Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of White supremacists (2nd nomination)


 * 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 of the debate was delete. Alright, a controversial topic, but I'll try to sum up the debate. As far as vote count goes we have 15 delete / 5 keep, the "conditional" vote at the end says the article is so poor that if not cleaned up it needs to go, and without any cleanup having taken place, it goes delete.

Two arguments have been put forward for deletion. The first is the way this article is laid out, at present it is an unannotated list of bluelinks, in other words, it looks like a category. I am not altogether convinced by "delete unless it's cleaned up" because AFD is not really meant to be emergency cleanup. The second, and main, complaint against the article is the difficulty of defining "White supremacist" and then deciding whether or not people fit that definition. "White supremacist" is usually considered to be a very derogatory term. Anyone calling another user a "white supremacist" here on Wikipedia would be quickly censured for WP:NPA for example. Who goes into that list, and who doesn't? Does Adolf Hitler belong? Some interesting arguments for why he doesn't are presented by Just Zis Guy, and whether or not I agree with them, the arguments are certainly though-provoking. Some of those arguing for delete have said that we can never obtain a fully satisfactory criterion, because it would mean trying to classify people according to their points of view, something which is speculation and unverifiable.

Arguments for "keep" presented are that the list is useful and that there should at least be an attempt to define white supremacist. One suggested definition for inclusion/exclusion on this list is whether or not the corresponding biography article states that the person is a white supremacist. It has also been pointed out that this is the second AFD debate, the first one, Articles for deletion/List of White supremacists ending with a "no consensus".

In my view, none of the suggested definitions appear to be fully satisfactory, defining a white supremacist based on what their Wikipedia article says appears to be somewhat self-referential. Defining a white supremacist as someone who killed a black person just because he or she is black is speculation over motives (is this a white supremacist or is the murderer just insane?) and would exclude people who profess such activity but don't actually do it. Defining it as someone who has made public statements leads to questions if the one who made them claims they were not part of a racial ideology.

It should be noted that for controversial topics, like this one, ending with a "no consensus" result are often relisted for deletion if the reasons given to delete are not satisfied or the conditions given to keep are not met within a reasonable period of time. I have read the previous AFD debate as well. Some of the "keep" voters there indeed called for clearer criteria for who is in and who is out of this list. At present, the only thing the article says is "This is a list of people who have been regarded as notable for their white supremacist beliefs." Regarded by whom? Themselves? Someone else? Convicted for hate crimes perhaps? An important condition for keeping the list has not been met despite a four month period since the last AFD ended.

To me the arguments for keeping are not strong enough to overrule a pretty large majority (75% delete). It appears we have a "rough consensus" for deletion here and I am calling this a delete decision. Sjakkalle (Check!)  09:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

List of White supremacists
This list is not and has no potential to become encyclopedic. "White supremacy" is an exceptionally vague term whose meaning depends heavily on specific cultural and temporal context. The only qualifier (apparently) is that the supremacist in question be "white." This could refer to actual skin color, or to the person's descent, or in a figurative sense to a person's sense of station and ideology.

I would ask of anyone who votes to keep what value this sort of general list has. For the most part it's unsourced, and might possibly qualify as original research. This isn't like a list of office-holders, which can be independently verified and which has obvious utility. It's a list of people that are deemed "white supremacist" in some manner, or deem themselves such. Today, this can run the gamut from conservative Afrikaaners to United States segregationists to members of the British National Party to German Neo-Nazis. Obviously, any term forced to comprehend such a wide spectrum loses any real meaning. Moreover, extended to the past, this term necessarily includes just about every supporter of European imperialism. Not just the Nazis, but also the Conservative and Liberal Imperialists, whose aim it certainly was to extend "white" influence over "native" (non-white) peoples. This list would then arguably have to include Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and Thomas Jefferson, just for starters. At the moment it also includes David Hume and Voltaire.

These people might fall within the vague definition of white supremacy, but only because that term has become so broad as to lose all meaning and importance. It doesn't say anything anymore. In short, this list is unencyclopedic, subjective, unverifiable, and anachronistic, and I would argue that its very nature precludes rectifying these problems. Mackensen (talk) 18:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment This list underwent a previous AfD which ended on August 6, 2005 with no consensus. - Turnstep 19:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, cleanup. (The following should be a common approach for maintaining any lists) Only persons whose articles mention that they are White supremacists can be here. Obviously, only the article about a particular person is the place with sufficient number of eyeballs to verify this claim (e.g., to what degree this label is valid; it must not be a simple slander; the person in question must be proved to publicly promote the white supremacy in one form or another, not just be a trivial racist, &c.&c.).
 * If this approach is not followed I fully agree thta this slist in POV and should be deleted. Fortunately, the rule I outlined ensures both Verifiability and NPOV. mikka (t) 19:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Isn't that kind of thing better handled by the existing category White nationalists? Mackensen (talk) 02:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, cleanup. Although since this list contains no ordering or commentary, I would support turning it into a category as well. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 19:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * My first question would be this: how it would be cleaned up? What would the criteria be? Shouldn't it have been cleaned up after the previous AFD? Mackensen (talk) 20:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete for the following reasons:
 * I think this is a job for a category, Mikka is right that it's important to monitor whether the articles specifically mention white supremacism. Editors on the articles would see the addition of a category and could debate the case; as-is, anybody can be added to this list without necessarily attracting the attention of those who may be best placed to verify inclusion.
 * That anyone can add anything to any list is already a plague of many lists, like 1986, and it is dealt with. mikka (t) 01:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I can already see evidence of POV in this list. Nick Griffin is not to my knowledge a white supremacist.  He is a racist, a thug and a thoroughly unpleasant character, but he is not a white supremacist by any definition I would recognise.
 * Then why don't you delete him and demand that his article specifically say so before he can be added here. I've alredy done this with some semi-NPOVish lists. Many of them were created on the eve of wikipedia with ots of garbage. It took certain efforts for me to convince people to give up some liberties in adding to them, but eventually these lists settled down. mikka (t) 01:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * There is also evidence of subjectivity. By what definition of "white supremacist" does one include both Winston Churchill and Don Black?  Does anybody here think those two would have seen eye to eye about anything of any substance?
 * Again: this is an issue of cleanup not deletion. mikka (t) 01:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The definition is also historically subjective. If you're going to include Disraeli you'd also have to include almost every Victorian public figure or writer.  Why is Agatha Christie not in there?  "Ten Little Niggers" and a uniformly white imperialist tone to her books, bung her on the list with Hitler and Oswald Mosley (but not, oh dear me no, not dear old Mussolini, I see)
 * A reasonable cutoff time is the moment when this notion gained acceptance, with some slack. mikka (t) 01:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Last and most importantly, it is fundamentally unverifiable. Most of those listed lived before the term "white supremacist" was even coined.  Of those who didn't, many would deny the charge, some would be accused of it only by the most avidly liberal, others are so unquestionably obnoxious that mere association with them is grossly insulting and potentially actionable.  How can there be an obvective measure of white supremacism that would fit both Eugene Terre'Blanche and Benjamin Disraeli?
 * Cutoff time. mikka (t) 01:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Given that the term "white supremacist" is itself pejorative I think this article should be replaced by a category for those whose political activities are dominated by issues of race, which is verifiable, and see how that works out. This list is an abomination and I am absolutely appalled by it. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 20:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Resposne to Mikka's responses: if I go in and delete everybody who I can't verify as a white supremacist or who lived before the modern definition of white supremacy was developed (i.e. most of them) what we will end up with is a list of people who feature in the white nationalist category :-) - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 20:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete per the excellent nomination and the convincing arguments of Just zis Guy, you know?. If useful criteria can be established and verifiability guaranteed, then this could become a category, but it would not be suitable material for a list even if it was not fundamentally flawed already. &mdash; Haeleth Talk 22:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - why are we renominating articles that already survived an AFD vote before? I suspect we'll get a similar result here.  List is fine, but a bit POV.  Perhaps define what they mean by white supremist would help to pass POV criteria - e.g. white people who have murdered blacks just because they were black.  Zordrac 23:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Note that it was kept with the stipulation that it be improved (much as people are suggesting now). It hasn't been improved and continues to be problematic for the reasons I've suggested above plus those enumerated by Just zis Guy. Regarding your suggestion, is that really an adequate definition of white supremacy? Can you offer one that would be suitable? Mackensen (talk) 23:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, article has value as a navigation aid. Gazpacho 00:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, no. As a navigation aid it is worthless. Let's take an example here.
 * Adolf Hitler, possibly the most evil man who ever walked the planet, is on this list. And I say he should not be.  Hitler was an equal oportunities bigot: he killed white Jews, white German homosexuals, white German Catholics, ethnic Slavs - he was not a white supremacist, he was an Aryan supremacist (who was not really Aryan himself in the strict sense, as far as I can tell).  If you want to trace the history of the white supremacist movement, perhaps in a timeline, then Hitler is a pivotal figure, but he was not himself a white supremacist as the term is generally understood.
 * Here's another example: Enid Blyton. She's not on the list - why not?  She stereotyped black people as evil in children's fiction for God's sake!  Racist propaganda in material specifically designed to appeal to the very young!  Can you find a single Blyton hero who is not white?  Or a single black character in Blyton who is not either a comedy servant or a thief?
 * What you have here is effectively list of people some of whose views on race would be considered obnoxious by 21st Century liberal standards. Seriously.  Read up on each of the individuals listed and see if they were more racist than the generality of their contemporaries, and whether that racism was specifically to do with skin colour or whether it was garden-variety nationalism.  And I speak here as a card-carrying liberal, and indeed a card-carrying Liberal.  This article is deeply, fundamentally and irredeemably flawed in concept.  For navigation, a category would be as good or better, but the individual categorisations as they stand absolutely stink. Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 00:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete, too vague and POV. --Ajdz 00:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as unverificable and highly subjective. I might have supported some of the cleaning up suggestions such as only linking to people who are noted as being a white supremacist on their article page, but the time to make this article better was between the last AfD and now. Therefore, delete. Turnstep 01:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Stong delete per Mackensen. I'm glad that I don't have a family history of heart problems. Otherwise, at my age, looking at the category and its contents would have given me a heart attack. I'm shocked that it is not obvious to everyone that this category isn't the kind of garbage that warrants speedy deletion, worse yet survive the first nomination for deletion. As Mackensen clearly demonstrates, this category is original research POV at its very worse. The definition of white supremacy is extremely contested by historians and other academics in cultural studies. The concept is informed way too heavily by contemporary political values, not the values within the political cultures of most of the leaders listed in the category. No adequate definitions and context are possible in order to avoid POV opinions, even though in my opinion I think that the views of many of these individuals in the category would be considered "white supremacist" if they were alive today and writing the same things today. 172 02:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete with prejudice per Guy. Judging by 21st Century standards, Abraham Lincoln was a racist and a "white supremacist," too. Fortunately, we judge him by 19th/early 20th Century standards. B.Wind 02:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete after further consideration. No practical criteria. Gazpacho 03:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete subjective and vague. Olorin28 04:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I was wavering originally and I do see that a useful list could be made but that would have to be defined differently. Listing a lot of people who had a belief in white supremacy at a time when their entire society had such a belief can only be POV. A list of contemporary white supremacists would be useful but this isn't it. David | Talk 11:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nonencyclopedic. Nandesuka 13:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Staying strictly neutral, I vote to Keep and to tighten up the criteria for inclusion to make it a strict membership. I.e. the individual must have published documentation or made public statements that espoused such beliefs. Historically there are notable individuals who have promoted ideas like this, and they have had a historical impact on European policies. So I think it's encyclopedic, even if the concept is decidedly dated and immoral for many people. :) &mdash; RJH 16:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * But shouldn't the tightening up have happened after the first AfD? How many chances does the page get? Turnstep 20:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * In any case, what's being discussed here is a list of White supremacists. The comments above argue for an article on white supremacism.  If that link comes up red I'll eat my hat... - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 21:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete for a range of reasons better articulated by other people above. Maccoinnich 02:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Very useful list. --Gramaic | Talk 03:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * A very useful list is not necessarily encyclopedic. I also like the politics underlying the creation of the list. But if we are going to serve Wikipedia well, we must be intellectually honest and support the deletion of this list because it is an obvious violation of Neutral Point of View and No original research. 172 04:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. "Useful" is not one of the criteria by which articles are judged, verifiable and neutral both are.  The "usefulness" of this list is in any case moot since there is an equivalent category, White nationalists. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 09:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Obvious delete. Cannot be verified because it categorizes people based solely on their points of view. It's prone to revisionists who want to add or delete names from the list based on their interpretation of history. NPOV can never be maintained in this case. Also, no article links to it except White supremacy. Bmdavll talk 11:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete: bound to be an exercise in POV, although there are variants of this list that would be acceptable: replicas of noteworthy lists of members of white supremacist groups, for example, and lists of such lists. --- Charles Stewart 19:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep if article is cleaned up Delete if not. EscapeArtistsNeverDie 01:32, 8 December 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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.