Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/German collective guilt

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 delete as original research. KrakatoaKatie 22:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] German collective guilt

German collective guilt (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

I have grave doubts fears that this article is going to remain as it is, and as such, it repeats material already present in existing articles, without substantially addressing the issue predicated by its title. So far, it does so only in what is almost a footnote. On that basis, I suspect the article is polemical rather than informative, and intended to be so, and therefore has no place in Wikipedia in its current form. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 17:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep You said "I suspect the article is polemical rather than informative, and intended to be so, and therefore has no place in Wikipedia in its current form" yet you also said "I have grave doubts that this article is going to remain as it is". That's contradicting yourself. The subject of this article is definitly notable and exists--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 19:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

  Comment. Perhaps I didn't make my nomination clear. I should have said "I have grave fears that this article is going to remain as it is", and accordingly have corrected the nomination. Sure, the subject exists and is notable, but is not addressed by about 90% of the article as it stands. Nor, in my opinion, is it ever likely to. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 19:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete I was expecting an article on Karl Jaspers's ideas on the culpability of the German citizenry for Nazi atrocities, but this is a non-neutral essay arguing for one extreme of that debate, and does so by synthesizing descriptions of those atrocities, together with election results and unbalanced arguments on internal resistance. Although some scholarly sources are quoted (e.g. the work on the letters of soldiers), these are not works on the "collective guilt" idea and so using them to supportthe article's position is original research. As the article is virtually all presentation of historical narrative, with no basis in discussion of the theme in proper secondary sources, I can't see what would be salvageable for a proper article on the topic. In contrast, the de-wiki article on "collective guilt" discusses scholarly work on the concept more generally, with the bulk of the article relating to the Third Reich, around which most of that work centres. Thomjakobsen 20:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Just to clarify, a properly written article based on secondary sources would be fine, and there's a suggestion at Guilt#Collective guilt for that section to be broken out into a standalone article. I'm not disputing the notability of the topic, just pointing out that the current article is completely unsuitable and would need rewriting from scratch, so there's little point in keeping if none of the content is usable. Thomjakobsen 22:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Also note the assertion there that "Collective guilt is the controversial collectivist idea that..." (italics mine), which emphasises that this is not a universally accepted idea, making it more important that any article be based around secondary sources. Thomjakobsen 22:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and rewrite with more academic sources. - Darwinek 21:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • If the article has to be rewritten as you say rather than built upon the existing one, the existing one is not worthy to be kept. Should be deleted to make room for a new article. --Irpen 21:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Darwinek. There seem to be at least several academic sources we could use for that ([1]). PS. de:Kollektivschuld should be translated, indeed.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Is the article based on the sources devoted to its subject? --Irpen 21:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete this page which won't prevent someone from writing the article on topic. AfD is not about the notability of the topic but about the article we have at hand. This article's subject is War crimes of Nazi Germany. While a related subject, this is not the same issue as the German collective guilt, which should be written based on the sources that cover this topic rather than by pasting material from already existing articles under a new name. If the topic is notable but the article is bad, keeping only makes sense if the article can be repaired to reflect the title. This article cannot be repaired. It would have to be rewritten. Hence, the current fork is useless and should be deleted. --Irpen 21:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. The article is about war crimes, not collective guilt, the subject matter is dealt with elsewhere. Operating 23:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - Agree that article is about war crimes and not at all about German collective guilt. In fact, it seems to dwell on German enthusiasm for the war crimes. --Mattisse 01:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete -Are any comments really necessary? Dr. Dan 01:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I believe so. See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. --Mattisse 15:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Stand by my vote and comment! Dr. Dan 23:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Article is POV, and off topic, and written in bad faith. I had read this article on the German minority in Poland's was used as forced labor for many years, and their subsequent silence due to westerners belief in collective guilt. This led me to start contemplating starting an article on the mainly psychological topics collective guilt, responsibility and punishment. Unfortunately I once again had a run-in with the author if this "article", who preceded to tell his friend about the article I was structuring in my sandbox. Then he started editing...--Stor stark7 ^Talk 02:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• DELETE - "German collective Guilt", come on, that bases guilt of a crime on the fact that someone is of a certain race. 25% of Americans claim German ancestry, so thus by using the term "German Collective Guilt" we are assuming 1 in every 4 American citizens are mass murderers. --Jadger 05:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy delete per Dr. Dan. Sigh. heqs ·:. 09:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy delete off-topic, POV and no signs of improvement. M.K. 15:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Thomjakobsen has explained that the article is original research in the form of synthesis. The article does not cite scholarly secondary sources which discuss "German collective guilt." Rather, it cites the evils of the Nazis and statements by German 19th century leaders which seem consonant with Nazi evils. It is inherently POV and polemic. Similar articles could be written about most countries, similar to the series "Allegations of war crimes/apartheid/racism by the U.S/Israel/etc." "Collective U.S. guilt" could cover slavery. "Collective Belgian guilt" could cover actions in the Belgian Congo. "Collective British guilt" could cover maltreatment of civilians during the Boer War. "Collective French guilt" could focus on the tactics used against the Algerians during the struggle for indep[endence in that country. "Collective Egyptian guilt" could cover the persecution of various peoples by the Pharoahs of ancient times. Like this article, each could ignore the rest of the history of the country. None of those article would likely satisfy the requirement of NPOV coverage of a topic, but historic citations could be assembled to show that people of that place did some bad things in the era of interest to the writer. Edison 15:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong KeepAlso comment-the article is very young, it still needs development but already contains unique and rare data-for example polls concerning support of German population for genocide of Jews and Poles, analysis of Wehrmacht soldier's letters and reactions. Please consider that there is a lot of time to expand this article, and deleting it right now would erase much valuable information. I personally am comitted to expanding it in time--Molobo 22:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Ideological rant based on amateurish history approach. This kind of articles, if they are to be kept on WP, need to have much higher standard from the very beginning. Pavel Vozenilek 23:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy delete - bah, revanchism at the fullest with an sore aftertaste. how can anyone these times support concept of collective guilt, didn't you learn a thing from history?-Lokyz 23:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

  WP is not here to support or condemn existing concepts but to document them in the best way possible (which the article doesn't). Pavel Vozenilek 00:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment*-Per suggestion I will use information from here to expand other articles.--Molobo 23:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

That's nice, hopefully you have read some of the comments on this talk page. If this is the information you will use, "from here", to expand other articles, you'll do just fine. Dr. Dan 23:39, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget "Collective guilt of the Italians" for the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans. Edison 04:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Delete and send to the gas chamber Wikipedia is not the place for rants. Jtrainor 08:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy deleteAlmost hinges on POV pushing, all of it is convered elsewhere. Phgao 13:37, 16 October 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.