Commissioner Service (Boy Scouts of America) – No consensus, relisted. At first glance this might look like a clear consensus to overturn the "delete" closure, but in fact there is a somewhat even distribution of "endorse", "overturn to merge", and other "overturn" opinions (either to no consensus, or without qualification, which is unhelpful). There are also some opinions that need to be discounted because they merely re-argue the AfD. That's a problem because when overturning a closure we also need to decide what the new outcome of the AfD should be. But that we don't manage to do here. I'm therefore treating this DRV as a "no consensus" outcome and am relisting the AfD. This is both within my discretion as the closer of a "no consensus" DRV and also perhaps the best approximation of this DRV's consensus to "overturn, but we don't know to what". Sandstein 11:37, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
I ask that the article be restored. It was a good useful piece with encyclopedic content, good sourcing, and was comprehensive in its coverage. Some issues cited in the original deletion nomination were fixed early in the discussion, and this was discussed with the closing admin. The stated reason for the nomination was the lack of secondary sources. That issue was resolved. There needs to be a consensus in order to delete an article. Reading the discussion, there was not a consensus to delete. Rather than determining whether or not there was a consensus to delete, the closer gave there their own interpretation of the guidelines as the basis for the close. --evrik(talk)17:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly bring it back My first thoughts for this are from the process side. I do respect and thank the closer for their Wikipedia work, but do disagree on a few levels with what happened. Deletion requires a consensus to delete. There certainly was no consensus to delete and the closer closed it citing their own application / interpretation of the guidelines. Another item to factor in is that the article has had sourcing added both during the initial review process, and so comments earlier in that process were based on an article with less sourcing. Also it has more sourcing added since it was userfied.
Regarding the topic in general, the topic is a set of positions that I would estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have served in and for a time period spanning over 100 years. IMO it certainly has the scope, impact, enclyclopedicness, available sourcing to be considered to be wp:notable and merit an article in Wikipedia. Moreover, given that scope, it is a topic that any people would try to look up in Wikipedia and we should certainly have an article on it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – This is a tough one, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides. Before I take a firm position, I'd like to hear from evrik: which sources (e.g. WP:THREE) do you believe provide significant and independent coverage? While I'm sympathetic to the WP:SUPERVOTE concern, closing admins do have substantial discretion to discount !votes that have a weak basis in policy, and my brief perusal of the discussion isn't finding any clearly adequate sources. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am somewhat hesitant to go down this rabbit hole. If the issue is sourcing, Wikipedia:PRIMARYCARE allows for the use of primary sources on "The organization's own website is an acceptable (although possibly incomplete) primary source for information about what the company says about itself and for most basic facts about its history, products, employees, finances, and facilities." The BSA has three magazines, and 300 plus local councils. The magazines in particular give context and interpretation to the BSA issued documents. However, since you asked:
There is also the aspect that being a large, decentralized organization, there are many independent sources that can be called a part of it but which shouldn't be written off as being primary. An analogy that carries that further just for clarity, for an article on the human race, we don't automatically write off everything written by a human as being "primary". With many tens of millions of people having been members, any one of them writing something while citing their scouting credentials should not get written off as primary or not independent. And then double that for the fact that is an article about a subset of BSA, and so the superset is not a part of that subset. Both of these would significantly expand that list. North8000 (talk) 22:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn Commissioner Service is a unique and significant role in Scouting that has served an important role. In addition, I do not believe the guidelines for deletion were properly followed. Cguy9696 (talk) 21:43, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge. I disagree with the comments above: in my view, the closer correctly found a consensus that the provided sources do not meet the GNG. (The nom, the deletes, and the merges all agreed on this.) That's the case both numerically (5–2, by my count), and by strength of argument: the sources listed all either provide trivial mentions (e.g. a passing name-check) or are not independent. A reasonable alternative to deletion (merging) was presented, and none of the deletes displayed any opposition to it. In such a case, the AfD should have been closed as merge. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more concerned (for reasons described above) that this extremely broad topic receives coverage. To me a separate article is simply the apparent best way to to that. So hearing "merge" doesn't bother me a bit. But in checking back at the proposed merge idea, the proposed target is the council article. But the scope of the subject and content is broader than just local councils so that wouldn't fit. The "lowest" level article that I found that could encompass it is the top level BSA article. But that is already fully loaded highly condensed article covering a diverse multi-million person organization over a 100+ years of history and there is no room for the content there. IMO a seperate article remains as the only viable way that I can conceive of. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:57, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, for me there is a narrow but sufficient consensus in that discussion that the article should not have remained, and as per EW above this is both on numbers and strength of argument. I believe assessing the consensus as either 'delete' or 'merge & redirect' was available to the closer based off this consensus, and given they assessed it in this fashion, we must support the closer in doing so by endorsing their close & subsequent deletion. Daniel (talk) 00:03, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to selective merge (though, frankly, there was rather little consensus). Merge or redirect seem to me better closing options if some sort of definite decision is desired and they would seem to meet the problems identified by those !voting delete at the AfD. Also the AFD nominator at least at one point seems to have accepted merge as a viable outcome.[1] I don't think anyone thought none of this should be covered in Boy Scouts of America or some associated article so it seems churlish to make it deliberately difficult to do this. Thincat (talk) 09:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse--the closer got it right. Note that in this review we see the same poor arguments, for instance, "Commissioner Service is a unique and significant role in Scouting", and the same poor sourcing. A few links are provided above, and in this one, for instance, we learn that "The lack of military training and martial emphasis in the evolved BSA also prompted several military men, such as [Verbeck and] Bomus, to quit their positions as BSA National Commissioners", which, for the topic, means exactly nothing. All these sources confirm nothing more than the most mundane of things, like "The unit commissioner is there to support and guide the Scoutmaster and other adult leaders of the troop" or "The bylaws call the national commissioner the chief morale officer"--nothing more. The "more than 25 references" aren't in fact "references" that say anything meaningful about the position; they are mere mentions which at best confirm that the position exists, and that some people had that function. The careful reader will note that none of these articles are about the position: they are about people who happen to occupy the position. And the other sourcing, as I pointed out in the AfD, is stuff like this--a survey commissioned by the BSA--or this--a Facebook post, I kid you not--or clearly primary material. So when the closer said "no really independent reliable sources have been brought forward", they were absolutely correct. Drmies (talk) 11:57, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Now that Drmies has weighed in we should discuss the elephant in the room. This is a quote from the original discussion on deletion, this nomination is clearly an act retaliation, and a prime example of Wikipedia:Sour grapes or being disruptive just to make a point. After Drmies made a major deletion of content, [it was] reverted it and indicated that the change should be discussed on the talk page. Drmies went to the talk page and started name calling and making allegations. Right after that, he went and nominated the article for deletion. I'll address the merits of the deletion debate later, but this nomination is not in good faith. The tone of the posts on the talk page, and the retaliatory nature of this nomination are not in keeping with the standards of behavior expected of an admin. Not only should Drmies' comments be viewed with a wary eye, but they should face some sort of sanction for their poor behavior. 50.204.16.210 (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge I don't fault the closer here for their review of the sources, but I think at the end of the day, closing as delete seems to be a bit strained, with most commenters suggesting retaining the content in some form (as Extraordinary Writ says above). I have no opinion on where the merged content should end up. A relist or further discussion may be informative of where the content should end up. --Enos733 (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge (full disclosure: I proposed "Merge/Redirect" in the AfD). By raw !vote tally, 3 were for deletion, 2 for keep, and 2 for merge, i.e., a slight majority favored preservation of the article's content in some form. Having fallen short of GNG, a merge/redirect therefore seemed to be best. Significantly, the AfD nominator, Drmies, said of merge/redirect: "that is just fine with me" — which the closer didn't address. JGHowes talk15:33, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think the problem with these "overturn to merge" arguments is that if there is/were anything worth merging, the article is already userfied and people are free to use it to merge whatever they like. There just isn't really there there, so to say. No one has made much of a case at all that this meets the standard of GNG, and the closer read that correctly. If anyone wants to merge something, have at it. The article is in userspace. If someone wants to redirect it to the BSA page, sure, I guess, but it's not like anyone is going to accidentally stumble on the old title of the article as a search term. There just is no compelling reason to proceed with anything else here. GoPhightins!18:40, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall....possibly it came up. The closer offered to userfy. I said I'd take it unless somebody else wanted it. Then they userfied it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:06, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I userfied it per a request at WT:SCOUTING. I think the close was reasonable, but if people think overturn to merge is a better move, then it’s in user space and people can have at it. But there’s not much argument, as near as I can tell, that the closer missed a secret consensus to keep, so any discussion beyond that strikes me as semantic at best. GoPhightins!01:49, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply and for the undeletion. The discussion is at WT:WikiProject Scouting#BSA Commissioner AfD. I think you were entitled (and right) to overturn the AfD close. The argument for deletion was that the topic is not notable based on lack of GNG-compliant sourcing. That was not a reason for excluding redirecting or merging nor was it a dominant (or even consensual) argument in the AfD discussion. The AfD close was not correct and I'm glad the matter is now moot. Thincat (talk) 07:43, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment can someone please tell me where this content should go if it were merged? There is a lot of content here to add to another page. --evrik(talk)16:37, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse with the option of restoring to mainspace as a redirect if needed for a merge. The real question here is whether we should have a standalone article about the subject. If we decide that we shouldn't then the question of whether the subject should be covered elsewhere is a secondary one, and any decision made there could easily be changed outside the AfD anyway. The discussion seems to have come to a consensus that the GNG wasn't met. Much was made about the existence of secondary sources, but the GNG requires significant coverage in third-party reliable sources. The sources which were provided were described as either not independent or not devoting significant coverage to the article subject, and I don't see much of an attempt to argue otherwise. Hut 8.512:07, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't know if this is advocating a mild version of wp:IAR or what, but this is a group of positions that hundreds of thousands of people have served in for over 100 years. It doesn't have a SNG that e.g. makes an individual sports person have an article if they did it for a living for one day, and IMO an unusually strict and literal interpretation of GNG should not be the criteria. It's sort of a "sub article" of Boy Scouts of America article with material that is too substantial to fit into that article. The organization is so large and decentralized that many otherwise-sources can be interpreted as being related. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn Whether kept, redirected, or merged, WP:ATD precludes deletion as a policy-based outcome. That is, those !voting for deletion without addressing the potential of a merger were not providing policy-based rationales, and should have been discounted by the closer. That is, while there's certainly a good rationale for not retaining it as an independent article, there is not a rationale for destroying the content as entirely unsuitable for the encyclopedia, which is what a delete outcome would mean. Jclemens (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn The article on Commissioner Service is about a distinctive function in Scouting, particularly for Boy Scouts of America, but also for other Scout associations around the world. My understanding is that sourcing issues that others found missing/lacking have been solved. This article should be restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mokgamen (talk • contribs) 00:26, July 8, 2021 (UTC)
Overturn to no consensus, because with all due respect for the many impassioned arguments made above, the fact remains that there wasn't a consensus.—S MarshallT/C12:21, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn Please. The article is well-sourced within and outside Scouting's circles. The information is valid, and assists the novice Scouter with background information on one of the most important features of volunteer Scouting -- the role and designation of the Commissioner. There was no consensus to delete the original item. Settummanque!Settummanque (talk) 03:10, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This article should be restored, and if necessary undergo another another AFD to prove it belongs. Right now , the discussion is Overturn 8, Overturn to merge 3, Endorse 4, and Other 1. 50.204.16.210 (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
