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.
A collection of quotations. I propose that this be transwikied to Wikiquote (if they want it) and deleted as not encyclopedic. kingboyk13:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwiki or delete as above. We could all put our oar in, couldn't we? How about "the man who sold the Russian economy off cheap to a bunch of gangsters"? BTLizard14:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Don't think there is much here worth merging into parent page. What sort of interesting comments are supposed to appear when governments condole the death of a statesman? I think this whole news obsession is one of the biggest obstacles to WP as a credible and coherent encyclopedia. Medico8019:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You may be right, but all the statements are not the kind of "nice" official condolances - read e.g. the Polish, which points out his weaknesses. Bondkaka10:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep They were originally in the main article Boris_Yeltsin#International_reaction but were moved to this "sub-page" due to the increasing amount of comments by heads of states. We have many "international reactions" in different articles. Every quote is referenced and quite well say as what kind of man Yeltsin was regarded as. But we need to add more content to the article, instead of only list of quotes, we'd need some more info on the reaction itself. After all, this many presidents and prime ministers commented it immediatly after his death. --Pudeo (Talk) 21:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I'm impressed that someone put this together, but it smacks of recentism. Transwiki if possible, and delete without merging. YechielMan 23:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Strong Transwiki - Perhaps, it could find a place at Wikinews or Wikiversity, as a story or quasi-historical-like document. It seems to me that talking with the Wikinews people to find an appropriate place to put in on the site would be the best option, but oughtright deleting these editors' work does not seem wise. --Remi08:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep- I never supported making a seperate article of the comments (taken from the Yeltsin article). But the comments, some of which are very interesting, should not be deleted. Camptown09:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep Previously the list was at the bottom of the Boris Yeltsin article, where it did "[smack] of recentism," as YechielMan put it. The fork "international reactions to the death of Boris Yeltsin" was created in order to keep the information, which is interesting, in the encyclopedia while avoiding "recentism"-- loading the Yeltsin biography with extraneous content on current events. Forking discussions of current events from important biographies has been a well-established practice on this site for months. A recent example is execution of Saddam Hussein. This thead can be closed early, as this is clearly a 'speedy keep.' 172 | Talk13:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your comparison of this to the execution of Saddam Hussein really makes no sense. The execution of Saddam Hussein was an extremely important and noteworthy event. The death of Boris Yeltsin was not. The article execution of Saddam Hussein is a well-written encyclopedic article. The article on international reactions to Yeltsin's death is just a collection of vague, insipid quotes. -- Ekjon Lok20:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Insipid quotes?" Yeltsin's death not noteworthy? I think a lot of Eastern Europe- and Russia-watchers disagree to say the least. 172 | Talk05:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I dare to assert that his death is not really noteworthy. He did a lot of noteworthy things in his life that deserve "international reactions" articles. Think of his domestic policy, his economic policy, his foreign policy, his conduct of war in Chechnya, his increasingly erratic behaviour in later years, his drink problems, etc. ... there's no reason why his death should get a preferential treatment, just because it occured now, when Wikipedia is very active, and all those other thing occured before Wikipedia was founded... -- Ekjon Lok22:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per 172. Wikipedia is not a paper and if it would help to clear the main Yeltsin article from this crap then it is a good thing Alex Bakharev13:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you think this is crap, then why do you think it should be kept anywhere at all, either on its own page or on the main Yeltsin page? If it's crap, then just delete it. -- Ekjon Lok20:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In all fairness Alex Bakharev was describing the content as "crap" in the main Yeltsin biography. By itself the quotations are factual eulogies of prominent current and former world leaders. I did not complile the list of quotations. But had I deleted them rather than moving them, I would have been accused of attempting to purge well-sourced factual content from the encyclopedia. 172 | Talk05:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly -- they're eulogies. Why should a Wikipedia page be just a collection of eulogies? (And yes, it is just a collection -- no more. There is no real encyclopedic content here!) - Ekjon Lok22:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Several comments. (I have already expressed my "delete" opinion above.)
1. Yeltsin did many noteworthy and important things in his day that perhaps deserve special and detailed mention in Wikipedia, but his death was not one of them. It is not specially noteworthy or controversial. There is no reason why there should be an "international reactions" article on his death, but not on many countless more important things from his career (such as e.g. his election, his reelection, his campaining, his policies, etc. etc.) The very fact that this occured now, in 2007, and all those other things occured before Wikipedia, is the only reason why this gets such extensive coverage. This is the worst example of recentism.
2. The comments themselves of all those world leaders are not particularly interesting nor particularly illuminating. They are just all those commonplaces that are always produced when someone important dies -- yes, he was a leader of a nation, we met the news with deep sorrow, etc., etc. etc. ad nauseam.
3. This is really not an encyclopedic article. It's just a collection of rather insipid quotes. If it belongs somewhere, then it's either Wikinews or Wikiquote (so "transwiki" is an option), but not on Wikipedia.
You're preaching to the choir on "recentism" here. To be honest I wouldn't care if the list were gone and moved somewhere to Wikinews or Wikiquote. But I have little doubt the editors who consider the quotations notable enough to insert them in the Yeltsin article will put them back in the article if we do not find some place for them in the encyclopedia. This sort of move is the kind of compromise sometimes necessary to get stuff done on this site. 172 | Talk05:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just "recentism", although that is a concern. The main concern is that this article is not in any sense an encyclopedic article, it's just a collection, a list of quotes. We have Wikiquote for that. Come on, currently there are 21 quotes, without any intervening encyclopedic text or any discussion, or any justification why all these 21 quotes are relevant. I strongly suggest move to an appropriate project. It's true Wikipedia is not paper, but it's also not an obituary; it cannot just accumulate all those pious commonplaces that people produce when someone important dies. -- Ekjon Lok22:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or transwiki and delete. Merging makes no sense because it will result in a huge, non-encyclopedic trivia-like section which adds nothing or almost nothing to the article. Keeping is also undesired, because "this article contains garbage removed from another article" is a bad reason for existance. MaxSem17:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - an old man died peacefully some years after leaving the world stage, and some important people said some (generally) nice things about him. This is not encyclopedia-calibre material. We don't even have "international reaction" articles for deaths that actually changed the course of world history (Hitler, Stalin, JFK) - why have one for Yeltsin, other than naked recentism? Biruitorul03:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - an un-wiki topic and a contrived focus. Whatever is relevant can easily be merged into existing articles or, per Zscout, moved to wikiquote. Dahn05:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per nom. Or, take some of the stuff, edit it, and merge it with Boris Yeltsin article, and then delete—whatever works best, while minimizing effort and avoiding extended controversy. No need for a separate article. Turgidson16:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwiki to wikiquote, looks like a textbook case. It can still be linked from the Boris Yeltsin article with the neat ((wikiquote)) template, so those who think it's useful will be happy, while those who think it's not an encyclopedia article should also be contented. - Bobet13:40, 4 May 2007 (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.