Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nixon Jew count

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 keep. Geschichte (talk) 15:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nixon Jew count

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Page was created in February 2020 yet still contains just one sentence, a single reference, and is an orphan. This subject fails Wikipedia:Notability and does not merit a standalone page. Basketcase2022 (talk) 19:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. ☢️ Radioactive 🎃 (talk) 19:29, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. ☢️ Radioactive 🎃 (talk) 19:29, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – the Slate piece cited in the article clearly provides substantial coverage, and it provides links to numerous other in-depth discussions of the topic. And if that isn't enough, there's lots of coverage elsewhere: see [1] [2][3] [4] [5]. This article needs expansion, not deletion. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:28, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There's plenty of sourcing out there for this notable topic. As Extraordinary Writ said, the solution here is to expand the article, not to delete it. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 01:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:BEFORE. Deletion is not the solution here. St★lwart¹¹¹ 02:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Richard Nixon Keep (this is aside from the article being woefully lacking of any information or context). While this does seem like an important incident and is recorded in enough reliable sources to warrant its inclusion on WP, only the Slate articles by Timothy Noah (as far as I can see) characterise this as the milestone of "last recorded act of official anti-Semitism by the United States government". Instead it seems to be mostly spoken about in the context of Nixon's general anti-Semitism and/or conspiratorial thinking. I think giving this incident it's own page gives it undue prominence as an event of lasting historic significance when this seems to just be one writer's view. Seems to be more appropriate to place this within the wider context of Nixon's administration like most sources do. In other words, I don't think the event meets WP:LASTING. Vladimir.copic (talk) 04:44, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note Changed my !vote due to significant (and admirable) work done on improving this article. Still think there is more to be done and have big issues with the name of the article however which I will move to the talk page after the closure of this process. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's a solid argument for re-writing the article so that description is attributed to the person with that opinion (rather than Wikipedia's voice), but it's not an argument for deletion, and really not an argument for merging either. St★lwart¹¹¹ 05:50, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, that line has been edited out (appropriately). St★lwart¹¹¹ 05:52, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And - having done some more work to improve the article - I see even less reason to delete or merge it. St★lwart¹¹¹ 06:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair enough view which I still disagree with. The article is looking a tad better (although its sparsity still reflects it's lack of standalone notability). Two further points:

This seems to be a personal crusade of Timothy Noah who has written 10+ articles about this over the course of a decade. Without this forceful viewpoint of a single author would we still consider this a notable event rather than just an episode in the Nixon admin and Fred Malek's life as most other sources position it?
Perhaps I am being overly sensitive here but isn't the term "Nixon's Jew Count" quite an offensive title for this article? As far as I can see Noah is the only one to use this term and others only use it to refer to Noah's work. Among the sources their is no clear consensus around the name for this event (further making me dispute WP:LASTING). Maybe a less offensive (though less catchy) title would be "Richard Nixon's Discrimination against Jewish Bureau of Labor Statistics Staff". Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:40, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Both valid points. I will say that it is covered in far more detail (with better-presented sources) at Fred Malek and we would do well to borrow some of the prose from there (though that's another reason not to merge it to Nixon's article).

1. Yes, I believe we would. It prompted the resignation of a deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee some 17 years later. He was subsequently forgiven (and even received an award from the peak Jewish organisation in the US) but it was significant enough that it prompted commentary from a number of Jewish community leaders.

2. JTA described Malek as the one "who counted Jews for Nixon", and the letter Malek wrote to Nixon is referred to (well before Noah) as the "Jew count" memo. I'm not wedded to the title and would have no problem with an RFC after this AFD to resolve that question.

St★lwart¹¹¹ 07:11, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to be a stickler but it is "'Jew-counting' memo". Neither of the terms you brought up are the title of the current article. Vladimir.copic (talk) 07:23, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, and my use of quotation marks was unhelpful. My point was that others had referred to it as 'Jew counting' or the 'counting of Jews', and at least one source did so 13 years before Noah. Noah consistently refers to it as "Nixon's Jew count". I don't think its an unfair title, given the sources, but as I said, I'm happy to have a discussion about the title of the article following this AfD. St★lwart¹¹¹ 09:45, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Issues with the title notwithstanding, there's consensus that this was a significant controversy and that there are plenty of sources. I added a few new ones to the article for good measure. Any issues with the proper title would be better left for the talk page imo. BuySomeApples (talk) 21:40, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Rename regarding deletion, this is a Keep per Extraordinary Writ. However, the title is awkward and doesn't seem to be commonly used in this exact syntax by the sources. If nobody has an obvious fix, this may require an RM immediately after this discussion closes. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:35, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep WP:Notability, which was the issue raised in the nomination, has been amply demonstrated. I don't think merging to Richard Nixon would be appropriate per WP:PROPORTION (unsure about merging to Presidency of Richard Nixon). As noted above, the article Fred Malek covers this in some detail, but I don't think merging/redirecting there would be appropriate since Nixon rather than Malek is the central figure here. At any rate, I don't think the question about whether to merge this (and where) absolutely needs to be resolved at this AfD. I have no opinion on the title. As an aside, this article seems like it could potentially be WP:DYK material if somebody feels like putting in the time and effort. TompaDompa (talk) 14:00, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep WP:Notability had been established--Steamboat2020 (talk) 01:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Clearly notable, as it has significant coverage, but it needs expansion.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:07, 5 August 2021 (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.