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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 keep. Per inclement weather in upstate NY. Tim Song (talk) 14:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Upstate New York

[edit]
Upstate New York (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Fixing formatting of discussion page, presumably Farine is the nominator Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 20:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Saying this article is a total mess would be an understatement. The article is too long and filled with POV and unsourced statements. I wouldn'tbe surprised if there was some original research involved in it as well.

For months, the tags complaining about the article's original research and POV have been there. And yet, little change has been brought in the article to correct the situation.

I say delete the article and start all over again from skratch. Farine (talk) 01:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC) (View log • AfD statistics)[reply]

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Point taken. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm editing some sections further, and spinning off lists as well as sections that seem particularly controversial into separate articles. Cheers, Don Argus jr (talk) 19:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • I agree that Upstate New York is notable enough to deserve its own article. But the article in its current state is terrible and not reliable. I am in favor in keeping it if the article is heavily reworked. I personally don't know much about Upstate New York. But if you and other folks want to correct its flaws,I say go for it.Farine (talk) 19:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough; we will. You'll see on the "Talk" page of the article that there is not even a consensus regarding the definition of "Upstate" New York. This generates further problems for the writing of an encyclopedia article about the place. For example: what specific areas are included when trying to cite statistics for the region? My position is that this lack of consensus, and the contentiousness with which such issues are debated, is emblematic of the issues facing the region, and is part of the character of Upstaters - and that this is a big part of what makes the region notable and worthy of a separate Wikipedia article. But as I say, this is also what makes it hard to write one. It's kind of like using cats in a scientific study. As the author Vicky Hearn points out in her book Adam's Task, scientists shy away from using cats because "cats screw up your data." But she says that this doesn't make cats unworthy of study; rather, she says, it's exactly what ought to be studied. Similarly, the debate and discussion about this article is so much more illuminating than a resolved Wiki-compliant article would be. Don Argus jr (talk) 20:37, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep nominating 'em, Farine. "AfD is not clean-up" gets repeated a lot, but it isn't policy at all, simply a personal opinion from an essay someone wrote a few years ago. It's the only way that I know of that problems with and article are brought to the attention of a larger community. More often than not, people who were not aware of the existence of a page (let alone its problems), take time to work on it, and they do so with the suggestions of others in the discussion rather than based on their own views. Improvements after such a discussion are less likely to be reverted. Sometimes, people suggest that this should be done on the article's "talk page"-- but nobody reads talk pages, even if they're aware of the article in the first place. AfD may not directly clean up an article, but it sure can alert people to something that hasn't been cleaned. Mandsford 17:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually the quoted pertinent statement from WP:ATD, which is policy, says: "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion.". The phrase "AfD is not clean-up" is the essence, intent, and meaning, both literal and in spirit, of that clear policy. Saying it's just an opinion and not policy would be like saying "OR" is just an opinion and denying someone the ability to use "OR" as a deletion reason, if it's not linked to WP:NOTESSAY and doesn't quote the whole statement about original research. Every experienced editor knows what "AfD is not clean-up" and "OR" means and that they reference policy and carry the same weight. Sorry, but "AfD is not clean-up" paraphrasing is quoting policy. However, in terms of AfD and article improvement as a collateral effect: It's true that many more editors see AfD discussions due to their prominence, drop what they are doing and respond code three to rescue the article, and thus improve it. So yes, it does tend to work. But the response is disproportionate and takes away resources from other efforts to improve Wikipedia. It's the moral and resource-using equivalent of calling in a police SWAT team with helicopters and heavy weapons to get someone to cut the grass on his front lawn in suburbia because it's messy (a big sin there). It also results in AfD overload, which devalues the process. — Becksguy (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The bar against original research isn't a paraphrase or an opinion at all. It's spelled out very clearly in WP:NOT. "AfD is not cleanup" is one way of interpreting WP:ATD, I suppose, but a more productive way to look at it, is that it presents the challenge to see whether there are enough people who see potential for an article to be rescued, as was the case here. When there's no sign that people want the article, good riddance to it. I'm an experienced editor, and in three years, I've watched our policies evolve rather than looking at 2007 as the status quo. I know that there are others who have been here 4, 5, even 9 years, and they are no wiser than people who've been contributing for a year. The "old-timers" tend to have a different view of Wikipedia than the ones who have come on more recently, but their opinion is not entitled to any more deference than mine. Mandsford 01:23, 11 June 2010 (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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