Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 November 7

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7 November 2011[edit]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
English words with uncommon properties (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Article was deleted despite the discussion being inconclusive (6 votes pro deletion, 1 split and 6 keeps). I am one of the main curators of the page, but I was not informed and the discussion for its deletion just slipped past me. I believe the article is informative and should have a place in wikipedia and in my opinion the action taken should not have been delete, but the recruitment of experts in the English language to overhaul the article. The article, which had been in place for several years and had over 1,000 views per day, was subject to a lot of IP user edits which increased its contents often in the wrong direction and subjective but in good faith (which were not deleted in order to encourage new users, i.e. WP:BITE) — several case brought forth for its deletion were in fact these edits. As a consequence the page was too long and poorly connected, hence one proposal for split. It was considered informative, albeit disorganised and subjective in some passages. This could have been solved by removing several passages which were subjective and expanding on the discussion of the unique nature of the letters "w" and "y", which several users found problematic. Furthermore, this page actually acted as a hub, interlinking several smaller articles, which, now that the redlinks have been removed, have now been tagged as orphans. --Squidonius (talk) 23:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC) Squidonius (talk) 23:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • comment I really wish my friend Spartaz, an admin admirable in every other respect, would realize the advantages of giving reasons initially when he closes non-obvious AfDs, including every AfD where there are good faith divided opinions. . It would greatly facilitate later discussion, and understanding of the reasons for keeping and deleting articles. DGG ( talk ) 23:47, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse- By my count it's 6 deletes, one split and four keeps. But that's not really relevant since AfD is not a headcount and I don't think cries of "Tied vote! No consensus!" hold much weight. Reading the discussion, many people had concerns about poor sourcing, problems with original research, and felt the list was inherently subjective. These concerns were not addressed, and so I can't see anything wrong with concluding that the strength of argument favoured deletion. Reyk YO! 00:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse own deletion Deletion arguments were a lack of an encyclopaedic scope WP:NOT & WP:LSC with unsourced WP:RS original research WP:OR being added as a result as well as suggestions of WP:SYNTH content. Deletion arguments were backed by reference to policy and I have bracketed the policys after the subject. The keep side mostly relied on assertion and failed to effectively rebut the deletion arguments. Where they did refer to policy it was either misused or misinterpreted - for example arguing that LSC isn't a reason for deletion negates the fact that it is both a style and a content guideline with a clear inference is that content that doesn't meet the standard can be removed. If you did that here the whole list disappears, which = delete. Keep arguments based on a subset of IAR WP:COMMONSENSE are always going to fail as we can't possibly run any kind of credible deletion system without a consistent approach. IAR in deletion discussions always causes more trouble then its worth. There are several references this being a notable list or words being notable but no explanation of how this is the case WP:ASSERTION. Our conception of notability is tied into the GNG which is negated by preponderance of unreferenced content in the article and the failure to find a scholarly scope/inclusion criteria. Wikipedia consensus is bound by matching arguments to policy and giving much less weight to arguments that are either not policy based or do not reflect the actual policies. I hope the detailed explanation above explains why I found the policy based arguments were the deletion ones and why I therefore found for deletion. Spartaz Humbug! 04:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Complaint lodge. Before replying, I would like to express my distress about how the matter was handled. I had stumbled across the article and had spent a considerable amount of my time trying to rescue it as I saw it of value — I am a biochemist and find a lot of the content of wikipedia a lot more unencyclopaedic — and tried to bring it up to standard: consequently finding it gone without being included in the argument angers me greatly. I strongly advice that next time a page with a significant amount of text and edits is proposed for deletion the main contributors be informed, I know that the main problem with wikipedia is the lack of community spirit, but this takes the biscuit. I strongly believe the article is worth keeping in some form and would normally argue for it, but the attitude here is not constructive: I found quite patronising the comment that I was not crying out "Tied vote! No consensus!" as mention and I found incomprehensible the list of acronyms (WP:AIR is wikiproject aircraft) spouted at me. --Squidonius (talk) 05:34, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy, that is, restore to Squidonius's userspace. There were a lot of non-policy arguments on both sides. The thing is, it wasn't a terrible close or anything, and DRV is not supposed to be another AfD, so Bob's your uncle... usually. But, you know, Squidonius raises some points: it's a potentially really useful article, had a lot of editors, yadda yadda. There are a lot of articles like this -- List of commonly misused English words, Commonly misspelled words, List of common misconceptions, etc. -- and these are very popular articles, and people like working on them, and people like to read them, and they enhance the encyclopedia, and they are just, generally, a good thing provided they're well tended. Do we want to clear out all these articles? I don't. So how about userfying and seeing if Squidonius can clean it up and come up some way to overcome the WP:LSC problem, would that be an OK compromise,? Herostratus (talk) 07:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there any chance of a temporary restore for DRV purposes? I'd like to see which sources were cited in the article (and to cross-check them against sources I have on my bookshelf), because depending on the exact definition of "uncommon properties" used, I rather think there might be an article to be written. For example, every word in the list of English irregular verbs has "uncommon properties", and there are scholarly sources about what those properties are and how they came about.—S Marshall T/C 09:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Google cache is showing a revision of the article while it was at AFD (at least to me). 74.74.150.139 (talk) 10:48, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • To me too, but looking at just one revision can be a bit misleading. For example, Spartaz has given weight to the WP:LSC argument despite the fact that this clearly wasn't a list. Based on the one revision I can see, I can't make sense of that choice.—S Marshall T/C 12:24, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have restored the article for the DRV. GB fan 13:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy per Herostratus. I was quite surprised by the decision to delete given that the topic was demonstrated to be notable by alf.laylah.wa.laylah in the AfD. I can only suppose that Spartaz did not consider it likely that the lack of thorough sourcing would in fact be remedied if the article was left up. In other words the decision appears to have been a practical rather than a policy-motivated decision. Either way, given that the topic is verifiably notable (i.e. it meets Wikiepdia's basic inclusion criteria), let's userfy to allow Squidonius the ability to properly source it. Perhaps messages should also be left with some of the major contributors like User:DavidWBrooks, User:Ajd, User:Ichthyoid, and some of the other 147 page watchers. -Thibbs (talk) 15:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's more complicated than this, actually, folks. The reason this is so difficult is because throughout the article's history, insufficient attention has been paid to the sources, leading to the development of a horrible hodgepodge of original research and unrelated topics, assembled beneath the wrong article name. The authors knew they were developing something worthwhile but they hadn't even figured out what it was properly called. So of course, once it got to AfD, the AfD participants googled "English words with uncommon properties" and (surprise, surprise) found absolutely no sources. And none of them thought any further than that, which is of course the usual problem with AfD, so we ended up here. Meanwhile, the actual encyclopaedic topic the authors were groping towards, which is called lexicology of English, is still a shameful redlink.

    Please incubate this material so that I can collaborate with Squidonius and any other interested editors to produce a proper, encyclopaedic article on this subject.—S Marshall T/C 17:07, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

S Marshall, do you really think it possible to produce a single article on the subject? The author of a conventionally written book has the privilege of being as arbitrary as they please about what gets included--books about words are in essence books about Words That Interest Me. We need to be clearer and more explicit, or we have difficulty working together. DGG ( talk ) 17:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not? It's possible to produce a single article on astronomy, even though the number of things there are to discuss about astronomy are, well, astronomical! We write an encyclopaedia article by deciding what we can omit and what we can condense.—S Marshall T/C 17:52, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think the topic is more akin to "Interesting facts about astronomy". DGG ( talk ) 15:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Let's say the topic that has a place in our encyclopaedia and can be extracted from the text is lexicology of English.  :)—S Marshall T/C 23:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lexicology of English may be redlinked, but English lexicology and lexicography isn't. As a one-sentence dicdef, it's nearly as shameful, though. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the article is considered too vague, I'd first userfy and then merge its contents with Logology (rather than Lexicology) taking Recreational mathematics as a model of sorts. As Squidonius points out, the article has served as a kind of hub and thus aided in navigation of the related topics it covered. There are distinctly notable word games and riddles that standing alone might not make for much of an article but whose loss within Wikipedia inappropriately limits Wikipedia's breadth of coverage. For example, the lack of a rhyme for the word "orange" has been reported on in reliable sources since at least the 30s and almost certainly long before that. To accommodate this, we've expanded an article on "Orange (word)" into a mini-article that would logically be better suited for wiktionary were it not for the notable commentary on its lack of a rhyme (which really doesn't belong in wiktionary). Rather than starting up an odd collection of "Placeholder (word)" or, worse, "Words with X property" stubs, a better solution would be to have some sort of a hub article either standing alone (as it was until recently) or as merged into Logology. To assuage DGG's concern of unboundedness, I'd say that the limiting criterion should be verifiable notability. Beyond that, I second S Marshall's contention that concise and thoughtful editing should manage any unhelpful sprawl. -Thibbs (talk) 01:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transwiki The close was appropriate, but much of the content seems like it could be salvaged for Wiktionary. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy Thank you all for all the comments. I was not aware of a "userfy" option to incubate the article, but I am keen on trying this. If so, I also very gladly accept the guidance and help of S Marshall. This would allow a complete overhaul of the structure and rewriting/deletion of many sections addressing the issues of referencing, properly explaining the reasoning behind certain properties or basic rules (e.g. Proper nouns are not included in dictionaries) and giving it a coherent logic. Regarding sources, The article title does not have many hits as it is a rather long name, but there are many books on the topic and even with google there are a lot of pages dedicated to the subheadings of the topic and I am not referring solely to "Scrabble words". --Squidonius (talk) 09:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy. My reading of the AfD is that, while unacceptable as it stands, and possibly always unacceptable in this form, the article does contain some usable information which it is worthwhile to preserve in the appropriate place(s). Userfication gives interested users an opportunity to fix what can be fixed before bringing potentially troublesome content back into the main space. Eluchil404 (talk) 19:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse as reflecting the consensus at AfD. Userfication of deleted articles is always available, but I'm not seeing much of a plan to address issues of lack of an encyclopaedic scope WP:NOT & WP:LSC with unsourced WP:RS original research WP:OR, so i doubt userification is going to lead to a viable article in the long-run. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Review some of the comments above. There is talk of adding more reliable sources to those RSes already used in the article and possibly of merging the sourceable info into "lexicology of English". That should take care of NOT, RS, and OR. LSC does not apply in this case as S Marshall clearly explained above. -Thibbs (talk) 01:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy. In my personal opinion the article does contain some usable information which it is worthwhile to preserve.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 14:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy I believe S Marshall & DGG are both correct. There is a viable Article in this mess, but it may even need to be split into multiple Articles to achieve proper focus. Needs time and space to incubate a while longer. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:34, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having started the thread I copied the page to my page, User:Squidonius/English words with uncommon properties, I did not do this sooner as I want unaware that I could copy the source code from the past. As I mentioned above, any help/direction is welcome. As mentioned by me and DGG, one thing the deleted page did was link other pages together, so I cobbled together a proof-of-principle navigation bar template, which can help out the various articles while the deleted page is restructured/rewritten to comply with the comments about which will take a while. --Squidonius (talk) 11:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Probably not the best thing to do. You need to maintain attribution to the rest of the editors on that article. The page will need top be moved to your subpage so the whole history comes along with it if that is the determination of this DRV. GB fan 12:10, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Technically, there are several ways to maintain attribution, and it's not strictly necessary to move the whole history, although that would be optimum. One could also provide a list of authors in a dummy edit. Please see WP:Copying within Wikipedia for more information. (And I see I've failed to thank GB fan for the temporary restore, so let me fix that: thanks GB fan!)—S Marshall T/C 14:26, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Granville Automatic (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Article should be reinstated. Article was already under deletion review once and all notability guidelines were met and it was reinstated. Now, it has been redeleted for incorrect reasons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Granville_Automatic To counter the false information there, both members have been in notable bands. Olivarez founded Sugarland. Elkins was in The Swear. Granville Automatic is on PBS' Sun Studio Sessions. Elkins won Grand Prize (not third place) in the John Lennon contest. Album is not sold at shows, has not been released. Live at Sun Studio will be released on iTunes this month. Both band members have their own notable Wiki pages. This being deleted doesn't make sense since they are already both notable. Please consider reinstating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.221.45 (talk) 20:59, November 7, 2011‎

The article was deleted because of lack of reliable references. Can you provide them? If so, article can always get improved. --Tone 21:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. According to her article, Olivarez was never a member of Sugarland, she just wrote a couple of songs for them. Elkins doesn't even have an article, but according to The Swear article the Lennon Prize was won by the band not Elkins. None of these people or bands are very notable, and there's a limit to how much notability can be inherited. Suggest waiting until the band releases some albums and gets some significant press reviews and so forth before creating an article on them. Herostratus (talk) 02:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse deletion. I voted against them in the AfD, and the reinstater's blurb pretty much sums up why: the mild notability achieved by band members in their former careers plus their mild potential to achieve some in the future does not make up for the lack of evidence right now that this new band has achieved notability sufficient to merit an encyclopedia article. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 03:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
  • Energy Catalyzer – Keep closure endorsed without prejudice toward needed rewrites, including rewrites that end in a merge if a consensus for that option can be found at a later time. – Eluchil404 (talk) 04:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Energy Catalyzer (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Should have been closed as no consensus. The discussion does not evidence an agreement that the sources provide enough detail to write an article. There are also strong merge arguments made.

Beyond that, the closer has never in a substantial history closed an AFD as "no consensus" ([1]) and was forced to revise what was basically a super-vote when it turns out their premise was flawed ([2]). There is no reason that this AFD, which was massively polluted by off-wiki canvasing, and actual paid advocates (note SPAs) demonstrates a consensus to keep - at best, it's no consensus to do anything, which, while it defaults to keep, is still an important point of process, and needed education for future contentious AFD closers. Hipocrite (talk) 14:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by keep. The closing statement was later modified to reflect the fact that there had been an ArbCom case related to the topic. I don't think it was a good idea to put it to AfD in the first place, ArbCom decisions should be applied instead. --Tone 14:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I should perhaps point out here this discussion on Tone's talk page: I Asked "I note that you closed the E-Cat debate 11 minutes after closing another AfD. Was this all the time you allowed to read the discussion and arrive at your decision? This would seem a rather short time, to me". Tone's response was "Regarding my time of reading, you'll see that many arguments are really repetitive so it does not take so long to read through and get a big picture. At least that's my opinion". [3] AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that I have reevaluated my decision later on and reached the same conclusion. Ok, now I am out of this discussion. --Tone 15:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, there were 96% of keep and 4% of delete. I have rarely seen such a high consensus for keeping a page, read it with your own eyes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Energy_Catalyzer --Insilvis (talk) 16:21, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your statistics are fabricated. Hipocrite (talk) 16:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. Saw you are in the 4% of delete:
Delete and banhammer a bunch of SPAs I have reviewed the sourcing. Aside from Ny Teknik, which appears to be a mouthpiece for the "inventors," and "New Energy Times," a pseudo-blog published by a frequently blocked/banned/whatever wikipedian, and a bunch of other blogs, SEO aggregates and credulous sources that repeat the blogs, there's also one reliable source - a blog by a Forbes contributor. There's a lot of text, and a lot of sources, due to the pressure by actual paid advocates who are engaging in what appears to be challenged as fraud by many. This is an entity attempting to sell units to the general public - and we're basically complicit. Hipocrite (talk) 19:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
--Insilvis (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are dramatically more than 4% of commentators arguing for delete. Please cease fabricating statistics. Thanks. My rationale for delete holds. Hipocrite (talk) 16:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Insilvis, can you provide the raw numbers, and indicate whether your figure indicates the highly-questionable !votes from new contributors with no other editing history, and the !keep votes which were based on 'I like it', rather than on policy, as is required? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Occurences of '* Delete' in afd page: 5

Occurences of '* Keep' in afd page: 23 I.e. 18% for deletion and 82% for keep.--hughey (talk) 10:11, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was canvassing outside of wikipedia for the yes vote as is evident from the discussion. Wikipedia is not about the number of votes but the strength of arguments. It is not a democracy. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If I see one hundred keep and four delete my conclusion is that the community decided to keep it. This is a fact. You can disagree with the decision, but the result is clear.--Insilvis (talk) 17:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have fabricated your numbers, yet again. There were not 100 keeps. There were more than 4 keeps. Please cease fabricating things. Hipocrite (talk) 17:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it looks like those numbers are made up. And now, in before WP:VOTE, here are the actual[1] numbers: 53 Keep or Strong Keep vs. 11 Delete or Strong Delete. Almost a 5-to-1 ratio. Quite impressive, right?
[1] Methodological note: counted via regular expression. Not a perfect search, by all means, as it ignores contributions that weren't written in the keep/delete answer format, or contributions that were variations of the keep/delete format that I didn't think of (e.g. I allowed brackets around "strong", but nothing else), but as an approximation, I think it's reasonably telling. Here are the two regexes I used. Try them yourself on the source of the AfD page to be sure I didn't make them up.
grep -c ''\'\'\'\(*[Ss]trong\)*[[:space:]][Kk]eep'\|'\'\'\'[Kk]eep'' and grep -c ''\'\'\'\(*[Ss]trong\)*[[:space:]][Dd]elete'\|'\'\'\'[Dd]elete''
Minvogt (talk) 19:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the strength of the arguments, it's 100% clear to me that Wikipedia should have an article on this subject. We need an article about Rossi's energy catalyzer for exactly the same reason as we have articles on other notable hoaxes: because we are the information source ranking highest in google searches, and that puts a duty on us. If we take no steps to explode the myth, then if others are deluded by it, we will be complicit. Therefore, while I don't necessarily endorse the keeping of the article in its present form, I most certainly endorse the outcome of the AfD.—S Marshall T/C 15:34, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, but There is no real question whether Wikipedia should have an article. Tone reached the only possible conclusion there. I did not participate in the debate, but it occurred to me that a question that should have been raised was whether this article is rescuable as a NPOV article, or whether it represents arrant propaganda for the theory, and would need to be totally rewritten, in which case it would be eligible for speedy deletion as G11. I don't want to confuse matters by doing this now, but if I saw it for the first time, I might well have done just that. I'm not clear about the mention of arb com, and I see nothing in the arb com decision cited that would have affected the suitability for AfD. The only remedy that passed was directed at a single editor--and is not relevant relevant. The only principle that would have specifically applied is "Encyclopedias are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with current mainstream scientific thought." -- it could be argued that the presentation in the article violated it, to the extent that rewriting was impossible and deletion necessary. The principles in the arb case about RS and so forth were just standard. DGG ( talk ) 18:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Having reviewed the various deletion arguments, they all add up to "delete because it's a cold fusion/free energy hoax that we don't want to publicize." Notability was not addressed in those arguments, for the most part, and unfortunately having this thing show up in Forbes, CBS, and MSNBC pretty much settles the notability issue. The problem now is to write an article that accurately states the real status of this thing, which is difficult because most sources are credulous or involved, if not both. Possibly such an article could be short enough to be merged into cold fusion (as I and another proposed), but given the way it is being edited now, that's obviously not possible. Mangoe (talk) 19:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to point to the remarks made at the first, premature close [4]: "There seems to be a common sentiment in this discussion that, just because something is a scam, all claims to notability are void. That's not the case. The multitude of sources I'm seeing mention Rossi and the E-Cat extensively. Even if they were all making it up and it was a conspiracy, that made-up conspiracy would still be notable." Mangoe (talk) 19:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse but this really needs to be merged into Cold Fusion, because at the moment by having a separate article it gives the impression that Wikipedia is credulous of this complete load of impossible bollocks, regardless of how the article is written to be critical. Major scams can be notable on their own if they have some real-world notability; this one doesn't. If not, the article seriously needs to be re-written to ensure that the casual reader is completely aware that this is, indeed, a scam. Otherwise, we're failing our readership. Black Kite (t) 19:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious - how do you know that it's a "complete load of impossible bollocks"? Tmccc (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The process by which we can tell this is technically called "evaluating the sources".—S Marshall T/C 22:50, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The sources are presumably dispassionately evaluated? Declaring something as a "load of impossible bollocks" without detailing the steps used to reach that conclusion is an odd way of contributing to a serious discusion. At least there ought to be a list of wiki policies used when evaluating, and how these lead to the result. If this is not the case, then it ought to be discounted! This would never stand up in court ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmccc (talk • contribs) 07:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. On the basis of that post, and your contribution history, we can evaluate you dispassionately as well.—S Marshall T/C 17:11, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. On the basis of that post, and your contribution history, we can evaluate you dispassionately too :) 62.30.137.128 (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse on basis of sound arguments given by closer. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]
  • Overturn to null/WP:TLDR, which seems to be the argument given by the closer. However, even if the result were legitimately "Keep", the article could still be merged into Cold fusion. The ArbCom finding applies to editor actions, not to keeping or deleting the article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:15, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. The original closing decision was extensively discussed and broad consensus was reached.--Insilvis (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. The consensus was that notability is given. More news articles are published each day. The closer assessed the discussion correctly. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:33, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree with others that the article should be stubbified and then merged into cold fusion. At present it is based too much on primary sources and unreliable newspaper reports. Mathsci (talk) 04:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Having said that I did request that the closing administrator check for single purpose accounts. Here is a list of those editing solely in this area, sometimes after a long break. Many of these should have been checked and tagged during the debate to help the closing administrator.
  1. Stengl (talk · contribs)
  2. Ldussan (talk · contribs) (one year break in editing before resuming on 29 Oct 2011
  3. 69.134.164.26 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  4. 86.125.176.31 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  5. NUMB3RN7NE (talk · contribs)
  6. POVbrigand (talk · contribs)
  7. 109a152a8a146 (talk · contribs)
  8. Brian Josephson (talk · contribs) (self-declared advocate)
  9. Tmccc (talk · contribs)
  10. Flintobrien (talk · contribs)
  11. Kv1970 (talk · contribs)
  12. 84.180.53.18 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  13. 71.161.192.84 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  14. Ewoudenberg (talk · contribs)
  15. Maryyugo (talk · contribs) (two year break in editing before voting in AfD)
  16. 79.179.42.190 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  17. Sterlingda (talk · contribs) (free energy advocate, 6 edits since Nov 2007)
  18. Star A Star (talk · contribs)
  19. Alanf777 (talk · contribs) (almost all content edits to this article, promotional userpage)
  20. Zedshort (talk · contribs) (self-declared activist, collecting on-wiki petition to send to White House)
  21. 217.149.200.230 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  22. 88.112.37.71 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  23. 152.2.132.47 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
  24. Richardbamberg (talk · contribs)
  25. Jonzo (talk · contribs)
  26. Bmrpire (talk · contribs)
  27. 42.241.97.122 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
Definitely something irregular happened with the voting at this AfD. Mathsci (talk) 10:31, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me but I have edited extensively in other areas well before coming to this article and also under 96.30.232.50 Zedshort (talk) 03:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What is this ? I thought that the implying of conspiracy theories was exclusively reserved for the CF-believers fraction. ? --POVbrigand (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Probably you should refactor that statement and be more careful what you write in future. I do not edit cold fusion or related articles. Most of the accounts above are anolomous in some way; in some cases the contribution to the AfD is the sole edit. Mathsci (talk) 14:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing wrong with checking a discussion for SPAs, but your methodology in compiling this list was sloppy, bordering on insulting. See my 'endorse' comment below, where I argue that you simply misstate facts, e.g. about the edit history of Ldussan. Quote from WP:SPA: "Please keep in mind that the tag may be taken as an insult or an accusation—use with consideration." -- something you ignored thoroughly. Minvogt (talk) 16:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've obviously been included in this list simply because my username looks like an IP address, I don't have a user page, and I !voted keep. I've made plenty of edits before even stumbling across this increasingly silly discussion. I'm assuming that I was included in error. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that all admins know enough to take account of obvious SPAs & do not need such reminders; we admins may be no smarter than anyone else, but we are not on the average much stupider. DGG ( talk ) 17:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That is not quite true, since this kind of thing is usually indicated by tagging during an AfD, which did not happen systematically here. Careful checking of individual accounts was required. That took me at least three quarters of an hour. Perhaps DGG could have done it quicker, but he didn't. Writing "we are not on the average much stupider" seems to miss that point. Mathsci (talk) 21:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mathsci, either your checking wasn't very thorough, or you misunderstand the concept of an SPA. I've already asked you politely (on your talk page) to remove me from your list, as I'm obviously not an SPA, and I object strongly to that label. Your only response was to delete my post on your talk page without comment, which seens rather uncivil. I ask you again to please remove my username from your list, as it clearly doesn't belong there, and I consider it quite defamatory. I would remove it myself, but I do not want to edit other people's edits. I'm sure you see my point. Thanks. 109a152a8a146 (talk) 22:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse as the obviously correct closure based on the content of the arguments. VQuakr (talk) 07:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Having been closed twice by two different uninvolved admins with essentially the same conclusion (just reworded), I fail to see what other conclusion can obtained even by reopening the discussion. Few if any of the arguments for deletion were based upon any sort of policy (particularly WP:DP) and are more an attack upon the topic itself than upon even the quality of the article. Neither this Deletion Review nor the AfD are appropriate forums for arguing as to if this is an appropriate kind of topic for Wikipedia, which instead belongs on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) or a similar page. I admit that there has been off-wiki canvassing going on, but the weakness of the arguments for deletion is really the matter here rather than vote counting or who may or may not have participated in the discussion. If the review is to examine the closing process, there may be some reason to hold this review, but otherwise I don't see how any other conclusion could have been made. The nominator of this deletion review certainly didn't make any sort of argument in the actual AfD based upon policy for why this article should have been deleted, nor has he given any reasonable basis for a review other than perhaps the off-wiki canvassing. The closing admins, in both cases, don't appear to have been swayed by those single-use accounts. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:18, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse I agree with Mangoe's summary: deletion proposers failed to address the matter of notability and media coverage, which, unless the consensus would have been that an objective article given the reliable sources we have for now cannot be written at the moment, strongly suggests there should be an article on the subject.
In addition, I want to point out the following: while we don't have to turn off our brains when editing (or forget everything we learned in order to get a physics degree), keep in mind that WP:NOR goes both ways: if the sources we have report about a potential (even though unlikely) breakthrough in science/engineering, we can't simply delete an article based essentially on the argument that "those sources are wrong because they don't understand physics". Have some patience: if the device is a scam (which it might well be, I personally believe), sooner or later articles will appear stating precisely that, and we can quote them.
Finally, about the claim that opinion in the AfD was tipped towards a 'keep' result by single purpose accounts: I have no idea how many SPAs (on either side) really took part, but I strongly disagree with Mathsci's list of shame, which seems way too inclusive. For example the reason to include Ldussan on this list was: "one year break in editing before resuming on 29 Oct 2011" -- hardly reason to make an accusation of SPA. Then I looked at Ldussan's edit history myself, and it turns out that the previous statement is not even true (last edit was a minor edit in June 2011, and quite active participation in 2010). This is simply sloppy, and rather rude. Please don't throw around SPA-accusations thoughtlessly just because the consensus in a discussion you feel strongly about didn't coincide with your own convictions. Tone was justified in closing the AfD, I believe. -- Minvogt (talk) 15:51, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I've only been here a short while, and the rudeness and venom being posted is amazing. All that's supposed to happen here is that we decide whether the entry is notable and whether the sources are sufficient. Tmccc (talk) 17:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are more reasons for why an article can be deleted besides notability, but that is usually the easiest method to objectively deny its existence on Wikipedia, hence a very common rationale for deletion. The "Google test" is commonly done to simply see if a topic has any references or articles on the internet or in common reference libraries. I've been involved with moving quite a bit of content between the various Wikimedia sister projects over the years, and there certainly have been pages created on Wikipedia that deserve to go elsewhere. None of that seems to be the case or even a rationale for deletion of this article. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse It is notable there is another reference to the issue in the very well known PhysOrg.com website today (Nov 8 US time). Why is there a claim above that I am "editing solely in this area"? I have made two contributions to other issues, in the talk pages, one on radiation shielding in space elevator materials technology and the other on protestor numbers in Melbourne regarding the Occupy Movement! I am not aware if these count as full edits as I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing. I have also done edits on Wikipedia articles as to books published by Black Pepper Publishing under a former user name some months ago (no one could know this of course). Sorry to raise personal issues. I am absolutely neutral on the hoax or breakthrough issue myself indeed wavering on the hoax side but that will certainly be resolved soon. In the meantime the article can be shortened and care should be taken not to add to it unless substantial developments occur. I do not think it is appropriate to merge it into other pages such as Rossi or cold fusion. Star A Star (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm scandalized by the behaviour of mathsci who felt very intelligent to make an accounting of the solely use intervenants. I personnaly did a lot of articles and contributions since 2007 in the french wikipedia under the "berpi" name, who was unavailable in the english edition. I made this intervention because the e-cat IS and remain a FACT ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmrpire (talk • contribs) 18:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oooops Sorry ! --Bmrpire (talk) 18:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Arguments about balance and neutrality are another matter, and a case can be made that the article is still too credulous, but there is no doubt in my mind that we should, in some shape or form, have a Wikipedia article on this topic. 86.176.214.139 (talk) 14:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You realise this isn't another AFD but instead is a deletion review right? Your !vote for keep combined with your later comments may make people think you don't understand the difference which may lead to your opinions being discounted when it comes to determining consensus Nil Einne (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The topic is notable and being covered by the media hence retaining the article is valid. Whether or not E-Cat is a hoax is irrelevant. Robert Brockway (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A postscript to this discussion (it doesn't seem to be going anywhere). One of the 'keep' !votes came from user:Sterlingda, who now claims to be responsible for setting up a website for Rossi's Leonardo Corp. [5] (Sterlingda states on his talk page that he is responsible for the PESN site, so I'm not outing him). Whether this is true or not seems currently to be in doubt, as Rossi's blog had a rather ambiguous disclaimer. None of this is remotely WP:RS of course, but it does rather imply a conflict of interest. The recent flurry of claims and counter-claims looks to me like the start of the end-game regarding the E-Cat, as Rossi now has to 'put up or shut up', and actually produce evidence of customers - which seem once again to be notable mostly by their absence. In this situation, we clearly need plenty of eyes on the article, and to be prepared for all sorts of spin (already evident on the talk page, with attempts to gain credibility for the E-Cat on the basis that National Instruments have apparently agreed to... wait for it... no, surely not... yes!... Sell Rossi some instruments! Doh!...). Can I therefore ask all the contributors that !voted keep in the AfD, and have backed the closing decision here, to help keep this dogs-breakfast of an article in some sort of shape until such time as we can actually find some sources that tell us what happened. And when the fog has cleared, and the cell door closes or the Nobel prize is awarded (yeah, right...), can I suggest that we take another look at the way we handle topics regarding WP:FRINGE in the context of 'leading-edge science'? Regardless of the merits of the article, or of the E-Cat, in isolation, there seems to be a great deal of evidence that Wikipedia itself has become a significant actor in this whole smoke-and-mirrors show. This clearly has consequences that require more thought than the usual recital of 'policy' that so often passes for debate here. Maybe we need to look at 'notability' again, and ensure that we don't unwittingly create it by stating that it exists... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Andy. I stated keep above and in the AfD and FWIW am keeping an open mind about the E-Cat (I neither believe in it nor disbelieve in it, really). I do want to work on the article as it is in a poor state but I'm reluctant to do so while it keeps coming up for AfD. Like many I am a busy person and don't want to waste my time working on an article which could be deleted soon after. Robert Brockway (talk) 08:32, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The government of Italy has issued a patent on the Energy Catalyzer. The article about the Energy Catalyzer should therefore stay in Wikipedia. If you think otherwise, hire a lawyer and sue to have the patent invalidated. AnnaBennett (talk) 02:31, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How many non-sequiturs can you balance on the head of a pin? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, did you read the message by 86.160.85.195; "Please stop shouting and being rude." AnnaBennett (talk) 03:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I did. There is nothing 'polite' about abusing Wikipedia resources to promote hoaxes, hogwash, and wishful thinking. Do you really think that a patent is a 'validation'? If you do, I suggest you do some research into the subject. It isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, under Italian law it is a "validation". AnnaBennett (talk) 06:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is supposed to be a review of whether the decision was closed correctly, not a new vote based on new arguments. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very true. And given the clear evidence that the original closure was done by an admin who apparently doesn't understand what 'no consensus' closures imply (or doesn't think they are possible), only one logical conclusion can be reached - the AfD closure was flawed. Still, if the 'keepistas' make enough noise, maybe nobody will notice... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Using terms like keepistas is dismissive of the opinions of others. Why don't you try respecting the opinions of others even when they disagree with you? When I see dismissive attitudes like that it discourages me from spending more time on Wikipedia. Robert Brockway (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment when you remove the primary sources, self-published sources, and the blogs, what you are left with are a few reliable sources that basically say "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" and "treat this as a hoax until this has been independently verified." If the claims made by Rossi have become notable, then I see no problem keeping this article and informing the public what the scientific community (reliable sources) has had to say on the subject - all while avoiding WP:UNDO Rklawton (talk) 04:00, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article needs considerable work but documents a controversial item of note. Yes, better citations as above, general editorial issues also as noted by previous comments, these all need to be addressed, but, the article should remain as documenting contemporary issues in science and law, even if it doesn't yet do enough to address them in form or substance. Sctechlaw (talk) 08:26, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See above Nil Einne (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I see no reason to destroy it. trending beliefs or disbeliefs are irrelevant of the credence this article has. the good old fashion excuse of notability is also irrelevant here, as this has caused quite a vortex of opinionated debate all over the net/italian news/ cold fusion news etc.--Namaste@? 11:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See above Nil Einne (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
File:JesseDirkhising.jpg (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

The image gives the readers a better understanding of the crime and the victim Caden cool 00:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • relist I think a cite to a single FfD justifying the deletion probably isn't enough of a reason to delete given the discussion. I think a wider and better-attended discussion is likely after this DrV and would be helpful here. Put another way, there was no consensus formed and the application of NFCC here isn't so clear as to override that lack of consensus. Hobit (talk) 03:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist all, probably after close of the RfC. Even if the close maintains the status quo,, a good argument can and should be made for these illustrations, and a fuller discussion will be necessary. Doing large scale deletions based on a single instance is not good practice, and these need further attention. The original FfD needs reversal also: it amounts to a supervote against consensus. But that too should wait till after the RfC. DGG ( talk ) 04:29, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, the original FFD close was fine, because every single Keep !vote (bar possibly Flyer22's) didn't reference the issue of NFCC at all (i.e. why did the image pass #8). However, whether it a correct reading of policy or not is something the RFC may determine. Black Kite (t) 07:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll point out that there was a "doesn't improve understanding/yes it does" argument. As it's pretty much a matter of opinion, I don't really see either side with the stronger argument. I agree though that we tend to treat these by "equivalence class" and the RfC should solve this... Hobit (talk) 13:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The trouble with this is that NFCC#8 is so damnably vague. People's ability to understand things in context is almost always enhanced, to a greater or lesser extent, by images. My immediate reaction is that the deletion looked a bit harsh to me, but that should of course be subject to the RFC outcome.—S Marshall T/C 15:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist all. re the above comments, I opened the RfC to clarify the matter (Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 52/Archives/ 41#RFC: Clarifying policy on pictures of deceased persons). In the meantime (the following applies only applies to this one image, but if the circumstances of the others are similar relist them also): the image was deleted at a fairly underpopulated discussion -- there was one one "vote" (and that was Keep) Since there were no Delete "votes", should have been closed as Keep or No Consensus unless on strength of argument. Strength of argument is based solely on one of the following propositions being true: 1) Portraits of a person in an article about that person inherently fail WP:NFCC#8 or 2) Articles such as "Death of XYZ" are not really about XYZ per se. It's not at all clear that either of these propositions is true so the close wasn't in order. Looking at the RfC as of this writing, it's not at all clear to me that this deletion is supported by policy, consensus, or usual practice. Clarification of the policy would be ideal, but absent that then a clear consensus to delete must be obtained for each case. Herostratus (talk) 06:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to keep Whether NFCC #8 is met or not is a matter of opinion, and 100% of the one person besides the nom commenting agreed that the picture belonged in the encyclopedia. WP:VAGUEWAVEs are not enough to sustain a deletion of a photo of a notable murder victim. Jclemens (talk) 07:15, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist I cannot really say overturn to keep, when there was so little participation (though I certainly think that keep is the correct decision on the question) DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC),[reply]
    • You've already !voted, DGG. Never mind, I'll replace yours with mine below, and I'm not sure why this hasn't been closed yet. Black Kite (t) 23:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist per my comments above. Black Kite (t) 23:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
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