→"Having to" defend articles against deletion: who are you talking to? I already agree with all of that. |
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:'''Editors are not improving articles by putting them for deletion.''' Editors are causing unnecessary drama when they could work collaboratively with the creator and other editors to come to an amicable decision. Many Articles for Deletion could be compared to me holding a gun to someones head and stopping them from eating. Then that person loses weight, and then I smugly pat myself on the back. For anyone to take credit for fixing an article by putting it up for deletion is personally repulsive to me. |
:'''Editors are not improving articles by putting them for deletion.''' Editors are causing unnecessary drama when they could work collaboratively with the creator and other editors to come to an amicable decision. Many Articles for Deletion could be compared to me holding a gun to someones head and stopping them from eating. Then that person loses weight, and then I smugly pat myself on the back. For anyone to take credit for fixing an article by putting it up for deletion is personally repulsive to me. |
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:By editors refusing to mandate [[WP:BEFORE]] and [[WP:PRESERVE]], Article for Deletions by there very nature are confrontational. The very first edit to an article that the vast majority of editors who nominate articles for deletion is the AFD tag. The majority, over 60%, of all articles put up for deletion are by new editors. '''We could avoid the drama of an AFD by simply userfying articles in the first place''' This proposal was made by me before here, and it was soundly defeated. [[User:Ikip|Ikip]] ([[User talk:Ikip|talk]]) 13:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC) |
:By editors refusing to mandate [[WP:BEFORE]] and [[WP:PRESERVE]], Article for Deletions by there very nature are confrontational. The very first edit to an article that the vast majority of editors who nominate articles for deletion is the AFD tag. The majority, over 60%, of all articles put up for deletion are by new editors. '''We could avoid the drama of an AFD by simply userfying articles in the first place''' This proposal was made by me before here, and it was soundly defeated. [[User:Ikip|Ikip]] ([[User talk:Ikip|talk]]) 13:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC) |
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::So.... how are you saying I can make available the service I'm offering? <p> I don't disagree with anything you say here. I'm simply saying that, during the week of AFD, those who would save an article are '''wasting their time arguing with deletionists who will not be convinced''' by arguments. '''AFD does not stop anyone from editing''', unless they believe that the article is somehow locked while up for discussion. It's not. <p> What I'm offering is to '''undelete articles for those who would improve them'''. Are you against this offer? I understand that you're frustrated, but I don't see how your post is a reply to what I actually said. We can both use bold text, see, but can you respond to the content I'm presenting? -[[User:GTBacchus|GTBacchus]]<sup>([[User talk:GTBacchus|talk]])</sup> 13:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC) |
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Upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline?
A suggestion that would, perhaps, help reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures and improve the signal-to-noise ratio at AfD?—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- Do you mean it would reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures by switching them to procedural speedy closures? Seems CREEPy to me; individual nominators would be expected to essentially provide proof of their compliance with WP:BEFORE, and guidelines for evaluating such proof would be difficult to define at best. I just don't think this is what guidelines are intended to do- policies and guidelines are intended to be descriptive. I personally strongly believe in providing a detailed description of my research when making a nomination, and would encourage all editors to do so as well. If this becomes a trend (i.e., a large percentage of nominations give proof of WP:BEFORE compliance), then we can talk about guideline status. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm, the WP:CREEP thing is a very good point.
The result I want is more compliance with WP:BEFORE from nominators. I think that more compliance would lead to fewer bad nominations and hence fewer speedy closes (whether under WP:SNOW or speedy). But it's a question of how to achieve it.
The eventual destination I propose is a new WP:SK ground: "There is evidence the nominator has not complied with WP:BEFORE" but I don't think we can get there without upgrading WP:BEFORE to guideline or policy status.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 23:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- I think you're absolutely right, that for a new speedy keep criterion, you'd probably want WP:BEFORE to be a guideline or better. The problem I see is evaluating compliance with the "good-faith attempt" to find sources; not only is there the issue of whether the nominator shows sufficient research, but you also have to define "sufficient research", preferably in an objective manner, to keep evaluating such compliance as quick as possible for reviewing admins. Plus, I believe someone made a point in an earlier discussion on something like this, that requiring such proof constitutes an assumption of bad faith in itself.
- Now, what I would consider appropriate is to define serial failure to follow WP:BEFORE (as evidenced by a large number of speedily- or WP:SNOW-kept nominations on the part of an editor) as disruptive editing, and furthermore, loosely permit the "education" of users who don't do a good job of complying with WP:BEFORE. I don't mean browbeating or harassing such users, of course, but I do mean ensuring that such users understand that the Wikipedia community strongly encourages providing evidence of such compliance. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- Hmm, the WP:CREEP thing is a very good point.
- As I've commented before, the devil is in the details. (For the record, I'm strongly in favor of WP:BEFORE.) How do we define compliance with WP:BEFORE? Make it mandatory to say "I did a search?" Make it mandatory to add a link to a search? (Links to searches, unless there are fewer than a dozen hits, are rarely useful). And how widespread of a problem is this really? If it's only a few editors, deal with the editor. If it's widespread, then we need to really put our thinking caps on to make sure this will really solve the problem.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- No, I think that's too strong. I think the starting point has to be an assumption of good faith that nominators have complied. It follows that all that's left is some kind of negative consequence when there's evidence of non-compliance, e.g. speedy closure of the debate. But baby steps... first thing would be to seek consensus to upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline. Without requiring evidence of compliance from nominators, of course.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- I'm having a hard time thinking of what would be evidence of non-compliance. Speedy closure alone wouldn't be, because someone can easily f-up their search without meaning to. Could you give me an example?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- If I may... Multiple occurrences of AfD nominations, by the same nominator, where people provide details of decent sources located through a quick Google search on the article title/opening words (there are other search tools of course). Those would serve as evidence, for a reasonable belief the nominator is not practicing due diligence in nominating articles. (By contrast, something like alternative titles for a 'foreign-language' film could reasonably cause a nominator to miss possible sources.) –Whitehorse1 00:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- I'm having a hard time thinking of what would be evidence of non-compliance. Speedy closure alone wouldn't be, because someone can easily f-up their search without meaning to. Could you give me an example?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- No, I think that's too strong. I think the starting point has to be an assumption of good faith that nominators have complied. It follows that all that's left is some kind of negative consequence when there's evidence of non-compliance, e.g. speedy closure of the debate. But baby steps... first thing would be to seek consensus to upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline. Without requiring evidence of compliance from nominators, of course.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Common sense support. Excellent idea, becasue many articles that are kept or rescued could have been improved through regular editing. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 00:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Question: It's already a set of instructions on the Articles for Deletion page, will adding the "guideline" banner to those instructions have a positive benefit? Nominators should already follow the instructive‑guidelines for the process area in which they participate. –Whitehorse1 00:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Support While I support minimizing policy creep I think some improvements can be made to the afd process, upgrading WP:BEFORE is a good initiative. Considering that just about every participant is (hopefully) going to do a search on google and scholar.google I think it would be nice if the nominator would have the courtesy to link to those searches. Not as 'proof' but as a simple timesaving device for those involved. Sometimes ghits are ambiguous and do not constitute notability but that is what the discussion itself is for, no? Unomi (talk) 00:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Solution in search of a problem. If someone nominates an article that has sources, people find the sources, add them to the article, and the article is kept. Google searches in particular are rather useless as a form of pre-vetting as I've seen Keep comments that say "one of those sources must be reliable" and delete comments saying "it isn't on Google". The key is finding specific sources on the article that are reliable. Further, we just expanded AFD to 7 days on the basis of infrequent editors coming along to add sources, so adding a new reason why we can violate the rule we just created seems a bit odd.
- Finally, it is too vague. SK 9and the other deletion guidelines) are for unambiguous situations. Would we really speedy close an AFD because a person neglected to put
{{advert}}
on the article (pt. 3 of BEFORE) or because it was a non-controversial deletion, but the person prefers AFD to PROD to get more input (pt. 11). If the concern is people being too lazy to copy/paste to Google, then we can easily add links to Google Scholar, Google Books, etc from the AFD page so anyone can click on them and document sources or confirm that it appears there are none. MBisanz talk 01:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- You want to make a section of a page a guideline? Why? Not sure what's going on here. I do think it would be incredibly awkward to have a guideline stuck in the middle of a page. And I think that we need to encourage fewer multi-day-long discussions for obvious deletion candidates. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose AfD is not a court system, this is going to lead to 'throwing out' or badgering AfDs that don't follow the 'guideline'. No. I've had many articles deleted with a one sentence nomination and a 10 second google (the answer here would be PROD, except we have people who go through the PROD category and force AfDs, making it a tad pointless). You aren't going to get me to follow this for obvious cases, not sure why you expect newcomers to. You don't even present the problem you're attempting to solve; how is a few people voting speedy keep any different from a SNOW close after 4 keeps? BJTalk 01:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Nope. Per my reasoning the last few times this has been suggested. Protonk (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Hell no.. Yet another Inclusionist hoop to jump through, providing a guaranteed 'bad faith' excuse to void any nom by asserting more loudly than the nom can refute that the nom didn't do enough due diligence in BEFORE. ThuranX (talk) 02:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose. I was going to add some comments, but MBisanz has beaten me to everything I wanted to say—particularly the part about linking to unanalyzed Google search results, which is becoming a bane of many AfD discussions. Deor (talk) 03:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Support Why should any deletionist mind saying "I searched and didn't find anything"? If you look at WP:SCISSORS the concept is explicitly referenced there. So if inclusionists and deletionists agree in principle, why can't we find a way to word it appropriately? As long as it doesn't modify PROD or CSD, I'm good with it. Jclemens (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- While I agree, it would be great if a simple statement of "I searched for sources but didn't find any" would be great, I doubt it would satisfy a great many people- despite WP:AGF. If a simple statement is all that's needed, it becomes a shibboleth to people unfamiliar with the process, and there's genuinely no way for reviewers of the AfD to confirm this search. But if the nominator needs to validate that claim... then we have WP:CREEP and need to somehow define what qualifies as an appropriate search. Like Fabrictramp said above- the devil's in the details. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 10:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- I can't speak to others' desires, only to my own. If someone says they conducted a good faith effort to find sources, they're asserting a fact that can be checked. If I found a nominator who said they searched for sources and found none, and there was either gross incompetence or outright falsehood, that would be at least grounds for closing the AfD as disruptive editing: we need to be able to rely on editors to report such things honestly--perspectives differ, but if the nom says "Google found nothing" and I repeat the search and find tons of major newspaper hits, then that AfD has been opened using a grossly innacurate premise. Jclemens (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- While I agree, it would be great if a simple statement of "I searched for sources but didn't find any" would be great, I doubt it would satisfy a great many people- despite WP:AGF. If a simple statement is all that's needed, it becomes a shibboleth to people unfamiliar with the process, and there's genuinely no way for reviewers of the AfD to confirm this search. But if the nominator needs to validate that claim... then we have WP:CREEP and need to somehow define what qualifies as an appropriate search. Like Fabrictramp said above- the devil's in the details. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 10:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Comment I think it's a useless endeavour, because compliance with it is nearly impossible to demonstrate. I'm tempted to support it just for the sheer joy of watching the waves of hypocrisy: those same editors that spend all their time arguing that WP:N doesn't have to be followed because it's "only a guideline" will spend their next breath screaming that WP:BEFORE has to be followed because it's a guideline!.—Kww(talk) 04:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Yes, BEFORE should be a good faith part of the process, and to just nominate an article without even bothering to check can be bitey, but unless we change WP:V's line that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material", this would be in direct conflict with established policy. If a editor is nominating tons of AFDs that do seem to easily pass a quick google test, that's cause for an RFC/U. --MASEM (t) 04:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Previous discussions (reverse chronological order): WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 51#Speedy close nominations, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#WP:BEFORE, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Searching before nominating Flatscan (talk) 05:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose For the many good reasons presented. Verbal chat 10:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- support I've seen AfDs with overwhelming "delete" majorities yet where evidence of notability was easy to find - no-one had bothered to look, and in one case I suspect no-one had any intention of looking, because that AfD looked to me like harassment as part of a personal feud. WP:V's "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" is not the only relevant policy, as WP:DELETE says improvement is always preferable to deletion. Reversing a dubious "keep" result is easy enough, just re-AfD in 6 months (BTW earlier to-day I !voted "merge & redirect" in a re-run of a Dec 2008 AfD), while reversing a dubious delete looks much more difficult - do AfDs closed as other than "keep" have to show a prominent link at the top to WP:DRV? RFC/U (MASEM 04:19, 12 May 2009) is not an adequate remedy for accidental or malicious misuse of AfD, as it's too slow and toothless. Making it hard to prevent improper deletion will add to the hassle in the short term, but will then take the bitterness out of AfD when it becomes clear that the process is fair. --Philcha (talk)
- Neutral comment: I don't think it's a bad idea, because everyone definitely should check to see if an article can be fixed before they nominate it for deletion. But the real problem isn't the strength of the wording of WP:BEFORE, but how we tell if someone isn't doing it. Really, we should be dealing with this by judging someone's results. If people frequently start AFDs that end in "keep", that might be a sign they don't really care about article quality, and just want to stamp stuff out. Randomran (talk) 16:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Hell no - I've had many, many cases of where editors accused me of not following WP:BEFORE when all it was was that they dug up some nonsense blogs and trivial offhanded mentions in local papers and republished press releases and insisted that the topic was obviously notable and blah blah blah. Saying that it's a requirement would just be another verbal club for the rabid anti-deletionists to try to excuse keeping every last bit of nonsense they can come up with a half-hearted wildly inappropriate rationalization for. From the AFDs I've seen there are for too many keeps that have no reason to be kept, and no consensus defaults to keep in practice, so adding yet more reasons to keep bad content is the last thing we need. Wikipedia articles need to demonstrate notability on their own. If someone can claim that people should try to get sources before nominating something for deletion, we can just as easily say people should have made sure reliable, nontrivial third party sources giving some info that would demonstrate why anyone would care should be found before the article was made in the first place. That's where it should be. On top of that, it's difficult to prove a negative... notability is always going to have to be proven, not that something isn't notable. That's just the only way things can work, short of banning any editor who participates in an AFD making claims that sources meet notability standards when they clearly don't from ever participating in AFDs again. Keep voters should have to prove it, period, and if they can't then it deserves to get deleted. DreamGuy (talk) 16:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Clarification Needed Are you saying you followed BEFORE but didn't mention it, didn't bother following BEFORE and it wasn't relevant or necessary to do so in those cases, or that you did follow BEFORE and said as much but were accused of not doing so based on flimsy, potentially bad faith evidence? Jclemens (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Typically it's some aggressive editor claiming that I "violated" BEFORE and therefore should be ignored because he found some personal blog or press release that he's going to pretend is a reliable source and how horrible it is that someone could dare to nominate something for deletion when there's some personal website or whatever out there mentioning this person in a trivial way. And so forth and so on. WP:BEFORE is already the latest attack club by people who can't come up with any real complaints. DreamGuy (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- Clarification Needed Are you saying you followed BEFORE but didn't mention it, didn't bother following BEFORE and it wasn't relevant or necessary to do so in those cases, or that you did follow BEFORE and said as much but were accused of not doing so based on flimsy, potentially bad faith evidence? Jclemens (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Break
I closed this, because it was obvious to me that Wikipedians are unwilling to accept that any burden of proof whatsoever should fall on the nominator. After reading the remarks above I'm extremely cynical about the prospects of requiring nominators to do any real searching for sourcing.
My position remains that a lot of articles are only at AfD because sourcing material is hard and remarks above show that certain editors think they should be able to get other people to search for sources instead. But I do not believe a discussion here can change this, because too many editors are very comfortable with AfD as it is.
However, representations on my talk page are asking me to re-open it, so as a politeness, I'm doing so.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 07:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but this isn't the first time this has been suggested or debated and there are more issues at stake than the binary determination of whether or not we wish the burden of proof to fall on a nominator. Elevating before to a guideline or enacting some parallel policy which has the same effect impacts not only the intended targets, editors who make sloppy AfD noms, but also impacts any other AfD nominator in a fashion that we haven't sketched out here completely. It also affects editors who undertake a sub-par search for a topic (because they don't know anything about it). It affects editors who don't nominate articles for lack of sources (beyond the narrow exceptions noted above). It provides yet another site of conflict where editors can argue with each other at AfD about their behavior, not the article. It provides potentially another "tripwire" early close scenario which ends up at DRV or re-nominated. That said, the idea isn't bad. People who consistently back uninformed or underinformed AfD nominations should face some pushback. I'm happy to engage with people over a possible solution to that problem but I don't want to pick a solution that burdens everyone else unless we are completely sure it is the best option. Protonk (talk) 07:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it makes more work for nominators. It unequivocally shifts the burden of work and proof; it requires a higher standard of behaviour from nominators. That's the point.
I do nominate articles at AfD from time to time, and I'm willing to accept some additional hoops to jump through. I see this as acceptable collateral damage from a needed change.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 07:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that shifting the burden of proof (as it were) is among the things that it does. What I'm trying to say is that the other things it does are also worth discussing, so distilling this idea to just a discussion of where wikipedians feel a burden should lie is not accurate. Protonk (talk) 08:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it makes more work for nominators. It unequivocally shifts the burden of work and proof; it requires a higher standard of behaviour from nominators. That's the point.
This supports my view so perfectly that I should probably declare here that I did not in any way engineer it.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- support the principle, and work out the details. Even now if there is an incomplete or botched nomination, someone straightens it out. Protonk, this unfairly burdens nobody. Everyone should be doing it in the first place. It's not punishing them--its asking them to either help the article get rescued or else facilitate the deletion. My prediction is that a good many of the times a proper search being done, and finding nothing relevant, will make for an easier agreement to delete, without people having to vote to keep or delete blindly or themselves search every item nominated. We're balancing the work one person does for one article with helping everyone else for them all. It will prevent things from getting to DRV, because we'll have better discussions at afd. I delete maybe 10 or 20 articles a day, and I check each one of them if there is any chance there might be information or a check would be relevant. Someone nominating a few articles a week can check them. Its a reasonable requirement. DGG (talk) 04:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Unfair burdens is one of the arguments for this. (Fixed it for me)...—S Marshall Talk/Cont 14:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Comment WP:BEFORE is already policy in that it forms a clear part of the deletion process. To make this clear, I suggest that we take some editors who make a habit of flouting it to Arbcom and get appropriate sanctions levied. This is already in my mind as its becoming a farce to have articles nominated when a search immediately reveals thousands of sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- I think from the discussion above, it's clear that it isn't even remotely accepted as policy.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that there are editors who do not follow it, just as there are numerous editors who are routinely uncivil and do not accept they they should be more polite. This does not mean that it is ok to deliberately ignore it and it is time to start enforcement per WP:DISRUPT. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- Please see WP:KETTLE for the claims that people should be more polite (as you're one of the most uncivil AFD voters I've seen). And "enforcement per WP:DISRUPT" is just a joke. You already make more than enough highly aggressive and false accusations as it is without publicly stating your intention here to escalate such uncivil behavior. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a personal battleground. You need respect editors in AFDs more, not less, and what you are suggesting is just wikihounding every time you disagree with someone. DreamGuy (talk) 21:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- Excellent - we have a volunteer. I shall explain the process in detail this weekend. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- Based upon your recent post to my talk page all you've done is demonstrate exactly why you are a poor judge of what WP:BEFORE means and what counts as actual sources demonstrating notability and that you're willing to post comments on talk pages insisting people follow rules you've invented up in your head. If you keep this up all you're going to end up doing is get yourself blocked for harassment. DreamGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
- Excellent - we have a volunteer. I shall explain the process in detail this weekend. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- So it is ok to treat people who violate BEFORE as disruptive but not people who violate N or NOT? Protonk (talk) 21:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
- Please see WP:KETTLE for the claims that people should be more polite (as you're one of the most uncivil AFD voters I've seen). And "enforcement per WP:DISRUPT" is just a joke. You already make more than enough highly aggressive and false accusations as it is without publicly stating your intention here to escalate such uncivil behavior. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a personal battleground. You need respect editors in AFDs more, not less, and what you are suggesting is just wikihounding every time you disagree with someone. DreamGuy (talk) 21:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that there are editors who do not follow it, just as there are numerous editors who are routinely uncivil and do not accept they they should be more polite. This does not mean that it is ok to deliberately ignore it and it is time to start enforcement per WP:DISRUPT. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
- I think from the discussion above, it's clear that it isn't even remotely accepted as policy.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
support per DGG. Ikip (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)Already voted Verbal chat 08:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)- Oppose I have not seen where this would help the encyclopedia, and I have seenw ehre it can harm it. This is Rulescreep For Wikilawyers, and I for one am not interested in Yet Another Stick to Beat People I Disagree With being made a guideline, thanks. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose First, I haven't seen where AfD is occurng flippantly. I think the Good Faith guideline outweighs the need for a WP:Before. If someone is actually doing an AfD nominaiton because of an agenda, or has an axe to grind there are avenues at Wikipedia, where concsesus decides. No article is lost and can be resurrected if the AfD is shown to be in bad faith. Second, I think that it is good to question the notability of an article if it is in doubt, and AfD is a way to do that. AfD itself, as we all know, is a process of consensus. It takes a number of days and consensus is developed, one way or the other. AfD is not swooping in and deleting the article in a day or an hour. Even a Wikipedia Speedy deletion can be held up until consesus is taken. It seems to me there are many avenues open already and an effective process is in place. I think that the burden of proof should fall on those opposing the nomination (and I don't like saying that). And I have to agree with those who said that this is just one more way for the nominator to have to take heat. Anyway, this is from my limited experience here. Ti-30X (talk) 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- For a recent example, see the case of User:Tyrenon who was banned from AFD for spamming AFD with numerous frivolous nominations. This case demonstrates that the guideline is already operative - if an editor tries the community's patience then they are likely to be sanctioned. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose this promotion would effectively render a core content policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence, meaningless and unenforcable. As explained above, this proposal is also an open invitation for violating Wikipedia:Assume good faith. --Allen3 talk 14:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- WP:BURDEN is consistent with WP:BEFORE as it states, "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors might object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references, and it has always been good practice, and expected behavior of Wikipedia editors (in line with our editing policy), to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them.". Failure to follow WP:BEFORE in this respect is therefore a failure to follow policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose The proposed guideline is exceedingly vague indeed -- including having to make a specific judgement on whether the topic might "potentially" rate an article. Alas -- WP:CRYSTAL applies -- the requirement I think is relevant is notification of the primary author if still active on WP. Which is not in this proposal <g>. Collect (talk) 15:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose as unnecessary, as Rulescreep and per User:Allen3 above. Dougweller (talk) 16:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose WP:BEFORE is a good idea, and in an ideal world would be followed by all participants in an AfD - not just the nominator. In this ideal world nobody would comment or !vote without thoroughly checking the sources. However, this is a project staffed by volunteers who learn by doing things, necessarily making errors along the way, and it doesn't need any more sticks to beat inexperienced, inept or mistaken editors. pablohablo. 19:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose just a stick to hit nominators over the head with. It would just generate pages of discussion about the research of the nominators, no thanks. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose. As I've said elsewhere, I believe that we are gradually getting away from the idea that the author has any responsibility at all to even try to source an article, which I believe is the opposite thing we should be doing. Further, my experience has been many times that it's not the lack of a search that becomes the issue, it is a debate over whether or not what is found establishes notability. Whether you find the articles or I find them, if we disgree about whether they establish notability or not, we're going to debate. And yes, as was stated above, I believe this to be little more than an inclusionist hoop, that hopes to slow the process down more. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose. The article creator and editors should properly source an article. However, I do believe that the closing admin should evaluate whether anyone has tried to find sources during the AfD debate. I believe that most do take this into account when summarizing the discussion. If no improvemnets are made after a keep decision, the artcile can be renominated and teh afct that no proper sourcing has been done would then become a significant factor in the deabte. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:42, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
- Absolutely support. The many opposes here seem to be detached from from the real world of AfD, where nominators routinely do not even care to indicate whether they have searched for sources or not. They just drop a "NN-neologism" or "NN-something". Asking AfD nominators to carry out a basic search for sources, before they claim that no such sources exist has nothing to do with a BURDEN, it's a simple courtesy, before they pass the monkey to other uninvolved editors. It will also reduce the strain on the already over-burdened AfD circuit. Expert content providers on Wikipedia are rare birds, and we cannot expect them to produce first class and properly sourced articles in the first go. They dont monitor Wikipedia religiously, and are unlikely even to respond within the 7-day AfD window. I'm particularly disappointed by MBisanz' comment "If someone nominates an article that has sources, people find the sources, add them to the article, and the article is kept". Afd is not for article improvement, and why should "people" and not the nominator do some of this work. It's conflicting with WP:PRESERVE, which is also policy. It appears that the opposers have seen many bad articles, I have seen a lot of terrible nominations. Power.corrupts (talk) 01:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Your comment shows an incredible disrespect for the other editors commenting here, and a completely ignorant dismissal of their concerns. Where will the benchmark be set for an acceptable pre-nom search? YOUR search $tring and mine may differ. Four combinations? eight? At what point do we accept that some shit on WIkipedia is just bullshit, and not obscure shit? Nothing would get nom'd as that creeps up and up... soon it'll be 'well if google got nothing, did you Bing it? did you go to the library? Did you call the company listed?' Further, it's obnoxious instruction creep. Why should we have to do all the work for those who won't do it themselves? ThuranX (talk) 05:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- "Why should we have to do all the work for those who won't do it themselves?". Why should I have to pick up the pieces behind nominators in order to stop articles on perfectly notable subjects being deleted? Those who nominate an article should make a decent effort to check if the topic is notable; failing to do so is plain lazy, and passing the buck. Deletionists can and should improve articles too, rather than just being the self-appointed filters of Wikipedia. Following WP:BEFORE is no hardship, unless your only goal is indiscriminate deletion. Fences&Windows 02:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- Mild oppose The editors whose articles are most often seen at AfD are newbies, whom we must not turn away (some of them will be WP's future), and victims of harassment (I've seen it, and saved an article that had a 7-1 majority for "delete"). However as Colonel Warden pointed out above, WP:BEFORE is already part of the procedure for AfD. I suggest we we have some sort of template that's applied (automatically if possible) to all AfDs, reminding nominators, other "delete / merge / redirect" voters and the closer that a good faith attempt to find sources that show notability is required, and that violation will have consequences. --Philcha (talk) 07:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
- Inclined to support. What is the status of WP:BEFORE right now if it is not a guideline? I wonder if it would be possible to add some additional functionality to Wikipedia that might assist BEFORE. It states "consider sharing your reservations with the article creator or notifying an associated wikiproject, mentioning your concerns on the article's discussion page." Could a way be created to have such concerns posted on the talk pages of the article's creator, active editors, wikiproject, and article discussion page with a single edit? Or would that possibly be undesirable for some reason (easy way to vandalize/spam talk pages, I guess). Or should it be assumed that the creator and active editors have the page on their watchlist? Perhaps more should be done with PROD; having a type of WP:BEFORE AfD PROD. I somewhat dislike that an article be sent to AfD if the editor has not followed BEFORE in some minimal way at least; e.g. having previously tagged the article or participated on the discussion page. I will continue to mull this over and post again at a later time, hopefully. Шизомби (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- I think it's fair to say its status is "encouraged in theory and widely disregarded in practice", because no burden of proof can possibly be allowed to fall on the poor nominator, who might after all be a newbie. Unlike the content creators and article writers, who are of course all fully aware of WP:BURDEN from the moment they register.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 13:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Strong support So many excellent articles are put up for deletion all the time, and the nominators are always saying: Someone else fix this. Ikip (talk) 22:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
- Strong Support! I agree we need this! Too many people are too eager to destroy what others have labored so hard to create, without bothering to discuss what they see is a problem before hand, or bothering to spend three seconds Googling for sources themselves. Dream Focus 00:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose: even with its current status, I've seen it used by 'Keep' advocates to denigrate the good faith of nominators, often based upon turning up the most trivial of sources. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Burden of proof
- Conclusion: The creator of an article should provide cites; however, before nominating an article for deletion the nominator should make an effort to confirm that sources don't exist. SilkTork *YES! 11:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
It has been brought up several times before, but the question remains, who has the burden of proof, the creator or the nominator of the article? WP:BURDEN states:
The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. (emphasis original)
On the other hand, WP:BEFORE states:
When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing or notability concerns, make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist.
This is seemingly a contradiction. In current practice, WP:BEFORE clearly supersedes WP:BURDEN in deletion discussions; a section meant to give advice should not take precedence over policy. On the other hand, not following WP:BEFORE is contrary to the larger goals of creating an encyclopedia. I would suggest this: In order to prove verifiability, sources must not only be found, but also actually added to the article. After all, an article that can be sourced but is not sourced by the end of the deletion discussion often ends up never being sourced, and is no better than an article that cannot be sourced. Instead of claiming that sources exist, why not be bold and add them? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:32, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- I will agree with that on the condition that the nominator is required to add sources found by any other editor during a deletion discussion. Really, there should be no reason to NOT do this, but I've often seen editors go to great lengths to prove their initial nomination was "right" even in the face of good sources being brought up by other editors. Jclemens (talk) 18:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- There are plenty of reasons not to require an editor to add sources someone else came up with. Let's say I do a good faith search, and can't find notability for the subject of article x. Editor B comes along and says it's notable because there are sources of dubious reliability. I am not going to add them myself if I don't think they meet WP:RS, nor should I be forced to. Even worse, let's say Editor B comes along and cites a book I don't have access to. Should I be required to add a source I've never seen? Even if I'm happy to withdraw the nom, there's no way in hell I'm going to associate my name in an edit summary adding a source I've never seen. The end result will be that conscientious editors will refuse to be involved in any way with nominations (have fun with all the articles about pet goldfish that will never get deleted), and the problematic deleters will quickly find there's no real way to enforce this, because what admin is going to permanently block someone for refusing to add someone else's source to an article?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm appalled to think that someone would even think that a nominator should ever be "required" to add sources found by someone else, or even ever do anything indicating they are following the deletion discussion. In case you forgot, WP is a voluntary effort. That said, something that SHOULD be required is for the closer to consider any brought up in the discussion, even if it's not actually added to the article meanwhile (as well as check to see if any were that weren't brought up). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- Why not? The nominator has asserted that something doesn't belong in Wikipedia. They should then shepherd their nomination, incorporating content that benefits the article, and withdrawing their nomination if sufficient sourcing is found per WP:HEY. To do anything else is irresponsible on the part of the nom. Yes, it's a volunteer project, and the nominator VOLUNTEERED to start a process. Why is continuing it to the logical conclusion burdensome? I've met my fair share of editors who would follow articles through the AfD process, and consistently dispute new sourcing added to the article. Originally, I thought that a nominator should just butt out, but then I realized the activity was correct... just in the wrong direction. Wikipedia isn't an adversarial legal system, so there's nothing wrong with AGF'ing that a nominator is capable and willing to include new sources that come up. Jclemens (talk) 23:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- The problem I see here is that you are assuming all sources brought up in the AfD will be quality sources. Yes, quality sources do come up in AfDs, and should be added by anyone, including the nom. But not all sources brought up in the AfD are quality sources.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- Why not? The nominator has asserted that something doesn't belong in Wikipedia. They should then shepherd their nomination, incorporating content that benefits the article, and withdrawing their nomination if sufficient sourcing is found per WP:HEY. To do anything else is irresponsible on the part of the nom. Yes, it's a volunteer project, and the nominator VOLUNTEERED to start a process. Why is continuing it to the logical conclusion burdensome? I've met my fair share of editors who would follow articles through the AfD process, and consistently dispute new sourcing added to the article. Originally, I thought that a nominator should just butt out, but then I realized the activity was correct... just in the wrong direction. Wikipedia isn't an adversarial legal system, so there's nothing wrong with AGF'ing that a nominator is capable and willing to include new sources that come up. Jclemens (talk) 23:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- I do not see these as being mutually exclusive. If an editor has indeed made a good-faith effort to find sources and come up empty, then we must in turn assume good faith that they followed WP:BEFORE and therefore WP:BURDEN comes in to effect. I think the problem arises in the fact that BURDEN is easy enough to prove (either the authors come up with the source or do not), but asking a nominator to prove that BEFORE has been followed is considerably more difficult as it is hard to prove a lack of something. Shereth 20:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with Shereth. After nomination (that is, after the nominator has made a good-faith effort to confirm that sources establishing notability are not available), the nominator plays no special role. Additional editors then comment on the validity of the deletion proposal. Editors can also try to improve the article. If the article improves mid-discussion, additional editors can point this out. Mentioning possible references in the discussion is no substitute for the article actually improving. The deletion discussion is about the article, not what the article might be. If at the time of closing, arguments in favour of deletion due to sourcing or notability concerns have not been invalidated by changes in the article, the closing administrator should consider them. I don't see the issue here. Sancho 22:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- Redundant question, because, and no offence is meant by this, but it's basically wiki-lawering. These phrases have been inserted into guidance and policy in order to protect positions, and as can be seen they aren't especially helpful. Best practise in these circumstances is to simply ignore the two pieces of advice and concentrate on the specific case at hand and work out what the best thing to do is. What's the best practise when faced with unsourced material? Look for a source, and if you can't find one, ask the person who inserted it, prudently removing the contentious material to talk or even remove completely if required. If that would reduce the article to a blank page, then offer the article up for deletion on the basis that you have been unable to source it, if you believe that such an article has no place on Wikipedia and that the article title is not better served being redirected somewhere. Remember, the rules aren't there to be followed, they are there to help us work out what the best practise is. Best practise is to try and improve Wikipedia, and we do that by either sourcing material or flagging it up for discussion, possibly removing it prior to such a discussion. A lot of our guidance would probably be better served being presented in a flow chart form than as dusty words which have accumalated generations of flotsam and jetson. Hiding T 22:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- Articles are not required to contain citations. If, in the course of an AFD, it is established that satisfactory sources exist, then this is sufficient. Placing citations in the article then becomes a formality - the sort of task which wikignomes might undertake. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
- True, however finding the sources and refusing to add them to the article just because it is "sufficient that they exist" is just making a point at the possible expense of the article itself. But then there are a lot of editors who prefer debating at AfD to actually improving the article in question. pablohablo. 18:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- There are certainly lots of armchair editors who prefer to express their opinions rather than do editing work. But the only point one might make about this is that you get what you pay for. There is no great practical problem in this case because AFD discussions are usually linked to from article talk pages and so it is all there for any future reader who wishes to look. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- First of all, I agree fully with Hiding's comment about tackling each case separately. Furthermore, I don't see a contradiction between the two statements that this RfC questions. I believe that keeping unverified statements out of the encyclopedia is of the utmost importance, and it appears that both WP:BURDEN and WP:BEFORE are written with this in mind. Certainly no editor should insert material that isn't verifiable (and hopefully no veteran editor would insert any material at all without sourcing it), but this doesn't mean that other editors cannot build upon material that isn't properly written in the first place. It is indeed good practice to look for sources before nominating something for deletion, but it isn't something to chastise if an editor doesn't follow through.
- If I had to put these statements up to battle against each other, I'd easily choose WP:BURDEN over WP:BEFORE. Given the option of whether to keep around existing unencyclopedic material in hopes that one day it will evolve into encyclopedic material, or get rid of it and require editors to start it from scratch while properly sourcing it, I'd choose that latter any day. Following WP:BEFORE, while being the polite and reasonable thing to do, isn't a necessity and editors who do not follow this provision do not do as much damage to this encylopedia as editors who do not initially verify material. So I guess my point is that while both provisions help the encyclopedia, WP:BEFORE is indeed just a suggestion, while WP:BURDEN is a necessity for the creation of verifiable material. But I don't really see them as logical contradictions and I believe that they both can help the encyclopedia when applied at the right moments. ThemFromSpace 01:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- I feel exactly the opposite. Better a guilty man go free than an innocent man go to prison. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- This discussion comes at the core issue from a different angle, but #Upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline? is similar enough to be useful reading. Flatscan (talk) 04:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- I see that this discussion has been listed on {{cent}}. Outside input might be helpful. Flatscan (talk) 04:44, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- No offense to the user bringing up the discussion, but I agree broadly with hobit. The distinction in the text isn't important save for wikilawyering. A lot of pixels get filled up about the interaction and apparent contradiction between BEFORE and BURDEN, but no substantive problem exists in practice. We want editors to present sources for facts or at least assert that sourcing exists. We also want nominators to do some legwork prior to nominating. Sure enough, those of us who feel that wikipedia should include more tend to talk about BEFORE a lot and those of us who feel that wikipedia should include less tend to talk about BURDEN more. Honestly very little of note has come out of changing policy just to suit the discussions of these two camps and any change to policy will at best be minimized through careful parsing of the text and at worst result in some bad outcomes in articles or AfDs. Also, as flatscan notes, this is well traveled ground in general. Protonk (talk) 05:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- Precisely. In my eyes, giving one or another person an absolute burden of proof would be a mistake -- ideally, I should think that all editors involved have a responsibility to research and present their case in good faith and to the best of their ability, so as to enable discussion amongst the community at large about the most appropriate outcome. Whether arguing for deletion or inclusion, one has a responsibility to make one's case. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- The answer is to stop asking the question. (tongue not entirely in cheek) More precisely, the burden is on no one more than the other; although I suppose in practice it's technically on the nominator given how "no consensus" AfDs are closed, but that's kinda ignoring the spirit of the law for the letter of the law. --Cybercobra (talk) 04:57, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- The burden should always be on the person proposing deletion of entire articles. Contemporary sourcing policies aside, Wikipedia has a history. Current sourcing rules got their impetus from the Wikipedia biography controversy of mid-2005, and standards before then were much laxer. Moreover, they have developed over time since their inauguration; at one point, an article was considered to be quite adequately sourced if it had a general bibliography. There are hundreds of thousands of articles that predate current policies, that probably were researched in some fashion, and that were not referenced to contemporary standards because that was not thought necessary at the time. The model followed was that of printed encyclopedias, which typically contain at best a brief bibliography or "further reading" section at the bottom of their longest articles. (I have never read a print encyclopedia with individual reference notes for sections or paragraphs. They may exist.) Because of this, any interpretation of WP:BURDEN that is thought to justify deletions of whole articles, perhaps created by no longer active editors, may well lead to the unacceptable result of deleting useful material because no one has thought to update it to contemporary standards. This is what Template:Unreferenced and Template:Refimprove are for, and no further harm should be done in those circumstances. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if this is the correct place to put this opinion. Feel free to move it.
- Perhaps I'm jaded by new page patrolling and seeing a lot of attack pages about somebody's classmates' hairy legs'. However, I think the burden of adding sources and improving an article should be up to anyone who thinks there is a reliable source. Article rescuing should be left up to people who think the article can be rescued. While the nominator should go ahead and check if there's any reliable resources nearby that can help improve the article, there's always the possibility that xy don't have the time or energy to go to the library, or anywhere else for that matter. I know google isn't considered a "reliable source" for knowing when an article should or shouldn't be included, etc. You end up with quite the dilemma when you put too much burden on one person. I dream of horses (T) @ 19:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Another thought
The burden of proof and burden of action must be on two different parties. Right now, the burden of proof is on the nominator to prove something should be deleted, and the burden of action is on those defending an article to poke holes in the nominator's rationale and/or improve the article such that criticisms no longer apply. Giving one "side" both burdens is unworkable. Jclemens (talk) 05:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- The "burden of proof" is on the process, not the nominator or any subsequent commenter or !voter. pablohablo. 19:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- The burden is on the nominator, just as it is on everyone else at AFD, to put deletion policy into practice, to search for sources themselves, double-checking one another. Thinking of this as analogous to a courtroom may be causing confusion. AFD is not a court. This is not a burden of proof. It's a burden of effort. It's effort that everyone should help shoulder, nominator and all participants. AFD produces its best results when everyone makes the effort, and its worst results when no-one does. Uncle G (talk) 04:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- I think the burden should be on the author/editor. I, for one, get annoyed with editors putting a two-sentence "article" on here and expecting others to do the actual work for them. If the editor felt the topic was relevent and notable enough to belong on here, they should have the responsibility of at least meeting the basic requirements like Providing some sources. Expecting others to do it for you isn't "collaboration", it's just lazy and irresponsible. Niteshift36 (talk) 06:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- And who, then, is responsible for cleanup? Should we throw out the 50+% of Wikipedia that's got some cleanup tags on it? The problem with such an approach is that it presumes that the encyclopedia can always be improved by deleting, rather than fixing, something. Yes, it may be frustrating to find articles that lack something or another, but the fact is that many of these have very real value, and that a volunteer project tends to attract people who write about what they care about, not people who cleanup and add sources to other people's contributions. There are some, sure, but far from enough. Fact is, making the deletion advocate work to demonstrate the inappropriateness of an article keeps the checks and balances working. Jclemens (talk) 06:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not talking about articles that need some cleanup or a couple more sources. I'm talking about the ones that have nearly no content and no sources. If I see an article that has a fact tag or two on it, I sometimes help it out. But a perfect example was a recent bilateral relations "article" that was a total of 5 sentences. First sentence was an explaination of the title (ie X-Y relations is the relations between X and Y. The next two sentences were "The capital of X is (fill in the blank)". "The capital of Y is (fill in the blank)". Zero sources. No assetion of notability. Nothing. Now why on earth should I be responsible for "cleaning up" that article? There is nothing to clean up. The article is essentially non-existent. The author didn't give enough of a damn to actually write anything or source it, but you want me to do his work for him? I've helped rescue articles, but there was at least something to work with. The ARS (which I found to be no help) runs around working on these. Fine. If nothing else, AfD's improve many articles. I see more many articles that have had nothing done to them get a flurry of activity just because of an AfD. They get improved and kept. But that improvement wouldn't happen without the AfD. Niteshift36 (talk) 06:37, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
These are different beasts
WP:BURDEN is a content policy, part of verifiability, so is concerned with verification of specific information contained within articles. It doesn't mandate any burden of proof for notability, which is a completely different concept, depending on multiple sources showing substantial or significant coverage. There is no conflict between a policy that says that article content should be verifiable, and a process that says that people that want articles to be deleted should give evidence of how they don't meet our inclusion guidelines. We'll never get to offer "proof" for anything, but the burden of evidence is that specific facts should be sourced by the people adding them to an article, and if none can be found for anything then it's a no-brainer deletion, but evidence for notability, which is the decider for inclusion or deletion of an article in Wikipedia, should be sought by everyone who participates in a deletion discussion. I've been accused before of being a "usual suspect" in favour of inclusion[1] but in fact what I do with any deletion discussion that catches my interest is to first look for sources, and then decide whether to call for deletion or keeping or commenting or staying silent, so there's no issue about whether the burden falls on whether I want to keep or delete, because I don't make my decision until I have looked at the evidence. As examples of how those who want articles to be deleted should present their cases, in preference to "per nom" or "no sources" or "not notable" etc., I would present some of my own arguments:[2][3][4][5][6][7]. The burden of evidence in a deletion discussion falls on everyone, i.e. everyone should offer evidence for their position. WP:BURDEN is about inclusion of specific content within an article, and is only relevant to deletion if nothing in an article can be verified by a reliable source. I've just read through what I wrote and realised that it's very long-winded, but I don't have time now to edit it down. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
- Protonk, Luna Santin, and Phil Bridger have hit the nail firmly on the head: We want editors to present sources for facts or at least assert that sourcing exists. We also want nominators to do some legwork prior to nominating. — I should think that all editors involved have a responsibility to research […]. Whether arguing for deletion or inclusion, one has a responsibility to make one's case. — The burden of evidence in a deletion discussion falls on everyone […]
I add two points, one of which is already in the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion and has been for a long time now, the other of which is based upon expected behaviour formally encoded into our various policies over the years and underlying them even when not so:
- AFD is supposed to work by everybody putting deletion policy into practice, checking whether and what sources exist, their depths and their provenances, so that all of the holes in the layers of Swiss Cheese do not line up. Everyone, nominator included, has to do their part so that we know, with confidence, that we have come to the right outcome in any case. A zero-effort rationale, be it for keeping or deletion, and be it from nominator or anyone else, inspires zero confidence that the right outcome will happen.
- I work according to User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do. This is, as noted, the procedure taken in the first place from our very own deletion and verifiability policies. I recommend it to everyone.
- Uncle G (talk) 04:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- WP:BURDEN refers to verifiability rather than notability. WP:BURDEN is a policy and WP:BEFORE is not, so where the two collide, WP:BURDEN wins. However, it is not always a case of a collision; it is well-established that where no CSD applies, the default state of affairs is that the article is not deleted, and anyone wanting to have it deleted must make a case to do so. Stifle (talk) 12:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with the above discussion. However, I would add that the burden can shift. The creator has the burden to assert notability, then the nominator has the burden of making an argument for deletion. If sources exist readily, then the nominator also has the burden of adding those. Once an obvious case is made, the burden has shifted to the creator and rescuers. Once they have shown a real effort to find reliable sources and verify its notability, then the burden shifts back to the nominator to show how the rescuers are wrong in some way. That's how it's worked, if imperfectly, in the recent past. Bearian (talk) 01:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
WP:BURDEN vs WP:ILIKEIT
As Stifle said in the section above, the default no-consensus position is that the article is kept. In many cases, this seems not to be about sourcing, but about ILIKEIT. Too often articles that are unsourced and/or unnotable are kept by default because someone said keep in some way, without addressing the fundamental issue.
If every sentence of an article would be removed by WP:BURDEN we shouldn't be defaulting to keep just based on a few editors ILIKEIT statements. We need closers who are a little more skeptical about default keeping when the rationale for deletion hasn't been addressed by those who want it kept. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
- BURDEN applies to specific assertions, not to articles, and only to contested statements, so taken to a ridiculous extreme, we would end up with stubs like "World of Warcraft is a computer game". Stubs are not a problem, and stubbiness is not a reason to delete an article. THAT is the real reason why BEFORE and BURDEN aren't in conflict. Jclemens (talk) 21:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
- Jclemens, you're right about BURDEN... but that doesn't stop people invoking it inappropriately, any more than people idiotically invoke WP:BURO to complain about lack of bureaucratic process. I have a case of this at High-stakes testing with an anon that (1) agrees that a short driver's license test is (or can be) a high-stakes test, and (2) demands proof for the assertion that a test need not be many hours long to be a high-stakes test (and so forth). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
- Surely the burden of proof is on everyone to search for, examine, validate, and consider sources.
Personally, I've noticed a disturbing tendency among AfD nominators to bring an article to AfD in the apparent hope that someone else will do a lot of work finding sources. (If nominators really did search for sources properly, there would be no reason to have an article rescue squadron.)
WP:BURDEN's main application is about unsourced negative information in BLPs. It does have wider ramifications for the rest of Wikipedia, but I think that conceptually, it sits under WP:NPOV as much as it does under WP:V. WP:BEFORE is specific to deletion discussions.
I remain totally of the view that WP:BEFORE should be a guideline, and I'm totally confused about why there's opposition to taking this simple and productive step.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 08:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
- There is no contradiction: The WP:BURDEN of verifiability is to cite a reliable source that supports a specific statement, when challenged. To the extent that that a deletion nomination is a challenge to the article's entire content, that burden can be met by a single third-party reliable source supporting a single fact about the article's topic. In many deletion nominations, that burden is already met by the article itself, unless it is completely unsourced or original research; in which case if the article is not a hoax or extremely obscure, that burden can be met easily. On the other hand, the burden of WP:BEFORE is to make sure that there is a valid reason for deletion in line with deletion policy, to look for sources and also ensure there is not another reasonable option (such as editing, merging, or redirecting) before nominating an article for deletion. Finally, the the burden is then on everyone participating in the discussion to read the article, look for sources themselves, judge their reliability, independence, and significance, and to consider reasonable options other than deletion which are in line with policy. I also think that WP:BEFORE should be a guideline (if not policy), and do not understand the opposition to it. It seems to me to be based on a belief that deletion should require little or no effort beyond making nominations and arguments, while demanding that people adding content should jump though as many hoops as possible to ensure their contributions stick. DHowell (talk) 04:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
- I think the main perception of a contradiction here is along the lines of what Smerdis of Tlön mentioned earlier, that some people seem to believe that WP:BURDEN is some absolute rule that can be used to remove every unsourced claim in every article, when that was never its intent. The wiki principle of "successive approximation of truth/reality/whatever" requires policies that allow some wiggle room. Both of these rules help the wiki process happen, as long as they aren't taken as absolute rules. WP:BURDEN is strongly worded, and it seems to be giving many newer editors the idea that it is absolute. Gigs (talk) 02:17, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Template proposal
Since probably no one visits Template talk:Afd top, I am leaving a note here. Please participate in the discussion at Template talk:Afd top#Proposal. Thanks! (Do not reply below.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Change to closed discussions making life harder
Has anyone other than me looked at some per-day pages with lots of closed discussions on them since the abovementioned change was enacted? Personally, I'm finding this change to have vastly increased the work involved in looking at closed discussions via per-day pages. Take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 July 29 for example. It now requires 79 individual mouse actions to see what the outcomes were from discussions, rather than simply scrolling down the page as would have been the case with the template as it used to stand. Uncle G (talk) 17:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, that seems to be a change for the worse as the contents and body are now too similar. How do we revert this? Colonel Warden (talk) 18:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'm with you guys. this is not a good change, though I understand the intention. Protonk (talk) 18:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
- Suggestion for a temporary client-side workaround: all collapse boxes can be forced open by disabling JavaScript on one's browser. Flatscan (talk) 03:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- Not all WWW browsers are capable of disabling Javascript on the fly, saddeningly enough. A better temporary workaround is to revert Template:afd top (and of course Template:afd bottom too) to the status quo ante. Uncle G (talk) 13:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- Agree - can someone revert this to the status quo? --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- I presume you mean the status quo ante?
- <makes "gun crew come here" hand motion.> --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- I prefer it the "new" way. Could there be some programmatic workaround to give people who want to see everything the option to do so, while collapsing things for those not interested in such? Jclemens (talk) 17:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- Ugh, the new way is awful. However, as Jclemens suggests, allowing people to choose would be the best option.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- This is defintely not an improvement and is causing most of todays's AFD's to be swallowed up within one of the collapsed entries. Let's go back to how it was before, please.--Michig (talk) 16:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
- @Uncle G and Jclemens: I can add parameters to display the result quite easily, so there is no need to worry about that. It'll just take a bit of work from Mr.Z-man to modify his script. @Michig: That's because someone forgot to add afdb at the bottom. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
- Why are you building this Rube Goldberg mechanism in the first place? I pointed out at Template talk:Afd top and I point out again, here: We already had a mechanism for people to collapse or hide closed discussions if they want to do that. We've had this mechanism for years. (You are not the first person to want to do this, after all.) What you've done is add a second mechanism on top of that, that doesn't provide even as much functionality as the first, that only serves to make things more difficult, with lots more mouse actions required to view old discussions, and that you're now proposing to make even more complex for closing administrators to use with extra template parameters that they have to learn. Why build this at all? Why not just use the mechanism that was already there? Uncle G (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Uncle G: I think the way it is makes for unnecessary instruction creep. Not only that, but in my over four years at Wikipedia, I have never once learned that you could do that. So the for the old way, 1) collapsing instructions are too hard to find; 2) even if instructions are readily available, many people will not understand them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
- Instruction creep? What instruction creep? There's no instruction creep, in part because the process has existed for years (so there's no "creep") and in part because no instructions are required (so this isn't even about "instructions" in the first place). Even if there were instruction creep, you are combatting it by adding steps, with extra template parameters that people have to learn, and hundreds of extra actions required in order to view what heretofore was plainly visible without any extra work at all. That's combatting instruction creep? You've built a second, bad, mechanism on top of an existing, cleaner and more functional, mechanism that was already there all along. How is that it a good thing? You know what the original mechanism is, now. Why not just use it? Uncle G (talk) 10:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- Uncle G: I think the way it is makes for unnecessary instruction creep. Not only that, but in my over four years at Wikipedia, I have never once learned that you could do that. So the for the old way, 1) collapsing instructions are too hard to find; 2) even if instructions are readily available, many people will not understand them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
- Why are you building this Rube Goldberg mechanism in the first place? I pointed out at Template talk:Afd top and I point out again, here: We already had a mechanism for people to collapse or hide closed discussions if they want to do that. We've had this mechanism for years. (You are not the first person to want to do this, after all.) What you've done is add a second mechanism on top of that, that doesn't provide even as much functionality as the first, that only serves to make things more difficult, with lots more mouse actions required to view old discussions, and that you're now proposing to make even more complex for closing administrators to use with extra template parameters that they have to learn. Why build this at all? Why not just use the mechanism that was already there? Uncle G (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I wholeheartedly approve of the recent change, which makes my life hugely easier by collapsing closed discussions without me having to muck around with CSS (whatever that is)—an operation for which I lack the technical skill, inclination or patience. I urge that it remain as currently implemented, please.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 13:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I visit AfD once in a blue moon, so I've only encountered this today. I truly hope the collapsing can be removed. It's not because I care about closed debates being visible or invisible - I could not possibly care less about that. However, collapsed sections break the TOC, and I do care about that. Lots of collapsed sections make the TOC effectively unusable; you have to fumble around looking for a heading that will maybe work and maybe be close to what you want. That is very, very bad. Please change this. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Please add me to the list of people who think this is a terrible idea and would like it rolled back to the way it was. Hiding T 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- FWIW, I thought it was an excellent idea. –Juliancolton | Talk 13:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Rolled back
Okay, I rolled the template back to not collapsing per the above discussion. What do we do about those instances which already subst the collapsed format, ignore them or roll them back? Hiding T 09:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Is there any chance that we would keep the collapsing templates and fix the TOC problems at the same time? I find the collapsed debates really convenient - when searching the debates that are still running, the closed ones just make it harder to find them. An option would also be to have a bot that would move the closed debates to the bottom of the page or similar. --Tone 12:46, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
WP:BEFORE - mention article history?
BEFORE advises that the article's talk page be consulted. It also advises making a good faith attempt to determine what sources may exist and what evidence of notability there may be. There's no specific mention of looking at the article's history, where those things might possibly be found, having been removed due to poor editing or vandalism. Examining each page in the history would be impractical, but at least looking at the history of edits and a few of the pages would seem advisable. I don't know if this ought to be mentioned in BEFORE, or if it can be assumed that a good editor will understand that could be informative without it being mentioned. Шизомби (talk) 18:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- It's a good point, and something I encountered just this week. I'll see about adding a small note. Jclemens (talk) 18:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, checking the history of an article to see whether it has been recently vandalized is a general procedure that is recommended to everyone, readers and editors alike, in the Wikipedia:General disclaimer that is hyperlinked to at the bottom of every page that you see here. Uncle G (talk) 03:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Do you think my addition is overly redundant, then? It doesn't appear to have been reverted. Jclemens (talk) 04:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I think it makes sense to mention it again in BEFORE. I see cases where noms definitely have not taken the step of examining the history; this may not help, but it might. Most of the rest of BEFORE is mentioned in other places as well; the discussion at the top of this page as to whether BEFORE should be a guideline is somewhat funny because at least parts of BEFORE are actually given as policy on other pages. Also, for what it's worth, the General disclaimer is more a general note to the reader (or may or may not edit) regarding the possibility of vandalism. Mentioning vandalism in BEFORE is a reminder to editors who participate in AfD of specific things in an article's history that may indicate it should not be sent to AfD. Шизомби (talk) 01:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- Do you think my addition is overly redundant, then? It doesn't appear to have been reverted. Jclemens (talk) 04:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Checking the history is a good way to make sure that the article hasn't been "hijacked" like what happened here a few years ago. Some goober replaced an article about a notable 70s era band with one about a non notable rapper. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Too many relistings?
Is it just me, or are too many articles for deletion with minimal input being relisted, some for multiple times, when there's a clear--if sparsely attended--consensus? Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- If the deletionists doesn't get their way, they can nominate the same article their friends did, for deletion, as many times as they want. And if that doesn't work, they can delete a large portion of the article, or eliminate it anyway with a merge/redirect if there aren't enough people around to notice and protest. Meanwhile if someone sees something that was deleted, and tries to restore it, it is an uphill battle. Horrible system really. So much easier to destroy than to create. Dream Focus 09:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Whoops. Relisting as in extending the time before an AFD is decided to get more input, not listing the same article for AFD after it has previously survived. There is a problem with too many nominations for people to sort through though. Dream Focus 12:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- I think the issue that unites the above two remarks is low participation at AfD.
To Dream Focus, I would say that it's hard enough to delete material from Wikipedia. The policies are there to protect the interests of genuine content creators; the issue is that AfD participation is so low that it's a lottery which policy or guideline is actually implemented.
Jumping back to the original question, I quite like this trend. I think it's better for a closer to relist than to risk making a mistake by implementing a very small consensus.
So I think the question we should consider is, how do we motivate experienced editors to comment on AfDs, given that it's so massively unrewarding at the moment?—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I suspect AfD will always be "so massively unrewarding" - it's as popular as being a tax collector, 90% of what goes to AfD is crap that no-one will miss but some of the rest has merits and may be defended vigorously - and the fanboys, etc. outnumber serious editors hugely, so there's plenty more where the crap came from.
- How about looking at it from the other end, via the grading system. Create a new lower grade or 2 below unassessed, and show the gradings to all readers including IPs. The fanboys won't like seeing their faves listed as "below acceptable" or whatever, but to do anything it they'll have to face reviewers who know and apply the rules. --Philcha (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- The problem is that many AfDs nowadays go underattended. I view deletion as a rather extreme action—and I'm sure many other admins do as well—and one can hardly claim one or two comments constitute community consensus. If it's indisputably necessary, I don't see anything wrong with relisting a discussion multiple times; on the other hand, using a relist as a lazy way out of making a judgment call is inappropriate. –Juliancolton | Talk 12:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- How, exactly, will AfD involvement ever improve if article after article that has garnered no more than three comments is relisted. Yesterday, I went through and closed as "no consensus" articles that had been relisted both a first and a second time, with ZERO !votes in between the two relistings. I'm of the opinion that a relisting should really be used to extend close but active discussions, not as a "punt" to next week. I've been closing uncontested deletes (even with just 1-2 others agreeing with the nom) as deletes, and most of the other underattended relistings as no consensus, in hopes of unclogging the queue. Jclemens (talk) 15:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I like the unsigned comment about grades lower than "unassessed". :) I can see it now: "This article has been assessed as complete bollocks on the project's quality scale."—S Marshall Talk/Cont 12:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Wasn't there a suggestion a little while ago concerning AfD's with a continuous lack of discussion be considered PROD candidates? I can't find it, but do you know if it ended up somewhere? ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 15:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd object to that. AfD is where you come if prod fails, not the other way around.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 15:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- I can't find it either but I do recall the suggestion, and I do recall that it failed to gain any kind of consensus to implement it. Shereth 15:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 54#Multiple relistings, Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods", and the discussions that they in turn link to. Uncle G (talk) 08:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Name formatting
I am proposing the following page moves for the deletion request pages:
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles
- Wikipedia:Templates for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates
- Wikipedia:Files for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files
- Wikipedia:Deletion review to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review
All future requests be named as follows, as well as move old requests:
- Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/NAME
- Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/NAME
- Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/NAME
- Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/NAME
- Instead of:
Log date pages moved:
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/Log/DATE
Logs moved:
- Wikipedia:Archived deletion discussions to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Archives to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Log to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/Log/DATE
- Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/Log/DATE
This is a more organized format for the pages, and will be much better than the current names. What do you think? --Mythdon talk • contribs 05:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- Given that you are presenting all of these proposed changes as subsets of the current Deletion policy page, how does your naming scheme (similar to the one not adopted at WT:RFA) take into account those that are not deletion-based but rather discussion-based, namely WP:CFD and WP:RFD? ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 06:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- This proposal is just as bad and not thought through as the similar one made on Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Name formatting. I recommend that you go back and read the several past discussions of moving this page, starting with the ones in 2005 and January 2009, and address some of the basic pre-requisites that need to be addressed by any proposal to move this page. Here's a hint as to why doing so is a very good idea: This recommendation comes to you from the person who owns User:Uncle G's major work 'bot. Uncle G (talk) 08:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
- Per Wikipedia_talk:RFA#Name_formatting, I think this is a solution looking for a problem. –Juliancolton | Talk 02:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
- Agree with Juliancolton. As I said in the RfA proposal, it's providing no benefit, and it is more trouble than it's worth. It's a solution looking for a problem. The adage "don't fix what isn't broken" comes to mind. Additionally, the recent ArbCom's reorganizing of pages has made it harded to navigate, expecially when you're used to the old system. I can see where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it. (X! · talk) · @246 · 04:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Preview mode
When adding an AfD tag, the instructions on how to go through the whole process are only visible in preview mode. because of this I've just made a complete pig's ear of a nomination. is this is a stupid way of doing things, or is this a stupid way of doing things? Totnesmartin (talk) 18:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
- Incorrect. They are conditional upon the existence of the per-article sub-page. In other words: If you've already done the second step, you won't see the instructions for doing the second step. This is far from being stupid. And Template talk:AfDM is the place for this discussion. Uncle G (talk) 08:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion was not posted to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 August 6, so the discussion is past due, it's 10 days old. I have just added it to the list. But it does require the attention of an administrator. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
- That's an interesting AFD. Joe Chill (talk)
- To say the least. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I always vote keep
I do, if I vote at all. What is it that polarizes us so? It's hard to remember, but I think someone nominated something for AfD that I had worked on, and since then, I look for articles to save. AfDs always have the usual suspects, so I guess the delete side saw something kept that shouldn't have been kept early in their careers, and so they always vote delete. There's probably some psychology article that explains this phenomenon. Basically, someone threatens a thing you like (an article/all of WP?) and you start self identifying. Or something. I don't know. Anyone know of the psych article? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- You are looking for an article that has yet to be written. But the rudiments are here. Protonk (talk) 07:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- More of my comments favour deletion than don't, I suspect, but that's because I only tend to comment when the discussion isn't tending my way or I feel particularly strongly. By and large, the articles I think ought to be kept already have a large number of comments favouring that position by the time I find them. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- My impression is that it's a matter of personality. I'm something of a packrat and contrarian and so look for reasons to keep things. I don't usually bother to vote delete for the stuff that doesn't belong because there seem to be more than enough others to take care of that. Those others, who prefer voting delete, seem to be grumpy old men. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:41, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
A pet peeve
I have to rant for a second... If you are going to vote to "Keep" an unsourced article because "there are sources" (as shown through a google search or something) then please fix the problem by accutally reviewing and adding some of those sources to the article! ... ok, rant over.
Seriously, I do think "lack of interest" should be a factor in deletion discussions. Perhaps not at a first nom... but, if no sources have been added after a reasonable time, and the article is re-nominated for continuing to be unsourced, that should be seen as an indication that the article may not be worth keeping after all. Blueboar (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Just a note, but WP:N requires that sources exist, not that sources be placed on the article. So, if one AfD finds that such sources do exist, a latter AfD making the exact same complain is somewhat spurious. I do agree that sources, when found, should generally be used in the article, though, simply as good practice. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't actually find this to be a problem. Of course I haven't really frequented AfD in months, but when I did the problem was more disingenuousness about sourcing than unwillingness to edit the article. Protonk (talk) 19:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Sometimes there are too many articles, and not enough time. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- When an individual statement is challenged, WP:V says that the burden of providing a citation to a reliable source rests with those who add or want to keep the information. If no source is provided, eventually the statement can (and should) be removed from the article. When the same problem exists writ large, ie when an entire article is unsourced, surely there is a similar burden. Those who want to keep the article have the burden to provide sources for it. And if no sources are provided, there comes a time when the article can (and should) be deleted. Blueboar (talk) 20:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well, not under the current deletion policy. Being unsourced is ground for a cleanup tag, but we cant delete an article for which sources do exist but are just not included.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- When an individual statement is challenged, WP:V says that the burden of providing a citation to a reliable source rests with those who add or want to keep the information. If no source is provided, eventually the statement can (and should) be removed from the article. When the same problem exists writ large, ie when an entire article is unsourced, surely there is a similar burden. Those who want to keep the article have the burden to provide sources for it. And if no sources are provided, there comes a time when the article can (and should) be deleted. Blueboar (talk) 20:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Hmmm... I suppose part of my problem is that, as things currently stand, we are having to use AfD for the wrong reasons... ADF only looks at articles with WP:N in mind, but we are using it to resolve WP:V issues. What is needed is a method for challenging and "removing" completely unsourced articles under WP:V. We either need to amend the deletion policy to account for article wide verification, or we need to set up a seperate method for "removal" when an article has severe Verification issues. I think I need to raise this at WP:V and see where we should go from there.
- Thanks for letting me rant folks. Blueboar (talk) 20:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Wel,, there already are editors working under this rather extreme definition of WP:V. I don't agree with that approach, but it is possible under WP:V to challenge any an all unsourced statement and remove them. The problem is that we hjave a lot of good articles written in the olden WP days before inline citations became standard that do not have sources but which are verifiable none the less and the loss of which would make wikipedia a poorer place. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- While I'm keen on WP:V, removal of articles with severe Verification issues looks like a bad idea. WP:Notability requires at least 1 decent independent source that shows that someone other than those involved has taken notice. If that exists, the article should generally be kept, or in a minority of cases merged. Later editors can had citations for specific aspects of the topic. For example if a good source was cited for the subject's being a best-selling book / film / recording / etc., I'd include the article so that later editors can well-sourced commentary on the work's production, style, quality, etc. --Philcha (talk) 21:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- For manga a clear keep is 2 non-trivial reviews from 2 reliable sources. With just one source the article risks to be unbalanced. Those reviews can come from any RS manga website regardless its language. We have articles which notability is sustained with just French or German reviews. Another clear keep is the adaption into anime series or TV drama. --KrebMarkt 07:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Sometimes there are too many articles, and not enough time. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I definitely sympathize with Blueboar. It would save people a lot of headache down the line if people would take the extra 2 minutes to add a source to an article when they dig one up in the course of an AfD. It is all fine and well to say that the policy only demands sources exist and not necessarily be included in the article, but let's be realistic - half the reason for citing sources is so that readers can further their research by delving into said sources, and not simply relying on a statement that "sources exist". Failing to include the sources in articles is a disservice to readers and future editors. Shereth 21:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- Blueboar, why don't you find the sources yourself and add them to the article? I find that some editors at the deletionist end of the spectrum edit as though their only role is to find articles to send to AfD and argue doggedly for their deletion, forgetting that they themselves can and should also improve articles. I've seen several nominations for AfD and prod that say "unsourced, not verified", when it was clear the editors hadn't made any effort at sourcing. Turkish-Lebanese relations is a good example. Fences&Windows 22:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- I could not agree more with Fences and Windows here. Time and time again we find nominations from those who even admittedly "can spend an hour chopping down a character list, but...get bored after five minutes while looking for sources." In another discussion, a different editor said "The possibility that this thing was covered by any third party source should be 0." Well, without dealing with "possibility" but actually checking to see the reality, I found that subject is indeed covered by name and by USA Today, Fox News, etc. Sure we can debate the nature of that coverage, but even a simple Google News search shows that it is not "0". And yet in that discussion like so many, we have the same hit and run "per noms" by the usual suspects that reflect no actual effort to verify if sources exist. Criminy! Even when I argue to delete as in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rooby Foo, I still try to add something original to the discussion, including evidence of looking for sources, and at least one edit to fix something in the actual article under discussion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- In a perfect world, people would spend more than 5 minutes looking for sources before nominating an article for deletion, and people would spend the extra 2 minutes to add sources to an article when they find them. It's the old WP:BURDEN vs WP:BEFORE argument again, when in reality these aren't conflicting goals in the least. A little bit of extra work now usually means a lot less work later, and hopefully at some point we'll all be a little better at remembering that. Shereth 22:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- There are times when I feel as if why am I even having to argue with accounts that clearly are making no efforts to look for sources of any kind and when a glance at their edit history reveals they rarely do. It is one thing when I argue with someone who has oodles of featured articles under his/her belt, but more often than not is with those who simply do not like lists or articles on fictional elements and so do not want them to be saved even if they actually can be. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 22:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- In a perfect world, people would spend more than 5 minutes looking for sources before nominating an article for deletion, and people would spend the extra 2 minutes to add sources to an article when they find them. It's the old WP:BURDEN vs WP:BEFORE argument again, when in reality these aren't conflicting goals in the least. A little bit of extra work now usually means a lot less work later, and hopefully at some point we'll all be a little better at remembering that. Shereth 22:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- I could not agree more with Fences and Windows here. Time and time again we find nominations from those who even admittedly "can spend an hour chopping down a character list, but...get bored after five minutes while looking for sources." In another discussion, a different editor said "The possibility that this thing was covered by any third party source should be 0." Well, without dealing with "possibility" but actually checking to see the reality, I found that subject is indeed covered by name and by USA Today, Fox News, etc. Sure we can debate the nature of that coverage, but even a simple Google News search shows that it is not "0". And yet in that discussion like so many, we have the same hit and run "per noms" by the usual suspects that reflect no actual effort to verify if sources exist. Criminy! Even when I argue to delete as in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rooby Foo, I still try to add something original to the discussion, including evidence of looking for sources, and at least one edit to fix something in the actual article under discussion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- While I sympathize with Blueboar, it's not just limited to AfD. 99.9% of my Wikipedia contributions are adding things someone else could and should have already added. That's what makes this a collaborative encyclopedia. If the person who is arguing keep listed the sources at the AfD, I add them to the article as I check them out. Sometimes it's a wasted effort, but I was checking out their source anyway, so why not? (If the person argues "keep because there are sources somewhere" and can't be bothered to even list them, I don't consider that much of a keep argument.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
My pet peeve is that I always seem to be running around like a headless chicken trying to save things from AfD that neither the original author nor the deletion nominator could be bothered to fix, leaving me and folks like me as sort of one-armed paper hangers on amphetamines trying to source things when most everyone else doesn't seem to care. What Wikipedia needs is a few hundred people who love to clean up un- or under-sourced articles that other people have created. Jclemens (talk) 00:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- That one reason why some editors don't like to join Afd. The ominous feeling to clean-up the wreckage left behind by others. --KrebMarkt 07:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Moved from WP:ANI
Extended content
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As some of you know, there has been massive disruption caused over the deletion of bilateral relation articles. Discussions have gotten quite heated, with people being sent to ANI over these articles, disscusions of RFCs, and editors being booted.
A compromise which the majority accepted, but which a handful of editors, including Libstar ademently refused to accept, was merging several of these articles into List of diplomatic missions of Argentina, for example. Now Libstar, who was the most adement to comprimise is putting the redirects for these articles up for deletion. I was just alerted to:
I am interested if this is the correct forum to talk about Libstar's refusal to comprimise, continued disruption, battle mentality, and refusal to work towards comprimise. Based on a quick glance at Libstar's talk page and talk archive, a RFC maybe in order, but I would like the communities opinion on this, and what is the best way to settle this dispute. Please advise. Ikip (talk) 14:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Response by Libstar
Redirect the remaining pagesI suggest we redirect all of the remaining pages: (which don't have footnotes and are mere stubs) to the List of diplomatic missions of... Those editors who want to later merge that material can. I will start redirecting these pages, unless anyone objects...Ikip (talk) 14:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
there is no consensus that all bilateral articles should be kept or redirected. and as such each one that is of questionable notability has had to go through AfD. other editors have suggested group nominations or even blanket deletion of all Groubani (talk · contribs) stubs so we can actually start again. this was vehemently opposed by inclusionists who wanted individual AfDs. LibStar (talk) 01:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
nope, no intention to do any of Aymatth2 redirects. LibStar (talk) 01:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:KETTLE, you have been a willing participant. LibStar (talk) 01:50, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Inappropriate redirectsI would like to highlight some examples of inappropriate redirects that have occured recently such as this when the two countries cleary have some very significant third party coverage. nor do I understand this redirect. LibStar (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Can I collapse this discussion now LibStar? Ikip (talk) 01:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC) |
Views sought on Andrea Cagan
Lacks any substantial referencing and stands out more as an advertorial for some pretty insignificant authorship, there seems no readily available source of sound citation. Bizzarely Cagan appears in List of biographers, somehow a 'ghost' for US celebs doesn't really seem to belong in a list that includes Antonia Fraser and Plutarch. Cagan maybe a controversial delete because of her authorship of "Peace Is Possible" which has been heavily used as a cite in Prem Rawat and related articles. The Cagan book IS NOT that dealt with at Peace Is Possible (book).--Nik Wright2 (talk) 07:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Is there any sort of unofficial/official community guideline...
...for how many articles is too many to bundle into one AFD nomination? I did a fairly exhaustive audit on a group of articles of questionable notability just now and came up with over 300 of them (I tried to get an exact count, but I gave up at around 220) that I don't think should stand as standalone articles. Now, many of those are clearly going to be more suitable to merge to a parent article, but the amount I'd seek to list at AFD is still going to be staggering once the merging is all done. I can't imagine bundling, say, 150 articles together into one nom would go over too well, but I don't think 150 nominations that are basically the same would, either. Nosleep break my slumber 10:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- S'pose I'll start with PROD, and see if that whittles it down a little too, but I'll still be interested in getting a response to this question. Nosleep break my slumber 10:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- There is no official limit. I have seen AfD's that have covered several thousands of articles (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Claus Peter Poppe) but that it something of a rarity. A good rule of thumb is this : Are the articles substantially similar, both in terms of content and problems, that a user can make an informed decision without having to perform a detailed review each and every article individually? If so, a mass AfD is probably acceptable. However if the issue is not eminently clear and obvious, you don't want to swamp the participants with having to dredge through dozens upon dozens of articles at once. Shereth 14:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you. I definitely can group the articles together into bundles where they're in similar states, and that should push it down to about 20-30 articles per bundle I'd think (still a lot, but manageable). Nosleep break my slumber 15:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- Just adding my two cents on bundling. Personally, I think we should still expect editors to go through every article bundled in an AfD. However, my rule of thumb for bundling is how closely related the articles are and whether I could reasonably expect someone to !vote keep on some and not the others. For example, if I was listing an author for AfD, it might be reasonable to bundle in the article on his self-published book, because their notability are closely intertwined. (And if the author is notable and the book is not, the book would get merged to the author). However, if I'm nominating 20 different baseball players, each will have different sources and it could easily be that 3 are notable and 17 are not -- bundling doesn't really help the discussion.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- How'd you know this was about baseball players? :P I still think I can group them into very cohesive bundles, but by that rule it would be more like 7-8 per bundle than 20-30. This is going to take a while to put together one way or the other, so I'm definitely gonna mull it over for a while. Nosleep break my slumber 16:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- Just adding my two cents on bundling. Personally, I think we should still expect editors to go through every article bundled in an AfD. However, my rule of thumb for bundling is how closely related the articles are and whether I could reasonably expect someone to !vote keep on some and not the others. For example, if I was listing an author for AfD, it might be reasonable to bundle in the article on his self-published book, because their notability are closely intertwined. (And if the author is notable and the book is not, the book would get merged to the author). However, if I'm nominating 20 different baseball players, each will have different sources and it could easily be that 3 are notable and 17 are not -- bundling doesn't really help the discussion.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you. I definitely can group the articles together into bundles where they're in similar states, and that should push it down to about 20-30 articles per bundle I'd think (still a lot, but manageable). Nosleep break my slumber 15:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
In limbo
AfD/Annie jr has not been closed nor has it been relisted, but the discussions of its day have been archived. —SlamDiego←T 13:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- That might have something to do with it not appearing on the 11ths log page. Anyway, I've relisted it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 13:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
What do people think of this article for deletion?
I've been looking at and trying to regulate Christian J Simpson for awhile now. It has primarily one editor, whom I suspect is the subject of the article. The entire article reads like his resume and its only citations are his home page and his Facebook fan page. Should/could this be nominated for deletion on grounds of notability? Thanks --TorsodogTalk 19:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see why not--there are plenty of better articles nominated for AfD. I'd recommend following WP:BEFORE first, as well as cleaning up the article--inline links to wookiepedia? Um, yeah. Jclemens (talk) 19:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Merging during live AfD
WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion advises against merging content from an article at AfD, suggesting that editor wait until the AfD is closed. Since Guide to deletion has low activity, I'm starting a discussion here to see if current consensus affirms this guidance. Moving articles at AfD comes up occasionally (WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Policy on moving a page when it's in AfD? and the next section Moving articles during a live discussion), but I'm not sure if any considerations are shared. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I would say it's OK if no one objects. If there are objections, then wait for the AfD to finish. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'd really prefer we didn't, because it can preempt the deletion decision. If I merge content from an article which is likely to be deleted into an article which is likely to not be deleted, it can force the deleting admin to either delete the merged revisions (something not likely to happen because it is both a pain in the ass and akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face) or leave the merged article as a redirect. In the cases where merger is suggested at the deletion discussion (either by the nom or by a few editors) and would obviate the reasons for deletion, I have less of a problem, but I still would prefer the AfD come to a close first. Protonk (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- This leads me to believe that in such cases, nomination for deletion should never have occured, and is indeed a waste of resources. If content is suitable for merging, I think keeping valuable content superseeds the deletion process, and would make things run smoother. --NickPenguin(contribs) 05:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I tend to agree that it's often not a good idea, unless there's already a nearly universal consensus to do so--a SNOW merge non-admin close, if you will. The complications raised by Protonk are a very good reason why BOLDly doing so otherwise might be an inappropriate use of IAR. Jclemens (talk) 05:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I did one of those merges and it's very circumstantial. Usually those articles are spin-out ones tagged for clean-up and/or merge. The Afd nomination just put this or those articles on the top of a project clean-up/merge list. The Afd nominator could have contacted the concerned project instead of starting an Afd which i agree would save everyone a lot of time. --KrebMarkt 06:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Topic specific wikiprojects should be given the heads up before a nomination, but there are other avenues that seem to be working. I've noticed an increase in new articles added over at WP:Proposed mergers, and I think this theme is starting to catch on. Its a good noticeboard for complicated merges. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Reaching consensus on a merge is the lesser half of the job, making the merge effective is the bigger half. Here the merge back-log of the anime/manga project: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Cleanup_task_force#Articles_needing_to_be_merged Scary and i'm not even sure it's up to date. So when an Afd bring back articles on the top of the to do list, you rather want it to be fixed asap before other things happen delaying even more the clean-up. More use of WP:Proposed mergers is a really good thing, i just hope the merges are done afterward. --KrebMarkt 07:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Topic specific wikiprojects should be given the heads up before a nomination, but there are other avenues that seem to be working. I've noticed an increase in new articles added over at WP:Proposed mergers, and I think this theme is starting to catch on. Its a good noticeboard for complicated merges. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I did one of those merges and it's very circumstantial. Usually those articles are spin-out ones tagged for clean-up and/or merge. The Afd nomination just put this or those articles on the top of a project clean-up/merge list. The Afd nominator could have contacted the concerned project instead of starting an Afd which i agree would save everyone a lot of time. --KrebMarkt 06:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, we should be able to merge during AfDs per WP:BOLD, WP:BEFORE, WP:PRESERVE, and WP:IAR. An Afd should NOT prevent us from improving Wikipedia. We are here to build an encyclopedia, i.e. content, not to be mired in technicalities. If we find a solution in the course of a discussion for content's use that does not require an admin to have to use the delete function, we go with that rather than play games waiting for the verdict in some snap shot in time five to seven day discussion. Best, --A NobodyMy talk 17:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I do agree there in principle; but we do have to be mindful that not everybody necessarily agrees if a consensus forms quickly. In general, I think some latitude should be given to allow speedy closes if most participants in a debate come up with a compromise before the end of the scheduled time, but effort should be taken to respect all views already posted. I'm thinking of a theoretical AfD where five people !vote to delete, then someone else comes along with a reasonable merge proposal, and two of the five "deleters" agree with it. The other three don't immediately respond, a compromise is declared, and the article's merged. There's great potential for some or all of the other delete proponents to come back the next day to discover that a decision they disagree with has been unexpectedly made without their input. Early merges should be encouraged, but only where consensus is sufficiently clear that an early closure would normally be warranted. ~ mazca talk 18:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a dodge to me - merge the cruft and claim that the AFD no longer needs to be run and then unmerge it a little while later and hope that nobody notices. The AFD should be concluded first. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- The nonsense non-word "cruft" is never a valid reason for deleting or merging anything on Wikipedia. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I sense a conversation degeration approaching. Anyways, I would think the situation Cameron suggests suspects bad faith, and very rarely have I seen a well completed merge get reverted. I would suggest that those cases are extremely rare, or non-existent. --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- They are relatively rare, but by no means non-existent. Protonk (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I'll take your work for it, unless you feel like providing an example. Even still, I don't think a few renegades trying to outrun concensus should trump good sense. --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- Usually we merge the relevant information and leave the Afd nominated article untouched. Whatever the Afd ends quickly or until the 7 days doesn't enter into consideration. There may be some persons gaming the system by doing a merge then undoing it to dodge an Afd. However it could happen with merge during live AfD as much with merge after Afd precess. I can't see why an Afd closing after a full 7 days with a merge result would offer any guaranty that the article won't be merged just for appearance purpose than un-merged back when things die down. --KrebMarkt 21:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- You can email me if you would like some more problematic examples. I don't work 'in the trenches' anymore, so requests for obvious examples of reverted redirects and undone mergers should be directed to someone who does. Protonk (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I can't remember which article, but I redirected it during an AfD, and everyone thought it was a fine solution at the time. This kinda seems like a solution in search of a problem. If someone is trying to hide behind the GFDL or CC3.0 or whatever while behaving badly, they'll quickly be disabused of it, I imagine. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I'll take your work for it, unless you feel like providing an example. Even still, I don't think a few renegades trying to outrun concensus should trump good sense. --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- They are relatively rare, but by no means non-existent. Protonk (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- I sense a conversation degeration approaching. Anyways, I would think the situation Cameron suggests suspects bad faith, and very rarely have I seen a well completed merge get reverted. I would suggest that those cases are extremely rare, or non-existent. --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
- The nonsense non-word "cruft" is never a valid reason for deleting or merging anything on Wikipedia. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses.
- Some history: There was an outright prohibition of merging in the original February 2005 version. Aside from the removal of "considered to be vandalism", the wording stayed mostly unchanged until Rossami's full rewrite in September 2005 (rewrite discussion), which relaxed the prohibition to the "extreme caution" warning. The wording "unless there is a strong case for merge under the deletion policy" was added within a day of that rewrite. There have been a short-lived removal based on visible deleted revisions (revert), a suggested workaround by fully rewriting the content, and a minor licensing update, but the core wording has remained stable since September 2005.messy diff The guidance is not new, but consensus could have shifted away.
- As mentioned above, there are cases where a merger is a foregone/SNOW conclusion. To avoid confusion and to lessen the appearance of unilateral action, the editor should SNOW close the AfD, then perform the merger. The "strong case for merge" wording invokes arguments based on WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD; their strength should be evaluated by consensus at the AfD.
- This discussion was mentioned in this week's Signpost. WP:Articles for deletion/A Place With No Name (2nd nomination) was covered in an adjacent section. Despite a split consensus, the nominator performed a merger and requested a speedy close; objections necessitated another AfD.
Flatscan (talk) 04:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- A point that I forgot to highlight: as Protonk mentioned, a merger can be performed by any editor, but can only be reversed – with difficulty – by an admin. Flatscan (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Merging during an AfD is a highly disruptive tactic used with the aim of precluding a delete outcome. It is a bad faith, battleground approach. Sure, there will be some cases where it's uncontroversial (and what harm is there in awaiting a close?). In the cases we've all seen, it's not been uncontroversial. Those regularly employing the technique in controversial circumstances should be blocked and/or banned for their disruption. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Old open discussion
There's an AfD from 11 August which is still open at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinyl Life. It looks like the AfD didn't get added to a log page. I've added {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinyl Life}} to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 August 11 but I'm not sure if anything else needs doing. --JD554 (talk) 12:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
- Well it has been speedied now. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Relisting
I've been noticing lately that AfDs are becoming increasingly under-attended, to the point where it seems most discussions are being relisted at least once. The process definitely needs more participants, but I don't think the current method of relisting is effective when it affects such a large portion of AfDs. Thoughts? –Juliancolton | Talk 16:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Beyond further notifications to possible participants, it is difficult to know. We could lower the bar allowed to establish consensus under WP:RELIST, but then we're leaving the fate of an article in maybe one or two hands. The other alternative is to encourage more NC closures if there are too few comments. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- (ec) I'm not sure there is much that can be done. For better or worse much of the participation on AfD is limited to picking topics which look like they might be "interesting" to discuss. I'm not sure if there are many people who actually take the time to sit down and review large quantities of AfD discussions just because they are there - as evidenced by the fact that there are numerous such under-attended discussions that are difficult to close. The only thing that I can think of that might help is if there were some way to bring more attention to Category:Relisted AfD debates. I am just not sure that there is any way to encourage people to be interested in something that is, honestly, not very interesting. As an aside, has something changed in the relisting template recently? The relisted discussions in today's log seems to be doing something funky to the table of contents. Shereth 16:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Some possible ways to increase participation:
- More automatic notifications of article creators and significant contributors. I know there's a bot that contacts people if they're made 5+ non-minor edits; perhaps that could be adjusted to widen the notifications, perhaps based on characters contributed to the current article? :Add an option on your Watchlist to see all current AfDs and prods flagged up for every article you've edited, in case you miss the nomination. Could also do this for RfCs etc.
- More listing on Deletion sorting pages, which surely could be automated by bots if it isn't already. Every AfD should be in at least one category.
- Greater prominence of articles up for deletion on WikiProject pages.
- If an article links to or is linked from an article that is up for deletion, a note at the top of the talk page could flag this up.
- Have a bot like SuggestBot that lists AfDs you might be interested in on your talk page every 5 days.
- Have a list of the 5 latest AfD nominations on the Wikipedia homepage. Fences&Windows 21:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- p.s. Would an RfC on the topic of how to widen participation in deletion discussions be a good idea? Fences&Windows 21:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- I seem to recall a time when there was weeks long backlogs of unclosed AfD discussions, and it has been quite a while since those disappeared. I suspect that the relative number of participants is the same, except more articles are being relisted instead of kept open for 10+ days. When you consider it, a relist is more fair than just leaving it open because a) older discussions have less eyes, and thus people are less likely to put in an opinion because they feel it will not recieve much feedback/make much of a difference, and b) closing admins don't feel they have to make a quick decision because it's been open a long time. No clear concensus after 7 days? Relist it, generate more fresh discussion. It's Articles for Deletion, not Articles for Deletion Right Now. --NickPenguin(contribs) 22:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, seriously tho, there is a boat load of relisted AfDs. Looking at todays, I'd say roughly half are relists, and maybe only half of those relists have more than two !votes. I still think it's more fair this way, but it looks like things are getting bogged down. --NickPenguin(contribs) 22:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Fence, the User:Erwin85Bot is not working now, not only does not contact those who have 5 or more major edits, it is not contacting creators also. I am not sure when the bot works, but I had to notify two editors recently of an AfD. Erwin wrote:
- "The bot actually already notifies all authors with more than 5 non-minor edits. Trouble is that it uses the toolserver's replicated database to do so, but that the toolserver has been having some problems these last few days. I'll probably rewrite my bot a bit to in that case only notify the first author as it hasn't been running now at all." [11]
- Ikip (talk) 04:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- Fence, the User:Erwin85Bot is not working now, not only does not contact those who have 5 or more major edits, it is not contacting creators also. I am not sure when the bot works, but I had to notify two editors recently of an AfD. Erwin wrote:
- I'm almost certain that the old backlog was due to the absence of tools to close AfDs. I seem to recall the backlog changing from multiple days to a problem where the "old afd" page was empty at the end of 5 days fairly quickly once a few AfD closing scripts made their way around. Protonk (talk) 04:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- I think that the bot should remove Category:Relisted AfD debates a lot faster. Whenever I go into that category, I keep seeing already closed debates. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
- Enforcing civility would likely help. Who needs extra drama? Thus those who remain either have to adapt defend or fight back. It's tiresome. -- Banjeboi 03:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
- Also, I think admins need to be more WP:BOLD at closing AfDs with only a few comments. People often don't bother to comment on AfDs that have "obvious" results. If you've got a clearly non-notable person/band/etc in an AfD which only ever reached AfD because a PROD was removed, close it as Delete. If you've got an AfD with a few comments but one of them shows clear notability in reliable sources, then close it as Keep. If anyone really objects, there's always DRV - but I doubt that many would end up there. Black Kite 13:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- One problem with AfD is that 90-95% of the nominations should be deleted -- & they are being nominated as a sanity check before the article is converted to stray electrons. And I write that as an "inclusionist". When I nominate an article for deletion, what I hope to see is not a bunch of "Me too"s or "Delete with fire" responses, but some evidence that at least one other editor has checked my argument for errors, & either confirmed that the article should be deleted or that there is one or more good reasons for keeping it. Sadly, no one seems to do this. -- llywrch (talk) 05:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- Quite often they're not even a sanity check, but have been forced there because someone (often the article creator) removed a PROD for no apparent reason. The inability to replace a PROD removed without any sort of explanation is one reason why AFD is clogged. Black Kite 10:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that that's true. I've been doing Proposed Deletion patrol (alongside AfD Patrol) recently, and I'm not seeing the proposed deletions that end up at AFD as a large fraction of overall AFD traffic. I think that the bigger problem for traffic is indeed as identified here: relistings. Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, there are a few that do. I could name some editors whose AFD discussion contributions I have high confidence, based upon experience, in being the product of good research and actual effort put in to double-check things independently. But it is perpetual September at AFD just as it is in the rest of Wikipedia. There are always new editors, who come along and from what they see think that what's needed from them is simply another drive-by no-effort vote (or, indeed, nomination), who need education in what actions will actually benefit both AFD and the encyclopaedia. Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- Quite often they're not even a sanity check, but have been forced there because someone (often the article creator) removed a PROD for no apparent reason. The inability to replace a PROD removed without any sort of explanation is one reason why AFD is clogged. Black Kite 10:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- I'm not sure whether AFD participation is up or down compared to years gone by. I've seen no actual measurements. However, one thing that it observably is, is lumpy. There are discussions that it seems no-one wants to participate in, and there are discussions that attract tens of editors. But that's been the case for a long time at AFD. (Indeed, it's one reason that any attempts to measure participation must be done with care, lest they be ill-founded or outright meaningless.) Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think the problem is relisting. Relisting is a good response to the problem, which is a lack of participation in those discussions. The solution is not to stop relisting, but to work out ways to widen participation - I suggest some above, I'd appreciate comments on my ideas before they vanish into the ether! Fences&Windows 15:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- The problem, in my view, is people relisting debates that plainly aren't supposed to be relisted. WP:RELIST isn't being followed very well — just breezing through today's relists there are:
- One AFD relisted a second time
- One AFD relisted a third time
- One AFD relisted with 6 contributors, evenly divided
- One AFD relisted with 8 contributors, evenly divided
- Each of these, and a lot of other discussions, should be closed as no consensus rather than running through another week of discussion that's not very likely to generate a result. We owe articles a "speedy trial", as it were — the focus should be on getting a result, within the second week if not the first, and not having the spectre of deletion hanging over an article for ages. Stifle (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- One thing that would make the process nicer is if we all really did see it as a discussion rather than a form of debating competition to try and 'win' one's preferred outcome. I certainly know I'm guilty of this sometimes. I would also ban any comments addressed to the closer, or noting the veracity of others' !votes. If someone is making erroneous arguments then we should just trust the closing admin to correctly weigh the arguments, as these sort of comments mostly raise the tension level in the debates, and shouldn't make any difference if the admin is doing their job. If AfD is a more convivial place then people might be more likely to get involved. Quantpole (talk) 20:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- On September 3, I already see a bunch of relistings, some of which are on their third or fourth relisting. I tend to think that such relistings may be excessive. Either there is consensus to delete, or there isn't. Once an AfD has already been relisted twice, a closing admin ought to make a decision rather than trying for another relisting. If we wind up with more "no consensus keeps", I can live with that. The nominator, or someone else, can always come back later and write a better nomination for deletion that might actually attract some interest from other AfD participants. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- FWIW, I don't see the relisting as a big problem. From what I see, there are articles that people just seem to skim past because of their title etc. (I don't choose to look at every AfD, just ones that sound like an area I have interest in and I suspect others are the same). For example, I rarely comment on AfD's about college professors, soccer players from other countries or computer software. Not my interest and there are things involved in those discussion I don't feel like keeping track of (what league is professional, what chair is considered notable). I suspect others are the same way. I've seen AfD's get a third re-list, then get 3-4 votes and a consensus achieved. Just because an article didn't appeal to broad and immediate interest right off the bat doesn't mean it should just be a "close no consensus". The third relisting isn't hurting anything. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Casting votes
Is it appropriate for closing admins to make casting votes as in this and this? I'd say no, because it turns him into a participant and means he can't close it. Thoughts? Ironholds (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- I also just found this and this. Ironholds (talk) 11:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- Since I relisted two of them, I noticed too. These are all invalid closures and should be overturned at WP:DRV. Per WP:DGFA, the job of a closing admin is to assess consensus, not just to cast a vote, and at any rate AfD is not a vote. Sandstein 12:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- So DRV rather than simply reopening them? I understood DRV was for where the administrator's assessment of consensus is in question, rather than the validity of his close altogether.Ironholds (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- I was mindful to seek an overturn at DRV myself; for one thing, since AfD is (theoretically, anyway) to seek out the proper policies and guidelines to apply to the situations, I'd be extremely interested in hearing the policy basis for the admin's "closing vote." RGTraynor 12:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- Since I relisted two of them, I noticed too. These are all invalid closures and should be overturned at WP:DRV. Per WP:DGFA, the job of a closing admin is to assess consensus, not just to cast a vote, and at any rate AfD is not a vote. Sandstein 12:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- I have seen this sort of AfD/move/etc discussion, which goes on wordily repetitively intermittently, some of them for weeks, until it is many times as big as the article which it is about, and never comes to a concensus. I felt that someone had to make a decision. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- And perhaps you could explain your policy basis for doing so? I don't have a problem, myself, for bringing to a close an AfD discussion that's gone eight days, but since the sticking point is whether the sources discuss the subject in substantive detail, as WP:GNG requires, which of the sources listed have you looked over and found to do so? RGTraynor 12:37, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- OK, treat them as cases of "no concensus, so keep". I have known such disputed matters to be discussed repetitively inconclusively for weeks. There are claims of nuclear blueprints being found in the Al Qaida guest house, Kabul: that surely makes it somewhat like noteworthy?, given that Pakistan has nukes and Iran is trying to get nukes. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- I don't necessarily agree with Anthony Appleyard's "casting vote" closure, but closing all of those as "no consensus, default to keep" seems absolutely reasonable. They're all the kind of terminally-inconclusive discussions that mutter along for ages, never forming a consensus. ~ mazca talk 12:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- I found these 4 AfD's pointed to in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 August 22, which was pointed to in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Old discussions. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- In case of Al Aqua military training camp, the AfD is already about ten times as long as the article, as measured by text length in being-edited mode. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
- No. The closing role should be distinct from the !voting role. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- Thought experiment. Had he just said "no consensus defaults to keep", would we be having this conversation? Protonk (talk) 05:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- Still, it's inappropriate WP:COI. That's why crats don't close RfAs they voted in, even if the result was obvious. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- What Protonk said. Stifle (talk) 08:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Withdrawn but not closed
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tchibo - nom withdrew three days ago, but what looks like a SNOW keep case is still open. Any reason for this (apart from admin shortage)? NVO (talk) 03:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- Closed now. I would say that one reason may be that people aren't crusing afd's early to close them, but it may just be a shortage of admins. Sigh. Maybe I should go back to AfDs. Protonk (talk) 03:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- If you find ones like this again, feel free to close it yourself, or poke the nom to have them do it. There's nothing wrong with non-admins closing withdrawn discussions. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Just make sure that there are no outstanding delete (or non-keep, depending on interpretation) recommendations, per WP:Speedy keep criterion 1. This used to be a fairly common error, but I haven't seen it recently. Flatscan (talk) 06:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Non-listed debates
DumbBOT seems to have stopped automatically listing debates that are not added to a daily log page. This has resulted in quite a few AfD's that are languishing in limbo:
What should I do with these? I could list them on todays log but I don't want to flood it? ascidian | talk-to-me 21:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- 20 or so listings won't really flood the log, I would say go ahead and list them. Shereth 21:23, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- I closed one while looking through AfD cats to comment on. Before relisting consider checking to see if the discussion is basically complete. Protonk (talk) 06:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
"Having to" defend articles against deletion
I've run into this strange allegation a few times lately. Some editors claim that they would be better able to improve articles if they didn't have to defend them against deletion. I find this bizarre, because the easiest way to defend an article against deletion is to just improve it, ignoring any deletion discussions that may be going on. At the most, a one-line, "I'm adding sources" in an AFD is all the participation that's required.
I wonder, is there a way to let people know that, even if an article is nominated for deletion, they're under no practical (or any other kind of) obligation to argue in its defense. If an article is deleted while someone is trying to improve it, then I, or any other like minded administrator, would be more than happy to recover any deleted content and userfy it for anyone who wants to improve it.
I don't know why inclusionsists believe that winning arguments in AFD discussions is a productive use of their time. Does this make sense? What would be a good way to let people know about this? -GTBacchus(talk) 11:03, 6 September 2009 (UTC) This is a special case of a larger problem, where people think that winning arguments against other editors is practical and useful, when it's actually almost always a waste of time.
- Editors are not improving articles by putting them for deletion. Editors are causing unnecessary drama when they could work collaboratively with the creator and other editors to come to an amicable decision. Many Articles for Deletion could be compared to me holding a gun to someones head and stopping them from eating. Then that person loses weight, and then I smugly pat myself on the back. For anyone to take credit for fixing an article by putting it up for deletion is personally repulsive to me.
- By editors refusing to mandate WP:BEFORE and WP:PRESERVE, Article for Deletions by there very nature are confrontational. The very first edit to an article that the vast majority of editors who nominate articles for deletion is the AFD tag. The majority, over 60%, of all articles put up for deletion are by new editors. We could avoid the drama of an AFD by simply userfying articles in the first place This proposal was made by me before here, and it was soundly defeated. Ikip (talk) 13:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
- So.... how are you saying I can make available the service I'm offering?
I don't disagree with anything you say here. I'm simply saying that, during the week of AFD, those who would save an article are wasting their time arguing with deletionists who will not be convinced by arguments. AFD does not stop anyone from editing, unless they believe that the article is somehow locked while up for discussion. It's not.
What I'm offering is to undelete articles for those who would improve them. Are you against this offer? I understand that you're frustrated, but I don't see how your post is a reply to what I actually said. We can both use bold text, see, but can you respond to the content I'm presenting? -GTBacchus(talk) 13:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
- So.... how are you saying I can make available the service I'm offering?