Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Croatia–Philippines relations


 * 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 - it's notable enough, based on the stength of the arguments, improvements to the article's sourcing and changed votes. Bearian (talk) 19:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Croatia–Philippines relations

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Non-notable international relations article. WP:PROD declined by author (who appears to be a WP:SPA, suspiciously reminding me of User:Groubani) without a single word, and while at it they removed a paragraph (??). There's no potential, because the two countries are separated by half the globe yet comparatively small - should something extraordinary actually appear in real life, an article can be created to describe it, but until then, a standalone article is pointless, as the topic is covered well enough by the existence of foreign relations articles of the two countries. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 15:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  16:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Croatia-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  16:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philippines-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  16:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

*Delete 2 very minor agreements in 20 years of relations does not equate to a notable relationship. no significant trade, disputes, migration or state visits. LibStar (talk) 00:49, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep article improved with significantly more sources. LibStar (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hardly significantly - it's just more coverage of the same trivial relationship. Subministerial meetings, platitudes about "[aiming] to pave the way for greater people-to-people exchanges" and a snotty Večernji list editoral about how people in Croatia are dismissive of those visits - talk about reliable sources... --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Foreign relations of the Philippines; subject appears to have received some passing mention in reliable sources, but none of it appears to be significant, so it can be easily argued that the subject is not notable per WP:GNG. That being said this article can bee seen as a sub-article of, and clearly within the scope of Foreign relations of the Philippines; therefore a redirect to that article would be appropriate, also see WP:CHEAP.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:06, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep I think that both the Philstar and the Inquirer articles both satisfy WP:SIGCOV in that the foreign relationship is the main topic of both sources, and they have sufficient detail to put together a simple article covering most aspects of the relationship. I have mostly rewritten the article with a couple of extra sources.  I think the length is now about right for the current extent of the relationship, but it seems too much to redirect into the meta-articles (since the Philippines one is already longer than is reader-friendly). Oh, and in reply to Libstar, the article now lists all 5 agreements, not 2. --99of9 (talk) 10:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * PhilStar article is a single-page Xinhua report on a press release from the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Inquirer article is a report to the home office by the Ambassador at the Philippine Embassy in Vienna. Please read WP:GNG in full, not just the paragraph about the strict definition of 'significant coverage'. The affiliation of these sources with the subject is egregious. It's literally the foreign affairs people's job to make these kinds of reports. That the wire agencies and the local press relay them is hardly a stellar marker of notability.
 * The other stuff you added is just more fodder. That Jadranska vrata is now owned by a ICTSI is not a sign of bilateral relations in and of itself, it's just a sign of global capitalism. If for example there was an article somewhere that explained how the Croatian state expressly influenced Luka Rijeka (which it largely owns) to sell the cargo terminal to the Filipinos in order to improve bilateral relations, you'd have a case. Now you just have some improper synthesis.
 * And don't even get me started on the international trade of four million dollars. Seriously, that's more appropriate for a Dr. Evil joke than for an encyclopedic entry. If it even needs to be said, 4 million USD is something like 0.00005% of the Croatian GDP or 0.0003% of the Croatian state budget.
 * Overall, I need to stress that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 23:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My mention of sigcov only was in direct response to RightCowLeftCoast, who brought it up as his specific rationale for failing GNG. I will have a look into the affiliations, but on the face of it they look secondary to me. Your GDP figures are wrong by two orders of magnitude, but that's not really the point, the point is that cited trade data is *always* an important part of bilateral relations articles, even if the figure was $0.  I did not argue that the relationship was notable based on the size of their trade, I just included additional encyclopedic information in the article.  If it is eventually merged, that data should go with it. Regarding requiring Government intervention in investment decisions, I do not think that "X-Y relations" is limited to "X-Y Governmental relations". In my opinion direct foreign investment in a country's biggest port operation is a bilateral interaction. --99of9 (talk) 09:51, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The Philippine ambassador Lourdes Yparraguirre was present at the signing: "a major boost to enhancing bilateral relations between the vibrant economies". evidently she agrees with me. --99of9 (talk) 10:23, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I guess I forgot to multiply the result of that division by 100 to get percentages. The thing is, for all of these dubiously synthesized claims, an actual reliable secondary source would be necessary to make sure they're appropriate. Any ambassador is entirely partial to their country's foreign relations. Clearly there's some obvious relation between foreign policy and the port contract, but OTOH the ambassador had to fly in from another country for that photo-op. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 19:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Isn't she lucky then that WP:GNG has no prohibition against air flight? WP:SYNTH is summarized by "do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C".  Please can you show where you think that is done in the article, and I will amend it.  I don't see a problem with secondary sources using press releases as their primary source, that is often how news is first obtained.  Wire agencies employ their own independent writers and fact checkers. And anyway, it's a bit unfair to expect a secondary reporter to report on the contents of a private diplomatic meeting without using one or both of the attendees as one of their primary sources.  --99of9 (talk) 20:15, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Once again, a bland reprint of a press release, with a handful of sentences tacked on, does not constitute a reliable secondary source that should be cited by an encyclopedia, even on the specific matter about which the press release / article is reporting, let alone the more generic matter. Yes, I know this happened quite recently, and it's hard to expect a book to have been written that covers it. Which brings me to another obvious point: WP:NOT. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 07:31, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Before you switch to yet another policy, please can you answer my SYNTH question, and now an additional one: which point of NOT#NEWS do you feel this is violating? Obviously the topic "Croatia–Philippines relations" should not be sent to wikinews. --99of9 (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I already answered your SYNTH question at length above. The article gives the impression that this assorted list of referenced factoids constitutes "Croatia-Philippines relations", and that the topic is worthy of a standalone article. Yet, this conclusion does not follow; it's original research; there are little or no sources attesting to that specific conclusion. And before you throw in another question, can I ask you if this is going to be another Croatia-Mongolia relations discussion ad nauseam? :( --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 11:52, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I was not present in that discussion. I am not the common factor.  The job of these independent secondary sources is to write about the topic, not to write about whether it is worthy of a standalone article Wikipedia.  They've done their job.  My keep !vote stands. --99of9 (talk) 08:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It appears to be the same story: the sources had not done the job that the overly enthusiastic Wikipedia editors wanted them to have done. The two countries do not even have proper ambassadors or embassies, as the connections between them are largely superficial; the apparent hoarding of referenced trivia can't do much to change those basic facts. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 15:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J04n(talk page) 01:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Responding to joy, above, the individual events do constitute "Croatia-Philippines relations", They're not expected to be individually notable or we'd have articles about each, but they're the things that constitute the relations.  DGG ( talk ) 03:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep - A weakish start of an article, but unquestionably an encyclopedic topic, no matter what one thinks about "X-Y Relations" articles. Information here springs from multiple independently published sources. The nominator additionally incorrectly describes this piece as "original research" elsewhere above. ALL writing appearing on Wikipedia is research, in that it features finite content which includes some facts but not others; and its ideas and physical content may not be directly lifted from other writers, so it is original. Wikipedia's ill-named prohibition of so-called "original research" is actually a ban on novel scientific theories and crackpot interpretive historical essays — not on finding an encyclopedic subject, selecting sources, arranging information, and writing about it coherently and originally. Carrite (talk) 15:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Here's an old Jimmy Wales quote that explains the thinking behind the concept of NOR: "The phrase ['original research'] originated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the web. The basic concept is as follows: it can be quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment as to whether a particular thing is true or not. It isn't appropriate for us to try to determine whether someone's novel theory of physics is valid; we aren't really equipped to do that. But what we can do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers. So it's quite convenient to avoid judging the credibility of things by simply sticking to things that have been judged credible by people much better equipped to decide. The exact same principle will hold true for history..." — Jimmy Wales, WikiEN-l, December 3, 2004. /////// Carrite (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Exactly, and essentially all we have is mainstream news agencies and newspapers parroting official press releases and commenting on them very briefly. We don't have any references to a reputable journal or a publisher on international relations about the relations. Do you see the problem now? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Uh, no. The main thing is factual accuracy, not source worship. Is there anything wrong here? Carrite (talk) 17:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's factually accurate to say that a Filipino-originated multinational company bought a major port company in Croatia. It's even factually accurate to say that the Filipino and Croatian diplomacy had a few photo-ops about it. It's not factually accurate to claim that Croatia and the Philippines have notable bilateral relations based on that kind of a factoid. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 19:48, 9 May 2013 (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.