Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 May 15

15 May 2010

Rich Shapero

Rich Shapero (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Closing admin appeared to ignore WP:GNG in favour of much stricter guidelines including the largely irrelevant WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:EVENT. Only two three users supported deletion (of whom one is currently the subject of an SPI case), while another who had initially felt the same later moved to Keep with the comment that the user working to improve the article "has provided the necessary references to show his notoriety". Four other users also supported retaining the article. The close argued that the delete !votes were better grounded in policy, but neither linked to a policy while one Keep comment did and another linked to relevant sources which appeared to prove that WP:GNG was met. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

See comment I just posted on this. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I agree that that it wasn't closed in a proper way and that WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:EVENT are irrelevant in this case (since "Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence"), but I wouldn't say that the closing admin ignored GNG. He did however interpret it in a much stricter fashion than the editors in this AfD (including me) did and when it comes to more subjective judgements like that I think the case needs to be much stronger for a close that goes against the majority view. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 12:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

That's probably a fairer assessment of the close than mine, as looking at it again I suppose GNG wasn't really ignored but just interpreted in an unusually strict way. You are certainly correct about strength of policy arguments when the close doesn't agree with the majority view, and I felt the case wasn't strong enough. I should also add that since I made this nomination I've discovered that one of the two supporters of deleting the article, User:Canals86966, is currently the subject of an SPI which looks fairly likely to be closed with a block. Alzarian16 (talk) 12:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I was the editor that originally listed the article for deletion (and am not the one being investigated). At the time of listing the article had little content but as the discussion progressed the article moved towards focusing on the failure as an author. At the end of discussion I still felt that 'signficant coverage' under GNG was not strong (One article in SF Chron [[1]] & a few in student publications), but think this is an odd case, as the person's notability is actually based on their lack of notability. Clovis Sangrail (talk) 12:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot about you when writing my rationale (the other one I was referring to was User:Starblind). I've changed it to say three now. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:37, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• Looks like a defective debate rather than a defective close, to me. In the closer's defence, none of the cited sources seem reliable so we have what is effectively an unsourced BLP. This does place an onus on the closer to delete. Nevertheless, the debate was defective in three respects: first, that the participants failed to notice that Shapero's book Wild Animus belongs at RfD; second, that the majority of opinions expressed were not in accordance with the applicable policies and guidelines, so even though we have a prima facie "keep" consensus, that consensus is simply wrong; and third, that the debate failed to properly consider alternatives to deletion. WP:BEFORE says that alternatives should be exhausted before a deletion takes place, so a redirect or merge outcome ought to have been discussed. The big benefit of redirecting, in these cases, is that we don't leave behind a redlink that encourages an inexperienced user to write an article, so I'm personally in favour of redirection as the default way of dealing with non-notable people. However, there's no obvious redirect target.

  On balance I'm minded to send it back to AfD for a fuller discussion that takes proper account of all the relevant policies and guidelines, comes to the correct conclusion (i.e. that Shapero does not merit an article), considers where it could be redirected to, and then leads to a proper redirection or deletion.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 14:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)