Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2002 Queens rape

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 06:39, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2002 Queens rape (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This article as it presently stands represents an extraordinary failure of WP:NPOV and WP:RS. It was written by E.M.Gregory, who, in March 2019, just a month after this article was written, was "indefinitely topic banned from pages and content related to illegal immigration, immigration policy, and the relationship between crime and immigration" (see [1]). He was subsequently indeffed for sockpuppeting to attempt to evade this ban. Even without knowing the background, it's clear from the writing style that the author had an agenda about illegal immigration, considering it's the second thing mentioned in the lead, and the editorialization of the crime in Wikipedia's voice.

The sourcing is similarly atrocious, and I do not believe it supports an argument to notability under WP:NEVENT. The citations to the New York Post can't support notability as the source is deprecated. The Gougherty, Buchanan, and City Journal sources are trivial mentions and not WP:SIGCOV of the crime. New York Daily News, Queens Chronicle and Queens Gazette are all local news, so they don't provide any indication that the crime meets the NEVENT requirement that the event "affects a major geographical scope".

The Impact section is problematic as it makes the case that the rape was a direct cause of Bloomberg issuing the new immigration-status-related executive orders, but that isn't borne out by the sources when you actually read them. At best, you can see in the Queens Gazette and Times Ledger sources that Senator Frank Padavan claims that Bloomberg's changes were the result of this crime, but there's nothing that actually substantiates that. One man making an unsubstantiated claim about another man's motives does not, to me, indicate the kind of "lasting major consequences" required by NEVENT.

The remaining sources, Wilson's NYT article and the unbylined WaPo article, are reliable and significant, but both came out in the immediate aftermath of the crime, so they don't meet the requirement for "significant non-routine coverage that persists over a period of time". ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:58, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:58, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:58, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete with the strongest prejudice possible. E.M.'s only purpose here was to create biased articles that checked their boxes against their pet topic of anti-illegal immigration sentiment and using any urban crime committed by one to push their narrative, especially if it was lurid, violent, and stomach-turning. This reads as absolute trash you'd expect to find in The Illustrated Police News, and neutralizing it is completely impossible. And their creation rationale that it was 'ongoing in-depth' when it happened seventeen years ago should've warranted an immediate ban from creating new articles. Nate • (chatter) 04:25, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. This article is poorly written, but the subject is undoubtedly notable and there should be an article on it. This crime was arguably the most significant non-terrorism crime in New York City since the Central Park jogger case. Indeed, it received extensive coverage in NYC and national media and countless parallels were drawn between the Central Park case and this one. Just like any article with POV issues, it is hardly beyond repair. There is some good content in here and a lot of bad content. Rather than be deleted, it should be cleaned up. In fact, I would like to work on cleaning it up in the near future. Ergo Sum 04:36, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could you link to some of that coverage from sometime after the event? I did a nyt-specific search and a google search and found only case updates/brief mentions like this. It's possible my google skills are lacking in this case, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:43, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - (edit conflict) even if it were notable, it probably merits a WP:TNT. I don't miss the EM Gregory style of POV crime article, and there are a lot of terrible sources here (this is right up the NY Post's alley, of course, which doesn't miss an opportunity to characterize NYC as a dangerous crime wasteland where ["thugs"/homeless] prey on the innocent and [police/politicians] do nothing). But beyond the TNT, PMC has a point about notability. Beyond the coverage at the time of the event, there doesn't seem to be much with more than a brief mention thereafter (lasting significance), apart from typical follow up about the court case. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:43, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Second Rhododendrites' analysis. A tragic event to be sure, but written purely as inflammatory POV garbage sourced mostly to tabloids. WP:TNT for sure, though perhaps it's possible that GNG could be satisfed for recreation. -Indy beetle (talk) 12:10, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. per WP:PERSISTENCE. The block and punishment history of the article creator is something of a red herring, as this article is not a product of ban evasion and the POV of the editor is irrelevant. I don't find the writing of the article to be problematic. I am more concerned with this not being of sufficiently lasting significance.. That appears to be the case, at least as the article is currently framed. Coretheapple (talk) 22:35, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete the article as it is now is absolutely WP:POV and WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. I did a WP:BEFORE search and found this primary court case^[1], and that was about it, besides for the other mentioned low quality sources. So fails WP:SIGCOV and violates WP:NOTNEWS ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 15:56, 19 November 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.