Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/not ready yet/Mohammad Rafiq (Taliban leader)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 discussion was  keep. Any discussion on moving the article can be taken up at the talk page. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 02:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Geo Swan/not ready yet/Mohammad Rafiq (Taliban leader)
Abandoned article attempt from April 2009 about a person who doesn't meet WP:BIO. The article that is the source for this is not about this person, but only talks about him very shortly as a witness to the actual Taliban leaders (despite the name Taliban leader, he is not really what one would expect, but more of a minor officer, a lieutenant or captain or so, if one can place this in military terms). Fram (talk) 14:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 *  Delete  WP:STALEDRAFT states: "Userspace is not a free web host and should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles, old revisions, or deleted content, or your preferred version of disputed content. Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion." Because this page violates WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:STALEDRAFT, it should be deleted. Cunard (talk) 01:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There is (was?) a recent discussion going on as to how long has to pass since the last edit before a userspace page is considered "stale". I know you weighed in this discussion, and must have seen that some good faith contributors suggested that when a contributor has gone one year without editing a single article, talk page, or userspace page, that only then should the userspace pages they have been employing be considered stale.  It seems premature to label userspace pages as stale when the definition of what is and isn't stale hasn't been decided.  I made my first edits to articles on topics related to the "war on terror" on March 23, 2005, 68 months ago.  It seems to me that if my first edits to these loosely connected topics were almost six years ago, it is not inappropriate for me to employ notes, rough workings, for years, without having to worry that someone will claim they are "stale".  Geo Swan (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If a topic is notable, I will not vote to delete the userspace draft even if several years have passed. However, in the cases of your userspace drafts, a significant number of them are several years old and are about non-notable individuals. Some even have BLP issues and have been speedy deleted for being unsourced, negative BLPs. If a userspace draft has been unedited for six months, it is a stale draft. Whether or not it should be deleted is left to the discretion of the participants in the MfD discussions. Cunard (talk) 23:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per above, per WP:STALEDRAFT. DARTH SIDIOUS 2 (Contact) 15:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * WRT WP:BIO -- which redirects to WP:Notability (people). As near as I can tell a perceived lack of notability is not grounds for deletion of userspace pages.  Geo Swan (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WRT objections to the name of this page -- I am concerned that this is not a valid criteria for deletion. We have never deleted mainspace articles when someone thought they had bad names.  Why should we do so for userspace pages?  Further, if the nominator's concern were valid this would be a very easy thing to fix.  Geo Swan (talk) 20:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WRT objections to the name of this page redux -- this nomination asserts Mohammad Rafiq should not be described as a "leader" -- since, if he were in a conventional military organization our nominator thinks he would be a junior officer, at the platoon or company level. The Taliban and al Qaeda are not regular military organizations.  They are underground organizations, built around secret cells, and intelligence analysts routinely describe individuals who lead as "leaders", even if they only lead squad, platoon or company sized cells.  Following this usage is not grounds for deletion.  This is an editorial decision, which I will happy to discuss when this has been moved to artcle space.  I'd be happy to have this kind of discussion on a userspace page's talk page.  I think it is a very strange challenge to find in an mfd.  Geo Swan (talk) 20:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WRT WP:WEBHOST -- first, there is no previously deleted content on this userspace page. Second, after looking at WP:WEBHOST a number of times I have got to say I think it is being misapplied here.  Its intent is clearly to prevent userspace being used for private projects, side projects, projects that have nothing to do with the wikipedia's goals. This page, indeed all userspace pages I employ are strictly to support my good faith efforts in article space.  Geo Swan (talk) 20:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WRT WP:User pages -- says, in various places, that good faith contributors have considerable leeway as to how they employ userspace pages. However, it seems to me, that in this nomination, and in dozens of similar recent nominations of userspace pages I employ, those pages are being held to a higher standard than we require of actual articles, in article space -- the reverse of the considerable leeway clauses in WP:User pages.  I think this is inappropriate.  Calling for deletion over a concern over the pages name forinstance -- who would endorse that as a valid criteria for deletion in an afd?  Geo Swan (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Move to article space -- Contrary to the assertion in the nomination, Mohammad Rafiq, the Taliban leader, the failed Taliban bomber, and the organizer of Taliban suicide bombings, is a notable individual. Geo Swan (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Move to the mainspace per 's rewrite. With in-depth coverage in sources ranging from 2004 to 2010, notability is sufficiently established. Cunard (talk) 23:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that the 2004 Mohammed Rafiq, who this nomination was about, is the same as the 2010 arrested one? It is, as Geo Swan indicated in other discussions, not uncommon at all to get different people with the same name in Taliban-related stories. Without such evidence, we shouldn't link these two together, as that is a serious breach of WP:OR and WP:BLP. He could just as well be e.g. the ex-Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Rafiq, or a third person with the same or similar name. Fram (talk) 07:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Geo Swan, before this is moved to the mainspace, would you address Fram's concerns? I reviewed the two articles and do not see an obvious connection. The 2004 article states that: "Mullah Mohammad Rafiq, a 28-year-old Taliban fighter with kohl-lined eyes and shoulder-length hair spilling from his black turban, couldn't believe his good luck. Last summer his 20-man guerrilla unit was summoned to the district of Argandab in Kandahar province to rendezvous with Mullah Shahzada Akhund." This 2010 article (related to the previously mentioned 2010 article) states that: "A senior officer said the man, identified as Mohammad Rafique, was a resident of Orakzai Agency. His son Mohammad Hanif was a suicide bomber who blew himself up at the gate of Naval Complex on Dec 2 last year. Two navy officers were killed and 10 others injured in the attack. The officer said that Rafique had been associated with Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and Jamaatud Dawa in the past." I don't see any connections between the man in the 2004 article and the man in the 2010 articles. Would any of the sources used in this userspace draft fit the characteristics of ex-Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Rafiq or another person with a similar name? Cunard (talk) 09:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Could the Taliban leader named Mohammed Rafiq, mentioned in the 2004 Newsweek article, have been the Mohammed Rafiq (ISN 495), released from Guantanamo on September 17, 2004? No, not if we take the Newsweek article at face value.  The 2nd line of the Newsweek article says: "Last summer his 20-man guerrilla unit was summoned to the district of Argandab in Kandahar province to rendezvous with Mullah Shahzada Akhund."  First, Mohammed Rafiq, ISN 495, wasn't leading a guerrilla unit anywhere in the summer of 2003 or the summer of 2004, as he was still in Guantanamo.  Note, the Newsweek article states, quite prominently, that the Mullah Shahzada MR was accompanying was a former Guantanamo captive.  I suggest we could count on the article also identifying MR as a former captive, if he was in fact a former capitve. Mullah Shahzada was the first former Guantanamo captive the DoD reported "returned to the fight".  The DoD claimed he was released in May 2003 and KIA in May 2004, so, taking the Newsweek article at face value, "last summer" refers to the summer of 2003, when MR, ISN 495, still had more than a year to spend in Guantanamo. Additionally, MR, ISN 495, and Fazaldad were released on September 17, 2004 -- six months or more before the other captives determined to have been innocent bystanders by their CSR Tribunal, suggesting he was one of the most innocent of the innocent bystanders, sent to Guantanamo by mistake.   Geo Swan (talk) 21:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A lengthy reply, but I can't find an answer to the one simple and quite fundamental question, so I'll repeat it in bold: Is there any evidence that the 2004 Mohammed Rafiq, who this nomination was about, is the same as the 2010 arrested one? Fram (talk) 08:50, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It is possible there were two Taliban leaders who were both named Mohammed Rafiq. But I see no specific evidence to support this guess of yours.  Wouldn't anyone be open to a claim of WP:OR if they created two articles, based on an unsupported guess that there were actually two Taliban leaders named Mohammed Rafiq?  Nothing prevents forking an article on Mohammed Rafiq (Taliban leader) into two articles, when further references emerge.  Geo Swan (talk) 08:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, please check our WP:BLP and WP:OR policies. It is your responsability to provide evidence that these two persons are actually one and the same (or are considered to be the same by reliable sources at least). The name is rather common, so that isn't sufficient by far. Fram (talk) 08:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I asked you "Wouldn't anyone be open to a claim of WP:OR if they created two articles, based on an unsupported guess that there were actually two Taliban leaders named Mohammed Rafiq?" No offense, but your suggestion that there may have been two individuals, isn't this just a guess?  You have no WP:RS to back it up your guess, do you?  Could you please explain why following your suggestion would not be a lapse from OR? You write that "Mohammed Rafiq" is a common name.  I can agree to that.  You write that I have to provide evidence that the references are to a single individual.  Well, the references describe Mohammed Rafiq as a Taliban leader.  Why don't you acknowledge this as sufficient evidence?  Geo Swan (talk) 09:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course that's just a guess, if I had evidence to the contrary I would have removed all references to the second one from the draft. But I am not writing one or two articles here, since I don't want to speculate and endulge in OR in articles. And no, considering that another Mohammed Rafiq was detained because they believed that "Detainee is a member of the Taliban.", I don't consider the name and link to the Taliban as sufficient to lump them together. Fram (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - there are no BLP issues here. This is valuable working documentation, which Geo has built up with painstaking meticulousness.  Much of the PD material is being moved to Wikisource, and that is fine, let Geo proceed with that at his own pace. Rich Farmbrough, 07:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC).


 * Possibly merge or split part to Mohammed Rafiq. Rich Farmbrough, 10:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC).


 * Speedy Keep At this point I don't even care about the merits, I am just assuming blatantly bad faith on the part of Fram. The actions of this user are reprehensible, nonconstructive, and decidedly incivil. If this continues, Geo Swan, or anyone else, has excellent grounds for a case against Fram at whatever noticeboard they so choose.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:50, 18 December 2010 (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.