- List of songs whose title includes personal names (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|AFD)
Overturn and delete - This DRV includes the sub-lists by letter as well. Closing admin acknowledges that the delete arguments are stronger than the keep arguments yet claims that opinion is "not settled" about the articles. It appears however that opinion is fairly well-settled in the deletion of a number of articles of a similar stripe recently that these sorts of lists are not encyclopedic because of their disregard of policy. Several of the AFDs for those articles were linked into this AFD and there appears to be no reason offered as to why those many precedents should be ignored (I realize that precedent is not 100% binding but it is certainly important to consider how similar articles have been treated in the past). Arguments for keeping, if I may paraphrase, amounted to it's interesting, people put a lot of work into it, it made it through an AFD once before (two years ago) and people like stuff with their names in it. None of that is particularly compelling and none of it overcomes the strong policy-based objections. The only substantive keep argument, that the songs are thematically related because they all contain a name, was pretty handily refuted by a number of people. Otto4711 13:39, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure. Saying that the delete arguments may have been better than the keep arguments does not automatically mean that there's a consensus or reason to delete. If consensus continues to shift in the delete direction in given time, then the next time this gets listed may work out in a delete direction, but there's no current consensus. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Otto4711 appears to have neglected to bother talking to the closing admin at all before whistling over here (although someone else did, to which my reply was [2], which forms part of my response here). Anyway. Closing admin acknowledges that the deleters argue better but does not consider that they argue so very much better that a highly split debate motivates a consensual deletion. Nominator here is openly asking for a non-consensual deletion. The keepers argued that the list was well-constructed and well-defined with clearly present barriers to entry adn the nominator here glosses over that completely. The deleters failed, in my opinion, to successfully deconstruct that opinion and did not persuaded any of the keepers of the case. DRV is not an end-run around AfD, and this is simply an attempt to capitalise on the debate further down to that effect. Precedent on unrelated articles of different natures with different criteria and different debates does not translate into a license to shoot every list someone dislikes. Endorse my own close, if that wasn't obvious. Nominator should try AfD again later with a better argument and with time to fix the articles to see if that's possible. Splash - tk 13:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- If someone has already asked you about your closure, you've responded and I disagree with your response, why on earth would you want me to ask you the same question again? Would your response to the second asking have been markedly different from the first one? If not, then why criticise me for not redundantly asking?
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- This would depend what you said to me. Splash - tk 15:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Well gee, I probably would've said something like asking you to explain your decision more clearly. Presumably you would have said pretty much the same thing; I assume your reasons aren't so fluid as to change in the course of a few hours. Otto4711 16:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- As for your suggesting that I glossed over the "well-constructed" aspect of the keeps, I noted the work that went into the lists which I consider as addressing that argument. How well-constructed an article that IMHO fails policy is strikes me as irrelevant. Additionally, two different editors noted how the list was not well-constructed or well-defined or restricted. Risker stated I will also note that many of the songs listed contain a word in their title that is sometimes used as a person's name (e.g., Rose, Candy) but the song is not about a person at all. and I stated Some of them aren't even about people of that name, for instance, a number of the songs listed with the name "Angel" are about actual angels, not people named Angel. All of the lists mentioned as precedent were equally restricted by subject matter yet were still determined to be unsuitable for Wikipedia. No one is suggesting that precedent translates into a "license" to shoot anything but one would think that an admin would recognize some value in looking at how similar AFDs for similar lists raising similar arguments on both sides were handled. It seems to me that a closing admin should be able to justify why he believes precedent should be ignored instead of simply dismissing it with a poor gun metaphor.
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- Each of the AfDs listed in the debate were stonking, overwhelmingly, massively and almost totally in favour of deletion, to the point of unanimity in some cases. They bear no relation to a debate such as this, where opinion is clearly split, as we both agree. The only exception is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose title includes a phone number (3rd nomination), and a single debate is no precedent. In any case, 'precedent' applies largely in courts and on Wikipedia is very close to an inverse of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. You have to make your case in this debate on this article, not other debates about other articles. Splash - tk 15:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- As for the debate being "highly split," my count has it at 10 for deletion and 6 for keep, which is pretty close to a two-thirds majority for deletion. While of course AFD is not a vote, there have been plenty of AFDs closed with a delete with a similar count.
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- As you say, it's not a vote. If it were, and if 2/3 were a threshold, it wouldn't get deleted anyway. Splash - tk 15:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Since there is no threshold, your comment about that hypothetical threshold is irrelevant. The point still stands that this debate was not so closely divided as your claim would suggest. Otto4711 16:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- As for your claim that I'm trying an "end run" around AFD, I am struck by your obvious failure to assume good faith. To be blunt, you made a mistake. We have a 62.5%-37.5% in favor of deletion with delete arguments that the closing admin acknowledges are stronger than the keeps yet the AFD still closes as no consensus. You gave credence to weak arguments that should have been discounted and your explanation for your closure, both in the AFD and on your own page, were weak and unpersuasive. I strongly disagree with your assertion that the delete arguments failed to deconstruct the poor arguments of the keepers, I disagree with your stated reasons for closure, I disagree with the implication that keepers should have to recant their opinions within the AFD for admins to discount their arguments. This is the forum for reviewing the actions of closing administrators. Otto4711 15:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- You are claiming there is a consensus present in that debate to delete the article. You are claiming so clear is the consensus that it could not possibly have been a 'no consensus' debate. This is not the case. Acknowledging that one side argues more strongly is not an implication that I found the other side totally unpersuasive, which would have to have been the case to mandate a deletion in the kind of divided debate you have identified. Splash - tk 15:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Yes, I am claiming that when one side argues policy, debunks the other side's claims and has a nearly 2-1 majority while the other side makes arguments based in pretty much nothing and fails to refute the policy claims of the majority and indeed barely even addresses them that this is a strong indicator of consensus. Otto4711 16:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Both sides argued policy. Neither side refuted the others claims so totally that we need to disregard them totally in order to manufacture a consensus. We already agreed that the numbers do not matter. Splash - tk 20:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- I don't claim to be the most knowledgable person when it comes to policy but I think I have a pretty good grasp on it, but in looking at the keep arguments again I'm realy not seeing any policy arguments. What keep arguments exactly are you saying are based on policy? Otto4711 17:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- By the way: it's not that I want you to make the keepers 'recant', although that's surely the ideal course of a debate, but that the deletion arguments did not even manage to persuade those who came to the debate after they had all been made, and after what deconstruction of the keepers arguments there was had also been attempted. Life doens't always go your way. You can renominate later. Splash - tk 15:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- This makes no sense whatsoever. If Person A says "keep, I like it and it's fun" and then Person B says "delete for policy reasons XYZ" you're giving mrore weight to the person who comes in later and repeats "keep it, it's fun"? That's ridiculous. Otto4711 16:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Well you made up the bad example, not me! Anyway, your example doesn't match what I described or the algebraic format of the debate in question, or the reasons I have given for my closure, so I'm not sure that it's useful. It's common to find a divided beginning to an AfD followed by a well-argued point or two, followed by a clear trend among later participants to supporting those points. This is less good than everyone winding up agreeing of course, but we can't really expect that very often. Of course, the later editors do not get a free-pass through policy but rarely do people line up convincingly behind such weak positions, which is why you conclude your own example to be ridiculous. Splash - tk 20:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure. The thread above is a conversation that could (and should) have occurred on the closing admin's talk page before creating this listing, making this DRV out of process. Regardless, this was a reasoned closure accurately reflecting the AFD discussion, with the reasoning carefully explained (starting in the AFD closure notes). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete. The keeps can be summed up by one of the comments: These lists provide an entertaining look at music across time, across genres, with the unifying theme of proper names in their titles. Entertainment is a side-product, it's not a core encyclopaedic purpose, and the "unifying theme" has no encyclopaedic basis: there is no encyclopaedic topic "songs whose title contain a propoer name". This is a list whose defining criterion is completely arbitrary, and it will by its nature include so many songs as to make the list useless for navigation, which is what Wikipedia lists are for. Guy (Help!) 21:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete, every "keep" that I see in the discussion is in essence WP:ILIKEIT, while those arguing to delete provided some pretty good, well-founded arguments. AfD is not a vote. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure Indeed, AFD is not a vote, so one wonders why some people keep insisting on counting heads - and DRV - especially for articles that are not deleted - isn't supposed to be used as a second go at the same argument, moments after a closure, just because you don't like the decision. When an AFd results in deletion, there's obviously more at stake than when the result is no change. WHat exactly was the rush in this case? Was something new uncovered that demands deletion? Also - I recall seeing one specific complaint in the AFD - about "Angel" - and that complaint was addressed by removal of those songs pending examination of which if any were legitimately included. If there are other specific concerns that I missed or no one stated, why not try stating them and giving the editors a chance to correct them. Finally, despite the characterization here, the arguments for keep included the value this type of list has as a resource that Wikipedia is uniquely qualified to provide for writers and researchers into popular culture, which no one refuted or even bothered to address. I find this use of DRV to be a cynical attempt to denigrate the comments of people who were in favor of keeping the articles, and to substitute one admin's judgment for another's and that's not appropriate. Tvoz |talk 02:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete per Otto and Seraphim. Again an instance of pressure groups pushing no consensus closures. There is a severe bias towards keeping articles if people like it. Afd is not a vote but sometimes the numbers can be overwhelming for a closing admin. It's true. Bulldog123 09:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete. With respect to Splash, but in my opinion, this was a clear supermajority in favor of deletion. That's not everything, but this debate boils down to those who like the lists vs. those who don't, both have reasons based in policy for their positions... but to call the debate a stalemate because neither position is superior is a mistake when the numbers are strongly on one side. I counted 10-6 in favor of deletion, which is a 62.5% majority, nearly 2/3. Especially when the closer felt the delete arguments were better, which I also think. Yes, Otto should have talked with Splash first, but in the end, this wasn't a good closure, I think. Mangojuicetalk 15:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- It's unusual to find a non-voting operation characterised in four numerical ways, to include a decimal point of accuracy! The closer thinks the deleters argued their case better, but not so much better that the position of the debate was enough to mandate riding roughshod over the opinions of the keepers. If editorialising the debate (as Guy and Bulldog123 do) or counting votes (as you and the nominator do) is the only way to manufacture a consensus then I conclude that there is not one present. Splash - tk 21:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Vote counting should not be demonized this much. AfD is not just a vote, but in circumstances where it comes down to editor opinions (like this one), it is appropriate to go with the winner of the vote count, so long as there's a supermajority in place. Mangojuicetalk 13:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure. Even for those who think otherwise, the decision was not so very wrong as to call for overturning. Others may have done it differently, but it was a reasonable. 10-6, with the arguments being laid out in great detail, is in my opinion not consensus enough to delete a long series of articles. The closing wasn't keep, it was no consensus--it was clear there , and is clear here from the above discussion, that there was no consensus and still is none. It's the safest decision, after all.--it neither establishes a precedent for keep, nor does it delete the articles. DGG 20:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, I have to disagree with that philosophy. "No consensus" closures should be given when a solution cannot be found, not when there is a perfectly reasonable one. They should be an option to be avoided unless it's impossible to avoid it, because it's like invalidating the discussion. One should never stretch a case that has a pretty good consensus, like this one, into a "no consensus", especially when the default of keeping reverses the result of the pretty good consensus. Mangojuicetalk 21:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- No consensus closures are appropriate when the debate has failed to reach a clear conclusion among its participants. We're not looking for 'solutions', as we're not solving problems. We're trying to work out whether the subset of the community that participated intelligently has reached an end-point or not. If they have not, then thinking continues for a while and the issue may be revisited later. 'No consensus' does not invalidate the discussion in any way, since discussions can fail to reach agreement and still be quite valid, as occurred here. And let's not now embark on the path where someone says "but none of the keepers are intelligent", for I shall refer to them a bluelink if they dare. Splash - tk 21:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Except, consensus doesn't mean that everyone has to agree, either. Debates sometimes come down to community opinion, and then it does matter what the numbers are, and this is that kind of debate. If it was 11-6, would you have closed for deletion? 10-5? 12-6? In many debates, those in the minority don't end up agreeing with those in the majority, but that doesn't mean there isn't a consensus. For that matter, if you thought there wasn't enough of a consensus for your comfort, why close the debate at all: why not simply leave it open or relist? It is better to have an outcome than to have no outcome. AfD is supposed to give answers to these questions, that is the purpose of AfD. Mangojuicetalk 23:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not asking for total agreement, and really I'm very aware that unanimity is not the standard for deletion (I sort of picked that up after my first few thousand closures). 'No consensus' is, and always has been, a perfectly functional outcome of an AfD debate. Relisting is only necessary when the debate is so insipid that simply no determination can be made; not delete, not keep, nor even a conclusion that there is no consensus on the immediate disposition of the article.
- I will not answer questions that require me to votecount in the absence of actual information; but you're preaching to someone who is well aware of how AfD works and has, once or twice, deleted articles from there. I was satisifed that the situation had been discussed and that the resulting situation was not clear enough to mandate a deletion. I don't see why DRV should be used to force some other outcome in the patent absence of such a situation.
- 'No consensus' is very precisely not the same as 'no outcome' (which is a result I have also very rarely assigned to debates; I rather suspect I may be the only admin who has done so). If you'd like to talk about the philosophical aspects of that, then maybe my talk page? It's rather off topic to this debate. Splash - tk 00:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Weakly endorse. I thought I saw consensus in the AFD discussion, but, then again, I was the nominator. I inquired on the closing admin's talk page. He provided a sufficiently adequate response for me to leave the issue alone. For my part, I still think this material should go, but that's why involved editors don't close discussions. I've suggested a possible direction to improve the article(s) on the page's Talk. Maybe it'll acquire some context and relevance. If so, I might even support it later on. If not, we can always ship it back to AFD in 6 months with "no effort to resolve the previous concerns" appended. There's no rush; Wikipedia has no deadline, and this content isn't so problematic as to make urgency more important than preserving what decorum AFD still has. Serpent's Choice 05:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete per the above, and per WP:NOT indiscriminate. >Radiant< 10:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure. If we go via strict numerical guidelines, there was no consensus to delete the page to begin with. However, as we don't vote on deletion, we have to look at arguments, and in this case, both sides have reasonable ideas grounded on Wikipedia policy, so no consensus is the only reasonable outcome. Besides, this is a no consensus closure, not a keep; that means that this can be revisited in the future, without even having to wait the customary six months due to the "immunity" (for lack of a better word) granted to articles kept in AFD. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete. I can see how this could be an easy navigational aid, but that's what search engines were made for. It's a textbook example of a unmaintainable list that will never be comprehensive. - Mgm|(talk) 12:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure per Titoxd. Although the 6-month-safe-period thing after a keep decision is basically the Wikipedia equivalent of an urban legend... "keep" and "no consensus" are only as different as people let them be. --W.marsh 13:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Overturn and delete badly fails the core policy of WP:NOT and should be deleted absent a clear showing that is not present either here or in the AfD. Eluchil404 17:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Endorse closure per Titoxd & Rick Block; isn't it obvious that there's no consensus on this one? Carlossuarez46 19:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
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