Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 46

Archive 40

←

Archive 44

Archive 45

Archive 46

Archive 47

Archive 48

→

Archive 50

Useful template for multi-article AfDs and for suspected sockpuppets

I'm drafting a template, currently at User:Davidwr/quicktable, which will make it easier to list multiple AfDs. It's also useful for arbitrary collapsible information that isn't complex in design, such as a list of suspected single-purpose-account users. It's color-coded for both talk pages and normal pages.

It takes 3 parameters:

• title=The contents of the title section
• body=The contents of the hidden section
• talk - an optional parameter that, if present, will use the talk color scheme

Examples:

Comments? What would be a good name for it? Given that it's a general-purpose template for collapsed items, what template categories should it fit in?

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool, looks great. I'm not sure this is exactly the place to discuss this, since it's so general; there are many uses for this outside of AfDs and such. I'll be putting a longer message on its talk page. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 01:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Miss Pakistan World

The creator of this article has created the article solely for the purpose of advertising. Although, the article tried to weave into a better text with organic contributions, the author and her associates delete the content and rewrite the article with their point-of-view. Various editors have tried placing a {{advertising}} tag on the page but the author keeps spamming the article content with her POV. The article was previously reject from a speedy deletion on the basis that the article has seen organic growth but whatever has been written towards the article has always been biased. Please advice if this article should be nominated for deletion or not. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 09:28, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like an editor dispute, best handled through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and enforcement of the three-revert rule. If the other editors are anonymous consider asking for semi-protection. In general, s-p is not to be used to handle edit disputes but repeatedly inserting advertising is generally a form of vandalism and is grounds for semi-protection. See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. Also, if they insist in inserting copyrighted material, Wikipedia:Copyright violations. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 11:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete in the interest of slash and burn. No serious establishment of cited notability, and reads like spamvertisement. Content dispute resolution works where there's somethign to resolve; when no one on one side wants to fix things, raze it and start over. ThuranX (talk) 11:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment for ThuranX: Will that solve anything? Without dispute resolution, the editors will just spam the replacement article or create it all over again. With dispute resolution, the problem is solved. The only good think I can think of coming out of deletion is that it will be easier to quickly block the editors when they "restore deleted material." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete once as the notability is questionable. This organisation is not officially recognised as being affiliated with Pakistan and is a small pageant organiser in Canada. The information is purely advertising. I have tried settling onto a resolution with the author(s) but they seem contempt on recreating the article in its highly biased version. The article should be deleted once to show the authors that such actions can have consequences. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 22:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This forum is not itself an AfD. Please keep that in mind. Comments added here are not going to amount to an ultimate decision one way or the other. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 22:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of that. This is just to get an idea of how people judge this article's notability and worthiness and if there is a way of treating such spams, and if deletion is the answer. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 22:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanity Check - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of groups referred to as cults (6th nomination)

A debate has been opened with regards at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of groups referred to as cults (6th nomination) regarding List of groups referred to as cults, however no rationale was provided. I've recommended speedy close, but want to make sure I'm not wildly off base. There appears to have been some discussion about deleting the article in the past, and several No Consensus AFDs indicate that there is opinion either way - but is this debate possible from a procedural basis, or should it be re-nommed? Thanks in advance. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 13:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

There's been someone advocating something other than a speedy close, so it should probably stay open. But, if not for that, I'd completely agree with you that it should just be closed. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I think part of the instructions are wrong

In Step II of the instructions, for preparation of the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName page, I believe the small print for a second or later nomination is incorrect. It says:

Insert this text: {{subst:afd2 | pg=PageName | cat=Category | text=Reason the page should be deleted}} ~~~~ replacing PageName with the name of the page you are proposing for deletion, Category with a letter indicating the category of the debate, and Reason... with the reasons you think the page should be deleted.

If you used template {{subst:afdx}} instead of {{subst:afd1}}, use "PageName (2nd nomination)" instead of "PageName" for a second nomination, etc.).

The small print is incorrect. If you put "2nd nomination" in here, you will get redlinks that shouldn't be there. For an example of how this works, compare [1], which works, with [2], which doesn't. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Just spent a minute toying with it, and I think I've got a solution. Change {{afd2}} to this and it oughta' work; without even having to have that extra line of text. I tried it out here and it seems to work the way I wanted it to. The interaction with {{afdx}} would now have it display whichever subpage name it's at. 'Course, I dunno' how to make it wikilink in the subtitle that way, but other than that it works pretty well. Drop a line at Template talk:Afd2 if you like it. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 03:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Better solution found, at least. Just link the whole header to the article. I'll be taking it to Template talk:Afd2 now. If/when it gets fix't, I'll also go update the instructions to remove that line. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 17:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

What am I thinking, all this has already been fixed. I feel smart now. Sorry for wasting watchlist space. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 18:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Help please

Would someone who is logged in please nominate Anne-Marie Samuel for deletion please? I tried but can't as I don't have a user name and don't want one. The subject is non-notable and the entire page reads like an advert for her services. She has also spammed other pages, such as Poole Athletic Club (see its history where I removed one of her entries). Thankyou. 86.133.48.32 (talk) 12:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Cent should stop being added too the individual log pages.

I think the centralized discussion template should stop being added to the daily AFD logs because it is not relevant and while I do realize that the WikiMedia Foundation's server capacity is vast; having a frequently updated template on an ever growing log that most people will never ever visit again after five days is an unnecessary burden. -IcewedgЁ (*bleet*) 06:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The devs had said time and again that we shouldn't worry about serverload. The pages are only transcluded when the page is loaded so this isn't really an issue anyway. Obviously we can removed the templaye but need a non-server related reason to do this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Transcludable XfD discussions

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Transcludable XfD discussions - I have made a proposal that TfDs and CfDs be handled in the same way as AfDs and MfDs, as transcluded subpages. A small consensus seems to have formed, but there have been few responses. As these are very important Wikipedia pages, please take a look and help form a broader consensus (or tear it apart). Thanks! JohnnyMrNinja 08:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Log page formatting

Could we have, on each day's log page, a simple bar with links to the next and previous days' logs, like there already is at the top of the page? It wouldn't mean much of any extra difficulty, but it would make the page easier to use, just like with categories or page histories we have links to the next group of pages at both the top of the page and the bottom of the page. Nyttend (talk) 14:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

You mean at the bottom of each log? It's been brought up before, I know, but you'll need to take it to User talk:LDBot, who creates all the log pages themselves. Last time it was brought up I pinged the bot, but I don't think its owner checks its talk page often. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 14:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Opinion on article at FAC

I could use your advice. I've been copyediting Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) at FAC, TonyTheTiger is the nom, and we're stuck over the issue of how much information to keep about the spa at the hotel. The spa takes up 23000 sq ft, and 1 or 2 floors of the hotel are "devoted" to the spa in some sense; therefore, TTT and some others take the position that lots of space should be devoted to it. The FAC reviewers generally want to toss most of it, and I'm trying to find a compromise. It would help if you guys would answer the question: if the following material appeared in a stub nominated for deletion, what action would you take?

Spa

The 23,000 square feet (2,137 m²) spa, named The Spa at Trump, opened in late March. It offers gemstone-infused (diamond, ruby, or sapphire) oil massages, a "robe menu", and, for customers who come sufficiently early, hydrating masques, exfoliating salts and the "Deluge shower". The gem massage uses an organic oil imported from Dubai, and a later reviewer mentioned a fourth gemstone (emeralds). The spa has also partnered with Kate Somerville, a Los Angeles skin care specialist with clients such as Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, Debra Messing, and Nicole Richie. The deluge shower is described as "a waterfall that comes at you from all angles with color therapy" by one reviewer, although the Spa merely describes it as a "mood enhancing shower". The spa features a health club with an indoor pool, eleven treatment rooms, a private couples treatment suite, Swiss shower, and saunas. The Citysearch editorial review described this as the "Bentley of hotel spas". A Chicago Tribune critic spoke of the spa in glowing terms for both the treatment and the physical spa itself, but warned against expecting full enjoyment before construction was complete. During the summer of 2008, 53 spa guest rooms will be connected to spa via a large circular staircase.

Thanks for any help you can offer. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Update: we lost that FAC fight, but this article will come around again some time, and other articles with similar issues are in the pipeline. My goal here is to speed up some of the more contentious noms by surveying Wikipedians on what they consider to be too promotional, and you guys have your finger on the pulse of this, I think. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 11:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not sure you're in the right place for that sorta' survey, a village pump might be more appropriate. Still, no point in not when it's here. I'd personally say that an article like that is sorta' advertising, but mostly it's just undue coverage of something really small. Some people could read it as a G11, I'm sure, but I'd say mostly it's just undue. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 13:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Anon !votes at AfD

Hi all - given that anon !votes are normally not considered at AfD, and that there is even a warning template to place on AfD subpages which might attract anon attention, why aren't all AfD subpages simply automatically given low-level protection to prevent IP edits? Sure, there'll still be SPA !votes through newly-crated accounts, but a low-level protection might just reduce such spurious comments. Grutness...wha? 02:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should necessarily dismiss anon "votes" as it's the discussion that matters and sometimes an IP might actually make a more on point argument than someone with an account. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

1) Low level protection also block recently created accounts, so semi-protecting the pages would bite too many new users. 2) We will attend to a new and relevant argument from an IP editor in the rare cases that one is made. It is unusual, but does happen. 3) There are a handful or so of long term stable IPs that are known to represent a single established editor that just chooses not to have an account. 4) We'd need an adminbot to protect the pages, and adminbots are officially forbidden by policy. GRBerry 02:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It's the discussion and the strength of the argument that matters, not who gave it. You're mistaken that votes from any particular group of people (barring, of course, banned people) are thrown out simply because they come from some specific group of people. The important thing is that something gets said--I couldn't care less if they chose to create an account or not. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 04:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

We don't always treat them that way, but anons should be just as respected as any other editor. There's at least one anon who has over 10,000 edits! - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that the OP is an administrator ... how on earth did that happen...? Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 04:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

OP? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Original poster; the person who started the section. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 04:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

(To Grutness) If I am to close a debate with anon participation, I'll give every vote equal attention regardless of whoever these votes come from. So I certainly don't think "anon !votes are normally not considered at AfD". :) The warning template you mentioned, which I assume is Template:Not a ballot, can be used to prevent meatpuppets in general, not only anons. Correct me if I'm mistaken though. Also, even semi-protection of AfDs per requests at WP:RFPP can easily get reverted if no clear evidence is shown that deletion debates are abused by IPs, so I don't think adminbots/auto-protection (were they to exist) would have any chance. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 05:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd add that a lot of articles that go to AFD are new articles from new editors, and so semi-protection of the debate would specifically prevent the authors of those articles from participating. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer the comments and complaints above, yes, I am an admin, and I have been working on AfD for several years, and also regularly close AfDs.

To Celarnor, I never once said that "votes from any particular group of people... are thrown out simply because they come from some specific group of people". I wouldn't say this for two reasons - 1) they are not votes, as you should well know; 2) if they are "thrown out" it would be because they have no relevance to the policy or guidelines used in AfD discussions, or contribute no meaningful arguments to the discussion - not because they are from a particular group. As to how I became an admin, it was in the usual way, via RfA - thougth i suspect that question could have been a case of facetiousness rather that a true request for information.

I regularly close AfDs, and have been doing so for over three and a half years. In all that time, I have not once closed an AfD where an anon IP contributed anything useful to the discussion. I haven't discounted IP comments because they were made by anons - only because they had no relevance to the process discussion. I cannot remember ever even seeing an AfD where an anon IP has contributed with more than a comment which was easily discountable. If, as is suggested above, it does happen, then I bow to your judgement on the matter. However, it must be very rare. I had, however, forgotten that blocking anon IPs would also block new users (and therefore, as UltraExactZZ states, likely block an article's creator - if it was only IPs, this couldn't happen, of course), so you are right that it is unworkable (I didn't know about policy against adminbots - I have nothing to do with botwork). And yes, it was {{Not a ballot}} I was referring to, though I still tend to think of it under its old name of {{afdanons}} (under which I notice it's still listed on the main WP:AFD page!) Grutness...wha? 12:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I've seen anons contribute meaningfully to most, if not all, of the deletion debates that I've seen them participate in, with a few high-profile (i.e, Encyclopedia Dramatica) exceptions; granted, I've only seen one or two that have struck me as incredibly insightful and really turned the tide of the discussion over the past year or so, but still, it doesn't really make sense to me why we should even consider who it comes from unless there's a possibility it's from a banned user--although that goes for both regular accounts as well, and thus don't have any bearing on the anon vs. registered discussion. Like I said, that's rather prejudicial and irrelevant, since the important thing is what is said; ultimately, since only the strength of a given argument matters, not who said it or even how many people parrot it, I don't really see any reason why this should be considered. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 21:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The standard about the weighting of anon comments has more to do with the risk of sockpuppetry and the demonstrated history of attempts to bias Wikipedia's decision-making processes than with the quality of the arguments that are or are not generally offered by anon vs inexperienced-but-logged-in users or with the problems of banned users. The sockpuppertry problems have proven to be too great to allow the opinion part of an anon comment to be counted during a closure. On the other hand, if an anon provides verifiable evidence that's relevant to the discussion or makes credible arguments that are based on established policy and sound reasoning, those comments can and should be given due weight during the closing. While I would agree with the sentiment that started this thread that most anon comments are irrelevant, I have seen a few cases where the anon comment offered new facts and so changed the conclusion. Rossami (talk) 23:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What benefit does presenting new evidence under an IP sock have that you couldn't achieve by presenting it yourself? The only thing I could think of other than not wanting to be connected to said evidence would be to create the illusion of more people agreeing with the evidence, but that doesn't really matter anyway; what matters is how that evidence affects the discussion. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 03:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

If there's actual verifiable evidence, it doesn't matter who presented it. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe that that your second point does matter (the number of people believing the evidence). Unfortunately, even some closers make that mistake. There are also some questions which are inherently judgment calls - opinions about whether a particular topic is "encyclopedic", for example. That's a decision that has to be based on community consensus about what "encyclopedic" means as applied to that specific case. People have attempted to use socks to create the appearance of consensus (or at least of greater weight of opinion) than really existed. That why I worded it that evidence gets considered but that the opinion part of an anon's comment does not. Rossami (talk) 04:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Anon AFD nominations?

Somewhat relatedly: is it our intent that IP editors not be allowed to nominate articles for deletion? This was my impression, from the observation that they cannot, in the history of {{anon}}, on this page, and wherever-the-heck-else it was that I was thinking of. But it's now been put to me that this is just an observation of the technical limitation, that anons can't create the AFD subpage. (In the context of the creation of a "throwaway" account for such purposes, by an I-want-to-remain-an-IP-editor type.) Now, I'm not at all this is either historically the case (I think these AFD restrictions predate the page-creation change), or a correct reading of the current policy melange, but I do think it's worth clarifying one way or the other. If anons are welcome to make such nominations, we would ideally allow page creation within the WP:AFD portion of the namespace hierarchy. If they're not, we should say so explicitly. Alai (talk) 19:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've seen several AfDs where the nom was started by an IP and completed by someone who has the ability to create a page (ie a non-IP). No one objected to the completion of the AfD in this manner. Personally, I prefer that users register before participating in AfDs because of the difficulty in determining sockpuppet and COI issues with IP users, but I'm not totally against IP participation, either.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I also think that clarifying this would be worthwhile. My personal feeling is that, with the ability to speedy close frivolous nominations, there's no strong reason not to permit IP editors to nominate pages for AFD (they can do CSD and PROD already, which get much less scrutiny than AFD). — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The current technical limitation requires anons to create a WP:SPA if they wish to nominate articles, which almost by definition forces them to WP:SOCK in doing so. An IP editor has to be awfully determined to want to delete articles, so that creates a good hand / bad hand aspect to the socking too. Bad faith nominations by socks, trolls, and blocked/banned editors have been a serious (sometimes severe) problem on occasion, causing a lot of people to waste a lot of time and turning productive editors against teach other. Nevertheless, I don't see the problem of socking in AfDs as being any different than socking in any meta-discussions. There's a higher risk of socks and bad faith from IP accounts, but that's the same here as everywhere else. So if we're going to allow them anywhere why not here too? On the other hand, I can see a plausible argument that for purposes of the project's stability, just like creating articles, deleting them is something reserved for editors willing to establish an account. Wikidemo (talk) 20:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that creating an account takes less than thirty seconds. Socking is not any more difficult for registered users, really. Solution in search of a problem, by my reckoning. Worse, a registered series of socks become nearly untouchable. But regardless of that problem, users who wish to remain anonymous are indeed required to create SPAs to nominate articles for deletion (which I have been doing for quite a while now before running afoul of Alai earlier today). The net effect is that legitimate editors look shady (Alai still thinks I'm a sock) and real socks just get smarter. It's a rock and a hard place, really. I, of course, have a vested interest in suggesting that IPs be allowed to create pages and so on, but should a sock army ruin the party, I'd be worse off than when I started. Hence, why I use SPAs to create pages and nominate articles for deletion. While people question my nominations and articles, their content speaks for itself (but that doesn't mean I haven't had an AfD or four end in keep). However, were drastic measures taken after a full opening of privileges to IPs, I could lose the ability to edit anonymously at all. 81.51.232.219 (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

My recollection of the history of {{anon}} is about as reliable as might have been predicted: when created, it contained the state that an account bestows "The right to be heard in formal votes and elections, and on pages like votes for deletion", which was progressively tweaked over time, before being removed entirely April 2007. I have no idea what basis in policy any of these statements and changes might have had: not much in the way of clues in the edit summaries. Certainly neither the statement or the removal appear to be related to the page-creation restriction, which occurred on the 5th December 2005, and which seemed to trigger only the most obviously-foreseeable such changes. In any case, it would of course not have formal standing as policy, so it appears we're left with a similar 'to be thrashed out' status as the weighting of the '!votes' in AFDs of IPs. (The argument for actual semi-protection of the AFD page seems to me to be much weaker, however.) At any rate, simple consistency would suggest either making it an explicit prohibition, or making it technically possible. The current halfway house would only be desirable if the situation described above where an IP starts a nomination, and another editor actually completes the process, were for some reason desirable, which seems a fairly unlikely scenario to me. Alai (talk) 22:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Referring to above, IPs are not technically voters in deletion debates as is now. We can discuss, of course, and I don't recall that ever being an issue. More importantly, since creating an account is instant, you would have to prevent instant page creation to prevent IPs from creating AfD pages with SPAs. Alternatively, you could by-policy-only forbid it, which would just make you look like some hopeless bureaucracy. Making it technically possible, of course, could encourage bad-faith noms and so on. Forgive me for advocating something slightly messy, but the way it is now, only IPs who want to stay IPs use SPAs to nominate -- socks and bad-faith nominators usually try a little harder to hide it by editing first, and IPs who are new users and haven't created an account yet simply continue to use the account. As it is now, it serves as something to encourage users to create a permanent account but does not prevent those who wish to remain IPs from nominating articles for deletion -- well, provided nobody starts taking issue with my SPA use. 81.51.232.219 (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer the historical question at the top of this thread, anon and suspiciously new accountholders' opinions were discounted in deletion discussions almost from the start of the deletion process due to the problems of sockpuppetry. Anons, however, were allowed to nominate pages for deletion as long as the nomination was in good faith and in keeping with established Wikipedia policy and standards. The lock-out of anonymous nominations was an artifact of the change to the editing policy generally (that anons would no longer be allowed to create pages and thus could not create the discussion subpage for AfD). Anons are still allowed to open nominations in the XfD processes that don't used subpages for each discussion (such as RfD). This change to the AfD process was briefly discussed when the change to editing permissions was first proposed. The consensus at the time was that it was an unintended consequence with some good and some bad effects but on net, not enough to derail the general change to the editing permissions across the rest of the project. Somewhere we still have instructions for how an anon editor can tag a page and request assistance in the creation of the sub-page when they see a page that they really think deserves deletion. It doesn't happen very often though. As others have already said, it's easy to create an account if you feel that strongly about a page. Rossami (talk) 03:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2008_July_12

This page looks strange. Did anybody forget about {{subst:ab}} template ? Ruslik (talk) 05:47, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks like we have a new closer who is accidentally using {{afd top}} at both top and bottom. I only found one instance of it. The rest of the page seems clear. Rossami (talk) 06:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Surfing Day

Resolved. AfD closed as Keep. Banjeboi 13:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

A DYK nomination is pending for International Surfing Day and will expire shortly. The AfD for International Surfing Day, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Surfing Day seems a snow keep. Please speedy close this AfD so that the article can be used on DYK before its DYK nomination expires. Thanks. -- Bebestbe (talk) 22:38, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abongo Obama

Resolved. AfD closed. Banjeboi 13:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Could someone uninvolved please take a look at the wayWikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abongo Obama has been reformatted by the prime advocate for keeping the article, and the material he has added from "Who is Malik Obama" on down -- I think it all should be removed from the project page and moved to the Talk page, but as someone commenting in the AfD I don't think I should be the one to do it. Thanks Tvoz/talk 17:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I tried to reformat them, before I commented at the AfD, and he's reverted me twice. Both the titles of his sections and much of the commentary is uncivil, and the formatting is wildly non-standard. He's becoming disruptive, in my view. S. Dean Jameson 18:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
• Just reading through most of the comments this user struck me as disruptive and uncivil. He seems to feel ownership of the article. mauler90 (talk) 18:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Would be helpful if someone uninvolved would at least reformat the page to the way all AfDs are done and notify him that he's out of process. Tvoz/talk 19:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I did (while I was still uninvolved), with an edit summary explaining what I was doing and he reverted it with an angry edit summary. S. Dean Jameson 19:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes - I just saw that. He's way out of line. Tvoz/talk 19:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tales of Hearts

Resolved. AfD closed. Banjeboi 13:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, the nominator's only argument to delete is that the source containing the information, release date, developers, platform, images of game in play, etc. is in Japanese, which is obviously not an argument for a reference to be unreliable. I don't know if it's appropriate to request speedy close, but the only arguments that have been presented are Crystal Ball (which only applies if the article is speculative, and all of the information has been acquired from the scanned image) and "only English articles" - the article has clearly had its notability established. - A Link to the Past (talk) 05:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There's at least one delete !vote other than the nom, so speedy close wouldn't be appropriate. Besides, the discussion has only been up for a day. Have a bit of patience and let it run for a while.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

help from experienced AfD folks, please

• OK, I know some folks are gonna think I'm being a WP:POINTy WP:DICK. I can accept that perception. But the simple fact is that List of battles and other violent events by death toll simply does not belong in Wikipedia's main space YET.. not from some misguided censorship, but because it is simply too huge of a humongous mass of unreferenced crap. I mean, looking at it, I feel like a surgeon who cut open a cancer patient, then simply sewed the patient up again 'cause the cancer was far too extensive to address. It is huge. It is.. I'm sorry, it is crap. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 12:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

• Why not? The references are all in the articles. No use cluttering up a navigation page with unneeded references when those references are already on the relevant pages. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 03:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I know the references are not in the articles, since I personally brought Battle of red Cliffs to FA— and far far far more importantly, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. I am speaking from an extremely pro-Wikipedia POV; not slamming it. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 03:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Then remove those entries that don't contain references in their own articles. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 06:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Or, even better, fix the articles and entries by adding correct information and sources. Banjeboi 13:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Grrrrreeeeaaat rescue

I would like it to be known that I have rescued an article which was deleted through AFD twice and endorsed as deleted at WP:DRV once and taken the article Toni Preckwinkle to WP:GA status without a rescue barnstar being granted. I remain a bit upset. If this is not worthy of a barnstar at least a few tigers in my user page tiger gallery would do.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The barnstar was malplaced. I am perfectly willing to accept another barnstar for Thomas Wilcher just so the edit trail looks good.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Closed discussion at the bottom

Would it make sense to put discussions in a different order once they are closed (at the bottom of the page)? It wouldn't affect the content of the discussion, but would make it easier since the ones that aren't closed would be at the top. If you look at Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates, the system there seems to work quite well. You said it Dad (talk) 01:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

we are accustomed to looking for them in the same order as entered. What might make real sense is collapsing the closed discussions. DGG (talk) 03:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with collapsing completely, any movement to put that into place is welcome. Unsure about changing the order although, if it's quite easy, having open and closed discussion sections may work. Banjeboi 07:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Since closures are done by hand, moving them on the page would be another manual edit with all the chances for error or edit-conflict that entails. I don't think moving the discussion is worth the effort or risk.
There is already code that you can use to collapse or hide the closed discussions. Actually, there are several options that I know of:

1. Create a subpage of your userpage named User:Foo/monobook.css (substituting in your username and your chosen Preferences skin) and post the line .vfd { display:none; } This hides all closed discussions completely. You can turn them back on by temporarily blanking your monobook page (like this). It works pretty well unless you start to do a lot of work at Deletion review - then it get's pretty tedious.
2. Use one of the tools that do the same basic thing to modify the display. (I don't use them. Does anyone still have a good link?)

The third option (and one that I recently proposed though I'm ashamed to admit that I've forgotten what page it was on) is to change the function of the XfD top and bottom templates to work more like the Deletion Review top and bottom templates. That would add a user-clickable expand/collapse function. I like this idea best but we have to be sure there are no unintended consequences of the change going forward. Rossami (talk) 15:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer to not have to move discussions as they are closed. Anyone who wants to see only open discussions can see them by following the appropriate links at Wikipedia:AFD#Old_discussions. If closed discussions are showing up, follow the link to refresh the page; that's a lot less work than moving a hundred discussions one at a time.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes to collapsing closed debates, but definitely no to moving them to the bottom of the page (or anywhere else), as far as I'm concerned. These pages are long enough that something needs doing with them - but they're also so long that the easiest way to tell what parts you've read during a current day is to note what the first and last articles on that day are as you go - I know for a fact that i'm not the only editor who does this, and I'm willing to bet there are quite a large number. Moving closed articles to the bottom of the page will render that easy "bookmark" unuseable. Also, as pointed out, the more moving that is done, the more chance there is for mistakes to creep into the process. Grutness...wha? 23:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm also all for this; it won't make the pages take any less time to load (maybe slightly more, but on the grand scale next to nothing) and it'll making things easier to find. I've got some possible replacements for {{Afd top}} and {{Afd bottom}} at User:Lifebaka/Sandbox/At and User:Lifebaka/Sandbox/Ab, respectively. Also, I'm not sure why, but {{at}} is not the same as Afd top, so I suggest merging them immediately and leaving at as a redirect, the way ab is.
The main issue I've thought of with the !templates I've designed is that they'd work best and preserve searchability on the log pages if they're used under the 3rd level section heading instead of above it (as is currently done), but we could put a <span id="{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>SUBPAGENAME}}"> or a <span id="{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>FULLPAGENAME}}" on them to fix that. Haven't tested what happens if you put a header inside the collapsible box yet, though. Cheers. --lifebaka (talk - contribs) 19:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Soft redirects as an alternative to deletion

Thumperward suggested that I bring this idea here for discussion. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 22:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Soft-redirects within the WikiMedia family of projects are generally supported without controversy. Examples include Wiktionary or Meta and cover using either the {{softredirect}} or sometimes {{wi}} templates (and probably more but those two are most common). They are an effective way to politely point new users to the project where their contribution will be most appreciated while preserving the pagehistory in case there is something potentially useful in an old version of the page. (For older pages, it also was part of the preservation of attribution history when a page was transwiki'd from one project to another. For more recent transwikis, that's less important because the pagehistory now moves with the page.)

On the other hand, redirects that go outside the WikiMedia family of projects get deleted at RfD with near unanimity. The concerns raised during those discussions include:

• perception of entanglement by readers could create legal complications for the Foundation
• potential for abuse as an "end-run" around Wikipedia's policies

The discussion thread you linked to seems to imply that you want to more agressively link outside the WikiMedia family. Is that a correct interpretation? If so, how do you propose to address the concerns raised during the RfD discussions? Rossami (talk) 23:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think we should be able to soft-redirect to GFDL compliant wikis, i.e. if we transwiki something, we should soft-redirect there as obviously someone(s) thought the material wikipedic enough for it to have existed here first and yet by soft-redirecting to the transwiked location we are sort of compromising by saying while it may not be suitable for coverage here, we know people who come here do look for it and some even want to work on it, so they can do so by following the link. If we can agree to allowing something like that, I would actually be far less likely to defend certain articles as outright keeps in AfDs and DRVs, as my main opinion is that we provide comprehensive coverage as a reference guide. If as an alternative to outright coverage ourselves, we instead provide convenient navigation among the transwikiable wikis for the benefit of our readers who come here looking for information and also for those editors who work on multiple projects, then that is something I'd much more be willing to support. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's be precise in our use of language here, please. Transwiki is a process specific to the WikiMedia family of projects. Copying content to another GFDL-compliant wiki is legal but it is not a "transwiki". (I'm not sure that there is another word for it except "copying content".)
Still thinking about the merits of your proposal... Rossami (talk) 00:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

So when we delete an article as non-notable, we should instead send readers off wiki to read more about it? Fail. It's inherent POV when picking a site to send readers to. Further, sending people OFF Wikipedia isn't our goal; instead send them to a reasonably connected 'trunk' article, from which readers can jump around learning more about the topic and finding our normal external link lists to read up on. But pickign ONE External link will result in numerous editing wars and POV pushes. ThuranX (talk) 02:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Whenever we can redirect without deleting the contribution history right on our site, than that would of course be preferred. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think a better way to accomplish this goal would be to put a link on the talk page of either the redirect or the redirect target. "Content from (such-and-such) was (copied/transwikied) to (such-and-such)." Generally, the only thing that goes in article space is article content. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• No Chris was right. Wikipedia isn't a directory. It's a shame that edit histories get lost in deletion, but that is a pretty minor impact. Admins can see deleted contributions, good edit counters show a raw tally of deleted contributions and I've never seen an RfA fail because of a contributor had too few mainspace contributions but if he had X more (where X is equal to or less than the deleted contributions) he would have passed. The loss of edits due to deletion of articles that fail to meet policies or guidelines isn't enough of a negative impact to justify remaking the soft redirect policy. Protonk (talk) 04:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
  • In no way would this make us a directory and it is only for articles that are transwikiable, i.e. ones that are not hoaxes or libelous. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    • What people are objecting to is that you want to add directory entries to off-wiki content. It wouldn't be anything near a complete directory, but there's long-standing practice to not have articles that are nothing but external links. Soft directs are traditionally only used on project pages, in the Wikipedia: namespace. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Just saying it doesn't make a directory doesn't make it so. If the mainspace article serves to do nothing but to provide a link off the project, it serves as just an entry in a web directory. Protonk (talk) 04:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

When the article to be delete is named as a valid search term (most common for fictional characters or episodes) which can be discussed in the context of a notable work, the redirect should point to a page that summarizes that element, and from that page can be the wiki-link to wherever the material may have found a home for (pending evaluation via WP:EL). This still preserves that page history. The difficulty (if there is one) is for articles named in a fashion that is not readily searchable and often cannot be incorporated into a larger article though still can be merged. Leaving a redirect to a notable topic it is a part of could work (leaving the history) but that tends to lead to a bunch of loose, unusable articles floating about. We should still point to that off-site wiki from the notable topic when content is moved, it just may not a direct link to the content for that page. --MASEM 04:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a bad idea for a two main reasons. Firstly, non-affliated external sites with user-generated content are frowned-upon anyway: they only occasionally qualify as valid targets for links in an "external links" section, never mind a soft redirect. Secondly, allowing such things encourages their proliferation: Just on AfDs in the last fortnight in the 40k domain alone you'd have Dark Angels, Titan (Warhammer 40,000), Khorne, Tzeentch, Emperor's Children, World Eaters, Ultramarines, Blood Angels... There are limitless external sites, and allowing anything not notable enough for WP to be soft-redirected off is going to quickly result in portalisation. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• I'm talking about using a tool already available: Interwiki links, as opposed to cluttering EL; or, in liue of this, one box at the bottom of such pages that states this wiki has more information. Mind first, editors of that topic must come to a decision as to what wiki is most appropriate that meets the requirements for WP:EL, and only one wiki should be selected (the interwiki map should be small as possible). Once done and a map created, then links can be easily added in context without portalizing the page. For example, maybe not the best example overall, but Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht story section has the bulk of the characters and terms pointed to an external source which doesn't have the same requirements for notability as WP does. Also, I agree soft-redirection is not the right solution - any WP redirection should be to a WP page; but subsequent linking to an external wiki would then be helpful. --MASEM 13:34, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• • My bad Masem... was replying to the main comment, not yours. I've reindented to avoid confusion. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

ARS project

Why is AfD part of the ARS project? Protonk (talk) 04:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

You might want to ask ARS, since they placed the tag here.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Various suggestions

There are serious flaws in AfD and so I propose the following:

• 1. Greater emphasis needs to be on AfD being a discussion and not a vote. A list of keeps and deletes looks like a vote just like the supports and opposes in an RfA. We might say it's a discussion, but a discussion means actual interaction among participants. Few AfDs actually look like a discussion. In fact, some editors are even offended when someone responds to their "vote" in an AfD. Moreover, many just post a quick "per nom" or something and then move on never to return to the AfD to see if the nominator was later refuted or if the article was improved during the course of the so-called discussion. We need to therefore either outright say on the top of each AfD that it is a discussion and not a list of votes and that editors are encouraged to actually interact with each other or just do away with the bold keeps and deletes currently practiced. A discussion would be a threaded list of replies that reaches some sort of conclusion, not a list of deletes per x with some keeps worked in.
• 2. The five day thing is a bit odd on something that does not have a deadline. In obvious cases of libel, copyvios, and hoaxes, okay, but we need to remember that the internet is not the only means of finding reliable sources. Not all published books appear in their entirety on Google books, just as not all magazines and journals have online archives or for that matters archives found on Google searches. As a graduate student, we have access to password protected archives that included scholarly references others would not find by doing a simple Google search. I have participated in a number of AfDs in which the nominator asserts no sources to be found and is followed by a handful of "per noms" and yet I check published sources or password protective archives that allow for the articles in question to be saved. Given enough time I think most of the articles I have ever argued to be kept could indeed be eventually properly sourced, but again, given time. In other words, it sometimes takes a bit more than five days to actually exhaust all likely sources and volunteers need not be arbitrarily rushed on something without a deadline so long as some evidence of potential has been established. Another problem with the five day thing is that sometimes articles are nominated mere minutes after being created. Check out this unsourced article when it was created versus now. Imagine if someone nominated it for deletion saying, "Hey, the creator should have added the sources before creating the article." It takes time to develop even some of the most notable articles. And the fact is the longer potentially valid articles hang aroun, the greater likelihood they'll eventually be in fact improved.
• 3. In addition to deletion review, we need an Articles for restoration to counterbalance AfD and deal with scenarios in which the closure may have been in order, but new sources or whatever have turned up and instead of having to start all over, those who found the sources can request the article be restored and then revised accordingly. Some who have no problems renominating articles multiple times for deletion come up with a "DRV is not AfD 2" non-argument when AfDs are challenged there, so we need an Articles for restoration as well. Also, an Articles for restoration sounds less challenging to admins who closed the AfDs then Deletion review.
• 4. Nominators and those arguing to delete must make a serious effort to see if sources can be found and if the article can likely be improved before nominating or just "voting" to delete an article that is of a nature they simply do not like. We could maybe even have a category of editors who take note of accounts that just go down the list of AfDs making rapid "per noms" or other "votes" rather than arguments (I have seen some with say ten or more AfDs in ten or less minutes; I can speed read and type over a hundred words a minute, but still!) and who then note that within the relevant AfDs so the closing admin realizes that it is unlikely these accounts could have actually read the article, read all the comments above them, and then checked for his or herself whether or not sources exist. It is not assuming bad faith if the nominator and others assert sources don't exist, but to see for yourself if that claim is true, because again, I have been in enough AfDs for which sources allegedly cannot be found only to find them and have the AfD close as a resounding keep.
• 5. In order to evaluate true consensus, the closing admin should take into account how many editors have also been working on the article in question, but who may have missed the five day AfD for whatever reason, i.e. if say only a half dozen or less people say delete in an AfD, but scores of good faith editors having been working to improve the article under question, then perhaps the AfD does not reflect the actual community's consensus on the value of the article to our project. Moreover, if even a couple good faith or established editors argue to keep the article, then serious consideration should be made for a no consensus closure as it is important that we do not insult our contributors, readers, and donors by deleting articles that out of thousands of editors, readers, and donors, only a handful happen to want to delete in an AfD that lasts but a few days.
• 6. The admin closer should take note of not just the discussion in its entirety, but what direction it was headed in. If say the last post from someone is a question, then instead of closing because five days are up, keep it open to say how others respond to that question. If say the first half or even two-thirds of the AfD is overwhelmingly to delete, but in the last couple of arguments editors have indeed improved the article under consideration and now maybe even those who argued to delete are starting to switch to keep, it should not be closed as delete.
• 7. Admins should also be aware of accounts that are unwilling to ever argue to keep. People seem to consider me a strong inclusionist, but if you look at User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Deletion discussions, you'll see that I have argued to and even nominated to delete over two dozens articles. I have by contrast encountered some accounts who NEVER have argued to keep or who have even outright said they would never argue to do so. While I am not calling for any kind of quotas here, such bias and closed-mindedness should be indicated to closing admins so they know if those accounts' "arguments" should be discounted as "well, this account only argues to delete, so...".
• 8. Any AfD nominated by an account determined to be a sock of a banned user cannot result in deletion unless it is an obvious hoax, copy vio, or libel and if such an AfD was deleted, it must be overturned with no prejudice against a non-sock account creating a new AfD. The bottom line is articles of even questionable inclusion value nominated in bad faith by sock accounts cannot be allowed to stand, because if they do, then we are in effect allowing the banned editor to "win."
• 9. AfDs cannot end on questions, i.e. if the final comment in an AfD is a question from one of the participants, especially if it's the nominator, instead of closing the AfD, the discussion should continue to see if others degree and if perhaps the discussion might go in a different direction. Sometimes someone might have a brilliant last minute idea that completely changes the whole discussion. Therefore, even if there's ten or so preceding comments one way, in order to reach a real and legitimate consensus, we need to take into account additional ideas. Per Ignore All Rules anyway, we should not stop a discussion just because five days are up when it might shift directions one way or another.
• 10. In the case of renominations of articles, ALL editors who participated in the previous discussion(s) must be notified of the new AfD in order to again more correctly determine if in fact consensus has or has not changed. If those who argued one way previously now argue differently, then we can see a factually verifiable change in direction, but if no one from the previous AfD(s) comments in the new one and the new AfD only has a handful of participants it can logically be assumed that it some reflects a major shift in consensus that justifies deleting untold hours of work, especially if those who did argue one way or another in the previous AfD find the new one closed just as they're about to comment.
• 11. If a valid redirect location exists and the article in question is not a hoax, libel, or copy vio, then the article must be redirected and cannot be deleted.
• 12. Subjective terms "cruft", "unencyclopedic," "non-notable," and "indiscriminate" shall be forbidden from use in AfDs, along with "per nom". Imagine having a discussion in real life and someone saying "per nom"! I have been to enough college meetings to know that scholars do not use nonsense terms like "cruft." The other three terms are just too subjective to have merit.
• 13. Every editor who worked on an article nominated for deletion must be notified on thier talk pages of the AfD in progress in order to reach a legitimate consensus.
• 14. "Notability is not inherited" can no longer be used in AfDs.
• 15. Lists, including "in popular culture" and video games weapons, are perfectly acceptable as almanacic and encyclopedic content as determined by the broader community, i.e. the thousands of editors who create and work on them in good faith and the millions of readers who come here for these articles. A half dozen or so of usually the same editors in an five day AfD CANNOT be allowed to trump that reality just because a minority of our community does not like these things.
• 16. Too much focus seems to be on what Wikipedia is not, rather than what Wikipedia is. This time and energy needs to be on building articles rather than destroying them.
• 17. Any article that is backed up by reliable sources is notable enough for inclusion, including family members of famous people.
• 18. Any aspect of a video game (weapon or character) that appears in other media or even as toys or replicas is sufficiently notable for inclusion.

Anyway, just some ideas (I probably have a lot more, but the above are some key concerns). Regards, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

On #2, I've already opened a suggestion of postponing deletion if there is valid concern that the editors have not given notice that the article needs to be improved to meet WP standards, giving them four weeks to correct the issue. Mind you, if there's been a notability tag on an article for several months and the article is brought to AFD, it's a little late to be asking for more time to fix it.

On #3, we have that in the sense that any editor can ask for an admin to restore it to userspace without having to go through much rigmarole. Once the article has been shown to have sources through userspace, then a DRV can be reopened, or a similar admin request to bring the article back (of course, if we are redirecting, this is all moot, more on that in a bit).

On #4, it is up to those wanting to keep the article to provide sources if notability is questioned. That is not to say that a fair practice is to have those wanting to delete to try to search for sources, however, we cannot force this. That is to say a !vote of "Delete: I've tried looking for sources but found none" is a much better !vote of "Delete: not notable per nom"

#5 sorta lines up with #2, though I think it is common that if just prior or during the AFD there are appropriate improvements to satisfy the reason for deletion, keep, no consensus or the proposed "postponed" would all be appropriate.

#6 probably points to the fact that we should have at minimum 5 days for discussion, at most 24 hours from any significant issue raised if the discussion hasn't closed yet, at the closing admin disscretion (if the issue raised is significant enough).

I would strongly suggest avoiding #7, as you are now bringing in the editor's background into the picture. Yes, there are people that only !vote delete, but if they are only !voting delete "per nom" or other reason, that's not a strong argument. If they constant !vote delete but always bring appropriate arguments to the table, there is no reason to question their background.

I will say a lot of this, I think, can be mitigated by trying to make sure that AFDs that are intended to result in redirects and merges (as tends to be the case for many topics that lack notability), we should be speedily closing and requesting a more formal merge process, as there is no need to waste the time over deletion. AFDs should only be used to delete (as in , remove the article and edit history) articles that cannot be covered elsewhere either due to other policies/guidelines, or the like. Mind you, there are cases where I am sure the AFD nom feels deletion is right, but the end result may be a merge that the nominator wasn't aware of, so that's still valid. But, really, the imparative word of this process is "deletion", and thus we should not be clogging it with how to deal with certain content that should be covered, but only leave it for content who's appropriateness for coverage in WP is in question. (I'm almost thinking we need a more former AFMerge process for these situations). --MASEM 00:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with using merge, and editing to redirect, is that they do not get general attention like AfD does. It is therefore very much easier for people with an agenda or POV to either prevent desirable changes, or to force them, depending on the relative strengths of the forces at hand. The recent and continuing arb coms show this--some one can carry out dozens of redirects that take us months to deal with properly and much drama. No one can push that unfairly without discussion at Afd. How often do people actually may attention to WP:RM? and to WP:PM? I look once in a while, but I'm not sure why, for I think very few of the actual moves and merges get listed here. we need some centralized way or reviewing this, and AfD is all we really have to prevent extravagant views in one direction or another to be seen and judged by the community. sure we could organize things better, but until we do, AfD is what we have. It's the only effective policy page in all of WP. DGG (talk) 03:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That's why I think if we made it a more formal process, handled in the same fashion for AFD, there would be a better likelihood of getting more eyes on it. Right now, if you want to suggest a merge, it does not appear in any global list as AFDs do. I'm not saying this is the solution, but it is a possible one to consider to defuse the number of AFDs that are initiated that really should be merge requests. --MASEM 04:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm being far too simplistic, but can we add a "contested=yes" parameter to {{merge}}, etc., which automatically adds the page to a "contested merges" category? That would at least facilitate wider participation in contested cases, which is a start. Thoughts? Jakew (talk) 16:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

8, recently added, is probably a bad idea. Even if a banned user nominates an AfD in violation of his/her ban, someone else may have brought up a valid reason to delete and the consensus might go that way regardless. Perhaps for such noms the nom him/herself can be ignored and all "per nom" !votes as well, but this shouldn't mean that the AfD overall doesn't count.

9 and 10, also recently added, aren't bad ideas per se, but it's probably not a good idea to require it. A suggestion somewhere in WP:AFD should do. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 03:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that in many instances the AfDs nominated by banned users are pointed nominations and so need to be discounted or overturned. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, they shouldn't be automatically overturned simply because of this. Perhaps automatically reviewed, to check if consensus is the same, but overturning could fly in the face of the consensus of the AfD even after these comments are ignored. And it also leaves out the instances where banned users and socks actually bring up good points. And it leaves out instances where users are banned later for completely unrelated events. And probably a few others. #8 is not a good idea. Perhaps a more moderate version, automatically sending them to DRV to check for new consensus or something similar could work, but not auto-overturning. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 22:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

11, "must" is too strong a word because there are times that , while content is merged, the article name is not a reasonable search term (this is the exception, not the norm); for example, if "List of sub-category of category of A" is merged to "List of category of A", then the article name is not appropriate, and a history merge should be done if needed. But in all other cases, even with a reasonable chance of being a search term, redirects should be used.

12, strong disagree. Each of those words has a meaning specific to Wikipedia in the context of article deletion debates, and while inclusionists may see them as bad, they serve the same purpose as citing exists essays, guidelines, and policy via their shortcut, to avoid reiterating arguments over and over. "Per noms" are useful if the nominator's reasoning is fully spelled out and you can't improve on that; however, if the nominator's reasoning is not strong, and among a bunch of "per noms" !votes there's a handful of contrary positions, the closing admin should take that in mind and likely favor the contrary view. Same with reusing the words above: if all those that want to delete an article simply say "cruft" without addition context, while a few keepers explain out in detail, those "cruft" !votes should carry less weight than the keep votes. --MASEM 17:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with "per noms" are that a lot of times, accounts that I have correctly identified as socks when taken to checkuser or taken to arbcom just go down the list of AfDs with "Delete per noms" sometimes in multiple AfDs in under a minute. I have even encountered some accounts who outright stated they would "never argue to keep". You all know that I am an inclusionist, but I have even nominated several articles for deletion and have argued to delete over two dozen articles. And while also working on welcoming new users, improving random articles, rescuing articles, uploading images, etc. If we have single-purpose deletion accounts that ONLY focus on AfDs, then they odds seem stacked in the favor of biased deletion and so someone should notice if a per nom is from an account that say just made a slew of per noms in multiple AfDs. "Cruft" is just an insulting word. Someone can say, "I do not believe the article you created meets our inclusion criteria and therefore believe it should be deleted," without saying "Dude, you created cruft, it has to go! Lol!" Okay, well, my example has alliteration, so maybe it is a little more poetic than when it is usually used, but my point is that it's just needlessly harsh. "Cruft" even looks close to "crap," and so again is unnecessarily hostile. But getting back to the per noms; if the nomination rationale is so compellingly worded then it really does not need a per nom or to. If AfD is a discussion and the nomination is followed by a "Keep", then instead of tossing a "Delete per nom" after the keep, why not respond to the keep and engage that editor to allow for an actual discussion or dialogue? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, if there are SPA or socks that only "per nom" every AFD, that's a behavior problem to bring up, and we have mechanisms to deal with that that are outside AFD; if you take such abuse out of the picture, AFD works as it is expect to. Thus, there's no need to chance the process since we have processes in place to deal with abuse in general. --MASEM 18:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

But unfortunately AfD fails rather frequently (consider all the Deletion reviews and renominations) and so an article can be deleted or kept one week because a certain group of editors participated in that discussion, but have a completely different result even days later when different editors discuss it. Thus, this five day thing in which usually (obviously something like the Encyclopedia Dramatica AfD is an exception) an incredibly small number of editors comment and especially when some of those accounts only comment in AfDs and usually only to delete articles, just cannot seriously be taken as a true reflection of actual community consensus. Even suspected hoaxes in AfD started out as a likely snowball delete, but wound up being kept when all of a sudden someone turned up with sources to show that it wasn't a hoax. Take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/F.C. Prabis, even I thought it was one to delete after my search for sources didn't turn up much, but what if it had been speedy deleted as a hoax? Notice as well, that I at least was willing to change my stance based on the subsequent discussion. How many AfDs in which sources are found those who slapped a per nom early on never return to acknowledge the new sources or comments? For a project in which we have no deadline and which AfDs are unquestionably gamed by sock accounts or flooded by single-purpose deletion only accounts, the process is just too flawed. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The socks/SPA thing is something to be dealt with at WP:AN. As for the five day thing, again, I point out the suggestion of postponing the AFD process when editors request it to get over that 5 day issue, extending it to 4 weeks to improve an article. There is no deadline, but we also want editors to be bold, and we need to have processes in place to balance these two extremes. --MASEM 19:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, most DRVs are about speedies and often from new users in my experience. There are few DRVs where people disagree with a closure, and even then they are often opened for bunk reasons (to put it bluntly). And also quite a few happen because the deleting admin was not contacted and asked about the deletion. Most deletions are endorsed in my experience, so I doubt that the number of DRVs shows a problem with the AfD, PROD, or speedy processes. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 22:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with much of #12, Grand Roi, you'll get a strong disagreement from me on "not-notable". You and I have butted heads on this concept in the past, but I think you'll agree that your view that notability isn't needed to have an article on wikipedia is a minority one.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the majority of Wikipedia are those who write and work on these articles who therefore believe them notable enough for inclusion. If an article had hundreds of edits made in good faith, but a handful of editors in one randomly made five day AfD suddenly claim "non-notable", then we do not necessarily have an actual reflection of consensus, especially when I have encountered a number of accounts, a good deal of which are now ideffed as socks, who do nothing more than "vote" to delete articles, so we also have a large number of AfDs flooded by such accounts which also have an inaccurate reflection of consensus. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

But forbidding the use of "non-notable" also excludes its use from pages of the type "This band is 4 friends who will release a demo as soon as we learn how to play an instrument", or the author who has self-published two books of bad poetry and decided to write his/her own wikipedia article. If you ban the word, you also preclude discussion of the concept. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe an alternative would be to better educate editors on the meaning and use of the word? Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd gladly join you in that uphill battle. :)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

These are all great suggestions. I have often wondered myself why AFD is beginning to look just like a majority vote, contrary to what policy states. AFD has some major problems which need to be dealt with. Thanks, Le Grand Roi. --Mizu onna sango15/水女珊瑚15 23:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC).

we won't get rid of "non-notable" till we get rid of "notable" -- but I have some thoughts in that direction -- we need a real set of criteria of what should & should not be in the encyclopedia instead of the contradictions between N and NOT and V and RS. True, it will make obsolete whatever skill I have in using whatever argument gets a reasonable result, & it will probably end in a compromise that I don't really like in all respects--but then nobody can expect to have things always their way, though a lot of people keep trying. The main improvement AfD needs is to have fewer of them, not to fight each one through on first principles. DGG (talk) 03:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome! Happy to help! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 20:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• The big joke about AFD is that articles are not, in fact, deleted; they are just flagged so that only privileged editors can see them. This introduces an element of natural bias since the closing admin will feel no sense of loss, since he will still be able to access the article. The D in AFD really stands for Deprecation or Depreciation which more accurately describes the process. If this were better known, I fancy that there would be less thrill of the chase, which seems to drive much of the activity. Perhaps we should move this page to Articles for Deprecation to make this more clear? Colonel Warden (talk) 05:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

::wild optimism. unfortunately. A considerable number of admins will delete on their only single handed say so without waiting for previous tagging. A somewhat smaller number give the impression they delete anything that's tagged. Right, its not the majority of the deletions, but 10% of so of 1000 articles a day, with half of the authors never contributing again, is about 300 or 400 new people a week lost to wikipediaDGG (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, currently there is no way to eliminate or reduce the number of frivolous Afd nominations taking place more and more. Let’s look at the facts: Any editor, at any time for any reason can nominate a piece for the Afd process. It makes no difference if that editor has 1 hour – 1 day – or 1 year at Wikipedia. Likewise, as we have all seen, it does not even require the nominating editor to do a minimal search to qualify their contentions of why they are nominating the article for deletion. The only way we could even start to rid ourselves of some of these types of proposals is to begin to institute metrics into the process as recommended by DGG above. However, once we start definitively defining what one has to do before nominating – what that nominating editor must include in his/her write-up/reason of why they nominated and finally what is the penalty/consequences of misrepresenting the nominations, we are stuck with the current product, Afd, as it now stands. Sorry ShoesssS ^Talk 18:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem I have with your suggestions is that it makes it more trouble than it's worth to get rid of articles that should be deleted. For example, say we have a politician with a near fanatical group of supporters who believe conventional new outlets are conspiring against them and that Wikipedia should be their tool to show the world The Truth about their leader. As such, they begin making article after article about the politician, on every aspect of his career, family, activities, and even supporters. While the politician himself is notable, many of these extra articles are crufty and suffer from recentism. When nomed for deletion, his supporters happily cite dozens of reliable blog entries and tangentially related articles from local newspapers to prove notability and bloat the article up to prove "improvement" and save the article. As it stands, the only way these beasts of articles can be deleted is by editors shouting Non-Notable, Cruft and other epithets until the AFD closes. Under your system, should we suffer this subversion of the encyclopedia or do you have a way to deal with this? Burzmali (talk) 12:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Under our current system – the explanation you just provided – is the actuality of today’s process for Afd. In our current situation, consensus is the driving factor, without regards to notability – variability – credibility or independent sources, but rather who makes the better argument and/or is more persistent in pushing their viewpoint and able to drown out any opposition. On the other hand, I see articles, which I personally believe deserve a place here at Wikipedia deleted because of the cry of a number of editors “That does not meet my Notability standards” or “That article was not mentioned in the New York Times” or my favorite “That publication is not creditable in my eyes”. My suggestion was that we start putting minimum standards on what defines Notability. Say three, or we could make it any number, but make it a definitive number, cites from reputable sources. Thus making for Notability. Likewise, let’s set specific minimum standards on what is a trustworthy source. A good start would be what news outlets that are currently included in Google News and Google Scholar are considered dependable without question. Again, without specific metrics, we will never improve the Afd process. In that the process depends on individual interpretation of vague policy and guidelines, and let’s not forget IAR, rather than explicit rules and minimum requirements. Regarding how to enforce these standards is a different question. A clearing house for all Afd nominations? A punitive measure against an editor that nominates 3 articles for Afd without checking for the minimum standards first? Say a 24 hour block? Definitely more work could be involved. However, is it really more work if we are saving time and sanity by restructuring the current system and improving the product in the long-run? Thanks for listening. ShoesssS ^Talk 13:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Presence in an reliable sources isn't usually the problem. Typically, the worst battles are fought over whether or not the coverage is "significant". Burzmali (talk) 14:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you – you took my 1,000 word essay and boiled it down to 10 words! That’s why I’m not a writer :-). You hit the nail right on the head. What is significant for me may not meet your standards. In others a (*&$ contest! ShoesssS ^Talk 14:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that usually the argument is significance if notability is brought up in question, but we should consider two cases here. The first case is if the article is brought to AFD for notability issues but no attempt to work with the authors of the page has been made before the AFD. Here, now you're forcing people to show notability within 5 days; in such a case, I would not be worried as much in significance in that there are reliable sources for notability as to then allow the editors more time to work on adding more. (This sorta falls with my postponed AFD suggestion). I know there are editors that say that if you can't find truly significant sourcing in 5 days you're likely not going to find any, but I think we need to give the benefit of the doubt here. On the other hand, if the article has been tagged for notability issues for some time, or this is a repeat visit to AFD for the same, then I would expect that the significance to be the issue: are there enough sources, are they reliable, are they really talking about the work in question? So it's not always clear-cut that significance should be shown, and that's why I feel we need a way to allow "first time offenders" extra time to improve instead of the 5 days given. --MASEM 15:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Tags that have been present for a Long term are not necessarily taken very seriously, & the Afd can in practice come as a surprise. I think being an editor with an apparent good faith effort to improve and some reasonable possibility that the article might be improvable is sufficient to extend the time. Previous suggestions, going back years, for extending the basic 5 days have been made, and the reasonable objection has always been that most of the articles at AfD dont need any more than that. If we can find away of extending it flexibly, that's an ideal way of dealing with this. DGG (talk) 16:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If tags have been present for a long time, and at the same time there hasn't be a lot of edits to the article from that point, it is a surprise, and again, the benefit of the doubt should be given that 5 days may not be enough time to get notability up to spec. On the other hand, if the article has been tagged lacking notability for a year, and there's been numerous edits since that point including up to the point of AFD, and none addressing the notability issue, then I'm less inclined to give them more time to show it. And not trying to pimp this, but I think the postponed AFD idea I've got should get over many of the issues from past suggestions. --MASEM 17:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe it is about more time. Rather the point, I keep banging like a drum, is the argument, which is most heard, “…What constitutes Notability ? And what constitutes Significance. Those areas need to be resolved or qualified before any progress can be made. ShoesssS ^Talk 17:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, from WP:N: "Significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." Granted that's still a bit vague, but I've mostly seen it used to get rid of obviously trivial coverage rather than anything else. One-line and single mentions aren't good enough, but a paragraph might be (depending on where, how long, and how detailed). Whole articles and other works (as long as they're reliable, of course) should pretty well establish notability. I think mostly it's the idea that multiple are needed that's the problem, so that some editors want two articles written about a subject for it to be notable. But I could be completely off. Anyway, cheers! --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 03:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but as vague as it is, my bigger complaint is that some editors will use dozens of exclusive but trivial (i.e. one line blog entries from reliable sources) to massively inflate an article. If you threaten the article, they just inflate it with statements like "John Smith from the New York Times has commented that his mustache is the greatest in three counties" to prove the notability of a politician's mustache and claim improvement. This creates a significant bias towards recent events, take a look at the articles for the elections in 1980 vs. 2008. Burzmali (talk) 11:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

that's a separate problem. We could and should get equally full coverage from the print sources once people do the work to find them--or once they become accessible online., whichever is the more likely. DGG (talk) 02:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

←Problem is that there are no print equivalents. Thirty years ago newsprint was expensive, so newspapers were forced to think before printing something. Today, any brain fart the newspaper has is just shoved on their "official" blog. Burzmali (talk) 02:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

(indent reset) I think that requires a more nuanced understanding. Dozens of trivial mentions or name drops do not add up to one substantial one, just as fifty lug nuts do not add up to a whole wheel. A substantial piece is of one piece, and while it is not necessary that it focus exclusively on the subject, the subject must be a main focus, not mentioned simply in passing or to provide context for the real subject. Further, notability requires that this source either be exceptionally comprehensive and respected, or, preferably, that there be multiple such sources from which an article may be written. There are other requirements as well, such as that the source must be independent of the subject and must be reliable. This here is why I'm against our latest "villagebot", that promises us millions instead of thousands of garbage, unimprovable stubs this time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Le Grand Roi, as maybe I've said before in a less-clear fashion: The problems you perceive in the AfD process could be solved by having AfDs administered by more competent admins. Wherever you've pointed out a problem, it's been apparent to me that the closing admin was lazy and didn't pay attention to the value of the various arguments put forth. Also, the problems you perceive could be ameliorated to some extent by lazy voters adding sources and footnotes to the articles they're advocating, instead of just posting links to the AfD. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Interestingly there is a clear bias at RFA against deletionist candidates whereas you actually need to be rabidly inclusionist to the point of losing sight of what the guidelines and policy say before a similar level of opposition crops up on the other side. The real issue is that we don't have a good idea of what should or shouldn't be included and our guidelines and policies contradict themselves in so many ways that for an admin to judge consensus against policy they are effectively required to use their own interpretation of policy to close the debate. Because we have so many different admins closing debates we end up with the result being a lottery rather then a straightforward assessment of the discussion. All the process wonkery and fixing of AFD in the world isn't going to solve that that problem because the problem is bias intrduced by factors external to the AFD process. Unfortuately there is not likely to be any compromise that can be agreeed over our existing unsatisfactory set up. I'd be very interested in any proposals that DGG has to address this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I have encountered a number of deletionist admins (those who are in fact listed in the deletionist category) who do seem to close AfDs in part because of bias against the article, i.e. in cases where the discussions were leaning toward keep or no consensus. My biggest concern with AfDs comes from my job as educator and historian and it is that a lot of what I see is in effect the electronic equivalent of book burning. To suggest that some knowledge is somehow not important is just unacademic and unencyclopedic. I am of course not talking about hoaxes, how tos, libel, copy vios, essays, etc., all of which I think we can agree should be deleted, but I see articles that do have reliable sources deleted under this bizarre idea that only things that pass a handful of editors' ideas of what's notable per an encyclopedic. Now those wanting to delete "in popular culture" articles, fictional characters, video game weapons, television episodes, family members of celebrities and politicians, etc. may think they are doing a good thing and have honest intentions, but the fact is that it is saying some knowledge is unimportant, which goes against everything any scholar and any encyclopedist should stand for. We discriminate against nonsense and lies, but there is no really good, logical, or valid reason why we cannot or should not cover some of these other items that a half dozen odd of the same editors in AfDs want deleted when others in the same AfDs argue to keep, plus maybe hundreds who created and worked on the article, and thousands who come here looking for the article. Some seem to think that Wikipedia will be better maintainable, but so then some just self-appoint themselves as the determiners of what knowledge is worthwhile, which is itself suspect. Some seem to think that if they delete articles that they don't like, then the editors will instead work on articles that the noms and per noms do like, which is naive and wrong. Article creators and contributors whose articles keep getting deleted will just leave the project. If we humor them, maybe they will branch off onto other "more important" articles, but if we keep insulting them authoritatively and paternalistically, they won't. As far as comedians or blogsters whose job is to be sarcastic and critical, who cares what they say about our inclusion of certain topics; after all, some of the sites I can't link to here actually mock us for deletionism. It baffles me as to why anyone would rather devote his or her energy to deleting articles that are not hoaxes, libel, essays, how tos, or copy vios, rather than trying to build up those articles he or she does believe are worthwhile. Imagine how much time spent on AfDs that end in no consensus or keep could have been spent cleaning up an article to bring it to good or featured status or protecting articles from vandalism! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you really get the point I'm making. The problem is that the system encourages personal bias in closing AFDs because there is no objective systemic basis on which to judge our inclusion criteria. The problem will only be resolved if we can come up with a clearer more consistent set of criteria against which content can be judged. This is external to the AFD process and no amount of tinkering is going to change that. The problem is not AFD and admins, it is the inclusion criteria. You appear to want to change the inclusion criteria by tinkering with AFD but that isn'y going to achieve that objective. You would be better off trying to get consensus on a clearer less subjective inclusion criteria if you want to get rid of 'bias' in deletion discussions. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to change some of these policies and guidelines, but the problem is that a vocal minority shouts down any who disagree with them and claim that they represent consensus and typically turn the discussions into ad hominen attacks against those who challenge the notability guidelines. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Reply to # 14. ("Notability is not inherited" can no longer be used in AfDs.) -- Oh, please. If this were to be implemented, then every person on the planet will instantly be notable. One of my ancestors was the Queen of France and England, so I could claim to be notable, too. And I assure you that I'm not. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that it is used for say the spouse of an award winning music artist who directly mention said spouse in notable songs and for whom reliable sources exist and which gets thousands of hits. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but if reliable sources exist, that shows notability independent of the famous spouse. "Notability is not inherited" wouldn't be a valid AfD argument in that case, so there's no need to ban it. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

In a recent discussion, when reliable sources showing notability of the spouse came up, people in the AfD still chanted "notability is not inherited" anyway. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

People use invalid arguments in AfDs all the time. It's an issue to take up with individual editors instead of messing up the AfD process. And if the closing admin gives too much weight to invalid arguments, you are certainly free to question them as well.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have found that if you confront editors in AfDs, even civily, they still get defensive and accuse those challenging them of harassment or other such nonsense. I think we some how need to make it clear on the top of every AfD that it is a discussion in which editors will reply to each other and not just a vote list of keeps and deletes. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Numbers 17 and 18 appear to be beyond what this discussion will be capable of doing. You ought to try somewhere else for them. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 04:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Per User talk:A Man In Black#Historical note, should we add a header on all AfDs that say something like, "Please remember that AfD is a discussion and not a vote. You should discuss with each other the article's value to Wikipedia and not just make a list of 'deletes' and 'keeps' with one or two word 'rationales'." followed by a link to the Arguments to Avoid Essay? If we did something like that, then it would look all the worse for anyone who posted there that didn't supply an actual reason and that goes for a "keep per nom" as well. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. We can't be in the business of discouraging editors from participating. Everyone is entitled to their option and can state it how they want. Its simply down to the closing admin to weigh up the arguments against policy and judge the consensus. We already discussed that the problem - such a sit is - is the unclear inclusion criteria and you would be better off trying to fix that before we start tinkering with the AFD process. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Why not better educate participants as to what are and are not good versus weak arguments? If it's a discussion, then we should not have a bunch of non-discussion advancing "per nom" or one word "nnotable" non-rationales. Also, I actually want MORE people to participate in AfDs. Too many articles for which hundreds of editors have contributed wind up deleted because a half dozen or so in a five day AfD said to do so. I don't see how that can possibly reflect the actual opinion of the community. We need more participation and I think we should require notification of as many editors who worked on article under discussion as possible. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 21:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

A header on every AfD would just get ignored. The editors you're complaining about have already failed to read the instructions, guidelines and policy pages posted all over the place reminding our participants that these are discussions, not votes.
Education of our editors is important but I can't help thinking that a big part of the problem in this case is the structure of the discussion. The tradition of the bolded "keep" or "delete" at the front of the comment gives the appearance of voting even when that is not the intent. (It also has the unfortunate tendency to encourage our editors to decide the outcome first, then write their rationalization. I would rather they document their evidence and reasoning and lead up to the conclusion. That's how we used to structure the discussion comments. The current format was adopted during a period when the backlog of unclosed discussions was exceptionally long and we were looking for ways to make the closers' job easier. We accomplished the goal but to the detriment of the discussions in my opinion.)
Several alternative layouts for the discussions have been proposed. One of my favorites was the Deletion requests format. (Note: This proposal was made before we were in the habit of independent sub-pages for each discussion. Some of the formatting comments are now obsolete.) Rossami (talk) 22:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the next step is to reopen Wikipedia:Deletion reform and/or Wikipedia:Pure wiki deletion system. Another idea is to allow not only admins, but established editors in good standing to also be able to see deleted articles for the purposes of deletion reviews and RfAs (I'm sure someone can dream up a way that would allow that without also having to include the ability to delete or restore articles). There's this, but it doesn't go back far enough. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 22:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose All There are 18 suggestions here, some of them are related to each other (enough to discuss as a group), some of them are distinct enough that discussing them as a whole would be unsuitable. In the future, I think it would be easier for us to reach consesnsus on issues like this if they were proposed in smaller chunks. Even though there are 18 distinct suggestions I am going to treat them similarly for the purposes of my response because they serve to fundamentally shift the balance between the ability to delete and the ability to retain articles. If adopted these solutions would broaden notability guidelines, eliminate the limit on debate for AfD, and rewrite WP:CONSENSUS for the purposes of deletion discussion. A few points on why, precisely, I oppose these changes:

• Substantial process controls already exist. The AfD system provides the benefit of the doubt to the article in non-policy matters: 5 days of discussion, no prejudice toward recreation (for articles that don't meet guidelines) and Deletion review for discussions where process has broken down. Take together, these controls make it very difficult to delete an article that meets WP:NOT/V/NPOV/N. We cannot examine certain parts of the AfD process without examining the whole. Deletion of an article is a semi-permanent outcome and the process respects that by providing checks on deletion. Even if an article survives deletion it may still be userified and brought to standards outside of the mainspace. Furthermore, the imposition of infinite debate and bizzare counting rules will increase the backlog in AfD, which is considerable already. There are hundreds of articles that move through deletion each week. Each deserves a good look but none deserve to jam up the debate.
• A rewrite of WP:CONSENSUS is unacceptable. Specifically proposals 4,5,6,7,9. We cannot just decide that consensus in deletion requires tooling around in that particular article. Consensus in a debate is driven from discussion. We don't expect that those who comment on WT:N modify the WP:N page before their comments are heard. Furthermore this excludes editors from the discussion that don't give a rip about certain articles. I'm not going to contribute significantly to every article that comes up on AfD because most of them are outside my interests and my expertise. I don't expect to be punished because I have a different set of interests than other editors. Proposal 7 is totally unacceptable. We assume good faith, period. No admin or editor has more than an anecdotal understanding of who voted where or when and why. Nor can we demand (nor enforce) an expectation that editors perform some level of search for sources. There is no method to enforce this and it is wholly superfluous. Presume for a minute that I vote "ZOMG Delete" on an article and later some intrepid editor produces sources that allow the article to meet the guidelines. Do we need to "void" my !vote in order to keep the article? No. If the sources produced bring the article into guidelines then the lack of consensus to delete provides enough protection. Let me REPEAT that. If the sources provided bring the article up to standards, the article will be kept in the current system. Sometimes editors say they brought the article up to standards when they actually did not or when the sources or merits of the article are still in question. In this case, are we to repeal the positions of editors provided in good faith just because another editor produced evidence that she had rummaged around for sources?
• These changes shift focus toward inclusion. This may not be controversial, but it should be said. The changes above about consensus shift focus in the debate toward editors who vote keep. In a deletion debate, the nominator usually (with rare exception) provides a rationale for deletion and produces evidence to support that rationale. It then becomes the burden of editors who would like to keep the article to mount an affirmative defense. As I look at an article in AfD I may produce a list of possible sources or I may just cite a policy while arguing for deletion. However, if I am to argue to retain the article, I have to respond to the nomination (because presumably it provides the best argument for deletion). If we assume that that burden of response represents some deeper commitment to the debate then we introduce a structural bias toward keep votes. I'll refrain from discussing 14-16 in this section, keeping to the shift toward inclusion in debate. Proposals 10 and 13 provide an unnecessary and undue burden on editors nominating an article for deletion. If an editor is interested in the future and disposition of an article she may watchlist it. the deletion procedure already suggests notifying the principal creators and editors of an article. The expectation that we notify everyone who has dotted an i or crossed a t represents little more than a burden on the nominating editor. If I had to notify a half dozen users before nominating an article I would be dissuaded from doing so in all but the most extreme cases. Proposal 10 is flat out unnecessary. A renomination is not an "appeal" to the previous nomination. It is a call for consensus on an article independent of the previous calls. Like 13, interested editors will have the article watchlisted or will cruise AfD.
• Stop trying to control the debate. 12,14-16 are all totally unacceptable. LeGrand, I understand that you don't like these arguments but that is no reason for some blanket ban on their use. The community has already weighed in on the Cruft debate. The other restrictions are either handled in the deletion guide (and guide for admins) or represent undue restriction on speech you don't like. "Notability is not inherited" is even part of WP:FICT and WP:TOYS. Seriously. Also, there is focus on what wikipedia is not because that is a bedrock policy. WP:NOT provides good limits on content that allow us to expand the encyclopedia to anything not covered under there. IF you have a problem with that, this is not the proper venue.
• Blanket demands for notability 17 and 18 are not in the correct venue. Discussions about those guidelines can occur on those pages.

I'd prefer that responses come below this string of text rather than interstitially, but if other editors feel that they want to respond individually, go right ahead. :) Also, since watching this will watch AfD in general, I'm not likely to keep this page watched, so it may be some time before I get back to a comment. Basic takeaway: AfD is fine. It is an imperfect solution to a problem, but it does ok. And LeGrand, you are going to be unhappy with the AfD system so long as you expect it to result in solutions to your liking. I don't expect AfD to come out how I would like every time, that would drive me nuts. Just look at AfD from the standpoint of how it comports with current policies and guidelines. If there are problems still, then we can settle them in the appropriate place. Protonk (talk) 15:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Responses:
• 1) The reason some editors may seem "offended" is that there are some AFD participants who feel the need to respond to every single comment that every other editor makes, often with repetitive comments. Not mentioning any names because I've been that involved in some contentious AFDs as well, but the constant responses in a less-contentious AFD can have the effect of making the AFD turn contentious.
• 2) Discussions cannot go on forever. Any cut-off point for discussion is by definition arbitrary but at some point a decision needs to be made. There is nothing preventing you from accessing those password-protected sources and writing articles in userspace and any admin will as a matter of course userfy articles upon your request.
• 3) "Articles for Restoration" is a terrible idea. If the problems with a deleted article are resolved, DRV can be used to undelete it or it may be userfied or re-written from scratch.

• Yeah, I didn't mention it specifically, but "AfR" would basically duplicate effort at AfC and represent another list I have to watch. Also, this would mean that only articles strongly supported by someone would be put in AfR (in other words, someone is willing to do the pushing), which is really the last kind of article we want to have prolonged debate about. there doesn't need to be an AfD2. Protonk (talk) 18:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• 4) Agreed that editors should check for possible sources before initiating an AFD but the idea of watchlisting people who !vote a certain way is repulsive.
• 5) WP:EFFORT is not a valid argument. Dozens of editors may work on an unsuitable article; their wasted effort is regrettable but must not be considered as a reason for keeping it. Someone is always going to be upset at the closure of an AFD if it doesn't go their way; "someone might be offended" strikes me as a poor rationale for changing process.
• 6) This proposal makes it far too easy to game the system by simply inserting a question at the end of an AFD that isn't going the way the questioner wants. I trust admins to take note of the entire discussion and if they don't we already have DRV.
• 7) I have expressed my concern elsewhere that you base some of your AFD !votes on your finding the subject to be offensive or "pedophilic," so I don't put much stock into your list of deletions. Editors are entitled to believe that entire classes of articles are unacceptable and !vote accordingly if they so choose and their opinions should not be discounted on that basis.
• 8) Bollocks. A bad article is a bad article regardless of who nominates it and there's already a process in place for dealing with AFDs initiated in bad faith.
• 9) Same response as to number 6 above. Editors should not be allowed to game the system by slipping a question in at the last minute to stop a closure they don't support.
• 10) This is far too burdensome to the process. Interested editors can watchlist articles.
• 11) No.
• 12) notability has a definition on Wikipedia. Banning "non-notable" from AFD is unacceptable. Indiscriminate also has a meaning on Wikipedia and banning its use is unacceptable.
• 13) No. This is far too burdensome and interested editors can watchlist articles. Notifying everyone who ever fixed a typo of an AFD is ridiculous.
• 14) Your pronouncement is rejected.
• 15) No type of article may be exempt from the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, your pet passion for trivia notwithstanding. Editors need to take responsibility for ensuring that their articles meet those guidelines before splitting them off.
• 16) WP:NOT is bedrock Wikipedia policy. Your collected essays on "What Wikipedia is" is not policy or guideline. It is opinion which any and all editors are free to disregard.
• 17) Even articles with reliable sources may be otherwise unsuitable under policy and guidelines. No blanket passes for any type of article.
• 18) No. The article about the toy or video game must meet all relevant policies and guidelines, and the notability of the source game or toy does not impart notability to every iteration of it in every medium.
• Additionally, I echo much of what Protonk has said above. Otto4711 (talk) 17:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I do find this interesting. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

REALLY? what is interesting about it? Are you going to suggest that I'm canvassing perhaps? If you do I suggest you just come out and suggest it. WT:AFD is not exactly a well traveled section of the 'pedia (I only found it from a village pump link) and I'm pretty sure that I didn't want a policy suggestion like this to go through without some comment. So here's my offer, LeGrand. Put up or shut up. Accuse me of canvassing or don't bother. I'm not interested in being the subject of innuendo because I oppose making changes to policy in order to suit the needs of an editor. Furthermore, be prepared to accept the responsibility for such an accusation, because glass houses are terrible places to throw stones from. Protonk (talk) 18:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oh noes, someone who knows I've been involved in AFDs notified me of a discussion involving a proposal for major changes to the AFD process! Seems to me, since you want every person who's ever touched an article to be personally notified of an AFD, it should have been you who notified me of this discussion. Protonk did nothing wrong here and the implication that he did is ridiculous. Otto4711 (talk) 18:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• If that's the case then feel free to notify everyone who has agreed with me in such discussions as well. In any event, AfD needs serious reform if not replacement, because we keep getting what seems to be frivolous AfDs. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm begging with you. Please stop escalating conflicts. You suggested it was improper that I talked with otto about this proposal. He refuted that implication. You response is to call a nomination he made frivolous? Please, act to deescalate rather than enflame debate. If you have a response to the policy issues we brought up, feel free to bring that up. Please don't suggest that our participation here is in bad faith, however diplomatic your suggestion may be. Protonk (talk) 18:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no desire to escalate anything, but we do need to make serious revisions or something outside of the box to fix the various problems with AfDs as enumerated above. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Disregarding the notability/whatnot elements of your above manifesto, I take issue with the clauses about consensus: as a closing admin, I don't count votes; unfortunately many are afraid to have a few sound arguments outweigh a massive swell of 'per noms', but that's just up to the admins to deal with. I would say the only issues on that side are people, not policy-based. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to bring up an old discussion that seems to have ended a week ago.. but in regards to point #7 above, please note that User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Deletion discussions systematically omits discussions in which Le Grand votes keep but the eventual result was delete. Roi's flimsy rationale for this is that he is "still working on his options" (DRV, userfication) for those articles, but that does not ring true since many of the omitted discussions involve articles Roi has not mentioned or touched for months.

Users are obviously allowed to put whatever they want in userspace, but I think it is important to note that this page should not be accepted at face value. --Jaysweet (talk) 22:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for assuming bad faith. We do not have a timeline. I plan to at some point address every article not included there yet, but it will of course take time, maybe months, maybe longer, to get to all of them. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

We aren't assuming bad faith. You claim publicly that the list of deletion discussion represents evidence that you aren't solely an inclusionist. Jaysweet calls you on EXACTLY THAT CLAIM. You respond by telling him that the list was never meant to be evidence of your overall success rate or wikistance. He calls you on THAT CLAIM. No assumptions exist here. Protonk (talk) 23:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

And the page shows exactly that, i.e. that I don't only argue to keep, but that I do in fact argue and even nominate to delete. It says nothing about hey look at my success rate. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

After taking a few deep breaths, I believe perhaps Le Grand is not intending to mispresent. I still believe the page leads to the impression that Le Grand !votes "delete" a lot higher percentage of the time than he actually does, but I don't think he is intentionally distorting.

I am willing to remove the accusation from this page if you want, Le Grand. Or, if you would prefer to leave it in place as a record of my "bad faith", I am okay with that too, as I stand by the gist of what I said, if not the vehemence. (FWIW, the reason I was so pissed off is because the first time I saw that page I did in fact assume good faith, i.e. I did not attempt to verify the accuracy of the page myself -- and now I wish I had.) --Jaysweet (talk) 23:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Jaysweet, again, just to clarify, it is not meant to show that I have a higher percentage of delete "votes" than I actually have, only that I do in fact argue to delete after some asserted inaccurately that I "never" do so, which the page shows to be untrue as I have done so at least forty times. The page also accurately shows that I do nevertheless predominantly argue to keep and I would absolutely not dispute that I am a strong inclusionist. I merely want to show that I am not a blind inclusionist unwilling to ever argue to delete. I might revise the lead of the page to further clarify after I type up this reply, but there are AfDs I participated in even a year ago that I have every hope to eventually revisit at some point. Maybe when I finally have a break from my real life responsibilities to actually do some hard work on here. To clarify further, I do not go down the list of AfDs and just comment in all of them. Rather, I look for specific ones that I either strongly believe should be deleted or much more frequently believe should at least be a redirect and I watchlist those pages and continue discussing in them as they discussion progresses and because I believe strongly that these articles can somehow at least exist as a redirect, I do not give up just because an AfD or even a DRV did not go the way I would have liked as after all consensus can and does change. I suppose it is similar to those who will nominate the same article for deletion a third or even more times. It is unfortunate if it was perceived otherwise and I am outright saddened at the way this discussion across multiple pages has gone, although I am encouraged by your post above. I will momentarily revise the lead of the page in question clarify further as I hope that should help. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I feel like a real ass now since it is abundantly clear to me at this point that Le Grand does not intend to deceive, and if I had approached him in a more mature manner, I think we could have worked out an intro to the page in question that satisfied us both. As it is, I no longer I feel I have the moral high ground to try and exert an influence over the intro.

Le Grand, let me try and explain a little better (and more calmly) why I feel I was deceived by that page even though it was not your intention to deceive. First, I assume we would both agree that the discussions I feel are wrongly omitted would exclusively entail discussions in which you voted "keep", correct? i.e. there are probably not any discussions in which you voted "delete" but the result was "keep" and you are planning on renominating it at a later date, right? ;D

If we accept that premise, and from my cursory examination it looks like the size of the list would increase by like 50-100% or more if those discussions were included, I think we can agree that the percentage of the time you !vote delete appears much lower on that list than in reality. Correct?

When you initially showed me that page, I understand now your intention was to say, "I have !voted 'delete' more than zero times." I accept that as true, however, you have to understand that people are going to take more than that from that page. The first thing I thought to myself was, "Hmmm, not only has he !voted 'delete', but it looks like he does it a non-trivial amount of the time." I believe that was a false impression. The second thing I thought was, "Wow, I know Roi is an inclusionist, but based on the correlation between his !votes and the eventual outcome, it seems like he picks his battles pretty well." I know now that was never your intention, but that's what I got from the page. Sorry to say, but I now believe that impression to be quite far from the truth.

I remain highly concerned about the potential impressions users will get from looking at that page, even with the modified disclaimer (even with your improvement from today, there is a big difference between incomplete and systematically incomplete) -- however, as I mentioned above, I believe I have squandered any moral credibility I might have had with my initial vehemence. So I'll leave it alone for now -- though I do reserve the right to politely point out to other users the net effect of your criteria for inclusion on that list, should it come up in the future. --Jaysweet (talk) 23:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I took the same thing from the list, Jay, so it's not an outrageous leap of logic. Perhaps including the "voted keep but it was deleted" article on their, with a color code that indicates Roi is yet working on them would be the best route to prevent misinterpretation of the data presented. S. Dean Jameson 00:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there's one instance in an MfD where I argued to delete, but it closed as keep that is not yet included on that table, although I'm not sure yet if I plan to renominate that one. I believe that every other time I argued to delete save that one has in fact closed as delete. Sure, the percentage I argue to delete is actually much lower, but whereas I do argue to delete at least sometimes I have encountered a few who even outright said they would "never" argue to keep and I don't believe they ever have actually done so. The thing is though there are also a lot of ones in which I argued to keep and the close was indeed something other than delete that I have not yet added as well. There may even be some that I argued to delete and that closed as delete that I have also not yet added. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Who. Usernames might be helpful. I've never met anyone who has voted (assuming they are 'real' accounts and not socks or throwaways) only "keep" or "delete" on every subject. Protonk (talk) 00:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

See for example [3] and [4] or [5]. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Lol. So I dug through all of Dr. Fluffy's contributions to the wikipedia namespace. No keep or neutral votes. Good. We've got one step down. We've shown that there is one editor in wikipedia who has yet to vote keep (and based on talk page responses, probably never will). Of course now step two: convincing the community why the voice of an editor like him should be ignored (Also, to be clear, he just doesn't vote keep, not that he votes delete on every article, presumably he just doesn't comment on article which ought to be kept in his eyes). So why should Dr. Fluffy's vote never matter? Protonk (talk) 03:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC) Oh, as an addendum, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the fact that he has literally 1500+ afd contributions and not one is keep.  :) He's focused. Protonk (talk) 03:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe the other account linked above has ever argued to keep either, i.e. the one that calls other editors "acne-ridden mongoloid fanboys" (I don't think a single-purpose alternate account based on incivility is legitimate). In any event, if it's a discussion and not a vote, then the participants need to be open-minded to changing their stances should the article improve or new sources be found as I did at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/F.C. Prabis. It's frustrating in discussions when sources are found and they are outright ignored, because the account is not interested in arguing to keep the article in question under any circumstances. Intsead, I get comments like this (look at my initial post in the discussion well above that post in which I had indeed posted the same links I posted again...). --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mention the other account because a SPA for deletion discussions is obviously not going to vote keep. and it's insulting to call Dr. Fluffy's comments a distraction. he is a member of the community and insofar as he can make a policy based argument for deletion it should count just as much as yours or mine. If all he did was write "crap, delete", we could ignore it for completely other reasons. And We don't need to judge people based on their willingness to vote keep for some article that doesn't meet guidelines.

As for the comment, I can't make everyone read everything you write. In that case perhaps a better "first" (in that exchange) comment would be to say, "hey, I have sources above". Further, you keep mentioning the specter of editors and admins ignoring good sources and deleting articles anyways. I don't see it. I see some articles which don't get improved at all from nomination to deletion. I see some articles that get improved and kept (those are the most fun). I also see some articles (this is most common in the COI/FRINGE debates) where source after source gets presented and they are all crap. total crap. Nothing to do with the subject or otherwise unacceptable. But I've never seen an AfD go down where legit evidence of notability was presented and ignored (the closest I can think of would be The murder of Joseph Didler. That, to me is about as close as you can come to arguing that a sourced and notable article got through the entire process. It was basically deleted under WP:NOT and not WP:N, FWIW). Like AMiB told you on your talk page the single best method of arguing in an AfD is "Here are my sources that show notability, suck on it.". Do that and no deletionist can touch you. Do that and we don't need all these arcane rules about who can participate in AfD and how many people we have to nominate. That's all it takes. Talking about how other editors don't look for sources doesn't do a thing. We all know that "other people" don't do shit. Hell, I don't do shit, I know it. There is no method to make other editors go look for sources. But if you get them (or anyone), we can't delete it. Even if I'm an evil deletionist, I can't force an article to be deleted with good sourcing (and if it is, it can be recreated). And if I refuse to accept (here again I'm cribbing from AMiB) these good sources, I will be shouted down. The community will reject my position. Period. If you come up with sources about a topic scheduled for deletion and I say something like "Nutz to that, deletion is awesome, I love red links, cruft cruft, cruft...." people will ignore me. That is the community at work. It happens every single day. You can take any day in AfD and among 100+ articles at least one was improperly nominated and the sourcing provided in AfD improves the article considerably. Every day.

So we can either treat this like a community process or we can act as though editors are ignorant, spiteful and collusive. We can assume that some people will never vote a certain way and therefore ignore them or we can treat arguments as they come. We can treat deletion as an inherently immoral act, akin to vandalism, or we can just treat it as a process that the community enters into. This probably sounds like a false choice but it isn't far off. AfD is just another process. It is an important one, because it exists at the margin--choices here have a real result on the encyclopedia. that means it sees more fervor than GA review (which is backed up, please help!). But it doesn't make the deletion of an article an inherently ignoble act. Treating it as such is an insult to the people who work to delete articles outside the community policies and guidelines. Let's just work to bring evidence to AfD's and save articles through improvement and learning, not sealawyering. Protonk (talk) 04:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Non-English Title Deletion

What's the quickest to delete pointless articles created with non-English titles, I'm having issues putting them up here for nomination, please assist.Kenimaru (talk) 08:29, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Sample pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%85%92 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%B8%E7%B1%8D

These are, per previous consensus, legitimate disambiguation pages and don't do any harm. I.e. they should not be deleted. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree, there are pages duplicating the English counterparts and providing trivial information. If anything, they should sit with the appropriate language wikis. One way I think I can do is to redirect them manually and migrate the little contents on there. Would you point me to where the consensus are discussed? Thanks. Kenimaru (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Just like Brandenburger Tor and München redirect to the English terms, these symbols would redirect to the responding English term. However, the symbols are ambiguous, therefore they are dab pages instead of redirects, which is legitimate. You can ask at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation (or Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)) whether I assessed this situation right, because I remember that this was discussed before. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the key issue here is that Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary and these trivial pages are created by individuals to clutter the information by introducing repetitive contents via foreign title. This is very different from the 2 examples that you brought up, which are the native names for foreign locales. There is nothing wrong to discuss the so-called ambiguity of wine and brown rice tea in different culture context, but it's not supposed to take the place on Wikipedia (or so I believe). Kenimaru (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As we likely won't come to an agreement here, please take these articles to WP:AFD to get more input, because the other two ways of deletions (WP:PROD and WP:SPEEDY) will likely be rejected. – sgeureka ^t•c 21:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Which is exactly what I was trying to do, except that the template doesn't work well with Chinese characters. If you know how, please do tell, thanks. Kenimaru (talk) 23:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Now I understand the problem. What will work is to create dummy AfDs with e.g. your sandbox via the usual way and subst'ing templates, and then change all links and names with the foreign symbols and finally make a page move. – sgeureka ^t•c 05:36, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Where the situation is a straight redirect (as opposed to a disambiguation page), the decision was made here. It boils down to "discourage redirects for common foreign language words" but "allow redirects where the foreign title is either the original or commonly known". The discussion also formally acknowledged some users use cut-and-paste to try to figure out what a foreign phrase means. It may not seem like much value to you or I but redirects are cheap (and disambiguation pages are almost as cheap) so the bar for their inclusion is very low. Since, as with Sgeureka's observations, the discussions that I know of concluded that these can be appropriate to the project, there is no deletion shortcut that you can use. If you think these pages are actively harmful to the project, you'll have to use AfD/RfD to get consensus on it. Rossami (talk) 13:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I see your point and I agree, though these examples are what I deemed as artificial ambiguity. It's like creating a page called "Big Bear Cat" in Chinese, put it on the English Wikipedia, and say it's ambiguous because some think that is Panda and some think otherwise. Kenimaru (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Could this be a Speedy Deletion reason? like... A14 - Title and content duplicate extant content, but use foreign characters to duplicate a concept already covered in English on the wiki. Would that be acceptable, because I agree that it's stupid to end-run around NOT#Dictionary, and to allow people to turn us into a Berlitz course. ThuranX (talk) 06:04, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the fact that there's some debate here indicates that you shouldn't try speedying them, even if you could find an admin who was willing to delete them. Speedies are for distinct non-controversial cases. There's enough here to make me think that there will be differing opinions on whether or not they'll be deleted. You probably can bundle them, but I don't think a speedy or prod is appropriate. Vickser (talk) 06:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No, no. I think you misunderstand. I'm asking, is there a way to take what we're talking about, and create another qualification for Speedy Deletion. In other words, is this idea material for actually changing CSD policy to add a 'Foreign Dictionary' reason for CSD. ThuranX (talk) 06:35, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I get what you're saying. It seems to me that that it would be possible to create a new speedy category, but you'd have to do so at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. I don't think it should proposed until the afds hatch out for the first batch and consensus is established. On the basis of the redirects from foreign languages page linked by Rossami, you'd probably have issues getting such a criterion approved until you can show consensus that these should be deleted. Vickser (talk) 06:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

maybe this discussion will yield somethign that can be brought there. ThuranX (talk) 07:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I can't imagine every accepting this as a speedy criterion. It is perfectly reasonable for someone who also knows the original language to use it for a search even in the English Wikipedia--it will always be less ambiguous than any English transcription--and I think there would therefore be opposition to many such deletions even at RfD. DGG (talk) 02:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)