Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/São Tomé and Príncipe – United States 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 (NAC). American Eagle (talk) 16:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

São Tomé and Príncipe – United States relations

any useful information can be included in Foreign relations of São Tomé and Príncipe. not the US does not have an embassy. LibStar (talk) 12:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - with the recent large number of bilateral relations articles being deleted, this is all starting to seem a bit like arguing a POINT. However on top of that a search on the subject revels that we have multiple sources to justify an article. Such as, A Fox news article, a CTV article, and a Globe and Mail article all of those details the United states response and diplomatic options with the country following a coup. The United States acknowledges relations on a state department website calling relations between the two, "excellent". Here are some more recent articles, such as one detailing post coup relations and an article showing the United States Coast Guard training soldiers in São Tomé found at a trusted news website. And there is yet more articles detailing treaties and pacts such as this one or another detailing military ties. Need I go on because I could do this for hours with all the sources available. -Marcusmax(speak) 13:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment It's not WP:POINT at all. Many of these bilateral articles were created by one... "hihgly motivated" editor, and probably should never have been created in the first place. We are just sorting through the mess at this point. Gigs (talk) 19:40, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I shouldn't have tried to use that policy in this instance, but it is disrupting when the only way to sort through a mess is to delete almost every single time even on articles that have proved that a notable relation exists. That being said I am not accusing the nominator or you of doing this but it does appear to be happening. -Marcusmax(speak) 19:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - I think if you count, we are keeping almost as many as we are deleting. Gigs (talk) 23:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and not only because the map is invaluable for showing that Sarah Palin is actually the governor of São Tomé and Príncipe. Verifiably, there's encyclopedic stuff going on between the two nations. -- Hoary (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - to the extent the US reaction to the coup is relevant, could it not be mentioned at 2003 Santomean coup d'état? There doesn't seem to be that much more to this "excellent" (translation: dull) relationship. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations task force deletions. – Marcusmax(speak) 19:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There are a few countries whose relations with any country however small is notable: the US is certainly one. (others: Russia/USSR, PRC, UK, France, Germany, Japan.) Of course all the material can form part of other articles, but thats true of most WP articles. The reason for articles like these is to get the information together, a reasonable function of an encyclopedia. Nominating article without following WP:BEFORE is not helpful. DGG (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that you can assume that the relations a few countries have with any other country are automatically notable. Drawn Some (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The U.S. has notable relations with every independent country in the World. If the two countries do not have diplomatic relationships, then that is even more notable. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Snowball keep per above Ikip (talk) 23:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Fails WP:N and Wikipedeia is not a directory. 203 individual articles or sections on "Foreign relations of" for each of the 200 or so sovereign nations, with a link to current info on their website as to who they have "relations" with are far more encyclopedic that 20,000 of these bilateral stubs with stale info extracted from the website of a country's foreign ministry. No "automatic notability" even if one of the countries is a superpower.Edison (talk) 03:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Closing administrator please note that editor has copy and pasted this argument in 7 AfDs.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] (As I have copy and pasted this notice also). Ikip (talk) 02:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - And what is your point? The stubs fail the same guidelines. It is proper to point that out, and the "Delete" arguments in each case have as much merit as if only placed in one AFD. Edison (talk) 05:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Non-notable, not likely to be found so. There isn't a single reference for anything in the article. --BlueSquadronRaven 16:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unsourced, not sourceable by me, entirely trivial. Let's encourage the writing of articles with actual sources that pass the notability guideline from the get-go.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- What a splendid idea! But, um, (i) Are we not encouraging this already? (ii) How would deletion of this article add to the encouragement? -- Hoary (talk) 16:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We should not allow the creation of unsourced stubs with no verifiable information, assertions of notability, or reliable sources. This should be actively discouraged in fact, something that wikipedia fails to do at the moment. Enforcing community standards will lead to stronger articles, a better reputation for reliability and accuracy, and attract the sort of editors wikipedia needs, that's how. At any rate, this article is unsourced, trivial and fails GNG; the meta discussion is irrelevant to this afd and i probably shouldn't have brought it up.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am in complete agreement. New articles should still be held to a standard of referenced sources and content for them to be kept. Merely making cookie-cutter articles such as this one was a part of and expecting others to do the work on the presumption that the topic is notable doesn't cut it, and should be stamped out at every turn. If the creator had given us more than a paragraph or two detailing embassies and included a few sources and such for a start for future editors to build on, that would have been infinitely more preferable to the drek we have shown here.--BlueSquadronRaven 17:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Marcusmax. Some of the sources he dug out have now been added as references to establish noteability. There are more that can be added as the article develops. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:39, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per my usual standards, comments by DGG and Marcusmax. It appears from that the USA has significant bilateral relations with this admittedly small nation. I'm not ready to say that bilateral relations with a superpower is per se notable, but it's darn close. Bearian (talk) 00:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included on the and Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force/Deletion page(s), which are related to this deletion discussion. User:Ikip
Keep There are mention of things which give the article valid content. It shows a relationship between the two countries in question. Dream Focus 04:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Holy cow! - we even have a 7.2 kB article on United States Ambassador to São Tomé and Príncipe! (+ another one on Eunice S. Reddick) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 07:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but merge the ambassador article into this one. --Reinoutr (talk) 10:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, can't see how this could be a less notable intersection. Stifle (talk) 13:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- No? Then you may wish to consider (as just one possibility among many) São Tomé and Príncipe – San Marino relations. -- Hoary (talk) 13:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Note to closing admin: please discount Stifle's non-argument. If you actually take a look at the content of the 3 articles mentioned herein, you will see what I mean. I have never argued that all bilateral relationship articles are notable, but many are, and some are not. This is clearly notable. Bearian (talk) 21:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I added the sources found by Marcusmax(speak) as external links in the article. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have expanded the article. A small state with a strategic position in an area where the US has vital oil interests. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Normally the United States's relations are notable, and I don't really see anything that proves that it is not. Tavix | Talk 21:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I would agree with DGG that at least the self-designated "world powers" - the USA, the former USSR, and the British Empire during its peak years - had some non-trivial involvement - military, diplomatic, or economic, friendly or unfriendly - with virtually every country in the world during some point in their history. (In a sense, it was the absence of the diplomatic relations between the USA and Mongolia, or between the USSR and Saudia Arabia or South Africa that made those pairs peculiar). If there are no sources online for a particular relation, I am always certain - based on reading newspapers for 30+ years - that some older sources can be found in print form, if one is inclined to do this research (which, of course, should have being done by the original creator of any such article, if s/he felt like expending his efforts on creating it in the first place!) For the other three major countries listed by DGG, the same situation would apply at least with respect to a very large geographic or cultural area. Vmenkov (talk) 01:52, 9 May 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.