Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australia–Barbados relations (2nd nomination)

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 no consensus. These are becoming a bloody mess. The lot of you need to metaphorically sit down somewhere and hash out a notability guideline for these articles. Hint: "All of them are notable" is clearly NOT consensus. In addition, some of you -- on both sides of the debate -- are acting very badly toward fellow editors. This discussion is filled with assumptions of bad faith and borderline personal attacks. Those of you responsible -- and I'm fairly sure you know who you are -- may consider yourselves duly warned. If you cannot discuss these articles productively, then you might consider directing your editorial attention elsewhere, rather than attacking those who assert a different opinion. This is more or less a procedural close, as the debate is likely too toxic to produce anything of real use. No bar to renomination after a reasonable attempt to work out an acceptable guideline. Shimeru (talk) 11:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Australia–Barbados relations

AfDs for this article:
Australia–Barbados relations (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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noting the last AfD was no consensus. the fact that the Australian government decided to move its embassy off Barbados says something about relations. and the absence of embassy is not due to no diplomatic relations and history of sanctions, like the reason for no US embassies in Cuba, north korea, Iran like some might say. 3 of the sources are simply direct from the Australian government. one source says "Both nations have given some consideration for the signing of a double taxation agreement between their two nations" giving consideration to what is one of the most basic agreements is not really concrete. other than that most of the coverage relates to sporting field [1]. those using the argument that coverage must exist in national newspapers in national languages, well Australia and Barbados both have English as main languages. LibStar (talk) 12:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of any that were deleted, the smaller ones were merged into one larger article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
over a 100 were deleted not redirected nor merged. LibStar (talk) 03:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that number was just pulled from your butt. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All this talking past eachother is not really useful. The history of these bilateral relation AfDs is a battlefield, but many marginal articles have been kept and some have been deleted. There is simply a lack of consensus in how to deal with a large % of these articles.--Milowent (talk) 04:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
would suggest WP:NPA applies here. LibStar (talk) 04:03, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Biruitorul, you keep saying that in every article like this. That was never established. More often than not, people seem to state that the relationship between two nations is in fact notable. Dream Focus 14:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"More often than not, people seem to state that the relationship between two nations is in fact notable." that is not true. if they were automatically notable it is not proven through WP:CONSENSUS of many of being deleted. the fact is not all combinations are inherently notable. LibStar (talk) 14:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - yes, the two have relations. No, they are not notable because they, as such, have not "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Surely the distinction isn't that hard to grasp? - Biruitorul Talk 21:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It has been in the news. It would seem that Biruitorul just hasn't been reading the right news. BBCCaribbean.com, CaribbeanNetNews, Caribbean360.com, CaribbeanPressReleases.com, and all the other 30-40+ various Caribbean newspapers. I haven't had a chance to get to this article as there are other Caribbean articles that require re-writes *and* referencing. So there are other articles that I've been pulling together references on. Barbados' main article requires a massive re-write for example. But Australia has been very engaged in the region in the past few months. For example, just today the government of Australia announced they would pay for the reconstruction of the Parliament building in Grenada.[2] In Barbados, Australia just recently held a meeting (either last month or the month before) talking about several new spending initiatives that they will be undertaking in Barbados and other islands.

Here's the results of some of those recent meetings:

CaribDigita (talk) 02:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

these mainly refer to Australia's relationship with a group of countries in Caribbean and not specific Australia-Barbados relations. if this was Australia-CARICOM relations it would be appropriate. LibStar (talk) 02:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
read my nomination, I have given my reasons for how I believe it fails notability standards ie a lack of coverage of actual bilateral relations, renomination is permitted particularly if the last AfD was no consensus and no subsequent discovery of more sources. asking to close as no consensus is just a masquerade for wanting to keep it. LibStar (talk) 07:51, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you both avoid questioning each other's motivations we'll get a better result. LibStar is perfectly entitled to nominate any article that (he?) believes in good faith should be deleted, and (as my vote demonstrates) an editor can believe that this article should be deleted and still recognise the fact that there's nothing remotely like community consensus to delete well-sourced minor bilateral relations articles. LibStar and others should probably hold off on making more nominations until there's community consensus though, so as to avoid wasting everyone's time with a raft of these hard-fought and unproductive debates. - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:57, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
thanks DustFormsWords, I have never seen "Speedily close as no consensus " except when something is renominated immediately after surviving an AfD. This article lacks sources as one of the weakest bilateral ones, hence my nomination. The problem is that people are headfast keep or delete, I actually recently !voted keep on a bilateral AfD so am not intent on deleting all of them. in fact many (not all) containing pairs of large countries are notable. LibStar (talk) 08:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've never seen it before I used it in the other one either but once a debate reaches 20-something participants where at least some members of both sides are experienced, intelligent Wikipedians citing policy, it's pretty clear that there's not going to be a community consensus to delete. That's what happened at Mexico-Iceland and, while not all bilateral relations articles are created equal, this Australia-Barbados one seems to be very similar in length, quality and sourcing to the Mexico-Iceland one. Rather than replicating what is, by this stage, a pretty heated debate in both forums, both should be closed as no consensus and the argument moved to a centralised policy discussion. - DustFormsWords (talk) 08:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, searches indicate me far less coverage than Mexico-Iceland. Most coverage is Australia and a group of Caribbean nations and not specifically Barbados. LibStar (talk) 08:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete There few things that are noteworthy here would suddenly become redundant if applied to each CARICOM country (they would be pasted into several articles for CARICOM members and Australia). Maybe a pan-CARICOM article is in order instead, but it's quite clear these articles only exist as cruft, and prioritize things that we would otherwise consider irrelevant, and no one would ever miss. Why? The usual process: stub/sub-standard article -> AfD(s) -> spurious "rescue" attempt -> desperate search for all kinds of sources -> trivia collection/ranting/inventory of photo-ops. Dahn (talk) 08:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Lacks references to establish notability and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's website entry on the relationship here describes only very limited contact between the two countries, most of which apparantly takes place through the Commonwealth rather than directly. Nick-D (talk) 09:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, essentially no relations to speak of; lack of sources speaks volumes. Dahn's point, and CARICOM suggestion, are both excellent. Stifle (talk) 14:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep A Groubani style map has been added. FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
could you please explain your keep argument. how does it meet WP:N or WP:GNG? LibStar (talk) 00:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy close as no consensus As the nominator himself states above that he felt the close by User:One of this nominator's last nomination of this article was incorrect, per guideline, that would call for a review of the close, not sending an article back again to AFD as many times as is needed in a hope that he eventually wears down those who disagree with him. I am also quite concerned that he seems to have made attempted reversal of so many "relations" article closes his personal grail... almost WP:POINTY in scope. His recent edits to the article[3] show his wish that it be seen in its worst light. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 15:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and let an admin close the debate. We don't need to guide closing admins in doing their job. And there is absolutely nothing improper about this nomination after 12 months since the last AfD. There is nothing about this relationship that is notable. The relationship has not been the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources so it is impossible to have a reliable article. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The relations of these two countries are even less notable than most on the world stage. None of the sources study the topic as a whole in that context, but merely report events. --BlueSquadronRaven 15:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep , notable topic covered by several RS (I count 10 in the article), and which represents an essential contribute of WP, exactly for the reason that it is an obscure but notable subject we successfully managed to cover in a good fashion. The article deserves endorsement and improvement, not deletion. And please trout LibStar for the disruptive and time-wasting book burning exercise in attempting to delete notable articles. --Cyclopiatalk 18:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
three of the sources are from the Australian Government so not entirely independent of the subject. BHP Billiton has extensive operations worldwide, so simply where they operate in country X does not automatically translate to Australia-X relations (also note that BHP Billiton is no longer a full Australian company). LibStar (talk) 00:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Am not opposed to an organizational merge of content elsewhere, but no good reason has been offered for why verifiable content should be deleted from the project.--Milowent (talk) 18:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I see "significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject", and thus meets the GNG. Or is the associated press now seen as too cozy with the Australians to consider it truly independent? Buddy431 (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
three of the sources are from the Australian Government so not entirely independent of the subject. one source says that BHP is one firm of 3 bidding of a contract.BHP Billiton has extensive operations worldwide, so simply where they operate in country X does not automatically translate to Australia-X relations (also note that BHP Billiton is no longer a full Australian company). LibStar (talk) 00:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did not look at the names, did you look at my gnews search? you have previously mentioned trade, embassies and agreements etc make for notable relations. there exists no bilateral agreements between these 2 countries (only multilateral CARICOM), no embassies, very little trade. they have very little not extensive commercial relatons, just BHP Billiton having a contract there. LibStar (talk) 07:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Sufficient reliable sources to allow for a decent, stand-alone article. I think DGGs comment about the manner in which these articles seem to be nominated is quite perceptive. I also wonder whether this continuing campaign to delete these types of articles adds to the systemic bias that already privileges articles on European and US topics to the detriment of the rest of the world. -- Mattinbgn\talk
how is this systemic bias? all Australian newspapers and news services such as ABC publish online? Australia and Barbados both use English so there is no bias with non English sources. LibStar (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I do think there are far too many "X-Y relations" articles on Wikipedia and some of them are plainly silly, but this one is actually reasonable given there is some history to Australia's representation in Barbados and the oil and gas stuff. Beyond that, the sources appear to exist to support this one. Orderinchaos 03:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Clearly a notable relation, as stated by others and plenty of sources to back that up. Dream Focus 14:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nominator is the same who sent this to AFD a year ago. I'd like to point out, once again, that many countries do not see any reason to waste money having an embassy in every single country, there no possible reason for it these days, since you can instantly communicate with anyone around the world, and very easily fly someone over to meet in person if necessary. Lack of an embassy does not signify anything. Dream Focus 14:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
embassies facilitate not only tourism but establish important trade links in a country. for example, if a Chinese company wants to do business in New Zealand, they can contact their embassy in NZ. if there is no need for embassies because one can fly or phone then why are governments opening new embassies all the time? especially in former Soviet countries and Eastern europe and emerging Asian countries especially China. a lack of an embassy is an indicator of a lack of desire for strong relations. embassies and consulates also assist large migrant populations who want to establish links with their home country, and assist tourists from home countries. Australia has a consulate in Bali due to it being one of the most popular destinations for Australians, this is not some random coincidence. LibStar (talk) 14:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
also looking at the hundreds of bilateral articles that I have seen, if 2 countries have embassies they are rarely deleted because it naturally follows that they have established links and is shown in wide coverage. LibStar (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
why do countries open embassies? Beijing opened an embassy in 1992 following establishment of diplomatic ties. Even a tiny country like Vanuatu knows the value of embassies. opening of the embassy will help his government’s policy of empowering the rural population of Vanuatu through infrastructure and capacity building initiatives of course why bother opening one in China if they can fly there? LibStar (talk) 14:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what has the strength of relations to do with the notability of the content. To document that "Countries X and Y don't want anything to do with each other" is no less encyclopedic than the opposite. --Cyclopiatalk 14:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
they are related in terms of how much coverage they generate. of course if they have conflict they also generate coverage which is another special case. If they have "weak" or limited relations unlikely to generate coverage and therefore satisfy WP:GNG. LibStar (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So let's stick talking about coverage instead of using the embassy red herring. --Cyclopiatalk 14:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
it's not a red herring at all, out of the bilateral articles that have been deleted almost all have no embassies either way. it's an indicator of weak relations and hence often follows by coverage. same token people should stop saying "coverage exists in national newspapers" or "disruptive nomination", and not provide evidence of actual coverage. LibStar (talk) 15:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a red herring because it is only a vague indicator. The only thing that counts is sources availability, we don't need proxies for it. Evidence of actual coverage in national newspapers is in the article already -just look at ref 11 for example. --Cyclopiatalk 15:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, please learn some logic. The fact that bilateral relationships that were deemed non notable often ones without embassies doesn't mean that not having an embassy is a good predictor of being not notable. Lots of criminals drink water; this doesn't mean drinking water makes you a criminal. --Cyclopiatalk 15:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on embassy in Barbados this is one of the rare cases where a country has decided to move their embassy to an adjacent country. the fact that Australia could afford an embassy in Barbados but moved it elsewhere is highly significant. this is not a case of Australia never having an embassy in Barbados. LibStar (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is significant in the meaning that it is a significant fact to include in this article. Again, the fact that has been moved recently means zero on notability. WP:NTEMP : notability of stuff isn't time-dependent. --Cyclopiatalk 14:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The cost of keeping an embassy open is rather high. If you don't need a staff down there full time to deal with things, then there is no possible reason to waste money for it. It doesn't mean the countries don't interact. Dream Focus 20:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In response to: "also looking at the hundreds of bilateral articles that I have seen, if 2 countries have embassies they are rarely deleted because it naturally follows that they have established links and is shown in wide coverage. LibStar (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)" I'd like to respond:[reply]
Do you have a list of the articles deleted? I believe they were deleted from lack of coverage, not lack of embassy. I recall many stating that lack of embassy does not signify anything. Dream Focus 20:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they were deleted for lack of coverage and not for lack of embassies per se. But it has been observed by myself, Libstar, and others that there's a very good correlation between no embassies and no coverage, and conversely if there are embassies then there are often sources. Yilloslime TC 20:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Really? I haven't noticed that at all. A recent article was kept, despite having no embassies. [4] Is there a list of all bi-lateral articles somewhere? I see you making the same case over at another discussion [5], but the overwhelming majority of people there so far say to keep the article, there plenty of coverage even without embassies, so it'll probably be kept also. Dream Focus 06:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As someone who has voted in opposition to the nominator, I do however think there's been far too much focus in this AfD on the nominator's alleged intentions. I think this was a reasonable nomination made for the right reasons, and the community has responded appropriately to it by determining on the facts whether it should be retained or deleted. Orderinchaos 01:31, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
thanks, Orderinchaos. LibStar (talk) 02:08, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except for the fact that he nominated several of these things, that he had previously nominated, for deletion again, we thus having to just repeat the same discussion as before. And some of the other ones ended in keep, not just no consensus. Dream Focus 06:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
there is no rule against renomination after several months. If we can't renominate why does WP allow this? simply using renomination as a basis of a "no consensus" !vote is really a masquerade for keep. LibStar (talk) 06:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Renomination is fine if relevant policies/guidelines have changed in the meantime. Otherwise, I think it's akin to forum shopping, i.e. "repeatedly asking for additional outside opinions until you get an opinion you like." Yes, I know it's (unfortunately) technically allowed; it doesn't make it less dishonest IMHO. --Cyclopiatalk 09:51, 25 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.