List of people on the postage stamps of Romania – No consensus, relisted. There's consensus to overturn the "keep" closure, but opinion is divided about whether the correct closure would have been "delete" or "no consensus". Accordingly, as permitted by DRV procedure, I'm relisting the AfD in the hope that a clearer consensus might emerge from it. Sandstein 09:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Evidently a supervote ("potentially a notable topic"). Closer seems to not understand how NLIST works: the entries need to be discussed as a group, it's not about the verifiability of individual entries. He also ignored the argument that the article fails WP:NOTCATALOG. The best of the keep votes merely said that the content is verifiable. Avilich (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(there is a book describing the subject of Romanian stamps that is referenced in the article)
Which reference describing people on Romanian stamps was invoked in the AfD? A book discussing one person being on a stamp, or one discussing a small subset of Romanians whogeneral topics from one county that are on stamps, is clearly not what NLIST licenses. JoelleJay (talk) 00:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You mean the stamp catalogs from a non-independent source? Which even if they could contribute to GNG (they do not, as they are not independent), no one has shown they directly address specifically the subject of people on Romanian stamps with any significant coverage? Which were thoroughly dismissed by later delete !votes for these reasons without rebuttal? JoelleJay (talk) 00:42, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I addressed the first two sources in my comment in the discussion (I also addressed a third one, a random blog which thankfully it seems someone removed). Of those two, one is a reliable and independent source, but is about how stamps have represented Alba County, and while this includes some local people (as well as buildings, etc.), it is not about how Romanian people are put on stamps broadly speaking. The relevant topic would be Alba County representation on Romanian stamps. The second is a press release from the Romanian postage service (thus not independent) about a single postage issue covering three people. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:43, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
keep those ... where WP:NLIST is met How do you determine that NLIST is met? emerging consensus about these lists and that the List of people on the postage stamps of Romania was in good shape I cannot understand how you reached this conclusion since the overwhelming majority of such lists are being deleted, and in the Romania AfD all of the newcomers after the relist were for deleting. Avilich (talk) 00:27, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for linking to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Lists of people/archive, I was unaware of these other AFD discussions and I was basing my decision on the four discussions I saw today (including this one). I see a lot of deleted lists of stamp articles, but few of those articles had the same support for keeping them that List of people on the postage stamps of Romania. And again, WP:NLIST says "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list." There are a book and several sources in the article that discuss the subjects of Romanian stamps. Malinaccier (talk)00:45, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No need to quote NLIST back at me, I just want to know how you concluded that a stamp catalog discusses the subject of Romanians in postage stamps in a way that allows for an encyclopedic article to be written, and why you felt that the editors who disagreed with this were deserving of having their votes ignored. Avilich (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(Involved) Overturn to delete or relist for someone else to close. This 7d-5k discussion, with all four !votes after the last relist being unrebutted paragraph-long delete arguments, was closed as keep based on, apparently, some other such lists being kept and the mysterious claim that a sufficient reference on the subject exists in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 00:32, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to delete- The discussion was relisted because the keep !votes, though numerous, were of low quality. The subsequent discussion consisted of in-depth and thoroughly thought out delete opinions. What is the point of relisting an AfD if no amount of discussion, no matter how substantial and unanimous, can affect the outcome? It is not the closer's responsibility to make a supervote, nor to scrape and scramble here there and everywhere for reasons to veto a clear consensus. ReykYO!03:52, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to delete <uninvolved>. "Keep" is a rather odd closure here: given the !vote tally, it suggests that the delete !votes are substantially weaker than the keep !votes, which is particularly difficult to swallow. Many of the keep !votes lacked any real grounding in our policies and guidelines and instead use reasoning that we've long understood to be fallacious, for instance arguing that other stuff exists or expressing the unsupported personal opinion that the list is "intrinsically noteworthy". The delete !voters, by contrast, address the sources and cite applicable policies (WP:NOTCATALOG) and guidelines (WP:NLIST) in support of their conclusions. Perhaps there are reasonable arguments for keeping this list (or not–I don't know), but we can only close based on the cards we're dealt, and the keep !votes here should have been discounted substantially. In the Iceland DRV, I supported a relist, but this AfD received high enough participation that I don't think further discussion is necessary: considering both the !vote count and the strength of argument, there's a rough consensus to delete. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (disclosure, I voted to delete) First I am making this closure based on a synthesis of the discussion here and in several other AFD discussions about similar articles - I thought an AfD was to be decided by the discussions which take place at that AfD, not other AfDs? Second While some make arguments that the list still fails WP:LISTN even with sources for individual entries, the existence of books of lists of stamps seems to contradict this argument. That completely disregards some of the comments made by those who voted delete (like myself), who argued that mere indiscriminate catalogues of all Romanian postage stamps (published by the government, no less) don't mean specific subgroups are magically notable under NLIST because SIGCOV to the phenomenon of Romanian people being on stamps is not being addressed. Third, The argument that these lists are inherently more notable than a more general List of Romanians is also convincing Huh? Is this a strawman? This was a supervote. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:37, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
NLIST makes it clear such a source would be helpful, but not that such a source is required One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources.... And There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") or what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists.... Hobit (talk) 11:00, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to NC There is no consensus to delete or keep. I understand where the closer was coming from. And I very much believe that these articles should be part of an RfC rather than an AfD. But NC summarizes where we are in this discussion and about the topic overall. NLIST doesn't have the requirements many of the delete !voters claim it does. Hobit (talk) 10:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to No Consensus as per Hobit. There was no consensus. It is true that an overturn to no consensus has the same effect in the short run as a Keep. In the long run, there should be an RFC on a mini-notability guideline. When multiple related closures come to DRV, maybe the guidelines are vague. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:12, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist. Yes, there is no consensus on other reasons to keep. The WP:NOTDIRECTORY argument coming in very late is a good reason to delete, but because it came so late I prefer relist over delete.Lurking shadow (neetalk) 14:42, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The closer reasonably discounted arguments that are not based in policy, since NLIST does not provide a basis for deletion. -- Visviva (talk) 19:27, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not passing WP:GNG is a widely accepted basis for deletion. Not passing WP:NLIST is obviously, too. Not passing the obvious criteria of WP:GNG or WP:NLIST switches onus for keeping the article to the "keep" side. And it has been established that the "keep" side didn't give policy- or guideline based reasons. Lurking shadow (talk) 09:13, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please quote the text of WP:NLIST that provides a criterion for deletion that could ever "not be passed". The fact that many AFDers have developed a practice of ignoring policy does not mean that this practice has any sort of community support or consensus behind it. -- Visviva (talk) 15:11, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's such an extreme misreading of WP:ONUS that it seems unlikely you are advancing it in good faith. But just in case anyone else is confused, WP:ONUS is not a deletion policy, and has nothing at all to do with notability. It qualifies WP:V by giving guidance on how to resolve good-faith disputes (within the wiki process) over whether a particular article should include particular information. At AFD, the question is whether an article should exist at all, or should instead be removed from the wiki process through the drastic remedy of deletion. -- Visviva (talk) 00:25, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a consensus in that discussion, and I don't see a policy basis for giving one side a whole lot more weight than the other. Overturn to no consensus.—S MarshallT/C11:38, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Like Lurking shadow said above, LISTN is an inclusion criterion, and failing it means the accepted reasons for inclusion have not been demonstrated. The topic strictly fails the first paragraph of LISTN, with there being no SIGCOV of the group in general, and there is no consensus on whether there even are other criteria for cross-categorizations like this that don't fulfill an obvious navigational need. Arguments vaguely along the lines of it "being useful" did not receive substantial support, especially when any utility of the information being in this format is better supplied by the catalogs from which it was derived. Lists still need to be notable, and with no basis in our notability guidelines and no other valid rationale for keeping advanced, a delete outcome would have been completely appropriate. JoelleJay (talk) 18:14, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree with that if LISTN was the only inclusion criterion for lists. But we also have CLN. Generally the rule is that if you could have a category for it, you can also have a navigational list. In fact, lists are better than categories for this because you can embed sources into a list, which you can't do for a category.—S MarshallT/C08:58, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CLN is inapplicable. It does not spell out notability criteria and says "Instead, each method of organizing information has its own advantages and disadvantages, and is applied for the most part independently of the other methods following the guidelines and standards that have evolved on Wikipedia for each of these systems." One of the guidelines for lists is WP:LISTN, which says "Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables."
Well, absolutely -- because there are no notability criteria for navigational lists. The correlation with categories is exact, and categories don't require notability criteria either.—S MarshallT/C11:42, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is incorrect."Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables."(WP:LISTN)
"following the guidelines and standards that have evolved on Wikipedia for each of these systems."(WP:CLN).
WP:CLN says that there are guidelines and standards for each of these systems. One of these standards is WP:GNG and its subtopic WP:LISTN. WP:GNG applies to stand-alone lists. WP:LISTN applies to standalone lists. Articles and lists not proven to be notable are deleted. WP:LISTN is just the application of policy. If you cannot show that this group or topic is discussed by reliable independent sources the list is WP:SYNTH anyways.Lurking shadow (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're confusing informational lists with navigational lists, which to be fair is understandable because WP:LISTN fails to explain that navigational lists are a separate thing. LISTN thinks all lists are informational. WP:LISTPURP successfully makes the distinction. At one stage there was a proposal to move all the navigational lists to portal namespace (see this discussion), but it failed, and now we're left with a messy system where some of the navigational lists are called outlines, some are called indices, some are called timelines and some are just called "lists".—S MarshallT/C13:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can you see where WP:NLISTitself says: Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability?WP:SYNTH is when you combine disparate sources to reach a conclusion not stated in any one of those sources. It's unrelated to how we organize and index content in the encyclopaedia. There's no source for Index of health articles and there couldn't be one, and that's why NLIST has that specific exemption for navigational lists written into it.—S MarshallT/C15:45, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is trivially easy to find sources that discuss health. Index of health articles is a navigational list for a clearly notable topic with clearly notable entries with easily findable sources discussing the relationship of these entries to health. That's fine. The topic here is "people on the postage stamps of Romania". You should also recognize that I say "Relist", not "delete". SYNTH is combining "List of Romanians" and "List of people on postage stamps" without having reliable sources discussing this combination. Lurking shadow (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think we don't have 100% agrement on if navigational lists can completely ignore notability as a notion (IMO, some sources that show the topic of the navigation has been considered elsewhere maybe should be required in most cases). That said, I believe that S Marshall's summary of the situation is largely accurate. Hobit (talk) 23:10, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Except there is no evidence that this list actually has any navigational purpose. Being able to get to our articles on some of the people appearing on Romanian stamps, who have no relationship with each other outside of (presumably) being notable in Romania at various points in history, is not fulfilling a navigational need because, based on the utter lack of independent SIGCOV of the topic, there is no indication that anyone has or would group them in this way. Meanwhile, there are plenty of reliable outside "health indices" to suggest that an index of health-related topics would be valuable to readers. JoelleJay (talk) 00:05, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I rather agree with that last point and personally I find it persuasive. If I had been an AfD !voter I would have said "delete". But with my DRV reviewer hat on, I would contend that this view was not the consensus.—S MarshallT/C12:31, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus. Given the lack of consensus in the AFD and at this deletion review of that AFD, I think this is the only option. 4meter4 (talk) 08:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Why not relist? And when the last four !votes after a relist are substantive, uncontested deletes, that's pretty strong evidence a consensus has emerged, since those !voters assessed the existing arguments and determined the keeps had insufficient P&G backing. JoelleJay (talk) 00:11, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to delete or relist. Reviewing the discussion, it appears none of the !keep editors provided policy-based reasons to keep the article, and as such their !votes have very little weight. BilledMammal (talk) 00:54, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
General question. Many above argue that the keep !votes in this discussion should have been ignored because they were not "policy-based". It's been a while since I read WP:CON or WP:DEL, so I took another look at them but I still can't find any policy basis for discounting the positions of editors if the closer believes those positions are not "policy based". In fact, I note that WP:DEL contains the following helpful guidance: "If you disagree: Go to the review page and explain why you disagree." It does not say that any disagreeing opinion must cite chapter and verse from Wikipedia policy. Nor can I find anything in WP:CON that gives a closer the authority to delete an article over community consensus simply because the community's view is at odds with the closer's. In this case I think this is academic, because the lack of any policy basis for the delete !votes speaks for itself. But can anyone point me to the authority for ignoring !votes that the closer deems to be insufficiently policy-based? -- Visviva (talk) 01:23, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Guidelines: WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS: Arguments that contradict policy, are based on unsubstantiated personal opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted.
Policies: WP:CON: consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority)...Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight.
WP:DELAFD: These processes are not decided through a head count, so participants are each encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy.
Other process pages: WP:CLOSEAFD, which says Consensus is not based on a tally of votes, but on reasonable, logical, policy-based arguments.
WP:DISCUSSAFD: Reasonable editors will often disagree, but valid arguments will be given more weight than unsupported statements. When an editor offers arguments or evidence that do not explain how the article meets/violates policy, they may only need a reminder to engage in constructive, on-topic discussion. But a pattern of groundless opinion, proof by assertion, and ignoring content guidelines may become disruptive.JoelleJay (talk) 02:29, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I don't see anything in any of these policies would give the closer the authority to place their understanding of policy over the community's, or over the plain language of the policy, but it is helpful to understand how the language of policy is being distorted to support these kinds of arguments. I'll note in passing that claims like "fails WP:LISTN" cannot possibly count as "individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines" since they ignore the language of the guideline they pretend to cite. In addition, there is nothing here to support giving no weight to the positions of Wikipedians in good standing who might not be au fait with the latest AFD shibboleths, as some above have argued. -- Visviva (talk) 02:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't allow the closer to place their understanding of policy over the community's. A good example of this is with discussions about what constitutes WP:SIGCOV; if editors can reasonably disagree about what constitutes WP:SIGCOV, then the closing editor isn't permitted to discount votes on either side, regardless of whether they consider the coverage to be significant or not.
While it doesn't allow them to place their understanding of policy over the community's, it does require them to discount !votes that do not align with policy. For example, if an editors !votes "Delete, I don't like it" or "Keep, I like it" the closer is required to discount that vote. This is the case with many of the !votes in this AfD; for example, arguing for intrinsic notability (Notable due to the subject matter and This is an intrinsically noteworthy subject) does not align with policy, and so must be discounted. BilledMammal (talk) 03:03, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds to me like placing one's understanding of policy over the community's. To say "X is intrinsically noteworthy" is simply a shorthand for saying that the nature of the subject matter is such that it serves the purposes of the encyclopedia to have an article on it. All policies are valid only to the extent that they serve the purpose of improving Wikipedia, so absent some sort of bad faith or manipulation, that is a perfectly cromulent policy-based argument that the closer has no authority to ignore. The !votes of AFD regulars who know which all-caps shortcuts will be taken seriously should not be given any more weight than those of ordinary Wikipedians. -- Visviva (talk) 03:11, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The all-caps shortcuts are "the community's" understanding of policy, and if you can't attach one to "X is intrinsically noteworthy" then that's a strong indicator that it doesn't meet the community's standards of what's encyclopedic. Avilich (talk) 03:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No one should be participating in AfDs (or DRVs) without being cognizant of the current policies and guidelines. Of course !votes that go against those should be DISCARDED; for example, we still get folks who !vote "keep meets WP:NFOOTY", and those !votes rightfully carry zero weight because NFOOTY was repealed. It would be MUCH more problematic for closers to personally decide that following [X policy], as raised by AfD !voters, conflicts with their opinion on what "serves the purpose of improving Wikipedia" and overrode consensus. In fact, there was an entire ArbCom case on this that led to tool resignation under a cloud. JoelleJay (talk) 04:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whether an article serves the purposes of the encyclopedia is determined by policies and guidelines, which the wider community has determined. This wider consensus cannot then be ignored at AfD because some editors are either not aware of it or disagree with it. BilledMammal (talk) 04:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Having inadvertently wandered back into this discussion, I realize I must not have expressed myself with sufficient clarity, because that is exactly my point. For example (as relevant here), AFDers have no authority to rewrite guidelines saying "X that are Y are generally notable" to read "all X that are not-Y are not notable", nor to rewrite a policy that encourages specific citations of policy into one that mandates them. -- Visviva (talk) 04:44, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as a correct reading of consensus. I'll note that the closer suggested several alternatives to deletion which seem calculated to prompt reasonable continuations of discussion in a non-deletion venue. Jclemens (talk) 03:02, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
