Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/review

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was Keep for procedural reasons. Pages should be nominated individually or in small related groups, not by pointing to a list of prefix search results. --RL0919 (talk) 13:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Geo Swan/review[edit]

All of these appear to be abandoned BLP FAKEARTICLEs of one form or another. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 07:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did you notify the User of this discussion? 216.93.213.191 (talk) 07:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy (procedural) keep, Geoswan is an active editor and this nom refers with way too vague statement to a whole 'prefixed' subsection of their userspace. The one page that was actually taged is a working page. Not to mention that user has not been contacted neither before nor after nomination. There may or may not be problematic pages there but this is not the right way to go about it. --Tikiwont (talk) 07:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- Thanks to Tikiwont for advising me of this nomination.
Yes, these are working pages.
Yes, the nominator did not communicate any concerns to me prior to the nomination. Nor did they advise me of the nomination, following the nomination.
It has been my intention to use the subpages in user-space in a manner consistent with WP:User pages, and all other policies. I believe I have done so. If any contributor thinks there are particular pages I have worked on that don't comply with policy I encourage them to leave me a note on my talk page.
I add additional references to the subpages under User:Geo Swan. Sometimes I think I have added enough information to those subpages to justify moving them back to article space. My contribution history shows this. My contribution history shows that I have made something like 10,000 edits on the rough notes under User:Geo Swan. Subpages that don't show any edits may still be used, because I have opened them up to cannibalize perfectly valid references for use elsewhere.
The __NOINDEX__ directive protects all these subpages from being found by innocent web-searches. I do not believe WP:FAKEARTICLE is meant to proscribe working on former articles that can't be seen due to the __NOINDEX__ directive. I believe it is meant to proscribe leaving former articles in user space in a way that leaves them visible to innocent readers and those using search engines.
One interpretation of this nomination is that the nominator meant to suggest that I have invited non-wikipedia contributors to go to these sub-pages, as part of a project at cross purposes to the goals of the wikipedia. For the record, no I have not invited outsiders to use the rough notes I prepared under User:Geo Swan as part of a project at cross purposes to those of the wikipedia. Nor have I invited outsiders to visit those subpages for purposes consistent with the goals of the wikipedia. I have not invited outsiders to visit those pages at all. Geo Swan (talk) 19:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well the nom tagged the orphaned talk page User talk:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/review/Abdul Haq (Northern Alliance translator) and I deleted it. Looking at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/review/Abdul Haq (Northern Alliance translator) or Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/review/Yusef Abdel Majeed, it is not that far-fetched to assume that some other material would be deleted after MFD. You may disagree with the Mfd outcomes but I read there that the Noindex / private workspace argument alone will not be sufficient to keep all of them. My suggestion would be either to look for a more private work space or to prune it yourself, singling out reusable neutral material and possible article candidates on one hand and mark other stuff for deletion yourself.--Tikiwont (talk) 21:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all, tag individual pages. I agree that many pages in the user space of Geo Swan, while not created with any devious intentions, should be deleted anyway. They are often BLPs, either very negative ones (suspected Al Qaida members and the like), or about rather non notable persons. Pages like User:Geo Swan/Talat Hamdani don't give the impression of being worked on, nor of having any chance of becoming an article. User:Geo Swan/review/Joan Sinclair was userfied two years ago, and is still an unsourced BLP. Something like User:Geo Swan/Hamesh Gul is a clear WP:BLP1E, with only a single source about it. User:Geo Swan/Riyadh Abd Al-Aziz Almujahid wa a disgrace, and I have now speedy deleted it as a G10 article. All userspace pages by Geo Swan need checking (though many will remain as unproblematic), and it would indeed be best if Geo Swan started this process himself. Fram (talk) 12:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Continued... User:Geo Swan/Jennifer Tharp: three years old, abandoned page with no reliable independent sources about the subject. What's the use in keeping this around? Please keep in mind that while "noindex" removes pages from Google searches and the like, they still show up on internal Wikipedia searches. E.g. looking for "Jennifer Tharp" gives the Geo Swan page as the second result after the Dental care of Guantanamo Bay detainees article (and one can question whether we should have that article...). The fact that Geo Swan refuses to even have the "userspace draft" template on his articles (e.g. here and see this for background: User:Geo Swan/excising redundant userspace draft templates) makes deletion even more necessary for every problematic page. Fram (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your interpretion of the intent of __NOINDEX__, {{userspace draft}} and WP:FAKEARTICLE differs from mine. I believe various subpages under User:Geo Swan could be useful to anyone interested in working on the articles I work on. Some of them are potentially extremely useful. You suggested above that other contributors might find pages in user space I created when using the wikipedia's own search feature. Well, normally, wouldn't those whose searches turned up these pages be potential collaborators? Are you suggesting that potentially useful pages should be hidden from potential collaborators?
  • You have stated or implied that nothing should be kept in user space that couldn't realistically end up as an article in the main space. I do not believe that is what WP:User pages says. The second sentence of WP:User pages says:

    "Their main uses are communications, discussions, notices, trial workings and drafts, notes, and (limited) self disclosure if desired."

The page of notes I use most often is User:Geo_Swan/Guantanamo/Guantanamo_captives_list_of_release_dates. I compiled it for my use. I consult it when updating captives' current status. After using it for a year I realized that with a little tuning up, a portion of it might be generally useful, in article space. I didn't move it. I forked it, created Timeline of the release and transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and kept the original user space note in user space, because it has a subsection where I list the captives, by bunches, as they were released. I believe that notes like this are completely compliant with WP:User pages, and all other policies. I believe they are at least as useful, for building an encyclopedia, as the social networking some people place in user space. And, if I understand your intent, pages of notes like this would not be allowed in user space. I had no idea for the first 11 and a half months I used that page that I would fork an article from it. But I used it to help construct articles in article space -- which I believe is what our policies require. Geo Swan (talk) 10:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your userspace is filled with tons of pages that have the look and feel of articles, not notes. Many of them are former articles which were deleted through AfD, userfied and then abandoned. Many others are drafts of pages that ended up in the mainspace, and remain abandoned and in a different form than the mainspace article. A third category are pages that are directly or indirectly about BLPs, which have no chance of ever becoming an article, and where the use of having text describing potentially contentious material about a BLP (generally either their relation to the US Army and Guantanamo, or their relation to Al Qaida) is of no potential use for other articles (some of the links may be useful, but should under no circumstances be kpet and presented the way they are now). Finally, there are two groups of userspace pages you have, articles-in-the-making and true notes-to-be-used-on-other-pages, which aren't a problem. My comments, deletion nominations, and so on, have all been about the first three categories, where you had taken prior to this MfD no action to clean it, despite a number of individual MfDs highlighting these problems. You now finally seem to be taking some action in cleaning up these pages yourself, instead of waiting for other users to do your job, and then complaining when they don't do it in the way that you prefer... Fram (talk) 10:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What Fram said. I went through his userspace a week or two ago, and there is some stuff that needs to go. But most of it is fine. We are going to have to do it one at a time. Gigs (talk) 16:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What Fram said. These pages need to be evaluated and tagged individually. A much bigger problem, however, is that Geo Swan has created literally hundreds of such articles on entirely non-notable/marginally notable subjects, often with negative BLP aspects, that have been sitting in the mainspace for 3-4 years and are still there. It seems to me that removing that stuff from mainspace should be a higher priority than dealing with the problematic pages in his userspace. Nsk92 (talk) 18:21, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but give Geo a reasonable time to ad sources before deleting individual pagers. He is capable of doing this. I do not think they fall under fakearticle, as they are genuine efforts by an excellent contributor to make articles, and a great many of his articles stand perfectly well in AfD . That he has not done this previously is primarily due to his almost sole responsibility for constructive work on the articles in this entire area. Many people have attacked them, only he has been willing to go tho the much greater effort of actually working on them, and it takes a while. There is no time limit for improvements--that's always been a basic principle, and proposals otherwise have been consistently rejected. If anyone has called attention to them at all, its the nominator; they would otherwise be almost unfindable, as they are noindexed. Additionally, and this is something I have very rarely said, I doubt the good faith of the nominator, for, had they been honestly concerned with BLP issues, they would have alerted the editor first about the problem, or they would at the very least have notified him afterwards. (Could it be ignorance? their user page User:TeleComNasSprVen and their slightly more conventional actual user page, hidden away at User:TeleComNasSprVen/userpage might indicate this, but their contribution history is extensive--and some of their very early edits seem to be on rather recondite internal Wikipedia space pages like thisor warnings like this where he shows good awareness of WP policy.) DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What Fram said. The __noindex__ tag is just a painkiller that does not fix the problem. Not all search engines abide by the tag and as Fram has show there are enough ways to end up at these pages. I can also confirm that he repeatedly removes the "userspace draft" template from these pages. It should be noted that he has over 1000 pages in his user space and large groups of them do collide with WP:USER, WP:UP#NOT, WP:FAKEARTICLE. No matter if they have the noindex or the user space template many of them should be deleted according to our policies. The nominator who started of this discussion has made a good faith attempt to fix the problem but i think his criteria for grouping are not the right ones. Considering the huge amount of pages i agree with the nominator that we may have to group them for deletion.

1) Articles that where previously deleted are not worked on or have little chance of returning to main space: [1]... there are more. These and similar pages should be deleted per WP:FAKEARTICLE.

2) Articles that are copies of existing main space articles: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43]... there are tons more but i stop here for the moment . There are even multiple copies of one and the same main space article. copy 1, copy 2, of the long standing main space article Algerian Six and others. All these pages are copies of exiting main space aricles, often they are biased negative BLP's. I think all pages that are copies of existing main space articles in his User space should be deleted per WP:UP#COPIES.

3) WP:UP#POLEMIC (including material that have been compiled for conflict resolution but was not used in a timely manner: [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51]... I personally would not stick to such content forever but if somebody really wants than they should save it on their home computer. These and similar pages should be deleted per WP:UP#POLEMIC.

4) BLP's that are negative with insufficient sourcing or BLP's and articles that have little chance of becoming main space articles: [52], [53], [54]... These and similar article should be deleted because of our BLP policies and WP:UP#NO.

5) Because of the fact that almost all of the material under his user space is about Guantanamo or the "War on terror" - what is a controversial topic - i suggest the user should agree that all the remaining pages should carry either the template "Userspace draft" or "Userspace notes" and the user should not remove these templates as he has done in the past.

  • Delete 1-4 Do we need to have a single MfD for each of the hundreds of problematic pages? IQinn (talk) 04:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to challenge this in detail. if not clear, I mean these numbers to correspond to the numbered groups of material or arguments just above DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I am not prepared to predict what has little chance of returning to main space. The charge that they are little worked on has been answered--Geo has a great many articles to do. Come to think of it,
  2. I agree that these are not needed, and he should be left to request deletion on his own for the ones that contain no additional material. What you are saying implies, of course, that you think there is no likely reason to challenge the mainspace articles.
  3. We normally remove such pages, but the current MfD suggests to me that they are very likely going to be needed in conflict resolution.
  4. If there is any chance that they can be improved, he should be given the chance to improve them.
  5. Everything in user space is mby its nature a user draft, not encyclopedic content.
Personally, I am beginning to wonder from the above analysis whether mfds and comments like this are intended to discourage him from using the material to improve content. DGG ( talk ) 21:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to challenge your challenge in detail.
  1. Rather than using content related arguments you used personal. In response to that i can only say that i have seen you supporting him in almost all Guantanamo/"War on terror" related discussions (50+). Steven_Dale_Green was deleted at Afd. Geo Swan has moved almost all (50+) articles that were deleted to his user space. User space is not our Deletionpedia.
  2. It seems to me that you agree that these pages should be deleted. So it should be done. The user has shown little attempt to clean up the mess in a timely manner.
  3. The stuff has not been used and most of it is so old that it is clear it will never. You suggest to have a single Mfd on each page?
  4. Did you have a look at these pages? You suggest single Mfd's would be better than deleting them in groups? There are so many problematic pages in his user space that this would be a very time consuming process.
  5. I think what you say is obvious and irrelevant and misses the point. Of course, for you as an year long contributer it is easy to figure that out, not for most of our readers. This is almost all highly controversial, often biased or unreliable material about Guantanamo and the "War on terror". We are not speaking about Pokemon pages. It would be irresponsible not to have the "Userspace draft" or "Userspace notes" on them and the user should not remove them as he has done in the past.
Personally i am beginning to wonder if there is a pattern here? I have seen 50+ Guantanamo/"War on terror" Afd/Mfd's. In almost all of them the nominator got personally attacked by a small group of people. IQinn (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, the intention (at least by me) is not to discourage him from improving content, but to follow our general policies and guidelines, like not creating articles that fail WP:BLP1E (like Jay Alan Liotta, which he just expanded but still is a clear BLP1E), or to create articles (even in userspace) on utterly non notable entities, like User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/codename Mark. He is aware of the problems people have with such articles, he is aware that many of his articles are redirected, deleted, userfied, ..., but he doesn't seem to change anything in his behaviour. Perhaps, apart from many MfDs and AfDs, an RfCU will become necessary as well? Just look at an article he moved yesterday to make the title very slightly less BLP-offending: User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/AMC's errors. Why would any experienced editor want to keep such a piece of WP:OR, attacking a BLP, around? Fram (talk) 07:08, 13 October 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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


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