Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suppression of dissent


 * 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 redirect to Dissent. There is consensus that the topic is notable but that the content is very deficient. But editors disagree about whether this means that we should delete the article per WP:TNT or keep it as a basis for improvement. The redirection is a compromise that implements what consensus we have: the history is kept, but the content is omitted from view until somebody competently recreates the article.  Sandstein  12:13, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Suppression of dissent

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

The subject of suppression of dissent is probably legitimate for Wikipedia, but this article is not. It is drawn almost entirely from the work of a single person. Even the sources that are not authored by him are hosted on his user space at his institution. It's been flagged for numerous issues for over two years and there's no sign of it being fixed. Most of it reads as a personal essay. And the primary cited source is controversial to say the least: he considers Andrew Wakefield to be a victim of suppression, he considers the OPV-AIDS hypothesis to be legitimate science suppressed by the mainstream. It is not a coincidence that a notorious anti-vaccination activist sought him out to co-supervise her controversial PhD along with notorious quack Peter Dingle. This article is a WP:COATRACK and needs WP:TNT. Guy (Help!) 09:15, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep/Bad faith nom - This editor is actively engaging (check 27 May contributions) in a WP:BLPCOI campaign to remove citations/mentions of Brian Martin who wrote about JzG in an analysis titled Persistent Bias on Wikipedia: Methods and Responses in a peer-reviewed journal (paywalled, but available here). Note the aspersions about the author in the AfD justification and lack of any actual guidelines or policies which would justify deletion. -- Netoholic @ 12:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No COI, this article says nothing about Martin's kvetching about his article. Guy (Help!) 21:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep The topic is quite notable as there are entire books about it, including:
 * The Suppression of Dissent
 * Where Silence Rules: The Suppression of Dissent in Malawi
 * Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy
 * "You Will be Thoroughly Beaten": The Brutal Suppression of Dissent in Zimbabwe
 * Managing Domestic Dissent in First World War Britain
 * The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America
 * The Betrayal of Dissent: Beyond Orwell, Hitchens and the New American Century
 * Cutting Off the Serpent's Head: Tightening Control in Tibet
 * The Management of Dissent: Responses to the Post Kent State Protests
 * Schools Under Surveillance: Cultures of Control in Public Education
 * If the current draft needs work then, per our editing policy, this is done by improvement not deletion. Andrew D. (talk) 21:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete COATRACK. Incoherent. SPECIFICO talk 08:34, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, SPECIFICO, WP:TNT and most importantly our deletion policy. The article meets points 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13 and 14 of WP:DEL-REASON, and Andrew's point, which essentially amounts to "Yeah, but at least it doesn't meet #8" shows a misunderstanding of our deletion policy unbecoming of an experienced AFD contributor. Citing the editing policy in an AFD in order to overrule a deletion policy argument is Mark 10 Jesus on divorce levels of pre-Enlightenment textual interpretation. It also seems highly unlikely he's read all, or even any, of those books, most of which unsurprisingly show up in the first couple of pages of GBooks search for the title of this article: some of them may be unreliable, or may contain nothing of use for our article, or... it doesn't matter. Netoholic's ad hominem argument, which essentially says this AFD should be closed because Netoholic doesn't feel like abiding by AGF, does not even merit a response. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 11:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 13:25, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Andrew D. (talk) 15:07, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Andrew D. (talk) 15:07, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep You don't TNT the page history starting from February 2005 just because the current version has one objectionable source (and indeed bases its content too much on one source which is never good). WP:JUSTFIXIT. --Pudeo (talk) 21:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The entire article has only ever had one source. It has, ever since its creation, been an ever-lengthening exposition of Brian Martin's views on this subject. Edit number one is sourced to Martin, the first major expansion included almost entirely Martin, the second major expansion (by the same editor) did the same. Guy' (Help!) 22:31, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * keep per WP:RUBBISH. The nom admits that the article's topic "is probably legitimate for Wikipedia" though he says the current article should be deleted. But if the topic is legitimate, the article should be improved and not deleted. User:Netoholic's comment on the bad faith nom is credible and should be taken seriously.desmay (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The topic may be legitimate, but this article is not. Hence WP:TNT. Netoholic's comment is itself bad faith - he "forgot" to mention that he only came here as a result of stalking my edits after a content dispute. I know, you're shocked too. Guy (Help!) 14:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:TNT. A fantastically broad topic, supported by fantastically narrow sourcing of remarkably dubious quality. We don't demand perfection, but we need our content to be better than this, and nothing here needs to be saved. (And longevity is no guarantee of quality.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:BEFORE. This a a perfectly decent start. Bearian (talk) 00:52, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * A "start" that has never been anything else and is based entirely on the work of one fringe author. Guy (Help!) 07:24, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:31, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep and rewrite per nom. As the nominator admits himself, the subject is notable. The format of the article, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired, although much of the info currently in the article could be retained, if rewritten in a more encyclopedic fashion. SwineHerd (talk/contribs) 12:47, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * So, are you going to rewrite the article yourself? If there's nothing in the article worth saving, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by deleting. The deletion policy allows for plenty of reasons to delete beyond lack of notability, and !voting based purely on the inapplicability of a rationale that no one actually invoked is disruptive. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep and TNT - by which I mean, there aren't suitable/sufficient grounds to actually delete the article (and yes, 聖 is correct that no-one is arguing notability grounds, so defending it on that is unneeded). However once preserved it might as well be functionally blanked and reworked, since the content adds very little, is premised off a single source, and focuses in a non-beneficial fashion. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That works Although to prevent another Korean influence on Japanese culture-type fiasco where the article is blanked and then a bunch of super-suspicious SPAs (and even a "keep" !voter trying to retroactively "win" the AFD) show up and start reverting the blanking, I'd prefer revdel or something similar (and explicit close statement in support of the blanking?) being used in addition to simple blanking. It might also be worth noting that the reason that 2014 AFD ended in "no consensus" centered heavily on Andrew Davidson (and a couple of others saying "per Andrew") making straw-man notability arguments without attempting to refute the argument that there was nothing in the page history worth preserving, so my concern is not exactly unfounded... Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:46, 4 June 2018 (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.