Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

Upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline?

A suggestion that would, perhaps, help reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures and improve the signal-to-noise ratio at AfD?—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 22:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean it would reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures by switching them to procedural speedy closures? Seems CREEPy to me; individual nominators would be expected to essentially provide proof of their compliance with WP:BEFORE, and guidelines for evaluating such proof would be difficult to define at best. I just don't think this is what guidelines are intended to do- policies and guidelines are intended to be descriptive. I personally strongly believe in providing a detailed description of my research when making a nomination, and would encourage all editors to do so as well. If this becomes a trend (i.e., a large percentage of nominations give proof of WP:BEFORE compliance), then we can talk about guideline status. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, the WP:CREEP thing is a very good point.

The result I want is more compliance with WP:BEFORE from nominators. I think that more compliance would lead to fewer bad nominations and hence fewer speedy closes (whether under WP:SNOW or speedy). But it's a question of how to achieve it.

The eventual destination I propose is a new WP:SK ground: "There is evidence the nominator has not complied with WP:BEFORE" but I don't think we can get there without upgrading WP:BEFORE to guideline or policy status.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're absolutely right, that for a new speedy keep criterion, you'd probably want WP:BEFORE to be a guideline or better. The problem I see is evaluating compliance with the "good-faith attempt" to find sources; not only is there the issue of whether the nominator shows sufficient research, but you also have to define "sufficient research", preferably in an objective manner, to keep evaluating such compliance as quick as possible for reviewing admins. Plus, I believe someone made a point in an earlier discussion on something like this, that requiring such proof constitutes an assumption of bad faith in itself.

Now, what I would consider appropriate is to define serial failure to follow WP:BEFORE (as evidenced by a large number of speedily- or WP:SNOW-kept nominations on the part of an editor) as disruptive editing, and furthermore, loosely permit the "education" of users who don't do a good job of complying with WP:BEFORE. I don't mean browbeating or harassing such users, of course, but I do mean ensuring that such users understand that the Wikipedia community strongly encourages providing evidence of such compliance. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

As I've commented before, the devil is in the details. (For the record, I'm strongly in favor of WP:BEFORE.) How do we define compliance with WP:BEFORE? Make it mandatory to say "I did a search?" Make it mandatory to add a link to a search? (Links to searches, unless there are fewer than a dozen hits, are rarely useful). And how widespread of a problem is this really? If it's only a few editors, deal with the editor. If it's widespread, then we need to really put our thinking caps on to make sure this will really solve the problem.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I think that's too strong. I think the starting point has to be an assumption of good faith that nominators have complied. It follows that all that's left is some kind of negative consequence when there's evidence of non-compliance, e.g. speedy closure of the debate. But baby steps... first thing would be to seek consensus to upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline. Without requiring evidence of compliance from nominators, of course.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time thinking of what would be evidence of non-compliance. Speedy closure alone wouldn't be, because someone can easily f-up their search without meaning to. Could you give me an example?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

If I may... Multiple occurrences of AfD nominations, by the same nominator, where people provide details of decent sources located through a quick Google search on the article title/opening words (there are other search tools of course). Those would serve as evidence, for a reasonable belief the nominator is not practicing due diligence in nominating articles. (By contrast, something like alternative titles for a 'foreign-language' film could reasonably cause a nominator to miss possible sources.) –Whitehorse1 00:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Common sense support. Excellent idea, becasue many articles that are kept or rescued could have been improved through regular editing. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Question: It's already a set of instructions on the Articles for Deletion page, will adding the "guideline" banner to those instructions have a positive benefit? Nominators should already follow the instructive‑guidelines for the process area in which they participate. –Whitehorse1 00:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Support While I support minimizing policy creep I think some improvements can be made to the afd process, upgrading WP:BEFORE is a good initiative. Considering that just about every participant is (hopefully) going to do a search on google and scholar.google I think it would be nice if the nominator would have the courtesy to link to those searches. Not as 'proof' but as a simple timesaving device for those involved. Sometimes ghits are ambiguous and do not constitute notability but that is what the discussion itself is for, no? Unomi (talk) 00:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Solution in search of a problem. If someone nominates an article that has sources, people find the sources, add them to the article, and the article is kept. Google searches in particular are rather useless as a form of pre-vetting as I've seen Keep comments that say "one of those sources must be reliable" and delete comments saying "it isn't on Google". The key is finding specific sources on the article that are reliable. Further, we just expanded AFD to 7 days on the basis of infrequent editors coming along to add sources, so adding a new reason why we can violate the rule we just created seems a bit odd.

Finally, it is too vague. SK 9and the other deletion guidelines) are for unambiguous situations. Would we really speedy close an AFD because a person neglected to put {{advert}} on the article (pt. 3 of BEFORE) or because it was a non-controversial deletion, but the person prefers AFD to PROD to get more input (pt. 11). If the concern is people being too lazy to copy/paste to Google, then we can easily add links to Google Scholar, Google Books, etc from the AFD page so anyone can click on them and document sources or confirm that it appears there are none. MBisanz ^talk 01:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• You want to make a section of a page a guideline? Why? Not sure what's going on here. I do think it would be incredibly awkward to have a guideline stuck in the middle of a page. And I think that we need to encourage fewer multi-day-long discussions for obvious deletion candidates. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose AfD is not a court system, this is going to lead to 'throwing out' or badgering AfDs that don't follow the 'guideline'. No. I've had many articles deleted with a one sentence nomination and a 10 second google (the answer here would be PROD, except we have people who go through the PROD category and force AfDs, making it a tad pointless). You aren't going to get me to follow this for obvious cases, not sure why you expect newcomers to. You don't even present the problem you're attempting to solve; how is a few people voting speedy keep any different from a SNOW close after 4 keeps? BJ^Talk 01:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Nope. Per my reasoning the last few times this has been suggested. Protonk (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Hell no.. Yet another Inclusionist hoop to jump through, providing a guaranteed 'bad faith' excuse to void any nom by asserting more loudly than the nom can refute that the nom didn't do enough due diligence in BEFORE. ThuranX (talk) 02:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. I was going to add some comments, but MBisanz has beaten me to everything I wanted to say—particularly the part about linking to unanalyzed Google search results, which is becoming a bane of many AfD discussions. Deor (talk) 03:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support Why should any deletionist mind saying "I searched and didn't find anything"? If you look at WP:SCISSORS the concept is explicitly referenced there. So if inclusionists and deletionists agree in principle, why can't we find a way to word it appropriately? As long as it doesn't modify PROD or CSD, I'm good with it. Jclemens (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • While I agree, it would be great if a simple statement of "I searched for sources but didn't find any" would be great, I doubt it would satisfy a great many people- despite WP:AGF. If a simple statement is all that's needed, it becomes a shibboleth to people unfamiliar with the process, and there's genuinely no way for reviewers of the AfD to confirm this search. But if the nominator needs to validate that claim... then we have WP:CREEP and need to somehow define what qualifies as an appropriate search. Like Fabrictramp said above- the devil's in the details. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I can't speak to others' desires, only to my own. If someone says they conducted a good faith effort to find sources, they're asserting a fact that can be checked. If I found a nominator who said they searched for sources and found none, and there was either gross incompetence or outright falsehood, that would be at least grounds for closing the AfD as disruptive editing: we need to be able to rely on editors to report such things honestly--perspectives differ, but if the nom says "Google found nothing" and I repeat the search and find tons of major newspaper hits, then that AfD has been opened using a grossly innacurate premise. Jclemens (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I think it's a useless endeavour, because compliance with it is nearly impossible to demonstrate. I'm tempted to support it just for the sheer joy of watching the waves of hypocrisy: those same editors that spend all their time arguing that WP:N doesn't have to be followed because it's "only a guideline" will spend their next breath screaming that WP:BEFORE has to be followed because it's a guideline!.—Kww(talk) 04:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Yes, BEFORE should be a good faith part of the process, and to just nominate an article without even bothering to check can be bitey, but unless we change WP:V's line that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material", this would be in direct conflict with established policy. If a editor is nominating tons of AFDs that do seem to easily pass a quick google test, that's cause for an RFC/U. --MASEM (t) 04:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Previous discussions (reverse chronological order): WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 51#Speedy close nominations, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#WP:BEFORE, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Searching before nominating Flatscan (talk) 05:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose For the many good reasons presented. Verbal chat 10:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• support I've seen AfDs with overwhelming "delete" majorities yet where evidence of notability was easy to find - no-one had bothered to look, and in one case I suspect no-one had any intention of looking, because that AfD looked to me like harassment as part of a personal feud. WP:V's "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" is not the only relevant policy, as WP:DELETE says improvement is always preferable to deletion. Reversing a dubious "keep" result is easy enough, just re-AfD in 6 months (BTW earlier to-day I !voted "merge & redirect" in a re-run of a Dec 2008 AfD), while reversing a dubious delete looks much more difficult - do AfDs closed as other than "keep" have to show a prominent link at the top to WP:DRV? RFC/U (MASEM 04:19, 12 May 2009) is not an adequate remedy for accidental or malicious misuse of AfD, as it's too slow and toothless. Making it hard to prevent improper deletion will add to the hassle in the short term, but will then take the bitterness out of AfD when it becomes clear that the process is fair. --Philcha (talk)
• Neutral comment: I don't think it's a bad idea, because everyone definitely should check to see if an article can be fixed before they nominate it for deletion. But the real problem isn't the strength of the wording of WP:BEFORE, but how we tell if someone isn't doing it. Really, we should be dealing with this by judging someone's results. If people frequently start AFDs that end in "keep", that might be a sign they don't really care about article quality, and just want to stamp stuff out. Randomran (talk) 16:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Hell no - I've had many, many cases of where editors accused me of not following WP:BEFORE when all it was was that they dug up some nonsense blogs and trivial offhanded mentions in local papers and republished press releases and insisted that the topic was obviously notable and blah blah blah. Saying that it's a requirement would just be another verbal club for the rabid anti-deletionists to try to excuse keeping every last bit of nonsense they can come up with a half-hearted wildly inappropriate rationalization for. From the AFDs I've seen there are for too many keeps that have no reason to be kept, and no consensus defaults to keep in practice, so adding yet more reasons to keep bad content is the last thing we need. Wikipedia articles need to demonstrate notability on their own. If someone can claim that people should try to get sources before nominating something for deletion, we can just as easily say people should have made sure reliable, nontrivial third party sources giving some info that would demonstrate why anyone would care should be found before the article was made in the first place. That's where it should be. On top of that, it's difficult to prove a negative... notability is always going to have to be proven, not that something isn't notable. That's just the only way things can work, short of banning any editor who participates in an AFD making claims that sources meet notability standards when they clearly don't from ever participating in AFDs again. Keep voters should have to prove it, period, and if they can't then it deserves to get deleted. DreamGuy (talk) 16:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Clarification Needed Are you saying you followed BEFORE but didn't mention it, didn't bother following BEFORE and it wasn't relevant or necessary to do so in those cases, or that you did follow BEFORE and said as much but were accused of not doing so based on flimsy, potentially bad faith evidence? Jclemens (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Typically it's some aggressive editor claiming that I "violated" BEFORE and therefore should be ignored because he found some personal blog or press release that he's going to pretend is a reliable source and how horrible it is that someone could dare to nominate something for deletion when there's some personal website or whatever out there mentioning this person in a trivial way. And so forth and so on. WP:BEFORE is already the latest attack club by people who can't come up with any real complaints. DreamGuy (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Break

I closed this, because it was obvious to me that Wikipedians are unwilling to accept that any burden of proof whatsoever should fall on the nominator. After reading the remarks above I'm extremely cynical about the prospects of requiring nominators to do any real searching for sourcing.

My position remains that a lot of articles are only at AfD because sourcing material is hard and remarks above show that certain editors think they should be able to get other people to search for sources instead. But I do not believe a discussion here can change this, because too many editors are very comfortable with AfD as it is.

However, representations on my talk page are asking me to re-open it, so as a politeness, I'm doing so.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 07:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but this isn't the first time this has been suggested or debated and there are more issues at stake than the binary determination of whether or not we wish the burden of proof to fall on a nominator. Elevating before to a guideline or enacting some parallel policy which has the same effect impacts not only the intended targets, editors who make sloppy AfD noms, but also impacts any other AfD nominator in a fashion that we haven't sketched out here completely. It also affects editors who undertake a sub-par search for a topic (because they don't know anything about it). It affects editors who don't nominate articles for lack of sources (beyond the narrow exceptions noted above). It provides yet another site of conflict where editors can argue with each other at AfD about their behavior, not the article. It provides potentially another "tripwire" early close scenario which ends up at DRV or re-nominated. That said, the idea isn't bad. People who consistently back uninformed or underinformed AfD nominations should face some pushback. I'm happy to engage with people over a possible solution to that problem but I don't want to pick a solution that burdens everyone else unless we are completely sure it is the best option. Protonk (talk) 07:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, it makes more work for nominators. It unequivocally shifts the burden of work and proof; it requires a higher standard of behaviour from nominators. That's the point.

    I do nominate articles at AfD from time to time, and I'm willing to accept some additional hoops to jump through. I see this as acceptable collateral damage from a needed change.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 07:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

    • I agree that shifting the burden of proof (as it were) is among the things that it does. What I'm trying to say is that the other things it does are also worth discussing, so distilling this idea to just a discussion of where wikipedians feel a burden should lie is not accurate. Protonk (talk) 08:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This supports my view so perfectly that I should probably declare here that I did not in any way engineer it.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 21:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• support the principle, and work out the details. Even now if there is an incomplete or botched nomination, someone straightens it out. Protonk, this unfairly burdens nobody. Everyone should be doing it in the first place. It's not punishing them--its asking them to either help the article get rescued or else facilitate the deletion. My prediction is that a good many of the times a proper search being done, and finding nothing relevant, will make for an easier agreement to delete, without people having to vote to keep or delete blindly or themselves search every item nominated. We're balancing the work one person does for one article with helping everyone else for them all. It will prevent things from getting to DRV, because we'll have better discussions at afd. I delete maybe 10 or 20 articles a day, and I check each one of them if there is any chance there might be information or a check would be relevant. Someone nominating a few articles a week can check them. Its a reasonable requirement. DGG (talk) 04:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Unfair burdens is one of the arguments against this. It isn't the only one so I'm disinclined to continue debating only the burden itself. Protonk (talk) 04:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Unfair burdens is one of the arguments for this. (Fixed it for me)...—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 14:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment WP:BEFORE is already policy in that it forms a clear part of the deletion process. To make this clear, I suggest that we take some editors who make a habit of flouting it to Arbcom and get appropriate sanctions levied. This is already in my mind as its becoming a farce to have articles nominated when a search immediately reveals thousands of sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think from the discussion above, it's clear that it isn't even remotely accepted as policy.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there are editors who do not follow it, just as there are numerous editors who are routinely uncivil and do not accept they they should be more polite. This does not mean that it is ok to deliberately ignore it and it is time to start enforcement per WP:DISRUPT. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:KETTLE for the claims that people should be more polite (as you're one of the most uncivil AFD voters I've seen). And "enforcement per WP:DISRUPT" is just a joke. You already make more than enough highly aggressive and false accusations as it is without publicly stating your intention here to escalate such uncivil behavior. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a personal battleground. You need respect editors in AFDs more, not less, and what you are suggesting is just wikihounding every time you disagree with someone. DreamGuy (talk) 21:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - we have a volunteer. I shall explain the process in detail this weekend. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Based upon your recent post to my talk page all you've done is demonstrate exactly why you are a poor judge of what WP:BEFORE means and what counts as actual sources demonstrating notability and that you're willing to post comments on talk pages insisting people follow rules you've invented up in your head. If you keep this up all you're going to end up doing is get yourself blocked for harassment. DreamGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

So it is ok to treat people who violate BEFORE as disruptive but not people who violate N or NOT? Protonk (talk) 21:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Many of the people complaining about WP:BEFORE "violations" have already demonstrated that they don't understand what it means anyway. DreamGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose I have not seen where this would help the encyclopedia, and I have seenw ehre it can harm it. This is Rulescreep For Wikilawyers, and I for one am not interested in Yet Another Stick to Beat People I Disagree With being made a guideline, thanks. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose First, I haven't seen where AfD is occurng flippantly. I think the Good Faith guideline outweighs the need for a WP:Before. If someone is actually doing an AfD nominaiton because of an agenda, or has an axe to grind there are avenues at Wikipedia, where concsesus decides. No article is lost and can be resurrected if the AfD is shown to be in bad faith. Second, I think that it is good to question the notability of an article if it is in doubt, and AfD is a way to do that. AfD itself, as we all know, is a process of consensus. It takes a number of days and consensus is developed, one way or the other. AfD is not swooping in and deleting the article in a day or an hour. Even a Wikipedia Speedy deletion can be held up until consesus is taken. It seems to me there are many avenues open already and an effective process is in place. I think that the burden of proof should fall on those opposing the nomination (and I don't like saying that). And I have to agree with those who said that this is just one more way for the nominator to have to take heat. Anyway, this is from my limited experience here. Ti-30X (talk) 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• For a recent example, see the case of User:Tyrenon who was banned from AFD for spamming AFD with numerous frivolous nominations. This case demonstrates that the guideline is already operative - if an editor tries the community's patience then they are likely to be sanctioned. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose this promotion would effectively render a core content policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence, meaningless and unenforcable. As explained above, this proposal is also an open invitation for violating Wikipedia:Assume good faith. --Allen3 ^talk 14:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• WP:BURDEN is consistent with WP:BEFORE as it states, "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors might object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references, and it has always been good practice, and expected behavior of Wikipedia editors (in line with our editing policy), to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them.". Failure to follow WP:BEFORE in this respect is therefore a failure to follow policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The proposed guideline is exceedingly vague indeed -- including having to make a specific judgement on whether the topic might "potentially" rate an article. Alas -- WP:CRYSTAL applies -- the requirement I think is relevant is notification of the primary author if still active on WP. Which is not in this proposal <g>. Collect (talk) 15:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary, as Rulescreep and per User:Allen3 above. Dougweller (talk) 16:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:BEFORE is a good idea, and in an ideal world would be followed by all participants in an AfD - not just the nominator. In this ideal world nobody would comment or !vote without thoroughly checking the sources. However, this is a project staffed by volunteers who learn by doing things, necessarily making errors along the way, and it doesn't need any more sticks to beat inexperienced, inept or mistaken editors.  pablo_hablo. 19:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose just a stick to hit nominators over the head with. It would just generate pages of discussion about the research of the nominators, no thanks. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. As I've said elsewhere, I believe that we are gradually getting away from the idea that the author has any responsibility at all to even try to source an article, which I believe is the opposite thing we should be doing. Further, my experience has been many times that it's not the lack of a search that becomes the issue, it is a debate over whether or not what is found establishes notability. Whether you find the articles or I find them, if we disgree about whether they establish notability or not, we're going to debate. And yes, as was stated above, I believe this to be little more than an inclusionist hoop, that hopes to slow the process down more. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article creator and editors should properly source an article. However, I do believe that the closing admin should evaluate whether anyone has tried to find sources during the AfD debate. I believe that most do take this into account when summarizing the discussion. If no improvemnets are made after a keep decision, the artcile can be renominated and teh afct that no proper sourcing has been done would then become a significant factor in the deabte. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:42, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

• Absolutely support. The many opposes here seem to be detached from from the real world of AfD, where nominators routinely do not even care to indicate whether they have searched for sources or not. They just drop a "NN-neologism" or "NN-something". Asking AfD nominators to carry out a basic search for sources, before they claim that no such sources exist has nothing to do with a BURDEN, it's a simple courtesy, before they pass the monkey to other uninvolved editors. It will also reduce the strain on the already over-burdened AfD circuit. Expert content providers on Wikipedia are rare birds, and we cannot expect them to produce first class and properly sourced articles in the first go. They dont monitor Wikipedia religiously, and are unlikely even to respond within the 7-day AfD window. I'm particularly disappointed by MBisanz' comment "If someone nominates an article that has sources, people find the sources, add them to the article, and the article is kept". Afd is not for article improvement, and why should "people" and not the nominator do some of this work. It's conflicting with WP:PRESERVE, which is also policy. It appears that the opposers have seen many bad articles, I have seen a lot of terrible nominations. Power.corrupts (talk) 01:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• • Your comment shows an incredible disrespect for the other editors commenting here, and a completely ignorant dismissal of their concerns. Where will the benchmark be set for an acceptable pre-nom search? YOUR search $tring and mine may differ. Four combinations? eight? At what point do we accept that some shit on WIkipedia is just bullshit, and not obscure shit? Nothing would get nom'd as that creeps up and up... soon it'll be 'well if google got nothing, did you Bing it? did you go to the library? Did you call the company listed?' Further, it's obnoxious instruction creep. Why should we have to do all the work for those who won't do it themselves? ThuranX (talk) 05:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

"Why should we have to do all the work for those who won't do it themselves?". Why should I have to pick up the pieces behind nominators in order to stop articles on perfectly notable subjects being deleted? Those who nominate an article should make a decent effort to check if the topic is notable; failing to do so is plain lazy, and passing the buck. Deletionists can and should improve articles too, rather than just being the self-appointed filters of Wikipedia. Following WP:BEFORE is no hardship, unless your only goal is indiscriminate deletion. Fences&Windows 02:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

• Mild oppose The editors whose articles are most often seen at AfD are newbies, whom we must not turn away (some of them will be WP's future), and victims of harassment (I've seen it, and saved an article that had a 7-1 majority for "delete"). However as Colonel Warden pointed out above, WP:BEFORE is already part of the procedure for AfD. I suggest we we have some sort of template that's applied (automatically if possible) to all AfDs, reminding nominators, other "delete / merge / redirect" voters and the closer that a good faith attempt to find sources that show notability is required, and that violation will have consequences. --Philcha (talk) 07:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Inclined to support. What is the status of WP:BEFORE right now if it is not a guideline? I wonder if it would be possible to add some additional functionality to Wikipedia that might assist BEFORE. It states "consider sharing your reservations with the article creator or notifying an associated wikiproject, mentioning your concerns on the article's discussion page." Could a way be created to have such concerns posted on the talk pages of the article's creator, active editors, wikiproject, and article discussion page with a single edit? Or would that possibly be undesirable for some reason (easy way to vandalize/spam talk pages, I guess). Or should it be assumed that the creator and active editors have the page on their watchlist? Perhaps more should be done with PROD; having a type of WP:BEFORE AfD PROD. I somewhat dislike that an article be sent to AfD if the editor has not followed BEFORE in some minimal way at least; e.g. having previously tagged the article or participated on the discussion page. I will continue to mull this over and post again at a later time, hopefully. Шизомби (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
• I think it's fair to say its status is "encouraged in theory and widely disregarded in practice", because no burden of proof can possibly be allowed to fall on the poor nominator, who might after all be a newbie. Unlike the content creators and article writers, who are of course all fully aware of WP:BURDEN from the moment they register.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 13:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support So many excellent articles are put up for deletion all the time, and the nominators are always saying: Someone else fix this. We need this. Ikip (talk) 22:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Support! I agree we need this! Too many people are too eager to destroy what others have labored so hard to create, without bothering to discuss what they see is a problem before hand, or bothering to spend three seconds Googling for sources themselves. Dream Focus 00:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: even with its current status, I've seen it used by 'Keep' advocates to denigrate the good faith of nominators, often based upon turning up the most trivial of sources. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 07:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Template proposal

Since probably no one visits Template talk:Afd top, I am leaving a note here. Please participate in the discussion at Template talk:Afd top#Proposal. Thanks! (Do not reply below.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Change to closed discussions making life harder

Has anyone other than me looked at some per-day pages with lots of closed discussions on them since the abovementioned change was enacted? Personally, I'm finding this change to have vastly increased the work involved in looking at closed discussions via per-day pages. Take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 July 29 for example. It now requires 79 individual mouse actions to see what the outcomes were from discussions, rather than simply scrolling down the page as would have been the case with the template as it used to stand. Uncle G (talk) 17:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, that seems to be a change for the worse as the contents and body are now too similar. How do we revert this? Colonel Warden (talk) 18:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
• I'm with you guys. this is not a good change, though I understand the intention. Protonk (talk) 18:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
• Suggestion for a temporary client-side workaround: all collapse boxes can be forced open by disabling JavaScript on one's browser. Flatscan (talk) 03:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Not all WWW browsers are capable of disabling Javascript on the fly, saddeningly enough. A better temporary workaround is to revert Template:afd top (and of course Template:afd bottom too) to the status quo ante. Uncle G (talk) 13:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I agree, the change does make the life much harder. There exists a script to hide those AFDs for people who find the page too long to navigate, so there is no point in collapsing them all... Regards SoWhy 13:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Agree - can someone revert this to the status quo? --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I presume you mean the status quo ante?

<makes "gun crew come here" hand motion.> --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I prefer it the "new" way. Could there be some programmatic workaround to give people who want to see everything the option to do so, while collapsing things for those not interested in such? Jclemens (talk) 17:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
  • The irony is that the old way, that still exists as a mechanism, provided exactly that choice. The default is to show closed discussions, but one can choose to hide them via the CSS class. Uncle G (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
• Ugh, the new way is awful. However, as Jclemens suggests, allowing people to choose would be the best option.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
• This is defintely not an improvement and is causing most of todays's AFD's to be swallowed up within one of the collapsed entries. Let's go back to how it was before, please.--Michig (talk) 16:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• @Uncle G and Jclemens: I can add parameters to display the result quite easily, so there is no need to worry about that. It'll just take a bit of work from Mr.Z-man to modify his script. @Michig: That's because someone forgot to add afdb at the bottom. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Why are you building this Rube Goldberg mechanism in the first place? I pointed out at Template talk:Afd top and I point out again, here: We already had a mechanism for people to collapse or hide closed discussions if they want to do that. We've had this mechanism for years. (You are not the first person to want to do this, after all.) What you've done is add a second mechanism on top of that, that doesn't provide even as much functionality as the first, that only serves to make things more difficult, with lots more mouse actions required to view old discussions, and that you're now proposing to make even more complex for closing administrators to use with extra template parameters that they have to learn. Why build this at all? Why not just use the mechanism that was already there? Uncle G (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Uncle G: I think the way it is makes for unnecessary instruction creep. Not only that, but in my over four years at Wikipedia, I have never once learned that you could do that. So the for the old way, 1) collapsing instructions are too hard to find; 2) even if instructions are readily available, many people will not understand them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Instruction creep? What instruction creep? There's no instruction creep, in part because the process has existed for years (so there's no "creep") and in part because no instructions are required (so this isn't even about "instructions" in the first place). Even if there were instruction creep, you are combatting it by adding steps, with extra template parameters that people have to learn, and hundreds of extra actions required in order to view what heretofore was plainly visible without any extra work at all. That's combatting instruction creep? You've built a second, bad, mechanism on top of an existing, cleaner and more functional, mechanism that was already there all along. How is that it a good thing? You know what the original mechanism is, now. Why not just use it? Uncle G (talk) 10:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
        • "No instructions are required"? Then how come I still do not know how to do it? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
          • You tell us. The <div>s around closed discussions are marked with a CSS class. One can alter the formatting of everything tagged with that class using your user style sheet — a general mechanism that applies to everything marked with such classes, from article notices to parts of the user interface, not just to this template. The general mechanism is widely documented, in m:Help:User style for starters, and it doesn't take much imagination to apply it to the "xfd-closed" class with one's style sheet.

            What, exactly, are you finding so difficult about this? You've managed to do it long since for other things, according to User:King of Hearts/monobook.css. Uncle G (talk) 15:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly approve of the recent change, which makes my life hugely easier by collapsing closed discussions without me having to muck around with CSS (whatever that is)—an operation for which I lack the technical skill, inclination or patience. I urge that it remain as currently implemented, please.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 13:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
• I visit AfD once in a blue moon, so I've only encountered this today. I truly hope the collapsing can be removed. It's not because I care about closed debates being visible or invisible - I could not possibly care less about that. However, collapsed sections break the TOC, and I do care about that. Lots of collapsed sections make the TOC effectively unusable; you have to fumble around looking for a heading that will maybe work and maybe be close to what you want. That is very, very bad. Please change this. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
• Please add me to the list of people who think this is a terrible idea and would like it rolled back to the way it was. Hiding T 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
• FWIW, I thought it was an excellent idea. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Rolled back

Okay, I rolled the template back to not collapsing per the above discussion. What do we do about those instances which already subst the collapsed format, ignore them or roll them back? Hiding T 09:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Is there any chance that we would keep the collapsing templates and fix the TOC problems at the same time? I find the collapsed debates really convenient - when searching the debates that are still running, the closed ones just make it harder to find them. An option would also be to have a bot that would move the closed debates to the bottom of the page or similar. --Tone 12:46, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
  • For the third time in this discussion: If you want that closed debates collapsed, then use the mechanism that is already there for that very purpose, and has been there all along. It really isn't as if you are the first persons to have ever wanted this. We already have a mechanism for doing this, and we don't need a second, problematic and less versatile, one on top of it.

    And, like King of Hearts above, the existence of User:Tonei/monobook.css tells us that you already know of this general mechanism, and have been using it since 2006. Just make use of it for this CSS class. Uncle G (talk) 15:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

    • Tonei is another user. But anyway, I get it now, it's a user setting, not a general implementation. --Tone 11:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Too many relistings?

Is it just me, or are too many articles for deletion with minimal input being relisted, some for multiple times, when there's a clear--if sparsely attended--consensus? Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If the deletionists doesn't get their way, they can nominate the same article their friends did, for deletion, as many times as they want. And if that doesn't work, they can delete a large portion of the article, or eliminate it anyway with a merge/redirect if there aren't enough people around to notice and protest. Meanwhile if someone sees something that was deleted, and tries to restore it, it is an uphill battle. Horrible system really. So much easier to destroy than to create. Dream Focus 09:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Whoops. Relisting as in extending the time before an AFD is decided to get more input, not listing the same article for AFD after it has previously survived. There is a problem with too many nominations for people to sort through though. Dream Focus 12:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think the issue that unites the above two remarks is low participation at AfD.

  To Dream Focus, I would say that it's hard enough to delete material from Wikipedia. The policies are there to protect the interests of genuine content creators; the issue is that AfD participation is so low that it's a lottery which policy or guideline is actually implemented.

  Jumping back to the original question, I quite like this trend. I think it's better for a closer to relist than to risk making a mistake by implementing a very small consensus.

  So I think the question we should consider is, how do we motivate experienced editors to comment on AfDs, given that it's so massively unrewarding at the moment?—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect AfD will always be "so massively unrewarding" - it's as popular as being a tax collector, 90% of what goes to AfD is crap that no-one will miss but some of the rest has merits and may be defended vigorously - and the fanboys, etc. outnumber serious editors hugely, so there's plenty more where the crap came from.

How about looking at it from the other end, via the grading system. Create a new lower grade or 2 below unassessed, and show the gradings to all readers including IPs. The fanboys won't like seeing their faves listed as "below acceptable" or whatever, but to do anything it they'll have to face reviewers who know and apply the rules. --Philcha (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that many AfDs nowadays go underattended. I view deletion as a rather extreme action—and I'm sure many other admins do as well—and one can hardly claim one or two comments constitute community consensus. If it's indisputably necessary, I don't see anything wrong with relisting a discussion multiple times; on the other hand, using a relist as a lazy way out of making a judgment call is inappropriate. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 12:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

How, exactly, will AfD involvement ever improve if article after article that has garnered no more than three comments is relisted. Yesterday, I went through and closed as "no consensus" articles that had been relisted both a first and a second time, with ZERO !votes in between the two relistings. I'm of the opinion that a relisting should really be used to extend close but active discussions, not as a "punt" to next week. I've been closing uncontested deletes (even with just 1-2 others agreeing with the nom) as deletes, and most of the other underattended relistings as no consensus, in hopes of unclogging the queue. Jclemens (talk) 15:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• I like the unsigned comment about grades lower than "unassessed".  :) I can see it now: "This article has been assessed as complete bollocks on the project's quality scale."—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 12:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Or some epithet that fanboys regard as the ultimate put-down >-) --Philcha (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

"This article is full of fail"? Fences&Windows 23:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• Wasn't there a suggestion a little while ago concerning AfD's with a continuous lack of discussion be considered PROD candidates? I can't find it, but do you know if it ended up somewhere? ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 15:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd object to that. AfD is where you come if prod fails, not the other way around.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 15:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I can't find it either but I do recall the suggestion, and I do recall that it failed to gain any kind of consensus to implement it. Shereth 15:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
    • See Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 54#Multiple relistings, Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods", and the discussions that they in turn link to. Uncle G (talk) 08:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Name formatting

I am proposing the following page moves for the deletion request pages:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates
• Wikipedia:Files for deletion to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files
• Wikipedia:Deletion review to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review

All future requests be named as follows, as well as move old requests:

• Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/NAME
• Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/NAME
• Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/NAME
• Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/NAME
• Instead of:
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NAME
  • Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/NAME
  • Wikipedia:Files for deletion/NAME
  • Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/DATE#NAME

Log date pages moved:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/DATE to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/Log/DATE

Logs moved:

• Wikipedia:Archived deletion discussions to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Articles/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Archives to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Templates/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Log to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Files/Log/DATE
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log to Wikipedia:Deletion/Requests/Review/Log/DATE

This is a more organized format for the pages, and will be much better than the current names. What do you think? --Mythdon ^{talk • contribs} 05:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Given that you are presenting all of these proposed changes as subsets of the current Deletion policy page, how does your naming scheme (similar to the one not adopted at WT:RFA) take into account those that are not deletion-based but rather discussion-based, namely WP:CFD and WP:RFD? ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 06:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  • They don't. --Mythdon ^{talk • contribs} 06:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
• This proposal is just as bad and not thought through as the similar one made on Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Name formatting. I recommend that you go back and read the several past discussions of moving this page, starting with the ones in 2005 and January 2009, and address some of the basic pre-requisites that need to be addressed by any proposal to move this page. Here's a hint as to why doing so is a very good idea: This recommendation comes to you from the person who owns User:Uncle G's major work 'bot. Uncle G (talk) 08:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
• Per Wikipedia_talk:RFA#Name_formatting, I think this is a solution looking for a problem. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
• Agree with Juliancolton. As I said in the RfA proposal, it's providing no benefit, and it is more trouble than it's worth. It's a solution looking for a problem. The adage "don't fix what isn't broken" comes to mind. Additionally, the recent ArbCom's reorganizing of pages has made it harded to navigate, expecially when you're used to the old system. I can see where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it. (X! · talk)  · @246  ·  04:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
• Busywork. Stifle (talk) 14:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I always vote keep

I do, if I vote at all. What is it that polarizes us so? It's hard to remember, but I think someone nominated something for AfD that I had worked on, and since then, I look for articles to save. AfDs always have the usual suspects, so I guess the delete side saw something kept that shouldn't have been kept early in their careers, and so they always vote delete. There's probably some psychology article that explains this phenomenon. Basically, someone threatens a thing you like (an article/all of WP?) and you start self identifying. Or something. I don't know. Anyone know of the psych article? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• You are looking for an article that has yet to be written. But the rudiments are here. Protonk (talk) 07:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
• More of my comments favour deletion than don't, I suspect, but that's because I only tend to comment when the discussion isn't tending my way or I feel particularly strongly. By and large, the articles I think ought to be kept already have a large number of comments favouring that position by the time I find them. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
• My impression is that it's a matter of personality. I'm something of a packrat and contrarian and so look for reasons to keep things. I don't usually bother to vote delete for the stuff that doesn't belong because there seem to be more than enough others to take care of that. Those others, who prefer voting delete, seem to be grumpy old men. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:41, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Wow......none of that sounds the least bit bitter, snide or lacking in good faith. Niteshift36 (talk) 08:35, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• I admit I see quite a few editors who have tendency to express either all delete opinions or always say Keep. However, if you look at the vast majority of the editors, that visit AFD on a regular bases, you will find most give a balanced opinion and will express a delete opinion as quickly as a Keep, given a reasonable argument. Are mistakes made of course, we all make them. What I find troubling is in the nomination. Quite a few are nominated without looking at before. That I believe is a more pressing problem. ShoesssS ^Talk 08:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• And how is saying "I always vote keep" any different than someone saying "I always vote delete"? I bet if someone said "I always vote delete", some of these same editors would be climbing all over them, telling them how wrong that is and that each nom should be looked at on its own merit. But when the opposite view is expressed, they just cheerlead with remarks about the reproduction of inequality and testosterone levels. What's next? Mother jokes? Do you honestly expect me to believe that were these things being said about "inclusionists" that they'd find it perfectly acceptable discourse? I don't buy that for a second. Niteshift36 (talk) 09:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• I must confess I have a tendency to get involved in what I consider perverse keeps - where people are just voting keep for reasons that have nothing to do with sources "This has been nominated before and therefore must be notable" or where people are simply not reading the source. One article I got involved in was sourced entirely with press releases but people were voting keep because of social-political afflictions. On the other hand, when articles like Watford Gap services are up for AFD, I don't bother with the debate and just get straight to adding sources. Then if need be, I'd connect people who had already voted and ask them to reconsider on the basis of the improved article. AFD is the best way to delete an article, the best keep is to edit the article to add sources. --Cameron Scott (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

What do people think of this article for deletion?

I've been looking at and trying to regulate Christian J Simpson for awhile now. It has primarily one editor, whom I suspect is the subject of the article. The entire article reads like his resume and its only citations are his home page and his Facebook fan page. Should/could this be nominated for deletion on grounds of notability? Thanks --Torsodog^Talk 19:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why not--there are plenty of better articles nominated for AfD. I'd recommend following WP:BEFORE first, as well as cleaning up the article--inline links to wookiepedia? Um, yeah. Jclemens (talk) 19:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I notified the creator of this discussion. Ikip (talk) 23:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Merging during live AfD

WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion advises against merging content from an article at AfD, suggesting that editor wait until the AfD is closed. Since Guide to deletion has low activity, I'm starting a discussion here to see if current consensus affirms this guidance. Moving articles at AfD comes up occasionally (WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 53#Policy on moving a page when it's in AfD? and the next section Moving articles during a live discussion), but I'm not sure if any considerations are shared. Flatscan (talk) 05:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I would say it's OK if no one objects. If there are objections, then wait for the AfD to finish. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd really prefer we didn't, because it can preempt the deletion decision. If I merge content from an article which is likely to be deleted into an article which is likely to not be deleted, it can force the deleting admin to either delete the merged revisions (something not likely to happen because it is both a pain in the ass and akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face) or leave the merged article as a redirect. In the cases where merger is suggested at the deletion discussion (either by the nom or by a few editors) and would obviate the reasons for deletion, I have less of a problem, but I still would prefer the AfD come to a close first. Protonk (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

This leads me to believe that in such cases, nomination for deletion should never have occurred, and is indeed a waste of resources. If content is suitable for merging, I think keeping valuable content superseeds the deletion process, and would make things run smoother. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

That discussion is beyond the scope. I don't want to get into it. In practice almost every fiction afd has a likely merge target (the parent work) and options other than deletion are often entertained. Whether that is right or wrong isn't really the issue. Protonk (talk) 05:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Then leaving that aside, it probably isn't a good idea most of the time, and it probably won't stop me some of the time. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree that it's often not a good idea, unless there's already a nearly universal consensus to do so--a SNOW merge non-admin close, if you will. The complications raised by Protonk are a very good reason why BOLDly doing so otherwise might be an inappropriate use of IAR. Jclemens (talk) 05:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I did one of those merges and it's very circumstantial. Usually those articles are spin-out ones tagged for clean-up and/or merge. The Afd nomination just put this or those articles on the top of a project clean-up/merge list. The Afd nominator could have contacted the concerned project instead of starting an Afd which i agree would save everyone a lot of time. --KrebMarkt 06:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Topic specific wikiprojects should be given the heads up before a nomination, but there are other avenues that seem to be working. I've noticed an increase in new articles added over at WP:Proposed mergers, and I think this theme is starting to catch on. Its a good noticeboard for complicated merges. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 06:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Reaching consensus on a merge is the lesser half of the job, making the merge effective is the bigger half. Here the merge back-log of the anime/manga project: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Cleanup_task_force#Articles_needing_to_be_merged Scary and i'm not even sure it's up to date. So when an Afd bring back articles on the top of the to do list, you rather want it to be fixed asap before other things happen delaying even more the clean-up. More use of WP:Proposed mergers is a really good thing, i just hope the merges are done afterward. --KrebMarkt 07:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, we should be able to merge during AfDs per WP:BOLD, WP:BEFORE, WP:PRESERVE, and WP:IAR. An Afd should NOT prevent us from improving Wikipedia. We are here to build an encyclopedia, i.e. content, not to be mired in technicalities. If we find a solution in the course of a discussion for content's use that does not require an admin to have to use the delete function, we go with that rather than play games waiting for the verdict in some snap shot in time five to seven day discussion. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

  I do agree there in principle; but we do have to be mindful that not everybody necessarily agrees if a consensus forms quickly. In general, I think some latitude should be given to allow speedy closes if most participants in a debate come up with a compromise before the end of the scheduled time, but effort should be taken to respect all views already posted. I'm thinking of a theoretical AfD where five people !vote to delete, then someone else comes along with a reasonable merge proposal, and two of the five "deleters" agree with it. The other three don't immediately respond, a compromise is declared, and the article's merged. There's great potential for some or all of the other delete proponents to come back the next day to discover that a decision they disagree with has been unexpectedly made without their input. Early merges should be encouraged, but only where consensus is sufficiently clear that an early closure would normally be warranted. ~ mazca ^talk 18:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a dodge to me - merge the cruft and claim that the AFD no longer needs to be run and then unmerge it a little while later and hope that nobody notices. The AFD should be concluded first. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• • The nonsense non-word "cruft" is never a valid reason for deleting or merging anything on Wikipedia. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I sense a conversation degeration approaching. Anyways, I would think the situation Cameron suggests suspects bad faith, and very rarely have I seen a well completed merge get reverted. I would suggest that those cases are extremely rare, or non-existent. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 20:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
      • They are relatively rare, but by no means non-existent. Protonk (talk) 20:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Well, I'll take your work for it, unless you feel like providing an example. Even still, I don't think a few renegades trying to outrun concensus should trump good sense. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 21:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
          • Usually we merge the relevant information and leave the Afd nominated article untouched. Whatever the Afd ends quickly or until the 7 days doesn't enter into consideration. There may be some persons gaming the system by doing a merge then undoing it to dodge an Afd. However it could happen with merge during live AfD as much with merge after Afd precess. I can't see why an Afd closing after a full 7 days with a merge result would offer any guaranty that the article won't be merged just for appearance purpose than un-merged back when things die down. --KrebMarkt 21:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
          • You can email me if you would like some more problematic examples. I don't work 'in the trenches' anymore, so requests for obvious examples of reverted redirects and undone mergers should be directed to someone who does. Protonk (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
            • I can't remember which article, but I redirected it during an AfD, and everyone thought it was a fine solution at the time. This kinda seems like a solution in search of a problem. If someone is trying to hide behind the GFDL or CC3.0 or whatever while behaving badly, they'll quickly be disabused of it, I imagine. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses.

• Some history: There was an outright prohibition of merging in the original February 2005 version. Aside from the removal of "considered to be vandalism", the wording stayed mostly unchanged until Rossami's full rewrite in September 2005 (rewrite discussion), which relaxed the prohibition to the "extreme caution" warning. The wording "unless there is a strong case for merge under the deletion policy" was added within a day of that rewrite. There have been a short-lived removal based on visible deleted revisions (revert), a suggested workaround by fully rewriting the content, and a minor licensing update, but the core wording has remained stable since September 2005.^{messy diff} The guidance is not new, but consensus could have shifted away.
• As mentioned above, there are cases where a merger is a foregone/SNOW conclusion. To avoid confusion and to lessen the appearance of unilateral action, the editor should SNOW close the AfD, then perform the merger. The "strong case for merge" wording invokes arguments based on WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD; their strength should be evaluated by consensus at the AfD.
• This discussion was mentioned in this week's Signpost. WP:Articles for deletion/A Place With No Name (2nd nomination) was covered in an adjacent section. Despite a split consensus, the nominator performed a merger and requested a speedy close; objections necessitated another AfD.

Flatscan (talk) 04:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• A point that I forgot to highlight: as Protonk mentioned, a merger can be performed by any editor, but can only be reversed – with difficulty – by an admin. Flatscan (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Merging during an AfD is a highly disruptive tactic used with the aim of precluding a delete outcome. It is a bad faith, battleground approach. Sure, there will be some cases where it's uncontroversial (and what harm is there in awaiting a close?). In the cases we've all seen, it's not been uncontroversial. Those regularly employing the technique in controversial circumstances should be blocked and/or banned for their disruption. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

  a current example:

  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimmy Patterson

  Sincerely, Jack Merridew 06:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack, is an AFD ever disruptive? If an editor puts an article up for deletion which could easily have been merged in the first place, is this disruptive? Ikip (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect Jack may give a different answer, but let me interject. Both of your questions are topical and important, but the two are not intrinsically related to each other. I can answer the first in the affirmative. Even a good faith AfD can be disruptive (interestingly enough, for some of the same reasons that an out of process merger can be disruptive). And sometimes sending something to AfD where AfD is clearly the wrong venue can be disruptive, but that does not mean that all or most things which may be merged (or moved, or fixed, or whatever) should be handled without AfD. As I've said before, most fiction articles necessarily have a parent article, making merger an obvious choice. But it does not behoove us to foreclose an entire avenue of possibilities for an entire class of articles simply because another option technically exists. Now on that point we are probably in opposition. But there is room for discussion there. Whether or not that discussion is relevant to current practice (i.e. if you and I come to some interesting compromise about this, the rest of the AfD going world will probably neither notice nor care) is up in the air. Protonk (talk) 05:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with KrebMarkt, an AFD should not hold material hostage. If this material should not be in the article which the material is merged to, it will be removed, if the merged material is valid, and referenced, it will stay. Often merging is simply cleaning up articles which editors who put an article up for deletion didn't do in the first place.

I would like a headcount of everyone's positions thus far, because Flatscan warned an editor a second time, stating that "The support for your view was fairly limited". I respectfully disagree, it appears to me that most people here support some merging of articles.

• Opposes: flatscan, Protonk, Cameron Scott, Jack Merridew
• Limited: Peregrine Fisher, Jclemens
• Supports: NickPenguin, KrebMarkt, A Nobody, Mazca, Ikip

Please keep in mind, whenever their is a headcount some editors always say, I didn't mean that, so my apologies beforehand. Ikip (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of "The support for your view was fairly limited", referring to A Nobody's view: in contrast to most other editors' opinions, A Nobody made no mention of limitations or merely implementing an obvious consensus. Flatscan (talk) 05:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD shouldn't hold content hostage. Is a merger during an AfD allowed to hold the AfD outcome hostage? Because unless I go through a somewhat laborious deletion and restoration of the target article, a merger during an AfD precludes the possibility of a close other than keep, merge or redirect. Protonk (talk) 05:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• That can't be that simplistic. Merge during Afd should remain an exception. In anime & manga project those article are part of our to clean up and to do list, Afd is just preempting the call. Personally, i won't do merge during Afd if i'm not certain that i can call upon my project for fire support. The bottom line what has precedence project clean up drive or admin by the book handling. I think good sense compromise have to be found case by case. I don't want to think about the wikidrama in case of non compromise. --KrebMarkt 05:24, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not attempting to reduce it to that. I just want to get across my core complaint about mergers during AfD, a complaint which (hopefully) is neutral vis a vis the notability wars. Once admins get revision delete people can merge to their heart's content during AfD, because it won't allow the person conducting the merger veto power over the outcome. Protonk (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems simple to me, if the material is not worthy of wikipedia when it is merged, it will be reverted out anyway.

The only case I see were:

"it can force the deleting admin to either delete the merged revisions"

...should ever be an issue is if the material merged is copyright or BIO violations, which rarely is in AfD anyway because it is speedied well before.

The page is deleted, the name is deleted, and the article history is deleted, there is a finality. What about userfication? Even though the outcome of the AFD has been decided, editors can userfy the material of nearly any deleted article. In both cases, partial merging and userfication, the AfD outcome is the same.Ikip (talk) 06:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure I understand you. My concern is that the GFDL requires attribution history for content. this is satisfied during a merger by pointing to the article and revision where the content was merged from in the edit history of the target page. But if the article is deleted, the attribution chain is broken and either the merged content has to be removed from the history (where currently the only method is to delete the entire page and then selectively restore all edits but the merged edits) or the history of the deleted page added to a talk sub-page of the target. Both are somewhat laborious and non-standard and not all admins know how (or even that you must) to do them. So if I merge content during an AfD I can make undoing that merge difficult and consequently I can make deletion difficult, usually forcing the article to be kept, redirected or merged. That's what I mean by holding AfDs hostage. I'm not particularly interested in grand battles over the finality of AfD. I supported and am active at WP:REFUND and I support userifying content wherever reasonable. Likewise I don't have a problem with undeletions in order to merge. I have a serious problem with the chain of logic that it is ok to force mergers at AfD while simultaneously complaining that mergers at AfD are out of process. Protonk (talk) 06:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It is actually quite common to have editors delete redirects of old articles, deleting the history, what happens to the attribution chain then? I think I know the answer:

Help:Merging_and_moving_pages#Performing_the_merger. Discussed by Flatscan here: Help_talk:Merging_and_moving_pages#Merge_edit_summaries. The chain is not broken if an editor adds the proper information in the edit summary box when the editor merges. Ikip (talk) 07:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding redirects resulting from mergers, {{R from merge}} is meant to provide a clue that the redirect has meaningful history and should not be deleted. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, to be crude, those admins are fucking up. In some cases they are being set up for failure. It is not required but it is good practice to note in the article history that you are merging content from an article, if only to stop especially diligent admins from accidentally deleting page history that is important. As for your second question, WP:SMERGE notes that is required but it is only sufficient if the article isn't deleted, because then the individual contributions are accessible from the history tab. If the article is deleted, then we cannot determine who wrote what when and we no longer have appropriate GFDL attribution. In reality, this probably happens a lot (mostly not due to delete happy admins but due to cut and paste moves being performed improperly), but we have to make sure that we try to minimize it or fix it wherever possible. Protonk (talk) 07:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay then we can agree that there is no GFDL issue if an editor, during a AfD, added the proper information in the edit summary box when the editor merges. 07:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Um. No, we can't. There is no GFDL issue, so long as the article is not deleted. However, if the article is deleted and the target article not modified as I described above, a GFDL issue develops. Protonk (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

"My concern is that the GFDL requires attribution history for content." A correctly labeled merger edit summary provides that police chain. Can you state the GFDL that you are quoting? Ikip (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Two components are required to provide attribution:

1. The original article's history, which cannot be deleted as long as the merged content is visible, even in old revisions (best explained by WP:Merge and delete)
2. A pointer from the merged content to the original article, in edit summary and/or {{Copied}} (directions at Help:Merging#Performing the merger)

If anyone finds specific points to be unclear, please let me know, and I'll start efforts to improve the relevant documentation. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think this conversation could easily be moved to Help:Merging. But it is important to clarify the rules:

1. GFDL/CC-BY-SA, talking about external? (more)
2. Largely ignored (more)
3. Merge information, parent deleted (more)
5. History of these merges. (more)
6. The essay is, and I quote, "not a policy or guideline itself" (template, top of page), so it should not be seen as a rule which editors can be blocked for. [And that is exactly what many editors like User:Jack Merridew below, are espousing]

   On the talk page, when one editor asks if this should be policy, the creator of this essay says:

1. "No, I don't think so (speaking as the original author). Several things in it are deliberately tentative, because it's an interpretation of the GFDL, not a description of the community will (which is what a policy is)."

1. The essay has been edited by 17 people, over three quarters of those editors have 2 or less edits.[1]

Ikip (talk) 16:14, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no clarification necessary. Two things are necessary for attribution, and we are required to maintain attribution. You can even ask A Nobody if you like, he loves citing "Merge and Delete" in AfDs. He knows exactly why we can't delete articles after merging their contents elsewhere. Protonk (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

My bias here is that I'm seeing merging used as a tactic during AfDs to skew the outcome, and I'm seeing it defended with GFDL citing reasons, and I think that's wrong. I feel that way because if there ever actually IS an attribution question, where someone is asserting GFDL rights about something, even if it was a deleted thing, admins can go look and see in the deleted history and produce the needed attribution. (Heck, this is true even if something is oversighted, it still can be looked into, although in that case you need an oversighter to see what happened) So merging as a tactic to force at least a redirect to be left behind ought to be deprecated, at the very least. ++Lar: t/c 18:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If the end result is that the articles from which the content is merged to are improved and these are articles whose existence no one would contest, I cannot imagine any reason why any editor would actually be opposed to such improvements. Per WP:PRESERVE, if we have material that we can use to improve articles, no reason exists why volunteers should not go ahead and use that material to improve the other articles per WP:BOLD as well. Only if the article under discussion is a copy vio or libelous, i.e. really does need to be deleted for legal reasons, is there a pressing need to outright redlink rather than redirect with edit history intact. AfDs should not be used to prevent editors from actually improving other articles not under discussion that can benefit from the content in the article under discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

And what if the end result is that it's not actually an improvement? It happens. More importantly, you haven't actually addressed what I said, you're trying to justify an unacceptably forcing tactic with platitudes. Consider what others are saying, it's not a good thing to do, it is trying to impose your will on everyone else. Until there is a clear consensus in favor of it, you need to stop doing it. ++Lar: t/c 18:43, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Not in the instances that I do. Clearly the articles at least when I merge are indeed being improved as a result. That is exactly what we actually should be doing here, i.e. improving content and adding to our compendium of knowledge. Not getting bogged down in bureacracy. Not becoming a compedium of deletion discussions. Why would I listen to those who are not helping to improve the articles at all or who in some cases have even admitted that they would never argue to keep in an Afd or are litterally too lazy to look for sources (yes, one of the delete reguglars outright said as much)? Per WP:IAR, if articles can be improved, no editor should be hindered from doing so just because of some snapshot in time discussion with maybe a half dozen or so participants. No good faith editor could possibly prefer that improveable articles not be improved when they can just as no reasonable editor would likely oppose redirects with edit history intact when that edit history does not need to be deleted for legal reasons per User:T-rex/essays/the more redirects the better. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Until there is a clear consensus in favor of it, you need to stop doing it. ++Lar: t/c 19:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Until there is a clear consensus against it, which there is not, based on the above discussion, I see no reason why I nor anyone else should not do what they can to actually improve articles. I whole heartedly agree that I will not do so in instances where what is being discussed is libelous or a copy vio, i.e. I will not try to protect legally damaging content, but seriously now, in the handful of cases when I have added sourced content, the only accounts saying to delete in the discussions are ones who either admittedly are not interested in looking for sources, make false statements about the reality of the article, or reveal a lack of expertise about the subject by declaring say even published magazines not counting as reliable sources. In any event, the only thing close to a proscription against merely cautions to be careful. It does NOT outright assert editors cannot be WP:BOLD and follow WP:PRESERVE. We do not have to abide by rules that do not exist or that do not have any consensus behind them. And again, I cannot imagine any reason why anyone would want in good faith to prevent articles from being improved when they can be. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion, taken in isolation, does not have a clear consensus to allow the practice. Therefore, it is a 'no consensus' outcome, which defaults to no change, to "do as was done before" (which is to not do this). But far more importantly, it is a small and local discussion, and is insufficient to overturn a longstanding practice. Review the history of this page, please, and you will find it's pretty clearly not a practice that is approved. When you do this you impose more work on the closing admin if you happen to be incorrect about the discussion outcome (and who among us is 100% infallible?). So don't do it, please. If you really want this area changed, consider an RfC on the topic, properly mentioned at WP:CENT so it has wide participation. Till then, don't be disruptive, it would be greatly appreciated. ++Lar: t/c 22:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It would be greatly appreciated if accounts do not disruptively use AfDs as a means of preventing us from improving actual content. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I feel some responsibility for all these bytes spilled on the topic, since I came up with the current wording a few months back, so I wanted to explain a bit of my rationale: I think the current formulation strikes a good balance by discouraging moves during AfD as a matter of etiquette, rather than creating an outright prohibition (of which I am wary, on principle). However, I do agree with the comments above that find a majority (but certainly not all) of moves-during-AfD are disruptive and counterproductive. To those who say "why have etiquette stand in the way of improving WP as quickly as possible," my response is: there is no deadline, and why can't we wait for the few days for the AfD to run its course, build consensus around the move, and then move the article? Hope this helps. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Does your opinion extend to mergers (did you mean mergers)? My mention of moves in the original post may have been confusing. Flatscan (talk) 05:18, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

We indeed have no deadline and as such there is frequently no urgent need to force editors into a mere week long discussion determining the fate of article. We should be more considerate to our contributors. Once we determine the article has ANY potential value, we need to be discorteous to them by trying to get rid of it, especially if it is cases where any of us just are not interested in helping improve it. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

While I nearly always disagree with you, your comments at least usually have some degree of internal consistency. That one doesn't. The lack of a deadline means we can't wait? We need to be discourteous? I think you need to reread and rewrite.—Kww(talk) 13:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

We should not be discourteous to those who actually work on articles by making artificial deadlines to get rid of their work or to prevent volunteers from improving their contributions when they have the time to do it. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Merging whilst an article is afd does force a "merge" outcome and imposes one person's will (the person who merges content) on the discussion. If a merge is warranted, suggest the content you would like to merge and vote for that. If you are reasonable and clear about the particular content you want to save, other people will be encouraged to ask for it to be merged. There is plenty of time for an article to be merged after the discussion has reached consensus. Another point, when taking content from another article, it can be quite easy to reword it into your own original words. This is especially true when you are adding information you have found to the content you wish to merge. Unless the wording is particularly unique and you believe quality would be lessoned by altering it substantially, there is no reason not to re-write it in your own words. This method preserves content but does not force a "keep" result. In an afd, everyone should have an equal opportunity to cast their vote, choosing from all the options that are available and not have their vote forced by another party who ends up controlling a discussion. Seraphim♥ 09:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The rewriting workaround is a viable alternative to waiting, mentioned in the guide. Flatscan (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it's an abuse of process and should be stopped. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, using AfDs as an excuse to prevent improvement of actual content is an absue of AfD process. Building articles means far more here than having to satisfy the whims of a handful of accounts in a snapshot in time week long discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 13:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

@Seraphim & Cameron Scott:

I will repeat myself, merge during Afd must stay very circumstantial. The most likely case is if there is a consensus within a project to have some articles in its clean-up/merge list when a such article is sent to Afd, that project will likely and de-facto hijack its outcome. The sole example, i remember is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ra Cailum class battleship. It was the impulse a renewed clean-up drive targeting others articles in the same series & universe. --KrebMarkt 19:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for linking that example. At the time that the article was merged, support was trending towards merge. The AfD was later closed with a reasonable consensus, but an early close would not have been appropriate, and TheFarix's merge jumped the gun a little. Flatscan (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well that was rather challenging for editors having others opinions because changing that Afd outcome will have required either changing the project consensus or proving that this article is an exception to this consensus. A such feat is clearly difficult to achieve especially for editors who don't know the in & out of the said project.

For TheFarix's merge, it should be viewed in both perspectives. From the Afd perspective his action are somewhat fast but from the project perspective it was a long overdue clean-up. --KrebMarkt 06:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Since the merger did not substantially affect the outcome, this discussion is mostly academic. I may have dropped TheFarix a note if that AfD were more recent. I'll grant that another outcome was unlikely, but not inevitable. Echoing UnitedStatesian above, I don't see an issue with waiting a few days. Flatscan (talk) 04:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• If an article is at AFD then this should not prevent work upon other articles which are not at AFD. AFD are purely to decide whether an article is to be deleted and I gather that there was no consensus to make them a general forum for article debate, i.e. Articles for Discussion rather than Articles for Deletion. Consideration of merger is therefore outside the scope of AFD. What is more urgently needed in the relevant section is some guidance about removing material from the article under discussion, so that editors have difficulty in reading the full article which is under debate. Removing disputed material and then claiming that the article should be deleted because it is now an inconsequential stub seems disruptive - see Graphical methods of finding polynomial roots for a fresh example. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• "Consideration of merger" is by no means "outside the scope or AfD". There are many outcomes from a deletion discussion, and often the consensus is to merge. However, leaving aside the occasional sensible snow outcome, pre-emptive merge or redirect, I feel the discussion should run its course; there is no deadline, after all.  pablo_hablo. 19:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• General comment - It comes down to commons sense. Kinda like a snowball merge. If it should obviously be merged, merge it, and the AfD problem is mostly solved. I guess our 7 day rule is a hard rule now, but I think the AfD should just be closed at that point. I believe Protonk that it's a pain in the butt to undue a merge, so they should only be performed in obvious cases. Another thing Protonk mentioned is the fiction wars. I get the feeling this is an extension of that, so there isn't much use in trying to change hardened positions. Everyone should just use common sense, and if there are problems take it to ANI or wherever. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• I've been linked here after bringing it up with A Nobody without knowing about this discussion. I'm personally happy to see content merged, preserved and rules ignored, but is it that hard to wait until the end of the AfD? There isn't an editorial deadline and keeping the discussion free from unnecessary distractors is a good idea. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 11:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Old open discussion

There's an AfD from 11 August which is still open at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinyl Life. It looks like the AfD didn't get added to a log page. I've added {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vinyl Life}} to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 August 11 but I'm not sure if anything else needs doing. --JD554 (talk) 12:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it has been speedied now. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Relisting

I've been noticing lately that AfDs are becoming increasingly under-attended, to the point where it seems most discussions are being relisted at least once. The process definitely needs more participants, but I don't think the current method of relisting is effective when it affects such a large portion of AfDs. Thoughts? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Beyond further notifications to possible participants, it is difficult to know. We could lower the bar allowed to establish consensus under WP:RELIST, but then we're leaving the fate of an article in maybe one or two hands. The other alternative is to encourage more NC closures if there are too few comments. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not sure there is much that can be done. For better or worse much of the participation on AfD is limited to picking topics which look like they might be "interesting" to discuss. I'm not sure if there are many people who actually take the time to sit down and review large quantities of AfD discussions just because they are there - as evidenced by the fact that there are numerous such under-attended discussions that are difficult to close. The only thing that I can think of that might help is if there were some way to bring more attention to Category:Relisted AfD debates. I am just not sure that there is any way to encourage people to be interested in something that is, honestly, not very interesting. As an aside, has something changed in the relisting template recently? The relisted discussions in today's log seems to be doing something funky to the table of contents. Shereth 16:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

There was a change, but it's already been reverted due to that issue. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Some possible ways to increase participation:

More automatic notifications of article creators and significant contributors. I know there's a bot that contacts people if they're made 5+ non-minor edits; perhaps that could be adjusted to widen the notifications, perhaps based on characters contributed to the current article? :Add an option on your Watchlist to see all current AfDs and prods flagged up for every article you've edited, in case you miss the nomination. Could also do this for RfCs etc.

More listing on Deletion sorting pages, which surely could be automated by bots if it isn't already. Every AfD should be in at least one category.

Greater prominence of articles up for deletion on WikiProject pages.

If an article links to or is linked from an article that is up for deletion, a note at the top of the talk page could flag this up.

Have a bot like SuggestBot that lists AfDs you might be interested in on your talk page every 5 days.

Have a list of the 5 latest AfD nominations on the Wikipedia homepage. Fences&Windows 21:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

p.s. Would an RfC on the topic of how to widen participation in deletion discussions be a good idea? Fences&Windows 21:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• I seem to recall a time when there was weeks long backlogs of unclosed AfD discussions, and it has been quite a while since those disappeared. I suspect that the relative number of participants is the same, except more articles are being relisted instead of kept open for 10+ days. When you consider it, a relist is more fair than just leaving it open because a) older discussions have less eyes, and thus people are less likely to put in an opinion because they feel it will not recieve much feedback/make much of a difference, and b) closing admins don't feel they have to make a quick decision because it's been open a long time. No clear concensus after 7 days? Relist it, generate more fresh discussion. It's Articles for Deletion, not Articles for Deletion Right Now. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 22:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Wow, seriously tho, there is a boat load of relisted AfDs. Looking at todays, I'd say roughly half are relists, and maybe only half of those relists have more than two !votes. I still think it's more fair this way, but it looks like things are getting bogged down. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 22:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Fence, the User:Erwin85Bot is not working now, not only does not contact those who have 5 or more major edits, it is not contacting creators also. I am not sure when the bot works, but I had to notify two editors recently of an AfD. Erwin wrote:

"The bot actually already notifies all authors with more than 5 non-minor edits. Trouble is that it uses the toolserver's replicated database to do so, but that the toolserver has been having some problems these last few days. I'll probably rewrite my bot a bit to in that case only notify the first author as it hasn't been running now at all." [2]

Ikip (talk) 04:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm almost certain that the old backlog was due to the absence of tools to close AfDs. I seem to recall the backlog changing from multiple days to a problem where the "old afd" page was empty at the end of 5 days fairly quickly once a few AfD closing scripts made their way around. Protonk (talk) 04:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• I think that the bot should remove Category:Relisted AfD debates a lot faster. Whenever I go into that category, I keep seeing already closed debates. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Enforcing civility would likely help. Who needs extra drama? Thus those who remain either have to adapt defend or fight back. It's tiresome. -- Banjeboi 03:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Also, I think admins need to be more WP:BOLD at closing AfDs with only a few comments. People often don't bother to comment on AfDs that have "obvious" results. If you've got a clearly non-notable person/band/etc in an AfD which only ever reached AfD because a PROD was removed, close it as Delete. If you've got an AfD with a few comments but one of them shows clear notability in reliable sources, then close it as Keep. If anyone really objects, there's always DRV - but I doubt that many would end up there. Black Kite 13:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• One problem with AfD is that 90-95% of the nominations should be deleted -- & they are being nominated as a sanity check before the article is converted to stray electrons. And I write that as an "inclusionist". When I nominate an article for deletion, what I hope to see is not a bunch of "Me too"s or "Delete with fire" responses, but some evidence that at least one other editor has checked my argument for errors, & either confirmed that the article should be deleted or that there is one or more good reasons for keeping it. Sadly, no one seems to do this. -- llywrch (talk) 05:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Quite often they're not even a sanity check, but have been forced there because someone (often the article creator) removed a PROD for no apparent reason. The inability to replace a PROD removed without any sort of explanation is one reason why AFD is clogged. Black Kite 10:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not convinced that that's true. I've been doing Proposed Deletion patrol (alongside AfD Patrol) recently, and I'm not seeing the proposed deletions that end up at AFD as a large fraction of overall AFD traffic. I think that the bigger problem for traffic is indeed as identified here: relistings. Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, there are a few that do. I could name some editors whose AFD discussion contributions I have high confidence, based upon experience, in being the product of good research and actual effort put in to double-check things independently. But it is perpetual September at AFD just as it is in the rest of Wikipedia. There are always new editors, who come along and from what they see think that what's needed from them is simply another drive-by no-effort vote (or, indeed, nomination), who need education in what actions will actually benefit both AFD and the encyclopaedia. Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Now that I think about it, you are right Uncle G. (I should have remembered an exchange I had with A.B. in the past where she convinced me with careful research I was wrong.) I've been hoisted by own sweeping generalization! -- llywrch (talk) 19:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not sure whether AFD participation is up or down compared to years gone by. I've seen no actual measurements. However, one thing that it observably is, is lumpy. There are discussions that it seems no-one wants to participate in, and there are discussions that attract tens of editors. But that's been the case for a long time at AFD. (Indeed, it's one reason that any attempts to measure participation must be done with care, lest they be ill-founded or outright meaningless.) Uncle G (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
• I don't think the problem is relisting. Relisting is a good response to the problem, which is a lack of participation in those discussions. The solution is not to stop relisting, but to work out ways to widen participation - I suggest some above, I'd appreciate comments on my ideas before they vanish into the ether! Fences&Windows 15:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
• The problem, in my view, is people relisting debates that plainly aren't supposed to be relisted. WP:RELIST isn't being followed very well — just breezing through today's relists there are:
  • One AFD relisted a second time
  • One AFD relisted a third time
  • One AFD relisted with 6 contributors, evenly divided
  • One AFD relisted with 8 contributors, evenly divided
• Each of these, and a lot of other discussions, should be closed as no consensus rather than running through another week of discussion that's not very likely to generate a result. We owe articles a "speedy trial", as it were — the focus should be on getting a result, within the second week if not the first, and not having the spectre of deletion hanging over an article for ages. Stifle (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

  Oh, and what Protonk said about tools to close AFDs is spot on. I'd add that it's also infinitely easier to relist AFDs now too. Stifle (talk) 08:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• One thing that would make the process nicer is if we all really did see it as a discussion rather than a form of debating competition to try and 'win' one's preferred outcome. I certainly know I'm guilty of this sometimes. I would also ban any comments addressed to the closer, or noting the veracity of others' !votes. If someone is making erroneous arguments then we should just trust the closing admin to correctly weigh the arguments, as these sort of comments mostly raise the tension level in the debates, and shouldn't make any difference if the admin is doing their job. If AfD is a more convivial place then people might be more likely to get involved. Quantpole (talk) 20:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• On September 3, I already see a bunch of relistings, some of which are on their third or fourth relisting. I tend to think that such relistings may be excessive. Either there is consensus to delete, or there isn't. Once an AfD has already been relisted twice, a closing admin ought to make a decision rather than trying for another relisting. If we wind up with more "no consensus keeps", I can live with that. The nominator, or someone else, can always come back later and write a better nomination for deletion that might actually attract some interest from other AfD participants. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

  Exactly. I am going to propose at WT:DPR that a third relisting be removed as an option. Stifle (talk) 08:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• FWIW, I don't see the relisting as a big problem. From what I see, there are articles that people just seem to skim past because of their title etc. (I don't choose to look at every AfD, just ones that sound like an area I have interest in and I suspect others are the same). For example, I rarely comment on AfD's about college professors, soccer players from other countries or computer software. Not my interest and there are things involved in those discussion I don't feel like keeping track of (what league is professional, what chair is considered notable). I suspect others are the same way. I've seen AfD's get a third re-list, then get 3-4 votes and a consensus achieved. Just because an article didn't appeal to broad and immediate interest right off the bat doesn't mean it should just be a "close no consensus". The third relisting isn't hurting anything. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Casting votes

Is it appropriate for closing admins to make casting votes as in this and this? I'd say no, because it turns him into a participant and means he can't close it. Thoughts? Ironholds (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I also just found this and this. Ironholds (talk) 11:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Since I relisted two of them, I noticed too. These are all invalid closures and should be overturned at WP:DRV. Per WP:DGFA, the job of a closing admin is to assess consensus, not just to cast a vote, and at any rate AfD is not a vote.  Sandstein  12:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

So DRV rather than simply reopening them? I understood DRV was for where the administrator's assessment of consensus is in question, rather than the validity of his close altogether.Ironholds (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I was mindful to seek an overturn at DRV myself; for one thing, since AfD is (theoretically, anyway) to seek out the proper policies and guidelines to apply to the situations, I'd be extremely interested in hearing the policy basis for the admin's "closing vote."  RGTraynor  12:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• I have seen this sort of AfD/move/etc discussion, which goes on wordily repetitively intermittently, some of them for weeks, until it is many times as big as the article which it is about, and never comes to a concensus. I felt that someone had to make a decision. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

  And perhaps you could explain your policy basis for doing so? I don't have a problem, myself, for bringing to a close an AfD discussion that's gone eight days, but since the sticking point is whether the sources discuss the subject in substantive detail, as WP:GNG requires, which of the sources listed have you looked over and found to do so?  RGTraynor  12:37, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• OK, treat them as cases of "no concensus, so keep". I have known such disputed matters to be discussed repetitively inconclusively for weeks. There are claims of nuclear blueprints being found in the Al Qaida guest house, Kabul: that surely makes it somewhat like noteworthy?, given that Pakistan has nukes and Iran is trying to get nukes. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

  I don't necessarily disagree with any of your closes, Anthony, but I do think the closer should summarise his or her reasons, especially in borderline cases (such as implied by the term "casting vote"). --NSH001 (talk) 12:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• I don't necessarily agree with Anthony Appleyard's "casting vote" closure, but closing all of those as "no consensus, default to keep" seems absolutely reasonable. They're all the kind of terminally-inconclusive discussions that mutter along for ages, never forming a consensus. ~ mazca ^talk 12:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• I found these 4 AfD's pointed to in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 August 22, which was pointed to in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Old discussions. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• In case of Al Aqua military training camp, the AfD is already about ten times as long as the article, as measured by text length in being-edited mode. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• No. The closing role should be distinct from the !voting role. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Thought experiment. Had he just said "no consensus defaults to keep", would we be having this conversation? Protonk (talk) 05:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Still, it's inappropriate WP:COI. That's why crats don't close RfAs they voted in, even if the result was obvious. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• What Protonk said. Stifle (talk) 08:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Withdrawn but not closed

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tchibo - nom withdrew three days ago, but what looks like a SNOW keep case is still open. Any reason for this (apart from admin shortage)? NVO (talk) 03:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• Closed now. I would say that one reason may be that people aren't crusing afd's early to close them, but it may just be a shortage of admins. Sigh. Maybe I should go back to AfDs. Protonk (talk) 03:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you find ones like this again, feel free to close it yourself, or poke the nom to have them do it. There's nothing wrong with non-admins closing withdrawn discussions. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Just make sure that there are no outstanding delete (or non-keep, depending on interpretation) recommendations, per WP:Speedy keep criterion 1. This used to be a fairly common error, but I haven't seen it recently. Flatscan (talk) 06:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Non-listed debates

DumbBOT seems to have stopped automatically listing debates that are not added to a daily log page. This has resulted in quite a few AfD's that are languishing in limbo:

What should I do with these? I could list them on todays log but I don't want to flood it? ascidian | talk-to-me 21:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

20 or so listings won't really flood the log, I would say go ahead and list them. Shereth 21:23, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I closed one while looking through AfD cats to comment on. Before relisting consider checking to see if the discussion is basically complete. Protonk (talk) 06:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

These are all now dealt with. About half were relisted by Ascidian to a daily log page, and will be closed in due course. The remainder were generally ones where consensus was quite clear already - these have been closed by either myself or Tedder. ~ mazca ^talk 12:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

"Having to" defend articles against deletion

I've run into this strange allegation a few times lately. Some editors claim that they would be better able to improve articles if they didn't have to defend them against deletion. I find this bizarre, because the easiest way to defend an article against deletion is to just improve it, ignoring any deletion discussions that may be going on. At the most, a one-line, "I'm adding sources" in an AFD is all the participation that's required.

I wonder, is there a way to let people know that, even if an article is nominated for deletion, they're under no practical (or any other kind of) obligation to argue in its defense. If an article is deleted while someone is trying to improve it, then I, or any other like minded administrator, would be more than happy to recover any deleted content and userfy it for anyone who wants to improve it.

I don't know why inclusionsists believe that winning arguments in AFD discussions is a productive use of their time. Does this make sense? What would be a good way to let people know about this? -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:03, 6 September 2009 (UTC) This is a special case of a larger problem, where people think that winning arguments against other editors is practical and useful, when it's actually almost always a waste of time.

(refactored out, not productive or on main point)

Some of us at the WP:Article Rescue Squadron added the following to MediaWiki_talk:Newarticletext#Suggestion_to_add_new_line:

You can also start your new article at Special:MyPage/Terhrt. You can develop the article, with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready.

Ikip (talk) 13:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

So.... how are you saying I can make available the service I'm offering?

I don't disagree with anything you say here. I'm simply saying that, during the week of AFD, those who would save an article are wasting their time arguing with deletionists who will not be convinced by arguments. AFD does not stop anyone from editing, unless they believe that the article is somehow locked while up for discussion. It's not.

What I'm offering is to undelete articles for those who would improve them. Are you against this offer? I understand that you're frustrated, but I don't see how your post is a reply to what I actually said. We can both use bold text, see, but can you respond to the content I'm presenting? -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It was a reply not to your main point, but to minor ones. sorry. I refactored my comments repeatedly. You can use my template, which I use all the time. User:Ikip/AFD. Ikip (talk) 13:32, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Now I'm included in Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles, which I did not previously know about. :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Another proven tactic which I want to expand, either by my self or with others. Patrol brand new AFDs. Message the author of the AFD that there are several options other than AFD available. There is userfy, there is merge, there is redirect. If they agree, close the AFD. I have done this maybe 6 times in the past week, every editor has agreed. It is a win win in many respects. No AFD, No admin who has to relist AFD, no drama, and you teach the nominator new tools to avoid AFD. Ikip (talk) 13:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Something I just thought of. Add a statement at the top of all AFDs: All articles which are deleted can be userfied by request by admin. That said, this idea is so practical, I bet no one will agree. Ikip (talk) 13:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Ideally this would be automated, as part of the AFD template we use to create AFD discussion pages. I'll have to look into this; I don't imagine that's something that can easily be tweaked without... heavy discussion, let's call it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:55, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The Google news was recently added, see Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_55#Search_template. Ikip (talk) 14:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

But why bother improving when you can just shout "I'm sure sources exist", "clearly notable according to the sources I haven't read". You add multiple reliable sources to an article and the AFD is over - somehow this mysterious process is too hard for some people. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Like my refactored out comments, this does not answer GTBacchus's main question. He is looking for suggestions, just in a round about way :). Ikip (talk) 13:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not the concise-est tool in the shed, it's true. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:55, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

What if there were some sort of an 'AFD reset' button if someone has changed a certain percentage of an article? Say, if, after 7 days, an article had gone from 1 RS to 12, or a 40% expansion, or a 50% reduction... Any of these sorts of major efforts might be worth giving the editor(s) making such changes a right to declare an "AFD reset", and the AfD is started anew--the nom gets a chance to modify or withdraw the nomination, the !voters (all of them) are invited to comment on the now-reset AfD, and NOTHING is kept "live" from the previous discussion. It's a pretty radical idea, but when the article has radically changed between listing and closing, many of the early AfD !votes are simply irrelevant to the article as it has been improved. Jclemens (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Be bold. Try it. When an article has changed drastically, collapse the old discussion, relist the AfD, and see what happens. If you're reverted, don't revert back but discuss. Don't allow anyone to tell you that you're subject to rules - our "rules" are simply records of what has been a good idea at some time in the past. Let us know how it works out. If it really is a good idea, it will become practice, and eventually someone will rewrite a policy or guideline to reflect that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

"Say, if, after 7 days, an article had gone from 1 RS to 12" Really great idea. Problem is that what is a RS? There will be arguments about what a RS is and is not. I guess it is up to the closing admin? Ikip (talk) 05:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case, then I hope the closing admin is careful enough to take that into consideration, and can do the relevant history checking versus votes. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 20:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

When I change an article at Afd quite a bit, I leave a comment at the AfD, both for the closing admin and the previous !voters. That way someone can more easily tell that the comments before a certain time don't necessarily apply to the current version. The closing admin never seems to have a problem understanding that.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it would be nice if every admin always did that, but I think a lot of (formal or informal) article rescuers are afraid that admins will just count noses, without looking at the article's evolution during the process. I can think of a few times where I invested a good bit of effort in an article, only to have the closing admin not disregard the !votes that were irrelevant to the article at the time of close. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Buffyverse_objects is one case that sticks in my mind. (For reference, these are the changes made during the deletion discussion) As long as admins are going to close AfD's in such a manner, any rescuer risks their efforts being deleted. Jclemens (talk) 21:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

As long as admins close AfDs in such a manner, they shouldn't be closing AfDs. The solution is not to adapt to, and thus enable, such irresponsible admin behavior. The solution is to ask someone like myself to undelete the content for you, and then point out to the closing admin that they screwed up. I've got your back in this matter - scout's honor.

There is no "risk", because I will undelete for you, unless you just start filling your user-space with stubs that you never actually bother to improve. If you're really an article rescuer operating with any kind of reasonable standards, then stop arguing with deletionists who won't listen, and let me (and other like-minded admins) help you instead. We're not here to argue on the Internet, so don't give in. Don't let unreasonable deletionists dictate the terms of engagement.

This is also, of course, why DRV exists. Closes that are based on disregarding the actual state of the article are simply wrong. That's not something we need to tolerate at all. Again, I've got your back. So do lots of other admins. -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This is also why WP:REFUND was started, as a low drama way of enabling deleted articles to be userfied for improvement or reversing bad speedies. (However, most of the admins who hang out at REFUND will come down hard on people who use it to circumvent process.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

In the particular AfD Jclemens has mentioned there was substantial discussion after the improvement, so it is incorrect to assert that it hadn't been taken into account. For what it's worth, I'm surprised that it wasn't closed as no consensus (based on the general way these fictional discussions go, rather than my personal preferences about the matter!) but it didn't seem to be that the admin had ignored the improvements, and the close was within the grounds of admin discretion. Quantpole (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Problem is, in my experience, DRV is even more slanted towards deletion than regular AfDs. Editors who support deletion seem to be more prevalent there. Taking a deleted article to DRV is a real fear that I have, almost a pointless exercise. In addition, you have to remember, if an article is undeleted, there is a stigma attached, if it goes up for deletion again, editors can argue, "this article was deleted before", and the nominator almost always points this out. Ikip (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Popcorn break - Do admins look at articles up for deletion?

I cannot remember who, but I recall at least one admin telling me that he does not look at the articles under discussion when he closes AfDs, but only the discussion. So, if we don't also argue in the AfDs, the closing admin might close based solely on uninformed comments in the AfD rather than the actual reality of the article. Just today even an admin commented in a fiction related AfD that an article "currently stands as entirely in-universe description", which was blatantly false as the article has sourced out of universe context on Development and Reception. So, if the admin only goes by the discussion rather than the factual reality of the article (i.e. if I or no one else pointed out that such claims to delete are not true) we could end up with it being deleted on false or misleading grounds. Believe me, I would much rather build articles than deletion discussions as I can never get why we are somehow better off having some AfD that is of interest to God knows who than articles that are relevant to some but not others. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I still maintain that these arguments are a waste of time. Admins who close AfDs by nose-count need to be stopped. I will help you stop them, if you bring it to my attention. It's unacceptable; someone doing that should not have the mop.

If you improve the article, indicate (once) in the discussion that you've improved it, and then your improvements are disregarded by the closing admin, then come get me, or another of the admins who has placed themselves in this category. Arguing will not convince deletionists, and your time is still better spent working on the article. Let's not capitulate to the idea that admins will close discussions pathologically. That would enable them, and you'd be shooting yourself directly in the foot. Let's stop them instead. This is important, no? -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Your and Jclemens examples just go to show why we need a process to give constructive admin criticism, followed by trout slapping as needed, followed by de-sysopping as needed. Unfortunately, as it currently stands an admin can make a whole lot of bad deletions without much consequence, and can ignore anyone who brings it up. :(

But would an AfD reset button solve this? Or would these same admins ignore that, too?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If it hid (archived?) the past discussion and started anew? Then the path of least resistance is to simply look at the post-reset discussion. If any admin is going to go to serious lengths to reach a decision not based on the current content of the article, that becomes less an issue of laziness (or at most negligence), and more of an issue of actually... well, I don't know what to call it. Prejudicially closing an AfD? Jclemens (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If I had my AfD !vote hidden and I still felt it was applicable after the changes to the article, I'd be mighty peeved. I'll bet we'd see a lot of those AfDs at DRV or renominated, especially when the AfD reset button gets used a bit overenthusiastically (not by you, but by people who think the AfD isn't going their way.) How can we guard against abusive use of the reset button? --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

That's my biggest concern as well. I think we'd need a concrete and tough yet attainable set of criteria... If I'm going to make up some off the top of my head...

• References to reliable sources doubled or +5, whichever threshold is higher, if the concern is lack of sourcing or notability.
• 50% of text changed--added, removed, or altered--in the direction suggested by the nomination. That is, if it's "fancruft" or "NOT#PLOT" and someone rewrites it downward, that would count, while expansion would not.
• There would be plenty of other nomination reasons that wouldn't have any applicable criterion. For example, if there's an assertion that something is a POV fork, it pretty much either is or is not. There's not a whole lot of middle ground on a number of things, and there's not any clear way I can see that good faith editing can significantly alter the article out from under the nomination base.

At any rate, I'm not convinced the idea is workable. I think the idea of "article purgatory" I brought up a few months back has a better chance of being workable. Jclemens (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Funny you mention adding reliable sources -- arguments over which sources are reliable are exactly what I thought might land these AfDs at DRV. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Outdent) Some admins don't look at the article because GOD HELP THEM if they see an article they thought should be deleted which had consensus to be kept (or what could be argued as consensus) and deleted it out of some personal consideration. I try to look at articles for improvement before I close them while avoiding looking for 'reasons to delete', but it is hard. It's often easier just to avoid looking at the article and claim justice is blind then hear the endless complaints from partisans if they intimate they have an opinion about content. Protonk (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It is quite possible that A Nobody is referring to me, since I have said this a few times. The point is that, in the vast majority of cases, an admin should not look at an article. AfDs are a discussion to determine a consensus, and in 99% of cases the AfD is about arguing whether one set of criteria apply or another, and not about improved articles. Admins examining an article to see if "the consensus is valid" would be madness as the admin could just substitute their own views for the discussion. The only exceptions I apply are when there is a specific statement in the AfD that says something along the lines of "I added so-and-so sources to address the concerns above" and there are no subsequent delete comments - then I quickly look to make sure the additions took place, and weigh the arguments accordingly. But either you think AfD is a discussion to determine consensus, or you think admins should decide on their own volition with advisement from the AfD. You cannot have both, and the latter is an invitation to greater inconsistency than you can imagine. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Generally I check the sourcing on articles up for deletion in case some reliable souricng has crept in that hasn't been factored into the discussion. Articles can then be kept of relisted rather then deleted but I do otherwise agree that the discussion is the thing that the closing admin needs to evaluate not the article itself. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I would hope that a closing admin looks at the article closely enough to determine whether the arguments in the AfD actually apply to it. I disagree with the dichotomy presented by Fritzpoll above. I think that admins do something in between judging based on their own criteria and purely evaluating the discussion.

How can we judge strength of arguments if we can't hold those arguments up against reality as a measuring-stick? How can we evaluate claims that the article does or does not satisfy certain criteria without looking at the article, and finding out which claims are factual and relevant?

If we knew that everyone opining in an AfD shared a common understanding of policy, that would be one thing, but we can't guarantee that. We need to be able to discount arguments that make no sense, and one way of making no sense is to be unrelated to the actual article. If nobody has pointed out such a non-relation in the discussion, that doesn't mean the closing admin should blind to it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

But we can't. Policy and, more importantly, community expectations are that we close according to the consensus within the discussion. Your comments are why it is so vital that people explain why the article (does not) conform(s) to a particular principle/policy/guideline, and why we tend to weigh comments such as "Delete - just not notable" less than a detailed rationale. It is not the job of an admin to second-guess the community discussion - that the quality of some discussions' contributions are weaker is irrelevant. If an admin believes that a key argument is missing from the discussion, there is nothing to prevent them from participating in the debate and then letting another admin close it. But, as S Marshall would say, an admin is a janitor - we examine consensus, but we don't decide on behalf of others what the fate of articles should be. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you're drawing a sharp distinction where I'm not. I don't argue that we "decide on behalf of others what the fate of articles should be." I'm simply saying that we weigh the arguments, not in vacuum, but by placing them in the context of reality as we're able to observe it. In my experience (closing many deletion discussions and many more move requests), this has been a successful approach, so I have a hard time accepting that "policy and community expectations" are entirely at odds with it. Note: I am not taking a position contrary to yours. I'm taking a nuanced position in between yours and its contrary.

I agree that it's vital that people explain their positions. However, in the event that they don't, there is no suicide pact in place that we're somehow helpless to fill in the details, or to note when the details simply aren't there. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It's possible (nay, probable) that I'm misreading what you're saying - but that is the curse of text. I too have closed many AfDs, and have found that the more independent my judgement appears (i.e. how much it appears I have looked beyond the discussion), the more likely I'm taken to DRV. I don't think I'm reacting against your stance, so much as the apparent notion that admins should read the articles to determine the "validity" of the arguments - weighting arguments is fine and necessary, but if noone refers to improvements made to an article during the AfD then it can hardly be surprising that the improvements are not taken into account - as an admin, I do kind of assume that people commenting have read the article before they make their statement. Doubtless this is not the view you are supporting, but it is the one I'm reacting against from further up this page.

I do not, incidentally, condone the massive arguments that take place within AfDs and agree that the focus should be on content. A simple step following an improvement would simply be to note the improvement in the AfD and how it addresses the concerns made in the nomination and subsequent statements. Then the improvements can be re-assessed by everyone, including the closing admin. For editors like Ikip and A Nobody who seem to prefer content improvement, this is my most earnest recommendation Fritzpoll (talk) 12:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that a closing admin would look beyond the discussion, except to verify that the discussion is, in fact, about the article under consideration. Sometimes it's not. I don't assume that everyone weighing in at AFD has read the most current version of the article, especially if it has changed during the week of discussion. It is often the case that people leave an opinion and then never check back.

If the first 19 votes refer to an unreferenced stub, and then at the end of the week, someone expands the article and adds sources, and then there are 2 more votes that take that reality into consideration, then those 2 votes outweigh the previous 19. If you don't look at the article, you might not see that. You seem to allow for this in your second paragraph above.

I would add that likelihood of being taken to DRV is not necessarily an indication that the close was bad. It is an indication that many people want AFD to be a nose-count. I think it's absolutely worth going to DRV every now and then to combat this idea.

In the vast majority of cases, the opinions registered in AFD do address the actual article, and do make sense. However, when I'm closing AFDs, I still check to see whether I'm looking at a minority case where that's not true. Doing so can save a trip to DRV (especially since DRV is seldom used to appeal "keep"s). -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm increasingly of the opinion that we're not disagreeing at all. Different projections of the same viewpoint, perhaps. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, the problem with your approach is that not everything said in an AfD is correct. In addition to the issue of "has no RS" !votes which may have become invalidated by later addition of sources, there are also quite a few times when I've seen !votes that are outright incorrect--asserting that no sources can be found, when I can find some good ones easily, for instance. Jclemens (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

And therein lays the nub, I weas recently subject to a hail of abuse and a fairly agressive DRV because I actually researched the sources on an article to explain the close to someone arguing about the findings. If admins get that kind of reaction by and large its going to discourage them from doing much more the count the numbers. Another editor recently likened me to hitler for what was admitedly a poor speedy close but no-one took any corrective action to protect me from the abuse so I'm afraid I'm not going to receptive to doing my own due diligence on AFD closes or stepping away from the obvious in the future. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Just to add to what Spartaz says - if something is said that is wrong, why would noone else in the debate mention it? I'm not talking count the numbers, I'm just saying that I expect AfD to be treated as a discussion - if someone says something wrong, correct them, and I'll look into it, but I can't do the work in the place of the communal discussion. Fritzpoll (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a good clarification. Sometimes, I feel like when I point out everything wrong with every !vote that's inaccurate, it just prompts the partisans (often the nom--almost never the drive-by !voters whose analysis I impeach) to contest my comments. At what point is a rebuttal enough? I presume you read "notes to closing admin" posts? Jclemens (talk) 19:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why people drive recklessly, but I still look both ways before crossing a one-way street. I don't know why anyone would fail to mention important points in a debate, but since I know it happens, I do a little checking. That said, I don't close a lot of AfDs. I'm not sure to what extent move requests are similar, but if there's more than one point of view represented, I look into it. Maybe RM closes are more heavy-handed than AFD closes, but we don't get that many complaints. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

That you continue to relate closing AfDs without doing your preferred level of due diligence to recklessness (or relating the converse to prudence in the face of recklessness) sends a signal to me that we may not be communicating well. It is perfectly fine to say that admins should do some basic level of due diligence for articles...however, the reality is that such insertions of a closing vote allow an admin to dominate a discussion rather than just close it. there are a hundred AfDs I wish I could have closed with "The sources presented here don't relate in the slightest to the subject under discussion, so the deletes have it", but had I closed even 10% of those that way (even if I was correct about the sources) I would have been mired in unpleasant and acrimonious DRVs for weeks to months. I understand your point. And I understand your frustration. It's messed up that articles get deleted even when good improvements have been made to the article itself but no comment has been left on the AfD. My point is that there are too many negative incentives surrounding admin 'due diligence' for admins to engage in that behavior on the whole. Protonk (talk) 20:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I haven't related "closing AfDs without doing my preferred level of due dilligence to recklessness". That would be strange.

The comparison went like this: Making AfD comments without taking the actual state of the article into consideration is like driving recklessly; verifying that AfD comments have anything do with the article is like looking both ways. I'm not sure what you think I said.

I understand about the negative incentives; I just disagree that the solution is to somehow capitulate to it. I don't think the solution is to ram our heads repeatedly into a wall, either. I think the solution is to come up with some creative way of pushing AfD culture in a more productive direction. Is that something you disagree with? Am I real out-of-line here? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, considering that I'm not frustrated... how do you understand my frustration? Or, were you talking to someone else? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:48, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that you are wrong, necessarily. I'm saying that the attitude toward admin leeway at AfD provides a strong disincentive to do the things you say are necessary in anything but the most minimal fashion. I don't think you are out of line. I agree that AfD culture needs to be pushed and prodded a different direction, but I doubt it is going to happen. Like folks are saying above, we don't actually disagree, we just don't think that ideals are properly applied the the current situation without taking into account the culture. Protonk (talk) 21:08, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I'm just a bit more optimistic. I've seen Wikipedia indoctrinate a community in bits of culture that I never would have believed (they're spelled IAR) before I saw it. We just have to get creative, and then get persistent. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

How can one meet the "rough consensus" expectations in WP:DGFA without looking at the article? The way we process PRODs takes us to the actual page to do the deletion. Why should a contested deletion require any less? I know the template allows deletion of articles straight from the AfD... maybe it shouldn't. I know, I've used it before on things that were uncontested... but maybe that option should be eliminated to force admins to look at the article under deletion, even if just briefly. Jclemens (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

then I repeat my question from above. What happens when I find an article which is totally unsourced and unsourcable but attracts enough keep voters to more than meet the no consensus threshold? How do I close that article as anything but keep or no consensus without being accused of adding my own opinion as some sort of 'super vote'? Protonk (talk) 21:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

What... you'd rather overlook the article's deficiencies and keep the article? How does that help the encyclopedia? If you delete an article that should be deleted, and you go ahead and delete it, and people complain about it, oh well. They can listen to policy, or not, and take it to DRV, or not, and if they harass you too badly, they can be blocked. Local consensus can only override policy if it actually improves the encyclopedia--that's right in WP:DGFA too. Really, admins closing contentious AfDs need to have impeccable policy, good explanations, and a thick skin. Jclemens (talk) 21:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Amen. And also remember Protonk, no one is required to close an AfD. More than once I've been closing AfDs and come across one where there were no valid policy arguments, or lots of keep arguments along the lines of "The sources show notability" when they are all myspace and other primary sources. In those cases, I put my editor hat back on and add my !vote, letting someone else do the close. Maybe the closer will agree with me, maybe they won't. I can live with that.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

^What he said. Be Bold. Delete the $&*^*, and let 'em take it to DRV. Then beat 'em there. We can't let our culture be dictated by a mob. If we run out of thick-skinned admins... then it's back to the drawing board. :/ -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm really searching for where I wrote that I preferred that as an outcome. I don't, obviously. Hence my being labeled as an extreme deletionist. I'm trying to point out (probably inartfully) that there is a significant asymmetry in our expectations of due diligence. I just wanted to make sure that was part of the conversation so long as we were going to be talking about changing culture and demanding more inspection of articles from admins. Protonk (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I frankly have no trust that my fellow admins will protect me if someone does decide to go after me - the extreme abuse I had over a recent speedy MFD close is a case in point and I'm afraid that while I accept it was a poor call on my part someone should have stepped in and blocked the editor concerned rather then various people telling them to cool it when they clearly weren't. I'm afraid that this kind of experience doesn't help me to assume good faith and support me to make policy based rather then numerical judgements even though otherwise I generally do have an excellent record of having my closes endorsed at DRV. Thick skins is fair enough and if I will choose to work predominately in deletion I should accept more then my fair share of grief but somewhere, somehow we need to have more courage to support admins whose closes get challenged. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Spartaz: "I frankly have no trust that my fellow admins will protect me if someone does decide to go after me". Try me. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Some of you may be old enough to remember "trust but verify". Yes, I would certainly hope the discussion would be complete and errors in reasoning or facts would be pointed out. But that relies on someone coming along after the error and before the close, noticing the error, and deciding the discussion would benefit by having it pointed out. In reality, that doesn't always happen in AfD debates, which is why I appreciate when admins double check.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

...and you said it in 3 words. Excellent. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• This discussion brings up several matters I'm interested in.

  First, to Spartaz, I would say that while you do generally close XfDs excellently, in the case you mention it was rather hard for others to support you. Had you snow-closed it once, I would have done so, but the fact is that you snow-closed it, you were reverted, and then you personally snow-closed the same discussion a second time rather than have an uninvolved admin do it; and the matter was then brought to DRV. In the circumstances, it really was very difficult to speak out in your defence, because I felt it was the other side that needed defending. So I'm sorry you took a few lumps over that, but I think expecting support from other admins for such an action is a little hopeful. Put it down to experience.

  Second, as a more general point, the admin closing the discussion is assessing the discussion rather than the article. It probably is necessary to read the article, but the order in which these things are done is important: first you read the debate, then you think and decide what the consensus is. Only then do you look at the article, and only because you need to be sure that all the !votes were made in good faith and based on a clear understanding of policy.

  I would add that it is very rarely necessary to close a debate against consensus. If, during a closing spree, you decide that in the case of one particular article, the consensus is wrong, one of the best options is to add your own, correct, !vote on the issue and leave it to another admin to close. I think this is particularly important in debates where there has been little participation.

  The benefit of doing this is that closing a debate against consensus can be a WP:BITE issue. There are good reasons why we show new users that their contributions are not deleted unless there is a consensus or a clear speedy deletion criterion, because the bloke who writes an inappropriate article about their favourite garage band today might be the bloke who writes Judith Jesch next week—if not put off by a close they perceive as abusive.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 07:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Popcorn break 2 - defending articles in AfD

• GTBacchus, thanks for inviting my thoughts since one of my comments on an AfD apparently helped spur this discussion. You wrote in part, "the easiest way to defend an article against deletion is to just improve it, ignoring any deletion discussions that may be going on." I'm not sure I agree with that. Now my experience with AfD is limited, but I'm not sure that every admin looks to see if an article is really improved (and some of the discussion above makes me think i'm not alone in this view). People are lazy and time is finite - frankly, its easier to dig up a few good sources and plop the links into an AfD discussion than actually do the real work needed to integrate that information into the article (ideally someone should do both-that is the gold standard). But an ill-advised AfD is the easiest thing of all to do - you take one half-assed blinders-on google search and a personal assessment of "this seems like crap", and off we go to AfD. I spent some time fixing up an article last week that was nominated for AfD 12 minutes after it was created -- it didn't take me much time to know this was a worthy subject, and i actually improved the article as well as discussing it in the AfD. But it still takes much more time to improve articles than to improperly send them to AfD. I know some editors are loathe to edit an article they think will be deleted because they don't trust the AfD process to strike the balance of consensus where they believe it really is. Now, I never really considered that an admin might be able to reinstate an article after its deleted; I think lots of people assume that once something is gone, its gone for good (unless there's some change in the status of the article subject to make it more notable). Maybe the AfD template can be modified to reflect this option, though i wonder if it will really change behavior in AfD discussions. I've wondered whether people who nominate AfDs should get a "rating" associated with them to see their success rate on AfDs, so you can see whose AfDs rarely reflect consensus, BUT having such a system would encourage those nominating AfDs to defend that at all costs, even after articles are improved (though maybe they could delete their AfD nomination in those cases to save their percentage)--Milowent (talk) 03:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • In my early days here, I was a bit proud of my success rate at AfD. I even mentioned it in my question responses at my RFA, back when the mop was considered much less of a big deal than it is now. (I would never be made admin today.) At this time, I don't care about that, but I do care about finding some creative solution to the problems that many of us recognize in the AfD process.

    AfD seems to be frequented by deletionists who apply very strict standards, and who don't try to find sources before !voting "delete". This position sets up a dyad where anyone working on the article feels compelled to take the contrary position in order to "save" the article. The ensuing arguments very seldom lead to anybody's mind being changed, and I therefore see them as pointless. Why argue with someone who simply will not be convinced, no?

    One possible solution is for people to start articles in their own personal sandbox, and then move them to article-space when they're ready to survive a possible AfD. I don't know how to stop people from applying deletionist standards, so it seems to me that it would be more effective to treat those people as part of the terrain, and find a way to work around them.

    Another possible solution that User:Fritzpoll proposed on my talk page last night (night for GMT-1, anyway), was to create a sort of article "purgatory" or "limbo", outside of the main encyclopedia, where articles can be improved without the threat of a 7-day deletion discussion deadline distracting (diligent and dedicated) editors from working on the article. That's what I see as the problem - AfD is a distraction, and I'm beginning to doubt that I can convince inclusionists to confidently ignore it. Oh well. This "limbo" idea is kind of like the personal sandbox solution, except that it collects articles in such a state to a central location. Perhaps an article "incubator" or "nursery" is a better metaphor (than one about various afterlives for different kind of dead sinners).

    I dunno, does anything in there strike a chord with anyone? -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• A central issue in the DRV for WP:Articles for deletion/Dog poop girl (4th nomination) was whether the closing admin was allowed to view the sources himself and discount recommendations based on them without anyone at the AfD explicitly pointing out weaknesses in specific sources. The redirect outcome was endorsed at DRV.

  This discussion was mentioned in this week's Signpost. Flatscan (talk) 04:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

  • Ooh, we're on telly! -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• I really appreciate GTBacchus's enthusiasm in bringing up this subject here. But I think this conversation is focusing on the problem after the fact. Above is a conversation on whether WP:BEFORE should become a policy, guideline, #Upgrade_WP:BEFORE_to_a_guideline.3F, which is getting mixed support. Currently, articles for deletion is the first step for many editors to clean up articles, instead of being the last. The current Articles for Deletions system is like arbcom being the first step in dispute resolution between editors. We have WP:PRESERVE and WP:BEFORE but they have no teeth, and editors ignore them. Articles for deletion are confrontational by their very nature. When I have spent months on an article and I see that red tag on the top of the page, by an editor who never said one word to me before, my first reaction is red hot rage. After months of recruiting editors to the WP:Article Rescue Squadron, I know I am not alone. Asking editors to not fight for something they have poured their souls into for sometimes months on simply won't work, especially the way DRV is rigged and the way I have seen editors ruthlessly go after userfied pages. GTBacchus, I appreciate your willingness to help, but I think the only true solution is one at the beginning, not at the end. Ikip (talk) 05:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • • Ikip, I'm open to finding a solution at any end of the horse, be that front, middle, back, or somehow extra-dimensional. I don't think I'm asking editors not to fight for something. I think I'm asking editors to focus their efforts where they will make more difference. Trying to convince individual deletionists to change their mind doesn't seem to me to be a good strategy. I'm in favor of fighting the good fight, but I think it should be done as smartly as possible. I think there are strategies that haven't been explored very well, because of the perception that the AfD discussion is the be-all end-all venue where article's fates are decided. That doesn't have to be true.

      The "hot rage" you mention, I understand and appreciate, but I can't agree that something is the best solution, simply because it's motivated by a valid emotion. I'm looking for a creative solution—any new idea, or an old idea with new clothes on, or whatever might work. The problem I see with a lot of solutions being tossed around is that they involve somehow changing deletionists' minds, or convincing people not to nominate articles for AfD. I'm not sure that will happen, so it might be better to choose a different battle that could lead to the same result. Changing people's minds and attitudes through argument, legislation, or force of will just doesn't work very often.

      I don't know about what you mention: People "going after" userfied pages. I'm interested to hear more about that. Perhaps what is needed is some kind of more explicit cooperation between article "rescuers" and admins willing to retrieve deleted content (I've only just learned about and joined that category). Maybe WP:REFUND just needs to be souped up, or better staffed, or better advertised to potential rescuers. I consider this a brainstorm, and I'm open to hearing about anything that might make our lives better. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

      • WP:REFUND is well staffed at the moment (most requests handled in just a few hours), but probably could be better advertised.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

RE: "The problem I see with a lot of solutions being tossed around is that they involve somehow changing deletionists' minds, or convincing people not to nominate articles for AfD."

I think what you suggest with WP:REFUND is also the same, changing "editors who want to save articles" minds. Would this somehow be easier? I would like to think so.

I think we all got to this point because of influential editors at the top creating rules, and a "company culture", which all editors must now abide by.

Some of my suggestions are at the very top of this page, before the many inevitable digressions on important, but off topic points.

I appreciate and applaud your valiant efforts, and I will support anything you suggest. Ikip (talk) 15:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You might be interested in the discussion taking shape at the bottom of my talk page just now. I agree that rescuers will be easier to get on board than deletionists. -GTBacchus^(talk) 15:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC) (I'd say more, but I'm not really here right now; I'm studying.)

• • The discussion is about upgrading it to a guideline, not a policy (which you just claimed in an AfD it already way, please get your story straight). But anyway, could you give an example of an article where you "have spent months on an article and I see that red tag on the top of the page, by an editor who never said one word to me before,[...]"? Fram (talk) 07:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Fram, thanks for the personal correction, again. Again I am flattered by the personal attention that you take in my comments, thanks for helping me "get my story straight". I would rather not share examples, thank you. I see your continued criticism of my comments, here and elsewhere, but what I am really interested in is your own proposals on this topic. Ikip (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
      • When you are one of the central persons in discussions concerning deletions and so on, it would be useful if you could get some of the essential facts (like the difference between a policy, a guideline, and a recommendation) correct. Seeing you make the same mistake over and over again and making comments based on this misconception is not helping in any way. As for your examples: if you pretend that something has happened to you (an article you spent months on is sent to AfD without any prior indication of problems), then you should be prepared to give an example of this. Otherwise it is just empty rhetoric. Discussions should be based on reality, and if you insert mistakes and made-up situations into it, then you are distorting the discussion. But it's fairly easy to stop me criticizing: don't make such mistakes. Fram (talk) 06:57, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
        • Fram, I would take issue with the idea that it matters one bit whether something is a "policy" or a "guideline". I understand that someone mistakenly saying one instead of the other could be frustrating, and I see why you would ask for an example of the "months of work" remark. That's the kind of comment you're at liberty to simply not believe until you're shown an example. (This is, of course, no reason to be rude about it. No I'm not calling you rude; I'm just saying.)

          However, I must observe that, per WP:WIARM, "Rules derive their power to compel not from being written down on a page labeled "guideline" or "policy", but from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of many editors." The best thing we can do is to ignore the distinction, and teach others to ignore it. Maybe you could start referring to guidelines as policies yourself, and vice-versa. You might find it liberating. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

          • There are some guidelines I would prefer to be policies and vice cersa, but that's obviously not what you mean :-) The distinction is often not that important, but when people use things which aren't even a guideline and are, as is obvious from recent discussion, not really widely supported or practiced, as clubs to beat other editors in discussions, it is better to give the correct status of their arguments. People are entitled to think that BEFORE or JNN or KILLCRUFT should be policy, and people are entitled to express that they support any of those and for that reason think that X should be kept/deleted/merged, but when they start pretending that one should follow BEFORE because it is policy, or that a JNN argument will be ignored as invalid, it is time to intervene. Fram (talk) 08:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
            • If someone tries to use something as a club, the problem is not the status of the page. The problem is that we're trying to club each other instead of discussing with an attitude of rationality, collegiality, and even—as Jimbo often says—kindness. Ask yourself whether you're being kind. Don't tell others they're being unkind; lead by example.

              Talking about the status of the page reinforces a bad superstition. Nobody should follow anything because it's policy. If you think policy is wrong, then following it is unconscionable. Conversely, no principle should be ignored because it's not policy. If it's not policy, but it's a good idea, then it's unconscionable to ignore it. Talking about the status of a page is cancer; status should not enter into our considerations, period. All policy (or guideline, or essay) citations are simply shorthand for the ideas contained therein.

              This is simply Sartre's existential notion of being condemned to our freedom. You don't get to appeal to "policy" to justify your actions. You have to actually justify them. -GTBacchus^(talk) 15:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• • Until there is something in place that requires editors that create new pages to include sources and other information to substantiate an article outside of the special CSD cases, making BEFORE guideline or policy is completely against the role of who has the burden to establish sources for an article described by WP:V. That is, if BEFORE were guideline or policy, and knowing the tactics of the various "factions", I could make a whole bunch of stubby articles, particularly within certain classes of articles like fictional characters, with just a hint of a source that keeps them out of CSD's hands, and then know that they will be kept either because someone else, who was going to send the article to AFD, would have to take up BEFORE and find sources thus improving it, or would likely be discouraged by the need to execute BEFORE and thus would avoid the hassle of AFD (heck, how does PROD fit under that too?). If there is no barrier or minimum requirement for creating an article, there needs to be a similar one for at least nominating an article for deletion; BEFORE is completely unbalanced against the removal side.
  • What really needs to be done is to get rid of the "inclusionists"/"deletionists" titles, and recognize we are all trying to build an encyclopedia. We want to include as much verifiable information as possible but at the same time, we're now maturing and recognizing that we are also increasing the minimum quality threshold for how we present that information. That doesn't mean we disclude reliable information, but sometimes it is better to present it in a larger context than insisting it much have an article on its down. There is absolution nothing wrong with redirects for terms with minimal information to a larger article in context as that means the term is still searchable on WP and there's no prejudice for future expansion if more information becomes known. Sometimes there are topics that need to be outright deleted, but in most cases, there is nearly always some possible target that such redirects can point to. If everyone editing recognized this as a usable solution that gets us to the end faster in these discussions, then the original point of this thread is addressed. --MASEM (t) 12:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Masem I think that's right on target. If people who see themselves as "inclusionists" or "article rescuers" took a more mergist approach, we could avoid a lot of problems. A great many stubby articles that tend to get AfD'd could exist quite peacefully as sections in larger articles on more notable topics. Why not begin new topics as new sections in existing articles, and then let them "bud off" when it becomes clear they're taking up too much space in the larger topic?

      This would seem to me to be a better way of opposing the "deletionist" attitude. It's like aikido - don't try to meet the force head-on; let it roll across you. Merge. I think that this, combined with some kind of article "incubator" (as suggested by User:Fritzpoll) for topics that don't have clear merge targets, could do a lot to reduce the level of unproductive conflict at AfD. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• As for "going after" userfied pages: userfied pages are a problem if people don't put {{NOINDEX}} at the front. We've had a few back-and-forths about whether Google indexes user pages, but right now, it does. That means if you put a POV fork or other unsuitable article in your user space, Google presents that as essentially the equivalent of an article. Sometimes, all I will do is NOINDEX the article if it seems that the user has benign intent, and is working to fix things. If it seems that the reason the article is userfied is as a means to circumvent the AFD, and the user has no apparent intent to correct the problems that resulted in the AFD consensus being "delete", I'll go to MFD. Admins that userfy articles really should insert the NOINDEX tag as a default step.—Kww(talk) 12:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • That's definitely an important detail. Whether articles are userfied, or copied to some other neutral location for repairs, they shouldn't show up in searches until they're made into actual articles. Kind of like how Pinocchio couldn't register to vote until he became a "real boy". :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Look. there are serious structural problems with NPP, CSD and AFD. Full stop. New editors get blindsided with deletion notices, the false positive rate (even after taking into account DRV) is unacceptably high (my guess is that it is about 5% for CSD and AFD, not sure what it is combined). Even the articles which may never make it into the encyclopedia end up running through a deletion process that pisses off everyone involved. Deletion, and deletion related pettifoggery are the top complaints one hears about wikipedia on digg or /. or ars or reddit (ignoring all the stupid shit about jimbo's dalliances). The process has problems. Big ones. But here's the rub. In 2007 we deleted close to 1000 pages a day--just in article space. The number of total deletions per day was closer to 4000. That number hasn't been going down (at least not by much). We need a solution to our problems above that reflects the need we face. And I don't have a lot of trust in reform proposals which are predicated on the notion that so long as our deletion policy becomes toothless, everything will be fine. So. Half of change comes from accepting that a crisis exists. The other half comes from bringing in a solution that resolves the crisis and doesn't create another, bigger crisis. We need the other half right now. Protonk (talk) 13:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I wholeheartedly agree that bad deletions (and bad deletion proposals) are a serious problem. (And I'd put the bad CSD tagging rate as much, much higher than 5%) But I've yet to see a proposed solution that will work. Many taggers aren't reading the instructions as it is, so new instructions aren't going to be enough. I try to educate the bad taggers, with limited success, but new ones crop up all the time (and a few just don't want to be educated, going so far as to put notices on their talk pages asking people not to leave messages about CSD tagging). Because there's no effective system for admin feedback, and unless someone goes on a rampage adminhood is for life, so it's hard to have an impact on admins who incorrectly delete mistagged articles. (Yeah, I've politely tried to get clarification on why they thought article x was speediable, and the response is usually "fuck off".) So, Protonk, if you have a solution that will work, I'd love to hear it. In the mean time, I'll continue to bang my head on my desk.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 13:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't know how much my suggestion that I'm hashing out at GTBacchus' page will help - its effect is to get articles out of mainspace without deletion to be less bitey to unwitting newbies, as well as not draining AfD and our other backlogs with articles that clearly wouldn't survive without a fair bit of work. This might make a smallish dent over time, but only if ultimately incorporated widely in the deletion process. For now, we'll probably just trial it almost semi-Wikiproject style and try to hash out the bugs - if it works, hopefully everyone will agree to incorporate it. If it fails, well, at least we tried! Fritzpoll (talk) 14:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
    • I may be a bit slow this morning (not enough tea in me yet, and the whole making a living thing wants my attention soon), but how is incubation fundamentally different than userfication? It's the same thing in a different space, as far as I can see. No objection to it at all, I userfy a lot for people, but the people who are slapping on bad tags and admins who are making bad deletions currently aren't considering improvement or userfication, so why would they consider this? Am I completely missing something here? (Quite possible, so please educate me.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:19, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
      • The primary difference I see is that it's centralized. If there's a page that keeps track of all the incubated articles, then it's much easier to know how many there are, whether any progress is being made, etc. It also makes it easier for would-be article rescuers to locate articles in need of the type of care that they offer. Also, it makes it easier to clear out dead weight, if there are articles that aren't being improved after some time in incubation. -GTBacchus^(talk) 15:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
      • (after e/c) There are a few differences, which I will now probably bore you by explaining!
        1. The most obvious thing is that incubation is centralised - an inexperienced editor might not know what to do with their userfied article, how to bring it up to scratch, etc. but in a centralised location, other editors can a) do the work, and b) show the newer editor the problems, which may aid retention and improve the quality of subsequent contributions.
        2. Incubation can replace the slapping on of tags - if something is incubated that shouldn't be, the correction is less worrisome to the author and doesn't require admins overturning admins, with all the problematic scenarios that result. This rests, however, on a supposition that people are not slapping on tags because they are desperate to delete. My personal opinion is that in the vast majority of cases, this is not true but YMMV. This could arguably also apply to admins considering deletion - another option that has the same effect
        3. Userfied articles can last forever regardless of lack of improvement, and are technically speaking a pain to get rid of because of the apparent sanctity of the userspace. As this is in the early stages of discussion, I can't say how exactly incubation prevents this, save to say that it is easier to develop guidelines that affect a new WP-space entity than to change guidance for the entire userspace.
      • In terms of reducing traffic to AfD, this can be used as soon as the nomination is made to prevent a long-winded discussion. In essence, you work out some criteria (possibly as weak as editor discretion) to close an AfD and move the article into the incubation space. In theory, this could be done with the author's consent through userfication, but apart from the problems of userfication above, it would require more widespread education to allow an author to realise that such a request could be made - we all appear to be of the mind that more instructions for potential participants in a debate is not helpful.
      • As I say, this idea is merely in concept at present, and if it can't be made to be more useful than existing processes, then I doubt anyone would want to go ahead with it. It also will not solve every problem - someone who is desperate to delete something will do everything possible to bypass any alternative. But if we can dent the AfD traffic, regulars and other editors may be able to spend more time examining AfDs to come to a more reasonable decision - and that cuts both ways, since more time for examination can make people more confident to favour deletion. I'm hopeful that this isn't really an inclusionist- or deletionist-leaning proposal (for whatever such labels are worth) since poor material will get taken from the main body of the encyclopedia, but may return after substantial improvements. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
        • All good points, and will probably improve things. I have absolutely no problem with trying it (and a script to move to incubation would be wonderful), but I remain a bit skeptical that it will be used by the worst of the speedy taggers and deleting admins. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
          • I think that's a healthy skepticism - I think the best we can hope for is to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio enough that the problem cases can be more easily identified. We can then tackle that problem separately. A notification will spring up on this page when we've made some progress Fritzpoll (talk) 16:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
• Jclemens proposed a similar process a few months ago (WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 54#ARSify?), which he mentioned above. I lean towards modifying WP:Userfication to add centralized listings using a category and/or bot, as 1) the page lives in its sponsor's userspace, and 2) even if the overall process is rejected, incremental improvements may be kept. Flatscan (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Honestly I'm a lot more skeptical of a proposal like that w/ today's ARS than I was with May 2009's ARS. Protonk (talk) 04:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Protonk, what do you mean? How is the ARS different now from how it was in the Spring? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
      • It has just become progressively more about keeping articles that are at AfD than improving articles, in my opinion. I don't want to rehash the whole debate or name names. Protonk (talk) 06:15, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
        • No, there's no need for that. You answered my question. I wonder to what extent an attitude of "stop deletions!" has been conditioned by (and possibly contributive to) a contrary attitude of more and more strident deletionism. I feel as if AfD discussions I see recently are more polarized in general, i.e., on both sides. Once people take on such a dyadic conflict, reason begins to drop away in favor of a desire to win. A real shame. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:43, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
          • Maybe this escalation will reach a plateau, and suddenly everyone will realize how silly they've been acting, and we come out on the other side stronger and unified. Or maybe I'm just dreaming. But sometimes dreams come true. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 08:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
            • I think that what we're pushing towards will start to show people that they don't have to take a side in a strict delete/keep dichotomy. That polarization is what leads to the nastiness that is so often encountered in these debates. The more people realize that there is a whole spectrum of workable solutions, the less combative the atmosphere will be. That's the hope, anyway. -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
• We're now going to leave GTBacchus's talk page in peace, and instead have started discussions at WP:INCUBATE/WT:INCUBATE. Nothing really written there yet - the page exists principally to give a brief overview, and to prevent discussion spilling over several pages. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Should admins look at the article?

I'm breaking this out because I think it's a separate topic that is likely to get buried. Personally, I think the answer is a resounding "yes", but only in a very narrow context: validating the claims made in an argument is necessary to give an argument proper weight. If someone argues that an article should be kept because there are multiple independent sources, and his claim is counter-argued by someone that says "no, all those sources are press releases", there's just no way to evaluate that without looking at the sources. It's not the role of the closing admin to evaluate the article per se, but he does have to weigh the arguments.—Kww(talk) 12:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Just so I'm not misrepresenting myself, I agree completely that factual validation by an admin of contentious facts is perfectly fine. Otherwise, as you say, weight can't be applied appropriately Fritzpoll (talk) 13:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If an AfD is contested at all, an admin should look at the article, and evaluate the weight given to the !votes in light of the state of the article at the time of closing. Every "No RS" !vote that is found to be inaccurate at the time of close has no policy basis, and therefore cannot be included in a rough consensus. That is, an established editor who makes a good-faith "no RS" argument counts as much as an SPA who !votes "keep--the world needs this information!" Jclemens (talk) 14:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes, the closer should read the article, as well as any sources mentioned in the AfD. Yes, the admin needs to try to keep as neutral a view as possible, but I just can't see how anyone can weigh the strength of an argument without doing so. (And if the sources don't match the arguments, it's entirely appropriate to say so in the closing statement.) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Google Book, Google News, Google scholar hits automatically in AfDs

Never mind

Anyone think it would be beneficial to automatically add: Google Book Google News Google scholar hits ...to all AFDs? Yes, some results will be wrong. That said, it would helpful for editors like me who casually search AFDs. Example: Monopoly pub crawl, Google news: 4, Google books: 4, Google scholar: 0 Ikip (talk) 13:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC) Sorry but I think it's a bad idea. It's too hard to construct appropriate search terms, and easy to get it badly wrong - it could just confuse things. Dougweller (talk) 13:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC) I think that the fact that it's easy to think of a disadvantage is not a very good argument against trying something. If someone had asked 10 years ago, "why not start an online encyclopedia that any member of the public can edit?", lots of people would say "I think it's a bad idea". I see no disadvantage to trying this suggestion, and then abandoning it if it doesn't work. -GTBacchus(talk) 13:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC) Number of hits only has a very tenuous relationship with notability. It is the fact that some individual hits are (i) reliable sources and (ii) contain "significant coverage" that demonstrates notability. I don't think further emphasis on WP:GOOGLEHITS (be they general, News, Book or Scholar) is a good idea (hit-counting arguments are already too prevalent). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:05, 6 September 2009 (UTC) It would need very careful monitoring of any AfD where this was being done. Otherwise I still think it might be disruptive and of course you wouldn't know if it was working. Dougweller (talk) 14:20, 6 September 2009 (UTC) I wonder if it could be done in a way that de-emphasizes the number of hits, and emphasizes the content of the hits. I agree that it might be disruptive. I can think of one good way to find out if it is... -GTBacchus(talk) 14:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC) I think this is a bad idea. Links to the searches, yes - great. The number of hits? Useless except for wikilawyering and fallacious arguments. Verbal chat Google searches are not references. Stifle (talk) 14:31, 6 September 2009 (UTC) Google pages must have some great relationship to notability, because the find bar was just added to all afds. Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Search_template Google sites are what most editors use almost exclusively to establish notability in deletion discussions. No one is suggesting google searches are references :/ I am not suggesting creating appropriate search terms. I know that certain titles like List of multiple swimming medalist in international competitions Cult Ritual (band) and Tim Alexander (filmmaker) will garner incorrect 0 Google hits. These are in the minority of most deletion discussions. Certain phrases or names like Monopoly pub crawl are a great example of why this would be extremely useful. Editors can quickly see that this term has 4/4/0 hits. Therefore they would not need to search google scholar. If the same word or specific phrase has 0/0/0 hits, you would know there it is probably not notable. this will not automatically help those who want to keep the article. In many case, in fact in most cases, it will hurt the chances of the article being saved, because most articles which go up for AFDs have ZERO hits, even with the correct search term: Lil' Kim's Fifth Studio Album 0/0/0 S. V. Torke 0/0/0 Brad Maglinger 0/0/0 Orchidea Keresztes 0/0/0 Girlicious Sophmore Album 0/0/0 Ikip (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC) (edit conflict) (still adding this to show I've cottoned on!)::Hold on, isn't this what we have already? See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wayne Herschel -- Clicking on Google Books gave 43 hits, only 2 of which were relevant. I see I misunderstood, you mean a search for the exact phrase. Why are we discussing this if it exists? Dougweller (talk) 14:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC) This conversation is getting bizarre. I will close it. Ikip (talk) 14:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Procedural nominations

When I decline CSDs, I usually send the article to AfD to receive addition feedback; I know that many other admins do this as well. However, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Rhenman, several editors have objected to this practice, and since as far as I can tell policy does not indicate preference either way, I'd like to hear what others think. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• It's a pratice of long-standing. I've done the odd one or two myself. It's generally employed, though, when one is taking something from Proposed Deletion or CSD on behalf of another, who hasn't the capability, or knowledge, to do so xyrself (Procedural nominations are sometimes done on behalf of editors without accounts, for example.), or when someone has made a complete mess of an AFD nomination. A procedural nomination is generally a nomination where the nominator is neutral but is helping out someone, less capable, with the process. You might want to remind some "there is no such procedure" editors of the wording of CSD criterion #A7, which explicitly states a caveat (disputed or controversial cases are to go through AFD) that was strongly supported by many people when the criterion was first adopted, that is an important part of the criterion, and that has been retained and adhered to ever since.

  As for whether you should regularly take things from CSD#A7 to AFD, as a simple matter of course: I suggest not. Leave the procedural nominations to those cases where the CSD tagger really is incapable of an AFD nomination and needs a helping hand, or where an AFD nomination has been completely messed up and you are simply lending a helping hand with the mechanism. We know from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prophetic rock that Teapotgeorge is fully capable of nominating an article at AFD xyrself without messing it up. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 17:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

  • Addendum: The other (and possibly major) source of procedural nominations, not relevant to this discussion, is of course relistings from Deletion Review. Uncle G (talk) 17:13, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• "Procedural nominations" - as I stated earlier, in the current AFD discussion Eric Rhenmann is a phrase that has been seen more and more in the nominators opening reasoning. And begs the question "... what the *&^% does that mean"? I have looked through our proceedures - policies and guidelines and have not found that phrase either used - listed or even mentioned. I know, in my heart of heart, what the nominator is saying, especialy when it concerns CSD, that they do not want to be responable for either; one, deleting the article under speedy or two, they do not have the time to research the piece and determine if it is justified under speedy and so nominate the piece for deletion at AFD with the hopes that the research will be done and the article either gets deleted or improved to the point that it is proved notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. Either way, this is a bad precedent. AFD is not, or as I should say, should not be used to either improve articles or bring attention to articles. In my opinion the administrator reviewing the CSD request either delets - product tags - or improves the article themselfs, rather than having the AFD communitiy do that job for them. The adminstrators is given the extra tools for just these circumstances, and the big bucks :-). Thanks. ShoesssS ^Talk 17:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• AFD is meant to handle discussions about deletion. There is no other place to handle. DRV handles botched discussions about deletion. I think the procedural nomination is fine, especially since it appeals to the community's consensus procedures. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• I do it occasionally. Most speedies that I decline where the article isn't likely to meet our inclusion criteria but isn't immediately harmful I just exhort others to XfD if they feel like it. On some occasions I'll list an article with an avowedly neutral nom statement. I think the general practice of procedural noms is healthy when it is done judiciously. Protonk (talk) 18:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - I have a question than, why would you nominate an article for deletion, other than requesting the article to be deleted, than claim neutrality? In nominating at AFD you are expressing an opinion in that the category is Articles for DELETION not Articles for KEEP or Articles based on NEUTURAL opinion. The nomination in and of itself is expressing an opinion. Thanks. ShoesssS ^Talk 18:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Ok. That's a reasonable question. I do it (rarely) because another editor may want to delete an article but not know how to nominate it. Or I do it because I feel there are serious problems with an article which may not be fixable through normal editing, but I don't know that the article is unsalvageable. Or when past nomination errors were so egregious that debate has to be reset. Examples are here or here among others. As for your claim that the nomination inherently represents an opinion, I disagree. The nomination expresses an opinion if the nominator adds one. Protonk (talk) 00:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree Shoessss, the opinion expressed is what the nominator says, the title of the page does not put words in the mouth of the nominator. I see nothing wrong with using AfD to get opinions on the merit of an article. Chillum 19:00, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Chillum. If there were a presumption in favor of deletion, or if "no consensus" defaulted to deletion, then I would agree with Shoessss. However, the "no consensus" default option is to keep the article, so nominating it really is just a way of asking for a discussion.

If someone wants to argue that deletion is somehow a de facto default based on AFD culture, I could see an issue then, but I don't think that's the case. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In certain restricted instances I would agree that a procedural nomination is allowed. That being an editor for one reason or another is not able to nominate the piece him/her self. That is a legitimate procedural use of listing at AFD. However, when an article is less than 3 hours old - gets nominated for speedy, and administrator comes by, discounts the speedy and goes and nominates at AFD and than express neutrality is a misuse of the procedure. That is happen more and more. It just strikes me as the lazy man's way out without shouldering responsibility for either deleting the article - putting some work into establishing is the article worth keeping or should be deleted. The one thing I was taught in the very beginning of my Wikipedia career is that when you express an opinion, back it up with reasons of why you expressed a Keep - Support - Delete - Oppose and yes even a Neutral. That is not happening.

Regarding the implied opinion that the article should be deleted when a nominator places an article up for deletion is actually implied, in my opinion, in before, unless I am totally misreading it. Thanks ShoesssS ^Talk 19:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It sounds as if your beef is not so much with procedural nominations per se, but with people who nominate articles too soon, or who fail to express their reasons in AFD discussions. Is that an accurate assessment of what you're saying here? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

One word answer, Yes! But I can't say Hello in less than 50 words :-). As I stated above, yes, I can see a very restricted use of nominating an article for deletion under procedural nomination. Regarding the rest, you are right, I am seeing it more and more articles that are clearly notable being nominated, some under procedural, others for various reasons, that do actually get deleted because the stars - moon and sun lined-up correctly. Typically, from my standpoint that is no big deal, if I am involved with the article already. I'll just take it and rework it to bring it up to Wikipedia standards. However, of the one I fix, I will guarantee there are 100's of others that are deleted to our electronic limbo. That is a shame for Wikipedia and more importantly it is a bigger shame to the editors that either started that piece or were working on the article because they have a tendency to go the same way their articles went. Thanks ShoesssS ^Talk 19:46, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

As I indicated in an above section, this is a problem that interests me. One thing I feel I can do is to undelete and userfy articles that people would like to save from AFD. It seems to me that making the "it's clearly notable" argument is often pointless, because people on the "other side" won't be convinced. Thus, I'm wondering how to let editors know that it's easy to get the content of deleted articles copied to their user-space for development.

It would also be good, it seems, to encourage people to start articles in their user-space, and only copy them to the main-space when they're sufficiently developed to avoid the new-page patrollers' hasty condemnation.

The question is, how do we let editors know about these options. It seems that people now think they have to successfully argue against deletion, but that seems to me to be a waste of time, in many cases. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm one of the editors who has objected. "Procedural nomination" is not a reason for deletion. A nominator should give some reason why they believe an article should be deleted, or they should leave it to someone who actually knows why the article should be deleted. That a speedy deletion was proposed by another editor is no reason for an admin to send an article to AfD like an automaton. Unless the nomination is a proxy nomination for an editor who for whatever reason is unable to themselves complete the nomination, any nomination that simply says "Procedural nomination" as Juliancolton's did should be immediately closed. Fences&Windows 20:07, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't really object to this kind of procedural nomination, but I generally avoid doing it myself. If I decline a speedy, I generally either don't think it's obviously deletable at all (and hence just decline it) or I think it's probably deletable, but not via CSD (and hence PROD or AFD it with my own rationale for that). If I don't think it should be deleted, or don't care, I'll let someone else AfD it if they want to - a procedural nom is unnecessary in that case. ~ mazca ^talk 20:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Like Mazca, I don't use it very much--mostly because I don't use a tool that automates AfD creation. If I see an article that's CSD'ed and really, really, doesn't belong in the encyclopedia, I will usually prod it. Occasionally, (e.g., anything that admits to WP:MADEUP) I will just go ahead and speedy it as nonsense or vandalism, knowing full well that the criteria don't technically apply but silently IAR'ing to improve the encyclopedia. When reviewing PRODs, I typically will not AfD anything where I decline the prod: unless I thought it should be kept or was otherwise ineligible for prod, I would have deleted it myself. Jclemens (talk) 20:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I use procedural AfDs mainly for "no consensus" DRVs where further discussion may bring about consensus. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:46, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Like Jclemens, I rarely send speedies I decline to AfD unless there are unusual circumstances, although I often leave a note for the CSD tagger explaining my decline a bit more fully and suggesting they go to AfD if they still think deletion is the right way to go. (I work mostly on contested speedies, so prodding those would be a waste.) On the rare ones I send along, either I have reason to think that someone along the line meant to send it to AfD, or there is a dispute about whether a speedy category applies where the answer isn't obvious and I think a wider discussion would be more appropriate. In the latter case, I'm often pleasantly surprised by what the community comes up with, such as a merge target that never occured to me. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:55, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• When DRV overturns a deletion and sends it back to AFD for further discussion its always a "procedural nomination" so I can't understand what the objection is. But then I'm stupid. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• Anyone that says "Procedural nomination is not a valid reason for deletion" needs to be taken away and re-educated (possibly with a two-by-four). An ideal procedural nomination should explain why the person adding it to AfD is doing it, and leave an opportunity for the person actually wanting to delete it (anon, speedy tagger, etc.) to explain it properly. Ideally, in these circumstances, nobody should make any argument (especially the nonsensical "no reason to delete" - a valid reason to keep is more convincing) until the original proposer has had an opportunity to explain themselves. This is only fair. I would also suggest that anyone de-prodding an article which has been prodded by an anon should at the very least be prepared to create the AfD, copying the description from the prod, without editorialising, and then leaving their opinion in the same way as any other participant would. I see no problem with these, but I do understand why some people might feel uncomfortable with them (person creating the page might not want to delete). Certainly a declined speedy should be referred on to another process. IMO, it would be a good idea to replace a speedy tag with a prod, and maybe if that fails bring it to AfD. The speedy criteria are narrowly-defined to bypass an administrator's judgment, so it seems reasonable to expect that an administrator will occasionally bring an article to AfD that they personally wouldn't want to see deleted, and unreasonable to attack them for such. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• No threats of violence, please. I think you misunderstand; the deletion nomination I objected to said only "procedural nomination". The nominator gave no reason for nomination, either on their own behalf or on behalf of another editor. If an editor nominates an article on behalf of another editor and gives valid reasons, I have no problem with this, so long as the proxy nominator has checked per WP:BEFORE to see if the reasons for nomination are likely to be valid and that there is no better alternative to deletion. Your belief that contesting speedy deletion must lead to a prod or AfD and that deprodding must lead to an AfD nomination is wrong. A significant minority of speedies and prods are completely mistaken. If I deprod an article prodded by an anon I am not obliged to send it to AfD, and I remove a speedy deletion tag I am not obliged to prod the article. I may consider doing both, but deletion is not a conveyor belt. Fences&Windows 21:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

What to do with a mis-named nomination.

There's a discussion going on now, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eurasian Adam (2nd nomination) which was mis-named. As far as I can tell, it's not the 2nd nomination, it's the 1st. What's the best thing to do here? Is it worth the disruption/effort to rename it properly? -- RoySmith (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• I left a note. Probably not worth the bother to rename the AfD. Protonk (talk) 21:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Is it any more bother than a simple page move? I mean, how many links are there to fix? Two? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
    • A half dozen. I'm doing it presently. Cheers. lifebaka++ 21:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Sam Yasgur AfD nomination withdrawn

I've withdrawn the Sam Yasgur AfD nomination, after finding information that tends to negate my initial rationale. I'd appreciate it if an administrator would kindly close out this AfD as "withdrawn." Thanks, --JohnnyB256 (talk) 00:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• It's been done. Please note that AfDs may only be kept early if there are no outstanding delete 'votes'. There were none in this case, but it is good to keep in mind for the future. Protonk (talk) 00:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I also note that, in cases like those Protonk describes, you can feel free to make the close yourself. Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep that in mind. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 00:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleting featured/good/important content

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948

I think deleting featured, good, and other content that was high-value at one time should be strongly discouraged until the article has been de-featured, de-GA'd, etc.

In cases where it's a no-brainer that the status should be yanked and the article should be deleted, go ahead and do the AFD but make it clear why the article no longer meets FA/GA/etc. criteria.

Comments? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right, AfDing GAs or up is generally not a good idea, for the simple reason that they'll almost always WP:SNOW like crazy. If there isn't a line in the page discouraging it, there probably should be. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:54, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

GA/FA aren't inherent protections against deletion, but there would have to be a seriously deficient FAC and a reasonably deficient GAN for an article which does not meet the inclusion criteria to be listed as a good article or a featured article. Protonk (talk) 16:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the reason against making this a hard rule is that there could be some circumstances where deletion would prevail, sucha s if it was found out a GA was mostly a copyvio or was a hoax. Also, important articles are less rigorously reviewed than FAs/GAs, so I could quite easily imagine an important article be deleted. MBisanz ^talk 16:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I would think a first natural step instead of AFDing articles that are GA or FA is to use their appropriate mechanics for their status review. (WP:GAR or WP:FAR). Let the editors have a chance to fix problems. If it doesn't get fixed, then its demoted and then if there's still no further improvements, AFD. --MASEM (t) 17:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

That's kind of the catch 22. If a process like FAR or GAR might fix the problems in the article, then deletion is prima facia inappropriate. But if a GA or an Fa is taken to AfD without first going through one of the status review mechanisms, it will likely be kept. I guess the best solution is to be extremely dubious of your own capacity to judge how broken an article is, and just work through the least impact processes first--that is effectively the essence of WP:BEFORE. Protonk (talk) 17:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• Proposed common sense rule Any GA or FA must be delisted before it is eligible for AfD. For GA, that's trivial and can be done by one editor, just like GAN approval. For FA, that's a more complicated and consensus-oriented process, just like FAC. Jclemens (talk) 18:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Are you proposing that we use common sense and do that or are you proposing that common sense suggests we add that to the deletion policy? And for the record, there is a process to delist good articles at WP:GAR and only in cases of obvious malfeasance can GA's be individually delisted. Protonk (talk) 18:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Is it really necessary to create a "rule" for this? I mean, how often does it come up, and when it does, would a "rule" really make things better? (I put "rule" in quotes because I don't believe that Wikipedia runs on "rules".) -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:35, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Probably doesn't come up very often. But, if the article actually should be deleted, the AfD should reflect that, regardless of whether or not GAR or FAR is used first. Requiring it seems a bit WP:BUREAUcratic to me. lifebaka++ 19:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't see any reason why making this expectation explicit would be excessively bureaucratic. If there's an egregious, previously undetected issue (e.g., copyvio), IAR will apply. I also don't see a reason why this can't be added to WP:BEFORE, which is ignored by a fair number of AfD nominators anyways. Jclemens (talk) 19:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
        • If your problem is people avoiding rules (or in this case, a set of best practices), the solution is decidedly not continuing to add more to the rule in question. Protonk (talk) 20:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
          • People doing things "wrong" once isn't a problem. The point is to set expectations clearly that such is the normal process to be followed in normal cases. Call it a guideline or behavioral expectation if you dislike calling it a "rule"--the funny thing here is I don't see anyone arguing over the expectation, just a lot of vague hand-waving about writing it down somewhere other than a talk page. Jclemens (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
            • Call it whatever you like. And it's hilarious that you don't see people arguing with the expectation, because both me and Allen3 have. It's duplicative, needlessly prescriptive, and would only be sparingly invoked (and in all cases where it would be invoked, it would be done so unnecessarily as many other points in BEFORE would have to be ignored in order to trigger this rule). But it's all vague hand waving right? Protonk (talk) 21:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
              • I think this is a semantic misunderstanding. People are advocating whether this should be an expectation/rule/guideline or not, but NO ONE is actually advocating rejection of the idea. That is, I've heard no one say "FAs should be as deletable as anything else--both for nomination and deletion consensus" and I would, in turn, find that positon hillarious. If an FA represents the community's ideal, then there's no way the community should stand for the nomination for deletion of a currently listed FA. If that happens, then either AFD or FAC/FAR is horribly, horribly broken. Jclemens (talk) 02:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
                • It's not a semantic misunderstanding. The claim "FA/GA's are likely not to be deleted without first being delisted" is totally valid. But the different claim "we should write a rule in order to enforce this" is totally baffling. Why does this rule need to exist? Have we made mistakes in the past for lack of guidance? Is there some common community practice (like systematically delisting then deleting FA/GA content) that we need to write down? I mean, we don't delete policy pages or mediawiki pages very often, but I don't really think we need guidance in BEFORE that says "please check if you are nominating the Main Page for deletion". And frankly you need to make an affirmative case for more and more complicated guidance. Eventually it stops being guidance and starts being clippy. Protonk (talk) 02:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
                  • Fie! That is the foulest insult I have ever heard hurled at another editor on Wikipedia! Godwin's law be damned, you skipped Nazis and accused me of becoming Microsoft Bob! :-) In all seriousness, I believe in codifying the community's collective consensus at any point in time where the issue arose, such that it can be intelligently referred to in the future. It serves as a "checkpoint" for the people who come later, to understand that at such and such a time, this was what the community said. Talk page archives give the whole situation, but are the epitome of TLDR. Essays, guidelines, and the like are a great way to capture the decision--not so it can be ossified, but so it can be used as a starting point ("they said this 2 years ago... is this still a good precedent? Why or why not?") and that the amount of harm can be minimized when an experienced editor leaves: we may not be able to stop from losing their contributions, but at least we will have (hopefully?) captured their tribal knowledge. If throwing it in BEFORE is too pointless, why not instead put it in OUTCOMES or someplace else? Jclemens (talk) 03:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
                    • I did kinda step over the line, eh? It felt good to be bad. Well, I think we are at the point in the debate where my continued stubbornness is more bothersome than a change the the guide would be. If you really want to add a line, then go ahead. Just don't make it as long as the one below. :) Protonk (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
      • This proposal appears unneeded for two reasons. First, a properly written article is its own best defense against deletion. Any article that is justifiably a GA or FA, i.e. not promoted by the author's "buddy" for WP:ILIKEIT reasons, will by it's nature have enough verbiage and cited sources to prompt a WP:SNOWBALL Wikipedia:Speedy keep of any nomination that does not contain a reasoned and well researched arguement for deletion. Second, occasionally articles that deserve deletion yet could potentially achieve GA status are created. (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Letchworth Corset Riot) On the rare occasion that such articles are discovered this proposed rule just stands in the way of improving the encyclopedia and would thus be overruled by WP:IAR. Overall the end result of the "rule" being implemented is there would be no measurable new protection to existing high quality content but serial copyright violators and high-end hoaxers would gain a new obstacle to block people from removing non-encyclopedic content. --Allen3 ^talk 20:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
        • If "serial copyright violators and high-end hoaxers" can get to FA, we have far bigger problems than reminding people to use IAR when it makes sense. Jclemens (talk) 20:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
          • Some featured articles have been there for a long time without adequate review. It's off-topic for Talk:AfD, but I think FA and similar statuses should automatically expire every year or two if there is no FA-review. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
• WP:Articles for deletion/Scott Doe was speedy kept for simply being a GA. WP:Deletion review/Log/2009 July 30 relisted it as WP:Articles for deletion/Scott Doe (3rd nomination) with closing admin's agreement. There was a well-supported position at the DRV that the article should be GAR'd and/or that GA status is not an automatic pass at AfD. The article was kept after the player started in the new season, satisfying WP:ATHLETE. It looks like an editor followed up on the GAR, but the article was not demoted. Flatscan (talk) 05:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Concrete proposal: Add text to end of Before nominating an article for deletion

Proposed text to add to the end of WP:AFD#Before nominating an article for deletion:

If an article is currently Featured Content, a Good Article, part of a Good Topic, or are otherwise recognized content, it should not be deleted without careful thought and a very good reason why deletion is preferable to improving the article. Good reasons to delete include that if the article were written today as a new article it would be eligible for speedy deletion e.g. discovered to be a hoax, or that taking the article through de-listing prior to bringing it to AFD would be a waste of time as the article obviously fails current listing requirements and would require a major re-write to meet them. In any case, if a featured or good article is nominated for deletion, advertise it in the talk pages of relevant WikiProjects and make reasonable attempts to notify the principal authors. Also, make it very clear in the AfD that the article has a featured or other recognized status, and be very clear why deletion is appropriate. For multi-article deletions where at least one article is at a recognized status, strongly consider listing that article separately.

Look at this after I wrote it, I see that it's a bit wordy. If you can re-write it without removing any of the meaning, I'm open to suggestions. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I like it, for the most part. I do suggest changing "or that taking the article through de-listing prior to bringing it to AFD would be a waste of time as the article obviously fails current listing requirements and would require a major re-write to meet them", as merely failing the listing requirement doesn't mean it should be deleted. I also note that G3, the speedy criterion which applies to hoaxes, only applies to extremely blatant ones; therefore, one that made it to GA or FA isn't blatant enough. Changing "hoax" to "copyright violation", and linking G12, would be better. With a few changes, I get something like this:

If an article is currently Featured Content, a Good Article, part of a Good Topic, or are otherwise recognized content, it should not be deleted without careful thought and a very good reason why deletion is preferable to improving the article. Good reasons to delete include that the article is eligible for speedy deletion (e.g. discovered to be a copyright violation) or has been discovered to be a hoax. In any case, if a featured or good article is nominated for deletion, advertise it in the talk pages of relevant WikiProjects and make reasonable attempts to notify the principal authors. Also, make it very clear in the AfD that the article has a featured or other recognized status, be very clear why deletion is appropriate, and show clearly that taking the article through de-listing prior to bringing it to AFD would be a waste of time as the article obviously fails current listing requirements. For multi-article deletions where at least one article is at a recognized status, strongly consider listing that article separately.

Still long, but with a few things clearer, I believe. Personally, I like it long, since it helps drive home the idea that such nominations usually aren't useful. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 04:26, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

If a featured article needs to be deleted, then it will be for some reason that is screamingly apparent (one big copyvio, for example), and nobody will need to appeal to a written rule. If a featured article is nominated for deletion, but should not be deleted, then that will be screamingly apparent, and the nomination will be speedy-closed per SNOW (the idea, not the page), without having to appeal to any written rule. If it is somehow a borderline case, then whatever rule we attempt to write down won't address it, and it will have to be considered on merits, again without appealing to a written rule.

In none of these cases will a written rule be necessary. That said, it's not actively harmful either, except insofar as it encourages the superstition that Wikipedia runs on written rules, and that things have to be written down in order for us to properly do them. I think that superstition is pernicious and actively harmful, but I know that others disagree. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Copyright violations, like WP:BLP violations, must be removed or reverted immediately. If by some chance an article got to FA status and its current version is a copyvio, the right thing to do is either excise the copyvio or roll it back to the last legal version. If all versions since it reached FA status were copyvio then we can roll it back to its last legal version and invoke WP:IAR to immediately strip it of its featured status. If there is no legal version to roll back to, either replace the article with a stub or better yet, a well-written article, or speedy delete it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• Per my comments above, I won't oppose this, but that is a hell of a lot of text for a situation that A: isn't going to happen all that often and B: will probably be resolved without looking at the 'policy' first. Also, on a funny note, I read the section title as a policy to require that I append some arbitrary string of text to WP:BEFORE prior to nominating an article for deletion (sort of like scrolling to the end of a click through EULA before the "I accept" button lights up. Protonk (talk) 19:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
• Shouldn't any article be given equal treatment to FA/GA articles, in terms of making certain that it meets deletion criteria prior to nominating it? Per Protonk above, frivolous nominations of FA/GA articles for nominations seems to be a vanishingly small problem, and the information being proposed here is hardly novel or cryptic; it ought to be common-sense. Smells like WP:CREEP to me. Not really worth opposing, but is it really worth bothering with in the first place? Shereth 19:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Mm, probably not. Chances are good the discussion'll be enough, as long as we remember it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Reopening AfD when nominator agreed to close and no other comments

RE: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dan_Brown_(YouTube)

I asked the nominator of an article if an article could be redirected, he agreed, and I closed the article, redirecting it. Another editor came along and reopened the AFD, stating, "The deletion discussion is supposed to last one week, not one hour" [3] and then voted keep. Now, whether or not this article is notable, etc. can be discussed on the AfD.

I am just interested, was that article supposed to be reopened? My understanding is that it shouldn't have. Ikip (talk) 23:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• In general, you are free to close any deletion discussion with no delete votes where the nomination is withdrawn. In practice, it is better to let things last longer rather than shorter and it is better that folks who have little to do with the article itself do the closing. An hour is pretty scant time (and the nomination has attracted one delete vote). We see a lot of SNOW/SK closes at DRV where the close itself was totally proper, but the fact that it was made so early prompted wailing and gnashing of teeth (the opposite of the intention of SNOW). Protonk (talk) 23:56, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason there were "no other comments" is because the discussion was closed after less than one hour. Why not let the discussion stay open for a week to give other editors a chance to give their opinions, and establish a consensus? Grundle2600 (talk) 23:59, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Multiple editors, including myself, contributed substantially to that article. Before you redirect it, and eliminate all that work that was put into the article, please wait a week to get a consensus. Grundle2600 (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Ikip seems keen to avoid deletion discussions and formal deletions, and is approaching nominators to see if they will agree to a merge, redirect or userfy instead. While I appreciate the idea of avoiding deletion, a redirect is in effect deletion and this approach risks losing content that would have been kept had the AfD run its course. I think it is better to let the discussions run their course rather than circumventing them. Fences&Windows 02:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends, for many editors anyway, on how new the article is. If an article has only been around for an hour, then I agree that userfication is preferable to a deletion debate. AfD is not the most congenial context in which to try to get an article from zero to standards. Such articles would do better to start in user space, and move into the mainspace when they're closer to adolescent than to stillborn.

Merging, when properly carried out, avoids losing content, but I've seen closes where the consensus was to merge, but then nobody picked up the ball. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:15, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

As well as the merge template that gets added to the page, couldn't closers add the merge to Wikipedia:Proposed mergers?

I agree that alternatives to deletion aren't considered often enough, but once a deletion debate has been opened then I don't agree with trying to merge, redirect or userfy while the debate is ongoing. Fences&Windows 08:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

harej has been developing a PM listing bot. Discussion at WT:Proposed mergers has suggested that mergers determined at AfD should be distinguished somehow. Flatscan (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful! I love it when someone is already working on what I suggest. Fences&Windows 18:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more - AfD has recently been extended from five days to seven, one of the arguments being that the extra time might make for better participation; there now seems to be effort (from A Nobody and Ikip in particular) to circumvent the process and curtail discussion. The intent may not be to disrupt, but the effect is disruptive. The discussion should run its course.  pablo_hablo. 08:47, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't drag Ikip over the coals for doing this, it's a good faith attempt to get nominators to recognise that there are alternatives to deletion, which some of them are not aware of. Ikip's preferred option is userfying the article; a soon-to-be-possible option could be sending it to the Wikipedia:Article Incubator. Merges are also very often not considered by nominators. I think that sometimes approaching nominators to ask them to consider the other options is better than continuing the deletion discussion, but sometimes deletion discussions result in wonderful unexpected article improvements, mergers or rewrites, and can flag up where Wikipedia has a gap in its coverage. A redirect can't have that result. For example, Dentist chair was redirected to Dentistry. On the face of it this is sensible, but Dentistry currently gives no information on dental chairs. We're left with a blue link for Dentist chair but no actual content on dental chairs! A red link would be more honest and article improvement would be even better. A deletion discussion might have been seen by someone who knew about dental chairs. As it is, I've got my teeth into the idea after learning of this redirect, and I'm going to add information on the history of dental chairs to the history section of Dentistry, thus making the redirect appropriate. Fences&Windows 18:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not interested in dragging Ikip anywhere. However, I don't see anything wrong with nominators learning of alternatives to deletion by letting the deletion discussion run its course, and letting other editors (instead of just one) voice an opinion as to the best option for a given article. AfDs often close as merge, userfy or redirect, after all; nominators will be educated by using the existing process.

You are spot on in saying that "sometimes deletion discussions result in wonderful unexpected article improvements, mergers or rewrites, and can flag up where Wikipedia has a gap in its coverage. A redirect can't have that result." Although some editors constantly parrot "AfD is not cleanup" and "a merge does not require an AfD", cleanups and merges do often occur, and a good thing too. ps - "Teeth into the idea" indeed!  pablo_hablo. 21:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Pun actually unintended! Fences&Windows 22:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Five-handed Euchre (Bid)

This article has already been listed in Wikipedia as Five-Handed Euchre, which should already have been merged with Euchre variations. Let's just use some good sense here people. Thanks for your understanding. Krenakarore (talk) 08:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Five-handed Euchre (Bid) doesn't exist, nor does an alternate spelling/capitalization, so I am unsure what you are talking about. Could you clarify? Also, this does not sound like an issue you'd need an AfD for, so you might want to consider just handling it editorially. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Five-Handed Euchre (Bid) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Five-Handed Euchre (Bid), for your consideration. Protonk (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Five-Handed Euchre (Bid) is the article in question. It was brought to my attention after I created the AFD that a merge would be more appropriate, but I am unsure as how to do that as of yet. ArcAngel (talk) 14:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

There's WP:PM for requesting mergers (though it appears to have a backlog at the moment). There are also the {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}} tags. Or, you can always just do it yourself. As for the AfD, it appears that having you withdraw the nom and going ahead with the merge would be the simplest solution. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll help with the merge tags if discussion is needed, but I don't understand the articles after a quick skim. Feel free to contact me directly if desired. Flatscan (talk) 04:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Snowball AFD closings

The majority of AfD discussions are expected to run for at least seven days. In some cases a closure earlier than seven days may take place if a reason given in either Wikipedia:Speedy keep or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion applies.

Not sure if it's an omission. Shouldn't WP:SNOW or/and if there is a very clear consensus be also included in this paragraph - afd discussions that can be closed before the seven day (+12/-12 hours depending on time zones) period. WP:SNOW is not a WP:CSD or Speedy Keep criteria even though many WP:SNOW discussions (or afd discussions with clear consensus) are closed well before that by several.

I'm saying this because User:Otterathome criticized my WP:SNOW (and some clear consensus) closings of discussions that are five or six days old (even though the outcome would have likely never change or it is unanimus for one option)

Otterhome had suggesting me to extend the WP:CSD criteria (I guess to include WP:SNOW). JForget 18:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sorry. I don't understand what you are asking. Do you want SNOW added to that blurb? Protonk (talk) 18:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. JForget 19:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I would prefer we didn't for two reasons. The first reason I disagree with but has some consensus anyway. Namely, SNOW closes are discouraged in current practice. The second reason is that SNOW isn't really a policy or a process, it is the outcome of an editing philosophy. The 'reason' a SNOW close ends a debate is not because of WP:SNOW but because the outcome was a foregone conclusion (a very strong condition that sometimes trips people up). People confuse SNOW with lopsided vote totals or rush to SNOW close debates out of some fear that good edits will be consumed by bad debate. Neither of those two are particularly strong justifications to make an end-run around the deletion process. In my opinion SNOW closes should be rare and undertaken at the hazard of the closer. Those two conditions suggest that we not add a clause to the deletion policy. Protonk (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

CSD is for deletions that do not require discussion. WP:SNOW is about closing discussion where seen fit. So no. I also think Otterathome meant something entirely different. --Tikiwont (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It's best to ask Otterathome for clarification on what was meant, as we all seem to have different interpretations. My take on his/her comment was that if one felt AfDs didn't need to run for 7 days, CSD should be expanded so that the articles could be speedied in the first place, never ending up at AfD. Personally, I feel SNOW is not for lopsided !votes, but for rare cases where it's blindingly obvious that the article doesn't belong at AfD, such as nominating Human for deletion because there are no sources independent of the subject. (And I have no problem with early closes when the article has already been speedily deleted or the nom withdrawn with no delete !votes.) Otherwise, the benefits of following the process (keeping people from feeling disenfranchised, making it seem like there is some organized, fair process, etc) outweigh the possible benefits of closing a day or two early.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I always understood WP:SNOW as a particular application of WP:IAR. It makes little sense to me to make a speedy criterion. Rd232 ^talk 22:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

For some time I have been tempted to write an essay on WP:SNOW closes giving advice on when and when not to do it. Basically there's more to it then just a whole bunch of editors quickly saying "keep" or "delete". Here's what I said about snow "keeps" in an earlier discussion...

A discussion may be closed early under WP:SNOW in the following circumstances.

1. It would be obvious to a reasonable person that the article is not going to be deleted such as obviously notable subjects (Microsoft, George W Bush, etc.) or a featured article. However, some such closes may be covered under WP:SK criterion 2 as bad faith nominations.

2. The nominator's rationale has clearly been impeached. An example would be a nomination claiming that a subject fails WP:ATHLETE and unambiguous evidence is presented that demonstrates that he passes it.

3. A verifiable subject falls under WP:OUTCOMES and there's no additional arguments for deletion. Example, high schools and towns.

For early delete closes outside of WP:CSD I can only think of 1 scenario right off hand. It quickly becomes apparent that the subject is completely unverifiable. A recent example is this AFD. However, blatant hoaxes may be covered under CSD G3. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:06, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

broken AFD, relist a few, close one

Can someone fix up this AFD? I'm not an AFD master, so I'd rather not hack at it for an hour.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aalto Entrepreneurship Society

And to relist, since I can't get the (relist) tab to work.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OfficeSIP Server
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aneros (3rd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Le Maizeret

And one that will be a "difficult" close:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eclipse phase(Game)

Thanks, tedder (talk) 06:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

•  Done All debates deorphaned. "Aalto" and "Aneros" closed "no consensus with leave to speedy renominate". "OfficeSIP" and "Le Maizeret" relisted. "Eclipse" (my god, it's full of socks) left as is for a mopster to close. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I undid Ron at Aalto to get at least some discussion before that one gets closed, and closed Eclipse as keep (irregardless of socks, the outcome was fairly obvious). Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, RonR and Lifebaka. tedder (talk) 16:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

More broken AFDs

I don't think these were ever listed. They show as being relisted, but "what links here" doesn't show it.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twenty Wan (Card Game)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seithigal
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roxanne Kernohan

Thanks in advance. tedder (talk) 07:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, I see various pages listed under what links here for all three of those AFD's. ArcAngel (talk) 08:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

But no transclusions on any AfD log pages. I've relisted all three, Tedder. Cheers. lifebaka++ 11:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Userification without creators consent but with nominators consent

Ikip is currently userifying a lot of articles that are at AFD and CSD. However, I've got to wonder what benefit there is when the user has not agreed to the userification and there is no indication that they plan to work on those articles. Indeed, this was restored by the user after it was moved to his user space so what's the point? Surely we want some indication that they plan to work on those (often spammy) articles before we engage in a mass userification of unsuitable content? --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Userfication should only be undertaken if someone is willing and able to work on the article to get into a fit state to go back into the main encyclopedia. Otherwise its just a waste of time and effort.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"there is no indication that they plan to work on those articles" There is no evidence of this. Have you spoke to any of these editors. No? I appreciate that you strike these comments.

The nominator agreed to userfy the article, despite reservations both of us had. The creator decided to remove the speedy tag once the article was userfied. So I just !voted to delete too, and notified the creator of the newer AFD, which Scott neglected to do.

Alas, this posting is truly no surprise. I was just waiting for Scott to find some reason to criticize me for what I have been doing. I await the same predictable group of editors will rally behind Scott.

Scott's repeated complaints aside, the bottom line is this: I am following the rules that wikipedia has set up. An editor can ask a nominator to close an article, as long as all parties agree. Ikip (talk) 09:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I was just waiting for Scott to find some reason to criticize me for what I have been doing As I said on your talkpage - do we know each other? I've seen you around wikipedia but I have no real memories of us interacting on a regular basis, I draw a complete blank when it comes to this username - do you use to post under a different name? so I'm not sure where that comment is coming from. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments struck, emphasis on this, and this alone: the bottom line is this: I am following the rules that wikipedia has set up. An editor can ask a nominator to close an article, as long as all parties agree. Ikip (talk) 10:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

then maybe we need to change the rules - that's why we have those pages to discuss those matters. I would argue that userification is a useful tool when the original creator is aware of the option and plans to work on the article. Simply userifying material for the sake of saving it with no plan of improvement seems a waste of time. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

And I should make it clear - I'm not actually asking for the original editor to actually do any work, simply that they indicate that they will make a effort to do so. If they don't, they don't. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't need the original editor to agree to work to improve the article as long as somebody does.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

But realistically, who is going to be working on this content in other people's userspace? if someone wants to argue for userification and movement to *their* userspace, then I have no problem with that because it's still an indication that someone is going to be working on it. Simply dumping in the userspace of (in many cases) hit and run editors who will never come back seems a waste of time - userspace is not some rubbish tip. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:25, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

obviously, if someone created an article, they have already showed the willingness to work on the article. Am I a "hit and run editor"?

I think the word "rubbish" maybe too strong. Ikip (talk) 10:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't need the original editor to agree to work to improve the article as long as somebody does.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Above editors are discussing WP:INCUBATOR which is a

"useful tool when the original creator is aware of the option and plans to work on the article"

....and satisfies the statements,

"It shouldn't need the original editor to agree to work to improve the article as long as somebody does",

"who is going to be working on this content in other people's userspace?"

I invite you both to help us write WP:INCUBATOR. Userfying or redirecting pages is a stop gap measure until WP:INCUBATOR comes online, then articles could go there, were all editors can work on them.

I will be amazed if that terrible terrible idea is not nuked from space within six months of it going live, simply to clean out the tat. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Gee Cameron, that's just the kind of constructive criticism that we need! I'm so glad that you're working hard to make Wikipedia a friendly and collaborative environment. If you don't have anything good to say, then best say nothing at all. Some of us actually like working to improve articles, rather than just "nuking them from space". The Article Incubator might be a good way to concentrate the efforts of that rare and little seen breed, the content contributor. Fences&Windows 17:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm just telling you what I think will happen based on my experience of wikipedia - the project will bottle-neck and then people will me will move in and on the second or third AFD and after much fighting it will die. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The option to delete again is always there. I told the editor of Kitami Woome that he needs to show some sources, because I was watchlisting the userfied page, and I would put it up for deletion myself if it was not done. Ikip (talk) 10:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

• If we're talking about new articles, then the fact that the author created it is reasonable evidence that they have an active interest in developing it. An exception might be test pages but preserving these in user space seems quite harmless. If this initiative reduces the number of articles at AFD then this seems sensible as it is my understanding that the process is overloaded and so backing up. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

If we're talking about new articles, then the fact that the author created it is reasonable evidence that they have an active interest in developing it. not really - it's evidence that they have some content they want to get on wikipedia, it's not evidence they have any interest in developing an article that conforms to our standards. Many hit and run editors simply disappear once they realise that they cannot simply have an advert or a puff-piece that they control. Now of course, many of those people *will* try and develop a useful article but we cannot simply conflate the two different approaches and say that this always happens or that is always the reason they try and get content onto wikipedia. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Colonel makes a reasonable and proper assumption of good faith. Unless or until an editor shows that he is unwilling to improve an arricle, it is not proper to assume bad faith. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Id suggest we wait and see how Ikips idea plays out. I agree theres no point in userfying if no ones going to improve the article. On the other hand I understand the project doesn't have to worry about storage space, but the decline in the number of editors , especially relative to global internet usage, is a concern. New editors are discouraged by having their creations deleted outright , and few seem to have the patience to explain to them how to operate within our guidelines. Time will tell whether a worthwhile proportion of these articles are worked on, but at first glance I think editor Ikip is to be commended for their plan! FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Some people like to keep their userspace organized a certain way. If you want to userfy something into another user's space then you really should ask them first. Chillum 16:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed many do... established users who have a better grasp and understanding of how to use the pages. Such an expectation cannot reasonable be toward a newcomer. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, which is why the Article Incubator should supersede userfying, unless the article creator explicitly requests or agrees to userfying. Fences&Windows 17:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Some people do but not most genuinely new users. It can be a double benefit to them as they keep the article and get introduced to user space sub pages. I agree Article Incubator would be best as long as folk are going to mange it. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Incubator and user workspace should go hand in hand. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate someone erring on the side of userification when there's a chance the article might be improved. Who wants to type all that back in? That having been said, I agree that if there's no likelihood of someone working the material into an acceptable article then it's pointless. But if anything I started or worked heavily on was being deleted I'd appreciate the chance to have that (formatted) info. preserved. I could always delete it myself. What'd be useful here is pages that self-delete after a month if no one edits them--userfy them and then let them disappear automatically if no one cares. JJL (talk) 17:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree that there's a significant distinction between userfication and userfication without consent. Creating an article in someone else's userspace without permission is problematic: I do it sometimes to help a newbie get started, but always in the context of discussion. If Ikip chooses to use his userspace as an orphanage to expedite the process, I wouldn't have a problem with that.—Kww(talk) 17:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

If userfied to the newcomer author's userspace, with a notice that it has been done, why it was done, and that the editor is welcomed and encouraged to seek input from others in how to improve an article, the project benefits. If not a newcomer, this is not really of a concern, as experienced editors know better how to use sandboxes. I see this as a method to help and encourage new contributors.... not chase them off. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I would. Given that the article is sub-par, we have to consider why. There are many categories for deletion and they exist for a reason; unreferenced BLPs and blatant copyvios(eg) whether they be in userspace or anywhere else are a big problem. It is really better to let them live or die in articlespace, where there are more eyes upon them.  pablo_hablo. 22:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

If something qualifies for a speedy, it rarely makes it to AfD. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think that moving these articles into the Article Incubator per Fences and windows is acceptable. There are a number of experienced editors who can help with oversight and workload. I worry that without a tracking system, many of these articles would be lost in user space indefinitely. Flatscan (talk) 03:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

  Valid point... but consider, if in userspace of a new editor learning the ropes and trying to become a better editor, the article will quite likley be improved and find its way back. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

  To expand on what I wrote previously, more available editors increases the chances that the new editor will receive mentoring and assistance. I doubt that most newbies will notice the namespace difference. Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• I love this userfying idea. I'll try to find someone who is willing to team up with me, so that we can look for fancruft where the editor has not edited in a while: my userfy buddy nominates the article, I suggest userfying, he agrees, and poof! the article is gone from the mainspace, not even leaving a redirect behind. No need for discussion, agreement of the original editor, or any extended discussion. And if the article does come back, we can still start a normal deletion discussion...
• All sarcasm aside, userfication without the consent of the editor is a bad idea. The incubator is an experiment that may be worth trying, but I would disagree with closing AfD's by moving articles to it. Let the discussion run, and let incubation be one of the possible outcomes. Fram (talk) 08:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

  If the newcomer editor knew about a userspace sandbox in the first place, there would be no need to politely hand his contribution back to him with a request that he continue working on it. I see Ikip's userfications to be a way to help newcomers become part of the family. I see the incubator as a way to encourage the improvement of articles that may have merit. The two methods compliment each other in improving the project. The differences beteen the two concepts are important to note. Userfied, the article does not have a deadline. In the incubator, it does. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

  • Yeah, when I thought up this particular incarnation of the idea (I'm sure others have had it before) I saw it as either an alternative to discussion (i.e. pre-AfD) in the case of articles with one substantive contributor who could agree to have it moved over - then incubation could be a learning exercise about our guidelines as well as content improvement without having stuff littering the articlespace. I don't really think incubating an article during discussion is a good idea - it will cause unnecessary division. But it would help if incubation was one of the options for people to choose, or for an admin's close. I suspect that will depend on finding agreement at the relevant policy pages, so initially we'll try incubation at the NPP level, with possible extensions to certain CSD criteria while we all hash out a way to integrate incubation into the main deletion process without undermining the community involvement element of AfD. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Oh, just make sure that incubated articles are not indexed (don't turn up on Google and so on). And get a good process for getting them back into the mainspace. Whether the process wlll work and be worth the effort has of course to be seen, but as long as most fundamental problems have been avoided, it is worth a shot. Fram (talk) 09:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
      • Yeah, we're going to tag the pages, and I plan to write some automation to make sure that all the subpages are/stay NOINDEXed. I think we'll have to work out a process for return to mainspace as we go, otherwise the process will be arbitrary rather than useful! Fritzpoll (talk) 10:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I am not comfortable with userification if it happens a) without consent (it doesn't have to be to the original user but it needs to be a user that has positively affirmed they plan to work on the article, not just that they created it at some point in the past) or b) before the XfD concludes. There seems to be an increase in things that seem to make closing XfDs harder, and that's not a good thing. ++Lar: t/c 14:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

We do not see enough active participation in educating and encouraging newcomers. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Have any of those who have had this happen on their page complained at all? If a new user has an article which don't believe instantly meets requirements for an article, then its good to put it in a place where they can work on it, and add it back when it is ready. Dream Focus 14:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The nominators seem to like the idea, the creator seems to like the idea, (except in the one case which started this discussion, which was easily remedied), the only resistance is from completly uninvolved editors

Wikipedia:Userfication#Notification: It may be important to notify a user of the addition of content to one of their user subpages as well as action taken on content they posted. While a personal note generally is nice, the following templates may be used to provide the notification

Clearly this shows that userfication does not need the permission of the user.

Once again: emphasis on this, and this alone: the bottom line is this: I am following the rules that wikipedia has set up. An editor can ask a nominator to close an article, as long as all parties in the AFD agree. Ikip (talk) 14:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Userfication is not a "get out of jail free" card for articles on the chopping block. It is a tool for editors who have a sincere desire to resurrect a deleted article with the proper improvements such that it now passes our inclusion criteria. Userfied articles are not meant to linger in user-space ad infinitum but should be in a consistent state of improvement. There is also not only a question of whether an editor will work to improve it but a question of whether or not they even can. Much as some editors would like to disagree, there are some topics which simply are not going to meet inclusion criteria no matter how much work an editor puts into the article. To put it shortly : userfication is a tool to be requested by an editor who has both an interest and an ability to improve an article, and not something to be done mindlessly. Shereth 15:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Then there should be a very polite and newcomer-friendly bot that instructs a newcomer in very simple terms how he or she might have an article "withdrawn without prejudice" from an AfD and userfied for them to continue works. If a newcomer does not know that the process exists, how can they be expected to know to request it, or how? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::Userfication should only take place with the consent of an editor who has agreed to work on the article. I'd like to see a time limit on how long articles can stay userified. I guess it is ok for a nominator to withdraw their nomination so long as everyone who has commented agrees, but I'm open to other opinions on that. Dougweller (talk) 17:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• All else equal I'd really prefer we didn't do this. Protonk (talk) 16:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Newcomers need be encouraged in as many ways as possible to stay and learn and become valued contributors. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• And a real bang up way to do that is drop a page in their userspace without asking them. You want to encourage people to stay? Do RCP and NPP and review new edits to the encyclopedia before the hordes of deletionists goths/visigoths/other germanic tribe which will not be named get to them. Point people to extant articles. But please don't keep us down this path of creating two tiers of content. I say this as a general caution, not a partisan warning. This userification drive will not end the way inclusionists want it to end. You will end up reinforcing the present view that article space content has a minimum quality bar and that deletion/userification is meant to enforce that. You don't want that. Down that road lies the slow erosion of WP:DEADLINE. Protonk (talk) 20:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'd love to see better methods instituted that encourage newcomers to stay instead of chasing them off. Protonk, you are a fine editor with a great deal of experience and many thousands of hours editing the project. I ask you to consider your first few days attempting to edit these pages. Is there a way it can be made easier for newcomers to learn how to best contibute? We've all seen the acrimonyous AfDs where some newbie's article is up for deletion and in their lack of knowledge results in frustration, mane-calling, and even puppetry.

• I'm a bad example. This was my first edit other than to my talk and user page. My point above is that the search for method is often fruitless. The solution to getting editors to stick around and getting content to be neutral and factual isn't to write better policy or make better processes. Most of that stuff is extraneous. The solution is to work hard at improving content and at helping editors. FA doesn't work because we have a policy in place. It works (interpretations of how well may differ) because there is a core group of editors who are determined to pore over articles before they make it to the main page and another group of editors who are determined to improve content so it can face that scrutiny. Take those efforts away and the FA process is worthless. So I am skeptical of policy or process solution to effort problems. I'm doubly skeptical when the solution offered will actually reinforce what I see to be an erroneous view of article content. Protonk (talk) 21:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• And a question directed back at Ikip: Ikip, How do you determine if an article you userfy back to it's author has any potential or not? What steps are you taking to prevent the userfication of something that is totally unsalvagable? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 21:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Guys there is a very similar thread running at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#Adding userfication to Twinkle. In my view userfication should continue for and be used more frequently for userpages created as non-notable autobiographies and introduced for obvious tests that can be moved to sandboxes. I see no reason to move possible articles to userspace. If we want a minimum quality threshold before something appears on mainspace why not no-index stubs so they don't show up in google searches? ϢereSpielChequers 16:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think userifying articles liberally has some benefits but also some dangers. Eventually we will come to some site wide agreement on NOINDEXing userpages, so I'm not terribly worried about user page google hits. But for the inclusionists in the room, establishing a precedent that nominated content be userified only reinforces the assumption that there is a minimum quality threshold (above coherence) where none should exist. We have grown less willing over the years to have 1 sentence articles about a notable subject, sending articles like that off to a user's subspace automatically tends to continue that trend rather than halt it. Protonk (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Another general comment since the thread title has changed: if you have the nominator's 'consent' to userify the material why not just put it in the nominators userspace? Protonk (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

One danger of that , is that if it is done without suitable discussion, it may be used as a sneaky way of deleting an article without going through AfD - i.e when the nominator or whoever says they will improve the userfied article has no intent of doing so. It would probably be best to only do it after due process in AfD or similar.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, newcomers should always be encouraged to work in userspace sandbox before unleashing an article in main space. But it is presumptuous to believe that a newcomer would know how do this if they obviously do not understand mainspace requirements. The example Cameron Scott so helpfully provided illustrates this more than anything else. Ikip's userfication was a fine solution, per guideline, that allows an author to continue work without alienating him. Too often newcomers are hit by that growing wave of "all submited articles must be perfect right now!" that permeates NPP and which unfortunately tends to chase newcomers away from these pages. ANd before any hackles are rasied, it is happily granted that NPP does fine work in seperating the wheat from the chafe with new submissions. However, I see that there is a sadly increasing tendency to forget our own duty toward actually determining potential before judging something bad based only upon one or two initial sentences. Userfication is a good idea... specially in circumstances where an new editor does not know that the process exists or that he could ask for a userspace workspace to be created, or even create one himself. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
• Give Ikip a collective barnstar for cutting the process workload without biting the newbies and move on to something that's actually a problem. Guy (Help!) 20:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Ikip's userfication was a fine solution, per guideline, that allows an author to continue work without alienating him. except for the fact that he never touched it and simply reverted back to his preferred version in article space - yes perfect! Oh and look how much help he got as a new user to work on it - a template and a quick note, yeah, a perfect example. It will be a featured article in weeks! --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring your sarcasm, I see that the author in your single example had been an editor on Wikipedia for less than one day. Did you leave an encouraging message on his talk page suggesting he keep it userfied and continue work? Or have you just presented him as an example that Wikipedia no longer wishes nor will encourage newcomers? MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

No I present him of an example of "userification without asking might be a waste of time, especially if you userify and run". --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

To opine that something should not be done because it "might" not be useful, acts to assume the worst in someone, and runs contrary to WP:AGF. If even 5 out of 10 userfied articles get improved, we all win. To deny that potential does not improve the project. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 21:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

A comment. Though I dislike assumptions about articles (As they are normally incorrect), to argue is not necessarily to assume and to assume about content is not at all contrary to WP:AGF which instructs us to assume the best with regard to editor intent. If I assume that Bloody Sunday (1969) will never make it to FA because it there is too little content out there, I am not failing to assume good faith at all. Protonk (talk) 22:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You beat me to that - AGF applies to individual editors, I don't have to apply it to my analysis of trends and current patterns of behaviour as I see them. I could be completely wrong about my assumption but it's nothing to do with AGF. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, WP:AGF applies to editors. Ikip's userfications were not userfications of trends... they were userfications of contributions of editors. I will continue to accept that WP:AGF be applied to all newcomers's intents. I shall continue to assume good faith that a newcomr who made the mistake of beginning an article in article space other than userspace simply did not know better... being new. I will not automatically assume any negative intent to why a new editor might author an article in the first place, no matter where he put it. And unless it is demonstrated that a specific newcomer has no intention of ever improving an article, I will not assume the worst and postulate based upon worst case scenarios. I note that Ikip's userfications assumed the best intents from these authors and stated as much in a notice sent to then upon the userfication. MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 22:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, communication seems to be breaking down. Protonk (talk) 23:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This solves some, but not all of the criticisms. The newly created: Template:Userf, this was a suggested template I found on WT:Userfication. It has {{noindex}}, and it also allows editors to track userfied pages, which, I might remind everyone here, is a requirement that has never, ever been required by anyone else userfying articles on wikipedia.

Give the editors a month, and if there is no significant improvement I will put them up for deletion myself. Ikip (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

myself, I only userify if I judge there's a chance the editor will work on it effectively, and that an acceptable article might be possible. Many editors are indeed people who make an article and are unlikely to work further in any useful way. Unless they obviously are knowledgeable contributors, I think it would generally be right to ask first if they are interested. And if we do userify for an inexperienced editor, I think we owe it to them to give some real help--some personalized help, based on the actual article and its problems--and to give them some realistic advice about the likelihood of success. I find when I do explain to people what would need to be done--in particular the need for good references--many wisely decide it would be better to abandon the article. I think however Ikip's proposal for an article incubator makes a good deal more sense as a general technique. DGG ( talk ) 06:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's look at some of the articles that were actually userfied by Ikip here. User:Ivioix/Eie-manager is created by a SPA who hasn't edited since April 2009. User:Temambiru/Temesgen was created by an editor who hasn't edited since April 2007... User:Jpt22/422nd Military Police Company was tagged for notability in August, and the tag was removed by Ironholds as it passes in his opinion[4]. The prod was removed by Jclemens[5]. I don't think it is a good idea to userfy an article where uninvolved editors have previously indicated that they see either notability or potential for notability, and where the author hasn't edited anything else and hasn't edited for over a month now. I believe that in cases like these three (out of the first four I encountered), userfication will only lead to the abandoning of these articles, whether they had potential or not. An AfD would have brought fresh eyes to the article, and would have given those articles a fairer assessment (whether positive or negative). Coupled with my fear that this system may be misused by people with less positive intentions than Ikip, I have to strongly oppose any userfication without the consent of the creator / major editor as a means to avoid AfD. Incubation or userfication (with consent) after an AfD are perfectly allright. Fram (talk) 06:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

We are talking about a maximum of 5 articles in a day, an average of 2 a day. This process is A LOT of work. I have about ten steps I have to take, and it depends on (1) the nominator agreeing, and (2) no other comments being made on the AFD before the nominator agrees. So, 2 articles a day, that is 730 userfied articles a year on an encyclopedia of 3 million articles.

given the minor scale of what I am doing, I think JzG's comments are apt:

"Give Ikip a collective barnstar for cutting the process workload without biting the newbies and move on to something that's actually a problem"

I volunteered to put these articles up for deletion myself after a month, I assured two things which are not required: there would be a noindex tag and that editors could monitor the userfied articles. Also these selective examples will be probably be up for deletion soon, dropping the yearly articles userfied probably to less than 70. And once WP:INCUBATOR goes online, this whole converstaion will become a non-issue anyway. Ikip (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

"Selective examples"? I took three of the first four articles you userfied in this way. What's so "selective" about that? And Incubator is a completely different thing, for the moment it is looking at incubating articles as the end result of an AfD, not as the very early closure of one. Fram (talk) 07:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Clean up of list of old discussions

Can someone (with better computer skills than me) please clean up the list of old discussions? Bearian (talk) 19:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• What are you referring to? Protonk (talk) 21:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
• If you're referring to the archiving, MiszaBot II is set to 25 days. There has been unusually high activity recently, so decreasing the expiration will archive only the older discussions while leaving the very large new ones. Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

List of U.S. and Canadian box office bombs

help. The article List of U.S. and Canadian box office bombs is a pointless and stupid article. This list is just a list of films that have failed in comparison to the budget in the DOMESTIC market(US and Canada). US FILMS are made for and with the INTERNATIONAL MARKET in mind. Frequently films do not break even just by the US market, but subsequently break even, and then make profit as they get distributed throughout the world. Its like having a list of musicians who have failed in the domestic market. This article is completely pointless, because films are sold throughout the world and the goal is to make a profit after international release. Thus this article merely says what films failed in the US market, when the budget of these films are budgeted with all markets in mind. I see no point to this article what so ever, i am not contesting the research of this article to which previous people have nominated it up for deletion for, but the mere irrelevance and unnotability of the article. Can someone please help me with nominated this article for deletion.

This article is like saying that the 3rd pirates of Caribbean film only just managed to avoid being a failure in the domestic market, because it costed 300 million, and only made back 309 million in the US/CANADA(domestic market), thus the film only just managed to succeed. NO. WRONG!!!!!! The film did amazingly well in the domestic market. AMAZINGLY WELL. IT BEAT THE BUDGET AND THE INTERNATIONAL MONEY HASN'T EVEN BEEN COUNTED!!!!!!!! thats an amazing feat. once international money is counted in, 960 million dollars total gross of the film.[6]. Hence, I hope you can now see that the film didn't 'just succeed' in the us domestic market, but actually did really well, because the studio new it would make money overseas, and budgeted the film accordingly. This article just takes a stupid 'USA is the entire world' view.

its been through deletion twice before. but that was over 2 years ago. it still needs to go.IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 08:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You can use the {{afd}} tag to nominate the article for deletion. The instructions can be found at WP:AFDHOWTO. Cheers. lifebaka++ 21:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Merlin Season One Episode Ratings

I am pretty sure this voilates a few wikipedia policies and is not required i have never heard of a rating page for show before should this go to AFD or Speedy Deletion? if so how do i do it the project page is quite complex and i have never done one before--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 22:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a forgone conclusion if sent to AfD, so I'd suggest trying WP:PROD first. If that doesn't succeed, there are instructions for listing an AfD at WP:AFDHOWTO. Speedy deletion isn't an option in this case, as the page meets none of the criteria. Cheers. lifebaka++ 22:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you advise what policies it would break i see it owuld break notabilty but nto sure if there anything else, i will take it to prod since that seems a better answer--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 22:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I note that the article is referenced, but the references weren't properly formatted, it is wikified and it doesn't read like an advert. It may or may not be notable. If you wish to take it to AfD the instructions are on the project page. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok i have now suggest deletion so will take it form there, thanks for all the help jsut out of curisty how do i mark this as resolved?--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 22:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

When prodding an article you need to add a notice to the article creator's page. I have done that for you. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

On further consideration, I have removed the Prod notice and placed merger banners as that would seem to be a better outcome. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Revenue techonolgy services article

There are currently two (2) articles for Revenue Technology Services. This request is to delete one of the article pages. It can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_technology_services.

The other article has a more narrow focus of facts, easier to categorize, and sources for context will be submitted. This will make the article for this topic easier to maintain via the Wiki community. This article is found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Technology_Services. --Schamber-09 (talk) 15:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You can find instructions to nominate one, or both, of the articles at WP:AFDHOWTO. Note that posting on this talk page is not part of that process. Feel free to ask me at my talk page if you have any questions. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I've redirected the former to the latter. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a G7 author request to me, but there have been other editors. Since the search box is case-insensitive, I'm not sure that this {{R from other capitalisation}} is needed. Flatscan (talk) 04:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Some ideas for reform

AfDs are allegedly "not a vote." Therefore, we should consider making some requirements for having an actual discussion:

• No more bold faced "keep" or "delete". A list of bold faced words looks like a vote, even if each is accompanied by a sentence or two of comments. I believe many admins are intelligent enough to read a discussion with these bold faced words for strength of arguments rather than having to be even subconsciously persuaded in part by the bold faced terms.
• Any new post in the discussion must be a reply to an existing post and not just a mere statement and particularly not a mere repeteaed statement. A list of copy and paste WP:PERNOM, WP:ITSCRUFT, WP:JNN, etc. style of votes rather than arguments is not a discussion, but a list of votes. A discussion is threaded and interactive. Someone makes a nomination, another editor reacts to it, and so on. Participants should contribute something new to the discussion, whether it be to bring up a new source, ask a question, or offer an alternate solution, and so on.
• Editors must explain how/why behind comments. Any textbook case of a simple WP:PERNOM, WP:ITSCRUFT, or WP:JNN can be removed (undone) by any editor as not contributing to the discussion. An statement that cannot be backed up by an explanation is not a convincing argument.

Anyway, just some brainstorming for ways to help make these things resemble something more along the lines of a serious academic discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)