Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Je suis Charlie

Keep. Men, who were more wise that I, once said "Give me Liberty or give me death." Another said "Hang together or Hang alone." These 'mottoes' have served my country very well over the mere 200 years of its existence. France has always been about Liberty, I don't see any reason why these attacks should be thought of any less than the tyranny France fought to over throw centuries ago. Vive la France ! 73.45.104.245 (talk) 23:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Procedure etc
There's a great deal of comment on the procedure etc on the talk page, some of it I admit from myself, and some of it crossing the border to personal attack in my opinion.

I think we should split that discussion, which isn't directly relevant to the AfD decision, to a talk page, and this seems the best candidate for the moment at least.

It's possible that all of it is just ignorance of procedures etc, so we should assume good faith, and that's all the more reason to talk it through and educate each other.

I see several issues. The most important is probably that both the nom and most of the delete votes weren't in favour of deletion at all, but rather of merge. There's a lot of confusion here on this point and in other AfDs too. At least one editor suggested delete and merge, another suggested delete and redirect. Of course this (they're the same thing) isn't deletion at all as Wikipedia uses the term.

No great damage in that the chance of deleting this article (as Wikipedia uses the term delete) was always trivial in hindsight. But it does make it a lot harder for the closing admin. It just wastes all of our time.

This one got off to a very bad start. The nomination is arguably pointy, being made in response to having a unilateral merge reverted, and provided no rationale to justify a deletion (as Wikipedia uses the term). There have been some attempts to provide one since, but the consensus is overwhelming that the nom was quite right in deciding (on two occasions, one the reverted merge and the other the raising of this AfD) that deletion (as Wikipedia uses the term) is not the best option here.

Question: Is there anywhere in procedures, policies etc that should be clarified to help avoid this in future? Or at least reduce its frequency? Andrewa (talk) 19:54, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Well it is closed to "keep" now anyway. Sanity has reigned, and a page with 199748 views so far has been saved.
 * I've no solutions but I think you bring up some good points. Maybe some policy changes could be made? That is something you could maybe analyze.
 * This isn't the worse AfD by a long shot. The ones I hate are the ones for articles that have been nominated umpteen times in the past, and yet are again nominated, despite no particular changes in circumstances or even arguments for deletion. That is something that should be stopped. I think the best way being for the closer to strongly recommend no further nominations in the interests of preventing time-wasting, and some action taken against whoever ignores this. --Mrjulesd (talk)  20:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I will be nominating this article again in a month, to ensure it is deleted and merged, as is necessary. Page views do not determine WP:DUE weight or encyclopaedic significance, and certainly not independent notability. RGloucester  — ☎ 21:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You'll no doubt lose that discussion and probably/hopefully be blocked from making future ones. We've established the notability of the topic, that isn't going to fade. Tarc (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Tarc is right, notability is not temporary. And notability was not established by "pageviews" or any other nonsense, but by seeing that the phrase had direct coverage. I don't think a second AfD will end in a much different result. Please accept concensus, which by far is to keep this article. -- Amaryllis Gardener  talk 21:45, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus. Consensus is based in policy, and policy supports elimination. It may be in fifty years time, but I will ensure the article is deleted in line with our policies, and thwarting advocacy. RGloucester  — ☎ 21:47, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * LOL I can just imagine you as an old man 50 years hence nominating it for the 237th time. --Mrjulesd (talk)  21:50, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you'd get banned if you nominated Je suis Charlie for AfD that many times. -- Amaryllis Gardener  talk 21:59, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would wait a week and then take it to WP:DRV if you still feel like it should be deleted. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:12, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh by the way RGloucester. WP:IAR is also one of our policies. Also, based on the political views displayed on your page, I somehow feel you might be slightly biased in this.  JT dale Talk ~ 00:28, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't expect a response, JTdale, RGloucester was indef blocked earlier today after drama that included this. -- Amaryllis Gardener  talk 00:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw.  JT dale Talk ~ 00:36, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "There is no consensus. Consensus is based in policy, and policy supports elimination." That's too simplistic. What you're stating here is your best judgment about how policy should be applied in this instance. What the discussion in this AFD has shown is that the current consensus judgement of the community is that Wikipedia policy does not require deletion of this article. That consensus judgement could change. But there is a consensus, whether or not we happen to agree with it. EastTN (talk) 15:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I was one of those who !voted delete and merge, but what I actually meant was delete/merge any relevant information, not both. I think that a considerable amount of information in that article was and is useless trivia (3,000 items listed on eBay, etc.), so it's possible that none of it needs to be merged at all and that the shootings article might already be providing a suitable summary. Alternatively, if some of the material in the article is worth salvaging, then my suggestion would be to merge. I apologize for the confusion.-RHM22 (talk) 05:20, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that there really ought to be better procedures in place for just nipping in this in the bud when A.) notability is obvious and B.) it's obvious that the vote is not going to be closed in favor of deletion. I would even argue that in such cases where the article clearly isn't going to be deleted, even simply having the deletion tag on the article has a detrimental effect on the encyclopedia because people see the tag and choose not to edit because they worry any information they add is simply going to be deleted. ProfessorTofty (talk) 01:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect of Je suis Charlie and move of contents to Je suis Charlie (motto)‎‎
Hi I found this action rather strange It was the editors first contribution on the Charlie Hebdo subject.Cathar66 (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Discussion here: Talk:Je_suis_Charlie_(motto). --Mrjulesd (talk)  21:16, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Mentioned Off site
This discussion is also covered at http://www.historyandheadlines.com/je-suis-charlie-deletion-discussion-wikipedia/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.123.123.193 (talk) 16:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Other news: the page je Suis Charlie has now over half a million views. And it seems that public interest in the phrase is nothing but growing. --Mrjulesd  (talk)  00:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)