Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions

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[edit] "It is interesting" section

Does reading this part sound horribly wrong to anybody else? I can't quite put my finger on why... 161.49.198.69 17:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I too have reservations about that section, and the problem is that it uses a straw man argument. "I can insert two coins horizontally into my nostril" is not an "interesting fact" in the same sense that "interesting" usually turns up as an argument. I think that even the most hard boiled inclusionist would want to see a biography with such a claim deleted, probably speedied.
Usually, "interesting" refers to some verifiable or semi-verifiable sentences which may or may not be encyclopedic, but it is usually a more solid claim than the coin filled nose. If someone argues "Keep, I find it interesting that the Guiness Book of World records lists this person as the guy with the world's longest fingernails", we have a comprehensive argument based on a source, and comparing it to an unverifiable bit of original research like inserting coins into one's own nose is stretching it. (Please note that I am not saying that having long fingernails is necessarily a good qualifier for encyclopedic notability.) If you can argue for why an article is interesting, and why this interesting stuff belongs in Wikipedia, you have the foundation for a reasonable argument. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd support doing away with this section. It strikes me that 'interesting' seems to be being used with the same connotation as 'notable' by both newbies and some of our more inexperienced editors. (not that I'm not one of those ;) ) And to be fair, there's a s generalisation given the diversity of nominations that appear at AfD and smacks too much of your own personal dudgeons. If the certain amount of overlap in the subjects- independant sources don't write about things that aren't interesting in the more profound sense of the word.
My other problem is that something being interesting, rather than it being something you like, might actually make it a good hook to attract more people to edit Wikipedia. But ultimately, the message we do need from this section is already present in WP:ILIKEIT, so it's redundant at best, and confusing at worst. --54x 12:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wording: disinterested versus uninterested

The meaning of "disinterested" as being "impartial, unbiased" was supported by 88–89% of this usage panel. Therefore, changed to "uninterested" = not interested. Unimaginative Username (talk) 04:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] deleting WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS

i completely disagree with WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. here's a hypothetical situation.

some editor - editor 1 - nominates all articles about subject A for deletion. when another editor - editor 2 - points out that subject B - which also has articles on wikipedia - meets the same criteria for deletion that subject A does - editor 1 cites WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS.

that's a problem for a few reasons. for one, if editor 1 refuses to delete subject B for deletion even though the reasons given for subject A apply to it just as easily, it's liable to create resentment. it's liable to give the impression that wikipedia is just singling out articles and it really does make it seem like editor 1 hates it. i mean, why else would editor 1 nominate subject A for deletion but not subject B? if the deletion criteria apply to both but editor 1 only choses to delete only subject A, what other possible reason could there be for that other then editor 1's alleged hate for it?

also, if subject B really is different, then it would be beneficial for editor 2 to know how. this would better allow editor 2 to understand editor 1's arguments. but if all editor 1 ever does is cite WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, such understanding is not going to be forthcomming.

anyway, for those two reasons, i think WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS should be deleted. any AfD that it's used in is degenerated by it's use. 209.209.214.5 15:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

As a note, this has been proposed twice before, and been rejected at MfD. (See the links above). However, I do agree with you, but I don't think there's a consensus for change. --Bfigura (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Ie, see here. --Bfigura (talk) 16:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
that's disappointing. since my own objections are a bit more broad, though, might they be more successful? i do agree that it's uncivil to suggest an article is crap (and highly POV, weasel wordy, etc), but i don't think any name change would be sufficient to fix it. i think the idea is rotten to it's core (so to speak) 209.209.214.5 16:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Possibly, but since the last MfD wasn't too long ago, I'd give it a bit before discussing it again (otherwise it might just get shot down on the "We just discussed this" theme. As far as being rotten, do you mean the OTHERCRAP link, or the broader category of the OTHERSTUFF argument? (PS, since you do feel strongly, why not register an account?) Best, --Bfigura (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the outcome is going to be any different, even with the "broader" objection. Terms like POV and "weasel words" are designed to keep articles neutral, but obviously when we are discussing articles, templates and what-have-you for deletion we are encouraged to contribute with what we think. That being the case, people are inevitably going to say, "You should not delete this one just because article X got deleted," or "you have to keep this one just because article Y was kept." This link, and others like it, are simply a handy shortcut to what people are going to say anyway. If your problem is with the argument itself, removing the link isn't going to help. Register an account, as Bfigura advised, and participate in AfDs. That's the best way to get your own points across. ◄Zahakiel► 23:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
The discussion seemed to focus on the potential offensiveness word "crap" rather than the substance of the shortcut. Dismissing the argument that there are other crap articles is one thing, but the guideline really doesn't seem like it's telling editors to ignore precedence. If I have Fake1 AfD'd and my response is "hey, False1 is worse and it hasn't been deleted", that's a flawed argument. However, if I have Fake1 AfD'd and my response is "hey, False1, Bogus2 and MadeUp3 are completely analogous and the result of their AfDs was overwhelmingly keep" - that argument has merit and shouldn't just be discarded with a shortcut to an essay (as long as the articles really are analogous). Consistency isn't a bad thing, and it seems kind of ridiculous that a court of law will accept precedence, yet Wikipedia won't. Torc2 (talk) 22:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RUBBISH is rubbish

I originally wrote WP:RUBBISH to show what it says in the first and last paragraphs, but today it's horrible - confrontationally written with unnecessarily bolded sections, an overly long explanation, there's too many examples and too much redundant text, so it doesn't fit the simple, concise model that the rest of the article follows.

I'm proposing moving it back to the version that I rewrote[1], combining with the changes to the final paragraph and the nice analogy "Ask the question, "If a thousand editors worked all day on this article, would it still qualify for deletion?". Comments? -Halo 15:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I have trimmed down the section and toned down the confrontational tone of that section. In the "clean it up yourself", I have tried a more encouraging and less accusatory tone. Is this better? Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plain votes and "Per nom"

The essay states that votes without reasons and votes "per nom" are to be avoided. I disagree. It frequently happens that the nominator has given a perfectly thorough and comprehensive explanation. Plain votes and votes "per nom" mean that the commenter finds the nominator's reasons compelling, and has nothing further to add.

Raw votes have value, because one measure of a nomination's strength is the number of people who find it persuasive. Indeed, if I am reading a deletion discussion, I'd rather not plough through dozens of comments that repeat the same points in different words. Commenters shouldn't feel the need to add anything, unless there are additional reasons that the nominator omitted. Marc Shepherd 16:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It's all in the context of the debate. Imagine a situation where the nominator states that the article lacks sources, that he has not managed to find any more, and the article fails WP:V. In the beginning of the debate, these are good and convincing arguments, and if nothing dramatic happens, all that is needed is a handful of people to support the nomination to put some weight behind it, and show that people have seen it and endorsed the deletion. In this situation "per nom", "fails WP:V" and so on are not too bad. These votes don't contribute much to the discussion, but in a "nothing" debate, a "nothing" contribution is OK.
But let's say the debate takes a turn. Someone has located a source, probably obscure, or in a foreign language, to verify a significant portion of the article. Now the debate shifts, is the source reliable? Is it non-trivial? Is the subject encylopedic? Maybe there is some discussion over the source's independence, and real disagreement ensues. Throwing out a "Delete per nom", or the assertion "fails WP:V" in this situation is useless in the midst of the discussion at this point.
Again, it's all in the context. This essay was written to make people think about what they contribute to deletion discussions, not hard and fast rules about arguments to avoid at all cost. It was not meant as a repertoire of insults to throw at people in order to invalidate their arguments (although some people use it this way unfortunately). In the first, clear-cut situation of the unsourced article with no evidence of the truthfulness, and prior to any revelations, a brief support of the nom is fine, and if a random editor X pops in to throw a "read WP:JUSTAPOLICY" at them without considering the article or discussion, then random editor X will just look like a booked up nincompoop who didn't understand the book.
Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Per nom can apply in various situations. That's mostly why this isn't a very popular essay with the regulars of Wikipedia because of its indiscriminate nature. Here's where I think the AFD process is flawed: a nominator can make a book of an AFD rationale against a popular article, and he will be right. However, with all of the bases covered in the rationale, if nobody said "per nom", or "per WP:POLICY", this would leave only the keep !votes. Let's say we get twenty Keep !votes that are WP:ILIKEIT, WP:HARMLESS, and WP:ITSFUNNY. Only two or three Delete !votes, including the rationale, which happens to be extremely well-written, and consisting of various policies and guidelines as well as a few common-sense examples. Now, depending on the admin, quantity can be more of a factor in an AFD than quality (except in the case of geniuses like Mailer, but I won't go there). The likelihood of finding an admin inclusionist, if not a sympathizer, within the body of admins who happen to close a deletion discussion is pretty high. The AFD will be closed as a snowball keep. Does it happen? Unfortunately, yes. That's why people vote "per nom" - to show that the nominator's arguments are more sufficient than those voting keep.--WaltCip 19:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "That's what categories are for" and "Delete and merge"

I'd like to add the following sections about arguments I frequently see at AfD and CfD:

[edit] Lists vs. categories

Example:

  • Delete, That's what categories are for. IHateLists 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, Better as a category. ILoveCategories 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, A list is better than a category for this. IHateCategories 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, This list violates WP:OCAT. NoOverlistification 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes specifically addresses arguments like this:

"These methods should not be considered to be in competition with each other. Rather, they are synergistic, each one complementing the other. For example, since editors differ in style, some favor building lists while others favor building categories, allowing links to be gathered in two different ways, with lists often leapfrogging categories, and vice versa. One should not be deleted in favor of the other. Instead, each should be used to update the other. This provides two core methods of navigating Wikipedia. See the navigation menu at the top of Wikipedia:Contents. The "category camp" shouldn't dismantle Wikipedia's list-based navigation system, and the "list camp" shouldn't tear down Wikipedia's category system."

Sometimes, a category is nominated for deletion for the reason that a list would be better, and then the same list is nominated for the reason that it would be better as a category! If both deletions are successful, the information is needlessly lost.

In the case of categories, there is an overcategorization guideline which describes specific reasons for deleting a category. Note that this guideline specifically does not apply to lists. On the other hand, most policies which do apply to lists would also tend to apply to categories—for example, if a list would promote a particular point of view or is based on original research, so would the equivalent category.

However, if a list is composed entirely of random or alphabetized bluelinks and offers no navigational advantage over an equivalent category, this can be a valid argument for deleting a list and keeping the category.

[edit] Delete and merge

Example:

  • Delete and merge. MergistDeletionist 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL, under which all textual Wikipedia content is licensed, requires attribution history of all content. Because of this, when we merge content, we are required to keep the edit history of the merged content. Deleting a page deletes the edit history, and if any content were copied from the deleted page, this would violate the GFDL. From the help page on merging content:

"Merging — regardless of the amount of information kept — should always leave a redirect or, in some cases, a disambiguation page in place. This is often needed to allow proper attribution through the edit history for the page the merged text came from. Superfluous redirects do not harm anything, and can be helpful in finding articles, e.g. from alternative names."

The correct action to recommend in this case is Merge and redirect (or Merge and disambiguate). If you are thinking of nominating an article for deletion because you wish to "delete and merge" it, instead see "How to merge pages"; it is not necessary to bring the article to Articles for deletion in order to do this.

.

Does anyone object to these? If not, what sections should they go in? They don't seem to fit well into any of "Arguments without arguments", "Point of view", "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", or "Fame and shame". DHowell 21:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I'd say redirecting with merges rather than deleting is a big enough issue for its own page, actually, and raising the profile of merges so that we don't have these divisive deletion debates is an important issue on its own. (amusingly, I was thinking of polishing up a rant I'm drafting for that purpose) I'm with you on lists and categories though. --54x 13:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Positive wording!

I'm gonna go through and reword this whole thing into how to avoid these arguements. Right now it's a collection of negative statements, which makes the whole essay confrontational, which is part of the problem that leads to these arguements in the first place! I appreciate the frustration these cause, but perhaps we'll have more impact with positive wording? If you strongly disagree, please revert and we'll discuss it here. --54x 13:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC) OK, I'm done. Let me know what you think, and whether I've stayed true enough to the original essay. --54x 14:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Doczilla 22:07, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inherited notability: key features

Notability of a parent entity does not imply notability of the subordinates, but it does imply notability of subordinates which are simply broken out for size or to address key features. For example, Arrakis itself isn't a notable thing, it's just a world in a fictional universe. However, Arrakis is the primary setting in the Dune universe which is very clearly notable. In cases where an article is essentially an extended sub-section of a notable topic, especially in fiction, it does inherit the parent's notability, and that's the way Wikipedia has operated for years. Policy should not be written which would invalidate many of the good articles on Wikipedia that have long fit well into the collective body of the encyclopedia.

This introduces the "key feature" test for inherited notability. Is an article (e.g. Spacing Guild) a key feature of an established, notable article (e.g. the Dune universe)? Any debate about the removal of such an article should include the answer to that question. -Harmil 17:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Since no one had any concerns, I'll add this in a shortened form. -Harmil 19:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
This vastly needs to make its way into a guideline or policy. It's ridiculous to judge sub-articles for WP:N or WP:V in complete isolation. Torc2 08:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I deleted the section, this essay is held in high standing linked from several policy/guideline pages and is often quotesd in AfD debates. To have a section that directly contradicts existing policies and guidelines that have been formed by consensus devalues it completely. Quoting WP:FICT "Sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability". The reason that sub are generally not refered to in Wikipedia polcies and guidelines is that they are generally just an excuse to add unverifiable, unsourced trivia into the encyclopaedia. [[Guest9999 17:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)]]
It didn't contradict it; it only qualified it, as it rightly should have. It seems inappropriate to change this without any discussion while it was being used in several AfDs, specifically ones you are currently involved in. Torc2 (talk) 21:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I have reinserted the section. It has been there for nearly a month without complaints and has been referenced by AfDs since its insertion. In effect, consensus was reached and would have to be reached again to change it. At this point, discussion about removing it should come before action is taken. Torc2 (talk) 22:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I have re-removed the section, there was no real discussion to establish consensus when the section was put in. It does not qualify anything, just directly contradicts policies and guidelines. It also contradicts its own section header by effectively saying that notability is inherited. If a discussion shows there is truely a consensus for the section to remain then fine, even if it devalues the essay as a whole. [[Guest9999 (talk) 17:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)]]
      • This issue is a blind spot in Wikipedia policy that needs to be addressed sooner or later. WP:SS tells us to split sections out of articles when they grow too long, then WP:N often results in deleting them because the sub-article doesn't necessarily have "notability" independent from the main subject. The overall effect is a Procrustean bed, and it causes Wikipedia to be unable to cover certain subjects in any depth beyond 50 kilobytes. This problem will have to be resolved, but it'll have to be done via policy changes instead of trying to fix it in this backwater.--Father Goose (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
      • And I'm going to revert it, and hope you take the discussion back here before reverting it back. Consensus was acheived when everybody watched the section be put in, nobody objected, and it was used in AfD discussions. You are attempting to change something that's already in place, so the onus is upon you to reach new consensus. Torc2 (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Guest9999 has formally objected and Father Goose has now expressed reservations. I will add my own reservations about the current wording and it's implications of inherited notability (a concept which has been repeatedly discussed and rejected). The fact that no one objected at the time creates a presumption but not a guarantee that consensus was achieved. Furthermore, consensus can change at any time, especially when the prior consensus was created by a small group in a relatively isolated discussion and is opposed when the topic begins to get wider visibility. Given the new evidence, it's time to pull the section pending renewed discussion. That said, I agree with Father Goose that this page is not the right place to make the final decision on this particular question. Rossami (talk) 22:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Father Goose's reservations was that this might not be the right forum for the change, not with the change itself. The change was made and nobody objected for a month - that establishes a new consensus per WP:CCC. 9999's revisions now have to be seen as a push for consensus change (which I object to), not as the status quo, and should be discussed as such. Torc2 (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • One editor proposed and enacted the change within a day - I have no objection to that, it is being bold which should be encouraged. However when a decision is made alone by one editor I do not think it can be seen as a change in consensus by the community. Especially when that change goes against many other established policy and guideline pages. If the change is made I would propose removing the section entirely - the paragraph esssentially says that in a significant number of cases notability is inherited, meaning that it wouldn't really be an arguement to avoid. [[Guest9999 (talk) 23:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)]]
  • Consensus isn't marked by the change itself, it's marked by the fact the change was accepted, integrated into AfD discussions and totally unchallenged for so long. The idea that it's a violation of other policies isn't an absolute fact, just your interpretation. It is the opinion of many editors including myself that a topic article can span more than one Wiki article due to size and style limitations. Refusal to recognize that simple pragmatic necessity - already in practice all over Wikipedia - is how we end up with AfD perversions like one letter from a multi-page list being nominated. Torc2 (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • A month is not that long a time considering it's one paragraph in quite a long, relativeky stable essay. I would bet that in the last month most people who have refered to WP:NOTINHERITED have refered to it assuming that it still says that notability is not inherited not noticing the chnage rather than accepting it.[[Guest9999 (talk) 09:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)]]

(outdent) I oppose this change too. The point of these essays should be to make it clearer how to interpret policy and guidelines, and this change, as pointed out by Guest9999, contradicts WP:NOT and WP:FICT, effectively saying that the way to interpret them is to ignore them. If this proposal were to go through at the higher levels required, it would give a free pass to a potentially unlimited amount of triva and detail, which is not in the interests of the encyclopedia. It is very much my view that if a subject deserves multiple articles it will have the sources to support them, and, try as I might, I can see no reason that this should or could ever be otherwise. Miremare 22:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Guest9999, et al., for now, and about this specific proposal. I do think that the underlying issues need to be addressed, however. Something at least vaguely along these lines needs to be said, without contradicting other, longer-standing guidelines. I.e. a minor clarification, a thrown bone, not a change in policy. That said, it probably need not be done at WP:AADD - this may not be the best home for a such a clarification. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This keeps on getting referred to as though it were a guideline

People should remember that it is not a guideline, and quite rightly so. In AfDs I sometimes use arguments that are listed here, such as WP:WAX.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 01:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the goal of an article like this should be to accumulate the knowledge of those discussions that have already been hashed out. In that sense, referring back here is a good thing, it just shouldn't be taken as a set of edicts. -Harmil 20:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It was only created for ...

Shortcut:
WP:ONLYCREATEDFOR

Please read also the introduction of this essay on making solid arguments in deletion discussions if you came via a direct link to this subsection.

Example:

  • Delete - it was only created as a promotion page / as an attack page. –DefaultToDelete 04:04, 4 April 2004 (UTC)

Examples: Someone creates an article on a politician, including negative information on them (an attack page), or about their company to promote it positively (an advertising/promotion page). If it happens that the politician or company are in fact notable and the article is not a complete waste of space, or a copyvio, then the article should be improved, rather than deleted. (See Wikipedia:Deletion policy).

Once created for whatever reason, an article takes on its own life. The topic survives or is deleted according to our article inclusion criteria - notability (WP:N), suitability (WP:NOT), verifiable reliable sources, etc. It is AFDed, PRODed or SPEEDYed if it is dubious, but kept and improved otherwise. There's a warning to this effect on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest related to self-promotional article creation. Deletion processes are always available if it is likely that non-notability, unsuitability, or lack of reliable sources can be established. But "It was not created for genuine reasons" is not a valid deletion argument. AfD is not a form of punishment for real or perceived infractions, regardless of the motivation of the editors who have worked on the article previously.

If there is no reasonable possibility of improving an article, it should be deleted, often via WP:SPEEDY. Pure advertising and simple attack pages are both subject to speedy deletion, per WP:CSD.

This section could be boiled down to three of its sentences:
  • "But "It was not created for genuine reasons" is not a valid deletion argument. Once created for whatever reason, an article takes on its own life. The topic survives or is deleted according to our article inclusion criteria - notability (WP:N), suitability (WP:NOT), verifiable reliable sources, etc."
I am also concerned about the WP:BEANS possibilities here as well... ("Well no matter why I started it, look at what they did with it, so now I have my COI/POV/PA article, and it will be kept..")
While at first I considered merging the three sentences above to a different section, I think that this is probably something that should be a case-by-case basis, and probably not listed on this page as to be avoided as a "general rule". - jc37 05:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
that's a pretty major change--you may be right, but it will take some thinking. DGG (talk) 06:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Did some checking ("whatlinkshere" for the shortcut):
Five times quoted, and these as arguements about notability and cleanup (and usually as one of several "links"). I think that this one can probably be left off the page. (Or perhaps merged into "surmountable problem", which has some rather similar comments.) - jc37 21:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose new section

Something Like:

Vandal target
Delete - if kept the article would be a vandal magnet.
Delete - the article is frequently vandalised and has had to be protected several times.
Sometimes an article is nominated for deletion that has been frequently vandalised and some editors may feel it is not worth the effort of up keep. However vandalism should not be a reason to delete an article, if the most frequently vandalised pages were all removed from Wikipedia we would not have pages on many prominent politicians, political movements or other notable, encyclopaedic topics. If an article is being vandalised then the vandalism can be cleaned up or, in extreme cases, the page can be protected; removing the content because of vandals would be to let vandals dictate the content of Wikipedia rather than millions of good faith editors.

Any thoughts? I have seen this arguement used in a few AfDs and don't think it has much merit, I relaise the woridng needs some work and maybe something of a counterpoint. Sorry if this is covered somewhere else or if the issue has come up before. [[Guest9999 (talk) 10:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)]]

no objections, will be bold, wait for someone to revert. [[Guest9999 18:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)]]
Sorry, but I didn't notice your request for comment until you added it to the page. I'm afraid that I do disagree with your proposed addition. While we would never delete a major article like GW Bush just because it's frequently vandalized, we make that decision knowing that the article itself is very high value to our readers. Fighting vandalism is expensive. It is a serious drain on the most important resource the project needs - the time and effort of Wikipedia's core of experienced editor/volunteers. Every edit reviewing and reverting vandalism represents time spent maintaining rather than improving an article.
By the way, it's also fairly easy to keep the GW Bush article vandalism-free because so many people keep that page watchlisted. The vandalism/value calculation is not nearly so clear for articles on marginal topics. Some articles just never get the necessary critical mass of informed reader/editors who will watchlist the page and keep it free from vandalism. In those cases, we have real problems with vandalism sitting undiscovered for too long. If the page is particularly attractive to vandals for some reason and is of only marginal value to our readers, then the cost-benefit may well support deleting a page rather than continuing to try to maintain it.
Protection can help reduce the cost of anti-vandalism but it does not reduce it to zero. Remember that according to the protection policy, protection is not supposed to be applied for longer than is strictly necessary. Protection reduces some vandalism but it also increases the maintenance necessary to make sure that the protection is still applied, appropriate, etc. And again, it's maintenance on a page that's unlikely to get the necessary level of continuous review. Protection is not a magic bullet that makes deletion unnecessary in these cases.
While I would never consider "vandal magnet" to be a sufficient reason to delete a page, it can be a contributing factor in the overall evaluation of whether the encyclopedia is better off with or without the page. Rossami (talk) 20:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
If you just agreed that it is not sufficient reason to delete a page, then why would it be considered an okay argument to use in a deletion discussion? If not sufficient reason for deletion, sounds to me like it would still be something to avoid using as a reason. At any rate, the hypothetical situation you propose seems unlikely, since it's hard to imagine why vandals would be attracted to anything that is of such small interest as you describe. Such an article would neither give them the attention they desire or allow them to tear apart something they personally dislike greatly. Unless what they happen to dislike greatly is something incredibly obscure... which wouldn't make much sense, so again, not really likely. --Bishop2 20:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
"Sufficient" means that the one argument alone is enough to justify the deletion of a page. It can, however, be a contributing factor to the decision. Not enough to justify deleting the page on GW Bush but sometimes enough to push a marginal case over the line.
As to it's frequency, it is unfortunately entirely too common. Vandals are highly attracted to pages that we miss for long periods. (Vandals of this sort are not necessarily motivated as you describe. They are sometimes motivated just by bragging rights - "I got one over on big, bad Wikipedia" - or other personal reasons.) If you want some good examples, look in the deleted history for all the Uncyclopedia-related vandalism. I wish that it were as unlikely as you describe. Experience proves otherwise. Rossami (talk) 20:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I still think that in general argueing based on vandalism in general is something that should be avoided(if the section was restored I would add in something about Keep votes that argue don't let the vandals win). Can you give any examples of articles that meet the inclusion criteria but have been deleted due to vandalism concerns, is it really common practice? Policy seems split on the one hand WP:VAND says "Do not nominate an article for deletion because it is being vandalized." and on the other "Vandalism that is not correctable" is given as a reason for deletion. When exactly is vandalism not correctable anyway?[[Guest9999 02:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)]]

[edit] Possible Addition to 3.2 "I don't Like it"

Something like: don't delete reliably sourced material just because it criticizes or makes look bad your favorite (nation state, soccor club, author, politician, etc.), or reveals favorable information about your most hated (nation state, soccor club, author, politician, etc.)

I and others I've corresponded with over the last year have run into some really phony baloney excuses for deleting reliably sourced, mostly critical information (and some positive info about "hated" parties). THere seem to be organized partisans of one member of one of those categories above and they seem to be OUT OF CONTROL. And I'm sure there are other articles or collections of articles where the same issue arises.

Sure there should be balanced information, but when any and all criticism of a favorite entity - or positive information about some "hated" entity - is systematically deleted by roving teams of wikilawyer-cronies, the whole premise of wiki is defeated. Being able to send these people to WP:IDONTLIKE would be at least SOME relief! If you've got another solution, do tell! Carol Moore 05:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

Sending them to WP:NPOV would seem to be more appropriate. That page covers your concern in far more detail than could ever be discussed in this essay. Rossami (talk) 20:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Major, major rewrite

I would like to see this entire essay rewritten into a prose-format explanation of how to form good arguments and critically examine the arguments of others, rather than just a series of rebuttals to particular arguments. It seems like shortcuts to this essay are way, way overused in deletion discussions. Also, having the ability to casually throw a rebuttal by linking to this essay without examining the content of the argument is IMO a poor idea which does nothing to build consensus. It encourages the idea that the opinions of people who make unsound arguments don't count.
Furthermore, this essay appears to be an inclusionist/deletionist battleground of thought, with some of the portions of the essay appearing to be much different from others in ideology.
It seems like it would be a much better idea to explain how to make good arguments instead of simply providing talking points on how to defeat arguments. - Chardish 20:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that is its present purpose -- a series of pre-fab pro/anti arguments of varying levels of acceptance. What you propose, "how to make good arguments", sounds better, though I wonder if that could actually be achieved. Pat responses can be much more alluring.--Father Goose 21:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually I think it would be good if we good rid of a lot of the rules and focused more on this golden rule:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes

== Step 1: Focus on content ==

Focus on content, not on the other editor. Wikipedia is built upon the principle of representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias. When you find a passage in an article biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not possible, and you disagree completely with a point of view expressed in an article, think twice before simply deleting it. Rather, balance it with your side of the story. Make sure that you provide reliable sources. Unreferenced text may be tagged or deleted - see Wikipedia:Verifiability.

In entry above this I suggested a solution to biggest problem I run into: people who have some political or social opposition to negative info about something they are FOR or positive info about something they are against, so they just delete it using all sorts of wikilawyering excuses. I copied above to the TALK section of one such page.
But as long as this page and these lists exists, let them be clear and deal with real issue. The "cruft" concept is just too general and I've only run into it twice in a year, above and today someplace.
Carol Moore 21:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc
it depends on the topic. Dealing with lists, and popular culture, it shows up very frequently, and a discussion of its misuse needs to be maintained.
But a section about political/religious/social POV as an argument is certainly relevant, so could you prepare some clever examples. DGG (talk) 07:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, got point on cruft. So you think a separate section needed as opposed to adding to IDONTLIKE IT? I guess it WOULD be more clear and more convincing if people could just link to WP:DontDeleteOpposingViews instead of vague and humorous/not as serious sounding IDONTLIKEIT. Of course, if I used the examples I wanted to that would lead to a whole lot of IDONTLIKE IT :-) But examples from the three or four MOST controversial topics would be useful. I can think of three off hand in same category, but will look for others in other categories before put up a draft here. And repeat reference to WP:NPA.

In fact that reference to WP:NPA probably should be included in a one sentence introduction to the whole article to set the tone of cooperation. Should I make that a separate proposal and go for it ASAP?? Carol Moore 15:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

[edit] "It's covered enough in other articles."

I've run into this one once or twice, most recently on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frances Bean Cobain (2nd nomination). It seems like a totally irrelevant argument: articles on similar topics, or separate topics that are linked by a common element such as a band, team, or historical event are bound to have overlapping information. Any thoughts? Torc2 (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

  • That's in a policy or guideline somewhere, or used to be. Hiding T 14:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Can't find it any more. It used to say something like articles overlap, which is good, but be careful not to have too many articles which contain overlapping information where wikilinks to a more specific one will suffice. Hiding T 15:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFD is Not Cleanup

Kind of getting tired of this being thrown around in AFD debates. Particularly a problem in debates about fictional works. If an article is nothing but a al arge plot summary with no real world information or context this argument often gets thrown into the mix. AFD is cleanup for articles that hopelessly fail policy. This section needs to be rewritten to show that there are times when an article simply can not be improved. It also needs to be pointed out that if you are going to argue that an article can be cleaned up you need to provide some sort of evidence of this in the AFD debate. Ridernyc (talk) 01:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the onus is on the AfD submitter to show that the article can't be cleaned up; stale unfixed tags is the best way to do that. Evidence that it's beyond hope has to be established beforehand if that's going to be argued. It needs to be tagged for at least a few weeks, if not a couple months, before it is sent to AfD with the argument that it's hopeless. AfD starts a relatively short time bomb ticking on articles, and editors deserve more than five days (less however long it took them to find out about the AfD tag) to improve the article. Torc2 (talk) 01:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree and that's a separate point. It's also impossable to prove a negative, therefore it's up to people to prove there is evidence. This needs to be brought into the AFD debate, how something made it to AFD is kind of meaningless once it's there, and simply saying "AFD is not cleanup" really provides nothing meaningful. It's pretty easy to simply link to a few sources to prove your point in an AFD debate. It's not like you have to rewrite anything just show the sources are there that can be used eventually. Ridernyc (talk) 01:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Many editors object to using AfD to force the issue on cleanup, and using AfD to get someone else to do the cleanup because you are not inclined to do so is very poor form at best. Cleanup issues should be tagged and discussed on the talk page first. Too many editors go directly to the nuclear option at AfD without making a good faith effort to get an article cleaned up, or even to say specifically what needs to be done. When I see an AfD discussion, where the issues were raised at AfD first, and the talk page is still blank, I question the good faith of the nominator. Dhaluza (talk) 01:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Assuming that a user has nominated an article at AfD, without first trying to improve it, then the discussion ought to remain open while editors (such as me) try to fix the article up to WP:HEY. Such AfD's should remain open for at least the full 7 days, and not be closed per WP:SNOW. Also, we should use the appropriate (rescue) or (inuse) tags, and other notices to alert the responsible WikiProject, to alert the interested parties. Bearian (talk) 01:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
At present the rule is 5 days. i would be delighted to have support in changing it to 7. DGG (talk) 04:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Part of the issue with "afd is not cleanup" is that we aren't supposed to merge or redirect whilst an afd is in progress. An afd can in those instances hinder cleanup, and remove those two options from editor's toolboxes and even the debate in certain instances. Listing at afd means you've already considered merging and redirecting as options and disregarded them. If you haven't, you shouldn't be listing. So it is frustrating to have things listed for deletion, especially sub-articles which should typically be merged or redirected somewhere per most of our guidance. And I support a seven day listing, FWIW. Hiding T 14:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
in practice a merge would so complicate the discussion that if this is going to be the solution, the simplest thing to do is to advocate for "keep and merge" as the close, and if such should be the consensus, then do it. DGG (talk) 20:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • One problem is that the person who nominated an article for AfD may not know of an appropriate merge target until someone points it out in their AfD comment. Torc2 (talk) 21:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • You know what bothers me about AFD-as-cleanup? Even when I do feel like I might be able to clean up an article—and so I spend hours on LexisNexis integrating sources—it sometimes ends up getting deleted anyway. This is extremely discouraging. Essentially, there is not much incentive to improve an article that might have a chance of getting deleted anyway, since Wikipedia needs so much work in general that it is so painful to see good work be wasted. It's not much work to throw around "AFD is not cleanup" (just as it is not much work to nominate an article with a one-sentence boilerplate rationale). From the inclusionist's (perhaps eventualist is what I really mean) point of view, this is risk-free (takes no work that may be wasted) and appropriate for such nominations. I think that is why it is seen so often. On the other hand there is certainly a problem that there is a lot of garbage on Wikipedia and cleanup tags are so pervasive. Perhaps a more serious intermediate between being one of the 9999999 articles in cleanup and being on death row would be appropriate; we have WP:FAC and WP:GOOD but no WP:BAD. — brighterorange (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It's an essay

Please reread the tag at the front of the page. It's an essay. It's not a guideline, it's not policy. Happy editing folks, enjoy the edit war. Hiding T 09:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I assert that this should be redesignated with {{Guideline}}. It is heavily, heavily used, and with a large consensus considering it authoritative, (on the points in it that are not disputed like WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS has been) at XfDs across the board (versus, say, WP:MASTODON, which is amusing but not cited frequently anywhere, and generally not as authoritative, though I'm sure there are a few people who would like to call it more important than an essay). AADD is having a strongly guiding effect at WP:AFD, WP:CFD, and elsewhere, including WP:DRV and even WP:RM. The distinction to me is that while many essays, and newer categories of policy-ish documents like "policy clarifications" or whatever they are being called this week, simply explain how a policy or guideline (or usually several of them) apply to a particular situation, AADD has become much more directly guiding on the matter, and taken collectively is considerably synergistically greater than the sum of its parts, in much the same way that WP:N (a guideline for 2 years or so, not just an essay) works from WP:COI, WP:V and WP:RS, with a few other elements of other policies and guidelines worked it, including WP:DP, and produced a very guiding document in its own right. WP:NOT is also very similar in this respect and is designated an outright policy. I was bold and labeled AADD a guideline and immediately got reverted on that, so per WP:BRD I'm opening the "D" part now. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Strongly oppose - Just because some sections of this are good and some sections get frequently referenced doesn't make this entire essay guideline calibur. Too much of this is just opinion, disputable, only applicable in certain situations, and often (rightly) ignored. The sections of this that are good already carry adequate strength of enforecement through other policies and guidelines. It's either redundant, or it's rules that simply shouldn't be there. This essay is just a crutch for people who are unwilling or unable to make their arguments using established policies and guidelines. There's absolutely no reason to promote this. Torc2 (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

As a relatively new editor I think the over-abundance of wiki essays/guidelines/policies just makes it easy for wiki lawyers to play games and get their way in very destructive manners. Below in Proposal: Intro Make Clear Article NOT about Only Deleting Info from Articles I say we should include Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes#Step_1:_Focus_on_content in intro. Maybe we should just list/link the five or six most important policies in intro and note that all those other phrases have been around but people should rely first and foremost on the policies. Keep it simple for newbies and editors who would rather be improving articles than dealing with wiki lawyers out to impose their views and delete others', be they words, phrases, or articles. Carol Moore 06:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

  • It's an essay. It's not a guideline and it shouldn't be one. It was never intended to be guidance. Anything that is of guideline or policy status already has it elsewhere. Let's avoid instruction creep and remember the purpose of Wikipedia is not to write rules. The deletion process already has enough guidance, this adds nothing as a guideline that it doesn't already do. Hiding T 11:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS should be removed

As pointed out by someone over at WP:FICT, it encourages and sustains violations of NPOV, a core policy. Jtrainor (talk) 03:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. I have decided to be bold, and have removed it myself. Jtrainor (talk) 05:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I have added it back. It is not at all obvious to me why or how this clause is encouraging violations of NPOV. On the contrary, it encapsulates two key operating principles of the wiki.
  1. We are sometimes inconsistent. And while that inconsistency is sometimes a problem, it is sometimes a strength. Consistency for the mere sake of consistency is an insufficient reason to do things here.
  2. We make mistakes. However, that does not mean that we are obligated to propagate the mistake.
If the clause is being misunderstood, clarify the wording. If it's being misused, teach new users the proper way. Wholesale deletion of the section seems excessive.
I'm willing to consider reasoned argument why the project would be better off without this clause but my own experience has been to the contrary. Rossami (talk) 06:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
It's violating NPOV by giving editors free reign to be inconsistent: they can bend the rules for articles they favor or oppose simply by invoking WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS whenever somebody points out the consistency problems. If two situations truly are analogous, arguing that they should be handled similarly is a valid argument, even though WP:OTHERSTUFF claims (without any supporting arguments) that it isn't. Sorry, inconsistency is never a strength, and while Wikipedia can acknowledge that it's not perfect, that doesn't mean it shouldn't try to be. Inconsistency should be an exception, not something actively encouraged in an essay like this. Torc2 (talk) 08:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much what I was going to say. Well said, Torc2. Article reverted back to my previous edit. Jtrainor (talk) 13:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The fact that a few editors misuse a policy does not make the policy a bad thing. A dogmatic approach to consistency for consistency's sake appears to me to be a far worse problem than what you've described. I have seen hard evidence of damage to the project when we ignored this principle and have seen this clause used appropriately far more than inappropriately. I am unconvinced by these arguments and think the clause should be added back. Rossami (talk) 15:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • No, this is a bad guideline not because it's misused, but because it's just bad guidline. What about OTHERSTUFF is the least bit constructive? What is the up-side to a section of an essay that tells users to ignore precedent? I haven't seen any argument for why this section exists or what's good about it. Torc2 (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I to have seen the abuses of the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument to keep articles just because another bad article that violates other Wiki principles exists we should keep this just as bad article. If you have a qualification to add to the argument then do so but off hand deletion of this long-standing guideline is too bold. You'll need to reach consensus with admins and other long time editors Alatari (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
While inconsistency at Wikipedia can happen for the sake of POV, it's hardly the primary reason. There is no conceivable way for any number of volunteers to make over 2 million articles completely consistent in the broad applications of reams of policies. (It can't even be done in the legal arena by paid professional lawmakers, law enforcement, and the judiciary, hard as they try; it's absurd to demand something more from our community.) But this problem does not invalidate the usefulness of Wikipedia, any more than does the fact that there will always be inaccuracies somewhere.
This strikes me as an attempt to wield NPOV so broadly that it overrides our inclusion guidelines on notability, which have reasonable, neutral requirements like published secondary and tertiary sources. (After all, this is supposed to be an encyclopedia of published facts, not of fan material.) I have personally contributed quite a bit of work to the field of fictional characters and works, but I must agree that if they do not meet these reasonable requirements for independent verification, they should go. (Sorry, Firefly episodes. At Wikipedia, I am a Wikipedian before I am a Browncoat.) Frankly, if the fan communities are working so hard to overturn this idea by attacking WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which is the very definition of a slippery slope, I think we need to work much harder on rooting out the stuff that is already here. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Nobody's saying we have to make 2 million articles consistent; but there's no good in saying "we'll never do it, so feel free to not even try." It's not that we're simply acknowledging Wikipedia's inconsistency; what OTHERSTUFF does is give editors an invitation to totally ignore consistency. What possible arguments are there to support that? What is the argument in favor of telling users that basing decisions on precedence is, in no uncertain terms, flat out wrong? Torc2 (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Splain to me again how OTHERSTUFF is "violating NPOV by giving editors free reign to be inconsistent". WP:NPOV is: All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias. OTHERSTUFF says that you need to provide specific valid arguements for this particular item and can't just point to other violators/ommissions as your basis. How OTHERSTUFF can be construed as "promoting POV" baffles me.Lasalle202 (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Say three lists exists, List of Republican X, List of Democratic X, List of Green Party X. User#1 AfD's List of Democratic X. User#2 points out the inconsistency. User#1 dismisses the argument by brandishing WP:OTHERSTUFF. That's the problem right there. The WP:NPOV policy says we can't use personal judgment decide what goes or stays, that it has to be objective; the WP:OTHERSTUFF section of the essay circumvents that and allows - if not outright encourages - users to show favoritism by dismissing arguments based on precedence and consistency without any reason other than a paragraph in something that isn't even a policy says it's OK to do so. Now that I've answered your question, can somebody answer mine: How does Wikipedia benefit from actively encouraging inconsistency? Torc2 (talk) 19:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Your example answers your own question. Consider a scenario where List of Republican and Democratic X are well-sourced and substantial issues with extensive coverage and social impact but the where the List of Green Party X is unsourced original research or not notable. Anyone arguing that we must keep the trivial just because we keep the demonstrably notable (and a remarkable number of people do make that fallacious argument) would be correctly pointed to OTHERSTUFF. With very few exceptions, articles should be evaluated and kept or deleted on their own merits and based on the specific circumstances appropriate to the topic. That's not "personal judgment", it's still a community decision - but it's a community decision that is not handcuffed by precedent that may or may not be appropriate. If someone is using OTHERSTUFF inappropriately, that person's opinion will be ignored by the rest of the community. On the other hand, if the others in the discussion are persuaded by the arguments specific to the case despite the other allegedly similar arguments, that is also the community's decision. Rossami (talk) 21:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Your example is faulty. You're assuming a disparity in the content of the articles that isn't required by OTHERSTUFF and wasn't a factor in my example. Indeed, if such a disparity exists, OTHERSTUFF is totally irrelevant and the deletion can be made based only on actual policies. All OTHERSTUFF does is inappropriately curtail what are perfectly sound, logical arguments: if the articles are on analogous topics and are similarly sourced and of similar notability, they should be handled similarly, and the burden should be on the AfD proponents to show how the articles are substantially different and why they should be handled differently. It's not that it's used inappropriately; the section itself is inappropriate. Deleting the section won't affect Wiki policy whatsoever; it will just force editors to use the actual policies themselves, instead of being lazy and referring to this essay as if it were gospel. If we want to maintain NPOV, being able to point to an analogous article's AfD and pointing out the similarities (and differences), taking the prior reasoning and results and applying them to the current AfD is something we should embrace, not brush off with some official-sounding link. Torc2 (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The guideline clearly allows comparisons to other AfD debates: However, a small number of debates do receive wide participation and result in a decision that is effectively final, until new evidence comes along. If you reference such a past debate, and it is clearly a very similar case to the current debate, this can be a strong argument that should not be discounted because of a misconception that this section is blanket ban on ever referencing other articles or deletion debates. If you don't feel that stands out enough the enhance the wording or placement. Alatari (talk) 15:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I can't agree with the removal, many keep voters in AFD normally goes, like x website has an article, so why not xx website doesn't deserve one, it's the same issue with fiction articles, consensus is key, and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS help. Secret account 22:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • And the voters saying that absolutely correct if the websites are analogous. It should be up to the AfD proponents to explain how the articles are different and why the article up for AfD deserves deletion when an identical article doesn't. If the article actually does deserve to be deleted, it should be easy to explain the differences and argue for the deletion based on actual policies. OTHERSTUFF is just an easy way to dismiss valid arguments instead of actually addressing them. Torc2 (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
It does not matter if you agree or not. The entry encourages violation of policy, and consensus cannot override policy-- examine [[2]]. Jtrainor (talk) 22:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Your example is still faulty. Editor A saying Article X should stay/be deleted and ignoring Editor B's substantiated reasons by citing OTHERSTUFF is ignoring Editor B's substantiated reasons - and that has nothing to do with OTHERSTUFF or NPOV, thats just Editor A being a jerk. If we removed every guideline, policy and suggestion that jerks used inappropriately, well, there would be no guidelines or policies at all.Lasalle202 (talk) 23:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's OTHERSTUFF itself that ignores Editor B's substantiated reasons; Editor A just invokes OTHERSTUFF as it is written. OTHERSTUFF isn't being misused at all - it's being used exactly as it written: badly. There is nothing beneficial whatsoever in that section of the guideline. Torc2 (talk) 23:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Where does it say or imply that an editor pointing to OTHERSTUFF overrides WP:RS WP:V WP:N? 207.69.137.8 (talk) 03:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how this question relates to what I just said. It's not a question of overriding another policy (aside from NPOV) - it's editors using something in an essay that is totally unsupported by policy as if it was policy. WP:OTHERSTUFF has no relationship whatsoever with WP:V or WP:N, which would still exist just fine and still be just as enforcible without OTHERSTUFF. What policy supports OTHERSTUFF? Why did it ever get included here in the first place? Torc2 (talk) 03:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
You said It's OTHERSTUFF itself that ignores Editor B's substantiated reasons. Editor B's substantiated arguments would be ones supported by WP:N, WP: RS, WP:V. If OTHERSTUFF is 'ignoring' the substantiated arguments of Editor B, then OTHERSTUFF would be contradicting those practices. I don't see that it does. If Editor B is making arguments about an article based on WP:NPOV, I still don't see how Editor A can point to OTHERSTUFF and claim it overrides the NPOV claims of Editor B.
Editor B can use other articles to clarify what WP:N means, which is often (and purposefully) ambiguous. WP:N often doesn't have cut-and-dried objective qualities; often the only way it can be measured is relative to other topics. What policy is violated by trying to assess the notability of similar articles that have survived or lost AfD to clarify the threshold of notability? The way WP:NPOV fits into this isn't anything like what you've said here - it's not that somebody will bring up NPOV and somebody else will use OTHERSTUFF to override it; it's that OTHERSTUFF can be used to make non-NPOV AfD requests simply because OTHERSTUFF says we're not supposed to ever judge one article's Wiki suitability against any other's. If Editor B's arguments aren't sufficient according to WP:N and WP:V, then let Editor A shoot them down using those policies, rather than some rantish essay section. Torc2 (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
As others have said, if OTHERSTUFF is being used to 'shoot down' Editor B's WP:N WP:RS and WP:V arguements, OTHERSTUFF is being used inappropriately. Do you have any examples of where that has actually occurred?
The overall content of Wikipedia as a whole is not and cannot ever be completely NPOV and the WP:NPOV "in a nutshell" does not try to make that assertation. NPOV is about specific content in a particular article. If an article on, say "Republican electoral strategy in 2008 Presidential Elections" is written and the article is found to meet WP:N, WP:V, WP:RS and the statements _within_ the article meet WP:NPOV, there is no way that WP can FORCE editors to write a "Democratic electoral strategy in 2008 Presidential Elections" article to 'keep balance. And somehow claiming that WP as a whole is "violating NPOV" because it has this article on Republicans but not one for Democrats thus the substantive article on Republican strategy must go - is well, silly. Thus OTHERSTUFF so that hundreds of editors do not need to make that explanation each and every time someone tries to make that type of argument.
But, it appears that you and others have understood OTHERSTUFF to mean something else, which means that a clearer version of OTHERSTUFF would be of value. What is your suggestion for wording to encourage editors to make appropriate arguments?207.69.137.35 (talk) 05:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Being unable to be completely NPOV doesn't mean it's OK to just bail on being NPOV altogether. Yes, we can't force people to create articles for balance (which is kind of a non-sequitur, not sure why you brought it up), but we sure can keep them from deleting articles to upset balance. If the two articles are basically equally sourced and equally notable, arguing not to delete one because the other one hasn't been deleted is entirely valid. That goes for Republican/Democrat, Star Wars/Star Trek, Cats/Dogs, etc. Yes, OTHERSTUFF allows hundreds of editors to skip trying to justify their positions, which is all fine and well except their positions were never justified in the first place. Examples of the rule being misused can be found simply by paging backwards through current AfDs until you find it invoked - the first place I saw it was here, where it was misused to dismiss the point that the topic was the second-highest ranked website within its field. I have yet to see an article where an argument for deletion is better served by referencing OTHERSTUFF instead of WP:V or WP:N, though I've seen plenty of times were editors cite OTHERSTUFF as policy and think they've made a strong argument. My suggestion to improve the section is to delete it outright - at its best, it's irrelevant; at its worst, it's harmful. Torc2 (talk) 05:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC
That example on BDSMBooks was a proper usage of WP:WAX for the other article was just as bad and in need of deletion. I would support modifying the guideline to allow WAX arguments against other Class B or better rated articles in the same field. Alatari (talk) 15:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we can't force people to create articles for balance (which is kind of a non-sequitur, not sure why you brought it up) I brought it up because there are only 3 ways to try to apply NPOV to WP as a whole. 1) FORCE creation of missing/needed to balance articles - which you have agreed is not an option. or 2) DELETE an article(s) that meet WP guideline WP:N, WP:RS, WP:V because there isn't 'balancing WP NPOV as a whole' article 3) ALLOW certain articles 'needed for overall WP NPOV balance' to not meet WP:N, WP:RS, WP:V - who gets to decide that any particular article gets a pass? When you start trying to do either 2) or 3) you get very much into eternal subjective POV choices about overall content of WP that in my opinion is much worse than temporary overall WP NPOV 'imbalances' until blancing articles that meet WP standards are created. It appears that your concerns are much deeper in WP philosophy than OTHERSTUFF 207.69.137.40 (talk) 12:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
OTHERSTUFF likely got added because people frequently try to argue that MY ARTICLE NEEDS TO STAY JUST LIKE IT IS BECAUSE THAT OTHERSTUFF IS HERE. And that is a pix poor reason for keeping/deleting an article in a forum like Wikipedia. 4.158.222.76 (talk) 04:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Then it's totally redundant and unnecessary, since such an argument already isn't sufficient according to actual policy. Why prematurely dismiss the entire concepts of continuity and precedence because a couple editors tried to invoke them when they weren't appropriate? This sounds like a bad idea written down by somebody not thinking straight. Torc2 (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
In my experience, many many many more editors attempt to use 'Otherstuff exists so mine should too' as a basis for their argument, than editors who misuse OTHERSTUFF. And having arguements supported by policy is what OTHERSTUFF is about. It is a guide to editors that they need to make their arguments based on facts pertinent to how WP policies and guidelines apply to that article, not on whether something else exists that currently violates guidelines/policy. 4.158.222.76 (talk) 05:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
My experience is exactly the opposite - given the flawed nature of the policy, I don't I've ever seen it not misused. It's like Wiki's version of Godwin's Law - Editors yell [[WP:OTHERSTUFF]]!! if anybody even hints at consistency as a basis for keeping or deleting, as if they're actually making a point by referencing an unsupported section in an essay. Pointing out that other stuff exists simply is not a flawed argument if the other stuff is analagous to what's up for AfD. There is no instance where somebody could point to WP:OTHERSTUFF and have a valid argument where they couldn't just point to WP:V or WP:N and have a stronger argument.Torc2 (talk) 05:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:Consistancy is not a policy and frankly shouldn't be used as the basis for keep/delete207.69.137.22 (talk) 06:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
How flexible are WP:V and WP:N? A little, but not very. If the rules are basically fixed, their enforcement must also be basically fixed, so consistency of enforcement is very much a policy here. The parts of these policies that aren't rigid are left to consensus, which means it's a good idea to look at how these issues have been handled before and get an idea of what a lot of different editors are thinking, rather than the handful that any given AfD might attract. Nobody's suggesting that comparisons of any two articles is always going to be valid, just that comparing treatment of two articles that actually are alike shouldn't be automatically dismissed as invalid. Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough about this, so I'm going to back off of this now. Thanks for your patience with me. Torc2 (talk) 07:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
But then you are not looking at the fact that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, you are looking at WHY / HOW other policies have been applied and that is different than OTHERSTIFFEXISTS. Perhaps clairification can help keep OTHERSTUFF from being 'misused' in those situations.207.69.137.40 (talk) 12:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Also, if you're saying Editor A "is ignoring Editor B's substantiated reasons", you're acknowledging that the argument that two articles are alike and should be judged alike is a valid argument. That's all the more reason to get rid of the section of the essay saying it isn't. Torc2 (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe editors can use the argument foo exists if the foo is a Class B or better article on a similiar subject but trying to use What about X on another article that is start rated or in need of deletion itself is what this guideline is meant for. Alatari (talk) 15:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
It's not a guideline, it's an essay. This whole thing has no weight at all under policy. It's just an opinion piece. Jtrainor (talk) 04:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • You quoted an essay saying "hey don't ignore me!" to argue that essays cannot be ignored? Torc2 (talk) 00:34, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Its a question that you could answer too. Are you opposed simply to OTEHRSTUFF or to the practice of Essays as a whole?4.158.222.102 (talk) 03:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm against any essay being given any weight beyond opinion. At most, this should a tool to illustrate why certain arguments might be faulty; it should never be used as a way to disregard an argument or to dictate what kind of arguments can be made. Any argument that refers solely to an essay without including references to actual policies can safely be ignored - that would be a great line to open this essay.Torc2 (talk) 04:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Again, thats people using OTHERSTUFF (and other essyas) in inappropriate ways, it is not an argument that there is anything within the substance of OTHERSTUFF that is wrong. Do you really believe that weight should be given to claims by people who argue "But X article exists/doesn't exist so this article shouldn't/should be deleted" - rather than on the content and sources of the particular article under discussion?207.69.137.10 (talk) 17:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely there is weight to that argument - even OTHERSTUFF, in its countless self-contridictions, acknowledges this. The first paragraph of the section outlines its own impotence, by simultaneously stating that comparisons are both invalid and part of a valid argument. The section as a whole says basically nothing. Nothing is gained from reading it and nothing would be lost by deleting it. The section, by its own admission, cannot be used as an argument for or against deletion. It's utterly useless. Torc2 (talk) 05:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
It's not opinion, it's consensus. Let's not be POV about this. ;) Miremare 19:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
It's not policy, and it's not even a guideline. It's opinion. It's not even consensus if most people are ignoring it in practice. Torc2 (talk) 00:34, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Move it to a separate essay, and then mark it rejected. The gross lack of consistency in WP is in my opinion a disgrace, and a sign of an immature and irresponsible information source. Normally, the two worst criticisms that can be made of a source is that it is inaccurate (and that is of course another story), and that it is inconsistent. When one looks in an encyclopedia one expects to find articles selected according to some rational criterion. If one looks for railroads, one expects to find either all railroads, or all important railroads; if one looks for novels, one expects to find either all novels, or all important novels, or all novels according to some criterion; if one looks for pornographic actors, one expects either to find them all, or all of a certain degree of importance, using whatever criterion is appropriate. One does not expect to find some of the important ones and some of the unimportant ones,in an assortment based upon the the decision was of a small and changing self-selected jury from day to day, feeling bound only by the most general of principles, and paying no heed to how others of the class were selected. We are so far from being able to deal with, that we pretend to make a virtue of it, showing that we have neither the will nor the ability to do something about it--or showing, even more ominously, that we simply don't care--or yet more ominously--that we are content to let small ad hoc pressure groups do things their own way, as it may vary from month to month or day to day.
Typically there will be perhaps a dozen articles on a subject, and one will be nominated for deletion. That the other 11 exist, will be dismissed using this explanation. It should be the other way, that anyone proposing such as deletion must first get consensus from the community that the class of articles involved should be handled differently.
Those times when some points to one or two bad articles, can and are handled by nominating them also. those times when someone with a bad article points to good ones claimed to be equivalent, can and are handled by showing the differences. We do not need this ATA listed here, at least in its present form. Strike it entirely.
and then face up to developing standards of notability that can be shown objectively, and treat everything in a class equally. We have a responsibility to be consistent enough to be taken seriously. DGG (talk) 16:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal: I think the case being made for it leading to NPOV violations is too hyperbolic. The wording of it can be clarified to address this to the extent it is a real problem, but deleting it or forking it into a separate essay would be a bit over the top. The point of AADD is that it gathers all of these separate essays on what not to say in XfD into one place. Work to improve the wording, not to undo the raison d'etre of the whole document. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, are we voting? Remove for reasons above, specifically that it's bad policy more than the NPOV arguments. Torc2 (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I too do not really see how NPOV has anything to do with it.DGG (talk) 04:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Then read the thread and find out. Jtrainor (talk) 03:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
See the paragraph that begins with the bolded 'Yes, we can't force people to create articles for balance (which is kind of a non-sequitur, not sure why you brought it up)' and the paragraphs leading up to that to show that any claims of OTHERSTUFF promoting NPOV are unsupported. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.10 (talk) 17:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Um, no. Those sections only state that NPOV cannot be totally solved. It really doesn't prove, or even effectively argue, that the NPOV argument against OTHERSTUFF is faulty. Torc2 (talk) 05:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If Bearcat's recent edits ("Similarly, while precedents...") are kept, we really have to get rid of WP:OTHERSTUFF. There's no way we can have a section telling users how important precedents are followed a few paragraphs later by a section telling them pointing to precedent is wrong. Torc2 (talk) 22:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Intro Make Clear Article NOT about Only Deleting Info from Articles

There is enough ambiguous language in the introduction to this article that it is not clear these arguments refer to deleting whole articles, not en masse deletions of info from articles not otherwise up for deletion. Which is what I was talking about above in Possible Addition to 3.2 "I don't Like it"'. Also my comments in Major, Major Rewrite.

FINALLY I figured out this article NOT relevant to such content deletions. But I did notice today skimming through other people's comments that some also seem unclear on the concept - or at least their statements also ambiguous.

Unless I am misreading it and this DOES apply to deletion/mass deletion of parts of articles, and NOT only to whole articles, is it OK if I a) just make that explicit by changing a few words in introduction and b) refer them to the policy Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes#Step_1:_Focus_on_content and paraphrase from it?? (And that's a good idea even if it DOES refer to content.)

Step 1: Focus on content
Focus on content, not on the other editor. Wikipedia is built upon the principle of representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias. When you find a passage in an article biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not possible, and you disagree completely with a point of view expressed in an article, think twice before simply deleting it. Rather, balance it with your side of the story. Make sure that you provide reliable sources. Unreferenced text may be tagged or deleted - see Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Carol Moore 18:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

I don't think this change is helpful. To the contrary: since the first link on this page is to theWP:DP policy, which deals exclusively with removal of entire pages from WP by administrators (under 4 different processes), and the policy does NOT apply to page blanking or deletion of parts of the material from an article, I think this essay also only refers to the discussions under those four deletion processes. I would oppose any expansion of this (already long) essay beyond that scope. I think the links in the intro. make the current scope of this essay clear. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
This is not AAAFDD, it is more general, and the logic in it is generally applicable to all sorts of things, from rename debates to section deletions in articles to deletion of templates and categories. I cannot for the life of me think of a reason that WP:IDONTLIKEIT would apply only to articles and only to entire articles, since doing a POV-pushing hatched job on an article and lopping out 2/3 of its sourced content on such a basis is tantamount to deleting it anyway, and CfDing a category on such a basis is similarly logically bankrupt to doing that to an article. I also directly observe, very regularly, that AADD is heavily used at WP:CFD, WP:MFD, WP:RFD, WP:DRV, etc., not just WP:AFD. It may be focused on AfD, particularly by way of its reference to WP:DP, but so what? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Well a few of these don't work as well at CFD due to the nature of categories, but other than that, my understanding is that this page is generic throughout XfD discussions/debates. That said, there is a great need for cleanup throughout the page. My personal favourite "messy section" is "surmountable problem". It's a simple idea that's written convolutedly. If the page underwent some cleanup for clarity and accuracy to represent current practice, then I might support it becoming a guideline. - 10:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I wasn't clear: WP:DP covers ALL of the deletion types, not just AfD, so I think this essay applies to all of them as well. What it DOESN'T apply to is the partial deletion of text from an article or template, where the remaining undeleted portion of the page remains. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. I'm just trying to make WIKI policies clearer for newbies or relative newbies. So in case of the first two sentences of this article, we see both deletion debates in first sentence and Wikipedia:Deletion policy - which is the same page. Why confuse people mentioning it twice with two link names?? Second, even Wikipedia:Deletion policy is a bit ambiguous about whether it's just about deleting CONTENT or whole pages. I can see why it's not necessary to Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes#Step_1:_Focus_on_content if it is clear people should first go to Wikipedia:Deletion policy - assuming both articles make it clear what their scope is.
Carol Moore 19:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

[edit] Classes

There are very few classifications whose members are all notable or all non-notable, and in those cases, it's very easy to make a case on each subject's individual merits.

Heads of state, major awards, (Nobel, Academy...) production vehicles, highly ranked works of art (Billboard, Museum collections, best-selling books...) and on and on. This should either be removed or revised. —Viriditas | Talk 22:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
The whole section of "It's a..." seems to just be concerned with those making "gross generalisations". I wonder if the whole section could be merged to "Notability is inhereted". - jc37 01:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Good point, I missed that. —Viriditas | Talk 08:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Merged the two, and added two links. - jc37 11:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About not voting and "Don't stem the tide, channel it."

I recently came to the same conclusion as was expressed in an older section; the policy says that it's not a vote, but then, immediately after, says that votes are, in practice, considered. Are the number of votes relevant? If there are sixty Delete votes, either bare or per nom or per previous voter, basically with redundant or irrelevant arguments {"badly written"), and one Keep vote, with a cogent argument, what happens? Theoretically, the numbers don't count, but from AfDs that I've been reviewing, they do; that is, the policy page is correct in terms of describing what happens, and that is an open invitation for vote stacking. The closing administrator makes the decision; but, too often, there is no *judgment* made as to the various arguments raised. Which arguments did the admin accept and which were rejected? Were the number of votes considered? In any case, we don't know, because far too many closing statements give no information about the arguments. In one AfD, I made a keep argument that was not a repetition of what anyone else had argued and, in fact, I provided a more reliable source than anything that had been provided. Did the administrator consider this? Not a clue. "Result was Delete." Why? For that article, most delete votes were based on the topic of the article being quackery, and most keep votes, substantial numbers but in a minority, were based on it being notable quackery. Was the common agreement that it was quackery a factor in the deletion (it shouldn't be, quackery should be irrelevant; quackery is handled by including evidence for such, or removing POV claims; Wikipedia has no business making a judgment of "quackery," and deletion on that basis is exactly that, it's taking a POV).

I'm not sure it is practical, but I'd much prefer to see a controversial delete discussion edited, possibly on a separate page, into an NPOV "article" on the topic of deletion. This would state all the arguments (personal attribution might be there as notes, or arguments could be generally attributed to the original delete page -- "it was argued that...."), *without* redundancy. A vote count could be reported, perhaps, and I assume that most editors will probably want to keep votes in -- but it would be closer to the intent of AfD and policy if votes were simply not allowed. The problem with the current practice is that AfDs become quite confusing to read, and the basis for the decision is frequently murky, providing no guidance as to precedent, no record of what was actually the basis for deletion (and thus no clear record of what might be fixed to avoid deletion on the same grounds in a future article on the same subject). And then there are all the uncivil comments. I've seen some reverted out, but in other AfDs, some of the most shockingly uncivil opinions are still there. I'd suggest that someone who votes delete, obliterate, incinerate, salt, POV-pushing nonsense for something of marginal notability, with one or more editors, including experienced ones, arguing for notability on objective grounds, doesn't have the balance to be helping make these decisions.

A "decision" page would show the arguments accepted by the closing admin, and those rejected or considered not relevant. The work would be set up as in Arbcomm decisions, the participants would prepare the suggested decision, and, I'd suggest, to reduce conflict, there could be two sections on a proposed decision page, with collected evidence (evidence is not, in itself, keep or delete, it should be verifiable facts or attributed testimony), and proposed judgments or "arguments". Thus, admin time could be conserved, and those editors concerned would do the work, leaving the closing admin to accept (or deny) evidence (there is evidence submitted in some AfDs that is submitted in bad faith, false claims, etc.), report whether or not the admin has personally verified the evidence or has accepted it without question (which is okay if there was substantial participation and opportunity for the opposition to impeach the evidence), and accept or reject arguments made.

I do predict that if AfD is not fixed, it is going to increasingly be a battleground for competing visions of what the encyclopedia is and should become, and policy that essentially says that content should be encyclopedic is circular, giving almost no guidance. Notability is more subtle, but is again certain to create collisions between perspectives, with no benefit to the project worth all the effort, and I have not seen notability defined in such a way as to avoid major misunderstandings on the part of the vast readership of Wikipedia. "The sum of all human knowledge, the encyclopedia anyone can edit." Wow! If I know something, I can put it in!

I don't care how many policies are written, with that advertising, ever-increasing numbers of people are going to do just that. Instead of trying to stem the tide, we should be channeling it. Every time someone writes about something they know, and it gets deleted, one more disappointed or even insulted reader/editor exists, and this is accumulating in the public like undrained waste; we are spending increasing amounts of experienced editor time in deletion conflicts that, practically by definition, add almost nothing to the value of Wikipedia *if the content is adequately organized* This was the promise of hypertext, hierarchies of knowledge, and such hierarchy is *essential* to an encyclopedia that attempts to be comprehensive, it becomes unintelligible, information overload, unless organized for graduated access.

Instead of deleting marginal material, it should be *organized* and *tagged*, particularly if it is unverified, it might go into a dedicated space. It's already being kept, no disk space is being saved by deleting it. So there would be the accepted "encyclopedia," with subjects agreed to be notable, and a penumbra of not notable, unverified or otherwise unaccepted articles, searchable, possible candidates for mainspace if properly sourced and considered notable. Much more could be written on this... In summary, though, censorship, deletion of allegedly useless material, is inherently POV, introducing a community bias. Notability is not a quality of facts, it is a quality of observers, i.e., a fact is, if noted by someone, by definition, notable *to that degree*. How many people does it take to constitute community "notability"? Does it depend on who they are? Does it depend on their professions? Their first language? Their affluence? Their interests? I think the Wikipedia vision answers this: "all human knowledge," which does not discriminate or make the knowledge of one group of people more important than the knowledge of another. The difficulty, really, comes with "sum." It has two meanings: totality, and summary. The former is inclusionist, the latter deletionist, one might think. However, deletion is not only not necessary for summarization, it is dangerous. Summary knowledge should always be linked to the raw source; I know that I'm sitting in my kitchen, but where exactly is my big toe? Until I "notice" it, I don't know, it's not in the "summary," i.e., the routine "consciousness." But if I want to know where my big toe is, I look (or feel). It's all there; consciousness is arranged in hierarchies of perception, and a good encyclopedia is arranged in hierarchies of knowledge, from vast overviews to the level of detail limited only by system capacity. This is not only a desirable vision, it is a *necessary* one, for limiting the encyclopedia by excluding categories of knowledge is going to be like stopping a river with a few corks. The corks are going to be overwhelmed and outnumbered, and dealing with the ever-increasing input can only go in one of three ways: acceptance ("inclusionist"), failure (burnout, resentment, conflict, declining reliability, burgeoning inefficiency), or increasing rigidity and imposition of ever-more-specified rules that, in the end, only set a bound on the usefulness of Wikipedia, binding it to cultural bias and subtle or not-so-subtle POV. --Abd (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There is one overall basic principle, that WP is an encyclopedia. There are places for for other information sources. But he word still does have some meaning--its a place for information about important things in the world about which people might want reliable information. There's undoubtedly a place for information about everything and everyone, a sort of super-Facebook. That should be a different project. We already have a reasonable understanding of what should be here, and the arguments, however sharp, are about the grey areas only.for the articles of the types i care about, i would much rather have it decided that some particular type of them were not encyclopedia-worthy, than give up the idea of an encyclopedia, and it will gain nothing to destroy the nature of the project to keep my favorite content, if everything any editor would support is included also. Yes, there should be a penumbra: the first level out is Wikia, the second the web, and if intermediate levels are needed people will develop them. There is nothing stopping anyone from making a more inclusive fork, a WP plus as it were. The test will be if people find it useful, if the plus is helpful rather than opening up a floodgate. We do have a POV that some things are more important than others. That POV is objectivity, not the mystical concept that everything is connected and equally important in the sight of eternity. DGG (talk) 07:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate DGG's response. What I'm predicting is that, unless the standards for inclusion are crystal clear, and made so to new editors, not merely those who spend hours reading policy, there is going to be a continual tide of articles coming in that will need deletion. Right now, we only see the tip of the iceberg in AfD, precisely because much of the notability standard is reasonably clear, and so stuff gets PROD'd out, or immediately deleted by admin. But every time an article is deleted that a new editor thinks is notable, harm is done to the project, and this harm will accumulate. There are many possible solutions, not just one. For example, whenever some legal and inoffensive content of any substance at all is deleted (speedy or otherwise), it is copied to Wikia, most or all of the harm would be averted, and if there were tighter integration between Wikipedia and Wikia, in the sense of making it easy for someone who is searching Wikipedia for something that might be on Wikia to find it, we would have the inclusionist encyclopedia, it simply is not all on Wikipedia, which is fine. Practically, searching Wikia from the Wikipedia search interface should be easy, and the message that tells someone that an article has been deleted should point to Wikia. The AfD should point to Wikia. For starters, no more admin time necessary to show people copies of deleted articles.
(I don't know Wikia details, so some aspect of this could be completely off, and there is a simpler solution. Since deleted content is kept, anyway, inoffensive, legal deleted content could be *moved* to a Deleted space instead of being "deleted." Takes no extra disk storage, doesn't involve work in transferring to another wiki. This has often been proposed, I think, it is equivalent to allowing any user to see deleted articles, not just administrators. One objection: wouldn't this encourage users to use Wikipedia as some kind of personal web site? Perhaps to some degree, some already do, in user space. But a user who was blatantly creating articles that are not even close to being encyclopedic could be warned. It's the marginal stuff that causes the trouble, where a user, in good faith, contributes what the user thinks is a positive contribution, and then it's gone.)
(When I've seen discussion of allowing ordinary users to see deleted articles, it's raised that it isn't deletion then. That's true. But deleted articles would require special steps, would clearly not be "part of the encyclopedia" as it currently sits. And this move nor delete process would not apply to offensive or illegal content. But that content is not at all the problem being discussed.)
However, there are other aspects of what I've proposed that may be even more significant. Wikipedia quality is quite uneven, and while parts of it are excellent, other parts are terrible. There is no clear validation process, such that a reader could know that they are reading a reliable article rather than one which just got some POV stuck in it. This is going to get worse and worse as the editor base grows. We see, in AfD, articles that clearly are not being monitored by anyone who cares about the subject. That's true all over the place. Wikipedia is phenomenally inefficient, and it is this that will kill it eventually, as it burns out editor after editor; currently, it's a Ponzi scheme, relying on an ever-increasing supply of fresh blood. What's happened to the original editors? I can affirm that I've seen a lot of goodbye statements from early editors who are -- or were when they left -- burned out and sometimes bitter. Wikipedia is, after all, an experiment, and sometimes experimenters forget that the goal of experiment is to learn.
As to "We do have a POV that some things are more important than others. That POV is objectivity, not the mystical concept that everything is connected and equally important in the sight of eternity." "Objectivity" is not objective. It's a process. I've said this before, but perhaps it bears saying again: Importance does not reside in things, but in people in their relationship to things, and what is notable and important at one time is not so at another; further, what is important to one set of people from one culture or subculture is not important to people from another. What is important to me now may not be important to me ten minutes from now; and, indeed, this is a fundamental feature of consciousness, which is hardly anything other than an importance filter, where attention may be shifted, sometimes rapidly, to redefine what is being noticed. Fix the focus and intelligence is dead or severely impaired. I'm claiming that (1) to avoid constant dispute, notability must become increasingly fixed and clear, and (2) that requires a steadily increasing POV bias, which is *not* objective, it is cultural, the culture of the dominant editors -- or what appears as the consensus of the community, which, without good structure, is the consensus of the most active editors, which reinforces itself. In the RPG-related AfD that I just participated in, there was clearly a cultural bias among some; RPGs aren't important, qua RPGs, they are not part of the "real world." The opinion as to importance of possibly a few hundred editors, not thousands, becomes the standard of notability, no matter how important something might be to millions of others. They aren't "encyclopedists" like us.
--Abd (talk) 05:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A proposal: "It's true"

The argument, "The article should be kept because it's true" should be included. Technically, this is similar but not identical to "Wikipedia should be about everything" and "Don't lose the information." Simply because an article is true doesn't make it encyclopedic. 69.138.16.202 (talk) 22:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Already done at Wikipedia:Verifiability: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.". - jc37 11:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template at the bottom

Can anyone explain to me the reason for having the template at the bottom, under the "Other arguments to avoid" section? It looks like it has links to articles in the main namespace that relate to logic. I think since it has no references to specific WP processes, it does not add anything to the essay, and in fact is confusing; I would propose removing it. Can anyone enlighten me? UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see any harm in pointing users to a list of argumentative fallacies. Deletion discussion is just a form of debate, after all. Torc2 (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Isn't it doesn't do any harm an argument to avoid in a deletion discussion? UnitedStatesian (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That's just an essay. Torc2 (talk) 23:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
As all (or almost) all of those logical fallacies get used in XFD fairly regularly, it is quite relevant to WP:ATA. - Koweja (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, then, could someone (more experienced and knowledgable than I) add some text to give context to that section? I was totally confused - currently, it looks like the template lists other Wikipedia essays (slimilar to the list of guidelines template that appears at the bottom of many guideline pages). UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated Nom example

"Keep Did not we argue all this yesterday? –DejaVu 04:04, 4 April 2004 (UTC)" is a bad example, because closing a second discussion because the last one occurred a day ago is perfectly valid. Pages can be relisted because consensus can change, but not in 24 hours. Either it should be removed, or at have the time frame changed to something more reasonable, say a month. - Koweja (talk) 00:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The time frame depends on whether it was a keep,or a no consensus. Two or three weeks after no consensus is reasonable.
I'd say a month minimum, and if the AfD was relisted for further comment and still resulted in no consensus, at least six weeks to two months. Opinions don't change that quickly. By allowing quick relists, all you're doing is reshuffling the deck and hoping you get dealt more agreeable voters. There's a secondary reading to this example though that again implies that precedent is irrelevant. "Did not we argue all this yesterday?" Well, did you? What was the result? Why are those results not still applicable? Torc2 (talk) 01:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Dawkins' Google test

Interestingly enough, in his forword to Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (see at Google books: [3]), Dawkins talks about a Google test he performed to test the viability of the word's inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. User:Dorftrottel 13:27, January 12, 2008

[edit] Divisive as deletion argument

I've officially had it with this word be bandied about as a mantra people can recite in pro-deletion arguments as simply a code word for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. As such, I've added my sentiments to this section. I'm sure the word actually had some important and independent meaning at some point, but I believe that ship has long since sailed. -- Kendrick7talk 21:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It's actually "divisive and/or polemic". And I believe they're words used fairly commonly, including by User:Jimbo Wales.
That said, if it's being misapplied, then perhaps some text describing such misapplication could be written up (rather than just saying using the word "divisive" is bad, describing what ways it may be being used may be "bad").
Could you give some examples where you feel it's been unjstly, or misappropriately used in an XfD discussion? - jc37 02:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
(ec) A further point on the way this word "divisive" is used because I never get good answers when I ask, or if I do it's along the lines of "it's obvious" etc. I think what it means is the community is divided, therefore there's no WP:Consensus, and therefore X should be deleted, which is really the opposite of our deletion policies. As such, it might really deserve its own section. -- Kendrick7talk 02:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
How about every XFD discussion related to userboxes, ever, as an example? - Koweja (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
(ec) - What you may or may not know is that "divisive and/or polemic" is the criteria for speedy deletion, per Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#T1 (Though I note that Kendrick7 attempted to change the policy wording to remove the word "divisive"). Which is why those words are specifically used.
However, merely saying that something is "divisive", without explanation of how or why it should be considered such, could be an example of WP:AADD#Just a policy (for one example). - jc37 02:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
If something is divisive it means it divides the community in a hostile manner, creating rivalry, controversy, etc. It does not mean it creates non-consensus, ie, making people disagree with each other. Those are two very different things. PS for some context on what sparked this sudden interest in adding this word here, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:MQDuck/userboxes/Right To Resist. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:27, 16 Jan 2008 (UTC)
(ec again) It's hard to argue the word isn't so overused it's become vacuous. Here is just one month's worth of argument from last June. Ultimately, I'm not getting the underlying wisdom here, or how it fundamentally differs from WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- Kendrick7talk 02:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the discussions you linked to are not about userboxes, but Wikipedian categories (also known as user categories). - jc37 02:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I just explained how it fundamentally differs from IDONTLIKEIT. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:44, 16 Jan 2008 (UTC)
I have seen it on AfDs -- particularly on, like, the tenth AfD on an article, where its code for everyone sick of this discussion so let's let the deletionists win. Just to restate my basic argument from that MfD User:Equazcion points to, I really think this idea of divisiveness, at least in user space, though is really an attempt at a don't ask, don't tell policy towards certain contributors who have non-mainstream beliefs, because what is or is not divisive is applied completely ad hoc. I'd be happy for an expansive policy going the other way as to the meaning of this phrase, but others seemed happy with a status quo I can only consider discriminatory. -- Kendrick7talk 02:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I just can't see the difference. Divisive just means "multiple people don't like it" so it's just an extention. -- Kendrick7talk 02:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
While I can see how the word "divisive" may be being used in that way, that's not it's intended use. "Divisive" means that it's something that Wikipedians may argue/disagree about, in such a way as it creates a communication/collaboration gap. Such things exist in mainspace articles (such subjects as religion and politics, for example). However it was determined awhile back that such divisiveness is not welcome in userspace, as it just "divides" Wikipedians, who are presumably attempting to come together in a spirit of collaboration. That's part of why userboxes should state something positive ("likes", for example), not negative ("hates", for example).
Once we get into the discussion of "Supporters/Opposers of an issue", consensus is varied on that. It was decided, for example, that such subjects are not to be used in categories, since you can't provide references supporting the allegation of whether some person actually does support or oppose the purported issue.
So yes, stating the opinion that a userbox is "divisive", is a valid comment in a deletion discussion. If one feels that the userbox is not divisive, they are welcome to explain how so in the discussion, in order to aid the eventual closer in determining consensus. Clarification, information (and references) are welcome in a discussion. Constant reproval of commenters, not so much. - jc37 03:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
If you have a problem with the way the term is used in arguments, I don't think that warrants changing anything. If people use it as "code" for something which it does not mean, then simply correct them. Don't look towards changing policy. People misusing a policy does not denote a problem within that policy. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:03, 16 Jan 2008 (UTC)
I agree entirely with User:Equazcion's comments above. (Though I might clarify to "...politely correct them..." : ) - jc37 03:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Well, you know what they say about the road to hell. Again, I'd be happy if there was a policy which could be fairly applied across the board, but it comes down right now to people wiki-lawyering over one word that isn't even in the applicable policy half the time that I can see (e.g. Userboxes aren't even in template space).I might just write an essay contra WP:Divisiveness as I think it's ultimately wrong headed and exclusionist, which is the wrong starting point for an encyclopedia anyone can edit. -- Kendrick7talk 03:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome to create such an essay, though I might suggest that you create it first in userspace, as that seems to (usually) be the current convention. - jc37 03:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
off topic, but something I've been wanting to do is reorganize the essay category into subcats. I dunno, I put WP:NOTART in WP space a while back. Problem with user space is no one can find them. -- Kendrick7talk 03:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The real problem here is that AfD itself is malformed: one can simply renominate an article until a "delete" result is achieved. The article then gets one appeal before being effectively salted. Imagine if any legal system worked this way: people would be put on trial repeatedly until a conviction was secured.--Father Goose (talk) 06:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
divisive ≠ IDONTLIKEIT. I understand your frustration with the sometimes inappropriate use of the term but this wasn't the way to try to solve it. Rossami (talk) 03:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Er, well, I wanted to get to the "D" part of "BRD" in some general forum, just to bounce the idea around some more and feel the pulse of the general community. I'm not trying to solve anything (and why are newbies running around giving me advice this week?) -- Kendrick7talk 03:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Oops, 2003! Duh nevermind. -- Kendrick7talk 03:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Even if Rassami were a "newbie", I don't think that comment would have been warranted. Try not to bite. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:01, 16 Jan 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mean it like that -- I really did wake up to this today. It's been downhill since. My utmost apologies. -- Kendrick7talk 04:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

"Divisive" is a perfectly relevant term to use in deletion discussions; the problem is with the uncertainty of the pertinent policy. For speedy deletions in template space, CSD T1 permits the speedy deletion of templates which are "divisive and inflammatory", a provision which has been much abused because of its essential subjectivity (hence why I strongly oppose any suggestion of applying it to userspace). However, at MfD, there is some debate over whether "divisive" templates are allowed, and over how a "divisive" template differs from an "attack" template.

A userbox saying "This user thinks Walton One is a dickhead" would be speedily deleted under G10. A userbox saying "This user wants to kill all Jews" would be taken to MfD, and, probably, deleted very quickly per WP:SNOW. In contrast, precedent and practice establishes that userboxes saying "This user supports X for president" or "This user supports political party Y" are allowed. The problem is when we get borderline cases, such as the Iraq userbox currently up for MfD. Due to the lack of a clear policy at present, any discussions on such cases are inevitably dogged by accusations of political bias.

I don't have a strong opinion on how we should deal with controversial userboxes, or what level of controversy should be allowed. But what we need is a clear, consistent and firm set of rules which can be consistently applied to every single case. This will help avoid bias or the perception thereof. WaltonOne 19:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to separate this from the discussion of userboxes, because the argument is used elsewhere. Excessively divisive is a relevant argument on user box content, and other user page content as well/. But the argument is used elsewhere in the encyclopedia also--that having an article would produced unremitting conflicts between editors. In that context, it is generally recognized a a bad argument. We can distinguish this by using an example from a subject page in mainspace, without mentioning userspace at lal. DGG (talk) 16:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I would hope we can all agree this is a bad argument for an AfD. I've seen it in the various AfD's for Israeli apartheid for example. -- Kendrick7talk 23:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

More discussion on userboxes per se: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Userbox content -- Kendrick7talk 23:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible new one for the list

"It's better to keep something that might not be notable than to delete something that might be." I've ran into that sentiment twice on a couple recent AfDs. Torc2 (talk) 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it usually is better, and that's policy--the bias to is keep articles unless there is reason to delete them, that's the effect of no-consensus closes, and that's what the argument says. obviously, as an more effective argument it depends upon the details of the article, DGG (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Where is that in the policy? Default is to keep if people disagree whether the topic has established notable, but not if the topic asserts no notability but someone insists it might be notable. Torc2 (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
That's the motivation behind the default in AfDs favoring keeping. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, it clearly didn't work, and I think it's still clearly wrong. "No consensus, default keep" is only a valid result when the lack of consensus was over things like whether the level of notability document is sufficient to keep. It is not a valid approach in cases where there is no notability whatsoever established, but somebody objects to deletion based on their personal belief that it might be notable. That essentially changes the deletion requirements from consensus to unanimity - anybody who thinks there might be notability can force no-consensus-default-keep. —Torc. (Talk.) 13:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be a slight strawman. What you are talking about aren't claims of notability but more ILIKEITs disguised as claims about notability. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly! That's why I think this fallacy should be included here; the argument carries some weight if there's some evidence of notability -- (which is one reason I like the WP:MUSIC guidelines so much - the criteria are just enough to establish the probability of notability) -- but it doesn't work if people have spent time searching and come up empty. That's what happened the few times I ran across the sentiment a month ago and what prompted the complaint. —Torc. (Talk.) 01:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "I like it", "It's interesting," and "It's useful" are not necessarily bad arguments

Wikipedia exists because editors contribute to articles that they like and find interesting and/or useful. I help other editors improve articles that are not particularly relevant to me, because I am also able to work on those articles that I do like, find interesting, and that are useful. Having interesting articles attracts editors; having useful articles make us a better reference tool. Wikipedia also relies on fundraising drives. Those donating money do so for a variety of reasons, some of which include because they come to Wikipedia to edit or read about topics that they like, find interesting, or that are useful to them. While the reverse "I don't like it" non-argument simply reflects arrogance (just as saying that you don't find something interesting or useful does not mean that it is not worthwhile for many others), "I like it" arguments could reflect why that particular editor contributes to our project or maybe even donates money. So, while maybe not a standalone argument, any of these three can be respectable as part of a larger argument. Also, because only a fraction of editors ever participate in AfDs and so one "I like it" could really represent a much wider segment of our community, readership, and donors. Finally, dismissing someone who likes, finds iteresting, or finds useful something is essentially saying, "Well who cares what you like, or what interests you, or what your kind finds useful is irrelevant." Thus, I recommend we either acknowledge this reality in the essay or remove these items from our list. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The point of the essay is, that by itself, the mere fact that someone finds an article 'interesting' or 'useful' is not sufficient reason for it to be included in an encyclopedia. As you state, "So, while maybe not a standalone argument, any of these three can be respectable as part of a larger argument." Your statement is applicable to nearly all of the items in the article - standing alone they do not constitute sufficient argument for/against an article - provide detail about how/why WP policies support the retention/removal of the article. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello! One problem that I notice then is that some in AfDs will attempt to dismiss an editor's whole argument if it contains any element of the items indictaed on this list. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
But that is an issue of editors either misunderstanding or purposefully misuseing "ILIKEIT". Perhaps a better/more clear statement of the "ILIKEIT" might help clarify for those who dont understand (please feel free to offer suggestions) - but those editors who purposefully misuse will still purposefully misuse this and other guidelines. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 01:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Your analysis is true as far as it goes. But it ignores the fact that we are here for one primary purpose - to write the best encyclopedia that we can. One of the critical success factors for a wiki is a clear and consistent sense of purpose among all the participants. Wikis without that sense of unified purpose have, to a project, failed. (We know this not just from the academic studies but also from our own experience with some of the predecessor projects which lead to Wikipedia.) I have no interest in seeing this project fail like the others and so have a strong interest in maintaining our central focus on building an encyclopedia. Wikipedia can not be all things to all people. If we try, we will fail too.
The reason the clause is on the page is that whether or not something is "interesting" or "useful" has no bearing on the core question of whether or not it fits within the encyclopedia. Something can be very interesting to me and can drive a great deal of personal passion and commitment but if it is at cross-purposes to the goal of creating an encyclopedia, it doesn't belong here. And if that's the only reason that I'm participating in the project, my contributions probably don't belong here either.
If it's "interesting" and it's encyclopedic, then the topic belongs in the encyclopedia. But frankly if the topic is encyclopedic, it belongs here even if it's not interesting. Saying that "it's interesting" adds nothing useful to the discussion and doesn't help advance the question of whether or not content under discussion fits within the goals and mission of this project. That's why the clause has to stay. Rossami (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia though. The Five pillars assert that it also contains elements of specialized encyclopedias an almanacs. Something can be interesting and almanacic or specialized encyclopedic without having to be simply encyclopedic and still be consistent with our project. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Rossami's argument - with a caveat. Part of the decision in deletion is, "will this article develop effectively?" That's why we ask questions like "are verifiable sources for this topic easily available?" I would probably be more likely to keep an interesting article on the basis that interesting articles tend to be better developed and maintained, simply because they attract more interested editors. When the number of editors on an article shrinks, the wiki process is defeated and it can stagnate. Dcoetzee 20:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Part of what makes Wikipedia special are the interesting articles that "you wouldn't expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica." Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 21:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is "just an encyclopedia". It's free from Britannica's paper limitations but still bound by the vision of being an encyclopedia. It can simultaneously be a general encyclopedia and a suite of specialized encyclopedias but the content is still encyclopedic. And many interesting and/or useful topics are encyclopedic. We should and do cover those. Nobody is arguing that we have to get rid of an unusual article just because Britannica doesn't have an entry by that title.
But at the same time, there are many interesting or useful things that are clearly not encyclopedic. For example, a phone directory is useful. It doesn't belong here. The wiki software and editing process is fundamentally not structured to support that kind of information. It belongs in the kinds of specialized directory sites and tools that are designed for the purpose. For another example, many people think that rumors are interesting. Rumors almost inevitably fall afoul of our policies on reliable sources, etc.
Those interesting or useful but not encyclopedic topics belong in some other wiki. We are first, foremost and only an encyclopedia and must maintain that clear and single-minded purpose. If we lose our sense of shared vision, history has shown that the project will fail. Rossami (talk) 22:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
According to the Five pillars, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a specialized encyclopedia and almanac. There are many specialized encyclopedias. Thus, Star Wars articles, game show articles, science fiction articles, monster articles, comic book articles, X Files articles, battlestar articles, etc. are all consistent with encyclopedic content. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 22:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Le Grand Roi raises an interesting point. The arguments of "it's interesting" or "it's useful" are not inherently illogical. They are not even necessarily bad arguments to raise in deletion debates.

Notability is essentially a political question. It would be great if the community could have provided more guidance on what is notable. However, the inclusionist/deletionist debate continues to rage, and the community has only been willing and able to agree on (and enact as policy) a few aspects of notability. For instance, the policy notes that anything that's not verifiable is probably not notable either. But the rules are often hazy on what verifiable stuff, exactly, is notable; and those matters have been left to AfD, etc. to settle on a case-by-case basis.

Accordingly, it's inevitable that deletion debates will include some political wrangling about what we should consider notable. I don't think we should discourage such arguments, unless the particular situation is one that is clearly covered by the rules. (And even then, there are certain situations when we will need to ignore all rules; but that can probably go without saying explicitly here.) Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 00:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability is inherited changes gears in the example

The section seems to be about inherited notability, but the examples mention inherent notability. There seems to be two really different concepts at work here. One kind of inherited notability comes from a specific source (e.g. not every member of a notable club is inherently notable) - the WP:MUSIC reference fits this. The other is inherent notability, like the current examples give. "All examples of X are inherently notable." "Inherently" implies a kind of birthright here: just because it's an "X", it's notable. Aside from confusing things, this isn't really an argument to avoid in all cases. There are a lot of notable (no pun intended) instances where notability is inherently assumed: geographic locations, schools, many politicians for example. Any ideas how to correct this? Do we want to include both forms of inheritance in this and qualify all the exceptions, or change the examples? I dunno, I'm open to suggestions. —Torc. (Talk.) 00:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another argument to avoid?

I think someone's mentioned this before, but using Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions as your argument is an argument to avoid. It's only an opinionated essay, not a guideline or a policy, and yet I've seen a lot of users cite it as their reason to delete/keep an article on AfD.--TBC!?! 21:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you read "This Page In A Nutshell"? (And while it is "only an opinionated essay", each of the opionions is one that is supported by WP policies and guidelines.) TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 01:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Would this clarify?

Would changing the headers from "Examples" to something like "Examples of arguments that are insufficient by themselves" be of use in helping to clarify the meaning of this essay to both those who link here and those who are directed here by others? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 01:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:ILIKEHIM and IDONTLIKEHIM

Could these be added as new items on this list? Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 02:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "encyclopedic"

This text was removed:

It should be noted that the word "encyclopedia" means "broad in scope or content," or "comprehensive," and an encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Thus, an article's "unencyclopedic" nature might justify its rejection from featured article promotion, but would not meet any criteria for deletion. In that context, it is simply an incorrect use of terminology.

Would GlassCobra care to explain why? 129.174.91.117 (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Appears highly useful and relevant. Re-added. --Bishop2 (talk) 15:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The text seems very unclear and not directly related to the use of the argument in AfD. If some similar language is included, it should paralel the language used in WP:NOT. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The recently added text appears to be more an opinion piece on the nature of "encyclopedias" and does not add anything useful to this page. It appears to be a back-door attempt to gut the clear clauses in WP:NOT that remind us in no uncertain terms that we are writing an encyclopedia and that things which are not encyclopedia-like content may be very useful but still don't belong on this project. Rossami (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I thought that the added text simply made the case "delete as unencyclopedic" would not be a valid AfD argument on its own merit. Obviously more justification would be required, as it's not even an appropriate use of the word based on how our particular scope of content. --Bishop2 (talk) 13:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
One thing we must keep in mind, per our first pillar, is that we are not just writing an encyclopedia, but a combination of general and specialized encyclopedias as well as almanacs. Thus, by our standards, "encyclopedic" means anything that appears in a published enycclopedia or almanac is technically fair game for inclusion in our project, which is a good thing and is tremendously broad and comprehensive and which is what makes us unique and a genuine contribution to humanity. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 17:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

See also discussion at Wikipedia:VPP#Encyclopedic. Larry E. Jordan (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETED

Is there a specific policy indicating a time-frame that is considered acceptable between AFD nominations? I routinely opposed re-nominations that occur less than 2 months after a previous nomination, but it would be handy if a specific time-frame were indicated through policy. For example, I am presently opposing an AFD for an article that survived an AFD challenge (albeit with "no consensus") only 5 weeks ago. One would think common sense would prevail when it comes to renominations within a few days of an AFD closure, but as you move away it becomes a little bit muddier. This should be something indicated on the "this article has been nominated previously" banner, perhaps indicating that "it may not be nominated again until such-and-such a date". 23skidoo (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I could be wrong but I think this is one of our wp:perennial proposals. I'd be for something along these lines too though. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:48, 25 Mar 2008 (UTC)
"Is there a specific policy indicating a time-frame that is considered acceptable between AFD nominations?" is something beyond the scope of "Arguments to Avoid", but I think the current text already kind of addresses that issue:
  • "This argument is a good argument in some circumstances but a bad argument in others. An article that was kept in a past deletion discussion may still be deleted if deletion is supported by strong reasons that were not adequately addressed in the previous deletion discussion" (time frame between deletion discussions is irrelevant in this instance)
  • "If an article is frivolously nominated (or renominated) for deletion, then editors are justified in opposing the renomination. ... especially when there was a consensus to keep it in the past, or when only a short time has elapsed since the last nomination." (emph added)
  • "If an article was kept because it is potentially encyclopedic and can be improved or expanded, one should allow time for editors to improve it. Therefore, it is appropriate for editors to oppose a re-nomination that does not give enough time to improve the article." (emp added)
Each circumstance is different and common sense should be applied and I don't know that adding specific time frames would do anything but give WikiLawyers another tool in their arsenal. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree about the common sense, but it would be nice if there was a range, e.g. like "a few weeks" or something. Obviously WP:IAR and common sense apply here, e.g. if a cruft-y article got kept because only fanboys showed up to the AfD, or if an article got deleted for lack of notability and then the next day the subject was on the cover of Newsweek, or whatever, we wouldn't have a hard and fast limit. But I've seen articles where it was like six weeks, and some people said too soon, and others said plenty of time. It would be really nice to at least say the kind of range we are talking about here. Is it a week? 3-4 weeks? four to six months? (and as always, there'd be exceptions for stuff that was obvious) --Jaysweet (talk) 14:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
That still sounds like it is something that should be discussed elsewhere. This article is just saying that the argument "We just went through AfD" is not in and of itself a valid argument in deletion debates. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
As RedPen says, common sense must prevail. We have often considered and always rejected specific timelines. There are just too many different situations requiring different answers. For example, if new evidence comes to light, immediate reconsideration may be appropriate. On the other hand, if the consensus was "give [XYZ] the benefit of doubt for now", a reasonable time for improvement is usually held to be months. (In my personal experience, the most commonly accepted range is 3-6 months but that depends in part on the reputation of the authors offering to undertake the improvements.) Any hard-and-fast rule will create more headaches than it's worth. Premature renominations already get shouted down pretty quickly and very effectively. Rossami (talk) 16:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair comments and thanks for the response. I do feel, though, that by having a firm timeline established, it would also serve to provide editors with a deadline for improving the articles. I've seen lots of cases where articles survive AFD, but are renominated 6 months later with no improvements made. I consider 6 months to be a reasonable interval, though I would probably favor something closer to 3 months if a policy were established. Obviously I'm not talking about things such as recreated deleted articles, or articles where some WP:BLP issue exists (though in those cases one would assume the speedy delete protocols would kick in, anyway). A policy would also have to take good faith into account as sometimes articles are renominated by editors who were unaware that it had already been nominated recently. 23skidoo (talk) 16:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Just as an aside, I checked out WP:PEREN and it's worth noting that the limitation policy proposal was last discussed back in 2005. Given the often-stated claim that consensus continues to change on Wikipedia, I do think it's high time a policy idea be revisited. The policy that was rejected, incidentally, would have placed a one year moratorium on renominating articles, which I think was a bit extreme and if I had to guess was probably a major reason why it died. Suggesting a 90-120 day moratorium instead I think would be more reasonable. 23skidoo (talk) 21:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the question comes up rather more often than that. It just usually gets quickly answered on a talk page and dropped. You could certainly reformulate a policy proposal if you think it would be helpful now. The one-year standard was absurd but even the lower standards were generally opposed the last time it was discussed.
I'll admit up front, though, that I would oppose any simple blanket moratorium as insufficiently nuanced and too prone to gamesmanship. And if you added in all the qualifiers and nuance to avoid the potential gamesmanship, I'd have serious concerns about instruction creep. Do you have evidence that the situation is significantly worse than it's been in the past or that the current processes (shouting down premature nominations and appealling bad decisions through WP:DRV) are broken badly enough that we should pay those costs? Rossami (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in replying to this. No, I don't have any stats, however the recently added provision on AFD for indicating articles that have been nominated before have made it easier to spot articles with multiple nominations and those that have been nominated recently. (This also makes it easier to spot articles that are recreated from deletion or for which no consensus was reached at the prior AFD. I would see "No consensus" and "Deletion recreation" would be two exceptions to any sort of time limit between nominations. I think a relatively simply worded policy could be drafted and while I understand those who feel the fewer rules the better (less creep) the fact is we're far beyond that point now anyway with all the micromanagement going on about article notability, what sources are kosher, etc etc. Placing a minimum time between unambiguous AFD nominations wouldn't make matters any worse, IMO and might reduce examples of people gaming the system to get a desired outcome on an AFD, or good faith errors. 23skidoo (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This should be listed as a "behavior to avoid" rather than an "argument to avoid". I'm concerned that listing it here will be deliberately misinterpreted in defense of said behavior:

Previous AFD was unsuccessful, ergo consensus must be flawed. Trying again. Delete. --VexatiousNominator (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Are you going to keep listing it until it gets deleted? Speedy close FFS. --BullshitDetector (talk) 17:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Disregard this when closing as it is not a valid "keep" argument per WP:ATU#KEEPTRYING. --TrollEnabler (talk) 17:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

— CharlotteWebb 18:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Section to add: WP:USELESS

I propose that the following section be added:

[edit] It's useless

Examples:

  • Delete. Doesn't help us to build an encyclopedia. ItsUseless 01:01, 1 January 2001 (UTC)

This is an argument commonly seen at miscellany for deletion with regard to pages in userspace and projectspace. (It is sometimes also phrased as a Wikipedia-is-not-ism, e.g. "Wikipedia is not a social networking site" or "Wikipedia is not a blog".) Although very popular, it is a weak argument because it ignores the fact that policy expressly tells us not to worry about server space, and deleted material stays in the archives anyway; therefore, there is no inherent reason to "clean out" projectspace or userspace pages which do not appear to be useful. Furthermore, while server space is not a resource we need to worry about, recruitment and retention of contributors is much more of a concern. Deleting userspace or projectspace pages because "they're useless" may cause good contributors to become disillusioned and leave Wikipedia, therefore reducing the project's most important resource (editors); and, as already noted, such deletion does not benefit the project, since it does not free up any further space. Therefore, pages in userspace or projectspace should only be deleted if they are actively harming the encyclopedia, not just because they are "useless".

Please note that this does not apply to legitimate criticism of a policy, guideline or process on the grounds that it is useless. Since needless bureaucracy should be avoided, compulsory Wikipedia processes should be kept as simple as possible; reams of unnecessary instructions can be harmful to the encyclopedia, and it is therefore legitimate to argue for the abolition of a policy or process on the grounds that it is useless.

Obviously, none of the above should be construed to apply to deletion discussions regarding any encyclopedic content (such as articles, templates or images), for which questions of utility are not relevant.

If there is consensus, I will add the above section to the essay. WaltonOne 14:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with your proposal. The userspace and the project space are granted to us for the sole purpose of helping to build a better encyclopedia. We tolerate a small amount of side chatter but always with that ultimate goal. Things which are a significant distraction ought to be removed. Even if they don't consume significant server space, they dilute our sense of mission and purpose. If you look at the research on social software, one of the most compelling findings is that wikis who lose their sense of mission invariably fail. The case studies demonstrating this are remarkable in their consistency. Wikipedia has been successful largely because we all share a single vision - to write an encyclopedia. Anything that is not an encyclopedia may well be important or fun but it's not to be done here. I think there are too many scenarios where your proposed "actively harmful" standard would be too low. Rossami (talk) 15:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I cant really support it either. The purpose of the essay is to give direction to people about how to provide useful input at AfD. I don't see that server space discussion has much to do with the fact that a simple "it's useless" !vote is not a constructive way to add to an AfD.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 18:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I support adding this section. What one person thinks is "useless" does not automatically make it so to others. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 01:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nothing much on the web

'Nothing much on the web' or similar. Seems to occur a few times, might be able to add it to the only 10 ghits part. Should make it clear that printed material is fine(even preferred if quality). Just because there is little or nothing on the web doesn't mean it should be deleted. SunCreator (talk) 02:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This is already at least partially covered under "Google Test" - see if that section addresses your concerns. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 02:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I think I know what SunCreator is getting at. More than a few times I've seen a few AFDs where the notability is being questioned simply based upon the fact you can't find information about it on the Internet. This, of course, is discriminatory against, well, pretty much anything that's old that for one reason or another hasn't been picked up on any Internet sources or -- under Wikipedia's critiera -- web sources considered reliable. I personally feel that Wikipedia needs to move into the 21st Century and accept the fact that, for some topics, a blog is going to be the authority because you simply won't find a scholarly article on the subject. You'd think that would apply mostly to pop-culture topics (which themselves are often unfairly discriminated against by some in the Wikipedia community), but I've seen it happen with non-pop culture topics, too. As for the wording here, I'd actually like to see a sub-section of the Ghit section that basically says what SunCreator implies -- that a newspaper from 1912, properly sourced and cited, is every bit as viable a source as cnn.com, depending on the topic. If that means a keener who wants to verify the source has to go to a library, boo-hoo. (Of course the Achilles heel in this argument is that it's easy to just make up such a source; but one could just as easily create a bogus URL and claim the site no longer exists, but, hey, I accessed it on April 10, 2008 - and you only have the assumption of good faith to go by. 23skidoo (talk) 06:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:PERNOM

Time to get a discussion rolling on this section since it is being abused. I propose a rewrite to changes its focus, since it is currently not being applied properly with reference to ATAs. To wit: a per nom !vote is entirely appropriate in instances where:

  1. the nomination is well-presented and
  2. the article has not undergone important changes during the AfD process.

The consideration that a pernom is an idontlikeit by other means is, if one thinks about it, absurd in any context where the nomination is itself well-formulated. I hereby propose a complete rewrite that makes this clearer. We should, in fact, not be particularly discouraging toward pernoms, insofar as they lead to stronger nominating arguments at AfD. Ironically, when I bring forward articles to AfD, I am usually too lazy to include a lengthy nomination - thus, I am well-aware of instances where a pernom !vote should continue to be discouraged. But editors who hold themselves to a higher standard than myself at AfD deserve to be better served than our current pernom wording would allow. Eusebeus (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If AfD is a discussion and not a vote, then there is no need for pile on "per nom" votes. They do not add anything new to a discussion. A discussion is an exchange of new ideas and arguments expressed during the progression of the discussion and not just a list of "I agree" or "I disagree" votes. Even when I argue to delete, I usually try to bring something new to the discussion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alhaji sani labaran, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Funeral For My Chemical Valentine, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Regular coffee for a regular guy, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Regular coffee for a regular guy as examples). Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 18:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Like all of the arguments to avoid, though, I think this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. If the nominator succinctly yet comprehensively sums up all of the arguments for deletion, and ten yahoos show up with lousy and/or inaccurate reasons to keep an article, I don't see anything wrong with a few constructive editors echoing the sentiments of the nominator. After all, even though in theory the closing admin would overrule of the quacks and only pay attention to the original valid nomination, in practice it doesn't really work that way.
WP:PERNOM, to me, means that if an AfD already has plenty of participation, there is no need to just tack on your per-nom "vote." But that doesn't mean that it isn't helpful in a low-visibility AfD for a few good faith editors to say, "Yes, I concur." --Jaysweet (talk) 18:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As long as !votes are still counted, when someone has already said what I wanted to say, I would still like to know that my voice is heard, without resorting to inventing new arguments. And !votes are still counted. — the Sidhekin (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia works (theoretically) by consensus. One way of measuring where the center of community opinion lies is by knowing how many people feel the nominator has identified sufficient reasons. per nom !votes could (theoretically) help the administrator guage this. I don't really know where I come down on this at all. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict twice) Well said, Citrouilles. When I close discussions, I weight "per nom" comments so low that the user may as well have not bothered editing the page. It's a waste of your time typing and mine reading (and more than that, my time verifying that you're not a sockpuppet). Those comments add nothing to the discussion. Even if all I say is "I too came up empty on a google search", a commenter should still provide some smidgen of new evidence to the discussion. "I concur" comments can provide some minimal validation but given how badly "per nom" comments are misused if you don't take the time to actually say what you concur with, the comment is highly suspect. Rossami (talk) 18:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Jaysweet hits it on the head for me - pernom is useful when it's experienced editors on a page with a good nomination and little/sock/meatpuppet input only. If it's a good editor who understands WP:N, then it's a corroboration, but it's useless when it's a long or messy AFD. I also agree with RPOD that it's something very difficult to work into this page. One thing that might help is pointing out the usefulness of a 'per nom' !vote that provides a slightly more detailed or useful rational, or something that indicates the per nom editor has reviewed the page to a certain extent. WLU (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
If WP works by consensus, then pernom !!votes should be counted. —Ashley Y 19:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
If Wikipedia works by consensus and AfD is a discussion, then "votes" should not be counted, only arguments. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles, but that is an entirely different view of consensus than my understanding. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
That is democracy, not consensus. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Valuing only the argument and not taking into account how widespread agreement with the argument is - does not equal consensus either. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
If that were/is the case, then a lot of AfDs that closed as "delete" even though a majority of editors argued to keep should be reconsidered, for example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Centurion (Scarrow novel). More argued to keep than delete, but it closed as delete. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Shame on you then, Rossami; that is a gross and dismaying generalisation, given the diversity of nominations at AfD. If a nomination is well-formulated, you are suggesting I need to extend beyond the reasoning therein simply so that you can feel somehow satisfied. Nuh-uh. User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles - an editor currently wantonly misusing this part of our ATA guideline - holds views which are unconventional. The implication of his suggestion seems to be that a well-formulated nomination is in itself sufficient to get material deleted and that no-one need further participate if the nomination itself is complete. The fact is that AfD is indeed a vote of sorts, and the spirit of VfD still persists in participation levels. Moreover - another point missed by the above and again Rossami, I am very disappointed that such a well-established, strong and highly seasoned editor who should know better would fall victim to this kind of feel-good apparatchik repetition of high-minded but vacuous rhetorical stylings - this reiteration is a very important mechanism for determining ongoing consensus. We can all remember, in this instance the old roads debate for example. At any event, I would reiterate my point: we need to rewrite the PERNOM to indicate that endorsements of the nomination are entirely reasonable - indeed salutary - given the 2 conditions I note above. Eusebeus (talk) 19:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Eusebeus. Rossami, if you take that approach, you shouldn't be closing discussions. —Ashley Y 19:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict up the wazoo here!)

WLU said it better than me: Pernom is useless for a long AfD, but often handy for a small AfD. There needs to be a way to indicate, "I, as a good faith editor, have read this nomination and see no problem with it." Heh, to take it to the reductio ad absurdum, if nobody ever used a pernom or pernom-like comment, then in theory a complete and well-stated nomination would just get perrenially listed, because nobody would ever comment on it!  ;) --Jaysweet (talk) 19:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That said though, I don't think the WP:PERNOM section should be removed from this essay, nor do I see a pressing need to rewrite it. I don't think anybody disagrees that per-nom !votes are frequently abused, and in any case it's always better if you can come up with an additional argument. I mean, do we really think that people are reading WP:PERNOM and saying, "Oh gee, well, the nominator did such a good job, I better just not participate in this AfD!" Me personally, I take this entire essay with a hefty grain of salt, because for most of them there are times when it applies anyway. (e.g. while WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is often not a valid argument, demonstrating precedent can be useful in certain cases); WP:JUSTAPOLICY !votes are sometimes useful to get the snowball rolling in uncontroversial AfDs; etc.) This is just an essay, after all. The sentiments in this essay are very, very accurate, and they outline real problems in AfD discussions. That the wording is a little imprecise and that it doesn't spell out all the possible exceptions... meh, who cares? It's just an essay... --Jaysweet (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

  • The need to rewrite it is triggered by its current abuse at the hands of various editors who are meretriciously bandying about the link as if every instance of a pernom is automatically discounted via ATA. Which, if Rossami is closing an AfD, is apparently the case, but then I think his position is completely indefensible. Eusebeus (talk) 19:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe what we need to do then is encourage a culture of reminding people that WP:ATA is just an essay? I agree that people throw it around like policy. While most of the advice in this essay is sound, it is not policy and shouldn't be treated as such. --Jaysweet (talk) 19:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, but then Rossami's comment above makes it even clearer that we need to thresh this out, because it is blindingly obvious to me that in certain instances - indeed many instances at AFD, probably the majority - a pernom vote is entirely reasonable and even useful for helping create ongoing consensus about matters, insofar as many nominations are well-expressed and comprehensive. It would be useful to solicit the views of admins who regularly close AfDs, because it may be that Rossami's views have more currency than I am willing to concede and that I am simply very misguided in my thinking here. Eusebeus (talk) 19:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem with "per nom" votes is that they typically frequently come from single-purpose deletion only accounts whose "contributions" consist of just running down AfDs trying to vote as quickly as possible to delete (many of these accounts have even turned up as socks): see for example [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], etc. It if far easier to take seriously a delete stance from someone who demonstrates that they did indeed check for themselves if sources exist for any given article and if they have enough experience building respectable articles that we know they understand what a good article is. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Ahhh, but who said the life of a closing admin would (should) be easy? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

A well-formulated nomination that provides a clear argument and properly marshals the evidence for deletion should enable efficacious review and support. Any nomination that provides strong & comprehensive grounds for deletion should be sufficient for other editors to reference in the discussion. Our ATA should make that point much more clearly. I thus propose that we change to more favourable wording that welcomes endorsements of well-formulated nominations. Eusebeus (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have an issue with a single word in something Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles said: The problem with "per nom" votes is that they typically come from single-purpose deletion only accounts... I don't buy the word "typically" there. In my experience, "per nom" votes typically come from experienced good faith editors who are just being a bit lazy. If you replace the word "typically" with "sometimes," then I can buy into your problem statement. (Of course, neither of us have any hard data here, but that's been my impression)
Once again it all comes down to context. In a controversial AfD, "per nom" is not very useful, because, as Le Grand says, there is a high probability of socks, meatpuppets, pov SPAs, and other types of tomfoolery. For the majority of AfDs, though, there's only one person saying the article is notable (the author, heh) and in those cases a few experienced editors coming in and endorsing the original nomination is useful to expedite the process. In non-controversial AfDs, the odds of bad faith "per nom" chicanery is much smaller. --Jaysweet (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, uh, I clicked on a couple of the Contrib histories that Le Grand pointed too, and I would not consider those malicious accounts... Strong deletionists, for sure, and I wish they would have some contributions other than AfDs. But I don't think the accounts are malicious. Also, I don't see that most of their contribs are of the "per nom" variety anyway!
I think the problem you are illuminating with those links is not a problem with "per nom" !votes, but rather the problem of editors who are exclusive deletionists, with no non-AfD contributions. Cleaning up the crap articles is a job that needs to be done, but doing only one job on Wikipedia tends to make people overzealous (it's a well-known problem with accounts that are exclusive Recent Change patrollers, for instance, that they start seeing vandals everywhere).
This is a real problem, but I think you are characterizing it a little inaccurately by implying that if we just ignored "per nom" !votes, this would go away... --Jaysweet (talk) 21:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, in the contrib histories you cited, I see quite a few Keeps mixed in with the Deletes! I am not sure if you meant to be disingenuous, but this is sort of leaving a bad taste in my mouth. All of the contrib histories you cited are just people who are moderate to strong deletionists, and all are good faith contributors. They are not socks, meat puppets, and calling them SPAs is misleading because SPA usually implies an interest in only one topic, while these editors seem to have participated in AfDs on a range of topics.
Just because you are an inclusionist, you cannot go around saying that deletionists are sockpuppets! :( I am not sure what to think now. --Jaysweet (talk) 21:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I can in all of the above instances, because ALL of the accounts I linked to above have been confirmed by multiple checkusers to belong to various sock farms (i.e. they have been confimed as the same person on the same IPs and with double "votes" or other disruptive edits) and have all been blocked idefinitely or banned accordingly:
1. User:AnteaterZot's confirmed sock accounts: User:Aipzith, User:PatrickStar LaserPants, User:Noble Sponge, User:Lord Uniscorn, and User:Only Zuul.
2. User:Davenbelle's confirmed sock accounts: User:Thomas Jerome Newton, User:Moby Dick, User:D73733C8-CC80-11D0-B225-00C04FB6C2F5, User:Note to Cool Cat, User:Diyarbakir, User:Senang Hati, and User:Jack Merridew.
3. User:Eyrian's confimed sock accounts: User:JohnEMcClure, User:THX1337, User:Varlak, and the checkuser also said numerous IP edits, too.
4. User:Insearchofintelligentlife's confirmed sock account: User:Divinediscourse.
5. User:JB196's confirmed sock accounts: User:Burntsauce, User:Dannycali, User:75.5.225.151, and a whole category of additional socks.
6. User:Willirennen's confirmed sock accounts: User:Garth Bader, User:Dr Tobias Funke, User:Homo Saffien, User:Metallicash, User:Knock-Off Nigel, User: Lara Dalle, User:Moosato Cowabata, User:Lauren Norton, User:Jamest54, and User:AnnaLogge.
Thus, all of the above "moderate to strong deletionists" are indeed socks, meat puppets, or single purpose accounts as confirmed by administrators and checkusers. It is NOT just my opinion. Anyway, though, I struck out typically and instead will say frequently. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 23:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
A couple of people have taken issue with my wording above. For the record, I stand by it. Anyone who thinks that closing deletion discussions has the slightest thing to do with counting noses needs to carefully reread the Deletion policy. Consensus is not determined by an arbitrary threshold of votes. More than that, closing admins are explicitly expected to weight the comments when determining if rough consensus has been achieved. Weighting is based on strength of argument and policy. A single well-reasoned, fact-based "keep" argument outweighs ten unsupported "delete" votes (and vice versa). (And before anyone else starts screaming about whether or not I should be closing debates, I'd appreciate it if you'd actually read some of the discussions I've closed rather than making unsupported assumptions. You might also look into the record of those closures at Deletion Review.)
But I don't think any of us in this discussion disagree with the theory of weighting. The real question here is the proper weighting of "per nom" opinions. In my experience, there may be a few rare souls who fully investigate an issue and can find nothing new to say beyond what's in the nomination but in far too many cases, "per nom" is a cheat - a way of adding an unsupported opinion while trying to give the impression of actual thought. (By the way, "per above", the corrollary for me-too keep opinions, is equally unhelpful.) Am I failing to assume good faith in making that generalization? Perhaps. The practical application always requires investigation into the specific commentor's contribution history and the nature of the discussion at the time the comment was made. Highly experienced editors who have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the relevant policies and standards can sometimes get a little leeway and be excused a bad day. But the general rule holds regardless of experience - the more you show your work and explain why you think a page ought to be deleted or kept, the more weight your opinion will be given.
My concern with this proposal is that by weakening the prohibition against "me too" opinions like "per nom", we'll get even more of them than we already do and the quality of the discussions will decay. By actively discouraging such unsupported opinions and setting an expectation that participants should show their work, we encourage everyone to put more thought and research into their decisions. Not only does that make the closer's job easier, it increases the likelihood that we will make the right decision for Wikipedia. Rossami (talk) 22:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, that is a spirited defense of your position and admirably presented. In fact, you may not disagree that if we can improve the quality of nominations, we would all be ahead, even with prenom endorsements: a potentially felicitous and salutary outcome of a reworking of WP:PERNOM sice it would give closing admins greater latitude to adjudge based on the initial nomination. Are you opposing my proposed rewrite? Eusebeus (talk) 02:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed new Wording for WP:PERNOM

Here is my proposed rewrite. Eusebeus (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

It is important to keep in mind that articles listed for deletion are designed to solicit discussion. As a result, participants are generally encouraged to provide arguments or evidence that are grounded in policy and practice to support their position. It frequently happens that the rationale provided in the nomination includes a comprehensive argument, specific policy references and/or a compelling presentation of evidence in favour of deletion. In such instances, a simple endorsement of the nominator's argument is often sufficient, indicating an editors general agreement with both the nominator's arguments and the policies or guidelines being referenced. Typically, this is indicated with the simple phrase per nom.

In certain instances, however, a "per nominator' endorsement may be insufficient. It can happen that, in the course of, or as a result of, being listed at AfD, an article has undergone substantive change which directly addresses the concerns raised in the nomination. At this point, endorsement of the nomination is unlikely to be as compelling an argument as one that specifically addresses such changes. Indeed, nominators themselves will frequently amplify their nomination through discussion when such changes occur.

Additionally, in the course of the discussion, the nomination may have been effectively addressed by counter-arguments, alternative interpretations of policy, or the introducton of contradictory evidence. In such instances, it may be more useful to explain how you justify your position in a way that responds to those counter-arguments and, where possible, to marshal your own evidence rather than provide a simple 'per nomination' endorsement. On the other hand, the existence of contrary-positions does not necessarily invalidate the strength or arguments of a well-formed nomination and the existence of votes in favour of retention should not hinder you from endorsing the nomination if you feel it raises the salient points to consider in the discussion.

  • The above proposal is inferior to the current wording. It is too wordy and reduces the impact of the essential point which is that we are wanting reasoned debate at AFD not me-too votes. Per-nom is bad because it encourages cliques and claques such as we see at RFA. Colonel Warden (talk) 03:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • agreed on that. nobody has ever said that independent arguments for keep or delete are unconstructive. DGG (talk) 16:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletionpedia

Would Jc37 care to give an explanation for this reversion? My thought is that it is helpful to let editors who may be frenetic about the loss of information ("ZOMG! All that work, including my reverted edits from a month ago that I'm still arguing about, is about to be lost!") some confidence that it will indeed be accessible somewhere. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 03:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Jc37 but if he/she hadn't reverted the change, I would have. I consider Deletionpedia to be an incredibly bad idea and legally suspect. The vast majority of pages deleted from Wikipedia are removed for a very good reason. This bot-enabled preservation of vandalism and personal attacks discredits the project. I hope that the Foundation's lawyers are already looking into it but even if they aren't, we should absolutely not be advertising that site. Rossami (talk) 13:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It does tend to help refute the argument against information being lost as a result of AFDs, though, does it not? I believe that the right to fork under GFDL would include the right to create something like Deletionpedia, by the way. And Deletionpedia already takes measures to rid itself of copyvios and other "dangerous pages"; see [10]. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Looks like an interesting idea, but it has yet to load on my computer! Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 16:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, we must have slashdotted wikipedia'd it! Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 16:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, it's back up! Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I reverted because this page is: "Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions". It's not: list some non-foundation wikis that commenters might also enjoy. to be honest, posting that link there is, at least rather close to, violating WP:SPAM. (Same goes for "Uncyclopedia", or any other external websites.)

I hope this clarifies. - jc37 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "I heard it somewhere" argument

Shouldn't there be an extra section about "I heard it somewhere" argument? This argument is used fairly frequently as a keep argument in AfD discussions to justify notability ("I heard it frequently used" or "I read about it on some website" etc). One can say that it is a variation of WP:ILIKEIT argument but it seems sufficiently different to me to merit a separate section. There is a good passage from WP:V that is relevant here, namely Jimbo's quote featured there: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." Nsk92 (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ad hominems

In this edit, User:WaltCip added a section on ad hominems. It was reverted by User:Catchpole (and then I accidentally edit-conflicted but I think that's now cleaned up).

My own opinion was that the proposed section seemed uncontroversial but maybe unnecessary. This is already an overly-long page and I had mild concerns that the value of the proposed section might be less than the costs of additional instruction creep. I also would have objected fairly strongly to the inclusion of sockpuppets in the list. Sockpuppetry and other attempts to bias our decision-making process are very serious and and must be addressed if the project is to succeed.

Any other discussion on the relative merits or downsides of the proposed new section? Rossami (talk) 17:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

My point was that an otherwise valid deletion should not be stonewalled by the editing or moral status of the nominator.--WaltCip (talk) 20:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RUBBISH issue

I have a problem with the example "Keep We'll find some sources later –NotRightNow" listed as an example of an "Argument to avoid in deletion discussion". From reading the section, and in my own opinion, it seems that this can often be a valid argument. I think I understand why the example is included, but I think it should be adjusted to something a bit more obvious. Or perhaps the proceeding example can be expanded upon, saying, "It's currently nothing but spam and lies, but we can rewrite it." Perhaps I'm just a hardcore eventualist, but in AfD participation I've come to the opinion that an article on a notable topic should only be deleted if it has never been in a salvagable state; such that delete&recreate as stub hides all the trash that merely stubbifying leaves behind. I'm not sure how best to edit this, so I'd like to see some input. -Verdatum (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Are you saying that we shouldn't delete just because the page is "currently nothing but spam and lies" but once was useful (or at least, did not then include the spam and lies)? If so, that's already the case and always has been. Just revert the page to whatever salvagable state existed. Note that fact in the deletion discussion and the participants (and the closer) will consider the changes appropriately.
The point of this section is that the deletion participants should always consider the potential for the topic, not merely the current state of the article - but that their assessment of potential must be balanced and have some basis in fact. The blind assertion that "we'll find some sources later" ignores the question of whether those assumed sources really exist. Sometimes, a clean start can be the fastest way to get to the quality article we all want. Rossami (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm saying I don't consider "we'll find some sources later" an "argument to avoid", and the body of the section does not explain why it is an argument to avoid. It's merely an incomplete argument. The full argument is along the lines of "Sources exist for this content, we'll add them later". The section merely explains that making such an argument is less good than just finding and add the sources, or at least link to some in the argument.
Further, the line, "Things which cause concerns over core policies like verifiability need to be addressed, and simply saying that major concerns of that nature could be solved eventually, is not going to solve the problem." While true, has nothing to do with deletion, and suggesting that it does conflicts with the above section (NOTCLEANUP) which states, "If there's good, eventually sourceable, content in the article, it should be developed and improved, not deleted." -Verdatum (talk) 04:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think I understand better. I think there may be two separate (though related) issues.
  1. The problem with users who typically say "Keep, we'll find some sources later" is that they are skipping the critical first part of your statement that sources do in fact exist for this content. Far too often, that phrase is used in the hope that sources exist rather than based upon any evidence of existence. Such wishful thinking adds nothing to the discussion. (If, on the other hand, someone said "I remember reading about x in the Wall Street Journal back in the 80s", I would consider that a valid argument even though the person does not actually provide the source.)
    That's why the wording is that "simply saying that major concerns... could be solved" is not sufficient and why it's not inconsistent with the NOTCLEANUP section. You have to offer some evidence or rationale why your belief is justified if you want your argument to carry any weight. Of course, the best way to do that is to demonstrate it but that's not necessary. The section only requires that you offer something beyond an unsupported assertion of faith.
  2. The other point is one of interpretation and depends on whether you believe that the current version (or some prior version) has at least some useful basis from which to start a quality article. If every line of text would have to be scrapped and any future editor would have to start over from scratch, then where is the value to keeping the current text around? NOTCLEANUP starts with the assumption that there is some good content somewhere on the page or history.
    The question here is whether it is more intimidating to a new editor to start a brand new page after having followed a redlink or more off-putting for the new editor to see such low-quality junk after following a bluelink? Experienced editors who have the necessary content knowledge will fix the page either way. New editors, though, tend to assume that the existing content has some kind of blessing and in my experience are reluctant to overwrite it with their good content. In those cases, there is a credible argument that a redlink increases our chances of getting a quality article or speeds that process along. I consider myself more eventualist than most but eventualist or immediatist, we all agree that getting to a good article faster is better. Rossami (talk) 06:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
1. The usual reason is that subjects of this sort normally do have sources, but that nobody has properly looked so far for this one. I think that's so much the usual reason that' it's actually implied in the statement. We all agree that it's better to be more specific & best to actually find them & say what they are.
2. Many editors--including myself--find it much easier working with even the lowest quality pages. If nothing else, this at least indicates the problems, and I often work by reworking or replacing in turn each of the paragraphs. There are lots of ways to improvbe articles. someone who prefers to improve by removing the contents and replacing can always do that. DGG (talk) 02:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
1. I think I see now. I'd like to see the section edited then to better explain why "We'll find sources later" on it's own is an argument to avoid. A quick sentence or two should be sufficient.
2. I just hate when page deletions hide article histories from me (even if it only happens rarely and page history undelete requests don't often appear to be met with resistence for legitimately recreated pages). Again, I feel that section does not relate to deletion discussion; I'd like to either remove it, or figure out some way to edit it so it doesn't appear to be so blatently in conflict with notcleanup. -Verdatum (talk) 10:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
If you've got an idea that would make the point clearer for our readers, be bold and make the change. (I tried it but my change made the section far too wordy and I took it back out without saving it.) Rossami (talk) 15:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)