Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States health reform 1912-1920

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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 userfy. There is strong consensus that the articles as they exist are not suitable for mainspace. Once they are cleaned up, they can be moved back. - brenneman {L} 07:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States health reform 1912-1920 - United States health reform under FDR - United States health reform under Truman - United States health reform under Nixon - United States health reform under Carter - United States health reform under Clinton

According to the discussion at Talk:Health care reform, the creation of this group of articles appears to have been encouraged by a college instructor at Duke University, User:Conoverc, for his Politics of Health Care class to address why universal health care proposals have been defeated despite overwhelming public support for universal coverage. To me, WP:OR appears to have been violated in that a synthesis of published material serving to advance a position appears in each article. He admitted to devising a common article template for his students to use in order to reach the conclusion "why the window of opportunity (for reform) closed", and the edit histories reveal a flurry of referenced assertions in the various sections of each article. In my opinion, the position being advanced is that reform or change is an "opportunity"; the synthesis is the A + B + C insertion of references to reach that conclusion. Medtopic 10:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Chaned my mind after doing a little quiet research Very Weak Keep All but these articles really need cleanup Aeon Insane Ward 18:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Provisional keep and cleanup. I cheerfully confess I have not read each nominated article. The ones I did read were not so awful as to be unsalvageable; they were referenced. Even if they were created as a class project, they contain encyclopedic information that should not be simply erased. They do need to be edited to remove jargon ("the policy stream"?) and checked for NPOV, but this makes them no different from any other article about history. Smerdis of Tlön 14:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The articles are useful as supplements to the presidents in question. Much of the non-NPOV position has been editted out, leaving valuable articles (though bloated, in my opinion) - JethroElfman 16:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. per JethroElfman - NickSentowski 19:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete All -- Wikipedia prohibits "connecting the dots" as a violation of the policy against original research. See [1] Suggest the material be moved to Wikisource instead. Morton devonshire 05:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - Although some of the articles are problematic there is sufficient encyclopedic content that they should be saved. They certainly need more work and I'm interested in discussing it with anyone else who is willing to spend some time seperating wheat from chaff. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 23:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all The synthesis to advance a position problem is still present. For example, it is noticable that only certain Presidents are part of the series. I seem to recall a few presidents in between and since like Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and a Bush or two (a couple of whom signed reform legislation like the establishment of Medicare and the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act). And the articles have statements like "resulted in no progress towards universal health care" that demonstrate their advocacy of the point of view that universal health care would be progress in the U.S. GRBerry 02:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - While the quote presented from the article is probably POV, it seems that deleting (or rewriting) a bad sentence would be preferable to deleting an article which has some useful content. As for the issue of "missing presidents" from the series, your position almost seems to be that, if we don't have an article about United States health reform under Reagan then we should delete United States health reform under Nixon. As an encyclopedia, shouldn't our response be to write the "missing" article about Reagan rather than delete the one about Nixon? --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 03:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment No the point is that the series was constructed as it is in order to advance a point of view, thus fauling afoul of the policy against original research. There is no excuse for a neutral series of articles on healthcare reform in the U.S. omitting coverage of the introduction of Medicare, which is one of the most important pieces of healthcare legislation. One could say that the 2003 reform act is too new to evaluate in an encyclopedic fashion. Why are all cases of significant reform omitted from the series? GRBerry 12:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I find it somewhat ironic that I'm speaking in defense of these articles; 99% of my AfD votes are straight "Delete" because 99% of what comes through AfD is utter crap. These are not utter crap. They may be incomplete, POV, poorly written and partially redundant...but none of those are problems for which AfD is the best answer. The best answer is to rewrite, remove POV, and add more encyclopedic content, not to remove the useful information which is there. I know I'm starting to repeat myself now, but if information is missing why don't we add the needed info, rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater by deleting useful content that simply needs improvement? --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 16:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that there is certainly problematic content which can be removed and corrected with rewriting. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 17:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep all I often see articles like this, with OR being the main premise for deletion, but invariably someone throws in the words "Inherently POV" or "Inherently OR". Not the case here. While I certainly agree that Wikipedia is not a place for "connecting the dots", I see no harm in making uncontroversial statements of the obvious theory behind such information. Perhaps our encyclopedia could just spew out facts and statistics with no correlation, but we must realize that the theory that binds these facts is as true, and is as much value to the encyclopedia as anything else that can be copied from an almanac, and the theory relating to this information is generally uncontroversial. What about the parts that are? Get rid of them. Like my history teacher used to say, "Facts without theory is trivia. Theory without facts is bullshit." And who's to say that this is OR? Who's to say that it is connecting the dots? Do not forget that each of these articles contain something like 10-15 references (Take a look at United States health reform under Clinton), so an OR claim in itself is strenuous enough, and certainly not strong enough to warrant such an ill-considered and reflexive call for deletion. I think what everyone here is looking for is a bunch of these: [1], and I certainly am too, but I'm not going push for its deletion on those grounds. That, like everything else in these articles, can be improved.
  • Now I have a few reminders for us all. Firstly, there is something called Template:OR. It says, "Hey, let's work together and fix this". Secondly, AfD is not a substitute for cleanup. If cleanup is reasonable, which it most certainly is, then deletion is unthinkable. Thirdly, many of us are probably under the impression that the OR is much more serious than it is because of its non-encyclopedic tone, which reads like a tenth-grader giving a book-report. Let's fix this, not blow it up. AdamBiswanger1 19:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: It is certainly possible for editors to interpret Wikipedia policy differently, so calling this an "ill-considered and reflexive call for deletion" is unwarranted. If one believes that individual referenced points are strung together to make a point (i.e. connecting the dots), then he or she will view this as OR. If one does not believe that, then he or she will not. Medtopic 21:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I certainly understand OR--as noted in my comment, I am not convinced that this is OR. The reason I suggested that the decisions of other voters was "reflexive", is because the issue here is unusually complex for AfD, and without an examination of the text, it may very well seem like OR on the surface. I'm no better than anyone else--sometimes I just jump on the dogpile and type "Delete per nom", but sometimes I see a flash of light in the article, and I investigate more carefully. Also, be assured that I am not accusing all editors who want to delete the article as being careless. AdamBiswanger1 21:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'm not sure which of the four of us you are accusing of carelessness, however, I think it's fair to grant the benefit of doubt to others here and assume that they have investigated carefully, too. The fact that three of the four editors voting "delete" thus far have referenced a particular section of WP:OR (i.e. synthesis of published material serving to advance a position) does not suggest that they have given only a cursory examination of the text, or that have voted reflexively, or that they are not capable of understanding the complexities of the AfD. Medtopic 22:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I am willing to say that the other editors probably spent about 2 minutes in reading the articles. I respect you and all of the other editors here, and I am by no stretch of the imagination insulting them or looking down upon them because, well, we all do it (as I said). But to assume that every editor took long and deliberate look at each one, and upon a long period of thoughtful contemplation reached his or her decision would only be a lie to oneself, unless by some miracle each one actually did-- in which case I will tuck my tail between my legs and go home. But all of this is rather peripheral to my main contention, which is that this is not OR, and it is not advancing a position. And if it is? Well then we'll take it to the cleaners, not the cemetary. AdamBiswanger1 23:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • And I'd really like to emphasize this part: "...take it to the cleaners, not the cemetary." We really shouldn't be deleting useful content that can reasonably be brought into compliance with policy, which this can. The policy problems are related to the quality of the writing, not the quality of the content. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 23:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and clean up. The topics are worthy, and the articles can be improved to remove any OR. -- Avenue 10:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: The titles should be changed. The word "reform" assumes that the change is for the better. But often there is not agreement on whether the result is actually better than before the "reform". And even if "reform" were OK, the subject being "reformed" is not "health." Maurreen 03:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment - Complete agreement that titles would be the first thing to NPOV, and some merges are probably in order. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 05:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge, summarize, cleanup. These read as essays more than encyclopedic articles. They need to be summarized, text attributed to reliable sources, editorializing removed, and abundant references provided. If editors are not willing to do that job, then Delete. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to start a list and I hope that others who have 'voted' to keep and cleanup will sign on to help.

  • Editors willing to help clean up this mess:
  1. Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 18:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  2. (Not Sure if this is the palce for the list) Æon Insane Ward 19:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  3. AdamBiswanger1 21:18, 28 July 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.
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