Wikipedia:Reactions to... articles
Wikipedia has several "International reactions to..." articles that detail the international reactions and responses to a particular incident or event. Such articles may be appropriate when the section of the main article covering responses and reactions reaches a size that means the content can no longer all fit into the main article and should be split according to the summary style guidelines.
Several such articles have been deleted or merged following deletion debates, for example due to including indiscriminate information or for promoting reactions to an event beyond the significance indicated by coverage in reliable sources.
Examples
Articles may be categorised in Category:International reactions or the specific categories Category:International reactions to man-made disasters, Category:International responses to natural disasters, Category:International responses to media-related events and include:
Problems
These articles may suffer from:
- Too much detail and being directory like (WP:NOTDIR, WP:INDISCRIMINATE)
- Using routine announcements and news reports - world leaders routinely offer their condolences for tragic events (WP:NOTNEWS)
- Promoting a particular response, reaction or event beyond its significance in reliable sources (WP:NOTADVOCATE) and other biases (WP:NPOV)
- Focussing unduly on recent events (WP:RECENTISM)
- Not themselves covering a notable topic, if multiple reliable sources have not given significant coverage to the reactions (WP:N)
- Acting as a memorial to victims (WP:MEMORIAL)
- Being only a collection of quotes (WP:QUOTEFARM), possibly suitable for transwiki to Wikiquote
- As quotes are the word of others, it potentially conflicts with our non-free content criteria to overuse them (WP:NFCCEG)
Deletion and merge debates
Some of these articles have been deleted or merged following a debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Public reactions to death of Rachel Corrie, since listed four times at deletion review. Examples include:
- Kept
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International response to Hurricane Katrina (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the September 11, 2001 attacks (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the September 11 attacks (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Artistic reactions to the 1981 Irish hunger strike (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the 2006 Qana airstrike (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions from India and the Indian diaspora to Slumdog Millionaire (procedural keep as no reason for deletion was given by the nominator)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International response to the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash (merge, overturned to no consensus at deletion review)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International response to the Holocaust (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the 2011 Norway attacks (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the 2011 Norway attacks (2nd nomination) (Snow Keep)
- Reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden was proposed to be merged to Death of Osama bin Laden (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks (Snow keep, although the article combined prose and list formats)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the war in Donbass (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the United States presidential election, 2012 (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the United States presidential election, 2012 (2nd nomination) (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reaction to the 2009 Honduran coup d'état (Keep)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to 2008 Tibetan unrest (Keep)
- Not kept
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the 2011 Norway attacks (3rd nomination) (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the March 2016 Istanbul bombing (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Lahore suicide bombing (2nd nomination) (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to McCarthyism (Merge and redirect to McCarthyism
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to shooting of Gabrielle Giffords (merge to 2011 Tucson shooting)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Public reactions to the Giffords assassination attempt (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reaction to the death of Michael Jackson (delete, now redirects to Death of Michael Jackson)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reaction to Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Reaction to the 2008 Dairy Scandal (no consensus, now redirects to 2008 Chinese milk scandal)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reaction to Mel Gibson DUI incident (delete, and Mel Gibson DUI incident is itself now a redirect)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reaction to Bronze Soldier relocation (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reactions to the death of Boris Yeltsin (second nomination) (following an initial no consensus debate, delete and transwiki)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama (redirect to Inauguration of Barack Obama)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions by world leaders to the death of Ronald Reagan (transwiki to Wikiquote)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World reaction to the New Delhi bombings (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reaction by actors to the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike (merge to 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike)
- Congressional response to the NSA warrantless surveillance program deleted via WP:PROD
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina (merged to Timeline of Hurricane Katrina)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CARE's Response to Avian and Pandemic Flu (delete)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reaction to the Bacha Khan University attack (merged, transwiki transferred then redirected)
Possible solutions
Transfers
One possible solution to the problem is to transfer the quotes to Wikiquote. See Bacha Khan University attack and wikiquote:Bacha Khan University attack as an example. Afterwards one should add {{wikiquote}} somewhere the main event article and/or the reactions article. The list of quotes can then be removed from the Wikipedia page. Depending on the amount of prose left in the article, a deletion/merge review may be appropriate. The potential harm caused to Wikiquote is hard to determine, since Wikiquote has few guidelines on the matter.
Prose
Another possible solution is to place all of the quotes into WP:PROSE, and sort the reactions by region. Quotes that say the same things can be merged into one sentence or paragraph. What is left over after that can then be decided on (keep, merge, or delete).
Expansion
Articles with the wording "International" to them can suffer from being too narrow in scope. Renaming an article to simply "Reactions to" gives the article more potential to branch out beyond a simple list of quotes. An example of such a case includes Reactions to the Orlando nightclub shooting where a snapshot of two different points in time shows the improvement done: (Before [1], and After [2]).