Testwiki:Articles for deletion/China's 2011 crackdown on dissidents

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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 Keep. Issues regarding a moving the article to a more appropriate name and with insuring neutral content can be handled outside of AFD. Jayron32 04:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

China's 2011 crackdown on dissidents

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An unsourced laundry list of names that is unverifiable and potentially violating WP:BLP. Wikipedia is WP:NOT a directory or a list. Also a WP:FORK of 2011 Chinese protests, being based on material earlier deleted due to the aforementioned reasons, as shown in this diff. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:Not a ballot

strong keep. This article complies with the WP:Content_forking both in the WP:Content-forking#summary section as well as in the 'Article spinouts: "Summary style" articles' section. The names are verifiable, many of them have already been referenced and are currently been referenced. The reason why the list of Chinese dissidents having disappeared or being arrested since Mid February should not be included in the 2011 Chinese protests article is that some of the dissidents have no connection to the Jasmine Revolution, but protested against corruption, censorship etc. This article documents the heaviest crackdown on dissidents and Christians since 1998 in China. The crackdown is much more important than the different causes of the crackdown, like 2011 Shanghai riot, 2011 Chinese protests etc. Waikiki lwt (talk) 04:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Yet most of the names in the list are to do with the 2011 Chinese protests, the other half are names so trivial that they are unheard of on google. Instead of mentioning 'xx many people were arrested/disappeared, etc' on another related article (e.g. Human Rights in the People's Republic of China), it is been dragged out in a list and been given its own article. This been the heaviest crackdown since 1998 came from uhm...nowhere. It is not referenced. The article is trying to make a point. There is no evidence to show that crackdown on dissidents in 2011 is somehow different from previous years. And also the BLP, references, and other issues which I will not repeat here. Zlqq2144 (talk) 05:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep or Change name My suggestion for a new name: List of dissidents harrased and arrested by PRC in 2011 because the ferocity of the current crackdown seems to be on the increase. Arilang talk 07:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • strong keep The article definitely is substantial. The overlap with other articles is small and ok. After the general question of "keep" or "delete" will be solved, we can think about better titles. However, this article looks to me to be more than a list. It tells us about incidents, total numbers, sorts of repression and of course of a list of the most prominent arrested dissidents. If we rename it only in "List ...", how to keep the descriptive parts and numbers like the 200 detained Christians? Regarding the list as part of the article, it should only contain the prominent dissidents, but not the 200 names of the detained Christians. Zhangjiandong (talk) 08:49, 15 April 2011 (UTC) — Zhangjiandong (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    • >However, this article looks to me to be more than a list
      Well there you have it, you've named the problem yourself. Wikipedia is not a directory, nor an indiscriminate collection of information. This page is essentially a list of names. But then I guess you haven't really thought beyond that too far, given that you're only participating in partisan !voting. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Why use a personal attack? This will not change anything on facts and will escalate a dispute. I suggest you reconsider this approach. Hekerui (talk) 11:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Endorse Hekerui's comment. Let's not get too personal. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 12:21, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
No, dude, I have just invited people who contribute in the field of contemporary Chinese politics and criticism to vote in order to reach consensus. Sorry I did not invite you and OhConfucius, that was only because you two had already voted. Waikiki lwt (talk) 11:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm a new user and apologize if I'm inadvertently violating Wikipedia rules. Thanks for taking time to help me learn... Waikiki lwt (talk) 22:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a directory and the sources don't give good reason to distinguish this from the 2011 Chinese protests, making this a redundant content fork. Hekerui (talk) 11:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete I agree with the comments supporting delete above. It's just content forking, listing the names of the people arrrested in the 2011 Chinese protests article and perhaps added a few. The mass media has not reported this as a widely recognised event/policy. The article, IMO, is trying to make a biased point.Zlqq2144 (talk) 11:17, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep Relevance with sources. It does not equal that other article. Sarcelles (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
    • >It does not equal that other article
      Please clarify, I do not understand what you mean. How so? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. This article should be listed as the "main article" in the section "Arrests" of 2011 Chinese protests article. It is very important to have all the arrested dissidents listed by name. Olegwiki (talk) 17:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
    • >It is very important to have all the arrested dissidents listed by name.
      Have you ignored what has been said on Wikipedia WP:NOT being a directory? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:34, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep or name change I don't agree that this is a POV fork, as the 2011 protest article largely deals with the protests and calls for them. This is focusing on a security crackdown still going on in China. I think that there's something useful there. This article could also be linked to with a summary in the 2011 protest article. John Smith's (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Who said anything about a POV fork? The only reason this article exists is because when the original author tried to add the list of persons you see here to the original 2011 Chinese protests page, he got reverted for WP:NOT and WP:V and got extremely frustrated about it. Refer to this diff. This page is a content fork created because the author didn't want to give up after Round 1, and continued to feel that he should turn Wikipedia into a directory. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep and rename per Arilang. Maybe the article has significantly changed since this was nominated, because I don't see the verifiability issues at all. I also don't see how there are any BLP violations as were suggested above, as every entry is sourced. I don't see this as a POV fork, as it simply factually documents an important part of the events in China in more detail than would be appropriate in the main article. Kansan (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
    • >I also don't see how there are any BLP violations as were suggested above, as every entry is sourced.
      >as every entry is sourced.
      I suggest you check again. There are entries with no references at all; as long as there is even one entry without a reference, there is always potential for WP:BLP. As an example (and only an example, inb4 people crying WP:BEANS and WP:POINT) if I had a schoolmate named "Zhang Minghao" (fictional example name, any relation to real life people is merely coincidental) that I didn't like (he could have slept with my girlfriend or something, who gives), I could make an entry that goes along the lines "Zhang Minghao (张明皓) was arrested for being a smelly nigger who loves teh dick" (inb4 crying kids refactoring my post, see WP:NOTCENSORED), what makes that entry any less verifiable than the other unsourced entries? Does that mean the other entries are deleted, or that this entry is kept? If the vandalism was less obvious (e.g. "Zhang Minghao (张明皓) was arrested on charges of inciting violence against the state", when this person had nothing to do with China and at the time was playing a SNES in Chicago or something), then what do you do? Do you see my point? There is always the potential for BLP violations if we allow even one biographical line to be unreferenced. Why run that risk? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Then remove those entries instead of nuking the whole thing. Kansan (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
        • It's not only that though. My other points regarding WP:NOT aside, the article fails WP:NPOV entirely - just have a read through the LEDE; I thought I was on falungongalldayerryday.com for a second, can you write a lede any more POVed than that? As for notability, a list of non-notable names is a list of non-notable names - these are nobodies, excluding this one event. WP:REFBOMBing and WP:BOMBARD won't make nobodies into somebodies. I'm not specifically saying WP:MASK, WP:PUFF and WP:109PAPERS per se, but number of refs doesn't denote notability. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 05:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete: The actions that can be connected to the "2011 protests" have a place on that article; giving would-be revolutionaries their own memorial space is not a purpose of Wikipedia. Grouping together the other people who were simply arrested for seditious crimes in the same year is original research and synthesis. Quigley (talk) 23:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Strongest Possible Keep: Politically motivated nomination. Well-sourced article with clear signs of notability, and it is in no way a POV fork. However the article title can be changed, as suggested above. If you don't like criticism of Chinese government, don't bring your feeling in Wikipedia. --Reference Desker (talk) 00:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
    • >Politically motivated nomination.
      WP:ADHOM, plus I could also argue the same for you as well. "If you don't like criticism of criticism of (the) Chinese government, don't bring your feeling(s) in(to) Wikipedia." Where in my nom have I specifically stated that WP:IDONTLIKEIT? In fact, your post is the only one so far with WP:IDONTLIKEIT, namely "I don't like your nom". You haven't provided any other reasoning to argue against my nom other than denying what I've stated, without justifications to support your denial. "in no way a POV fork"? How, please explain? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Have a look at WP:SPINOFF. 2011_Chinese_protests#Arrests is a summary of the arrests, on the other hand this article gives the details of the arrests. --Reference Desker (talk) 05:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
        • "Details"? Most of the entries look like this:
          • Wang Lihong (Chinese: 王荔蕻) for "inciting disturbance";[15]
          • Wei Qiang (Chinese: 魏强) for "illegal assembly";[15]
          • Wei Shuishan (Chinese: 魏水山) was arrested for unknown reasons;[15]
          • Wen Tao was arrested for unknown reasons;[15]
        • And if you thought it was not possible to offer less detail:
          • People known to be missing are Ceng Renguang;[2] Cheng Wanyun 程婉芸;[15] Ding Jiqin;[15] E Laoda 鹅老大;[15]...
        • Simply not encyclopedic. The only reason to have lists like this is so that the ideologically inclined can write threatening letters to the Chinese government saying "we know you are detaining these people and we won't stop raising a ruckus until you release them". Quigley (talk) 05:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
And Mr. Reference Desker, do you know that OhConfucius is critical of the PRC Government? Sir, you have provided an excellent example of false, ignorant ad hom. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 00:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Arilang and Reference Desker and most of the other already given keep arguments. IQinn (talk) 10:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
    • WP:PERNOM. This is not a majority !vote, WP:CONSENSUS is attained through discussion; please thoroughly explain your points. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
      • The points have been already explained ad nauseum and there are no strong policy based reasons for deletion and that's why there is already a strong consensus 12/6 for keep. I can not speak for Reference Desker but just one link that shows that the topic got tons of coverage outside the Jasmin revolution. There are no valid policy based reasons for deletion. Come back in 6 months or a year. IQinn (talk) 11:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
        • "Strong consensus"? What on earth are you talking about... here you go again, thinking that !votes equal consensus. It's been barely 24 hours since the nomination and you're thinking that you've already captured Stalingrad, eh? Tell me, how many of these keep !votes actually make a decent slice out of the delete arguments? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:08, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: Let's have a look at all the arguments that the Pan-Keep Coalition has made so far:
  1. "lol what are you talking about? This isn't a POV fork lol" - Great job completely ignoring the main point. In other words, mypointyourhead. This article is a content fork of what was originally posted here and subsequently deleted. I don't care whether this was done by mistake, out of buttfrustration, out of malice, in good faith, or to make a WP:POINT, we can argue about all that rubbish later, it doesn't change the basic fact that it is a content fork.
  2. "this current incident seems to be on the increase" - That's borderline between wishful thinking and WP:CRYSTALBALL; even so, having a separate article is unwarranted. If there are truly verifiable and well sourced points, they can be included in the original article, given that they aren't used to make WP:OR statements.
  3. "The article is definitely good"; "it's a relevant article" - please clarify; I took a course in physiotherapy, not psychology. I don't understand you, and what you are trying to say. Why? How?
  4. (actual quote)"The overlap with other articles is small and ok" - what on earth does this mean?
  5. "lol dude its the WP:TRUTH, rofl. Chinese are killing people, they are evil" - WP:ADVOCACY, WP:NOBLECAUSE, etc etc
  6. "I don't see any WP:V/WP:RS issues" - even if there are 8 sourced and 2 unsourced entries, the fact that there are unsourced entries still make potential WP:BLP violations. It opens the corridors to stealth vandalism, to slander, and if someone becomes (wrongfully) arrested and detained because someone put their name in the list as an anti-government supporter (e.g. as a joke, with malicious intent, etc), they can potentially take legal action against the Wikimedia Foundation.
  7. "lol this AfD is all politically motivated. User:Benlisquare is a communist motherfucker!!!!!!11oneone!!!" - cool story, comrade.
  8. (direct quote)"There are no valid policy based reasons for deletion." - so, WP:NOT is not policy?
  9. "there is clear consensus that you are wrong, look at our numbers, (posts irrelevant statistics), we're buttpummeling you zerg-rush style rofl" - I have never considered, and never will consider, number of !votes to denote consensus. If it makes your ego feel better to see bigger numbers vs smaller numbers, that's your problem and not mine.
Now, could those who have !voted for keep, and those that will vote from now on, actually make their opinions and statements more clear? I'm getting hemorrhoids having to deal with the same fallacious statements over and over on two or three different pages, and then realising that I'm eventually going to be ignored like a bitch. Please note that when you !vote here, you're not supposed to be doing it for yourself, but for the Wikipedia project in general; if you're here simply to write "but China is killing people", then don't bother. End of long rant. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
We have made our points very well, thank you. You are attempting to dismiss them by being rude and you are bordering on personal attacks. Please stop being so combative. Wikipedia is not a battleground. Kansan (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Since it's a given this was made at 3AM last night (UTC+10), and I was visiting after a controversial night at 4chan /int/, it might be so that my tone of language may be affected a bit. However, that does not change my stance, and I do stand firmly behind my opinion that many of the points made so far are utterly incompetent, and seem to be a bit of "write whatever you can" to allow a !vote (in my interpretation). How I state something is the icing on top - what I have stated, you should be worried about. inb4 tl;dr and ignored again, I have a feeling someone's going to use this as an excuse to dismiss everything. I'm not one to make everything I say all sugarcoated, but that shouldn't be an excuse for you to be ignorant. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
And Kansan, you have not performed your task well by responding to the queries; is it perhaps you have no argument to make? Yes, Mr. Li could use less combative tone, but given his late-night post and his frustration, it is not...well...unnatural. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 00:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 21:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong keep This stub is indisputably notable and quickly becoming well referenced. I agree that we should question the political (almost 50 Cent-esque?) agendas of certain editors – who, coincidentally, tried to delete this same content from 2011 Chinese protests. Keahapana (talk) 02:44, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
    • 50 Cent party? I make my money by buying Apple stocks and profiteering from sheep who buy shitty overpriced goods, and not by making online posts and being sheep, and thus I don't know what you are implying. In other words, I make money from idiots, and not from being an idiot, like you are suggesting. Nice try at making a failure of a personal attack, though. Your attempt at taking a strike is almost laughable, because it's "activists calling other people activists", not very different from And you are lynching Negroes. You upset, going for the 50-cent card? Stop trying to divert attention from the discussion itself onto the users - discuss the article, not the people. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:02, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
      • I removed most of the material because it constituted at the time of an unsourced laundry list of non-notable names. Our job is not to exhaustively list all the dissidents that get pulled up by the state security. This is not an independent event, but closely related to the so-called Jasmine protests. The pattern of arrests and intimidation by the authorities this time around is no different from the annual routine ritualistic arrests of dissidents prior to sensitive anniversaries (particularly 10 March or 4 June, it really does not belong as a standalone article. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:25, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I just wrote an analysis of the article commenting on each section. It's a bit long so i put it on the talk page. [1] Zlqq2144 (talk) 03:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Merge - As currently constituted, this stands as a content fork of 2011 Chinese protests. I would advocating merging this into that for the interim, until a proper sub-article of that piece can be written. The topic seems clearly notable, but the structure needs to be integrated with the main article on the historical event, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 05:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Comment - I think moving the list of names to List of arrests in 2011 Chinese protests would be perfectly appropriate as a second article, which could be linked to the main article as a See Also link. That is a better solution than the current content fork. Carrite (talk) 05:18, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Onevent means that we could not write an article about them individually, but it does not mean we can not include them in an article about the event. DGG ( talk ) 19:51, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Agree with DGG. No offence Benlisquare but don't you think you are Wikipedia:Policy shopping? IQinn (talk) 09:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Scratch that, didn't read page properly. However, the argument that they are covered by RS is still edgy because the RS status of many of the sources used are not justified. In fact, many of the entries are unsourced now, since a few dead links and a cited blog have been removed. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd like to add that most of the names in the long list came from Chinese Human Rights Defenders (just look at the first and sixth reference in the reference section). A known activist group. And this article is almost just that source reworded. The other major source, Asianews, looks activist to me (see their about us page [2]). The other major reference China geeks is definitely not a major news source and arguably POV and not RS. It is, therefore, unwise to use it that many times and possible unwise to use it at all. Zlqq2144 (talk) 11:58, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Just happened to be brought to my attention: many of the citations used are problematic. First of all, pages from the "Chinese Human Rights Defenders" website cannot be considered WP:RS as it is not a WP:NPOV website; activist websites have never been accepted as reliable sources on Wikipedia, unless detailing on the activists themselves (for example, it is justifiable to cite Amnesty International within an article about Amnesty International); Chinageeks is a blog, which is certainly not a WP:RS; most if not all of the links to boxun.com are 404 links that lead to non-existant pages; "Google groups thread" is a self-published site, and is not a reliable source. As for Zlqq2144's comment above, depending on how close the page is to the original source, it may even constitute as a WP:COPYVIO. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:15, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Just to make a note since you lead your argument with it, WP:NPOV does not say that sources must be NPOV to be reliable, WP:RS does not say this either. Sources need not be neutral to be reliable, to give just one example MMFA is cited extensively on-wiki. -- ۩ Mask 17:36, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
additional references are available: a cursory search of G News shows Reuters, ABC, New York Times, Bloomberg, Forbes ... DGG ( talk ) 22:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
To those of you who claim that CHRD is a "valid source" - let me make an analogy. People.com.cn is a news site, and is practically the voice of the Communist Party of China. Now, if I were after information regarding the outcome of the 2009 National People's Congress, the outcome of local prefectural party elections, or any of the details regarding an official CPC policy, then People.com.cn would no doubt be a valid source to use. However, given the partisan POV that the source has, I wouldn't use People.com.cn to reference an article on, say, ethnic equality, drops in corruption rates in 2006, or anything relating to dissidents. Similarly, Amnesty International would be a great source to cite when dealing with information on the organisation itself, and the organisation's beliefs, stances and viewpoints (for example, "AI's attitude towards China's one child policy is that..."), that would be perfectly A-OK when it comes to valid sources, however, it would not be alright to cite Amnesty International to prove, say, abortion rate figures in 2011 or the number of people arrested in X city in Y year. It is acceptable to say things like "AI claims that..." or "AI believes/predicts/estimates/asserts that...", given that they are the viewpoints of AI, however you cannot cite AI to prove "actual facts", that is, you cannot write "The number of people forcefully given abortions within the city of Ningbo in 2011 has risen by 87%", and write that as a fact whilst citing AI. Organisations such as AI have no solid evidence, and can only make estimates and guesses for many things. Now back to the whole CHRD business: This current article claims pretty much everything as fact - not speculation, but fact. It is absolutely not alright to cite CHRD for the points in this article, given the POV slant of the source, and then claim that the list of dissidents is something that is of actual fact. "Facts" should be cited by third-party reliable sources, whilst "opinions" can be cited by any source from any side, regardless of whether the source is partisan or sided. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Thats not how wikipedia works though, you seem to be confused. A sources POV and whether or not it is reliable are two separate issues. A source can be neutral and not reliable, partisan and reliable, or any combination on a sliding scale. Wikipedia policies protect against the grey fallacy, what matters is the accuracy of the source not its slant. If you want to make an argument that the source isnt reliable, thats fine, but you keep asserting its unreliable without actually presenting a policy-based argument why. -- ۩ Mask 10:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
WP:NOTRELIABLE: "Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves... They are generally unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties." -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Not policy, but also of relevance: Wikipedia:Reliable source examples:
>Websites and publications of political parties, religious groups, anti-religious groups, or any other partisan group, may exhibit bias and should be treated with caution... these websites can be used to present the viewpoints of these groups... Such sources should be presented alongside references from other sources in order to maintain a neutral point of view. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, they should be treated with care. Its easy to be a crappy source when you have an opinion, and deserve extra scrutiny. Like I said up thread, if you want to make an argument they're unreliable, you should do that. You dont though, you just say they're POV and hence not usable. As for your first point, what's the relevance? Or are you asserting that those who ask for civil rights are an extremist group? -- ۩ Mask 10:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
(indent) Take note of "rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion". None of these entries in the list are actually well-confirmed in concrete; these are merely collected from mouth-to-mouth information and rumours on such arrests. Given that there is no certain way of being sure that these arrests have taken place, we can only treat these speculations as such. Until the PRC government releases an official statement of arrests (which is highly unlikely), this area is sure to be an uncertain one. You cannot use uncertain sources to claim a piece of fact as certain; currently the article does not say that the arrests are speculated, but rather they actually occurred. Also, take note of "or any other partisan group" - they do not necessarily have to be an extremist group like Al-Qaida or the Ku Klux Klan; CHRC is a partisan website, and the short biographies provided are sure to contain biases. Like I said earlier, until there are better sources available that detail on such information, verifiability remains sketchy. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
WRT: "None of these entries in the list are actually well-confirmed in concrete" Wrong.
- IQinn (talk) 11:28, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, a simple google search blows this not well-confirmed thing out of the water. Some will need to get acquainted with the idea that repeating the same thing over and over does not magically turn it into reality. -- ۩ Mask 15:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Hocus pocus. Did you really think that neither Benlisquare nor Ohconfucius would have neglected a Google Search? That is simply idiotic of you. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 15:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know if they did or not, but seeing as they appear unaware of the results it seems a safe assumption. -- ۩ Mask 15:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Merge Possibly move the contents to just Chinese dissidents. Benjwong (talk) 15:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep Seems to be a discrete event from the protests, and the well defined criteria (activists who had action taken against them during the crackdown) save it from the indiscriminate list part of WP:NOT. Issues with reliable sourcing can be solved through editing. -- ۩ Mask 17:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. Recognized overwhelmingly by reliable, reputable news organizations across the political spectrum as a discrete and highly notable event. Most of the arguments for deletion are not soundly grounded in Wikipedia policy, and the majority are entirely ungrounded. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:14, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
    • The "notable event covered in reputable news organizations" you are looking for is at 2011 Chinese protests, not here. This is a laundry list of names. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
      • No, the article on the 2011 protests is what he can find at that article, the response of the authorities in the aftermath of the protests are at this article. Is there any Reliable Sources you can point to saying this is the same event? Wikipedia is not a host for Original Research and thats what youre assertions are starting to come together as. -- ۩ Mask 15:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
        • Greetings, master of distortion. Please ensure that you say "...saying this is part of the same series of event", because that is what Benli is arguing here. You basically were asking a rhetorical, open-ended question there. oh...gasp --HXL's Roundtable and Record 15:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
            • Im aware thats what he's saying, as you can read from "Is there any Reliable Sources you can point to saying this is the same event?". Im not asking if he's making that argument, I'm asking if he has any sources to back up an editorial decision. It's a three sentence post I made, I dont think it's out of bounds to assume you read all parts of three sentences. -- ۩ Mask 15:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep:
    • unsourced laundry list: Both the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times call this a "crackdown" of many people, and the April article (by WP) claims "dozens". WP: "a government crackdown in which dozens of bloggers, human rights lawyers and writers have been swept up"; LATimes (26 Feb): "authorities in China deemed the threat strong enough to have interrogated, arrested and detained at home dozens of people suspected of fomenting the anti-government movement." So i don't see the justification of either "unsourced" or "laundry list".
      • As of this version [3], let's look at the references from undisputable RS such as Washington Post. Reference 1 from Washington Post is about Ai Weiwei. 2, 5, 6 and 7 from reputable RS are about the 'jasmine' thing. 11 from SCMP is about Shanghai Riot (which has own article). 14 from BBC is about Ai Weiwei. 18 from Daily Planet is about 1 person. 22 from BBC is about 'jasmine' thing. 24 from Guardian is jasmine.
      • So, the fact stands that, most of the undisputable references are about the 2011 Chinese protests article. Some are about Ai Weiwei, which can go to his own article. And no reference says that this is becoming a trend and year 2011 is worse than previous years or anything similar. In fact, most of the references were from late Feburary, when the jasmine thing was going on, commenting on that.Zlqq2144 (talk) 00:31, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
      • FYI, the references I excluded are things like CHRD (see talkpage), China geeks (blog) and google groups threadsZlqq2144 (talk) 00:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
        • Your three comments here do not seem to respond to my explanation of my "keep". References being linked to the 2011 Chinese protests and Ai Weiwei do not make them non-references. WP and LATimes claim a crackdown, meaning a systematic policy, not a laundry list of unrelated arrests. Boud (talk) 18:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
          • No, references linked to 2011 protests are not non-references. But when most references are about that, it means that this is content fork of it. LATimes source was from late Feb, it was about the 2011 protest, the title is ' Online call for protests in China prompts crackdown'. It does not say that it is becoming a trend or that 2011 is any different from other years. The WP article is about Ai Weiwei, and it doesn't talk about a trend. I repeat, they are not non-references, it's just they do not show that this is becoming a trend or 2011 is different from other years. Zlqq2144(Talk Contribs) 22:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
          • Also, as of now, when all the CHRD references are deleted, it is a laundry list, with many unsourced, BLP violating names. Zlqq2144(Talk Contribs) 22:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
    • unverifiable? i think i see only 3 out of 52 in the present version that are unsourced; the unsourced ones can be tagged with "citation needed" and/or shifted to the talk page pending sourcing
    • fork:
      1. this article seems mostly complementary to the 2011 Chinese protests article
      2. the 2011 Chinese protests article is already quite long, so WP:SPLIT makes this a reasonably neutral way of splitting some of the material off that article Boud (talk) 21:41, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
      • The fact that the 2011 protests article is getting long does not necessarily mean that it should have a split. Most of the names are not notable as individuals. Thus it would be better to say 'xx many people are arrested' and list notable ones. The 911 article is also very long, it does not have a separate page listing all the names of the people who died, only summarising who died where, from where and things like that. Zlqq2144 (talk) 00:31, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
        • i agree that not all articles should be split. However, a split-or-not-to-split debate is different to a fork debate; forks in Wikipedia are a bad idea, while splits are a good idea when the material is too much for one article. In that case, there is no longer a fork argument for the AfD proposal. Instead, work on individual parts of the article and on the talk page. If there is consensus for shrinking the content significantly and it becomes and remains stable and very small, then eventually a merger should become obvious and uncontroversial. Otherwise, WP:NOTPAPER. Boud (talk) 18:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
          • Ah but that's a totally different question. At the moment, with the CHRD references gone, this article is seriously violating BLP policy. That, I thought, even qualifies for a speedy delete. Instead of keeping this, we can, alternatively, delete it, use the usable references (which isn't a lot) and stuff them into the 2011 protests and Ai Weiwei article, since all usable references are about those two. Zlqq2144(Talk Contribs) 22:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
        • WP:TOOLONG?? shome mishtake shurely! --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
          • As WP:TOOLONG says (as a rule of thumb) (<60KB) >40 KB May need to be divided. The 2011 protests article is currently 50KB. So it is still disputable. The argument I'm trying to make is that this crackdown article is essentially a list of names. Most of the people as individuals are not notable (when the CHRD references are removed, there are many unreferenced people, also see talkpage, many of them are unknown to google). So there is no need to list the names, anywhere. Zlqq2144(Talk Contribs) 02:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Merge to 2011 Chinese protests, and if kept separate, Rename and major rewrite: The creator subtlely admits himself "...is a policy carried out...since mid-February 2011". Well, I wonder what could have begun in mid-February of this year...? Hence the central focus is the events of the aftermath of the Jasmine protests. Also, I share many of the viewpoints of OhConfucius, who himself is critical of the PRC Government or CPG. That even critics such as him wish to have this article deleted underscores many major issues (more below)
Aside from the duplicity, we have several issues with the title and article: China is NOT necessarily the state, and furthermore, we need terms that are more formal than simply "crackdown". I suggest a title such as "List of dissidents in the People's Republic of China detained since February 2011" or something similar to that. And, yes, the laundry list concern is real, and if this article is to be kept, it MUST be cleaned up a great deal. Absolutely too little prose relative to the list. In any case, the absolutely horrid title is a reflection of the abysmally poor judgment of the creator. I hope he travels the Sock-ing path so WP could be free of this PEST and IDIOT --HXL's Roundtable and Record 00:02, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep - Notable subject but the list of names needs to be chopped down somewhat.--RaptorHunter (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep This is a notable and discrete topic discussed in reliable sources. Shortcomings in the title or how the article described living people should be addressed through discussion on the talk page and normal editing, rather than by deletion. Cullen328 (talk) 02:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
    • The list is constructed as an extension of the 2011 Chinese protests article. The list of names is a laundry list, most of the names are only sourced to primary sources or blogs. What's left of this list after a judicious pruning can easily be merged back to the 2011 protests article (if they are not there already). --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:30, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Merge to 2011 Chinese protests - as per the above reasons for merging. This article is a fork from the 2011 Chinese protests. A list itself is not the problem, its become a collection of political things which WP:NOT#DIRECTORY could used for advocacy rather than a event list for wikipedia to record general events which occur during the year. --Visik (talk) 03:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment The Economist published an article titled China's crackdown and The Globe and Mail has an article Fears of uprisings prompt China’s Easter crackdown. These do indicate the notability of the CRACKDOWN as a separate article, and it is not POV to call it crackdown as it is reported in secondary reliable sources. A spade should be called a spade, crackdown should be called crackdown. --Reference Desker (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

    • So, use in a secondary source makes it a proper name? If a news article called a KKK lynch mob a "nigger hunt", does that make "nigger hunt" the proper title for use on Wikipedia? "Crackdown" is POVed, and use in secondary sources does not justify anything. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Interestingly Oxford Dictionaries Online defines crackdown as a series of severe measures to restrict undesirable or illegal people or behaviour and Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary defines crackdown as when someone starts to deal with bad or illegal behaviour in a more severe way. So the article in its current title actually serves the POV of Communist Party of China and the media seems to have forgotten the dictionary definition of "crackdown". --Reference Desker (talk) 04:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately media do not use the term "suppression" (which is the accurate term for this act) as frequently as they use the term "crackdown" [4]. It seems the media has a pro-Communist Party bias or are ignorant about English language. --Reference Desker (talk) 04:31, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Please allow me to say this. The Western Media is pro-Communist Party? *gasp* I hope you are not serious because I can almost immediately pull out about 100 pieces of evidence to counter that, all of which more than just 'they used a nicer word' (not that many people know that). Let's just end this here. Zlqq2144 (talk) 04:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
You know the results you want, and you are openly cherry-picking your sources to conform to it! Wikipedia at its finest. Actually, I would say in this case that "crackdown" has a more negative connotation than "suppression", because as in the dictionary definition, a crackdown is severe and involves force, while suppression sounds quieter and the word is also used for some voluntary actions. Back on topic, the definition that The Economist is using for the "crackdown" is not the definition used in the Wikipedia article:
"With hindsight, it began after Tibetan riots in 2008 drew a harsh response. Since then, two events, the Beijing Olympics later that year and the Shanghai World Expo of 2010, might have served as coming-out parties for a rising China. They offered the regime the chance to show the world a more confident face. Yet both were accompanied by harsh treatment of anyone deemed likely to embarrass the government. Tens of thousands of unwashed migrant workers were forced out of Beijing for lowering the tone. Outspoken activists were kept out of sight." —The Economist
The media love to take one or two incidents and to fashion grand trends and patterns out of them. That the different groups that speak of a "crackdown" cannot agree on when this "crackdown" began or what it entails indicates that those using the term are merely using a descriptive, pejorative word for a vaguely defined string of current events (that could have begun in 2008 as well as it could have mid-February), and are not talking about a discrete event or unit of time that we can write a single article about. Quigley (talk) 05:10, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I Google "Chinese crackdown on dissidents", the result is 1.3 million, here , major media such as Time.com, Reuters.com, Guardian.co.uk, cnn.com, Times of India.com, among others, all use "crackdown" as a descriptive term. What is the big deal? Arilang talk 06:05, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Delete Article falls within WP:NOTOPINION as little more than a list of arrests, designed to engineer disaffection. Chinese human rights issues are sufficiently well covered in the numerous other articles on the subject. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or memorial to would be revolutionaries. Pol430 talk to me 21:51, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep per Cullen328/bender235V7-sport (talk) 05:10, 20 April 2011 (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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