Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Southern mafia

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. --Coredesat 06:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Southern mafia

Southern mafia (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete Original research. Mere use of a term in print does not remove the WP:NOR issue. Avi 07:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Note recent text reduction to remove OR. --MBHiii 18:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Every group of criminals in America gets called the Mafia of somewhere or other; it is a pretty generic term for organized crime. I don't think this is a good start on an article on organized crime in the rural South. The references are a bizarre mish-mash. Out! --Brianyoumans 07:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - "Every group of criminals in America..." very likely true, but it's also become a journalistic term for certain Congressmen, and a rap group has taken the name, all indicating a special meaning to the culture, in general, of the US. --MBHiii 18:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:ATT and quite possibly WP:HOAX. Superficially this article looks extremely well cited, but I've gone through the footnotes and they are far from reliable sources. Two of them are to other wikipedia articles, two are to blogs, one is to a letter to the editor of a paper (so, a letter from a person, not a researched news article), and a couple are to music sites. Thing is, and I admit not reading every word on each of these weak sources, I actually never saw the exact phrase "Southern mafia" on any of them. -Markeer 11:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Two sources deleted (originally included for implied reference), two added, now all specifically use "Southern mafia" in the senses defined. --MBHiii 18:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - Definite problems with WP:ATT, and clearly Original Research. All but two of the citations are used to back one particular (somewhat POV) statement - and as Markeer points out above, many of these are not reliable sources. The two exceptions relate to a completely different Wikipedia article listed in the "see also" section. The bulk of the article is completely unreferenced. Blueboar 12:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - See all other comments, and recent edit history tags. --MBHiii 18:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Sourcing is very suspect. Maybe a wonderful topic for a magazine or journal article, but not for an encyclopedia... this article is drawing original conclusions based on a handful of vague and shrouded (and sometimes misinterpreted) mentions of the phrase "Southern Mafia". --W.marsh 14:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - See all other comments, and recent edit history tags. --MBHiii 18:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Save it - note changes to text and sourcing to address OR; can be expanded as more sources appear. --MBHiii 15:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Delete - appears to violate WP:ATT, but if attribution and notability (and existence) can be established, I'd be inclined to change my opinion. --Mhking 16:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

appears to violate? How does what's there, now, violate "Although everything in Wikipedia must be attributable, in practice not all material is attributed. Editors should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged"? 216.77.231.87 17:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply you've picked a somewhat vague sentence out of WP:ATT, please note some of the more concrete language under it's subsections, such as Wikipedia articles must be based on reliable sources. The article has indeed been improved so far, but some of the footnotes are still highly questionable e.g. this blog (blogs are not peer reviewed and so are rarely reliable sources) or this book review which only demonstrates that the reviewer (on a site I'm not familiar with) uses the term Southern Mafia, not even that the book itself uses that term. Also at this point, the article is also looking like a dictionary definition-Markeer 21:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Note further additions of links to related topics in Wikipedia. W.r.t. "reliable sources" I don't want to rely on blogs, but if one wants to show a term used journalistically then blogs and reviews should be allowed (not, of course, to the exclusion of other sources). Also, I note from your Wikilink "the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." To some extent, any publisher must consider all these issues before allowing a review, or letter to the editor, onto his pages. BTW (not that I'm claimimg to know) how do you know the book doesn't use the term?

Also, about that review in the Texas Observer, a biweekly magazine, from their website "Our Vision: The Texas Observer writes about issues ignored or underreported in the mainstream press. Our goal is to cover stories crucial to the public interest and to provoke dialogue that promotes democratic participation and open government, in pursuit of a vision of Texas where education, justice and material progress are available to all." ... "The New York Times, Harper’s, 60 Minutes, 20/20, and ABC News have followed the lead of Texas Observer stories." ... seems a very reliable publication. --MBHiii 00:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Even if the sources weren't a little on the wonky side this wouldn't be much more than a dicdef as it stands. This article suffers the same problem as a related article recently deleted in that the 'sources' are largely just instances of the phrase being used and do little if anything to establish the meaning of the term or convey any information about it. It does little more than establish the existence of the term - the point of WP:ATT is not to simply find quotes but to tell us something, which this doesn't. Arkyan 05:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment note recently added specifications to definition. Do you or any of the other deletionists ever change your vote in response to edits after the AfD begins? --MBHiii 12:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - why yes, I do. When they are constructive edits that actually resolve the problems that have been brought up. Your edit really hasn't satisfied that, and I will explain to you why. If you haven't read WP:ATT in detail please do, but for starters, pay attention to the line that states The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true. The problem with the sources in this article (as well as the now-deleted Unholy Alliance) is that they are almost exclusively quotations of someone using the term Southern Mafia without actually telling us what the southern mafia is. Your article then goes on to use these various examples of the word use to support a conclusion - but that is a violation of WP:SYN. Wikipedia cannot rely on articles of this nature that basically say "This person has been called a member of the Southern Mafia, and so has this person, therefore the Southern Mafia can be defined as ..." What you really need is a source that explicitly tells us "The Southern Mafia can be defined as ..." You have one and only one source that does that - but the problem with that is that it is from a blog and not a reliable source. Again, read up on WP:RS for a more clear picture of what a reliable source is, and why a blog is not. Finally, if you do find reliable sources to cite on the subject, make sure that you can expand the article beyond a mere definition, else it will not pass WP:DICDEF.

Honestly, no one here has any kind of vendetta against you or your articles, we merely have a problem with articles that do not pass inclusion criteria. I am certain you are very well intentioned in wanting to contribute to the project with these articles of local significance that you feel are underrepresented here, and we all appreciate your desire to contribute. Unfortunately Wikipedia is not a vehicle for the advancement of new thoughts and ideas - there are plenty of other outlets for those kinds of things. Once an idea has become established, studied and verified, that is when it belongs here. Arkyan 15:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply Can't speak for anyone else, but I know I've changed my opinion on several articles up for AfD if they've been improved. The problem with this article (in my opinion) is that while it's sourcing has indeed been improved (with the addition of the Texas Observer link added to the decent Scarfone link), there are still serious issues. One is that pretty much all of the other footnotes should be removed as they do not add any verifiable benefit to the article that I can see (all they seem to do is show the authors of this article didn't make the term up, which is covered by the two more acceptable sources, and that the term is used sometimes in the music industry, which oddly isn't mentioned in the article itself).

Unfortunately while the sourcing has somewhat improved, the removal of basically all of the text leaves this with other problems that I see. One is it now appears to be just a dictionary definition as mentioned already, but the sparsity also leaves two other issues: 1) that there is no assertion or evidence that the term is particularly notable, 2) that from what I've seen so far, the phrase seems to clearly be a neoligism.

Shorter answer: There may well be an article to be found on this phrase, my issue is that so far all we have is a weakly sourced dicdef of a neoligism. My apologies if I sound overly blunt about this, just trying to answer your question about changes in votes and why mine at least hasn't changed so far. -Markeer 16:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, mulling, learning, thanks for the lengthy replies. --MBHiii 17:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • OK, y'all, how about now? It is, unfortunately, no HOAX. --216.77.231.87 13:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Dispite adding quotations to show usage of the phrase (most taken from various book and movie reviews), the article remains little more than a Dictionary Definition per WP:DICDEF. Also, without a reliable source to tie the disperate usages together it remains an uncited OR synthesis per WP:ATT. The article needs a reliable source that discusses what the "Southern Mafia" is, where it came from and how it has developed over time. Blueboar 14:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

What? Are you saying that a Wikipedia article showing disperate (sic) usages, that are each cited or sourced, cannot stand alone without another citation or source showing all those same disparate usages? Where does it say that? --MBHiii 16:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Not when they are being used to make a point... It says it at the WP:SYNT section of WP:ATT and is further highlighted in a foot note in that section where it says: Jimmy Wales has discussed the problem of unpublished syntheses of existing material, stating: "Some who completely understand why Wikipedia ought not create novel theories of physics by citing the results of experiments and so on and synthesizing them into something new, may fail to see how the same thing applies to history." (Wales, Jimmy. "Original research", December 6, 2004) Blueboar 18:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Where? Disparate means different and not related. I am NOT creating novel theories or synthesizing anything. Where do you get that? What, precisely, is synthesized? If you can't answer this, change your vote. --MBHiii 18:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to change my vote ... if the concerns that have been raised by myself and others were actually addressed in the article. So far they have not. A synthesis occurs when you place two seperate ideas together so that they form a conclusion, whether stated outright or implied. In one sentence you talk about "traditional and ongoing criminal enterprise" and "organized crime". In the next you mention "conservative Congressmen from the South working together for a shared purpose". The clear implication to the reader is that that criminal activity and conservative congressmen have a connection. Whether this is "true" or not does not matter, we (as editors) can not make these connections ourselves... we need to cite reliable secondary sources that make such connections for us. Blueboar 19:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

First, "separate" like "disparate" is spelled with an "a" in the middle. Second, you may not infer something that is not explicitly implied. That's a real synthesis on your part! As in any dictionary or encyclopedia, I am simply listing separate and disparate uses of the term. If they need to be more physically separated on the page (say, Usage#1, then Usage#2), just do it. Apart from that, what else is there? --MBHiii 20:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Just because an article has a ton of sources doesn't mean it can't be orignal research as well. Let me explain by example:

Suppose someone thinks that a new Ford Motor Company advertising campaign has hidden racist messgages in it.

They go online and find a few books/magazines that explain what subliminal messages are and what racism is defined as.

Then they go and find a summary of the ad campaign.

They write an article explaining their ideas and citing their sources.

However, none of their sources explicitly states that the ad campaign is racist, its all done by inferring facts based on the cited source material.

Therefore, although the article is well cited, it is still OR.

Based on the above debate, this seems to be the problem here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be the problem, but where? Criminals and politcians that are not linked, remain so forever, until they are linked in some clear way. Mentioning two thoughts on the same page does not link them, other than, in this case, as separate and disparate uses of the same term. You all should stop imputing things that aren't there. --MBHiii 21:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

And you shouldn't add text to my comments. What I was trying to explain is that an article can be OR even if you give sources. The sources need to explicitly say what you say in the article. Many of the sources on the article only mention the Southern Mafia, in popular culture. I see nothing that connects "a traditional and ongoing criminal enterprise" to "The Southern Mafia in the Senate." I wasn't comparing your article to an ad campaign, that was merely an example. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 00:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• delete as a neologism. Note that per WP:NEO, Support for article contents, including the use and meaning of neologisms, must come from reliable sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source that includes material on the basis of verifiability, not truth. To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term. Smmurphy^(Talk) 21:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Note, multiple literary uses are documented here, going back 14 years to 1993. Scarfone seems to use "Dixie-Mafia" and "Southern Mafia" interchangeably (online). Granting that Dixie Mafia is a synonym, it is absolutely spelled out and nailed down by Swearingen and Lee, in 1990 (also online). --MBHiii 22:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

All of which makes for a wonderful Wiktionary entry... but not a Wikipedia article.Blueboar 22:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

"Literary uses" = the words "Southern" and "mafia" are used in conjunction in books and magazines. What is needed is a reason that these two words belong next to each other for some specific reason. As it is, you just have a collection of referenced occasions that the words have been put next to each other. You need to show that the words next to each other have meaning beyond what the two words mean alone. There isn't any one specific group here that is called the Southern mafia (except groups that also go by other names?). In fact, each reference in the article weakens the case that an article is needed, as most of them are talking about a different thing. Smmurphy^(Talk) 02:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Note, redirect to Dixie Mafia which needs the references. --MBHiii 23:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Objection - I really have to object to redirecting the article the way you did ... Perhaps I have misinterpreted your motivations, but redirecting an article that is in the middle of an AfD debate comes across as a back handed attempt to save the material in violation of the process ... which in turn comes across as a POV ploy. All this redirect does is shift the problem to another article. The material is still a dicdef and is still a violation of WP:SYNT. Plus the article into which it was moved has it's own issues with lack of citation (ie it had none prior to your redirect). Blueboar 12:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Not true, it had a lack of citations tag and only one ref. (anti-snitching) all of which is astounding, since you added that tag (now gone). --216.77.231.87 14:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I agree with Blueboar that the redirect/merge mid-debate like that was inappropriate. Shunting the material over on to another article, regardless of how well that other article may or may not be established, is not the way to fix the problem. All it does is turn Dixie Mafia into a poor, unsourced article. I will assume good faith here and go under the impression that the merge was an honest attempt to fix the problem how you best saw fit, but please be aware that it very much appears to be an attempt to play a shell game by simply hiding the content elsewhere. Arkyan 16:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced was exactly its condition until all the references, specific to Dixe Mafia, were added.

W.r.t. the SYN issue, "comparing and contrasting" are stock in trade for this kind of writing, and a separate and disparate use is certainly a contrast worth noting. That's all. --MBHiii 16:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

MBHiii, This really isn't the forum to explain how WP:SYNT works... I will respond on your talk page and try to explain further. Blueboar 17:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

According to WP:SYN, "that precise analysis (A+B=C expressed by the author) must have been published by a reliable source in relation to the topic before it can be published in Wikipedia."

In the Smith and Jones case, the author analyzed what Jones did (A) in light of some standard the author chose (B) to assert Smith may have been wrong about Jones (C) without citing a souce who agrees with the analysis. He takes A from one source, B from another, and asserts C on his own.

But here, there is no "Conclusion C." What are you saying are the A+B=C? If you assert I imply C, first of all that's not in WP:SYN, and if you do so on the basis of two different meanings of a term sitting on the same page, you'd better not read any dictionaries, your head might explode from possibilities.

Finally, there is nothing I "say in the article ... that connects a traditional and ongoing criminal enterprise to The Southern Mafia in the Senate." - Mr.Z-man(above) It's you, making it up.

Note, wording changes to be less of a DICDEF and focus more on the two, separated subjects - no HOAX. --MBHiii 03:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Update - With recent changes to the article, especially re-paragraphing, SYN is indeed much less of an issue. Unfortunately Dicdef still is an issue. The article basically says that a whole bunch of people have used this term, and then gives quotes of them doing so. It is an article about the use of the term "Southern Mafia" instead of an article about the concept of a "Southern Mafia". That is a DICDEF. Blueboar 12:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yet another update - note recent expansion and rewording to address remaining DICDEF issue. --MBHiii 13:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - First, the entire recent update is a cut-and-paste from your source which is a potential WP:COPYVIO. You can't do that. Second, it doesn't help address the DICDEF issues anyway. Third, the subject of that particular source is the "Dixie Mafia", not the "Southern Mafia". Your assertion in the article that "Scarfone uses the terms 'Dixie Mafia' and 'Southern Mafia' in the same work, therefore we can establish Dixie Mafia = Southern Mafia, and therefore any reference to Dixie Mafia can be treated as a reference to Southern Mafia" is the very core definition of WP:SYN.

I have to commend the effort you are putting in to trying to save this article. It shows a lot of editorial perseverance and dedication that are very good traits and I for one appreciate your enthusiasm. Wikipedia can always use such tenacious editing! Unfortunately I think the problem with this article is that the "Southern Mafia" simply does not exist beyond a mere term of use and just can't be expanded beyond a dicdef - nothing out there seems to support anything more than that, and no amount of sourcing in examples will cure that fact. The zeal you are showing in trying to find sources leads me to believe that if they were there, you would have found them by now. Arkyan 15:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere between SYN and COPYVIO must be room to write. Note, new rewriting so as not to cut-and-paste. Another more direct example of Dixie Mafia = Southern Mafia has been cited. It's amazing to me that, still, you don't believe it exists, so I added the case about which Hume wrote. --MBHiii 17:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

MBHiii, there is tons of room to write between SYN and COPYVIO ... Don't simply quote what the sources have said, write about what those sources have said. Also, I don't think anyone is saying that the Southern Mafia doesn't exist... We are simply saying that the way you are writing about it constitutes either OR or DICDEF. You keep going from one extreme to the other... without substantive statements discussing what the Southern Mafia is, where it came from, how it developed, etc. the article is nothing more than a dicdef stating that the term exists. When you try to add substance... you don't cite any reliable source to back up your substantive statements, which swings the article into violating NOR and SYN. Blueboar 18:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Note 1. removal of key erroneously cited blog ref and extraneous quotations from fiction 2. addition of areas of operation and summaries of operation from key refs cited. BTW on the discussion page, you said "The issue is whether such a thing as a 'Southern Mafia' actually exists." I hope by now all doubt's removed by this article. --MBHiii 03:36, 23 March 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.