Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid

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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 speedy keep. Nominating these apartheid articles individually is becoming disruptive and an energy drain on the community. Please try to sort out outstanding issues at the centralized discussion venue first. El_C 02:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid

AfDs for this article:
Articles for deletion/Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid
Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The term "Saudi Arabian apartheid" is not in common usage and only produces 296 hits on google[1]This article is made up almost entirely of quotes and artificially blends two different concepts, treatment of religious minorities and sexual discrimination. Any useful information should be moved to Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia and Status of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. The article as it stands is a POV fork of those two articles. Lothar of the Hill People 19:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Speedy keep, nomination is frivolous. The only basis provided is a google test. Here are some other googles this user should have tried out on this verifiable subject:

The first two give hundreds of results, the third gives almost 5,000. also, consider that most articles dealing with saudi arabia's apartheid wont necessarily use the phrase in quotes. If a merge is being proposed, the appropriate place would be the article, not an AFD. --Urthogie 21:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment Google was not the "only basis" for this AFD. You completely ignored the arguments that 1) article is almost entirely made up of quotes, 2)it artificially blends two completely distict concepts 3) it's a POV fork.

It's not that that I had only one basis for this deletion request, it's that you've only addressed one of the points I've raised and ignored the rest. Neat trick.

In any case, your google point falls apart when you actually look closely. Your first two google examples barely returned 500 hits between them. The results of the third"apartheid in saudi arabia" is not what you say it is. Look at the hits and you'll see what's actually being returned are referneces to "gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia", "sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia" or "religious apartheid in Saudi Arabia". As a stand-alone phrase "apartheid in Saudi Arabia" almost never comes up and that's because as a single concept it doesn't exist. Of these 5,000 hits I only found a few dozen if that that were for "Apartheid in Saudi Arabia" as a stand-alone phrase.

What you've done is taken two different ideas "gender apartheid" and "religous apartheid" and mashed them up so you could have "Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid". That's a completely unprofessional way to write an article. Lothar of the Hill People 22:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Your remaining points apply equally well to the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article, which has survived AFD 5 times. That's why I ignored them. The Israeli article deals with allegations that there is apartheid only in the west bank (90% of the quotes), and allegations that there is apartheid in Israel itself (10% of the quotes). Your attempt to separate "gender apartheid in saudi arabia" from "religious apartheid in saudi arabia" will be just as successful as my failed attempt to distinguish between various types of israeli apartheid allegations. Also, almost all of that article is a quotefarm, a list of quotes.--Urthogie 00:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 03:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Since we're throwing up Google searches, how about this one. No reputable scholar has compared the two systems. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 03:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per Urthogie Bigglove 03:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep needs work, but gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia is certainly notable. See also google books. <<-armon->> 04:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Then let's have an article called Gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia or maybe Sexual segregation in Saudi Arabia but mashing gender apartheid together with discrimination against religious minorities is just a mess. Lothar of the Hill People 05:19, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Such mashing sounds like an inevitable result of stretching the term "apartheid" beyond what it's really about, which is South Africa, in the past. 6SJ7 05:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep per above comments. Amoruso 08:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Encyclopedia articles do not consist of lists of every use of a term. For us to keep this article, we must have references to secondary sources that study the phenomenon of "Allegations of Apartheid in Saudi Arabia" as a whole. Otherwise we could have articles like "Allegations that liberals are traitors" filled with copious quotes from Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and other right-wing commentators. And POINTy references to the Israeli article are invalid, whatever happens on other articles has no relevance to whether this article should be kept. --Ideogram 09:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Of the whole unfortunate "Allegations of apartheid" series, why remove the one where "the apartheid is starkest"? Consistency please. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep. An amazing nomination. If ever the term "apartheid" was suitable outside of South Africa, it is in this country, as the article makes abundantly clear. --Mantanmoreland 13:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. what's actually being returned are referneces to "gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia", "sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia" or "religious apartheid in Saudi Arabia". As a stand-alone phrase "apartheid in Saudi Arabia" almost never comes up and that's because as a single concept it doesn't exist. No offense or personal attack meant, but this may be the weakest Wikipedia argument of the week. Actually that's more of an argument in favor of keeping this article. made up almost entirely of quotes Well, OK then, it should be expanded. Most articles start out sketchy. Gzuckier 14:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep As I have !voted before, keep all or delete all articles on this subject. However, of all the articles, this one is easily one of the strongest. IronDuke 15:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong delete per the nom, who could have been more explicit about the core shoddiness and illegitimacy of this article. This article is one massive violation of Wikipedia's policy against original research and its guidelines for notability. There are absolutely no secondary sources, zero sources, discussing the topic of the article, allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid. You need secondary sources, per WP:N and WP:NOR except in "rare" cases, usually meaning unfolding events. An article about a pattern of political rhetoric detected by a Wikipedian but not remarked upon by any reliable source anywhere is decidedly not one of those rare circumstances where the need for secondary sources is to be waived. The problem here isn't that comparing Saudi human-rights violations to South African ones is outrageous or invalid; on the contrary, Saudi Arabia might be one of the few countries to whom apartheid South Africa would compare quite favorably in terms of human rights. The problem is that the comparison itself appears to have no notability. No one's ever remarked upon it, discussed it, debated it – in short, established its significance. A number of writers have used the term "apartheid" in its generic dictionary sense for systemic segregation, and a Wikipedian has data-mined the internet and gathered up all these primary sources into a quote farm on a topic not discussed by any reliable source. The actual topic here is Human Rights in Saudi Arabia; the Wikipedian who created this has simply culled from the voluminous literature on that subject those sources which happen to use the word "apartheid," either for rhetorical emphasis or merely in passing, and lined up a sequence of block quotes with little transitional sentences in between. You can't just have monkeys typing words and phrases into a search bar and robots arranging the results into a WP article; you need sources establishing the topic as notable in the first place. It would be helpful if the "keep" votes above would reconsider; some of their votes seem rather careless and reflexive, or premised on the existence of OTHERSTUFF. Those standing by their "keeps" should at any rate specify exactly why they think this article qualifies as one of those "rare" occasions in which the WP:NOR and WP:N requirement of secondary sources establishing notability does not apply.--G-Dett 19:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
It's not really up to you to determine the criteria by which others should evaluate this article. 6SJ7 19:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOR is core policy, 6SJ7, and WP:N is a pretty elementary guideline.--G-Dett 19:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but the claim that they have been violated is false. Jayjg (talk) 20:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
The case for their having been violated has been set forth here and elsewhere in detail; your asserted that they have not been violated has yet to be substantiated.--G-Dett 20:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep a well sourced discussion of the topic. Whatever problem one may have with the titling should be resolved comprehensively, and not dealt with piecemeal. TewfikTalk 20:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • What an odd comment. Well-sourced discussion of the topic? There is not a single source that even mentions the topic of the article.--G-Dett 20:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
It must be lots of fun to miss that exit. It sounds like missing the "Last exit before toll" sign and suddenly realizing you ain't got any change on you. Happens to women of any religion all the time; hope there are not that many non-Muslim female drivers on this road. greg park avenue 01:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


  • Keep per Urthogie and Humus, nom is frivolous.
> [G-Dett] There is not a single source that even mentions the topic of the article
Wrong: perusing the notes and references section by Ctrl+F reveals that almost all mention the term apartheid, either in a quote or a title, and they don't mean that hateful Zionist entity, this time. --tickle me 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The topic of the article is allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid. There are no sources who talk about those allegations.--G-Dett 01:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
G-Dett, please stop playing this shell game with words. We all understand you don't like the words "Allegations of" in the titles of these articles, but that's no reason to start inventing bizarre arguments claiming that those two words can magically turn an article full of secondary sources into one full of primary sources. Jayjg (talk) 01:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per Humus, nice picture. Arrow740 01:39, 2 August 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.