Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 58

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"Strong Keep"?

There really isn't such a thing, is there? Is there any point to its usage? Шизомби (talk) 02:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• No. Every now and then somebody will point out that saying strong or weak keep or delete is meaningless. Abductive (reasoning) 07:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
• If there were no such thing, you wouldn't be asking about it. Plainly, if somebody putting "strong delete" provides no arguments to back up their opinion, and somebody putting "weak keep" does provide arguments, it's the arguments behind the conviction, rather than the strength with which it is held, that should prevail. But there's absolutely no reason why an editor should be expected to refrain from giving some indication of the strength with which they hold the view they are expressing. --Paularblaster (talk) 08:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not a Strong Agree? ;-) Yes, clearly it exists in the sense that it shows up on AfD persistently. Yet for whatever reason its usage is not addressed in policy anywhere. Had it been at one time, and the usage is a holdover from that? There also seems to be a tendency for "strong keep" or "strong delete" to have weaker evidence or arguments or lack them entirely, when one would expect them to be stronger, as though there is an impression that strong convictions alone are strong evidence or a strong argument, or that they will be weighted the strongest. Should it be addressed in policy, or is there some reason why it shouldn't? Шизомби (talk) 15:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think there is no need to address this in policy. Adding the word "strong" has basically the same function as putting your !vote in capital letters. It means that you feel strongly about it and announces that you are unlikely to change your opinion and willing to fight. Or something like that. Hans Adler 20:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep counts as two keep votes. And Über Ultra Omgz Strong Keep counts as 4. –xeno^talk 20:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Strong neutral counts as an infinity of neutral !votes, but this does not extend to strong keeps or strong deletes for some reason. Perhaps this is a glitch in the MediaWiki software.   pablo_hablo. 21:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Fun digression -- I suggest that "strong keep" means the person feels they have given a particularly cogent reason for Keep which should be heavily examined by anyone closing the discussion. Similarly "Strong Delete" means thay have a particularly cogent reason for deletion. "Weak" means that it was a close enough call either way. Where a person uses "strong" and fails to give such a strong reason, I suggest that the "strong" part is basically meaningless, the issue ought only be that whoever closes the discussion should not count !votes, but fully examine reasoning. If the closer has any internal biases at all, he ought not do the closing. "Trochenbeerenauslese Keep" does not add anything to how the discussion ought to be closed. Collect (talk) 21:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

There was some knock-down, drag out fight about this over at WT:RFA (Though I'm not sure that page produces any other kind of fight). I'm inclined to give little to no added consideration to "strong" <keep/delete>. Some editors write "strong" <blërg> almost all the time, but even where an editor is pickier about emphasis, it doesn't really matter. I'm more interested in "weak" <blërg>, because it is a signal that the follow-on non-bolded remark will contain nuance. Protonk (talk) 21:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have noticed that as well. It's the "weak" !votes that really attract my attention. I half expect that making this observation explicit will lead to many "ultraWEAKest possible delete/keep ever!!! style comments. Hans Adler 11:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Soon Thoughtful, reasoned & reasonable keep/delete --KrebMarkt 11:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Kashi and Kellogg's

I am a new editor and I do not know how to nominate a page. But the Kellogg's business unit Kashi Company should not have its own page. It should redirect to Kellogg's. Farmerpete (talk) 09:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)Farmerpete

I'd recommend Help:Merging_and_moving_pages#Proposing_a_merger rather than AfD. 169.226.85.157 (talk) 16:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

AfD Wikietiquette comment removal

Regarding "Do not make unsourced negative comments about living people. These may be removed by any editor." How is that supposed to be put into practice? Шизомби (talk) 04:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it self-explanatory? Which bit don't you understand? 86.136.194.122 (talk) 20:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC).

Request

Hi, I left a tag at List of Solar System probes by country indicating a request for deletion, along with an explanation on the talk page.

Per the instruction: "Unregistered users placing this tag on an article cannot complete the deletion nomination and should leave detailed reasons for deletion on Talk:List of Solar System probes by country. If the nomination is not completed and no message is left on the talkpage, this tag may be removed."

I understood from this that an administrator will come along and do the remainder of the procedural work, but now I'm not sure. Will that automatically happen in due course? If not, would someone who understands the process be kind enough to do the necessary? 86.136.194.122 (talk) 20:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC).

I've completed the nomination (this can be done by any user with an account, not just by administrators). snigbrook (talk) 20:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Earth Centre, Doncaster - apparently badly nominated article - please fix?

Hi, could someone familiar with AfD have a look at Earth Centre, Doncaster? There's an AfD template in the article, but it doesn't appear on the AfD list for the date, 26 Nov, and the page you reach when you follow the link to "this article's entry" doesn't seem correctly formatted (eg no link to the article). I could try to patch it up myself but am wary of treading in deep waters and making an even worse mess of it all! Thanks, PamD (talk) 16:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done - it's gone in today's list, though. JohnCD (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Finish a nom for me?

Can somebody finish nominating People's Pioneer Mountain Bank of Utah for me? It was prodded before. Basically it's not notable, with only some charity work (very common among banks) claimed. 208.59.120.194 (talk) 07:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done, created page with above as rationale. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 12:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

1 nomination for AfD still open since October

Resolved

As used some auto thing to nominate that article for deletion, I just have discovered that the nom is still open as it failed to register the nomination, not to mention that there is 3 delete to 1 keep since 18 October, when the nomination was open which still is. The nomination can be seen here. Donnie Park (talk) 01:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

• Procedurally re-listing since the AFD notice was never put on the article nor was it ever properly listed in the log pages. I closed the old debate, listed it in the October 18th log where it should be, opened a 2nd nomination, notified all participates who are still active, and notified the article author. I also logged notifications to the talk page of the original nomination. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

make deletion log searches more user friendly

I have submitted a bug report to make searching the deletion logs more user friendly and consistent with search engine usage on the internet. At the present time, you have to enter the exact title, with the exact punctuation of the article deleted, in order to find information on deletion log about that article. The log search should work like other searches, and should be able to find information on a deleted article based on a keyword from the article title. This would cut down on confusion by people using the log search like they use all other searches in Wikipedia and not being able to find information on an article. If you agree with this enhancement/bug, please vote for this report on bugzilla: Bug#21555: search on keyword - rather than requiring exact title including punctuation. Thanks. stmrlbs|talk 01:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Live merging RfC about to be closed

I responded to a request at WP:AN for an uninvolved admin to close the WP:RFC about live merges that was opened on this talk page on 16 October. My draft closure is being offered for review here on my talk page. Please comment there, if you have an opinion on whether the discussion is correctly summarized. The draft result is that the existing language at WP:Guide to deletion that advises against merging content from an article while an AfD is still running is affirmed. Participants support the view that an editor should wait until the AfD is closed before doing the merge. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 06:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Nominate own article?

I've been working a bit on Rachel Uchitel, and I'm pretty sure someones going to nominate it at some point. I don't really want to waste my time working on it if the result will be delete. Do we have any rules or norms on nominating just to get it over with, either way? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything on the AfD project page which lists any such limitations. ArcAngel (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You could just merge it to some omnibus TW article. It's a likely search term and would make a good redirect. Protonk (talk) 03:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Voting icons

I've noticed that in the last week or so we've had a sudden rush of editors putting and symbols with their recommendations in AfD discussions. I know that we have a couple of discussions about this over the last year or two with the consensus being against using these icons as they make AfD look like even more of a vote than it already is, and they are visually distracting (sorry, but I don't have the time to search the discussions out from the archives right now). Should we put a note into Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to discuss an AfD explaining that these should not be used? I also suspect, because of the sudden coincidence of several editors doing this, that there is a template or script being used that adds these icons. Can anyone confirm whether this is the case? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me I've seen some variation on those before and they were deleted. The images should be deleted, and they should not be used. Not just because of WP:NOTAVOTE but Wikipedia:Accessibility as well (do the images read as "keep" and "delete" with Wikipedia:Alternative text for images?). I suppose previous discussions on this matter should be found and something written into the appropriate section(s) of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and other pages. Шизомби (talk) 21:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_38#stupid_bloody_icons, Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_42#Images_in_voting, Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/April-May_2006#Influx_of_Icons are a few. KILL THEM WITH FIRE. Шизомби (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't care, but it does get peoples' hackles up. they tend to get deleted or otherwise pruned. Protonk (talk) 22:05, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Deleted/November_2005#Template:Vote_and_all_derivatives and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Deleted/June_2005#Template:Support_and_Template:Object_and_Template:Oppose Шизомби (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I've recently seen an editor going around using WP:SIMPLEVOTE to make votes. This automatically adds the problematic images. ThemFromSpace 23:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

XfD logs

See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#XfD logs. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:08, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter Hemming - unsure of whether to nominate or not

Hi folks. Not entirely sure if this is the correct place for it, but I need someone who fully understands WP:CREATIVE (a "people" notability guideline) to take a look at the Peter Hemming article. I'm somewhat hesitant to list it for deletion due to #3/#4 of the WP:CREATIVE notability guideline, as I'm not sure if a photojournalist getting published in periodicals counts as notability (note that this is entirely unsupported, and I can't find any references to back it up either). The article itself appears to have been created by a SPA. Anyway, yeah, just don't want to waste anyone's time with this if the guy does turn out to be "notable enough" for WP. Thanks. SMC (talk) 16:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

If you've made a good-faith search for references and haven't been able to find any then it's perfectly reasonable to nominate this for deletion. Just having photographs published, even if verified, isn't enough. To pass WP:CREATIVE #3 reliable sources would have had to have written about the photographs as photographs, rather than the photographs just being used to illustrate articles. And having one photograph in an exhibition at the Smithsonian wouldn't pass #4, as it is neither a substantial part of a major exhibition nor part of the permanent collection. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for that; it was just as I suspected. Beyond his official site, the most I've been able to find is a confirmation that he's associated with Lowepro (camera company) as stated in the article. I'll put a nom up soon. Cheers. SMC (talk) 17:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Merging during live AfD

WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion advises against merging content from an article at AfD, suggesting that editor wait until the AfD is closed. Since Guide to deletion has low activity, I'm starting a discussion here to see if current consensus affirms this guidance. Moving articles at AfD comes up occasionally (WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Policy on moving a page when it's in AfD? and the next section Moving articles during a live discussion), but I'm not sure if any considerations are shared. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I would say it's OK if no one objects. If there are objections, then wait for the AfD to finish. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd really prefer we didn't, because it can preempt the deletion decision. If I merge content from an article which is likely to be deleted into an article which is likely to not be deleted, it can force the deleting admin to either delete the merged revisions (something not likely to happen because it is both a pain in the ass and akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face) or leave the merged article as a redirect. In the cases where merger is suggested at the deletion discussion (either by the nom or by a few editors) and would obviate the reasons for deletion, I have less of a problem, but I still would prefer the AfD come to a close first. Protonk (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

This leads me to believe that in such cases, nomination for deletion should never have occurred, and is indeed a waste of resources. If content is suitable for merging, I think keeping valuable content superseeds the deletion process, and would make things run smoother. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

That discussion is beyond the scope. I don't want to get into it. In practice almost every fiction afd has a likely merge target (the parent work) and options other than deletion are often entertained. Whether that is right or wrong isn't really the issue. Protonk (talk) 05:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Then leaving that aside, it probably isn't a good idea most of the time, and it probably won't stop me some of the time. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree that it's often not a good idea, unless there's already a nearly universal consensus to do so--a SNOW merge non-admin close, if you will. The complications raised by Protonk are a very good reason why BOLDly doing so otherwise might be an inappropriate use of IAR. Jclemens (talk) 05:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I did one of those merges and it's very circumstantial. Usually those articles are spin-out ones tagged for clean-up and/or merge. The Afd nomination just put this or those articles on the top of a project clean-up/merge list. The Afd nominator could have contacted the concerned project instead of starting an Afd which i agree would save everyone a lot of time. --KrebMarkt 06:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Topic specific wikiprojects should be given the heads up before a nomination, but there are other avenues that seem to be working. I've noticed an increase in new articles added over at WP:Proposed mergers, and I think this theme is starting to catch on. Its a good noticeboard for complicated merges. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 06:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Reaching consensus on a merge is the lesser half of the job, making the merge effective is the bigger half. Here the merge back-log of the anime/manga project: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Cleanup_task_force#Articles_needing_to_be_merged Scary and i'm not even sure it's up to date. So when an Afd bring back articles on the top of the to do list, you rather want it to be fixed asap before other things happen delaying even more the clean-up. More use of WP:Proposed mergers is a really good thing, i just hope the merges are done afterward. --KrebMarkt 07:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, we should be able to merge during AfDs per WP:BOLD, WP:BEFORE, WP:PRESERVE, and WP:IAR. An Afd should NOT prevent us from improving Wikipedia. We are here to build an encyclopedia, i.e. content, not to be mired in technicalities. If we find a solution in the course of a discussion for content's use that does not require an admin to have to use the delete function, we go with that rather than play games waiting for the verdict in some snap shot in time five to seven day discussion. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

  I do agree there in principle; but we do have to be mindful that not everybody necessarily agrees if a consensus forms quickly. In general, I think some latitude should be given to allow speedy closes if most participants in a debate come up with a compromise before the end of the scheduled time, but effort should be taken to respect all views already posted. I'm thinking of a theoretical AfD where five people !vote to delete, then someone else comes along with a reasonable merge proposal, and two of the five "deleters" agree with it. The other three don't immediately respond, a compromise is declared, and the article's merged. There's great potential for some or all of the other delete proponents to come back the next day to discover that a decision they disagree with has been unexpectedly made without their input. Early merges should be encouraged, but only where consensus is sufficiently clear that an early closure would normally be warranted. ~ mazca ^talk 18:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a dodge to me - merge the cruft and claim that the AFD no longer needs to be run and then unmerge it a little while later and hope that nobody notices. The AFD should be concluded first. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• • The nonsense non-word "cruft" is never a valid reason for deleting or merging anything on Wikipedia. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I sense a conversation degeration approaching. Anyways, I would think the situation Cameron suggests suspects bad faith, and very rarely have I seen a well completed merge get reverted. I would suggest that those cases are extremely rare, or non-existent. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 20:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
      • They are relatively rare, but by no means non-existent. Protonk (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Well, I'll take your work for it, unless you feel like providing an example. Even still, I don't think a few renegades trying to outrun concensus should trump good sense. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 21:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
          • Usually we merge the relevant information and leave the Afd nominated article untouched. Whatever the Afd ends quickly or until the 7 days doesn't enter into consideration. There may be some persons gaming the system by doing a merge then undoing it to dodge an Afd. However it could happen with merge during live AfD as much with merge after Afd precess. I can't see why an Afd closing after a full 7 days with a merge result would offer any guaranty that the article won't be merged just for appearance purpose than un-merged back when things die down. --KrebMarkt 21:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
          • You can email me if you would like some more problematic examples. I don't work 'in the trenches' anymore, so requests for obvious examples of reverted redirects and undone mergers should be directed to someone who does. Protonk (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
            • I can't remember which article, but I redirected it during an AfD, and everyone thought it was a fine solution at the time. This kinda seems like a solution in search of a problem. If someone is trying to hide behind the GFDL or CC3.0 or whatever while behaving badly, they'll quickly be disabused of it, I imagine. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses.

• Some history: There was an outright prohibition of merging in the original February 2005 version. Aside from the removal of "considered to be vandalism", the wording stayed mostly unchanged until Rossami's full rewrite in September 2005 (rewrite discussion), which relaxed the prohibition to the "extreme caution" warning. The wording "unless there is a strong case for merge under the deletion policy" was added within a day of that rewrite. There have been a short-lived removal based on visible deleted revisions (revert), a suggested workaround by fully rewriting the content, and a minor licensing update, but the core wording has remained stable since September 2005.^{messy diff} The guidance is not new, but consensus could have shifted away.
• As mentioned above, there are cases where a merger is a foregone/SNOW conclusion. To avoid confusion and to lessen the appearance of unilateral action, the editor should SNOW close the AfD, then perform the merger. The "strong case for merge" wording invokes arguments based on WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD; their strength should be evaluated by consensus at the AfD.
• This discussion was mentioned in this week's Signpost. WP:Articles for deletion/A Place With No Name (2nd nomination) was covered in an adjacent section. Despite a split consensus, the nominator performed a merger and requested a speedy close; objections necessitated another AfD.

Flatscan (talk) 04:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• A point that I forgot to highlight: as Protonk mentioned, a merger can be performed by any editor, but can only be reversed – with difficulty – by an admin. Flatscan (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Merging during an AfD is a highly disruptive tactic used with the aim of precluding a delete outcome. It is a bad faith, battleground approach. Sure, there will be some cases where it's uncontroversial (and what harm is there in awaiting a close?). In the cases we've all seen, it's not been uncontroversial. Those regularly employing the technique in controversial circumstances should be blocked and/or banned for their disruption. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

  a current example:

  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimmy Patterson

  Sincerely, Jack Merridew 06:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack, is an AFD ever disruptive? If an editor puts an article up for deletion which could easily have been merged in the first place, is this disruptive? Ikip (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect Jack may give a different answer, but let me interject. Both of your questions are topical and important, but the two are not intrinsically related to each other. I can answer the first in the affirmative. Even a good faith AfD can be disruptive (interestingly enough, for some of the same reasons that an out of process merger can be disruptive). And sometimes sending something to AfD where AfD is clearly the wrong venue can be disruptive, but that does not mean that all or most things which may be merged (or moved, or fixed, or whatever) should be handled without AfD. As I've said before, most fiction articles necessarily have a parent article, making merger an obvious choice. But it does not behoove us to foreclose an entire avenue of possibilities for an entire class of articles simply because another option technically exists. Now on that point we are probably in opposition. But there is room for discussion there. Whether or not that discussion is relevant to current practice (i.e. if you and I come to some interesting compromise about this, the rest of the AfD going world will probably neither notice nor care) is up in the air. Protonk (talk) 05:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with KrebMarkt, an AFD should not hold material hostage. If this material should not be in the article which the material is merged to, it will be removed, if the merged material is valid, and referenced, it will stay. Often merging is simply cleaning up articles which editors who put an article up for deletion didn't do in the first place.

I would like a headcount of everyone's positions thus far, because Flatscan warned an editor a second time, stating that "The support for your view was fairly limited". I respectfully disagree, it appears to me that most people here support some merging of articles.

• Opposes: flatscan, Protonk, Cameron Scott, Jack Merridew
• Limited: Peregrine Fisher, Jclemens
• Supports: NickPenguin, KrebMarkt, A Nobody, Mazca, Ikip

Please keep in mind, whenever their is a headcount some editors always say, I didn't mean that, so my apologies beforehand. Ikip (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of "The support for your view was fairly limited", referring to A Nobody's view: in contrast to most other editors' opinions, A Nobody made no mention of limitations or merely implementing an obvious consensus. Flatscan (talk) 05:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD shouldn't hold content hostage. Is a merger during an AfD allowed to hold the AfD outcome hostage? Because unless I go through a somewhat laborious deletion and restoration of the target article, a merger during an AfD precludes the possibility of a close other than keep, merge or redirect. Protonk (talk) 05:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• That can't be that simplistic. Merge during Afd should remain an exception. In anime & manga project those article are part of our to clean up and to do list, Afd is just preempting the call. Personally, i won't do merge during Afd if i'm not certain that i can call upon my project for fire support. The bottom line what has precedence project clean up drive or admin by the book handling. I think good sense compromise have to be found case by case. I don't want to think about the wikidrama in case of non compromise. --KrebMarkt 05:24, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not attempting to reduce it to that. I just want to get across my core complaint about mergers during AfD, a complaint which (hopefully) is neutral vis a vis the notability wars. Once admins get revision delete people can merge to their heart's content during AfD, because it won't allow the person conducting the merger veto power over the outcome. Protonk (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems simple to me, if the material is not worthy of wikipedia when it is merged, it will be reverted out anyway.

The only case I see were:

"it can force the deleting admin to either delete the merged revisions"

...should ever be an issue is if the material merged is copyright or BIO violations, which rarely is in AfD anyway because it is speedied well before.

The page is deleted, the name is deleted, and the article history is deleted, there is a finality. What about userfication? Even though the outcome of the AFD has been decided, editors can userfy the material of nearly any deleted article. In both cases, partial merging and userfication, the AfD outcome is the same.Ikip (talk) 06:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure I understand you. My concern is that the GFDL requires attribution history for content. this is satisfied during a merger by pointing to the article and revision where the content was merged from in the edit history of the target page. But if the article is deleted, the attribution chain is broken and either the merged content has to be removed from the history (where currently the only method is to delete the entire page and then selectively restore all edits but the merged edits) or the history of the deleted page added to a talk sub-page of the target. Both are somewhat laborious and non-standard and not all admins know how (or even that you must) to do them. So if I merge content during an AfD I can make undoing that merge difficult and consequently I can make deletion difficult, usually forcing the article to be kept, redirected or merged. That's what I mean by holding AfDs hostage. I'm not particularly interested in grand battles over the finality of AfD. I supported and am active at WP:REFUND and I support userifying content wherever reasonable. Likewise I don't have a problem with undeletions in order to merge. I have a serious problem with the chain of logic that it is ok to force mergers at AfD while simultaneously complaining that mergers at AfD are out of process. Protonk (talk) 06:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It is actually quite common to have editors delete redirects of old articles, deleting the history, what happens to the attribution chain then? I think I know the answer:

Help:Merging_and_moving_pages#Performing_the_merger. Discussed by Flatscan here: Help_talk:Merging_and_moving_pages#Merge_edit_summaries. The chain is not broken if an editor adds the proper information in the edit summary box when the editor merges. Ikip (talk) 07:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding redirects resulting from mergers, {{R from merge}} is meant to provide a clue that the redirect has meaningful history and should not be deleted. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, to be crude, those admins are fucking up. In some cases they are being set up for failure. It is not required but it is good practice to note in the article history that you are merging content from an article, if only to stop especially diligent admins from accidentally deleting page history that is important. As for your second question, WP:SMERGE notes that is required but it is only sufficient if the article isn't deleted, because then the individual contributions are accessible from the history tab. If the article is deleted, then we cannot determine who wrote what when and we no longer have appropriate GFDL attribution. In reality, this probably happens a lot (mostly not due to delete happy admins but due to cut and paste moves being performed improperly), but we have to make sure that we try to minimize it or fix it wherever possible. Protonk (talk) 07:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay then we can agree that there is no GFDL issue if an editor, during a AfD, added the proper information in the edit summary box when the editor merges. 07:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Um. No, we can't. There is no GFDL issue, so long as the article is not deleted. However, if the article is deleted and the target article not modified as I described above, a GFDL issue develops. Protonk (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

"My concern is that the GFDL requires attribution history for content." A correctly labeled merger edit summary provides that police chain. Can you state the GFDL that you are quoting? Ikip (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Two components are required to provide attribution:

1. The original article's history, which cannot be deleted as long as the merged content is visible, even in old revisions (best explained by WP:Merge and delete)
2. A pointer from the merged content to the original article, in edit summary and/or {{Copied}} (directions at Help:Merging#Performing the merger)

If anyone finds specific points to be unclear, please let me know, and I'll start efforts to improve the relevant documentation. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think this conversation could easily be moved to Help:Merging. But it is important to clarify the rules:

1. GFDL/CC-BY-SA, talking about external? (more)
2. Largely ignored (more)
3. Merge information, parent deleted (more)
5. History of these merges. (more)
6. The essay is, and I quote, "not a policy or guideline itself" (template, top of page), so it should not be seen as a rule which editors can be blocked for. [And that is exactly what many editors like User:Jack Merridew below, are espousing]

   On the talk page, when one editor asks if this should be policy, the creator of this essay says:

1. "No, I don't think so (speaking as the original author). Several things in it are deliberately tentative, because it's an interpretation of the GFDL, not a description of the community will (which is what a policy is)."

1. The essay has been edited by 17 people, over three quarters of those editors have 2 or less edits.[1]

Ikip (talk) 16:14, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no clarification necessary. Two things are necessary for attribution, and we are required to maintain attribution. You can even ask A Nobody if you like, he loves citing "Merge and Delete" in AfDs. He knows exactly why we can't delete articles after merging their contents elsewhere. Protonk (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

My bias here is that I'm seeing merging used as a tactic during AfDs to skew the outcome, and I'm seeing it defended with GFDL citing reasons, and I think that's wrong. I feel that way because if there ever actually IS an attribution question, where someone is asserting GFDL rights about something, even if it was a deleted thing, admins can go look and see in the deleted history and produce the needed attribution. (Heck, this is true even if something is oversighted, it still can be looked into, although in that case you need an oversighter to see what happened) So merging as a tactic to force at least a redirect to be left behind ought to be deprecated, at the very least. ++Lar: t/c 18:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If the end result is that the articles from which the content is merged to are improved and these are articles whose existence no one would contest, I cannot imagine any reason why any editor would actually be opposed to such improvements. Per WP:PRESERVE, if we have material that we can use to improve articles, no reason exists why volunteers should not go ahead and use that material to improve the other articles per WP:BOLD as well. Only if the article under discussion is a copy vio or libelous, i.e. really does need to be deleted for legal reasons, is there a pressing need to outright redlink rather than redirect with edit history intact. AfDs should not be used to prevent editors from actually improving other articles not under discussion that can benefit from the content in the article under discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

And what if the end result is that it's not actually an improvement? It happens. More importantly, you haven't actually addressed what I said, you're trying to justify an unacceptably forcing tactic with platitudes. Consider what others are saying, it's not a good thing to do, it is trying to impose your will on everyone else. Until there is a clear consensus in favor of it, you need to stop doing it. ++Lar: t/c 18:43, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Not in the instances that I do. Clearly the articles at least when I merge are indeed being improved as a result. That is exactly what we actually should be doing here, i.e. improving content and adding to our compendium of knowledge. Not getting bogged down in bureacracy. Not becoming a compedium of deletion discussions. Why would I listen to those who are not helping to improve the articles at all or who in some cases have even admitted that they would never argue to keep in an Afd or are litterally too lazy to look for sources (yes, one of the delete reguglars outright said as much)? Per WP:IAR, if articles can be improved, no editor should be hindered from doing so just because of some snapshot in time discussion with maybe a half dozen or so participants. No good faith editor could possibly prefer that improveable articles not be improved when they can just as no reasonable editor would likely oppose redirects with edit history intact when that edit history does not need to be deleted for legal reasons per User:T-rex/essays/the more redirects the better. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Until there is a clear consensus in favor of it, you need to stop doing it. ++Lar: t/c 19:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Until there is a clear consensus against it, which there is not, based on the above discussion, I see no reason why I nor anyone else should not do what they can to actually improve articles. I whole heartedly agree that I will not do so in instances where what is being discussed is libelous or a copy vio, i.e. I will not try to protect legally damaging content, but seriously now, in the handful of cases when I have added sourced content, the only accounts saying to delete in the discussions are ones who either admittedly are not interested in looking for sources, make false statements about the reality of the article, or reveal a lack of expertise about the subject by declaring say even published magazines not counting as reliable sources. In any event, the only thing close to a proscription against merely cautions to be careful. It does NOT outright assert editors cannot be WP:BOLD and follow WP:PRESERVE. We do not have to abide by rules that do not exist or that do not have any consensus behind them. And again, I cannot imagine any reason why anyone would want in good faith to prevent articles from being improved when they can be. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion, taken in isolation, does not have a clear consensus to allow the practice. Therefore, it is a 'no consensus' outcome, which defaults to no change, to "do as was done before" (which is to not do this). But far more importantly, it is a small and local discussion, and is insufficient to overturn a longstanding practice. Review the history of this page, please, and you will find it's pretty clearly not a practice that is approved. When you do this you impose more work on the closing admin if you happen to be incorrect about the discussion outcome (and who among us is 100% infallible?). So don't do it, please. If you really want this area changed, consider an RfC on the topic, properly mentioned at WP:CENT so it has wide participation. Till then, don't be disruptive, it would be greatly appreciated. ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It would be greatly appreciated if accounts do not disruptively use AfDs as a means of preventing us from improving actual content. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I feel some responsibility for all these bytes spilled on the topic, since I came up with the current wording a few months back, so I wanted to explain a bit of my rationale: I think the current formulation strikes a good balance by discouraging moves during AfD as a matter of etiquette, rather than creating an outright prohibition (of which I am wary, on principle). However, I do agree with the comments above that find a majority (but certainly not all) of moves-during-AfD are disruptive and counterproductive. To those who say "why have etiquette stand in the way of improving WP as quickly as possible," my response is: there is no deadline, and why can't we wait for the few days for the AfD to run its course, build consensus around the move, and then move the article? Hope this helps. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Does your opinion extend to mergers (did you mean mergers)? My mention of moves in the original post may have been confusing. Flatscan (talk) 05:18, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

We indeed have no deadline and as such there is frequently no urgent need to force editors into a mere week long discussion determining the fate of article. We should be more considerate to our contributors. Once we determine the article has ANY potential value, we need to be discorteous to them by trying to get rid of it, especially if it is cases where any of us just are not interested in helping improve it. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

While I nearly always disagree with you, your comments at least usually have some degree of internal consistency. That one doesn't. The lack of a deadline means we can't wait? We need to be discourteous? I think you need to reread and rewrite.—Kww(talk) 13:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

We should not be discourteous to those who actually work on articles by making artificial deadlines to get rid of their work or to prevent volunteers from improving their contributions when they have the time to do it. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Merging whilst an article is afd does force a "merge" outcome and imposes one person's will (the person who merges content) on the discussion. If a merge is warranted, suggest the content you would like to merge and vote for that. If you are reasonable and clear about the particular content you want to save, other people will be encouraged to ask for it to be merged. There is plenty of time for an article to be merged after the discussion has reached consensus. Another point, when taking content from another article, it can be quite easy to reword it into your own original words. This is especially true when you are adding information you have found to the content you wish to merge. Unless the wording is particularly unique and you believe quality would be lessoned by altering it substantially, there is no reason not to re-write it in your own words. This method preserves content but does not force a "keep" result. In an afd, everyone should have an equal opportunity to cast their vote, choosing from all the options that are available and not have their vote forced by another party who ends up controlling a discussion. Seraphim♥ 09:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The rewriting workaround is a viable alternative to waiting, mentioned in the guide. Flatscan (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it's an abuse of process and should be stopped. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, using AfDs as an excuse to prevent improvement of actual content is an absue of AfD process. Building articles means far more here than having to satisfy the whims of a handful of accounts in a snapshot in time week long discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

@Seraphim & Cameron Scott:

I will repeat myself, merge during Afd must stay very circumstantial. The most likely case is if there is a consensus within a project to have some articles in its clean-up/merge list when a such article is sent to Afd, that project will likely and de-facto hijack its outcome. The sole example, i remember is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ra Cailum class battleship. It was the impulse a renewed clean-up drive targeting others articles in the same series & universe. --KrebMarkt 19:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for linking that example. At the time that the article was merged, support was trending towards merge. The AfD was later closed with a reasonable consensus, but an early close would not have been appropriate, and TheFarix's merge jumped the gun a little. Flatscan (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well that was rather challenging for editors having others opinions because changing that Afd outcome will have required either changing the project consensus or proving that this article is an exception to this consensus. A such feat is clearly difficult to achieve especially for editors who don't know the in & out of the said project.

For TheFarix's merge, it should be viewed in both perspectives. From the Afd perspective his action are somewhat fast but from the project perspective it was a long overdue clean-up. --KrebMarkt 06:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Since the merger did not substantially affect the outcome, this discussion is mostly academic. I may have dropped TheFarix a note if that AfD were more recent. I'll grant that another outcome was unlikely, but not inevitable. Echoing UnitedStatesian above, I don't see an issue with waiting a few days. Flatscan (talk) 04:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• If an article is at AFD then this should not prevent work upon other articles which are not at AFD. AFD are purely to decide whether an article is to be deleted and I gather that there was no consensus to make them a general forum for article debate, i.e. Articles for Discussion rather than Articles for Deletion. Consideration of merger is therefore outside the scope of AFD. What is more urgently needed in the relevant section is some guidance about removing material from the article under discussion, so that editors have difficulty in reading the full article which is under debate. Removing disputed material and then claiming that the article should be deleted because it is now an inconsequential stub seems disruptive - see Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots for a fresh example. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• "Consideration of merger" is by no means "outside the scope or AfD". There are many outcomes from a deletion discussion, and often the consensus is to merge. However, leaving aside the occasional sensible snow outcome, pre-emptive merge or redirect, I feel the discussion should run its course; there is no deadline, after all.  pablo_hablo. 19:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• General comment - It comes down to commons sense. Kinda like a snowball merge. If it should obviously be merged, merge it, and the AfD problem is mostly solved. I guess our 7 day rule is a hard rule now, but I think the AfD should just be closed at that point. I believe Protonk that it's a pain in the butt to undue a merge, so they should only be performed in obvious cases. Another thing Protonk mentioned is the fiction wars. I get the feeling this is an extension of that, so there isn't much use in trying to change hardened positions. Everyone should just use common sense, and if there are problems take it to ANI or wherever. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• I've been linked here after bringing it up with A Nobody without knowing about this discussion. I'm personally happy to see content merged, preserved and rules ignored, but is it that hard to wait until the end of the AfD? There isn't an editorial deadline and keeping the discussion free from unnecessary distractors is a good idea. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 11:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I've closed the RfC as explained at WT:AFD#Review of my close of the WP:RFC on live merges, and updated the live-merging paragraph in WP:Guide to deletion to match the consensus of the participants in this RfC. EdJohnston (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

---

Revisiting Merging during live AfD

rfctag policy placed 16 October, removed by bot 15 November

When is it appropriate to merge content from an article at AfD? Flatscan (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Since a clear consensus was not reached, I am revisiting this discussion, with possibly an RfC for more input. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, please consider reviewing the substantial discussion above. Original prompt: WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion advises against merging content from an article at AfD, suggesting that editor wait until the AfD is closed.

Merging content from an article at AfD is appropriate:

1. if a single editor believes that there is viable content that should be copied to related articles, improving Wikipedia per WP:PRESERVE and WP:IAR
2. if the AfD has substantial support for merge
3. if the AfD has overwhelming support for merge that would be a valid close under WP:SNOW or WP:Non-admin closure
4. almost never, with very limited exceptions
5. never

Since there was some confusion over where editors stood in the last discussion, I wrote a selection of opinions, numbered for reference. Feel free to work from or ignore them. Flatscan (talk) 01:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I contacted the previous participants, minus those who have already commented below. Flatscan (talk) 02:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I placed a rfctag policy on this section. Flatscan (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• 2 or 3. Depends. It's a case by case kinda thing. Protonk (talk) 01:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
  • 4 is fine too. Protonk (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
• I tend towards 4. Really, it is almost never so urgent that a merger cannot wait until the AFD is finished, but it clouds the issue substantially if done during a live discussion. Stifle (talk) 15:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
• Number one. Why create even more bureaucracy and rules? Ikip (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4, with extremely strong cases of 2 or 3 being those limited exceptions.—Kww(talk) 21:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

• 4, reasons being:

1. no - too open to disruption
2. kinda, but why not let the AfD play out? Articles often change radically during an AfD.
3. see above - what's the rush?
4. the best approach. Let the AfD run its course.
5. never say "never"

 pablo_hablo. 22:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

• Notified all editors who had commented in the previous discussion, minus those who already commented immediately above, 02:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Flatscan (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• 5 is my first thought (Per Stifle, what's the rush? ) but call it 4.99 as Pablo makes a convincing argument against absolutism. Ikip: it's not about bureaucracy, it's about not making messes that need cleaning. Have some consideration for your fellow editors. ++Lar: t/c 02:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Lar, you continue to make these assumptions about me personally which have no basis whatsoever, since your intent appears to be to personalize a policy discussion, here is my response back to you: Again, I would like to remind you that you are an admin, and ideally are supposed to be an example to others. This is about a small group of editors creating more rules, per WP:NOMORE and WP:BURO, which everyone is then forced to follow. Note that Flatscan characteristically wrote: this section of an RFC about this issue showing that this new rule has been used, and will continue be used as a tool stop editors who are attempting to retain well sourced, encyclopedic information. We have enough rules already. Ikip (talk) 16:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
    • While I feel that Ikip's points need correction here, this sub-discussion is straying off the main point. If anyone would like to pursue any of these issues, please consider either creating a new subsection below or taking the issue to my talk page.
      1. The relevant paragraph in WP:Guide to deletion dates back to September 2005. One may read my review of the page's history above.
      2. As a point of fact, I had no involvement with the drafting of WP:Requests for comment/A Nobody. At the time that it was filed, I was independently finishing a draft of a separate RfC that covered many of the points in that section, allowing me to certify. I'm not sure what Ikip means by "characteristically"’.

         Flatscan (talk) 03:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

      • Agreed, off topic, struck. Thanks for clarifying. Ikip (talk) 05:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
• Hello people from AN's RfC. I think a redirect during a live AfD, when it's an obvious thing to do, should be allowable. I used to do it back in the day before we became so obsessed with seven day AfDs, and it worked pretty good. We'd just cut the AfD short, and call it a day. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• 3, but why not go ahead and snow-close it? 2 if there is support for a particular merge by the AFD participants over at least a 24-hour period. WP:PRESERVE should be used for articles that are likely to be deleted soon: If an AFD is failing it's okay to copy material OUT to other articles under WP:PRESERVE. Likewise, if A and B are up for AFD, either together or independently, and B is going down to defeat then by all means merge useful material into A. After all, if A was not in AFD you would be merging the useful material, right? By the way, I do not think licensing issues require material copied from deleted articles to be deleted, despite what WP:C#You may edit the article during the discussion says. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • but why not go ahead and snow-close it? There is no onus on me to do a Non-Admin early SNOW Close. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• 4++. Anything less is disruptive. In the case of a '3' situation, do the close and give it 24h to see if it sticks. As a regular tactic at AfD, merge-to-thwart-delete should be viewed as blockable disruption. Even in the case of a '4' the emphasis should be on *limited*. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 03:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• 3, but without the need for "overwhelming". "Convincing" is enough. 1 is also good. Note, as per WP:MAD, if material is copied, during or before the AfD, then deletion should not be taken lightly due to our licence, in favour of a redirect. The exception would be when the merge target is similarly dubious. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • • If in doubt, just wait. #2 and #3 both imply that the article is not going to be deleted.
  • And you have posted exactly why 1 is badness. In the case of a "delete" outcome, the merge then has to be undone, making more work for everyone else, just so one editor can (selfishly) indulge their belief that the article shouldn't be deleted outright, or impose their will in contravention of consensus. I'm with Jack, 1, if repeated, should be considered disruptive enough to warrant blocking. We don't need that sort of disruption. ++Lar: t/c 04:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Agree. To merge content is to assume that the result will be a version of Keep. If you are right, all is good. If you are repeatedly wrong, you are disruptive. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• 5. Any exceptions would be exploited. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 04:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Exploited by whom? To do what? Jclemens (talk) 07:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Potential exceptions would be used to falsely justify more merges than those exceptions are actually intended to allow. I can already see the more passionate inclusionists claiming that there is "overwhelming support" (supposing standard #3 above was adopted) for a merge when, say, only 5 people have !voted for 'merge' while the other 20 who have participated in the AFD are supporting deletion. The purpose of doing this would be the same as the existing reason to merge during a live AFD; to disrupt the process and force retention of material that would otherwise be deleted. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 15:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• 3++ if the AfD has overwhelming support for merge & has a prior project consensus for merge that would be a valid close under WP:SNOW or WP:Non-admin closure. Other cases waits 7 days. Afd agenda colliding project clean-up drive & agenda can justify merge during Afd. Some projects have hundreds articles tagged for clean-up/merge they better handle those articles quickly before they end up again at the bottom of their to do list. --KrebMarkt 06:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4, because merging prematurely precludes a keep. If the article is deleted, and even one editor makes a good case to merge some of the content somewhere, WP:REFUND or any reasonable admin should undelete the article for purposes of merging. Just because something is "deleted" doesn't mean it's gone. Jclemens (talk) 07:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• The fourth option should be the obvious choice; any exceptions will be an IAR sort of thing but should not be encouraged. We ought not be creating messes for others to clean up. Shereth 22:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4, let the AFD run, someone could show up near the end with information that completely saves the article. It is only 7 days, nothing requires that quick of a merge. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 00:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4, as many have said above: moves should only happen after closure. If that is a WP:SNOW closure (although I can't imagine a WP:SNOW move, can you?) or non-admin closure, fine, but a closure is needed nonetheless. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4 (almost never); exceptions being 3 (overwhelming/unambiguous merge support per SNOW or NAC), but prefer closing, then merging in those cases. Editors who would like to copy content may 1) wait or 2) rewrite. Flatscan (talk) 02:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4.65 - very close to never, but bureaucratic nit-picking should never interfere with building the encyclopedia. If the support is clear enough for 3 to obtain, go ahead and close the debate rather than merge the subject during discussion. 1 and potentially 2 are disruptive, especially given WP:DEADLINE. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• I would generally be in favor of not merging during a live AfD, though I would be open to being convinced that in some particular cases there might be exceptional circumstances.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• What if an article has good text that can be used elsewhere, but it's going to be deleted. This happens all the time. We need some way of allowing this material to be used, besides "you must convince people to vote merge or redirect or else you can't have it". - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  • That's an argument against deletion I think, not an argument that one has to merge DURING an ongoing discussion. And as to what to do, find an obliging admin (an inclusionist such as myself, for example, but there are lots, see CAT:RESTORE) and ask for a REFUND... ++Lar: t/c 14:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Just a procedural comment -- if the material was deleted via AfD, WP:REFUND can only userfy or email the text, not restore it. If the text is then reused in another article, GFDL issues can get tricky because of attribution problems.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
• 1 Merger of useful material is best done while the AFD discussion is active following common-sense principles such as strike while the iron is hot and never put off to tomorrow what you can do today. And of course, there is a pressing deadline in that there may be a significant risk that the article is deleted and its useful material is then not available for merger. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll see your common-sense principles and raise you a "fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Isn't there another one about "Merge in haste, repent at leisure"?   pablo_hablo. 20:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• • Moot As a further point, it seems improper to suggest that we may forbid the copying of material as this would be contrary to the licence which governs our work. All sorts of people copy the contents of articles which may be deleted and some even make a point of copying them because they may be deleted. It seems impossible to prevent this and so I don't see any practical value to this discussion. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4. Merger can be used to abuse the AfD process by merging trivial content that could easily have been rewritten and then insisting that the page cannot be deleted for GFDL concerns. The merger should not go forward until the AfD has been closed as keep, no consensus, or perhaps merge. Also per 2/0. Anything less than 4, and perhaps 4 also, is too easily gamed by people. Verbal chat 12:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  • The "You can't delete this because it will break licensing" argument is bogus. When copying text from an article that will be deleted, all you need to do is copy the edit history of the source article to the talk page of the destination article. This is best done using a collapsible table or by a talk sub-page. By the way, when copying text from any article that might be deleted in the future, this is a good idea. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
    • This is a valid method, described at WP:Merge and delete#Paste history to talk subpage, but it and its alternatives are rarely used since it is much easier to redirect the source article. Flatscan (talk) 02:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• 5, with a side order of 3. I don't have an objection to merging obvious candidates at AfD if there's strong consensus for it, but (a) there needs to be WP:SNOW consensus for a merge, and (b) the debate needs to be snow-closed as "merge" before a merge takes place. Guerrilla merging of live AfDs without enough consensus to actually close the AfD as such is disruptive - get the AfD closed, then undertake the resulting action. ~ mazca ^talk 12:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment about an example today: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falcon Heene got snow-closed as a merge with Colorado balloon incident. At about the same time Falcon Heene got redirected and the AFD closed, Colorado balloon incident went to AFD due to WP:NOTNEWS. I have no clue if the merging started before or after the snow-close, and I have no idea if licensing was complied with. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the links. I'll take a look at the articles once the AfD closes and the dust settles. There's no attribution required if the copied content (into Colorado balloon incident) is deleted. Flatscan (talk) 02:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
    • The merge was done immediately before (1 minute) the AfD was closed, by the same admin, who then noted his action at the new AfD. Considering BLP1E (BLP of minor versus article on event), I'm comfortable with this early close falling under IAR. With respect to attribution, the merge was performed correctly; I added {{Copied}} tags as recommended. Flatscan (talk) 02:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
• Placed rfctag policy Flatscan (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4. Ideally, merging should not take place during an AfD but there may some circumstances where it would be appropriate. The betterment of the encyclopedia should always come first and that would suggest saving content if it can be saved but in some cases material that people choose to merge unilaterally is not always agreed upon as being an improvement. Better to let consensus determine whether or not content is worth merging in a debate and wait for the outcome. Seraphim♥ 12:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• 5 to avoid lawyering. And 4 is actually redundant as application of WP:IAR to 5. --M4gnum0n (talk) 13:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4 per  pablo. JohnCD (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
• 4 -- there will be exceptions, because of duplicate articles. Almost . always it adds complication and confusion. Any necessary reorganization can be dealt with in the close,-- or by the usual processes afterwards. DGG ( talk ) 17:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

  Noting that I and DGG have agreed on a matter, this would tend to strongly indicate towards the option being the best one. Stifle (talk) 22:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• 4, for exactly the reasons DGG stated. If someone wants to show what a proposed merger might look like, a draft can always be made on a user's subpage or a subpage of the article's talk page.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Call the question? That is, what now? Input has died down. Time to evaluate and decide next steps? Or more publicity for more input? I favor the former, because looking at the names participating here I see a pretty good cross section and what looks like a pretty representative sampling (I didn't do statistical analysis, that's just my view). I think conclusions could be drawn and the page updated. Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 12:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to wait for now, as there's no pressing need to update the recommendations. I agree that there is a sufficient variety of AfD regulars plus some names I don't recognize, but anyone may list on {{cent}} if desired. Flatscan (talk) 02:58, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I requested closure by an uninvolved admin at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Request discussion closure. Flatscan (talk) 01:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Since my request was archived without action, I tried again at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive204#Request discussion closure archived Flatscan (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2009 (UTC). Flatscan (talk) 03:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. I see absolutely nothing wrong with finding appropriate content on any article and moving to another. What likely shouldn't happen while an article is at AfD is disputed mass content removal. Not the trimming of OR content but the mass deletion of content that is being subjectively discussed forcing either an edit war, which we don't want, or the subsequent editors to dig to find the full article, which arguably rarely happens. Instead the baby is tossed with the bathwater. If there is good information that helps our readers then we should go the extra length to find the most appropriate place(s) for it. -- Banjeboi 01:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A deleted article has useful text, so...?

What does one do? I'm not talking about text added after the AfD has started, which can be used as form or disruption. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Isn't it a rule that you can ask an admin for it unless it is a BLP-vio or copy-vio? Abductive (reasoning) 11:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• This seems to be related to #Merging during live AfD – any objections to moving this to a subsection there?—moved Flatscan (talk) 03:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC) Jclemens mentioned WP:Requests for undeletion (WP:REFUND), which was started/revived several months ago as a centralized alternative to asking the deleting admin or someone from Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles. Flatscan (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Examples of undelete, merge, and redirect:
    • Black Market Hero, requested by Michig, undeleted by MBisanz (closing admin), I helped with attribution and {{R from merge}}
    • The Final Destination (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), requested by Contains Mild Peril at WP:REFUND, undeleted by Protonk
  • These two examples are related to music (band → related band; soundtrack → movie). Flatscan (talk) 03:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Another example: List of problems solved by MacGyver, requested and merged by A Nobody, undeleted by TimVickers (closing admin). WP:Articles for deletion/List of problems solved by MacGyver (3rd nomination) was annotated after these actions. (I saw it mentioned in passing on AN/I.) Flatscan (talk) 03:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to be able to do the merge when I have time, and without admin help. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

• It's simply not possible to avoid admin assistance if the article has been deleted. You've mentioned redirecting as an alternative to deletion; prioritizing non-delete outcomes could avoid deletion in the first place. Several months ago, Jclemens added something similar to WP:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Deciding whether to delete, but was immediately reverted. The resulting discussion WT:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Deletion is to be a last resort failed to form consensus for the addition. Flatscan (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Alternate attribution

An editor can simply wait until the article has been deleted, then paste the merged material into the new article. I asked ThaddeusB:

"If I were to merge a section of an article, as long as I copy and paste the history to the talk page (say in a collapsible section on the talk page) then this would satisfy this rule?"

ThaddeusB's response:

"Yes. Both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA require that all "non-trivial" contributors be created in some form. Normally this is done by linking back to the Wikipedia article which has the history for attribution. However, the rule can be satisfied by listing the names as well. Thus, a copy & paste of the history will suffice (plus a sentence saying it came from Wikipedia originally to be safe)."

So, unless I am missing something, an editor can simply wait until the article is deleted, and then paste a collapsed edit history on the talk page of the article the editor merges the sourced information too. Since the underlying reason for this new proposed rule has been "frequently ignored"[2] GFDL and CC-BY-SA concerns,[3][4] and merging during deletion discussions, this clarification makes this entire discussion moot, except for the time period in which the merge cannot take place (during deletion discussions). Editors can simply wait until after the article is deleted (By copying the information off wiki and wait), to merge the information. Ikip (talk) 19:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't we do that during the AfD, and then it's cool whether it's kept or deleted? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This is fundamentally about reliable sources, correct? An article is put up for deletion because it doesn't have reliable sources. If a section is reliably sourced, it could rationally be merged to a larger article. Waiting until after the AFD, to avoid any confusion and out of respect for the AFD process, would be ideal. Ikip (talk) 20:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, history pasting does not preclude deletion and is allowable under that criterion. On top of the general drawbacks to this method (covered below), converting to the common method (not strictly necessary, but cleaner) after a keep close would require removing/deleting the pasted history. Flatscan (talk) 03:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Davidwr mentioned this method in this discussion over a week ago; I referred to WP:Merge and delete#Paste history to talk subpage in my reply. The biggest weakness of this method is an imperfect copy – most likely at initial copy/paste, but also possible through subsequent editing. The pasted history takes up space when editing the talk page header or lives as a transcluded subpage that might be separated from its parent by moves. Any objections to giving this discussion its own subsection Alternate attribution? subsection created Flatscan (talk) 03:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC) Flatscan (talk) 03:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Finding deleted articles

I am looking for an article that has been deleted (Tele extender). Where can I find the list of articles that were deleted? (I know it was deleted sometime in November.) --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 06:16, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It hasn't been deleted, it was just redirected. See here: [5]. Kind regards, Nancy ^talk 06:29, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

But all of the text from Tele extender is not on the Teleconverter article. And were are the deletion logs? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 21:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Deleted means to have the article and its history removed from the site. That hasn't happened so there are no logs. You can look in the article's history for previous editions (such as here). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

But the text from Tele extender is not on the teleconverter article. And where can I find the deletion logs? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are asking. The first and only Tele extender article was created at 22:03, 3 July 2009. It was edited several times, with the last edit before being redirected at 06:33, 12 November 2009. At 08:33, 14 November 2009 it was turned into a redirect to Teleconverter. That's all there is. There is nothing more. Feel free to merge any text from the pre-redirect versions of Tele extender into Teleconverter if you think it makes sense to do so. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, now I understand. But were are the deletion logs? I can't find them. --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk · Contribs) 23:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is a link to the DELETION LOGS===> Special:Log/delete Please remember you must enter the ENTIRE title, including correct punctuation, to find the article in the logs.
stmrlbs|talk 00:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Close needed

I'd do it myself, but my eyes are glazing over reading the discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waterloo Road Comprehensive (2nd nomination). I'm thinking delete, as some of the keep arguments are just assertions of notability. Fences&Windows 03:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Done by SebastianHelm (talk · contribs)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Review of my close of the WP:RFC on live merges

An RfC was opened on 16 October on whether to modify the existing language in WP:Guide to deletion about the use of live merges. These are merges which are performed on the initiative of one editor while an AfD is still running. See User talk:EdJohnston#Draft WT:AFD closing opinion on live merges for the background on this issue. The original debate can still be seen above at #Merging during live AfD. Full story is on my talk page, but here is the result of a lengthy discussion on what summary would best reflect the wishes of the 28 RfC participants. This would replace the fourth bullet under WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion:

An AfD participant would be dodging consensus if they were to choose a target for a merge and then proceed to copy material there before the debate closes. This kind of premature action may cause contention and may induce others to call for deletion review. It may require admins to do extra work if anything has to be undone on the target article. Preservation is often worthwhile but it causes an attribution dependency between articles that may require retaining some article history that would otherwise be deleted. It is accepted that editors must not create these dependencies on their own without backing from others. Waiting for a consensus is essential when you see that an AfD discussion is leaning toward Delete rather than Merge. Even if the debate ends with Delete, you can ask the closing admin how to save material that might be useful elsewhere, and the admin can advise on any further review steps that might be needed to justify that reuse.

Please comment if you see any way to improve this as a summary of the thinking of the RfC voters. If you *disagree* with the RfC voters, there's probably no alternative for you but a new RfC. But the above language could be tweaked if there are specific problems. Please comment if you have an opinion. I'll close the RfC within 48 hours if there don't seem to be further issues. EdJohnston (talk) 05:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There were no comments here in 48 hours, so I've closed the RfC and updated the language in WP:Guide to deletion. Style tweaks were done as per User talk:EdJohnston#Fifth version. EdJohnston (talk) 18:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Time to treat AfD as a vote?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Proposal is clearly going nowhere; archiving as the eventual outcome is already quite obvious. Shereth 20:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

---

There seems to be a trend recently for admins to base their AfD closures on the balance of votes, rather than by judging concensus based on the discussion. See for example here or in this deletion review. There would perhaps be considerable advantages if we made this standard practice.

• 1)Less editorial time would be consumed by each discussion.
• 2)It would save our hard worked admins from having to weigh up consensus and later be challenged for it in a deletion review. (Note how some admins are understandably not pleased about some contributions to debates being too long)
• 3)AfD related discussions would be less elitist and less frustrating for participants – everyone would have an equal vote. We get round the problem of vastly different levels of experience causing editors to talk past each other.
• 4)By helping to take the heat out of discussions their would likely be a reduction in the nasty personal attacks that sometimes blight AfDs and are possibly one of the causes of our well publicised decline in active editors. At the very least there should be an increase in the number of editors taking part in the AfDs.
• 5) By encouraging greater participation, decisions would better reflect the will of the community.

Some might think this change will favour deletionsists. However, if the numerous journalists who have addressed this topic in various quality sources are correct , the nasty personal attacks come mostly from the deletionist side. Therefore, with discussion de-emphasised by treating AfD as a vote, personal attacks will become less effective and likely rarer, and this will encourage more inclusionist voters to participate. Also they wont have to worry about their carefully constructed arguments being dismissed by unsubstantiated but emotionally forceful judgments like "utterly absurd".

In formal terms no change would be needed to AfD, editors will likely continue to give reasons for their vote, but that will be more optional and as only the vote will count towards the decision any resulting discussions will likely be less heated than as present.

Even deletion review would be largely unchanged, though would become much less rarer, as the only reason to challenge a decision would be if the closure had made a mistake on the maths. Id suggest the closure criteria could be something like this:

• > 70% keep votes = Keep
• 30 - 70% keep votes = no consensus
• < 30% keep votes = delete

FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• no. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No, no, no. This will only encourage armies of meat/sock puppets to invade AfD.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. Votes are evil. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. Is this a serious proposal? Tim Song (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• An unequivocal no. Nancy ^talk 17:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. WP:DEMOCRACY, Lord Spongefrog, (I am Czar of all Russias!) 17:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• Is this a joke? 69% delete votes would = consensus, and as that equals keep, even with over 2/3rds votes for deletion it would be kept? Since that clearly isn't democratic, I don't see how it is an improvement over the present system. And I don't appreciate the singling out of a group of editors was being the ones responsible for most of the personal attacks in AfDs - particularly as it doesn't match my experience. Dougweller (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. Hans Adler 19:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. If admins are simply vote counting then RFA is (even more) the issue here. Not AFD. Quality of arguments, not numbers of comments. Simple. Pedro :  Chat  20:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• I disagree that the proposed change would reduce the effort or heat of AfD. Currently, participants craft their recommendations to be persuasive to other participants and the closer. Making it a vote does not remove the incentive to convince other voters by making a substantial argument and refuting opposing comments. Per Fabrictramp, voting is more susceptible to disruptive canvassing. Flatscan (talk) 05:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Guru

Would like views on whether Swami Kripalvanandji is reasonable candidate for deletion.

There don't seem to be adequate sources available. Also unsure if topic meets notability guidelines.

Am a bit frustrated by a group of recently registered and non-registered "devotees" that are intensely interested in using article as a "fan site" for subject guru.

Perhaps I should recuse myself.

Calamitybrook (talk) 18:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not a good article right now, to be sure. I added some additional templates, it's not an article I care to work on. As the apparent namesake of the Kripalu Center, there's probably some notability. One problem may relate to spelling variations on the name, all of which are transliterations, I'd suppose, as well as varying titles (Sri, Swami, etc.). Maybe some one of the Wikiprojects related to Yoga could help. Шизомби (talk) 19:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Hello. There is an entire section dedicated to the "urban legend" of the doughnut reference in "Ich bin ein berliner." I made my views known on the talk page that this is not an urban legend. So, after a week of no response I declared that I would delete all urban legend language in the article if there was no resolution within one week. I even created neutral ballot language. Am I right to do this? GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 02:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

put categories in AfD discussions?

It's great that we have a searchbox for past AfD discussions, but it could be even better with further functionality, I think. It seems to me that AfDs should have the categories of the article they're about copied into them, if not while the discussion is open, then at least once it is closed. The search should be able to search through categories in AfD as well then. There appears to me to be mixed views regarding how past AfDs have gone, perhaps partly because policies, guidelines etc. at the time they were done may have been different than at present, or because the consensus was small and unrepresentative, etc. and WP:OTHERSTUFF exists or doesn't exist and so on. However, there's likely (or hopefully) some discussion content that merits consideration. Is there any reason why putting categories into the AfDs would be problematic? Шизомби (talk) 16:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems as though you would be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 17:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I should suggest it there also, or link to my post here, but no, that's something else. Deletion sorting is categorizing open discussions under just nine broad topics and three additional categories. I'm suggesting that all the categories of the articles under discussion be copied into the AfD. Шизомби (talk) 19:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Would be nice if someone can integrate delsort with Twinkle... Tim Song (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hear, hear! Excellent idea. Jclemens (talk) 20:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I have an idea what Wikipedia:Twinkle is, but I'm not sure what you're suggesting? Шизомби (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you proposing that the AfDs be displayed in the same categories as their corresponding articles or a parallel category set? According to WP:Categorization#Project categories, article and non-article pages are generally categorized separately. Flatscan (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the idea developed that far, and I don't know the limits of the wiki's abilities. I am saying that an Afd on an article with for example [Category:Online encyclopedias] as a category should have [Category:Online encyclopedias] in the AfD in some form. That might mean sharing that same category, although in that case it would probably be desirable to have the AfDs in that category display on a different page than the articles do, if that would somehow be possible. Or the category could be slightly altered like [Category:Online encyclopedias (AfD discussions)] or there could be an additional namespace like [AfD category:Online encyclopedias]. I think there should be a record in the closed AfDs of what deletion sorting categories they were put in as well. Шизомби (talk) 03:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Early closes

Although deletion policy states that AfD last 7 full days, I'm seeing a lot of closes up to 24 hours early. Why are admins being so impatient? If we don't reign this in it becomes a race to close them as soon as 6 days is up, restricting the time available to debate the article. Last-minute interventions aren't that common, but they do happen. In the absence of a compelling reason to close early, can everyone hold off closing for those extra few hours, please? Fences&Windows 02:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, this was discussed just above! Great minds and all that. Fences&Windows 02:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Topposting or bottomposting in AfDs?

It has seemed to me that bottomposting is the standard, but one comes across the occasional topposter. Should topposts be moved or left where they are? Should Wikipedia:Articles for deletion mention this under AfD Wikietiquette or How to discuss an AfD (or is it already mentioned somewhere that I'm overlooking)? Should there possibly be a comment that automatically appears in the edit window so that newcomers know what to do? Шизомби (talk) 02:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The post's are timestamped, so I personally don't see a problem. I do think you have a good suggestion for a "Bottom-post is proper wiketiquette, except when responding directly to a previous post, where an indent would be appropriate" inclusion, wherever you feel it could be included. Hamster Sandwich (talk) 03:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be good to add somewhere. Should I be bold or wait for some additional comments? Шизомби (talk) 06:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Technical_and_format_standards and Wikipedia:Talk page layout recommend "Start new topics at the bottom of the page: If you put a post at the top of the page, it is confusing and can easily be overlooked. The latest topic should be the one at the bottom of the page. Then the next post will go underneath yours and so on. This makes it easy to see the chronological order of posts." I continue to think something along these lines would make sense. The worst case of topposting in an AfD can occur when somebody does so above even the nominator's original post. Шизомби (talk) 03:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

There haven't been any other comments here, shall I go ahead and add something like this with language similar to Hamster Sandwich's suggestion and perhaps a link to WP:Talk page layout, and perhaps a diff showing where a topposter's comment was moved to the bottom with an edit summary about bottomposting if I can find one? Possibly also the essay Wikipedia:INDENT and/or the template at Template:Outdent where indentation is mentioned in "How to discuss an AfD"? Шизомби (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Go for it.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Miklós Zrínyi and Nikola VII Zrinski

So, there're always some nationalist arguments going on over the House of Zrinski, and whether they were Hungarian or Croatian heroes. Fact of the matter is, they were all ethnically Croatian, but one in particular, Miklós Zrínyi, was quite the distinguished Hungarian, as well. Long story short, there was a consensus some time back that all the Zrinskis pages should have their Croatian names, except Miklós Zrínyi (cf. Encyclopedia Britannica 11, on which the article is based). The page was moved to its current location May 11 of last year. The arrangement has been fairly stable for some time now -- until User:Silverije created a page on Nikola VII Zrinski -- the same individual, except under his Croatian name -- in September of this year. The "pirate" article is unencyclopedic, poorly written, and entirely unsourced.

This seems to be an extraordinary case, to me -- to get around discussion and consensus by just writing a brand new article under a different title? It doesn't seem to be under Wikipedia's policies for deletion, so I thought I would ask here: what can be done? Korossyl (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Pick a title, merge 'em (or just redirect one). If anyone objects to your choice, talk it out and change it if there's consensus to. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• I haven't looked at the articles, but what you're describing is a rather straightforward WP:CFORK. Start an AFD for the new page and point that out, and it's very likely that the page will be deleted (as it should be, taking everything that you said above for granted).
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually the simplest solution is to just turn the content fork into a redirect to the proper article, provided that the content fork's title make some (even limited) sense. Technically that's a merge without adding anything to the original article. Under the circumstances that you describe that would also be the correct result of an AfD. The only advantage of an AfD is that you get a kind of official stamp and seal through it, but since the new article is an obvious content fork that is hardly necessary. Hans Adler 21:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

eh... it kind of depends. We should be careful (or at least cognizant) about article histories as well. Real Content Forks (the determination of which is a good reason to have an AFD) are an excellent reason to use deletion. In cases like this, where a person has two forms of a name, it would be perfectly appropriate (and even necessary, really) to then recreate the page as a redirect. Things that are actually worth deleting (actual spam, attacks, content forks, etc...) really shouldn't live even in the history pages (and, not to show my "ideology" too much here, but if it's acceptable that something remains in history why do we need the delete function at all?)
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Meh, I redirected Nikola VII Zrinski to point to the other name. If there's anything worth saving in the history, it's still there. If there's anything that needs removing, leave me a note. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 02:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Ummm... wow! Thanks! ...This was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Korossyl (talk) 03:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

and it's back... :( Korossyl (talk) 16:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I must rely on your description of the articles, but I agree with Ohms law that you describe a fork of some sort and that deletion may be appropriate. If you choose to nominate the newer article at AfD, you should include the background you provided here, that it was redirected and reverted, and whether merging any content would be appropriate. Flatscan (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

These two articles are still er... problematic.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 11:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion period

The discussion period is five days as far back as I can remember. When was it bumped in this page to seven days? I've restored the long-established period of five days pending discussion of this change. --TS 14:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Reverted. It has been seven days since April, per Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 52#Proposal to change the length of deletion discussions to 7 days. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the discussion you linked there, I'm unimpressed. The proposal was to extend every afd debate from 5-7 says, because too few people got to comment in the shorter time, and yet this important policy debate itself was hastily closed after only 11 days (very short for a policy change) and with fairly low level of participation. It was also closed by somoeone who had participated in the debate - and clearly had a view. A large number of editors complained afterwards, and questioned that the debate had been badly advertised. I'm afraid this really is not good evidence of a consensus.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:04, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

There was a serious effort to make this more widely known: The discussion was added to WP:CENT. Later a lot of people reacted like you, and this was the reason why a lot of people made efforts to advertise WP:CENT more widely. (E.g. by transcluding it at the top of ANI. It's still at the top of AN.) All of this made a huge splash. A lot of people were annoyed that they had missed this discussion (not exactly a short one, and with a huge number of !votes, though) but nobody felt like reopening the debate: Even most of the annoyed people didn't actually mind the outcome. Those who really disagreed realised that another discussion would be pointless, since it would likely result in the same winterly result. Initially there was a high rate of accidentally premature closures by admins, but I believe the rate is extremely low now. I think all the other XfDs have also changed to 7 days in the meantime. Of course WP:DELETION#Deletion discussion etc. were also updated.

Under these conditions I think it's clear that 7 days is the new status quo. Of course you are welcome to start a new discussion if you want to change it back to 5 days. Hans Adler 15:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is clear at all. Given the high number of people who use afd, the level of participation here is not at all high, and the fact CENT was changed afterwards, tends to show that the advertsing of this was poor (whatever the intention). And to say that I'd need to start a discussion to "change it back" rather assumes that there was a consensus to change it in the first place - which is in fact the point at issue. I'm not sure there's a solid consensus here at all. Having said that, I'm not that bothered by things being left for seven days either, as long as this disputed consensus isn't used to punch anyone who might wish to close a debate after five days. If most people are content to leave things for seven days, fair enough. That becomes the "usual" - and may not be a bad guideline.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

It has become standard, I've not seen any real dissent before now. By all means open a new discussion to change it back to 5 days, but I support seven days. Fences&Windows 22:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

As I've said, I've no problem with 7 days being the guideline. If most closers go for 7 days, then mostly that will be the standard. That's fine, but there discussion itself isn't clear enough to compel.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

As a test, I looked at today's AfD log. Only 16 of the 81 discussions had comments added after the 5-day period, and a number of them were single comments long after the main discussion had taken place, and which didn't make a difference. Only on a very few contentious AfDs is discussion still pretty active after five days. This was predicted in the original discussion (as a rebuttal of the clearly spurious "what about people who only edit at weekends?" argument), but in the end does it really matter? I don't think so. Black Kite 00:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Seven days is better. How many people comment on the weekend, compared to the week days? Do you get more response on those days? When the final two days of the AFD were on Saturday and Sunday, did it get more responses than when the last two days were on a weekday? Dream Focus 16:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  • What I find interesting is that Saturday's and Sunday's always see the most relistings and debates opened at the weekend receive the fewest participants. Given that we now have a seven day cycle, that implies something about weekends, doesn't it? It also seems to imply something about people looking at old afd's in order to add comments. It would also suggest that the best afd period is anything but seven or eight days, in order to avoid continually relisting debates at the graveyard weekend shift. It's anecdotal evidence, granted, but I've been covering deletion for the signpost for a couple of months now and I'd like to see someone work up a bot to create some stats so we could test this. Hiding T 14:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I originally suggested 10 days. The 7 days was proposed as a compromise. 6 days would not avoid the weekend problem, and 5 days was clearly rejected by community consensus. The discussion was well advertised. Since that date, a similar period was placed on PRODs, again by consensus, so that would appear to ratify it.

I suggest as the mechanism for the phenomenon your idea that people preferentially look at the AfD's opened that day & the day before, for which there is no solution by adjusting the time period. The only quick fix I can think of is to prevent afds from being listed on from Friday through Sunday, which I would not support, for it would cause incredible bunching of the work. But the phenomenon should have existed before: having it at 5 days would make it even worse, because these articles would have only 3 days of debate. Possibly we are seeing only the side effect of a strong campaign to get people to relist, rather than close with a marginal number of votes. A partial solution to the problem is to get better notification of afds to all interested people. The real solution is to have fewer afds--I do not propose this as an inclusionist, because the mechanism I suggest for that is to make greater use of prod to get articles deleted more easily in unambiguous cases. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

"A partial solution to the problem is to get better notification of afds to all interested people." WHACK! DGG hits the nail on the head. More deletion sorting is one solution, and making sure WikiProjects are aware of deletion debates in their areas. Fences&Windows 03:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Better participation is always a good idea. Ten days is also an idea. I don't take the prod thing on board, because prod was moved to equal afd as much to do with "standardisation" as anything else. I certainly agree that there are issues with relisting, and there was discussion recently in which the consensus was that one relisting was enough. I'm certainly concerned enough by the relisting of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of socialist countries (3rd nomination). Hiding T 18:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I discussed this with the relister. My impression is that they were simply inexperienced and perhaps unfamiliar with the general relisting practices. Tim Song (talk) 19:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Members of the WP:Article Rescue Squadron solicited to have a bot contact all article creators who are not contacted by the deletion nominator. Also if an editor has more than five edits on the article, the bot will notify them. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Erwin85Bot_8Erwin was gratious enough to create it, and it is active now.

I have often wondered if a bot notifying participants for past AFDs would be a good idea also. And a bot to notify editors if the AFD they !voted on, went to DRV. Ikip (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Both would be good ideas, and not just to rescue articles, but to make sure that people arguing on any position previously are not overlooked. Bad decisions are often the result of inadequate representation at the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 22:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

AfDs without replies

Hi: I've noticed an increasing number of AfDs which get closed (after multiple relistings) with nonexistent or very little participation. I'm wondering if there's anything we could do about this - perhaps somebody with a bot could whip up a list of discussions due to be closed with little participation? Ray^Talk 22:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete as PROD?

For discussions with Less than a certain minimum number of people saying "Delete" and nobody saying "keep" after 2 weeks, I think we should allow a "Prod-like delete without prejudice to restoration/re-creation" to happen, even if the article was previous PRODded. An article with a nomination but insufficient discussion doesn't warrant the protection against re-creation that an AFD provides, but it doesn't warrant a no-consensus/default keep either.

The minimum should be the same as the minimum to close in 1 week without re-listing.

Scenarios:

• At least a the minimum participation after week 1: Close per consensus or no consensus.
• Less than the minimum after week 1: Re-list.

• At the minimum after 2 weeks: Close per consensus or no consensus.
• Less than the minimum after few2 weeks: If unanimous, close as delete without prejudice to restoration, otherwise close as keep or no consensus/default keep.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC) changed few to 2 davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like something we could try. I think sometimes, a single delete is sufficient (particularly if it comes in addition to the nominator), so we needn't set any fast-and-hard rules, but I think giving admins the option to close as a "PROD-like delete w/o prejudice against recreation" is probably a good idea in cases like these. Anybody else want to chime in? Ray^Talk 19:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly just the nom is effectively a prod and I would support treating such cases as defacto prods. The closing admin should obviously note this in their closing statement. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

No the last time; no this time. –Whitehorse1 20:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The full previous discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested_prods". It was heavily opposed. A key difference between that proposal and this one is that this one kicks in after 2 weeks, not one. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I know, I'd wikilinked the 2nd word of my 7 word comment to it. My original argument, and I daresay many others in the earlier discussion, apply as much to 2 weeks as one. –Whitehorse1 23:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. There is both no reason to keep articles that no one has defended in 7 days, let alone two weeks, and likewise there is no reason to NOT restore the article per request vs. a recreation being G4-able. Jclemens (talk) 21:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The intent is to do something with articles that have 1 or 2 or some other very small number of "deletes" but no "keeps" after a relisting. Right now, it's either relist over and over until you get enough discussion, close as delete with prejudice against re-creation, which is unfair if there isn't enough community input, or close as "no consensus to delete" which, while technically accurate, tends to leave low-quality articles nobody cares to improve lying around. To prevent the case of a contested prod turning into a prod-by-AFD in a short period of time, I would be find adding a requirement that there be no contested prod or heavy editing in, say, the last 6 months, without the consent of the editors who obviously care about the article. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) My problem with the proposal as described is that it includes the words "even if the article was previous PRODded". This goes beyond what can be deleted with WP:PROD, which can't be used if deletion has previously been contested by any means, so the title of this section does not accurately describe what is being proposed here, and I get the impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that the respondents above have replied to what they thought was meant by "Delete as PROD?" rather than the actual wording, which goes beyong PROD. If these words were removed, and we had the safeguard that substantial contributors to the article must have been informed about the deletion discussion, and after deletion must be informed about how to contest it, I would support this proposal. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I would think that if a previous PROD was contested, either before or after, and an AfD fails to draw any support for the article over an entire week of public listing, it is not an unreasonable result to again delete the article, while still allowing future challenges to restore the article without discussion, just as if was a "second" prod. Jclemens (talk) 23:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete as PROD - revised

I've read through the above and through the old discussions and I think this meets most objections other than those who objected to the idea at all.

Problem: AFD is a busy place and some articles don't get sufficient discussion to determine consensus even after two weeks. Some of these articles have good deletion rationales.

Proposal: Allow but not require an admin-initiated PROD immediately after an AFD on the following conditions:

• The AFD has been up for at least two weeks with no suggestions other than DELETE but an insufficient number of DELETEs to close with a consensus to delete. Suggest "sufficient number" be 3, including the nomination.

  3 is a straw-man number, 2 or 4 is okay with me.

• There has been no good-faith AFD or PROD in the last 12 months, OR all objecting to deletion are now in favor of deletion or were more than 3 years ago.

  12 months is a strawman number. 6, 9, 18, or 24 months are fine with me, but it shouldn't be forever.

  3 years is a strawman number, 1, 2, 4 or 5 years is okay by me, but it shouldn't be forever.

• The AFD would be closed with language saying "closed to go to PROD, insufficient discussion to determine consensus."
• Administrators would have the option of continuing to re-list or !voting "keep," likely forcing a no-consensus/default keep closure by the next admin who sees it.

  Administrators would be expected to use WP:Common sense and not let AFDs of encyclopedic material with a weak or WP:IDONTLIKEIT nominations go to PROD, but close them as "no consensus," in much the same way they should be declining PRODs of encyclopedic articles with an unsound PROD concern.

Proposed modifications:

• Allow non-admin relistings
• Allow non-admin closing as no consensus.
• Allow non-admin close-to-prod
• Allow bot close-to-prod.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete as PROD - revised - discussion

• Support as initial proponent. I like this, and I like non-admin relistings. I'm not sure about non-admin closing as no consensus, a !vote to keep would be better. We might try allowing non-admin close-to-prod at a later time. Likewise, I wouldn't want a bot to close-to-prod unless the bot was acting on an "admin approved to go to prod" tag placed on the AFD shortly before the 14th day was up. I want a human to decide if it goes to PROD or not, the bot can do the mechanical work after the 14-day AFD+relisting timer expires. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

A non-admin can do anything except delete an article. There are no other restrictions.--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

By convention, non-admins are not supposed to close AFDs unless it's a clear keep, "no consensus" closures are supposed to be left to admins, even though no tools other than a brain and good judgment are required. As I see it, this is for 3 reasons: 1) admins are supposed to be more experienced and better judges than non-admins - yes, many non-admins are more than qualified, but see #2; 2) admins have been through a community process that says "we trust your judgment," and 3) because of #2, people are less likely to argue with an admin no-consensus closure than the same closure by a non-admin. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Addendum I might allow a close-to-prod by a bot if there were no previous AFDs or PRODs, as long as it was clear to the closing admin of a PROD that he might be the first human to lay eyes on it in 3 weeks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been on this project 4 years now, and I've never heard of this. A good close is a good close, a bad close is a bad close - who does it is not relevant. Adminship is not a "levelling up" it is just some tools. I'm no longer an admin, but would not hesitate to close an afd in anything other than delete circumstance (I did so before I was an admin too, no one ever objected.) See WP:CREEP--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

One way round this, which would not require any change in major policy, or new delete default, would be to set a bot to close all AfDs where only the nominator has commented. They would be closed as "no consensus". However, if there has been no prior prod, the bot would put a prod tag on the article giving the reason used for the AfD. Then if there are no further objections in 5 days, the article goes on prod terms (undelete on request).

As a first step, someone might want to see how many of these afds that get relisted because of zero comments have never been prodded, and thus should have been prodded rather than afd'd.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I like this, but we would have to change the "no 2nd PROD" rule and decide if we want to handle cases where the last prod was recent vs. ages ago. I think if there was no PROD in recent history this will work well, if there was it could cause problems if the last de-prodder is on a wikibreak. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We'd need to change the "no prod if it has been afd'd" rule to allow a prod where there had been an afd with no keeps. I think that's still in the spirit of it, as the point of is "no prod if anyone has previously objected to deletion". I think there's more chance of getting this approved if it is only for articles which have not previously been deprodded.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm in quite serious danger here of agreeing with Scott about an issue of deletion policy - I must be going soft in my old age. The only thing that I would like to add is that the "no prod if it has been afd'd" rule should be changed only for the situation where a prod tag is placed on the article immediately after the uncontested AfD. If there is a time lag then the subject may have gained additional notability or consensus may have changed. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If a bot were to send this to PROD it would have to be for articles that had never been to AFD or PROD before, ever, OR for articles which all previous opponents of deletion explicitly conceded to deletion. Also, I would recommend that a human give the nomination a once-over for soundness before allowing a bot to do the AFD->PROD conversion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

This delete as prod has to be one of the stupidest most malformed suggestion I've ever heard. Just because an editor doesn't come to afd to defend the article doesn't mean nobody is interested, or that nobody reads it. Wikipedia isn't here to serve you, you are here to serve it, and the readers of it. If nobody has come to give an argument for dismissing the article, then the article should not be dismissed on an automatic basis. Smarten up people. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually like the idea. I think most of those articles probably should be deleted, and as easily as possible. Floydian, it doesn't have to be an admin coming to defend, anyone who comes to defend is enough to force an actual close --which if there were no further discussion would generally be non-consensus if the defense was reasonable. I would add two things: a good faith effort was made to notify any relevant workgroup and any interested editor--not relying on bots, but checking the notice was actually placed. Second, that full consideration should be given to redirecting or merging if at all possible (which is just what an admin--or anyone else--should be doing at PROD in any case. DGG ( talk ) 22:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion about appealing merge closes

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Updating_Scope_to_handle_AFDs_closed_as_Merge. All feedback and thoughts welcome. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Vayden

I want to see if the page for Vayden meets the Wikipedia community's general guidelines for notability, if someone could comlpete the nomination process that'd be great. 98.177.240.202 (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

List of irregular English adjectives

Hi

I just added a deletion tag to List of irregular English adjectives but I don't actually want the article deleted, I want it redirected to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_irregular_adjectives

The reason I added the tag is that an earlier attempt to simply replace the contents with a link to Wiktionary was reverted with the note "use AFD, please".

Have I done the right thing? Do I need to do anything else now, or will it just happen (assuming no one objects)? 21:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.9.139 (talk)

I've again turned it into a soft redirect to Wiktionary, your earlier edit was correct as Wikipedia isn't a dictionary and the material is already on Wiktionary. Fences&Windows 21:53, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks F&W. 86.134.9.139 (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

discussion about multiple-relisting AFDs

This is to notify WT:AFD watchers that there's a discussion about the length of time to relist AFDs here: Wikipedia:AN#the curse of AFD relisting

Thanks, tedder (talk) 03:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change to the list of choices

(This has been moved here from Wikipedia talk:Deletion review#Are we ready to formalize a discussion? since it is a discussion of section § How an AfD discussion is closed of this page.)

I think we have enough people favoring this to start a centralized discussion:

Change Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How an AfD discussion is closed

from it current wording of

...will assess the discussion and make a decision to Keep, Delete, Merge, Redirect, or Transwiki...

to

...will assess the discussion and make a decision to Keep, Delete, Merge then redirect without prejudice to a future de-merge, Merge, redirect, and protect with deletion review required to create a full article, Redirect, or Transwiki...

I would personally like to expand this to:

...will assess the discussion and make a decision to Keep, Delete, Merge then redirect without prejudice to a future de-merge, Merge, redirect, and protect with deletion review required to create a full article, Redirect without prejudice to a future restoration, Locked redirect with deletion review required to create a full article, Delete and create redirect, or Transwiki...

for reasons similar to the merge split: I have seen multiple AFDs with different actual consensuses of how the redirect would be treated, but all were closed as "Result was redirect."

I'm also not picky about locking redirects that are supposed to be DRV'd first. It may be sufficient to put a warning note below the redirect not to create an article or re-target the redirect to a completely different article without a discussion, and put an {{oldafdfull}} tag on the redirect/old article's talk page.

In any case, other sections of WP:AFD and other pages would need corrosponding changes. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion review should have the scope to consider the validity of all closes, which includes merges. Just state that, instead of creating new complications like "locked merges" and "locked redirects". Editors can and will start discussions about demerging on talk pages (as consensus can change), but DRV should also be able to consider whether the admin's reading of consensus was correct. Fences&Windows 22:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

First, I recommend giving things more then 12, or even 24, hours to percolate here. More importantly however, I think that it's a good idea to listen to Fences and windows here. I guess that there has been a recent propensity to close merge DRV's as out of process or something, which probably is not the best way to handle things here. Kicking the problem back to AFD doesn't seem to be an effective solution either, though. Since Mergers are editorial tasks which do not need admin approval, why not simply kick merge DRV's to the "primary" article talk page for a normal discussion?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a point of information. DRVs on this are not being closed out of process as the scope of DRV has never included this and it has been a long standing practice not to consider merges. But yes, I'd like to leave this up a bit longer and take our time discussing what it a big change for DRV. There are a couple of regulars who haven't pitched in yet. Spartaz ^Humbug! 04:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I am receptive to the general idea of clear outcomes like "keep separate articles" or "strong support for merge, but short of consensus", but codifying discrete outcomes seems excessive. Discussions requiring such nuanced statements seem to be rare. Flatscan (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Codifying every possible permutation of the result seems creepy to me. Tim Song (talk) 06:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

A list of example results and/or a prose description could be added to WP:Guide to deletion#Closure, which would be more suggestion and less mandate than the main list here. Flatscan (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's step back and look at the big picture. Why do we need AfD at all? Because we need admins to do the deletion. That's the one decision the closing admin needs to do. Anything else is optional. Of course, a conscientious admin will do their best to push for a decision that is reasonable and durable. It doesn't hurt to have a list of options such as davidwr proposed - they contain some good ideas, but that doesn't mean they need to be codified. The same goes for deletion review. — Sebastian 07:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that we need to codify whether redirects should be protected or not as AfD outcomes. If an article is merged and/or redirected following an AfD and is then recreated it can be reverted by any editor as part of the standard Bold, revert, discuss cycle, after all consensus and circumstances can change. If an article is repeatedly recreated, then protection can be applied following a request at WP:RFPP, or sanctions can be used against disruptive editors. If consensus regarding the current status can not be achieved on the talk page then the WP:RFC procedure is the way to go. Alternatively a second AfD or an RFD for the redirect might be appropriate in some circumstances. In the rare cases when protection of a redirect is felt immediately appropriate this is usually clearly expressed in the AfD discussion and can be applied there and then by the closing administrator. I don't see any of this as requiring any change to the current AfD procedures, etc. An explicitly non-exclusive guide to possible AfD outcomes could explain options of protected vs unprotected redirects though, and would likely be a useful reference. In all cases though where a more nuanced closure is required then the closing user should be making a sufficiently verbose closing statement to express this. We aren't limited to a finite list of options (I've closed one AfD as "unilaterally speedily replaced with a disambiguation page" for example).

I do though think that DRV needs to be able to review all closures, as it is just as possible for a discussion with a consensus of "keep" (i.e. keep as a standalone article) to be incorrectly closed as "merge" (i.e. keep only as part of a different article) as it is for it to be closed incorrectly as "delete". Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Thryduulf that DRV should be able to review all outcomes of AfD closures. In fact, this is what I had understood to already be the case, but apparently there is a disagreement on this point as Spartaz' post above indicates (he says that merge outcomes were never within the purview of DRV). I think that a formal RfC on this issue would be in order to figure out what the consensus regarding the desired scope of DRV actually is. Nsk92 (talk) 18:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

A formal RFC on the scope of DRV would seem like a very good way of moving forward. Thryduulf (talk) 00:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

No reason that I can imagine not to have one, but what would the question be exactly?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

the question is basically, how shall we discus merges and redirects so as to not raise obstacles to them or to permit their incorrect use. In the meantime , I think Del Rev can undo whatever a deletion process does--the real question is whether deletion closings should be able to dictate article content. I've seen this in many different contexts, and I can give no summary answer except that it sometimes might be helpful. I think such occasions would be very rare indeed, and would need to be for changes that were proposed during the discussion and had very strong consensus--only then will it be the community making the decision, not the administrator. the basic principle remains that admins have no special prerogatives in editing. Nor should they--many admins have only minimum experience at it, and are certainly not questioned on it. For that matter, I can think of no admin here who would be qualified to judge decisively how to edit all sorts of articles when it is a matter of basic structure or rearrangement. Many of us might be in certain areas; many non-admins would be also. DGG ( talk ) 20:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

These are two separate questions and there does not seem to be sufficient clarity even on the first one: can any XfD close be appealed at DRV? I thought that the answer to that one was yes, but I can see a bunch of recent procedural DRV early closes on the basis that a merge XfD close cannot be appealed at DRV at all. The only policy-status document we have regarding this is WP:DEL, whose wording on the purview of DRV is ambiguous. My personal opinion is that all XfD closes should be appealable at DRV. The second question is, as you say, whether content decisions such as "merge" should be allowed as XfD closures at all. I think that, as a general matter, such closes should be very rare and I dislike the current trend where such XfD closes seem to be becoming more common. But it seems to me that clarifying the first question (whether all XfD closes may be appealed at DRV) as a more pressing point which is also, I hope, easier to clarify than the second question. Nsk92 (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the first question can be handled, at least temporarily, by agreement among DRV regulars. The discussion there is making headway. The second question is much more difficult – there have been a few large discussions, and I've been poking at it from various angles since mid-2008, writing a descriptive essay WP:AfD and mergers. Flatscan (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I interpret some of those closes differently: they are saying they do not need to be appealed to DRV, because they can simply be reverted and then discussed on the article talk page. DRV would then be needed only for matters that actually do need an admin, such as reverting a delete or an undelete. The question then becomes which way we ought to prefer to do it. My person solution is to permit ringing all challenged merges or changes to a redirect into AfD in the first place--I would call it Articles for discussion, like other XfD processes. I point out that in many cases matters brought to Deletion Review are settled without formal action thee or could be settled otherwise--someone is told to write an article in his user space, which anyone could do in any case, unless is was circumventing a BLP issue. There are usually multiple ways of accomplishing anything at Wikipedia. We are not exactly a system planned on rational lines from the beginning to accommodate the present size and complexity; procedures were added ad hoc as they came to be needed. There is another issue too: with consensus, any procedure is possible. We make our own rules in the first place,and can make what exceptions we choose, and we have IAR available. The danger is that such things are done by clear consensus, not whim of an individual. The practice at DRV has always been by trying to find some accommodation. Rather like a RW appeals court--there can be many different bases for reaching a desirable result. What I want to avoid is changes made because we think it will help deal with the type of article we like to work on , and will help delete or avoid deleting fictional elements, or borderline BLPs, or local institutions, or minor league athletes, or any other of the contested types of topics, without considering the broader effect. The true basic challenge is making the distinction between notability and spam, not the way of dividing things into articles. DGG ( talk ) 22:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head: Instead of codifying AfD criteria by technical differences, let's just use this simple criterion: Has a proposed solution been challenged? In other words: AfD is appropriate when consensus could not be reached. I therefore support the change to AfDiscussion. There's only one more criterion for AfD: When the nominator wants an article deleted, but it doesn't meet WP:CSD. — Sebastian 08:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Shall we formally propose rolling merges and redirects into AfD and renaming it "Articles for discussion"? (and DRV to "Discussion Review"). Merges are a much neglected process, and treating them in the same way as deletion discussion will greatly expedite merge decisions. There seems to be enough support for the idea to make it worth seriously considering (I forget where I recently discussed this). Fences&Windows 15:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think merging merges and deletions into Articles for Discussion would be a good idea. It's not uncommon to see articles nominated for deletion where the nominator actually wishes a merge or redirect to take place, either because they do not know about WP:RM or because they know that AfD will bring far more eyes to a page than other processes. Thryduulf (talk) 18:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:Speedy keep criterion 1 is supposed to handle those nominations, which are not really common. The merger page is actually WP:Proposed mergers (WP:PM). Flatscan (talk) 05:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I support this change, per the above reasoning. Jclemens (talk) 21:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments should probably be directed to #Consolidation above, where DGG has written an extensive list of reasons. Flatscan (talk) 05:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Requesting completion of AfD by registered user

See The Iron Warrior (newspaper) --129.97.133.22 (talk) 00:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I've completed the nomination – Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Iron Warrior (newspaper). snigbrook (talk) 18:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Vision and Mission statements out rank Policy.

As another idea to reduce the time consumed by AfD discussions, we could align ourselves with real world organisations by recognising that Vision and/or Mission statements take precedence over policy. In cases where theres no agreement over the applicability of Policy, !votes that appeal to our very simple and easily understood m:Vision statement could be treated as desicive. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• no. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No as well. Many noobs already unknowingly appeal to m:Vision when they say "My garage band / invention / book / business exists and the whole world should know about it!" This argument has been repeatedly rejected by consensus. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. The vision statement of Wikimedia cannot by itself govern the inclusion criteria in Wikipedia. Or what is the point of the other WMF projects? Tim Song (talk) 17:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. In the "real world," specific policies generally take precedence over feel-good nebulous "visions," "mission statements," etc. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. Too many don't understand that the "sum of all knowledge" doesn't include the details about the barbershop choir they found the other week, or the third item on the yesterday's police report in their village newspaper. Hans Adler 19:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• Only if every policy has a very clear banner at the top saying that WP:VISION supercedes this and all policy except where legal requirements dictate otherwise, since complying with United States law is pretty much a trump card policy-wise. I don't see that happening but if it did that would be fine - we would be demoting what we now call policy and putting in vision statements and the like as a bylaw or constitution. In any case, it should not be m:Vision but rather WP:VISION, whatever that turns out to be. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• Nope. The Vision Statement is totally unhelpful. If the WMF wants to summarise all human knowledge, they'd better start some projects that can fill up with trivia. Fences&Windows 23:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. Wikipedia is a pool of useful encyclopedic information and (almost) nothing else. Other Wikis cover use[ful/less] information to their heart's content. SMC (talk) 06:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• No, for reasons articulated here. Arguments appealing to a broad mission statement or our five pillars are welcome, but they don't really take any decisive form because the pillars are speechless with regard to individual decisions. How shall we interpret 5P (or worse, the mission statement) when the first and the third pillars conflict? When the 2nd and the first pillars conflict? At best invocation of the mission statement or the pillars results in a meta-discussion, at worst it marks the beginning of silly gainsaying over which position on a given issue is represented best by which pillar. Protonk (talk) 06:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• No. That quote was taken from an interview and is basically used as a PR statement. It does not represent the actuality of how we work. Even that page itself says that the vision is unrealistic when compared with reality. ThemFromSpace 07:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• No - vision and mission statements are of little practical use and in general only benefit the copywriters and spin-doctors who concoct them.   pablo_hablo. 10:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

All sound points, I guess this idea could be archived to. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• No. For the reasons already articulated. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Moot We already have a policy which states this — WP:IAR. "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.". This makes it clear that our fundamental mission is supreme and that it trumps any other Wikilawyering which might obstruct it. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

User sandboxes

Say I have a sandbox page (or user subpage) I would like to delete. Would I submit that to AfD, speedy deletion, or anything else? MaJic Talk 2 Me. I'll Listen. 18:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It's your sandbox page/subpage, right? Just add {{db-userreq}} to it. tedder (talk) 18:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's someone else's userpage or user subpage, you would submit it at Miscellany for Deletion. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 02:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. MaJic Talk 2 Me. I'll Listen. 09:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Slicing and dicing AFDs

So the delsorting is helpful for sorting AFDs by their topic, and User:DumbBOT does a decent job of date-sorting. Are there any listings for "AFDs that are overdue to be closed", "AFDs with no comments in N days", "longest open discussions" or anything like that? I've been coding up a bot to produce these listings, wondering if there is interest outside of myself. tedder (talk) 21:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The log of "Old discussions" lists discussions that remain open beyond the discussion period, if there are any (there usually isn't, at least not for more then a few hours). I've never seen anything about "AFDs with no comments in N days"... I'm not sure how useful that would be, but if it could help in getting attention to under served AFD's then it seems that could be helpful.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 21:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Ohms. I don't think the AFD Old Discussions handles relists at all. tedder (talk) 07:24, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Well... no it wouldn't, since the discussion is moved. Tracking the number of relistings might be worth doing, just for statistical purposes (if nothing else).
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I think these statistics would be useful, e.g. seeing which debates have the fewest contributions per day they've been open could direct people towards debates needing contributions. Fences&Windows 22:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It sounds to me like this would be similar to some of what usr:Dragons flight did a few years ago - [[6]]. Thryduulf (talk) 16:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Halt (Ranger's Apprentice)

Would somebody finish up the AFD on this? Rationale can be found on the article's talk page. 98.248.33.198 (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Relisting

Can relisting an AfD debate on the log other than the standard "no consensus" relisting be construed as canvassing? I specifically saw this at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/EAbsinthe.com, but am AGFing in this instance due to the nominator's likely unintentional omission of the article heading on the 19 December log, which made it appear to blend in with the AfD discussion above it. KuyaBriBri^Talk 18:06, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes relisting can be done procedurally due to a significant flaw in the original listing that significantly impacted the outcome. I recently closed and procedurally re-opened an AFD, but a procedural re-listing can sometimes be just as good. I say can be because sometimes a complete do-over/fresh start is necessary to get a fair outcome. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

To add on to what David wrote, I think the relisting in the case you were referring to is fair because there was a major flaw in the way it was listed the first time around. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 02:34, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You can relist for any sensible reason - malformed listing, insufficient participation, material change of circumstances, even when both sides are offering weak arguments. Tim Song (talk) 20:42, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Relisting is bad. I often see articles get relisted 2 or 3 times. If no consenus/input has been given after 7 days, it should default to keep, without exception. Relisting just seems to try too hard to come up with deletion arguements. Lugnuts (talk) 10:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Gargoyle - Open The Gate Single page

Why is this article being considered for deletion? The single is a legitimate, non-bootleg release in the band's discography. It was distributed by the band, but all of their substantial releases have been released by labels, so I do not think the problem is based on the band's overall notability (which I am working on adding sources to verify). AQWIKI (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2010 (GMT)

The discussion for the AFD is happening at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Open_The_Gate RP459 (talk) 22:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Questioning AfD decisions

I've noticed a trend as of late to attack the closing admin when one disagrees with the outcome of an AfD. Looking through a sample of admin talk pages, I see that almost any somewhat-contentious AfD close is contested, usually by one of the participants, and the ensuing debate often degenerates into incivility and dispute. Additionally, people sometimes automatically resort to making assumptions about the closing admin's "hidden motives" or similar. Admins should always be willing to explain the reasoning for their decisions, and discussion and transparency is key on a public wiki, don't get me wrong; but something needs to be done to prevent unnecessary disputes following AfD closures/ I'll be happy to provide examples if requested, but I'd rather avoid singling anyone out. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and all that other stuff apply? Surely the enforcement of these should be sufficient. Crafty (talk) 05:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Julian, I'm not sure sure about where you say "of late". I think it has always been normal for a relatively new user to generate a level of paranoia when a deletion decision goes against their thinking. I think the answer is to encourage the protest to go to the formal forum (WP:DRV), not to the admins personal talk page, where the user is sure that he is right and the admin was wrong. Such thinking is not morally wrong, but a normal feature of growth. At DRV, if the protest (paranoid attack) is essentially baseless, then others can defend the admin. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It's just something that in my view has become more problematic in recent weeks. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and especially with our declining active admin core, its something that should be nipped in the bud. Ive also noted a recent trend for closures to treat the AfD as vote instead of a discussion. If we adopt this as standard practice rather than insist admins evaluate consensus, it should take some of the heat out of debates and reduce attacks both on admins and regular editors. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

But treating it as a vote would encourage canvassing, both on- and off- wiki, and turn many debates into a popularity contest, non-notable pop stars would whip up support on their blog and twitter pages, you would need rules for when to discount SPA "votes"... no, that way madness lies. JohnCD (talk) 10:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing recent about that Julian, its been a feature of afds as long as I have been an admin. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Heartily agree that it should be discouraged, but also agree that it's nothing new. (Heck, I even got raked over the coals by an editor for relisting a debate once. Fortunately, it got laughed out of DRV.) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It would decrease somewhat if admins would always (not just usually) give an explanation of the reasons for their decision with their decision. This will at least sometimes either cause the acceptance of the decision or the realisation that the matter is hopeless, and will in any case focus subsequent discussion--and eliminate at least one of the causes for complaint. DGG ( talk ) 02:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

AFDs without nominations

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sister Vincenza

Is an AFD valid without a nomination? In the specific case, I believe the article's author started an AFD without a actual nomination but what might be in a hypothetical nomination. Thereafter, the author added a Keep vote. I have added this here to discuss the process not the AFD itself. patsw (talk) 01:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

• • Standard procedure would be to speedy keep those. Timotheus Canens (talk) 01:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the AFD is invalid. There is a expectation that the AFD is being made in good faith, namely the nominator desires the article to be deleted and states so in the nomination. In this case, this is not so. The nominator seeks to have the article marked as having passed an AFD and to be immunized from a second AFD. It appears to me a clear case of WP:POINT and WP:GAME. patsw (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Could be. Although one occasionally does see someone complete an incomplete nomination by another editor, with the editor completing the AfD arguing for keep, which I think would be a different case. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 18:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've closed it, there was no nomination for deletion, and the only deletion argument was based on WP:IAR. Fences&Windows 23:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the article has been renamed and is now up for a properly-created AFD, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sister Vincenza Taffarel (2nd nomination). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

How do you bundle AfDs that have been opened, but have had little or no discussion?

I know one would substitute the name of one article in the others, but what does one do with the other AfD pages that had been created? Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 03:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I would untransclude and G6 them, though it's probably more prudent to wait a bit on the second step to see if the bundling sticks. Inappropriately bundled nominations are often procedurally closed without any result, and saving the separate pages for a couple of days can save some extra effort if that happened. Timotheus Canens (talk) 04:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. In this case I had in mind just four AfDs all on He-Man cartoon action figure toy vehicles (Battle Ram is one), which follow on the heels of an AfD on a list of He-Man toy vehicles closed as delete in which it had already been suggested by at least a couple editors that they be bundled. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 04:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you are not the nom and there are other comments in the afds already, I'd say just leave them as they are. It's four AfDs, not fourteen or fourty. Obtaining the agreement of everyone involved is probably not worth the effort. Timotheus Canens (talk) 05:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Wind Raider, Talon Fighter, Attak Trak are the others. All four have one comment by an additional editor (why bundling is good); one has a second. A shame it wasn't done to begin with, but OK I won't bother. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Please help me complete the AfD process for Barry Weeks article

I tagged the article Barry Weeks for deletion, but could use some help completing the AfD process.

Can someone kindly step in to help? Thank you!

paul klenk ^talk 18:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD appropiate?

Hi, I wonder if AfD is appropiate for Year 2070 problem. Hejdå. --Gerrit ^CUTEDH 19:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello, you would be better off raising concerns about the article at its own talk page, or at a relevant WikiProject. If you feel it is appropriate to list it at AfD, please feel free to be bold and do so. Hope this helps, --Taelus (talk) 22:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Casino Job

Just discovered that one of my AfD nominations appears to have gotten lost in the post (Twinkle screwed up rather badly when I first nominated it) and never arrived in the list of discussions that day. Therefore, nobody closed it. Personally, I'm not sure if the sources found by the one voting keep are reliable, but regardless, I need an admin to close the discussion for me. Thank you. --Thejadefalcon^{Sing your song}_{The bird's seeds} 21:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is required to be listed for 7 days as per procedure, and there is usually a bot which picks up lost AfDs after a few days. I will list it today, so please de-list/revert my change if this is closed after all. Hope this helps, --Taelus (talk) 22:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It got some comments because it was part of a flood of connected AfDs which had links to each other, so I thought that might have counted as the seven days. Obviously not. Thanks. --Thejadefalcon^{Sing your song}_{The bird's seeds} 22:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Your welcome, no harm in letting it go for a bit more discussion as those who watch the listings pick it up. --Taelus (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

How effective is the merge decision?

We have several hundred articles that got closed as "merge", and are still open. Some of these, such as Paul Blakely (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch, have not been edited for two months, and even have a stub message saying "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." This seems to me to indicate that the merge decision is often ineffective. I assume that's because it's easy for people to say "merge" in an AfD, but it's harder to actually do the work. Is there a way to encourage people to actually help with the merge when they voted for it? Or do we need to rely on a technical solution, such as a bot that automatically changes such pages into a redirect after, say, a month? — Sebastian 17:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• I concur. A bot must go through and redirect all such articles after a set period of time, perhaps two months. Then anybody who wants to merge will have to look in the article history, but other than that slight inconvenience, no harm will be incurred. Abductive (reasoning) 17:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• So, fix it! I'm not sure what the problem is. If there's been a decision to merge two (or more) articles, and it bothers you that it hasn't been done, then go ahead and merge them.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 18:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  The scale of the problem has expanded in recent months. Admins seem to have taken to using the template instead of doing the merge/redirect as was the practice in the past. Abductive (reasoning) 18:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that the template pair (to/from) has been in common use for at least a year. According to its documentation, User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD supported them in early versions in September 2008. The templates themselves date back to October 2005. Flatscan (talk) 05:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  Well, OK, I can understand the point that it may have recently become significantly different. However, there's nothing to say that the admin closing the discussion should be required to take action, especially when it comes to a task that anyone can do without any special privileges. As a matter of fact, in the past I've kicked around an idea of making it policy that the person closing the discussion should not actually performed the consensus decision, as a sort of check to ensure impartiality. The point being, if you're interested in resolving the problem, you don't need any special privilege, and you already have the AFD decision to back up your action, so get to work.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 18:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  I agree that we should not require anyone to do the merge. This project is based on volunteers; Wikipedia has grown by allowing people to work on topics they're passionate about. But neither should we forbid anyone from doing so. The last thing we need is a policy that forbids people from doing necessary work. The reason I brought this up was not to gain more policies and restrictions, but first of all to find out if we really have a problem; and if we agree that there is one, find an encouraging way to solve it. — Sebastian 19:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  Note that I never actually proposed the above... The main point is that mergers do not require administrative privilege or sanction, and the AFD discussion(s) should certainly provide a demonstration of consensus towards performing the merger. So, back to the original point, just fix it and we won't have a backlog.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion: Use a bot to tack the merged article on to the end of the article to which it is being merged, tacking in the edit history as required, IIRC. Then ask an editor to fairly ruthlessly conjoin the two articles, deleting all duplicated material. Tag the new article as being in need of copyediting. This may bve simplistic, but it is the only way to actually force the articles out of perpetual status quo ante positions. Collect (talk) 22:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Ugh, no. That kind of thing would be worse then doing nothing (And incidentally, that's the sort of "solution" that I think most people fear arising out of these discussions).
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:23, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  I agree with V=IR. This is certainly not "the only way to actually force the articles out of perpetual status quo ante positions". Simply only changing the discussed articles to a redirect does that, too - without leaving anything in a state that has to be cleaned up. As Abductive said above, that also does not preclude the merge. — Sebastian 22:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  Might you tell me what a redirect actually merges? Collect (talk) 23:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  It brings two article titles into one article. Even if no text is copied, those looking for the content associated with "title a" are brought to the content at "title b", which should be very closely related to what the reader is looking for.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• I think what it most demonstrates is that nobody cares for or about these articles. Abductive (reasoning) 23:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

  You might have a point there, but then there's the corollary: if no action is actually taken, then is there any action needed? Why was the article brought to AFD is the nominator doesn't care enough to take care of it him/herself?
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  The answer to your question is not so hard: It's not unlikely that an editor who doesn't care about an article would nominate it for deletion. And when a result isn't what one wanted, it's natural to just move on and forget about it. It's harder to understand the contrarollary: Why did the !majority !vote "merge" if they don't care enough to merge? — Sebastian 01:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  If you take either issue to an extreme then that will obviously create larger problems. Draw either point out enough, and it's easy to get to the point where we may as well just shut down AFD completely (which, to be honest, I wouldn't mind too much. I'm simply not dogmatic about it, and I'm realistic enough to know that such a view isn't constructive). It just seem to me that attempting to hold people somewhat accountable for their actions couldn't hurt, here. Start (politely) pinging the people who started the AFD's to clean up after themselves.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge is seen as "Somebody Else's Problem". The admin doesn't care enough; they're just closing it. The nominator wanted it gone, so they don't want to do work to retain the material. The keepers resent the merge decision, so ignore it. I've closed some AfDs as merge, and sometimes I do it myself and other times I poke a WikiProject or !voter to see if they can follow through. Mergers are a very neglected part of the project. Fences&Windows 01:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting connection. So, do you feel that this is generally important to Wikipedia as a group? When you look at a random sample of the hundreds of backed up mergers, what do you see as more important: (1) That we don't have deletable articles sitting around, or (2) that part of the deletable article gets merged into the target? That informs who we might get interested in doing the merge. — Sebastian 02:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the reason that so many articles haven't been merged is because a merge is actually a really, really bad idea for them. The first example I was able to find I potentially would've taken on, if it didn't require me to essentially delete the subject of the AFD discussion anyway - most of it is just unreferenced OR, which is hardly welcome in the main article. Take a look at Comparison of Australian and Canadian governments, which is supposed to be merged into Australia-Canada relations. That may look perfectly acceptable from an AFD point of view, but look at the articles themselves. Australia-Canada relations already lacks references and is too long for its sections (potentially requiring article splits?), while the Comparison article has only a few references and mostly consists of original research. So why on earth would anybody in their right mind want to merge those two articles, as well as their issues, together? The question needs to be posed at the close of an AFD: is merge really the best idea for these articles? SMC (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You make a number of interesting points, above all "The question needs to be posed at the close of an AFD." Currently, when an AfD gets closed, there's no discussion anymore, it gets archived right away. Are you proposing that an admin who closes with a resolution for which there was no reason given (as was the case with "merge" at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of Australian and Canadian governments, where there were only two opinions for it that were not backed up with a reason), then the closing admin should write something like "I propose to do x (e.g. merge) because of y. Are there any reasons against it?" — Sebastian 00:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That is an example of how AfD sometimes fails to consider all issues properly. A no consensus might have been better. Flatscan (talk) 05:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If that is so, then there's no harm done. The result is almost the same: The two articles remain independent. The only difference is that the have the merge template. — Sebastian 00:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Depending on who you ask, they may be slightly different: if the merger is disputed, no consensus favors the preexisting separate articles, while merge dictates that the most recent consensus was for a combined article. Flatscan (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Mergers in general (WP:Proposed mergers) often sit indefinitely. A specific example was raised a few months ago at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive202#AFD results in merger. This is not necessarily an issue because WP:There is no deadline. I sometimes help editors attribute mergers, but I rarely do them myself, as they may be easily reverted. Flatscan (talk) 05:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  So you would rather say that it's not a problem? Initially I thought it was, but nobody has really made the case for it, so maybe it's a non-issue. — Sebastian 00:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  The situation is not ideal, but it's not urgent either. I think that the solution is individual editors fixing individual articles, or maybe a task force, but not some sort of process. Flatscan (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Merging is like exercise. Everyone says its important and they should do more of it, but it seems like such a pain that instead we talk about it more than we do. Then, when someone finally gets around to doing some, its suprising how little effort and time it actually takes, and how satisfying the result is. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 16:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  :-) Well, maybe you're an athletic type, then. It takes me usually longer than I think. This one e.g. took me 1.5 hours, and this one two. I agree, though, that it provides a nice satisfaction. — Sebastian 00:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  As a proponent of the deletion of every single sony erricson phone model article (which got changed into merge) once, I can't help but say that the merge decision is one that is very weak. As the one wanting it deleted, I have no interest in combining 50+ articles into a working table. The admin doesn't care, nor does the keep votes. It's the reason why I don't bother attacking CRUFT anymore on wikipedia, because the matter is that unnecessary forks will be kept on wikipedia due to the inherent inconvenience of deleting hundreds of articles. Combining just 2 articles takes a considerable amount of time. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• O lordy, that's a mess. I've just marked it, and will get down to sorting that in the next couple of days. It's actually not as hard as it looks, because the specified target of List of Sony Ericsson models is incorrect. That target should be redirected to the duplicate List of Sony Ericsson products, which - you will note - already has all the models down for merging listed. Essentially it's a matter of redirecting each article to the appropriate section in that List. Though why somebody would want such a list, when the company themselves provide a highly detailed one - [7]. Hmmm. Is this actually a case for doing another AfD? SilkTork *^YES! 00:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of over 100 Alberta place articles

From WP:ANI:

A total of 110 articles on settlements in Alberta, Canada have been nominated for deletion - see Category:AfD_debates_(Places_and_transportation). It is generally held that settlements are sufficiently notable enough to sustain an article. What's the best way to deal with these? Mjroots (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Say so at AfD and asked that they be speedy closed. If there is a continuing dispute after that, other than DRV, then I guess you may need to come back here. It does seem excessive, but it is best addressed at AfD.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IMO these should at least have been bundled, but then it would be hard to close them as I know of no script that can close a bundled AfD and do the necessary work on each article. It would have been prudent to nom a couple as test cases before flooding the AfD log like this. Timotheus Canens (talk) 18:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

NAC'd a few as speedy keep where the nom has withdrawn the deletion request. Timotheus Canens (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, there's over a hundred of them. This is creating a ton of unnecessary busywork for both editors and administrators who will have to sort through all of them and close them when we could be spending our efforts editing and improving articles. We're all volunteers. Can't speak for all editors, but responding to over a hundred settlement AfDs is not how I want to spend my free time in a week. It all looks like a good-faith case of WP:POINT. --Oakshade (talk) 18:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless there were more severe circumstances, or repetitions, not going to block anyone. Blocking is not punishment, it is preventative. If there have been withdrawals, obviously someone has figured out that he's goofed. If he moves on to Saskatchewan, let us know. I don't condone it, but there's no administrative action that is going to make things better.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think blocking is necessary either. However, I propose that we procedurally close all of the AfDs that only contain the boilerplate nom and two equally boilerplate !votes. The remaining few can serve as the test cases, and after those are closed at the end of the 7-day period the nom can renominate the procedurally closed ones if the consensus is in their favor. Timotheus Canens (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps decide that at WT:AFD or something?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

~ANI discussion ends here~

Thoughts? Timotheus Canens (talk) 19:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The nominator has been asked to withdraw all noms bar a couple. Suggest we allow him 24hrs to respond. If the suggestion isn't taken up I suggest all article are closed as procedural/snow/speedy keep (whichever fit the bill best). Mjroots (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the nominator has confused incorporation with notability and perhaps is unaware of the many excellent reasons why a municipality in Alberta might choose not to incorporate. I also see some communities in that list that cannot legally be incorporated because they're in Indian reservations and others that were likely incorporated in the past and which have a long and well-documented history. That provincial list is an excellent source with respect to which communities are incorporated in the year of issue, but to think that it can be used as a bright-line notability test ignores the realities of Alberta municipal government, the general notability requirements, and AFD custom. --NellieBly (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Just close them all. The consensus seems to be clear that most if not all of these settlements are eligble for mention in Wikipedia, based on different grounds. Having this many open at the same time only causes disruption and drama. --Reinoutr (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• I closed them all. Places are inherently notable although I personally think its a stupid rule and clutters the pedia up with millions of empty stubs that will never grow, its a long standing consensus and there will be no meaningful discussion following such a mass nomination. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks. --Reinoutr (talk) 20:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Consolidation

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion to rename Articles for Deletion to Articles for Discussion and to include disputed merges had very strong support. Discussion on implementing the change is taking place at: Wikipedia:Articles for discussion/Proposal 1

---

Why not rename this to "Articles for Discussion", and then fold Wikipedia:Requested moves, all of the {{Merge}} stuff, {{Prod}}, and possibly some of Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion into one process? I'm sure that there are one or two other process that could easily fit under an "articles for discussion" umbrella, as well. De-emphasizing deletion as the primary mechanism, even if it is only a "psychological" de-emphasis, certainly couldn't hurt anything though. Most importantly however, simplifying and centralizing 4-6 different processes into a single discussion forum could only help all of us as editors, I would think.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 04:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• ahem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Fred_episodes
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Prod and speedy don't involve discussions. We have those mechanisms to avoid discussing some deletions when it is not necessary to do so. We could have a better way of summarising and publicising what articles are candidates for deletion, but that doesn't require that we only use a single process. Fences&Windows 17:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

That said, I think we do need to reform our merge processes. Unless I'm missing it, there's no centralised equivalent to AfD or RM for discussing merges, other than Category:Articles to be merged, which is unmanageable and has a huge backlog. Fences&Windows 17:51, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying necessarily that we don't need a better merge process, but you are missing Wikipedia:Proposed mergers:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I knew I was missing something. It's still a poor process as there's no deadline to the discussion and far too little participation - I think my forgetting about that page is typical of most editors... Fences&Windows 22:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There was also the failed WP:Mergers for discussion. Flatscan (talk) 03:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And there is Wikipedia:Proposed mergers and its spawn Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log. @harej 02:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

For reasons I've stated further down this page, I believe that deletion and merging discussions should be merged together into Articles for Discussion. I have no strong opinion either way regarding whether requested moves should be folded in or not, but PROD should remain separate. A listing at AfD typically results in lots of eyes seeing the article and often improving it. The same cannot be said of the merge and move procedures that are vastly under participated in. Thryduulf (talk) 12:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Follow up statement

OK, the main objection to renaming AFD to use "discussion" instead of "Deletion" in past proposals is that the current intent of AFD is directed towards deletion. That merge, move, transwiki, or other actions are occasionally the result is purely coincidental to the fact that AFD causes discussion to occur, and the result is not actually limited to deletion by any practical reason. If the process were expanded to specifically include mergers and moves then that objection is moot.

There has also been some consensus to use "discussion" in place of "deletion" for other XfD areas, so a change would hardly be unprecedented. I recall one of the XfD areas recently was ready to make exactly that change, but ran into some technical issue or other. I'm not really sure what ever happened with that, but the point is that the position that "there's consensus to not do this" isn't as clear cut as the link to the old discussion above appears to make it seem.

As for PROD, and possibly parts of CSD, one thing that I've been slightly unclear about for a long time now is the reason for desiring to reduce discussion when it comes to deletion. I've seen proposals to consider AFD's that generate little or no discussion as PROD's, and thinking about it that sort of thing makes sense to me. I understand that one reason for the creation of PROD was as an attempt to reduce the workload at AFD. I don't have any statistics to back this point up, but it doesn't seem that PROD has been effective in reducing the workload at AFD. I have a sneaking suspicion that some advocates desire to keep PROD simply so that they can delete things without garnering as much notice. I've seen convincing refutations of that, but the perception of impropriety is still there, and it's very easy to assume bad faith about a function as destructive as deletion.

Anyway, the main problem that I see with the current situation is that it's simply inefficient. There's CSD, PROD, AFD, RM, PM, the other XfD's, and probably more that I'm forgetting about. We're scattering editors all over the place, and that strikes me as an inefficient and overly complicated means to handle things.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 09:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with folding in the merge process to AfD. If it were Articles for Discussion then editors could nominate articles for merges or redirects using the exact same process as articles for deletion. Requested Moves is about the article title, so I'm not sure that fits. Prod is good as it is both simple to nominate and simple to contest, it still needs an admin, and it can be contested after deletion. You can try to reduce the scope of CSD, there are some areas where it is used overzealously to delete salvageable articles, but we're always going to have a CSD process. Fences&Windows 00:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well yea, I'm realistic about things. We're never actually going to get rid of CSD, and we're not likely to deprecate PROD. I don't think that PROD is in nearly as strong of a position as CSD is, though. I think that most view PROD as a sort of "AFD Light" already (which I'm fairly certain is the intent anyway), so it's not as though we'd really be getting rid of a whole process by consolidating it back with AFD. Aside from all of that, I'm not sure why people would complain. The only real difference with AFD from PROD is that the nominator has to start a page, and may have to actually discuss the article.

Requested Moves is a much lighter process, but it does have a generally similar structure as AFD. The largest difference between RM and AFD right now is that the discussion for RM's take place on the article's talk page. The other issue here is that both moves, mergers, and deletions all overlap somewhat already. A discussion about one already leads to performing one of the other procedures occasionally, so it's not as though we would be combining oil and water.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's a follow up to the issue of whether or not consolidating requested moves into this would be appropriate. Keep in mind that I'm taking no position in the legitamacy or usefulness of teh !vote in the linked to discussion, but this !vote should make it clear that I'm not off base in asserting that there is a similarity between all of these processes.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 10:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Previous discussion

• WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Renaming this process Articles for Discussion (April 2009) rejected the rename. Flatscan (talk) 03:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

  I encourage interested editors to review previous discussions (older ones were themselves referenced at the archive link I gave). The rename was the primary topic of the most recent discussion, but other issues have been raised. Two that I remember are increased numbers of nominations that further strain AfD and a lack of transparency from rename/expanded scope (imagine explaining to a new editor that his article is in danger of deletion at Articles for discussion). I agree that considering content on a continuum (full article – partial article – no article) makes sense, but there are non-trivial issues to consider. Flatscan (talk) 05:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

  Hi Flatscan. Since this was the second reply in a row which discussed previous discussions along similar lines, I thought perhaps pulling them out and starting a sub-discussion about that might be appropriate. One thing that I wanted to ask about is the motivation behind these two replies. The first was understandable, but the tone of the second seems slightly... annoyed, I guess, if you read it the "correct" way. For the record, I was aware of the above linked discussion, and at least one other which occurred prior to that, before posting this. I do tend to agree that renaming would be somewhat pointless without a larger change in purpose or structure, which is really what the heart of this proposal addresses. If we do decide to consolidate mergers, moves, and possibly other procedures into the current AFD procedure are you stating that you would oppose changing the name to "Articles for Discussion"?
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 10:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

  My second reply pointed out the existence of even older discussions (there were a few closely-spaced ones in January 2009) and provided a rationale for why a reader should consult them. I think that consolidation is a superficially attractive idea with downsides that must be considered. Flatscan (talk) 05:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

  Well, OK... let's see. There is a consistent concern in these discussions regarding the "strain on AfD". Aside from the fact that consolidation should actually help that issue, due to the fact that it will focus more community members into a single area, I just don't see the "strain" issue as anything more then white noise. That there is a significant amount of work at AfD is taken, somewhat correctly in my estimation, as a given; however, that there is some sort of epic struggle to keep up with it doesn't seem to be born out by the facts. To point out a simple barometer which addresses this: there's no backlog at AfD. As for the transparency argument, I don't really know how to address that. It seems so self evident to me that the process page itself, and the participants in the discussions, would satisfy this concern that simply asking the question tends to create a "bad faith" impression in my mind. People aren't stupid, after all, and it seems fairly safe to assume that Wikipedia editors can read.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 05:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Do you mean a closing backlog? Evaluating a discussion and closing it generally takes much less time than the discussion itself. Some users point to the number of relists as an indicator of stress, but I think that AfDs in unpopular topics will be neglected even if considerably fewer AfDs were filed.
  • "Transparency" was not a precisely correct word choice. The combined possible outcomes and additional degrees of freedom may be confusing to some editors – of course, some have difficulty with the current process. I think that we have differing expectations of editor competence.
  • A new question: in the new process, how easy will it be to jump from a merger discussion to a deletion discussion?
    Flatscan (talk) 05:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

← Well, I don't envision the AFD process itself as being significantly different then it is now. Maybe some people would want to take the opportunity to change other things, I don't know, but that's a bit beyond the scope of this... I just don't think that it would be any more confusing then it is now, and with the name change it could even be clearer.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 08:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Move a disputed merge to AfD, retitled Articles for Discussion

I very strongly support the proposal that anyone could optionally move a disputed merge to AfD, retitled Articles for Discussion. I base this upon these reasons

1. It will bring disputed matters out to where people in general can see them
2. it will provide a simple solution to the current complicated multi-place discussions about the extent to which merges etc. are enforceable at AfD, deletion review, etc.
3. It will prevent evading the intention of AfD closes--in any direction.--I've seen all sorts of them.
4. It will end the meta discussions at individual AfDs about what the true intent is, and whether AfD has jurisdiction over the proposal--as when a person nominates an AfD and says "delete, or at least merge" and is challenged for taking it to AfD.
5. It will simplify the repeated and sometimes circular movements of disputes over multiple stages and places. As is, we end up discussing the same thing repeatedly because nobody quite knows where to handle it.
6. It will greatly discourage edit warring over merges & redirects, by providing a place to reach an open decision.
7. Particularly important, from other XfDs, I have learned the advisability of keeping all options open at a discussion. It really helps get the best solution, often one not thought of at first. Many such discussions end up with everyone agreeing on a somewhat different proposal.
8. Most important, it encourages compromise, which makes consensus much easier to obtain. It's highly desirable that we do reach consensus on things--consensus being defined as something everyone can at least accept. It might even remove a good deal of the incentive for multiple AfDs or re-creations. It will encourage working together, rather than trying to oppose each other.

I know that a step like this will cause everyone to wonder: what will happen to my favorite type of article, or my least favorite? Will it help me, or my regular opponents? I have not analyzed it this way myself as applies to what I personally like or dislike, for i really do not think that anywhere near as important as a major simplification of process. (I think it might, for example, keep fewer individual articles on aspects of fiction than I would really like. But it would be worth it, in order not to have to continue fighting each one.) I'd rather get a reasonable chance at a simple compromise than get my way if it takes continual arguing and party-formation. I do have some experience disputing at AfDs under the current system, and it is possible I will need to develop new skills--all the better , is what I say. It's time the wiki-debater specialists like me (& my habitual opponents) went on to other things. I'd really like the chance to consider a group of related questions together, with the question not delete/keep, but what can we do best with this set of articles. I recognize this may in one sense bring more matters to AfD--but this will be balanced by not having them elsewhere. And, I'd hope, by disposing of things more rapidly and easily. DGG ( talk ) 06:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC) A focus on individual article decisions

• linked from Template:Cent (diff), WT:Requested moves (diff), WP:Village pump (proposals) (diff) Flatscan (talk) 06:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support for this. All DGG's reasons are good; I can see no downside. JohnCD (talk) 10:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support As in previous discussions, I support the idea of bring these processes together. Having a central avenue will bring more focus to areas needing improvement, and it will better interlink the areas in which different editors work. I think it is an inevidible thing, especially since it has been proposed numerous times with increasing frequency. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 19:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly support considering my past contributions to this idea. There's so many benefits of considering merges and other options in the same venue as deletions (even if the resolve does not require admin actions) that it seems silly to keep them separated. --MASEM (t) 20:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• What benefits? You don't list any nor provide any evidence of them. We have clear evidence that merges are not satisfactory outcomes at AFD (see below) and encouraging more of the same seems likely to cause the entire process to collapse. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Next step would be to write out what is being proposed nice and clearly, open an RfC and advertise it at Cent etc. Fences&Windows 00:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support though I fear this will require substantial other changes as well in procedures. Collect (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support per DGG, "It will prevent evading the intention of AfD closes--in any direction.--I've seen all sorts of them." How many times has a article been put up for deletion, closed "keep" or "no consensus", only to go through a prolonged bitter fight over merging? Hopefully this proposal will address this problem also. Ikip 01:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Neither keep nor no consensus dictate that the article must be a separate page – a subsequent merge discussion is often a normal step in refining content organization. I have seen a few cases where an article was quickly redirected following an AfD supportive of or ambivalent (arguments for each side) towards separate articles; I prefer that WP:Be bold be avoided after relevant discussion. Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
    • I understand the policy history. Maybe I am not understanding the proposal fully, I have had a nagging feeling that I don't this entire time...but if an AFDiscussion specifically offers the choice of merge and redirect, and editors decide to keep instead, wouldn't this possibly avoid the merge and redirect arguments? If there was no consensus, then the editors could simply renominate the article later, as a merge, avoiding the bitter fighting. That said though, ...if no one argues about a BOLD merge/redirect, despite the AFD, then their is really no issue anyway. What I envision this doing is allowing the community as a whole decide these nasty arguments, instead of two polar opposite parties. Ikip 15:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
      • If keep separate is codified as a separate outcome, such a closure would explicitly preclude merging or redirecting. Current AfD closures are not final decisions and may be appealed outside of formal process with a discussion on the article's Talk page (WP:Non-deleting deletion discussions describes common practice). Flatscan (talk) 06:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - could some kind soul notify me if I seem to have missed it when this is announced as a centralized discussion? - 2/0 (cont.) 04:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose made explicit Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC) Write a proposal as suggested by Fences and windows, preferably as a separate WP page that can be readily edited. I see good reasons and support here, but very little addressing of previous objections. Flatscan (talk) 04:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I see the benefits, but I think they're overstated, especially relative to the costs. I'll continue to participate at any specific proposals. Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - and here's my proposal: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proposal 1 — Sebastian 04:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sorry to go against the apparently unanimous flow, but while I agree that finding a way to bring these articles to a place where they will be discussed is a good thing, it is already a lot of work to keep on top of the articles that are proposed (one way or another) for deletion every day. With increased numbers of articles at a less-specific forum, this is going to be even harder, and with so many editors apparently with the opinion that virtually everything should be deleted, a lot of these merge discussions could turn into deletion discussions. I think a more effective, and separate way of discussing (possibly) controversial mergers would be preferable. Deletion shouldn't be taken lightly, and I would prefer AFD to become more specifically about deleting articles because the subjects of those articles don't belong in an encyclopedia, which is sometimes not the case already.--Michig (talk) 08:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

  You're making a number of interesting points; let me reply to them individually: (1) Re the number of nominations: the overall number will not change (at least not directly). You can see with one glance if a nomination proposes a merge or a deletion; this seems like a small price to pay for those who only want to look at deletion proposals. (2) I think it's rather unlikely that a change of venue would change "a lot" of decisions towards deletion; I think by and large people here care more about the merits of the article than about the venue where they are discussed. (3) You may have a point when you say "more effective", though. The current procedure has at least the benefit that it has been around, and for that reason may have an edge over any changed system. (4) see #2. (5) "Articles that belong in an encyclopedia": That sounds like a good criterion, but it's unfortunately not so clear cut. In reality, much of AfD deals with articles that neither fully belong nor fully don't belong: redirects, transwiki, rename, and such. That's the whole point of this proposal. If it were always such a clear-cut distinction, then I would wholeheartedly agree with you. — Sebastian 09:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

  Michig: the overall no. will be cut down if everything is discussed in one place, not two or three. As for balance, would I be proposing something that I was certain would change it to many more deletes? The truth is that I haven't the least idea, but rational procedure will find out better what the community wants. What I hope we will find it wants is more good merges. "articles that belong in an encyclopedia" = notability minus NOT. Of course it's a matter for judgement. That's why we have discussions. If it were an actual mathematical equation we wouldn't need AfD at all. DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support The more attention it gets, the better. Otherwise you have just a small number of people, rampaging about, avoiding AFD entirely by placing redirects everywhere, and claiming the information was "merged" when almost never is anything actually merged. Dream Focus 20:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support, reflects what we do already. AfDs often close with a "merge" recommendation, so having all these discussions in a single place will save effort. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
• An excellent idea that I most definitely support. However, I am unsure of whether or not Articles for Deletion ought to be renamed; there are quite a large number of scripts that rely on the current page title. Obviously they could all be changed, but I wonder if it is really worth it to do that. In addition, you would then have the problem of either moving all old AfDs to the new pagename or breaking an easy way of finding old discussions. NW (Talk) 03:07, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
  • There are over 200,000 AfD subpages as of 2 January 2010. Flatscan (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Right now the only way to get a merge or redirect done in a potentially contentious subject area (WP:FICT) is to be both very BOLD and not attract any opposition whatsoever. Nifboy (talk) 03:55, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - but and agreement for merger does not mean it will be done. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 04:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

  See #How effective is the merge decision? below. — Sebastian 05:01, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• Qualified support – DGG's reasons laid out above are very compelling. I'm not going to comment on the proposal for rename, which is largely a technical rather than policy argument. Instead, I'd like to raise a few cavils about the proposal of combining the merger and rename discussions with the AfD process.
  1. Turning first to requested moves, the closing instructions state highlight a couple of differences between the two processes. Moving pages doesn't require the admin bit (unless you are moving over a redirect), and most page moves are non-controversial. These two factors combine to make the sort of participation and consensus that one finds at WP:RM different than what occurs at AfD; for this reason I am opposed to merging those two processes. (Also, the fact that a move leaves behind a redirect means that it is impossible to edit-war over a move, so the visibility of conflicts is minimized.)
  2. Proposed merges is a different animal. First of all, we have a backlog of more than two years of requested mergers. If anything, I'd like to see the proposed merger process used less often – a cursory cruise through the backlog shows that many, many of the pages are there because someone threw a template on the articles and then left, often without even opening a corresponding talk page thread. We should encourage a WP:SOFIXIT mentality in this area because merges often are time-consuming.

     The level of research/subject area knowledge one needs to do when discussing mergers is qualitatively quite different than that needed for deletion. In the latter event, one considers notability guidelines, and most questions can be settled by googling: the relevant question is the relation of one concept to the external world. For merging, though, one must consider the mutual relation of two ideas – which requires more specialized knowledge. And merging can be a dialectal process – gradually moving paragraphs from one article to another, seeing what fits, getting feedback, and eventually reducing one ofthe articles to a redirect. Perhaps I am overreacting, but DGG's hope that discussing mergers at AfD will lead to "disposing of things more rapidly and easily," lead me to fear that merge discussions will degenerate into drive-by !voting with no follow-through by participants.

     Finally, I am worried that by combining the discussion of mergers with that of deletions, mergers will seem like a tempting "third way." If some editors say "delete" and some say "keep," I do not want some well-intentioned compromise-minded soul to come by and say "merge, and you can both be happy." This will just create a mountain of tedium for the WikiGnomes who actually carry out these requests, who (as has been insightfully observed upthread), are rarely the !voters.

I do recognize that it can be useful to have a binding decision on a merger, if it is contested or edit-warred over. So I propose that we leave the proposed merger process mostly as-is. (I would like to see a WikiProject Merge Sorting, akin to the Deletion Sorting one, to publicize better the merge discussions. But that is a separate proposal). However, if a merge is heavily contested, either in the discussion on the talk page or in the form of an edit war over a redirect vs. full article, any editor can take it to a "Court of Appeals" where a binding consensus can be reached. This "court" would be structured like the current AfD process (list for 7 days, close by (usually) an admin at the end, etc.); I'm ambivalent as to whether this should be mixed in with AfD or have a new area created for it (I can see advantages to both). This two-level system would be analogous to the PROD/AfD distinction we have for deletion. Requested moves could be done through this system as well – though I've indicated ways in which the move process is different, it would still be a good idea to get more input in controversial cases.

Thoughts? — æk^Talk 08:35, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

AfD is sometimes used (mainly in topics related to WP:FICT) to clear disputed mergers/redirects, very similar to your proposal. These often have preceding discussion per WP:BEFORE and are phrased to avoid WP:Speedy keep. Flatscan (talk) 06:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments:
While i'm appealed by DGG proposal, i think few points need to be clarified

• This proposal should have no retroactive power to avoid people appealing for the unmerge of currently merged articles on the pretext that a new recourse appeared.
• Have the usual restriction of Article for Discussion. No i will sent it to AfD until it's merged and the like.
• Sanction editors who abuse the process using it as a delaying & filibuster action. It's for "Disputed Merge" not for every single merge.

--KrebMarkt 10:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The quality of discussion at AFD is currently poor and numerous discussions have to be carried forward for lack of any significant participation. For example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dust suppression. This is a highly notable topic and of great significance for human safety. This was nominated for deletion on the absurd grounds that the topic was not notable (there are hundreds of books about it) and we then have a poorly attended debate in which the few participants appear to know next to nothing about the topic. Observing this travesty, I expanded the article to get it back on track only to be informed by an admin that there was now a supposed consensus for merger. This outcome clearly damaged the encyclopedia in that my well-sourced and informative addition was reverted and further work upon this notable topic has been suppressed. So, by expanding the scope of discussion, this existing poor process will be both overloaded and further degraded due to confusion over the proper object of the discussion. The purpose of AFD is to direct an admin to use his deletion button and that's all. This process should be reserved for hopeless cases per WP:BEFORE and then the process is clear and easy to administer. If you expand the scope to include cases where the material has merit but the question is how best to present it, then we might easily have thousands of articles to consider every day. Such discussions are best held upon the talk pages for the articles in question per the current WP:MERGE procedure. This process is scalable and will attract the correct audience - editors with an interest in the topic who we may hope actually know something about it. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:04, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
  • First, I will point out that we need to distinguish problems with interpretations of notability and "encyclopedic quality" with the process of AFD itself. The example above is not a problem with the AFD process, and actually shows a case where it seems to make sense to use AFD for merge considerations. But to the main point - yes, mergers and redirects should be discussed first on the talk page of affected articles, just as issues with articles with notability should be brought forward first there. But, there will always be people that disagree with the results - whether its the one person that doesn't want the merge and editwars to fight it, or the one that wants the merge but is met with several editors that are OWNing articles. AFDiscussion would be a natural extension of what the dispute resolution process is, as it is supposed to be handled. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• We already have dispute resolution procedures such as RFC. This proposal seems to add nothing but confusion to what should be a clean and simple debate about deletion. Please see below where it is clear that merge results arising from AFD are already being neglected. This seems good evidence that the proposal is both redundant and unworkable - we already have merges being suggested at AFD but then they are not acted upon. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• I didn't realize there was a deadline on AfD related merges. I thought there was no deadline at all. I am not compelled by your argument they are being neglected, there are many cleanup categories that are backlogged for well over a year, and that in an of itself is not a sufficient reason. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 19:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

• The nice thing about deletion is that you get a fairly clear binary decision - either the article is deleted or it isn't - and so you get reasonably swift closure. Once you start talking about mergers which might take a year to complete, if they are ever completed, then you have a fuzzy, open-ended outcome in which it may not be clear whether the matter has been resolved and completed or not. Articles often form part of a interlinked set and the rest of Wikipedia cannot be expected to stand still while such indeterminate decisions are left hanging. Editors who may have played no part in the discussion cannot be expected to know of it or abide by it and so will create facts on the ground which will make a supposed consensus obsolete if it is not acted on quickly. Fresh discussions will then take place and these will tend to become running battles because there will be no closure. To avoid this, the editors taking the decisions should be the editors who will do the work; who will take responsibility for seeing that the decisions are acted upon. These are best found at the article's talk page. Once you move matters to a separate central forum, then you get armchair editors who are quite ready to pontificate and vote but less willing to do the resulting work. Power without responsibility does not make for a good governance. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

• • In my mind, all mergers (discussed in and out of AfD) have common issues that must be addressed separately. Rolling mergers into AfD will help some problems, but it is not a magical fix-all. Flatscan (talk) 06:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

• I support this idea. We need to do something about the shitty articles with usable content, and allowing merges in the AFD process will help. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support per the reasons given by DGG. Merge discussions quite frequently overlap with deletion discussions, so I agree that it would be beneficial to rename the process and implement a revised system. JamieS93 18:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - This sounds like a great idea. Merges are quite frequently the result of AFDs, why not give them a permanent place to be discussed? The rename also shows a better understanding of what the process really is. --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 22:05, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support of course.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 02:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Fantastic proposal. ÷seresin 06:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support. I was thinking of proposing this myself just a few weeks back. Currently there are many borderline keep or no consensus results where a clear merge or semi-merge would have been the better outcome. Since AfD currently only deals with deletion, these peripheral results are not considered by the closing admin and in my experience, none of the editors actually goes back to do said merge or the necessary editing once AfD closes. In addition to keep, no consensus and delete, Articles for Discussion should also have closing options such as merge, semi-merge, redirect (without merge), move/rename/change of scope (for articles and lists whose title results in the topic being covered in a problematic or skewed way, where deletion can be avoided). Zunaid 06:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support I rarely propose merges/redirects on talk pages because I know that no one will respond or consensus will not be gained. I nominate articles for deletion (which would have the same outcome) and then I'm yelled at because AFD is for deletion discussions, not merge. Reywas92^Talk 21:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support - This will be a sweeping change to procedures, but it from my experiences it will be worth it, as well as help AfD reflect reality more. It is very frequent for AfDs to end as merge and/or re-direct, and many editors, sometimes openly, prefer to nominate an article to AfD to get a merge as they know it will happen faster via AfD than by the offical talk page method. Schools are a perfect example of this. Camaron · Christopher · talk 22:27, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Support, I agree with the benefits listed by the proposer and other commenters. Additionally I just personally feel that anything to encourage more discussion is welcome. Redirects for discussion, rather than deletion, is a great benefit, so I feel that this change here would help with the merge processes and such other things. --Taelus (talk) 01:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support Articles for Discussion is the more appropriate name. And merge discussions tend to get neglected, apart from the page watchers who tend by their nature to want to keep the status quo. This is a win win proposal. 81.185.116.128 (talk) 17:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Tired of this "well, it's between a keep and merge, so let's just decide it on the talk page, but it never gets resolved" business. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose – but I don't understand why a blessing from an admin is necessary on anything except a deletion or non-deletion as far as AFDs are concerned. Also, perhaps I'm against this notion of keeping discussions on major editorial actions (such as merging) local and strictly amongst those users who are actively collaborating on an article as opposed to having "community exposure" on each and every single major editorial action made on every article on Wikipedia. Article talk pages, not a centralized community venue, are the places to discuss such editorial changes. I think we've gotten so lock-step into just typing in simple !votes for literally everything (like what we're all doing here now) instead of actually having a discussion, which has been at least what I have experienced in the last few merge proposals I have brought up (even though it's been a while, now). I also have to echo some of the concerns that Colonel Warden brought up such as overloading the already-overloaded (IMO) AFD queue. –MuZemike 02:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  Flatscan and I briefly discussed AFD being "overloaded", above. I would be interested in hearing the reasons that you believe that AFD is currently overloaded.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 02:46, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  Convenience link: #Previous discussion. Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

  An admin closure is sometimes necessary to halt tendentious opposition. I added a suggestion along these lines to Help:Merging#Closing/archive a proposed merger. Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

• Strong oppose This proposal would encourage forum shopping. The talk page and the chain of dispute resolution mechanisms should be the primary way to settle content disputes, including splits and merges. Yes, it can be trying to form consensus. But the question of whether a given blob of content should be in one article to two is rarely that consequential. AfD should an exception mechanism for determining whether material belongs on Wikipedia at all and there is plenty of unfinished business on that front. I can understand that editors on AfD, having spent time on a nominated article, wish to opine on how material that passes deletion review should be organized, but that temptation should be resisted. The consensus process requires a single place for content discussions. One question for supporters: if I want to split an article and others oppose that move, should I be heard on Articles for Discussion? If mergers are fair game, why not? --agr (talk) 12:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  In answer to the question about splits, personally I don't see why you wouldn't be heard at AFD. If you're trying to highlight a perceived weakness with that question, then it need further explaination, because it seems that this proposal is exactly what you want.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 20:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  There is already some asymmetry between mergers and splits. Combining mergers and splits has been suggested at WT:Proposed mergers#Proposed mergers *and splits*?, but not heavily discussed. Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Support. This will be a good thing. One concern I have is what happens when a newbie creates an article, and it soon gets slapped with an "Article for Deletion" tag. That must be downheartening for a lot of new editors who it happens to. We surely lose some of them by this process. Whereas, articles for discussion gives a better chance of alternative outcomes other than deletion, such as userfication, or incubation - see WP:BITE and WP:PRESERVE. Mjroots (talk) 17:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The newbie must be made aware of the possibility of outright deletion – "deletion" or a scary template are equally bitey. Flatscan (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with MuZemike (talk · contribs) and Michig (talk · contribs) that the most appropriate place for these sorts of discussions is the talk page, whereas Articles for deletion should be about whether or not to delete. Also, agree with ArnoldReinhold (talk · contribs) that this would encourage disruptive forum shopping. Cirt (talk) 21:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I concede that a number of DGG's reasons are compelling. That said, I really don't think expanding the function of AfD is a good idea. The daily AfD logs are already massive, typically containing at least 100 discussions each. Reading through the above debate, I notice some have asserted that mixing in proposed mergers and requested moves won't result in an unhelpfully large AfD workload. I don't buy into that argument at all. Furthermore, I agree with MuZemike, Michig, and Cirt in that I feel article talk pages are the proper province of merger discussions. I don't believe that bringing those discussions to a bloated, rebranded AfD will be helpful at all in decreasing the proposed merger backlog. And finally, I don't think the current name of this forum discourages outcomes like "userfy," "incubate," etc. They still occur – and how can that increase if closing admins notice the rename? Not too much, I'm willing to bet. So I object to the proposal. The status quo is better. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 03:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support. This would stop closings with consensus is to keep, take merge discussion to talk page please that end up never getting resolved. Bsimmons666 (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Merge-specific results will probably be better, but may be inconclusive or require relists. AfDs reaching consensus are already closed as merge. Flatscan (talk) 07:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Not always, I thought. Bsimmons666 (talk) 04:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
      • That's not a consensus to merge. Even if that were an AfDiscussion, that's a pretty SNOWy keep, in line with most AfDs on recent major news events (I think there's an essay, but I can't find it). Flatscan (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Aside from the practical benefits, technically, the question of whether or not a separate article should exist on a subject is essentially a deletion discussion: We're asking "should this article exist or not?" The fact that a redirect gets created and the content moved doesn't negate the fact that we're discussing the fundamental merits of the article's existence, which in some merge cases (presumably the disputed ones) can hinge on notability -- a question that it's traditionally been agreed merits centralized discussion at AfD. Equazcion ^(talk) 22:51, 29 Dec 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that the stand-alone article metric makes sense, and AfD is pretty good at evaluating that. In my limited experience, AfD is pretty bad at discussing merge specifics. Flatscan (talk) 07:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Specifics don't need to be discussed at AfD; Only the binary question of whether or not a merge is warranted. That's basically the same as a deletion discussion. Once that's determined, specifics are discussed on the talk page. Equazcion ^(talk) 15:23, 30 Dec 2009 (UTC)
      • I think we are actually mostly in agreement. Finalizing specifics at the Talk page happens in the current AfDeletion. There are issues with it (#How effective is the merge decision?, below), and I don't understand how this proposal can fix them if it does the same thing. Flatscan (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose The main purpose of the articles for deletion debate is to find a consensus on an action - deletion - that specifically requires administrator intervention. Page moves can be done by any editor and there is no reason to obscure the purpose of the deletion process. The fact is that Wikipedia does need a clear and unambiguous deletion process, and clogging it with other debates will only slow the process down and mislead people as to the purpose of the discussion. Many of the problems raised in the proposal could be addressed by more modest policy changes. It could simply be made clear that a consensus reached in an AFD as to an article change necessary to avoid deletion is actually binding. Locke9k (talk) 20:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support I think this is a particularly good idea in that it will help streamline the number of processes required in a situation where an article should be either deleted, merged or moved, but where it is initially unclear which is the best option. One forum for all of these is better than having to make three different proposals in such situations. Brilliantine (talk) 01:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Maybe I'm missing the big change, but as far as I can see, all this proposal would change is a question. As things are, AfD is a process where someone selects and article and asks the community "Should we delete this article?". That's a binary question, and often discussions reveal the solution is more than black and white; sometimes the article is not appropriate, but the content is acceptable somewhere else. So we get rid of the article, and save the content; make the article a redirect and the content gets merged. Regardless of what you want call it, AfD is always going to be a place that deals with both article and content issues. Given this is what actually happens in reality at AfD, I think the question nominators really need to be asking the community is "What should we do with this article and this content?" Renaming AfD to Articles for Discussion would reflect this question. And when we start asking that question, the inclusionist/deletionist divide vanishes. It becomes insignificant. And while a new name may not have some of the... shal we say 'focus' of Articles for Deletion, it would be a healthy change that would reflect what actually goes on in practice. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 04:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • One big change is all the pages that must be moved. I agree with the idea of "what should we do with this content", but I disagree that 1) AfD's name/scope should be changed and 2) that the inclusion divide will magically vanish. There are contentious merger discussions that originate from the articles and rapidly escalate to AfD – the heat is not all attributable to AfD's structure. Flatscan (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, I'm a bit of an idealist, but even still, I think this would be a major factor in the healing process. Aside from that tho, why would we need to move all those old pages? Why not just leave them where they are, and change the newly created ones? Certainly something like this wouldn't go into effect overnight, a future date could be set when scripts and such would need to be updated. Then on midnight on such-and-such a day all new AfDs will be located at Articles for Discussion/blablabla. And the universe continues as normal. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 03:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
      • There are templates that may include nominations before and after the rename, such as {{oldafdmulti}}. This issue should be a consideration, but it seems that NuclearWarfare has been the only participant to mention it. Flatscan (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I see no benefit from the change. I rarely see benefit from change. Edison (talk) 05:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Why? The Junk Police (reports|works) 14:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• I used to oppose this (April 2009 proposal). I will tend to support, per nom. If I wish, create new naming convections for XfD, renaming all for deletion(s) to to discussion. The Junk Police (reports|works) 14:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support as long as this doesn't become overly bureaucratic, in particular per issues 3 and 6. Often merge discussions don't have enough participants and tags linger for years. Redirects due to WP:N failure get edit warred over or wikilawyered at AfD: "you want to redirect, not delete". Sometimes a WikiProject discussion is pretty much this, i.e. "articles for discussion" (e.g. 1, 2, 3) but this works only if the article is part of a sufficiently active WikiProject. Pcap ping 07:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support as long overdue. Following the good example of CfD and TfD, this change will shift the tone of AfD from a full-stakes war over deletion to a discussion of what is best for the article and for the encyclopaedia. Move discussions already get mixed into AfD; streamlining the process to reflect this reality is apposite.  Skomorokh  12:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. This will be a great way to bring light to important, yet oft-ignored, merge proposals. youngamerican (wtf?) 00:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support At AfD this will cut bureaucracy by allowing proposed merges to get the attention they need. Currently, if a nominator makes the mistake of suggesting a merge he is shot down with cries of "afd is not for merge proposals" with little attention payed to the actual quality of the article under discussion. I also support the added focus on community discussion that this would bring to merge discussions, as our current system for advertising merge discussions is severely broken. ThemFromSpace 00:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Agreeing with DGG. Give merges their needed attention.  Dspradau → talk  19:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support I support the inclusion of merge discussions at AFD, I oppose a change to the name. It's unnecessary and will cause too much extra work. Jujutacular ^T · C 21:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
• Approve - This is a wise proposal that has been too long in coming. — James Kalmar 22:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Merge discussions already happen there from time to time, and some people even already nominate merges. Not saying we should adopt this change because of that directly, but it's proven itself useful already. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support for the multitude of reasons above. A wise change that's taken way too long. —what a crazy random happenstance 07:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Always a fan of making things simpler, making one place for the same discussion is a good thing for efficiency. Shadowjams (talk) 07:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support This will give merges much-needed attention. The Thing _{Editor Review} 03:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support this works well at WP:CFD, providing a centralized place for discussion, and can hopefully get broader consensus on proposed merges. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 06:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
• Please move this comment if it's in the wrong place. I've plonked it here at the end because I'm only passing through. It struck me that "articles for discussion" is not a great name. It seems too wide in scope, and sounds as if it deals with any point of debate, which is really what the articles' talk pages are for, n'est-ce-pas? 86.150.102.84 (talk) 02:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC).
• Oppose per everything that MuZemike (talk · contribs) said, particularly his first sentence. ╟─TreasuryTag►assemblyman─╢ 08:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
• I support letting AfD handle disputed merge proposals, but I don't like the name Articles for Discussion. It doesn't mean anything for people who don't already know what it is. Articles for Discussion? A place to discuss articles? Isn't that what talk pages are for? I would rather we keep the name Articles for Deletion which at least means something, if slightly inaccurate. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support - merging can be used in place of deletion to avoid the centralized AfD discussions. DGG's proposal closes that loophole, and I'm definitely for this. The Transhumanist 22:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Do you mean that mergers should be handled exclusively at AfDiscussion, with the existing merge process completely deprecated? Flatscan (talk) 04:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose The proposal solves some problems and creates others, on balance I think the negatives suprass the positives. Sole Soul (talk) 01:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. know that articles taken to AfD often end in merge or smerge recommendations, but that does not mean it is the most efficient to make this obligatory passage for every article. The AfD process is clogged up enough as it is without all other discussions on articles needed here. What's more, this would be instruction creep – page moves, mergers and redirects often get performed in localised talk sections or per WP:BOLD, and I see no good reason why these should not stay that way, except possibly when it is likely to be HIGHLY contentious. However, that is often difficult to define, and is likely to be the thin end of the wedge to further bureaucratising the process. In addition, an AfD should not confer any more or less legitimacy that an RfC conducted over a page merge or move – it is the consensus itself which is of prime importance. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

  One question, and one observation: In your view, how is AFD "clogged up enough as it is"? Flatscan and I briefly touched on that above, I think, but I don't think that the question has really been addressed, and I'd like to understand it. Are there AFD's being missed, or something like that? The observation that I'd like to make is that nobody is suggesting that merge, move, or other discussions would be required to occur here. That would be certainly be creepy, but this criticism seems to be misplaced. There is some more discussion about that, below.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 22:55, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

  Some comments – most recently The Transhumanist's, to which I responded – mention mergers and redirects as ways to bypass the deletion process. Closing this "loophole" requires that all merging and redirecting be handled within AfDiscussion. Flatscan (talk) 04:41, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

  OK, that's understandable, but I don't see general support for that position (requiring the use of AFD), that position seems to go beyond the scope of the actual proposal, and I personally certainly don't support such a requirement. I suspect, based on on what I believe to be strong anecdotal evidence (namely, most of the replies here) that AFD itself will largely appear exactly as it does now after this proposed change, both in terms of "workload" and participants actions and behavior. I see this proposed change as more a reflection of the realities "on the ground" then a substantial change (An exampleof a more substantial change would be the issue re: SNOW, below). Anywawy, I'd still be interested in hearing from Ohconfucius regarding his perceptions about AFD being "clogged up", by the way.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support - I've always thought that the current way of doing merges is messy, non-formalized, and just doesn't work as cleanly as it could. This proposal looks like it will provide a solution for the problem. (X! · talk)  · @122  ·  01:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Closing proposal

Does anyone object to this being closed in a week's time? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer if this proposal were left open for a minimum of 30 days, the default RfC duration. The proposed rename has substantial effects, this specific proposal was started near the holiday season for many editors, and many commenters from the April 2009 discussion have not participated. If this poll is primarily to gauge interest – i.e., a proposal draft will be brought back for confirmation – I am fine with closing soon. Flatscan (talk) 05:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been waiting to see what others say about it, but I tend to agree with Flatscan. This discussion having taken place over the holidays is the main concern, I think. That being said, the main issue appears to be in regards to implementation details, not with doing it at all (although my view is decidedly biased, so feel free to correct me here). Rather then "closing" this, we should probably move to more of an implementation phase, which seems to be where we're headed in the section below anyway.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 12:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Would prefer to keep this open the standard 30-day-period for RfCs. Cirt (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• This proposal was shot down when raised previously less than a year ago. Raising it again so soon is not conducive to genuine consensus and an early close of discussion would exacerbate ths by generating a sense of WP:STEAM. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The prior proposal was, I believe, simply a rename proposal. Besides, to oppose on the grounds that a proposal was opposed before is ignoring the fact that consensus can change. Please oppose for a good reason, not inertia or process wonkery. Fences&Windows 19:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Juliancolton's motion is a procedural one and so is properly considered on procedural grounds. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Juliancolton was simply asking about the timeframe for this to run. Are you indicating that you're going to oppose any changes here, regardless of what appears to be support (with some caveats)?
        — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 23:30, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
        • I make my points regarding the main proposal in the main section above. All we should be discussing here is the proposal to close early and there does not seem to be consensus for this. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• Let it run the full time. The rename would be messy. Timotheus Canens (talk) 19:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
• Isn't this what WP:PM is for? Stifle (talk) 09:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge discussion location criticism

I see one discreet criticism above, which seems to be repeated among at least a couple "opposers", is that merger discussions are best discussed on the article talk page. Since this seems to be a common complaint I wanted to pull it out in hope of having a more detailed discussion about it (if there are other similar issues, it would probably be helpful to start a section about them as well).

One point that I wanted to make on this issue is fairly simple: The stance is that merge discussions should occur on the talk page, but my question is often which one? I've actually personally run into the problem of needing to choose an appropriate venue for a merger discussion in the past, and I've talked to others who have run into similar issues.

Additionally, there are many pages where the number of watchers is either minuscule, or most of those who are watching the page are inactive. We all know that listing an article on AFD increases viewership of the pages being listed, so utilizing a central discussion area logically would seem to help.

So, between the "meta" nature of merge discussions themselves (or split discussions, for that matter), and increased attention which would be given to those pages if the AFD system is used, I'm not clear as to what the downside would be.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:50, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge discussions aren't inherently "meta." Holding them in a centralized venue as a matter of course will tend to make them so, of course.

If I may toot my own horn a bit, I think that my proposal (elevating merge discussions to a central venue only when consensus is stalled) addresses the main thrust of the original proposal while also addressing to some degree the objection you've identified. Currently, we treat merges as content issues, meaning that the dispute resolution pathway for them runs something like:

talk page --> third opinion --> subject-specific noticeboards (if there is a compatible Wikiproject) --> RfC --> (rarely) mediation committee.

Merge disputes seem to be common, contentious, and sui generis enough that it would be justified to create a processual exception for them by running them through AfD. The advantages are (potentially) increased participation and speedier resolution (7-14 days vs. 30 for a RfC); the disadvantages are overburdening AfD further and risking sacrificing consensus to a "take a vote" attitude. The degree to which the community thinks that merge decisions deserve special consideration will dictate the degree to which they need to be excepted from the regular content-building and DR processes; but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. — æk^Talk 09:34, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh, I'm fairly certain that we could argue about "meta"-ness until the end of time. — Ohms law — continues after insertion below

That's a good idea - could someone start an essay at "WP:METANESS", please? — Sebastian 21:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree that using a centralized discussion area would be most appropriate as a psdeu-dispute resolution step (or even formally as a dispute resolution step). I'd think that would be the way it would most often be used, regardless. I'm not sure how useful it would be to create any sort of a rule about that, however.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 18:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

having seen some of these merge discussions first hand, I agree with ohms. Many merges can be done without a !vote, with little controversy, the problem is there are some merge discussions which are incredibly nasty, not completly solved by RFC (in that editors go away from the discussion really angry), were the most well connected group of veteran editors usually win. A larger community discussion at afd would help. Ikip 20:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

From the merger discussions that I've observed, "the most well connected group of veteran editors" that "win"s is backed by a WikiProject. Containing members interested and knowledgeable in the topic area, WikiProjects are given wide latitude, unless they're horribly out of sync with the community or creating WP:Walled gardens. Flatscan (talk) 07:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Even though I love DGG's proposal, I have to say that unfortunately this argument about centralizing merge discussions sounds good in theory, but doesn't actually hold water in reality. See #How effective is the merge decision? below. — Sebastian 21:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Also consider the low traffic of WP:Proposed mergers and the failure of WP:Mergers for discussion. Flatscan (talk) 07:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't characterize proposed mergers/Mergers for discussion as "low traffic". At this point they seem to be a fairly clear failures. That's actually one piece of what is prompting this proposal.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that the backlog is associated with mergers in general, not any specific merger-related process. Flatscan (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This proposal doesn't stop editors from having low-key discussions about merges on talk pages, or even stop bold merges with no discussion. It simply allows editors to nominate articles for merging using the AfD process. If an editor made such a nomination in the middle of a local merge discussion, that'd be disruptive and probably subject to a speedy close. If discussion is absent, deadlocked or stalled, being able to reinvigorate it centrally is very useful. If we make it a rule that nominations done in the middle of active merge discussions are considered disruptive and forum shopping and that nominators must link to prior merge debate on the talk page(s) in question, would that allay some fears over this process? Fences&Windows 03:24, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Editors – as long as they provide a deletion rationale and avoid WP:Speedy keep – already use AfD this way. This proposal is different things to different people, which is why I'm most interested in an actual proposal draft. Flatscan (talk) 07:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Right... which is another good reason to go ahead with this. Doing so follows the same principle as adding a common practice to a policy/guideline page, even if there are some who don't like said practice. As for the draft proposal... there is one started, but it's sort of tough to take that forward without support, or even knowing what will be actively opposed. Hence, this (and hopefully other) discussion(s).
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Using myself as an example, I'm a strong oppose to the rename, but a support to continuing to allow merge-ish discussions at AfD. Flatscan (talk) 07:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, which I don't quite understand. What is it with the rename that is so objectionable? Since we all know that it's pretty much occurring anyway, what's wrong with formalizing that (with the added benefit of getting rid of the "this is AFD, Merge doesn't belong!!!1!1" process wonkery at the same time)
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The existing pages that must be moved. As far as I can tell, the process wonkery is legit (speedy keep, which often indicates an inexperienced nominator who missed the correct merger process entirely) or ignored in the closure. Flatscan (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, there are two distinct issues here. First, I don't see any reason that the existing pages would need to be moved. As a matter of fact, trying to do that would seem kind of silly to me. All that would need to be changed would be the main page and the various templates, and then from that point forward everything would be changed. It may create a small amount of difficulty for the first 7 days or so, but I don't see any obvious show stoppers. Besides... if there really are show stoppers to something like this occurring, shouldn't we identify and eliminate them? I'd think that we should avoid becoming inelastic simply on general principles.

As for the process wonkery issue, the main issue with it is that there is some amount of "wonkery" occurring, in both directions, simply because we're in a sort of half way state here right now. I've seen plenty of people argue for mergers where everyone essentially reached consensus that such arguments were legit. On the other hand, I've seen many discussions where someone tried to start a merger discussion, and then the whole AFD devolves into a discussion about that "being allowed". It just seems to me that it would be much more efficient if we explicitly allowed any argument to stand on it's merits, rather then sometimes allowing the merits of the arguments themselves to be debated. It seems that most of the people closing AFD discussions tend to accept any reasonable argument that offers a solution regardless, so maybe making it clear that arguing over the relevance of specific solutions might make things slightly more approachable here and we could end up with better arguments being offered.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 02:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether to move the subpages should be a point of discussion – I haven't started a subsection since it may look like puffing up my objection. Templates like {{oldafdmulti}} would need to be modified more carefully if there is a naming changeover.

As I wrote above, the merger AfDs with process disputes that I remember often fall into two groups: actual merger nominations that are SK'd and relatively minor comments that have no effect on the outcome. I have seen derailed AfDs, but I think that obstructive process wonkery here is strongly associated with contentious topic areas and individual editors. Flatscan (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Did you see my post right after your post of 07:22, 29 December 2009? There is a proposal. — Sebastian 07:15, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have it watched. In my opinion, it misses a lot of necessary details. I will participate there soon, but it's not my top priority. Flatscan (talk) 07:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to several of us coming together there to flesh out the actual policy/instructions related to all of this. We just need to hash some of the criticism out first is all, so we know exactly where to go with the documentation.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 07:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Help:Merging#Proposing a merger should be clear: the discussion should usually occur on the destination Talk page. If the merger is implemented, the discussion will be more easily found in the future, as the merged page becomes a redirect. Editors of the destination page may have a better sense of how to integrate the merged content. Watchers of either article should see the merge tags being placed. Flatscan (talk) 07:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what Fences said above, that "This proposal doesn't stop editors from having low-key discussions about merges on talk pages, or even stop bold merges with no discussion. It simply allows editors to nominate articles for merging using the AfD process." This was exactly my intent. We already have preliminary discussions of whether an article is sufficiently notable on article talk pages--and in fact at all sort of other places--where there is agreement, there is no need for formal process in these cases. As for BOLD, I do quite a few merges boldly as is, generally of articles I see at PROD, and I would expect to continue--obviously, if anyone objected, then discussion would be necessary, and usually AfD would be the place. DGG ( talk ) 04:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Implementation discussion

OK, most of the discussion seems to have died down. My take on this is that there's general support to move forward, with some caveats about implementation. With that in mind I wanted to start a discussion about possible implementation details, here.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 13:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

My vision of how we move forward is fairly simple. I don't think that we really need new policy statements or anything, since we're essentially just actualizing a change which has already occurred. With that in mind, the front page simply need to me moved and then copy edited slightly to reflect the change.

First however, we'll need to edit the {{afd1}}, {{afd2}}, and {{afd3}} templates to reflect the change. Flatscan pointed out that we'll also need to edit the {{oldafdmulti}} template, which would probably be easiest to accomplish by simply creating a new one (creating {{oldafdmulti2}} seems like an obvious choice, here). There are likely a few other templates at Category:Articles for deletion templates which should or would need to be changed as well.

Also, we'll need to notify WP:BAG so that all affected bots can adjust their scripts to a potential change. It should be fairly straightforward for most operators to make such a change (and if it's not, for whatever reason, then the operator probably shouldn't be running the bot anyway), given enough notice to do so. A good 30 day warning would seem appropriate, here.

One last issue would be archives. Personally, I don't see any compelling reason to move the thousands of old pages. Doing so would be time consuming, confusing, and would at least temporarily break thousands of links. I never envisioned moving them, but this seems to be an important sticking point to many so I figure that it's good to explicitly state that they won't move.

Is there anything else that will need to be changed or adjusted?
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 13:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

These are what I thought of:

• User scripts for both nomination and closing must be modified. There are at least a few in use, I know of User:Mr.Z-man/closeAFD.
• The most common templates are linked from Template:Afd see also documentation.
• {{oldafdfull}} (compare to {{Oldvfdfull}}) and {{oldafd}} need forking to keep old uses working.
• Simply forking {{oldafdmulti}} won't work, as I tried to explain. The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion prefix is assumed and inserted automatically. Substituting discussion will not work for an article with AfDeletions and AfDiscussions. Adding another parameter should work. {{multidel}} takes formatted wikitext, so it could be used as a replacement.

Flatscan (talk) 04:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.