Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Public perception and assessments of George W. Bush


 * 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 no consensus. - Mailer Diablo 06:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Public perception and assessments of George W. Bush
Article created primarily to disparage its subject. All of the subjects in the article are treated exhaustively in other Wikipedia articles. The presence of the article cultivates "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position" (i.e. connect the dots) behavior, which is prohibited under Wikipedia policy regarding no original research. Morton devonshire 05:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete per nom, though I believe "created primarily to disparage its subject" may be arguable.--Wildnox 05:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep After reading the arguements more and re-reading the article, I'm now of the opinion that the problems of the this article can be fixed, even if that means a huge rewrite. --Wildnox 03:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete - merge relevant info into George W. Bush. No reason for a separate article.  --Tbeatty 06:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete not per nom but rather per Tbeatty. --דניאל ~ Danielrocks123 talk  contribs   Email 06:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Not Notable enough for an article Æon  Insane Ward 06:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per Tbeatty, or as a second choice merge into George W. Bush any content that isn't there already. --Metropolitan90 06:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Please remember to attribute any merged edits (with a redirect if neccesary). - Mgm|(talk) 09:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete because this article will inevitably violate WP:OR, and for that reason only. Batmanand | Talk 10:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. For an emotionally charged subject, the article does a pretty good job of keeping the POV under control. Also, to rebut Tbeatty, the George W. Bush article is already long enough; this was split off to give the subject justice. There is a section concerning public perceptions of George W. Bush in the main page; however, that is somewhat of a rump, and should remain so for those who simply want an overview of the President. As another note, I fail to understand how the subject is not notable enough for Wikipedia, as Aeon suggested. Given the obsessive amount of attention given to Bush's poll numbers in the press and how his approval rating may or may not determine control of American politics for years, somewhat independently of actual criticism or support of his policies, the subject has more than exceeded notability threshold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Captainktainer (talk • contribs)
 * As a note concerning original research, the Jesus article tends to attract connect-the-dots behavior for the purpose of advancing a particular position. The solution is not to delete the article but to remove the original research. Captainktainer * Talk 10:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete - unencyclopaedic Smerus 11:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete - per nom and TBeatty, -- zero faults   ' '' 12:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep passes WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:OR - I'm not sure what else there is - it is a sourced, encyclopaedic article. Unsourced parts can be excised, but AfD is not the place for that, as at least some parts are well sourced. WilyD 13:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, whatever's worth keeping here has its own article. Gazpacho 16:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and trim. The only place I've seen the attack language used is WP:CSD, and this is not that. However, the nom makes a good point about the sections about specific incidents being covered in separate articles. I suggest we trim out everything that doesn't have to do with his approval ratings and rename it "public perceptions..." or even "approval ratings of..." That seems like a fair compromise.--Kchase T 21:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Seems like a reasonable topic for an article. Gamaliel 19:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename to "Approval ratings of George W. Bush". I think the current scope of "Perception and assessment" is too broad since you could find a quote for any type of sentiment which would nod towards WP:OR-synthesis. However there is worthwhile information in the article that if you tie down to the approval ratings would eliminate the OR concerns. Agne 20:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable and worthy of an encyclopedia article. Of course you may boldly edit out any OR or add verifiable sources for it such as scientific polls.Edison 21:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Long, detailed, references, and quite frankly, there's too much at Bush's article anyway - merge impossible. Dev920 21:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep —  per WilyD. Dionyseus 23:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unmaintainable and unencyclopedic. Deltabeignet 00:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep I think it's a good idea for an article, and the material is all notable therein. In fact, let's expand and create similar articles for each of the other previous presidents. rootology (T) 01:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for same reason as WilyD. NTXweather 02:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is a poor concept for a subpage because it requires that most of the information be heavily out of context. Assessment and criticism regarding an event or action should be in the same place as the full discussion of that action, not all the assessment and criticism on one page and all the actual events and actions being criticized on another. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment That isn't always possible for a long page. For that matter, while I could see that being an important guideline for a paper encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not paper. Context can be aided by having one tab (or window, for those still stuck in the browsing dark ages) open with the main article and one open with the subpage in question. The George W. Bush page is just too long to go merging this in. Captainktainer * Talk 17:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There's no reason all this content has to be on the main Bush page, but a more reasonable division would be foreign policy/domestic policy/Katrina/the Plame scandal/etc. Then each topic could be covered completely in the relevant article, with its context. The fact is that unless our actual articles on Katrina, the Plame scandal etc. are very poor, all of this material is repeated elsewhere. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above comments. --musicpvm 21:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * keep per others plus I personally find this useful. --Oblivious 23:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment -- My suggestion for the article, should it go forward, would be to focus on the "whats" (i.e. what those mainstream media reported perceptions and reported poll numbers are), rather than the "whys" (i.e. piecing together his bad acts to show why he's a bad guy). In that way, we could objectively describe the current "public perception and assessments" as the article is named, and avoid argumentative synthesis.  Thoughts?  Morton devonshire 01:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree totally. In it's current state, it's very OR-ish. Agne 01:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * keep - It needs work, but it's a good article. --Spaceriqui 01:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * keep - It needs balance, however facts should be preserved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.237.211.41 (talk • contribs)
 * — Possible single purpose account: 24.237.211.41 (talk • contribs) has made little or no other contributions outside this topic.


 * Weak keep - Serves as a main page in a section from article George W. Bush. Needs some major changes, but necessary for now, because article is too long to merge into George W. Bush. Aran|heru|nar 05:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - important topic, even if it may need work. Mar de Sin   Speak up!  16:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above comments. Krakatoa 01:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep If this article needs to be better sourced and less POV, there are specific templates that can be used precisely for that purpose, and indeed some are. There is a lot of interesting material, it just requires some more work to make it more presentable, sourced and NPOV. Deleting it would be a waste. This article is being attacked (in a biased campaign for deletion against anti-Bush topics) for the POV of the subject matter, independently from the POV within the article. Note that this campaign is being done in the name of NPOV, while clearly attacking a specific POV is POV in itself. PizzaMargherita 05:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Just another article that is inherently prone to be a POV dump.--MONGO 05:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Captainktainer and others. It needs work, but I think that can be taken care of. &mdash; Khoikhoi 08:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per Morton "All of the subjects in the article are treated exhaustively in other Wikipedia articles." Good entertainment, unnecessary POV fork. SkeenaR 09:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice against creating a non-inherently POV article with a different title. This is an excellent example of when a POV article implies a POV subject matter.  It is simply not possible to document all of the public perception and assessments of a US president.  The selection of evidence is not possible to remove POV from, and the article structure itself is inherently OR. MLA 12:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Captainktainer and others. Ekajati 13:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. Rmt2m 00:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Important information, but article as is needs a great deal of work.Hal Raglan 03:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Perfectly legitimate topic for an Encyclopedia article.  Clearly notable (major news articles on this exact subject).  Worthy of its own article as there is too much detail to be merged into the main George W. Bush article.  Concern about not being possible to document "all" of the public perceptions isn't a valid reason for delete -- as editors we make such inclusion/exclusion decisions regarding all sorts of subjects on WP. If individual citations in the article don't pass WP:V or appear to be WP:OR, then edit those mercilessly.  But just because any given citiation (or citations) aren't valid doesn't mean that the entire article should be deleted.  Fairsing 05:50, 26 August 2006 (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.