Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hurricane Katrina as divine retribution


 * 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 merge to Hurricane Katrina. There is overwhelming consensus that this should not be kept in its current form. Opinion is split between merging and a straight delete, and I don't see any killer arguments on either side.

Those who are arguing to merge pretty much all agree that any merge should be of an extremely limited extent, perhaps a couple of sentences or one short paragraph. So let's go with that.

Normally, when you do a merge, you leave a redirect behind. I don't see anybody addressing that point in the arguments here. My personal take is that redirects are mostly intended to help searching, and this title is an unlikely search term, so it wouldn't make a useful redirect. On the other hand, redirects are cheap. I'll leave it up to whoever does the merge whether to redirect or not, but if they do elect to not redirect, make sure you provide the proper attribution in the edit summary or talk page. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:00, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Hurricane Katrina as divine retribution

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This article is simply a loose collection of un-notable opinions. The fact that some people said that such and such a thing is god's wrath is unremarkable, that sort of rhetoric exists for nearly every event. There is no indication that claims that this event was divine retribution are noteworthy.

The sourcing on this article all link back to editorials or dead links. Nothing indicates that these opinions are widespread or noteworthy enough for a stand alone article. Bonewah (talk) 14:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is an unsalvageable coat-rack of views that should never have been assimilated into article form.  If someone wants to write an article based on reliable secondary sources, then they are free to start a new article.  But an article synthesizing a collection of extremist quotes (albeit from rather different religious extremes) is definitely not something we want here.   S ławomir  Biały  15:06, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - although it's kind of interesting in an off-the-wall-nutty sort of way. I guess it could be folded into an article about alternate theories about Katrina should anyone ever write such a thing. Shritwod (talk) 15:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - No opinion as to whether this article should be kept. It is the result of trying to contain some of the nonsense surrounding conspiracy theories about Hurricane Katrina which were polluting main articles. Arguments that articles like this one are WP:POV forks are certainly worthy of consideration. For more background see Articles_for_deletion/Alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrina (3rd_nomination) and Articles for deletion/Supernatural attributions of Hurricane Katrina. jps (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is like a hoax article. It was sent as a divine retribution for the sins of New Orleans? The page is nonsense. QuackGuru  ( talk ) 16:53, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge to Hurricane Katrina. There is not much here that needs to be kept and I don't see this warranting it's own article. But there were/are a number of people, some of them prominent, who promoted this bilge. It probably merits a mention somewhere in the main article. I think that this entire article can be adequately summarized in a few sentences and given its own section near the bottom of the parent article. Per WP:FRINGE I would make sure to include RS sourcing and a clear refutation also properly sourced. In summary... Mention it, but keep it brief and make it clear that all but the lunatic fringe consider this to be idiocy. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I support the merge as well. I've fixed the dead links, and removed and replaced another one that seemed infected. -- Auric    talk  17:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina. There is a whole series of articles about katrina, if merge is the consensus, im sure we can find some place to put this info, but what, in your guys' view, should be saved? Bonewah (talk) 17:38, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge. Bonewah, adding this article's first sentence, "Various political and religious leaders have suggested that Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,836 people, was sent as a divine retribution for the sins of New Orleans, or of the South, or for the United States as a whole" to Hurricane Katrina to Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina or similar would be about right IMO, along with the first three footnotes. . There's absolutely no need for Al-Qaeda, Louis Farrakhan, or assorted crackpots. (Of course Al-Qaeda said it was God's vengeance against America. It might have been worth mentioning on Wikipedia if Al-Qaeda didn't say that.) Bishonen &#124; talk 18:44, 21 March 2016 (UTC). PS: I have changed my recommendation slightly per below. Bishonen &#124; talk 20:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Merge some of the less fanatical nonsense to Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, or delete altogether, since I don't know where it would even fit in anyways. Bishonen's idea sounds pretty good. GABHello! 20:05, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Notable nonsense. It's not a miscellaneous collection--it's organized fairly systematically. That some of the material is utterly fantastical does not mean it isn't notable--people believe and say many ridiculous things,as all our articles on conspiracy theories prove. I think this sort of material is much better in an article of its own, than in the main article.  DGG ( talk ) 02:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with the nonsense part, but im not sure what, exactly makes this material notable? The fact that it appears in a reliable source?  That the person making the claims is notable? Bonewah (talk) 13:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. There's nothing especially wrong with including nutty theories in an encyclopedia, as long as they go to prove some sort of point. For instance, I can see all of the quotes used in this articles appearing in an encyclopedia, but in articles about the particular person making the claim. The quotes throw light on the source. But collecting various conflicting nutty theories, just because they are about a single subject, doesn't prove anything except: There are a lot of nutty theories about this subject. If that is a basis for making an encyclopedia entry, then there will be no end to such articles. Especially in the US, our public discourse has become so debased that celebrities (that is, non-experts) feel free to say anything that pops into their minds, the more outrageous the better. Do we make an article about each one? What about, for example, Ben Carson's view that the pyramids were designed by Joseph to store grain? Should there be an article on "Alternate theories of the origin and use of pyramids"? And if the answer is "yes," it can only be because the person making the statement is famous, not because he or she has any knowledge on the subject. Otherwise, I have a list of things my great aunt believed that could make fascinating articles. The problem with making articles about nutty sayings by famous people (which contradict each other) on a subject is that it feeds the troll. Many people (some quoted in this article) say nutty things just to be quoted and thereby become more famous. And if all of this is not enough, imagine some editor every week buying all the tabloids in the supermarket to compile the latest article on nutty theories. AnthroMimus (talk) 04:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge. Agree with the GeneralizationsAreBad and Bonewah - at most one or two sentences of this, with 3 or so sources, should be merged into the one of the other Katrina articles and the bulk of it dumped. -- Krelnik (talk) 14:01, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment As it turns out, there is something similar at Political_effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina. Perhaps that could be re-worded if necessary and citations added. Bonewah (talk) 19:54, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. /wiae  /tlk  04:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. /wiae  /tlk  04:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete I'd be surprised if this was an isolated incident, but every single bad thing that ever happened to anybody anywhere ever is always somehow related to God's divine wrath. This is old news, and the article itself would need a lot of help to stay on site. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG as notable nonsense. Multiple RS'es document the phenomenon of people reading God's will into the event. The fact that they come from across the religious spectrum is even more reason that this set of speculations represents an encyclopedic phenomenon. Merging this to a greater article on the event itself would be as UNDUE as merging Moon landing conspiracy theories into Apollo 11. Jclemens (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Refactor into an article on the notable nonsense that is ascribing divine retribution as the cause of natural disasters (which is not restricted to Katrina). Guy (Help!) 12:38, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge. I like 's proposed merger. For comparison's sake, 1692 Jamaica earthquake covers contemporary ideas about that event being divine retribution in just three sentences, an idea that doubtless was considerably more mainstream in 1692 than 2005. Egsan Bacon (talk) 19:21, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep perhaps as this may be convincing for its own article. The overall basis seems to be this should not outstandingly be deleted altogether and any plans of necessary merge can be accomplished later. The overall information seems to be enough for a religious article of the subject. SwisterTwister   talk  04:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - The article does not pass notability guidelines. WP:NOTNEWS and WP:15MOF also should apply here, its coverage was temporary, it existed shortly and provided clickbait for news orgs, but has since vanished.  It does not need to continue here. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 06:30, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Huh? Were you looking at the right article? It most certainly does pass WP:N. I suggest taking a(nother) look at the references and WP:GNG. A strong argument could be made that it is an unnecessary WP:FORK and that even with all of the coverage it got doesn't warrant a stand alone article. But a claim that it lacks notability is patently wrong. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:19, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 'Huh?-WP:NOTTEMPORARY-Xcuref1endx (talk) 15:38, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I forgot to cite that guideline as well. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * So what you're saying is that we should have a series of articles on topics such as AIDS as divine retribution, cancer as divine retribution, lynching as divine retribution and so on? Sorry, I disagree. You will find many more sources describing AIDS as divine retribution, and we don't have an article on that not because the people who promote this idea are, at best, outliers in the continuum of rationality (though they undoubtedly are, if not outright insane), but because it would be needlessly offensive, and the substantive content can be (and indeed is) covered in other articles. Guy (Help!) 23:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge If all the sources that are merely blogs or self-published were removed, the few lines remaining could be really merged into (possibly a footnote) of the main article. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi  05:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge to a small, highly reduced paragraph in Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina or similar. As it stands now, it is almost entirely a "List of people who said Katrina is Divine Retribution" with little to no in depth coverage, sourced analysis or critical response that would show article-worthy notability. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:55, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I too think merging a very short version of this — a sentence or two — to Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina or similar is a fine idea. I take back what I said above about merging it to Hurricane Katrina; that was just because I didn't know there was a media coverage article. Bishonen &#124; talk 20:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC).
 * Trying it out - looks OK to me. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2016 (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.