Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gangster


 * 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. Unmistakable consensus to keep;.  DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Gangster

 * – ( View AfD View log )

What we have here is a dictionary definition, which is unnecessary since we already have Gangster. The rest of the content simply repeats what can already be found at the respective individuals' articles or the American Mafia article. Delete this and move Gangster (disambiguation) here.  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive 19:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. Replicates a host of articles. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Article should be kept as a WP:DABCONCEPT. To put this in perspective, the article receives a staggering 20,000 page views a month and has hundreds of articles linked to it. It is also clear that these people are not searching for items on the dab page as this page gets less than 600 views a month. Simply deleting this page and replacing it with a dab would be extremely ill-considered. The topic of gangster is a notable one, and definitely much more than a dictionary definition. Yes, the current page doesn't do the topic justice, but deletion is not the way to approach it. France 3470   ( talk ) 23:50, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions.  France 3470   ( talk ) 23:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep as valid link target (i.e., not a dab page). Whether it remains its own article (as is, expanded, or rewritten) or redirects to American Mafia or other page is a separate question. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, scratch the suggestion that the dab page be moved. Leave it as a link target, but the repetitive content should go.  As I said before, what we have here is a dictionary definition, more specific information should (and already is) elsewhere. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive  05:08, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. The article at present is very poor, entirely about the USA and entirely trivial. But organized crime just gives a theoretical treatment of the subject. Presumably our readers want a good meaty overview with plenty of links to Scarface and Chotta Mumbai, Sicilian Mafia, Chechen mafia, Yakuza, Tongs and so on. A huge subject with masses of sources. It just needs someone, not me but someone else, to expand it to book length. A notable subject. I may add a few headings. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What you just did was add a bunch of garbage you picked up from other articles. How was that helpful?  This is precisely why I believe the article should be deleted, because it is an undifferentiated dumping ground of repetitive information.  Discussion of gangs should be in the articles about those gangs; discussion of specific gangsters should be in the articles about those gangsters.  Once that is done, there is nothing here but a dictionary definition. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive  05:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What I added (and you undid, and I put back) was a collection of links to articles for which short summaries could be included in this article. A reader who searches for "gangster" almost certainly wants an article about gangsters, with summary-style information on the most notorious. It should also give summary-style information on famous gangs like the Mafia and Tongs. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it should not have any of that information, that is why we have separate articles on those different gangs and individuals, as well as more general articles on the Mafia and organized crime. You want to turn this article into a dumping ground for repetitive information already covered elsewhere in more appropriate places.  Your edits simply make no sense. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive  16:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what to make of the AfD and I'm certainly leaning keep. But the recent changes have turned a minor problem into a complete mess that only looks good because it has fifty references. There's absolutely no benefit in artificially piecing together bits from articles here and there: this is why we have internal links. The duplicated content will just be left to rot or will basically require twice the maintenance effort, all for the sake of not deleting Gangster. I understand the concern of RepublicanJacobite although I don't think the solution is deletion. But between deletion and what we have now? I prefer deletion. Pichpich (talk) 23:35, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A summary-style article on a broad subject such as "solar system" or "mammal" is useful, giving an overview and leading readers who want more information to more detailed articles on specific topics. The summary often provides bridging information that is not found in the "child" articles. Much of the content in this overview does not exist in other articles. Some does. Where there is overlap, there is a risk of forking in coverage of areas that are still evolving. But reader interest is, to me, a trumping argument. If 10,000 readers look up the subject in Wikipedia each month, we should give them some information, and there is no obvious redirect. Not gang and not organized crime. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:20, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The end result is a pseudo-article that doesn't even resolve the last problem you note. It initially pretends to carefully distinguish gangs and gangsters from organize crime yet ends up siding with the basic view that modern usage is that a gangster is a member of a criminal organization. So a two-line sentence that would point the reader to either organized crime or gang is just as good. Your mashup contains a list of notorious gangsters which, as far as I can tell, is chosen quite arbitrarily and completely Western-world oriented. (Along the same lines, the sentence The United States has profoundly influenced the genre, but other cultures have contributed distinctive and often excellent gangster movies. absolutely has to go.) The whole "Regional variants" section does not even discuss gangsters but organized crime so why should it be duplicated here? And why is the Albanian Mafia more deserving of a paragraph than the Serbian Mafia or the motorcycle gangs that have at times dominated Scandinavian countries? Isn't India worth discussing in the Asia section? True, gangster gets 10000 page views (I would guess that a significant portion of these are through internal links by the way) but that doesn't mean that the best solution is to provide the relevant information under this title. That's what redirects are for. You cite mammal as an example but that article contains topic-specific content and is most definitely not an "overview and leading readers who want more information to more detailed articles on specific topics. It doesn't contain a list of notorious mammals. Ditto solar system. There's a beautifully crafted article on organized crime. We should be sending our readers there instead of providing them with an inferior article. Pichpich (talk) 15:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A simple answer is that there is a huge literature on the subject, hundreds of articles link to the title and page views run at around 25,000 monthly. The subject is highly notable and of great interest, so deletion is not a reasonable option... Aymatth2 (talk) 17:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The subject is different from both "organized crime" and "gang". The well-written article on "organized crime" is a theoretical discussion of psychology, structure, activities and so on. The article on "gang" also aspires to give an abstract discussion of the different types of gang. This article links to those two but largely avoids theory and describes real-life gangs and gangsters around the world, and their depiction in the arts. It is about specific instances, which is (I think) that most people will be looking for. I prefer to keep the specific separate from the abstract... Aymatth2 (talk) 17:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Is this a mash-up? Less than it should be. Ideally every paragraph would point to a article, and would be much the same as the lead to that article. But the "child" articles, where they existed, often had poor leads and poor sourcing, so this contains more new content than it should have to. But maintenance is not a concern since almost all the content is historical. The section on Al Capone is unlikely to need updating... Aymatth2 (talk) 17:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There is plenty of room for improvement. I have tried to make a start, but it is a huge subject. The overview of regional variants has large gaps, and the list of notorious gangsters is almost entirely from the USA 1930-1960. The section on movies is quite incomplete, and there is nothing on other media... Aymatth2 (talk) 17:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A minor point: I would defend the statement "The United States has profoundly influenced the [gangster movie] genre". See the first sentence in the next section, based on a thoughtful source. Although the first gangster movie was Australian, the USA has had great influence. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Topic has received significant coverage in numerous secondary sources. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That's unquestionably true but isn't it irrelevant? We don't have an actual article on street race despite the significant coverage. The question is about organizing the content efficiently and in a way that makes sense to our readers. Pichpich (talk) 23:44, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Strongest possible keep Absurd nomination.♦ Dr. Blofeld  20:39, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I started a superficial rescue job. User:France3470 points out that the article gets a lot of page views. That justifies more effort to meet our readers' needs. Far more can be added. Somewhere I saw an assertion that the trade in illegal drugs alone is over 1% of the global economy, presumably mostly handled by gangsters. This is such a rich, broad and deep subject with so much evident public interest, it is hard to understand the lack of content. Any opinions? Aymatth2 (talk) 00:32, 25 November 2011 (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.