Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients


 * 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. W.marsh 17:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

List of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Well it seems the creator of this list as been doing a little bit of WP:CANVASSing. Such as here:, ,. It's probably not a big deal but it should be mentioned. Bulldog123 07:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to leave something clear I had already commented when Tony contacted me, so he notified three users that is hardly canvassing, I see this is just another way Bulldog is trying to prove his point. This AfD should be closed now not even all the canvassing in the world will change the consensus here. - 凶 16:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You're using WP:POINT out of context. Bulldog123 16:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I admit -- I "canvassed" Tony when I saw this page up for deletion. He "canvassed" User:ERCheck, who put a lot of work into the list.  The vast majority of the people voting to keep, however, were not "canvassed."  Just my $0.02. Murcielago 16:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Tony made a comment to me. (Though I already knew about it and had already made my comments prior to his note.) As noted by Murcielago, I did work on the article.  It is common courtesy to let the creator and major contributors to the article know about an AFD for an article they have worked on.  Editors work on articles that they feel are worth being in Wikipedia and should express their thoughts on it.  Some editors who have written/contributed to many articles, cannot possibly watch all of their contributions.  So, a simple note from Tony in this case does not qualify as canvassing. &mdash; User: (talk) 04:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * From Wikipedia's Guide to deletion - Nomination section: "It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion." &mdash; User: (talk) 12:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You do understand there's a difference between politely informing main contributors and writing "lets do everything in our power to keep it, hombre." as was done Bulldog123 16:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Like I said. That was me.  To Tony.  We go back a ways.  Mea culpa. Mea culpa. I've also explained my reasoning for keep herein -- and on the Italian-American Medal of Honor page, where no alleged "canvassing" seems to have taken place. Murcielago 18:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please remain civil. Implying that I don't understand what I'm saying &mdash; you "do" understand &mdash; is commenting on the editor, not the concept.  &mdash; User: (talk) 00:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That's pretty funny. "You do " is a personal attack because it is commenting on the editor but "Bulldog, is all you do nominate lists for deletion" is not a personal attack because somehow it doesn't comment on the editor? For lack of better words: please cut the crap. Bulldog123 06:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No you are trying to prove your unilateral view by looking for confrontation with other users, most particulary Tony (acussing someone of Personal Attacks and Canvassing when it does't apply), it may not be a policy discussion but it's still the same principle. - 凶 16:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * There was WP:CANVASSing and he did throw a personal attack at me. Anyone can see that for themselves. Also, please stop behaving as if there is a unanimous consensus for keep. Bulldog123 01:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, OK, let's be civil here. Life is good, no?  There are allegations of WP:CANVASSing and perhaps hints of personal attacks abounding here.  Bulldog is right -- there is no unanimus consensus to keep.  So far, it looks like 2 for Merge, 1 weak Delete, and 14 Keeps.  Now let's all play nice.  Murcielago 02:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a big deal. As it states at WP:CANVASS, The Arbitration Committee has ruled that "[t]he occasional light use of cross-posting to talk pages is part of Wikipedia's common practice. However, excessive cross-posting goes against current Wikipedia community norms. In a broader context, it is unwiki."1 Wikipedia editors are therefore not to engage in aggressive cross-posting in order to influence votes, discussions, requests for adminship, requests for comment, etc. Tony contacted four or five editors about this, which is hardly "aggressive cross-posting" per the above guideline. As with your comments about Overcategorization, you are misreading Wikipedia guidelines and policies. I am also concerned about how aggressive you are being with your responses to people and with placing that !vote template at the top of the page. My suggestion is to not take this AfD personally. People are expressing their opinions on the issue. Let's not turn this into a shouting match. Best, --Alabamaboy 14:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * "Aggressive" is subjective, especially if its a small CfD. What qualifies as "mass" in WP:CANVASS is determined by the number of people in the CfD. At any rate, it's always discouraged. So four people SHOULD be mentioned. If you haven't had anyone respond to comments in an AfD before, then you haven't participated in a real AfD. And WHO is expressing their opinion should be known. A good deal of !votes on here could come from a sect that have tendencies to keep anything Hispanic-oriented. In the same way, I wouldn't want anyone WP:CANVASSing to deletionist wikipedians using some excuse like "This may interest you." Bulldog123 16:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You're free to check my ID; nobody's canvassed me, and I haven't contributed to a single Hispanic-related article. I just found this because I was actually looking for a list like this to post on my blog.  I found the article very informative and precisely what I was looking for.  Hence my "strong keep" vote.  This is the kind of article that should be in Wikipedia, IMHO. --Beth C. 07:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge into List of Medal of Honor recipients. Typically wikipedia does not subdivide award-winners by their ethnicity, religion, or anything of the like. Intersections such as this are almost entirely trivia-based, of little encyclopedic value, or possibly purporting some type of agenda. A listing equivalent to WP:Overcategorization for narrow intersection, overlapping, and nn intersections by ethnicity. Divisions of award winners like this open up a can of worms that may become unmaintainable in the future. Bulldog123 04:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I Suggest that we put an end to this discussion since this is "not" the proper forum. I want to make one thing clear, when I asked User: Bulldog what contributions has he made to wikipedia besides nominating "Lists" and "Cats" for deletion, it was not a personal attack, I just wondered, but when a person tells another user to "Stop the crap", that is a personal attack. Please be civil as required by Wiki policy. Thank you Tony the Marine 20:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem with your argument is that it applies to categories, not articles. Even if the Overcategorization guideline applied to this article, it would come under the ethnicity section of the guidelines. Even by that section of the guidelines, this list would be valid. But again, Overcategorization applies to categories, not articles.--Alabamaboy 16:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Trivial intersections or intersections with revisionist tendencies apply equally to lists and categories. This borders that, and no I do not see it as "passing" the Overcategorization guideline and no one has substantiated that except through their own opinion. So what, now we're going to subdivide every military award by race just because some soldiers may have been discriminated in the past? The same exact thing would apply to immigrants in the military, such as the Irish, or people of a certain sexual-orientation. List of Gay Medal of Honor recipients is ok by your standards? And then why stop there? Does EVERY award get subdivide like this because there is a chance Hispanics were discriminated against in that field? Bulldog123 16:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a well-made article yes, but I don't want to delete it. I want to merge it into a bigger list that's split into several articles of alphabetical order. That makes the most sense, passes guidelines, and doesn't purport any original research propaganda, misplaced ethnic awareness, or revisionism. Bulldog123 16:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Please explain how "original research, misplaced ethnic awareness", and "revisionism" apply to this article. &mdash; User: (talk) 23:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm actually glad you asked because I was hoping to explain for anyone who might be confused. The arguments for retention really say it all. Revisionism is when an article is created purely to "reverse some wrong" without substantial evidence to suggest that that wrong needs reversing or how that wrong will be reversed via that article. It borderlines on WP:NOT because is is propagandist by nature. This can be best seen by Tony's argument for retention which is "Hispanic contributions to the United States have been omitted from history books and it is time to put and end to this." Wikipedia is not a vehicle for intents like that. The information in the article is not original research but the claim that there is some special notability connecting Hispanic-Americans to the Medal of Honor that is not present by the Ukrainian-Canadian/Victoria Cross example IS original research if there is no proof of it. I haven't seen any yet. It is "misplaced ethnic awareness" because it aims to highlight differences when not necessary. A list of African-Americans with an high IQ is in itself a very offensive but very similar-intented type of list because it makes a suggestion that African-Americans with a high IQ is somehow rare. In the same way this list seems to be kept because it somehow suggests it is "strange" or "unusual" for a Hispanic-American to win such a medal. That is "misplaced ethnic awareness" and gets very very racy. Anyway, I don't want to delete or hide that these people are Hispanics but as a separate list it doesnt work. How about just mentioning they are Hispanic when/if it gets merged into a list of lists? Bulldog123 07:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletions.  -- Carom 05:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment, Why haven't you also nominated List of African American Medal of Honor recipients? You don't seem to understand that Hispanic people are very proud of their heritage and that they would like to know specifically who are the Hispanics who have own the Medal of Honor, since for centuries their contributions to American history has been omitted. Tony the Marine 07:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a vehicle for ethnic awareness or revisionist propaganda. And I don't nominate all similar articles at once because then they're susceptible to vote recruitment. Bulldog123 15:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:BUNDLE allows for that. And I quote: "However, for group nominations it is often a good idea to only list one article at afd and see how it goes, before listing an entire group." - Mtmelendez (Talk 04:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete I don't see how this list *as is* would be any more notable than, say, List of Ukrainian-Canadian Victoria Cross recipients. I also don't see how this works better as a list than as a category, since all the information in this list comes from the individual articles. If there was encyclopedic information related to being a Hispanic MOH recipient, I'd say keep, but I don't see any here. -- Charlene 08:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge per nom. Carlossuarez46 20:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - Historically appropriate, and preserves a uniqueness that would be lost in a merge. Particularly notable given PBS's documentary about World War II that omitted the contributions made by Hispanics. See   It is unlikely that "divisions of award winners like this open up a can of worms that may become unmaintainable in the future." Keep. Murcielago 21:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Specific contributions of members of various ethnic groups are not de facto disallowed. Per Murcielago's comments, this is particularly notable.  As for maintainability, this list is complete as of today.  Medal of Honor recipients are rare.  Only two servicemen have been awarded the Medal of Honor during the current Iraq War. The last Hispanic recipient received the Medal of Honor for valor during the Vietnam War. &mdash; User: (talk) 03:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, Hispanic contributions to the United States have been omitted from history books and it is time to put and end to this. Hispanics need to know that yes, there are those who have been awarded the nations highest honor. Tony the Marine 06:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, This seems to be a bad faith nomination in tone with the anti-Hispanic fever going on. Antonio Martin 06:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, I understand the nominator's argument, but I don't agree with his suggestion that this info is just trivial, since this sub-topic may be of some use to people researching on a specific ethnicity (believe it or not, it happens). Second, there are many sub-articles and sub-lists by ethnicity or national origin, and I see no reason why this list is any less encyclopedic, or more trivial, or more unmaintainable than any of those articles. - Mtmelendez (Talk 10:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, the list as with any list where notables of many countries are listed is helpful. It helps provide recognition to the contributions of Hispanic-Americans to the U.S. Military for centuries. In these times, where the hatred of people who speak Spanish or who are from south of the border is ever too common, lists like this one have helped many understand the hispanics have provided their share of repsonsibility in defending the country and its values. Please keep!--162.83.132.164 11:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. I read this article a few weeks ago and found it extremely useful and encyclopedic. The article details a vital aspect of U.S. military history. Merging the article is also not an option as doing so would remove useful context and information. As for the comment "I don't see how this list *as is* would be any more notable than, say, List of Ukrainian-Canadian Victoria Cross recipients," Ukrainian-Canadians haven't had a history of being discriminated against by the Canadian military even as they formed a vital part of that military's history. --Alabamaboy 11:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Useful to a small minority is not a valid argument for keeping. I know my entire faculty would find lists of job prestige scores very useful. We don't, and won't, have them on wikipedia because they don't meet guidelines, precedent etc. And if Hispanic discrimination in the military is such a widely-known phenomena as you make it seem (much more than say, Irish discrimination or Ukrainian-Canadian zenophobia) why can I not find any academic articles on it? No one has proven that this is anything more than an subdivision promoting misplaced ethnic pride or revisionism. Bulldog123 16:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Bulldog, have you really looked for academic articles on the subject? The GI Forum was founded as a result of discrimination against Hispanic veterans.  This page hardly promotes "misplaced ethnic pride or revisionism" Murcielago 18:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You cannot justify every intersection with an ethnic group just because at some point in time they were discriminated against. That would justify an intersection with nearly every immigrant peoples at some point in time. Since "addressing" discrimination in the military with a List of Medal of Honor recipients flat out doesn't make sense, you need well-documented articles that directly suggest Hispanics were so discriminated against that it was much "harder" or "rarer" for them to receive a Medal of Honor or some kind of acknowledgment. That is the argument everyone is purporting, because otherwise "just being discriminated against" does not merit a list of award or honor recipients. Bulldog123 20:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Re all of the above.  This seems bad faith and I would like an admin to review this AfD.  --David Shankbone 12:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: People interested in this AfD might also want to weigh in at Articles for deletion/List of Italian American Medal of Honor recipients. --Alabamaboy 12:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The Strongest Keep Ever This is definitely helpful and notable, can't believe there is people AfDing articles like these when ninenty percent of the article in Wikipedia are several times less notable, but why don't they get AfDs? because they don't involve Latinos, how typical... - 凶 13:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You can pull the race card some other time. Every article gets identical treatment on wikipedia, regardless of it if is "politically correct" or not. If you feel there are much worse intersections that should be deleted, please do tell me and I'll be glad to nominate them too. I have not seen any as of yet. Bulldog123 16:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Why do you feel that raging need to defend your original statement so much when the other users are aganist it? let the AfD go as it should and see what the final outcome is, it's becoming annoying your tendency of trying to prove a point - 凶 17:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Why would I not defend my original statement? Mob mentality is not necessarily the right mentality and you're acting as if there is a unanimous consensus against my argument, which there isn't. CFD is a discuss, not a !vote. If you're annoyed, then don't comment. Bulldog123 20:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * And yet you do it again, there is more than 75% percent aganist what you propose, with 75% you pass a RfA there is a clear consensus, your argumments are weak a Medal of Honor is not an award it's the highest recognition in the United States Military, you don't win it in a pageant. - 凶 21:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Award is a synonym for honor. Whatever connotation you take from the word "award" is not my doing. Even if 90% of the !votes disagreed with I would still expand upon my point because, yet again, this is a discussion not a poll. RFAs on the other hand work more like a poll. Unless of course, I found an argument for retention stronger than the one for deletion, which I have yet to find. Bulldog123 21:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep to the comment " Typically wikipedia does not subdivide award-winners by their ethnicity, religion, or anything of the like" I would like to post links to List of African American Medal of Honor recipients, List of Native American Medal of Honor recipients and Puerto Rican recipients of the Medal of Honor. As for keeping this (and others of its ilk) due to the extensive, and documented, history of discrimination against Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans in the armed forces, thus lists of people of these ethnic backgrounds whose ethnicity was overlooked in order to award them the MoH would be very useful to someone researching the relationships between ethnic groups in the US military, or something similar. Furthermore, these lists are extensive so merging them all together would be against wikipedia's size guidelines, (I know, IAR and all that, but still)... and finally, if the US military keeps it's own list of Hispanic winners of the Medal of Honor then such a ethnic specific list must have some significance. SGGH speak! 15:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS arguments are not helpful. People don't take favorably to mass nominations. Also, the census bureau has statistics for every ethnic/religious subdivision. Yet, 99% of those subdivisions would not last on wikipedia. Page on trivia do not pass Overcategorization/Overlisting guidelines. Bulldog123 15:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, Bulldog, the arguments other people make on here are far stronger than the ones you make for deletion, such as "OTHERCRAPDOESNOTEXIST" - just because something is missing from Wikipedia does not mean anything in a constantly evolving, very new, encyclopedia. That's pretty obvious.--David Shankbone 17:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No, "keep because I say its notable" and "keep because we need to show revise history" are not stronger arguments that "delete because it is a non-notable generally unprecedented intersection with possible WP:NOT intents." Sorry. And accusations of bad faith are not going to strengthen your arguments. Apparently it's bad faith when I nominate the hispanic article but not when I nominate the Italian-American article. Typical. Bulldog123 20:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment First of all, to state that Medal of Honor recipients are "award Winners" is not only an insult to those who have, in some cases, sacrificed their lives and have been decorated with the military's highest honor, but it is an insult to all those who wear the uniform. The Medal of Honor is not something that you win in a contest or in a box cracker jacks. Second of all Wikipedia is an education tool in which people expect to find information that cannot be found eslewhere. These list are not uncyclopedic as you claim, instead they make Wikipedia a more reliable source of information. Third, let me tell you something, yes people have pride of their heritage and if these lists were cramped into one, then it would be almost imposible to determine which of them were Hispanics because believe it or not there are many thousands of Hispanics who do not have what some consider typical Hispanic surnames. With this list list Wikipedia is providing not only the Hispanic youth with positive role models, but it is also serving its educational purpose by informing the public in general that many Hispanics have given their lives for their country. Tony the Marine 17:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Strong Keep At a time when our nation is at war and recent immigrants are under attack by some Americans, it is important to provide tools for people to determine the level of sacrifice that Hispanics have made for our nation's defense.Pr4ever 20:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions.  -- Pax:Vobiscum 17:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * With all due respect Bulldog, but is nominating "lists" (See:for Contributions) deletion the only thing that you do in Wikipedia? Tony the Marine 23:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Please no personal attacks. Judging from your contributions I would say all you do is write about Hispanics in the military, but we both know thats not true. Recently though I've noticed there are only a few really poor lists left on wikipedia, and so I thought it might be best to try to improve them all at once. Also, Tony, please don't WP:CANVASS. Bulldog123 07:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Gee, I wonder why Canvassing is such a capital sin in Wikipedia. If a user is invited into taking part in a discussion, he or she is free to intervene or not. Tony, don't point that gun on me. ;-) Demf 15:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * But there's a difference between leaving messages on just anyone's talk page, and leaving messages on people who you already know are going to "keep" or "delete" an article. Bulldog123 16:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep I can't believe this is even nominated for deletion. Keep, keep, keep, for all the reasons listed in the "keep" votes above. --Beth C. 01:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep - as per above, I don't understand why this was even nominated. If you ever study the Medal of Honor, categorizations are abound on who received the Medal. Aside from Wikipedia there are lists on the internet and testimonials to Jewish recipients, Asian-American recipients, Irish-American recipients etc. It offers a broad spectrum into the background of the recipients. This list extremely useful and very informative. Ðysepsion † Speak your mind 05:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep - I suggest a rather different angle here: the CIRCUMSTANCES under which a Latino Medal of Honor recipient (or any ethnic/racial/even geographical category, for that matter) merely becomes a part of the military may deserve the categorization alone; usually the act for which the award is conferred is somehow influenced by these circumstances. Case in point: Puerto Ricans (like Tony and myself) were considered "mercenaries" (and good ones at that) by the Vietcong in the Vietnam War. The truth is they weren't; the Draft applied to Puerto Ricans as well as in the United States proper, but the misconception is still popular in current day Vietnam. A Vietnamese military history researcher, for example, searches Wikipedia (hey, because the English version is the most complete of them all, remember), finds this category and may want to treat the group, or the individuals within it, differently for research purposes. Why not have the group, then? Who is hurt by it existing? I know that there are Americans who abhor what they consider a "balkanization" of their country into race, ethnic and geographical subtexts, but the point is that they ARE THERE, they exist, and from a research standpoint, the categorizations are useful. I personally share other philosophical aspects of this with Tony, but I'm trying to be as objective as I can. Somehow there are many editors in Wikipedia that think that, since this is an English language reference, it should reflect the political and sociological biases of its authors. It is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, for crying out loud! A good deal of its readers speak poor or little English. Categorizations like these are welcome elsewhere, why not here? Demf 15:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment: This is an addendum to my earlier "keep".  I am placing it here as it is "new" information to add to the discussion.  The focus of the discussion is whether or not this group &mdash; intersection of people of Hispanic heritage with those who have been awarded the Medal of Honor &mdash; is notable.  Notability on Wikipedia focuses on whether it is worth of notice.  I've put a list, in no particular order of importance, on the articles's talk page.  It shows that this particular listing has been noticed.  All four General notability criteria are met.  See that the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army find this listing notable enough to mention, as well as a site that focuses on Medal of Honor recipients.  Analogous to academia, we ask if the person has contributed notably to his field.  These citation show that these "fields" &mdash; Hispanics and the military &mdash; find this notable. &mdash; User: (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You have proven the existence of the combination but not the notability of the INTERSECTION. Had the combination of these two not existed at least, we'd have to assume it was entirely original research. Your links provide substantiation for the existence of Category:Italian-Americans and Category:Medal of Honor recipients but not Category:Italian-American Medal of Honor recipients. To give you an example, the combination of African-American and mathematicians is found all over the internet, 20 times more prevalent then this intersection, but Category:African-American mathematicians was deemed a non-notable intersection. It's the notability of the intersection that counts, not the existence of the combination. Further, ANY ethnic pride/awareness festival (as it held in many US states of a certain diaspora) have combinations like this. Religious events also do. However religion and many other intersections do not pass WP:Overcategorization and neither does this. Bulldog123 21:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, the problem with your argument is that WP:Overcategorization applies to categories, not articles. The whole guideline deals with categories. As said before, even if the Overcategorization guideline applied to this article, it would come under the ethnicity section of the guidelines. Even by that section of the guidelines, this article list would be valid. But again, Overcategorization applies to categories, not articles. On a further note, when the U.S. Defense Department categorizes medal of honor winners by ethnicity and when there is a movement to create a memorial for Hispanic Medal of Honor winners [], then this is obviously a notable article.--Alabamaboy 01:10, 3 June 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.