Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greek-Nigerian relations

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 keep. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greek-Nigerian relations

Another random pairing with no attempt made to establish notability from an obsessive stub creator. The existence of a Nigerian community in Greece is unremarkable and can be discussed somewhere else. IfYouDontMind (talk) 09:17, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above user has been blocked indefinitely for abusing multiple accounts DGG (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - no sources indicate anything other than a routine, non-notable relationship here. - Biruitorul ^Talk 10:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nigeria-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia ^Dialogue 12:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia ^Dialogue 12:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete no evidence of significant relationship. This details 2 rather unremarkable agreements between the 2 countries. LibStar (talk) 13:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Added some content and references. I assume US-Anycountry relations would automatically be considered notable. Let's not be parochial. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- First, not all US-X relations are notable; but then again, the US is a superpower, and we also generally consider Russia-X and China-X to be notable, so there's no question of being parochial here. Second, a few kind words, the signing of a document the type of which is signed every week of every year, and pledges of "further cooperation" do not exactly constitute a notable relationship. - Biruitorul ^Talk 01:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, no indication of anything other than a routine, non-notable relationship, but nice try. Canvasback (talk) 21:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- — Canvasback (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. DGG (talk) 23:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- So I think the argument is that although the relationship clearly exists, and reliable independent sources show that the two countries are exchanging bland diplomatic bullshit, it is not very interesting so should be deleted. Personally, I would prefer that all relationships between two countries were routine and boring, and see no reason to reject articles for this reason. I wish there were more of them. Is it factual? Aymatth2 (talk) 04:15, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's part of it - if this article weren't here and editors didn't feel the need to "fill in" the details, things like Greece's $5.4 million annual imports from Nigeria (which is nothing for an economy worth $350 billion) would never be considered notable enough to make it onto Wikipedia. In essence, we're lowering the bar. But the more important fact, one that I'm sure you're tired of hearing from me by now, is the lack of sources discussing the relationship as such, for which we compensate by plucking out random facts we find in news searches, etc. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have filled in some details on diplomatic, trade, people etc. relations. Still a skeleton article, but I think it is now clear that the relationship is notable and interesting. Greek investments in Nigeria today exceed US$5 billion, although that has nothing to do with notability. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:32, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hilary T sockpuppet contribution struck out. Sockpuppetteer has already contributed above as IfYouDontMind. Uncle G (talk) 15:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Deja-vu, yadd-yadda. Dahn (talk) 00:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Deja-vu, yadda-yadda. -- llywrch (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia ^Dialogue 10:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete behind all of the sources in the current version there is no evidence of a notable bilateral relationship. $5 billion of cumulative private investment by greek companies in nigeria over 60 years (sourced to greek government press release, but whatever) is not very much -- Nigerian GDP is about $170 billion and Greece's is about $300 billion. Even if we assume that $5 billion was invested over a five year period (instead of 60 years, but again, whatever) that amounts to private investment of about 0.7% of Nigerian GDP per year -- and that says nothing about gov-to-gov relations (the trade numbers are really trifling -- a total of about $100 million is what, 0.05% of Nigerian GDP). What else? Greek dominance in shipping means that Greek ships often call at every major port in the world. That they call at Lagos, too, says nothing about the bilateral relationship between these states. That 300 Greeks live in Lagos and 3,000 Nigerians live in various greek cities also says nothing about bilateral relations (and giving the globe trotting habitual to citizens of both nations seems empirically small).Bali ultimate (talk) 19:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the dollar value of the relationship determines whether it is worthy of an article. The article describes some of the many official and commercial ties between the two countries, and is fully sourced. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they were added in using primary sources in what appeared to me as an effort to use SYNTH to establish some kind of notability. And on that basis, the relative value of those commercial relationships is important. For the sake of the argument -- if you could point out the single best source that demonstrates notability for this topic, i'll give my honest assesment of it. Remember, verifiability is neccessary but not sufficient for inclusion (that is, to say something is "sourced" is not sufficient to detemine if the topic at hand merits inclusion).Bali ultimate (talk) 20:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious independent sources are:

Guardian News shows some press interest in the official relationship. There are a couple of other news stories like this, never very exciting articles!
Athens News gives some human interest about Nigerian immigrants in Greece
Philippine Daily Inquirer discusses issues with Greek shipping in Nigeria, backed up by a couple of other other news sources

This content was slapped together very quickly after the stub showed up in AfD (it beats me why anyone would churn out a bunch of stubs like this.) I am sure that a more careful check would find many more independent sources. There is a lot going on between the two countries, particularly in trade & investment, and the papers are bound to be reporting it.

I don't see SYNTH. To me that is stringing together two statements from different sources to reach a novel conclusion: "X said the USA stands for freedom, Y says the Tamil Tigers are fighting for freedom. So the USA supports the Tamil Tigers." Obviously unacceptable. I suppose you could stretch the SYNTH definition to say that the collection of statements from the independent sources is being used to imply the relationship exists. The only statements that directly discuss the relationship come from primary sources such as diplomats who are clearly biased - the relationship is their job. But I think that is stretching it. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I read the first source from The Nigerian Guardian. (since you placed it first, assuming that is the strongest). The outgoing greek ambassador to nigeria said very nice things about nigeria in his going-away event, and this single-sourced article in a nigerian newspaper is about that. I don't see that as establishing this is a notable bilateral relationship. Unless he's been PNG'd, every outgoing ambassador for country x says nice things about host country y.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it would be easy enough to add many stories similar to the one from the The Nigerian Guardian from the leading Nigerian and Greek newspapers. They will tend to report stories like "Meeting with his counterpart in Athens today, the Nigerian Minister of trade said he wanted to strengthen economic and cultural ties between his country and Greece." These really would be reliable independent sources reporting on the relationship. Also, they would be extremely boring and would add nothing to the article. So how many different articles from how many different newspapers would be enough to establish notability? (be reasonable - I have a day job) Aymatth2 (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At that level of trivia? You could have millions and it still wouldn't help. Let me put it this way -- various mediocre high school sports programs have been written up thousands of times in local/semi-local papers (for the mediocre high school teams i played on, that would have been the newark star ledger). Would the existence of thousands of trivial game reports justify inclusion of individual high school sports teams in wikipedia? No. These sort of single source stories, written from press releases aren't much different. There is no in-depth coverage of this supposed relationship in any of them. I'd like one source that isn't trivial and is about the relationship. Just one.Bali ultimate (talk) 00:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good question - I am not sure where to look. I tried searching for Ελλάδα Νιγηρία σχέση, but the results were all Greek to me. Apart from the government sites, which have a lot to say about the relationship, they seemed to mostly be about the Siemens scandal, Commerce or the trade in prostitution. I am starting to wonder if Greece has any diplomatic or economic relationships with Nigeria, or if it is all an elaborate hoax: the two countries have never heard of each other and the newspapers are just making it up. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The material discussed by Bali is proof that there is a significant relationship. International trade is a major part of world affairs, and it canot really be discussed except in bilateral terms. So there will often be content for such an article. DGG (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep -Most of these international relations articles ARE notable. They just need expanding. This is obvious notable ,good work expander. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 22:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the English language sources found by Bali. There's probably a lot more in Greek.--Oakshade (talk) 03:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep per Dr. Blofeld FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:52, 28 April 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.