Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Hugo Chávez


 * 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 of the debate was keep - Liberatore(T) 18:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of Hugo Chávez
This article is inherently, unavoidably biased, by describing criticisms of Hugo Chávez outside the context of his main biographical article. Criticisms of Chávez are already discussed in the main article. Worldtraveller 00:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong keep We are trying to shorten the Hugo Chávez article, which is impossibly long and making it very hard to edit, while working on removing the substantial bias on both sides. The Criticism section in the Chavez article is exceedingly long, and we are trying to work on cleaning it up, removing the POV, and moving some of it to this daughter article in order to shorten the main article.  I voted in favor of deleting Personal Life of Hugo Chavez because there was nothing in it that wasn't said in the short section in the main article.  The situation here is different:  there is too much that is said in the main article, which is too long, and the content needs to be cleaned up and moved to the daughter article.  If this article is deleted, some of the content will have to be merged back into the main article, which is already hopelessly too long.  Give us a chance to work on it, as we have only recently begun to interest other editors in taking a look at the problems. Sandy 00:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the main article is so long, not so much because there's so much to say, but because it's said in an extremely verbose way. I'd be happy to help on trimming it down - I'd say it could be made less than half the size it is now just by writing it in a more concise way.  Even if subarticles are necessary, I still disagree with this one - its very title is biased, in that it defines its scope as reporting one point of view, contravening one of Wikipedia's most fundamental philosophies.  Worldtraveller 00:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Criticism and controversy sections are common in many articles: if this topic is biased, then so are many others in Wikipedia.  IMO, there are more problems than verbosity with the main article on Chavez, and nominating all of the daughter articles for deletion will not solve the problems.  The daughter articles appear to have been created in order to feature the main article, and deleting all of them could just increase the bias in the main article.  The daughter articles are needed, although everything about Chavez needs editorial attention.  Sandy 00:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm certainly not arguing against a criticism section in the main article; quite the opposite - that's the only place I think there should be one. Taking the section out of context and making it a standalone article is what I object to - such an article is unavoidably biased.  Worldtraveller 01:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You're aware that the main article is already so long that it's difficult to edit? And that daughter articles have been created for almost every section of the main article?  Sandy 01:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm wondering if you want to nominate List of honors earned by Hugo Chávez for the same reasons you've nominated the others ? This article is also "inherently biased" by its title, if we are to follow that logic.  Sandy 01:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the main article needs drastic editing. But that doesn't affect my reasons for nominating this article for deletion.  Worldtraveller 01:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sandy, don't try to keep or shorten a descriptive unencyclopedic text - just delete it, substituting with short review of reliable sources and links. I'm afraid it's that simple :). Down with USA! (just in case if any proponent of the article wanted to hear that from me :)))). Ukrained 11:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. There's no way we can save the Hugo Chávez article if we merge more articles into it. I agree that the criticism article is in a bad state, but that's not a reason to remove it. --Enano275 03:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Hugo Chavez article has grown too long and this article is a place to discuss criticisms in more detail. Badagnani 05:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep You can reduce the Chavez article, or you can eliminate subsidiary pages, but it would not be possible to do both. Personally, I think the clamor for reducing the size of the main article is unjustified; the claim having been made is that it's bloated is not borne out by the fact that it still loads rather quickly on my dialup connection. --Daniel 06:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. it is biased not to have this page, since all the other subsections have individual articles. THE KING 07:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Perfectly valid split section. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 09:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - per what I said in the Personal life of Hugo Chávez AfD discussion. I thought that creating daughter articles instead of having a 100 Kb article was the policy in Wikipedia. Afonso Silva 10:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 12:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep I see no strong reason to delete.--Jusjih 14:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, no reason to delete, if we delete and merge back to the main article, its back to square one. --Ter e nce Ong 14:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. All the keep votes in the world are irrelevant if an article violates WP:NPOV, which is a foundation policy of Wikipedia and non-negotiable. If the Hugo Chavez article is too long then it should be split up along some line other than POV - perhaps break it up by time period, like Isaac Newton's is. Bryan 04:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * On further inspection, I see that the Chavez article already is split up based on time period. Looks good. I'd suggest splitting off the "political impact" section and drastically reducing the redundancy of the Presidency of Hugo Chávez section/article, then, if size reduction is still needed. Bryan 04:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, no reason to delete, there is no space in the original article to include all the criticism. For example, in todays newspaper "El Nacional" the main article tells about 54 cases submitted over the years at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights against the actions of Chávez's government. We need a LOT of space to be able to responsibly inform about all the issues. Caracas1830
 * Keep Though I see how this article might violate WP:NPOV it would be objectionable to not show that Chavez has done things that have been criticised by the rest of the world. This is a fact. I would agree on any change that would make it obvious that this article is in fact a list of criticism that have been called to attention by nations/press/whomever as oppossed to being a criticism in itself.
 * Merge back into Chavez. You're all answering the wrong question above : its not "should Wikipedia mention criticism of Chavez", but "should that information be removed from the main article"?  To which the answer is "of course not." -- GWO
 * Merge or delete, as per my post above. Ukrained 11:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per above. 1652186 17:26, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Per which above? Bryan 02:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above, no reason to delete. Silensor 23:43, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Not true. "Title is POV" is a reason to delete. Bryan 02:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Bryan, can you see a way to fix the title? We need a separate article because of the length of the main article.  If it said something else (e.g.; "controversy" instead of "criticism"), would you find that POV?  I fail to understand why "criticism" is POV, because it is what it is:  a discussion of the substantial criticism, presented (hopefully) in a NPOV fashion.  But considering your concern, can you suggest a better title? I've merged all the content from the main article into the daughter article, but since User:Enano275 fixed the reference links, it can easily be merged back if needed.  But we're really trying to get the article down to FA size.   BTW, Criticism of Wikipedia.  Sandy 03:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sandy, I appreciate the work you're doing on cutting the main article down to size, and I don't want to make it more difficult. The problem is not subarticles per se, but which subarticles.  You can discuss criticisms in a neutral way, but if you do so ny isolating that discussion from the context provided by the main article, and without any opposing viewpoint also discussed, that is no longer neutral.  If there was a subarticle called Praise of Hugo Chávez, wouldn't you think that was POV?  The main article is long but it can and should be cut down substantially.  I think the 'Criticisms of Wikipedia' article should be deleted as well.  Worldtraveller 10:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * World, if we could cut down the (WAY TOO LONG) Presidency and Political Impact sections of the main article, perhaps we would be able to bring the Criticism content back to the main article. Yes, I think a Praise of article would be fine, as long as it's balanced by a Criticism of article.  (But, so much of all that is written about Chavez on Wiki right now, except the Criticism of article, reads like an ad campaign for Chavez anyway, so that article isn't missing :-)   Enano has completed the references, so moving text is now easier:  would you be willing to help us reduce the size of the other sections?  I'd be happy to see Criticism included in the main article: if we can shorten the article to something reasonable, then I'd opt to bring the Criticism back, since the brevity of the current Criticism section of the main article doesn't reflect the extent of controversy and criticism surrounding Chavez.  On the other hand, there are a number of comments on the talk page of the Criticism article, indicaing areas that haven't been covered at all in criticism (and I can think of more, such as the mudslides), which I've found to be typical of that whole series of articles, so the Criticism article still has need for growth.  So, again, I'm wondering if a new title would work?  I'm doubting that the FA status of this article is maintainable, given that so much of the story was left out. Sandy 11:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep Criticism can be handled in a NPOV manner. See Biblical criticism.  I think that too much of the material that is included here is not encyclopedia material.  Look at how the article Dreyfus Affair handles a touchy issue in a reasonable length. Bejnar 18:08, 25 May 2006 (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.