Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Han–Uyghur intermarriage

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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 redirect to History of Xinjiang. Well, the nominating statement is a bit vague (claims of something being an "attack page" need to be substantiated a bit more, "does not cover its actual subject" aside from being disputed does not necessarily merit) but some clearer arguments have crystallized out in the discussion. The delete argument is basically that it's a page created to attack a subject, using misused/cherrypicked sources and despite the existence of an other article - History of Xinjiang - on a similar topic (WP:POVFORK). On the keep side, I see arguments that there are sources that discuss the topic in detail and some differences in opinion about whether they are actually adequate, as well as the point that ordinarily when a page has problematic content it is cleaned up rather than deleted. There has been some discussion on the last point about whether WP:ATTACK or WP:DYNAMITE are reasons for deletion. There is also some discussion of topic bans, sinophobia and the like which doesn't really help assessing the status of the discussion. On the basis of headcount, I see 11 delete or redirect arguments - which I am counting together as both propose getting rid of the page and some endorse either outcome - and 5 keeps plus one struck sockpuppet vote.

On balance, it seems like what this boils down to is that the topic may be noteworthy - detailed discussion about sources was a bit sparse at first and later swamped by accusations - but the article in its present shape is quite poor - the attack claim appears to be based on reasoned arguments - I see Geo Swan's contestation but it is by itself rather vague (and too heavily dependent on comparisons to other pages). The deletion policy does allow for the deletion of attack pages and also of POV forks. The headcount barely favours removal of the article. On the other hand, the question of whether the topic may merit a page is unsettled.

Ultimately, this is a redirect case, as a) redirecting has been suggested and endorsed by some !voters, with the history page implicitly mentioned, b) to meet the scope of the deletion argument as the argument that the page in its current state violates key policies and guidelines is well supported and c) to leave the content available in case someone wants to fix the article's problems and in case the sources turn out to be usable (that is, to meet some of the concerns of the keep arguments). That would probably need more discussion, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:49, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Han–Uyghur intermarriage[edit]

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Han–Uyghur intermarriage (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Article does not cover its ostensible subject and is basically an attack page. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:09, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:09, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:09, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:09, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Andrew D. (talk) 13:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of deletion discussions related to Central Asia. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:41, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I feel like this article abuses its sources and stretches them to make a political point, while perhaps this should be a page in the future as it stands I say blow it up and start over. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 06:07, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, without prejudice to starting a new article with the same title, or redirect - This is a potential subject if suitable references could be found, but as it stands this is just an attack piece and should be deleted per WP:DYNAMITE. FOARP (talk) 07:23, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:DYNAMITE is neither policy nor guideline. As there are widespread reports that China is razing Uighur mosques (example), a further appeal to violence seems in poor taste. Andrew D. (talk) 11:21, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This from a leading member of the so-called "Article Rescue Squadron" who didn't raise a finger when this happened... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:10, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accusing someone of appealing to "violence" because they refer to WP:DYNAMITE is silly, and as is pointed out above, hypocritical. Sure, WP:DYNAMITE is just an essay, but WP:ATTACK is policy and there's a not-un-reasonable argument that this should have been speedied under G10. FOARP (talk) 08:21, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
G10 would not be applicable. For one thing, it requires that the material be unsourced whereas this article has lots of sources. These demonstrate that there's a topic here, per WP:GNG. If there are neutrality issues, per WP:NPOV, then the correct action is to amend and improve the article per our policy WP:IMPERFECT. High explosives are not appropriate for this. Andrew D. (talk) 08:37, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"An attack page is a page, in any namespace, that exists primarily to disparage or threaten its subject; or biographical material that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced or poorly sourced" - note the "or" following the semicolon. The presence of sourcing in an attack page does not make it not an attack, if it exists "primarily to disparage or threaten its subject". No-one can read this and not think it was written with the intent of disparaging Uighurs. Moreover there is no version in the edit history that can be reverted to that is not also an attack page. G10 reasonably applies. FOARP (talk) 11:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The subject here is "Han–Uyghur intermarriage". The page does not attack this as a concept; it relates some history of the matter. It's rather half-baked because it's an early version which seems to have been interrupted. For example, it tries to relate some statistics which seem to be based on the work of a respectable academic. The relevant policies here are WP:CENSOR and WP:IMPERFECT, not WP:ATTACK. Non-policies such as WP:DYNAMITE are quite unreasonable. Andrew D. (talk) 18:46, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Context matters... Check out what the creator has done to this page... [1] This is one in a series of attack pages with a very clear and racist focus. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture Andrew Davidson defended another virulently anti-Chinese article whose basic gist was that all the generally accepted Chinese influence on Japanese civilization actually came from Korea. It wouldn't surprise me if he had never, in a decade of AFD !voting, supported the deletion of a sinophobic attack page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:38, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm not understanding the nomination because, at first reading, the page seems to contain lots of information about the ostensible topic. The edit history indicates that this is a spinoff from History of Xinjiang which is tagged as too long and so that's reasonable. As it's an early start on a cleanup, then it would be silly and disruptive to start again so soon. In any case, merger back into the parent would be preferable to deletion per WP:ATD and WP:PRESERVE. Andrew D. (talk) 09:03, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that none of the references is actually WP:SIGCOV of the topic per se. Instead the content of this article appears to be cherry-picked quotes from larger works which simply mention Uighur-Han marriage in passing. It's basically a big collection of WP:OR, with the quotations always selected so as to reflect badly on Uighur people. FOARP (talk) 10:38, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's incorrect. For example, the Bride and prejudice source is clearly WP:SIGCOV. Other sources seem to cover the topic as part of wider coverage of Han-Uyghur relations and they are WP:SIGCOV too. And there are plenty more sources out there to expand and improve the topic such as Chinese authorities offer cash to promote interethnic marriages. The topic is clearly not original and claims that it's an attack page seem to be reaching too. My !vote stands. Andrew D. (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first edit which created the article was substantial (17K) and the summary was "first stroke from History of Xinjiang". We should wait on the creator to explain this in more detail. Andrew D. (talk) 13:11, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what you said above: The edit history indicates that this is a spinoff from History of Xinjiang which is tagged as too long and so that's reasonable -- this argument doesn't make sense, since the corresponding section of the Xinjiang history article could not be reasonably shortened based on the existence of this article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:31, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or redirect. I don't really care. This is a blatant and intolerable attack page. --Mkativerata (talk) 10:08, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This seem like a notable topic, plenty of reliable sources to talk about it. If you see any problems then tag them or discuss them on the talk page of the article. Dream Focus 12:46, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or redirect per nom and Mkativerata. POV fork/attack page. -- Begoon 04:36, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It should be noted that the article's creator is likely to be TBANned partly as a result of creation of this POVFORK.[2] He appears to have gone largely silent for the last several days; if he does log in and !vote, his forthcoming TBAN should be taken into account by anyone considering closing this AFD. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:30, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as unsalvageable. The only article which links to it is History of Xinjiang itself so redirecting it there would be pointless. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 18:06, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Did Donald Trump craft this mess? Even if four score and seven editors tried to fix it, this is still a soap box of a page. We are an encyclopedia, not a random advocacy webhost. Bearian (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but trim.
This a curious article. It has enough sources to suggest it is a real topic.
The history of it needs to relocated and restated.
The reasons for it are presented as fact. Indeed, the admixing of ethnographic data suggests that there is some 'valid reason' for ethnic, racist, religious and sexist policies. The tone is seemingly dispassionate. Rather like citing the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a justification for the Nazi holocaust. I think the tone is clearly objectionable, and tends toward being a Polemic. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:11, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - badly written articles, on notable topics, are supposed to be re-written, not deleted.

    Occasionally, after a long process where good faith contributors have tried, and failed, to agree on a compromise wording, it is then appropriate to call for deletion. But our nominator, Adoring nanny, jumped immediately to calling for deletion without even attempting to voice their concern on the talk page.

    When the nomination says this article is "basically an attack page" I am afraid we are seeing a failure on the part of nominator - either a failure of imagination, or a failure of neutrality. Look at this google search for Uyghur and "forced marraige". RS report on legal and human rights experts describing the phenomenon of Uyghur women being forced to marry Han men as a crisis, as a kind of genocide. Geo Swan (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep your arguments policy based and refrain from personal attacks. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth noting that Geo Swan just made an inaccurate and highly sinophobic remark on my talk page.[3] I suspect if this disruption continues Geo Swan may be going the way of this article's creator. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:10, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody here disagrees that this article could not be notable, just the same as any other attack page attacking a notable subject. However, this is clearly an attack page, without any previous point in its edit history which we could revert to that is not an attack page. FOARP (talk) 08:37, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hijiri88 called my comments "sinophobic". This discussion is not going to be improved if I respond in kind, so I won't. I will point out that there is no topic that can't be written about from a neutral point of view, if good faith contributors make enough effort to actually listen to one another.

    Reliable sources claim China's policy towards the Uyghurs (and the Tibetans) constitutes massive breaches of International Human Rights standards, could be a form of genocide.

    Here are a couple of thought experiments. (1) If the apartheit system remained in practice in South Africa, what restrictions would we place on those trying to right about the daily human rights breaches of the apartheit system? (2) If the US Civil War had not been fought, and the USA still allowed slavery, what coverage would we allow to abolitionists?

    I'd like to think we would honor NPOV and RS, and allow contributors to cover the views of those who voiced challenges to those systems, so long as they used the neutral voice, and substantiated everything they wrote about with good authoritative references.

    My call on everyone to recognize that RS describe a Chinese policy to force or coerce Uyghur women to marry Han men is not "sinophobic". Geo Swan (talk) 12:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - Per nom. Article does not cover its ostensible subject and is an attack page. - MA Javadi (talk) 16:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: well-cited info; it originally belonged to History of Xinjiang, but then apparently the article got too long, which is supposedly why a new page was created; apparently this info was not even originally authored by Alexkyoung (but looks like User:Milktaco); I am currently working on improving it.Jarvis Maximus (talk) 07:12, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Jarvis Maximus is blocked as a sockpuppet of Alexkyoung ST47 (talk) 09:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Adoring nanny called this an attack page. FOARP, Horse Eye Jack, Mkativerata, Begoon and Hijiri88 have all repeated this attack page claim. Sadly, none of these individuals has made any effort to explain why they classify this as an attack page. Adoring nanny, you made the nomination. You have the primary responsibility to explain this claim.

    Please don't claim it is "obvious". I suggest that if the article doesn't lapse from neutrality, describes something written about by reliable sources, then it is no more an attack page than an article on apartheit.

    If none of you can substantiate the "attack page" claim then the advice of DYNOMITE doesn't apply either. Geo Swan (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is blatantly obvious why we describe this as an attack page. The very first line of it was a description of an incident from 1947 in which "Muslim women who married Han Chinese men were assaulted, seized, and kidnapped by hordes of (Uyghur) Muslims", then moves on to a discussion of how "the Uyghur population branded such women as milliy munapiq (ethnic scum), threatening and coercing them in accompanying their Han partners in moving to Taiwan". It then talks about how "A 28 year old mixed race woman named Amy whose father was Han and whose mother was Uyghur was interviewed by The Atlantic and she spoke of being estranged from Uyghurs and viewed Uyghur men's appearances negatively" etc. etc. etc. Over and over negative points about Uighurs are cherry-picked from larger works and presented as things worthy of encyclopedic coverage. It's ultimately just a WP:COATRACK for an attack on Uighurs. FOARP (talk) 13:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Geo Swan: While I am certainly not willing to support your claim that this isn't an attack page, given the somewhat toxic sinophobia you expressed on my talk page, I would appreciate it if you didn't make groundless claims like "[Hijiri88] called this an attack page". My redirect argument is based on the page being a POVFORK, and I have not spoken of "attack pages" at any point in this discussion. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hijiri88, this is the second time you characterized my comments as "sinophobia" or "sinophobic". As I noted above, I don't think this discussion will be improved if I were to respond in kind. I encourage you to respond to the substantive parts of the arguments your corresondents make, not to your personal opinions on their character or motives. In particular I compared our choices of how to cover the reliable sources that describe China have policies, like forced marriage of Uyghur woman as oppressive to how we should cover slavery in the USA, or Apartheit in South Africa. Coverage of the USA's history of slavery, or South Africa's history of Apartheit, is only US-phobic or South Africa-phobic, if we deviate from the neutral voice. If we had deviated from the neutral voice the policy approved choice is editing, not deletion.
  • I was careless in my check of who did or didn't call this an attack page. You didn't. So I struck your name. Now please reply with substantive non-accusatory arguments. Geo Swan (talk) 13:49, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • FOARP, I am sorry, I explicitly requested no claims of obviousness, because, on an international project, nothing is obvious.
  • You have been around here for a long time, correct? So have I. And during my time here I experienced something I would be surprised if you hadn't. Eventually we will all start to work on neutral coverage of a topic, only to find we personally disagree with the key conclusions of every reliable source. I suggest that, when we find ourselves in that situation, we have just two policy compliant choices. (1) pinch our nose and faithfully quote, summarize and paraphrase what the RS say, in spite of our personal disagreement, or; (2) sit that one out, refrain from working on articles where our personal conclusions differ from what the RS say. In over ten thousand of my edits I pinched my nose and did my best to be faithful to the conclusions of RS I personally disagreed with.

    Why shouldn't I expect my fellow contributors, why shouldn't I expect you, to live up to the same standards?

    In your comment above did you mean to leave the impression that you just don't want a wikipedia article to cover the RS that document China's policies on the Uyghurs? Geo Swan (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These are not the findings of a reliable source. They are single datapoints cropped from multiple reliable sources so as to provide a false impression: that Uighurs are backward and evil. FOARP (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Joanne N. Smith Finley (2013). The Art of Symbolic Resistance: Uyghur Identities and Uyghur-Han Relations in Contemporary Xinjiang. BRILL. p. 17. ISBN 9789004256781. Retrieved 2019-07-11. The first, known as the Qumul Rebellion, occurred in 1931 when the predatory behaviour of a Chinese military commander towards a local Uyghur woman resulted in his assassination and a series of uprisings against the Chinese warlord administration in Urumchi.
  • CJ Werleman (2019-05-17). "Why is the world sitting idly by as China persecutes Uighur Muslims?". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 2019-07-11. There have been accounts of systematic torture, rape, forced sterilisation programmes, forced marriages of Uighur women to Han Chinese men, forced adoptions of Uighur children to Han Chinese families, public executions, and even evidence pointing to the harvesting of live organs.
  • "Dozens of mosques, major shrines 'razed' in China's Xinjiang". Al Jazeera. 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2019-07-11. 'Credible and corroborated reports and testimony point to evidence authorities are deploying the whole gamut of repressive measures to carry out what can only be described as cultural genocide, including the establishment of a network of concentration camps; accounts of torture, forced marriage, and adoption and sterilisation programmes,' he told Al Jazeera.
  • David Brophy (2010). "The Qumul rebels' appeal to Outer Mongolia" (PDF). Turcica. Retrieved 2019-07-11. The immediate catalyst for it was outrage at the forced marriage of a local girl to a Chinese lieutenant, but discontent among Turkic-speaking Muslims had been growing since Jin's abolition of the local wang (king) administration in 1930, the immediate effects of which were the imposition of new taxes, and an influx of poor Chinese immigrants.
  • Kate Lyons (2018-12-07). "Uighur leaders warn China's actions could be 'precursors to genocide'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-07-11. Greve said government action needed to be taken in response to the repression of Uighurs, which included forcible separation of children from their parents, reports of forced marriage between Uighurs and Han Chinese, and the banning of Uighur language and culture.
@Geo Swan: You have made a patently false claim about me, e.g. "none of these individuals has made any effort to explain why they classify this as an attack page” and I call on you to retract it. You will see that I gave two specific reasons as well as a rationale for why it should be deleted even though the underlying topic may be notable. Nor did I explicitly label it an attack page in my original comment, although I do in fact believe it to be so. My clarification to another editor does charicterize it as an attack page, but again it offers clear reasons for such a label, e.g. overwhelming racism. You are free to argue your corner but show other editors a modicum of respect. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:50, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:ATTACK, WP:POVFORK and WP:COAT. This page is ostensibly about a social phenomenon, but in reality is just a coatrack to try and smear Uighur populations by cherry-picking articles to shed them in the worst possible light. There is also nothing to indicate that the ostensible topic (intermarriage between these groups) is, itself, notable enough for a stand-alone article. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:51, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I suppose there might be some basis for a page on Han-Uighur relations in general in the references, but History of Xinjiang has that covered pretty well already. FOARP (talk) 07:11, 12 July 2019 (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.
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