Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iranian moderates


 * 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 redirect to Politics of Iran. An ill-defined term, which appears to be just a general phrase rather than a specific name for a group of people. Yes, the phrase appears in many sources but none of them give a consistent definition. A redirect to Politics of Iran is the most appropriate course of action. (non-admin closure) Exemplo347 (talk) 10:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Iranian moderates

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 * Redirect to Politics of Iran. Notability: There is no solid literature around the term, which is apparently a neologism. Most of the article is WP:OR. Pahlevun (talk) 17:57, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. We have plenty of reliable sources that talk about "moderates" in Iranian politics:
 * the Brookings Institute mentions "moderates" and "moderate conservatives"
 * The Atlantic ponders whether "moderates are actually hardliners" which proves the contentious nature of the term
 * The Telegraph also mentions "moderate conservatives"
 * The New York Times does the same
 * The Washington Post as well
 * So, reliable sources show that (1) the term 'moderate' is part of the Iranian political parlance and that (2) the term is contentious.
 * Regarding the WP:OR claims, that's a content issue. Nominator is advised to tag what he considers OR so that it can either be referenced or removed from the article.
 * Also, the argument that the term 'moderate' is a neologism does not make sense considering that it has been mentioned since 1987 as shown by the Boyd reference. That's 20 years in the making.
 * IdlePheasant (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Gnews reveals this to be a widely used term and concept. Also, the notion that it's a neologism is rather incredible to me: it's a term I've been hearing for about a generation. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:34, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment. The term is mentioned, no doubt about it, but the first sentence in the article reads "The term Iranian moderate is subjective and lacks formal definition" (and the rest of it is unsourced). The subjects is not really clear. A few years ago, the term referred to the reformers, but now it is used for another grouping. It seems to me more of a journalistic, rather than a scholarly term. Pahlevun (talk) 18:59, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * But the Gatestone Institute is not a news organizations and they still talk about moderates and the subjectivity of the term. Furthermore, Wikipedia does not care if the term is used mostly by journalists, we only care about reliable sources. The sources provided above are considered as such. IdlePheasant (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * CommentWe should not be using an institute described as Islamophobic for BLP articles. Doug Weller  talk 06:48, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it doesn't have to be "scholarly" - just for me the stub is so underdeveloped that it's little more than a sort of hybrid disambiguation/redirect page anyway. I won't be moving to the delete side, though. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:28, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * And I won't do so mainly because the article was created today and I think there is at least potential for growth here, and around the apparently changing concepts of Iranian moderates. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 02:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete, or merge into Iran–United_States_relations or Politics of Iran. This appears to be a term that can easily be defined by a dictionary or wiktionary definition. See Wikipedia is not a dictionary.  Waters.Justin (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Question, What about Iranian moderates would this article discuss that could not be discussed on the other Iranian articles? Waters.Justin (talk) 02:24, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know what other articles you refer to, but the term moderates has been used to describe certain factions in Iranian politics since the 1980s. There are enough references available (and provided) to expand the article. In regards to what could be discussed here: (i) the debate regarding the use of the term 'moderates' to describe a certain faction, (ii) people belonging to that faction, and (iii) how moderates have played a role in Iranian politics. IdlePheasant (talk) 03:31, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  J 947  19:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Politics of Iran. This stub of an article attempts to define the term, but admits in the first sentence that the term is not well defined. This is essentially a WP:DICDEF, so not encyclopedic. Pburka (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Per WP:WORDISSUBJECT, a sub-policy of the policy you just cited, this article must be kept because "the word or phrase in and of itself passes Wikipedia's notability criteria as the subject of verifiable coverage by reliable sources." This article provides sufficient reliable sources that establish the notability of the term 'moderates' within the context of Iranian politics. Furthermore, per the policy you cited, "encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia may start out as stubs, but they are works in progress, to be expanded." This article provides enough reliable sources so that editors can expand it beyond stub status. IdlePheasant (talk) 11:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That might be valid if this were a well-defined topic. Instead, the article says that the term "Iranian moderate" can refer to different groups. Which one of those groups is the topic of this article? Pburka (talk) 20:32, 19 March 2017 (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.