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According to WP:PROD, undeletions should by automatic if contested; so I'm adding section to handle this
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::A'it, I didn't know there were copyright issues involved. Not an issue then. Anyway, a regular AfD could have been better, could have told me why it was deleted – unless I am stupid and should have figured it out anyway.--[[User:Ezeu|Ezeu]] 01:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
::A'it, I didn't know there were copyright issues involved. Not an issue then. Anyway, a regular AfD could have been better, could have told me why it was deleted – unless I am stupid and should have figured it out anyway.--[[User:Ezeu|Ezeu]] 01:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
:::The deletion log indicates copyright problems. We don't take copyvios through AfD, except by accident. -[[User:Splash|Splash]]<small><sup>[[User talk:Splash|talk]]</sup></small> 04:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
:::The deletion log indicates copyright problems. We don't take copyvios through AfD, except by accident. -[[User:Splash|Splash]]<small><sup>[[User talk:Splash|talk]]</sup></small> 04:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

== Proposed deletions ==
Articles deleted under the [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion]] guideline (using the {{tl|PROD}} tag) may be undeleted, without a vote, by request. However, they may still be subject to speedy deletion or AFD. The deleting admin can be asked to do this, or it can be listed here.


== History only undeletion ==
== History only undeletion ==

Revision as of 10:48, 21 February 2006

Template loop detected: Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/Vfu header This page is about articles, not about people. If you feel that a sysop is routinely deleting articles prematurely, or otherwise abusing their powers, please discuss the matter on the user's talk page, or at Wikipedia talk:Administrators. Similarly, if you are a sysop and an article you deleted is subsequently undeleted, please don't take it as an attack.

Content review

Editors who wish to see the content of a deleted article may place a request here. They may wish to use that content elsewhere, for example. Alternatively, they may suspect that an article has been wrongly deleted, but are unable to tell without seeing what exactly was deleted. As a subset of this, sometimes an article which is appropriate for a sister site is deleted without being properly transwikied. If the page is undeleted temporarily, it can be exported complete with history using Special:Export, and then redeleted. This will be especially useful once the import feature is completed.

Many administrators will honour requests to provide the content of a deleted article if asked politely. See Category:User undeletion.

Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Moments that Changed Rock and Roll

I beleive this article should have gone through AfD to be deleted. Rolling Stone is a magazine to be reckoned with, and this list is important.--Ezeu 00:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violations don't need to go through AfD to be deleted. It was one of several lists that were deleted for the same reason.--Sean Black (talk) 00:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A'it, I didn't know there were copyright issues involved. Not an issue then. Anyway, a regular AfD could have been better, could have told me why it was deleted – unless I am stupid and should have figured it out anyway.--Ezeu 01:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion log indicates copyright problems. We don't take copyvios through AfD, except by accident. -Splashtalk 04:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletions

Articles deleted under the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion guideline (using the {{PROD}} tag) may be undeleted, without a vote, by request. However, they may still be subject to speedy deletion or AFD. The deleting admin can be asked to do this, or it can be listed here.

History only undeletion

History only undeletions can be performed without needing a vote on this page. For example, suppose someone writes a biased article on Fred Flintstone, it is deleted, and subsequently someone else writes a decent article on Fred Flintstone. The original, biased article can be undeleted, in which case it will merely sit in the page history of the Fred Flintstone article, causing no harm. Please do not do this in the case of copyright violations.

Decisions to be reviewed

Shortcut

Instructions

Before listing a review request, please:

  1. Consider attempting to discuss the matter with the closer as this could resolve the matter more quickly. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, or misunderstanding, and a full review may not be needed. Such discussion also gives the closer the opportunity to clarify the reasoning behind a decision.
  2. Check that it is not on the list of perennial requests. Repeated requests every time some new, tiny snippet appears on the web have a tendency to be counter-productive. It is almost always best to play the waiting game unless you can decisively overcome the issues identified at deletion.

Steps to list a new deletion review

 
1.

Click here and paste the template skeleton at the top of the discussions (but not at the top of the page). Then fill in page with the name of the page, xfd_page with the name of the deletion discussion page (leave blank for speedy deletions), and reason with the reason why the discussion result should be changed. For media files, article is the name of the article where the file was used, and it shouldn't be used for any other page. For example: 

{{subst:drv2
|page=File:Foo.png
|xfd_page=Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 February 19#Foo.png
|article=Foo
|reason=
}} ~~~~
2.

Inform the editor who closed the deletion discussion by adding the following on their user talk page:

{{subst:DRV notice|PAGE_NAME}} ~~~~
3.

For nominations to overturn and delete a page previously kept, attach <noinclude>{{Delrev|date=2024 November 16}}</noinclude> to the top of the page under review to inform current editors about the discussion.

4.

Leave notice of the deletion review outside of and above the original deletion discussion:

  • If the deletion discussion's subpage name is the same as the deletion review's section header, use <noinclude>{{Delrevxfd|date=2024 November 16}}</noinclude>
  • If the deletion discussion's subpage name is different from the deletion review's section header, then use <noinclude>{{Delrevxfd|date=2024 November 16|page=SECTION HEADER AT THE DELETION REVIEW LOG}}</noinclude>
 

Commenting in a deletion review

Any editor may express their opinion about an article or file being considered for deletion review. In the deletion review discussion, please type one of the following opinions preceded by an asterisk (*) and surrounded by three apostrophes (''') on either side. If you have additional thoughts to share, you may type this after the opinion. Place four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your entry, which should be placed below the entries of any previous editors:

  • Endorse the original closing decision; or
  • Relist on the relevant deletion forum (usually Articles for deletion); or
  • List, if the page was speedy deleted outside of the established criteria and you believe it needs a full discussion at the appropriate forum to decide if it should be deleted; or
  • Overturn the original decision and optionally an (action) per the Guide to deletion. For a keep decision, the default action associated with overturning is delete and vice versa. If an editor desires some action other than the default, they should make this clear; or
  • Allow recreation of the page if new information is presented and deemed sufficient to permit recreation.

Examples of opinions for an article that had been deleted:

  • *'''Endorse''' The original closing decision looks like it was sound, no reason shown here to overturn it. ~~~~
  • *'''Relist''' A new discussion at AfD should bring a more thorough discussion, given the new information shown here. ~~~~
  • *'''Allow recreation''' The new information provided looks like it justifies recreation of the article from scratch if there is anyone willing to do the work. ~~~~
  • *'''List''' Article was speedied without discussion, criteria given did not match the problem, full discussion at AfD looks warranted. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn and merge''' The article is a content fork, should have been merged into existing article on this topic rather than deleted. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn and userfy''' Needs more development in userspace before being published again, but the subject meets our notability criteria. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn''' Original deletion decision was not consistent with current policies. ~~~~

Remember that deletion review is not an opportunity to (re-)express your opinion on the content in question. It is an opportunity to correct errors in process (in the absence of significant new information), and thus the action specified should be the editor's feeling of the correct interpretation of the debate. Deletion review is facilitated by succinct discussions of policies and guidelines; long or repeated arguments are not generally helpful. Rather, editors should set out the key policies and guidelines supporting their preferred outcome.

The presentation of new information about the content should be prefaced by Relist, rather than Overturn and (action). This information can then be more fully evaluated in its proper deletion discussion forum. Allow recreation is an alternative in such cases.

Temporary undeletion

Admins participating in deletion reviews are routinely requested to restore deleted pages under review and replace the content with the {{TempUndelete}} template, leaving the history for review by everyone. However, copyright violations and violations of the policy on biographies of living persons should not be restored.

Closing reviews

A nominated page should remain on deletion review for at least seven days, unless the nomination was a proposed deletion. After seven days, an administrator will determine whether a consensus exists. If that consensus is to undelete, the admin should follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Administrator instructions. If the consensus was to relist, the page should be relisted at the appropriate forum. If the consensus was that the deletion was endorsed, the discussion should be closed with the consensus documented.

If the administrator closes the deletion review as no consensus, the outcome should generally be the same as if the decision was endorsed. However:

  • If the decision under appeal was a speedy deletion, the page(s) in question should be restored, as it indicates the deletion was not uncontroversial. The closer, or any editor, may then proceed to nominate the page at the appropriate deletion discussion forum, if they so choose.
  • If the decision under appeal was an XfD close, the closer may, at their discretion, relist the page(s) at the relevant XfD.

Ideally all closes should be made by an administrator to ensure that what is effectively the final appeal is applied consistently and fairly but in cases where the outcome is patently obvious or where a discussion has not been closed in good time it is permissible for a non-admin (ideally a DRV regular) to close discussions. Non-consensus closes should be avoided by non-admins unless they are absolutely unavoidable and the closer is sufficiently experienced at DRV to make that call. (Hint: if you are not sure that you have enough DRV experience then you don't.)

Speedy closes

  • Objections to a proposed deletion can be processed immediately as though they were a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion
  • Where the closer of a deletion discussion realizes their close was wrong, and nobody has endorsed, the closer may speedily close as overturn. They should fully reverse their close, restoring any deleted pages if appropriate.
  • Where the nominator of a DRV wishes to withdraw their nomination, and nobody else has recommended any outcome other than endorse, the nominator may speedily close as "endorse" (or ask someone else to do so on their behalf).
  • Certain discussions may be closed without result if there is no prospect of success (e.g. disruptive or sockpuppet nominations, if the nominator is repeatedly nominating the same page, or the page is listed at WP:DEEPER). These will usually be marked as "administrative close".

Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Temporary_undeletion

Advertisement - Please join the talk on if all articles brought to DRV should be fully restored and open for editing by default.

Important notice: all userbox undeletions are being discussed on a subpage: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates. Please post all new such requests there (though you may link them from this page if you like)


20 February 2006

User:Tezkah/uncensored

09:09, 16 February 2006 Dbenbenn deleted "User:Tezkah/uncensored" (inappropriate user page content (see #ACHIEVEMENTS section, for example). You have wide lattitude on your user page, and perhaps this is parody, but regardless it's way out of bounds)

This was not a userbox. It was simply another casualty of the present moral panic. It can be seen at [1] - it is simply a user page that has been Toby-fied. Requesting speedy undelete. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep deleted per user page, WP:NOT, and deletion summary. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 04:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Deleted This user has not contributed much to the encyclopedia, with fewer than 100 edits, and fewer than 20 outside of his userpage. There may be a test-case for "censorship" of userpages, but these ramblings from a newbie (the visual equivalent of an outburst of Tourette's syndrome) is NOT that case. Perfectly speediable. Wikipedia is not a venue for a random person to stop by, make a userpage filled with bad sexual humor, and then do (almost) nothing else. Xoloz 05:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting... We generally allow considerable latitude to user pages but they are still provided for the purpose of advancing the encyclopedia. I see no connection between the deleted content and the improvement of the encyclopedia. In fact, looking at the content and the user's general pattern of edits, I strongly suspect that this was a sockpuppet account created for the purpose of conducting a breaching experiment. On the other hand, I'm not sure that this qualified under the deliberately narrow speedy-deletion criteria. I would have preferred that this had been discussed in an MfD discussion. If someone can present a plausible argument for how this advances the encyclopedia, I will recommend undelete and relist. Absent such argument, I'll endorse the deletion. Rossami (talk) 07:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. Neo, Morpheus... Am I the only one seeing some twisted piece of Matrix fanfiction here? Copyright and trademarks should be honored. - Mgm|(talk) 09:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion of meritless gratuitously offensive page. Guy 09:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Progressive Labor Party (Saint Vincent)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Progressive Labor Party (Saint Vincent)

Although a Wikipedia Bounty has been proposed by User:OpenToppedBus for this page, I am concerned that allowing it to stand as it is will lead to wasted space on Wikipedia and will send a message to article contributors that one-line, context-free articles are not only OK to make, but also OK to keep, and we'll have a flood of them. Frankly, as I've said in the past on the Discussion page for that article, if "a political party without parliametary representation" is an adequate description for a political party's page, then we could say the same about ten thousand other groups all around the world who are similarly so minor and marginal, and their pages would be kept too.

I strongly disagree that the fact that the article is classified as a "stub" or even a "sub-stub" is in and of itself enough reason to keep this article on Wikipedia. The reason I initially nominated the article for speedy deletion was because it qualified, and continues to qualify, as an article with very few words — and only one sentence — that provides absolutely no qualifying information about how this group is in any way unique as a party, what its political program is, etc. In my eyes it absolutely qualifies as an "empty article providing little or no context" for what it's supposedly about. Others disputed this and removed the speedy-deletion classification in favor of a discussion for deletion template, and then the discussion was closed as Keep. Supposedly the presence of the bounty is enough to keep the article as-is unless somebody improves it in the meantime. However, my opinion, based on the above, still stands as Delete as long as no one contributes anything, and I'm unsure as to why others have not thought similarly. I'd like to reopen the discussion for deletion. A page with the same title can always be created again when someone with even just a little bit of knowledge of this party is actually able to make a real article. 71.255.206.171 21:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse closure. Anon user has created a long essay above, which boils down to a misunderstanding or ignorance of the Wikipedia guideline expressed in Wikipedia:Stub. Suggest reviewing that document carefully with attention to its relevance to current case. -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep kept. The stub was not kept on account of the bounty; the stub was kept because of WP's belief in Wikipedia:Eventualism, a belief supported by the evidence of the many fine articles that have begun as a sentence or two. Xoloz 05:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure but without prejudice against relisting after a reasonable time. Rossami (talk) 07:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, valid stub. And valid for reconsideration of not expanded in a reasonable time, per Rossami.

Universism

Also has been created under Universist movement, and probably some others as well. It was AFDed several times, I believe, and recreated, etc. I know just mentioning it here is going to make me very unpopular, and I'm not even sure I want such a page undeleted, but I think it deserves more scrutiny that it's gotten since the first AFD almost a year ago. I also want to make it known I have no connection to the group, and know almost nothing about it.

Since it's first AFD, this "religion" or whatever you call it, has recieved some attention in national media. It's been in US News and World Report twice [2], [3]. It should be noted that only the first was really much about the group, the second was about secular humanism in general, and does little more than mention Univerism. Also, it should be noted that both articles are by the same person, so it might be reflecting the interests of a single journalist more than it should. The group was also the subject of a short bit on CNN recently. [4] (it's about 3/4 of the way down the page, look for the names FOREMAN or FORD VOX). They've also been written about in the LA Times [5]. There are claims of others too, but this is what I could verify with a very quick search. I think enough has changed, in terms of the size and notability of the movement, that we cannot use prior AFDs to justify the deletion of this page, and we have to look at the group/article on its own merits. I'm not saying every group that's been mentioned in a newspaper on appeared for 2 minutes on CNN is worthy of a wikipedia article, but I think it deserves some discussion, more than "we've been through this already, delete".

Also, it is pretty much true that the editors of this article in the past have been Univerists, and POV has been an issue. The article, if recreated/undeleted, will likely need quite a bit of time and effort devoted to it to keep it neutral and verifiable. -R. fiend 18:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse deletions/keep deleted. I was not involved in any of the prior deletion votes, but it seems to me that the deletion process and its outcome were completely legitimate. (There was apparently a sort of consensus at the last VfU not to bring this topic up again until March 2006, but I guess we're almost there, so no harm in discussing it now.) I think the topic is borderline notable, and relisting it wouldn't do any harm (though I'd still vote to delete after reviewing the "new information," which I find pretty insubstantial). If recreated, it needs very close and sustained attention for neutrality and defense against the soapboxing, linkspamming, and self-promotion that were common with the prior articles. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For other editors' reference, prior discussion is at: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Universism (Dec 2004), Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/Universist Movement (Mar 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universism 2 (Mar 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Universist Movement Organization (Apr 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universist movement (Feb 2006), and Talk:Universism.
    • This is exactly the thing I wanted to avoid, decisions based on earlier VFDs. The first VFD (more than a year ago) was certainly valid, but nearly all the others have been speedy deletes based on that single vote. Since that time, Universism has appeared in several very well-known publications. That cannot be denied. What we should be discussing here is whether the group was "featured" or "mentioned" and whether these generally pretty short blurbs are enough to warrant an article. When looking at it that way, the original VFD cannot be used as a measurment, as it predated all the media appearances. We should look at this on its merits, ignoring all previous discussions. This is not a procedural DRV (no one is saying the original VFD was improper) this is a case of new information coming to light. -R. fiend 22:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure I understand what R.fiend wants to accomplish with this DRV; he doesn't mention taking any particular action. Was the point to have a DRV to point to in order to avoid speedy deletion of this article on its next rewrite? -ikkyu2 (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Or undelete and edit one of the several articles already written. Right now various people are making what I think are good faith attempts to write an article on this, and it gets speedily deleted each time because of a year old VFD. On the last one someone said it should be taken to DRV, so that's what I'm doing. If consensus is that there should not be an article on Universism because it hasn't made an impact yet or isn't notable or whatever, I'm fine with that, but we shouldn't cling to an very old VFD as if it's the only game in town. -R. fiend 00:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I stand with R. fiend on this; I think the speedy delete was understandable (given how many times this group has tried to recreate the article without addressing the reason it was deleted by VfD/AfD twice) but incorrect (since the latest version did address the issue by including significant proofs of notability beyond what had been provided in previous versions.) For reference, I voted "Delete" in every previous VfD/AfD for this article, based on the group having shown no evidence of notability. Based on the evidence now presented, I would vote a keep if the article was placed on AfD. I think the article should be un-speedied; if someone wants to nominate it for AfD, let them do so, but R.fiend is absolutely right that we can't just say "speedy it now because most of it is previously deleted content" when the part that isn't is directly relevant to the reason the content was AfD'd before. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. I don't recall AfDs having an explicit "sell-by date" as R. fiend suggests, and speedy for substantially recreated content is perfectly appropriate unless DRV explicitly states otherwise: Antaeus Feldspar is putting the cart before the horse. --Calton | Talk 02:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton, perhaps the letter of policy supports that, but I suggest that the spirit does not. To work with an analogy that I suggested on Talk:Universist movement, it's like tossing someone who's 18 and has a legal ID out of a liquour store because he used to try and sneak in with a fake ID back when he was underage. Now if you want to argue that they still don't meet the criteria for notability, then go ahead. But what you are arguing is "it doesn't matter whether the reasons that got the article deleted before still apply; what matters is that it did get deleted before." -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton: Speedy for substantially recreated content is certainly appropriate, unless DRV states otherwise - I don't think that's in dispute. However, this is DRV, and the topic's being brought up to see whether or not the new source information renders it appropriate for DRV to reverse its prior consensus; i.e., has the topic gained enough notability since AfD#1 to reverse the consensus. What I can't figure out is whether your "keep deleted" vote is on the grounds of "DRV already deleted this" or "the new information isn't good enough;" if the former, may I suggest you review the new information and comment with regard to its merits? -ikkyu2 (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton, (and Zoe, who deleted it again): I don't understand. What's wrong with having a copy of the article while we're discussing whether it might be suitable, with new information that's come to light? How is process so important in this regard that we have to keep it deleted, while responsible editors are engaged in a good faith effort to re-evaluate it on merit? Why not let people write an encyclopedia? It's not like it's being recreated by vandals, or socks or something. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • undelete: Appears to have sufficiently overcome earlier objections. Ombudsman 03:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete per the excellent analogy of Antaeus Feldspar. Also, I suggest if we didn't make it so hard to get stuff undeleted, there wouldn't be so much resistance to deletion. It should be easy to delete things lacking verifiable signficance, with the full knowledge, that new information, can get them undeleted, without problem. If anybody still thinks the new version is not adequate, they can obviously, renom it. --Rob 06:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and relist per R. fiend's evidence of media coverage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure and keep deleted. CalitalistRoadster (among others) checked the claimed sources and found no credible evidence of notability at the last AfD. POV from the Universists is an obvious problem, and there is a dearth of independent verifiable evidence available from which to build a balanced view against which to weigh that POV. Guy 09:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

19 February 2006

Templates used for voting

(see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/June 2005#Template:Support and Template:Object and Template:Oppose)

This vote went overwhelmingly in favor of deletion of these voting templates - there was no indication that "userfy" was an option. The problems cited were the unnecessary use of resources, both from the transclusion of the template and from the use of the +/- images. There was also a strong idea that these are disruptive to the process by making one user's votes stand out, and that they devolve voting discussions into raw numbers.

It's come to my attention that the creator of these templates (User:Fir0002) has re-created them in his userspace, and has been continuing to use them just like the TFD vote didn't matter. Several other users (and there may be more) have created their own templates and are using them in the same way. I marked Fir0002's for speedy deletion (after replacing their uses on the voting pages), but that has been challenged.

I bring this here in the hopes that others will agree that these pages, and any other similar ones found later, are indeed recreations that can be speedy-deleted. Of course, care must and will be taken to assure that the voting intent is preserved, by replacing the template calls with the text equivalent. Here are the known re-creations:

Thank you. -- Netoholic @ 10:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added note: To answer suggestions that this be taken to WP:MFD - I considered that, but this review is to clarify whether these sorts of templates are re-creations of the already deleted content. Userspaces is often used to store copies of deleted material. The problem in these cases is that they are being used to cast votes in the same way they were prior to the main template being deleted. That is an end-run around the process and purpose of Wikipedia:Templates for deletion -- Netoholic @ 11:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • - I support allowing people to have these in their userspace since unless it is actively disruptive normally it's considered ok for people to have the same content of templates userfied especially if the templates were deleted as being innapropriate for the template namespace. I'd also like to note that this is the wrong place for this. The proper place would be WP:MFD since this deals with directly deleting people's subpages. Netoholic has also tried to taken things into his own hands by using his bot User:NetBot to remove images from templates used on voting debates instead of just substing the templates as general consensus states should be done. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 10:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing here for Deletion Review to act upon. A more appropriate venue would be WP:MFD. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist on WP:TFD as the climate has changed significantly since last June (it's been nearly a year since these templates were debated). For example, the server load issue is no longer a concern editors should bother themselves with according to Brion (and in this case especially, since these templates were/are used in community-space (that is, User-space or Wikipedia-space)). —Locke Cole • t • c 11:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This comment does not address the point being reviewed. -- Are these re-creations of material which was voted for deletion? Server load issues were always secondary to the previous discussion. To relist on that basis misses the real point of consensus - that using templates to cast votes is a Bad Thing. -- Netoholic @ 11:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • These were/are used mostly on Featured picture candidates, where it could be argued that most of the people there are more visually inclined than the usual editor. Regarding voting with templates, uh, nothing's going to stop the parade of Support or Oppose "votes"; people do it with or without templates. So that's a non-starter in my book. FWIW, my previous comment does address this debate: this is Deletion Review, not Check and see if recreations are covered by a previous deletion debate because I don't want to take them to MFD. Hence why I vote relist here. I'd also like to note I haven't struck my previous comment about moving the user-space recreations to MFD; they were never deleted, so there's nothing to "review" here. That comment stands. —Locke Cole • t • c 11:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Rory Conroy

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rory Conroy and twice speedy-deleted as re-created content

Twice now postfdl has deleted my attempts to add a page for an Irish actor named Rory Conroy. I read the previous "afd" discussion and there is obviously some confusion. The original article, although having not read it myself, seems like a hoax made up from nonsensical facts. I am not sure of the motives behind the fake/former Rory Conroy page, all I am trying to do is add information about a legitimate and aspiring Irish actor. My attempts are not a hoax and it upsets me that my work gets deleted every time I try to contribute. If you can restore my article you will see that it is not a hoax, and can be verified by IMDB. Looking forward to your reply. SweetCakes87 19.02.06

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.
  • Keep deleted. The original article had all sorts of unsubstantiated claims. All the newer one said was that he appears on an Irish soap opera (and some POV stuff). The soap opera in question, Fair City, is a substub. I suggest interested parties start by expanding that article, if they can write in a encyclopedic, properly-toned, NPOV manner. After that we can start thinking about the actors on the show. -R. fiend 00:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion but without prejudice against a completely new article citing verified sources. The original deletion was entirely in order. That article was a hoax. The original deletion discussion did consider the possibility that the article might have referred to the Irish actor but rejected the claim as unproven and at the time unprovable. The rewritten versions of the article were not, in my opinion, recreated content. They did refer to content on IMDB. Nevertheless, I would also have deleted the subsequent versions. First, there were clear copyright violations in at least one version - cut-and-paste from the IMDB entry. Second and perhaps more important, IMDB's credibility as a verifiable source has been challenged. Any user with an email address and a web browser can register and begin submitting information. IMDB employs only 17 people to verify the submitted content, none expert in the fields they are attempting to verify. Unlike Wikipedia and other social software solutions, they have no compensating social controls to replace the traditional hierarchical controls. See The Internet Movie Database#Criticisms for more. After eliminating the copyvio and the suspect content, what's left was unsourced and unverified. If this article is eventually created, it should be based on something more substantial than IMDB. Rossami (talk) 07:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, latest version is not a substantially identical recreation, but a valid article based on IMDB information. Just because the soap opera is a stub doesn't mean we can't create articles about its actors. People should be free to start creation where they want to. - Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

LJ Drama

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LJ Drama

Deletion was closed in good faith by admin "by a hair," citing a supposed lack of reliable sources as part of his decision, even as the issue was dealt with on the AfD as well as the talk page. AfD only listed due to a lack of understanding of process by User:Nathanrdotcom, who attempted to retract the AfD after the content issue - not a reason for AfD listing - was dealt with. Article was kept overwhelmingly on a prior AfD. On current AfD, delete "votes" outeighed keep with a 68% supermajority, but with at least 5 4 votes dealing with content issues and not any sort of relevant guideline. Finally, verifability was dealt with via the use of primary sources, as called for on WP:OR regarding primary sources. My personal feeling is that this should be overturned based on the first AfD and the out-of-process subsequent nomination, although I'm aware that the new, stricter guidelines on WP:WEB (which are awfully, and unnecessarily strict, as an editorial note) probably do not qualify it. Obviously, my personal feeling is to undelete and continue attempting to reach consensus rewrite on talk. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 05:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse closure. The article did not cite reliable sources. Most of the links were to nonexistent or irrelevant Livejournal blogs, LJ Drama itself, or Encyclopedia Dramatica. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. This AfD was closed correctly. Rhobite 05:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is false, as has been noted. The "nonexistent" LJ blogs were ones referenced in the article as either a) folks involved with the site, or b) folks with deleted journals described as such in the site. Furthermore, the parts referencing LJ Drama were due to sourcing exactly what LJD was reporting. Worth noting. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 13:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Everything I wrote was true - a deleted web page does nothing to improve the verifiability of an article. For example, the article said "Mediacrat's university web page, which documented the incident, was deleted by his university, also in reference to the restraining order." There is no source for this statement, only a link to what is supposedly Mediacrat's university web page. A source would be a news article, or a statement from the university, that kind of thing. A broken link doesn't prove or verify anything. I'm not going to argue about this any more - the consensus on the AfD and on this review clearly shows that Wikipedia disagrees with you, so I advise you to drop the issue. Rhobite 21:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The review has been up for less than 24 hours, for one. For another, your claims have been addressed at the article talk page, and your continued insistence that they "do nothing" to improve the verifiability are entirely without merit, per the discussion at talk. I suggest that you stop making idle threats toward me, it's getting extremely old between here and the article's talk page. The consensus was to keep before people latched onto a poor AfD nomination and used a content dispute as grounds for deletion outside of policy and process. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 21:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and rewrite. If someone needs help in rewriting it, then I'll help. Mike H. That's hot 09:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, Jeff, you mention that "at least five votes" cited content issues rather than relevant guidelines. I see only two delete votes citing content issues: the nominator and Jameth. The rest seem (to me) to focus on issues of notability and verifiability. Which five delete voters did you have in mind? Also, in what respect was the nomination "out-of-process"? Do you mean, rather, that the nominator's reasoning was poor? Babajobu 14:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and deal with any issues - which were being addressed during the AfD. "If in doubt, don't delete." I'll also note as I did on the AfD, that the strict WP:WEB doesn't apply well to this article if you consider it as complementary to the LiveJournal article where the content doesn't fit for both context and length. Rote application of policy makes a good bureaucracy, but will often fail common sense. SchmuckyTheCat 16:17, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure without prejudice to different recreation Excellent rationale given by Babajobu (deserves a cookie!), within administrator's discretion. This doesn't prevent a sourced rewrite, of course. I recommend article's supporters work on a rewrite and post it. Xoloz 17:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, well-reasoned and valid, no new information presented to cast doubt on it at this point. Guy 17:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd want to see new information which discounts the points made by those who supported deletion re the insufficiency of reliable sources to ensure balance and verifiability. Guy 10:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew Allaby

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Allaby

Invalid speedy deletion. Never tagged as speedy, deleted as A7. Plainly not an A7, because it asserted notability of subject as founder of notable organization [7] (companion article). Afd nomination borders on bad faith; if the Students_for_Global_Democracy is moderately accurate as to the scope of the organization, nominator's description of it as "yet another student group" is inappropriate if not deceptive. Nomination seems motivated more by the political dispute seen on the SGD talkpage than any real dispute over notability of subject. Not clear that article was even properly tagged for deletion; it's been on my watchlist since I objected to {prod}, but no insertion of deletion tag showed on my watchlist. Monicasdude 04:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the one who nominated (AND TAGGED) the article, and son, you need to go back and get a refund on those mindreading classes you've been taking. Considering that one of the highpoints in the article is getting 30 students to march at Berkeley -- well, as a Berkeley alumnus, I gotta say that that's trivial to the point of not worthy of mentioning on a student organizer's resume, let alone as an organizational achievement worth encyclopedic note. If it'll make you happy, undelete so it can be decided slowly and officially. --Calton | Talk 04:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/Relist above argument shows this deserves debate on AfD. But I disagree with anything about it being a bad faith nomination. --W.marsh 04:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, relist, at least worth a deeper look. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 05:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse speedy, the article made no assertion of notability and thus it was validly speedied under A7. - ulayiti (talk) 05:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist. It made a claim of notability, but that claim is legitimately disputed. I'm getting a little tired of people misreading a7. If admins are allowed to speedy articles with insufficient claims (but claims), then we might as well abolish AFD altogether. After all, the only role of AFD is to delete articles who's claims aren't adequate for retentention. If we speedy these articles, what on Earth is AFD for. Admins are suppose to stay within policy, and not make personal judgements about which claims are good enough, and monopolize decisions on what counts as notable. --Rob 05:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Steady on - if the claim tpo notability is starting a student organisation, it is not exactly abude of powers to discount that as a gen uine claim to fame. Guy 23:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

18 February 2006

request for review deletion of plazoo

I herewith like to ask the admins to review the deletion of the entry ab out our search engine plazoo. In the delete request some said they think it is a spam site. I strongly disagree on that. It is a very notable search engine for blogs, its fast and its FREE of advertising. I work on the underlying search technology since 2 years and have added our search engine to wikipedia, but not only plazoo, but also articles about feedster,technorati and other notable blog search engines. Not to self promote, but to explain and name these search engines next to the other search engines articles. I doubt the admins that voted really had a look at the page before voting. To say we are "spammy" is really like spitting in my face as we are really fighting splogs and spammers very hard to keep them out of our results. Our company counts now 80 People that are dedicated to this project. I kindly ask the admins that voted to review their vote for deletion. Its my strong opinion that they are wrong and the reasons given by them that lead to deletion are just untrue. T.Kik, 18.Feb.2006

  • Sorry to disagree JustZisGuy, dont get me wrong bt the article has not been deleted because it was not neutral. I would be happy to change whatever you dislike about the article and its the nature of wikipedia that everybody can comment on that article, which i always would accept. (BTW i detected the delete because i wanted to add content to the article yesterday.) What i cannot accept is the reason that admins stated in the votes, as said above. Also you cant say plazoo.com is not a notable site. See for yourself what other A-bloggers in europe and america say about plazoo. My main interest was and is not to promote plazoo as such but to fill in gaps about the blog search engines. I therefore did not only edit and complete the article about plazoo, but also on the other main blog search engines, on alert services etc etc. It must have been Hundreds of edits i have made in this area. Compare the articles of the other blog search engines to the article about plazoo please. -> TKik
  • Who else could better say what a blog search engine is all about if not the software engineer who actually works on it? The AdD debate concluded that the site is spammy, not the article. I strongly disagree on that reason to delete.

Dbiv, you are totally correct. And the entry in wikipedia never has meant to be an ad.

  • The real reason behind this deletion

OK. digging around for hours to understand what happened i finally got to these pages: User:Hosterweis/Terminated , User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs May i point to the user Timecop who was also blocked. So a bunch of users around the wiki start their war against anything blog-related and as these pages above show they are proud to have Afd'ed plazoo as a blog-related search engine. Users participating in this so called war are timecop, depakote, femmina, Incognito, Jmax, Hosterweis, whitenight and others. If you compare it to who voted in the afd regarding plazoo, this is pretty much every vote that has been made. Its wasn't a fair voting and the voters just followed the vote of timecop for they support his so-called war. This is misusing the afd-process. It is pretty clear that these users are voting for delete with a very dubious and questionable reason. I ask these participants to rethink what they do. But i feel better now, because i know that that is the only reason why they called our site spammy. In fact they hardly reviewed it. User timecop and hosterweis, leading the war against blogs, proudly announce to be members of the Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America (GNAA) , see their user page. Better dont visit their site as it contains malicous scripts that will block your computer. As you can read on the page of the GNAA, their target is to destroy internet communities and platforms like for instance wikipedia itself. Make up your own mind about how neutral the votes of the AfD can be if supporters of this Group vote for deletion. T.Kik , 1:22 19. Feb. 2006 p.s.: Dbiv, you are totally correct. And the entry in wikipedia never has meant to be an ad.

We all know about the GNAA "war on blogs", voters on AfD are well aware of it and apply greater than usual scepticism to their nominations, but in general they are right: the blogs they weed out are vanispamcruftisement. They do know a lot about blogs - you might even be able to persuade one of them to write a neutral article about Plazoo, they are for the most part very fair and neutral editors. Guy 10:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

17 February 2006

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quailtard

May not be the place to ask this question, as I don't know if I want to formally call for a vote or not, as I proposed it be deleted. But why is it that an editor can "speedy delete," according to log, simply because a high-traffic website links to it and mentions the Vote for Deletion in it? I mean, has this been codified into an officially sanctioned and acceptable reason to Speedy Delete and protect against recreation? I'd have preferred this outcome anyway, but this very much feels like a short circuit of the process. Was it, or was this perfectly permissible? — WCityMike (T | C) 20:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me formalize this. Unless someone argues how this is permissible under current Wikipedia deletion policy, this is an official proposal to relist. Wikipedia is not a dictatorship, and should abide by its own policies. If an editor doesn't like those policies, he or she should change the policies, not act to enforce his or her opinion. — WCityMike (T | C) 20:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See WP:IAR, WP:SNOW. android79 21:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • 'Snowball' isn't official policy yet. 'Ignore all rules' as worded is carte blanche to ignore any and all policy, and I can't imagine it's widely used by everyone. Both strike me as idiotic and do not appear authorative. I should also reiterate: yes, I'd like the article deleted, too. But I resent renegade editors who skip the rules when inconvenient. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • On the contrary. IAR is one of the oldest and most important aspects of Wikipedia culture. The rules don't define what we can and can't do; what we decide to do (and what we decide works best for the project) is what becomes the "rules". SNOW may not be policy, but applying it to the discussion in question is well-founded. android79 22:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • My case for speedy deletion under WP:IAR is posted on the AfD. If any admin disagrees, I welcome them undoing my actions and will be happy to let the community pursue a more formal resolution. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 21:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion, the admin makes a compelling point and the AfD was going delete to my quick eye. Lord Bob 21:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not an election, it's a discussion. Endorse closure. The only argument against deletion was "if it hasn't caught on in a few months delete it then." That's not how we do things; if it has caught on in a few months, create it then. -R. fiend 21:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. The above is a whole lot of gas over the subtrivial: the article is about a single word used as part of a one-liner in one episode in one (basic cable) TV show. The article itself and the attempt at a Boing Boing ballot-box-stuffing is the work of one guy: whether it's an attempt at disruption to prove a point or some weird ego-trip is immaterial. The whole how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin argument above is pointless: article deletion is a no-brainer, and no amount of hot air can obscure that. --Calton | Talk 01:51, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Metacomment on this outside of the voting thread: The maxims I've been seeing cited here in support of deletion is "Wikipedia is not a democracy; votes don't count, they're straw polls; ignore all rules." I have to admit, as a contributor who rarely poked into Wikipedia policy, I'm taken aghast. It sounds basically like Wikipolicy is "those of us who are editors have some maxims we can rely upon to exercise our judgment as we see fit towards the end result of making Wikipedia a concrete and susbtantial online encyclopedia." I'm all for the end result, and, as it bears repeating thrice over, yes, I thought the article should be deleted. But what really does all the process and Wikipolicy count for at all, then, if it can be circumvented and then supported based on popular opinion about an article? This makes Wikipedia a far less attractive online community, at least IMHO -- it goes from being an open source place of contribution to a resource with "Guardians" whose opinions about policy affect how it is run. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Clarification: by "popular opinion" I mean "popular opinion" amongst the peer group of editors/Wikpiedians/whatever, as opposed to "popular opinion" on a wider Netizen scale. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • One should keep in mind that Wikipedia is not an online community so much as it is an encyclopedia. -R. fiend 21:34, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ah, but any place people repeatedly go to work towards a common task can very adequately be called a community. And what I'm finding disturbing is the guidelines by which this encyclopedia is being compiled -- or, rather, under the fact that editors' collective judgment seems to have built into the system carte blanche to do as it sees. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't get discouraged, Mike. This is a very old tension in the Wiki: Process vs. flexibility. Many of us have had that feeling of shock before, and some admins absolutely do take IAR way too far. There is no hard and fast standard for when an IAR action is suitable: for your own peace of mind, just remember that although Wikipedia is not a democracy, it's also not anarchy, and WP:Consensus is still the guiding rule. See WP:Process is Important, as well. I, for one, commend your instinct to seek for an article that you wanted deleted a fair hearing. Xoloz 21:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:PI, if anyone else is wondering why that was redlinked. For a moment, I thought the policy got speedy-deleted. (Ba dum dum.) (See, I can have a sense of humor.) — WCityMike (T | C) 21:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mike, in all seriousness, I endorse what Xoloz just said. I have been outraged when I've seen admins take it upon themselves to IAR. It has really, really been abused. The principle has a purpose. It's legitimate for an admin to jump out of process once in awhile for something he views as serious. If he gets reverted ... it's NOT legitimate for him to "wheel war" and fight over it, and continually redo what he did. I've seen that happen. Process IS important. I could not agree more strongly. But process is not immutable.
      • Now speaking of process, the last time I checked, WP:IAR was marked as "official policy." That means its a page which should not be changed without consensus on its talk page. Looks like somebody unilaterally took it out of that category without consensus.
      • Anyway, yes, you are right that process is important. You're not likely to find many people who view this as in inappropriate place to WP:IAR. But rules are important, and they are still to be followed in the vast majority of situations. And lately, it is important that most admins be reminded of that. So you are doing a valuable work. Keep it up. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 21:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for admin or user-experienced-in-policy-navigation advice, if anyone's reading this thread -- it seems inappropriate to list this here and then separately entreaty anyone on Request for Administrator's Attention (or whatever that thread was). Am I correct -- should I be limiting my venue to here? I ask because, at the actual AfD page, JDavidB said IF an admin reverts *OR* if Deletion Review works -- so should I be asking for a rethink elsewhere? Also, if I decide to be absolutely mad, what forum on Wikipedia might one begin an entreaty to get the "Ignore All Rules" policy repealed? 208.46.38.66 22:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC) — WCityMike (T | C) 22:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You would, indeed, be "absolutely mad" to try to get IAR "repealed". For one thing, it's not strictly a policy; it's more of a philosophy. Secondly, it's about the only thing that keeps the project from degenerating into stupidity a lot of the time. android79 22:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, well, I'm pretty experienced in policy navigation, although I can't be too good, because I didn't notice that IAR ceased to be an official policy. But if you wanted to get the principle repealed, the thing to do would be to start by making your case on that page's talk page. Make your case and attempt to persuade the community. I'd follow up on that by joining the mailing list (I'm not a member of any of the mailing lists, so I can't help you there) and make your case, because you won't reach a broad enough audience on that page alone. The way to go about it is to attempt to convince most of the "movers and shakers" in the Wikipedia world that you're right. If you can achieve that, those people will see that the principle is altered or discarded. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 22:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IAR doesn't ned to be repealed, but it could use some renaming. Obviously it's not to be taken literally, or one could block anyone for anything, delete anything, and be a general vandal with impunity. What it should say (and what it means) is "don't let overly strict adherence to "the rules" get in the way of building a quality encyclopedia. But I guess WP:DLOSATRGITWOBQE is a bit of a mouthful. -R. fiend 04:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (image free)

This was brought to my attention by User:Descendall and I speedy deleted it as a reposted censorship fork that has been discussed at length (several times at several titles), as inherently and unsalvageably POV, and as redundant with our content disclaimer. Other aliases used include Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (no pictures), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse/pictures suppressed, Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (no pictures), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (safe). Would anybody care to comment? Note: this deletion review entry is a courtesy posting, for the review of my own actions — I personally would prefer never to see these pages created again. — Feb. 17, '06 [02:12] <freakofnurxture|talk>

16 February 2006

Level 4 Productions

This prior result of this article's AFD is under review.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Deletion review page.
You are welcome to edit this article, but please do not blank this article or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the Guide to deletion.

I would like to know why the article on Level 4 Productions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Level_4_Productions ) was deleted. It would appear that the main criteria applied here, in the deletion, was the fact that Level 4 has an existing myspace.com page ( Delete as meeting the main non-notability criterion, a myspace page. Stifle 16:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC). I don't understand the logic behind this criteria. Dane Cook, a comedian, for example, has a myspace.com page and yet he still has an article about him here on wikipedia. Level 4 Productions is a grassroots DIY collective focusing on underground techno music, and as far as i know, the only one of its kind in montreal. It heavily promotes new and local talent and strives to bring an "old-school" feel to the events and music it produces. Level 4 Productions is also notable because of it's ability to survive through a number of failing trends in electronic music, such as electroclash. It has also been scribed and repeatedly mentioned in local Montreal media. While this may seem non-notable to those outside the circles of underground electronic music, at the same time, articles pertaining to gonzo porn stars, such as jenna haze( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_haze ) or aurora snow( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Snow ) , may seem non-notable to those outside of that interest group.

As such, i am requesting that the page be reinstated.

  • Comment. There weren't any citations from local Montreal media visible when I recommended the page be deleted. At that time, Level 4 Productions appeared nonnotable to me. If you could provide such citations from reputable sources that confirm your assertion of notability, I'd consider changing my vote. ikkyu2 (talk) 04:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. certainly. here are several:
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/122303/nyepg2.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/111303/akimbo.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/051905/akimbo.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/050103/akimbo.html
There have also been numerous articles mentioning Level 4 artists and their endeavours; further citations can be provided if neccessary.
Morphine 14:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not that numerous - under 60 unique Googles and zero on Google News, after all :-) Guy 23:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ANTs Data Server

I would like an article on the "ANTs Data Server" to be reviewed for undeletion. I don't know what material appeared in the article that caused it to be deleted before, but in the current version I'm posting factual information that can be verified from numerous sources. Thank youDavidsheiman 20:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep deleted Article was originally AfDed for advertising. However, during the delete vote there was repeated vandalism (knowingly posting factually incorrect information) to Comparison of relational database management systems and multiple sockpuppets on the AfD itself. Nobody has yet asserted anywhere on Wikipedia, including in the original AfD and the comment above, that the software is notable, as far as I can see. Davidsheiman recreated the article and it was speedily deleted on February 14 as recreation of AfDed content. After he recreated it again the following day (and it was speedily deleted again) I spent some time writing a welcome note on his user talk page welcoming him to Wikipedia, explaining why his article was deleted, and noting that if he wanted to contribute to Wikipedia he might consider working on other articles while building a case for why he felt ANTs was notable and posting it to deletion review. He acknowledged my note elsewhere and then, surprisingly, recreated the article yet again, only this time under a different name. It was of course speedily deleted. I then added {{recreated}} to his user talk page. A few hours later, he posted this request for review. In his comments above, Davidsheiman makes no assertion of notability at all, and I now must conclude that his behavior consistent with the advertising and sockpuppetry which got the article AfDed in the first place. Note that, to date, this user's only contributions to Wikipedia have concerned ANTs. --Craig Stuntz 21:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is not with the factual accuracy, but with the notability of the subject. The article was originally deleted, then re-created and changed to a redirect to ANTs Software, then that was deleted as non-notable. I'd say the speedy as repost is probably not justified here, since the original article was very spammy and your version much less so, and Google shows a goodly number of hits, so I vote undelete and if necessary list on AfD. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 22:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist per JzG. This is first article on the subject that rises above the WP:SNOW threshold. Give the new content a fair hearing. Xoloz 05:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Void

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 15#Template:Void_and_Template:Void3

This was nominated for deletion on the same day as Template:If defined, which depends upon Template:Void. Template:If defined reached no consensus (keep). That debate is available here–

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 15#Template:If_defined.2C_and_others

Template:Void was determined to have been decided as a delete.

WP:TFD process doesn't currently seem to address the case where two templates, where one depends upon the functionality of another, are both nominated for deletion (separately) and only the child/dependent template is determined to be deleted. I would like to either overturn the decision reached, or relist the template (or relist both templates together). It's also worth noting that WP:AUM has changed drastically since the original TFD debate, and many of the original concerns with using meta-templates have been disputed by Brion. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn decision on Template:Void; this is my current preference. I think if two templates are nominated separately with one depending upon the other, both should result in keep if either fails to reach consensus for deletion. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that {if defined} et al. are currently on TfD again where, at present, they are headed for deletion. I would suggest simply conditioning this debate on that one. If the only usages of the template are deleted in-process, I can see no need to retain the template. -Splashtalk 01:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Correction: {if defined} is not in fact part of that TfD. However, its only usages (outside userspace) are in those other templates, so the conditioning should just apply recursively. -Splashtalk 02:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • It seems that while Template:Taxobox formerly utilized Template:If defined, it no longer does (it has been updated to use Template:Qif instead). However, as I plan on going through some of the templates modified to comply with what WP:AUM was formerly, it would be incredibly useful if these templates weren't deleted just yet. If anyone has any questions (or would like justifications for hanging onto them for now), feel free to ask here or on my talk page. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't see the use in reinstating a deleted template into places from where it has been removed without incident. Don't turn this into a AUM-or-not thing: the fact is that this template is no longer needed or used. -Splashtalk 16:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • The fact is many pages were made inaccessible because of WP:AUM, and those changes may need to be fully reverted (or reverted and modified to make up for changes since their conversion away from meta-templates). That won't be possible if all the meta-templates that were used are deleted, and making Wikipedia accessible again will be a very large uphill battle. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure and delete. There was nothing wrong with the deletion vote, as the every "keep" vote was calling for it to be kept only until orphaned. The way TFD works, almost no templates are orphaned before nomination, so really these "keep until orphaned" should be read as standard delete votes (i.e. "Delete after orphaning"). -- Netoholic @ 04:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is that it may potentially affect templates which use or rely upon this template. Your attempt to push through WP:AUM should be strongly considered by anyone who might give any weight to your opinion as well. You seem to have a near-hysterical paranoid attitude when it comes to templates or meta-templates. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure BUT as Locke has good reason to keep them, could a copy be userfied to his user space? Proto||type 16:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The_50_Worst_Movies_Ever_Made

Although I am sure that there has been a recent discussion, I fail to locate it. Perhaps someone might like to point me in the right direction? . It was kept last year. I suspect it was a combined discussion with Vanity Fair’s 50 greatest films of all time. I can't find an AFD for that either. Could someone kindly please point me in the direction(s) of the relevant discussion so that I can assess the comments and the process. Thanks. The JPS 14:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See the deletion log here. Michael Snow deleted it earlier today, due to it being, in his view, a copyright violation. See the 4 Feb section of WP:CP - a whole heap of articles were listed by Michael. As he said there:
  • Under US case law, e.g. Eckes v. Card Prices Update, lists of items that are created entirely or primarily as a result of editorial opinion are subject to copyright protection. This explicitly excludes lists which are derived solely from facts, statistics, or polling data, as only opinion based lists are considered by the courts to have the requisite creativity required for copyright protection under US law.
  • Consequently, the inclusion of the entirety of such a list solely for the purposes of adding it to Wikipedia will generally constitute a copyright infringment. Excerpts of such lists can be used in Wikipedia under the doctrine of fair use when they are associated with meaningful discussion of the contents of the list, but under typical circumstances, one should never reproduce the entirety of such a list.
  • Most people agreed with Michael. I would imagine that any or all of the articles he listed are now being deleted. I would hope that they had been correctly tagged for being potential violations of copyright, but I can't be sure as I can't see deleted content. As Xoloz says, if you want to know more, go ask the guy. Proto||type 16:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am not a lawyer, but the copyright point seems pretty persuasive, so keep deleted unless I am convinced otherwise. Lord Bob 17:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the clarifiaction. I wasn't aware that it was considered as a copyvio. So long as it wasn't deleted for any of the reasons in the original discussion, I am not proposing their undeletion. The JPS 17:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted: I recall all of this, and I really am disappointed at folks trying to get second, third, and fourth bites, hoping that no one is looking this time. "Fifty worst movies" was a bit too Michael Medved, and the content was Michael Medved, and it was inherently POV. If anything got kept from the original fracas, it sure as heck wasn't kept at this title. Geogre 12:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • "second, third, and fourth bites". Actually, if you read the above discussion you would see that I was not actually proposing its undeletion (because of the copyvio). These votes are pointless. The JPS 12:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of SWIFT codes

  • Undelete: This page is a useful list of SWIFT codes that are difficult to find anywhere else on the net. The official BIC directory is a useless database lookup, that does not allow for a list to be displayed.
  • I have mirrored this site, but my software and server is useless compared to wikipedia, and the extra information garnered from click on a link to the article on the specified bank or city is useful.
  • Yes, the information is repeated elsewhere, but not in Wiki form, and not linking to an encyclopedia.
  • I acknowledge that there are more banks in existance than will ever fit on the page, but surely that doesn't mean you can delete the rest of them.
  • The page was VfD'ed twice until it was deleted. There are some deletionists who seem to think that less is always more: it isn't.
  • It is a harmless article that helps lots of people find the bank code they are looking for. It is no worse than any other list on here. Tristanb 22:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, keep deleted. As stated in the AfD debate, we have an article on SWIFT codes; they are not hard to find (the authoritative database is online and linked from the article); nobody is going to use Wikipedia as a source of critical data for a financial transaction; the full list of SWIFT codes is between 17,000 and 20,000 entries and growing; the active list (those available for electronic transfers) is over 7,500 and the balance are still valid, they just require a manual completion of the process by the parties involved; assuming the codes listed in the deleted article are all on the "active" list, this is about 4.5% of the active codes; the monthly list of changes appears to contain more codes than the deleted article. The AfD closed with 20 delete / 0 keep because Wikipedia is not the yellow pages. Declaration of interest: I nominated the article for deletion. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 22:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The original VfD vote was not so unanimous: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_SWIFT_codes. You can relist anything enough times until it's deleted. It's like a revert war.
    • Have you actually tried using the SWIFT BIC lookup directory? It's nearly useless. Obviously we can't list every entry in the BIC database, but there is a finite and smaller list of actual codes that are used in real life.
Useless? I can search by name, code, country and who knows what else. That search option is pretty useful I think and if that site doesn't list it, we can't put it into Wikipedia anyway. It'd be unverifiable. - Mgm|(talk) 09:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just because it's a list, doesn't mean it has to be an exhaustive list. It's like demolishing the your school's playground because it can't host an Olympic event! The list IS useful!
    • R. fiend, all deletion requests and deletion appeals are started by one person. And i'm whining, because i don't think it should be deleted! Tristanb 23:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was a valid process, with a valid result. You have failed to counter any of the specific problems raised above regarding this article. A second nominartion is allowed, and the first AfD included votes like "seems like a useful list" - which is true, it seems like a useful list in the same way a piece of paper with telephone numbers on seems like a useful list until you realise that you have no idea how many of them are up-to-date, and you can look them up free from an authoritative source on the web anyway. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 11:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep deleted The full list of these codes would be practically unmaintainable; the specificity involved here is outside the range of what I'd call "encyclopedic"; and, finally, there is a valid (unanimous) AfD, conducted for the very good reason that fuller information on the topic had come to light. I would ask everybody to refrain from "whining" as a descriptor for these requests, though; DVR is hard enough for inexperienced metapedians to find: one requester here could represent many interested users. Xoloz 17:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted per Just zis Guy. Pavel Vozenilek 12:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A note: Wikipedia should not tunr into database with GUI front-end. Currently unmaintanable articles like "list of places with unusual names" may be considered when the current infrastructure improves but to became database of everything is unimaginable. Pavel Vozenilek 12:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep deleted - Full disclosure, I advocated deletion the first time, and my only beef with JzG on this one is that he beat me to the relisting... I'm inclusionist but really, this list is never going to be complete or accurate and has no more encyclopedic value than a list of ZIP codes or DUNS numbers etc. ++Lar: t/c 06:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Young Blood article

I submitted an article some time back (possibly under a previous nick or IP) about the Lieber-Stoller-Pomus song "Young Blood", which has apparently been deleted (on the 12th of this month) with NO discussion, votes or alerts, because it was "a duplicate of 'Muzbe'". I have never heard of 'Muzbe', have no idea what that is, did not use or mention it anywhere in the article, and do not understand why this article was thus deleted. I am hoping this was a mistake. In any case, I would like to see this article restored, and cannot see ANY reason why it was deleted without at least a discussion or votes. Zephyrad 01:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion log: Muzbe and deletion log: Young Blood. Appear to have been deleted under CSD A7 by RHaworth (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). I've posted a comment to User talk:Zephyrad on the matter. No comment on whether deletion was appropriate as I can't see the text of the articles (though I'm inclined to trust RHaworth, so I'm not asking to see the text). -- Jonel | Speak 04:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will ask - nicely - to see the text. I fail to see any connection. Zephyrad 06:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proper version now restored. The article had been vandalised. Apologies. This is why admins see a message check the article's history when they delete! -- RHaworth 07:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I can see why the overlaid stuff went bye-bye. Sorry to overheat. Zephyrad 16:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

13 February 2006

The Odin Brotherhood

A debacle of a discussion, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Odin_Brotherhood, with a deletionist attempt to browbeat the article out of existence, quite a bit of confusion over whether the article was about the book or the apparently apocryphal "brotherhood" named in the title, substantial changes in the article during the AfD discussions, and a small wave of sockpuppet supporters. Even discounting the sockpuppets, it's hard to conclude that (roughly) 35-40% Keep/merge/redirect, 60-65% delete constituted a consensus to delete, and the closing decision in a discussion this contentious clearly should not have been made by the editor who posted the original AFD nomination. Monicasdude 05:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

False. 16 delete, 7 keep/redirect (including author). A typical consensus; better scores are only for absolute vanities. mikka (t) 06:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. Certainly the editor who nominated the article should not have closed the discussion; give him a slap on the wrist for that (and threaten an RFC if it keeps happening), but I can't see any other real conclusion coming from this. Discounting socks/anons/newbies there were very few votes to do anything but delete, and the proposed redirect was a a bit of a streth, it seemed. The article was substantially rewritten during the debate, making it about a book rather than a brotherhood, but the book has a sales rank of something like 1.5 million on amazon, so I don't think it would make it anyway. I would almost support a procedural relisting based on the changes made to the article, but I hate to replay puppetshows, especially when I can't see the end result being any different. -R. fiend 05:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist I support undeletion as the "slap on the wrist" that closer/nominator deserves. Such conduct is fairly egregious in cases where any keep votes are cast. (I don't mind if a nominator closes a unanimous delete, but otherwise, don't do it.) Xoloz 17:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd almost agree, but relisting the debate isn't going to punish the closer; it's going to punish anyone at AFD who has to get involved in a pointless, overly verbose puppetshow in order to work for the proper conclusion, as well as the admin who closes that one (who will not be the same as last time). Though it is a valid reason to propose a DRV, changing an article from one unencyclopedic mess to another midway through an AFD does nto guarantee a relist. -R. fiend 07:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just for clarity, I'll emphasize that, by using your phrase "slap on the wrist", I was hoping the overturn would prevent the same mistake by this closer and others in future. Punishment is, of course, not the wiki-way. :)
  • Endorse closure. Reviewing the deletion discussion, I count 16 arguing for deletion with three arguing for deletion after the rewrite and three explicitly returning to the discussion to endorse their earlier opinions (four if you count the nominator/closer). I count 9 to keep as is but 4 are patently excludable as sock/meatpuppets. 1 is a judgement call - a very new user who is not yet familiar with our standards. I would have given him/her the benefit of doubt in this case. 2 people argued for redirect without merger - both before the rewrite. Given the subsequent changes to the article, I would have tallied them as "ambiguous" in this case. 1 other person argued for redirect but based on subsequent actions and comments, I would have interpreted his/her opinion as another keep. Four people either offered ambiguous opinions or abstained. To me, that works out to 16-6 - sufficient to reach the threshold of "rough consensus". The comments illuminated the discussion but did not provide convincing argument or counter-argument to convince me that we should override the vote-count in this case. Given the interpretation necessary in this case, the nominator probably shouldn't have closed this discussion but the result is clear enough that I don't see a reason to rerun the discussion. The nominator also should have been much more explicit in explaining his/her reasoning during the closing. Closing a debate with nothing more than {{at}} del ~~~~ is an injustice to the decision process. Rossami (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure - the consensus was to delete, and the closer made a judgement call which I think was right. That being said, he shouldn't have been the one to make that call, and should be poked in the head until he promises to never do it again. Proto||type 12:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist - Clearly bad process to close a judgement-call AfD started by oneself. And I definitely wouldn't be so eager to hang on to pre-editing "delete" recommendations while discounting the "redirect" recommendations. -- Jonel | Speak 21:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, WP:SNOW. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Endorse closure, slap on wrist for Mikka, and slap on wrist for Monicasdude for failing to WP:AGF in the case of everybody who voted delete. The article as deleted absolutely sucked, as numerous people said, and nobody even tried to fix it. We do not need this article back, thanks all the same. There is nothing preventing someone else from coming along and writing a much better article on the same subject, in the mean time it's not like we need to keep the subject's seat warm or anything. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT. Let me say--in previous postings--I thought you chaps were a lynch mob. I WAS WRONG! I am impressed by your devotion to "fair play" and "due process." --146.85.127.124 00:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I was dismayed to see that the closing admin was the nominator. That's not appropriate and shouldn't have happened. However, I don't see that any terrible violation of process took place; I endorse closure. -ikkyu2 (talk) 22:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Confused: I vote confuse because I have no clue what you guys are talking about and I think confused should be a new vote. Plus I'm trying to lighten up the subject so the bickering will stop. So get your cow boy boots on and lets go to rare but famous thing or place or whatever... called "The Odin Brotherhood." :) And for some reason I usually come out of these things (after learning something new) saying... heuh! Who would have though... Well... I think today I'm coming out like... heuh! I wish I could have though!!! --CyclePat 03:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC) b.t.w. When I vote confused it means I would like to know more about the subject... so I think that means, if someone is ready to work on the article Go right a head.! So Bring it on back! --CyclePat 03:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT: I think the debate is interesting because so many people who have no idea what they are talking about are voting. In the intial debate for delete, for example, people were trying to claim the author published with a vanity press! They had no idea that a fiction work he published (The Cannibal Within) has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in literature and has been released in an Italian-language version by Editioni Clandestine. [[8]] They also seemed unaware that the book in question The Odin Brotherhood is easily the widely available work on Odinism in English (It also circulates in boot-legged French, Spanish, and German versions). Type "Odinism" into googleprint and see what happens....[[9]] (Regarding amazon.com sales, remember the book has been continuously IN PRINT for 14 years. Do not compare it with something that came out yesterday.)--146.85.127.124 20:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still believe that a press, such as Mandrake of Oxford, that requires camera-ready copy and requires that its authors pre-order a number of copies of the book meets the formal definition of a vanity press. Reputable presses exercise editorial functions, typeset the book themselves, and send their authors advances on sales, rather than demanding money up front. -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT: I have been following discussion on several articles up for deletion and I am disappointed in the whole process. I have used Wikipedia for several years and consider it to be a great resource for obtaining information about obscure topics. By immediately deleting these articles without a chance for improvement, you are only hurting the usefulness of WP. Grant it, the article in question may not be of interest to you, but it may be to someone else. Instead of arguing over the validity of author or who wronged who in the deletion process, your engeries would have been better used "wiki-fying" the article, thus making it compliant. I state this in relation to articles in general, not just the Odin Brotherhood.--67.129.208.43 21:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Undelete/relist - Giving this deletion debate another run-through would, if nothing else, eliminate any lingering doubts about the results. Also, I am not sure if my delete vote was lodged after the article was revised or before, and the excessive anonymous commenting with headers interrupting the deletion debate made it extremely difficult to follow. In that vein, a comment for supporters of this article: if it is relisted on AfD, I would strongly encourage you to present your arguments for keeping the article in a succint, well-referenced paragraph, once and once only, making specific reference to Wikipedia deletion policy. If an article truly is worth keeping, it can generally stand on its own merits. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 05:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Offtopic.com

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Offtopic.com

You guys are gonna love this one, the AfD (or VfD rather) was almost a year ago. Anyway, it's the 6th largest forum on the entire web, and the largest generaral discussion forum, above even Something Awful. It seems to me that during the VfD, the article was so pitifully small and unreferenced that nobody actually knew how big it was. Subsequently, the article was recreated several times, and promptly speedied for being a repost. I seem to recall, however, that the very last one, the one deleted on Nov. 15, was actually a pretty good article that included facts like it being extremely large, so I think it should be undeleted to that version. --Rory096 20:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Deletion Log shows that most of the deletions were not as "recreated content" but as patent nonsense and/or obvious vandalism. I did not attempt to review all 186 deleted edits but a random sampling off the first page does show that this page is a vandalism-magnet.
    When the VfD discussion was held (May/June 2005), this website's Alexa ranking was so low that it wasn't even on the chart. Later in the summer, it spiked up briefly, then dropped again. It is now fluctuating around 10,000. That would still be well below the recommended thresholds of the Alexa test so the claims of traffic alone fail to convince me. Does this site meet any of the other recommended criteria at WP:WEB?
    Without some more concrete claims to notability/visibility, I'm not yet willing to set aside the previous decision. Especially given the extra load that this would appear to place on the people on vandalism patrol. Endorse closure pending other information. Rossami (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • While true that many of those were for nonsense, the very last one, which actually did have content (if I recall correctly, I obviously can't see it now), was deleted as reposted. It probably does not meet WP:WEB, mostly because the "Rule #1" of the site is not to talk about the site, though note that SA doesn't meet any Alexa test either, at 2402. Offtopic is where the O RLY? owl itself originated, in addition to many other notable internet memes. Xoloz: it's also much larger than SA in terms of members, at 138,954, especially considering SA doesn't prune members for inactivity. OT has had over 25,000 of those users on it in the past month alone, and almost never has less than 1500 logged in at any one point, though it's usually much higher. As for vandalism, we could semi-protect it, though, being a frequent figure in #wikipedia-en-vandalism, I can assure you that there is no possible way it could be more vandalism than Ebaumsworld, which we handle fine. --Rory096 03:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The very last edit was:

OT is an online message board using the vBulletin forum software. It is owned and operated by Fazle Imtiaz, and was founded on June 20, 2000.

External links

That edit fails to even make a stab at notability (note that I removed the header tags around the external links section). User:Zoe|(talk) 00:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

12 February 2006

Userbox:Anti UN, Userbox:Anti ACLU, Template:User no Rand and Template:User-AmE-0

Discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates.

Lowbrow.com

Nobody seems to like this article. Every time I come back here, it's gone. Why is this? What makes the likes of Ebaum's World or other sites any more special? Lowbrow.com is a large website with a pretty massive community. Why someone would want to keep information about it from this encyclopedia is beyond me, and it is very frustrating. I am requesting that this article be undeleted. Thank you.

--Spank fusion 00:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lowbrow.com for one thing, where a consensus to delete the article was first reached. It seems subsequent recreations of the article have all been deleted because they were deemed sufficiently similar to the original deleted version, which is allowed under the criteria for speedy deletion. It does look quite similar every time. You might also see the WP:WEB guidelines for website article inclusion. At any rate I think rather than deletion review you should talk to the admin who protected the page to see about recreating it. --W.marsh 00:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi. I'm that admin, and I sent User:Spank fusion here, as the appropriate place to contest a deletion, rather than than just recreating the article repeatedly. If there's a way to recreate the article so that it meets our inclusion guidelines, this is the place where that should be determined, if I understand correctly. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. Unanimous decision to delete, entirely uncontroversial. If you propose recreating it, explain briefly what real-world circumstances have changed and how this website now meets our inclusion criteria. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 03:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure per MarkSweep. The most relevant difference between Lowbrow and "other sites" is that other sites haven't failed an AfD -- the community's judgment determines what is kept, and what is discarded. Xoloz 17:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I understand that this article has been fairly voted to be deleted in the past, but I recreated the article from scratch. I don't know who made the past one or what it looked like, but a new, legitimate article should not be judged on the decision made toward an article that might actually have deserved a deletion. I feel that this topic is genuine and should be allowed to reside on Wikipedia. Spank fusion 22:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The reposted article was not significantly different from what was deleted, having compared the two. All that's really changed is that the namechecks are gone. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, in that case, why doesn't Wikipedia want lowbrow.com as an article? The information is accurate, and it's a valid topic. What could I do to make it better? Also, how can I see past versions of an article? (You might have guessed that I'm new to this.) -Spank fusion 19:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please check WP:WEB for our inclusion guidelines for websites. It turns out that simply being an accurate article on an existing topic isn't enough. We have to draw the line somewhere, and WP:WEB is where we choose to draw it for websites. If you feel that Lowbrow.com meets the criteria there, then please explain why. That's the only thing - it really has nothing to do with anyone liking the article or not. As for past versions, I'm not sure what the usual way is to do that - other admins around who know? What do you want to see, the previously deleted version, as it was just before deletion? I've no problem showing you past versions. I'll check back later today, and see about copying it to a /temp page somewhere. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion this is one of the few properly closed deletion debates I have ever seen on DRV Cynical 21:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of interesting or unusual place names

(currently at Wikipedia:List of interesting or unusual place names).

NOTICE: This aims to restore the above list into article namespace. The deletion was discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of interesting or unusual place names and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of interesting or unusual place names (2nd nomination) - 2nd nomination cut short and referred back here for the second time. ( This is not about the nearly empty Place names considered unusual which is currenty listed on AfD.)

This article, which has over 2200 edits and has been around for three years, could be nominated for adminship if it weren't so controversial this week. It was deleted out of process, then during the resulting debates, recreated and moved to the Wikipedia: namespace. It certainly does not belong there; all similar lists (List of city listings by country, List of misleading place names, &c) are in the article namespace. The article was then placed here for review, and the result was not handled by the book.

The article should be 'undeleted' and restored to its original title -- and then perhaps put up once more for AfD. A second AfD nomination ran for two days, generating over 30 votes, predominantly to keep it; but was closed early for process-lawyering reasons -- that is, because the same discussion should be had here. +sj +

NB: There were good debates raised about how to determine whether a name is unusual or interesting; these are useful to have, and hopefully good revisions of the list will come from them. Undeletion and restoration of the original title should in no way to minimize those debates. +sj + 00:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, nominator. +sj + 00:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Arguments about verifiability of some of an article should never cause such articles to be deleted, nor its history to be moved "elsewhere" while a new article is created. Parts of this article are clearly measurable, verifiable, and 'unusual'. (Numeric placenames, longest/shortest names, two-letter names.) There is an entire list of criteria by which various names have been flagged 'interesting' or 'unusual' -- if you dislike one or five of them, remove them; or discuss this on the article's talk page.
    • Arguments about the Wikipedia: namespace being an appropriate place to put content needing cleanup : these need to stop. That is not what the Wikipedia: space is for. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find someone put the current Wikipedia: page up for deletion in another month, because it obviously doesn't belong there.
    • This is mainly an issue of process. Active VfD or WP:DRV contributors should not feel that they can engage in talk-page discussions with a deletion axe in their hands.
  • Keep deleted in article space (keep in WP space). Here's why. The first AFD was a perfectly valid delete. The user who brought it to DRV the first time used erroneous numbers to justify it (which shouldn't matter, as AFD is not a vote). The article was moved to the WP namespace (as suggested by several users, both in the AFD and the dRV), and the DRV was closed (by me) endorsing this move. It was then recreated in the article space out of process. Furthermore the article itseld is falwed beyond belief. Allow me to elaborate.
This article is downright ridiculous. Despite all these assertions I keep hearing that it is "easily verifiable", no one has cited sources for these (with very; few exceptions, and only very recently). When asked what exactly it is that makes these "interesting" or "unusual" it seems the only answer we ever hear is "Listen! This place is called fucking, Austria!!!!!! Get it??? FUCKING!!!! Isn’t that a hoot???" Um, maybe, but it’s not a source, and the article has this aura of having been partially written by Beavis and Butthead (huh-huh huh-huh "Dix Hills", huh-huh-. They said "Dicks", huh-huh-huh). Can hardly believe they missed Uruguay ("U-R-Gay", get it?), moronic? Absolutely, but, unlike almost every other name in the article, I can actually find a source for that one. I know we have some pre-pubescent editors here, but do we need to advertise that to the world? And as long as we’re loading up the article with juvenile humor, where's Johnson, Tennessee (FYI "Johnson" means "penis" (titter))?
And the problems go on. I mean, do we really want to include street names? Of all the millions and millions of streets in the world I’m sure we can find thousands that will get your average six-year-old in hysterics (which seems to be among the inclusion criteria here). Do you really want me to find a "Pu Street" somewhere on the planet? Because I bet I can. He same goes for informal names of neighborhoods. Alphabet City? It even actually makes sense for a neighborhood defined by lettered streets, so what’s so interesting or unusual about that anyway? And then there are those that just confound me.
Lolita: would that be interesting if it weren’t the name of a Nabokov novel? If someone publishes a book called “Meriden” do we get to include Meriden, Connecticut? Vader: let me guess, if we imagine the word "Darth" in front of it… Mashpee: sounds a little strange to anyone who doesn’t live in a part of the country where every other town is some Indian word, to those of us who do, utterly unremarkable. Sandwich: you do realize that the food item was indirectly named after the place, right? Ware, Massachusetts? Because it’s a homophone of "Where?" Well, get that spelling and that question mark at the end and you might be on the right track, but that is just retarded (how about Wareham (as in “where’s the ham?”)). Lough Neagh: is there anything even slightly interesting or unusual about that? Anything with the name of an animal is unusual? Guess what? That used to name things after animals all the time! Oxford? Oxen used to ford there. I can’t think of anything ‘’less’’ unusual. And, to top it off, what people try to pass off as a source is that another flawed Wikipedia article insists that these words are, by definition, downright ‘’hilarious’’! That’s not a source.
And there’s the opposites that make the list: words that are too much common English words (Beer, Commerce, Drain, Eagle) make the list, and those that don’t sound like English words at all make it too (Ouagadougou, Schenectady). Well guess what, there’s tons of places in foreign countries that sound odd to English speakers, they may even sound (get ready)….foreign. Let’s take out my trusty atlas and look at Sumatra as a somewhat random example. I see places named: Pasirpangarayan, Pulaupunjung, Talanglambangantir Kutacane (WHY do they insist on cutting their canes there. That’s just CRRRAZY!), Baganslapiapi, and so on and that’s without even really trying. Do some of those sound atypical to those of us who live in places like Carson City? Sure. Are we going to include half the continent of Asia? I sure hope not.
At least some of the worst offenders have been removed (Amarillo? Bagdad, Arizona (but not Moscow Idaho?)), but that they were ever included is pretty sad. And I bet some which are included actually could be verified by a third party source (Truth or Consequences comes to mind) but no one has bothered to. People seem to think "Oh yeah, we could so verify the shit out of these if we wanted to"; is the same as actual verification. It is not. Some people have compared this to articles such as Films considered the worst ever, but we must keep in mind that that article, imperfect as it is, really went out of its way to get verifiable sources. This one fails utterly in that regard. Trying to pass this off as an encyclopedia article is an insult to every encyclopedia on the planet; mostly this one. -R. fiend 00:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore to / Retain in Article namespace R. fiend has made a valiant attempt to defend deletion above. I am going to attempt to put the case for retention/restoration; hopefully I will do this justice but if not I apologise ... it's past midnight now here in the UK.
There seem to be two main things that are causing problems:
First, that the article title contains the word "interesting" and that this makes the article subjective. I have to say that this is a fair point. However, I would ask - why does this one word invalidate the whole article? I've been a Wikipedia editor for about a year now, and I notice a recurring pattern in deletion discussions, which is that often there is just one thing about an article that an editor takes a dislike to, and from this comes a recommendation to delete, without a pause to think whether there is anything worth salvaging in the article. Clearly, from the amount of support that retention of this article is getting (and yes, I agree that polls are evil too, but ...) there is a good case that the article has at least something in it of (encyclopaedic) merit. Instead of just going for the "nuke it" option, we should all be trying hard to see each other's point of view and identify what in the article is worthy of inclusion, and what isn't, and tidy it up accordingly. I have proposed, in each of these debates, that we try to agree some criteria for inclusion, and assess the list against that. I appear to be being told that that is impossible, but without any arguments as to why that is the case. I agree that is is difficult but in the interest of community harmony, it has to be worth a go?
Second, the arguments that the article lacks sources and is POV. Among the people who are espousing these arguments are some very experienced editors, and so I can't just dismiss this view out of hand, but I really do think that people have got into some quite muddled thinking on this. I think that the cause of this is that the article is presented as a list. Because of that, proponents of deletion are insisting on a higher standard of verifiability than they would for any other article. Specifically, not only are sources for the existence of the place names being asked for, sources to justify inclusion of the names in the article are being asked for. We DO NOT do this for any other kind of content. If an article is written as a piece of prose, not in list form, then the inclusion of content that is obviously relevant to the article's subject, without editors having to find a source which proves that it is relevant, is widely accepted. Sometimes there may be items of content that are perhaps peripheral and these are then debated by editors, but by and large we don't have a problem here i.e. we don't have those debates over EVERY sentence in EVERY article. Just because this article is presented as a list, I don't see why we have to treat it differently. The Wikipedia policy on citing sources exists, as I understand it, to ensure that Wikipedia doesn't end up full of errors (accidental or deliberate), and not as a means of imposing a rigid and bureaucratic editorial process when one isn't needed.
So in summary, if we drop the word interesting from this article's title, agree some inclusion criteria, and then assess the article's content against these, we have the basis for a perfectly valid article (with no need for factcheck notes on every line) in the article namespace. Parallels exist — English words with uncommon properties for instance (note: this one is written as prose) — I think that attempting a solution along these lines has to be a better way forward than continuing with the divisive mess we're currently in? SP-KP 01:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course we need sources to justify inclusion of each and every single entry, because inclusion in a list of things which are allegedly "interesting" or "unusual" requires that someone else call them "interesting" or "unusual." Wikipedia editors cannot just insert things in the list that they find "interesting" or "unusual" - that is prima facie original research, something which is specifically prohibited by policy. Please see Films considered the worst ever. "The movies listed have achieved a notable level of infamy, through critical and popular consensus." That is an acceptable way of doing things - each entry is sourced with reasons why it is among the worst ever - ratings from movie critics, box-office figures, fan votes on IMDb, etc. This list has none of the above - it's just a list of any name someone ever laughed at. That's not encyclopedically acceptable. FCYTravis 01:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let me see if I can illustrate the argument above with an example. This does require you to be able to see a parallel between an article which has its content presented as a list, and an article which has its content presented as prose. Not everyone's brain is wired up the same, so that might be difficult for you to do, in which case this is perhaps not going to help, but I hope it might help at least some people to see where I am coming from. Let's take the article Kansas. What if, instead of creating an article entitled Kansas, someone had created exactly the same article, but had placed an asterisk at the start of each sentence, and entitled it List of facts about Kansas. Then, imagine that over time, other editors had come along and added a mixture of facts, some of which were undisputedly about Kansas, and others which, although the editors adding them believed to be about Kansas, were viewed by other editors not to be about Kansas, such that the article was a bit of a ragbag of facts of varying relevance to the subject. Now try to imagine that someone spots this article and thinks "what a pile of poo" and nominates it for deletion. Try to imagine the deletion discussion for this article. Although there would be a lot of commonality between that discussion and this one, I would hope that somewhere along the line, someone would make the common sense point that an article on Kansas is actually quite a useful thing for Wikipedia to have in it, and that while the article up for deletion needed to be tidied up, rationalised, and written as prose, it could still form the basis for the Kansas article. That proposal would, I think you would agree, probably carry the day on first pass. I doubt very much whether people would be insisting that every fact that was to be retained in the article not only had to be supported by an external source, but that there must also be an external source stating that the fact was sufficiently important to be included in an encyclopaedia article about Kansas. We'd use our judgment based on some agreed principles to decide which facts did and which didn't merit inclusion. I don't think anyone would say that using that judgment constituted original research, or that the resulting Kansas article, because it went through such an editorial process, was so blighted with POV that it had to be deleted. To convince me that an article entitled Unusual place names has no place in Wikipedia, you will need to try to explain why it is different from an article on Kansas. If this boils down to a difference of opinion on what sort of content Wikipedia should and shouldn't contain, then fine, we'll just have to agree to differ; if there is something more than that which marks these two articles out as different, I'd really like to understand what it is, but nowhere in the deluges of words written on this subject have I been able to detect what that difference is. SP-KP 02:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The primary difference between the theoretical Kansas article and this article is that "The captial of Kansas is Topeka" is a fact, no one seriously disputes it; whether "Dix Hills" is interesting or unusual is an opinion. Whether someone has such an opinion is basically a fact, but not an easy one to establish. If our criteria is that someone, somewhere finds this place name to be interesting or unusual, then there is not a single place name that we could exclude. Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between a list and an article, and wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, should concentrate more on articles. Lists too often (and this is certianly no exception) encourage readers too add anything that pops into their mind, especially when they're as subjective as this. A list of facts about Kansas article would also be a spectacularly bad idea. -R. fiend 03:02, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is a really helpful reply, as it is now obvious to me at which point our thought processes diverge. The divergence seems to come at the point where you are translating the logical entities involved in the hypothetical Kansas situation across to the Unusual names situation. To understand it, we need to talk ontology. I would categorise the statement "The capital of Kansas is Topeka" as a "piece of information having encyclopaedic merit" (these are pieces of information which we believe are valid to include in Wikipedia, facts which we think that readers ought to be able to learn from reading a Wikipedia article). This is a fundamental unit of categorisation relevant to any discussion of this nature; it sits in the space between "word" and "article". To ensure we are using our Kansas analogy correctly, we need to take care when we identify the corresponding thing in relation to the Unusual names article, and pick the correct thing. If I have understood you correctly, you have tranposed "The capital of Kansas is Topeka" to "Fucking, Austria is an unusual name". I believe this is incorrect - what logic theorists call a "category mistake" - and that the corresponding thing is actually a statement something like "There is a town called Fucking in Austria, which is spelt the same way as an English word with a sexual meaning". You would agree, I assume, that that is a fact which we should reasonably expect readers of Wikipedia to be able to find out? If you think about things in this way, then there is nothing wrong, or at least nothing against policy, about an article containing a set of such facts. To include these facts in the article is not POV-pushing, or original research, and as long as this fact itself is sourced it's not a breach of the verifiability policy — it's just the editorial process. If you're following the logic this far, then all we're left with to disagree on are the criteria for inclusion of entries (i.e. this is merely an argument about different methods of arranging facts into articles). I've said all along that arriving at an agreed set of criteria will be difficult, but it surely is not beyond our abilities to arrive at some kind of consensus? SP-KP 17:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Okay, so we can agree that "There is a town called Fucking in Austria, which is spelt the same way as an English word with a sexual meaning". Is that a fact? Yes. Should that be found in an encycloepdia? Sure, and as such we have an article on Fucking, Austria which makes that clear. However, an article containing a list of such facts would have other comparable facts, like "Oxford is a place name that dervies from Oxen and ford." Or "Dallas, Texas is a city in Texas named for the Vice President under James Polk". You can find facts such as this all over the place, does that make them interesting? Almost every place name has a story behind it; being interesting or unusual is much more difficult to qualify than a statement of the captial of Kansas. And using "Fucking Austria" for further examples probably isn't the best way to go. It is one of the least controversial entries, and I beieve it now has a source. I mentioned that one originally because people seemed to be using it to justify all the others, which I considered a flawed approach. I really think we're getting somewhere with the new article, and that should be the focus of our efforts. -R. fiend 17:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Unusual implies not usual. There are sites where you can find what place names are common or uncommon. There are likely a few places with place-names that are unique. (IOW no other place has that name) That makes the name unusual. If we undelete and then rename it to drop "interesting" this would take out any subjectiveness. Sarcoxie might not be especially interesting, but it is unusual. Unusual in that no other town has that exact name or in least so it claims. If that can be proven it'd fit. That's not subjective at all.--T. Anthony 13:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • So we're looking for unique now? Okay, then we've got real size problems. Again, I'll take out my atlas and look at the index. I've randomly opened to places starting with "Meng-". The following all have a single entry, making them likely to be unique: Meng, Mengabril, Mengalum, Menga,Pta, Mengara, Mengban, Mengchen, Meng-chiang, Mengcun Huizu Zizhixian, Mengdingjie, Mengene Dag, Mengeringhausen, Mengerskirchen, Menggala, Menghai, etc etc etc. And, reading down the list from the first I mentioned to the last, I only came across one name that was not unique (Mengen). Do we really want a list of every unique place name? i'll grant you that is the most non-subjective criterion I've heard yet, but it's also completely unmanagable. -R. fiend 18:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • It could be unmanageable, but you can't judge it by flipping open an atlas. Atlases are bound to not list every little place that shares the name of some town. If need be though other standards of unusualness can be added. You can judge unusualness of words in certain ways and then apply that as an additional standard to place. For example words 21 or more letters long are deemed unusual enough that there is an article on Longest word in English. Few words in English have both "q" and "x", and so forth.--T. Anthony 23:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I still think "uniqueness" will be very difficult to establish. Is there more than one place called "Mengerskirchen"? Until proven otherwise, would we accept its inclusion? It's not all that weird or anything. We'd certainly have to get rid of places like "Sandwich" and "Bagdad". Your especially long name criterion is not a bad way to go, I guess, though even that is a bit arbitrary. Why 21 letters? Why not 18 or 23? Hell, even 11 is, I suppose "unusual" in that most places aren't that long. In any case, we're looking at less than 1% of the items in the list, perhaps, by that criterion. What about the rest of them? -R. fiend 18:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                      • I'd favor most of them being taken out. A good deal of it was a bit sophomoric. (For example "intercourse" can mean a kind of discussion, as I recall, and it's not that unusual a town name) As for why 21, it's the number of letters the name of a Hawaiian fish has. Also most of the words in the "longest words" article were over 20 letters which would be "21 or more." One letter names I think would also be unusual as would pallindromes. If limited to a few strict criteria I think it could be manageable.--T. Anthony 20:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please, just {{sofixit}}. Until then, it should stay out of mainspace. I've deleted and protected the cross-namespace redirect and noted that at WP:ANI, while we're talking about it. - brenneman{T}{L} 01:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever the decision about the article itself, this was uncalled for. All existing links from external sites, not to mention those on-wiki, take people to the old title; there should be an obvious way for them to get from there to where the long list is at present. Side discussion continued at AN/I. +sj + 05:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I have now redirected the original title to Astrokey's new article. Problem solved. -R. fiend 06:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in Wikispace and do not undelete in article space per FCYTravis. And perhaps some day, we might achieve a DRV with no daily "interesting place names" rehashing. Well, I can always dream... --W.marsh 03:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment. agree with sp-kp. I was being bold and followed sp-kp's redlink and started an article with only those names that are referenced (currently only 5 at the moment) at Unusual place names -- Astrokey44|talk 03:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's looking about a thousand times better than the previous article (although the introduction is pretty stiff). Perhaps those carrying the banner of the "List of" article could instead help Astrokey on this much more worthwhiel endeavor. -R. fiend 04:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I think what Astrokey is doing is great. It should be done to the original article in place, however; even unto carving out huge sections of the article. But deleting and/or moving an article to a new namespace is just not the appropriate way to express an editorial opinion (like "this article needs a total rewrite!"). It is this misconstruction of process that we are voting on / discussing here. I am not carrying the banner of a particular version of the article; but it should be worked on where it has always been - or perhaps with a clarifying rename - and not in two places at once, as you seem to be suggesting. The extension to that would be, that any time you found an article you thought was POV, you could move it to a new namespace, delete, recreate, and protect the original title, and tell the authors to fix it at the new title and petition for it to be reinstated... +sj + 05:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, no, moving an article to the WP namespace is not standard practice, and isn't intended to be. That was a compromise worked out after the article was already deleted from the mainspace. I consider it a decent compromise, as those editors who found it "interesting" can still get their chuckles, and it can be worked on without being the highly problematic article it was. The only real alternative I could see would be to simply remove all unsourced entries (which, at the time, was all of them, now it's all but maybe half a dozen or so). No one is saying you anyone can willy-nilly move any article they see as POV to the WP space, and that is not what happened here. -R. fiend 05:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it was moved to WP namespace in the middle of the AfD debate and I moved it back. So that is exactly what happened here. SchmuckyTheCat 18:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so it was moved during the AFD debate, moved back before the debate ended, deleted, and recreated in the WP space. The point is, no one is saying any article that someone thinks is POV can unilaterally be moved to the WP space, which seemed to be what Sj was worried about. He can rest easy now. -R. fiend 19:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong undelete as per Grue. Could User:R. fiend please refrain from exercising his admin powers on this article again - the failure of process seems in part to be attributable to this amendment of the AfD discussion as well as other actions taken by R. fiend. His storong views mean that he is seemingly unable to follow due process. This AfD seemed to have been properly set up by userr:docu in line with the process outlined on this page at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Decisions to be reviewed, which read at the time: "If there is neither a majority to endorse the decision nor a three-quarters supermajority to overturn and apply some other result, the article is relisted on the relevant deletion process.". If the process is wringly described, it eeds to be amended. If not wringly described, why are views being sought again, why don't the previous recently expressed views on exactly the same topic count?--A Y Arktos 23:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete per the consensus of opinion in the AfD to keep and the process problems noted above. Issues with respect to whether a particular entry should be added is part of the editing process for the article itself, not itself a justification for deletion of the article. Jtmichcock 14:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some people are particularly drawn to the curse words and homophones that make it onto the list. I appreciate that these are offensive to some; but that is not the source of 'unusualness' for the majority of list entries. Useful sections of the page could be : "one- and two-letter place names", "numeric placenames", &c. We should be focusing on improving the criteria for inclusion on the page, not beating around the bush re: verifiability. +sj +
    • It's not the fact that they're offensive that grinds my gears. It's the fact that they are all sophomoric, not interesting or unusual. Is "Beaver, Pennsylvania" really "interesting or unusual?" Not really. It has sophomoric sexual connotations, but that's neither interesting nor unusual. It's just stupid. So a list that has no criteria nor sourcing will inevitably become simply a list of every place name a random teenager ever laughed at. Which will become a very long list indeed. FCYTravis 07:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion from articlespace, keep in projectspace as a resource for long enough to wring any useful content out of it, then delete. It's mostly junk, but there's probably some salvageable bits in here. -- nae'blis (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2006 (UT
  • I've actually not been paying attention to this article for some time. My attention was called to this debate by a message someone wrote me, which I received today after not logging into Wikipedia for over a month (I've generally been using it without logging in, lately, since I haven't been editing). That having been said, this is a good debate and some good points have been made. I agree that "interesting" and "unusual" are both subjective terms. The article had footnotes you could attach to the place name to indicate some reasons why people might find it "interesting" and/or "unusual," which I have tried to use. As to verifiability, for U.S. Place Names I have generally been using my trusty Rand McNally Road Atlas. I understand there is a movement on Wikipedia for people to cite their sources -- I think that is a good idea. With that taken into account, this article's encyclopedic qualities are questionable, however, the goal here is to have a comprehensive record of knowledge of all types. I credit this article with getting me interested in Wikipedia in the first place -- "Oh hey, they didn't put this town here, I can add it!" With respect to Native American town names -- I live in Massachusetts and I grew up on Long Island, so I am used to it, however, those from other areas of the country might not be. It is very POV-ish. I guess I agree with what was done to resolve the debate. Tckma 18:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This protracted debate seems to be going nowhere. FWIW, I think the original list article should be in the article namespace WITHOUT all of the ridiculous tags indicating that citations are needed. WTF is that? Honestly, sometimes I think the tedious grinds around here have an agenda to remove all interesting content from Wikipedia and replace it with an unintelligible heap of footnotes. However, I can accept as a compromise keeping the article in Wikipedia namespace. In no case should it simply be deleted. older ≠ wiser 13:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the discussion above is going somewhere. I admit this "keep deleted, as before"/"undelete, good article" back and forth is not. We have a pretty good compromise worked out, in which the kitchen sink article stays in the WP namespace (it's not going to be deleted entirely) and a verifiable article stays in the article space. Is the article a little footnote heavy? Yeah. I'd probably prefer just one numbered external link at the end of each entry. But it is better than the anything goes of the other article. The attitiude there seems to be "well if someone added a place name then they must have found it interesting, therefore it is by definition interesting to someone." Circular arguments don't make for good encyclopedias. Nor does entirely subjective content. a List of some pretty cool shit might have some "interesting content" in it, but that's not an encyclopedia article. There are plenty of other sites around for that sort of thing. In any case, if the original article were moved back into the article space, the resulting content dispute would have it looking more like the new article anyway. -R. fiend 16:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I quite agree that the original article contained a lot of dubious entries. But I don't see why that would preclude it from existing in article space. But as I said, I'm fine with the current compromise. older ≠ wiser 23:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure on the grounds of unencyclopedic. When I initially reviewed the AfD it looked like it was heading for consensus to delete, so I didn't contribute my opinion. Reviewing the AfD now, delete-voters point out article violated Wikipedia policies esp WP:V; Keep voters were asserting that the article was interesting, enjoyable to read, or worthwhile. Those points are uncontested; violation of Wikipedia policy must, however, take precedence in determining to delete the article. ikkyu2 (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. Clearly no consensus on the second AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete Although I'd personally prefer it be limited to "unusual" and "interesting" be dropped. "Unusual" denotes rarity and I think rarity can be verified with a bit of work. "Interesting" is a bit more vague and open to interpretation.--T. Anthony 12:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and keep the article, damn it — I can't believe R. fiend is getting away with this. R. fiend, please read Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, follow accepted Wikipedia policies and stop attempting to circumvent the consensus that you don't happen to like. — Timwi 17:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I see once again user:Docu has tried to fix the outcome of this DRV by spamming everyone who might be tempted to vote "keep" and directing them here. Way to go. I suppose I'll have to go spam everyone who might be tempted to vote "keep deleted" or "keep redirected" or "keep in Wp namespace" or whatever. I really don't feel like doing it. are any of these people who appeared at the behest of messages on their talk pages going to add anything to the dialogue, maybe tell why the article in the WP space is so much better than the new one? Or are we just here to stuff a non-existent ballot box? -R. fiend 18:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Empty stubs or deleted articles are never better than lists. Why wouldn't you want the interested parties to participate?-- User:Docu
  • Opinion: The article is a bit woolly, but it's fun and there's nothing wrong with its existing. Nor is there any need to cite sources for every place name unless someone actually disputes their existence. I say delete the slew of "Citation needed" labels and put it abck where it was. 207.176.159.90 23:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete Lists are, by their nature, not cited and nobody would regard inclusion in, or exclusion from, a list such as the one under discussion as being authoratitive. Its a list - not an article. Saga City 10:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • What?! "Lists are, by their nature, not cited"? Where the hell did you get that? It's in the articlespace, it's held to the same standards as any other article, which means verifiablility. Lists are not immune from needing sources. Sure, "List of states in the United states of America" doesn't need a source because it's such universally available information, but this is different. Shoudl I create a List of crimes against humanity committed by George W, Bush without sources because "it's a list! Who needs sources?" If no one would give any authority to what's written in a wikipedia article, then we're all wasting our time here. Sure, the fact that anyone can edit it should make everyone especially skeptical about what they read here, but to have an article where we just come out and say "oh, don't take any of this seriously, it's just a bit of fun" is outrageous. There's a reason why Britannica doesn;t have articles like this. If they did they'd have to drop "encyclopedia" from their name. -R. fiend 17:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted - I personally appreciate R. Fiend's work in this area. I had not heard about this before now, and after reading over the discussion, I agree with the proposed compromise. Regarding sourcing - yes, we need a source to show that each fact in an article is true; for any list, such as "List of X", each item has an implied fact "This item is a X", which, like any other fact, needs to be sourced. None of this should be controversial. JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment . The old article had a nice broken-down list of ways in which a name might seem odd, funny or unusual. I think it made the article seem much more professional and encyclopedic overall, regardless of what the list actually contained. This element should be restored. LordAmeth 12:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the article either in the main (article) or the Wikipedia namespace, or even the User namespace. — Instantnood 20:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted Current tools available in Wikipedia do not allow to maintain such type of articles reliably. If the infrastructure of Wikipedia significantly improves (something I didn't notice during last two years) such article may be maintainable. Today such article is very likely to turn quickly into chaos. Pavel Vozenilek 12:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in Wikipedia space, out of article space: If verifiability is always going to be a problem (and the subjective, POV terminology will cause that to be the case), then we really should take it away from the articles. I'm well known for being no fan of lists, but the reason I'm against them is that they take information that should generate contexts and put that information into an inherently anti-contextual index. Encyclopedias do not index -- atlases and trivia books index -- at least as articles. If we were forced to write about Fucking, Austria (and we have an article on it), then we have something to say about it other than noting that one aspect of it can be combined with the same aspect of wholly disparate places. However, in this case, the list is simply too inviting of sniggering editors and nonsensical additions. If we have not upheld the standards of verification and NPOV with other articles, that's no excuse for not upholding them here, and, indeed, the bright red lights shining from the mast of this article are a reason for upholding the proper standards especially here. This is not about deleting the ancient article's content, but about keeping it at a non-article spot. I agree with that. Geogre 13:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

undelete: 2000 edits over the course of years underscores the great interest in the article, though a fair amount of work on guidelines and parsing into English and other languages would probably help. Ombudsman 23:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As per Haukur, et al. – the key is citing sources and predicating entries appropriately. For example, there are numerous treatments regarding the 'unusual' name of Swastika, Ontario: for one, a book by Alan Rayburn (a prior executive secretary of the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names) called Naming Canada: stories about Canadian place names, 2nd ed. (ISBN 0-8020-8293-9). Despite the obvious political intonations, prior attempts to rename the town to "Winston" were met with fierce opposition by local residents given other historical meanings of the symbol (pp. 79-80). If sources are cited, agreeable entries shouldn't be problematic. Hell (pun intended): even Kitchener, Ontario was previously called "Berlin." (pp. 78-9, 96-7 of Rayburn).
Moreover, IMO, the insistence of few to repeatedly nix this list despite consensus otherwise should be dealt with through some sort of disciplinary action. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you're going to vote on this, please at least read the discussion (yes, I know it's very long) there is a version of this article that cites sources (Place names considered unusual the other title now redirects there). Someone nominated it for deletion, but if everyone who voted to undelete this by all accounts flawed article instead voted to keep that one, there's no chance it would be deleted. Go ahead an add Swastika to that article, if you can find a source for it. And also keep in mind that this entire "vote" (if that's what it is) has been tainted by User:Docu spamming everyone and their mother who might want to vote to keep this (just like he did with the 2nd AFD). An admin should know better. If the article is undeleted, it's going to look like Place names considered unusual anyway, once the unverified entries are removed. -R. fiend 17:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've fully read all discussions regarding this topic and, frankly, it's getting pedantic. And my assertion/"vote" (a spade is a spade) to undelete the incipient article, in addition to the many others before and since who have also commented and despite the contrary, hasn't changed. The revamped article is a shell of the former, and (if anything) the original one should be systematically retrofitted with those notions, not restarted anew as has since occurred. As for administrator actions or impropriety, which I can neither confirm nor deny, those so compelled should take it up at WP:AN. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete the *original* article, merge all these other ones into it, immediately move any unsourced entries to the talk page, put a notice on it that unsourced entries will be removed, and monitor it for such additions. Semi-protect it if necessary. Who can have a problem with that? Turnstep 17:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. To my way of thinking, there are four issues at hand here. I'm going to express my opinion on all four of them right here.
    1. Endorse closure of 2nd AfD. Requests for undeletion appear here at DRV, not at AfD.
    2. Endorse closure of 1st AfD. Process was followed and rough consensus achieved.
    3. Endorse result of 1st DRV. Process was followed and rough consensus achieved.
    4. Leave article deleted, at least in main namespace. The interest or unusual nature of place names fails Wikipedia:Verifiability; compiling the list itself is original research. There's now an article in main namespace, Place names considered unusual that attempts to reproduce this article in a Wikipedia-policy-compliant way, by removing the unverifiable assertion 'interesting' and sourcing each assertion of unusualness for each place name. That article follows Wikipedia policy; the article under consideration does not. Further, no compelling argument can be made for not merging the contents of the old article into the new article, following Wikipedia policies WP:V WP:NOR while doing so.

4 February 2006

Template:Commonsgallery

Despite its TfD discussion attracting 3 votes for delete and 4 keeps, plus a keep from an anon who has a few non-project contributions, User:MarkSweep closed the discussion as a delete on the grounds that "The result of the debate was better arguments for deletion than for keeping it." I dispute this decision on two grounds:

  1. That is not the admin's call; the deletion discussions may not be votes, but closing admins are, as far as I've gathered from my experience on AfD, not court judges, there to decide which side 'won'; they are there to decide what the community thinks. It renders the whole 'discussion' thing slightly pointless otherwise.
  2. Even if I'm wrong on the above point, MarkSweep's decision that there were better arguments for deletion is still extremely shaky IMO. None of the delete voters ever tried to argue the counterpoints the keep voters made against their arguments. These arguments included the fact that the template supposedly advertised for Olympus (it had a picture of a camera, far too small to make out the model). --Malthusian (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the closing admin, let me explain my reasoning in more detail. First, we'll have to discount one keep "vote" from an anon. Second, Nickj is using his "vote" as a vehicle for something unrelated, namely improving or changing Template:Commons. Nickj wrote: "That's why my vote is "keep", and it will continue to be "keep" until such time as Template:commons is improved." That's not a reason to keep Template:Commonsgallery. You don't go about changing Template:Commons by forking it and then voting to keep when the fork is nominated for deletion. Third, "Keep, useful template" by Ryan Delaney is fine, but it's not a relevant argument: Template:Commonsgallery was nominated here because it was a fork of an already existing maintenance template: and precisely because it is a fork of a useful template, it is of course useful, but that's not what this debate was seeking to establish. Fourth, there were three delete votes (by Netoholic, Petaholmes, and Phil Boswell) arguing that template forks are bad. The two serious votes in favor of keeping never properly addressed why the forked templates is needed. I completely ignored the bit about the Olympus ad as tangential to the discussion. Fifth, even if we regard the outcome of this debate as "no consensus", it makes no sense to default to keep in the Template namespace: templates, unlike articles, are tools which facilitate and enable; they should only be kept when they are truly needed. As I've said in my comments when I closed this discussion, I was much more swayed by the arguments for deletion, and in the end this is a discussion, not a vote. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 19:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted - on the principle that forks are bad. FCYTravis 20:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mark seems to be under the impression that the people behind the template have not bothered to explain what it is for, which is false: it has been extensively explained at Template_talk:Commons and the TfD. Briefly (I don't know why I'm bothering as I thought DRV was about process and not content, but FCYTravis has indicated otherwise): some of us believe the links to Commons galleries would look better if accompanied by a picture explaining what it was going to (e.g. a camera for a gallery of pictures). No-one's yet tried to claim otherwise, the only argument for deletion that's been put forward has been 'standardisation and maintenance'.
  • I don't see how this was a 'fork' any more than {{test-n}} is a fork of {{test}}. Both do the same thing, but {{test-n}} does it slightly better in a certain context. Same with this. I admit that the name of the template does scream 'fork', being a redundancy; that was a mistake on my part. I was expecting to move the template to {{commonsimage}} as soon as the TfD was closed. --Malthusian (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moreover, I'm not going to reply to MarkSweep's responses to why he discounted most of the votes on one side one by one (I've already explained why the 'serious voters' had, in fact, "properly addressed why the forked templates is needed"). But I will say that I think that if the arguments of a certain 'side' in a discussion are weak, it should be explained why they are weak at the time, rather than the closing admin waiting for the discussion period to end, discounting them, then waiting for someone to bring the TfD to DRV to explain why they were weak enough for the editors' opinions to be ignored. If nothing else it would save time. --Malthusian (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • TfD is a debate about the merits of templates. Rather than talking about "sides" one should talk about the outcomes of that debate and the arguments advanced in favor of them. If I see a weak argument or an argument that does not even address the central question of the debate, I call it as I see it. As for commenting on the merits of the various arugments before closing the debate: what do you want me to do? I didn't even know of this particular debate until I started to do my share in trying to clear out the TfD backlog. And if I had been aware of it and commented on it earlier, I wouldn't be in a position to close it. And by the way, I wasn't waiting for someone to bring this here. If you're only interested in saving time, then let it go and work on changing Template:Commons through the customary channels. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 21:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • *sigh* I'm going to have to surrender on any further discussion - I tried to reply to Mark's last post but couldn't manage to string three separate counterpoints together in a way that made any sense. I'm just going to say that I used the word 'side' in the sense of 'those who voted one particular way', not 'side' in the sense of 'cabal'. I think it would be worthwhile to have more illustrative {{commons}} templates, but if it gets shot down, well, c'est la vie. If I die in my sleep tonight and St Peter asks me 'And how did you spend your life?' I don't want to have to tell him that my last night was spent fighting a rearguard action over diversifying a Wikipedia template. --Malthusian (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted — MarkSweep is surely right in both principle and detail. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have forked templates many times, as it is sometimes the only way to switch over from one design to another. I was not aware the cabal disapproved of it. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted per Mel Etitis. --Kbdank71 05:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. The fact that {{commons}} is seemingly perma-protected pushed me over the edge. If one cannot edit the template without going through various bureaucracy (requesting unprotection and hoping that succeeds, or getting consensus on the talk page - so much for being bold!), then forking may be the best option. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 06:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. MarkSweep's repeated violations of deletion process are becoming more and more disruptive. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 19:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. - How can you can get an result of 5 to keep, and 3 to delete, and decide that "delete" is the right outcome? It makes a complete and total mockery of the concept of consensus. Secondly, for Mark Sweep's "reasoning" that he can disregard my vote, and the votes of others: I wasn't aware that we had ceded complete dictatorial powers to Mark Sweep, so if someone could point to the relevant official wiki guideline outlining his new overlord status, that would be super, thanks. Third, I note that none of the votes to delete were disregarded, so it's good to see that the fine example of Florida lives on! Fourth, the reasons for changing this were outlined extensively on the Commons talk page, and have still not been addressed. Fifth, the commons template is still protected - so, given that anything related get deleted, and the originally seems to be permanently protected, how, exactly, is anything about these templates ever supposed to be improved? Frankly, this really is an appalling decision. If you're going to ignore what the community says, then why even have a deletion process? I mean, really, why bother? Just unilaterally delete whatever you like, irrespective of consensus - it'll give the same result, but without wasting everyone's time by giving the illusion of wanting community input and general agreement. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per Mark's justification here. However these exceptional closes should be explained when closing. Pace the squeals of outrage, please note that: (i) TfD does not have a clear numerical criteria for assessing when there is a concensus and (ii) the kind of carefully justified discounting Mark has undertaken here would, if done when closing the *fD dsicussion, be a good thing for the health of *fDs: if you object to these vote discounts, what discounts would you agree with? --- Charles Stewart(talk) 01:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Seconded with a pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek. A great many of the discussions that take place on DRV could be avoided if closers took more care with explaining their thinking when they close. Rossami, in particular, provides clear evidence that he has thought about the arguments presented, and I've seen closes of his run to two paragraphs. This is a good thing, and should be more widespread. - brenneman(t)(c) 02:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks very much for the feedback. You have a good point, and I've added my above comments to the TfD page. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 04:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist on TfD. Whilst Mark's arguments to delete are convincing, and convinced me that it should be deleted, there seems to be enough dissension to warrant a re-examination of the decision. 5 votes to keep against 3 to delete is not a decent consensus to keep, parituclarly given that the last two votes to keep were a) from an IP and b) two words, but I would have thought that this would be enough for the Template to remain pending further discussion. Deleting it was against the principle of consensus on deletion. If Mark makes the same excellently clear and cogent arguments to delete then I'm sure people will make the appropriate decision. And I think Nickj's reason for keeping is entirely valid - if he believes the template si necessary until the commons template itself is fixed, then that is a valid reason for him to believe the commonsgallery one should be kept. Proto||type 13:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reverse and Keep as per the consensus what was the point of the votes if the deciding admin was going to maket he call anyway? Some nerve.Gator (talk) 13:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Hey look, I lied, one more comment. MarkSweep's reasons for discounting most of the delete votes may make sense on the outside, but to me there seems to be equally good reasons for discounting the delete votes. One said "performs the same function as {{commons}}" (none of the counter-arguments to that here, on the TfD and on Template_talk:Commons have ever been addressed), another said (paraphrasing for brevity) 'template forks are evil, and advertises for Olympus'. Of that last post, the first argument is not an argument, the second rather nonsensical (maybe it was in jest, but Mark talks about "serious votes"). Why not discount those arguments too?
  • Now at this point I think we can agree that it becomes ridiculous, having unilaterally discarded almost the entire debate, which is why I disagree with vote discounting on principle in all but the most obvious cases (sockpuppetry/trolling), for two reasons: 1) If an argument is weak, someone should say so at the time so its proponent can respond to the criticism without having to do it at WP:DRV, and 2) If the overall case for one 'side' (ooer, used that word again) is weak, then people will read it, be unconvinced, vote delete and the article will be deleted by an actual consensus (not just a consensus of "serious voters"). If the reason for the *fD not getting enough delete 'votes' was because it didn't get enough attention, then relist it. --Malthusian (talk) 13:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Closing admin properly discounted "votes" which did not comply with policy directions; TFD page expressly says Please explain how, in your opinion, the template does not meet the criteria [for deletion] above. Comments such as "I like it," or "I find it useful," while potentially true, generally do not fulfill this requirement. Voting standards were clear, and closing admin quite properly followed them rather than disregarding them. Monicasdude 21:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, but my vote/comment/preference was discounted because of my mistake in pointing something out, not because of my reasons. My reasons are that the newer template is (in my opinion) clearer, easier to understand (both in language and visually), and more exact than the commons template. My conclusion therefore was keep. My mistake was apparently in saying that there would be no reason for commonsgallery if commons could be improved (but unfortunately, that seems to be impossible), and that in that situation I would most likely change my vote. Furthermore, it should be noted that this template doesn't even seem to pass the tests of whether it should be proposed for deletion: Is it helpful? Yes. Is it redundant? No, I don't think it is (see reasons above). Is it used? Yes. Is it NPOV? Yes. Was it a candidate for speed deletion? No. Therefore, it doesn't even seem to fulfil the basic criteria for being listed on TfD, let alone the criteria to actually be deleted. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, I do not see the difficulty to simply construct an independent userbox in one's own userspace. Less controversial, and quite sensical. The same can be said for many other userbox tempaltes. -ZeroTalk 09:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are articles in the main space allowed to use templates from a user's namespace? I thought I read somewhere that this was a no-no, but I could be wrong. If it's allowed, then that's exactly what I will do, and I thank for suggesting this. However, if it's not allowed, then I would please ask that you reconsider your position because it means the problem cannot be solved by the method you propose. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. I read over the original TfD, and it looks like a pretty clear keep consensus to me. At the very worst a no consensus. Aside from the nominator, the delete arguments don't seem at all strong to me, aside from being outnumbered. The closer just made mistake, it looks like -- no problem, we all do, easy to fix: just undelete and, if desired, relist. Herostratus 10:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move to separate article

When decisions have been reached, please move discussion to Wikipedia:Deletion review/Pagename and provide a link from the talk page of the article (if the decision was to keep). This makes the discussion easier to find if there are subsequent afds or Deletion reviews. Also, if the decision reverses an afd decision, it is necessary to show that the afd decision has been reversed.

Recently concluded

  1. Quasi-gummi: undeleted, currently at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quasi-gummi. 16:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  2. Heathian anarchism: closure endorsed, article moved to Spencer Heath, where it should receieve further scrutiny. 16:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  3. Montfort Realschule Zell: closure endorsed with a heavy sigh. 06:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  4. Hootenanny (store): endorse closure, exists as redirect. 06:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  5. User:SPUI - consensus to undelete. restored to last non-controversial version (user can edit as desired when he's back). 03:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia - restored, still at MfD. 02:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  7. Brian Peppers - endorsed and earth salted with {{deletedpage}}. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  8. Criticism of the Bible - endorsed as "no consensus", now a redirect. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  9. Inconsistencies in the Bible endorsed as "no consensus", now a redirect. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  10. Ted's_Kiddush reopened, now at afd again. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  11. Anti-vaccinationists endorsed "no consensus" closure, but closing admin subjected to public ridicule. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  12. Best blond joke ever and/or Best blonde joke ever kept deleted and now exist as redirects. 23:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  13. Template:User pedo: Kept deleted with {{deletedpage}}. 23:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  14. Sin (musician): Kept deleted with {{deletedpage}}. 23:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  15. Marianne Curan: Kept deleted, better re-written from scratch. 23:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  16. Christopher Howard: Kept deleted. 23:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  17. Armand Traoré: Kept deleted. 23:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  18. The Foxymorons: Withdrawn, new stub to be written. 22:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  19. Template:User Antiracist hitler: Speedy deletion endorsed. 17:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  20. Template:GermanGov: Kept deleted. 17:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  21. List of state-named Avenues in Washington, D.C.: Original keep closure endorsed. 17:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  22. User:KJVTRUTH: kept undeleted, user subsequently blocked as sockpuppet. 17:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Category:Ambiguous five-letter acronyms: Moot request, kept deleted. 17:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

This page is about articles, not about people. If you feel that a sysop is routinely deleting articles prematurely, or otherwise abusing their powers, please discuss the matter on the user's talk page, or at Wikipedia talk:Administrators. Similarly, if you are a sysop and an article you deleted is subsequently undeleted, please don't take it as an attack.

Content review

Editors who wish to see the content of a deleted article may place a request here. They may wish to use that content elsewhere, for example. Alternatively, they may suspect that an article has been wrongly deleted, but are unable to tell without seeing what exactly was deleted. As a subset of this, sometimes an article which is appropriate for a sister site is deleted without being properly transwikied. If the page is undeleted temporarily, it can be exported complete with history using Special:Export, and then redeleted. This will be especially useful once the import feature is completed.

Many administrators will honour requests to provide the content of a deleted article if asked politely. See Category:User undeletion.

Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Moments that Changed Rock and Roll

I beleive this article should have gone through AfD to be deleted. Rolling Stone is a magazine to be reckoned with, and this list is important.--Ezeu 00:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violations don't need to go through AfD to be deleted. It was one of several lists that were deleted for the same reason.--Sean Black (talk) 00:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A'it, I didn't know there were copyright issues involved. Not an issue then. Anyway, a regular AfD could have been better, could have told me why it was deleted – unless I am stupid and should have figured it out anyway.--Ezeu 01:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion log indicates copyright problems. We don't take copyvios through AfD, except by accident. -Splashtalk 04:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletions

Articles deleted under the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion guideline (using the {{PROD}} tag) may be undeleted, without a vote, by request. However, they may still be subject to speedy deletion or AFD. The deleting admin can be asked to do this, or it can be listed here.

History only undeletion

History only undeletions can be performed without needing a vote on this page. For example, suppose someone writes a biased article on Fred Flintstone, it is deleted, and subsequently someone else writes a decent article on Fred Flintstone. The original, biased article can be undeleted, in which case it will merely sit in the page history of the Fred Flintstone article, causing no harm. Please do not do this in the case of copyright violations.

Decisions to be reviewed

Shortcut

Instructions

Before listing a review request, please:

  1. Consider attempting to discuss the matter with the closer as this could resolve the matter more quickly. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, or misunderstanding, and a full review may not be needed. Such discussion also gives the closer the opportunity to clarify the reasoning behind a decision.
  2. Check that it is not on the list of perennial requests. Repeated requests every time some new, tiny snippet appears on the web have a tendency to be counter-productive. It is almost always best to play the waiting game unless you can decisively overcome the issues identified at deletion.

Steps to list a new deletion review

 
1.

Click here and paste the template skeleton at the top of the discussions (but not at the top of the page). Then fill in page with the name of the page, xfd_page with the name of the deletion discussion page (leave blank for speedy deletions), and reason with the reason why the discussion result should be changed. For media files, article is the name of the article where the file was used, and it shouldn't be used for any other page. For example: 

{{subst:drv2
|page=File:Foo.png
|xfd_page=Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 February 19#Foo.png
|article=Foo
|reason=
}} ~~~~
2.

Inform the editor who closed the deletion discussion by adding the following on their user talk page:

{{subst:DRV notice|PAGE_NAME}} ~~~~
3.

For nominations to overturn and delete a page previously kept, attach <noinclude>{{Delrev|date=2024 November 16}}</noinclude> to the top of the page under review to inform current editors about the discussion.

4.

Leave notice of the deletion review outside of and above the original deletion discussion:

  • If the deletion discussion's subpage name is the same as the deletion review's section header, use <noinclude>{{Delrevxfd|date=2024 November 16}}</noinclude>
  • If the deletion discussion's subpage name is different from the deletion review's section header, then use <noinclude>{{Delrevxfd|date=2024 November 16|page=SECTION HEADER AT THE DELETION REVIEW LOG}}</noinclude>
 

Commenting in a deletion review

Any editor may express their opinion about an article or file being considered for deletion review. In the deletion review discussion, please type one of the following opinions preceded by an asterisk (*) and surrounded by three apostrophes (''') on either side. If you have additional thoughts to share, you may type this after the opinion. Place four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your entry, which should be placed below the entries of any previous editors:

  • Endorse the original closing decision; or
  • Relist on the relevant deletion forum (usually Articles for deletion); or
  • List, if the page was speedy deleted outside of the established criteria and you believe it needs a full discussion at the appropriate forum to decide if it should be deleted; or
  • Overturn the original decision and optionally an (action) per the Guide to deletion. For a keep decision, the default action associated with overturning is delete and vice versa. If an editor desires some action other than the default, they should make this clear; or
  • Allow recreation of the page if new information is presented and deemed sufficient to permit recreation.

Examples of opinions for an article that had been deleted:

  • *'''Endorse''' The original closing decision looks like it was sound, no reason shown here to overturn it. ~~~~
  • *'''Relist''' A new discussion at AfD should bring a more thorough discussion, given the new information shown here. ~~~~
  • *'''Allow recreation''' The new information provided looks like it justifies recreation of the article from scratch if there is anyone willing to do the work. ~~~~
  • *'''List''' Article was speedied without discussion, criteria given did not match the problem, full discussion at AfD looks warranted. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn and merge''' The article is a content fork, should have been merged into existing article on this topic rather than deleted. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn and userfy''' Needs more development in userspace before being published again, but the subject meets our notability criteria. ~~~~
  • *'''Overturn''' Original deletion decision was not consistent with current policies. ~~~~

Remember that deletion review is not an opportunity to (re-)express your opinion on the content in question. It is an opportunity to correct errors in process (in the absence of significant new information), and thus the action specified should be the editor's feeling of the correct interpretation of the debate. Deletion review is facilitated by succinct discussions of policies and guidelines; long or repeated arguments are not generally helpful. Rather, editors should set out the key policies and guidelines supporting their preferred outcome.

The presentation of new information about the content should be prefaced by Relist, rather than Overturn and (action). This information can then be more fully evaluated in its proper deletion discussion forum. Allow recreation is an alternative in such cases.

Temporary undeletion

Admins participating in deletion reviews are routinely requested to restore deleted pages under review and replace the content with the {{TempUndelete}} template, leaving the history for review by everyone. However, copyright violations and violations of the policy on biographies of living persons should not be restored.

Closing reviews

A nominated page should remain on deletion review for at least seven days, unless the nomination was a proposed deletion. After seven days, an administrator will determine whether a consensus exists. If that consensus is to undelete, the admin should follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Administrator instructions. If the consensus was to relist, the page should be relisted at the appropriate forum. If the consensus was that the deletion was endorsed, the discussion should be closed with the consensus documented.

If the administrator closes the deletion review as no consensus, the outcome should generally be the same as if the decision was endorsed. However:

  • If the decision under appeal was a speedy deletion, the page(s) in question should be restored, as it indicates the deletion was not uncontroversial. The closer, or any editor, may then proceed to nominate the page at the appropriate deletion discussion forum, if they so choose.
  • If the decision under appeal was an XfD close, the closer may, at their discretion, relist the page(s) at the relevant XfD.

Ideally all closes should be made by an administrator to ensure that what is effectively the final appeal is applied consistently and fairly but in cases where the outcome is patently obvious or where a discussion has not been closed in good time it is permissible for a non-admin (ideally a DRV regular) to close discussions. Non-consensus closes should be avoided by non-admins unless they are absolutely unavoidable and the closer is sufficiently experienced at DRV to make that call. (Hint: if you are not sure that you have enough DRV experience then you don't.)

Speedy closes

  • Objections to a proposed deletion can be processed immediately as though they were a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion
  • Where the closer of a deletion discussion realizes their close was wrong, and nobody has endorsed, the closer may speedily close as overturn. They should fully reverse their close, restoring any deleted pages if appropriate.
  • Where the nominator of a DRV wishes to withdraw their nomination, and nobody else has recommended any outcome other than endorse, the nominator may speedily close as "endorse" (or ask someone else to do so on their behalf).
  • Certain discussions may be closed without result if there is no prospect of success (e.g. disruptive or sockpuppet nominations, if the nominator is repeatedly nominating the same page, or the page is listed at WP:DEEPER). These will usually be marked as "administrative close".

Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Temporary_undeletion

Advertisement - Please join the talk on if all articles brought to DRV should be fully restored and open for editing by default.

Important notice: all userbox undeletions are being discussed on a subpage: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates. Please post all new such requests there (though you may link them from this page if you like)


20 February 2006

User:Tezkah/uncensored

09:09, 16 February 2006 Dbenbenn deleted "User:Tezkah/uncensored" (inappropriate user page content (see #ACHIEVEMENTS section, for example). You have wide lattitude on your user page, and perhaps this is parody, but regardless it's way out of bounds)

This was not a userbox. It was simply another casualty of the present moral panic. It can be seen at [10] - it is simply a user page that has been Toby-fied. Requesting speedy undelete. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep deleted per user page, WP:NOT, and deletion summary. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 04:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Deleted This user has not contributed much to the encyclopedia, with fewer than 100 edits, and fewer than 20 outside of his userpage. There may be a test-case for "censorship" of userpages, but these ramblings from a newbie (the visual equivalent of an outburst of Tourette's syndrome) is NOT that case. Perfectly speediable. Wikipedia is not a venue for a random person to stop by, make a userpage filled with bad sexual humor, and then do (almost) nothing else. Xoloz 05:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting... We generally allow considerable latitude to user pages but they are still provided for the purpose of advancing the encyclopedia. I see no connection between the deleted content and the improvement of the encyclopedia. In fact, looking at the content and the user's general pattern of edits, I strongly suspect that this was a sockpuppet account created for the purpose of conducting a breaching experiment. On the other hand, I'm not sure that this qualified under the deliberately narrow speedy-deletion criteria. I would have preferred that this had been discussed in an MfD discussion. If someone can present a plausible argument for how this advances the encyclopedia, I will recommend undelete and relist. Absent such argument, I'll endorse the deletion. Rossami (talk) 07:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. Neo, Morpheus... Am I the only one seeing some twisted piece of Matrix fanfiction here? Copyright and trademarks should be honored. - Mgm|(talk) 09:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion of meritless gratuitously offensive page. Guy 09:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Progressive Labor Party (Saint Vincent)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Progressive Labor Party (Saint Vincent)

Although a Wikipedia Bounty has been proposed by User:OpenToppedBus for this page, I am concerned that allowing it to stand as it is will lead to wasted space on Wikipedia and will send a message to article contributors that one-line, context-free articles are not only OK to make, but also OK to keep, and we'll have a flood of them. Frankly, as I've said in the past on the Discussion page for that article, if "a political party without parliametary representation" is an adequate description for a political party's page, then we could say the same about ten thousand other groups all around the world who are similarly so minor and marginal, and their pages would be kept too.

I strongly disagree that the fact that the article is classified as a "stub" or even a "sub-stub" is in and of itself enough reason to keep this article on Wikipedia. The reason I initially nominated the article for speedy deletion was because it qualified, and continues to qualify, as an article with very few words — and only one sentence — that provides absolutely no qualifying information about how this group is in any way unique as a party, what its political program is, etc. In my eyes it absolutely qualifies as an "empty article providing little or no context" for what it's supposedly about. Others disputed this and removed the speedy-deletion classification in favor of a discussion for deletion template, and then the discussion was closed as Keep. Supposedly the presence of the bounty is enough to keep the article as-is unless somebody improves it in the meantime. However, my opinion, based on the above, still stands as Delete as long as no one contributes anything, and I'm unsure as to why others have not thought similarly. I'd like to reopen the discussion for deletion. A page with the same title can always be created again when someone with even just a little bit of knowledge of this party is actually able to make a real article. 71.255.206.171 21:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse closure. Anon user has created a long essay above, which boils down to a misunderstanding or ignorance of the Wikipedia guideline expressed in Wikipedia:Stub. Suggest reviewing that document carefully with attention to its relevance to current case. -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep kept. The stub was not kept on account of the bounty; the stub was kept because of WP's belief in Wikipedia:Eventualism, a belief supported by the evidence of the many fine articles that have begun as a sentence or two. Xoloz 05:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure but without prejudice against relisting after a reasonable time. Rossami (talk) 07:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, valid stub. And valid for reconsideration of not expanded in a reasonable time, per Rossami.

Universism

Also has been created under Universist movement, and probably some others as well. It was AFDed several times, I believe, and recreated, etc. I know just mentioning it here is going to make me very unpopular, and I'm not even sure I want such a page undeleted, but I think it deserves more scrutiny that it's gotten since the first AFD almost a year ago. I also want to make it known I have no connection to the group, and know almost nothing about it.

Since it's first AFD, this "religion" or whatever you call it, has recieved some attention in national media. It's been in US News and World Report twice [11], [12]. It should be noted that only the first was really much about the group, the second was about secular humanism in general, and does little more than mention Univerism. Also, it should be noted that both articles are by the same person, so it might be reflecting the interests of a single journalist more than it should. The group was also the subject of a short bit on CNN recently. [13] (it's about 3/4 of the way down the page, look for the names FOREMAN or FORD VOX). They've also been written about in the LA Times [14]. There are claims of others too, but this is what I could verify with a very quick search. I think enough has changed, in terms of the size and notability of the movement, that we cannot use prior AFDs to justify the deletion of this page, and we have to look at the group/article on its own merits. I'm not saying every group that's been mentioned in a newspaper on appeared for 2 minutes on CNN is worthy of a wikipedia article, but I think it deserves some discussion, more than "we've been through this already, delete".

Also, it is pretty much true that the editors of this article in the past have been Univerists, and POV has been an issue. The article, if recreated/undeleted, will likely need quite a bit of time and effort devoted to it to keep it neutral and verifiable. -R. fiend 18:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse deletions/keep deleted. I was not involved in any of the prior deletion votes, but it seems to me that the deletion process and its outcome were completely legitimate. (There was apparently a sort of consensus at the last VfU not to bring this topic up again until March 2006, but I guess we're almost there, so no harm in discussing it now.) I think the topic is borderline notable, and relisting it wouldn't do any harm (though I'd still vote to delete after reviewing the "new information," which I find pretty insubstantial). If recreated, it needs very close and sustained attention for neutrality and defense against the soapboxing, linkspamming, and self-promotion that were common with the prior articles. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For other editors' reference, prior discussion is at: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Universism (Dec 2004), Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/Universist Movement (Mar 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universism 2 (Mar 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Universist Movement Organization (Apr 2005), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universist movement (Feb 2006), and Talk:Universism.
    • This is exactly the thing I wanted to avoid, decisions based on earlier VFDs. The first VFD (more than a year ago) was certainly valid, but nearly all the others have been speedy deletes based on that single vote. Since that time, Universism has appeared in several very well-known publications. That cannot be denied. What we should be discussing here is whether the group was "featured" or "mentioned" and whether these generally pretty short blurbs are enough to warrant an article. When looking at it that way, the original VFD cannot be used as a measurment, as it predated all the media appearances. We should look at this on its merits, ignoring all previous discussions. This is not a procedural DRV (no one is saying the original VFD was improper) this is a case of new information coming to light. -R. fiend 22:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure I understand what R.fiend wants to accomplish with this DRV; he doesn't mention taking any particular action. Was the point to have a DRV to point to in order to avoid speedy deletion of this article on its next rewrite? -ikkyu2 (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Or undelete and edit one of the several articles already written. Right now various people are making what I think are good faith attempts to write an article on this, and it gets speedily deleted each time because of a year old VFD. On the last one someone said it should be taken to DRV, so that's what I'm doing. If consensus is that there should not be an article on Universism because it hasn't made an impact yet or isn't notable or whatever, I'm fine with that, but we shouldn't cling to an very old VFD as if it's the only game in town. -R. fiend 00:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I stand with R. fiend on this; I think the speedy delete was understandable (given how many times this group has tried to recreate the article without addressing the reason it was deleted by VfD/AfD twice) but incorrect (since the latest version did address the issue by including significant proofs of notability beyond what had been provided in previous versions.) For reference, I voted "Delete" in every previous VfD/AfD for this article, based on the group having shown no evidence of notability. Based on the evidence now presented, I would vote a keep if the article was placed on AfD. I think the article should be un-speedied; if someone wants to nominate it for AfD, let them do so, but R.fiend is absolutely right that we can't just say "speedy it now because most of it is previously deleted content" when the part that isn't is directly relevant to the reason the content was AfD'd before. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. I don't recall AfDs having an explicit "sell-by date" as R. fiend suggests, and speedy for substantially recreated content is perfectly appropriate unless DRV explicitly states otherwise: Antaeus Feldspar is putting the cart before the horse. --Calton | Talk 02:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton, perhaps the letter of policy supports that, but I suggest that the spirit does not. To work with an analogy that I suggested on Talk:Universist movement, it's like tossing someone who's 18 and has a legal ID out of a liquour store because he used to try and sneak in with a fake ID back when he was underage. Now if you want to argue that they still don't meet the criteria for notability, then go ahead. But what you are arguing is "it doesn't matter whether the reasons that got the article deleted before still apply; what matters is that it did get deleted before." -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton: Speedy for substantially recreated content is certainly appropriate, unless DRV states otherwise - I don't think that's in dispute. However, this is DRV, and the topic's being brought up to see whether or not the new source information renders it appropriate for DRV to reverse its prior consensus; i.e., has the topic gained enough notability since AfD#1 to reverse the consensus. What I can't figure out is whether your "keep deleted" vote is on the grounds of "DRV already deleted this" or "the new information isn't good enough;" if the former, may I suggest you review the new information and comment with regard to its merits? -ikkyu2 (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Calton, (and Zoe, who deleted it again): I don't understand. What's wrong with having a copy of the article while we're discussing whether it might be suitable, with new information that's come to light? How is process so important in this regard that we have to keep it deleted, while responsible editors are engaged in a good faith effort to re-evaluate it on merit? Why not let people write an encyclopedia? It's not like it's being recreated by vandals, or socks or something. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • undelete: Appears to have sufficiently overcome earlier objections. Ombudsman 03:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete per the excellent analogy of Antaeus Feldspar. Also, I suggest if we didn't make it so hard to get stuff undeleted, there wouldn't be so much resistance to deletion. It should be easy to delete things lacking verifiable signficance, with the full knowledge, that new information, can get them undeleted, without problem. If anybody still thinks the new version is not adequate, they can obviously, renom it. --Rob 06:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and relist per R. fiend's evidence of media coverage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure and keep deleted. CalitalistRoadster (among others) checked the claimed sources and found no credible evidence of notability at the last AfD. POV from the Universists is an obvious problem, and there is a dearth of independent verifiable evidence available from which to build a balanced view against which to weigh that POV. Guy 09:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

19 February 2006

Templates used for voting

(see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/June 2005#Template:Support and Template:Object and Template:Oppose)

This vote went overwhelmingly in favor of deletion of these voting templates - there was no indication that "userfy" was an option. The problems cited were the unnecessary use of resources, both from the transclusion of the template and from the use of the +/- images. There was also a strong idea that these are disruptive to the process by making one user's votes stand out, and that they devolve voting discussions into raw numbers.

It's come to my attention that the creator of these templates (User:Fir0002) has re-created them in his userspace, and has been continuing to use them just like the TFD vote didn't matter. Several other users (and there may be more) have created their own templates and are using them in the same way. I marked Fir0002's for speedy deletion (after replacing their uses on the voting pages), but that has been challenged.

I bring this here in the hopes that others will agree that these pages, and any other similar ones found later, are indeed recreations that can be speedy-deleted. Of course, care must and will be taken to assure that the voting intent is preserved, by replacing the template calls with the text equivalent. Here are the known re-creations:

Thank you. -- Netoholic @ 10:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added note: To answer suggestions that this be taken to WP:MFD - I considered that, but this review is to clarify whether these sorts of templates are re-creations of the already deleted content. Userspaces is often used to store copies of deleted material. The problem in these cases is that they are being used to cast votes in the same way they were prior to the main template being deleted. That is an end-run around the process and purpose of Wikipedia:Templates for deletion -- Netoholic @ 11:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • - I support allowing people to have these in their userspace since unless it is actively disruptive normally it's considered ok for people to have the same content of templates userfied especially if the templates were deleted as being innapropriate for the template namespace. I'd also like to note that this is the wrong place for this. The proper place would be WP:MFD since this deals with directly deleting people's subpages. Netoholic has also tried to taken things into his own hands by using his bot User:NetBot to remove images from templates used on voting debates instead of just substing the templates as general consensus states should be done. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 10:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing here for Deletion Review to act upon. A more appropriate venue would be WP:MFD. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist on WP:TFD as the climate has changed significantly since last June (it's been nearly a year since these templates were debated). For example, the server load issue is no longer a concern editors should bother themselves with according to Brion (and in this case especially, since these templates were/are used in community-space (that is, User-space or Wikipedia-space)). —Locke Cole • t • c 11:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This comment does not address the point being reviewed. -- Are these re-creations of material which was voted for deletion? Server load issues were always secondary to the previous discussion. To relist on that basis misses the real point of consensus - that using templates to cast votes is a Bad Thing. -- Netoholic @ 11:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • These were/are used mostly on Featured picture candidates, where it could be argued that most of the people there are more visually inclined than the usual editor. Regarding voting with templates, uh, nothing's going to stop the parade of Support or Oppose "votes"; people do it with or without templates. So that's a non-starter in my book. FWIW, my previous comment does address this debate: this is Deletion Review, not Check and see if recreations are covered by a previous deletion debate because I don't want to take them to MFD. Hence why I vote relist here. I'd also like to note I haven't struck my previous comment about moving the user-space recreations to MFD; they were never deleted, so there's nothing to "review" here. That comment stands. —Locke Cole • t • c 11:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Rory Conroy

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rory Conroy and twice speedy-deleted as re-created content

Twice now postfdl has deleted my attempts to add a page for an Irish actor named Rory Conroy. I read the previous "afd" discussion and there is obviously some confusion. The original article, although having not read it myself, seems like a hoax made up from nonsensical facts. I am not sure of the motives behind the fake/former Rory Conroy page, all I am trying to do is add information about a legitimate and aspiring Irish actor. My attempts are not a hoax and it upsets me that my work gets deleted every time I try to contribute. If you can restore my article you will see that it is not a hoax, and can be verified by IMDB. Looking forward to your reply. SweetCakes87 19.02.06

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.
  • Keep deleted. The original article had all sorts of unsubstantiated claims. All the newer one said was that he appears on an Irish soap opera (and some POV stuff). The soap opera in question, Fair City, is a substub. I suggest interested parties start by expanding that article, if they can write in a encyclopedic, properly-toned, NPOV manner. After that we can start thinking about the actors on the show. -R. fiend 00:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion but without prejudice against a completely new article citing verified sources. The original deletion was entirely in order. That article was a hoax. The original deletion discussion did consider the possibility that the article might have referred to the Irish actor but rejected the claim as unproven and at the time unprovable. The rewritten versions of the article were not, in my opinion, recreated content. They did refer to content on IMDB. Nevertheless, I would also have deleted the subsequent versions. First, there were clear copyright violations in at least one version - cut-and-paste from the IMDB entry. Second and perhaps more important, IMDB's credibility as a verifiable source has been challenged. Any user with an email address and a web browser can register and begin submitting information. IMDB employs only 17 people to verify the submitted content, none expert in the fields they are attempting to verify. Unlike Wikipedia and other social software solutions, they have no compensating social controls to replace the traditional hierarchical controls. See The Internet Movie Database#Criticisms for more. After eliminating the copyvio and the suspect content, what's left was unsourced and unverified. If this article is eventually created, it should be based on something more substantial than IMDB. Rossami (talk) 07:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, latest version is not a substantially identical recreation, but a valid article based on IMDB information. Just because the soap opera is a stub doesn't mean we can't create articles about its actors. People should be free to start creation where they want to. - Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

LJ Drama

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LJ Drama

Deletion was closed in good faith by admin "by a hair," citing a supposed lack of reliable sources as part of his decision, even as the issue was dealt with on the AfD as well as the talk page. AfD only listed due to a lack of understanding of process by User:Nathanrdotcom, who attempted to retract the AfD after the content issue - not a reason for AfD listing - was dealt with. Article was kept overwhelmingly on a prior AfD. On current AfD, delete "votes" outeighed keep with a 68% supermajority, but with at least 5 4 votes dealing with content issues and not any sort of relevant guideline. Finally, verifability was dealt with via the use of primary sources, as called for on WP:OR regarding primary sources. My personal feeling is that this should be overturned based on the first AfD and the out-of-process subsequent nomination, although I'm aware that the new, stricter guidelines on WP:WEB (which are awfully, and unnecessarily strict, as an editorial note) probably do not qualify it. Obviously, my personal feeling is to undelete and continue attempting to reach consensus rewrite on talk. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 05:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse closure. The article did not cite reliable sources. Most of the links were to nonexistent or irrelevant Livejournal blogs, LJ Drama itself, or Encyclopedia Dramatica. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. This AfD was closed correctly. Rhobite 05:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is false, as has been noted. The "nonexistent" LJ blogs were ones referenced in the article as either a) folks involved with the site, or b) folks with deleted journals described as such in the site. Furthermore, the parts referencing LJ Drama were due to sourcing exactly what LJD was reporting. Worth noting. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 13:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Everything I wrote was true - a deleted web page does nothing to improve the verifiability of an article. For example, the article said "Mediacrat's university web page, which documented the incident, was deleted by his university, also in reference to the restraining order." There is no source for this statement, only a link to what is supposedly Mediacrat's university web page. A source would be a news article, or a statement from the university, that kind of thing. A broken link doesn't prove or verify anything. I'm not going to argue about this any more - the consensus on the AfD and on this review clearly shows that Wikipedia disagrees with you, so I advise you to drop the issue. Rhobite 21:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The review has been up for less than 24 hours, for one. For another, your claims have been addressed at the article talk page, and your continued insistence that they "do nothing" to improve the verifiability are entirely without merit, per the discussion at talk. I suggest that you stop making idle threats toward me, it's getting extremely old between here and the article's talk page. The consensus was to keep before people latched onto a poor AfD nomination and used a content dispute as grounds for deletion outside of policy and process. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 21:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and rewrite. If someone needs help in rewriting it, then I'll help. Mike H. That's hot 09:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, Jeff, you mention that "at least five votes" cited content issues rather than relevant guidelines. I see only two delete votes citing content issues: the nominator and Jameth. The rest seem (to me) to focus on issues of notability and verifiability. Which five delete voters did you have in mind? Also, in what respect was the nomination "out-of-process"? Do you mean, rather, that the nominator's reasoning was poor? Babajobu 14:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and deal with any issues - which were being addressed during the AfD. "If in doubt, don't delete." I'll also note as I did on the AfD, that the strict WP:WEB doesn't apply well to this article if you consider it as complementary to the LiveJournal article where the content doesn't fit for both context and length. Rote application of policy makes a good bureaucracy, but will often fail common sense. SchmuckyTheCat 16:17, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure without prejudice to different recreation Excellent rationale given by Babajobu (deserves a cookie!), within administrator's discretion. This doesn't prevent a sourced rewrite, of course. I recommend article's supporters work on a rewrite and post it. Xoloz 17:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, well-reasoned and valid, no new information presented to cast doubt on it at this point. Guy 17:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd want to see new information which discounts the points made by those who supported deletion re the insufficiency of reliable sources to ensure balance and verifiability. Guy 10:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew Allaby

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Allaby

Invalid speedy deletion. Never tagged as speedy, deleted as A7. Plainly not an A7, because it asserted notability of subject as founder of notable organization [16] (companion article). Afd nomination borders on bad faith; if the Students_for_Global_Democracy is moderately accurate as to the scope of the organization, nominator's description of it as "yet another student group" is inappropriate if not deceptive. Nomination seems motivated more by the political dispute seen on the SGD talkpage than any real dispute over notability of subject. Not clear that article was even properly tagged for deletion; it's been on my watchlist since I objected to {prod}, but no insertion of deletion tag showed on my watchlist. Monicasdude 04:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the one who nominated (AND TAGGED) the article, and son, you need to go back and get a refund on those mindreading classes you've been taking. Considering that one of the highpoints in the article is getting 30 students to march at Berkeley -- well, as a Berkeley alumnus, I gotta say that that's trivial to the point of not worthy of mentioning on a student organizer's resume, let alone as an organizational achievement worth encyclopedic note. If it'll make you happy, undelete so it can be decided slowly and officially. --Calton | Talk 04:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/Relist above argument shows this deserves debate on AfD. But I disagree with anything about it being a bad faith nomination. --W.marsh 04:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, relist, at least worth a deeper look. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 05:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse speedy, the article made no assertion of notability and thus it was validly speedied under A7. - ulayiti (talk) 05:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist. It made a claim of notability, but that claim is legitimately disputed. I'm getting a little tired of people misreading a7. If admins are allowed to speedy articles with insufficient claims (but claims), then we might as well abolish AFD altogether. After all, the only role of AFD is to delete articles who's claims aren't adequate for retentention. If we speedy these articles, what on Earth is AFD for. Admins are suppose to stay within policy, and not make personal judgements about which claims are good enough, and monopolize decisions on what counts as notable. --Rob 05:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Steady on - if the claim tpo notability is starting a student organisation, it is not exactly abude of powers to discount that as a gen uine claim to fame. Guy 23:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

18 February 2006

request for review deletion of plazoo

I herewith like to ask the admins to review the deletion of the entry ab out our search engine plazoo. In the delete request some said they think it is a spam site. I strongly disagree on that. It is a very notable search engine for blogs, its fast and its FREE of advertising. I work on the underlying search technology since 2 years and have added our search engine to wikipedia, but not only plazoo, but also articles about feedster,technorati and other notable blog search engines. Not to self promote, but to explain and name these search engines next to the other search engines articles. I doubt the admins that voted really had a look at the page before voting. To say we are "spammy" is really like spitting in my face as we are really fighting splogs and spammers very hard to keep them out of our results. Our company counts now 80 People that are dedicated to this project. I kindly ask the admins that voted to review their vote for deletion. Its my strong opinion that they are wrong and the reasons given by them that lead to deletion are just untrue. T.Kik, 18.Feb.2006

  • Sorry to disagree JustZisGuy, dont get me wrong bt the article has not been deleted because it was not neutral. I would be happy to change whatever you dislike about the article and its the nature of wikipedia that everybody can comment on that article, which i always would accept. (BTW i detected the delete because i wanted to add content to the article yesterday.) What i cannot accept is the reason that admins stated in the votes, as said above. Also you cant say plazoo.com is not a notable site. See for yourself what other A-bloggers in europe and america say about plazoo. My main interest was and is not to promote plazoo as such but to fill in gaps about the blog search engines. I therefore did not only edit and complete the article about plazoo, but also on the other main blog search engines, on alert services etc etc. It must have been Hundreds of edits i have made in this area. Compare the articles of the other blog search engines to the article about plazoo please. -> TKik
  • Who else could better say what a blog search engine is all about if not the software engineer who actually works on it? The AdD debate concluded that the site is spammy, not the article. I strongly disagree on that reason to delete.

Dbiv, you are totally correct. And the entry in wikipedia never has meant to be an ad.

  • The real reason behind this deletion

OK. digging around for hours to understand what happened i finally got to these pages: User:Hosterweis/Terminated , User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs May i point to the user Timecop who was also blocked. So a bunch of users around the wiki start their war against anything blog-related and as these pages above show they are proud to have Afd'ed plazoo as a blog-related search engine. Users participating in this so called war are timecop, depakote, femmina, Incognito, Jmax, Hosterweis, whitenight and others. If you compare it to who voted in the afd regarding plazoo, this is pretty much every vote that has been made. Its wasn't a fair voting and the voters just followed the vote of timecop for they support his so-called war. This is misusing the afd-process. It is pretty clear that these users are voting for delete with a very dubious and questionable reason. I ask these participants to rethink what they do. But i feel better now, because i know that that is the only reason why they called our site spammy. In fact they hardly reviewed it. User timecop and hosterweis, leading the war against blogs, proudly announce to be members of the Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America (GNAA) , see their user page. Better dont visit their site as it contains malicous scripts that will block your computer. As you can read on the page of the GNAA, their target is to destroy internet communities and platforms like for instance wikipedia itself. Make up your own mind about how neutral the votes of the AfD can be if supporters of this Group vote for deletion. T.Kik , 1:22 19. Feb. 2006 p.s.: Dbiv, you are totally correct. And the entry in wikipedia never has meant to be an ad.

We all know about the GNAA "war on blogs", voters on AfD are well aware of it and apply greater than usual scepticism to their nominations, but in general they are right: the blogs they weed out are vanispamcruftisement. They do know a lot about blogs - you might even be able to persuade one of them to write a neutral article about Plazoo, they are for the most part very fair and neutral editors. Guy 10:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

17 February 2006

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quailtard

May not be the place to ask this question, as I don't know if I want to formally call for a vote or not, as I proposed it be deleted. But why is it that an editor can "speedy delete," according to log, simply because a high-traffic website links to it and mentions the Vote for Deletion in it? I mean, has this been codified into an officially sanctioned and acceptable reason to Speedy Delete and protect against recreation? I'd have preferred this outcome anyway, but this very much feels like a short circuit of the process. Was it, or was this perfectly permissible? — WCityMike (T | C) 20:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me formalize this. Unless someone argues how this is permissible under current Wikipedia deletion policy, this is an official proposal to relist. Wikipedia is not a dictatorship, and should abide by its own policies. If an editor doesn't like those policies, he or she should change the policies, not act to enforce his or her opinion. — WCityMike (T | C) 20:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See WP:IAR, WP:SNOW. android79 21:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • 'Snowball' isn't official policy yet. 'Ignore all rules' as worded is carte blanche to ignore any and all policy, and I can't imagine it's widely used by everyone. Both strike me as idiotic and do not appear authorative. I should also reiterate: yes, I'd like the article deleted, too. But I resent renegade editors who skip the rules when inconvenient. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • On the contrary. IAR is one of the oldest and most important aspects of Wikipedia culture. The rules don't define what we can and can't do; what we decide to do (and what we decide works best for the project) is what becomes the "rules". SNOW may not be policy, but applying it to the discussion in question is well-founded. android79 22:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • My case for speedy deletion under WP:IAR is posted on the AfD. If any admin disagrees, I welcome them undoing my actions and will be happy to let the community pursue a more formal resolution. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 21:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion, the admin makes a compelling point and the AfD was going delete to my quick eye. Lord Bob 21:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not an election, it's a discussion. Endorse closure. The only argument against deletion was "if it hasn't caught on in a few months delete it then." That's not how we do things; if it has caught on in a few months, create it then. -R. fiend 21:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. The above is a whole lot of gas over the subtrivial: the article is about a single word used as part of a one-liner in one episode in one (basic cable) TV show. The article itself and the attempt at a Boing Boing ballot-box-stuffing is the work of one guy: whether it's an attempt at disruption to prove a point or some weird ego-trip is immaterial. The whole how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin argument above is pointless: article deletion is a no-brainer, and no amount of hot air can obscure that. --Calton | Talk 01:51, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Metacomment on this outside of the voting thread: The maxims I've been seeing cited here in support of deletion is "Wikipedia is not a democracy; votes don't count, they're straw polls; ignore all rules." I have to admit, as a contributor who rarely poked into Wikipedia policy, I'm taken aghast. It sounds basically like Wikipolicy is "those of us who are editors have some maxims we can rely upon to exercise our judgment as we see fit towards the end result of making Wikipedia a concrete and susbtantial online encyclopedia." I'm all for the end result, and, as it bears repeating thrice over, yes, I thought the article should be deleted. But what really does all the process and Wikipolicy count for at all, then, if it can be circumvented and then supported based on popular opinion about an article? This makes Wikipedia a far less attractive online community, at least IMHO -- it goes from being an open source place of contribution to a resource with "Guardians" whose opinions about policy affect how it is run. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Clarification: by "popular opinion" I mean "popular opinion" amongst the peer group of editors/Wikpiedians/whatever, as opposed to "popular opinion" on a wider Netizen scale. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • One should keep in mind that Wikipedia is not an online community so much as it is an encyclopedia. -R. fiend 21:34, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ah, but any place people repeatedly go to work towards a common task can very adequately be called a community. And what I'm finding disturbing is the guidelines by which this encyclopedia is being compiled -- or, rather, under the fact that editors' collective judgment seems to have built into the system carte blanche to do as it sees. — WCityMike (T | C) 21:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't get discouraged, Mike. This is a very old tension in the Wiki: Process vs. flexibility. Many of us have had that feeling of shock before, and some admins absolutely do take IAR way too far. There is no hard and fast standard for when an IAR action is suitable: for your own peace of mind, just remember that although Wikipedia is not a democracy, it's also not anarchy, and WP:Consensus is still the guiding rule. See WP:Process is Important, as well. I, for one, commend your instinct to seek for an article that you wanted deleted a fair hearing. Xoloz 21:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:PI, if anyone else is wondering why that was redlinked. For a moment, I thought the policy got speedy-deleted. (Ba dum dum.) (See, I can have a sense of humor.) — WCityMike (T | C) 21:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mike, in all seriousness, I endorse what Xoloz just said. I have been outraged when I've seen admins take it upon themselves to IAR. It has really, really been abused. The principle has a purpose. It's legitimate for an admin to jump out of process once in awhile for something he views as serious. If he gets reverted ... it's NOT legitimate for him to "wheel war" and fight over it, and continually redo what he did. I've seen that happen. Process IS important. I could not agree more strongly. But process is not immutable.
      • Now speaking of process, the last time I checked, WP:IAR was marked as "official policy." That means its a page which should not be changed without consensus on its talk page. Looks like somebody unilaterally took it out of that category without consensus.
      • Anyway, yes, you are right that process is important. You're not likely to find many people who view this as in inappropriate place to WP:IAR. But rules are important, and they are still to be followed in the vast majority of situations. And lately, it is important that most admins be reminded of that. So you are doing a valuable work. Keep it up. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 21:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for admin or user-experienced-in-policy-navigation advice, if anyone's reading this thread -- it seems inappropriate to list this here and then separately entreaty anyone on Request for Administrator's Attention (or whatever that thread was). Am I correct -- should I be limiting my venue to here? I ask because, at the actual AfD page, JDavidB said IF an admin reverts *OR* if Deletion Review works -- so should I be asking for a rethink elsewhere? Also, if I decide to be absolutely mad, what forum on Wikipedia might one begin an entreaty to get the "Ignore All Rules" policy repealed? 208.46.38.66 22:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC) — WCityMike (T | C) 22:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You would, indeed, be "absolutely mad" to try to get IAR "repealed". For one thing, it's not strictly a policy; it's more of a philosophy. Secondly, it's about the only thing that keeps the project from degenerating into stupidity a lot of the time. android79 22:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, well, I'm pretty experienced in policy navigation, although I can't be too good, because I didn't notice that IAR ceased to be an official policy. But if you wanted to get the principle repealed, the thing to do would be to start by making your case on that page's talk page. Make your case and attempt to persuade the community. I'd follow up on that by joining the mailing list (I'm not a member of any of the mailing lists, so I can't help you there) and make your case, because you won't reach a broad enough audience on that page alone. The way to go about it is to attempt to convince most of the "movers and shakers" in the Wikipedia world that you're right. If you can achieve that, those people will see that the principle is altered or discarded. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 22:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IAR doesn't ned to be repealed, but it could use some renaming. Obviously it's not to be taken literally, or one could block anyone for anything, delete anything, and be a general vandal with impunity. What it should say (and what it means) is "don't let overly strict adherence to "the rules" get in the way of building a quality encyclopedia. But I guess WP:DLOSATRGITWOBQE is a bit of a mouthful. -R. fiend 04:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (image free)

This was brought to my attention by User:Descendall and I speedy deleted it as a reposted censorship fork that has been discussed at length (several times at several titles), as inherently and unsalvageably POV, and as redundant with our content disclaimer. Other aliases used include Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (no pictures), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse/pictures suppressed, Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (censored), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (no pictures), Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (safe). Would anybody care to comment? Note: this deletion review entry is a courtesy posting, for the review of my own actions — I personally would prefer never to see these pages created again. — Feb. 17, '06 [02:12] <freakofnurxture|talk>

16 February 2006

Level 4 Productions

This prior result of this article's AFD is under review.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Deletion review page.
You are welcome to edit this article, but please do not blank this article or remove this notice while the discussion is in progress. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the Guide to deletion.

I would like to know why the article on Level 4 Productions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Level_4_Productions ) was deleted. It would appear that the main criteria applied here, in the deletion, was the fact that Level 4 has an existing myspace.com page ( Delete as meeting the main non-notability criterion, a myspace page. Stifle 16:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC). I don't understand the logic behind this criteria. Dane Cook, a comedian, for example, has a myspace.com page and yet he still has an article about him here on wikipedia. Level 4 Productions is a grassroots DIY collective focusing on underground techno music, and as far as i know, the only one of its kind in montreal. It heavily promotes new and local talent and strives to bring an "old-school" feel to the events and music it produces. Level 4 Productions is also notable because of it's ability to survive through a number of failing trends in electronic music, such as electroclash. It has also been scribed and repeatedly mentioned in local Montreal media. While this may seem non-notable to those outside the circles of underground electronic music, at the same time, articles pertaining to gonzo porn stars, such as jenna haze( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_haze ) or aurora snow( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Snow ) , may seem non-notable to those outside of that interest group.

As such, i am requesting that the page be reinstated.

  • Comment. There weren't any citations from local Montreal media visible when I recommended the page be deleted. At that time, Level 4 Productions appeared nonnotable to me. If you could provide such citations from reputable sources that confirm your assertion of notability, I'd consider changing my vote. ikkyu2 (talk) 04:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. certainly. here are several:
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/122303/nyepg2.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/111303/akimbo.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/051905/akimbo.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/050103/akimbo.html
There have also been numerous articles mentioning Level 4 artists and their endeavours; further citations can be provided if neccessary.
Morphine 14:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not that numerous - under 60 unique Googles and zero on Google News, after all :-) Guy 23:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ANTs Data Server

I would like an article on the "ANTs Data Server" to be reviewed for undeletion. I don't know what material appeared in the article that caused it to be deleted before, but in the current version I'm posting factual information that can be verified from numerous sources. Thank youDavidsheiman 20:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep deleted Article was originally AfDed for advertising. However, during the delete vote there was repeated vandalism (knowingly posting factually incorrect information) to Comparison of relational database management systems and multiple sockpuppets on the AfD itself. Nobody has yet asserted anywhere on Wikipedia, including in the original AfD and the comment above, that the software is notable, as far as I can see. Davidsheiman recreated the article and it was speedily deleted on February 14 as recreation of AfDed content. After he recreated it again the following day (and it was speedily deleted again) I spent some time writing a welcome note on his user talk page welcoming him to Wikipedia, explaining why his article was deleted, and noting that if he wanted to contribute to Wikipedia he might consider working on other articles while building a case for why he felt ANTs was notable and posting it to deletion review. He acknowledged my note elsewhere and then, surprisingly, recreated the article yet again, only this time under a different name. It was of course speedily deleted. I then added {{recreated}} to his user talk page. A few hours later, he posted this request for review. In his comments above, Davidsheiman makes no assertion of notability at all, and I now must conclude that his behavior consistent with the advertising and sockpuppetry which got the article AfDed in the first place. Note that, to date, this user's only contributions to Wikipedia have concerned ANTs. --Craig Stuntz 21:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is not with the factual accuracy, but with the notability of the subject. The article was originally deleted, then re-created and changed to a redirect to ANTs Software, then that was deleted as non-notable. I'd say the speedy as repost is probably not justified here, since the original article was very spammy and your version much less so, and Google shows a goodly number of hits, so I vote undelete and if necessary list on AfD. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 22:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist per JzG. This is first article on the subject that rises above the WP:SNOW threshold. Give the new content a fair hearing. Xoloz 05:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Void

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 15#Template:Void_and_Template:Void3

This was nominated for deletion on the same day as Template:If defined, which depends upon Template:Void. Template:If defined reached no consensus (keep). That debate is available here–

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 15#Template:If_defined.2C_and_others

Template:Void was determined to have been decided as a delete.

WP:TFD process doesn't currently seem to address the case where two templates, where one depends upon the functionality of another, are both nominated for deletion (separately) and only the child/dependent template is determined to be deleted. I would like to either overturn the decision reached, or relist the template (or relist both templates together). It's also worth noting that WP:AUM has changed drastically since the original TFD debate, and many of the original concerns with using meta-templates have been disputed by Brion. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn decision on Template:Void; this is my current preference. I think if two templates are nominated separately with one depending upon the other, both should result in keep if either fails to reach consensus for deletion. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that {if defined} et al. are currently on TfD again where, at present, they are headed for deletion. I would suggest simply conditioning this debate on that one. If the only usages of the template are deleted in-process, I can see no need to retain the template. -Splashtalk 01:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Correction: {if defined} is not in fact part of that TfD. However, its only usages (outside userspace) are in those other templates, so the conditioning should just apply recursively. -Splashtalk 02:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • It seems that while Template:Taxobox formerly utilized Template:If defined, it no longer does (it has been updated to use Template:Qif instead). However, as I plan on going through some of the templates modified to comply with what WP:AUM was formerly, it would be incredibly useful if these templates weren't deleted just yet. If anyone has any questions (or would like justifications for hanging onto them for now), feel free to ask here or on my talk page. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't see the use in reinstating a deleted template into places from where it has been removed without incident. Don't turn this into a AUM-or-not thing: the fact is that this template is no longer needed or used. -Splashtalk 16:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • The fact is many pages were made inaccessible because of WP:AUM, and those changes may need to be fully reverted (or reverted and modified to make up for changes since their conversion away from meta-templates). That won't be possible if all the meta-templates that were used are deleted, and making Wikipedia accessible again will be a very large uphill battle. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure and delete. There was nothing wrong with the deletion vote, as the every "keep" vote was calling for it to be kept only until orphaned. The way TFD works, almost no templates are orphaned before nomination, so really these "keep until orphaned" should be read as standard delete votes (i.e. "Delete after orphaning"). -- Netoholic @ 04:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is that it may potentially affect templates which use or rely upon this template. Your attempt to push through WP:AUM should be strongly considered by anyone who might give any weight to your opinion as well. You seem to have a near-hysterical paranoid attitude when it comes to templates or meta-templates. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure BUT as Locke has good reason to keep them, could a copy be userfied to his user space? Proto||type 16:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The_50_Worst_Movies_Ever_Made

Although I am sure that there has been a recent discussion, I fail to locate it. Perhaps someone might like to point me in the right direction? . It was kept last year. I suspect it was a combined discussion with Vanity Fair’s 50 greatest films of all time. I can't find an AFD for that either. Could someone kindly please point me in the direction(s) of the relevant discussion so that I can assess the comments and the process. Thanks. The JPS 14:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See the deletion log here. Michael Snow deleted it earlier today, due to it being, in his view, a copyright violation. See the 4 Feb section of WP:CP - a whole heap of articles were listed by Michael. As he said there:
  • Under US case law, e.g. Eckes v. Card Prices Update, lists of items that are created entirely or primarily as a result of editorial opinion are subject to copyright protection. This explicitly excludes lists which are derived solely from facts, statistics, or polling data, as only opinion based lists are considered by the courts to have the requisite creativity required for copyright protection under US law.
  • Consequently, the inclusion of the entirety of such a list solely for the purposes of adding it to Wikipedia will generally constitute a copyright infringment. Excerpts of such lists can be used in Wikipedia under the doctrine of fair use when they are associated with meaningful discussion of the contents of the list, but under typical circumstances, one should never reproduce the entirety of such a list.
  • Most people agreed with Michael. I would imagine that any or all of the articles he listed are now being deleted. I would hope that they had been correctly tagged for being potential violations of copyright, but I can't be sure as I can't see deleted content. As Xoloz says, if you want to know more, go ask the guy. Proto||type 16:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am not a lawyer, but the copyright point seems pretty persuasive, so keep deleted unless I am convinced otherwise. Lord Bob 17:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the clarifiaction. I wasn't aware that it was considered as a copyvio. So long as it wasn't deleted for any of the reasons in the original discussion, I am not proposing their undeletion. The JPS 17:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted: I recall all of this, and I really am disappointed at folks trying to get second, third, and fourth bites, hoping that no one is looking this time. "Fifty worst movies" was a bit too Michael Medved, and the content was Michael Medved, and it was inherently POV. If anything got kept from the original fracas, it sure as heck wasn't kept at this title. Geogre 12:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • "second, third, and fourth bites". Actually, if you read the above discussion you would see that I was not actually proposing its undeletion (because of the copyvio). These votes are pointless. The JPS 12:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of SWIFT codes

  • Undelete: This page is a useful list of SWIFT codes that are difficult to find anywhere else on the net. The official BIC directory is a useless database lookup, that does not allow for a list to be displayed.
  • I have mirrored this site, but my software and server is useless compared to wikipedia, and the extra information garnered from click on a link to the article on the specified bank or city is useful.
  • Yes, the information is repeated elsewhere, but not in Wiki form, and not linking to an encyclopedia.
  • I acknowledge that there are more banks in existance than will ever fit on the page, but surely that doesn't mean you can delete the rest of them.
  • The page was VfD'ed twice until it was deleted. There are some deletionists who seem to think that less is always more: it isn't.
  • It is a harmless article that helps lots of people find the bank code they are looking for. It is no worse than any other list on here. Tristanb 22:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure, keep deleted. As stated in the AfD debate, we have an article on SWIFT codes; they are not hard to find (the authoritative database is online and linked from the article); nobody is going to use Wikipedia as a source of critical data for a financial transaction; the full list of SWIFT codes is between 17,000 and 20,000 entries and growing; the active list (those available for electronic transfers) is over 7,500 and the balance are still valid, they just require a manual completion of the process by the parties involved; assuming the codes listed in the deleted article are all on the "active" list, this is about 4.5% of the active codes; the monthly list of changes appears to contain more codes than the deleted article. The AfD closed with 20 delete / 0 keep because Wikipedia is not the yellow pages. Declaration of interest: I nominated the article for deletion. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 22:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The original VfD vote was not so unanimous: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_SWIFT_codes. You can relist anything enough times until it's deleted. It's like a revert war.
    • Have you actually tried using the SWIFT BIC lookup directory? It's nearly useless. Obviously we can't list every entry in the BIC database, but there is a finite and smaller list of actual codes that are used in real life.
Useless? I can search by name, code, country and who knows what else. That search option is pretty useful I think and if that site doesn't list it, we can't put it into Wikipedia anyway. It'd be unverifiable. - Mgm|(talk) 09:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just because it's a list, doesn't mean it has to be an exhaustive list. It's like demolishing the your school's playground because it can't host an Olympic event! The list IS useful!
    • R. fiend, all deletion requests and deletion appeals are started by one person. And i'm whining, because i don't think it should be deleted! Tristanb 23:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was a valid process, with a valid result. You have failed to counter any of the specific problems raised above regarding this article. A second nominartion is allowed, and the first AfD included votes like "seems like a useful list" - which is true, it seems like a useful list in the same way a piece of paper with telephone numbers on seems like a useful list until you realise that you have no idea how many of them are up-to-date, and you can look them up free from an authoritative source on the web anyway. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 11:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep deleted The full list of these codes would be practically unmaintainable; the specificity involved here is outside the range of what I'd call "encyclopedic"; and, finally, there is a valid (unanimous) AfD, conducted for the very good reason that fuller information on the topic had come to light. I would ask everybody to refrain from "whining" as a descriptor for these requests, though; DVR is hard enough for inexperienced metapedians to find: one requester here could represent many interested users. Xoloz 17:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted per Just zis Guy. Pavel Vozenilek 12:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A note: Wikipedia should not tunr into database with GUI front-end. Currently unmaintanable articles like "list of places with unusual names" may be considered when the current infrastructure improves but to became database of everything is unimaginable. Pavel Vozenilek 12:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure/keep deleted - Full disclosure, I advocated deletion the first time, and my only beef with JzG on this one is that he beat me to the relisting... I'm inclusionist but really, this list is never going to be complete or accurate and has no more encyclopedic value than a list of ZIP codes or DUNS numbers etc. ++Lar: t/c 06:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Young Blood article

I submitted an article some time back (possibly under a previous nick or IP) about the Lieber-Stoller-Pomus song "Young Blood", which has apparently been deleted (on the 12th of this month) with NO discussion, votes or alerts, because it was "a duplicate of 'Muzbe'". I have never heard of 'Muzbe', have no idea what that is, did not use or mention it anywhere in the article, and do not understand why this article was thus deleted. I am hoping this was a mistake. In any case, I would like to see this article restored, and cannot see ANY reason why it was deleted without at least a discussion or votes. Zephyrad 01:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion log: Muzbe and deletion log: Young Blood. Appear to have been deleted under CSD A7 by RHaworth (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). I've posted a comment to User talk:Zephyrad on the matter. No comment on whether deletion was appropriate as I can't see the text of the articles (though I'm inclined to trust RHaworth, so I'm not asking to see the text). -- Jonel | Speak 04:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will ask - nicely - to see the text. I fail to see any connection. Zephyrad 06:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proper version now restored. The article had been vandalised. Apologies. This is why admins see a message check the article's history when they delete! -- RHaworth 07:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. I can see why the overlaid stuff went bye-bye. Sorry to overheat. Zephyrad 16:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

13 February 2006

The Odin Brotherhood

A debacle of a discussion, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Odin_Brotherhood, with a deletionist attempt to browbeat the article out of existence, quite a bit of confusion over whether the article was about the book or the apparently apocryphal "brotherhood" named in the title, substantial changes in the article during the AfD discussions, and a small wave of sockpuppet supporters. Even discounting the sockpuppets, it's hard to conclude that (roughly) 35-40% Keep/merge/redirect, 60-65% delete constituted a consensus to delete, and the closing decision in a discussion this contentious clearly should not have been made by the editor who posted the original AFD nomination. Monicasdude 05:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

False. 16 delete, 7 keep/redirect (including author). A typical consensus; better scores are only for absolute vanities. mikka (t) 06:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. Certainly the editor who nominated the article should not have closed the discussion; give him a slap on the wrist for that (and threaten an RFC if it keeps happening), but I can't see any other real conclusion coming from this. Discounting socks/anons/newbies there were very few votes to do anything but delete, and the proposed redirect was a a bit of a streth, it seemed. The article was substantially rewritten during the debate, making it about a book rather than a brotherhood, but the book has a sales rank of something like 1.5 million on amazon, so I don't think it would make it anyway. I would almost support a procedural relisting based on the changes made to the article, but I hate to replay puppetshows, especially when I can't see the end result being any different. -R. fiend 05:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist I support undeletion as the "slap on the wrist" that closer/nominator deserves. Such conduct is fairly egregious in cases where any keep votes are cast. (I don't mind if a nominator closes a unanimous delete, but otherwise, don't do it.) Xoloz 17:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd almost agree, but relisting the debate isn't going to punish the closer; it's going to punish anyone at AFD who has to get involved in a pointless, overly verbose puppetshow in order to work for the proper conclusion, as well as the admin who closes that one (who will not be the same as last time). Though it is a valid reason to propose a DRV, changing an article from one unencyclopedic mess to another midway through an AFD does nto guarantee a relist. -R. fiend 07:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just for clarity, I'll emphasize that, by using your phrase "slap on the wrist", I was hoping the overturn would prevent the same mistake by this closer and others in future. Punishment is, of course, not the wiki-way. :)
  • Endorse closure. Reviewing the deletion discussion, I count 16 arguing for deletion with three arguing for deletion after the rewrite and three explicitly returning to the discussion to endorse their earlier opinions (four if you count the nominator/closer). I count 9 to keep as is but 4 are patently excludable as sock/meatpuppets. 1 is a judgement call - a very new user who is not yet familiar with our standards. I would have given him/her the benefit of doubt in this case. 2 people argued for redirect without merger - both before the rewrite. Given the subsequent changes to the article, I would have tallied them as "ambiguous" in this case. 1 other person argued for redirect but based on subsequent actions and comments, I would have interpreted his/her opinion as another keep. Four people either offered ambiguous opinions or abstained. To me, that works out to 16-6 - sufficient to reach the threshold of "rough consensus". The comments illuminated the discussion but did not provide convincing argument or counter-argument to convince me that we should override the vote-count in this case. Given the interpretation necessary in this case, the nominator probably shouldn't have closed this discussion but the result is clear enough that I don't see a reason to rerun the discussion. The nominator also should have been much more explicit in explaining his/her reasoning during the closing. Closing a debate with nothing more than {{at}} del ~~~~ is an injustice to the decision process. Rossami (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure - the consensus was to delete, and the closer made a judgement call which I think was right. That being said, he shouldn't have been the one to make that call, and should be poked in the head until he promises to never do it again. Proto||type 12:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete/relist - Clearly bad process to close a judgement-call AfD started by oneself. And I definitely wouldn't be so eager to hang on to pre-editing "delete" recommendations while discounting the "redirect" recommendations. -- Jonel | Speak 21:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, WP:SNOW. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Endorse closure, slap on wrist for Mikka, and slap on wrist for Monicasdude for failing to WP:AGF in the case of everybody who voted delete. The article as deleted absolutely sucked, as numerous people said, and nobody even tried to fix it. We do not need this article back, thanks all the same. There is nothing preventing someone else from coming along and writing a much better article on the same subject, in the mean time it's not like we need to keep the subject's seat warm or anything. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT. Let me say--in previous postings--I thought you chaps were a lynch mob. I WAS WRONG! I am impressed by your devotion to "fair play" and "due process." --146.85.127.124 00:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I was dismayed to see that the closing admin was the nominator. That's not appropriate and shouldn't have happened. However, I don't see that any terrible violation of process took place; I endorse closure. -ikkyu2 (talk) 22:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Confused: I vote confuse because I have no clue what you guys are talking about and I think confused should be a new vote. Plus I'm trying to lighten up the subject so the bickering will stop. So get your cow boy boots on and lets go to rare but famous thing or place or whatever... called "The Odin Brotherhood." :) And for some reason I usually come out of these things (after learning something new) saying... heuh! Who would have though... Well... I think today I'm coming out like... heuh! I wish I could have though!!! --CyclePat 03:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC) b.t.w. When I vote confused it means I would like to know more about the subject... so I think that means, if someone is ready to work on the article Go right a head.! So Bring it on back! --CyclePat 03:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT: I think the debate is interesting because so many people who have no idea what they are talking about are voting. In the intial debate for delete, for example, people were trying to claim the author published with a vanity press! They had no idea that a fiction work he published (The Cannibal Within) has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in literature and has been released in an Italian-language version by Editioni Clandestine. [[17]] They also seemed unaware that the book in question The Odin Brotherhood is easily the widely available work on Odinism in English (It also circulates in boot-legged French, Spanish, and German versions). Type "Odinism" into googleprint and see what happens....[[18]] (Regarding amazon.com sales, remember the book has been continuously IN PRINT for 14 years. Do not compare it with something that came out yesterday.)--146.85.127.124 20:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still believe that a press, such as Mandrake of Oxford, that requires camera-ready copy and requires that its authors pre-order a number of copies of the book meets the formal definition of a vanity press. Reputable presses exercise editorial functions, typeset the book themselves, and send their authors advances on sales, rather than demanding money up front. -ikkyu2 (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT: I have been following discussion on several articles up for deletion and I am disappointed in the whole process. I have used Wikipedia for several years and consider it to be a great resource for obtaining information about obscure topics. By immediately deleting these articles without a chance for improvement, you are only hurting the usefulness of WP. Grant it, the article in question may not be of interest to you, but it may be to someone else. Instead of arguing over the validity of author or who wronged who in the deletion process, your engeries would have been better used "wiki-fying" the article, thus making it compliant. I state this in relation to articles in general, not just the Odin Brotherhood.--67.129.208.43 21:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Undelete/relist - Giving this deletion debate another run-through would, if nothing else, eliminate any lingering doubts about the results. Also, I am not sure if my delete vote was lodged after the article was revised or before, and the excessive anonymous commenting with headers interrupting the deletion debate made it extremely difficult to follow. In that vein, a comment for supporters of this article: if it is relisted on AfD, I would strongly encourage you to present your arguments for keeping the article in a succint, well-referenced paragraph, once and once only, making specific reference to Wikipedia deletion policy. If an article truly is worth keeping, it can generally stand on its own merits. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 05:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Offtopic.com

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Offtopic.com

You guys are gonna love this one, the AfD (or VfD rather) was almost a year ago. Anyway, it's the 6th largest forum on the entire web, and the largest generaral discussion forum, above even Something Awful. It seems to me that during the VfD, the article was so pitifully small and unreferenced that nobody actually knew how big it was. Subsequently, the article was recreated several times, and promptly speedied for being a repost. I seem to recall, however, that the very last one, the one deleted on Nov. 15, was actually a pretty good article that included facts like it being extremely large, so I think it should be undeleted to that version. --Rory096 20:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Deletion Log shows that most of the deletions were not as "recreated content" but as patent nonsense and/or obvious vandalism. I did not attempt to review all 186 deleted edits but a random sampling off the first page does show that this page is a vandalism-magnet.
    When the VfD discussion was held (May/June 2005), this website's Alexa ranking was so low that it wasn't even on the chart. Later in the summer, it spiked up briefly, then dropped again. It is now fluctuating around 10,000. That would still be well below the recommended thresholds of the Alexa test so the claims of traffic alone fail to convince me. Does this site meet any of the other recommended criteria at WP:WEB?
    Without some more concrete claims to notability/visibility, I'm not yet willing to set aside the previous decision. Especially given the extra load that this would appear to place on the people on vandalism patrol. Endorse closure pending other information. Rossami (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • While true that many of those were for nonsense, the very last one, which actually did have content (if I recall correctly, I obviously can't see it now), was deleted as reposted. It probably does not meet WP:WEB, mostly because the "Rule #1" of the site is not to talk about the site, though note that SA doesn't meet any Alexa test either, at 2402. Offtopic is where the O RLY? owl itself originated, in addition to many other notable internet memes. Xoloz: it's also much larger than SA in terms of members, at 138,954, especially considering SA doesn't prune members for inactivity. OT has had over 25,000 of those users on it in the past month alone, and almost never has less than 1500 logged in at any one point, though it's usually much higher. As for vandalism, we could semi-protect it, though, being a frequent figure in #wikipedia-en-vandalism, I can assure you that there is no possible way it could be more vandalism than Ebaumsworld, which we handle fine. --Rory096 03:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The very last edit was:

OT is an online message board using the vBulletin forum software. It is owned and operated by Fazle Imtiaz, and was founded on June 20, 2000.

External links

That edit fails to even make a stab at notability (note that I removed the header tags around the external links section). User:Zoe|(talk) 00:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

12 February 2006

Userbox:Anti UN, Userbox:Anti ACLU, Template:User no Rand and Template:User-AmE-0

Discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates.

Lowbrow.com

Nobody seems to like this article. Every time I come back here, it's gone. Why is this? What makes the likes of Ebaum's World or other sites any more special? Lowbrow.com is a large website with a pretty massive community. Why someone would want to keep information about it from this encyclopedia is beyond me, and it is very frustrating. I am requesting that this article be undeleted. Thank you.

--Spank fusion 00:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lowbrow.com for one thing, where a consensus to delete the article was first reached. It seems subsequent recreations of the article have all been deleted because they were deemed sufficiently similar to the original deleted version, which is allowed under the criteria for speedy deletion. It does look quite similar every time. You might also see the WP:WEB guidelines for website article inclusion. At any rate I think rather than deletion review you should talk to the admin who protected the page to see about recreating it. --W.marsh 00:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi. I'm that admin, and I sent User:Spank fusion here, as the appropriate place to contest a deletion, rather than than just recreating the article repeatedly. If there's a way to recreate the article so that it meets our inclusion guidelines, this is the place where that should be determined, if I understand correctly. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. Unanimous decision to delete, entirely uncontroversial. If you propose recreating it, explain briefly what real-world circumstances have changed and how this website now meets our inclusion criteria. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 03:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure per MarkSweep. The most relevant difference between Lowbrow and "other sites" is that other sites haven't failed an AfD -- the community's judgment determines what is kept, and what is discarded. Xoloz 17:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I understand that this article has been fairly voted to be deleted in the past, but I recreated the article from scratch. I don't know who made the past one or what it looked like, but a new, legitimate article should not be judged on the decision made toward an article that might actually have deserved a deletion. I feel that this topic is genuine and should be allowed to reside on Wikipedia. Spank fusion 22:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The reposted article was not significantly different from what was deleted, having compared the two. All that's really changed is that the namechecks are gone. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 23:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, in that case, why doesn't Wikipedia want lowbrow.com as an article? The information is accurate, and it's a valid topic. What could I do to make it better? Also, how can I see past versions of an article? (You might have guessed that I'm new to this.) -Spank fusion 19:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please check WP:WEB for our inclusion guidelines for websites. It turns out that simply being an accurate article on an existing topic isn't enough. We have to draw the line somewhere, and WP:WEB is where we choose to draw it for websites. If you feel that Lowbrow.com meets the criteria there, then please explain why. That's the only thing - it really has nothing to do with anyone liking the article or not. As for past versions, I'm not sure what the usual way is to do that - other admins around who know? What do you want to see, the previously deleted version, as it was just before deletion? I've no problem showing you past versions. I'll check back later today, and see about copying it to a /temp page somewhere. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion this is one of the few properly closed deletion debates I have ever seen on DRV Cynical 21:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of interesting or unusual place names

(currently at Wikipedia:List of interesting or unusual place names).

NOTICE: This aims to restore the above list into article namespace. The deletion was discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of interesting or unusual place names and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of interesting or unusual place names (2nd nomination) - 2nd nomination cut short and referred back here for the second time. ( This is not about the nearly empty Place names considered unusual which is currenty listed on AfD.)

This article, which has over 2200 edits and has been around for three years, could be nominated for adminship if it weren't so controversial this week. It was deleted out of process, then during the resulting debates, recreated and moved to the Wikipedia: namespace. It certainly does not belong there; all similar lists (List of city listings by country, List of misleading place names, &c) are in the article namespace. The article was then placed here for review, and the result was not handled by the book.

The article should be 'undeleted' and restored to its original title -- and then perhaps put up once more for AfD. A second AfD nomination ran for two days, generating over 30 votes, predominantly to keep it; but was closed early for process-lawyering reasons -- that is, because the same discussion should be had here. +sj +

NB: There were good debates raised about how to determine whether a name is unusual or interesting; these are useful to have, and hopefully good revisions of the list will come from them. Undeletion and restoration of the original title should in no way to minimize those debates. +sj + 00:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete, nominator. +sj + 00:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Arguments about verifiability of some of an article should never cause such articles to be deleted, nor its history to be moved "elsewhere" while a new article is created. Parts of this article are clearly measurable, verifiable, and 'unusual'. (Numeric placenames, longest/shortest names, two-letter names.) There is an entire list of criteria by which various names have been flagged 'interesting' or 'unusual' -- if you dislike one or five of them, remove them; or discuss this on the article's talk page.
    • Arguments about the Wikipedia: namespace being an appropriate place to put content needing cleanup : these need to stop. That is not what the Wikipedia: space is for. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find someone put the current Wikipedia: page up for deletion in another month, because it obviously doesn't belong there.
    • This is mainly an issue of process. Active VfD or WP:DRV contributors should not feel that they can engage in talk-page discussions with a deletion axe in their hands.
  • Keep deleted in article space (keep in WP space). Here's why. The first AFD was a perfectly valid delete. The user who brought it to DRV the first time used erroneous numbers to justify it (which shouldn't matter, as AFD is not a vote). The article was moved to the WP namespace (as suggested by several users, both in the AFD and the dRV), and the DRV was closed (by me) endorsing this move. It was then recreated in the article space out of process. Furthermore the article itseld is falwed beyond belief. Allow me to elaborate.
This article is downright ridiculous. Despite all these assertions I keep hearing that it is "easily verifiable", no one has cited sources for these (with very; few exceptions, and only very recently). When asked what exactly it is that makes these "interesting" or "unusual" it seems the only answer we ever hear is "Listen! This place is called fucking, Austria!!!!!! Get it??? FUCKING!!!! Isn’t that a hoot???" Um, maybe, but it’s not a source, and the article has this aura of having been partially written by Beavis and Butthead (huh-huh huh-huh "Dix Hills", huh-huh-. They said "Dicks", huh-huh-huh). Can hardly believe they missed Uruguay ("U-R-Gay", get it?), moronic? Absolutely, but, unlike almost every other name in the article, I can actually find a source for that one. I know we have some pre-pubescent editors here, but do we need to advertise that to the world? And as long as we’re loading up the article with juvenile humor, where's Johnson, Tennessee (FYI "Johnson" means "penis" (titter))?
And the problems go on. I mean, do we really want to include street names? Of all the millions and millions of streets in the world I’m sure we can find thousands that will get your average six-year-old in hysterics (which seems to be among the inclusion criteria here). Do you really want me to find a "Pu Street" somewhere on the planet? Because I bet I can. He same goes for informal names of neighborhoods. Alphabet City? It even actually makes sense for a neighborhood defined by lettered streets, so what’s so interesting or unusual about that anyway? And then there are those that just confound me.
Lolita: would that be interesting if it weren’t the name of a Nabokov novel? If someone publishes a book called “Meriden” do we get to include Meriden, Connecticut? Vader: let me guess, if we imagine the word "Darth" in front of it… Mashpee: sounds a little strange to anyone who doesn’t live in a part of the country where every other town is some Indian word, to those of us who do, utterly unremarkable. Sandwich: you do realize that the food item was indirectly named after the place, right? Ware, Massachusetts? Because it’s a homophone of "Where?" Well, get that spelling and that question mark at the end and you might be on the right track, but that is just retarded (how about Wareham (as in “where’s the ham?”)). Lough Neagh: is there anything even slightly interesting or unusual about that? Anything with the name of an animal is unusual? Guess what? That used to name things after animals all the time! Oxford? Oxen used to ford there. I can’t think of anything ‘’less’’ unusual. And, to top it off, what people try to pass off as a source is that another flawed Wikipedia article insists that these words are, by definition, downright ‘’hilarious’’! That’s not a source.
And there’s the opposites that make the list: words that are too much common English words (Beer, Commerce, Drain, Eagle) make the list, and those that don’t sound like English words at all make it too (Ouagadougou, Schenectady). Well guess what, there’s tons of places in foreign countries that sound odd to English speakers, they may even sound (get ready)….foreign. Let’s take out my trusty atlas and look at Sumatra as a somewhat random example. I see places named: Pasirpangarayan, Pulaupunjung, Talanglambangantir Kutacane (WHY do they insist on cutting their canes there. That’s just CRRRAZY!), Baganslapiapi, and so on and that’s without even really trying. Do some of those sound atypical to those of us who live in places like Carson City? Sure. Are we going to include half the continent of Asia? I sure hope not.
At least some of the worst offenders have been removed (Amarillo? Bagdad, Arizona (but not Moscow Idaho?)), but that they were ever included is pretty sad. And I bet some which are included actually could be verified by a third party source (Truth or Consequences comes to mind) but no one has bothered to. People seem to think "Oh yeah, we could so verify the shit out of these if we wanted to"; is the same as actual verification. It is not. Some people have compared this to articles such as Films considered the worst ever, but we must keep in mind that that article, imperfect as it is, really went out of its way to get verifiable sources. This one fails utterly in that regard. Trying to pass this off as an encyclopedia article is an insult to every encyclopedia on the planet; mostly this one. -R. fiend 00:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore to / Retain in Article namespace R. fiend has made a valiant attempt to defend deletion above. I am going to attempt to put the case for retention/restoration; hopefully I will do this justice but if not I apologise ... it's past midnight now here in the UK.
There seem to be two main things that are causing problems:
First, that the article title contains the word "interesting" and that this makes the article subjective. I have to say that this is a fair point. However, I would ask - why does this one word invalidate the whole article? I've been a Wikipedia editor for about a year now, and I notice a recurring pattern in deletion discussions, which is that often there is just one thing about an article that an editor takes a dislike to, and from this comes a recommendation to delete, without a pause to think whether there is anything worth salvaging in the article. Clearly, from the amount of support that retention of this article is getting (and yes, I agree that polls are evil too, but ...) there is a good case that the article has at least something in it of (encyclopaedic) merit. Instead of just going for the "nuke it" option, we should all be trying hard to see each other's point of view and identify what in the article is worthy of inclusion, and what isn't, and tidy it up accordingly. I have proposed, in each of these debates, that we try to agree some criteria for inclusion, and assess the list against that. I appear to be being told that that is impossible, but without any arguments as to why that is the case. I agree that is is difficult but in the interest of community harmony, it has to be worth a go?
Second, the arguments that the article lacks sources and is POV. Among the people who are espousing these arguments are some very experienced editors, and so I can't just dismiss this view out of hand, but I really do think that people have got into some quite muddled thinking on this. I think that the cause of this is that the article is presented as a list. Because of that, proponents of deletion are insisting on a higher standard of verifiability than they would for any other article. Specifically, not only are sources for the existence of the place names being asked for, sources to justify inclusion of the names in the article are being asked for. We DO NOT do this for any other kind of content. If an article is written as a piece of prose, not in list form, then the inclusion of content that is obviously relevant to the article's subject, without editors having to find a source which proves that it is relevant, is widely accepted. Sometimes there may be items of content that are perhaps peripheral and these are then debated by editors, but by and large we don't have a problem here i.e. we don't have those debates over EVERY sentence in EVERY article. Just because this article is presented as a list, I don't see why we have to treat it differently. The Wikipedia policy on citing sources exists, as I understand it, to ensure that Wikipedia doesn't end up full of errors (accidental or deliberate), and not as a means of imposing a rigid and bureaucratic editorial process when one isn't needed.
So in summary, if we drop the word interesting from this article's title, agree some inclusion criteria, and then assess the article's content against these, we have the basis for a perfectly valid article (with no need for factcheck notes on every line) in the article namespace. Parallels exist — English words with uncommon properties for instance (note: this one is written as prose) — I think that attempting a solution along these lines has to be a better way forward than continuing with the divisive mess we're currently in? SP-KP 01:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course we need sources to justify inclusion of each and every single entry, because inclusion in a list of things which are allegedly "interesting" or "unusual" requires that someone else call them "interesting" or "unusual." Wikipedia editors cannot just insert things in the list that they find "interesting" or "unusual" - that is prima facie original research, something which is specifically prohibited by policy. Please see Films considered the worst ever. "The movies listed have achieved a notable level of infamy, through critical and popular consensus." That is an acceptable way of doing things - each entry is sourced with reasons why it is among the worst ever - ratings from movie critics, box-office figures, fan votes on IMDb, etc. This list has none of the above - it's just a list of any name someone ever laughed at. That's not encyclopedically acceptable. FCYTravis 01:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let me see if I can illustrate the argument above with an example. This does require you to be able to see a parallel between an article which has its content presented as a list, and an article which has its content presented as prose. Not everyone's brain is wired up the same, so that might be difficult for you to do, in which case this is perhaps not going to help, but I hope it might help at least some people to see where I am coming from. Let's take the article Kansas. What if, instead of creating an article entitled Kansas, someone had created exactly the same article, but had placed an asterisk at the start of each sentence, and entitled it List of facts about Kansas. Then, imagine that over time, other editors had come along and added a mixture of facts, some of which were undisputedly about Kansas, and others which, although the editors adding them believed to be about Kansas, were viewed by other editors not to be about Kansas, such that the article was a bit of a ragbag of facts of varying relevance to the subject. Now try to imagine that someone spots this article and thinks "what a pile of poo" and nominates it for deletion. Try to imagine the deletion discussion for this article. Although there would be a lot of commonality between that discussion and this one, I would hope that somewhere along the line, someone would make the common sense point that an article on Kansas is actually quite a useful thing for Wikipedia to have in it, and that while the article up for deletion needed to be tidied up, rationalised, and written as prose, it could still form the basis for the Kansas article. That proposal would, I think you would agree, probably carry the day on first pass. I doubt very much whether people would be insisting that every fact that was to be retained in the article not only had to be supported by an external source, but that there must also be an external source stating that the fact was sufficiently important to be included in an encyclopaedia article about Kansas. We'd use our judgment based on some agreed principles to decide which facts did and which didn't merit inclusion. I don't think anyone would say that using that judgment constituted original research, or that the resulting Kansas article, because it went through such an editorial process, was so blighted with POV that it had to be deleted. To convince me that an article entitled Unusual place names has no place in Wikipedia, you will need to try to explain why it is different from an article on Kansas. If this boils down to a difference of opinion on what sort of content Wikipedia should and shouldn't contain, then fine, we'll just have to agree to differ; if there is something more than that which marks these two articles out as different, I'd really like to understand what it is, but nowhere in the deluges of words written on this subject have I been able to detect what that difference is. SP-KP 02:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The primary difference between the theoretical Kansas article and this article is that "The captial of Kansas is Topeka" is a fact, no one seriously disputes it; whether "Dix Hills" is interesting or unusual is an opinion. Whether someone has such an opinion is basically a fact, but not an easy one to establish. If our criteria is that someone, somewhere finds this place name to be interesting or unusual, then there is not a single place name that we could exclude. Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between a list and an article, and wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, should concentrate more on articles. Lists too often (and this is certianly no exception) encourage readers too add anything that pops into their mind, especially when they're as subjective as this. A list of facts about Kansas article would also be a spectacularly bad idea. -R. fiend 03:02, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is a really helpful reply, as it is now obvious to me at which point our thought processes diverge. The divergence seems to come at the point where you are translating the logical entities involved in the hypothetical Kansas situation across to the Unusual names situation. To understand it, we need to talk ontology. I would categorise the statement "The capital of Kansas is Topeka" as a "piece of information having encyclopaedic merit" (these are pieces of information which we believe are valid to include in Wikipedia, facts which we think that readers ought to be able to learn from reading a Wikipedia article). This is a fundamental unit of categorisation relevant to any discussion of this nature; it sits in the space between "word" and "article". To ensure we are using our Kansas analogy correctly, we need to take care when we identify the corresponding thing in relation to the Unusual names article, and pick the correct thing. If I have understood you correctly, you have tranposed "The capital of Kansas is Topeka" to "Fucking, Austria is an unusual name". I believe this is incorrect - what logic theorists call a "category mistake" - and that the corresponding thing is actually a statement something like "There is a town called Fucking in Austria, which is spelt the same way as an English word with a sexual meaning". You would agree, I assume, that that is a fact which we should reasonably expect readers of Wikipedia to be able to find out? If you think about things in this way, then there is nothing wrong, or at least nothing against policy, about an article containing a set of such facts. To include these facts in the article is not POV-pushing, or original research, and as long as this fact itself is sourced it's not a breach of the verifiability policy — it's just the editorial process. If you're following the logic this far, then all we're left with to disagree on are the criteria for inclusion of entries (i.e. this is merely an argument about different methods of arranging facts into articles). I've said all along that arriving at an agreed set of criteria will be difficult, but it surely is not beyond our abilities to arrive at some kind of consensus? SP-KP 17:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Okay, so we can agree that "There is a town called Fucking in Austria, which is spelt the same way as an English word with a sexual meaning". Is that a fact? Yes. Should that be found in an encycloepdia? Sure, and as such we have an article on Fucking, Austria which makes that clear. However, an article containing a list of such facts would have other comparable facts, like "Oxford is a place name that dervies from Oxen and ford." Or "Dallas, Texas is a city in Texas named for the Vice President under James Polk". You can find facts such as this all over the place, does that make them interesting? Almost every place name has a story behind it; being interesting or unusual is much more difficult to qualify than a statement of the captial of Kansas. And using "Fucking Austria" for further examples probably isn't the best way to go. It is one of the least controversial entries, and I beieve it now has a source. I mentioned that one originally because people seemed to be using it to justify all the others, which I considered a flawed approach. I really think we're getting somewhere with the new article, and that should be the focus of our efforts. -R. fiend 17:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Unusual implies not usual. There are sites where you can find what place names are common or uncommon. There are likely a few places with place-names that are unique. (IOW no other place has that name) That makes the name unusual. If we undelete and then rename it to drop "interesting" this would take out any subjectiveness. Sarcoxie might not be especially interesting, but it is unusual. Unusual in that no other town has that exact name or in least so it claims. If that can be proven it'd fit. That's not subjective at all.--T. Anthony 13:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • So we're looking for unique now? Okay, then we've got real size problems. Again, I'll take out my atlas and look at the index. I've randomly opened to places starting with "Meng-". The following all have a single entry, making them likely to be unique: Meng, Mengabril, Mengalum, Menga,Pta, Mengara, Mengban, Mengchen, Meng-chiang, Mengcun Huizu Zizhixian, Mengdingjie, Mengene Dag, Mengeringhausen, Mengerskirchen, Menggala, Menghai, etc etc etc. And, reading down the list from the first I mentioned to the last, I only came across one name that was not unique (Mengen). Do we really want a list of every unique place name? i'll grant you that is the most non-subjective criterion I've heard yet, but it's also completely unmanagable. -R. fiend 18:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • It could be unmanageable, but you can't judge it by flipping open an atlas. Atlases are bound to not list every little place that shares the name of some town. If need be though other standards of unusualness can be added. You can judge unusualness of words in certain ways and then apply that as an additional standard to place. For example words 21 or more letters long are deemed unusual enough that there is an article on Longest word in English. Few words in English have both "q" and "x", and so forth.--T. Anthony 23:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I still think "uniqueness" will be very difficult to establish. Is there more than one place called "Mengerskirchen"? Until proven otherwise, would we accept its inclusion? It's not all that weird or anything. We'd certainly have to get rid of places like "Sandwich" and "Bagdad". Your especially long name criterion is not a bad way to go, I guess, though even that is a bit arbitrary. Why 21 letters? Why not 18 or 23? Hell, even 11 is, I suppose "unusual" in that most places aren't that long. In any case, we're looking at less than 1% of the items in the list, perhaps, by that criterion. What about the rest of them? -R. fiend 18:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                      • I'd favor most of them being taken out. A good deal of it was a bit sophomoric. (For example "intercourse" can mean a kind of discussion, as I recall, and it's not that unusual a town name) As for why 21, it's the number of letters the name of a Hawaiian fish has. Also most of the words in the "longest words" article were over 20 letters which would be "21 or more." One letter names I think would also be unusual as would pallindromes. If limited to a few strict criteria I think it could be manageable.--T. Anthony 20:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please, just {{sofixit}}. Until then, it should stay out of mainspace. I've deleted and protected the cross-namespace redirect and noted that at WP:ANI, while we're talking about it. - brenneman{T}{L} 01:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever the decision about the article itself, this was uncalled for. All existing links from external sites, not to mention those on-wiki, take people to the old title; there should be an obvious way for them to get from there to where the long list is at present. Side discussion continued at AN/I. +sj + 05:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I have now redirected the original title to Astrokey's new article. Problem solved. -R. fiend 06:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in Wikispace and do not undelete in article space per FCYTravis. And perhaps some day, we might achieve a DRV with no daily "interesting place names" rehashing. Well, I can always dream... --W.marsh 03:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment. agree with sp-kp. I was being bold and followed sp-kp's redlink and started an article with only those names that are referenced (currently only 5 at the moment) at Unusual place names -- Astrokey44|talk 03:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's looking about a thousand times better than the previous article (although the introduction is pretty stiff). Perhaps those carrying the banner of the "List of" article could instead help Astrokey on this much more worthwhiel endeavor. -R. fiend 04:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I think what Astrokey is doing is great. It should be done to the original article in place, however; even unto carving out huge sections of the article. But deleting and/or moving an article to a new namespace is just not the appropriate way to express an editorial opinion (like "this article needs a total rewrite!"). It is this misconstruction of process that we are voting on / discussing here. I am not carrying the banner of a particular version of the article; but it should be worked on where it has always been - or perhaps with a clarifying rename - and not in two places at once, as you seem to be suggesting. The extension to that would be, that any time you found an article you thought was POV, you could move it to a new namespace, delete, recreate, and protect the original title, and tell the authors to fix it at the new title and petition for it to be reinstated... +sj + 05:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, no, moving an article to the WP namespace is not standard practice, and isn't intended to be. That was a compromise worked out after the article was already deleted from the mainspace. I consider it a decent compromise, as those editors who found it "interesting" can still get their chuckles, and it can be worked on without being the highly problematic article it was. The only real alternative I could see would be to simply remove all unsourced entries (which, at the time, was all of them, now it's all but maybe half a dozen or so). No one is saying you anyone can willy-nilly move any article they see as POV to the WP space, and that is not what happened here. -R. fiend 05:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it was moved to WP namespace in the middle of the AfD debate and I moved it back. So that is exactly what happened here. SchmuckyTheCat 18:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so it was moved during the AFD debate, moved back before the debate ended, deleted, and recreated in the WP space. The point is, no one is saying any article that someone thinks is POV can unilaterally be moved to the WP space, which seemed to be what Sj was worried about. He can rest easy now. -R. fiend 19:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong undelete as per Grue. Could User:R. fiend please refrain from exercising his admin powers on this article again - the failure of process seems in part to be attributable to this amendment of the AfD discussion as well as other actions taken by R. fiend. His storong views mean that he is seemingly unable to follow due process. This AfD seemed to have been properly set up by userr:docu in line with the process outlined on this page at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Decisions to be reviewed, which read at the time: "If there is neither a majority to endorse the decision nor a three-quarters supermajority to overturn and apply some other result, the article is relisted on the relevant deletion process.". If the process is wringly described, it eeds to be amended. If not wringly described, why are views being sought again, why don't the previous recently expressed views on exactly the same topic count?--A Y Arktos 23:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete per the consensus of opinion in the AfD to keep and the process problems noted above. Issues with respect to whether a particular entry should be added is part of the editing process for the article itself, not itself a justification for deletion of the article. Jtmichcock 14:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some people are particularly drawn to the curse words and homophones that make it onto the list. I appreciate that these are offensive to some; but that is not the source of 'unusualness' for the majority of list entries. Useful sections of the page could be : "one- and two-letter place names", "numeric placenames", &c. We should be focusing on improving the criteria for inclusion on the page, not beating around the bush re: verifiability. +sj +
    • It's not the fact that they're offensive that grinds my gears. It's the fact that they are all sophomoric, not interesting or unusual. Is "Beaver, Pennsylvania" really "interesting or unusual?" Not really. It has sophomoric sexual connotations, but that's neither interesting nor unusual. It's just stupid. So a list that has no criteria nor sourcing will inevitably become simply a list of every place name a random teenager ever laughed at. Which will become a very long list indeed. FCYTravis 07:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion from articlespace, keep in projectspace as a resource for long enough to wring any useful content out of it, then delete. It's mostly junk, but there's probably some salvageable bits in here. -- nae'blis (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2006 (UT
  • I've actually not been paying attention to this article for some time. My attention was called to this debate by a message someone wrote me, which I received today after not logging into Wikipedia for over a month (I've generally been using it without logging in, lately, since I haven't been editing). That having been said, this is a good debate and some good points have been made. I agree that "interesting" and "unusual" are both subjective terms. The article had footnotes you could attach to the place name to indicate some reasons why people might find it "interesting" and/or "unusual," which I have tried to use. As to verifiability, for U.S. Place Names I have generally been using my trusty Rand McNally Road Atlas. I understand there is a movement on Wikipedia for people to cite their sources -- I think that is a good idea. With that taken into account, this article's encyclopedic qualities are questionable, however, the goal here is to have a comprehensive record of knowledge of all types. I credit this article with getting me interested in Wikipedia in the first place -- "Oh hey, they didn't put this town here, I can add it!" With respect to Native American town names -- I live in Massachusetts and I grew up on Long Island, so I am used to it, however, those from other areas of the country might not be. It is very POV-ish. I guess I agree with what was done to resolve the debate. Tckma 18:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This protracted debate seems to be going nowhere. FWIW, I think the original list article should be in the article namespace WITHOUT all of the ridiculous tags indicating that citations are needed. WTF is that? Honestly, sometimes I think the tedious grinds around here have an agenda to remove all interesting content from Wikipedia and replace it with an unintelligible heap of footnotes. However, I can accept as a compromise keeping the article in Wikipedia namespace. In no case should it simply be deleted. older ≠ wiser 13:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the discussion above is going somewhere. I admit this "keep deleted, as before"/"undelete, good article" back and forth is not. We have a pretty good compromise worked out, in which the kitchen sink article stays in the WP namespace (it's not going to be deleted entirely) and a verifiable article stays in the article space. Is the article a little footnote heavy? Yeah. I'd probably prefer just one numbered external link at the end of each entry. But it is better than the anything goes of the other article. The attitiude there seems to be "well if someone added a place name then they must have found it interesting, therefore it is by definition interesting to someone." Circular arguments don't make for good encyclopedias. Nor does entirely subjective content. a List of some pretty cool shit might have some "interesting content" in it, but that's not an encyclopedia article. There are plenty of other sites around for that sort of thing. In any case, if the original article were moved back into the article space, the resulting content dispute would have it looking more like the new article anyway. -R. fiend 16:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I quite agree that the original article contained a lot of dubious entries. But I don't see why that would preclude it from existing in article space. But as I said, I'm fine with the current compromise. older ≠ wiser 23:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure on the grounds of unencyclopedic. When I initially reviewed the AfD it looked like it was heading for consensus to delete, so I didn't contribute my opinion. Reviewing the AfD now, delete-voters point out article violated Wikipedia policies esp WP:V; Keep voters were asserting that the article was interesting, enjoyable to read, or worthwhile. Those points are uncontested; violation of Wikipedia policy must, however, take precedence in determining to delete the article. ikkyu2 (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. Clearly no consensus on the second AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete Although I'd personally prefer it be limited to "unusual" and "interesting" be dropped. "Unusual" denotes rarity and I think rarity can be verified with a bit of work. "Interesting" is a bit more vague and open to interpretation.--T. Anthony 12:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete and keep the article, damn it — I can't believe R. fiend is getting away with this. R. fiend, please read Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, follow accepted Wikipedia policies and stop attempting to circumvent the consensus that you don't happen to like. — Timwi 17:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I see once again user:Docu has tried to fix the outcome of this DRV by spamming everyone who might be tempted to vote "keep" and directing them here. Way to go. I suppose I'll have to go spam everyone who might be tempted to vote "keep deleted" or "keep redirected" or "keep in Wp namespace" or whatever. I really don't feel like doing it. are any of these people who appeared at the behest of messages on their talk pages going to add anything to the dialogue, maybe tell why the article in the WP space is so much better than the new one? Or are we just here to stuff a non-existent ballot box? -R. fiend 18:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Empty stubs or deleted articles are never better than lists. Why wouldn't you want the interested parties to participate?-- User:Docu
  • Opinion: The article is a bit woolly, but it's fun and there's nothing wrong with its existing. Nor is there any need to cite sources for every place name unless someone actually disputes their existence. I say delete the slew of "Citation needed" labels and put it abck where it was. 207.176.159.90 23:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete Lists are, by their nature, not cited and nobody would regard inclusion in, or exclusion from, a list such as the one under discussion as being authoratitive. Its a list - not an article. Saga City 10:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • What?! "Lists are, by their nature, not cited"? Where the hell did you get that? It's in the articlespace, it's held to the same standards as any other article, which means verifiablility. Lists are not immune from needing sources. Sure, "List of states in the United states of America" doesn't need a source because it's such universally available information, but this is different. Shoudl I create a List of crimes against humanity committed by George W, Bush without sources because "it's a list! Who needs sources?" If no one would give any authority to what's written in a wikipedia article, then we're all wasting our time here. Sure, the fact that anyone can edit it should make everyone especially skeptical about what they read here, but to have an article where we just come out and say "oh, don't take any of this seriously, it's just a bit of fun" is outrageous. There's a reason why Britannica doesn;t have articles like this. If they did they'd have to drop "encyclopedia" from their name. -R. fiend 17:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted - I personally appreciate R. Fiend's work in this area. I had not heard about this before now, and after reading over the discussion, I agree with the proposed compromise. Regarding sourcing - yes, we need a source to show that each fact in an article is true; for any list, such as "List of X", each item has an implied fact "This item is a X", which, like any other fact, needs to be sourced. None of this should be controversial. JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment . The old article had a nice broken-down list of ways in which a name might seem odd, funny or unusual. I think it made the article seem much more professional and encyclopedic overall, regardless of what the list actually contained. This element should be restored. LordAmeth 12:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the article either in the main (article) or the Wikipedia namespace, or even the User namespace. — Instantnood 20:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted Current tools available in Wikipedia do not allow to maintain such type of articles reliably. If the infrastructure of Wikipedia significantly improves (something I didn't notice during last two years) such article may be maintainable. Today such article is very likely to turn quickly into chaos. Pavel Vozenilek 12:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in Wikipedia space, out of article space: If verifiability is always going to be a problem (and the subjective, POV terminology will cause that to be the case), then we really should take it away from the articles. I'm well known for being no fan of lists, but the reason I'm against them is that they take information that should generate contexts and put that information into an inherently anti-contextual index. Encyclopedias do not index -- atlases and trivia books index -- at least as articles. If we were forced to write about Fucking, Austria (and we have an article on it), then we have something to say about it other than noting that one aspect of it can be combined with the same aspect of wholly disparate places. However, in this case, the list is simply too inviting of sniggering editors and nonsensical additions. If we have not upheld the standards of verification and NPOV with other articles, that's no excuse for not upholding them here, and, indeed, the bright red lights shining from the mast of this article are a reason for upholding the proper standards especially here. This is not about deleting the ancient article's content, but about keeping it at a non-article spot. I agree with that. Geogre 13:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

undelete: 2000 edits over the course of years underscores the great interest in the article, though a fair amount of work on guidelines and parsing into English and other languages would probably help. Ombudsman 23:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As per Haukur, et al. – the key is citing sources and predicating entries appropriately. For example, there are numerous treatments regarding the 'unusual' name of Swastika, Ontario: for one, a book by Alan Rayburn (a prior executive secretary of the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names) called Naming Canada: stories about Canadian place names, 2nd ed. (ISBN 0-8020-8293-9). Despite the obvious political intonations, prior attempts to rename the town to "Winston" were met with fierce opposition by local residents given other historical meanings of the symbol (pp. 79-80). If sources are cited, agreeable entries shouldn't be problematic. Hell (pun intended): even Kitchener, Ontario was previously called "Berlin." (pp. 78-9, 96-7 of Rayburn).
Moreover, IMO, the insistence of few to repeatedly nix this list despite consensus otherwise should be dealt with through some sort of disciplinary action. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you're going to vote on this, please at least read the discussion (yes, I know it's very long) there is a version of this article that cites sources (Place names considered unusual the other title now redirects there). Someone nominated it for deletion, but if everyone who voted to undelete this by all accounts flawed article instead voted to keep that one, there's no chance it would be deleted. Go ahead an add Swastika to that article, if you can find a source for it. And also keep in mind that this entire "vote" (if that's what it is) has been tainted by User:Docu spamming everyone and their mother who might want to vote to keep this (just like he did with the 2nd AFD). An admin should know better. If the article is undeleted, it's going to look like Place names considered unusual anyway, once the unverified entries are removed. -R. fiend 17:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've fully read all discussions regarding this topic and, frankly, it's getting pedantic. And my assertion/"vote" (a spade is a spade) to undelete the incipient article, in addition to the many others before and since who have also commented and despite the contrary, hasn't changed. The revamped article is a shell of the former, and (if anything) the original one should be systematically retrofitted with those notions, not restarted anew as has since occurred. As for administrator actions or impropriety, which I can neither confirm nor deny, those so compelled should take it up at WP:AN. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete the *original* article, merge all these other ones into it, immediately move any unsourced entries to the talk page, put a notice on it that unsourced entries will be removed, and monitor it for such additions. Semi-protect it if necessary. Who can have a problem with that? Turnstep 17:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. To my way of thinking, there are four issues at hand here. I'm going to express my opinion on all four of them right here.
    1. Endorse closure of 2nd AfD. Requests for undeletion appear here at DRV, not at AfD.
    2. Endorse closure of 1st AfD. Process was followed and rough consensus achieved.
    3. Endorse result of 1st DRV. Process was followed and rough consensus achieved.
    4. Leave article deleted, at least in main namespace. The interest or unusual nature of place names fails Wikipedia:Verifiability; compiling the list itself is original research. There's now an article in main namespace, Place names considered unusual that attempts to reproduce this article in a Wikipedia-policy-compliant way, by removing the unverifiable assertion 'interesting' and sourcing each assertion of unusualness for each place name. That article follows Wikipedia policy; the article under consideration does not. Further, no compelling argument can be made for not merging the contents of the old article into the new article, following Wikipedia policies WP:V WP:NOR while doing so.

4 February 2006

Template:Commonsgallery

Despite its TfD discussion attracting 3 votes for delete and 4 keeps, plus a keep from an anon who has a few non-project contributions, User:MarkSweep closed the discussion as a delete on the grounds that "The result of the debate was better arguments for deletion than for keeping it." I dispute this decision on two grounds:

  1. That is not the admin's call; the deletion discussions may not be votes, but closing admins are, as far as I've gathered from my experience on AfD, not court judges, there to decide which side 'won'; they are there to decide what the community thinks. It renders the whole 'discussion' thing slightly pointless otherwise.
  2. Even if I'm wrong on the above point, MarkSweep's decision that there were better arguments for deletion is still extremely shaky IMO. None of the delete voters ever tried to argue the counterpoints the keep voters made against their arguments. These arguments included the fact that the template supposedly advertised for Olympus (it had a picture of a camera, far too small to make out the model). --Malthusian (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the closing admin, let me explain my reasoning in more detail. First, we'll have to discount one keep "vote" from an anon. Second, Nickj is using his "vote" as a vehicle for something unrelated, namely improving or changing Template:Commons. Nickj wrote: "That's why my vote is "keep", and it will continue to be "keep" until such time as Template:commons is improved." That's not a reason to keep Template:Commonsgallery. You don't go about changing Template:Commons by forking it and then voting to keep when the fork is nominated for deletion. Third, "Keep, useful template" by Ryan Delaney is fine, but it's not a relevant argument: Template:Commonsgallery was nominated here because it was a fork of an already existing maintenance template: and precisely because it is a fork of a useful template, it is of course useful, but that's not what this debate was seeking to establish. Fourth, there were three delete votes (by Netoholic, Petaholmes, and Phil Boswell) arguing that template forks are bad. The two serious votes in favor of keeping never properly addressed why the forked templates is needed. I completely ignored the bit about the Olympus ad as tangential to the discussion. Fifth, even if we regard the outcome of this debate as "no consensus", it makes no sense to default to keep in the Template namespace: templates, unlike articles, are tools which facilitate and enable; they should only be kept when they are truly needed. As I've said in my comments when I closed this discussion, I was much more swayed by the arguments for deletion, and in the end this is a discussion, not a vote. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 19:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted - on the principle that forks are bad. FCYTravis 20:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mark seems to be under the impression that the people behind the template have not bothered to explain what it is for, which is false: it has been extensively explained at Template_talk:Commons and the TfD. Briefly (I don't know why I'm bothering as I thought DRV was about process and not content, but FCYTravis has indicated otherwise): some of us believe the links to Commons galleries would look better if accompanied by a picture explaining what it was going to (e.g. a camera for a gallery of pictures). No-one's yet tried to claim otherwise, the only argument for deletion that's been put forward has been 'standardisation and maintenance'.
  • I don't see how this was a 'fork' any more than {{test-n}} is a fork of {{test}}. Both do the same thing, but {{test-n}} does it slightly better in a certain context. Same with this. I admit that the name of the template does scream 'fork', being a redundancy; that was a mistake on my part. I was expecting to move the template to {{commonsimage}} as soon as the TfD was closed. --Malthusian (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moreover, I'm not going to reply to MarkSweep's responses to why he discounted most of the votes on one side one by one (I've already explained why the 'serious voters' had, in fact, "properly addressed why the forked templates is needed"). But I will say that I think that if the arguments of a certain 'side' in a discussion are weak, it should be explained why they are weak at the time, rather than the closing admin waiting for the discussion period to end, discounting them, then waiting for someone to bring the TfD to DRV to explain why they were weak enough for the editors' opinions to be ignored. If nothing else it would save time. --Malthusian (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • TfD is a debate about the merits of templates. Rather than talking about "sides" one should talk about the outcomes of that debate and the arguments advanced in favor of them. If I see a weak argument or an argument that does not even address the central question of the debate, I call it as I see it. As for commenting on the merits of the various arugments before closing the debate: what do you want me to do? I didn't even know of this particular debate until I started to do my share in trying to clear out the TfD backlog. And if I had been aware of it and commented on it earlier, I wouldn't be in a position to close it. And by the way, I wasn't waiting for someone to bring this here. If you're only interested in saving time, then let it go and work on changing Template:Commons through the customary channels. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 21:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • *sigh* I'm going to have to surrender on any further discussion - I tried to reply to Mark's last post but couldn't manage to string three separate counterpoints together in a way that made any sense. I'm just going to say that I used the word 'side' in the sense of 'those who voted one particular way', not 'side' in the sense of 'cabal'. I think it would be worthwhile to have more illustrative {{commons}} templates, but if it gets shot down, well, c'est la vie. If I die in my sleep tonight and St Peter asks me 'And how did you spend your life?' I don't want to have to tell him that my last night was spent fighting a rearguard action over diversifying a Wikipedia template. --Malthusian (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted — MarkSweep is surely right in both principle and detail. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have forked templates many times, as it is sometimes the only way to switch over from one design to another. I was not aware the cabal disapproved of it. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted per Mel Etitis. --Kbdank71 05:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. The fact that {{commons}} is seemingly perma-protected pushed me over the edge. If one cannot edit the template without going through various bureaucracy (requesting unprotection and hoping that succeeds, or getting consensus on the talk page - so much for being bold!), then forking may be the best option. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 06:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. MarkSweep's repeated violations of deletion process are becoming more and more disruptive. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 19:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. - How can you can get an result of 5 to keep, and 3 to delete, and decide that "delete" is the right outcome? It makes a complete and total mockery of the concept of consensus. Secondly, for Mark Sweep's "reasoning" that he can disregard my vote, and the votes of others: I wasn't aware that we had ceded complete dictatorial powers to Mark Sweep, so if someone could point to the relevant official wiki guideline outlining his new overlord status, that would be super, thanks. Third, I note that none of the votes to delete were disregarded, so it's good to see that the fine example of Florida lives on! Fourth, the reasons for changing this were outlined extensively on the Commons talk page, and have still not been addressed. Fifth, the commons template is still protected - so, given that anything related get deleted, and the originally seems to be permanently protected, how, exactly, is anything about these templates ever supposed to be improved? Frankly, this really is an appalling decision. If you're going to ignore what the community says, then why even have a deletion process? I mean, really, why bother? Just unilaterally delete whatever you like, irrespective of consensus - it'll give the same result, but without wasting everyone's time by giving the illusion of wanting community input and general agreement. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per Mark's justification here. However these exceptional closes should be explained when closing. Pace the squeals of outrage, please note that: (i) TfD does not have a clear numerical criteria for assessing when there is a concensus and (ii) the kind of carefully justified discounting Mark has undertaken here would, if done when closing the *fD dsicussion, be a good thing for the health of *fDs: if you object to these vote discounts, what discounts would you agree with? --- Charles Stewart(talk) 01:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Seconded with a pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek. A great many of the discussions that take place on DRV could be avoided if closers took more care with explaining their thinking when they close. Rossami, in particular, provides clear evidence that he has thought about the arguments presented, and I've seen closes of his run to two paragraphs. This is a good thing, and should be more widespread. - brenneman(t)(c) 02:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks very much for the feedback. You have a good point, and I've added my above comments to the TfD page. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 04:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist on TfD. Whilst Mark's arguments to delete are convincing, and convinced me that it should be deleted, there seems to be enough dissension to warrant a re-examination of the decision. 5 votes to keep against 3 to delete is not a decent consensus to keep, parituclarly given that the last two votes to keep were a) from an IP and b) two words, but I would have thought that this would be enough for the Template to remain pending further discussion. Deleting it was against the principle of consensus on deletion. If Mark makes the same excellently clear and cogent arguments to delete then I'm sure people will make the appropriate decision. And I think Nickj's reason for keeping is entirely valid - if he believes the template si necessary until the commons template itself is fixed, then that is a valid reason for him to believe the commonsgallery one should be kept. Proto||type 13:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reverse and Keep as per the consensus what was the point of the votes if the deciding admin was going to maket he call anyway? Some nerve.Gator (talk) 13:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Hey look, I lied, one more comment. MarkSweep's reasons for discounting most of the delete votes may make sense on the outside, but to me there seems to be equally good reasons for discounting the delete votes. One said "performs the same function as {{commons}}" (none of the counter-arguments to that here, on the TfD and on Template_talk:Commons have ever been addressed), another said (paraphrasing for brevity) 'template forks are evil, and advertises for Olympus'. Of that last post, the first argument is not an argument, the second rather nonsensical (maybe it was in jest, but Mark talks about "serious votes"). Why not discount those arguments too?
  • Now at this point I think we can agree that it becomes ridiculous, having unilaterally discarded almost the entire debate, which is why I disagree with vote discounting on principle in all but the most obvious cases (sockpuppetry/trolling), for two reasons: 1) If an argument is weak, someone should say so at the time so its proponent can respond to the criticism without having to do it at WP:DRV, and 2) If the overall case for one 'side' (ooer, used that word again) is weak, then people will read it, be unconvinced, vote delete and the article will be deleted by an actual consensus (not just a consensus of "serious voters"). If the reason for the *fD not getting enough delete 'votes' was because it didn't get enough attention, then relist it. --Malthusian (talk) 13:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Closing admin properly discounted "votes" which did not comply with policy directions; TFD page expressly says Please explain how, in your opinion, the template does not meet the criteria [for deletion] above. Comments such as "I like it," or "I find it useful," while potentially true, generally do not fulfill this requirement. Voting standards were clear, and closing admin quite properly followed them rather than disregarding them. Monicasdude 21:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, but my vote/comment/preference was discounted because of my mistake in pointing something out, not because of my reasons. My reasons are that the newer template is (in my opinion) clearer, easier to understand (both in language and visually), and more exact than the commons template. My conclusion therefore was keep. My mistake was apparently in saying that there would be no reason for commonsgallery if commons could be improved (but unfortunately, that seems to be impossible), and that in that situation I would most likely change my vote. Furthermore, it should be noted that this template doesn't even seem to pass the tests of whether it should be proposed for deletion: Is it helpful? Yes. Is it redundant? No, I don't think it is (see reasons above). Is it used? Yes. Is it NPOV? Yes. Was it a candidate for speed deletion? No. Therefore, it doesn't even seem to fulfil the basic criteria for being listed on TfD, let alone the criteria to actually be deleted. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, I do not see the difficulty to simply construct an independent userbox in one's own userspace. Less controversial, and quite sensical. The same can be said for many other userbox tempaltes. -ZeroTalk 09:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are articles in the main space allowed to use templates from a user's namespace? I thought I read somewhere that this was a no-no, but I could be wrong. If it's allowed, then that's exactly what I will do, and I thank for suggesting this. However, if it's not allowed, then I would please ask that you reconsider your position because it means the problem cannot be solved by the method you propose. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. I read over the original TfD, and it looks like a pretty clear keep consensus to me. At the very worst a no consensus. Aside from the nominator, the delete arguments don't seem at all strong to me, aside from being outnumbered. The closer just made mistake, it looks like -- no problem, we all do, easy to fix: just undelete and, if desired, relist. Herostratus 10:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move to separate article

When decisions have been reached, please move discussion to Wikipedia:Deletion review/Pagename and provide a link from the talk page of the article (if the decision was to keep). This makes the discussion easier to find if there are subsequent afds or Deletion reviews. Also, if the decision reverses an afd decision, it is necessary to show that the afd decision has been reversed.

Recently concluded

  1. Quasi-gummi: undeleted, currently at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quasi-gummi. 16:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  2. Heathian anarchism: closure endorsed, article moved to Spencer Heath, where it should receieve further scrutiny. 16:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  3. Montfort Realschule Zell: closure endorsed with a heavy sigh. 06:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  4. Hootenanny (store): endorse closure, exists as redirect. 06:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  5. User:SPUI - consensus to undelete. restored to last non-controversial version (user can edit as desired when he's back). 03:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia - restored, still at MfD. 02:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  7. Brian Peppers - endorsed and earth salted with {{deletedpage}}. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  8. Criticism of the Bible - endorsed as "no consensus", now a redirect. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  9. Inconsistencies in the Bible endorsed as "no consensus", now a redirect. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  10. Ted's_Kiddush reopened, now at afd again. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  11. Anti-vaccinationists endorsed "no consensus" closure, but closing admin subjected to public ridicule. 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  12. Best blond joke ever and/or Best blonde joke ever kept deleted and now exist as redirects. 23:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  13. Template:User pedo: Kept deleted with {{deletedpage}}. 23:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  14. Sin (musician): Kept deleted with {{deletedpage}}. 23:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  15. Marianne Curan: Kept deleted, better re-written from scratch. 23:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  16. Christopher Howard: Kept deleted. 23:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  17. Armand Traoré: Kept deleted. 23:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  18. The Foxymorons: Withdrawn, new stub to be written. 22:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  19. Template:User Antiracist hitler: Speedy deletion endorsed. 17:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  20. Template:GermanGov: Kept deleted. 17:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  21. List of state-named Avenues in Washington, D.C.: Original keep closure endorsed. 17:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  22. User:KJVTRUTH: kept undeleted, user subsequently blocked as sockpuppet. 17:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Category:Ambiguous five-letter acronyms: Moot request, kept deleted. 17:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
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