Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holy See–Yemen 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   Delete. Tim Vickers (talk) 05:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Holy See–Yemen relations

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This article makes no assertion of why the subject is notable. The external links, presumably provided as references, have no context within the text of the article itself. The scant information present in the article could just as easily be merged into Foreign relations of the Holy See, Foreign relations of Yemen and Diplomatic missions of the Holy See. It is further difficult to conceive of any information for this article that would not be more suited to these other articles, or to a history article or section on these two countries. If anything, this article simply impedes users from finding appropriate information by being an extraneous article. BlueSquadron Raven  17:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - notable in the usual way. No reason to hold bilateral relations articles to a far higher standard of notability than any other articles. One could easily find many more sources if they spent more than a two minutes looking . . . Wily D  17:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not holding these articles to a higher standard. I question their existence at all as their content is better suited to existing articles. The sources you cite are, frankly, mundane and everyday occurrences in the world of international diplomacy and do not add to the article in the slightest. If any of them should be considered as the starting point of a major international incident, then they may be usable as references in a historical article, however, this one is so scant as to be trivial, and there are better-established existing articles this could expand on.-- BlueSquadron Raven  18:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * They rocket the article past WP:N so fast one could probably measure Lorentz contraction. By arguing for deletion you're arguing against using the usual inclusion criterion, WP:N, for a much more stringient one.  Arguing that a single, coherent article would do a better job of communicating it's content by spreading it across a multitude  of articles in bits is so on it's face wrong I don't know where to start.  Mundane at the international relations level is typically highly notable.  Just like mundane cities are typically notable (say Akron, Ohio), mundane expeditions to the moon are typically notable (say Apollo 17) or mundane wars are typically notable (say Sino-Soviet border conflict).  The general class of items are almost always notable, because they're so important and influential. Wily D  18:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You're free to hold your own opinion, but numerous AfDs have decided otherwise. - Biruitorul Talk 18:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * And numerous AFDs have decided I'm right. For a relationship this notable, they've all closed "keep" or "no consensus". Wily D  18:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Let's put this another way. The sum total body text of the article is: "Holy See–Yemen relations are foreign relations between the Holy See and Yemen. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 2001. The Holy See has a nunciature in Sana'a. Yemen has an embassy in Rome." This text has remained identical since the article's creation two months ago. What is it about these four sentences that is so compelling they require their own article to house them rather than any of the others I have suggested? There has been adequate time to expand on this topic, even a little. That it hasn't been done suggests to me that there is nothing noteworthy about it except the salient facts that can be merged into existing foreign relations articles. I have a new word for articles such as this: wikiclutter. -- BlueSquadron Raven  19:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article could clearly benefit from expansion. As you seem to be unaware, Wikipedia is a work in progress.  No articles are "finished", and the vast majority are far from it.  Many articles will sit for a long time until someone has the time to expand them, perhaps they're busy dealing with frivilous deletion discussions.  Articles regularly sit around far longer before they're expanded.  Because Wikipedia's not paper WP:NOT, it turns out we can't have clutter.  We have near three million articles, almost all of which are  insignificant in importence next to this.  And yet from little stubs, mighty FAs grow, even if it takes a lifetime. Wily D  19:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * By that line of reasoning, a blank page could be considered notable if it had a good title. As it stands, this article is cruft, and I stand by my reasons why it should be deleted and the content (all three points of it) moved to other articles. Further, as it seems quite obvious you are stuck in your ways, I shall not be debating the dubious merits of any similar articles with you any longer. -- BlueSquadron Raven  19:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No reasonable argument can be made that the article is cruft. Because it's a parallel article to multiple other articles, no reasonable marge target could ever be found - where would you redirect this?  It's unsurprising that with no valid arguments, you choose to present none, I'd go so far as to call it wise. Wily D  19:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to bet this could never, ever be an FA, which is as good a criterion for deletion as any. - Biruitorul Talk 19:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It would definitely be the most stringient criterion ever applied in an AFD. Very little of our value comes from FAs, or even GAs. Mostly, it's in Bs and Starts.  Wily D  19:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - everyone who is someone meets with the Pope at some point; it's not that special. For Yemen's 4,000 Catholics (of a population of 23 million), we have Roman Catholicism in Yemen. And as the nominator noted, this "subject" is covered as much as need be by other articles. - Biruitorul Talk 18:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Another case of an article saying "I can pick any two countries and let other editors to figure it out". We need to establish special and clear standards for these articles, instead of dragging this into a million separate AfDs, and I would welcome any form of centralized debate. And editors who vote "keep" really need to ask themselves: "If this article hadn't existed, would I find any reason for it? could I even be able to link to it in a significant number of articles, and would the link add anyhting important?" Dahn (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not use WP:N for that standard, as is done widely and successfully across a plethora of disparate article subjects? Wily D 19:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I am, and all articles I voted "delete" on fail it (as noted by me, as noted by other users, including on this very page). The point about special standards would be to avoid these convoluted debates, and set a filter. That filter would stand for: "we won't even be discussing application of WP:N and whether a 'relations' article should be kept if it doesn't meet these criteria". Dahn (talk) 20:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete There's about 195 sovereign countries in the world. Using combinatorics, that's over 19,000 potential articles.  So surely bilateral relations need some kind of standard of notability for inclusion higher than "they exist".  Gigs (talk) 19:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not WP:N? Many category of articles (species, cities) have far more than 19000 actual articles, and WP:N is applied to them with great success.  Why is this different from every other kind of article on Wikipedia? Wily D  20:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if we apply only WP:N blindly, I don't really see a claim of notability here. WP:INDISCRIMINATE comes to mind, among others. Gigs (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's - uh - hard to miss unless you haven't read the preceeding discussion. I can't guess why indiscriminate comes to mind - it's the model of a discriminate article. Wily D  20:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Very short secondary sources merely documenting the fact that there were diplomatic meetings doesn't really establish anything... of course there are meetings, that's what diplomatic relations implies! The one source about the Muslim-Catholic tension is more like it... if there were more secondaries (or even primaries) to flesh that out, you might have something. Gigs (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * They're not short, they're just not freely available (I think one or two are). They are primaries, but since we're trying to establish whether to include this information at all, and the WP:N standard discounts primaries as worth considering with respect to notability, I haven't bothered. Wily D  20:42, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:ITSA comes to mind here. Without context in the larger picture of history their mere existence is meaningless. -- BlueSquadron Raven  22:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Citing completely inapplicable essays is not a valid argument. Wily D 10:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep To facilitatethe discussion, the sources cited by Wily D are | Yemen warns will review relations with Vatican| Yemen: President Salih meets Vatican delegation, receives message from pope| Yemeni president meets Pope John Paul II, discusses ties.| Yemeni official holds talks with non-resident Vatican envoy in Sanaa. and | YEMEN: PRIME MINISTER MEETS WITH NEW REPRESENTATIVE FROM VATICAN.;  My opinion is that when the President of a Moslem nation is seeking ties with the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholic Christians, it's a significant relationship. Mandsford (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your opinion. Now put those news items cited into a context within the article and you might have grounds for keeping it. Otherwise, WP:NOBJ applies.-- BlueSquadron Raven  20:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Apropos of nothing, that's the worst shortcut I've ever seen for an essay. Wily D 20:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep while I'm strongly deletionist against those random country relations, anything that has to do with relations with the Vatican I consider notable, and highly sourceable, including this example. Secret account 22:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I am supportive of the statements put forth by WilyD and Mandsford. The article needs better editing and referencing, but it doesn't deserve to be deleted. Pastor Theo (talk) 22:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. WilyD/PasterTheo's arguments are wholely unconvincing. Yilloslime T C  23:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, how are the one-on-one foreign relations of the Vatican any more notable than those of any other country? Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the Vatican conducts notable bilateral relations with a lot of countries - definitely so much so that a single article would be impossibly large. But it's a silly standard when bilateral relations are generally notable per our usual criterion - I don't argue we should delete Montana because it's no more notable than any other state.  Wily D  10:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - no claim to notability. . . Rcawsey (talk) 07:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Except that it meets the standard of WP:N. What's different here?  Why should we use a much higher standard? Wily D  10:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A new user of Wikipedia, noticing a reference to "Holy See–Yemen relations", a supposedly notable subject, might expect to see an article with some interesting content. They are likely to be sadly disappointed, and hence likely to assume that most articles on Wikipedia are a similar waste of time. . . Rcawsey (talk) 17:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete The sources found by WilyD all seem to be very short summaries of press releases on trivial meetings. As such, I don't think that they're sufficient to meet WP:N - you couldn't write an article on the basis of the information they contain. Nick-D (talk) 11:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The articles themselves aren't particularly short - the "free sneak previews" are. This is somewhat different. Wily D  12:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hard to make objective decisions about their encyclopedic value if we can't read them, isn't it? In any case, this isn't the news. -- BlueSquadron Raven  14:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Citing irrelevent guidelines isn't helpful, nor does it constitute an "argument". It is longstanding precedent that Wikipedia is not just a parroting of the freely available parts of the internet, but that pay areas of the internet, and even though sources which exist only in hard copy, are also useful as sources.  It turns out if you're unable to examine the relevent evidence, you simply can't develop an informed opinion on the subject.  The correct action is to refrain from commenting until you know what you're talking about. Wily D  14:25, 7 April 2009 (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.