Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scope of government


 * 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. Lankiveil (speak to me) 00:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Scope of government

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This article has WP:OR concerns, and consists of an image, a dicdef, and a collection of quotes. Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 20:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - article is of no practical use and the topic could easily be summarised (if it already hasn't been) in Government. On top of that, the pasting of a 1200 word 'quote' seems excessive and a probable copyright issue! Sionk (talk) 21:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Given that you think it might be a copyright issue...clearly you have no idea who Herbert Spencer is. Given that you have no idea who Herbert Spencer is...clearly you are not qualified to vote on this issue.  Huh.  Obviously you think you're qualified enough to vote on this issue...when in reality you're really not.  It seems like that anybody who would vote to delete an entry on the scope of government is really not qualified to vote on the issue.


 * So please folks...if you haven't read Herbert Spencer or John Stuart Mill then please remove your vote until you've actually made a reasonable effort to study and research the topic. --Xerographica (talk) 21:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - Whether or not an entry should be kept or deleted depends on its notability. You don't delete an entry because it has problems.  If you want to improve an entry then you discuss improvements on the entry's talk page.  --Xerographica (talk) 21:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, notability is not the only reason to keep a page. If it violates policy such as WP:OR, it should also be deleted. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:09, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * So rather than trying to resolve the issue on the talk page...your solution is to delete the entire entry. If the useful diagram is removed then would there be any justification for this deletion proposal?  --Xerographica (talk) 22:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. It's WP:OR, a violation of policy. Thus, it cannot remain. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I removed it. Therefore, there's no justification for this proposed deletion.  In the future, please show the common courtesy of first bringing up issues on an entry's talk page.  --Xerographica (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the entire article is OR. It must be removed as well. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 12:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Great, delete the entry and I'll simply recreate it using nothing but quotes. That way, it will be impossible for you to claim that it is OR...given that nothing in the entry will be original.  --Xerographica (talk) 13:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's why there's Wikiquote. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 13:13, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I replaced what I wrote with a quote so now nothing on the entry is "original". Wikiquote isn't organized by concepts.  --Xerographica (talk) 13:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You are correct, Wikiquote is not organized by topic, but it is a collection of quotes, versus Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 13:25, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And you are correct that Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. Except, the "minor" detail that you're obviously missing is that the very point of Wikipedia is for editors to work together to make improvements to entries.  You've shown absolutely no interest in working together to make improvements to the entry on the scope of government. You didn't bother sharing your concerns on the talk page and instead proposed that the entry be deleted.  --Xerographica (talk) 13:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * delete I have doubts that this is a distinct subject from government itself, but in any case the fact that 90% of the article is a quotation calls for WP:BLOWITUP as the only fate for it in its current state. If I deleted the quote, there would be nothing left of it. Mangoe (talk) 21:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed the huge quote farm. Whether or not this thing is kept, that had to go. Mangoe (talk) 13:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per Mangoe and WP:BLOWITUP.  I think only the first sentence can be kept; not only are the "passages" inappropriate, but the second sentence is just conservative propaganda.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 05:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And the fourth sentence is libertarian propaganda, which I tend to agree with, but it needs a source. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * As is, delete (per the above) or redirect to Justification for the state. I would be willing to accept Mangoe's version. Location (talk) 14:56, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * redirect to Justification for the state. The article topic and title lacks precision and conciseness. (And as the article stands now, it is simply a re-cap of left-right politics categorization, without statist/anarchist extremes.) The quotes which Xerographica supplied, while inspiring and interesting, were not properly edited into a presentation that helped the reader. (Indeed, they lacked proper citation beyond the name of the author.) The See also section, as well, was a collection of loosely related articles. And now, post-paring of the quotes and SAs, the article is totally useless. I hazard that Xerographica wants to incorporate the quotes into WP so that readers will have access to the concepts and learn more about government. S/he can do so better by editing the articles related to those authors to give readers recaps of what authors X, Y and Z thought about what the proper scope of government should be. Justification for state and other existing articles are better vehicles.--S. Rich (talk) 15:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak delete - This is Wikipedia, not Bartlett's. The subject is definitely article-worthy, but the article itself is a mess. The article limits itself with its use of stock American political terms, with no clarifications or citations to back up the large assumptions it makes. I think the article has to be entirely re-written; I don't see anything worth keeping. Therefore, I concur with all previous WP:BLOWITUP-based arguments. Lord Bromblemore (talk) 03:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Before the removal of the quotes, this was POV; after it, there is an absence of substantial content. There are dozens of articles which contain the various aspects of this, I strongly discourage the prospect of incorporating quote farms into WP. Brief illustrative quotes, certainly, but where long arguments such as Spencer's are necessary to develop an idea, they belong elsewhere. We have a structure to articles, and it consists of description of reference, not assembling quotations. DGG ( talk ) 03:09, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Totally redundant to government. Hekerui (talk) 20:27, 28 December 2012 (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.