Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53

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Proposed wikiproject, Requests for undeletion

I went ahead and started a discussion on WT:DELPRO about my "requests for undeletion" idea mentioned above in the AFD/PROD thread. Full proposal is here. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Drafted at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion, further input may be made at WT:Requests for undeletion. –xeno ^talk 14:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you think this is something that might receive more input if listed at WP:CENT? Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  18:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

AfDs on BLPs

Not sure where to discuss this, but I've noticed many BLP related AfDs now in which those calling to delete almost borderline if not outright personally attack the subject of the article in their rationale for deletion. I am reluctant to post examples for the very reason why I am bringing this up, but should we somehow disallow comments like, "Delete. Just some crackpot no one cares about", which is essentially one I saw recently or something similar or worse? I am sure anyone who has seen enough AfDs on BLPs, can think of instances, but something just doesn't feel right to say delete articles on subjects to prevent BLP violations, but to keep God knows how many AfDs that people can find from Google searches, which are arguably more insulting to these people than the articles could hope to be. Put simply, if we delete articles to protect real people, why keep deletion discussions with insulting comments about these people? I am all for free speech, but such comments are hardly helpful, mature, or academic and if anything possibly even damaging to our credibility as well as to the reputation of the people whose articles are under discussion. Again, I am reluctant to post the actually instances here, but there has been some really nasty stuff and if this merits a wider discussion, please feel free to post it elsewhere. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

A wider application of WP:CBLANK to AfDs on BLPs may be appropriate. However I don't think regular deletion of AfDs is going to happen. Maybe regular transclusion of {{NOINDEX}} to AfDs? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Even if they are noindexed, their subjects could do a search of their page, which typically will include some kind of "Admin deleted due to Articles for Deletion/BLP" kind of message, which takes the reader to the AfD. What about also applying WP:NPA to not just editors but real life subjects of articles? Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLP still applies imo; defamation is unacceptable no matter where. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think AfDs are NOINDEXed already. Protonk (talk) 01:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, check out MediaWiki:Robots.txt. Protonk (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Need named user to AfD Malcolm McCulloch

I'd like to start an AfD on Malcolm McCulloch, but the 3-step AfD process only let me complete step 1, and then asked me to log in, or ask another user to nominate the article for deletion instead.
Can someone please complete steps 2 and 3 of this?
IMHO grounds for deletion:

• Subject of article is apparently not notable per Wikipedia:Notability.
• Article is an orphan or near-orphan article.
• Article is an apparent "vanity" article, possibly created by the subject of the article or by a fan of the subject. (Most edits to this article were done by editors who haven't edited any other article.)
  
  - I'm starting this AfD in good faith - if we arrive at a consensus that this article is in fact merited I'm fine with that. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malcolm McCulloch –xeno ^talk 02:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy keep per SNOW

I've noticed a few recent AfDs closed something like "speedy keep per WP:SNOW", which are separate rationales. I raised the issue a few months ago at WT:Speedy keep#Applicability, but there was little discussion. However, the conclusion of #Proposal to change the length of deletion discussions to 7 days includes a discouragement of early closures outside of the speedy criteria. Is there support for emphasizing the distinction? Flatscan (talk) 04:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

• Call it pedantry, but I feel that "speedy keep per SNOW" results from confusing "early" for "speedy". It should rightly always be "keep per snow" because SK is bound to a specific set of limited criteria. As for the meat of the issue, I sympathize with discouraging early closures however I think the remedies are difficult to engineer. SNOW closes (especially non-admin snow closes) are a gamble. One way to ensure they are a gamble is to put some downside risk in the game for editors who make bad snow closes. Reverse their decisions. Call them out. Oppose their RfAs. This isn't an immediate solution, but it is one that the community can implement (and has in many respects for bad CSD tagging). reversing early closes which aren't great but aren't obviously bad is a lot trickier. I don't have a good solution. Protonk (talk) 04:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

That's one of the reasons I vary rarely say "snow" or close early. However, I do have a personal guideline about closing early per WP:SNOW...

It would be obvious to a reasonable person that an article is not going to be deleted such as Microsoft or Barack Obama

The nominator's rationale has clearly been impeached. An example would be a nominator saying a baseball player fails WP:ATHLETE because he has not played in any major games and sources are presented that proves he did.

The article falls under WP:OUTCOMES and there are no sound arguments for deletion. 2 examples are high schools and towns.

In short, a shitload of editors voting "keep" doesn't automatically make it WP:SNOW. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Ron and Protonk on this one. WP:SNOW should be very rare (in fact, I would probably not close the baseball or high school one early, figuring there's no harm in letting it run, but I wouldn't fault anyone who did close them early). The best way to deal with bad snow jobs (sorry, couldn't resist) is do deal with the editors involved in the ways Protonk listed.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty ambivalent on these issues. I think that SNOWing AfDs should be discouraged, but not prohibited entirely. I think passing it as a rider on the 7-day proposal was questionable, but I agree with the results of editors being approached after SNOWing. Flatscan (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

• Considering the support here, I will add something like "this excludes SNOW" to WP:Speedy keep if there are no objections. Flatscan (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

7 days

7 days = 168 hours, not 160 or even 164. A desire to carry out one's admin responsibilities is an excellent thing, but it's better to keep the process orderly, or we will be back to where we were with people trying to get ahead of each others. DGG (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Ideally, debates should run for 7 days but an administrator (or other) should be free to evaluate discussions on the 7 day old log without worrying about the exact second it was closed opened. This is especially true if the discussion has enough comments to make a call but nothing for the last few days. However, I will say that it's a good idea to start from the bottom of the log because this is where the oldest discussions and most of the relisted discussions will be. I will also concede that a closer should be more mindful of the time (not just the date) the discussion was open if he plans to close "delete" or if one of the discussions close to the top is still drawing comments. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

In all fairness, insisting on a 7-day listing when the result is clear is process wonkery. Stifle (talk) 21:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't view it as process wonkery (although admittedly I have been accused of that before). The problem had been occurring, peaking around the time of this AN discussion, because it divides up the admins: those who follow deletion policy to the letter (and wait out the full number of hours) and those who do not follow it to the letter. What happened was almost all of our AfDs were being closed by admins in the first camp, and thus it was admins who operate outside of strict policy who became those who determined consensus at AfD in general. I did not like that trend, myself. I'm not sure what the solution is, but insisting that admins wait the full number of hours is one option. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If there's no discussion for several days of the 7 day period, the discussion should be relisted, for God's sake even one day early. But it should not be closed early, because that's simply manipulation. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 16:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It has never been a hard limit. We can use common sense. 168 hours, less, more, no big deal. We can make our decisions based off of the circumstances and not resort to a rigid rule. There is DRV if you think a closing was wrong. 5 days was never a hard limit so I don't see why 7 days should be. If that is to be the case then that is another proposal and another consensus to seek. Just because we changed the number of days does not mean it is suddenly a hard and fast rule. Needless process. Chillum 14:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I find this complaint particularly irritating because I think that these complaints are a waste of time. My support for the extended time was conditional on it being presented in a way that made this sort of complaint obviously inappropriate. Could we please be perfectly clear that we're not nitpicking over a couple of hours in either direction? For example, we could say that discussions are usually open for about seven days, instead of [exactly] seven days. (Note that I want to stop complaints in both directions: 'This obviously wretched article should have been deleted two hours ago!' is just as irritating as 'I was supposed to have another two hours to look for sources!') WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a waste of time. Since mere mortals cannot delete pages, and are probably unaware of the appeals process until an article they have created becomes deleted through AfD, it seems imperative to me that people are given proper time — which is what your proposal was about. I kinda sympathise with putting "about 7 days" in the policy, but it's just gonna be too wide in its interpretation. Since the appeal process concentrates on incorrectly following process, rather than the article itself, it's imperative that the process is specific. I think your worry that people then grumble about process is unjustified for two reasons: first, it's easily answered ("We followed the process, now you must do x if you're still upset"); second, having a fixed and firm rule will prevent such complaints in the first place, since they obviously will get no truck. So although I don't want to define the limit in microseconds, to say at least 7 full days seems appropriate. I'm not worried about the odd second or two, if some deletionist fetish is watching the list until an alarm clock goes off so be it. But e.g. Australian contributors have a distinct disadvantage against Californian deleters unless the time is made quite explicit. SimonTrew (talk) 09:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods"

I originally proposed this idea back in September of last year. There was some support for this idea but not quite enough. The original discussions are here (WT:AFD) and here (Village pump proposals). There was several points of opposition but one of the main ones was the "weekend editor" issue that was later used as one of the main selling points of the proposal to extend AFD to 7 days. Now that AFD is 7 days, I'm reproposing this with some modifications to see if this idea would now be more acceptable.

If an article has been listed at AFD for 7 days and...

1. Has not previously been listed at AFD and survived with a "clean keep".

2. An argument for deletion exists. (this will usually be from the nominator).

3. Has few or no comments/!votes.

4. Has no "good faith" "keep" !votes or neutral comments leaning toward "keep".

Then, if in the judgment of the closing administrator, the deletion rationale is sound, he may treat the AFD as if it were an uncontested prod. The article is deleted. However, the article will not be subject to CSD G4 and can be recreated or restored without discussion either by DRV or by a request to an administrator, just as if it were prodded and the tag not removed. A suggested name for this type of close is delete without prejudice.

Note that the closing admin doesn't have to to this. He can still close "no consensus", relist the discussion, or do a normal deletion if the article fits a CSD criteria or if he feels that the few comments there are are enough for a rough consensus. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:49, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• "Oppose". Articles on "boring" or "specialized" topics, attracting little interest at AfD, would get a really raw deal from this. –Whitehorse1 23:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Above argument hits it. Example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Collegiates, which you named in another discussion. In this case only one person contributed under three different accounts. Even after the SPI and a relisting nobody else !voted. It would have been deleted. Actually it's hard to find sources for an obscure 1960s band on the internet (FUTON bias) and I'm glad nobody else than JB !voted "delete" - but of course nobody !voted "keep" either. ;-) In this case the "weekend editor rule" couldn't help. In this case it needs some expert who has secondary literature or even old magazines and can determinate the band's real notabilty based on those sources. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 23:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• Don't forget that in both cases, the only thing that is happening is what would happen if the nominator had prodded the article instead of sending it to AFD and currently with prod it would happen 2 days sooner. (the jury's still out on a 7 day prod) All someone has to do is ask for the article to be undeleted and *poof*, it's back. I could even see a bot being written to do this. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• I still don't see the real benefit of your proposal. I'd prefer the article to be relisted, in hope the expert arrives in time. ;-) --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 23:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Re-listing is nearly costless, so there's little gain from this proposal, and the cost of losing valid articles would be high. I haven't yet seen a compelling argument in favor of this proposal; generally speaking, the support arguments I've seen are instead counters to oppose arguments. To succeed, this proposal needs a strong positive rationale. Some !voters seem to operate on an assumption that articles should default to delete if no one "gives a damn about" them (to quote a previous discussion). This is wrong. Articles should be deleted if they are unencyclopedic, and otherwise they should be kept, regardless of whether or not somebody has bothered to participate in a particular bureaucratic process within a set period of time. Default should be to keep an article, not delete it, because most readers who benefit from an article will never comment at AfD.

I'm aware that PROD operates on a basis similar to the one being proposed for AfD, and !voters have cited this as a reason to change AfD. Arguments from consistency, like this one, are generally flawed because they fail to demonstrate which way an inconsistency should be resolved: perhaps we should change PROD instead of AfD. Setting that aside, there are a couple of reasons why PROD is not a good analogy. PRODs are only supposed to be applied to articles whose deletion rationale is uncontroversial, while AfD exists for the discussion of all cases. It would be a mistake to assume that a nom is uncontroversial simply because nobody has !voted on it at AfD; most such articles go without comment because nobody looked at them, not because people examined them, concluded they should be deleted, and decided not to !vote. Second, the burden of !voting keep at AfD is substantially higher than removing a PROD tag. A de-PROD merely means the article needs further discussion; to !vote keep a !voter has to do enough research to certify the article should be kept. Thus, the retention of a PROD tag might mean that deletion is uncontroversial, but failure to vote keep at an AfD doesn't carry the same implication.

Finally, it's been argued that there's no harm in this proposal because deleted articles can easily be restored upon request. However, in many cases valid articles won't be restored because people won't think to ask; inexperienced editors and readers won't even know the option is available. Baileypalblue (talk) 02:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe... with a few caveats: First, make 1 read: Has not previously been listed at AFD and survived with a "clean keep". A prod isn't possible once any prod or AfD has ever been enacted before--1 as written above would make this easier to delete than prod. Secondly, make it clear that if this is being treated as a "mega prod" it can still be restored by one user asking. With those two caveats, I would have no problem closing an AfD with no good "keep" votes as a delete. If we're going to let people keep doing this indefinitely until people don't notice and/or make this grounds to enforce G4, then I would oppose. Jclemens (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• I can see your point about removing the "clean keep" part. "Has never been to AFD, period" was what my original proposal last September said. The new wording was meant to address a situation where, let's say an article was sent to AFD back in 2006 and speedy closed as a bad faith nomination or something like that. And yes, it should be made clear that CSD G4 is not to be enforced in this situation.
• Another idea I was thinking of adding to this proposal is a new wikiproject called "Requests for undeletion" which would be for the restoration of articles deleted under this proposal, prod, CSD G7 and perhaps some G6 deletions. It would work like requests for permissions with an admin responding to the request with {{done}} or {{not done}}. I may propose that separately even if this proposal fails. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

  I think that's a fine idea, independent of whether or not this particular idea is implemented or not. Anything that's been deleted, with the exception of defamation or copyvio, should be able to be restored (if prodded) or userified (if XfD'ed) with little fanfare and without needing the involvement of the deleting admin. I don't mind at all restoring content in such a manner, although uncivil requestors are annoying, but there's no particular reason anyone should have to wait for me to do it. Jclemens (talk) 04:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:requests for undeletion is probably a good idea. On a related note, there would be less deletion if new users had more help when the create articles - can I canvas for my proposal to change the redlinks on the Search Results page? WP:VPR#Search Results - Article Creation Wizard. Rd232 ^talk 13:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• If anyone, even just one editor, says "keep" in good faith, that should be taken into consideration. If you treat the afd as a prod, that would be akin to a single editor removing the prod. Sebwite (talk) 05:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose One circumstance in which this situation might arise if if there were many thousands of articles at AFD, so overloading the few regular respondents. In such cases, AFD should default to Keep per WP:DGFA: "When in doubt, don't delete.". Colonel Warden (talk) 06:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. On the face of it this proposal makes sense logically, but I think it would cause more problems than it solves, and fundamentally changes the meaning of an article being deleted via an AFD. Deletion via AFD is supposed to be the result of substantial reasoned debate concluding in favour of deletion, and this would create an underclass of AFDs where this wasn't true. Also per comments above on the "long tail" of notable topics of low interest not sourceable from the internet: these already get deleted erroneously, this would make that problem rather worse. Rd232 ^talk 13:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose AfDs don't default to delete, they need a consensus to be deleted. Prod is prod, AfD is AfD. Two different animals. Chillum 14:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• oppose Violates WP:DELETE's "deletion should be a last resort", which implies that the burden of proof is on supporters of deletion. --Philcha (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Seems rather likely that this would have a disproportionate effect on AFD-nominated articles in non-sexy topic areas. There's no compelling reason to make this change; current system is imperfect but fine. Townlake (talk) 14:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support in principle, at least. I think any articles deleted this way would have to be closed with a specific deletion message, i.e. deletion uncontested or something like that, to make clear that this doesn't reflect a consensus for deletion. It's sort of a blurry line that people are drawing here. Let's say you have a deletion debate with 10 participants besides the nominator, all !voting for delete. In this situation, the article gets deleted. Now, start scaling down the number of delete votes: 9, 8, 7, etc., all the way down to 0, still with no votes to keep. At what point does it cross the line from being a "unanimous delete" to a "relist for more participation"? For my money, it never does; just treat it like an expired PROD. That's what PROD was invented for in the first place: to tag articles whose deletion nobody would bother to contest. If no one is bothering to contest them at Afd, either, why are we wasting our time?--Aervanath (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Remember that AFD is not a "vote". (Yea, I'm tired of hearing that too) Ideally, if someone nominates an article for deletion for "notability", he would have already did his WP:BEFORE homework and checked to see if there were not multiple independent reliable sources, either in the article or available via a google search. If he did this then his nomination rationale is "sound". Those who !vote "delete" should also do this checking and say they couldn't find them either. Barring someone dropping in and saying "what about these [1][2][3] etc.", the AFD can be closed "delete". If nobody else !votes then the article can still be deleted under this plan but it's not being deleted simply because "nobody gives a shit", it's being deleted because a logical and sound rationale for deletion has been presented and nobody has refuted it or otherwise objected to the deletion. However, since there is no "consensus" for deletion, we will happily restore it later if someone asks. If someone nominates the article for deletion saying "This article sucks" and nobody !votes one way or the other then we close it "no consensus" (if somebody hasn't already speedy closed it as a "goober nomination"). --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Addressing some points raised above..

• 1. If someone !votes "keep" in good faith, even if it's ILIKEIT or even hints that he would prefer that the article be kept, it would wash out this possibility. The only exception I can think of is someone acting POINTy by !voting "keep" in every open discussion.

• 2. It's not intended for every DOA AFD discussion to be deleted under this system. It's intended for cases where the argument for deletion is sound but there are not enough comments for a consensus. An article absolutely should not be deleted without a sound deletion rationale. Same goes for PRODS, just because a prod tag isn't removed from an article in 5 days, it doesn't mean it has to be deleted. The admin reviewing the uncontested prod should make sure that the prod rationale is sound.

• 3. It looks as if Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion (WP:REFUND) is going forward. Would any of those opposed to this be willing to reconsider if, when closing an AFD discussion like this, the closing statement, and the article's entry in the deletion log, contained a link to WP:REFUND so that anybody who wants it restored would know exactly where to go to ask? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - Lack of consensus does not indicate consensus. — neuro^(talk) 11:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, I don't really see a need for this - if the closing admin thinks that the deletion nomination is sound for an AFD that has attracted little or no attention, he can always agree with the rationale and move on, allowing someone else to close. Solution looking for a problem. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC).
• Oppose: with some specific exceptions, AfDs close as defaulting to keep. The appropriate action in this case is to relist, or to close as keep without predjudice to renomination. There are two possible sequences for the article: 1) Contested PROD, followed by AfD, and 2) straight to AfD. In the former case, the deletion was contested, just not at AfD. In the latter case, why not just slap a PROD tag on after the AfD closes? Fritzpoll (talk) 11:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

• According to WP:PROD, Articles previously AFDd can't be prodded. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

An AFD that supports the naysayers

The other day while doing my close/relist run on the 7 day log, I came across this AFD for Hotels.com. The nominator's rationale was the phrase "non notable+advertising". It had been open for 7 days with no comments whatsoever. Now I had a strong suspicion that the company was notable because I remember their prime time tv commercials a few years ago so I relisted it and it was closed "keep" a day later. However, it's scary to think that if this article had been prodded, it might have been deleted if the reviewing admin was the kind that robotically deleted expired prods without any thought. If what I am proposing was in effect, the same thing might have happened so I can understand why there is so much opposition to this proposal. (still was surprised because the first time I proposed this there was a lot of initial support) However, my intention was not to simply make it easy to delete articles nobody cares about, it was to make it so that AFD discussions with a strong rationale for deletion don't stay open for a month because nobody !voted. Therefore, the only way this will work is if closing admins do more then just count !votes. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that sometimes an editor thinks that a prod would not be contested, but is not sure that their reason for deleting the article is valid. Perhaps a safer way of addressing such low-interest articles would be if admins had the option to prod and relist them. There would be a prod template on the article (in addition to the AfD template), and the relisting notice would mention the fact. Then after another 7 days with nobody arguing for keeping or removing the prod, an admin could delete the article. Currently an editor who is only 90% sure that a low-interest article should be deleted must choose between prodding and AfD (after which prodding is impossible). That's because counterintuitively, an AfD with nobody arguing to keep the article is an obstacle to prodding it per WP:PROD#How it works. This is probably an error in the precise formulation of WP:PROD, and I started a discussion at WT:PROD#Prodding after "no consensus" AfD with nobody arguing to keep?. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. What seems to happen sometimes is the article is not tagged for deletion; not everyone has AfD on their watchlist, and so gets a surprise when it's deleted. Of course that is out of process but we all make mistakes (even bots), to be able to prod and tag it sounds just plain common sense to me. The prod reason can refer to the process rather than the article itself I guess: "This article was nominated for deletion but received few comments. Please discuss it further at AfD"-- something like that. But I'm not too worried about the details, I think if admins are hampered by process in turning it to prod, I agree that needs fixed and is probably an unintentional omission from the process. I haven't looked at the link at WT:PROD so will do that now (and probably will either repeat or invert everything I just said!) SimonTrew (talk) 09:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The Proposed Deletion of Wiki's Delara Darabi Information Page

I strongly suggest that Wiki reconsider the proposed deletion of Delara Darabi's page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delara_Darabi#Execution

Although Delara has been executed, the details pertaining to the irregularities of her case are not yet known and may serve to help other child offenders facing execution. For this reason alone, it is vital to maintain her page for referrence purposes. This is an extraordinary case, of great interest to legal professionals and human rights advocates alike.

Wiki is a fairly unbiased resource. I sincerely hope that this "neutrality" will not now be compromised by deleting Delara's page, which in my opinion, constitutes the very worst form of censorship.

Indigo Star Nation —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.162.128 (talk) 21:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Relax and watcxh the AfD. I don't think the article's in much danger. ThuranX (talk) 21:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Renaming this process Articles for Discussion

Since there seems to be general opposition to this idea

So if everyone is in agreement that this should stay a deletion specific process, how do we make sure that AfD stays on task, and the much neglected merge function gets some needed attention? Wikipedia:Proposed mergers is broken because it's not a process, it's just a page, and the still proposed Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion has only succeeded in gaining a little bit of steam. What needs to occur to get editors to change the way they approach article content? Again, I still see content versus subject being the reason for the inclusionist versus deletionist split. I feel that the only way to come up with a solution is to deal with the issue of merging. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• Well, maybe, but merging is a very different animal from deletion because anyone, even anonymous users, can merge articles, or unmerge articles. Because of this, a formal process is generally not needed, and informal discussion is often just as effective. For some large scale mergers which removed a large amount of text, I used the article talkpages, placed some {{mergeto}} tags, and sought some input from the relevant WikiProject (chess in my case), but for an uncontroversial merger, it is often appropriate to just go ahead and merge the articles without asking. Wikipedia:Proposed mergers functions in my view as a noticeboard, not as a forum to discuss mergers. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• There's nothing wrong with people !voting to merge or redirect a page once it's landed at AFD. That part isn't broken. And WP:MRD is exactly the right idea for discussing mergers where there's no chance of deletion. Stifle (talk) 08:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

  Yeah, precisely. There's no problem with people offering merge/redirect as a viable alternative to deletion in an AfD; and we already shoo people to the talk page or elsewhere if they nominate an article at AfD while suggesting a merge. I don't see a problem that needs to be solved here. ~ mazca ^t|c 12:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

  Agree that merge (or redirect) can be suggested as an alternative to deletion but even if an AFD is closed "merge", it's really just a "keep with a suggestion to merge" and one of the drawbacks of a "merge" close is that it doesn't consider the possibility that the regular editors of the "target" article might not be cool with the merge. Rant was closed as "merge to monologue" last year. It recently got "unmerged" leaving a redirect to a nonexistent section so I restored the full article. This will likely lead to another AFD. Redirect closes in certain circumstances could be enforced through protection but there's no realistic way to "enforce" a merge close short of having an administrator "bully" the editors of the target to keep the merged information in. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a close with merge as the result should be directed to a Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion page? --NickPenguin_(contribs) 15:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Mergers for Completion (or something similar) would be the better play in my opinion. Mergers for Discussion doesn't sound like it would contain action items. Townlake (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be an excess of process to routinely have an MRD discussion immediately after an AfD. I was going to suggest that merge !voters at an AfD could be requested to put a merge tag on the target page, to keep those editors in the loop. A Mergers for Completion page is an interesting idea, since it would separate the functions of agreeing in principle on a merger and actually carrying it out, but I'm afraid it would wind up looking a lot like WP:PM. Baileypalblue (talk) 16:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, clearly true given WP:PM's history, and I doubt simply renaming that page would be the fix. All I'm saying is an added layer of centralized discussion wouldn't improve this imperfect process. (Not that it's a bad idea, but as a practical matter, etc.) Townlake (talk) 17:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Mergers are best completed by the articles' regular editors, who have knowledge, familiarity, and continued interest. A properly-done merge is a fair amount of work, with a risk of summary reversion at either article. Flatscan (talk) 04:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

A merge close represents a consensus to merge – another discussion is rarely necessary. A notification at the merge target is a good idea. {{mergefrom}} pointing to the AfD or a Talk notification based on {{adw}} would work. Flatscan (talk) 04:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that the lack of a good process to assist merge/redirect issues is at least related to the current problems with AfD. While WP:MRD is a noble idea, I fear it'll succumb to the same disuse as WP:PM. While I've thought for some time that permitting merge noms would fix PM and also help remove the deletion focus from AfD, Nick makes a good point regarding the "philosophy" of AfD. One thought I've come up with is that we have FFD, but we also have PUF to deal with "special cases". Why was PUF created as separate from FFD? Is it successful? Is there anything we can learn about what we're trying to do here from that process? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• Merges should be discussed on talk pages, as the {{merge}} template directs. Is this process currently not working correctly? hmwithτ 12:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I seem to remember another discussion of this proposal, and of others to do with AfD, in IIRC Jan 2009. Like this one, these generated more heat than light. While contributing to another discussion, about an aspect of notability, I thought of something that might be an easier, less embittering and perhaps more beneficial way of dealing with fancruft etc. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Make_each_article.27s_class_visible_to_unregistered_users. --Philcha (talk) 20:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

NickPenguin, I once supported this idea, and other editors argued that it was just cosmetic. Then I realized that we call Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion and the behavior of editors is not different at all from WP:Templates for Deletion Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion and WP:Articles for Deletion. Ikip (talk) 04:36, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

This smacks of gaming. He proposes we call it AFDiscussion, then when that predictably fails, he asserts that means that AfD has no authority for Merge decisions, and begins trying to game for a separate AfMerge. Leave it all here, centralized. No one should have to chase through four damn layers of Bureaucracy to sort this crap out. An article's fate can be handled at one place. ThuranX (talk) 06:36, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "No one should have to chase through four damn layers of Bureaucracy to sort this crap out" and that "An article's fate can be handled at one place". However that implies that deletion is not the only or most desired outcome, and the title "Articles for Deletion" is inappropriate. "Articles for Discussion" may look too much like yet another Talk page. How about e.g. "Unsatisfactory Articles Review", and hope no-one objects to the use of initials previously used in the Middle East. --Philcha (talk) 08:01, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

AfD is where people propose articles that they see as candidates for deletion, the title clearly reflects the purpose. It sometimes turns out that an editor suggests a possible merger and others agree that this is a good idea, which isn't surprising and there is no reason why the final closing decisions shouldn't reflect a consensus to merge if that is the consensus. What AfD is not is a place to discuss the many unsatisfactory articles that we have on Wikipedia. If we renamed it to "Unsatisfactory Articles Review" I'm sure it wouldn't take me long (certainly not over an hour) to find say 50 articles to go there, and I suspect other editors would find even more. The fact that we have a venue where we can bring articles we think should be deleted does not mean that merge isn't an appropriate outcome of the process. Dougweller (talk) 10:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

In a way I'd like to make it more neutral ("delete" does smack of a bit of concrete boots coming down) but on balance, having considered this for a couple of days, "Delete" says exactly what it says on the tin, whereas "discission" is rather vague. Keep as "delete". SimonTrew (talk) 19:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Requiring the closing admin to say more than "The result was . . ."

Proposal: The closing admin who closes an AfD must cannot simply say "The result was keep" or "The result was delete." The reason why this conclusion was reached must be clearly explained. This is more critical when the article is deleted.

If the AfD had unanimous keeps or deletes, this must be explained. If the creator provided the only keep, and the remainder were deletes, then the admin must explain why the creator's keep was not a worthy argument for keeping (remember, since AfD is not a vote, if a creator or any other single editor gives the lone keep versus many deletes, but with a much better argument in favor of keeping, this may be grounds for keeping).

If there is a situation in which concensus may not be clear to all, yet it was kept or deleted, the closing admin must clearly explain why.

In the event that an article was deleted by simply saying "the result was delete," such an article can be instantly restored upon request of one editor, requiring another AfD to get it deleted again. This would apply retroactively to previously deleted articles, unless they were deleted for some egregious violation, such as copyright, personal attacks, or display of private information. Sebwite (talk) 13:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support - I was working on something similiar. Every decision at AfDs must be understandable and therefore vulnerable, as AfDs are no !votes but discussions to reach consensus. This includes the nomination, the actual !votes and of course the closure. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 14:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Agree with base sentiment, but not with redundant detail. How about this:

Proposal: The closing admin who closes an AfD must cannot simply say "The result was keep" or "The result was delete" when the result was less-than-obvious. If analyses or interpretations of the !votes, or applications of overriding policy concerns are required, then it must be explained.

Do this or be slapped. We don’t want to keep using WP:DRV to get explanations of closures.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose This is policy creep. If an AfD is self explanatory then it does not need an explanation. If someone thinks an AfD closing requires greater explanation just ask the admin. There is always DRV if the explanation of a closing is not acceptable to someone after attempting to communicate with the admin. This idea of reversing a decision blindly because of a lack of process seems overly bureaucratic. Every action any wikipedian takes should be explained upon request, I don't think we need a special policy for just one circumstance. Chillum 14:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• DRV is not suitable for simply asking for an explanation, especially if there is not a solid case for overturn. Deletions are important; you shouldn’t have to routinely ask for explanations. Talk page answers are not a good for transparency. Some admins are not just curt with their closes, but curt with other interactions as well. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• I did say "if the explanation of a closing is not acceptable to someone after attempting to communicate with the admin". DRV is a very suitable place to get an AfD reviewed when after communicating with the admin you are not satisfied with their answer. If there is no solid case for overturning, then it sounds like a good deletion to me. I am not suggesting going to DRV to ask the the explanation. All admins have a talk page. Not everything needs an explanation, we can have them when they are needed and not when they are not. There are good practices, but that does not mean we need a policy.
• If you make an explanation mandatory then admins who do not want to hand craft an explanation can just say per the below discussion, and in some cases that will be a reasonable explanation, in other cases it will not. In some cases such an explanation is more than enough, in others a more detail explanation will be needed. Different people will see a different need for detail, that is why we have talk pages. Chillum 14:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• I occasionally review old closes. I find it irritating when the close doesn’t explain itself when it ought to. I consider that to be disrespectful to the participants, including contributors to the deleted page who may later visit the AfD page. I fear that this behaviour tends to drive off casual contributors. It is not reasonable to expect confused people to go elsewhere and ask. You and I might ask, but many out there are more easily intimidated. Having an explanation archived on a talk page is little help to the next confused visitor. Note that the problem here is the exception rather than the rule, most admins close well. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Like I say, what is considered to be an explanation is up to interpretation. I often read discussions in various areas and find the context to be lacking, I can either ask those involved, or I can choose not to. I guess if a person is not willing to go to a Wikipedian's talk page and ask them why they did this or that, then they will have to rely on what is in the history. Keeping the channels of communication open is all we can do, if people don't use them we can't help that. Even if we require this explanation, there is no guarantee that the explanation will be satisfactory, and we are back at square 1. This is a good idea in spirit, I just don't think its enforcement will produce the desired result and will just make it one more rule for us all to remember. Chillum 15:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• OK, It's not as if I actually support the detail of the proposal, "enforcement" isn't realistic, but I understand the frustration and I'd be happier if some closers would more often given explanations where explanations would reasonably be expected. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The few times I've been confused by a "Result was X, period" close, I've gone to the closer's talk page... and every time, I've promptly received a detailed, reasonable response. If an admin is non-responsive to such a request, there's always DRV. Generally admins are good about providing reasoning behind contentious closes; this suggestion is unnecessary instruction creep. Townlake (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. We might as well redirect WP:CREEP to AfD. :) –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• How about... instructions like "Closing admins are encouraged to provide detailed reasoning and analysis of policy-based arguments in AfD's that have a high level of interest, contention, and/or disagreement about appropriate policies." Instructive, neutral, and avoids WP:CREEP by not being mandatory. The admins I've seen who do this seem to have their decisions challenged at DRV less than those who do not, so encouraging future admins to continue in such a vein may well reduce overhead. After all, it's less painful to lose than it is to be ignored--articulating why a reason was found lacking can go a long way to smoothing over a contentious AfD. Jclemens (talk) 19:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: It is considered good WikiEtiquette to use edit summaries for most edits. Likewise, it is good etiquette for closing admins to give an explanation. If there were unanimous keeps or deletes, all the admin would have to do would say "the result was keep/delete, unanimous." Does that one more word really hurt? As for DRV, having an explanation as to why the afd was closed that way would be helpul in the DRV, and when it is missing, it makes it harder. Sebwite (talk) 19:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• People should be discussing the closing with the closing admin before going to DRV, so presumably an explanation can be gotten then. It is nice to be helpful and describe what you are doing as you do it, but just like edit summaries it should be a recommended practice not a requirement. I like Jclemens's suggested wording, we should encourage, not require. Chillum 19:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support If an editor is not able to quickly and succinctly explain their close then they shouldn't be making it. The effort involved is less than the ordinary contributor to an AFD discussion is expected to make and so there's no excuse not to. Here's a recent example in which the closer says "the result was..." when nobody, but nobody, suggested the supposed result. If the closer had to think for a moment about what they were doing then such abuse would be less likely. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Why did I have exactly this guy in mind when I wrote "Support - I was working on something similiar." above? *lol* --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 20:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support Support, AfDs are discussions regarding how to apply policy, the rationale should be a part of the closing comments. It's not policy creep, it should be good practice. Unomi (talk) 20:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose instruction creep. Unimportant to the overwhelming majority of AfDs and redundant to good practice and common sense where it is needed. Protonk (talk) 20:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support for SmokeyJoe's proposal. I'm all for detailed closing statements and I have always provided them when the result was not obvious. But in cases where we have SNOW/Speedy closes or where all or almost all !votes are in one way and everyone can easily understand the reason for the result, there should be no need for such a requirement. Some admins do really omit to explain their not-so-clear closes too often but I do not see that making it a requirement for every AFD will really help. Regards SoWhy 20:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as a requirement, but I'm all in favor of a little fresh fish if the closer doesn't add an explanation when it's not blindingly clear and isn't forthcoming with an explanation when asked. I'm equally in favor of a trout to editors who question a close and run straight to DRV instead of asking the closer, especially when there's no previous history indicating unwillingness to discuss closes.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose 90%+ of AFD closes leave no question as to the result or the reason why it was deleted. We already have a limited number of people willing to close AFDs and AFAIK all admins who close AFDs are responsive to requests for clarification, etc. As I say at User:MBisanz/AfD, if something seems odd ask me, but in 99% of cases, there is nothing odd worth clarifying. Also, there are 60,000 prior AFDs, negating all of them retroactively would be a recipe for chaos. MBisanz ^talk 23:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - per above. Definitely instruction creep and unneeded bureaucracy. I'd like to think that most admins have common sense and will elaborate on their closure reasons as necessary, but to make this an actual rule would be ridiculous, in my opinion. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Many AfDs are close to unanimous or otherwise have a clear consensus, and further explanation is totally unneeded. Admins are trusted to review consensus appropriately in these cases; if there is a need for explanation, they'll do it. If an editor feels an explanation is needed when one wasn't given, they can contact the admin as they are supposed to do. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• This seems like a massively bad idea. oppose. we should be defaulting TO delete, not redoing previously good closes. There is no deadline. ++Lar: t/c 04:17, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Giving a closing rationale is good practice in cases where there is some contention, but most AFDs are so decidedly lopsided that the result is obvious, and no rationale is needed. Hence, I oppose this proposal. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Sure, it's good practice to make a simple statement explaining the rationale behind a close - just like it's good common practice to put something in your edit summary. (and I'm all for tossing some trout about) But the bottom-line is that unless someone starts handing out paychecks here - "requirements" just aren't gonna see much acceptance. — Ched :  ?  06:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, unneeded in the vast majority of cases, and trying to legislate around edge cases is a bad idea anyways from a systems engineering standpoint. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, mostly per MBisanz. It is my understanding that admins are supposed to be judging based on consensus and should not, in many cases at AFD, be going too much more into it than it for the fear of becoming involved. I can understand weighing in both sides of an otherwise contentious (or even heated) argument or even when an AFD gets flooded with SPAs and/or socks and explaining as such. I argue that this needs to remain limited as closing admins are supposed to judge consensus and not cast their own !vote in closing. Retroactive application is right out. MuZemike 22:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Not sure I can support this, most AFD's are open and shut cases. Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 05:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

I was thinking of proposing this sort of idea until I found this proposal already here. I oppose the above proposal as unnecessary per WP:SNOW; however, I believe that the following plan is reasonable:

If, by a headcount of all participating users (excluding sockpuppets, banned users, SPAs (?), WP:IPs (?), etc.), the closer's decision reflects that of less than two-thirds of participants, the closer must explain his or her decision. In addition, non-admins may not close such a discussion.

For example, if an AfD gets 6 deletes and 4 keeps, the closing admin must explain the decision. I've actually been using this as a personal rule recently; I believe this is useful in clarifying consensus. Even if those keeps not based on policy, with so many people supporting a keep, it would help to explain why their reasoning is wrong and avoid potential conflict and WP:DRV listings. (The 2/3 value is arbitrary; we could decide below if another value is more appropriate.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that the case with a less than 2/3 for delete is a typical of a contentious case where a rationale is in order, but I prefer not to codify this into policy or guideline status, since requiring rationales encourages the use of very poor rationales, which I think are worse than having no rationale. An administrator should always be prepared to explain the closure anyway if asked about it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that nothing can be set in stone here, and we shouldn't be creating unnecessary extra typing work for people closing uncontentious debates. I would though suggest a new practice still, for exceptionally contentious cases - let the closer write up a proposed closing rationale before actually closing the debate. That way any misunderstandings or overlooking of arguments can be corrected without the need to go through a whole new review process, and resentment against the closing admin will hopefully be reduced.--Kotniski (talk) 06:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Closing rationales for cases where the result isn't self evident should be encouraged as it is good practice but requiring them would be instruction creep. Also, at the risk of this developing into another NAC thread, I would oppose any outright restrictions on "non delete" closes by non admins. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• If the majority say delete, and one person, perhaps the creator, says keep, and the one "keep" uses a potentially good argument, citing policy as reason for keeping, but the closing admin feels this is not enough, this should absolutely be explained. Sebwite (talk) 19:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• SupportThough not necessary sometimes when its obvious, it can't hurt to say a few words.As extra work goes, it's about as little as imaginable. The benefit to those involved can be significant. If people don;'t support requiring it all the time, I think there needs to be at least a rule that they must explain if there is good-faith division of opinion. DGG (talk) 21:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Plus, if there are 10 deletes and 10 groundless keeps, and an admin closes it as delete, it's a good idea not to p*ss them off. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

this goes for all circumstances when one is rejected a position put forth in good faith, that one needs to explain, and--if one thinks it not in good faith--one needs to say so explicitly. DGG (talk) 23:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - Instruction creep, unnecessary work. — neuro^(talk) 03:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as much as I'm in support of this happening, I can't favour requiring it. Nonetheless I strongly encourage admins to show consideration for those of us who comment on these things by explaining their reasoning! JJL (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Neuro. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support as a bare minimum. Non-admins shouldn't be touching any AFD that isn't overwhelmingly obvious, and admins should explain any decision that isn't equally obvious. It'd be different if we said admins couldn't make a decision unless it was supported by 2/3 of the participants. Expecting them to give some explanation is trivial, like the requirement for an edit comment on all edits. Admins opposed to having to explain themselves shouldn't be doing AFD closes in the first place. DreamGuy (talk) 17:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support. The closing admin has a rationale; let hi/r explain it. That said, perhaps we shouldn't expect hi/r to get into the nitty-gritty of the underlying philosophical arguments; but s/he at least could say in a dozen or three words why s/he made the decision s/he did, IMO. ↜Just M E  here , now 05:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
• Yes, administrators should have to explain there close if it's close. If you don't have the time to say something as simple as "The result was keep/delete because W policy/X comment/Y rationale/Z etc, then the admin shouldn't close it. Period. I'm not an admin, and if I ever do an AFD close, I'll do a thorough explanation, not just because I'm not an admin, but because it's proper. And is it just me, or are the people opposing all admins? Lazy? Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 05:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Policy on moving a page when it's in AfD?

Is there any policy on moving/renaming a page when the page in question is in AfD? If it is allowable, what is the proper procedure/best practice? To my mind, it confuses things to have the article and the AfD having different names, particularly if the move wasn't mentioned in AfD. Шизомби (talk) 18:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I once did it when the title of the article was misspelled. I changed it on the afd page too. Sebwite (talk) 19:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Improving an article during AfD is acceptable and encouraged, so if the move was an improvement I don't see why not. Of course consensus and discussion are just as important as ever. Chillum 19:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

A specific case did prompt me to ask, but I am asking in general regardless of whether it may be an improvement or not. When the name of the original article is changed, is it possible/desirable to change the name of the AfD as well, as Sebwite mentions? Should that be mentioned on this project page and perhaps that should be mentioned on the relevant instructional pages, Wikipedia:How to move a page, Help:Moving a page and others? Шизомби (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If a page is moved during an AFD discussion, a note should be made in the discussion of this. Also, the popular Mr.Z-man closing script doesn't follow redirects so those who use it will have to delete, add/remove tags etc. manually. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

oops--I didn't realize that about the script. thanks. I have a few things to check. DGG (talk) 02:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

A further downside of this is that if you close "delete" on an AFD where the page in question has been moved, the script will delete the redirect so you still see "red" when the closed AFD is reloaded. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say proceed with extreme caution, however I don't believe there's a policy currently. I was part of one AfD where the primary author of the article moved it from "Husband and Wife" to "Husband" because most people were saying the wife was not notable. Materially changing the subject (rather than the content) of an article mid-AfD really throws the process for a loop. The notability of the subject can't be ascertained if the subject is a moving target. Gigs (talk) 17:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there should be some mention of this issue in the deletion process guidelines. I've done it myself recently (WP:Articles for deletion/Fowles - A Fresh Vision), and I don't think anything I did influenced the result, but having the limits of acceptable behaviour spelt out would certainly make things simpler. Tevildo (talk) 23:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• I asked this question below but will repeat it here. Which guideline's talkpage is the best place to formulate a proposal wrt to disallowing page moves during AfDs? (And, to repeat: sorry for my laziness wrt looking it up myself; but, in any case, I'd just be calling attention to the issue at that forum and allowing anyone who might be following the development of the guideline, if s/he would like, to take the issue up from there.)

Moving articles during a live discussion

Recently, an editor moved Internet killer several times during the discussion over Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Internet killer. This was extremely distracting and the same editor engaged in strange, distracting commentary on the AfD in an attempt to derail it, discussing things that had nothing to do with the AfD. Several SPA's using IP's also voted keep while this was going on, helping contribute to the distraction. The AfD was closed as "no consensus" which I disagree with, but I'm wondering what types of rules are in place to prevent this from happening again. That is to say, an article was listed on AfD, and a single editor against the deletion did everything possible to distract the debate. Can this be prevented in the future? Viriditas (talk) 02:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Same thing is happening at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Home and family blog. 16x9 (talk) 02:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Surprise, surprise, it is the same editor. Why is this disruptive behavior allowed? Viriditas (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

He also seems to have self-reverted that move. Protonk (talk) 02:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving articles during an AfD isn't prima facia disruption. If the moved themselves or the pattern of behavior is disruptive, then that needs to be stopped, but I don't think that past discussions have pointed to consensus to bar page moves altogether during AfDs. Protonk (talk) 02:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In each case, it appears the article was nominated for deletion within a couple of days after it was created. Not surprising that the choice of the best name for the topic might still be in flux. Since the first AfD closed as No Consensus, I doubt if anyone would object if you opened a new AfD in a month or two. (That would give time for the dust to settle). DRV is also an option but, unless you think many participants were confused, the case to overturn the close doesn't seem very strong. EdJohnston (talk) 02:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

See above Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Policy_on_moving_a_page_when_it.27s_in_AfD.3F. This second discussion on the same page of the same topic is distracting. ;-D Шизомби (talk) 03:22, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Soon after "Internet killer's" nomination for an AfD discussion (which nom, incidentally, was filed almost simultanesously to the article's being created) in response to comments on the article's talkpage by its principal author, I moved it from "Internet killer" to "Internet homicide" per WP:BOLD. (As noone reverted me, I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it must have been a move that slightly improved the article's focus(?)) Would there be some way for a page's Move button to be removed automatically whenever the page would be nominated for AfD? ↜Just M E  here , now 04:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

IMO it comes across maybe a little contentious for WPdians watching an article and in full possession of the unfettered means to revert whatever its changes to then way after the fact lodge a complaint that said change back to an original state hadn't been initiated by someone else -- and I'd certainly not have objected if somebody per WP:BRD HAD asked me to revert or done so (t)hi/rself! ↜Just M E  here , now 08:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In defence (and I have no vested interest in the article), it may have been moved because several people suggested different titles. In good faith, I assumed that was the reason. People can't come on to AfD saying change the title then complain when the title is changed. On AfD there are also comments saying "The title is secondary and not an issue for AfD"-- i.e. a change of title does not a deletion make. SimonTrew (talk) 18:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

That being said, yes, the constant change of title I think is easily construed as trying to get past policy or whatever, even if made in good faith. I think it would have been better to leave it stand until end of AfD, or RM, or whatever. But what's done is done. SimonTrew (talk) 18:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

1. Has this issue come up before?
2. Should there be mention of this in the applicable guideline (if there isn't as of yet)? If so, which guideline's talkpage is the best place to formulate a proposal for such a stipulation? (Sorry for my laziness. But I'd just be calling attention to this issue at that forum and allowing the folks who might be following the development of the guideline take the issue from there.) ↜Just M E  here , now 18:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• This issue has come up before. In my limited memory the consensus has usually read something like this "Try not to do it, because it makes things messy, breaks some templates (like {{Rescue}} unless that has been fixed), confuses editors and may mess up closing scripts, which are widely used. However, we recognize that prohibiting moves is foolish because many articles suffer primarily from bad presentation, title included and fixing the presentation goes a long way toward saving the article." You may also want to search WP:DEL WP:MERGE and WP:AN archives for discussions, because there isn't really a central place for deletion discussion-discussion. :) Protonk (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Copy and pasting same argument in over a hundred Articles for deletion

See: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Bilateral_relations#Article_copy_and_pasting. Any suggestions about what to do? Normally I would simply notify the editor and post a message on the AfD's, but about 1/3 have already closed. Ikip (talk) 09:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Update: I putting a notification on 15 of the 40+ articles still open. Ikip (talk) 09:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering the nature of the articles tagged, the explanation was going to be the same time after time, so copying and pasting should not be a concern at all in this instance. I think even trying to report it is wikilawyering to try to object to valid delete votes. DreamGuy (talk) 12:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello... I'm the editor behind whose back everyone is talking. I do look at every article before I put a cut-and-paste deletion argument into the AfD. Because the articles in question are all uniformly brief, it does not take me long to do so. In this way I am certain that the argument I copy-and-paste into the AfD's is in fact legitimate (you will note that in some cases I alter it slightly as individual articles and discussions warrant, I not you never mentioned this in your initial complaints). I stand by my reasoning, however identically worded, in each and every AfD discussion I have posted a position on. --BlueSquadronRaven 14:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I have also done a certain amount of copy and paste recently, but mainly in response to invalid copy and paste "keep" arguments. The fundamental problem is that with just a few minutes' work (some of these articles look like less than a minute) an editor can create an obviously non-notable article that causes other editors to spend hours (not individually, but in total) researching it, expanding it, looking for sources, arguing why it's (not) notable, arguing whether AfDs for this class of articles should be on hold, whether this or that is a valid argument, etc. Creation of borderline notable articles, or of non-notable articles that one knows will be "defended" by certain editors, must be much more rewarding than conventional (plain or sneaky) vandalism, and it takes much less effort than creating credible hoaxes.Copy and paste is an inevitable consequence if we don't allow batch nominations of clear cases (which were strongly opposed by some) under these circumstances. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a balance between having a multi-article AFD where the same general reasons can be cited for the deletion and to simplify the process but then editors get upset that each should be handled separately, and having many single article AFD and then accusing a person of using the same reason in each even if they believe in good faith they all should be deleted for the same reason. You can't have it both ways. Mind you, there was a case yesterday of an editor going through ALL AFDs (unrelated) and adding the same reason; that's not acceptable, but since these are all related, it seems completely reasonable to me if the multi-article AFD was not considered appropriate. --MASEM (t) 15:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Hans. PRODding was always contested, (yet the article not improved) so they would be sent to AfD. Batch nominations were opposed on procedural grounds, so they had to be nominated one-by-one. Now copy-and-paste arguments for articles that are functionally identical are being attacked. Were it not for the actions of those so certain that every single one of these articles was notable, even the ones that clearly weren't, a lot of this work would be done by now and we could have moved on to improving the ones that could be. --BlueSquadronRaven 15:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem with these arguments for cut-and-paste is that they are based on assessing the article as it stands. AfD discussion should address the notability of the subject, not the current article contents. Cut-and-paste arguments pumped out in a short period of time indicate that the person making them isn't doing the kind of research necessary to make those assessments. Rklear (talk) 15:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ordinarily I would strongly agree, but these bilateral relations articles are growing like weeds and are largely isomorphic. If there are 200 countries in the world then there are 19900 possible such articles, and having viewed many such I can say that the vast majority consist of just a paragraph that says the two countries don't have embassies in one another's countries. They're all but auto-generated. In this case a cut-and-paste deletion rationale (after viewing the article and considering the notability of the subject independent of the state of the article) makes some sense. JJL (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The fact that they're a lot of work is no justification for not doing the work. Personally I don't understand why these things are coming to AfD anyway. If "A - B relations" has no content, why not just boldly redirect it to "Foreign relations of A"? It would be a lot less headache for everyone, and if there's an author out there who wants to argue a specific case, he's free to do so on the talk page. Rklear (talk) 17:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Rklear that merging is a lot less disruptive. that is why merging all the existing articles makes sense.

Is there any policy either way on this? That is why I posted it on AfD, to get feedback on whether this is acceptable.

As per Masem:

there was a case yesterday of an editor going through ALL AFDs (unrelated) and adding the same reason; that's not acceptable, but since these are all related, it seems completely reasonable to me if the multi-article AFD was not considered appropriate.

I was interested what the line is on this. Ikip (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There isn't a hard line. In that earlier case, there were a lot of aggravating factors. The account was obviously a SPA, it was obviously done to prove a POINT. For a long standing editor the tripwires are moved back. Protonk (talk) 17:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The line would involve how correlated the topics are (in this case, all are tied to the current X-Y bilateral relationships so while not necessarily related by topic directly, they're related by intent), and by the timing and nominator of the AFD, which most appear to be by LibStar in the same day here. The ANI case I speak of only shared being on the same day as the person was going down in order of how they appeared on the AFD list, but certainly were not tied by nominator or topic.

Which possibly suggests that if we're strongly discouraging multi-article AFDs, maybe there's a need to have some included banner that lists related AFDs that should be considered as part of the same "group" even though each article should be merited on its own. That way, if someone simply copies/pasts across the group, that's a reasonable factor and not akin to just spamming AFD deletions. --MASEM (t) 17:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

BlueRaven: Don't do this anymore. I understand your motivations and I understand the problem of multi-afds split for political reasons. But giving rapid fire responses doesn't help AfD at all. At best we hope that AfD is a discussion where editors can engage each others' views with civility and reason. In reality it is a weighted vote of sorts. Because those two things are in conflict, there is a constant pressure on editors to generate more votes, to participate in more AfDs. The more "one side" pushes, the greater the pressure for the other side. The equilibrium is unsustainable without some restraint by all concerned. Please stop responding to AfDs in this fashion. The debates now run 7 days, and it isn't the end of the world if an article is deleted or kept. Protonk (talk) 17:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Protonk: Get real. The restraint should be taken before creating such worthless articles in the first place. These should all be handled in one big AFD instead of wasting everyone's time, and if people are playing games making it more difficult to vote as a group then the people voting should be able to take some sensible steps to not waste their time when replying. DreamGuy (talk) 21:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

What? I'm supposed to "get real" and determine that instead of admonishing users to work hard to make AfD a more friendly place the right answer is to establish a policy dictating that the articles under discussion be prevented from being created in the first place? No. I have big news here. Solutions don't come from policies. They don't come from getting a big list and proscibing all kinds of content and conduct. They come from people working hard, restraining themselves from escalating problems and attempting to apply common sense. There isn't a simple solution to this particular problem (what in thw world to do with bilateral relation articles) or any problem that we face. If there were, we would have enacted it already and made ourselves a drink. the answer is, and will always be this: AfD is what we make it. If we treat individual AfDs like skirmishes in some broad battle over the philosphical heart of the encyclopedia we are going to get tenaciously fought, acrimonious debates over essentially nothing. If we treat each slight as an invitation to up the rhetorical ante instead of an opportunity to turn the other cheek, we will end up escalating every conflict with the slightest bit of initial asymmetry. There is no easy way to avoid these temptations. We don't have the luxury of just not being tempted by them because we are passionate about the boundaries of this encyclopedia.

So I have a counter offer. Try not to make your arguments by lobbing terms like "worthless" around or by suggesting that prior restraint is a sane and meaningful solution. Attempt to sympathize with the position that differences among these articles may be large enough that a group AfD is inappropriate. Failing that, sympathize with the argument that dozens of individually created articles should only be deleted en masse if there is a pretty good reason for it. I can't threaten you, because as you see there is no punishment for treating AfD like a battleground. I can't bribe you because the only reward is the knowledge that you haven't contributed to a less pleasant environment. Every day new articles will be made, good and bad. New AfDs will be posted, good and bad. Lessons learned yesterday will be forgotten tomorrow. New users will meet wikipedia for the first time at some WP:AFD sub-page. Some will understand our customs and quirks, most will not. You will run into people who are a great deal less pleasant than they should be. They will offer every opportunity for you to rise to the bait. They will cast aspersions about broad groups of people, make nonsensical arguments, accuse you of debating in bad faith inherently because you want to delete something. All I can ask is that you work to deescalate those situations. Protonk (talk) 18:54, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see evidence for the statement "these bilateral relations articles are growing like weeds". Submariner 9 (talk) 18:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't be silly, Hilary T. You are well aware of the extent of the problem. It's just that you don't consider it a problem. [1][2] --Hans Adler (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hilary T has been indefinitely blocked, and has presumably ceased creating these articles. Would you like to try again? Submariner 9 (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Submariner 9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet of Hilary T (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hilary T. --BlueSquadronRaven 20:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Just so the rules are clear, I suggest adding to the main AfD page that it is okay to spam related AfDs, how about:

If Article for Deletion discussions are related, it is acceptable for an editor to copy and paste responses to these deletion discussions.

Is that reasonable? Ikip (talk) 18:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. People who are hellbent on gaming AFD will do so regardless of the copy and paste. Moreover, when you spend a lot of time googling around for sources, it's not exactly disruptive to save time on a keep or delete comment by copying and pasting an old vote that amounts to "Keep: sources added" or "Delete: sources not found". I think this proposal will fail to target the problem that it's aimed at, and incidentally hit a lot of editors who are acting in good faith. Randomran (talk) 18:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• I'd rather not encourage people to think that way as typically there should be a separate rationale in each case. The bilateral relations articles, of which we can expect many thousands (about 200 choose 2), are an exception. I don't feel it needs further clarification. What would a seatrch of past AfDs for "Delete non-notable." show? The same reasoning is used again and again--it's notable or it isn't. JJL (talk) 18:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• I'd rather we didn't. If we break up a group AfD and it turns out that it is reasonable to copy/paste responses to each individual AfD then they person who broke up the AfD should realize their error and merge it again. The purpose of breaking up a group AfD is to assess articles based on invididual merit. If that individual assessment isn't key to determining whether or not the article meets our inclusion guidelines then we shouldn't break it up. Protonk (talk) 18:56, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• As someone who occasionally closes AfDs, I tend to discount copy/pasted arguments because I wonder how much thought went into them. Why encourage people to have their arguments discounted? People know how to copy and paste, and if they are so inclined will do so without any encouragement.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I think this is a good point. AFDs are not a vote. And while it may be hard to stop people from posting !votes that are completely baseless, most administrators know them when they see them. They'll naturally stop when people realize they're wasting their time. Randomran (talk) 19:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• Just in case your proposal is taken seriously and it goes through, let me also propose something: We should also clarify that batch nominations of closely related mass-produced stubs are completely out of order. The next time someone decides to mass-produce absurd articles like List of homosexuals in Afghanistan, List of homosexuals in Albania, List of homosexuals in Algeria, List of homosexuals in Andorra, ... and contests the prods, they must all be nominated separately so that there is enough space to debate whether it was the creation of these articles that was homophobic or taking them to AfD. Moreover, we need a clarification that it is not allowed for an editor to use the same argument for deletion twice in one day. Otherwise some sneaky deletionist might simply rephrase the deletion rationale for List of homosexuals in Albania and reuse it for List of homosexuals in Andorra.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Most importantly we need a clarification that Hans Adler's cat Minky is protected from deletion until User talk:Hans Adler#Do we need a notability guideline for pets? has finished with a result. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Certainly not. I agree with JJL and Protonk. Myself, I like to see that someone !voting in either direction has at least looked at the article. Though we can;'t prove that, at least that they actually knew what the title was. It might be a good idea to expand that to nominations also. If the nom doesn't say anything about the specific article, I wonder if they've actually read it. DGG (talk) 05:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist"

I wonder if it would be a good idea to require nominators to state in their reason the extent of the attempt they made. This might cut down on unnecessary AfDs and make for a stronger case for AfDs when they are posted. Шизомби (talk) 21:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. ↜Just M E  here , now 21:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, at the moment I tend to leave an editor note in the source i.e. a blue pencil (woo hoo just made that article yesterday). Sometimes I know stuff and pretty much know it word for word but because I don't actually have the book in front of me can't source it. Since I am an inclusionist I think better to add as much as I know (assuming good faith and that I am pretty nearly right) and I or another editor can come along later to make the ref better. If you doubt my good faith I have 2 nice comments for going through 100+ references at Electric car, and no bad comments. That doesn't mean I am never wrong whew I know I am but I think demonstrates good faith with this project. To say "I have sources but the mobile library comes mondays" for example, which was an argument for extending time limit for AfD and quite right too, to me does not mean the partial source information should not go in. Sure check google, check amazon books, etc etc but if it turns up a blinder (and I do translation etc where I am trying to find then an English and foreign-language title both) then at leat put in what you do know, some later editor may be able to augment it. I think that's just part of good faith and making it better.

Best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 21:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It sounds reasonable on the surface, but how practical is this? (The devil is always in the details.) Just taking as an example a recent AfD I participated in, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Deduno. (Not picking on the nom in any way, it just came to mind as an example). Let's assume the nom did a gsearch before hand. The subject gets hundreds of unique non-wiki ghits[3] and 147 gnews hits[4], and yet is probably not notable. Is it sufficient to just say "I did a search"? If so, that doesn't really tell us anything -- did they look at the first screen and give up? Did they (as I did) look through the first 8-10 screens of each search, picking out the sources that looked like they might be more than passing mentions? Did they click on every single fu flipping link?

If "I did a search" isn't enough, then exactly how much information is required to be put in? (FWIW, I've found that when people just link to the search they did, it isn't really helpful.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If the issue is the general WP:NOTABILITY policy, I'd favour requiring nominators to state in their reason the extent of their searches. However sometimes there are other reasons for AfD and listing a bunch of searches would be irrelevant. For example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Deduno says the article fails the sports-specific rules becuase the subject is a minor / junior league player. If that's true, then searche sare irrlevant. --Philcha (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Consensus has been that if an athlete meets WP:GNG they are notable, whether they meet WP:ATHLETE or not, so the search is still relevant. But if it wasn't relevant, then requiring the nom to put in info about any such search would be a bit silly.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that lack of notability is the primary reason that searches are needed, but WP:V is another objection that can be rectified by searching. Mind you, the two often go hand-in-hand, but notability seems to be the predominant reason that things are AfD'ed, rather than prodded or speedied. Jclemens (talk) 00:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My experience is that its almost nothing where you are safe it assuming there will be no findable references. There may not be, but someone has to actually look. Obviously, if notability is irrelevant to the reason for deletion, then there's no need to search. But it almost always is at least somewhat relevant. Take for example something that looks very much like a game made up in school one day. Almost always, there's nothing; once a month, there is. Take 20 equally unlikely country pairs. Experience has been that for at least 2 or 3 of them, there will be something. Hang around afd a lot, and you do get a better feel for what's likely. I choose what to work on based on my guess of whether something is likely to be there. But the things I give up on without looking, sometimes I get surprised by someone who actually did the work.

and there's another reason for requiring this. It helps to know what kind of a search the nom did. If I'm going to work on something, its more efficient if I already know where there's nothing to be found. It takes work to do it right, and I don't like to do it, and then have the nom say, yes, I knew you wouldn't find anything, because I had already checked X Y & Z, but I didn't think to mention it. And if the nom gives the search statement, then I can see if i think its a good one or whether I can do better. Better one person look, than a dozen spend time arguing. We're here, after all, because we want to providepeoplewith information. First step is to try to find some. DGG (talk)

This is a wonderful idea, and expressive of a principle to which I have more recently tried to adhere. However, as Fabrictramp states, this is not reasonably enforceable and makes AfD yet more complicated. And frankly, what do we do if the nom fails to sufficiently describe his or her compliance with WP:BEFORE? Do we automatically close the AfD, put it on hold...? And if so, how do we measure sufficient effort on the nom's part? And keep in mind that appropriate effort will vary wildly depending on the subject.

No, I think this should just be strongly recommended, since when appropriately done this will obviate the back and forth "here's a source", "no it isn't" that can occur when the nom hasn't done a thorough job of research prior to the AfD. Now, I'd totally support some recommended steps and even format suggestions and examples for this, along the lines of what we have at WP:ATA, and would love to participate in the writing of such a page. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

OK I will throw out a suggested recommendation for you to argue over:

“ If editors in good faith have attempted to find or recall sources but failed (for example, because a book they know is unavailable, or Internet searches have failed), they may place in the article a comment saying so. For example:

<!-- This is in P. J. O'Rourke's Eat the Rich. I lost my copy but have another on order. User:SimonTrew 2009-04-26 -->

These comments assert good faith and other editors may be able to supply fuller information. They do not of themselves constitute any reason for changing the decision for or against deletion, but may help to show good faith that an article has been improved, albeit imperfectly.

”

Deliberately the link in the example goes to the dab page in the example I gave; actually I have created the page Eat the Rich (book) and now have a new copy so I can fill it out a bit more when I get around to it. Cost me $0.01 but then I got into editing "Penny" and forgot to do this!

One of my reasons for this is that some articles are prod'd very very very quickly on creation, I'm not a huge creator of articles but if I am trying to make some main article (head article? substantial article?) better, sometimes I need to create stubs for other articles. While I usually try even so to source them, add appropriate redirects, etc etc, it's simply not humanly possible to do all of them at once, so for a short while a couple may be unreferenced. I have a fairly sturdy strategy here that every edit must stand on its own feet i.e. every edit must make WP better not worse, but unfortunately better does not always mean perfect.

SimonTrew (talk) 10:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Rethinking "delete per nom"

Traditionally, saying "delete per nom" is frowned upon because the perception is that it requires no more thought then a 1995 era AOLer saying "me too". However, a recent experience with an AFD has put another spin on this. This AFD was filed on the 23 of April, had a sound rationale but zero participation, even after one relisting. In the past I would have relisted this a second time but now that we have gone to 7 days, a second relist keeps a discussion open for almost half a month. Therefore instead of relisting it again, I closed it "no consensus with no prejudice against a speedy renomination". (which it was).

Now the nominator wasn't cool with this. He wasn't as much upset with me as he was with the "deletion process" which appears to encourage this. He felt that he was being penalized for writing "good nominations" that nobody sees a need to add anything to (discussion here) and thinking about it, if he simply said "non notable" (or "nn"), people might have participated just to tell him that his rationale was lame. The irony here being that articles with well thought out detailed deletion rationales get kept because nobody has anything else to add and nobody wants to say "per nom". Therefore, perhaps a simple endorsement of the nominator's rationale might be acceptable in some cases providing that the editor who makes it periodically revisits the nomination to see if anything has changed, like the nominator withdrawing for instance. (actually, that's a good idea for any kind of !vote, "drive by" participation should definitely be discouraged) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Why did you close it as no consensus? 100% of editors arguing for deletion is pretty clear cut, if you ask me... On a more serious note, this is why we don't determine AfD results by head-count: One spot-on comment can overrule 20 generic !votes. yandman 10:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The current consensus is that for an AFD to be closed "delete", somebody besides the nominator has to say "delete". In my proposal above, I suggested that such AFDs can be closed "delete". That proposal is circling the bowl. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

In cases like that, I'd suggest following IAR. yandman 13:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It can be a pain trying to reword the nominator's reasons when you agree with them and don't have anything else to add because they've covered it all. Dougweller (talk) 10:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

In cases like that, when you have no new perspective to offer, you have to ask yourself if there is any point in your adding anything. You don't have to !vote, and someone else has already put forward your point of view. pablo_hablo. 13:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

However, if you don't and nobody else does either, a bad article stays because "no consensus" defaults to "keep". That's why the nominator of the article I used as an example felt he was being punished for making good nomination rationales. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

And as long as AfD is a mixture of policy + consensus (which it will normally always will be, since policy is not always black and white), it is not sufficient that someone else has expressed your view, it may be useful to indicate your agreement with that view as a means of establishing consensus. When ten people give different delete opinions, and two people give lengthy, well-researched keep opinions, most admins will still close it as "delete" (normal AfD's, so no socks, SPA's, ...). However, if twenty other editors indicate that they agree with the two keepers, things may change.

This has its dangers of course, and admins should try to judge whether people give a "per X" for good reasons or because they come along and just vote "per X" on every other AfD. If all the members of project X would come along and vote the same in every AfD about X, then other opinions, based on the actual article, will have more weight than such group votings. But a dismissal a priori of each "per X" opinion is an overreaction and shows disregard for useful contributions to a consensus-building effort. Fram (talk) 14:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

There's another problem with "per nom" which was noted sometime earlier (I forget exactly where): If the nominator has a change of mind, do all the people writing "per nom" also have that change of mind? SimonTrew (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It might be a question I asked in another thread. If somebody says "per nom" and the nominator withdraws, does the "per nom"s rationale go *POOF*? There's really no way to tell because most "per nom"s are "drive by" !votes. Such editors rarely revisit an AFD to see if the nominator has changed his mind or his rationale has been impeached. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can know that nobody else participated in the AfD because they thought the nom's arguments were great. People usually have no problem saying delete per nom, even though that isn't the best thing to do. Nom looked for verification on Google news in 2009 for a BDSM telnet talker allegedly created in 1996, whose Wikipedia article was created in 2005? That doesn't seem like the right place to look. The way to get the AfD closed with a consensus is not to change the rules so that it can be closed without participation, but to spur participation, I would think. Posting on the talkpages for telnet and talker, and the Internet Wikiproject might get some people involved who would possibly have better knowledge of sources or the absence of them. Шизомби (talk) 15:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I concur that the bias against saying "per nom." argues against the intention of WP:BEFORE and the goal of writing a good nom. I will redo a basic search before agreeing with the nom. just as a check against a searching error or bad-faith nomination, but may not do a detailed search if the nom. claims to have done so and a simple gsearch doesn't contradict it. There comes a point where those who regularly participate in this process have seen enough cases to form a policy-influenced opinion and to recognize when such has been given without having to rephrase it (though that's surely helpful for the closing admin.). OTOH, having the arguments on the page for all to see and discuss, rather than in one's head, is fundamental to how this place is meant to work. There'll be no solutions from me, I'm afraid--but I certainly would like to find it easier to say "per nom." now and again. JJL (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This is kind of addressed with this, I think: "If the rationale provided in the nomination includes a comprehensive argument, specific policy references and/or a compelling presentation of evidence in favour of deletion, a simple endorsement of the nominator's argument may be sufficient, typically indicated by 'per nom'" Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#Per_nominator Шизомби (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that if the nomination is comprehensive, convincing, independently verified, etc. – write that. PERNOM plus good reasons should not be discounted. As an example, WP:Articles for deletion/List of fictional characters by IQ (2nd nomination) has a detailed nomination, and a number of PERNOMs of varied value. Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Redundant, unhelpful pages

I'm not clear on how to tag/which reason to offer for deletion of pages that largely repeat information found elsewhere, for example: Molecular and atomic elements or Parsifal_discography. {merge} seems beside the point, since the information is already included on the most obvious pages to merge to, and {redundant} applies only to redundant media. Hairhorn (talk) 00:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Just edit this dup and replace the content with a redirec to the other/better/fuller page? DMacks (talk) 00:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Withdrew AfD because of ironic admissions of prejudice

User:Unionhawk, the nominator of Feminist Mormon Housewives for an AfD, withdrew the same thus: "The result was Nominator Withdrew - thinking back, definite conflict of interest, due to my extreme dislike of mormons and feminists."
By way of an example, I'm from Cali and now live in Jersey and I'm well-aware of both anti-California-isms and anti-Jersey-isms: (Eg "Cali ppl are nutty; Jersey folks, parochial"). And were I to live in Idaho, as the creator of the blog that was being reviewed does, I'd likely be prejudiced against aspects of the local people(s)/culture(s) there, too.
Still, I'm sort of two minds about such ironic confessionals on Wikipedia. First, prejudice is universal, so putting ours out there, especially in a self-mocking way, might be thought to be something positive. Actually -- if you'll indulge me, I've got what may be a pertinent quote from the creator of this blog herself:

I’ve long been of the opinion that we are all prejudiced. People often get offended when I say that.[...]The problem is, brains are wired for the very purpose of noticing differences and putting stuff in categories.[...]But in a culture where equality is the ideal (as it should be), where racism is vile and disgusting, this gut-level-prejudice can be very difficult to admit to oneself, let alone to everyone else.[...]Why is the taboo on racism more stringent than that on sexism?[...]Because life is messy like that.[...R]ace-bias seems to be tied to both a heightened emotional reaction and a powerful us-vs-them group-think. Also, we tend to (with some exceptions) have more experience and familiarity with the other gender, than we do with other ethnic groups.[...]Real bigotry, real racism isn’t merely a prejudiced instinct, but it starts there, when we cling to the belief that we have no bias. When we blithely or indigently claim “I’m not prejudiced.”, but never do the agonizing self-scrutiny needed overcome our unintentional but still very real bias.[5]

But, then again, maybe putting such stuff out there should have its proper time and place -- and some times and places for it maybe aren't best. After all, the inhibitions of taboo -- the cultural taggings of certain actions/expressions as beyond the pale -- may well be thought to have its redeeming graces, too; as such "political correctnesses" help keep interactions civil/help participants from various backgrounds feel welcome within a shared community.
Of course, things are complicated by the fact that those campaigning for increased acceptance of diversity in society start to gain prejudices against folks who they generalize as being prejudiced (if you can make any sense in the twisted syntax I used in saying that). This sets up the "You're just a freaky thinker!" - versus - "You're a reactionary!" divide. And we end up with all sorts of what I'll call "anti's" in contemporary society: anti-feminist/anti-"patriarchialist"/anti-homosexual/anti-straight/anti-atheist/anti-Evangelical/anti-Catholic/anti-Muslim/anti-Orthodox Jew/&c -- for which there would exist for their holders what would seem rational irritations or fears.
In the present case, we have anti-feminist and anti-Mormon.
Not to per se address being "anti-feminist," but rather a concern that is itself addressed by feminism, here is a quote from a study of why women bloggers receive less media mention than their male counterparts (Herring, Kouper, et al. [2004]):

Women and young people are key actors in the history and present use of weblogs, yet that reality is masked by public discourses about blogging that privilege the activities of a subset of adult male bloggers. In engaging in the practices described in this essay, participants in such discourses do not appear to be seeking consciously to marginalize females and youth. Rather, journalists are following “newsworthy” events, scholars are orienting to the practices of the communities under investigation, bloggers are linking to popular sites, and blog historians are recounting what they know from first-hand experience. At the same time, by privileging filter blogs, public discourses about blogs implicitly evaluate the activities of adult males as more interesting, important and/or newsworthy than those of other blog authors.
Many of these participants (including most of the journalists) are themselves female. Nonetheless, it is hardly a coincidence that all of these practices reinscribe a public valuing of behaviors associated with educated adult (white) males, and render less visible behaviors associated with members of other demographic groups. This outcome is consistent with cultural associations between men and technology, on the one hand (Wajcman, 1991), and between what men do and what is valued by society (the “Androcentric Rule”; Coates, 1993). As Wajcman (p.11) notes, “qualities associated with manliness are almost everywhere more highly regarded than those thought of as womanly.” In this case, discourse practices that construct weblogs as externally-focused, substantive, intellectual, authoritative, and potent (in the sense of both “influential” and “socially transformative”) map readily on to Western cultural notions of white collar masculinity (Connell, 1995), in contrast to the personal, trivial, emotional, and ultimately less important communicative activities associated with women (cf. “gossip”). Such practices work to relegate the participation of women and other groups to a lower status in the technologically-mediated communication environment that is the blogosphere, and more generally, to reinforce the societal status quo.[6]

So, according to these scholars, there's a bit of circularity here -- in that the "nicheyness" of women's blogs is thought to be due to their tending to be aimed more towards stuff that is traditionally considered more nichey (or something like that). Anyway, food for thought.
And now anti-Mormonism. To pull out a random snippet of discussion about this niche of prejudice, I'd like to again quote the creator of the Feminist Mormon Housewives site:

Most of the hard feelings toward Mormons that I hear expressed these days, at least in Utah and Idaho, have to do with the exclusivity thing. We do tend to socialize and do business with each other first, and the she-dropped-me-like-a-hot-potato-when-I-wasn’t-interested-in-converting stories are rampant in this here country.
As far as political power. Well, I’ll admit that I myself find Mormon voting practices both creepy and disturbing. I’m not sure this is directly the fault of the Church so much as the machine of our culture, but I can see how it might make people view Mormons with suspicion (and our modern group think has nothing on the Mormon machine of the late 19th century).
Still and all, in a nation that’s gotten all intent on celebrating our diversity, it is interesting that being prejudiced against Mormons is one of the the last safe havens of bigotry left.[7]

As I said at the beginning of my post, such prejudices have quite understandable genesises[?lex.]. Still, to get to the point of my ramble: I think it's OK to offhandedly mention our prejudices in some contexts...but maybe not in place reserved for a collective voice of the community, such as an AfD result? (Or at least have an individual's confessions there contain an apology that's more implicit than implied?) Anyone else have any thouhgts on this topic? ↜Just M E here , now 02:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Essentially, I saw all keeps (with strong arguments), and I thought, "This is qoing to end up being Speedy Keep, isn't it?" then, I realized that I had probably just opened the AfD out of COI (bad stories/experiences with LDS people... don't want to talk about it...), looking for reasons to get it deleted. So, I closed it. I agree, AfD no, I take that back, Wikipedia is not the place for editing out of prejudice. Hence me withdrawing the AfD.--Unionhawk ^Talk 04:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It's geneses. First declension genitive I think. SimonTrew (talk) 19:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

So a more straighforward way to say falli is penes? ↜Just M E here , now 00:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Depends - phalluses is OK as an English plural. Penes is fine in Spanish! pablo_hablo. 09:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

A page and a half? WP:TLDR Ikip (talk) 09:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, Ikip. Just skimming the quoted material would communicate the gist of it too, btw. ↜Just M E here , now 13:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm former mormon myself. I caught the mormon reference, but not the context.

I use collapsible sections alot, something you may consider.

My apologies if you thought I was snarky. Ikip (talk) 13:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't "hear" any snarkiness in your tone, Ikip. I just thought you were giving me feedback as to how freaking long my post was! (And there's the possibility you and I are the same degree of "cultural Mormon.") ↜Just M E here , now 23:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)