Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katherine Phillips


 * 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 Keep. Arguments for deletion cite possible WP:COI issues, which has been disputed if not refuted, and is not supported by evidence, and WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV issues, which can be handled by rewriting rather than deletion -- the move is a reasonable start on that. Arguments for keeping establish notability by means of press coverage, and discussions of usefulness where are really not to the point. Note that "merge" is a form of "keep", and a possible future merge can always be done without an AfD provided that there is consensus on the relevant talk page or pages. DES (talk) 17:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Katherine Phillips -> Katherine Phillips detention incident

 * – (View AfD) (View log)


 * Was delete-tagged " " and then was tagged.


 * Talk:Katherine Phillips says: This page should not be deleted as it describes the pitfalls of teaching overseas if a teacher comes into conflict with a student from an influential family. Unlawful detention of overseas workers is a violation of human rights and articles like this which illustrate the dangers serve to benefit humanity at large. Further, this article is a helpful reminder to American ex-pats that they should not depend on their embassy to assist them when they are being unlawfully detained. The case detailed in this article is cited by a regional and international news organization and is being widely discussed in various Internet educational discussion forums. [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GFRD,GFRD:2007-03,GFRD:en&q=kuwait+katherine+phillips

08:18, 2 July 2007 Anthony Appleyard 09:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletions.   —Tim4christ17 talk 11:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep: Requires massive cleanup, given rampant NPOV issues and uncited OR, but it shouldn't take much to replace the article with three or four paragraphs covering the Reuters and what-not, especially since that last link contains multiple emails from the subject. As the nom mentioned, it is plainly possible to make a proper case for notability, albeit not an overwhelmingly strong one. MrZaius  talk  11:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep: The argument that this article ought to be kept because this represents a valuable lesson to others is unpersuasive and has zero grounding in Wikipedia policy or guidelines. What does is that it just barely passes WP:V, although I agree that it might be better suited to a Katherine Phillips detention incident article.  Which it seems to have been, so I'm changing my view to Merge.    RGTraynor  16:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, looks like an atempt by the person invloved to try to drum up international support for her case. Corvus cornix 17:20, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Very Weak Keep Agree with move to Katherine Phillips detention incident. I agree that we are not a news service, but this is not really even a big news story at this point. The tabloids and the news channels have not covered it at all. The three references are Reuters, The Arab Times, and International Schools Review. It is not a routine crime story, but more of a case of teacher abuse in Kuwait, which could be an article. The teacher (actually assistant principal) allegedly ran afoul of a rich Kuwaiti businessman by giving his son a day's detention in the office for fighting in school. Now the government of that country won't let her leave on grounds that she "put him in jail" illegally. The references include other instances of powerful and rich families threatening teachers for trying to punish their children for cheating, or for giving them low grades. The International Schools Review has as a result advised foreigh teacher not to return to Kuwait. The teacher fails WP:BIO, but the incident of a teacher following school policies blowing up into a minor international incident is somewhat notable. At the same time, if someone at the White House made a call to the Emir and the teacher was allowed to leave the country, it would be a tempest in a teapot and not very encyclopedic. This is not "Help people who feel threatened and are getting bullied by rich jerks-pedia" or "Substitute for the US Embassy which is not doing its job-pedia." Edison 17:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep or Don't KeepNo, the article was not created by the person involved just to gain sympathy; rather, it was written by a concerned US ex-pat who lives in another emirate. Having said that, Ms. Phillips will probably be allowed to leave Kuwait shortly, and by shortly, I mean within a few weeks or months; she'll probably be home by Christmas. Thousands of laborers, unskilled workers, maids, etc are virtually imprisoned in these emirates for years without pay. In many cases suicide is preferable to the abuse. Perhaps this is the article that needs to be written and Ms. Phillips' story can be linked from there. This is let's share information for the betterment of humankind-apedia, is it not? And if not, then perhaps Wikipedia's critics are correct when they say this site is little more than a repository for over generalizations and glorified trivia masquerading as information.
 * Are you saying merge with Human rights in Kuwait? The article in discussion is not an article about the general human rights track record of Kuwait. MrZaius  talk  19:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:SOAP. Corvus cornix 20:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As well as WP:NOT. Despite the persistent efforts of many of Wikipedia's critics to push this encyclopedia into becoming an advocacy forum for this cause or that, I'm afraid that, in fact, it remains an encyclopedia.    RGTraynor  20:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Obviously Wikipedia is not meant to be a soap box, but even a rich article about a past and current controversy can and should influence opinion despite being written from a NPOV. Slavery. Genocide. Human rights abuses. Cold hard numbers can speak volumes. Regarding the case of one detained educator, putting a face on one incident of worker abuse does not, in my opinion, cross the line from encyclopedic information source to advocacy. WP:SOAP allows as much, ". . .Of course, an article can report objectively about (advocacy etc), as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view." The article, influenced by useful comments here has been heavily revised and moved to Katherine Phillips detention incident and should be deleted from simply Katherine Phillips (where it conflicts with a 17th century poet of the same name)User:Davidallenoliver I do need admin help with a redirect. Thanks 06:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Katherine Phillips has been redirected toKatherine Phillips detention incidentOliver 13:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * For future reference, please review "merging or moving the article during the discussion [at]...the guide to deletion" per the AfD template. It is generally preferred to let the person closing the discussion implement the selected fix.  MrZaius  talk  14:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions.   —David Eppstein 22:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I won't add my vote on the keep or don't keep debate, I will however state that since the incident behind the article has been resolved (Katherine Phillips has been released), the article is pretty well self contained in it's current revision. Also, since I personally know the owner of the International Schools Review website that originally posted Ms. Phillips letter, and this article does provide a link to those articles, I will try to make sure that International Schools Review doesn't delete those pages. (I am not directly affiliated with the International Schools Review site, I just contract to make updates to some of the program code.) I will also state that I was delighted to discover this article on Wikipedia (which I use heavily), even if it only remains for a short time. Thanks -Draxxon 06:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Notability is not temporary, and WP is not a news service. EyeSereneTALK 09:54, 11 July 2007 (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.