Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

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[[:|WP talk:AFD
or WT:AFD]]

Incomplete nominations

If someone has some spare time, they may fix some of the incomplete AfD nominations listed at User:Paolo Liberatore/IncompleteAfD (I fixed some myself: these listed are the remaining ones.) - Liberatore(T) 00:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is another one which is not listed where it should be: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pixel_image_editor 84.63.26.3 17:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

accidental improper closure

Apparently I closed an AfD improperly. It was a withdrawal by nom, but since I was involved, I wasn't supposed to close it per proper deletion process. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I figured I'd leave a note here in case it required attention. --Kchase02 (T) 03:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An unclosed AfD

I found a nearly month old AfD that was never closed, Ott Jud. I thumbed through the log of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2005 April 15 around the timestamp of 1:40, and never found an entry. Perhaps it is not closed because it was never listed properly. Any admins care to remove the tag, re-list, or close it? DVD+ R/W 04:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't listed, so I've put it now on today's AFD list. Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gregory Lauder-Frost

The excellent and extremely well-sourced article on Gregory Lauder-Frost has been nominated by User:Homeontherange. He has demonstrated over the past 6 months that he is opposed to Lauder-Frost, and all those individuals and groups associated with him, at least two of which he has also proposed for deletion. I have not yet checked but I would not be surprised if it was he who nominated this article for deletion before. His lever on this occasion are the ravings of a new User:Edchilvers, who is also opposed to right-wingers.

The question is, why must right-wingers be any less represented on Wikipedia than left-wingers? They have all played their part. If one pages through the thousands of articles on Wikipedia most of them appear to be little sourced and many have no sources at all. Yet here is an attack upon a quite well sourced article deliberately demanding citations to every tiny little statement, may of which are common knowledge.

My last comment is that every article on Wikipedia must contain an element of original resarch unless it has been lifted wholesale from another book.

This nomination is jaundiced and an entirely unfair nomination by someone who has openly displayed in the past that he is anything but neutral. Sussexman 07:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That said, I have decided that I will concur in the removal of the article altogether. I think it will be best for everyone concerned. Sussexman 20:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Because of what has happened to this article I have nominated it again for deletion. Sussexman 07:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute... so now, after all this, we are deleting an article from wikipedia simply because some editors don't like the topic? If that was wiki policy, then most articles wouldn't even exist. I oppose deletion, and suggest that instead the article be editied a little to make it more palatable for all. Easter rising 13:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Upon closer inspection, and as a Canadian with no predisposition on this issue, I dont find this article to be biased at all. It is VERY well cited for a wikipedia article, and does seem to portray GLF in a fair manner. The only thing I would suggest be changed is perhaps the addition of a criticisms section. The section could even be added by his detractors so long as it is done in NPOV. Easter rising 13:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stuart Millson

I oppose this unfair nomination. Sussexman 20:36, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

stating it here is the wrong place though. You should registar your opposition at the articles deletion page here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stuart Millson Ydam 22:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Keith Smith

I oppose this unfair nomination. Sussexman 20:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As above you'll have to say so here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Michael_Keith_Smith Ydam 22:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Instructions incorrect for 2nd nomination

Text reads;(If you used template subst:afdx instead of subst:afd1 , use "PageName (2nd nomination)" instead of "PageName" for a second nomination, etc.).

Should read ... use "PageName (second nomination)" ... otherwise the page points off to nowhere? Alex 19:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused by your question. Are you saying that we should spell out the "second" in the discussion pagename? That makes no difference. The whole purpose is to point to a redlink so you can create a new page. (If you see that it's not pointing to a redlink, you need to iterate to the next number - "PageName (3rd nomination)". Rossami (talk) 03:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also have a question relating to second, third, etc. nominations of an article. If an article's name has changed between the first and second nomination (e.g. X survived an AfD and was later renamed to Y), should the second nomination be Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Y (i.e. first AfD of this article under this title) or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Y (second nomination) (i.e. second AfD of this article)? Шизомби 19:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no conflict, just use the new name. The only reason to add the "2nd nomination" to the header is so that we can preserve the full history of both discussions. Note: You should always provide a link to the prior deletion discussion(s) in your new nomination. Rossami (talk) 03:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for examples

Hi. Someone in a conversation has asked me for examples of cases where vote-stacking has occurred and managed to disrupt the proper functioning of AfD. I know I've seen it happen repeatedly, but there might be some AfD regulars watching this page who could point out better examples than I, just rummaging around in my own fairly limited AfD contributions. Most generally, what I'm asking for is evidence addressing the question: Is "vote stacking" (i.e. rallying groups of people to "vote" at an article's AfD) a bad thing? If you think it's a good thing, and have evidence of that, I'd be interested to see it, too. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Listings

Is there a listing of historical AFDs? I need to reference a couple of successful AFDs and can't find them (can't remember the exact page titles). - SoM 15:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Archived delete debates for AFDs. MFDs, redirects, categories and image deletion discussions are all archived slightly differently. See Wikipedia:Deletion process for the overview and links. Rossami (talk) 17:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Renate Thyssen-Henne

A question for the admins (I'm a new admin). How do we coordinate our actions in closing AfDs? The listed article is one of several that are on the June 5th log but not closed yet. Who's going to close this one?

Please don't refer me to the policies. I've read the policies. The policies do not explain the mechanics of coordinating this. - Richardcavell 06:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The page you need is Wikipedia:Deletion process. To answer your immediate question of who will close that particular discussion, the first volunteer who feels sufficiently experienced and impartial enough to do a good job. Discussions continue for a minimum of 5 days but can sit far longer. We've had backlogs of several weeks and more at times. The current backlog of 3 days is not bad at all. Rossami (talk) 13:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting associated Talk pages

Two articles that were recently deleted (as I recall, I requested it), Decronym and Incronym still have their talk pages there, Talk:Decronym and Talk:Incronym. While these could be good to keep because they consist of the same comment questioning whether these are actually real terms (they are not, which is why they were deleted), at the same time they keep up a two pages that should never have existed and it would be cleaner if they were both deleted... (Note this may have been a prod rather than an AfD) —Centrx→talk 01:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They can both be speedily deleted per WP:CSD G8, in fact I've just done it now Ydam 13:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Mayall

Cannot understand why the link has sent me here. I am opposing the deletion of Dr Mark Mayall's article page. He was Chairman of the Conservative Monday Club when it was the leading non-party UK Conservative Pressure Group. He is also a leading paediatrician and child psychiatrist in England as can easily be gleaned from the Medical Register.81.131.24.254 18:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Absolutely. 81.129.155.181 22:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"double jeopardies" and AfDs

This seems like a dumb question, but does anyone know the proper procedure for articles that have gone through multiple AfDs with conflicting results? In other words, suppose that an arbitrary article has gone through three AfDs. If the first two AfDs result in "keep" but the third one results in "delete", do we keep or delete the article? --Ixfd64 21:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that all people who voted in previous AfDs are contacted to see if they would change their votes. Secondly I would, if an admin, consider extending the voting time (as we currently do with contentious AfDs). It would also, from an admin's POV, be worth considering whether the article had changed significantly, or whether external events had changed to cuase a change in voting (e.g. notability is temporal with certain people?), and also to look at the reasoning for voting in the third AfD. I don't think we can simply have a hard and fast rule, but that extra care should be taken when closing such AfDs. --Wisd e n17 21:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that makes sense. Because some articles (like Gay Nigger Association of America) often go through many AfDs, things like this are bound to happen. --Ixfd64 22:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as the previous deletion discussions are properly disclosed during the new discussion, it is incumbent on the discussion participants to review those discussions and to weigh the facts and arguments made then during the new discussion. If, after doing so and after weighing the new facts and arguments, the community consensus is to delete, the article should be deleted. If there is evidence that the discussion participants failed to review the prior discussion(s), that would be reasonable grounds for a Deletion review request.
On the other hand, if there is a bad-faith nomination that simply ignores the previous discussions, those are generally shouted down pretty quickly. Rossami (talk) 23:21, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It also depends on the nominations in the prior AFDs. If it was nominated as a copy-vio of site X, but kept because X is a wikipedia fork/mirror and no other issues were discussed, then that discussion is irrelevant to a nomination on any other basis, including being a copy-vio of site Y which is not a wikipedia fork/mirror.

It also depends on how much the article has changed, how much time, and why the prior AFDs resulted in keep. If the priors were "no consensus = keep", then any current consensus outweighs them. If a prior was "keep" but also had a bunch of and "clean-up/cite sources" comments, and it hasn't happened after enough time (at least a month) has passed, then a failure to clean-up/cite sources can be treated as a additional evidence that the article should now be deleted. And if the article is radically different, then the prior AFD discussion may be completely irrelevant. GRBerry 04:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the other replies. However, I think that some editors place too much weight on the article being kept in a previous discussion and state that the article should be kept on that basis alone. While the arguments of the old AfDs should be examined, I think a new AfD should otherwise be a clean slate. Nominations are flawed because nominators don't make a good nomination, new evidence is not found until the nomination is almost over, sockpuppets are involved or someone gets a bunch of people to vote for his or her side. However, unless there is one or more serious problems with a previous nomination (that a reasonable person on either side would accept as true) or if there is new information or something has changed so that there is a good chance a new nomination would lead to a different conclusion, an article should not be renominated for at least a couple of months. -- Kjkolb 05:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I want to nominate an article, it turns out it has been nominated before, when I can nominate it?

If your answer to this question was wait 6 months, or it can be classed as a valid speedy keep then you'd agree with the guidelines.

If you think that an admin closing off your nomination as a speedy keep because it was kept 4 months ago is generally a bad idea, then I suggest you voice your opinion at Wikipedia:Speedy keep, where it says that if an article was kept in the 6 months prior, it's untouchable.

Since I've been at Wikipedia (roughly 9 months), the general rule was, give it at least a month. Maybe 6 weeks. But according to guidelines, we can now close nominations as speedy keeps if it was kept 6 months prior. This is absolutely ridiculous, anyone who's familiar with AFD and has nominated many articles knows that 6 months is not the period of time quoted between nominations. I do not want to see Speedy Keep - kept 100 days ago cropping up on AFD discussions, I do not want their Speedy Keeps which have gone against any kind of common sense on Wikipedia being backed up by a guideline. I tried to remove it, but the 4 editors or so who had decided to add this, have "consensus".

Whereas the 4-6 weeks between nominations is backed up by years of AFD behaviour, the 6 month clause is backed by a couple of editors. It should not be there, please take some common sense over to Wikipedia:Speedy keep. - Hahnch e n 00:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Afd problem

I have to say something:

As recently as 3 years ago, I knew nothing about and had no predictions that I was going to learn about Wikipedia. Now, I know what Wikipedia appears to be. It appears to be a project whose object is to make an encyclopedia that everyone can agree is perfectly useful, which appears to be impossible. There are many articles per day that get put on Afd, and a good encyclopedia would have none. I feel that I should soon go the way 12.144.5.2 went at the dawn of 2006, perhaps a few days from now. Anyone know what the most important part of What Wikipedia is not is?? I definitely say Wikipedia is not, and will never be, perfect. People's points of view just cannot converge to make Wikipedia more NPOV. Georgia guy 02:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Err.. what? --W.marsh 03:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedian's points of view cannot converge. Wikipedia can never be balanced perfectly. Wikipedia has taught me in so many different ways a way to show me how often people's points of view differ, and there is no way they can converge. (This is true especially when it comes to lists.) Georgia guy 03:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, maybe I'm up past my bed time but none of this is making any sense. If people will compromise and understand the spirit of policies like WP:NPOV and WP:V, we can balance articles out one at a time, if people devote enough time to it. I'm not even sure if this is what you're talking about, but whatever. --W.marsh 03:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the things about WikiPedia, that other encyclopedia's don't have, is that anyone can edit it. Articles can be created by anyone that has an account, and anyone (in the majority of cases) can create an account. WikiPedia will unlikely to ever be perfect, but there are many people that contribute, either on New Pages patrol, Recent changes patrol, wikifying, cleanup, etc, that might see an article that looks like it has something wrong with it. In some cases these would be speedy deleted, but other cases this is not possible purely because the article doesn't come under one of the critereon that would allow it to be "speedied". In these cases it is usually put on AfD with the reasoning for it being deleted. There is, however, the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team which is working on a release of WikiPedia's best articles. AfD has its uses, and sometimes articles that are listed are actually brought up to a better standard fixing the reasons it was nominated during the process. Neutrality can be achieved in articles where people have differing points of views by collaborative editing, and I have seen this done extensively on articles that are contraversial. By collaboratively balancing both opposing points of views in an article, neutrality can exist. TheJC ^Talk_{Contributions} 03:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with Georgia guy here. However, the inability to reach perfection does not necessarily means that it is a negative phenomenon. No encyclopedia is perfect. But, I wish to state that the constant improvement of articles towards perfection should be a strong motivational factor. There is only one direction Wikipedia is to aim to. That is the constant improvement of ALL articles in this online encyclopedia. That is a very achievable goal to aim for. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 03:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Daily headers

I notice that whoever has been creating the daily log pages for AfD (such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2006 June 25) has not necessarily been inserting the standard headers (with the link to the previous day's AfD log and the centralized discussion template). What is the best way to make sure this is done each day? --Metropolitan90 05:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Missed AfDs

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2006 June 16 still has discussions that aren't closed. I replied this to an admin two days ago, but nothing came out of it. ' ^{(Feeling chatty? ) (Edits!)} 05:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've re-added this to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old, so it should only be a matter of time. In the future, that's the best course of action if there are still a lot of open AfDs and a page has been mistakingly archived. --W.marsh 14:47, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe most of the admins are busy? This could be another reason why Wikiepdia needs more admins. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 02:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that day was closed when Mathbot wasn't functioning (due to the hosting-servers being down for a period of time). But yeah, I'd really like to see more admins willing to close AfDs down to about 20-30 so I can come in and close the more contentious ones. I have the continuous time to do 20-30 AfDs, not 40-70 like I always see these things get stuck at. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admin votes

Is it permitted for admins that vote in a particular AFD to be the hand that deletes that same article? I can't seem to find the guideline for this. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 05:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's mentioned under Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators that admins should not delete articles that they nominate for deletion, although I agree that it's best if the closing admin has had no input into the discussion at all, or indeed any contact with the article, whether the result is keep or delete. — sjorford ++ 08:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While it is best to remain impartial, your choice of words (such as "any contact") in my opinion represents an extreme interpretation and, I believe, an overreaction. The majority of admins who regularly close discussions are very professional and fact-based in their analyses. They have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to put their emotions and biases aside when carrying out the community consensus. The good admins will recuse themselves from a discussion where they expressed strong views are capable of closing most decisions fairly.

The problem is our continuing scarcity of admins who are qualified, experienced and interested in closing deletion discussions. If we insist on an absolute rule that discussions may only be closed by someone with no contact with the discussion, one of two things will tend to happen more. Either informed admins will withhold their facts from the discussion (in order to be able to close the discussion later) or we will increase the odds that the discussion will be closed by someone who is uninterested and/or ignorant of the issues in the deletion debate. Now on the latter point, that doesn't make a difference for many decisions. The facts are all presented in the discussion and the admin has a simple task to determine the consensus. But some decisions do require prior knowledge. I know this because I've watched admins recuse themselves for lack of knowledge (or interest). If all the informed admins are excluded for participation and the uninformed admins decline to close the debate, we may well leave no one qualified or interested in volunteering to close the discussion. That has been the case in some of our very public controversies in which at times it seemed that everyone had an opinion. The userbox debates might be a recent example.

Okay, I know my scenario sounds a little contrived. And Aaron Brenneman had a good counter-argument over on Wikipedia talk:Deletion review (where the same question recently came up). But we are an all-volunteer organization and we should be cautious about throwing too many barriers in the way of volunteering. I personally haven't seen enough evidence of abuse to justify a hard ban. All that said, it's still a good idea to recuse yourself if you can't be impartial and you should never close a discussion which you opened.

By the way, Freshgavin, please remember that we are not voting. Rossami (talk) 21:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, yes, of course AfD isn't a vote, but we keep on calling those little opinions everybody writes votes for lack of a better word. Maybe we should seek a new word? Deco 21:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we should seek a new word, instead of vote. The usage of the term vote is inaccurate to say the least, but what is the most appropriate and accurate term to use? --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 02:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Opine" works well for participating in the discussions. "Conclude" works well for closing comments. GRBerry 03:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I consistently use "to recommend" and "recommendation", as for example in "I don't understand your recommendation. Why do you recommend deleting it instead of merging?". --Lambiam ^Talk 06:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've used comments, but when someone (in my opinion, patronisingly) points out to me that AfD is not a vote, I often call it a "!vote" (pronounced "not-vote"). I also wrote a short paragraph on this phenomenon. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Time Limits

I realize that when creating an AfD that the entry is created as soon as one presses the red link. Is there some sort of time limit to write a full explanation for requesting a peer review of an article? Maybe there is a way to create the file first with the template, giving the editor the opportunity to provide information making it easier for others to review any particular article. Certainly nobody investigates the same, but it does seem awkward not to point out what research was performed to justify a review. It might actually save people a few steps if the nominator provides the effort in the first place; i.e. links to Google and Alexa, and etc. Why the rush? The rush is only a problem because the article is tagged. Suppose a file was made with a link then after it was saved, it could be moved to the correct spot, followed by the article being tagged, and then the listing. Wouldn't that solve both problems (time limits and exposed listings)? Ste4k 19:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the time between adding {{afd}} to a page and typing out the rationale in the subpage that's created? You can always pre-type the rationale in notepad or whatever... I've done that a time or two. You could even create it in your userspace, then move it to the AfD subpage when ready. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your question. --W.marsh 19:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the scenario, I'm not even sure what time-limits we are talking about. When I nominate an article, I usually take 30-45 min to research and write out my nomination. That's never created a problem that I know of. Rossami (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed modification to AfD process.

Please provide feedback on a proposed modification of the AfD process which can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikipedia jurors. Folajimi 03:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]