Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Westsplaining

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 delete. ✗plicit 23:47, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Westsplaining

Westsplaining (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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While this is a term that is in-use, there isn't sufficient coverage to justify an article separate from the overlapping concept of Orientalism (or alternatively, Eurocentrism). Unlike Mansplaining, a subject for which there is abundant and deep peer-reviewed coverage such as [1], [2], for Westsplaining all we have is mere mentions, trivial treatment in opinion pieces [3], more significant treatment, but still just an opinion piece, and an editorial published by a think tank. Looking at Google scholar, while there's a handful of hits for articles that use the term, ([4]), I don't see any that analyze and discuss it in depth. Until we have in-depth coverage in peer-reviewed or equally high quality sources, I think that creating an article is premature and that readers are better served by restoring the redirect to Orientalism#Critical_studies or another article that more thoroughly covers the topic of West-centric analytical lenses. Based on the current sources, we fall short of WP:GNG and the existing article runs afoul of WP:DICDEF. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:17, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: see also "Westplaining", an alternative spelling without "s" after "west": (Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL) SMiki55 (talk) 10:34, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:17, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove I agree that this term and the content of the article don't seem to meet notability criteria. Kuralesache (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Ukraine is cancelled now after 30 years of the Westplaining. Tell me that the idea is not notable. https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato Xx236 (talk) 07:48, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You linked a piece I had already assessed above. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:32, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You redefine the idea of this Wikipedia: 'in-depth coverage in peer-reviewed or equally high quality sources'. I bet that 80% of the pages are unsourced or quote unverified media news or outdated sources. The basis of this Wikipedia is Westplaining, which makes understanding the problem so difficult. This Wikipedia need EELM, Eastern European Lives Matter. Now they matter less. You understand many languages but only the Russian and German from the region, the languages of the slavemasters. Xx236 (talk) 08:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There's a real irony that you accuse me of westsplaining for wanting to send readers to a section that is mostly about the academic work of Edward Said while the source you've championed is an op-ed in an American newspaper. Aren't you the one who's privileging the west here? Find some coverage on this topic in Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, etc. then we'll be talking. As for demanding high quality sources, I'm following the lead of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history): high quality source are extremely important for nebulous topics like this one, because otherwise we'd end up with a WP:DICDEF for every buzzword and that is not going to help our readers. The standards I have applied here are no higher than the ones I deploy for any other social science topic when doing WP:NPP. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:40, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, and can I ask you to clarify Xx236, you seem to have ignored that I speak Yiddish just as well as German and better than Russian. Do you consider that to be a language of the slavemasters? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:16, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Keep Victor Grigas (talk) 01:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete possibly WP:TOOSOON. Reading through the articles found by NOM, what particularly strikes me is that of the ones that give a definition, their definitions differ considerably. The BI article says: "Balkanism gives birth to the worst type of tourist – the kind who after reading one book and spending a few days in the region “westsplains” history and politics to the locals." This is analogous to "mansplaining" - someone who knows little about a topic explaining it to someone who knows much more. The Manila Standard article isn't about "'splaining" but about "jacking" and it uses the term "Westjacking": “Westjacking,” he says, “is to take Western cultural norms, lenses, and other points of view and fit in the nuances in that [Western] frame of mind." That isn't what the 'splaining meme is about. The New Republic article is about imposing your historical and political analysis using on other countries: "Eastern European online circles have started using a new term to describe this phenomenon of people from the Anglosphere loudly foisting their analytical schema and political prescriptions onto the region: westsplaining." Each of these is significantly different in meaning. Perhaps if the meaning settles down and is used in a somewhat consistent way it will be time for an article. I should also note that although I'm so-so on having an article about Mansplaining, it had a specific origin in an article written by Solnit (although the term wasn't coined there) and therefore there is an "origin" that can be used to define the term consistently. Lamona (talk) 01:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This is such a new term people are not even sure what it actually means.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:02, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Not entirely sure it passes WP:GNG and agree with others above that it's WP:TOOSOON. — Czello 22:54, 12 March 2022 (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.