Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universities and antisemitism

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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 keep. Please defer merge related discussion to article talk. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 03:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Universities and antisemitism

Universities and antisemitism (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The opening sentence states: "There have been increasing reports of anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses across North America, Europe, and Australia." However, no citation is provided to substantiate this assertion. Instead, a variety of anecdotes are given. What the article does is attempt to tie these anecdotes together into a theme: namely, that many universities are hotbeds of antisemitism. Therefore, this article constitutes original research, and is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. IZAK 22:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. From the titles of cited refs #2 (""The Rough Beast Returns") and 7 ("ADL: Antisemitic Incidents Soar in N. California"), and the second paragraph in cited ref 8 ("Over the past 20 months, many fronts have been opened in the Palestinian offensive against Israel. One of the most important has been on American college campuses."), it appears the lead assertion is not WP:OR. But regardless, this article appears to be about the events themselves, maybe limited to some recent timeframe. The article as a whole is not about the recent increase, so nom based on that seemingly minor poin being uncited is not valid. The overall theme of the page per its title appears to be supported by cited refs (talking about...well, antisemitism on college campuses and in academia) not just news reports of the events, so the collection of these events is not OR either. The article seems to be a bit vague about its scope (are we talking among students or among faculty, for example) and needs a better intro describing the topic before launching into examples...hardly a reason to delete the page though. From the history, it looks like this page was a splitoff of a larger one so perhaps some context and general discussion got left behind there? DMacks 06:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep but article requires, nay demands, cleanup. This is an important topic, but this is a poorly sourced POV muckrake of an article that conflates opposition to the policies of Israel and anti-semitism. (Obviously they may at times overlap. But an encyclopedia article shouldn't do it deliberately.) There is simply no way that an article with the generic title "Universities and antisemitism" doesn't once mention the era of the Ivy League quota, for example. The quotes in the lead are deliberately provocative and make poor points (e.g. someone who conflates political rejection with antisemitism, someone else who is surprised that there are rumors about 9/11 -- or at least rumors that offend him). And what to make of sources that say things like, College students got some bad press last May with the release of a poll conducted by the Luntz Research Co. for the group Americans for Victory over Terrorism. "Only 16% believe Western culture is superior to Arab culture," the poll found, "but 79% do not." If true; it explains a lot about what’s happening on the campuses of America. (Did the poll even ask whether respondents did not entertain the idea that any one culture is superior?) The remainder seems to be a survey of some random incidents. -- Dhartung | Talk 06:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The criticisms you give above are pretty much the reason why I nominated the article; thanks for outlining these points so clearly. While "keep and cleanup" is an understandable viewpoint, the fact is that most such articles never do actually get cleaned up. This one is so bad it should be rewritten from scratch. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, this article is a terrible mess, compromised by presentism and weasel words such as 'incident'. At the moment it seems like an original research laundry list of anecdotes, often taken from taken from dodgy sources like the 'Jewish Federation of Northeast Pennsylvania'. A better version may be possible, but if it's not fixed in timely manner, it should be deleted.--Nydas(Talk) 09:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • very strong delete this article is forever going to be a POV-target essay (from both sides, no doubt) that will always be a soapbox for original research and cries afoul. Wikipedia isn't the place. /Blaxthos 10:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, per Nydas. See article talkpage; The authors do not appear to be interested in discussing the difference between opinion on the actions of Israel and anti-semitic rhetoric. If there was a parent article I would support a merge back. LessHeard vanU 13:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete and Merge contents back to New anti-Semitism. Currently the article reads like a POV essay, and the title itself is very broad; a better title would be something along the lines of: Reported cases of anti-Semitism in Universities - Ozzykhan 19:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep because it is already from New anti-Semitism, or Merge back to New anti-Semitism if there is room over there. IZAK 22:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep or merge as previous. Without more investigation, as to what else there is, I cannot say more. Personally, I am concerned at the politically-motivated academic boycotts of Israeli intellectuals, which should perhaps be discussed somewhere; may be they are. With a controversial subject, it is inevitable that the article will show a POV, but that is unobjectionble as long as the counter arguments (probably provided by another contributor) are allowed to appear. The title is unsatisfactory, but 'New Anti-semitism in universities' might be acceptable for what is presumably intended to be a sub-article of New anti-Semitism, of course with a link using a 'main' template in that article. Peterkingiron 23:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename appears to have some notability, but I think a better name would be Universities Known For Antisemitism or Universities Known To Be Antisemitic.--Sefringle 04:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Just because it includes references doesn't make it NPOV. It's horribly one-sided, and the very title implies that "universities are hotbeds of antisemitism" (re:nomination). Merge back into mother article at least. Lampman 16:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep So long as there are sources that link the two ideas together this is notable and non-OR, and there is plenty of recent info that does so [1], [2], [3], etc. Joshdboz 19:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Rename to e.g. List of antisemitic incidents at universities. The sources for this article show a series of individual incidents in particular universities in particular times and places. The article extrapolates from this list a phenomenon which it describes as a growing trend etc. There is no basis at all for describing a phenomenon or a trend, nothing sourced showing any comparison to a past or any overall summary. These parts of the article are pure original research and have to go. What's left is simply a list of incidents, and the article title should reflect this. Definitely would disagee with titles like Universities known to be anitsemetic or similar -- again, cannot extrapolate from individual incidents to claims about a way a university is known. Need to keep strictly to the facts here and avoid unsourced claims in order to justify keeping anything at all. --Shirahadasha 21:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC) Keep per additional sources found. Article still needs work, additional sources, more careful wording. --Shirahadasha 00:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Per citations in article. Jayjg (talk) 21:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Not OR as can be seen from the sources used. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. the article in The Age, which discusses a trend, discusses only Australia. Would like to see more articles from e.g. general news media discussing a global trend. --Shirahadasha 23:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, unencyclopedic collection of opinions and anecdotes, pure recentism (universities do exist for millennia), war zone. Pavel Vozenilek 23:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Quickly. It's awful. The article puts forth the thesis that antisemitism is on the rise in universities in the western world. There is no reliable secondary source given to back up that assertion. What it does have is a bunch of anecdotes instead. There is one reliable secondary source mentioned amongst the references, the British Parlamentary Inquiry. What is worrying is that the article again just presents anecdotes culled from that report instead of conclusions. One suspects that whoever put this there engaged in cherry-picking evidence. Dr Zak 03:37, 19 March 2007 (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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