Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Jews

Can parts of this article be salvaged by creating articles on specific encyclopedic subtopics?
In response to Role of Jews in the development of capitalism, it should be pointed out that that article has a nearly identical introduction to this article. "The economic history of the Jews has been considered by a wide variety of authors, including Abraham Foxman in his book Jews and Money, Gerald Krefetz in his book Jews and Money, Werner Sombart in his book The Jews and Modern Capitalism, J. J. Goldberg in his book Jewish Power, Salo Wittmayer Baron and Arcadius Kahan in their book Economic history of the Jews..."

and

"The association of Jews with money (including capitalism, wealth, business, profit, and banking) has been considered by a wide variety of authors, including Abraham Foxman in his book Jews and Money, Gerald Krefetz in his book Jews and Money,Werner Sombart in his book The Jews and Modern Capitalism, J. J. Goldberg in his book Jewish Power, Salo Wittmayer Baron and Arcadius Kahan in their book Economic history of the Jews..."

What is going on here? Wikifan12345 (talk) 22:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See the administrators noticeboard. That and another page were created as "backups" for this one in case it's deleted. 28bytes (talk) 23:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The intro to Role of Jews in the development of capitalism probably needs to be changed. The question to ask (probably over at Talk:Role of Jews in the development of capitalism) is whether Jews had a role in the development of capitalism.  The article text seems to suggest that they did but History of capitalism makes only one reference to the Jews.  So... is the role of Jews in the development of capitalism a fact or a fiction? Feel free to start a discussion thread over at Talk:Role of Jews in the development of capitalism--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 23:41, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been suggested here, on my Talk Page and on the Talk Pages of the two articles that I created that the creation of those articles was premature. Indeed, what I found convincing was this bit of policy that was quoted to me:


 * AfD participants should not circumvent consensus by merging or copying material to another article unilaterally, before the debate closes. Such action may cause contention, extra process steps, and additional admin work if undoing any copying is necessary. Preservation is often worthwhile but copying causes an attribution dependency between articles that may require retaining some article history that would otherwise be deleted. If you see a debate leaning toward Delete rather than Merge, offer a specific proposal, negotiate with the other participants, and wait for the discussion to be closed. Even if the debate ends with Delete, you can ask the closing admin how to save material that might be used elsewhere, and the admin can advise on any further review steps that might be needed to justify that reuse.

Based on the above policy text, I have decided to move the two articles in question into my userspace so as to end the contentioiusness of the situation. As suggested by the above text, I am making a specific proposal (that we create two articles Jews and banking and Role of Jews in the development of capitalism) and hoping that we can negotiate a way forward amongst all of us.

Based on the AFD discussion so far, I actually don't see a clear consensus to delete this article although I haven't counted the !votes and have no idea whether the numeric count is running for or against deletion. I am inclined to think that the arguments for Keeping the article are more compelling than the ones to delete and, if and when I decide to !vote, I am inclined to argue for Keeping the article. However, I haven't expressed an opinion yet because I think this article title should be deleted in favor of the two articles that I have created Jews and banking and Role of Jews in the development of capitalism. I have argued here and elsewhere that these are encyclopedic topics and that the major flaw in this article is that a bunch of somewhat related subtopics have been strung together in a way that suggests an antisemitic POV. I'd like to see what other editors think about these two proposed articles. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Jews and banking
NOTE: The purpose of initiating this discussion is to build support for the creation of Jews and banking after the end of this AFD discussion.

Initial text copied from this revision of the article.


 * Comment - Well, I'm not thrilled about this title but I think it is a fact that individual Jews played a significant role in European and American banking. Do I believe that this means that the Jewish people or even a Jewish cabal controlled the international financial system with a secret, evil agenda?  No.  however, the existence of that antisemitic canard should be discussed in this article. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment --First, thanks for making those moves. That said, the current count is 44 for delete and 26 for keep, with 5 of the keeps with a caveat of stating the article should be stubified. I find the delete argument more compelling, but of course I have voted. I won't comment on your proposals right now, but will take a look. Thanks again. Dave Dial (talk) 01:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Role of Jews in the development of capitalism
NOTE: The purpose of initiating this discussion is to build support for the creation of Jews and banking after the end of this AFD discussion.

Initial text copied from this revision of the article.


 * Comment - Well, I'm not thrilled about this title but I think it is a fact that individual Jews played a significant role in development of capitalism. Do I believe that this means that the Jewish people are greedier and more capitalistic than Christians?  No.  however, the existence of that antisemitic canard should be discussed in this article. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Economic history of Religion X

 * WELCOME: Economic history of the Christians and Economic history of the Muslims and new Category:Economic history by religious and ethnic group. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * IZAK, that was an incredibly bad and pointy idea. You should not create worthless POV pages to demonstrate why creating worthless POV pages is bad. 28bytes (talk) 23:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Haven't you jumped the gun, IZAK? Are you backtracking on your vote above? Chesdovi (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * These pointy articles need to be userfied until much more complete, or is the entire economic history of Christians slavery? Passionless   -Talk  23:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * They seem like reasonable ideas, provided they don't closely duplicate the scope of existing articles. But Economic history of the Christians is missing basic things like references to Gregory the Great and Martin Luther King, Jr.; also, like the first article, it might benefit by being split into separate considerations of philosophy, perceptions, and actual practice. Wnt (talk) 23:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * IZAK -  uncool.  Stick to the topic at hand.  All three of these article should be taken out back and shot. Joe407 (talk) 07:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

This is textbook WP:POINT disruption. No point fussing over it at AN/I or the like but please don't do it again.Griswaldo (talk) 11:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Can I have some guidance as to where I should create Economic history of the Baha'i? Should it be as a section of Economic history of the Muslims or on it's own? I'm also wondering if Economic history of the Pharesees should be part of the Jews article or if the theological differences were great enough to create rift in how they view money. Joe407 (talk) 11:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Those editors who are passionately committed to a "delete" outcome have been done no service by this last thread. The appearance is one of let's gleefully drive home our point that we disapprove of the article. Personally, I wish that the "backup" page had not been created. And I've argued above that it would be best to merge the material into existing pages, in a manner that is somewhere in between "keep" and "delete". But anyone who sees this AfD in win/lose terms, or who thinks it's funny, is doing the project no favors. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this thread reflects on anyone but the article creator. Honestly, I don't know why they haven't been deleted. But I have no interest in wading into more sludge, so chose to ignore. That doesn't prevent anyone else from doing something about it. Perhaps the direction of your comment should be focused instead of lumping everyone who wrote "delete" together with this. Dave Dial (talk) 18:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but that's not what I said! I didn't lump every "delete" commenter together. I said that this thread makes the passionate "delete" comments look bad. There's plenty of room here for calm, thoughtful discussion, with valid arguments to be made on both sides of the case. But those who say that anyone with whom they disagree should be ridiculed, well, that's not helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict-thread moved)Um, just exactly how is stating "this thread makes the passionate "delete" comments look bad" not lumping editors together? That doesn't make sense. I will agree this thread(as well as those articles) isn't helpful and is definitely not the appropriate manner for discussion. But stating that "this thread makes the passionate "delete" comments look bad" most assuredly does lump all the "delete" commentators together. Every editor is responsible only for their own actions. Dave Dial (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess that you would like to distance yourself from it, and perhaps so would some other editors. That's all for the good. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see my fuller response below. Let me get this straight, Jews can be subjects of Economic history of the Jews but Christians and Muslims cannot etc be subjects of similarly-named articles with the same intent on focusing on all related economic topics, even from other WP articles, but now under this new topic? Where is the logic and rationale here? It is all very well to resort to WP rules that refute reality and reason, but how on Earth could there be only one article that's named Economic history of the Jews while Christians, Muslims etc don't get the same treatment in topics and the article's content? Since when does WP function like that? IZAK (talk) 02:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Response from IZAK
Hi everyone. My response: 1. The way I see this going, lots of users like this topic. 2. The fact is that Economic history is a legitimate academic field and there is no "crime" as such in putting any subject or group under this type of "microscope" so that studying Jewish history from the perspective of Economic history is kosher and legitimate. 3. What is not right and in violation of WP:NPOV is to create and spin only one article about only one group in only this way. The Economic history of the Jews article as it stands is an unholy controversial mess that needs to be Wikified and worked on. In the AfD itself I already pointed out that renaming the topic Jewish views on economics would be acceptable, see more examples in Category:Jewish views. 4. I would be willing to support a newly refreshed and truly NPOV article. In the meantime, it's not far-fetched and unreasonable to get the ball rolling by creating similar and serious new articles about the Economic history of the Christians and the Economic history of the Christiansetc to go with the new category I created Category:Economic history by religious and ethnic group. 5. Bottom line, there cannot be a situation whereby Jews have one set of articles about them, while other religious and ethnic groups do not. For the sake of consistency and over-all NPOV. When it comes to such a serious topic there should either be one set of standards for all articles all following the same naming conventions and patterns or there must be no articles like this and they must all go because you can't just target Jews as "topics" or "targets" or "subjects" and fake it that the same cannot be done with other religious and ethnic groups. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 02:10, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Either you agree that these articles should exist or you don't. Either you agree that the appropriate names are "Economic history of X group" or you don't.  You've proven the fact that you're making a POINT violation repeatedly now by contradicting yourself.  You say that "Jewish views on economics" is legitimate, yet you titled the two entries you created "Economic history of ..."  Despite going out and creating these new entries you maintain a "delete" comment for this one.  This proves without doubt that you are disrupting the encyclopedia to prove a point.  You ought to stop right now.Griswaldo (talk) 02:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am allowed to have my thoughts evolve without being interrupted by your rudeness. If you can come up with better names for the articles feel free. I have already stated that this article can be renamed and improved as Jewish views on economics like all the rest in Category:Jewish views and that is no contradiction either. If someone feels that Economic history of the Christians and Economic history of the Muslims should be renamed, instead of jumping the gun and nominating them for deletion within 24 hours of their creation, they should and could have discussed it or even moved the topics to names they think are more suitable as I have suggested with this article. IZAK (talk) 02:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As long as you are still voting delete on this AfD you cannot possibly want anyone to take your claims of not being disruptive with any amount of seriousness. I'm not going to repeat myself but someone had to make this clear.  The issue has been contentious enough without your nonsense.  Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Or, perhaps you dislike the fact that the entire situation is illogical and you object per WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If you or anyone could suggest how all three articles, namely Economic history of the Jews, Economic history of the Christians and Economic history of the Muslims can all be improved or dealt with I am all ears. I have made a very good suggestion that this article be renamed and re-structured as Jewish views on economics, and I leave it to experts on Christianity and Islam to come up with similarly positive changes. Pending that, I have put together serious topics for two new articles, that now also face their own AfD's, and feel free to either improve them or just react emotionally by attacking me. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 02:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Both the extreme lack of completeness and that you only wrote about slavery in the christian history article shows that you did it to be pointy. If you had created a much more full article that would have been productive, instead you created an article which equates christian economics to christian slavery. The fact that you never took the time to see that Islamic economics in the world had existed for a long time before you rushed to create your Economic history of the Muslims also shows it was done to be pointy rather than productive. That you could create parallel articles to one that you want deleted is also evidence of pointiness. Passionless   -Talk  03:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

One problem with AFDs is that they require a binary decsion (generally "Keep" or "Delete" with some room for "Merge"). What I understand IZAK to be saying is that there is a legitimate encyclopedic article to be written on the topic of Economic history of the Jews but the specific incarnation as composed by Noleander is not it and therefore the article should be deleted so that it can be rewritten from scratch. To me, that's an argument to "Keep and truncate (possibly so radically as to reduce it to a stub)". In addition, IZAK is also arguing that the topic Economic history of the Jews is only encyclopedic if there are similar articles on other religious and ethnic groups such as the Christians and the Muslims. There could also be articles about the economic history of the Chinese, Japanese, etc. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 03:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Precisely. And more specifically on religious groups. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 03:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * IZAK, how is what you're doing different than what was attempted here, by a group of editors who were trying, unsucessfully, to get this article deleted? Cla68 (talk) 04:11, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I was not involved in that debate so I know nothing about it. My intention is always positive, to improve Wikipedia by improving its content and sometimes, as now, it is necessary to widen the circle of discussion so that it become more all-inclusive hence the creation of more articles about other religious groups from the same perspective on a fair and equal basis. Let's be frank, to single out the Jews as being some sort of "unique" group with sinister "economic powers" reeks of classical antisemitism and would be best left for Der Sturmer. So let us be broad-minded enough to expand this topic and see that Economic history is not just something that can be used to examine the Jews with, but it's good for all religious and ethnic groups if it's going to be done in a NPOV and dispassionate manner, if religion and ethnicity are to be criteria. IZAK (talk) 05:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, there was a follow up to that case here in which there was no consensus for remedies by the Committee. You might want to look at it, as I think there are many similarities in what those editors did and what you are doing here. Cla68 (talk) 06:29, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Other AfDs and Wikiprojects talk pages notified of this central discussion

 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Christians.
 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Muslims.


 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity.
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam.
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism.

Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:07, 31 March 2011 (UTC)