Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish criminals

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 delete. - Mailer Diablo 11:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of Jewish criminals

No reason to have this, seems like it'd only be used as anti-semetic fodder. Descendall 12:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Apparently I have some distant cousin in the Purple Gang, I'd like to keep my family in the limelight :-). But seriously, "notable criminals" are, well... notable. Obvious, limit it to those people whose noteriety is connected to their criminality: gangsters, jewel thiefs, etc. If someone Jewish is notable for something else, and they happened to have shoplifted, drove drunk, committed assault, or whatever, exclude that. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 00:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
• Merge all in List of Jews and start serious cutting. That said, having a list of Jewish criminals makes no sense. Whether someone is a criminal is unrelated to their religion, sorting by nationality is much more useful. A list like this encourages anti-semitic feelings even if it wasn't intented. Just as a list of Muslim terrorists would inadvertedly encourage hate towards Islam. If it was deleted I wouldn't shed a tear either. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oh come on! I can hardly imagine how an "article" like this could be written in good faith. Delete for the same well-trodden arguments given for the list of publishers today and bankers yesterday. Anville 12:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'm waiting for List of Jews who have molested White Christian children and then killed them. Descendall 16:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Nah, I'm holding out for List of Jewish cooks who have published recipies via Jewish publishers for cooking Christian babies. Anville 17:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete as with [related AfDs]. Dottore So 12:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete it looks as though there are one or two people who keep adding these "lists" all the time, hopefully if we keep deleting them they'll get bored and stop. XYaAsehShalomX 13:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete untenable list, sets a precedent for prejudiced coverage of Judaism. --anetode╔╝ 14:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per above. BD2412 T 14:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Categorize members of the list to Category:Criminals and Category:Jewish [Foobarians] according to nationality, then delete the list, so no information is actually lost. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 14:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Categorify and delete, per Freak. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per above. 23skidoo 15:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete the two things are unrelated --TimPope 18:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per above. Nandesuka 19:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete all unrelated List of (random religion or ethnic group) (random profession). Durova 23:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Why on earth do we need to make lists of people by race/religion/ethnicity? Of what possible use is such a list is this? Is anyone ever going to type “List of Jewish criminals” into the search box? ♠DanMS 01:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. A magnet for vandalism and anti-semitism, and not helpful at all. Jtmichcock 02:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. This kind of stuff makes me embarassed to be a strong list supporter. Turnstep 03:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Unbelievable. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Review. There's no real need for a list soley comprising of Jewish criminals. However, some information on the extent of jewish criminality may be useful in order to understand the nature and reasons behind anti-semitism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.234.4.10 (talk • contribs) 11:29, 17 November 2005.
• Delete because Jews live in many countries with different laws so the list is meaningless. Arniep 12:15, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Astrokey44 13:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete — I don't have an issue with lists of accomplished individuals belonging to particular faiths. But this particular association is bordering on anti-semitic bigotry. — RJH 16:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete For reason mentioned above me. If there is a list of Christian criminals or Italian criminals delete those too. It's just too explosive.--T. Anthony 17:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete being a Jew is not an important property of a criminal.  Grue  18:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• keep, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jews, when if anyone delete, please tell my talk page. --Sheynhertz_געשׁ״ך 07:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
• Conditional keep: as long as Category:LGBT_criminals is kept, keep. If it's deleted, delete this too. I see no difference whatsoever between the two. If anything, this one's more worthy of keeping since a list is better than a category for contentious subjects. -Silence 23:15, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This was one of the rare times I voted to delete on a "List of XYZ religious/ethnic group" deal. I have no anti-list views, I'm just being consistent on what I feel is overly contentious NPOV flamefest potential stuff. I'll vote for deleting Category:LGBT criminals as well if I can find where you do that. As for the religion relating to the crime that can happen. However months ago I created a List of convicted or indicted religious leaders for just that sort of thing. I think I had few Jewish people, but there might be one or two. (And now that I've drawn attention to it it might get placed on delete. However some of the others and I did verify most everything in it and I put some clear rules in from the get go)--T. Anthony 07:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Delete. I'm opposed to all these types of lists + I can't find a comparable list for other religions + this really makes the internet suck more. --JJay 04:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Preaky 06:48, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. For the "Gay criminals" AfD, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_November_18#.5B.5B:Category:LGBT_criminals.5D.5D. It has almost as much support for "keep" as this one has for "delete". Obviously homosexuality and criminality have much more of a connection than Jewishness and criminality. -Silence 13:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment: Silence, your logic escapes me. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs that have been considered among the worst ever, you argue strongly for linking the vote to such articles as List of films that have been considered the worst ever. You state : Effectively, this vote is a vote on whether or not to delete the entire series of "X that have been considered the worst ever", since there's absolutely no significant difference I can see. I felt the statement was sophistic because VfD is not the supreme court and its results do not create legally binding precedent. Nevertheless, there you felt that a delete vote would set a dangerous precedent for articles you clearly considered valid. Here you vote keep, even though you are opposed to the Gay criminal list. If we can’t remove the rubbish from our house all at once, must it all remain? I say delete the entire series of X criminals, gay, straight, Jewish or otherwise. I invite you to join me in setting a precedent. Let’s start getting the trash to the curb. --JJay 17:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• I did not vote "keep," I voted "conditional keep if the 'LGBT criminals' category is deleted, conditional delete if the 'LGBT criminals' category is deleted". I would have put all that in bold, but I didn't want to annoy anyone with overusing the bolding, and since the current consensus when I voted in LGBT was for "keep", "conditional keep" was my effective vote at the time; if the consensus for the LGBT criminals category changes to "delete", my effective vote here will then be "conditional delete". I voted "strong delete" on that list, incidentally, rather than "conditional delete", because unlike this vote, that one is just getting started, and there is plenty of time to debate and for people to change their minds and for a consensus to arise for either side. For this list, however, the consensus is very firmly already established as "delete", and there's limited time left for this category to exist; thus voting "conditional delete" would be meaningless, since there's almost no chance that the "condition" I require wouldn't be satisfied. My vote is conditional here because the "LGBT criminals" vote is much less decided (though leaning "keep").
• I never implied that there was anything "legally binding" requiring us to vote remotely consistently (or, indeed, not to just flip a coin to decide how we vote); legality implies "must", whereas my arguments deal with "should", with the most rational course of action, the one that will benefit the most people and thus benefit Wikipedia most. Wikipedia not being the supreme court is irrelevant; "precedent" (like "delete this for the same reason that X was deleted") is still a very valid concept that is commonly used to justify VfDs and votes throughout Wikipedia. If one article is deleted for a certain reason, and the exact same reason applies equally well to another article, then either the other article should be deleted as well, or the first article's deletion should be overturned. If "list/category of Jewish criminals" is a bad list solely because it implies a connection between two types of people where no connection can be shown to exist, then a "list/category of LGBT criminals" should also be deleted unless either list/category, or both lists/categories, can be shown to have a valid connection between the two groups worthy of a list/category. Unless there's something especially offensive about Jewish criminals that makes it bad to have a list for them and OK to have a list for other minority ethnic or sexual groups, this list should be handled just like all other lists of the exact same nature, regardless of the specific groups being discussed. Likewise, if "list of songs that have been considered the worst ever" is bad because it is POVed, or because it is unmaintainable, or because it's standards aren't strict or organized enough, or for any number of other reasons, and those exact same reasons apply to "list of movies that have been considered the worst ever", then unless someone can somehow show that it's OK to have such a list for movies but not for songs (which no one has even attempted to do thus far, probably because such an argument would be ridiculous), either both lists should be deleted, or neither. And then we get a chain reaction: if "list of movies that have been considered the worst ever" should be deleted, so should "list of movies that have been considered the greatest ever" unless it can somehow be shown that having a "worst movies" page is completely unacceptable, while having a "best movies" page is just fine; and if "list of movies that have been considered the greatest ever" is unacceptable, then surely the same applies to "list of computer and video games that have been considered the greatest ever" unless some difference can be shown that would make "best movies" not OK and "best games" OK. Again, noone's succeeded in establishing a single significant (in terms of deletion/not deletion) difference between any of these four articles, thus a VfD for one of them is highly significant to all four pages. Arbitrarily deleting random articles does a disservice to Wikipedia, to its editors, and to its readers, by causing confusion and waste of resources and time through unnecessary inconsistency not merely in article style or format (which I tend to be OK with), but in our actual inclusion standards. Feel free to vote "delete" for Jewish criminals and "keep" for LGBT criminals (or vice versa) if you want to, but it would be highly advisable to eat least provide a possible reason to do so, as no one has done so yet, just as no one has yet provided a reason to delete "list of songs that have been called the worst by noteworthy souces" and not "list of movies that have been called the worst by noteworthy sources". Come on, give me some specific counter-arguments if you disagree with me! Don't just fight for inconsistency and arbitrary, chaotic, random voting for the hell of it. -Silence 20:25, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment: It is certainly valid to point out that Category:LGBT_criminals exists and that you do not believe that List of Jewish criminals should be deleted as long as the former remains. Whether the exact same reason applies to both is perhaps subjective- VfD is a good way of clarifying the issue. I have indicated that I would vote to delete both.

I should also like to indicate that I can not find the following lists/categories:

• List of Amish criminals
• List of Mormon criminals
• List of Quaker criminals
• List of Muslim criminals
• List of Catholic criminals
• List of Protestant criminals
• List of Hindu criminals
• List of Agnostic criminals
• List of non-Jewish criminals
• Category: heterosexual criminals
• Category: straight criminals
• Category: non-LGBT criminals
• Category: Assexual criminals

If these lists/categories exist under other names I apologize. Perhaps out of fairness you feel they should be created if this is kept. I would oppose their creation. I would further oppose creation of a List of law-abiding Jews, which in some sense could be viewed as a best of flip-side to a List of Jewish criminals.

This is not the place to debate the worst of song list, versus a worst of film list. I would vote to delete one and keep the other because of significant perceived differences in terms of list definition, context, source reliability & notability, etc. I would be happy to discuss these points at greater length at a later date on your user page. I do, though, accept the community’s logic or illogic as expressed through VfD (and regret my own all too frequent faults of reasoning). --JJay 21:31, 20 November 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.