- List of extraordinary diseases and conditions (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
This AfD was closed as no consensus despite 18 arguments in favor of deletion and 7 in favor of "keep." I contacted the closing admin, he reminded me that AfD was not a vote and in his opinion the two sets of arguments "cancelled each other out." I disagree. While AfD "isn't a vote," most of the deleters made strong, policy based arguments. My biggest objection was that "extraordinary" is a highly subjective term with different meanings in different eras (disaeses considered "extraordinary" 50 years ago no longer are, for instance. What to do)? At any rate, when we have policy-based "delete" arguments at a greater rate then 2-1 against the policy-based keep arguments at an AfD, I don't see how it can be said that "no consensus to delete" was found. If this much lattitude is given to the personal opinion of closing admins, it breaks the whole AfD process and harms the whole consensus-based model here. I encourage an overurn to "delete."Bali ultimate (talk) 16:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- The list has since been renamed to replace "extraordinary" with "considered unusual". I find this no improvement. Problems include: Considered unusual by whom, when, where, for what reasons (rarity? gross? interesting -- insect eggs hatching out of a human forehead?)?Bali ultimate (talk) 16:18, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I have notified every participant in the AfD of this DrV.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse no consensus closure. No clear consensus in this one. Afd is indeed not a vote and those saying to keep made strong, policy based arguments. Moreover article improved during the course of the discussion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 16:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Which policies did they use in favour of keeping? I saw a lot more policy arguments on the delete side. Article quality should be irrelevant since everyone agreed that the article was already in good quality at the start; the discussion is about inclusion criteria and future problems. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- They pointed out that it was not original research, that it was verfiable in reliable sources. Some of the keeps essentially make arguments that point to these without explicitly linking to them. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 16:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- No opinion Merely noting that DRV is a hidebound waste of time that should be deleted itself, and that deletion should not be reviewed. I should note that I was canvassed to vote keep on the inital AFD by ARSBot at Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Current articles, who somehow seems to get away with positing lots of canvassing messages at the afformentioned page. I ignored his canvassing (I seem to do that a lot). I should also note that I was advised of the existance of this deletion review on my talk page. Hipocrite (talk) 16:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- There are 249 members, and they vote by their conscious, what they sincerely believe, be it keep or delete. Only 7 keeps for this article, and were all of them members of the Rescue Squadron even? There was no flood of people rushing over to vote one way. Everyone stated a reason for their position. Please keep all bad faith conspiracy theories and slander out of discussions. Dream Focus 17:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Canvassing happened. I don't see slander or bad faith conspiracy theories. If you'd like, I could add those. Hipocrite (talk) 17:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Can you find one example of canvassing? Did anyone post anywhere to tell people to go there? Was there anything other than the Rescue tag, informing people this might be an article worth saving, to please share their opinions and help improve the article if necessary? Dream Focus 01:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Like I said, a bot posts a list of articles that are nominated to be deleted on a page watched almost entirely by people who regularly vote keep on nearly everything (queue the "I delete lots of stuff" chorus, you can all skip it, if you don't mind), and the bot dosen't just post a link to the article, it posts a link to the afd. The category is apparently not easy enough for people who want to add references to articles of questionable notability with a strong COI supporter, you need a watchlistable update on the articles as they get added. It's canvassing, everyone knows it, let it go. Hipocrite (talk) 12:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse When supplemented with the provided explanation, the close seems reasonably consistent with WP:DGFA which states "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy" and "When in doubt, don't delete.". Colonel Warden (talk) 16:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist or close as delete Should have been a delete. Is DRV ready for this kind of thing? I'd add a delete Not vote based on sound policy if I'd been aware of this. Verbal chat 16:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete Relevant policies debated were WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:V and although AfD is not a vote Bali ultimate showed above that there was a clear consensus that favored deleting this article that was developed out of these policies. ThemFromSpace 16:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete per Themfromspace. — sephiroth bcr (converse) 16:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I !voted delete. However I agree with the no consensus closure. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse There was no consensus. Obviously not everyone agrees on things, which is why we have AFD to decide the fate of articles, instead of everyone just destroying things on a whim on their own. It was closed properly. There was no consensus either way, both sides making valid points, and simply not agreeing. Dream Focus 17:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete and a note to the closing admin: when you close an AfD that runs counter to the consensus of participants, it is vital that you lay out your reasoning for doing so. There WAS clear consensus to delete; if, however, the arguments to retain were deemed more compelling, then this would have been better closed as a straight up keep. A no consensus close is procedurally flawed. Eusebeus (talk) 17:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- When both sides make valid cases, and neither can convince the other, then no consensus is how you are suppose to close it. Writing out a proper reasoning for this, would've been nice though, but most administrators never bother doing this. Dream Focus 17:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment As I understand it, deletion review implies that the closing editor erred in the decision. I can understand the editor throwing up his hands on this one and calling it no consensus, there was quite an impressive smokescreen thrown up by the "keeps". However, I would have liked to have seen some evidence of the reasoning so help us understand it and would request that the closing editor provide the basis for the judgement, much as any judge explains himself. A good example of that can be seen at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Full Armor of God Broadcast. At this point I am waiting to see what they can do with the article over the next few weeks and if it is still an unencyclopedic freak show to nominate it for deletion again. I am also looking at other articles in the "unusual" category with the same possible criticisms. This has exposed a whole underbelly full of inappropriate articles so in that sense the AfD was successful. Drawn Some (talk) 17:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- I'll save yall the trouble. Here is the comment from the closer, in toto: "Hi. AfD is not a vote, so it doesn't really matter how many people suggested that it be kept or deleted; the arguments from both sides seemed to cancel each other out enough that I defaulted it to a "no consensus."" I obviously think this "reasoning" is preposterous, as on this basis one "keep" argument could be considered to be equal in weight, or to otherwise seem to cancel out a raft of "delete" arguments. This seems to be pretty radical, and a practice that if more widely adopted that would do a lot of damage to AfD, as flawed as the process is to begin with.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- Seems like more of the definition of "no consensus" to me but like I said I can't blame the closing editor in this situation. Drawn Some (talk) 22:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse- There was no consensus to delete there, and the arguments made by the people stating "keep" were far stronger than the ones for "delete". Umbralcorax (talk) 18:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Naturally, when someone gives a decision like this, those who support the result argue he is right to take the strength of the arguments into account, and those who disagree that a straight vote is necessary. When someone gives a decision based on a vote count, those who support and disagree say just the opposite. Very few people actually go by what the admin ought to do, rather by whether they agree or disagree with the result, on the apparent principle that the the role of an admin is to give them the decision they want. The reason why this nonsense is even possible is that there is in fact no agreement about what the role of the admin is. My own formulation is that an admin ought to disregard !votes not based on policy, but not judge the strength of policy, but that is not a sharp dividing line--what about !votes weakly supported by partly applicable policy--which is the usual case with a lot of !votes. My own reason to endorse is that I am very reluctant to disturb a non-consensus close in a contested debate, unless the article is actively doing harm. A relist is likely to be more effective in a month or two. DGG (talk) 18:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse per DGG. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Relist as a defective debate. I found the arguments on both sides of the debate extraordinarily weak, personally.
The 18 "deletes" is a WP:BIGNUMBER but they were all parroting the AfD nominator's argument without introducing anything new; and the 7 "keeps" boiled down to contradicting the nominator. Neither side gave any evidence at all that they'd examined the actual sources. I have some sympathy for the "keeps" because I find the deletionist mantra of "I demand this article is deleted unless someone else does a lot of work examining the sources" very irritating, annoying, and tiring, and I can understand the temptation to simply contradict them, but what was called for here was to show the deletes where their error lay; a proper examination of the sources would show that there's the kernel of an encyclopaedic article here, but it shouldn't have this title, and it needs a fundamental, source-based rewrite.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 19:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - I supported deletion of the article, but there was no overall consensus on the issue. ---kilbad (talk) 19:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete in accordance with the consensus at the AFD. Stifle (talk) 22:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete – I see more of a consensus on the deletion side on the basis of no original research than I do on the keeping side of refuting this rationale. MuZemike 22:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- weak Overturn and delete I feel that the arguments for deletion were stronger and certainly more numerous. Some of the delete arguments were basically only !votes and should be discarded without a second thought. But others were significant and not really addressed in my opinion. DGG easily had the best argument for keeping it, but I feel other had better arguments for why he was wrong. I would strongly support userfication if someone wants to use some of the material as a source for an article on the book DGG referred to. Frankly, it seems to be an indiscriminate list as it stands and I think the folks in favor of deletion showed that successfully. At the same time, I'm not a fan of "indiscriminate list" as a reason for deletion unless it's really indiscriminate. Thus the weak part. Hobit (talk) 00:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure to no consensus. In reading the AfD discussion after-the-fact, I see cogent points made by both the delete opinions and the keep opinions. In discounting opinions that were offered as "close per" or "keep per" or "parroted the nominator" (in that AfD is not a vote by weight of shear numbers, and in not giving undue weight to many repetitons of the same arguments, it can be seen that the views did generally balance out and that the no-consensus closure was a reasonable decision. It can also be seen that One two three... had a difficult decision, weighed the discussions, and made the call. I do not envy him he mop. Oh... and just to be clear... I was not "canvassed" to comment here, and though a member of the ARS, I was not part of any discussions at the AfD. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 01:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse no consensus closure. In a case such as this, where the admin closes as no consensus a discussion in which delete recommendations clearly outnumber keep recommendations, I would like to see a more fully articulated justification for the decision than "the arguments seemed to cancel each other out." However, the head count is (or should be) irrelevant to whether an article is deleted or kept, and the strength of arguments is what ought to be weighed. The closer's rationale for the no consensus decision is that the strength of the opposing sides' arguments are, in hir estimation, of equal strength. This is legitimate grounds for a no consensus decision, and I see no clear evidence that this judgment was in error. Nick Graves (talk) 02:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn to delete, but willing to consider weak endorse if a detailed closing rationale (not the one already given) is provided. I think that the arguments for deletion were more substantial than and better addressed the keep arguments. If the closer found the keep arguments particularly persuasive, saw a weakness in the deletes, simply defaulted to no consensus, or something else, the underlying reasoning should be disclosed. I support reasonable admin discretion, including closing against the numbers, but this looks to be outside that. Flatscan (talk) 04:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete "Cancel each other out" my foot. What a ridiculous rationale. It either fits with policy or it doesn't. You don't score policy-adherence-points against policy-violation-points and come up with an acceptable article to keep. If the article cannot be made to be in non-violation of policy, then it fails no matter how interesting or well sourced it could be. S Marshall's comments above I find offensive and he falls into the same trap as most of the keeps: that yes well I wouldn't keep this article but change the name to something else, do a bit of work, and viola you have an article that I would keep, so keep. The AfD is on this article with this name and this content. This was not an AfD on "List of rare diseases", for example, for neither the name nor the content required rarity. The second trap the keeps fell into was to regard the ability to find sources as proof that both WP:V and WP:OR could be satisfied. Yes, we can find sources that so-and-so thought the condition was extraordinary, or unusual, or weird, but all that tells you is that one person had an opinion. Opinions do not make facts. And WP:ASF (policy) makes it very clear that we couldn't have a List of greatest bands in history, citing someone saying that the Beetles were "the greatest band in history" as a suitable source. So although we could satisfy WP:V and WP:OR by sourcing the list to individual opinions, we'd fail WP:NPOV by attempting to state those opinions as facts. And those opinions are generally non-notable in each individual case. Sure there are some diseases we'd all regard as "extraordinary", though it would be a challenge to find an authoritative source for many (e.g., some survey where 90% of the population agreed that XYZ was "extraordinary"). But the other extreme has a ridiculously long tail of rather mundane conditions that somebody somewhere thinks is a bit unusual. There are parts of Africa, for example, where a visiting white person is surrounded by children wanting to touch their weird skin. Would that make White people an "extraordinary condition". In conclusion, WP:NPOV is what kills this list, and the admin failed to spot that argument wasn't "cancelled out" by any of the keeps. Colin°Talk 12:39, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: A similar article, List of unusual deaths, has been nominated for deletion 6 times, and kept each time (including a no consensus and a keep and rename result). The most recent deletion nomination was made in an attempt to establish broader community consensus and precedent concerning lists of this type (List of unusual X), and the discussion participants strongly supported keep. Precedent set in other deletion discussions for similar articles carries some weight in the case of this list of unusual diseases and conditions, insofar as the rationale for deletion matches those made by supporters of other failed deletion attempts (in this case, the contention that there is no objective/reliable/consistent way to establish inclusion criteria with regard to what is unusual/rare/extraordinary). The closing admin did not appeal to such precedent, but it does provide some support for the contention that hir decision was not in error. Insofar as the article in its current state is in violation of policy (that is, diseases are included without verification from a reliable source that they are indeed unusual, thus violating WP:V and WP:OR), that is grounds from improvement of the article (culling or proper sourcing of entries), not grounds for deleting the entire article. Nick Graves (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse most of the delete votes were made before the addition of references and the change in the title. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: The core of Bali ultimate's argument for deletion review is that "when we have policy-based 'delete' arguments at a greater rate then 2-1 against the policy-based keep arguments at an AfD, I don't see how it can be said that 'no consensus to delete' was found." It must be reiterated that AfD is not a vote. The ratio of keep to delete arguments is completely irrelevant. Whether these arguments are firmly rooted in policy is what is important here, and Bali ultimate admits that both sides had policy-based rationales. Determining the weight of these policy-based arguments is at the closing admin's discretion. There is no clear case to support the contention that the closing admin was in error. Nick Graves (talk) 17:31, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. This article title has now mutated to List of diseases and conditions with unusual features, which is even worse from a policy point of view. Almost all diseases have unusual features of some sort. For example, Down syndrome has transient myeloproliferative disorder as an unusual feature, so shouldn't Down syndrome be listed? The inclusion or exclusion of diseases from this list is entirely arbitrary. Eubulides (talk) 23:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure There has been a recent debate about lists of unusual things. It only matter whether a reliable source considers the disease unusual. A rare disease which causes children to be extremely allergic to sunlight to the point they have to be completely covered up or can only go out at night is unusual since it happens in only a handful of patients and is widely considered unusual by both medics and the general public. - Mgm|(talk) 10:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, the idea that there were no clear inclusion guidelines could easily be solved through editing rather than deletion. Either we include diseases with a low prevalence or diseases with symptoms that have a low prevalence. Both are clear uncontestable numbers and if it's a problem to call those unusual, we can rename it to "rare" based on such numbers (see http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/ for one authority on the subject). Just because some diseases are misplaced in the list doesn't mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. - Mgm|(talk) 10:22, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- If you define "unusual" as "rare" rather than "odd" then you do indeed end up with "list of rare diseases", which I have no problem with (other than impractical length). *sigh* I'm wasting my time here, obviously. Colin°Talk 11:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and relist (I'm amenable to overturning and deleting, but that is less preferred) This was close to no consensus, so I could be pushed into agreeing that "no consensus" was within the admin's scope of options. However a few things draw me back to overturning this close. The first is that while both 18 and 7 are "big numbers" which aren't compelling by themselves, "not a vote" tends to get trotted out when an admin comes to a decision contrary to numerically evident consensus and "rough consensus" tends to get trotted out when an admin comes to a decision contrary to a compelling policy argument. I'm not alleging bias, just realism. As a community we clearly prefer to avoid "mob rule" and we prefer to avoid process through statutory interpretation. This means, to me, that we balance these two poles when they happen to conflict (Obviously we would hope that relevant policy arguments favor the majority, but if a frog had wings...). If any balancing occurred, it did so in the mind of the admin because s/he left no indication as to the motivation of his or her decision. Looking at the delete arguments, they range from superfluous (one liners about subjectivity, without any reason why subjectivity is disallowed in the encyclopedia) to more meaty concerns about sourcing and inclusion. The nom (though it makes the troubling mistake of assuming redundancy to a category is a condition for deletion) advances the deletion arguments in a reasonable fashion, arguing somewhat compellingly that "List of diseases and conditions with unusual features" is ripe for editor definition, idiosyncratic inclusion decisions and sensationalism. Keep arguments range from the somewhat convincing (Col'n warden's argument being the sturdiest) to the outright unhelpful. Given the preponderance of arguments were for deletion and a preponderance of those arguments had at least as good if not better rationales than the keep arguments, I'm having trouble justifying this one as a close on the merits. Also, I'm worried that canvassing occurred and if it did, that gives us a strong incentive to rebuff that convassing here at DRV. Protonk (talk) 17:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- For the record, I did not make the "troubling mistake of assuming redundancy to a category is a condition for deletion". I compared a category with a potential "list of rare diseases", which (I have been repeating ad-nauseum) is not the list we are AfD'ing. The AfD list has no comparable category. It is a site-note that I consider a "list of rare diseases" (at 8,000 entries long, majority red-links) to be potentially not as useful as a category that points to actual wikipedia articles. I have repeatedly said I would not AfD a "list of rare diseases" even if I do consider it inferior to the existing category. Colin°Talk 18:05, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse with no prejudice against relisting. Personally I'd have closed this one as a delete, but the closer made no egregious errors here - it's something of a borderline case, but it was merely closed as "no consensus" - not "keep". If the closure survives this review and the article remains there should be no impediment to re-listing the article for deletion in the near future, particularly if it does not improve. Shereth 19:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete - looking at the article itself, I can still see the article being fundamentally flawed by original research and/or indiscriminateness, both points brought up in the original AfD and weren't really countered that well. Also, it's poor form to close something as "no consensus" without a rationale. Sceptre (talk) 01:57, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete - I created this article two weeks ago, and I was initially very disappointed by hearing it was up for AfD. I had just been reading List of unusual deaths and believed it would be equally well writing an equivalent list of diseases and conditions. I wanted to give it a chance to show what it could evolve into with the combined effort of the community. However, just by looking at what it has (and has not) achieved in these two weeks makes me rather disappointed - not much improvement of the article itself, but, on the other hand, a hell lot of controversy and dispute. Yet, I guess we will always have to cope with this kind of altercation as long as there are articles in Category:Lists of things considered unusual, but let's not make it even worse. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:38, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: Significant conflict is not inevitable, and improvement is possible. It is conceivable that a list of this type--with rigorous, well-defined inclusion criteria, and properly sourced information--could become a good, encyclopedic resource that far fewer Wikipedians would support deleting. Nick Graves (talk) 01:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse The AFD did not present a consensus for deletion. It is not a vote. That said, any disease in the list should have reliable sources stating that the disease is considered "extraordinary." Chimerism conjoined twins and progeria are. Cancer, common cold, influenza and heart disease are not. Edison (talk) 16:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- endorse I could see someone closing this either way but this is a reasonable close given the circumstances. I see no compelling reason to overturn. If necessary, wait a bit and AfD it again. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn to delete – The policy-based argument for deletion (we should not present claims of opinion as claims of fact, per Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view) were not effectively countered during the deletion discussion. The list is, ultimately, a list of diseases and conditions that are considered to be "extraordinary" (a term which means different things to different people) by one or more editors, sources, or both. In principle, it is no different from a List of beautiful people or List of amazing places. –BLACK FALCON (TALK) 22:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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