Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Detroit neighborhood gangs

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. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 11:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Detroit neighborhood gangs

Delete due, primarily, to WP:RS. Because of the unsourced nature of this article, it is prone to vanity (!) edits, addition of non-notable gangs, and so forth. Essentially, it is an orphaned article, and is listcruft. Any sourced content can at worst be categorized under Category:Detroit gangs (which is in itself the only content categorized at Category:Gangs by location. This running list is, however, unnecessary. --Kinu ^t/_c 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Khoikhoi 06:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I don't think it's prone to vanity, because boyz from da hood have other things to do than adding themselves to Wiki. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 08:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
  • You would think that is the case, but I point you to Neighborhoods and projects in Detroit, Michigan where anons (and a few registered users) have a tendency to come and add variations of "it's the most dangerous neighborhood in Detroit" to article subsections, presumably for the neighborhoods they grew up in. See also Glock 3. There are plenty of people apparently willing to beef up their street cred on Wikipedia.--Isotope23 18:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - currently it's unsourced, and street gangs by their very nature are a difficult subject to source. As it stands, it's a magnet for anyone to declare that they're part of a "gang", as could well already be the case in this list and as has previously been the case with gangs claiming to exist in other places. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. -- Kicking222 12:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete redlink farm, and most of these would be A7'ed even if articles were created. "Red Rag Milatary", for example, gets no Google hits (and neither does "Red Rag Military") Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Viscious Circle, one user is now creating stubs for each Detroit gang, they are being deleted (so links stay red), and now the article itself is beeing deleted because of red links. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 15:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment, maybe it's just me, but that might signal a general lack of notability/verifiability for 95% of the contents of this list. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Does every gang in Detroit deserve article in Wiki? No it doesn't. But "Gangs in Detroit" I think deserve separate article. User that currently works (in vain) on gangs of Detroit should expand current article, instead of creating stub for each gang. As to verifiability - 50-70% of what he writes can be verified, he knows what his writing about. He simply does it the wrong way, and sadly Wiki community does not want to help him at all. Sure "Delete it all", that's the easiest solution. Why should we get bothered. -- Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 08:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Therein lies the point. How can we verify that any given gang on this list is in fact (A) a gang and (B) a notable gang which is worthy of inclusion here? Except in the most exceptional of circumstances, I doubt we can. By their very nature, gangs only really get mentions when their members are arrested. What we have in this list is a bunch of names which people call themselves when they hang out with their friends and (probably) commit petty crimes. Writing an article on any of those gangs currently redlinked doesn't mean that they suddenly become more than your run-of-the-mill petty hoodlums. If the articles which are being created are being deleted, it probably says more about the lack of sourcing than anyone else's commitment to the project. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 08:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the user currently writing about gangs has problems with sourcing, but the sources are there. For example recently speedy deleted article on Dexter Linwood Area could have been sourced [1]. I agree that DLA maybe does not deserve article of its own, but it was worth putting into main Detroit gangs article. If hostilities between gangs drag on for more than 25 years, there is more to it, than just quarrel between bunch of hoodlum kids. -- Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 09:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

That's true enough, and it may well make the particular gangs in question notable. What it doesn't, though, is warrant the existence of this very large and open-to-abuse list. I'm not saying that there aren't notable gangs in Detroit or anywhere else, just that having a list where every single self-described gang can list itself is a recipe for disaster. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 11:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

That's what Wiki is about. Its concept (that anyone can write anything) is a recipe for disaster, and the only articles not open-to-abuse are ones that are currently blocked for editing (due to previuos abuse). But yet Wiki manages not to turn into complete chaos. Article about gangs is also managable - quick google check can separate sourced and notable gangs from bunch of kids from the hood. But who gets bothered with fact checking and finding sources these days, then there is such a quick and easy solution as AfD, or Del per nom. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 11:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is it not better policy to create a series of well-sourced articles on Detroit (or anywhere else) gangs first and list them later, rather than doing it the other way around? If the sources are out there and added, the articles won't get deleted in the first place. Typecasting me as a deletionist is hardly a useful thing to do either. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 12:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not typecasting YOU as a deletionist, I'm just saying that most of people (not all), that are complaining that "this or that" is unsourced or unverified, didn't try to find sources or verify facts for themselves. Further more I have noticed, then the article is dealing with certain subcultures, standarts become very high. When a bunch of white boys are singing in Catholic church choir we don't need much sources for that, but then a bunch of not so white boys engage in social activities rarely admired by general public, in that case the need for sources suddenly arises. But even if sources are provided, that does not always help, for example DLA article was tagged for speedy deletion, I've put hangon tag, provided source in the talk page, never the less, the article was speedy deleted. Another example then provided sources seem not to help can be found here [2]. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 12:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Standards are (in my experience) roughly the same across the board. Have a look at the number of AfDs on college acapella groups - the overwhelming majority of which at least verifiably exist but aren't notable. These gangs are largely the same case - verifiable existence (at best, something which doesn't necessarily apply to every single one) but lacking in notability. In terms of sources themselves, all these examples prove is that it's about the strength of what's provided. In the case of the DLA, you've said earlier on that perhaps they don't deserve an article, and that view was supported by the deletion of the article. Adding a hangon tag doesn't magically make the article immune from deletion, it warns the admin who sees it that there's perhaps more to the story - perhaps not enough more to make it keepable, but more nonetheless. In the case of the Order of the Left Hand Path, I'll post my comments at that AfD to spare everyone here. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per BigHaz, Andrew Lenahan. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, unverified, unencyclopedia-worthy even if verified. —Angr 16:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - unsourced and for the most part unverifiable. -- Whpq 17:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete with no predjudice against later recreation of an actual encyclopedia article on Detroit's gangland history. Right now this is mostly redlinks, and the few bluelinks there are are either misdirection to existing articles with the same name, gangs that started outside Detroit (Latin Counts & Latin Kings), or extremely poorly sourced articles that themselves should be reviewed, like Black Mafia Family (who's activities are so diffuse that they can't really even be considered a Detroit gang at this point) & Cash Flow Posse. Someone could write a good article on Detroit Gangs that included the history of gangs in Detroit from the time of The Purple Gang up through and including Young Boys Inc. and Cash Flow Posse. This however is not it and it is not even a good start in that direction.--Isotope23 18:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete unsourced, unverifiable and most of the existing links are to unrelated articles, eg. vandals --Steve 00:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, although I really like the idea of a gang called the Woodrow Wilson boyz. (And I did attempt to verify that one myself; unfortunately, Google hasn't heard of them.) Incidentally, I had to restore the AfD notice on the article; according to the history, I'm not the first person who has had to do this. ergot 01:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

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.