Jump to content

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 February 10

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< 2012 February 9
2012 February 11 >

10 February 2012[edit]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Rescue list (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This was opened once and closed within an hour-and-a-half per WP:SNOW. It was re-opened at my request by the closing admin, but an hour later right as I was composing my delete vote it was closed again. For the sake of convenience I will just put here what I was going to put there:

To add on to that there was a vote by another editor without any real reason just the comment "you've got to be kidding" who also previously voted for keeping the rescue tag. Another editor who previously argued for keeping the rescue tag left a keep vote in the MfD that suggested alternative ways to use the list so it would be "harder to justify" accusations of canvassing, suggesting this was not an impartial vote. When the MfD got re-opened two additional comments were made with one being from yet another ARS member and one saying there was no valid policy reason for deletion, something I was going to address. Furthermore, I should note that while the MfD was clearly a result of and linked to from the first ANI report, the nominator did not make any mention of that ANI report that can be seen here, which would have provided another editor, specifically an admin, who clearly believed the list was inappropriate. Upon the relisting I was intending as can be seen above to link to the second ANI report that had several more editors concurring that the list was being used in at least one instance to canvass. Looking further into it, I realize that the most recent closing admin, User:Reaper Eternal, left a comment on the first ANI discussion suggesting support for the list and thus was clearly involved with regards to the deletion discussion. At the very least Reaper should have considered that if an editor wanted it re-opened there was good cause for doing so and let it stay up until that editor commented.

My preference here would be that we just get it relisted so there can be a new discussion, with some clear note to admins about the likelihood that this issue is liable to get a lot of votes and so there should be some reasonable time allowed for editors to comment, at least a day if not more in my opinion. An hour-and-a-half or an hour is clearly a bit faster than normal. Given that this DRV is liable to be subjected to the same flood of editors I will be listing it at the village pump. The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • DA, you need a new hobby, seriously. If you don't withdraw, I will opine further during the discussion time.--Milowent • hasspoken 01:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur with Milowent. There must be something else happening on the Wiki somewhere. I just hit 'random page' ten times and got eight different deletion discussions for the rescue list.(this totally did not happen) pablo 01:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse original closure If it closed already, then don't start a new one just to try to drag things out. Its over. Please stop this nonsense already. Not even bothering to read any of that you wrote this time around. Dream Focus 01:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Yes. DA, this is ridiculous. Drop the stick. Walk away from the carcass. Do something useful instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yup. Still snowing. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Someone must have been canvassing--all the usual ARS suspects are here, especially that well-known inclusionist Pablo X--no less than 4.4% of their recent AfD edits were keeps. Yes, DA, expect the usual suspects, since you've tried your hardest to piss all of us off, and I expect a couple of others as well. Oh, in case this is necessary: endorse whatever this editor seeks to overturn, at least in this case. And vice versa. Bah, humbug. Drmies (talk) 01:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, and that accusation about Reaper's involvement, pshaw. You're involved with just about everything here, to the point that maybe you cannot objectively edit anything but maybe an article on grasshoppers. What is the proper place to bring up a topic ban of some sort? Drmies (talk) 01:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone is free to look at your responses to me on your talk page and at ANI to judge who may or may not be cool and objective about this question. Reaper was clearly involved in the ANI discussion about the list so closing the AfD was inappropriate.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist. I have no doubt that this was a good faith WP:SNOW closure. With 12 editors recommending that it be kept, and nobody except the nominator supporting deletion, it seemed that there was indeed not even a snowball's snowball's chance in hell of a consensus for deletion. However, despite that judgement about the outcome I suggest that it was unwise to snow-close a discussion where a previous snow closure had been reversed; that looks rather like wheel-warring, and is almost guaranteed to create drama. That's why the snowball test warns

    If an issue is "snowballed", and somebody later raises a reasonable objection, then it probably was not a good candidate for the snowball clause.

    I still believe that deletion is a highly unlikely outcome, but the DRV nominator wants to make a further case for deletion and there may be others who follow. Given the controversy around the ARS, I think it is important that we take this chance to let a consensus be formed. If (as seems likely) there is a consensus to keep the list, the discussion may have a further value in helping the ARS to identify and avoid problems in the use of the list. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse- there was enough snow for a blizzard. Repeatedly bringing this up is growing tiresome. Can someone take the nominator's stick away please? Umbralcorax (talk) 01:31, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure of the discussion. There has to be some way to address the accusations of canvassing towards the ARS that doesn't require deleting one by one the preferred tools of this wikiproject. If the canvassing was to be demonstrated, which I doubt it given the current dynamic, it should be done in a way that is binding to editors as a whole, not through deletion of one particular page in some remote corner of the wiki. Diego (talk) 01:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't even time allowed for discussion. A day after the rescue tag got deleted, North created this list. If there is to be a comprehensive discussion about the activities of the Article Rescue Squadron it is best to allow that discussion to proceed before creating tools like this one.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What, so you could have preemptively forbidden them from making a simple list? Northamerica had every right to make this list, at any moment in time. Going to read that list is an act of volition on the part of the reader, so it's not canvassing in the ordinary sense anyway. Drmies (talk) 02:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - There is significant precedent for Wikiprojects to maintain Cleanup lists. See This search for a search list of cleanup listings that numerous WikiProjects maintain. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - closure as keep. The rescue list is intended to be transparent, and to avoid any misunderstandings, guidelines for posting there are very clear. It's a discussion and list of content for rescue consideration, not !voting. Importantly, when editors post to the list, they should not be accused of canvassing based upon the actions of others who may respond to the list. No editor has control over other editor actions. Also, if users who view the list then !vote in AfD discussions listed on it, that is their right regardless of the presence of any list. AfD is not a vote count, it's based upon rational analysis. The intention is to improve Wikipedia content, and Wikipedia itself. Hopefully people will work to actually improve the articles, rather than just "!vote and scoot." In some cases, articles may already have been improved, but an editor may feel like contributing to the AfD discussion, which again, is their right regardless of any type of list. The point is to improve Wikipedia for all, which seems to be a concept that most can agree upon. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:28, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a deletion review, not a rerun of MFD. Your comments are irrelevant to DRV, because they completely ignore the merits or otherwise of the snow closure. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse and speedy close. I strongly recommend The Devil's Advocate knock it off before someone decides to file a RFC/U. This has clearly gotten into WP:IDHT / disruptive editing territory. ---Tothwolf (talk) 03:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I direct all readers to the ARS talk page for some of Toth's more choice comments about me.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. There are also some diffs there which show a clear pattern of admin shopping. Your contribution history pretty much speaks for itself and shows a clear pattern of disruptive behaviour. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The only time I went to more than one admin over a specific closure it was with the first ANI report on this list and of the two admins I went to, one of them was the closing admin who was clearly not impartial on the issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse this is the fourth time The Devil's Advocate has tried to get rid of the ARS in less than three weeks. Enough is enough. He has been repeatedly told to drop the issue, yet he continues to start discussions on getting rid of the ARS. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 04:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse This is clear harassment of the ARS wikiproject. Yoenit (talk) 09:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse pointless leaving that MFD open for a week with no support at all. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What? It wasn't left open for a week. The first time it didn't even stay open two hours and the second time an admin who had previously expressed support for the list closed the discussion an hour after I asked it be re-opened right as I was preparing to leave a delete vote.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:16, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was speaking hypothetically that it it would have been pointless to leave it open longer than the time it was. The default time is about a week. Anyway you have stated your vote here, and more people want to state they would have liked to delete they too can state that here. I did not get to say any thing at the MFD since it was over too fast. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure as keep. I am learning how procedures can be carried to an absurd extent, but also how many editors endorse the work of ARS as currently done.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse good faith closure which reflects consensus. --He to Hecuba (talk) 14:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse good faith closure. Nominator is bordering on abuse of process and would be well advised to drop the whole thing, and get some advice so he doesn't eventually get himself banned. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I do not see any credible argument that the outcome could reasonably have been expected to be different had the process been allowed to continue. That is necessary, in my mind, for an assertion that a SNOW closure was inappropriate: not merely that there might have been additional contrary input, but that such input stood a chance of influencing the outcome. Jclemens (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the comments on ANI about the list and compare them to the keep votes. Most of the keep votes were variations of WP:OTHERSTUFF saying other Wikiprojects have AfD lists just like this, which is misleading at best.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse There was a clear consensus to keep this page. WP:SNOW was applied correctly, even if the The Devil's Advocate doesn't like it. Armbrust, B.Ed. Let's talkabout my edits? 01:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn/Relist 2 hours is hardly enough time for a snow keep. Had I seen it, I would have agreed with deletion. ARS differs from any other project because they have a specific interest in indiscriminately attempting to keep articles. Other projects simply group people together by interest in a subject. They don't have an inherent goal of keeping every single article ever created related to that subject. Per WP:CANVASS that's a direct violation according to the table under vote stacking. Its' time the blinders came off.--Crossmr (talk) 11:21, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm sorry, but I can't agree with your reasoning at all. While DRV probably isn't the place for this discussion, in the spirit of Wikipedia not being a bureaucracy and in keeping with tradition of DRV itself, I'm going to address your comments here.

      While there may be a small minority of individuals who !vote "keep" on questionable articles, the majority of editors, including those whom work with ARS, do not. Even with those who do !vote in this way, may still genuinely feel that keeping whatever material they are discussing is in the best interests of Wikipedia and helps improve our coverage of a subject. Even with the former {{rescue}} template, there were many people, including myself, who used it appropriately to call attention to specific articles so others could help look for sources to expand and cite material.

      The outcome of the TfD for the {{rescue}} template itself is even a very visible case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, simply because a few editors misused the template, either intentionally (perhaps trolling?) or unintentionally (not understanding how to use it?). In the case of the former, we already have mechanisms in place to deal with such disruptive editors, and in the case of the later, this would have been a strong case for improving the template's documentation so editors could better understand how to use the template. Neither of these really make for valid reasons for deletion.

      As for claims of "canvassing", both with {{rescue}} and now being made towards the new list, many "deletionists" formerly monitored the tracking category used by the template, and no doubt will be monitoring the new list, so the whole notion of "omg the evil inclusionsts are going to get everything kept and ruin Wikipedia" is ludicrous at best.[*]

      While I don't see the new rescue list in any way violating WP:CANVASS any more than our other deletion sorting mechanisms do, I have begun to witness a small minority of people attempting to game the system and manipulate the facts in order to target their perceived "ARS enemies". While perhaps not The Devil's Advocate's intentions, his actions have actually managed to make this entire issue much more visible to the larger Wikipedia community.

      Given the above, if someone really wanted to take the issue of the {{rescue}} template to the larger community, perhaps via RFC, there could even be a very strong case made for overturning its deletion along with improving its documentation and usage.

      While my comments here are long and I'm sure there will be a few who disagree with me, I'm simply tired of the battleground mentality that I've been seeing over these issues. The "OMG the evil ARSers are going to RUIN Wikipedia" meme is simply tired and dated and needs to be retired.

      [*]For that fact, given the massive downturn in AfD participation over the last several years (which is actually affecting XfD in general and not just AfD), a strong case could even be made that AfD itself has now become (or is becoming) mostly obsolete and a historic relic and needs to evolve to better suit the community's current needs. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

      • Tothwolf, please please drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. The rescue template is gone, and its deletion was upheld at well-attended DRV by a numerical count of about 8:1 or 9:1. It is not coming back, so let it go and move on.

        The attempt to delete the rescue list is just hot air, and whether it is relisted or not, it's plain as a pikestaff that it ain't gonna be deleted. All that's happening is a bit of mildly tedious splashing, the effect of which is precisely the opposite of what its instigators intend: it is demonstrating that there is quite a lot of support for an ARS without the rescue template.

        As to the "the battleground mentality" which you rightly deplore, I agree that there is too much of it. But one of the places where it is most prevalent is at WT:ARS, where wild rants about zomg evil deletionists are posted frequently and without apparent sanction. If you really want to end the battleground, one of the things which would really help is support a crackdown on the ranters who abuse WT:ARS as a soapbox. The ARS's apparent tolerance of that noisy minority taints the whole of ARS, and generates more drama which obscures the good work being done through the new rescue list. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

        • Just worth noting that this is actually my first mention of {{rescue}} in these discussions, so I think the WP:STICK comment might be better applied elsewhere. Other than that, we appear to agree on some points, although there are clearly a few things we don't agree on.

          Perhaps all the drama and fighting we are seeing now just a symptom of a much larger problem though -- it is much less work (and maybe more "fun") for some people to troll and stir things up between say ARS and those whom don't much like the idea of ARS than it is to actually edit and improve an article. (This isn't just limited to ARS of course, but I think this gets the general point across.)

          The way I've come to see things is the community failed long ago to deal with many issues of editors not here to improve Wikipedia. Instead, we've built up all sorts of overly complex rules, policies, guidelines, etc which in turn give some of these individuals a very large assortment of things to cherry pick from in order to justify their actions, all while they are really just trying to create drama for the sake of drama. --Tothwolf (talk) 04:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse Regardless of the merits of the page, this was clearly a SNOW close and properly done. MBisanz talk 14:05, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting compliment to WP:SNOW I just discovered is WP:STEAM.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent! I hadn't seen that page before. pablo 11:51, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, and I'm the one who nominated it. Consensus was pretty overwhelming here, the SNOW close was justified. Robofish (talk) 14:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse /yawn ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 16:37, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There was no reason to close this with such haste, and several reasons not to have done so. Speaking generally: Consensus can shift pretty quickly, and two hours simply isn't enough time for a reasonable cross section of opinions to be represented. More specifically to this instance: The re-closing admin, in my opinon, should have been a bit more cautious in doing so, given the comments he'd made in support. An out-of-process close is a lot like limiting discussions, so better to be lilly-white about it. Both those admins might have taken the, ah, highly persistant nature of The Devil's Advocate before doing so. Good on Salvio for re-opening it, though. I'd also not the poor nature of both the XfD itself and the contributions here:
    • None of the first six comments address the XfD at all.
    • The next two endorses again fail to discuss the actual deletion discussion.
    • Then the next four endorses fail to address the discussion.
    • Good on Graeme Bartlett for finally mentioning the XfD in his endorse, but then he says explicitly " I did not get to say any thing at the MFD since it was over too fast."
    • After that I got tired of looking. Regardless of the outcome, a Trout is to be given out liberally.
Aaron Brenneman (talk) 00:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Snow Endorse CallawayRox (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse original close, but not second speedy keep It was clear that it had been reopened by request, and that the person who had requested the reopen had not responded yet. Relist. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and reopen This is nothing but a protest vote, I suppose. Closing a valid deletion discussion when it's been running for less than two hours is inappropriate, and it short-circuits the discussion unfairly – even if there was a massive pile-on vote. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Maybe it could have been left open a little longer, but consensus was clear so the SNOW close was not incorrect. Rlendog (talk) 17:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2012_February_10&oldid=1144418365"