Deletion of Allegations of state terrorism by the United States

Comment: I took this off my watchlist because I was sick of dealing with it, and the article I see now bears little resemblance to the one I saw a couple of months ago. I don't know if that's good or bad, but the deletions seem excessive. This is an extremely notable topic and that's what is at issue here. The problem with this article is that over the years it has been worked on largely by two groups of people: 1) People who love it, and want to include every possible accusation, sometimes even if it goes against NPOV; 2) People who hate it and want it deleted and spend most of their time putting it up for AfD, deleting massive sections, or adding irrelevant material for balance. The former group was largely owning the article a few months ago, now the latter seems to be moving in. Unsurprisingly the result of all of this has not been a good article (though it's not, or wasn't, nearly as bad as some are making it). However deleting it is clearly the wrong way to go. The topic is notable and quite frankly deleting it makes us look a little bit ridiculous if we do so. I can't help but notice that no one has put Allegations of State terrorism by Sri Lanka, Allegations of state terrorism by Russia, or Allegations of state terrorism by Iran up for deletion (all of which are linked to at the bottom of this page). I find that very revealing, and an outside observer might wonder why we can have those articles but not this one, why this has been put up for AfD and those have not. Basically the answer is that this article creates a lot of drama because more folks on en.wikipedia have strong feelings about US foreign policy than the foreign policy of Russia or Sri Lanka. But that's a terrible rationale, and to delete this and keep the others (perhaps someone will put them up for AfD now, though I don't see a basis for that) is, I think, to violate our core policy on NPOV. This project has its base of operation in the US and is very heavily "staffed" by American volunteers. Sceptre thinks the article in its current state makes Wikipedia look a bit ridiculous (and I don't necessarily disagree with that), but we look far more ridiculous by deleting an article critical of US foreign policy because the lot of us can't figure out a way to edit it properly. My keep rationale is per , but I hope the other component of my argument will be considered
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:N)

Comment: The massive COATRACK issues, the continual edit warring, and the rampant soapboxing aren't in and of themselves reasons to delete an article, irritating as they are.  However, a large majority of the sources fail  due to their extremist and fringe nature.  Hugo Chavez and Noam Chomsky, despite their supporters' fervent desire, are not representative of mainstream thought on the topic
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Verifiability (WP:V)

Comment: without prejudice to recreation as a fully-protected stub for expansion, where all edits are discussed before addition. This article (with its long, divisive history) is one of the worst flashpoints on Wikipedia. While I am ambivalent about the possibility of creating a policy-compliant article on the topic, I am quite sure that in its current form, this isn't it. What we currently have is nothing more than a laundry list of grievances from many sources, some of which totally lack any form of |reliability (my personal favorite is the Indymedia San Francisco article supporting the reference to some non-notable group in "The Hague, Belgium", in the Philippines section); I also found links to blogs and to personal websites to columnists with no qualifications in the field of international relations/international law
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Reliable sources (WP:RS)

Comment: I urge all of you voting to keep to look at : "If the subject is notable, but the current article is so blatantly biased that it's an embarrasment, or a blatant hoax where all the statements are wrong, then Wikipedia may indeed be better off without the article. Things which cause concerns over core policies like verifiability need to be addressed, and simply saying that major concerns of that nature could be solved eventually, is not going to solve the problem." definitely applies to this article
Stance: comment
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:HOPELESS)

Comment: per  and 
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:SOAP||WP:SYN)

Comment: I can understand the frustrations many editors have had with this article, and I have them also. And I think  that there are emotional involvements here, as this is a sensitive subject, as well as a politicized and controversial one. But to nominate an article for deletion because of content disputes is against policy, per , in which it says: ''Disputes over page content are not dealt with by deleting the page.''  Therefore the effect of this nomination is disruptive, especially following on seven AfDs in which the article was kept, and does not help the article. As I said before, to argue for deletion looks like a case of Ben Tre|destroying the village to save it.  No one disputes that the subject is notable, and there are loads of |reliable sources for |notability and |verifiability, about 238 references when the article was much longer.  If there are  issues, or any of the other issues raised in the nomination, which I don't see, then consensus edit them, per policy, rather than delete.  The only serious issue I see is that it's a |battleground with edit wars preventing the article from being stabilized and improved
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Deletion policy (WP:DP||WP:RS||WP:N||WP:V||WP:POV||WP:BATTLEGROUND)

Comment: who cares that this article is a blatant POV push job? Indeed, a lot of people who edit this article and vote here clearly agree with the sentiments described therein, so the NPOV guidelines be damned. After all, as many have said, this is clearly a bad faith nomination (as one person said, "vandalism"), despite the fact it was made by an Englishman, and other non-American (liberal even) long time users are calling for delete. Why should we pay attention to  and  when it's notable? Thank God for all the , , etc. to help state this is a clear keep. Like one user said, "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen" - if you don't like the fact this is clearly a biased article and violates our core policies (and always has and always will), you can just ignore it
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV||WP:COATRACK||WP:ILIKEIT||WP:PER)

Comment: none of the reasons stated by the nom "POV violations, coatracking, off-topic straying, synthesis, original research, et cetera" are valid criteria for deletion. The topic is  with numerous 
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:N||WP:RS)

Comment: The subject is valid if  and  is respected. Clearly there are problems and have been for a long time now but we do not solve these problems by declaring defeat - and that is exactly what this nom is doing. If this is deleted it will most likely be recreated shortly anyway - most likely under a new title too. A better approach here is to show those who disrupt the article the door with less discussion and more liberal use of the block button
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV||WP:V)

Comment: without prejudice to recreation. Notability is not a suicide pact to keep atrocious articles and I seriously distressed to see it used in such a fashion more and more often. Notability simply says that that this ''topic'' is notable for inclusion. It does not indicate that we need to keep articles that are in such a dire state as to be nearly unsalvageable. I don't think anyone is disputing that the ''topic is notable''. Arguments to keep based purely upon notability ignore the arguments being made for deletion. Making notability the be-all end-all for keeping an article not only flies in the face of good sense, but also runs contrary to multiple principles and policies (as an easy example, 
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT)