Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Authentic Matthew (consensus)

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[edit] What, again?

I don't understand why this is being nominated. If it's just because the last VfD didn't reach a consensus, that could conceivably be a reason for renomination if there were some new revelation about the article making it much likelier that a consensus could be reached. Well, what's new?

Incidentally, I have great trouble deriving any interest from any aspect of the Bible and thus don't much care what happens to the article. It's the renomination that seems strange to me. -- Hoary 10:31, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the first VFD had to be abandoned (rather than closed as per normal), due to ridiculous levels of sockpuppet abuse.

The second didn't quite reach consensus, although the deletes had a sizable majority.

What is new is that having been re-listed on VFD, people who have not voted before will be able to vote, causing a wider selection of the Wikipedia community to be involved, and not just the same old signatures ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 10:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, an important issue to note is that, unlike most articles on VFD, the prior VFD was closed after only 5 days. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 10:54, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Hoary, except that I would go beyond merely asking why it's being nominated. I'll state flat-out that the nomination is improper. It's in violation of the following Wikipedia policy:

In general, if an article has been discussed at Votes for Deletion and the discussion did not result in a "delete" decision, the article should not be immediately renominated for deletion, because unless there is a good reason for people to change their minds, the second vote would be identical to the first one. An exception can be made if a vote has no consensus and a severe lack of votes. There is no policy or consensus for a hard time limit before an article can be renominated, but some people are likely to vote 'keep' for the reason that it was already discussed last week.

The preceding is from Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Limitations on renomination for VfD (emphasis added).

Did you note the part that says An exception can be made if a vote has no consensus? ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 12:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

In this case, there were no major developments or new discoveries in the two hours and twenty-two minutes that elapsed between the closing of the second VfD and the opening of the third. There's no "good reason for people to change their minds" except that the re-nominator wants them to.

The explanation given by User:-Ril- for immediately starting a third VfD is that the second VfD "didn't quite reach consensus". This seems to assume that VfD voting is like that of a jury being asked by the judge to keep deliberating to try to reach the requisite unanimity for a verdict; i.e., that if there's no consensus to keep or consensus to delete on the first VfD, then another one should immediately be instituted. That is, of course, not the usual practice. Normally, if there is no consensus to delete, the result is that the article is kept. The exception, as stated in the official policy, is if there was "a severe lack of votes" before. That doesn't apply here, where more than 30 people voted, well above the average for a VfD.

User:-Ril-'s other argument is that "the prior VFD was closed after only 5 days" -- that being, of course, the period provided in the rules, and the prior VfD having been closed after receiving substantially more responses than most VfD's that are kept open much longer.

Almost 100% of current VFDs are closed after 14 days. It is notable that some articles were saved/deleted only due to the votes arriving after the 7th day. In some cases only due to those on the 10th. Due process requires equal treatment, not special fast-track, especially on a controversial VFD. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 12:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Finally, it's more than a little disingenuous for User:-Ril- to express the hope that immediately repeating the VfD will (for some unexplained reason) bring in new participants "and not just the same old signatures" -- given that s/he has thoughtfully provided notice of this third proceeding to many of those same old signatures. Guess which ones? I think Wikipedians differ on whether it's seemly to campaign in this fashion, by providing notice of a poll or a vote to the people most likely to agree with you. Regardless of the merits of the general case, though, I disapprove of the method here, in the immediate aftermath of the previous vote. It amounts to the hope that a different result will be obtained if all the "Delete" people are told they have to vote again but the others aren't so informed. The approach is, "Let's have a revote of 'the same old signatures' but hope that some of the other side's voters don't show up this time, so that we can win instead of losing." JamesMLane 12:23, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

"We" never lost. "We" had a clear majority. But that is not the point. I am interested in the views of the wikipedia community as a whole. The keep votes are going to notice the page has been re-VFD'd because the page will most likely be on their watchlist, the delete votes are not so likely to pay attention to the page, so require notifying. But I am more interested in the votes of the people that have never been involved before - the wider community - and they can only be obtained by re-listing. A wider consensus is much more indicative of the community opinion than a narrow one. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 12:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

-Ril-, you can indent your comments to indicate that you are responding to a particular edit by using one more ":" character at the start of your edit than the previous editor did.

As for the VfD, I'm going to think about it. I voted delete last time, but I'm very, very close to voting speedy keep in this case for reasons that have nothing to do with the article itself, and everything to do with wasting Wikipedia's time with a vote which has been up twice before. You could always argue that no VfD ever has the whole community's input, but every VfD is assumed to have a representitive sample of the community, with some bias to those who care about the topic at hand. Some pages will be controvercial and have no consensus in the vote. We can't just keep re-listing such pages in the hopes that the next time we'll get more deletes or more keeps.

In closing, I'll quote Ta bu shi da yu from your talk page, "the best tonic for stupidity is correcting it with good sources. Please feel free to correct the record."-Harmil 12:50, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I've suggested a compromise based on the previous VfD - which would end this one - see in comments on article page. --Doc (?) 13:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC)