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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. Keep 14, Merge 10, Delete 2. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:18, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Eugene Armstrong

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This is an article about one of the civilian contractors who was kidnapped in Iraq and eventually beheaded. I am submitting this to VfD as a test case, since there are several such articles. --BM 02:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. While the kidnappings and beheadings of contractors, reporters, etc, in Iraq are incidents that were certainly very notable, the individual contractors are not, and don't warrant encyclopedia articles, Wikipedia not being a memorial. In general, the articles are about the kidnapping/beheading incident not about the person. Accordingly, all of the articles about the individual beheading victims should be deleted, and either a section added to the appropriate article about the Iraq war describing these incidents, or else a new article created covering them. --BM 02:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I agree with BM above. But I don't think this information should get lost, I just don't think it should be on an article by itself. Having information about all the hostages in Iraq in one place would be much better. At first, the appropriate article for this seems to be Post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2005. But that is already too big, so maybe a new article should be created for the hostages. I believe, though, that this will be frowned upon by most VfD voters, who will unfortunately vote "keep" on this one. :-) JoaoRicardo 04:05, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. He was world news for days (if not weeks) at the time, so is obviously notable, although the article could do with added context. The dozens of others who have been similarly murdered since may not qualify for dedicated articles, but he certainly does.--Centauri 04:19, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. I have doubts about this. Being in the news for weeks makes this notable for now, but will people remember this a few years in the future? I see people forgeting news all the time. JoaoRicardo 12:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • Will generations to come remember anything if we don't record it? You have two choices: document or rely upon folk tales. There is also deletionist option #3: burn everything. —RaD Man (talk) 21:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep if he's the most famous one, but merging into a hostage related article would be good too. Kappa 04:28, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Denni☯ 05:15, 2005 Feb 9 (UTC)
  • Keep - I don't think this is memorial-ish in tone. WhisperToMe 05:16, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep -- funny, I hadn't heard of him before, but I just heard his name specifically mentioned in a documentary on PBS less than two hours ago. So, I guess he's notable. -- Cleduc 06:08, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, notable - 38,000+ hits on Google. Cleanup and expand. Megan1967 06:45, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, of course. This was headline news, don't you remember? Everyking 08:10, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Of topical interest. Capitalistroadster 10:54, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm not proposing the information be removed, only that the information currently in multiple articles under the names of the victims, be restructured. The articles aren't really about the victims. In general, I think articles titled with a person's name should be a biographical article about that person. If the outcome of this VfD is Redirect or Merge, it is fine with me. I wish there was some system other than Redirect pages on Wikipedia to index a term or name. Encyclopedias have indexes. If someone is not notable enough to merit an article, but has figured in an important incident, we can have a redirect page titled with the person's name to the incident article . But, there might in fact be several articles mentioning the incident, and a redirect can only be to one other page. The set of redirect pages do not actually form an index, even though sometimes you see people (e.g. Jimbo) say that the redirect pages are like an index. To some extent, Google Advanced Search (where you can limit a search to just en.wikipedia.org) is a workaround, but we are then letting Google decide how Wikipedia should be indexed and the results ordered, and Google results will also include Talk pages, User pages, Wikipedia name space pages, etc. --BM 14:03, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Consolidating the information about the victims onto one page might be an agreeable option—not for the ones about which there is a good deal written, but for some of them—but you can try that without VfD. It is a reasonable enough point to make that these victims' whole lives are not necessarily encyclopedic, just their involvement in whatever events they are notable for. However, I still vote to keep because I think the organization of the information should be dealt with by the people who work on these articles as they think is appropriate. Everyking 19:36, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • That is true, and it occurred to me to just merge and redirect them myself without getting any sanction from VfD, since one does not have to have admin powers to do that. However, VfD is one of the few places where one can go to test the consensus on an issue like this, although it will tend to be muddied a bit by misplaced (in this case) deletionism versus inclusionism concerns. In contrast, the articles' editors are apt to think the articles should exist, so that doesn't seem like a good place to start. --BM 20:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • It would be less muddled if you would say upfront you are hoping for a merge, or would be content with one. The VfD tag says "A request has been made for this article to be deleted".
  • Merge into a central article, then redirect. This article has almost nothing about its supposed subject, and the "see also" list is bigger than the article itself! Having everything as one article would save space, allow for more expansion, and make research on the subject easier as well! Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:49, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with the above. Merge and redirect. Meets notability, but doesn't need to be its own article. - Taxman 15:53, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge into a conglomerated article about these sorts of victims. Beyond the news-grabbing event, these people weren't notable enough to be encyclopedic. Katefan0 15:57, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge notablity is due to what happened to him and others - makes more sense as a single article Trödel|talk 16:18, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:34, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge. The notability is due to the single event, not the person. Rossami (talk) 22:44, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge, no re-direct, he's a crime victim. Wyss 19:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Extreme keep. Do not merge, do not redirect. BM, are you disrupting Wikipedia to make a point? —RaD Man (talk) 21:46, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • No --BM 21:56, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge to one article about the series of events, and Redirect each name of someone documented as relevant to that article. These people are in general notable only for their involvement in these kidnappings and deaths (for reasons other than their own individual actions). Admin should review each article for evidence of sufficient notability to warrant keeping. Comment: I believe BM was not attempting to make a destructive point; he posted a test case of one member of a group and asked for a consensus on best course of action. He explained his reasoning in WP-policy-related comments. I have less confidence in RaD Man's constructive intent based on some votes I've seen here in recent weeks, but we all should follow the Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith Wikiquette guideline, please. Barno 00:20, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I'd love to assume good faith Barno, but BM is a hardcore deletionist. It's unquestionable. See for yourself:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] This list goes on, and on, and on... —RaD Man (talk) 00:38, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

    • It is true that I have a strong tendency to vote for deletion of articles submitted here, and to submit articles from time to time myself. However, you will note that I don't vote delete on all articles. I generally don't throw in many "me too" keep votes, because usually when I would vote keep, the article doesn't need any help from me to be kept. For that matter, I frequently don't bother voting on the obvious "delete" cases, either, although I might if I have something to say. If I cared about being characterized as a "hard core deletionist", I could make plenty of honest "keep" votes to balance things out. However, actually I don't object much to the characterization. I'm not running for anything, and if there are people here who hate my guts because they think I'm a deletionist, that doesn't really bother me. Perhaps I will occasionally persuade someone with arguments, even though he might think I'm a deletionist. I do object to the implication that anybody characterized as "hard core deletionist" cannot possibly be participating in good faith. Suggesting so seems to be overstepping the bounds of civility. I hope that people who object to my perceived "deletionism" will observe Wikipedia strictures about civility, as I generally do, with the occasional lapse for which I apologize in advance. --BM
  • Keep. Samaritan 04:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • merge. Mikkalai 07:10, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with a merge/redirect for these cases into a single article, which would provide better context anyway. Not sure exactly what to call the article though. -R. fiend 21:05, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, could well be of interest to someone in the future researching these incidents. Dan100 21:50, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. It's a sad way to establish notability, but he's notable by the media coverage alone. Antandrus 02:16, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete I'm glad someone has suggested this. These are sad, grubby little articles, all of them, with links to murders, and aggressive reversion of anyone who tries to delete them. Nick Berg's contains four links to the video of his death in the article itself, not just external links, plus a link to a post-murder photograph, perhaps so we can print it out and stick it up as a poster. Others contain the URL to the beheadings via ogrish.com, where you can also watch young girls having sex with horses while you wait for the snuff movie to download. The information about all these victims should be consolidated into one article, written in an encyclopedic way, with some respect for the individuals, no videos, no death pics. It has no chance of happening, but that's my vote anyway. SlimVirgin 05:31, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge Non-notable, though it is a worthy topic it does not deserve its own article and instead should be bundled into an article on terrorism or the like. gxti 18:30, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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