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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A

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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 merge to Torture memos. Shimeru (talk) 08:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A

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Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Synthesis of a government document. Not encylopedic, people can just read the document. Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 23:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Unnecessary synthesis of a government memo, any relevant information should be included at the "Torture Memos" page.[reply]

Other Articles Included:

Combined AfD Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 23:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The memo is over 40 pages of rich legal analysis. People could also just read the Bible (considered a government document in Vatican City) instead of looking it up on Wikipedia. This article provides a distilled synthesis of the key points and arguments of the memo, which are buried in the original text and completely unaccessible (i.e. incomprehensible or elusive) to the general public. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The subject of this article has been hotly debated in the media over the past two years, and the memo has become infamous. It is part of the set of documents called the "Torture memos" which were written by various attorneys in the U.S. government discussing the treatment of detainees convicted or suspected of terrorism. The details of the memo reveal some of the thinking of the attorneys at the time, which is vital to any reader interested in U.S. government policy after 9-11. All of the "torture memos" are extremely important historically and academically, but are too long to be summarized in just one article. Leaving this article out of wikipedia would be a travesty to Wikipedia's mission. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting articles must follow wiki policy. The only valid reasons, per wiki policy, for the proposed deletion are: notability and content forking.
The notability guideline states that, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." All three of these documents, and the legal arguments in the content, have received considerable press coverage world-wide, and are perhaps of the most "infamous" legal documents of their decade. Therefore, the articles meet the notability guideline.
The content forking guideline states that articles which are redundant or created for the purpose of POV-pushing may be deleted, but that does not apply here. The individual articles, merely summarized in the Torture memos article, give important details of the various arguments of the individual documents, and identify them individually, as they have independent significance. Furthermore, the guideline states that, "As an article grows, editors often create Summary style spin-offs or new, linked article for related material. This is acceptable, and often encouraged, as a way of making articles clearer and easier to manage." The summary style guideline states that, "The length of a given Wikipedia article tends to grow as people add information to it. This cannot go on forever: very long articles would cause problems. So we must move information out of articles periodically. In general, information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new articles to hold the excised information." Inclusion of the articles is therefore not in violation of content forking, but is summary style.
Therefore, because the articles meet all wikipedia policies for inclusion (particularly "notability" and "summary style"), and deletion under wikipedia deletion policy is unfounded, deletion of these articles would be in violation of the mission of wikipedia and they should retained. Zoticogrillo (talk) 00:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have a few problems with the current state of the article.
  • There are unchanged bits of text. While you have made many structural changes to the article, it is not a new article, and needs to be history merged to comply with copyright restrictions. There are some other good reasons for using that article as a base, so that we can see what is cleanup tagged and categorized. We need to get that and the redirects straightened out first.
  • You say that consensus was reached, and I'm afraid no consensus for these other pages were reached. In fact, it seems like low numbers of watchers brought limited, if any responses at all.
  • My problem with the three articles you created is synthesis. Each article is basically just a summarized version of the original text, which is unencyclopedic. The page Torture memos actually creates an encyclopedia article. A guideline that apples to fiction, but will be instructive by analogy is WP:NOTPLOT. When we talk about a book, we do not have an entire article with the soul source being the book and the content being a chapter by chapter analysis of the plot. Likewise, an article that, for at least two of the three, have no other sources other than the memo itself, a primary source.
  • Tying into the earlier point, the articles do not have many secondary sources. See wikipedia's policy on sourcing, which says that secondary sources are the preferred points of information. While the primary memos are probably very useful in certain applications, the summary should be compiled mainly from third party sources, and not synthesized from other information. The problem with synthesis of a source derived from that source is that it can unfairly represent one point of view.
  • Probably the most compelling reason to remove these as separate articles is the simple fact that their content is unencyclopedic. These articles fail "Wikipedia is not a Mere collection of public domain or other source material," because they are mainly just synthesis of a PD government document that could be hosted at wikisource. Wikipedia is also not the place to put quotations for use or other annotated text or portions thereof.
  • Notability and POV forking are not the only reasons for deletion, in fact, what Wikipedia is not as well as "unencyclopedic" are also valid reasons. One could also WP:IAR.
I applaud your efforts and work to work on this article. Once an admin fixed the histmerge, my recommendation is that you work to make the article flow. Don't just say what the memos have to say, but use third party, independent sources to see what people think the significance and impact of the memos were. Because these memos were all treated as a group by most Americans, it is probably a good idea to keep them that way in the discussion of them. You probably don't need to describe the memos in as great detail; a few paragraphs on how each differs from the others and the general meaning of all should suffice. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Response, in order
  1. The article has been moved properly.
  2. Consensus is presumed by silence and wikipedia encourages admissibility/inclusiveness of content and active editing.
  3. The article summarizes only the most essential elements of the memos, and in the same manner as articles that summarize T.V. episodes or movies. Additional content and citations can be added later.
  4. These are the first iterations of these articles, and, as stated, additional sources and content can be added very soon.
  5. They are not merely a synthesis. They are a summary of source material, and currently there are no other citations, but in the same way an article of a painting might also be sparse in sources. The source material is prolix and a summary is important for making the documents accessible to the public. Additional citations and content will be introduced later.
  6. So you of all the normal reasons for deletion, you suggest it be excluded simply because it falls in the all-inclusive "other" category?! Why do you mention Ignore all rules? Zoticogrillo (talk) 07:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that my main point was that it is not necessary to have an article, which is a fork (using this term generally, not as in POV fork) article of the main article, Torture Memos. All three are often discussed together, and the other three articles will continue to be redundant with the main article with the exeption of, in your words, "distilled synthesis of the key points and arguments of the memo, which are buried in the original text and completely unaccessible (i.e. incomprehensible or elusive) to the general public." I think that WP:NOTPLOT applies well by analogy. The content of the articles is therefore not encyclopedic, which is just as good a deletion rationale as the two that you say are the only cases. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Drastic measures such as completely eliminating an entire article should always follow the wiki rules and policies, which state in short: When in doubt, leave it. There are numerous statements throughout the various "wikipedia principles" pages, which make it clear that wikipedia is a liberal media which anyone can edit, which is accepting of imperfect works in progress and that restrictive interpretation of the rules to exclude content should be avoided. It is clearly stated in the simplified ruleset that we as editors should, "be gracious: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do," and according to Jimbo Wales, "any security measures to be implemented to protect the community... should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny"... [which] means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other."
It has been proposed that these articles are not encyclopedic, but the explaination as to why is unclear, and it has been proposed that the article be deleted through a strict analogized interpretation of a policy not applicable to these articles. Creating rules by analogy, particularly when they deal with drastic measures such as eliminating useful content, is dangerous and bad policy. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:11, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a very clear reason why I claim these articles are Unencyclopedic. They merely, as the editor below puts it, provide a "blow by blow summary of the entire document with a short intro," which I see as not having much potential unless coupled with the main article. It is not an encyclopedia article, merely a summary. Each of our arguments is just as well based in singificant wikipolicy (and we don't have a guideline for everything), so we need to see what consensus the community will reach. If no consensus is reached, of course default will be to keep. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 23:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You have found no clear outside support for your proposed definition of "unencyclopedic," and instead propose that an unrelated rule be applied by analogy. The summary of very significant government documents is in fact encyclopedic. It is the legal reasoning in the documents which make them significant, making the summary of that reasoning a key element of the articles. These articles therefore provide important information for those researching these documents, and are perfectly in line with the purpose of an encyclopedia. A new definition of encyclopedic that would exclude these articles should be more explicit, and it is the burden of the individual who proposes such a new definition to clarify it. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete I think it's pretty well summed up in "Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources" WP:NOFULLTEXT. Great candidate for transwiki to wikisource though.--Savonneux (talk) 01:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "full text of lengthy primary sources." Zoticogrillo (talk) 07:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah my bad, it's a blow by blow summary of the entire document with a short intro. Going to neutral.--Savonneux (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Shimeru (talk) 08:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The topics are certainly notable. I have a question, however - why have we completely ruled out merging each of these articles into the appropriate section in Torture memos? By that I mean adding the expanded synopses into the appropriate section or subsection on that article. The resulting article would certainly be long but would it be "too long"? I can't make that judgment but I've certainly seen some very long articles on Wikipedia and the Torture memos page only looks as long as it does thanks to a very large References list. -MidnightDesert (talk) 13:03, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think that a merge, while eliminating some of the blow-by-blow commentary is the best option. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think WP:CFORK is what was supposed to be mentioned here. --Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 20:40, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cut down and merge or redirect to Torture Memos. I don't think a merge of all this content is a good idea, but some of it could be kept in the main article. The main problem with these articles is that they're essentially synopses of primary sources, which is not how to write a Wikipedia article - it's analogous to an article on a fictional subject consisting of nothing but plot summary (which is also discouraged). Carrying out such a synopsis ourselves is arguably original research; we should generally restrict ourselves to what other sources say rather than making direct judgements about primary sources. Robofish (talk) 01:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge - I'm following up my earlier comment with a Merge vote. Cut down on the material and merge it with Torture memos. It would probably be apt to put up redirects as well. --MidnightDesert (talk) 06:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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