Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of killed, threatened or kidnapped Iraqi academics

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 Drop a Daisy Cutter on it (delete). --Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of killed, threatened or kidnapped Iraqi academics

First, wikipedia is not a memorial. There is a lot of precedent for deleting lists of otherwise non-notable people who died in a particular event. Even if casualty lists were acceptable, this list is downright weird. First, there is almost no information provided about these people. Although this is supposedly a list of "academics" it includes people like hotel managers, consultants, doctors, etc. In most cases there isn't even a date of death. Second, almost everyone is unsourced and thus impossible to verify. If a person listed here was kidnapped or killed, how do we know that this had anything to do with his being an academic? GabrielF 08:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This topic -- the violent purge of Iraqi intelligencia -- is worthy of encyclopedia space, but I find a list of the particular targets problematic at best. In addition to the nominator's concerns about the broadly inclusive view of "academics" taken by the list, I am concerned about its premise. Tracking everyone in any field who has been threatened in what is essentially an active civil war is simply beyond the scope of Wikipedia. With verification also uniquely unlikely, WP:BLP issues seems a plausible hazard as well. With all that said, this might be an idea to revisit after the situation calms down in the region and some more objective reporting can occur. But not now, not like this. Serpent's Choice 11:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Try a category instead. Madman 15:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Move to Academic intimidation in Iraq since 2003 (perhaps, open to other suggestions) and delete the list. The introduction could be a start to a real article. The list is not our responsibility and it's just a bad uncategorized list of non-notable people. It's much more useful to say "The University of Najaf closed on April 31, 2005 after 13 department heads and 37 academics fled the country" than to just list them.--Dhartung | Talk 17:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Hopelessly original research and unsourced by reputable citation. Morton Devonshire^Yo 18:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
wikisource it. Derex 23:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I fully agree with Serpent's Choice, the broader topic of the purging of Iraqi intellectuals is certainly an encyclopedic topic. However, a list of this sort is too problematic. What, precicely, constitutes an 'academic?' How are we going to verify all of this, especially those being threatened... and what constitutes a threat in this instance? And, to add some really dark humor, isn't this unmaintainable too? --The Way 00:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree that the topic definitely warrants an article. It is one of the most disturbing things I've seen on wikipedia. The problem is that the list doesn't really tell us very much about what is actually happening. Were these people targeted because of their profession? Their politics? Their sect? Were they targeted randomly? Who is doing the "threatening"? Are Shi'ites and Sunnis being targeted equally? If we want to create an article about it we need to do more research and not just use the existing text as a starting point. GabrielF 00:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I've started a preliminary article at Violence against academics in post-invasion Iraq GabrielF 02:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
'keep and improve as needed. I guess I'm the only one, but perhaps my comments may be useful in recreation. I do not find the definition of academics very much over-broad: they are almost all of the college lectures or faculty; the new list might be specifically limited to that, and then have list of Physicians, etc.etc. I think perhaps threatened is too broad a term, for who there is not? Killed/kidnapped is more verifiable. OR it is not, it is compilation from sources, as is the rest of WP. I cannot understand ""the list is not our responsibility" Our responsibility is encyclopedic coverage , limited of course to those articles where someone is willing to do the work. The list would look more professional with a more sophisticated table. DGG 03:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Crufty McCruft. --Tbeatty 04:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Absolutely circumspect misinformation and soapboxing.--MONGO 08:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the id list in itself is unencyclopedic. Just copy what's worth to Violence against academics in post-invasion Iraq. Ultrogothe 12:41, 25 January 2007 (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.