Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shaker Aamer

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 of the debate was keep. --Ezeu 16:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Shaker_Aamer

Should the individual article pages on all (around 200 in number) the guantanamo detainees be included in wikipedia? I feel these pages aren't substantial to wikipedia being encylopedic. There are more then 700 detainees in the US Naval base camp. If their names are released, should all their biographies be collected and article pages be created for all of them? If yes, then, I'd like to point out there are currently thousands of POWs detained by a lot number of countries all over the world. Would wikipedia be a place to host information all those detainees, from all over the world?

I strongly feel such pages are a seriously violating the notability criteria, turning wikipedia into what is infamously called, the junkyard of information. In this case, even the list of detainees is more than enough to be considered encyclopedic. We want and expect wikipedia to last long, like encyclopedia brittanica, 1911. Cos, in the longer run, in the next 50 years, there may be a number of wars, battles, detainees and POWs. I don't think wikipedia should have all the information relating to that. Though the facts and plights of the detainees may be important for the world to know, including all the information of every single detainee may be considered too trivial to be considered encyclopedic. Therefore I'm marking it as AFD on the guantanamo detainee pages, starting with the first one in the list. And I expect a consensus and mutiple deletion on all the detainee pages. Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} • 08:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Weak delete. Apparently not very notable.--Jusjih 15:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• What, are you kidding?!?!?! All those people are vicious terrorists!!! Of course they're notable. (re-enter reality). Delete. --JChap 17:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep - This person may at the moment not be notable to the world. But, if he is innocent and his detention at Guantanomo turns out into a scandal or, if he is convinced as a terrorist, this (short) biography may become very handy. As long as the US doesn't bring those people before a court, we have to keep an open mind in those matters. JoJan 18:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - he is one of hundreds that were detained in 'Gitmo. If he's not guilty of terrorism, he'll sink into nonnotable obscurity. If he's guilty, he'll sink into nonnotable obscurity. B.Wind 18:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per JChap and B.Wind. M1ss1ontomars2k4 ^{(T | C | @)} 18:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. --P199 21:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I understood the nominator to mean that this AfD had been noted as an AfD discussion on a page about the guatanamo detainees as a group or about the camps. But I couldn't find that giving of notice on probable pages nor can I see it in the nominator's contribution log. If this is to be a test case for all of the detainees, it ought to receive wider than average notice. I've gone ahead and notified the article's initial creator, but wonder if more should be done. GRBerry
• Keep this one Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. We have the space for all notable detainees. And as time passes and they become less important, the content can be trimmed down. This is part of the normal versioning of encyclopedias. That this detainee was involved in negotiating an end to one of the hunger strikes makes him more notable than the average detainee. Article has links to two reliable sources. I reserve judgement on the articles for other detainees until they are nominated - but I suspect that only a proper subset will be deletion worthy. GRBerry 02:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. This is not the Encylopedia Britanica or a specialty encylopedia. This project is one of the most extensive and braud reference works in history. The arguments given, if allowed to stand, would open a door for deletions of just about any article in the encyclopedia. ANY article that concerns a subject that may be considered not to be significant would by up for deletion -- and there are a LOT of articles that just about any member with an account here would consider insignificant. We'd stand to loose half the articles here. No, do not delete. Jason Palpatine 03:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. It can be agreed that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia., but the same policy says Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Plus, it cannot be figured where, 200 odd pages (as of now) on Guantanamo detainees will come under WP:BIO. The decision on these pages will pave way for a stance on notability in the absence of a guideline or policy. If not deleted, will it mean that any article on detainees in other nations as well be allowed to be created?? Instead, I'd suggest an article on the experience of the detainees be created and a line that this person helped end the hunger strike be included. We don't need a blue link and a separate page on this as well as all other detainees. -- Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} • 03:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a good idea, but someone should write that article first, then nominate appropriate detainees for deletion. After writing the article the editors of it should have an educated sense of which ones are worthy of their own article, and which are not. If we want a delete and merge outcome, which I expect will be appropriate for most of the prisoners, we need someplace to merge it to. I don't see any appropriate articles wikilinked in this one or in the category. It would probably be too much for Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States or Guantanamo Bay detainment camp which are already getting long, but ought to be a sub-page of one of them. GRBerry 14:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Seems encyclopedic to me. Keeping it doesn't hurt anyone, and may even help his cause. ··gracefool |☺ 08:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. What rational reason could there be for deleting this well referenced series of articles that are clearly of interest to readers. - SimonP 14:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, if we don't keep individual articles than "people" will create a grand clusterfuck List of all prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay detention area that gets bogged to hell, and instead of 32k, falls somewhere around 6.5gb of text as they discuss each one. Look at all the Nazis we keep details on, even low-ranking ones. If they're verifiable (as these are, through their ID#s, court orders and detainee reviews) Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 19:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per GRBerry. An unfortunate but notable individual from a significant and ongoing political event. --Cactus.man ✍ 14:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep -- Disclaimer, I started this article, and most of the other Guantanamo articles Chez has suggested should be deleted.
  • Chez, no offense, but your arguments in favour of deleting all these articles are based on unfortunate misconceptions. If these individuals were merely POWs, about whom there was no controversy, or misunderstandings, I would agree with you that they wouldn't merit individual articles. You are laboring under a misconception if you think they are POWs. The nature of their incarceration is a subject of great controversy largely because the Bush administration has chosen to not afford them the protections of POW, even though many legal scholars believe this is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and members of the US judicial branch concur. You are laboring under a misconception if you think their identities remain secret. 5,000 pages of transcripts, containing some of their names were released on March 3 2006, followed by two lists of names, released on April 20 2006 and May 15 2006.
  • Chez, there is an excellent site called "the Jurist", maintained at the University of Pittsburg law faculty. It is an excellent, very neutral, very reliable site that gives short articles on current legal matters. If there is no fair-minded, authoritative site about the principals involved in one of their reports, they write a backgrounder themselves. But if there is a fair-minded, credible page somewhere, they cite that page. They have cites some of the articles on individual Guantanamo detainees here on the wikipedia, as in this article.
  • Chez, I saw you were on the recent changes patrol, and the new articles patrol. You cited WP:NOT. I suggest you re-read the portion entitled WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a battleground, which reads, in part: "Every user is expected to interact with others civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation.... Rather, approach the matter intelligently and engage in polite discussion." -- So why did you wait until I had created hundreds of articles, spending hundreds of hours to do so, when, as a regular patroler, you probably noticed these articles months ago? Why didn't you write me with your concerns the very first time you noticed an article that concerned you? Other people did write me, during the last couple of months, when my efforts accelerated, once the DoD released the detainees identities, and 6,000 pages of transcripts. I took their concerns seriously, and modified my efforts to take their concerns into account.
  • As to whether the individual detainees will "fade into obscurity":
    1. WP:NOT also says wikipedia is not a crystal ball. They might fade into obscurity. Or the nature of their incarceration and interrogation might remain the focus of ongoing controversy, just like Lynching in the United States, or Japanese American Internment and Japanese Canadian internment. These articles may serve as an invaluable resource if the American public were to decide that the inhumane conditions at Guantanamo represented the same kind of blot on America's record as the paragon of freedom and democracy and the rule of law as slavery, lynching, and the internment of those of Japanese descent during World War 2.
    2. Do you think we are going to run out of disk-space? The capacity of hard drives is doubling every two years. Wikipedia is a success. Expect to see the size of its disk-farm increase. Let me suggest that if it ever becomes necessary to purge articles, solely because of a lack of disk-space, that the candidates should be chosen purely on a "least recently used" basis. -- Geo Swan 14:27, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There are other articles that reference these articles, like:
    • charities accused of ties to terrorism
    • Casio F91W -- the "terrorist's watch"
  • As Sherurcij noted, if all these articles was rolled into one article it would be overwhelmingly large. Not only would that make it hard for browsers to load, but it would be useless for other articles to reference it. Suppose the chariites article referenced the omnibus article you suggested, how would the reader interested in which Guantanamo detainees were accused of ties to Al Wafa, or Al Haramain Foundation, find that info? -- Geo Swan 14:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not Amnesty International or a webhosting service Bwithh 19:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per GRBerry, unfortunate yet notable. Silensor 06:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

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.