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Step 2 of AFD process needed

I expect a few of these now that User:PSBot/Deprods makes it easier to find articles that have been deprodded with no valid reasoning. As per instructions, deletion rationale can be found on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 18:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• Space Cadets (trilogy)

I have created the AfD page, as you requested, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space Cadets (trilogy). If you are going to AfD more than a few articles, I suggest that you register an account. As a registered user, you'll be able to create AfD pages yourself. Nsk92 (talk) 18:24, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Relisting when there's a clear consensus for Keep because 'it's a BLP'

I've seen a few discussions relisted recently where the consensus is for keeping, but someone has decided that it needs to be relisted anyway because the article is a BLP. Is this specified anywhere in a policy (I can't find it)? Should admins be relisting in this way or should they simply be closing the discussions as keep as they would for any other article. I'm not asking for a debate on whether we should have unsourced (but demonstrably sourceable) BLPs, so please don't start one. I'd just like to know what the agreed process is. When sources have been identified and notability demonstrated, relisting in this way could be interpreted as trying to force the article to be cleaned up, which isn't the purpose of AFD. Thanks.--Michig (talk) 05:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I admit I've done that a few times. If I see a discussion on the closable log with 2 or 3 weak keep !votes and it's on a Pokemon I might close it but if it's about a living person then I would like to see a few more !votes grounded in policy. Also, BLP AFDs are usually the only ones I'll relist twice. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

AFD Step 2 request

can someone convert Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/List of surviving F-4 Phantom IIs to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of surviving F-4 Phantom IIs ?

76.66.193.119 (talk) 20:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Jujutacular ^T · C 20:47, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Notifying interested people

Notifying interested people says, "While it is sufficient to list an article for discussion at AfD, nominators and others sometimes want to attract more attention from and participation by informed editors. Keep in mind that all such efforts must comply with Wikipedia's guideline against biased canvassing." In a recent AfD, an editor canvassed other editors who had commented on a previous AfD. It seems to me that contacting these editors would tend to bias the outcome of the new AfD since the results of previous AfDs had been "no consensus" or "keep". I suggest that we add to this section instructions that previous participants of AfDs should not be notified. TFD (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The precise usage was to everyone regardless of position who had opined at the first AfD which was a "no consensus" close. This is now forum shopping at its worst, and since the WP:CANVASS specifically states "everytone" should be notified, then that is that. Note that two separate admins have opined, and this was also deliberately asked at [1]. Asking here when it has already been asked at a proper noticeboard is forum shopping. Collect (talk) 17:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the above post by The Four Deuces should be considered forum shopping. The issue is eminently relevant to this page also. Many people do not frequent both pages. I appreciate though you posting the link to the other discussion. __meco (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This is one of those happy occasions where I agree with Meco. No forum shopping here, this is a totally appropriate post for this page. I do not think Collect's actions were proper but I don't see any policy violation. Verbal chat 12:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

While I have concerns about the number of users notified (WP:CANVASS says "limited posting", but also says "everyone", as Collect mentions), I would be opposed to strictly not allowing notification of previously involved users. WP:CANVASS specifically mentions that this may be appropriate. Jujutacular ^T · C 18:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• Opposed - Notifying everyone involved in a previous AfD with a very neutral message, as Collect did in this case, is not canvasing, per WP:CANVASS, despite the fact that there were a large number of notifications. I do not support limiting the sending of extremely short, neutral, and non-partisan messages to all participants in a previous AfD. However, I think it would be better if there were a mechanism to automatically alert all those that previously participated, such as automatic watchlisting of the new AfD. Part of the general problem with AfD is that the "jury" is a self selected sample of the editor population. Self selection makes for extremely bad statistics and a potentially grotesquely bad jury bias, which can result in skewed decisions that do not reflect the general consensus of the Wikipedia editor community. People participate in deletion discussions for a variety of reasons. Although assuming AGF, I suspect there are more bad reasons than good ones. Anything that increases non-partisan, transparent, thoughtful, and diverse participation in deletion discussions is a good thing, as it moves a bit toward the ideal randomly selected "jury" with a large sample size. [Disclosure: I have bumped into Collect in more than a few AfDs, and respect him.] — Becksguy (talk) 19:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• Not a not-vote. What are "oppose" and "support" even supposed to mean here? You're opposed to being opposed to notifying previous commentators? --erachima talk 19:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• TFD suggested "that we add to this section instructions that previous participants of AfDs should not be notified". I assume this is what Becksguy opposes. Jujutacular ^T · C 19:51, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Correct, I oppose changing the process to disallow notifying previous AfD participants. I support notifying everyone, as long as it's neutral and non-partisan. Keep the status quo, in other words. — Becksguy (talk) 02:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• I find that notifying users of AfDs is a good thing as it gives more accurate results that are less likely to be disputed later on. I do not, however, believe we should require such notifications, per instruction creep concerns, and prefer the notifications to be given in public venues (WikiProjects, Village Pump, etc.) rather than specifically to users, so as to avoid concerns with biased canvassing. --erachima talk 19:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
  • If it's a new discussion, then VP or Wikiproject pages are fine. When it's a continuation of a previous discussion--as a new XfD or RfC revisiting a topic--then Collect's actions are eminently correct: Notify everyone equally and neutrally. Jclemens (talk) 19:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Comment My concern is that if any article has failed to be deleted, then contacting persons involved in the previous discussion(s) will likely result in the same decision. People who have voted one way, in this case to "keep", are likely to repeat their votes with the result of either "keep" or "no consensus". (Note that articles are generally kept when a sizeable number of votes are for keeping.) The comparison with a jury is apt. When a case is re-tried the original jury is not invited back, even though they are knowledgeable about the case. Most people who vote in AfDs do not follow the articles they vote on and if they do they are notified by the notice placed on the article. Say for example one sends a "neutral' notice to 10 people who voted to keep and 3 people who voted to delete. In the second AfD, they repeat their votes, but now 10 new editors vote to delete and 3 to keep. While the decision would be "no consensus", it might have gone differently without canvassing. In other words, canvassing can affect the result. Note to Collect - please do not see this as personal criticism of yourself, which was not my intention. I merely wish that the instructions were clear on this point. TFD (talk) 01:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
  • You're assuming two things wrong, as far as I can see:
  • 1) Assuming that those who've !voted one way will !vote that way again. People can change their minds, lose interest and not participate, and/or be convinced by new evidence to change their !votes.
  • 2) Assuming that eliminating a hypothetical bias towards keeping an article is a Bad Thing. If it's already been kept once in a full AfD discussion, there should really be an entirely overwhelming consensus to remove it. Consensus CAN change... but artificially eliminating prior interested parties is a recipe for inconsistency in outcomes, not in judging actual consensus change. Jclemens (talk) 02:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
    • Indeed, that is the key point in my opinion. Consensus can change, especially if new arguments are made. I have certainly been invited back to discussions (in a non-partisan fashion), and changed my mind based on new arguments/evidence given. Jujutacular ^T · C 03:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
      • In the case at hand, at least one person specifically did weigh all the new material, and had a different opinion than held on the first AfD, proving the point. Collect (talk) 12:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think that making a judicious, impartial decision to notify participants in a past AfD is a bad idea under a few circumstances. If the new AfD was created to expressly deal with errors made in a previous nomination or if the new AfD otherwise relies heavily on arguments from the last AfD (leaning either delete or keep) then notification may be prudent. But in most cases notification is undertaken by an interested party with an aim in mind. Overwhelmingly the notifications themselves aren't canvassing and I don't believe that the notifiers usually intend to canvass, but in many cases the person writing and distributing the notification has some skin in the game. Beyond that many AfDs are either 2nd 3rd or 4th bites at the apple for deletion, with no real interaction between different nomination. Obviously some arguments are made more persuasively in a 2nd afd than in a 3rd (see Talk:Dragon_kill_points for the 2nd and 3rd AfDs as great examples of this), but plenty of AfD are flooded with argumentation and just as many starve without it.
• I've tried to just enumerate arguments against blanket notification, not against allowing notification at all. We should be cautious about enacting rules against relatively neutral communication without exceptionally good reason to do so. However, the WP community has a nasty habit of allowing practices like notification to grow and entrench themselves until they become rote or worse, automated. I don't want to have AfDs move to an equilibrium where notification is the norm. So we shouldn't strengthen the language, but we should remain cautious about allowing our use of notifications to expand beyond reason. Protonk (talk) 07:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• In fact very few people change their votes. An example I came across was an article about a Canadian poet/artist who had not been mentioned in any Canadian newspapers.[2] 26 editors voted to delete on the fourth AfD, while 3 voted to keep. Of those 3, two had voted to keep in previous votes. There are far too many articles about non-notable subjects and topics that are not supported by external sources. TFD (talk) 19:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• Opposed The change should be in the opposite direction. Everyone who has participated in previous AfDs should be automatically notified, as well as anyone making significant contributions to the article or its talk page. There is no reason to assume bias: true, if an article was kept at a prior AfD, there must have been more people supporting than opposing it, but if it warrants a subsequent AfD, there must have been nearly as many people in the other direction also. I agree with Becksguy about the self-selected jury problem, and the way to deal with it is to encourage as much participation as possible. I see non-notification as sometimes a deliberate intention of trying by chance to have a different outcome by repeated nomination. If we make a 20% error in AfDs, 4 nominations has a better than even chance of deleting anything. DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

AFD Step 2 request (Peckhammer TV, July 2010)

Can someone create a deletion discussion for Peckhammer TV, please? A speedy deletion template (G4) was removed, so discussion is needed. The article appears to reproduce the content of another article which was previously deleted pursuant to a deletion discussion. It contains numerous references, but none of the referenced secondary sources actually appear to mention the article subject itself, so the notability problems that were the reason for the original deletion don't seem to be resolved. Further discussion seems warranted. I've flagged the page accordingly and am posting this request per instructions at Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion. Thanks! 67.127.57.254 (talk) 22:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 09:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Do AfD's need overhauling?

maybe overhaul was a little too ambitious, perhaps tweak?

Ok now unless i've missed something Wikipedia is against the use of voting unless it is an absolute must. But im confused as to why voting seems to be the only deciding factor in AfD. Comments made by individual users do not seem to be taken into account if anything the number of votes seems to count more than the supporting policies used and arguments put forward in each of the opposing points of view. Additionally although anyone can close an AfD there doesn't appear to be guidance of when its appropriate to do so (please point out politely if i'm wrong). I just think that somewhere within the AfD there is probably cause and reason to streamline the process (make it easier to open/close debates) as well as make them more efficient and meaningful. My comments come on the back of several recent AfDs i've been involved in recently and/or reserved. What do others think? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 21:58, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Mostly I've seen AFDs go smoothly, with discussions taking place to decide consensus about the fate of articles. Can you list specific instances where you feel this was not the case? If you feel a specific AFD was closed incorrectly, the place to discuss it is WP:DRV. The discussions are closed 7 days after they are opened. If the admin evaluating the AFD feels that consensus has not been reached, they may relist it for further discussion. Hope this helps. Jujutacular ^T · C 22:24, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

ok for example this Afd i understand that i nominated the article for deletion and that only my opinions were the only one's supporting the article's deletion but it kinda seemed like the fact that i had applied relevant wikipedia policies WP:GNG, WP:NSONGS etc my comments meant nothing simply for the fact the two people voted in favour of keeping the article. Its happened a couple of times. This is not me winging at AfD for it being unfair, at the end of the day i always except WP:consensus. I am bringing this up as part of my work reviewing how things work on wikipedia. I'm not part of a taskforce or anything i guess im a one-man mission occassionally bringing up discussion about policies and and processes. I just wondered if the community also felt that maybe the process of AfD should be reviewed? one concern that i have with AfD is that consensus appears to be given more relevance that policy and guideline. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 22:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand your thoughts, but I don't think it's any fault of the AFD process. Jujutacular ^T · C 00:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Bring at DRV if you have problems with an AfD closure. I can assure you that voting is not the only deciding factor at AfDs, but the amount of opinions has some weight, of course. --Cyclopia^talk 00:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(Outdent) I'm the "non admin snout counter" who closed the AFD given as an example. I sympathize with the nominator. Two !votes is barely enough comments to make a consensus and one of the !votes was pretty weak but I usually don't relist non-blp articles a second time without a good reason and in this case I didn't see one. On hindsite I probably should have closed it the way I close most of these low participation album/song AFDs like this one and this one.

Lil-unique1, I suggest you BOLDly redirect the article to Before I Self Destruct as I suggested in my closing statement and see if it sticks. If it doesn't then wait a reasonable length of time and nominate it again. For such a weak consensus IMHO a month would be reasonable. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the number of people supporting an article appears to sway a "keep" decision. Some editors vote to retain almost any article while inherently POV articles may actually be saved by editors with POVs. Here is an example of an article that I successfully nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Tylman (4th nomination). It was about a Canadian poet/artist about whom not a single article or mention had been made in any Canadian newspaper, including free local newspapers. However it managed to survive three AfDs. TFD (talk) 04:02, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

For once, please don't claim credit where credit isn't due. After several months of a roaring battle at ArbCom between EEML factions, a BLP article about one of the EEML members -- with books and poetry in anthologies and Canadian papers such as The Street -- has been deleted at the 4th nom, but only after other users' canvassing among mutual enemies, coupled with some off-wiki shenanigans. This is a bad example of an error. -- Tatry (talk) 17:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

So what do we think about AfD? do we think the process works effectively? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 13:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• The error rate is rather high in both directions. I think that about 20 - 25% of the decisions are in error: 10- 15% of the articles deleted should not have been, and 5 - 10% of the keeps likewise. Another person might reverse the proportions, but I think anyone who works there is aware of the errors and inconsistencies. There is a limit to which a process like this can be approved: any procedure depending on a self-appointed jury and a self-appointed judge is going to be subject to bias. I think we could do considerably better--but i don't think we'll ever get the error rate below 10%. the way to get it down to that level is increased participation by people other than those who care most about the article--if all active editors commented on merely one or two a day, we'd do much better.

The people who complain about counting in any given case have a tendency to be the people who are in the minority, whichever side that may be. The people who complain about administrative judgment in a particular decision are, similarly, usually the people the admin decides against. I've learned if I close non-consensus, both sides usually attack me. But in general I do not think it is the business of the closer to decide between two conflicting policies or to make their own interpretation of contested specific details. Their job is to discard arguments not based on any policy, or, sometimes, by SPAs, and then judge consensus. The assumption in closing is that after discarding non-arguments, the consensus view will be the correct one, and that any neutral admin would agree. Thus there is in theory no difference between closing per the majority and closing per the strongest argument. But when there is a real dispute on what argument is relevant, the closer is not to decide between them , but close according to what most people in the discussion say. Not an exact count--it's only a rough consensus. DGG ( talk ) 04:18, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

1. There is a fundamental problem with the consensus model and it DOES hold back higher quality product from prevailing within the project (lots of stuff gets created and lots of fun is done in editing and warring and participating...but high quality product is rare here (and ephemeral).

2. I think at a minimum, there could be a set amount of time for AFDs (I suggest a week). this really wouldn't address the major issue of 1, but would be an easy start towards formalizing how to close. Other steps, like having a special power for closing AFDs or haiving admins handle or something would be useful (AFD handling is already a big part of admin process voting). And pre-emptively, if anyone has an issue with 1 week deadline, think about it. Sure an individual, might miss the AFD if on wikibreak, but if the COMMUNITY can't defend (or attack) an article within a week, then it doesn't deserve to live (or die). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.39.78 (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

should AfDs be restricted as to frequency for a single article?

At what point, if any, does it appear that AfDs are being used on a single article in excess frequency? After a close as "Keep" for an article, should it be kept from AfD for 2 weeks? 12 weeks" 24 weeks? Where "no consensus" is a result, and several AfDs on the same article are closed as such, should the article be kept from AfD for 2 weeks? 12 weeks? 24 weeks? I note this as several articles now appear to appear on a regular basis here, even after multiple closes on prior AfDs. Collect (talk) 14:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Not only should the keep|no_consensus status, but the number of AfDs should enter into it. "Keep" gets, say, twice the grace period of a "No Consensus", and the first (regardless of which it is) is three months, then add three or six months after the second, six or twelve after the third, ... we need to concentrate on making more and better articles, not discarding them. htom (talk) 14:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think we need a bright line. I know I tend to look more skeptically on quick-repeat nominations, and they don't tend to succeed, even if no one speedy closes the subsequent nom and points the nominator to DRV. In this case, I think it would simply be adding another layer of bureaucracy to say "no nominations for X time, unless Y, in which case Z...", but I think a note at WP:OUTCOMES that quickly repeated nominations tend to not succeed without a really good reason might be appropriate. Jclemens (talk) 14:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• There's no set guideline for this, and shouldn't be. We close AFDs as disruptive on a regular basis, but after judging the individual cases. Most of the articles that are perennial AFD candidates really are problematic, and generally should have been deleted on the second pass. There's no reason to afford them any extra protection.—Kww(talk) 14:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• I agree with Jclemens. It is easy to imagine a situation where a quick renomination is in order. If the article is first kept because the subject is "notable", but it later transpires that everything in the article is an elaborate hoax, then a renomination at AFD at any time is appropriate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:48, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• Usually when an article is nominated for deletion problems are identified that must be addressed. I have been involved in AfDs where the article was inadequately sourced, but the AfD led to the finding of adequate sources. However if these issues cannot be addressed, for example it is about a person for whom no reliable sources exist, then there is every reason to re-nominate it. Consider this AfD,[3] where an article was deleted by overwhelming consensus on the fourth nomination. The problem I see is that there are numerous editors who will vote to keep an article without actually reading it or looking for sources.—Preceding unsigned comment added by The Four Deuces (talk • contribs)

• Sjakkalle makes a good point, but I think that in general repeated nominations of an article are disruptive, unless there is (a)a significant change in relevant policies/guidelines since last AfD that puts the article into jeopardy (b)discovery of a new and urgent significant concern (like the "elaborate hoax" Sjakkalle example). This is because repating nominations is akin to forum shopping: it means you try and try and try until even by sheer chance you get the result you want. Consensus can change, but we should avoid polling it continuously until it changes the way we like (This holds not only for AfDs, by the way). In my opinion, if an article passes AfD 3 times in a row, then it should be left alone unless one of the two conditions above is met. --Cyclopia^talk 15:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Wouldn't you need an AFD to get a consensus to see if one of the two conditions had been met?—Kww(talk) 17:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• I don't understand your question. Meeting one of the condition should be indicated clearly in the nominating rationale (like "WP:GREENALIENS used to indicate that green aliens required three Martian sources to be considered notable; but now the consensus version of WP:GREENALIENS requires five Martian sources. Since our article on Xyxz Xyxz has only three Martian sources, I renominate for deletion..."). Of course if the nom doesn't do that, the admin should speedily close. --Cyclopia^talk 17:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Unless someone can demonstrate a problem that can only be met by a new guideline, I think that the processes we have can deal with any disruption. Dougweller (talk) 17:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• I think the current system is ok. Limiting AfDs might be difficult to enforce and more hassle than its worth. Imagine an article is deleted through AfD and then recreated at a later stage (maybe a week or days later). It should be one's right to nominate the article again if even after improvements it still fails to meet notability. However obviously if the the same editor keeps nominating the article then we have an issue as is there a problem if an article is nominated multiple times in a short space of time. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 17:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• We don't need a bright line. Unless we can show that the rule would solve an extant problem and would be the best way to solve that problem, we shouldn't make the rule. People are smart enough to notice rapid fire AfDs and adjust their votes accordingly. Protonk (talk) 17:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• There's an old failed proposal on this subject. Wikipedia:Repeated AfD nomination limitation (failed proposal). Template_talk:Afdx#Repeated_AfD_nominations I'd created links with custom searches for repeated nominations so it was easy to find 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. ones. At the time, there were less than you'd think, but I haven't revisited the totals. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 16:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

I have an article that I think should be deleted. It is South Hills Crossbill and I put my rationale in the talk page for the article. I am unsure whether it should go through AFD or Proposed deletion. When I read the article on proposed deletion it says to use it when it's not a good candidate for speedy deletion or articles for deletion, but it doesn't say when it (affirmatively) should be used. It just then lists the procedure. So I'm unclear as to what I should do. Can anyone help? MDuchek (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My 0.02£: if you're unsure about using PROD, don't use it. PROD is about deletions that should be nearly always uncontested, so if even you have doubts, it means it's not the proper venue. By the way, if you AfD that article, I'd personally argue for keeping it, so PROD is definitely not the way to go (I would contest it with good reasons). You're welcome to seek for community consensus at AfD. --Cyclopia^talk 16:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

When you say seek community consensus do you mean ask there or that I should propose it and participate in the discussion? At the very least the article seems like it should be expanded upon. MDuchek (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Propose it and participate. That said, since you talk about expansion, remember that AfD is not for cleanup: if issues you have with the article can be dealt with editing, our deletion policy asks us not to delete. See also the banner at the top of WP:AFD: For problems that do not require deletion, including duplicate articles, articles needing improvement, pages needing redirects, or POV problems, be bold and fix the problem or tag the article appropriately. - I hope it helps. --Cyclopia^talk 16:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Something about the steps here is puzzling me

I've tried to read the documentation, but I must still be making some subtle mistake as I try to nominate Civiq Society for deletion. Somehow the process, even with the slick templates, isn't as automatically doing what's expected as I had expected. I beg the pardon of administrators and other Wikipedians looking at my first attempt to post here. I'll have to think about how to do usability testing of the process of submitting articles for administrative deletion. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The only thing you did wrong was step 2, the creation of the nomination page. I have fixed the formatting using this template: {{afd2}}. Jujutacular ^T · C 19:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your help. I hope I don't have soon occasion to nominate another article, but when I do, I'll watch carefully what I'm doing. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Weak IS Weak

What is with this "Weak Delete" and "Weak Keep" nonsense? If you're taking the time to investigate an article proposed for deletion, do everyone a favor and be decisive. There's no such thing as a "weak delete." A deleted article is DELETED, not gently erased so a soft after-image can be discerned if one stares long enough at what was once there. And there's no such thing as a 'weak keep.' If an article merits retention, it stays. If you can't figure out what side of the fence to come down on, leave a comment, or better yet, just leave.Mtiffany71 (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

• AfD is not a vote. Expressing one's opinion to be weakly held is part and parcel of consensus-building. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
• Why would that be necessary? When you're in an XfD, you make and weigh the relevant arguments. If you are leaning one direction but are not entirely convinced, or your argument hinges on a presumption, then a "weak" opinion is perfectly appropriate. Indeed, in my experience weak opinions tend to be the most informative on contentious XfDs, as they usually are the ones that attempt to balance the various arguments rather than pre-judging the subject. --erachima talk 22:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
• No, if you've done a thorough analysis of a subject for AFD and can't figure out what side of the fence to come down on, please still voice your opinion. Why waste all that time for nothing? Jujutacular ^T · C 22:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
• I often use weak, to indicate that I incline in a certain direction, but am not sure about it & don't want to get into an argument defending my position. I hope people look upon thetwo as different statements. DGG ( talk ) 08:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
• I've found that the comments proffered as "weak" (and sometimes, but not as frequently, as "strong") are often ones where the person making the commentary has put careful thought into the comment, and sees both sides of the issue. I see no problem with noting the strength of your position. If I feel that an article probably ought to be deleted, but I don't feel so strongly, that's worth noting. I've used "weak" modifiers when, for example, I know that I'm not an expert on the subject in question, but have a point that I think is worth considering in the debate.

  That an article cannot be "weakly deleted" is a red herring. "Weak" refers to the strength of the opinion, not to the type of action. TJRC (talk) 22:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

• There's actually a four-year-old essay on this topic. Wikipedia:Adjectives in your votes. I think it's poorly named (see the talk page of it), but agree with some of the sentiment. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
  • That's a somewhat erroneous essay. This convention goes back a lot longer than four years. See this edit from 2004. Uncle G (talk) 04:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Tim_Rogers deletion

I am an unregistered user, would someone please complete the nomination for deletion of Tim_Rogers_(writer) Thanks. 203.216.0.150 (talk) 09:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Since it was previously deleted as a result of this AFD, I have removed the incompleted nomination and tagged it for speedy deletion under CSD G4. If it gets declined I will renominate it with the rationale you provided on the talk page. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

G4 declined, AFD discussion here. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Incubation during an AfD

I was checking through my recent AfD contributions, and noticed that in this one, two admins disagreed about whether or not this was a CSD G4 candidate (an article that was a carbon-copy of the previously deleted version). It troubles me that editors who are deemed by the community to have good judgement could starkly disagree on such a clear-cut CSD criteria, but that's a discussion for another day.

In future cases, would it be possible to temporarily incubate the previously deleted version, where an assertion of failing G4 is made? After all, non-closing admins are normal editors, and this situation leaves non-admins at a disadvantage when trying to reach a judgement. Thanks in advance, --WFC-- 00:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? --WFC-- 06:46, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Dunno. You could ask an admin to do it, seems similar to the situation at DRV. Fences&Windows 16:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

If there is no consensus reached?

One thing this article does not make mention of is what courses of action can be taken if an AfD fails to reach a consensus for any action and is thus closed as such. So, that said, what actions can be taken if a consensus cannot be reached? ⒺⓋⒾⓁⒼⓄⒽⒶⓃ② ^talk 16:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

"If there has been no obvious consensus to change the status of the article, the person closing the AfD will state No consensus, and the article will be kept." There is a BLP exception in WP:DELPOL: "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus may be closed as delete." (this latter provision was recently used, improperly in my view, to delete Mimi Macpherson). Fences&Windows 16:33, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

no deletion argument except the nom

"no deletion argument except the nom" is a closing admin's remark explaining why an article was kept that I read recently (I did not participate in it). Is that common/acceptable? It seems to favor closing by vote counting rather than by weighing arguments made in the discussion, which I thought was frowned upon. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 16:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

• Personally, I treat afds like that as uncontested prods but IIRC there was no-consensus that this was the right approach the last time we discussed this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Do you recall where/roughly when the last discussion was, was it here? Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 16:18, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the original poster is talking about AFDs where there is participation but everybody's saying "keep" except the nom. While it's true that the closer is supposed to weigh arguments and not just count snouts, he also has to judge consensus and if nobody but the nominator is saying "delete" then, "keep" !votes strong or weak, there's no consensus to delete. For an admin to delete anyway in that situation is called a "supervote" and that's generally discouraged. The only exception would be in cases where there are WP:V or WP:BLP issues or if it's discovered that the article is a copyright violation. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, right, that's the kind of situation I meant. I see what you mean about the supervote, although it seems problematic to close if the deletion argument is well-made and the keep arguments are poor or nonexistent. There can be a good consensus because of good arguments and a poor consensus because of poor arguments, it seems to me. In such a case, possibly relisting the AfD might be appropriate? Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 04:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think I might be guilty of having made such a comment in the past. By this I didn't mean I was vote counting or disregarding their nomination, only that they'd not persuaded anyone else of its merits and that the keep arguments outweighed the deletion nomination. If the AfD is poorly attended with only a couple of weak keep !votes, it would be best to relist. Fences&Windows 21:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

During a DRV on one of my closes, the nominator was slightly offended by my use of the phrase "no arguments for deletion aside from the nominator" which I use quite frequently. My use of that phrase is not intended as a slight to the nom. It's just a statement of fact. When I started using it, it was only for AFDs where the "keep" !votes weren't that strong. Also, I think some editors go to far with the "AFD is not a vote" concept. Yes AFD is not a "vote" but that doesn't mean that the snout count is meaningless. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:14, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Asian Mexican all Original research

I would like to nominated Asian Mexican for deletion but it keeps being reverted what do i do??Moxy (talk) 17:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that the speedy deletion was refused and the proposed deletion was contested so you need to nominate at WP:AfD, full instructions here. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 17:37, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok it was contested by the creator..of course hes going to do that...Anyways ok i guess there's no point to the other way i will list it here.Moxy (talk) 17:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Step 2 of AFD needed

Would somebody complete step 2 for Michael Laxer? Deletion rationale can be found on the article talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 01:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Hairhorn (talk) 01:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Marc Mezvinsky

I wish to submit that the article regarding "Marc Mezvinsky" not be deleted. There is much more that can be added to give the article substance. I fell that as he recently married Chelsea Clinton, that alone should assure him of a spot in Wikipedia. Also the fact that he he worked at Sachs Goldman and now G3. That as well as his parents information should assure him of a spot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.7.130 (talk) 10:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You need to make your argument at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marc Mezvinsky (2nd nomination) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Another for step 2

Te Daré Lo Mejor - As usual, the deletion rationale can be seen on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 00:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done by User:TrackerTV. Jujutacular ^talk 03:53, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

And another

Feltre School 69.181.249.92 (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 21:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Afd Problems: Contacting contributors on errors and the evolution of the article during afd

I contributed to a recent Afd and there seemed to be to me some possible errors in the proposal and some of the supports for deletion. And some of the supports for deletion might have been based on the original possible errors. I tried improving the article (to make notability more evident) and raised the possiblity of errors on the Afd page. I then notfied (politely I think) some of the "deleters" on their talk pages about these possible errors and the additions and asked them to "have another look" and see if the "new" evidence is enough to allow you to help change your mind and avoid the deletion. This led to my being accused of "badgering" and "inappropriate" behaviour. I have two questions. First if my writing to those "voting" is inappropriate, which I accept it might be, perhaps this could be mentioned in guidelines for contributing to Afds. (Wikipedia:Canvassing and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#Notifying_interested_people don't explicitly seem to be deal with this) And secondly if there are errors or substantial changes in the article during the period of the Afd how is one to know if the votes and arguments are based on the possible errors or the arguments that these are errors is just being rejected? I think these questions are valid independently of the particular case and would like some views on the general case. (the case invovled was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tia Keyes (2nd nomination)). I hope it is ok to raise this here.(Msrasnw (talk) 11:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC))

The place to rebut or refute what you consider invalid arguments is on the relevant AfD page. Splitting off discussion elsewhere is rarely helpful. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it is the closing administrator's obligation to view the changes in the article during the AfD process, and disregard those !votes that do not reflect objective reality--e.g., a "no sources" argument, made prior to the insertion of appropriate sources, should not be counted in establishing a rough consensus. Many closing adminsitrators don't do that, but they should. Jclemens (talk) 21:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Slightly odd question

Let's say I were to nominate an article for deletion, on the grounds that it does not meet the established notability guideline for people in his field, but then argued to keep on the grounds that in my opinion he passes the GNG. For sure, it would be an odd thing to do, but in people's opinions would it be considered disruptive? --WFC-- 21:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

That would constitute a withdrawal of the nomination in my opinion. If others had already argued each way however, I would view it as changing one's mind. Is this purely hypothetical? Jujutacular ^talk 21:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

No. I have a serious, policy-based reason for considering this course of action. I would be immediately arguing keep, rather than changing my mind. But I know that a significant number of people swear by a guideline that I consider to be in contravention of the GNG. Whenever the matter is discussed, it's always dismissed as a hypothetical, so I want to put it into practise. --WFC-- 21:41, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Additional criteria says "A person who fails to meet these additional criteria may still be notable under Wikipedia:Notability". Why would you nominate for deletion if you believe the person meets guidelines? Jujutacular ^talk 21:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

• • • • GNG is well confusing! Or at least the way it's applied is confusing. On many topics meeting GNG is not enough while on others meeting GNG is enough to keep. Check out areas like WP:NSONG where GNGmust be meet in additional to other criteria. I'm not sure highlighting a case in AFD by nominating and then arguing against it help clarify anything as there are already cases, and what do you get from one AFD? Just a few people realising the contradiction. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 10:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Because in this field the guideline being there generally isn't enough.

I don't pretend that this is particularly well disguised. But you've got to understand that I'm wary of going into specifics for fear of unwittingly canvassing. There is a commonly held belief at a project I occasionally visit that a guideline specific to that field determines notability, rather than complementing or supplimenting the GNG. I remarked in a recent high-profile (and unrelated) AfD that the GNG is often considered a de facto policy. By contrast, in this field people that meet the other guideline tend to get kept at AfD even with virtually no qualitative indication of significance in the sources. On the other hand, people that do not meet the requirement tend to get deleted, even where there are far stronger claims to notability than articles kept in the previous scenario.

My reason for wanting to nominate is that my entry into these sorts of AfDs normally ensures that the GNG is given the respect it deserves. Admittedly a lot of the time the GNG and the other guideline go hand in hand, so for convenience I want to make a nomination where this isn't the case ASAP. If I nominated a relevant article for deletion stating that I think the article passes the GNG but fails the other guideline, I believe the closing admin would ignore me, which is my intention. --WFC-- 01:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure I could do some investigation to figure out exactly what you're talking about, but in the interest of staying neutral I won't. Personally, I don't see how the GNG can be ignored. As long as GNG is met and the article does not fail WP:NOT, it can be kept IMO. Others feel free to chime in if you disagree :) Jujutacular ^talk 02:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I have two recommendations. The first is basic, and people who have failed to follow it have historically ended in trouble: Don't nominate anything at AFD if an administrator hitting the delete button is not what you actually want. So do not nominate for deletion an article that you don't want to be deleted. Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. If you think that there are subjects that do not warrant articles, or redirects to articles on wider, enclosing, subjects, because there simply isn't the reliably and independently published knowledge on them to be had, but that exist because of a poor blanket rule, then those articles should be your focus. This leads to my second recommendation, which is also fairly fundamental and universal: Do your research beforehand. Follow User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do. It's not enough to opine at AFD based upon the article at hand alone, or just personal beliefs. Work from the position of always approaching each article with "How can I improve this article?" as the question. If you discover, from doing the research, that you cannot find any source material, then that is a reason, per Wikipedia:Deletion policy, for deletion, and you place the poor blanket rule in opposition to the deletion policy that no sources means no article. But always put deletion policy into action properly. Uncle G (talk) 16:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. The first part I'm acutely aware of; I readily admit that I am trying to demonstate a point. But that in itself can be a very positive thing, provided it is not disruptive. Hence my initial question per this bit.

Don't nominate anything at AFD if an administrator hitting the delete button is not what you actually want. I completely agree. However, I can think of one exception. Certain BLPs where notability is marginal, an example would be minor reality show contestants. I can see using AFD to try to get such an article redirected. (and that's usually the result of such AFDs). --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

In response to your second part, I want to do this because all too often people use this "poor blanket rule" rather than research. The issue isn't unsourced articles being kept (at least, I've never seen that happen for people, dead or alive). The issue is that the poor blanket rule is invariably proven by a statistical website, with these statistics being the only indication of notability. Conversely (albeit more rarely), these websites can often prove that an individual fails the blanket rule, despite sources in the article suggesting possible or definite notability for other reasons. --WFC-- 22:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

One discussion placed in two logs

Today, when I was relisting AfD discussions, I came upon stuff like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sterling Helicopter or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mahdyar Aghajani. Before I relisted them, Sterling Helicopter was in both August 4 and August 5, while Mahdyar Aghajani was in both August 5 and August 6. Is there a systematic explanation for why this is happening? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Sterling Helicopter. For some reason, User:Crazy-dancing relisted this after one day. The nominator reverted the relist but didn't remove it from the log for the 5th.

• Mahdyar Aghajani. Added to the log for the 5th by dumbbot and to the log for the 6th by the nominator. He probably realized that he forgot to transclude but didn't know that dumbbot did it for him.

--Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Marty Beckerman

 Done ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 08:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Please continue the process for Marty Beckerman to be deleted. As noted on the talk page, the article is not NPOV and the subject of the article is not notable unless notable has been drastically redefined. 98.110.112.197 (talk) 04:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

What if you wish to nominate a whole collection of similar pages?

The question is arising from this debate at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (record charts)#Top 10 singles. Is there a central place where all chart lists could be collectively nominated for deletion i.e. a discussion about the deletion of all such pages under the premise that such pages are a WP:copyvio as they provide no explanation, development or synthesis and essentially recreate information available at various chart providers. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 (talk2me) 23:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

AFD pageview stats

Have we collated pageviews stats on pages at AFD or the AFD pages? One article at AFD presently has 85,000+ visits in its humble four days of existence, and the AFD has 2,500+. Can anyone remember cases with higher stats? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Accidental relisting of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinay Deolalikar

Somebody who is more up on the details of the AfD index mechanism than I am should take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinay Deolalikar. The debate ran for a week, gathered a massive amount of input, then was erroneously relisted for further debate. That was backed out, but not cleanly, so now the debate is listed in the August 17th index. I'm not sure how to properly get it re-listed under August 9th (where it belongs), so it can get closed. Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I've put it back in the August 9th log. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and there were six others to fix, now done. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marketing decision support systems

This doesn't seem to have been nominated correctly, can anyone fix it? Thanks, TheGrappler (talk) 23:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Mmmm, it was nominated on August 5, should it be put in that day's log? Or todays? Jezhotwells (talk) 23:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The article itself doesn't seem to have a deletion notice on it! I suspect it should be treated as a fresh nomination since it seems to have lingered forgotten for a while. I only came across it because I browse by category not by daily log - seems that I was the first person to come across it since the nominator put it up. TheGrappler (talk) 23:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have relisted it. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks. TheGrappler (talk) 00:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

rogue administrators, endless beurocracies and the rest of the wiki user base

Hi. It seems as though some administrators have more than 50 percent of their edit history in the information-destruction side of the wikipedia project. some erase articles BEFORE they give notice, some do it without any regard to a positive vote to keep the article and yet others erase whole articles for dubious reasons such as "I have already deleted this article in the past".

Many of them seem to be using the beurocratic process to further a personal or political agenda (sometimes this might be nothing more than to make deletion threasts).

Is there an easy way to use the system to denounce such abusers of the good-will of other contributers and editors? Is there a vote to become an admin or to lose such rights?

for a recent example see Philip Schneider.

I have tried to find the "right" place for this comment, but found nothing but endless and many duplicate beaurocracies. please help to naviagate this question, if you can not answer it. Using the talk page of an article is not an option after it has been unilaterally deleted.--Namaste@^? 12:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you feel an admin is misusing their rights, and it's not a Wikiquette problem , the first place is Dispute resolution, meaning that you should first talk with the admin in question, and if that doesn't resolve the issue, seek input from outlets described on that page. --MASEM (t) 12:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• You might best influence such behaviour by following and participating in WP:RFA and WP:DRV. You won't make a big difference as the project is so large but every little helps. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
• Out-of-process deletions are best discussed at WP:DRV. Automatic, unilateral deletions citing WP:CSD#G4 are best raised at WP:DRV. But do try asking the deleting admin for an explanation first. Consider asking for WP:Userfication second. Many admins come across as curt, but are actually trying to do what they are supposed to do, are volunteers, and can actually turn out to be quite amicable if you are nice and assume good faith. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Philip Schneider.—Kww(talk) 16:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

New proposal

I basically propose that

If a discussion has been listed for three weeks and has had no comments, the automatic result is a delete, as opposed to a no-consensus

My rationale is that, after three weeks, if nobody has even bothered to vote or comment, the article is evidently non-notable. The reason why there are no delete votes is due to the general lack of participation and lack of interest in researching clearly non-notable topics (and maybe even lazy people not bothering to type delete). This will remove the non-notable topics that are staying through due to lack of people caring. Of course, articles going through without comment can be renominated immediately so this proposal may not be needed. However, this doesn't happen that often and the original nominator has often himself stopped caring. Basically my proposal will save everybody's time. Christopher Connor (talk) 04:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with this if an article so-nominated was eligible for PROD. If not, then I favor retaining the no consensus close. Jclemens (talk) 04:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

A previous similar proposal, at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods", did not have much support. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I am the one who originally proposed this but I would have to object to the "automatic" part. Closing this way should only be one option available to an administrator if the deletion rationale is sound, otherwise someone could nominate an article with "this article sucks" and it would get deleted if nobody participates. Also, articles deleted this way should be refundable. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why such articles should have to stick around for three weeks. How is an AFD where nobody defends the article different from a prod that nobody removes? And, like prods, the closing admin should be free to "save" the article himself if he wants to. Propaniac (talk) 15:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Although the tail end of the previous linked discussion points out that similar ends to this proposal could be achieved by prodding the article after the AFD closes, except that according to WP:PROD you can't prod an article that was nominated at AFD. (Although what it actually says is you can't prod an article that was discussed at AFD, which I would like to think means that you can prod it if it were nominated at AFD but there was no discussion, but I doubt there would be universal agreement on that. Maybe I should go ask at the prod Talk page.) Propaniac (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with the listed for 3 weeks = delete idea. And I will explain why - the concept is that if a PROD is contested it should be sent to AFD. But I have done PROD's on articles that have been tagged for clean up/notablity issues for months/years were an editor has removed the PROD saying something like "most certainly notable". So rather than send to AFD I sit and wait, so to speak. I have re-looked at article a month, in some cases a year, later and there has been nothing done on it, or only clean up/bot work done on them. In these cases should one re-prod or should one send to AFD where it may not gather any sort of response? I look at it as if an editor takes the time to remove a PROD the same editor should take the time to clean up/fix whatever issues there are. This could be applied to AFD's as well - I have seen more than one case where something is sent to AFD and it is bombarded with "Keep" arguments but little or no work is done after the AFD. I believe somewhere in the middle is a happy medium but I do think that if an AFD sits with no response it should most likely go. (And more so if the history shows it was de-proded at some point but no work done on it) Soundvisions1 (talk) 23:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The Senior Rock: The Untold Story

Another article for step 2 completion. The deletion rationale can be found on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 21:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

List of fictional x

I opened a AfD for List of fictional currencies but there appears to be a lot of List of fictional x] which appears WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I'd appreciate a other set of eyes or two Gnevin (talk) 10:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest seeing how the List of fictional currencies AFD goes before nominating any others. However, 1000 Quatloos says that it's not going to get deleted. (sorry, I just had to :) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You may want to take a look at Previous AFD results of "list of fictional". To me, it seems like the general trend is that if, for list of fictional X, if X is a broad, general term (currency, shapeships, cats, etc.) and the list is set up that each entry is at least defined to one or more RS to assort the element fits that category, each element have some bluelink-article connction (the work of fiction itself or the element itself, in some cases) , they are kept. Indiscriminate lists are quite possible too (I don't think we have List of Fictional People) so that's another elements. But that's just a spot check. Clearly though, "List of fictional X" are not immediately deleted but there needs to be a good rational to keep them from being indiscrminate. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't items on lists have a relevance to each other such as List of GAA clubs or List of currencies, List of sports. Fictional universe have no relevance to one and other. Gnevin (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Most such articles have been kept.Articles of this sort are appropriate encyclopedic content, if the items in it are significant figures in notable works, If its so limited , it is not indiscriminate, but as discriminating as any WP article. The sources are normally in the articles from which it is derived. They can be copied over, but that's usually a trivial exercise, not worth doing unless some particular item is challenged. We don't have List of fictional People because the feeling is the list would be unworkably large.. Personally, I think we should figure out how to handle it--even very large lists can be dealt with by various techniques, such as alphabetical subdivision. DGG ( talk ) 19:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

In fact we have Lists of people, which is one of the examples on how to deal with large list scopes at WP:SALAT. --Cyclopia^talk 21:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

While I'm still not sure what the value is of knowing X book has a king called Y is to A book having a king called B. I most certainly agree it should be a significant part of the work but how apart from WP:OR do we decide this? Gnevin (talk) 09:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting outcome here . Article closed as no con but moved to Fictional currency and is a lot better now Gnevin (talk) 07:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Article title: Pure blood theory in Korea should be remove due to nonfactual information

This article was created for purpose of spreading wrong information, the major error is there is no such thing is called sunhyeoljuui (순혈주의/純血主義) from Korea and yet the author created article based on wrong information. There is no reference for 순혈주의 from reference section too. And most of content is came from Korean nationalism. Article link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_blood_theory_in_Korea And most of analysis is written in very biased POV and without factual information. I suggest to remove this article and move the remaining content back to Korean nationalism.--KSentry(talk) 06:00, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I suggest anyone who wishes to be involved have a good read at Talk:Pure blood theory in Korea and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pure blood theory in Korea first. This user is clearly pushing an agenda, by completely ignoring peer-reviewed scientific journals and recently-published references, ignores the suggestions of others and neglects WP:CONSENSUS, whilst accusing users that oppose him as being "Chinese/Japanese trolls", despite this. Base on all the POV-warring going on, I personally call bad-faith on the part of User:KoreanSentry, although it is up to the community to decide on that. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

@User:KoreanSentry: I don't understand your request. No single user has the authority to overturn community WP:CONSENSUS based on a closed AfD. What do you seek from coming here? You're in the wrong place, I believe. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want to nominate an article for deletion, follow the instructions here, rather than posting on this page. This page is for discussions concerning the AfD process itself, not for discussions about whether individual articles should be deleted. Hut 8.5 09:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

AfDs with little or no discussion

After complaints by others at User talk:King of Hearts#AfD closure disputed, I think it is appropriate to seek clarification on this issue. I know we've been over this several times, but let's be more specific this time with four possible situations:

1. An AfD is relisted twice, with no !votes other than the nominator. Should it be (a) closed as delete or (b) closed as no consensus WP:NPASR?
2. An AfD is relisted once, with no !votes other than the nominator. Should it be (a) relisted a second time (b) closed as delete or (c) closed as no consensus WP:NPASR?
3. An AfD is relisted once, with one "delete" !vote other than the nominator. Should it be (a) relisted a second time (b) closed as delete or (c) closed as no consensus WP:NPASR?
4. An AfD without any relists receives two "delete" !votes. Should it be (a) relisted or (b) closed as delete?

Pretty much the only situation that has been discussed extensively so far is #1, where consensus supports (b). The current conflict is over #3. I followed WP:RELIST quite literally and therefore chose (c), but they believe it should be (a) or (b). I agree with them in theory, but I need to seek the community's opinion as it has rejected a proposal to treat uncommented AfDs as expired PRODs before. (Please also comment on #2 and #4.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

In cases 1, 2 and 3 I'd just try to !vote myself. And then another admin can confidently close it (AfD is our least backlogged area. The only problem is that in some fields it's hard because you need a bit of knowledge of the area to even !vote. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, I was just about to say that too. I was also going to make the point that the strength of the rationales provided might have some bearing on the decisions to close or not. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I am one of the people who has been protesting the decision to close as "no consensus" several articles in category 3. A "no consensus" close, of course, results in a default "keep" even though no-one was arguing for keep. And yet there really was no controversy - that is, no one was arguing that the article should be kept. The only problem with the discussion was that it wasn't very broad, with only one person commenting other than the nominator. I would like to see such articles either relisted a second time, or else closed as "delete". In effect it is just as if the nominator prodded the article and no-one objected; after seven days it would be deleted. In fact the same logic could be applied to all four of the above cases - treat them as uncontested prods. If they've been at AfD for two weeks, they've gotten MORE scrutiny than the average prod. --MelanieN (talk) 04:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

King of Hearts is correct, though, that the community has repeatedly rejected proposals (such as Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods") to treat these as uncontested prods. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the link. Most of the opposition seems to stem from the idea that if an editor sends an article to AfD it must not have been suitable for prod; that the two are "different animals" as one person said. That assumes way, way too much knowledge and discretion on the part of the person making the nomination. I personally took a long time to catch on that prod existed, and I often see articles at AfD that in my opinion could have been prodded. Surely we can rely on the commenters, and the closing administrator, to tell the difference between an article that needs expert evaluation vs. one that simply didn't attract enough interest to run up a string of "deletes". --MelanieN (talk) 12:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What happened to the idea that if the reasoning was sound, the closing admin could make the decision? Consensus doesn't require a quorum. See WP:SILENCE. ScienceApologist (talk) 05:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. If you've got one delete, no one arguing even in comments for a keep, and a 3rd editor comes along and looks at the nom and the delete rationales and agrees with them, I see no problem with closing them as delete. Dougweller (talk) 08:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep. This comes under the We're admins, not robots concept. A delete nomination and a delete support puts this into the realm of good-faith discretion. If the arguments are strong, a deletion is appropriate. If the arguments are weak, a "no consensus" is appropriate.—Kww(talk) 15:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I have thought about doing that, but wouldn't that violate COI and be considered a "closing vote"? Personally (without regard to WP:RELIST), I feel there shouldn't be a limit on the number of relists allowed. What harm would repeated relists do to the project? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

A few admins such as Cirt do that but He'll usually restore and relist them on request. (which is kind of like my "uncontested prod" idea). I stopped relisting AFDs with one delete !vote (if both the nom and the !vote are sound) so that an admin can make such a call if he wishes. Usually these are closed "delete" by Cirt or relisted by someone else. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The best admin closes often act as "closing votes", especially where analysis of the two sides points are needed in a contentious AfD. Remember, consensus is not a vote, and in fact, we're not supposed to be voting anyway. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I haven't yet seen anyone oppose the "uncontested prod" idea, earlier proposed by Ron Ritzman and urged by several commenters here, on its merits. So far the only argument against it seems to be "well, the earlier consensus was...", and even some who are putting forward that argument seem to disagree with the consensus policy they are quoting. This discussion is still young, but if the discussion continues as it is going, might it lead to a change in the consensus policy? How does that happen, and who decides? --MelanieN (talk) 15:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Consensus happens through valid arguments. I agree tho, I don't think there has been any real argument against treating AfDs with no discussion as an uncontested prod. When an AfD has no keep votes, then no one is arguing to keep it, therefore there is no contest against the delete vote. If no one votes to keep the article then it should be deleted, just like with Prods, where if no one says otherwise, it gets deleted. That said, if there is no discussion, then there shouldn't be anything preventing a user from recreating the article, even an identical one. When there is no discussion and the article is recreated, it shouldn't qualify for a speedy deletion under the recreation clause, there must be an additional argument. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 16:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

We are talking about two different scenarios here: #1 and 2 as listed above by King of Hearts (where there is a delete nomination but no discussion at all), and his #3 and #4 where there are one or two "delete" comments with valid argument and no "keep" arguments, in which case (according to his understanding of the current rules) the article is supposed to be considered "no consensus". Do your comments apply to both scenarios? --MelanieN (talk) 17:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• I feel relisting should always be an option until a decent consensus (or clear evidence of lack of) arises. Closing them as uncontested PRODs is a big no-no: different processes, different thresholds, different outcome therefore. --Cyclopia^talk 16:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

So you oppose closing a nomination as "delete" without some kind of quorum of delete arguments to establish consensus; how many do you think there should be - is one enough, or two, or are more required? That's basically the question raised by King of Hearts' hypothetical scenarios above. Also, it sounds to me like you would support King of Hearts' idea that the nomination can be relisted multiple times, is that correct? --MelanieN (talk) 17:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, I would like to see at least 2 other editors agree with the nom for any kind of "hard" delete close. (ie CSD G4 would apply) 3 or more would be preferable. Obviously there would be exceptions but generally, an AFD with anything less then 2 delete !votes should either be relisted, closed "NC", or if deleted the article should be refundable and recreatable, just as with prods. Yes this proposal has been rejected twice but if some admins are currently punching "delete" on AFDs with one (or even zero) delete !votes, it should be very easy to undo these deletions. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that there are too many options and suboptions. If you take any two people here, you'll find that they will agree on at least one point and disagree on at least one point. This is what prevents consensus from forming. Any suggestions on how we may resolve this problem? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

But hundreds of editors have looked at the AFD, and not one has come forward with a "keep" argument. Why is that not sufficient consensus to delete if the delete arguments are good? Why should people be expected to say "Yep, it needs to be deleted" when we discourage WP:PERNOM? No objections to a valid deletion argument indicates consent to that deletion argument, doesn't it?—Kww(talk) 18:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

We can't read the minds of those hundreds of editors, no one has agreed with the nominator either. However, you're right, if a deletion rationale is sound then an admin should be able to punch "delete". However, without a "consensus" for the deletion, I don't think it would be right to tell a future editor that he can't recreate the article because User:Foo says it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There's an irony here: the more thorough and convincing the argument from the initial nominator, the less likely it is that anyone will comment! That's because most of us think "Delete per nominator" comments are frowned on. So if the nominator said it all, someone who reads the nomination and agrees with it will not generally say anything, because they have nothing to add. In truth, the guideline at WP:PERNOM specifically allows "Delete per nom" comments: "If the rationale provided in the nomination includes a comprehensive argument, specific policy references and/or a compelling presentation of evidence in favour of deletion, a simple endorsement of the nominator's argument may be sufficient, typically indicated by "per nom"." But since "Delete per nom" is listed under arguments to avoid, I don't think most of us realize that it can be acceptable. --MelanieN (talk) 02:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I propose:

(1) If an AfD with poor participation is closed as "delete", with no reference to any "consensus to delete", whether deriving from the AfD debates, other debates, or other project forums, it can be considered a "weak" or "default" delete, and may be relisted for further debate by any editor who gives a compelling new argument, or rebuttal of the original nomination.

(2) Alternatively, as per the current practice, a compelling new argument or rebuttal of the original nomination means that the editor should approach the closing admin, or (if that fails) file at WP:DRV. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

A slightly different take:

AfDs with fewer than three participants should be relisted once. Closing admins should not presume that any given argument is "weak" or "strong" with so few participants. While AfDs are not votes, that is unreasoned !votes for keeping or deleting an article are not countable, unless evidence of canvassing exists, the presumption is that a plurality in favor of keeping an article by itself makes the finding of "delete by consensus" improper. Deletion decisions based on requirements of WP BLP policies or similar policies, do not require a "consensus." If an error is to be made, however, the default of "keep" must be respected.

Collect (talk) 22:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Only problem with that is that sometimes you see an AFD with 2 or even 1 "keep" !vote that completely impeaches the nomination. In those cases the closer should be able to close "keep". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It also presumes that an admin is incapable of distinguishing weak delete arguments from strong delete arguments. A well argued delete, with no opposition, is a consensus to delete. WP:SILENCE applies in AFDs just as much as it does anywhere else.—Kww(talk) 22:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I fear you both missed the point - that the AfD should be relisted once. Silence for one week may simply mean it is Labor Day in the US, etc. The aim is to reach a rational position which is fair and does not fall into the "deadline" trap. I would trust the second week will have a salubrious effect on average for such AfDs. Collect (talk) 23:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

So what happens when the relist gets little or no input, which is where this whole thread started?—Kww(talk) 23:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the question all right. Options seem to be 1) close as "no consensus", which some people think the rules require, and others object to since nobody argued to keep, 2) relist a second or even third time, which may be against the current rules, but some people would like to see the relisting limit relaxed, or 3) close as "delete" with the option of recreating (in other words, treat as an uncontested prod). --MelanieN (talk) 15:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

With so few people here, I don't think a consensus is likely to form. How do you guys feel about opening up a straw poll and listing it on WP:CENT to see what the others think? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

" the community's opinion as it has rejected a proposal to treat uncommented AfDs as expired PRODs before" How long ago was this - it is time to revisit? Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 23:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Over a year ago. I'm thinking it's time too. I'll go ahead and start the poll to gauge the general feeling about this. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, here: Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Relisting straw poll. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:04, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Help to correct nomination issues

I think I messed something up in the process of creating Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of assets owned by McDonald's. Can someone review and see if listed appropriately and let me know what I might need to do to correct it. Thanks! Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 16:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• You forgot to add it to today's log. I fixed that. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Belinda (Rice novel)

Step 2 please, with the deletion rationale on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 08:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Hut 8.5 09:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Where do I find old discussions?

Can anyone please tell me where I can find the record of old discussions (n my case for an article which has now been deleted)?

Thanks :::Aa42john (talk) 18:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You could click on 'What links here' while at the article in question - if a discussion exists it should appear in the list. Alternatively search for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/article name. If the article was deleted as a result of an AFD discussion the discussion may also be linked in the deletion comments if you open the article for editing.--Michig (talk) 18:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC) e.g. see here in the pink section.--Michig (talk) 18:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Abundant Life Christian School

Should this article be deleted? It doesn't seem like any of the refs are independent, and google doesn't bring up much of interest. If so, would someone please add it to AfD? Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abundant Life Christian School. As is standard for these types of posts, I have indicated in the nom that this was originally your idea. Xenon54 (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Weighting votes: let the moderates predominate?

There seem to be a number of camps in AfD discussions. Grossly oversimplifying, they are:

• Those who always opine keep on anything,
• Those who always opine delete on anything, and
• Those who vary their opinion from discussion to discussion.

Given that we have a large number of bot operators and statisticians, would it be worthwhile and useful to write a bot that keeps track of people's cumulative !votes, and at some arbitrary threshold (I'm thinking 90-95%) tag new !votes made by one-trick voters along the lines of {{spa}}, something to the effect of "In 95% or more of past AfD discussions, this editor has suggested that the article in question be [kept|deleted]".

Ideally, this would formalize what many closing administrators probably already do: ignore those who only ever say the same thing, radical inclusionists or deletionists, and give appropriately more weight to the middle ground.

Thoughts? Jclemens (talk) 15:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a simple way to determine how a person normally !votes at AFD? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Simple would be a matter of opinion, but it's not unreasonably hard to write a program to parse past AfDs, extract !votes, and tally them by editor. It wouldn't be as simple as AfD stats, but should be workable. Jclemens (talk) 16:51, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

It might be interesting to have the tool (and I wonder where I'd fall), but overall I don't think I'd want it to be mentioned in most AFDs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Before work is done to design and create bots, it would be sensible to have some worked examples. User:Jclemens is an administrator who closes AFDs. I am an example of an editor who commonly summarises my findings at AFD with a Keep !vote. Please could Jclemens tell us whether he discounts or would discount my contributions on such statistical grounds. For the most recent example of such a contribution, please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Handy Light. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Sure, Colonel. Assuming you participated in an AfD which I was closing (and thus was not a party to the discussion), and your participation was tagged listing you as someone who almost always !votes to keep things, my reaction would be affected in the following ways:
    1. If you were a minority speaking out against deletion, and those opining for deletion were not tagged as editors who almost always !vote to delete, it would weigh against a "no consensus" close, and towards a "delete" outcome.
    2. If you were part of a slim majority arguing that an article should be kept, and those opining for deletion were not tagged as editors who almost always !vote to delete, it would weigh against a keep close, and towards a "no consensus" outcome.
    3. If your participation were balanced by an editor who himself was tagged as almost always !voting to delete, there would be no net change.
  • Thus, the primary effect would be to blunt the effect of inclusionists or deletionists when only one side shows up to a particular debate, and give stronger voice to those who appear to participate widely and vary their opinions. Jclemens (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• My understanding was that Afds were not supposed to be a vote and that closing administrators were supposed to weigh up arguments being advanced. I have tended to only contribute to Afd where I think a notable article that is useful to our encyclopedia is possibly going to be deleted and have often tried improving the article during the process. I do not consider myself a radical inclusionist and would be worried that I am being labeled as such by this process. Of course I could just go and vote delete at all the obvious deletes to get a balanced score but it is not clear how that would help. Shouldn't editors be judged according to the quality of the arguments that they advance and infomration they gather and add rather than the way they vote? (Msrasnw (talk) 17:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC))
  • I would prefer that, actually, but there are a large number of administrators who only count noses and interpret a plurality as a consensus. This proposal presumes that we can't actually compel administrators do their job right, unfortunately. Jclemens (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• (reply to User:Msrasnw) Indeed. My own habits are similar and, in reviewing a day's AFDs, I usually choose to focus upon the one or two cases which seem to have merit. Commenting in detail on all the dross seems too laborious and we should not encourage editors to find methods of making indiscriminate, automated edits of the per nom type. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• No. Protonk (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
• It would be interesting to see stats comparing editors' keep/delete opinions correlated with the eventual outcomes of those discussions. I probably express a keep opinion more often than delete since if I see an AFD correctly heading for a delete with sufficient input already I would be inclined to skip over it and move on to other discussions. I suspect other editors may show a similar pattern, but it would be interesting to see, for example, if an editor had a large proportion of delete !votes in discussions that ended 'Keep', and vice versa. I think this would be a more useful indicator than simply counting !votes either way. --Michig (talk) 18:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree that this would be more useful, but I worry that it would incentivize users to pad their numbers – piling onto obvious SNOWs and aggressively defending disputed ones. Also, what is a "correct" recommendation ↔ outcome correspondence? For example, there was a lot of argument over whether merge and redirect outcomes should be counted toward or against AfD nominations at this RfAr regarding this graph, File:TTN AfD results September through December 2008.JPG. Flatscan (talk) 04:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Users could also manipulate their success rate by avoiding AfDs where the outcomes are unclear. Flatscan (talk) 04:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• I'd find these stats interesting, were they to be produced, but I don't think it should go as far as to start tagging people. ~ mazca ^talk 18:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
• The stats might be interesting but I wouldn't give any !vote less weight solely based on it. That being said, as an AFD closer I find !votes opposite the !voter's normal views very helpful. In most AFDs with any significant participation, the "inclusionists" will usually say "keep" and the "deletionists" will usually say "delete". However, if "Joe Chill" or "Stifle" says "keep", the AFD is most likely a "keep". If "DreamGuy" says "keep", you might as well snow close it on the spot. If "Colonel Warden" or "DreamFocus" says "delete", then there is a very good chance the article doesn't belong on wikipedia. All !votes should be judged on their merits however. If a "radical inclusionist" makes a sound argument for keeping an article, his !vote shouldn't be given less weight because he "!votes to keep everything". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:35, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
  • That's a pretty compelling approach, too: pay more attention to the people !voting out of character. Of course, it takes a while to know the players and their habits, so the advantage of a tool to catalog voting histories would be to allow newer administrators to come up to speed faster. Jclemens (talk) 02:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• I can think of a few users who usually vote one way with poor justification. The poor justification is a reason to discount these recommendations, not the users or their AfD histories. I'm pretty sure that I could find a few who usually advocate one side with good arguments. A closer should be able to recognize an argument's shortcomings from the AfD alone, and someone who cannot – for any reason, including inexperience – should not be closing AfDs. There are arguments that look sound, like referencing a WP page, overstating its contents or omitting its disputed state, but other participants usually call these bluffs. Tracking the numbers may encourage users to obfuscate their habits by jumping sides to pile on obvious SNOWs. Flatscan (talk) 04:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. Complicated solution to a non-existent problem. Closing admins are supposed to parse voting reasons. Spartaz ^Humbug! 04:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
  • And absolutely never consider the reputation of the editor making the suggestion?
    Just today, I was looking at an article at AFD and leaning slightly towards a delete !vote (before doing any direct research), when I realized that the lone respondent so far was a highly experienced editor whose judgment I trust, and he'd come to the opposite conclusion. Would you have preferred that I ignored this, and gone to my favorite web search engine with a delete-biased mind? And if it's good for me to pay attention to this, then why is it bad for an admin to do the same? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
    • I think a user's reputation/history may be considered, but with minimal weight. "I didn't find any acceptable sources" may carry more weight when written by a user known for extensive searches and an accommodating stance on sourcing (the reversal mentioned by Ron Ritzman). A random source submitted by a user known for presenting substandard sources is of little value, but an actual reliable source may be a trump, regardless of who finds it. Flatscan (talk) 04:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
      • I dunno about the "minimal weight": I'd give significant weight to what someone like User:DGG says. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
        • DGG does usually present well-reasoned recommendations, but I wouldn't add weight to a weaker argument based on his reputation. Flatscan (talk) 04:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• One factor this suggestion ignores is the nature of the AfDs on which different editors may comment. Some editors may only vote on recently created vanity articles, where there would be a high deletion rate. Others may comment on controversial articles, which are often nominated for deletion based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and would have a lower deletion rate. TFD (talk) 07:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think voting records are of much use when people can freely choose which debates they want to vote in. If someone is becoming "too inclusionist" or "too deletionist", they can just fling on a few delete/keep votes in non-contentious cases so as to even the record. People who are excessively in the deletionist or inclusionist camps often betray their position with ridiculous rationales anyway. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• I tend to add to discussions where I think there is reasonable likelihood that otherwise the wrong decision might be made - rarely will you see me agreeing for the mere sake of piling on, and often my vote if it is later in the discussion will be contrary to what "everyone else" has said. On XfDs, this means that if I am one of the first three !votes, my record is very high for "keep" (about 90% maybe if you include "userfy") but if the discussion has been long with lots of "keep !votes" my record is higher for "delete." (about 70%) How the heck can you weigh that with numbers? Collect (talk) 10:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. People often argue for keep or delete (I'm a keeper, usually, with occasional exceptions). So what? AfD should assess consensus, and the balance between (broadly speaking) inclusionism and deletionism is part of this consensus. Also, it assumes that 50% k/d would be the expected outcome for an "unbiased" editor, which is a very strong assumption. Third, it doesn't keep in mind at all the type of article one has !voted on. Fourth, it is prone to be gamed easily: if you are a guy who wants to be counted for deleting lists, for example, just "keep" every snowball keep you see, and then come back to your targets. I really don't even understand what problem this proposal would be the solution of -I only see a can of Dune worms with a big can opener. --Cyclopia^talk 13:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose, reasoned argument not votes are what should count in AfDs if the guidelines are follwoed. I can't see this helping admins who don't actually follow those guidelines as they won't follow a new guidleine either. So a pointless proposition based on flawed reasoning and likely a flawed analysis of people's voting habits. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• No need for votes this was an idea, not a proposal, and sufficient holes have already been shot in it that it's clear that it's not going to progress to a proposal. I appreciate the thoughts others have shared--I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. Jclemens (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• Strong support and I would personally advocate for this kind of change. As a user of over 18 months and a frequent nominator for AfD when articles (particularly music ones) do not meet notability guidelines, I frequently find that community consensus goes against Notability guidelines and those voting often make very little contribution to the article or have a very limited experience with guidelines and policies. Equally i echo comments by Jezhotwells about reasoned opinions also needing to be considered. Sometimes the fresh logic of uninvolved or new editors trumps 'so-called' experience. Perhaps a mixing of Jclemens and Jezhotwells idea would serve perfectly. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 (talk2me) 18:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If community consensus goes frequently against notability guidelines, then it's the guidelines that need to be changed to reflect such consensus. --Cyclopia^talk 12:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didnt explain that properly. What I meant is that sometimes people oppose deletion because they are a fan of a particular artist but when it comes to the guideline and applying to other artists they support the deletion. We have notability guidelines which the community accepts are correct (its been discussed several times) but then when it comes individual examples sometimes opinion about a particular song leans to a consensus that breaks the guideline but because it is a local consensus it is given precedence. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 (talk2me) 12:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. If an article is incorrectly kept due to a flood of inclusionists, it can always be renominated under the premise that the provided sources do not actually constitute significant independent coverage. If an article is incorrectly deleted due to a flood of deletionists, it can always be recreated by providing proper sources. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• comment i think it would be very hard to create any kind of "objective" flagging that would give any useful information that wouldnt be subject to manipulation. The whole process then becomes less transparent. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 12:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment to "Keepers" I notice a number of editors are "keepers". I hope when they approach AfDs that they examine the sources rather than vote to keep on principle. There are many BLPs where almost no sources exist to build an article and many other articles based on the fact that it is possible to string together an adjective and a noun. TFD (talk) 04:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, but which sources? The ones that they believe in good faith to exist somewhere, the ones they can see exist based on some simple searching, or the ones currently in the article? Many vote to keep or delete an article based on its current state alone, without looking at its potential for improvement, which is another part of the deletion debate problem. Jclemens (talk) 05:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Alternative proposal - Any deletion discussion that has heavy participation should be refactored appropriately by someone not involved in the discussion. This refactoring can be done to lend clarity to the questions of fact raised in the nomination for the benefit of those involved, or to make consensus clearer by summarizing the arguments shortly before closure, such that the actual closure can rest on the arguments and their relative strengths. The editor refactoring should never be the closing administrator or otherwise a participant in the discussion - the point is to make sure that valid arguments are not "lost in the screaming" Triona (talk) 18:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Do you mean refactoring or merely summarizing? Reordering or directly editing other users' comments is discouraged by WP:Articles for deletion#AfD Wikietiquette and WP:Guide to deletion#Discussion. Flatscan (talk) 03:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Frankly any admin closing a complicated discussion without reading the thread very carefully isn't closing the article properly and they don't need someone to tell them what other people have said. Where it does happen it is hardly surprising that the subsequent "summary" strongly reflects the prejudices of the summariser and the efforts I have seen are often little more then vote counts lacking the nuances of the original comments. Additionally, as a regular AFD closer I like to follow the ebb and flow of a discussion as people respond to the various comments and by breaking the chronological order of a thread I fear we will end up with closes that fall more towards simple nose counts then presently. I'm really curious what problem this is supposed to solve by the way. Can anyone give me a specific example where this would help us? Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

TV episode AFDs?

I don't know how to submit an article for deletion.

This page appears to be an non notable episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Versus_the_Predator —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.9.66.213 (talk) 10:18, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

IEEE AlexSB

I want to know why is the article is nominated for deletion ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amr9090 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The place to ask this question would be on the talk page of the person who nominated it, not here. meshach (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

How to reverse a deletion decision

I've been led around in circles. The article "Barack Obama speech in Prague, 2009" was recently redirected to "List of presidential trips made by Barack Obama." I had commented that the article should not be deleted, because it was notable in that it is the defining statement President Obama's nuclear arms control agenda. But I put that comment on the article's discussion page rather than in the deletion discussion. Silly me, I didn't realize (since the deletion tag actually links to a general discussion of deletion rather than the discussion on the merits of the article in question) that there even was a separate discussion of the deletion. And now I find myself unable to figure out in a reasonable amount of time how to request reversal of the deletion decision. As noted up front, the various links led me in circles, but never to a place where I could make a formal undeletion proposal.

I would like to propose that the article be restored. I would also like to comment that the procedures for doing this are far from transparent. They could be much more user-friendly for those of us who like to focus on content, not mechanics. NPguy (talk) 03:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

What you are looking for is WP:DRV. Beware: this procedure by itself assesses if consensus was correctly gauged by the closing admin. If the AfD showed a clear consensus to delete, there is little DRV can do. Another -and more probably successful- strategy can be requesting to an admin to restore the article in your userspace, where you can improve it safely, trying to establish firmly notability by adding reliable sources germane to the topic, and ask a DRV later, pointing at your new version of the article. In this case DRV will assess if your new version addresses the concerns of the previous AfD. Look closely at the AfD and at the concerns displayed there by editors and strive to address them in your new version. Good luck. --Cyclopia^talk 03:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the first step is to discuss the close with the closer. In this case User:King of Hearts. I've already pinged him on NPguy's behalf. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:50, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

*The AFD in question Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barack Obama speech in Prague, 2009 --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

strange formatting

Something strange is happening at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2010 September 9. two AFDs "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/China Airlines Flight 006" and "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514" are showing up as red links directly under (or combined with) the nominations directly above. No idea why no time to figure it out.JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Taken care of by GB fan [4] Jujutacular ^talk 19:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on WP:AFD, WP:EVENT, and the notability of some aircrashes

Does exactly what it says on the tin. See Wikipedia:Notability (fatal hull loss civil aviation accidents) for details. MickMacNee (talk) 16:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Another step 2 request

Maddie Fitzpatrick - deletion rationale can be found on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 09:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Sidhu pura - deletion rationale can be found on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 22:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Both have been nominated. Jujutacular ^talk 19:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Flustrated - need I say where the Deletion rationale can be found?

 Done

Also, would somebody look at/correct this malformed attempt? 69.181.249.92 (talk) 05:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done

and another

"The Mulholland" 69.181.249.92 (talk) 20:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)  Done Hut 8.5 20:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Project Blue Beam (NASA) 69.181.249.92 (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done ~~ GB fan ~~ 11:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

1stChoice FTPPro 69.181.249.92 (talk) 18:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Hut 8.5 18:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

The Ann Arbor Masonic News - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 22:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Malaria Control Project - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done already by someone else, but I've added the proper template. Hut 8.5 09:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Lights Go Out (Zine) - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 12:52, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Jujutacular ^talk 13:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

and another

Troll 4 - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 13:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Jujutacular ^talk 13:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

how to make an undeletion request / appeal for a mistakenly / inappropriately deleted article?

this deletion request: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/2004_United_States_presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities failed miserably, 2-1 against, with 75% of the against being "strong". yet it was classified as successful. it is my understanding that deletion requires consensus. 2-1 against can hardly be considered "consensus". the action taken by the administrator in this case was obviously inappropriate. what can be done to correct this? Kevin Baas^talk 16:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to contest the closing administrator's reading of consensus at the debate you can take it up with them or go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Hut 8.5 16:25, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Given the egregiousness of the violation, I doubt the administrator would be very receptive. I shall take it up on deletion review. Kevin Baas^talk 16:28, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Is an article at AFD removed from normal processes

I've seen a few people advance the idea (most recently at my talkpage) that an article at AFD is somehow in a special category that modifies the normal rules of editing. As far as I am aware, an article at AFD can have content removed in the normal way if it is unsourced and there is no special 'protection' for such content. Is my view on this incorrect in some way?

Tied to this, I've been removing unsourced material from an article at AFD and have been told that this isn't a good thing as I have a COI as I voted 'delete' - again, as far as I am aware, we don't consider editors !votes at AFD to prohibit their editing of articles in any way. Do we consider it a COI?

Thoughts? --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If an article is currently under AFD, and someone requests that you not remove a considerable amount of the article's content so that it can be better evaluated at AFD, you should not edit war and insist that the content be removed. What are you accomplishing by doing that? Andrevan@ 20:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Except in case of BLPs, I tend to recommend editors stick to 1) arguing to delete the article, or 2) editing the article to improve it. If you're editing and arguing for deletion, the clear question is whether or not you're editing the article to improve the chances for deletion. Really, if you are investing effort in the article, you are de facto arguing that it merits such work, which would tend to invalidate a delete !vote (but not, say, a merge opinion). Jclemens (talk) 20:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Editing should be done in order to improve the article. Substantial deletions on whatever grounds when one has !voted "delete" may be presumed to be conflicted at best. Examples include, in some cases, deletions of more than 2/3 of an entire article by some editors. Collect (talk) 00:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't agree. Are you going to argue that editors who want to keep the article who add loads of unsourced material, or badly sourced material, are improving it? Substantial deletions may improve it. After all, people are still reading the article during teh AfD process. This seems like a pretty radical restriction on the freedom of editors to edit. I'll raise this at COI as well, pointing the discussion here. Dougweller (talk) 05:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm all about people improving articles facing deletion. I just don't see improving articles as compatible with a delete !vote, which says "this article is so worthless, we don't want it merged anywhere, or even redirected anywhere". A delete !vote is an explicit assertion that the article cannot and should not be improved by editing, per WP:BEFORE and WP:ATD. I struggle to understand how improving an article can be compatible with a delete !vote. Jclemens (talk) 05:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree and, indeed, have been recently involved in something like this at List of notable plot twists. I originally nominated the article and felt strongly (as I still do) that it should be deleted. However, I began to see the direction the discussion was going and predicted (rightly as it turned out) that it might end up being kept. Once you've taken an interest in an article, even if it's just to say you want it deleted, it's hard to then just ignore it, so my feeling was essentially 'if it's going to be kept, it might as well be as good as it can be' so I tried to do my best to improve it. I don't think that was a COI, and nor did it ever change my delete vote. --Korruski (talk) 08:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

What would have happened had you simply not edited it until the AfD had completed? I'm guessing that the improvement would have gone un-made, but also there would have been no possible accusation of bias or inappropriateness in the improvement. What would have happened had you simply struck your delete !vote when you started editing the article? Seems unlikely that it would have affected the AfD outcome, by your description. Either action would have precluded any possible accusation of bias or bad faith editing. Jclemens (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I could, of course, have held off on editing it until after the process was over, but the article was in terrible shape, even by the usual standards of an AfD, and I didn't want to wait a week (or more, as I wrongly assumed that the AfD would be relisted if no consensus emerged after a week) to deal with some of the most egregious problems. I couldn't technically have struck my delete !vote as I nominated the article, but I agree that as a normal !voter that might have been possible. I don't think one should have to though. I would prefer to make the edits, and let them speak for themselves. If anyone seriously thought they were an attempt to make the article worse not better then I could deal with that when it arose, as I would in the normal course of things if it were not under AfD. That seems preferable to assuming that anyone who has !voted delete on an article is too biased to then edit it. That sounds close to assuming bad faith, surely? --Korruski (talk) 08:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

A nominator, can, in fact, change their !vote. I've nominated an article and argued that it be kept, to force a discussion on a redirect that I believed merited its own article (The Avengers film project, if you're curious). But you've given me an idea, which I will elaborate on below... Jclemens (talk) 15:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think such a blanket policy would be appropriate here. When under AfD, an article is still subject to all the requirements that an article must have, and it should therefore be subject to the same protections. For example, if someone removed a swath of validly sourced content in order to further their Delete !vote, then that should be reverted the same way any unexplained removal of validly sourced content would be from any other article. Content added during the AfD that is not appropriate, should be removed as inappropriate the same as it would be for any article. In the case where removal of content improves the article to the point where the article goes from Delete to Keep, well then that would fall under "AfD is not cleanup", and the article probably should never have been nominated in the first place. Arakunem^Talk 16:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

considering that I have seen many people !voting keep - it has sources without actually looking at the "sources" to see that they are blog posts or "sources" that dont actually verify any of the claims in the article - it is clearly within the scope of improving the encycloepdia and improving the AfD discussion to remove non-appropriate content from the article under discussion. Putting artificial restrictions on an article under AfD is inappropriate.Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 17:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's say that an article is taken to AfD because it is mostly an advertisement. You then have some people arguing to keep the article because it has potential for expansion although notability is questionable. I don't see a problem if a person who argues for deletion then removes the promotional text and leaves a short, sourced, sub-stub. That would effectively show how little of the article has any substance, and of course removing promotional material is usually seen as a form of improvement anyway. Now, if an editor arguing for deletion is butchering an article intentionally to influence other people into thinking that the article is horrible (including a removal of sources that would otherwise establish notability) then yes that's a big problem, but really that's nothing more than vandalism and isn't allowed under any circumstances, whether or not the article is the subject of an AfD discussion. Honestly, at AfD the discussion should focus around whether or not the subject merits inclusion, not about how great or crappy the article is. Even butchering the article shouldn't be that big of a deal if you can prove that the subject itself is notable and doesn't violate anything at WP:NOT. I don't see that we should restrict editing the article during an AfD discussion to anyone, whatever their opinion about deleting the article. -- Atama頭 17:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I find the idea that removing material from an article is somehow automatically deleterious to the article and cannot be considered to be improving it ludicrous. There are frequently articles at AFD that have a viable kernel for a real article surrounded by dross. Removing that dross so the viable kernel can be recognized and improved is improving the article.—Kww(talk) 17:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree: removal can be an improvement. But how does stubbifying and arguing for deletion help an article? Stubbification is a vote of confidence in the article--it says, in essence, "this article sucks, but the topic is worthwhile" and is incompatible with arguing that the article can be deleted. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have never said that editors dissatisfied with the current form of an article are prohibited from editing it. What I have seen in a few cases is editors who say "this topic should be deleted!" and then slap a ton of tags on it, revert good faith additions, remove as much material that isn't directly cited to a footnote as possible--using the editing process as a weapon to make an article appear as unfavorable as possible for the clear purpose of advancing the deletion they support. That is what I view as egregious and unhelpful conduct. If I was presented with such a situation in the future, I would point out the inappropriateness of the BATTLEFIELD approach to deletion to the closing admin: improving an article undermines the assertion that it should be deleted. Jclemens (talk) 17:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

"I think this article should be deleted, but if you must keep something, this is the only bit that stands a chance of being salvagable" is a rational and non-destructive POV as well.—Kww(talk) 22:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Jclemens, what if an editor did all of that when there was no AfD ongoing? (Overused tags, reverted good faith edits, removed material excessively.) Would you treat that any better? I'd think that would be disruptive regardless. What I don't approve of is the suggestion that !voting delete in an AfD should prevent an editor from being able to trim down an article. For that matter, even the editor who nominated it for deletion should feel free to edit the article constructively, whether they add or remove material. Recently I nominated an article for deletion and at the same time cleaned it up (fixed wikilinks, corrected misspellings, fixed the link to the main article image). My incentive for doing so was to allow an unbiased discussion, even though I argued for the deletion of the article I didn't want people to be influenced by the poor quality of the article. I believe that if I needed to remove a ton of promotional language or speculation or hoax info or the like to do that I should be allowed to as well. -- Atama頭 22:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Kww, I think it bifurcates the AfD: if there is a keep/not keep discussion ongoing over the article in its current form, changing that form substantially can be detrimental to achieving a consensus. If the first few !voters include some "Cruft, nuke it!" and then someone else comes along and trims the cruft, what happens? Are those !votes invalidated? No, they are presumed to apply to the version of the article at the end of the discussion. If the AfD is closed as delete, then there are a couple of options to move forward:

1) If the article was in an improvable state at the time it was deleted, anyone who thinks it's inclusion worthy can get it userified, clean it up so that it's substantially different and no longer meets the AfD closer's rationale, (e.g., trim cruft, source stuff) and moves it back without DRV.

2) If the article was in an improved state, such that e.g., the cruft had been trimmed and everything that could be sourced had been sourced, but the initial, no-longer-accurate ITSCRUFT votes were still counted, there is much less room to do so. If no one calls WP:HEY, then the state of the article at the time of AfD close becomes the state from which "substantially similar" is measured for CSD G4.

BEANS be damned, it's possible to increase the chance that an article is "permanently" deleted by improving it during the deletion process, because consensus heretofore has been that early !votes that don't reflect the final state of the article cannot be simply discarded, even though they apply to a version of the article that perhaps all sides have moved beyond. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

People adding sourced content during the process bifurcates the discussion as well. If the closing admin isnt going to check whether the "consensus" on the talk page actually reflects the content of the article, s/he shouldn't be closing the AfD. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 01:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, yeah, but in the case that someone actually wants the article kept, they try to raise the visibility of their changes, so the instance of such being innocently overlooked by a closing admin is going to be a good deal lower. Jclemens (talk) 04:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

2 examples - a BLP violation with a number of BLP issues, stubifying may be the best thing. Second example (and I've seen both) an article created to publicise an event taking place in 7 days time. Hm, just thought of a 3rd one, where I nominated something for AfD and even the creator agreed that some stuff should be removed (we both agreed the whole thrust of the article was wrong). And a question - are we planning to block editors, discount their !votes, or what if we call deletion by those who !vote delete or nominate for deletion and then remove stuff from the articleDougweller (talk) 09:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

BLP is BLP is BLP; AfD changes nothing about it. If those discussing possible deletion are having a reasonable, intelligent dialogue in which they agree that some parts of the article need to go... super! No issue. As far as consequences, I was thinking of an established principle that if the closing admin sees one or more people !voting delete but making substantial changes to the article (either sabotage or cleanup), then s/he would discount or "weigh less" the delete !vote (but not any other vote, including a merge or redirect). I have absolutely no interest in making up new rules to block people, but I have seen people engage in egregious article editing, clearly designed to make the article look bad (tags everywhere on a stub?) or keep it looking bad for the sole purpose of discouraging the keeping of such an article. THAT sort of gamesmanship should not be rewarded, IMHO. Jclemens (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I modestly believe an article at AfD should have a special status and should not be allowed to be touched by anyone with the exception of adding sources to help establish notability. The motivation of any other edits at that point in article life is really questionable. Why did you wait until the AfD to edit? Any edits at that time would be solely to impose your point of view and to attempt to influence others to see it as you do. Thanks.Turqoise127 19:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Why didnt I edit it before? Cause there are over 3 million articles and I had no freeking idea that this inappropriate and bloatfilled "article" existed out there until I ran across it at AfD. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 19:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry, I guess that was a silly comment on my part. Unless the "article" had numerous tags placed on it (and they usually do prior to AfD) which puts it in numerous ques to be addressed, so interested editors can contribute? I see your point with 3 million articles, sure, but I remain at my opinion. Thanks. Turqoise127 21:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• This general topic should be covered by WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion. WT:Guide to deletion#Editing during .7B.7Bafd.7D.7D (August 2007) echoes some of the concerns here. I don't agree with the edit-warring in this specific case. Flatscan (talk) 04:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Idea: Provide diffs and explanation

Since we're already sort of doing this with positive improvements, how about a new AfD expectation, something along these lines:

"When any editor makes a non-trivial change or set of changes to an article currently under discussion, the editor should post chronologically in AfD the diffs of what they have done to the article and a brief explanation"

Thus, if followed this either promotes discussion on the active improvement of the article, or demonstrates how a bad faith editor fails to collegialy engage per expectations. Jclemens (talk) 15:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea, but for an article that attracts a lot of edits or that is popular the AfD page could be swamped with diffs. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 15:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

• The existing recommendation "noting in the discussion that you have done so if your edits are significant ones" at the top of WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion could be expanded, but I think it is sufficient as worded. If an explanation is needed, one can be requested civilly. Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

AN discussion notification

I've started a general discussion at WP:AN#AfD's generally closed too soon. You are invited to give your view on this as well. Fram (talk) 11:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've proposed a change to {{afd2}} template that may address these concerns. Debate is ongoing at WP:AN, per above. As always, input is most welcome. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:15, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Mass-nomination

Is there an established procedure for mass-nominating articles? I've had a look through our Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode articles and haven't found a single one which has more than a TV.com reference; the synopses provided in the main list of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episodes suffices to cover that which is notable about these. Is it just a case of slapping an AfD tag on every one and pointing at one AfD, or is there a better way? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The better way, if your description is correct, is redirecting them to the episode list. Fram (talk) 08:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to avoid the drama of being reverted thirty times for unilateral redirection. Furthermore, there's little evidence that these are individually notable at all; they're all practically orphaned, being linked only from the pages of their guest stars and the next/previous infobox links. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 09:49, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

If you nominate redirectable articles for deletion, you always risk a rebuke and a procedural "keep" outcome, depending on factors that I couldn't yet determine and on the closing admin. It may be better to create an RfC at Talk:Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and leave a pointer to it on the talk page of each individual article. Or maybe start a discussion at a related WikiProject talk page. Hans Adler 09:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Until and unless you redirect at least one or two, and are reverted, there's no justification for seeking deletion. Even if you open an AfD, the most likely outcome is going to be something of an enforced merge or redirect. If you want me to have a talk with whomever you think will (or does) revert you, I'll be happy to clue them in that they don't want to contest a merge and wind up at AfD. Seriously--use me as a resource. Jclemens (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I opened an RFC at Hans's suggested talk page and pinged WT:TV earlier in the afternoon. This is an experiment: I'm really looking for the bare minimum level of drama that can be generated in a mass-deletion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 21:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, step #1 in avoiding drama is to use the least threatening words possible. If it's a mass redirection, then call it that rather than a mass deletion. With a redirection OR deletion, it's always permissible for someone to re-create an article if the cause for such is elimintated--typically for these sorts of articles, that would mean if someone found substantial third party critical review and used it to write an article without excessive plot summary. The only difference really is that a deletion 1) hides the past contributions, and 2) forces someone who wants to start a proper article to begin again from scratch. Neither one of those directly serve an encyclopedic purpose, since even a redirect will remove substandard material from public view. Jclemens (talk) 21:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Bare minimum drama is NEVER seen when fiction fans are confronted with the necessity of having third paryt sources! But good luck!Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 22:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone fix this accidental double nomination?

I was nominating some articles using Twinkle but it accidently created

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morningrise (Slowdive song)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morningrise (Slowdive song) (2nd nomination)

when only one was required. Can someone please fix? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 00:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

It appears it is fixed. The second nomination page does not exist and the template on the article links to the first nomination. TFD (talk) 01:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Help with Steps 2 &3 Deletion Request: Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy

Not sure why this person has her own page when she is a reality show contestant (on a show that placed last among the major networks in its time period, no less). There is a lack of citations as well as notability. Being an ADA is not notable either, since there are many across the country as well as in the large city of NY. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.39.37 (talk) 04:12, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Help - made a mess

Resolved

Crud. I put up .700 Hubel Express for AFD, but it turns out there was one listed a week ago that somehow wasn't fully setup. So now there are two open AFD's for this article. I'm not sure exactly what the right next step is. Do I blow away the new one and relist the old one? Combine? Close the old one? Thanks. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

If one of the AFD pages doesnt have any !votes, how about just redirect it with a note in the edit summary. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 17:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I think it's straightened out now. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Stale AfDs

I've been randomly plowing through active AfD discussions and have found several open discussions that are several weeks old. The commonality among most if not all of these discussions is that they were never listed on the log. I've listed most of the ones I've found on the 20 September log, and noted in the discussion that they are listed on the log for the first time. Some of the discussions I've found, however, have a very clear consensus to delete or keep (possibly because of traffic on the article or on various deletion sorting categories). Is it fair to close these discussions, some of which are over a month old, if they have never been on the log? And is listing them in the log the appropriate way to get admin attention on them? Or is AN a better route? —KuyaBriBri^Talk 21:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Sent by Ravens

Discussion over, kept, now can someone remove the AFD template and add an old-AFD template on the talk page? I don't want to do it because I am not an admin. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Done --Mkativerata (talk) 10:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

OpenIndiana AfD debate

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.

AFD has been closed. Jujutacular ^talk 18:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Over the past week there has been an AfD debate on the OpenIndiana article (on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OpenIndiana). The debate period ended yesterday, but for some reason it was not closed by an admin.

The status of the AfD debate at this moment is 12 opinions to keep (one strong), 3 delete (one delete/merge). Also the debate is starting to turn nasty, which leads me to believe there's not going to be anymore useful commentary.

At this point I'd like to request that one of the admins close this debate. It's done, it's gone beyond pointless and I'd like to get the AfD template off the article.

Thanks, -- BenTels (talk) 13:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Please keep in mind that the AfD process is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes. Additionally, unregistered or new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons). A lot of off-wiki canvassing has taken place, directing people to participate in this AfD. Cindamuse (talk) 14:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• The debate is over. You've made your point and have been told in several ways why people disagree with you. The arguments are done, to the point that people (including you) are starting to snipe at one another rather than making meaningful contributions. There is no point in continuing and every reason to close the debate (before it totally ceases being a debate anymore). Therefore, again, I am requesting an admin to close the debate since there is no more debating to be done. -- BenTels (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Ben, honestly, you have been the most egregious with personal attacks in this discussion. I have never been attacked more before, than I have from you in this discussion. Please watch your tone. While others have expressed their opinions disagreeing that the subject lacks notability, their recommendations are not in alignment with Wikipedia policy and guidelines. I have responded accordingly, with respect and providing a link to the corresponding guideline. When an editor poses a question or concern, others have the right to respond until the discussion is closed. If you truly believe that it is pointless to continue the discussion, by all means, stop commenting. Cindamuse (talk) 15:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• There is no point in posting everything to two locations. I've responded to the copy of most of what is above on the other page. In the meantime, I stand by my request for an admin to review the debate and close it, before it decays even further. -- BenTels (talk) 15:51, 23 September 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.

---

Thanks for closing, Jujutacular! -- BenTels (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

A Little Help from a Kind Editor, Please

Hey Guys, I have nominated the SOCEP Constanţa article for deletion, but the formatting of the AFD Page is all screwy. It does the same thing when I try to list it on the AFD log, so I deleted it until I can get this cleared up. So, basically, I need help correcting the formatting on the article's AFD Page, as well as placing it on top of the current AFD listing

I am not sure why this isn't working...this isn't my first AFD! Thanks! The Eskimo (talk) 15:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed it, though I'm not sure why it didn't work before. Hut 8.5 16:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Linear amplifier

A deletion debate has been taking place at Talk:Linear amplifier#This article should be deleted since 21 May. Could someone from here please summarise and close the debate? I cannot do it myself as I contributed to the discussion. SpinningSpark 23:52, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Complexity of AFD (RFC)

I think that our articles for deletion process has suffered greatly from the effects of instruction creep. Following the processes laid out on the WP:AFD page to list an article, there are somewhere around 30 steps (once you count all the substeps) to listing an article for deletion. I'm raising the following points to establish the scope of the problem before I try to go anywhere with any proposals. Triona (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

1) The articles for deletion process requires specialized knowledge to follow correctly

In the processes for listing and closing AFD discussion are very detailed steps above and beyond the actual standards for which articles may be deleted. These steps require specialized knowledge because they require exact use of templates (at least 5 in total) and edit summaries to correctly follow the process, and a very specific set of steps. Triona (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

2) The articles for deletion process is so complex that even experienced editors usually employ additional tools just to navigate the process

There exist automated tools to open and close AFDs because most experienced editors find the Articles for Deletion process cumbersome and unwieldy. These tools may not be readily available to less experienced contributors because they simply do not know they are there. Triona (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

3) Just because there is a tool to simplify a process does not mean the underlying process is not complex

The existence of tools like twinkle should not be a defense of a processes complexity. "Oh just use Twinkle" shouldn't be the end of this discussion because Twinkle only masks the underlying complexity and in any case, isn't present in the default interface. Triona (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• support 1, 2, and 3. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 19:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support all three... but so what? What point are you trying to make? I routinely see people who ignore the parts of the instructions they don't like, I routinely see people making arguments that aren't supported by policy, and I routinely see terrible administrator closes... yet we still somehow continue to muddle along. Given that there's complexity, what's the proposal to "fix it" and what's the desired outcome? Jclemens (talk) 21:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

  I honestly don't know what the answers are, but from similar discussions, once you start offering solutions people start saying there's not a problem. So the first step is to establish that there is a problem and what the extent of it is - once that's settled, then you can start talking about what options exist to fix it, and whether or not those "solutions" just add to the problem. Triona (talk) 21:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I am with Jclemens, too. What end results are expected from this RfC? That the developers create a more automated, intuitive interface? that we scrap some of the "instructions"? that a cadre of people are assigned as "afdgnomes" to tidy up every incomplete/malfomated submission? Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 21:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

As I see it, this discussion is about good housekeeping. One shouldn't let a process grow forever. At some point it becomes necessary to evaluate which parts, if any, can be streamlined or even removed. Hans Adler 11:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• support 1, 2, and 3. , I agree but I've raised this discussion before and its not led to anything. I've also participated in much of these discussions again but it still doesn't lead nowhere. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 21:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Although I agree with the statement of facts. Support all three. I see other editors fixing malformed AfDs, and creating AfDs as proxy for others that can't or don't know how. I even fixed one recently. Although it's not intentional, one benefit is that newbies usually don't take articles to AfD. It takes a while to understand the process, and more importantly, the reasons behind the process. So while I agree it's complex, I see no real reason to change the process yet. If it becomes so easy that anyone can simply push a single button, we will, I'm afraid, wind up with a slew of articles that get sent to AfD because they are the subject of a content disagreement, for example. — Becksguy (talk) 22:14, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the complexity of the process ensures it's detailed and thorough? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me

That kinda what I was implying, but didn't express as well as you did. — Becksguy (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: I don't think there are 30 stages as mentioned above. Three stages to complete a nomination plus notifying the creator and major contributors. The process needs to be more rigorous than CSD or PROD. The main problems that I see are inadequate arguments as mentioned by Jclemens, and faulty closures by admins who don't assess the discussion properly. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Counting preliminary steps and substeps, there are somewhere around 30 steps. 12 preliminary steps that we ask people to do, and anywhere from 5 to 10 substeps for each of the actual 3 major steps. Triona (talk) 05:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with the statements of facts, but what is the solution? For me, twinkle is the answer to the complexity of AfD (also note that AfD, MfD, CfD, DRV, are all different and require different processes). Protonk (talk) 07:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• I recall Uncle G saying that AFD was made deliberately non-trivial so that the process would not be engaged too lightly. Scripting tools like Twinkle have tended to subvert this but I'm not sure if the volume or quality of nominations has been affected. Are there any statistics? Colonel Warden (talk) 08:42, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Not sure if it is deliberate or not but IMHO this is one area where instruction creep is a good thing. Here's what I said when this was brought up at WT:DELPRO last year. IMHO getting an article deleted should be "hard". We are here to create articles, not make them go away. However, sometimes an article has to be deleted and we have policies and guidelines that state when we must do that. Having to learn those policies, guidelines, and what hoops to jump through to propose an article for deletion keeps the load on AFD manageable. If we had a convenient "button" for proposing an article for deletion that any passerby can push if they think an article "sucks", we'd likely have a thousand or more AFDs a day. In short, if you want to make articles go away, then do your homework. However, I can also see the other side of this too. Every evening when I do my relist run on the closable AFD log I am fixing at least one malformed AFD close, some of them from otherwise experienced admins. Therefore, I am not opposed to some automation. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:31, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we are not here to "create articles". We are here to create an encyclopedia. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 19:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose all three. I don't use tools to nominate articles for AfD, and have never done so (not even on renominations and mass nominations). WP:AFD is a handy guide to help you through the process, which uses three templates (not five). Other things aren't necessary (notifying the creator or anyone else is considered to be good, but I usually don't do this with AfD's, and the edit summaries don't need to be followed either, just use good, descriptive ones: I go with 'nominated for deletion', 'first deletion reason', and finally the name of the article at the daily log). The steps to take before nominating for deletion are just good advice: people should be aware that they shouldn't list an article because e.g. they believe the subject to be offensive, or because it is only of interest to Asians, or whatever misguided reason they may have. People should also be aware that there are other deletion processes, like speedy. Basically, only the three templated steps need to be done carefully: everything else, like WP:BEFORE and so on, just need to be treated with some common sense and personal preference. The only thing I see that could be a useful simplification is that anytime an AfD page is created, it is somehow automatically added to the daily log. Fram (talk) 10:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose It should be a multiple step process to AfD an article. If an editor (especially a newbie) has strong feelings that an article deserves AfD, she/he is more likely to go through the process. Making it too easy would enable people to just nominate AfD willy-nilly.

On a side note, navigating through the AfD space (everything, not just the instructions) is a bit of a nightmare. I saw an article that was AfD'd but there was no link provided to the discussion page, so I just went to WP:AfD figuring I could easily find it listed since I knew the date it was nominated. I finally found it, but only after wading through a mess of instruction manuals and categories. But that's is probably a discussion for another day :) The Eskimo (talk) 19:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Clarification I'm trying to approach this in stages to keep a rational and productive discussion. Fact finding on the current state of things is where this is at right now. The reasoning behind doing fact-finding first is that we shouldn't be looking for solutions before understanding problems. Certainly, some of the complexity in AFD is necessary, and that should also be examined. I foresee this conversation going through many rounds of discussion before we even look at solutions. I've also avoided using the phrase "too complex" in this round of fact finding because, quite frankly, the complexity may be entirely necessary and desirable. The questions right now are essentially to establish the level of complexity and confusion. Any solutions right now would be solutions in search of a problem. The next stage of this discussion, if it gets that far, will probably consist of examining what makes AFD so complex and what procedural considerations exist to make each step we currently have a requirement. Triona (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support all three but fail to see that it constitutes a problem. The complexity in this process is warranted by the potential severity of its result, and that somewhat inexperienced users might shy away from submitting at AfD might actually be a feature rather than a bug. --Pgallert (talk) 09:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support all three. At a time when I was already a very experienced editor, I tried to do the process manually, but failed miserably. As a result, whenever I want to send something to AfD nowadays, I have to install Twinkle temporarily and uninstall it later. (Two important reasons not to use Twinkle: Reducing interface clutter when having to cope with a tiny netbook screen. Hardware or wetware problems that cause random mouseclicks, which are much more serious issue with Twinkle.) Hans Adler 12:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Yes! The process is too complicated for ordinary casual users. I sometimes come across articles that I think shouldn't exist, then I look at the instructions and lose the will to live. Suggestion: There should be a prominent link to leave a request for an admin or experienced user to complete the process. The ordinary user should have to provide just two pieces of information: (i) the name of the artcle; (ii) the reason why he or she thinks it should be deleted, which can be in ordinary English, with no need to use arcane Wikipedia terminology or cite Wikipedia legislation. 86.186.37.71 (talk) 21:55, 10 September 2010 (UTC).
• comment i am seeing "the process should be hard and complex to keep articles from being deleted" - what should keep articles from being deleted should not be the process, but the encyclopedic content of the articles. The process should allow articles of encyclopedic content to be easily kept. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 18:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I do not think this should be the case. Arguably the original intent was to have the process serve as a hindrance for editors who wished to delete an article--if you wanted to delete some page you needed to exert some threshold level of effort. But unsurprisingly this resulted in technical workarounds. Editors who spent a great deal of time nominating articles used semi-automated tools and pre made templates to avoid the tedious portions of the process and any process base barricades to nomination were obviated. What we were left with was a more complicated process without the threshold effort. Ideally the process should be content agnostic. We should not be relying on the technical difficulty posed by filling out an AfD to protect marginal articles, because those technically difficulties will just be surmounted through automation. Preferably, you should be able to nominate an article with one template and one edit and a bot should edit the log and build the deletion discussion page. But barring that the current system isn't too onerous, Protonk (talk) 18:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment – From my experience if there is a problem it is that the admins don't follow the guidelines. There is a disconnect between what guidelines say and what admins do in closing AfDs. Guidelines say AfDs are not a vote. Balderdash. AfDs in practice are a vote. AfD admins seem largely oblivious to some of the ways AfDs are gamed. I don't see how any of the three points you raise address that. Lambanog (talk) 16:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
• I'd rather discuss possible innovations that keep the same functionality of the process but make it easier to complete. Regardless of whether there's a problem, efficiency is never a bad thing. (Well, there's a view expressed above that the inefficiency of the process builds character and discipline, but I think that's pretty cruel.) --Bsherr (talk) 08:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

AFD request

Battle of Orsha (1943-1944) seems like a candiate for deletion, no sources what so ever and possible hoax?86.4.81.225 (talk) 22:59, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Some discussion here - with citations suggest that it was a real event. See also Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive and [5] Jezhotwells (talk) 23:17, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The links you have provided refer to Operation Bagration - the 1944 summer offensive, that is not in dispute, the above mentioned article has no sources and google searching appears to find nothing in support of a winter battle hence the concern it is a possible hoax. Regards86.4.81.225 (talk) 01:01, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore the Russian presentation/interactive map on the eastern front, along with the map on the Bagration article would seem to also support the need for concern; please see [6] and [7]. The later clearly shows that Orsha is behind the German frontline at the start of the offensive and the interactive map shows no offensive launched in that area until summer 1944 and Bagration. Regards86.4.81.225 (talk) 01:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you wish someone to nominate for AfD, please provide a clear, concise rationale on the talk page and I will nominate on your behalf. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I have posted on the article's talkpage, hopefully the write up meets your request. Regards86.4.81.225 (talk) 01:59, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Jujutacular ^talk 04:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Just checking on 'withdrawal' of an AfD

Hi there. An editor recently opened an AfD on Danny Nalliah. The AfD discussion is here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Danny Nalliah. After a few comments from other editors (including myself) i think the original nominator figured s/he probably shouldn't have nominated it in the first place and decided to 'withdraw' the nom and archive the discussion. However, it had only been open for a day. My question is: once an article has been nominated at AfD, must it not be closed by an uninvolved editor? If so, could an experienced operator at AfD perhaps let LibStar know the procedure, take a look at it, and perhaps both over-ride and then re-do / somehow endorse Libstar's action, or leave it open (if that is thought preferable). Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:13, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally yes, an AFD must be closed by an uninvolved party. However, if the nominator withdraws and there are no outstanding delete !votes then anybody, involved or not, can close it including the nominator or one of the !voters. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin

All, I've been looking at Arthur Rubin's page and I just don't see the notability and have requested it to be deleted. There is a reason this keeps coming up over and over, the math award, the patent and running for assembly that doesn't cut it. Yes he is smart but what has he achieved with his brain, the last item is from 1980..... B-Objective (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Fell free to nominate for AfD, but I expect the result will be similar to last time. Looks like he passes WP:ACADEMIC. He is still publishing, try Google Scholar]] or a university citation index. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Administrators out of control

I improved the Deva Victrix page by adding a separate section for the Elliptical Building, as this is perhaps the most interesting building on the site. I also added a new section for the Market Hall inscription.

And then along comes the mighty Dougweller and deletes the whole lot, because he took exception to a reference to an author called Ellis, although the vast majority of data was from Chester Archaeology (because I live there). Had Dougweller even heard of the Deva fortress before now? No, I thought not. So Wiki readers are denied any knowledge of the Market Hall inscription and Elliptical Building, and because of what? Because Dougweller has decided he knows everything?

He then proceeds to follow me around Wiki deleting everything, without thinking. Had he even heard of the Elagabal of Elagabalus before today? Yes, that got deleted too. Did he know of the similarities between Britannia and Athena? No, but that went too (even though the page already mentions a link between Britannia and Minerva, who is Athena anyway !!) Frankly, Dougweller is a site vandal, not an administrator.

If administrators want to edit, I suppose that is their prerogative, but wholesale deletion without any consideration is reducing the font of knowledge, not increating it.

This goes entirely against the spirit of Wiki.

Narwhal2 (talk) 20:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Content addition/removal has nothing to do with the articles for deletion process. Please find somewhere else to discuss...not here, on page that states "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Articles for deletion page." at the top. See WP:DR for some ideas. DMacks (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Narwhal2, you need to quit attacking Doug, and you need to not forum shop. Rather than calmly reinserting the non-Ellis elements, or asking that the non-Ellis elements be reinserted, you unnecessarily took offense, failing to assume good faith (by the way, WP:AGF is a cornerstone of this website). Also, that you cited Ellis shows a failure to understand our reliable sourcing guidelines. Something the wise and mature consider is that they are at fault when there is trouble, especially if they are the only person on their side. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Variation-inducing genetic element, Pluripotent multipurpose genome, Non-random mutation

I have put these 3 articles up for deletion (over a week ago) because they are (1) original "research" and (2) created by a Dutch creationist to pass his own creationist "theory" as science and legitimate it through Wikipedia (I can provide the link to his blog where he openly admits this, but it is in Dutch). These 3 pages are offshoots from the page GUToB Theory, which has already been deleted earlier. However, the deletion tags have been removed and nothing has been done to either delete the pages, improve them, or bring them to AfD. A discussion about the user who removed the deletion tags is going on here. What's to be done? -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 17:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done Articles put up for AfD; sometimes Wikipedia really does work... ;) -- Zoeperkoe (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Confusing project page

This contents on this article can be made clearer I feel. As a first-time AfD nominator, its quite easy to get overwhelemd by the excesses of text on this page. Perhaps some simplification can be done? There's no need to eliminate processes, just explain them more concisely. My two cents worth, ANGCHENRUI _WP:MSE♨ 04:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It's very hard to start an AfD by hand. Most people install Twinkle for that purpose. It takes care of all the technical details. Hans Adler 12:19, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Homeostatic emotion

This was PRODed a year ago, and made into a redirect to a section of Emotion, because the article lacked 3rd party sources. I'm thinking of making it an article again, with appropriate sourcing. Do I just whack it up on article space, or is there some procedure for reincarnating articles? Anthony (talk) 10:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Since there was no AFD involved, you can just be BOLD and do it. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Anthony (talk) 12:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Same user nominating for deletion

I know this has been discussed before and I will understand if this deleted and discussed, but I would like to say my opinion here. A user requested an article for deletion twice in less then a year for the same reason, so I want to discuss limiting the amount of times a user can tag an article for deletion. I'll make a list out here of things I want to suggest:

• An article cannot be nominated for AFD twice in less then 2 months. If there is an issue with the AFD then it should be discussed at a DRV.
• An article cannot be nominated for AFD twice for the same reason in less then six months.
• A user cannot nominate for AFD the same article twice in less then six months
• A user cannot nominate for AFD the same article twice for the same reason in less then a year
• If an after the necessary amount of time passes and the article is nominated again for the same reason, the 1st AFD must be mentioned both by the nominator and by the admin in his/her closing statement, and possibly notify all of the people who discussed in the first AFD or at least the most active ones I feel very strong about this one
• The same user cannot nominate an article for AFD more then 3 times ever, for any reason. (there might be a couple exceptions)
• After a certain number of failed nominations for AFD (not sure yet what will be a good number possibly 5) only an admin can nominate it for deletion

This how I feel. The exact numbers can easily be changed if these are considered too much. I just want this to come up. JDDJS (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that the current rules, whereby any user can nominate any article at any time are actually better. Easier to understand and comply with, and pointy nominations do tend to get sniffed out. More rules, such as you suggest, seem to me to be more open to abuse than the current system. pablo 17:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

It might be more complicated (which is why I will understand changing it somewhat) but I don't see how it's easier to abuse. In the current system it's very easy to abuse. After a failed AFD all you have to do is wait a couple of months, then renominate it and if your lucky, this time only a couple of people see it and they vote delete. JDDJS (talk) 19:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

And how many examples of this actually happening do you have? Besides, have you realized the nominator might not be aware of an earlier AFD when he nominates as the old-afd talkpage notices are not always there? and what are you gonna do if he starts an AFD without mentioning it? Speedy keep? Ban him? This is wp:instruction creep, trying to fix a problem which does not exist. Yoenit (talk) 19:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 12. And I do admit that my idea wasn't perfect. It was mostly to just get a discussion going. Now spinningspark has made a simpler idea below, which can work. JDDJS (talk) 20:01, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

And also, the previous nominations for deletion are listed on the talk page. So the user should know about the previous nominations. If they nominate an article without looking at the talk page, then that user should be trout slapped. JDDJS (talk) 20:55, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"as the old-afd talkpage notices are not always there?" I don't know when they started doing it, but I encountered a few talkpages that did not mention earlier afd's (although they were usually very old, I vaguely remember one case were the closing admin forgot it). Yoenit (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I much prefer the current rules. Protonk (talk) 18:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You didn't even try to explain why. JDDJS (talk) 19:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Dock my pay. Protonk (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• Turkeys don't vote for Christmas and so you can expect the vested interests here to oppose such reform. But the AFD system is currently quite broken because nominations of any sort impose no significant cost upon the nominator. To create an article you have to research it, write it and defend it - hours of work if you do it right. To nominate it for deletion, you just have to push a button and parrot some cliché like "not notable". This lop-sided cost-weighting is imbalanced and so leads to abuse. For example, I was looking at a user page the other day. This editor has deleted 18210 pages and has created 9 articles - a ratio of 2000:1 against. But in the eyes of others, he is considered a dangerous inclusionist! It's a farce but so it goes. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:31, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the proposed set of rules are needlessly bureaucratic. I would, however, support a rule that required the nominator to provide a valid reason for a second nom. Valid reasons might include there was little/no participation in the first debate, or the first debate nominated for a different reason to now, or Wikipeida policy/guidelines have changed in the meantime. Failure to comply with this by the nominator resulting in a speedy close. SpinningSpark 19:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

That is good enough for me. It will solve the reason why I came here in the first place. JDDJS (talk) 19:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Generally speaking, if you nominate an article for deletion, it comes back a clear keep, and you immediately nominate it again, you're going to get a speedy keep and a troutslap. So I fail to see what problem this is proposed to solve—in practice, that's already disallowed anyway. On the other hand, there's nothing unreasonable, especially in a "provisional keep" situation (such as where people assert they're quite certain sources can be found but it'll take some time, and consensus is to give them some time to do so) about coming back in a few months and say "Alright, didn't happen". That's why we have a discussion—editors can decide case by case what should happen. I fail to see why we need blanket rules. It seems like needless instruction creep. I also dislike the canvassing requirement (part of the purpose of starting a new AfD is to get some new input, and anyone can watchlist an article), and don't think people should be required to search for previous AfDs, though I've no problem encouraging it. Any participant in the AfD can link to a previous one, if they discover that such occurred, and generally the "2" or the like in the page header makes clear there were previous ones anyway. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Counterexamples to that are not hard to find. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of bow tie wearers (4th nomination) came less than one month after the 3rd (failed) nomination and caused serious bad feelings amongst the participants, especially as it had to go to DRV to get it restored. Is that how the collegial atmosphere of Wikipedia is nurtured? SpinningSpark 20:31, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

But this not just about immediate nominations. see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 12 I am just saying it should be addressed why the second nomination is needed and what was wrong with the first one. JDDJS (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• The consensus is currently to endorse so I don't see the point you are making. Since the DRV is turning into AFD3 does this thread count as AFD4? Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:17, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

  I should've linked to the afd. The point is the user nominated it twice. JDDJS (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

  • The point is, the user didn't get the result they wanted the first time, so they nominated it again. Nothing changed, a different group of users chimed in, and now it's deleted despite being kept before. Where's the reverse (inverse?) of G4? Where's a clause to speedily close a repeat nomination when nothing has changed? Jclemens (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
    • AFDs reach perverse conclusions all the time so a degree of replay is necessary to correct this. This discussion looks like an attempt to stack the processes against deletion and in favour of keep even when initial decisions are perverse. Policy based arguments not process should determine whether an article is deleted or kept. In the example cited the nominator waited over 6 months between noms to allow time for the article to be fixed. In what way was that unreasonable? Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Because the nominator used the exact same reason (all original resource) which was proven false in the first AFD. JDDJS (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
      • You say "stack the processes against deletion and in favour of keep" as if that's a bad thing. Since nomination for deletion requires no effort, and content creation--no matter how misguided, trivial, or "crufty"--requires effort, of course it should require more effort to delete content than to keep it. Jclemens (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
        • It is a bad thing. An unfortunately large percentage of articles created on Wikipedia should never have been created in the first place. Anything that makes cleaning them out unnecessarily difficult is a problem. Certainly there needs to be discussion, but there's no need to bias that discussion in favor of one outcome. The "no consensus == keep" is already a systematic bias in favor of keeping articles, and further misbalancing would create further problems.—Kww(talk) 14:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Why is it a bad thing? Do poor articles drive readers away? Please, without making reference to any policies or guidelines, explain why such a "systemic bias" in favor of keeping content (excluding, BLP/attack, copyvio, and promotional material, which are speedyable) is a bad thing. Jclemens (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
            • Because a volunteer encyclopedia is only viable by strictly and scrupulously referencing its material to reliable third-party sources. Unsourced material, rumors, and material referenced only to the personal opinion of the editors involved need to be removed quickly and efficiently, and should not have to wait for promised improvements to articles that history shows will likely never come. Our current bias in favor of keeping things, no matter how bad, so long as a large enough group of editors states that they think the article can be improved simply builds the heap of unmaintained and largely unmaintainable articles. I remain of the belief that the most important first step in determining how to maintain a 3.5M article encyclopedia is to identify and delete the least worthwhile 2.5M articles.—Kww(talk) 15:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
              • You didn't answer the question as posed or intended. So what if there are things, especially fiction, which aren't referenced to third party sources? How does "cruft" hurt? Your description of what you'd like to see happens presumes that unsourced material is a bad thing, but doesn't explain why. Likewise, you lump content removal (rumors, opinion) with article removal (the topic of the page). Now, I absolutely don't blame you for thinking in these terms, but I'm asking you to back up even farther and talk about our purpose, our customers, and our resources. How do you perceive this issue affects each of them? Jclemens (talk) 17:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                • Since no one here can be presumed to have any expertise, any statement based solely on an editor's opinion has to be presumed suspect. Only by sourcing can we assure any level of accuracy at all. Yes, that applies to plots as well: the argument that a plot statement can be verified by watching or reading the work is simply infeasible given the sheer volume of articles. As to lumping article removal with content removal, I believe the bulk of bad content is concentrated in bad articles, and by making it easier to eliminate articles that do not comply with WP:V's restriction that they be based on independent sources, it would be easier to eliminate most bad content. As for the purpose of the project, I think it is clear that we were not intended to be an amateur competition to John's Bathroom Reader, TV Guide or IMDB. It's an encyclopedia that should focus on summarizing facts.—Kww(talk) 19:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                  • Thanks for taking the time to elaborate--now, I think we begin to see the crux of the problem: you're starting from a position of total suspicion. That's not a bad thing in every case, because there's certainly topics (BLP, safety matters, etc.) where we and the community as a whole agree that "no information at all" is better than "wrong information". Yet, in a volunteer-based project like this, even if the backronym "What I Know Is..." has no merit, there remain plenty of articles where total suspicion is inappropriate. Fictional articles, for one. Take the transformers mess: has anyone been harmed by the plethora of non-notable, undersourced plot summaries cum toy descriptions masquerading as articles? I've never seen such an assertion. Then, if we take harm off the table, it becomes a little bit clearer that total suspicion pits encyclopedic quality vs. newbie contributions. Rarely have I seen an IP-address edit that followed V, and those that have have tended to be obviously well-versed contributors who choose to edit sans username. What we DO see most from IP addresses are vandalism, simple fixes, and additions/changes that don't meet V. Those are the potential new editors from whom we can draw, Kww, and they do tend to add things that look like TV Guide or IMDB. Jclemens (talk) 14:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
            • I don't agree w/ Kww's general statement about the balance of articles, but I will comment that there is an internal political bias against editors who favor applying a stricter line for notability and sourcing. Warranted or not, we see deletion as "bad", outside of the privileged set of bad articles (BLP, promotion, etc.). But more to the point, an affirmative case needs to be made that one editor nominating an article twice is prima facia damaging to the article or the process. We have a concurrent thread running at the top of this page arguing that the deletion process is already too complicated and could use some simplification; adding more stricture should be an uphill battle. Protonk (talk) 17:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
              • If this exists, I've never seen it. I've seen quite the opposite, actually. Jclemens (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                • Um. It exists in this very thread. Protonk (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                  • What, the fact that a proposal has been made which won't ever go anywhere? If that's your metric, then I suppose... Jclemens (talk) 18:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                    • The merits of the proposal are somewhat orthogonal to the politics. I mean, I know I'm just here because turkeys don't vote for thanksgiving, but the policy itself isn't about the politics. Protonk (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
                      • No-one votes for Thanksgiving, or Christmas. There is as yet no article on the voting habits of enfranchised turkeys, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  pablo 13:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
• Contrary to what is stated above, it's not always the case that nomination for deletion requires no effort. In the case of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shirley, Squirrely and Melvin: LIVE (2nd nomination), for example, I had to go to a library to look up a book which was being falsely used as a source for an article and confirm that the book really did not support the article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion being split into "us" versus "them"

• edit
• Jrtayloriv (talk · contribs)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emily Schooley

Any closing administrators here please explain to Jrtayloriv that we keep AFD discussions in chronological order, and don't split them into editors-with-accounts versus editors-without-accounts; and that such rearrangement of discussions out of chronological order actually makes things harder to follow, especially in cases where comments have had to be refactored, not easier. Uncle G (talk) 14:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• I left a comment there. I see too many interspersed edits to revert the sorting wholesale, but I agree we shouldn't be doing it. Also there is another editor doing the sorting, not just Jrtayloriv. Protonk (talk) 18:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Should this be an AfD?

This student theatre group does not seem notable and has received no press in reliable sources. See WP:ENT. Can someone nominated it for AfD?: Savoy Opera Society. Please let me know if it goes to AfD. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the fluff and proposed deletion WP:PROD. We will see what happens. Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 20:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Would Mihai Pintilii be suitable for AfD? While he might meet notability requirements playing in the top division of Romanian football and reliable sources may be available, at present his page is only a redirect to an incorrect team (very confusing!) and hasn't been edited in 2 years. TomorrowsDream (talk) 19:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It is not implausible that someone would put in Mihai Pintilii as a search term and so I dont see harm myself in the page remaining as a redirect to an appropriate article (until such time as the person gets enough coverage for a stand alone article.) Active Banana ( ^bananaphone 20:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

If the player is mentioned in a team article, wouldn't his name show up in search results anyway? Without an appropriate article for the player, it's difficult to be sure the redirect is correct. Just seems to mislead rather than add anything to the project TomorrowsDream (talk) 22:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I created a disambiguation page about a year ago (DCTC (disambiguation)) that I now know I should probably never have created in the first place. Since I fixed the page that DCTC redirects to, should it be deleted, or left alone so as not to annoy the people who are probably very busy deleting pages? —Oey192 (talk) 21:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This architecture student, Steven Song, does not seem notable, nor have his articles received any acclaim. User KevinLynch97 is the only person to have edited the page and he has only edited pages referring to Steven Song, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Seems to be an autobiography. Can someone nominate for AfD? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.123.42.35 (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Withdrawn AFD to close, maybe?

We have an AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IPA vowels chart with audio, where the nominator later removed the AFD template from the article (here), and later confirmed that they intended to withdraw the AFD (here, following a request to retract). I've participated in the discussion (and expanded the article), so I'm involved - any uninvolved admins want to put this one to bed? Thanks. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Y Done. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

AFD Jenn Rivell

Can someone help me with this AFD? It's been a while and I botched it up - take a look. Thanks in advance.--Endlessdan (talk) 20:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

fixed it. You substed where you shouldn't have. --Jayron32 20:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, don't forget to add it to the list at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2010 November 2. If you need help, I can do this for you as well. --Jayron32 20:25, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Would you please? --Endlessdan (talk) 20:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. All you have to do is wrap the title in brackets: {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jenn Rivell}} and add it to the list.Jujutacular ^talk 20:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Delsorting

If you haven't noticed, Gene93k (talk · contribs) hasn't edited in a few days, and our deletion sorting is consequently lacking. If anyone is available to do some sorting, it would be much appreciated. Tools are available to make the task easy. Thanks, Jujutacular ^talk 01:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/First Rand Limited

Can someone take a look at this please? I think I may have been a bit hasty with this nom, as between the time I completed the AFD and refreshed my screen, an "under construction" tag was placed on the article (and is still there). Anyway, some pretty decent refs have since been added, and, honestly, I think my understanding of the notability threshold for banks was incorrect after seeing all the live links at List of banks in Africa. I'm not sure if it is appropriate for me to simply remove the tag, or close this myself (I'm not sure I can even do that without admin tools), so a little assistance would be much appreciated. The Eskimo (talk) 18:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I closed it for you, as you were the only editor that !voted and you withdrew the nomination you can just close it. ~~ GB fan ~~ 18:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Step 2 requests

New Request Nov. 18, 2010

Alvarado v. Gorton and the Union Pacific Railroad Co. - Could a registered user please review the article and its talk page and complete the deletion process for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.58.249.58 (talk) 17:51, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not have an opinion one way or the other on this issue, however it should be noted that the IP (69.58.249.58) used to request deletion is registered to the Union Pacific Railroad, a party in the lawsuit that is the subject of this article, and therefore would clearly have a POV that is not neutral in proposing the deletion of the article. Centpacrr (talk) 18:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Done - POV is a concern on both sides - I verify grounds for an AFD as a neutral party. Jujutacular ^talk 20:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

New Request Nov. 2, 2010

Mendel Sachs - I have added the reasons for the deletion request to the article's talk page Talk:Mendel Sachs. I added the notifications at the top of the article calling for more references, but after searching for some myself, these are unlikely to be found. I am not a registered user so I can't actually do the nomination. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mendel Sachs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.30.27.150 (talk) 00:05, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Jujutacular ^talk 01:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

2010 McKinley Tiger football - as usual, the deletion rationale is on the article's talk page. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 16:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done ~~ GB  fan ~~ 16:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

and another

Karsin(novel) - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 01:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

and another

Labby, Camilla & Stav - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 13:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done ~~ GB  fan ~~ 13:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. You're so good at taking care of these :) 69.181.249.92 (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

and more

• Kung Fu Live - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• Chase Whiteside - 69.181.249.92 (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Both are done. ~~ GB  fan ~~ 14:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Closure of AFDs over one full day in advance of seven day discussion period ?

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#AFDs run for seven days.2C not six days. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 02:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Afd statistics tool

Is there any documentation on the Afd statistics tool that is incorporated in the opening of section of every Afd? (The one that links here: http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/reports/afd). I am looking for how it works (doesn't sometime work) etc. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 12:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)) PS: I have tried unsuccesfully searching for this on the pages where I thought to find info and via searches of archives etc. Tips on such searching would be welcome if this is a stupid question.

Suggestion

Maybe AfDs about living people should be courtesy-blanked by default.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Help with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5th

I followed the instructions of WP:AFDHOWTO, but instead of directing the discussion to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chronology of the Harry Potter series (5th nomination), it directs to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5th. I think that the problem was because I used by mistake {{subst:afd1|5th}} instead of {{subst:afdx|5th}}. I need help to correct the template in Chronology of the Harry Potter series and to move Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5th to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chronology of the Harry Potter series (5th nomination). I would like to fix these errors as soon as possible in order to start the discussion. Jfgslo (talk) 16:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, still in the AfD you only see the the previous discussion linked. The others were created before renaming and thus not included by the template. --Tikiwont (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Jfgslo (talk) 16:47, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk pages by size

Please see the new page Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly). This talk page ranks seventh, with 19084 kilobytes. Perhaps this will motivate greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

List of volumes in ReViewing Chess (series)

So List of volumes in ReViewing Chess (series) was deleted after all. Oh well, looks like we'll just have to delete every other article on Wikipedia as well then. =) JIP | Talk 07:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamfatter

This was transcluded on the 20th, but the discussion page was created on the 22nd. The AFD2 template wasn't used so it didn't have the correct headings, and would probably have gone largely unnoticed in the deletion log (although there is one comment). Also the article hasn't had an AFD template on it (the PROD template was used instead).

I would suggest relisting it for today, does that seem appropriate? January ^(talk) 19:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say so. Just list it today, let it run from here. After all, the article won't have been nominated for deletion completely before that. Regards So Why 19:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Spider man reboot

I have an good article thats being proposed for deletion under spider man reboot. Please do not delete this article because i want to expand it as more details are released. i will update the page as you all requested and i look forward to others helping to improve this page as well. Thank you for considering this proposal. Also their is another article under the same name that i think should be deleted called user Jhenderson777/spider man reboot. First of all the name doesnt make sense and the article is similar to mines but isnt as good. Thanks! F.R Durant (talk) 00:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

AFD page wrongly named

Please could an admin fix Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/non-notable failed candidate? Suggest deleting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andy Vidak since no comments have been made there, and moving this page to the correct name. January ^(talk) 21:32, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Done Jujutacular ^talk 21:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

AfD need manual adding of infobox

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mims–Pianka controversy there needs to be added an infobox linking to the previous AfD of the article, i.e. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mims-Pianka controversy (NB! The wikilinks are different—one using endash, the other hyphen. __meco (talk) 09:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Some strange hapenings...

I asked this of admin Cirt and he suggested I bring this question here. A recent AFd left some puzzling questions inre the AFD template and toolserver that reports AFD stats.

1. When Money as Debt was nominated for the third time, the toolserver AFD stats link kept sending me to a 404 error... until I realized that the AFD template does not automatically take into account that it was not the first AFD. Once I added "(3rd nomination)" to the AFD template,[8] the link finally worked just fine. Is there some way to resolve this issue other than editors having to manually making the correction as I did when I found this issue?
2. It is understood that the nomination itself counts as a "delete" vote when using the AFD stat toolserver. But in looking at the stats page for the AFD spoken of above, I see that if a nominator includes another "delete" vote comment within the discussion itself,[9] the AFD toolserver stats show this as two deletes from the same person.[10] Can the unfortunate appearance of an apparent second (and unintended) vote as shown by toolserver be addressed through a tweak to the tool?
3. And related to this strange count-error generated by the AFD stats toolserver, in a different AFD, where I made a "keep" !vote, it shows me as making both a keep AND a delete !vote,[11] thus showing an incorrect result or intention to someone checking the talley. In this second case it might because I used the word "delete" within the text of a later comment, but I would think that the toolserver should have only looked at the emboldened "keep" or "delete" that would precede anyone's !vote, and not let itself be confused by use of those terms within the text of later comments. So, can the unfortunate appearance of an apparent second and oposite vote as shown by toolserver be addressed through a tweak to the tool?

Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm obviously stupid but since when did we count delete and keep votes in preference to reading the discussion and judging arguments against consensus? Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

By any chance do you mean "judging arguments against policy"? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes wtf we have a tool to help do something that shouldn't be done? --Mkativerata (talk) 07:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a tool at all AFDs that gives us statistics that we are not to be using... so now we have yet another problem. Why is it there at all then, even if apparently broken?

If broken, it needs fixing. And if not to be used, it needs removing. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 09:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I have removed this from the template. Note that this will only have effect on newly created AfD's, not on all existing ones, since the template is substituted, not transcluded. Fram (talk) 09:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, and thanks. But does anyone know why was it ever included in the first place, and how and when it got broken? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:24, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It was broken from day one. Abductive (reasoning) 08:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Glad then that it is gone. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Article should have been deleted 4 years ago

I just nominated Sexualism for deletion, then I discovered it was nominated before with the result to delete in 2006 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexualism Phoenix of9 18:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Um, it was deleted after that AfD: see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Sexualism. When it was recreated it had added the sources it has now, so it has improved at least. I've removed the prod because of the prior AfD, but feel free to take it to AfD again. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

How do u do that, when u removed the prod? Phoenix of9 22:23, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:PROD and WP:AFD are separate processes. If the article has gone through an AFD already, it should not be deleted through the PROD process. Follow the instructions at WP:AFDHOWTO if you want to start an AFD. Jujutacular ^talk 23:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Research, before nominating to AFD for deletion ?

Is it appropriate to expect that the AFD nominator has done at least a brief bit of due diligence research to see if a subject is notable, before nominating an article for deletion?

I raised the issue here User talk:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry#Research.2C before.2C nominating AFDs.2C eg Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.2FBarret Oliver .3F.3F.3F - where a user nominated an article to AFD in an attempt to get it deleted based on the article's state, rather than the notability of its subject itself.

This issue could use some clarification as to how it should be applied in the future. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 12:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Cirt, please don't twist my words. I nominated the article for deletion because it was an unsourced BLP which no-one, including yourself, had bothered to source for three years. Articles like that are simply too problematic from a BLP point of view to leave lying around unsourced. It's clear that no users over the past few years had time to add references, and I certainly don't - and so the best course of action was to AfD it rather than leave a potentially libellous unsourced BLP lying round. To quote the Verifiability policy, "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." Technically, yes, I should have sourced it - but I don't have the time at present, and neither does (it seems) anyone else. As such, I've got two options: leave an unsourced BLP which no-one can be bothered to source for another three years, gathering momentum until it hits OTRS, the foundation, and editors with a snarled up legal mess - or ask the community to delete the article. I asked them to delete it. They refused, because someone in the discussion found time to source it. It's quite simple, and the problem has been fixed. I will do it again if I come across another articles that's been tagged as an unsourced BLP since 2007. If you wish, I'll contact you on your talk page first and ask if you have the time to source it, if not, I'll go straight ahead to an AfD. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 13:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You could have indeed taken the few seconds to search for sources and the couple minutes to add those sources, or at least attempt to do a modicum of research, before attempting to get the page deleted off Wikipedia. -- Cirt (talk) 14:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. With BLP, it is not the job of editors who believe that an article should be deleted to prove that it shouldn't. Editors who believe that an unsourced BLP article is worth to keep are the ones that have to add the sources, particularly if several years have passed without improvement. This is specially important in BLP. Any unsourced BLP is likely to be deleted if there are no sources that show that what is written in text is factually correct. It has nothing to do with the subject's notability. Check WP:BLPDEL. That's the very reason Prod blp was created, to deal with BLP with no sources. Jfgslo (talk) 15:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Jfgslo (talk · contribs) has a very good point, consider this resolved. No worries, -- Cirt (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Note that this is one reason I favor extending the BLPPROD process to past, long-term unreferenced BLPs: it should be a simple "source-it-or-lose-it" deal, and we've got the bumps ironed out of BLPPROD sufficiently well that the sky is not going to fall if we start allowing individual people to add the tag as part of the Unreferenced BLP cleanup project. Jclemens (talk) 16:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." It is not the responsibility of people who believe the article needs to be deleted to prove themselves wrong. If you find the article worth saving, do the work to save it. Period. --Jayron32 22:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

But WP:BURDEN only applies to article contents; WP:BEFORE and WP:ATD govern the existence or deletion of articles. There's some tension there, which I think is good for the process. Jclemens (talk) 01:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of policy, WP:BEFORE #9 is clear enough. --j⚛e decker^talk 22:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That is very true, but where an editor has made such good-faith efforts and come up short, it isn't his responsibility to carry it to extremes. Typing the title of the article into Google, Google News and Google Scholar is generally a good enough start, and lacking any deep sources, it seems find to nominate for deletion. I'm not sure I would require the nominator of an article to bend over backwards to dig through library stacks looking for obscure references in an heroic attempt to save the article they are nominating... --Jayron32 22:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I doubt we disagree much then. I was only responding to the original question. I pretty much agree with your definition of good faith (I'd include Google Books, but whatever.) I *do* think we're continuing to make progress on the BLP sourcing backlog. Reducing that backlog is pretty much most of my work at Wikipedia, and 80-90% or so of the articles (unsourced BLPs) I come across can be sourced to the point where notability is established with that minimum, good faith effort (and, sometimes, Google translate, but I can't and don't blame people who don't want to sift through the meaning of machine-translated Albanian or Thai.). The rest, I PROD or send AfDward with a clear conscience. --j⚛e decker^talk 22:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• This is funny - in an ironic sort of way. I recently sent some articles to AfD that I had tagged two years ago for various reasons. Neither of them had any major work done in those two years so I sent them to AfD where I am now getting a bit "chastised" because I ("the nominator") did not do the work two years ago to fix it rather than send it to AfD. Actually one of the exact quotes is directly related to this thread, even though the person who said it has not commented here: "There's gotta be a better process for drawing attention to articles that need help, rather than forcing the issue via AfD." [SNIP] "it's surely possible for nominators to do the same thing themselves instead of waiting years for someone else to do it." I agree with the overall concept of BEFORE but, at least in my case, these were articles that I, myself, tagged with the issues at hand two year ago. I happened to be going over my watchlist and looked at some of the items and found articles that had remained mostly untouched in regards to why they were tagged in the first place. I did do a quick look to see what could be found before I sent them to AfD and came up mostly blank. For example a Google search on one of them I gave up after the first 28 pages of unrelated information. It doens't mean there is not info out there, it just means it is harder to find - and, in the words of Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, "don't have the time at present." I do agree that BURDEN is meant to apply to contents, not the overall notability but the idea that Jayron32 is trying to say I agree with in some ways. Clearly if an article is tagged for longer than a year (more so if it has been more than two years, and even more it it has been longer than 3) and the same person who placed the tag rechecks it and find little or no work than, in those cases, I would agree that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" would equate to "If you find the article worth saving, do the work to save it." I think the wrong approach is to ignore a tagged article that warns it may be deleted, and than comment in a deletion discussion when it is actually sent there, that it is a "keep" or "strong keep" followed with comments about the editor who tagged it being at fault. I agree with Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry in how they say "Technically, yes, I should have sourced it - but I don't have the time at present, and neither does (it seems) anyone else. As such, I've got two options: leave an unsourced BLP which no-one can be bothered to source for another three years [SNIP] or ask the community to delete the article." And I know this thread is regarding one specific BLP, but really the idea should apply across the project - if somebody comes across an article that has been tagged with some sort of issues for several years *and* there has been little or no work done to address those issues it seems a likely candidate to be sent to AfD. Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggested text addition to BEFORE

It is recommended that you describe the steps you have taken to check that your nomination is appropriate. This may prevent duplication of effort and inoculate your nomination from being labelled as spurious or thoughtless.

I propose that this text, or some variant of it, be added at the bottom of the BEFORE section or somewhere in the instructions for how to list an article for deletion. My reasons are more or less explained in the text, I think. Thoughts? Ray^Talk 22:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. That section is already pretty long, though... Jclemens (talk) 03:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Deletion is far from our most transparent and user-friendly process. Although I suppose if we were to make any one process on the Wiki difficult and specialized, it should be the one by which we delete information. I'll wait another day or two for others to comment before putting in the edit. Ray^Talk 04:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, and I agree that it is better to frame it as "recommended", not required. It fits with Wikipedia:Guide to deletion, which tells us, "if you are disputing the notability of an article's subject... You must look for, and demonstrate that you couldn't find, any independent sources of sufficient depth." Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Seven Day Rule

Hi, I'm curious as to the standing of AFD's seven day rule. An AFD is supposed to be exposed and open for comment for its full 7 days, but I have seen many being closed much as a day earlier. I got yelled at for this, and there was a huge discussion on WP:AN about it, mostly because I am not an admin, and I stated my reason for closing them early, is because I saw all the admins doing it. Why isn't this really enforced? I mean, 50-75% are closed before the 7 days are up...Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 02:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Well they shouldn't be. –Whitehorse1 02:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, mostly not. See WP:SK, WP:SNOW. --j⚛e decker^talk 21:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

7 days = 168 hours. A couple of admins recently got hauled over the coals for acting on the basis that anything on the last day of the log was fair game. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh, I'd missed that. Perhaps time zone issues muddle things there--with PROD, etc., we have tags that actually note when the relevant time periods are up. In any case, thanks for the info.  :) --j⚛e decker^talk 22:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Can someone close an AfD I nominated and wish to withdraw since sourcing has been provided?

Resolved

 – Jclemens (talk) 21:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

As nominator and only "delete" !vote, I wish to withdraw my nomination since sources have been provided. How do I do that: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shearography Active Banana (^bananaphone 21:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You just have to follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Administrator instructions. I'd be happy to do it for you but I'll leave it open in case you want to give it a crack. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If you would be so kind as to close it. There seems to be a lot of steps and I dont anticipate closing discussions in the future and would rather not have to have someone come in and fix up a mess when it can be done right the first time. Thank you! Active Banana (^bananaphone 21:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks you. Active Banana (^bananaphone 22:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

listings

Could tools:~betacommand/AFD.html be added to the listings for discussions? 65.95.13.158 (talk) 07:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Going by the above, didn't we just remove one of those tools? --Whitehorse1 10:08, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

completing nomination for Jennifer Mason

Would a registered user please complete the nomination for Jennifer Mason. I have completed Step I of articles for deletion and explained my reasons at Talk:Jennifer Mason. Thank you. 207.134.250.140 (talk) 16:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

•  Done Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

New format

At the moment, various people leave notes at the bottom of an AfD saying, for example, "This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions." There can often be three or four of these inclusion notices on each AfD. They can break up the flow of the AfD discussion and, if there hasn't been much discussion, overwhelm the AfD page itself. I've started putting all of these inclusion notes into a colapsable box using {{cot}} and {{cob}}. For example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taubman Institute. I suggest that we make this the norm. I propose that all of these inclusion notes go into collapse boxes. What do we think? — Fly by Night (talk) 00:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Can we put the "inclusion information" under the header rather than as a footer? The header already includes a whole bunch of ancillary stuff, such as automated google searches and the {{la}}-type information. Perhaps if we appended the "this debate has been included" info into the header, either hidden or not, it may be better. --Jayron32 00:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• These are WP:WikiProject Deletion sorting (WP:DELSORT) notices. I think they should be left in chronological order like other AfD comments, per WP:Articles for deletion#AfD Wikietiquette. Flatscan (talk) 05:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Except they are meta-information. They aren't related to the deletion discussion in any way, it isn't part of any threaded discussion. It's basically the same as adding a category to an article; since categories are segregated outside of the text of articles, I don't see why such metainformation isn't segregated outside of the discussion. --Jayron32 05:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Except that the inclusion in deletion-sorting can occasionally explain a rush of new contributors to the discussion. They're also chronologically relevant when you're looking for an expert opinion, and they let you say, 'Well, it's been delsorted under anime-related discussions for five days and no-one's turned up to suggest that this isn't a hoax.' - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Really? I wasn't aware that anyone actually used these delsorting statements that are left in the AFD discussion itself to form any opinions about the results in any meaningful way. Your scenarios sound pretty convoluted; having participated in a fair number of AFDs as a nominator, closer, and commentor, I am not sure that I ever considered that information terribly relevent to the outcome of the AFD. The exact order commenting people show up usually isn't as much of a factor as a) the arguements those people make and b) the experience those editors have at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 05:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I admit it doesn't happen often, but it can happen. But I guess the delsort notices are timestamped and that stampe doesn't vanish if you move them. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the inconvenience to editors caused by these messages being in the main body of the AfD is also pretty trivial. I'm sympathetic to proposals that make AfD more readable, but I'm not convinced that this is a significant improvement, and it carries the risk of casual editors having their (occasionally) relevant comments accidentally placed in the collapse box and going unnoticed. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
          • Just an idea, can we micromanage the delsort information through coding in the AFD notice itself, perhaps a hidden tag or something, whereby a list of DELSORT categories it has been placed in is coded by a series of abbreviations in a hidden template, and where that template generates some line of text at the top or bottom of the deletion notice, something like "This AFD has been added to the following DELSORT categories: Anime, Biology, United States, Fruits and Vegetables" or something like that? Each DELSORT category could have a simple code, it could be added to the DELSORT template. Just an idea. --Jayron32 05:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• I like them just the way they are. Just like we don't break up votes into "support" and "oppose" sections to make things prettier, keeping meta-information in chronological order helps preserve the flow of discussion. A lack of appropriate delsort'ing is an indication that relisting may be appropriate; an article that receives no comment despite delsort'ing may simply not be interesting to the community. Because the flow of debate is a key element in appropriately closing deletion discussions, chronological presentation of all discussion information is appropriate, if not essential. Jclemens (talk) 07:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Also when you are closing and can see a sparse AFD and the placing of the tags shows the delsort was done very late in the day it can be a good indicator that a relist to garner more involvement might be helpful. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• As Spartaz and others state, it is sometimes useful for admins to see these notices (I know I've found them useful at times). They are in small font and quite unintrusive, so I don't see the need to change current practice. They also aid navigation of !voters from one AfD debate to other similar AfD debates. Fences&Windows 02:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Agreed, no reason for change, Keep it as it is. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:39, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Primary author

"Please disclose if you are the article's primary author". What does this mean? Articles are written collaboratively; who is the primary author? Boleslaw (talk) 01:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The article creator? Jezhotwells (talk) 02:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Water Fluoridation

N – directed to talkpage
Delete the water Fluoridation article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.211.27.70 (talk) 16:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

As the the Water fluoridation article is a Featured Article (intended to represent our best content), as well as being on a significant topic, it's highly unlikely that a deletion nomination would result in agreement to delete the article. So, not nominating it for deletion. If you have concerns about the article, I recommend you leave a polite comment on the article's talkpage with specifics of those. As concerns the other query you asked elsewhere, about fishes, I recommend asking at the Reference desk for an answer. Kind regards, Whitehorse1 16:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Quality of AFD arguments

These seem to have really gone downhill recently with arguments over sources to establish notability being fought in a pantomime sort oh Oh yes it is/Oh no its isn't sort of way that makes it very hard to establish where the consensus should be. This forces admins to either count votes /go no-consensus/make up their own answer or keep relisting discussions. What would be really useful would be if AFD participants explained why they thought the sources were or were not reliable secondary sources so the closing admin can parse the arguments against policy to see which side the consensus falls on. Thanks. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:10, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

... or for admins to feel free to look at the arguments, review and examine the sources in detail, and post their evaluations in the closing statement. That takes a lot of work, though. Jclemens (talk) 19:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

... And that then turns into a supervote because the admin puts their evaluation of the sources above the discussion. That's exactly what we should avoid doing if we want to close by the discussion rather then our own conception of the article. A better quality discussion by the AFD participants about the sources would avoid the need for that altogether. Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

If I come across an AFD with the intention of closing it, and find the discussion to be lacking depth, I would choose to comment instead of close. Jujutacular ^talk 04:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed but sometimes it needs much more then a single comment to resolve the consensus. Better commentary from participants would make the consensus much clearer. There is always the option to relist but if the poor qulaity comment continue we end up counting noses or closing as no-consensus anyway. Spartaz ^Humbug! 04:17, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Evaluating sources, like evaluating arguments, is not a "supervote"--unless it happens to lack factual or policy basis (when it is a supervote), or when the closing admin doesn't choose to explain his or her closure reasoning adequately (when it may seem like a supervote). The tougher the call is, the more detailed the closing statement needs to be to forestall such objections. Some admins are historically better than others at well-crafted closing statements. Jclemens (talk) 08:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I have always worked from the point of view that we are supposed to evaluate the discussion not the article. Surely the danger is that our own predjudices about sourcing will affect the outcome more then the consensus of the discussion about the sources. I would much rather have a clear informed view taken by users discussing sources then just rely on my own opinion, which some might argue are not necesserily mainstream when it comes to sourcing. I wonder whether this is worth a meta discussion somewhere about the correct approach to closing AFDs. Do you think there is any milage in doing that? I can certainly feel an essay coming on... Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I would echo the views above that often commenting yourself is better than super-voting, but admins do need to have read the article and noted what sources are used before they close the AfD. If the arguments for keep or delete do not match with the content of the article, they should be disregarded, and this should be explained in the closing statement (an explanation of the close is something woefully lacking from most admins). Fences&Windows 18:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)