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 delete/merge Rezaeinejad to Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, no consensus on Hosseinpour and Shahriari, default to keep. Though there were many different outcomes proposed for each of these articles, they could still be divided into two basic camps: the keep/rename camp (since the vast majority of keep voters appeared at least open to a re-naming, especially in the case of Rezaeinejad), and the delete/merge camp (since the delete voters all seemed to be of the view that the content could appropriately be contained in Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists).
In the case of Razaeinejad, only one participant advocated an outright keep, and did so using a WP:OSE argument. Four more advocated a stand-alone article dealing with Rezaeinejad's death, and one of those was only weakly. In contrast, five participants advocating deletion, and a further four advocated merging (and, as noted, in the circumstances of this AFD, those options amounted to much the same thing. There was a very clear consensus (with only one dissenter) that Darioush Rezaeinejad should not continue to exist in its current form - the only real question was whether the death should be covered in a stand-alone article, or in Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. In the end, the numbers (combined with User:k.e.coffman's clarification that their !vote for the former option was a weak one) are sufficient to give the latter option a claim to consensus.
Hosseinpour and Shahriari can be dealt with together, since every single participant advocated the same solution for both of them. The count on those is six advocating keeping, and seven advocating deletion or merging (with User:Clarityfiend expressing no opinion). The majority of the arguments on both sides—with the exception of User:Huldra's on the one side and arguably User:Johnpacklambert's on the other—focused primarily on the application of the WP:GNG. In my view, it is not possible to say that a consensus has emerged on the treatment of these two articles. Steve Smith (talk) 07:54, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nomination since subject's lacking independent notability. -The Gnome (talk) 07:19, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If the article changes title to Assassination of Darioush Rezaeinejad I'd comfortably change my opinion to a "Weak keep" since almost all sources are about the event. As an individual the subject is not independently notable. -The Gnome (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was not bundled together with an article about terrorist incidents because the victim was not a terrorist and his assassination was a case of mistaken identity. This seems to be the case, per sources, with the subject of the contested article: The victim was falsely assumed by the assassins to be Darioush Rezaei; Mossad subsequently claimed that the killed man was indeed working for Iran's nuclear program but there's no corroboration for this. Whatever we do with this article about an Electrical Engineer, it certainly does not belong in an article about nuclear scientists. -The Gnome (talk) 22:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is not 100% clear who (Mossad or anyone else) was behind any of these. Nor is it clear what role any of these individuals filled in Iran's alleged program. However, electrical engineers do play an important role in any modern nuclear program - quite a bit of the staff at Sandia and LLNL are EEs. High voltage and rapid switching is quite important for nuclear detonators. There is no clear indication this is any sort of mistake - this individual was working at a national security facility.Icewhiz (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Naah...but Israeli sources do an awful lot of "wink, wink, nudge, nudge", which is what they typically do in these cases.... (Read the Spiegel article) Huldra (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, Icewhiz, a "national security facility" does not equate to a "nuclear facility." Western countries, to use an obvious example, have myriads of "national security facilicities," none of which are nuclear related. Second, when Mossad comes out and states that an assassinated person was working for Iran's nuclear program, then we can say with a rather high degree of probability that the victim was indeed targeted by Mossad (who, then, went on to justify the killing). Third, everyone working for a state service of Iran, especially in the armed forces, can be considered a legitimate target by your logic ("electrical engineers do play an important role in any modern nuclear programme"). Perhaps, to be on the safe side, Mossad should kill all Iranians with a college degree.
In which case, we'd have a huge number of Wikipedia articles to audit, of course, which is a problem. -The Gnome (talk) 07:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not getting into whether this was legit or not or who did this - there are obviously two issues here that muddy the waters - Iran denying having a nuclear weapon program, and no one clearly taking responsibility. However, Politico in 2018 when covering the alleged Israeli assasinations (which are notable as a group - this individual got a short paragraph) - wrote [1]In July 2011, a motorcyclist followed Darioush Rezaeinejad, a doctor of nuclear physics and a senior researcher for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, until he reached a point close to the Imam Ali Camp, one of the most fortified bases of the Revolutionary Guard, which contains an experimental uranium enrichment area. The biker drew a pistol and shot Rezaeinejad dead. - so it seems later sources do see this individual as connection to a nuclear program. Looking at the sources for this individual (and there aren't that many) - it seems there was an initial spin that this was a mistake. However, later coverage from Iran has glorified the group as a group - and it doesn't seem that some nuclear (peaceful, of course) connection is denied anymore. Electrical Engineers play a vital role in many fields (from medical devices, through signal processing, high voltage, and yes - nuclear programs as well - usually specializing in a particular field or aspect - nuclear engineering, in academia, is often a sub-department (or in less developed institutions - merely a few personnel in the interdisciplinary department) inside the electrical engineering department) - don't sell EEs short.Icewhiz (talk) 07:23, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, that is not convincing at all and I have no stomach for a discussion about Middle East spin. I suggest Keep with the intention of renaming the article later on. It's a subject with independent notability and deserves a stand-alone article. A link to the list of assassinated nuclear scientists in Iran would be, of course, welcome. -The Gnome (talk) 12:38, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ok, just ask yourself: if an Israeli with similar qualifications had been killed: would that have been considered notable? Hell, yeah,...and there would not only be a Wikipedia article about him, but also about every street, park or area named after him. Alas....when he is an Iranian murdered....he can be forgotten? Hell, no, Huldra (talk) 23:12, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yehoshua Weisbrod was an arbitrary victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time, as were all of the above, AFAIK. Clearly you can see the difference an arbitrary victim, and a targeted assassination? Also, all should note that the AfDs for Ardeshir Hosseinpour and Majid Shahriari both redirects here, so this is in reality a triple AfD vote. Huldra (talk) 20:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Targets may be non-notable. See WP:BUNDLE for how AfD bundling works - in this case since the individuals are highly similar (and the redirect undone in all 3) - bundling made sense.Icewhiz (talk) 21:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, well, it seems you missed step III in WP:BUNDLE: "Add the remaining articles to the nomination." Huldra (talk) 21:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"la" + "find sources" were added for both, and the deletion nomination refers to the bundle -- I am also nominating two other similar individuals - I don't see how I missed step III.Icewhiz (talk) 21:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My bad! I see it now...just unaccustomed to this format. Huldra (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Huldra, I'm loath to suggest any kind of "pro-Israeli" bias but in my experience here I cannot say I did not witness a pattern of alerts calling in votes on AfDs and of keeping up articles about subjects of quite dubious notability. Rather sad this. -The Gnome (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:The Gnome Yeah well, I once estimated that if you were a random victim of a violence in Israel/Palestine, your chances of getting a Wikipedia article were more than 100 times larger if you were Jewish, than if you were Palestinian. (Just count the number of civilian victims in the conflict (=the large majority are Palestinian) and compare it with number of Wikipedia articles on victims (=the large majority are Jewish) Huldra (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep perhaps the article should be called "killing of Darioush Rezaeinejad". The one event seems to be notable with numerous newspaper stories from around the world. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:43, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - seems to be important to keep it but altering the title to "Killing of Darioush Rezaeinejad","..... Hosseinpour", ".... Shahriari" might be a suitable fitting here.GizzyCatBella (talk) 04:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this article is basically built on subsubstantiated claims. It is a very clear fail of verifiability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could you point us, please, to those claims that are "subsubstantiated"? I'd be happy to change my suggestion if we find sources to be "subsubstantiated." Thanks. -The Gnome (talk) 12:36, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: the first one is borderline, but as an “Assasination of …” may be a week keep. Majid Shahriari appears to be notable for a stand-alone article, and so is the 2nd entry. Should probably not have been a bundled nomination. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the bundling - note I did not nominate/bundleMasoud Alimohammadi who as a tenured professor should be evaluated more critically for PROF (which he may fail). Regarding Majid Shahriari - the bundle is appropriate. He has very little or no coverage prior to being killed. His known or alleged position(s) wouldn't qualify for WP:NPROF or WP:SOLDIER. And his publications - google scholar search for him (might include someone from a different field as well) - not many, mostly uncited by others, many of them conference/low-grade journals, and he's the co-author on most of them - shows no snowball chance in hell of passing NPROF by dint of his publications. Coverage of him and Rezaeinejad are the same (in relation to their death for the most part with some MEMORIAL type publications) and often done jointly (in the same articles).Icewhiz (talk) 07:27, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 11:53, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and redirect to Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. I see little notability outside the circumstances of his death and the references used to write the article, as noted above, are mostly unsubstantiate claims. Redirecting to the relevant article where there is existing context regarding circumstances of his death is the best course of action here. Peacock (talk) 12:34, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect Rezaeinejad to Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists#23 July 2011. A few details about the possibility of mistaken identity would be good, but the incident itself doesn't warrant a standalone article. Not sure about the other two, who were actual nuclear scientists; that would depend more on their academic standing. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Had this been a long list (with one liner entries for each event) - you might have had a point. However - Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists is not a list, and covers (at length, and could possibly be expanded) 6 connected assassination (and attempts) events in which Iranian (alleged) nuclear scientists were targets. These men were not targeted individually - but rather as part of an (alleged) campaign. There is little reason (or policy justification per BIO1E / NOTMEMORIAL) to have an individual article for each one as opposed to covering the entire (alleged) campaign.Icewhiz (talk) 12:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We have an article titled "List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots," with coverage of more than "one line" for each one of them. And then we have an independent article for each of those attempts and plots, successfully or unsuccessful. Those people were historically targeted because they were presidents of the United States; not for individual reasons. Having a list about those attempts and the assassinations, cumulatively, does not preclude Wikipedia from having separate articles about each one. Same with Israel's targeting of Iran's nuclear program: We quite correctly have bundled together all known attempts and assassinations in one article; we can also have, quite easily and rightfully, an independent article about any subject in there that possesses independent notability. The assassination of Darioush Rezaeinejad quite evidently does. That's all there is to it. -The Gnome (talk) 17:05, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no connection between US president assassinations, whereas in this case this is (allegedly) one campaign in a limited time frame of a few years agajnst individual government workers of little note (beyond being killed). The content in all these cases has not reached WP:SPINOFF turf. Most of the lasting coverage here is of the set of killed scientists as a group - and not of individuals - try finding sources discussing any of the nominated articles that do not cover the other individuals in the set (by contrast - it is not hard to fidn sources focused on JKF or the attempt on Reagan).Icewhiz (talk) 17:59, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect. If "there is no connection between US president assassinations" then why do we have an article in Wikipedia that bunches together all attempts, plots, and assassinations of them? Because they are related, that's why. They're not related operationally, but on account of being acts against the life of a sitting U.S. president, throughout History, whatever the reason each time.
As to the Iranians, we don't get to decide when an item has achieved spin off status; reliable sources do. The plentiful of sources is evidence of independent notability for the assassination of Darioush Rezaeinejad. That independent notability is, of course, entirely independent of the notability of the other assassinated persons. Can your logic truly be "either everyone or no one"?? Surely it can't. Something seems to be bothering you, what is it? -The Gnome (talk) 20:59, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A "modicum" of notability?! Hah. Each and every one of these assassinations received extensive coverage in both the western world and (much more so) in the Middle East, including Israel. The only error made by the creators of those articles was that they titled them with the name of the person, e.g. " Darioush Rezaeinejad," instead of focusing on their assassination, i.e. "Assassination of Darioush Rezaeinejad." And on this easily amendable, technical error rests the whole case of those who want to see the articles disappear. This is why they keep invoking WP:1E, a fig leaf of an argument.
By the way, there's a campaign afoot to delete each and every article about those individuals from Wikipedia. They want them all buried inside the "List" tomb, with minimal information and a couple of sources for each one. Every deletion proposal links to this AfD. I will not speculate as to the motives behind such a campaign. But someone's using a multiple-head missile. -The Gnome (talk) 06:59, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BIO1E is a Wikipedia guideline - not a fig leaf. The campaign of killing these individuals is notable as whole - individual events are not. We do not have a separate article for each day in the Battle of France (where there are spinoffs for some battles - but not a day by day article) - even though we could find extensive coverage of each and every day. Nor do we have, per WP:NOTMEMORIAL, pages on non-notable individual casualties or the killing of said casualties in the Battle of France (and again - we could find several notable incidents - merged into the main article or its spinoffs). Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists is not a list - it describes a campaign - and what is in each individual bio can be (and in fact, for the most part already is) covered there at length - as this is a total of six assassinations.Icewhiz (talk) 07:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You're twisting my words. WP:BIO1E is not a fig leaf by itself. I did not say this. What I said is that basing your argument on that guideline makes the argument a fig leaf, since the situation is easily amendable by renaming the contested articles. (But, of course, people want to seem the articles deleted; not fixed.)
As to your whole line of argument, it actually makes the very List itself, i.e. the article bundling together all the assassinations, even less tenable, and the existence of every individual article more justified! "Only six" killings?! How can we have an article about such a small lot? How about this: let's delete every mention of these assassinations from Wikipedia. This would follow logically: Too small a number of persons has been liquidated, none of these individuals is worth independent notice, it's all misinformation, etc. So, you propose a multi-delete by having one AfD, this AfD, in actual fact about all the independent articles. Based on the outcome of such efforts in the past, I'd say you will succeed. -The Gnome (talk) 07:34, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This AfD is not on all of them. There are 6. 1 was deleted. 3 are up for deletion. 2 aren't (Masoud Alimohammadi doesn't pass SIGCOV (outside of 1E) but NPROF needs to be evaluated separately. Fereydoon Abbasi - the head of the Atomic Energy Organization and various other things - seems to pass regardless of the assassination attempt).Icewhiz (talk) 12:06, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, 3 are up for deletion through this AfD. Three birds with one stone. As I said, I'm sure you will succeed. The whole Iranian nuclear scientists thing thing will shrivel and contract to an insignificant mention in Wikipedia. Well, only themselves to blame they have; they shouldn't have got involved. -The Gnome (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lord knows what you're on about. I never disputed the killings were connected. They are connected; they're part of the blatantly obvious pattern of Iranian nuclear scientists being the targets of assassinations. (By whom? Probably the Martians.) They're also "connected" in the narrow sense of each case being mentioned in the media along with any new one. But this is standard background reportage! Whenever we have, for instance, a mass shooting incident in a US school, news reports are bound to mention previous such incidents. In this sense, the shootings are "connected." Does this mean Wikipedia should bundle them together all in one article? No, and neither should the attempts on the Iranians, because each one of those incidents possesses independent notability. The rest is noise. -The Gnome (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Mixed - I think keep the articles on Hosseinpour and Shahriari, merge the article on Rezaeinejad. The former two were academics that, while they didn't meet NPROF, their work/death "had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity" (criteria #7) and their deaths seem to me to have been very significant in Iran and to fit in an encyclopedia. I prefer titled without the words "assassination of" for those two, but don't feel strongly about it. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:46, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect this article to Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. This is a person notable for a single event, and while it was notable at the time, particularly for the claims of mistaken identy that the others don't seem to have, I can't find any evidence of notability lasting beyond 2012. I would like to see the person's bio section expanded as part of the merge, including the argument for mistaken identity, although not necessarily as extensively as in this article. TimTempleton(talk)(cont) 20:16, 21 May 2018 (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.