Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Economist editorial stance

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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. Xclamation point 00:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Economist editorial stance[edit]

The Economist editorial stance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article fails WP:N. That guideline states: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." The only two sources which are independent of the subject are removed, leaving only an article with 74 sources which are ALL The Economist. This is not how WP works; WP is WP:NOT a place for advertising nor the WP:SOAPBOX promotion of an article subjects views and opinions, and particularly not in a cruft list such as this. The main article is already advertorial in nature, in that it too is lacking sources which are independent of the subject. A list like this is not the solution to reducing cruft in articles, the solution is to delete it, not create a separate article for it, and there is no evidence that their editorial stance in itself is notable because the article is lacking those independent sources. Russavia Dialogue 13:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia Dialogue 13:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of News-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia Dialogue 13:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. -- Russavia Dialogue 13:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. We don't need a WP:POVFORK for The Economist. ΔιγουρενΕμπρος! 13:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Delete'. The article is misconceived and I agree that it is a POVfork .Despite being list based, and backed up by short quotations, this is not an uncontentious list article. A magazine is not like a political party. It does not have a manifesto. It is true that The Economist is broadly on the economic right wing but its many different writers will hold different views within (and occasionally outside) of this broad area. Even the views of the editors will change with time. This makes the lists very problematic. Are the "endorsements" truly endorsements or just favourable coverage culled from selected articles? Could completely different quotes have been selected to give a different impression? I think so, and I think that kills the validity of the lists unless they can be referenced to secondary, reliable sources. The one exception to this is the endorsements for UK general elections. It is common in the UK for newspapers and magazines to tell their readers who they should vote for and these endorsements are generally presented as the view of the publication as a whole, rather than an individual writer. (Actually, this might make an interesting article in itself). I also feel it is guilty of recentism. Did The Economist only start expressing opinions in 1955? What did it publish up until then? Crosswords? --DanielRigal (talk) 13:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was only joking about the 1955 bit. Anyway. I would like to change my vote from "Delete" to "nothing in particular" which is sort of a neutral to weak keep with a possible merge tagged on. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While any organisation can be said to have a POV I don't think that deciding this based on statements made in individual columns is going to give an accurate picture. In addition this is simply a POVfork. Ironholds (talk) 13:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I created the article after some discussions back on 2005. If you want to read about the rationale behind creating it, please have a look here and the few sections below. If you ask me about my opinion in 2009, my answer would be... delete it temporary keep to see if user:Uncle G can make it better. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 14:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - topic would be an interesting thing to have in a WP:RS to link to, but it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Problem originated with excessive detail on the topic in the Economist article; better solution would be to cut down to appropriate size. Rd232 talk 14:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I will not dignify the article by giving a reason. Kransky (talk) 14:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: AfD is not a vote, it is based on the strength and validity of arguments, so if you do not give a reason your post isn't worth the processing cycles used to post it. Ironholds (talk) 14:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with this article is twofold:
    • Whilst it began well, back in 2005, all of the good parts of the article were removed and placed back into the main article, leaving the bad parts behind, which then grew, cargo-cult style, into the article as it is now: a quotefarm of random snippets from the magazine itself from which the encyclopaedia reader is expected to deduce an editorial stance. Or, worse, Wikipedia editors are taking these quotations and performing an original analysis of their own to imply an editorial stance.
    • There is material to be had on the editorial stance of the magazine. I just found two sources that devote pages (in one of them, almost an entire chapter) to analysis of its editorial stance. Indeed, one of the sources covers aspects of the magazine's editorial stance that isn't even mentioned anywhere in our articles, either in this article or in the parent one, and that I suspect Wikipedia editors with a recentist bias aren't aware even exists as a topic in sources.
  • I suspect that it's time for a Kerrrzappp!. Uncle G (talk) 14:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and merge There are countless WP articles on news media outlets with sections on "Editorial Stance". This should be similarly merged. Can you really argue that an article which criticises the Economist for supporting that the Irish starve in the Great Famine is an advertisement for the Economist? PetersV       TALK 14:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I don't think anybody disputes that the editorial stance of The Economist should be covered in its article. The argument is that anything of value has already been merged and that The Economist already has adequate coverage of this, making the lists here redundant. --DanielRigal (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • What lists would those be, exactly? ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I was referring to the list based nature of the article when it was put up for deletion. I see that you have changed it now. I didn't realise that was what you meant by "Kerrrzappp". --DanielRigal (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's what I usually use as the edit summary. ☺ You can probably find a few in my contributions history. Here is one, for example. Uncle G (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, many many papers in the uk and US were against intervention till 95. Brendan Simms book Britain's Unfinest Hour is great but the Economist wasn't the only target--Moloch09 (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a fascinating and informative article on a subject not really covered in The Economist. Disc space is cheap. -65.246.126.130 (talk) 18:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep/merge The material seems best suited to integration within The Economist article but deletion is not appropriate as that would be a matter of normal editing. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, per the original consensus for its creation here Talk:The_Economist/Archive_1#Opinion_list. Martintg (talk) 20:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this is trivia and unmaintainable. The Economist is a weekly magazine and every single edition has opinions on a wide range of subjects. Nick-D (talk) 22:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    But, there are WP articles on developing or current events that are much more difficult to maintain and whose subjects are not so systematic with such long-lasting effects. -65.246.126.130 (talk) 00:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as a WP:POVFORK. Parts of it could probably be moved to the main article. Tavix (talk) 23:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahem, from WP:POVFORK "What content/POV forking is not ... Articles whose subject is a POV" I rest my case. -65.246.126.130 (talk) 00:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: per the consensus at Talk:The_Economist/Archive_1#Opinion_list. The Economist, like The Nation or the Wall Street Journal has a defined and much written about history of having specific editorial lines. That is hardly a) a crime, despite what some American journalists from the late 20th century were taught, or b) non-notable, as it is a topic studied, written about, (and frankly) universally known. If folks working on the article The_Economist want to split this section off as an article, then we should be helping them make it the best article we can, not deleting it. T L Miles (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and then debate merging.Biophys (talk) 21:46, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Very Strongest Possible Keep - see WP:BEFORE. The Economist's editorial policy is actually quite significant in its own way, and it is easily verifiable. One example: just last night, I was reading Michael Brook's "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" (ISBN 978-1-60751-666-8), which had arrived fresh fromn the Quality Paperback Book Club as a featured special. There is a full paragraph on page 67 in that book merely about the magazine's support for cold fusion experiments and the philosophy of science, with a quote and an analysis of the same. You can rename, merge, whatever, but don't delete it, because it is notable. Bearian (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC) I've added in a citation with two, count'em, 2, books that cited the Economist's 1989 editorial on cold fusion experiments. Clean up the POV, don't delete it. Bearian (talk) 17:07, 24 March 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.
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