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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 attack at Beijing Drum Tower during Olympics

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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 No consensus, default to Keep. Almost a tie between the numbers of Keep and Delete votes. It was hard to make out any strong policy grounds for either the keep or delete position; it seemed to boil down to each person's judgment as to whether the event would have any long-term significance. Since the sources are adequate, there is no reason for the closing admin to override the popular vote, which is No Consensus. EdJohnston (talk) 05:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2008 attack at Beijing Drum Tower during Olympics

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2008 attack at Beijing Drum Tower during Olympics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)
AfDs for this article:


Now that the dust has settled, I bring this article back for consensus to delete or merge to somewhere. This is the third nomination. Concerns have been expressed by more than one editor that this event fails WP:NOT#NEWS. In short, the article seems to fall within the category of newsworthy but unencyclopaedic events.

The poor victims are our everyday tourists (and guide) to a Beijing beauty spot, and our assailant is an everyday madman. The attack happened in Beijing during the olympic games, and enjoyed a certain amount of publicity for that reason, and that 2 of the victims were related to members of the US Olympics squad. Todd Bachman namespace redirects here due to the sentiment that he fails WP:BLP1E. The consensus over at Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics appears to be that the event was not causally related to the games, and should not appear.

What is more, there is the long-running disagreement as to an appropriate title for the article, and the article's name has been changed 18 times, I believe. Consensus on the name has stalled, probably for the lack of interest, now that the games are over. I move to delete. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AfDs are judged on notability, not interest, and interest is not synonymous (nor a substitute for) notability. I may find a local artist interesting, but that doesn't make them notable. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mergeto Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics in a crime section 70.55.86.100 (talk) 07:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transwiki to WikiNews (if they have it alread, delete). While the event took place during the Olympics, it doesn't seem to have had any major effect on the events. - Mgm|(talk) 10:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, a move to delete this was withdrawn two months ago, and there was no consensus to delete this two months ago. This was certainly a notable event in relation to the US Olympics volleyball team. I don't think this turns Wikipedia into an "indiscriminate collection of information." And I think WP:NOT#NEWS needs to be rewritten. One could extrapolate "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." to the Olympic games themselves — or even the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which was not "causally" related to the 1996 games. I don't see how WP:BLP1E applies since it itself says "Cover the event, not the person." I don't think this belongs at Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics either, because this event was not a "concern" or "controversy" over the games, but that's actually another reason to not delete. If this belonged there, we would need to merge and redirect, not delete. If policies and guidelines give contradicting information — WP:N says "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." but then says news coverage does not count "it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute evidence of sufficient notability." and WP:NOT#NEWS says "Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic." — we should consider how Wikipedia would be improved or damaged by deleting this article. The event was certainly embarassing for China, but Wikipedia is not censored, unlike the internet in China. --Pixelface (talk) 11:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in some way or another, via separate article or within the "Concerns" article. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 02:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Is there some policy that says a large number of name changes indicates some subsequent course of action? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nor have I heard that a slowdown in editing is cause for action. -JWGreen (talk) 03:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • And in fact it is not: WP:NOEFFORT specifically states that "An article should be assessed based on whether it has a realistic potential for expansion, not how frequently it has been edited."
  • Keep. Significant coverage from reliable sources, well-written, likely to be cited in the future, etc. A better name might be nice but otherwise it's fine. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. To quote WP:NOT#NEWS "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." This is not coverage of an announcement, sports or tabloid journalism. The event is notable, passes the acid test in WP:NOT#NEWS and has reliable sources. It passes WP:BLP1E since it is about the event, not the individual. Whether its true or not that this is attempted censorship I do not know, and will not comment on, but if so, I'd like to point out WP:NOT#CENSOR. Theres no good reasoning I can see to delete this article based on the points brought up in the nom. I'd also like to point out that two policy shortcuts cited in the nom (WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:UNENC) point to the same policy (Wikipedia is not news). -JWGreen (talk) 03:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Fails WP:NOT#NEWS "News coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, but not all events warrant an encyclopedia article of their own." As for claims of censorship, see Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics. Again this article does not bear additional weight beyond that main article. davumaya 03:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You forget to mention that the policy specificly states what does not pass WP:NOT#NEWS: "Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." This article is not an announcement, sports, or tabloid journalism. Even the last part of your bolded statement says "not all" which means some do. Why do you think this instance of this event does not pass? Citing policies as your sole reason without explaining your reasoning is also against WP:VAGUEWAVE. -JWGreen (talk) 03:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh hm, lets go back to 1st nomination "Todd Bachman is the CEO of a moderately large corporation in Minnesota, it has caught the attention of President Bush, wide news coverate, father of a former Olympic athlete, and father-in-law of an Olympic coach. -JWGreen (talk) 04:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)" 1) Sorry we already put you down on that "large corporation" notability, 2) The attention of Bush? Right... 3) Wide news coverage NOT NEWS 4) Father of a former Olympian, thats a long stretch there, 5) Father-in-law? There should be a rule of degrees of separation. Trying to censor my vote because you don't like it? Lame. davumaya 09:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see we are assuming good faith. I pointed out that the policy states what kinds of news are inappropriate for Wikipedia, and that this article does not fit that description, and therefore passes WP:NOT#NEWS. I did not censor you. To censor you, I would have had to remove your comment (they are not votes remember). Am I missing something here, how is my previous comment censorship? -JWGreen (talk) 19:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The topic is definitely notable, and the context of the event has to be taken into account. WP:NOT#NEWS discourages "announcements, sports and tabloid journalism". I fail to see how an incident so strongly connected to the biggest athletic competition in the world would be non-notable because of this standard. The connection gives it a level of historic notability, at least in my mind. Giants2008 (17-14) 03:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, the existing Wikinews article actually does a better job of neutrally covering this event than our attempt at making an encyclopedia article out of it. For this event to be encyclopedic it would have to have some sort of continued coverage or an impact on something that could be analyzed — instead what happened is that the story completely disappeared once the press got busy reporting on the games themselves. This was a one-off, meaningless event that has no impact on anything beyond the associates of the victims; therefore while the event may be notable it is unencyclopedic. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 04:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that would be problematic. What works nicely in a news source may not work in an encyclopedia article, and vice versa. The fact is that events like this are exactly why Wikinews was forked from Wikipedia in the first place; i.e. events that are certainly notable by the fact of extensive coverage, but for which there is nothing to actually base an encyclopedia article on. If all you can write is that at a particular time and place a certain event happened; then it's a news article. If there are some sort of ramifications or consequences due to an event, then you may have an encyclopedia article. The current article makes an attempt at some sort of analysis in terms of safety in Beijing (unfortunately in a way that teeters on WP:NPOV), but the Wikinews article doesn't even try (as it shouldn't). —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 17:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From the lead paragraph: "The incident has been described as rare since foreigners are considered safe while visiting China. Beijing is noted to be safer than most cities of its size." Is that the POV statement you are referring to? You should tag statements that you find to be POV so we can work on improving the article, rather than calling it a failure and calling for its deletion. -JWGreen (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A single random act of violence, with no long-term repercussions evident, nor any significant coverage I can see outside of the immediate time of the event or outside the victim's home country. This is news, not an encyclopaedia article.--CalendarWatcher (talk) 04:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The attack received international coverage from sources such as TheAge (AU), Caijing (China), BBC (UK), Reuters (UK), AFP (France); and has received coverage in the past 30 days. Similar attacks are also unlikely to have future repercussions, unless they affect legislation or security.   — C M B J   09:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to the last article CMBJ linked to, security was changed at the Drum Tower due to the attack. -JWGreen (talk) 02:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I don't believe that this attack has any lasting notability. Yes, it was prominent in the media at the time, but that was mainly due to Olympic fever, and nothing to do with the event itself. (As an aside, I'd like to apologise for taking an extended wiki-break mid-way through a renaming discussion for the article.) Bluap (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment — Whether or not it warrants an entire article is clearly a subject of debate. For an optimist, the article allows readers to have an improved understanding of a relevant and highly publicized (even AFP coverage as recent as October 14) attack during the 2008 Summer Games. For a cynic, the article is either news or just another instance of unessential content sprawl that will unlikely see much improvement during the next two or three years. I would like to add to this discussion the view that the attack did cause international Olympic-related concern and controversy, including to Olympians, but said controversy was over the attack and not controversy over the entire Olympics. Because of this, merging the attack as a whole into Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics could casuistically compromise the integrity of that article's name.   — C M B J   09:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics as suggested by 70.55.86.100 (talk · contribs). At the time of the attack, it did seem notable, but in hindsight, it's a pretty unremarkable, non-notable event. The "consensus" to exclude it from the "Concerns and controversies" article was only weakly established—four wanting it removed; one wanting it kept. More input is needed. My opinion is that while the attack may not be causally related to the Olympics, it was an event that did have an impact on American (and perhaps other Western nations) views of the games, even if not on the games themselves. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep possibly merge and reduce and link to the wikinews article. This is exactly the sort of thing that has been historically hard to find infromation about post-fact. Rich Farmbrough, 10:47 4 November 2008 (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.
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