Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of international 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 votecount is pretty much evenly matched. However, the "delete" arguments are stronger overall. They are based primarily on WP:IINFO and WP:NOTDIR; in addition, the scope is doubtful at best. Moreover, there exists a category for these articles already: Category:International organizations. Just because WP:CLS advises against deleting one in favor of another per se does not mean that both must be kept. In " Common selection criteria," WP:SAL, this list clearly fails the second and third criteria. For the first criteria, it fails "Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future."

Several "keep" arguments are based on WP:EFFORT or WP:NODEADLINE without specifying an actual reason for retention. On a side note, there is no consensus on whether this list is potentially too long to manage effectively, but this is irrelevant as there are better reasons why this article should be deleted.

King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 00:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

List of international organizations

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Unscoped and unverifiable. List is chock-full of n-n entries and I see no prospect of these ever being identified and removed. In any case I cannot imagine what use such a broad list could have to anyone. –Moondyne 14:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete wildly indiscriminate and random list which would theoretically include many thousands of entries. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  16:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - I ran a check for UNICEF as a test. Nothing. It's pretty hard to take a list seriously that doesn't have that one, in my opinion. This is, however, a massive compilation of links, probably hundreds of blue links, which was launched back in 2005 and worked on by a large number of hands and its deletion should not be made cavalierly. I don't see this list being of much use, but neither is it of harm. The criteria for inclusion — organizations which are international in scope — is clear. Objections are that this objectively uncompletable list in nearly complete form would be massive; but this is a fairly massive list already. I argue that, misguided though the vast effort may be, this meets the Wikipedia standards for lists, that it might be of use to users, and that there is no sense in disrespecting five years of work by multiple editors with its deletion. Carrite (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC) Edited: Carrite (talk) 20:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Non-governmental organization, there's 40,000 International NGOs. Heaven knows how many other eligible entries that could come here also.  The history shows a user copypasted a list on 11 October 2004 from here, entitled "NGOs eligible to attend the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference".  Many of those don't fit the lede by a country mile. (eg. Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council, Norwegian Independent Meat Association (KLF) etc etc.) The list has been tinkered with since but has never had a serious cleanup.  –Moondyne 16:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The fact that it's incomplete is not justification for deleting the list. The fact that an individual organization itself is controversial (or n-n) is not reason to exclude it from the list.  I can't find any WP guidelines for the criteria for including a "List Of..." article, but lacking policy in this area, I'll default to WP:OSE and suggest that if we can have lists of episodes in a season of a TV show, or a List of sovereign states, I can't imagine why this list shouldn't exist.   Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 17:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep There is no deadline. This should be improved not deleted.— Chris! c / t 18:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - an ugly mess, but worth rescuing. Bearian (talk) 19:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * See above. Why would that happen all of a sudden now?  And exactly how would you propose it happen?  –Moondyne 16:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment(s). Incomplete is not the issue, rather its a magnet for spam and other n-n entities because "international organization" is such a fuzzy term.  DEADLINE is a different matter.  I do hope that someone will volunteer to bring this back to a verifiable and useful list.  –Moondyne 00:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)  Lets be honest, it'll never be of any use in the real world.  –Moondyne 16:20, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I don't see a reason for this to exist as a list, but the categorization system doesn't seem adequate. If some of the organizations on the list are really international, their categorization doesn't reflect that, which may or may not be a problem. I lean towards delete. Roscelese (talk) 03:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Finding a good source which contains a similar list takes just a few seconds. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can find lots of lists on the internet in just a few seconds. That doesn't mean we need an article on them.  Here, make an article using this list as a source.    Snotty Wong   confess 15:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the list Colonel Warden cited is apparently limited to intergovernmental organizations, whereas this article includes a much broader class of international organizations, the kind whose membership includes individuals and private businesses. The cited list is not that similar to the list this article has become. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:46, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for rescue by the Article Rescue Squadron, with no explanation as to why this article should be rescued and how that could happen (per ARS instructions).    Snotty Wong   babble 15:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDIR. The singular fact that an organization operates over international borders does not make it notable.  In this day and age, there must be hundreds of thousands of "organizations" which could appear in this list, and the vast majority would be non-notable.  This list is as notable as List of organizations with buildings built of brick.    Snotty Wong   yak 15:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment The problem with this argument is that the notability policy exists for articles not entries in a list. While I agree that many organizations on this list are probably n-n, it doesn't make the list itself n-n.  In fact, I was just thinking this morning that it might be a fun personal WikiProject to start writing articles (or at least stubs) on organizations in this list for which sources can be found.  Surely the concept of "international organizations" is notable... See WP:SALAT, Specifically "Lists that are too general or too broad in scope have little value, unless they are split into sections." So maybe break this list up into individual lists on INGOs and IGOs? I'd really like to create sublists based on the type of organization or the group it serves (student vs. farm vs. poverty vs. hunger vs. whatever) but 1) that infomation is missing for the majority of entries and 2) what do you do with the organizations that cross over multiple categories? *sigh*  Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 17:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a RFC on that exact question (ie. By what criteria do we judge the inclusion of list articles?) underway. –Moondyne 09:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I'm sensing a logical fallacy here. Please explain how you can have a list that consists of non-notable elements, but somehow the list itself is notable.    Snotty Wong   confer 23:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems like WP:SYNTH –Moondyne 00:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * How about List of players currently in the New York Yankees farm system??? Each component part of a list need not be notable; the collective group encompassed by the list is what's important. I don't think anybody is going to argue that List of international organizations is not a particularly bad list, due to its open-ended nature and necessarily incomplete status. The question is what to do about it, if anything... Carrite (talk) 15:12, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep You can't just delete a list because you fear it may one day grow too large. The information is quite encyclopedic, people able to find the organization and read a description about them quite easily.   D r e a m Focus  08:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If all you want to do is find articles, see Category:International organizations. –Moondyne 09:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Categories don't support red links and sources. Please see WP:CLS which explains the merits of lists vs categories and explicitly advises that one should not be deleted for the sake of the other. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:37, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thankyou Colonel for your advice; I am quite aware of the guideline. My issue is this is incomplete, inaccurate and of little use, and it always will be.  I've read the lede and the linked articles and reckon the majority of links (red and blue) don't belong.  The category is self maintaining and will be less ambiguous in terms of item membership, given the nature of the definition.  –Moondyne 13:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The category does not maintain itself: it is maintained by editors who seem to add such categories to articles without regard to our core principle of verification. Lists make better provision for accuracy and completeness and so your contention is supported neither by our guideline nor by simple logic. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Its self-evident that this list is neither accurate nor complete. One assumes that nn articles will sooner or later be deleted, and then at least the category won't contain the fluff we have here.  My contention is that keeping this list accurate and or complete is not gonna happen.  –Moondyne 15:36, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 14:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Wikipedia expects lists such as this to remain incomplete - see Incomplete lists. Omissions and inaccuracies call for expansion and correction rather than for wholesale deletion. If the article seems too long, we can split it per WP:SPLIT into a structure as used by List of acronyms and initialisms. We could address concerns about spam-magnetism by requiring that new additions link to existing Wikipedia articles. (Compare WP:REDLINK, which states: "[...] rather than using red links in lists, disambiguation pages or templates as an article creation guide, editors are encouraged to write the article first [...]".) While some readers may see no point in such a list, others will treasure it for its role as an ordered, alphabeticized repository expressing the richness, range and variety of international organizations. -- Jandalhandler (talk) 13:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - This list is far to broadly defined and as such can never hope to be complete. Codf1977 (talk) 13:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and a serious effort should be made to write articles for as many as the red links as possible. Significant national-level organizations will usually be notable. (And I think in this case a list could be justified  as an exception even if this were not the case; an encyclopedia  does partake of the functions of an almanac.).    DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per Colonel and DGG. It  should be easy enough to delete many of the nn red links after doing a search for sources and finding that any  future articles would not  pass WP:NOT - there would be no point  in creating  100s of new stubs just  to  have to  go through all the deletion processes for each one of them. There are only 1,186 entries on the list at  present, and the sooner it is cleaned up, some rules for its expansion can be made.--Kudpung (talk) 01:03, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Since there are probably hundreds of thousands of "organization with an international membership, scope, or presence", as per the definition in international organization, the scope of this list is unmanageably large and indiscriminate.  Sandstein   05:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Basically per Sandstein et al. This is too large such that it is entirely unmanageable and basically useless, just like a hypothetical "List of people" would be. T. Canens (talk) 07:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete and ping me when the nonconsensus close, failed rescue, and desperation renomination transpires. I would torch the ashes into oblivion by, I dunno, creating a redirect to Category:International organizations after deletion (I know that's not realistic). Or call oversight. Such a list should start with a reputable source, and when it starts with hot-dog vendors eligible to attend WTO events, it should be deleted and rebuilt from scratch. And what is this with ACT UP and Greenpeace as big listees and the usual suspects not, a bit of undue weighting there? JJB 05:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Delete: What concerns me is the scope of this list. Should this list include the Association for Computing Machinery? The The Interuniversity Centre for Educational Research (a research school hosed in The Netherlands)? The Women's International Zionist Organization? The Liberal International? Blood and Honour? -- BenTels (talk) 15:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong keep Just a bit a extreme the scope that's all, could be split somehow. I agree with BenTels to an extent though that it needs some formal way of rooting out what should be included. Dr. Blofeld 15:32, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. This list has been compiled with no regard whatever to its stated scope. Apparently the article went wrong almost six years ago, when a "list of NGOs from list authorized to gather at WTO negotiations in Cancun" was dumped into the then-relatively short list without regard to whether those organizations had international scope. Many of the organizations listed proclaim in their names that they are focused on a single country (like the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions), part of a country (like Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association or Florida Citrus Mutual), or even a single city (like the Association of the Bar of the City of New York). Unless an organization clearly has an international focus in terms of its membership and activities, it does not belong on a list like this. Furthermore, if this is going to be a long, extensive list, it should probably be broken down into categories rather than being alphabetical. I recommend that this list be scrapped and, if there is a desire for it, it should be started again from scratch. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - inclusion criterion unclear or too vast to be useful. Way too many red links makes it also pretty much unverifiable.--70.80.234.196 (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete- nebulous inclusion criterion, so it's hard to see how this list can avoid issues like being original research, being a mere directory and being too vast to be of any conceivable use to anyone. Reyk  YO!  08:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep What does the argument "to big to be useful" mean? This is by no means the longest useful List on WP. Sure it needs trimming (Warsaw Pact? Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association? Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association? yeah they should go.) but that is not a deletion issue. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 04:55, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit notice: I believe consensus indicates at least that being included in the obscure 2004-inserted list of NGOs does not provide sufficient notability for inclusion on such a broadly titled list without significant balancing, because of severe misweighting of the title. I have deleted, with great irreverence and haste, all NGOs added from that insertion beginning with A through F, to demonstrate what the article would look like without this list. I still favor strong delete because the remaining list is just as haphazardly assembled and misweighted and is thus worse than a blank page. (In fact you can say that deletion only for A-F is misweighted and I would agree but reply it's still better than the biglonglist.) I think consensus agrees this topic title is a fine entry for Wikipedia, but this is not a simple WP:SOFIXIT, this is a rewrite-entirely, which is a deletion argument. That is, unless the article is rewritten entirely during discussion, a blank page or a wise redirect (I haven't bothered) would be much preferable. Hope this helps. JJB 23:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm not sure if it is of any relevance, but: Can anyone actually come up with a situation in which this list may be of any use to anyone? Dr bab (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a directory, and this violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Karanacs (talk) 13:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * How? It only lists international organizations (well, its supposed too). INdiscriminate would be a List of organizations. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As stated above, there's 40K International NGOs alone. The definition is too broad to be of any use list-wise.  Indiscrimate: Not making or based on careful distinctions; unselective:.  Yep.  –Moondyne 23:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That still relies on the "to big to be useful" argument. Its simple enough to break it down to smaller lists if that is what you want, just like years have been (eg. 1945 1946 1947). Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not a simple sofixit. There's so much nonsense in here already, it needs to be re-scoped and rewritten from the ground up.  –Moondyne 23:55, 30 September 2010 (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.