Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/State Crimes Against Democracy


 * 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.  Sandstein  20:18, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

State Crimes Against Democracy

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

WP:FRINGE, not notable subject. Searches come up with nothing. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 14:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - seems to fail WP:GNG and WP:RS. WegianWarrior (talk) 15:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Sir Joseph (talk)  15:10, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Sir Joseph (talk)  15:10, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. Although I do not feel qualified to comment on what threshold for notability such concepts in the social "sciences" must meet, there are over one hundred Google scholar references that discuss this concept.  Many of these are independent of the subject, published in the peer-reviewed American Behavioral Scientist, a journal with a reasonably high impact factor.  They seem to me to be secondary sources that are independent of the original author, that are reliable under the rather high standards even of WP:SCHOLARSHIP.  But as I said, I am not really qualified to assess these sources in a deeper way, other than to indicate their existence, and apparent reliability under our usual sourcing guidelines.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 16:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, a certain issue of American Behavioral Scientist gets a lot of attention on 9-11 Truther and Conspiracy websites. Looks like Lance deHaven-Smith, Matthew T. Witt, Laurie Manwell, etc. are accredited academics who also happen to hold conspiracy beliefs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:55, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Looks like a several cups of speculation, with a side of synthesis all flavored with the barest sprinkling of RSs. Gordon Ramsey would not be pleased. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  16:03, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Quite a bit of WP:SYNTHESIS used to make a fringe theory/term coined by Lance deHaven-Smith sound like it has mainstream traction. For example, the first sentence defining the term is sourced to Lance deHaven-Smith and Laurie Manwell, a 911 Truth advocate, but presented as the opinion of unspecified "scholars". Then a bunch of reliable sources that assert "crimes have been committed by government officials in the past" is used to bolster their theory. The pre-TNT version has many more examples of the synthetic argument being made by the article. If I had time, I would check all the non-fringe/non-deHaven-Smith sources to see that they actually discuss the topic as presented. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I've taken a look at some of them, and I can't find any non-fringe sources (I consider deHaven-Smith to be fringe, given his proclivities) that are well-cited and not used to support synth statements. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  16:16, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete It's a COATRACK for the promotion of Fringe Theories. The sources also appear to be overwhelmingly FRINGE and thus fail RS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment. The pre-TNT version is definitely written like an essay designed to promote fringe conspiracy views. I'm not convinced yet though that it was an accurate representation of deHaven-Smith's and other scholarly viewpoints. Does deHaven-Smith have a reputation for being a conspiracy theorist or are we assuming that based on his alleged association with this essay article? If there are independent reliable sources calling him a conspiracy theorist, then I'll quickly change my tune to saying we should evaluate this as an article on a fringe view. When I search my work database (a university library database) for "State Crimes against Democracy" and filter by peer-reviewed only, there are 83 hits (including duplicates, so a little less than 83). I've skimmed one paper by deHaven-Smith in Administration & Society (http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399709339014) and Manwell's article from American Behavioral Scientist (http://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209353279), and neither feel fringe-y at first glance. I also don't see obvious connections between the different authors and sources covering the topic. I'm not saying I haven't been fooled before, but I haven't heard anyone talk about specifics from the actual sources yet, so I wanted to make sure we weren't just assuming that the nonsense in the article was reflective of scholarly literature. I want to read a little more before I !vote, so I'll update this if my view changes, but right now it seems to me like poli sci professors are writing about things like banks' role in the 2008 financial crisis and the legislation that enables that kind of behavior, not stuff like "9-11 was an inside job". Tell me if I'm being naïve. —PermStrump  ( talk )  17:36, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This squares up with my own impression. Although this doesn't rule out the possibility that the article is a coatrack.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 18:16, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that the original version of the article was written by Lance deHaven-Smith himself. It's hard to tell if he's just a poli-sci professor who's been embraced by the fringe, or a poli-sci professor who is himself a fringe theorist. For example, his answer to "was 9-11 a SCAD?" hints strongly at it, but stops just short of saying "yes". - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * , I swear I'm usually the first to see usernames like that and assume the editor is actually that person, but for whatever reason, my first reaction to seeing that username this time was that someone might be pretending to be deHaven-Smith in an attempt to disguise the fringe. I wouldn't be surprised if he's considered a hero to conspiracy theorists who might misinterpret his arguments because of their own confirmation bias. I never even heard of the guy before, so it's not like this is challenging my preconceived notion of deHaven-Smith (scout's honor). It's just that the tone and content of the pre-TNT article was so different from the one deHaven-Smith article that I "read" (read=I fully read the first and last pages and skimmed a few pages in between). Even if it really was created by deHaven-Smith himself, the article (should we decide it's notable enough to exist) would be about his views, fringe or not, as they're represented in independently published, reliable sources. —PermStrump  ( talk )  19:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. The TLDR is that when you take out the articles authored by people with a potential COI (see sidebar discussion below), "state crimes against democracy" doesn't meet notability criteria, no matter which notability guideline you're looking at.
 * When I eliminated the names of people who contributed to deHaven-Smith, Witt, et al.'s books, I was left with 4, presumably independent sources in peer-reviewed journals that discussed SCAD and only two were solidly in-depth (Manwell 2010 and Kee & Forrer 2012). The other 2 were Catlaw (2013) and Love (2013). Otherwise there were some articles with reference lists that cited papers with SCAD in the title and a few passing mentions, but nothing else had enough coverage to use as a source in the article. On google scholar without the COIs, at most there's 1 additional book that could be a potential independent reliable source, but I haven't looked into it because I didn't think it would make or break the decision anyway. Also there are zero mentions of "state crimes against democracy" in mainstream news sources.
 * FWIW, I didn't get the impression that other scholars considered deHaven-Smith & Co.'s positions to be fringe or conspiracy theory. They seem to be well respected, even by academics who disagree with them. They do have an online fan club of conspiracy theorists who misrepresent their statements though and deHaven-Smith seems to feed into it. —PermStrump  ( talk )  02:07, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * delete fails GNG and even if folks find the few independent sources with substantial discussion to push this over the bar, it still would need to be TNTed to have a real WP article. Jytdog (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep -- a useful article about an actual term. It's a real thing in the world, a term of art that's used. So keep it and make the article the best possible. It's not "fringe" and it's not wrong for Wikipedia to have this article. This is a canvassed vote, as well, being alerted on a certain noticeboard with encouragement to delete it here. SageRad (talk) 14:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Posting notices to a noticeboard is not canvassing. There is no function on WP which prevents pro-fringe users from reading or participating at the FTN, nor can one interpret posting there to be targeted, as pro-fringe editors regularly do participate there. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  15:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sure. That board is publicly visible but the following is generally expected to vote to delete this article. I hope many non-McCarthyist editors will respond here in addition to those who see it as their mission to declare and root out all content that collides with their ideological agenda. (Striking done by someone else, not by me -- my use of the term "McCarthyist" and description of same was a direct parallel to the use of "pro-fringe" in the previous comment as an impkied characterization that anyone who supports this article is "pro-fringe" -- which i find to be a serious aspersion made by and ask them to strike it if they're gonna go aroun and strike my comment because they don't like it. SageRad (talk) 23:55, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of usage of this term in peer-reviewed literature, like this, and it's a reified term as well as many other sociological terms about which Wikipedia has articles that nobody questions. It's mainly because it has something to do with non-mainstream thinking about conspiracy that some people here would label it "FRINGE" and therefore a sort of "thought crime" to entertain an article about the term. Well, i think that's ideological and not right according to the ideals of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is explicitly not a mainstream ideology adhering website. It is not a tool for propaganda. It is to present articles about all topics that merit an article, and this is one of them. Why did someone just hack away 80 or 90% of the article and then put it up for deletion? Because there are no good sources about this topic? Doesn't seem so. SageRad (talk) 00:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Because 80-90% of the article was badly sourced fringe material. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete per OP. 142.105.159.60 (talk) 21:03, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as well explained by LuckyLouie. Bishonen &#124; talk 22:21, 22 May 2016 (UTC).
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  —PermStrump  ( talk )  23:37, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  —PermStrump  ( talk )  23:39, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete as mere promotion of an neologism that has not caught on. By his own account, Lance deHaven-Smith coined the term in his 2006 article "State Crimes Against Democracy." (DeHaven-Smith, Lance. "When Political Crimes Are Inside Jobs: Detecting State Crimes against Democracy." Administrative Theory & Praxis 28, no. 3 (2006): 330-55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610803.)  His coinage  has had a decade to catch on, and it has gotten little traction despite the fact that the conspiracy theories deHaven-Smith peddles are very popular.  Check out deHaven-Smith's website  "What are some examples of SCADs in recent U.S. history? :  the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King; the attempted assassinations of George Wallace and Ronald Reagan; the election breakdowns in 2000 and 2004; the numerous defense failures on 9-11-2001; the anthrax mailings in October 2001"   There's more, but you get the drift.  9/11 conspiracy theory.  JFK assassination conspiracy theory.  Anthrax mailing conspiracy theory.  Good grief.  Original deHaven-Smits 2006 article defines a SCAD as :"concerted actions or inactions by public officials that are intended to weaken or subvert popular control of their government."    Note also that this page was started by an SPA in 2014, and has seen little in the way of expansion or incoming links in the years since.  This seems to parallel the lack of resonance in the world at large, at least in my searches.   The hits on the term in a books google search are a mix of conspiracy theory books,  books about conspiracy theories, and a book by deHaven-Smith.  If DeHaven-Smith's original article, or his book  Conspiracy Theory in America  were a Wikipedia article, we would delete it as mere WP:COATRACK, he piles one example after another with little to connect them, an dvirtually nothing in the way of evidence that these events were in fact conspiracies.   Conspiracy Theory In America did garner a positive review on the  website: Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassination'', but was ignored by the political press and scholarly world.    Delete as per WP:BROCHURE.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:38, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep With 80 peer reviewed articles by at least 17 academics, the burden of proof is on those who claim that this topic is either "fringe" and/or not notable. If there are issues with any particular statements or references, they should be dealt with as individual items, and discussed on the article's talk page. And what was the hurry about TNT before delete discussion? Somebody attempted to restore the original version, but that was reverted because they also deleted the AfD tag. JerryRussell (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2016 (UTC) — JerryRussell (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Now I see it was LuckyLouie who failed in his attempt to restore the article. But he's voting to delete it. The original article had 32 references, half were nuked even after LuckyLouie's attempt to restore the article. If you look at the page access stats, there were 250 views on the day the AfD appeared, and all those visitors saw the nuked version of the article. NO wonder most didn't stick around to vote in favor. This combination of nuke-and-pave followed by AfD followed by edit warring strikes me as seriously lacking integrity. JerryRussell (talk) 05:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes I thought the WP:TNT done by a new but overenthusiastic editor was premature, however I did examine the full version of the article and found it lacking. I also posted a link to the pre-TNT version in my comment. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:57, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * LuckyLouie, thanks for posting the link. But the article as it stands is still a shadow of its former self, and the vast majority of visitors are not going to be so diligent as to track down the previous state of the article. Another overenthusiastic(?) editor reverted it to the destroyed state because you forgot to re-create the AfD tag? It seems to me it's too late now to undue the damage, so many editors have passed by without being correctly informed. This entire process ought to be declared a mistrial.JerryRussell (talk) 14:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * : If you read my !vote above and the sidebar below, you'll see I was initially supportive until I explored those sources more in depth and found that all but 4-5 of them had contributed to a book on the topic together. Of the 4-5 independent sources, only 2 were in depth coverage. —PermStrump  ( talk )  05:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Where in Wiki policies does it say that contributing to an edited volume creates a vested interest, and prevents objectivity on the part of the academic contributors?JerryRussell (talk) 14:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * They're not tainted forever for everything they do (re: your comment in the sidebar). But they don't count towards the notability of this one particular topic. If there were more people covering it who were independent of the subject, those contributors could be used as sources (with due weight), but the fact that all of the contributors to the book have written other papers about it, but almost no one else has, is a reflection of the lack of notability of the topic outside of the inner-circle. I thought it was interesting stuff and I'm not arguing that it's fringe, but it's more of a neologism than anything else and it's only being used by a small group who collaborated on project about this very topic and stand to gain from book sales. —PermStrump  ( talk )  16:52, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If it's not fringe, then the only question should be, how big does an academic movement need to be to achieve Wiki notability standards. Seriously, you're arguing that all these academics are motivated by the huge royalties paid for book chapters and peer reviewed journals? JerryRussell (talk) 19:42, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * At the very least, and aside form how many partisans an idea requires to be notable, the idea has to be encountered and discussed by scholars or serious journalists who are not advocates for the topic. It is also, of course, usual for a new term/idea to be seized on by established, notable scholars and writers because the neologism is found by them to be useful.  This is the sort of validation I would need to WP:HEY.  Successful political neologisms include Islamophobia and Islamofascism but if you scan the WP political neologism category, you will see that many/most of the articles are disputed, or tagged for primary sourcing or notability. More of them probably ought to be.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:15, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi E.M.Gregory, thanks for at least entertaining the possibility of WP:HEY. Just as a hypothesis, what if the SCAD neologism has served its purpose at this point? That is, academics are increasingly willing to talk about government crimes and conspiracies, without fearing the taint of being called "conspiracy theorists"? Many people are still trying to throw around that insult, but it just isn't sticking any more. Even Donald Trump is a 911 conspiracy theorist. :-) But if SCAD has served its purpose as a neologism, it's still of historical notoriety.JerryRussell (talk) 15:56, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * How big exactly? I don't know, but I suppose that's what this AFD is to decide. —PermStrump  ( talk )  20:15, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Purely hypothetical, I was laying out what it would take, but those things do not exist in this case. I have searched and looked at what exists.  Advocates for this concept are few, non-notable, and working inside in an echo chamber.  I can find no no substantive sources outside that small echo chamber who take this concept seriously.E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:33, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If you are the person I remember, I believe you have actually done editing work during an AfD that led me to flip my vote from delete to keep; if that is right then your words here deserve a lot of weight. Jytdog (talk) 01:26, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you.  I am blessed with access to some really powerful search engines, so I am often able to weigh in with sources that many editors will have trouble finding. E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:24, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * What I don't understand is, by what authority are these delete discussions tallied up and decided? I found a policy article on this "nuke and pave" tactic, and somebody commented that delete discussions could also be nuked and paved. I'm very tempted. :-) JerryRussell (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Responded below in sidebar. —PermStrump  ( talk )  15:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete As per the arguments above RE the sourcing. Appears to be in use by a small circle. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails GNG (except to those in an echo chamber it seems). Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Sidebar
It seems like it would be useful to at least try to reach consensus on how to categorize the topic (not the TNT'ed content). Because if we're evaluating it with WP:NFRINGE guidelines, we'd have to explore if the ~80 peer-reviewed articles on the topic are all "in-universe" in order to assess notability. If we decide the topic is legitimate perspective in the political science field, or even that it's an "alternative theoretical formulation" then I guess WP:GNG would be the applicable guideline? On the other hand, maybe the topic boils down to just being a phrase some professor coined and we should think of it as a WP:NEOLOGISM. I don't know what my opinion is yet (and WP:NEO just occurred to me, so now I have to brush up on that), but I do worry we're being too quick to assume that the topic is FRINGE. —PermStrump ( talk )  19:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Feeling about the same. There are a couple ways to go with this. Since "State Crimes Against Democracy" appears to be a term in limited use by a small group of "involved" academics, the article might better be renamed Preventing State Crimes Against Democracy (book). Or it could be a bio of Lance deHaven-Smith. In both cases, we'd need to find truly independent sources that objectively describe these views, e.g.  so we can write a neutral article that's not coatracking and soapboxing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh wait... There's a book? My gut reaction to learning that is that the article is likely an WP:ADMASQ for the book and also happens to be WP:FRINGEBAIT (that should be a thing). And I would bet that the majority of people who buy the book (outside of his students) are conspiracy theorists, so the more provocative statements he makes online are probably catering to his audience and that's why it sounds so different from what he's actually published in peer-reviewed journals. Anyway, I guess we should add WP:NBOOK and WP:ACADEMIC to the list of options for how to evaluate this. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there's zero coverage of the topic in the mainstream media, but there were more academic articles in peer-reviewed journals than I originally expected. Let's say this was an article about the book, what does that say about its notability? —PermStrump  ( talk )  20:57, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Re: a possible book article - it is a bit confusing, but it seems there are two books hawking this term: State Crimes Against Democracy (Political Forensics in Public Affairs) by Matthew Witt (with Lance DeHaven-Smith listed as "contributor"), and Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance DeHaven-Smith (containing a substantial acknowledgement to Matthew Witt). Like I said, the topic is forwarded within small group of "involved" academics. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * State Crimes Against Democracy: Political Forensics in Public Affairs by Alexander Kouzmin, Matthew T. Witt, and Andrew Kakabadse lists 17 contributors (including deHaven-Smith and the 3 listed as authors), so maybe that list will make it easier to tease out which of the 80ish peer-reviewed articles are actually independent. I think we can assume anything written by at least these people has a potential COI: Alkadry MG, Burke J, deHaven-Smith L, Dixon J, Hinson C, Jensen C, Johannesson J, Kakabadse A, Kakabadse NK, Kouzmin A, Kuku-Siemons DS, Mouraviev N, Pappas NV, Siemons H, Simnjanovsk R, Spehr S, Witt M. And their works shouldn't count separately towards the notability of the concept or book. I wonder if we'll find anything truly independent, even if it's to criticize SCADs. The suspense! —PermStrump  ( talk )  22:39, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:COI makes a distinction between biography and other types of articles. Writing about yourself is automatically a serious conflict, but writing about subject matter within an editor's field of expertise is not necessarily COI. The idea that contributing to a collected academic volume creates a COI among a big group of authors seems silly to me.JerryRussell (talk) 05:20, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * User:JerryRussell pardon the ping; not sure you are watching this page. Yes, "COI" is being used incorrectly above; what I believe is meant is WP:INDY.  as in WP:Golden rule. Jytdog (talk) 05:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Jytog, where on WP:INDY does it say that contributing to an edited volume creates a vested interest that would be relevant to an academic topic article? I think what we have here is seventeen independent academic voices.JerryRussell (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, of course. I think you have to read a bit more than the first line to get the spirit of INDY, however :) Jytdog (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The way I read it, 'the spirit of indy' is to prevent corporations from buying Wiki articles, and to prevent people from writing about their mother. It's not to prevent academic collaboration in creating edited volumes.JerryRussell (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes that is part of it; it is also a test of whether the notion is discussed outside of a "bubble"; in other words, is it possible to generate a truly neutral article. Jytdog (talk) 15:14, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

on the contrary, if 17 different academics have published 80 articles in respected peer-reviewed journals, and no one has published an attack anywhere, this is not what a 'bubble' looks like. On the contrary, it's virtually a sign of academic consensus that these authors have found a way to address SCAD (formerly known as conspiracy theory) in a way that's academically respectable. The question should be, when is an academic movement big enough to achieve notability?JerryRussell (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Found an article about Matthew DeWitt and his book State Crimes Against Democracy: Political Forensics in Public Affairs in a promotional mag published by the not-prominent school where he teaches, University of La Verne.  The Article Dr. Matt Witt and Former Student Collaborate to Raise Awareness About ‘State Crimes Against Democracy’ in New Book makes it very clear that the book is a work of advocacy/promotion of the SCAD neologism/concept: “This book is important to me, personally, because it assembles scholars from around the world working together to create a new social science paradigm keyed to forensic analysis of public affairs in order to better understand how otherwise democratic institutions can be systematically gamed and corrupted,” Witt said.  So, the articles in the book, and the book fail WP:INDY.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Google scholar search fails to turn up any review of State Crimes Against Democracy: Political Forensics in Public Affairs . E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:35, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Even if the book itself only counts as one source -- if the contributors then write other articles elsewhere, those other articles would be independent sources. A person is not tainted forever by contributing to an edited volume. JerryRussell (talk) 15:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * One might even think of the DeWitt book as a sort of extended review or academic meditation on the themes posed in deHaven-Smit's original book and journal articles. A confirmation of academic notability, in other words.JerryRussell (talk) 19:47, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * In the article I cited above, the editor makes it clear that the agenda of this book was neither an "extended review or academic meditation," nor yet a scholarly attempt to present a range of perspective on a topic, but, rather, an agenda-driven effort "to make some serious headway in American politics." In other words, it is a polemic.  A perfectly legitimate form of authorship, but not WP:INDY because the authors in the volume were all pushing the same perspective. E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:44, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * So the editor "wants to make some serious headway in American politics." In what way does that connect with "pushing an agenda" specifically related to SCAD? And even if the editor had such an "agenda", how does this prove that all the contributors shared that exact "agenda"? By this definition of "Indy", any authors sharing the same viewpoint are automatically considered non-independent. The same argument could extend to all authors that contributed to any peer-reviewed journal over many years.JerryRussell (talk) 15:28, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That is a tendentious argument. Look, for mainstream stuff people can have different ideas  - let's say the best way to organize a health care system in a country.  You can make arguments for universal healthcare, and you can make arguments about a free market approach; there are a range of independent sources about the thing.  Then you get "bubble" concepts like this where the only people who even use the term are in that bubble.  In this case a semi-conspiracist FRINGE bubble. In my view there is actually an important notion here but by giving themselves over sloppily to the fullbore wingnut crowd with interviews like this the proponents have marginalized themselves to the extent that the idea seems to be simply ignored by the mainstream.  I have found no mainstream sources addressing this concept and we cannot write a neutral article about it Jytdog (talk) 16:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC) (redact to complete the thought, sorry Jytdog (talk) 19:36, 24 May 2016 (UTC))
 * Hear, hear.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:31, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * re: Your comment above... What does "nuke and pave" mean? As far as I know everything is recorded in the history and someone would just revert it. —PermStrump ( talk )  15:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * See Also formerly known as "Demolish and Delete". Also WP:TNT, etc. I think it's satire, but these days it's hard to be sure.JerryRussell (talk) 16:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Summary of 'keep' arguments
removed non-neutral "deletionists" from section header Jytdog (talk) 21:05, 26 May 2016 (UTC) Contrary to statements by LuckyLouie and MjolnirPants that the article is wp:synth, I've now read some chapters from deHaven-Smith's book, and I feel confident that the article accurately represents his views and research as stated in his published book and peer reviewed articles. Thanks to MjolnirPants' suggestion, I put the article in 'source voice' to make it clear that the opinions were coming from deHaven-Smith.

Ad Orientem claimed that the article was a coat-rack, but I believe it only appeared that way because of the nuke-and-pave attempt.

It is agreed that the article represents a minority viewpoint, and thus according to NPOV, it should not be given undue weight in summary articles. However, it is disputed whether it is PSCI or FRINGE.

Someone complained that it was impossible to write a balanced article, because no RS have attacked the concept. My argument would be that no one has attacked the concept in any RS because SCAD is simple common sense. But I have done my best to provide a balanced intro based on valid use of WP:SYNTH and WP:BLUE. I hope my detractors will have the courtesy to let my attempt stand during the admin review of the article and this delete discussion. JerryRussell (talk) 16:40, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

An unresolved question is whether the article meets GNG. As an academic movement, it has attracted >15 self-identified adherents. As a neologism, it has accumulated >100 references at google scholar. In the mass media, it has apparently gone completely unmentioned. I believe Wiki has many articles on academic concepts that are far less notable, but haven't gone to search for examples.JerryRussell (talk) 16:41, 26 May 2016 (UTC)


 * My argument would be that no one has attacked the concept in any RS because SCAD is simple common sense. Honestly, I find this statement humorous beyond words. A neologism, used almost exclusively by conspiracy theorists to classify events which exist almost exclusively in the minds of conspiracy theorists, elucidated by breathless adherents and relying upon torturous logic (conflating law and ethics, reality and conspiracy theories, and somehow insisting that democracy is the victim), and yet you insist it is "simple common sense". It's not.
 * Nor are those who voted to delete "deletionists", nor does this subject qualify as an academic concept. The reason we cannot write a balanced article about it is not because there are no sources attacking it: It is because all the sources we have describing it are suspect, because the description is so vague as to be useless, and because it is only used by a fringe group. You can 'contest' those statements, but they will remain factual nonetheless.
 * Finally, in a process in which the dominant voice and argument has been to delete, it is quite dishonest to post a 'summary' which ignores all of that in favor of repeating the sparse arguments to keep which have been presented. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  16:56, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding 'common sense', that's just my opinion. Others can make it as complicated as they want.
 * The section title was originally 'summary and reply to deletionists', which made it perfectly clear that it was from a POV, not a neutral summary.JerryRussell (talk) 01:46, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As to the 'dominant voice', I count 2 keep, 1 week keep, 11 delete. But, many of those 'deletes' came in early, and they were looking at the TNT version of the article. Is this determined by 'dominant voice'; by most reasoned argument according to the policies; or by consensus? I thought it was by consensus, and I don't see any consensus.JerryRussell (talk) 01:59, 27 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Characterizing other editors as "deletionists" because they don't agree with you isn't a valid argument in a deletion discussion. And the problems previously noted in my !vote for deletion remain unchanged. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:33, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * My use of the word 'deletionist' wasn't an argument, it was a descriptive term. Jytdog's edit created the confusion in the headline, hopefully now it's clear enough. If editors are concerned about being described as 'deletionist' perhaps they shouldn't put so much effort into trying to get highly informative and interesting articles deleted? But, no offense intended.JerryRussell (talk) 01:46, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Your use of the word 'deletionist' is a rhetorical device known as Dehumanization, which undermines opinions voiced against you by ascribing them to a group which is defined by their opposition to you. It falsely implies that all such arguments are circular by suggesting that opposition is ideological instead of rational. It is a form of an ad hominem argument, and is a fallacy on multiple levels. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  13:29, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * MjolnirPants, Is the concept of 'fringe' a similar rhetorical device? JerryRussell (talk) 15:07, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

request for feedback
Somebody mentioned to me that I might be 'bludgeoning' this topic, and that it's inappropriate for one editor to take on such a prominent voice in a discussion here. Do others agree? It would certainly be less work if I were able to relax and just trust in the consensus process. I would especially like to hear from those editors who support keeping the article.JerryRussell (talk) 15:07, 27 May 2016 (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.