Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bilateral relations of Ireland

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. This would be a straight keep or possibly no consensus if we closed discussion by headcount but since we assess consensus by reference to policy and guidelines this does come down to delete. The argument for deletion concerns whether these subjects are sufficiently notable to be included. None of the articles have any sources and the nominator has taken care to only bundle articles where there does not appear to be a liklihood of extensive sources being provided. Although a number of editors have argued keep by asserting notability no-one has provided any sources and we are therefore left to consider whether this is notability by assertion or a statement that the subjects are inherantly notable. Clearly, for example, an article on the international relations between say Vanuatu and Greenland is a nonsense and this leads me to the conclusion that it would not be right to accept that these articles have inherant notability as there clearly has to be a judgement of degree notability. Given the absence of sources which are used as the traditional measure of notability I am left with the conclusion that the only correct way to close this discussion is delete. I feel that this is still a slightly unsatisfactory outcome so I would be willing to revisit this close should there subsequently be a wider discussion elsewhere that leads to a clearer conclusion on where, in the absence of sources, we should draw the line with marginal "bilateral relations between X & Y" type articles. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bilateral relations of Ireland

This is a series of stub articles on bilateral relations between Ireland and another country. In each case, the article says little more that that diplomatic relations exist, and there is an embassy somewhere. I don't see any significant prospect of these articles being expanded, because in none of these cases does Ireland have any significant trade links with these countries, nor are there significant emigrant populations involved.

Several of these countries are, like Ireland, members of the European Union, so there will undoubtedly be diplomatic dealing relating to EU business, but those would be best discussed under an EU heading. At the moment Ireland's EU relations are covered only briefly in Foreign relations of the Republic of Ireland#European_Union, which is inadequate because the EU is highly significant for Ireland ... but even if that that coverage is expanded, we are still several steps away from needing separate articles on the bilateral relationships.

Note that I have not nominated all the Irish bilateral relations articles; there are also articles on Irish-South African relations, Australian-Irish relations, Argentine-Irish relations, Irish-Russian relations, Canada-Ireland relations, Ireland-United States relations and Anglo-Irish relations.

This is because:

Ireland-United States relations and Anglo-Irish relations are both important bilateral relations for Ireland
There is a significant Irish diaspora in Canada, Australia and Argentina
South Africa is the most powerful nation in Africa, and Russia is crucial in Europe, so both those articles show prospect of expansion

Note that before making this AFD nomination, I raised the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland#Bilateral_relations_of_Ireland, where there was a suggestion to merge to a list. There is already a list of Diplomatic missions of Ireland, which could indeed be expanded to include dates and details of embassies, but since even the list of Irish embassies and the list of diplomatic missions to Ireland on the Department of Foreign Affairs website doesn't include much detail (embassy contact-listings only in the examples I checked), I don't see it as an important issue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS I should have stated this explicitly: there is no sign of the substantial covergage in reliable sources which would establish the notability of these topics per WP:N. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. —BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Link The more general issue was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations#Bilateral relations getting out of hand. The consensus wasn't perfect but generally little opposition to this. Potatoswatter (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Stub article are harmless and even the minimal content described by the nominator is notable. --Eastmain (talk) 13:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep: Unfortunately, you're making subjective judgment calls as to what relations linkages is more important than others. I'm fine with a merge, but there has to be solider criteria. Ravenswing 15:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply to Ravenswing. Umm, the burden of proof works the other way round: it's up to those who create articles to demonstrate notability, and I see no evidence that any these articles cover a notable topic: they are mere footnotes of diplomacy. If you disagree, please can we have some references to the substantial coverage in reliable sources which would establish notability per WP:N. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - this is only part of a larger issue. The author Groubani (talk · contribs) seemed to set out to create a compete set of "X-Y relations" stubs for every X and Y combination in the world - see, for example Georgian-South Korean relations. I know there were pleas for him to stop, and to consult at Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations, and at one stage he was temporarily blocked "for creating non-notable articles"; but I don't know how far he went in the end. If this AfD ~~succeeds~~ decides on deletion, perhaps someone, maybe the Wikiproject International relations, should look at the others and try to create a consensus on how many of these it is sensible to have. JohnCD (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete in the light of my comment above, I think the question is whether the encyclopedia would benefit from having what would be (given 192 members of the UN) over 35,000 stub articles, the great majority of which would say only "X-Y relations are relations between X and Y", which cannot really be considered notable. Better to have lists of diplomatic missions for each country, and create an X-Y relations article only when there is something notable to put in it. JohnCD (talk) 16:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see an analogy here between diplomatic relationships and places. Even if every pair of countries had embassies, there would be less than 200^2 = 40000 articles to create. This really isn't so much in comparison to the number of human settlements which are also all notable. However, these articles appear to be randomly created by hand, as opposed to a uniform bot converting census data, and there appear to be no selection criteria. Only Greece-Ireland within the nominated articles is entirely within the EU, but that might be simply random. Most articles state that "A has relations with B through A's diplomat in C and B's diplomat in D." Clearly this guy has access to some useful information, although it's frustratingly unreferenced. Many facts here are salient and do not seem to appear in other articles, so merge to Foreign relations of XXX, where XXX is a country with an actual diplomatic mission, with one section per mission, and come up with the references. This kind of article would be nice to get from a bot, ~~but until then, if WikiProject International Relations doesn't want them, they will inevitably be orphaned, and will drain resources from better organized efforts~~. Potatoswatter (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Considering longtime discussion at wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations, we should probably leave this matter to those who plan to take responsibility for it. Potatoswatter (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion at discussion at wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations has reached no conclusions, and in the meantime we have these useless stubs to deal with, which contain next-to nothing worth merging.
Also, I don't know what you mean by "entirely within the EU": Romania, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus are all members of the EU. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. There is no consensus to delete this type of articles, as far as I can tell from a discussion at WikiProject International relations. I agree many of these articles are just unreferenced stubs, but the topic seems to be notable. The listed countries are bound by several bilateral and multilateral treaties and there are bilateral flows of goods, tourists, and migrants. All this can make it into an article in the future. But my vote is "weak" keep. Although I can imagine expansion of many of these stubs (e.g. Greek-Irish relations), Georgian-Irish relations, Irish-Montenegrin relations, and Irish-Paraguayan relations are perhaps not salvageable at all. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 05:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply Per WP:N, notability is demonstrated not by assertion, but by substantial coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. I see no evidence of any such coverage in any of these cases. You mention bilateral agreements, but can you list any? Does Ireland have bilateral agreements with any of these countries? (they will all be in the public domain if they exist, because of article 29.5.1 of the [[Constitution of Ireland], which provides that "Every international agreement to which the State becomes a party shall be laid before Dáil Éireann", with an exemption in 29.5.3 for "agreements or conventions of a technical and adminstrative character".) Also, I don't understand why you say "weak keep" when you list only one article as being capable of expansion, and even in that case you say that you "imagine" the expansion rather than offering any evidence of the possibility.
  The "keep" arguments here all seem to me to be broadly similar: they rightly stress the importance of the topic of bilateral relations, but fail to distinguish between those bilateral relationships which are actually significant to one or other party, and those which amount to little beyond the formal level of accrediting ambassadors and the low-level practicalities of consular arrangements.
  I have no objection to any of these articles being recreated if notability can be established, but in this discussion so far there has not been one shred of evidence for the notability of even one of the ten bilateral relationships nominated for deletion. They would all make useful list entries, but a list entry is not an article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep acceptable stubs. Important topics are notable. Per WP:N the substantial coverage part is just in cases we cant tell otherwise. For example, intrinsically unimportant topics that get sufficient coverage are also notable for our purposes. Here, by parallel to other such, and the fact that we cover all nations equally, they are notable. DGG (talk) 23:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply. Sorry, but that short commendably short comment needs a long reply, because it seems to me to be little more than a sophisticated way of saying WP:ILIKEIT. (I doubt that was DGG's intention, but I think that's the effect).
  The claim that "Important topics are notable" is not what WP:N says:
  Notability is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity", although these may positively correlate with it.
  "Importance" is a subjective concept which amounts to original research, whereas we have some reasonably objective tests of notability ... and the importance of that objectivity is stressed in WP:N#Notability_requires_objective_evidence. In this discussion I have repeatedly asked for evidence of notability for these topics, but there has been absolutely none: nothing at all to satisfy any of the principles or tests set out in WP:N.
  "Important topics are notable" is also a rather tautological argument, like saying that "expensive things cost a lot of money". On what basis does anyone claim that Irish-Montenegrin relations are important, or that there is anything significant to say on the subject that could not be easily accommodated in a brief list entry?
  However, the notion that really surprises me is the claim that "we cover all nations equally": that's completely untrue and I'm really astonished than an experienced editor could claim that. What we actually do is rather different: we try to cover things in relation to their significance to each country. We have an article on Pacific Islander American because it's a significant topic, and likewise Irish American, but nothing on Pacific Islander Irish, because the number of Pacific Islanders in Ireland is negligible. Although we have a lots of detailed articles on American and Soviet space technology, there's next to nothing on Ireland, because Ireland's involvement in such things has only been through the European Space Agency. That's not inequality, its just reality.
  Wikipedia doesn't have articles just to even out the numbers between countries, we have articles to cover the things that matter in those countries. A big nation such as the United States or China inevitably has a major diplomatic, commercial and military involvement with many many countries ... but Ireland, with a small fraction of the resources, has to prioritise its diplomatic relations, which is why bilateral relations with Montenegro get only a one-line mention in the Dept of Foreign affairs website. That's no slur on either country, just a reflection of the reality that two nations don't interact much, because small countries can't do everything.
  The notion that all bilateral relationships are notable works fine where a superpower is involved, but it's not the case with small nations. Category:Foreign relations of the United States contains hundreds of articles that simply couldn't be replicated for Ireland, such as the articles on military alliances. If we were to create articles to fulfil the aim of treating all countries equally, we'd have lots of articles saying that Ireland has no military alliances in Asia, none in Africa, etc ... which would be daft, because Ireland has no military alliances at all, just as it has no glaciers or grisly bears. On bilateral relations, Guinea-Bissau-United States relations is a useful start-class article with real content and apparent scope for expansion, but Ireland's relations with Guinea-Bisseau amount to assigning it as one of the jobs of Ireland's ambassador to the UN; there is no reason to assume that that there is much if anything more to say on the subject, but according to this cover-all-nations-equally we'd have to have an article saying that each of these two countries has a file in the others office at the UN.
  Finally, I want to make a broader point about WP:N, which too many editors miss: it's: it's not some arbitrary construct to conserve diskspace on the servers, it's also an important consequence of WP:V and WP:NOR. Put simply, the selection of topics other than by the tests set out in WP:N amounts to original research, and if there isn't substantial coverage of a topic, any non-trivial article is likely to consist either of original research or of synthesis. Restricting notability to topics that reliable sources find notable enough to cover substantially is one of our bulwarks against original research, and I'm very disappointed to see to see an AFD discussion in which some experienced editors seem to me to be ready to cast those principles aside. Yes, there are some systemic bias consequences of WP:N and the associated policies of WP:V, WP:RS etc because they favour those with the printing presses (or their modern equivalents such as web servers and TV newsrooms, or in older times those who could afford to employ scribes to write up the annals) ... but if there's a better way of doing things, it isn't yet anywhere near wikipedia's fundamental policies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep most of them - the relations between any two members of the EU must be notable. So keep the ones for Greece, Malta, and such. These topics are obviously worthy of WP. Not so sure about Ireland/Uraguay. Bearian (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. This is fascinating: another assertion of notability, but still no evidence of it :( There are obviously some interactions as members of the 27-nation EU, but where is the evidence that these bilateral relationships in that framework are notable? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:41, 30 April 2008 (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.