Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of proven conspiracies

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 (8 keeps, 4 deletes, 1 rename, 1 comment, 1 anon vote) Renata3 18:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of proven conspiracies

Random hodgepodge of "conspiracies". What is the point? Mirror Vax 20:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. I think the point of it is to show that many theories that allege a conspiracy actually turn out to be true. Perhaps you didn't notice the word "list" in the title? zen master T 20:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, the point is to organize and enable users to find information about proven conspiracies. Kappa 21:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I think it's a good idea for a list, and most of the entries are concise. -- MisterHand 21:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, recreate with a NPOV title, and heavily edit. The current title implies a pro-conspiracy-theory POV, and may be taken to imply "look, all these conspiracies were proven, thus my conspiracy is valid". This should be something like "list of historical conspiracies" or "list of successful plots". Besides, half of the content on that page are by definition not conspiracies, such as secret government projects, anti-Nazi resistance, etc. Flyboy Will 21:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

By literal definition any theory that alleges a conspiracy can be labeled a "conspiracy theory". The list is important to disassociate between "conspiracy theories" that are definitely proven and ones that are represented as being false. zen master T 21:46, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

By that logic, a "facial wipe" can mean the back of my hand or my sleeve; and an "action figure" is any figure capable of any action. The "proven conspiracy" to me in the list title has a very strong air of a "conspiracy theory", in its actual accepted definition. A list of proven conspiracy theories is very, very different from a list of conspiracies as in plots. Flyboy Will 22:09, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The difference is "conspiracy theory" and even "conspiracy" is often assumed or represented as being false, the list of proven conspiracies exists to correct that misconception. When you say "accepted definition [of 'conspiracy theory']" what do you mean exactly? zen master T 22:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep but rename and split by broad type, most of these are military coups or underground resistance movements, so economical agreements to fix prices should be on a separate page - not in the least because the list can and will become extensively long. Rename to "List of conspiracies" - anything not a proven conspiracy is unverifiable and therefore not valid on the list. Radiant_>|< 22:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as it is. Nothing is wrong with the article, the definitions are all accurate. Avengerx 23:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, drivel. From Conspiracy: a conspiracy is an agreement of two or more people to commit a crime. How's WWII resistance conspiracy? Who did conspire in Dreyfus affair? How is Caesar assassination different from other political murders? What is conspirational on project MKULTRA? I see no chance to keep content of this article valid. Listcruft. Pavel Vozenilek 03:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • To be fair, that definition you just gave was the legal one, so it doesn't apply to this list. -- MisterHand 04:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Pavel, your definition is very misleading. As MisterHand said, you are referring to the legal concept of conspiracy; not the common usage that this article is referring to.Avengerx 08:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • MKULTRA was a crime planned and agreed to by at least two people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.107.114.240 (talk • contribs).

Since when is cartel to drive prices (of DRAM) up conspiracy? If so what isn't conspiracy? The article is extreme original research in selecting few points in history and labeling them with certain term (and claiming absurd notion of proveness). Pavel Vozenilek 23:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Rename as per Radiant, and also, surely by definition, if a conspiracy has been proven, it is no longer a conspiracy, as a conspiracy is a secret agreement to do bad things. So the current name is stupid. Proto t c 13:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Comment - We also have List of alleged conspiracy theories, Conspiracy theories (a collection), some specialized lists like 9/11 conspiracy theories, and probably some I haven't discovered yet. Tom Harrison ^(talk) 14:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• keep as is, conspiracies are any meeting including more than two people talking about a secret. Only as a legal term does it only apply to crimes. They where conspiracies even if they are not secret now, even in legal terms. Notability is not a problem, we use wikipedia standarts, size is not a problem, this is not a paper encyclopedia, we can creat breakout articles if it get to big. --Striver 20:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, with no enthusiasm; I think Flyboy Will is right about the intent of the page. I would prefer to see all the list of conspiracies pages merged and drastically edited. I don't see that happening. If we delete this page, the same motivation will result in the same content reappearing elsewhere. The same motivation leads people to edit-war for a favorable definition of Conspiracy theory, to try to get conspiracy theory removed from article titles, and to put up Coincidence theory. In List of proven conspiracies, the desire is to have a page that says, "They laughed at Wilbur and Orville" without having it say, "and they laughed at Bozo the Clown." Not actually being able to find a Wilbur and Orville, the page has become a rather bland list of events that involved secret plans. As such, I think it's useful enough to keep. Tom Harrison ^(talk) 21:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • My main complaint is that the article lacks focus. And so everyone has a different idea of what the article is about, or should be about. That's not a solid foundation to build on. Mirror Vax 21:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• keep with regret. Of the three consipracy lists I found today, this is actually the only one with any real merit, since it's the one which contains only proven conspiracies. But actually I think a category would be better: if the conspiracy theory is not big enough for an article, it's not big enough period. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 23:08, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
• delete Does not meet WP:CITE standards. --Chalko 05:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep as it is worth helping people with things like ideas for research by making it clear what conspiracies are generally believed or made public, such as MKULTRA. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.107.114.240 (talk • contribs).

• Delete Per Chalko. Putting these things in an article and labeling them conspiracies seems awfully like original research. Arkon 05:13, 26 December 2005 (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.