Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of U.S. exporting democracy militarily

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 Merge back to Foreign policy of the United States. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

History of U.S. exporting democracy militarily

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Completely POV title ("exporting democracy"???) ... topic doesn't need to have an article anyway ... current mess is in blatant violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR ... why these categories? Which reliable source says that you can break up arguments about this topic into these categories? Jrtayloriv (talk) 07:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -- - 2/0 (cont.) 07:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. -- - 2/0 (cont.) 07:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Retitle Don't see how this is a WP:SYNTH issue. The sources themselves side with the opinions they're being used to source, and do so very explicitly. I don't see any WP:OR issue, either. Everything in this is carefully sourced. I think with a re-title and perhaps some work on the content this is a fine article about an extremely notable topic. The ~~topic's~~ title's the only real problem, because it inherently takes a side. Also: worth noting that this article was previously a section in Foreign policy of the United States. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 08:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I was wrong to cite WP:SYNTH and WP:OR -- I meant that the way that the article was laid out, seemed like the author cherry-picked certain arguments and created his own categories and then chose arguments to fit within them. That is, he found reliable sources to back statements up, but synthesized them in a way that none of the original sources did (hence WP:SYNTH). Sorry about the confusion. Basically, I was trying to point out that I think the categories are totally off and that the author made them up (hence WP:OR), in addition to the other problems. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 19:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The page was created with the following edit summary: "This is a chunk of Foreign policy of the United States, moved to separate article as per request on talk pages; POV tag added by me". The article itself is not that bad. Right now I'm leaning toward giving it a more appropriate title or at least merging it back into already bloated Foreign policy of the United States. Does anyone have any ideas for a better name? — Rankiri (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be honest -- I spent some time last night trying to think of a better title and am at a bit of a loss, at least without going to an extremely long name like "History of Debate over Whether or Not the United States Exports Democracy by Military Intervention" or something insane like that. I may be leaning towards re-merging this with the original article. Based on other people's thoughts here, it seems as if this article comes across more POV-ish and problematic as a standalone article than it did as a part of a larger (much, much larger) article. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 18:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How about "History of foreign U.S. military interventions" or "History of governments forcibly installed by the U.S." or "History of governments installed by U.S. military force"? That way we don't include the POV viewpoint that they are "exporting democracy" in the title? -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Awkward title for a very sensitive topic. The topic as such may be made notable by a coherent definition of the term "military export of democracy" and a sound structure of the article, but now it is still not much more than a poutpourri of loosely related opinions.Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The very subject of this article is a "point of view" of US Foreign Policy, and a false one at that. After all, the United States is not a Democracy, it is a Republic. It doesn't matter if you "retitle" it, it's still going to talk about a particular point of view of how the United States conducts foreign policy. The onus of proof is on those that want this kept to provide sources and reasoning that show how this meets notability standards. Once they do that, I'd like to see some non-POV sources that show this is anything but propaganda. Rapier1 (talk) 18:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see how an article that provides three distinct and conflicting points of view is "propaganda." The very subject of this article is not -a- point of view, it is several points of view, and it is hardly the only article on Wikipedia to present multiple points of view on a historically notable point of debate. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 18:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of promotion of democracy during U.S. military interventions is highly notable, however. Google Books is filled with publications that discuss the issue in detail and even Google Web immediately shows a number of WP:RS results with significant coverage of the subject: [1]. Aside from the article's title and such horrendous section names as "Opinion that U.S. intervention does not export democracy", the article's actual contents do not seem to fall under a clear-cut violation of WP:SYNTH or WP:OR. I think that renaming the article into something along the lines of "Promotion of Democracy and U.S. Military Interventions" or at least merging the well-sourced parts somewhere else would be a much more sensible solution. — Rankiri (talk) 18:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps something like "Political (motivations/basis/justification/rationale) for American military interventions"? Shimgray | talk | 21:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge back to parent articleNo reason this needed to be split. The simple fact that the author is at a loss for a concise and clear title supports that this information is best left as a section in the foriegn policy article. While I don't agree with the WP:SYNTH statement there's definately a claim for WP:OR to be made as well as POV issues. Here's the test I used to come to POV conclusion. If this article exists could there reasonably be another article exactly in its negative that also has reliable sources? If you don't like the merge suggestion then rename to "Exportation of Democracy" and write the article to include multiple different methods and historical examples. Nefariousski (talk) 21:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason is quite simple. Before Tomwsulcer moved Criticism of American foreign policy and History of U.S. exporting democracy militarily into separate articles, the parent article was almost 250KB long. See WP:SIZERULE and WP:CFORK#Article spinouts – "Summary style" articles. — Rankiri (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I find it a POV coatrack. Marge what is salvagable into other articles and then kill it. bahamut0013^words _deeds 20:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Changing vote...sorta: Keep/Retitle or Merge back to parent I think this article's content, when read in the context of a larger article on the history of the United States (or similar), loses much of its perceived NPOV issues. I am still fine with the article as-is if the title is changed. I really still don't see how the article itself is pushing a POV with the exception of the inadvertently POV-pushing and inaccurate title...it's reporting on the history of criticism on a notable topic, and giving each POV its due turn without taking a side. But -- big but -- (big but? did I really just... anyway) I can definitely see how this article, on its own, -can- be viewed as expressing a POV. Out of context, I concur that it is very easy to at least think of it in POV terms. In the context of a bigger article, less so. I think that's my final opinion on this, but this is certainly an interesting conversation and one I'll probably check in on again. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 07:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge back. The new title proposals don't seem to get much support, so, unless a stronger consensus is reached, I too suggest to merge the content back to the parent article and continue this discussion without the need to pay close attention to the ticking of the clock. — Rankiri (talk) 14:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge. This is a WP:COATRACK just waiting for more "opinions". POV is unavoidable in an article like this. Wine Guy~Talk 11:05, 2 March 2010 (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.