Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agent of influence

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 keep‎. It looks like this discussion was relisted but not placed on the most recent AFD daily log. Thanks to Cyberbot for making sure this discussion didn't fall through the cracks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:09, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agent of influence

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This article has been flagged as NPOV since 2015, and is unfixable, since the subject is a pejorative term with no fixed meaning. JQ (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The page needs improvement but it presents various decent sources to attest that this is a notable and well-defined subject; it has a range of acceptions but they are limited, and it does evidently have some pejorative implications but then so do words like spy, war, secret service and so on. I can’t really see what the issue is, here.-My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 21:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There's nothing unfixable about the article and it meets none of the criteria in WP:DEL. Note that an article failing WP:NPOV is NOT a reason to delete it and it having been tagged for a long time is irrelevant as WP:THEREISNORUSH IMO the main problem with this article is that someone (I think the same person who has nominated it for deletion) appears to have completely gutted it over the last few days. This article needs discussion on the talk page to build a consensus on how to improve it, not wholesale content removal and/or deletion. --Shimbo (talk) 14:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Any possible NPOV concerns should be addressed through editing rather than deletion. The reset of the nominating statement reads to me as a non-sequitur. As for notability, there's already a few refs in the article, and a quick search online reveals more hits (nb: not an exhaustive list, just a few top hits):

Girling, John. "Agents of influence." Australian Journal of International Affairs 38.2 (1984): 111-114.
Pokalova, Elena. "The Wagner group in Africa: Russia’s quasi-state agent of influence." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2023): 1-23.
Lockhart, John Bruce. "Sir William Wiseman Bart—agent of influence." The RUSI Journal 134.2 (1989): 63-67.
Akrap, Gordan, and Władysław Bułhak. "Agent of Influence and Disinformation: Five Lives of Ante Jerkov." International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 35.2 (2022): 240-264.
Maley, William. "Agents of influence." Quadrant 31.7 (1987): 34-38.
Eckstein, Arthur M. "Clandestine Agent: The Real Agnes Smedley." Journal of Cold War Studies 9.4 (2007): 106-114.
Edwards, Aaron. Agents of Influence: Britain’s Secret Intelligence War against the IRA. Merrion Press, 2021.
Gentry, John A. "Diplomatic Spying: How Useful Is It?." International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 34.3 (2021): 432-462.
Hollingsworth, Mark. Agents of Influence: How the KGB Subverted Western Democracies. Simon and Schuster, 2023.

While I lack the time to go through these in detail, it appears rather clear that the term is both used and discussed in academic literature. -Ljleppan (talk) 09:18, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 01:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2023 December 5. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 01:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as WP:DINC. The sources are there with a depth of sourcing that more than meets policy criteria. A stronger argument against the article is WP:DICDEF, but I see enough here to overcome that (barely). Also, I don't see the NPOV problem with the article as it stands. We have articles on plenty of pejorative terms. There is no reason that we can't be impartial and encyclopaedic on negative subjects, and this one is just not that slanted. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 16:10, 7 December 2023 (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.