Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Militia movement (United States)

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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. As in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constitutional militia movement, editors are advised not to misuse the AfD process to settle content disputes. Sandstein 22:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Militia movement (United States)

Militia movement (United States) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The article as presently written is highly biased against a lumpting together of several rival movements, so violates WP:NPOV. That could be corrected by almost totally re-writing it to be neutral, as the Constitutional militia movement article currently is, so far (which has also been nominated for deletion by the proponent of this article). So we have an edit war.

It does seem clear that an article on some kind of militia movement is needed to contain material now in other articles, such as Militia and Militia (United States), which unbalance them. A movement, any movement, is a distinct topic from the subject of concern for the movement, although links from one to the other are certainly appropriate.

One way to resolve such a dispute would be to fold the two articles into one, with each name directing to the same article, but in this case that does not seem to be the best solution.

First, no evidence has been provided that there are any militia movements outside the United States that would suggest a collection of militia movement articles with the names of countries in parentheses for each of them. If the need for such articles is later established, the need for this article can be re-asserted, perhaps to contain a list or sections on different kinds of militia movements, in the United States or elsewhere.

Second, the article in its present state is not only biased against what it treats as a single movement, it commits a WP:OR violation by lumping what appear to be several distinct movements into one, and attributes to all the movements the negative attributes of one of those movements. Adherents of the Constitutional militia movement self-identify by that name, to distinguish themselves from other movements which which they might be confused, and to which they are actively hostile. Moreover, the rival movements seem to have little in common other than a willingness to take up arms. They have quite different objectives, agendas, and methods. Furthermore, no evidence has been produced, even by the critics, that the rivals of the constitutional militia movement even style themselves "militia", especially since 1994 when the rivalry became intense and the constitutional miltia movement adopted the word "constitutional" to distinguish itself from its rivals.

Third, there is evidence, to be produced later, that there are constitutional militia movements in other countries, where they are also distinguished from armed groups, usually separatists of some kind, which are often called "militias" by their critics as a pejorative, but which almost never adopt the word for themselves. If enough such movements in foreign countries emerge, then it may become appropriate to disambiguate them into country articles, and there would then need to be an article Constitutional militia movement (United States).

So far, the rival in this edit war, User:Saltyboatr, seems to exhibit only anti-militia bias masquerading under an excessively fastidious application of Wikipedia policies beyond their common-sense intentions.

Finally, since there is this confusion of rival movements, the best solution, rather than to make one article the field for an edit war, is to create other articles, one for each of the rival movements, and if critics of the other movements want to weigh with their criticism of each such movement, they may do so. There are already articles on Christian identity and Skinhead that may represent the beginning of such a collection of movement disambiguation articles. Jon Roland 16:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Strong Keep Clearly, the topic of modern militia movement(s) in the United States easily meets the notability test. There are library bookshelves filled with reliably sourced books on this subject. See this Google Books collection of books for example. Also see this Google Scholar search. Also, the title 'Militia Movement' is confirmed in the zietgeist, with the term 'Militia Movement' appearing in the title of numerous books: Cozic 1997 ISBN 1565105419, Levitas 2002, ISBN 0312320418 (plus several more). The (United States) in the title also seems appropriate as this militia movement phenomena appears centered in the United States, if not entirely located in the United States. SaltyBoatr 17:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Notability is clearly established, television, See 1997 PBS Newshour feature with the byline "the militia movement in the United States". Also notable, see the Senate Hearings on the topic "The Militia Movement in the United States". SaltyBoatr 19:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
comment, I think a clear case can be made that 'militia' historically in the USA versus the 1990's 'militia movement' are actually different distinct things. One is a form of military service, and the other is a social political movement. See[1], etc.. Therefore an article about the social movement is not a fork, but rather a distinct topic. SaltyBoatr 20:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Clearly notable and sourced, besides the sources already used in the article there has been a library written about this topic. The United States Senate thought this was important enough to hold hearings, and the Oklahoma City Bombing has forever established cultural relevancy. I wouldn't have created this article if I hadn't thought it was important. --arkalochori |talk| 03:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
The following books have been published on the militia movement:
Cozic, Charles P. (1997) The Militia Movement Greenhaven Press
Mulloy, Darren. (2004) American Extremism: History, Politics and the Militia Movement, Routledge
Levitas, Daniel. (2002) The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right St. Martin's Press
Crothers, Lane (2003) Rage on the Right: The American Militia Movement from Ruby Ridge to Homeland Rowman & Littlefield
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to published works. There are also a preponderance of stories in the media and reports that all refer to a "Militia movement." This is not original research to speak of an overarching cultural movement. --arkalochori |talk| 05:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment It is OR to say so, but my investigation finds that all of those writings were funded by grants that appear to have come, directly or indirectly, from the Anti-Defamation League or perhaps its allies. That POV funding support calls into question the reliability of the works, especially when it appears that none of them ever personally investigated the objects of their writing, but relied almost entirely on documentation provided to them by their sponsors. As such, they should be doubted for the same reason we doubt Bellesiles. Jon Roland 19:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Caution Considering the history, we should exercise extreme caution when evaluating reliability of sourcing using an Anti-Zionism conspiracy hypothesis in militia related articles in Wikipedia. An anti-Zionist hypothesis clearly is a case per WP:SOURCES where "exceptional claims require exceptional sources". In short, considering the 'extraordinary' nature of the claim, Jon Roland must meet the higher 'most reliable' standard found at WP:RS. Not simply the 'reliable' standard, but rather the 'most reliable' standard which is: "...peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses". He has not yet done so. SaltyBoatr 21:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as per SaltyBoatr, Arkalochori. Sourced and notable. Edward321 02:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong revise There is a fundamental problem in writing articles about "movements", especially "loose" movements, composed of many individuals holding diverse views and engaged in diverse activities, even in opposition to one another. It is POV to lump together people as a single movement whose activists don't self-identify as a single movement. It is also a category error. As neutral editors we should disaggregate (disambiguate) groups of people respecting their preferences and beliefs, not those of outsiders, especially their opponents or critics. It would be acceptible to me to keep it if it were re-written to more closely resemble an article like Protestant, which distinguishes the various Protestant sects from one another and even from other sects like Mormons that do not identify themselves as "Protestant". A sense of this can be seen by doing some Google groups searches on "constitutional militia" for several time periods to get a sense of what people, both supporters and opponents, were saying on the subject:
  • Much of the documentation from this movement appeared online, initially in Usenet groups. See search results on groups.google.com for the period 01/01/94-12/21/97.
  • See search results on groups.google.com for the period 01/01/04-present.

Jon Roland 19:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A useful site on this topic is one on "Militia Movement" from Apologetics:
The militant arm of the Patriot Movement. Organized, armed groups that claim to defend the U.S. Constitution (from real or perceived enemies).
The FBI distinguishes Constitutional militias and hate groups:
Federal agents and militia members say the outreach program helps distinguish true Constitutional militia members from hate groups and changes the public perception that militias are "anti-government."
See also Militias: Initiating Contact, by James E. Duffy and Alan C. Brantley, M.A.
But a source of confusion can be seen in the FBI document Project Megiddo which announced plans for the general warrantless detention of dissidents of all kinds in case of a national crisis (such as Y2K), which was widely discussed as confirmation of the threat of federal tyranny:
V - Militias
The majority of growth within the militia movement occurred during the 1990s. There is not a simple definition of how a group qualifies as a militia. However, the following general criteria can be used as a guideline: (1) a militia is a domestic organization with two or more members; (2) the organization must possess and use firearms; and (3) the organization must conduct or encourage paramilitary training. Other terms used to describe militias are Patriots and Minutemen.
That might make working sense to the author of the FBI report, and perhaps to reporters, to lump anyone meeting that definition into a single group or movement, but it shouldn't be difficult to discern the problems with it for purposes of Wikipedia editing.

Jon Roland 20:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment It must be noted that Jon Roland initiated this request for article deletion on Nov 2[2], but on Nov 4[3] has revised his opinion from delete to 'strong revise'. As such, it appears this AfD is now moot and should be closed or withdrawn. SaltyBoatr 19:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak delete Several points:
  • (1) A "militia movement" is not the same as "militia", and deserves its own article.
  • (2) "Constitutional militia" is not the same as "militia", as that term has come to be used by outsiders and antagonists. There is indeed a category error in combining different things under the same label, and even if many people do not correctly disambiguate, we should do so. The article Militia (United States) can already serve as the article for "constitutional militia", with the removal of some biased content about the improperly combined movements as characterized by outsiders and antagonists. But "constitutional militia" or "constitutional militia (United States)" should be redirected to it.
  • (3) "Constitutional militia movement" is not the same as "militia movement", and deserves its own article that makes that clear. If militia movement (United States) is to be kept, perhaps because many people do use the term, it should be reworked into an article that lists or has separate sections for the several different and even rival movements sometimes so labeled and combined.
  • (4) In a comparison of the constitutional militia movement article to this one I find:
  • (a) The other article is emerging to satisfy WP:NPOV while this one, in its present state, does not.
  • (b) Sourcing for the other article is already good and getting better, although there is room for improvement. If an editor has doubts about some point, instead of deleting it (or the article), he should first try to discover whether it is not supported by an existing note or reference, and if not, add a note or reference that does, or insert a [citation needed] tag to request one, then allow some reasonable time for someone to respond.
  • (c) The references supporting the other article are more objective and have more scholarly integrity than those that support this one, which, like the infamous work of Bellesiles, seem not just to have a POV, but to be "hatchet jobs" in a war of ideas. Perhaps they deserve their own article or section in some "countermovement" article.
  • (5) I am disappointed in the obvious POV of some of the editors calling for deletion of the other article and keeping this one, presumably in its present state. You don't even make an effort to conceal it. I for one am learning a lot from this debate that I wouldn't learn by just reading the articles, and suggest that, if we keep this article, this debate be copied to its Talk:Militia movement (United States) page. The other article already contains much valuable material, well presented, and I hope to see what else may be added. While I am skeptical of some points Jon Roland makes, I am not sure I will not come to agree with him as I learn more, and I urge the rest of you to approach the subject with the same spirit of discovery.
Bracton 14:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment. None of these five reasons to delete given by Bracton pertain to the standards of WP:DEL#REASON and therefore appear to be irrelevant to the question at hand. Incidentally, the most important condition: notability, appears satisfied in Bracton's opinion considering that Bracton asserts "...because many people do use the term". Therefore I conclude that Bracton actually agrees (or concedes) that notability exists for this article. SaltyBoatr 18:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Response. I do concede much the content (after it is POV-neutralized) can reasonably be put in some article, under another name, perhaps redirected to a section within Christian Patriot movement (which should be renamed to remove the "Christian", because it includes Muslims, Jews, Mormons, and other sects), but that article needs POV-neutralizarion, too. (Is that a term anyone uses?) So perhaps what is needed is a merge or redirect. Bracton 18:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge the articles, and move to "militia movement." I'm disappointed that some people have called the other article a POVFORK, when the page histories show that the other article was started FIRST. And while that article isn't NPOV, neither is this one. Put the two together, and you might have a balanced article (or an edit war - sigh). And if which article gets primacy is going to be decided based on which title is "better," this one has an unnecessary disambiguator in the title. Other countries have militias, but there is no other "militia movement," at least none that English-speakers would be familiar with. --WacoKid 15:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Response. I have suggested that it be reworked into a gateway disambiguation article to the many movements that are sometimes lumped together as "militia" by outsiders or antagonists, but that distinguish themselves or even see each other as rivals. The "(United States)" disambiguator is indeed unnecessary, but not breakout into rival movements. This article could then have a short section on "Constitutional militia movement" and link to Constitutional militia movement as the "main article". As a prudential matter, that might also tend to at least cabin some of the edit warfare that might consume too much attention by editors. Jon Roland 17:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Response. Not the right merge. I suggested merge or redirect (after removing "(United States)" to the Patriot movement article, with the "Christian" removed, because, from what I have been discovering, what are left after removing "Constitutional militia movement" from the mix seldom identify themselves as "militia" but often do identify themselves as a "Patriot movement" (but often as other than "Christian"). In weighing reliable sources we should give primary weight in combining people as groups to insiders rather than outsiders. Bracton 18:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment Jon Roland initiated this AfD, but now advocates for a reworking instead. Therefore this AfD is now moot. SaltyBoatr 17:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Response. No, not advocating, only suggesting a compromise. I still think that it should be deleted, especially if no one else is going to fix it as I have suggested. I have too much to do already to fix that one as well. But I see some merit to Bracton's proposal. Jon Roland 18:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Compromise. I propose that Jon Roland withdraw his request to delete this article and that Saltyboatr withdraw his request to delete Constitutional militia movement. I think Roland has a much stronger case but perhaps it is better to just separate them and the articles they favor. Bracton 19:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Response. I will agree with that if Saltyboatr does, but I would ask that he (not someone else) insert a link to Constitutional militia movement under See also to confirm the agreement. Each article has its own warnings to visitors that can caution them, and there is already such a link in Constitutional militia movement to this article. Jon Roland 19:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
This suggestion requires going contrary to WP:POL, and I have no authority to agree to such. SaltyBoatr 21:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Content forking#Articles whose subject is a POV, I don't see that this would necessarily be a POV fork if the "Consititutional militia movement" represents an independent, reliably documented POV from what is meant by the general term "militia movement". The POV fork prohibition is intended to keep an editor's own POV from becoming an article, but it is not intended to keep Wikipedia from documenting various already-published points-of-view. Each article should contain a link to the other, though, to bolster the neutrality of both articles. DHowell 22:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep but heavily revise to comply with WP:NPOV and perhaps rename to Criticism of militia movements (United States) or Patriot militia movement (United States). As I read this article, while it is documenting a notable point-of-view, it does not appear to be neutral with respect to this POV or towards U.S. milita movements in general. DHowell 05:30, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Concur. The first rename would be better, but the word "militia" should be in quotes to indicate it is the critics that apply that label, and that many of those who they are criticizing do not. Bracton 16:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Requested move. I submitted a formal request to rename the article to Criticism of "militia" movements (United States) in the Talk:Militia movement (United States) page and on the WP:Requested moves page. Bracton 17:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Concur. I would still prefer to delete it, and my second choice would be to merge it to Christian Patriot movement renamed to just Patriot movement, and heavily revised for WP:NPOV, but there seems to be a demand for an article that does contain nothing but criticisms, and the prudential solution may be to just rename it to Criticism of "militia" movements (United States) or Criticism of "militia" movements. I did a search and there are plenty of precedents for such articles, even though it seems to me that there is a problem with notability for "criticisms of" something rather than the thing itself. Looking at the edit histories of those articles, I find a similar situation to the one we have with this one: dominance by a few editors that insist on inserting criticisms of something and remove any attempts to balance it. I say let them have such an article, but rename it in a way that makes its POV clear. Jon Roland 08:41, 8 November 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.