Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Examination of Holocaust denial

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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, possible rename. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 05:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examination of Holocaust denial

Examination of Holocaust denial (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Sorry, but I can only see this as a soapbox. Holocaust denial is a vile thing, but we are not here to rebut it, only to report that it exists and is rejected by anybody with an ethical bone in their body. Guy (Help!) 00:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete and Merge any useful info into Holocaust Denial. TSO1D 00:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Holocaust denial covers the topic perfectly well. An article on Examination of Holocaust denial can serve no purpose but as a focus for OR and POV pushing.-WJBscribe (WJB talk) 00:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep I know that I am going to lose this one, but I really feel that any article which provides sensible arguments against Holocaust denial, as this one does, should be retained. As one who has stood on the ground at Auschwitz-Birkenau, I may be biased; but if so, it is a bias I am proud of.--

Anthony.bradbury 01:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm not going to lose it. I hope not.--Anthony.bradbury 23:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. This article was first expanded from the original Holocaust Denial article because the article itself was focusing too much on the arguments against denial, and not on the aspect of holocaust denial itself (its history, repercussions, etc.). It has existed on Wikipedia for over two years, and since that time its POV has not seriously challenged until now, with this AfD. As the edit history of the article itself shows, nearly all of the disputes involving the articles POV have been from anonymous (or short-lived) users who popped up to declare the article biased -- because it supposedly didn't present detailed equal time "questioning the Holocaust." The issue here is that this article is inherently biased against Holocaust deniers -- which is as it should be. Why? Not because of POV or my own or anyone's despising of Holocaust deniers (deserved or not); rather, because Holocaust denial is itself a hate-spawned, primarily anti-Semitic belief based on wild conspiracy theories. This is not a statement of bias, but rather a statement of fact -- one that has been proven again and again over the years. It is NPOV to state this, because it is a proven fact, backed up by considerable arguments against denial that vastly outweigh the feeble arguments presented by deniers. Consequently, I believe the article is NPOV, because debunking of Holocaust denial as a lunatic fringe belief is a historical fact. --Modemac 01:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per the article history as illuminated by Modemac. While I can see how this article could be mischaracterized as a soapbox, its inclusion is essential in order to maintain neutral coverage. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 01:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, though possibly re-title - Criticism of Holocaust Denial (as suggested elsewhere) sounds good to me. The content definitely belongs in Wikipedia. Argyriou (talk) 02:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC) vote edited Argyriou (talk) 19:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, this is a useful and interesting article and looks well on its way to being well referenced. The holocaust denial article focuses on the movement, personalities involved and the history, this article is about the claims made by the movement and the evidence rebutting them. Seems a significant enough movement that one article isn't enough to cover it. NPOV is good but does not mean giving equal time to fringe theories while leaving them unrebutted. Dragomiloff 02:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge with Holocaust denial. Though remnants of the holocaust are touching, Wikipedia is not a place to posit evidence for and against this subject. Remember to stay neutral. bibliomaniac15 02:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Good point!KarlXII 12:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename, rewrite to something else, because as it stands "Examination of" makes it original research and essay. Criticisms of Holocaust denial or something like that, perhaps? It is also inherently POV, which must be changed to be an encyclopedia article. It needs to be rewritten such that it includes the "evidence" of the deniers, or at least links to it on the Holocaust denial page, rather than a single statement followed by paragraphs refuting it. Koweja 03:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC) I agree!KarlXII 12:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Too large to merge with Holocaust Denial. Jayjg (talk) 03:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, Rename - crz crztalk 03:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. - crz crztalk 03:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, extensively edit, and rename to 'Criticisms of Holocast denial' or similar -Toptomcat 04:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename - examination insinuates OR. -- Chabuk [ T • C ] 04:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - This article is Original Research and POV. The nature of this article wishes to argue something, and is mostly argument with some sparse quotes. According to WP:OR, "an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source" is Original Research and is not encyclopedic, thus must be removed. So must POV. Even if there is POV on other related cites, that doesnt justify creating more POV to balance it out. Rather, introduce the relevant information in the relevant objective article and change the prose so that it reflects a neutral view point that wishes to present all the facts. Xlegiofalco 06:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep with indifference to renaming. Although a decision for or against merging here wouldn't be binding, I'll opine that merging doesn't seem viable due to the length of the two articles. I read the nomination as being that the article is too detailed for an encyclopedia. Maybe... However, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, which gives us the opportunity to have more depth of coverage on important topics, not just more topics of marginal importance. This much content is not too much in my opinion. (And I note that to the best of my knowledge we don't have any community standards for what constitutes "too much information" on a topic of agreed importance.) I also don't see the original research concern as being real; my read of the article is that the refutations are generally cited to a prior source that used them the same way, which makes the analysis not original. Could more be quoted and cited - sure, but the article wouldn't need to change significantly. GRBerry 06:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • STRONG KEEP. This article is better written than 90% of the articles on Wikipedia, and contains vast amounts of valuable information. While it doesn't make use of proper Wikipedia inline citations, that is easily remedied. I noticed that it uses Lipstadt's book on Holocaust denial as a reference, a book that I happen to own. If the consensus is to keep, I will gladly spend a few days properly wikifying the article. As to the claims above of WP:OR, I must respectfully disagree. I know a lot about this subject, and everything I read in this article I have also heard or read elsewhere. In closing, I would like to add that Holocaust denial is a longstanding concern of mine. I think it is vitally important for this project to provide articles that debunk this movement. Jeffpw 08:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Modemac. metaspheres 10:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


  • Too large to merge. Too good to delete. Rename to Criticisms of....Hornplease 10:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and Rename. Fascinating and well-written. — brighterorange (talk) 14:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • delete Tuohirulla puhu 14:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    This is not a vote, it is a discussion. Care to offer a reason for your opinion? GRBerry 14:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • MERGE and DELETE - Very well written and researched. Fascinating! However, the article does have quite a bit of overlap with the Holocaust denial article and covers most of the same issues. As the Holocaust denial article is most likely the more commonly read of the two it would be a shame for readers to miss the material contained in this one. Therefore I recommend merging it with the Holocaust denial article and then deleting it.KarlXII 15:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • As per various above comments, keep and retitle. I like Criticisms of Holocaust denial, personally. Natalie 15:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete and Merge Do NOT redirect! FirefoxMan 16:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The article appears to be appropriately written. Possibly merge based on some of the comments above. I note in particular Jeffpw's offer to improve the article if it is maintained. Orderinchaos78 17:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and Rename. The article is sound, although it is in desperate need of inline references to clearly demonstrate that it is not OR, e.g. that it is a summation of arguments made in other contexts to refute the claims of Holocaust deniers. To that end, it should also be renamed. Examination of Holocause denial suggests that this is an article that will examine and refute certain claims; it would be more neutral to call it Criticisms or Refutations instead. - Eron Talk 17:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and Rename. In light of recent comments I am changing my opinion to one of keep and supporting a rename to Criticisms of Holocaust denial. But it should be stressed that the article needs considerable work to reference the content and avoid POV and OR criticism. Contrary to what has been said above, Wikipedia should not set out to rebut notable theories, however objectionable- that sets editors up as critics, something to be avoided. However I accept criticisms of Holocaust denial are widespread and well founded and do deserve to be covered neutrally by Wikipedia. - WJBscribe (WJB talk) 17:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
As a somewhat regular contributor to the article in question (and having already voted above), I'll state that I fully accept the statements that the article does need more revision to be truly NPOV, and I will not object to or impede any genuine efforts to make it more NPOV. --Modemac 18:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename as "Criticisms of...." Too much useful content to merge. Doc Tropics 18:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • STRONG KEEP - if you get rid of this article, you'll have to get rid of Single bullet theory, and basically every other article that tries to explain or examine something that happened in history. And what is and is not encyclopedic is always up for debate because Wikipedia is not paper. Just because the word 'encyclopedia' was defined over a century ago does not mean the definition must stick today. The pursuit of knowldege and clarity is our main goal. This article certainly helps in the clarity department.Mk623SC20K 18:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename to Criticism of holocaust denial or edit Holocaust denial down to a reasonable length and incorporate arguments for and against, or edit down further and incorporate in Holocaust, which is where it belongs. Strong feelings have created verbose sprawling and not very encyclopedic articles. The reference style is poor; convert to inline references linked to a reference section. Edison 19:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Edison, the Holocaust article is already 166 KB, and Holocaust denial is 67 KB. To merge the three together would be an impossible task, without sacrificing important content. It has already been agreed that the referencing needs work; I have said earlier I am happy to undertake the referencing as a project if this article is kept. It seems logical and important to me that this article remains distinct from the denial article, since they, though related, are on decidedly different facets of the subject. To make an analogy, the articles on Halloween, Halloween 2 and Halloween 3 are all featured articles, yet some people could easily say to save space they should be merged into one article about the series. This subject is at least as deserving of bandwidth as a series of articles about teen slasher flicks.
  • Keep and rename to Criticism of Holocaust denial or similar to make the focus of the article clearer. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and de-tag POV. Of course it will be POV - the issue of Holocaust denial is one-sided, and so is refuting it. I don't mean to sound like a Holocaust denier, but one cannot deny the facts either. AgentFade2Black 22:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - both the article and the issue too large for a merge. Also, I don't find "Examination" to be POV, but if there is a consensus that "Criticism" is less so, so be it. BTW, POV is not a valid reason for AFD and I hope no one is advocating a complete removal. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Seeing as there's the whole Iranian International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust, maybe if they see it, they'll come to their senses. And, it's a really important topic. I mean like, yeah. Gaterion 01:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Transwiki if at all possible, probably to Wikibooks, with a link from Holocaust denial. The article is valuable, but not encyclopedic. If there's no place for it in Wikibooks, reluctant Keep. Change vote to Keep, per WP:SNOWBALL and WP:IAR. Exceptions can be made. Haikupoet 01:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename - It would be ideal to have all the information in one article but there's just so much of it and the Holocaust denial article is already 67 kilobytes long.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lairor (talk • contribs)
  • Rename to Proof of the Holocaust or Criticism of Holocaust denial, perhaps?--Greasysteve13 03:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename to Criticisms of Holocaust denial per above. JChap2007 03:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • keep with some name. Important subject. Hmains 04:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Keep and rename to Criticism of Holocaust denial - the current title is POV; because the other Holocaust pages are so large already this makes sense to be a separate page. Perel 05:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge I don't think there's too much to be merged back into Holocaust denial. Some of the material is duplicated there. I generally don't like articles with titles like "Allegations of..." or "Criticism of..." even when perfectly written the title doesn't seem NPOV. Calling an article an "Examination of..." something sounds like OR. If we have to rename it I would suggest Methodology of Holocaust denial or even Holocaust denial (methodology)GabrielF 06:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Extensive information and sufficient for its own article. CuriousGiselle 19:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Another possible name History of Holocaust denialDGG 01:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and Rename to Criticism of Holocaust denial —Dylan Lake 02:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge or Rename in a sense that it lends no credence to the study. frummer 08:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Freedom of expression must be maintained, even if some misguided individuals feel the need to expouse ridiculous theories. Any right-minded person knows the Holocaust happened (with all its tragic consequences) and that State laws against Holocaust Denial only serve to make martyrs of those who rant against the truth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.141.5.17 (talk) 11:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC).
  • Keep because it is a topic that Wikipedia should cover. However, in its present state it is one of the worst offenders against WP:OR that I have seen. Nearly all of it consists of unsourced editorial. Everything here has to be referred to some some verifiable source, not just asserted as true. --Zerotalk 12:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
comment: I disagree that it is OR. It does cite the cources used, and I have read one of the books used. It does not make use of wiki referencing format, but that is a minor quibble that can be easily fixed. Jeffpw 12:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Things that are clearly opinions need to be presented as opinions of someone. This requires changes in wording and not just a citation. --Zerotalk 04:33, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and clarify. Merging isn't an option, as both this and Holocaust Denial are quite long already. There will be some natural overlap too, but it should be clear which bit of content should go where, and that doesn't seem to be as clear to the casual editor as it should be. (Maybe an infobox or notice on the top of the page?) Cantankrus 16:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and change the name to 'criticism of...' It should not be merged into Holocaust denial because that is about a political movement, and the 'Examination of Holocaust denial' page is an analysis of pseudo-historical claims. Not the same thing at all - they belong in separate articles. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 17:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete and Merge any useful info into Holocaust Denial, per TSO1D. Dahn 17:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The topic is encyclopaedic and should be covered. Alithien 20:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, afrer, of course, we copy the content off to a page where the arguements will be useful. The current article goes far beyond appropriate encyclopedic content into the realm of a propaganda piece (however justified the opinions/defense might be). The Holocaust Denial page has the relevant factual information. And before you ask, yes, I'm Jewish. Jberkus 08:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete A lot of content, few sources. The sources included are not associated with the statements they represent. I suggest delete based on 2 out of 3 wikipedia pillars, Verifiability and No Original Research. Alan.ca 10:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Modemac, rename to Criticism of Holocaust Denial or similar, clean out unsourced cruft and generally improve. TH 11:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I've already made my decision to merge if possible, but still, criticism is still POV. We strive to make things neutral, and to show both sides, not to make an argument for one like a thesis. For example, I could write up a whole article against Pastafarianism, and since it most obviously isn't real, could be included into Wikipedia. A few sections in the main article in the Holocaust article would suffice to show what others think. bibliomaniac15 06:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • merge any sourced, usable content(or delete if there isn't any) to the main article per the nom's logic and WJB. JoshuaZ 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, too much material to be merged. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 05:11, 18 December 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.