Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Westies (people)

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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. --JoanneB 09:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Westies (people)

Completing nom by IP User 203.91.245.97. No vote by me --Arnzy (whats up?) 04:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Strong if not Speedy Keep. Well-established word in Australia especially in Sydney. Concept which is well-established and is a well-known concept related to geography and class issues in Sydney.It is in the Macquarie Dictionary which defines it as
    1. a person, generally from an outer suburb of a city or town and from a lower socio-economic background. Compare barry2, bogan (def. 1), boonie, Charlene, Charmaine, feral1 (def. 9); Especially Qld bevan (def. 2); Chiefly Qld bev-chick; WA bog3; ACT booner; Tasmania chigger2.
    --adjective 2. of or relating to a westie or to westies generally: a westie shirt. Also, Westie. [from west(ern), referring to the western suburbs of Sydney, + -IE]
    Usage (language): From Sydney this word has spread throughout the country, despite the fact that the people so designated do not necessarily reside in the western part of an area. Capitalistroadster 22:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - I would guess a "revenge" nomination because of Easties (people)'s nomination. -- Chuq 22:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
    • It almost certainly is a nomination to make a point, given that the nominating editor has stated that xe "agree[s] with the Westies term not being deleted". See this edit by 203.91.245.97 (talk · contribs), which also implies that this is Mattabat (talk · contribs) not logged in. Uncle G 14:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I would guess double standards. --WikiCats 03:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I only completed this incompleted nomination from a IP User, so I take no stance on this, and the related AFD. --Arnzy (whats up?) 03:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The over-riding issue for the article is the fact that for several months it has had POV and Original research tags. These major issues should have been resolved. They have not because they can not. The article does not comply with the guidelines. --WikiCats 04:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - about the only verifiable thing that can be written about this term is a basic definition. And as such it belongs in a dictionary, not an encyclopedia. -- Mako 05:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • keep - far too long for a wiktionary entry. not only the term is verifiable but also the people listed who identify as westies and the comparisons with similar words in other countries. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 05:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep for the reasons outlined by BL. Widely used term and social phenomenon in both Australia and New Zealand. A lot of the article is verifiable. That which isn't should be edited and cleaned up, true, but I've never yet seen an article that should be deleted simply because it needs cleaning up. Grutness...wha? 05:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The issue is that neither of these articles have any complimentary comments in them. Both Westies and Easties only contain derogatory remarks. This is a NPOV issue.

    The problem is that in the future with more common usage the Easties article will be resurrected even if it is deleted now. There are other terms such as Northies that are coming into more common use.

    We need to delete both of these articles now to put an end to this. As long as Westies exists it gives reason for other articles such as Easties and Northies to exist.--WikiCats 06:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

    • Comment. Once we have verifiable evidence of usage of these other terms from reliable sources as we do with westies then we can write articles on them. We have enough verifiable information from reliable sources to write an article on the usage of westies. We don't on those other terms. We have articles on derogatory terms relating to race and gender amongst other issues so that isn't a reason for deletion. Capitalistroadster 07:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
    • No, it does not, because the "if article A then article B" logic is flawed, and obviously so. Uncle G 14:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep - you can't delete this article. It documents a well known term in Sydney's usage. Clean it up by all means, but this is not an invitation to delete it. (JROBBO 08:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC))
  • Strong Delete This article breaks all three cardinal content policies (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:No original research) --WikiCats 08:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Cleanup. It is ridiculous to compare this with Eastie, as "westie" is widely used, even outside Sydney, as shown by its inclusion in the Macquarie Dictionary. This article has unverifiable info, etc, but it could easily be trimmed so that it does not. Eastie couldn't. Verifiability is the standard, in this case. JPD (talk) 11:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Objection I object to major to changes including the removal of tags from the article. I believe the article may have been changed to ovoid its removal and circumvent the debate. --WikiCats 12:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#You_may_edit_the_article_during_the_discussion Uncle G 14:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
      • The article was changed because I argued that it be kept because it could be better than it is. I don't feel this argument would have any integrity if I did not do what I could to improve the article. As Uncle G points out, this is normal practice. It is possibly true that as a result the argument may appear more convincing, but I think keeping the article in an inferior version in the hope that people will want to delete it is more likely to circumvent debate. JPD (talk) 16:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


I made the point above "The over-riding issue for the article is the fact that for several months it has had POV and Original research tags." The same day the tags were removed.

Removing tags is a serious matter. To do it without consensus during a major debate is against the guidelines.

Further to that the guidelines say "It may also be interpreted as an attempt to "hide" the old content from scrutiny by the community." --WikiCats 10:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


The irony of what is going on here is hilarious. Obviously it was the Eastie type people who started this social vilification when they started calling people from the Greater West of Sydney “Westies” and writing all these invented definitions. But the whole thing backfired on them when the West started using the term “Easties” and the Eastie article was written.

Now that social vilification has been turned back on them they can’t take what they dish out. Unfortunately their obsession with social vilification is so great they are unable to take a decision to put an end to it now. --WikiCats 12:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Please do not misquote the guidelines - they say that turning the article into a redirect may be interpreted as an attempt to hide the old content. They also explicitly encourage addressing issues such as POV and OR tags during the debate. You have completed missed my points as well. My point is that a Wikipedia article should be able to describe the "social vilification" and whatever else is associated with the term without participating in the social vilification. Removing the POV and OR material (and hence the tags) is the way to make the article do this better. We should not confuse using the term in a perjorative way with having an article about the term and portray this discussion as a battle between easties and westies. JPD (talk) 18:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
    FWIW, I did quite a bit of tidying of the message and supplying of sources, as is common practice during AFD debates. There is nothing against the rules in it - quite the opposite in fact. To quote: Wikipedia:Guide to deletion: You and others are welcome to continue editing the article during the discussion period. Indeed, if you can address the points raised during the discussion by improving the article, you are encouraged to edit a nominated article. And as to my feelings on the Westies vs Easties topic, I've never heard the word Easties (it's not used here in New Zealand), so it's completely irrelevant as regards my views on this article. Grutness...wha? 00:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


The point that has been over looked is that an Afd does not prevent debate. I challenged the major changes.

Some of the changes were very curious. For example the See also section was completely deleted along with the link to Easties. Very strange indeed or was it an attempt to circumvent the Afds.

When I mentioned "The over-riding issue for the article is the fact that for several months it has had POV and Original research tags." the tags were immediately removed and more non neutral prose was added.

Huge tracts were deleted.

The history shows that for several months I have been combing the the article, removing unreferenced material and rewriting in neutral prose.

Suddenly persons who have shown no interest in the article or its problems start massive rewrites in the middle of an Afd.

I have challenged the contributions and they are under discussion here.Talk:Westies_(people)#Major_removals --WikiCats 11:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Obviously AfD does not prevent debate. Challenging the changes because there is an AfD going on does avoid debate. If you have indeed been removing all the non-neutral prose unreferenced material, then the NPOV and OR tags should not have been there anyway. The over-riding issue is not that the tags have been present for months, but that there has been POV and OR material present for several months. If this material is removed, then the tags should also be removed. I can't see any non-neutral prose that has been added, and you haven't mentioned any. As has been said several times already, it is quite normal for an article to have massive rewrites during an AfD, if the reasons given for deletion are that the article is of poor quality. This is what should happen when the state of the article is drawn to people's attention. JPD (talk) 13:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

All well and good but the fact remains any contribution can be removed by any editor at any time, as I did. Then any disagreement goes to debate. Which is what has been happening for several days. --WikiCats 08:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep Regardless of the presentation of the current article, it cites numerous sources for more than just a dictionary definition of the word. Ansell 12:21, 17 August 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.