Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atomic bombings of Japan as a form of state terrorism (2nd nomination)


 * 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   There was no consensus to delete defaulting to keep. Furthermore, listing an article for speedy delete minutes after an article was created may show disregard for the inherent process and may possess bad faith. The last AFD was conducted less than a month ago, and deletion review endorsed its closure. Give this more chance and time, and apply a little more good faith. I expect that this will not be listed at AfD in an expedient manner. seicer &#x007C;  talk  &#x007C;  contribs  04:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Atomic bombings of Japan as a form of state terrorism
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete:blatant POV fork, discussion is covered in NPOV form elsewhere (notably Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)Jw2034 (talk) 22:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Blatant PoV fork, sourced or not it seems pretty much impossible for an article with this title to ever be neutral. This information can be, and is, covered in other articles on the topic. ~  mazca talk 22:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Article titles don't need to be neutral; see POVFORK -- Kendrick7talk 19:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's hardly what that link says. Particularly, the phrase "state terrorism" is so loaded with negative connotations that I don't think it's very defensible for the title of a neutral article. ~  mazca talk 06:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * changed to Neutral - my opinion on the article pretty much remains the same, but per WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED it seems pretty silly to delete it only a few weeks after the last contentious vote. ~  mazca talk 13:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. A minority thesis is not an appropriate topic for an article; breaking the article out in this way fundamentally misleading since it frames this topic as part of the debate about how to characterize the atomic bomb, when this is a vanishingly small aspect of that debate. The useful content is already in the history of the appropriate article (US/allegations of state terrorism). Christopher Parham (talk) 22:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Incorrect, per WP:UNDUE, which says "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them — Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia." -- Kendrick7talk 19:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This article isn't about a minority view, it is about a particular thesis associated with a minority view. The minority view is covered in the allegations of state terrorism article; this page is about a particular argument made by those who make those allegations, and its primary purpose is to advance that argument. On the other hand, within the scholarship about the bomb, this view is vanishingly insignificant. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I think it is a minority view, and that you are incorrect that the multiple views in the Allegations of state terrorism by the United States are monolithic. There's no reason that the same person who thinks the U.S. support for the Contras was a form of state terrorism is going to think the exact same thing about the use of the atomic bomb on Japan. The merge discussion is heading that direction though; in the meantime trying to hijack that via an AfD is misguided. -- Kendrick7talk 20:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * speedy keep claims of POV violation were reviewed and found unsubstantiated by the closing admin in the original AfD which was completed less than 2 weeks ago. The closing admin's decision was upheld at Deletion review only a few days ago. Bringing a deletion nomination on the same basis so soon has as its only basis WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED. --  The Red Pen of Doom  02:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Such POV tactics (pov fork) dont have a place here. A someone above noted, this POV material is already covered in other articles and the last thing we need to do is replicate it yet again.Dman727 (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: while I remain undecided on this AFD, I would note that the material comprising this article was mostly split out of two other articles, Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. If it was acceptable in those articles, I'm not sure why it shouldn't be acceptable as an article in its own right. I have concerns about the title and focus on this topic, however, so this should not be taken as a 'vote to keep'. Terraxos (talk) 14:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep We went thru this less than two weeks ago, and yet people continue to misconstrue the WP:CFORK and WP:SS guidelines, which in fact say this article is perfectly fine. That closure was endorsed in DRV. I'm happy to merge this back into one of the two articles it was split from whenever consensus forms as to which one it is; otherwise, I fail to see how making the exact same argument over again will change anything. -- Kendrick7talk 19:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Sourced and notable. Not POV, but an article on a POV, and not an obscure one either. And even if it were POV, it wouldn't be difficult to rewrite as an NPOV presentation of the opinion. Dekkappai (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge back into Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as it's an unnecessary fork of that article. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's absolutely shouldn't be merged into that article as this view is not a significant part of the scholarship on the atomic bomb. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's your opinion. Based on some of the references, it appears that at least some scholars disagree with you, too. It would work perfectly well as part of that article. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Keep Saying this is a POV fork of the Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki article is misleading. Actually it’s a spin-off of the Allegations of State Terrorism by the United States. It is undue weight to have too much of this minority view over at the Debate Article about the bombings. Hence, due to WP:UNDUE it is sensible to support the split, per the WP:EP policy. As WP:UNDUE even says: "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them." It was getting a little large (as of now, and as it expands) for the Allegations article; here it is able to grow fully, although there should be a section of this material (shorter) kept on the allegations article as well, as Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Also, per WP:PRESERVE.

As was previously explained by the closing admin just about two weeks ago, the core issue is whether the article is a POV fork (bad) or a summary style spinout (good) of Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. Here's the relevant part of the WP:POVFORK guideline:

"Sometimes, when an article gets long (see Article size), a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure; the new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article, see for example summary style, which explains the technique."

Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. However, the moved material must be replaced with an NPOV summary of that material. If it is not, then the "spinning out" is really a clear act of POV forking: a new article has been created so that the main article can favor some viewpoints over others. But this is not the case here.

Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View, which it does.

Notice that it is neither apparent nor clearly explained what this is supposed to be a POV fork of, and how. It is linked to from the parent articles through WP:SS-style, brief summary paragraphs that are neutral. Furthermore, it is prima facie unclear what POV the article would be pushing. It both neutral and notable in that it cites several scholars with a variety of viewpoints.

Even assuming arguendo that the article is a POV fork, this does not explain (and it is also not obvious) why this means we must delete it, instead of editing it to make it into a neutral WP:SS spinout, or merging it back. Looking at the sources, we see they are leading authorities on the subject, and it seems to do a decent job at representing an intelligent and NPOV presentation of this notable, academic, social discourse on the subject. Here is a partial list:


 * Richard Falk, professor of International Law at Princeton, current U.N. Special Rapporteur


 * Arno Mayer, professor of History, Princeton


 * Mark Selden, phd Yale, professor of history and sociology,


 * Michael Walzer, professor of philosophy, Princeton (Japan)


 * Michael Stohl Professor and Chair, Department of Communication University of California, Santa Barbara. Formerly he was Dean of International Programs (from 1992) and Professor of Political Science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he had taught since 1972. He has published 13 books and numerous articles on terrorism, political violence and international relations. His book “The Politics of Terrorism” is in its 3rd edition. (general, El Salvador, Japan)


 * Michael Mann, phd Oxford, professor of sociology UCLA


 * J. Patrice McSherry, professor of political science, Long Island University


 * Douglas Lackey, professor of Philosophy, City University, NY


 * Jorge I. Dominguez, professor of history, Harvard. Presently the Vice Provost for International Affairs, the Antonio Madero Professor of Politics and Economics, Chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, and Senior Advisor for International Studies to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.


 * Howard Zinn, professor of history, University of Boston


 * C.A.J. (Tony) Coady head of the Australian Research Council Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), Melbourne University


 * Igor Primoratz, professor of philosophy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem


 * Alvin Y. So head department of social sciences, Hong Kong University


 * George A. Lopez is a founding faculty of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame

http://www.afsc.org/newengland/Hiroshima-Speech2005.pdfGiovanni33 (talk) 00:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Joseph Gerson - Director of Programs and Director of the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American Friends and Services Committee.
 * Delete POV fork. Covered in a number of articles with the proper weight and tone.  This article is set up as an advertisement for fringe views from the title to the sources.  --DHeyward (talk) 05:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Dheyward's statement about it already being covered elsewhere is false -- and his argument rests on the claim that the material in this article is already found in other articles, and is repeated here to push a POV. This is totally false. I happen to think that most of it should be placed back into a section in the Allegations article, where it was spun-out of, but to claim that the material is already there is incorrect. Moreover it's even more false because since that time the section has grown even more as it's own article, and done so in an even more nuetral NPOV manner. So claims of a POV fork are invented out of whole cloth: its unsubstantiated and false. Lastly, it does not logically follow that we must delete this article even if his premise were correct, i.e. even if it's better to merge, merge is never a valid reason to delete an article per WP policies; so this is simply faulty reasoning or indicative of a failure to properly understand policy (in addition to getting the basic facts of the situation wrong).Giovanni33 (talk) 08:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You are still mistaken. See Talk.  Your vote of speedy keep underscores your lack of knowledge about policy and process where article keep/deletion debates occur.  --DHeyward (talk) 13:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Before you throw around accusations of lack of knowledge of policy/guidelines, you should probably actually read Speedy keep 2) iii) "making nominations of the same article with the same arguments after they were strongly rejected" -- The Red Pen of Doom  16:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you read? You quoted a section as illustrating an example of unquestionable vandalism or disruption.  Are you claiming that this nomination is unquestionable vandalism or disruption?  Secondly, even if your severely lacking good-faith accusation is taken as true, "No Consensus" is hardly a statement of "Strong Rejection" especially when the delete/merge opinions outnumbered the keep opinions by almost 2 to 1.  But thank you for your opinion as it illustrates again the lack of understanding of NPOV and deletion policy.  --DHeyward (talk) 00:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Let's see: the article was nominated for deletion 27 minutes after it was created, and when that failed it was taken to DRV, and when DRV endorsed the close, it was renominated for deletion with the exact same argument just four days later. It surely gets disruptive at some point, especially as there's a merge discussion going on besides; I think TheRedPenOfDoom is free to voice an opinion, without putting too fine a point on it, that these attempts to remove the article from the encyclopedia have reached that point. -- Kendrick7talk 01:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * His opinion seems to have less to do with the AfD and more to do with trying to accuse me of not being able to understand policy.  Anyone who has read (and understood) the policy would know that this does not qualify for "Speedy" anything.   That's a simple fact.  --DHeyward (talk) 05:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To quote the Reverend George Herbert, "Whose house is of glass, must not throw stones at another." -- Kendrick7talk 06:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 08:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per The Red Pen of Doom. Much too soon to reopen the case. -- Mizu onna sango15 / 水 女  珊瑚15  08:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep – this is not a fork, as it's not covered in full elsewhere; the sections in Debate and Allegations are merely summaries. If it is NPOV, the remedy is in editing, not deleting.  There is no consensus as to where to merge it, if it were to be merged, hence, as we want this material in full in a single article only, an article of its own is currently the best option.  — the Sidhekin (talk) 09:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.   —Nick Dowling (talk) 10:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep as this is an abuse of process. I voted to delete this article a couple of weeks ago, but as it survived that AfD and a subsequent DRV this nomination should be closed as a waste of time. Nick Dowling (talk) 10:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED.   Esradekan Gibb    "Talk" 11:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Procedureal keep - I do not feel that two weeks is a sufficient period between nominations, especially on the heels of a DRV. If I were to opine on the merits of the nomination, I would merge to Allegations of state terrorism by the United States as this material could best be placed in a proper context in that article. Xymmax  So let it be written   So let it be done  13:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep per very recent Afd.  D C E dwards 1966  16:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Procedural Keep Very recent AFD and Deletion review make another listing this soon inappropriate. Davewild (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep. Much too soon after previous AFD and DRV. MrPrada (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Looking through this article it is at least a good-faith attempt at an NPOV treatment of a relatively controversial topic. My first instinct for whether or not to delete would be to ask whether it is possible to come to an NPOV consensus on the topic. HatlessAtless (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment It might make sense to move this article to a less inflammatory name? Would "Analysis of the atomic bombings of japan in the context of state terrorism" be a more sensible title? HatlessAtless (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. An obvious POV fork to Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Biophys (talk) 21:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge Per Nihonjoe's comment. John Smith&#39;s (talk) 22:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - POV fork. no reason to believe that it can't play nicely with all the other viewpoints --T-rex 23:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Ah, but there is a reason it can't: WP:UNDUE. To give this minority view this much detail in main Debate article would violate undue weight. To put all of this (and growing) in the Allegations article, would bloat the section. It does play nicely with the other Allegations of State Terrorism by the US sections, in that article, but here the view can be somewhat expanded, in greater details. So playing nicely with other view points and having its own article are not mutually exclusive.Giovanni33 (talk) 09:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually WP:UNDUE is the exact reason I am arguing for deletion. Obviously I also suggest cutting it down to size a bit --T-rex 15:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. POV fork. Ostap 00:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep It *just* went through a AfD. Is this going to be nominated non-stop until those who want it deleted get their way (KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED)? There is a widely held view that the atomic bombings of Japan are a form of state terrorism/war crime outside of the US. Seems well-sourced by several academics.--Berkunt (talk) 01:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: The content of the article is not covered elsewhere and the article itself looks like an attempt to cover all angles of the subject. I think deleting the article without merging would be POV as it wouldn't be showing all angles of the controversial topic. Also previous AfD was recent.  Orfen    T • C 02:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per arguments in the first AFD. The paint's barely even dry from the last debate... Debate   木  12:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: Nothing new appears to have been brought to this AfD. WP:UNDUE still disallows a complete merge into a mainstream articlea and still recommends the existence of this kind of article provided it makes due reference to the mainstream POV. BigBlueFish (talk) 16:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep: Notable well-discussed topic. Seems to be WP:POINT nomination. Especially ignoring the last AfD less than one month ago.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 07:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete POV fork. --rogerd (talk) 11:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * delete as last time, but without much hope that sanithy will prevail William M. Connolley (talk) 21:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Interesting and reasonably well-referenced article which follows our policies as far as I can see. I will with some difficulty refrain from commenting on the nomination. --John (talk) 21:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Gamaliel (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge any relevant info to Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. --Ave Caesar (talk) 04:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete POV fork which overemphasizes one theory. Mangoe (talk) 04:06, 14 June 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.