Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Americans killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

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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. While keep !votes have a narrow majority in a raw vote count, arguments in favor of deletion are much more solidly grounded in existing guidelines. In particular, while keep arguments asserted that notability has been established via coverage in RS, they have not provided examples of sources that cover the entire set of "Americans killed..." as required by WP:LISTN. A late redirect proposal did not gain immediate traction; I decided against relisting to allow for its consideration on the basis that there is no current list of Americans at the suggested target page and thus the redirect seems unlikely to win consensus. signed, Rosguill talk 13:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of Americans killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine[edit]

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List of Americans killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Mainly due to lack of notability, WP:NOTNEWS, and the obvious bias issue in having this list. In addition the list contained original research listing the Telegram channel 'TrackANaziMerc' as a source since February. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting topic.... would have never searched for it on my own. There seems to be substantial sourcing for this if it wants to be improved no? Moxy🍁 20:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are the only two sources I could find that treat the topic as a group: [1] (paywalled so can't review) and [2], and this latter source isn't very in depth about it. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been able to read the Washington Post link thanks to a gift I was sent: I don't believe the Washington Post is dealing with solely Americans having been killed in the war, but rather the idea and reasons behind Americans serving overseas in Ukraine - the Washington Post article is more suited for foreign fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian War rather than this list. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Keep, I got a proposal to change the topic to "List of Americans killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War" , which @EkoGraf, the creator of the list, doesn't oppose to it, maybe we could change the topic first before we nominate to delete?
PoisonHK Sapiens dominabitur astris 14:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The title/period isn't the issue with the list. Also speedy keep cannot apply here. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:39, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, also article is incomplete and need expantion. If the title is changed to List of Americans killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War we should include American killed during the War in Donbas 2014-2021.Mr.User200 (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it pass notability and WP:RS with sources as The Guardian, Politico and Yahoo News. Shadow4dark (talk) 16:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    But do they deal with the topic as a group like this? Routine news coverage doesn't establish notability of the topic as a list. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Replace "Routine news" with better sources, it pass clearly notability. Shadow4dark (talk) 04:45, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    What? Traumnovelle (talk) 21:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as article creator, notability established as mentioned by RS, also agree to article expansion to include those from the Donbas War. EkoGraf (talk) 18:18, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep. Regarding lack of notability, NOTNEWS, and bias, I disagree with all three. I think it's pretty notable and informative for Americans and others to known how many died in a war they heavily funded. NOTNEWS I think is exempt in a list. To achieve completeness a list often must exhaust news coverage. And bias, I agree and disagree, but don't believe it's a problem. Making a list of Americans killed only shows coverage bias, similar to how there are so many pages and information about alleged Russian war crimes and negative stuff about Russia but very few covering the other side, Ukraine. That's mostly because most editors show more interest in writing about negative Russian things and because most sources that cover the alleged Ukrainian crimes are suppressed in Wikipedia. In such cases, I think the better solution is simply to also write about the other side, not remove the favored side. Thus, a list of other foreign nationals killed would also be important. Btw, doesn't such global list exist? If it does, then the American-only list should be merged in it and not stick out.
Regarding the alleged WP:OR, I haven't checked. If there are problems, then they should be solved, but I don't think deleting the page just because of it is ideal. I'm not following this thread, so ping me if you want a reply. Alexis Coutinho (talk) [ping me] 21:06, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's the exact same routine coverage of non-American foreign civilians/soldiers killed in Ukraine during the current Russo-Ukraine war.
The only similar article I could find was list of deaths during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which includes people with Wikipedia articles, for the few that don't have one they appear to be important politicians or military officials. @Alexiscoutinho Traumnovelle (talk) 06:20, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
👍. Regarding the other list being of people with articles, I think it would be unfair to omit people without articles or military career (here). 🤔 Alexis Coutinho (talk) [ping me] 15:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would say it's to have a US specific list about a war being fought in Eastern Europe by two European countries. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per others, particularly Alexis Coutinho. Needs some improvement but shouldn't be deleted Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 01:41, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep The article serves a historical purpose Salfanto (talk) 17:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All Keep votes above sum up to ILIKEIT, ITSUSEFUL, and THEREMUSTBESOURCES. None give an actual policy-based reason to keep. Per nominator, there is no coverage of this topic as a group, only individual instances. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:02, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I will also say that there are several other lists for other countries that should likely also be deleted unless good sources are found for those countries. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:04, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nomination. The fact this is simply a list, not an in-depth article, also hobbles this entry.TH1980 (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Fails NLIST, sources do not show there is WP:SIRS discussing this as a group. List contains only non-notable entries (one exception), serves no purpose per WP:CLN. Keep votes above are ILIKEIT and provide no sources showing this had been discussed as a group or guidelines showing why the should be kept.  // Timothy :: talk  19:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. It seems like there is a lack of policy-based reasons on both sides of this discussion. ITSUSEFUL isn't a strong defense but neither is the proposition of bias because we don't have articles on soldiers who have been killed from other countries. There are always other articles that have yet to be written.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:58, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Keep or delete?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 06:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The only arguments that would make this not WP:INDISCRIMINATE would be crossing into WP:NOTMEMORIAL territory. The basic problem I have with the list is that lists of victims for tragedies like wars and genocides are much too long to be made into articles consistently. We can't accept articles that are just millions and millions of names (as a "list of Jews killed during the holocaust) would be, and so we also shouldn't accept articles just because they're shorter. The only thing that makes American deaths notable in a way that Ukrainian deaths aren't is the fact that there is less of them? I think that's a repugnant conclusion to reach, and so the whole idea should be tossed in the trash. BrigadierG (talk) 22:27, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: This is like the lists of 9/11 victims that pop up every so often in AfD; most of these people aren't otherwise notable. Looking at the list even 10 yrs from now, most still won't be notable. NOTMEMORIAL applies. To be blunt, many people pass away in tragedies like this event and as in 9/11, most aren't notable 10 or 20 yrs later; having a list of xyz that passed away doesn't serve any purpose other than as a memorial. The only individuals looking at Brendon Bowersox as an example in 20 yrs are likely to be family members or perhaps a very small group of historians. To the broader public, he would simply be another individual that passed away, who's name you can switch with any other from the list and it wouldn't make any difference for notability. Not to belittle any of these individuals or their contributions, but not everyone that passes away in a conflict needs a wikipedia article or even to be listed in a long list of otherwise non-notable people. Oaktree b (talk) 14:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but move to a title along the lines of Military involvement of Americans in the Russo-Ukrainian War, and do the same for other articles along these lines in Category:Russo-Ukrainian War casualties. I am wary of the reasoning that compelled two relists of a discussion with a better than 2-1 ratio of "keep" !votes, at least some of which have policy-based rationales in the notability of the group as a group. However, since there is some additional context provided in the article, moving to a broader title would correct the scope from the narrower casualty list. BD2412 T 02:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't believe the soldiers killed in the conflict were current US army servicemen, they were veterans who chose to fight in Ukraine, meaning that the military involvement of Americans would make it an entirely separate article in its own right. Something worth exploring/expanding separately. Conyo14 (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposed title does not say "U.S. military involvement", just "Military involvement by Americans", which the people listed were. BD2412 T 19:16, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Unfortunately, WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Two out of 50+ people listed that do meet notability requirements could perhaps be mentioned in Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War or a similar article. All but one 'keep' argument are simply WP:ILIKEIT and WP:ITSUSEFUL. – Primium (talk) 20:24, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Jake Wartenberg (talk) 15:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War: There are currently seven articles of the form, "List of <nationality> killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine" for foreign causualties fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. There are zero such articles for foreign causualties fighting alongside Russian forces, despite there being just as much such casualties, from just as many different countries. It's hard not to see the systematic bias here as some form of memorial. And of the hundreds listed in the lists we have, a grand total of two people are notable enough to have an article about them. The "historically important" argument voiced by the Keep side is a good reason for creating a primary source. That is not what we do here. Owen× ☎ 19:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Admin notice: This AfD was purportedly closed by an account with 17 edits that was soon after indef-blocked as a vandalism-only account. I've reverted this closure. Please wait for an admin or experienced editor to close this AfD. Sandstein 09:56, 23 May 2024 (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.
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