Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of political dissidents


 * 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. czar 03:24, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

List of political dissidents

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So this list doesn't have any strict criteria, includes a lot of people, and lead to a lot of broad interpretation that clearly violates WP:BLP in a number of cases -- suggesting rather minor figures are political dissidents. As an international list, this could be almost infinite -- for example, by exercising free speech in the U.S. you could enter the list as its currently scoped. I am not seeing a lot of value in keeping this as such -- its not particularly notable, would be useful regime by regime, perhaps... but as an international list its close to useless, and better served by a category. Sadads (talk) 00:07, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong delete I have kept this list on my watchlist for a while due to its complex and vague criteria, including "questioning or criticizing government policy or the dominant political faction" – this is a key element of a democracy! It is also made difficult to interpret in that the listed countries' regimes have changed significantly in history; for example, both Adolf Hitler (a Nazi) and Liselotte Herrmann (a member of the German resistance to Nazism) are mentioned under the label "Germany". Some sections are objectively historically inaccurate, including the label "Czech Republic", which mentions Václav Havel, a dissident of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic rather than the modern-day republic. Articles that get their point across far better include Soviet dissidents, which is specifically dedicated to dissidents of the Soviet ideology, rather than the country of "Russia". Cilidus (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  Kpg  jhp  jm  02:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  Kpg  jhp  jm  02:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Kpg  jhp  jm  02:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Blow to smithereens I only assessed the American names, but the mish-mash of civil rights activist MLK Jr. with terrorist Ted Kaczynski with Native American leader Chief Joseph with singer-songwriter Pete Seeger with falsely accused immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti with cult leader Lyndon LaRouche is an utter embarassment. This sort of indiscriminate context-free listing is disgraceful. Reywas92Talk 06:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as a list without objective inclusion criteria. As mentioned above, lists for people considered dissidents from specific regimes or ideologies are workable, but a generic list like this is going to be forever riddled with BLP, NPOV and potentially OR issues. ƒirefly  ( t · c ) 11:18, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete no objective inclusion criteria, no context for inclusion in the list, and no sources cited for most entries. Peter James (talk) 11:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Disgraceful. What’s with the sources by the way? This creator possibly has his own point of view and violates Wikipedia’s rule of neutrality. From Burgundian Feudalism (talk) 12:08, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This page is over 15 years old and has been edited periodically since then; there is no one "creator". postdlf (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. We have a well populated Category:Dissidents structure, mostly organized into subcategories by nationality. The subheaders here aim towards that structure, but perhaps this would be better replaced by a list of lists. postdlf (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the category structure is more than reasonable to maintain -- I am not seeing any clear need to maintain a list of lists though? Sadads (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Particularly since many of the complaints about this list are the lack of context or sourcing, categories can provide neither but annotated and referenced lists can, and having one master index for such lists would be a typical and helpful well to organize that into one jumping off point in article space. postdlf (talk) 19:11, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So there is only one other list I can find right now (List_of_Singaporean_dissidents) -- and its not much better than this list -- so I am not seeing a natural community around doing this -- if there is something I am missing, I could see trying to rebuild in that direction, Sadads (talk) 20:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There is also List of Chinese dissidents, which is a little more helpful (providing context such as year of detainment, allegations, sentence), though a list of political dissidents which only included links to these two lists still would not be all that useful. Cilidus (talk) 20:39, 18 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete as clearly this list is far from objective. I assess American names and find the likes of terrorist Kacynski on the same list with heroes such as John Brown and MLK. I also assess Indonesian names and found a criminal scholar along with one of the heroes of Indonesian independence. I also see Adolf Hitler on the list along with Martin Luther. This list have no clear criteria at all. SunDawn (talk) 15:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete based on current content. Bare lists of names organized by country don't provide any context to readers, such as what era the person lived in, which regime they were dissidents against, and why the person is classified as a dissident. As mentioned by Cilidus above, Vaclav Havel was a dissident against Czechoslovakia, although the article lists him as a dissident against the Czech Republic, which he was not. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:47, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - WP:INDISCRIMINATE If this were to approach comprehensiveness, it would be enormous. The criteria is extremely broad and vague - "questioning or criticizing government policy" would apply to basically every politician in countries where the dominant faction/party at the helm changes hands every few years, and dozens of people even from places where there isn't any turnover. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as per arguments raised: 1) a full list would get too long. 2) Unclear criteria. Comment @those who like the list: there may be (notable and) established political science definitions of dissidence, or even a database. Maybe from a university, perhaps from political freedom organisations like Amnesty International, or other NGOs. No prejudice against creating country/regime-based lists based on such a definition. ("Dissidents of the Assad regime on the University of Whatsit's list of political resistance" / "List of resistors of the Nazi regime considered Righteous Among the Nations")Trimton (talk) 10:12, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * a regime being defined as a period with the same constitution or the same de facto functioning of the state. sometimes a country has several regimes over time, e. g. Fifth French Republic, Spain under Franco. Sometimes only one, e. g. German Democratic Republic etc. Trimton (talk) 10:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per above, but consider merging some of the longer sections into existing articles. Batmanthe8th (talk) 14:53, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Indiscriminate list with no clear criteria for inclusion. The inclusion of Martin Luther, Karl Marx, the Brothers Grimm, and Hitler all being lumped together on the same list under "Germany" is... strange to say the least. Egsan Bacon (talk) 23:16, 23 April 2021 (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.