- Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)
By my count 16 of 37 (43% of respondents) were in favor of keeping the article with the rest split (10.5 each) among merge and delete. I find reading a consensus to merge a bit questionable. Furthermore, by my observation, the content was never merged into the page. These Foo on Twitter articles have been quite controversial. At the original DRV, I have pointed out that even User:Jimbo Wales is in favor of WP supporting social media content according to his State of the Wiki address. My question in this case is whether consensus really existed to do anything to the article. The closer (Fram (talk · contribs)), who was also the closer at Justin Bieber on Twitter, clearly favors the merge arguments, but I do not believe that they reached a consensus. It seems to me that the interpretation that the less than 30% who voiced an opinion to merge voiced more policy grounded arguments is weak. I think content should be WP:PRESERVEd until there is true consensus to do otherwise. I think we can be fairly certain that if this was closed as no consensus, further debate would be opened in subsequent AFDs until a stronger consensus emerged. I find it premature to side with anything other than no consensus when over 40% say keep, less than 30% say delete and less than 30% say merge. Even combining delete and merge into one voice still leaves us with a 43/57 voice that is not really a consensus IMO. Arguments can be made that AFD is not a vote, but I just don't see the lack of cogency required for that to be relevant. TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn to NC I think the !vote was, at TonyTheTiger says, fairly close. But moreso, the closer closed the discussion indicating that WP:NOT applied here. I believe if anything the discussion leaned the other way. Disclaimer: I was planning on filing a DRV here too... Hobit (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Weak endorse (the mandated merge), but maybe "no consensus" between "keep" and "merge". I disagree with the closer's implication that the discussion found that WP:NOT was crossed. Some alleged so, but others disputed, and the allegations were not substantial. I might recommend a relist with the only options being "keep" and "smerge and redirect". I predict that this hypothetical, if tested, would support the second. I.e. I see a rough consensus to mandate the merge. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment by AfD closer. Votecounts and "Jimbo said" are hardly compelling arguments. As I have stated elsewhere, we shouldn't on the one hand discourage "me too" votes and on the other hand have a votecount at the end of the discussion (in general, not just for this discussion alone). Furthermore, people should take into account all opinions, from the first and the second AfD combined, not just the second AfD on its own. There is no reason to only give the second AfD any weight, and not the first one. We should also take into consideration Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 98#Appropriateness of "X on Twitter" (or similar) articles, the closest we have to an actual articulated policy or guideline. As for "the content was never merged into the page."; the content is still available in the history of the original page, anyone who wants to "preserve" it can do so. Fram (talk) 07:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- TonyTheTiger, are you under the impression that it's up to the closer to perform the merge? It's not. That's content-related work, and for those admins who still do any content work, they're doing so without their admin hat on. With their admin hat on, their jurisdiction is conduct and consensus, not content. The closer says "the consensus was merge" and then waits for the debate participants to do it. (This means that many "merge" closes don't actually happen. I've noticed that we Wikipedians, as a group, are often much better at saying what other people should do than at doing things.)
I'll recuse from adding a word in bold because I participated in the debate. What I said during the debate was that a merge was the objectively correct close but I couldn't see a local consensus in that particular discussion for doing it. That is still my position.—S Marshall T/C 07:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I fail to understand why if you have come to the conclusion that there was not consensus, you would not state that in bold. BTW, I do not feel the closer should merge.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:50, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Because as someone who participated in the debate and has already expressed a view, I'm not to be coming to this debate without preconceptions. I don't know whether the regular DRV closers give people who participated in the AfD less weight, but in many cases I think they probably should, because a lack of objectivity clouds judgment. Recognising this, it's my usual practice not to add a word in bold when analysing a debate in which I participated.—S Marshall T/C 17:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that the close was reasonable, and I'm not impressed with the reasons given to overturn. Jimbo's opinions on the subject don't carry any more weight than those of any other editor, and even if they did it wouldn't make any difference (I'm sure almost all editors believe Wikipedia should have some coverage of social media, and I'm sure Jimbo wasn't trying to say that all articles on social media should be kept). As pointed out by S Marshall above an admin who closes a deletion discussion as Merge is not obliged to merge the content, and whoever does this would also have to decide what content should be merged (an issue that wasn't mentioned during the debate). There's nothing to stop anyone merging the content right now. WP:PRESERVE doesn't have any application: as noted by the "Problems that may justify removal" subsection, if the Delete commenters are right that the page fails WP:NOT then that policy agrees that the content can be removed. It may be best to think of the Merge closure as a compromise between the extremes of Keep and Delete. Merge is technically a variant of Keep, and many of the Delete commenters thought some sort of merge would be acceptable. Hut 8.5 10:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree with Smokey Joe, that keep or merge are the only two policy based rationales, here, as I indicated in the second AfD. And as I also noted, the sources, including two textbooks lead to keep over the unsubstantiated NOT claims (both in text and spirit). The first AfD was found to be procedurally defective, and not to have been grounded in policy. As for the Village Pump discussion, which is not a policy or guideline, that was also addressed by discussants in the second AfD, and found wanting, as a basis for consensus in this case. Finally, I take exception to the closer on their talk page indicating they completely discounted my argument, either because they misunderstood it, or because they have a particular bias in regard to the topic. Like S. Marshall, my position has not changed; it is also contrary to the close. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn There was no consensus for any particular outcome. The closer's comments above indicate that they based their decision upon another discussion at village pump not the actual AFD discussion. That village pump discussion is not policy and was not mentioned by anyone in the AFD discussion. The close was therefore a supervote, being based just upon the closer's view of the matter, not the discussion. Warden (talk) 13:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Incorrect: "That village pump discussion is not policy and was not mentioned by anyone in the AFD discussion." Please reread the "merge" comment made by S Marshall on 07:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC). It was also referenced by Dmitrij D. Czarkoff and by Arathald. Fram (talk) 13:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I see. The comments of Marshall and Arathald, which were informed by the outcome of the RfC, both indicated a consensus to Keep in this case. Czarkoff dissented and presumably still wanted a merger but there was no consensus for this. Warden (talk) 14:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You apparently don't "see". Marshall clearly changed from "keep" to "merge" based on the RfC... Fram (talk) 14:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Marshall said, "I can't pretend there's a consensus in this discussion to do that. [merge]" and confirms this above. When well-informed participants are plainly saying that there is not a consensus, you should please listen rather than imposing your view. Warden (talk) 14:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Could I be the one to interpret what I said, please?
I did change from "keep" to "merge" based on the RfC, and I said that "merge" was the objectively correct close. I also said that I can't see a consensus in favour of the merge in the debate. Fram's close takes account of more than just that one debate; I'm not sure whether I agree with that approach or not, so I've kept quiet.—S Marshall T/C 14:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you. We agree that there was no consensus and this is my position here. For avoidance of doubt, my !vote of Overturn stands. Warden (talk) 15:08, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- We agree that there was no consensus in that particular debate. In my view the substantive question here is whether Fram had to close (a) just the particular debate before him, or (b) a gestalt of all the various debates on that subject that had taken place. If (a), then an overturn would be the correct outcome here. If (b), then I think we would have to endorse, because taking the various debates as a whole, there is indeed a consensus to merge. I'm undecided because I can see good arguments that support both positions.—S Marshall T/C 15:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The gestalt approach would be poor procedurally because it would allow admins to pick and choose admissable discussions and so exacerbate the problem of supervoting. But, in any case, the RfC on village pump did not indicate a single, uniform outcome for such cases. The closer of that discussion found that "For the vast majority of celebrities, their use of social media is best covered within their main biography. There may be very rare exceptions when a person is extremely notable and/or their use of social media is extremely notable...". Ashton Kurcher is clearly one of these exceptional cases because of his prominence on Twitter specifically, with sources calling him the King of Twitter, for example, and this point was made during the discussion. Fram's interpretation seems more severe than the finding of that RfC and so was doubly improper as it followed neither discussion. Warden (talk) 16:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, that's one of my main concerns with the gestalt view. Another is that if an older debate is taken into account, it violates the principle that consensus can change. But equally, if I've expressed a view in one debate that was then procedurally closed, or restarted due to sockpuppetry or something, should I have to copy/paste it into the new debate before it "counts"? That represents an opportunity for bad faith users to game the system the other way, by preventing sysops from considering things they really should consider. All in all it's probably best if we don't have a firm rule on this.—S Marshall T/C 17:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- There are two ways of dealing with lack of consensus: one of them is the tradition Non consensus close by which we keep a separate article, and the other is the less traditional but equally useful compromise of a true merge of a substantial portion of the content. To characterise one as a matter for AfD to be decided by consensus as evaluated by an admin, and the other as consensus to be found by a discussion on the talk p. to be evaluated by whomever chooses, is really artificial. In some cases for various reasons a merge is not a possibility; in this case it clearly is. Our formal policies are of no real help here--they represent an excessively rigid categorization of the possibilities. Technically, Col. W's view has much to be said for it, but I still would not follow it, if only because it is very likely to lead to further inconclusive discussions. In terms of the best way of handling the actual material at issue, I'd follow S Marshall. I think this is just the sort of situation for which IAR was designed, where the rules do not produce the best and most reasonable result. (In the longer run, we really need to reconsider deletion policy with respect to the problem of individual vs. merged articles--I have long argued for deemphasis of the concept of individual articles as opposed to keeping content; I recognize it leads to fuzzier results, but I think the fuzziness is often closer to the actual situation. ) DGG ( talk ) 16:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse— the administrator did a good job in closing the Afd. There was certainly no consensus to keep the article in that form. And regardless of how many editors voted keep, some of the imput from them could have been easily discounted whilst determining a consensus (not going to say who). A small paragraph on the main article is more than enough. Till 12:12, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure There was clearly no consensus to keep and a merge means that some of the content will still exist, even if not as a stand-alone article. The fact that delete/merge were pretty much evenly split would lead to the conclusion that there was no clear consensus to delete, even if there was agreement that the article as such should not exist. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 10:02, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think I explained my thinking properly. The consensus was clearly in favour of the article not existing. It could have been deleted entirely - merging allows the relevant content to be somewhere on Wikipedia. If I were a deletionist, I could be happy that the consensus to not keep the article had been followed - if I were an inclusionist, I could be happy that the relevant content has been left somewhere on Wikipedia. It could have been closed as no consensus, but that would imply that the keeps and deletes were more evenly argued, whereas in this case the consensus was clearly to get rid of the article. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:45, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure, as the most logical outcome given the multiple discussions involved. (Disclaimer: I participated in said discussions). --Nouniquenames (talk) 07:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure Also, the vote count ratio is irrelevant for weighing up the consensus. An appeal to what Jimbo said is an appeal to give Jimbo a supervote. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure: the arguments in favor of keeping were too weak, and head count doesn't help to hide this fact. Are we going to run through deletion revisions every time TonyTheTiger disagrees with discussions' outcomes? Oh, and again the supervote of Jimbo Wales... — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:42, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure: seems like the most reasonable interpretation of consensus. Can't find any error with the admin's reasoning. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - The "merge" and "delete" voters are essentially arguing the same point and can be lumped together. They are both saying, "There should not be a standalone article on this topic" and the only difference is what happens after the article is removed (i.e. is it merged/redirected or is it deleted). Therefore, if we're going by vote counting, it's more of a 60/40 in favor of merging. Apart from counting heads, if we look at the first AfD (full disclosure: I closed it), the first DRV, the VP RFC, the second AfD, and now the emerging consensus at this DRV... I think the consensus is absolutely clear, and I feel like we're beating a dead horse on the subject. -Scottywong| confess _ 16:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I was going to close this but then I realised I had voted in DRV1 and also that there were two important issues that hadn't been airsed in the DRV. Firstly, merge is functionally the same as keep so it is utterly nugatory to seek to overturn a merge to a keep. The second issue picks up on some the concerns expressed here on how we judge consensus. Not only do we not count votes but the weighting we give to competeing strands of opinion can and should reflect the wider weight of community support for those particular strands On that basis it is not only reasonable but actually proper to allow a meta consensus to inform the outcome of a local discussion even where the strand of the meta-consensus is not widely represented. I therefore endorse this close. Spartaz Humbug! 11:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - It's odd that 'merge is a form of keep' and that 'merge is a form of delete' have both been argued in the endorse comments. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Alanscottwalker - obviously I am not in agreement with the argument that merge is the same as delete or I wouldn't have made my comment. If you search DRV and Talk DRV for merge is keep you will find hundreds of discussions and DRVs where this has been aired. Up until 2009/early 2010 the process would have been to close all DRVs that were merged if the nominator wanted it changed to keep because DRV in those days took the view they were the same. Afterwards, consensus changed to allow discussions to run because we accepted responsibility for confirming a merge outcome was correct in an AFD. Although some do insist that merge is delete, a close reading of the archives will show that this view has never gained consensus. I'm not trying to pull tenure here but I have been a regular at DRV since 1996 and closed hundreds of them when I was an admin so I'm confident I do understand how we work here. If you disagree please feel free to review the archives. Spartaz Humbug! 04:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- "I have been a regular at DRV since 1996"? That has to be some kind of record ;-) Fram (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I wasn't arguing with you, I made an observation on the odd juxtapositions. (But if you want argument, in relevant particulars, "Keep" "Merge" or "Delete" are not a form of each other, they are distinct actions. In AfD, they are essentially recommendations about what to do organizationally with article content, and DRV's purpose is to ensure that in cases where consensus can be read, the consensus action has been taken, instead of what the closer would prefer. Or in cases of no consensus that no action be taken because of that AfD, except to note no consensus.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I do not think that Jimbo was talking about making a separate article for every single b-list celebrity's twitter feed when he spoke of being inclusive toward social media. And even if he was, it would remain a bad idea. The arguments in favor of relisting are either weak or inapplicable. The closure was correct and procedural. Trusilver 22:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - Oh, please. Overturning a decision on a stand-alone about a valueless topic with some valuable info that is not strong enough as stand-alone? No, thank you! And I haven't read the 2nd AFD that I was involved in. Why relying on arguments and policies? To make a point? To inspire a change on policies and guidelines about how to argue? To inspire many essays about how to argue and to not argue? <end rant> Anyway, this nomination proves why the humanity in general is falling apart. --George Ho (talk) 04:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse and block the next person who decides to beat this thoroughly dead horse. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 11:57, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse reasonable close. I was going to close this DRV as consensus seems clear, but decided that my participation in the RfC on this topic area could reasonably be seen as compromising my objectivity. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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