Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of criminal organizations


 * 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. the majority of the keep arguments are by assertion or dont relate to a policy while the delete side are referring to NPOV, V and RS plus citing issues with inclusion criteria and maintainability. Overall the delete side has the policy based arguments on its side Spartaz Humbug! 02:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

List of criminal organizations

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete. Much like the List of religious organizations, this is an incomplete and unmaintainable list. I'm not even sure this would be better served by categories as the interpretation of what constitutes a "criminal organization" is debatable. JBsupreme (talk) 16:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep- Trim it, source it, limit it to notable criminal organizations. Nothing wrong with this list that can't be solved with editing. Umbralcorax (talk) 17:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ...and how exactly do you propose that should be done? Exactly.  Please note that we have companies like "Enron" mentioned here in this list.  This is simply far too general to be useful or serve a purpose.  JBsupreme (talk) 17:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You haven't listed a single problem with the article that can't be solved by editing. Just saying "I don't see how it can be done" isn't the same as "It can't be done". Umbralcorax (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ...and you have failed to explain how you propose such an inherently POV and ambiguous list should possibly survive on Wikipedia. Editing won't fix the problems here.  JBsupreme (talk) 07:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Incomplete or not, this is an ambiguous and non-encyclopedic list which makes it impossible to maintain.  coccyx bloccyx  (toccyx)  19:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep This is what it is, a list of drug cartels, organized crime families, biker gangs, etc. that have articles on Wikipedia.  As a navigation aid, it's rather good.  In this case, in fact, it has the type of organization that would make it a good addition to the outline of knowledge.  In the absence of a similar list that users could refer to in trying to locate groups whose members seem to be on the front side of the handcuffs, this would be a primary reference.  Though a list or a category may have problems, "unmaintainable" isn't one of them-- conviction of a crime tends to be rather permanent.  Mandsford (talk) 20:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep – Actually the list can be easily defined as we have with Organized Crime . In that if a company is found to be defined as a grouping of highly centralized enterprise run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit, they can be listed in the category.  A great example would be the firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC involved with the largest Ponzi scheme ever uncovered by law enforcement.  As long as the organization is verified through reliable – 3rd party sources and referenced, there should be no problem here.  Thanks. ShoesssS Talk 20:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm not sure analogy to the organized crime article is good; it's the difference between "organisations that have espoused racist viewpoints" and "organisations of racists", if you appreciate the distinction. One is talking about views officially put forward with the authorisation of the organisation and the other is imparting a characteristic to all members of that organisation.  Given that very few organisations publicly declare themselves to have criminal objectives or are found guilty (as an organisation) of crimes, the one version of the list has no content and the other is inherently NPOV. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong delete - per nomination. Also it's inherently defamatory, given that organisations (as opposed to individuals) are very rarely convicted of anything; at the very least it would require a citation on the list page for each and every entry establishing its "criminalness" as found by a court of law. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep No list is unmaintainable if people are willing to work on it. . If the sources are good enough, it's not defamatory. The sourcing for this at the moment refers to the linked article, and probably at least one really reliable key source should be added to the list as well for each of them. There have been problems with articles on gangs being added to Wikipedia without good sources, but most of them have I think been deleted and the rest should be if unsourceable. I also think the names of cities where a gang has not yet been added in the category needs to be removed until they are. FWIW, this is a much stronger list at present than List of religious organizations.   DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - it's inherently difficult to maintain because the sources aren't on the list page. Hop Sing Tong for instance, has no claim on its page that the group is a criminal organisation, and Tongs (per their page) aren't inherently criminal organisations.  The only way to check that is going into the individual article, its sources, and its underlying definitions, and meanwhile a potentially defamatory listing is standing on the list page.  The problem is highlighted by this suggestion - put the word "suspected" in the title (List of suspected criminal organisations) - which then shows how little value (and how legally problematic) the list actually is. We shouldn't be erring on the side of keep when defamation law is an issue. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I really can't see how defamation law is an issue. Are we seriously implying that any of these groups are going to come after Wikipedia? Many of the lesser known groups simply should be removed due to sourcing, but all of these groups are known at least to local populations to be criminal in nature, else they wouldn't of wound up on the list. I understand that the wiki community is always and rightfully very careful not to cross any legal boundaries, I fail to see how this is a real concern here. Beach drifter (talk) 03:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - When a person makes a claim about a person or group of people, and that claim can be taken as casting an imputation on that person or group, a legal claim of defamation may arise. It's not enough to say (or for any indidivual editor to say) "I judge the likelihood of this group or person bringing action as very low".  Either the claim has merit - in which case you will be able to find independent reliable sources who make that claim, which you can then cite - or the claim does not have merit, in which case it has no place on Wikipedia.  The term "criminal organisation" is problematic because it implies that members of the organisation are themselves criminals, which it's almost impossible to make out (and cite) with respect to each individual member.  We'd be better off with the separate lists "List of Tongs", "List of Triads", "List of Mafia families" etc, because (in most places) being in a Tong, Triad, or family with connections to the Mafia is not, in and of itself, illegal or defamatory. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment If we are going to be technical about it, I feel that there are several reasons that simple inclusion on a list with the word "criminal" in the title could not be considered defamatory. One, the "criminal" claim would have to be proved false. Two, it must be proved that inclusion on the list was due to malicious intent, and three, that the wikipedia community was making public private facts about the group. Again, proper sourcing would alleviate all of these issues. I can only refer to my earlier point, which is to delete unreferenced material, which I think is a great policy wiki-wide. I still argue that defamation is not an issue here for the above reasons, the legal definition of the term shows that it is much more than simply attributing negative connotations to a group, whether justly or not. Beach drifter (talk) 05:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - check WP:BURDEN. If an editor wants to put someone on a list of "criminals", the onus is on them to provide sources establishing it.  For contentious or extraordinary claims a high stand of verifiability is required; generally the accepted standard for allegations of criminal activity is a finding of guilt in a court of law.  Very few laws allow for the prosecution of organisations at a criminal level, hence the difficulty with the phrase "criminal organisation", as there would be very few cases where each and every member of an organisation has independently been found guilty of a crime associated with membership. (There are, by the way, no references in the list, so normally I'd just go ahead and boldly delete every entry on it, but that's not in accordance with the policy or spirit of AfD.) - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep This list has value. I agree strongly it is problematic, but it is not non-encyclopedic, and I would definitely disagree that it is defamatory, when a group is widely know to the public to be criminal in nature, we needn't worry about convictions, not that groups of these types even can be convicted. It has navigation value, as stated above. It is not unworthy of wikipedia simply because no one has put time into fixing the sourcing issues, also as stated above. Per wikipedia policy, if something isn't sourced, remove it. Following that would definitely address some of the issues with this list. Beach drifter (talk) 03:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Defined inclusion crieteria for the list. There is no deadline to fix it.  Lugnuts  (talk) 06:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - inherently POV. "Criminal" in what jurisdiction? --Scott Mac (Doc) 08:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep,reorganise them in the order of notability or other criteria.--Ksyrie(Talkie talkie) 11:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per DustFormsWords and Doc. Inherently POV and overly broad. Maintainable if people are willing to work on it (which apparently they aren't) or not, this list is a mess. Most entries aren't cited, many of them probably couldn't be. Criminal families according to who? The FBI or the local newspapers? This isn't one of those things that if a few sources claim it, we get to run with it. And as DustFormsWords pointed out, some of the articles linked in this list aren't sourced. If anything, this list should be split up into more specific lists, and all entries then sourced. Lara  12:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 16:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 16:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. No amount of editing can alter the fact that this list is inherently non-neutral. The definition of "criminal organization" is much too broad and subjective for this list to ever be useful. Kevin (talk) 23:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Agreed there is a lot of BS entries and it could use improvement. Not so much though that it deserves to be deleted. There ought to be a list on Wikipedia of all the various mafias and other similiar groups. Most articles can be sourced in some way (I would know, I went around sourcing a bunch of Yakuza articles a while ago). Nicknackrussian (talk) 02:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - Well done and organized list. No POV if "criminal" is going to be taken as recognized officially as such by the host country(ies). As UmbralCorax said, no problem here that can't be solved by editing. -- Cycl o pia -  talk  13:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Most of it can be easily sourced Callmarcus (talk) 14:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as inherently POV. Different things are regarded as criminal by different countries. Hamas is considered a terrorist group in the United States, but is a legitimate political party in Palestine. Per Kevin; "The definition of "criminal organization" is much too broad and subjective for this list to ever be useful." At best, this article should be split into "List of organizations that the United States government regards as criminal", etc. (with a better title, obviously). NW ( Talk ) 22:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm all for defining strict and NPOV criteria for inclusion and, if necessary, rename the list. But all these problems can be solved by editing, without deletion. -- Cycl o pia -  talk  00:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hamas is involved in illegal cigarette smuggling and other rackets in addition to being a political/terrorist group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.27.35 (talk) 00:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - How is this a less unallowably POV article than "List of criminal skin colours" or "List of criminal religions"? It consists of imputing the conduct of organisation members - even large numbers of members, and even high ranking members - onto the organisation as a whole and all its members.  The only way of making it legitimate is to make it organisations defined as criminal by legislation (for some countries do have such legislation), and then sorting it by nation and and by legislative enactment. I'd point out there's very, very few such enactments worldwide and an exceptionally short list of organisations so nominated. - DustFormsWords (talk) 12:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we are talking of two different things. One thing is an organization with many criminal members, another is an organization which uses possibly criminal means for non-criminal purposes (like a "terrorist" group), and still another is an organization which is created for the purpose of crime, like Mafia. I'd say that we should restrict the list to the latter. This doesn't require the organization to be defined criminal by legislation -it is enough to be widely recognized in sources as such and only such. But again, even if this is useful discussion, that's no reason to delete the list, only to trim it and make it better. -- Cycl o pia talk  12:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's worthing noting that members of the Mafia don't refer to themselves as Mafia; that's a term created by the government and the media with the inherent meaning of "criminal". Saying that the Mafia is a criminal organisation is like saying that drug rings are a criminal organisation - it's true by definition but no particular person identifies themselves as being part of such an organisation. It's problematic when you get into naming specific organisations - like Tongs, for example - that claim to be non-criminal.  It's a disputed fact that they're a criminal organisation, and it's not possible to cite sources to back it up because of the very few laws that criminally prosecute organisations rather than individuals - you simply can't get the necesary standard of evidence (ie finding by a court of law). - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. It's fairly obvious that Mafia members are perfectly aware of being Mafia members (even if they can call their organization with different terms, like cosa nostra),so I don't think I get your point. Anyway to me it is relatively straightforward: if different RS call nonbiasedly such an organization criminal, and the organization has no other clear purpose than that of crime, that's it. -- Cycl o pia talk  00:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, as an example, do you have a source for "Mafia members are perfectly aware of being Mafia members"? The issue here is you're confusing popular wisdom - "everyone knows", "perfectly obvious", "clearly criminal" - with facts that are verifiable by independent reliable sources, which is the only thing that Wikipedia is interested in.  If you look through the list we're talking about, every organisation on it except the Mafia either makes no claim of being a criminal organisation, or contains the words "alleged" or "suspected" - and this isn't a list of "alleged criminal organisations" or "suspected criminal organisations. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not confusing and I'm not talking of popular wisdom. As for the sources about the mafia, well, it's enough to read any transcript from any Mafia turncoat, like Tommaso Buscetta for example; see for another example this book which describes for example that there is, indeed, an affiliation ritual for the Mafia. Second, I don't understand why you insist in the fact that the organization must acknowledge itself as such -what counts is that reliable and not blatantly biased sources define it as such. I would endorse a rename to "List of alleged criminal organizations" for sure. Third, it is anyway not true that such organization are only "alleged" or "suspected". The Medellín Cartel, for example, just looking into the first links in the list, is pretty much proven to be such. Again: the list has problems that can resolved by editing, consensus on criteria and, if necessary, renaming. None of these things are deletion. Deletion policy says: If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion. -- Cycl o pia talk  01:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "Pretty much proven" does not equal "proven". You're making a fallacy of composition; the fact that a large number of members of, say, the Medellin Cartel committed criminal acts does not make it a criminal organisation; it makes it an organisation many members of which were criminals.  (That article is problematic in itself in that most of the assassinations ascribed to the Cartel are supported by sources that don't make any claim of who was responsible, merely that an assassination occurred.)  The real danger here is confusing viewpoints that are eminently reasonable at a common sense level (eg, on any reasonable reading the Cartel clearly was established for criminal purposes) with viewpoints that can be backed up by reliable secondary sources - and a check of the sources in the Cartel article shows that none claim the organisation was established for criminal purposes, despite how apparently obvious that may seem.  The somewhat naive reading that the Cartel was formed for defence against (illegal) guerilla kidnappers is actually better supported by the sources. - DustFormsWords (talk) 01:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not a synthesis on my part, nor a fallacy of composition. Just check Google Books for "medellin+cartel+"criminal organization"" for an example of several sources clearly declaring the organization as such. -- Cycl o pia talk  01:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ... which illustrates the problem. Those sources uniformly say "considered by many to be" and "possibly" and "alleged to be", which is fine for a wording that can go in the Cartel article but not sufficient for it to appear on a list of criminal organisations. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * By further analogy, if you found a right-wing newspaper who described homosexuality as evil, a history text that described Adolf Hitler as evil, and a prime-time news story that described Islam as evil, it still wouldn't enable you to start a list called "List of things that are evil" and put homesexuality, Hitler and Islam on it. For certain subjects, it's simply not possible to establish objective truth no matter how many sources you have.  In articles that's okay because the depth of an article allows for many viewpoints to be presented.  In lists it's not okay because there's no room for that debate on the list page - it's binary.  The appearance of an article on the list says, "This article belongs on the list", and there's no room for the line that says, "But these other sources say it doesn't." - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:15, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Read the sources well. The "considered to be" wording is consistently referred to the cartel possibly being the "most powerful" or "largest" criminal organization, not to the fact that it was a criminal organization.
 * Your analogy is also a straw man. "Evil" cannot be objectively defined. "Criminal organization" instead can be: it is an organization consensually considered as existing for the purpose of crime (where "crime"=against the law of the jurisdictions where the organization is predominantly operating). You have a point in saying that, if the organization status as criminal is disputed (as can be for many cases), it doesn't belong to the list, or it has at least to be clearly declared that is alleged as such by a certain faction. But this doesn't mean that there are a lot of well-sourced and consensual organizations that can be described as such. -- Cycl o pia talk  12:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't we solve all the above concerns by sticking one of our "weasel words" tags at the top of the article so the public knows what it's getting? --CliffC (talk) 12:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Purists could ask the title to include 'alledged' or 'presumed' but the article does cover a broad brush of well known and well sourced 'criminal' organizations--Jemesouviens32 (talk) 13:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No, adding "alleged" or "presumed" does not give us a free pass to create controversial WP:BLP offensive titles to articles (or lists) in this encyclopedia. JBsupreme (talk) 23:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * BLP? What has to do BLP with that? While you explain that, please remember that the WP:BLP policy includes WP:WELLKNOWN. -- Cycl o pia talk  23:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Cyclopia, I'm not sure how to say this politely... but half of the arguments you've been making in recent deletion debates have been... wrong as far as interpreting relevant policy and/or guidelines go. I have no further response to make to you, sorry.  JBsupreme (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The feeling is absolutely reciprocal. -- Cycl o pia talk  02:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. When Wikipedia can't have a list of criminal organizations for apparent BLP concerns, we know that editors focussing on BLP concerns are going too far. I fail to see the BLP concern of listing well-known criminal organizations together. Nearly all are blue links, so it should be well within our capabilities to directly source this list rather than relying on sources in the linked articles as we do now. I'd not oppose splitting the article, but that's something that can be decided away from AfD. If incomplete is a criterion for deletion we need to nuke the whole site from orbit. 'Unmaintainable' is subjective and defeatist - it's been said of the whole of Wikipedia, but we struggle on nonetheless. Fences  &amp;  Windows  04:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per DustFormsWords and Doc. Not encylopedic at all. Pmlineditor      ∞    18:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. I was going to close this, but decided it might be best to let another admin do it instead. Looking through the debate, it seems many users feel this article fails our neutrality policy; obviously, this concern is too significant to ignore. However, it seems that many of those in favor of keeping this page do, in fact, ignore that argument. A few fail to provide any sort of substantial rationale for their thinking—naturally these votes were given less weight during my evaluation of the discussion. That aside, it seems to me that the general feeling amongst the 'keep' voters is that the list can be well-sourced. Whilst this is a valid opinion, a well-sourced page can still be POV. As such, it seems that the neutrality concerns have not been refuted. This is a rather close call, but if consensus, even if by a small margin, suggests that a piece of content doesn't adhere and very important policies, it's too significant to ignore. All things considered, I feel that deletion is the most appropriate outcome in this situation. Just my $0.02. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 18:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * While I can see that there are some articles listed which can be seen as P.O.V. (for example the Hell's Angels or Tongs, they are not necessarily criminal as such despite the presence of many criminals can make it seem as such), there is almost no doubt that say the Mafia IS a criminal organization by anyones definition, being identified as such by law enforcement, news sources and pretty much everyone else. In addition legislative sources may be used to specifically designate a criminal group, for example anti-gang injunctions, Japanese 'boryokudan' laws, American RICO laws, the Italian crime of 'Mafia association', etc. Most prison or street gangs (Bloods, Crips) take crime to be part of their identity so by their OWN definition are criminal, even without using news or law enforcement sources! I fail to see how this article will violate neutrality policy if some editing and sourcing or possibly even article splitting is done. Nicknackrussian (talk) 19:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Surely if consensus cannot be arrived at then it should be closed as no consensus? I'm surprised that a closer would be convinced by the delete arguments as they assert that this list is "non-encylopedic" or "inherently non-neutral" without convincingly explaining why. To address the neutrality argument I find the idea that Wikipedia is incapable of listing criminal organizations to be scarcely believable. Individual entries may be disputed, but this does not damn the whole concept of categorisation involved here. The vast majority of organizations listed here will not be credibly disputed to be criminal by reliable sources. That's what we take our lead from. If you're worried about organizations in some oppressive regime being labelled as criminal, last time I checked the propaganda of oppressive regimes isn't considered to be a reliable source. There was no effort made before deletion to source, define, or split the article, and we should try that before binning the content. Fences  &amp;  Windows  22:14, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. No list is perfect; that is why we have WP:LIST.  There are 3 purposes of lists:
 * 1) Information that is valuable as a source itself, such as having all criminal organizations listed in one place,
 * 2) it allows for easy navigation, for easy reading, and
 * 3) it allows for easy development of new articles by red links, which can be maintained with a bit of work.  I think it can be shown that this list works for all three purposes. To prevent such a list from becoming a troll magnet, someone has to volunteer to watch it.  I have 300 pages on my watch list, and my head has not fallen off.  Yet. Bearian (talk) 01:00, 29 October 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.