Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Argentina–Singapore relations

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. Most editors agree that most such relations are not notable, but there's no consensus that all of them are sufficiently likely to be non-notable to allow for an en bloc AfD nomination. This suggests that individual AfDs for the non-notable pairings may be needed. Sandstein 08:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Argentina–Singapore relations

I'm proposing for deletion a bunch of pages on bilateral relations by User:Groubani, a user who specializes in creating stubs of this type that are either non-notable or far shorter than they should be. This group falls squarely into the former category: all the pairs of countries are very far apart, none of them is a world power (to justify the claim that relations with it are notable), and there's zero evidence presented of notability in the relationships -- merely that they exist. As established before, for instance at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peru–Romania relations, mere existence of diplomatic relations is not inherent evidence for notability. Thus, delete. Biruitorul ^Talk 03:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages:

Delete All If the topic hasn't been discussed in notable sources, it is not notable. Besides that, there are thousands of possible articles of this kind that could be created by picking any two countries. Borock (talk) 04:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, and figure out a way of handling "foreign relations of X" templates that doesn't suggest that these articles should exist for every possible pairing of countries. Relations between most pairs of countries are unremarkable; there are obviously exceptions (China-Japan relations, for instance!) which obviously merit deeper discussion, but the vast majority could be summarized in tabular form. (Country A, Country B, year relations were established, locations of embassies.) Zetawoof_(ζ) 06:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom. Relationships between countries aren't intrinsically notable. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Other dubious articles recently created by Groubani (talk · contribs) include: Georgia–Thailand relations (basically non-existent), Norwegian Argentine, Kenya–Romania relations, Morocco–Romania relations, Israel–Vietnam relations and many, many others. None of these articles appears to have any sources to demonstrate notability. This may require a large clean-up job. Nick-D (talk) 07:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've posted a notification of this issue at: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Editor mass-producing articles on minor bilateral national relationships. Nick-D (talk) 07:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete with roughly 200 countries in the world, that would mean 40000 articles saying... what? that they recognise each other? ¨¨ victor falk 08:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete All and consider the balance of such articles for deletion too. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 08:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all there are 192 countries in the United Nations, that's 36,672 of these articles, most of which are completely useless. Unless one of the countries is particularly signifcant internationally, or there is significant interaction between the countries concerned, we shouldn't have an article on the countries' relations. Hut 8.5 10:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all including all the similar pages, and templates and images which were created for them. I'm currently making a list of them at User:Od Mishehu/pages. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that Egypt–Israel relations is one article which, although was created as part of the spree, I think shouldn't be deleted. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed; that one should gain an expand tag.--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 14:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, clearly that falls into the "far shorter than they should be" category. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What the fuck is going on here? for any random pair of countries, establishing the notability of their bilateral relations is easier than pissing in the shower, and not half as fun. Picking one at random: Argentina–Egypt relations - not much information, definitely an unsourced stub. Then .. + external link+ reference+ reference+ reference+ reference and all of a sudden we have a reasonable looking start class article on a really worthwhile subject - all with the mighty power of Google. Is nobody here looking at what's going on and thinking before voting? WilyD 14:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Devil's advocate - Couple of questions. First, are those sources independent of the subject? Second, are those sources about treaties and trade agreements, and not about the relations specifically? There's a difference between a news article about, say, a meeting between the Japanese and Chinese head of states, and one about Sino-Japanese relations. --Mosmof (talk) 14:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - In reference to the first question: no, yes, yes, hard to say, yes. Meetings between heads of state, trade agreements, other treaties on co-operation are all aspects of bilateral relations. It'd be rightly rejected if I could write Box office sales of Pirates of the Caribbean and Inspirations for Pirates of the Caribbean and Johnny Depp's acting performance in Pirates of the Caribbean but not Pirate of the Caribbean because no article forcused on that generally. We know when the two countries established bilateral relations, we know some of their history, including the nuclear power co-operation, the value of trade between them, the current focus of expanding trade, and so forth. Wily D 15:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note: Argentina–Egypt relations was never nominated for deletion, so there's no reason to get excited. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Err, I just picked a bilateral relations article by User:Groubani at random, since it seemed the fairest way. Certainly Od Mishehu has indicated that they intend to expand this stub-hunt, and AN or AN/I is tending a similar way. The user's been blocked, for fuck's sake, for creating neutral, notable articles but not citing explicit sources, and having a hard time communicating because they're not an anglophone. I think there's definitely a reason to be agitated. Wily D 16:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the ones I picked for deletion were not random. I think the case on these is pretty airtight, but if I'm wrong, I'll gladly acknowledge it. As I've conceded from the beginning, some of Groubani's creations are notable, just far, far shorter than they should be (eg, Egypt–Israel relations); for those, expansion and not deletion is the solution. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but to then pick one you have nominated [1] + [2] + [3] + [4] and so on (Spanish references abound, but are harder for me to evaluate/find), and we see that Argentina-Nigera wouldn't be hard to expand from it's "stub" state to 'start', especially using "non-independent but reliable" sources (i. e. the two governments for data on trade relations & whatnot). Wily D 17:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Argentina–Egypt relations, thanks to WilyD's most excellent piss in the shower, I mean his most excellent editing work. As for the others, still undecided. Normally I loathe mass-produced substubs, but some work (automated or otherwise) has gone into "locator" maps such as this, and foreign relations can be, or can become, noteworthy. -- Hoary (talk) 15:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Using the example you've cited, I can dig up bwhich is in spanish :(Spanish again but that's all. Knowledge of Arabic would probably help, or even decent french. Spanish too, I'm groping blind and can only find a bit that's independent. The Uruguayan embassy in Beirut has some information, but it's not independent [5], but it should be clear from that that plenty more sources exist. Wily D 16:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Just because some of our editors are so lazy they can't google up a couple of words and find a reference is not a reason to mass delete anything. If you are physically incapable of finding said sources, post a note to WP:AR and WP:SG, and they will be happy to oblige.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:12, February 2, 2009 (UTC)
- Please mind WP:CIV, and until sources are provided, we can't assume inherent notability in these particular cases. - Biruitorul ^Talk 17:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, but we can spend a minute or two investigating notability, rather than assume non-notability, either. Nominating someone's work for deletion without properly investigating, and some of the other treatments Groubani has received fail civility by a country mile. Wily D 17:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - What Wily said, and also what does WP:CIV have to do with my comment??? It was a general observation aimed at no one in particular. If it offended you personally, I apologize.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:36, February 2, 2009 (UTC)
Delete all and seriously ponder if we need any such articles. This whole series looks almost like someone is gaming the system, creating articles by randomly selecting any two countries. It's all inee minee miney moe, and "let's see other editors trying to figure out if this article can go anywhere". Even if any of these has notability, it could all be folded into some other articles - there is absolutely no need for these ones. And may I add: editors are instructed not to create articles that are very hard to link to (I have difficulty imaging an article where this could be done, and done in compliance with the WP:MOS); this entire bilateral relations series, even "US-UK relations", comes pretty close to that situation, and in most cases it is an optimistic, overzealous and, dare I say it, scribomaniacal content fork. If anything, articles on such topics should be the exception, not the rule. Dahn (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Canada, a featured article, links Canada–United States relations in the lede, which is pretty necessary. One couldn't hope to understand anything about Canada's history, it's national identity or its place in the world without an explicit discussion of its relationship with America. (Caveat: I rode a polar bear from my igloo to the Inukshuk this morning). Wily D 17:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- In fact, Category:Canada–United States relations has 106 articles and 11 subcategories. Dozens of books have been written on the subject (and probably hundreds of scholarly papers and tens of thousands of newspaper articles). Not all countries have such extensive relations that 100+ articles on the subject are needed, of course. WilyD 17:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Not that I disagree with your point, but I would argue that, even in Canada's case, the information about the relations could have been structured otherwise from the very beginning (let's say, around preexisting articles referring directly to Canada's/US's politics for the new stages and history for the old stages, not to mention the tens or hundreds of articles on individual topics). Even if I'm wrong about this, the case you make would still be for an exception, not necessarily for the rule. Dahn (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - This particle comment only addresses the comment to which I'm responding, that bilateral relationships are inherently non-notable. But I don't you could really cover the topic well without an explicit Canada-America relations article - spreading information around like too little fertilizer is the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing - aggregating and condensing information, making summaries of important topics & whatnot. Now, it's not obvious to me that every set of bilateral relations are notable, but most are, and for any individual one it's not hard to dig up enough sources to establish notability (as my example of Egypt-Argentina above illustrates). A few countries may have generally non-notable relations, but those'll be the exception, not the rule. Wily D 18:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Week keep or Merge to respective countries pages on foreign relations. I would like to see proof that those relations are non-notable, with WP:BIAS in mind: even if nobody outside Argentina and Singapore cares about their foreign relations, they may be notable in light of works in language of those countries. Have respective deletion projects been notified? I don't see such notifications. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Merges are generally unadvisable where there are multiple appropriate targets - e.g. since both Foreign relations of Singapore and Foreign Relations of Argentina should have this content, the best way to manage the content is to have a seperate page and link both foreign relations articles to it. WilyD 17:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Actually, for that hypothetical scenario: 1) the need to write the same basic facts on several pages occurs very often, and many times there's nothing one could or should do to merge it; 2) it is easy to write the same info in two non-identical but perfectly complementary ways (I do it all the time); 3) any text that links to a main article should in any case have a summary of what one can read in the main article; 4) linking all of the relevant individual bilateral relations articles on the respective two pages creates an unmanageable and often illegible text, crammed with links and lacking in depth. Dahn (talk) 18:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - This isn't a viable solution at all. It's not hard to like Foreign relations of Argentina from Argentina or Politics of Argentina or whatnot, and use Foreign relations of Argentina to link each specific relation. The keeps things organised and uncluttered - merging perfectly sensible stand-alone content into multiple articles creates clutter - moreso given the amount of expansion mandated. Large sections of text shouldn't be duplicated, but should exist in a single location. Not only does this help maintainability, but it also prevents parent-type articles from becoming unwieldy. It's the best choice for both current readability and future expandability. There's no real argument against seperate articles at all, except this religious notion about what merits an article in some value judgement scheme. Wily D 18:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the stubs. There are at least 192 countries in the world (that's the number of members in the United Nations). Some countings yield a few more. If we were to create bilateral relation articles for every possible pair, we'd get more than 18 000 articles, most of which would be entirely pointless. I suppose one afflicted with editcountitis might find rather enticing the prospect of claiming credit for creating all those -- and then 18 000 more for creating the redirects of B-A relations to A-B relations --, but that is just plain silly.

Separate relations articles should only be created where there is clear utility in maintaining such articles, not as stub articles 'just in case'. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 19:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- The problem with this argument is that none of the articles are entirely pointless. Whether countries have official diplomatic relations is probably the first thing one might ask regarding their bilateral relations. A little more information is added and we've got the stubs you see today - essentially now at the point of "minimally useful - need to be expanded for all but the most cursory enquiries", but stub is not a criterion for deletion, it's a criterion for expansion. Why delete already useful (to some readers) articles? WilyD 19:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, we could create a table in, say, Diplomatic missions of Argentina, with the date relations were established and where embassies and consulates are located, could we not? For the more trivial relationships (ie, Argentina–Singapore, Argentina–Nigeria, etc) that seems like a good solution. - Biruitorul ^Talk 20:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Diplomatic missions are installed essentially because the countries have a notable bilateral relation. Where they don't exist, I'd buy the two countries might not have a notable relationship (though Iran doesn't have an Isreali embassy, for instance). Merging, especially merging into lists, kills article writing in practice, and what we're looking at are a collection of good stubs in need of expansion. I had hoped a random demonstration would show this clearly, but then I :('d. Wily D 20:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- 1) Your Nigeria-Argentina example wasn't especially compelling. OK, so a couple of cities in each country agree to trade more. And the Nigerian embassy in Buenos Aires is involved in some shady vehicle practices, along with 100 others. Hardly encyclopedic stuff. 2) A bilateral relation is not really that exceptional -- its mere existence, as established in various AfDs, is not inherently notable. If backed up by sufficient sources, maybe, but not on its own. 3) There's nothing particularly "good" about these stubs (what - the maps?), and their expansion potential is dubious at best. - Biruitorul ^Talk 08:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete these stubs; the information can be in Foreign relations of Argentina and Foreign relations of Singapore; more useful than an article for every country pair. Many such articles have also been deleted previously; some have been recreated by the author, who does not seem to believe in communication. Kusma (talk) 19:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, except a small number of obvious cases This should normally be a no-brainer issue. It is very alarming to notice the amount of dramatization and personal ego going into such an elementary issue without geting any closer to solution. I repeat, ask any sane person, and this is really a no-brainer issue. 1) There are a number of instances, where separate articles are needed, such as Egipt-Israel relations, USA-UK relations, USA-Russia relations, USA-France relations. 2) Any other info should be found at Foreign relations of X. Come on, if you look for the relations of USA and Columbia, what would be your first instinct? Obviously, you'd look at the foreign relations of the two countries and search there. To whom this is not obvious, should take a wikibreak, you are boiling out! Yes, yes, I am fully aware of the amount of special relationship existing between the two countries, and even in this case, it's redundant. Articles of drug trafic and FARC are the proper place to discuss the relationship, not vice-versa. 3) I suggest to develop the article Equatorial Guinea-Bhutan relations and run it as a DYK on the next April 1st. Dc76\^talk 20:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, one follows the generally accepted precedent of WP:N, which establishes a criterion for inclusion of material. It's unclear why we'd want to adopt the much higher standard of "Does it affect America, or at least hit the headlines of the New York Times every couple of weeks?" With ~200 countries and a sizeable chunk of those bilateral relations having sufficient information to make dozens or hundreds of full articles, and almost all pairs having sufficient information available for a decent sized article, "foreign relations of X" articles would be monstrous.

As an aside, it's patently crazy to suggest that American-Columbian relations aren't noteworthy enough to develop an independent article. Going back, at least, to the Americans' role in the creation of Panama, up to modern day influence in the civil war, drug trafficing, inter-Americas co-operation, there are dozens of articles to be written here, which need a "survery/general overview" article. Wily D 20:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about George W. Bush-Congress relations, or Britney Spears-Dustin Timberlake relations, or New York-London relations, or Pilot-copilot relations, or Pennsylvania-Tennessee relations, or Eistein-speed of light relations, or black whole-star relations, or World War I-World War II relations/connections etc ? They are all very notable. But they do not desearve separate articles. Rather, you write about these issues in both articles. Not having a specialized article does not mean not having the info in WP. On the contrary, that info enriches existing articles. Dc76\^talk 23:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep After discussing this with another editor on my talk page I have come here with my keep opinion. At first, I even said to this editor that I wouldn't come here because my opinion would be to ~~Delete~~, but after reading what he had to say, and after giving it a little bit of extra thought I have come to the conclusion that they should be kept. For the following reasons:

I don't believe it is appropriate to be bringing a large number of un-related articles here. Unrelated as per say, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afghanistan–Kosovo relations, in which all articles had a common link, i.e. Kosovo.

Following on from that discussion, it is my belief that these articles should be merged to a common article until such time as they are able to be broken out on their own. With the Kosovo set of articles this was possibly to merge. The type of article I suggest merging to is something like Dates of diplomatic recognition of Uruguay, which could be a tabulated list with the date of establishment with other countries, and other information.

For long established nations, there are going to be some degree of notable relations with other countries. The bilateral relations articles don't just cover political ties, but can cover a wide range of topics within a bilateral relationship, such as political, military, trade, transport links, cultural ties, treaties, interaction between countries in international organisations, etc. So whilst Bhutan-Equatorial Guinea relations would not be notable (due to the lack of diplomatic relations), there would be ties between say Uruguay and Ukraine. Details such as political links and history, trade (even minimal) statistics, etc can be included.

I would suggest contacting related wikiprojects, and WP:FR, and discuss the issues with them, and instead of deleting find some information for yourselves and add it. I am normally a deletionist, but the way that I see it, relations between real world countries is more important to an encyclopaedia than say having totally unsourced articles on every Family Guy episode (as much as I like it, this is singled out as it has just come on). But even I before nominate articles for deletion at least do some background searching and at least try to provide some sources for information, and really consider if it may indeed be notable before bringing them here.

So keep based upon all of that. --Russavia ^Dialogue 21:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Bhutan-Equatorial Guinea is probably not a notable pairing (I can't find any sign of it), but Uruguay-Ukraine is (having done a little research. But fixing up Argentina-Egypt took ~1/2 hour of my time, and to do so for large numbers of countries at once is very difficult - you're right that we're not discussing each article on its merits, which would probably result in a mix of keeps and deletes. With a knowledge of Spanish, I'm hard pressed to make a very convincing case for Argentina-Singapore, although I get the impression a Spanish speaker might be able to. But this format doesn't really allow for a good discussion, you're right. Wily D 21:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, having written articles on Bhutanese topics in the past, even Bhutan-US relations is not notable - there is no diplomatic recognition and no ties of any sort (I actually merged the article into the foreign relations of Bhutan article). Bangladesh, India and Nepal with Bhutan relations yes are notable, as is Myanmar and Thailand due to political/trade/transport links, and even China-Bhutan relations are notable, even though there are no relations of any sort, except for China encroaching on Bhutanese territory by building roads, etc. The rest of the world and Bhutan is probable not-notable, bar aid development issues and the like. Just the same that Fiji-Saint Lucia relations is probably not notable. But any country with export industries would likely have relations of some sort with many other countries. Whilst we aren't just a paper encyclopaedia for prose, we are also an almanac of sorts and trade/transport statistics can also be included and are notable. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all, if notable should be in "Foreign policy of..." section of country article, furthermore I would suggest deletion of all the "X-Y relations" categories I've been seeing created. At 192 U.N. members the last I checked, that's 18,336 categories (or similarly titled articles). That's simply not useful. I might see my way to supporting "Country X Bilateral relations" which is just a subset of "Foreign relations of Country X". Which then would be exploited by all those contending non-sovereign illegitimate entities are sovereign according to Montevideo, see, they have "foreign relations", see WP article. So, I withdraw supporting any of these things. It's clutter, at best, a fork of some more appropriate place where it ought to be. PetersV TALK 21:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. In all fairness, we can keep "Foreign relations of X" as categories and joust on the one-offs that are, or aren't, appropriate. For bilateral relations, all you have to do is cross-reference any two categories. PetersV TALK 21:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- If you're worried about the rainforest, please see WP:NOT#PAPER. This argument has been advanced many times, and essentially shown to be silly. Hard disk space is cheaper than water. WilyD 22:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hard disk space is cheap. Editor time, however, is not. Creating (and maintaining!) thousands of nearly-identical articles is an incredibly unproductive use of editor time, given the alternative of grouping this information into a single article per country and splitting that out into articles on an as-needed basis. Zetawoof_(ζ) 02:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Volunteer time, roughly speaking, can't be channelled very much. Creating these articles is something someone has volunteered their time to do - it's already paid for, with currency that couldn't be used to do anything else. There's no evidence of a maintance problem, either ... WilyD 03:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Yes, but then editors who actually have a clue what they're doing (as opposed to creating thousands of mindless stubs) have to sift through them, cull out the worthless ones, maybe expand the legitimate ones -- rather than using a bit of judgment when starting articles in the first place and sparing the rest of us that second step. - Biruitorul ^Talk 04:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        They don't "have" to - these articles are already fine as is, though expansion would be nice, it can wait until there's time/effort. There's no "problem" now that has to be "solved" by someone who'd rather do something else - there's just articles that could use expansion where someone has the time & interest. Wily D 08:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I respectfully disagree that these articles are "fine": "X has relations with Y, established in 19XX" does not make for an especially compelling article, and again, it would be nice if its creator thought about expansion potential rather than playing this little game and having the rest of us pick up the pieces. Furthermore, that these articles can in fact be expanded to any significant degree is dubious. - Biruitorul ^Talk 08:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - If you would find no information more useful in a reference work than a modicum of information, I can't fathom why. Otherwise, it's hard to argue that not useful and interesting to everyone should be a deletion criterion (I think we could safely delete every article under that criterion). WilyD 16:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Again, the list format is not a bad substitute. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Except that the list format is a bad substitute which makes it harder to keep information synched and inhibits expansion, whilst offering identically zero benefits. Wily D 16:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep ITS UNDER COUNSTRUCTION--BubbleDude22 (talk) 00:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- at least "Ethiopia-Ireland" relations. The two countries have exchanged embassies -- which is more than could be said about, say Ethiopia-Nepal relations. I'd venture that any countries which exchange ambassadors have relations worth writing an article about. -- llywrch (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- It would be nice if that statement could be backed up with sources, particularly considering that repeated precedent has established that the mere existence of diplomatic relations does not constitute evidence of notability. It's a routine feature of the international system, much better dealt with in other articles and not in this game whereby thousands of irrelevant stubs are pumped out. - Biruitorul ^Talk 08:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] - Ireland-Ethiopia is not a hard one to source, for those with a little inclination. WilyD 14:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - OK, so the Irish gave some money to the Ethiopians and gave some of them asylum. All very laudable, but hardly at the level of, oh, territorial disputes, wars, support for guerrilla movements, etc. (Which, yes, I realise it's quite impossible for those two to have, but that's just the point - their "relations" are merely the routine workings of the international system and not particularly deserving of a separate spot here, at least not in the scribomaniacal (I like that word) way they were introduced. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Most wars necessitate >1 articles to describe them with any level of reasonableness. What you're talking about is an ethical judgement as to what you feel is notable, not the neutral judgement set by what the world at large regards as notable. Wily D 16:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Then trade agreements & cultural exchanges aren't notable? Your statement would eliminate consideration of those. And the precedent of "diplomatic relations don't count" is a bad one -- funding a diplomatic mission to another country requires a notable amount of money -- especially for a poor country like Ethiopia. (Which is one reason why Ethiopia does not have an ambassador to Nepal.) You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this case, Biruitorul. -- llywrch (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - 1) Depends on the trade agreement - sure, NAFTA or the GATT are notable; the Korea-Chile Free Trade Agreement possibly less so. Cultural exchanges? The 2008 New York Philharmonic visit to North Korea is notable; the Indonesian dance in Canada, less so. 2) Taking that logic a bit further, all significant items in the Ethiopian budget should be covered here. Also, while I'm not saying Ireland funded the embassy project, Red China today is known to finance lots of poor countries' embassies (but then again, its relations are probably more notable due to the dispute with Taiwan) and it wouldn't surprise me if, for instance, Ethiopia had some embassies in the Soviet bloc (not Ireland) funded by the USSR. 3) The point is, these all may be interesting cases on their own, but when someone mass-produces them with no thought for how they fit into the larger structure of the encyclopedia, it's a bit exasperating. - Biruitorul ^Talk 17:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        What it sounds that you are saying here is that your primary reason for these nominations is because of your issues with the person who created these articles, & not with the subject. (To take respond to just one of your points, if a country is funding poor countries' embassies -- like China -- then that fact is notable enough to be put into an article & documented. I for one find that kind of diplomacy interesting, & it definitely would explain some of the dynamics between the two countries.) The best thing to do is let these articles sit a while to allow knowledgeable & motivated editors see if they can flesh them out -- or explain in careful detail why they are not worth space in Wikipedia. As I have explained above, there are certain Ethiopia-B relation topics that are not worth an article, so this is not a knee-jerk "keep" vote. -- llywrch (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        
        While it may indeed be exasperating, it does not mean such articles should be nominated in bulk. As you yourself pointed out, there may be some valid articles, which means that every single article should be nominated on its own merit, not as a chunk of unrelated stuff, which is this AfD's approach. I would suggest you withdraw this AfD and re-submit the articles individually.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:28, February 3, 2009 (UTC)
  - If my only issue had been with the mass-production, I would not have nominated articles that are clearly notable, just far short on content (eg, Australia–Israel relations). Per WP:IAR, the manner of creation is hardly a sufficient reason for deletion (unless done in evasion of a block). As for the bulk nomination: well, ten articles of roughly equal merit (that is, based on my investigation, failing WP:N) isn't that dramatic. However, once this does close, I will change tack, either nominating individually or pairs involving the same country, in order to provide for a more unified discussion format. - Biruitorul ^Talk 17:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep-- This multiple AfD is not the best forum to find sources for each individual articles, but I will try: Solid reference for Georgia–Mexico relations called Georgia-Mexico connection. Chile–Ukraine goverment are partners in the "Partnership of Principles"; Ireland–Kenya: "Ireland to support Annan Peace Talks in Kenya"; Ehtipopia/Ireland: UNICEF: Ethiopia has received contributions from the Government of Ireland; Ukraine–Uruguay: Ukraine statement in the Multilateral negotiations, the Uruguay round; Philippines-Romania Business. Sources are available if someones has the time and patience to search for them. --J.Mundo (talk) 13:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The Ethiopia and, by extension, Kenya matter is addressed above. The "Georgia" in that article is the US state of Georgia, so, no. If the "Partnership of Principles" is notable, we can easily create an article about it listing all members. The Uruguay round merely took place there, but the document says nothing about Ukraine's relations with that country. Finally, yes, there may be business links between the Philippines and Romania (though I note both seem to be private entities) - I'm not saying these countries' relations all amount to zero, just that they're fairly routine affairs not deserving of our special attention. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all The nomination fails WP:BEFORE which requires more effort to WP:PRESERVE content. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- A fairly similar framework exists in the context of the "Diplomatic relations of..." series. - Biruitorul ^Talk 16:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All as theabove comments show, there can generally be found references. DGG (talk) 06:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, if you consider the 500 obvious cases. No, if you consider all 193 x 193 = 37,249 cases. Dc76\^talk 23:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - This discussion is not about 37,249 cases. It is about the articles nominated above. If/when articles such as Ethiopia-Nepal relations are created, we'll discuss them then. -- llywrch (talk) 05:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Disk space may be cheap as noted, but the gating factor is that we all live for a finite amount of time and should be creating articles worthy of an encyclopedia rather than stubs upon stubs which fork information better left in existing articles. BTW, the math for 193 countries taken 2 at a time is: 193! / ((193-2)! * 2) = 193*192/2 = 18,528. I've already spent at least 10 minutes on this, so, 10 minutes x say 20 editors x 18,528 = 7 YEARS worth of editing, 24 x 7 x 365. Let's stop wasting time an nip this in the bud. AGAIN, cross-reference anything in "foreign relations of Argentina" category with "foreign relations of Singapore" and you have everything that pertains to the topic, that's a hell of a lot more useful than a pile of stubs with minimal information which, if anywhere, belongs in a list, no more. PetersV TALK 22:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - It seems to be a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument of sorts. All editors are volunteers, and we all volunteer our time. Just because you think such articles are a waste of time, the solution is simple....don't edit them, do other things. But there are some who may want to work on such things, and the creation of stubs is a valid way of both starting such articles, and also encouraging others to expand them. For example, I created this stub, and another editor came along and expanded it, and it appeared on the front page as a WP:DYK. If it weren't the presence of that stub, it is possible an editor wouldn't have come along and expanded it. So your argument has absolutely zero merit. --Russavia ^Dialogue 23:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- First of all, you can't compare Russia-Mongolia, where the two have a long border and the second was a puppet of the first for about 66 years, to, say, Argentina-Singapore, which have zero historic connection. Second, shall we take a look at some of Groubani's first bilateral relations stubs, from March 2008? New Zealand–Ukraine relations. South Korea–Ukraine relations. Greco-Brazilian relations. Greek-Uzbek relations. Greco-Saudi relations. Greek-Kenyan relations. Colombia–Greece relations. Guess what? They looked like junk a year ago, and they look the same today. And they will continue to look that way indefinitely unless we do the sensible thing by purging the worthless ones, keeping minimal information in list form, and focusing (if we are to have such articles) on relations that are actually of some importance beyond the mere existence of embassies. The "some one will eventually come along to expand" mantra has a very definite limit, and it's called WP:NOONECARES. - Biruitorul ^Talk 05:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - If "WP:NOONECARES" truly applied in this case, would anyone be arguing with you about deleting this article? Except for Groubani, of course. -- llywrch (talk) 07:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All, without prejudice to any further discussion being brought forward on any particular bilateral relation that doesn't have sources. As can be shown above, for most relations sources can be found with a bit of digging, so they meet WP:N. Therefore, I don't think a group nom is the best way to move forward on discussing what is to be done with these articles. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]
Delete All: this seems just an attempt to couple all the ~200 sovereign states in existence to create as many stubs as possible. The example given by the "What the fuck is going on here?" guy proved nothing (except his finesse maybe) as 90% of the information in that article is extremely trivial, and I doubt anyone would find them useful, be it for interest or for a reference.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 12:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You'd be surprised what people find useful and/or interesting. Just because information is of no use/interest to you personally is not a good reason to delete it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:05, February 4, 2009 (UTC)
Keep while I am holding my nose with respect to the current quality of these articles, the topic of bilateral relations seems encyclopedic. I seem to recall a similar debate about Foo at the XXXX Summer/Winter Olympics series of stubs where the content was nothing more than Foo competed or didn't compete, these were kept - I cannot find the link to the AfD which was based on some selected test cases, but most looked like Bermuda at the 1956 Summer Olympics still looks. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all such articles so long as they contain at least one piece of meaningful information. The ones I looked at qualified, as they included such things as embassy locations and dates for the establishment of relations. Everyking (talk) 00:09, 6 February 2009 (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.