Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eponymous political slanders


 * 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 delete - Liberatore(T) 17:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Eponymous political slanders
Wikipedia shouldn't repeat slanders, and the examples given are weak. Even the "successful" example "Santorum" gets only 600 or so Google hits without Savage's name attached (search). Phr 09:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC) (Also, constitutes original research per WP:NOR). Phr 14:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's inappropriate for Wikipedia to document social phenomena, and eponymous political slanders is certainly a real (and ongoing) social phenomenon. And documenting a slander is not the same thing as propagating it; I've certainly attempted, in writing this page, to avoid suggesting that I agree with the slanders in question. -- Meowse

Addendum: I have reviewed What Wikipedia Is Not and the Deletion policy, and I see no elements of either which, singly or in combination, justify deleting this page. Please cite specific elements from authoritative sources which justify deleting this page. Neither of your stated reasons ("Wikipedia shouldn't repeat slanders" and "the examples given are weak") occurs in either source, and thus neither can be used to justify deletion. Thanks, Meowse 11:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Please also read WP:V for what constitutes usable citations. Few if any of your cites rise to the level required.  Also, your cites are merely to examples of this phenomenon, not to published writing about the phenomenon itself ("eponymous political slanders" gets zero google hits right now).  If the phenomenon is one that you identified yourself, that's original research inappropriate for Wikipedia, see WP:NOR.  I've updated the beginning of the AfD to mention this.  Remember that Wikipedia is not supposed to be a primary source.  It's supposed to report only on what's already been documented by others.  I realize your contribution is well-intended but Wikipedia is not the right place for this particular one. Phr 14:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Nor does a Google search for "eponymous scientific terms" yield any significant hits outside of Wikipedia, yet there is a page for that. Categorizing instances of a phenomenon is not original research.  Meowse 18:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see any page called eponymous scientific terms, and even if there is one, there's no question that those terms (Newton, Pascal, Ampere, etc) are real terms; they have tons of published cites that go back for centuries, and making a list of them is no big deal. The only disparaging eponymous political term that I can think of with that documentable level of usage is Quisling, and I don't think that was coined in order to slander him.  The examples you gave as "successful" range from barely marginal (santorum) to completely invalid (someone coining a term on a blog and someone else sticking it into Wiktionary doesn't make it a real word).  And the "unsuccessful" efforts are non-notable terms by definition.  Did you look at WP:NEO, the part about protologisms? Phr 22:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete as unencyclopedic. -- Kjkolb 11:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. -- P199 16:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, non-notable phrases, unneeded flamebait (just wait until the "Bushitler" et al. entries commence). Sandstein 18:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If you have suggestions for how the page can be made more opinion-neutral, please make them. I did my best to simply record a phenomenon without weighing in on either side of it.  In particular, if you know of any eponymous political slanders of left-wing politicians, I would very much like to add them to the entry. (Note: "Bushitler", while both a neologism and a play on words, is clearly not an eponymous political slander as defined on this page: (1) it's not eponymous, being a portmanteau of two different names, and (2) it doesn't then attempt to redefine "bushitler" to reference an unpleasant concept) Meowse 22:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Request for collaboration: I believe that there's a significant social phenomenon occurring here, starting with Dan Savage's coinage of the neologism "santorum", and continuing into the present. I think that it's appropriate for Wikipedia to contain articles on emerging social phenomena.  How would you like this information to be presented in Wikipedia, and what names/descriptions would you like it to be present under? Thanks!  Meowse 22:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Your sentence "I believe there's a significant social phenomenon occuring here", without documentation for the supposedly occurring phenomenon, is a sign that you're engaged in original research. Wikipedia is not trying to stay ahead of the curve.  The phenomenon (if it exists) needs to be documented with citations to published sources per WP:V and Wikipedia can report on it after it's established as a real phenomenon, not before.  Really, please spend 15 seconds asking yourself privately why you want this entry in Wikipedia (that is, why you really want it, not how you can best advocate it here).  Then read WP:SPAM and see if item 1 applies. Phr 22:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it should stay. I think entry is a fair description of what a "Eponymous political slander" is.  In fact, I was researching just such a word, which I won't repeat here because it is a current event, and I found this entry very helpful.  (This is the first time I have ever made a comment in Wikipedia ... so I hope this comment followed proper protocol.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.169.95.212 (talk • contribs)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia, and there's no problem commenting, except please sign your comments by appending four tilde's ( ~ ). Also, see Template:AfdAnons which mentions that in deletion discussions, views of new contributors usually get less weight than already-active contributors.  Phr 04:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete This page has perhaps a single semi-valid entry and some flame baiting doo-doo by a vandal.  There are plenty of politically derived eponyms but they are not necessarily slanders, even if they started as insults.  Perhaps the weak, single "Santorum" entry could be used in another article related to political eponyms, but I'm not aware of such an article existing at this time.  Ande B 05:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete It's a stretch to call it a list; there's only really one item worth mentioning. On top of that, the title is inaccurate, because the intent of introducing the neologism is to associate the eponymous politician with the connotations of the term's definition, not to assert that they are directly associated with it. --Sneftel 19:00, 3 April 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.