Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda timeline (3rd 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 keep. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda timeline

This article shoots itself in the foot in its lede paragraph, by saying that all but one meeting has been disproven/etc by the US government, and that people who have reviewed it have found that no links exist. Thus, it is a 200 kilobyte long conspiracy theory vehicle (which the article itself says). I'm not sure what part of WP:NOT this violates, but this sort of article isn't appropriate for Wikipedia. Sceptre ^(talk) 22:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- How on earth did this survive previous AFD's? Whatever. Its a hoax, coatrack, whatever you care to name. What it isn't, is worth keeping around. Umbralcorax (talk) 00:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The hundreds of sources the article has seems to have people - even prolific deletionists - wanting it kept. People will want anything with a source, no matter how unreliable (as in this case), kept. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep, These are allegations, not facts, and if you read carefully, each allegation is also connected to the evidence that challenges it. It is better to have all of this information here in one place than to delete it and have conspiracy theorists begin putting this information piecemeal into other articles where it doesn't belong and where someone else will have to go research these points again. We can change the title to make it more consistent with the article it forked off of (Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda link allegations) and add an intro indicating that no links were actually found between the two, but I would strongly protest deleting this material as it took many editors on both sides of the political fence years to compile all of this in one place where it can easily be verified and/or refuted. But if the page comes across as an attempt to verify the "hoax" then it should include some kind of intro so that readers don't think that. But it should really not be deleted. csloat (talk) 04:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't the Israelis tell us anything about allegations articles? Sceptre ^(talk) 13:21, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. But Israeli intelligence helped confirm there was no Saddam/al-Qaeda link, something people might learn from this article. csloat (talk) 11:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Nick Dowling (talk) 10:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This article is about the link allegations that were reported a lot in those last years, and were part of the official reason for the second gulf war. Saying that all but one of those allegations have been disproven doesn't diminish the notability of the allegations, and I think a timeline of those events makes sense. I have only read through parts of it now, but it also doesn't seem like a collection of non-notable conspiracy theories.
It might make sense to merge & redirect it to Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations, since that article already provides a concise timeline, but OTOH I really don't want to clutter it with all the minor allegations from the article under discussion (and it is debatable if we want to have all those minor allegations).
At the very least I'd recommend renaming it to Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations timeline to focus on the nature of the article.
Amalthea^Talk 12:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As I understand the nomination, the criticism is that the lead paragraph says "that all but one meeting has been disproven" and someone else says that this looks like "a hoax". No shit, Sherlock. I think that's the point of the article, which is copiously (264 footnotes) soureced. Mandsford (talk) 13:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article is not a hoax, it is an article about a notable and highly consequential set of hoaxes and errors. "may require cleanup" Ningauble (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep because this is highly encyclopaedic. Factuality may be disputed, but that doesn't stop the topic being encyclopaedic and highly notable (example: Bigfoot). I also think this is the kind of content some people come to Wikipedia to find, so I feel deleting such material is counterproductive.--S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 09:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We don't present Bigfoot as fact. For most of this article, we do present the alleged Saddam/Al-Qaeda link as fact. Sceptre ^(talk) 12:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true. Have you actually read the article? Most of the so-called "links" are refuted in the very next sentence under each point on the timeline. We should change the title of the article to reflect that, though, since people who don't read it will probably come to the same conclusion you did. csloat (talk) 13:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep Nominator appears to have misunderstood the article it is an organized chronological list which uses sources to verify the truth or falsity of a notable series of events. It is not claiming false events are true and goes out of its way to make that clear. Edward321 (talk) 23:15, 21 August 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.