Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies of Rudy Giuliani

< Wikipedia:Articles for deletion
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 for deletion, at least, so default to keep. Merging and redirecting this article does not require deletion and can be done independently of this AfD if there is consensus for it. Sandstein (talk) 09:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies of Rudy Giuliani

edit
Controversies of Rudy Giuliani (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Wasted Time R has been bringing this article in line with many other biographical articles. Controversy articles are bad in practice, violating WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, and WP:Criticism. Wasted Time also made an excelent point in that FA articles such as Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Wesley Clark, Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Theodore Roosevelt do not have associated articles like this. It needs to be pointed out that articles like this turn into dumping grounds for negative material of dubious relvance and none of the material has been "deleted" or will be deleted if this AfD is successfull ... Wasted Time R has moved the material into related non attack articles.

[ A note about notification of this AfD, per WP:Canvassing recommendations to be transparent. User:Dogru144 has been doing some canvassing, which is fine by me — I'm hoping this decision gets as broad a response as possible. I have notified the editors who participated in the dismantling discussion here about the AfD, including at least one who opposed the dismantling, and also the ones who were in a very recent discussion at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton about why Giuliani had a controversies section and Clinton didn't, as I had told them the Giuliani one was now being dismantled, when in fact it will now be decided here. At User:Wasted Time R/can2 you can see where I tried to put together a longer list of editors who've been involved in this general debate in the past ... except that it's hard to go through all the talk archives to find everybody, and there are other discussions on this that I'm not aware of, and I'm not sure this would fit the bounds of WP:Canvassing anyway, so only the ones marked with 'c' in the list have I notified. Wasted Time R 00:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC) ][reply]
  • Keep. This article is appropriate. "Controversies of ..." is an acceptable article subject. It seems that editors found it too uncomfortable that there was a single spot with unpleasant, embarrassing material on Rudy Giuliani. This article had been blanked by [[User:Wasted Time R. This is an inappropriate manner of addresssing anxiety with this page. Dogru144 21:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Claiming that editors are "too uncomfortable that there was a single spot with unpleasant, embarrassing material on Rudy Giuliani" shows an extreme lack of good faith, and isnt likely to win you many friends or influence people around here. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 21:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is an absurd accusation that Dogru44 makes about an editor who has labored tirelessly on Hillary Rodham Clinton and associated articles, managing to integrate a seemingly unending supply of controversies large and small about her, into her main article and subarticles, in addition to the other good works he's given to the HRC articles. To suggest that his applying the same method to Giuliani is somehow politically motivated - pro-Giuliani - would actually be funny, if it weren't so insulting t him and the other editors who support the dismantling of controversy articles.Tvoz |talk 00:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The full state of this article from five days ago can be seen at [1]: a mass of entries, some internal duplicates, some external duplicates, some incoherent, some uncited, some not "controversies" in any sense, and a fair amount of legitimate material underneath it all. Per Talk:Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani#Time_To_Hillarize_this_article_and_dismantle_it, I documented item by item how I pruned out the illegitimate or inappropriate material. That left roughly the article that Dogru144 is trying to restore now. I then dismantled, disbursed, and integrated the legitimate contents into the appropriate mainline text sections of the Giuliani main article, daughter articles, and other Giuliani related articles. This is documented, item by item, in Talk:Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani#Actual_dismantling. I then redirected this article to the main article, but left this Talk page unredirected, so people could see a record of what had been done. Talk:Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani#Terminating_of_page_is_vandalism then contains further discussions of all this. My motivation in all this is that I believe that such Controversies sections or articles are counter to WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, and WP:Criticism; that as pointed out above, FA articles on political figures do not have them; and that I have seen numerous complaints and comments on various Talk pages that about half of 2008 presidential candidates' articles have them (including Giuliani until now, McCain, Thompson, Huckabee) and half do not (including Giuliani now, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney, Paul), and what nefarious WP biases must be at play to produce this difference. While I think random editing choices rather than biases have been at play, the current inconsistent state of candidates' articles is indeed embarrassing for Wikipedia. The solution is obvious: dismantle, disburse, and integrate those Controversies pages or sections that still exist. Contrary to what Dogru144 states, I am not driven in this by any political agenda; some time ago I previously dismantled and disbursed the Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies page — see Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies#Proposal_to_dismantle_this_article where I documented what I did just as I have here — and have very recently been working on the John McCain article with an eye towards doing the same there. Dogru144 has charged me with "blanking", but I have not, as no legitimate material critical of Giuliani has been removed from Wikipedia; rather, it has been located where it belongs, in the articles that supply the context for the criticism. People who like Controversies articles tend to be people who, as Dogru144 states, want "a single spot with unpleasant, embarrassing material on [person X]"; but it is not Wikipedia's purpose or role to supply such a spot. All of the legitimate "unpleasant, embarrasing material" on Giuliani is still in Wikipedia, but you now you have to read it within the context of Giuliani's life, actions, and accomplishments, good or bad. That's what WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, WP:Criticism, and WP:BLP call for. Wasted Time R 22:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It's just a political hatchet job. Wasted Time makes an excellent case for its deletion. Nick mallory 23:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Delete Almost all materials are repeated in the main Giuliani article. This article should only exist if there are so many factual properly sourced controversies about a person that it would not fit into the main page. lk 00:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and delete Wasted Time R already did most of the merging, but the notable contents of the article should be moved into either the main Rudy Giuliani or an appropriate sub-article and this article needs to be sent to the dustbin of Wikipedia's history. Controversy sections and articles are signs of very lazy and poor editing techniques. Controversy sections are used by critics of the subject as a dumping ground for every potentially negative thing about the subject, whether they are notable or not, to give undue weight to the negative aspects of the subject, while controversy articles initially started out as a section, so have the dumping ground aspect, but were generally created as a content fork that are used by proponents of the subject to expunge the main article of the negative aspects of the subject. All in all, I would like to see this discussion expanded to include the merger and deletion of all "Controversies of" articles as I have yet to find one that is not a content fork and that can not be worked into either the main article or sub-articles. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One clarification: I believe all of the merging has already been done, so that all that needs to be done here is the delete. It wasn't all merged into the main article, as lk suggests earlier above; much was merged into subarticles such as Mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani during the September 11, 2001 attacks, and Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign, 2008. Wasted Time R 01:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One echoing: I also would like to see this discussion and decision pertain to, and serve as a precedent for, all "Controversies of ..." articles, and certainly for those of candidates in the 2008 election. The arguments being made here are not Giuliani-specific, and like Bobblehead I haven't seen any cases where this kind of dismantling couldn't be done. Wasted Time R 01:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete [edit conflict with Bobblehead] Separate articles and sections for controversies are magnets for POV edits; they quickly become dumping grounds for any and all real or imagined controversies, giving them all equal weight which clearly they do not all deserve. This was abundantly clear on Hillary Rodham Clinton's controversy section and then separate page, which Wasted did a masterful job of dismantling, while carefully assigning each item that was noteworthy to an appropriate place in the main article, notes, or sub-article. Doing this for Giuliani significantly improved that article, and Wasted Time R should be thanked for the efforts he's put into this important improvement of Wikipedia articles about political figures. Tvoz |talk 00:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and delete - Generally opposed to "controversies" forks of BLPs. - Crockspot 02:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Trim, merge, redirect to main bio. Looks like it was WP:POVFORKed from the main article due to serious issues with undue weight. shoy (words words) 02:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of the Giuliani dismantling, the "memory hole" recommendations were made by TDC, but in many of those cases I disagreed with TDC's recommendation and did keep and move the items. In the case of the Hillary Clinton dismantling, the "memory hole" recommendations were made by me for items that were too weakly sourced to pass WP:BLP muster or too trivial for inclusion in one of the other articles. If you have any individual objections to specific decisions that were made in either of these cases, I will be happy to discuss them with you. Wasted Time R 02:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment IOW, you want a POV fork. If the controversies section threatened to dominate the article (similar to the situation with Ward Churchill), such an article might make sense (see Ward Churchill misconduct issues, which is about the same size as the main biography, and is an example of a legitimate fork used to eliminate undue weight concerns). However, that is not the case here (or, for that matter, in any of the other presidential candidates who have or had similar articles). What you are asking is that the article be maintained simply on ideological principles; that is not the way Wikipedia works. Horologium t-c 19:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Do explain how an index which is what I'm suggesting has any bearing on POV. You summarize the perceived controversy, and then link to the article which details it... I think both WP:UNDUE and WP:POV are being abused here. What I perceive as the problem is the Main Article (MA) is always a detailed listing of all of the successes that are used to establish WP:NOTABILITY and then history seems to show the article retrospectively adds the other side for balance. This leaves the MA with only criticisms that pertain to the positives of the MA. The real tragedy here is that weight is largely determined by party-propaganda and that you're applying weight to both attributed factual assertions and viewpoints. The fact of the matter is Rudy is friends with and employs a shady priest Placa which has been covered by various media outlets. Now, if you don't want that on a criticisms page then please tell me how that can be worked into the MA or why it is right to use WP:UNDUE to kill off the connection to Rudy. EvanCarroll 20:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • And the connection to Placa is covered in Giuliani Partners, which is linked from the introduction to Rudy Giuliani and in a subsection of its own further down in the article, and in lurid depth at Alan Placa, which is also linked to in a footnote (#146) of the Giuliani page and through the Giuliani Partners article. I would suggest you read Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies#Proposal_to_dismantle_this_article, where Wasted Time R carefully picked through the train wreck of allegations against HRC and determined where each belonged; some were broken off into new articles, some were merged into the main article, some were merged into other already-extant articles, and some were deleted as non-notable. FWIW, the signal-to-noise ratio is higher here, as few of the issues are getting nuked due to inadequate sourcing. Just as the link to Placa is not covered in depth in Giuliani's article, discussions of HRC's book deals and fundraising controversies are addressed in seperate articles, rather than the main article. It's not killing off the link, it's putting it into appropriate context. BTW, thank you for reminding me once again why I tend to avoid political topics here on Wikipedia. Horologium t-c 21:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete, POV garbage.--Southern Texas 19:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Be civil, not everyone believes Rudy Giuliani is an American hero who as "America's Mayor" united a city and a country at its darkest moment. He is the personification of leadership and is the most qualified individual to be the next president of the United States. (User page of User:Southern Texas) EvanCarroll 19:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -It should be again noted that there is proper protocol. Taking an individual initiative and exporting material to disparate other articles, while an arduous undertaking, is violation AfD protocol. And furthermore, blanking the article constitutes vandalism. I recognize that using that last word is incendiary, but blanking an article prior to following WP protocol is uncivil and is jumping the gun. Re WTR's comparisons to historical figures, e.g. T. Roosevelt, R. Reagan Sr. and so on, these figures are not current figures as the current candidates. On the principle of consistency, I have no objection to preservation of Controversies articles on other presidential candidates. Clinton and Gravel, especially, on the Democratic aisle come to mind. Dogru144 05:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then you should change either the "Keep" up top or this "Strong Keep" to "Comment" - you should only express your opinion one time with Keep or Delete, but can add additional comments. Tvoz |talk 05:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I took the liberty. I would also like to disclose that I became aware of this AfD due to Dogru's canvassing. I spotted one of his posts on a page that I have watchlisted. Sometimes, canvassing backfires. - Crockspot 18:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The issue with this article has nothing to do with sourcing (it's for the most part well-sourced); it was nominated for deletion after most of the information was merged into other related articles, and an editor objected to a redirect to Rudy Giuliani. It's not a sourcing issue, it's a redundancy issue. Horologium t-c 22:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In my view all legitimate data already has been imported into the main and sub Rudy articles. At this point, leaving it as a redirect (what I originally intended) will just make it a reversion magnet. An actual deletion would serve as a stronger message that we don't want such a page coming back. Wasted Time R 23:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I probably wouldn't object. Protected redirect in case someone tries to remake it? Or too soon for that? • Lawrence Cohen 23:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A protected redirect would be the best idea. It retains the history (for those who have accused others of trying to sanitize the issue), yet prevents recreation of a PoV fork. By protecting the redirect, it sends an even stronger message that we don't want to see such a page again. The only stronger message would be a delete/salt. Horologium t-c 23:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If Hillary or Rudy were to become President, then would it be acceptable to have a Controversy or Criticism page? These already exist for George W Bush, namely, Criticism of George W. Bush and Category:George_W._Bush_administration_controversies I think trying to reach a permanent solution on this via a protected redirect is a bad idea. My position is that politicians - by being politicians- necessarily attract criticism and controversy. Not allowing a structure for this criticism whitewashes the past and makes it harder for the reader to understand what the politician is about. Jmegill 05:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If HRC or Giuliani were to become president, it would definitely become acceptable to have a criticism page. However, right now, they are only candidates, and much of the activity on the controversy pages is simply partisan nonsense. Eliminating a controversy page does not "whitewash the past", as you assert; it simply requires one to actually read through the articles to view the criticism in its proper context, rather than scan through a laundry list of grievances (both real and imagined) ginned up to score cheap political points. Horologium t-c 05:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It would seem to me as if you attempted to redefine the acceptance of a Criticism of... through your own subjective lens. I would suggest moving this debate to a more proper place to dispute policy. I have nothing wrong with GW Bush's criticism page, and I find it for useful for the same reason I found this one useful. Some people don't want to sift through a laundry list of neutral articles to find out what someone has fumbled. Such a utility does not to me seem to offend WP:UNDUE. With that said, I like having the information in the respective articles, and think that as is the Criticism of... is better off with a series of {{main}}s. EvanCarroll 06:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure I see the need for a "Controversies of"/"Criticism of" section/page for a sitting president either. From the spot checking I have done, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the only presidents' articles who have one. The other presidents' articles manage without, and I can assure you that Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson and FDR and LBJ and Nixon and Reagan and many others took quite the number of controversial actions and had quite the amount of public criticism at times. Think about biographies of presidents or other politicians you have read ... do any of them suddenly stop the narrative and have a whole chapter or group of chapters titled "Controversy" or "Criticism"? No. They deal with such material as it comes up in the historical narratives or analytical discussions within the work. So what makes Bill and W different? Simply another variant of WP:Recentism: WP editors see them as figures to be described through the prism of current political debate, rather than through the prism of historical description. That's not an especially good reason. Wasted Time R 12:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See below regarding "all controversy removed" remark. Wasted Time R 12:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and delete same as previous user. Arthur 00:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -I have backerased my second Keep statement, following a message on my talk page. I should have gone straight to the comment. Let's just keep our attention to what happened to the article:

Time Waste R gutted the article, sending the content to different locations. His edits left the article in a blank state. Thus, I called his actions blanking. As I said above:

this brings to mind another presiddent's testimony: This summons to mind: it depends what "is" is.

{User:Bov]]'s testimony suggests that the meger path is a backhanded approach to whitewashing, via having controversy removed from the article.Dogru144 05:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My edits left the article in a redirected state and the contents still in Wikipedia, which is not what is normally meant by "blanking". But I agree, let's not get into a Clintonian parsing battle.
As for Bov's "all controversy removed" comment, I am quite puzzled. When I look at the current main article, I see plenty of controversy and criticism: "Harold Giuliani had trouble holding a job and had been convicted of felony assault and robbery and served time in Sing Sing; after his release he served as a Mafia enforcer", "Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War ... MacMahon wrote a letter to Giuliani's draft board," "Giuliani testified in defense of the federal government's "detention posture" regarding the internment of over 2,000 Haitian asylum-seekers who had entered the country illegally.", "Critics of Giuliani claim he arranged public arrests of people, then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile cases rather than going to trial. ... irreparably damaged their reputations.", "The extent to which his policies deserve the credit is disputed, however.", "Giuliani forced Bratton out of his position after two years, in what was generally seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was not tolerant of Bratton's celebrity.", "Giuliani's term also saw allegations of civil rights abuses and other police misconduct. There were police shootings of unarmed suspects, and the scandals surrounding the sexual torture of Abner Louima and the killings of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond.", "Giuliani was criticized for embracing illegal immigrants.", "In 2000, Giuliani appointed 34-year-old Russell Harding, the son of Liberal Party of New York leader and longtime Giuliani mentor Raymond Harding, ... Harding pled guilty to defrauding the Housing Development Corporation and to possession of child pornography.", "Giuliani was a longtime backer of Bernard Kerik,... Kerik pled guilty to corruption charges dating from his Corrections days.", I could go on and on. There's plenty more dealing with 9/11 preparedness and aftermath, Giuliani Partners, the whole gory story of his personal life, and so on. I think Bov either 1) just scanned the table of contents for the words "controversy" or "criticism" and didn't find them, which is exactly by design (you have to read the article!); or 2) is looking for a different level of material, which I can guess at from Bov's edit history but which indeed should not be found here. Wasted Time R 12:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The thing is, it already has been merged into the main article as discussed at the top of this page. Furthermore, I think everyone agrees "this is a valid topic" for wikipedia, the question (which most keep !votes including this one have failed to address) is where in WP should this material live—in it's own article, or in the main Guiliani article. Yilloslime (t) 17:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • With this sort of POV-fork, I think the most preferable option is to merge the content, where appropriate, into the proper articles - bearing in mind giving the criticisms their proper weight in the article. Or, if all appropriate content has already been merged, simply delete. Pastordavid 19:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Pastordavid, that's exactly right. All of the material already has been merged into the main article and subarticles and given appropriate weight. So perhaps your comment should be noted as "delete". Tvoz |talk 21:15, 15 November 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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani&oldid=1137733943"