Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norwegian diaspora


 * 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 nomination and the first deletion rationale raise questions relating to WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Those commenting in favour of keeping the article fail to address these concerns, only counter-arguing with the argument that "it is an encyclopedic topic and we are voting on the topic, not the state of the article at any given time", for example, in User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s case. This would be perfectly acceptable if the concerns raised were relating to WP:NOT; unfortunately, they WP:AREN'T. The argument that "we are voting on the topic, and it is an encyclopedic topic" does not work unless you believe that encyclopedic nature is the only requirement for the inclusion of an article. Other "keep" comments include "it's a useful list" and "it's interesting", which are similarly invalid. It's worth noting that two further delete comments were also relatively useless. I would remind everybody to try and put some effort in here; address the comments and concerns of the "opposition", cite policy, and if policy doesn't cover it, a cogent and logical argument as to why this should be an exception. Ironholds (talk) 13:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Norwegian diaspora

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I am nominating this article for deletion because the topic seems to be a neologism constructed through synthesis of different sources that do not themselves describe this topic. "Norwegian diaspora" is not given in any of the sources and appear to be a neologism to refer to a conglomerate of several different groups that are not comparable and which no reliabel sources actually compare: Norwegians citizens living abroad and people in other countries who identify as having had Norwegian ancestors. For example there is a qualitative difference between the status of a Norwegian-American (who has e.g. a grandparent from Norway) and a Norwegian citizen who is living in America. This article confuses those and mixes the categories to arrive at an extremely inflated number of Norwegians in the world, which is at the same time Original Research. The article could possible be salvaged by removing numbers that are incomparable, e.g. the number of Norwegian citizens registered by the Norwegian embassy as living in the UK and the number of Americans who Identify as having Norwegian acnestors - and then moving the article to List of Norwegians outside of Norway or some such. As it is this article's title would require very good sources to suggest that there is a Norwegian diaspora community comparable to e.g. the Jewish or Irish diaspora. And it qould require completely different content if there turned out to be such a source. In short I think the easiest solution is to deleted the article as SYNTH and OR. ·Maunus· ƛ · 15:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Norway-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per the excellent reasoning in the nomination. There is probably an article to be written on the topic of the Norwegian diaspora, but this isn't it. The grouping together of a bunch of statistics based on different definitions (such as the number of people registered at the Norwegian embassy in the UK and the number of people who says they are of Norwegian ancestry in the US census) under the heading "Number of ethnic Norwegians" is misleading and constitutes original research and synthesis. If this information were to be removed from the article then nothing would be left, so I feel it's best to delete. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep see Category:diasporas, it is an encyclopedic topic and we are voting on the topic, not the state of the article at any given time. If you don't like the name, because the article is now a list, this isn't the forum to address a name change. And, btw, that is why the census asks where your parents were born just to compile these exact statistics. I have never heard the argument before that presenting census data is original research, I guess we are now going to have to delete the 100,000 articles we created on US census designated areas and the data that was the basis for each article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Richard, your argument about the US census is a good reason to keep Norwegian American, but not this article. The US census data is being listed alongside incomparable data for other countries. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We are arguing the topic, not the content. Content arguments are made on the talk page. Is your argument that of all the ethnic dispersals, the Norwegians are some how exceptional, and don't deserve an article? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:46, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Emigration is not the same as diaspora - not all emigration creates a diaspora. Showing a reference that states that there is a Norwegian diaspora would be a good way to argue for notability. ·Maunus· ƛ · 22:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It is presenting census data of incomparable categories - and presenting them as giving information about diaspora - while none of the sources use the term diaspora. The policy: WP:RS clearly states that sources must directly treat the topic of the article - none of these mention a Norwegian diaspora. This is also the issue of notability - in order to show that the topic is notable at least a coupleof reliable sources that actually speak of a Norwegian diaspora would be required. ·Maunus· ƛ · 01:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ridiculously the article claims the 'entire population of the Faroe Islands AND Iceland as Norwegian diaspora -because they apparently came mostly from Western Norway (uncited - and atleast 1000 years ago) - Both Iceland and the Faroe Islands constitute their own Ethnic and national groups and definitely do not consider themselves ethnic Norwegians. This really shows how ludicruous this list is in its definition of a "Norwegian diaspora".·Maunus· ƛ · 01:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also Diaspora does not simplæy mean a population whose ancestors sometime migrated from somewhere - then the entire worlds population would be African diaspora - it means a group that maintain a connection to a homeland and its culture while living outside of it for generations - and generally implies the wish to return to that homeland. This is why Norwegian expats are not indicative of a diaspora - and neither are people who claim a partly Norwegian heritage. A norwegian diaspora would be a Norwegian community maintaining Norwegian traditions and ethnicity outside of Norway - it might exist - but it would require sources to deserve an article. ·Maunus· ƛ · 01:28, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: Useless figures. This page clearly suffers from a common American inability to distinguish Xians from Americans with some little tiny bit of distant Xian ancestry. --Hegvald (talk) 12:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We are arguing the topic, not the content. Content arguments are made on the talk page. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:44, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - I was ready to hate this page, but it seems to me useful for its bluelinks into existing pages on the Norwegian communities in various countries. The numbers for this country or that may or may not be on the mark due to a flexible definition of what constitutes Norwegian extraction; perhaps a solution would be to delete the numbers altogether. The article does not attempt to write an article on a neologism, it is in actual practice a list of in-links — which is helpful, I think. Carrite (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But that would require that the artcile be a list, and to be a list it would require criteria of what to include - neither of which it has now. And as I have detailed above the word "norwegian diaspora" does not cover the content that would be included in a list of the elements goven here. The useful list of bluelinks could be also done by redirecting to Norwegians or to a disambiguation page. Also still no sources for topic title... which would be required in any case. ·Maunus· ƛ · 18:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Dude, there are whole websites devoted to Norwegian emigration. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * emigration != diaspora.·Maunus· ƛ · 22:44, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Dude, seriously, buy a dictionary or a thesaurus or something, you are hung up on the word. Words are for dictionaries, this is an encyclopedia. Look up encyclopedia in your dictionary. Encyclopedias are about the concept, not the word. We don't have separate articles on the Great War and World War I just because some reference works use one phrase and others use the second phrase. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You fail to compute: a diaspora is a specific kind of emigrational phenomenon not all migration is a diaspora. If you want an article about History of migrations from Norway I encourage you to write it, if you want an article about Norwegian diaspora you would first have to produce a source that says that there is such a thing. It is simple really. ·Maunus· ƛ · 23:17, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, walk victor falktalk 05:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep very interesting, just the sort of thing wikipedia should have been about. No reason to delete when the inverse of this information is considered acceptable.  Numbers of X nationality/ethnicity in Y external location is significantly more interesting than the majority of wikipedia articles. MLA (talk) 21:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - I did the research on many of these figures when they were included in the Norwegians page. They are simply completely incompatible. While a person would "lose" Norwegian ethnicity the day they switch their passport for a Danish one if they move to Denmark, if they move to the US, then all following generations for all time to come will be counted as Norwegian, no matter what nationality they may have. None of the figures match up, check my argument for that on Talk:Norwegians, the title thing that would be left when removing misleading statistics on that page would be the title, which as mentioned here, cannot be referenced by by anything and so the page would end up being completely blank, without a title. --Johanneswilm (talk) 23:17, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, not so much diaspora as just groupings of people who happen to live abroad. Not sure if we want "pages on the Norwegian communities in various countries". Geschichte (talk) 13:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The page has been moved and redefined, and is it possible to continue this discussion or do we need a new one? Geschichte (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Keep, seems to be a reasonable article subject and is reasonably-well verified. Stifle (talk) 13:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "reasonably well" - not a single source has been presented that uses the word "Norwegian diaspora".·Maunus· ƛ · 13:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you noticed that the article's been renamed? Stifle (talk) 12:50, 19 February 2011 (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.