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 redirect to Dismissal of James Comey. The result of this discussion is that most believe that there is no need to split this topic into two separate articles. Content can be merged from history subject to editorial consensus. Sandstein 10:37, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Agreed with nominator. I think this works better in that main article. Technology Drive (talk) 13:25, 26 August 2017 (UTC):[reply]
Keep. The editor did this with a 48 hour discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dismissal_of_James_Comey#Merging_Comey_memos_.3D . This move was commented on as a violation of WP:PROCESS in the discussion. The "merge" basically resulted in a deletion of most of the material in the article. As far as the subject, the subject is clearly WP:N on its on and will likely become more so as the memos are eventually released to the public. This has the same likely historical significance as the Watergate tapes and deserves its own article.Casprings (talk) 13:38, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, it's likely that the memos will ultimately result in Trump's resignation. That is a truly remarkable statement at this point, and more than a little irresponsible. I'm making this small because it's tangential to this discussion, but it needed saying nevertheless. ―Mandruss☎ 13:41, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, its right in line with Wikipedia:10YT. Please tell me how a record of conversations between the FBI director and President of the United States, recorded at the time of the event concerning Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections are not WP:N and do not deserve their own article? It is WP:N now, as a simple google news search will show and its likely historical. Casprings (talk) 13:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, my comment was tangential to this discussion and that's why I made it small. You do understand what "tangential to this discussion" means, right? It means it's not about whether Comey memos should or should not exist, as that's what this discussion is about. I have not taken a position in this AfD, which appears to be more about process than content anyway. ―Mandruss☎ 13:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge. With all due respect to Casprings, who seems to have created more new articles on "Trump—Russia" than anyone, most such articles are classic WP:RECENTISM and will be irrelevant once we move beyond immediate political considerations and adopt a more historical view a decade from now. Comey memos is among the best examples of this phenomenon, as no–one has actually verified the existence of these alleged memos and no reliable sources discuss them as a separate topic from Dismissal of James Comey. Indeed, as Vanamonde93 recently remarked,Dismissal of James Comey itself is likely to be merged to "the main pages for the topic, ie Trump's administration/white house and James Comey" at some point in the indefinite future. I can see no arguments against JFG's central point that Comey memos is a redundant WP:CFORK.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 13:54, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not another one Come on, folks. The media by its very nature will produce a vast number of stories covering every last detail of every scandal. As an encyclopedia we cannot blindly reproduce such detail. Even having an article on the dismissal is borderline recentism, in my view. If that does not convince you; common sense dictates that every administration of similar historical significance should be treated at a similar level of detail. Is this a reasonable level of detail by that criterion? No, of course not; it is absurd. This should most certainly be merged. Of course, the same could be said about a lot of the trivia from the Clinton emails extended family. Vanamonde (talk) 14:24, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge (if there's anything worth merging) and redirect to Dismissal of James Comey Seriously. He wrote memos that are part of the dismissal story. They're not independently notable. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - 43 reliable sources and hundreds more available show that the subject is independently notable. The subject abundantly satisfies WP:SIGCOV. It is not appropriate for merging with Dismissal of James Comey, and article straining under it's own girth. I suspect the goal is to eliminate this article and then promptly trim unflattering material out of the target article, as has already been attempted. Page view stats shows that the previous non-consensus attempt to merge and redirect was a disservice to readers. Casprings makes an apt comparison with Watergate scandal—Nixon White House tapes provides a best-practices model for how Comey memos should be handled. - MrX 13:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Repeating something doesn't make it true. The Nixon White House tapes are not just independently notable of Watergate, but, from a longer-term perspective, their greatest value to historians is largely unrelated to Watergate. As our article states: "The tapes contain more than 3,000 hours of conversation. Hundreds of hours are of discussions on foreign policy, including planning for the 1972 Nixon visit to China and subsequent visit to the Soviet Union. Only 200 of the 3,500 hours contain references to Watergate and less than 5% of the recorded material has been transcribed or published." It is shockingly ahistorical to equate the Nixon tapes with alleged Comey memos that have yet to be seen or analyzed by any secondary source, let alone the public.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:40, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to cite page views as support for a separate article, you should be honest and compare them to the main article page views.Here they are both on the same graph. Comey memos have always been a subset of the dismissal article, and the extra page views when both articles were separate are not significant. I remain convinced that our readers are better served by a combined article. If some day the memos acquire some independent notoriety, there will be an opportunity to split the article again. Until then, it's a pure WP:CONTENTFORK. — JFGtalk 20:19, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your hypothesis that some editors may harbour a goal [to] promptly trim unflattering material out of the target article, as has already been attempted, it sounds like an uncalled-for assumption of bad faith. I haven't seen any recent attempts to do that, and even if that was the case, it would easily be remedied by the normal editorial process. It's much easier to preserve article neutrality when content is not duplicated across several pages. — JFGtalk 20:28, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Dismissal of James Comey. I supported, and still support, the merge. I did feel that the discussion did not go on long enough, but it has now been reopened; so far it is looking as if the merge will still be approved. I presume that the nominator actually wants this article to be redirected rather than deleted; if so he should say so in his nomination statement. --MelanieN (talk) 18:28, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. In response to the argument that these memos might turn out later to have historical value in ways unrelated to the Comey dismissal: With the article title being a redirect the history is preserved, and the redirect could be re-expanded into an article at any time in the future if the memos take on added significance. --MelanieN (talk) 18:35, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or Redirect Only notable in relation to dismissal of James Comey. If it ends up being a white water situation then it should have its own article. Until then its nothing but WP:CRYSTALPackMecEng (talk) 19:21, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Again, don't know if IP's can say this, but the article passes WP:NOTABILITY with 43 reliable sources that talk about the subject in detail. 86.99.13.208 (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Not independently notable. There are a lot of WP:NOTNEWS sources but not much longterm notability.LM2000 (talk) 21:11, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Most this article is highly controversial, but certainly the memos are connected to their author. I believe a #redirect would be best as it would keep the history for later recreation if need be. A Guy into Books (talk) 09:42, 3 September 2017 (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.