Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lebanon–Uruguay relations


 * 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. Although there were slightly more keep votes, the weight of the arguments roughly cancelled each other out. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 12:13, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Lebanon–Uruguay relations

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Non-notable bilateral relationship and no sources found. ApprenticeFan talk  contribs 02:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * DeleteReads like a dictionary. Lebanon-Uruguay relations, defines Uruguay-Lebanon relations.  Really? Nothing indicates having relations with each other is notable, or that there is something unique about a few thousand Lebanese living in Uruguay.  Delete.  Fuzbaby (talk) 02:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Aside from reading like a 5th grade social studies presentation that was written on the bus on the way to school, there is nothing notable about the relationship. Just another random pairing of X+Y. Nothing but the normal pedestrian govt. function here. Niteshift36 (talk) 08:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Please stick to issues of verifiability and notability and avoid attacking the writer. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete almost all third party coverage is multilateral not bilateral . LibStar (talk) 09:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to Foreign relations of Uruguay. Although the site for Uruguay's embassy in Beirut  has more detail than one usually finds, I can't find any news articles that indicate that this relationship is considered significant or notable in either nation.  I've merged the information about the mutual embassies, and the link, in the Uruguay article, and someone else has done the same with the Lebanon article.  Mandsford (talk) 15:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lebanon-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Uruguay-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. I have added some content - too much to be held in a "Foreign relations of" article. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Having content doesn't make an article suitable for Wikipedia. The subject of the article must be notable.  Most of the content isn't even on the topic. I see several editors saying to keep because it has content.  That is an invalid argument and their opinions should be ignored. Drawn Some (talk) 00:09, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No. We should not ignore people we disagree with. We should try to listen to their arguments as carefully as possible. Aymatth's argument is one based on style, that cramming a huge amount of info onto another broader article would make it tough to read and a bad idea organizationally. Your idea, Drawn Some is that notability hasn't been established. Obviously, Aymatth disagrees with you (as do I). Your argument that certain content isn't on topic is not clear enough to comment about beyond saying that I've actually read the article, and everything there appears to be on topic.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep There seems to be quite lot of content and 3rd party sources in the article. I'd say keep. --Roaring Siren (talk) 17:20, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What of that added content do you consider to be notable? The agreement about "cultural cooperation"?
 * I spent a few months in Montevideo. The Lebanese influence is quite visible, as it is in Rio and Buenos Aires. Almost 2% of the population claim Lebanese descent. I am sure there are many more sources in Spanish and Arabic. You may want to track some down. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

your own personal experience in Montevideo is not a reliable source and counts as original research. LibStar (talk) 04:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * My personal experience certainly does not establish notability and has no place in the article. But it suggested to me that the subject was worth checking out, and that editors with better language skills would probably be able to find more material - they would not be wasting their time. When one country has a sizable minority of people from another country, there are likely to be significant political and/or economic ties. Not always, but often. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * While I'm sure that makes for interesting contrasts and geneology research, what makes that notable in regards to the relationships between the two governments? The US has several million people of Cuban descent, yet the two governments don't really have relations. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:33, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * See Cuba – United States relations. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, you completely missed the point of that example, didn't you? Of course US-Cuba relations are notable, but not because Cubans live here. It's notable because of the actual activities of the governments, not because some people moved. Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, assassination plots on Castro etc., all notable events in the relationship. Some people of Lebanese descent life in Uruguay? That is what is passing for notable now? Niteshift36 (talk) 02:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Verifiable and notable. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm just curious, perhaps you can tell me what part you find notable? Niteshift36 (talk) 01:33, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * it's another WP:ITSNOTABLE "vote". LibStar (talk) 04:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "Verifiable and notable" are the Pillars of Wikipedia. Remember WP:DONTQUOTEESSAYS to try and discredit people. Things that the media have taken notice of and published are notable. Haven't we gone through this enough times that you just accept what I write here, and I accept what you write here and we both skip the comments afterward? It will save a lot of time, and neither of us will convince the other. We are just repeating the same arguments in each AFD, and time would be better spent improving the articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * So all that time is spent lecturing why we shouldn't be asking what part you find notable instead of just answering the question. Being "noticed by the media" is a pretty low standard. We all know the concept of a "slow news day" exists. Every day, newspapers have to fill space. A paragraph or two on a supposedly notable bilateral agreement is no more notable than a paragraph or two on the chili cook off at the state fair. In both cases the media "took note". For example, every day, USA Today puts a little one-two paragraph round up from a lot of states on a page. They do the same for countries in each region. "Taking notice" doesn't seem that notable in any of those cases. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "Slow news day" is just another subjective category for information you don't like. Stick to verifiable and notable which are objective. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe eventually you'll tell me what the notable part is. A 2 sentence mention in a newspaper looks more like trivial or passing coverage than notable. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Now that it's been expanded, this is well-sourced and appears notable. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 21:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per sources added after nomination. Nyttend (talk) 23:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Up to standards with other articles - Marcusmax ( speak ) 02:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - to the extent Lebanese Uruguayans are notable, write an article called Lebanese Uruguayan, à la Lebanese Brazilian. That topic is only tangentially related to "Lebanon–Uruguay relations". The rest of the article as expanded is trivia about a few families escaping during the 2006 war (to the extent that's relevant, there must be space for it here or here) or a promise to "enhance relations in the political, economic and cultural fields" (how many times have we heard that mantra before?). In any case, no independent, in-depth coverage of "Lebanon–Uruguay relations" actually exists; neither should we pay any attention to this constructed topic. - Biruitorul Talk 07:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia doesn't recognize the concept of trivia, it is subjective. Wikipedia relies on objective reliability and notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Er, even the Manual of Style has a section called WP:TRIVIA. And anyway, you are appealing to special pleading, theorizing that events which would be considered of no relevancy in any other case establish something relevant here and here especially. Furthermore, you are telling us that a random collection of those trivial facts will result in something notable. And, finally, the media coverage, which is minimal by any account, does source a phenomenon, but random events without contextual relevance - much more is needed for sourcing just about any other article, but you tell us that it will do here. Because...you like it? That happens to be a highly subjective judgment too! - Biruitorul Talk 17:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I hope you read it. It discusses style not content. Bulleted lists of facts should be avoided and the facts should prosified into a narrative. It doesn't distinguish between trivia and facts. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "A logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation, providing context and smooth transitions" - well, there's no context here, since no one outside Wikipedia has actually studied "Lebanon–Uruguay relations". Moreover, you seem to be under the impression that verifiability equals notability; it doesn't - not all that is verifiable is notable as well. Trivia about vows to "enhance relations in the political, economic and cultural fields" is hardly notable, being without contextual relevance. One can't construct a viable topic around random bits of such flotsam found in Google searches. - Biruitorul Talk 07:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Many reliable sources have been added since the nomination, including a book specifically about the Lebanese in Uruguay and independent news articles about bilateral relations. Reasons for nomination have been addressed. Notability has been established.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * So having people of Lebanese descent translates to a relationship between nations? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice sleight of hand there, but the book deals with Lebanese Uruguayans, not "Lebanon–Uruguay relations". - Biruitorul Talk 17:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Biruitorul, WP:AGF. The immigration and emigration of two countries' populations are obviously relevant to the relations of those two countries. Having Lebanese people immigrating to Uruguay is relevant to a number of traditional issues that you might call "relations" (economic, cultural, religious, sociological, etc.) The relations between "nation states" is in essence the relations between the peoples of those countries (in other words, purely governmental relations are not the only relations relevant to these articles). These relations have been documented. I see no problem including that information on this page.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 19:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I do assume good faith, but at the same time, we really shouldn't pretend that material on one topic (Lebanese Uruguayans) deals with another ("Lebanon–Uruguay relations"). The first I readily concede is notable; but your claim that its notability transfers to the second is unfounded. Let's review two simple facts: Uruguay and Lebanon and 7600 miles apart, and they both have 4 million people, meaning they're not very prominent on the world stage. That's a first clue that relations are not going to be very substantial, and despite your claim that the diaspora group is "obviously relevant", the sources simply don't bear that out. The presence of Hungarians in neighbouring Slovakia is obviously relevant to Hungary–Slovakia relations, but the presence of Lebanese in 7600-mile distant Uruguay does not, in fact, have much of a perceptible impact on bilateral ties, which are minimal at best. - Biruitorul Talk 07:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * To me it's an organizational issue. If you look at Template:Cuba-United States relations, you will see that Cuban American is included as a sub-category. If you want to make an article about Lebanese Uruguayans be my guest. But until we have enough information to support two articles, I think that information would so better here. Your opinions that Uruguay and Lebanon are unnotable because they are "not very prominent on the world stage" and their relations will be unnotable because they are 7600 miles apart appear to be original research.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 00:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Unlike Cuba-United States relations, Cuban American and, indeed, Lebanese Uruguayan, the difference is that "Lebanon–Uruguay relations" are not, in fact, actually covered anywhere. And note: Lebanon and Uruguay themselves are obviously notable, but no, they're not very prominent on the world stage (neither belongs to the OECD, the G8, the P5, the G-20 major economies, or any of the other fora where the world's superpower and great powers congregate), and yes, the fact that they're 7600 miles apart, small, and with almost entirely different preoccupations, does imply that contacts will be minimal. Which, not surprisingly, is borne out by the non-existence of sources on this topic. - Biruitorul Talk 05:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I know you might disagree with me but, the existence of "relations" between countries is typically confirmed by bilateral agreements. The article now contains a reference to a bilateral cooperation agreement that is sourced to an independent media outlet. Thus, it is incorrect to say that the relations between these countries are not covered "anywhere".--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep The relations between two countries will usually be notable, even if they only exchange ambassadors and sign basic bilateral treaties, because these things are big deals, and countries do not do this without some reason--which is usually there being trade or other relationships, such as having a substantial number of immigrants from one country to another. I thought I might find a compromise position to propose, but I decided that I did not want to propose something I did not really agree with. If others propose a reasonable compromise I will probably not object, but I think there might actually be agreement  that the establishment of basic  relationships is significant. Possibly something more might be needed, and it is present here. I think any reasonable compromise would include this article. It's only 20,000 articles at most and we can deal with that--less than 1% of the total. DGG (talk) 18:18, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * DGG, perhaps you should use that argument about the numbers of article somewhere else, it is irrelevant to this discussion on whether or not the subject of this article is notable and the contents verifiable and whether or not we should keep it. Please stop throwing up smokescreen, it interferes with the work we do here at AfD, work that is important to the encyclopedia.  We're trying to decide what articles should be included.  Thanks. Drawn Some (talk) 00:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as utterly non-notable. Let's be clear that the topic of the article, relations between Uruguay and Lebanon, is only addressed by one of the references, the Arabic News article, which is TWO SENTENCES LONG, the very definition of trivial.  I agree that an article on Lebanese Uruguayans or similar may be notable. Drawn Some (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG and as an additinoal reference has been added to further underline noteability. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  —Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - this is clearly far more notable than some other bilateral relationships that appear on AfDs over the last few months. Tris2000 (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is one of those which is a keeper, thanks to some good sourcing. I particularly like the news headline "Bilateral discussions between Lebanon and Uruguay"; I have argued before that these articles don't need to be based on sources that spoon-feed to us that they are about relations between the two countries, but it's nice to see all the same. Here's an interview with the Uruguayan Ambassador to Lebanon with MondayMorning magazine: Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note I have split out some content into a separate article on Lebanese Uruguayan, as suggested by contributors to this debate. Both this one and the new one are now more coherent. Don't think any of the content moved to Lebanese Uruguayan was cited as a reason to keep this article, which now has plenty of reliable independent sources discussing the relationship. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. I realize that a lot of work went into this article after it was nominated for deletion, and then some content was split out, and perhaps other content was removed as being off topic. But as it stands now I'm just not seeing evidence of significant coverage of the topic (i.e. bilateral relations between these countries). I'm just looking at the sources cited in the article, as surely if sources existed that "address[ed] the subject directly in detail" they'd have been incorporated into the article by now. Yilloslime T C  18:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Surely many of the independent sources directly address the different aspects of the subject, such as "Bilateral discussions between Lebanon and Uruguay". Far more than in, for example, Honduras – United States relations. How many make enough? Aymatth2 (talk) 19:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I depends on their quality, but for me I'd like to see at least 2, and they need to directly address the topic at hand. I'm seeing zero in this particular case. (And WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't generally considered a valid !keep argument). Yilloslime T C  19:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS - just feeling a bit edgy after wading through a whole lot of these bi-lateral articles. I did a quick check in Spanish and found some more content, which I added. Wish I knew Spanish better - or knew Arabic at all. The difficulty is that English-language coverage on these two small and distant countries is very limited, and the chances of finding online newspaper coverage more than a few years old is zero. I would say the article gives a reasonable outline of the relationship, and the sources demonstrate that it is notable. Given the (relative) size of the Lebanese Uruguayan community, it would be surprising indeed to find that nobody other than the governments involved had commented on the relationship. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2009 (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.