Cameron Scott (talk | contribs) →Speedy close nominations: oppose - usual partisian ARS crap. |
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::Since I can't see the article, I don't know. But if editors were able to find good references for the article, which I assume they were not, the OR argument would be moot. [[User:Ikip|Ikip]] ([[User talk:Ikip|talk]]) 09:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC) |
::Since I can't see the article, I don't know. But if editors were able to find good references for the article, which I assume they were not, the OR argument would be moot. [[User:Ikip|Ikip]] ([[User talk:Ikip|talk]]) 09:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC) |
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:::The first keep argument gave a source. It is not up to an admin to decide on his own that it is a good or bad source, and to close the AfD accordingly. More people should have a look at the rewritten article and the source(s) used to decide if it is sufficient or not. [[User:Fram|Fram]] ([[User talk:Fram|talk]]) 10:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC) |
:::The first keep argument gave a source. It is not up to an admin to decide on his own that it is a good or bad source, and to close the AfD accordingly. More people should have a look at the rewritten article and the source(s) used to decide if it is sufficient or not. [[User:Fram|Fram]] ([[User talk:Fram|talk]]) 10:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC) |
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* '''Oppose''' the on-going attempts by the partisan ARS (who now have the gall to proclaim they are saving wikipedia from the rest of us) to slant the project to their liking, so most certainly oppose this. --[[User:Cameron Scott|Cameron Scott]] ([[User talk:Cameron Scott|talk]]) 10:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC) |
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Proposal to discourage early "delete" closes
This is something I have been thinking about for a while but after reading a user talk page discussion about AFDs being closed as "delete" in 1-2 days, I decided to go ahead and propose it.
No AFD discussion should be closed as Delete unless 96 hours have passed except under the following circumstances...
1. The article qualifies for speedy deletion.
2. It quickly becomes apparent during the course of the debate that the subject is completely unverifiable. (WP:HOAX, WP:MADEUP etc.)
I picked "96 hours" as an absolute minimum to keep people from wikilawyering in DRV over a few hours. Discussions should ideally run for 5 days. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- There is no need for such a limit. If the result of a debate is blatantly obvious (cf. WP:SNOW) there is nothing wrong with closing it prematurely. Also, just such debates are closed prematurely. — Aitias // discussion 20:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- One minor problem is that different parts of our deletion docs specify different time-lengths...WP:AFD says up to five days but the linked WP:GTD says usually no less than five days. However, I don't think "1 -2 days" can reasonably be considered an "up to five day discussion" unless there really is no possible way an article could be redeemed. AfD is explicitly several days and designed to force fixable articles to be fixed, not just to thumbs-up/down the existing article. I also think a premature-closer has the responsibility to investigate to make sure the AfD has been advertised properly to avoid AfD echo-chamber or merely "early election returns" problems, rather than just saying "we have 48-hr strong consensus, that's good enough for WP:SNOW". Further, if premature-closure (or SNOW) is truly a standard or common part of the AfD-closure arsenal, it needs to be documented in the WP:*D pages. Otherwise, we wind up with exactly this concern (or worse, appearances of non-GF or admin-fiat) again in the future. DMacks (talk) 21:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) "up to 5 days" is good-working common practice, I think. On the other hand "at least 5 days" is not. Most of the debates at a log page are closed before 5 days have expired — a minimum stays for full 5 days (or even longer). And, as explained above, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If there was significant participation (not only one or two participants) in a debate and there is a clear consensus, there is nothing wrong with closing that debate prematurely. Thus, there is no reason for changing the current situation. — Aitias // discussion 22:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with the part where you said "at least 5 days" is not a good working practice. That's why I chose "96 hours" (4 days). It would allow an admin to review the "closable log" (If it's the 6th, the log for the 1st would be the closable log) without worrying about closing a debate "early" ie a debate started on the 1st at 23:59 UT and closed on the 6th at O:00 UT would have ran for 96 hours and 1 minute. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- There was a somewhat recent discussion at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive174#AfD closure regarding whether 4+ or 5+ days minimum was intended. Flatscan (talk) 23:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- That's all very well but there is simply no need for it — it would be more bureaucratic however —as explained— without any good in return. — Aitias // discussion 22:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with the part where you said "at least 5 days" is not a good working practice. That's why I chose "96 hours" (4 days). It would allow an admin to review the "closable log" (If it's the 6th, the log for the 1st would be the closable log) without worrying about closing a debate "early" ie a debate started on the 1st at 23:59 UT and closed on the 6th at O:00 UT would have ran for 96 hours and 1 minute. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- @DMacks: There is absolutely no offence meant (not at all), but regarding “Further, if premature-closure (or SNOW) is truly a standard or common part of the AfD-closure arsenal” may I respectfully recommend having a look at some old AfD logs? Doing so you'll discover that it is “common part”. :) Best, — Aitias // discussion 22:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) "up to 5 days" is good-working common practice, I think. On the other hand "at least 5 days" is not. Most of the debates at a log page are closed before 5 days have expired — a minimum stays for full 5 days (or even longer). And, as explained above, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If there was significant participation (not only one or two participants) in a debate and there is a clear consensus, there is nothing wrong with closing that debate prematurely. Thus, there is no reason for changing the current situation. — Aitias // discussion 22:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- I do understand why AFDs (that don't otherwise qualify for speedy something) are closed early. Most AFDs get their !votes quickly (if they get any at all) and then die and it may seem that a consensus forms early. It's tempting to just close them and get it over with. This may be fine for "keeps" (but see my comments in the NAC thread above) but if we are talking about making an article go away, I think it's best to let it run its course even if a "delete" outcome is virtually obvious. A kept article can always be nominated later but there are hoops to jump through to get an article undeleted. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- I would recommend "consensus formed at least 24 hours prior and is stable" rather than a firm time limit. If 6 deletes and 0 keeps or redirects showed up in the first hour, and 24 hours after that there were still no opposes, then I'd call that an early consensus. But if 2 showed up the first hour, then 4 more a day later with no keep/merge/redirects, you should wait until the 49 hour mark before calling it a stable consensus to delete. The same goes if it's 95-5 to delete after 2 hours vs. after 26 hours. You wait 24 hours after the consensus is clear to make sure it's stable. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- The usual reason against shortening the period is that a number of Wikipedians are only around on the weekend or on week days. I'd much rather extend the normal period to 7 days than shortening it (Speedy and SNOW closures excepted of course).
There are a number of topics where it's not easy to judge if they meet WP:NOTE, e.g. a WP:PROF biography from a non English speaking country, and I'd rather let those stick around for 5 days to give the noticeboard watchers of the respective language (of which there might only be a few) a chance to review it than to delete it prematurely, even if a number of editors found nothing on google and agreed with the nom. We're in no hurry. --Amalthea 20:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- The usual reason against shortening the period is that a number of Wikipedians are only around on the weekend or on week days. I'd much rather extend the normal period to 7 days than shortening it (Speedy and SNOW closures excepted of course).
- I would prefer a 7 day timeline (assuming we unify timelines to 7 days, including PUI), but I have no idea (good or bad) what consensus lies out there on the subject. Protonk (talk) 20:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- I would agree on 7 days. Many people come here once a week. But the first step should be to establish 5 days as the fixed minimum, and then we should consider extending it. . There is in my opinion no reason to remove a good faith afd unless its withdrawn or there's a copyvio or blp problem apparent before the full closing time. There are many reasons to go the full week: Very frequently there are arguments that are not pointed out immediately that change the nature of the discussion. The rapid closing gives a great incentive to pile on keeps and deletes, and discourages rational consideration. Additionally it discourages improvement of the article under discussion. Even if we do not go beyond 5 days, I think the simplest rule is 5 days minimum except in the stated circumstances, or as a rare exception --and that if they are challenged in good faith, then it should automatically be reopened. We've dealt altogether too much in Deletion reviews of early closings that could have been avoided if the full time had been given. DGG (talk) 05:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- What is the flaw in the deletion process that this will fix? Are there regularly deletion discussions being closed early as "Delete" which don't have a strong reason? All I see other than pre-emptive CSDs and blatantly obvious WP:IAR cases is the occasional application of WP:SNOW. Is there some other kind of case you are thinking of? gnfnrf (talk) 05:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- While the AfD page says the deletion discussion lasts "up to five days", and current common practice is to close discussions after 4 days of discussion, this practice is contrary to current policy. Wikipedia:Deletion policy says that the discussion "lasts at least five days; afterwards, pages are deleted by an administrator if there is consensus to do so". I find it troubling that the AfD discussions over recent months have been shortening. Two reasons: One is as noted above by DGG and by Amalthea—some editors check only on weekends, or only once a week, and therefore might not have opportunity to discuss if AfDs are closed after four days. If everyone says "delete per WP:N no sources" it is still possible that the whole consensus gets reversed when someone comes in with "I've found several sources; here they are." The second concern I have is the subtle potential problem that it is currently only the admins who do not follow policy to the letter who get to close AfDs. Admins who want to wait the full five days (as the policy asks us) are not closing AfDs because pretty much all AfDs are already closed by then. So it is those admins who operate a little outside of policy who are now determining what constitutes "consensus to delete". I'm not saying there's anything deliberate going on; I think it's probably quite unconscious actually. It's concerning, though. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 02:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- thanks for bringing up that last point--very true, and I must have been aware of it, but I never quite had it worked out in words. There should be no advantage given to the admins who don';t follow the rules and close early--whether to keep or to delete. A good example in this sense is PROD, where the articles are automatically marked as being subject to deletion after the necessary time.DGG (talk) 05:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- As a start, would it be reasonable to change this page? For ages it has read, "Articles listed here are debated for up to five days." As noted, this is contrary to what policy actually says. I'd like to change it to "Articles listed here are debated for at least five days." Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 22:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- Done. Also, just to note: I've made reference to this discussion in another section further down the page, #Timing of the clock. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 05:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
- I don't read AFD as much as I used to, but I noticed for Friday Jan. 23, several AFDs were closed with 2 deletes, unless nonsense or spam, it seems that these fast closes are harmful to the occasional editor who might not be on every day, which is why we have a 5 day process. It's likely that they'll still be deleted, but there's no harm in someone having the time to research or notice the article. On an unrelated note, it would be preferable if a closing admin would give reasons when they close, as readers would know why without needing to read the entire debate.205.200.79.114 (talk) 01:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I concur that we first need to strictly enforce the current deletion policy, which says that deletion debates must run for at least five days. The only reason to close an AfD earlier, really, is if the page is actively harmful (such as a WP:BLP violation). Sandstein 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Ongoing DRVs
As a notice to people who are interested in this issue, I've listed nine bad premature closures from January 29 at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 February 1 after the closing administrator in question declined to relist them. Sandstein 09:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
This is how we currently welcome new wikipedians
The Political Quarterly |
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For an example of the dark side running out of control, though, check out Wikipedia...[New York Review of Books said that Wikipedia] is now ruled by bands of vigilantes who delete all new material without mercy or insight...This is such a strong claim that it needed checking, so I decided to attempt an edit myself...I wrote a roughly 100-word potted history of this 75-year-old The Political Quarterly, mentioning that early contributors included Leon Trotsky and Benito Mussolini. Sure enough, within five minutes I received a message to the effect that this entry has no content, is only about my friends (some friends!), lacks citations or corroboration and has been put up for "express deletion".
I was permitted an appeal, but it was disposed of in about two minutes and then the piece was gone. ...So Baker's concerns would appear to be merited...It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire...--PC Pro Dick Pountain [1] |
- User talk:Trackinfo 10 warning labels on this new user's page.
- User talk:P4poetic 8 warning labels on the new user's page.
- User talk:DJ Bungi Numerous warnings, intermixed.
Should I go on? Probably not...travb (talk) 00:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- It's amusing that the PC World artcile you cite uses the phrase "the dark side", at which such offense was taken in the discussion above. --Philcha (talk)
- How representative are those 3 users for the general population of new users? Can you get figures for the number of new users over a particular period, the number of those with talk pages, the number of automated as opposed to human edits to those pages and a distribution chart for the number of warnings. If you can cross reference that with the level of activity of the new user then we are in a position to discuss this from facts rather then opinions. Spartaz Humbug! 11:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- How representative are those 3 users for the general population of new users?
- I would love to find out, and I am attempting to find out right now.
- I had a law history professor say it is much easier and more enjoyable to simply speculate and draw conclusions then do actual mundane research. I know, my own Statistical Package for the Social Sciences research was excruciating. I am doing the research. I feel like the facts that I have thus far are inconclusive, but point to a disturbing trend, and this is the correct forum to bring this concerns up.
- Lets be honest, will editors act on such trends? I think the answer has more to do with a person's past experiences on wikipedia, and general demeanor, then on the facts themselves. Look at the dismissive way that editors who support the status quo are treating negative media reports. One fact is certain, which no one here will debate, no matter how much evidence I collect and evaluate, some editors will continue to dismiss this evidence. travb (talk) 16:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- How representative are those 3 users for the general population of new users? Can you get figures for the number of new users over a particular period, the number of those with talk pages, the number of automated as opposed to human edits to those pages and a distribution chart for the number of warnings. If you can cross reference that with the level of activity of the new user then we are in a position to discuss this from facts rather then opinions. Spartaz Humbug! 11:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- And I'm sure a lot of people can sympathaise with how annoying it is to log into wikipedia and see oall these bot generated image problems and deletions for an encyclopedia in which you are not compelled to be a part of. To a lot of newbies they must think, damm this project, I'm here as a volunteer, I don't need the hassle. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Travb, you would be more convincing if you gave good examples... Trackinfo made his/her first edit in April 2007, and got his first talk page message in June 2008, i.e. over a year later. P4poetic started editing in August 2006, and received 4 warnings before the end of that year. DJ Bungi started editing in June 2005, and had by the end of the first half year 4 warnings and one welcome message. Furthermore, most of the warnings for these people were correct.
I'm not claiming that there is no problem at all, but inflating the numbers by counting messages received years after people started editing to discuss "how we welcome new Wikipedians" is dubious, and giving such old examples for how we currently welcome Wikipedians is dubious as well. Fram (talk) 14:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Hi everybody. I don't expect special privelages on here, I don't even want adminship, but one thing that would be a great help to this project is if people were banned for listing an AFD of an article I've created BEFORE asking me to expand it. Tens of my articles have been posted here over due course and EVERY time I've expanded a "non notable" article and resulted in it being kept. Example include Bulgarian Center for Not-For-Profit Law, Uliger, Photographic Center of Skopelos and currently Child Museum of Cairo etc. I personally think I have a good judgement generally what is encyclopedia or notable and what we require to develop wikipedia and have created around 1/60th of the article we have on here. I create a lot of stubs for sure in good faith that people will expand them and have seen hundreds of articles I've created expanded fully. I find AFDs sometimes stressful as a way of other editors saying "your articles are not welcome" when I;ve not even had the chance to try to address the nominators concerns. Can we please change the general policy or towards myself that the nominator must give the article creator a 24 hour notice before listing an AFD. It is not fair otherwise and a lot of time would be saved in some of the pointless AFDs which end up getting a keep in the end once expanded. It is a waste of my time when I could be expanding these articles or creating new ones. Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Might it be better to either place these fledging articles in userspace, or place an {{underconstruction}} tag on it to let editors know not to judge the article in the present state? --MASEM 16:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Banning users for putting one of your articles up for AFD without notifying you first? Not even worth considering. Perhaps if you only created articles after you had good sourcing in hand, and included those sources in the first version of your article, this wouldn't be such a problem in your life. I presume that people have every article they have created on their watchlist, and the addition of the AFD notice is warning enough ... that gives the author five days to produce the source he should have had available when he created the article.—Kww(talk) 16:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't mean blocking users, I just mean a policy which will give editors a 24 hour warnign period that an article they have created may be listed at AFD. Just a small period in which you can answer their concerns. Why is it not worth considering? People seem more than willing to brandish all sorts of policies around here, why would it be so unfeasible that the editor who created the article is notified of a possible AFD within 24 hours? Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- The nominator's rationale at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Child Museum is merely "Unasserted notability", and this is something I see time and time again - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Bloody Aria for another similar example. When nominating an article at AfD, a user should be able to present some sort of evidence that they have looked for and failed to find sources, and if citing a notability guideline they should properly state how an article fails the guideline. There needs to be a greater onus on the nominator making a case for deletion rather than having others do all the work to rescue an article, and the only way to enforce this is to speedy close any nominations that fail to do this. That said, creating articles like this is also a tad unhelpful, and either a bit more content or the {{underconstruction}} tag might have held off the AfD. PC78 (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Why is there need of additional 24 hrs when you are given 120 hrs. for debate and improvement? I'm not defending anyone who does not present sufficient reason for nomination, but your approach towards AfD is the one discouraged in practice: don't take offense that you article was nominated. Work on it, improve it and convince the nominator and other involved editors that the article is worth keeping. Or even simpler way, as Masem suggested, create and expand it in your userspace before bringing it to mainspace. LeaveSleaves 16:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Chiefly because it permits editors to file a deletion for an article before the problems with it have been addressed by the creator and it has had a single chance to be expanded. People blindly see a one line stub and think yes no use delete. An hour later they see the article has now been expanded a great deal and has a lot of useful information and clearly see that their own initial judgement needs amending. A waste of time. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- I know this is a rather rude and out-of-place question to ask and ignore me if you don't wish to answer it, but why are there problems left to be addressed by the creator? Why not create an article that is full in terms of reflecting notability? LeaveSleaves 17:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Because I do a great deal of work at expanding this encyclopedia in "starting articles", which I believe can be expanded into full articles if people collaborate. The clear answer to your question is that I try very hard to get missing subjects onto here and given the sheer amount to do sometimes quality and content is compromised. While quality is important, I see creating stubs as "planting seeds" which hope any of our millions of users will help collaborate with and help sow, as lame as that sounds. I've seen hundreds of similarly short stubs I've created expanded into full articles so I don't think the work I do on here with stub building is a waste of time. I expand many articles myself but there is only so little time so much to do! Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with PC above, but note PC I created a batch of museum articles in bot format not seperately. They were considered important missing museum articles which I started from a missing red list in good faith to blue link that others would expand them. In my recent AFD there are loads of sources available and the nominator clearly didn't look. The best thing would have been for the nominator to search for sources to make it notable first and if not ask the creator if he has any sources to assert notability and leave a prod tag on it and then list at AFD after the warning period. I'm not upset that an article is listed, really its more along the lines of the way in which it was listed". I don't think there is a strong guideline for what gets listed at AFD, and however much you claim that there , may editors who nominate are not doing it properly and trying to expand it first themsevles. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Re "Many editors who nominate are not doing it properly and trying to expand it first themselves", I agree. Look at the big debate in the sections just above this one. --Philcha (talk) 17:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is confusing "notability" with lack of content and unwillingness to edit or improve the encyclopedia themselves. Sure there are a lot of clear duds within this encyclopedia that most people would want nuked asap where AFD becomes very appropriate but I'm afraid that many editors are not looking to find any claims to notability themselves. IN the two museum cases a click google check would have shown them to be national museums the first an official Greek heritage museum, the second one inaugurated by the British museum. While this may alone not convince some people the sources that accompanied the google search and clearly notable content of the museums should have given the editor propsing to look beyond the poor stub and consider expanding it. If they were not willing to edit themselves then at least ask the editor to expand it. So in answer to the above, yes I believe the main problem is the criteria. A short article is not the same as a non notable article. Sure notability needs to be asserted but this naturally comes with expansion. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- I wish we could help you here, I really do, but policy isn't prescriptive, it's supposed to merely describe how things currently work (or how the community has decided things will work). What I suggest you do is work each article up to a fairly good state after (or before) creation, ignoring any AfDs that may or may not be placed on it, and then begin work on the next. If you feel you should you can make a comment in each AfD, but in the situation you describe it appears that the articles are surviving on merits alone and so long discussion in each AfD shouldn't be necessary. This isn't me asking you to stop, I'm just saying that it doesn't look like you need to worry about the AfDs too much. If any are deleted which you were still in the process of working on, drop me a line and I'll be happy to userfy them for you. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Another thought is to create the article as a subpage of your userpages, that way you wouldn't need to worry about an article being AFD'd before you can expand upon it. TrekFanatic (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- (ec)That would defeat the purpose of a collaborative wiki. Putting the article in mainspace gives a chance to people to collaborate by improving it. Warehousing an article in user space until it is "mature" doesn't sound too collaborative. In addition Dr. Blofeld creates a lot of stubs. He can't warehouse these stubs in his userspace until they grow. That would require him to work on dozens of articles without expecting any help. From my experience with AFDs, I think this has more to do with a condition which I call "Taggitis". It is a condition whereby tagging is performed for the sake of tagging and it encompasses all tagging activities not only AFDs. For example: It is much easier to use the tag [citation needed] instead of finding a reference. Similarly it is much easier to tag for AFD rather than bothering to google about the notability of an article or discuss it with the original article author. Dr.K. logos 18:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- DR. K. has the right answer. We keep wanting the cake to be baked already, and it won't be. Unfortunately, the collaborative effort on very parochial subjects is very, very low. low enough that I have just shifted to creating fully formed articles at first edit rather than producing unfinished stubs. There aren't enough eyes to make it practical. Protonk (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- (ec)That would defeat the purpose of a collaborative wiki. Putting the article in mainspace gives a chance to people to collaborate by improving it. Warehousing an article in user space until it is "mature" doesn't sound too collaborative. In addition Dr. Blofeld creates a lot of stubs. He can't warehouse these stubs in his userspace until they grow. That would require him to work on dozens of articles without expecting any help. From my experience with AFDs, I think this has more to do with a condition which I call "Taggitis". It is a condition whereby tagging is performed for the sake of tagging and it encompasses all tagging activities not only AFDs. For example: It is much easier to use the tag [citation needed] instead of finding a reference. Similarly it is much easier to tag for AFD rather than bothering to google about the notability of an article or discuss it with the original article author. Dr.K. logos 18:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Another thought is to create the article as a subpage of your userpages, that way you wouldn't need to worry about an article being AFD'd before you can expand upon it. TrekFanatic (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- "but one thing that would be a great help to this project is if people were banned for listing an AFD of an article I've created BEFORE asking me to expand it" this is not a small request... I sympathize with your troubles regarding overzealous editors nominating pages for deletion. That said, some retaliatory measure isn't in order. Protonk (talk) 18:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps, I'd just rather somebody asked me straight to expand it or prod it first and I don't think that is a tall order in the slightest. Taking an article straight to AFD without even trying to expand it or research tells me that they "want" to delete the article. If they took an article to AFD based on a genuine concern that they couldn't find any sources whatsoever or couldn't verify it I wouldn't have a problem with it, its just when they take a short article to AFD when they are a lot of web sources available which show that the article can clearly be saved. I just think AFD should be a last resort, not first point of call for a short article. Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:14, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree. AFD or PROD are unnecessarily disruptive and should be used with caution. Sometimes the courtesy of notifying the original author of the stub could avoid conflicts and be less disruptive, as I remarked above to Protonk. Dr.K. logos 19:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Before continuing, you may want to see: Wikipedia:FREQUENT#All_authors_must_be_notified_of_deletion and ask around about what succeeded and what failed before. travb (talk) 20:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to point out that on a number of occasions I haven't even been notified of the AFD when I have been the sole editor, let alone asked to expand it. Dr. Blofeld White cat 22:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld: If it's a different editor every time, you'll just have to live with it. If it's the same editor repeatedly tagging your articles, ask nicely and maybe next time he'll give you a day. After all, it will save him time too: Unless he's using a script, tagging an article for AFD takes 3 or 4 steps and takes up at least 5-10 minutes of valuable time. If you are really nice and polite, he may even want to collaborate with you fixing these up. On the other hand, if if it turns out he's just got it in for you, then use the regular dispute-resolution processes, not WT:AFD. You might also be pro-active and go back over your existing creations and beef them up a little, to pre-empt this kind of AFDing. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Review all his contributions? Seriously, that is a very large number indeed. Common sense ouht to prevail, and people whose article (or whatever) are put up for deletion should be given notice. Period. Collect (talk) 15:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- No, people who have created an article have no more say in an AfD than anyone else. Articles should be judged on their own merits, not on the creator. I have no objection to people being notified, but the obligation to do so is unwanted. In mostof the discussions I have seen on this page in the past years, all I have seen are people trying to add more and more instructions, requirements, ... for people before they are allowed to put anything up for deletion. Meanwhile, by far the most AfD discussions work out quite well, with a clear delete or keep, and with only a limited number of DRV's or other recreations of the same material. Are we actually trying to solve any real problem with AfD, or are people just trying to reduce the number of deletions?
- As for people taking articles by Dr. Blofeld to deletion: yes, that can be annoying, but then again, experienced editors should not be creating articles without any sourcing, like e.g. Adumdé. If you get your data from a reliable source, mention it. If you don't, don't create the article. But don't start complaining about the faults of other editors when you create unsourced stubs in the first place. Fram (talk) 15:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- I demur. The article creator may well be able to establish notability (the example you cite for being unsourced is for a town, and it appears that AfDs for towns generally fail) and thus is likely to know more about the article than others stumbling upon the AfD. Collect (talk) 16:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, I would not suggest that we AfD that article. As for the creator: they may know more about the article, but they are also less likely to take a neutral, objective look at it. In most cases, the article creator is not needed to see if a subject is notable or not, and while I have seen AfDs where the input of the creator was valiuable, I have equally seen AfDs where the article creator created a lot of extra work and discussion for absolutely nothing. And I generally object to more instruction creep for AfDs if there is no similar counterweight in more instructions and requirements for article creation (like, e.g., at least one reliable independent source in the article). Fram (talk) 16:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- I think it's a good thing to contact the author of an article when references are hard to come by since they must've taken their information from somewhere. But doing so on a case by case basis suffices. Requiring someone to be contacted every time is impractical. Why not let a bot do it? - Mgm|(talk) 12:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, I would not suggest that we AfD that article. As for the creator: they may know more about the article, but they are also less likely to take a neutral, objective look at it. In most cases, the article creator is not needed to see if a subject is notable or not, and while I have seen AfDs where the input of the creator was valiuable, I have equally seen AfDs where the article creator created a lot of extra work and discussion for absolutely nothing. And I generally object to more instruction creep for AfDs if there is no similar counterweight in more instructions and requirements for article creation (like, e.g., at least one reliable independent source in the article). Fram (talk) 16:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- I demur. The article creator may well be able to establish notability (the example you cite for being unsourced is for a town, and it appears that AfDs for towns generally fail) and thus is likely to know more about the article than others stumbling upon the AfD. Collect (talk) 16:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Quoting Blofeld: "I find AFDs sometimes stressful as a way of other editors saying "your articles are not welcome" when I;ve not even had the chance to try to address the nominators concerns." I think the key to compromise here is to reinforce that an AfD nomination does not say "your article is not welcome"; it says, politely, "This article, as it currently stands, may not comply with our policies and standards. If you think you can fix it up we'd be glad to reconsider." In some cases, opening an AfD for an article that is quite likely to be rescued is a waste of others' time, since it could have been handled with two people instead of many - but it's difficult to anticipate which cases those will be. Dcoetzee 06:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I started tagging, as needing sources, articles Blofeld created on "museums" which lacked sources, after running across them doing random article patrol. How does it contribute in any way to sprint along creating articles like a robot, when there are no sources to indicate whether a given one is an important and well known museum, or a little tourist gift shop or a small private collection? I do not see a benefit to the encyclopedia to make it a mirror of some all-inclusive and nondiscriminating listing of any sort of entity, and spend no time at all on making sure the entity is encyclopedic. The encyclopedia becomes less and less useful if thousands of stubs are created, while a more and more cumbersome process is erected to try and remove any of the robostubs. And then the astonishing demand is made that anyone who nominates one of them for deletion, without giving Blofeld 24 hours to do what he should have done in the first place, should be banned! Did he spend even 1 hour creating each article? Apparently not, since such articles were created at the rate of one or even 2 per minute last April. The articles tended to be "X is a museum in the city of Y," such as Museum of the Water Mill of Paleopyrgos.He created 2 other articles in the same minute he created this one. It has been tagged as needing sources and lacking evidence of notability since August 2008. What becomes of Wikipedia if it takes 20 seconds to create an article about something which might or might not have sources or be encyclopedic, but hours of hard work to delete it? The quality of articles goes lower, and lower, most likely, although there will be stubs about everything that exists or which might exist. Blofeld's considerable talents might better have been devoted to fleshing out far fewer articles. An article creator can be expected to watchlist it and address problems such as the tagging for lack of sources and lack of a claim of notability. ("X is a Y in Z" does not, generally, constitute the requireed claim of notability.) Not everything which the owner calls a "museum" equals what one might expect a notable museum to be. Edison (talk) 05:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
- I seriously doubt that the article writing process took less than 20 seconds each. The time between clicking 'save' on two pages doesn't tell you anything about how much time you spent getting things up to that point. I routinely work with dozens of tabs open, and many people (including this user) write articles offline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
- How much "research" and "writing" go into creating hundreds of unreferenced roboarticles that say "X is a Y in Z" based on an online listing of things? And then I should spend hours researching whether the thing exists or has any references before nominating it for deletion, when the creator of the articles leaves them tagged unreferenced for half a year? Edison (talk) 18:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
- Blofeld: Planting seeds is a good thing. But writing short article doesn't mean they shouldn't explain why they should be included, aka notability. I've written a couple of very short articles myself, but the reason why it should be included is always the first thing I write down. Only when I have that, do I put it into article space. - Mgm|(talk) 12:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- I took at look at the history of one of the examples the Evil Dr. gave -- Uliger. The version which was listed for deletion clearly stated, "They are an important part of the oral traditions among the Buryats and other Siberian tribes." However, the nominator dismissed this claim, stating that "Uliger" is nothing more than the Mongolian/Buryat word for "fairytale". After much flurry of activity of editting & debate at AfD, the article was kept. While demanding a block of people who make these kinds of nominations is overreacting, I can understand our Evil Dr.'s frustration here: how can you prove to someone who is already prejudiced in this case that the article is worth keeping? A stub class only reinforces that kind of prejudice. -- llywrch (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Making Articles for Deletion more user friendly for new users
I've been reading the Articles for Deletion entries for the last few weeks (e.g. at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2009_January_28), and often find that they don't seem user friedly to me. I particularly find that things sometimes get speedy deleted after being taken to articles for deletion, but the Articles for Deletion entry doesn't do a good job of explaining the speedy deletion. Some examples are:
The result was speedy delete. - This doesn't explain why this article was speedy deleted, as opposed to just deleted through the normal Articles for Deletion process.
The result was speedy delete, G1. - The first time I saw something like this, it really confused me. What was this "G1" that was being referred to? Once I found the page explaining criteria for speedy deletion it started to make sense, but until then it was pretty confusing.
Anyway, I think it would be much better if the admin who did the speedy delete would make sure to write something like:
The result was speedy delete, G1 (article is patent nonsense). - This has a link to the speedy deletion criteria and the specific criteria being employed, as well as a brief summary of what that criteria is.
I think having things better explained on the Articles of Deletion page (as opposed to just on the page for the article in question (i.e. the page you get to upon clicking the red link), or on the talk page of the user who wrote the article, or anywhere else) would be particularly useful to new users who may not yet understand the deletion policies.
Another thing that I found confusing that I think should be avoided was an entry like this:
The result was delete, with seasoning. - Click on the link to see why this would confuse a new user.
I happened to see an entry like the one above when I first visisted Articles for Deletion, and I found it confusing. While I understand that people might want to inject some humor into these discussions, I would think that in such cases the person would be extra careful to link to the right thing. While the user who kept creating the article to the point that it needed to be salted probably won't even bother viewing Articles for Deletion, it still seems to me that it is important to make what is going on clear to any other user who might be reading the page.
Anyway, I was just really hoping that things like that could be avoided. Entries like that made it harder for me to understand what was going on at Articles for Deletion. While it wasn't too much of a hassle for me, I could see a user with less free time just giving up on Articles for Deletion after getting confused by something like that. Calathan (talk) 19:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
- Assuming that a user can find it, WP:Guide to deletion is pretty helpful. Its Shorthands section does a reasonable job of explaining your examples. Flatscan (talk) 04:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- Calathan, Considering that the majority of articles for deletion are against articles created by new users, your comments are very important and need to be addressed. Ikip (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- Forgive me if someone else has said this before, but how about creating some standardized friendly result templates that link to some explanations and policy pages? Wikidemon (talk) 04:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- The problem stems from boilerplate closures — the simple additions of the {{subst:afd top}} template and a single word. Making boilerplate closures easier doesn't fix the problem. What fixes the problem is encouraging closing administrators to show their working, i.e. to give rationales for their closures, explaining how they came to the decision that they did.
I've been giving MBisanz some encouragement recently in this regard, as a matter of fact. It really does prevent having to do a greater amount of work further down the road. (Have a look at the length of User talk:MBisanz, and the number of "Can you please explain this?" requests there.) And yes, this does include forestalling the inevitable requests from people new to Wikipedia to whom the process is not apparent.
The first two closing administrators to come to mind who are in the main good examples to imitate, and whose closures should be read, are Rossami and Splash. There are several others. Start with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Five on it, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural impact of Brokeback Mountain, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oregon (toponym), for examples. Uncle G (talk) 07:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- There's nothing wrong with the top closure boiler plate as it only says the debate was closed. It is the admin who needs to add the rationale. I believe that creating boilerplate rationales that have links to speedy criteria and a short explanation would actually improve the user friendliness. - Mgm|(talk) 11:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- If we can all remember when we were newbies, Wikipedia education was an evolution. No WikiPedia 101, 102, 103,ect. We roamed around, got instructions, learned abit here and there, had our run-ins with other editors, etc.But after awhile we got "the lay of the land" and developed certain personal expectations of what the place should look like. Clear instructions to the newbies should be a cornerstone of AfD since, most times, a newbie comes here to find out why his article was put up for deletion. Clear explanations of administrative action by the administrator acting is also at the level of a prerequisite. As expressed above, it only takes a moment and prevents unnecessary discussion.--Buster7 (talk) 19:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- There's nothing wrong with the top closure boiler plate as it only says the debate was closed. It is the admin who needs to add the rationale. I believe that creating boilerplate rationales that have links to speedy criteria and a short explanation would actually improve the user friendliness. - Mgm|(talk) 11:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- The problem stems from boilerplate closures — the simple additions of the {{subst:afd top}} template and a single word. Making boilerplate closures easier doesn't fix the problem. What fixes the problem is encouraging closing administrators to show their working, i.e. to give rationales for their closures, explaining how they came to the decision that they did.
- (Outdent) I don't like the addition of further boilerplate rationale. The {{Welcome}} templates have a lot of words on them, but don't really substitute for human contact. More boilerplate just means longer default text. It doesn't actually mean that the decision is explained properly. Most closes (IMO) make explanation of the decision superfluous. Most keep closes and delete closes are near-unanimous. Where they are not or some explanation would help illuminate the thought process, admins should give explanations. I hope I do. But there is no substitute for that. Protonk (talk) 19:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- Forgive me if someone else has said this before, but how about creating some standardized friendly result templates that link to some explanations and policy pages? Wikidemon (talk) 04:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with Calathan. i see no reason we can't add something new editors can look at and see where their failings lie.
- Calathan, Considering that the majority of articles for deletion are against articles created by new users, your comments are very important and need to be addressed. Ikip (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Deletion sorting instructions
On deletion sorting, WP:AFD's instructions are currently: "Consider adding an appropriate deletion sorting template to the nomination."
Unfortunately, as has just been pointed out to me, adding the template to the nomination actually doesn't actually do anything. To add it to a deletion-sorting list, you need to manually add a {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName}} to the appropriate list. Instructions for that are on the appropriate deletion-sorting-list page, but are easy enough to miss by an editor concentrating on the main list of instructions (and only looking for the "template" that these instructions have told him to look for, rather than reading the deletion-sort listing page headers in detail). Can I suggest one of two options:
- Actually tell the editor on the main instructions to manually add the nomination to the deletion-sorting pages, before adding the template to the nomination.
- Better yet, set it up so that, similar to WP:RFCs, adding the template to the nomination causes a bot to add it to the appropriate deletion-sort-list. Given that all the pages that the bot would have to search for these templates is subpages of WP:AFD, this shouldn't be too difficult or resource-intensive.
HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- agree completely. At present we tend to rely on volunteers going out looking and doing it right, which works better in some subjects than others. A bot is the way, if we can depend on it. Could we go further and add automatic insertion of the delete sorting category by workgroup when there's a workgroup tag? DGG (talk) 18:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- I've filed Wikipedia:Bot request#Delsort on this. No action on it yet, but it's just been up a couple of hours. DGG's idea may be more complicated, but also more useful in the long run. Jclemens (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Sharqi
Can anyone please delete the article Sharqi? It is almost useless with nobody editing the article in general for over 8 months!! Albertgenii12 (talk) 22:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think it's really suitable for deletion as there seems to be a number of references to it[2],[3],[4] (some of which I've added to the article) and, not least, because Encyclopædia Britannica Online has a short entry on it[5], which would suggest it's a notable weather phenomenon and a valid subject for an encyclopedia. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 04:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- People not editing an article is not a valid reason for deletion. Please have a look at the deletion policy pages. - Mgm|(talk) 11:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- Is this article truly Notable? The listing on NOAA is less than a paragraph. WP:N states that "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail. Sephiroth storm (talk) 17:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- I agree, its not the articles fault. However, if noone is willing to add to the article, then I would have to say that at this point, the article is not notable. Sephiroth storm (talk) 19:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- Hey, I don't have any issue with it. The article was placed here because someone believed it should be deleted. Now personally, I have always said that we as editors should try to fix an article before we delete it, unless it is blatantly unecyclopedic. Question is, Does the article meet WP:Note, if not, can it be brought to those specifications, and who is willing to do it. If no one is willing to do it, then it's not worthy of being kept at this time. Sephiroth storm (talk) 21:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- I like challenges, so I will try to expand on it and re-write it so there is more detail to it. ArcAngel (talk) 21:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- On another note, seems like I can just redirect this to the Shamal (wind) article, since it seems like Sharqi is repeating information that can be found in the former. Anyone have an issue with re-direction of Sharqi to Shamal (wind), then? ArcAngel (talk) 22:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- Shamal is a northwesterly wind while the Sharqi is a southernly or southeasterly wind so they are different things. Perhaps a merge and redirect to Middle East/Climate? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- I like the merge to Middle East/Climate. Sephiroth storm (talk) 09:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- It's done. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- On another note, seems like I can just redirect this to the Shamal (wind) article, since it seems like Sharqi is repeating information that can be found in the former. Anyone have an issue with re-direction of Sharqi to Shamal (wind), then? ArcAngel (talk) 22:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- I like challenges, so I will try to expand on it and re-write it so there is more detail to it. ArcAngel (talk) 21:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
"Keep" or "nomination withdrawn "nitpickery"
Sometimes I see nominations like this one that go a full listing period (or more) where even though the nominator "withdraws", I feel it deserves to be closed as "keep". I also do this when such a nom has unstruck "delete" !votes but the overall consensus is still "keep". I feel that the words used might be relevant in future nominations of the same article. Am I right or is this just nitpicking?
As silly as this sounds I recall a case from last October where an editor reopened an AFD closed as "keep" so she could close it "nomination withdrawn" [6]. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:46, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- Like you, if the AfD has gone the full period, and the consensus is keep, I'll close it that way whether or not the nom has withdrawn. The only time I close as "withdrawn" is if the nom withdrew, there are no unstruck delete !votes, and it closed early.
- In the example you gave where the AfD was reopened, unless there's more to the story, it does seem a bit nitpickey. Granted, the original closure reason wasn't as clear as it could be, but all the information was there (that the nom was withdrawn, that the article wasn't deleted). I probably would have just dropped a note to the closer saying that the summary might confuse inexperienced editors.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- This (I mean the practice, not this question) is just the kind of bureaucratic timewasting that we would be well rid of if we simplified AfD to make it more like any other decision-making "process".--Kotniski (talk) 10:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
yu gi oh the abridged series
This IS notable or aleast a lot more notable then a lot of things that have a page.
I am ironbatman (talk) 05:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- This has been discussed before. If you think you can write up a version that won't have the same failings as the AfD'd versions, please feel free to do so on a subpage in your userspace. Say, at User:I am ironbatman/Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series, then take that version to deletion review. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- Ironbatman, under what criteria do you claim it is notable? Sephiroth storm (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- Regarding "more notable then a lot of things that have a page," see Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. Dcoetzee 20:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I just mean to start an article to get the ball rolling, then other people will edit the page and before you know it there will be a perfectly good article. And regarding your "more notable then a lot of things that have a page," It says there is stopping anybody from creating a page, but the dillema is I can't create a page and that's why I am complaining. The criteria I claim that it is notible is that if you search on youtube "yu gi oh the abridged series" there will be many different videos (32 episodes with a movie, 2 council of doom episodes and 2 christmas specials) which combined have millions of views (unlike cloverfield but that has a page). This is just part of the systematic bias against internet based subjects.
I am ironbatman (talk) 05:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- YouTube isn't considered a reliable source for some things. For others - ehhh. ArcAngel (talk) 14:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- This was supposed to be the first answer in this section. Then I had classes, the house flooded, that sort of thing. It's possible that the series has more right to an article than some of the stuff we cover. When you get down to it the notability rules are an arbitrary cut-off point, one that most people here seem to consider necessary but it's still going to cause problems.
Notability's relatively recent, though. I think the abridged series runs into a more serious rule that's stood for as long as long as the site: Verifiability. We have to be able to provide the readers with something more reliable than our word. Yes, Wikipedia and reliability, har har har, but what we have is because of that. Worse, Having nothing to check statements against also kneecaps the editing process: it can be impossible or unreasonably difficult to do maintenance, resolve disputes and distinguish between vandalism and valid changes. Worse, this is one of the ten most popular websites in existence and the target of every self-respecting scammer and con man on the planet. Yu Gi Oh the abridged series is legit, but there's no way we could judge these things on a case-by-case basis.
There you have it. There's an infuriating amount of get-off-my-lawn-ya-kids elitism around, but the most basic problem with covering Internet-based subjects is that they're underrepresented in the usable external sources that bring value to articles. --Kizor 00:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)- Some pinhead violates copyright on youtube, we should cover it? Is there rampant external RS for this? Or just internet fanboy love? ThuranX (talk) 00:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Case in point. --Kizor 06:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for that Kizor it explained a lot of things, and also to thruanX your contribution was... err.... umm.... noted. But i'm pretty sure youtube is a valid source because Yu gi oh the abridged series exists on youtube, it's not like i'm saying diet coke can be used as rocket fuel because i saw it on youtube. And isn't there some rule against bad mouthing people??? or is that just for some people the "man" doesn't like, well any way if i was a fanboy i would be too busy writing horrible fan fics to do this. I am ironbatman (talk) 08:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- (Trolling above removed). No, YouTube is not a reliable source. Any video uploaded there can be edited beforehand, removing or redubbing key elements, which is exactly the case with the above series. Google gave me back one page of results for the topic, and all of those were Youtube videos or blogs to it. Not one wp:rs has anything about it. It's a fanboy thing, or an anti-fanboy thing. either way, who cares? ThuranX (talk) 06:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, there is. Sorry about that. Our fair compatriot has been banned on five separate occasions for failure to play nice. Smarter people than me now seem to be working out what we're supposed to do with him.
(Strokes beard) He's right, though. The contents of YouTube videos would never be accepted as references. They're too easy to edit (heh) and have nothing but the submitter's word to back their authenticity and accuracy. I remember wanting to source details about a WWII destroyer using a contemporary newsreel on YouTube, a couple of years ago. A way of getting around the unreliable format (a way I did NOT use because I was young and stupid) would've been tracking down the original's details and giving those as a reference, like one'd do with a book, instead of the YouTube version. For obvious reasons the same is not possible here. --Kizor 16:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for that Kizor it explained a lot of things, and also to thruanX your contribution was... err.... umm.... noted. But i'm pretty sure youtube is a valid source because Yu gi oh the abridged series exists on youtube, it's not like i'm saying diet coke can be used as rocket fuel because i saw it on youtube. And isn't there some rule against bad mouthing people??? or is that just for some people the "man" doesn't like, well any way if i was a fanboy i would be too busy writing horrible fan fics to do this. I am ironbatman (talk) 08:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Case in point. --Kizor 06:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Some pinhead violates copyright on youtube, we should cover it? Is there rampant external RS for this? Or just internet fanboy love? ThuranX (talk) 00:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Hold on, its been a few days since i last checked this AfD, but allow me to insert something. I am ironbatman, I asked under what criteria do you claimed it is notable, and you stated youtube. Wikipedia has certain criteria for articles, They can be found Here. Check that out as well as This and tell me if you think it qualifies. Sephiroth storm (talk) 13:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Advice re premature AfD closure
Re Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamnet Shakespeare: the debate has been closed, citing (incorrectly I believe) WP:SNOW, after less than a day while debate was still underway and without unanimous agreement. It seems to me that the WP:IAR solution would be to simply reverse the closure so the discussion can run its course - can someone uninvolved do this, or should it be taken to DRV? Thanks, EyeSerenetalk 09:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Addendum I have no objection to letting the closure stand; this is a procedural question more than anything else :P EyeSerenetalk 09:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- The nomination for the AfD is rather unusual. There seems rather lack of clarity on how exactly this article fits inclusion. Now, looking at the AfD objectlively, I agree that the closure was somewhat premature and an improved closing summary which would clarify that there is no inclination on deletion would have been more appropriate. But all in all, I'd say that there is wasn't anything particularly wrong about the closure in terms of final result. LeaveSleaves 11:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- Fair enough, and thanks for your thoughts. As I understand it, the AfD was listed because there was some doubt about whether the subject's notability was enough for a stand-alone biography article. I don't think there was any doubt about keeping the information in some form or other, but the article's notability had to be tested first. I don't believe the AfD has really settled anything as it wasn't allowed to run for long enough, but no big deal ;) EyeSerenetalk 12:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with EyeSerene. The premature closure of this AfD means that nothing has been resolved. A complete waste of time. --Malleus Fatuorum 12:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- LeaveSleaves is correct here, there's no issue letting the closure stand. In AfD's eyes, a "merge" closure is simply a variation on a "keep" closure, and the closure of an AfD does not preclude an editorial merge discussion, so there's little point overturning what seems to be a clear snowball keep. If Pastor Theo modifies his closing statement to say as much, I think everyone would be happy(-er than they are now). Also, I've notified Pastor Theo of this discussion. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I understand, but was disappointed that an ongoing debate to test the article's notability (one of the purposes of AfD) was cut short before, as Malleus notes, anything had been resolved. A less 'by the book' application of the closure criteria would have been helpful in this case. However, we are where we are and, as I said, no big deal. EyeSerenetalk 18:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I tried to read the the prior discussion a bit more in detail. The oddness in this case is that while the article clears GAC, there is confusion on its stand-alone notability. Frankly, in my opinion, if the the subject has sufficient coverage to clear GAC, it is notable enough for inclusion. In any case, the article isn't worthy of deletion. Further, a merger, possibly with William Shakespeare (correct me if I am wrong here), would only strain the latter article's existing structure. Bottom line, AfD is really not an ideal venue to solve the issue. May I suggest putting forward a possible merger proposal or even an RfC (which I know sounds rather extreme) if you are looking for wider audience? LeaveSleaves 19:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- Very true, it is an unusual case :P The GA criteria are very specific and don't actually mention notability at all, so GA status is not a confirmation of notability. You're right to imply that issues that might affect the notability of a subject would probably be addressed during a GA review, but only as a by-product of the process, so it's perfectly possible (theoretically!) for a Good Article to end up deleted on notability grounds. The WT:GAN thread was started because there may be issues with the article's GA pass, but it's notability was questioned and, as the more fundamental issue, we felt that needed settling first - so AfD seemed the logical place to come. Maybe, as you suggest, another venue would have been better. EyeSerenetalk 19:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- The article didn't actually meet the good article criteria, but that is an aside. Geometry guy 22:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- Very true, it is an unusual case :P The GA criteria are very specific and don't actually mention notability at all, so GA status is not a confirmation of notability. You're right to imply that issues that might affect the notability of a subject would probably be addressed during a GA review, but only as a by-product of the process, so it's perfectly possible (theoretically!) for a Good Article to end up deleted on notability grounds. The WT:GAN thread was started because there may be issues with the article's GA pass, but it's notability was questioned and, as the more fundamental issue, we felt that needed settling first - so AfD seemed the logical place to come. Maybe, as you suggest, another venue would have been better. EyeSerenetalk 19:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
This was not at all a "by-the-book" application of WP:SNOW! SNOW is not a guideline at all, but styles itself as a consequence of WP:IAR. However editors quoting SNOW seem to think IAR means "ignore the rules when you don't see the point of following them". IAR doesn't say that. It says "If a rule prevents you improving or maintaining Wikipedia, then ignore it." Cutting short a productive discussion that had only been going only one day emphatically does not improve the encyclopedia. SNOW itself is not explicit enough about that, but it does imply that its should be used primarily for unanimous decisions and that "if somebody later raises a reasonable objection, then it probably was not a good candidate for the snowball clause."
I do not wish to reopen this AfD, as the moment has been lost. Further, I am disheartened to see AfDs on delicate articles like this determined by votes "per WP:N" by editors who show no signs of having read WP:N recently and thinking about how it applies in this case, or reflects consensus at AfD. AfD is not a vote. A bureaucracy we may not be, but with every passing day we seem to be turning into a democracy where consensus is being equated to percentage support in a vote. How sad. Geometry guy 22:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see the problem. Was there a snowball's chance in hell that we would have deleted Hamnet Shakespeare? If so, then the SNOW close was wrong. If no, then the SNOW close was right. It's not a risk free undertaking. Some people make snow closures when they shouldn't. And they rightly get burned. Some people happen to guess correctly. and they help us avoid pointless debate. In my opinion, there was no way we would delete that article. Just off the top of my head I can think of two sources that mention Hamnet significantly which aren't cited in the article and the sources cited in the article allow it to more than meet the GNG. Protonk (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- "Keep" and "delete" are not the only possible outcomes of an AfD, yet apparently you think it is right to snowball an AfD when there is no chance that the article will be deleted. I hope you will rethink. Many editors are taking the snowball close as meaning that AfD has endorsed the right to an independent existence, no merger, no renaming. There are plenty of sources mentioning Hamnet. There are also plenty of sources mentioning Romeo Beckham. How do we decide to keep the former as an article but leave the latter as a redirect? Is AfD competent to address that question? Apparently not, and your comment adds to my sadness. Geometry guy 23:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- While AfDs are often closed as "merge" or "redirect", they really are flavors of keep in that any editor can come along and revert to an earlier version. (Not so with delete). Besides the fact that I wouldn't have closed this one this early, if the full five days had run and I was closing it, I'd add a comment saying that the consensus was clearly not to delete, that "keep", "merge" and "redirect" are all flavors of the same thing, and therefore it's an editing issue, not a deletion issue.
- Would it be nice if AfD became something that could also enforce merge and redirect decisions? IM(NS)HO, heck yeah. But that's not the way AfD is set up currently. Right now, it's pretty much "delete" and "flavors of keep".--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry my comment "adds to your sadness". In my opinion, AfDs are places where a deletion discussion occurs, primarily. this doesn't stop us from discussing mergers, but anything more complicated than merging an article that doesn't meet our inclusion criteria into one that does doesn't belong at AfD. It doesn't have the format nor the attendance to handle it. We don't handle splits, mergers of two equally important articles into one, mergers to multiple parents, or any other sort of complex merge. And that is just practice. Policy says we don't do mergers at all. So people come to AfD to have an article deleted. If an editor determines that a discussion about deleting Hamnet is a waste of time, then s/he is welcome to take the risk and halt the discussion. I have no control over what people think AfD has endorsed. I'm of the opinion that AfD endorses no state of an article save cases where the closing decision was made expressly for the purpose of enforcing a specific state (and "keep" is not one of those cases). But my opinion doesn't impact people who choose to interpret the AfD in such a fashion. All the AfD does is determine whether or not an article meets the guidelines and policies for inclusion. If it does, then the editorial decision to merge/ redirect/ smerge/ whatever the content can be made elsewhere. And, for the case of Hamnet, should be made elsewhere. Protonk (talk) 23:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- "Meet the guidelines and policies for inclusion" as a separate article, not a redirect, right? That's what the guidelines discuss. Geometry guy 00:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Whether or not it becomes a redirect is still largely an editorial decision. This discussion isn't settled by any means. See the Episodes and Characters RFARs and dozens of debates on this subject. Protonk (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Then all such AfDs should be closed as "Keep, merge, redirect, or rename, as you like, but do not delete the content". Geometry guy 00:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- That strikes me as unnecessary. All closes should be treated as non-binding on editorial decisions unless the closer explicitly decides that making a decision like that is necessary. Closes like that should be fairly rare. Protonk (talk) 00:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Nevermind. Diminishing returns. Not your fault that no one else can be bothered to read guidelines. See you at WP:FICT. Geometry guy 00:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- That strikes me as unnecessary. All closes should be treated as non-binding on editorial decisions unless the closer explicitly decides that making a decision like that is necessary. Closes like that should be fairly rare. Protonk (talk) 00:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Then all such AfDs should be closed as "Keep, merge, redirect, or rename, as you like, but do not delete the content". Geometry guy 00:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Whether or not it becomes a redirect is still largely an editorial decision. This discussion isn't settled by any means. See the Episodes and Characters RFARs and dozens of debates on this subject. Protonk (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- "Meet the guidelines and policies for inclusion" as a separate article, not a redirect, right? That's what the guidelines discuss. Geometry guy 00:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- People don't want an article on Romeo Beckham because they don't like BLPs of minors. Hamnet has been dead for centuries and has been discussed by prominent scholars in peer reviewed journals, so it's a much different situation. Zagalejo^^^ 02:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry my comment "adds to your sadness". In my opinion, AfDs are places where a deletion discussion occurs, primarily. this doesn't stop us from discussing mergers, but anything more complicated than merging an article that doesn't meet our inclusion criteria into one that does doesn't belong at AfD. It doesn't have the format nor the attendance to handle it. We don't handle splits, mergers of two equally important articles into one, mergers to multiple parents, or any other sort of complex merge. And that is just practice. Policy says we don't do mergers at all. So people come to AfD to have an article deleted. If an editor determines that a discussion about deleting Hamnet is a waste of time, then s/he is welcome to take the risk and halt the discussion. I have no control over what people think AfD has endorsed. I'm of the opinion that AfD endorses no state of an article save cases where the closing decision was made expressly for the purpose of enforcing a specific state (and "keep" is not one of those cases). But my opinion doesn't impact people who choose to interpret the AfD in such a fashion. All the AfD does is determine whether or not an article meets the guidelines and policies for inclusion. If it does, then the editorial decision to merge/ redirect/ smerge/ whatever the content can be made elsewhere. And, for the case of Hamnet, should be made elsewhere. Protonk (talk) 23:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
← On the initial procedure question, I would attempt to contact the closer first. Any uninvolved admin may reopen any NAC, but I've seen few such reversals, and only for blatant errors.
- While I personally favor the "stand-alone article" interpretation of AfD, this nomination, with no recommendation to delete, is probably unacceptable by current norms. I'm surprised that no one closed as WP:Speedy keep per Xover, ignoring Sarcasticidealist's request to leave it open.
- A SNOW NAC in under 12 hours is not appropriate, especially with the current interest in discouraging early closes. That said, I don't support reopening at this time. I would like to see a Talk page discussion first.
On the general merge issue, there is a fairly recent discussion at WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Mergers at AfD. Flatscan (talk) 05:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
There has been a number of incidents recently of closing AfDs very early, and of non-admins using the WP:Snow clause as though it were part of the AfD process. This is inappropriate, and may be traced to Wikipedia:Non-admin closure which until a couple of weeks ago was urging inexperienced editors to close early after six keeps as a WP:Snow close. There is no hurry to close an AfD; indeed, it is better to let them run the full 5 days as discussions sometimes turn round after three or four days, or even on the last day - when they may need a bit longer. This particular AfD was closed after less than 12 hours exposure, and with a mix of merge and keep statements.
I feel we should have a general discussion on the pros and cons of closing AfDs early (before the 5 days), and on how appropriate it is to use the WP:Snow clause in an AfD, especially by those who don't have proven experience of reading Wikipedia consensus. WP:Snow is there to cut through having a process for the sake of it. However, at AfD we have a simple 5 day rule for a specific purpose - to allow time for a considered response and to provide a chance for a range of views. There is rarely anything to be gained by cutting an AfD short, and much to be gained buy letting it run the allotted 5 days. SilkTork *YES! 00:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Vandalism
Can some kind of moderator/admin remove this article? it is a joke and constantly being vandalised. Type 'Horeshoe theory' in search and investigate, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.255.133 (talk) 12:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- Vandalism is more a reason to protect the article rather than delete it. If you'd like it deleted, feel free to register an account and nominate it for AfD, or place your nomination statement on the talk page and another editor will create the AfD for you. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Brain Types Page Deletion
I started a page on a sports performance ideology called "brain types" a couple of years ago. Here is a link to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_types While starting the article seemed a decent idea at the time after having watched a sports program discussing brain types, the article proper has really only been a burden to the Wikipedia community, and has been nominated for deletion as some dispute whether or not it meets notability guidelines, NPOV, ethical standards, etc. I now request an admin remove it so we can end the disputes and problems the page has caused. If anyone could do this, it would be great. Regardless of what happens to it, though, it has made me lose interest in Wikipedia entirely, and make me feel as though I have been an ineffective contributor to the site, so I am leaving the site anyway whether or not the page stays. Do what you will with it - deletion preferably - but I am done. Khendra1984 (talk) 05:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the point of Template:afd3?
I mean, couldn't people just write (or copy and paste) {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NominationName}}
by hand? How would that be worse than writing {{subst:afd3 | pg=NominationName}}
? Yes, the latter are 16 fewer characters, but people would just copy and paste them, in both cases. --A. di M. (talk) 13:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- The number follows the three steps in the nomination process. It's for the sake of consistency. Dcoetzee 07:20, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Searching for deletion discussion
Hi I am searching for information on why the page on Burntollet was deleted. While placing a stub there I was suprised to see such a key moment in the civil rights movement had been deleted not once, but twice. I couldn't find the normal discussion page that contains opinions on whether/why/if to delete for either deletion. Does anyone know where to look? I was unable to find anything on browsing for a solution.--ZincBelief (talk) 14:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- The deletions (from 2005) were for copyright reasons: apparently the content of the articles then was copied from another source (website or book), which is not allowed on Wikipedia. A copyright deletion is unrelated to the actual subject of the article and should have no impact on later creations of the article. Fram (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for this info.--ZincBelief (talk) 14:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Quick note
As a quick note, I have just boldy created Template:AfDh and Template:AfDb in analogy to Template:Rfah resp. to Template:Rfab. I honestly believe this will be of use/help when closing (very) long debates, such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of common emoticons, where I have already used it. — Aitias // discussion 20:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- What are the purposes of these templates? Is the first for the same purpose as Template:Closing? --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah, exactly (both are). — Aitias // discussion 21:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
A rather more radical idea for AFD
Given that there's a sufficient amount of resistance against trying to change the scope of AFDeletion to AFDiscussion, I had another possible thought. What if AFDeletion was tightened up as to its purpose, while a separate process (Articles for Comment? AFC?) was created to handle other cases?
Specifically: AFD is to only be used when the article and its history should be completed deleted because the content or topic is not appropriate for WP - sort of the "slip through the CSD cracks" if you will - based on good faith assumptions from the nominator. This relegates it to things like copyvios, COI articles, and the like. But more importantly articles where notability is the primary reason for deletion should not be covered in AFD. AFD should still result in keeps, deletes, and possibly merges and redirects, but the last two possible actions should be used less frequently; AFD really needs to be more black-and-white and should only be reserved for cases where the edit history of the article really needs to be wiped if the article were to be deleted.
That brings us to the AFC process, which in terms of how it would go, should be similar to AFD. However, as with the previous AFDiscussion standpoint, AFC can include merges, issues with cleanup, and the like. More importantly, AFCs can have a longer timeline, on the order or 7 to 14 days (I think 10 would be good). While deletion may still be a possible outcome from AFCs, it should only be considered if there's no point in saving the edit history or the topic is not a valid search term, or the like. Most of what we've previously discussed could go on at the proposed AFDiscussion would be the same for AFC otherwise.
What this process changes emphasizes is that there are certain things like copyvios and other things that do need deletion and deletion in a quick manner but otherwise have been contested from CSD or PROD, or otherwise missed. That leaves AFD for that. But as most AFDs are presently used to challenge the notability of an article, a large number of times when the article is nominated for deletion, they really could be merged and redirected instead, nor is the presence of the article in the short term liable to hurt Wikipedia. Thus, AFC can be more relaxed (the longer time frame), and the results aimed at retention of data over deletion.
The only annoyance is that AFD and AFC would be very very similar process that could be confusing but I think with enough warning templates on both pages to make sure the submitting editor is at the right would help there. But AFCs should enjoy the same benefits that AFDs have with deletion sorting and the like. --MASEM 12:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- To some extent, this is why we have RFCs. On top of that, it's hard to force people to use a process on Wikipedia. Merges and redirects are common outcomes of AFDs, and I think it's healthy to promote those compromises rather than pigeon-holing things into delete/keep. I doubt we'd have much luck stopping people from !voting merge / redirect. Although I suppose we could re-train our admins, but to what end? Randomran (talk) 15:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- Although you present a novel idea, I think you would face protest for creating a new instruction creep, just as some of previous proposal received. The deal is how does a person decide where to go, AfD or AfC? I think the criterion of retention of history etc. is very subjective, where there would always be editors who won't agree on certain redirects and would believe that the article be simply deleted. In such cases we might have to devise a new vote in AfD where editors could suggest creating an AfC for article in question. The problem here would again be that people would complain on creation of an adjunct process when the existing process somehow, though poorly, is useful in solving the situation. LeaveSleaves 18:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
LeaveSleaves has it right. The two ideas cannot be separated, because the editors who review the nominations may find different things. Making it a straight Del/Keep, without options for merges, redirects, and so on, will make many, many people unhappy. AfD already functions, in part as an AfC situation, but with the weight of deletions behind it, which creates pressure to implement redemptive changes to articles, or flat out demonstrate failures in an article. AfC would, by definition, be a step before AfD, and would, almost certainly, be a repeating step before AfD. Bring to AfC, which has no consequences, then it gets minor cosmetic work, then sits fallow till it's AfD'd, involved editors then demand it should've been brought to AfC again ,because, after all, they DID make SOME of the changes the last AfC asked for. AfD gets closed to send to AfC again, lather, rinse, repeat. AfD works much more efficiently for such things, because the consequences are greater, and the time period generally is narrowly defined, though recently i've seen way too much relisting. ThuranX (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- Masem, I'm not sure that I understand your proposal. Let's say that the dry cleaners down the street decided to create an article on Wikipedia. It's not an awful abuse of Wikipedia, but the mom-and-pop storefront is simply not (ever) going to meet WP:CORP. So it gets taken off to WP:AFC as a non-notable outfit... and then what? And then it gets deleted anyway, so we've complicated the process with no practical benefit? Or then it gets kept in violation of WP:N and WP:CORP, so we've gutted the enforcement mechanism for a widely supported policy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- I like the idea of having a place to get attention drawn to an article and to suggest what needs improvement or whether it should be merged or redirected, even if the nominator does wish to delete it (which would be a bad-faith nom and speedy keep at AfD). I think RfC probably suffices here though. Dcoetzee 07:19, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
82.6% of articles put up for deletion are by new users
After a couple of months of compiling data, I finally finished the first section of my research: User:Ikip/AfD on average day, thanks to a dozen admins who gave me a copy of the deleted material. I found what many article squadron members already know, that our current deletion policy overwhelmingly affect new users:
- 31 out of 98 articles, nearly one third, which were put up for deletion were created by editors whose very first contributions was the new article.
- 66 out of 98 articles, 67%, which were put up for deletion were created by editors who had 100 contributions or less when they created the article.
- 81 out of 98 articles, 82.6%, which were put up for deletion were created by editors who had 1000 contributions or less when they created the article.
Any ideas how I can figure out if there is a definite link in the drop in editing since October 2007 to the treatment of new users? Ikip (talk) 05:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- Well, it won't really be easy. You would have to show somehow that without the deletion policy written as it was that the userbase would have grown. Otherwise you are stuck. The userbase of wikipedia could show a pattern of growth fitting a Logistic function (which is what is suspected). It could have been some other event (the Seigenthaler incident or the Essjay incident or anything else). Some other internal problem could have pushed users away. In order to dispense with those explanations you need to show both a causal link between deletion and users being discouraged or not signing up in the first place (probably not too hard) and show somehow that this is significant among elements impacting the size/growth of the userbase. The biggest thing to worry about is endogenous variables. For example, towns with stiffer penalties for speeding probably also have a police force that patrols for speeding more closely than towns with more minor penalties. As such, it would be improper to compare the rate of traffic violations in the two towns and conclude that stiffer penalties lead to reduced speeding. You would have to control for the increased enforcement. For wikipedia the argument may go that a culture of editors which brought about Notability may have driven away contributors as much as the deleting itself may have. So we couldn't just look at that decline and say "deletion created this", even if we could factor out other changes. Protonk (talk) 05:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, thank you Protonk, you are incredibly intelligent. I really appreciate you taking the time to write. I figured there was no way to pin the drop in editing on one factor. I just needed to here it from someone as eloquent as you are. Ikip (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- It's not that there is no way. Just that it is hard. Talk to User:Dragons flight. He runs a number of scripts gathering data on wikipedia for various reasons (he even has an old "votes in AfD" breakdown). The big glaring question is "what model best fits wikipedia's growth in area XYZ?" (be it users, edits, pages, and so forth) Once that is answered, the smaller questions of "the model predicts that wikipedia should be at 15,000 active users on July of whatever but we are at 10,000. Is this a significant difference? What may have caused it?" Here is a good (short) paper on general questions of growth. It is out of date (the data they use comes from the August 2006 dump) and newer studies will still be out of date because we haven't done a database dump since 2007 (I think). Protonk (talk) 06:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, thank you Protonk, you are incredibly intelligent. I really appreciate you taking the time to write. I figured there was no way to pin the drop in editing on one factor. I just needed to here it from someone as eloquent as you are. Ikip (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- This survey has alternate interpretations; I interpret it as being intuitive in that it reflects new editor's lack of understanding of our policies, and as they become more experienced less of their articles get nominated for deletion because they're more careful to follow policy. To support your argument, I think a far more basic question to answer would be whether editors whose articles are nominated for deletion quit significantly more frequently than those who don't, as established by some kind of statistical significance test. Dcoetzee 07:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- Assuming that 80% of all wikipedians have less than 1000 edits (a not-too-outlandish assumption), and 80% of the deleted articles are from editors with less than 1000 edits, then your numbers would indicate simple scalability, and the deletion policies wouldn't affect newbies any differently than established editors. – sgeureka t•c 09:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Alternatively, when WP was "wide open" and all the users were "new" the number of deletions was minimal, even though they would have been deleted in droves by the now old-timers. If they used the same criteria all through WP history, we might have a vastly different view. I do know, however, that some people seem to go out of their way to bite newcomers, usually because the newcomer brings a new view to the "owned" articles. And this undoubtedly causes a huge "door slammed on my foot" effect. Collect (talk) 11:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- FYI, I posted this message at: WP:VPP. It is facinating how both postings take a different path. Ikip (talk) 14:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
- Please refrain from multiposting - it fragments discussion. Dcoetzee 20:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Ikip, you really need to put those numbers in context. Right now, it's not much more useful than saying that breastfeeding might reduce the risk of leukemia in children -- without mentioning that even if it's true, you'd have to exclusively breastfeed four million babies to prevent a single case of childhood leukemia.
So: How does the experience level of the other Wikipedia editors compare with that of the people being sent to AfD? Do 80% of accounts also have fewer than 1000 edits? Were the newbie editors actually more likely to end up with a delete conclusion than the highly experienced editors? Looking things over, I don't see any evidence of that. The two most highly experienced editors both had their articles deleted or merged.
Did the AfD process actually change in (or shortly before) October 2007? (You can't blame October's decline in editors on December's change in process, after all.) Did something else change, like preventing newbie editors from starting articles? (This doesn't appear to be the current rule, but it might have been then.)
Also, I note that a remarkable number of those "less than 1000" editors are accurately described as "less than 350 edits." Perhaps there's a more natural way to present the limited information that you have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
- That is why I am here, to get clues on how to answer these questions:
- How does the experience level of the other Wikipedia editors compare with that of the people being sent to AfD? How can I answer this?
- Do 80% of accounts also have fewer than 1000 edits? How can I answer this?
- Did the AfD process actually change in (or shortly before) October 2007? (You can't blame October's decline in editors on December's change in process, after all.) That is what I am asking. Could there be a correlation? And how can I measure it. I have seen this argument before: Did something else change, like preventing newbie editors from starting articles? (This doesn't appear to be the current rule, but it might have been then.) There is a red link argument too.
- "less than 1000" editors are accurately described as "less than 350 edits." Perhaps there's a more natural way to present the limited information that you have. Good idea.
- Thanks for the good suggestions. Ikip (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Malformed AFD's
The following AFD's were malformed in some way and are still open long after they should have been closed:
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ernst Heinrich Landrock
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Queen of the Hours
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarus (language)
What should be done in these cases? relist them? ignore them? regards, ascidian | talk-to-me 18:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
- Interesting find. I will relist the two that are without (enough) !votes, maybe all three... SoWhy 19:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
- Done. Okay, relisted all three of them. The second one had some discussion, I wonder where that came from. That one looked like a try at DRV but I didn't want to reopen it there, so I decided to let it stay at AFD. Regards SoWhy 19:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response/action. ascidian | talk-to-me 20:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
- Done. Okay, relisted all three of them. The second one had some discussion, I wonder where that came from. That one looked like a try at DRV but I didn't want to reopen it there, so I decided to let it stay at AFD. Regards SoWhy 19:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
A note about the process documentation
After placing the template on the article page itself, the editor should hit Preview to get the redlink to the AfD entry, click on it, perform step two (including saving the AfD) and then go back to the article and save. Because the template is substed, the redlink to the AfD discussion will still be unresolved unless the article page is saved again, which generates another (unnecessary) revision. Noes? Just a thought. §FreeRangeFrog 17:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds very complicated. I could take this opportunity to point out again that the complexity of this whole process is totally unnecessary and we only do it because we (or rather a few regulars) have got used to doing it, but it won't do any good because everyone loves bureaucracy (sigh) --Kotniski (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed. But I think most AfD nominations are made using tools like Twinkle, which automates the process completely. I ended up following the instructions only after TW stopped working recently and I had to do it manually for the first time :) §FreeRangeFrog 00:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Simple solution to competing guidelines
I know that this has been discussed before but after reading a current AFD (I won't link it because this is not really about it) where an editor argued that the general notability guidelines didn't matter because the article fails "some other guideline", I make this proposal...
Apply whatever guideline that lets us keep the article.
I realize that there occasionally might be circumstances that would call for an exception to this but when evaluating an article for possible deletion, we should be looking for reasons to keep it and only prod/afd it if none can be found. Furthermore, it would eliminate a lot of wikilawyering over competing guidelines in AFDs. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
- GNG are only guidelines which means that each individual AFD has some flexibility in deciding the way that the articles will be dealt with. I have always been anxious about some stuff eg ATHLETE precluding against an article on a subject with multiple reliable sources but BLP1E and ONUS also require there to be sufficient sources to write a balanced article rather then a permanent stub. This tension is why we have the problem and since BLP is our most important consideration when we write bio articles I'm nervous about a blanket prohibition to keep. That said I am unimpressed by subguidelines that seek to overrule the GNG but, particularly with BLPs, we need a much more nuanced approach to this problem then this proposal offers. Spartaz Humbug! 17:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
- I see your point. A "guideline" shouldn't overrule WP:BLP which is "policy". What I was referring to are cases of "battling guidelines" such as WP:GNG vs WP:NFF or WP:GNG vs WP:ATHLETE (barring any other BLP issues). --Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I'll go ahead and link the AFD that prompted this idea. It's this one and the comment that concerned me was Whether this meets the GNG or not is besides the point; per the basic principles of WP:NFF, a few comments in the media about a film which may or may not go into production is not something tangible enough to warrant it's own article. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
multiple articles
I have found a handful of articles that are about the same type of software that I want to list for deletion. Do I need to list each as their own or is there a way to list them all in one. 16x9 (talk) 17:50, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:AFD#How_to_list_multiple_related_pages_for_deletion. Make sure you pay attention to the examples of articles which are a good idea to bundle together. If in doubt, list them separately. HTH!--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Speedy close nominations
I see this again and again, editors put up articles for deletion for the wrong reason. Take for example:
- Mr. President (title) the nominator stated:
- "Completely and totally unreferenced for over a year. Claims of original research unaddressed for over a year."
- In twenty minutes I found abundant sources and added 8 references. If I hadn't added those sources this bad nomination would have succeed, and the article would have been deleted, because no editor made any effort to fix the article.
I think that we should write into the existing rules here that:
- 1. if an editor puts the article up for deletion citing only that the article is:
- a. Unreferenced,
- b. contains original research...and there are no BLP, Copyright, notability issues in the nomination, (list can be expanded)
- 2. and editors rewrite the article adding references, showing that the original research and referenced,
- 4. then an administrator can immediately close the nomination, because the reason for deletion is moot.
Again, this would only be in limited circumstances, were the nomination complains that the article lacks sources or is full of original sources.
Ikip (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
- Support Administrative immediate close of bad nominations. No waffling... just a simple note to the nom that policy has not been followed and a quick close of the bad AfD. The rules and essays shared above show the specific policies and guidelines far too often ignored without consequences. And conversely, there are no policies or guidelines supporting the validation of a bad nomination. Allowing a bad nom to remain up for AfD awards such sloppy practices and encourages more of the same. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 07:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Support But this is going to need a wider audience than just those who watch the talk page. First time someone does this to one of a group of editors who doesn't feel it's their obligation to improve things (and there are more than a few), there will be a howl. Jclemens (talk) 08:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose This has been rejected before, in various forms. It is instruction creep, needlessly complicated and provocative.
- First the CREEP: WP:BEFORE isn't mandated for a reason. We have no way of knowing whether or not a nominator has completed all of the steps. Sure, there are the cases where someone sees something at NPP, speedies it, has the speedy declined, then takes it to AfD. In those cases, we can make a reasonable assumption that they haven't given an article some time w/ {{nn}} on it or "attempted to improve" the article. But even in that case, they may have made a good faith effort to search for sources and come up empty (many of the sources noted on the AfD are related to the organization). In less obvious cases, we have no idea. Should we require editors to rearrange deck chairs on the titanic for truly inappropriate articles? There is no meaningful way to verify that and we run the risk of messing up to many good nominations in order to provide some deterministic rule for the bad ones.
- Second, it is needlessly complicated. While I support the push to remove "delete, unreferenced" from the lexicon (too many people misunderstand notability to mean "has sources in the article" rather than "the subject has coverage in sources"), this is totally unrelated to an article comprised of original research. An article comprised of original research need not be unreferenced and an unreferenced article need not (though this is more common) be wholly original research (sources could just have not been cited, rather than not used--arguably we can't tell the difference sometimes, but that is another discussion). Why are both on this list of conditions? And what purpose does 3 serve? Rewriting the article is often a helpful outcome at AfD, but it isn't the purpose. In an ideal world, simply noting that references exist should cause editors (and usually does) to disagree w/ the nom and vote keep. Obviously, some people are of the opinion that the state of the article should matter in a run of the mill nomination (I firmly believe that people are swayed heavily by formatting errors, typos, etc. But that is just human nature), but the deletion policy should not be rewritten to make that policy.
- Third, it is provocative. Why does an admin close it as a "Bad" nomination? Why is there the immediate "because the nominator could not make the effort..."? Speedy keep used to be used only for bad faith nominations, but that has since changed as we find reasons to foreclose debate early without accusing the nominator of bad faith (or in this case, merely incompetence?). This policy shouldn't return us to that point. Do we brand the principal authors of a deleted page "bad editors" because they made an article which didn't meet the inclusion policies? No. This is distinct from having social norms about improper nominations. We should (and do) discourage repeat shoddy nominations. I think you will find that admin candidates with a spotty record of AfD noms do poorly more often than those with records of thoughtful and careful nominations. Likewise editors who make particularly egregious errors are usually corrected on their talk page or the AfD page. We don't need to mandate that AfD closes mark the nominator as "lazy."
I'll make another post with past discussions related to this. Protonk (talk) 08:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_48#WP:BEFORE, Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_48#Searching_before_nominating, Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_45#Proposal:_Speedy-keep_mechanism_for_bad_content.2Fnotability_articles_that_lack_requests_for_improvement. There are others at WT:SK, WT:DEL, and so on. Consensus can change, and the rejection of ideas like this was hardly unanimous, but those were the ones I found (I remember a few more, but I can't find them now). Protonk (talk) 08:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- I rewrote the proposal. I removed the term "closing as a bad nomination" which will avoid combativeness. Clarifying current policy is not WP:CREEP, there will be no new policy pages, just a clarifying of what should and should not be put up for deletion.
- Everyone of these discussions editors bring up WP:CREEP, I have too, and for good reason, WP:CREEP, along with WP:BURO is an effective, simple argument which sways other editors. No one wants to be seen as supporting more bureaucracy. But this WP:CREEP argument ignores the extensive WP:CREEP which led to the discussion in the first place. I see editors not necessarily arguing WP:CREEP as much as they are arguing, "There is no problem which warrants us fixing this, we prefer the status quo," and so nothing is changed.
- I think there is some major misunderstanding about what I am proposing here, and for that I apologize, because I was not clear enough. I am not proposing to force editors who put up an article for deletion to follow WP:BEFORE, that is the reason I have number 2 (previously 3), after the nomination "editors rewrite the article adding references", only after editors show that the article is not OR and is not unreferenced, an administrator can close the nomination. Ikip (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- I definitely see the issue and sympathize that there is a problem, but I'm swayed by the need to avoid instruction creep and avoid writing policies and guidelines that encourage people to be combative. If an AfD nomination, or anything else on Wikipedia, is truly ridiculous, you can do anything you want speedily per WP:IAR. If the person is truly out of bounds but sincere and in good faith, just be patient and have a word with them in a polite, supportive way rather than relying on bureaucratic process. If they're an out of control editor or acting in bad faith there's a different pathway for dealing with that. If you're within bounds nobody is going to object to your speedy close or simply reverting a ridiculous AfD nomination. If your IAR-ing tendentiously people will call you on it. I would hate to enshrine any of this as a policy or guideline, it's just an "apply common sense" kind of thing. Wikidemon (talk) 09:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose. People should still judge whether the added source(s) are adequate (reliable, independent, and really about the subject at hand). By your rule, would you have speedy closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Parallels in the Teachings of Christ and Buddha as a bad nomination? Fram (talk) 09:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Since I can't see the article, I don't know. But if editors were able to find good references for the article, which I assume they were not, the OR argument would be moot. Ikip (talk) 09:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- The first keep argument gave a source. It is not up to an admin to decide on his own that it is a good or bad source, and to close the AfD accordingly. More people should have a look at the rewritten article and the source(s) used to decide if it is sufficient or not. Fram (talk) 10:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Since I can't see the article, I don't know. But if editors were able to find good references for the article, which I assume they were not, the OR argument would be moot. Ikip (talk) 09:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose the on-going attempts by the partisan ARS (who now have the gall to proclaim they are saving wikipedia from the rest of us) to slant the project to their liking, so most certainly oppose this. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)