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.
Strong Keep, this is one of the Guantanamo articles being worked on by Wikipedia:Wikiproject Terrorism - and though the nominator may have found it in a "less than perfect state", that hardly means it will stay that way. A simple ten minutes meant that I added a fair bit of information to the intro. More is still forthcoming as our Wikiproject works out the best way to pull information from the ongoing legal trials of al-Asadi and similar cases. In addition, going through a series of texts by Andy Worthington, Erik Saar, Moazzam Begg and others which mention specific stories of detainees like al-Asadi, but lack helpful appendices that make "quick, immediate referencing" difficult. As the de facto leader of the Wikiproject focused on improving these articles (and Wikipedia's articles on detainees are actually used and occasionally cited by major news outlets), I have to say that the piecemeal nominations once a week suggesting one or two random Guantanamo detainees be deleted are in bad faith, after numerous discussions, votes and policies were decided in favour of keeping the articles. Simply suggesting a different genus of animal be proposed for deletion every week as an "unnotable distinction in the animal kingdom" would eventually manage to get random genuses deleted through poorly-managed straw polls...but would irreparably harm the Wikimedia Foundation's efforts to build a working database of information on notable subjects such as al-Asadi, and for what? The sake of politicking by a couple of specific Wikipedia users who hold a grudge or political motivation to want to see a random 5% of information deleted each week for their own ends? Wikiproject Terrorism users start working on cleaning up Abdullah's article, ProblemUser1 nominates Abdurahman for deletion instead, project members move to clean up Abdurahman, ProblemUser1 nominates Ahmed for deletion instead - it's a game of hot potato, except the only loser is Wikipedia. For the love of the project, above petty personal grievances, I would implore the "same small handful of "ProblemUser"s to stop this ridiculous farce. Sherurcij(speaker for the dead) 09:37, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, probably a bad faith nomination and a WP:SNOW keep. LinguistAtLarge 09:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - we've been here before. My feeling is that all of these Guantanamo Bay detainees are inherently notable. We ought to have a policy specifically for them and everyone should abide by it. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:41, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep Oh Noes! I can feel it now. This is going to be a long one. What are the bets that every time a new (or not so new) editor discovers these articles, we are going to get an AfD? I hope not, because these are notable, and as such are strong keep. Obligatory Godwin's law: If we have an article for Hitler, why not them? Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - As per several comments above. An article about another of the G-Bay prisoners has also been nominated for deletion, if that should be kept, so should this article. --Knowzilla 19:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That argument is considered poor, see WP:WAX. Stifle (talk) 20:56, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I strongly disagree with the idea that all the Guantanamo detainees are inherently notable. However, this article does have a few secondary sources indicating that the subject has received some news coverage in his home country. I guess this means that it is reasonable to expect that a notable detainee would be the subject of some news coverage, rather than just having his article sourced to primary sources. Thus, keeping this article should not indicate anything about whether other detainees' articles should be kept. --Metropolitan90(talk) 19:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and request closing admin to carefully consider which !votes relate to Wikipedia policy and which amount to "he's notable because I said so". Nothing whatsoever in this article comes near to meeting WP:BIOorWP:GNG. In so far as sources and coverage are cited, it is merely proof that the man exists and is detained at GTMO. I challenge all those supporting a keep on this article to show what Wikipedia notability guideline is met. Stifle (talk) 20:56, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
*Delete(nominator) I nominated this article, but as my dissent has caused personal attacks, I wanted to make my position absolutely clear. Being a detainee at GITMO as a fact does not confer notability. The proposal given, that this confers notability automatically (naturally quieting dissent) is something I strongly disagree with as a matter of principle, and as a matter of policy. Notability is conferred as stated within WP:BIO, and put another way is conferred by accomplishments, deeds, acts and/or achievements that are noteworthy. In this case, the noteworthy accomplishment appears to be that the subject is a detainee at GITMO, and has used the legal process afforded to detainees. These acts do not confer notability in the slightest. The article itself instead lists his name, and his status, then uses blog pieces by writers such as Andy Worthington from blog opinion pieces in an attempt to confer "significant coverage" to the subject, whose name is used as one of many detainees, notwithstanding the fact that blogs are not considered "reliable" for purposes of sourcing articles. The article also uses the same formatic endlessly (in common with all of these detainee articles) to show the subject has brought a habeus corpus proceeding in US District Court. None of these facts confers notability to the individual, instead, it allows the author to provide a ready-made contextual piece that imparts his views on GITMO, a direct violation of WP:COATRACK as well as WP:POV. In other words, this is not an article about an individual, as much as it is an artuicle about a class of individuals to which the subject is a member. As Wikipedia makes clear, notability is not inherited, or associated, to an individual for simply being the member of a class of individuals. Nor is this encyclopedia a docket reference piece, where articles act to record the proceedings of an active case in US District Court. for these reasons, this article should be deleted, and I, like Stifle above, challenge anyone to find that Wikipedia notability guideline has been met.Yachtsman1 (talk) 21:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BIO reads: A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published[3] secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent,[4] and independent of the subject.[5] As The New York Times and other listed notable news coverage clearly shows, this fits very neatly in Wikipedia's guidelines for notability. Are we all looking at the same articles and sources?? --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 00:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Translation: nominator has argued based on a subjective criteria, rather than an objective criteria as we are required: notability is repeated mention in the media that goes beyond recentism (although notability can't be lost once you have it). The issue is not if the subject is notable for x or y event, but if reliable sources verify the notability and consider the subjects news worthy. Furthermore, nominator has build a strawman: no one has argued being a prisoner of Gitmo is notable. We have argued that the sources covering the prisioners at Gitmo made them notable, and that further actions, beyond being prisoners, have made them notable. This is studied on a case by case basis. For all we care, there could be other prisoners, but these are the ones that are notable because reliable sources report on them. With out going to the merits of the uncivil assertion of WP:COATRACK, as well as allegations of WP:POV, these are not really reasons for deletion, but reasons to work the content and edit to achieve neutrality. The only valid criteria for deletion are copy-vio, original research, vandalism, hoax, and non-notability.
This article is none of those.
I must point out at this point that nominator has a contradictory position: he nominated as lacking notability, which we all agree is WP:BIO material. The discussion has revealed, in my opinion, that there are no real WP:BIO issues. However, he then has gone of in a tangent about WP:COATRACK and WP:POV,
Lastly, no one has personally attacked the nom, only strongly disagreed, so I do not understand why does he raise that. If he feels he has been attacked, he should go to WP:DRAMA instead of poisoning the well by distracting from the true discussion. Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 01:23, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much for your comments. Accusing someone of a bad faith nomination on an RFD is a per se personal attack. As to your other points, you have still failed to provide how this article meets WP:BIO. Your analysis instead shifts the burden to the nominator, discounts it, and fails to provide a cogent reason for why WP:BIO has been met. Instead, we have a "subjective" argument that ascribes notability because the individual is being held as a detainee, that he is a member of a class, yet "why" he is notable, aside from those points, is ignored. How is he notable? I again ask that simple question. Yes, his name has been mentioned in passing, but what has he done that is "notable"? Ergo, the fact that he is one of a class of detainees is a fact, just as a list of prisoners at Levenworth Federal Prison is a fact, but that does not make his accomplishments so noteworthy that he deserves his own page. The better course would be to simply list him as a detainee in a list article and leave the lengthier articles for individual detainees whose "noteworthy" accomplishments/deeds can be listed and sourced from reliable publications.Yachtsman1 (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Editing problems with the article are dealt with by editing, Disagreements about how to do it are dealt with on the article talk page or at the project. The man is notable, with sufficient coverage in RSs. I see there are now sources in the native countries of the prisoners from outside the US thus removing the cultural bias of the articles and demonstrating international notability. I'm prepared to predict that over the next year as the facility closes, and for many years after that, yet additional sources will appear, including abundant ones on each individual: they will all have as tory to tell. DGG (talk) 05:19, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Yachtsman1 (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
what I think I said was notable now, and will be even more notable hereafter. DGG (talk) 04:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep--This discussion has shown notability of the subject beyond nomination vague argument.--Jmundo (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2008 (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.
