Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Women's studies

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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. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-11 04:09Z

[edit] Women's studies

Women's studies (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article, as it is now, along with all the resistance against it being fixed, is very poorly written, it mostly has the anti-feminist backlash as opposed to definitions and history of what the department is... I do not think it is fixable and I suggest this article be deleted and rewritten from scratch. It is an Attack page as far as I see it, and its history seems to confirm me. Towsonu2003 19:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep. I have no idea why this reasonably good short article on a clearly notable topic should be deleted, and I think the nominator should read Wikipedia:Deletion policy more carefully. There have been occasional problems with (anonymous) POV-pushing, though even most of the text is NPOV (the remaining problem being one of undue weight, and there was an NPOV tag on it until the nominator removed it). This article is basically solid, relatively well-sourced, and if anything, is primarily in need of expansion. The nomination makes no sense to me. -- Rbellin|Talk 19:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Comment I did not remove the tags, I replaced them with db-attack, which turned out to be the wrong tag. As per the aricle being NPOV, well, everyone has eyes and my eyes see it as more of an attack page that should be rewritten than a page with undue weight. Towsonu2003 19:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, and Comment - Towsonu2003 has correctly observed that this article is not well-written and not well-balanced. It's a stub that has been about 70% dedicated to covering criticism of the subject field (from a fairly obvious POV), with only 30% or so of the article dedicated to the subject field itself. This article & other articles in gender studies have been under protracted attention from editors (usually anonymous) who express criticism of the articles, and of the subjects of the articles (e.g., "This article on feminism is really biased, and is clearly written by feminists who hate men; the feminist movement has fostered grave injustices on men and this is one example.) That's a caricature but not much of one: Truly if you follow these discussions there is a lot of ranting about feminism, that is not directed to improving the article as a reference source, but is instead just expressing the editor's frustrations & personal / political views about feminism.
More seriously, a lot of these editors effectively treat the articles as a battleground. They don't get the encyclopedia article is a reference work angle; instead, they think that an article about women's studies is actually an advocacy piece for the subject. Coming from that perspective, their interactions on Talk pages and their edits are often combative, expressing their view that "equal time" for criticism is the way to express NPOV.
However, I disagree with Towsonu2003 on to handle the problem. Towsonu2003 thinks we should scrap & start over. Unfortunately, that's not going to be a good solution, because the instant a new stub is created for women's studies, it will still be a magnet for the critics of feminism who want their voices to be heard on the matter.
I think the only way out of this mess is to (a) write the individual articles as they should be written, anyway; not stubs subject to overbalance, but reference pieces with length and depth appropriate to their subject matter. Criticism and alternative views will naturally find a home in such an article, hopefully satisfying the anti-feminists & feminist critics, but more importantly, satisfying the real reference needs of someone trying to understand Women's studies -- the discipline, the political responses to it, and so on. And (b) educating the editors about the purpose of wikipedia, appropriate behavior, what good articles look like, and so on, and crucially, that an article is not an advocacy piece for or against the subject of the article, but a NPOV reference about the subject of the article. This work is incredibly tedious and difficult when people are hostile, but I don't see a way around it.
I am trying, now, to work on this one article; to add substantive content that needs to be there, so that it's not just a stub; and so we can integrate the necessary criticism that should be in the article in a way that makes for a useful reference source for someone seeking to understand what women's studies is, its history and context, its ties with political feminism (including how the discipline & movement have affected each other, and how criticism of each has affected the other), and its influence and role in modern cultural studies. I think we should keep the article & would appreciate it if editors of good faith would help think about what the article should look like. --lquilter 21:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep: AFD is not generally the place to argue article content. I agree that the article is lousy, but the topic is clearly encyclopedic. There is, as far as I can tell, nothing in it that is (for example) so slanderous so that we should delete it so as not to have it in the article history. There is nothing to prevent a complete rewrite without going through any formal process like AFD. - Jmabel | Talk 22:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Comment: I'm not interested in the article's history so much. I believe that a formal procedure that deletes the article will make it much easier to rewrite it. The Criticism page is already separate, so anyone who will be starting to write it will have a clear view of what to write: stuff that explains what this discipline is, and properly do so, without mixing up priorities...
If deleted, the article will also have an argument against edits that result in the entry attacking itself Towsonu2003 22:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep: The topic is clearly encyclopedic. I agree with the nominator's and lquilter's concern, but suggest that you just rewrite boldly. --Slp1 01:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 13:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep: Subject is encyclopedic, content needs expansion but seems strong (valuable) in places. --Joe Decker 15:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep per WP:SNOW. It is trivial to demonstrate that many, probably most, Western universities offer a section of courses in women's studies, and that many have departments devoted to teaching it. Obviously, as a topic it is worthy of an encyclopedia article. Finally, despite any issues that the nominator or other people might have with the current text, it isn't broken enough to require deletion. AfD is not for content disputes. - Smerdis of Tlön 15:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, well-known major at many universities. Rewrite if necessary. NawlinWiki 19:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Internationally notable and encyclopedic subject, and Afd is not for requesting cleanup. Well-known major at my university also. Prolog 21:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, develop and expand such that WP:NPOV#Undue weight is not violated. Please use the appropriate avenues for dispute resolution in the future. --Dhartung | Talk 22:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I agree that the article is badly written and that the "attack" content is inappropriate. However, the subject is notable and does not qualify for deletion.--Cailil 14:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • keep it is important that we correct POV in the articles, but deleting them is not the way to do it. The article has now gotten enough attention that I hope it will be soon fixed. DGG 04:54, 9 February 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.