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31 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Lida Hensley (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The result of the discussion should have been keep, the admin who closed the discussion was wrong. Me-123567-Me (talk) 02:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Relist. I don't see how "keep, keep, redirect, keep" equates to a redirect. It sounds like further discussion is needed to reach a consensus. I must confess, I contented myself with a WP:THISNUMBERISHUGE vote when I voted. StAnselm (talk) 02:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from closing admin - Firstly, I was not contacted prior to this DRV per step 1 in the instructions above. Secondly, the DRV nominator canvassed only the keep voters about this DRV. Finally, the AfD looks lopsided if all you're looking at is bolded votes. But, as we all know, AfD is not about counting bolded votes. RJH makes comments that no independent sources can be found. West Eddy and Hobbes Goodyear argue that no sources were found after searching far and wide. Even Dream Focus makes a comment that questions a claim made in a primary source. No attempt to provide sources is made by any of the keep voters. If no sources that pass WP:GNG can be found by 7 editors, then it's clear that the article cannot be allowed to remain. Hobbes Goodyear makes a suggestion for a logical redirect target, and that's where it ends up. Could the discussion have been relisted? Sure. But, I seriously doubt it would have changed the outcome. Me-123567-Me, had you contacted me on my talk page with your concerns, this is what I would have told you: I would be agreeable to relisting the AfD if someone can provide a single source that even comes close to passing WP:GNG. And I would still be willing to uphold that offer. -Scottywong| spill the beans _ 05:40, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Well within admin discretion. Textbook example of why AfD is not a vote. T. Canens (talk) 06:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse mere assertions of notability not backed by any sort of policy (e.g. references to a big number and assertion that president of ULC is some how inherently notable - neither are part of our notability standards) --62.254.139.60 (talk) 06:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Merely clicking on links in Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL that was posted in the AfD brings up sources. Plus, its the topic, not the source, that needs to pass WP:GNG. Hensley, President Of Universal Life Church, seems like a decent source of info. But overall, there doesn't seem to be enough new source information to overcome wp:GNG. The deletes had the stronger argument in the AfD and the new information that has come to light since the deletion is not significant enough to overcome the reasons for the deletion. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 06:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't overturn. Scottywong makes a reasonable stab at a closing statement that explains why he has not decided to follow the numerical consensus, but should have referenced BLP as well; Scottywong's feeling that he is entitled to be consulted before a DRV is raised is misplaced. Per longstanding precedent and for very good reasons, the closer is not the gatekeeper for DRV. It's encouraged to speak to the closer first but there's certainly no requirement to do so.—S Marshall T/C 07:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The reason it is encouraged is that if the objection is not valid, the closer might be able to explain it sufficiently to satisfy the person objecting. and that if the objection makes sense, the closer might relist or re-close without the need for coming here. Both have been known to happen. But SMarshall is right that it is not required--& I doubt it would actually have helped here. DGG ( talk ) 18:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Sound application of the principles underlying BIO1E, even if it may not strictly be a BIO1E case. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 11:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. No evidence was offered that the topic passes WP:GNG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse The president of an organization is not automatically entitled to an article if the organization is not very important, and the best course in many cases is a merge or redirect to the organization. I however very strongly disagree that proving notability requires meeting the GNG; though the GNG is certainly the general way of showing it. But the closer's erroneous statement to that effect does not invalidate the close, which seems a reasonable solution. DGG ( talk ) 18:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse WP:GNG was the key policy in this case, and no argument was made relative to any other policy. (While there are a few, a very few ways, in which we allow articles on people that don't appear to meet WP:GNG (Olympic athletes, members of national legislatures, etc.), Hensley was not argued to meet any of those exclusions. I think there was a natural tendency, since the ULC is actually highly noted,, to presume Hensley was notable as a result. I understand the instinct. But it's not based in policy, and in fact, WP:ORG specifically reaffirms NOTINHERITED when it specifically states that individuals do not inherit notability from the organizations they serve, not that that needs reaffirmation.) --joe deckertalk to me 05:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure with the qualification that "redirect" is a form of "keep" and the decision to redirect rather than to keep-as-is is no more binding (or less binding) than any other equally-well attended and well-discussed decision held on, say, the article's Talk page. There was clearly no consensus to delete the pagehistory. Everything else is an ordinary-editor decision. There is nothing to discuss here (though the additional explanations and comments elaborating on our inclusion standards are always helpful when educating new users). Rossami (talk) 14:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I disagree here. A redirect close to an AfD is a formal close of a consensus discussion, of the same strength as a RfC, more so than an informal discussion; the reason for the distinction is the general notice. It can still be reversed, and it still does not need formal process to reverse it, but it needs some degree of explicit or implied advance consensus. It is not an ordinary edit, and not as lightly to be done as a normal BRD--because the D part has already been held. I do not mean to imply it needs to come to DRV, or a formal RfC, but the presumption is that it holds until there is consensus otherwise. We need some slight degree of stability in order to make progress. ` DGG ( talk ) 04:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree that the decision holds until there is consensus otherwise but that would be equally true if the consensus were established on the article's Talk page. AfDs get some small additional degree of deference because they are generally well-advertised and well-attended but that's all. (Are we violently agreeing with each other here?) Rossami (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - My usual DRV shtick is to say "a DRV is invalid if all it is is disagreement with the closer", but I never thought I'd see it done so literally. Tarc (talk) 00:55, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist There was no good consensus for any particular outcome at the time of the close. Multiple editors added multiple sources to the article but, curiously did not comment themselves and no-one else commented on these additions either. So we had a situation in which the article was improved but the discussion did not reflect that improved state. Relisting would have been more sensible. Warden (talk) 11:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, I notice that a source was added five hours before the debate was closed. I hope the closing admin noticed it and checked it out. The closing comment was "providing sources which pass WP:GNG, and in this case that has not happened", but no-one had had a chance to comment on whether the last references added meant that the article passed WP:GNG. StAnselm (talk) 11:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you add sources to the article at the 11th hour and you don't comment at the deletion discussion, I'm sorry but the closing admin is not going to notice your sources. It is not the closing admin's job to go on a treasure hunt through the page's contribution history to see if anyone happened to leave some easter eggs lying around a few hours prior without letting anyone know. -Scottywong| confer _ 04:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Multiple editors" in this case numbering two. Regarding the "treasure hunt", presumably AfDs use {{la}} in order to simplify this. Depending what browser and scripts are employed, hovering over the history link shows at a glance that refs had been recently added (although in this case insufficient). -- Trevj (talk) 09:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Speaking as a non-admin, I think I'd like to see a bit more consistency in how admins use Template:Relist. StAnselm (talk) 21:06, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Sounds a bit like WP:BIO1E to me. Yes, it could have been relisted - and the closer has has agreed to above, in the event of further material being presented in relation to WP:GNG. Even WP:ANYBIO states Generally, a person who is "part of the enduring historical record" will have been written about, in depth, independently in multiple history books on that field, by historians. [...] -- Trevj (talk) 08:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and Keep The closer is to consider both the arguments offered in an AfD as well as the numeric count of votes, otherwise the door is swung wide open for abuse of discretion. For example, if 17 editors opine "keep" and offer modest arguments and 1 opines "delete" with slightly better arguments (but not unargaubly perfect) then community consensus is obviously "keep". Such is the case here. The closer abused discretion and should be closely monitored in the future. Turqoise127 22:32, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

30 May 2012

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As in the AfD, opinions here are divided: 13 editors endorse the closure, while 8 would prefer to overturn it to no consensus. This amounts to a lack of consensus about whether the closure was correct. As described in the "closing reviews" section above:

"If the administrator finds that there is no consensus in the deletion review, then in most cases this has the same effect as endorsing the decision being appealed. However, in some cases, it may be more appropriate to treat a finding of "no consensus" as equivalent to a "relist"; admins may use their discretion to determine which outcome is more appropriate."

In this case, I consider that relisting the discussion is appropriate because the discussion ran for only about two days instead of seven and relatively few editors offered an opinion. While the early closure as such has not been much criticized, and was explained by the closer as an attempt to forestall continued drama, I hope that relisting the discussion will allow people who are not already committed in the disputes surrounding this subject to participate in the discussion. –  Sandstein  06:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Politics in the British Isles (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This was a close call.

  1. While I understand it's not about vote counting, I counted 7 delete to 5 keep votes, so there wasn't a clear consensus to delete.
  2. At least two of the delete votes mentioned me by name, and one of the delete votes called the creation of well-sourced and (as some have said [1],[2]) useful content POINTY, so there were potentially some personal issues at play in the !votes as well.
  3. The closer's statement felt a bit like a vote; he claims that the article itself was OR or SYN (although everything was clearly sourced, several books on the topic, and absolutely no new conclusions drawn), and that he was felt all of the material could be covered in bilateral articles.
  4. This is obviously an emotive topic for some, but WP:NOTCENSORED and just because the existence of an article offends is not a good reason to delete. In further discussions on the closer's talk page, he again noted the potential for 'drama' around this article because of the name, so I can't help but wonder to what extent the name of the article weighed in the decision to delete (I had proposed a rename at several points in the discussion - IMO the name should not be at issue, what is at issue is the scope and notability of the topic).
  5. After further discussions on the talk page, the closer seems to suggest that the crux of the issue is that the article "was trying to do too many different things at once and was completely unclear about its goals in the process. The result was something of a nightmarish mess." I respectfully disagree. I've preserved a copy of the article here (renamed slightly, so as not to offend): User:Karl.brown/Politics_in_the_atlantic_archipelago; I leave it to you to judge whether it was a "nightmarish mess" as claimed. Please do note, this is an article on a complex area, that had only existed for 3 days, and much time was wasted defending it from deletion, so one should also not judge the current contents *too* harshly. I also note, as repeated on the closer's talk page, that several people opposed to this article (e.g. RA, Snappy) copy/pasted it to the bilateral article, and edit-warred to keep its full contents, carefully [3],[4],[5] maintaining a duplicate copy in Ireland-United Kingdom relations during the whole course of the debate, so they obviously thought the content was worthwhile (just in the wrong place); unfortunately as a result, improvements that were made in good faith by editors to the content only ended up in one place.
  6. Finally, as to the debate itself, I think IMO the crux of the debate and the real deciding question between the active editors hinged on the argument that this article was a fork of Anglo-Irish relations: "Much meal is made of, for example, the multilateral nature of the British-Irish Council, without considering that the only signatories to the Agreement Establishing a British-Irish Council are Ireland and the United Kingdom. The latter point underlines the reality that UK-Ireland politics is, in reality, the politics of the archipelago as a whole. Those two political entities hold responsibility for political relations of the archipelago as a whole." (RA) I disagree, and I provided multiple sources, including some just before deletion, showing that
    1. other types of political relationships in the archipelago exist
    2. relationships between non-sovereign entities is not always subservient to relationships between sovereign ones
    3. Irish-Scottish or Irish-Manx or even Irish-Scottish-Manx-Northern Irish relations are *not* simply a subset of Irish-UK relations
    4. Multilateral relations between all the countries in the isles is *not* the same things as bilateral relations between the two sovereign states
    5. Many scholars have used the creation of the British-Irish council as a starting point for a different kind of political analysis archipelagic studies) that is not simply Anglo-Irish (e.g see p2: [6] "So reviving the links with both Irelands will be made easier with the advent of the 'Council of the Isles' (in Strand Three of the Easter Agreement). This spells the end for the convention that dealings between London and Dublin account for the totality of 'east/west' relations.")
  7. Finally,as one result of this discussion, you may find it interesting that since it's creation, Anglo-Irish relations never once mentioned their poor stepcousins, the Channel Islands or Isle of Man, nor Ireland's connection and dealings with same. Now, however, because their "fork" position required it, those opposed to this particular article now diligently work to *keep* mention of Irish-Manx relations in the Anglo-Irish article ([7], [8]); otherwise, their fork argument holds no water. (get it... fork... can't hold water... sorry... :) KarlB (talk) 20:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to no consensus I'm just not seeing the consensus here. Several of the delete votes were citing OR and SYNTH and, after reading the article, I felt and feel like they didn't read it at all. I'm not seeing either of those two things in this article and most of the push for deleting it seems to be because it has British Isles in the title. And, as Karl says, the closing admin statement reads like its own superseding vote by itself. Again, i'm not seeing any sort of consensus here, let alone a consensus to delete. SilverserenC 21:10, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the article, the synthesis is in the attempt to combine existing articles into this single article. It is in fact a complete mismash and completely OR in it's construction. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What information from existing articles? Make sure you're not confusing info that is from this article that was copied to others in an attempt to de-legitimize this article. SilverserenC 02:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Devolution section, Main article: Devolution in the United Kingdom, Culture (I don't see what this has to do with politics, more synthesis to the topic yet again), Main article: British_Isles#Culture, Immigration and emigration, main article:Irish migration to Great Britain. The Joint projects section is a synthesis of topics. Look at the top of most sections, they point to the main articles. For example the section on bilateral relations has: 'The relationship between the two sovereign states in the Isles, Ireland and the United Kingdom, has a long and complex history, outlined in Ireland–United Kingdom relations, just summarizes that article. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IRWolfie, I suggest you read WP:SYN: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." Summarizing is *not* the same thing as synthesizing - and all of the points you make above are about how the article summarizes, not how the article comes up with new conclusions based on things not stated in the sources.
Also, if you don't know what culture has to do with politics, I suggest you read one of the many books here: [9]. Culture has a huge impact on politics, I don't even know why this is up for debate. --KarlB (talk) 12:32, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to misunderstand what I am saying. Summarizing multiple articles and placing them into the same article all together is a synthesis. You are also at times summarizing multiple topics in a single section as if they are related, that is a synthesis unless reliable sources do it. Your novel combination into this article is not discussed in reliable sources. No reliable source makes the connection about culture in this topic and that you have so is original research on your part once again; your rebuttal itself was original research. Pointing out that culture has a connection to politics and that therefore an article on politics within the British isles should have a section on culture, is inherently original research. You have arbitrarily decided that culture was a significant enough issue to mention. What does Rugby have to do with Politics in the British Isles? Your text on the Celtic league fails to mention that it isn't on a British Isles basis but also includes Brittany and does not include most of England. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, summarizing multiple articles and placing them in the same article is summary style. There are thousands of articles in wikipedia in Wikipedia:Summary_style. No reliable source makes a connection between celtic culture and politics in the British Isles? Did you even read Pan-Celticism? Here's another ref: [10] I'm not even going to bother to provide more here since this is not AfD - in any case, read WP:SYN again - it's about original conclusions being drawn, which was not done. Sorry.--KarlB (talk) 14:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see where Pan-Celticism mentions politics in the British isles (except for the categories you inserted: [11] but which were removed). A section which is a summary of an article needs to have a direct connection to the article it's being placed in. Otherwise this would allow for random sections to be inserted into articles with only the most tenuous of connections. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Let me help you: "Political groups such as the Celtic League, a notable Pan-Celtic political organisation, along with Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party have co-operated at some levels in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and Plaid Cymru has asked questions in Parliament about Cornwall and cooperates with Mebyon Kernow. The Regional Council of Brittany, the governing body of the Region of Brittany, has developed formal cultural links with the Welsh Senedd and there are fact-finding missions. Political pan-Celticism can be taken to include everything from a full federation of independent Celtic states, to occasional political visits. In 1972 the Provisional IRA adopted a policy of not mounting attacks in "other Celtic countries" - i.e. Scotland and Wales - possibly due to the influence of its chief of staff Seán Mac Stíofáin, a Pan-Celt.[7]" Do you still not see the connection? Of course more exposition is needed, but pan-celticism (and celtic identity) is clearly related to politics in the British isles - Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Wales are *all* members of the Celtic league, a political organization - one (admittedly fringe) goal of some pan-celtists is a federation of celtic states - that is an essentially political goal. As for your comment about rugby, you may want to look here Politics_and_sports; or here, where the original content I wrote has been expanded, and there is now a picture of rugby added to the article Ireland–United_Kingdom_relations#Culture; I'm not sure what definition of politics you are using - the interpretation I've learned is that politics reflects culture, society, history, and relations between peoples, so it is in fact your suggestion that sport and culture are somehow *not* related to politics that is need of sourcing.--KarlB (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that the links to the topic aren't directly there, instead you are inferring them. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm done talking about this. I've given you books, citations, quotes, but you continue to refuse to see the evidence in front of your nose. If you're trying to say "it doesn't say "politics in the British Isles" I'm sorry but that's not a fair argument; if we can establish that a certain movement has important political impact on 75% of the regions in the British isles, then it is clearly relevant!! Your continued ignorance of that fact doesn't change the correctness of the article on that point. --KarlB (talk) 19:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:TLDR. Let's not rehash the 25 pages of discussion leading to the decision to delete into a review, plus the discussion initiated at the closing admins Talk page, plus the discussion an AN/I, and now this. Also I'd like to point out that Karl notified a hand-picked selection of editors (who share his opinion to Keep or try to Salvage this article) and failed to notify any editor who disagreed. Clearly, this editor does not understand or accept any of the arguments presented during the AfD process, and seems more intent on keeping an article (any article) at his selected title and is now fishing for content to fit the bill - all of which, in turn, may also fall under WP:OR. --HighKing (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Karl and I have been discussing this in good detail on my talkpage, which you may wish to refer to. Essentially, I thought the delete !voters (who I hope have been notified of this DRV...) made better arguments as regards scope, synthesis and bias, but I'll leave it up you people from this point. I am not opposed to a recreated version with a different title, though, as there was definitely some material worth preserving here. Moreschi (talk) 21:27, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was aware he continued discussing it. He did not notify the !delete voters. He should summarize any *new* points above if he wants anybody to actually read it - otherwise he's simply polling for more editors and failing to observe consensus. --HighKing (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi HighKing. You will note that one of the first people I notified was RA, who was one of the biggest contributors (and a delete voter). In addition, I only created this a short time ago, and was polishing the result before notifying more people. I have since notified everyone I could find in that discussion. Go easy on the unfounded accusations, of what I'm doing, and why. --KarlB (talk) 21:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Moreschi - I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more on this notion of 'bias'. Can you explain what specifically about the article you found biased? --KarlB (talk) 22:00, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletions discussion are not merely a count of !votes. It is the arguments put forward that are measured. In this case, the arguments put forward by those wanting to keep the article were unconvincing. For example, of the four !votes to 'keep' (aside from Karl), two cited a book on the Politics of the British Isles in the 12th—15th century as a reason to keep an article on contemporary politics of the region. Aside from raising the question of whether they even fully read the title of the book before citing it, we already have an article on the History of the British Isles. A third said it should be 'kept' because, "There are political organisations that operate in both countries of the British Isles". ... " Indeed, and we already have an article on Ireland-United Kingdom relations (i.e. "both countries of the British Isles").
    Substantively, the the reasons given for 'delete' !votes was that the article is a content fork of Ireland-United Kingdom relations and seemingly a coat rack for a finge POV on the subject. --RA (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment Here is a summary of some of the less useful delete votes: 1) pure OR / another of Karl's pointless cats/articles 2) The Republic of Ireland is an independent country (um, ok) 3) NPOV and the term British isles is politically unacceptable (sorry, WP:NOTCENSORED) --KarlB (talk) 22:21, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Uninvolved editor, commented at ANI here Wikipedia:ANI#Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion.2FPolitics_in_the_British_Isles. Much of the points raised by KarlB appear irrelevant to saying the close should be overturned and appear to mainly be a restart of the AfD itself. Only points 3 and 5 appear to be directly relevant to that. On point 3, Editors claimed in the AfD that the article was an original synthesis. It was also argued in the AfD that the material was already covered by multiple separate articles, hence this is not an original point by the closer either, for example see the sentence beginning Delete As a POV fork redundant content fork.... . The closer is expected to weigh up the different arguments made during the course of the AfD through the lens of policy and guidelines, if arguments are not convicing they should be given the appropriate lesser weight in determining the consensus. On point 5, from the talk page it is just a further clarification of the multiple separate articles mentioned in point 3. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:32, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The article also wouldn't have a WP:SNOWBALLs chance of passing an AfD. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I notice that some of the proposed references don't even verify the content so I would suggest people to be skeptical about them as well if they are looking at the article. Here is an example of some OR with a reference that does not verify the content: E.g [12] which is meant to verify There are no major political parties that are present in all of the countries, but several Irish parties such as Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail have won elections in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and both of these parties have established offices in Britain in order to raise funds and win additional supporters., Firstly I'm fairly sure it's wrong since Fianna Fáil have not won elections ever in Northern Ireland, see the Fianna Fáil article and secondly, the source does not mention anything close to the text "there are no major political parties that are present in all of the countries", it appears to be inferred. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks IRWolfie. You're right that that sentence wasn't phrased well; what was meant was have won seats in elections (Fianna Fail won a seat in an early election of the Parliament of Northern Ireland). I recall there was another source that mentioned that there were no common political parties across the countries, but I neglected to add it, so I'm sorry about that. But calling it OR is a bit extreme. I don't think one under-referenced sentence is a reason to disparage a whole article; look at Republic of Ireland - there are plenty of entire paragraphs without references, but we don't disparage that whole article on that basis.--KarlB (talk) 02:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No. Fianna Fáil haven't won a seat. In the same section there is another reference that does not verify it's content, instead there is OR with a citation that does not verify it, i.e the sentence beginning: The converse of unionism.... Here's another original combination of topics in that same section Identity is intertwined with politics, especially in the case of nationalism and independence movements. Details on identity formation in the British Isles can be found at Britishness, Scottish identity, Irish_people#Irish_Identity. It's hardly suprising the closer fond the synthesis arguments persuasive considering the shoddiness of the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Fianna Fáil haven't won a seat" That's your opinion, but unfortunately it's not backed up by FACT. see bottom. Please stop casting uncertainty on this article based on one claim which doesn't hold up. Your accusations of OR hold little weight, and in any case, a single sentence or section that *was* OR would not thusly merit deletion. Finally, the claims of OR/SYN were not backed up by any of the discussants in the AfD; no alleged "evidence" as you have attempted but failed to provide was given in the AfD.--KarlB (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The question of whether or nor Dev used a Fianna Fail label in South Down in 1933 is a minor point of historical fact relevant to those 3 articles, but not to this one. Just as Sinn Fein operates on both sides of the Irish border, this is an issue relating to all-Ireland politics; it is irrelevant to any discussion of whether to view the politics of the islands of Ireland and Britain in a bundle with the politics of the 3 crown dependencies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying the politics of the 3 crown dependencies (and relations of Ireland to same) *should* be bundled with British-Irish politics? Or are you saying they should not be? In any case, IRWolfie attacked a single statement as being false, he was wrong, I provided a source, end of story.--KarlB (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You still seem reluctant to engage with the points being made by others. One of the points which I have made repeatedly is that the article which was deleted was not about the "politics of the crown dependencies", nor was it about "British-Irish politics". The deleted article was overwhelmingly about the international relations of one sovereign state (the ROI) and another (the UK) along with the relations between Ireland the dependencies of the UK's monarchy.
Labelling that as a common "politics" rather than as international relations or bilateral relations is a POV advanced by the postnationalist school of which you seem to be an adherent, rather than a neutral summary of the topic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense. Did you even read the article on bilateral relations? What does the first sentence say? Did you notice the big box on the side of the International relations article? it says "part of a series on POLITICS". You have a very strange and uninformed understanding of international relations and politics; the article as framed was primarily a survey coupled with discussion of the multilateral bodies and a focus on cross-island cultural and political movements. It purposefully did not focus on the obviously dominant Anglo-Irish relationship.--KarlB (talk) 23:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comparing apples to oranges Since IRWolfie was disparaging the lack of sources for one sentence in the deleted article (and suggesting one should thus be skeptical about the whole article) and others have (elsewhere) attacked the content of Politics in the British Isles, I'd just like to share this link [13] - this is the Ireland-United Kingdom relations article, 2 years after its creation. You will note that it has zero references. None. Zilch. Nada. In fact, it wasn't until around August of 2010, 4 years after its creation, that the article actually got more than 1 reference [14]. How do you think it compares to this one, 3 days after it's birth: User:Karl.brown/Politics_in_the_atlantic_archipelago And as mentioned above, it wasn't until a few days ago, after the creation of Politics in the British Isles, that anything about the channel islands, isle of man, or ireland's relations with Scotland or Wales started to be considered part anglo-irish relations.--KarlB (talk) 03:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For the above, there was no supervote as I have already argued about above. Declaring that there was and that there was no consensus in your AfD doesn't make it so. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Argument not relevant to the DRV. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I disagree with the above I'm sorry I just can't let these blatant untruths go uncontested.
a) Claim 1:"huge overlap with topics which fell more naturally under Ireland–United Kingdom relations" This is a specious claim, never sufficiently established by anyone. The claim that Anglo-Irish bilateral relations naturally includes Ireland-Isle of Man relations has not been established by any document or any written source. If they have proof, perhaps they should have provided it during the AfD. From what I've seen, there is no evidence that he government of Ireland considers its relationship to the Isle of Man to be just a subset of their broader relationship with the UK (see [28], or search the Irish Dail debates, and you'll see numerous mentions of Isle of Man, almost never in the context of UK). If this was really the case, how could Ireland and the Isle of Man work together, on issues opposing the British government (see Sellafield controversy)? You'll notice that the lead of Ireland–United Kingdom relations, for 7 years, has stated that it is about the relations between the two states. Only as of late May 2012 do the Ireland-crown dependencies relations suddenly become part of the Ireland-UK relationship. The *only* reason this claim came about is that those opposed to keeping this article *had* to take this position; Isle of Man *had* to become part of UK politics; otherwise, their claim of fork didn't hold up.
You may also be interested to note that in a different discussion, about a category, BHG made the *opposite* claim: "The so-called "British Isles" is a hotly-contested label for a geographical concept whose politics has little commonality. The politics of the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands has little or no relation to the politics of Ireland, so the attempt to group them together seems even less coherent than a Category:Politics of Benelux; and while the politics of the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands is strongly influenced by their relationship with the UK, the converse is not true -- UK politics pays scant attention to those outlying islands." So when we're talking about a category, the politics of the British Isles has "little commonality" (thats how you get a category delete). But when it comes to an article, all of a sudden *all* of the politics in the British Isles can be summed up by British-Irish relations, and now the Isle of Man is an integral part of Irish-British relations! It's amazing how BHG can change her argument, like a chameleon, just in order to win. I already pointed out in the AfD her hypocritical attack on me for having pre-empted consensus by creating a sub-category in a different debate, followed by her encouragement of RA as he diligently copied all of the content from Politics in the British Isles to Anglo-Irish relations, pre-empting consensus by performing a merge before a merge was decided.
Again, none of these claims are sourced; only inferred based on specious arguments about who is really sovereign, which is not the only thing that counts in politics - otherwise, we couldn't have Ireland-Scotland relations, b/c Scotland isn't sovereign - but they do exist, and are important. [29]
b) Claim 2:the lack of evidence of scholarship which explores contemporary politics from a British Isles perspective. This is utter nonsense. There is a book, from 2011, called "Politics of the British Isles". There is a research center, Atlantic archipelagos research project using this approach. Famed scholar Richard Kearney has written a book about the idea of a post-nationalist archipelago, and book has been written about *his ideas*; there is a non-fiction journal devoted to an archipelagic approach: [30]; I could go on...
c) The accusations of canvassing are bogus. The editors were selected based on having edited History of the British Isles recently (which is an obviously related article), notifying them did not violate any wikipedia rules, so BHG is casting aspersion; I did not look at their edit history, and none of them voted in any case. On the other hand, Snappy, the nominator, listed the article on the politics and Ireland lists, but neglected to place it on a UK or other country list, so if you want to talk about canvassing, aim your sights at Snappy - he only told *one* side of the British Isles about this debate - is that allowed? [31]; [32] --KarlB (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Karl, do calm down, assume good faith, and stop giving the appearance of being a purveyor of WP:THETRUTH. Please remember that DRV is not a re-run of AFD, and that an accusation that another editor is posting "blatant untruths" is a pretty extreme charge which does not assist collaborative discussion.
a) My position in the CFD and the AFD is consistent, and these discussions would have been easier if you had AGFed and attempted to understand why. As I noted at CfD, these entities have no common polity; that's why the Category:Politics of the British Isles should be deleted. In this case, we had an article whose content consisted overwhelmingly of material on the intergovernmental relations between two sovereign states plus the dependencies of one of them (or to be precise, the dependencies of the Crown of one of them, where the Crown gives responsibility for external relations to the UK govt; so for the purpose of international relations, we effectively have the UK plus its dependencies). So, relations between these entities are a matter of international relations between two sovereign states (plus the dependencies of one), which on Wikipedia are routinely covered in articles entitled Foo-Bar relations.
You, however, appear to approach this solely from a postnationalist perspective, and prefer to regard all of these international relations as issues within a common polity.
b) It is clear by now that you are quite a fan of the academic who you eulogise as "famed scholar Richard Kearney". You may wish to expand Wikipedia's coverage of his scholarly work, but the way to do that is to expand the article on him, or (as already suggested) write an article on the development of that particular approach. The "idea of a post-nationalist archipelago", which you mention above, is a political POV, and like any other political POV it is one which should of course be documented on Wikipedia. However, it is regrettable that rather than documenting the debates around that scholarship, you continue to push Kearney's postnationalist agenda as the framework in which to structure Wikipedia's coverage of these issues. I prefer to follow the WP:NPOV solution of continuing with the structures used for other articles on international relations, and regret that you choose instead to push one POV. Your single-minded pursuit of postnationalism is why several editors at AFD and CFD have described your contributions as tendentious.
c) As to your WP:CANVASSing, notifying 9 editors of one article is at the very least excessive cross-posting. If it was appropriate to notify editors of a particular article about the AFD (and Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate_notification does not mention that approach), then you should have i) left a single message on the article's talkpage, rather than spamming 9 user talk pages, and ii) explicitly notified the AFD discussion. Snappy used WP:DELSORT in the usual way, and quite correctly ensured transparency by explicitly notifying the AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The examples cited here don't say what you say they do. "Towards a Postnationalist Archipelago" isn't a book, it's a 12 page essay. [33] doesn't have anything to do with politics at all. [34] doesn't seem to have much to do with politics either - it's run by an English department and they seem more interested in national identity. The subtitle of the book "The Politics of the British Isles" is "A Comparative Introduction": while I haven't read it, the subtitle indicates they are using comparative politics to study the political systems of Britain and Ireland in isolation, or to study politics more generally, rather than studying a single entity called Politics of the British Isles. Hut 8.5 20:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Arg. Postnationalist Ireland is the book, and there's another book, and oodles of journal articles; Kearney has written tons! The Exeter research center is looking at "an interdisciplinary view on how Britain’s post-devolution state inflects the formation of post-split Welsh, Scottish and English identities in the context of Ireland’s own experience of partition and self-rule; Consider the significance of this island grouping to the understanding of a Europe that exists in a range of configurations; from large scale political union, to provinces, dependencies, and micro-nationalist regions (such as Cornwall), each with their contribution and presence; Reconsider relations across our island grouping in light of issues regarding the management and use of the environment." Can you not see that that politics is one of the objects of their study? You realize when they say "relations across our island grouping", that politics is one expression of those relations? And yes, the book is taking a comparative look, which is further evidence for the notability of this article - someone thought is was worth it to write a whole book about comparative politics, using the geographic lens of the British Isles.
Finally to BHG's point, I am not pushing a postnationalist view (which is anyway different than an archipelagic view), stop making accusations that have no basis in fact; my only point in bringing Kearney to the debate, and the others, is to show that serious scholars are looking at the archipelago AS A WHOLE - not just in terms of its constituent parts. So while an article on bilateral relations between Ireland-UK is perfectly reasonable, the article I was proposing was totally different in scope and scale, and clearly notable given the references already provided.--KarlB (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Karl, I hope that what you intended to say was that some serious scholars are looking at the issues in an archipelagic sense, and some take a postnationalist view. Similarly original schools of thought exist wrt all sorts of aspects in politics and international relations, but since Wikipedia has a core policy of neutrality, we do not structure Wikipedia's coverage of topics according to the lens of one particular POV. For example, we have a (regrettably short) article on rogue states, which discusses this highly significant approach to contemporary international relations, but we we do not use this framework to structure Wikipedia's coverage of the states so labelled, or of their relations with others. Similarly, we do not use the concept of "imperialism" to structure Wikipedia's coverage of international relations, despite the wealth of scholarship which adopts that framework. The reason is simply that neither of these highly notable approaches is NPOV.
By pushing the postnationalist and archipelagic approaches as the way of structuring Wikipedia's coverage of these topics, you are promoting a postnationalist and archiupelagic perspective just as effectively as articles on the Politics of the rogue states or the Politics of the imperialist states would promote those particular viewpoints.
The "article you were proposing" went beyond a proposal; it existed, and was actually written mostly by you. You failed to persuade a consensus of other editors that it had a scope beyond international relations. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:17, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
BHG, you still don't realize that saying that politics in the British Isles is equivalent to anglo-Irish politics is itself a massive POV, and you've yet to show any sources which state anything of the sort; I do look forward to you finding such sources. The idea that only sovereign nations matter, and that is how all coverage of politics should be arranged on wikipedia, is 1) not true (i.e. there are many politics articles on wikipedia that are *not* about sovereign states) and 2) it also represents a particular POV, specifically that of the realist school. Now, I will admit, realism is popular, and it is also populist (in that most people who haven't studied international relations may take "realism" to be the 'natural' state of things), but it is just one way of looking at international relations, and certainly would not be considered NPOV by any standard - its very much a POV. The article in question was *not* attempting to take a postnationalist view; it was intended to be a comparative geographic survey, the same way one might do for politics in the caribbean or politics in south asia or politics in indochina or politics in latin america or Scandinavian politics. Any of these would make a worthy encyclopedia article, and I guarantee you if I wrote one I wouldn't have screeds of text from various editors deriding the work and calling it POV or OR or SYN or FORK or whatever; you and I both know the thing that pissed you and others off was simply the words "British Isles". For some reason, you and RA seem to believe that just because there are two sovereign states, then by definition politics is subsumed by just those two sovereign states. Your statement above that wikipedia doesn't structure IR articles according to a particular POV is nonsense; we do, it's called realism, and it's only one way of looking at the world. I don't have a problem with it, and let the bilateral articles stand, but Ireland-Scotland-Isle of Man vs. UK government is *not* a bilateral discussion. I suppose you might say "oh, the Ireland-UK article *always* had a broader, multilateral, all-islands scope, we just never wrote it down." Yeah, right.
Bottom line is, historians are looking at archipelagic perspectives; critical literature and cultural studies are looking at the archipelagic perspective, political scientists are looking at the archipelagic perspective; but stick the word "British Isles" in the title and whatever it is, it will be shot on sight; instead of having a productive discussion about what an article (or category, or whatever) could be, you have to deal with wikilawyering, dirty tricks, pre-emptive merges, false accusations... no wonder editors are leaving in droves...--KarlB (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Karl, either you are making a straw man or you have not been reading what I wrote. I have not been "saying that politics in the British Isles is equivalent to anglo-Irish politics", because I do not believe that and see no evidence for that; I would object strongly to any such assertion. Nor is it true to say that the thing that pissed you and others off was simply the words "British Isles"; my substantive objections have been set out at length, and I won't repeat them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
BHG quotes
  1. 28 May: "Same topic, different perspective = POV fork"
  2. 29 May: "So please just drop the drama, and use this AFD to discuss whether or not the topic "Politics in the British Isles" duplicates the topic "Ireland-United Kingdom relations". What issues can be covered under one title but not under the other?"
  3. 31 May: "I have not been "saying that politics in the British Isles is equivalent to anglo-Irish politics", because I do not believe that and see no evidence for that; I would object strongly to any such assertion."

I leave it for you to judge whether she is saying the same thing.--KarlB (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unlinked, out-of-context quotes are a cheap way of trying to score points, and a very poor way of trying to build consensus. It is a pity that Karl continues to adopt such a petty WP:BATTLEGROUND approach rather than trying to fill in the gaps in his understanding of the objections which I and others have raised.
Of course I was not "saying the same thing" on each occasion; I was addressing different aspects of the problems caused by this synthetic article. Karl's attempt to problematise those quotes also reveal a ;lack of familiarity with the nuances of the terminology.
The fundamental problem which I identified with this article was it a) consisted overwhelmingly of the international relations between the Ireland and UK+dependencies, but wrapped it up in a different package by including descriptions of governmental structures and a few items on peripheral matters such as culture, and b) that it portrayed these disparate elements of a common polity.
  1. That's why on 28 May I pointed out that duplicating material which should be in the Ireland-UK article amounted to a POV fork. Taking material on a bilateral relationship and wrapping it up with a survey comparing govt structures is a POV fork.
  2. The question of whether whether or not the topic "Politics in the British Isles" duplicates the topic "Ireland-United Kingdom relations" was central to the AFD discussion. If we stripped out the international relations aspect, what was left other than the comparative govt? What was left other than an attempt to describe an international relationship as if it were a common polity?
  3. Karl's use of the third quote would be funny if it was not so naughty, because it picks up on my refusal to use his imprecise terminology as if his lack of precision was somehow evidence of duplicity on my part. Politics in the British Isles is a phrase which refers to all the politics in that geographical area, and not just the international relations, but also the internal politics. It is a very wide-ranging phrase. On the other hand, "Anglo-Irish politics" could be read in many different ways: a) as the politics of the Anglo-Irish (i.e. the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy); b) as the internal relations between Ireland and England when both were part of the UK; c) as a term which uses the ambiguous word "politics" in place of international relations when describing the international relationship between Ireland and England; d) the same as c, but with "Anglo" used to refer to the United Kingdom as a whole, as with the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1986; e) some sort of wider politics encompassing aspects of Ireland aspects England or the UK.
One of the many recurring problems with Karl's extensive editing in Ireland-related topics has been his shaky grasp of the nuances and complexities of the terminology. His vocabulary seems to conflate the concepts of politics and international relations as if they were synonyms, and uses terms such "Anglo-Irish" without apparent awareness of their massive ambiguity. Little wonder that he simply doesn't understand the objections raised. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:52, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to be naughty, I just point out silliness when I see it, that's all. You're trying to play with words. Try googling 'anglo-irish politics', it has a very clear meaning in the literature - it's Irish governments' relations with British governments, whenever in time they happen to be doing so. In any case, in wikipedia, Anglo-Irish relations links to - guess what? But I suppose you're now going to tell us how international relations is different than politics? International relations (also known as international politics) is just a form of politics. And, this was *not* a rename discussion. If you had said on day 1, I prefer that this article be called 'International relations in the atlantic archipelago' I would have signed up to it immediately. Politics is just a shorthand, but for some reason you and others can't get past that word. I couldn't care less about the word(s) in the title; what I care about is the topic, and I've still yet to see any evidence whatsoever that the Irish government considers their relationship to the crown dependencies to be simply part of their broader relationship with the UK - sovereignty isn't enough, thats pure OR - you need to demonstrate that the sovereignty of the UK over Isle of Man changes the way that Ireland interacts with Isle of Man such that the relationship is somehow subsidiary or part of the Ireland-UK relationship. --KarlB (talk) 04:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Karl, please cut the sniping. I am not playing with words; I am trying to ensure that in a highly-contested set of topics, words are used with the minimum of ambiguity.
If you want to know how international relations is different than politics, and you don't have even a basic dictionary to hand, then start by reading the international relations and politics. International relations is a form of politics rather than an equivalent term; the two are not synonyms, and your use of them as synonyms is one of the many ways in which you simply fail to understand the discussion.
On your final point, please please please please please please please please please please please please please please do actually read the Crown's perspective at http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandCrowndependencies/ChannelIslands.aspx. I have pointed you towards that link unmpteen times, and yet still have the dishonesty to repetaedly accuse me of WP:OR. Cut it out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, let me quote myself: "International relations (also known as international politics) is just a form of politics". Then, BHG 2 minutes later: "International relations is a form of politics rather than an equivalent term;". Are you even reading what I wrote? Politics is broader notion than international relations, so it *can* be used as a shorthand, in the same way a square (international relations) is a rectangle (politics), but a rectangle (politics) is not a square (international relations); while you can't say "Alabama international relations is complex", you can say "Thai-Chinese politics is complex" and people will understand what you mean. I'm done explaining this to you... And yes I have read that link already many times. It says that the UK is responsible for the international relations, and the crown is responsible for their good government. So what? Do you really think that means that Isle of Man is incapable or unwilling or unable to form relationships with other sovereign nation states? Show me the proof! There's no evidence in fact that they don't do exactly that - they don't post ambassadors or sign treaties, but they sign separate tax agreements, they have cultural and financial exchanges, and they work together, for example on Sellafield, with foreign governments on issues that are of both international and domestic interest, even when those interests go against those of the UK. You're making a big deal out of the supposed 'sovereignty' of UK parliament, but the reality is much more complex; that power has rarely been exercised, and more and more powers are being doled out to the crown dependencies (see Politics_of_Jersey#International_relations or [35] or [36] for example, key phrase being "Jersey has an international identity which is different from that of the UK."). Your focus seems to be on de jure which the Crown has retained, whereas I'm much more concerned with de facto. And, you still haven't provided any facts that show that Ireland, as a sovereign government, considers its relationship with Isle of Man to be some sort of subset or somehow fully mediated by its relations with the UK government. Here's another case to consider - Ireland-Scotland relations. We could easily write an article on that, and no-one would argue that it just *belongs* in the ireland-UK article, because there would be very little overlap with the current content - Ireland has a special and different relationship with Scotland, that dates back to way before the union - so whether they were under a single government or not, their relationship, its character, is still fundamentally different. Now, it could be a *section* of the Ireland-UK article, but it would also merit standing alone - as you know there are university research centers devoted to just this topic of ireland-Scotland relations. All this to say, the theory that all international relations in the British isles can be just rolled up into the topic of Ireland-UK relations is, frankly, full of holes.--KarlB (talk) 05:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wish you would both take your battle to one of your user talk pages. The DRV is not going to be decided on the basis of these political/philosophical debates. Why don't you just have it out somewhere where you are not cluttering up discussion? Scolaire (talk) 08:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You might also consider collapsing the above as you did here. Scolaire (talk) 08:46, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest simply deleting from this page all the stuff which begins with Karl's disgarceful allegation that my rationale is based on "blatant untruths". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which you know he's not going to agree to! I repeat my suggestion that you hide it and then stop. Scolaire (talk) 11:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The allegation was made in the heat of the moment, was unfair to BHG, and I apologize. I've reworded that sentence above. I'm happy to collapse this whole section.--KarlB (talk) 12:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for finally striking that. Now, let's delete the whole thread, because it is irrelevant to the DRV question of whether the closer correctly closed the AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:55, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn on the basis that there was no consensus. This was a classic supervote, expressing their own view of the matter. I'm not going to reargue the fundamental issues here in full; that's for afd2. But I think Karl's argument just above about sources a very good one, and is a sufficient reason to keep the article. DGG ( talk ) 18:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per Uzma Gamal. Snappy (talk) 19:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse while Moreschi's closing statement could have been better worded to make it clear the closer was relying on strength of arguments rather than personal opinion I think the reasoning is basically sound. While the debate had been closed early it had already degenerated into an unreadable mess and continued discussion would not have helped. I'm not seeing a convincing rebuttal to the arguments that (a) the nature of the sources is such that any article with this title would substantially constitute synthesis, and (b) that the content is substantatively duplicative of other articles. Hut 8.5 19:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
long discussion with Hut 8.5 and Karl
  • Thanks. I hope you don't mind explaining your comment further. 1) By synthesis, what do you mean? There is a difference between WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:SYNTHESIS; which one are you talking about? 2) By 'substantively duplicative', I assume you are talking about Anglo-Irish relations? So is it your position that politics and relationships between Ireland and the Crown dependencies (which are not part of the UK), or multilateral relations between Ireland/Isle of Man/Scotland or Ireland/Wales/Channel Islands, or pan-Island political movements, or discussions about cultural linkages - all of *that* should be in the article about Anglo-Irish bilateral relations, even though in 7 years of history of that article, it had never been there before? Even though in all discussions about the British-Irish council, it is called a multilateral body? I just don't see anyone providing any sources anywhere that state that "Anglo-Irish relations == All politics in the British Isles", everyone just accepts it on faith. Good thing too, since no such sources exist; serious political scientists would never say such a thing. This is an invented re-scoping of the Anglo-Irish article in a blatant attempt to quash this new article.--KarlB (talk) 20:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Whether synthesised material is presented in summary style or not has nothing to do with its status as synthesis. I could create an article called Politics of Sino-Nigeria by summarising material in articles about China and Nigeria, but it wouldn't change the fact that I just made the topic up. Much of the article at the time of deletion was spent summarising the methods of government used in the various parts of the British Isles, this is better covered elsewhere (British Isles#Government, say). There was also some discussion of projects and relations involving the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies and the Republic of Ireland, which yes belongs at Ireland–United Kingdom relations. I'm aware that Crown dependencies are not part of the UK, but since their external relations are handled by the UK discussion of them should be in articles about UK international relations.
      • A common theme with this article is an attempt to shoehorn various things into some topic called Politics of the British Isles, even when very few of the sources treat them that way and it's debatable whether the topic of "Politics of the British Isles" exists in its own right at all. There was a section summarising devolution in the British Isles, even when the sources are only talking about some bit of the British Isles. That's synthesis. There were sections on immigration and citizenship which suffered from the same problem. In your comment above you claim that "cultural linkages" have some place in this article, despite the fact that culture is not politics. The article also had material about studies of British history from an "archipelago perspective" and things about national identity, which again don't belong here. About the only thing that probably does belong is the discussion of Richard Kearney's work, but that can't possibly make up an article by itself and he doesn't necessarily represent all or even many of the available sources. Nobody is trying to claim that "All British politics = Anglo-Irish relations", only that much of the content you tried to shove in here is better covered there. Hut 8.5 20:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Yeah, I love your China-Nigeria example. Why don't you replace it with, say China, Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan - would it be ok if I wrote an article about the relations between those countries? The reason British Isles is notable is because of their shared history, culture, and until rather recently, shared monarch and government. If you don't see the difference between China/Nigeria and the british Isles, I don't know what else to say to you. As for sections on immigration which only talked about one bit, give me a frickin' break! the article was only 3 days old, those were all areas that could easily have been expanded. And please stop with this culture is not politics - take a browse through any of the X-Y relations articles, you will often find a culture section - including your Anglo-Irish relations - in fact it's thanks to me that the culture section even exists in that article! Finally you point at British Isles#Government; so it seems you accept the article British Isles, and you accept that that article can have a section on government, but you don't accept that a more profound article can be written, expanding on that section? This is no more shoe-horning than any of the thousands of other summary-style articles we have, all over this wiki.--KarlB (talk) 22:56, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't say that the relationship between the UK and Ireland is the same as the relationship between China and Nigeria, I made that comparison to illustrate a point about synthesis which you have now misrepresented. We can't have an article on "Politics of the British Isles" unless we have plenty of sources which talk about politics of the British Isles as a topic, and even then we would need to be careful that we don't end up promoting one person or one faction's view, as BrownHairedGirl said above. Regarding the culture section you're comparing this article to an international relations article, even though it is not an international relations article. A better comparison would be to something like Politics of the United Kingdom, which oddly enough doesn't mention British culture at all. My point about the immigration section wasn't that it was too short, but that it was synthesis and that it didn't belong there. There's a huge difference between the government section I referred to - most of which is actually about British-Irish relations - and having an article on this contrived topic. Hut 8.5 23:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please read wp:syn. It doesn't say what you think it does. SYN is not combining material from different sources. SYN is drawing a new conclusion that none of the sources individually stated - which was *not* done. So it is a false charge, and no-one has been able to demonstrate any wP:synthesis here. Do you really think Politics of Europe was lifted out of some single source, or that every source in their spoke about their topic as Politics of Europe. NO. Then you say This isn't an international relations article? Let me quote you the first line: "Politics in the British Isles describes the multilateral and bilateral relationships and the political, economic and cultural interchanges between the countries in the British Isles." Does that *not* sound like international relations to you? And while I appreciate that you find it contrived, I've already provided several sources; just do a google search for "Politics of the British Isles" and "Politics in the British Isles" and "Politics Atlantic archipelago" "Politics in the British-Irish Isles" etc etc - there are many names for this topic, but there is also plenty of ink. For example, another recent, ENTIRE book: "The Atlantic Archipelago A Political History of the British Isles: Tompson, Richard S." - this book goes up through the late 20th century! Remember, history is just what already happened, so if historians are using "British Isles" as a topic, and political scientists are writing entire books on the political history of the British Isles, do you think that all of a sudden, in 2012, it all just falls apart and can now be reduced to Anglo-Irish relations? Ask yourself if you can seriously believe and defend that, and more importantly, can you find ANY sources which would defend that POV (e.g. that politics in the British isles can now be fully captured by politics between Ireland and UK) - because THAT was the strongest argument at AFD.
Also, please recall, this was not a rename discussion, and I proposed in several moments a rename or even a rescoping of this article. This is a delete discussion. I do agree that if we add up all of the ink that has been spilled in the past 20 years about international relations in the archipelago, maybe 90% of it would be about Anglo-Irish relations. That's fine! What this article was trying to capture was the other 10%. What about multilateralism? What about political cooperation beyond sovereign bilateral relations? What about cross-cultural/cross-island collaboration that does not form part of the Dublin/London nexus? What about when Ireland cooperates with Scotland on matters that Westminster disagrees with? What about the crown dependencies working together to frame a joint approach to UK politics and to the politics of the EU? What about political movements (like separatism) that cross borders? There is a *ton* of scope possible in this article as a broad geographic survey that goes beyond the simplistic frame of "all international relations are between sovereign nations". We have Politics of Europe, why can't we have this article? If you're afraid of NPOV, please read the article again, and tell me exactly, which POV is it promoting? Also re: your point on the crown dependencies, please read this and then reflect: Foreign_relations_of_Jersey#International_relations. There is a difference between de jure and de facto, and the crown dependencies are acting more and more like sovereign nations; separate and different membership in international organizations, separate negotiation of certain types of agreements, and working together (for example Sellafield controversy or transport of nuclear material) with other nations *against* the wishes of their protector the UK - so grouping them under Ireland-UK relations is an insult to them and to studies of international relations in general.--KarlB (talk) 19:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think your main problem is that you haven't decided what this article was about. Since there was no clear scope various topics including history and culture were forced in without reference to sources, and this is where the synthesis comes in. Though the article was titled "Politics of the British Isles", your comments here suggest its scope and purpose did not bear much relation to other "Politics of X" articles and that it would be better off being titled something like "Relations between constituent parts of the British Isles". We could rename it to that title, and some of the content would be more appropriate there, but a rename would just formalise the fact that most of the content is duplicative of Ireland-United Kingdom relations (since all parts of the British Isles are either part of the UK, part of Ireland or have their external relations handled by the UK). Again you've misrepresented several things I've said (I did not say that avoiding synthesis requires all the content to be taken from one source, or that everything within the scope of "Politics of the British Isles" can be reduced to formal UK-Ireland relations), and you seem to have problems writing clearly and concisely. Hut 8.5 21:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was quite clear on what the article was to be about; multilateral and bilateral relations of the countries in the British isles; with a focus on things other than Anglo-irish relations (since an article already exists for that). Again, look at Politics of Europe, and tell me why this article was so much worse than that one. Also please recall, it had existed for 3 DAYS before it was prematurely put on ice ([37] - this is the Ireland-United Kingdom relations article, 2 years after its creation. You will note that it has zero references. None. Zilch. Nada.) Adding in brief coverage of history, culture and immigration and so on was all to be in the service of framing the complex set of relationships that exist between all these countries - for example, the fact that an intergovernmental body was set up British-Irish council - did they set up such a body for China-Nigeria? In any case, if you agree that there are any "politics in the british isles" that do not belong in or are not part of bilateral Anglo-Irish relations, then shouldn't this article exist? I didn't mean to misrepresent what you said, but you were very clear that for example the relationship between Ireland->Isle of Man belonged in Anglo-Irish relations, but I've seen zero sources to justify that, except a weak argument around sovereignty which doesn't hold up to scrutiny (e.g. there is no evidence that the Irish government treats Isle of Man as a sub-part of its dealings with the UK; they have separate relations (see Ireland-Isle of Man relations). Finally as to scope, I suggest you take a look at Anglo-Irish relations, which has recently been expanded massively in scope, in part due to all of the content from the politics in the British isles which was copy/pasted over during the discussion; it has been expanded further since, but if you think immigration, culture, common travel area, sports, citizenship, etc is not germane to politics in the british isles, then do you also think it's not germane to ireland-UK relations? If not, why not? In other words, why is all of that stuff ok/no problem/looks great for a bilateral relations article, but it's a bunch of POV/SYN/OR when it's in a multilateral article with a the words "british isles" (which is a widely accepted geographic term with clear scope)? In any case, are you saying you would be ok with recreation, given a different name, and a discussion on scope? I've always been up to discuss naming: "politics" "relations between" "international relations" - these are all just shades... do you really think that if people talk about South asian politics or Middle eastern politics or central asian politics that people are going to be confused as to what that means? --KarlB (talk) 02:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First of all can you make your responses somewhat shorter. It isn't reasonable to post a rambling wall of text and then complain when I don't address all of the points you made. I do think that shared culture, immigration, history etc is reasonable content to include in a bilateral relations article, and I have no problem with it being in Ireland–United Kingdom relations. It isn't appropriate to include this type of content in a politics article though because these things are not part of politics. Note that Politics of Europe (which I don't think is in a very good state) does not include any of this type of content. Politics is completely different from international relations - not all international relations are political and politics is far broader than international relations. I don't see how a recreation and name change could solve the duplication problem. If we were to move it to something like "Relations between constituent parts of the British Isles" we would have to merge Ireland–United Kingdom relations into it, which isn't a very satisfactory solution and the only rationale for doing it is nit-picking around technicalities of the unusual constitutional position of the Crown dependencies. Much easier to just deal with foreign relations of the Crown dependencies under foreign relations of the UK, as the UK is responsible for their external affairs. Yet again I did not compare politics of the British isles with politics of China/Nigeria and I would appreciate it if you stopped pretending I had. Hut 8.5 13:55, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be canvassing on the part of KarlB. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be a false accusation on the part of IRWolfie. The notification was neutral; both nominators used the same reasoning; intersection of geography and politics, and whether in this case it was notable, so it was a neutral summary of the nominations. BHG is right I should have notified here, sorry about that, but RA also notified several projects and didn't notify, and I don't see a chiding from BHG for that.--KarlB (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse – I have waded through the morass of the afd and cannot discern a coherent counter to the charges of synthesis and duplication. (KarlB needs to master the art of précis.) Oculi (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse while Moreschi's closing statement is a bit shaky worded and not clear enough in showing that the closer was relying on strength of arguments rather than personal opinion, I think the reasoning is basically sound. Night of the Big Wind talk 21:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There is a opinion expressed in some of the comments above that strikes me as blatantly opposed to NPOV policy: that there are topics that can not be written about neutrally, and therefore any article on the topic should be prevented by deletion. This is a policy which will reduce the encyclopedia to a very bland and relatively useless enterprise, for much of what people want to know in the world is about the factual background to things that are controversial. There's a somewhat less stark version also expressed, that this particular article was so tainted that it must be deleted. I think this is true only of libel and copyvio. Anything can be edited. Seeing a poor article in the history of what has become a good article is the proof of NPOV--the demonstration of what is, and what is, not the proper presentation of information. People will learn from what has ben replaced, if they analyze it. DGG ( talk ) 17:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hear, hear! SilverserenC 19:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • DGG, I think you misunderstand the objections.
      The neutrality of an encyclopedia article depends not just on its content but on its framing, and it is very easy to frame a topic in a way which advances a POV. I'm sure that we could produce a thoroughly factual article on a range of topics which are stripped of their wider context such as "Irish terrorism against British civilians" or "British military violence against Irish civilians", and I hope you would agree that neither framing is NPOV.
      Similarly, conflating disparate topics is a way of advancing a POV. I hope you would also agree that even the most factual coverage in article entitled "Politics of nations with significant Jewish populations" would be decidedly POV, and that an article on "Corruption in Italy and Indonesia" would be answering a loaded question (look! there is corruption in those two places, ain't they more similar than you thought). Or try "Political policies of [Mao|Stalin|Pol Pot|Hitler|Mussolini] and [Obama|Bush|Reagan|Clinton]"; that's the stuff of partisan polemic, not NPOV.
      My examples are of course extreme, and the issues in this case were more complex and more subtle, but I hope you will not try to defend the claim that all topics are inherently neutral so long as they are properly written. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The places involved have a common history, and common political problems which affect all of them. The examples you raise are interesting: The first I consider a valid article if it is intended to mean influence of Jews on politics of countries where they have a substantial population.) We have in the past avoided such articles because they tend to be written by those with open or disguised anti-semitic prejudice, but I consider that a terrible reason and similarly a rejection of the principle of NPOV, exemplified in the absurd rejection of a very well documented subject at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood because of the manner it had been written and the apparent inclinations of a principal editor. The second is a deliberately absurd red-herring collocation--there is no common history or administrative tradition of Italy and Indonesia, though comparisons of Indonesia with The Netherlands would make a viable article. The third pairs similar could make an article comparing the general characteristics of dictatorships and democracies, based not on our own source for them individually, but sources that compare them in that exact manner . Anything with sources can be discussed neutrally & various people have suggested good source. (We are particularly well suited to dealing with taboo-ridden topics because of the extraordinary diversity of our contributors. What we need to keep away from such articles are not just the bigots, but also those who would avoid bigotry by avoiding discussing the topic at all) I know of no exceptions. There is a link between NOT CENSORED and NPOV: We need no censorship because of our commitment to NPOV. DGG ( talk ) 00:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Two more sources recently uncovered: Political integration and disintegration in the British Isles; A. H. Birch. Allen & Unwin, 1977.; The Impact of a Scottish Referendum on Ethnoregionalist Movements in the British Isles (includes comparative study of ethnoregionalist movements in Isle of Man, Scotland, Jersey, Shetland, etc) BHG seems to believe that the article is POV for two reasons: 1) because of its title. If that's the case, then re-naming is sufficient. 2) The idea that putting bilateral and multilateral political relationships in the isles in a separate article from the dominant bilateral Anglo-Irish/Dublin-London relationship is just advancing a POV. For example, in the paper I cited above, looking at ethnoregionalist movements in the crown dependencies and Scotland; that could not be placed in Ireland-UK relations, and it wouldn't fit in UK politics either (Isle of man is not part of UK), nor Scottish politics, because it's looking at a comparative regional basis - how will the crown dependencies react to a scottish referendum? But political correctness seems to have killed the possibility of having these sorts of discussions. If something is going on in the British Isles, it's either between Ireland and the UK, or it's just Ireland, or it's just UK, or it's just Isle of Man. Any article which tries to catch the stuff that falls between the cracks? POV POV POV--KarlB (talk) 05:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Isle of Man is a dependency of the monarchy of the UK, and despite the constitutional theology, it is in practice a dependency of the UK (see for example how the UK represents the IOM in the ECtHR). That topic could therefore be covered quite adequately within a UK framework (or within a British Islands framework if you want to be constitutionally purist), and there is no need to adopt the non-neutral concept of the so-called "British Isles" as the scope. The fact that some British scholars misuse that POV term when they are actually referring to a smaller region does not require an NPOV encyclopedia to follow a POV framing or POV terminology -- just as we do not adopt Tea Party terminology or framing when discussing the US Democratic Party or Soviet terminology or framing when discussing the "capitalist states". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:36, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
this is *not* a renaming discussion. If you disagree with the name, propose a new name - otherwise, stop bringing it up - it's pointless and distracting. And as you know, British Islands does *not* include RoI, which is an important player in this game! This is about the TOPIC, to wit, the multilateral and bilateral relations between Ireland, northern ireland, wales, england, scotland, isle of man, jersey, guernsey. Wait, guess what? That is almost the exact membership of the British-Irish council? I wonder what they talk about there?? Perhaps, politics? --KarlB (talk) 06:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The foregoing three posts are completely off-topic. Please read my request above. Scolaire (talk) 08:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did put collapse around that section, but BHG reverted that change; she wanted everyone to see the discussion. If you want to re-add the collapse heading I wouldn't be opposed.--KarlB (talk) 14:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I won't do anything until BHG responds. I the meantime I would appreciate it if you would knock it off - both with BHG and Hut 8.5. A one-off, brief response to a new (and relevant to the DRV) comment by a new participant is acceptable in a DRV; cluttering up the page with endless repetitive arguments about crown dependencies and multilateral relations - with or without collapsing - is not. The question here is whether Moreschi closed the AfD correctly or not, nothing more than that. The proper place for your multilateral political debate is on your user talk page, not here. Scolaire (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist Per DGG, the close is too far into supervote territory. Mark Arsten (talk) 07:18, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reopen and do things properly Moreschi does not have the authority to close an AFD early because they believe "everything useful has pretty much already been said". Not everyone who participates in an AFD shows up the first half of it. The rational presented is obviously a WP:supervote. Reopen the existing debate to let it run its proper number of days, and then close it properly, letting those participating in it influence the outcome, not the personal viewpoints of one administrator. Dream Focus 15:10, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Moreschi closed the discussion in response to a specific request by a keep voter at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive754#Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion.2FPolitics_in_the_British_Isles. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion had descended to a point where it was better to close it early than to allow it to go on. Occasionally, that happens.
    That's not to say that discussion has stopped. A potentially useful discussion is taking place on Karl's talk page about how to address the concerns about synthesis and duplication (and of the article being some kind of coat rack) in a new article. A re-opened deletion discussion is infinitely less like to be useful than that discussion. And it would put the kibosh on resolving the issue productively and through consensus. --RA (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    People often argue back and forth in AFDs. That doesn't give you the right to close them quickly, and thus prevent others from participating. Dream Focus 14:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse My sentiments above of WP:TLDR still hold true, but now that I've read all the pages here I'm endorsing the close. I believe Moreschi closed correctly, and which I can understand why Karl may be frustrated, it is no reason to disrupt this process by rehashing all of the same arguments over and over again (I've see them 3,4,5,6 times now), and effectively hijacking the review and trying to drown out other views. (And I'll add that BHG should have known better). Wasn't impressed with Karl's canvassing either. --HighKing (talk) 16:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Wow, and I thought I could be verbose - I want the last half-hour of my life (and the associated braincells) back please : ) - jc37 19:07, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse but Userfy - It looks to me that the main thrust of this is that there is rough consensus that at least some of the data on the page is salvageable (as even noted by the closer above). So, if this is to be retained as an article, at the very least this apparently needs work (and further discussion). In the meantime, it might be worth discussing adding whatever may be determined by consensus as appropriate, to Ireland–United Kingdom relations. - jc37 19:07, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion, the close is within reasonable discretion, and does not look like a supervote to me. It starts by saying an editor's reasoning is compelling, and then goes on to what reasoning is found to be compelling. I didn't see a ton of productive discussion on the "keep" side during the AfD (I'm singularly unimpressed with a solicitation to edit war, to wit: "I've tried reverting, but I've hit my limit; so if other eds want to help, it would be appreciated; I can't participate in an edit war. Snappy is almost out of reverts too by the way."), and AfD is not a nose count. Moreschi made a reasonable interpretation of the discussion that's well within reasonable closer discretion. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

29 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
City Furniture (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

The company has a relativity large impact and importance in South Florida, and could be of interest to those in the area. The article has been deleted twice: once in 2006, and again in 2008 (the latter apparently with good reason). However, both admins are either inactive or have expressed an unwillingness to continue admin duties. If undeleted, I will be making some updates to the article. Lbart0725 (talk) 18:36, 29 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.

28 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Brett Kimberlin (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Negative article should be corrected, not deleted 189.61.28.233 (talk) 00:56, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • comment I do not consider this an A10. It is not an attack page: it describes what crimes he was convicted for, but he certainly was convicted for them. It is not negative unsourced material; everything is sourced to major publications or to others mentioned in that article but not yet formally cited, including the NYT In fact, it's about the opposite of an A10-; it is currently redirected to the article on Speedway bombings, but the Speedway bombings article is very much more negative about him. Indeed, section 3 of that article deals with speculations about his having committed another crime with which he has never been charged. Nor does the section in the Speedway article on the trial refer to the challenge to the convictions based on the police use of hypnosis. Nor does it deal with the support he has received. Nor does it deal with his activities after release from prison. The question is whether there should be one or two articles, and I remain undecided. If the redirect stands, the existing article must be balanced. DGG ( talk ) 02:29, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment what do we hope to achieve here beyond the previous DRV? --62.254.139.60 (talk) 06:12, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy close. Nothing has changed since the previous DRV. T. Canens (talk) 13:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given the recent controversies about Kimberlin, maybe the page should be re-created but protected as a compromise against it becoming an attack? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.196.91.249 (talk) 15:26, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the outcome of the previous DRV.--62.254.139.60 (talk) 19:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm confused...exactly what is being appealed here?--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 19:48, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the nomination is asking for permission for moving Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Brett Kimberlin to main space. Note also User_talk:Chase_me_ladies,_I'm_the_Cavalry#Brett_Kimberlin and the very active editing of Speedway bombings.[38] Thincat (talk) 21:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The subject of the page has a book length biography by a major publisher, Citizen K: The deeply weird American journey of Brett Kimberlin. This alone confers significant notability and offers a lot to work off of. If it is an attack page in current/deleted form, that's why we edit. Overturn and restore. Thargor Orlando (talk) 01:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close The draft at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Brett Kimberlin has recently been moved to main space as allowed by the previous DRV but despite a negative view[39] at AFC. A complete re-write then took place. So, I think nothing is required of this DRV and anyone can submit an AFD (where I would vote keep). Thincat (talk) 09:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close FWIW, I did the rewrite because I was tired of the partisan fighting. Thus, this isn't the article that received the negative AfC, at least not when I was done with it, and this deletion review should be closed. But it's obvious that there will continue to be POV changes to the article that will need to be removed, because this person is such a lightning rod. -- AyaK (talk) 13:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close as moot. Rewritten article is better. 71.212.251.217 (talk) 15:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The Speedway Bombings are a newsworthy domestic terrorism event, and Mr. Kimberlin was convicted in connection with the bombings. There's no reason for Wikipedia to censor this information. Biccat (talk) 17:14, 29 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.

27 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Gerald Walpin firing (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I became curious about this deleted article after reading this external commentary. Kathy 9is2 (talk) 02:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What part of the outcome of the deletion discussion do you have a question about? —C.Fred (talk) 02:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why was it deleted when so many editors supported keeping it? Why was such a notable article deleted? Google shows lots of reliable sources covered this, and that it still gets mentioned three years later. What was the purpose of deleting the article? Why not undelete it? Kathy 9is2 (talk) 03:19, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you sure you want this article, or do you want this instead:
Gerald Walpin (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore) Jclemens (talk) 06:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Campaign season is upon us. Obama had to settle a dispute that initially arose between a Bush-appointed watchdog and a Bush-appointed prosecutor. He's therefore going to be subjected to the standard partisan criticism whichever way he comes down. NOTNEWS, not encyclopedic absent unusual circumstances. No flaws identified in either of the closes involved. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:44, 27 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.

26 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Jordan LaSecla (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The article about LaSecla was originally deleted on the grounds that the subject did not meet gridiron football notability guidelines. However, now that the subject is now playing in the Italian Football League (source), subject is now notable. Andrewlp1991 (talk) 23:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Example of media coverage is here. Andrewlp1991 (talk) 23:16, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • temporarily restored for discussion at Deletion Review
  • Comment If there is new information, why isnt the article recreated instead of questioning the process of the original review? I might add that one additional reference that is WP:ROUTINE game coverage (english translation of article: [40]) does not satisfy WP:GNG, nor is Italian Football League listed unter SNG of WP:NGRIDIRON. I'm not a regular at DRV, so I'm not sure if I should be endorsing the original decision, or relisting it because of new information even if I still dont think it meets notability guidelines cited in the original AfD.—Bagumba (talk) 01:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disallow recreation. The media coverage cited above is too superficial to convey notability or to be the basis of a WP:BLP-conforming article.  Sandstein  09:13, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question Could the old article be userfied, with the intention to recreate when further sources (in addition to the single one cited above) are included? (Userfication was suggessted in the AfD.) -- Trevj (talk) 19:36, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
‪Template:NOT‬ (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Used for maintenance and unencylcopedic content when no alternative is available. Undelete. --Captaincollect1970 (talk) 03:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC) Captaincollect1970 (talk) 03:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • There is not an apparent consensus in that XfD. There are several prominent editors who in the discussion are spoke contrary to the nomination and close. There were not rebuttals to them, but repreated badgering by the nominator. I'd have like to see at least one person on addition to the nominator challenge the "Keeps". However, "rough consensus" is a judgement call that allows for signficant discretion by the closer. However, when employing significant discretion, I think explanation should be given, and especially so when challenged. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have provided an additional closing statement as requested here. We frequently get a major backlog at TfD due to the relatively small number of admins closing the discussions. Sometimes it seems very clear to me, but not to others. I am always happy to add an additional closing statement when it is requested. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:54, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse reasonable close well within admin discretion. There was some disagreement, but nothing of value (like content) seems lost, and there seems a way forward for all needs (the use of more specific templates). I seem to recall, but can't point to, a trend against extremely generic templating due to it being considered not sufficiently helpful to other editors).
  • Apologies to Plastikspork. I and the nominator should have asked more personably on your talk page before making statements here. Thanks Cunard. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:16, 28 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.

25 May 2012

[edit]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Carnism (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The article on carnism was deleted without any apparent attempts to determine whether or not the concept is credible, which it is. The primary reason for deletion was the claim that the term carnism is non-notable. But in reality, carnism is discussed all over the animal rights movement, referenced in psychological publications (including Psychology Today, June, 2011) in philosophical theory (Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective, by Marti Kheel. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. (2007)), in The Guardian, by a journalist for the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly, and was even discussed in a beef industry journal. Therefore, I request that the page be restored. If editors have concerns over validating and relevant citations and references they can then be addressed. I have attempted to discuss the deletion with Davewild but received no response. --Biocentricegalitarian (talk) 20:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse the AFD was recent and the outcome very clear, and the term still appears to be largely associated with one person, rather than something in general use or even jargon use. Essentially a neologism. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:43, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Firstly, DRV is not a re-run of the AfD. DRV simply establishes whether or not the close was a correct assessment of the actual debate. In this case, there were no compelling arguments made in the AfD to keep the article, and practically all of the support came from canvassed outsiders. Therefore, the close was a correct one. Secondly, I would suggest that whichever external group is apparently driving people to contest this (the nominator is yet another SPA) stop throwing new users at it: it is transparently obvious canvassing, and the existing community tends to react poorly to that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse and speedy close. Just an SPA lobbying to reverse an undeniably sound AFD closing. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 12:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, close was in accordance with a strong consensus.—S Marshall T/C 15:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I fixed the nomination.[41] Somehow, the nomination included a parameter "xfd page=" (without an underscore) and that caused the DFV link to default to AfD#1. The correct parameter is "xfd_page=" (with underscore symbol). (Someone may want to look into to fixing the template(?( for the future). In any event, the four DRV posters above this post (Andrew, Chris, Hullaballoo, and S Marshall, may have reviewed AfD#1 instead of AfD#2. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - This appears to be another one of those potential Wikipedia:Coatrack/publicity articles. Most of the "carnism" references refer to Melanie Joy's 2009 book, "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism." Wikipedia should not be used to give meaning to carnism so whatever Joy says carnism is, that is what it is. On page 18 of the issue of Vegetarian Times, they claim University of Massachusetts, Boston, psychology and sociology professor Melanie Joy, PhD. Joy coined the term "carnism", even though Kenneth Shapiro used the term in the name of his 2004 lecture, "The Psychology of the Dinner Plate: Vegetarianism versus 'Carnism'. This US News article has a decent usage of the word carnism, but not info on carnism beyond filling a dictionary definition. The word also is used in a number of articles, but only once and usually as part of announcing an upcoming lecture or book having "carnism" in its name, e.g.: (1) Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to 'Carnism' (2009) by Melanie Joy, PhD., (2) in the 2010 article comfortably numb? Boston Globe January 26, 2010 article [44] merely announces an upcoming lecture by Melanie Joy, PhD., (3) etc. This was brought out in AfD2. The AfD2 closer interpreted the debate correctly, so endorse the close. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:55, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for your responses to this deletion request. At the moment I am indeed an SPA, I almost also coincidentally a psychology student whose lab has begun to research carnism, and there is at least one other doing the same at the University of British Columbia. I have taken time to review wikipedia's articles on neologisms, on notability and on coatracks, and continue to contest this deletion because I do not believe these terms apply to this concept, although they may have applied to the article that had been written on it.

Carnism is clearly notable, as shown in the links I posted in my first entry into this deletion log. Certainly such references also mention Melanie Joy, just as any discussion of objectivism or cognitive dissonance is almost certain to reference Ayn Rand or Leon Festinger. Uzma's focus on articles of tedious of reporting is not representative of the 65,600 results of a Google search on the topic. Indeed, the first result after carnism.com is to a New York Times blog. According to the Wikipedia page on notability, an article is notable if it has received coverage from a source independent of the subject. All of the links above are evidence of such coverage, and easily found.

Certainly, an article on carnism is not necessarily a coatrack. Carnism is an ideology, and an article about that ideology does not need to advocate another (in this case veganism, or Joy herself), which I believe some editors area concerned about. Taking all of this into consideration, I wonder why the article was so quickly deleted (twice) instead of editors requesting that it be rewritten to satisfy wikipedia's standards, which could be easily done.

The concept is notable, it is verifiable and has entered the vernacular of the animal rights movement, and is being researched acacemically. If an article on carnism was written that satisfied all these requirements more fully than the previous one, could it be posted? I request that the page be unblocked, but the original article permanently deleted, so that I may write such an article. A term growing in usage around the world like this (it was recently discussed here in German) should be available to the Wikipedia community. --Biocentricegalitarian (talk) 21:04, 28 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.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Template:Membership (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I was not notified of this sizable deletion please undelete the work in progress. Over 100 templates were deleted with such minimal discussion. The template is intended to be more like {{Flag}} with minimalist input. Development is waiting for MediaWiki updates. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:08, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

  • endorse deletion, but there should be no reason why these cannot be moved to either user or wikipedia namespace. Frietjes (talk) 23:51, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is because parser functions are difficult to operate in the userspace. Please see my next comment. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
  • You certainly should have been informed, but I doubt that would have changed the course of the discussion. That there are so many templates within this system only makes it less likely that it would actually get deployed, as it significantly increases maintenance costs. No objections to userfication of course, so that if you want to propose reintroducing these later you're free to do so. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:27, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was deleted under the false assumption that it was abandoned. It wasn't. Deletions of over 100 templates should be with a good and well discussed reason. I resent the claim that a discussion wouldn't affect the outcome.
  • Why are you requesting it to be userified? It would significantly hamper the development of the template as then each transcluded use would have to be entirely rewritten which would easily take hours if not days. It would take just as long to re-introduce it.
  • Development is pending the introduciton of MediaWikiwiki:Lua scripting possibly through MediaWikiwiki:Extension:Scribunto which are under development. The reason why work was stopped is because the template structure is too heavy for parser functions. It would be more implementable when that is available. The complexities would also disappear with it.
  • The idea for the usage is something like "{{Membership|United States}}" or "{{Membership|United States|1970}}" similar to "{{Flag|United States}}". Country data template range has over 7 pages of templates and redirects and is certainly maintainable.
  • International relations of countries do not change often but they do change. The goal of the Membership template range is to introduce an easy way for articles to enjoy the ability to display such relationships with a historic perspective (if needed). Updating the template would also update all relevant pages. For instance, when I read about the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Libya, etc seeing what countries are involved and their affiliation would certainly be helpful. Moreover the templates can also be used and integrated into country infoboxes so for instance you would see international memberships and affiliations of Russia in Russia. For example, few people realize that Russia is actually a NATO affiliate (partnership for peace) and became a WTO member recently. So you can perhaps see that there is a very wide scope intended for these templates once they are complete.
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
A sample of complexity of international organization membership
  • Relist - While it's not necessary to notify editors of a page, in the case of templates, I think notifying the coder(s) might be good practice. Especially on a work in progress. And honestly, what is being saved here? Whether deleted or visible, it still exists on the servers. So what's the rush? - jc37 13:37, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy If the templates are on hold awaiting MediaWiki updates then they can be put in some provisional development workspace until those updates are made. Warden (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you insist on userifying, at least leave the reidrects in place. Otherwise the code will not work. The templates inter-depend on each other. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 23:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
      • They should not be called "membership" there is no indication that these are country templates, and are completely opaque in naming. Why should "membership" be a country template? Membership is most likely to deal with a person's membership in organizations, not a country's membership in organizations. Since RM/TFD has dealt with opaquely named templates by renaming them, we should not be having these use "membership" when they depend on features not yet implemented, there is no need to pollute templatespace with unintuitive redirects that are not useful. 70.24.251.208 (talk) 12:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ambiguity was intenional as non-countries can be affiliates or members of organizations. EU as a whole is a UN affiliate (observer). Likewise there are cases where countries not widely recognized (hence considered non-country by a large number of countries) are members to international organization (such as Palestine to the OIC or Western Sahara to African Union). Calling it a "country" creates too many problems and controversy. Like "Flag" the templates name should not be very long as that is just painful to look at. My days of work (or in your words pollution) will forever occupy templatespace just not visible to the public. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
          • As I said, the most obvious use of a template called "membership" is for people, not countries and pseudo-countries. so it should not be called "membership". Template names should not be so ambiguous as to be meaningless. As I also said, ambiguous templates are frequently renamed. We should not need to go through the exercise of renaming these templates when they are not even in use yet. Just select a better name that does not imply it is about individual people. -- also per comments below, why not use it to indicate that a province is a member of a federal union, like the States of the United States? So much ambiguity in the naming of the template is not good. 70.24.251.208 (talk) 03:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • If that's the concern, call it "international membership" (per international community), and call it a day. - jc37 06:36, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • This is neither a deletion criteria or undeletion criteria. It is just the opinion of 70.24.251.208 whom have made the covert deletion nomination in the first place. That said this can be done (I like your proposal) - though I'd like to note that I immensely dislike that the IP seems to be using an XFD in place for a rename discussion which is disruptive. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 06:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - So basically, where {{flag|United States}} displays  United States, Template:Membership would display something like the flag of Hawaii next to United States since Hawaii is "a member" of the United States? The Hawaii article doesn't mention "membership" in that context. The United States article says, "a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council," so would the template cause the flag of the U.S. to be next to United Nations Security Council? Certain White Cat, would you please show or link to an example of what Template:Membership does to give some context to the discussion. Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • United States isn't an international organization. :) The concept I have in mind is more like showing the US membership on demand. US is a member of UNSC (permanent member), NATO, WTO, INTERPOL, and other such organizations. The template has an optional parameter for date so that you can see US membership to international organizations in 1960.
  • Example uses that I have conceptually is for example showing international memberships of US on the article United States. Likewise displaying a similar set of ino on lists. United States is a more clear-cut example with its membership. Things get complicated for some countries such as Norway (a NATO member; not an EU member), Sweden (an EU member; not a NATO member) or Vatican (an OSCE member, not a UN member).
  • I cannot show an example since the templates are deleted. I would be able to show you if the relevant pages are undeleted. It is difficult to argue without them and I do not remember the nested code out of memory. The template does work, it is just not updated for all of the ~200 countries (primarily due to time constrains).
-- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:44, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Comment (support undeletion): As someone who spent a significant amount of time in creating many of the country templates, I find it very wrong to delete 100+ templates without any notifications to the people who put in work. Yes, as currently coded, the templates were very large (so much so that having 100+ of them on the same page exceeded the parser limits); but the code-reduction was only stopped to wait for the arrival of Lua. The potential uses of this template-system are quite vast (like flag as WhiteCat has said). In its structure, as far as I remember, Template:Membership/Sub/Head was a table header, Template:Membership/Sub/Foot was the table footer, and country-specific data was kept in templates named in the format Template:Membership/countryname.
What it did
Writing something like {{Membership/Sub/Head}}{{Membership/Afghanistan}}{{Membership/Sub/Foot}} would produce a table with columns for countryname, AU(African Union), AL(Arab League), CON(Commonwealth of Nations), EAC(East African Community), EU(European Union), IP(Interpol), NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), OIC(Organisation of Islamic Countries), OPEC(Oil Producing and exporting countries), UN(United Nations), WTO(World Trade Organisation). Writing the fullforms from memory, some might be wrong, sorry
The row for Afghanistan would contain the flag of Afghanistan with its name in the countryname column (this was produced using flag templates). If Afghanistan was a member of an organisation, the column for that organisation would show an svg icon (probably the map for the organisation). The alt text (or title text, not sure which) would be the date Afghanistan joined the organisation.
The columns were sortable and the sorting was done according to the date of joining.
Also (not sure about this), hiding some columns (if unneeded in the article), was possible.
I hope this gives an idea of what the templates used to do.
Tech stuff
Technically, the system had options for getting the membership status of a country in a particular year. This means that the system had checks for the existence of the country and the organisation at the given date. Plus, the system handled different levels of membership (such as in EU or NATO), and also handled multiple memberships in the UNSC through different country-specific subtemplates for UNSC memberships.
For it to support so many options, it used a lot of subtemplates which would be very easily reduced if done through Lua.
Intented use
As far as I remember, writing something like {{Membership|USA|1970}} was not currently possible (don't remember why), but that was the intended idea. Also, the idea was to extend the templates to include other similar international organisations, such as NAM, SAARC, ASEAN etc, but this wasn't yet done due to the parser limits.
This could ideally make maintainance of this data in multiple places redundant and help store this information in a single template.
Please undelete
The system was undoubtedly half-baked, but creating the data containing templates with membership information for this many organisations for 100+ countries took a lot of effort and time. Even if the appearance is not infobox-like or not something we want, creating the data containers took a lot of effort and they can be easily reused. Even the code templates can be easily modified to either fit into the current parsers (I think some reduction could be done), or into more efficient lua scripting (if we can keep the templates unused while we wait for lua).
As for why it should be undeleted now instead of waiting till Lua arrives, I think its better if its kept as it was in the template namespace so that more of the data-containers can be created (100+ are still needed) and if Lua takes too long, the system can be improved to work with the current parser.
Also, undeleting this template and its subtemplates should be accompanied by undeletion of Wikipedia:International membership templates and its subpages which were deleted along with it.
PS:I'd even made a half-baked twinkle-like script for creating the country-specific data containers; so you can imagine the effort it took people in creating 100+ of them manually.--Siddhartha Ghai (talk) 18:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I had no idea that the author was not notified. My standard response when I find that to be the case is to immediately undelete the templates and relist the discussion. I was disappointed to find out that "Step 1" of the WP:DRV instructions were not followed when this DRV was initiated. The first I heard about any problem with the deletion discussion was the notification of this DRV. I would have been happy to restore the templates and relist the discussion if I were simply asked first. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:57, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist - Chris Cunningham's comment in the TfD,

    "The problem is that we are unlikely to decide that this tabular format should in fact be rolled out to the country articles. Each country article already explains which international organisations a given state is a member of in the prose. Should we wish to add it in a more structured manner it is far more likely that we'll do it in the infobox, rather than in an entirely new (and seriously overengineered) format like this."

    is very persuasive and I could see the close being based on this. However, I'm seeing in this DRV, significant new information that has come to light since the deletion that could give Chris's views a run for the money. Plus, the above image File:Supranational European Bodies with NATO members-en.svg does show a complex system of international memberships that might need conveying graphically. Seems reasonable to have all these views presented in one discussion, particularly where the closing admin Plastikspork noted above "happy to restore the templates and relist the discussion" (take out of context). In the next TfD, please post images of what the template does so we're not left guessing down the road. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 06:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • This template system could very well be integrated into the infobox template. For instance the infobox for Belgium has a line for currency likewise it can have a line to denote NATO affiliation, EU affiliation, UN affiliation and etc. Such memberships are not obvious or completely non-existent in current infoboxes. Underlining reason for this is that no one has ever attempted to express international memberhsip of countries in a templated form before which is the goal of the Membership template. That data can be used in various forms including in infoboxes as previously mentioned. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 15:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Jurij Moškon (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I think that the Vesna Award (the main film award in Slovenia)[45] makes him notable enough.[46] In this article [47], he is described as one of the most prominent Slovenian film editors. Some further biographical information is available at [48] and [49]. --Eleassar my talk 10:29, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse AfD but allow recreation - The AfD close was over a year ago on 26 April 2011. The closer noted that "No references support inclusion," so the references in the above DRV request have not been AfD vetted. The reliable sources need to be independent of Jurij Moškon (see WP:GNG), so citing to Jurij Moškon's resume doesn't help the DRV nom. While the other four sources are sources, they may merely be website postings and not Wikipedia Reliable Sources (see WP:RS). Given the AfD was a year ago, no references were reviewed in the AfD, and the four other sources listed above are new information has come to light since the 26 April 2011 deletion, seems reasonable to allow recreation and let AfD review these new other-than-English sources and other sources that may come to light during the AfD process. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:19, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As regards the reliability of the other four postings, the first was set up under the supervision of the Slovenian Ministry of Culture, the second and the third are news articles from the Slovenian national radio and TV portal, the fourth is an article from a long-standing newspaper of Lower Carniola. --Eleassar my talk 12:00, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Unles I'm missing something the 1st one doesn't mention the subject in question. J04n(talk page) 14:18, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The first one illustrates the importance of the Vesna Award. --Eleassar my talk 16:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse AfD but allow recreation, per above. The closer correctly read the discussion, in which noone has raised arguments for keeping. Indeed, nothing against a recreation. Cavarrone (talk) 12:15, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Meh on my 2011 close; allow recreation (original closer) With regard to this close, the Vesna claim was in the article at the time of the discussion, but the text didn't assert the award's putative significance and was kind of muddled, and it's my sense that as a result the question of notability under ANYBIO (1)'s award clause wasn't seriously considered. As a result, with respect to recreation, we now have a new (to the argument) claim of notability, and a source. Yes, it's sourced from a web site, but if the Vesna award turns out to be significant, that we'd almost certainly consider the award-granting organization's web site reliable even if primary. As there's a new claim to notability, old precedent (right or wrong) isn't controlling, so allowing recreation seems a no-brainer.
Had I been asked before DRV, I likely would have just said the same. The article still might fail at AfD2, but, particularly in view of WP:SYSTEMIC, it deserves a more-than-fair shot to make its case. --joe deckertalk to me 14:07, 25 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.

24 May 2012

[edit]
  • William Goad – speedily restored, not only as a contested PROD post-deletion, but also that the article was PRODded by a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked long-term abuser. --MuZemike 03:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC) – --MuZemike 03:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This should have not been restored despite the prod nomination, massive BLP violation with highly dubious content that is mostly sourced to some Romanian website that contradicts the BBC source. "since then he dedicated his life to finding more victims"? This needs to be speedied and rewritten from scratch. Secret account 04:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
William Goad (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

I had no time/energy to protest the deletion of the article when it was done. I really don't think it was garbage and I really believe that it's notable. Even only the number of crimes make it so. However, in case the administrators decide that it's "garbage", please restore the last version somewhere in my user page so I can expand it. It would cost me too much time to find again the references and to create it again from scratch. Thank you. —  Ark25  (talk) 15:21, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can't comment on the original article but the subject is definitely notable. Thus, undelete Egg Centric 15:31, 24 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.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Cubit_Accounting (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Not the real reason why this page was deleted. Is the editor involved with a competitor or commercial product? This page was linked at other pages in Wikipedia, eg. comparison of accounting software. This software is GPL Licensed open source and has many users in South Africa, Please assist to restore this page so that it can be updated 196.210.160.59 (talk) 12:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've given the IP some tips on his/her user page. As far as I can see this was A7 speedied and there's nothing particularly wrong here, it just needs a better article. Egg Centric 13:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy and the GNG have no relation to each other. It is not necessary to show notability to pass speedy. all speedy requires is some rational indication of importance. Failure to show notability is a reason for prod or AfD, both of which give a reasonable period for the original editor and other editors to find adequate sources for it, which is often possible. DGG ( talk ) 19:09, 31 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.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
John F. Ashton (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The AfD was closed on 11 May as No consensus. The closer then undid the close on 23 May, and it returned to the unclosed pool where I picked it up, unaware of the previous close. I did eventually become aware of the previous close, but this was quite late on in my close review; that I had already spent over an hour on the close may have influenced my decision to carry on with the close. My thinking at the time was that I was dealing with the same AfD, and that as long as I took account of the article talkpage comments and article developments since the close, that would be sufficient. Normally this wouldn't be significant, however, there had been significant article development between the two closes, so this morning I am thinking that would put me in the position of casting a supervote. The article is currently userfied at User:John J. Bulten/John F. Ashton. I am thinking that there are possible reasonable outcomes - one is to uphold the close, and allow the usefied article to be moved into mainspace where it can face a second AfD, or restore the article to mainspace and relist the AfD. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see that there's a functional difference there. Both circumstances result in the article being in mainspace and an afd discussion happening. Egg Centric 12:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Uphold first close, but wait on AFD and set an incubation deadline (about 1 month). Thank you SilkTork. The primary DRV issue is that we had two weeks of AFD, two weeks of NCDK close and hostile editing, and then a sudden deletion after 2 hours; this may well have been according to process, but I didn't see the user who asked for the "unclose" inform any of the interested parties who were working hard on the article (468 revs) all that time, so it was a shock to several of the editors per your talk. The primary AFD issues are that notability under AUTHOR (over 20 reviews of 5 books, only 2 of which were rebutted) and PROF#C3 (CFRACI status found after AFD close) were never rebutted during AFD. Because I did so much work during AFD and there was a sudden influx of other editors of multiple POVs (cutting the article from 40K to 20K), I was waiting for a cooldown before I did more significant work, presuming that a second AFD would be poorly nommed before at least 1-2 months. If we have a week of DRV and then a second AFD, this article will have been continuously under the hatchet administratively for 6-7 weeks, and that is not a conducive environment to establishing consensus. Further, the amount of time I consumed meeting the seemingly illogical demands of a dozen other editors, finding 70 sources, getting sent to ANI for AFD length (where Uncle G found no disruption), and still seeing the article deleted makes it very hard to justify a lot more on-demand fixup work in a hostile environment, given priorities IRL. Of all AFDs I've been in this has been the most-sourced ever. These are not my only observations but suffice for now. JJB 14:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC) Or What Unscintillating said. JJB 18:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
  • On the numbers, it's a no consensus that leans towards delete, but when I review the arguments I find the view that was most clearly stated by Hrafn very hard to argue with and deserving of significant extra weight. To me, if it had been closed from a clean start based on the arguments presented in that AfD, "delete" looks right. I think that a slightly messy process produced the right outcome.

    Our role is to see that the deletion process is correctly followed. It's too harsh on Silk Tork to say that it wasn't, and although Silk Tork's scrupulous approach to this does him credit, I don't think deletion review has a role here. I endorse the outcome. I don't really endorse the messy process used to get there, which is regrettable but not terrible. It certainly doesn't amount to a procedural irregularity that justifies disturbing the close.—S Marshall T/C 17:23, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, which of the three outcomes do you endorse (NCDK, delete, or userfy)? Which of Hrafn's views (by timestamp) deserve extra weight? JJB 17:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I endorse the outcome that we've been asked to review (which is Silk Tork's close of 23 May). The view I thought deserved extra weight was the first view Hrafn expressed during the discussion (and I mean "first" in the order it appears in the AfD; I accept that the sequence may have been more complex during the course of discussion and Hrafn's comment may have been amended, but I reviewed the discussion in its final form rather than diff by diff).

    What this means, specifically, is that I agree with Hrafn where he said: I'm seeing little-to-no substantive independent coverage here. Most sources listed either (i) include Ashton himself as a (co-)author, (ii) are creationist (and thus WP:FRINGE) affiliates of Ashton, (iii) are/were Ashton's employer and/or (iv) make only passing (and/or dismissive) mention of it. I think that where the sources give in-depth coverage they are not reliable within the meaning of WP:RS, and where they are reliable within the meaning of WP:RS, they are not in-depth.—S Marshall T/C 17:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Restore to mainspace, allow a week or so for improvement, and then relist. I said keep, but it was a rather weak keep; I think it's borderline, though it had strong advocates & opponents. I think the true result was no consensus, but it'd be better to have another discussion after improvment (which in practice is the same thing, as has been pointed out above). DGG ( talk ) 05:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse first close, overturn second close - The AfD was opened 29 April 2012‎ and closed about 12 days later. Phantomsteve's 10 May 2012‎ no consensus close interpreted the discussion correctly and the close was otherwise proper. Phantomsteve reopen the AfD, 25 days after it was listed and 13 days later after close, on 21:01 23 May 2012, giving the reason "questions have arisen about whether this is "no consensus" or not." The reopening of the AfD was untimely, particularly in view of the article changes during those 13 days. The untimely reopening of the AfD makes the second 22:53, 23 May 2012‎ close out of process. Also, DRV is the place to handle questions about whether a close interpreted the discussion correctly. While SilkTork appears to have done some fine work and stand up self reporting to DRV, it is better to stick to process to minimize admins waste of time and give value to proper/timely consensus discussion closures so that those participating in consensus discussions feel fair play is part of that process. Since the first close was no consensus, the article should be restored to main space and there is no objection to immediately relisting at AfD. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:58, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse SilkTork's closure. My reading of the discussion is that the "delete" side had stronger arguments, so I contacted the first closer asking him to justify his close. The first closer was unable to justify his "no consensus" close owing to lack of time. Hrafn (talk · contribs)'s arguments about the insufficient coverage in reliable sources in terms of depth and independence, as noted by S Marshall (talk · contribs) were particularly persuasive. I do not believe that SilkTork (talk · contribs) committed a procedural error. Because the previous closer rescinded his close, SilkTork was free to approach the discussion without being constrained by the previous close. His closing rationale is an accurate summary of the consensus, a product of over an hour of reading and analyzing. I support the proposal by John J. Bulten (talk · contribs) to "wait on AFD and set an incubation deadline (about 1 month)". After more work has been done on the article, it can be (i) brought back to DRV for consideration or (ii) restored to the mainspace directly if {{db-repost}} does not apply and renominated at AfD. Cunard (talk) 04:44, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to Userfy  The article had already been userfied by the time it came here to DRV, and the request that I had made, to which there had been no response, was to overturn to "Userfy".  What happened was that POV-pushing contributions savaged the article after the "no consensus" close, with an objective of proving that the topic was not notable.  I only participated in a small number of the edits after the article was reduced by about 40 sources.  I saw belligerence toward objections to adding BLP violations, and incompetence in identifying sources.  A quote by Kurt Wise as being something Ashton said was agreed to by two editors.  This incident was immediately followed by another defective source citation, followed by an editor yelling at one of his/her own quotes.  I can provide diffs on request.  The point is that this article needs a chance to recover from the POV pushing, so it is appropriate to leave it on JJBs user page without a schedule.  It would be more correct to call this close userfy, because there is no plan by the 2nd closer or anyone else to keep the article deleted, and keeping the close as "delete" will serve only to confound a next AfD.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:45, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for this completely affirmed analysis. During AFD certain editors suddenly began massive edits that continued until second close, reducing size from 40K to 15K and deleting about 45 sources. Because I had been responding to the same editors' demands at AFD for two weeks I opted out of trying to analyze every deletion claim on talk, having already established there that many of them were policy failures. Accordingly, as Cesiumfrog's editing also shows, there is too much damage to the legitimate notability claims that were unanswered at AFD and yet declined for comment by both closers to be repaired during this DRV (not to mention outright erratic edits needing reversing). The purpose of userfication is to show that Ashton's award "FRACI CChem" meets PROF; that 5-8 of Ashton's books with numerous reviews satisfy AUTHOR; and that sufficient mention of Ashton satisfies both GNG and the cumulative nature of BASIC, just as I said in my very first AFD comment. Time for consensus to arise on these very old points, given the hostile environment, should not be deadlined unreasonably. JJB 18:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Endorse If you read SilkTork close he makes it clear that he will "userfy the material on request to allow work to continue until notability can be established.", that has been done work is ongoing there. Once it is felt fit to move it back then it can be done, this has the feel of debating a process rather than getting on with fixing the article. Mtking (edits) 00:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Willy on Wheels (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The most notorious wikipedia vandal now has at least three mentions in reliable sources. I don't believe these are enough to produce an article necessarily (they may be though), but they are enough to add him to Troll_(Internet)#Examples - which is where I would like this redirect to go to. Once the redirect is in place it's a simple matter to chuck in a sentence or two about WoW there. Egg Centric 12:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

S'pose so. here we go Egg Centric 14:37, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This isn't indepth coverage of Willy on Wheels. How does he deserve a page?Curb Chain (talk) 23:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And who asked for a page on Willy on Wheels? As I seem Egg Centric only asks for a redirect. Armbrust, B.Ed. WrestleMania XXVIII The Undertaker 20–0 23:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure (keep deleted). Three passing mentions in news articles about the general concept of WP vandalism are nowhere nearly sufficient to justify a Wikipedia entry - not even a list entry in the Internet Troll article. It would be different if there are three reputable articles about the subject but passing references are not sufficient to substantiate claims of notability. Prior deletions of the page (mostly speedy- but the last via RfD) were in compliance with WP:DENY. The proposal to restore is not.
    Note also that the addition of the paragraph about this vandal has already been reverted with the argument that his/her specific behavior does not necessarily meet the technical definition of an "internet troll". Rossami (talk) 00:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And that is an important point. I feel that there is a place in our encyclopedia for Willy, but it ain't where I was thinking of putting it.... Egg Centric 00:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources aren't indication on why he meets WP:GNG, so he doesn't deserve to have an article. WP:DENY is clear cut in here also considering that the original vandal left Wikipedia a very long time ago, same with his wanna be many impersonators (and we have plenty of archives to prove that fact). Keep Deleted and suggest withdraw. Secret account 03:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse RFD close - The 2007 September 4 Redirect for Discussion closer cited "protected titles mechanism" and the above DRV request does not indicate a basis to overcome that to redirect the Willy on Wheels to another page. There are additional RFDs[50] and you additionally would need to overcome the reasons listed in those RFDs to allow a redirect from the Willy on Wheels page. Also, the requested target Troll_(Internet)#Examples doesn't seem appropriate (more of an RFD issue than DRV). Comment - As for the relaible source material, there's probably a place for it in a Wikipedia page. However, the examples listed in Troll_(Internet)#Examples are general examples not tied to any individial account, and listing Willy on Wheels there is a specific example tied to an individual account, so the info doesn't belong in Troll_(Internet). You eventually might have better luck in adding the info to Wikipedia or another page having Wikipedia as a main topic. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, do not redirect. The troll article actually does a good job of keeping the examples just to the actual notable ones that had real-world effects or consequences. Willy had very little effect on Wikipedia (there's only a small and ever-decreasing number of oldbies who even remember that era), and absolutely zero effect on the real world. That would frankly not fit in at all among the other examples cited that involved lawsuits and arrests, etc. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - very much should not point to Wheely Willy. If substantive references exist (I'll leave that to others to decide), then I suppose maybe that could be added to the examples at the bottom of Vandalism_on_Wikipedia, and then this could be protected as a redirect to there. But otherwise, keep deleted and salted. - jc37 13:57, 26 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.

23 May 2012

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22 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Liz White (animal rights) (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore) For comparison, the deleted article is here. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I started this article yesterday though there was a recent AfD under a different title. I discussed it with Joe Decker, the deleting admin (discussion here), and he suggested DRV.

I would like to keep this because we lack articles about women in general (outside the entertainment industry), about Canadian women in particular, and this would be our only article about a Canadian woman animal rights advocate. She appears regularly on television in Canada discussing animal welfare. However, she talks about the issues, not about herself, so there isn't a lot of biographical information around, which is perhaps why some editors argue she isn't notable enough.

There have been two AfDs:

The second AfD discussion was somewhat borderline, the current version of the article is quite different, and additional sources have been added. This was the article at the time of the second AfD, which focused mostly on the political party she led and the elections she stood in. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overturn and keep. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and keep. Nice work SV - Article is substantially different and improved from the previous version , including additional WP:RS asserting the subject is over the WP:NOTABILITY hurdle - Youreallycan 21:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn self and keep. When SV and I discussed this yesterday or before, I expressed the opinion that it was marginal (based on what was there at the time), but with Slim's judiciously additional sources added since I think it's now over the bar. --joe deckertalk to me 23:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse recreation and keep, and a good job to SV. The only thing I wouldn't endorse is the idea that we should base any part of a keep or delete on the grounds of its subject's gender or nationality (or anything else about the nature of the subject), as that's just an I (don't) like it. The only criterion should be source coverage, but here, that requirement is met. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and keep There are quite a number of references in major publications (e.g., Toronto Sun, Washington Post). She clearly passes WP:BIO. NJ Wine (talk) 03:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Yes, as written by SlimVirgin it is a different article, it is about animal rights activist Liz White. But if the article is to be kept, a lot of the political information should be re-added. Would the article be kept in good repair if it once again becomes about politician Liz White? 117Avenue (talk) 04:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last AfD was closed as merge, no delete. WP:Non-deleting deletion discussions (essay) may be of interest. Flatscan (talk) 04:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wrong Venue DRV is not necessary when an editor believes that he has fixed all the issues raised in a previous AfD and BOLDly restores the content as fixed. DRV does not exist as a prior restraint on such issues, and I think we're all sufficiently acquainted with SV's BLP policy knowledge to have confidence that anything she restored would have a pretty high presumption of appropriate policy compliance and inclusion-worthiness. Jclemens (talk) 04:54, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want to support what both Flatscan and JClemens have said. Procedurally, it looks very simple to me: the material has been AfD'ed twice but never deleted, on the very simple grounds that there has never been a consensus to delete it. The most recent closer wishes to overturn himself to a full "keep" outcome, and there is no reason why DRV would prevent him from doing so. Our role is to see that the deletion process is correctly followed and it seems very clear that it has been. I think this can be speedily closed. What Flatscan says about the history merge is of course important.—S Marshall T/C 11:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse AfD(2nd) and allow creation - The Liz White (politician) article seemed to require her notability to be based on her being a politician and I can't say that AfD(2nd) closer got it wrong. So, endorse AfD(2nd). However, reliable sources don't write articles based on Wikipedia's classification of people. They write news articles, etc. to convey the information they want to convey irrespective of Wikipedia. Liz White (animal rights) is a better article name as it gives the impression of more freedom to use information about Liz White from all reliable sources, not just those discussing her political career. Plus, the Liz White (animal rights) article Slim wrote is different from the deleted article. Thus, allow creation of Liz White (animal rights). I suggest merging the content of Liz White (politician) into Liz White (animal rights). -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:19, 23 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.

21 May 2012

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20 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Warrandyte Cricket Club (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

5 years on, I have found many articles from newpapers from as early as 1881, documenting the importance & history of cricket in the eastern suburbs goldfields region of Victoria, and am hoping you can reconsider re-adding this page. I particularly want to highight how cricket was formed & developed in Victoria some 158 years ago, and have many stories to share. Mystery92no (talk) 01:24, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Restore the AfD was 5 years ago, a weak delete at that. I see no reason to not restore this to allow addition of new sources, which no one appeared to advocate for in the linked deletion discussion. If it remains unimproved, I anticipate no prejudice against re-deleting it through a fresh AfD discussion. Jclemens (talk) 01:34, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore. Though not really phrased in those terms, the discussion seems to have tended towards delete based on the lack of sources in the article. If they can be supplied, there is every reason to recreate and expand the article. Newspaper accounts are excellent for that purpose as long as they are not just listing of match schedules or results but rather actual discussions of the team and it's players. Eluchil404 (talk) 07:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow re-creation. For future reference, you didn't need to come here, but if you feel tentative and want to come here, I recomment that you prepare a userspace draft in advance. What new articles have you found? I recommend undeleting the history for referecne. Userfy to User:Mystery92no/Warrandyte Cricket Club. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow re-creation - "The Warrandyte Cricket Club is one of the oldest cricket clubs in Victoria, dating back to 1855."[51] While the Internet may not provide easy access to reliable source information on the topic,[52][53] seems likely some have written about his 150+ year old club in the last 150 years. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:40, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • temporarily restored for discussion at Deletion Review DGG ( talk ) 03:22, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with SmokeyJoe that a DRV isn't really needed here and recreation should be allowed if the proper sources are there for GNG. The article was deleted in AFD over five years ago and the AFD didn't have really much of a policy based argument anywhere. The only argument in that debate was I think the third oldest club might not be notable enough but I really don't know, delete anyways. It may have been a acceptable argument back then, but it's not now. This should be speedy closed with a talk page comment to the nominator that it's ok for an article, but to take GNG to account while creating it. Secret account 05:33, 22 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.

19 May 2012

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18 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Afranet (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This isn't a request for a deletion review of the AFD as it was done correctly. Editors have stated that in order to make way for Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Afranet the issue must be brought here. I am making this request on behalf of User:ChazzI73 and will inform him of this discussion so he can take part. Ryan Vesey Review me! 17:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Here is my argument about Afranet. Sorry if it is a bit lengthy. For whatever reason, the article I crated is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Afranet and the history I can see under page Afranet has different content. Anyhow, here is my reasoning:
Population of Iran is about 75 millions. Tthe second language there is English, so it is crucial to have information about reputable Iranian companies both in Farsi and English.
Iran has the highest rate of education in Middle East. It has large and successful immigrant community in English speaking countries including US, UK & Canada. More than half of the population there is below 30, Internet Usage in Iran and number of Internet users in Iran are the highest among Middle Eastern countries, which make it important to have information about important Iranian companies online.
Except Afranet, at present there is no other ISP/ICP in Tehran’s Stock Exchange and they are the only private IT company in Iran that has ever gone IPO. Afranet's market share in Iran’s Internet is almost 10%. (3 millions out of 30 million users ref - http://www.internetworldstats.com/me/ir.htm , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_Iran & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHQyXXx3GfY )
Largest University of Iran (Islamic Azad University) is hosted in Afranet’s Data Center which is another measure of credibility (check it at http://notification.azmoon.org/). This is one of the honorary national projects in Iran completely hosted by Afranet with 2.5 million daily visitors and two millions registered students.
Afranet Data Center has almost 3,000 physical machines that put it among the largest in Middle East. If you want to compare it, the three leading Data Centers in the United States are Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Afranet has the similar role in Iran.
Afranet categorized as a “Medium” sized registry by Ripe (https://www.ripe.net/membership/indices/data/ir.afranet.html ). It accounts for about 1% of IPv4 addresses in Iran (ref http://www-public.int-evry.fr/~maigron/RIR_Stats/RIPE_Allocations/IPv4/Alpha/IR.html) and
No other Data Center in Middle East except Afranet holds an Information Security Management System certificate (ISMS or Iso 27001 ref http://www.gilanifoundation.com/homepage/128/Asia%20128/Iran%20128.pdf , http://www.iso27001certificates.com/Taxonomy/ScopeResults.asp & http://www.afranet.com/Stocks/MarketingInfo/Afranet-Catalogue.pdf )
Afranet's website has Google Page Rank of “5” which means it has good amount of authority in the eyes of Google. This authority mainly comes from the history, links by third parties to the website and visitors and could count a measure of credibility (check the Page Rank at http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php). Besides, there are about 1 million indexed pages in Google by searching “Afranet” or “افرانت” and its CEO, “Fereidoun Ghasemzadeh” or “فریدون قاسم زاده” in both English and Farsi on aggregate. Only in Google and not considering other search engines or search sources, there are over 100,000 searches annually for aforementioned terms (according to Google Adwords tool available at https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS ).
Afranet Competitors such as Parsonline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsonline ), Sepanta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepanta) & Shatel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatel ) with sometimes smaller market share are listed and accepted in Wikipedia. Afranet is a much more credible company from some aspects.
The company's Public Offering was late last year (2011). Now there are a lot of inquiries about investing in this company, analysis of its stock or more information on it. Their market cap is 27 billion Rials (ref – Tehran Stock Exchange site @ http://en.tsetmc.com/loader.aspx?ParTree=121C1412&inscode=52792903131341205 and balance sheet at http://www.fipiran.com/CompanyBalanceSheet.aspx?lan=en&FinancialInstrumentId=4415&CompanyId=756 ) (was about 17 million USD as of 2011 – ref www.turquoisepartners.com/iraninvestment/IIM-Aug11.pdf and http://www.reportlinker-news.com/n018990830/Market-Overview.html ).
Afranet has been mentioned numerous times in English and Farsi news including the following:
United Nations report on Iran: http://un.org.ir/sites/default/files/docs_pub/3970/doc_attachments/post_report.pdf
MacMaster Times: http://www.afranet.com/En/App_Themes/images/About/Press/MACMASTER.jpg
Business Week: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=51800721
Tehran Times Newspaper (report on ISO 9001): http://www.afranet.com/En/App_Themes/images/About/Press/tehrantimes-iso-ceremony.jpg
Tehran Times (Announcement of IPO): http://old.tehrantimes.com/PDF/11206/11206-4.pdf
Global Survey of Broadband Service Providers in the world: http://www.arcchart.com/reports/dl/BWAOperators_promo_ARCCHART.pdf
Iran News (News Paper): http://www.afranet.com/App_Themes/images/About/Press/press22-origin.jpg
Collection of 60 newspaper Articles about Afranet: http://afranet.com/App_Themes/images/About/Press/Afranet-in-Media.pdf
The company is pretty active in social activities and accordingly, has many searches for that, which makes it essential to be available in Wikipedia too. (look at http://afranet.com/En/Social/Responsibility.aspx ) The company provides free internet to schools in deprived areas, Free equipment to Schoolnet, Financial and logistical support for rural kindergartens (in cooperation with Unicef), Financial Support Program for orphans (in cooperation with the I.K. Relief Foundation) and much more of social activities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChazzI73 (talk • contribs) 18:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not really buying the argument for a separate article at this stage, I'm afraid. When I checked a random sampling of the references provided, I couldn't seem to find the kind of sources appropriate for a Wikipedia article. Is anyone aware of a credible secondary source? I'm open to being convinced but sceptical of the long list of passing mentions, or references to Afranet itself, listed above.

    However, I also think it's inappropriate for this to be a redlink when it could be a redirect to Communications in Iran#Internet, so I'd suggest we discuss the possibility of redirecting. We should probably consider protecting the redirect, since it was necessary to salt the article title.—S Marshall T/C 20:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the time you spend. I want to bring your attention to this list of independent references about Afranet, which has some names as big as "United Nations":
United Nations report on Iran: http://un.org.ir/sites/default/files/docs_pub/3970/doc_attachments/post_report.pdf
Business Week: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=51800721
Tehran Times (Announcement of IPO): http://old.tehrantimes.com/PDF/11206/11206-4.pdf
MacMaster Times: http://www.afranet.com/En/App_Themes/images/About/Press/MACMASTER.jpg
Tehran Times Newspaper (report on ISO 9001): http://www.afranet.com/En/App_Themes/images/About/Press/tehrantimes-iso-ceremony.jpg
Global Survey of Broadband Service Providers in the world: http://www.arcchart.com/reports/dl/BWAOperators_promo_ARCCHART.pdf
Iran News (News Paper): http://www.afranet.com/App_Themes/images/About/Press/press22-origin.jpg
Iran Investment Magazine: www.turquoisepartners.com/iraninvestment/IIM-Aug11.pdf
Collection of 60 newspaper Articles about Afranet: http://afranet.com/App_Themes/images/About/Press/Afranet-in-Media.pdf
Tehran Stock Exchange: http://en.tsetmc.com/loader.aspx?ParTree=121C1412&inscode=52792903131341205
Financial Information Process of Iran: http://www.fipiran.com/CompanyBalanceSheet.aspx?lan=en&FinancialInstrumentId=4415&CompanyId=756
Gilan Foundation: http://www.gilanifoundation.com/homepage/128/Asia%20128/Iran%20128.pdf
Second point that I want to emphasize is presence of competitors on Wikipedia with much less credibility including Parsonline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsonline ), Sepanta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepanta) & Shatel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatel ). Do you think it is appropriate?
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChazzI73 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment While the article isn't perfect, I do personally believe that the subject has more coverage than it had in 2009 (due to the initial public offering) and should be in the article space. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some examples in Farsi, all in independent newspapers:
Farsi Articles about Afranet:
Economic World (Donya E Eqtesad) Newspaper:
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=262541
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=262898
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=257408
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=300670
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=266799
http://donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=274017
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=296201
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=289202
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=281562
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=263219
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=301515
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=266948
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=300126
http://donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=283956
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=278979
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=292064
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=294887
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=300280
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=297685
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=295495
http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/Default_view.asp?@=289007
and many more
Keyhan (The World) Newspaper:
http://www.kayhannews.ir/901011/4.htm
http://www.kayhannews.ir/901022/4.htm
http://www.kayhannews.ir/890416/4.htm
http://www.kayhannews.ir/870715/4.htm
Khorasan Newspaper:
http://www.khorasannews.com/newssource/17688-890810/pdf/11.pdf
http://www.khorasannews.com/newssource/17667-890715/pdf/11.pdf
Fanavaran (Technocrats) Newspaper:
http://www.itmen.ir/index.aspx?pid=10319&articleid=5314
http://www.itmen.ir/index.aspx?pid=10319&articleid=4552
http://www.itmen.ir/Files/104/Document/NewsPaper_PDF/1390/8/8/d33cb6589ca943d1b2905dd75728566d.pdf
http://www.itmen.ir/index.aspx?pid=10319&articleid=2553
http://www.itmen.ir/Files/104/Document/NewsPaper_PDF/1390/10/11/a46df0dafcf4499d961d5d599fee5c0a.pdf
http://www.itmen.ir/Files/104/Document/NewsPaper_PDF/1390/7/24/740051d35c2048358e366114cd7682db.pdf
http://www.itmen.ir/files/104/document/newspaper_pdf/1390/9/9/12cc6c3c08ea4c0d91684f2e7a2bb068.pdf
http://www.itmen.ir/Files/104/Other/NewsPaper_PDF/1390/5/29/7b30b08bac7e41008568f78f31d3ae6c.pdf
http://www.itmen.ir/Files/104/Other/NewsPaper_PDF/1390/7/11/26c5de961ace49e4b01fb603af78a14d.pdf
and many more
JameJam Newspaper:
http://www.jamejamonline.ir/Media/pdfs/1390/02/25/100843591385.pdf
http://www.jamejamonline.ir/printable.aspx?newsnum=100843584378
http://www.jamejamonline.ir/printable.aspx?newsnum=100004187710
http://jamejamonline.ir/Media/pdfs/1390/02/25/100843591456.pdf
http://www.jamejamonline.ir/Media/pdfs/1389/04/20/100880136525.pdf
http://jamejamonline.ir/archnewstext.aspx?year=1387&month=9&day=21&newsnum=100956682421
http://www.jamejamonline.ir/newstext.aspx?newsnum=100947782269 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChazzI73 (talk • contribs) 00:17, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are much more to add, probably like 200 more newspaper and magazine articles in Farsi. I can add the links too if you think it makes a difference ChazzI73 (talk) 00:26, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You should probably spend some time incorporating new sources you have found into the article. About half of the sources you are currently using are primary sources and some others aren't entirely reliable. Replace anything that you can with a more reliable source from a news organization. One example of an unreliable source is the source from wikibin you use for Fereidoun Ghasemzadeh. As the CEO and founder it should be easy to find a reliable source. Also remember that Wikipedia:Other stuff exists is not an argument. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:27, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So, what would be the next step? I already incorporated a few of the sourced to the original article, even though they are not in English. ChazzI73 (talk) 07:26, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
SmokeyJoe, what else is there to do? It cannot be moved to the mainspace because the page has been salted. It cannot be unsalted at requests for page protection because they told us to come here. Ryan Vesey Review me! 07:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I missed that it was salted. Why was it salted and what has changed now? I'll look into that now. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:58, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was salted because it was repeatedly recreated. It was deleted in AFD for a lack of reliable sources. I believe that the IPO caused enough reliable sources to exist that the article can be recreated; furthermore, it is written with an encyclopedic goal in mind. Ryan Vesey Review me! 08:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Allow re-creation. This is much more than enough to justify a fresh AfD if someone disagrees. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsalt and allow recreation - Obviously, significant new information has come to light since the AfD deletion. If you think the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article, request an admin to undeleate it. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How can we do that? ChazzI73 (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please help here? I really don't know what is the next step! ChazzI73 (talk) 17:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Its all a waiting game here. An admin will make a decision and close the discussion at some point. I'm sorry that your experience with Wikipedia has been so difficult. Ryan Vesey Review me! 17:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. How it could happen?ChazzI73 (talk) 17:50, 24 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.

17 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Arthur Custance (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Seems eminently notable. (Page was prodded.) Rich Farmbrough, 17:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

    • Expired prods can be restored on request, and I have done so. I have no comment on actual notability, but it can go to afd if anyone has doubts about it. DGG ( talk ) 18:01, 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.
  • Sealand national football team – Original AfD endorsed, recreation allowed While there is marginally more sentiment for allowing recreation than not, there's also a clear consensus that there was nothing wrong with the previous AfD. Any editor may nominate the article for AfD normally, but I am restoring the history underneath the new article per the request and lack of articulated reason to not do so. – Jclemens (talk) 06:31, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Sealand national football team (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

History was not preserved as a result of the 2007 AfD; the old article was deleted and replaced with a redirect. Request recreation of pre-2007 history for the following reasons:

  1. The AfD should have been closed as no consensus rather than redirect; there were roughly the same number of keep votes as delete or redirect ones, and the keep ones had more of a basis in policy
  2. Some of the arguments used in deletion five years ago wouldn't wash in an AfD today; plus consensus can change, and certainly enough time has passed to revisit it
  3. Additional references to assert the team's notability have come to light since the AfD, due to the team resuming playing international fixtures since the 2007 AfD (See refs 64 and 65 in the Sealand article) pbp 16:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, Restore the history, but endorse the redirect. There was consensus for the redirect, and redirect is still suitable because there is room at the target to say what little there is to say about the national football team. If a section on the national football team becomes large, it may be spun out as a separate article. Undeleting the history is reasonable, assuming that there was useful content there. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Having a football side redirects to the entity it represents is highly unusual, however, particularly since the side passes GNG (there's more than "a little"). I think if references were added, it wouldn't be redirected or deleted in an AfD now. And I want to add said references pbp 04:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The football team passing the GNG is not quite obvious. Can you make a userspace version? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather fix it in mainspace and start with the information in the old article. Userspace is just adding an extra unnecessary step pbp 15:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commenting as the original deletion nominator: Just restoring the history is pointless unless you want to do something with the historic content, i.e., either restoring the article or merging the content somewhere. If you want to restore the article or re-argue the AfD based on new notability standards or references, you should draft a userspace stub that includes the references that you believe are now sufficient for notability.  Sandstein  05:40, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See below comment pbp 15:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the original AfD closure. Today there is a lot more emphasis on passing WP:GNG, and about the only argument for retention put forward was that Sealand is a member of the N.F.-Board. However there does seem to have been a bit more coverage since then ([54], for instance), so someone wants to write a userspace draft based on it it might be OK to move it into article space. The topic is already mentioned at Principality of Sealand#Sports, and it may be better to improve the coverage there instead of creating a stand-alone article. Hut 8.5 09:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The combo of [1], 2, 3 is enough to pass GNG IMO. And I'd like any userspace draft to start with the information that was in the old article, such as the kit (which I'd rather not recreate from here). And to be honest, I'd just rather fix it in mainspace, if that's alright with y'all. Also, while the keep argument may be flawed, so is the delete one, which amounts to "the N-F and Sealand are bogus, so this must be too". That's a total judgement call. pbp 15:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The BBC report is ok, but the second link is a press release and I don't know how reliable sabotagetimes.com is. I'm not sure that this is enough for an article, but if this discussion agrees that it does, the article can be restored as far as I am concerned.  Sandstein  15:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There isn't actually anything preventing you from overwriting the redirect with a new article about the team, provided it is not substantially similar to the version which was deleted at AfD. I'm not really persuaded that there should be a separate article as opposed to a paragraph or two in the article about Sealand. The deleted version only cited a few team websites that have since gone dead and this stats site (which sort of confirms they once played a match, though they don't seem sure). Though the page did have the kit displayed it didn't cite any sources to show that really was the Sealand kit and the reformed team may well have a different kit, so you shouldn't just copy the kit from the old article unless you've found something to verify that it really is the Sealand kit. Hut 8.5 15:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Sabotage article contains a photo that matches the kit pbp 16:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well it doesn't actually match the kit in the article, since the photo has a white stripe that wasn't in the article version, and a picture of them wearing the kit can't act as a source for the statement that this is the team's official kit, or that this is their home kit. Hut 8.5 19:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well [55] is a forum post and definitely unreliable, and I'm not sure about [56]. Again a picture of the team wearing some kit isn't a source for the claim that this is their official kit. Apart from that I think it could be moved into mainspace, though it may be subject to a new AfD or merge discussion. Hut 8.5 15:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure N-F Board is the place for information about individual federations pbp 03:58, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think N.F.-Board#Members needs a little expansion for every time on the list. The other two associate members are red linked. Why? Does this suggest that associate membership of the N-F Board is not much in the way of notability? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's obviously an other stuff doesn't exist argument; but associate is higher than provisional, and six provisional members have bluelinks. Several N-F Board members were deleted around the same time Sealand was (five years ago), but no effort has been made to ascertain if they've met GNG since then. Sealand and a number of other N-F Board members do have articles on other Wikipedias pbp 16:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Since two of the three other editors have expressed sentiment for giving mainspace a go and seeing what happens, I'm going to...give mainspace a go pbp 03:58, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support letting you do this (normally you shouldn't while the DRV is ongoing, and I thought it was a protected redirect??), and allowing any editor to take it to AfD. As the single AfD was so long ago, you shouldn't need to come to DRV to recreate. I still think that the old history should be undeleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk)
"Significant new information has not come to light since the deletion." That's completely inaccurate. Most of the references in the article occurred years after the AfD you mention occurred. Since two editors have suggested mainspacing, I've leaving it in mainspace, and if you think it should be deleted, take it to AfD pbp 13:44, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: "Endorse" arguments are invalid, topic should either be relisted at AfD or kept Why? a) This is a completely different article than five years ago; the references used in it hadn't even been written yet; b) consensus can change. Five years is a long time to be reinforcing a consensus that was weak to begin with pbp 16:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse AfD the redirect seems to have been the best overall solution here. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 11:39, 24 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.

16 May 2012

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15 May 2012

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14 May 2012

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13 May 2012

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12 May 2012

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11 May 2012

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10 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This list article was brought to AFD on May 2 by Axem Titanium over concerns that it violated WP:GAMEGUIDE, may have violated WP:COPYVIO, and had no references to support its notability. Independent sources were added during the course of the discussion, which rendered WP:NOTE a non-issue, and shifted the discussion to the two other concerns. Sandstein, who closed the discussion, noted that "There is clearly no consensus" about the GAMEGUIDE argument. As these two concerns were not motivating factors in the close, this DRV is not an attempt to address either one.

OrenBochman (BO) replied first with a Keep, contending that the nominator's argument for copyvio was "unconvincing" and giving an explanation; the nominator did not contest those points. I responded next with another Keep, noting my agreement with this copyvio argument, and as Polisher of Cobwebs and Robbstrd both also indicated Keep per me, I will assume that they therefore also agreed with OrenBochman's arguments. Jclemens next replied with a Keep, asserting again that the list is not a copyvio. Sangrolu also replied with a Keep, and also contended that the article is not a copyvio. All of these responses are to the original nominator's argument regarding possible copyvio.

Masem added the first Delete response, and was also the first to begin any detailed discussion about why he felt this was a copyright violation, and discussed this with Sangrolu and Postdlf. Masem approached Moonriddengirl on her talk page for input, which she provided, with addition discussion on the subject. Orangemike and Shooterwalker both argued to Delete the article based on WP:GAMEGUIDE; neither one addressed the potential copyvio issue. Postdlf, however, was ultimately convinced by Moonriddengirl's argument and responded to Delete.

After her input, David Shepheard (Big Mac) and Daranios both argued to Keep based on disagreement with the nominator's other arguments for deletion, but after discussion both also noted that they did not feel the list is a copyright violation. Hobit and Webwarlock both also argued to Keep based on the list not being a copyright problem. Marikafragen also contributed to the discussion about copyright violation, and although the repsonse is inline, also argued to Keep. There is a fair amount of discussion of the issue after Moonriddengirl's initial posting, and I have only summarized the nature of the respondents here.

Sandstein's rationale for the close mentioned Moonriddengirl's "prima facie persuasive case" for copyvio argument, although he admits that "I myself am not sure that I agree with it". He also contended that because almost all of the "keep" opinions "do not address her analysis but at best only assert that the list is not a copyright violation, without giving reasons why. These arguments are not persuasive and must therefore be discounted." It is not clear from this description which Keep opinions were counted or discounted or why they were or were not persuasive. I did not respond to Moonriddengirl's analysis because I had already made my feelings on the issue of copyvio clear and did not feel the need to repeat myself; I can only wonder if anyone else did the same thing. If I had known it was necessary to counter all arguments, I would have done so.

All eleven users responding with Keep did address the copyvio issue in some form (two by deferring their responses to me) as I believe I have demonstrated, most disagreeing with the rationale or calling it into question, and several of them offered their own persective on the issue. Of the five people indicating Delete, only three offered their thoughts on the copyvio issue. Is this a consensus to delete based on copyright violation? That is the only issue that needs to be determined here; not whether you agree with one rational or another, just whether this AFD had come to the consesus that the closer posited.

It could be argued to Relist the AFD, but I am concerned that this discussion Masem started could taint the results. Therefore, it is my opinion that the article should be Overturned to at the very least a No consensus to allow it to be rexamined again in the future. BOZ (talk) 16:40, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Closing admin's comment: I closed this as a "delete" because Moonriddengirl (supported by others) made a good case that the list amounted to a copyright violation. Almost all "keep" opinions that addressed this issue simply asserted that there was no copyright violation, without bothering to explain why. Copyright is a serious and rather complicated issue; it depends not on editorial judgment (as with most AfD issues) but on legal arguments that apply the relevant specialized policy as well as U.S. statutory and case law to the content at issue. The "keep" opinions failed to do so, perhaps with the exception of Marikafragen or one or two other people. So, to summarize, among contributors who appeared to have given thought to the problems surrounding copyright in lists, there was sufficient concern about this being a copyvio that I had to delete it. Now, I suppose the copyvio discussion could well come to a different conclusion, if it were to occur in more depth, which is why I suggested in my closure that DRV could be the place for that. (Or perhaps here?)  Sandstein  17:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Well within admin discretion. T. Canens (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I rethought my question above about consensus, and I feel that an even better question to ask would be "Was there a consensus that there even was a copyright violation?" BOZ (talk) 17:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • If there's a perceived copyright violation, no amount of consensus can overturn that. We are proactive to remove these once discovered. It's fair to argue (again, I was expecting this DRV and thus started the noted discussion) so that there may be a reason to readd it, but until we know that it is clearly not a copyvio, we have to remove it. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • not so. If there is an obvious unmistakable copyright violation, sure. But if there's only a possible copyright violation, the community decides by consensus whether it is a sufficiently clear copyvio for deletion. Calling "Copyvio!" by itself is not enough. Quite the opposite, until we decide it is a copyvio we do not remove it. If there is no consensus that it is in fact a copyvio, we do not remove it. that would be copyright paranoia. DGG ( talk ) 19:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC) Who else is going to decide for us? (unless it's an office action, which this was not). there is no presumption that an ambiguous case is copyvio. If the admin closed on that basis, it must be overturned as contrary to policy --and contrary to reason also. DGG ( talk ) 19:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I point to Sandstein's call above that based on the copyvio arguments (whether it was or not) that the arguments weren't convincing that it wasn't a copyvio. Ergo the reason to delete is appropriate, until such time that the copyvio issue is resolved. That's why I started that new discussion because I recognized the straw-men arguments that could result and that we're going to need better clarity. (I do note that our NFC policy is also similarly proactive in removing content that may be against fair-use though can be restored later if that was determined to be at fault). --MASEM (t) 19:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In short, no. Here's the thing: the article was closed on the premise that Moonriddengirl made the case that there was a WP:COPYVIO. In fact, Moonriddengirl agreed with my assessment that the article was fair use, but qualifying that at wikipedia, we need to be more conservative that US fair use guidelines. That being the case, what decides what is "conservative enoough" other than consensus? Given that the commenter that the closing admin says demonstrated WP:COPYVIO in fact agreed that it was fair use, I don't see how the closing admin is justified in deleting without consensus. - Sangrolu (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I agreed with you that "fair use" was the only avenue we had to make use of the material. :/ I actually evaluated the fair use criteria and myself felt, as I said, that "While only a court could determine definitively, I think that this list is likely a substantial copyright problem." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse As the closing admin says, a rational case was put for regarding this as a copyright infringement, whereas no rational case was put for not regarding it as such. The earliest "keep" arguments simply asserted that it is not a copyright infringement without elaboration (e.g. "Not a copyvio" from Jclemens, "The article as a whole is not a WP:COPYVIO" from Sangrolu). Later, attempts were made to go further, but they did not actually provide any reason. For example, we have "The list of Toyota cars is not copyrightable - that's factual data. Names are not copyrightable, but trademarkable" from MASEM: however, the issue is whether the list is copyright, not whether the names on the list are copyright. Then there is "I don't think the list is subject to copyright any more than a list of characters or list of actors for a show would be" from Hobit, but "I don't think the list is subject to copyright" does not give any a reason for believing it isn't. I don't know what I would have said had I been closing the discussion, but there is absolutely no basis for regarding the actual decision as being outside the range of discretion that an administrator is expected to exercise. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hobit's argument is a perfectly good one and should not have been discounted. Whether a list like this is copyright is a matter of judgement, and his is as good as yours. DGG ( talk ) 19:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As good as mine? I have no idea whether the list is copyright. What is at issue is not whether it is, but whether the closing admin correctly assessed consensus in the discussion. According to Wikipedia's concept of consensus, what matters is not just how many people express an opinion, but the strength of the arguments advanced. "I don't think the list is subject to copyright" without any reason advanced for holding that opinion is about as weak an argument as it is possible to come up with. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Arguably, in Hobit's defense, he asked "what makes this different from a list of characters?" (all completely fair devils advocate questions). I'm not saying that's necessary a strong argument either way, but he expressed more than just a "I like it/I hate it"-type opinion that is generally ignored. --MASEM (t) 19:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse we can't take chances on copyvio material, and the encyclopedic value of a list of monsters appearing in one edition of one game hovers right around zero anyway. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 20:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I rarely disagree with Moonriddengirl about copyright, but in this case I'm not seeing a consensus to delete in that discussion, and I find the argument that this is a copyvio totally unconvincing. We're merely producing a list of the work's contents in alphabetical order, and that's all. If we were reproducing game statistics then sure, this would be a copyvio, but a simple contents list? I don't believe a word of it.—S Marshall T/C 20:37, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In MRG's first comment, she writes, "I see no critical commentary here; it is a page by page index with explication which incorporates by explicit link many detailed descriptions of the TSR versions of legendary creatures and their original ones." She later clarifies that she is concerned by the system of articles: the list and the individual monster articles. If the articles are considered together, they are awfully similar to the Monster Manual. Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is my concern, yes. The last time I checked with legal, there was no known precedent for whether or not articles should be judged in isolation in terms of "substantial similarity" or whether spreading the contents of one book over multiple articles was a factor. I note that when we received a complaint from the publishers of the DSM-IV a couple of years ago, we were called on to judge in aggregate rather than isolation, but other factors may have influenced that (including complaint from the copyright holder and the fact that many of the articles would probably have infringed copyright on their own). I'd feel a lot more comfortable with this situation if there was more critical analysis or other transformative content to support our use of the material. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Good points, well argued, from both of you; but I'm afraid I remain strongly of the view that this should be overturned. The argument is that if the articles are considered together then they resemble the Monster Manual to too great a degree. In fact as far as I can see the Monster Manual is an eclectic cobbling-together of (1) material to which nobody can claim copyright (giants, dragons, vampires, zombies etc.) and (2) undisguised or thinly-disguised ripoffs of material originally generated by others (notably JRR Tolkein, Fritz Leiber and RE Howard). At the time of publication the new and original aspect of the Monster Manual was the way it converted fictional creatures which were almost without exception not original to the author, into what I understand as game pieces. Wikipedia makes no mention of the game statistics so can be no violation of TSR's copyright.

          I see this as related to the much bigger question of to what extent Wikipedia can consist of abridgements of copyrighted works, and whether it's possible for Wikipedia to be anything but a series of abridgements of copyrighted works given how closely we enforce WP:V. I think that if we decide Wikipedia articles cannot be abridgements of copyrighted works, then there's a lot more urgent things to delete than this list!—S Marshall T/C 14:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

          • Most of the monsters in the monster manuals are likely derivative works of tropes and the like that have long-entered the public domain or equivalent realm. That's a fair assessment. The problem is that because these are not (necessarily) slavish reproductions of the public domain work and include new creative elements, they have a brand new copyright assigned to TSR/Wizards. That it: TSR does not have a copyright on the idea of a zombie, but they do have a copyright on the D&D version of a zombie. So this is still a copyrighted work regardless of the basis. And because TSR published this list in its entirity in one place, it is defining the creative nature of the monsters and NPCs that inhabit its world, and ergo a creative collection itself. The reason other lists of characters/etc. aren't a problem is because it is very rare for the creative work to publish this directly themselves, and the compilation is a new work that is separate from the original fiction and thus not in the same boat. --MASEM (t) 14:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • It's not "likely" that giants and dragons and vampires and werewolves are "in the public domain or equivalent realm". It's fact: copyright in these things belongs to no-one. It's certainly true that TSR's successor company Wizards of the Coast have a copyright on the "D&D version of a zombie", but the "D&D version of a zombie" is inextricable from its in-game attributes that we do not reproduce on Wikipedia. Essentially the D&D version of a zombie is not an original work of fiction. It's a gaming piece, described in a table format and (if I understand this correctly) represented by a small lead miniature figure. Our article on D&D zombies does not and cannot possibly infringe, either as an individual article or as a part of our corpus on dungeons and dragons, because there is no way to get from the content of Zombie (Dungeons & Dragons) to a usable gaming piece, and there is no way that TSR's successor company can claim copyright in Zombies except in the specific context of their game. Do you see?—S Marshall T/C 16:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • TSR has created a creative setting which those game pieces are used. You are most likely right that game rules and concepts can't be copyrighted, but the creative world around it can be. Calling the D&D Zombie a "gaming piece" is drastically understating the creative aspects used by TSR to take the public domain aspect of a zombie and make it work in their creative fiction, even without considering any of their specific gameplay elements or statistics. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • Let me go back one step further. The reason the copyvio appears to be the case is exactly why we removed the Time 100 lists. Time doesn't own the copyright on the people on said list (obviously) but they own the creativity needed to assemble that list and place the people on it in that order. Thus, our recreation of that list, in whole, without transformation, is a copyvio. The same applies to this monster list here, it is a direct comparison. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • I’ve seen this example brought up a few times, but I don’t think it’s a very accurate example in terms of similarity. If a company had published a list called “Our top 50 favorite D&D monsters”, and if someone reposted that list in its entirety on Wikipedia, then that would be more like reposting the Time 100 list. Posting the entire content list of a book of monsters would be more like posting the entire cast list of a movie instead of just the main characters, which is something IMDb does all the time. BOZ (talk) 18:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Masem, you said, You are most likely right that game rules and concepts can't be copyrighted. That may be true in US law, but it's probably less useful to us than it sounds at first sight. My view is that the way the rules are presented can be copyrightable and indeed copyrighted. I'll explain this in terms of computer games because that's easier to envisage.

      In a computer game, a zombie would have certain attributes. It would have a movement rate and an attack speed and a certain number of hit points. It would have a certain probability of hitting its target, and so on. These underlying "attributes" can't be copyrighted. But in the game it would be represented by models and sound effects which certainly are copyrighted.

      Now, in TSR monster books, zombies are, I believe, detailed in a similar way, having a movement rate and hit points and an attack speed and all the rest of it. These attributes are not copyright. But they're presented in a table format which is copyrightable, and supplemented by copyrighted artwork and text.

      Thus irrespective of whether game rules are copyrightable or not, we can't produce the in-game statistics. Neither can we reproduce the text that TSR's authors used, nor a close paraphrase of it. If we did those things, then we would be in breach of copyright, no argument at all. But my point is different. It's that TSR never owned anything to do with Zombies except for specific kinds of Zombies used as playing pieces in their game. Therefore we can't possibly be breaching TSR's copyright if we don't reproduce the data needed to use the creature in their game.

      The argument that we're breaching copyright by reproducing the table of contents will not survive scrutiny and can be dismissed out of hand. The more subtle argument that originates with Moonriddengirl, i.e. that our table of contents together with our articles somehow combine to breach copyright, is more defensible but I still don't buy it, I think it's overcautious. If there's a breach of copyright then those taking the "delete" position need to point to a specific article or passage that does breach copyright. A vague wave at a whole topic area saying "that's too detailed, copyright breach!" seems like a most dangerous thing to allow.—S Marshall T/C 19:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

      • I'm not talking about hit points or the like. It has been a long while since I had to crack open my D&D manuals, but even my vague memory tells me that for many of these creatures (generally, the more mythological ones), there are backstories and "flavor text" that enhance the world setting. That is a creative element, even if they directly pull the monster from Greek myth, for example, and do nothing to its backstory. The combination of all that fills their world with color and flavor, and hence is one core of the creative setting TSR had made. A full list of the monsters, therefore, is outlining their creative world. So immediately one needs to recognize that this is an issue of fair use to start, period; from that, we apply all the tests and at that point, we recognize that we're using the whole list (even if absent of stats and other details), and we have no transformation of the work, both points against the list.
      • Again, I bring up the Time 100 list verses the List of Time Person of the Year. The former is a creatively-constructed list, so inclusion in full is, to WMF's eyes, a copyvio. The List of Time Persons of the Year, on the other hand, is not a creative-constructed list though a list of creatively-selected people over time. It is still factual, and thus not protected by copyright, ergo inclusion in full is not a problem. The same analogy here: The list of monsters in the specific book is a creatively-constructed list; a list of notable monsters from all of D&D is not. --MASEM (t) 20:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't think I understand you here. You seem to be saying that this list of monsters breaches copyright in Dungeons & Dragons' implied setting. But that can't possibly be right because even though you use the singular, there isn't one particular fictional setting for Dungeons & Dragons. If I understand this correctly the situation is that each game master comes up with his own dungeon that's set in a fictional world of his own devising. There isn't a "creative world" associated with Dungeons & Dragons. It's a toolkit for end-users to make their own "creative worlds".—S Marshall T/C 22:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, but they provide a toolkit via the monsters that given one type of fantasy setting. This setting is far different the fantasy setting of other works like Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, or Diskworld, even if there are common elements in terms of monsters shared between them. When players create their own adventures, they are creating a derivative work of the D&D world. Add to the fact that TSR has published numerous official "modules" that build on the core rulebooks to create an interactive fiction. --MASEM (t) 22:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • When I was younger, I played the computer games Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. Each was ostensibly based on published Dungeons and Dragons materials, but the settings were very different indeed. I also played Morrowind, which was set in a world based on the game author's D&D campaign. From these experiences I think the argument that all D&D worlds are essentially one world based on their monster lists is rather a stretch.—S Marshall T/C 08:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • The AD&D campaign includes multiple settings, and there are many creative variants. As my billions of Planescape reference works (loved the computer game as well) attest, they are all pretty exhaustively documented. In terms of this particular situation, though, I think it's important to remember that what we are actually doing is discussing the book. :) Explicitly, by title. This is an article about a single, specific book which may have "weak" copyright protection in many elements (those incorporating public domain material) but nevertheless does have its own creative spin and its compilation protection (because, of course, even if all elements are public domain, a mural formed of them is copyrighted). I believe that there is room for a discussion of this specific book and certainly for a discussion of monsters in AD&D (specific campaign worlds or varied) - although it would be great to see some actual critical commentary - but I think if we are going to discuss the book, it is essential that we bring something new to the table rather than a distillation of its contents. And I believe the more of their creative content we use, the more we need to balance that with something new. I don't think that a descriptive list of the contents of this book is the best way to go about this. A comprehensive article about monsters in AD&D could avoid the issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wait, what? You say: the book.  :) Explicitly, by title. This is an article about a single, specific book and this tells me we're talking at complete cross-purposes. What I am talking about is a list that gives a sort of table of contents from six separate creative works, called List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters. I agree that a comprehensive article about monsters in the game would be desirable but I do not understand how this precludes a list. I'm also of the view that reproducing the table of contents is fair use.—S Marshall T/C 12:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • You're still reproducing without transformation, hence making the conflict with fair use even worse since you now have 6 books you're borrowing from. Remember, we are stricter than fair use law to avoid potential conflicts and to assure that our text is CC-BY. Again, the problem here is that while the table of contents could be considered factually, it is still based on the same creatively-selected lists that appear in the books, and thus is still a creatively-selective list itself. Without transformation, that's a problem. --MASEM (t) 12:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • You're right; it's not a single work, but a collection of several from one edition. We are summarizing not one but several books (sorry; late night, early morning.) Reproducing a table of contents is generally perfectly fine, as tables of contents usually just lists titles and titles are not copyrightable ([57]). (This is why we can get away with tracklists in album articles.) This isn't a table of contents, though, and doesn't stop at listing the monsters. I myself think that a simple list would be okay, but - again - I personally am concerned about the web of details and images interlinked (I do not believe legal precedent has been established there yet, as I've said). I don't think we would create a list without the links to the various monster articles, and I think the best way to support such a list would be to add critical commentary and other transformative material to support the fair use. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:13, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • A small amount of critical commentary for several monsters, taken from reviews on the books themselves, had been added to the article during the AFD - that was a start, at least. BOZ (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • That's good. And I don't actually argue with the existence of the article (although I think the list format is risky). I just think it needs to be very carefully balanced to support the fair use factor. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • Though I would argue the critical commentary has to be about the list itself. If it's about the individual monsters without considering the whole of the rest of the list in terms of defining the game world, that's better support for trimmed version of "notable monsters from D&D" and the separate article on the monster itself. --MASEM (t) 13:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • As this list was never published by the publisher in the form of a list, I think that finding critical commentary on such a list would be impossible. At least, I've never heard of anyone doing a book review on the book's table of contents. BOZ (talk) 13:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Let me ask a question. If this had been a single aggregate list of monsters appearing throughout the first edition books, instead of a segmented breakdown of the contents of each book individually, would there still have been a copyright concern? BOZ (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Possibly, yes, more likely depending on how much critical commentary/transformative nature there is of the lists. A counter example (that I specifically asked about at NFC) is the List of Pokémon (1–51) and its numerous index (up to 650 now?). To borrow from what Jheald stated there: In the case of the Pokemons, TV characters and TV episodes, I would say: no, because in those cases the lists are derived from the original fictions, rather than being the essential nature of the original fictions themselves. Presenting such a list is therefore transformative in a way the AD&D list is not. It is also only a comparatively small taking from those original creations; and not likely to impact at all on their original market roles. The J.K. Rowling case is perhaps useful: it was ruled that it was acceptable in general to produce an Encylopedia of Harry Potter; but what was not acceptable was to substantially reproduce what essentially was itself an annotated fictional listing, viz the content of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, nor to closely reproduce actual prose from the original novels. That was the material that had to be heavily re-written before the book was re-issued. Applying the argument to the full list of 1st Ed D&D monsters, the more we can add to the list to transform it, if possible, the better we get away from the copyvio. (At this point, then there becomes the GAMEGUIDE issue which, if this is relisted, is going to be focused on). --MASEM (t) 14:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Fair enough, if you can agree that it may have been possible to fix, then it should not have been deleted based on the copyright concern. BOZ (talk) 14:31, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                      • The Time 100 was a possible list to fix, but we were asked to delete it. We are proactive on copyright. I don't argue that there's a potential version of this list - maybe not in the same form - that would minimize the copyright issue, but we can't let sit the known problematic list until that one comes around. --MASEM (t) 14:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you all for your input. With your help I've finally arrived at the kind of position I can sum up with a word in bold for the closer's benefit.  :)

    Overturn and relist because the closer said he took Moonriddengirl's arguments as a prima facie reason to delete the list. It's emerged from the discussion above that Moonriddengirl's position is that the list is fixable. Therefore, while Sandstein's close is very understandable in the context of the discussion, it's also clearly mistaken.—S Marshall T/C 13:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn per BOZ. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 21:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict)Relist - It doesn't seem to me that many people in the discussion agreed with Moonriddengirl's analysis that the article was a copyright violation. It also doesn't seem clear to me that Moonriddengirl's analysis presents a reason to delete the article entirely as opposed to possibly trimming the content to remove excessive detail. At lot of the discussion was focused on WP:GAMEGUIDE, and I think further specifically on the copyright questions would be useful. I don't think there was a consensus to delete the article on copyright concerns, so I would favor a relist of the article with a comment making it clear that the relist is to come to a consensus on whether the article should or should not be deleted on copyright grounds. Calathan (talk) 21:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, but allow userfication and re-creation of a substantialy restructured page. I agree with the comments of Moonriddengirl, specifically that the page is a derivative work, with insufficient transformation of the primary source material taken directly from the copyrighted guides. Derivative works of fictional materials, if not a copyright infringement, is also really bad article writing. There has to be some transformation, using sources that discuss the monstors from a perspective outside of the game. A lot of care is required, and in the end it may be impossible, because transformation without enough sources falls foul of WP:NOR#WP:SYNTH. The best advice on how to proceed is found at WP:WAF, which the deleted article didn't follow at all. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something completely different In a case where a Wikipedia page has a problem that's FIXABLE, deletion is probably not the best option, especially when everything else in Lists of Dungeons & Dragons monsters and its WP:SS components has the exact same problem. Rather, what's probably needed is a detailed rewrite of ALL of these pages, to remedy the copyright objections. Which, for the record, I disagree with Moonriddengirl's analysis, especially of clause 3, the amount of "copying" permissible under fair use. BUT, seeing as how a reasonable challenge has been identified, let's fix it. This decision eviscerates our coverage of D&D monsters, and really can't be allowed to the final word on the matter. Some of the "endorse"rs above may have lost sight of the fact that we're an encyclopedia, and need to cover things--if our current presentation is problematic, we need to fix it, not amputate large swaths of good content. Jclemens (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The list wasn't fixable even with serious trimming - even if it was turned into a bare list of just the monsters as listed, it hit the copyvio problem. As I've said, the option of a list of notable D&D monsters in connection with their articles that include transformative use is appropriate, but not a straight-up list from the books. --MASEM (t) 05:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, it was fixable... but not necessarily via trimming, but by adding commentary as you describe below. BUT, I disagree that even without that it's a copyvio, since it omits not only the game stats (as MRG noted), but the descriptions as well. Furthermore, there's no clear decision--just an argument--that the amount reproduced constitutes copyright infringement. Per this, I would argue that by omitting the pictorial and literary material (pictures and notes), what is left mostly constitutes uncopyrightable game rules and ideas. Jclemens (talk) 16:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • What commentary could be added on the list to make it transformative? I agree some monsters themselves may have notable aspects to make the inclusion of their creative aspects appropriate in WP, but the full list of monsters from one rulebook? And there is still the fact that I mention above that the collection of the monsters and the like - even if just names - creates the backdrop and setting of the D&D world for them. What if TSR used ponies and bunnies and birds instead of zombies, ghouls, and dragons? You claim their game pieces, but clearly there's creativity in winding down what available creatures (mythological or real-world or otherwise) to create their setting. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per BOZ. Basically it's a flawed close as just claiming copyright isn't enough, there needs to be an accepted case that there is a copyright problem. If instead any reasonable (but almost certainly wrong and generally rejected argument) is enough, there is easily a similar claim for Dr. Who or any other major series. And I assume that's where we'd be going (as the arguments are a LOT stronger there). Are we really talking about walking that route? Dr. Who has way way way more detailed and complete information about plot, characters etc. and certainly is more likely to interfere with commercial opportunities (the plot summaries allow people to catch up without paying to watch while this list doesn't have any of the material one would expect to want to know, nor (AFAIK) it the product still on the market. It would make me sad to walk that way, but I'm not seeing how we could do anything else and be consistent with this decision. Hobit (talk) 13:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The reason that this specific list is a copyvio is two-fold. One is the lack of transformative information: there's nothing to discuss the significance of this list to the reader beyond "it came from the 1st edition book". Most of our other lists (lists of characters, episodes, etc.) are used in conjunction with development and reception to transform that information into something new. But the second factor is best explained by Jheald's response to the same devil's advocate questions I poised at WT:NFC. Specifically, this list is fundamentally and wholly part of the original creative work (it's straight out of the book without omission). In the case of episode lists or character lists, these are generally built up by multiple parts of the fiction (numerous episodes, etc.) and thus the list itself as made for WP is not a fundamental part of the creative work, even if the elements of the list are copyrighted. If the monster list was an assembly of all editions of D&D and only those that were notable (read: transformative information about said monsters on their respective pages) it wouldn't be a problem. But the whole recreation of the list of monsters from a single book without comment is copyvio. --MASEM (t) 13:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I see nothing wrong with this close. AfDs are decided on strength of argument not vote counting or similar hence I think it's more than reasonable to weight Moonriddengirl's opinion heavily - she's one of (if not the) acknowledged text copyright person here and is also the person to discuss the issue with the WMF attorney. If everyone else was arguing that the article wasn't a copyvio then I might agree that the close was bad but there was support for her views. There is consensus that we err very much on the side of caution when it comes to copyvios and so deletion is reasonable even if there is less of a consensus than would normally be necessary for a delete. Dpmuk (talk) 19:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • ever hear about WP:OWN ? all editors are equal, and are judged in each discussion on the basis of what they say there. If we're going by reputation instead, I consider MRG to have a reputation for excessively strict interpretation of WP:Copyright, and the difficulty in counteracting her established Ownership is why I rarely work in that area. In a doubtful case, I would not see any reason to follow her, though I would certainly listen to what she said. Suppose I had closed, and given that as my argument--I hope it would have been reversed here. Copyright does not have privileged status for deletion, unless it's undoubted copyvio--in which case I've deleted a few thousand articles: I strongly agree with basic copyright policy. DGG ( talk ) 20:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The WMF asked us to remove the Time 100 lists, despite the fact that if you or I did it on our personal websites, no one would blink. Just like with NFC, we take a stronger , proactive stance on copyright per the WMF direction. --MASEM (t) 20:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, I have heard of WP:OWN (by weird coincidence I've already referenced once today on something completely different). I don't see this as an ownership issue at all but rather accepting that someone has shown, thorough their on-wiki actions, what is generally considered a good understanding of the subject. I have not said we should follow her view regardless rather that we acknowledge expertise and take that into account. I take your point about "what they say there" but if we applied that strictly across the board are you also arguing we shouldn't label comments from people with "few or no other contributions outside this subject" which we regularly see at AfD. If you're arguing that we should only take into account what a person says in a discussion then surely these should go to.
          I also disagree that copyright does not have privileged status. It's one of the few areas that could get us into real legal trouble and I think it would be incredibly dumb of us not to err on the side of caution in all areas that could cause us legal troubles, be it WP:BLP, copyright problems or something else.
          As a slight aside I actually disagree with Moonriddengirl's assessment that this is a copyvio and think it's probably not. I do however think that it could be a copyvio so think erring on the side of caution and deleting makes sense. This is, of course, a moot point for a DRV as I should have mentioned it at the AfD not here.
          As a final aside I don't think Moonriddengirl acts like she owns copyright - I've always found her open to discussion when we disagree. However there are very few editors that work copyright problems so she does inevitably end up dealing with a lot of it and I can see how this appears as ownership. Only having a few editors dealing with the area is obviously a bad thing as it hardly allows consensus. So instead of just moaning about it why don't you try helping out and if you still think there are problems try to improve things? Dpmuk (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • User:DGG, this is the second time that you've more or less pointed WP:OWN at me in a forum recently, but you've yet to talk to me about it directly. :/ I was pretty shocked the first time; I don't ever recall having rebuffed conversation with you...certainly I never would have intended to. I've never attempted or even wanted to own copyright work on Wikipedia; I just do my best to fill a need. Honestly, it's a bit of a headache. :) I ask for second opinions and assistance all the time and have repeatedly advertised for more people to work in the area. That said, I want to be clear here that my opinion in this AFD was only ever offered as my opinion...complete with "I think" and "I don't believe" and "my concern." If I thought it was a clear-cut, blatant copyright problem, I would have blanked the content with {{copyvio}}. I do that at AFD when I see clear need. My interpretation here is conservative, based on feedback I'd received in compiling Wikipedia:Copyright in lists and on the policies at WP:C and WP:NFC, which strongly encourage us not to push boundaries with copyright. I might have come down on the other side of the question in this article with my own opinion if there were just a more transformative material here. I don't think this is unsalvageable. And I could be wrong in either direction - as I said at the AFD, only a court can determine definitively. And given the number of appeals we see, only a high court, at that. If these matters were easy, there wouldn't be so many lawyers working on them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • all careful debaters use such apparently tentative wording as a rhetorical device, to the extent that it can be difficult to tell when someone is truly unsure. And if I am going to challenge someone's opinion on something I'll do it where the matter arises, not on their talk p.; I'm not challenging them. . I try to not use individual's names in AfD discussions except when needed for clarity, but here I was challenging the use of your name by someone else. Anyway, I do not mean to challenge it as your opinion only, for I think we should delete as copyvio only that which is very probably copyvio. Otherwise, calling something copyvio is a license to remove anything. Saying something is legally too risky is the prerogative of the WMF office. I only challenge someone's views if it's something I would come across in my usual course: if I participated more at Copyright problems I would be too often coming into conflict, especially as I would usually be in a minority. I try not to be too persistent about it, but I will state my view once in a while nonetheless, if only to show there is an alternative position. DGG ( talk ) 20:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do feel that a wider discussion of the copyright issues raised here is warranted. However I also feel that we should err on the side of caution and keep this deleted until that discussion has taken place and a consensus has been reached. I would have no problem with this article being restored (without another DRV) if the consensus at any copyright discussion was that articles like this are not a concern. Dpmuk (talk) 21:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. By following all the conversation here the best thing would have been to delete the "Description" column. Once that is gone then it becomes a list of monsters with publication notes. Still useful. Honestly this is why we should be editing articles and not deleting them. Web Warlock (talk) 20:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, the core problem is that the list of monsters - irregardless what other aspects were added on - is what the copyvio is, not the descriptions or anything else. --MASEM (t) 21:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, it's what you are claiming is a copyvio, not what is a violation. You really need to adjust your language to acknowledge that (unless your a certain in which case I'd really like to know how you can make such a claim). It is per S Marshall, very very unlikely a court would ever find the material to be a copyright volition. Further, given the utter lack of a "potential market" in this context, the non-profit nature of the use, the fact that this doesn't have any of "new" part added by TSR (substantiality of the original) it would easily be fair use. Hobit (talk) 22:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • True, it is being supposed as a copyright violation which can only be determine via court of law. But again, given that the WMF has asked us to proactivity consider things like full-scale inclusion of the Time 100 lists as "copyvios" (a term of art used on WP to indicate potentially infringing material) and that are to be removed, then we have to follow the WMF, which like with NFC, can set a stronger standard for inclusion than U.S. Fair Use law. And my argument is that this case is directly comparable to the Time 100, so the same standard and approach need apply. --MASEM (t) 23:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • WP:Copyright violations (usually shortened to "copyvio", violations of WP:Copyrights policy) is not the same as copyright infringement. Flatscan (talk) 04:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Indeed. I think it would be impossible for TSR's successors to claim copyright infringement because (1) they've released the names and in-game statistics of almost all these creatures under their Open Game License and (2) under that licence they're widely-reproduced on gaming-related websites such as this one, giving rise to an excellent defence. This whole debate needs to be focused on the question of whether the article complies with Wikipedia policy. Which is a good job, considering we're trying to decide without legal advice.  ;)—S Marshall T/C 13:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • We do have legal advice, pertaining specifically to the Time 100 lists, which WMF counsel had said would be problematic in terms of copyright. We're apply the same logic that was discussed then to here. --MASEM (t) 13:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • Yes, we have legal advice pertaining specifically to something different. It's pertinent that the Time 100 lists weren't released under an open licence by their copyright holder...—S Marshall T/C 13:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Neither were the 1st edition TSR books, regardless of what the license on D&D property is today - it is a fundamentally different piece of work. So it is exactly the same scenario. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Well, no, with all due respect, it clearly isn't a fundamentally different piece of work. If I'd invented Monopoly and then released Park Lane under an Open Game Licence in 2000, but then I stood up in a Court of Law and tried to tell the judge that my version of Park Lane in Monopoly from 1977 was still under copyright because it was a different edition of the game, then the judge would peer at me over his glasses and ask if I was trying to be funny. If Wizards of the Coast were going to claim that their 2000 edition of the game was a "fundamentally different piece of work" then they shouldn't have called it Dungeons and Dragons. Thus, with all due respect, it clearly isn't exactly the same scenario as a Time 100 list.—S Marshall T/C 16:40, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Except that it is. There's a reason that people clarify what versions of games they are running by the D&D version because there are fundamental differences between each. They aren't just reprintings of previous work, it is a new work. Now, Wizards or TSR *could* retroactively re-release the older works in an freer license, but there's no evidence of that, so those works are under normal US copyright laws. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse as a reasonable interpretation of consensus when you look at the policy based arguments. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Moonriddengirl's copyvio argument looks reasonable to me and it was not addressed during the discussion. Many keep !voters simply stated that the list was not a copyvio, but that's not an argument. There were comments along the lines of "it's hard to claim copyright om lists", but that view is overly simplistic. It is hard to claim copyright on lists which contain purely factual information and no creativity is involved in creating the list (which covers the vast majority of the lists on Wikipedia that can be found in an external source), but this list was fundamentally different in that it was a duplication of a central part of a creative work. Copyright is not an area where taking risks is a good idea. Hut 8.5 17:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse as original nominator and per Moonriddengirl's comments. I noticed the copyright concern, which is why I nominated the list, but I'm not terribly familiar with the specifics of copyright. Moonriddengirl put it best, that this list is not transformative. I am not opposed to Masem's suggestion of a "List of notable D&D monsters" of some sort but creating that would not require the overturning of this decision. Jheald also had some eloquent things to say about the topic at WT:NFC, which is relevant to this case. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn There was no consensus to delete. There was no consensus on the specific issue of copyright violation as it was addressed by multiple experienced editors who !voted Keep and even the closer said that he didn't agree with the copyvio argument. The claim that the list significantly impacts the commercial sale of that edition is ridiculous because that edition is now out of print and has been made obsolete by multiple later editions. This level of copyright paranoia is dangerous to the project and should not be accepted without a stronger consensus than we saw here. For example, consider the current FA: Limbo (video game). This contains considerable detail of the play of a game which was intended to "keep you guessing". This includes the ending of the game and that's a complete spoiler which eliminated all desire on my part to purchase and play the game, which had initially seemed intriguing. Shall we delete that article too? Warden (talk) 19:56, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The difference, as has been pointed out, is the amount of transformative use we have done with the list or the game. In the case of the game (since I was the primary editor on that) we're describing the game in the presence of critical commentary, discussion, and other aspects of it. As such, discussing the plot (and spoilers) or gameplay elements even at the depth and length relative to the game easily fall within fair use within an encyclopedia. In this list, all that was presented was the list of monsters with some more primary information, but no critical discussion of the monster list or the like. At that point, since the list is creative to start with, we are doing no transform on it and thus makes it a likely copyvio - one that we have WMF's advice to act on. --MASEM (t) 00:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Are you asserting that Moonriddengirl is posting in her capacity as a WMF employee and making a specific pronouncement? If so, that's different, but I do not see that. I see a particular, risk-adverse interpretation coming from one person who doesn't claim to be the foundation's counsel or giving legal advice on the matter. I'm certainly not posting as an ArbCom member--just as another editor in good standing with an interest in the problem an a familiarity with the principles involved. Jclemens (talk) 03:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, the advice from WMF counsel came during the discussion of the Time 100 list. Because this is nearly the similar case (a wholly-inclusive list created with creative elements, with little to no transformative work), we can apply the same WMF advice to this. --MASEM (t) 04:03, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fair use is quite debatable when you reach the level of an FA because it is the nature of an FA to be comprehensive - to tell you everything worth knowing about a topic. For another example, take today's FA, Fanny Imlay. The subject is obscure and so the FA explains that there is only one biography of her. The FA is necessarily compelled to loot this extensively and so it might be argued that this is now a derivative work which, by its deliberately comprehensive nature, has a significant commercial impact upon the principal source. So, an FA goes beyond fair use by trying to do it all and so, while a fair use review would hold back on spoilers because of their commercial and ethical effect, the FA deliberately spoils the work by revealing the ending. The beef against this list seems to have been that it was comprehensive in a similar way. That argument seems comparatively flawed because the list was a summary which did not include the key information required when playing the game - the game statistics. The information was not originally presented as a list and so the formatting as a list does not seem significant; unlike the tables of wandering monsters, say, in which the list-like structure and ordering is significant. Anyway, the main point here is that the copyvio argument was quite fanciful and was applied in a draconian way which is not applied to other articles. And when the closer himself said that he didn't accept the copyvio argument, I really can't see any logical basis for the close. Warden (talk) 06:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Spoilers and endings have absolutely nothing to do with fair use; its the amount of the work, not where from the work the fair use was taken. The FA you point certainly does not do this (there's two books repeated cited, each with 250+ pages going by citations, so no way is this an extensive republication of the work in whole, plus there is obvious transformative use). It doesn't matter that this list lacked statistics or anything else: the list was a creative element generated by the game designers to flesh out their world, and as such is a list generated from creative elements and thus does have copyright protection (as opposed to databases of factual information). That means that it wholesale inclusion in WP must be strongly backed by transformative use, otherwise, to the WMF, it reflects a potential copyvio they don't want on their servers. --MASEM (t) 13:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • There's also a definite difference between citing a biography for facts and citing a creative work in this case. For Fanny Imlay, it is a fact that she was born in Le Havre on 14 May 1794 and named after Fanny Blood, her mother's closest friend. These are facts which use the biography as a WP:RS to verify those facts. Biographies of course always have historical interpretation (creative) but the Wkipedia article, as a NPOV entity, necessarily avoids those sections. This is analogous to the example from Wikipedia:Copyright in lists where "estimates which are based on a repeatable calculation, such as trend analysis or interpolation" are acceptable, but "ordered rankings based on judgement, such as the top 50 most influential Muslims" are not. The former is based on facts; the latter is based on creative selection. Citing a Fanny Imlay biography supports facts; data mining a D&D book for monster names infringes on the creativity of the author. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • There's nothing creative about saying that the beholder, say, was an original monster in D&D - that's just a plain fact. Nor is it at all creative to provide a list of such monsters. And what's absurd is that we will continue to do both these things in the beholder article and navigational structures such as category:Dungeons & Dragons standard creatures. This AFD seems to have been quite arbitrary and, as there was no consensus for the deletion, the content should be restored. Warden (talk) 16:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • It is factual that a beholder is a creature used in D&D. It is creative to assemble a grouping real and mythological creatures from several genres to create a fictional setting; again, as I've posed, if they used ponies and bunnies and butterflies as their creature set, it is an entirely different setting, and even moreso when you contrast the D&D setting to other fantasy settings that use a comparable set of creatures. Again, look to the Time 100: it is not a random list of 100 people or a factually selected list of 100 people, it is a creative list that critically praises specific people, and as such the grouping of that people is creative. Same thing here.
            • Now, as has been pointed out, if this was a partial list of D&D monsters, those with their own pages and perhaps throughout the entire 4 editions, then there's something of transformative use in play (this also justifies the category). That is, this list now serves as a navigational aid to specific monster articles that discuss the creatures in- and out of game context (well, arguably, there's a few creature articles that would fail PLOT, but let's work that that's not the issue here for right now). Or, alternatively, I can see critical discussion of the D&D game system that discusses their choices for monster inclusion not necessarily focusing on a single one but calling out highlights of specific systems. I don't see that happening specifically for the 1st edition D&D books, making the ability to transform the list difficult to imagine. --MASEM (t) 16:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn: The discussion here has pointed to ways of fixing problems with the list. As already stated by others, I think the comparison with the Times 100 list is not fitting, because the Time 100 list itself, the placement of the individuals relative to each other and to the rest of the world, is the important content, while the information about these individuals can be gotten by other sources, too. In the monster list, we basically have tables of contents, with no more internal information than the tivial "this monster appeared in that book". The descriptions on the other hand, can be gotten exactly from the book and sometimes nowhere else. Representing tables of contents is fine, however, as was stated by Moonriddengirl. So would we solve the copyright problem by restricting ourselves to tables of contents, i.e. removing the descriptions? My idea would then be to organize the list alphabetically, (keeping the "Variants" column and) changing the "Other appearances" to "Appearances". This kind of sorting and indexing would be, in my opinion, at least a minimum of transformative nature. If something like that should be the solution, we would then need to decide if we had other problems like conflict with gameguide policy. Daranios (talk) 19:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In any case I also feel there has been enough debate on the issue here to assume that the article can be fixed and a deletion was the wrong choice. As far as descriptions go, most of these creatures do not differ very much from there mythological antecedents. Web Warlock (talk) 21:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, the closer correctly discounted the keeps relying on unsupported assertions. Sangrolu gave Moonriddengirl's argument due consideration, and Hobit attempted to engage on the merits, but their arguments boil down to invalid WP:Other stuff exists comparisons to plot summaries and lists of characters. I think that it will be possible to restore the list in some form, but the broad implementation – e.g., removing all non-notable (no separate article) monsters, removing the description column, combining the lists across editions – should be determined before undeletion. On the other hand, this AfD, if upheld, shouldn't be taken as precedent for open season on similar list articles. I'm not sure how fixing the list will work, as copyvio is disallowed from all namespaces, including hidden in the page history. Flatscan (talk) 04:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, there is no particular reason why "I don't agree with your logic" is any less policy based than a speculative set of legal arguments by a non-lawyer. Jclemens (talk) 02:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Could you point out specific comments (diffs would be helpful) that you found compelling? Sangrolu's second-to-last comment compares the list to plot summaries. One of Hobit's later comments makes comparisons to "directory-like information" and character lists. These are rebutted by 1) the format of the original works like Monster Manual that lack an overarching narrative and 2) the creative selection of the members. In addition, both view the list in isolation without considering the linked articles on individual monsters. Flatscan (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • My "second-to-last" statement that you seem to be tarring with "Other stuff exists" is based on the notion of being "more conservative than fair use". Just how conservative is this? The standard being presented here is such that we could not have plot summaries or character lists were we to apply it to novel. Hence it's a non-functional standard and we should not be operating by it. As for actual WP:COPYVIO, this notion that a list of creatures somehow represents the "creative heart" or is something that I am not aware of in any settled copyright case law. If anyone is aware of any cases that show this principle in use, I would invite you to share it with me. As it stands, this seems like jumping at copyright boogeymen to me. - Sangrolu (talk) 12:52, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • We are taking this action not based on any established copyright case law, but on the request of the WMF based on a near-similar situation that they have stated is, to their eyes, a copyright violation. As long as they are the ones paying for the server space and the like, we need to play by their rules even if it sees like paranoia; eg WP:NFCC is purposely stronger than US Fair Law law for this reason, to protect themselves from crossing the fair use line in the first place. If we never had any input from WMF on this, I would agree it would be a case of copyright paranoia, but in this situation it is not that. --MASEM (t) 13:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes, you've said many times that you find that situation "similar" or "near-similar". One hopes the closer will see the difference between an assertion that's been accepted, and one that's merely been repeated.—S Marshall T/C 14:58, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think that I have sufficiently explained the difference between this list and a character list. Wikipedia has ample guidance for plot summaries: WP:NOTPLOT (policy), WP:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Plot summaries (guideline), and WP:Plot-only description of fictional works (essay). A summary is roughly the same form as a novel, text organized as prose. Considering that each two-page monster description is condensed into half a sentence (ignoring the separate articles), I think a fair comparison would be a plot summary with one paragraph per chapter. Any plot summary affected by this precedent would be excessively long and already covered by the existing guidance. Flatscan (talk) 04:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes. While I don't fully agree that this leads to a copyright breach, I agree that your position is a very arguable objection to the list as currently written. But isn't it the essence of the "keep" argument that the problems are fixable? A list with this title would not need the half-sentence description.—S Marshall T/C 11:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • I think that the copyvio issue makes this a special case. If the list is restored, we can't leave it unchanged indefinitely – WP:There is no deadline doesn't apply – and another AfD is inevitable if the list is not fixed. Regarding the specific change of removing the descriptions, the obvious next step seems to be removing non-notable monsters entirely, as their names aren't very useful to a reader who doesn't know what they are. I think that severe cutting is necessary, and thus I expect that the discussion will be drawn out. Flatscan (talk) 04:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • That's a tempting point of view. I must say that I wouldn't want the allegation that this is a copyvio to lead to the list's deletion pending a consensus, though. That seems quite back to front in view of Wikipedia's normal position that material is kept until there's a consensus to delete.—S Marshall T/C 08:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • overturn per S Marshall. JoshuaZ (talk) 13:39, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn (changed !vote per statements below including closing admin). Relist for complete discussion of the copyright issue. If noone appears to have discussed or considered MRG's arguments, we cannot pretend it was accepted by the pedia. A "cast list" or "character list" is usually not subject to copyright, so further discussion would appear in order. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • On the contrary, Sangrolu and Hobit discussed Moonriddengirl's comments, and other keeps came after her original comment. BOZ wrote in his DRV nomination that he chose not to respond. Flatscan (talk) 04:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • 1) The close said there was a prima facie case made on Copyright. 2)Prima facie means "on its face." Thus there was no in depth discussion of the issue. The closer also did not agree with the prima facie case and suggested there be more in depth discussion on the issue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note The copyright arguments are severely undermined by the presence of the SRD (System Reference Document), listing the vast majority of these monsters as Open Game Licensed properties. The only monsters reserved as "Product Identity" under the legal document at that page are "beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti." I'm not even sure all of those are reflected in AD&D 1st edition, but even if they are, this list represents a small fraction of the total content of the list. No pro-copyright argument yet has taken this legal use permission into account, and thus all should be disregarded if they haven't specifically addressed this permission grant by the copyright holder. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Arguably I'm not sure if the SRD is 100% compatibly with GFDL/SS-BY (it would seem to favor compatibility, but there seems to be some uses more restrictive than ours, but not sure on those). That said: this applies to the d20 systems of D&D (as indicated by the header) which to the best I can tell is v3.5 and after (I know my time with earlier D&D was 3d6 stat roles). So no, the SRD does not retroactively apply the contents of the books in the 1st edition. And to that end, while the monsters in the 3.5 and 4th editions may be under an open license, their counterparts, or the listing of their counterparts in the earlier editions still falls under standard US copyright laws which do not give the same permissions for reuse. --MASEM (t) 01:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The SRD and the OGL cover D&D 3.0 and 3.5. D&D 4.0/Essentials is covered by the GSL. The exact same list of monsters (minus Beholder and Mind Flayer) are considered to be 100% open and have been reprinted by such products as the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasures book, the Pathfinder Bestiary fro Paizo and the Tome of Horrors from Necromancer Games/Frog God Games. There are more, but these are the big three. None of these companies is TSR/WoTC. Web Warlock (talk) 01:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • But again, we're talking the 1st edition, which as best as I can read, the SRD does not cover - though the current copyright holder, Wizards?, is completely free to transform that license if they wanted to - they just seemingly haven't. Arguably we could include the list of 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 monsters as long as we credit the SRD (as I read it), and the issue becomes a GAMEGUIDE problem, but for this list that's not the case. And to be clear as an example, were I to make up my personal top list of public domain books or other works, that list is still copyright to me regardless if the entries on the list can't be copyrighted. So the argument that "all these monsters are SRD-free" still doesn't clear the list of the copyright problem. --MASEM (t) 02:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree with Masem: this is a reasonable argument for list(s) covering the compatibly-licensed editions, but I see no reason to assume that the free licenses cover 1st edition. Flatscan (talk) 04:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I feel that what we should be discussing is the list's compliance or otherwise with Wikipedia's policy on copyright. I do think that in the real world WOTC would not have a claim against Wikipedia for publishing this list, and not just because of what JClemens says—but Wikipedia's copyright policy sets the bar rather higher. It seems to me that if we're over the bar for Wikipedia's policy then we'll very likely be safe in a real-world copyright action, and if we're not over the bar for Wikipedia's policy then it was right to delete the list in the first place. Therefore I think the Open Game Licence is a red herring; it's not CC-BY-SA or GFDL so it doesn't help us keep the list.—S Marshall T/C 11:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • If the later editions have the same characters then the first edition, than they either fall under the license or they fall outside of copyright altogether, because a non-copyright holder cannot license and a copyright holder that later licensed the same characters has licensed the characters. But even were this list copyrightable, which character lists generally are not, it would still be subject to the educational or transformational purposes of fair use. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • I think you've misunderstood, or I can't parse your grammar. Each edition has its own copyright status. And the material that was licensed (not released from copyright) was the mechanical aspects of the creatures, not their creative descriptions. And some of the most iconic creatures were not released under the OGL. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • The above discussion says descriptions were omitted, so it would not matter if the description was copyrighted, since it's not included. Also, as any writing is copyrightable, than the normal process is to put the information in words that are subject to wikipedia's license, that is the words of its users with citation for the information to the copyrighted text of another, where the information was found. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:03, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. As according to the close, this was deleted solely on the arguments on copyright, and as this discussion has gone into detail of copyright issues, and it is pushing the scope of a DRV discussion, I think maybe we should undelete and run an RFC on the copyright issues on the article talk page. The discussion may lead to a demonstration of a solution. The discussion also may well be precedent-forming for many similar pages. I don't think there is any suggestion that the alleged copyright problem is immediately egregious, but if any stakeholder, such as the copyright owner, feels there is a real problem, I'm sure they will be listened to in such a talk page RFC. I am quite sure that the page didn't qualify for WP:CSD#G12. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Additional Comment we keep throwing around the Time Top 100 lest, but that is not applicable here either. The creative value of such a list is how the elements in the list are ordered. This is a list of monsters in alphabetical order. This is closer in terms to a table of contents than a top 10 list. I think there is has been enough discussion here to show that there is no consensus. In that case the default position should be to Keep. I still feel the original AfD took two unrelated issues and closed despite there being no consensus there either. Web Warlock (talk) 12:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I voted to relist above, and I don't really think this is the right place to discuss the copyright status of the article (other than discussing what was already brought up in the AFD). However, since it seems a lot of new discussion on the copyright issue is taking place here, I thought I should express my opinion now. I disagree with Masem's opinion that directions from the WMF related to the Time 100 list are applicable to this list. For the Time 100 list, the main point of the list is just which people are selected for it. If we duplicate the whole list, then there is no real reason for anyone to buy Time's version of it when they can just read ours. For the D&D monster manuals, however, the main point is as a tool for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Since our list did not include all the stats and rules for each monster, it can't be used as a substitute for the actual product that TSR/Wizards of the Coast sells. If you want to play 1st edition D&D, you still need to buy their product. I think that is a major difference between the two cases, and means that we can't assume instructions related to the Time 100 list apply in this case. That doesn't necessarily mean that the D&D list doesn't have copyright problems, but just that, in my opinion, the situation isn't very comparable to the Time 100 list. Also, I want to echo S Marshall's comment that just because Masem has repeated his opinion many times doesn't mean that it is accepted by everyone else. Calathan (talk) 15:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn own closure to no consensus, and work on a usable policy about copyright in lists. Thanks, all, for the insightful comments. As I outlined, I closed the AfD as "delete" because a good prima facie case was made, and not satisfactorily addressed in the AfD, that this list is a copyright violation. As the DRV discussion has shown, there are good arguments for either opinion, and we have no clear consensus about the circumstances under which we deem a list of elements from a work of fiction to be insufficiently transformative and therefore a copyright-violating derivative work. Personally, knowing too little about the applicable law, I have not been able to form a clear opinion about that. But it appears likely to me that there is no clear-cut answer under U.S. copyright law as it currently stands. Under these circumstances, I believe that we should work on developing a policy about these issues, perhaps based on the essay Wikipedia:Copyright in lists, but guided by advice from Foundation counsel whose responsibility (and not ours) it is to decide what level of legal risk the project should take. Until we have agreed on such a policy, I believe that, when in doubt as here, we should err on the side of our interest as a project to supply encyclopedic information to our readers, and delete lists as copyright violations only when they are clearly non-transformative derivations of a creative work and impair that work's commercial prospects, as in the case of the TIME 100 list, but probably not in this case (if only because the 1st edition of the game is long off the market and the list is no substitute for the published materials for the purpose of playing the game.) If restored, the list could be edited to remove its most derivative aspects, as several people have argued above, but a broader application of this to other similar lists should wait until we have agreed on a policy.  Sandstein  06:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the tone of this discussion is moving toward some kind of "List of notable D&D monsters". As far as I can tell, that is not something that requires undeletion since it would be primarily prose, rather than a table of monster names, descriptions, and page numbers. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per Sandstein immediately above and also DGG and S Marshall. In my opinion, as a non-lawyer, the list is not copyright infringement: without including the game statistics, it doesn't replace the original work in any way and is best seen as a (limited or incipient) commentary on which monsters were chosen. The argument that this is comparable to the TIME 100 list is reasonable, but not decisive in the absence of consensus. There are important differences, as well as similarities, between the two lists. Eluchil404 (talk) 11:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep in mind: the decide to remove the content of the lists from the Time 100 articles was not driven by consensus but by WMF counsel. If they tell us to do something, even if it is stricter than fair use allows (which is a reasonable argument) we need to follow it, irregardless of consensus. --MASEM (t) 13:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Then this should be overturned until such time as the WMF says this article should be treated otherwise. This was deleted based on a premise of a faulty understanding of what is, isn't or may not be copyright violation. Web Warlock (talk) 13:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • If the WMF really wants to delete this specific type of list, and not just ones vaguely similar to it, then I’d really rather hear that from them, instead of this continued grasping at straws. Meanwhile, if Sandstein is fine with overturning to work on the article, then I don’t see why there should be an impediment towards doing so. BOZ (talk) 13:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Certainly, the WMF has the authority to decide what content they will host, regardless of my personal appraisal of its copyright status, or even a considered consensus. My point was that there were no substantial free standing copyright issues and that the similarities to the TIME 100 list are not sufficient to mandate deletion based on what was done there. If the WMF Counsel thinks that there are issues they should say so, or issue guidance that more clearly covers this type of list. Until then there is no overriding reason to delete and "No Consensus" defaults to "Keep" as normal. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist the AFD debate had poor arguments on both sides, the closer kept to account that many of the keep voters had no policy based agreements, like meeting WP:LIST without giving much of a reason on why it does. But the main reason why the article was deleted was because of a copyright concern which was proven to be a flawed argument that wasn't really discussed policy based as well. Clearly a no consensus close here, but because of all these flawed arguments from both sides in the original AFD, a second AFD is needed to decide a consensus. Secret account 07:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. Closing administrator did not abuse discretion. Neutralitytalk 14:30, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could you address the closing administrators !vote to overturn his own close? I think that if you are deferring to the admin's discretion in the AfD, you should address why you don't think you should defer to that same discretion in the DRV. Thanks! Hobit (talk) 03:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse closure. This was within reasonable administrative discretion for a complex closure. While I agree that we should work on a more specific policy on copyright as it applies to such lists, the policy now says explicitly that we must be conservative when claiming Fair Use. (To the comments above - It is not necessary for WMF to restate that position on every infringing page - WMF has already said it via the policy page - be more restrictive even than what is strictly allowable under US Copyright law.)
    The arguments that the page exceeded Fair Use were cogent and well-researched. The arguments asserting Fair Use were less persuasive (with several, including some stated here, being demonstrably false and/or demonstrating a lack of understanding of what Fair Use really is). The conservative approach is to leave the list deleted until we have greater certainty that such lists are legally defensible. Yes, that runs counter to the normal Wikipedia position of "default to keep", but when dealing with serious legal implications like this, I am inclined to agree with the policy position of 'be conservative'. Rossami (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • What is the basis for your claim of serious legal implications. How long did the article exist? In the time that it existed did anyone with authority in the matter (its holder or licensee) raise any concern whatsoever? A copyright holder/licensee acts to protect its copyright, when they do not act it is a strong implication that there is no basis to act upon (or they are fine with the treatment). Also, what is the basis for the claim that the article was not conservative in its treatment of the matter, or that it could not be made conservative enough?Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:15, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • My comment was that the concept of copyright has serious legal implications to the project and therefore that the usual Wikipedia rule of "default to keep" is overruled by the policy instruction to "be conservative". The question of whether copyright applies to this matter is a question of judgement. And if this were tried in court, the questions you are asking would certainly apply. The policy instruction, however, is to be more strict with ourselves than the legal limit in order to ensure that we do not get there.
        To your specific points, you are correct that only the copyright holder has standing to bring a copyright claim to court - by definition, that means the copyright holder must act to protect his/her copyright. However, there is no adverse possession rule in copyright - you do not lose your copyrights merely through the lack of enforcement. Your statement that "when they do not act it is a strong implication ..." is untrue. The copyright holder's lack of action is proof of nothing. Rossami (talk) 15:40, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Your comment just elided between legal proof and implication in logic. Logically, if a copyright holder/licensee does not act to protect its rights then the logical implication is there is nothing to act upon because they are the party most concerned in the matter. At any rate, as to the legal issue adverse possession does not exist in copyright, and while there is abandonment of copyright, I was not refering to that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • No. You are applying the legal standard that requires the copyright holder to act. Our standard is (and should be) stronger. Our standard starts from the legal position that, while the copyright holder may act to protect its rights, those rights are not lost because the holder has not acted yet. They may choose to assert their rights at any time (up to the absurdly long limits of copyright - but that's another rant) and we, the alleged infringer, can be held liable for all that infringement back in time even to before their complaint. The logical inference then is that we should take actions stronger than are absolutely required in order to avoid the expense, bad publicity and reputation loss that a legal action would entail.
            That is not to say that we must be risk-averse to the point of paralysis or to betraying our core mission as an open-source encyclopedia. But this page (in my opinion) did not add sufficient encyclopedic value to the project to justify the infringement risk. Rossami (talk) 12:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Hmm? I didn't apply a legal standard, so, I don't know why you insist I did. At any rate, as risk aversion is a matter of judgment, I agree that judgment should be excersized, and that involves critical evaluation, of unmade claims of copyright infringement. One should also, probably demonstrate a better understanding of the legal process regarding risk: a claim of infringement is usually perfected by a letter to "cease and desist" from the infringing conduct, not a lawsuit. On another matter, since the assertion has been made, above, that this is central information to this little area of the world of all human knowledge, you should probably address that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • A C&D is not a required element of copyright law, however (Tell that to the various RIAA defendants); it is a scare tactic to avoid the cost of lawsuit.
                It is also not central information. It does make up, in whole, the creative world of D&D 1st ed, but it is not central to it. Knowing that D&D has, in summary, monsters like dragons and other mythological creatures borrowing from several cultures, as well as its own unique creatures and those based on real world, is. That's it, not a full listing of them. --MASEM (t) 13:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Required element? I don't recall anyone saying cease and desist is a required element. But in assessing risk, it is the overwhelmingly probable risk because that's what people who have rights to protect do. It's also cheap and easy. If anyone with authority had any interest in sending an e-mail to ORTS, that's the kind of thing to expect, as far as risk is concerned. And the fact that it has not occured raises the probability that it is both unlikely and remote. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • The point that's been said before is that the WMF put more value on heading off possible copyvio/excessive fair use at the pass before it actually gets to the point where even a C&D is possible (though to wit I believe they still get one or two now and then by overzealous copyright enforcers, something that you can't avoid). They obviously put high value on outright copyvios (word for word without attribution) but the other cases where the actual copyvio is questionable and possible not a violation at all, but they want to avoid those aspects. The whole non-free image resolution is designed to set a higher bar for inclusion than fair use allows. Similarly, removing the Time 100 lists in whole is being proactive even though I doubt Time's publisher would care. Similarly, I doubt TSR/Wizards would care about this list (they would seem completely cool with it to start), but it is the principle of purposely being on a more restrictive side with respect to copyright handling that needs to be upheld; this is part of the overall mission to be a free content work. --MASEM (t) 14:59, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • US Copyright law does not require proactive enforcement; only trademarks require proactive action. --MASEM (t) 12:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion despite withdrawal of it by closer, on two grounds. Firstly is that when it comes to copyright questions, we generally err on the side of "better safe than sorry." If WMF counsel would be willing to provide some guidance on this subject (list copyrightability in general, we don't need to bug WMF staff about individual articles), I think it would be very helpful, but we should leave the material deleted in the meantime, or restored to a non-indexed area if salvageable. However, the other issue here is that the GAMEGUIDE issue seems to have been decided based on nose count, no one really refuted that one either, and no one could have. This thing could be used as an example for the GAMEGUIDE page, as exactly what it's intended to prohibit. Even if copyright turned out not to be a problem, or to be fixable, I don't see how that's fixable. The "keep" arguments seem to be fans assessing from that perspective. Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The closer's !vote to overturn himself is the most remarkable aspect of this DRV. Normally, if during the course of a DRV the closer decides his own close is unsafe, then the discussion is either overturned or relisted. That hasn't happened here, and the debate has remained unclosed for well over a week past its alloted time. This is leading to drive-by !votes from random people who've wandered past and decided to backhandedly insult one whole side of the debate by describing quite subtle and nuanced positions as "fans assessing from that perspective". I take great exception to Seraphimblade's position.—S Marshall T/C 21:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I came here to close this but all I got was this lousy t-shirt. But for the non-enacted self-overturn, I'd have closed this a "no consensus to overturn". I am, however, loathe to step on the toes of an always thoughtful admin in that manner. So I'll !vote instead, Endorse, with the caveat that the closer can always revert their own close. I am unclear why he's not just re-opened and relisted? - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 09:13, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn closure to no consensus per AfD closing admin's Sandstein request above[60] and also DGG and S Marshall's arguments. Most of the above discussion is beyond DRV's roll, which essentially is to determine whether the closer interpreted the debate incorrectly. Drawing consensus on many of the above issues or agreeing to new policy/guideline is better addressed elsewhere. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to no consensus per Sandstein, and discuss copyright issues at another location. Once that's settled, it may be appropriate to relist. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:58, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Greater Bristol Metro scheme (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Significant new information has come to light since deletion and the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article. (Noted that the previous information is already available because the result was merge.) But the closer has retired, so rather than boldly recreating the article, I'm seeking community consensus for its notability. Some new sources:[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68] -- Trevj (talk) 09:01, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I participated in the original AfD so I don't know if it's appropriate for me to !vote here, but the reasons for the merge consensus last time were that there wasn't enough information for a standalone article, and that this rapid transit scheme hadn't got beyond the campaigning stage. All that the latest references seem to show is a revival of the campaign, so the scheme's broadly in the same state as it was when the AfD was originally closed. Anyway, I'd have thought the obvious home for this new information is Rail services in Greater Bristol#Greater Bristol Metro scheme. If it's clear that this section now contains too much information and would be better served by a standalone article, we can consider a split then. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 17:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for commenting. I wasn't aware of the article or the previous discussion until today. There's nothing wrong with short articles (even stubs) if the topic is a notable discrete subject. Notability has been established by the previous and recent sources. The metro project is a discrete subject and doesn't seem to fit in particularly coherently within Rail services in Greater Bristol. WP:MERGE states Merging should be avoided if the resulting article is too long or "clunky" [...] The current arrangement could be classified as "clunky". Therefore, if the subject is notable, there seems to be no good reason to merge the content elsewhere. -- Trevj (talk) 20:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore Just go right ahead. if anyone is unhappy with the result, a second AfD would be the way to go, since the content is different. DGG ( talk ) 19:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore - There seems to be enough information for a standalone article and the additional info wasn't evaluated in the AfD. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm not convinced the new sources resolve the AFD concerns relating to WP:CRYSTAL, as it still looks like a lot of talk and posturing from groups and not actual movement or actions and I'm also not convinced the current section in the merged article is too bulky. MBisanz talk 21:28, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Does the quantity of content affect notability? I didn't think it did. I'm not sure about the validity of a follow-up AfD either (suggested by DGG), because the search term at least merits a redirect. Therefore, editors unconvinced by the need for a standalone article could seek consensus via a merge proposal if they chose. -- Trevj (talk) 00:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Quantity doesn't affect notability per se, but when there are very few articles that are very short and don't show much more then people talking about trying to organize to do something that looks really unlikely, I believe it runs into WP:CRYSTAL. MBisanz talk 20:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Declaration by Trevj. (I didn't consider the following to be directly relevant when initially posting the request, but I guess that it could be seen as a potential conflict of interest either now or in the future.)
    • I have previously attended both public and private meetings held by a campaigning organisation in this field, but am no longer attending. The topic of this article seems to have been relatively recently lent support by the relevant local authorities (Councils), and I am not aware of any details of how this came about, nor have I attended (or been aware of) any meetings there may have been with officers, elected members or other representatives of these Councils in connection with the proposed Greater Bristol Metro. Additionally, I have had employment within 3 of the 4 local authorities in non-managerial technical roles; the roles have not included work on policy, but have been concerned with the construction of schemes promoted and owned by others.
Notwithstanding the above, the review request here was not prompted as a result of any meeting or other communication with any such interested parties. In fact, I've not attended meetings or otherwise communicated with the group or any of its individual members for some months. Prior to that, my attendance at meetings could be described as being sporadic for a considerable period. The review request here was prompted after becoming curious about what the encyclopedia said of the scheme, after reading about it on the website of a local newspaper. Thanks for reading. -- Trevj (talk) 00:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Favorite betrayal criterion (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Page was deleted for lack of notability. Recreated from scratch years later with a new source that appeared in intervening time. Would like history undeleted so that relevant content from old version is available for merging into new version. Homunq (talk) 01:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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9 May 2012

[edit]
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Shemspeed (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

This article was deleted out of process by User:JzG through a G11 reasoning. This was followed by salting the page, even though no creation spamming or even the threat to do so was evident. I discussed the matter with the admin in question, but he refused to revert his actions, so I am making this listing. Shemspeed is a notable music label, the article of which was written perfectly fine and had proper sourcing on the topic. It didn't fall at all under a G11 deletion.

This nomination is in conjunction with the L'CHAIM Vodka nomination below, which is the other article also deleted by Jzg. SilverserenC 22:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • We generally consider writing an article on your own company or website to be a bad idea, a conflict of interest and all round ill-advised. I am at a loss to understand why Silver seren considers it worth bringing this here. The author also wrote a vanity autobiography (at AfD); if kept maybe we could redirect as if the user scrapes notability it's unlikely they rate two separate articles. Most of their notability is likely to come form the brouhaha surrounding their paid editing, of course. Guy (Help!) 22:31, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • We generally consider it a bad idea because such articles are usually written badly. This one was not and is very clearly notable. It was not written like an advertisement, so a G11 deletion was completely improper. SilverserenC 22:36, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • G11? "Unambiguously promotional"? Really? Not in the cache I see. And CoI isn't a speedy deletion criterion. Deletion process not correctly followed, so we must overturn.—S Marshall T/C 22:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy list at AfD. Most speedy deletions, including G11, should be listed at XfD on a reasonable request. If someone wants a discussion, let them have it. CSD was not created to prevent wanted discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since the issue significantly concerns content rather then purely process, and no AFD was involved it seems temporary undeletion for review pending the outcome of this DR would be wise. Alternatiely just list at AFD or overturn (i.e. just undelete for now). Nil Einne (talk) 00:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. The NY Times coverage makes the assertion of significance credible. Notability issues may remain. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am the author of the Shemspeed entry (and, contrary to the assumption of JzG, not the owner of Shemspeed). Under Criteria for speedy deletion, it states, “Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases.” How could this case be deemed obvious? As anyone who reads the entry can see, Shemspeed has been covered in known media outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Jerusalem Post. I wrote the entry from a neutral point of view about a notable label and therefore it does not fall under the G11 (“unambiguous advertising or promotion”) reason given for its speedy deletion. JzG’s reckless bypassing of the regular deletion process is unfair. As others have stated above, there should at the very least be a review process here. --Bernie44 (talk) 00:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn with the possibility of a Speedy Afd, cache version doesn't look terribly spammy to me and it has received decent coverage. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn: Page does not qualify for G11, and it is unclear why the deleting admin thought it did, nor why salting was indicated. COI is not a reason for deletion. Bovlb (talk) 16:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. Not overt spam. Drmies (talk) 03:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - Not a speedy candidate. Rlendog (talk) 19:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn . I was inclined to be very skeptical of this eds. work when I saw the articles about it, but when I went to the actual articles, I saw a real attempt at writing acceptable articles, though in most cases quite carelessly, with considerably less skill than they advertised. but this was an acceptable article with only minor changes, and not really more promotional than our general run of articles on similar subjects (which , admittedly, is not saying very much--the ones that aren't written by PR staff are written by fans, & I'd be hard put to say which do it worse). It'll pass AfD, I think, because of the Jerusalem Post article which is very substantial. I see no reason really to list there. DGG ( talk ) 19:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could someone please point me to the commuity discussion where we decided to stop deleting people's vanity articles about their own companies and webshites? I'm off to add these to Kohs' breaching experiments at Category:Successful Wikipedia spammers. Guy (Help!) 10:40, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could you point out where in WP:G11 it says that "you can speedy an article if you think your opinion overrides due process"? The Cavalry (Message me) 11:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify: the problem here isn't that the article was deleted, but instead that it was speedied when it should have been AfDed, and that it was SALTed without any reason to salt it. In these circumstances, I always AfD: AfD is fairer, either results in a better article or a deleted article - and (more underhandedly) any deletion sticks better. The Cavalry (Message me) 11:25, 12 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.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
L'CHAIM Vodka (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

This article was deleted out of process by User:JzG through a G11 reasoning. This was followed by salting the page, even though no creation spamming or even the threat to do so was evident. I discussed the matter with the admin in question, but he refused to revert his actions, so I am making this listing. L'CHAIM is a notable product, whose article could have definitely used some amount of work, but was not even close to the level of a G11 deletion.

This nomination is in conjunction with the Shemspeed nomination above, which is the other article also deleted by JzG. SilverserenC 22:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Speedy list at AfD. Most speedy deletions, including G11, should be listed at XfD on a reasonable request. If someone wants a discussion, let them have it. CSD was not created to prevent wanted discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As per above, since the issue significantly concerns content rather then purely process, and no AFD was involved it seems temporary undeletion for review pending the outcome of this DR would be wise. Alternatiely just list at AFD or overturn (i.e. just undelete for now). Nil Einne (talk) 00:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and list at AFD. This is awfully spammy, but there's enough of a skeleton to the article and enough coverage to make the deletion a matter for community decision. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the author of the L'Chaim Vodka entry, I find this speedy deletion unacceptable. It seems that if a user would like to improve the entry, they are more than welcome to do so. There are plenty of vodka entries on Wikipedia, and L'Chaim Vodka is as notable as many of them, with references to prove it. I would hardly say the article is "heavily promotional" - I even included a statement about the fact that all domestic vodkas are kosher, which weakens the kosher marketing campaign of L'Chaim Vodka. I believe that in itself demonstrates the neutrality of the entry. This speedy deletion should be reversed. --Bernie44 (talk) 01:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn: Page does not qualify for G11, and it is unclear why the deleting admin thought it did, nor why salting was indicated. Paid editing is not a reason for article deletion and I am a little disturbed that the deleting admin cited it as such. Bovlb (talk) 16:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • overturn , it passes speedy--but I doubt this version would pass AfD. I would advise the ed. not to use phrases such as "With the scrutiny it must undergo in order to gain kosher certification, the vodka is attended [sic] to appeal to Jews and non-Jews alike. “Kosher has always stood for better quality and higher standards,” Mizraji has said. “There are so many vodka brands that rely on either price point or appearance of the label or bottle; we needed to offer something that was more meaningful." --something like that, especially when it isn't actually relevant (as admitted above & in the article) but just an advertising point, is promotional. So, not surprisingly, is the "marketing" section. And I;m not sure how the proprietor raised his seed money is encyclopedic information--rather, it belongs on his web site. Some actual information about sales/market share would be helpful--it is hard to tell at this point if this is actually a significant product. And people who pay for articles are at the very least entitled to correct spelling and careful proofreading. DGG ( talk ) 19:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. G11 indicates "Unambiguous advertising or promotion." Advertising could be argued, but substantially more is needed for labelling it "unambiguous advertising". L.tak (talk) 20:30, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - Not a G11 candidate. Rlendog (talk) 19:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. The article contained some unencyclopedic cruft, but that can simply be removed, and there are enough sources to establish notability and base a neutral article on.  --Lambiam 19:53, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, but take to AfD. This isn't quite a G11 candidate! The Cavalry (Message me) 10:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per nominator. First and foremost, the page was deleted out of process and should be given the chance for due process. We can discuss whether it should be deleted for advertizing and/or other reasons if someone wants to start an AfD. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn salting, overturn deletion  Both actions were out of process.  At that point there are two possibilities, (1) there is someone willing to make an AfD nomination, (2) there is no one that is willing to make an AfD nomination.  Procedural AfD nominations coming out of DRV are a failed experiment.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Send it to AFD, where I imagine it will be fairly promptly deleted anyway (based on the most recent version). Moreschi (talk) 13:11, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cautious overturn I'm not in favor of re-hashing process just for process' sake, so if people agree it would be deleted at AFD, that would be a good enough reason to endorse. But people seem to be split or silent on that point, therefore overturn without prejudice to AFD. MBisanz talk 21:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy list at AfD, per SmokeyJoe.Cavarrone (talk) 21:08, 14 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.
  • Understanding the Value of Pharmaceuticals – Overturn and relist at RfD. There seems to be two issues here: 1) whether the redirect should exist; 2) if it should, whether the page history should be preserved. RfD is fine for the first process, but currently there is no process for dealing with the second instance (AfD is for dealing with currently revisions of articles, not article histories). Ruslik0 seems to have based it on the second issue, which is certainly not admissible for CSD considering that CSD is only for well-defined categories of deletions, and particularly not for XfDs that have gained several "keep" !votes already. I will start an RfD that specifically addresses the second issue in addition to the first. – King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Understanding the Value of Pharmaceuticals (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

In the RfD discussion there were several good faith recommendations for keeping, which included explicit counters to the good faith deletion recommendations. This was completely ignored though by Ruslik0 who closed the discussion as "Speedy delete as G11 (spam/political advocacy)" (and then deleted it with the same rationale), despite that fact that not one commenter in the entire discussion characterised it as such nor called for speedy deletion for any other reason.

In discussion on his talk page Ruslik0 has defended his actions as saying that if any administrator thinks something is spam they can speedy delete it as such, regardless of what anybody else thinks and that any discussion about it, ongoing or otherwise, is irrelevant. This is not the way speedy deletion works though - pages must clearly meet the criteria and it must be clear that they will always be deleted at a deletion discussion. When an active deletion discussion has good faith recommendations for courses of action other than deletion, then by definition the page cannot meet the speedy deletion criteria.

Yes I am biased with respect to this specific debate, but I can easily see how the debate could be closed as keep or no consensus based on the arguments. A delete outcome based on the discussion is possible, but I think a stretch. A deletion that completely ignores the arguments though is out of process. Thryduulf (talk) 21:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn-And a good trout slap to Ruslik0. Speedy deleting a page in the middle of an XfD when several users in good standing have called for it to be kept is wholly inappropriate. The purpose of speedy deletion is to avoid unnecessary deletion discussions, not to allow administrators to overrule community consensus.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 22:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yup, I think Fyre2387 has nailed it. Our main role here is to see that the deletion process is correctly followed and it wasn't. T. Canens' wise suggestions about what to do with the wikitext deserve serious consideration, of course, but let's consider them at the RfD that shouldn't have been closed early, rather than here. Overturn and relist until the discussion has run its proper duration.—S Marshall T/C 22:50, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem with that, in my view, is that the 15k bytes of wikitext is not really within RFD's usual expertise. RfD usually discusses (1) whether a redirect should or should not exist at a particular location and what the redirect should point to, but it is entirely a different matter to decide (2) whether 15KB of text should be retained in the page history, which is not something usually discussed at RFD, because redirects usually only have a single line with the target and at most a couple more categorizing templates. The process is a total mess because the RFD was discussing only (1) and then Ruslik came in and deleted it based on (2). Of course when there are reasonable disagreements over whether a speedy criterion applies, admins should not speedy delete, but in this case the RFD debate sheds absolutely no light on the proper answer to (2). It simply did not consider the question at all. Of course we can send the whole mess back to RFD, but I think that we need not defer to RFD on a question that is squarely outside its area of expertise, and that the better course is for us to resolve (2) ourselves, and then send (1) back for discussion. T. Canens (talk) 23:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist. The G11 call is reasonably contested. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist per the convincing argument of Fyre2387 and S Marshall. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I do not know why Thryduulf is trying to defend this crap. This is just a waste of time. We do not redirect dozens of spam pages created every day to normal articles. If this overturned I will simply revert the redirect to its original state and send it to AFD. Ruslik_Zero 07:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments from DRV-nominator. Firstly I'm not defending "this crap", what I'm doing is defending the integrity of RfD against misuses of speedy deletion. Incorrect speedy deletions are one of the most harmful things to Wikipedia, and countering them can never be a waste of time. While dozens of spam pages every day may not be redirected to normal articles, some are (and per WP:ATD it wouldn't surprise me if more should be than are, but that's beside the point). The vast majority of these redirects are not at all controversial and are widely regarded as a Good Thing. Some are not though, and those get nominated at RfD. Once nominated at RfD the redirect is discussed on its merits and the course of action taken is determined according to consensus - part of the fourth pillar that Wikipedia is built on. The consensus in this case was that the title was not spam, and no one editor gets to overrule that.
    It's true that I did not notice the unusual nature of the redirect - as a regular I always check the links, history and usage stats, and other things as appropriate to the specific discussion. This rarely involves looking at the actual redirect page itself as almost all redirects are the same (this appears to have been one of the exceptions though). The correct course of action for an editor discovering the wikitext would have been to mention it in the discussion so that others were aware rather the unilaterally speedy delete it. Had I been aware of the text, my recommendation would have been to delete it while retaining the redirect.
    While normally converting a redirect back to an article and then sending it to AfD is going to be non-controversial (and is sometimes recommended at RfD), I'm not certain whether it would be if this was contrary to an explicit consensus that the title should be a redirect - it certainly wouldn't be an example of best practice. If you want to do this, then you should probably get consensus to do so - an ongoing discussion would be the perfect place, in the absence of one then probably the best would be a new RfD. In an AfD I suspect that I'd recommend redirecting, but arguments presented for other courses of action may be persuasive. I'm not objecting to an AfD though, as long as it isn't done out of process or otherwise against consensus.
While the closure was (imo) incorrect, it wasn't premature and so any return to RfD would need to be a new or relisted one (I'm sure everyone can agree that a discussion open for at absolute most a few hours would be pointless in the extreme). Thryduulf (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist. It was not a speedy G11, either as an article or a redirect. It was an essay, and properly deletable as such, and I don't see the point of making it a redirect out of it, but still, not a speedy. It does have article potential, biut to preserve the text for a while userification would be more appropriate than the redirect. DGG ( talk ) 19:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 19:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak unredirect and list at AfD, the best venue for dealing with the essay content. The essay seems to be neither useful nor harmful, so an AfD may end as redirect and be a waste of time. Flatscan (talk) 04:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - Clearly not a speedy candidate. Not seeing a particular need for T. Canens' suggestion either; if the page works as a redirect, I don't see that the history is a problem. But that could be discussed at AfD or RfD (of course, the AfD result may well be redirect). Rlendog (talk) 19:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist - Not a speedy deletion candidate. The page started out as a detailed essay,[70] then was changed to a redirect by Haruth,[71] probably as a way to get rid of the troubled essay. In relisting, suggest that the discussion include talk on WP:REDIRECT#DELETE. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:45, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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Common Dead (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The page was moved after the AfD to the Incubator, small improvements were made and then moved back to mainpace. I believe the article should go through a DRV in this case. mabdul 10:43, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and the last DRV was in Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 September 13. mabdul 10:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Background See my talk page, and the link from there to the talk page of WikiProject Metal, for the discussion leading up to this page's return to the mainspace.—S Marshall T/C 11:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak relist Article has been improved, but sources are largely the same (diff). I'm really not quite sure where to go here. Consensus can change and it's been 6 months (after which time we'll often allow a keep result to be relisted). I really don't foresee a different outcome, but it's possible as the article is pretty borderline (lots of sources, though those sources take submissions from the readership (of course, so does the NYT, but...) I think the recreation was in good faith (see the WikiProject Metal talk page) and I don't see the harm in a new discussion. Hobit (talk) 12:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Looking more carefully at the last DRV, I am thinking a relist makes sense. At the DRV some of the arguments at the AfD were rebutted (in particular if the sourcing was reliable). Not sure one way or the other, but there is something worth discussing again. Hobit (talk) 12:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Article Well I was going to return to the Project Metal page to ask something but now I see there is a discussion here. Haha I was wondering why the page was missing for a while at all? I have read the rules and I thought articles had to meet certain standards to be published and that this band meets the standards. None of the sources are trivial by Wikipedia definition. I don't know if I "count" or not to say anything (I have only started editing to Wikipedia, I do not have an alias) but I started editing on the Fear Factory page and noticed Common Dead mentioned and did not have its own page which was very strange. --Ray 24.201.20.167 (talk) 13:49, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and PS - for what it is worth, I added some of the sources myself (the Metal Underground/Pure Grain Audio/Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles Magazine Source), they were not there when I arrived. So they should be many different sources that where not there before it was in the Incubator. -- Ray24.201.20.167 (talk) 13:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody can seem to give a good reason to why this article was ever deleted in the first place. Legit citations are here and in context and there are many of them. It meets the criteria. What am I missing here? Please explain.--Ray 24.201.20.167 (talk) 20:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • @DGG: I ask User:TParis (the closing admin) and he directed me to User:Backtable (who said that I should go to DRV).
      • I'm a bit confused by Backtable's response, the move by Backtable came with the comment "Article now meets Wikipedia standards and is ready to graduate from the Article Incubator". Yet his response to you was that "he" didn't know how many of the sources were reliable and he wasn't aware of the AFD. Since a main route to the incubator is AfD that seems odd, and saying an article meets wikipedia standards without assessing reliability of sources is also quite peculiar. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 21:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ray: Are they really notable? Per WP:MUSIC they fail all criteria without any question. (except #1 which should be clarified in this discussion) mabdul 20:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@mabdul, I'm not sure how familiar you may be with the metal music scene, but as far as sources, it doesn't get any more legitimate than Blabbermouth, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, and Metal Underground as sort of a "big three". Their reviews are not upon request, they write and cover bands as they see fit. This band, as I even discovered it, has sources pertaining to the latter two at least (not sure about Blabbermouth, at least Google doesn't produce any results for that one) plus all those other ones that apparently previous editors submitted but are equally fair. All of the sources as far as I've checked them (and you can too) meet the criteria in the first part of that WP:MUSIC criteria that I also read over today. All of the included sources are all uninfluenced by the band or artist. So again I'm not sure what the real issue is here regarding this article being on the brink of deletion (twice now). I mean if certian editors are not familiar with metal bands and their notoriety, all I can say is don't let that impede on the rest of us. --Ray 24.201.20.167 (talk) 22:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • We need to close this deletion review. The place to argue about notability is AfD. Deletion review is just here to see that the process is correctly followed. The process Ray employed was:- 1) Try to improve the article; 2) Ask an experienced Wikipedian whether it was ready for the mainspace; and 3) Receive the answer "yes". Backtable then exercised his judgment and put the incubated article into the mainspace, and we can safely assume that Backtable knows and understands the music notability criteria. Process correctly followed, so DRV has no role.—S Marshall T/C 23:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist at AfD, if the last AfD closer can't decide whether the small improvements make enough of a difference. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • List at AfD. If I am reading the diffs correctly (the organization and formatting changes confuse things a little), there are only a few new sources, but the last DRV was no consensus to overturn with an open question about sourcing. AfD is much better at evaluating sources than DRV. Thanks to everyone, for moving this article through the process patiently. Flatscan (talk) 04:31, 10 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.

8 May 2012

[edit]

7 May 2012

[edit]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Undelete:This article should be undeleted, as there are numerous sources for this phenomena, and it was apparently judged as a medical topic when initially deleted, which it is not. It will not appear in a medical paper, for the same reason a genre of music won't. See this talk page for a heavily linked discussion on the topic. The current page for ASMR describes the phenomena as a blatant hoax. This needs to be edited regardless of the outcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.254.76.153 (talk) 13:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse deletion review is not to be used just because you dislike the outcome: it is to be used if the debate was conducted or closed incorrectly or if significant new information has come to light that would justify reopening the discussion. There is no way that debate could have been closed as anything other than Delete: the arguments for deletion had solid grounding in policies and guidelines which were not addressed by those arguing to keep the article, and the arguments for retention were all extremely weak. The links on Sandstein's talk page point to reddit, blogs, Google search results, self-published websites, an internet radio station, an article from an "alternative newsweekly" and an opinion piece from the Huffington Post. None of this gets remotely close to establishing notability. The assertion that this is not a medical topic is, frankly, ridiculous, and is only relevant because WP:MEDRS applies. Hut 8.5 14:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The assertion that this is not a medical topic is not "ridiculous" at all. Not one piece of evidence has shown that this is a medical topic, no treatments are suggested in any of the citations presented, no symptoms are described, no medical journals cited. This topic does not need to meet the standards of WP:MEDRS and any debate which relies on those standards is flawed. Therefore, the debate was conducted incorrectly. Allegations were made regarding the use of sock-puppets were made by those supporting deletion, which is of course, a delusion on their part. If users cannot explain with cogent argument why a community is not notable, they should not delete the article. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
By "the debate was conducted incorrectly" I mean "there were procedural errors in the discussion" - things like not tagging the article with the appropriate template, or closing the discussion prematurely. You haven't alleged any such errors here. The fact that the article didn't claim to diagnose or treat disease doesn't mean it's not a medical topic. ASMR is supposedly a physical sensation in parts of the human body caused by particular external stimuli, that makes it a medical topic. Even if it was not a medical topic we still need significant coverage in third-party reliable sources and nothing you've pointed to qualifies. Many participants in the debate were meatpuppets, that makes matters worse. Hut 8.5 15:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Using derogatory terminology to identify participants who disagree with you is not conducive to civil discussion. I am not a "meat-puppet", I am a contributor and would like to be treated as such. Your own enlistment of those who support deletion is no different.
I note you said "ASMR is supposedly a physical sensation in parts of the human body caused by particular external stimuli, that makes it a medical topic." Can you show where you got that definition from? It is a very loose definition; it would include television, music, art and speech. Presumably you just created the definition to further your argument, which is not conducive to reaching a conclusion on this topic. If Wikipedia's guidelines suggest these topics are medical, please correct me. You yourself cite premature closure as an example of procedural error - it's apparent that the citations and arguments above were not made in the original argument thus it's closure was premature. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Stop Wikilawyering. The content of this article is not remotely comparable to art, music etc. "Premature closure" does not mean "closure before X argument has been raised", it means "closure of the discussion before the closer was allowed to close it" (7 days after the start of the discussion in most cases). Soliciting meatpuppetry is against policy and comments made by meatpuppets can be ignored or assigned reduced weight by the closing administrator. Notifying the deleting admin of this discussion is not canvassing: it you look at the instructions at the top of the page you'll see you are required to do this when you list an article here, though you seem to have missed that step. Hut 8.5 17:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like you're the one "Wikilawyering"; you've cited a lot of irrelevant policy, but nothing related to ASMR. If you have nothing to say about ASMR, I don't see why you're posting here. I have no desire to discuss Wikipedia policy, I'm here to discuss the reinstatement of the ASMR page. If you can elaborate (with evidence) on your statement that "The content of this article is not remotely comparable to art, music etc." that would be relevant. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 17:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not citing "lot of irrelevant policy": I cited two guidelines and one policy, all of which are relevant. If you want to get the page reinstated then arguing about the definition of the word "medicine" isn't going to help your case. The main problem with the article is that the topic does not have significant coverage in third-party reliable sources. Start with that. Hut 8.5 17:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Third-party coverage has already been provided by me; significantly more than is cited in the genre of music I linked to. The only problem here is that you seem to think a sensation which is not related to any malfunction in the human body, does not require any treatment or medicine, and has not been mentioned in any medical research journal must have citations in pubmed before it can have a Wikipedia article. I do not know of any policy which says this type of phenomena should be held to that standard and none has been provided by you. I think it best to wait for others to give their opinion. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Having third-party coverage is not enough, the coverage also has to be reliable, and as I explained above the sources you have provided do not meet this standard. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is considered a weak argument around here. Hut 8.5 20:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like you're wikilawyering again. Can you cite a policy regarding holding this sort of thing to the same standard as medical topics? 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you've grasped Wikipedia's guidelines on notability. For a topic to have an article on Wikipedia it must be notable - it must have significant coverage in third-party reliable sources. The sources you've provided are things like blogs, self-published websites and the occasional opinion piece in a newspaper. These sources are not considered reliable and do not demonstrate notability. If you want to demonstrate notability you'll have to provide some other sources. Note that I haven't mentioned medicine anywhere here: this would all still be true if the topic had nothing to do with medicine. Hut 8.5 20:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See a list of references here. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 21:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I haven't checked every single one of those but I'm not very impressed. Almost all of them are self-published websites, blogs, forums, Facebook pages and other unreliable content. I don't think there's anything not in one of those categories that hasn't been mentioned already. Hut 8.5 21:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, it's a list of links to resources, not a list of citations. But they are enough to show notability through coverage in third-party sources. When you've checked them all, decide if you think the phenomena meets the definition of notable (that being the required standard, not whether or not you are "impressed") 62.254.76.153 (talk) 21:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
By "not impressed" I mean "I don't think this constitutes notability". Again merely demonstrating coverage in third-party sources is not sufficient, the sources have to satisfy our standards of reliability. I'm not going to check each link individually to see if it satisfies our reliability standards (it isn't at all reasonable to ask someone to check all of them) but it's obvious that links in a section titled "blog posts", "apps" or "discussion forums" aren't going to qualify. I've checked all the ones I think might qualify, they don't. Hut 8.5 22:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to delete something and retain the phrase "blatant hoax" on the page, I would expect you to put the effort in and read the links provided. If you cannot, you should designate this responsibility to a mod who can. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't work like that. The community decided to delete this article in a deletion discussion and you are trying to persuade us that there is significant new evidence that warrants revisiting that decision. When pressed to point to this evidence your response is to list about 80 links, the vast majority of which are clearly not appropriate, and effectively say "it's in there somewhere, you find it". If you think that one, or two, or even ten of those links demonstrate notability then by all means list them here, but the burden of proof is on you and nobody is going to do your work for you. And I have no idea why you're talking about hoaxes, the page was deleted as a result of this deletion discussion. Hut 8.5 23:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very cynical way to refer to me providing eighty links which weren't discussed in the original debate. Given the topic, many of those links will make good citations, and ALL of them are evidence of notability. The term blatant hoax is on the ASMR page right now, and is obviously offensive to the community and not in all keeping with Wikipedia's policy of civility. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yet again to demonstrate notability you need coverage in reliable sources. It doesn't matter how many unreliable sources you can point to, they are not evidence of notability. Finding something which wasn't covered in the original debate doesn't mean the debate should be re-opened, since you also have to show there is at least a reasonable chance the debate could have gone the other way had that information been present. I see no evidence of that here, had those links been presented in the AfD discussion you would have got similar comments to mine. I can see that recreation of the page was deleted with a hoax, and given the article content I can see why the deleting admin thought it was one, but the page undoubtedly qualified for deletion under G4 as a recreation of the AfDed page. Hut 8.5 20:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are enough secondary sources for this to show notability. They are easy to find unless you refuse to look. Here, here and here. And these are just the ones that specifically mention the term ASMR, which was only coined recently. The whisper community is older and broader. You seem to have decided long ago that this was not notable, so much so that you even refused to look at evidence provided. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 21:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did look at those sources, they don't demonstrate notability. [72] and [73] are opinion pieces, these are not considered reliable for anything other than the opinion of the author. The first of these links was actually present in the article during the deletion discussion and wasn't considered evidence of notability by the participants. [74] is a high school newspaper, this certainly is not a reliable source. Hut 8.5 21:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They do establish notability by referencing a community of thousands or more. You are using a standard which seems to be changing to suit you, and which you are not defining. According to Wikipedia:GNG the standards required are 1) "Significant coverage" - specifically enough so that original research is not required. No original research is required, so that standard is met. 2) "Reliable" - specifically to allow verifiable evaluation of notability. If you cannot use the sources provided to verify notability, it is your own fault. 3) "Sources" - specifically secondary sources. In this case, all sources provided have been secondary, except any links to specific ASMR videos. 4) "Independent of the subject" - no allegation has been made that any of the secondary sources are affiliated with the creators of the videos. 5) "Presumed" - specifically that there are ways to presume notability without the need for specific sources. A quick Youtube or Google search for the term will pull up more results than you can possibly examine yourself, therefore the presumption that there is notability must apply. If you wish to challenge the notability of this article with reference to specific policy, please do so. But do not continue to defend your position for the sake of it as this is not conducive to a constructive debate. Also bear in mind that if you do cite a further piece of minutia, it may not be in keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia to enforce it. There is no doubt that ASMR exists as a genre, a community, and as a phenomenon; it does nobody any good to challenge that fact or censor it. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Look, I appreciate that you're a new editor and haven't encountered our notability standards before, but you've got completely the wrong end of the stick. What you've quoted is not the definition of the term "significant coverage", it's the reason why we require significant coverage. Similarly what you've quoted is not the definition of "reliable source". This term is defined by the guideline, and it specifically excludes the kind of sources you've provided. It is possible to show notability through ways other than the GNG, but this is limited to subject-specific notability guidelines which do not apply to this topic. These are not "minutae", they are important principles which have widespread community support and which are the main reasons why your page was deleted. Notability is not defined by Google hits, nor by the existence of a community of thousands of people - it's established by significant coverage in third-party reliable sources. I have no doubt that this thing exists as a genre and a community, but that doesn't mean anything as far as notability is concerned. Hut 8.5 23:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing in Wikipedia:NEWSBLOG excludes the opinion piece that I submitted. And I don't think anything in Wikipedia:NEWSORG excludes the news sources I submitted - it says "News reporting from less well established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact." But we're not debating the fact that this exists, we're debating its notability. These, [1], [2] are new sources. Steven Novella, assistant professor and Director of General Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine, posted this to his blog which normally would not be notable. But the Wikipedia:BLOGS guidelines specifically allow "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field". I doubt anyone involved in this deletion process is qualified to exclude the opinion of a director at Yale University School of Medicine. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 23:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Opinion pieces are rarely reliable for anything other than the opinion of the author, including statements of fact (WP:NEWSORG). For instance if you were writing an article about a film you could cite an opinion piece as a source for the author's opinion about it, provided the statement was properly attributed. This article isn't like that, and these sources can't be used to support statements about ASMR. Note that the guideline I linked to goes on to particularly discourage the use of such sources for claims about scientific topics. [75] and [76] are unreliable blogs, the latter doesn't even constitue significant coverage. [77] is much better, but there are still two problems with it. Firstly you're not proposing just to cite it as a source, you're trying to use it to establish notability and to base the entire article on it. Using a self-published source for either of these things is deeply problematic. As WP:SPS says, "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so". Secondly it doesn't meet the more stringent standard of WP:MEDRS, which discourages the use of both primary sources and sources that haven't been peer-reviewed. I agree that ASMR's notability rather then existence is the issue, and I can't see why you brought its existence up. Hut 8.5 09:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[78] is not an "unreliable blog" it is an edited magazine run by a limited liability company, as per the ABOUT and TERMS OF USE pages. If you aren't going to examine the citations provided, please don't report back here that they are unreliable; this distorts the deletion review process. These are exactly the kind of sources you would expect to report on a new genre like this. [79] is not the basis for the entire article, it is an interesting side-line. If a director of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine spoke about the effects of dubstep drops on the brain, it would be worthy of inclusion in the article for dubstep, and it would certainly indicate the notability of dubstep, but it would not be the basis of the article for dubstep - it also would not suddenly require the dubstep article to meet the standards of WP:MEDRS. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see no evidence that Thought Catalog is reliable, it is generally referred to as a blog [80][81][82], it accepts user-submitted content (which is almost never reliable), and being owned by a limited company doesn't make you reliable. You're neglecting the fact that if we were to recreate this article the neuroscience blog is the only remotely reliable source we have, so most of the article would have to be based on its contents, as articles have to be based on reliable sources. If a neuroscientist were to write about the effects of dubstep on the brain on their blog that fact by itself probably wouldn't merit a mention in the article dubstep. In any case what you're proposing to do is closer to writing an entire article called Effects of dubstep on the brain largely based around that blog post. Wikipedia is not here to promote new or emerging concepts, we document things that are already known. Hut 8.5 22:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not guess what article I would write, because you could not know what I would write, and then I have to correct you. I am proposing to write an article called ASMR. The article will be a resource to learn about ASMR. It will be about a collection of videos which produce a certain sensation that is popularly described as "head tingles". And that there is a community that produces thousands of videos to induce these tingles. It will include citations that speak directly to that, but it will also contain references from such diverse sources as music blogs and neuroscientists who find the idea worth talking about in relation to their own fields. There will be no reference to any sort of sickness or medicine, so there will be no reason for anyone to ask for papers from medical journals. Hut 8.5, I do not have time to dedicate to argue against you. Obviously, you take pride in deleting articles based on your user page, but I think anyone who reads this discussion will realise that you have not been acting in the best interests of wikipedia's users. I hope others who see this page note the wide variety of sources, the obvious notability of this community, and most importantly, the knowledge that can be passed on by being collected in one simple article. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not "guessing" what kind of article you would write. I'm stating what kind of article you could write without falling foul of one or more policies or guidelines. Notability requires coverage in reliable sources for a reason: you aren't allowed to cite unreliable blogs, opinion pieces or high school newspapers in the vast majority of circumstances, and certainly not in an article about a scientific subject. The only thing you've provided that is even remotely close to qualifying is the neuroscience blog, so the article would have to be primarily based on that (and, as I've explained already, there are other problems with it). I think we can safely say it's unlikely there are better sources out there, since otherwise you would have brought them up. The topic is not "obviously notable", at least not by the standard Wikipedia actually uses, and the only reason the AfD got anything like as many comments as it did is that there was an external campaign to save the article. Oh, and the fact I have a few editing statistics on my userpage doesn't mean I "take pride in deleting articles". Hut 8.5 22:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I come back to check up on this, and I'm confronted with this bolded paragraph of lies that I've already dealt with? And this after I said I don't have time to dedicate to arguing with you - could you be more inconsiderate? The article is about ASMR, not a "scientific subject" (a term you don't define). The sources are not unreliable, I've already said why. Nobody is making up ASMR. There is only one high school newspaper, it is one of dozens of possible citations. The article would not be primarily based on the neuroscience blog, I've already said that and shouldn't have to say it twice. Treating others like shit because they use an IP instead of a username and because they aren't part of your boys-club is immature. The references provided by new editors are as worthy as ones provided by old ones - the page on meatpuppets specifically says not to use that as a derogatory term, yet you did anyway to refer to people who want share knowledge. The fact that you often cite policies, but never quote them, and then accuse others of wikilawyering shows you are acting in bad faith. I presume this is purely because you want to defend your original knee-jerk reaction. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 21:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now you've stopped addressing the actual issues here and resorted to personal attacks. Asserting that sources are reliable does not make them so. The article was about the effect of certain stimuli on the human brain and other parts of the human body, even if you don't think this is a medical topic you must surely see that this falls within the domain of science. Indeed you have already admitted that this falls within the domain of expertise of a neurologist. Nowhere on this page have I accused you of acting in bad faith. I did say that meatpuppets were involved in the original AfD discussion but not only is this undoubtedly true but it is relevant to closing the discussion, as administrators are allowed to discount or assign reduced weight to comments from meatpuppets. I didn't actually mean to put that sentence in bold - I typed a semi-colon instead of a colon by accident - but you jumped to conclusions. It's especially ironic that you're accusing me of wikilaywering while asking me for a definition of the word "scientific". One piece of advice: if you call someone a "liar", "inconsiderate", "knee-jerk", and accuse them of elitism, acting in bad faith, and of taking pride in deleting pages, they are going to defend themselves. If you don't want to argue with me, don't. No-one's making you. But don't tip a bucket of insults over my head and expect me to walk away. Hut 8.5 14:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You've been acting in bad faith since your first comment: "Endorse deletion review is not to be used just because you dislike the outcome" - clearly, from my first link, this review was opened on recommendation from the deleting admin. Yet straight away you had to resort to criticising me personally. That's fine, to be honest; I don't care. But making things up about the subject matter is damaging to wikipedia, which is wrong, especially for someone who is a regular here. And, seriously, is this your definition of medical: "The article was about the effect of certain stimuli on the human brain and other parts of the human body"? That is the definition of stimuli, or media, or all observable objects, not medicine. This cannot possibly be the level of debate on wikipedia. I'm not responding to any more of this. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 22:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is not an accusation of bad faith. It's a statement that your original nomination did not include any of the types of arguments that warrant discussion here. It doesn't imply anything about your motivations in posting the nomination and it is not a criticism of you personally - it is a criticism of your nomination. The deleting admin's comments don't affect this. Hut 8.5 23:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • I decided not to automatically restore it as I usually do, because its verifiability is challenged. If any other admin wants to check more carefully than my quick look & decides to restore it, I have no objection. DGG ( talk ) 20:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What needs to be verified exactly? Based on Wikipedia:Verifiability it's simply the requirement to provide appropriate sources, and we can provide lots. As a genre of video, thousands of examples exist, and articles about those videos exist too. As a named and discussed phenomena, we have articles from edited news sources. The community surrounding it is mentioned in third-party articles. As an internal mental state... that's unverifiable in its nature, but that doesn't stop there being a page on sadness or surprise. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I found this interesting article, which is very much related to ASMR, yet even less detailed.Mylon (talk) 16:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This review was suggested by the deleting admin. 62.254.76.153 (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete. Notable much like a genre of music. There's a large collection of videos dedicated to this topic and even commercially sold devices. Definitely worthy of an article. Mylon (talk) 16:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC) Edited my vote to make it more clear. Mylon (talk) 17:01, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - The initial "does not meet WP:GNG" argument by the nominator never was rebutted and the closer determine that rough consensus had been reached based on the initial WP:GNG argument. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:57, 12 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.

6 May 2012

[edit]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
UFC 27 (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Undelete: I strongly feel that this article should be brought back for further discussion. I'll probably be shot down but I feel it's worthwhile. With a little more sourcing, it could have easily complied with WP:MMANOT. Luchuslu

  • It won't have been, though. The DRV notice is there in order to ask an admin to temporarily undelete the content for review purposes. DGG is often the admin who does this. Before I reply on the more substantive matter, though, is this an isolated case or are we going to have deletion reviews for a whole lot of UFC-related pages? If the latter I suspect we may be better off taking a lot of pages together rather than having separate reviews for each one.—S Marshall T/C 01:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. The AFD is mislinked in the header; it's actually at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/UFC_27. The close accurately reflects the rather routine discussion, and the nom here provides no arguments otherwise. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse- the consensus was clear, and this DRV request amounts to nothing more than "I don't like the result". Reyk YO! 04:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse given the debate couldn't have been closed any other way, meeting WP:MMANOT is not an indication of notability. That's an essay by the wikiproject giving some guidance, essentially if it doesn't meet that then it's unlikely to meet the real guidelines,but meeting those does not mean the core guidelines are met. That essay includes some horrible things " the longer the organization has been around, the more notable." which is utterly false, age is not a notability criteria --62.254.139.60 (talk) 08:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to keep per strength and factual accuracy of arguments per WP:COMMONSENSE. Article is clearly Wikipedic based on consensus of good faith editors and factual reality. An AfD is not a vote and the calls to delete were either nothing more than WP:IDONTLIKEIT or lack of knowledge of the subject and lack of motivation to find sources per WP:BEFORE. --24.112.202.78 (talk) 14:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
History restored for the DRV discussion. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --24.112.202.78 (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC) -This IP has been confirmed to be a sock of community-banned editor User:A Nobody.[reply]
  • Endorse (Disclosure, I vote Merge on the AfD) The writing is on the wall. The policy based consensus is crystal clear. Not surprised that DRV is being treated as "AFD Round 2" by editors and IP addresses that have been known to externally canvas for supporters to their cause. Hasteur (talk) 16:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Consensus was clear at AfDNewmanoconnor (talk) 16:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse No attempt was made during the AfD to demonstrate with sources that this event is indeed an event of enduring notability and absent that demonstration it fails the WP:NOT policy. Mtking (edits) 22:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse The close accurately reflects the AfD consensus, and no arguments are provided to overturn. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse-Being that the one keep argument was essentially "undeniably notable", there really could have been no other result. That said, I would not be opposed to userfication if Luchuslu (or anyone else) thinks they can address the concerns.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undelete WP:COMMONSENSE. Plus I don't think any of the MMA editors who actually ADD TO the wealth of MMA knowledge on Wikipedia had knowledge of this AfD, as opposed to those who would like Wikipedia to scrub all references pertaining to MMA off the site. Amazing we have the same "gang" here, arguing to keep MMA off Wikipedia. WP:BATTLEGROUND AugustWest1980 (talk) 19:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Proper AfD and close, and nothing in the nomination arguing otherwise. Allow WP:Userfication for Luchuslu (talk · contribs), if he asks, to allow him to add sourcing, if he can do so in a reasonably short time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. AfD was properly conducted; no abuse of discretion. Neutralitytalk 14:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • endorse as reasonable, though I notice the results of AfDs on what to me appear to be identically weak articles is extremely variable, depending on who has the patience to deal with them; the only people consistently present are the fans. DGG ( talk ) 19:53, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Properly formatted, properly executed, and now being brought for a review by the tiny coterie of irredentist fanatics who refuse to accept the results of the whole series of MMA discussions. DRV is not a place for AfD Round Two. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Consensus was clearly to delete, there is no new information here, so I don't see a basis for doing anything other than endorsing (although userfication may be appropriate per SmokeyJoe. Rlendog (talk) 19:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per above and a brief review. Comment: there is a related RFC here. JJB 20:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC) Change to neutral, meaning that endorsing would neglect the following aspect. There is also now an RFC/U at which the argument is raised that, though deletion may be locally clear, it may be somewhat disruptive to consideration of the question of resolving compliance in hundreds of other articles, and thus not an improvement. No prejudice to an "endorse" close here, and the right of outside consensus at either RFC to undelete later. JJB 14:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Endorse, consensus was clear at the AfD, and I see no reason to believe it was incorrect. WP:MMANOT is not a policy or guideline, but notability and Wikipedia is not a directory are. I see no reason to believe that this article meets or could meet either of those, and none has been presented by the nominator. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - An easy way to move a new article on UFC 27 (UFC 27: Ultimate Bad Boyz was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on September 22, 2000 at Lake Front Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana) would be to write a user space article using enough reliable source material to maintain a stand alone article. Importance is subjective, and the AfD's consensus being based on personal beliefs makes it a weak delete. If you find enough reliable source material to maintain a stand alone article, that will show that the reliable sources think the topic was important enough and that's sufficient to meet WP:GNG. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse AFD was correctly handled. MBisanz talk 21:34, 13 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.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Pro-death (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Unsalt: Fully described at User:John J. Bulten/Pro-death. While this is straightforward new-article creation from one angle (as dab rather than redirect), from another it is appropriate to invite review of my proposed content at that link. Because of salting, the usual DRV situation does not apply; rather, the question is whether the evidence attached to my proposal is sufficient to affirm a dab page among capital punishment, death in culture, apoptosis, etc. It is my hope that this will proceed conscientiously without being tainted by its tangential relation to a current hot-button debate elsewhere on WP. JJB 21:29, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  • I have no opinion on whether to unsalt, but I find pro-death's implied contrast with pro-life concerning here. If unsalted, this page must be at least semi-protected.—S Marshall T/C 23:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It could only be a Dab page. The collection of the separate subjects would be original research, although as soon as a reputable secondary source is found I expect that a good article could be written. I would tentatively support allowing creation of the Dab page, noting that the RfD was weak, that a Dab page was proposed and not countered in the RfD, and because it is borderline interesting in itself. I would think that this request belongs at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, but I don't oppose it here. I am not persuaded that if created as a Dab page, this page should be pre-emptively at least semi-protected. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks and I don't think I have an opinion about semiprotection of a dab. Per the userpage, RFP was declined on the grounds that it should have wider discussion than a single admin, and I tentatively agree. If there were ever to be an article beyond a dab (which I don't strongly favor at this moment), it would need to be understood as required to stay a set-index article or broad-concept article, due to the source weight I identified, and to be semiprotected; then the appropriate entries would be moved to "pro-death (disambiguation)" per WP:WPDAB process. JJB 00:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
  • For whatever it's worth, agreeing with both SM and SJ above. - jc37 01:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsalt and allow semi-protected DAB creation - I see the value in listing things like human death: war, suicide, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, and jihad on one page. Kamikaze and seppuku also should be listed and there probably is others, and creating the DAB will allow others to build on the pro-death concept. The draft DAB giving predominance to capital punishment meaning of pro-death seems right. Listing pro-death topics beyond human death seems correct, too. Also, the draft DAB asserting that pro-death is a pejorative term for abortion and listing it among several pejorative terms handles that troubling issue well. Allow DAB creation, but semi-protect per S Marshall. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks all. Maybe a speedy close as I see no objection? JJB 01:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Give that someone down the road may object, it's better to get a seven day close (after 21:29, 13 May 2012) to give strength to the consensus. The human death aspect is interesting. Besides mother nature, there's only a few ways a person' seath comes about - either self choice (e.g. suicide) or choice of others (e.g. execution), and the choice of others can be/seen as positive or negative. Good DAB. Makes you think. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsalt - The user page makes a good case that this is an appropriate dab term. Rlendog (talk) 19:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsalt as a good case has been made that an appropriate article/DAB can be made here, but we definitely need to indefinitely semiprotect and take a heavy hand against any POV pushing or edit warring. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:58, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I would cautiously oppose the re-creation at this time. Given the recently concluded Arbcom actions and RFC on abortion titles, I would be concerned with this new DAB immediately becoming a new battleground for this dispute. This may be the rare case the the temporary exclusion of a page would decrease editing disputes and it isn't essential as the search function provides a similar service. MBisanz talk 22:01, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that there is a very specific plan for creation at this point. Think we can split the difference and allow the creation, then fully protect for 3 months or so to let any kerfuffle from the rfc die down?? - jc37 03:29, 14 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.

5 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Category:United States Supreme Court decisions that overrule (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This deletion occurred while I was busy with final exams, and I was not notified. This category was intended to include U.S. Supreme Court cases that explicitly overrule a prior decision of that court. Every category member was included on List of overruled U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which the nominator appeared to have discovered and not seen fit to list for deletion. The discussion was based on two misconceptions that could have been easily corrected had I been notified.

First, several commenters were under the mistaken impression that something other than a prior decision of the same court could be "overruled" ("the preponderance of cases decided are likely to overrule something, be it a legislative or congressional enactment, an executive or administrative decision, a ruling by a lower court, or an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court itself"; " Virtually every Supreme Court decision can be said to either overrule or uphold something"; "too many possible interpretations"; "non-defining"). This is flatly incorrect. A court does "overrule" a statute or regulation when it declares that statute or regulation unconstitutional, and it does not "overrule" a regulation when it sets it aside as inconsistent with a statute. Nor does the Supreme Court "overrule" lower court decisions. It reverses (or vacates) them on direct appeal or abrogates them in later cases. Even if there were any ambiguity in this term (which there is not), that would only have been grounds for renaming, not deletion.

Second, one commenter took issue with the inclusion criteria, claiming it was too difficult to determine whether one Supreme Court decision overrules another. While there is room for some debate at the margins, both the list and category were limited to explicit overrules, i.e. situations where the Court uses the magic words "Today we overrule [decision1]" or similar. In the example given by the commenter (whether Employment Division v. Smith overruled Wisconsin v. Yoder), the answer is clearly no. Smith distinguished Yoder. While some commentators argue that there is tension between Smith and Yoder, all reasonable legal writers would concede that Smith did not explicitly overrule Yoder. The fact that some Supreme Court decisions are regarded as in tension with earlier, un-overruled decisions of that Court is insufficient reason to delete this highly useful category for the vast majority of overrules which inarguable and unambiguous (e.g. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce with the unmistakeable language "[Austin] should be and now is overruled."). Further, if it is contended that overrules are irreducibly subjective, the proper move would have been to delete the list itself (and, dare I mention, its other category), not the delete the category which helpfully leads readers to the list and similar cases. Savidan 18:32, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Relist Seems not to have had sufficient discussion. This can easily happen at xfds, and probabnly all of them except AfD should be combined. DGG ( talk ) 20:25, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The close was correct, but Savidan has a good argument that the debate was defective, in that the participants failed to distinguish between the technical legal meaning of "overrule", which was used in the category name, and the meaning of that word in everyday speech. Relist, preferably with a suggested rename, since the present name is not very intuitive to non-lawyers. T. Canens (talk) 22:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It has come to my attention that the category page was never properly tagged with {{cfd}}. This means that the CFD is entirely invalid. Speedy overturn and relist; there's no need to wait seven days when the process itself is completely defective. T. Canens (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy overturn and relist per T. Canens. Interested parties have no notice if the category isn't properly tagged.--Chaser (talk) 01:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • DRV's job is to see that the deletion process is correctly followed. It wasn't, so that's a clear speedy overturn and relist.—S Marshall T/C 08:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy overturn/relist Pretty clear case per T. Canens, I confirm that I've looked at the deleted category history and that it does not appear to have ever been CfD tagged. --joe deckertalk to me 20:45, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn due to reasonable request (without criticism of the closer). It should not be allowed that a CfD proceed without the Category page being tagged, does this happen often? The CfD !vote numbers are impressive, but each rationale looks easy to respond to, so I can imagine a relist may be productive. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:58, 6 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.

4 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
A-fu Teng (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The page was listed for deletion on April 2nd, and deleted on April 11th or so, after 2-3 votes for delete questioning the lack of sources and the reliability of sources. It was relisted on April 12th and the creator of the page (which is me) have added 3 credible and properly cited sources in the Chinese language which clearly showed that the person met criteria #1, #2 and #4 on WP:Music. Since it was relisted, there has only been one vote on the discussion, which was for keeping the article, with the reason being that sources have been found and provided, and notability has been noted. However, on April 28th it was deleted by another admin on the grounds "Fails WP:MUSIC and general notability. Consensus is to delete", neither accurate statement. I have since inquired about the article on that admin's talk page, calling out the lack of research on his part, but he diverted the issue and refused to correct it. For this reason I ask that the deletion be looked into and overturned. Timmyshin (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse my deletion I reviewed a number of translated sources that were either not reliable, or they did help all that much in generating real notability - some included press releases and local concert dates. None of these met the requirements under WP:MUSIC. What I did find is that they could be "the next big thing", but aren't yet. As such, the reasoning is valid (this was, of course, explained already) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:53, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm no Chinese speaker, but the last two sources appear to be published by reliable news outlets and both have a byline. The coverage in both cases is short, but not so short as to not count (and are solely focused on the band). That they aren't yet the next big thing isn't an issue. Just coverage. I'd like to wait for others who are fluent to comment, but I'm leaning toward overturning to either a relist or NC. Hobit (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, I took a look. The problem with these "sources" is that most are quite trivial. The title of this source, given in the debate, for instance, translates to something like "Teng Fu-ru wants to eat buttered pineapple bun". Hardly something you want to cite in an encyclopedia article. This source has two paragraphs. First paragraph is basically a hearsay statement from some radio host that the President of ROC bought Teng's album. The second paragraph is actually about Teng: less than a month since her debut, she has had concerts in more than twenty schools, did five album signing events and netted 7000 fans (apparently by counting attendants at the concerts and signings). Of the three sources cited in the article, I'm not familiar with the publisher of this one (it's from Malaysia), so I can't say definitively if it's an RS or not, but it's a fairly new magazine, and the website doesn't really strike me as reliable. The whole article is basically in the form of "About X, Teng said '...'", so I'm not sure you can call it third-party either. This piece is basically about one of her appearances on a TV show. This one is basically a slightly more elaborate version about her school concerts and signing events. Overall I'd say most of the coverage are trivial, and these sources are simply not the sort of things from which a BLP can be written. Endorse. T. Canens (talk) 19:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • relist Here's my take on the discussion. We started with "there are no sources". Then someone added sources and someone else (who is known to have a clue) found those sources sufficient. The closer deleted based on their own reading of the sources (it was a reading not even vaguely present in the AfD). What the closer should have done is !voted and let someone else close. Further, while Google translate is no substitute for actually language skills (I had thought this was a band article, not a BLP for example), the sources seem reliable and perhaps up to WP:N. So I'd really like to hear from others fluent in the subject and language. Hobit (talk) 10:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very weak endorse or relist. I've been holding back on this because I have a lot of respect for Bwilkins and I respect T Canen's analysis of the sources but I have to agree with Hobit. Bwilkins should have !voted in this AFD not closed it. By analysing the sources and forming his own opinion about their reliability and the depth of coverage he became an "interested party" ie no longer "neutral". I can't fault him too much for that though because I have made the same mistake a few times myself. The big trout however, has to go to the article's creator who for some reason chose not to participate in the AFD but instead yell at both of the admins who closed it. I particularly didn't like the more qualified admin cheap shot he made to Sandstein's talk page and I have to credit Sandstein for restarting the AFD despite it. Timmyshin, Sandstein wasn't lazy. "Google searching" is something that those who !vote in the AFD are suppose to do and a million google hits don't mean shack jit. Among those million google hits there has to be reliable sources. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to relist, considering the course of the discussion and the (small) number of the votes, I don't think this specific discussion needed a "supervote" in response to the Sandstein's relist and to the last keep vote... more properly it required an analysis of the sources provided by Timmyshin. I've not a strong opinion about the notability of the subject (even if I'm tendentially for keep), but anyway I would have considered more appropriate an extension of the debate and that BWilkins shared his objections in it. And if it had to be closed so early, probably a no consensus would be a more appropriate outcome. Cavarrone (talk) 12:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a BLP where I understand the sources to be inadequate, so I'm not comfortable with undeleting it.—S Marshall T/C 17:23, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I already did undelete, right at the start. The possibility of inaccuracy is whether the claims for importance are too strong, rather than that the material might be negative. This is a very innocuous situation. We can hardly have a relisted discussion without an article to discuss. DGG ( talk ) 22:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry, I was unclear. I was trying to express a complex thought succinctly and I failed. I wasn't being accusing towards you for the temp-undelete. What I was trying to do was oppose an "overturn" outcome without using the word "endorse". I don't feel that that debate really did lead to a consensus to delete, but I also don't want a marginally-sourced BLP to be restored.—S Marshall T/C 23:04, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per T. Canens. Many indirect mentions of the subject do not support a BLP. There may be a non-biographical article that could be written. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:11, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that's probably going to end up being the way forward. If this were a band, I think we'd be above the bar. I'd argue that, per our guidelines, a single person act is no different than a band. But, I realize that's probably not going to actually work in this case. So is there a model for working with single performers as an "act" but not a BLP? Hobit (talk) 02:19, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given "Her first album, Yuan Lai Ru Ci (原來如此) sold over 24,000 copies in less than a month.[2] It sat atop the KKBOX sales charts for three weeks, breaking the record of debut albums in Taiwan.[3]", I think an article on this album is most likely. There are two album articles at zh.wikipedia.org These might be translated. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Closed based on consensus. To overcome, write a draft in userspace using enough reliable source material to maintain a stand alone article. So that this discussion has context after access to the article is terminated, A-fu Teng's website is here. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse The close was within administrative discretion and as SM mentions, there are potential BLP issues with the poor sources. MBisanz talk 22:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The only !vote that came after the sources were added felt the sources were enough. Could you explain how deleting in that situation is within administrative discretion and isn't a supervote? Hobit (talk) 00:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Presumably they would have returned to alter their comment given how many times it was relisted or they would have commented here. Letting the closing admin say "there are enough sources now so their comment is invalid" would have been a supervote. MBisanz talk 02:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Really? Would you mind my asking them to come here and indicate if your (rather bold) assumption about their behavior is correct? One !vote indicated that non-English sources were likely to exist and another !voted solely on the basis that the article was unsourced. Hobit (talk) 13:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • In all honestly I'm _really_ concerned a bureaucrat would have this opinion on the reading of consensus. In general at an AfD if people !vote one way and things change and that !vote no longer applies that !vote is largely ignored. There was only _one_ !vote after the relist and improvement and that was a !vote to keep. Given that at least one, and maybe both of the deletion rationals no longer applied, I don't see how you can claim consensus for deletion. A BLP exception maybe (and that's a massive stretch IMO) but that's a very non-standard way to read consensus. Hobit (talk) 13:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I may be getting the context wrong, but assuming the allusion to bureaucrat relates to RFA, I believe it is fairly well established that earlier comments at an RFA continue to be valid, even if new material is brought forward in subsequent comments by other users. There is no "supervote" there either that would let a crat say "Oh they would have changed their minds if they came back and saw the new stuff so I get to discount their vote based on my view of the new material." It's up to the earlier users to come back and say "In light of the new evidence, I've changed my mind." MBisanz talk 13:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Also, nowhere in Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators or Wikipedia:Bureaucrats mention discounting of comments based on the passage of time in a short process like AFD or RFA. Over months-long RFCs, maybe I could see the justification, but not here. Zippy specifically said they would reconsider if the sources were brought forward and did not change their comment, which would indicate they did not see a need to change their view based on the new alleged sourcing. MBisanz talk 14:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just for the record this is what I would have done. If I didn't vet the new sources I would have closed it no consensus based on Joe Decker's comments. If I did vet the sources I would have !voted (not closed) "keep" or "delete" based on my evaluation of the new sources. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:24, 14 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.

3 May 2012

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2 May 2012

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1 May 2012

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
User:Cla68 (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

There are so many reasons why this MfD should not have been closed early. I'll try to enumerate them as briefly as I can:

  1. User:Balloonman is not neutral with respect to this topic, he could reasonably be considered involved by looking at his extensive comments on the topic at Jimbo's talk page (which is the initial discussion that sparked this whole event) and ANI. He has an opinion on this topic and it is reasonable to ask whether he is expressing his opinion by shutting down the discussion.
  2. The reason given for the early close was forum shopping, presumably because there is currently an RfC active on the topic of updating a guideline to clarify that advertisements on user pages are not permitted. The RfC is not specifically about Cla68's user page, even though Cla68's user page is what inspired it. The RfC is about updating the wording of a guideline (WP:UP) to match a policy, the MfD is about deciding whether the content on Cla68's user page is in violation of that policy (WP:SOAP). These are two different discussions, and there is no problem with having them simultaneously. The result of the RfC does not have a direct effect on Cla68's user page. The primary policy it is purported to violate is WP:SOAP, not WP:UP which is only a guideline.
  3. Balloonman refers to the fact that previous discussions on the topic of Cla68's user page ad have resulted in no consensus. The ANI discussions were shut down with a suggestion to continue the conversation elsewhere. This is what we've done, but now this discussion has also been shut down early. How are we expected to ever find a consensus one way or the other if we can't have a discussion last more than a few days before being shut down?
  4. Balloonman refers to the fact that there is clearly a lack of consensus in the current discussion at the MfD. Given the lack of consensus, why would the MfD be closed as "speedy keep" as opposed to "no consensus"? And why would the discussion be closed at all? What part of WP:SK encourages us to close discussions early if there is no consensus?

Closing down this discussion early without a thoughtful closing summary by an uninvolved admin is a slap in the face to the dozens of editors who took time out to contribute to it. It sends the message that their time was wasted and their input was not valued or considered by anyone. I respectfully ask that this discussion be quickly reopened, not closed until it has been open for a full 7 days, and closed by an uninvolved admin who provides a neutral summary of the discussion. If that is not possible, then I think the MfD should be relisted. ‑Scottywong| express _ 20:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse Yes, we should smack Cla for the breaching experiment, but we don't need to re-open this particular iteration of this broader policy debate. MBisanz talk 21:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse While Scottywong makes valid points, I think reopening or relisting the DRV would be needless drama. The matter was clearly not going to result in a deletion, and Scottywong and others of his opinion, I think will have ample opportunity to express their opinions before all this is done. The forum isn't that important.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Pointy MfD for a pointy post on a user page - but there's not going to be a consensus to delete Cla's user page. (note: I opposed the MfD for whatever that disclosure is worth). — Ched :  ?  21:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reopen/Relist though there's no chance it will happen. The discussion probably would've been judged as no consensus at best based on numbers alone...though I don't see an argument based on policy to keep the advert. --Onorem♠Dil 21:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stand by my decision I stand by my decision. This is a clear case of Forum Shopping. First, it goes to ANI where there is clearly not going to be a resolution and views support Cla's actions. Then a discussion gets opened at Jimbo's page, where again it is clear that no consensus existed to do anything. Then an RfC gets started. When the RfC got started, that should have been the culmination of activity. Let the broader community get involved---which is what an RfC is for. But RfC seems to be going in favor of modifying the COI policy and (dare I say) to possibility of paid editing. So three forums down. Let's try MfD. Again, another forum where we can have the debate and try to reach a conclusion that wasn't going to materialize on any of the previous pages. The fact that this is clearly going no where and is nothing but a feeder discussion from the previous three (or 4 if you include a second ANI report) is the sheer size of this MFD. 63K bytes in a matter of days---a clear plurality (if not majority) which argue to keep the page. 63K when normally there are just a handful of editors who chime in on MFD's? It is clear that the people participating in the MFD are the same as the ones whom have chimed in everywhere else to no avail. The people who were commenting there are going to be the same one's coming here, and the DRV is going to be yet another battle ground over an issue which has no clear consensus. With an active RfC that was started 22 hours before the MFD, Let the RfC do it's job---and let's not let people start multiple forum shopping campaigns.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 21:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put notices on the MFD talk page and Cla's talk page that the MFD closure was at DRV---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 21:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, with how obvious it is that this MfD will not result in anything significant, I guess my question has to be: why is there such a rush to close it? Additionally, we have admins who are divided on whether or not the user page violates WP:NOTADVERTISING. So, my next question would be: where is the proper place to discuss whether the top of Cla68's user page should be forcibly deleted? ‑Scottywong| gossip _ 22:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Because the issue is clear forum shopping and we keep issues open for way too long around here when real people are involved. This project has become heartless in that it forces issues to stay open due to procedure when they should be closed earlier. Take the RfC on Fae as an example. There was no reason to keep that RfC open for 30 full days, but people insisted on it and refused to close it despite the fact that it had turned away from being an RfC on Fae and turned into a baiting match between a few people relative to Wikipedia Review. Yet we kept it open not cognizant of the fact that there is a person on the other end. This MfD is another case where we're keeping issues that are better off put to bed alive. We don't need to have multiple places where we are discussing the same issues with the same voices.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 00:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that any real people are being hurt by letting this MfD run for 7 days, but whatever. What about my second question? ‑Scottywong| chat _ 01:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Simple, pick a forum. Any one of the four places where this was brought up COULD have resulted in the page being delete or sanctions being brought against Cla... but in none of them was there anything close to resembling consensus. The reason behind Forum Shopping is that there might be multiple pages which could be reasonably be used to obtain a response. Forum Shopping is intended to prevent people from wantonly going from forum to forum seeking a favorabel response. This MfD is exactly what Forum Shopping is intended to prevent---people going from page to page seeking a consensus when they failed to get one on a previous page.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 02:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But there was no single person (or coordinated group of people) that was going around from forum to forum seeking a favorable response. There was Jimbo's page, which is clearly not a place where binding decisions are made. There was ANI, which was shut down with the recommendation to discuss elsewhere. Then, there was the MfD which is the next logical place. The RfC is a lateral discussion. Even if the RfC were wildly successful, it still wouldn't mean that we would be able to remove the advertisement from Cla68's user page without discussion somewhere. The only reason I started the RfC was to clarify the guideline, that's it. The RfC is not a discussion about Cla68's user page. So, I ask again: Multiple admins are divided on whether Cla68's user page is a violation of policy, therefore acting unilaterally to change Cla68's user page would likely result in wheel warring. Please tell me a specific place where we are supposed to discuss the specific issue of Cla68's user page, where you or anyone else won't shut down the discussion right in the middle of it. And please make sure that the place you recommend is sufficiently public so that any consensus obtained there won't be invalidated by not being publicized widely enough. ‑Scottywong| communicate _ 02:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter. When there have already been 3 discussions on the subject---and no consensus exists---and an RfC on the subject has begun... then you don't start a fourth discussion. Let the RfC run its course. Four plus discussion on 4+ pages on the same subject hoping to get different views is ridiculous---and the epitome of Forum Shopping/Disruption.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 14:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC is not specifically about Cla68's user page. I'm going to stop discussing this because the level of WP:IDHT is getting unbearable. ‑Scottywong| yak _ 15:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reopen/Relist This MFD was created by me as a response to a discussion on Jimbo's talkpage. That of course was an inappropriate place to discuss the deletion of a few lines of another user's page. As the user refused to allow the removal of an advertisement from their userpage, an MFD is the appropriate process to have a community discussion about removing that portion of the page - NOT just the entire userpage. Indeed, when submitted, I was 100% unaware of the RFC, however, it is obvious that the RFC is general whereas the MFD was specific to this individual situation. It was therefore valid, and per SOP's. The RFC was generating significant comments from the Wikipedia community, and there was neither a consensus nor WP:SNOW keep at the time of closing - indeed, it was still receiving comments. The close - by ANY administrator - was therefore 100% invalid, and must be reversed. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm going to add: relist is likely the better option: this close has prejudiced any opportunity for proper further discussion of the current listing. And, as many !voters mistakenly misunderstood that MFD can be used to request removal of a portion, the MFD should be re-listed and allowed to run its minimum timeframe (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse reluctantly. Balloonman should not have closed it himself, he should not have closed it prematurely and I'm not at all sure that a claim of forum shopping is a proper rationale for prematurely closing a well-used MfD. However, we are where we are, and I can see no point in reopening the MfD given that it would be very unlikely to come to a different result (whether "keep" or "no consensus", which amounts to the same thing). I think we have to act pragmatically here. Prioryman (talk) 22:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist. DRV's task is to see that the deletion process is properly followed. It is beyond dispute that it has not been properly followed, both because of the early close and because of the closer's substantive involvement in other discussions related to this very page. T. Canens (talk) 22:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist. T. Canens has got it in one. There was no benefit to the encyclopaedia in terminating the debate early and preventing good faith users from having an input. Indeed the out-of-process early close has done what out-of-process early closes always do in controversial situations: it's created even more drama. The closer showed extremely poor judgment.

    (Edited to add:) DRV regulars will know that I've been commenting here for many years. This is the first time I have ever felt the need to say "The closer showed extremely poor judgment". It's not something I would do lightly.(/Edit)

    Also, I want to be 100% clear that it is quite unacceptable for the inevitable lack of consensus here to lead to an "endorse by default" outcome. That would lead to a first-mover advantage for a deleter who closes down debate in controversial situations, which is entirely contrary to this page's purpose. The rule at DRV is: "If the administrator finds that there is no consensus in the deletion review, then in most cases this has the same effect as endorsing the decision being appealed. However, in some cases, it may be more appropriate to treat a finding of "no consensus" as equivalent to a "relist"; admins may use their discretion to determine which outcome is more appropriate." I very strongly exhort the closer of this DRV to consider that rule carefully and apply it with more discretion and good judgment than has so far been shown.—S Marshall T/C 22:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • 'Endorse and keep Per Ched and MBisanz. This DRV is pointy and largely directed against Bman. This is not the place for that.PumpkinSky talk 22:49, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:POINT sure does get thrown around a lot lately by people who apparently don't understand what it means. If this DRV is pointy, that means two things: first, that it is disruptive, and second, that there is a point I'm indirectly trying to prove by starting the DRV. Neither of those are true in this case. If I wanted to be pointy about this situation, I would put a blatant advertisement on my user page and wait for everyone to start discussing it on ANI. ‑Scottywong| babble _ 23:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse If ANI can't get rid of it try Jimbo. If that does not do it try an RfC. If that does not do it try a MFD, if that does not do it try a DRV - I am sure there are a few options left - maybe the BlP noticeboard or black vans. Anyway the closure of the MfD does not preclude the ultimate deletion of the offending material after the RfC has finished its course. If that does not come to any conclution an MfD is doomed anyway. If you know the RfC will go against the deletion of the material then trying to get it forced through on a smaller audience is WP:POINTY. Agathoclea (talk) 23:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse and Keep I'm going to use the nominator's own words here to explain why this early close was the best option.
"Closing down this discussion early without a thoughtful closing summary by an uninvolved admin is a slap in the face to the dozens of editors who took time out to contribute to it. It sends the message that their time was wasted and their input was not valued or considered by anyone."
We already have a discussion on this issue at Jimbo's page and the RfC started by Scottywong's (the DRV initator here, surprisingly). What would truly be a waste of time and input is having the same debates over and over on many pages, rather than focusing the debate into one forum dedicated to getting an overall consensus on the issue. As I said in another page, if the point of the RfC is to clarify policy, and it decides that content like Cla68's is OK, then the MfD was essentially a waste of time because you would end up having discussed and discussed just to have another group decide differently. Dozens of editors have weighed in with their own variants of what they feel is and is not acceptable, and the last thing we need is to have the debate spread all over just so different people can end up coming to different conclusion. We need a single, clear, unambiguous consensus that the community can endorse rather than competing forums. The MfD nominator knew the other discussions were ongoing and brashly decided that he needed to speed up the consensus process saying "somebody had to have the balls" to nominate it for deletion. Personally I could give a crap which way this debate goes. I don't have a dog in this fight and I personally think its a lot of fuss over not much. BUT, I realize it is important to have a clear decision in a way that gives all the parties a chance to weigh in and come to a reasonable conclusion. That won't happen if people split up the debate. If your own RfC is insufficient to the task of coming to a resolution on the WP:SOAP policy, I would also suggest you close it and move the debate to a proper forum ASAP. Some have also said this is an "obvious" violation of WP:SOAP, but my reply to that is that if it so obvious, why has it generated so much debate? In the end, our goal here should be that we have a clear recognition of what is and isn't proper content, even if that means we use WP:IAR to allow or disallow some things. Having one discussion in one place with a clear goal and a clear resolution will give any admin a clear POLICY foundation to go to Cla68's page to either protect or delete. At this point in time, I don't see that clarity existing. -- Avanu (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per Agathoclea and Balloonman. C'mon now. Killiondude (talk) 00:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Partially because the ed. has removed the most offensive portion--the price quotation of $1000 for writing a featured article. But MfD can in practice be used to remove content from a page: people can say quite clearly, that unless you remove the content, the page will be deleted. We've done this a number of time with other offensive content. But there are already enough discussions already in progress--this p. may have been the incentive for inducing people to realize the nature of the problem, but it's not the place to resolve it. DGG ( talk ) 01:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse: The silliness continues. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 03:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist, the close deviated substantially from established process. I find merit in all four of Scottywong's numbered points. I am not at all convinced by Balloonman's invocation of WP:FORUMSHOP: this MfD and the RfC overlap, but their scopes are distinct. If the MfD had been closed very early – nipped in the bud, before "63K bytes" of discussion accumulated in three days – or if there were consensus that it was forum shopping, I would consider that rationale more favorably. Flatscan (talk) 04:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is simply knowing it was under discussion. ScottyWong started his RfC at 20:06, 26 April 2012, and over a day later, Bwilkins posted a note on Jimbo's page two minutes after he started the MfD, the comment being "Somebody had to have the balls - I have nominated his userpage for deletion". This went unnoticed in all the discussion for a couple days until Carrite posted a comment of simply "WP:POINT", at which point *I* realized what Bwilkins had done and went to close it, having been participating in the RfC and wondering why in the world Bwilkins was doing this. I believe you might find substantial overlap of comments and even editors in the two debates, and so the question I again ask is simply 'why?' This is best resolved in one place, not multiples. I'm puzzled that ScottyWong is interested in re-opening this considering that it is his RfC that was started first. I could guess that maybe since Bwilkins and ScottyWong seem to share a similar viewpoint, they are more likely to support each other's chosen approach to removing the stuff from Cla68's page.
To quote FORUMSHOP: Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards, or to multiple administrators, is unhelpful. It doesn't help to try different forums in the hope of finding one where you get the answer you want. (This is also known as "asking the other parent".) I believe many editors would say we are essentially raising the same issue, which is "Do we let editors have any sort of self-promotion on their user page?" Our Consensus policy (where FORUMSHOP lives also, btw) says "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." Since the RfC deals with the 'wider scale', it would be a waste of time for the MfD to discuss and eliminate the content, only to have the RfC to come out with a policy change that favors Cla68 and re-instates it. I'm puzzled by the reactions, because I'm fairly certain we all understand that this is how it works, unless we appeal to WP:IAR. Let's get together on this, let's have one big debate, and let's get it settled as a community. -- Avanu (talk) 06:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bwilkins has already said in this discussion, "Indeed, when submitted, I was 100% unaware of the RFC." Do you have evidence to dispute that? --Onorem♠Dil 07:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot present evidence of what was in Bwilkins' head. However, I can look at his contribution history on this matter.
  • 17:25, 25 April 2012 (UTC), AN/I started by Orange Mike on Cla68
  • 19:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC), Orange Mike starts a thread on Jimbo's page
  • 12:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC), AN/I closed by Wehwalt
No consensus for any administrative action, and that's really why this page is here. Undoubtedly much to say about paid editing and feel free to say it! Someplace else.
  • 18:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC), second AN/I by The Red Pen of Doom on Cla68
  • 18:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC), second AN/I closed by Jayron32
The greater policy question can be handled at another venue (let me suggest WP:VPP) however there was not any consensus for administrator action during the last discussion Red Pen participated in; in a few hours that is unlikely to change. Let me suggest moving the discussion over the policy issue to the more appropriate venue. (my bold)
In the text of that debate 28bytes wrote "If you think his userpage – or a particular part of it – should be deleted, you'll need to nominate it at MfD., he also mentions that the Cla68 User page has been protected by an admin.
  • 20:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC), RfC started by ScottyWong
  • 20:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC), ScottyWong notifies the thread on Jimbo's page of his RfC
  • 11:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC), first Bwilkins comment on closed AN/I discussion
  • 19:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC), second Bwilkins comment on same closed AN/I discussion
  • 22:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC), MfD started by Bwilkins
  • 22:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC), Bwilkins notified the thread on Jimbo's page of his MfD
From the time Orange Mike started the first An/I, Bwilkins had posted 5 times on the AN/I board on other topics. After the RfC began, until he started his MfD, he posted 3 more times, 2 of those on the topic relating to Cla68. However, almost immediately after he posted his MfD (2 minutes), he tells the thread on Jimbo's page "Somebody had to have the balls" and notifies them about his MfD.
Could he have missed ScottyWong's mention of the RfC? Most certainly. At that point there were at LEAST 4 separate discussions going on about the User Page of Cla68. Bwilkins was reading and posting to the AN/I (8 times), and he almost immediately posted at Jimbo's page after his MfD, so he knew about that also.
BUT, lets assume good faith first. We had at least FOUR separate threads, all discussing essentially the same thing. And let's assume Bwilkins missed the RfC because of that. Doesn't that show that the idea of consolidating all these discussions has merit? -- Avanu (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Consolidating the discussions might have had merit...but it doesn't justify your accusation. You said he knew. You said that you figured out what he'd done and moved to stop it. I don't care what the time frame was. Seems both AN/I discussions concluded with a 'go away and talk about this somewhere else' result. Jimbo's talk page is nice for debate, but is not at all the place for decisions to be made. If you want to justify the close based on forum shopping, you should probably be prepared to give better evidence than you have above. --Onorem♠Dil 08:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which part of this sentence do you find to be in error? "The MfD nominator knew the other discussions were ongoing and brashly decided that he needed to speed up the consensus process saying 'somebody had to have the balls' to nominate it for deletion." -- Avanu (talk) 08:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say he didn't know other discussions had taken place. I said I'm AGF that he didn't know about the MfD in progress. You figured him out though...and called him on it. Good for you. /golfclap. I'm unwatching every page related to this bullshit. I'll be watching for the RfC on the policy page to start since the one on the guideline page isn't doing anything worthwhile. --Onorem♠Dil 08:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you read what I wrote. "let's assume Bwilkins missed the RfC because of " all 4 threads. The point is that there's too many threads already, why revive one more? Like I said, maybe he just got excited and started another thread. It wasn't intentional. OK, so that's fine. I don't see why we have to get so upset. This isn't really that big a deal except I'm just trying to avoid having things go off track any more than they already have. I really have no animosity at all for Bwilkins and I think he is trying to do the right thing too. It isn't personal. -- Avanu (talk) 08:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Avanu, when you attempted to close the MfD after two days, 56 users had made 124 edits, none of which were attempted closings. By Balloonman's close, the numbers had increased to 79 users and 186 edits. There were complaints about the perceived misuse of MfD, but that is a large number of users who were aware of the MfD and participated normally. Flatscan (talk) 04:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist Where do I even begin? The MfD was closed prematurely by someone involved in the discussion based on a rationale not found in the discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn (Relist). As per Tim. Forumshop is not a WP:SK criterion. Administrative shortcuts attempting drama reduction are counter-productive. (it's not going to be deleted, but seven days debate per nomination is what we do). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Out of curiosity, what do you call seven days of divisive debate when you know the page won't be deleted? Unproductive?
    • There is no cardinal law that a page nominated for deletion needs to be run through a seven-day process, particularly in this case where the issue was receiving (and continues to receive) plenty of attention elsewhere. Whether or not this meets the exact definition of WP:FORUMSHOP or any other page isn't really relevant; what's relevant is that this was a failed attempt to force the community's hand through a bad deletion nomination. Why you feel that it needs a second round is beyond me. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are many unproductive MfDs. We don't speedy close for unproductiveness.
MfD debates are rarely divisive. This is because they are contrained to a defined question.
We frequently tell people at MfD that MfD is not for policy debates. Making that point clearly, and having it agreed to in the tail end of discussions, is very effective in halting scope creep.
The debate might have been early closed as "Wrong forum", with a pointer to where the real debate is or should be. It would have been a strech I think, but possibly acceptable if done by an UNINVOLVED admin and MfD regular. It could have been a stretch of a WP:SNOW close, citing the limitations of MfD on policy matters. However, it is not OK that a high profile, involved, non-regular at MfD jumps in to shut down a process against the process rules.
If there is no serious continuing argument that the page should yet be deleted (I think not), then maybe I should be calling for a "Slap the closer", instead of "Overturn", as long as it is clear that this sort of close is not welcome. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist Tim is exactly right. And further, I agree with SmokeyJoe that shortcuts like this almost always make things worse, not better (I've got a similar quote from him on my user page). Hobit (talk) 13:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually that quote points to an interresting case. The second AFD someone posted a "strong delete" comment and then later noted that the article should not have been renominated as quickly. Agathoclea (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hobit: Err, aren't you creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? The reason that early closures fail is that people like you come out and vote to overturn and relist, right? Then you point and say "see! these early closures are always a bad idea!" That seems rather silly.
    • A lot of people in this discussion point to the arbitrary seven-day discussion period or other arcane and esoteric rules/policies/guidelines/procedures. But that completely misses the point. At some point common sense and pragmatism should prevail, surely? It's a matter of looking at the merits of the deletion nomination and the discussion closure and figuring out whether either was improper. In this case, the deletion nomination was a very poor idea. (Do you disagree?) Closing the deletion discussion was then a Good Thing. What's the issue here? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • On the contrary, closing the MfD was the self-fulfulling prophecy. By closing the MfD, you render all of the discussion useless, and then you point at it and say "look how useless all that discussion was, good thing we closed it early!" Even if you believe it wouldn't result in anything, I still don't understand the rush to silence the discussion. What/who would have been harmed by allowing it to run a few more days? The MfD would not have been useless if it had been closed by an uninvolved admin who could have summarized the discussion, and recorded the current state of the consensus (or lack thereof) at the top of the page. Instead, we have an overly bolded sloppy mess of a closing statement from someone who is decidedly not neutral, which does not summarize or even resemble any of the discussion contained within. The discussion was absolutely productive up until the point that Balloonman touched it. ‑Scottywong| converse _ 15:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • (To MZMcBride) Yes, to some extent that's right. At the same time if DRV supports admins closing down discussions out-of-process, we are going to get a lot more out-of-process actions. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. And I think the right place is to follow process unless IAR clearly applies (the vast majority agree not following process help). That's not the case here. Also, having a fair and open discussion without shutting it down early tends to make those that "lose" feel better. They may have lost, but they had a fair shot. And fairness ("FairProcess" if you will) is important in a place like this. Hobit (talk) 16:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • That most of the DRV regulars I recognize – Timotheus Canens, S Marshall, SmokeyJoe (though he softened to Trout), Hobit, and I; but not DGG – support overturning should indicate that the breach of process was severe. If I remember correctly, this level of agreement is pretty uncommon. Flatscan (talk) 04:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - It's apparent that this behavior of closing down discussions early (after tons of people have already participated in the discussion) is becoming quite popular. In my opinion, this needs to be nipped in the bud. Do we need a policy/guideline/essay which strongly encourages us to avoid closing discussions which already have a defined end date, and which already have a certain level of participation? This type of behavior does not solve any problem, and only serves to generate drama. (Case in point: ↑↑↑.) ‑Scottywong| prattle _ 18:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist Firstly, this was not a case of forum shopping. The RfC was about the practice of userspace advertising in general, the MfD was a community discussion on what to do about one particular incidence of it. That's not forum shopping, that's having the proper conversation in the proper forum. RfC is for deciding on general policies and principles, MfD is one avenue of enforcing them in specific cases. Secondly, it is correct that Balloonman was not neutral or uninvolved. While he did not comment on the MfD, he certainly has commented on the issue. I would certainly not close an AfD if I had previously expressed an opinion that it should be kept or deleted, even if that comment was outside the AfD. That gives a clear appearance of conflict of interest. Thirdly, to close a discussion early due to a lack of consensus is exactly counter to what we should do in such a case—if we haven't reached a consensus, that means we have more talking to do! I see some fortune tellers here stating that a consensus never would have been reached, but I've certainly seen discussions that were originally at a tipping point swing decisively one way or the other. That's why we have the discussions in the first place, and that's why we don't shut them down rather than hashing out our differences. This issue isn't going to just go away, and we need a better decision on how to deal with it than "No consensus and shut up about it." But in closing, I'll note that DRV is ultimately to decide if a closing followed process. Neither a lack of consensus, nor a suspicion of the nominator's motives when many others agree with the nomination, is a speedy keep criterion, and it is well established that the closer of a contentious discussion should not only refrain from participation in the discussion, but be uninvolved in the underlying issue as well. The fact that people are endorsing an out of process close by an involved administrator, just because they liked the outcome, rather saddens me to see. We didn't used to do things like that, and we certainly used to not tolerate them. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist It is categorically unacceptable to have an involved editor to close a contentious discussion. In this case, the discussion was largely between keep !votes, who argued there was no consensus per the RfC, and remove/delete !votes, who argued regardless of the legitimacy of the service, advertising is prohibited. For an editor to prematurely close adopting one of these perspectives without consensus is highly problematic. --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:27, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • overturn and relist. Closing a contentious discussion early is a bad idea. Having an involvd editor doing so is also a bad idea. The combination is a really, really bad idea. JoshuaZ (talk) 06:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist per WP:INVOLVED. Prematurely closing an MfD is not the prerogative of an involved editor. Discussions are important not only to determine consensus but also to allow the community to have a voice. Relisting would allow a greater portion of the community to weigh in on an important issue. Gobōnobo + c 11:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - The RfC is the more appropriate forum for discussing and attempting to achieve consensus on statements like this on a user page, not an MfD of a user page for an active user in good standing. Rlendog (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The wording on Cla68's user page has changed to a much more neutral disclosure that is less focused on advertisement. It's my opinion that, if this change isn't reverted (and it hasn't been for a few days), then a new MfD on his user page becomes unnecessary. It's not my intention to withdraw this DRV, because I think it is important to get a ruling on whether this type of closure is inappropriate. However, should the DRV close with a result to relist the MfD, at this point it would probably be more practical to close it instead as something like "no prejudice against speedy renominating", i.e. without an automatic relist. Since the offending material has been more or less neutralized, an MfD on the page would no longer be relevant, in my opinion. Others may not share that opinion, however, and that is their right. ‑Scottywong| express _ 22:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, just because the content has now changed doesn't mean the close was appropriate at the time. ‑Scottywong| babble _ 06:02, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But there's no point in relisting it, because the content the AfD was directed at is now gone. SilverserenC 07:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The ad still contains promotion for the "service" and contact info, and is still inappropriate. For the record, I still support a relist given such. A disclosure should consist of "I edit at times for pay," the details of exactly which articles the editor has been paid to edit, and nothing more. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:33, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Under what policy, Seraphimblade? WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesn't apply. So please point to a specific policy statement or invoke Wikipedia:Ignore All Rules and explain why. -- Avanu (talk) 22:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is not promotion at all and doesn't fall under advertisement. So what policy is actually being violated here? SilverserenC 23:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is advertising—"Contact me at FOO for BAR service" is an ad regardless of price info. And Wikipedia is not for advertising is policy as long as I can recall. There's a tremendous difference between a disclosure and an ad, and a disclosure doesn't even give a hint of solicitation. This is well past a hint, it's advertising, and so it's not acceptable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:56, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good summation of that section title, but I should have been more clear in my request. Can you specifically cite a sentence in the policy that applies to this situation? Thanks. -- Avanu (talk) 00:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I sure can! The sentence that makes it clear that it applies to the page in question: "Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages." (emphasis added) This being the case, the following sentence is clearly intended to promote the value of the author's services: "For additional qualifications, please review the rest of this editor's user page." The following sentence then indicates how to book such services: "You may contact this editor via email (click here)." (links excluded) That is clearly a promotion of and advertisement for the user's services, and advertising is prohibited. Can you please indicate if you still disagree, and if so how? Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:19, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for checking that, only one problem, that is the summation of the policy, and not really the specifics of the policy text. It serves to sum up the content of the entire WP:SOAP into one paragraph, but doesn't specifically address the particulars of the actual policy. You might just continue down a few sentences where you found that and you'll see the bit I've been pointing toward since my first question of you. -- Avanu (talk) 00:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Problem is that WP:SOAP generally is not applicable when the issue is project related. The issue is outside policy as currently written. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per T. Canens comment. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per WP:BURO; trout Balloonman for closing while involved. The statement's gone, people. There's nothing to see here. Even if it was still there, the MfD was obviously headed for a no-consensus anyway. --NYKevin @153, i.e. 02:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn to WP:NPASR  The close was a procedural close, and procedural closes are normally WP:NPASR.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist - The MfD early close deviated from process substantially and disenfranchised those editors who held a view different than the early closer. Discussions are one of our most important tools and the predetermined terms of consensus discussions are intertwined with our most important policies. The process needs to be completed to term to continue the sense of fairness that we've worked hard to establish. And this is especially true for very controversially issues. The close should be overturned and the MfD relisted. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse per "shit nobody cares about". Highly unlikely to result in a deletion, so WP:BURO as well. Time to move on. Tarc (talk) 15:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not relist while the early closure was out of process and actively unhelpful the appropriate action at this point is a trout and not a relist for a discussion that is arguably misplaced and certainly superseded by new developments. The moral is that it is usually better to let disputed discussions run their course, even if they are misplaced and strictly unnecessary because a early closure will just shift the dispute to DRV which is hardly the desired outcome. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:29, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and relist premature closure by involved editor. Mo ainm~Talk 11:49, 10 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.
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