Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Free countries

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:46, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Free_countries

Not suitable for Wikipedia (cannot be made neutral) --MatthewJ 03:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Everyone has different definitions of free. Foobaz·✐ 05:29, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. A clear and precise definition of "free" cannot be made neutral. Zzyzx11 06:05, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. No country is actually "free", and trying to come up with a short and sweet definition of "freedom" just isn't going to work. Even if all the countries listed generally meet the stated criteria, there will be enough exceptions in all of them to cause endless debates. -R. fiend 06:26, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: It could be made neutral by using using an "Index of freedom" like http://www.freedomhouse.org/ratings/ Kappa 10:22, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, can be made neutral. Grue 11:34, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. This article is subjective and cannot be made NPOV. An Index of freedom article could be acceptable. Carrp | Talk 14:50, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, as it's propagandatic by nature. Radiant! 20:45, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete agree that the creation of NPOV Index of Freedom or Indexes of Freedom would be the way to go about handling this topic. Eggplant Wizard 04:03, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) Can't sustain a log in session, so I show in the history as a dynamic IP - will confirm my activity on Tuesday via my user page
• This is an inherently POV title if the article contains a list of countries considered "free". If someone wants to write an encyclopedic article about the concept of free countries, go ahead, but this is unworkable, so delete it. — Ливай | ☺ 08:44, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • There are also some interesting omissions. All EU members are included except Latvia, Lithuania, and Greece. That's sure to rile up the Europhiles. Japan and South Korea are missing; that wouldn't go over well with a lot of readers. And I'm sure Fidel Castro and Hu Jintao have completely different definitions of freedom altogether, and Wikipedia content has to be just as valid for them as it is for anyone else. — Ливай | ☺ 08:55, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Change of vote. Keep the reworked article. — Ливай | ☺ 09:57, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I believe my edits to the page have fixed all of the major issues, but it should properly be moved to List of Free Countries. Daniel Quinlan 09:36, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete this one, but something based on a single freedom ranking and clearly identified as such would be acceptable. The most worrisome aspect of this article for me is how it "combines" two rankings. Plus, as others have said, declaring that such-and-such country is "free" is inherently POV. There's no way anyone can agree on what countries belong on a list like this. Szyslak 10:13, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • POV is NOT a reason for deletion (see Wikipedia:Deletion_policy). If you think the article is POV, make it less so. "Free country" is a valid concept and most of the people can tell if the country is free or not, there are no borderline cases. You can make a separate lists for each of these organisations, but the countries would be the same, so there is no point. Grue 13:42, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • POV is a reason for deleltion if the subject matter is inheirently POV, as in this case. A List of totally awesome bands should be deleted regardless of who is listed on it. Such is the case with this article. -R. fiend 21:02, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Original research and POV as presented. It is original research because the article editors have arbitrarily chosen the measures of freedom to include, and decided what the cutoff scores on each measure should be for inclusion in the list of 'free' countries. If someone wants to write a Measures of freedom article (or better, include it as a section in the Freedom article itself) then write about these metrics; don't process them further. It's also worth noting that full data for two of the three metrics (the Index of Economic Freedom and the Worldwide Press Freedom Index are already included in Wikipedia. The third (Freedom in the World) is linked from the Freedom House article. The article as it stands leaves you wondering about the countries left off the list—were they excluded due to a lack of social freedom, economic freedom, press freedom...or all of the above? Why is mostly free an acceptable level of economic freedom? Deciding that a specific threshold on these metrics is 'free' is irredeemably POV. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 17:17, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • But even if the list is discarded, is not the description of various indices of freedom encyclopedic? — Ливай | ☺ 17:34, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete All POV considerations aside, this article totally overlaps with the existing articles Index of Economic Freedom and Freedom House. Visitors who wish to find information regarding the relative freedom of nations in the opinion of those organizations can use the external links.
  • So why not make this a short page that sends readers to those articles? I feel there ought to be something at this title, if not to help people looking for information on the relative freedom of nations, then at least to prevent another list like this from being submitted. — Ливай | ☺ 21:15, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually that is a good point, 'free country' and plural thereof should point somewhere (maybe a disambig is best, listing the various types of freedom and redirecting to those pages). If not, somebody is bound to make a new article here sooner or later. Radiant! 21:30, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • Perhaps a redirect to Freedom, then? That's probably where these measures should be mentioned. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 21:27, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Inherently POV. — Gwalla | Talk 02:08, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename, although some qualifications for what the sources determine is or is not "free" would be helpful. -Sean Curtin 00:22, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Wikipedia cannot work with these subjective categorization schemes. 172 09:35, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.