WP:PROD, WP:BEFORE, and WP:BURDEN.
I've seen a few people recently arguing that WP:BEFORE applies to prod. That is to say, if someone creates an article with no sources, and a second editor wants to nominate it for deletion (even via PROD), the onus is on the second editor to do a search for sources first. I don't think that is the case, but even beyond that, I think that this points to a larger contradiction between WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS, and I think that the underlying logic behind BURDEN causes some of the problems we're seeing in WP:NPP - when editors can create entirely citation-free articles entirely out of their own head, and shift the burden to doing a search for citations to anyone who wants to challenge their contribution, it results in people creating a bunch of uncited stubs that remain uncited forever because nobody has the desire or incentive to spend time citing them. To solve this, I suggest a simple change: WP:BEFORE should unambiguously not apply to any article whose only substantial edits have been made by a single editor - in that case, the burden is solely on the article's creator to search for sources if they want to avoid removal. When an article has multiple significant contributors it becomes more complex, but when there's only one it seems like a straightforward WP:BURDEN situation. --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Can we shift the responsibility even stronger towards people who create articles - prohibit creation of uncited articles? I'm avoiding just saying "yes" to your idea because sometimes editors give up on wikipedia before their article gets to AfD, and their poorly cited articles could get deleted, which seems like what happened with this recent one Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emma Stark CT55555 (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- NPP is 90% about wp:notability, and the most common problem isn't zero sources, it's zero wp:notability sources. For example, a one sentence article on a Japanese baseball player sourced only to an on-line database that says that he plays baseball. And so one of the 30 NPP'ers is supposed to search Japanese media in Japanese language and character sets before sending it to AFD. And yes, finding those sources needs to be part of making the article, (by the million editors) not the job of of the 30 NPP'ers. North8000 (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Between WP:V, WP:DEL-REASON, and WP:N, I don't think we need to get into the details of BEFORE and BURDEN. Here's the flow chart, which I don't think should be controversial:
- Does the article have any citations?
- Yes → Does it have enough citations to demonstrate notability?
- Yes → no action needed.
- No → Is it notable? (notability is based on the existence of sources, so this determination requires some searching)
- Yes → Is it new?
- Yes → userfy/draftify
- No → tag or improve.
- No → Propose/nominate for deletion/merge.
- Yes → Is it new?
- No → Is it new?
- Yes → userfy/draftify.
- No → Redirect if appropriate, CSD if appropriate, userfy/draftify if appropriate, or otherwise propose/nominate deletion/merge.
- Yes → Does it have enough citations to demonstrate notability?
- — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:15, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Well, that summarizes the status quo. My post is saying that the system isn't working (and why) in executing your line 3: ("No → Is it notable? (notability is based on the existence of sources, so this determination requires some searching)") Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- PROD is for noncontroversial deletion. If you nominate an article for AfD without BEFORE, and other editors easily find sources, you'll be rightly trouted and the deletion will be controversial. This means that it's impossible to predict that deletion will be noncontroversial without doing BEFORE, ergo PROD requires BEFORE. pburka (talk) 21:07, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- But that change would mean that there is no requirement for finding sources when creating an article, not even a suggestion; while there would be a requirement to find sources in order to remove what the article's creator added, even if there's no indication that the creator made any effort to find sources themselves. The creator could directly demand that someone who PRODs their creation demonstrate they performed a search for sources and could even try to drag them to ANI if the prodder declined - that unambiguously violates WP:BURDEN. The burden to find sources for text that someone wants to retain is always on the person who added it or wants to retain it, never on the person who wants to remove it. Reasonably speaking, if I prod something and someone else removes the prod, I'm within my rights to demand that the person who removed the PROD produce sources (that ofc wouldn't justify another PROD, but if they continuously and repeatedly removed PROD tags without any indication that they were trying to add sources, they would be the ones who would be in trouble in ANI for ignoring WP:BURDEN.) If they demanded that I search for sources before prodding, I can tell them to get lost and that I did not, will not, and will continue to prod articles without doing so - and I'm 100% in the right per WP:BURDEN; the burden to do that search is on the person who created the article or who removes the prod, never (not even a little bit) on the person who placed it. --Aquillion (talk) 04:10, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- PROD is for noncontroversial deletion. If you nominate an article for AfD without BEFORE, and other editors easily find sources, you'll be rightly trouted and the deletion will be controversial. This means that it's impossible to predict that deletion will be noncontroversial without doing BEFORE, ergo PROD requires BEFORE. pburka (talk) 21:07, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- @North8000 I don't disagree, but I guess it depends on what you mean by "working". A single sentence with a single source that verifies the sentence isn't ideal, but also isn't something that needs urgent action, but if it's a new article then NPP should catch it and userfy/draftify it. I guess the question is what to do if someone decides to move it back into mainspace. There's no policy that prevents that (unless it was formally declined at AfC), but I also don't think it's all that common? Maybe I'm wrong. For older undersourced articles, however, yeah, anyone proposing/nominating for deletion on notability grounds needs to have a good claim about notability based on research, not a gut feeling or the citations in the article. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Well, first a preface, and then a question. The preface is that it's a math problem, the way the NPP math works, 10 reviewers need to manually review about 500 articles per day. Now, let's say there's an article that needs GNG sources but doesn't have them. Would you say that it's OK / an acceptable practice to userfy/draftify it without searching for GNG type sources and determining whether or not they exist? North8000 (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- If a draftification or userfication is challenged (anyone can challenge that move, NPP isn't a formal process), then AFD is the next step in the process and BEFORE is plainly required from the nominator. Iffy★Chat -- 21:41, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Yes to both North8000 and Iffy. If be curious how many userfications/draftifications are actually undone. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- @Rhododendrites: I can't answer that. At NPP I haven't been userfying/ draftifying based on needed GNG references not being included IN the article. It sounds like a good idea. North8000 (talk) 14:09, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Yes to both North8000 and Iffy. If be curious how many userfications/draftifications are actually undone. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- @North8000 I don't disagree, but I guess it depends on what you mean by "working". A single sentence with a single source that verifies the sentence isn't ideal, but also isn't something that needs urgent action, but if it's a new article then NPP should catch it and userfy/draftify it. I guess the question is what to do if someone decides to move it back into mainspace. There's no policy that prevents that (unless it was formally declined at AfC), but I also don't think it's all that common? Maybe I'm wrong. For older undersourced articles, however, yeah, anyone proposing/nominating for deletion on notability grounds needs to have a good claim about notability based on research, not a gut feeling or the citations in the article. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- Given the ongoing village pump discussion this seems rather like forum shopping to me. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:29, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- I linked this discussion from there when I created this one, as suggested in the last sentence of WP:FORUMSHOP when creating a spin-off discussion; that discussion is large and unwieldy and focuses on many things, while this is a much more narrow suggestion specific to some of the issues with how people are interpreting WP:BEFORE that came up in that discussion. Spin-offs like that are appropriate. But here is the discussion in question for those who missed it. --Aquillion (talk) 04:13, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- In my opinion, anyone prodding a non-new article needs to do due diligence, and to suggest they don't is quite literally astonishing to me. Essentially a prod is an experienced editor asserting that the article would be uncontroversially deleted at AfD, and how can one possibly know that if one has done no homework? The justifications with new material are different, because there's the hope that the creator can be persuaded to let us know where the information came from under the stimulus of move to draft or prod. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Lack of citations is a readily fixable problem, as long as sources exist, and we don't delete things that can be fixed. Full stop. It's a core principle going back to the founding of project, not some technicality or oversight. All our deletion processes (except for pseudo-deletion via draft) are designed with that in mind, so yes it applies to PROD (it's in the very first point of WP:PRODNOM), and to AfD, and to CSD, etc. I appreciate the frustration of new page reviewers and the large backlog, but that's no reason to start rewriting core policies, especially when nobody is asking them to deal with unsourced content immediately: the NPP instructions just say check for notability, tag it with {{unsourced}} and move on. – Joe (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- " the NPP instructions just say check for notability, tag it with {{unsourced}} and move on." - This, if I'm honest. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- But WP:BURDEN is also a core principle going back to the founding of the project. I understand the desire to WP:PRESERVE things that you personally believe satisfy WP:V, but PRESERVE applies only to things that meet WP:V, and if you believe something meets V then the the responsibility is always and exclusively on you to demonstrate that by producing a source. The first point of PRODNOM means that someone who has a good faith belief that an article fails to satisfy WP:V or notability can tag prod, since that is a valid deletion criteria; that belief alone is sufficient and no further searching or legwork is necessary on their part - they have no burden or obligation to do any work to demonstrate that the article is not verifiable, that would be absurdly onerous and would directly flip WP:BURDEN on its head. Instead, the burden if their assertion is disputed is on the article's creator and anyone who wants to retain it. There is certainly not, and has never been, any requirement to do a WP:BEFORE search for a mere PROD, and I would strenuously oppose any change imposing such a requirement for WP:BURDEN reasons. --Aquillion (talk) 16:05, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- WP:BURDEN is about text, not articles. There's a fundamental difference between removing text from a live article, where someone can always restore it from the history if they find a source, and deleting the article entirely, where they can't. That's why the burden is on editors who want to delete articles to make a good faith effort to ensure that we're not losing something verifiable. It's not about what they "personally believe" to be verifiable – something is either verifiable or it's not. But verifiability and references are not the same thing. Something can be unreferenced and verifiable (because sources exist) or sourced and unverifiable (because the sources are misused). If you haven't checked that there are sources available—which, let's be honest, usually takes all of a minute—you can't claim to have a "good faith belief" that it's unverifiable and shouldn't be deleting another editor's work based on your hunch. As I've said, that requirement is right there in the first point of WP:PRODNOM:
Is there a valid reason for deletion?
(lack of references alone is not a valid reason for deletion under the deletion policy) andconsider alternatives to deletion like improving the page
(i.e. finding a source). And frankly, I think it's obnoxious to start putting demands on good faith editors under threat of deletion when this is a volunteer project with no deadline. If you can't spare the merest of effort to do a quick WP:BEFORE, why do you think you have the right to delete another editor's work? We never ask reviewers to fix problems as soon as they spot them—that's what cleanup tags are for—so why the great rush to impose deadlines on others? I've honestly never understood the desire to make deletion easy. It seems to speak to a lack of empathy. – Joe (talk) 16:36, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- WP:BURDEN is about text, not articles. There's a fundamental difference between removing text from a live article, where someone can always restore it from the history if they find a source, and deleting the article entirely, where they can't. That's why the burden is on editors who want to delete articles to make a good faith effort to ensure that we're not losing something verifiable. It's not about what they "personally believe" to be verifiable – something is either verifiable or it's not. But verifiability and references are not the same thing. Something can be unreferenced and verifiable (because sources exist) or sourced and unverifiable (because the sources are misused). If you haven't checked that there are sources available—which, let's be honest, usually takes all of a minute—you can't claim to have a "good faith belief" that it's unverifiable and shouldn't be deleting another editor's work based on your hunch. As I've said, that requirement is right there in the first point of WP:PRODNOM:
- Regarding notability, yes there IS a deadline. It sits in the NPP backlog until somebody deals with GNG sourcing where it is required. The question is whether that's the responsibility of the million editors or the 30 NPP'ers. North8000 (talk) 17:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
- Articles consist of text. It makes no sense to suggest that someone can add uncited text and then demand other people find sources for them, ignoring the requirements of WP:BURDEN, simply because that text forms the entire article. BURDEN has always applied to everything; and WP:BEFORE does not and has never applied to WP:PROD. Certainly your argument otherwise is unconvincing - lack of notability is a valid reason for deletion; if a prodder has a good-faith belief that an article lacks notability, then that is sufficient for at least a prod. A prod doesn't result in immediate deletion anyway, so the article's creator has ample time to do the source search that is their responsibility alone per WP:BURDEN. And your second quote is even more baffling - a policy that says to
consider
something is obviously not making it mandatory, ie. it directly contradicts your proposal that WP:BEFORE should be a hard requirement for a PROD. Finally, your characterization of the basic, simple, universal requirement that people who want to add or retain things are the ones responsible for finding sources for them as anobnoxious
demand contrasts with the way you try to reinterpret policy to impose the exact same requirement on a simple low-weight WP:PROD. Having your contributions reverted or removed if you refuse to provide sources for them is not some sort of onerous requirement; it is the basic way Wikipedia works and central to how we get people to perform that essential legwork. The idea that someone could add something to Wikipedia, point-blank refuse to find sources for their claims, and then, when it is rightfully removed, try to argue that the person who objected had some obligation to find sources for them is a far more serious problem. And accusing people who disagree with you on a simple point of policy of lacking empathy seems to me to be unWP:CIVIL; the point is (as with our WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL policies) our policies need to be structured to ensure that the essential tasks of building an encyclopedia are carried out. That includes additions, yes, but to produce a usable encyclopedia and not a pile of random text, it also includes curation, reviews, and removals - and most of all it includes finding sources for contested additions, or removing them if sources are not found. The easiest way to ensure that that search is actually carried out is to place the burden for it on the people who want content included. If we shift it to the people who object, what we accomplish, in practice, is discouraging people raising valid objections and from doing the already time-consuming and thankless (but absolutely necessary) legwork of reviewing new articles, while reducing the pressure on people who actually want the new content added to add citations for it. That is simply backwards and results in the flood of uncited poor-quality stubs we are facing now; part of the principle of WP:BURDEN is that we need to put the responsibility of search for citations on the people who have an incentive to actually do so. The purpose of WP:BEFORE, meanwhile, is to avoid the high-weight and time-consuming effort of an AFD that would rapidly fail; it is not and has never been applicable to PROD, where that is not the case. It is certainly not something people who want to create or retain contested articles can use to shift the burden of searching for sources on to others, nor is it something that can be used to make the already-thankless task of reviewing and curating articles even more difficult. (As we have seen on ANI, where efforts to use it to push for sanctions in that regard have near-uniformly failed.) --Aquillion (talk) 08:04, 10 June 2022 (UTC) - Finally (since I admit the above may be a bit of a wall of text), I will point out one area where your response suggests that we may have some agreement. You say that you want WP:BEFORE to apply to WP:PROD because if a PROD goes through it is hard to later revert. This is not, however, true for redirects, which anyone can revert at any time. Do you agree, at least, that redirecting a new or single-editor uncited article without discussion does not require a WP:BEFORE search, and that anyone who wants to revert that redirect bears the burden of finding sources and the WP:ONUS of demonstrating consensus as usual? This was one of the policy changes I proposed back in the other discussion. --Aquillion (talk) 08:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, redirecting is easy and doesn't require BEFORE (and as you say, can be reverted by anyone). No, restoring an article from a redirect is functionally identical to creating a new article, and WP:BLAR makes clear that AFD is the process for challenging a restored article from a redirect. Iffy★Chat -- 09:35, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- Aquillion, I 99% agree with your proposal and 90% agree with your analysis/focus. Regarding the other 1%/10%... IMO completely unsourced articles that have "made it in" are not common. But I'd guess that articles with one token "factoid" source are in the millions. And IMO in some areas, some of those are accepted as not being a big problem (I.E geostubs where there's just one database type source). IMO the central crux is not just sources, but wp:notability type sources where such is required (i.e. there's no clear-cut compliance with an SNG). So is this source-search the job of the 30 NPP'ers or the the job of the 1,000,000 editors creating ~800 new articles per day. The immediate problem is that NPP has been collapsing. So perhaps having your proposal start by applying only to new articles would be smaller-scope proposal more easily agreed on. North8000 (talk) 13:03, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- Regarding new articles, this is something that has come up when discussing WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS elsewhere - the real dividing line isn't just "how long has this article existed for" but "have enough eyes seen this article for there to be a general implicit consensus that it's fine, sufficient that more legwork or consensus-building ought to be required to say otherwise." So instead of just new articles we might need a general definition that cares about some combination of age, how many edits it has, and how many people have made meaningful edits to it, with the last one being the really important one. (Conversely, if there's some breaking news and a dozen people rush to set up an article for it, that article shouldn't really be considered "new" even a few hours later, at least for most respects.) --Aquillion (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- My focus on "new" was a bit structural and a bit pragmatic. The "structural" is that most extant articles have mostly through some type of wp:notability review (usually by NPP) . (although with about 60,000 currently tagged for notability). But if NPP gets broken, articles will be going in with not even that. The "pragmatic" is a concern that many may have that this could trigger a deletion binge by deletionists with millions of vulnerable articles. The third is that the current crisis is at NPP which involves new articles. So maybe having something that (at least for a start) applies to new articles might be a good idea and one most likely to pass. North8000 (talk) 19:18, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- I think we should at least be able to come to an agreement that new articles must demonstrate notability. It's reasonable to expect that the creator of an article actually creates an article, rather than expecting others to create it for them, and it will address the significant and growing problem at NPP. BilledMammal (talk) 02:50, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Provided there's a congruent agreement that existing (before agreement enaction) articles must have an effective BEFORE before being brought to AfD, and egregious failure of a BEFORE (a la Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space Hero) is considered a sanctionable user conduct issue, I'd gladly support that. Jclemens (talk) 03:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- I could support that - though it would need to be a pattern of such failures, as WP:AGF would still apply. BilledMammal (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Here's how I would word the expectation: "If an article is kept at an AfD due at least in part to sourcing brought up in that AfD, the AfD nominator is not permitted to start a new AfD until all the sources raised in the AfD have been appropriately integrated to improve the article." Someone who sticks to articles truly worthy of deletion will never notice it. Jclemens (talk) 04:43, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
- That would effectively kill the NPP process, where multiple AfDs are raised each day if/when you're actively patrolling. You're looking at something like a 5-10% AfD/Patrolled run rate (a wild guess, I didn't go counting). And it is surely not incumbent on an AfD nominator to go on a source hunt that the article creator themselves couldn't be bothered with. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:21, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
- No, absolutely not. This is something I mentioned above, but people are treating our policies as far more rigid than they actually are. Even eg. WP:BLP, probably the most intentionally aggressive policy we have, says only that you
must seriously consider
not including crimes which someone was not convicted of. Wikipedia policies to not generally place hard restrictions on editors; most things must be decided on a case-by-case basis according to the individual situation. Normally someone who has repeatedly ignored the underlying spirit of the policy in a way that cuts at our core principles and undermines the presumption of bad faith is going to face actual sanctions. "You must precisely do X and Y and Z according to this specific policy, fullstop" is not how we operate outside of extremely high-danger areas like BLP; and for all the heat over NPP and article creation or deletion or the like, this is not such a case. --Aquillion (talk) 18:45, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- That's not possible, per WP:CHOICE. I also think it would be largely absurd to require the editor who nominated an article for deletion to do the work the creator should have done. BilledMammal (talk) 01:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
- Here's how I would word the expectation: "If an article is kept at an AfD due at least in part to sourcing brought up in that AfD, the AfD nominator is not permitted to start a new AfD until all the sources raised in the AfD have been appropriately integrated to improve the article." Someone who sticks to articles truly worthy of deletion will never notice it. Jclemens (talk) 04:43, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
- I do think, BTW, that "egregious failure of a BEFORE (a la Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space Hero) is considered a sanctionable user conduct issue," is problematic. I would still be tempted - at the very least - to tag Space Hero for notability, based on PR Newswire being presented as one source, and the lack of clarity in the other sources, The Smithsonian story is just a rewrite of Space.com - "The show itself will take place here on Earth, with participants competing for a grand prize trip to the ISS on a vessel provided by Axiom Space, Space.com reports. An actual trip to the ISS, however, has not been authorized yet". The space.com coverage follows the lazy interview in Deadline Hollywood which notes an organiser saying, "Today we have started our mission to find our distribution partner and are ready to take it to the next stage and get the world excited about Space Hero.” - but does not mention what Space.com subsequently does, in their piece the year after, headlined "Space Hero' reality show competition signs space act agreement with NASA but it doesn't mean they're sending people to the space station. - and in fact, "However, this agreement "does not authorize a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station," a NASA spokesperson tells Space.com. BTW, the space.com story mentions, "contest claims in an emailed statement" - so we have a source stood up on a press release! The nominator cited WP:TOOSOON and I'd agree. The sourcing in that article is poor AND they don't even have a flight yet!!! There's no source says they have a distribution deal yet!!! (I note CNN in August 2021: "The Discovery Channel is considering "Who Wants to Be an Astronaut" while a competitor, "Space Hero," is hoping to land somewhere else.") That's hardly 'egregious failure' - I'd reserve that phrase for a TV show that has been talking the talk for 2 years and still doesn't have a distribution deal or a flight to offer contestants!!! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:49, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
- I could support that - though it would need to be a pattern of such failures, as WP:AGF would still apply. BilledMammal (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Provided there's a congruent agreement that existing (before agreement enaction) articles must have an effective BEFORE before being brought to AfD, and egregious failure of a BEFORE (a la Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space Hero) is considered a sanctionable user conduct issue, I'd gladly support that. Jclemens (talk) 03:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I think that if we just reworded the notability source search part of wp:before to say that it applies to articles created before July 2022, things will work out pretty well overall. Also develop a tradition/norm that draft space is where articles that need GNG (vs. an SNG) to establish wp:potability incubate while they develop their GNG sourcing. North8000 (talk) 13:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
- Comment. @ Aquillion, I personally wouldn't consider WP:BEFORE a Prod policy, as BEFORE is specifically part of the AFD nomination process, not the prod process. However, there are similar policies at Prod which require the same thing as BEFORE. If you read WP:PRODNOM, it directs you to follow WP:DEL-REASON. Criteria 7 of Del Reason, states "Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed". In other words, Prod has always had other core deletion policies in place requiring that attempts be made to find sources to improve an article before placing a prod. As such, there has always been a congruence in deletion policy between WP:PROD and WP:BEFORE. So yes, you should try to find sources and improve an article before placing a PROD per policy, unless of course it fits under a criteria for speedy deletion.As for WP:BURDEN, burden was specifically written as a policy to address verifiability issues within the text of articles not notability issues for the article as a whole. As such, the focus in the policy is different and for good reason (as articulated by Joe above).
- That said, I have sympathies with you and those who routinely assist at WP:NPP. It is a never ending job, and it makes one acutely aware of the problems with "an encyclopedia anyone can edit" (which means we accept articles from everyone with the philosophy that the community will work together once its there to make it better if possible). One of the challenges of WP:5P3 is we constantly have submissions from editors with little experience or knowledge of wikipedia's policies, and with a varying degree of editorial and research and writing skills. Inevitably this means that there will always be a backlog at NPP by the nature of what wikipedia is. However, I don't think the system is broken (as evidenced by what we have built as a whole). The NPP backlog is an inevitable part of the project and its broad inclusive philosophy, and there are no "easy solutions" or escapes from the problems of imperfect new articles. Ultimately it is going to largely fall on NPP patrollers and those at WP:AFC to do the work of assisting poorly referenced new content and there is no way around it while maintaining the core philosophies that undergird the project at the Wikipedia:Five pillars. Further, I don't think you are going to find much support from broader community input to make changes to the Prod policy. Inevitably personal responsibility and due diligence are inextricably linked to deletion policy. If the NPP backlog is getting to you, and the constant work is becoming a burden maybe take a break from NPP and try assisting the project in some other ways. I find I can only patrol AFD for short periods of time (a couple weeks) before I need a break. At that point I usually write some articles, or help out at DYK or GA or FA or some other productive area that is more relaxing. The WP:CHOICE is yours.4meter4 (talk) 09:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- The fact that NPP is probably in a state of collapsing with what bothers me, and no taking of a break will help that. Various changes over time interact with each other are contributing to this. Most of them relate to the job becoming more difficult and painful. This is a non-issue regarding me. The issue is that that translates into increased per-article person-hours and reduced ability to get people doing the reviews. Conversely, fixes in any of many areas will help it. And one fruitful area would be to develop a more general expectation that a part of starting an article is finding sources. It's not just creating a title. And when you are contemplating building an article for your non-notable paid aspiring actor client in a non-english-speaking country, its your job to find the GNG sources (or give up if they don't exist) not an overloaded NPPer's job to prove that they don't exist. North8000 (talk) 14:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- When you feel like you have to do something or the project (or part of it) will fall apart, it really is time to consider a break. NPP isn't going to collapse. We see spikes in the backlog there every year or two like clockwork, usually caused by a highly active patroller stepping back – as happened a few months ago. In the dark days before WP:ACPERM, we used to deal with backlogs of twice what it is now. Nobody is actually asking you or any other NPP reviewer to look for sources. NPP's job is to decide whether a new article can be left in mainspace for further improvement or whether it should be speedily deleted. If you're not sure about notability but don't fancy checking yourself, it's perfectly acceptable to tag it with {{notability}}, mark it as reviewed and move on. – Joe (talk) 14:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- The fact that NPP is probably in a state of collapsing with what bothers me, and no taking of a break will help that. Various changes over time interact with each other are contributing to this. Most of them relate to the job becoming more difficult and painful. This is a non-issue regarding me. The issue is that that translates into increased per-article person-hours and reduced ability to get people doing the reviews. Conversely, fixes in any of many areas will help it. And one fruitful area would be to develop a more general expectation that a part of starting an article is finding sources. It's not just creating a title. And when you are contemplating building an article for your non-notable paid aspiring actor client in a non-english-speaking country, its your job to find the GNG sources (or give up if they don't exist) not an overloaded NPPer's job to prove that they don't exist. North8000 (talk) 14:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- Something else I just noticed while going over evidence for the recent ArbCom case. WP:BEFORE is, technically speaking, not policy, nor even a guideline; it is just part of the general instructions for ANI. This might not matter, except that there is a relevant guideline, WP:NEXIST, which instead says that
Thus, before proposing or nominating an article for deletion, or offering an opinion based on notability in a deletion discussion, editors are strongly encouraged to attempt to find sources for the subject in question and consider the possibility that sources may still exist even if their search failed to uncover any.
This is a contradiction that must be resolved somehow; obviously, given my statements above, I prefer the wording at WP:NEXIST and would suggest that WP:BEFORE be tweaked to reflect it, ie. the search should be something that is strongly encouraged but clearly not required; this would also resolve the issue with WP:BURDEN, since the requirement to search would then rest with those who want to retain the article, where it belongs. --Aquillion (talk) 07:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I would not support that. We have editors in the past who have nominated hundreds of articles a day which has overloaded the AFD review process (I believe ArbCom got involved with some of them) BEFORE protects AFD from falling apart and keeps the work load at a manageable level by slowing down the number of deletions. You can only have so many community discussions with active participation simultaneously. It’s a good requirement just from a pragmatic logistics standpoint.4meter4 (talk) 08:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- The editor in question has quite successfully proven that without the friction of BEFORE it is possible for an them to rattle off hundreds of Prods and AFDs with very little time and effort. They’ve also proven that this leads to very low accuracy and a lot of conflict when that low accuracy is discovered. Perhaps, as some have argued, BEFORE isn’t a real policy and doesn’t have to be considered - it still seems like minimum effort to make sure an AfD isn’t a foolish effort would be a good idea. Also if BEFORE doesn't do this and editors aren't expected to follow it then that should be made clear on the page. Artw (talk) 08:44, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I do think it's dangerous to set policy potentially impacting many, many thousands of people based on the actions of a couple of mavericks. NPP by its nature throws burden on AfD (and I do try and do more at AfD than I send there, which is quite a bit, and I do try not to patrol too many articles a day, when time permits, for that reason, too), and I do note that participation in AfDs is already a little patchy - but there's little else to do with articles that are simply inappropriate for inclusion in WP. Draftify can't be used for articles older than 90 days (maybe we need to set THAT one to indef as well as NPP indexing!) and PROD is for totally uncontroversial nominations. Borderline fails of WP:GNG and even wholesale fails of WP:GNG get to go to AfD - and there are an awful lot of 'em out there. Relaxing the weight of WP:BEFORE as per Aquillon above would be very, very handy for NPP. Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- NPP does not seem to be the source of any problems, nor particularly unsourced articles. It's editors seeking to rack up a kill list targeting articles from times with laxer notability requirements, articles with decayed sourcing, articles of types they don't care for, articles they have some innovative new rule reason for deleting, etc. Artw (talk) 08:53, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I do think it's dangerous to set policy potentially impacting many, many thousands of people based on the actions of a couple of mavericks. NPP by its nature throws burden on AfD (and I do try and do more at AfD than I send there, which is quite a bit, and I do try not to patrol too many articles a day, when time permits, for that reason, too), and I do note that participation in AfDs is already a little patchy - but there's little else to do with articles that are simply inappropriate for inclusion in WP. Draftify can't be used for articles older than 90 days (maybe we need to set THAT one to indef as well as NPP indexing!) and PROD is for totally uncontroversial nominations. Borderline fails of WP:GNG and even wholesale fails of WP:GNG get to go to AfD - and there are an awful lot of 'em out there. Relaxing the weight of WP:BEFORE as per Aquillon above would be very, very handy for NPP. Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- If the only purpose of BEFORE is to limit the rate of AfD nominations then it isn't effective; for many articles the requirements can be met in just a few minutes. Instead, if the desire is to limit the rate of nominations, then we should create an actual limit, but if we do that we also need to create a similar restriction on article creation, or require new articles to demonstrate plausible notability before they can be moved to article space. In addition, we need to find a way to deal with the current backlog of non-notable articles that need to be taken through deletion processes. BilledMammal (talk) 09:07, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- To a certain degree that's already in hand, with the proposal that new pages will not be indexed/searchable indefinitely before they have been through New Page Patrol. That seems to have been accepted by the rarefied beings knows as the Devs and that ensures no article is googleable until it has been patrolled. The backlog, well, that's another thing... Alexandermcnabb (talk) 09:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, that doesn't address the problem; it helps with spam and promotional articles, but not with the mass creation of articles on subjects that aren't notable. In addition, NPP is currently struggling; they are unable to get their backlog under control, and to handle non-notable articles they need to use the same processes, with the same restrictions, that the rest of us use. BilledMammal (talk) 09:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I suspect I would have far, far fewer complaints about indiscriminate Prods and AfDs if editors really were able to do a good faith BEFORE in just a few minutes, because many of those would just get fixed and I wouldn't have to worry about them, and the ones that did get through would be actual legitimate nominations.
- Sadly that is not where we are at right now, so maybe an artificial limit IS a good idea since the burden has all been passed onto the part pf the process that comes with a time limit.
- (As mentioned above page creation is largely irrelevant as far as I can tell - the problems all seem to be with established pages) Artw (talk) 09:27, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- From what the New Page Patrollers have said, there is an issue with page creation. However, if we address that problem, and if we can address the current backlog of non-notable mass-created articles, then I would be willing to support an artificial limit. BilledMammal (talk) 09:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- Part of the issue is automated stub creation. If one editor can create ~94,000 stubs automatically using a script, with no sources (or woefully insufficient sources) for each of them, and then demand that anyone who wants to tag them for deletion do a separate source search for every one of them, then it is effectively impossible to challenge their actions, turning it into a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. Perhaps part of the underlying issue is that editors should seek consensus before creating large numbers of articles on the same topic; it's fine to be WP:BOLD when creating one article, or ten articles, but automatically creating tens of thousands of articles on the same general topic with no discussion goes beyond what's reasonable and is part of what has led to the current situation. --Aquillion (talk) 18:15, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- Rate-limiting isn't the only reason for WP:BEFORE, or even the main reason. The main reason is to avoid time-wasting nominations of articles that don't stand a chance of being deleted (some recent examples from my AfD log: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Assyriologists & Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jean-François Persoz). Plus the general principle that you shouldn't nominate something for deletion unless you have a good faith belief that it meets the deletion policy, and if you haven't done a basic search for sources you can't really claim that. – Joe (talk) 09:55, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- To a certain degree that's already in hand, with the proposal that new pages will not be indexed/searchable indefinitely before they have been through New Page Patrol. That seems to have been accepted by the rarefied beings knows as the Devs and that ensures no article is googleable until it has been patrolled. The backlog, well, that's another thing... Alexandermcnabb (talk) 09:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I mean, part of this people who are applying BEFORE to PROD; at the very least that shouldn't cause vast overhead. But the underlying issue is that people can currently create hundreds (or thousands) of articles a day using automated scripts. Without some mechanism to challenge that action, it becomes a WP:FAITACCOMPLI and our notability / content / WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE policies become meaningless, as do WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN. It is possible to lump them all into one AFD (I think?), but I think that per ONUS / BURDEN one solution might be that, for mass-created articles that were recently created and have only had a single meaningful editor, such mass-AFDs default to delete on a WP:NOCON outcome, since there is relatively little to be lost (if the situation changes they can just run their mass-creation script a second time.) This fits the principle that WP:BOLD actions should be easy to reverse. --Aquillion (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- The editor in question has quite successfully proven that without the friction of BEFORE it is possible for an them to rattle off hundreds of Prods and AFDs with very little time and effort. They’ve also proven that this leads to very low accuracy and a lot of conflict when that low accuracy is discovered. Perhaps, as some have argued, BEFORE isn’t a real policy and doesn’t have to be considered - it still seems like minimum effort to make sure an AfD isn’t a foolish effort would be a good idea. Also if BEFORE doesn't do this and editors aren't expected to follow it then that should be made clear on the page. Artw (talk) 08:44, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- @Aquillion: With the exception of WP:ARBPOL, we don't codify the instructions for using a maintenance process as policies or guidelines. I think it's just generally accepted that, if you want to use a process, following the instructions is good wikiquette. WP:BEFORE is preceded by the words "please be sure to" and I think is best interpreted as a request to do certain things that, based on years of experience, the community has found makes AfDs go smoothly. If you choose to ignore the request, nobody is going to block you or procedurally close the AfD. But somebody has to do those checks and, if you pass the buck on it, you're probably going to get some sharp words about the lack of courtesy. I don't think that's unreasonable and I don't see any contradiction between one page saying "editors are strongly encouraged to do X" and another saying "please do X". – Joe (talk) 08:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- I would not support that. We have editors in the past who have nominated hundreds of articles a day which has overloaded the AFD review process (I believe ArbCom got involved with some of them) BEFORE protects AFD from falling apart and keeps the work load at a manageable level by slowing down the number of deletions. You can only have so many community discussions with active participation simultaneously. It’s a good requirement just from a pragmatic logistics standpoint.4meter4 (talk) 08:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Re the New Page arguments, I did a quick look through the 25 latest AfD and their created dates to see how it compared to my gut feel about them.
My notes:
Article Created Date | Notes |
---|---|
21 February 2022, | Covid researcher, resume type article |
7 July 2014, | College lecturer, resume type article that’s attracted little attention |
7 May 2022, | list of publications from a blue linked author, BEFORE would probably suggest a mere here, though they’ve previously been added and removed from that authors page so maybe not. |
28 March 2022, | article about a biscuit company, non urgent, probably could be sourced with sufficient effort, no claim of BEFORE |
9 April 2008, | 19th century philatelist, weak sourcing, utterly non urgent |
10 January 2010 | Library of stamps, non urgent, under sourced, a quick search on web or books turns up a lot of results but a lot of noise |
19 June 2021 | Linux server, under sourced |
7 April 2011 | Wine writer, lots of search results but requires sifting of what is about them and what is by them, current refs mostly on the wrong side of that, suggestion by nominator that it may be spammy. |
23 June 2022 | Movie article added in one go by single author, single author is contesting nomination |
23 June 2022 | List Page |
3 May 10 | Corporation, undersourced |
18 June 2009 | Popular culture list page |
27 January 2022 | criminal police officer, BIO1E issues |
26 January 2022 | event, lack of sustained coverage is claimed but has been disputed with dated articles |
9 September 2022 | Tamil film director, lots of sources but probably they need a bunch of assessment |
23 June 2022 | 1800s military officer |
24 June 2022 | Indian banker/author |
13 June 2022 | Journalist, Extremely slight article based on an arrest\ |
8 February 2012 | Turkish businessman, nothing in article to suggest notability |
9 March 2022 | British location, lots of sources but they are being questioned, possible hoax |
3 November 2002 | 18th century board game slang, sourcing not up to modern standards |
10 March 2012 | nonprofit |
23 Jan 2011 | nonprofit |
12 Jan 2012 | Adam Savage’s Tested getting nominated for some reason, seems like time wasting on part of the nominator. |
19 July 2017 | Indian actress |
So 12 from this year, 5 from this month, 3 from the last couple of days. So it does seem right that NPP is making up a proportion of those, but not the majority. Also they don’t tend to be the kind that kick up much controversy re: BEFORE. Artw (talk) 17:00, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- Looking at 24 June prods…
Article creation date 21 June 2022 19 July 2016 4 June 2017 23 February 2015 4 June 2017 2 January 2013 7 July 2009 24 March 2011 24 March 2022 10 March 2012 22 May 2022 3 March 2012 25 February 2016 30 July 2002 24 June 2022 21 June 2022 2 November 2010 10 March 2011 14 April 2011 8 April 2016 23 June 2022 8 February 2018 24 June 2022,
- So out of 23 that’s 6 this year, 5 very recently. This does not seem to support that Prod is being used to deal with a flood of new article. Some of these are in fact VERY old and established. Artw (talk) 18:44, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
- The Prods of the 26th look a little closer to what has been described: Out of 15 7 are from this year and 4 are from this month, the bulk of those added by MsSnoozyTurtle who is clearly doing patrol work. Still not what I would expect to see if Prod was the primary tool for battling an influx of hundreds of articles thus justifying the use of it without due diligence, possibly the case for that has been overstated? Artw (talk) 15:48, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Square roots
Would someone mind listing Square root of 6 and Square root of 7 for deletion with the following rationale
--
There's no point in having separate articles for square roots of 6, 7, etc (we do already have 2, 3, and 5, which is more than enough). There's almost nothing of relevance here beyond basic cookie-cutter information that isn't specific to these particular values. What is specific is still pretty trivial though. NASA has a picture of the day from 1994 that's a calculation of the square root of 6 to a million decimal places...okay? You found some old textbooks that had exercises for computation of the square root of 7...again, so? This doesn't rise to the level of WP:GNG, especially for small numbers, which are bound to pop up all over the place.
--
Thanks in advance. I thought it would make more sense to list them together, but if it would be easier to do them separately, that'd be fine too, and I can just tweak my rationale after the fact. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 15:22, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Santadas Kathiababa's editing is important.
Why are you repeatedly deleting the important edit of Santdas Kathiyaba. He was one of the important saints of Hinduism. He is the leader of the Nimbark community of Hinduism around the world and the spiritual leader of the Hare Krishna movement. This edit is important to Wikipedia. His life was discussed in various media. So please make an edit of Santdas Kathiyababa on Wikipedia. Srabanta Deb (talk) 10:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
- Hello, Srabanta Deb. This person is covered in Nimbarka Sampradaya. Cullen328 (talk) 00:37, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Requesting a closure of an AfD that I can't withdraw
An editor at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dagfa House School is going on and on about me using deletion as cleanup due to a source that was posted there 5 days later. I'm annoyed at the assumption of bad faith when it's just that I can't withdraw it due to the merge votes. I'm seeing if an admin or non-admin can close it as keep per consensus and it has ran the full time. SL93 (talk) 22:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Done --RL0919 (talk) 22:32, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- RL0919 Thank you. I was thinking of doing an IAR close, but I didn't want backlash for it. SL93 (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- Not doing an IAR close was a good move. It's really bad form to close a discussion that you've participated in. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- Meh, a non-admin involved close against the outcome one had originally proposed and in line with numerical consensus, after a full length discussion? Not going to get a lot of hate for that, certainly not from me. NACing a close in your "own" favor, despite certain persons thinking it to be OK, is an entirely different story. Jclemens (talk) 03:30, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
- Not doing an IAR close was a good move. It's really bad form to close a discussion that you've participated in. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- RL0919 Thank you. I was thinking of doing an IAR close, but I didn't want backlash for it. SL93 (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what that snide smuggery was about, but I can certainly understand why it frustrated you. Reyk YO! 23:42, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
- FWIW this discussion showed quite a bit of opposition to the idea that being a Grade II listed building was enough to make something notable. (There are about 350,000 of them.) Hut 8.5 07:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
- I'm perhaps nitpicking here, and it's now a moot point, but I feel it's worthwhile making the distinction between withdrawing your nom and the early close that usually happens along with it. You can withdraw your AfD nomination whenever, even if there are like, 20 deletes or something, it just won't be eligible for early closure as keep in those cases. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Requesting to create deletion page
Article:Yoga Narasimhar Temple, Velachery Reason: Absence of reliable sources and WP:GNG. 51.161.131.66 (talk) 18:20, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
- I draftified the article to give the author another chance to find sources; hope that's alright. If the article returns to mainspace and is still problematic, let us know and we'll AfD it for you. Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Experienced reviewers needed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dario del Bufalo
I would appreciate broader input at this discussion, particularly those familiar with our notability policy language. All opinions are welcome.4meter4 (talk) 03:56, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry to not have more time to delve into this, but I would look at the notability of his published works. Finding a notable object in my mind is only notable in that object’s article. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 06:49, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Anomolous situation re merge proposals from AfD and introduction of templates to address this
I have recently started acting on the basis of what I hope will eventually become policy, by notifying targets of proposed mergers arising within AfD discussions that a merger has been proposed, as should happen per WP:Merge but almost never does when AfD is the route to merger. I posted my idea more than 6 months ago at WT:Deletion Policy: to avoid forked conversation, please discuss the matter there. Kevin McE (talk) 07:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- Kevin McE, this is not a clear notification of what is actually being discussed and why it matters. You should title the heading something like "Proposal to implement new templates at AFD related to merge arguments", because that would actually draw interest and bring people to the discussion. You should link to the templates themselves in the notification, and succinctly state what their purpose is and why they are necessary. That should be done both here and at the linked discussion (which is also not succinct and unclear). My suggestion would be to archive that original discussion (because it is rambling, unclear, and has a tone likely to turn others off) and start a new one which is more focused, respectful, and to the point (on the implementation of the templates and requiring notification). One reason you have had little response is you haven't been clear about the issues and what you are proposing up front, and you've allowed your frustration to color your comments. Keep it short and to the point in a proposal format with a neutral tone. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:09, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- I see no merit in making a fork from the discussion signposted above, and the policy talk page seems to be far more appropriate for discussing an intended change in policy than here. I will change the header (and correct a typo while I am at it...) Kevin McE (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- Kevin McE, I agree that the policy talk page is the place for discussion. I was saying that the long rambling comments you have made at that current discussion are counter productive and are not likely to bring people to the table to talk and craft policy. It would be better to start over and create a short "policy proposal" that is just a couple succinct sentence. Such as, "proposal to require merge notifications at involved articles when a merge proposal is made in an AFD discussion". Link the templates, and then succinctly (two or three sentences at most) state why the policy is needed. A wall of text, isn't going to help. Then wait for comments and discuss. Ultimartely, this is going to need to go to an WP:RFC. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- I see no merit in making a fork from the discussion signposted above, and the policy talk page seems to be far more appropriate for discussing an intended change in policy than here. I will change the header (and correct a typo while I am at it...) Kevin McE (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Requesting to create AfD for Pressterror
Subject has no notable sources online, except a brief mention in a Vice article and deleted (possibly hosted on streaming services) Vice TV spot. 70.163.208.142 (talk) 04:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Done. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 04:24, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Sources and influences on the development of Dungeons & Dragons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_and_influences_on_the_development_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons is a meandering, poorly written, unsourced mess that looks like a TVTropes page, and has been marked as OR for 12 years. The contents of it, when even worthy of mention, should be noted in the respective relevant pages and not in obsessive fanboy fashion here.
Will someone with an account please do something about this abomination of a web page?2601:1C2:5000:1472:8806:86F:2C7C:5D28 (talk) 10:14, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
- My two pence:
- You are familiar with Article N[1], which is absolutely going to come up in any deletion discussion, and probably torpedo it.
- If you think Gygax underplayed Tolkien when talking about D&Ds origins probably bets to find sources to that effect and add it.
- Used this way "Aspie" reads like a slur[2], probably don't do that in edit descriptions.
- Artw (talk) 14:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
- I've nominated it for deletion on your behalf: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sources and influences on the development of Dungeons & Dragons – Joe (talk) 14:54, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
Need help completing AfD - Articles created by some sock obsessed with the Van Leer family
Don't have an account so can't complete the steps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Wayne_(1699%E2%80%931774)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardhus_Van_Leer
Probably more articles out there too. 50.45.170.185 (talk) 10:28, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Van_Leer
- the pages for the battles he was in don't even mention him, mostly just fluff about who is is related to. 50.45.170.185 (talk) 10:43, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- a cabin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Leer_Cabin
- anything possibly relevant about the actual person himself sourced to a page about a headstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Clark_Van_Leer
- more fluff about relatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Wayne_Van_Leer
- was president of a no-name community college, claims of founding a community college are false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryly_Van_Leer_Peck
- more irrelevant military nonsense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Van_Leer
- more family fluff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Van_Leer 50.45.170.185 (talk) 11:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- military nonsense, text doesn't fit citations, mentions Batman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Wayne_Van_Leer
- a house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Leer_House 50.45.170.185 (talk) 11:50, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- If you want I can nominate them on your behalf, but you need some deletion rationale. Created by some sock obsessed isn't valid reason by itself, as they were created before the ban and not in an attempt at block evasion. Some of the ones you added have at least some rationale, but others don't or need more. Did you want a bundle AfD or individual ones?
- Please do a WP:BEFORE for each page and then either post a rationale for a bundled nomination here, or individual rationales for individual nominations here (or on respective talk pages w/ a
{{ping}}
), and I'll help you out. WikiVirusC(talk) 19:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)- @WikiVirusC Thanks for the offer. I initially wasn't going to take you up on it because it might be a lot of work, but that slithering snake sock came back on a new IP and posted the most snakey thing ever to my talk page so I'm gonna do it!
- But first, I'm just going to post a single rationale for a single article to make sure I'm doing it right, that way I know before I do it for all of them. I've only been editing for a week so apologies in advance. Let's start with Isaac_Wayne_(1699–1774).
- Okay, so is it necessary to basically go through every source listed? Though I think there might be some repeating patterns to the citations so maybe this won't be as bad as I think... Let's see, first we have
- http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.pdf?id=PACSCL_SMREP_HW01 This is a document about a house. Isaac is mentioned in it, in passing. What are we supposed to make of the relevance of this document? Or the information about Isaac inside of it?
- https://vanleerarchives.org/the-wayne-family/ Then we have this one, someone already marked it as a self-published source. Does anything else need to be said? "The archives were established in the 1940s by Ella Lillian Wall Van Leer [...] The archives are now managed by various Van Leer family members."
- https://hsp.org/blogs/archival-adventures-in-small-repositories/mad-anthony-wayne a blog post, so therefore not a great source right? It doesn't mention Isaac anywhere anyway.
- https://books.google.com/books?id=KlQVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1 Perhaps the only good source (right?) ... He is mentioned actually doing stuff in this one, but this being the only good source and the things he did don't seem to have any significance. So I would say AfD...
- Thanks 50.45.170.185 (talk) 16:21, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- You would need to give a rationale such as "I don't think XYZ article is notable, because it doesn't pass WP:GNG or (a WP:SNG like) WP:BIO". Analysis of current sources is a start. But doing a BEFORE means looking for other sources yourself. A Google Books search founds a lot of mentions, but a lot of those in relation to family. If it was a newly created article I would probably just redirect it myself to Anthony Wayne, not to say that that can't still be done now. Anyways, for individual articles, for discussion/analysis of sources, take them to the respective talk pages, better to keep those discussions there. WikiVirusC(talk) 16:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @WikiVirusC So was doing all that work necessary? I could've just said "I don't think Isaac_Wayne_(1699–1774) is notable because it doesn't pass WP:BIO." then? And yeah, I did the same searches as you. Basically Anthony Wayne, a founding father of the most powerful country on earth, is just such a honking big deal that authors wrote about places he lived and people that lived in those places and whatnot. They all seem to fall under WP:BIOFAMILY.
- Is that enough to create an AfD now? Or a redirect? (Are those the same thing kinda?) 50.45.170.185 (talk) 17:56, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yes doing the work is necessary. Yes you could have said that rationale, but you still have to the the WP:BEFORE/all that work first. You can do a redirect yourself just by blanking page and replacing it with
#REDIRECT [[Anthony Wayne]]
. If you don't want to just do that, or if it gets reverted, place the exact wording of your nomination on talk page and I can do it for you after/depending on conclusions of the current ANI discussion about these deletions. WikiVirusC(talk) 18:34, 3 July 2022 (UTC)- So far the only conclusion reached from the ANI discussion is that my edits to the Sugar Bowl stuff was good, and an admin said my endeavor has merit. I'm currently still discussing Maryly_Van_Leer_Peck's status on her talk page but that's about it.
- I'll go ahead and add the above to the talk page, and blank it to the redirect. Thanks WikiVirusC! 50.45.170.185 (talk) 19:24, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yes doing the work is necessary. Yes you could have said that rationale, but you still have to the the WP:BEFORE/all that work first. You can do a redirect yourself just by blanking page and replacing it with
- You would need to give a rationale such as "I don't think XYZ article is notable, because it doesn't pass WP:GNG or (a WP:SNG like) WP:BIO". Analysis of current sources is a start. But doing a BEFORE means looking for other sources yourself. A Google Books search founds a lot of mentions, but a lot of those in relation to family. If it was a newly created article I would probably just redirect it myself to Anthony Wayne, not to say that that can't still be done now. Anyways, for individual articles, for discussion/analysis of sources, take them to the respective talk pages, better to keep those discussions there. WikiVirusC(talk) 16:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Comment. Some of these have significant coverage in the articles and would clearly pass WP:GNG. The Van Leer Cabin is on the National Register of Historic Places and would therefore pass WP:NBUILDING (incidentally there are multiple structures owned/built by the Van Leer family on the register). There does appear to be multiple sources on the family in independent references (both books and academic journals), so it's possible that we could merge some of these into an article on the family as a whole as opposed to having many articles. That would probably be better achieved through a merge discussion by an editor willing to take on the project. Best.4meter4 (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, and just because a sock added content doesn't mean that content was inaccurate or not in line with policy. The articles should probably be combed through for errors or exaggerations in relation to the sources. I spot checked the articles in places and they appeared accurate to what was stated in the cited materials but we should really look at everything carefully.4meter4 (talk) 21:09, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- The people had no significant roles in anything, many of the claims aren't found in the sources. Sources are either dead, WP:PRIMARY and/or only superficial mentions. 50.45.170.185 (talk) 02:44, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Comment. The claim of maryly van leer peck founding the community college are true, the referencing was poor. You need to perform a BEFORE on each of these articles before nominating them for deletion. Jacona (talk) 20:51, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- a detailed argument for why she is not the founder can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_editing_by_50.45.170.185 50.45.170.185 (talk) 02:08, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
There is also a newspaper source. Jacona (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Request
Two discussions about this on two different talk pages with same parties is unnecessary. Deletion discussion created. Ease up on personal accusations and suspicions. WikiVirusC(talk) 16:31, 3 July 2022 (UTC) |
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@United States Man, TornadoLGS, Elijahandskip, and ChessEric: Please finish the AFD nom for Midwestern U.S. floods and tornado outbreak of June 2021. 47.23.40.14 (talk) 22:24, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- (A) I don't exactly know how to do that and (b) I'm hesitant about working with IP address after the whole ArbCom fiasco that I experienced in April. Someone else will have to do this. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 22:47, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- I am not willing to start the AfD. (1): I have responded to you on the talk page mentioning the section above yours which explains why the event can be notable. As discussed, it needs improvement, not deletion/merges. (2): It got accepted through AfC. (3): Why start an AfD when the article never had a PROD before? Elijahandskip (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Elijahandskip: I couldn’t find that many news articles on it, hindering notability. A damage total of $1.8 billion doesn’t automatically mean it’s notable. Significant expansion isn’t always possible so I don’t think WP:GNG is met. You also have a tendency to create poorly thought out flood articles, especially from January 2022. 75.99.8.58 (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I didn’t create this article my friend, so I do not see how anything from my past editing history 6 months ago is relevant. Also, an IP editing with 3 edits knowing that is slightly suspicious. Well, either way, I still will not complete it. Elijahandskip (talk) 16:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Elijahandskip: I couldn’t find that many news articles on it, hindering notability. A damage total of $1.8 billion doesn’t automatically mean it’s notable. Significant expansion isn’t always possible so I don’t think WP:GNG is met. You also have a tendency to create poorly thought out flood articles, especially from January 2022. 75.99.8.58 (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
something's wrong
my apologies but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pascale Guiton does not appear on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2022 July 3 like it should. must have messed something up. Biosthmors (talk) 22:44, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Fixed, it was there but it wasn't easily visible because you didn't use the {{afd2}} template when creating the AFD page. Iffy★Chat -- 22:50, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
There appears to be a glut of Harvard-related articles, unparalleled by any other university, that almost certainly do not meet notability guidelines, numbering maybe over 100 or so. These are mostly student organizations—pretty much every a capella group has an article, and there exist numerous articles on student comedy groups, publications, administrative/faculty positions, events (McCloy Viennese Ball???), fellowships, etc. that have only primary sources listed. Will it be possible to bundle these together for an AfD, or will I have to go to every single page one by one and nominate them? Hawsriggs (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- See: How to nominate multiple related pages for deletion. It suggests starting with one article to see what the outcome is likely to be for the others. TFD (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)