Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russian influence operations in Austria

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 redirect to Austria–Russia relations. There appear to be consensus that a stand-alone article currently is not warranted and that most of the current content is SYNTH/OR. Per WP:ATD, restoring the redirect to Austria–Russia relations seems to be the best solution. Randykitty (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Russian influence operations in Austria

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A contested PROD in 2010 by the article creator Gazpr. However, they also turned the page to a redirect to Austria–Russia relations, it seem an action of self blanking.

The prod reason was :

The article as written is classic WP:COATRACK material. It presents information on Gazprom business in Austria, and attempts to portray this as "Russian influence operations". There are other issues such as WP:SYN, WP:OR and the like which are still unresolved after a month, and given that there is also potential WP:BLP violating material in the article, it is best that this be deleted and if the article creator wants to start again, he should do so with WP:NPOV in mind.

While the nominator User:Russavia was blocked as sockmaster and other issues. No other significant editors for this article.

For the article itself, it seem OR. Matthew hk (talk) 23:53, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 07:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Austria-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 07:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A sidenote. In Austria–Russia relations#Assassination of Umar Israilov in Vienna it seem it was a c&p. Either from Austria–Russia relations to Russian influence operations in Austria or in other direction. Will have look in page history if i have time. Matthew hk (talk) 08:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Matthew hk, what exactly do you aim to achieve with this nomination? Deletion of the page history? Removal of the redirect? Or both? Seeing as the article creator and only significant contributor blanked the page, I'd suggest G7 (speedy delete, then restore redirect) for the former and RfD for the latter. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:SYNTH. Good content can go to Austria–Russia relations. Sdmarathe (talk) 15:27, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Way to deep into WP:SYN / WP:OR terrority, making it a solid WP:TNT candidate. This author Gazpr (long gone), has had other POV-articles removed/redirected (e.g. Russian influence operations, Russian influence operations in Poland). I would have no problem with a list-type article of suspected Russian activity but this is not such an article (and it should be in the Russian-Austria article). This author has other outstanding POV articles which also need to be Redirected/Deleted (e.g. Russian influence operations in Canada). Britishfinance (talk) 11:16, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: It would be easy to close this as delete right now, but I'm going to relist it, largely because User:Alpha3031 never got an answer to their question. I'm not seeing any solid policy-based arguments to delete this. On 13 March, this was a redirect. The nom removed the redirect, reverted the article back to a previous state (which apparently fails WP:SYNTH), and then immediately nominated it. Why not just leave it as the harmless redirect as a WP:ATD? The goal here seems to be a full history delete, for which we generally require stronger arguments than just plain WP:SYNTH.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment @RoySmith: I note Alpha3031's question was not answered but does it matter? This material is almost a decade old and nobody touched it in the interim. Even by the creator's own admission (which I agree with), it is just too WP:SYN / WP:OR to be used in any substantative way. The individual references are now over a decade old and it is more likely an editor will find them in other ways, then uncover them in a Redirected version of this article? Either way, this is an AfD delete or Alpha3031's G7 delete? Am I missing something? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 14:10, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think I explained my reasons in my relist statement. But, what also bothers me is that people seem to be reading intent into the redirect which isn't obvious. You talk about, the creator's own admission [...] it is just too WP:SYN / WP:OR to be used in any substantative way. All I can see in the logs is that it was redirected. I don't see any statement about why, so your statement about their intentions is just speculation. Like you said, this has been around for many years. If it takes another week to resolve these questions, what harm is done? Please note, I'm not arguing either way (and have no opinion). I just didn't feel that the existing discussion had reached a policy-based consensus, so I'm giving the discussion more time. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:36, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith:. Sorry, I misread the opening quotebox above as being from the author; however, I do believe that several editors above (and myself included) have expressed the same concern. Is WP:SYN / WP:OR not considered policy? Regardless, no harm in re-listing it anyway. thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 14:41, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SYN and WP:OR are indeed policy, but so is WP:ATD, which says a redirect is preferable to deletion. We've got an article which had been redirected. The nom came along, undid the redirect, and then complained about the content which had previously been hidden by the redirect. That seemed like a pretty odd thing to do.
Looking at this another way, there's an argument above that after the deletion, the redirect should be re-created. That's essentially the same as requesting that the previous history be WP:REVDEL'd. I'm quite sure that such a request would be refused as failing WP:CRD.
So, from my point of view trying to close this, the logical thing seemed to be to restore the redirect, but I knew that would just be WP:DRV-bait. Having people look at this for another week seemed like the preferable course of action. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith: thanks for that. Britishfinance (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2019 (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.