Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Insult of officials and the state


 * 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 no consensus‎ __EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Although there is most certainly no consensus to delete, I find no consensus between the "keep", "redirect", and "merge" !votes. A possible redirect or merge can be discussed on the article's talk page. Randykitty (talk) 16:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Insult of officials and the state

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Fails WP:NLIST and does not have WP:SIGCOV that are fewer sources had been cited. Surveyor Mount (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 04:45, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Politicians,  and Politics. Surveyor Mount (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 07:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 ( d  c̄ ) 05:38, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep If the existing sources aren't enough to convince you, you can easily search and find additional ones. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/09/23/fact-check-legal-experts-say-swearing-president-not-illegal/5785903001/ https://time.com/5813215/presidential-insult-history/ for example.  D r e a m Focus  14:31, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I just found this. https://www.politico.eu/article/european-countries-where-insulting-head-of-state-can-land-prison-belgium-denmark-france-germany/ That references the information for most of the things on the list.  D r e a m Focus  14:32, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Search for the name of any nation listed and "insult law" and you can find results. A website hopefully exist somewhere where you can search for the laws in each country.  Sourcing everything is going to be time consuming.  The article's creator did reference all the information they got to https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/b/8/303181.pdf   D r e a m Focus  10:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. The first two references by Dream Focus above are useless as for establishing list notability.  The third is better, but it's restricted to Europe.  You'd either need a pared-down list for that, or more widespread coverage.  It's also a bit moot at this point...essentially nothing in the article is sourced, and it's complete OR at the moment...you'd have to cut it down to basically nothing, leaving no article to keep.  Moreover, trying to compile this information into a table is ultimately futile due to all the different nuances in the laws of every country.  At best, you might be able to construct an article that actually goes into some detail for each country, but as a simple list, this fails on its face. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Question: Is it possible to move to Insults of officials and the state in Europe per the source that Dream Focus found? Lightoil (talk) 05:05, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I also prefer the use of the plural in that title. Using "insult" as an uncountable known just sounds awkward if you don't know legalese. small jars 16:34, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep: Per the source Dream Focus found. Lightoil (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge with Lèse-majesté which is (quoting the lede) "an offence against the dignity of a ruling head of state... or the state itself". This article is about "Insult of officials, as well including the head of state or foreign heads of state, the state itself or its symbols, is a crime in some countries."  No daylight between the two.Oblivy (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge -- Assuming the article is accurate and merely needs referencing, not rewriting as well. is absolutely correct about the meaning of Lèse-majesté. I do not know if the "no daylight" comment is true of all countries, but most countries do have a civil law legal system, based on the French Napoleonic code, so it's quite plausible. I suggest adding a section listing the names of this crime in the various jurisdictions Elinruby (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment Many JStor hits for "lèse-majesté", including Thailand, Germany and Russia, and of course France. Some will be metaphorical, but there are about 5500 so it's not looking *too* difficult to reference Elinruby (talk) 10:09, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 06:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * <p class="xfd_relist" style="margin:0 0 0 -1em;border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 2em;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Guerillero Parlez Moi 11:38, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - As a list. This article's scope is broader than Lèse-majesté. The issue is one of finding existing sources for the article and then citing them. I found Wikipedia already has articles for insulting both the President of Turkey (Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code) and the Turkish Nation (Article 301). However, those articles bear obscure titles based on the number of the article in the penal code. So this list has the potential to become a navigational aid to finding these obscurely named individual articles concerning the applicable laws in different countries. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 08:05, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * <p class="xfd_relist" style="margin:0 0 0 -1em;border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 2em;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment it's a reasonable list to have, but (1) I have absolutely no idea what the final column ("Criminal blasphemy/religious insult") is supposed to be about, and (2) Any editor would be within their rights to reduce this table to four lines, the lines that actually have a reference. The rest is some guy's unsourced opinion. In effect, this is very close to a case for TNT. I'm not removing the unsourced lines at the moment as it would be unhelpful to blank the list mid-AfD. Elemimele (talk) 13:42, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as a list. Starship 24 (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep but it probably should be renamed. Walt Yoder (talk) 21:33, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the concern is that the article is largely unsourced. It also isn't a list, as there aren't links to articles on Lèse-majesté in Thailand (which, strangely, isn't in the list). Walt Yoder (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Lèse-majesté, which is superior to the content on this page in every way. Walt Yoder (talk) 17:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I just spent about an hour putting  about 12-15 sources on the talk page, fast and dirty for demonstration purposes. It wasn't even slightly difficult, although in some countries it is against the law to insult anyone, so search results for "insult laws" are a bad metric. But yeah, there are many such countries, especially if you include the blasphemy laws. Doing this article right would be a lot of work though. Although I concentrated on normal google results, the sources I mentioned are mostly solid news organizations, with a few scholarly sources, and the scholarly sources are definitely out there; various UN and EU guidebooks for example, and quite a number of universities and International freedom of speech organizations such as CPJ and HRW. Elinruby (talk) 01:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment First of all, point well taken by user:Elinruby - the sources are out there (these kinds of cases tend to make a media impact) but they need to be found. However, apart from sourcing there are lots of existential issues that need to be resolved:
 * the article fails to link to any related concepts, or to country-specific articles (as user:Walt Yoder points out in the case of Thailand). I already pointed out the intersection with Lèse-majesté.
 * the headings are undefined, and conflict with the lede - yes, blasphemy is similar in some respects, and may overlap with disrespect for national symbols, but it needs to be explained
 * the article is nearly an orphan (Turkey and Germany have country-specific articles linking it)
 * as pointed out by user:Elinruby it's hard to tell the difference between a prohibition on insult and one on insulting the state (of which more in a moment)
 * When Walt Yoder said this is "some guy's unsourced opinion" I thought he was being glib. Actually, it really is almost 100% the work of one edit by one account User:HeliosX. By tracing that account's edits, I found this article Insult_(legal) that ALSO has a long (heavily sourced) list.  The topic self-evidently overlaps this article. The user seems to be dormant since early 2022.
 * I'm still at *merge with Lèse-majeste*, but TNT looks awfully attractive! Oblivy (talk) 07:12, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It'd be a good idea to remove the blasphemy element as it confuses the issue. Blasphemy at some level (e.g. when used to foment religious hatred, or to insult an individual based on their religion) is illegal in many countries that have no state religion, where logically blasphemy becomes a crime against an individual rather than a crime against the state. Even in a country with a state religion, it's not always clear whether blasphemy laws are intended to protect the religion or the state, which remain two separate things. Interpreting blasphemy as an insult against the state is synthesis unless sources indicate it explicitly, which renders the whole sourcing job twice as big for no real benefit to the reader. Elemimele (talk) 07:15, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Well put. Oblivy (talk) 09:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It was Elemimele who said "some guy's unsourced opinion", but it is a good line. Walt Yoder (talk) 17:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would support trimming off the blasphemy section, as blasphemy laws are widespread and the mind-boggling aspects of comparing Irish Roman Catholicism to Iranian fatwas would reduce the likelihood of me, for example, working on the article. The laws about insulting the government are somewhat adjacent to my interest in free speech and disambiguating civil law concepts from commonlaw concepts which is a problem that Wikipedia currently has. However my hands are full at the moment, so yes there is something to the question of who would do it. But as we are frequently reminded, this is not a reason to AfD. It would be good if someone committed to working on it, or on the non-blasphemy parts of it. De-orphaning the article would seem to also just be a matter of doing it. Elinruby (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep passes WP:NLIST; there's a broad array of sourcing on the issue as a two minute search of insult laws in Google scholar reveals. Title and contents no doubt could be improved, but current state of an article or its orphan status does not relate to notability WP:NEXIST. Lese-majeste refers to the head of state, the issue of insult covers far more than that and relates to specific laws which limit freedom of speech in regard to the state or religion. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If this is a list article, the lack of any articles to link to is a concern. Walt Yoder (talk) 17:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Here's a few I found on the first page of a Google scholar search.


 * Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies, @Walt Yoder, I realise I've probably misinterpreted your comment. Do you mean a lack of Wikipedia articles to which to link? While one needs to keep WP:ORPHAN in mind ("An article being an orphan is not in any way, shape, or form a criterion for deletion"), nevertheless, more or less every criminal code article could be linked. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly. If there were links to 20 Wikipedia articles such as Lèse-majesté in China, Lèse-majesté in the United Kingdom in the table, there would be a much stronger argument to leave an imperfect article for improvement. Walt Yoder (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Current state of the article (links or ortherwise) has no bearing on notability. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

 CommentReading the tea leaves here, seems we aren't going to end with delete, so I decided to WP:BEBOLD and start tinkering with the article. Here's my thinking: Happy to see any comments, polite objections, whatever. My goal isn't to cut off debate, just to try to model what's going on in the discussion. If you want to make more changes to the article that's great too.Oblivy (talk) 00:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * discussion seems to be heading towards some version of Keep/Improve
 * there's a separate article on Lèse-majesté and there's nobody (on my reading) saying it doesn't at-least-mostly overlap, so I've included a short sentence and link to that article
 * I've also changed the lede to be more like "list of" articles found elsewhere; eventually we should link to this list within Lèse-majesté
 * a specific objection has been raised to the blasphemy column and nobody (on my reading) is arguing for its inclusion. A bit of regex work and it's gone
 * article title would need to be changed to something like "List of Countries with Laws on Insulting the State, Its Symbols or its Officials". That's not quite right, but it's a start. I won't rename the article as that will probably mess up the AfD process.


 * Hi @Oblivy - thanks for doing this, although I would recommend copying this comment to the article's talk page, since this is far more content related than notability related. Also FWIW, am in heated agreement, no moves until the AfD is closed, it does mess things up! :) Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 03:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion. Added a comment on the talk page - anyone here can ignore it. Oblivy (talk) 03:41, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep as list and all above. Cheers! Fakescientist8000 21:39, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge into Lèse-majesté. The topic of offence against the head of state is obviously notable, and I can see a clear scope for a list article discussing it in different nation states. The article as it stands is appalling, however. It has four references cells out of >200. Any editor would be justified in draftifying or redirecting it without further discussion; that standard doesn't change because it's been brought to AfD. The referenced content is easily accommodated at the merge target, and if someone wants to write a sourced spinoff in the future, they're welcome to. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to Lèse-majesté per Oblivy and subsequent editors. I acknowledge the sourcing found, and concede this is capable of being turning into a reasonable list, but it really is at the WP:TNT level currently, and there is a superior target to develop. Leave the redirect, if one is felt to assist navigation, and move on. Xymmax So let it be written   So let it be done  03:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Lèse-majesté, per arguments above. Nothing will be lost if this table is added to that article. BD2412  T 01:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.