Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Religious perspectives on dinosaurs

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Contents 1 Tag 1.1 Killdevil campainging 2 POV forking 2.1 Summary of Views

[edit] Tag

Who put up the tag? Did someone link to this article to try and get people to come in and act as meatpuppets, or was it just put up because a huge number of people randomly voted on the very last day it was up within a short time period? Titanium Dragon 08:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I put it up and talked to the editor who sent out the notices. Look at Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Religious_perspectives_on_dinosaurs to see who was notified, and you can always check the page history to see who added the tag (assuming there's an informative edit summary).--Kchase T 08:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Killdevil campainging

The following users were asked by User:Killdevil to vote to keep this article and did so: User:Starghost User:Rossnixon User:Tzepish User:WilliamThweatt He added a notice to a total of 22 user talk pages urging them to vote to keep this article. This is clearly against the rules of Wikipedia, and is drumming up votes. I could obviously go and find a number of editors and say "Hey, look at this article!" and they'd all vote to delete it, but I did not. If they don't care enough to check the article once a week, or look at the VfD page on a weekly basis for articles they care about or the main Dinosaur article... Additionally, he specifically asked them to vote to keep the article. I do not appreciate this, and it has thrown the results into some amount of suspicion. Remember, this is about figuring out whether or not the article should be deleted, NOT voting. Titanium Dragon 08:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Though it does skew the process, this was an honest mistake, and the editor in question was apologetic about it. The closing admin may weigh arguments in making a decision about consensus, or disregard "me too" votes. Generally, we're pretty good about preventing this from affecting the result.--Kchase T 08:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I've never done a RfD before myself, as usually I work on more notable articles; I've participated in RfDs previously and was aware of the no campaigning rule. I'd not mind so much if he hadn't asked them to keep the article in notifying them of it, and am glad that the admins are very good at dealing with such. The list was more or less constructed to aid the admin, actually. Sorry for acting accusatory. Titanium Dragon 08:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It is out in the open now, we know who was notified and he apologised so it shouldn't skew the result. It is however something that deletion review frowns heavily upon. MartinDK 08:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. However, this is not Deletion review (nor is it RfD). The processes are similar, but some people may become confused if y'all refer to AfD as RfD or Deletion Review. Sorry for the nitpick. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 09:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Aww thats ok. You are right about not bringing in deletion review at this point, it might confuse people especially those not familiar with the purpose of deletion review. My apologies. MartinDK 09:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Greetings all. Yes it is true that a user (Killdevil), with which I have had no other previous contact, left a message on my talk page. However, I have had this article on my watch list for about a year now and have made many contributions to it in the past. I assure you I would have voiced my opinion regardless of Killdevil's message. I have strong views on keeping this page which I briefly outlined in my "keep" "vote" and I can elaborate on more if anyone would like to here them. I strongly object to the possibility that my opinions could be disregarded or discounted simply because another user left a message on my talk page.--WilliamThweatt 23:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify my statement above. By "me too" !votes, I meant things like "keep, it's a good article" or "keep, i see no reason the article should be deleted", both of which fail to contribute to a discussion grounded in policies and guidelines.--Kchase T 03:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

And similarly for me. I had spotted this RfD and was considering voting the way I did before being encouraged to do so. ^rossnixon 07:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Whilst it is important that this was discovered I really don't see that this should skew the result in anyway. Also, I haven't seen any proof that he deliberatly contacted those who would support his views. Seems to me like he was canvassing for opinions in general. Still, it is always important to get these things out in the open, if nothing else then to determine that no harm was done. MartinDK 12:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV forking

I was unaware that this article was originally created as a POV Fork, which is not allowed under Wikipedia policy. As several editors seem to not understand that it is not allowed, I'm not sure if this proposal for deletion is really adequetely portraying a very important issue - that this article is and was created explicitly to be a POV Fork. Titanium Dragon 08:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia:Content forking is merely a guideline. It is not a policy. Additionally, Wikipedia:Content_forking#What_content.2FPOV_forking_is_not states that article spin-outs, or "when an article gets long, a section of the article is made into its own article." and "Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork." Firsfron of Ronchester 09:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the strangest AfD's I've taken part in. We all deep down agree on what we think of the article so we argue over technicalities and how to fight vandalism. As for the forking that policy is a secondary argument to begin with. MartinDK 09:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I understand that it doesn't, but the motivation in this case seems to have been controlling vandalism on the dinosaur page. I personally think this falls into the domain of the Creationism and Young Earth Creationism articles, and don't think it is really independently notable as its only proponents are creationists and it arises from their argument. I don't think they did it in bad faith or anything; I'm sure they did it in good faith. I just think it skirted addressing the real issue, which is putting in a one paragraph blurb about Creationism and linking directly to that article, as really, I've never heard non-creationists claim dinosaurs were anything else on religous grounds. Its just that every single mention of this is related to creationism, and it seems to be largely a dupe of the respective articles.

This is one of those funny things about Wikipedia - you end up arguing over minutae oftentimes with people who almost agree with you. Titanium Dragon 10:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of Views

(I'll update this as more votes are made) Delete: 8 Keep: 5 Merge + delete: 3 Merge or keep: 1 Keep or delete: 3

Killdevil's campain for keep: 4

As can be seen, there are about 20 interested editors so far. The general view is:

Delete: Per nom/junk

Keep: This is a POV fork to keep vandalism out of the Dinosaur article. (x3)

OR This article is independently notable as a creationist thing. (x2)

Merge: All suggest merging to Young Earth Creationism and/or Creationism

Keep or delete: Express that this content does not belong in Dinosaur. User:Titanium Dragon 08:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment I hope this doesn't come off as rude as I certainly don't mean it to be, but we really don't need a 'summary of views' section. We never have a section like this in any AfD, even really, really contentious ones (which this is not). This is not a vote and such a summary oversimplifies the discussion; the closing Admin is the only one who really has to keep track and that admin is supposed to read through all the arguments. We really don't need to have this updated and such. --The Way 09:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That is not rude to say. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and so are you. It does however illustrate why this is not your average AfD because deep down we all seem to agree on the article as such. What we disagree on is how to keep vandalism out of the dino article. Other than that I agree with you and yes, the closing admin is supposed to weigh the arguments and in addition to this apply his own common sense if he believes that the consensus is in violation of policy and not just guidelines MartinDK 09:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought this was more appropriate on the discussion page, after reading the above. Titanium Dragon 10:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)