Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 November 17

17 November 2010

2010 Karachi plane crash – Decision endorsed – T. Canens (talk) 05:27, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
2010 Karachi plane crash (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore) Ths closing admin here has wrongly focussed on the WP:GNG, when the actual reason for deletion was for failing WP:NOT, WP:EVENT, and WP:AIRCRASH. And looking at the whole debate against that rationale, an outcome of a "strong consensus" to keep is very hard to properly justify. He also appears to have taken barely 4 minutes to decide that. (that's the short TLDR version, read on for a fuller explanation if you want) Going through the debate, first you must dismiss the completely ignorable non-votes (Elmao 09:31, Dr. Blofeld 18:55), and the bare blind assertion votes, (68.45.109.14 04:10, Milowent 18:55), and then even arguably the 'follow the leader' type questionable votes that Lugnut's original comment seemed to spawn (Zbase4 01:34, Saqib Qayyum 06:39, nomi887 07:06, Ser Amantio di Nicolao 18:39), which are devalued both as simple poor PERNOM votes, and by his failure to defend that 'parent' vote even on the prima facie ommissions/errors he made on the basic wording of the GNG. After that first pass of elimination, you are not left with much either tbh. While you do move onto votes which at least gave some sort of not immediately invalid, expanded, arguments, some addressing the full rationale, some not, they all still contained many flaws and reasons to discount them. For example, many of the arguments which attempted to rebutt WP:NOT#NEWS for example, (Sjakkalle 15:11, Cyclopiatalk 21:10, Pedro 15:39, Wikireader41 14:17), claimed to know what was and was not 'routine', yet could not/would not defend their votes to challenge, and to a man they all decided to completely ignore EVENT, despite it being the accepted guideline for making that particular judgement call. Others attempted to simply give their own aircrash notability criteria, and thus simply hang their vote on a declaration their own standards were met, (Mar4d 08:46, Mjroots 03:23), even though they were pointed to the pre-existing essay/draft guidance on the topic, which may not count for much, but are all we have specifically on aircrashes, and so obviously, if that info is to be ignored in favour of proprietary opinions, it should be with a good, evidence backed, rationale. Where other votes like Pedros's classic WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC type rationale come in the grand scheme of things is not really clear to me given the closing statement, but that above is a full summary of all the votes which the closer asserts showed a "strong consensus" to keep. And on that score, it is shocking to realise that in that whole debate, whether people used policy backed reasons or not, to a man, not once did anybody refer or specifically use the actual content of the actual sources used in the article to back their opinions, which as of now, still represents just one 24 hour news cycle. As such, even keep rationales which looked at first glance to be policy backed, are infact weak. I think many keepers simply chose not back up their opinions when challenged, because an examination of the actual sources left them no other choice but to stay silent on anything they might have asserted as fact, in the grand scheme of all things 'encyclopoedic'. In terms of quality of debate, of the few people who did decide to even attempt to defend their votes from challenge, rather than just voting and running, engaging these people proved to just be a complete waste of time in terms of proper Afd practices, as the respective discussion threads started, or descended, into classic tendentious behaviour, such as playing the man and not the ball, or continuing to pretend even after correction that the assertion that 'the deletion reason is just an essay' was remotely true. In terms of being able to divine a consensus via the expression of proper and cluefull argumentation, which is what Afd is supposed to be about, not much of anything the keep side blindly asserted about the GNG, or otherwise claimed was somehow a rebuttal of the deletion rationale, but wasn't really, counted for much in that regard. Moving to the timing issue, based on his contribs for that date, the closing admin appears to have spent less than four minutes reviewing the whole discussion and coming to his conclusion, which seems to be backed up by that fact he did not comment at all on all the questions and points I made specifically for the benefit of the closer. I did ask the closer to clarify all this before coming to review, putting all these objections out in detail on his talk page, and he has responded with the metaphorical middle finger, so I don't see why his ability to properly review and summarise a complex Afd discussion like that should be assumed by anyone here. If he now chooses to do so here, it is bear in mind, at the third time of asking. On the meta-level merits of the closure in general, just to illustrate the general poorness of it, which I remind you is cited as a "stong consensus" for deeming something worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia, take a look at any random piece of news that is on Google News right now, and ask yourself in all honesty, would that have been remotely delete-able given the exact same keep arguments, and this closure? I think not, which should set alarms bells ringing for any editor not at the extreme ends of the policy interpretation spectra. So, all these things considered, this closure is I believe, resting on pretty shaky ground, and at the least, should be overturned to a 'no consensus' (i.e., deletion rationale not answered, but consensus to delete not fully shown). As ever, I remind responders and the closer of the review, that this debate is DRV, not AFD 2, so keep your arguments focused on the merits and validity of the closure, not on rehasing the Afd debate. MickMacNee (talk) 22:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse To have closed this any other way would be completely disregarding the consensus. The arguments to keep were policy based, and while some valid policy based arguements were made to delete they simply did not represent the communities position on the matter. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 22:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC) For the record, do you consider arguments like 'I think it is clearly notable' to be an example of a policy backed argument, or not? Or is it something more. Lugnut's first vote for example. He refers to the GNG, he even types some of it out. He also purposely left out a part of it, and quite clearly demonstrated he has no understanding of what the presumption part of it even means (check!?!?). He also purposely refused point blank to answer any and all challenges to it, even though his argument quite literally was to copy and paste parts of a page and write "Check" five times. So, do you consider that to be an example of making a policy backed argument, or not? I believe the answer to both questions is emphatically no, if Afd is to be anything other than a dumb exercise in vote counting. At the end of the day, people can cite all the policies they want in a vote - if they cannot demonstrate they understand them, and cannot defend them against challenges, then all they have really demonstrated is that they can pick up a few key phrases, or copy and paste text, and know when to throw them out there. And if on the off chance you did agree that both of those are not actually examples of policy backed arguments, then please give a specific example of someone in that Afd who did actually give one. MickMacNee (talk) 01:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC) I think we have different interpretations of this AfD. I disagree with your point of view. Regardless each of our opinions are valid so lets just let the outcome of this DRV decide. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 03:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC) If you say so. I rather think that Wikipedia runs on the idea that no, not all opinions are equally valid, and deciding whose opinion is better is done through a process of active, participant driven, discussion. And on that score, by answering my questions, you would at least have had the possibility of convincing me that your interpretation was more valid than mine. As it is, I am just left wondering what you do and don't consider to be a policy backed argument, just like I am left wondering how the original Afd can be closed as "strong keep". And I don't see how anyone else, most importantly the future closer of this Drv, is supposed to judge that either. MickMacNee (talk) 04:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse by the numbers it's really clear. I found the arguments discounting WP:EVENT to be very strong. I find that when it comes to NOTNEWS for events WP:EVENT does a good job of providing guideposts for what is and isn't a NOTNEWS issue, so that policy is also met at this time. The only other reason given to delete was an essay which holds little weight. So on the whole I find both numbers and arguments to be on the side of keeping. That said, if in a few weeks the coverage completely has dried up the "long lasting" issue would arise and then at that point there might be a good reason to delete. Hobit (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC) I'm not clear if you are saying EVENT is irrelevant, or that it has been met. The guideposts EVENT sets are very clear - and I cannot see how the cited coverage, taken from just one 24 hour news cycle, even partially meets them. And it is not reasonable to expect this to be kept on the basis it can be put to Afd if it is later demonstrated that no, it was of no lasting historical significance at all - you know exactly what most people would say in that second Afd, especially when the closer claims that there was a "strong consensus" to keep in the first one. MickMacNee (talk) 01:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse as consensus at the AfD in question could hardly have been interpreted any other way. Alansohn (talk) 22:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse Wishing that WP:NOTNEWS applied in this case cannot stand in the face of the community's clear consensus that it does not. Jclemens (talk) 22:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC) This depends on whether you think the expression of community consensus on whether it does or doesn't apply is deduced using nothing more complex than counting up all the people who said it does, and all the people who said it doesn't, and do a bit of math. If you or the closer wants to explain where this 'clear consensus' stems from other than such vote-counting, I'm all ears, but countering accusations of consensus by blind assertion, with yet more blind assertion, doesn't really move anything on does it? At some point someone is going to actually have to stand up and defend their argument in a way that not only garners support from people who would always agree whatever, but that also makes sense to people who don't, but who concede the point because the way the point is made is so logical and convincing. As of right now, we are miles from that. MickMacNee (talk) 01:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC) There's really not that much to discuss. You, although not you alone, ignore or wish away a key sentence in NOTNEWS that limits the applicability to routine news. Consensus is that this event is sufficiently non-routine that NOTNEWS doesn't apply. When you fail to get the result here, you are free to start an RfC, where the result will also likely not be to your liking. Policies and guidelines are descriptive, and if you're seeing the community not agree with you, then it is your understanding of policy that is incorrect, not the community. I've been on the "wrong" end of discussions where I think the consensus is incorrect, although rarely standing alone in isolation, and the real decision you have to make is whether you are still willing to collaborate with people who do not and will not share your views. Jclemens (talk) 01:57, 18 November 2010 (UTC) I do not seek to 'wish it away' or ignore it in the slightest, I have an understanding of what it means both generally, and thus by reasonable extension for aircrashes (supported, however weakly, by AIRCRASH), that is robustly defensible, without having to have to hide behind basic assertion to be able to partake in that debate. I'll give you an example. Take a look at this accident. It occured 20 years ago, and involved the same aircraft, and a similar death toll. It was even a scheduled passenger flight, which this was not, and it apparently crashed in a residential area, which this did not (actually, bizarrely, who even knows based on that excuse of an article?). I put it to you that there is no way you or anyone else could ever hope to write an article on that crash that meets EVENT, and if perchance you could, you would be relying on something this article simple does not have - actual verifiable evidence of an actual, non-'routine news value'-based, interpretation of lasting notability. Alternatively, you can come up with evidence of a pre-existing article that already exists on Wikipedia that documents a crash like this one, but from 20 years ago, that is sourced just like this one solely to contemporary news reports of this sort of duration, scope, and depth, that would stand up to an EVENT based Afd right now. Or thirdly, you yourself can show me an Rfc which has concluded that EVENT is a steaming pile of junk which is not fit to wear the badge of 'pre-existing consensus'. Either way, whichever path you take, you would ultimately win this argument without having resorted to blind assertion, and I would look like a fool, a fool, if I did not ultimately concede the point in the face of such a good and proper policy based argument. But ultimately, that's how confident I am in what I am saying, whether people are willing to rebutt it, or defend themselves, or not as the case maybe. Can you really say the same based on that Afd? Is it really, honestly, a mark of having a 'non-collaborative spirit' to expect you or anyone else to actually be able to deal with this sort of reality in that manner? I say not, and I think that a proper reading of things like the Afd instruction manual, and all associated guidance on such matters, would actually support this. MickMacNee (talk) 02:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse Perhaps the Wikiproject Aviation people need to recognize that their standards for what is a notable accident are out of line with the community, and I suggest the current version of their notability page be labelled to indicate this. The community almost always regards events in which large numbers of people are killed as notable. The meaning of "large" is apparently not fixed, and probably varies by type of event. (It changes with time; when I came here 4 years ago, for murders it meant >2 victims; currently, the consensus seems a little higher--though my own opinion is that the older consensus was right.) I think the community here reflects the public conception also, and Wikipedia is written in order to be read. WP includes most of the elements of an almanac, and public transportation events such as this have always been included in almanacs.— Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) Actually, no, I do not think that those almanacs do exist for this particular subject, not in the detail required anyway. Certainly I've never ever seen anybody cite one in an Afd, let alone an article. That is why, if you asked someone to write an article about this crash in 30 years time, without resorting to going into an archive and finding the contemporary news sources it uses right now, they would fail, miserably. That is also precisely the reason why this, looks so markedly different to this. Articles like this from 1980 are not being written here, not because people are over-flowing with ongoing coverage and sources and just haven't got around to it, they are not being written because editors cannot easily access pre-2005 newspaper archives, and the only thing an almanac would ever provide you with if they even do exist for this sort of historically non-notable crash, is the bare essentials - death toll, airline and flight no, location, and maybe a paragraph of detail if you are lucky. I freely challenge you, or anyone else here, to go and find a comparable incident to this one from around 1980, and try to create an article that would not get deleted at Afd. It can't be done. There is simply no way that you could ever define Wikipedia's mission in a way that would support the idea that Wikipedia is the place to blindly and faithfully document every single fatal aircrash with it's own article from simple contemporary news reports, whatever the circumnstances, which is why even in four years you've seen consensus change on murders. You might in answer suggest proposing an arbitrary death toll 'magic number' of what is and is not separately notable, to kind of make that sound more legitimate for aircrashes, but that in effect only makes it look even more like a prima facie mission failure. You say that Wikipeida is meant to be read, and on the almanac point, that usually means by both laymen and expert. Well, right now it is failing both target audiences for this field - the bored reader / news junkie who only reads Wikipedia to 'find out more', can only do so for crashes in the era after the internet went live. It is only that Wikinews is so crap that these people even come here, and are part of the problem. Pick any random crash article that is like this one, and see if it has advanced beyond what was stuffed into it as the news was fresh. Those that do develop, there is usually a reason behind it, that is in harmony with, and not in conflict with, EVENT. And those topic focussed readers, who naturally expect to find the templates linked above to document reliably and evenly, only those truly significant crashes through the ages in a historically balanced and actual signficance asserting way, are being served up with an increasingly recentist, pointless, and frankly innaccessible product. Who out of that group would ever seriously use Wikipedia instead of the Aviation Safety Network, for example? And really, even with an endless supply of editor effort, that is not a fixable issue, because the reason for it is a very basic misunderstanding of policy as it applies to this field (and people dismissing out of hand the only effort to write something topic specific, by topic knowledgable but balanced editors, is only likely to make that worse, not better, over time). MickMacNee (talk) 01:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse. That debate was verging on a snow keep.—S Marshall T/C 23:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse- Consensus was clearly read, and there is no policy based reason that the consensus should be overruled. If nothing else, the consensus shows that rules such as NOTNEWS and WP:AIRCRASH can be overridden if consensus feels it will improve the encyclopedia. Umbralcorax (talk) 02:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC) IAR is 100% irrelevant, you invoke IAR on pain of death when you have no citeable support by consensus, that is the whole point of it. There would frankly never be a policy based reason to 'ignore consensus' in the way you describe, you cannot by definition have a consenus if the thing you are claiming consensus for goes against an existing policy, which are the expressions of standing consensus (unless of course the thing you are trying to form a consensus on, is to actually change that policy). You can only get consensus for an IAR action after doing the thing you invoked IAR for - it is for dealing with situations where the only thing stopping you from improving the pedia is some pointless beurocratic rule that you don't think in all common sense would ever have consensus for slavishly adhering to in the particular situation you found yourself in and want to invoke IAR for (and accordingly if so, you would easily find a clearly favourable consensus after the event, because it is of such an obvious 'no brainer' benefit to the pedia, and the rule was so obviously not applicable except in some counter-productive bureaucratic sense). People who have in the past tried to retroactively use IAR to justify an act they knew full well went against the pre-existing opinions of a good number of editors, have rightly come unstuck - it is a fundemental error in understanding. It is frankly off the wall to even begin to try and claim that a core pillar like WP:NOT is just a pointless beurocratic obstacle to the desired goal of being allowed to freely write a Wikipedia article on every fatal aircrash that ever occurs, just because we can. That's mad. And if anything, the prevailing opinion in here is not that the Afd seeks to ignore WP:NOT by invoking IAR for the greater good, it is that it does not apply in the first place (and what is in dispute is how well, or how badly, that is being argued), a view that it is asserted by keepers/endorsers was properly backed up by a demonstrable consensus both before and after the event (the event being the Afd closure as 'strong keep'). That is a subtle but crucial difference to throwing an IAR hail mary and hoping for the best, but a difference none-the-less. So as ever, we are left with the mythical 'it was clearly notable' opinion, which as ever, is just more of the same problematic basic assertion. MickMacNee (talk) 04:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC) IAR is exactly relevant. It says that when the consensus states that the rules get in the way of doing things right, we ignore the rule, and go with what the consensus says is right. That you disagree with that consensus does not change that consensus. Barring an overwhelming reason to delete, like severe BLP issues, or a copyvio, the admin closing the debate needs to adhere to what the consensus was.Umbralcorax (talk) 15:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Seriously, you could not have misunderstood IAR more. Doesn't the fact that not one person here other than you is even mentioning IAR not tip you off to that fact? MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC) The only thing that IAR means is that if a rule gets in the way if improving or maintaining Wikipedia then you should ignore it. It means nothing else. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 18:32, 18 November 2010 (UTC) To quote WP:IAR- "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.". The people in that afd thought the rules you were citing weren't as important as keeping that article, and therefore those rules were ignored. Also, While I can understand your consternation, I would appreciate it if you would be a little more CIVIL in this conversation, thanks. Umbralcorax (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Quoting the IAR page here as if I am a fucking moron and assuming I would be talking to you about a page I have never read, let alone never seen being used/abused, is what is decidely incivil behaviour tbh. What is not invicil behaviour is pointing out the basic fact to you that nobody in the Afd cited IAR, the closer did not cite IAR, and nobody in this DRV except you is citing IAR, and for the record, I cannot think of any Afd that has ever been closed as 'keep, WP:IAR:ignore WP:NOT'. That is not what happened here, and it is not what IAR for. You don't want to believe me, fine, I really could not care less. MickMacNee (talk) 19:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC) You were corrected about IAR not because people thought you were a "fucking moron", it was because you were attributing qualities to IAR that simply do not exist in its wording. IAR does not need to be cited to be used, in fact it is often better not to cite it and to just go ahead and do it. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 21:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse closure Consensus was clearly in favour of keeping the article. The issue of notability of aircraft crashes is being worked on at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force/Notability, where all editors are encouraged to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force/Notability. Mjroots (talk) 07:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC) There's that word 'clearly' again. It really should be pointed out here that this crash does not meet a single part of the current draft guidance, not a word of it, nor any of the other proposals on its talk page either (except that of Mjroot's, which is getting the usual amount of support it gets, which is not a lot). This Afd closure, and that draft guidance, in any likely final form, could not be further apart on the whole 'what is a routine crash' issue. Endorsing this Afd outcome just shows that even general guidance like EVENT is simply ignorable 'by consensus' (lol), as long as enough people in an Afd can just about manage to type 'keep, clearly notable per the GNG' or 'NOT#NEWS doesn't apply, this is not a routine event', and then just run away (and seriously, it cannot be stressed enough that this was the type of vote that was presumably at the "strong" end of the closer's summarising of the votes). Anyone pretending that this topic specific bit of Guidance on aircrashes will make a blind bit of difference to that disfunctional Afd culture/situation, is dreaming if you ask me. MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse the consensus of the community was rightly interpreted by closing admin. WP:NOTNEWS as a reason to delete fatal aircrash articles has been routinely rejected by the community recently on most AfDs. The results of this AfD are not surprising in the least bit as wont' be the results of this deletion review.--Wikireader41 (talk) 08:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse, could not reasonably have been closed any other way. Renominate in 6-12 months when everything has died down and it'll probably be deleted. Stifle (talk) 09:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC) And what about WP:NTEMP? The only legitimate, non-policy conflicting way Wikipedia could succesfully delete this in 12 months time, is funnily enough, if the people voting keep now, were proven to have been making vague waves and blind assertions as to what is and is not 'clearly notable', and the closer wrongly weighted their flawed arguments. MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC) I'm on your side here, and I'm aware of NTEMP, but policy is only a summation of common practice and there is no way that a deletion result will carry here and now. Pick your battles. Stifle (talk) 09:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Strong Endorse The closing admin clearly acted in favor of the strong consensus to keep. Barts1a (talk) 12:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Reluctant endorse - Many "keeps" in there are wholly ignorant of what WP:NOTNEWS actually means, but there's just too many of them to overcome. Sometimes the lemming method carries the day. Tarc (talk) 14:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC) This is depressingly probably the best summary yet of what actually happened in that Afd, and what is so wrong with the closure. MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse per overwhelming consensus expressed at discussion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Neutral, as I wanted the article deleted (see AfD-in-question), but realize it's gonna remain. GoodDay (talk) 23:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse. Accurate reflection of consensus, regardless of how much the nominator insists that his opinion is the only possible correct one. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC) I don't have 'just an opinion' on this. In the true spirit of how actual Wikipedia consensus building is supposed to work, I have presented a fact based argument, referring to the actual sources in the article, and citing the actual spirit as well as the wording of several well established policies, and which are backed by the consensus of thousands of editors, which if admins are doing their job properly in closing Afds, they are supposed to weight accordingly, and not simply ignore and pretend a pile of WP:ATAs from 10 or 20 editors are remotely valid in that regard. If anyone has provided anything in reply to my argument in this Drv except just more of the same source-less/policy-lite 'opinion' that came out in the Afd, then seriously, just point it out here with diffs, and I'll forget all about it. At last count, I have suggested at least four different ways that people endorsing this closure could actualy convince everybody here, not just the people who agree, that they are the holders of the 'correct opinion'. Nobody seems to want to take up the challenge. Will you? Can you, even? Based on your non-reply to this, I think not. No, your contribution to that Afd was ironically, 'just an opinion', and all you are doing here, is blinding insisting it is the only possible correct one. We will never ever it seems, see you even attempt to prove that statements like "Fatal and disastrous air crashes like this are not routine news events" have any relevance or support in the real world of measuring actual, historical notability, or have any use at all to building a proper encyclopoedia whose inclusion is based on proper notability standards, instead of a simple GNG vague-wave backed inclusion standard, creating nothing but a recentism infested Google News dumping ground whose collection of news articles gets staler and staler by the day, a body of work that no serious historical researcher would touch with a barge pole, and no general reader needs after the news dies down. What you simply asserted is worthy of inclusion here for all time, has no backing in real world treatment of similar crashes, and certainly has no backing on Wikipedia's coverage of air accidents before the Google News era. MickMacNee (talk) 14:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC) The policies related to this article are not so black and white that opinion should be discarded, if that were so the DRV and for that matter the AfD would not be needed. We are a consensus based encyclopedia and our policies do give this consensus a lot of discretion in this area. It is clear you have a strong opinion on this subject but others have their own opinions. While you have taken great effort to convert people's opinion to yours, it appears they have not been swayed. Insisting that your opinion is more correct than theirs despite this is unlikely to change minds where your cogent arguments have not done so. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 15:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC) Chillum you have hit the nail on the head. MMN has a long history of believing that his interpretation of WP guidelines/policies is better than almost everybody else. wp policies are intentionally gray so that different editors from diverse backgrounds can express how a particular guideline/policy applies to the question at hand. we specifically do not have any wikilaws and WP:NOTLAW is a policy. this AfD and DRV is another classic example where in face of near impossible opposition he continues to believe that his assertions are "right" and he (and and a handful of people agreeing with him) are the only ones who understand the working of wikipedia. classic case of "Can't see the forest for the trees" IMO. The essay WP:LETGO was written for this occasion.--Wikireader41 (talk) 12:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC) Well in this case it actually is better, since the keeps are remarkably (and predictably) short-sighted. But as Dick Tuck famously said, "the people have spoken, the bastards". Tarc (talk) 13:13, 20 November 2010 (UTC) I can only wonder at what sort of background it takes for someone to realy believe that 'omfg planes don't routinely fall out of the sky!' and vague waving to the GNG is in any way a cogent rebuttal to a NOT#NEWS / EVENT / AIRCRASH nomination. Wikireader41, as ever, I'm always amused at your attempts to make it sound like not thinking like you do, not debating like you do, and not understanding consensus the way you do, is a Bad Thing. I find it to be a most uplifting and soul-reaffirming thing to yet again see what sort of thin, albeit non-existent, argument that I am supposedly 'losing' to. Frankly, to carry on the analogies and go to boxing, you cannot even claim to have won a fight if all you do is throw one weak punch and then run away. Ask Audrey Harrison. MickMacNee (talk) 14:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC) Neutral - I cannot fault Cirt's closure (I would not have written "strong consensus, but that's a technicality), but I also cannot endorse not the "keep" outcome. Irrespective of the relative quality of the arguments, realistically the AfD could not have been closed as "delete" (it would have been quickly restored at DRV). I think Stifle's suggestion to revisit the issue in 6–12 months is the best one, under the circumstances. In theory, the burden of proof should be on those who wish to retain content to prove that an event has lasting notability or significance. In this case, however, waiting some months will help to clarify whether the accident will have any lasting effect. For what it's worth, I appreciated MickMacNee's detailed and well-reasoned attempt to address the 'keep' arguments, and I think that some of the response here has been unfair. Disagreement between editors engaged in an exchange of arguments is infinitely preferable to argument by assertion (no matter how obvious a particular outcome or the supremacy of one's own opinions may appear to be). -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC) Endorse The correct outcome based on consensus and the merits. The crash is obviously notable per WP:GNG given the extent to which reliable sources have covered it. WP:NOT#NEWS prevents Wikipedia from being overwhelmed with the minutia of everyday news reporting, irrespective of whether reliable sources significantly cover this trivia, but should not be used to remove coverage of major events. Showing that a certain event is more notable than others of its class is unnecessary where the class itself is extraordinary. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation/Notability is an essay, thus completely unsuitable for a making a "policy trumps case-specific consensus" sort of argument. Peter Karlsen (talk) 19:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC) And yet, here we are in 2010, after many hundreds of aircrashes have occured in the age of easy access to Google News, and there is still no community accepted case specific guideline about aircrashes that looks even remotely like the case you've presented here as to what is and is not 'clearly notable'. MickMacNee (talk) 21:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC) There's no notability guideline specific to aircrashes at all. In the absence of such, the community should, and has, applied WP:GNG, as limited by WP:NOT#NEWS. I'm a big believer in NOT#NEWS - subjects like "Oprah's bad hair day" aren't encyclopedic, even if some credible sources decide to write about them in significant detail. What I oppose is the apparent suggestion that coverage of any event less major than Hurricane Katrina is somehow forbidden by NOT#NEWS, a position which seems more informed by the wording of the shortcut than the actual text of the policy, and has never achieved significant acceptance by the community. Peter Karlsen (talk) 00:19, 22 November 2010 (UTC) Yes there is no topic specific notability guideline, but if you take a look at any and all possible drafts that have ever been written, using actual realistic examples and actual, real world knowledge of aviation history, rather than completely off the wall comparisons like Oprah's hair or Katrina, then you will see that they never ever come close to what you are trying to define as 'clearly notable' here. If you go and actualy look at that article, you will see that it probably has 0.1% of the coverage that Katrina got, if that. Which is why my point actualy was, not that there is no guideline, but that if you think you've correctly set the bar here in your general use of the GNG/NOT#NEWS, and want to see if that really is correct for aircrashes, then please, try and write that guideline as you think it should be, and see if the community actualy agress with it when the proposition is there in black and white, and they can compare it with WP:5P and WP:NOT. MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC) There are books written, attempting comprehensibility of coverage of all Aviation accidents and incidents. There are continuously running television documentaries that cover any and all aviation accidents and incidents. There is no doubt, is there, that any event meeting the well defined terms found at Aviation accidents and incidents is the source of independent secondary coverage that discusses the subject directly? Every aviation accident and incident will be the subeject of a comprehensive investigation and report. There is no doubt that they are notable. The only debatable point is whether we have to wait for the investigation reports, or for the book or TV coverage, before we publish the facts of the aviation accident or incident. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC) Books and TV shows are made about this sort of accident? Are you absolutely sure of what you are saying here? Because let's be clear, this is not something that was not considered when AIRCRASH was written, or when the new draft Guidance was written. I've linked to a comparable crash above which happened 30 years ago, if there have been any books or programmes made about it, please let us know. The fact that reports are made is simply completely and utterly irrelevant - what is relevant to actual historical notability is what they say, as the historical precedents all show. So yes, if you want to use those as evidence of ongoing and lasting notability, then you need to wait. Again, this is not something that people who know about this topic have not considered, wrt EVENT. MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC) OK, I guess I'd better be clear. The editors behind AIRCRASH are off the rails for a subject of such public interest and of serious industrial and scholarly study. Reports, such as news reports, or company annual reports, are often barely discriminating collections of facts, and are not considered by us to be indicative of wikipedia-notability. Reports are also often non-independent. But this is not the case here. Aircraft safety and risk management is a matter of extreme seriousness and exhaustive study. In most countries, regulatory investigative bodies are rigorously independent of the aircraft owner and the managers and the passengers. Their reports are independent, and comprehensive about every accident. The reports are endlessly compiled and further analysed, and the results become texts for further study. The abundance of this information, and the undeniable public interest, is why bookshops continuously sell new books on the subject, and why television produces more and more programs dedicated to aircraft accidents. The fact that reports are made that are independent and comprehensive is a conclusive reason to say that this (An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, in which a person is fatally or seriously injured, the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure or the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible.) is a serious scholarly subject worthy of inclusion, and the never-ending popular books and TV programs merely confirm notability of such subject. The GNG is paramount, and if you consider coverage to be found in technical libraries (forget the internet), there is no case to argue that 2010 Karachi plane crash is not a worthy subject for inclusion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC) Absolutely not. If you want to put this proposition to the community, go ahead. IMHO, you will never in a million years get a consensus, let alone a strong consensus, that it is Wikipedia's mission to have a whole entire article for every single incident as defined here. Your idea that public interest equates to encyclopoedic notability is what is way off base frankly, and you are wrong, wrong, wrong, if you think that secondary sources, namely books and programmes are being made about this sort of crash, based on primary sources, which is what accident reports and investigations are by any definition you care to use. And you are also wrong if you don't realise that the independance clause of the GNG precludes relying on just technical or specialist sources to show notability. Seriously, you are talking here as if there is not already 30, 40, 50 years of Aviation history out there that has been available for secondary coverage, that editors who are minded to write things like AIRCRASH, have not already considered, and weighed against how notability is defined in other fields, none of which treat anything with such a huge blanket inclusion criteria. Frankly, I think the only actual policy that comes close to supporting this idea, is WP:NOTPAPER, end even that is a stretch, considering that NOTPAPER itself is governed by all the other NOT criteria, i.e. Wikiepdia is not a news aggregator for aircrashes, Wikipedia is not a directory of aircrash reports, Wikipedia is not a database of aircrash information, and Wikipedia is not a journal of aviation safety, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collector of information about aircrashes. MickMacNee (talk) 16:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC) There is no reference here to having a stand-alone article for every single incident as defined. Comparable subjects without much collective content get merged and redirected. What they don’t get is deleted. Post incident analysis reports are secondary sources with respect to the incident, even if they are technical. The independence clause of the GNG does no such thing as you say. The independence clause is mainly there to prevent the meeting our inclusion criteria through press releases, paid and sponsored coverage, subsidiary promotion of the parent, and similar. The independence clause has never been discussed in terms of the specialist or technical level of the source. Specialist and technical sources are often rejected as evidence of notability because online specialist and technical sources are often just compilations of data. Serious analytical specialist and technical sources, which easily meet the secondary source definition, tend not to be freely online, but where found, if independent, squarely cover the GNG. At a simple level, we cover subjects already covered by others. All aviation accidents and incidents get covered by others. The notability of these incidents is clear. The verifiability of the content is unquestioned. I really don’t get your problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:50, 22 November 2010 (UTC) I'd have been fine with a merge, because guess what? That is exactly what AIRCRASH recommends for this specific crash. That didn't make much difference to this Afd though. Incident investigations and reports are not independent for the purposes of establishing notability on an encyclopoedia at all - they are created by law, and they will be created whether the incident was encyclopoedically notable or not, as opposed to simply being in the public/safety authorities/legislators interest to create. To illustrate how this is not proof of notability, you will probably appreciate that an official investigation report is produced by law for every fatal road accident in any civilised country. How many road accident articles do you think we have on Wikipedia? The thing that creates notability there is if they lead to mass recalls of deathtrap designs, or caused the death of a famous celebrity, or in one case I can recall, produced a gory internet viral pic. They are absolutely not created because someone wrote a report on it. In the exact same way a police officer is not an independent source in that case, the aviation investigators are not independent sources for aircrash notabilty. Same for rail accidents, and doubtless countless other fields where you can find ample 'official report' type coverage. As for the idea that the only thing holding back our aircrash coverage is the lack of access to truly secondary but specialised/technical sources, you will find a wealth of info online in sources like the Aviation Safety Network, even for historical incidents (and tbh, even the primary official reports are all online these days, even archive ones). The idea that if 'multiple' sources like the ASN cover it with words, it would pass as 'independent secondary sources' for the purposes of the GNG, without any other coverage, like documentaries, books, etc, just demonstrates how your approach does not fit with our clearly understood mission. People like the ASN have their mission (to be a specialist source documenting and analsying every air crash), we have ours (to be a general encyclopedia which carries some specialist info if it is considered truly notable by people outside of those sources). We are not competitors of the ASN, not in the slightest. Just like we are not competitors to CNN, or the IMDB, or technical/scientific Journal publishers, or even national libraries/archives. If you think we are, then seriously, go and a draft Guideline for aircrashes that uses your ideas here, and put it out there. It would fail to get consensus, or anything even approaching it. Consider the reams and reams of the sort of coverage you describe as obvious notability above, that is generated for an incident like, say, a cabin door seal failing in mid flight causing an emergency landing. That is the exact sort of Wikipedia article that even most of the people voting keep in that Afd would vote delete on (and not even merge, but delete), even though it often even gets news coverage too. MickMacNee (talk) 00:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Due to its analysis and synthesis of actual primary sources such as photographs of the wreckage and flight data recorder information, an accident report for an aircrash is a secondary source. Unlike most auto accident investigations, any report for a crash of a commercial aircraft in which multiple people died will itself be significantly covered by reliable media sources. The pendency of the report, and coverage of it, is not the only factor which supports notability, however. Others include the number of fatalities in a single incident, and significant coverage by credible news organizations throughout the world. It is my firm hope that you will one day appreciate the collective wisdom expressed by the community in AFD discussions. Peter Karlsen (talk) 01:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Theoretically, it is actually possible to write an article from primary sources. Not advisable on an encyclopoedia, but possible, simply by using available documentation. If 'raw data' like magnetic tape info and photographs is where you are setting the bar at, for what is a primary source, and as soon as someone writes anything about it, it becomes a secondary source, then it becomes pretty obvious that your defintion is completely and utterly implausible. To use the WP:OR analogy of research papers being primary sources, and research review papers being secondary sources, it only becomes more obvious. By your perception, a first level research review paper would actually be a tertiary source! This is not supportable in any way. As for the rest of what you said, it's all been covered above, I'm losing the will to even discuss those things anymore for want of some actual, proper discussion on them. Consensus is worthless if you cannot even present the argument in such a way that someone can understand and accept it because of the logic of your argument and what you backed it up with, while still disagreeing. If you want me to accept the 'consensus' that the news coverage in that article is 'significant', rather than run of the mill see it on Google News every day all gathered from pretty much the same primary source with no depth or originality or persistence type wire repeating 'reporting', then knowing what I know about our mission, our policies, other articles, and news organisations in general, I am personally still at the 'wtf?' stage, and the 'why the hell do we even bother writing things like EVENT stage', rather than the 'well, I see what you mean, I can see how our mission/policy/precedent might support that view, but I think you are wrong' stage. MickMacNee (talk) 01:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Infact, this is probably the problem. If you can think a crash report is a secondary source, you will probably have no problem thinking that a routine news report is evidence of some Columbo level of interest by news organisations. The flaws in the argument are the same - if the report is the secondary source, how could any editor hope to write an article on the primary sources? And if the basic news reporting in that article is not routine, then what part of the daily 24 hour news cycle output BBC/Al-Jazeer/CNN daily output, can be considered routine? MickMacNee (talk) 02:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC) While review papers are preferred sources, research papers, published in credible journals, are secondary sources insofar as they analyze the data collected and draw conclusions and this analysis is considered and affirmed by the peer reviewers of the journal in which published (otherwise we would have serious policy problems in using research papers for references, as is the current practice where insufficient review papers are available, or have been located by contributing users.) It is certainly possible to adequately warn editors against the practice of cherry-picking a few of the many research papers available to support their preferred point of view, synthesizing experimental data to support conclusions not drawn by the papers' authors, or using individual research papers to negate review papers' conclusions, without mischaracterizing the whole issue, as the text of WP:NOR currently does. We are fortunate that the actual policy is derived from a consensus of experienced editors throughout Wikipedia, not whatever text happens to be found in a policy page at any given point in time (which discourages much edit warring on policy pages.) Editors in AFD discussions seem perfectly capable of distinguishing routine newscasting from a 21 fatality crash of a commercial aircraft. You are well advised to do the community of which you are (currently) a part more credit than to claim that "consensus is worthless" because you personally cannot "understand and accept" its logic. Peter Karlsen (talk) 02:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC) A research review paper is a tertiary source, as it analyses other documents that analyse and discuss each other, in addition to their own primary data. If the research papers do not discuss their data in reference to other research papers, then they are not serious research publications. A secondary source relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. For fundamentally, it transforms the primary information, creating new information that is the product of the new author. Reports, news, or crash, are not usually secondary sources, but are comment-free reproduction of the known facts. A police report on a car crash is barely above this. The police may make comment on the suitability of the speed for the road, but generally they write a report of someone subsequent to analyse, with a collection of similar data. Road patrol officers are not usually considered analytical. The product of an aviation accident or incident investigation is much more than a police report containing the important facts. If it discusses, analyses, decides, recommends, then it is beyond a primary source and is a secondary source. True, we are not competitors of the ASN. But we should cover what the ASN covers. We should provide a passing summary of ASN content itself, excluding that sorted under "database". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC) To both of you, aircrash investigation reports are not secondary sources. The same author/body/entity that holds the primary data that goes into them, is the same body that analyses it, and is the same body that publishes it, and is the same body that makes recommendations on it. This is not the same as a research paper that has then been peer-reviewed and published by an independent journal. That's the whole point of requiring independence as per the GNG. And Peter, I did not say I did not understand the logic, I said it has not even been presented here in relation to to any policy or argument that would make it anything more than blind assertion or a personal opinion on what Wikipedia is and is WP:NOT. Sure, people might blithely manage to type 'that's notable' in an Afd, but on the issue of properly analysing and considering whether that particular body of news reporting is significant or not, then no, that is not how you build consensus at all, and no, such weak argumentation deserves no respect. And to Joe, "we should cover what the ASN covers" - prove it. It's not what we do now, and it's not what any topic specific draft guidance has even come close to, and that is most certainly not due to lack of online access to non-database like information. I will repeat, all the reports both of you want to contend are secondarys sources, are all available online. MickMacNee (talk) 18:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.