Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 9

9 August 2007

Wikipedia:How to use the GIMP

Wikipedia:How to use the GIMP (edit | [[Talk:Wikipedia:How to use the GIMP|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)

Various users have disputed my deletion of this page as it has been speedy deleted incorrectly. I see it as a recreation of transwikied content as well as irrelevant to the project. However, due to the fact that it is a project page and not an article, the transwiki CSD does not count, as well as how there is no MFD. Please look over this. w^{L<speak·check>} 21:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Restore and relist at MfD (Note: The matter was discussed at Wikipedia talk:How to use the GIMP#Move to Wiki books? prior to the deletion.)

I feel at somewhat of a disadvantage in evaluating whether or not the page belongs in Wikipedia namespace because, of course, its having been deleted, I can't actually read it.

Given that the admin who deleted the page has acknowledged that it was incorrectly CSD'd, it seems to be that the right thing is to undelete it and immediately post it at MFD. Then for example, there can be discussion whether Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia applies to more than mainspace (I was under the impression that virtually all content-related polices, such as WP:NPOV, apply only to articles).

I'm not arguing, by the way, for keeping the page; I'm arguing for following process. For example, one could argue that information on using the GIMP should be in a paragraph or so at Wikipedia:How to improve image quality, with pointers to pages such as this.

Finally, it would be really, really nice if someone would provide the URL where this content now lives, maybe even on the talk page related to the deleted project page? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Quick close and Relist at MfD. DGG (talk) 01:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Restore and Relist This isn't an article, so A5's logic doesn't really apply, besides, it mentions only dictionary definitions and AFD discussions. While Wikipedia isn't a howto site, that doesn't mean howto's are not appropriate on Wikipedia, as long as they're in the appropriate space. Since this was a CSD and is being protested, restore it and take it to MFD, especially since the move discussion didn't get much participation. Note, btw, I'm not making this claim solely under process grounds, but rather consensus. I don't see that short of a discussion being demonstrative of consensus. Mister.Manticore 03:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus in popular culture

Tyrannosaurus in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)

most popualr dinosaur - no consensus reached. Presumable deleted (and Stegosaurus in popular culture kept (?!) because of article quality, which is not a reason for deleting. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• For the record - keep/retrieve whatever. No-one at WP dinosaurs was notified until late in the day and this article deleted when ther was no consensus to do so. Its the most famous dino....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Also for the record, this article appears to have been moved to User:AndyJones/Tyrannosaurus in popular_culture as part of the result of this AfD. Zetawoof_(ζ) 03:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, validly deleted through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Popular dinosaurs. I have fixed the above AFD link that Casliber did not provide. There's no special rule that says people at special interest projects need to be notified of anything. Neil ╦ 13:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, with the caveat that I will personally restore speedy deletions of a well-written recreation. The fact that the article in the state it was did not establish notability, nor was it properly sourced, however, were reason to delete. Circeus 15:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: This was not a speedy deletion. Corvus cornix 20:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I think the point is that, if the article is rewritten, Circeus will support its recreation. Zetawoof_(ζ) 20:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I emphasize properly written. This might have been the single one most notable sub-topic of Dinosaurs in popular culture. Circeus 21:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion The only encyclopedic and appropriate part of the article was the intro, all of which could be fit into Tyrannosaurus#Appearances in popular culture. GRBerry 17:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, no new arguments except the attempt at ownership by the Project. Corvus cornix 20:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Please. The only complain is that they weren't given a fair chance at saving the article while it was there (thought they admittedly wouldn't have had, most likely, the time to write something that passed AFD). Circeus 21:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Undelete Since when was a lack of sources a reason to delete an article? I thought the subject just had to be notable. Epbr123 21:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Since the AfD decided that the entire thing was OR. If someone wants to write up something that comes up to the level of Stegosaurus in popular culture, which is sourced and not a list of trivia, let them do it in their User spage. WP:NOR is binding. Corvus cornix 22:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I haven't seen the original article, but I assume it was mostly a list of films and TV programmes. How could it have all been OR when the films and TV programmes themselves would have been the references? Stegosaurus in popular culture seems to be a "list of trivia" made into prose. How does turning an article into prose make it more notable? Epbr123 22:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
      • See User:AndyJones/Tyrannosaurus in popular culture, which contains the content. There's hardly anything sourced there, and what is is sub-trivial. Read WP:TRIVIA. Corvus cornix 22:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
        • If the introduction was worth saving, the principled thing would have been to reduce the list to that introduction and give the article another chance. You did consider that, right? Carcharoth 23:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Me? I didn't do the deleting. Corvus cornix 23:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
            • I never said you did. I'm responding to your claims that the entire article was OR, and specifically your point about "hardly anything". See below for what I consider "hardly anything" to mean here. My opinion is that there is enough material for an existing (re)start on the article, and that it should be restored, reduced to that level, and then allowed to grow organically once more in the hope that the repotted article will grow correctly this time, becoming like the Stegosaurus article, rather than the list it was. Carcharoth 00:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - the introduction at least is worth saving. The lists need trimming, sourcing and turning into proper prose explaining (with independent sources) how they show the topic of the article. Carcharoth 22:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Objection - Corvus cornix said above "Since the AfD decided that the entire thing was OR" - it is patently obvious that the introduction was not OR, and was in fact a well-written piece of prose with three references:

  Tyrannosaurus rex is unique among dinosaurs in its place in modern culture. From the beginning, it was embraced by the public. Henry Fairfield Osborn, the President of the American Museum of Natural History, intentionally billed it as the greatest hunter to have ever walked the earth. He stated in 1905:[1]

  “I propose to make this animal the type of the new genus, Tyrannosaurus, in reference to its size, which far exceeds than of any carnivorous land animal hitherto described... This animals is in fact the ne plus ultra of the evolution of the large carnivorous dinosaurs: in brief it is entitled to the royal and high sounding group name which I have applied to it.”

  As for the public, it too was electrified and on December 30, 1905, the New York Times hailed T. rex as "the most formidable fighting animal of which there is any record whatever," the "king of all kings in the domain of animal life," "the absolute warlord of the earth," and a "royal man-eater of the jungle." [2] In 1906, when the skeleton was erected, Tyrannosaurus was dubbed the "prize fighter of antiquity" and the "Last of the Great Reptiles and the King of Them All." [3].

  At the time of its discovery it was the largest known land predator in history and although it has now been displaced in this respect first by the marginally larger Giganotosaurus and then Spinosaurus, it is still popularly perceived as the most fearsome of all prehistoric creatures. Tyrannosaurus has come to represent the quintessential large, meat eating dinosaur in popular culture and is embraced by people the world over as "King of the Dinosaurs" as its name suggests.

  1. ^ John "Jack" Horner and Don "Dino" Lessem, The Complete T. Rex (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pages 58-62

  2. ^ “Mining for Mammoths in the Badlands: How Tyrannosaurus Rex Was Dug Out of His 8,000,000 Year old Tomb,” The New York Times, December 3rd, 1905, page SM1

  3. ^ "The Prize Fighter of Antiquity Discovered and Restored," The New York Times December 30th, 1906, page 21.

  I repeat, the introduction is worth saving, so the question is how to separate the introduction from the list of trivia? The answer is to edit the article and reduce it to just the above. Then possibly merge back into a main article. Carcharoth 23:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• More sourced material - this time from the Tyrannosaurus rex article:

  Since it was first described in 1905, Tyrannosaurus rex, or "tyrant lizard king" has become the most widely-recognized dinosaur in popular culture. It is the only dinosaur which is routinely referred to by its scientific name (Tyrannosaurus rex) among the general public, and the scientific abbreviation T. rex has also come into wide usage (commonly misspelled "T-Rex").[2] Robert T. Bakker notes this in The Dinosaur Heresies and explains that a name like "Tyrannosaurus rex is just irresistable to the tongue."[86]

  Museum exhibits featuring T. rex are very popular; an estimated 10,000 visitors flocked to Chicago's Field Museum on the opening day of its "Sue" exhibit in 2003.[87] T. rex has appeared numerous times on television and in films, notably The Lost World, King Kong, The Land Before Time, Jurassic Park, and Night at the Museum. A number of books and comic strips, including Calvin and Hobbes, have also featured Tyrannosaurus, which is typically portrayed as the biggest and most terrifying carnivore of all. At least one musical group, the band T. Rex, is named after the species. Tyrannosaurus-related toys, including numerous video games and other merchandise, remain popular. Various businesses have capitalized on the popularity of Tyrannosaurus rex by using it in advertisements.

  This quote and the above quote adequately shows that there are enough sources and enough existing material for an article. No need to userfy, no need to delete. Solution is to reduce the article to the above, and keep in article space. People may later try to add their "sightings" of T. rex in various popular culture settings, but that is a job for the editors of the article to restrain, not for AfD to delete. Carcharoth 23:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth, any attempt at undeleting the article is so far only distracting from the need to rewrite it entirely. I agree the delete was hasty, but it's simpler to just rewrite the article entirely, using the userspaced copy for reference to assist in that work, than to try to do anything with what was present at the time. It's quite obvious that if we did recreate the article with only the lead, it would survive a few days before being merged into Tyrannosaurus... Circeus 00:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, my response had two purposes: (1) to debunk some of the stuff being said that was plainly wrong; (2) to argue that writing in article space is usually preferable to forcing articles to be written in userspace until they reach a certain standard.

That second point is a slippery slope we might regret going down. Not only does it slow things down to do things that way, but people might start to see nominating for userfication via AfD as an alternative to editing an article and cutting out the bits that are not needed, and pruning to a stub in the hope that the article can grow 'correctly' this time round. My approach is to generally excise excessive triva and lists from such articles, place the trivia and lists on the talk page, add references to what remains, find at least one source giving the topic some respectability, and then to step back and let the wiki-process start again. It really is like gardening - pruning and grafting. AfD, to continue the analogy, is more like applying herbicides and pesticides. Carcharoth 01:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Relist As I read the Afd, there was no consensus to delete this particular one. Simple as that. Let's not get into more general matters when not necessary.DGG (talk) 01:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, a valid consensus was reached about article content. Even the relisting argument opens with WP:ILIKEIT. --Eyrian 01:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

As opposed to you who obviously doesn't like it. 12/8 is a valid consensus??cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn The deletion discussion appears to reach no consensus, so it seems the appropriate action is to keep by default. I do not believe there is clear consensus to delete. --Ginkgo100^talk 03:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion (as nominator) - it certainly was not my intention to make for a complicated AFD, as I felt that all of the nominated articles were of similar quality. No arguments were offered at AFD to support the notion that this particular article should be preserved. Closing admin correctly interpreted a complex discussion to determine that this article should be deleted. Otto4711 04:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Quality?? What about the subject matter?? As at least part of the contested article is (a)notable and (b) referenced it does not fit any deletion criteria. Article quality as such is not a basis for deletion.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse - simple vote-counting here gives me an 8-12 split for deletion, with several keep votes expressing grave concerns and only two or three explaining their reasoning for this particular article. I think the closure was reasonable, given the latitude admins have to decide what the discussion has concluded. --Haemo 05:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally ,everyone aware of this?cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Restore article. There was no consensus to delete (or even move) this article, and there certainly was not a consensus that the "AfD decided that the entire thing was OR". It was a sloppy AFD closure (but not surprising, given the mass nomination in the first place). These mass deletion nominations trouble me (because there is obviously no finesse or research in mass-nominating similarly-named articles at the same time), and it troubles me even more that a closing administrator would mass delete articles like this. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• RelistUpon further consideration, Endorse deletion Although the closure was defensible, this is a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario: list them all together and you may get ambiguity of results (or at least a credible posit of such), list them apart and you get inconsistent results. Here the former, so relist to see if it stands or falls on its own. Carlossuarez46 02:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC) why compound the process with a needless second go-around. Carlossuarez46 02:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Erm...and inconsistent is a problem? Shouldn't each be taken on its own merits? Also you mention "needless second go-around" is if deletion is a foregone conclusion when it wasn't the first time around?cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistent results are problematic, we adhere to WP:NPOV and recognize our own WP:BIAS, and even the over-cited essay WP#WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS discusses the problem; all the drama about "allegations of apartheid" articles and various ethnic, religious, sexual orientation categories stem in large measure from seemingly inconsistent results. Regardless, I don't think that the passions here will run quite so hot. ;-) It looks like the overturns will end up winning this debate and we'll see whether the repeat of process is or isn't needless. :-) Cheers, Carlossuarez46 00:19, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn - to allow editing to take place in the main article space. Then editors can strip the list (moving it to the talk page for future reference), and expand from the introduction. There is no harm in having a stub there while the editing process takes place. We shouldn't be over-reliant on userfication when adequate material already exists for an article. Carcharoth 09:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn - If we keep one dinosaur in pop culture it should definitely be this one! AFDs aren't a punishment for badly written articles, but a way to clean out the unnotable ones. This article is definitely notable, but the only reason it was deleted was becasue of concerns of it being to "bullet-pointy". So although it needs work, it shouldn't be punished for being badly written. Cheers, Spawn Man 04:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Wikipedia articles are not alive. They do not have feelings and they are incapable of suffering. Deleting them is not "punishment." The notion that the article should be restored because the "punishment" of deletion is unfair is bizarre. Otto4711 13:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Reply to Otto's comment - You don't have to critisize my comment to make your own Otto. I trust then you've never read WP:RUBBISH? I was merely putting the ideals of RUBBISH into less wordy version which is basically, if the article is notable don't delete it just because its poorly written. I was not trying to sound as though articles had feelings though - you seem to believe this though Otto... Do the articles talk to you or something? ;) Spawn Man 02:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn and Merge the sourced info in Tyrannosaurus, do not merge the rest of the info as it destroys the prose of an FA, Endorse my deletion on the rest, unless a decent article can be written about them pop culture. Remember there was a very high concensus for deletion of both Brontosaurus in popular culture and Dromaeosaurids in popular culture in the AFD, with the other two borderline. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 18:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with this - Bronto & the Dromaeosaurid pop culture articles were pointless and NN to begin with, but T rex is really THE dino of pop culture. Spawn Man 02:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn. Deleting the entire article, instead of improving it by removing the OR portions of it, was a disruptive misuse of AfD. Evouga 20:54, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn as no consensus for the same overall reason that I wrote on another one of these a moment ago, i.e. because there seems to be a larger active debate on the popular culture/cultural reference articles at hand here and I think that issue is more of what is being debated rather than the individual merits of these articles. Also, am influenced by the following essay: User:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 15:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)