Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International response to Hurricane Katrina

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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 all . This AfD, as well as the AfD and DRV cited by the nominator, give the impression that the community wants to cover sourced responses to major disasters, but that such coverage should not simply consist of massive lists of boilerplate condolences and trivia, per WP:NOT#NEWS. That's more of a case for cleanup than for deletion, at least in the case of the articles nominated here. We also seem to be arriving at a consensus to selectively merge the country-specific articles back to the main article, but that's an editorial decision. Sandstein 21:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] International response to Hurricane Katrina

Following on from this Afd (now at Drv), pages of the form of lists or descriptions of the responses to international disasters, in the form of condolences, donations and aid packages from every country on Earth, do not seem to be notable in themselves, in the sense that this will always occur for such large disasters. While very well sourced, the information seems to be more a collation of news reports and not a permanent record of note. Any actual notable responses (i.e. beyond the expected norm) could easily be accommodated in the relevant disaster articles, or any article about a government/rescue service/military. I am listing related response articles, although you will note this does not include the 9/11 article, which I think is notable as a single world event where reactions have a political and military aspects as well as a humanitarian element. MickMacNee (talk) 14:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Additional pages:

Keep (only responding to the main nom, you may want to split out the other articles). Well sourced article supporting a notable event. Is too large to merge into the event article. Contains useful information. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I agree with the above; you may want to split up this nom. Redfarmer (talk) 15:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep International response to Hurricane Katrina. Clearly notable international responses to a notable event, and too much information to fit into main Hurricane Katrina article. Some cleanup (such as removing that long list of countries at the beginning, since it's followed by information about individual countries anyway) might be appropriate. Merge other "response to Hurricane Katrina" articles into "International response to Hurricane Katrina". Klausness (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
- Define 'notable response', as the article contains a large variation of responses, including several single lines to the effect "offers of help and assistance", which also appear in the other 'international response to' articles named. MickMacNee (talk) 15:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  - Any non-notable responses should be deleted as part of the normal editing process. There are definitely notable responses in the article, and there will be even more if the other articles are merged in. Deletion is not a substitute for editing. Klausness (talk) 17:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment. Also, International response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake should not be included in this AfD, since it's a totally different event. Klausness (talk) 15:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
- Grouped based on 'response to xyz notable natural disaster' being similar enough titles per Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_list_multiple_related_pages_for_deletion, as well as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. I don't think it achieves anything to say katrina is keepable and the others are irrelevant (i.e. I see no point in creating separate Afd's when my nomination reasons would be exactly the same). MickMacNee (talk) 15:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
- Well my reasoning is I could see someone arguing the individual country's responses to Katrina aren't notable enough for articles but that the International response to Hurrican Katrina article is notable as an overview. Redfarmer (talk) 15:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  - Maybe, but they all look like overlong prose versions of some of the larger paragraphs in the main list. People can still give arguments to the effect above, but as far as I see, there's no difference between the argument for existence of the main articles or the sub-articles, as they basically all exist on the premise that the type of information they contain is notable without any extraordinary claims for each particular country. As such, even the reverse position could be argued, that possibly one country's efforts deserve an article if they were massively involved (i.e. Canada for America, China for Burma etc), but still arguing that the main 'international' list with one line entries and paragraphs doesn't need to exist. MickMacNee (talk) 15:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Delete per WP:UNDUE. Yes, lots of countries and organisations gave aid following these disasters. We make sufficient note of that here and here. That's encyclopedic, but exhaustive country-by-country lists are not. The average reader is interested that help was offered, not in a detailed breakdown of its particulars. Biruitorul (talk) 16:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
- Comment. I don't see how WP:UNDUE is relevant here. That refers to violating NPOV by giving undue weight to some points of view or to some verifiable facts, relative to other points of view or facts. I don't see any violation of NPOV here. And even if there were a violation of NPOV here, violation of NPOV is never a reason for deletion -- NPOV violations should be fixed by editing. Klausness (talk) 18:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  - You're right - I'd forgotten UNDUE has to do with NPOV. Let me reach into my grab-bag of reasons to delete...hmm, how about WP:EVERYTHING? As I said before, "we make sufficient note of" disaster relief efforts in the main articles, and the added depth here is not warranted. Biruitorul ^Talk 21:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep when there's too much, too detailed or unduely focused information on a main page, a subpage is the right response. This seems to be a textbook example of that. Wily D 17:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep both International response articles, but confine them to discussing substantive aid and relief efforts. We don't need the individual country articles nor do we need long lists of condolences and sympathy. --Dhartung | Talk 17:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep all of the articles. The information in International response to Hurricane Katrina is the summary style expansion of Hurricane Katrina#International response, and it cannot be merged into Hurricane Katrina without significantly affecting its structure, and as a result, its Featured Article status. The rest of the country articles can be merged back into the International response article, but that is an editorial decision outside of the purview of the deletion process. (Merge defaults to keep and all that stuff.) Ditto for the Kashmir earthquate article. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep per summary style, and consider merging the individual country articles. Editorial decision. DGG (talk) 01:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete all. Simply put: WP:NOT#NEWS. This information is excessively detailed to the point of uselessness; does anyone anywhere need to know that, to pick a random example, 'Guatemala offered 135 flooding and sanitation experts', or 'Hungary pledged $5,000 and offered to send a Special Search and Rescue Team, and also five doctors.'? The most relevant and significant aspects of the international response are listed in the main Hurricane Katrina article, as is appropriate; these articles go far beyond that, and are simply not needed. Much of the same is also true of the 'international response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake' article, which should be merged back into its parent article. Terraxos (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

And as an aside - while I know 'precedent' isn't generally an accepted deletion argument, I do find it odd that there was just consensus to delete the article on the international response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, but there is not (so far) to delete these articles. Why the double standard? Why is one international response more notable than another? Terraxos (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The critical quantity here is "volume of information" - but Sichuan might have been decided wrong. The point is that this is really part of "Hurricane Katrina", but that article's too big, so we have to section out chunks. If the precedent is wrong, we've no reason to feel bound to it. Wily D 02:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This Afd is in response to the Sezchuan Afd/Drv, to establish consensus as to whether lists of international responses to disasters are notable. I don't see any point in the summary/volume argument unless particular efforts are noteworthy, the sub-articles and main articles for different countries are the same type of information, country X did this, country Y did that, NN food parcels were sent, DD dollars of aid were promised, on X month Y year Mr Z said this. Why is this information notable? Number of words <> notability. MickMacNee (talk) 02:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Because it is required to have it under WP:WIAFA §1.b. This is not a notability issue, but a summary style issue, as this information would be inside the Hurricane Katrina article if it weren't so freaking big. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you're going round the houses, when all you are meaning to say is this is notable. No article gets kept purely because it's too big to fit into another one, every article is expected to stand on its own. MickMacNee (talk) 03:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that notability has absolutely nothing to do with it. But if you insist on labeling something as notable or not notable, the two International response articles are notable to stand on their own. The rest of the articles supplement these two articles, and are required if merges are decided. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not insisting on notability, it's a core wikipedia policy. MickMacNee (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability has the following text at the top: It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Splitting articles when they get too big is not only common sense, it is a Wikipedia guideline as well. Unless you're arguing that Hurricane Katrina and the 2005 Kashmir earthquake are not notable, then I don't see how editorial organization of the articles (which mandated splitting) would be covered under the notability guideline. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Read my nomination again, I am arguing that lists of responses to notable natural disasters are not notable (and no-one is giving me a reason why they are, but rather just simply stating that they are, or deflecting the issue to notability of the disaster itself by arguing that notability is inherited just by virtue of sheer length - in other words the sheer amount of trivia - causing a split. I will repeat what I said at the Drv, what is being asserted here as noteworthiness, is in fact newsworthyness, and is going to date ridiculously quickly, if it is not actually useless to the encyclopoedia right now. Also, Notability is never inherited by default in the creation of a sub-article, this principle is applied right across wikipedia for large articles. Perhaps it might help you by actually looking at some of the other major disaster articles from years earlier, where the response section is adequately covered in the main article, without needing a list of response of every country on Earth down to minutia such as numbers of food parcels etc. This response to trend is definitely a recent phenomena, a case of 'it can be done', not 'it needs to be done'. I see absolutely no validity in ignoring a requirement for notability of a list of responses just because it doesn't fit in the main article. That stance could applied to many different assortments of lengthy info that gets added to wikipedia all the time, but is deleted due to not being worthy of inclusion, and this is certainly not a case of common sense along the lines of ignore the notability requirements. MickMacNee (talk) 02:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Or alternatively, just read the short version: Wikipedia:Notability#Notability_guidelines_do_not_directly_limit_article_content. MickMacNee (talk) 03:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Essentially, your entire point is that you think that these articles are trivia, and you're not going to convince me about that. If anything, you're picking the wrong examples, as for example, Katrina resulted in the first occupation of U.S. soil by a foreign army since the nineteenth century, to pick an example. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) No, most of it is trivia (how can it be argued it is not? read the list), but at the core, the entire article is newsworthy not noteworthy for an encylopoedia. You can argue it's not trivia, but, again, it realy would help if a decent rationale for that position was given, rather than just asserting it. So Mexico invaded the US, are we seriously claiming that event (for which I agree is a noteworthy event) requires its own article outside of the Katrina article? Let alone it needs to be a sub article of a sub article because it's being treated as just as notable as all the other entries in a list of reponses, that I have argued time and again don't really belong in an encyclopoedia, as there is nothing remarkable about them at all. It is a case of recording for the sake of it. MickMacNee (talk) 14:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's not at all clear that there was consensus to delete the article on the international response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. That's why it's in Drv. If you look at that AfD discussion, it certainly looks like "no consensus" (and, if anything, tending slightly towards "keep"). The closing admin thought the "keep" arguments were unconvincing and decided to delete based on that. Klausness (talk) 18:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep as per my previous AfD and DRV arguments regarding the identical Sichuan article, as well as WP:IAR, WP:WIAFA §1.b, and the opinion/stance that the article(s) go beyond the current scope of WP:NEWS. — C M B J 10:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Weak Delete It is too poorly referenced. Ecoleetage (talk) 21:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep. It's certainly a plausible sub-article on a notable topic. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep, notable topics, subarticles are appropriate due to the amount of info. Everyking (talk) 02:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Moderate keep A notable topic, no doubt. It'd just be nice if the articles were of higher quality. Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 12:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep all per Dhartung. While the International response articles do contain a lot of 'excess fat' (i.e. newsworthy but encyclopedic trivia), deletion is not the appropriate method of cleanup in this case. The individual country response articles should probably be merged into the main International response article, but that would best be handled outside of AfD. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Keep all Wikipedia is not paper and this is verifiable and useful information. Shii (tock) 00:58, 25 May 2008 (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.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International response to Hurricane Katrina

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[edit] International response to Hurricane Katrina

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