Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/January 2008 stock market volatility


 * 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 to delete. Canley (talk) 10:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

January 2008 stock market volatility

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The article is simply based upon current events of the time, the page has not been significantly updated for several days and most markets are showing signs of recovery, a minor blip! Rob.derosa (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete if anything, it's suitable for news. If things don't rebound and this becomes a notable time ala 1929 or 1987, there's plenty of time to go back and re-create an article. Travellingcari (talk) 05:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination. Jellogirl (talk) 15:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: January 21, 2008 was "the biggest worldwide stock market crash since 11 September 2001" and directly led to the US Federal reserve making the "biggest interest rate cut in 18 years". Whether or not January 2008 is a particularly notable month is yet to be seen.  But January 21, 2008 is clearly going to be a memorable day for quite a while, whether the market rebounds or not.  Black Monday (2008) is perhaps a more appropriate title, which already redirects to this page.  Anthony (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - Because I feel the biggest FTSE 100 point fall in history and the biggest US interest rate cut in 18 years is of some notability. -Halo (talk) 16:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Halo. Since when are we deleting articles about events simply because no one has written a book about it yet? It was world news for days on end with several "biggest ever" events in multiple days. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * COmment Your "it was world news" is exactly why I think it would have been Wikinews at the time, but not necessarily encyclopedic. I think the issues of N apply here, who knows if people will refer back to it as a significant event? It may end up being nothing more than a blip or it *could* be something like 1987/1929. WIki isn't a crystal ball and we don't know yet so I still say delete with no bias against re-creation in the future. Travellingcari (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - January 21, 2008 was "the biggest worldwide stock market crash since 11 September 2001" and directly led to the US Federal reserve making the "biggest interest rate cut in 18 years".  Whether or not January 2008 is a particularly notable month is yet to be seen.  But January 21, 2008 is clearly going to be a memorable day for quite a while, whether the market rebounds or not.  Black Monday (2008) is perhaps a more appropriate title, which already redirects to this page. - WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per notable reasons listed above, very much needed for the immediate future. Would not be opposed to a later merge if the current Stock Market, and economy continue to worsen for the next several months/years. Zidel333 (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * keep a notable event on its face Hmains (talk) 00:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. A notable, verifiable event covered in detail in hundreds of reliable sources. Mostlyharmless (talk) 01:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete what exactly is the event? The article doesn't say, and it has never been clear. Was it the stock market action of January 21?  That was essentially reversed the next day.  Was it a stock market crash? Absolutely not, since there was no crash.  Was it the stock market action of the week ending January 25?  Why that period?  Was it the entire month of January?  Why?  The article arose pushing the idea that there was a crash - which was pretty silly when the largest stock market (the US) was closed.  Then the article was renamed January 2008 Downturn, but that was pretty silly when the market ended up for the week.  The article has been drawn out appearently hoping that something would happen to justify its existence.  But nothing has. Most of the froth quoted above are pretty selectively chosen stats, what happened to all the ups that happened that week? We should not be writing market commentary (especially so when it turns out to be so wrong!), we should not be arguing that something might happen in the future to make this time period notable (see WP:crystal).  We're not equipped to write news stories on the stock market.  As the article stands now it really doesn't make any sense.  Anybody who wants to keep it should be able to say what it is (or was) about. This may turn out to be the most interesting month in the stock market this year, or even in the last 2 years, but probably not.  Do we really want to have articles on market commentary of one month every year? Smallbones (talk) 04:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The event was significant (sometimes record) falls and rises on several stock market indexes over the week beginning the 21st that received significant international coverage. It's probably worth adding that I moved the article twice - the first was because I thought the term "Panic of 2008" was too POV, and I boldly renamed it based on 2002 stock market downturn which seemed inappropriate after reading the 2002 article, and indeed the actual events, so boldly renamed it to the current title - it wasn't a reaction to the events as much as trying to find a suitable title for the article that wasn't overly POV and actually reflected the events. I really don't think the article should be judged based on my poor article naming skills. -Halo (talk) 08:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Your dates for the event(s) are still pretty unclear. The series of names for the article "Panic of 2008" "Black Monday (2008)" "January Stock Market Downturn (2008)" simply haven't panned out.  After I removed the panic-pushing and Crash template a week ago, nobody has had anything to add, or gone to clean up their messes, and the article just reads like  - "Some markets went down, some markets went up, then some markets went down again ..."  That happens every week (to a lesser extent everyday).  Without the panic mongering the article is simply a collection of random information.  With the panic mongering, the article was POV and non-encyclopedic.  I'll repeat the main point here - Wikipedia has no place offering stock market commentary. Smallbones (talk) 14:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm undecided as to whether to support this article or not. But I do have a problem with the title. So if the so-called volatility continues into February, will a separate article be created called "February 2008 stock market volatility"? Yet at the same time, if we call it just "2008 Stock Market Volatility" that violates WP:CRYSTAL in presuming in advance that it'll continue all year. In any event, if this is kept I'd prefer a different title be given to it if possible to avoid this sort of jackpot. I might support the article being centered around the Jan. 21 date except that it is not getting the same sort of "Black Monday" branding that previous downturns have had. In fact most people have already forgotten about it and it just happened 2 weeks ago. 23skidoo (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * comment - exactly - this is exactly what will happen every time that Wikipedia offers up stock market commentary. It will either end up as a prediction that everybody will forget about (except those people coming in via "Random article" - who'll just say "What was that all about?") or a vaguely defined article that you can't find a proper title for.  What markets were supposed to be affected?  What time periods?  If you look at the talk page for this article - there were many people who said "Get rid of this now!" and all the responses were  vague mumbo jumbo.  The real question here is how do we prevent this type of thing from happening again?  Does it matter? - Yes, 55,000 people read the article.  If only 2% of them acted upon the article's predictions and paniced and lost only $1,000 each, that's over $1,000,000 that we have cost our readers.  Why do we want to allow this nonsense?  Smallbones (talk) 22:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * While a very interesting hypothetical question, I feel that Verifiability assertation that Wikipedia is for verifiability as opposed to truth, and of course the inherent issues with citing a encylcopedia instead of a primary or secondary source of information would deter most if not all readers from such reckless actions. That being said, it is the internet, you should take everything with a grain of salt, and we should not be held liable for their actions. Nick picking I know, but I felt that your comment demanded some response. Zidel333 (talk) 00:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep for now; if it later emerges that the effects were only temporary, move to Black Monday (2008). — Nightstallion 23:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. A week in which many major stock market indices experienced both their biggest one-day rise and fall in history (the IBEX 35 is an example) and had other implications such as the extraordinary Fed cut is surely notable. It does need a bit of a cleanup, though (perhaps in the style of the October 27, 1997 mini-crash article), and may well need to be rewritten/retitled/merged as future events unfold. Gr1st (talk) 13:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as a POV conglomeration of non-notable events attempting to suggest a crash that did not occur. Pure own-research garbage with sourcing for patchwork pieces. No sources for the whole or its concept. JERRY talk contribs 19:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * To clarify your remarks, do you really think it's just a coincidence that several record rises and falls happened in the same week as the biggest US interest rate cut in 18 years and hence it's a POV (despite multiple reliable sources connecting them)? Or do you simply find these facts individually non-notable (i.e. the biggest FTSE point fall ever or the biggest interest rate cut in 18 years is of no notability at all)? -Halo (talk) 20:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * One can sew together a quilt from properly sourced statements that create a ludicrous collection to support a POV. The overall subject of the article needs to be sourced.  If I found 75 articles about females between the age of 13 and 19 being killed over a 3-decade period all over the world, and then made some correlary to the popular music of that period and included references to the temperature at the north pole, I might make an article with incontrovertible references that suggests that global warming and pop music results in death to teen-aged girls.  But such an article would be rediculous, wouldn't it?  This collection of news has been cleverly assembled to make some suggestion about the circumstances in which it happened, and I see no credible third-party assertions of the same. JERRY talk contribs 22:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Google "Black Monday''. It's real. It happened. No one knows what if any long term effect this Black Monday will have. Two effects so far off the top of my head: historic drop in interest rate and financial damage to several financial institutions that bet the wrong way. WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep A pothole is a pothole. This is a well sourced and very informative account of something incontrovertibly major that happened in financial markets, period.  Whether it describes a squeaker or a harbinger, the article will be of future use.  Calling it "garbage" and "nonsense" doesn't get us very far.--Wageless (talk) 20:16, 9 February 2008 (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.