Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nick Berg conspiracy theories

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was no consensus, therefore keep. moink 01:56, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nick Berg conspiracy theories

Summary to help guide admin decisions:

Delete 7: Walkingeagles, Master Thief Garrett, Megan1967, Texture, Isaac R, android, Rossami
Keep 7 (includes votes such as "rewrite completely"): Firebug, Westifer, ShadowyCabal, zellin, Striver, zen master, Deco
Unclear 2 :TenOfAllTrades (Delete or merge), Mgm (Delete unless revised),

No significant article changes since nominated.

Unencyclopedic speculation and strange things like questions

PRESERVE The truth is a vibrating quantum blur- the viewer and the view create it. Let the truth be alive.
Delete The whole basis of this article is original research or speculation including choice sentences like "Nick Berg visited Israel which lends credence to the idea he was an Israeli spy. I visited Canada once, does that make me a secret Mountie agent? And that is just one of many examples. The article asks a series of questions which I can only assume doesn't really fit in any article. It seems to be stream of consciousness. Walkingeagles 23:50, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I need to give this a closer read, but at the very least, it needs some serious cleanup. For one thing, rhetorical questions don't belong in an encyclopedia article. ~~No vote for now.~~ android↔talk 01:54, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Delete *unless* hugely revised. Concerns much the same as those voiced above. Master Thief Garrett 02:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Comment: what are the criteria for judging notability of conspiracy theories? "Nick Berg" "conspiracy theory" gets 3700 googles. Meelar (talk) 02:39, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Delete, POV, speculation. Megan1967 04:34, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Rewrite completely; 3,700 Google hits means that these theories are somewhat notable, but the article as written is a mess. Firebug 04:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- In principle, I agree with you. But who would write an NPOV article about the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of a single individual? All the people interested in those theories are true believers in Nick Berg conspiracies. A more neutral observer is likely to be interested in conspiracy theores as a general phenomenon, and not be interested in focusing on this particular area. ¶ If I thought anybody was likely to step up to the plate, I'd suggest stubifying the article. (The existing article is really a conspiracy tract, not an article -- there's nothing worth saving.) But I don't believe anybody will, so we might as well delete it. ---Isaac R 22:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Delete unless revised. This is complete speculation and most of the so called "suspicious" things about the video are easily explained by the captors killing Berg before his decapitation. And "the Islam forbids men wearing golden adorements" doesn't prove a thing either. Islam forbids killing too. Mgm|^(talk) 08:52, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Delete or merge. We have an article on Nick Berg; we don't need an article on conspiracy theories to act as a POV fork. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 13:56, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Delete - All these claims are moot now that they have turned out false. Delete it. - Tεx τ urε 20:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Delete. It's a conspiracy tract, not an article. ---Isaac R 22:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Delete, based on compelling arguments made by various others in this discussion. android↔talk 00:11, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
Merge, Rewrite. This article being separate makes it a soapbox for conspiracy theorists. Yes, there are bad arguments, but there are many good ones much accredited by research and people spent a lot of time accumulating these. My argument is to reduce the data here to the most important bits, reference the links (especially to the videos), and merge it with Nick Berg. Yes it is speculation, but so is the Kennedy Assassination, and that is a better known and more popular discussion. Plus there is plenty of space on the Nick Berg page. Westifer 16:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I do not consider most conspiracy theories worth keeping and see nothing in this set to change my mind. Delete as unverifiable. Rossami (talk) 06:14, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep conspiracy theories are a huge part of wikipedia's appeal. We have a chance to separate the facts from the internet nonsense. Brittanica would never tell us about this. Clearly, anyone who wants this deleted is a Rosicrucian. ShadowyCabal

Definitly keep The theoires exitst, who cares if they are true or not. If that is the case for deletion then why not delete all conspiricy theory pages?
- You're right, we should just document conspiracy theories without passing judgment on them. Except the author of this article does pass judgment. He believes certain theories about Berg's death are true, and he wrote this article to promote them. Sorry, that's soapbox stuff. --Isaac R 03:44, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep this article, it was a good read. Maybe cleanup a bit. zellin 16:12, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Definitly keep The theoires exitst, who cares if they are true or not. --Striver 16:17, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Dude, take the time to read the previous discussion. This is not about whether or not there's any truth to the theories. ---Isaac R 18:44, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Keep and Rename. zen master T 00:55, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Stubify or Rewrite. It's a good idea for a topic, and even an accurate stub is better than an unrecoverable soapbox rant. Rewrite is ideal of course. Deco 01:24, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.