Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings


 * 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. Much spirited debate on both sides, but opinions are pretty much split right down the middle. Neither side has made any killer argument which is backed up by policy. I doubt extending this another week would have any chance of a consensus emerging, so calling it NC. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:21, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

95% of this page is completely predictable statements from every country in the world. It serves no encyclopedic purpose. The important things are the ISIL claim of responsibility and may the Belgium, NATO and EU responses. A much truncated version of the material should be reintegrated into 2016 Brussels bombings and this page deleted. Legacypac (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep A discussion already going on here. Very premature and hasty nomination that does not follow WP:BEFORE. Spirit Ethanol (talk) 21:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't follow the Village Pump and a proposal there would not delete the article, only provide guidance for inclusion of info in some article. I also note that discussion is trending toward a conclusion that would support this proposed deletion. Legacypac (talk) 21:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * While the proposal may be helpful to the deletion case, it certainly wouldn't be used a black and white decision on the matter. There are plenty of articles like this that have both been kept and deleted in the past.  Jolly  Ω   Janner  23:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 22:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2016 Brussels bombings. Per reason number 14 "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia", which leads onto WP:NOT "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". The essay at WP:REACTIONS is a great summary which matches my opinion. This article contains no encyclopedic content that is not already within the main article. Outright deletion may not be the best course of action, since the revision history may contain quotes useful for anyone wanting to collate a Wikiquote article.  Jolly  Ω   Janner  22:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep I support maintaining the article as it reflects the impact of the event and for this reason it is notable. I, too, consider that the current form of the article is problematic for the average reader who can only see a boring list of quotes, but we need to remember that no single Wikipedia reader is "average."
 * I am sorry to admit that I am not able to propose any alternative because every option I could think of has significant drawbacks. Creating an article that summarises the reactions is original research: eventually, we will need to define a more or less arbitrary yardstick to assess which quotes are notable and which are not. Legacypac implied that the reactions from ISIL, Belgium, NATO and the EU are notable and the others are not. There are examples of clearly notable and clearly not notable quotes but the problem lies in the area between.
 * Most would agree that Saint Lucia's quote is not exactly making history. But as we go closer to Belgium the lines become blurred: The bombings in Brussels happened in a period where in Europe there is a significant humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe from the war and ISIS in Syria and other places. With this in mind, the quotes of the nation leaders of all involved EU states become very interesting, possibly even more than those coming from the other side of the Atlantic. Isn't it important to note that an EU member state reversed their agreement for refugee placement as a result of the bombings in Brussels? Similarly, the quotes from Middle East are particularly important as it is the region where ISIS is most active.
 * In the discussion in the Village Pump the option of moving this content to WikiQuotes has some clear advantages. I wish I were able to offer a good solution but I'm afraid I can't and this is why I propose to keep the article even in this state. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 00:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep per above - Rentzepopoulos sums it up Deathlibrarian (talk) 00:20, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep This page is necessary to describe world reactions RRdictatorremovalspecialist (talk) 02:16, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Spirit Ethanol (talk) 01:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Can be easily summed up in one sentence at the main article. Also per Wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information AIR corn  (talk) 07:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per Rentzepopoulos  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 08:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - good sourcing, plenty of reactions. A needed page for an internationally important and significant event.BabbaQ (talk) 09:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * This AfD should be closed as it is a current discussion going on at the same time about this article.BabbaQ (talk) 09:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Can be summed up in one sentence. There is no encyclopedic requirement for these near identical quotes. Reactions should be limited to affected countries, which is short enough for the main article. Who cares about the condemnations by the Bahamas, Belarus and Botswana for an attack in Belgium? Were Bahamanians killed? Is Belarus sending in an intervention? Has Botswana gone on lockdown? &#39;&#39;&#39;tAD&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 11:11, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - per 's argument. Inter&#38;anthro (talk) 11:53, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, encyclopedic, educational, historical, of import to our readers and editors alike, will be useful for sustained period of time in the future, good deal of references to back up the material cited in the article. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 *  Snow Strong Keep Please close this one early, I don't know how many AfDs we have gone through when it comes to these reactions articles. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You can't Snow while there are delete !votes present. AIR corn (talk) 00:18, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - Per OP and WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Predictable statements of condolences and condemnation are of little enduring encyclopedic value. In the rare cases where a reaction stands out as unusual, or unexpected, then they can be covered in the main article or in the bio of the person who said it.- MrX 02:18, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is overgeneralization. What about for example, condemnation of attack by some Islamist groups, already considered terrorist organizations by most countries? Spirit Ethanol (talk) 13:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * A small minority of the statements, for example from militant Islam groups, are meaningful when presented in prose and in context with the main subject. A list of platitudes, not so much.- MrX 13:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - It so totally predictable it might as well have been copied-and-pasted from the coverage of the previous Western tragedy. &mdash; Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 11:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Jolly made an interesting proposal in the article's talk page, which in summary relates notability with secondary reliable sources outside the country related to the quote. I think that this AFD debate should be paused until this proposal has received adequate community feedback. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect or delete Most of this is expected in response to an attack such as this. Anything significant can be mentioned in the main article, only splitting if there is enough content. Peter James (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - This is not any desire of mine to have this article kept or deleted, but I would like everyone to note that there is a bit of a similar discussion on the policy village pump, which mentions this specific article. Parsley Man (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete of the indiscriminate, repetitive, useless, non-notable, largely meaningless listing of governmental statements. Merge the actually meaningful prose content. Reywas92 Talk  07:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. While there are a bunch of predictable statements, it is useful to note which countries took what stand in the issue for future/relevant references. The article is well written and it can also be improved by adding a date on each statement, revealing how swift the reactions were.Sattar91 (talk) 15:10, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * A bullet list of quotes with pretty flags doesn't exactly make the article well-written, nor is that criteria for keeping an article. The citations all have dates and that's a ridiculous way to use the article. Even so, a better way to present the information you want would be prose in the main article as "Countries X,Y,Z immediately expressed condolences, while countries A,B,C took three days to issue them!" and "Governments condemned the attacks and opposed terrorism, but countries D,E,F said blah-blah-blah". A repetitive bullet point listing of 100+ statements, with the word "condemn" used 82 times, "condolence" 65 times serves no use to the reader. "A bunch" is an understatement - none of these reaction quotes mean a darn thing and few have any connection to that country; only actual actions taken are notable and relevant. Reywas92 Talk  22:48, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Deletion isn't cleanup, looking at some of the other "reactions to" articles there is WP:POTENTIAL for this one. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I never said this article needed clean-up, I said the list of quotes should be deleted, and the rest of the content in prose form should be merged to the main article, as there isn't much of it, so the page could be deleted. If the useful information has potential for a full article, with a summary of the condolences, this page could be kept like the others that should also have the quotes removed. Reywas92 Talk  16:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep While the article does contain a large amount of boilerplate condolence statements, there is some more substantial content including the impact on social media, debate over the media’s response and more substantial symbolic acts such as President Obama ordering that American flags be flown at half-mast and the numerous ceremonies throughout the world in which the Belgium flag is superimposed over national monuments. In regards to the more boilerplate quotes, I think most of the quotes should be transferred to wikiquote and removed while a map should be colored in to illustrate which states offered condolences. It would look something like the map to the right (except it would actually display which countries offered condolences rather than where Belgium has embassies). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep the article if you like content about the flag and social media, but it could easily be merged. Delete the non-substantial boilerplate statements. Reywas92 Talk  16:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong delete but merge and redirect to preserve some of the references. As stated, reason number 14 "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia", which leads onto WP:NOT "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". The essay at WP:REACTIONS is a great summary which matches my opinion. This article contains no encyclopedic content that is not already within the main article. Outright deletion may not be the best course of action, since the revision history may contain quotes useful for anyone wanting to collate a Wikiquote article. -Also the Reactions article is a typical mindless, knee jerk Wikipedia article. It is the reason that Wikipedia is the joke website of the world. Some articles are good but you can always count on Reaction articles.--The contents that can be moved to the article are the reactions of the affected countries, which is Belgium and the countries that have a dead citizen and ISIL's reaction. So what about Fiji's reaction? Why not add the reaction of Mrs. Anderson, 3rd grade teacher? Whiskeymouth (talk) 05:37, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. This should never have come to AfD. The nominator and most of those voting delete agree that at least some of the content merits inclusion in the encyclopedia. What they are proposing, then, is a merge and redirect that would maintain the editing history. No deletion is required. This is a content dispute and should be resolved through the usual content dispute channels. And a note to those suggesting "merge and delete", please see WP:MAD: "Pages that have been merged to other articles should almost never be deleted, since our copyright requires all authors to be publicly credited". Cmeiqnj (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:MAD is merely an essay and neither policy nor guideline. It therefore carries no argumentative weight. WWGB (talk) 23:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:MERGEREASON on the other hand is a communal consensus, which does hold weight.  Jolly  Ω   Janner  23:42, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of quotes or a list of news headlines. There's not sense of lasting notability here, just platitudes and condolences. WP:NOTNEWS clearly counterindicates this by saying "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews." WP:LISTS specifies that lists must be notable, which this is not. Go put this on Wikinews.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 23:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Considering that you admit its content would be useful for our sister projects, do you not think that converting it to a redirect and therefore leaving its history intact would be helpful? I agree 100% with your comment, but have suggested that outright deletion may be unhelpful.  Jolly  Ω   Janner  23:42, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 *  Snow keep. That would be good for a perfect AFD candidate and this considerable a worldwide reaction of a notable terror attack like the Paris attacks of 2015, London bombings of 2015 and September 11 attacks. ApprenticeFan  work 01:37, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. While this was an extremely tragic event, these reactions are predictable and non-notable.  User:ApprenticeFan votes "snow keep" (though it's not) and links to a few other articles, but note that these are not "Reaction" articles, simply articles for the attacks in question. A few especially notable reactions may be suitable for the main article. Chrisw80 (talk) 05:34, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete at best as I'm going with my original thoughts with that this is questionable for its separate article and would be best connected to the main article. SwisterTwister   talk  05:38, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Just because their reactions were mostly non-notable, they happened and therefore should be included. Bronze2018 (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:ROUTINE Legacypac (talk) 17:19, 2 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. The "condolences" from politicians are nothing but PR to "show" "how much" they "care".  I can't believe Wikipedia wants to be in the business of being part of the politicos' public relations arm. XavierItzm (talk) 08:12, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per a whole row of precedents where consensus clearly established keeping, precedents which were actually started by someone creating multiple AfD's in order to establish a precedent in favor of deletion. Since the exact opposite happened, I think it's due time to stop filing every single one of these articles for deletion. They can be improved, they can (and IMO should) be made more into prose instead of a silly list of individual reactions (nevermind quotes), but that doesn't mean they should go away.


 * 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.