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Just under two weeks ago, I created 184 stub articles about species of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants (sedges). As identified species, the notability of each is not in question. In the past I have created several thousand stub articles about identified species, and on numerous occasions these stubs have subsequently been expanded significantly by other editors.
An administrator, User:Stemonitis, came to my talk page expressing concerns about these particular stub articles, apparently because he monitors a category to which I added them. Although he did mention that he felt it would be better not to create stub articles about such species at all, he also mentioned a list of ways in which he felt the stub articles created were problematic.
I then in good faith proceeded to address all of the concerns Stemonitis raised. I was able to fix all but one of the issues he raised, and in doing so I also added additional sourced information to every one of the stub articles (specifically, the date each species was described). This took me many hours.
Stemonitis then went quiet, but on 6 December he then proceeded first to turn all of the stub articles into redirects to a page listing sedges, and then to delete all of these redirects himself as being redirects under item 10 of WP:R#DELETE.
Quite aside from the obvious gaming of the system to obtain a rather narrow-minded preferred outcome, these deletions were inappropriate as the pages deleted quite clearly do not fall under any speedy deletion criterion. These pages should be restored, and Stemonitis can then recommend their deletion at WP:MfD if he is able to present a convincing rationale. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That is quite a biased view of the exchange, and is rather misleading. Every one of the pages was, as I have repeatedly explained, worthless. They added no new information to the encyclopaedia (it all being effectively copied piecemeal from the existing list of Carex species), but actually made existing information harder for readers to find. (In some cases, falsehoods were added.) The encyclopaedia did not improve at all, but did deteriorate noticeably, as a result. It was perfectly reasonable to merge the pages in question back into the list (WP:MERGE: "a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time"; such substubs are almost never expanded), and perfectly reasonable to later delete the redirects thus created (WP:R#DELETE, as indicated above). I even left a seemly pause of 24 hr between the two activities, in case – as seemed possible – TAP wished to kick up a fuss about it. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:06, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Stemonitis' reply here speaks to the difficulty of communicating with him. As I already indicated above, the stub articles most definitely did not simply repeat the information already present in the list article; they also added the date of description of each species. None of this information was merged back into the list article when Stemonitis performed his 184 WP:IAR deletions, and thus this cannot be claimed to be a merger of any sort.
- "Such substubs are almost never expanded" is also misleading. Megachile rubi is an example of a stub species article (about a bee) I created that was later substantially expanded by another editor. The world contains a great many species of sedge and bee; so the vast majority of the stub articles about those species have not yet been expanded. But that does not mean that they cannot be expanded, nor that they are not being expanded within a reasonable amount of time. After all, some of these sedges and bees have been around a very long time already. Wikipedia only arrived quite recently.
- "The encyclopaedia did not improve at all, but did deteriorate noticeably, as a result" seems to give away Stemonitis' problem here - this is a WP:IDONTLIKEIT thing, and an administrator should most definitely not be speedily deleting articles on that basis. Especially when the articles do not meet any speedy deletion criterion. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn, and WP:TROUT Stemonitis. The deletions were clearly not within process. The speedy deletion criteria are limited to those at WP:SPEEDY, and merely meeting a criteria at WP:R#DELETE does not permit something to be speedy deleted. The criteria at WP:R#DELETE are arguments that can be made at WP:RFD (where those same criteria are listed). Deletion using those criteria require a discussion and a consensus. Admins simply aren't allowed to delete something merely because they feel it is bad content, without it meeting a speedy deletion criteria or having been subject of a prod or XFD discussion. Furthermore, the idea that articles should be redirected because the subjects are better covered in the list, but redirects to the list should be deleted because articles could be written on the subjects, seems absurd to me. Calathan (talk) 20:06, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- [ec] Megachile is an interesting example. Of the more than 1500 Megachile substubs created, only 3 (Megachile melanophaea, Megachile rubi and Megachile texana) have since been expanded. Would those articles have been written anyway? Quite probably. Or, if not those articles, would the editors responsible have written other, equally valid articles? Almost certainly. Biologically minded editors are not short of potential articles to work on, so this really isn't a field in which the lack of a pre-existing page is any impediment to a potential article creator. There is, therefore, a small probability that TAP's efforts helped in some small way to produce 3 articles. What is definite, however, is that 1500 other articles were (and remain) improperly sourced to a self-published/crowd-sourced website; they required immediate cleanup, and had talk pages that needed tagging for the relevant WikiProject, and that already adds up to 3000 edits of someone else's time. There is again no direct benefit to the reader, probably also no indirect benefit to the reader, and a lot of cleanup work for other people, even before we get on to the possibility that there might be errors, which is very likely indeed. The argument that such pages help article creation is very flimsy; the argument that they detract from the encyclopaedia seems to me to be rather strong – if anything, I would say from experience that a pre-existing substub is more likely to put someone off writing a new article, rather than encouraging them to expand it. If Megachile is the best analogy, then I see no reason why I should have any qualms about deleting 184 Carex pages; at least 3 decent Carex articles have since been created from red links, demonstrating that red links help Wikipedia. But all this is beside the point; WP:R lays out good reasons for deleting redirects, and those reasons were satisfied; this, too, has already been explained to TAP. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Calathan, this is clearly a situation in which WP:IAR can be applied. The pages created have literally no value, and are indeed harmful (errors were quickly found). Requiring these pages to be recreated solely so that their deletion can be requested is surely a waste of time. What is the benefit of such an action, other than that it follows process more rigidly? --Stemonitis (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Stemonitis, this is clearly not a situation where WP:IAR should be applied. You were free to redirect the articles if you didn't think they should exist, and then start an RFD to have them deleted, or free to leave the articles in place and start an AFD. If the articles had errors, you could correct them. There were clear ways to fix any concerns you had within the policy, so there was no need to turn to IAR. Furthermore, this was basically a content dispute, and using your admin tools to end a content dispute with another user is not acceptable. I also personally think that if you took either the articles to AFD, or the redirects to RFD, both locations would vote to keep them, so I don't think you are saving time by deleting them out of process. Calathan (talk) 21:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- As a policy, WP:IAR pretty much always applies. "If the articles had errors, you could correct them" is not a reasonable point of view to take. It takes time to properly research an article. In the case of TPA's Carex pages, I started alphabetically and the very first one I found, Carex acicularis, turned out to be – contrary to the cited source – generally treated as a synonym by the relevant authorities. Biology can be messy like that, and can require considerable expertise to make sense of (for instance, I had in the past considered writing an article on Carex × abitibiana, but found it such a nebulous concept that I couldn't make anything worthwhile out of it). Fixing that first article, now at Carex archeri, took me at least 40 mins, judging from my edit history. There is simply no way that any one person, or even a dedicated team of people, could do that for all the substubs TPA created in that one 45-minute bout, let alone any others that could have been created (it is a large and poorly-understood genus). Attempting to place the blame for inevitable errors onto other editors is simply unacceptable. I don't blame you for not fixing TPA's errors, and nor should you blame me. If everyone who wanted these substubs restored would promise to properly research their fair share, then it might be a different matter, but I'm fairly confident that that's not going to happen, leaving instead an mass of misinformation and non-information for someone else to sort out at a later date (which will probably never happen in most cases). Restoring such articles is a procedure guaranteed to reduce the quality of Wikipedia, and I for one condemn that. I am repeatedly amazed at how little emphasis is often placed on content in Wikipedia discussions. The content and the readers are what matters; we have to consider things from their point of view, and neither is well served by restoring TPA's Carex pages. --Stemonitis (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you to Stemonitis for pointing out that several Megachile stubs, not just one, have been expanded by other editors. Anyway, this is pretty clear cut; the deleting administrator is clearly unable to accept well-meant advice from other editors, as has been seen here. What the deleting administrator has accepted, though, is that they carried out these 184 deletions under WP:IAR. There is therefore no obstacle to the deleted articles being reinstated so that Stemonitis can put forward his rationale at a proper AfD. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is a problem somewhere and Dec the 18th was removed from the main DRV page by a bot. I've fixed for now and notified folks on the bot's talk page. Hobit (talk) 06:05, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn speedy utterly wrongheaded and a clear misunderstanding of WP:INVOLVED and WP:CSD. I'd ask the admin undo the deletions (and ideally the redirects) immediately. Doing something like this is boneheaded and a fine way to get de-admined. Seriously, you don't get to speedy delete things under IAR unless you are darn sure it's clearly and unquestionably the right thing to do. It isn't close. And you are clearly involved. Hobit (talk) 06:05, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Speedy overturn - deleting admin admits it was an abuse of tools which served no encyclopaedic or policy reason, but was done only to enforce their preferred organisation of content. WilyD 10:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No, I admit no such thing. The deletions were entirely for encyclopaedic reasons, albeit outside a strict reading of some policies. The reader does not benefit from such pages. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- This is entirely information you furnished in this very discussion. To pretend otherwise only further exemplifies how inappropriate your behaviour has been. WilyD 12:26, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and trout deleting admin. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:00, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and trout. No valid speedy criterion met, involved admin; carrying on like this has been known to get people desysopped. Stifle (talk) 14:56, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Support deletion It's interesting that those opposing Stemonitis' actions take refuge in wikilawyering and don't address the substantive issue, namely the value of a species article that says only
- X y is a species of X. It was described by Z in DATE.
- when there is a already an entry for X y in a list of the species of X where it says:
- Not only do such articles have no value, they are harmful. If users of Wikipedia search for "Megachile amoena" and the article Megachile amoena turns up, they are entitled to expect some useful information. But there isn't any. If there were an image it would be some use. But there isn't one. So how does this improve Wikipedia? The idea that editors will in the near future create the rest of the 1,500 articles on the species of Megachile or the rest of the articles on the 1,800 species of Carex is nonsense.
- Another reason creating such large numbers of sub-stubs is harmful is that when it is done so rapidly, the creator clearly cannot be checking multiple reliable sources, and so is quite likely to create articles using synonyms. Yes, all species are intrinsically notable, but we have to be as sure as possible that the article really is about a species, and not about one of the synonyms of another species. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- DRV is by nature a discussion on the process rather than the merits of deletion. The points you made above will be perfectly appropriate in a deletion debate, which is why these articles should have gone to AfD in the first place so that they can be discussed further. That is what most people here are saying. Out of process deletions are not a shortcut because they cause more drama and in the end take up more time. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The "drama", as you call it, is caused by those who prioritize wikilawyering over content. Processes don't exist independently of substance. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:43, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The trick is that there is a debate here about substance. The deleting admin short-circuited that debate. I don't know which solution is best, but I do believe we'd be best served by having a discussion among those that are well informed on the topic. The redirects and deletion took the decision out of the hands of the community and into one admin's hands. That's not how we are supposed to work. Hobit (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not so simple. When an editor takes it upon themselves to create hundreds of articles or categories for which there is no consensus (and indeed where a consensus has been reached in the past not to act in this way) then they are taking the decision out of the hands of the community. Now if it were a case of edits, the BRD cycle would be followed. This doesn't leave the edits in place while there's a discussion as to whether they should be reverted. The same should apply here. An editor boldly created articles; an admin took the trouble to delete them; if the creator doesn't agree we can discuss whether to restore them. Why is creating new articles or categories different to creating new content in an article? Create–Delete–Discuss. It's not sensible to make it easier to create bad articles or categories than to add bad content to articles. IAR absolutely applies here; if the "rules" prevent sensible behaviour they should be ignored. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Admins aren't special when it comes to content. As your proposed create-delete-discuss thing can only be done by an admin, that's not a viable way forward. And IAR should be used sparingly when it comes to the tools for exactly the same reason. Hobit (talk) 23:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn with no objection to listing them all at AfD. What's next, turning an article into incomprehensible nonsense and then deleting it for being incomprehensible nonsense? Huon (talk) 22:22, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn Species stubs will never or almost never be stubs that are " unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time"; their acceptability has been very well established. Many people may want to add information to WP without the overhead of creating an article structure--accustomed as we may be to it, it can intimidate beginners, including subject experts new to WP. Removing the redirects by speedy was also an error, as they do not fall within any of the speedy deletion categories. WP:R#DELETE (10) is an argument to use at RfD, not a reason for speedy. Someone might very well come with the full name, and look to find an article, but not think to look under the genus if they found nothing. I would not as an admin first change articles to redirects and then remove the redirects, without first obtaining consensus. If I thought this needed to be done, I would go to afd, where, I might add, I rather doubt it would obtain consensus. We can;t prevent bringing it there, but I'd advise against it. IAR for speedy deletion should only be used when one is absolutely certain it will be needed to improve the encyclopedia, as for IAR in general. I can see doing it for copyvio and vandalism that doesn't fall in the established categories of some kinds of BLP or child protection. But a redirect from a species name?? (we have had cases of grossly miswritten automated addition of species names from obsolete sources without due care, where we have deleted without a redirect because we cannot tell if even the species names are still valid, but even these have gone to afd, at least for the first such, and that sort of error can be disruptive. I don;t see that it's the case here. I should add that I have personally never insisted on a speedy over a good faith objection from an established WPedian--no admin should be that sure of themselves. DGG ( talk ) 05:04, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. WP:IAR does not apply unless the rule invoked prevents one from improving Wikipedia; delaying an action is not preventing it. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 23:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn, to a point. I concur for the most part with User:Stemonitis's actions in redirecting the substub articles; and I don't think that part of this within the jurisdiction of DRV as admin tools were not used and we encourage editors to be bold. The point where the line was crossed was then deleting the redirects. Particularly as Stemonitis (correctly) figured a fuss would be made, the deletion should have been taken to the community for further review rather than just pushing forward like a bulldozer. I feel that the redirects should be listed at RfD to allow the community to examine the matter in further detail, and that way whatever the outcome is it will have more legitimacy than trying to cloak a controversial admin action with IAR. Lankiveil @ Alt (speak to me) 06:05, 22 December 2014 (UTC).[reply]
- Overturn and trout; clear abuse of admin tools. This has nothing to do with the value (or otherwise) of the articles in question - it's about process. Unilaterally redirecting and then deleting (effectively just deleting) is completely unacceptable. This should (absolutely) be a decision for the community, not a single (involved) admin. It wasn't even a functional "administrative" admin action - it was admin action based on opinion. Sorry, not on. If this were at AN/ANI we'd be talking about tool removal - Stemonitis doesn't seem to get that. St★lwart111 23:22, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. I'm on board with the trouting too. The outcome of this review is obvious, so I'm not just here to pile on, but to reiterate a point which I've made before. Wikipedia has so much utter crap, but that's OK. I suppose there is some value served by cataloging every Pokémon in the world, and mediocre TV actors from some pointless sitcom that ran for half a season, and fourth-string players on semi-pro sports teams, and all the other garbage. It's just moving bits around, and we've got lots of those to spare. But, this is different. This is botany. This is a classic core science. We're bringing up a generation of idiots who can babble on about all sorts of trivia they found on the net, but can't tell a pistil from a stamen. That's just wrong, and solving that problem is one of the reasons Wikipedia exists. Some day, some little girl is going to read, Carex × akiyamana is a hybrid species of sedge that was first described by Jisaburo Ohwi in 1936, and that may be the trigger that starts her young mind down the path to becoming the next Barbara McClintock. Keeping alive that possibility is why this project exists. It is staggeringly sad that we've got an admin who doesn't see that. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:55, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- You mis-understand the motivation for deletion, I believe. Of course an article about a species is of value to the project. The issues here are different. (1) Is a "sub-stub" that simply repeats information already present in the list of species at the genus article of any value? I've argued above that it is actually unhelpful to readers. (2) Experience shows that articles created so rapidly using a single source without checking other reliable sources almost invariably include non-species among their number – articles titled with a synonym. Sorting out incorrect articles (such as a fair number created in the past by Polbot) is tedious and often doesn't get done for a long time, leaving Wikipedia with incorrect information. Why is it that it's ok to revert the addition of information added to an article without reliable sources, but not to delete articles not created on the basis of reliable sources? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Peter, I get what you're saying. Perhaps I got a little worked up when I wrote my above comment, but this (science education, and also the obsession wikipedia has with trivia) is something I feel strongly about. I deliberately tried to stay way from commenting on the process issues, because other commenters have already covered that so well. But, to your point, I do agree with you that having incorrect information is a problem. However, assuming some of these species names are bogus, I don't see how having an erroneously-titled article is substantially worse than having an erroneous entry in a list of ... article. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:25, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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