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 no consensus. The actual tally was in favor in keeping the article, for whatever that is worth.

Several sources were presented to establish the notability of the topic itself: Jewish American cartoonists and the role of Jews in the comic book industry. Most of those who commented regarding the sources believed that there was indeed enough coverage to demonstrate that Jewish cartoonists is not just a random intersection. Many of the comments referred to Jewish cartoonists in general, as opposed to only Jewish Americans. I am inclined, however, to believe that Jewish Americans make up a large part of the Jewish influence on cartooning due to the discussion on sources presented by postdlf et al.

Many people said that a prose article on Jewish Americans and cartooning would be the best option, as there is no evidence that these cartoonists are specifically notable as Jewish Americans. Those in favor of this idea also argued that the list is indiscriminate, that there are BLP/sourcing concerns, and that the list is only viable if there is already a standalone prose article on Jewish cartoonists. These may all be legitimate concerns depending on the circumstances. However, the list does have inclusion criteria (that the cartoonist be Jewish American and notable enough to have an existing Wikipedia entry), WP:LISTPEOPLE states that an "exception is nationality/ethnicity", and, importantly, there is no evidence showing that many of the Jewish American cartoonists' "Jewishness" did not affect their work in the field. Concerns with the sourcing should not directly apply to its inclusion in this case; AfD is not for cleanup and as the article stands now, I find it fairly well-referenced. I also found no evidence that a standalone article would not be able to exist along with this list, and WP:WAX applies.

There were also some concerns raised about categorizing people by being a Jewish American. Being Jewish does not simply mean one adheres to Judaism; it also carries significant meanings pertaining to the Jewish culture and nationality, and it is not simply racist or singling a person out by religious beliefs when listing him/her on this type of list.

All in all, I think it is fairly clear that there is no real agreement between editors at this AfD. I was actually leaning toward closing it as "keep", but after reviewing the delete !votes, I think there are some good points raised, though not enough for this article's deletion. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 00:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of Jewish American cartoonists[edit]

List of Jewish American cartoonists (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics
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First, I want everyone to know that I acknowledge Jewish American as an ethnic group in addition to a religious group. Secondly, this list has remained inadequately sourced for three years now, and appears to be of no interest or use to anyone. Special:WhatLinksHere/List of Jewish American cartoonists. Lastly the list is actually an egregious violation of WP:EGRS, which states "Inclusion must be specifically relevant to at least one of the subject's notable activities and an essential part of that activity, but is not required to be an exclusive interest. Moreover, inclusion is not transitive to any other activity." There is no supplied reliable reference to indicate why being Jewish and being a cartoonist is not an irrelevant intersection. Lastly, for anyone who will argue that lists have different criteria than categories. A list's existence needs to be substantiated by something. Is it possible to write the article Jewish American cartoonists? If so, somebody write it, provide reliable sources, and we're all good. If not, Delete. Bulldog123 21:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then? Write the article and source the list and we'll be good. Because, you see, every topic of essayist's interest deserves an article on wikipedia, regardless of how obscure and irrelevant. So, as you seem to have provided enough secondary sources -- I see no reason why you won't create the article stub now. The fact of the matter is this list has been around for three years and not a single person cares about it. Unsourced ethnicity lists cannot exist on wikipedia per policy. Bulldog123 19:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relax. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 19:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just saying not everything worthy of a book is worthy of an encyclopedia. We'd have to first actually read those books to understand the point they're trying to make... and if it's WP:FRINGEy or not. Bulldog123 01:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have read numerous books that have recognized the role of Jewish Americans comics artists (included in this list as cartoonists) and discussed at length their contributions, and even how their ethnicity influenced the content of what they created. It's not fringey, it's a mainstream part of cultural history in this area. The fact that you haven't read anything on this, and that you seem at best unsure or unaware of that history, suggests to me that your nomination was premature before you actually did any research on that issue and instead just assumed that this was an irrelevant intersection. postdlf (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Blacks in comics never existed (maybe under a different title?), but is anyway irrelevant to this list topic; I'm not going to bother defending a different article in the AFD for this list. If it did exist, and I offered it as a comparison in support of this list, no doubt I would hear WP:OTHERSTUFF as a retort. But I think fundamentally you are just stubbornly denying the points others have made, ignoring what they have told you that reliable sources state, not because you have done any research to the contrary, but just because you want to delete this list. I'm "overstating" the intersection? From the dust jacket of Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book: "Gerald Jones, a longtime insider to the comic book business, draws on years of research and interviews to reveal how the collision of Yiddish and American culture shaped the modern vision of the hero." Jones on the historically recent embrace of comics as an essential part of the Jewish American cultural experience: "In 2003 Reform Judaism magazine ran Arie Kaplan's 'How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry,' reclaiming a part of an ethnic heritage that any respectable Jew of the 1940s or 1950s would have vehemently denied. The next year, Jerry Robinson mounted an exhibit on superhero comics for the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta." Men of Tomorrow, p. 339. See also my reference to the book Ten-Cent Plague below. postdlf (talk) 19:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand why - if this is such a notable topic as you claim - you haven't made the article yet. Or in the very least - a stub. Bulldog123 21:33, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No response? You seem to have plenty of sources which you believe would back it up. It comes off as disingenuous to support this list but show no care whatsoever for a prose article. For the record: [1]. Bulldog123 20:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I didn't respond because I didn't see a point; it wasn't anywhere near an effective or substantive retort to anything I said above. Why hasn't a prose article been created yet is a very weak rhetorical question that has no bearing on whether this list is appropriate; why I personally haven't created the article is completely irrelevant. An article could clearly be written on the topic, and though that is not a requirement for any list at all, that the cultural intersection is notable and relevant helps establish that this list is encyclopedic. Maybe you could take a break from the Wikipedia space and try creating the prose article yourself, once you bother to read something on the topic. postdlf (talk) 21:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's the whole thing. You haven't proven that the "cultural intersection" is notable - and repeating that you have and then jumping out of the conversation doesn't make it true. The sources you presented are not making the claim that all cartoonists who happen to be Jewish present that Jewishness in their work - which is what would substantiate a list of all Jewish American cartoonists. You've only proven that a prose article is viable "discussing" what elements of Jewish life and culture can be found in "some" Jewish cartoonist's work. The sheer fact that - despite having "read" all this grand, encyclopedic information - you still don't even bother to make a stub shows how disingenuous your points are. I would read the book and write the article myself, but I'm really not interested in injecting navel-gazing, cultural promotion dissembling as academia into Wikipedia. tl;dr - you're confusing a basis for an open-criteria list with a basis for a narrow-criteria article. Is that effective enough for a retort now? Bulldog123 22:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I might be completely incorrect but WP:OCAT has been used as a guideline in AfD discussions for years now. Few have objected to that expanded interpretation of it. Bulldog123 01:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I might not object to expanding the scope either, but it should be done explicitly, in the policies and guidelines themselves, not just sometimes by 3 or 4 people commenting at some random AfD. Jayjg (talk) 02:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is enough adequately sourced material in the article to warrant a list. Any non-referenced names can be cite-tagged, and if no cite is provided they can be culled.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thus, in the (unusual) case of Jews, a nation that was largely dispersed 2,000 years ago from its homeland and geographic borders, it is not appropriate to delete. The Jewish nation lives largely, though now not wholly, in the Jewish diaspora. Under Israel's Law of Return, all members of the Jewish nation are automatically entitled, by virtue of being members of the Jewish nation, to return to the geographic borders of Israel, and become Israeli citizens. Other religions are, in the "normal case," distinct from the nation. In other words, there was not a Protestant, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, or Atheist nation per se. Those who are members of these religions are not members of a nation or "people." Jews, peculiarly, are not just a religion, but are also a nation. In addition to the other points presented above, this is one that militates in favor or a !keep.

  1. ^ "The Jewish Problem: How To Solve It," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, "Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member" (April 25, 1915), University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, Retrieved on November 30, 2010
  2. ^ Palmer, Henry, A History of the Jewish Nation (1875), D. Lothrop & Co., Retrieved on November 30, 2010
  3. ^ The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7: Berlin Years, Albert Einstein, "The Jewish Nation is a living fact" (June 21, 1921), Princeton University Press, Retrieved on November 30, 2010

--Epeefleche (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: WP:ListPeople; application to nationality/ethnicity. As WP:LISTPEOPLE indicates with regard to "nationality/ethnicity" -- "List of Albanians includes persons who are famous in any category and who belong to Albania. The criteria for identifying as an Albanian does not solely depend upon the official citizenship laws of that country – a person could be related to the place by birth, residency, parentage, or by his or her personal admission, considers himself or herself to be an Albanian at heart."--Epeefleche (talk)
Actually, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS doesn't "permit" you to comment about other similar articles that exist, instead it encourages you to not comment about other articles that exist. SnottyWong spill the beans 19:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS states: "While these comparisons are not a conclusive test, they may form part of a cogent argument".--Epeefleche (talk) 19:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, we can argue all day about whether there is a "Jewish nation" and what relevance that even has, but you certainly can't argue that there is a "Jewish American nation", which is what would have to exist for your argument to be relevant. SnottyWong converse 19:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We have multiple lists with three criteria. Not at all unusual. Even in the lists reflected in this string.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not so, your example might have applied to a list of Jewish cartoonists employed by Publisher X; an entire occupation is not the narrower group of a specific organization. I'm not sure that the examples given represent current consensus of how to interpret the general principle, but even if they do, this is not analogous to them. DGG ( talk ) 21:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that it is a non-notable intersection. Being Jewish in America has nothing to do with being a cartoonist. There is no article on Jewish American cartoons or Cartoons and Judaism in America, because there is no link between the two. It's equivalent to List of Muslim Romanian journalists. There is no significance to the intersection. SnottyWong soliloquize 22:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE TO CLOSING ADMIN There's reasonable evidence to suggest that User:Epeefleche is participating in an email-based WP:CANVASSing campaign, targeting users likely to !vote keep on this AfD (and other recent Jewish AfDs). See the following for evidence: IP address belongs to User:DustFormsWords - he forgot to sign in Note that User:Epeefleche has a long history of WP:CANVASSing keep-friendly individuals to participate in Jews CfDs/AfDs. Here are diffs from one of Epee's canvassing campaigns a few years ago: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. He now chooses to do this more surreptitiously by email. Anybody who has been canvassed by Epeefleche to participate in this AfD should come forward to quell suspicion. Bulldog123 02:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note that I have been notified of this AfD by Epeefleche, although he has every reason to expect that I will vote for deletion. RolandR (talk) 11:43, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which all support the article no one wants to make: Jewish American in cartooning - not an indiscriminate list including all cartoonists and animators who happen to be Jewish. Bulldog123 22:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The list is not indiscriminate as all entries are blue links and so they are notable topics for which the list provides a good index. Expansion of the article to provide more narrative and history will be performed by ordinary editing, not by deletion - this is our editing policy. If such development leads to a change of article title, to reflect a wider scope, then this too may be done by ordinary editing as the move function is available to most editors. There is no place for deletion in this work as that would obstruct development rather than assisting it and so would be disruptive. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indiscriminate because it makes the assumption that all Jewish American cartoonists Jewishness influences their work. That's original research. So yes, indiscriminate. This list has been here for almost 4 years - practically untouched and unsourced - and neither you nor any other !keep voter on here have ever so much as contributed a single improvement to the article you consider so note-worthy. Bulldog123 07:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The assumption you talk of is yours, not the article's as it makes no claim of that kind. Your other argument is the poor one of WP:NOEFFORT. I have just added a couple of good citations for Ralph Bakshi - to American Jewish biographies and The Jew in American Cinema. The latter indicates that there is a strong Jewish influence in Fritz the Cat, for example, and so we could develop this point if we wanted. And notice how both sources, which are substantial books, both reference Jewishness in their title. This is clearly not an incidental attribute but is a fundamental one. It is therefore a sound basis for our encyclopaedic treatment. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What? Bulldog123 07:20, 4 December 2010 (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.
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