CRUSE (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

csda7 is invalid because the article asserted significance -- for example, its scanners out-performed four other notable companies.--RZuo (talk) 20:15, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Temporarily undeleted for DRV. Daniel (talk) 21:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn and send to AfD if desired. There's a CCS in one of the references that's even more explicit than those in the text of the article. Jclemens (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy overturn and send to AfD. If someone wants a discussion, let them have the discussion. Don’t make this wait a week here. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Political prisoners (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This was closed as "convert to container category" with the rationale "Although a majority of participants would prefer to keep the category and discuss inclusion on a case-by-case basis, on this occasion the arguments based on Wikipedia policies outweigh the numbers." This is very subjective - with the disclaimer that I was the category's creator and voted keep, I nonetheless find the keep arguments well-articulated, and the opposing one much less so. In particular, I note that I and others have replied to several voters who suggested containerization, but said voters never replied to us. It's disappointing that silent refusal to participate in the discussion is treated as "convincing". I could see this being closed as no consensus, or relisted, but I don't think closing this as de facto delete (containerize isn't much better) is the right action. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn — the “keep” voters were, on the whole, every bit as thoughtful, engaged, logical and policy-grounded as the other side. Ignoring our arguments is arbitrary and, frankly, insulting. — Biruitorul ^Talk 13:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn to keep At the very, very, least the closing statement is poor. "...on this occasion the arguments based on Wikipedia policies outweigh the numbers." is a fine reason to go against the majority, but you have to actually cite what policies are involved. Beyond that, BHG made a strong argument, but A) it was well refuted and B) most people didn't agree with it. And yes, we are capable of using sources to figure out category membership. Bad close that cannot be allowed to stand. Hobit (talk) 14:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn - I'm a bit shocked that, despite so many of us voting to Keep this important category it was unilaterally deleted anyways. Please, there are so many important historical topics about political imprisonment that predate modern NGO designations. --Dan Carkner (talk) 14:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wrong on both counts, @Dan Carkner:

1. See WP:NOTVOTE. The closer's job is not to count heads, but to weigh policy-based reasoned argument.
2. The closer's decision was not made unilaterally. It was explicitly based on weighing the arguments made in the discussion: the arguments based on Wikipedia policies outweigh the numbers.

This blatant misrepresentation of the close is disruptive. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Closer's response: Forgive me not going into more detail in the close. I will remedy that. As for the to-and-fro about WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, I was satisfied by the arguments that categories can be justified by text within the article, and if need be can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. However, I found that the justifications for the category did not satisfy WP:SUBJECTIVECAT: an inherently non-neutral inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category. What about adding sub-cats by prison? Category:Boven-Digoel internees was made a sub-cat during the discussion – probably justifiable in my opinion, but POV. Category:Detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was repeatedly brought up as a controversial case, to which the only answer given was WP:FRINGE, but that hardly avoids POV. Category:Prisoners in the Tower of London might perhaps also be put forward to be a sub-cat, because a lot of the members could be called political even if some were regular criminals, and WP:SUBCAT says When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also. I concluded that recording people in Wikipedia as political prisoners should only be done in articles, lists, and categories by designating organisation. – Fayenatic London 16:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fayenatic, with respect, "political prisoner" has 6.8 million hits on google books, it's a very important topic, ranging across almost all modern nations and empires, not something that should be deleted because you find it murky to sort out one case study from another. It's a defining attribute of many important historical figures, especially victims of Soviet regimes and other totalitarian systems that predate modern NGOs; not something that is equivalent to the mere status of being someone who has been imprisoned for any reason. Dan Carkner (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dan Carkner, that argument is based on a classic straw man: the notion that this CFD is to "delete" en.wp's coherent of political prisoners.
No article has been deleted by this CFD, and no article's text has been altered. This CFD was solely about the use of categories to group en.wp's articles on people who have been labelled as political prisoners, and as the closer explicitly notes above recording people in Wikipedia as political prisoners should only be done in articles, lists, and categories by designating organisation. The claim that this amounts to "delete" political prisoners is nonsense. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Categories serve a useful purpose for someone who wants to navigate a topic, and can be be managed by editors much more easily than maintaining a manually edited list related to a topic-- and such lists are often incomplete and poorly sourced. Not to mention the sub categories by nationality offer a way to group articles related to the larger topic. The main article about political prisoners, and of course all the individual biographical articles about prisoners or prisons are not deleted, but the functional ability to navigate them for users is reduced. I feel OK with using the word delete on this deletion review, it's what we're talking about and not a straw man. Dan Carkner (talk) 17:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dan Carkner, your comment was phrased to describe deletion of an important topic. That remains false.
WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV can not be set aside for navigational convenience. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"...and such lists are often incomplete and poorly sourced" - Categories are not an end-run around needing references. period, full stop. If you cannot create a referenced list article on the topic, that topic has no business being a category on Wikipedia. This is per long established policy, not just WP:CAT, but WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR, and so on. - jc37 19:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, they have to be sourced, and can be. I've written my share of political prisoner biographies for people who were interned for membership in parties and which is reflected both in the contemporary journalistic coverage and secondary academic literature. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to describe them as a political prisoner in a category if the literature reflects it overwhelmingly. It strikes me as downgrading the validity of the topic to prevent people from using the term in categories.--Dan Carkner (talk) 20:22, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can have reliable sources saying someone thinks that, in their subjective opinion, someone qualifies for the subjective term of "political prisoner" and that is absolutely appropriate for the article space. But this category is making a radically different assertion: in the official opinion of Wikipedia, that subjective claim is objectively true. Good luck finding a reliable source for that! - RevelationDirect (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If this was a problem, we wouldn't have any mildly controversial category, for rapists, scandals, conspiracy theories, etc. You can find reliable sources that are obsolete or just a bit fringe supporting many minority viewpoints, and we don't categorize them. Categories, after all, are for defining qualities, not minority viewpoints (which may or may not be reliable but are generally fringe and not defining, thus not categorizable). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is thoroughly disingenuous. The issue here is not fringe or obsolete or minority viewpoints. The problem is that contested definitions often frame the two sides of a major political dispute, and in the case of the 1981 Irish hunger strike. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:57, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse "Political prisoner" is an inherently POV term, and the closer's rationale about needing more context for this seems a reasonable approach. Jclemens (talk) 17:06, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Having gone through and read the comments, I find BrownHairedGirl's argument persuasive and sufficiently aligned with NPOV policy that the keep !voters simply don't have a policy-based leg to stand on. Jclemens (talk) 17:17, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  As a further question to those advocating that this exist as a category, if he 1) actually had an article (he doesn't, we have articles on others of the same name) and 2) if his jailing was longer, should Canadian Pastor Tim Stephens [1] be included in a category of political prisoners? That's a rhetorical question, obviously, because the answer really depends on what one believes with respect to the legitimacy of Covid-19 restrictions affecting religious observances. Jclemens (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The only "problem" this term has is that it is occasionally abused as some folks try to claim they are political prisoners despite no support for these outside tiny minorities. But as I said, it is not a problem for us; fringe claims do not get categorized. Just like 99% of sources agree that Mandela or Ghandi were political prisoners, hardly anybody in reliable sources would support Stephens. As I said, we can have a category hatnote noting that inclusion in this category requires in-text citation to a reliable source that is not challenged or fringe. Usually, it's quite easy to find plenty of academic or respected NGO / journalists saying someone is a political prisoner. Fringe cases should not be allowed. Problem solved. (And again, this is not a new rule, this is normal - categories are not for fringe claims, which is why despite, let's say, the existence of Holocaust denials or evolution denials groups and like, we don't categorize The Holocaust or evolution theory as false or conspiracies or whatever). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse. The closer correctly applied the policy of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Deciding inclusion on a case-by-case basis is not a viable option when the definition of political prisoner is so heavily dependent on POV. It is deeply depressing to see how some editors in the CFD argued to disregard that core policy POV issue in favour of a majoritarian view of sources, and come here to continue their opposition to policy. That approach would entrench Wikipedia's systemic bias, because the inevitable prominence given to English-language sources by our English-speaking editors would tilt the population of this category towards the perspective of English-speakers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS In addition to my principled objection per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, I have a very specific concern about this category: Ireland.
    One of the key episodes of The Troubles in Northern Ireland was the 1981 Irish hunger strike, which was about the prisoners' demand for Special Category Status, i.e. being treated as political prisoners. The British Government withdrew that status, and the prisoners' response was the hunger strike which became the major political crisis across the island of Ireland in 1981.
    Note that the whole dispute was about "who is a political prisoner".
    If we have a Category:Political prisoners to populated with biographical articles (whether directly or in by-country subcats such as Category:Political prisoners in Northern Ireland), then editors face a binary choice; either the prisoners such as Bobby Sands are categorised as political prisoners, or they are not. That decision comes down to a choice between the Irish republican POV or the British POV. There is no side-stepping this, e.g. by excluding all Irish prisoners from such categories, because any such exclusion would be an endorsement of one POV. In the mid-2000s, The Troubles was a vicious battleground on Wikipedia, with groups of POV-warriors in constant conflict. Restoring this sort of POV category will restart that editorial conflict by forcing Wikipedia to choose a side. Per WP:NPOV, that should not happen. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn to no consensus, because there was none.—S Marshall T/C 17:56, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I want to draw this review's attention to a crucial statement by @Piotrus, who requested this review. In the CFD discussion, Piotrus wrote at 03:58, 5 July 2021: Some categories may be too politicized, particularly in the US, to work on English Wikipedia. This one is not..
  That is an explicit acknowledgement that the topic is a matter of political perspective, and it suggests that these categories not be used wrt to the country most heavily-represented among Wikipedia editors. It implicitly accommodates the highly-partisan notion that "political prisoners" exist only in some "bad countries", and that editors should not trouble themselves trying to apply the same principle regardless of regime. I assume that Piotrus's suggestion was a good faith attempt to avoid controversy; but it amounts to creating a structure which locks in differential standards, and it also provides an excellent illustration of the falsity of Piotrus's claim that the definition of political prisoner is settled. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  As I said in that discussion, no definition for any social science term is really settled; you ignored this point there, and you keep hanging into it as if proves anything - except that you are not very familiar, apparently, with how the existence of multiple definitions is a norm in social sciences. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:04, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse - I think others have said it well enough above. Also, this isn't XfD round two, and of course WP:NOTAVOTE. IWANTIT because IWANTIT and 'I've seen the term on the internet' aren't good enough reasons to keep, see also WP:SUPPORT and Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#Google_test. - jc37 19:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How about "I've seen the term in several decades of political science and history literature" rather than "I've seen it on google"? We're not talking about a fringe concept here, even if it's open to being problematized as being used in a politicized manner at times. Dan Carkner (talk) 21:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The issue here is not that it's open to being problematized as being used in a politicized manner at times. The problem is that the term is inherently political. See e.g. Steinert, 2020: "the concept is ambiguously used in academic studies referring to both theoretically and empirically distinct groups of individuals". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment (as participant) This DRV seems to struggle with the same issue as the CFD: editors talking past each other about the importance of this political concept versus the lack of a non-subjective process of actually picking which articles go in the category. The former is interesting and inspiring while the latter is pretty boring and mechanical. But actual categorization relies on the latter and no formula for escaping WP:SUBJECTIVECAT was ever presented. - RevelationDirect (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse I find DRV most helpful with input from non-participants but, since most of !votes here are from the earlier CFD, I'll make my support explicit. - RevelationDirect (talk) 22:38, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• overturn. WP:Supervote. It’s not good enough for one camp of !voters to be right, the discussion has to reach a consensus. I see a “no consensus” and recommend continued discussion at Talk:Political prisoner#Category for political prisoners recreated, challenged, with consideration of an RfC. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SmokeyJoe: This is very clearly not a supervote. See WP:Supervote#Advice_to_editors_decrying_a_supervote_close: For example, if an XfD discussion has more "keeps" than "deletes" but the "deletes" are grounded in policy and the "keeps" are of the WP:ILIKEIT variety (or conversely if the deletes say WP:ITSCRUFT and the "keeps" are grounded in policy), it's not a "supervote" to close in accordance with a significant minority opinion. This close was clearly founded in the core policy which to which the minority pointed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:15, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    On the contrary, I think Joe is very much right. This was the case "that reflects the preference of the closer, rather than according to the content of the discussion." Although I am willing to consider that the closer really tried to be neutral, but was still swayed by one side's arguments - but that compromises their neutrality, when, as many other parties point out, neither side had a clear superiority in their arguments (and of course, I lean towards the view that keepers were more persuasive - although I am sure you'd disagree). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:01, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn. I don't see a consensus reached in the CFD discussion. The arbitrary close is troubling.--Darwinek (talk) 00:11, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]