Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fazaldad

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 delete. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 02:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fazaldad[edit]

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Fails WP:BIO. Guantanamo detainee about whom very little is known. No Google Books, News Archives or Scholar results, and few regular Google hits. The one independent source given, Worthington, gives a short paragraph about him, concluding with "Fortunately, rather more is known of four other Pakistanis seized at this time". This (Worthington), an author who has described all known Guantanamo detainees, is as far as I can tell the only available reliable independent source with somewhat significant coverage, but it is not sufficient to meet our guidelines. Fram (talk) 15:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Guantanamo Bay detainment camp-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 00:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom - fails WP:N. --Yachtsman1 (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- I believe this nomination is based on some serious misconceptions.
- WRT WP:BIO. The nomination fails to mention the Summary of Evidence memo drafted to explain the justifications for his detention. The process followed to prepare these memos completely fulfills all the requirements of WP:BIO.
- WRT independent sources -- WP:BIO talks about "independent sources" in several contexts. Selfpublished sources are not considered independent from the subject, and claims in them do not establish notability. References that merely quote from original (primary?) sources are not considered intellectually independent. Neither of these objections apply to the the memo. Fazaldad played no role in drafting the memo. The actual authors of the memo sent for, read, collated, analyzed documents about Fazaldad from half a dozen other agencies, reconciling disagreements, stripping out duplicates, or allegations they did not consider credible. This is an independent document.
- WRT credibility of the assertions in the memo -- official government publications have always been accepted as WP:RS for the official positions of the governments in question. Individually we are all entitled to hold a POV as to how credible the allegations in memos like this are. But the wikipedia's core policies prohibit us from letting our opinions leak into our editorial decisions. IMO, suppressing WP:RS that make assertions we don't like is just as much a lapse from policy as editorializing and inserting one's POV into articles.
- This nomination doesn't explicitly make this assertion, but I know some contributors misinterpret WP:BIO, as if it required press reports as sources. It doesn't. Rather, the first paragraph says: "Notable in the sense of being "famous", or "popular"—although not irrelevant—is secondary." Notability can be established by non-press WP:RS, as was established here. Geo Swan (talk) 13:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I have never requested press reports, I have requested independent sources. Sources published by the authority that has detained this person are quite clearly not independent. WP:BLPPRIMARY is relevant here as well. Fram (talk) 08:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - You write: "Sources published by the authority that has detained this person are quite clearly not independent." What meaning of "independent" are you using here? I quoted the two meanings of "independent" used in WP:BIO. By both of those meanings the memos are independent.
      Did Fazaldad write the memo? No? Then the memo is independent from the subject. Are the memos composed entirely of long and unanalyzed quotes from a primary source? No? The authors analyzed, collated, reconciled and synthesized other documents from half a dozen other agencies.
      If there is some other meaning of independent you are using could you please clarify which wikidocument you are citing?
    - You write: "WP:BLPPRIMARY is relevant here as well." Really? Are you asserting his CSR Tribunal memo is a primary source? Are you asserting it is a primary source in spite of the authors reading, collating, analyzing, reconciling reports from half a dozen other agencies? Geo Swan (talk) 01:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Have you actually bothered to read WP:BLPPRIMARY? Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. (bolding mine, italics in original). Are you really writing countless articles about detainees without even knowing such things about our BLP policy? If so, could you please just stop editing any articles about living people? Fram (talk) 07:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Fails WP:BASIC: A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent and independent of the subject. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability. Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject. IQinn (talk) 23:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- OK. So why don't you accept that Fazaldad's memo fulfills these requirements? Geo Swan (talk) 02:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It does not fulfill these requirements and this source alone can not fulfill these requirements. IQinn (talk) 03:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisting comment. I'm not sure if the Fazaldad memo can be used to establish notability but even if it can it's only 1. More sources to consider would be helpful. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Writing BLPs based entirely on court records is an absolute no-no. Geo Swan, you keep being a problem editor in this area. Are we going to have to open a RfC/U, or are you going to stop relying on primary sources? Fences&Windows 23:00, 12 December 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.