Wikipedia talk:Deletion guidelines for administrators
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[edit] re fluff
I restored "fluff", because I think it's fair to give attribution to the document we're quoting, and I think the aside, while non-essential, is a helpful one. I care modeately more about the former, though I don't have a terribly strong opinion on either.
[edit] What I tell you three times is true
I thought of this issue again when I was read the newspaper a few days ago (on paper; I don't have a link). They were reporting a psychological study on the cognitive bias that "what I tell you three times is true." It turns out that there is some truth to this old line: an opinion expressed three times by a single person is believed to be as widespread or popular a view as an opinion given once by three different people.
How this applies to AfD: Most editors who comment at an AfD add their opinion or information and leave. A few make it their business to argue with any editor that disagrees with them. So you post a fairly normal comment like "Keep. Four books published on this topic, including ISBN 0123456789, plus two recent news stories", and they reply with a complaint that the subject isn't encyclopedic even if sources exist, or that they think the sources are biased, or some essentially irrelevant comment like that. On the other side, you post "Delete. The only sources I can find are the manufacturer's own website and a single sentence in a news article", and they reply with an unsupported assertion that thousands of unnamed sources surely exist.
Because of the cognitive bias, one editor that repeats the same argument a dozen times will loom larger in the human mind than it should. It quits being "one editor" and starts being "a dozen separate comments". Also, most editors don't watch AfD pages, so they don't respond to these comments. The result is that the page may appear, at first glance, to favor the tendentious editor, or to be evenly divided. Thus we occasionally get "wrong" decisions, or "no consensus" closes, when in fact the consensus exists, and is just improperly opposed by a single person.
I propose that we address the issue of single editors that argue with editors that disagree with them at WP:DGFA#Rough_consensus. Perhaps something like this will work:
In contested discussions, it may be helpful to keep track of which editors are making which comments. Occasionally, one editor will repeatedly argue with anyone who disagrees with him (or her). Most editors don't watch AfD discussions and thus will not respond to these comments; their lack of response does not indicate that their views have changed. Don't mistake a verbose repetition of a weak argument for either a popular or well-reasoned recommendation.
What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Fascinating idea. In my experience, however, one editor saying the same thing over and over again does not result in bad outcomes as often as a bunch of drive-by !voters who articulate an often marginal or inapplicable reason and never return to the AfD. Jclemens (talk) 21:36, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] If you don't like an article about you mentioning negative news coverage, can you have it deleted?
| “ | Biographies of living people
The possibility of harm to living subjects must be considered when exercising editorial judgment. With regards to living people, a closing admin must take into account our policy, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. When closing an AfD about a living person whose notability is ambiguous, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article being deleted has asked that it be deleted. The degree of weight given to such a request is left to the admin's discretion. |
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- If anyone at all does something negative which gets mentioned in the news media, can they ask for their article to be deleted and have it done then primarily for that reason? If Roman Polanski objected to having an article, do it mentioning his sexual assault conviction, or the side article specifically related to that crime, would it be deleted? Does how famous someone is determine whether their article is kept no matter what, while someone not so famous could have an article about them deleted? If they were seen as notable enough to have an article for years, could someone have their article deleted by request simply because someone added a bit about a recent scandal they were in, and they didn't like the attention? The scandal of course being something covered by major news organizations a week before. Would it matter if they were a convicted criminal or elected official? I'm thinking in those two cases, the public who they have harmed has a right to know about their actions, if they are seen as notable, regardless of their protest. But if they are famous and notable for other reasons, then what? Dream Focus 15:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Mention RevisionDelete
I think that RevisionDelete should be mentioned in this section. It says the only way to remove it is to delete the article and restore. But since RD is enabled now and can remove edit summaries, it should be mentioned. --Bsadowski1 04:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
[edit] What's happened to the step by step guide to closing AFDs?
From memory, this page used to contain a step by step guideline for the process involved with closing AfDs, including the templates to be used. Is this still available somewhere? It was very useful. Nick-D (talk) 03:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
[edit] How to rename categories
I tried to fix spelling with {{Category redirect}}[1], but no pages were recategorized by bots in 5 days and the destination category was eventually deleted as CSD C1. What is wrong? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
