Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Conspiracy theories

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Specific notes about conspiracy theory AfDs

An inactive page that is similar to this exists at User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard. That page is inactive, but is kept for historical purposes.
To avoid strife, remember that the first sentence of Conspiracy theory defines the term as follows

"A conspiracy theory attempts to explain the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political, social, or historical events) as a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert alliance of powerful or influential people or organizations."

Conspiracy theories[edit]

Proposed nuclear bombing of Córdoba[edit]

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Non-notable conspiracy theory presented as fact. Note that article was translated from the Spanish Wikipedia, which has a long history of propaganda and fabrication in Falklands-related topics. Kahastok talk 16:38, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Conspiracy theories, History, Military, United Kingdom, and Argentina. Skynxnex (talk) 16:41, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete having tried to fix this, yes this seems a nothing story, based on dodgy sources, and or. Slatersteven (talk) 16:55, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete extraordinary claims need extraordinary sources. An alleged piece in the New Statesman which is not used as a source. A claim from a Psychoanalyst. A mysterious letter. Certainly extraordinary sources - so extraordinary that they are incredible. Somewhere I read it was a proposed bombing of Buenos Aires, but that's not in Cordoba province. Cobbling together the British admission that some ships sailed with nuclear weapons but surely these are nuclear depth charges not air launched bombs. I suspect it's all pure fantasy but regardless it should be deleted due to lack of reliable sources Lyndaship (talk) 18:15, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as hoax. The 31 nuclear weapons were WE.177 nuclear depth charges. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:47, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the article as it stands, neutral about whether sources exist for a better one. Sorry for length, I want to be thorough here. This is a mess. A bunch of this is distraction linking. Stuff about nuclear depth charges and the like, that has nothing to do with the core claim: that the British put a Polaris sub with actual nuclear missiles off Ascension Island just in case they decided to nuke Córdoba (the city, not just the province). The 2005 Guardian article can also probably be discarded. It's just reporting on claims from Ali Magoudi's book and there's no reason to give him any weight; for one thing, he claims the British wanted to nuke Buenos Aries, which is a different city entirely. But are there sources such that the core claim -- or, at least, the core theory -- rises to notability? Well, I think this New York Times is just repeating quotes from The New Statesman (the El Pais article currently cited does the same thing, but worse). Full disclosure: I don't have a copy of the original New Statesman article. Regardless, at some point, someone did get Terence Lewin and Henry Leach to call it total nonsense, so that's a cut above most conspiracy theories. This bylined UPI article has a little more context, including that Tam Dalyell made such claims before the New Statesman and that Labour had demanded an independent investigation (which, if it happened, no one reported on; political parties everywhere demand investigations into everything all the time). After all that died down, Paul Rogers revived the allegations. You can read the draft version of Rogers' article here (if you turn your head sideways), but as far as I can tell, the only published version was in Lobster and that's not gonna do as a source. Finally, this white paper from the RAND/UCLA Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior spends a couple of pages (pp. 9–11) on it all, including the New Statesman article and Rogers's take, eventually concluding that the whole thing is totally implausible and unsupported by evidence. That's pretty thin gruel, but it miiiiight support a brief article outlining the allegation and the conclusion that, no, no one actually told a sub commander to get into position to drop a nuke on Argentina. But I don't think it would be at this name, and I don't think what we've got here is worth trying to salvage into that. Lubal (talk) 21:15, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article's content is totally wrong-headed, and seems a conspiracy theory type article. As noted in the British official history, a number of nuclear depth charges were on board ships rushed to the South Atlantic for the Falklands War. This was part of their standard armament during the Cold War, and they were removed during the war. This has all long been public, but this article presents it as a great secret. As noted by Lubal the allegations that the British Government separately considered a nuclear attack on mainland Argentina might be worth an article, but would need to be reworked from the ground up. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as probable hoax or fanciful as well as in line with other reasons give above. Donner60 (talk) 04:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've just spent my Saturday quickly developing an article what I think is a vastly better article on this topic, which is at British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War. Nick-D (talk) 10:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or turn into redirect to Nick-D's new article. My initial reaction was 'conspiracy theory' as I wasn't familiar with the detail and I'm probably susceptible to arguments (per proposer) that the Spanish Wikipedia is unreliable. However, having read through Nick-D's alternative, I can see there's some substance: a political debate, operational challenges, Cold War propaganda which we can't dismiss. Nick's version is, indeed, vastly better, so let's redirect to that. Wiki-Ed (talk) 10:46, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War#Allegations which deals with this exact subject in a much better way. Thryduulf (talk) 13:52, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]