92 recognized on the term being used in different subjects, moreso about the GCC). Which is an important point we shouldn’t ignore. As for the keep and cleanup argument, I apologize but I don’t see it as a good argument, in fact I think it’s an argument for deletion since after all the current state of the article is self evident on its inherent issues. Also relevant User:Stifle essay on keep-and-clean. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 01:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete We could have various articles about random geographical groupings such as ‘Arab states of North Africa’, ‘Arab states of the Red Sea’, ‘Arab states of the Indian Ocean’ but all they would contain would be a summary of material covered in the individual country articles unless there was sustained coverage of the topic in RIS to give us specific content. Mccapra (talk) 05:25, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Yes, this is unsurprisingly messy. At present count there are 975 (and 316 indirect) links to this page. Note that Persian Gulf States, Arab gulf states, States of the Persian Gulf, Arab Gulf States... plus another 31 all redirect to this page. Persian Gulf States is a term of continuing and historic usage: "The Persian Gulf States include the British protected states of Bahrain, Qatar and the Trucial States." US State Department record of conversation with the UK on the "Persian Gulf States", March 1969. Library of Congress country study series (which equates to GCC.) Other examples.   Arab Gulf States is a term which has grown in usage since the 1980s (some examples      ) and is presently the predominant term when compared to Persian Gulf States. I suspect that the difference is between British and US English usage: Persian Gulf States originates with the rise of British imperialism in West Asia and declines from the 1970s following the British withdrawal to the east of the Suez.


 * While there is clear consensus for deleting geographically synthetic articles (eg Articles for deletion/Politics in the British Isles (3rd nomination), Articles for deletion/Horn Africans in the United Kingdom, Articles for deletion/Horn Africans in Scandinavia, Articles for deletion/Horn Africans in the United States) I do not believe this is such a case here. Moreover, the talk page histories of many of the pages show discussions over time regarding naming. Two discussions regarding the title of the page in 2007 and 2010, seem to have reached a consensus regarding the present title. Editors seem to have previously concluded that this was the simplest way to deal with a conflicting and complex set of usages.  I cannot see how anything has changed, nor do I understand why this has been brought to AfD when what actually appears to be the present problem is a content dispute (should Iraq be included). Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 01:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstood the main issue here, simply put: It's a WP:N problem with the current WP:NDESC subject of the article. We can't simply remove Iraq from the subject since it would lead to WP:CFORK in GCC and Eastern Arabia articles. The sources you posted predominately refers to the Gulf monarchies that are referenced in both the GCC and Eastern Arabia. And as the commenters above stated: it's essentially a WP:SYNTH on a set of countries that don't have anything that groups them together (in the WP:NDESC title context, per the 2013 addition), the GCC article is suitable enough for the geopolitical grouping among the Arab monarchies that is also supported by the sources you have posted. Moreover, we have discussed the exclusion of Iraq in the article talk page and editors have raised a reasonable concern that simply editing the article to remove Iraq would lead to WP:CFORK.. Currently Iraq is only mentioned in the article introduction to state that it's not part of the GCC, the poorly written body of the article only refers to the aforementioned monarchies in a summary form of their economy, politics...etc. So the issue stands whether the article is notable or not, and what to do with its content since the NDESC title lacks a well defined subject. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 01:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment As nominator, you cannot !vote (the nomination is your !vote). It's not a matter of (mis)understanding, I simply don't agree with you. Reading the history of the talk pages it's pretty clear there have long been discussions on the issue of article naming.  The sources I cited include references to multiple contemporary and historic usages of the term which incorporate a mixture of countries not simply synonymous with the GCC; which is the whole point - there is no *absolutely* correct definition here, but rather a need to note that there are historic and contemporary usages of the term(s) which can convey different meanings. "Persian Gulf States" and "Arab Gulf States" are clearly notable, and to deal with the complexity of those concepts, to date, the community has chosen to use the title of this article.  I'm not particularly wedded to this title, but I can accept the logic of why this title was chosen as a result of the earlier discussions; if you think this is an inappropriate title or there is inappropriate content then use the processes at hand to deal with that; but which are not AfD.  I still see no reason to see this other than a content dispute. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Yes the community chose this WP:NDESC title because the article suffered (and continued to) from WP:WARRING. The problem is that with the current descriptive title which also by extension includes Iraq (Per the 2013 edit) warrants a discussion on the article notability. I've tried to 'fix' the article by contributing to it and didn't arrive at the conclusion that the current state warrants a WP:AfD process until I've discussed the issue in the talk page. The problem is not simply a matter of a content dispute because as I have stated above: You can't simply undo the 2013 edit, it would cause other issues in redundancy and WP:CFORKING. My question to you is the following: Can you fix the article by finding relevant resources that groups the GCC + Iraq in a notable subject and produce relevant content that is not simply just a WP:Synth of countries summaries? Currently the article is an empty shell with no insightful notable content since the article inception in 2005, with the exception of the frequent edit wars and article locking for the renaming dispute, simply put there's a reason why the article failed to address any notable content for the last 16 years. I sincerely believe that the ongoing vandalism is a symptom not a cause for the current state of the article, it's time its notability be discussed throughly here. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 05:17, 26 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment I’ve been thinking about Goldsztajn’s points for a few days. I see what they are getting at and, per their comment, it is messy. There are sources to support multiple, overlapping and historically varying descriptions of most of the states in the region. So much so indeed that I have a (only very slight) temptation to create an article about that very topic. But ultimately I still agree with Contemporary Nomad. We have articles about the individual countries and one article that discusses virtually the entire group, so this comes down to an issue of content management for the encyclopaedia: how do we present information in ways which are clear and avoid multiple forks, where those forks don’t really serve any real purpose. Mccapra (talk) 13:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep and restructure: Are we seriously going to remove an article for a commonly spoken about? Yes the article is messy, and I think we should rewrite parts of it and remove overlapping statements. Ridax2020 (talk) 17:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Are we seriously going to remove an article for a commonly spoken about What does 'commonly spoken about' mean? If you meant the title, as we indicated in this discussion the term 'Arab states of the Persian Gulf' refers to many different subjects: British Empire colonies/protectorates in the Persian Gulf in the early 20th century or GCC countries or Eastern Arabia. You can check @Goldsztajn thread with the relevant sources. Yes the article is messy, and I think we should rewrite parts of it and remove overlapping statements. keep-and-clean is not a strong argument against deletion. However you're free to try and clean the article with relevant content and it might help us in this process as long as it's not merely a synth of a group of countries summaries whose grouping is based on facing a particular body of water. — &thinsp;♾️ Contemporary Nomad  (💬 Talk) 18:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Ample evidence this is a notable grouping of countries. AfD is WP:NOTCLEANUP. Potential renaming or article restructuring should be dealt with at the article talk page, not AfD. Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 21:01, 11 May 2021 (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.