- Hindutva propaganda (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)
This is an interesting DRV, so bear with me.
Simply, I closed this debate as delete as, after reading and re-reading the entire thing, I was of the opinion that the keep opinions were far weaker ("bad faith nom" was used a couple of times, and WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS as well, for example), and generally they neglected to respond to the WP:NPOV and WP:OR arguments in a satisfactory fashion. However, that appears to be my opinion only, which is where the trouble starts.
Subheadings number 24, 25 and 30 in User talk:Daniel.Bryant/Archive/30, as well as a thread on ANI (under "questionable deletion", will be archived soon) is the strong dissent. However, these users refused to come here (or have forgotten to), and as I have noted in those sections in my archive and on ANI, I will not be changing my close, nor expanding on it. So, I bring it here, for a definitive response. Naturally, I endorse my own deletion, but I'm sick of people whinging at my talk page after I've already said I won't entertain any more trolling/discussion on the matter, so I bring it here to force them to argue with the primary focus on process (ie. my interpretation of the debate).
Can I ask we stear away from relisting it, because, put frankly, we're just going to end up with the same AfD debate in round two. Undelete, or endorse, are the only real options here. Cheers, Daniel Bryant 01:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse I am personally in basic agreement with the views expressed in the article. Nonetheless, i think it is POV-pushing to insist on the insertion of the article, unnecessary because the same views are thoroughly presented in the articles for each of the individual topics discussed. However well meant, the effect of this article is to increase contention on an intrinsically contentious topic,, and the debate on it--as with the previousarticle--is therefore interfering with the actual editing of WP. Let it rest. DGG 02:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - This is what I said then and I stand by it. Also per Daniel and Bakaman. Sarvagnya 09:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Please remember that this isn't completely whether you thought the content of the article was didn't meet the guidelines, but also whether I interpreted the consensus of the debate properly and closed it correctly. However, thanks for the support. Daniel Bryant 09:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Your interpretation was perfect. You also displayed rare courage in taking a stand to delete it. I congratulate you for that. Sarvagnya 09:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Clear endorse, good close based on the weight of argument presented. A compelling case is made for this being a POV fork. This despite my broad agreement with the POV expressed - the fact that most of the Hindutva arguments are generally regarded as specious seems to be well supported by sources, but that should be reflected in those articles, not in a fork. I have every sympathy with those struggling to maintain that balance against impassioned supporters, though. Guy (Help!) 10:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. I was one of the "bad faith noms" Daniel.Bryant mentioned.
- In fact, I wrote "bad faith third nomination", pointing to the previous AfD. As the commentary following my vote showed, I should have been explicit about the timing, to avert the risk of my vote being reflexively ignored. In any event, it seems that Daniel.Bryant has deemed four days "a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again", and thus perhaps disregarded the earlier AfDs as of no evidential value, especially towards (a) the existence of a definite POV lobby, and (b) the fact that "propaganda" was a word suggested as an alternative to "pseudoscience" and thus adopted. Subsequent arguments against the word "propaganda" should therefore have been disregarded except as a case for another renaming, for which possibilities (such as "pseudoscholarship") had already been mentioned.
- I did not concern myself with debating either WP:NPOV or WP:OR arguments in this AfD, because I could not find either of these considerations listed as significant. Either Daniel.Bryant's skills in parsing English surpass mine, or he has applied the phrase "but not limited to" to comprehend WP:NPOV and WP:OR, which would mean that he considers pure content disputes to be within the scope of AfD discussions. Beyond that, he has required that every argument for deletion, no matter how trivial, must be answered, lest the closing admin take the lack of response as significant. I cannot fathom this.
- In adjudicating NPOV and OR concerns, Daniel.Bryant wrote "I cannot see these concerns being fixed anytime soon, if at all." Really, "if at all"? Quite frankly, I never expected to read such a pompous dismissal, of the consensus process central to Wikipedia, by an administrator, let alone from someone so young as to call into question the depth of his experience to be offering such summations. He was swayed by the "rough consensus" for "delete", but it appears that he concluded that this consensus was specific to this article. I will assume that he is not aware of phenomena such as POV lobbies, and thus not aware of how his decision has validated gang warfare on articles, for no essential reason other than "we don't like it", as it now suffices merely to scream NPOV! and OR! in unison.
- If Daniel.Bryant read the article as of the AfD closing with dismay, I sympathize. The state of the article was impacted significantly after the initiation of the AfD, by contributions from parties who had already voted to delete. More than one section went from prose to gibberish. Attempts to revert to a sane state were re-reverted. Apparently sabotage is acceptable, and I was even put on notice by an admin. I therefore elected to "let the debate run its course" and desisted from wasting my time editing the article with prompt reverts in the offing. Daniel.Bryant's decision implies that I should have wasted my time anyway, especially since the only protracted debate followed a reading of the sabotaged version of the article, and since, apparently, closing admins are not to consider edit histories. I am duly enlightened.
- My opinion of this decision, on procedural grounds alone, should be obvious. Thank you for your time. rudra 11:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion, well-reasoned close on Daniel Bryant's part. --Coredesat 12:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion concur that Daniel's interpretation of the debate was completely reasonable. Addhoc 13:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Agree with Daniel.Bryant. He also deserves praise for standing up to the personal abuse he's received from the article's main supporters since the close. ॐ Priyanath talk 13:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Delete per Daniel Bryant but we need to keep in mind is that NPOV is not generally used as a policy for deleting articles. I have seen this discussed many times in the village pump. Further deletion of this article is not an end to the subject matter. If the subject matter really becomes as notable as the proponents indicate by using wiki process we can always recreate the article sometimes in the future or perhaps not. Right now all what this subject matter deserves is a section under main Hindutva araticleRaveenS 14:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- speedy undelete, Daniel.Bryant's decision was completely flawed. The Afd result was, even counting blatantly trollish votes (entirely on the "delete" side):
- delete: 14
- delete/merge: 6
- keep: 15
- there is no way any admin can close such an afd as a "rough consensus to delete". This is not how Afd works, sorry. If Daniel has a strong opinion on the case, he could have voted, but not closed the debate. This is an admin conduct issue, and I will sure to bring this up in an RfC and/or Arbitration case. For the purposes of DRV, this deletion needs be overturned as procedurally flawed. As it happens, the AfD was in utter bad faith beginning to end, and the "delete" side presented no argument beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The article was closely sourced to academic publications, so "OR" obviously doesn't apply, and "pov" concerns have nothing to do with AfD. Attempts to address pov-concerns were reverted because they lessened the chance of the AfD succeeding. read the AfD talkpage. Argubly, the decision could have been merge, turning the article into a redirect, and importing the full text of the article to Hindutva. If Hindutva would have become over-long by that import, the article would have to be recreated per WP:SS. dab (𒁳) 14:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment AFD isn't a vote. --Coredesat 17:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment But DRV is? rudra 23:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse per Baka. Just for the sake of clarity, I voted "Merge", and NOT "Delete", because I wanted it to be Merged. I looked at the article and it was a mess. The introduction had listed summaries, which were actually not present in the citations at all. Only blind could not see the terribleness of the construction. I assume User:Rudrasharman to be a master of English, but instead of using his knowledge to correct my "bad english" in the article, he just reverted it. Notice here that other editors were editing the article none the less. The creator of the article actually moved it to Hindutva pseudoscholarship (during which I edited the article, resulting it having a focus on scholarship and not propaganda) and then back after AfD. I did NOT had a problem with the move. The AfD policy also says that one can edit the article during AfD. Actually, the reason previous AfD was closed was because it was "moved", and mind you, not under consensus! Instead of all the hard work, all I got was edit-warring and ad-hominem attacks. After THIS, WP:OWN problems became clear to me, and I changed my vote to delete. The timing listed could have been incorrect because of daylight time saving. I changed the offset in my Wikipedia preferences. After that, I resisted editing either the article or AfD. I had no idea of any accusation at AfD's talk page until User:Rudrasharman listed them here. Now that article is deleted, am replying here than on AfD's talk page.--Scheibenzahl 15:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. Actually, you first voted to "Move", not "Merge". The only other edits I recall were: (a) a name change to "Hindutva Scholarship" as per your suggestion by Dbachmann (talk · contribs), (b) a prompt revert of that by the AfD proposer AMbroodEY (talk · contribs), and (c) an addition of two references by me at some point later in the revert sequence. The final revert by Bakasuprman (talk · contribs), refered to in my post to the AfD Talk page, wiped the slate clean and left the article in the state after your omnibus edit. Your single edit changed some half dozen different areas of the article, including a sweeping change to the lead paragraph that was the subject of our discussion on my user talk page, during which you changed your !vote, and then of a debate on the AfD page following Sarvagnya (talk · contribs)'s !vote. (He later claimed, on the Talk page, that the tenor of his critique would have been the same for the suppressed version.) Your change basically made the article into a caricature, if not indeed an attack. It's unfortunate that you still don't see this, but it should put my reverts into context. Anyway, the possibility of merging has already been belied -- see the recent edit war on Hindutva. So much for POV forks, or other excuses. The basis of this DRV charade can be infered quite easily from this "Neutral" !vote in an RfA, this crass boast, and the fact that an opportunity to vote bank had presented itself when the AfD revealed a POV lobby and thus an unseen larger gallery of sympathizers: which decision on the AfD would maximize the pleased/annoyed ratio, as a strictly political calculation? rudra 01:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. This one had to have been difficult. This is one of those cases where the closing admin has to do their homework and actually took time to sift through the !votes and make a judgement call, knowing full well some people are not going to like it. I believe the interpretation to be correct in this case. Arkyan • (talk) 15:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse: The closing administrator did it after proper application of mind and analysing the matter in its entirety and did not draw his conclusions solely based on numbers (particularly of involved parties), but on the merit of the case. Wikipedia is not a democracy. Interesting, some people have a habit of calling others trolls - even users with one edit [1] and users with a long history here. --Bhadani (talk) 15:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- These are interesting comments and replies: [2] and [3]. I do not have any comments to offer on the contents except that if comments are favourable people go all the way to respond and if the comments are not favourable people call the other party a troll. Even Dab considers me a troll and I have nothing to prove that I am not one! --Bhadani (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - well-thought-out closure from a mess of an AfD that deleted a serious of quotes and fundamentally unrelated references strung together to compile a POV screed. OR synthesis, basically. Moreschi Request a recording? 19:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. Daniel.Bryant has asked for primary focus on process, which he defines as his "interpretation of the debate". As for his interpretation, he has offered not a single statement of fact, not a single concrete detail, and no indication that he viewed any material save the AfD page, and perhaps the article. He has offered only his conclusion, that he found a case for NPOV and OR persuasive on balance. Duly therefore, endorsements have come forth, commending Daniel.Bryant for, inter alia, exemplary diligence with unspecified materials, perspicacious analysis of unmentioned facts and judicious reasoning on unsubstantiated evidence. Some endorsements, to their credit, have elaborated on Daniel.Bryant's process to find that Daniel.Bryant's interpretation really also means UNDUE, BHTT, WAX, ad hominem and, compellingly we are told, POV fork; these revelations, harmoniously in keeping with requested process, being equally bereft of supporting facts. Since this DRV has remained resolutely content-free, I take the liberty to conclude that the following principles have been established regarding a somewhat different, and now apparently superseded, notion of "process":
- four days is "a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again".
- This list of considerations for deletion is, well, just a list. Its complete absence has no bearing on the merit of an AfD.
- During an AfD, sabotage edits and reverts to enforce them by "delete" voters, and admins if needed, are acceptable, if not normal.
- Closing admins are under no obligation to substantiate their reasoning with concrete details; may place the statement of their disinclination to discuss matters in their archives where whingers, being whingers, will obviously not look to see who has whinged before; and then bemoan, with righteous dudgeon, the further whinging.
- I am thoroughly impressed. rudra 02:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why did you stop? Please go on. Everyone's holding their breath. Sarvagnya 09:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Waiting long? Sorry about that, you can breathe now. Oh, you were wondering about a fifth principle? Aren't you happy with these four? Ain't consensus wonderful, when you can make the rules up as you go along? rudra 00:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - agree with Daniel.Bryant and Bakasuprman.Sbhushan 14:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn.
- As I stated on Daniel's talkpage, I am all in favour of courageous closes that go with the strength of the argument rather than counting heads. This closure was not one of them. Daniel did not so much as discuss the points made by each side, as most admins would have done while making a controversial close.
- As Rudra points out above, allegations that an article violates WP:NPOV are irrelevant to an AfD unless the article can be demonstrated to be a POV-fork; Daniel does not engage with the argument at all, or indicate what persuaded him that this article was.
- The particularly depressing part of his supposed 'reasoning' for the close was that he believed that the article's detractors had 'achieved a rough consensus'. This is truly extraordinary, and I find it deeply worrying that someone who cannot recognise a bunch of SPAs voting as a bloc on a contentious issue is set up by this encyclopaedia as someone who is capable of mediation on those issues.
- More to the point, Nobody who thinks that 'consensus on a particular side' is a valid reason for closing should be allowed to do so without having it overturned for a closer look. (I remember when normal users familiar with the subject-matter and policy would close AfDs all the time, and I begin to wonder when that became the province of admins who dont bother to look closely at the material.)
- Clearly all the above votes, by a group of users whose edit histories are very instructive, once again indicate that those in favour of endorsement have achieved consensus, and that higher state of being should be rewarded by the closer? If you recognise that most of the votes merely congratulate Daniel on his infinite wisdom, and not one engages with the actual arguments made by the closer, then you might have a somewhat different view. Have fun, WP! Hornplease 19:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse as per Daniel.Bryant et al. --Duke of Duchess Street 17:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Leaning to endorse. My, this is a tricky one. This DRV, and the AfD, had a few very simple "Foo because Bar" comments that can and should probably be disregarded -- it's nice to see that people are expanding on those comments, here, and I appreciate that we're all enaging more or less reasonably in this process together. I first became aware of this via WP:AN/I, and kept thinking I should have a look at it. I will confess I'm not very familiar with the subject itself, but if we accept that a closing admin's job is more to judge consensus, then perhaps my lack of knowledge could be considered an asset (not knowing the subject, it's hard for me to have an opinion on anything but the discussion). With that in mind, I do think that both sides developed robust cases, but also that those favoring delete were more in line with the ways I feel policies and guidelines should be applied -- in particular, Wikipedia isn't a soapbox, or a place to post any particularly novel thought. If our purpose in creating an article is to "raise awareness," or spread a particular slant on ideas, we're not quite following the right path -- rather than advocating particular points of view, or publishing new ideas, our goal, as I understand it, is to present current mainstream thought. I do respect that several editors on both sides feel strongly (as seems to frequently be the case, in some of this area, I gather), but I'm hoping that you all will be able to merge what content here was useful (and some was, I think) into their respective articles. Might be worth revisiting this, at some point in the future, but I'm not sure. As I said, I don't have as strong an opinion on this as it seems most of you do, but I figure I'm an outside voice, so. Good luck. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
|
