Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian perspectives on natural resources


 * 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. Kurykh (talk) 00:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Libertarian perspectives on natural resources

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Unreferenced opinion piece - see WP:NOR. Guy (Help!) 09:12, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep It took me a few minutes to decide. t does lack references, and there hasn't been work on the article for years. On the nominator's other comment, the article essentially refers to many sources  (so it's not just an opinion piece) but doesn't set them up as references in the article.  I think that the subject certainly meets wp:notability, nearly every book / article on libertarianism is going to have material on this topic.   I almost said "merge" but this is a logical sub-article of the already-large Libertarianism article.   I'd be willing to work on it in the future (a few months from now, not now) if it stays.   North8000  (talk) 12:28, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * BTW, I will not be upset if it is deleted, I was just doing my best at an analysis and opinion when weighing in.  North8000  (talk) 23:33, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, and that's fine. I just think that even if a decent article could be written, this is so far from that article that WP:TNT would apply. Guy (Help!) 08:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. This is a huge mess and completely orginal research mixed in with soap boxen. It's so bad and unsourced we should just scrap it. Bearian (talk) 03:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It covers probably a dozen different views, many of them conflicting, without characterization or comment so IMHO it's not soapboxing. Sincerely,  North8000  (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   16:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete -- unsourced original research. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:08, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:08, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Opinion piece with zero sources. Unlikely to be notable for standalone article. AusLondonder (talk) 22:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:SYNTH, WP:ESSAY, WP:OR and for sheer lack of sources.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It had a source, but Jzg removed it. Restored. I see what's going on now, though; there was an initiative to add a bunch of free market economics sites to the spam blacklist, which resulted in those citations being removed. That in turn is causing article deletions due to articles being unsourced. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Economics. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:28, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. It has potential; libertarian philosophy has long included a detailed theory on natural resources (sometimes called free market environmentalism). It does need cleanup, though. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge - The information that is usable would be better merged to Debates within libertarianism. I think 'free market environmentalism' is separate from 'perspectives on natural resources'. Jonpatterns (talk) 07:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * delete .. an article that starts with "There are differing views among libertarians regarding natural resources, especially land.", and where the only available source is from a think tank. If there are different views, there are different sources for each view.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:36, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not really a big deal if sources on libertarian topics come from think tanks. That's just the way things are done in the libertarian community. The Koch brothers fund a bunch of think tanks, while the Marxists set up collectives, cooperatives, underground zines, etc. and the feminists set up a bunch of VAWA grant-funded NGOs and women's studies departments. In each of these cases, there's plenty of grassroots support, but the choice of structure is different. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 14:11, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That depends also on the specific topic, but suggesting there are different views, using one ref for it reeks ofriginal research. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 14:59, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a really old article, dating back to before Wikipedia was so strict about requiring citations, so that's probably why the sourcing is so poor. Do we really want to destroy such a vintage antique as this? It's almost like smashing a Ming vase. Who knows, this article might be valuable, even priceless. Even if it doesn't belong on Wikipedia, maybe it belongs in a museum, as an ancient artifact embodying our cultural heritage! N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 15:46, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That it is old is not an inclusion argument. If it is that old and still has no references then that says more about the significance of the article.  And if you want to save it from deletion, you still have a couple of days to come with independent sources for the different viewpoints.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:08, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Long story short, due to some underlying complexities, the whole coverage of libertarainism has been a complex issue complex in Wikipedia.   I am thinking that it will need some reorganization and more work on "sub-articles" and I this that this one is a very good candidate for it.   This will take some time to evolve and sort out. The existence of an article should be determined by meeting wp:notability and also complying with wp:not, both of which this certainly meets, and not on the current state of the article.  North8000  (talk) 21:03, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Meeting WP:N is determined by sources, and regarding WP:NOT, in the state that we we are discussing, it fails What_Wikipedia_is_not. If there are "differing views among libertarians", then there should be references for libertarian 1 expressing view one, and for libertarian 2 expressing view two, and for libertarian 3 expressing view three (there should be at least 2, otherwise the article should read ".. there are two different views among libertarians .."  You say above the article is based on many references that have not been (properly) used, maybe it is time to incorporate these references now so we can discuss the state after that?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:21, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. It's an essay and unsourced (for a very long time and in a very bad state &mdash; see WP:TNT), and it seems clear that any usable content could easily fit into another/better article. The scope of the article is also highly unclear; is this about libertarian views on land ownership? Libertarian views on environmental regulation? Both? Neutralitytalk 01:47, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's unsourced because JzG keeps removing the sources. This is an ongoing issue that I've critiqued at User talk:JzG/EL abuse/Econlib. So where do you draw the line between an essay and an article? WP:NOTESSAY speaks of "Personal essays that state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the opinions of experts). Although Wikipedia is supposed to compile human knowledge, it is not a vehicle to make personal opinions become part of such knowledge." I don't think that's what going on here; the article is talking about the opinions of experts. As for the scope, it's about both land ownership and environmental regulation, because libertarianism often combines the two issues and says that landowners should regulate the environment. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 02:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Those source removals by JzG seem OK to me. As to source 1 ("openborders.info"), that's an unsigned blog post talking about libertarian ideas on migration and open borders. The words "natural resources" or "environment" don't appear. As to source 2, it's a simple link to a 641-page book by Bastiat (where's the page number??) that is used to support a very essay-like paragraph. (It gives an example about "electromagnetic waves" - I doubt very much that this example came from Bastiat, who wrote in the early 19th century - so this seems clearly like an essay or original research using (minimal) primary sources. Neutralitytalk 02:37, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, I fixed the Bastiat citation. As for openborders.info, that actually did quote from Hoppe about natural resources, but I've changed the citation to link to the original source in the Journal of Libertarian Studies. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 03:03, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't the Journal of Libertarian Studies be a WP:BIASED source on the topic? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:28, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It depends on what it's used for. Given that the main purpose of the article is to discuss a debate within libertarianism, it's probably more permissible to put a source like that than it would be in, say, a more general natural resources article. While the Journal has a pro-libertarian view, it doesn't necessary advocate for any particular faction within libertarianism. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 03:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia sourcing requirement is for retention of challenged content, not for the retention / presence of sources. It is quite possible for a source to be useful for an article even when it does not have sufficient credentials to support retention of challenged content.  Secondly, I don't think that it is right for the person who nominated an article for being "unreferenced" to be deleting sources while the article is being discussed at AFD  North8000  (talk) 11:41, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * And here we have a wholesale removal by TheValeyard of recently-added citations, including to Bastiat's Harmonies of Political Economy, where the specific chapter and quotation supporting the content had finally been identified. Basically, no source is good enough, whether it's think tank, journal, contemporary book (viz., Libertarian Anarchy by Gerard Casey), or 19th-century treatise. And because no source is good enough, the article must be deleted as an unsourced essay! How Kafkaesque. N I H I L I S T I C (talk) 18:28, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That's like complaining about the local zoning board that won't let you build a house of Styrofoam and duct tape. You aren't being prevented from writing an article; you are being prevented from keeping a bad article with faulty sources. TheValeyard (talk) 19:13, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Reads like an essay rather than a legitimate encyclopedia topic, and the sub-par sourcing seals the deal. TheValeyard (talk) 17:10, 9 April 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.