Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Australians in international prisons

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. &mdash; J I P | Talk 15:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

List of Australians in international prisons
Being a prisoner in a foreign country is not inherently a claim to notability. The list is unnecessary and had a lot of redlinks that frankly scare me. The prisoners I trimmed it down to seem notable enough but now it's redundant with Category:Australian prisoners and detainees. — Phil Welch 22:53, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It scares me more that (1) Australians knowingly involve themselves in these situations when there is a real possibility of death if court convicts them & (2) Information about this is not freely available to those contemplating such risks. M.Dutton Cairns Australia
 * Comment from User:58.104.210.126, anon's first edit. — Phil Welch 00:22, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * If you can note that this is this person's first edit, can I note on the public record that the vast majority of your contributions are in the form of votes for deletion rather than creating or adding to articles? (Not that there's anything wrong with the former so long as it's in moderation) Andjam 03:30, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:ISNOT an indiscriminate collection of information. -- MCB 01:54, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. As with all lists of people this list does not aim to be exhaustive. Like list of Australians, and every other list in Wikipedia, it only lists those notable enough for Wikipedia articles. - SimonP 02:43, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * That's because I removed all the redlinks. The problem is it's now redundant with a category. — Phil Welch 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I acknowledge that there has been some vandalism to the page recently in the form of advertising certain web sites, and that should be dealt with. That being said, the majority of arrests mentioned here are noteworthy. They usually relate to drugs or terrorism activity, issues that are (and should be) vigorously debated in public.
 * Phil argues that many of the people are not noteworthy. I actually see that as a reason why this page should exist: the people are not noteworthy, but their arrests are. For example, Thomas McCosker isn't very noteworthy, but his former jail sentence for sodomy most definitely should be. If Phil's proposal were accepted, then we'd only be able to post an entry about Thomas McCosker, rather than writing an entry in this page about his arrest.
 * How about Arrest of Thomas McCosker? You could even have an article Thomas McCosker that says who he is and discusses his arrest. That's perfectly acceptable. — Phil Welch 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * This page is also useful in providing a summary, so you can see at a glance which countries have a lot of imprisoned Australians.
 * Finally, if a deletion does occur, should a subcategory be first created for Australians in overseas prisons? Andjam 03:30, 17 September 2005 (UTC) (same author for last four paragraphs)
 * Sure, why not? — Phil Welch 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Arbitrary list and utterly useless to us. / Peter Isotalo 01:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. The issue of Australians on overseas prisons is frequently and prominently in the news - how they are treated, what our governement is doing about repatriating them, why they were there.  Not all are drug related, some are terrorism related - the two are quite distinct reasons for being imprisoned.--AYArktos 02:22, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Then I suggest you move the page or create a subsection of whatever article we have on people being imprisoned outside their native country. — Phil Welch 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep in a form similar to what it was before 8 September. Arrest/conviction of citizens on foreign territory is notable as a group, but each individual person or case may not be. The same would apply for lists of foreigners imprisoned in a country. (same people divided into different lists). Looking at this list it appears that Australians lack self-control with respect to drugs overseas. I don't know if that's a valid interpretation, or a systemic bias in creating the list. I agree that external links to appeals should not be in the article. --Scott Davis Talk 03:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. This list is more useful than the category. These cases received considerable media coverage. --Vsion 09:18, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletions.  -- Scott Davis Talk 04:15, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: There are a lot of remarks that the issue of Australians being imprisoned overseas is notable. Fair enough. Write an article about it. A list of prisoners is not that article. — Phil Welch 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I've added a note clarifying that sometimes it's the arrest that is noteworthy, not the person, and described some of the reasons an arrest can be noteworthy. Do you have suggestions as to what an article about the issue of overseas imprisonments should be like? Andjam 05:56, 25 September 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.