Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serbophobia (third nomination)

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 not-quite-speedy keep due to bad-faith nomination. --Coredesat 03:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Serbophobia

Serbophobia (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Fixing incomplete AfD - neutral. Demiurge 22:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

"SERBOPHOBIA & BOSNIAKOPHOBIA"

In the beginning, Serbophobia returned only 2 matches at Google. When Serbs introduced this word to Wikipedia, thanks to thousands of scrapper pages, Google now returns close to 3,000 matches (all copies of Wikipedia content). Serbophobia was also nominated for deletion in the past etc, but nobody deleted it. Now, people want to delete Bosniakophobia. I contest the deletion of Bosniakophobia and suggest - if you want to delete Bosniakophobia, then you should also delete Serbophobia. Since you haven't deleted Serbophobia, please keep your hands away from Bosniakophobia. Let's play it fair.

Either delete both or don't delete any.

Here is an excerpt of some of discussion about this article dating back to December 2005 (by Asim Led):

This word ( Serbophobia )does not deserve an article of its own, it’s a term devised for explicitly political purposes during the late 80s and early 90s. It can not be compared to "Russophobia" or "Islamophobia" because both of these deal with prevalent general social attitudes against ethnic and religious groups based on their culture and heritage. The term Serbophobia, on the other hand, is used virtually exclusively in a political context, in either an accusatory manner or as a justification. To say that it is "comparatively" as common as the term "Russophobia" is ridiculous, and based on some shady calculation certain users made involving army size and GDP. A simple Google search shows that the term "Russophobia" is far, far more common than "Serbophobia". Of the results that do show up on Google, I think they adequately manifest the nature of this term and exactly why it does not belong on Wikipedia. Of the initial 10 results that come up on the first page: The #1 result is the respective Wikipedia article 2 come from a radical right political site 6 of them come from the same two Serbian political writers and analysts. 1 comes from a book on Serbian propaganda efforts during the late 80s and early 90s If this all wasn't enough, the single legitimate source provided has been completely misinterpreted. The quote reads as follows: "Furthering this incipient nation-fever was the extraordinary memorandum issued to the public in 1986 by the prestigious Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, condemning the perceived presence of "Serbophobia" in the central government of Yugoslavia." The use of this as a reference for some traditional use of the term would be fine and dandy if the word wasn’t placed in quotes; but it is. This is because the author views the term with skepticism and questions its validity, implying (just as Dado mentioned) that the word was used by Serb officials to drum up support amongst the populace for their nationalist policies. I challenge any neutral observer to read the context of the word, notice the tone of the passage, read the preceding paragraphs, and not reach the same conclusion as I did[2].

Bosniak 22:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Very strong keep - this reeks of WP:POINT ("if you want to delete Bosniakophobia, then you should also delete Serbophobia"). For what it's worth Bosniakophobia probably should be deleted, as it gets precisely ZERO hits in Google.[1] Also, just because the article has been nominated for deletion (unsuccessfully) twice before, that doesn't mean it should have been deleted ("Serbophobia was also nominated for deletion in the past etc, but nobody deleted it"). Furthermore, there are 1,250 Google hits when you search for "serbophobia -wikipedia -wiki" (i.e. when Wikipedia is eliminated).[2] Granted, many are useless rubbish, but there are also many reputable sources in there. Finally, it's not clear why this being nominated for a third time (!) when no new arguments have been presented. // Еstavisti 22:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - The article has proper cites and several relevant internal and external links. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 23:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - After reviewing the content of Bosniakophobia, its deletion discussion, and further comments made here, it's simply not possible to accept this as a good-faith nomination. This is clearly an attempt to make a point. If it is possible to Speedy Delete an AfD, this should be Speedied immediately to prevent further disruption. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 23:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep, WP:POINT nomination. Weregerbil 23:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep, bad faith nomination. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep, as per above, this nomination's only purpose was to make a point. These types of disruptions should be speedy kept to discourage this type of behavior in the future. // Laughing Man 04:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The person that nominated this for deletion is Serbophobic himself (just check his user page), so this nomination for deletion is ridiculous. PANONIAN (talk) 12:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. This appears to be a well-established term; I suspect the nomination is simply disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. —Psychonaut 12:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, while not a well known term it would appear that this term has some background to it. I believe the suggestion for deletion was made in order to make a point.Osli73 19:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • NOTE: This page was just vandalized by 216.86.99.194 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) whose edit changed several "Keeps", and their associated comments, into "Deletes". Bosniak restored the vandalism after it had been reverted. This needs to be watched. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 23:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Invented word, it returns over 1000 words on Google and all of them are from Wikipedia's scrapper sites. Bosniak 23:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC) *copied in by Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 23:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC) (no need for duplicate voting, as nominator we know where Bosniak's feelings on the article are already BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP Very well documented usage of this word in the eastern country. This should be there to explain that reality. Terveetkadet

• Delete. For me the entire article and the word per se seems like a propagandistic Arkanoid atempt to make people in the Western World “think twice about criticizing Serb ultranationalism”, and a try to “glue” the “concept of Serbophobia” (that includes, according to the article, any questioning about Bosnia’s Republika Srpska) to things like racism or homophobia. And the entire article is an extense piece of a so propagandistic yext that even in a section called “Criticism” there are positive opinions! My opinion is: dump the entire article. It’s a ridiculous piece of original propaganda wording that doesn’t deserve to be in Wikipedia.--MaGioZal 08:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment - MaGioZal, I think you can learn alot from this article based on your recent edit history and comments. I think you are the epitome of using Wikipedia as a soapbox. //Laughing Man 16:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Well, in my vision I’m just trying to edit some articles to make them less distant from the perceptions of the average rest of the world’s media and scholars opinions.--MaGioZal 21:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP, we've talked about this before, I think this is the third vote... I think someone just wants this page deleted regardless of the fact that the community has decided to keep this article so many times. --Svetislav Jovanović 20:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• DELETE You stated that Bosniakophobia is not an English word? Well, Serbophobia is also not an English word. It is NOT located in English dictionary. In the beginning, Serbophobia returned only 2 matches at Google. When Serbs introduced this word to Wikipedia, thanks to thousands of scrapper pages, Google now returns close to 3,000 matches (all copies of Wikipedia content!). Serbophobia is totally invented word and it spread to internet via Wikipedia because thousands of other sites are using copies of wikipedia's content. This should not be tolerated and this article should be deleted ASAP for factual and fairness purposes. Bosniak 07:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC) (duplicate "vote" deleted, but the comment itself is a viable contribution BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC))

Response: Tom Friedman used the word Serbophobia in the New York Times [3] on October 11, 1995, more than five years before Wikipedia existed:

"But then the German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, acting on the long love affair between Germany and Croatia (and traditional German Serbophobia), told the E.C. that Germany would recognize Croatia by Christmas 1991 -- no matter what." (TimesSelect membership required to read the article.)

Friedman didn't find it necessary to define the term; he apparently assumed it was commonly understood. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 07:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

There are even earlier examples from Usenet. According to a Google Groups search for "Serbophobia", someone used the term in a post on 4 July 1991. The term also gets 26 hits on Google Scholar, showing that it's used in academic literature. —Psychonaut 15:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if you'd never heard the term before, you would understand what Serb + phobia meant. So the fact that he didn't need to explain it doesn't prove much. Demiurge 17:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, although he might have put the word in quotes if he thought he was inventing a neologism. The use of the word in the NYTimes five years before Wikipedia existed doesn't help Bosniak's argument that the word was invented and spread through Wikipedia. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 18:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy keep. Bad, BAD faith.--TheFEARgod (Ч) 23:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep It seems the nominator only nominated this article for deletion because an article he started has been nominated for deletion. He seems to be a bad faith, POV warrior. - Ivan K
• Speedy keep nomination is a bad faith WP:POINT... block lister for 48hrs while your at it...  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 09:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • He was blocked for seven days for vote tampering here. Not that I would object to someone extending the block another two days… —Psychonaut 10:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy keep - an absolutely blatant bad faith nomination. Author needs an indef block, looking over contribs. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 18:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Note: Bosniak, who nommed this article, has been blocked one week per discussions at ANI here, if you would support a longer block, feel free to contribute to the discussion. Doc Tropics 18:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy keep for reasons said before: what's taking so long? RFerreira 02:26, 29 November 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.