- Scott Doe (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
This is a multi layed issue so bare with me.
- A. I nominated the Scott Doe article, a soccer player that has never played a professional soccer match and their fails WP:ATHLETE
- B. The AfD was "speedy kept" citing "This article is currently a Good Article, which wouldn't be posisble if he didn't pass basic notability guidelines".
- C. I recognised the "closer" as an editor that has been invloved in an ongoing dispute with me and other with regards the notability of soccer players (mainly in Ireland and the UK).
- D. I then 8reverted the closure and opened a discussion on the closers talk page.
- E. Edit warring ensured and the AfD was locked. The closer then stated that the AfD was closed because "it has recently passed it's good article nomination, that AfD was applicable for a Speedy Keep close under clause 2.1 ("obviously frivolous or vexatious nominations (such as recently featured articles)")." - I disagreed with this stating the AfD was policy based and then felt I was being fobbed out by a biased closer as an attempt to silence.
- F. I then opened a second AfD - more of the same. I then opened a discussion on ANI and subsequently got blocked for 3RR and disruption.
- So now we are here. My issue is threefold.
- 1. The logic of the closure - Closer stated that "obviously frivolous or vexatious nominations" - the article nominated was for a footballer that never played a game of professional football in all his days and I outlined that in the nomination. It wasnt a "featured article" and the GA review it had had no mention of notability. Others agreed with this - here and a.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=305087918&oldid=305087072 here. Some editors did state it was frivilous but when challenged as to why they did not reply.
- 2. The bias of the closer - Bettia has very recently been involved in a number of arguments/discussions/disagreements with me and others over this issue and should not have been the one to close the AfD due to his "emotional invlovement". Examples here, here, here and here,
- 3. Meetpuppetry of the "FOOTY Project cabal" - In the above AfD's this cabal - consisting primarily of Bettia, GiantSnowman, Jimbo online, Angelo.romano, Dweller, ClubOranje and Number 57 - to a much lesser extent ChrisTheDude, Dweller, Jmorrison230582, have mostly been recently involved when we had a pretty similar issue where a potentially biased admin from the FOOTY Project closed an AfD when they have been invovled disputes in that area. This was at the Davey O'Connor's review, infact Bettia should remember it because he also endorsed the deletion - thankfully the community stepped in to overturn it. Which is what I hope happens here. Vintagekits (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Just in case you don't know what meatpuppetry is: WP:MEAT. I don't see any evidence of any of the mentioned users making any "recruitment of (typically, new) editors to join a discussion on behalf of or as proxy for another editor, usually with the aim of swaying consensus in that discussion". Also, as I said on WP:AN/I, I have always thought all footballers with a Wikipedia article should meet both WP:ATHLETE and WP:N, not only one of them, which is a position quite different than several of the other users you mentioned. Please think twice before writing your words. --Angelo (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, I would say that this is pretty indicative of the carry on over there. And the reaction of the "canvasser" who didnt even seem to think there was anything wrong with it is very very telling.--Vintagekits (talk) 21:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Right now...why don't we just deal with the article at hand? --Smashvilletalk 21:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- 1. It is not meatpuppetry, according to the Wikipedia definition itself; 2. It is not even inappropriate canvassing, a user asks for more input from other users with valid knowledge of the subject, also because several of these AfDs went almost desert, with no comment at all, and some of them being even extended for one more week because of that; 3. WP:CANVAS is a nice reading, look at it; canvassing is not negative by definition, but can also be helpful in some cases; "Inappropriate canvassing" is the real issue instead, which is not the case here. --Angelo (talk) 21:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist. There was absolutely no reason for an editor involved in the Wikiproject to speedy close this debate - especially with this reasoning. Being a listed as a good article generally does not preclude an article from being deleted...especially when one notes - as VK brings up - that WP:ATHLETE was not even mentioned in the brief GA review. --Smashvilletalk 21:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep the article would have had to have been checked for quick fail criteria, which doesn't have to be noted. Nothing at WP:RGA says about how in depth the review has to be, as the reviewer obviously thought it was decent enough. Clearly not meatpuppetry either, just established Wiki members who share the same view, which happened to be different of Vintagekits who seemed to get upset and take things personally. --Jimbo[online] 22:00, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse the speedy closure of the AfD as speedy keep, primarily because of the logic associated with being listed as a Good Article. From my reading of the first paragraph of the article, I question that designation, but it was perhaps different when the GA status was achieved, and that's beside the point of an AfD. If the article is a GA, it's a GA. Let's discuss that designation (elsewhere, please) before having any discussion about deleting it. Second, it is not within policy to presume that failure to meet WP:ATHLETE means a subject fails to meet notability. WP:ATHLETE and its brethren, such as WP:MUSIC, WP:ACADEMIC, etc., exist for the purpose of providing additional criteria that are discipline-specific to aid in defining additional ways in which a subject might be recognized as notable for our purposes. They are not meant as failing criteria but rather as additional passing criteria. This is described at the top of the page: Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included (and yes, meeting them isn't automatically enough to say they should be included). I note also that 16 other players on his team have articles here and the team is listed as international - this is not a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS point, but it does seem that there is consensus that most members of this level of team are notable, so it's not without precedent. If the purpose of the AfD was to question whether or not all players at that level meet notability guidelines, they should all have been nominated concurrently as a policy discussion rather than this one particular article, and on that basis, I'd also endorse the close because of wrong venue. I am not saying discussion can't or shouldn't be had, but if there is a wider discussion to be had, let's make it the right one instead of hanging everything on this one AfD. Frank | talk 21:53, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Ugh. This is unpleasant; from the combination of the above nomination, with negative descriptions of named editors, on the one side and edit summaries like this on the other, we're dealing with a clash of personalities as well as a content dispute.
The article in question does not appear to be a GA to me, and even if it were, that would not prevent it being discussed at AfD. The point the "keep" side should have made more clearly is that Scott Doe has non-trivial coverage from the BBC here and here. This means the notability argument for deletion is only going to succeed if Vintagekits can show that the BBC is not a reliable source, and frankly, I don't foresee that line of argument cutting much ice at AfD. But, having said all that, I do think it was unfortunate that Bettia was the one to close the AfD. Vintagekits does have a point in this respect: Bettia isn't an uninvolved admin. So this comes back to R v Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, which I've cited before at DRV, and I think is important. The principle is that while I have no doubt that Bettia is perfectly capable of setting aside their personal feelings when judging a consensus, "justice must be done, and must be seen to be done". Even the appearance of bias is enough to justify setting aside the previous discussions and requiring a good-faith debate on notability to take place. So despite the fact that I think Vintagekits' argument is going to get absolutely slaughtered, I'm going to go with procedural relist.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, all i would say about the links that you provided - would you consider the coverage of Doe in those articles to be indepth significant coverage which would be enough to pass WP:N?--Vintagekits (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Wikipedia definition's of "significant coverage" is provided in the WP:GNG. I'm quite certain that those pass.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist. Speedy keep is never valid when multiple editors support deleting an article (see WP:SK), so the closure falls at the first fence. Stifle (talk) 22:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment- Only the nominator supported deletion. Umbralcorax (talk) 00:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Hmm. Missed that. However, I still support relisting as this deserves a proper discussion. As mentioned elsewhere, a GA is one person's decision, so that doesn't give articles immunity from deletion. Stifle (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse decision- The closer hit it right on the head. An article doesn't reach GA status unless there's notability asserted and backed up in spades, which this article has. There was no way this was going to close as a delete. Umbralcorax (talk) 00:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, if there was no chance of it being deleted why not allow the discussion then? You also havent touchedon the issue of the closers bias. Would it surprise you that Scott Doe plays in the same league as this player. Note the identity of the people casting the delete !votes. The same one that are voting to !keep here - yet these are playing in the same level and the same sources are available for both. Another example - Vid Belec - well sourced article with better sources than this article has and its up for AfD - note the !voters and their reasoning. --Vintagekits (talk) 00:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist for several reasons:1) Meeting notability criteria is not one of the Good Article criteria, failing notability criteria is a reason given to delete something under deletion policy. 2) Purposefully not looking at this particular example, the good article review process is often only administered by one individual and so is not infallible and does not always reflect community consensus - in general no process is infallible. 3) According to the Featured Article director "FA status should not be used as the basis for arguing whether or not an article should be notable enough to keep." (January 2008) 4) Having the discussion - and determining community consensus - will be the easiest way to put the issue to bed in this particular case. Guest9999 (talk) 00:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure if that's a good article, we're scraping bottom here. But the people who decide which articles are "good" no doubt would have raised notability issues and assuming good faith if those folks didn't have a problem, why is it at AFD? If it's time for a reassessment, so be it; knock out it's "good"ness and then nominate it. Remember consensus isn't just who shows up to the AFD, but the whole community and the community (or its representatives) have spoken that the article is "good". Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist as new AfD, overly broad interpretation of SK criterion 2. Considering "unquestionably vandalism or disruption", my reading of example 1 is more like vandalizing the current Main Page Featured Article by nominating it at AfD. Even if that narrow interpretation is expanded to shield all current FAs, I don't see how it transfers to GA. A recent promotion to or affirmation of GA status may be a reasonable AfD argument – especially if the review and the nomination overlap – but it is insufficient for SK. Flatscan (talk) 04:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist It only takes a single reviewer to promote an article to GA status, so I don't think the nomination was out of line. I also think the speedy keep was out of line, particularly given the contentious relationship between nom and closer. I agree entirely with S. Marshall's thinking above. RayTalk 06:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist How on earth is that a good article? the prose in the lead is awful.... yea, its fails athlete, that doesnt matter if the article meets the GNG anyway but we need a proper discussion about whether the sources properly discuss the subject in non-trivial terms. If it does, it doesn't matter whether its fails Athlete as GNG trumps local notability guidelines. But this needs a proper discussion so relist. Spartaz Humbug! 07:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist Having GA status doesn't assert notability. He clearly fails WP:ATHLETE, so notability is going to have to be asserted elsewhere. All the references are either or statistical apart from a couple of pieces in the Dorset Echo, but even then the depth of coverage is lacking and let's face it - we could assert a lot of non-notable people's notability by using local papers. A proper discussion is needed. Black Kite 08:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
*Endorse as closing admin, as I feel that my actions were entirely policy-based. I should point out that I don't object to anyone questioning my interpretation of policy, but I certainly object to people questioning my integrity, in particular the personal accusations made against me by the nominator.
Disagreeing with someone over interpretation of policy is not the same as bias - if I think the nominator is correct about something, I will quite happily take his side. Indeed, this happened just yesterday in an AfD which nominator conveniently didn't link to - despite our difference of opinions, I supported his AfD nomination. If I truly was biased against him, would I have done that?
The idea that I was "emotionally involved" is also baseless. If anyone reading the AfDs linked to by the nominator (or in any of my edits) can find any negative emotion on my part, I'd be very impressed - I guarantee, you certainly won't find anything like the vulgar tirade left on my talk page.
Thirdly, the accusation of meatpuppetry on the part of me and the others named is also baseless and offensive as it questions the integrity of me and an entire WikiProject. Such a serious accusation needs solid proof.
If the nominator cannot provide any proof to back up these claims, I would respectfully ask him to make good use of the strikethrough tag and withdraw those accusations. Bettia (bring on the trumpets!) 09:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, I'll be strikin through feck all I can assure you! You and your "buddies" on the FOOTY Project are a cabal that vote in lock step and are completely hypocritical. You pick an choose when you consider WP:ATH, WP:N or WP:GNG is the policy that suits your POV - usually when its an English player and then delete the rest - the lot of ye make me sick to be honest. The DRV for David O'Connor just says it all afaik. If you had any dignity or respect for yourself you would had you adminship back in.--Vintagekits (talk) 09:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- Thats it run! Lets look at this statistically. On the Davey O'Connor review we have 17 !votes. 12 for overturn and 5 to endorse the deletion. If we look at the votes and split it between "cabal members" and the general community it looks a little diffeent. "Cabal members" - 1 to overturn and 5 to endorse - General community - 11 to overturn and 0 to endorse. Actions speak louder than words and those stats speak volumes.--Vintagekits (talk) 10:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- A question for you, Bettia: do you consider that this article satisfies the WP:ATHLETE notability criteria? Or rather that it satisfies the general notability criteria of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject? (or both?) --Stormie (talk) 03:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist. This is worth a full AfD debate. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:39, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and relist (the first AfD) - I'm sure there was no impropriety involved but similar to S Marshall's arguement it's the 'appearance of possible impropriety' that is the problem, in this case possible bias. In my opinion no admin should close an AfD on a subject which they have a keen interest and being a member of a relevant project certainly suggests such a keen interest, as it suggests they may be biased. I'm sure in 99.99% of cases they would show no bias but there's no way to prove that they haven't so it's better they don't close an AfD on a subject they're close to so that not only are we fair but we're seen to be fair. I'm sure it's pretty much uneccessary to say this but the second AfD close was good as it's not the right way to object to an AfD closuure. Dpmuk (talk) 10:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist per nom and Black kite. BigDunc 11:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist - despite being accused of being a member of this shadowy WP:FOOTY cult, I actually agree with Vintagekits that the discussion should have been allowed to remain open. As it is a Good Article, it is almost 100% going to be kept; but we should still allow positive, meaningful discussion. So let Vintagekits make his pro-deletion points, and see what other editors have to say. However, I want to make it known that my decision to support the relisting is in no means a criticism of the way that Bettia closed the AfD; Vintagekits' recent AfD nominations have been verging on the ridiculous lately, and this is the straw that broke the admin's back. GiantSnowman 14:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure as Keep Aren't the requirements to become a Good Article far higher than simply being kept? It has been proven to meet all the requirements, so there is no need to bother with this. Dream Focus 16:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist. I think this article is a great example of why Good Article status should not be considered an automatic keep in an AfD, and moreover it's a bit of an embarrassment to the Good Article process: it's short, lacking in substantive detail, filled with minutiae about individual game plays in the absence of anything more substantive to say about the subject, and not compellingly written. None of these qualities makes for a convincing deletion rationale, but they don't provide a speedy keep rationale either. The AfD should have proceeded normally. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist, for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else of this opinion. The GA criteria do not require one to consider notability, and in any event such articles are promoted on based on one editor's opinion. FA's by comparison, are peer reviewed, and have a better claim to immunity from AfD. Even so, there is precedent for FAs being nominated for deletion. I expect the nomination will fail, but it was properly raised, and discussion should not have been cut off by interested parties. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 19:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist – I would personally question why that's a GA in the first place. I doubt, however, a consensus for deletion will occur, but you never know... MuZemike 20:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist Being a GA is not a free ticket to notability. There is nothing in the GA criteria, or even the FA criteria that demands notbility; the only reason so few make it to GA is because the reviewer is not attentive enough to send it to AfD. Not only that, the closing admin was certainly not impartial, and this close was not a good idea. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 01:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist notability is seriously questionable as is the GA status, which it currently fails. There are no images at all on the article nor was there even a discussion during the review of this issue. I also don't believe it is well written. To give a few examples: "although he is yet to play for the team", "He was refused to join Dagenham on a permanent basis by The Football Association", "however the the Football League refused" etc. There's nothing on his personal background and particularly glaring is the omission of his birthplace. The article needs to be put up for GA review. Valenciano (talk) 07:25, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist, GA does not disqualify an article from AfD. Even if it survives AfD the GA status is highly questionable. Usrnme h8er (talk · contribs) 08:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Changing !vote to Overturn and Relist. Having had a couple of days to cool off and reflect, I've come to the same conclusion as many of the people here - although my intentions were honest, my actions were hasty and incorrect. Although I don't agree with Vintagekits' accusations against me and the member of WP:FOOTY, I do owe him an apology as my actions caused him to get angry and temporarily blocked. As User:S Marshall has stated above, "justice must be done and must be seen to be done". Bettia (bring on the trumpets!) 07:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Then I suggest you close this DRV and relist the AfD, since that does appear to be the consensus. As deleting admin, I'm certain you have the authority.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist This clearly needs further examination. Chillum 02:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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