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 but discuss merging/disambiguation-fication or rewrites. This deletion nomination was started due to a concern that the article in its current form is conflating disparate concepts in a way prohibited by WP:SYNTH and that each of the concerns has a page already. There are about 9 keep arguments (I've chosen to ignore "weakish" adjectives), 1 split (+1 which favours either keep or split), 1 delete (the nom) and 1 merge. Normally this would be enough for a keep but from reading the arguments it appears a substantial amount of keep arguments do not address the WP:SYNTH concerns at all ... and as a concern grounded in fundamental policy, one ought to address it.
Some people however do address it by presenting sources, but from the follow up discussion - especially from Levivich's extensive rebuttal on the one side and Slatersteven's on the other side - it's not clear that a consensus has materialized that the presented sources actually address the WP:SYNTH/redundancy problems due to e.g concerns that most sources only address specific versions which already have articles. On the other hand, there seems to be a consensus developing that a plain deletion is not the ideal way to resolve the issue, especially as the nominator has considered withdrawing. I also see the procedural points raised at the end but a 4-5 year old prior AFD is not necessarily a strong concern.
Overall, it does not seem that we have a consensus for deletion but also not a consensus for unqualified keeping without some serious work on the article, and while one might declare this a consensus for a merge/split combination, I don't think it is clear enough to call it the agreed-upon outcome of the discussion. So this is a no consensus, default to keep, but both further discussion of rewrites/merges/dsiambiguifications are possible on the talk page or bold action at editorial discretion, subject to the normal policies or guidelines that govern such things. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This article should be deleted because the topic "no-go area" is not a notable topic. Reliable sources do not discuss "no go areas", per se. Rather, there are different kinds of "no-go areas": military exclusion zones, LGBT-free zones, ghettos, and so on. But it doesn't appear any RS covers all of these disparate things as one category called "no go zone". The lead of the article shows this: it provides a definition that is actually the synthesis of three separate examples. The sources discussed in the prior 2015 AfD are also examples of particular kinds of no-go areas (to which the label "no go area" is applied), but not of a category that includes military exclusionary zones, legally-enforced exclusionary zones, de-facto political exclusionary zones, high-crime areas, etc. As a result of there not being any secondary sources defining the category, the article is (and basically always has been) a collection of WP:SYNTH. And, of course, it's constantly the subject of edit wars–repeated page protection is having no effect. This article should be deleted, and the content spun off or merged into other articles about more-specific zones, like military exclusion zone, etc. – Levivich 16:32, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keepish Its a real thing (And yes there are sources that talk about NO go areas), but the article is a bit of a POV mess in which various agendas are clashing. Rather then delete I think there needs to be an RFC about what the article is about, and enforce that ridgedly.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Slatersteven, can you link to some examples of RS that define a "no go area" generally (as opposed to a specific kind of exclusionary area that they label a "no go area")? – Levivich 16:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can give you a dictionary definition [[1]], that is enough to tell me this may be a real thing.Slatersteven (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I think "it's a real thing" (which was the basis for many keep votes in the last AfD) is missing the point. Yes, lots of dictionaries have an entry for "no go area", but we're an encyclopedia and we don't have a stand-alone entry for every word or phrase in the dictionary. Here's an obligatory link to WP:NOTDICTIONARY :-) I'm not finding any non-dictionary sources that discuss "no go areas" as a broad topic. In fact, the academic sources I see all use the phrase in different ways–different from each other, different from the dictionary definition. Here are some examples: "no-go area" meaning politically taboo, "no-go area" meaning segregating schools, "no-go area" meaning unpopular practice. It's like having an article called "Bad" about all the things that people call "bad'. "No-go area" is a phrase in use in English, but not an academic or notable topic in and of itself. – Levivich 17:11, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That then means there is a topic, that is discussed in academia (which I think was my basic point, there is a subject here). So all this says is re theme (at best), not delete.Slatersteven (talk) 17:16, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep We have many topics that have contested/controversial definitions. We have many articles that are subject to disputes. These are not reasons to delete. The nom appears to want a definitive definition but the real world is messier. The term 'no-go area' is widely used throughout society from politicians to pundits to police etc.. the number of sources in the article clearly demonstrate notability. The nom's requirement for academic notability is not a reason to delete, and I find it extremely hard to believe there are not academic papers given how widely used and contested this term is politics. One doesn't need to have definitive definitions for a wikipedia article there are multiple POVs is how Wikipedia works. Anyway clearly passes GNG. -- GreenC 18:33, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, the basis of my nomination isn't the lack of academic vs non-academic sources; it's that the topic violates WP:SYNTH policy because there are no RSes that treat the topic as a whole–there are only RSes that discuss particular, specific usages of the term, and those usages differ, and should be treated in separate articles, rather than bundled together, because the bundling is SYNTH. I find it extremely hard to believe there are not academic papers given how widely used and contested this term is politics Do you have any examples of any non-dictionary RS (academic or otherwise) that talks about how The term 'no-go area' is widely used throughout society from politicians to pundits to police? (As opposed to an RS that talks about just one of those usages.) I've looked and I haven't found anything, but I may have missed it. Because if it's editors who are taking a source about a politician's usage here, and a pundit's usage there, and stringing them together into one article, that's WP:SYNTH. – Levivich 18:43, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sure there are articles that discuss it more broadly such as [2][3][4]. There are so many articles on this topic it would be odd for Wikipedia not to have an article on such a widely reported and known topic. This Georgetown U Masters Thesis contains some interesting sources and discussions.[5] There are 20 pages of RS in the bibliography to draw from, plus the excellent overview and history of the term that could be incorporated via extracting RS. Our article might be better situated about the purported phenomenon of Muslim enclaves in Europe and USA (contextualized as part of Islamaphobia and conservative politics), beginning when Daniel Pipes coined the term in 2006, with the other uses redirected to other articles like military exclusion zones. I don't think AfD is the right place to decide though. Even if we conclude the academic sources reject no-go zones as an Islamaphobic myth [6] it still warrants an article to say as much. The term 'no-go area' is widely used throughout society is plainly evidence in the amount of sourcing, or for example the title of the SPLC article "'No-Go Zones': The Myth That Just Won't Quit".[7] or the article "How The ‘No-Go Zones’ Myth Traveled From The Anti-Muslim Fringe To The Mouths Of GOP Politicians". [8] It has also been discussed in books [9]. Google "no go zone" with "daniel pipes" and the types of RS sources for refactoring the article into proper context will start appearing. -- GreenC 20:16, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the sources, this exactly illustrates my point. All of those sources are about Muslim no-go zones. That is a totally notable topic, and I would be all for Muslim no-go zone sourced to those excellent sources. But No-go area is not, and does not purport to be, about Muslim no-go zones, it's about all "no go areas". And that term, "no go area", is used by RSes to apply to things other than Muslim no-go zones, such as areas of high crime, or political taboos, or segregated schools, etc., per the above sources. And so, to you, "no go area' means "Muslim no-go zone"; to someone else (dictionaries), it means high-crime areas; to someone else it's an analogy for a taboo, and so on. If we made the article about Muslim no-go zones, it should be moved to that title. If we made the article about Muslim no-go zones and other uses of the word, we are engaging in SYNTH. In either case, there shouldn't be an article about "no go areas" generally, because we only have RSes about specific uses of that term, and not the general use. Muslim no-go zone is an example of such a specific use. – Levivich 20:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what your saying though the solution of breaking it up is also problematic. The Muslim zone could and should be due to its nature, but the rest there is overlap of type (criminal and military in Ireland), and I think we loose something by scattering them around when they share common terminology. There isn't really a SYNTH problem in practice it's more of a limitation of Wikipedia in dealing with closely related topics, lumpers vs spliters. If there was a glaring OR problem that would be different but there are no controversial OR conclusions being made by housing like-named and like-topic things together, we often do this, and SYNTH is not explicit about topic-level clumping being a problem (unless a case can be made for why it is, not merely citing rules but specific to the subject matter). -- GreenC 01:17, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Here are four five reasons why your argument ignores available sources:
Preston, Richard (March 14, 2012). The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus. Anchor Books. p. 448. ISBN9780307817655.
Additionally, I would add the sources cited within (yes, I know it's a blog – nonetheless scholarly – and lists and links lots of WP:RSs, and these exist) Pipes, Daniel (January 17, 2015) [November 14, 2006]. "The 751 No-Go Zones of France"(PDF). They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS,
Keep or Split: I understand the accusation of WP:SYNTH, but it feels like a stretch to apply it to a whole topic; I'm not clear what conclusion is being reached that sources don't support and various lists may have trouble meeting this standard. Moreover, WP:Broad-concept articles are generally preferred to WP:Broad-concept disambiguations. However, there does seem to be merit in the argument that the term no-go area is poorly defined; based on the lead (which has ((lead extra info)) issues), there does seem to be distinct types of zones that may be best served with separate articles. —Ost (talk) 23:48, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge - This article has a serious scope problem. What can be included here? What is the very definition of the topic? We have some imaginary stuff, some politically polarized stuff, some alleged stuff, and some apparently real stuff. The sourcing? How do you source such a poorly-defined topic? I say, merge it into the dozen articles listed in "See also", something has to be a fit somewhere. Perhaps we would not be here if the topic could be defined or the article scope could be determined, but the time for that was before/during the last edit-war. Elizium23 (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but trim - as it is the article has a lot of coatracking going on with adding places that aren't actual no-go zones like Sweden, Poland, France and so on. // Liftarn (talk) 07:53, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is obviously a "real thing" and is amply sourced. WP:Preserve, WP:Not paper. WP:Before. The issues that are listed are reasons and issues to improve the article, not DELETE it.
Keep – as User:7&6=thirteen says, it's clearly a real topic. The article can and should discuss the different definitions, and probably reorganized so it's not merely a list of places that have at some point been called "no-go area". The assertion that reliable sources do not cover no-go areas per se is false. There may or may not be a source discussing the fluid definition of the term, but there are certainly sources that talk about no-go areas. In regards to the recent phenomenon in Sweden for example, there was so much coverage and controversy that Snopes saw fit to check it out. Yes, the article can be split into different types of no-go zones, but that doesn't mean it should be deleted in its current form. If someone wants to create more specific articles, they are welcome to do so. —Ynhockey(Talk) 20:38, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Valid broad concept article, although scope would benefit from clarification. This recent book (No Go World: How Fear Is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics, University of California Press 2019) might help with sourcing the article, as would this paper about alleged no-go areas in Germany. This book discusses no-go areas in Northern Ireland, starting on page 177. I don't see a reason to split discussion of different types/examples of no-go zones (eg No-go zones in Northern Ireland, Muslim no-go zone claims, no go zones in various countries that can arise because of civil war, insurgency, etc.) into separate articles except for space reasons. Where no go zones exist they are variations on the same theme, places where the authorities cannot or will not access. I do think that there should be a move, No-go area -> No-go zone and No-go zone -> No-go zone (disambiguation) per COMMONNAME. buidhe 07:04, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I suggest that this article might better be organized around "Types" of "no go" exclusions. If we want to have one based on specific locales, that could be part of a "History" section. I think that would address some of the issues at this 2nd AFD discussion.
This would solve the problems listed as purported justification for deletion.7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ynhockey's example RS is about high-crime areas avoided by police (which the source says don't actually exist, at least in Sweden) [20]
Buidhe's example RSes are about war zones [21], "areas dominated by neo-Nazis" in Germany [22], and urban areas in Northern Ireland where state security forces were unable to operate between 1969–1972 [23].
Liftarn says "trim... places that aren't actual no-go zones" but doesn't provide any RS to tell us what is and what is not an "actual no-go zone"
I think the premise of my nomination has been proven: no RS discusses all of these things in one article or book; rather, every RS discusses a different type of no-go area. Because no RS combines them, for Wikipedia to combine them would be SYNTH. We would be stringing together different things–like "Muslim no-go zones", neo-Nazi "no-go zones" in Germany, Sensitive urban zones in France, war zones in the developing world, high-crime areas, segregated areas, and saying they are related, when NO RS says these things are related.
Ost316 points to WP:Broad-concept articles, which "no go area" would seem to be, except that we have no RS about the broad concept. The examples given in WP:Broad-concept articles are articles like History of France and Supreme court. You'll find RSes talking about the History of France, generally, and comparing different nations' supreme courts, but we don't have an RS that talks about war zones AND high-crime areas AND high-Nazi areas in Germany AND loyalist enclaves in Northern Ireland AND political taboos, etc. etc. We don't have an RS that makes that connection, so it's inappropriate for us to make that connection.
There are some common tests that can be used to determine whether an article can potentially be considered a broad concept article. One of these is "expert" test: could a person reasonably represent themselves as an expert in [name of page], without having to be an expert in multiple fields of knowledge (i.e. without having degrees from different departments in the typical university)? For example, although there are many species of tuna that are called "bluefin tuna" an icthyologist could be an expert in "bluefin tuna" without needing to specify a particular species. Compare that to a person claiming to be a "Mercury" expert, or a "battery" expert. The expert on "Mercury" would need to have both Roman mythology and astronomy in his knowledge base, along with chemistry. The expert on "battery" would need both chemical engineering and legal training, as well as some military history and (depending how significant the subtopic was considered) baseball.
"No go area" is exactly like "Mercury" and "battery", both of which are disambiguation pages. We don't have a single article that talks about Mercury the Greek god, mercury the element, and Mercury the planet. We don't have a single article that discusses battery the energy source, battery the crime, and battery the group of artillery, all in one article. Those are disparate things that have a common name, and so are "no-go areas". It's unlikely a single person would be an expert in Muslim no-go zones, Northern Ireland no-go zones, high crime areas, war zones in the developing world, political taboos, the rise of neo-Nazis in Germany, and so on.
If there are no objections – particularly from the split/merge !voters Ost316, Elizium23, and Visite fortuitement prolongée – I'm happy to withdraw this nom and pursue dabbing-and-splitting the article on the talk page. Thanks to everyone for their feedback. – Levivich 17:28, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Or we re-jig the article to be about the different interpretations and usages of the term.Slatersteven (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the last AFD was a snow keep. There was no reason to renominate this, and I question the competence of anyone who would nominate this. How is this not interrupting Wikipedia to make a point? Article needs improvement. Nfitz (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I am confident that this article warrants inclusion. RSs exist Lightburst (talk) 02:00, 10 December 2019 (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.