Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 54

Archive 50

←

Archive 52

Archive 53

Archive 54

Archive 55

Archive 56

→

Archive 60

Strange popup when closing AFDs

Anybody else seeing this when closing AFDs? I don't see any changes made to the zman closeAFD script so I'm assuming it's coming from the server when saving the article. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't, but I also don't use a script to close, so that may be why.--Unionhawk ^Talk 04:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I use my own modification of Zman's script, and it works fine. See if User:King of Hearts/monobook.js will help. (You may need to search for it.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, mine is a modification of this script. Maybe that's why. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Today's log

Can someone check today's log please? For some reason a category is showing up at the bottom. Again. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Many otters • One hammer • HELP)} 17:45, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed

I'm having constant problems with editors misinterpreting WP:REDIRECT to mean 'I can blank any page I feel like, provided I replace with a re-direct to a loosely-related topic.' Please can the AfD article be amended to clarify that such behaviour is completely unacceptable. Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not unacceptable because it's easily reverted. AfD has so many hoops to jump through because a deletion can't simply be reverted.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be about this. Not hat I would call a "loosely-related topic" but a very closely related topic. Edit warring is not good, and discussion would be much better than this back and forth, but I don't think AfD should get involved in this anymore than it already was. Fram (talk) 11:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

For clarity, the cited edit is NOT the case in point. That one is POST AfD - a different type of case. Those articles are closely related, and a much more typical example would be catastrophic climate change which was rediected to effects of global warming - loosely, but not closely related. For clarity, I accept the consensus for deletion in that case, but it's the procedure that SHOULD have been followed that I'm trying to clarify. Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be WP:BRD. One editor boldly redirects; another editor reverts; then the two discuss it on the talk page.

If BRD fails because one editor won't discuss it, contact an admin to get them to temporarily protect the page and force a discussion.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 07:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

SUrely the AfD is the proper place for such discussions. Abuse of redirect exception to AfD is what I'm trying to clamp down on. It far too frequently results in edit-warring when an AfD is the proper way. Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Can someone close these AFDs created by exposed sock puppet?

1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Redcaps in popular culture
2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manticore in popular culture

The nominator, User:Hyacinth99 is a sock puppet. We shouldn't reward such behavior. If a new AfD should be open, thats okay. but please close this one. Ikip (talk) 18:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, done. Fram (talk) 19:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks Fram. Ikip (talk) 21:37, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if article deserves a PROD

• The article in question is David Jay Brown. Rather than simply nominate for deletion, I wanted to get some input from others as to whether such an obviously autobiographical (and possibly self-promotional) article deserves deletion. At first glance, the article seems normal. But looking closely, all 3 external links go to pages created by the subject of the article. All of the references are authored or co-authored by the subject of the article. There are no 3rd party sources and many of the listed publications are from fringe and vanity publishers. Added to all of that, the original author may have been the subject himself (references to "alchemy" in the article's references), and the original editor made only edits to this article. Some recent edits were made by a User with a name identical to the subject, who also began a page for Carolyn Mary Kleefeld who is mentioned in the article in question. The most recent edits are by an anonymous IP which also edited only this page and the Kleefeld article and geolocate puts this IP in the same city as the subject of the article above. Some of the claims in the article (degrees, "one of the first science fiction novels about nanotechnology", etc.) can't be verified and claims of popular and scientific for some of the material seem dubious at best. The guidelines in such a case are rather nebulous. Does this article seem deserving of a deletion to anyone else? Wikipedia doesn't prohibit autobiographical articles, but they are strongly discouraged. And considering the lack of 3rd party references and links, and some of the dubious assertions, does it cross the line? Thanks Age Happens (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• From looking at the article's history I think a prod would be pointless as it's very likely to be removed by an interested party. If you think it's a candidate for deletion then AFD is the right venue after you've done your WP:BEFORE homework. Just because an article doesn't presently have reliable sources, it doesn't mean they don't exist.--Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

ARSify?

So this may seem like it's coming out of the blue, but I actually think it may be a chance to defuse some inclusionist/deletionist battles.

Proposal: If an article is tagged with {{rescue}}, and the consensus in an AfD is delete, the article will be instead moved out of mainspace into a special area in which article rescuers may continue to make improvements.

• This obviously doesn't apply to Copyvios, BLP, or attack pages, which should have been speedyable to begin with. OR won't benefit from this, either. It's really targeted at articles with sourcing or notability concerns.
• A special area could be a subpage of WP:ARS. A cleanup process to purge articles which have not recently been worked on (>1 year? 6 months?) would belong to ARS or whomever agrees to manage this "article purgatory".
• A process to reevaluate whether such an article has improved sufficiently to be moved back into mainspace would be needed, but DRV could continue handling such requests. The difference between DRV and this reevaluation is that the prior close would not be in question, but whether the new article belongs back in mainspace, which should be a much lower bar.
• This is also a great place from which overly detailed articles on topics of limited encyclopedic interest (e.g. fiction nuances) could later be Transiki'ed, without needing to hang around in mainspace until someone gets around to it.

Thoughts? Jclemens (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

That's kind of a cool idea, though I'd like for there to be some further measure of acceptance of the job by ARS; that is to say, something a bit beyond simply tagging the article with {{rescue}}, which any individual can do in a drive-by tagging. While I'll assume good faith that editors wouldn't go around doing that to disrupt AFD, my concern is that ARS should be asked to accept the article before it is sent there, since if a large proportion of articles deleted as non-notable get sent there, ARS will get permanently backlogged. Yeah, it makes this whole proposal very CREEPy, but I'm genuinely concerned about this being a possible outcome. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

It could indeed, but WP:BEANS. :-) My hope is that it will calm inclusionists that a "Delete" outcome is not the end, and deletionists in that it keeps mainspace "cleaner", sooner. If it gets backlogged... Oh well. As long as A7's don't get sent there, it shouldn't get too bad, too fast. And if inclusionists are busy fixing up articles, they don't have to pay as much attention to AfD (and certainly not votestack, as they have been accused of) because they know that anything that falls in AfD will be sent to them anyways, assuming at least one person flagged it. Jclemens (talk) 17:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that this is a good idea. I'm just a little concerned about the process by which articles to be deleted are considered candidates for ARSification. I mean WP:ARS#What the Rescue template is for is basic advice, but what about its use by article creators? If ARS gets backlogged, it would be very easy to slip articles through the cracks, and progressively make things even worse. Let me repeat though, in general, I like this idea; I just think there's one or two minor implementation concerns that need to be addressed. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough--we need some sort of quality control filter, so things that everyone but one editor agree aren't ever going to be salvageable don't clutter the purgatory queue. I'm open to proposals as to what that should be, but I think the decision should be based on every ARS member declining to work on something. Maybe each incoming article can be "claimed" by an editor, and any article which remains unclaimed for a short time (1 month?) after arrival in Purgatory is deleted. Jclemens (talk) 17:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Something like that would be fine by me. It minimizes CREEP for AfD itself, which I think would keep those of us who fear it happy. It would complicate ARS somewhat, but it seems like a good idea. Maybe a model for accepting and managing cases along the lines of WP:MEDCAB or WP:ABUSE would be appropriate? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I hope it's simplify AfD:

• "Deletionist": Delete it
• "Inclusionist": But I can fix it
• "Deletionist": Fine, send it to purgatory and bring it back once it's fixed.
• "Inclusionist": (leaves to work on fixing the article)

That may be overly simplistic, but it's my hoped-for outcome... It really makes AfD fall in line with WP:TIND. Jclemens (talk) 17:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

An extension of the standard request for userification of a deleted article, but putting it into ARS space seems reasonable. I wouldn't necessarily do it for any "rescue" article, but any ARS member, acting for ARS, could request it from the closing admin. --MASEM (t) 17:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec)If an ARS member claims the article, they can always post a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion and mention ARSification. (I'm just immature enough to mentally snicker at this word). Although I'm sure many of the editors at that project watch this page, I'll post a note over there letting them know about this discussion.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. Great idea! AfDs should never be a hindrance to improving improveable content. After all, new sources become available all the time. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment Implicitly does this not create a new category "articles for moving back into mainspace since they are sufficiently fixed"? Elsewise, what would prevent a few minor changes being made -- and the whole AfD business have to be used anew? Collect (talk) 22:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's how I'd envision it. I'd hope that the resulting pressure/Drama reduction at AfD would make it a small net increase in process/overhead, but some is going to be necessary to prevent just such an outcome. Jclemens (talk) 23:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• I don't really have much of a problem with the premise here, but I have one question. What is the incentive to tag fewer articles for rescue, rather than more? If we make this change and "userify" in a sense content that has a good faith rescue tag on it, this creates a transparent incentive to tag more articles (Notably it also creates a smaller incentive to work to save those articles). What counterbalances this? It certainly isn't outside input from people who remove rescue tags. I know better. It certainly isn't outside input on the ARS talk page suggesting different courses of action. Protonk (talk) 22:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I wish I had a good answer. I don't. Maybe this will create an "articles for repair" section and attract a new series of editors who might not have participated in ARS because of the drama and time constraints. If it ends up being a new venue in which some editors desire to work to rehabilitate deleted articles, I think everyone wins. I think everyone still wins even if it draws off some efforts from the during-AfD work that ARS does. Ultimately, what I'd like to do is get this up and running, and then figure out how to filter out articles that no one is working on, such that a queue is kept of recent, improvable articles. Maybe if no one fixes an article in a certain period of time, it gets userified to the person who placed the rescue tag? Jclemens (talk) 23:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't really agree. I think we can point to a huge amount of non-deleted content that requires work, without collecting deleted content to work on. I also think that one of the genius things about ARS was that it distilled down the tens of thousands of tagged articles to a small number of articles who could be fixed now and result in some real change. Moving deleted articles into some third space set aside for ars is the opposite of that. The number of tagged articles will make it harder and harder to justify immediate action. I guess also, why is this better than userification? Some user wants a deleted article to work on or use as fodder for another project, we supply the article. There at least we know that someone cares about the article. Protonk (talk) 00:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
      • A potentially quite valid critique. It's not convincing me that this is a bad idea, so much as it is that this really overlaps with ARS a lot less than I initially thought. I don't want to undermine the article rescue effort, but at the same time, I really do believe the us vs. them issues could go away if there was some way to temper deletion outcomes and encourage using deleted articles as a starting point for reintroducing fixed articles on encyclopedic topics. Still mulling this over. Jclemens (talk) 05:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
        • Oh I'm not intent on convincing you one way or another. I'm just trying to talk through what I feel are the good and bad ends of this proposal. Arguably some opposition melts away when you boil this down to "should we have a template that makes userification (in some form) automatic?" That avoids the ARS dispute and gets to the heart of the matter. I am slowly growing less convinced that it is a good idea, but it is nowhere near a hopelessly bad idea. If we broaden this to avoid ARS issues, I think the fundamental balancing act comes down to this: Userification is a rarely used option for a variety of reasons. We think that, all else equal, more marginal but deleted articles userified results in more and better content down the road. However, broad, semi-automatic userification may eliminate the primary benefit of providing deleted material: someone who is concerned about improving it chooses to work on it. With a template system that individual choice is lost. Does that seem like a (very) basic but accurate look at the underlying problem? Protonk (talk) 06:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
          • Yes indeed. I think the disconnect is that I tend to invest ownership in things where I place a rescue tag, and probably drafted the original proposal based too much on the assumption that others will/do behave in the same manner. That is, if I tag it, it would be something that I could live with being userified into my space if it were deleted, that I would have every intention of getting around to someday. Jclemens (talk) 06:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is the opposite of proper article creation order, and instead takes a 'shove every crappy article into a closet' approach. I have little doubt at all this will result in an amazing shuffling of crap. An article with no hope of repair will be nom'd, slapped with the rescue tag, no doubt by a 'rescuefromAfDbot', which will slap a nom on every single article AFD'd, and then in a month, some 'good faith editor' will shove it back out into the mainspace. This is an end run around deletion designed to make inclusionists happy knowing no article will ever again be deleted, and make deletionists so sick of Wikipedia they all leave. Pretty soon, we can just call it PopCrapaPedia. This obviates AfD for 'AfPermanency'. ThuranX (talk) 23:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The process, as formulated above, would require an undeletion review--not a simple moving back into mainspace--to verify that the changes that prompted the AfD and the exiling from mainspace had been fixed before reintroducing the article to mainspace. Absent such a review and endorsement, which the community would have unfettered input into, I'd say that an article moved back to mainspace in circumvention of the review process would be a candidate for G4. Does that help alleviate your concern? Jclemens (talk) 23:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Not one bit ,because I have no confidence such a format will be followed. It will be 'Nom, stealth tag, Userfy, wait for the coast to clear, reintroduce. . . repeat. It entirely invalidates AfD, and is a total give to the inclusionists. Without a way to delete crap, there's no point in having any policies or guidelines, just continual growth of nonsense cruft, like List of Jerry Seinfeld's shoes by episode. If only the inclusionists understood how to write an encyclopedia, instead of seeing WP as a private internet hosting service. ThuranX (talk) 23:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
      • How about if I agree to G4 any article you find that's been moved back inappropriately and block the offending editor for 72 hours on the first offense? That's probably a bit extreme, but I'm interested in finding what would increase your comfort level that a) that's not the goal, and b) as chief proponent of the idea, I wouldn't tolerate this proposed process being made into that. Jclemens (talk) 00:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
      • Idea How about if we stick a big AfD-like template on the top of any such Purgatory'ed article, that says something to the effect of "This article has been deleted in (this form: link to diffs) because of concerns presented at (link to AfD. Please feel free to improve it here. If you believe the concerns have been addressed and the article is ready for mainspace (insert process here). Moving this article directly to mainspace without (review process) will result in it being (speedily deleted and or moved back, whichever)" How's that sound for discouraging "bad behavior", ThuranX? Jclemens (talk) 00:35, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
        • Unworkable. One, you're deleting the mainspace article, not the userfied article, allowing constant hammering. You can't salt the mainspace spot without creating an adversarial situation. Two, not enough admisn to monitor this, so it's honor system, which we all know the internet is reknowned for. Three, You're one admin, and such a change to the proposal wouldn't have support, because to many would assert that it violates AGF. every deletion would go to WP:DR, overwhelming them, gumming up the works with massive backlogs. This is a prescription for a Kevorkian relationship with AfD. Why not just propose that AfD be eliminated because all articles will eventually be saved? ThuranX (talk) 01:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
          • Hi. Please refrain from hyperbole and over aggresiveness by swearing in edit summaries or making references to sexuality. Thanks. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
            • WP:CENSORED. It's not. Move on. My summary was not at all hyperbolic; if you're unaware that 'wet dream' is a metaphoric term, you need to get out more. ThuranX (talk) 03:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
              • CENSORED applies to article contact, not editor conduct. At any rate, thanks for your perspective. I'm still looking for improvements from all sides, but you're not giving me much to work with here. Help brainstorm ways to overcome your objections? Jclemens (talk) 06:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
                • I made that clean. Do NOT institute this absurd farce. ThuranX (talk) 20:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
                  • You made nothing of the sort clear. The question was what could be done to improve the proposal--"do NOT institute [it]" it isn't an answer, and absent a huge swing of consensus it looks like something along the lines of one of these processes will be implemented. You have an opportunity to help shape it, as I'm still listening despite your uncivil comments. If you don't choose to respond, or respond in an incivl or unhelpful way, that's your choice, but all you'd be doing is eliminating your own chance for input. Jclemens (talk) 20:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I oppose as not every deleted article is worth working on nor is ARS in any way invested in doing so as a group. We have too much to do already and acting as a repository for neglected articles - an incubator? - would be an entirely new project. I think many (most?) editors are unaware they can have a article userfied so there may be some merit to making that more widely known. I share the concern however of content languishing and simply shelving it somewhere. If someone is going to make a good faith effort to improve it then finding ways to faciliate that may make sense. I'm not sure this is that, it may be way over the mark. -- Banjeboi 23:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that not every deleted article is worth working on. The proposal as it stands would only apply to {{rescue}} tagged articles that are deleted--fewer than 10% of AfDs, IIRC. What would help make this proposal workable? Some way to keep "Article Purgatory" from filling up with crappy articles that no one wants to save? Jclemens (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Might we arrange a "formal poll" on , say, a 90 day trial of the proposal? If Purgatory seems not to get articles improved sufficiently, then we will stop the project? (not meaning to set any specific time, just that a time be set) Collect (talk) 23:48, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of that, once we've had this up for a few days and gotten some ideas. I'm really appreciative of the feedback so far, and don't want to cut it short. Jclemens (talk) 00:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Not even every {{rescue}} tagged item is worthy of further work. I support userfying for those editors who intend to work on articles and some helpful ways to facilitate that may make sense This proposal seems to save waaaay too much without an indication someone will even work on it. -- Banjeboi 01:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Alternative - why not userfy the content as a matter of routine. It's still publicly accessible there. Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Good question. Individual userification pretty much limits the available pool of editors who can collaborate on such a repair operation to one plus however many others s/he has notified. I'd like to try and open things up a bit more, so that multiple editors can see and improve a wide variety of different articles, much like how there's one certain place all articles tagged for rescue can be found. Jclemens (talk) 00:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That could be implemented by a template/category for userfied articles where the hosting user is requesting collaboration or assistance. It wouldn't necessarily be tied to ARS. Call it something like {{userfied help wanted}}. Flatscan (talk) 04:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. You're basically proposing the same thing, but decentralized so that each article would have a specific "owner". How would this help alleviate the problemd with backlog? After all, some editors are known for biting off more than they can chew... Not sure this will solve more of the problems, but it's a good line of thinking to pursue. Jclemens (talk) 06:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought of this as a relatively minor overlay to existing userfication. It looks like this influenced #Proposal #2 below. I'll respond there with any further thoughts. Flatscan (talk) 05:26, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose this, as well as 2 & 3 below. Userfication is already employed far too liberally as an end-run around AfD, with users hosting (in essential perpetuity, since no one has the energy to bring them all to MfD) articles that they have no intention of working on, merely to keep the material on Wikipedia in some form. Creating still another junkpile to satisfy those who can't stomach the thought of anything being deleted, ever, is a Really Bad Idea. Deor (talk) 12:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Why is this a bad idea, given that every proposal presumes that defamatory, attack, copyvio, and other impermissible content won't be eligible for any of them? I'm working from the premise that many (most?) of the under-sourced or under-notable articles selected for deletion but opposed by at least one editor who commits to fixing the problems will, in fact, be fixed and ready for mainspace again someday. Further, my second assumption is that the inadequate, AfD'ed article is generally a better starting place than none whatsoever. Jclemens (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I simply and vehemently dispute the premise that "many (most?) of the under-sourced or under-notable articles selected for deletion but opposed by at least one editor who commits to fixing the problems will, in fact, be fixed and ready for mainspace again someday." For instance, take a look at this (and there are many more similar pages in userspace), and note the dates on which the various subpages were last edited. I say again that this sort of junk is simply an attempt to circumvent the results of AfD, that it's reprehensible, and that your proposal does nothing more than encourage yet another way of accomplishing the same circumvention. Anyone who desires to use deleted content for the creation of a new article can easily find an admin who's willing to userfy (or e-mail) the content. Deor (talk) 20:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Deor, an accusation that I am trying to circumvent ANYTHING is what is reprehensible. I am offended by that bad faith claim. That I had some articles userfied in the hopes of one day returning them to mainspace is a circumvention of nothing. If I succeed, Wiki is improved. If I fail, it is only I who have lost the time spent on trying. And if someone does not know something ever existed, how could one ask then ask an admin to userfy or email (?) such unknown or unsuspected content? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If one tries to create an article at a title where an article has previously been deleted, one is confronted with an edit notice that begins "You are re-creating a page that was deleted," with a log entry showing when and by whom it was deleted. That's how one knows that something ever existed and whom to contact about it. Deor (talk) 17:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

And IF an unknowing editor's title is somewhat different from a title that was deleted, that won't happen and he might never know until its slapped with a speedy or sent to AfD. Since I am NOT a newbie, and I can recognize using WP:POTENTIAL and WP:PRESERVE that some articles, deleted through AfD because they were unable to be improved to beat the coutdown of a ticking clock, might be worth immproving for return at a later date, an accusation that I am trying to circumvent ANYTHING by my having transparently requested userfication of certain articles is what is reprehensible. If I succeed, Wiki is improved. If I fail, it is only I who have lost the time spent on trying. And while you thought to vilify me by offering my sandboxes as a bad faith example of reprehensible conduct, why not also show the honest good faith of my own efforts and show some minor articles I authored and a few I actually helped improve and save? I am still very offended by your bad faith accusation. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That's an apples to oranges comparison. Was that user ever required to commit to do anything with those articles? If anything, this proposal includes a built-in mechanism to delete articles not currently being worked on. I'm stymied by your use of the term "reprehensible"--I'd certainly save that term for something worse than holding on to possibly unsalvageable cruft in userspace. AfD isn't about winning, it's about making the encyclopedia better. How do a few users holding on to deleted articles in their userspace harm the encyclopedia? Jclemens (talk) 20:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose as per Deor who put it well. Doing this would also leave articles in Google, at times from my experience in the first 10, and not only is this a way to keep bad articles searchable, many readers would assume they were ordinary Google articles. Dougweller (talk) 07:17, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Are you sure? I thought that everything but mainspace wasn't indexed. Is there an authoritative place where this is discussed? Jclemens (talk) 16:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. This is not needed. If I see an article with merit which is at risk of deletion then I save the source. If I should miss the opportunity then the source is still available in many places including Wikipedia itself as nothing is ever actually deleted here. We already have DRV if a formal process for bringing the article back is required. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • What, by copy and paste? That's not GFDL compliant, as I understand it. Jclemens (talk) 06:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• That depends on the details of what is done but I take your point. GFDL considerations are a good reason to abandon the current deletion process altogether. Instead of being deleted, articles should be redirected to a generic trashcan or slushpile article. This would preserve their edit history in a useful way. Material which is illegal in some way - copyvios or libel - should be deleted properly by the oversight process so that the thousands of admins cannot access it. Material which is just not good enough does not need any such measure. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal #2

A new (tag/template/something else) could be placed (In the AfD/on the page/on the talk page) of a page facing an AfD, by an article "sponsor". If the article is to be deleted, it would instead be userified to the sponsor's user namespace. A maintenance category would be added to the article after userification to keep track of all such content and facilitate collaborative rehabilitation editing.

This would make the problems of overzealous tagging or backlog identifiable to a specific user, rather than just a generic queue.

It separates the process entirely from ARS, making them complementary but not interdependent.

Somewhat loses the idea of a central queue from which thinks needing transwiki'ing can be pulled, but that wasn't too major a portion of the first proposal anways.

How does this one sound--better, worse? Jclemens (talk) 06:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It would typically be the article's creator, but could be a recent prolific editor. On second thoughts, with older, busier or edit-warred articles, this might be a bit messy.

Has promise...I like the idea. Ikip (talk) 14:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

My only concern with this is its efficacy: is a user who can't find the category of administrators willing to consider reasonable requests for userfication (of which I am part) likely to know where this template is? Fritzpoll (talk) 21:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. ARS looks to be moving ahead with an AfD related bot idea and perhaps the userfy option can be spelled out as part of that effort. -- Banjeboi 02:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, thanks. Jclemens (talk) 16:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal #3

When an article is deleted for 'quality problems', it stays where it is, but there's a 'warning page' before the article saying 'This article did not meet Wikipedia's standards and was deleted. You can help by improving this article. See why it was deleted here. Continue to the deleted article. Andrewjlockley (talk) 07:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of these proposals seem to be moving towards pure-wiki deletion and on that basis, those making the proposals may want to examine this first. Hopefully that reads as a neutral comment :) Fritzpoll (talk) 12:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that proposal was started 5.5 years ago. I see some similarities (deletion doesn't necessarily remove content), but also some marked differences (purgatorification DOES remove articles from mainspace, no redirects, until they're fixed and moved back). What parts of that past discussion do you find most germane to this discussion? Jclemens (talk) 20:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

On reflection, it isn't a perfect comparison. I think the most important aspects are the retention of history rather than outright deletion as we understand it at present. The comparison is best applied to this proposal (#3) - article stays where it is, a warning page (could just as easily be blank) rather than yours, JClemens. It just seems to be how this is developing in Andrew's mind. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean by "quality problems"? When I read that phrase, it sounds like we're talking about poor writing, which is not a deletion issue. Obviously you mean something else, and I'm not seeing what that is. Thanks!--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Quality problems could be poor citing, factual queries, dodgy copy - anything that doesn't affect the artile's notability. Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Any of these options would work. But so would a proposal to always make a redirect somewhere if the material was thought even potentially upgradeable to an article. DGG (talk) 04:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the reasons for deletion, the only ones I think these proposals should apply to are:

• Articles for which all attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed
• Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)

The reason then to have this purgatory is for articles where it is believed notability could be established and RS found, but this was unable to be done in the time period of an AfD discussion. Articles shouldn't be deleted on content grounds unless they are copyvios or have BLP issues. I do think there are issues at AfD, with some voters not adequately checking whether sources exist or not. However, these proposals shouldn't be a way to correct those wrongs. If there are issues with AfD, then they should be addressed there. If a proposal was to be accepted then there should be clear grounds on why an article is being moved to purgatory, and a strong case made for why it is thought adequate sources could be found. Quantpole (talk) 16:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, end-run around deletion policy. This discussion should not, in any case, be considered to be going anywhere whilst ARS is on MFD. Stifle (talk) 10:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi and a question

In 2005, I was involved in editing a very controversial bio article. That article has since been deleted. I would like to find the deletion discussion, but the deletion data mining tools do not appear to work. I would appreciate any assistance you can provide in finding the deletion history.

The article was "Daniel Brandt".

I have to say that back during the controversy, I was shocked and dismayed by the rudeness and bad faith of the regulars. To find that the article was actually deleted by the community floors me.

Thank you for your time and have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 23:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Here is the deletion log, it appears like the deletion of this article was quite controversial due to the constant deletion and undeletion. I will see If I can't find the actual discussions. -Marcusmax(speak) 00:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• Here is the first pertinent disscussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Brandt. By adding a select number after Brandt, ie. 2nd nomination you can find all others, hope this helps. -Marcusmax(speak) 00:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That is precisely as I remember the debate back in 2005. If you review the logs, you can see how sanctimonious and rude some of the editors were about this article. That the page was finally deleted proves that their sanctimony was completely groundless. At the time, it seemed to me that virtually nobody had any common sense or concern for living persons. Since the deletion/merge was eventually performed by the community, these editors were obviously in the wrong. I remain extremely frustrated that such unreasonable behavior is common among elite regulars on Wikipedia, and it results in no negative consequences to them. I am certain that these editors scare away more potential editors than they help. Sorry for the rant.Jarhed (talk) 21:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

This Wikipedia:Deletion review/Daniel Brandt may also be informative. pablo_hablo. 13:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Article is now blanked as a courtesy, I assume because of the controversy. To whomever blanked it, I hope you don't run afoul of the regulars for your attempt at courtesy. Thank you for your help and have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 21:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Should disambiguation pages be brought to AFD, MFD, or RFD? (or a new venue)

I think there's sufficiently few instances that a new venue need not be created, but I do think we should provide some guidance on where to list disambiguation pages for discussion/deletion. Please provide your thoughts here: Wikipedia talk:Deletion discussions#Disambiguation pages for discussion/deletion. –xeno ^talk 16:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Article blanked after decision to keep

Thanks for your deciding to keep the Nancy Jacobson article.[1] Unfortunately, the person who submitted the article for deletion has decided to remove it anyway. One of the new accounts asking for a delete removed text [2] shortly after your decision was handed down, followed by Jeandré du Toit essentially blanking[3] the article. This happened despite improvements by Shunpiker and some agreement that the NYTimes source in the article had been found to be reliable. Is there any way to stop an editor from stepping in and doing this right after an AfD decision? --Nacl11 (talk) 16:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how that has anything to do with the AFD. It's now kept and it's up to editorial consensus to decide what should be in it. Build consensus on the talk page. If someone defies clearly established consensus, that's vandalism. There are standard ways to deal with that. —JAO • T • C 16:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

General comment: The first-referenced username seemed familiar. I recalled having seen it on the Requests for Page-Protection page while I was looking at an unrelated matter: here. The user focuses particularly on BLPs – an important area of course. No comment on the text-removal at present. Incidentally, I fixed a link in the preceding comment (added "User:" to the link.) –Whitehorse1 16:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Blanking after an AfD should be clearly forbidden in this article, and be treated as vandalism. Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[4] wasn't a blanking of the page - per the edit summary: "-unsourced and poorly sourced material per wp:blp, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nancy Jacobson. Sourced lead with WashPost articles."

wp:blp states "Be very firm about the use of high quality references. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nancy Jacobson states "Biography of a living person without reliable sources. Ref 1. blog, 2. not mentioned in source, 3. not mentioned in source, 4. not mentioned in source, 5. blog, 6. 404, 7. blog, 8. tabloid attack article." -- Jeandré, 2009-05-19t10:44z

Why request an AfD in the first place if you are going to blank the page [5] when you don't get the result you want from the Afd? Your new objection about sourcing has now been addressed as well[6] but you are still removing sourced material from the article.[7] Your latest objection is about WP:UNDUE. So here is the timeline of your complaints about this article and the outcome: (1) OTRS complaint -- denied [8], (2) AFD request -- keep [9], (3) poor sourcing -- article sourced, [10] [11] (4) WP:UNDUE. When will this end? --Nacl11 (talk) 16:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Please be more accurate – the page was not blanked, although much content was removed. There is nothing about an AFD keep that prevents this from happening. The disagreement about that article's content has nothing to do with AFD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It has plenty to do with the AFD request: A person requests that an article be deleted. AFD reaches a consensus to keep. The person deletes the content anyway. Please think about it some more. An editor deleting nearly all of an article's content mere hours after a consensus decision to KEEP. Do you not see the causal connection in the chain of events here? Have a read through this article too: pretext. Splitting hairs over the finer points of blanking is not much to stand on. All but two senteces were blanked, deleted, cut, or removed from the article. Call it whatever you like.

The same editor then complained the issue was SOURCING. Multiple editors sourced everything. Cited content was cut again. --Nacl11 (talk) 19:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

AFD can only decide whether any article with the same title should exist. It is not an endorsement of the content of the article; in many cases, an article is kept because the topic is valid even though the current content of the article is problematical. Disagreements about sourcing are not an AFD issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

So, revert it. Then make sure everything is sourced. If the editor continues after it is, take him to WP:ANI. There are channels to deal with this. This isn't a big problem. --BlueSquadronRaven 19:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

That's like saying AFD only looks at the title of an article when deciding whether to keep it, which of course doesn't make any sense. In this instance, most of the discussion to KEEP was over the content of the entry -- as is the case in many other AFD discussions. I realize the tendency is to want to argue these things in a circle and challenge content creators, but consider what would happen if everyone mass deleted content following an unfavorable AFD decision. What would be the point of AFD? If this is not the appropriate place to talk about this, where would be a better place to bring this up? Thanks. --Nacl11 (talk) 20:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Look, individual content that lacks reliable can be removed -- and in biographies of living persons it MUST be ---

regardless of whether an AFD said the article itself should be kept. An AFD decides whether there is a current consensus taht an article can exist at that name, not that the all the content in it should be kept as is. Hell, after an AFD of keep the article name can be redirected to a different article -- that's perfectly acceptable and happens all the time. Sounds like you're just complaining that you wanted content to stay there even though it failed to meet Wikipedia standards. DreamGuy (talk) 23:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not the issue at all, DreamGuy. Thanks for trying. I will follow -- BlueSquadronRaven's advice on this. --Nacl11 (talk) 19:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of Bilateral relation pages despite ongoing merging effort

Several editors and I have been working to merge all of the bilateral pages (i.e. Colombia–Ireland relations) into a page like this one: List of diplomatic missions of Argentina Last I counted there were 50 pages in AfDs. Although many editors have decided to cease nominating these articles for deletion, two or three editors continue to nominate these articles, despite requests to stop. Every article which is deleted is information which we have to ask an admin to userfy.

Is there any precedence where a group or type of articles are not put up for deletion for a short period of time? We were hoping to have a little bit of time, maybe until June 1st to finish up these merges. Ikip (talk) 21:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Suggestion. Userfy all of the bilateral relations articles created by Plumoyr to a subpage of the Bilateral Relations Task Force, now. Then allow the AfDs to proceed.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 22:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think there is an entitlement that these AfDs stop. But they seem to be a waste of time, since ultimately most of them will be about deleting a redirect. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• I am a bit of a policy wiz and often I dig things up deep within the Wikimedia system. Surely in the history of Afds, at some point or another an AFD has been suspended until a decision is made. I am thinking there must be some policy that can enact at least a short time restraint on these afds. So I will go digging around and see if any such policy or guideline exists. However we must all assume good faith in the mean time that people will either stop their nominations or nominate only articles that have no notability whatsoever. -Marcusmax(speak) 22:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• The only thing that comes to mind would be WP:SANCTIONS, obviously temporary that restrict Afds on relations from being nominated, such a thing I don't think has ever been done before on afds and would be a bit extreme in my opinion. -Marcusmax(speak) 22:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• A while back we had a situation with a slew of nominations of college football coach articles. The author was in a tizzy, because real life threatened to interfere with his ability to do the requested sourcing in time. There wasn't any support for suspending the AfDs, but I did offer to userfy any that were deleted. IIRC, a number of the AfDs that were close were relisted to give more time. In the end, all were about as happy as could be expected. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That was really nice of you to offer this Fabrictramp before. We are talking about a lot of articles. It took me a long time to get just some admins to get 70 articles userfied. Ikip (talk) 03:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment, Wikipedia's policy implies that if an article fails the notability criteria, the first option is to merge the article into another, rather than outright deletion [12]. Re-directs are cheap. Therefore making a note to this effect in the AfD discussion, particularly if there is an existing article where the merge can occur, should be made. Even if the admin closes the debate as "delete", asking the closing admin nicely on his talk page to undelete the article and redirect it often works in my experience. Martintg (talk) 03:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The problem is when there are 50 AfDs at a given time going on, it takes a lot of resources away from merging the articles into one article. Getting these deleted articles userfied then merged will be a larger task.

Granted, it is obvious many of these editors are not interested in helping merge, but I think some of them will help oncethe AFDs are closed. Ikip (talk) 05:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment There were two things done wrong with this series of articles. The first, of course, was making them in this inadequate and formula-bound way, and compounding it by continuing even after it was made very clear they were not considered satisfactory. The second is trying to delete them without permitting adequate attempts to rescue, compounded by not even accepting the attempts of others. If we had agreement to halt the nomination of them we could, by Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. for unprecedented situations, we can do whatever is reasonable. DGG (talk) 04:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

List of diplomatic missions of Afghanistan just completed, most of the Afghanistan-x relations articles are merged now. Ikip (talk) 05:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Note, I contacted many of the editors who had messaged on my talk page for this initial discussion. Since I put this up to a "support" "oppose" discussion, I notified more editors: even more editors who wanted to delete these articles in AfDs. Ikip (talk) 06:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Additional note: I extended your efforts somewhat, and notified every editor who participated in 25 of these bilateral relations AfDs, regardless of what their vote was, including those who only commented. The list of users I notified can be found on my contribs page, just above the edits to Sukkot. If I've counted correctly, I notified 33 editors, not including those who I posted on and then removed the post when I realized that you had already notified them. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 08:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Is userfication really necessary? Is this even a big deal? Most of the AfDs that are closing delete are "Foo has an embassy in bar. Bar has an honorary consulate in Foo. Foo and Bar have good relations. End of Article." Surely you can merge such trivial facts before the week is up. Articles with more meat are generally closing keep. Am I missing something? Gigs (talk) 08:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Many of these articles are doing no good to anyone. The best examples I've come across are related to Ireland, Armenia and Luxembourg who, in most cases, have no real relations at all and don't have embassies. There would be little or no point in merging these. Hoewever, if, say, "Bialteral relations of Armenia" existed, it might simplly be worth a short note "...Relations also exist with X, Y and Z". I've managed to save Argentina- Pakistan and Nigeria- Pakistan (both of which surprised me!) and i'd say those, and many others, are worthy of articles. My suggestion is that we come to a consensus on what, genrally, is non notable and get rid of all the articles that don't meet this- e.g. non resident embassies as a starting point, keep all those that can be written about in details. HJMitchell You rang? 10:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Should all new bilateral relation AfDs cease until June 1st?

• Strong support this will give editors time to merge these articles, and avoid having an admin userfy deleted material. Ikip (talk) 06:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I respect your desire to do this, there are in my opinion some that are plainly not notable. in the end is the plan to have 20,000 redirects?? Other bilateral articles actually deserve a standalone article rather than merging into a grand article. I do not think that people's huge effort is wasted in AfDs, editors that care to do a search should spend no more than 10 mins establishing notablity or not. yes are those they always vote keep or delete or simply copy and paste the same stock answer but any reasonable admin will take this into account when closing. LibStar (talk) 06:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The point is not to keep the redirects, but to save the content. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 06:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

on most of the articles the content is solely embassies. which can be easily found at www.embassyworld.com . are we keeping many of these non notable articles purely to obtain embassy locations? LibStar (talk) 06:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the deletion and subsequent recreation of content already on the wiki is just silly. Redirects don't hurt anything. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 06:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

embassyworld.com is a really terrible site. It is a link farm to other embassy pages, really nothing more from what I can see.

Most of these articles have four things in one location: embassy of country y, embassy of country x, date relations were established, and links. Some of the articles have much more information.

RE: "editors that care to do a search should spend no more than 10 mins establishing notablity or not"

There was a case of an editor finding 36 notable reliable links, and the nominator refused to accept those links, and wikilawyered about how those links were not notable. So the ten minute argument is really not the case. Have you ever closed an article you nominated for deletion libstar? Ikip (talk) 06:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

yes I have. some of these X-Y combinations have no resident embassies and close to nothing in the article (and no one finds any sources), we should then keep. most embassies can be found on list of diplomatic relations articles or foreign ministry websites. not hard. to be honest, your constant trying to save all articles without official endorsement is not swaying me. LibStar (talk) 06:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

This deserves a barnstar sir, which relations articles have you closed after nominating? Ikip (talk) 07:17, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - The creation of the new class of articles is a good idea, but there's no reason that the AfDs need to be held up for them to be created. The current article don't need to be "userified" per se, the information in them can simply be cut and pasted into someone's user page (or offline) until it's needed for the appropriate new article. These articles (the ones being deleted, not all bilateral relations articles) are trivial and unnecessary and should never have been made in the first place, so I continue to be in favor of getting rid of them. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 06:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose totally agree with the above. LibStar (talk) 06:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support as Wikipedia does not have a deadline. There is no pressing need to delete the articles, when per WP:PRESERVE an alternative solution may exist. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 06:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support temporary freeze as an act that serves to improve the project and allows the continued good faitth efforts of editors scrambing in haste to WP:Preserve in the face of repeated nominations. Remember WP:POTENTIAL and let them do what they can to improve wiki. If they succeed, super. If they do not, all wiki has lost is a little time... and wiki has all the time in the world. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 07:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • This is Wikipedia, not wiki. Stifle (talk) 08:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as this would give a carte blanche for thousands of permastubs on non-notable relations to be created. I will give a standing offer to userfy any bilateral relations article through June 30th to facilitate any merging efforts. Just leave me a message (categorized as "other"). Stifle (talk) 08:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support to WP:PRESERVE but taking away the intersections will create twice as much information as we cut and paste duplicate info into the articles on the two countries. The new format is very confusing and not legible. It now is a page for each country on foreign relations and you have to scroll though all the counties to find the one of interest.
• Support - nothing to be gained, and lots of wasted time and effort for all concerned, to proceed with AfD on articles that are in process of being merged anyway. Allow the merges to proceed in an orderly way, and consider speedy deletion or redirect on any remaining articles that have no content. Alternately, boldly turning the non-notable ones into redirects without going through AfD process is another quick way to solve the problem without tying people up in unnecessary process. Wikidemon (talk) 08:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose The AfD nominators should hold off for a little while as an informal courtesy (and to take some pressure off the AfD process), but I do oppose any indefinite suspension or delay of the AfDs. The very fact that wikipedia has no deadline means that we need something to motivate the people who want to preserve this information to move it somewhere more appropriate. As has been alluded to, these trivial facts are so trivial that there should be no copyright concerns with simply copy and pasting them somewhere temporary. Also, the new longer AfD period gives plenty of time for these actions to happen. Gigs (talk) 08:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Weak oppose The current campaign seeking to delete bilateral articles is flawed and does not seem to be based on any rationale other than prejudice and only acts to entrench systemic bias. You would hope that those nominating would of their own accord apply some common sense but the push to remove these articles is continuing unabated. That said, a blanket ban on AfDs is overkill and will only act to further inflame tensions. The solution to the problem is simple, those articles that meet the General notability guideline should be kept, the remainder should be deleted. Additional "tests" based on embasssies, google hits, resident populations etc. seem designed to provide a justification for the a priori decision to delete. If the AfDs run on the basis of following good old-fashioned WP:N there should not be a drama with them continuing. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 09:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the "tests" you've mentioned are simply ad hoc methods for determining notability, nothing more. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 09:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support with caveat give by Fram below ↓ - while many of these contain no information that is not present in the title, there is work in progress on creating some more useful articles on bilateral diplomatic relations, and the wholesale nomination of these articles is about as pointless (or (pointy, if you prefer) at this time as was the wholesale creation of them in the first place. Worst case - there are a few useless substubs hanging around for a month. pablo_hablo. 09:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC) amended - pablo_hablo. 10:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support The whole spirit of wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative one. This is how we've grown to date by being bold and expanding on existing stubs or making new ones. Now I'll admit that some of these bilateral relations the relationship betwene some countries is extremely slight so those should be redirected. However we need to come to a decision on what or what cannot be expanded, something which is going to be tough as even where information is available some people still think they are not notable. Whatever the case we need to sort something fast as this tirade of AFDs is getting as monotonous as the very articles that were created. If the person who started them had added something useful each time we wouldn't be in this mess. Same goes for some of the years in palaeontology we have, semeingly started for the sake of it with little or no content.Dr. Blofeld (talk)
• If the intended result is that no new AFD's are started until June 1st, then i have no problem with this proposal, as long as no new bilateral relations articles are created in the same period. If the purpose is to halt all existing AFD's, then I oppose this proposal. Fram (talk) 09:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Most of the worst cases have no information other than that readily available through use of Google, and so creation of the single country articles is not really disrupted by removal of them. Collect (talk) 10:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support You can hold off on the AFD for awhile. Delaying this won't hurt anyone, and give people more time to search for resources for them. All it usually takes is someone who speaks one of the languages, to search their nation's largest newspapers. Dream Focus 10:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support a freeze on nominations, but not on discussions in progress I don't mind putting a freeze on nominations of this type of article until June 1. What I do object to is someone trying to put a freeze after a nomination has been made and a discussion is underway. You can tell people not to start a new conversation, but once a conversation starts, please don't walk in the room and tell everyone to "shut up". Mandsford (talk) 12:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support, however under the same conditions as Mansford pointed out. PMK1 (talk) 13:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support such a freeze. An AfD is not a rush--things can be deleted later. A unified approach is best. Userfy anything in progress that is deleted. Is June 1 long enough? JJL (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge the information in these stubs as they come up at AfD. You have a week to do so following their appearing there, and since there generally isn't much in these articles it shouldn't take anyone longer than a few minutes per article to do so. Clean up the resulting article later. There is no reason AfDs should stop if an editor in good faith has issues with it. --BlueSquadronRaven 14:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - no pressing need to do so. We already have a policy against which to judge them: WP:N. If something new emerges in a few weeks, great, but for now we're covered. - Biruitorul ^Talk 14:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

  I have an idea, after you, BlueSquadronRaven, Bali ultimate, and Libstar put these articles up for deletion, on day 6 or so, you simply copy and paste the page to a temporary, that way an admin does not have to get involved in userfying the articles you nominate. Ikip (talk) 14:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

  If you recall, I did try merging some of these articles into other places before as the articles came up on AfD. [13] [14][15] [16] [17] [18] For my valiant efforts at preserving information, I picked up a raving loonie sockpuppeting wikistalker. You, on the other hand, got not one, but two barnstars for it. [19] [20] Forget it. I'm not touching these bloody things again. It's all yours. --BlueSquadronRaven 15:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

  We all said and did things we regret, myself included. I apologize Blue. I respect your edits. honestly two weeks ago I would have opposed those merges too.

  But what edwin said when he was voting to delete these articles really struck me, and merging these pages made me realize how little information there is on these pages.

  This is a middle ground, which satisfies no one completely, I am concerned that none of these articles will ever be developed more, you have your own concerns.

  Maybe I should spend my time merging these articles, and then going back and getting all the information later. Of course, editors can nominate a redirect for deletion, but if they do, they would look pretty bad. After all, this is what we are talking about now, we are having afds over redirects. FYI, I just gave you a Barnstar I suggest other editors do to for Blue's efforts. Ikip (talk) 15:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

  Two weeks ago I'd have said thank you for the barnstar. Keep your damn sympathy to yourself. --BlueSquadronRaven 15:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

  Please do not copy and paste articles from anywhere to anywhere else; it will break the history and fail GFDL. As I said, I will be more than happy to userfy any of these articles upon reasonable request. Stifle (talk) 08:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

There are enough changes being made to the material that it is reasonable to consider it a new contribution. In any case, I'm not going to stand in the way of someone working to end this bloody mess, and neither should you. WP:IAR. --BlueSquadronRaven 14:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:N is a good policy to use here. Since most of these are unsourced stubs (which means no sourced content to merge) nothing is being lost. If there's some ongoing effort to create great big lists/tables/whatever for every country in the world to warehouse skelatal information on their bilateral treaties and embassy locations (or frequently, the absence of embassy locations) these Afd's aren't stopping that (though i suggest a link to the Foreign Ministry web pages in each of the "Foreign Relations of X" articles sufficiently covers the needs of any reader who is wondering how many tax deconflicting treaties Nauru has with Mongoloia).Bali ultimate (talk) 14:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, there is material which is being lost. Most of these articles have four things in one location: embassy of country y, embassy of country x, date relations were established, and links. Some of the articles have much more information.

The Afds are hindering the collection of information from these articles, which itself is a huge task, since we now have an extra step, of getting admins invovled in userfying. Since all of these articles except the most detailed will be merged, as was stated above, we are arguing actually arguing about redirects. We are just asking for 2 weeks. Ikip (talk) 14:54, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - I agree with User:BlueSquadronRaven. Userfy them or merge them as they come up. The small amount of information in most of them is maybe worth keeping in list-type articles for the countries involved, but the stubs are mostly not worth keeping. But recommend redirect to one of the list-type articles rather than delete. I assume that the great work that user:Ikip is doing will result in most of the stubs ending up as redirects into list-type articles anyway, and it would be a bit easier if they were not nominated for AfD. But I don't see a reason for special treatment of this class of article. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support per argument by DGG below. We should be working towards improving the encyclopedia through discussion, agreement, maybe compromise. Sometimes accept a decision we do not personally agree with as being the decision of the group. It seems that there is an emerging consensus that most of these stubs should be merged into larger list-type articles. Given that, further AfD nominations are not reasonable, at least until the editors working on the lists have had a chance to get through the job. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

maybe these editors can focus on adding merge tags instead of deletion tags? Ikip (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support There are two ways to approach Wikipedia I. as a game II. as a serious project. If it's a game, inconsistency and ambiguity and confusion and erratic decisions are all part of the fun. If it's a encyclopedia, then some degree of consistency and reliability matter, like things should be dealt with in similar ways, and a clear set of guidelines make it easier for everyone. If it is a not a game , then the reason for delaying is not to get more improper articles deleted and more content lost because the improper ones would be deleted just the same after another two weeks, just to save the savable. It's not a question of inclusion or not, it's a question of trying to delete without adequate consideration of alternatives. I thought most deletionists-minded people here were rational deletionists, and only wanted to delete rationally, after consideration of alternatives. I would not like to find out i was wrong, because it would imply that they cannot be countered by compromise , but only conflict. DGG (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support the freeze; while I believe the person/people who went about creating these articles for the sake of creating articles should not have done so, neither was it right to automatically nominate every one of those articles for deletion. What about tagging all the articles in question with {{underconstruction}}, perhaps with an additional note along the lines of "A project is underway to establish notabilty of all bilateral relations pages, please do not nominate for deletion before June 1 while this is completed. After this date any non-notable pages will be merged or deletion will be requested." --Susan118 (talk) 15:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

there are over 1,400 articles with the words "relations" and the country name up to Japan alone. The only way to tag all of them would be a bot. Maybe merge all of them temporarily with a bot? I have a list up to Japan, User:Ikip/test67 and will have the rest done by today. User:Ikip/test68 This is a list that the bot could use. Maybe add a redirect tag to all of them into one temporary master article? Also, some of these articles are notable enough to be stand alone articles, but we could go through these and determine which later, reverting the merges.

redirecting all of these pages is a little harder because it adds an extra step, reverting the edit before the merge to find the relevant needed information, but much easier than asking an admin to userfy deleted pages. Ikip (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support Per DGG and there is no deadline. The work involved in what ikip is doing is immense and I feel a bit guilty for not lending a hand, lets not add to the stress and allow ikip a bit of breathing room to finish without too much hoop jumping involved. Unomi (talk) 15:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I did not realize until Ikip's response right above, that there were THAT many articles. I wouldn't ask anyone to tag over 1400 plus articles. I was thinking it was a couple of hundred and we could split it up among a few people. It's not hurting anything to leave the articles in place. I wish though, that there was some way to ensure this doesn't happen again, I think people are creating massive amounts of articles just so they can say they did, not because they are necessarily useful/notable, and there needs to be a way of discouraging that. I'm hoping that if something is worked out to keep these for now, that it doesn't set a precedent. (I am still supporting the keeping of these while it gets sorted out, though). --Susan118 (talk) 17:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
    • The sensible thing to do would be to immediately delete all unsourced articles (on whatever topic), and have very strong cxplanations at new article creation that any unsourced articles will be summarily deleted. Unsourced means unreliable and unverified. I remember asking one of the serial stub creators why they were creating so many useless stubs instead of writing actual articles on some of the bilateral relationsihps that might be notable (i even wrote one myself, Australia-East Timor relations, which in the state i left it should be the minimum expectation for new articles.) The answer? Finding sources and writing real articles was too hard/took too much time. So that's the obvious answer to me. But would wikipedia in its current form adopt it? Of course not. People like unsourced garbage here, never mind that it lowers the reliability and reputation of the whole project.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
      • If finding sources and writing real articles takes too much time, maybe they should concentrate on writing one good article at a time, rather than rushing to create articles so they can have more to add to their "Articles I created" list.

Maybe I'm getting away from the subject a bit, but there seems to be an inconsistency in policy and opinion regarding article editing vs. article creation. (I will admit I may be wrong about this, while my account dates back a couple of years I have really only been actively editing for a few months, and am still learning all the myriad policies, guidelines, etc.) But generally, unsourced content or trivial information will be deleted from an article (or tagged), leaving the burden of proof of the information to the editor who wishes to add it, and they need to come up with a source and cite it. However, when the article itself comes into question, it seems the author is considered to be in the right until others prove it is not notable. (Even in the case of apparent hoax articles with no sources--which I realize this is not but am just making a point, those who oppose deletion are expected to "prove" it is a hoax, rather than putting it on the author to prove it isn't). This doesn't seem very consistent. --Susan118 (talk) 20:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support While I think that these articles are useless and admire and support those who have been willing to wade into the stable to clean it out, I also believe that it would be rude to continue deleting them when asked not to if someone is actively using them to create useful articles for the encyclopedia and believe that a temporary voluntary short-term moratorium for a few weeks is the right thing to do. And yes, the redundancy is intentional, these shouldn't linger. There is already an attempt being made to declare ambassadors politicians and inherently notable as having reached the highest possible office in their field instead of judging their notability as diplomats on a case-by-case basis so this sort of wholesale article creation based on all the members of a category without consideration of individual merit could set a dangerous precedent. Drawn Some (talk) 15:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support As Drawn Some pointed out above, we can't continue to run through these articles while we're actively using them for their information. On the other hand there are too many of these articles to reasonably rely on for information. We could sort them by country, i.e Foreign Relations of Japan, Foreign relations of the United Kingdom, etc. If we split up to focus on individual countries and their relations to others we could do it, but it's a daunting task nonetheless. a little insignificant 17:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose the freeze. My view remains that there is no reason why we could not continue to AfD these articles.

  Since there is a Wikiproject working on them, all of the bilateral relations articles Plumoyr created should be userfied to a sub-page of the Bilateral Relations WikiProject, in order to prevent any deletions from disrupting their work. This should happen now.

  I feel strongly that we should not set a precedent for freezing AfD's in cases like this, because that creates a system it would be easy for an unscrupulous editor to game.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 18:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Ugh. Oppose This isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I'm still flummoxed why we need to retain tens of thousands of directory-like articles to merge some history into large articles claiming "XY country has relations w/ YX country". I appreciate the work going on here and I understand that AfD outcomes are piecemeal--as the list linked above shows, essentially identical articles have different outcomes based on who participates in the debate. However I'm not interested in establishing some negotiated ban on AfDs. I'm actually made less interested in doing so thanks to DGG's lecture above. I don't need that. If you want to wring your hands and note out loud how this is the litmus tests as to whether or not "deletionists" are rational or are just here to play a fucking game, do so someplace else. It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Ikip, if you want any of the deleted material moved to your userspace or a project subpage, you can post a message on my talk page with the page title and I will do so. As for the rest of you, the best answer is to find the people still nominating these, let them know that there is some community consensus to slow or stop these AfDs and that you would prefer they join the discussion. Protonk (talk) 18:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

do you think it is good or not good that "essentially identical articles have different outcomes based on who participates in the debate"? DGG (talk) 18:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is an unavoidable consequence of the system we use. It is also one of the primary reasons that the system is susceptible to canvassing (Even minor, well intended canvassing) and one of the reasons why it is foolish to hew to some absolute philosophy about article deletion. To paraphrase WP:OSE, consistency is not a virtue of the wiki model. If I feel that all of these articles should be deleted (stemming from some logical deductions from first principles), then I should propose a localized discussion here to delete all of them. We clearly reject group AfDs as unfairly generalized, so I suspect we would reject a "class" AfD, though it would give the most consistent outcome. Protonk (talk) 18:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

that some of it is unavoidable does not mean we should not try to improve it as we can. The typical group nom of these has mixed in articles of very different likelihood of notability, showing a failure to use WP:BEFORE, If one did do a proper search, and then nominated some of similarly sized and situated countries for which as search had shown nothing beyond what is in an inadequate article, and show the searches, I think such group noms would have no objection--certainly not from me. But grouping without searching means one cannot know whether or not they are similar--it's nominating blindly. We could do a group decision in several ways: one could propose a change in WP:N, or a supplement to WP:N for such articles, or a motion at the VP, or an RfC or a general discussion located by IAR anywhere. The problem we have here is unprecedented because of numbers making the 5 a day approach even worse than usual. DGG (talk) 22:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we are seeing eye to eye here. If I wanted to discuss the advisability of group nominations or your feelings on them, I would have said so. You asked about consistency and whether or not I felt a lack of consistency was a good thing. I responded by noting that a group nom would be more "consistent" than a piecemeal nom and that a general stay against AfD's for these articles would be the most consistent. That consistency is sometimes a good thing by itself, but it isn't the only consideration. We aren't doing many group noms, so the issues plaguing them (which you noted above) are moot. This proposal would seek to stop both group noms and individual nominations. I don't think that it is advisable to go down that road without including the people on the other side of the table. 22:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The consistency issue DGG is bringing up is a general consistency issue not limited to group noms. I'm sure anyone who has done a few AfDs has noticed this. If an AfD on a terrible but fixable article somehow quickly attracts a dozen deletionists, it will be deleted. If an article of similarly poor quality instead attracts, say, the rescue squad, and they fix it up, it will be kept. This isn't how the system is supposed to work, I know, but it is what is going on. Things are inconsistent. -moritheil^Talk 13:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree it's a general problem (& my partial solution for it is objective numerical guidelines when possible instead of most of WP:N--not that it would help us with this set of articles.) I admit I do not know how to solve the problem within our basic structure for deciding things, which I am not willing to even suggest abandoning in favor of such methods as using boards of experts. But we can at least try to diminish the factors that give the worst inconsistency. Group noms unless very strictly controlled are one of them. They can work if there's prior searching. I would certainly hate to cope with this number of articles without it. That's the reason to stop: we have no practical way of considering the deletion of this many articles. I agree with removing most of them, but we need some way to tell which. I can even see making an arbitrary separation on one factor or another, and userifying or merging everything below it. DGG (talk) 22:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support the freeze, but also strongly advise authors of these articles to write first drafts that are easier to judge. I don't think it'll take all that long for an enforceable standard of what should and should not be included. I think some editors are seeing small articles of this type pop up and instantly thinking them to be non-notable. Australia-Uruguay relations, as an example, was AFD'd when it looked like this, while it's now at a state I would even say stub-class is unsuitable. I think many articles of notable relationships have been deleted and will continue to be deleted without a freeze. Will the world end in the few weeks it takes for an enforceable guideline to be hammered out? I don't think so. And when it is, and some yahoo decides to write Libya-Uzbekistan relations, we'll have something nice and concrete to point to as to why it shouldn't exist. Nosleep ^{break my slumber} 20:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

However, if there is no freeze, I would support userification so articles on possibly notable relationships aren't lost. Nosleep ^{break my slumber} 20:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support - Its not that I don't trust users who put these up for deletion, but in order to acheive a long term solution we can't all be working on these AFD's every second. We should instead be helping Ikip and others seek long term solutions. -Marcusmax(speak) 22:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support proposal, as an admin who has closed dozens/hundreds of these. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support As Dr._Blofeld said above, "The whole spirit of wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative one." I have seen many AfDs by people unaware of the ongoing effort, and then once the AfD is started the entire thing turns into an acrimonious struggle between deletionists and inclusionists, with boilerplate arguments being tossed back and forth. -moritheil^Talk 13:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support as per moritheil--Moloch09 (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Protonk. We have admins who can userfy articles for a reason. No need to suspend AfDs because of this quibble. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 19:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support. There is no need to rush things. Both the AFDs and the userfication are wastes of time, and discourage the people trying to save this content. — Jake Wartenberg 20:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• Three thousand one hundred and ninteen relations articles. (give or take about 200) thus far there have been 283 AFDs over these articles, which spanned about one month. Thats only 9% of the articles which have been put up for AfD, are these editors who want to continue these AfDs seriously considering continuing these AFDs for the next year? There has to be a better solution. A comprimise. The current status quo is ridiculous. Ikip (talk) 21:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, we tried CSD and PRODding them, but the zealots among us rallied to the battlecry of "They're all notable!!!!!" and left us no choice but to AfD them one by one. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I've seen above a number of possibilities, including trying to improve them, on the knowledge that at least 1/3 of those worked on have proven rescuable. DGG (talk) 22:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

And how many of those who contested a PROD subsequently improved the article? The inclusionists among us made a point of yelling how nominators to AfD should make an effort to see if a topic is notable first, yet the reverse doesn't seem to be a priority. --BlueSquadronRaven 23:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you actually saying that prodding the articles is a comprimise? Where is the comprimise in that? Ikip (talk) 23:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm saying that, just as there were those who said an AfD nominator should have made the attempt to find sources, you should not contest a PROD if you have no intention of adding to the article in short order or have nothing to add to the discussion of it other than a variation on the phrase "It's notable!" --BlueSquadronRaven 23:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

One bone to pick with this. Any editor can contest a prod for any reason. An uncontested prod means quite literally that no one cares enough about an article to even remove a template. Protonk (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• oppose. I agree that a stop on the AfDs would be good, there's clearly a significant interest in Fixing the content into mroe reasonable formats. However, creating a protocol for this would be an open invitation to make sure no article you like ever goes through AfD. Stifle's generous offer should fix concerns informally, without establishing a time bomb precedent for other situations, and I wish the hard-working editors who are doing this titanic conversion the best of luck, and they have my respect. I would suggest however, that consensus be formed here that for future AfDs opened, this conversation be pointed to as proof that those articles are part of a larger situation, and perhaps need to be closed as being Nom'd in bad faith? ThuranX (talk) 22:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a huge slippery slope argument, "no article would ever go through AfD"? The AFD process is alive and well. Both Stifle and Fritz have offered to userfy these articles, which is wonderful. Ikip (talk) 23:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I count 21 support, 14 oppose. 60%, only Jimbo can claim consensus with this number. Yesterday, Saturday the 16th,there were no AfD nominations of these articles, the first time in a month, two months?

Anyone interested in helping, here is the long list. Thanks for all of your opinions and efforts Ikip (talk) 03:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

While we're at it does anyone want to explain what is going on to User:Turkish Flame before he creates a host more redirects we'll have to go back and kill while he moves around all his obsessive-compulsive relations articles to other names? Someone should seriously check if he's a sock if this is the kind of editing he's doing. --BlueSquadronRaven 17:29, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"Happy No Consensus Day!"

Just to clarify things: When I just closed every backlogged May 12th AfD as a no consensus and then started saying "Happy No Consensus Day!" around the sixth one, this was not a POINTy attempt on my part to close everything as a no consensus; I legitimately saw a lack of consensus in each and every one of them, and made a sarcastic comment based on it. One two three... 16:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Untitled Egyptian Mythology Series Deletion

This article really needs to be deleted. It is truly pure speculation and has no references backing it up. I'm requesting that someone speedy delete this. Thanks.--(NGG) 02:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Related question

This article refers to a possible (though as yet untitled) upcoming TV series - I know films that have not started principal photography can be speedied, is there anything similar for a TV series? pablo_hablo. 15:19, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know films could be speedied -- which part of WP:SPEEDY does that fall under? I had thought films that fail WP:NFF had to go prod or AfD, and that a NN tv series would be the same. Thanks! --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, ignore me, it was a hasty post. pablo_hablo. 21:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

iPhone OS Apps

Let me first say that this may not be the best place for this discussion but I can't think of a better place for it. If you know of a better place, please let me know.

I recently ran into an article about an iPhone game that had an assertion of notability but nothing to back it up the assertion. I searched for news coverage on my own but found none. I checked the category that the article was in (Category:iPhone OS games) and found that a huge number of the articles in that category also have no assertion of notability or no reliable and independent sources to back up the claim. Rather than go through and start some sort of large scale purge of iPhone apps, is there a good way to discuss this problem before any action is taken? There's an iPhone OS Wikiproject but there's only 4 members and no discussion has ever taken place there (I'd like to get more of a consensus before making any moves). Your input would be greatly appreciated. OlYeller^Talktome 02:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Log Entry Problem

I put a raft of articles up for deletion (minor parties in the UK which I think merit either deletion or merging into a common article), but none of the articles appeared in the list of articles up for deletion. What am I doing wrong, as the entry in the list of articles is there when I look at the "edit this page" section in the AfD log for today? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrenon (talk • contribs) 09:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• You didn't follow the instructions as listed on the deletion template. You posted the nominations inside another nomination rather than on today's logs and you didn't follow the standard formatting by using the preloading link in the template. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Ok, I think I've got using the template down. The joys of figuring things out for the first time...Tyrenon (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to get new AFDs as an RSS feed?

Is there any way to subscribe to the AFD list as an RSS feed? Would make it much easier to keep up with the volume of new AFD debates. No luck with the generated AFD "today" page nor the "categorized" pages. Those seem to work by template, and new debates get transcluded without appearing in the revision history. I know this is an odd place to ask, but havent had luck with WP:HELPDESK or WP:EIW#Monitor Squidfryerchef (talk) 12:52, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe there is anything, and if there is it's not gonna' be on these servers. Something could probably be whipped up on the toolserver (and might have been already). You could ask over at WP:VPT or possibly ask at meta. Cheers, man. lifebaka++ 18:33, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Or you get yourself an RSS reader that understands variables and then add something like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/<CURRENTYEAR>_<CURRENTMONTH>_<CURRENTDAY>&feed=rss&action=history. Or, another approach would be (if you have some webspace anywhere with PHP) to just write a simple PHP script that creates this link every day and redirects itself to it and you can simply subscribe to that script's URL instead (should be quite easy to do). Regards SoWhy 18:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Saint Titan

This is a genuine Artist and this is my first article. It should not be deleted because this is a genuine person and he deserves a Wikipedia page. I need help to stop this article from deletion and too format it correctly. Please Help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.151.90 (talk) 14:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that this appears to be the bio of a living person. Living persons can sue Wikipedia if Wikipedia libels thme in any way. To avoid this, absolutely every statement on Wikipedia about a living person must be supported by at least 1 citation from a reliable source - there no exceptions to this rule, see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. To protect itself from lawsuits, Wikipedia deletes content about living person as fast as possible if it is not supported by citations. The sad truth is that bios of living persons are not suitable subjects for inexperienced editors - you just have to learn too much about how to avoid trouble.

The best thing for you to do is save the content on your hard drive quickly. Then, when you know the rules and techniques, you can start on such topics. In the meantime, try other types of subjects that are safer - workingon these will help you to learn the rules and techniques. --Philcha (talk) 15:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Fledgling Jason Steed

I recreated this page yesterday, with new information about a book deal+agent deal+award, but it was deleted without explanation. No discussion, no AFD, nothing. It can be seen here: [21] I tried to have a discussion with the admin who deleted it, but he just seemed to mock the agent who had signed up the book.[22] What can I do?--Beehold (talk) 23:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Without knowing the history - it looks to me that article should have been at least AFD'd it rather than deleted it outright. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I am requesting some assistance --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete this

“Articles sometimes want to attract more attention from and participation by informed editors. All such efforts must comply with Wikipedia's guideline against biased canvassing.” This is an obvious attempt at self-promotion since previous edits have been revised by the creator and the reference and website is of no encyclopedic value. The "expertise" is self-proclaimed. This creation violates Wikipedia policy. Delete it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.202.195.39 (talk) 20:18, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete what? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I think anyone who proclaims a person with no education in a field and no research history an "expert" should be expunged from Wikipedia, especially when a link is created to a commercial website. This is an affront to Wikipedia and its stated purpose. If you are a novice to Wiki rules, please read them regarding these policies and redirect your opinions to a blog more appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.202.195.39 (talk) 20:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand. Who or what are you referring to? Is this part of a Wikipedia guideline that you want us to edit and remove? just a little insignificant 20:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The quote is a line from the AfD instructions, just a little a little insignificant, but the rest seems to be about an unnamed article. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:50, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Which article are you referring to. You haven't named it. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'm going to guess it's Stephen Few, which is now listed at AfD. No action needed here, I think, the article will go through the deletion process in the usual way. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Header/footer

I remember seeing in other kinds of discussions a collapsible header/footer. It is very convenient for seeing unclosed discussions. Can someone introduce them for AfD ? For example, I wanted to vote in some old discussions sitting unclosed, but it is very difficult to find them while scrolling even with different color. Mukadderat (talk) 05:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles that have been nominated before

The instructions say to use {{subst:afdx}}, but in my limited experience this rarely produces the correct page. I've just nominated one that had two previous noms, but subst:afdx created a page saying this was the second nom, so I had to do it manually -- which I daresay means some bot will miss it. It's not the first time this has happened. Could someone who knows about these things fix it for the future? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

And, indeed, it's not appearing in the log. Can some kind person check that I've done this properly? It's Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nicholas_Beale_(3rd_nomination). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I assume I managed to get it right, as people are commenting. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I went there from here. I'll check the log and make sure it's in there though. I use Wikipedia:Twinkle which makes basically does the whole XfD process for you in a few clicks. I think I'd lose my mind if I didn't have Twinkle. You can turn it on under My Preferences/Gadgets. OlYeller^Talktome 07:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Just checked, it's in the log for today (the 4th). OlYeller^Talktome 07:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Would you speedy this?

I'm in a quandry on this article. A group of IP editors are using this as their personal study guide. Sadly, I really can't see a criterion under which I can speedily delete this, which gives them 6 more days to keep adding material, then another 7 when they remove the prod and I send it to AfD. Would you IAR (which is vastly overused), move it back to userspace (which is not a valid use), or let the prod run?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You could always remove your own prod and nominate for AfD, cut things down by a week or so. pablo_hablo. 21:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

If it is a blatantly inappropriate page and not a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia then CSD#G3 might be used, i.e. it is little better than vandalism. Only in my opinion, of course. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

IAR is misapplied often. That fact doesn't impact on proper application. I don't IAR much but do when it patently applies and feel no hesitation when that is the case. This is one of those times.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:11, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the assist and sanity check. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Anytime. I know there are many people who have a knee jerk: IAR = bad (mmm-kay) position. I have yet to see any argument that provides any good reason against or harm in IARing "flargynarks is a great word I made up today and it means..." and other blatant candidates, other than that some people are incapable of discrimination and one use leads to more use. I think that's a load.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I tend to call pages like flargynarks test pages, as in "I'm testing to see if I can get away with making a page about a total load of crap." ;-) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You must use G2 a lot then...;-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable deletion under WP:WEBHOST. Stifle (talk) 10:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It's gone now but did anybody consider userfying it? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 11:22, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

That was one of the options I listed, but since there was no possibility it would ever lead to an encyclopedic article, it would have violated WP:UP#NOT #8. However, if one of the editors wants it emailed to them, I wouldn't have a problem with that. They just need to find another web host, such as PBWiki.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 13:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

What you said makes sense but I was thinking of this AFD where the consensus was to userfy an article so we don't chase a potential good editor away by deleting her homework. It was mentioned that the article was being used as a "study guide". Of course if this was done then the creator should be encouraged to move it to a more appropriate wiki. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Only took a quick skim of that one, but it seems like that has a bit more article potential, even if the creator hasn't edited since. (Might be a MFD candidate now.) The above article was literally a study guide, with entries such as:

Hemingway

1)Iceberg theory of writing

a)Reveal only a little of the character

b)Allow reader to fill in the rest (shows author's TRUST in the reader)

2)Best author for 40 years

and "Sarah Jewett (i remeber her saying she is NOT ON THE EXAM!!)". Honestly, no encyclopedic potential. (Although if the authors had spent as much time adding to the existing articles for those authors, they probably would have learned the subjects well enough to not need the study guide. *grin*).--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Move during AfD discussion

I have been involved in a few AfD discussions where an editor has moved the article while the discussion is going on, usually, but not always, in good faith. This usually causes all sorts of problems for the nomination, in my experience: the page originally nominated is suddenly a redirect, watchlists are all messed up, it confuses those participating in the discussion, etc., etc., a problem compounded if some other editor moves the article back. I was going to add a sentence to the wikiettiquette section suggesting editors avoid making a move during AfD, but first wanted to get broader comment and/or check whether this issue had come up before. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_53#Moving_articles_during_a_live_discussion is the most recent discussion I remember.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

ARS box

What's up with the ARS tag? Why is it appearing rather large in the middle of AfD discussions? The fact that an article has been improved is relevant for an AfD: the fact that someone has tagged it for rescue is utterly irrelevant for the AfD discussion. See for an example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luxembourg–Ukraine relations, where the ARS box is quite prominent, but nothing has been done to the article. If (and that's a big if) it has to be indicated that the ARS has been notified, I see no reason whythey can't use the same system as wikiproject or delsort notifications: a small text unobtrusive line that indicates whichgroups have been notified, without giving the impression that this or that AfD is special and being rescued, even if it isn't. Fram (talk) 15:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been hanging out at AfD much lately (too many other projects taking my time), but it seems to be just a small group of editors. Unfortunately, the few I've talked to seem to feel that every article should be tagged, whether there's much hope or not. :( --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The box is fairly large, and if it's showing up a lot I can see it being annoying. I'd suggest using a simple text note instead. You might want to mention as much to the editors using the box. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. IMHO this box appeared when ARS suddenly had about 100+ more tagged items than usual and the template seems to serve to shame the tagger into doing something. I think it should go, AfD is for discussion not templating one's decrees. Two wrongs don't make a right even if you feel someone is mass rescue tagging AfDs. -- Banjeboi 18:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

TfD for template being used within AfD discussions

First off, please do not confuse {{rescued}} as a project inspired template. Also it is different from the ARS box message in the thread above. I believe the creator meant well but it was not endorsed or discussed for approval just boldly created and used, it was placed in one or more AfDs but has since apparently been removed. The template in question is being discussed at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Rescued. -- Banjeboi 21:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability question

I am looking at an orphaned article, John Roland Burke, as something to clean up. But I'm wondering, before I clean it up, whether or not it meets notabiltiy. WP:BIO says that The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them. Corporal Burke was a sniper who received the Navy Cross. Well, I mean no disrespect to the late Corporal nor to the Navy Cross, but how many persons have received this award? Are they all notable? I really don't know, but this website indicates that over a dozen corpsmen (medical personnel, right?) have received the Navy Cross in Iraq since 2003. From this I would extrapolate that hundreds, if not thousands, may have this award. So are they all notable? How do I determine this? I don't want to start an AfD and then have people chide me for not knowing the notability standards, and frankly, I think as written they're kinda vague. (Though I don't see how you could cover every situation.) Can anyone offer me some guidance? Unschool 01:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The Navy Cross is a relatively prestigious medal, but I have a hard time with the idea that every military member with a medal should also have an article. As you say, the quantities are pretty high.—Kww(talk) 02:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the citation for his award[23] (which is quoted in the article). It would seem to be a gallantry award rather than a service one. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I see that, Malcolm, but again, I'm trying to learn about notability. Does the existence of that link demonstrate notability? I honestly don't know. So often in AfD I see people's opinions about notability (regardin, most often, musicians, I must say) getting trashed by those who are point and letter of specific notability standards. In this case, I don't know how to ascertain what constitutes notabilty. Unschool 04:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this essay at the military history wikiproject pages will help. It suggests that recipients of a country's highest military decoration will almost always have sufficient coverage to meet the primary notability criterion. The Navy Cross is not the highest, it is the second highest medal for valor, so I think you should fall back here on the primary notability criterion, i.e. has he received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I see that Burke gets a chapter, 'The Valor of Corporal John R. Burke', in 'Silent Warrior' by Charles Henderson[24] and a mention in 'Valley of Decision' by John Prados & Ray W. Stubbe[25] but I don't see any other suitable sources (though I recognise that some may pre-date the internet). For me, it is marginal whether Burke meets the inclusion criterion for an article in the encyclopedia. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 05:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Malcolm! That is exactly the type of guidance I was looking for. Man, it seems like it's just about impossible for anyone to know where to look for all this stuff. I will review this some more and try to come to a personal conclusion after I get some sleep, but my inclination would be to keep, if I too conclude that this is borderline. Thanks again. Unschool 06:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a Template

Anyone know the name of the template that's often used in AfDs when an interested party canvasses on a non-wiki website? An AfD I'm involved in has had two counts of canvassing by the subject of the article and I'd like to remind people who come to the AfD discussion with the intent to vote that it's a discussion and not a vote. OlYeller^Talktome 04:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean Template:Not_a_ballot? ~ Amory (talk) 04:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That's the one. Thank you very much. OlYeller^Talktome 04:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Kind of a bug report

Twinkle's always been reliable before, but for some reason it failed to transclude Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greater Hartford Quilt Guild Quilt Show. Anyone know why? - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

No clue. You might want to ask over at WT:TWINKLE or file a bug report there. I added the AfD to today's log. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Every once in a great while this happens to me. I figure that's Twinkle's way of suggesting I take a break and do something else for a while. ;-) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Creator notification

I've just noticed that User:LibStar who has nominated a plethora of International Relations articles for deletion recently, has not been notifying the creators and significant contributors of those deletions. When I raised the point on his talk page, informing him[26] that it's considered WP:CIVIL to inform the creators, under the guide to deletion at guide to deletion, ("It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion") he requested that I bring this discussion here[27] and told me not to post on his talk page anymore. (We also had an ongoing discussion about whether his repeated use of the notability tag on these same pages should obligate him to explain his reasons for using the tag on the article's talk page.) It seemed clear to me that he doesn't want to take the time to tell people he's trying to have the article they created deleted. However, this issue also raised a question of good faith to me that a willful refusal to nominate the creator could be intended to skew the results of the Afd. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In 99% of cases, the creator is either an editor who has been inactive for some time, or his blocked sockpuppet. Also, in very rare cases have any of the articles he's nominated been significantly improved since their creation. Indeed, that doesn't usually happen UNTIL it ends up at AfD. --BlueSquadronRaven 17:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

If they care, the page is watchlisted. I really can't be arsed going out of my way for people who create "articles" with nary a source in them. That's the highly disrespectful and damaging thing. There should be a requirment of two reliable, independent sources as a minimum for article creation, otherwise speedy delete. I know that will never happen, however.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It is common courtesy to notify article creators and takes but seconds. While I agree that people should create articles with sources, not everyone understands such things when they first start out as Wikipedians and as such we should extend the courtesy of educating new editors by informing them of AfDs in which they can learn how and what to source. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The two above arguments are pretty much why it isn't required to notify the creator or significant editors. But you are correct that it is still considered the nice thing to do. If you're concerned about a pattern of not discussing taggings and such, WP:RFC/U might be the right direction to go. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Erwin85Bot 8 is currently in trial. Flatscan (talk) 04:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It's requested, but not required, that you notify creators of articles, and it's a built-in function of most decent user scripts. I think that's a reasonable position. Stifle (talk) 10:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Exactly....requested, not required. I, for one, am glad Libstar is doing all this work in trying to clean out so many of these articles. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Today is not 10 June

Just fyi. 76.14.34.115 (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Nvm, it fixed itself. 76.14.34.115 (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Athlete notability

What is the wiki standard for minor league players? WP:ATHLETE says "at the fully professional level of a sport". But many minor league players have side jobs to support themselves. The article that made me notice this is Chris Cates, also see the template of red links at the bottom. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Minor league players fail WP:ATHLETE but they may be notable for other reasons. In one of my rare AFD nominations it was suggested that being a first round draft pick means you're notable but I would think that that means that there is a lot of press around first round draft picks so such subjects would have non-trivial mentions in regional to national newspapers. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That means there's a plethora of minor league athlete articles to nom. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Whether minor league baseball players are fully professional has been much debated, with no real consensus acheived. On one hand, many of them do have off-season jobs to make ends meet. On the other hand, so did many major league players, such as Yogi Berra, in the days before free agency. Yes, the salaries are low, but they also get meal money and free room and board with a host family. But then, the guy working at McDonald's and living in his parent's basement also gets free room and board.

Ultimately, the problem is that "fully professional" is too vague for baseball. Does it mean you get paid $1? Minimum wage for the 4 months you're working in short season ball? The same as minimum wage year around? Enough to rent an apartment and live on your own? Enough to have a family? Each of these views has plenty of supporters, and even a few who say that no minor leaguer is notable, even if he has enough sources to pass WP:GNG (thankfully, that's a minority view.) There have recently been quite a few minor leaguer articles at AfD (thanks to a prolific editor who made over 200 of these in a couple of weeks, with next to no sourcing), and the various closing admins have usually just gone with whether the article could pass WP:GNG, and ignored the "fully professional" issue.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:40, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, FWIW, I did a quick bit of searching for sources to pass GNG on Chris Cates and am coming up far short. He's only in Single-A right now (most baseball editors would not call that fully professional), so the best thing he's got going for him are the all-star appearances (again, most editors don't put much stock in single-A all star appearances). I doubt this one would pass an AfD.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think the debate over whether Minor League Baseball is fully professional or not (it is) is a waste of resources. The real question is whether a minor league baseball player is notable. WP:ATHLETE only reflects consensus, it does not define notability. If many low minor leaguers are deleted, then the guideline should be changed accordingly. Resolute 02:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Request to list Verdurian language for deletion

Someone (u t c m l ) re-created this twice-deleted conlang article for the second time. I prodded it, which was promptly contested by the creator. Can someone with an account please AfD this article, as I am unable to create the debate page. Thanks. 98.232.96.150 (talk) 04:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Correction: it was only deleted once. The first debate resulted in a keep. My mistake. 98.232.96.150 (talk) 04:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

3rd nomination

I am having difficulty making a third nomination for the article Greenfinger I tried afd3 and afdx but either the tag doesn't work of directs to the second nomination. What am I doing wrong?Polargeo (talk) 14:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you making sure to specify that it's the 3rd afd, ie with {{subst:afdx|3rd}} ? Shereth 14:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Can someone please put this advice on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion because it is not there at the moment. Polargeo (talk) 15:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Artez Interactive

This AfD doesn't appear to have done right. Please fix. Thank you. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Essay: WP:AfD and mergers

WP:AfD and mergers attempts to describe the interaction/intersection between AfD and the merge process. I wrote it a couple of months ago, but I held off on linking it due to the AfDiscussion RfC that was dominating this page then.

Comments and edits requested. In particular, I'm sure that I've unintentionally misrepresented someone's viewpoint in the Proposed modifications section. Flatscan (talk) 04:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

My opinion: Something like this should probably state clearly that a merge recommendation is effectively a keep recommendation, and should address, at least in passing, recommendations of redirect or more explicitly redirect and don't merge which I also see often enough. The one mention of redirect isn't enough; they often go together, but not always, and if you're only speaking about cases where merging is an explicit part of the recommendation, that should be clarified. Also, for a result of merge the closure could be by a non-admin. JJL (talk) 13:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. There should be a link to WP:Guide to deletion#Recommendations and outcomes, maybe as a {{see also}}. There is some disagreement on straight keep versus its variants (e.g. if comments are unanimously keep variants, but there is a developing consensus to merge or redirect, should the AfD be closed early as keep?) that should probably get a section. Redirects are much simpler and can probably be mentioned in passing. Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Multiple relistings

There are several AfDs that end up being relisted multiple times due to a lack of input from other editors. In many cases, I suspect that this lack of interest could be considered equivalent to an expired prod. So why don't we treat these articles this way? If an article has been to AfD, and relisted, with little or no input, and no keep arguments, that it be deleted under the same rules for an expired PROD: restored if at any point someone requests it? It would help reduce or prevent cases like this, where an article would spend 21 days or more at AfD.

Perhaps, a little more extreme, AfDs that receive no attention after their one week should not be relisted at all, but deleted as the equivalent of an expired prod. Thoughts? Resolute 02:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

We had this discussion about six or seven weeks ago, see Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods". There was little support for this. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's what I get for not reading the archives. heh. Resolute 20:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of relisting discussions with no comments a second time. I've tried closing them as "no consensus with no prejudice against a speedy renomination". I got yelled at for it. The nominator felt he was being penalized for writing sound nominations that nobody felt the need to add to and I agreed with him. I was the one who proposed the idea of treating AFDs with no comments as expired prods to deal with situations just like that. The idea was that the closing admin could delete the article if in his judgment the nominator's rationale is sound but we treat it as a "prod" because there actually isn't a consensus to delete. That is, the article can be re created without being subject to CSD G4 or it would be restored upon demand by a request to WP:REFUND or by asking any admin. However, it was felt that the idea went against the "when in doubt, don't delete" idea. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

And I certainly agree with that. Regardless, it is a waste of resources to be listing these articles for 14 days, never mind 21 or more. I'd say either way, we should codify what action should be taken and when. If nobody cares about an article after 14 days, why would anyone care on day 15? Another thought would be to have a bot move a nomination with no feedback to the current day's log. Most action at AfD is on the current day, so once one of these nominations goes a day or two with no commentary, they just get buried, causing all these relistings. Resolute 23:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's necessary to address the "nobody cares" phrase. I used it (or the variant "nobody gives a damn" in both versions of my proposal and I think it was a mistake on my part. Whether or not "anybody cares" should be used when choosing the venue for proposing deletion, PROD if "nobody cares" and AFD if it's likely that somebody does. However, no article should ever be deleted simply because "nobody cares". The decision on whether or not to delete an article should be made based on whether or not it passes our inclusion guidelines. An admin should not delete an article that has been prodded for 7 days if the prodder's nomination is not sound, ditto for an AFD. If an AFD has ran 7-14 days and nobody has given a good reason why the article should be deleted, it should be kept whether or not my proposal is in effect, whether or not anybody !votes "delete" or even !votes at all. Let's leave the "nobody cares" meme on Uncyclopedia. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It may be loose language, but the question remains valid: What do we do with articles nobody has a desire to comment on? A default to no-consensus, a default to delete, a default to whatever the closing admin judges to be right are all fair. Resolute 13:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact that the article is prodded or is at AFD means at least one person wants it deleted. Ideally, whether or not it gets deleted, in the absence of any other comments one way or the other, should be based on whether or not the nominator makes a good case for deletion. If he says "this article sucks", then the prod should be declined or the AFD closed without deleting. If the nominator's reasoning is sound, the article may be deleted. However, as it stands right now, if it's an AFD with a sound rationale but no comments after a relist or two, it should be closed "no consensus" with leave to speedy renominate. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

We could always close it as defensive indifference. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

My action in such a case would be to judge the article on its merits--if speedy is a "summary judgment", then such a disposition would be a bench trial. Under no circumstances would I relist an article a second time--if there's no consensus by that point, I would close it as "no consensus". I'd be inclined to close an uncompelling yet uncommented AfD as no consensus, as well. Jclemens (talk) 15:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we could use you at AFD then. You could go through all the logs for the past 7 days and close any that have been relisted more then once. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I spend most of my deletion time on prods (few complaints) and speedies (more complaints, but more absolute rubbish to remove). I have been known to occasionally go through and do precisely that--relistings are good for when dialogue is ongoing, IMHO, and relatevely useless for combatting disinterest. DELSORT is a better remedy for the latter. Jclemens (talk) 05:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Cirt is being bold and doing this anyway. If this becomes a trend we should reconsider the "treat dead AFDs as expired prods" idea as a "safety net". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Admin's discretion. :P Essentially the AfD had the "delete" comment from the nominator and no one else, unanimous consensus to delete. Cirt (talk) 06:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, Jclemens (talk · contribs) said some good stuff, above. Cirt (talk) 06:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)