Talk:Robert Baden-Powell's sexual orientation/AfD history

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This page is intended to fairly summarise the points made during this article's three AfDs. Please to not continue discussions here.

Contents

[edit] History

Three deletions discussions have occurred.

  • The first AFD was closed on 5 March 2006 with a decision of no consensus
  • The second AFD was closed on 27 February 2007 with a decision of no consensus
  • The third AFD was closed on 29 February 2008 with a decision of keep

[edit] Background

The information in this article was originally in a subsection of the main Robert Baden Powell article. After extensive discussions on that talk page, the information was spun-off into a summary style sub-article.

[edit] Options and arguments

All unique arguments and counter-arguments have been included below.[1]

[edit] Delete

The unique reasons given for deletion of the article have been as follows, with counter-arguments inset where given:

  • Baden-Powell's sexuality is not notable
  • Given Baden-Powell founded the scouting movement, theories on a sexual preference for young boys are notable.
  • Notable given the "Scouts' current policy discriminating against young gay men"
  • Theories presented are well-referenced to main biographical texts on Baden-Powell
  • It is a personal attack on Baden-Powell and/or the scouting movement
  • "Attack" implies that a variation of sexuality is shameful
  • Sourced investigation of sexuality "humanizes", doesn't "attack"
  • It is "revisionist history"
  • The article content comes from a very well researched biography
  • "'Revisionism' is what historians do, as our base of information grows"

[edit] Keep

The unique reasons given for keeping the article have been as follows, with counter-arguments inset where given:

  • Article is fairly written, well sourced, notable and maintains NPOV
  • Too long to merge into main article
  • Decision to create this article was previously decided by consensus on main article's talk page
  • Talk page consensus was not as strong as claimed
  • Previous discussions are not a bar to revisiting the topic
  • Scouts are trying to bury "incriminating" material
  • Merging back into main article would restart debate there
  • Discussion of article content is on-going, and can't continue if the article is deleted
  • Deleting would be censorship
  • Deleting the article is different than deleting the content. Content could be remerged into the main article
  • First two debates decided to "keep" and nothing has changed
  • Previous discussions are not a bar to revisiting the topic
  • First two AfD ended in "no consensus", not "keep"
  • Summary in main article is too brief
  • Easier to maintain as a separate article
  • Shouldn't merge as article is more about the theories surrounding his sexuality than about Baden-Powell himself

[edit] Merge

The unique reasons given for merging the information back into the main article have been as follows, with counter-arguments inset where given:

  • It's not a POVFORK but a summary style spin-off. All POVs are fairly represented in both summary and sub-article.
  • Having a separate article provides undue weight to the subject
  • The information in was removed from the main article originally to avoid undue weight there
  • The fact that this much sourced information exists speaks against it being given undue weight

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ There is one exception. All arguments of the form "The article is X" were countered at some point by "The article is not X". Such a counter-argument can be assumed for each listed argument