2016 Chinese memes war on Facebook (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The reasons for deletion are really nonsense.

1. This piece of news had high notability when the event broke out. Here is a news report from the Wall Street Journal [1], and a news report from the BBC [2], a news report from the BBC Chinese [3], and a news report from the New York Post [4].
2. This piece of news still has notability even now. Some people are still talking about this issue in recent months such as [5] and [6].
3. "Filling with grammatical errors" should never be the reason to delete an article, because grammar fix is an easy task that everyone can do it.
4. "Original research" is a more nonsensical reason. There were plenty of references from many famous website. Most sentences were cited. How can it be original research? The passage with heading "This section possibly contains original research" contains hundreds of citations, so how can it be original research? Yejianfei (talk) 13:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Could we please get a temporary undelete or failing that if someone feels there is a reason not to an e-mailed copy of it? Hobit (talk) 13:56, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've emailed you a copy. I would not be comfortable with a temporary undelete as there is at least one section which looks distinctly like a BLP violation. Hut 8.5 20:22, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks by the way. After looking at it, I'm still not sure what we should do. It looks pretty snowy, so I'll just sit out. Hobit (talk) 01:45, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Noting as the deleting admin here that if the topic is still notable it can simply be recreated - much of the delete argument was about the poor quality of the article. Calling the !voters @Lasersharp, Metropolitan90, Alex Shih, and Power~enwiki: here. As for the temp undelete request, contains personal attacks on the parties involved implies there may be BLP issues involved but I am not getting a good grasp on this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:17, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What does "BLP" mean? --Yejianfei (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"contains personal attacks on the parties involved" is also nonsense. As I see from the webarchive [7], the article just simply recorded what happened, without any author's points of view. It didn't talk about who is right and who is wrong. Why do you think it contains personal attacks? --Yejianfei (talk) 18:12, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BLP refers to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Hut 8.5 20:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I stand by my delete vote. The article is of atrocious written quality and I see no claim of notability for the event, which appears to be the equivalent of a "4chan raid". Even though the BBC does have an article entitled "Pro-China posts spam Taiwan President-elect Tsai's Facebook", that doesn't make it notable enough for a stand-alone article. Power~enwiki (talk) 18:51, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since there were "tens of thousands of posts" spammed on the internet at the same time, those massive netizens and posts already proved its notability. This notability should be much higher than most of articles in Wikipedia. Ask yourself: how many Wikipedian articles can reach the notability of so massive users? --Yejianfei (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse while the topic is likely notable, it is permissible to delete an article on a notable topic if the article is sufficiently bad that to get it in acceptable shape would require it to be essentially rewritten, and I think it was reasonable to delete this article on those grounds. It reeks of pro-PRC bias, is badly written, and although it cites some respectable sources it also relies on some completely useless ones. I'm less sure about original research without digging into the sources in more depth but there is one glaring example. I suggest that anyone who wants us to have an article on this topic try writing a draft which is more encyclopedic. Hut 8.5 20:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment According to WP:CLAIM, there is no pro-PRC statements at all. Every pro-statement is in reported speech. --Yejianfei (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong on two levels: the article didn't attribute all pro-PRC statements to that side, and even if it did then that wouldn't necessarily make it neutral. To illustrate why the article was biased I'm going to go through one paragraph, the first of the "Background" section, which discusses a singer waving the ROC flag on a Korean TV show and stating that she came from Taiwan:

• "another singer... who comes from Hong Kong remained [reminded?] her that it is Taiwan province of China, she ignored". So the article is asserting that the PRC position that Taiwan is a province of China is correct and that she should have known that.
• "her nationality was also introduced as "TaiWan" but not China, even not ROC,[6] although Taiwan is not a country and cannot be claimed as the nationality of anyone" (the citation is a Google Images search). The article is asserting here that the singer's claimed nationality is wrong using original research to back up the PRC position. The article is also taking the view that any positions other than the PRC and ROC ones cannot possibly be correct, which is also not neutral.
• The paragraph then goes on to note that the state of South Korea accepts the mainland position that Taiwan is a province of China. This is, again, original research to back up the PRC view. There isn't any indication that the South Korean government was involved in any of this, so their position has got nothing to do with it.

That's just one paragraph. The article is riddled with this stuff and making it vaguely neutral would require almost all the content to be removed. Hut 8.5 17:51, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Let's have a look at each sentence.

• "Although another singer Jackson Wang,who comes from HongKong reminded her that it is Taiwan province of China, she ignored." What is wrong with that? That just reported that Jackson Wang himself claimed that opinion, and this claim was one of the reason of the memes war. It is only Jackson Wang himeself suppports the idea of Taiwan, Province of China. It does not mean whether Taiwan is actually a country or not.
• "her nationality was also introduced as "TaiWan" but not China, even not ROC,[6] although Taiwan is not a country and cannot be claimed as the nationality of anyone", It could be modify a little, like "her nationality was also clamied to be Taiwan but not China, even not ROC, although her identity showed that her nationality was ROC."
• "Republic of Korea (South Korea) and People's Republic of China established diplomatic relationship with each other on 1992 and the communique of establishment of diplomatic relationship between ROK and PRC acknowledges that South Korea admits one China policy and Taiwan is a part of China" This only showed that ROK and PRC claimed that. It did not show whether it was an acceptable idea. I don't think it is original research, but maybe this sentence is not suitable here, because it is unrelated to the article. We don't need to put a unrelated claim here. So this sentence could be removed. --Yejianfei (talk) 07:18, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• There isn't anything necessarily wrong with presenting the views of someone else in the article, and something like "he told her that Taiwan is a province of China" may well have been fine. However the way the article phrased it implied that it was agreeing with his position, notably the (misspelled) use of the word "reminded", which implies that Taiwan's status as a province is some generally accepted fact which she had forgotten. Representing people's opinions can still be biased though, if you don't represent opinions equally.
• Your version has the same problem as the article: it asserts that her nationality can only really be claimed as Chinese or Republic of China, and not Taiwan. This is biased. There are plenty of people who think that Taiwan is or should be an independent country, and we can't state that they are wrong. Even if we had a credible source, which this statement didn't.
• It's original research (specifically synthesis) because this information is not relevant to the issue at hand. The only reason it is included is because some editor thought it was relevant, using their own judgement rather than a reliable source. The fact that it's true that the PRC and ROK claim this also does not mean it's neutral to include this here. Putting in a load of statements of support for the PRC position from authorities is not neutral, even if these statements are attributed to them. Yes, we could get rid of the statement, but the point of the deletion rationale is that for this to work we would have to remove or rewrite so much of the article that at the end what you would get is a completely different article and we might as well have deleted it and started again. That's what I suggest you do if you think Wikipedia should have an article on this topic. Hut 8.5 18:09, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse only possible reading of the discussion. Notability is our guideline for when it is possible to include something, but being notable is not enough for an article to be kept if consensus is that as currently written it is such a failure of other policies such as those on advocacy or promotion. Users in an AfD can decide that the best outcome in these cases is to delete per WP:WHATISTOBEDONE. That's what happened here. This was a good close. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:46, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse, the discussion could not have reasonably been closed any other way. Stifle (talk) 08:24, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Objection Voting without a reasonable reason should be regarded as an invalid vote. --Yejianfei (talk) 15:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse, any other close for this discussion would have been ridiculous. Looking at the article itself, which is pretty naked propaganda for the Beijing regime, it also appears that the correct decision was made. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 00:01, 20 August 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Comment: Reported speech does not imply any standpoints. The passage matches the WP:CLAIM rule very well. --Yejianfei (talk) 15:35, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse but I agree with Yejianfei that a considerable number of arguments put at the AFD were not relevant to deletion. However, there were some criticisms made which, if valid, would have led to removal of material possibly to such an extent that very little worthwhile was left. Despite all that, the only conceivable alternative to a delete close would have been a relist. My advice, if I may give it to Yejianfei, is that it would be more helpful to the topic if the article was started all over again, squeaky clean, with good references and no polemic. Even polemic as direct quiotes may not be a good idea. Now, I haven't seen the article (and am not asking to see it) and I admit that to some extent I am taking account of people here whose opinions I respect and who have seen the deleted text. Thincat (talk) 12:23, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]