Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement (2nd nomination)

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. Ironholds (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

After 7 years, this list still does not have a single reliable source. Tagged with {{Original research}} since October 2006. What are the criteria for inclusion on the list? To quote one user from talk page: How exactly does one define "special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement"? В и к и T 08:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as pure WP:OR, uncited for one good reason: No citations are to be found for this hopelessly vague concept. The user on the talk page is correct, how do you define this? A: a ragbag of unrelated items, each defined more or less by its separate section heading. This is Not Notable "within the meaning of the act", and everything that Wikipedia shouldn't be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:59, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. czar · · 09:37, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions. czar · · 09:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination and per Chiswick Chap: this is not a sensible topic for an article. Nick-D (talk) 09:59, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above, and the prior AfD is utterly unconvincing. Title is absolutely absurd, the content is pure OR and synthesis. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article has a complicated history and the criteria for inclusion have been much discussed. Whatever the original intentions of the creator I just do not see how the list an be sufficiently defined within the terms of the title. At the heart of it seems to be a concept of state, or statehood, into which these entities do not fit and the article seems to have been a split from Dependent territory. But there are a great many political entities which are not independent states in the sense of being members of the United Nations. How they came into being, what arrangements exist for administration, the manner in which their relationship with other states is incorporated in treaty is a function of history. Some of what are now constituent states of the USA owe their origins to international treaty, as of course do many states which are members of the United Nations. The special constitutional arrangements of Svalbard, the Aland Islands and Hong Kong are interesting, and in some senses peculiar, but so are those of the Channel Islands or Belgium. It does great injustice to the complexities of their history to say that, for example, Vatican City is the creation of treaty; what treaty or other settlement did was to formulate an arrangement which fitted the circumstances including local needs and the interests of the guaranteeing powers or entities. --AJHingston (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the same reasons it was kept the last time - it's a list of places that are listed in List of Countries that are neither sovereign states or dependencies; maybe rename to Areas of Special Sovereignty or similar. If the problem is that the title doesn't match the content, change the title, don't delete the thing. Diego (talk) 21:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But it also lists sovereign states. Can you provide some reliable source for the term "special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement"? We don't know what it means. It lists sovereign states like Andorra and Vatican, it lists Republika Srpska (but not Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina?). If you ask me, the whole list is WP:OR crap.--В и к и T 22:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that can be dealt with by renaming the article. Diego (talk) 05:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, unfortunately that is not true - there is no acceptable name for a random ragbag of things that have nothing in common that actually distinguishes them from things around them that the authors have decided not to include (the preceding phrase being a bit long for use as a title). The problem is not naming but ABSENCE OF LIST CRITERIA, i.e. a proper way of deciding what goes in and what does not. If such criteria existed, we could easily find a usable title; but there aren't any, which is fatal to the article. A second fatal problem is that there are no reliable sources anywhere which define the non-existent criteria. A consequence of the indefinability of this list is that things which one might have guessed would clearly belong outside the list's vague scope - like sovereign states - seem to be included in the general miasma; and it appears that User:Diego Moya indeed believed those states should have been excluded, so there is probably nobody who knows what this list should contain. It's a disaster and an embarrassment to the encyclopedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Not sure what the article should be named, but it should be kept. Nations that exists with special conditions or control of more than one nation? All of these are recognized by the international community, so the current name is fine. It has specific inclusion criteria. Dream Focus 01:29, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot call all of these nations, though. And there are sovereign states, dependences and constituent parts of states which also were the creations of, or are subject to, international treaties and agreements concerning their status and territorial integrity. What do these have in common not shared with others, other than a subjective judgement of quaintness? --AJHingston (talk) 10:10, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of entities which have or have had their own government while still being governed to an extent by a different government beyond theirs. How about that for a title then? That covers everyone nicely on the list. Dream Focus 12:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This looks to be another one of these situations where the component parts are notable and the grouping isn't p b p 12:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, and the suggested "title" makes it clear both that the existing title is unusable, and that any alternative will be hopeless, for the reasons I and other editors have given. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:15, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not liking the title of an article is not a valid reason to delete it. The information is encyclopedic. Dream Focus 13:29, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the detailed criticism that has been written by me and others. It is nothing whatsoever to do with not liking the current or suggested titles: it is to do with their essential incoherence, because of the utter failure of the article to conform to any workable set of list inclusion criteria. If the list were coherent it would be easy to find a title. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Dream Focus 02:22, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: All OR, all the time p b p 01:43, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I note that those advocating keep are also suggesting the name should be changed. As the present content is only unreferenced OR and is contained in List of treaties, there is absolutely no loss to WP by deletion. If, at a later stage, an editor can find the right title, the references and avoid WP:OR it will be easier to create without the present baggage.--Richhoncho (talk) 07:12, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
delete none of the keep votes are convincing and do not address the fundamental issue of what criteria to get on this list. LibStar (talk) 15:39, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. My comment at the AfD in 2007 was: "Entities sui generis have played an important historical and political role in international law and this is a useful collection of them. The article needs expansion and rewriting, but there is a useful base to work with and it should stay." The relevant criterion for inclusion is a territory (current or, perhaps, historical) whose political status is neither that of an "ordinary" nation or sovereigh state, nor that of an "ordinary" dependent territory (or trust territory or the like), but is the subject of a specific treaty regime among two or more states or parties. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is helpful, but many states and territories are extraordinary in their own way and the categories into which we place them may seem arbitrary. I am not clear whether this article is intended to be about the fact that there are places that do not fall within the accepted definitions of state, etc - that are as you say, sui generis (like Antarctica), or about the fact that there can be special international treaties governing the status of an area (which would include things like the Panama Canal Zone or Berlin after WW2) in which case the list would be long and diverse even if it were confined to those arrangements currently in force, though I am not sure that it should. In either case there needs to be explicit and referenced use of accepted criteria in international law and I am not sure that we end up with the same article. --AJHingston (talk) 23:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad, can you please fix the article? In particular, can you:

Write a few sentences explaining the criteria for inclusion (citing reliable sources, of course)?
Remove from the list all entries that do not meet these criteria?
Change the title if necessary?

If you can do this, I will gladly withdraw this nomination.--В и к и T 09:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The original creator seemed to have four specific territories in mind: Åland, Svalbard, Hong Kong and Macau. Because there is no clear definition or source linking these, the topic is open to the introduction of disputed territories such as Palestine and Northern Ireland. This makes the topic more trouble than it's worth — just wait until Gibraltar is added to the list! :) If we seem to have a gap, then the topic needs to start with a good source. Here's an example of such a source which talks about these four areas as "special regions" in the context of a spectrum of sub-national jurisdictions. The latter title seems to be a better place to start. Warden (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. What's troubling is that some of the content in this article deserves to be on Wikipedia, but the way that it is organized is clearly original research. The good parts should be moved to appropriate other articles. Andrew³²⁷ 22:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a unique way of classifying certain quasi-autonomous territories. It is quite different from United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Such a list as this one would be expected to be rather dynamic, even more than the UN list. As long as there is evidence in the main articles cited for inclusion on this list, it should be allowed. Attleboro (talk) 22:13, 14 May 2013 (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.