Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leading from behind


 * 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   delete. Can be recreated if the term gains significance, as determined through coverage in reliable sources, beyond the current U.S. political campaign.  Sandstein  05:57, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Leading from behind

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Routine political coverage of something Barack Obama once said (which Nelson Mandela had also previously once said, in a different context), jumped on by conservative talking heads for a week or two. Not every phrase used by a world leader is article-worthy. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Not a notable topic. If you want to write about Obama's leadership style during the Libya crisis then it should go in an article on the war/crisis/bombings (with appropriate references). --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Massively important topic applicable for leadership in a wide range of fields – incl. Warfare, Politics, Business, from a quick Google the concept is even discussed in the context of male – female relationships. (Doesn't seem to be anything to do with sex positions, more a sort of soft & humble style of leadership as opposed to being bossy). Theres tens of thousands of sources covering this, one of the oldest I can think of was Polybius. If I recall correctly, he notes how in the Battle of Ticinus, Scipio Africanus once "led from the front" by personally leading a charge to save his father from being killed by Hannibals forces. After this however Scipio switched to the "leading from behind" style– having proven his valour he no longer felt the need to expose himself to avoidable physical danger.
 * Obama's use of the term has received extensive coverage, its of considerable geopolitical importance as it's a central theme of his administration's foreign policy orientation. We could certainly have an article on it, but in that case it probably ought to be renamed to Leading from behind (Obama). Would prefer it be left up to RAN whether or not to expand the scope of the article to the general concept or to rename & focus on Obama / US policy. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So an article on a column by Charles Krauthammer should be kept because of a comment Polybius made of Scipio Africanus's actions in the Second Punic War. Uh-huh. The phrase has long been used to describe a leadership style that contrasts with "Leading from the front", an unreferenced comment in the article which is a summation of your argument as to the notability of this subject, is not the basis on which an entire article can rest. Incidentally, I've removed a bolded "delete" which you seem to have inadvertently inserted at the top of this TfD. You wouldn't be scripting your AfD edits now, would you Feyd? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for removing the glitch. Nope, if I wanted my edits scripted, the code would be implemented by only the most skilled developers and would work perfectly! FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. It's a shorthand phrase for a certain kind of leadership style. The phrase itself has a documentable history, and usage of the phrase received its own attention and notability. In the deletion proposal, the phrase "jumped on by conservative talking heads" suggests to me that the problem is the way the article is written: it should not be about the criticism of Obama's leadership style, but should explain what "leading from behind" means or is intended to mean, and neutrally describe what kind of attention the phrase has received. (Besides, avowedly liberal discourse seized on the phrase as well, and defended the philosophy, as for example Remnick and Cohen.) The real problem is that editors who generate substantial content have become few in number, and no one has developed the article properly. Examples of why the phrase/concept is itself notable:
 * The phrase appeared as one of the items on Time magazine's list "The Top 10 Everything of 2011."
 * Krauthammer in The Washington Post does indeed associate the phrase and what it represents with trying to construct an "Obama doctrine," as did Ryan Lizza in the initial New Yorker piece. The foreign policy of the POTUS is notable, and these are major media outlets that are regularly used to establish the notability of current events for WP.
 * The phrase didn't have short-lived currency, but continues to be used, as by Time 27 May 2012 in regard to Syria, and in broader contexts, as for example (if rather bizarrely) here (posted 10 May 2012).
 * Here we have it argued that "No Obama official has ever uttered the phrase in public on the record." This seems like the kind of encyclopedic clarification that WP can offer, while summarizing actual usage. I could spend the rest of my day amassing examples of usage (I got more than 2 million results on an exact-phrase Google search, and I imagine the Atlantic and Slate offered worthwhile perspectives, nor have we documented how the phrase was used by John McCain or by those conservative talking heads), but I don't see how WP:ROUTINE or any other deletion criterion applies here: the concept of "leading from behind" as a way to express Obama's leadership style or foreign policy is completely unlike any example in the "routine" guideline, which advises against creating an article around a wedding announcement, press conference, and "items that do not stand out". If columnists at all the top news outlets have discussed a topic, one can hardly argue that it doesn't stand out or that it lacks notability. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Cynwolfe notes that the article should explain what the phrase mean but the problem is precisely that it doesn't mean anything. It meant something for Polybius, something else for Mandela, a third thing for Lizza, it's become a vague synonym for poor leadership for Krauthammer and other conservative commentators and I've even seen Obama supporters use it to mean wise restraint in international affairs. Keeping this article is mistaking political noise for political substance. Pichpich (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've seen this argument frequently on WP. It's based on a misconception of WP as a dictionary in which we provide a definition of a term. But we don't say "this is what this means or should mean"; we say "these are the various things people say this means." In fact, you've just done a pretty good job of summarizing the two different perspectives on the concept—that is, of describing the dispute. Otherwise, what you're saying is that numerous writers—Charles Krauthammer, David Remnick, Ryan Lizza, Roger Cohen, and others who make their living as journalists and writers—are throwing around a nonsense phrase without any meaning that can be discerned and summarized in context. Some of these journalistic sources may be primary, but some are secondary, and document the history and context of usage. It may be your opinion, or mine, that the phrase is ultimately meaningless (you may believe that love is ultimately reducible to biological functioning, and yet there's such a thing as love poetry); the discourse is real and documentable, and those who use the phrase align with what they perceive as its meaning. It's irrelevant whether we think they're right or foolish. Politics has always involved noise (Jacksonian politics comes to mind), but that's part of political history too. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You're confusing a loud noise with a significant one. Wikipedia should make that distinction. The blogosphere is a gigantic echo chamber and guys like Krauthammer and Lizza feed off one another, they write columns in response to the other side and they love nothing more than using their opponents' words to prove their own point. So yeah, this was the flavor of the month for a little while but it's not article worthy. Phrases like this come and go. "First gay president" is a current one, let us please not start an article on that. You're also describing an article which exists only in your imagination, one constructed on secondary sources and telling a coherent story. If this unfortunately survives, it at least has to be rewritten to be inline with Wikipedia's basic principles. Pichpich (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So Wikipedia articles should not actually define their subjects, but should instead simply list as many disparate examples of their use as possible? I think you're looking for the second door down on the left. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep It contains usage so it is not a dicdef. The phrase in quotes had just a few hundred hits in Google when it was created and now has 2,580,000 hits including 247 in Google News and 12,600 hits in Google Books including one by Ray Grigg from 1988. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Who cares about the Grigg quote? Those three words might also appear in sequence in a treatise on unconventional shepherding but an article should be about a significant and coherent use of a phrase/term. See Articles for deletion/Atheocracy (2nd nomination). Pichpich (talk) 15:43, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If it were just a random three word sequence then the number of hits prior to 2011 would be equal to the number of hits after 2011. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - Dictionary definition of a non-notable neologism. More campaign 2012 ridiculousness with no indication of lasting significance. Urban Dictionary is thattaway... --->   Carrite (talk) 22:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete As the article stands now, it has no value as it is just describing a neologism that has no sign of any lasting notability outside of the current political season. If, as some are arguing, the phrase actually has a broader scope of meaning and usage, the entire article would need to be rewritten in a manner that shows this, and thus it should still be deleted per WP:TNT.  Rorshacma (talk) 17:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * There's probably a good place to merge this, but it's a notable phrase per sources listed by Cynwolfe. So it's not non-notable and being a neologism isn't a reason to delete.   So keep or merge (if good target can be identified). I'd prefer the topic be widened beyond the current political scene. Hobit (talk) 19:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Article tries to inflate a passing political talking point into an encyclopedia article. Agree with Carrite's assessment as "campaign 2012 ridiculousness". --MelanieN (talk) 19:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete per Carrite. I originally felt it should be kept due to some significant coverage by newspapers such as TIME, but I have yet to see any evidence that the phrase carries 'lasting significance'. Absent that, I'm for deletion, but without prejudice towards being convinced the other way. -- Lord Roem (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2012 (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.