Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt


 * 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. There are certainly a preponderance of Keep comments here but a number don't appear to be relevant to the issues raised. Black Kite (talk) 14:20, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

International reactions to the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt

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These "international reactions" articles are just WP:QUOTEFARMS of politicians offering "thoughts and prayers". In this case, we don't even know who's in charge or what the aftermath will be, making this doubly useless. WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:NOTNEWS are violated by this. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:44, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep As creator I feel that it is precisely because this is a QUOTEFARM that it deserves its own article. There is now a well established precedent for these articles as a result of political events. Uncertainty over the actors and outcome of the coup makes it even more vital that we should be collating information from international leaders. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per nominator, this is an indiscriminate non-noteworthy quote-farm coatrack of entirely predictable, blasé reactions. Softlavender (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Call me dumb, but as a citizen with an interest in foreign relations I couldn't predict a priori how even my own country's leaders were likely to respond, let alone that Russia's response would be moderate compared to those of much of the rest of the international community, that the Syrian opposition would support Erdogan and the government the coup , that Pakistani politicians would be divided on the issue , or that many Greeks would support the coup . See also . Unlike some cases, this isn't just vapid, repetitive diplomababble. FourViolas (talk) 13:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Selective merge to the main article. This is a quotefarm, a limited amount of which can be retained there. I don't believe we need an independent article for this; best to briefly summarize the reactions in the main article. GABgab 02:20, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge to main article as perWP:INDISCRIMINATE. Dr meetsingh  Talk  07:15, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep The main article already has too many quotes in the international reaction section. Keep the quote farm here, not in the main article. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 03:08, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That's the whole point, people don't want this sort of excessive quote farm crap at all, but it's too difficult in general to remove unnecessary, repetitive, or overly specific material - or just summarize it - so it's easier to shove into a separate article where it's considered separately.
 * Keep. Often it is the very choice of wording that makes these quotes relevant, so the quotes may not be replaced by a paraphrasing summary. These quote farms are however often better kept at a separate article. in this case, we will see how the immediate reactions are followed up by changes in international relations, so it's too early to say. --PanchoS (talk) 07:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge Since the attempt ended quickly I would not expect there to be any need for a quotefarm from unrelated actors. It would be plenty easy to summarize countries who supported democracy or constitutional order. Reywas92Talk 07:40, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge/Redirect. Same as Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Nice attack, every major event has reactions to it, we don't want to set a precedent in which every major event results in a minimum of two articles. -- &oelig; &trade; 12:18, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge and Redirect per OlEnglish. Thankfully this one is still short unlike the Nice attack reactions coatrack page, and merging might not get messy. Ceosad (talk) 12:49, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep if the list grows too long and makes the parent article too cumbersome (detailed quotes should be in this list); otherwise Merge & redirect. Regards, DPdH (talk)
 * Delete/Merge Per nominator.--Catlemur (talk) 13:08, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Comments: With Similarity of situation being discussed for Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Nice attack it is better to wait for the outcome  of that page before arriving at a decision based on precedent.  Nannadeem (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep due to WP:SIZE for the main article. 46.200.26.232 (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. My position is that the quotes are useful and should be kept, but not on the main article. In this case, it should be this article. I also don't believe this is an "indiscriminate" collection of information, per the reasoning at WP:DISCRIMINATE, collections of information brought together with a reasonable amount of thought, care, and distinctions would certainly not violate policy, as there are distinctions about which quotes can be put on the page, as a tweet from a random person wouldn't be put on, but a statement from the American President would be. But if people really don't like these quotes existing on Wikipedia at all, maybe Wikiquote would be a good place for them, as opposed to removing them all together?  Seagull123  Φ  13:49, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Without reference to necessity, customs (either new or old) is the basis for rules and regulations, if the reaction of international community is welcome in the encyclopedia for a quick future reference to socio-politics standard, it will develop a customs which later could be placed in WP norms. Nannadeem (talk) 14:05, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge I don't think that article is not indiscriminate information per WP:DISCRIMINATE.KGirlTrucker81talk what I'm been doing  14:17, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:33, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:33, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:33, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Turkey-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:33, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep This article has meaning. It allows researchers to find important data and quotes quickly. I say Strong Keep because I wonder just how much information has been lost because of the feelings of a few. Also why is this vote being taken when one of the all mighty Wikipolicies state this is not a Democracy? More weight should be placed in votes and Wiki-Policy of this not being a Democracy should either be modified or removed. Magnum Serpentine (talk) 14:39, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment This is not a vote. If people just post "Keep" or "Delete", they should be ignored. The point of these discussions is to discuss, to make arguments advocating a particular position. From this discussion, we're supposed to reach a consensus (or, as happens frequently, we don't reach a consensus and the status quo wins by default). Tigercompanion25 (talk) 15:47, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Snow keep per my reasoning at Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Nice attack. These knee-jerk deletion discussions are counter-productive and a waste of everyone's time, and they're getting ridiculous. The nominator in this case waited all of three minutes before nominating this . The coup attempt itself was barely even two hours old! Show some restraint, people. Much better to wait till the editing has died down and the facts have started to become clear - then open a calm discussion about the material if you wish. Cmeiqnj (talk) 14:51, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Burn them all Just a bunch of words, every time. If they're important to future generations somehow, historians can Google them. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * But we are historians, and we have googled them. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 17:30, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * And then you read them. The system works. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:04, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep - Meets WP:GNG, and per WP:SIZE is a valid split. I also want to point out that this was rushed for deletion as it was placed for AfD 3 MINNUTES after it was created. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:40, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia shouldn't be an inventory of tweets, often from leaders of countries not even impacted by the event under discussion. I can't imagine who's going to be interested in what the leaders of Lithuania or the Czech Republic had to say about this issue, or who, furthermore, couldn't make an educated guess, thusly rendering this article even more superfluous. If President Zemen were to come out enthusiastically in favor of the overthrow of a democratically-elected allied government, that might be worth mentioning. But he didn't. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Wait. There should be a significant barrier to creation against this type of article. However, I do recognise that there can be a justification for this sort of article in circumstances where the reaction is quite balanced, nuanced, detailed and where there is a significant divergence of opinion from country to country. In that respect, this article may be justifiable. This is in sharp contrast to the bloated, nationalistic, systemically biased, flag-waving shite which is inevitably created in response to events which appall everyone in equal measure, such as the Nice attack. StillWaitingForConnection (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong delete: These kind of articles are a chronic example of Recentism. Ask yourselves, will people find this article relevant or useful in five years' time? And why do we have an "international reactions" article for this minor coup and not for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Vietnam War or, really, any historical event before 2006 when this custom started? I understand that some international reactions may be relevant and notable (for example: US, Russia, neighbouring countries, unpredictable reactions) but why should the reaction of the Somali government - a small country, with little international clout that isn't even in the same continent as Turkey and does not have particularly important bilateral relations - be inherently notable? A basic list like the current page presents is frankly useless to our readers and will be even more as time goes by.—Brigade Piron (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * For some random examples, International reaction to the 2007 Pakistani state of emergency averages 4 page views per day, while International reaction to the arrest of Radovan Karadžić averages just 2 views a month! The example most similar to this article (International reactions to the 2006 Thai coup d'état) gets about 1 each day... —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per nominator, this is an indiscriminate non-noteworthy quote-farm coatrack of entirely predictable, blasé reactions.--Panam2014 (talk) 19:37, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect. Sources are already in main article. "Quote farms" are outside our scope as an encyclopedia. If you think they are helpful to historians, great! Fork the content to your own wiki. The purpose of articles like this is to compare and lookup official national reactions, but it is a poor presentation for a generalist encyclopedia, which would be best served by stacking the citations for the national sources that condemned the coup (which is the vast majority in this case) and then only elaborating on those that deviated from the common condemnation. (I.e., "International response was resoundingly opposed to the coup and called for the continued recognition of the elected government and political change through electoral channels.{in a footnote, you can link to each of the individual countries that compose this claim}". czar  20:34, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. I don't think this is worthy of it's own page. The value-add of the content is questionable, and can probably be summarised and added to the main page Situphobos (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2016 (UTC).
 * Delete. An indiscriminate list and quotefarm that is heavily reliant on primary sources. More sensible and integrated coverage of the topic could just as easily be done at the main article, in a few sentences or a paragraph. ("The attempted coup drew worldwide responses from governments, supranational organizations, and intergovernmental organizations, which called for calm and the preservation of democracy and constitutional order" + maybe a few selected cites from global powers (the G8, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the immediate neighboring countries of Turkey like Greece and Bulgaria, etc. seem like a sensible limitation). I would have no problem with a redirect/selective merge as an alternative to deletion, if desired. Neutralitytalk 23:07, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * But this isn't an indiscriminate list, an indiscriminate list would be one with no distinctions on what is included, we wouldn't include a tweet from someone with 17 followers. Statements and comments from heads of state/government are added and those of international organisations like the UN, EU and NATO. WP:DISCRIMINATE says Since the policy specifically states "indiscriminate" and does not provide any guidelines for disallowing a certain level "discriminate" collection of information, then a discriminate collection of information would not violate the policy as stated in WP:IINFO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seagull123 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 17 July 2016‎ (UTC)
 * Keep. There's no way these should be accepted within the main article in the long run, but at the same time, there's no way fighting will stop over trying to keep them. Many people want them. There are many precedents for keeping them. There cannot be just zero merit to them, or we'd long be rid of all the articles like these ones. As long as they are in their separate article, they really aren't in anybody's way, so stop fighting over matters not worth it, and just keep. LjL (talk) 00:13, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Fighting alone won't stop them, but waiting till the story cools down will. Part of why we have so many left over is nominating them for deletion while they're still hot, then also stopping caring when they're not. If someone twists my arm, I could still get behind tossing Reactions to the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:15, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Do agree. The discussion gets so cold and neutral after just one week.Sattar91 (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Not important enough to be included in the main article. Keiiri (talk) 02:31, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So you're suggesting this is an unimportant WP:CONTENTFORK. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:48, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, because WP:CONTENTFORK is a different thing: just see its short description that says "Articles should not be split into multiple articles just so each can advocate a different stance on the subject". This doesn't advocate a different stance at all, it just splits some lengthy content into its own article. That's called a WP:SPINOUT, not a content fork, and is considered acceptable per se (of course it can violate other rules, but then you need to show that, not just call it a fork or spinout like that's a bad thing). LjL (talk) 14:08, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep - It deserves its own article and meets WP:GNG. Logan Saulsberry (talk) 03:54, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Not trying to be rude, but have you actually read WP:GNG? In my reading, this article would clearly fail the crucial "significant coverage" guideline ("significant coverage is more than a trivial mention"). Most of the quotes listed are from press statements or reports of press statements - both of which are clearly primary sources and therefore not a great way of establishing notability. Besides, GNG only creates a presumption of notability anyway. An issue with WP:INDISCRIMINATE remains.—Brigade Piron (talk) 15:53, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete How is it any way significant what the foreign minister of Ireland (or most of the others) said? It's all so totally predictable. WP:INDISCRIMINATE applies. &mdash; Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 07:43, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * *How would it apply? I don't see it falling into any of the 4 mentioned criteria. Most of the criteria has to do with plots, and song lyrics, this isn't a list class article, and there are no statistics. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:55, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Not featured on the main page anymore so deleting it would remove all. Redalert2fan (talk) 09:56, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge Well sourced information from leading secondary sources. Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 12:32, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Saying this fails RECENTISM misses the point. We don't have international reactions to, say, the Vietnam War because was a different time, and reactions were expressed in different contexts in different ways. This article is a permanent record of quotation, which has notability and value. doktorb wordsdeeds 18:55, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it's RECENTISM because we're just collecting a whole bunch of statements and throwing them together without context or consideration of their long-term importance. I would make the same arguments about International reactions to the Boston Tea Party, or International reactions to the execution of Joan of Arc. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:32, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Drop the word "International" and Reactions to the Boston Tea Party would make for an interesting article about how countries around the world responded if the information exists out there. There is Boston Tea Party but it only gives a two sided response. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep As due to length the content cannot be merged into the main article, IMO the article should stay. It contains many refs and it´s an important overview of the reactions. gogo3o 08:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Per guidelines. -Quotefarm, what wikipedia is not, recentism, patent nonsense. Take your pick.. Also note that Otherstuffexists is not a guideline. Notability is a necessary not sufficient criteria. Well sourced is a proxy of notability and a terrible argument especially when these are predominantly from primary sources. All we need is a summary of the reactions, like we have on the main page. This is exactly the same as having an page dedicated to the reactions of a celebrity death. Hollth (talk) 13:55, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep the rationale of WP:QUOTEFARMS as a deletion reason isn't sound, as it's an essay. This article easily meets WP:N.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 14:18, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep and categorize (by "condemnation, neutral or support" & by "date of response") I believe the article would become more interesting if it would be categorized into a table (in which the columns can be sorted according to what a visitor is interested in). I propose to categorize into "condemn", "neutral/non-specified", "support" (for each reaction, which can be multiple per country). I would also specify at what exact "date and time the response was made" (again: for each reaction, which can be multiple per country), and let the user be able to auto-sort the table on this categorization as well. This would give a much more interesting view on international politics, as currently the list is quite homogeneous. For further context regarding the importance of the exact time of response, see the criticism (regarding late reactions of some nations) of Professor "Dries Lesage" at the Belgian entry, in current article (Verheyen Vincent (talk) 02:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)).
 * Keep Being a quote farm (an issue with the content of the article that can be rectified) and arguments over recentism and whether people would be interested in these 10 years later are not necessarily valid arguments on notability. Notability is not conferred by pageviews. This is most certainly not an indiscriminate collection of quotes per Seagull123. These statements are all notable in terms of the bilateral relationships of Turkey with each and every one of these countries, however strong these relationships may be is not necessarily important. "Predictability" is also not a valid argument against the notability of a page IMHO as it is a very arbitrary one and the predictability of these statements does not necessarily diminish their importance in terms of bilateral relations. The Somali government has been mentioned as an example of a non-notable reaction, which, frankly, can be understood not to be the case with a quick search of the word "Turk" in the article Mogadishu - Turkey has greatly assisted in Somalia's reconstruction and how they react to turmoil in Turkey is notable (they have also, for example, closed down a Gülenist school - their failing to do so might have jeopardised Turkey's role in the country's reconstruction). Similar statements can be produced about perhaps not all, but most of the countries in here and transferring all to the main page would be undue. --GGT (talk) 11:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
 * , there's now a reaction featured from Costa Rica. In your opinion, does Turkey have a notable bilateral relationship with that too? Or, to put it another way, is it conceivable that any country's reaction would not be notable? This sounds ludicrous. There's also good precedent for declaring certain (unimportant) bilateral relationships unnotable - see recent discussions on the deletion of non-notable embassies and consulates for example.—Brigade Piron (talk) 15:03, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * , "Similar statements can be produced about perhaps not all, but most of the countries in here" was my initial statement and I stand behind that. The point here is not to discuss Turkey-Costa Rica relations, which, frankly, may be argued to have some notability (  and compare with El Salvador for example). For a lucid argument on the notability of this particular relationship, one would need to devote more time to research, but that is not the point, the point was never that all bilateral relationships are notable so that verges on a straw man argument. Now, let us focus on the relationships that are IMO notable: one could argue that all EU countries are notable as Turkey is an EU candidate country which makes the opinion of all the countries in the EU notable (joining would require their approval). Regardless, Albania, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Gaza, Georgia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, (perhaps) Malta, Morocco, Northern Cyprus, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Somalia, Spain, Sudan, the UK, the US. Plus, according to our template, a number of countries whose reactions are currently not included in the article. This is much more than what we can include in the main article and thus a separate article is indeed merited. If your worry is about the minority of the reactions that can be argued to be non-notable, the place to go would be the talk page. --GGT (talk) 17:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Create a guideline/policy for "International reaction to highly-mediatised-international-event" type articles. Look at similar deletion discussions for this type of article; extract a consensus that can apply for a large class of these types of articles. E.g. the suggestions of a table to classify into "condemn", "neutral/non-specified", "support" would be more useful than a long list of quotes. Boud (talk) 01:10, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Already done: WP:REACTIONS. An essay has been around for years now. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:26, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Good! Thanks. Boud (talk) 01:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Classifying the statements with their often subtle use of diplomatic language into "condemn", "neutral/non-specified", "support" is an absolute no-go, amounting to blatant WP:OR. --PanchoS (talk) 12:34, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The category "neutral/non-specified" could be changed into "neutral/non-specified/unclear/subtle". But please take a look at the current article. A tremendous amount of countries use very clear language, by directly using the word "condemn": no subtlety there.
 * There's plenty of room for an "other" category - I'm not trying to constrain the number of possible table columns. Also, I think "regret" is a quite standard diplomatic term which is weaker than "condemn". "Expressed concern" is even weaker than "regret" - it suspends judgment. From a quick browse of the article, I didn't notice any international leaders expressing only "regret" or "concern" in this case, though in relation to the purges, I'm fairly sure there are no "condemns", no "regrets", but several statements that can be classified as "expressed concern" or "expressed a warning" without requiring WP:OR by Wikipedians. When to quote directly and when to summarise is a matter of judgment, depending on the particular material and chance of misinterpretation. Boud (talk) 19:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep and expand article to also include international reactions of the 2016 Turkish purges.  A WP:SIZESPLIT is justified because the article 2016 Turkish coup d'état is already 44kB of "readable prose size." After 40 KB a size split is justified. A WP:CONSPLIT (content split) is also justified because the international reactions are notable as a separate subject. Waters.Justin (talk) 20:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep As I see it, the only policy-based reason for deleting WP:REACTIONS articles is WP:IAR due to the subjective assessment that the page is too empty of information to be encyclopedically useful, like International reactions to the 2011 Norway attacks. But in this case, there are meaningful differences and nuances in the responses, and consequently the article is a valuable resource for the many people in coming years who will be interested in looking at this coup in the context of Turkey's governments' relationship to the international community, so there's no excuse for ignoring WP:N. FourViolas (talk) 11:43, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * What meaningful differences and nuances have been identified by reliable sources? Or is that just your own WP:OR? &mdash; Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 12:21, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Iran was singled out for hanging back, and Russia's moderated response stood out ; different Syrian groups were observed to react differently ; Pakistani politicians' reactions were sharply divided ; the U.S. was perceived (within Turkey) as offering mixed reactions at first ; market reactions were mixed . But my point was that the OR/IAR criterion applied in cases like Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Nice attack, that the responses are "predictable and non-noteworthy" despite having attracted extensive coverage in secondary sources, does not apply here because the international reactions are non-obvious and (as these links show) non-uniform. FourViolas (talk) 13:13, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:GNG, support comments above. Baking Soda (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect instead as I can accept a Keep but it is in fact all simply connected to the event itself and, I imagine of course there would be nothing else suggesting enough for a future enhanced article. SwisterTwister   talk  19:10, 25 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:REACTIONS. I don't understand how many times we should discuss the "international reaction ..to" type of articles and how many times some guys find these articles "an indiscriminate bunch of quotations". I thought that the discussion and outcome of this would be an end to this kind of deletion-nomination, but it seems it was not the case. Sattar91 (talk) 10:42, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - useful for our core readership, students. Bearian (talk) 21:18, 28 July 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.