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 of the debate was no consensus to delete, keep. Petros471 16:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inherently non-notable. He isn't the only one to refuse to serve the U.S. Delete. Brought to AFD rather than speedying straight out as A7 because I wanted to know what others think, I don't want to make a potentially controversial decision. NSLE _(T+C) at 13:24 UTC (2006-06-08) 13:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. nn. The article itself states: "nor is his case particularly unique ". Fan1967 13:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, the article contradicts itself, I believe there are hundreds of soldiers refusing to serve their country, non-notable, what's special about this? Its just normal. --Terence Ong 13:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Note if this is Afd it may be worth pulling it off Current Events... --User:Firien § 13:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Or just un-wikilink the name. Fan1967 13:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep it This is a current event; at least keep it for a while. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.169.60.20 (talk • contribs) 13:49, June 8, 2006.

• Comment Wikipedia is not a newspaper, to cover stories of temporary interest. Fan1967

13:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment No, it looks more like a propaganda page for the white house.

• Strong Keep Unlike most other conscientious objectors, his case has made the news worldwide, which is not the case for others in a similar position. Both Reuters and AP have picked it up. Google News lists 323 different news sources carrying this story. The "not particularly unique" comment is from a U.S. Army spokesman, hardly an unbiased source. Anything else with this level of news coverage would usually be considered notable; what's the difference here? -- The Anome 14:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, nn. Kafziel 14:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. article should look like Malcolm Kendall-Smith when finished and not the NPOV fest that is Ben Griffin (former British soldier). -- GWO
• Keep He is the first commissioned officer to refuse going to Iraq. Hermeneus (user/talk) 14:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  A British lieutenant refused to go last year (BBC). Cynical 14:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Erm.. You see that link to Malcolm Kendall-Smith, above ;) -- GWO

• Keep he isn't the only one to refuse to go to Iraq, but he is the only one (or at least part of a very small group) to have received such worldwide media attention for doing so. Cynical 14:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Making national news is worthy of current inclusion, especially if there is additional press coverage in the next few days/weeks. I believe this deletion vote was called far too early. How can you pass judgement before even seeing the resolution? --Mattarata 15:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, the high number of news sources covering him makes him notable. LarryQ 15:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Definitely notable. The fact that there are other soldiers doing the same means not that the entry should be deleted, but that an expanded entry should be created.--Something 15:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep Look at all these news sources[1], that establishes notability. Yanksox 15:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - based solely on media coverage. Wickethewok 16:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nomination or Vastly Improve - get more information, some pictures and make it worth reading. Matt 16:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per above Trebor 17:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep - There will be a lot of news on him in the days to come. Deleting this article will only warrant its undeletion later. Hong Qi Gong 17:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Obvious keep i hardly need to go into it. THE KING 18:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - just look at what kind of media noise his case makes. No wonder the military tries to play him down. Añoranza 22:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete but recreate if he becomes a real cause celebre. He may just be getting 15 minutes of fame. -- Mwalcoff 00:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep based upon the notable amount of media coverage this person has received. Yamaguchi先生 01:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete Media coverage is just NOT enough for notability. This doesn't seem to a particularly notable case on his own - It would be unreasonable for every soldier doing to the same thing to be given an individual article. If we did, why not an article for every soldier killed in Iraq? why not an article for every soldier killed in Vietnam. why not an article for every soldier killed in WWII? Bwithh 02:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep If media coverage is not enough for notability, how about heroism? Argyrios 02:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. Please do not try to erase, by such frivolous deletion proposals, significant items such as this one, about the first officer to refuse to serve in the Iraq War. Badagnani 03:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep He's the first US officer. That's notable. He's not just another soldier. And there really aren't that many soldiers of any rank who have made a public issue out of their refusal to go, which is different than just avoiding showing up or whatever. Really only a dozen or so. Kalkin 05:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note In fact, I really don't see why Wikipedia couldn't have articles on all of those. It might be useful to someone to get a quick background from Wikipedia on these people, who go on speaking tours, get mentioned in articles not necessarily about them, etc. Kalkin 05:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep I was surprised to see the AfD for speedy deletion. He's the first U.S. officer, as noted above. Just now, when I googled his name enclosed in quotation marks, there were 402 news stories and 14,400 web site entries. Someone looking for information should be able to find it at Wikipedia. If the article has problems, then edit to improve it please.--Beth Wellington 05:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep as per Beth Wellington. --Merovingian {T C @} 05:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Argyrios.--Rockero 05:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep He's the first US officer. That's notable.--Kev62nesl 06:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I came to this article to learn about this guy. If it had been deleted I wouldn't have been able to learn.

• Keep Those that want to delete it must be paid by the pentagon.

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletions. -- ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per discussion above. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 17:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment It's true that news on this guy may die down within a few weeks. But seeing as how he is controversial and he is current news, deleting this article will just lead to people either creating a new page for him or asking for undeletion. At the very least, just keep it around for now if only for that logistics reason alone. Hong Qi Gong 20:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep This should be in WikiNews; but it can be in Wikipedia as long as it is fixed up and avoids recentism. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 06:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, the article says he was the first who publicly refused serving the army, therefore of course it is different from the multitude of other "soldiers refusing to serve their country", seeing as he was the first to be outspoken about it - thus being reported on throughout the worldwide news. Also it is highly doubtful that "hundreds" refused in the U.S. army. Piecraft 12:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Kalkin. --PeR 22:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I also came to this article to find information about him. At minimum information from this page should be merged into another article about the Iraq war. The very fact that he is getting so much media attention makes him (like Cindy Sheehan, say) notable. --209.43.9.176 08:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I just learned about this first officer refusing to serve for unique reasons with evidence of thorough review of legality and an officer's constitutional duty - and already it's requested for deletion? This is highly notable and informative. If the article is innacurrate, fix it; but keep it. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.217.184 (talk • contribs)
• Keep A disgrace but a notable one. --Mmx1 23:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I'm not sure what to think of him but he's note worthy. 132.241.246.111 00:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per Mmx1's comments listed above.--Looper5920 04:40, 17 June 2006 (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.