Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arsala Khan (suspected al Qaida financier)

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 delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arsala Khan (suspected al Qaida financier)[edit]

It appears that the only public information about this guy comes from a Summary of Evidence against a Guantanamo Bay detainee named Abdel Hadi Mohammed Badan Al Sebaii Sebaii. All the document says about Arsala Khan is: "The detainee's pocket literature included documents containing the name Arsala Khan. Two recovered letters written by Usama Bin Ladin express thanks to Arsala Khan for his financial support and protection." The article consisted entirely of that information until a few days ago, when I redirected to the detainee's article (because all the content here was just duplicated from there); before redirecting, I looked on Google and Google News and found mentions of several other people named Arsala Khan, but nothing that looks like this guy.

Another user undid my redirect and added information about two other men named Arsala Khan that could conceivably be the same as this one (since we know almost nothing about this one or the others), but there's no reason to think they're the same. Some brief conversation ensued on the Talk page (there's also something there in response to a previous bad attempt at a prod), and as far as I can tell, the only argument for keeping the article is that it's possible someday someone will uncover more information about this guy (I have no idea why it's not okay to redirect now and undo the redirect when and if that information is discovered). Since it's clear the redirect won't stand without an outside ruling, and the only reason I redirected instead of nominating for deletion was to avoid the AFD process, now that I'm here, I'd just as soon delete the article entirely. (Think about it: anyone looking up this guy has almost definitely heard of him from reading the detainee's evidence memo. So all that a redirect--or keeping the article, minus the info on random other people with the same name--would accomplish is showing the user the memo he's already read.) Propaniac (talk) 17:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, it's not the strongest argument, but as Wikiproject:Terrorism is slowly and steadily parsing through the ARB and CSRTs of Guantanamo captives, often names re-occur with slightly different information; more information about Arsala Khan is likely to be found. In addition, you'll note that the United States has captured a letter written by Osama bin Laden congratulating Arsala Khan, it is likely to be found, whether in this wikinews collection of UBL texts, or our s:Author:Osama bin Laden on Wikisource which is currently being populated and others - and again, more information can be gleaned from there. These are not things we can immediately accomplish in the next 7 days, as we are talking about thousands of pages of information which are being processed - but deletion does not seem necessary for this article, and therefore I would request that it be kept since Wiki is not paper. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 20:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- What should a biographical article contain? If one follows the deletion fora long enough, one can come across both arguments that biographical article have to be deleted because they don't contain enough of the standard biographical information -- like the subject's date of birth, where they studied, what they worked at before they became famous -- and the diametrically opposed argument that articles should be deleted because the standard biographical information was "puffery". My own position is that the information on the standard course of the subject's life is good to have, and I look for it, when I work on a biography. But if the thing that makes someone worthy of coverage is significant enough I do not consider a paucity of details on other aspects of their life as a valid argument for deletion. There is a medieval scholar, who was known until very recently, as "False Geber". He is an early instance of sockpuppetry, or identity theft. He wrote under the name Geber, another famous medieval scholar. In the days when books could only be copied out long-hand, writing under the name of a more famous writer was quite common. But, in this particular instance, False Geber also published significant advances to human knowledge. So, he is worth covering, even though we knew practically nothing else about him. Similarly, it is my opinion that being identified as an al Qaeda financier, and a correspondent of Osama bin Laden is sufficiently remarkable to justify coverage here, all by itself. Geo Swan (talk) 03:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Both "keep" votes here (which are both from people with ties to the article) fail to acknowledge that the only information in the article is already contained in another article, and the only apparent reason someone could know of this guy is if they had already read that information. (I am ignoring the additional information that was added in the past week about other people with the same name, since I feel sure anyone reasonable would agree that that information has no purpose and should be removed even if this article is kept.) The keep votes are arguing that this person is significant and therefore should have an article; I'm not arguing that he's insignificant, I'm arguing that there should be some known content worth putting into an article as a minimum criteria for the article to exist. (And, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure just being mentioned in some military documents doesn't establish notability, if no other sources ever reported or commented on the subject.) Propaniac (talk) 04:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Erm, my "links to the article" appears to have been wiki-linking the word pocket litter in January 2009. I'm not sure that really disqualifies my opinion, kthx. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 02:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What on Earth are you talking about? I said "ties to the article" because you edited it significantly and clearly appeared, during our interaction on the article and the Talk page, to be invested in saving it, to the point that you refused to accept any resolution other than bringing it to AFD. It's perfectly fair of me to point out that your argument is not that of an uninvolved observer. Propaniac (talk) 13:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My only involvement with the article prior to you attempting to delete it, is wikilinking the word pocket litter as I often go through Wikipedia and add wikilinks to random articles. The fact I have tried to improve the article since you tried to delete it hardly makes me a biased editor. Please do not try to muddy the issue with half-truths; yes i said the article should be saved when you tried to autonomously delete it and I suggested you open an AfD rather than just blank the page yourself...that makes me somebody who cares about procedure; hardly an "involved editor" beyond thinking that your attempts to delete it were premature. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 16:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's clear to everyone else that I said you had ties to the article because you were working on it and defending it prior to the AFD nomination, and that there was no effort on my end towards misrepresentation. My actions in redirecting a useless article, attempting to discuss the resulting conflict, and then coming to AFD have been entirely in line with procedure. Propaniac (talk) 18:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked into notability yet, so I'm not going to give a "keep" or "delete", but I must say that it's poor form for Propaniac to cast doubt on Sherurcij's neutrality on the basis of participation in discussion on the article talk page, when Propaniac has also participated in that same discussion. If we're to discount Sherurcij's opinion then we should also discount Propaniac's, because they have both had the same level of involvement in the article prior to the AfD. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious that I was involved with the page before the nomination, because I posted the deletion nom. The point of AFD is to seek judgment from users outside of the dispute; it is therefore entirely reasonable, and completely routine, to identify which users are inside the dispute. It would be unfair to me if other editors viewed Sherurcij's response with the impression that he was an outside observer who had simply weighed my argument against this other, anonymous editor. I said he had "ties to the article" and that's it; how could that be an attempt to "cast doubt on [his] neutrality" when, as you point out, all I'm doing is stating that he's coming from the same position that I am? The idea that if two editors are in a dispute, and Editor 1 stops participating in discussion, and explicitly requires Editor 2 to bring the article to AFD in order to effect change, and it's "poor form" for Editor 2 to mention Editor 1's involvement when Editor 1 fails to mention it himself in his argument, is ridiculous. I never accused Sherurcij of "poor form" in not being up-front about his earlier actions, because I assumed good faith. I don't know why you need to assume that I'm trying to carry out some kind of sinister vendetta to subvert justice, instead of simply making sure the discussion is clear to other editors. Propaniac (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Doesn't meet WP:BIO. No significant coverage in reliable sources. Documents of a prosecuting government agency don't come close to satisfying the wp:rs standard. Looks like another GB article that is ostensibly a biography, but is in essence an article about the evidence of lack thereof supporting the charges against the defendant. It's best that these WP:COATRACK articles are gotten rid of, especially when the subject's notability is weak.--brew crewer (yada, yada) 07:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Note to closing administrator -- the contributor above has made several dozen complaints that contributions I made, related to the "war on terror", lapsed from COATRACK. But in his several years of these complaints I can't remember a single instance when he was willing to try to explain his concerns.
- I'd also like to remind everyone that, while the COATRACK essay raises some interesting points, it is merely an essay, so it is a mistake to treat it as if it were one of the wikipedia's official policies. Geo Swan (talk) 12:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete no proof from neutral sources that this person even exists. If the person does exist, the article would need to be deleted and re-made under a different name because of WP:BLP anyway. Cynical (talk) 18:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Could you please explain why you think BLP requires a different name? Any of the other Arsala Khan we already have articles about can't complain that this article slanders them, when we have another article about them. And no Arsala Khan we don't have an article about is going to come forward and saw, "I am the Arsala Khan who sent Osama bin Laden money. You are slandering me." Geo Swan (talk) 12:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete No RS that I can see. On top of that, WTH is "(suspected al Qaida financier)" doing there? Are there that many Arsala Khan's? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, if you do a web search you will find that Arsala Khan is a very common name. Geo Swan (talk) 11:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- As Geo Swan said, there seem to be tons of Arsala Khans, although the only other one on Wikipedia is a Pakistani legislature member. (I actually stumbled upon this article initially by seeing Arsala Khan in the disambig page category and wondering the same thing you did.) I guess if this article is deleted, the legislature member can presumably be moved to Arsala Khan. Propaniac (talk) 15:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - lack of significant coverage in reliable sources. Agree with the nom about concerns whether the article could be describing two other men named Arsala Khan, because we don't know enough about the subject. PhilKnight (talk) 12:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.