Wikipedia:Deletion review

Stuff is deleted by administrators. Sometimes these decisions are completely correct, and undisputed. Sometimes, they are more controversial. The forthcoming meta:deletion management redesign may address many of these issues, but that is some way off. See also:deletion policy and undeletion policy.

Please note that the archive of deleted page revisions may be periodically cleared. Pages deleted prior to the database crash on 8 June 2004 are not present in the current archive because the archive tables were not backed up. This means pages cannot be restored by a sysop. If there is great desire for them it may be possible to retrieve them from the old database files. Prior to this, the archive was cleared out on 3 December 2003.

Purpose of this page

It is hoped that this page will be generally unused, as the vast majority of deletions do not need to be challenged. This page exists for basically two types of people:

1. People who feel that an article was wrongly deleted, and that Wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia with the article restored. This may happen because they were not aware of the discussion on votes for deletion (VfD), or because it was deleted without being listed on VfD, or because they objected to deletion, but were ignored.
2. Non-sysops who wish to see the content of a deleted article. They may wish to use that content elsewhere, for example. Alternatively, they may suspect that an article has been wrongly deleted, but are unable to tell without seeing what exactly was deleted.
   • As a subset of this, sometimes an article which is appropriate for a sister site is deleted without being properly transwikied. If the page is undeleted temporarily, it can be exported complete with history using Special:Export, and then redeleted. This will be especially useful once the import feature is completed.

This page is about articles, not about people. If you feel that a sysop is routinely deleting articles prematurely, or otherwise abusing their powers, please discuss the matter on the user's talk page, or at wikipedia talk:administrators. Similarly, if you are a sysop and an article you deleted is subsequently undeleted, please don't take it as an attack.

If you wish to undelete an article, list it here with a brief reason. The procedure explained at Wikipedia:Undeletion policy will then be followed, and if the conditions are met, the page will be undeleted.

If you wish to view a deleted article, list it here and say why. A sysop will provide the deleted article to you in some form - either by quoting it in full, or by emailing it to you, or by temporarily undeleting it.

See also Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages by sysops.

History only undeletion

History only undeletions can always be performed without needing to list the articles on the votes for undeletion page. For example, suppose someone writes a biased article on Fred Flintstone, it is deleted, and subsequently someone else writes a decent article on Fred Flintstone. The original, biased article can be undeleted, in which case it will merely sit in the page history of the Fred Flintstone article, causing no harm. Please do not do this in case of copyright violations.

Some articles are listed here, and after discussion and review, a consensus is reached to keep the articles deleted. They are listed at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/deleted. Archives of recently undeleted pages are recorded at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion/undeleted

Votes for undeletion

September 17

Hancock's Razor

Original deletion: [1], before move to talk page: [2].

• I see paranoia about sock puppets and trolls remains as predictable as ever. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 21:15, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This article has repeatedly been deleted and listed on BJAODN despite being an encyclopedic article. Its opponents are unwilling to discuss the possibility of Hancock's Razor being valid and seem intent on disparaging the article in lieu of any real fact checking. Hancock's Razor appears to be a recent concept, which explains the limited knowledge of it. It is supported by User:Dougefresh42 and User:Nickfl. It is opposed by User:Wetman, who has a history of childish behavior regarding ideas he disapproves of. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 03:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Undelete, then VFD. It's hard to tell if it's rubbish or not, but nevertheless, it's no speedy candidate. Who deleted it? Ambi 03:19, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • It was recently deleted by User:Francs2000 due to appearing on VfD previously (though there is no record of any discussion). --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 03:23, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • If it's been VFD'd before, then it should stay that way. But it'd be nice of some record of said discussion could be found. Ambi 03:26, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • The page was listed on vfd on 30 September 2003, and was deleted by User:Cyan at 02:35 on 8 Oct 2003; the discussion was initially archived at Talk:Hancock's Razor but was lost when the database crashed. However an earlier edit by User:Angela moved the deletion discussion from the main vfd page to the talk page: at the time the consensus was clearly to delete the article. See [3]. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 14:32, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• If it's a recent concept maybe it's better to wait until it is better established. Wikipedia isn't very well suited to new concepts. I vote to keep deleted until evidence of verifiability is provided here. That means a well-respected, academic source using the term, preferably in print, but on the website of a well-respected journal or an accredited instiution would be acceptable. anthony (see warning) 03:46, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• If/when there is evidence that this has entered the mainstream, we can restore it. Googling for "Hancock's Razor" shows that this phrase occurs nowhere on the Web except in the context of this article, or comments related to it. Keep deleted. -- The Anome 09:54, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. The only reason to recreate an article after a proper VfD is if new information has come to light verifying it or regarding its notability. As neither is even claimed in this case, keep deleted. Postdlf 20:36, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Utter trash. Keep deleted and salt the server space it resided on. Snowspinner 20:43, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

September 15

Venetian Red

Nominated for VfD by Niteowlneils at 16:19, 11 Sep 2004. VfD tag overwritten with a speedy tag at 17:43 by Norm and deleted at 03:56, 12 Sep 2004 by User:PFHLai despite the fact that the VfD discussion was still on-going. Consensus on VfD discussion was not delete but merge and redirect to red. Furthermore, this met none of the specific criteria for speedy deletion. Because this was speedied while an existing VfD discussion was in progress, I have taken the liberty of temporarily restoring it so that discussion may be completed. Rossami 23:21, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Regardless of whether it qualified for SD or not, the fact that the VfD discussion is ongoing is reason enough to leave it for a bit. Undelete until VfD concludes (when it will be deleted, I think). Geogre 21:49, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

September 11

Vanessa Nimmo

Two-times South African archery champion redirected, despite improvement that I made to make it decent. Most of the votes on vfd were for an older more stubby version. Dunc_Harris|☺ 20:46, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• This doesn't appear to have ever been deleted. anthony (see warning) 13:34, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • It wasn't deleted, it's still in the page history. Texture just reinstated the redirect however, which is why I listed it here so we can reach consensus to undelete the article. My version is here Dunc_Harris|☺ 18:57, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • All I did was see a note that the link was broken and fixed it. It isn't deleted so it does not belong on this page. You should probably discuss your version on the talk page. - Tεxτurε 19:01, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Yes, if you're trying to reach consensus to change the redirect back into an article, the talk page would be the first step. Since it was never deleted, it doesn't need to be undeleted, and doesn't belong here. anthony (see warning) 03:20, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Sidney Morgenbesser

Old VfD subpage which was deleted when the article was deleted. Now the article has been recreated and the history of the VfD vote should be restored. History only undeletion. This doesn't require a vote. anthony (see warning) 13:01, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

September 7

Helmuth von Molke

A redirect deleted despite 2 of 5 votes to keep. — User:Docu

Helmuth Von Moltke and Helmuth Moltke were listed for deletion and neither is deleted. Can you link to the vote for Helmuth von Molke? With the last name so misspelled I would say it isn't a good redirect but I'd like to see the vote you reference. - Tεxτurε 23:14, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See [4]. — User:Docu

I still don't see Helmuth von Molke as ever having existed. The redirect listed on RfD was Helmuth von Moltke and still exists. What am I missing here? - Tεxτurε 16:02, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Check the left side of the diff referenced above. The way talk was refactored, it may indeed appear that it was never listed. -- User:Docu

I don't think i'm the only admin reading this, but no one else has offered this, which i have slightly reformatted from Undelete/Helmuth von Molke and copied here for the benefit of non-admins, who may not be able to view the page at that URL.

--Jerzy(t) 20:40, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)

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Cut-and-pasted quote follows:

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View and restore deleted pages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
If you restore the page, all revisions will be restored to the history. If a new page with the same name has been created since the deletion, the restored revisions will appear in the prior history, and the current revision of the live page will not be automatically replaced.

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REDIRECT Helmuth_von_Moltke
This redirect page has been listed on Redirects for deletion. Please see that page for discussion.

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This is a redirect from a misspelling or typo.

Pages using this link should be updated to link directly to the page this link redirects to.

List others. Edit the message.

See also: Template:R_from_alternate_spelling, Wikipedia:List of common misspellings

13:08, 7 Sep 2004 Jnc deleted "Helmuth von Molke" (Typo redir)
06:20, 2004 Sep 4 . . Docu ({{R from misspelling}})
22:39, 2004 Aug 12 . . Mackensen ()
22:28, 2003 Apr 29 . . Djmutex (moved to "Helmuth_von_Moltke")

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[End of quoted undelete-page text pasted by Jerzy(t)]

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Undelete, please, this is very useful. — i386 | Talk 13:52, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. RickK 04:56, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted -- too way out for a redirect, IMO. Geogre 21:51, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Mackensen 22:20, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - Tεxτurε 00:57, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Undel. I have an extensive presentation of evidence and argument for undeletion in preparation, but it is still a too much of a mess to tentatively present, after 3 hours work. I beg a delay in any contemplated closing of this vote, since i must leave the terminal for a few hours, and possibly as many as 36. --Jerzy(t) 11:21, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)
  • I have already given this far more time than 1 redir is worth, bcz it is a good object lesson. I'm embarrassed for WP that none of my colleagues voting keep deleted has deigned to respond to the initial assertion, not that its retention is wise, but that its deletion violated RfD procedure. 3 to 2 would suffice to keep an article, and it should suffice to keep a redirect, where the advice is that if anyone thinks a redir is useful, it should be assumed they are right. Two people thot so, and IMO arguments that the Redir in question is not useful are not in order here, and should be counted as non-votes.

Jnc, in the deletion summary, describes it as a "Typo redir", but it is a misspelling, not a typo. This is borne out by Djmutex saying (my big quote above) '(moved to "Helmuth_von_Moltke")', from title "Helmuth von Molke", and, a minute later, per a diff, correcting "Helmut" to "Helmuth". Djmutex summarizes the missing H as "typo", but neither the missing K nor the missing H is a typo, i.e., a random omission, addition, or misplacement of a keystroke. They both are omissions of a letter that either is silent or invites vocal elision by being awkward to pronounce:

• "Helmuth" is pronounced indistinguishably from "Helmut", at least to most native-English ears;
• "Moltke" cannot be fully pronounced without a moment of silence between the stop T and the K, and begs for the T to be softened to within danger of elision in order to reduce the effort of pronouncing it. (If you think the end syllable of the name is "kee", you will do the stop, but it is not "kee" but something less accented and more relaxed, between "keh" and "kuh". Thus if you learned his name from someone with a working knowledge of the language he spoke, you'll avoid the stop and barely pronounce the T, making it hard for non-native speakers of German (not necessarily excluding even the speaker listening to their own pronunciation!) to identify as being there.)

Djmutex systematically omitted "deprecated" letters, and that is misspelling, not a two one-time-fluke typos.

"Molke", by the way, has 100K hits when Google is restricted to German sites; it appears to me to mean something close to "whey". As a legitimate German word, it would be an easy misspelling to pick up.

The reason that we are counselled to take people's word for it about the usefulness of redirs is that such assertions are not just additional opinions, they are generally accurate insights that just happen not to be available to those who don't share them; saying the majority "disagree" with them is irrelevant and misleading. I will illustrate this with two cases that i believe most Americans have been exposed to constantly without any awareness of what they have heard:

• The director of the CIA was replaced earlier this year; the outgoing director was George Te....t. Think of his surname. Pronounce it in your mind. Pronounce it out loud, doing your best to listen to what you are saying. Identify the common noun pronounced the same way. Do you have in mind a role or status that a person can have? Or a kind of abstract idea? Now hover your cursor over this link to his bio. I estimate 90% of American newsreaders pronounce it like this word, yet no outcry has arisen about it. The likelihood of misspelling his name is not a subject on which most people have any useful insight.
• The spelling of the word "united" calls for three syllables: respectively, YOU or YUNE, something rhyming with KITE, and something like ED or UD or 'D. But by my observation, well over 95% of Americans rhyme the middle syllable with this word. You can avoid doing so, but it takes an effort; try it both ways, and note the difference in effort involved.

Moltke is the same kind of pronunciation problem, that leads to the kind of misspelling that Djmutex experienced, and will continue to do so despite claims they are typos. My German accent (as opposed to my fluency) is supposed to be pretty good (for a foreigner), but listening carefully to myself, i pronounce the T less prominently in a German sentence than i would in English, and it would be easy for monolingual English-speakers who heard it from me (and i suspect from native German-speakers) to infer and use the T-less spelling. Another person, who lived for years in German-speaking countries and had their professional capabilities judged by their prounciation more than their vocabulary, agrees with me that the T demands to be underpronounced.

The name "Helmuth von Moltke" is subject to two independent spelling errors, and to a choice of 3 treatmenats of the "von" (upper or lower case, and omitted). The total number of renderings of it that can result, without introducing random typos, is 3x2x2= 12 combinations. Of these, 1 is the preferred version, 4 have a single error (Helmuth Moltke, Von, Helmut, and Molke, and 7 with two or three. Each of the 4 reasonable 1-error versions needs a redirect, because entering a single-error version and getting "no article" means the reader will either give up or try changing something. If they aren't lucky enough (odds are close to 3-to-1 against them) to change first the one they blew, they are likely to wander in the wilderness of the 7 long enough to give up trying. I'm not arguing for having 11 redirects for this article (tho that proposal is not insane, since WP INP), but we need 4. If you can't understand how anyone could reasonably misspell it Molke, you may be right that you never would. We who can see that aren't claiming to be experts on what mistakes you could make, only on the ones we could make. We are probably experts on that; take our word for it.

--Jerzy(t) 20:40, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but I imagine the majority of people looking up Moltke have read his name, not heard it pronounced. Moreover, while google does turn up 176,000 hits for "Molke", it returns only 312 for Helmuth von Moltke (not searched as a phrase, mind you, just those three words together). Of this hits, almost all refer to Wikipedia or Wikipedia-spawned sites. Now, I am indeed impressed by this presentation, but I submit that it does not address the more important issues involved: that this is a misspelling not generally found outside Wikipedia, and that this entire process has been made a cause celebre by trolls. Mackensen 02:13, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Many people have a good ear for a number of foreign languages that they do or don't speak; they hear ("in my mind's eye, Horatio") words in those languages pronounced as soon as they read them. Most of us, IMO, and especially those with a good ear, remember the pronunciation more strongly than the letters they deduced it from. (This parallels tactiscope procedures, in which subjects remember the word they saw for a small fraction of a second, but not how they saw it, in the sense that they can report the word but not what color or font it appeared in. Words' sounds are a deeply grounded human experience; written words are superficial ones. Everyone speaks and understands without conscious effort, but gaining the skills of reading and writing are arduous tasks.)

I admit to having focussed on searching for existing entries, but forestalling bad new entries is perhaps even more important; the need to merge Innocence Project bcz none of us who were involved in the VfD on Innocence project thought to fix its casing is the flip side of the problem: it was created because we had only the wrong title; someone may create Helmuth von Molke bcz we don't have a redir at the wrong title.

I may be missing your point about the trolls, since i have no idea what cause celebre and which "entire process" you're referring to. But it seems to me that the only thing we can do to avoid encouraging the trolls is to do what would be the right thing do if there were no trolls. I don't think we can out-game them, but rather that we give them another way to make us jump thru hoops whenever we try to plan around them.

--Jerzy(t) 04:04, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)

As to learning the name from reading or hearing, here's a great example that i stumbled on earlier today: American female multi-sport athlete, early 20th century, Babe D...r... Z...ri.... Most people probably learn her name from hearing it, but i invite anyone to assert their confidence that learning it from reading it would cause them to remember the correct spelling of either surname, rather than just reasonable approximations to the sound of them.

--Jerzy(t) 16:12, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. Ambi 03:28, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

George Woshingtin

A redirect deleted by User:Bearcat, who completely ignored the fact that it had a discussion underway at RfD. — i386 | Talk 13:50, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• You'll be happy to know I accidentally re-created it and immediately put it for up deletion again. For the record, I regard both it and Helmuth von Molke to be absurd and unnecessary. Mackensen 21:08, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Huh? I believe that it was you who suggested this, while voting on Helmuth von Molke. You said that we should also have a redirect at George Woshingtin. — i386 | Talk 13:57, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • The context of his comment quite clearly marked that as something that shouldn't be done, not something he was suggesting as a good or useful idea. Bearcat 15:57, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• The original discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion was good enough justification for it to be deleted. There's no need to have it again. Keep deleted. — Michael Snow 21:56, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Ah, not so much. At the time it was deleted there was only one vote to keep and one vote to delete. The other delete vote was made after the link had gone red. — i386 | Talk 13:57, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Not so much "ignored" as "failed to notice", as I pointed out. The redirect is also utterly unnecessary, as I also pointed out, unless you're offering to create redirects for every conceivable misspelling of every single article on Wikipedia. Bearcat 00:08, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • When you saw that the page had an {{rfd}} tag on it, why didn't you go to the Redirects for deletion page and look at the discussion? Sounds irresponsible to me. — i386 | Talk 13:57, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Sounds more like "when something's that obviously stupid, I don't really care" to me. Also sounds like you're the only person who cares, just FYI. Bearcat 15:57, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • Considering the number of times this has been deleted, apparently a lot of people care. anthony (see warning) 14:03, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
        • Yes, a number of us care that it not exist. Mackensen 14:48, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
          • Silly argument on both sides. YHBT. YHL. HAND. anthony (see warning) 13:32, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • You can't just use your opinion to override RfD decisions. Because you think it's stupid, doesn't mean that the community does. — i386 | Talk 12:12, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Worthless. Keep deleted. Postdlf 22:28, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• If we don't undelete this and allow it to stay, it's just going to keep being created by anonymous IPs. This only causes pain for administrators to delete the page, and Mackensen is obviously a hippocrite, since it was her who originally suggested this page. — i386 | Talk 12:12, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep undeleted deleted this and ALL of the stoopid misspellings that have been created by trolls over the past week. And although I don't claim that i386 is the troll who has been making all of the other stupid misspellings, he is clearly trolling on this issue, as has been discussed on the RfD page. The only people who are recreating it are trolls. RickK 23:25, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • Please note that the ONLY Google hits for this spelling are from Wikipedia and its mirrors. This is a majorly bad advertisement for Wikipedia. RickK 23:27, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • RickK, I assume you meant "keep deleted" rather than "keep undeleted". Andris 23:36, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
    • Sigh. Yes, I meant deleted. RickK 04:56, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - Agree with Rick - Tεxτurε 23:29, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. If this misspelling is not present anywhere, except Wikipedia, we don't need it. Andris 23:36, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Agree with Andris. --Edcolins 21:28, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted and block 33451's sockpuppets/IPs when he tries to recreate it. (Yes, they are the only ones who have made and remade this nonsensical redirect.) —No-One Jones ^(m) 21:34, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

September 5

Napoleon Disentimed

Napoleon Disentimed was deleted by User:Wile E. Heresiarch on 27 August. Reasons for deletion were that is was a non-notable book by a non-notable author, written as a vanity page by the author himself. The vote was 5:2; see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Napoleon Disentimed. I read Napoleon Disentimed in the 1980s, in my opinion it is a very good book and worthy of an article. It has been out of print for some time which is why it doesn't have high Google rank. I understand that on the whole there is a good reason for deleting vanity pages, but in this case I think it is a diservice to a fine author to class one of his best works as such. Mintguy (T)

• Fwiw the book is in-print (Wildside Press, 2003) and for sale at Amazon.com [5], sales rank 1,678,451. Wildside Press is an on-demand publisher [6]. There was an earlier edition by Tor Books (1987), also listed at Amazon.com, which does appear to be out-of-print. No recommendation concerning undeletion yet. Wile E. Heresiarch 15:42, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • Yes and it was also published by Bantam books is the UK (which is the edition I read). I believe Hayford's work was more popular in Europe than in the US. This book was also published in Italy and Germany. Mintguy (T) 22:38, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Alan Beckwith

19:49, 2 Sep 2004 SimonP deleted Alan Beckwith (Listed on VfD, votes 5-2 in favour of deletion); see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Alan Beckwith

• Undelete. Vote was 5-4. This can actually be undeleted immediately as it was deleted out of process. anthony (see warning) 17:35, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• If it was deleted out of process, okay, undelete for the two days it takes. However, User:Mia State is likely the author, who knew what Alan Beckwith's IQ was at school. Anthony is usually ignored in vfd debates because he votes to keep everything. Do not recreate the page when consensus is reached to delete. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Why is the author's vote not counted? And even if I did vote keep for everything (which I don't), why is that grounds for ignoring my vote? anthony (see warning) 19:25, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I count 7 votes to delete (6 explicit+nominator) and 4 to keep one of which has only made one other edit. That would be 7-3 which is not out of process. Andris 19:56, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
  • Who is the user who only made one other edit, and where is the rule that this disqualifies em? anthony (see warning) 16:04, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Almost certainly autobiography, and no evidence of notability. Wile E. Heresiarch 15:48, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • If the objection is that it is an autobiography does that mean that I can recreate it as a biography? anthony (see warning) 16:02, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. I concur with Andris's recount above and besides I do not see any evidence of notability. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:10, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you can answer my question, then. Who is the user who only made one other edit, and where is the rule that this disqualifies em? anthony (see warning) 19:38, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted - Tεxτurε 16:30, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Why? Can any administrator just delete anything she wants in violation of policy and then require a majority vote in order to have it restored? anthony (see warning) 19:40, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• UNDELETE. Notability criteria is open to interpretaion. Alan has contribute to several fields and more. All parts of the body depends on each other. Not everyone can be the head, and yet it can't exist alone. If you start chipping away at the many facets that makes Wikipedia a gem, it will soon lose its lustre. User: Mia State 17:37, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Please log in to vote. (Anon user provided above entry) - Also note: Mia State has only two edits - the first is to add Alan Beckwith to List of people by reported IQ and the second is for the VfD vote. Likely sock puppet. - Tεxτurε 19:17, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Who do you think this user is a sock puppet of? anthony (see warning) 19:40, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Postdlf 14:05, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Undelete by the administrators should be the policy here. Anyone in the era of specialization that succeeds in a renaisaance career should be noted. Any & all info on Alan Beckwith is public domain, which I've been able to glean from the web. I happened upon in IMDB initially checking out a quirky film titled "UFOria". From there went to engineering, U.S. military, schools, cavers databases etc. Anyone accusing anyone else of being a sock puppet better wash their own hands of voting for deletion. This page will contribute as another small thread in the tapestry of Wikipedia. User: Mia State 14:33, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep deleted. Ambi 08:26, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Rebecca, I would like to know your reason for not voting for undeletion, so amends can be made to keep this page. It's not autobiographical and he's noted in his various fields. It had been up for over a year. Please let me know. Off the the record,I've been to Karunda, Queensland and I think it's a great place. User: Mia State 14:22, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sepetember 2

User:Snowspinner/Orthogonal

Reasons for undeletion are given at:

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/orthogonal#User:Snowspinner.2FOrthogonal_Discovery.

My request to User:Snowspinner, the creator of the page and the sysop who asked for it to be deleted, to undelete it himself, has been refused; for this and for additional rationale for undeletion, please see:

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/orthogonal#The_deleted_page and
• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/orthogonal#Mediation

-- orthogonal 18:10, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Keep deleted. I have apologized to orthogonal for this page. It was silly, it was immature, and I asked for it to be deleted. Requests for Comment is not a trial. It's an attempt to resolve disputes between users. I've backed down from this page. The only reason to bring it back is to turn the process away from trying to come to some resolution and into a petty mess of trying to smear each other. Leave it deleted, and let's move on to mediation, or some other procedure that will help. Snowspinner 00:15, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Request temporary undelete so I can determine what it is I'm voting on. anthony (see warning) 17:38, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Keep deleted - Snowspinner apoligized and it seems that undelete will only murky waters with Snowspinners now dead past subpage. - Tεxτurε 18:52, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sure, Snowspinner apologized. But hours after deleting it, he opened an RfC on me -- in which he claimed to have been trying to resolve a dispute. The page in questions is evidence he hadn't tried to resolve the dispute. -- orthogonal 11:22, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Undelete. It seems to be relevant to RfC and mediation proceedings between Snowspinner and orthogonal. Delete when those are over. Zocky 16:04, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The RFC proceedings orthogonal claims it is relevent to are the same ones he denies the validity of, and he has yet to accept mediation, so I fail to see what process-based purpose there is for undeletion. Snowspinner 00:18, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Undelete: I realize that the RfC has passed, but the page contains information that will be pertinent to mediation as well. It's not that the contents make Snowspinner look awful, but they show him to be human and to have decided not to listen to orthogonal. Geogre 02:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) (P.S. Snowspinner, I'm not sure orthogonal knows where it is he's supposed to go to accept mediation. At least that's what I got from a conversation with him, when I asked if mediation was ongoing. Geogre 02:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC))

The only three people who would need to read it in the context of mediation would be orthogonal, myself, and the mediator. I am willing to privately provide orthogonal with a copy within the context of mediation. The mediator can read it his or herself, as all mediators are administrators. Thus no purpose is served by undeleting it. Snowspinner 03:00, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Keep deleted, especially considering the above comment by Snowspinner about providing a private copy in the context of mediation. - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 03:06, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Keep deleted, Snowspinner has apologised and offered the text for scrutiny so all I see here is an attempt to stir trouble rather than achieve mediation. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 13:11, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Not quite. Mediation has begun, but Snowspinner has yet to provide anyone with a copy of the text -- or, as importantly, the history record showing when he added it, when it was operative (at the same time he was claiming to be trying to "resolve" the dispute), or when he removed it (three hours before opening his RfC on me). -- orthogonal 13:26, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Mediation has been accepted by Danny - no mediation proceedings have begun. Until about five minutes ago, I didn't even have Danny's e-mail address. I still don't have orthogonal's. How was I supposed to provide a copy of the page? Snowspinner 14:47, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
    • There's an "email this user" link on my User page. It works. Use it.
    • Snowspinner, you promised to provide a copy, and indeed, that promise influenced votes made on this page. You've stonewalled constantly; even the vote on this page was insisted on by an anon comment which you will not say was not made by you.
    • The only conceivable to reason to continue stalling is to give me less time to read the contested page and thus less time to prepare my comments for the Mediation. Stop stonewalling, Snowspinner. What in the contested page is worth your continued stonewalling? -- orthogonal 20:00, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what anonymous comment are you talking about? (As for the time issues, I wasn't worried about it, really - mediation has no time limit, and is not a judicial procedure, so I figured I'd provide it when it came up. It looks like mediation is using a message board now - I figured I'd just post it there. But I've sent you an e-mail copy, in any case.

I am wondering about the anonymous comment you're referring to, though. Snowspinner 20:02, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

• The anon who insisted that the undeletion had to be voted on here: [7]
• Snowspinner's speculation as to the anon: [8]
• My response, which Snowspinner didn't have an answer for: [9]
• I invite Snowspinner to post as a logged out user, so that the anon's IP can be compared to his (noting that the anon post was several weeks ago).
• I ask that Snowspinner email all versions of the text of the page, and the page's history list detailing the times the various versions were created. -- orthogonal 20:22, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • This is my IP, which you can freely check any time you're in IRC by doing a /whois on me. 68.253.193.64 20:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • As for the pages, I'll do do you one better. The version I e-mailed you was the version on 05:09 on 8/28. There is only one other version, on 22:38 on 8/30. That version read simply "This page was silly and immature of me, and I would like to nuke it please." followed by the speedy delete tag. Snowspinner 20:37, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
    • I'll take your word that you emailed the page -- will you also email the "what links here", so I can see where you referred to it? -- orthogonal 20:44, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • That's a matter of public record - [10]. Snowspinner 20:49, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
    • And while I note you've helpfully provided your IP address, you haven't actually said the anon comment wasn't left by you, so I invite you to do so, if you can do so without being disingenuous. -- orthogonal 20:52, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • It is indeed me, and I invite you to pop into IRC and check as well, as I said. Snowspinner 20:53, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
        • I should probably not be so charitable, but I think you misread my question: I was asking if the original anon [11] was you? -- orthogonal 21:00, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
          • Oh. OK, yes, I did misread the question. The original anon was not me. Snowspinner 21:23, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Undelete. Agree with Zocky. Gzornenplatz 13:37, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. If Danny decides it's relevant, he's fully capable of undeleting it himself. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:09, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. Since this is in mediation, there is no reason the contents of that page need to be read by anyone other than those in mediation, and they all have a copy of it. Mediation is usually a private matter between the people involved and the mediator, so I see no benefit in having the page publically viewable. Angela. 12:43, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

August 26

Category:Welsh athletes, Category:Scottish athletes, Category:English athletes

No idea whether this is the right place for this, but anyway...

These three categories were recently deleted via speedy deletion by User:Chris 73. They were originally perfectly valid categories, containing athletes of the respective nations (who compete for those nations in, for example, the Commonwealth Games). User:Duncharris depopulated the categories, moving all contents to Category:British athletes, then placed the categories themselves on speedy deletion. I added comments to the talk page of each category, as instructed by the message, and I started a discussion on User talk:Duncharris. User:Duncharris disagreed with me, but I thought the discussion had not ended. I wake up to find the categories gone, and no further comments.

I don't believe policy has been followed here. First, I thought that categories for deletion were supposed to go on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. Second, I don't think these qualified as candidates for speedy deletion in any case, since they (originally!) contained valid, useful information. Removing these categories means, for example, that Category:Welsh people no longer contains all Welsh athletes by subcategory implication. I explained to User:Duncharris that it would be trivial to make Category:British athletes the supercategory of the others to achieve the desired effect, but this was apparently ignored. See our respective talk pages for the discussion.

Disappointed (and late for work). -- Avaragado 08:25, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Commonwealth Games issue seems like a strong argument for splitting into subcategories. Are the categories particularly small? Pcb21| Pete 08:50, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Welsh and Scottish articles contained about 5-10 articles, I think. There were significantly more articles within English athletes. All three categories could have grown very easily. By the way, it looks like User:Duncharris is now working through other sports, Britishifying those categories - see for example Virginia Wade. His rationale is that "They compete under the British flag", but surely Colin Jackson belongs within a subcategory of Category:Welsh people? Of course I could go through each of the articles and tag them Category:Welsh people as well as Category:British athletes or whatever, but frankly it was fine as it was. -- Avaragado 18:04, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It is entirely appropriate, for sportspeople to be categorised under the country for which they normally compete.

But this pre-supposes that the athletes can only be categorised once. Why not in Welsh and British. If I were interested in researching the history of athletics in Wales, I'd like a page with Lynn Davis, Colin Jackson, Jamie Baulch et al. Welsh culture is distinct from English culture and British culture, just as English culture is distinct from British culture. We're very proud of the Welshness of our (few) succesful athletes. Undelete GWO 10:16, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This means that rugby players can be English, Scottish, etc. but athletes compete under Great Britain and so should be listed as British. This means that when one clicks on the category at the top right of the page, one produces a list of hence Colin Jackson is listed next to Linford Christie, which is appropriate since they both competed for the same team. This is just using the most appropriate name for the category. The details of place of birth and for whom they competed at the Commonwealth/Empire Games can be placed in the main text. At best, one could put them in both categories, but certainly not just the one than they competed under once every four years. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:08, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

These categories would be subcategories of British athletes, which must mitigate your concerns to a significant extent (particularly bearing in mind future planned features for categories). Pcb21| Pete 21:17, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To answer the last point: why not? See Category:Rowers at the 2004 Summer Olympics for an analogous example, which categorises people based on one event! If this is acceptable, then categorising them based on a four-yearly event seems quite reasonable to me. And as I said, I believe the semantics of these categories has nothing to do with competition: it's about nationality. For example, it is perfectly correct to categorise a well-known footballer of English nationality within Category:English footballers even if he hasn't played for the English national team. I would argue that to categorise athletes who compete for the British team, you want a different category: something like Category:Athletes in competition for Great Britain. This is not the same thing as Category:British athletes. -- Avaragado 21:38, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

!?! That is not a valid comparison. In this case, there are different governing bodies; UK athletics for the whole of the UK for athletics, the RFU, SRU, WRU for individual countries rugby (for example). You're trying to put in divisions that simply aren't there. To be a notable British athlete, one would have to compete for the British team, at some level, or one wouldn't be notable. Football is a much bigger sport, with club competition more important than internationals. However, most notable footballers would also be internationals, and those who weren't can go in the English/Scottish category without problems. As for the rowers, all British rowers should go in Category:British rowers, so Kath Grainger who's been rowing with Cath Bishop should go in there, next to each other, and not in "Scottish rowers" or "English rowers" (actually Grainger was somehow listed as an English rower). They can go in "2004 rowers" (or whatever it was) because that is a categorisation by event not nationality. Ultimately, separating them breaks the policy of using the most appropriate name, self-identification, and logic. Dunc_Harris|☺ 22:31, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that Category:English footballers holds footballers who are English, but Category:British athletes holds athletes who compete for Britain. Semantically that's broken. As to using "the most appropriate name" etc, I completely agree. The point of categories is to categorise: someone can and should be a member of as many categories as is necessary to properly categorise them. And since categories (in theory) aggregate, it makes sense to categorise as specifically as possible to take proper advantage of the hierarchy. Categories are not lists. Anyhow, talking of policy: why did you not follow the policy in Wikipedia:Categories for deletion? -- Avaragado 08:22, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that category:English footballers holds those who are English because that is who they would represent internationally if they played because of the nature of the governing body, and many of them did, and the minority of notable ones that didn't can be put in there too next to their peers. Semantically, it's fine dicdef British meaning "Of or relating to Great Britain/United Kingdom or its people, language, or culture", so the suggestion of "category:Athletes that have competed for Great Britain" is absurd. Categories generate lists, that's people use them. Putting in unnecessary hierachy means that persons who should be listed together aren't. I didn't put it in categories for deletion as I thought no-one would be silly enough not to see the point. I should have known better, this place can get too silly for words sometimes. Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:03, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I didn't put it in categories for deletion as I thought no-one would be silly enough not to see the point -- Characterising people who disagree with you as "silly" is peurile and counterproductive. How about making a case on merit, eh? PS : I would find a "Welsh athelete" category useful. As to a common governing body (UKA), there is also the Athletic Association of Wales and its Welsh Athletic Championship. Perhaps a super category Welsh Sportspeople, with the athletes as well as such misc figures as Tommy Farr (the Tonypandy Terror), Joe Calzaghe, Jimmy Wilde (the Ghost With The Hammer In His Hand -- surely the greatest sporting nickname ever) GWO 14:29, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC) -- Hang on, there is an (almost unused) Welsh Sportspeople super category. I'm happy for our athletes to go in the top level of that...

e.g. someone like Nigel Walker should go in category:Welsh rugby union footballers and category:British athletes because he played internationaly rugby for Wales and represented Great Britain at athletics. Dunc_Harris|☺ 15:14, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

where do Scott Gibbs and Johnathon Davies go, as they represented Wales and Great Britain and "Britain and Ireland" at rugby (union, league and union, respectively)? Jamie Baulch represented Wales far more often than he represented Britain over 400m. Your scheme has more holes than the Cardiff backline.

Scotty Gibbs would go in Welsh rugby union footballers, category:dual code rugby internationals and probably Welsh rugby league footballers, though I don't really have time for any game without forward play :) As he represented the he could probably go in category:British Lions, and that one's a bit more difficult. The real problem comes with the Ireland rugby team though (category:Irish rugby union footballers), in which those from the Republic and Northern Ireland play together. So Ulsterman David Humphreys should be under category:Irish rugby union footballers, next to Dubliner Geordan Murphy. Do you have stats to show regular competition of athletes under "Wales" rather than "Great Britain" at athletic meets? If that is the case, then we should add both categories to the articles. The Cardiff backline gets Freddie this year, anyway. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:57, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I can't possibly add any more to this debate (which I think has been fully covered above), but I would find Welsh, Scottish and English Athletes useful subcategories of British Athletes. They do compete for their separate nations in events like the Commonwealth Games and, with the resurgance of nationalism, each nation is proud of its own athletes, even when they are competing under the Great British banner. I am Welsh and would like to see Welsh athletes properly recognised as such. I suspect anyone of Welsh, Scottish or even English origin would feel the same. Would we really lose anything to subdivide Great Britain into its constituent nations? Undelete. --Viki 09:39, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC) (forgot to sign, second edit to sign, nothing sinister, though I do relish the possibility of being Mystery Welshgirl)

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