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 The result was No consensus Mallanox 11:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Walid Said Bin Said Zaid[edit]

Walid Said Bin Said Zaid (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The onyl biographical information on Walid Said Bin Said Zaid is found in the header. The rest of the article is about procedures and other information about Guantanamo Bay detention camps. The article does not state the notability or importance of the subject other than the fact they are being held at Guantanamo Bay. --Ozgod 02:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete for soapboxing. Notability not established within article. Eddie.willers 03:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please explain which passages of this article you think are soapboxing. -- Geo Swan 13:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • From 'Walid Said Bin Said Zaid' to 'Afghan people' - the entire article reads as something written by a POV Soapboxer. Eddie.willers 02:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • No offense, but this is not a serious answer... remainder of discussion moved to User:Geo Swan#Walid Said Bin Said Zaid at Eddie's suggestion... Geo Swan 11:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment. As a result of the discussion alluded to above, I retract my 'Delete' and withdraw from this AFD debate. Lack of free time precludes my ability to offer a reasoned or honed response to Geo Swan points. Eddie.willers 18:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Hmmm... I would kind of like there to be articles for each of detainees, but I'm not sure it's objectively a good idea. All of these articles should be combined into one long one. The bios are about the right length. Then redirects created for each of the names to the centralized article. - Richfife 03:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This suggestion has been made before. My personal opinion is that a union list should only be a supplement to the existing articles, not a replacement. Nevertheless, I adapted a list in my rough work space, to bring it close to the skeleton of a union list. It is over 420K long. Long enough to make it problematic to render. And problematic for anyone unfamiliar with it to find what they might be looking for. Here it is.
• Delete simply being a prisoner does not make one notable. Almost nothing about the subject himself in this article. Resolute 03:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further information: User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/Guantanamo captives aren't felons and aren't POWs
    — Geo Swan 13:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Impressive essay, but not relevant, imo. If anything, it argues to me that you are on a POV based crusade. When the only thing that can be said about the subject of an article is "He is a prisoner, and he might have been born on x date." the individual is not notable, regardless of your opinion of the circumstances of his imprisonment. Resolute 13:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • (Sigh) -- Did you spend enough time looking at the article to see that it quotes the allegations against him prepared for the Summary of Evidence memo that was presented to his Administrative Review Board. Walid Said Bin Said Zaid#Administrative Review Board?
      • In your other recent comment here you asked for "multiple, non-trivial, independent, reliable sources". Are you disputing that an official DoD memo asserting factors for and against his continuing detention is a reliable source"?
      • Perhaps you are asserting that the official DoD memo, which states he attended an al Qaeda training camp, and that his name was found on a list of al Qaeda members, is a "trivial" document?
      • Regarding your implied accusation that I am POV pushing. I urge you to consider the possibility that your decision that this document is "trivial" is a reflection of your hidden systemic bias. In other words, have you considered the possibility that your efforts to suppress coverage of this material is reflection of a biased POV on your part.
      • Above, you wrote: "...When the only thing that can be said about the subject of an article is "He is a prisoner, and he might have been born on x date." the individual is not notable, regardless of your opinion of the circumstances of his imprisonment." I think this passage illustrates your POV. There is a specturm of opinions about the circumstances of the imprisonment at Guantanamo. It would be a breach of WP:NPOV, and other policies, if the Said Zaid article said, "He is a human rights victim! The USA is violating the Geneva Convention! George Bush is a War Criminal!" That opinion would lie near one end of the spectrum. And the position you have taken, that this material on Said Zaid should be suppressed, lies at the other end of the spectrum. The POV I wrote from when I worked on this article is, I strongly believe, a neutral point of view, right in the middle, between your extreme view, and the extreme view of someone prepared to call George Bush a war criminal.
      • Yes, I have a personal POV. We all do. Everyone participating in this discussion has one. Participating in the wikipedia doesn't require us get a lobotomy, so we don't have a POV. It merely requires we exercise discipline to make sure we don't inject our POV into the articles we work on. I make a big effort to make sure I don't. I don't expect to success 100% of the time. That is why I follow up on ever suggestion that my efforts have lapsed. But I believe I largely succeed because I hardly ever get serious, specific challenges.
      • Can you point to a specific passage that you feel lapsed from WP:NPOV, WP:NOR or WP:VER? If not, sorry, but I don't consider complaints that can't cite specific passages to be serious. Geo Swan 14:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I never accused it of failing NOR or VER, so that request is irrelevent. The POV pushing is highlighted by your arguments. Ie: that I apparently want to "suppress" this material because I disagree with you. It isn't a matter of suppression, it is a matter of notability. The PDFs that you linked are out there, but that does not mean they have to be on Wikipedia. My vote has no bearing on my personal opinion - or lack thereof - of Guantanamo detainees. I also find your need to write articles about random, non-notable prisoners to be POV itself, as your argument to keep is rooted in WP:ILIKEIT rather than in policy. Just because you feel it is important that articles for every prisoner exists does not mean articles for every prisoner should exist. These people are, for the most part, not notable, yet you attempt to invent notability out of thin air.
        • The DoD memo I would consider one reliable source, though the triviality of Zaid's mention is debatable. Regardless, you simply cut and pasted the information. There has been no critical commentary about this individual - which you yourself could not provide without violating WP:NOR. Wikipedia is not a mere collection of public domain material. The list of prisoners is a trivial link with respect to Zaid, as he obviously is not the focus of it, but rather is nothing more than a one line mention. Triviality is determined not only by the origin of the link itself, but by how much is written about the subject you are writing about.
        • The fact is, this individual is simply a random prisoner. He has done nothing outstanding to set himself apart from other Guantanamo prisoners. He exists, he is imprisoned, and he had a review. I fail to see how this individual is notable, and accusing me of systemic bias hardly serves to establish his notability. Resolute 15:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete If people murdered by terrorists are deemed by Wikipedia to be non notable, and they almost always are, I see no justification for this article. As has been pointed out there's virtually no information about him in the article either. Nick mallory 06:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry,
    • but, if I am not mistaken, ((afd)) participants are discouraged from citing existing articles that they think share an aspect of the article under debate, to argue that an article should be kept.
    • Similarly, if I am not mistaken, ((afd)) participants are discouraged from citing articles that have been deleted, that they think share an aspect with the article under debate, to argue that the article in question should also be deleted.
    • Rather, if I am not mistaken, ((afd)) participants are strongly encouraged to judge each article nominated for deletion solely on its merits, and how fully it complies with policy. — Geo Swan 13:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Thanks for the advice Geo Swan. I still find your tireless advocacy for the terrorist suspects at Gitmo entirely unpersuasive however. As you're so keen to lecture me on Wikipedia procedure could you answer where the significance or notability of this particular terrorist suspect is asserted in the article? Nick mallory 13:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I am not saying this to be sarcastic. I honestly want to know. Are you really saying that if I had inserted the phrase "...is notable because..." somewhere in the article you would not have agreed that it should be deleted? Okay, so what if I had said "he is notable because he is being held under conditions that many legal scholars and human rights workers have called a violation of the Geneva Conventions?"
• I dispute that I am a tireless advocate for the captives at Guantanamo. I make a big effort to for my contributions to article space to fully comply with WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:VER. Did you mean to tell me you think some of my contributions to article space have lapsed into advocacy?
• If you are aware of any articles about victims of terrorism, or survivors of terrorism, that are currently in ((afd)) I'd be happy to go read them. If you know of a stub sorting for them I would be interested in putting it on my watchlist. If you want to initiate an undeletion, let me know and I will be sure to go and take a look. FWIW I started several articles about survivors or victims of terrorism. I started Kathleen Kenna, Brian Clark and Stanley Prainmath, Layne Morris, Christopher Speer and articles about half a dozen Afghanistanis, and South Asians who were assassinated by terrorists..
• Cheers -- Geo Swan 16:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The majority of the article doesn't even mention him, but rather describes his general situation. Delete as non-notable prisoner. ----Ðysepsion † ^{Speak your mind} 06:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, but don't you think the allegations against him are "about" him?
  • You couldn't know this, but the wikipedia is the only freely available resource on the internet where an interested reader can look up the transcripts, or summary of evidence memos.

The only real thing that mentions this prisoner is the opening sentence so how does he deserve an ENTIRE article?. In theory, you can just merge his name along with other names from the prison. As per Arkyan, this is more of the broad issue of the detainment rather than an individual person----Ðysepsion † ^{Speak your mind} 17:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• For the record, this comment from Dysepsion disturbsed me. I wrote them, about it. and we had the following exchange: [1], [2]. -- Geo Swan 17:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep — Geo Swan 13:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disclaimer — I started this article.
  • No offense — No offense, but there have been close to two dozen attempts to delete articles that are related to Guantanamo. And most of those nominations, and many of the opinions expressed, are based on simple misconceptions. One of those misconceptions is repeated here — namely that Walid Said Bin Said Zaid is just a prisoner, like millions of other prisoners. Here is an answer I gave three weeks ago on my talk page. If you think Walid Said Bin Said Zaid is just a prisoner, like a million other prisoners, with nothing exceptional about his case, please read: Guantanamo captives aren't felons and aren't POWs
  • Finding Said Zaid's allegation memo? — Is it possible to find all of Said Zaid's transcripts and memos, without using the wikipedia article to find the link to the right page numbers, in the right pdfs? Sure. But it would take about an afternoon:
  • (removed a list of the steps to find Said Zaid's allegation memo, if this article was removed...)
  • Couldn't those page number and file number references be put into one huge union list? Well, as I said, I took a crack at making a union list. I spent over 100 hours at it. It is something like 2/3 finished. Or maybe far less than half finished, given it will require proof reading, and editing for style and appearance, before it can be put into article space. On April 18th I asked for help on Talk:List of Guantanamo Bay detainees#total rewrite?. No one has volunteered yet.
  • Cheers! — Geo Swan 13:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment What on earth has the lengthy comment posted above got to do with the merits of this article's inclusion or otherwise on Wikipedia? As someone who earlier lectured at length on the Wikipedia guidelines for comments at AfDs I would have expected the writer to know that any supposed difficulty in finding information from another source has absolutely nothing to do with the merit, or otherwise, of that information appearing on Wikipedia. Usually notablity is asserted on Wikipedia by linking to sources directly relevant to the article, Geo Swan seems to be making the novel argument that because such sources clearly don't exist for this terrorist suspect that means he should have an article here. That's the complete opposite of the usual rationale, presumably he's appealing to IAR rather than anything else here? Nick mallory 13:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I truly appreciate Geo Swan's dedication to the Gitmo articles, and have had some friendly interaction on related topics. However a review of this article shows it is more about the broader issue of the detainment rather than this particular detainee, and a glance at the several dozen other detainee articles shows the bulk of these articles are identical. I would support retaining these articles as redirects to a central article about the Guantanamo detainees or perhaps a tabular list of detainees, but it's a little late to include several dozen other articles into this AfD. Arkyan • ^(talk) 16:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Guantanamo Bay detainment camp-related deletions. -- Geo Swan 16:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Far from being a soapbox, article devotes much space to specifying the allegations against him, based on the Pentagon's own contentions. I agree that not every prisoner in the world is notable but the attention paid to Guantanamo detainees is an order of magnitude beyond what most prisoners get. JamesMLane t c 06:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am certain, then, that you can provide multiple, non-trivial, independent, reliable sources that focus directly on this individual, as opposed to Guantanamo Bay detainees as a whole? The focus on the prisoners as a whole is already well covered at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Resolute 13:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep JamesMLane summarised it pretty well. I've said it before, reconsidered at length, and continue to maintain that all of these individuals are notable because of the nature, scale and likely historical significance of the political event that they are embroiled in. Little is known about them for the very obvious reason that information is actively witheld and suppressed by the detaining authority. WP:BIO is only a guideline, not policy, for a very good reason. The article is well constructed and fully compliant with the core policies of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep, I see no NPOV issues in the article - it summarises who the prisoner is, what's he's accused of, and provides updates on his status in the detention camp. Why is he any less notable than Eldad Regev or any other person "notable chiefly for being captured"? He is also "unique" and "noteworthy" as a Guantanamo prisoner who actually supports the US war in Afghanistan and has said he has been treated fairly throughout his detainment. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 18:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, Not Notable --Bill.matthews 18:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Not encyclopedic. The referenced document (Factors for and against the continued detention) incudes about 50 similar cases, which almost immediatelly renders each one as not notable, while the whole set is notable but already covered here and at wikibooks. - Nabla 20:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep As Cactus Man said above, WP:BIO is a guideline. This article is important, NPOV/neutral, particularly as it is sourced primarily using DOD information. —Gaff ^ταλκ 22:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• It makes Wikipedia a better encyclopedia to cover topics like this in as great a depth as possible. —Gaff ^ταλκ 22:11, 9 June 2007 (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.