Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Military history of the Christian West


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was Delete. The consensus below is firm: this portal violates NPOV, a core policy, and cannot be retained. Xoloz 15:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Military history of the Christian West
The portal and its subpages were tagged for speedy deletion as attack pages (CSD G10). Strictly speaking the portal doesn't really qualify since I believe the portal was created in good faith. Still, it is grossly inappropriate and its deletion can't come soon enough in my opinion. It is POV beyond reason as one can clearly see by looking at the selected quote or the DYK section. Even the lead sentence of the portal clearly announces that the focus is on Christian victories... Note that even the portal's title is potentially inflammatory. Pascal.Tesson 16:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong delete this POV as per the above. -- FayssalF  - Wiki me up®  17:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete This portal is blatantly POV and therefore its existence undermines WP's credibility; it is highly divisive, a focus for disruption, and a magnet for vandals; the cherry-picking of subject matter amounts to original research. R OGER   TALK 17:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and Salvage - As the original nom says, the portal was (likely) created in good faith. The articles it features (Reconquista, Crusades, etc) are all quality articles with a more or less NPOV, and the topic as a whole is a real and legitimate historically. The Portal needs to be renamed, and the anti-Muslim biased removed from its subpages (Quotes, DYK). Do I think it is necessary or even important to have a portal on this topic? No. But neither do I think that the subject is inherently racist, nor do I support the kind of knee-jerk political correctness that tends to crop up now and then on WP. LordAmeth 18:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Question If you take away the anti-Muslim bias, what of the core raison d'être is left to salvage? A military history of the western hemisphere from 33AD onwards, which is already comprehensively covered in various wikiprojects elsewhere? R OGER   TALK 18:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Surely you mean portals, not wikiprojects, Roger? Carom 19:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I was referring (rather obliquely, I'm afraid) to the way that, for instance, the French Wars of Religion (ie Catholic -v- Protestant) are part of both the French wikiproject and the military history one (with contributions and watching briefs from both). R OGER   TALK 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Similar question: why should we salvage this portal? What basically you're asking is that we rename the portal, rewrite the intro, rewrite the quotes section, rewrite the whole DYK section and then make sure that the portal is maintained by a group of editors who understand what NPOV is. I don't quite see the difference between that option and deleting the portal until some responsible editor comes in and starts from scratch. Many of the articles which the portal features are indeed of fair quality (although Reconquista for one has recurring pov disputes) but they're already featured in portal maintained by a more active group of editors. This portal, on the other hand, is a POV nightmare because it is by design focused on Christian victories. I don't think that this is, as you imply, a knee-jerk politically correct reaction. It's a knee-jerk, "NPOV is one of the founding pillars of Wikipedia?" reaction. Pascal.Tesson 19:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is simply that if this Portal is to be deleted, it should be because it is useless and redundant, not over accusations of racism. That's all. I'm really not super passionate about any need to keep it, only a need to not have certain things be the reasons for its deletion, as they are inappropriate accusations, I think. (Consider this - Would a portal or wikiproject of Muslim military history be automatically discriminatory against Jews and Christians just by existing? No. It depends on the content.) LordAmeth 23:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There have been no accusations of racism (tho' Islam isn't a race anyway) simply objections on POV and OR policy grounds. I agree that the portal name comes with as little or as much baggage as we individually wish to attach to it: however, the combination of an unfortunate portal name with highly selective choice of content - ie restricted to Christian military victories over Muslims - conspire to create a portal which is probably irredeemably unencyclopedic. In this context, discussions over whether daniel3 acted in bad faith or is simply a bad editor or whether or not the objections are based on a politically correct subtext are irrelevant. R OGER   TALK 07:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment While I'm not convinced that deletion is entirely appropriate here, it may be that anyone wishing to develop a portal covering the Crusades (or anything else currently tied up in this portal) would be better off starting from scratch. It would be a great deal of work to repurpose this to something really useful, and when all is said and done, it may be less problematic to work from the ground up. At any rate, I don't see why this needs to be done "speedily"; the portal may be problematic (even irretrievably so), but I don't see anything calamitous about allowing the discussion to run its course. It would also be nice to see some feedback from the creator (although I understand that there is a request for Checkuser currently underway, as there are some concerns of sockpuppetry, etc.). Carom 19:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you don't mind me asking, if you don't think it's entirely appropriate to delete it, and you don't think it's practical to salvage it, what is your view? R OGER   TALK 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't want to read Carom's mind here but I think his main point is that this should not be speedy-deleted. Pascal.Tesson 20:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're probably reading it correctly. :)) R OGER   TALK 20:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (after edit conflict) Pretty much. While I agree that this portal is problematic, and I'm not convinced that anything can be salvaged, I'm equally not convinced of the wisdom of rushing to delete a large number of component pages. Additionally, most of the underlying pages don't seem particularly problematic in and of themselves, and could be renamed if there was a consensus to develop a new portal with some of the same elements. Carom 21:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's what I was wondering (hence my question) ... that you're absolutely neutral on this and will go along with consensus? R OGER   TALK 06:10, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Quite. Carom 02:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The sockpuppetry thing is news to me. What's that all about? Pascal.Tesson 19:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This is what is all about. This is the Case:DAde or DAnieldeutchland's case. -- FayssalF  - Wiki me up®  20:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * FayssalF initially raised the concern on the MilHist talk page (in this discussion), and then opened a request for Checkuser here. Carom 19:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for mentioning that Carom. This is one more sign of what i am talking about ---> "This portal should also not be deleted because the Portal:Military history of the Ottoman Empire is allowed.Daniel3 15:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)"
 * There are tens of Military portals but only the Ottoman one was singled out. Adding "West" to the title is pointy in contrast w/ the "East" Ottoman. -- FayssalF  - Wiki me up®  19:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * keep and revise, accompanied by some advice about NPOV for the editor who prepared it; the comment above show he still regards it as a matter of POV opposition. . The only thing really objectionable at the moment is the (single) quote, and perhaps the wording of the Jefferson quote. A more varied choice of example and quotes would do well. Contra  Pascel.Tesson, there is no reason why it has to be focused on christian victories. Some articles on the expulsion of the crusader or the Turkish conquest of much of Eastern Europe would be very well. I changed a few as an illustration. DGG (talk) 20:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * But wait, who's going to develop and maintain this portal? If you look at the contribs history of daniel3 and DAde, it's pretty clear that this is a case of sockpuppetry. Moreover, I have gotten into an argument about images daniel3 has uploaded which has resulted in accusations that I and the rest of Wikipedia  are anti-Mormon. I'm not sure what's the point of keeping a portal which is currently a POV nightmare, has a title with the words "Christian West" when that expression is rarely used in contexts which are not polemic, which is created as a soapbox and for which the sole editor is likely a sockpuppet of an editor banned for disruptive POV pushing. Sure, we could transform this into a portal about the history of crusades. That would be great. Except it only makes sense if this is done by a group of editors who are actually knowledgeable about the subject and have long term objectives for the portal. There are gazillions of good ideas for portals but without a dedicated group of editors, portal-stubs are useless. Pascal.Tesson 20:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment - I'd totally and strongly support the creation of the Crusades portal in case this blatant POVish article made in bad faith is deleted. Although the Crusades would attract POV pushers from both sides, i am sure the project members would be keen to neutralise it. -- FayssalF  - Wiki me up®  20:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Me too. It's an interesting period. R OGER   TALK 20:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Delete. In its current form, this portal will be a prime candidate for revert wars and what's worse. I've absolutely no objection if somebody one day creates a crusades portal (provided that such a portal will confirm to NPOV). IFF a portal like this were to be kept, it would not only need fixing but also a number of dedicated editors that would maintain it, update it and keep it free of problems. Trouble is that I don't see such a crowd of hands anywhere and maintaining portals is time consuming work. Hence, deletion seems like the best option. Valentinian T / C 21:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice and contact WP:MILHIST to see if that project would be interested in setting up either "Religious war" task forces and/or a "Crusades" task force. If that project and/or any of its subprojects would later want to re-create the portal, fine. But a portal without a supporting project is probably going to be POV whether it wants to be or not, particularly when it deals with a potentially contentious issue such as this. John Carter 21:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (ec) Delete Presupposing a united "Christian West" riding out to do battle with the Muslims is not only POV, but completely ahistorical. Much of the military history would be internecine conflict.  From the "Did you know" section: "...the Crusades were defensive conflicts."  O RLY? ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 21:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete -- The crusades were defensive eh? This whole page is crazy. I think I saw some of the same articles on Portal:Glorious Accomplishments of Fundamentalist Christian Conservative Right-wing Regressive Fascist Propagandists Gregbard 23:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletions.   — Sef rin gle Talk 04:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Glorifies Christian victories over Muslims and has exxagerations, per WP:NPOVMr. Killigan 06:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete This portal seems to have been started to cherry-pick those bits of military history where forces from Christian nations defeated Muslim forces. As such, it's pushing a POV, is not maintainable or worth salvaging and duplicates existing NPOV portals/projects. --Nick Dowling 08:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, overly specific and one-sided. Move relevant neutral content to the more generic "history" portals.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  08:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. If people want to create a (NPOV) portal for this time period, they can go ahead - but the only real value in the current portal is the structure, which can be easily copied from an existing portal.  Considering the rampant POV problems in the current page, it would probably be easier to delete this and start from scratch.  --Tim4christ17 talk 18:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Anyone who would want to create a NPOV view of this portal (not just Muslim-bashing) would be better off starting a new one from scratch. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 01:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Snow delete and salt The most blatant POV fork I've ever seen. Can't be salvaged ... recommend salting.  Does anyone else see it snowing yet? Blueboy96 16:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is, as you put it, snowing - as far as deletion goes. But I submit that there is no consensus to salt the page. --Tim4christ17 talk 17:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, but it's a dreadful title. What next? Military History of the Muslim East? Addhoc 17:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. (I agree it's a bad title...but I don't see any reason to prevent its usage - you never know, someone may find a good use for it.)  --Tim4christ17 talk 19:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me go out on a limb here: I claim that no reasonable editor will ever find a good use for the title Portal:Military history of the Christian West. Even the terminology "Christian West" is of very limited use and the title inevitably has a POV undertone. Pascal.Tesson 20:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * True, but to my understanding, pages are only salted if they are repeatedly re-created, and that we don't preemptively salt pages. (And yes, it would be a preemptive salting since this page will have only been deleted once). --Tim4christ17 talk 20:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, salting is just a waste of time. (in fact, we should keep it open: that way if anyone recreates it, it'll be pretty obvious that we're dealing with another daniel3 sockpuppet) Pascal.Tesson 20:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zouavman Le Zouave (talk • contribs)
 * Delete strongly POV, questionable whether any useful portal could be created at this title and it would have to begin from scratch anyway. Hut 8.5 14:56, 16 July 2007 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.