Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cavalier Rural Electric Cooperative

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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 no consensus‎. I'm closing this trainwreck of a discussion as No consensus. I am reluctant to close this as Keep as those arguing to Delete have valid criticism about the lack of secondary sources. But there are stil strong opinions about Keeping this article based partially on what they see as lapses in the AFD process but it definitely doesn't qualify as a Speedy Keep. This discussion became unnecessarily personal which is not how an AFD should proceed. No penalty against a return trip to AFD to have a manageable discussion focused on sources and notability not on mentorship, personalities, or PRODs. I just want to emphasize that BEFORE is an important step prior to any AFD nomination and it's useful to share the results of any BEFORE search that was done. Liz Read! Talk! 03:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cavalier Rural Electric Cooperative[edit]

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Cavalier Rural Electric Cooperative (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Fails WP:NCORP and unreferenced David notMD (talk) 03:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete Not notable बिनोद थारू (talk) 04:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @David notMD: Fails WP:NCORP and unreferenced So this is fascinating to me, how can an article simultaneously fail NCORP and be unreferenced? Usually you need to assess the sources of an article to claim it fails NCORP, but as there's no sources to assess, you're basically leaning heavily into "unreferenced" to do the dirty work on an article that's nearly 20 years old (and never been tagged with any maintenance tags to give interested editors an opportunity to fix the issues you might have). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:08, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Google बिनोद थारू (talk) 05:19, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Neat. Because they're the only source of knowledge in the world, according to you. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:05, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I also used Gooogle, and did not find any website content independent from CREC that I thought provided notability. I did find out that CREC has about a dozen employees, serves fewer than 2,000 customers and has annual revenue less than $6,000,000. This AfD process takes 7-10 days. If there are valid refs, add those and the reviewing Administrator will take that into account. David notMD (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm well aware how AFD works. See my comment above about the lack of any efforts to improve a nearly 20-year old article for my thoughts on that. I'm also aware that बिनोद थारू appears to be on a crusade to delete articles because their creation was deleted at AFD. We shouldn't be tolerating editors simply trying to disrupt the project to prove a point. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:15, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    My opinion is that proposing articles for deletion is a good deed. If your opinion is that this is a worthy article, then there is a guideline at WP:RESCUE. David notMD (talk) 10:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obvious Keep Insufficiently cited articles are exactly why Wikipedia has {cite tags}. We can't build an encyclopedia by tearing it down when it is being built. MLee1957 (talk) 16:48, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obvious keep I agree with MLee1957. The rationale cited by the nom, unable to find any meaningful secondary coverage about this organization, is an invalid basis to initiate an AfD. The nom and others are improperly using AfDs and should familiarize themselves with Individual message boxes: Issues with citations and sources. For this article, the {{more citations needed section}} tag is indicated. The use of cite-tags teaches others who are trying to contribute on how to improve their articles and build the project. Deleting others’ work discourages participation and undermines why most of us contribute here.

    User:बिनोद थारू has recently been advised by admins to better learn the processes used on Wikipedia and avoid the rampant use of AfDs in lieu of proper alternatives. I very much doubt that merely resorting to WP:PROD, as he/she did here yesterday is what the admins had in mind. While resorting to WP:PROD has a the virtue of bypassing the inconvenience of discussion, it’s a misuse of that tool: As WP:PROD says, Proposed deletion (PROD) is a way to suggest an article or file for uncontroversial deletion. It is an easier method of removing articles or files than the articles for deletion (AfD) or files for discussion (FfD) processes, and is meant for uncomplicated deletion proposals that do not meet the strict criteria for speedy deletion. PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected. The immediate resorting to WP:PROD by User:बिनोद थारू is increasingly looking like it might be “wikilawyering” to achieve the goals of a single-purpose editor to do end run around community consensus. Such tactics run counter to Wikipedia’s principles.

    As regards Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), a non-profit electrical utility that serves an essential service (electricity) to many thousands of users is far-cry from some random Dairy Queen or “Al’s Tire-O-Rama” in nearby Belcourt on State Route 10. A utility seems reasonably notable to me. Greg L (talk) 18:32, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Obvious keep and COMMENT - Re Category:Electric cooperatives of the United States. Also see Rural Electrification Act. In the United States, these electric coops are the energy-providing life blood of rural areas. Some articles are well-done and fairly well-sourced. Some articles are done just like this one is done. The Rural Electrification Act was established during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. Prior to that, much of rural America had nothing but what a local area could put together, if anything. That said ... you can nit-pick and delete the sparse ones like this, or you can come up with a better solution. — Maile (talk) 22:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: Thank you very much for that input; it adds helpful and larger context to this matter. Greg L (talk) 00:52, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also added some links in the article. It had no references at all, and needs to be improved in that area. But I don't think it needs to be deleted. It's just one of those kinds of subject matters that a lot of people would have never known about. — Maile (talk) 02:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: Thank you, sir. Greg L (talk) 03:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment First, User:बिनोद थारू did not start this AfD; I did. All comments about User:बिनोद थारू and the reverted PROD have no relevance to the AfD. Second, "unable to find any meaningful secondary coverage about this organization" was not by the nom (me); rather, it was a Delete from another person. Third, the one recently added reference about rural electrification makes no mention of CREC and hence does not contribute to the notability of CREC. Fourth, putting a "more citations needed" tag on this article would be futile because there are none to add. David notMD (talk) 03:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep of course, mostly per the comments above, and per my concerns around this and similar nominations simply being disruptive behavior indicative of WP:NOTHERE behavior. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I have been 'here' more than 15 years, have made more than 50,000 edits, have raised 19 articles to GA, and only very, very infrequently initiate an AfD. David notMD (talk) 04:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Why did you nominate this for AFD after बिनोद थारू's declined PROD? —Locke Cole • t • c 04:55, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Because in my opinion it is clearly not Wikipedia notable. As to HOW I became aware of the article and the reverted PROD, I signed up to be a Mentor for new accounts. User:MLee1957 was assigned to me, so I looked at all edits to see if any guidance was needed. MLee1957 reverted the PROD. I then looked at the article and initiated the AfD. I have no personal animus toward CREC nor the state of North Dakota. David notMD (talk) 13:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you serious? You were assigned to mentor me?? The user बिनोद थारू created an article some number of months ago that got deleted after an AfD. Since then, बिनोद थारू has been obsessed with initiating AfDs on all types of content on the English language version of Wikipedia and MOST of those AfDs were voted as KEEPs. बिनोद थारू even did an AfD on an entire user's page and his sandbox. He was admonished by admins about this single-minded obsession and to better learn the the process of AfDs by participating in them but not starting them. But he turned right around THE NEXT DAY and initiated a PROD on this article, obviously to avoid having to deal with the hassle of having other wikipedians second-guessing him. I deleted that PROD since it was obviously an end-run and was obviously controversial, which is NOT what PRODs are about. Your "mentoring" amounted to leaving a note on my talk page saying you snuck in here and initated your OWN AfD, which by your own admission is something you rarely involve yourself in?? Please de-list yourself as my mentor. MLee1957 (talk) 20:45, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. David notMD (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    PROD and maintenance tags are suggested to lower the load in the AfD process बिनोद थारू (talk) 20:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you’re going to engage in wikilawyering, बिनोद थारू, at least put on a good show. You need to listen to the spirit and letter of what the admins have been telling you here about your rampant use of “CSDs, AfDs, and PRODS,” as well as “your policy-rich comments and assertiveness” (here). The instructions for WP:PROD are right there on the template page; they say nothing about using PROD to “lower the load on AfD process.” All WP:PROD accomplished was to lower the load you experience during AfDs.

    I sympathize with the fact that early on in your en.wikipedia experiences, you had an article that didn’t survive an AfD. But the proper response to that life lesson is to learn from it and contribute constructively to the project by building it; not engaging in a months-long AfD bent (just look at that contributions history of yours) born out of the human emotion so common it has its own proverb: Revenge is a dish best served cold. Greg L (talk) 04:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting also that the Google Books link includes over ten pages of results. I find it highly unlikely that the nominator checked those sources, or other sources, in the ~3 hours between when the PROD was removed and when this nomination was made. WP:BEFORE was not followed at all. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:21, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Again, and I stress this, I initiated this AfD. The lengthy comments about the PROD, reverted, and any other past actions of बिनोद थारू have no relevance. David notMD (talk) 09:07, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fruit of the poisonous tree. Had the PROD not been created by a disruptive editor, we wouldn't be here having this AFD. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:52, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:David notMD: What started all this off (disruptive editing by a single-purpose editor) is highly relevant; you seem to have simply got swept up in waters without any understanding of what you were getting into. And (this is important now), you did so after providing “mentoring” to MLee1957 that is wholely antithetical to the purpose of mentoring on Wikipedia.
  1. You came in only one day after a improper WP:PROD (they’re only for clearly uncontroversial deletions) started by बिनोद थारू.
  2. Then you adopted from that improper WP:PROD, the faulty rationale it cited as a basis for what ails this article (it Fails WP:NCORP)
  3. You did this after MLee1957 properly reverted the improper WP:PROD.
  4. MLee1957 had ample knowledge of the single-purpose editor propensities of बिनोद थारू, which you would have known if you had been doing any job whatsoever of mentoring him.
  5. Then you stated that an additional rationale for deleting an article from Wikipedia—beyond the one inherited from the faulty WP:PROD—was the lack of citations.
  6. Now you simply had to know better than that; the proper remedy for an article that lacks sufficient citations is to put a {{citation needed}} tag on it, which is currently used on 369,000 other articles that need citations.
  7. Finally, all this needless wikidrama—here, right now—is the result of you imagining that in any universe, providing “mentoring” to a new wikipedian, MLee1957, means noticing that he properly reverted an improper WP:PROD (improper because it was controversial) by going to his talk page and posted as follows: Given you reverted the PROD, leaving you this note to inform that I started an AfD. I find that truly repugnant.
  8. Apparently, you thought that your pithier message was superior to Hello MLee1957. I was assigned to mentor you. We haven’t been formally introduced, but I thought I would introduce myself and simultaneously “mentor” you by pissing in your corn flakes and making life difficult for you so you learn the concept that “life sucks and then you die.” Have a nice day and 🎵be sure to AGF🎵.
So, your argument that what you did here (unwittingly continuing the disruption of a single-purpose editor by resorting to different means) has nothing to do with what started this theater, doesn’t hold water in my book. But, to what seems to be the more important principle of your comment: That we’re all here wasting time because of your actions, you and I seem to be in complete agreement.
A final thought; this one speaks to wisdom and maturity. In most situations like this, a simple “Oops. I screwed up and deeply apologize” goes a L-O-N-G ways to defusing a situation and making others think the better of you. When MLee1957 learned you came in after his proper reversion of a controversial (improper) WP:PROD and he asked that you stop “mentoring” him (following him around and make life difficult for him and others trying to intercede in tendentious editing) you responded with a rather flippant one-word response: Done. You seem adept at doubling down on poor form with even more poor form. I suggest you think about that. Greg L (talk) 20:41, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]


MOTION: I believe the way AfDs like this and similar fare are closed out is that 24+ hours must elapse with no activity. I propose that there be no further posts here past 23:59 UTC, December 25 so we can be done with this and move on with our lives. Silence may be properly interpreted as responding “Aye” to this motion. Greg L (talk) 21:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. Only thing now is for an Administrator to make an AfD decision based on the state of the article. Which, I see, still has no valid references. David notMD (talk) 00:17, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That’s what I meant. I don’t believe an admin steps in to discern what a valid consensus is and closes out an AfD while it is still active under discussion; there must be a 24-hour-long period of inactivity. And quoting you (referencing the article you nominated for deletion): “Which, I see, still has no valid references.” Yeah, we’ve been over that, as well as your other reason, neither of which gained any traction here. There are appropriate ways to deal with insufficiently cited articles, including helping improve the article. That shouldn’t shock the sensibilities of an experienced wikipedian like yourself.

Now, do you have anything new to add that doesn’t rehash the same old arguments and amounts to Wikipedia:I just don't like it? Because if you want to keep harping about the same old tired points until the heat death of the universe, we can leave you here alone to do that. Greg L (talk) 00:58, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to WP:AFD, it's a seven day process. According to WP:BEFORE, there were a number of steps you should have taken before nominating this article for AFD, and it's clear to me you didn't take them. Finally, as regards [o]nly thing now is for an Administrator to make an AfD decision based on the state of the article, that is not, in fact, how AFD's are closed. Wikipedia operates on consensus. The closer will consider the arguments made, not the state of the article as they personally see it (which would amount to a WP:SUPERVOTE). I do hope they consider the concerns around बिनोद थारू's conduct at AFD/MFD, and how you played yourself into that by nominating an article which you have no background or knowledge of because of an ill-conceived/implemented "mentorship" of MLee1957. Unless someone intervenes sooner to close this, it will likely be closed on or about the 29th. I Support Greg's proposal to end it early, however. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:59, 26 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.
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