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. WP:NEO and WP:COATRACK issues are the major causes for concern here. However, there is general agreement that the article contains some decent content which might be transferred to other articles. If anyone would like the article userfied for the purpose of distributing some of its content to other articles, please let me know on my talk page. -Scottywong| babble _ 17:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Drop weapon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Neologism, mentioned in passing in the news many years ago. Search for this phrase reveal almost entirely unrelated results. The term itself not not appear in most references, or appears only in passing. Neutrality^talk 15:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Last time it was nominated, it read like a news article but the present article is just a dicdef. Dricherby (talk) 10:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete WP is not a dictionary. Borock (talk) 21:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The article has been restored with material that was already in it in previous incarnations. This material has been cited with citations, some of which were already in the article, some of which had also previously been deleted. So no harm done yet, but it would indeed be an injustice to delete an article because deletionists had deleted so much of its content as uncited, without due care and diligence of using the sources already in the article or history.

I agree that it read like a news article at last nomination. Specifically, an armed forces blog. That has all been cleaned up now; just the facts.

The article's content is valuable and notable beyond doubt. I am hard pressed to think of a different title, however desirable that might be. My best suggestion is, Planting of false evidence in the Iraq War, but you can see how that merely replaces one problem with its counterpart. The current title has the casual slang word instead of false evidence, but false evidence does not indicate the military nature of the term. And neither title includes the concept of Baiting. In the end, I think Drop weapon or Drop gun is best. Anarchangel (talk) 10:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the 'drop gun' suggestion, I retract that. It comes from this article about the related subject of police planting evidence (the 'ham sandwich'). Anarchangel (talk) 18:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep but move. It looks much better, now, but I'm concerned that, of the four sources, the Washington Post and Associated Press articles only mention the phrase "drop weapon" once each, the Time article doesn't even include the word "drop" and the letter from the congressman is essentially repost of the Washington Post article. I don't think that establishes the term "drop weapon" as notable and it seems to be only a small part of the wider practice of "baiting". I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss a rename but how about "Baiting (military)"? Definitely not "drop gun" because none of the sources uses that term. Dricherby (talk) 10:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't this just create a new neologism? Wikipedia is not in the business of identifying trends, compiling examples, and then giving them a unity outselves under some new term. To me, this seems to come close to WP:SYNTH. Neutrality^talk 15:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, as the media has already compiled these things under the term "baiting". So we wouldn't be creating a neologism, just using an existing term (which I accept may, itself, be a neologism) and I don't think we'd be synthesizing, either. Dricherby (talk) 19:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as neologism The material in the article seems more aimed at showing usage of the term in the Iraq War than of expository material for its meaning - put the neologism as needed in the article where the events are mentioned, and not use this definition article as a COATRACK as it is currently. Collect (talk) 12:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the policy of the Asymmetric Warfare Group to advise snipers to bait Iraqis with "detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition" then kill them once they handled the items, and the use of drop weapons to 'frame' dead Iraqis, and examples of the practice of this policy, are of as much significance and have received as much coverage as the name for these practices. However, the three are inseparable, and there is no WP article I know of that deals with those incidents. And as policy, practice, and name are not separable, they are not coat and rack, but a single seamless whole. Anarchangel (talk) 22:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment "For example, neither the Washington Post not the AP sources uses the word 'drop.' " Actually, both use "drop weapon" exactly once and the Washington Post uses "drop item" twice, too. Dricherby (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're right. Neutrality^talk 02:06, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, →Bmusician 03:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to false evidence and the article about this particular incident (I can't find that article but that incident would seem notable itself) and not this single-purpose WP:COATRACK article. The actual concept would be false evidence which has a nice train of redirects to it. That subject is more than sufficient to cover all of the slang terms people come up with for the same concept. As for this very specific use of the term, just because the newspapers used the same term doesn't mean that term is uniquely notable beyond what we already have at false evidence. Especially when it's clear that what this article really wants to discuss is a specific incident. Shadowjams (talk) 09:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ: if anything, it seems to me this singularity of definition is a desirable attribute of this article; your portrayal of this as some stealthy attempt to foist PoV on unsuspecting readers is misguided (and if you did not intend that meaning, then be advised that COATRACK does have that meaning, and to be more careful when quoting that rule in the future). I agree 'drop weapon' is a "very specific use", but not "of the term", as that implies that, for example, "ham sandwich" could be used interchangeably with 'drop weapon'. They are indeed related concepts, but by no means the same. They have small but important differences: one uses AK-47s, the other, Saturday Night Specials; one is the breach of military law; the other civilian. And they have truly profound differences: According to baited Iraqis were in no way a part of military procedure until they picked up that bait (not a stop and search or a warrant), the direct superiors of the perpetrators are alleged to have ordered the use of baiting (hopefully, a big difference), and baited Iraqis were killed because they picked up the bait (again, hopefully a big difference, and not because they were believed to have drawn a weapon). And I am sure more differences can be pointed out.

And once again, as has happened so many times before in other AfDs and article discussions, I find myself confronted with the awkwardly inappropriate recommendation that material be moved to an article that does not exist (but this time, within the same AfD as my correction of another such mistake). There probably should be articles about the baiting and drop weapon incidents on Wikipedia, but there are none. It should be needless to say, and in fact I have said it already above, but it appears that I had better make it crystal clear (or at worst, repeat myself): there are multiple, widespread and systemic practices discussed in the Drop weapon article, of which the multiple incidents in the article are examples. Anarchangel (talk) 10:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per WP:NOTNEO: "An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy." I feel this article does not demonstrate notability of the term and engages in WP:SYNTH, using tangentially-connected examples of false evidence in order to further the standpoint that "drop weapon" is a significant concept. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 00:43, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Primary source material?" Nah. Examples of the uses of drop weapons are "tangentially-connected" to the term "drop weapons"? Again, no further argument is needed to reply to these spurious claims of SYNTH. Unfounded assertions by editors at AfD would be fine if we could just delete them, as we do unverified statements in articles. Instead we have to waste time answering them.

Drop weapons and baiting in the Iraq War has none of the problems that are advanced by this wikilawyering, to be sure, but it is unnecessary. Furthermore, I believe the deletion argument's record of unfounded claims shows it is concerned with obfuscation, not revelation; if this were true, it would in fact be inconvenienced by a move to a more specific title. Anarchangel (talk) 21:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find it astonishing that you prominently display "Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement" on your userpage and yet repeatedly rely on a mixture of ad-homs, contradictions and long-winded rambles which attempt to filibuster deletion discussions presenting the appearance of an intense debate. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 06:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Contradictions, I will admit, such as "Nah". But it is rarely easy and never mandatory to do anything but contradict mere assertions (such as "primary source material"), as there is no argument to address. A contradiction in that case is just an assertion in return. Anarchangel (talk) 21:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Drop bear. Confusion with a more notable subject. Buckshot06 (talk) 06:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's an excellent suggestion. Drop weapon contains no "In popular culture" section so it's clearly the more worthless of the two articles. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 06:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So much for relisting. Seeking closer who wants to do what is right, not wait for the AfD to be padded with enough votes supporting their opinion. Anarchangel (talk) 21:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you're seeking a closer who will ignore consensus and guidelines in favour of the little-known (but eminently enforceable) WP:ANARCHANGELISRIGHT policy. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 06:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Given the total lack of consensus so far, it would take a long time for enough !votes to be cast to support the purported biased closer... Dricherby (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as neologism - While the incidents mentioned in the article might well be notable, creating an neological coatrack such as this is not the way to mention them. Perhaps the practice should be mentioned under Asymmetric Warfare Group? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:35, 30 May 2012 (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.