Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I don't like this page's name. I want to rename it to Articles for discussion or something else.
Please see Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename_AFD. Note that all of the "for discussion" pages handle not only deletion, but also proposed mergers, proposed moves, and other similar processes. AFD is "for deletion" because the volume of discussion has made it necessary to sub-divide the work by the type of change.
You mean I'm not supposed to use AFD to propose a merger or a page move?
No. Please use WP:Proposed mergers or WP:Requested moves for those kinds of proposals.


Contents

[edit] Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process

[edit] Bold, revert, discuss

[edit] Help requested with article on Robert California

I am nominating the article on the fictional character Robert California for deletion. This is done in response to one of the five {{PROD}}s contested on 13 January by 3:21:14:20: is key (talk · contribs); I have completed step I and request help with the remaining steps in the nomination process. Thanks in advance. 68.165.77.175 (talk) 06:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

YesY Done Nomination page created. I will leave it to you to notify the authors. jcgoble3 (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Because of the imminent 1/18 blackout...

There will only be a few AfDs listed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 January 18 that day :) --MuZemike 12:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Note the blackout doesn't start until 05:00 UTC, so it will still be possible to nominate articles for five hours. Hut 8.5 14:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
And we still ended up with 47 - quite manageable, by most standards. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 16:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Blackout and AFD closures

I saw that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nancy Nasrallah was closed when it popped up on my watchlist. It was non-admin closed by User:Sprinting faster. Aren't these AFDs supposed to be extended by 1 day? -- Whpq (talk) 18:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


Yes, they were supposed to be extended, but as there wasn't really any opposing view I dont think it matters. If you want to contest it, take it to DRV. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
It's pretty clear cut and an extra day won't likely affect the outcome. -- Whpq (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] deletion for a non article!!

this article here Obscenity the other side of Aisha has nothing to do to be an article in wikipedia with lack on sources and useless!. So would be better to delete it to keep wikipedia clean. thank you.

--Neogeolegend (talk) 01:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to nominate the page for deletion follow the instructions here. This page is not part of the AfD process. Hut 8.5 09:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Note that the user was blocked for edit warring on this very article. Nothing to see here. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 20:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion discussions not transcluded to this page

This discussion does not seem to be listed here and has been open for over a month now. Is this a common problem? I am not a regular here, but recall something similar with this discussion. AIRcorn (talk) 22:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

here is the link to the deletion discussion: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Laos_women's_national_rugby_union_team. I am not sure where it is supposed to be listed, but I found this by using the search on this page. --stmrlbs|talk 23:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Should it not be listed under old discussions? AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) On the second one you link to, it appears that it simply wasn't added to the daily log. That's not the case with the first one, which is correctly transcluded and has been since the time of nomination. For some reason, Mathbot never recognized that it was there, leading to the bot showing 0 open discussions for that day on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old and the log subsequently being removed from that page with the discussion still open. I don't know what to do about it, though. jcgoble3 (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I meant to link to the AFD discussion on the first one, must have copy pasted the wrong tab. Would it be possible for a bot to search for pages with a title begining "Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/" which are not linked to from here and putting them in a seperate "Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/errors" page. I can ask an admin to close or relist the Laos discussion, but a bigger concern will be AFD's that get lost in the system. I am not sure how much of a problem it is. AIRcorn (talk) 23:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I pinged Mathbot's operator about the possible bug and searching for other lost AfDs. We'll see what happens there. jcgoble3 (talk) 02:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I relisted that AfD, and the bot added it correctly. If there was a bug in the bot, it was an old one.

There is little I can do now about identifying what went wrong. If we run into this again, and that bug is reproducible, I'll of course fix the bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Armored Fist 3

I wanted to start an AFD for Armored Fist 3 but can't create the page. I stated my reasons on the talk page. 108.67.153.215 (talk) 05:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Done. Reyk YO! 06:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Statesman

Statesman is currently a rather stubby article that probably belongs on wiktionary rather than here. There's no real way to make a distinction between 'statesman' and 'politician' in a NPOV way, and the article doesn't try to. Instead, it's a rather short and fuzzy article about it being a general term of respect. Perfect for a dictionary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.120.39 (talk) 05:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] SolidCAM

I nominated this for deletion, but initially failed to specify (2nd Nomination) in the NominationName. Although now corrected, my attempts to add it to the the current AFD log page don't seem to result it in being shown. Any suggestions?, Or can some admin fix this? Sorry. DaveApter (talk) 11:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed [7]; you were capitalizing "Nomination", when the title of the discussion page had it in lowercase. jcgoble3 (talk) 17:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] AFD/DRV policy discussion at Village Pump

FYI, there is a current proposal to modify the AFD/DRV speedy keep procedure in this thread at the village pump NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Folowing the discussion mentioned by NewsAndEventsGuy, I'm proposing the following change to the wording of "Carry out these checks" as follows: "4.Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with." would change to: "4.Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with. If the article has previously been unsuccessfully nominated for deletion, your nomination should acknowledge this and explain briefly why you think the result would be different this time."
The intention is to encourage editors (in a sufficiently flexible and non-prescriptive way) to acknowledge previous nominations and explain why they think it would be different this time, hopefully saving hours of time re-fighting old battles. My belief is that this would be a helpful clarification, in the spirit of the essay section WP:NOTAGAIN. In addition to focusing minds it would help provide a clear justification for an early close if the nomination does not mention previous nominations and the nominator is unable to provide a sensible reason for re-opening the debate, despite prompting by the closing admin. --Merlinme (talk) 17:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
The addition sounds good, but the preexisting sentence makes no sense grammatically. How about, "Read the article's talk page for a list of any previous nomination(s) and to see if your objections have already been dealt with. If the article has previously been unsuccessfully nominated for deletion, your nomination should acknowledge this and explain briefly why you think the result would be different this time." Any objections to that? jcgoble3 (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Any improved wording is fine by me. Given the previous discussion and no other objections, I'll make the change now. Please feel free to improve further as you wish. --Merlinme (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
There is no consensus at the VP discussion for this change, please wait until that discussion has concluded and closed before touching the page. Thanks. Spartaz Humbug! 13:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
What discussion? With regard to my specific proposal: [8] I said: "Does anyone actually object to this? If so, could you explain why please? It seems a common-sense approach to me, not imposing any arbitrary limits, but requiring renominations to at least acknowledge recent arguments and give reasons why they wish to re-open the debate. If there's support for more radical measures they could be in addition to this, but I think my proposal can treated separately, essentially as a helpful clarification to guide the renomination process. --Merlinme (talk) 09:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)" In the absence of objections I said I would move it to this Talk page, which I have, and to date no objections have been raised, there or here. --Merlinme (talk) 14:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
You asked this yesterday? That's not exactly allowing people time to comment - especially when most of the original commentators at VPP would have assumed the discussion had died as the original proposal was soundly thrown out. Watering it down and waiting a short period for objections does not equal consensus anywhere round here. I suggest you ask everyone who has previously commented to weigh in again and then see where your consensus is. You can also list the proposal at CENT but you have no consensus for this change. Spartaz Humbug! 14:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
My proposal is listed, in its own separate section. The only significant comments have been that it doesn't go far enough; this is even after I specifically asked for objections, and even after I said (following no objections) I would assume tacit approval. This is not exactly on an unwatched page. I then raised it here, and again the only comment was broadly supportive. I'm really not quite sure what else I'm supposed to do. You haven't in fact advanced any objections yourself, other than questioning whether I have consensus. --Merlinme (talk) 14:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
That is surely good enough since the arguments have already been aired in the earlier discussion but since you asked. This is a bad idea because its going to encourage users to argue about process instead of content. Its also a wikilawyer's dream. Its also contrary to WP:CCC and takes no account of whether the previous AFD was defective or closed wrongly. What if a non admin closes it against consensus? Its going to force more users into DRV which is a bad thing for noobs because its so confusing and legalistic. In short. AFD should concentrate on assessing content not looking at who did what when and why. This view is based on being the 5th most frequent AFD closer in the 6 months prior to giving up my bit earlier this year so its informed by a lot of experience of what happens when process trumps common sense. Does this help? Spartaz Humbug! 14:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────I disagree with you; in general I think you're reading prescription where none exists. All I've asked is that people give a reason when renominating. That's the beginning and end of the proposal. This encourages people to at least consider previous arguments. If, having looked, they think the previous closure was bad, that's clearly a very good reason to renominate. "A few months have passed and I think the previous marginal No Consensus might have changed" is also a reason. "I didn't contribute to the previous debate" is also a reason.
Even if a newbie does not provide a reason, it's certainly open to the admin to prompt the nominator to do so, before even considering an early close. Prompting will, if nothing else, clarify that they have actually looked at the previous nominations. In general, I think this is a useful piece of additional guidance, and I fail to see how it could do harm. To date, no-one else has objected, with three or four comments broadly in favour.--Merlinme (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that's really ill-conceived. Please explain how expecting people to justify a renomination against the previous consensus is not a violation of the principle that "consensus can change". Go look through a few thousand AFDs and see how BEFORE is abused to challenge nominations without any reference to the merits of an article. You haven't address the risk of additional wikilawyering and before we allow process to CREEP you have to have a benefit to it. Admins have enough to do without asking them to police the quality of nomination statements. There is a significant issue at AFD around participation rates and quality of arguments and what we need is more focused discussion of content against policy so admins will be able to find a consensus in poorly attended discussions. Adding this will result in processwanking and discussions that ignore the content and will reduce the possibility of finding a clear consensus. That is a bad thing. In terms of consensus you haven't properly addressed my objections and neither has anyoneelse weighed in and I think you will find that we don't vote but look at the strength of argument. Spartaz Humbug! 01:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
a) It is not a violation of the principle that "consensus can change", because "I believe consensus may have changed on this issue", or even "I think consensus should be tested on this again", are both reasons for renominating. I'm not asking an admin to judge the quality of the reason, I'm just asking the renominating editor to give a reason. b) There is a benefit to it: not having to spend hours or even weeks of time refighting old battles, which have been re-opened by people who apparently haven't even looked at the previous discussions. c) It is already part of the requirements that nominators should look at the previous discussions, I am essentially asking them to briefly demonstrate that they've done this. d) Despite numerous opportunities over several days, you are still the only editor to have objected, and while I am of course happy to discuss and try to achieve full consensus on this, I would appreciate it if you were more open to discussion. This is the first time I have ever proposed a policy change; I apologise if I made the initial relatively Bold edit without waiting longer to confirm that I had full consensus, but I honestly thought that I had consensus, as I had given plenty of warning of exactly what I was going to do and not received any objections. I still think the change is within the spirit of the currently existing guidelines and would be beneficial to the process. --Merlinme (talk) 09:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Then its a meaningless change if worthless comments like I believe consensus has changed meet your requirement, so I can't see that this is anything other than process and structure for no benefit.. I see HUT also opposes this at VPP. Spartaz Humbug! 13:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
But all guidelines are "meaningless" if they can be ignored (which they can, as we are not supposed to be a bureaucracy where policy triumphs over common sense). The current guidelines are unenforceable, as Hut has noted. I still think however that a clarification of "best practice" would be helpful. It is already considered best practice to have looked at previous nominations; I am essentially slightly tightening this by encouraging nominators to demonstrate that they have considered previous nominations when nominating again. If a different form of words would help this, then fine. How about "explain briefly why you wish to re-open the case"? --Merlinme (talk) 09:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Look, if you add it to AFD, even as best practise its going to be used to wikilawyer. If you want to add it as best practise then I would suggest you found and essay somewhere that doesn't have the flavour of a policy page and add it there. Spartaz Humbug! 16:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Proposing articles for deletion without understanding what it is

Animaajit (talk) 06:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC) I had taken details from people across Kerala to help me in developing the article - Mukkuva Kerala. The first time it was put up for deletion, it was the lack of citations. I included citations and there - now it says they did not meet standards. I do not understand what more is needed now. Since I am new, help me in understanding what needs to be done; so I will go ahead and do it. I have got tired of this - putting up for deletion. To cap it all, this guy - The Mark of the Beast, thinks he can go ahead and edit as he likes. He has taken away many of the edits without even citing a reason why he has done so. If this is a personal property, please go ahead and do what you think is best. I am not going to bother with Wiki anymore. I feel frustrated that I even spend time to do this.

I'm going to assume you refer to Mukkuva kerala in your comment. The best bet, I think, would be to move the article to your userspace so you could work on it further. Mark of the Beast correctly notes that the text isn't acceptable in its present form, but that's largely a function of the grammar - and I'm betting English is not your first language, yes? So we can fix that. We can also find sources in books or whatever that would show the group to be notable, and that would go a long way to avoiding deletion in the future. He/She removed large sections of the article that dealt with individuals from the area, but that was proper as well - a good rule of thumb here is that an individual isn't important enough to list unless they're notable enough to already have an article on wikipedia. And that probably could've been explained a bit better, I think, but it happens. So, if you're willing, the first step would be to go to the debate and ask for the article to be userfied. Then you can take your time to work up an article that complies with our policies. We can help with that, if you like. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 14:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
My remarks are in the AFD discussion related to the specific article in question.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] "Articles for deletion" or "Articles for redirect"?

Editors are currently discussing within Afds whether this process is an "Article for deletion" or "Article for redirection." As if every article is considering "worth saving." Most elementary school articles are now being redirected to the School Board (or whatever). Notability implied.

I tried to "Rfd" a Redirect that was causing a loop in a School Board article and was summarily dismissed by an admin who said that the article had just been Afd-ed (unknown to me) and it "had been decided" to redirect it.

I think we need a separate board to "delete and redirect" articles (separate selection on template) so that there is no confusion. That way no one, not even an admin, can "rescue" a non-notable topic/article from oblivion. Student7 (talk) 14:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Since most elementary schools get the same sorts of coverage as high schools, its odd one is accepted now but the other is not. Need to just have a set rule in place is to what is allowed and what isn't, having a discussion at the proper place for maximum exposure, and then stick to it, instead of having to go through this same debate time in again in AFDs. And you certainly shouldn't just decide on your own to wipe out hundreds/thousands of articles for elementary schools, simply because you don't like it. Some AFDs for elementary schools end in keep, others delete/merge/redirect. Seems to be determined at random, based on who shows up to comment and the personal opinions of the closing administrator. Dream Focus 14:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I disagree that most elementary schools get the same sorts of coverage of high schools. For example, in the United States, many newspapers give a significant amount of coverage to high school sports and, in many cases, none to elementary school sports. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:23, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
If the goal of the nom is to redirect the article from the start, AFD is absolutely the wrong place. There's no admin action required to redirect, and that discussion should take place on a talk page or centralized location if multiple articles are in question.
A redirect decision from an actual AFD (with "delete" in mind) is completely appropriate if other !voters believe the topic can be discussed at a larger article, an oversight that the nominator possibly made.
Inclusion within an article is not equal to being notable. It simply means that in context of the larger article, that topic is deemed important to discuss (and ideally backed by sources). Notability is a measure to determine if we allow a stand-alone article on a topic, and that's it. --MASEM (t) 14:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Why not simply rename Articles for Deletion to Articles for Discussion, and merge the current requested mergers process with AfD. There are 16,000+ pending requested mergers and very little, if any, participation. As a result, it is already a fairly common occurrence for merge discussions to take place here. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 15:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
A long overdue reform that never seems to gain enough traction. Spartaz Humbug! 15:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. There are some articles that can't/shouldn't be technically deleted but the majority of the content should be deleted; for example, List of Doctor Who serials by setting is regarded by most WikiProject Doctor Who editors as something that is more suitable for the Doctor Who Wikia than Wikipedia, but because the problems are "fixable" in theory (but not in practice), AfD is not the right venue. Sceptre (talk) 05:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Proper non-admin closure?

I'm not sure where this is best brought up, so I'm asking here. Are recent non-admin closures of AfD discussions by User:Bmusician correct? In this case, the debate only ran for 3 days with three editors offering opinions. Also, IE crashes when I attempt to navigate to his userpage, does that happen to anyon else? Rex Racer-X (talk) 19:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the close at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew D. Gordon was correct on the merits (and after 7 days, not 3), but I don't recall three editors being enough for a WP:SNOW close. I'd question that one. I'll have a look at the others. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 19:31, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I see several no consensus closes - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sanjarzai and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prison-Ashram Project. Both had been relisted twice, one had discussion but no !votes, the other had no comments at all. Most of the other closes from the last few days look OK to me. Were there other debates where you had concerns? Have you discussed these with Bmusician? UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 19:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
That wasn't a snow close, but it was a clear keep close. It ran for seven days, and was appropriately closed as keep. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm just trying to understand the process better. I guess I am to assume "clear close" in the WP:NADC guidelines has no minimum required for consensus (more than one?). Thanks for the feedback. Rex Racer-X (talk) 19:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I think my closure was done correctly. The debate ran for a week with a clear consensus to keep. I did not close the debate according to WP:SNOW. The "no consensus" closures are with no prejudice against speedy renomination. I apologize if my closures have not been valid. --Bmusician 04:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks fine. I'm not sure what the hell AFD I was looking at, but it wasn't that one. No problem. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 13:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
This has been raised a number of times before. this close was queried by me but with no reply. Soon after another editor questioned another closure, then another and another. The problem is not only inappropriate use of non-admin closure (which should only be done on very narrow grounds) but also misjudging the outcome or criteria to use.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Rescue tag

Apparently the {{rescue}} tag is now deprecated, so the advice on the AfD page needs updating. At least, I need updating on what to do instead! Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the information relating to the rescue tag since it has been deleted. It's possible this bit might need to be rewritten but right now it's misleading the reader. Hut 8.5 09:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I've pointend the content to the new rescue list that replaced the rescue tag. Diego (talk) 13:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion - make navigation to previous days' AFDs more visible

After an AFD enters it's second day it falls off the radar screen of many people. This is partly due to the navigation to it being somewhat obscure. There's a nice nav bar to the AFD's for the previous days, but it's under the "Today's AFD" page. Suggest copying that bar to this page as well. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] AFD nomination needs attention

The nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012 Interscholastic League of Honolulu Football Season appears to have some procedural issues--specifically, not having the standard header that I am used to seeing. Can someone check it out?--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixed [9] It also was never transcluded to a log, so I put it on today's. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] AfD route inaccessible

Do you guys (m/f) know that the AfD route is inaccessible for editors? I have done 25k edits, I do one TfD a month and such. But now when I start up an AfD I am lost. I am lost. And the bots are hounting me for this ignorance. -DePiep (talk) 03:14, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Can you provide some examples of what you mean? Spartaz Humbug! 03:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Ah, I see that at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mapping of Unicode graphic characters you did not WP:TRANSCLUDE the nomination page into the daily log and snotbot did it for you. I also see that their explanation linked the instructions for listing an AFD and that how to list an AFD on the daily log is clearly indicated in those instructions. I presume from your contribs that you do not use Twinkle which would have done all the AFD set up automatically but did you read the how to instructions on WP:AFD before listing the AFD? I can see after being a regulat at TFD where the discussions are plonked straight on the log it might be a bit of a shock to have AFD where each discussion has its own page and is transcluded into the log page. Spartaz Humbug! 03:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for spending such time on this. But really, why should I not be able to perform an AfD (even causing a bot recognisable 'error'!)? For starters, what is "step 3" about? -DePiep (talk) 03:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
At AFD each discussion has its own page and the discussion is transcluded to a log page. Because of the traffic at AFD its not possible to hold the actual discussion on the log page because the edit conflicts from users working on different AFDs at the same time would make it impossible to get your views across. But we still need a log and we still need to wait 7 days to close so the individual pages need to be transcluded. You missed that step in this case and snotbot did it for you. The message on the afd is necessary because the closing admin needs to be able to quickly see if the discussion has run 7 seven days and a more discrete and less noticeable message might get lost in the back and forth of a busy AFD. Does this help? Spartaz Humbug! 03:59, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
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