Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 January 20

20 January 2011

Category:Jewish inventors

Category:Jewish inventors (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This category has been problematic for years, starting in 2007 when it was speedied for being empty (because a List of Jewish inventors took its place). The list has since been deleted as "non-encyclopedic" by almost unanimous consensus. This would suggest that an identical category would be even easier to delete because of the numerous policies advising against such a creation (WP:OCAT, WP:CATGRS, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, etc..). However, a lack of interest and a lot of a WP:POINT participation made these CfD way less thorough than the equivalent AfD.

I'm putting this up for deletion review because I believe the closing admin set up an unattainable threshold for "deletion." In terms of quantity, we have 6 !delete votes and 5 !keep votes (a tiny majority), however the !delete votes all refer to some sort of policy or guideline used to determine whether a category is encyclopedic-enough for Wikipedia. Since CfD is WP:NOTAVOTE, this should have been taken more seriously. Not a single one of the !keep votes presented policy-driven arguments, and - to be frank - their comments appeared rather disingenuous and sometimes irrelevant to the discussion all together.

I will explain:

The Keeps

-Keep - User:Occuli - Who only stated: "AFAIK there has never been any consensus to delete (or indeed to keep) these Jewish-occupation categories (with which Bulldog123 seems obsessed) as there is generally much sound and fury on both sides."

Other than that, there was no reason given for why this is A) an encyclopedic categorical intersection B) Not WP:OCAT C) Not WP:NOT#DIR of random X and Y pairings. In addition, Occuli actually never seems to give a reason for !keeping other than to say "it was nominated before and it wasn't deleted yet." Here he says "Keep per my previous keep." Unfortunately, his previous !keep rationale was only "If in doubt, don't delete" sounds OK to me." (in reference to the category being deleted and then brought back by an SPA account). Again, no content for why it is an encyclopedic category.

-Keep - User:Alansohn - Who stated: "an appropriate intersection that has been the subject of multiple reliable and verifiable sources using the intersection as a means of categorization."

When asked where these multiple reliable and verifiable sources, no response was given. In fact, charting this user's CfD/AfD history, it appears the above comment is one he regularly copies and pastes to other Jewish-related CfD/AfD discussions, paying no attention to specific rationales as not feeling the need to clarify.

-Keep - User:Peterkingiron - Who stated: "This is an ethnic category, quite as much as a religious one."

Though it needn't be mentioned, this totally misses the point. There was never talk of deleting this category only because of its religious status. In fact, the nomination rationale directly says that the category is unencyclopedic precisely because it is an irrelevant intersection of an ethnic group and an occupation.

-Keep - User:brewcrewer - Who stated: "Nominators rationale for deletion: "people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career." Nominator apparently assumes that Judaism as a religion or being of Jewish ethnicity had no bearing on any of those categorized. That's an assumption that is quite dubious."

Initially, brewcrewer gave no reason for why "that assumption is dubious." When questioned further, he - what could be interpreted as WP:REFBOMBed via a google books search for "Jewish inventors", citing whatever came up as "evidence of a notable intersection." When explained how this was not the case, he no longer responded to comments.

-Keep - User:Epeefleche - Who stated: "...per Peterkingiron"

As explained above, Peterkingiron's reasons weren't relevant or pertinent, and it would appear Epeefleche did not read the rationale either. Note, Epeefleche is notorious for !voting keep on anything with the word "Jewish" in it) likely didn't either... very sparingly giving a reason other than "per someone-else".

On the other hand, we have two direct sentences in WP:OCAT that call this category into question. One is: If a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) cannot be written for such a category, then the category should not be created... the other being Likewise, people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career.. No evidence exists to suggest this cat adheres to/passes either of those qualifications. In fact, there is no - and has not been since 2007 - a criteria for inclusion in this category. Is it only for ethnic Jews? What about religious Jews? What about converts? What qualifies as an inventor? Is a discoverer an inventor? Is a mathematician an inventor? What makes that invention or discovery related to Judaism or Jewishness? User:brewcrewer said it was "dubious" to assume an individual's proclivity for invention is separate from his ethnicity. If so, where is the proof that all these people in this category have been influenced by their Judaism to ... invent? There is none.

All in all, it's pretty obvious that there was no shared consensus among these keeps voters for why the category should be keep. The !keep votes appear like disparate WP:IDONTLIKEIT chime-ins, fueled by the dislike of the recent outpouring of Jewish-themed CfD/AfD nominations. (Occuli even made a comment to that extent here).

tl;dr - With a [slight] delete majority and incomparably stronger !delete arguments, this should have been closed Delete. One cannot expect to have utter unanimity when semi-controversial religious/ethno categories are nominated... it simply will not happen. Also, I think letting this category close as "no consensus" is a bad precedent to set: keep-bomb a CfD with confused, contradictory reasonings and you can achieve a "no consensus" close by default. It's a way to game the system by having something you like kept without explaining its encyclopedic value.

Last Note - Nothing against User:Mike Selinker who closed the debate. I contacted him here and asked him to reconsider, but he suggested DRV. I think Mike just isn't aware of the long history of CfD/AfD debates concerning this topic and that closing yet another one of these as no consensus (when the delete consensus is pretty apparent) just puts us back to square one unnecessarily. Bulldog123 10:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)