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Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 April 30

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) (1966) (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
Also listed

And added out of process

The deletion debate consisted primarily of two arguments. Firstly that the pages had little content, and secondly that they were wrongly named.

By the time of the closure 16 of the 29 articles had been completed,with 13 either completed, incomplete, or possibly not started. Therefore this was no longer a valid reason for deletion (if indeed it ever was).

Naming is never a reason for deletion - certainly there is a case to be made for renaming or merging these articles, I have no problem with that.

It appears that the closing admin looked at the consensus, which was formed before the articles were populated, and used that for his decision.

For that reason, I ask that the deletion be overturned. Rich Farmbrough, 23:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC).[reply]

  • Endorse own close and direct Rich to WP:SPIDERMAN. I thought Rich here was under some sort of editing restricrtion now that prevents him from creating these type of articles, it may be a violation of those restrictions to attempt to recreate these. I also wonder why he waited over a year to challenge this decision. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, according to the listing at WP:RESTRICT:

Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from mass creating pages in any namespace, unless prior community approval for the specific mass creation task is documented. The definition of "mass creation" and the spirit of the restriction follows Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Mass_article_creation.

Beeblebrox (talk) 01:00, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. Do you have anything to add that is actually about the deletion, rather than about me? Rich Farmbrough, 01:27, 1 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
When you constantly cause the same problem you may find that discussions tend to focus on you. By my read you have violated the terms of your editing restrictions and I would advise you to either withdraw this review or ask someone else to take over for you. Other than that, no I don't have anything to add beyond my statement when making the close last year. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that this is a violation of the editing restrictions. Under the restrictions RF is not allowed to mass-create pages (which he hasn't done), unless the community agrees he can. This DRV is quite obviously a request to get community approval, so it's actually explicitly permitted under the terms of the editing restrictions. Reyk YO! 05:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reopen, with a view to keeping. The original discussion was deeply unsatisfactory, with essentially no detailed discussion of the central issue here: whether the detailed information in these articles is worth having. The appropriate close would have been to re-list for further discussion. That the only real issue discussed seems to have been whether the articles were appropriately named is frankly bizarre. The subject matter may seem esoteric, but these were the major awards made by government in the UK to encourage industry at the time, so I can see that there might well be historical enquirers who could find value in these lists, e.g. to see what was considered flagship industry at the time, and value in making them readily accessible by search engines. Looking at e.g. the page for 1966, there seems to be more information here than would be amenable to merging all the years into a single mega-page; and the systematic presentation appears to work well with the table at Queen's_Award_for_Export#Recipients -- compared to the cherry-picked list with no apparent robust selection criteria. It would also appear that in some cases the lists may have additional value as tracking pages, to help identify some historically significant companies that ought to have pages but currently lack them. So I think there may be reasonable grounds for keeping; and more fundamentally the original AfD seems to have been conducted without any serious examination for or against such grounds, and indeed so far as I can see not even a reference at all to any completed page. For all of these reasons therefore, relist for a new AfD. Jheald (talk) 01:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What we have here is a deletion that's really based on a judgment about the user's previous behaviour rather than the content to be deleted. I'm reluctant to disturb the outcome of the historic discussions because I can see a genuine consensus to delete therein. However, I'm equally reluctant to deny Rich Farmborough the opportunity to create content. What I'll say is that we should endorse the AfD closures but permit creation of fully-fleshed-out, well-referenced articles with those titles. Because of his editing restrictions, Rich Farmborough should work on them in his userspace until they are fully-fleshed-out and well-referenced. Additionally, if he's going to use article titles rather than list titles, then each article must contain some prose.—S Marshall T/C 07:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted, the awards titles and division created by Rich Farmbrough here is completely his own fabrication, until 1975 only one award existed, from 1976 to 1992 two awards existed, and only from 1993 on there were three of them. This is explained in detail at the original AfD. Why he still wants to recreate these incorrect ones is not easily understandable.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talkcontribs) 09:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • That would appear to be an argument for mergers to more appropriate titles, or simply renaming, rather than outright deletion. The export page for 1966, for example, contains considerable content. Are you proposing this content should be removed outright, or merely that the page title is incorrect?
    Also, it would appear from the separate export page for 1966 Export, Technology, and dual basis pages, that these categories were distinguished in 1966, even if not as separate awards under their later titles. Jheald (talk) 09:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    These pages were distinguished in 1966 by Rich Farmbrough, not by any reliable source. At the time of the deletion nomination of the original AfD, all these articles were empty: Rich Farmbrough, despite knowing that he had invented the divisions and names for the awards, then proceeded to fill some of them from what is basically the only source for them, the London Gazette (raising the issue of notability of this award). After the AfD ended, he hasn't continued filling any of the reaming post-1976 articles with content, which makes me wonder why he wants to resurrect these instead of first perhaps focusing on the ones he created but then abandoned as empty shells. Anyway, if he or anyone else wants the content userfied to create correct articles for them (correct titles, groupings, ...), and only creates articles with actual content, then I have no objection to that. But recreating these in their completely incorrect form (correctly deleted at AfD) is useless and is knowingly preesnting false information. Fram (talk) 07:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep most deleted Overturning is fine for those that actually had content, but stuff like [1] should remain deleted. Personally, I think all those Queen's Award articles should just be moved to RF's userspace. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist How to handle this material needs further discussion and this is not the place. (as for page titles and organization, since there is too much for one article, I'd merge all the awards by year. The distinctions can go in the table.) DGG ( talk ) 01:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In retrospect I'd be inclined to create yearly articles, and not only do I have no objection to a sensitive merge to yearly articles, I will probably it myself at some point, unless someone gets there first. Rich Farmbrough, 05:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
    • Relist for what reason? What was wrong with the AfD? An AfD shouldn't be overturned because you feel the outcome was not to your liking, but because the closer made a policy error or because new information has come to light. The only new information since the earlier AfD is that in the year and a few months since, Rich Farmbrough hasn't made any effort to turn the later award articles (post 1976) into actual articles, which is the reason those are up for AfD now. Why would we resurrect these if there is evidence that they'll probably lay abandoned anyway? Fram (talk) 07:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. No opinion about the merits, but participation was sufficient and the consensus for deletion was rather clear. I note with surprise that Rich Farmbrough has himself undeleted these article for this DRV request, a use of administrator tools that I find questionable. Because DRV evaluates deletion procedure rather than the merits of an article, undeletion is not normally necessary for DRV.  Sandstein  04:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn but allow relisting at AfD - Content value: The close stated, "The creator of these articles is the only user participating here who sees any merit to them." That is not true. Polyamorph wanted to merge the non-empty articles into one list. Sharktapus felt that one single list article is plenty. I'm not sure if they meant merge each set of three into one list or all content into one list, but either way, they saw value in the content. Defective nom: Some of the articles supposedly were empty, but agreeing to merge empty articles is a fault of the AFD nomination by intermixing articles that are not similarly situated. The AfD also was defective by the late addition of nominated articles after others have commented. Circumstance change during AfD: Content was added to the articles during the AfD and there was little, if any, discussion regarding that. Lists: These articles were lists and there was little, if any, discussion in the AfD regarding Wikipedia:List#Purposes of lists, which should have been discussed. Notability: There was little, if any, discussion on Notability, which would seem a decent deletion argument (but see List of group-0 ISBN publisher codes) Irreparable: Mostly, no one argued WP:BLOWITUP - that the pages were so hopelessly irreparable that the only solution is to blow it up and start over. In fact, Rich Farmbrough noted that he created these articles because, "These pages were created precisely because the "single list article" was a mess." Deletion arguments: The deletion arguments seem closer to Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions than consensus building and thus were weak. Behavior: Deleting articles at AfD because of behavior is an acceptable reason for deletion. The nomination should have provided a clear connection between these articles and any sanctions Rich Farmbrough is under or better articulated how Rich Farmbrough's previous behavior justifies deleting these set of article in the collective. (For example, there was no diff to support the late AfD assertion that, "the ANI section about your actions that these articles had incorrect names.") The deletion arguments seem to allude to deleting because of Rich Farmbrough's general behavior, but the reasoning wasn't clear. The AfD claim that, "note the nominator has been trying to persuade an editor to stop supplying content, on the grounds that the article is at afd," was not supported by a diff. Overturn only since reopening would reopen a defective AfD nom. Allow immediate relisting at AfD. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Defective nom? Please indicate which articles were not empty at the time of the nomination. Note that Rich Farmbrough had left these articles empty for months (despite removing a prod on them), but rushed to fill some of them during the nomination, no matter that at that time (if not much earlier) he should have been aware that the awards names and division were his own invention and didn't correspond to reality. As for the rest of your arguments: are you sure you were reading the same AfD? The articles were nominated for deletion because a) they were empty (and had been for months) and b) they were put in lists named and divided by the creator's own invention, not by the actual names and divisions of these awards (a bit like someone putting the Oscar nominations for best movie into two categories, "Drama" and "Comedy"). I summarized this in the last line of the nomination: "incorrect, mostly empty articles created in violation of policy"; which of these three is not a valid reason for deletion? As for the ANI discussion, it was at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2011#Please just indef block him until some indication that things will really change. Fram (talk) 13:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I read the 24 January 2011 nom as indicating that the September 2010 unauthorized bot creations were empty, but four months later, the initial AfD participants seem to indicate that not all were empty as of the 24 January 2011 nom. Some of the article were improved during the AfD, which wasn't really discussed in the AfD. They were significantly improved (maybe or maybe not for the better), but that needed to be discussed. The 3 articles for one topic is annoying, but can be fixed via other than deleting all the articles where an editor who created the articles is in good standing. On the other hand, I didn't notice until now that we at DRV are discussing an AfD that occured more than a year ago. As for the ANI discussion you noted, it merely was a discussion, not a consensus for taking the action sought at AfD (or the AfD didn't make it clear). Coincidentally, an article came out this week in the Signpost about Rich Farmbrough, Proposed decision in Rich Farmbrough, two open cases. You may want to try to get a decision in the Arbitration final decision to the effect that 'Rich Farmbrough no longer is entitled to the benefit of Assume good faith in xxx.' Then, an argument that the three articles for one topic were created in good faith need not be given weight by a closer at AfD (or elsewhere). At WP:COIN, a similar shift happens when an editor is deemed to have a conflict of interest. Once an editor is deemed to have a conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest operates to shift the weight argument away from the COI editor under certain circumstances, which makes it much easier to deal with their COI edits. A problem with the 24 January 2011 AfD was that it in part wanted to delete the articles based on Rich Farmbrough's behaviors. Without a consensus decision on which to act, Rich Farmbrough is entitled to assume good faith and his arguments are given the same weight as any editor in good standing. And, if he has consensus sanctions against him, those have to be made clear at the AfD and the connection between those sanctions and the action requested at AfD have to be made clear. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. It's true that the articles were full by the end of the AfD, and that some comments didn't take this into account. However, the content was just lists with only one source each, and the same source is used for all the lists (the London Gazzette)[2][3][4]. These lists doesn't pass WP:GNG. See WP:NOTCATALOG, we don't list every recipient of every award. IMHO, the change in the contents doesn't justify making a different closure. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. I see no reason to suggest that the closer mis-judged consensus. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 20:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse For the same reasoning as Sandstein. MBisanz talk 22:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (I also iVoted above) - Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough was closed 19:39, 15 May 2012. While the remedies listed include a ban on Rich making automated edits, enforcement is limited to blocking Rich, not removing the edits. Also, oddly, no remedies were listed in the Rich Farmbrough arbitration regarding creating three different named articles for a single topic, creating empty articles, leaving articles empty for months (evidencing an intention to create multiple article pages and not provide minimum content). In short, it appears that arbitration has left the edits Rich makes in good standing and the arbitration outcome cannot be used as a basis to remove Rich's edits. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Has anyone suggested this? We are discussing whether a deletion discussion of over a year ago, long before this ArbCom case, was closed correctly by the closing admin. You are making arguments which have little to nothing to do with this. Fram (talk) 17:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.