Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Loyalty

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 closed as moot: the article has been substantially rewritten. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Loyalty[edit]

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Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary - article is unsourced for 18 months, is an unsourced list of this concept in several different fields. I am not passionately for deletion, but wanted to raise this for discussion. Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - the article is unsourced (fails WP:V) and contains too many quotations for a Wikipedia article. The article may serve a better purpose at Wikitionary and quotes at Wikiquote. Andrewmc123 12:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguate. I've added some basic disambiguation material to the top of the page; the original text is now beneath. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguate. The original material is original research; the portions added as a disambiguation page might be worth keeping. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, the real original material in this article was in part taken from the 1911 Britannica's article on loyalty. The material here has been added since, with almost all of the original Britannica content lost over the years to random editing. Moreover, the material in the article at the time of nomination most definitely was not original research. Josiah Royce wrote an entire book on his conception of loyalty. He called it The Philosophy of Loyalty. It was published in 1907 and has sparked further discussion on the subject of loyalty, referencing Royce, since. The notion that it is "original research" to state that in Wikipedia, and to make a start at explaining what Royce stated (as others have analysed it since), is ridiculous, and an abuse of the original research policy. Uncle G (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It is not an abuse of the original research policy to say that most of the article is uncited original research when it in fact is. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry for "loyalty" reads in its entirety:
    LOYALTY, allegiance to the sovereign or established government of one's country, also personal devotion and reverence to the sovereign and royal family. The English word came into use in the early part of the 15th century in the sense of fidelity to one's oath, or in service, love, &c.; the later and now the ordinary sense appears in the 16th century. The O. Fr. loialte, mod. loyauti, is formed from loial, loyal, Scots leal, Lat. legalis, legal, from lex, law. This was used in the special feudal sense of one who has full legal rights, a legalis homo being opposed to the exlex, utlegatus, or outlaw. Thence in the sense of faithful, it meant one who kept faithful allegiance to his feudal lord, and so loyal in the accepted use of the word.[1]
    The entire bit about marketing, the Bible, Plato, animals, etc. is summoned out of thin air. The so-called real original material was speculation based on love of one's "family, gene-group, and friends," and similar musings. originaldiff from current Nor is there a question of whether there is something to be said about loyalty, but whether those things aren't already said (and better said) in the articles brand loyalty, allegiance, fidelity, etc. Hence the propriety of keeping this as a disambiguation page and getting rid of the original research that formed the entirety of the article prior to this AfD (the word's etymology and definition aside). RJC ^Talk_Contribs 01:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - You didn't read the references section of the current article to spot the Britannica notice, and you haven't read the whole of the version that you've just linked to, either, else you would have found where the text that you quote is right there in the article. And no, the Biblical reference isn't "summoned out of thin air", either. My goodness! One could source that particular view of loyalty to several centuries' worth of written word. You are grasping at straws, here, attempting to justify what is an unjustifiable bending of the original research policy completely out of its proper shape. Uncle G (talk) 01:35, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'll ask you not to tell me what I've read and haven't read. I did not deny that the EB text was in the article: I was saying that attributing the article to the EB cannot stand when that is all the EB said: the definition and etymology. Watch it with the incivility, would you? It causes you to mistake the positions of others. And the juxtaposition of Biblical references is a synthesis. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 02:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*Disambiguate - per WP:NOTDICT, and the arguments above. Claritas § 20:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- The arguments above aren't particularly good. No-one at all seems to have noticed this article's origins in Britannica, indicating that no-one has read the current references section, let alone looked at the article's history. And philosophical discussion of the subject, by philosophers from Plato to Royce, is erroneously labelled "original research". (Unless no-one read that part of the article either.) Uncle G (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep article. I was probably slightly influenced here by the status of the nominator. Claritas § 13:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the SEP can have a lengthy article on the subject, and philosophical treatises on the subject by people from Josiah Royce to Richard P. Mullin (see chapter 15 of ISBN 9789042016354, for example) have been written and published over the past century or so, which this article did indicate at the time of nomination, it is a shame that Wikipedia editors can only envisage a disambiguation. Really all of this belongs at loyalty (disambiguation), because there really are a lot of sources discussing this subject in depth, from which a viable article can be built. Other encyclopaedias have done so. Indeed, this article began from an article in another encyclopaedia on this subject. Uncle G (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Uncle G. The concept of loyalty is one of the prima facie absolute moral values. There is plenty of academic writing on the subject. We should dis-disambiguate the content and start a full fledged article.Greg Bard (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I surely would have no objection to creating a separate disambiguation page and moving the disambig content there. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 02:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and split per Uncle G. Loyalty is a biological (and philosophical) concept that undoubtedly warrants its own article. — C M B J 23:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An important moral virtue which is the subject of thousands of books. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a very important concept that is the focus of tons of commentary and analysis. It is articles about broad and historically significant concepts such as this that we should work on improving and as such, this is one of the last subjects that I'd think of ever deleting. A disambigutation page may be appropriate for convienience sake, but if we decide to go that route, we should set up another entry which focuses on the moral concept of loyalty. Them From Space 02:52, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep a vital concept. — goethean ॐ 05:08, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Loyalty is perhaps a simple concept, but it is an important one. Honesty, respect, courage and honour are difficult subjects to tackle for an encyclopedia. But when you consider the ways these concepts are treated across different cultures and philosophies, it becomes apparent that wiktionary is not sufficient to satisfy a thirsty mind. If loyalty does not meet the criteria for inclusion, then neither do any of those, nor any other virtues. That said, this article could use a lot of heavy lifting and there should be a disambiguation page at Loyalty (disambiguation). Gobonobo ^T ^C 07:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Loyalty is an important concept. Its gets plenty of coverage in the news and books(click the Google news search at the top of the AFD for examples). As often as loyalty comes up in the news, it should be a clear case. There are loyalty oaths, and the opposite of loyalty is treason, a very serious crime punishable by death in some cases. Dream Focus 10:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Kudos to Uncle G, who has entirely rewritten this page. I have moved the disambiguation material I added. Since this page no longer is the page that was nominated, I suggest closing this discussion as moot, and will do so later today unless someone objects. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 11:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. As nominator, I do not object, and second your Kudos to Uncle G.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2010 (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.