Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 64

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Geriatric AfDs

Just thought I'd make a note here about this. Last night, I discovered an AfD, from the July 31 page (and it had been relisted to it), that was still open. I closed it (it was a no-consensus), but it made me wonder if there could be any other "hangers-on" that were somehow missed? - The Bushranger One ping only 18:00, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I try to double-check the daily AfD logs before removing them from WP:AFD/O, to make sure that nothing has gotten messed up. We try to avoid having things like these, but they do happen sometimes. I encourage other admins to do the same, looking over the AfD logs, since MathBot's count isn't always accurate.
If we want to solve the problem, we could have {{REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD}} use a 2nd parameter which dates the AfDs, which would make it easier to see when ones have been missed in a closing cycle. Or, alternatively, have a bot crawl Category:AfD debates every week or two to find AfDs that haven't been closed and aren't on a log at WP:AFD/O and relist the dates there. Perhaps we could just include it in MathBot's functions? Anyway, just throwing out ideas. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:07, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible this edit accidentally mangled part of the relisting template? I noticed the template doesn't have a line above and a line below as usual. BusterD (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
No, they're still there. They're generated by the <hr style="width:55%;" /> HTML tag, and what happened was people commented between the template text and the lower line. As none of {{relist}} got removed, that wouldn't be it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 23:35, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the bot idea might be a good one, even double-checking sometimes misses things (trust me, I know ;P ) so having the bot providing a final line of defense, as it were, sounds reasonable to me. - The Bushranger One ping only 16:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Fgetws

why did the page on the fgetws is selected for deletion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yashdatt (talk • contribs) 16:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

why did page on the fgetws is selected for deletion ? Yashdatt (talk) 16:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd assume because the nominator believes it's overly specific. His reasoning is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fgetws, where you should participate if you disagree with the deletion. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Christopher Stasheff

This article already passed AfD, but I'm not satisfied with the results. I think the author is probably not notable, and none of the keep votes indicated any actual notability. The current biography has one source, this. The media section of Stasheff's site has little on it. There are small mentions spread about the web, for instance here, [1] slightly more here, and this. But I don't really see that it meets the general notability guideline or the notability policy on creative professionals. I didn't click every single link in the google news search.

At the least, I feel that the "keep" consensus on the deletion page was unsupported. I'd like to know what others think, and particularly if anyone feels that we need stricter standards on deletion proposals, such as "if notability has not been established by the end of the deletion discussion, the closing administrator should close as "delete""

Cross-posted to WP:N/N#Christopher Stasheff Be——Critical__Talk 18:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Heck, he's notable -- I used to have a whole bunch of his books. This is why we don't need hard and fast rules like the one proposed above.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:34, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
What does having written books have to do with notability? Notability for BLP is having enough sources to base an article on. Be——Critical__Talk 18:35, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Considering his primary series has its own article, I really don't think there's an issue here.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Don't see it. Where are the sources ? This is a BLP, not about his work. Be——Critical__Talk 18:44, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." If it's notable enough for its own article, that establishes his notability. Now if you want to go AfD that one, feel free.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any books, and I don't see any periodical articles/reviews. Do you? This is the same thing that happened at AfD. Lots of assertions, no sources. Be——Critical__Talk 18:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

This is not the right forum to complain about an AfD result. If you think it was wrongly closed then try taking it to Deletion review. I know exactly who he was when I saw the name as I also recall reading his books, along with the fact that his books sell well and his prolific production, this makes me suspect there is every likelihood that sources can be found in the near future. Fæ (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm taking it here, because as the responses here demonstrate, there is a much larger issue to discuss here: keeping articles, in fact BLPs on the assumption that sources exist somewhere or other, even though no one has found any. Be——Critical__Talk 18:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
School Library Journal; Dec2004, Vol. 50 Issue 12, p174-174, 1/5p -- This volume presents new stories set in several series of proven and lasting popularity, by some of the best writers in the genre. They include Mercedes Lackey ("Valdemar"), Andre Norton ("Witchworld"), Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye ("Myth Adventures"), Alan Dean Foster ("Spellsinger"), Christopher Stasheff ("Warlock"), and David Drake ("Isles"). There, you can no longer say "nobody found any".--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't meet the general notability guideline. Coverage must be significant. Be——Critical__Talk 19:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
There's no absolute requirement that all articles must demonstrably meet the GNG in order to be kept. From WP:N: A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline. There is an absolute requirement from WP:V that there must be a reliable source on the topic of the article, but the significance of the coverage doesn't enter into that. Hut 8.5 19:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Right, it doesn't meet the subject specific guideline [2] Be——Critical__Talk 20:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
According to the source cited above he has created a "series of proven and lasting popularity" and he is "one of the best writers in the genre". That is IMO enough to show that he is "regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors". Hut 8.5 20:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

And here. Well, again, if he's widely cited, there ought to be RS, right? But no one can find any. This whole discussion is me saying "show the sources," and others saying "there ought to be some." So okay, there ought to be, but show me. We ought to remember that as editors, we should exercise judgment, and not make an article on a person when we don't have enough sources to round out said article to at least some extent. It's an encyclopedia, and should have the potential to read like one. I was involved in another of these cases here, see the closing admin's remarks. Be——Critical__Talk 20:45, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

But it is enough to show he is "regarded as an important figure". Neither the notability guideline nor our policy on verifiability require that an article on this person be deleted. I suggest you take this discussion to WP:DRV, this really isn't the place for it. Hut 8.5 20:48, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
The AFD for this article was closed on 6 August 2010. Therefore, another AFD would make more sense then DRV if he really feels that the article should be deleted. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 21:09, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Minor note, I've added 10 inline citations to the article. Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 21:30, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Lol, yes, I guess maybe you have established importance. I think per Off2riorob's suggestion [3] there should be a WP:Loopholes essay. Be——Critical__Talk 22:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Damian Slater deletion

Can a registered user complete this nomination? The reasons are covered in the multiple issues template below the nomination template. 101.173.101.94 (talk) 08:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Who is the audience of this project page?

This article is very confusing for those who are only interested in following one particular Article For Deletion discussion. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The audience of this page is the community at large. So, no one in particular. If you're finding a specific part of the page confusing, point it out so that we can explain it to you or simplify the page. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Mathbot vs 1.18

Is there a way to turn off Mathbot? It's borking up the numbers on /Old, presumably because of the 1.18 change. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pangs Theater Ensemble

This nomination, from 4 September, appears never to have appeared in the list for that date. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Monty845 listed it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Could someone check Puppeteer (comics) and advise me what course of action to take?

I proposed for deletion the article Puppeteer (comics), but the article creator apparently nominated it for deletion removing the PROD tag, but without completing the AfD nomination. What do I do in this case? Do I restore the PROD tag or do I wait until the nominator completes the process? I suppose that I cannot do anything, as removing the AfD tag would be against the AfD procedure, but it seemed to me that the article creator simply wanted to contest the PROD. I'm not sure what to do here. Jfgslo (talk) 05:37, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I just noticed that the same editor did the same with these other articles:
Jfgslo (talk) 05:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
You shouldn't restore the PROD tag, as we can safely assume that the removal means he contests it. As for the AfD tag, I'd suggest pinging the user on his talk page to see if he plans on completing the nominations, and removing the AfD tags if he does not or doesn't respond after a day or so. Cheers. lifebaka++ 06:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
I will do so. Thanks for the quick answer. Jfgslo (talk) 06:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
@ lifebaka,
Actually this is the second time Rtkat3‎‎ has misused the AfD template. I've bulled them off and left them a note that there either need to follow through with the AfD or just de-PROD as contesting the proposed deletion without discussion of the article(s). - J Greb (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Chalk it up to a good faith mistake about how to contest a PROD. The correct move was to remove the AFD template. If you want to contest the contested PROD the next step is to complete a proper AFD nomination. Dzlife (talk) 15:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

KEEP anonymous (street meat)

Dear friends -- the image of the eye was restored (gun image was not) -- all images are available in "anonymous (street meat)" Google images, please, take a look. https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/132e812637a7fb8e

However, the file was truncated. Here's an example of different treatment -- the short "Saturday Evening Special" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Special_(film).

Meranwhile, I was interviewed by someone from the Huffington Post yesterday. The interview centered on my inspiration for "anonymous (street meat)" -- a 2-year ordeal with Bank of America.

Since this wiki space is being used as a plug to promote activities outside of Wikipedia, may I be allowed a plug to promote something inside Wikipedia: Talk:Bank_of_America#The_suicide_of_Kevin_Flanagan ? Ottawahitech (talk) 12:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

With demonstrations and movements like "Occupy Wall Street" going on against Wall Street and the too-big-to-fail banks, thet script for "anonymous (street meat)" was ahead of time by having a plot that dealt with bank abuse with harrowing images. That's why the film has been well received at festivals abroad -- in Seoul Korea, for one, it was screened in over 14,000 monitors throughout the city. The HP article will link up to "anonymous (street meat)" and it's schedule for publication on November 1st, or earlier.

The articles on the Daily Bruin and the upcoming one on the Huffington Post are of relevancy socio-politically, so it's not without importance. The Bruin article itself is not quoted, but if anyone reads it, they can see that the short has social significance because its conception came out of issues that are being experienced in the country's political sphere right now -- events that occurred to me. But it appears that people delete without first reading or considering. The fact that I'm a Hispanic woman is alone of some note because I'm part of a tiny minority of filmmakers. That I'm a female professional screenwriter of Hispanic background who returned to UCLA for a Master's after working as a professional for years may also be interesting to some historians. I, personally, would be interested in reading a Wikipedia page about a notable Eskimo female filmmaker with a short in 24 film festivals and in some similar circumstances, for example. If there are any.

Here's one instance used as an example of editorial bias: The Saturday Night Special Wikipedia page, for one, doesn't have any references -- it is instead laudatory of that film to the point that when I happened upon it, I was surprised to see that and tried to flag it for an edit, not a deletion, an edit. Some people here have defended that film and reinstate it. Additionally, that page quotes from articles that are not linked. And even if they were linked, why quote stuff that reads like a publicity page.

"anonymous (street meat)" is important and should be maintained for the reference of other Latino and/or women filmmakers, as well as the general public at large.

Thank you for your support in this endeavor --

Kind regards, Mig (talk) 16:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Wrong venue, please post at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anonymous (Street Meat). Hut 8.5 16:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Underscoring

Shouldn't this article just be a Wiktionary entry? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

A merge to film score would make the most sense. Dzlife (talk) 16:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Mergers, BTW, don't require any special discussion or process. Any user may undertake one at any time, though controversial mergers should be discussed. Feel free to boldly merge the articles per WP:MERGE, though you may want to tag the articles for prospective merge and start a discussion to see if anyone objects. Give it a week, and if no one does, have at it! --Jayron32 17:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Just wondering why mergers/re-directs do not require discussion.
I started an article today, and I just found out that it was re-directed (without notifying me) to another article. It is the proper article to re-direct to, the problem is that the person who re-directed it did not merge the new contents into the existing article. Had I not noticed this re-direct the content I contributed to Wikipedia would have been lost. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Because unlike deletion, replacing content with a redirect is reversible by any user and leaves the previous version available in the article history. VQuakr (talk) 00:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes redirects are reversible, but only if the original contributor:
- Knows the article has been redirected
- Knows how to find the redirect page Ottawahitech (talk) 17:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
True, but that's not hard to do, and if they don't notice or think that it needs to be WP:SPLIT, then they're not going to care. If we implemented a formal process, the vast majority of merges would proceed as speedies without any change in the outcome, and we want to empower our WP:BOLD editors rather than weigh them down with bureaucratic procedures. For intermediate cases, tag the pages with {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}} and start a discussion on the talk page. If you think a given merge is likely to be controversial or would benefit from wider community input, then you follow the process at WP:Proposed mergers. You've got options for managing this process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Why are you so sure that BOLD editors are encouraged to continue contributing when they find out that their contribution disappeared when the article they started was re-directed with no notice? (btw the usual thanks for providing all the links to useful stuff - I don't think I knew {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}} existed) Ottawahitech (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Why am I working for Google?

I've been wondering for some time about the way deletion discussions formally use Google as the default search engine for the "find sources" line at the top of discussions. Why do we not offer similar links to other search engines? Are we down to one? Who made that call? Aside from sheer facility, why do we favor one over all others? Has this previously been a discussed topic? BusterD (talk) 22:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I won't argue that Google is the best search engine available (that debate could go on forever without resolution) but it is by far the most prominent, the search engine has about a 2/3 market share. The term "google" is in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (as a verb). That ubiquity makes it the obvious default search engine, and frankly for a quickie search it's fine to just have one search engine. -- Atama頭 22:37, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't that put Wikipedia in the position of picking winners? Is that what we should be doing as a community? Has this EVER been discussed? I'll concede that other search engines haven't built the same massive collection of raw searchable data (I use googlebooks constantly), but I'm starting to chafe at the obvious COI between the most powerful internet company in the world and the most powerful user-built encyclopedia. Hence the title of this section. I myself could certainly use another method, and I'm sure other editors are sensitive to this issue, but IMHO to have formalized use of one company in procedures seems a poor course, long-term. BusterD (talk) 23:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
When it comes to AFD discussions, the ability to quick switch search venues from the web, to news, to journals, to books, and so on just by clicking on one button is beyond invaluable. This doesn't prevent any other search site from being used, but google's toolset is so complete specifically to help resolve AFD in the right manner. --MASEM (t) 23:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
So it's mere facility. And why isn't Google contributing for all this free linking and SEO? BusterD (talk) 23:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Because they don't have to? Wikipedia is essentially taking advantage of free services Google is providing, and if Google indirectly benefits then it's a mutually advantageous arrangement. Also, I think you'll have to explain what COI there is with Wikipedia using Google for the basis of convenience links for search engines, it's not nearly as obvious as you seem to think. -- Atama頭 23:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
While I agree with Atama and Masem, I am curious as to your proposed solution. How would you propose changing the "Find sources" line - while still being able to keep the list of links compact, simple (ie: one-click), and reliable. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't have a solution; I have a valid concern. Wikipedia doesn't have to choose one particular search platform over all others, just because it's the most popular and high-performing as of this datestamp. It will be difficult to find an appropriate comparison, but I'll attempt one, albeit imperfect. Let's say that some important Wikipedia function, let's say the admin bit, only functioned with editors using Microsoft operating systems as a platform. For some particular technological reason, the only way blocking and protecting worked was with editors running Windows. Much like the situation I've described above, Wikipedia would be choosing a market winner. In this case of search engines there's only a superior advantage of functionality (at the current time), yet the community has sanctioned this favoritism of a company in a particular formal way. Google takes advantage of Wikipedians' voluntary contributions to make money. Wikipedia gets the same thing every Google user gets: free links to information. I ask for the third time, has this ever been discussed? Where? Who made this call? BusterD (talk) 00:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I might not ever have been discussed (I don't know of anywhere it has been, anyway), but WP:SILENCE applies. No one's objected until now, so it's assumed not to be controversial. So... Unless you think there's an issue with using Google, I don't see what there is to do here. lifebaka++ 00:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
In the case of my example above, in such an obvious case of dependency, we'd have technological solutions constructed. No longer silent, someone has to raise an issue for the first time. While I don't doubt the good faith of the editors in this discussion, I have every reason to believe that a company like Google has many paid employees who monitor the quantity and type of links between the two internet institutions. Sure would like an answer to my question about discussion. I might link to this discussion on Jimbo's talk. BusterD (talk) 00:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
BuseterD, check out User:Kim_Bruning/Lost_functionalities for some added insight. Your fellow unpaid Google employee, Viriditas (talk) 01:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the link. I'll read. I'm not trying to stir crap, I just thought while my title was somewhat provocative, I've raised a legitimate issue. And since Google knows my real name and address, I suspect I've signed my own death warrant. (that's a joke, actual Google employees, ok? Really, a joke.) BusterD (talk) 01:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I think basically it's because WP:We don't care what happens to your website. It just isn't important. Also, the links at AFD are on pages that pretty much only a handful of editors (rather than our millions of readers) see. The typical AFD page gets 30 views in the course of a full week's discussion. Only a small number of those page views will result in someone clicking the link. Google is unlikely to even notice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
You mean, WP:We don't care what happens to your website (unless it's Google). We certainly don't care about Yahoo, Ask, or Bing. Google, we seem to be defending (as an institution) in several formal and informal ways. BusterD (talk) 02:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
BusterD, the best thing to do is write an essay about your concerns. Make sure you provide alternate proposals for consideration. Then, present it here (or elsewhere) as a link for discussion. Viriditas (talk) 02:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Sound advice. I'm certainly not trying to put anyone on the defensive. I hope nobody takes it unkindly if I use the redlinked title above (but in my userspace, not project space). Still am nervous about those black helicopters circling in the rainstorm above. BusterD (talk) 03:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I actually think BusterD's proposal is a great one. I won't argue that Google is the best service, but I will argue that all of the search engines have different algorithms and you have a good chance of finding different results on each.--v/r - TP 13:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Links

What about abbreviate the searches? G for google, B for Bing, Y for Yahoo. We don't need the full names. Example: 

(Find sources: "Subject" (G:B:Y) – news · books · scholar · free images)

What do you think?--v/r - TP 13:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

A number of alternative templates exist with links chosen as the most useful rather than just Google. Compare at Category:Search templates. It would be easy to have a random choice too, not sure how acceptable this would be for most users though. It might be an idea to think of designing an extension to the current template (i.e. the only change would be a "more..." button) that then optionally opens up to show a selection of alternates. We could then think of a poll for swapping links once users have a while to play with other sites. Fæ (talk) 13:21, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I think random would be a bad idea, editors should know what to expect when they click the search links. I don't see a problem with adding more options though. Monty845 15:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I totally agree that random doesn't suit the nature of searches. Searches are about choices. It's somewhat revealing that the only templates categorized by company are the Google ones. This belies the assertion "we don't care what happens to your website." I think the approach User:TParis makes is a useful one, like tabs across the top of a WikiProject space. One click gives a different set of options. More choices is good, so long as (pointed out by editors above) the whole thing doesn't become cumbersome and slow anyone down. The effort to find and apply sources should be as effortless as possible, IMHO. The simpler and more elegant the technological solution, the better for now and for later. (After all, we're merely ten years in; imagine what the search engine options will be as more institutions digitize their existing resources.) BusterD (talk) 15:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
After thinking about it, I realized this issue is pretty comparable to the ISBN solution used to present links to multiple book sources. However, for practical purposes, I still think it's better to keep the links simple (ie: one-click, not needing to navigate through a sub-page as is done for ISBN links).
Ideally, I believe the best solution would be to have the "My Preferences" menu include a drop-down to allow each user to select a preferred search provider ... then a template able to utilize that preference to present custom links to each user who views a link formed with that template. But, that would be time-consuming to develop once proposed to the Village Pump. Barring that, as an interim solution, I have no major objection to providing multiple links as long as the presentation of multiple links can be kept compact (perhaps via a collapse/expand toggle for the search template).
It would still remain to decide which ones to link. Maybe Google, Bing, Ask, and AOL? Last I heard, Yahoo uses Bing as its search engine - so those results would be redundant to a Bing link - although I could see an argument if some users prefer the layout of those results in Yahoo over Bing.
Also, the proposal above only presents alternates to the main search ... but the additional links in that template would have alternates possible (ie: news · books · scholar · free images). Once alternates are provided to all of these, any template could quickly grow to a rather bulky header block. I would want to see proposals for how to manage all of the links in an easy to navigate and compact format. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - A drop-down menu with multiple search options (stated by user:Barek above) would, in my opinion, be a significant improvement. Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Perhaps the addition of a link such as this to the "find sources" line at the top of discussions would provide more comprehensive search options: Additional News Sources. Northamerica1000 (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Another idea is to add this type of a link to a Wikipedia page which lists additional reliable news sources that have a reputation for editorial integrity and unbiased coverage. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I would very much support removing the link to web searches entirely. We should be encouraging users to default to Books, News archive and Scholar before bothering with a web search, since the former three concentrate reliable sources, and we have lots of problems with people using web only, or at least going there first, and the current setup fosters this by placing the web link first (it's not as if people don't know how to do a web search afterwards, if they want to). If we are to include any web links then they should appear after the others. I would have no problem in placing others there as a matter of "sheer facility" but only because it might be a benefit to our users. This may seem slightly tangential but it's not. Google is the only game in town for what we really need. This has nothing to do with allegiance or favoritism to Google and everything to do with usefulness for ourselves and our users. Whether it's fair to other search engines doesn't enter the equation because the reason we link to Google is completely unbiased. If Wikipedia was a free hostel and AfD was where scrambled eggs were served, Google would be a fork manufacturer and other search engines would provide only steak knives. Yes, it's "sheer facility", and what's wrong with that?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:32, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
IMHO, in an internet where nothing stays the same for long, putting all your eggs in one online basket would be a poor choice indeed. I wouldn't do it with a grocery store, I wouldn't do it with a pizza parlor, I wouldn't do it with an operating system. I certainly wouldn't do it with a web browser. Getting in bed with one vendor exclusively not only gives the vendor an initial advantage, but it gives the vendor leverage which can be used against you when they make changes in policy. And policies will always change. The recent New York Times paywall is one such policy change which could have a long-term negative effect; since many history cluster editors have been regularly linking to Times articles as historical news sources. When the vendor decides to put more books or more scholars behind a paywall or some other profit-based change (which seems likely if not inevitable), then all the links we're putting in to cite pagespace will have a larger effect to advertise one vendor exclusively. That's what's wrong. Today is fine; it's ten years down the road I'm concerned about. Maybe I'm concerned about nothing; maybe I have a point. Jimbo seems to take a bit of both sides, and that's perfectly fine with me. BusterD (talk) 01:43, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
But the problem I'm getting at is that the only real "eggs" for these search engines are books, news archive ans Scholar, which happen to be Google services. Web is the last search anyone should try, and I don't see any reason we shouldn't include links to others for web searches, but web searches should be put in the back room, put at the end as an afterthought. Meanwhile, there is no free search service that has any useful comparative tool to news archive, books and scholar. Worldcat is near useless for what we need. NYT.com is just one newspaper that is already searched by Google News. Again, there is no allegiance to Google, it's all about utility, and nothing else provides the utility. So I don't care what the name brand is, and if another brand pops up that provides a better utility not only would we switch without qualm, but doing so would be a few minutes work. Accordingly, I think the concern over "ten years from now" is a red herring.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
To use another example, why aren't we linking to WorldCat in "find sources"? IMHO, it's a way more reliable search engine for books and authors than Google; the difference is that Google links to actual content, where WorldCat merely gives extremely good information on where to find the works in a library. BusterD (talk) 01:54, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Another example of internet policy creep and effects thereof: Like many, I enjoy watching "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" online. I preferred online viewing because of the fewer commercials than cable TV. At first, I watched these shows on their respective Comedy Central websites linked from Viacom, and they inserted one commercial between the clips. Then they moved to two commercials. These days, there's a Comedy Central commercial at the top of the show, then a couple of commercials, then several (often as many of four) between the segments. Of course, I could watch on Hulu, and if I pay for HuluPlus, I can even watch on my mobile device. These days, the Viacom sites work less reliably, so I'm stuck with Hulu. I'm not saying Viacom is forcing me to use HuluPlus, but the trend is obvious, and not accidental. Let's apply this anecdotal analysis to my concern here: In my view, when Google has Wikipedia lined up exactly the way they like it, they could conceivably drop a paywall down, and our only option would be to remove the links we've applied on millions of articles, or put our users in the position of paying for access. Now one strategy for dealing with this is to "relax and enjoy it", and another might be to protest the Google campus, but the wrong approach would be to hold our hands over our eyes and ears and sing la-la-la. IMHO, ignoring the inevitable can't be considered a reasonable strategy. I'll concede my examples aren't precisely applicable, but close enough to demonstrate my concern. BusterD (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, if it works today, I'm not certain why we'd need to change it today. When things change, we can change things, this isn't controversial. Now, we still might want to change the way we're doing things, but the possibility of circumstances outside of our control changing in the future isn't a good thing to base changes here off of.
As for GBooks vs. WorldCat, generally the former is going to be more immediately useful in an AfD, where users might not be able to locate a copy of the book (suppose, for instance, that it's checked out) and a relevant passage in it within an AfD's seven day time limit. I'm also unsure of how useful WorldCat would be if I didn't already have a good idea of what I was looking for (i.e. book title, author, etc.). We should certainly make WorldCat more prominent and encourage its use to find sources (I wasn't aware of it until just now, for instance), but I'm not at all convinced of its utility for AfD specifically. We also ought to look into how both platforms choose their results, as two searches for the text "wikipedia censorship" (without quotes) returns 10 hits on WorldCat and about 1600 on GBooks, with none of the first page GBooks results being the 10 WorldCat results. Cheers. lifebaka++ 02:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Wow. I disagree violently that we should wait to respond to change even if we can see it coming down the road. To paraphrase R. Buckminster Fuller (I think from the beginning of Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth): "Imagine you're on a boat at sea, and the boat sinks. Swimming around, you come across a piano lid, and you climb on. When the rescue comes, you're fine. You may feel strongly about your survival, you may even grow to have an attachment to the design. But just because the piano lid was successful in your situation doesn't mean it's the optimal design for a life preserver. That's what we do every day; we latch onto piano lids as we're swimming by. What we should do is think hard about such situations BEFORE they arise." (Sorry, Buck, if I've misinterpreted you. You know you're my main guy.) I don't disagree that Google provides a better product, but WorldCat is a valuable professional research tool available for free as well (at present), and shouldn't be disregarded as an essential search tool. Putting all our search eggs in one corporate basket is just foolish, given the history of the internet. (I'll confess to watching James Burke's Connections series on YouTube the last few weeks, so I've been thinking hard about the way the future will change the internet.) Hey, I may be wrong; but I could be channeling Willie Stark, too. BusterD (talk) 03:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
But... We don't see anything coming, right? That's rather the point. Of course, if we know something is likely to happen, we should prepare for it, but I don't see the point in making changes based on vague possibilities. I'm not aware of anything coming up that we'd need to adapt to, and I haven't seen you point out anything specific either. The OMfSE example is disingenuous, because on a seafaring ship you're perfectly aware of the possibility of falling into the water (for one reason or another), whereas you are asserting we should prepare for some vague and undefined possible future. I'm sorry if I didn't make my point clearly before. lifebaka++ 04:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd say disingenuous is a poor choice of words, because (with no evidence but my own 22-year experience with the internet) I do imagine at least one Google profit-raising policy change coming in the next ten years, and probably more than one. That's what my NYT/Daily Show experience examples represent, a patient corporate ramp-up of profit-intended practice. Fuller's point was that we never consider these things at all until it's too late, then we grab onto the first available solution, or hang on more tightly to the ones we've used in the past, even if impractical. If consensus doesn't agree with my position, I can handle that. For my part, I'd prefer to be candid about what I see as red flags down the road instead of saying "I told you so" afterwards (my Willie Stark metaphor). Even now I'd say the mere appearance of gfavoritism improves their stock value. Are you saying we shouldn't consider investing in a poncho or an umbrella just because the weather looks fine today? BusterD (talk) 11:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
The search links are made by Template:Find sources which is also used in other places. There is a discussion from 2010 at Template talk:Find sources#Why only Google links? PrimeHunter (talk) 03:40, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Hasty nomination of new articles.

Case. A new editor creates at 12:30, in his first edit on the English Wikipedia, a new article. His next edit, also to the article, is at 12:32, adding an interwiki link. At 12:33, a second editor nominates the article for deletion, stating that "this is not a encyclopedic content". This case is not alone; I see such hasty nominations by new-page patrollers all the time. Although this article will probably kept (most recommendations are to keep it as being notable), such a hasty reaction is obviously demoralizing to most newcomers. Nominators should give new articles that may well still be under active development, especially if created by new editors, a fighting chance.

Currently, the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion says, under Before nominating an article for deletion / C. Be aware that some pages should be improved rather than deleted:

2.  If the article was recently created, please consider allowing the contributors more time to develop the article.

Should, perhaps, this gentle exhortation be phrased more sternly? And might a generalization of {{uw-hasty}} to other forms of deletion be in order? It currently only covers speedy-deletion tagging.  --Lambiam 23:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be good if AfD nomination were made into a user right, a user right that wasn't too hard to acquire, but could be removed by an admin.  Right now there seems to be no feedback into the system for a variety of nomination issues.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with the feeling that articles are being too agressively removed from Wikipedia. I was surprised to see that many of those nominating material for deletion have not contributed anything themselves. Looks like many here get their kicks from destroying contributions made by others? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I also came across an example recently where a lot of work had gone into the article, but the editors had not added it to any relevant wikiprojects (probably from lack of experience). The editors who are best qualified to assess the article may have no idea that it exists, let alone that it is being nominated for deletion. Nominators for AfD's should be required to make an effort to find appropriate projects and notify them. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Good point, if the wiki-project is active. In my experience most wiki-projects are dead, sigh... Ottawahitech (talk) 12:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

AfD templates and non-Latin names

A couple of recent AfDs have changed consensus recently from delete to keep once a speaker of the native language of the topic was above to provide the name of the topic in the native language for us to find references. The most recent example was Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Case_of_Arakcheev_and_Khudyakov, but I've seen them for Hindi and Arabic topics too. The issue seems to be largely restricted to names in non-Latin languages. Would it be possible to update the AfD templates so that alternative language names specified as per MOS:BOLDTITLE could be lifted out of the first sentence and placed in the google search query? If that's not possible, would it be possible for a bot to add extra google search queries? I'm aware that not all foreign topics include their local names and not all of those that include them have them formatted correctly, but I'm hoping for a virtuous circle of reinforcement here. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Good point. Maybe articles proposed for deletion (not only AFDs) should be categorized first? Ottawahitech (talk) 12:17, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Linking proposal

You know how you open an individual AFD and at the top there's a link to the main AFD page? I was wondering that, since many people come to AFDs from the date page, if there should be a link not only to the main AFD page, but to the date page on which the AFD is posted Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 16:28, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Try the View log link: (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log). It uses <includeonly> and <noinclude> to switch between View AfD (on the daily log) and View log (on the individual AfD). Flatscan (talk) 05:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Movember is not part of No Shave November

Movember is its own entity, a 501 (c) (3) charity and not any part of No Shave November, a facial hair growing contest. Movember became an official charity in Melbourne Australia in 2004, and moved to the US, UK, and Canada in 2007. Although the Washington Post article mistakenly puts the two together, the two have never been connected. Movember is part of the Movember Foundation, which has no business or charitable connection to No Shave November. (96.251.72.119 (talk) 18:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC))

That may be a good point, however this is the wrong place to make it. You should instead raise these issues at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/No-Shave November. --Jayron32 19:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

"Sourcing search" link needs adding

B.2 says 'See "Sourcing search" below', but no such section (or text) exists. Ideally, this should be linked to something appropriate. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

At the top of every properly filed AFD should be a collection of links to various google searches. You can find it there. --Jayron32 15:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Mostly copy of another article?

Suffolk University Madrid Campus appears to have been done as a copy of Suffolk University some information changed that is unique to the main US campus but not much. Should this article be viewed as salvagable or is an AFD (or even a speedy) make sense?Naraht (talk) 02:11, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to delete it. Just propse a merge to the parent article, per WP:MERGE. Less mess of a process. --Jayron32 02:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Suffolk University Madrid Campus is indeed an unattributed copy of Suffolk University, with very small changes (cross-page diff). My opinion is that deleting to remove the attribution dependency and rewriting a stub if desired would be best. In terms of speedy deletion, A10 (duplicate article) doesn't seem to fit (the Madrid Campus is a distinct topic), and G12 (copyvio) will be accepted or rejected depending on the reviewing admin. Flatscan (talk) 05:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Converting to disambiguation page

From time to time, a participant in an AFD discussion will suggest converting the nominated article into a disambiguation page in lieu of deletion; and, sometimes, this suggestion will be implemented by the closing admin. Some of these proposals are appropriate; but, unfortunately, sometimes the proposers are unfamiliar with the disambiguation guidelines and don't realize that the disambiguation page they are proposing is inconsistent with those guidelines. WikiProject Disambiguation generally isn't aware of these proposals until after they have been implemented. Is there any way that the Disambiguation project could be notified whenever a proposal is made in an AFD discussion to convert an article to a disambig page? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

problem with AFD template/twinkle

Im noticing a problem with some of the AFDs I create via twinkle. It appears that somehow there are two AFD discussion pages getting created (or rather, a link may be pointing to the wrong page, so that a second one is later created by clicking the link?)


Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Body_Sensor_Networks (created automatically by twinkle, including my comment for nomination. Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Body_Sensor_Networks (apparently created by the user somehow, Im assuming via one of the links in the template. but I cant find where. )

Gaijin42 (talk) 05:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Ack! Sorry about that – blame me and Steven Walling. We're running an A/B test on PROD and AfD notices sent by Twinkle, and in the process of slashing some of the excess verbiage in the templates, I think we pruned one too many curly brackets and took out the {{{order|}}} code. Will put back in. Thanks for your vigilance and let me know if you experience any more problems! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 06:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've updated the two current TW templates being tested -- {{AfD-notice-rand/new}} and {{AfD-notice-rand/default}} -- to match the linking syntax at {{AfD-notice}}. Please let me know if there are any further issues, or drop a note at WT:TW. Thanks, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I've just double checked the cases you're talking about, and it looks like the user just did that because they were confused. The only links back to that AFD talk page are from here where you linked to it, so it's not a template linking error. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Ive had this happen to me on several previous AFDs. I cant believe there are that many people trying to create AFD pages manually to respond, when the link is right on the page. . Is it possible the link destination is changing somehow? Gaijin42 (talk) 23:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Okay so I just saw this happen on one of my AFD noms. However, I am still unsure because once again, when you check what links there, there is nothing... so I don't think it's a template link error. I suspect these editors are just confused because they're being invited to edit the AFD, but are used to leaving comments only on talk pages; they don't understand. If you want to look at the two templates in use they are link in comment above. You can also see live examples of their use if you look at what links to {{z81}} and {{z82}}, which are invisible tracking templates. If this continues, I may add a note in the new template that explicitly says not to go to the talk page. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Bot to correct new AfD's that weren't added to the log

I've been noticing a lot of AfD's being created recently that haven't been added to the daily log. Most of them are probably the result of a Twinkle bug that has been around for quite awhile, and seems to have flared up again. I'm looking for some input on whether it would be useful to have a bot which patrols new AfD's and checks that they've been added to the log page for the day. If not, it would add the AfD to the correct log page, and post a brief message on the AfD. Would that be useful? Are there any other useful tasks the bot could perform while it's patrolling the AfD's? —SW— chatter 18:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems like a useful idea, but I have some questions.Which day's log would it add the AfD to, the current one regardless of date of creation? (if so, then it should make a note in the AfD about the time of listing, particularly if it is on a later day's log) What will it do with AfD tags that lack discussions, AfD tags that point to old, closed discussions, AfD discussions for articles that are not tagged, and malformed AfD discussions? It could be more useful to create a tracking reports of newly created problem AfD discussions for human review, rather then just automatically transcluding them. There are already some reports, but they don't identify newly created discussions that are not transcluded, only old AfDs generally, and new ones that have a problem with the discussion, but that doesn't check transclusion status. Monty845 19:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I think you bring up some good points. Initially, when the bot first starts running, it would likely find a number of AfD's that were not transcluded, and have been around for far longer than 7 days. These should probably just be added to the current day's log and given another 7 days, with a prominent note added to the AfD. However, after the bot has dealt with these AfD's and starts running continuously, this situation shouldn't happen anymore. Instead, the bot would patrol CAT:AFD, and check that any new articles which appear there have been transcluded to the appropriate log.
Your other comments bring up some other interesting tasks that the bot could perform. Here's what I would propose for the full task list of the bot so far:
Bot would automatically fix:
  • For AfD pages in Category:AfD debates which haven't been transcluded to the appropriate log, it would automatically transclude them.
  • For AfD pages in Category:AfD debates whose article hasn't been tagged with a deletion notice, it would automatically add a deletion notice.
Bot would compile a report for:
For the problems that the bot would automatically fix, the bot would wait some time (5 or 10 minutes, most likely) after the AfD page was created before attempting to fix the problem, to avoid stepping on the toes of a human that is just taking a bit longer than usual to complete all the steps.
Does anyone see any problems with any of these tasks? Is there already a bot out there which performs any of these tasks? Any other tasks that should be added? Thanks. —SW— express 22:16, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
As I wrote at AN/I, I think that User:DumbBOT used to fix the listings and leave a note on the AfDs. It hasn't done this for a while: see User:DumbBOT/IncompleteAfD (last updated July 2011) and User talk:DumbBOT#User:DumbBOT/IncompleteAfD. Flatscan (talk) 05:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
If Tizio is willing to restart his bot, then I'm ok with that. If not, I'd be happy to perform the task in DumbBOT's place. Someone has already left a question on User talk:DumbBOT about this task but hasn't received a response yet. —SW— confess 23:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • FYI: See User:Snotbot/AfD report for a report on AfD issues that can't be solved by a bot. It's stagnant for now, but will likely be updated at least hourly if/when the BRFA is approved. —SW— confess 00:34, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Out of process AfD discussion

I believe this requires the attention of an administrator who is familiar with WP:Deletion policy. There is an out of process deletion discussion on-going at Talk:Dominik Halmosi/AfD discussion. Will somebody please close this discussion and then open AfD's for the 10 affected articles. Thank you. Dolovis (talk) 22:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I've closed the discussion and linked to the instructions for how to do it properly. Hut 8.5 22:43, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Page Deletion

I have already nominated page Basant Bhattarai for deletion. Why hasn't it come here and no one else is responding on the page ? KS700 (talk) 09:31, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

See WP:AFDHOWTO. You appear to have carried out step I, but step II does not appear to have been followed properly, and step III has not been followed at all. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:34, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you or anyone do all the remaining steps for me as i am having difficulty in doing it. KS700 (talk) 09:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Redrose64 (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Unneeded redirect

Hi, no big deal but someone might want to get rid of Earth's palarity. I don't think we need redirects from random typos/misspellings... 86.181.169.8 (talk) 03:40, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done. In the future, you can tag such redirects as {{db-r3}}, db (delete because) tags are used to tag pages for speedy deletion. A complete list of db tags and their rationales are listed at WP:CSD. --Jayron32 04:00, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

A serious discussion on Articles for Discussion?

If there was any doubt that AfD, at the moment, is a joke, the recent closure of the iOS version history AfD has removed it. It shows how bereft of actual discussion AfD is; of the thirty or so "keep" votes, about 80% of them used "keep, it's useful" or similar variants as the only reason for keeping an article that unquestionably violated WP:NOT at the time of its nomination (and would still fail under the proposed change to the guideline) and could not be reasonably edited to a state where it wouldn't fail NOT.

Part of the reason why AfD doesn't work as well as it should do is because, despite the process page saying it's not, it's more or less an up-or-down vote on retention, and not focused on article improvement. The point-scoring attitude is probably one of the more toxic things about the current AfD, and would be greatly reduced by a move to a more discussion-based AfD. There's also a potential problem with people claiming that a "keep" at AfD means that all content in the article must stay in that article; if I were to attempt to pare down the iOS version history page to better satisfy NOT, I'd probably meet a lot of resistance for that reason.

I'm aware that this is a perennial proposal, but I feel that we should seriously discuss how to improve AfD, especially as the last serious discussion was actually in favour of doing such a thing. I've posted specifics below so as not to break RfC. Wikipedia is nearing 11 years of age, and I think we should depart from what has degraded back into VfD-lite in favour of actual article improvement. Sceptre (talk) 01:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Basically, I envision combining the merge and deletion processes, as most of these proposals do, along with some minor processes such incubation. All of the standards of the current AfD would remain in place, but editors could then make actual specific comments of required improvements; incubation, a source check, merging, et cetera. Of course, deletion would still require a concrete majority consensus to do so. Added 00:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC): Non-administrators, where a solid consensus existed and admin tools weren't needed, could close discussions after a consensus was needed

I'm not convinced that there will be too much of a workload, either. Current-AfD constitutes around 90% of the deletion-and-merging process discussion, so bringing the remaining 10% in wouldn't make a drastic change; indeed, by removing the toxic AfD voting culture, it would inspire more people to participate. Sceptre (talk) 01:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

  • The AFD which led Sceptre to make a proposal for modifying the AFD process is an example of what belongs at deletion review. Did he take it there? It was full of "It's useful" and "People worked hard on it," which should have been ignored by the closing admin, along with "It's full of info you can't find elsewhere," which is in fact a strong reason for deletion. The closing admin does not generally announce a vote count as determinative of the Keep or Delete decision, and I have seen AFDs with evenly split !vote count closed as delete if the keep arguments are as weak as in this case. It also was not kept open for the full period. Placing a "merge" tag on an article sometimes works, but such an action does not draw very widespread attention and is easily thwarted by a couple of editors who like having a separate article about some minor aspect of something. "Merge" is a common outcome of AFD as is, without any "fix" of AFD. Not all merges should have to go through AFD. If the system is not broken, then instruction creep is not needed to fix it, so I say leave well enough alone. The AFD instructions already mention the possibility of listing a controversial proposed merge at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers. The instructions also mention outcomes of redirecet, rename, userfy, or transwiki. Edison (talk) 02:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
    My concerns with the current structure of AfD, however, go beyond that AfD. It's an endemic problem. Sceptre (talk) 16:45, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Sceptre, have you considered that the problem with that AFD was not in the !votes or the close but by a lack of strong nomination? You linked to a policy and said "This is what the article is" and then proceeded to nominate two other articles. Had to written a well thought out, heavily policy backed, thorough nomination statement, you might've received a different result. As it was written, it appears to me you expected folks to agree with a "Per nom" and you didn't think anyone in their right mind could disagree with you.--v/r - TP 18:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not just that AfD. Too often, AfD is seen as an up-or-down vote on existence and articles which violate policy often get kept but the content that violates policy remains because a lot of people aren't bothered to actually fix problems (this is actually where Conservapedia has a decent principle (which they don't follow, natch) in the 90/10 rule: less navel gazing on ANI, more article writing). For example, Chronology of the Doctor Who universe is at AfD for the second time, after the first AfD was closed with "keep, but the sourcing problems need to be sorted out in the medium term". After nearly two years, the article hasn't been improved; if anything, the quality has got even worse. An "Articles for discussion" process would be better served to article improvement than "Articles for deletion" ever would; surely, we can have quality as well as quantity. (Also, that article violated the letter of NOT in such an obvious way it's not funny; you wouldn't delete a solely libellious article until someone showed exactly where it was, you'd just delete it) Sceptre (talk) 23:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I love the idea of Articles for Discussion. Let's do it this way. We'll create these things we'll call "Discussion" pages for every article and whenever someone wants to discuss the article they can use this hidden discussion page. Even better, if they need input from more users, we'll create an RFC template for them to add to draw users into a discussion. We'll even create a "ref improve" template to place at the top of the article so folks browsing know it needs refs.--v/r - TP 00:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Cute, but not helping. Discussion pages are sorely underused, and a red/purple-fringed template is going to help more than a talk page. Articles for discussion should be a community process that recommends deletion, merging or community cleanup, like the various other XfDs have done since going the "for discussion" way. Votes for Deletion hasn't existed for six years, because the community didn't like the idea of voting to delete an article (and still doesn't). However, "X for deletion" in any form encourages voting, which is why a lot of processes went "for deletion" in the first place. Sceptre (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Just as a note, when an article has zero deletion !votes, it doesn't matter how many are "It's Useful" (which is part of an essay, not a policy, I'll also note), it's not going to get a supervote to delete. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
The correct thing to do would be (in order of appropriateness) to relist, to close as "no consensus and cleanup", or to close as "keep but cleanup". "Speedy keep" was completely inappropriate for AfD. Sceptre (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not just about merges. In practice,we already do resolve the major merge problems at AfD. It's also the general atmosphere. The proper question most of the time is "what are we to do with this article", about which we then collect opinions, and find something most of us can live with. Making this a dichotomy hinders the attempts at compromise. It encourages unreasoning me-toos. It encourages the complementary attitudes of keep/delete everything. It causes false conflicts between the ideas of following consensus, and of following policy, which ought in a proper discussion to be identical. It encourages bitterness and divisions within the community. I suspect some of those who want to keep this a dichotomy might consciously or unconsciously do so because they positively enjoy the conflict. If there's two things we need less of at Wikipedia , it's conflict -- and spam. Spam gets mostly dealt with at Speedy. We can handle that, and have standards we all generally agree with. The ones that need to come here are the ones where there are several reasonable views on a matter, and there are two goals in dealing with them: protecting the integrity of Wikipedia article content, and encouraging proper editing, good editors, and civility. Personally, I think trying for compromise each time will lead to clearer deletions of what must be deleted, and perhaps fewer non-consensus, because we should generally be able to agree on something. DGG ( talk ) 02:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I've also noticed that merge discussions, even for articles which have a large throughput, don't attract that much discussion. The article YouTube (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) had a merge-from template for two weeks but the discussion only had one comment. On the other hand, AfDs get a load of discussion: the aforementioned iOS version history AfD had about thirty comments from newbies and veterans alike. Sceptre (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • There are three of fundamental questions that we try and use one process to address, to the detriment of either:
    • Should this be in the encyclopedia at all? That is, does it fail WP:NOT in some way, or otherwise violate our standards in such a manner that saving, rewriting, or merging is inappropriate.
    • If so, does this material meet our content standards? Here, we find the discussions centering around V, N, the GNG and triviality of RS'es. Somewhat in parallel, the answer to these informs the third question:
    • How should this be presented? Assuming the answer to the first two questions is yes, it then becomes a more nuanced question of how we should present things: List, category, both? Standalone article or merged into a bigger topic? Does one section need to be trimmed per UNDUE, or can the rest of the article be beefed up to match it? These are the editorial questions. Jclemens (talk) 06:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
  • In general, I oppose funneling all merges through an AFD like process. Merges can be done and undone (reverted) by any editor, even anonymous editors. The process is therefore part of what I would term "regular editing" and we should avoid wrapping that process in red tape. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
    I agree. In fact, one wonders why deletion is treated differently from other editorial decisions. If we're going to radically overhaul deletion process, then the WP:PERENial proposal we should be considering is WP:PWD. :-) causa sui (talk) 23:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Open AfDs

  • There are a lot of post 7-day open AfDs just sitting around for an admin to close. Some may be "controversial," but the calls aren't really that hard. I could start IAR NAC closing them if we want extra drama?--Milowent • talkblp-r 14:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
If they can be closed without the use of tools, I've personally always supported NACs.--v/r - TP 14:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Is it possible that the reason for the backlog is the (too) large number of AFDs that are being started in the first place. Does anyone have any statistics on the number of AFDs over time? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I have statistics on the number of articles deleted through AfD. Apart from a large spike in mid-2009 the number has stayed roughly constant at 1500-2000 deletions per month since early 2008. This is surprising since the total number of deletions of all types declined considerably over that period. If it's taking too long to close AfDs then I would blame a lack of closers since the number of active administrators has been in decline for some time now. Hut 8.5 15:50, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Can anyone at wikipedia see those statistics? Ottawahitech (talk) 12:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I suppose I could post them to my userspace if you really wanted to see them. Hut 8.5 16:31, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I see some statistics posted at User:Hut 8.5 - but it is not clear if those statistics are general to Wikipedia or only to this particular administrator. Shouldn't these types of statistics be available for scrutiny to the general Wikipedian public? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers split by type of process, i.e., AFD vs CSD vs PROD vs none of the above (admin nuked on first sight). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, me too, not only a breakdown by AFD/CSD/PROD but also other deletions such as admin nuked at first sight AND re-directs that are sometimes being used as a sneaky way to get rid of information. Ottawahitech (talk) 12:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Request for Deletion/Merger - Don Hickman

There seems to be two pages for the same person named "Don Hickman". There is the first page, Don Hickman, which was set for deletion and was contested. There is also a second page Don Hickman (newscaster) which was approved as an article. Can either the first article be removed or be merged into the other article? Mr Xaero (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that you mention that at the existing AFD, which is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don Hickman. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

New Template

Hello, I've designed a very useful (it is of course also space-efficent and visually pleasing) new template that displays links to recent AfD logs. To see of an example of what it looks like, see the 11/21 log here (it's the first one on the page). I am looking for a consensus to put this template on the top of all log pages of AfD's for a particular day. I encourage people to take a look at its code (I've triple-checked it but new eyes are always good). I hope others agree with me that this template would be a valuable addition to the log pages as an added, unobtrusive convenience. Thanks,  M   Magister Scientatalk (21 November 2011)

Looks good. My only beef with it is the improper apostrophe in "AfD's", which should be "AfDs" because it's not a possessive. Other than that, I like it. jcgoble3 (talk) 04:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Good to hear. Thanks for spotting that error, I promptly changed all the wording to "AfDs" and moved the name of the template and its subpages (including its documentation page). The template is now called Template:Recent AfDs. Cheers, Magister Scientatalk 22:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

First name disambigations - deletion of

Please see my comments at Template_talk:Given_name#Too_much_disambiguation.3F. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 23:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Srivatsa Ramaswami proposed for deletion

The article Srivatsa Ramaswami appears to not meet the notability criteria for a Wikipedia article. Please consider this for deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KeithS77 (talk • contribs) 03:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Please follow all the steps listed at WP:AFDHOWTO. I see that you've previously tried to do this but only completed step I (adding {{subst:afd1}} to the article page), which was reverted after three hours because the remaining steps had not been carried out. You'll need to do that again, and then steps II and III must be followed as well. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Sierra McCormick

I believe that this actress is notable, and was deleted a bit too hasty. She does pass WP:ENT, as stated by several others. Tinton5 (talk) 16:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:DELETE#Deletion review. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The subject has already been put through deletion review: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 June 23. Tinton5 simply feels that the subject was unjustly deleted. Furthermore, the original AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sierra McCormick, clearly shows a consensus was not met. Wizardman (talk · contribs) (the deleting administrator) deleted it from his discretion when "no consensus" should have been the final answer, not deletion. Perhaps putting it through Deletion review, yet again is needed now. If it is overturned, I recommend using this draft: User:Jaxsonista/Sierra McCormick. QuasyBoy 18:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
If you have a sourced draft which you believe determines notability then take it to deletion review and try to get a consensus there to unprotect the page. Posting here isn't going to help you at all. Hut 8.5 18:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
DRV is not necessary, when additional improvements have been made such that the editor placing the content back in mainspace believes in good faith that, due to subsequent improvements, deletion rationale no longer applies. We don't do prior restraint on article recreation except in a rather limited set of circumstances. Jclemens (talk) 05:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Belén Estévez

I believe that the article Belén Estévez should be deleted because in the Spanish page was deleted for being irrelevant. Is falsely called a professional dancer. She's just a disco dancer and contestant --MarioNone (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

See WP:AFDHOWTO for instructions on how to nominate an article for deletion. —SW— talk 00:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to request the deletion of the page "Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs"

I would like to formally request the complete deletion of the page "Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs" as it is completely filled with blatant lies and half truth's and is not written from a NPOV and I feel that this page is in such bad shape that it cannot be realistically corrected. The information it pretends to attempt to provide is readily available from other, more reliable sources and to simply battle those with an agenda against Jehovah's Witnesses in a constant battle of reverting the page is a fruitless endeavor. The page is well beyond inaccurate and therefore provides no real meaningful information that could be of benefit to those seeking accurate information and should therefore be deleted immediately72.152.65.231 (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

While the IP's assertions may be a bit over the top, I am concerned that this page is sourced mostly to WP:PRIMARYSOURCES, rather than secondary analyses. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
The sources this IP user is complaining about come overwhelmingly from his own religious beliefs. I have yet to see him address any potential solutions, even though I EXPLICITLY asked him too. Vyselink (talk) 20:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
On a separate issue, is it necessary for this to be a separate page from Jehovah's Witnesses? Most other pages have a description of the belief system embedded within the main page on the religion itself (e.g. Lutheranism#Doctrine, Roman_Catholicism#Doctrine, Buddhism#Buddhist_concepts, Shia_Islam#Beliefs). I know this sounds like an other-stuff-exists argument, but it seems more appropriate on the main page, and does not seem too large (relative to the other pages) to merge it there. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 20:54, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I would be fine with a merge when/if that subject comes up (it is a great idea). For this page, I still have yet to get any rational, reasoned response from the IP user as to why the article should be deleted, other than some vague references to the "group" that I am supposedly a part of, and the "lies and innuendo" that are on the page. I have a feeling that as soon as the IP user discovers the main JW page, we are going to have some serious problems there. Vyselink (talk) 21:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

A deletion nomination along the lines of "this page is biased" is extremely unlikely to succeed unless the nominator can demonstrate that any article at this title is also biased, which here is obviously not the case. Deletion is for problems that cannot be fixed, not problems that can. From their comments at the article talk page the IP seems to believe that the article is strongly biased against Jehovah's Witnesses and that a neutral/accurate article would simply link to the official website, and I suspect that their objections are rooted in religious beliefs. Such objections are unlikely to be taken into account. Hut 8.5 22:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

This editor has made few or no contributions

Is there any particular reason for adding this note after people sign their posts properly in the discussion of an article for deletion using the four tildes? If you don't mind my saying so (and even perhaps if you do) it seems like the very sort of elitist snobbish behavior Wikipedia is being accused of around the net. "Well, you're not a regular contributor, so your opinion doesn't count." Well who would want to become one with an attitude like that? It doesn't seem like Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, it's the encyclopedia anyone can contribute to, but only some people can edit, and most likely your contribution will be judged to not be relevant by people who think their college degree is worth more than yours (even though some of today's most successful business men don't even have one) and deleted. It almost seems like you might as well just close up shop and not ask people to contribute, because if you're not part of the Wiki editorial elite, no one cares what you think or write. 68.225.171.64 (talk) 17:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

See WP:SPA. It explains the purpose and reasoning for its use. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to guess that it's the sock infested Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bellator 55 that prompted this. I've looked at it and it appears that the SPA tag on 68.225.171.64,s !vote was the only one that wasn't justified. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

People only call other users a sock to justify the rationale for their unpopular decisions. If something gets the notice of the public and the public objects, oh, well we can't be individual human beings with our own informed opinion on a deletion - we must be sock puppets. Wikipedia arrogance once again. 68.225.171.64 (talk) 23:16, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I'll speak frankly and avoid wrapping these things in public relations smokescreens. The fact is that we tend to discount votes coming from people with few or no contributions to Wikipedia because such contributors are more likely to have a vested interest using Wikipedia as a mere means to some other end. That is, their contribution to the discussion is very likely seeking to influence it for some purpose other than improving the encyclopedia. If you're not contributing exclusively for the sake of making Wikipedia better, your contributions get extra scrutiny, and may have less weight. causa sui (talk) 19:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
And... unless the contribution is policy based anyway, its extremely unlikely that any closing admin will take account of them anyway. Its the policy based arguments and established users that influence the outcomes. Sorry but we aren't here to be hijacked for special/minority interest groups who are not part of the effort to build an encyclopaedia. Spartaz Humbug! 19:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Well said, 68.225.171.64! "...you might as well just close up shop and not ask people to contribute, because if you're not part of the Wiki editorial elite, no one cares what you think or write"
With respect, I disagree. Some ips do fine work, and some new editors do as well, and we have editors who have been around for years who are pretty marginal, likely myself included. But someone inexperienced has less of a chance to be successful in AFD discussions--those discussion are often rather heated arguments, and more attention is paid to arguments informed by policy. If you feel rebuffed there, my suggestion would be to do some work in less contentious venues to get a feel for the place, or just lurk until you see how it works. FWIW. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:30, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Or just register an account. It's really not that difficult. It would prevent your posts from being marked with {{spa}}, and it actually provides you with more privacy when compared to editing anonymously. For instance, when you edit "anonymously", I can tell from your IP that you're editing from a DSL connection provided by Cox Communications, and you're probably located somewhere near Omaha, Nebraska. The only information you get when I edit is that my username is "Snottywong", and anything other info you find out about me is what I choose to reveal. —SW— spill the beans 02:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Response to: "If you feel rebuffed there, my suggestion would be to do some work in less contentious venues to get a feel for the place or just lurk ...":

Yes, I could become a professional wiki-politician by spending most of my precious free time (lurking and learning) in these endless deletion discussions, but I prefer to spend my time building content on Wikipedia, sigh... Ottawahitech (talk) 21:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Notice after AfD closing

When an AfD closes, the following message is posted on the AfD page:

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

After a discussion I was involved with, I wonder if it might be better to clarify the parenthetical phrase as follows:

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page if the article still exists, or in a deletion review if the article has been deleted). No further edits should be made to this page.

By adding "if the article still exists" and "if the article has been deleted", this notice will be less ambiguous for readers unfamiliar with our deletion process. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Have we done that yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for Deletion - Star pirates

To comply with the process outlined in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion this is a request that someone else complete the process (subst:afd1 was added and reasons were given on the talk page of the article). Thank you. Article in question is Star_Pirates. Also to note from the article history: <a href="/wiki/User:%CE%A3" title="User:Σ" class="mw-userlink">Σ</a> already questioned for deletion, but no discussion was strated and the AFD was removed unproperly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.217.109.248 (talk) 16:47, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Improving AFD debates

I have been concerned for some time that the quality of AFD discussions hasn't kept pace with a clearer enforcement of our inclusion standards and this leads to a lot of unnecessary relists and will result, as participation continues to decline, in the process becoming even more arbitrary and confusing. That's if AFD doesn't end up breaking from a lack of policy based contributions. My view is that we need to improve understanding of what is or is not a policy based vote to improve the quality of debate. This will result in fewer relists, more consistent outcomes and allow the process to continue to work in the future. I'm proposing that AFD regulars who close and relist discussions explain which votes they counted and why and offer direction when they relist to make what's needed clearer. I started (yeah, its awful and needs lots of work) an essay to explain the process as above and would welcome any comments or feedback that anyone has on this. Spartaz Humbug! 18:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Not to throw a wrench in the gears, but isn't policy supposed to be a reflection of what people have found persuasive at AFD, and not the other way around? If people in AFD are forced to make arguments rooted in existing policy, then this may create a feedback loop where the AFD discussions are seen as a tacit reconfirmation of static policy that cannot be changed because any alteration in practice will be seen as invalid since it deviates from policy, and any alteration in policy will be rejected because it deviates from practice. causa sui (talk) 19:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
No I don't think that's going to be the case. We have already seen a shift away from SNGs toward the GNG for BLPs as a result of wider community views on the need to source BLPs and I think this happened because admins were sensitive to the wider discussions on this. This could have been an issue 4-5 years ago but our inclusion standards are pretty well established now and I doubt that we can expect any significant seismic shifts in policy that don't reflect wider community concerns. My personal view is that the next direction of change will involve further deprecation of the SNGs where sources haven't been found and this is going to follow from the continual drift towards hardening our referencing and that's going to follow policy based arguments from users about why they feel the sngs don't match wider expectations. The depreciation of PORNBIO - which DRV now refuses to enforce - was a direct result of users putting up stronger policy based arguments that refuted the SNG in favour of BLP/Sourcing and arguing that previously cited sources were in fact worthless. I think admins can still weight competing policies properly in this way and documenting which votes reflect policy and which were discards will, if anything, accelerate the process by making it easier to document where policies are competing. Spartaz Humbug! 19:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the considered reply. While your view has some considerable experience and thought behind it, I am not comfortable with deciding beforehand that future discussions on policy should be pre-empted by us through a practice that prevents them from even taking place. There is no room for IAR here, which is a crucial backdoor to breaking up and reforming policies that have grown stale and no longer reflect deeper sophistication.
I feel like it's useful to have the expectation that people will base their arguments in policy, because this helps ensure some consistency from one subject to another. But people who step outside policy should be taken seriously if they can, at the same time, provide a good argument for why an exception should be made in a particular case. This practice seems to not only close that door, but weld it shut. causa sui (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
My intent is not to change the way that we close AFDs but to demystify the process and enable users to understand the weighting of the votes more easily so that they next time they participate they can focus their contribution more effectively. I do personally tend to follow straight down the GNG so maybe the way I have expressed this lacks nuance but the last thing I would want to do is remove the closing admin's ability to weight competing arguments. Maybe we need to reflect this in the essay and make it clear that its the weighting of the arguments that we are after rather then using the term policy so pointedly. I'm away to bed but will think on this and I'm happy for you to make changes/propose alternative wordings if you think that would make the intent clearer. Spartaz Humbug! 20:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm in full agreement with causa sui on the idea that the possibility of using WP:IAR in a reasonable manner feels near-impossible. I tried to argue using WP:IAR in this AfD recently, and I felt essentially laughed off the AfD, like the idea of using WP:IAR seriously is a complete joke and waste of everybody's time. You can argue that I didn't use it in an optimal circumstance, but I argued my case as best as I saw it. I don't have any particular opinion about whether the WP:GNG or WP:SNG should be treated with more weight, but seems harmful that 1) There is a general reluctance of AfD participants to ignore rules when they seem inappropriate in a given situation, and 2) That the need to make policy-based arguments seems to overshadow WP:IAR so much that it is hardly considered an option. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 20:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I can understand your point of view but wouldn't you want to explain in the close that you closed under IAR against policy because of whatever the reason was? If you don't, I guarantee a quick trip to DRV which is a pretty unsympathetic audience when it comes to perceived supervotes and the policy based voters whose votes you discarded also deserve an explanation of why their contributions were given less weight. Spartaz Humbug! 05:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Also, Spartaz, I'm not an admin, but would be more than happy to look over your essay, because AfD is where I find myself spending most of my time when editing. If you would prefer that I not change anything, that's fine, but I would like to see what direction you are heading in and can give you my own feedback. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 20:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Spartaz seems to focus upon the notability guideline. Note that this is not a policy, despite multiple attempts to promote it. Changes to AFD should therefore not be made with this particular object in mind. As for relisting, this seems to happen too often nowadays. My impression is often that articles are relisted to try to achieve a result for which there is not currently consensus. If admins only close when they get the result they favour, then this would be an abuse of the process. For a fresh example of debatable relisting, see List of allergies. This is a topic which has massive notability and the discussion so far does not indicate that there is likely to be a consensus to delete. That discussion should have been closed so that ordinary editing and talk page discussion could take place without the constraints and chilling effect of AFD. What seems to be needed in that case are some structural changes and AFD gets in the way of such change because some editors freak out if you try changing the title of an article or take other bold initiatives while it is at AFD. Warden (talk) 23:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
    I can't speak for others, but 99% of the time I'm working AFDs, I'm just mopping the floor and could barely care less what result comes through. Often I will relist an article when there have been fewer than two or three !votes, or when someone near the end of the discussion has made substantial improvements or offered a persuasive rationale that should be taken into account. This may create the appearance of "relisting to get the right result" when I am only trying to get more opinions on a plausible and interesting line of thought that was added near the end of a discussion.
    In this particular case, recall that Spartaz could have closed the debate as delete instead of relisting, if he found the keep side unpersuasive. Instead, he extended the discussion. Since it had not been previously relisted, I don't think this is something to make much hay over. I would suggest that since you want the article to be kept, you may be disappointed that the discussion was not closed as keep at the time when it seemed to be tilting that way. Your disappointment is understandable, but getting more opinions doesn't seem like a terrible thing there. In fact, it looks like some editors have chimed in with significant viewpoints since the relist, which would not have been available to the closing administrator had he closed it right away. causa sui (talk) 00:07, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The conventional wisdom is that this process is not a vote: that it is the quality of argument which counts. WP:DGFA states emphatically, "When in doubt, don't delete." If a discussion has some significant contribution which is sufficient to provide enough doubt that the matter should be relisted then this seems sufficient to just close the discussion instead because that doubt will remain. The worst outcome is to keep the discussion open for an extended period. In cases of doubt, you will then get the Keeps and Deletes lining up against each in an adversarial way which is contrary to WP:BATTLEGROUND. This is what is happening in the allergy case where we now have absurd delete !votes coming in claiming that everything is an allergen. Me, I'm allergic to AFD - it's a bad process and that's why it is in decline. The best plan is to get discussions closed swiftly and then interested parties can take the matter forward on the article talk page. If that doesn't work out then editors have the option of relisting at some future date by nominating the article again (the allergy case is nomination #2). Warden (talk) 11:10, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Well, I'd say the real disease causing the symptoms you describe is the binding nature of an AFD. Contrary to your analysis, I think that it's critical to get the AFD right, and spend as much time as necessary to get it right, because once the debate is closed it is quite hard to get it reversed. I think this is what motivates the endless relisting at AFD, not any nefarious motive to "rig the election." No other editorial content discussions are held to bind future interested parties in the way that AFD does, which puts us in this double-bind of (a) not wanting to let AFD debates drag on forever and (b) wanting to get it right every time. It's another argument for pure wiki deletion in my view, but I'm in a big minority there. It seems that we at least agree that radical reform is needed, but since it doesn't seem to be in the cards, we have to work within the system as is. causa sui (talk) 18:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

drive-by !votes

I ran across an interesting pattern of !voting that is related to this discussion. See this diff and this diff.  100 AfD !votes, 97% rate of delete !votes.  5 AfD nominations all resulting in keep.  Whatever is going on here (a psychology experiment?), can we agree that this is a problem for the community?  What should be done to detect such patterns of !voting earlier?  Unscintillating (talk) 05:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

  • The point of this exercise is to highlight weak/low weight votes to give contributors a chance to learn how to do them better. Naming and shaming a user on a high traffic talk page is not a good way to help educate that user to increase the weight of their contributions. This process is not the ceremonial AFD ducking stool so perhaps you should find a more appropriate venue. Maybe using the user's talk page with a less aggressively critical tone would be better? Spartaz Humbug! 05:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Actually, what we are talking about is not a user but the community response.  I respect you and I have told you so repeatedly.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure where I implied that I suggested you didn't respect me but thanks for the vote of thanks. The point I'm obviously struggling to make today is that this is essentially a light-touch process designed to gently chivvy editors towards better contributions but one possible outcome as the process develops could be for closing admins to provide more direct feedback to users persistantly making weak arguments and that could address the kind of thing you have raised here. Spartaz Humbug! 07:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Rethinking "AfD"

I tend to think that we're asking the wrong question--"should this be kept or deleted?" is often a clearcut argument only when certain CSD criteria apply. "How should the information that the article authors are trying to convey be presented within Wikipedia?" is a better, intentionally non-boolean, approach. This is the essence of WP:ATD--if it belongs somewhere, we should put it there, often by (up-) merging, removing inappropriate content, etc. The easy decisions are the obvious keeps and speedies; the rest of the decisions can often benefit from non-boolean discussions and outside-the box thinking, because the best way to improve the encyclopedia is often something other than "keep" or "delete". That is, we should be thinking of systemic improvements rather than fine tuning a process designed to answer an only occasionally appropriate question. Jclemens (talk) 05:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The first step towards accomplishing this would be to rename, Articles for discussion, and to provide it specifically as the step for resolution of merges where it proves impossible to get clear consensus on the relevant talk pages. There's an interesting current case at Deletion Review here of an appeal from RfD, which illustrates the confusion between the different ways to deal with article problems, and shows how a unified approach would be better. It's the binary nature of keep.delete which causes the problems. For about one quarter of the material that comes to AfD, there really would be another solution if we really wanted a solution, not a binary decision. For non-notable people and businesses, there will often be no other solution than deletion, but for non-notable products and nonprofit organizations there's usually the potential for a merge or redirect somewhere, and for almost anything more abstract than those, there's almost always such a potential. DGG ( talk ) 00:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Link to daily log: WP:Deletion review/Log/2011 December 7#Duff (d.967). Flatscan (talk) 05:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Renaming the venue seems like more of a semantic change than a substantive one. Each article already has its own discussion page, why would anyone need to start another "Articles for discussion" page for the article? Adding merge discussions and renaming discussions to AfD would just bloat it with a lot more nominations, stretch the already limited contributors (both voters and closers) even thinner, and just generally make it more difficult to maintain. Considering that deletion is the fate of more than 50% of articles brought to AfD (see these recent AfD stats posted earlier today), "Articles for deletion" seems an apt name.
I agree, however, that articles can often benefit from a non-Boolean decision. This already happens with some regularity, but could be improved. The problem is that sometimes this requires someone who has some familiarity with the topic. If you have no idea what (2+1)-dimensional topological gravity is, chances are you also don't know of a good place to merge it to. Many experienced contributors will often look for places to merge material or possible redirect targets before voting to delete. The goal should be to encourage less experienced contributors to do the same, and to encourage closing admins to look for such suggestions and seriously consider them, even if a minority of voters didn't specifically state that they agree with the alternative idea. I think this is a place where closing admins have some room for creativity.
If we're looking for more thorough and thoughtful participation at AfD, one way to create favorable conditions would be to reduce the number of articles that are nominated for deletion. If regular AfD contributors weren't continuously drinking from the fire hose, they'd be more likely to take a bit more time investigating the article. The hard part, of course, is figuring out how to reduce the number of AfD's. One idea was to reduce the number of poor quality articles which are created on a daily basis, but that idea was shot down by individuals above my pay grade. —SW— confer 00:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
The biggest thing about being at AFD is twofold: you get a unique subpage for that discussion that is usually easy to find, and thanks to the volunteers of the sorting project, the discussion is posted at one or more categorized discussion pages. Discussions about upmerging, splitting, trimming, and various other aspects that technically require no admin bit to complete normally are discussed at the article's talk page but often lead to discussions of only people interested in that specific topic. If there was a way to have "Articles for Discussion" to have the same sub-page nature and have those categorized into the deletion-sorting pages, there would be a lot more input into how best to collect information into a topic. I don't know how best to do that without disrupting the core AFD process, but this is a possibility. --MASEM (t) 01:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
We should be careful about making assumptions like that. With the current pool of voters at AfD, today's AfD currently averages less than 4 votes per discussion. If we added an extra 20 merge/renaming discussions to AfD every day and didn't increase the number of voters (or the amount of time they spend voting every day), then that average will go down, which is counterproductive to our stated goals of improving the quality of discussions. There's a valid school of thought which says that merge/move/split/trim discussions should be undertaken primarily by editors who are interested/knowledgeable in that specific topic. —SW— comment 01:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with User:Snottywong's comments. The question being asked at AFD is whether to delete or not. That's a simple question because a topic has to be quite worthless to be deleted and this is usually easy to decide. Keep is the converse of this but is much more complex because there are so many options when we choose to keep a topic as topics are commonly interwined with other topics and so issues of merger and scope are somewhat arbitrary. For an example of how editors can exhaust themselves arguing about the detail of a notable topic, see Yogurt/Yoghurt/Yoghourt. AFD has a lot to do — ~ 100 article/day — and is poorly attended. Its scope should therefore be tightly constrained to the question of whether to delete or not, i.e. is the topic completely worthless? Warden (talk) 12:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

From the /FAQ, which all of you ought to have read several dozen times by now: Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 64/FAQ Basically, unless you're willing to merge the enormous volume of AFDeletions with the substantial volume of merge proposals and page move discussions—something that I'm personally not willing to contemplate—then a name/scope change is a bad idea. Furthermore, renaming it to "articles for discussion" is likely to result in newbies confusing it with RFC, Peer review, and general discussion processes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The thing is, it's not an unpopular proposal. Most people agree that the "X for deletion" concept is outdated, hence why this is one of the only processes that keeps it, it's just that changing it comes up against inertia. Looking at the other two processes, AfD outnumbers the other two combined. And really, part of the problem with AfD is the culture that's been bred due to the process being shaped in recent years to refuse to discuss content problems. Widening the scope would remove this culture. Sceptre (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carter-Ruck

Non-notable person. Article should be deleted or merged with the article on 'Carter-ruck' as Peter_Carter-ruck started a law firm so does not need two articles. Hes not notable for any other reason than being a lawyer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.46.187 (talk) 00:12, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Wrong venue, please comment here. Hut 8.5 11:49, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
(...and he's pretty notable!) Rich Farmbrough, 14:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC).

Advertisment

Illyriad is an advertisment, but they have people reverting nominations. ViezeRick (talk) 11:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Miss Hannah Minx

I discovered this page yesterday and it clearly does not meet the notability guidelines. I initially tagged the article, but decided today to nominate it for deletion, as it clearly did not meet the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. The article is about a non-notable YouTube personality, and the only sources listed are the persons YouTube page. However, after I added the deletion tag, I discovered that the article was already nominated and deleted 2010 with full consensus, and has apparently been re-added. Anyone know what to do about this?--Metalhead94 T C 19:52, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Pages which have been deleted through AfD and subsequently recreated can be tagged for speedy deletion using {{db-g4}}. I've sorted this particular case out. Hut 8.5 19:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Iraq withdrawal benchmarks

This article was supposed to be constantly updated over time but was abandoned in 2007. Now that the war is officially over, it is essentially useless. Speedy delete or AfD?--Coin945 (talk) 10:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It can't be speedied: it doesn't meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion. If you want it to be deleted you'll have to AfD it. Hut 8.5 11:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't necceserily want it to be deleted... I just think it is worthy of AfD.. :)--Coin945 (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
If you nominate at AfD without wanting it to be deleted, then it will likely be speedily kept per WP:SK reason 1. If you are asking for others opinions on whether the article is still worthwhile, then the article talk page and or the talk page of a relevant WikiProject (in this case Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iraq) are the best places to get such feedback. Thryduulf (talk) 13:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks--Coin945 (talk) 23:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Pink Panther Mass Deletion

So, I have been involved in two previous AFDs resulting in the redirection of quite a few animated episodes.


both of these processes resulted in redirecting all of the episodes to either the show or "list of episodes" as non notable, all episodes using the same single source, and all having copy and paste content.

The first AFD completely redirected all episodes for The Inspector and The Ant and the Aardvark, and a handful of episodes for The Pink Panther (The panther episodes in particular were nominated in both AFDs, as some other editors were of the opinion that the first AFD process did not have consensus to redirect those particular episodes)

In general these AFD processes went very smoothly, with unanimous decision, except for the editors who had created the pages, and who are hardcore fans of the shows.

Now, I plan to nominate the remaining Pink Panther episodes for redirection/deletion as they are all copy and paste content, with just a plot summary.

There is at least one episode which does have pendant notability The_Pink_Phink which would be excluded from the process, as well s any other episode which shows good notability.

Drmies one of the administrators who handled the previous process redirects recommended I come here for advice regarding such a mass change, so I am doing so.

Preferably, I would be able to nominate the category, minus individual episodes, rather than having to go through and subst 100ish pages, but if required I will do so. Further, I was advised to neutrally canvas (including previous editors who voted against) to ensure a large consensus on such a move.

I will nominate after some sort of consensus/advice is reached here.

Gaijin42 (talk) 18:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Well, since I suggested this, I will chime in. Drmies (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Any article that is part of a bundled deletion nomination absolutely needs to have a {{subst:Afd}} template on it. If you're nominating hundreds of articles for deletion, you'll unfortunately have to add hundreds of AfD templates. Maintainers of these articles must be notified that the deletion discussion is taking place, and they may not be watching the category page. Besides, the category page would get nominated for deletion at CfD, not AfD, so it would be strange to see an AfD template on it. —SW— speak 21:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Also, if the outcome of the AfD is redirect all like it was last time, whose responsibility is it to actually redirect the articles? The closing admin? The nominator? Last time, no one redirected the articles and I happened to find them with AfD templates still on them despite the AfD having been closed, and I redirected all of the articles myself (some 2 weeks after the AfD had closed). If a similar AfD is imminent, there should be a plan in place for who is going to actually do the work to redirect the articles. —SW— express 21:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Please note: if you are arguing for redirection of articles, do not use AFD. Start a central discussion at a Wikiproject or other place to gain consensus for that. AFD should only be used if you believe deletion is the right outcome. Here it sounds like people agree that the titles are searchable terms, and thus deletion is not the option to use. --MASEM (t) 21:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if I agree with that. Redirection is a form of deletion. It involves deleting all of the content of the article, and replacing it with a redirect. The existing content of the article is not being merged. Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Recommendations_and_outcomes lists redirection as a valid outcome of an AfD, and in some cases the article is actually deleted and then a redirect is created, so that the article history is no longer accessible. You'd have a point if you say don't use AfD for merge discussions (since in that case, no content is being deleted, it's only being moved from one article to another). —SW— soliloquize 00:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
While redirection is valid outcome, if you are entering into the AFD with the express desire to simply make redirects and get consensus, that's out of the admin process that AFD is meant for. Yes, you may want to intentionally start an AFD to get an article deleted, and consensus may end up suggesting a redirect at the end of the day, that's an acceptable close.
I don't think it is good form to start an AFD with the intention of having old page content deleted by admins and replacing it with a redirect, save when the material is a copyright violation or against our policy on living persons (eg I create a complete fake article about a real person that's a potential search term; the right action would be to delete, recreate with a redirect, and go from there). When the material itself is not contentious, there is no reason to delete it before making it a redirect. Potentially any of these episodes could be notable in the future, and thus the old article can be restored w/o admin action and built on. That's why this type of redirect is preferred, and further one that should not be discussed at the nomination action at AFD. --MASEM (t) 00:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
So what's the proper procedure then? Boldly redirect the articles, and then when they all get reverted (which they will), start hundreds of individual discussions on the talk page of each article (which won't get noticed by anyone except the article's creator)? Or start an RfC on it (which would waste the time of more editors than a simple AfD)? —SW— gab 17:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, yes. The RFC is likely the better route as if you get an uninvolved admin involved, that decision can be used to prevent recreation without a check of notability or the like for the new version. The fact you're seeing AFD as the quick and painless route is an emphasis of why its not the right tool for what needs to be done. --MASEM (t) 17:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
There's really very little difference between a bundled AfD and an RfC to redirect a bunch of articles. A valid argument could be made for either, and I don't think it's inappropriate to use AfD in this case, with a nomination statement like "None of these individual episodes are notable, they should either be deleted or redirected to the parent article." AfD is by far the most frequent venue where discussions about the notability of a subject take place. —SW— squeal 23:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm a strong supporter of moving AFDeletion to AFDiscussion, but I recognize there's strong consensus against that and for one specific reason: AFDeletion is targeted where the nominator's goal requires administrative action, and hence the situation is put into a forum to valid the need for that action before an admin does it. Redirection does not require admin action - unless you insist that the original articles be deleted to make way for the redirects (but that doesn't seem to be the case here). Yes, AFD is a great venue to get a lot of eyes on a lot of similar articles at once, but given that the consensus is for doing this only in the case of admin action, we can't weaken it by using it for mass redirection. (or the tl;dr version: I completely agree with you, but there's strong resistance to make AFD work like that, and thus we need to stay within those lines until they can be changed). --MASEM (t) 20:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
We did once gain consensus for AfD becoming Articles for Discussion, but inertia and the complications of completing the change prevented it happening, and people afterwards kept perpetuating the myth that consensus was against it. Fences&Windows 20:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
If there was consensus for AFDiscussion, the top of this page says something else and points to wrong arguments then. The last discussion on this that I remember being involved in was probably more than a year ago, and I know decidedly it was against the change, but there could have been one in between. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Question on AfD Policy

I've have a multitude of endless discussions in a variety of AfD's about this particular concept, and I want to know the answer once and for all. My query is, as Hobbes Goodyear concisely put it: is "..."notable but not good enough"...really an argument for deletion"? If a stub on an encyclopedic article consists of a few lines - a few good lines (that is, a few lines of verifiable etc. information), essentially, who cares? There are more important things (like working on improving articles) to worry about than wasting so much time filling up loads of AfD's on such trivial nonsense - trying to delete articles which are helping Wikipedia regardless. As a work in progress, anything which helps Wikipedia grow shouldn't be a problem at all. Well that's my view anyway.. and I have always used the argument that AfD's should be purely based on a concept's sum potential as a encyclopedic article. Apparently there are those who do not share my view. Well I want to know once and for all what the consensus is from the wider community? What do you think about the previous statement - the philosophy I have followed passionately throughout my entire Wikipedia experience?--Coin945 (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE I have found it: Wikipedia:Potential, not just current state--Coin945 (talk) 06:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

  • No, the argument that an article is not good enough is deprecated as rubbish: "In the Wiki model, an article which may currently be poorly written, poorly formatted, lack sufficient sources, or not be a comprehensive overview of the subject, can be improved and rewritten to fix its current flaws. That such an article is lacking in certain areas is a relatively minor problem, and such articles can still be of benefit to Wikipedia. In other words, the remedy for such an article is cleanup, not deletion.". Warden (talk) 12:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
  • We shouldn't really be deleting articles due to their current state. However, sometimes an article is irredeemable due to its current state and would require rewriting from scratch to be kept - despite being about a topic that would otherwise meet our inclusion criteria, there is currently policy support for deleting such articles in certain cases, e.g. copyvio, blatant advert, unsourced bio. It would be better if such articles were rewritten rather than being deleted, despite there being the option to delete them - in particular, I think Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion like G11 and A7 are overused to delete articles on notable topics. AfD is less of an issue here. Fences&Windows 18:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
    • p.s. The debate in question was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Betograve, and the OP has been in discussion recently with several users about the poor quality of the OP's article creations, from which they have hopefully learned some lessons about writing articles. Fences&Windows 18:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)Folk Hop should not be deleted with country rap

Orphaned page appears junk

Hi, FYI someone might want to wipe Talk:Uranus explorer 1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.210.251 (talk) 04:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done. In the future, you can tag things like that for "speedy" deletion per the instructions at WP:CSD. --Jayron32 06:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate WP:BEFORE

I do like the purpose behind it, but I absolutely hate how it is misused. In multiple AfDs where I couldn't find significant coverage and someone else could, that person has accused me of not following WP:BEFORE. I say in all of my nominations that I searched for sources so I'm not sure if I'm being called a liar. SL93 (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Do not be bothered by it. The accusation is just proof that the other one has no proper arguments. Night of the Big Wind talk 00:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • If other contributors find good references that substantiate that a topic is, after all, notable, that is a supremely "proper argument" for keeping the article. So, sorry, if SL93 routinely finds they failed to find good RS other contributors could find I suggest worrying about this is valid. Geo Swan (talk) 07:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
If you couldn't find stuff after trying, but someone else could, maybe you should ask 'em how they did it. There's an art to searching, and if you're trying, you should be encouraged to try better, not griped at for failing. Jclemens (talk) 01:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Though BEFORE is not meant to require a detailed search of every possible index. A good BEFORE search hits the various Google facets and tries a few approaches. If searching for topics for an article require specific search terms or an atypical search engine, that's not the nominator failing BEFORE, nor expected for the nominator to improve their search habits. Remember, BEFORE is not required, and we cannot put specific onuses on a process that can require a lot of trial and error. --MASEM (t) 01:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I am going to disagree, in part, with User:Masem and User:Night of the Big Wind. No one should imply bad faith on your part if you did your best to search for references that would substantiate that a topic was notable, prior to nominating an article that seemed weak to you. But a contentious {{afd}} can use up dozens of hours of other volunteers time. Individuals who can't be bothered performing a web search, prior to nominating an article for deletion, really do impose a costly burden on the project. And I am afraid that if you have routinely made good faith efforts to find good references, only to find your good faith efforts failed, and other contributors were able to find good references you missed that established topic's notability, then sorry, that implies you too have imposed a considerable and avoidable burden on the project.

    If you really are finding your good faith efforts to search for the references that would support that a topic was notable have fallen short, then let me ask you if you really think continuing to nominate articles is a good idea -- at least until you improve your web searching skills?

    I'll offer you a couple of simple pointers. Forgive me if I am repeating things you already know.

  1. Google and other search engines allow multi-word terms to be grouped together with quote marks -- so the words in the term only trigger a hit when they occur in that sequence.
  2. The keyword OR, or a pipe symbol, is used as the boolean operator "OR" -- allowing searches with alternatives.
  3. preceding a term with a dash reverses the meaning of that term. So -wikipedia', for instance would filter out hits to pages that include the word "wikipedia".
  4. You can use the "site:" keyword to restrict a search to a domain. "site:nytimes.com" directs google to only search pages under the nytimes.com domain. Similarly "site:mil OR site:gov" is useful for searching for public domain images. Geo Swan (talk) 07:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Its far too easy to nominate something for deletion. Most people who send things to AFD, go around nominating a lot of things in a short period of time. At Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Haunt (video game), once you found a lot of things appearing in a Google news archive search results for "Haunt" "and "video game", instead of nominating it for deletion, you should've tried to narrow down the search to find what you were looking for. Add in the name of the company that produces it, or the name of anyone notable attached to it, or check the Wikiproject for video games and use their search through reliable sources for video game articles, as someone of course did, easily finding significant coverage in them. I'm going to go request a bot for that, so that AFDs will check the type of article being nominated, and add in a link to the RS search for the relevant Wikiproject. Dream Focus 07:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I have seen user nominate articles for speedies and then at Afd while with the smallest effort they could have found some good sources and additional interesting facts. And in my opinion an editor has the obligation to check such things before nominating an article for deletion. In other words, there are editors for whom deletion is the default, and that is why we need WP:BEFORE. Such editors should be WP:TROUTed with that guideline a few times, until they get the point. Nominating for deletion is easier, but The Right Thing To Do is to do your homework first. Debresser (talk) 08:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Every single thing that every editor does here ought to be for the purpose of improving this encyclopedia. Following our BEFORE recommendation helps reduce the chance that articles on notable topics will be nominated for deletion inappropriately. Of course, various editor's skills will differ in finding reliable sources. That is why tips about how sources were found, and how sources may be found in similar future cases, are so useful to productive editors. In my experience, simply reconfiguring Google search terms to a variety of plausible possibilities often yields a far wider range of potential reliable sources than a search based only on the current article title. No reasonable editor ought to advocate deleting an article on a notable topic when sources can be easily found and added to the article. I expand, reference and improve articles all the time, but I also advocate deleting articles on non-notable topics. Keeping is always better than deleting whenever keeping is a viable option. BEFORE is a tool that helps train all editors participating in deletion discussions about the reasonable alternatives to deletion, so that AfD debates are less acrimonious and based more on genuine consensus. Take time to search, and improve and expand articles as the first option. If you truly believe, based on a sincere and skilled search, that the topis isn't notable, then nominate the article for deletion. If other editors rapidly discover source showing notablity, then please refine your search skills before nominating other articles for deletion. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Why should I refine my search skills? Most articles that I nominate for deletion are deleted. Most times the keepers throw trivial mentions in my face, but sometimes they are significant coverage. SL93 (talk) 13:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What SL93's concern is exactly why BEFORE can't be enforceable. If an article fails to explain anything about its notability, and provides little information to make a narrowed or specific engine search for sources, there is no way we can expect the nominator to reasonably find any, even if, by doing one little tweak on search terms, the sources become obvious. Remember, anyone can nominate any article they believe fails notability, they need not be an expert in that field, and thus we cannot expect them to be expert searchers for information in that field. What might be easier for a well-versed editor in that field to find may be very obscure. Also remember: we're talking "reliable" sources, as well, and that adds complexity to a search that we cannot expect of a nominator: the nominator should be aware what consistutes for RS for the article's field, but it likely is more the problem of trying to identify any useful results from hundreds of blog posts and forum messages. Remember, if literally hundreds of reliable sources really do exists, and can be shown by explaining how to properly search for them, and everyone goes "obvious keep", you'll likely get a snow close on the AFD.
The only actually that we can take against an editor based on BEFORE if they have nominated dozens of articles where they claim there are no sources, but each time, they are easily found by a simple, non-specific search (eg plopping the name of the article into google without additional search terms); in otherwords, we can easily discount any AGF they had in making the nomination. When an editor, like SL93 here, claims to have made that simple search and not found anything, and this can be verified, that's a good-faith adherence to BEFORE, and we cannot criticize such editors for not taking that step. That's the only objective concept that we can make from BEFORE in terms of enforceable behavior, using that as a means to stop editors that refuse to do any type of BEFORE work from being disruptive. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
"Why should I refine my search skills?" Because, while there are plenty of articles that ought to be deleted, deleting an article that shouldn't have been deleted is not cool. AfD is not an arcade game for which you're trying to get the high score. Burdening other editors with doing work you could have done yourself is a waste of resources. Granted, it doesn't seem as if you are nominating articles which end up being kept with any unreasonable regularity (only about a 5-10% error rate), but there's always room for improvement. —SW— babble 18:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
What should not be happening is putting the onus on finding sources on the person that wants to delete the article. In a good faith nomination, the editors sees the article, believes its on a non-notable subject, has done an initial search pass to find that sources are not prevailing to suggest notability, and then puts the article to AFD. If finding the articles requires somewhat specialized knowledge in that field, we cannot expect the nominator to necessarily take those steps. Take the above case of the Haunt video game. I know, from the VG project, that putting the name of a game with a developer is likely to narrow down sources fast, and that is certainly true here (I found at least one good source from gnews with that). But someone that never deals with contemporary topics may not know about that search. Failing to find the game's mention with a general google search across web/news/scholar is not failing anything; that's the minimum that we can reasonably expect. --MASEM (t) 16:08, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Every AfD nominator has failures. Did I ever say that it was cool to delete notable articles or that AfD is like a video game? SL93 (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Referring to other AfD participants as "the keepers" who "throw trivial mentions in my face" seems like an adversarial attitude to have, and gives me the feeling that you are at least partially trying to "win" something. —SW— babble 18:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
So you're assuming bad faith on my part. By keepers, I am only referring to people who !vote keep. It is throwing trivial mentions in my face when they are like "I found plenty of coverage. Follow WP:BEFORE." SL93 (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE is not a policy or even a guideline. There are several good reasons why it's not, and why bringing it up in an AfD debate is usually a crap argument. Firstly, it reverses the burden of evidence; I've seen "arguments" along the lines of "Keep- nominator hasn't explained how they followed BEFORE". But it's not up to the nominator to jump through hoops, it's up to the people defending the article to find the material that justifies it. Secondly, it actually punishes nominators who are diligent in evaluating sources beforehand. How often do we see things like "Keep- if nominator had followed BEFORE they'd have found this google search that matches some or all of the words in the article title", when in fact the nominator might have seen those same matches already and rejected them as junk. Thirdly, it's not clear how much thoroughness or specialist knowledge the nominator needs to have. Is "Keep- Per BEFORE, the nominator should have known to combine the article title with the manufacturer's name and year of release" really fair? Do you see the common thread running through all these criticisms? BEFORE is used as a weapon to attack nominators, to try to paint them as lazy and incompetent, and these attacks are seldom accurate or fair. Its contribution the the hostile battleground atmosphere at AfD far exceeds the value of the good advice it contains. That is why WP:BEFORE is not, should not, and will never be enforceable. Reyk YO! 01:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Trying to nominate for AfD

I have completed the first stage of nominating Twilight of the Dead for deletion, but cannot move on because there is already an unrelated page with the same name that was deleted in 2007 (see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twilight of the Dead. I seem to remember that there is a procedure for nominating an article for a second time, but I can't find details. However, this is not strictly appropriate as this is not the same article or subject, just the same title. If someone can point me in the right direction (or better yet, complete the process for me) I'd be very grateful. (Incidentally, my grounds for nomination are that this appears to be a non-notable single with no evidence provided of notability either in the article itself, or in the article Misfits (band) and Misfits discography.) Emeraude (talk) 15:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Just create a new nomination page at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twilight of the Dead (2nd nomination). The fact that the subject of the article is different from the one discussed in 2007 doesn't mean you have to do anything special. Hut 8.5 17:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Many thanks. I knew it was something simple. Job done. Emeraude (talk) 18:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Help requested with article on Robert California

I am nominating the article on the fictional character Robert California for deletion. This is done in response to one of the five {{PROD}}s contested on 13 January by 3:21:14:20: is key (talk · contribs); I have completed step I and request help with the remaining steps in the nomination process. Thanks in advance. 68.165.77.175 (talk) 06:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done Nomination page created. I will leave it to you to notify the authors. jcgoble3 (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Blackout and AFD closures

I saw that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nancy Nasrallah was closed when it popped up on my watchlist. It was non-admin closed by User:Sprinting faster. Aren't these AFDs supposed to be extended by 1 day? -- Whpq (talk) 18:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


Yes, they were supposed to be extended, but as there wasn't really any opposing view I dont think it matters. If you want to contest it, take it to DRV. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
It's pretty clear cut and an extra day won't likely affect the outcome. -- Whpq (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Bold, revert, discuss

Cunard asked today on WP:AN for an admin to assess the consensus on this proposal. Though it is a heavy decision to make, and one that will carry great weight in the future functioning of this encyclopedia, I believe I have the soundness of judgement required to make the optimal choice. To wit: I have intently analysed every word of the impassioned arguments presented in this section, both for and against, and have discovered that this discussion is pointless, and furthermore, that we all have better things to do than try to change a long-standing abbreviation that has presented absolutely no problems to anyone ever. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Today I changed the capitalisation on this page so use "Afd" instead of "AfD". Yes, I know that it has always been "AfD, but let me present my case.

The title of this page is "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion". That akes for "Articles for deletion" = "Afd". Also, there is no reason Afd should be different from Cfd and Tfd. The fact that there the"d" stands for "discussion" obviously is of not import.

The "argument" that most people use "AfD" is a circular one, and can therefore not be accepted. People use "AfD", because that is what it used to say here.

It is more than likely that the capitalisation with a capital "D" is a result of the American tendency to capitalise all nouns in titles. But see Wikipedia:Article_titles#Article_title_format and compare Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Section_headings that on Wikipedia we should capitalise only proper nouns. This edit actually fixes this old transgession of these WP:MoS guidelines.

My proposal: to confirm my bold move and use the logical, correct, and consistent capitalisation: "Afd". Debresser (talk) 13:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason I can see to change the capitalization; both are equally sensible and logical. In general template names are more or less arbitrary strings that identify the template. Unless there is some genuine confusion about the capital D, we should just leave it as is. Template:Tfd has a redirect Template:TfD, so both work. Can you point to any complaints by users that the capital D in AfD caused problems? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Actually, WP:Redirects for discussion is referred to as RfD. In any case capitalization doesn't seem to be the problem we have with this process (see above), the MOS won't apply in letter to our project pages, and looking at the spirit of it, there are passages where we try to more and more discourage people from continuously trying to fix and standardize usage in article space according to their own logic which invariably will collide with someone else's, so no problem in leaving the project pages inconsistent as well and do something else (fwiw, I prefer the double cap).--Tikiwont (talk) 13:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The logical name would be "AFD" etc. (and moving is not out of the question, the whole AfD structure has been moved, I think, three times already, including changing namespace twice, and changing form VfD to AfD. Rich Farmbrough, 14:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
Reply to Tikiwont. Then perhaps Rfd should also be referred to as Rfd, not RfD. :) Thanks for your reply. I agree that capitalisation is not a problem, but I also think we should make an effort to do things the best way possible, and in my argumented opinion that would mean using "Afd". Debresser (talk) 14:43, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Leave at AfD. If anything, it should be "AFD" before "Afd". This isn't an article and doesn't need to follow any MoS or WP:TITLE guidelines. After all, you would use "afd" if you were to follow capitalization based on first letter, because it is "articles for deletion" and not a proper noun. We use "AFD" because "afd" is not obvious enough, especially if it matches a real word like "prod" or "gan". If this proposal wants to change the way we abbreviate all Wikipedia: discussion pages, then it needs to include them all, not just AfDs. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Dbresser is only suggesting that AfD follow the style of Tfd and Cfd. But certainly moving to XFD would be slightly wider ranging. Rich Farmbrough, 15:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
  • Contra Debresser, since we're all using specific idiomatic terms instead of standard capitalization anyways, I prefer to retain the difference in "for discussion" and "for Deletion". Jclemens (talk) 15:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
    As we have commented far and wide, the name is unfortunate, it should probably be "... for deletion discussion" since "deletion" pre-judges the issue, and "discussion" is too general. Rich Farmbrough, 18:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
  • Move to WP:SHeD (ok, not really). Anomie⚔ 15:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Leave at AfD or change to AFD. I alternate between the two myself, but have never used Afd, which seems counter-intuitive to me. AFD is the most logical, in that the vast majority of most initialisms are all caps, but if people would rather preserve the status quo, I'm fine with that as well. jcgoble3 (talk) 16:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Status quo per Anomie. It's a bit ridiculous that we're even wasting time on something like this. It reminds me of the US House of Representatives debating on whether to reaffirm that "In God We Trust" is the official motto while the country was a few days away from defaulting on their debt. —SW— talk 17:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Reply to Snottywong. If it is of so small importance, then why was my change here reverted twice with a few hours after I made it? Seems to be that people care about it more than they show. Or would it be a matter of WP:ILIKEIT? Btw, nice signature! Debresser (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The same thing would happen (i.e. someone would revert me) if I replaced every instance of "AfD" with "Pork chop sandwiches". What's your point? The fact that someone reverted your silly edit doesn't prove that the capitalization is important, it only proves that your edit was silly. —SW— confess 06:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep as AfD. "AfD" is the abbreviation everyone uses, in discussions and in the project namespace, throughout the project. This is the de facto convention and I see no compelling reason to change it. Dcoetzee 17:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It is convention only by force of habit. I see very little good arguments here, only WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The commentary after this one is the example par excellence of that. Do you, or anybody else, have any arguments? Debresser (talk) 17:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
You aren't making a strong case for yourself either, except WP:ILIKEIT (Which is an AfD argument, not a general Wikipedia guideline for everything). In fact, you are the one who changed CFD. And again, it should be "afd" by your arguments, because "articles" is not capitalized per se. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It looks silly, unnatural, and has no upsides. That's all the argument necessary to show this is a contentious waste of time and therefore shouldn't happen. Your non-standard grammar crusade can stop now. --erachima talk 17:47, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep it at AfD or go to AFD, "Afd" looks all af'd up. --erachima talk 17:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Move to AFD while acronyms like "MoS" are not scarce, the style "MOS" is simpler and more widely used. Rich Farmbrough, 18:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC).
  • Who cares? This is not worthy of discussion, this is just being lamely anal. WP:FUCK for guidance on something like this. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 18:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Shouldn't that be WP:Fuck? At any rate, I agree. What a useless thing to open a discussion about. Resolute 20:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Keep at Afd, unless we want to start moving not only the 264188 AfD pages, but also the 3645 TfD pages, the 2856 FfD pages, the 2626 CfD pages, the 1957 RfD pages, the 10046 MfD pages, and the 939 SfD pages. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • For fuck's sake, leave it alone. A convention exists; take your foolish consistency somewhere else. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "AfD" (or perhaps "AFD"). It is conventional to capitalise the most important words in a title. For example, "front of house" (in the world of theatre) is abbreviated "FoH" or "FOH", never "Foh". Same with "articles for deletion": it should be called "AfD" or "AFD", not "Afd". 124.168.87.221 (talk) 05:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • AfD. jorgenev (t|c|s)
  • WP:SHED. A finer example has never been provided. I'm actually thinking about adding this to the essay. Also, WP:DGAF causa sui (talk) 06:42, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Status Quo Inertia is an entirely valid argument when the issue is such a triviality. "Afd" is rarely used. This is silly bikeshedding. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:48, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment According to Garner's Modern American Usage [4] initialisms are usually all caps in American English and one capital then lowercase in British English. So this may be an Engvar issue, as well. In any case, I do support moving it from AfD. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:16, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Ban proposal

  • Anyone who further contributes to the above thread will be banned.
  • Support. As proposer. Fences&Windows 23:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. I don't really have much to say about the above thread except that, folks, this isn't worth anybody's time. Find something more important to discuss. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 23:59, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Ban every editor who makes a ban proposal here, as well as any editor who continues the above discussion. Ban me too, as well as everyone who disagrees with me. Now, let's write or improve some encyclopedia articles. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Sure - Haven't read a thing but looks good to me. I'm sure we can trust him with the spatula, no reason to oppose. LoveUxoxo (talk) 01:30, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • BJAODN causa sui (talk) 02:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Cullen, add as example to WP:BIKE Bulwersator (talk) 12:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Because of the imminent 1/18 blackout...

There will only be a few AfDs listed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 January 18 that day :) --MuZemike 12:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Note the blackout doesn't start until 05:00 UTC, so it will still be possible to nominate articles for five hours. Hut 8.5 14:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
And we still ended up with 47 - quite manageable, by most standards. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 16:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

deletion for a non article!!

this article here Obscenity the other side of Aisha has nothing to do to be an article in wikipedia with lack on sources and useless!. So would be better to delete it to keep wikipedia clean. thank you.

--Neogeolegend (talk) 01:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to nominate the page for deletion follow the instructions here. This page is not part of the AfD process. Hut 8.5 09:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Note that the user was blocked for edit warring on this very article. Nothing to see here. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 20:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Deletion discussions not transcluded to this page

This discussion does not seem to be listed here and has been open for over a month now. Is this a common problem? I am not a regular here, but recall something similar with this discussion. AIRcorn (talk) 22:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

here is the link to the deletion discussion: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Laos_women's_national_rugby_union_team. I am not sure where it is supposed to be listed, but I found this by using the search on this page. --stmrlbs|talk 23:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Should it not be listed under old discussions? AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) On the second one you link to, it appears that it simply wasn't added to the daily log. That's not the case with the first one, which is correctly transcluded and has been since the time of nomination. For some reason, Mathbot never recognized that it was there, leading to the bot showing 0 open discussions for that day on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old and the log subsequently being removed from that page with the discussion still open. I don't know what to do about it, though. jcgoble3 (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I meant to link to the AFD discussion on the first one, must have copy pasted the wrong tab. Would it be possible for a bot to search for pages with a title begining "Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/" which are not linked to from here and putting them in a seperate "Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/errors" page. I can ask an admin to close or relist the Laos discussion, but a bigger concern will be AFD's that get lost in the system. I am not sure how much of a problem it is. AIRcorn (talk) 23:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I pinged Mathbot's operator about the possible bug and searching for other lost AfDs. We'll see what happens there. jcgoble3 (talk) 02:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I relisted that AfD, and the bot added it correctly. If there was a bug in the bot, it was an old one.

There is little I can do now about identifying what went wrong. If we run into this again, and that bug is reproducible, I'll of course fix the bot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Armored Fist 3

I wanted to start an AFD for Armored Fist 3 but can't create the page. I stated my reasons on the talk page. 108.67.153.215 (talk) 05:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Done. Reyk YO! 06:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Statesman

Statesman is currently a rather stubby article that probably belongs on wiktionary rather than here. There's no real way to make a distinction between 'statesman' and 'politician' in a NPOV way, and the article doesn't try to. Instead, it's a rather short and fuzzy article about it being a general term of respect. Perfect for a dictionary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.120.39 (talk) 05:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

SolidCAM

I nominated this for deletion, but initially failed to specify (2nd Nomination) in the NominationName. Although now corrected, my attempts to add it to the the current AFD log page don't seem to result it in being shown. Any suggestions?, Or can some admin fix this? Sorry. DaveApter (talk) 11:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed [5]; you were capitalizing "Nomination", when the title of the discussion page had it in lowercase. jcgoble3 (talk) 17:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process

Cunard asked for this to be closed at AN. The consensus quite clear that this idea is not required at this time. This doesn't require an admin to make that determination. Spartaz Humbug! 07:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There needs to be better checks and balances in the process of how articles are currently nominated for deletion, to prevent notable topics from being deleted without actual qualification per Wikipedia article deletion guidelines. This is a significant problem, because it is very likely that notable topics are being injustly deleted. It's easy to nominate an article for deletion and then type five or six words and wait to see if an article will be deleted, whereas it takes more time to refute nominations. Perhaps there should be more sophisticated criterion to nominate articles for deletion. As it is now, anyone can nominate any article without providing a just rationale for doing so, and can instead simply base the nomination upon basic, generic and inspecific statements such as "doesn't pass general notability guidelines", while not specifically stating which parts of the guidelines they are supposedly referring to. If nobody comes along to correct an injust or baseless nomination, the article is then deleted based upon unqualified, general statements that don't actually correspond with the required source searching per WP:BEFORE prior to nominating an article for deletion. This definitely makes it very easy for people to censor Wikipedia, for whatever subjective reasons. Here's how it's done: an article is nominated for deletion and an AfD entry is created, a generic rationale is provided to misqualify the deletion without actually checking for reliable sources to establish topic notability. Afterward, if nobody comes along to correct the faulty nomination, the article is deleted. It's also easy for people to message one-another to delete articles, often per an "as per nom" rationale, while disregarding the actual notability of topics. If nobody comes along and provides an objective analysis to refute the deletion of an article in which the topic is actually notable, nominated per generic statements and without the required source searching prior to nomination, then the article disappears. Hopefully Wikipedia can introduce better checks and balances to prevent this type of easily accomplished, simple censorship. One idea is to include a requirement prior to article nomination for deletion in which the nominator has to state, or check-box on a template, that they've performed the required minimum search in Google Books and in the Google News Archive required by WP:BEFORE, and in Google Scholar for academic subjects, as suggested in WP:BEFORE. This would be a simple addition to the AfD nomination process that would add significant integrity to the process, and would also encourage users to follow the proper procedures.

Please place responses regarding this matter here on this Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion Discussion page below, rather than on my personal talk page. In this manner, other users can view and respond to responses. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Addition to the above treatise:, posted September 23, 2011

The current AfD process is dependent upon editors being willing to spend their time to disqualify erroneous nominations when they occur. This is concerning, because again, it takes much more time and effort to disqualify faulty nominations than it does to post them. Hence, there is room for improvement to increase checks and balances in the nomination process to prevent stated erroneous nominations from occurring in the first place. I have presented some examples below in this discussion, five in which article's were kept after other editors came along and corrected faulty nominations. These are quite relevant examples of stated hasty nominations that needed correction. If nobody came along to correct the problem, the articles may have been deleted from another person simply voting, for example, "as per nom." In addition, I've included two examples in which articles may have been hastily deleted from Wikipedia.

A significant problem is the ease in which stated hasty nominations occur, versus the time it takes for editors to correct them. Another significant point regards the desire of editors to spend time doing so, spending hours of time to correct stated hasty nominations that take seconds to post. As it exists now, any article can be nominated for deletion in seconds, while researching for the availability of reliable sources takes a considerably greater amount of time. It's very unlikely that a significant amount of editors will want to devote a great deal of their time correcting these types of hasty nominations for deletion, which again, take only seconds to post. Additionally, please refer to two additional examples I provided below about articles that may have been hastily deleted.
Northamerica1000 (talk) 07:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

(I have directed the other two pages where you started the exact same discussion to this one, no need to have the same discussion on three different pages) Fram (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

As longer as there are no checks and balances for the creation of articles, no more checks and balances are needed for the deletion of them? It is already more than hard enough for most users to get anything deleted, and there are a large number or articles that should get deleted but remain on Wikipedia because editors can't bring themselves to go through the steps to nolinate anything for deletion already. Adding more hoops won't make Wikipedia better. Fram (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Two thoughts occur to me: 1) I had not known until today that there are two separate processes for deletion: AfD, and PROD. (I hadn't know until two days ago that anyone could initiate an AfD.) And 2) personally, I tend to disregard anonymous posters who can't be bothered to register, unless their contributions are obviously worthwhile. But for deletions, by either process, I suggest that registration be required. Of course this still leaves the problem of puppets. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, a third thought: as noted in the section immediately preceding this one, "I can't get the damn thing to work, either :-(", I'm with Fram on the difficulty of using AfD - I'm not entirely a novice here at Wikipedia, but am by no means a very confident editor, and I found this procedure to be horrendously complex and confusing. I'm sure it could be simplified a great deal. But as to initiating a deletion request, by whatever procedure, it shouldn't be that difficult to require a minimum number of posts made by a registered user; and registration with no minimum, for voting. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
A couple of observations. First, you do not vote at AfDs. All deletion discussions are resolved on the basis of policy. If you simply vote keep or delete at an AfD, it will not count. You must have a policy rationale, and you must explain why you believe it applies in that particular case. Simply parroting another contributor will be counted as a single !vote. Second, users with very few edits are generally discounted (not ignored) when it comes to AfD discussions, because of the dangers of single use accounts and their general lack of experience when it comes to understanding WP policies on deletion. A !vote by an account created since the AfD was posted will almost certainly be ignored as a sock/meat puppet. VanIsaacWScontribs 21:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Since you're obviously grinding an axe here, surely you must have countless examples of this happening? I don't mean one or two, here or there; I mean a significant percentage of deleted articles. Go on, show us. → ROUX ₪ 09:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Please refer to examples below in this discussion, and if you check back, please respond to them. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 21:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Comment from Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)—
To reiterate, per my above treatise, one idea is to include a requirement prior to article nomination for deletion in which the nominator has to state, or simply check-box on a template, that they've performed the required minimum search in Google Books and in the Google News Archive required by WP:BEFORE, and in Google Scholar for academic subjects, as suggested in WP:BEFORE. This would be a simple addition to the AfD nomination process that would add significant integrity to the process, and would also encourage users to follow the proper procedures. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Undeletion is an incredibly lightweight process for pages where there has not been established a solid reason for deletion (i.e. a consensus based on debate). I've never understood why rescue types devote so much energy (and waste a collossal amount of that of other editors) on trying to prevent Wikipedia's most marginal content from being deleted when all it takes is one trip to WP:REFUND for any editor who genuinely thinks an article can be brought up to standard to resurrect it. Furthermore, like many of these rhetorical arguments regarding how deletion-heavy Wikipedia supposedly is it ignores the actual state of the project: it is plainly obvious that Wikipedia has an extremely active community of hardcore inclusionists watching over AfD closely to attempt to block any deletion nominations perceived as being invalid, and so the "checks and balances" are already in place. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 12:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, once an article is deleted, it is no longer available to any users except for administrators. All other users receive a message such as this, based upon a Wikipedia search for "123123"— "You may create the page "123123", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered." Users searching for a deleted article, unless they have administrative privileges, can't view it, and therefore, won't know about it's existence, unless perhaps they search through numerous AfD archives, which is unlikely. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
If you click on the redlink, you get taken here, which helpfully has the deletion log in a pink box near the top of the page. Cheers. lifebaka++ 12:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for providing details about the deletion log for my "123123" search example, which provides more details regarding this matter. This also further exemplifies my point. Unfortunately, the deleted data remains unviewable (as a red link) for any users except administrators, and then a user has to ask an administrator to provide more information about deleted data. Despite all of this, users won't be able to access the data to ascertain the use of WP:REFUND. Northamerica1000 (talk) 13:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that user:Northamerica1000 is making an important point here, that deletion not only takes the material out of mainspace, it also leaves only the administrators knowing what is in the article.  This is appropriate when the material is offensive or libelous, but we have other articles such as Radio Sandwell and Kippax Uniting Church that are not offensive in any way, and simply need a small amount of additional sourcing.  There is no purpose to be had from hiding the articles from ordinary editors.  What we need is a second form of deletion, a form that takes the material out of mainspace and out of the Google search engine, but still allows somehow reading the edit history.  This is a big enough issue that it probably needs a separate discussion at the Village pump.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It's called WP:REFUND - articles can be moved into userspace to be improved with the history intact. --MASEM (t) 19:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • No, somehow you aren't seeing the issue, articles that have been deleted can only be seen by administrators.  For example, I mentioned Radio Sandwell and Kippax Uniting Church.  Do you think that you would like to improve those articles?  No, you can't see them, and you've got other things to do than get them userfied to see what I am talking about.  And the outcome of REFUND already exists at AfD, it is a !vote to Userfy.  What I am talking about is adding a new category for the outcome of AfD decisions, something like "Soft delete" or "Archive delete".  Unscintillating (talk) 20:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Hmm.... This might be of interest to you: a draft/"workspace" namespace, not indexed by search engines, where newbie articles could reside without getting deleted. Note especially: Articles may be unpublished from the Main namespace. In this event, the article will be moved back to the Workspace. Is this something like what you have in mind with "archive delete"? --Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Isn't the point though that the contents of articles that have been deleted should be available to future Wikipedians? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Making WP:BEFORE have any type of weight (a requirement before AFD nom.) should really be considered an unachievable WP:PEREN; it is way too easy to game, and way too bureaucratic. We must assume nominators are making the nominations in good faith with BEFORE in mind. Instead, AFD nominations should be seen as a behavior, and if one regularly puts articles to AFD that are readily, perhaps speedily kept, and which performing BEFORE would have not required the AFD nom, that's something to task the user at at WP:RFC/U or other behavioral problems.
As for articles where they are nominated and no one else responds to them, there's not much we can do about that - it either means they aren't on anyone's watchlist or those that have it there ignored the matter. Fortunately REFUND is very easy and provides the checks and balances on the matter. --MASEM (t) 12:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree as it's difficult to "prove" that the nominator did not follow WP:BEFORE. I have seen AFDs where a "keep" !voter has said something like "The nominator didn't follow WP:BEFORE or he would have found a zillion google news hits" when in fact he did and wasn't impressed with anything he saw there. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. Or take the case where the topic being deleted overlaps with several other, likely more notable topics of similar name, and it is very difficult to tune the right set of search terms to find it if you are not 100% familiar with the topic. You can still make the BEFORE good faith effort, but still be critized "well, duh, you should have tried +x, -y, -z in your search, 100s of hits that way!". --MASEM (t) 13:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Also to add: most good faith nominators, if their ghits fail but later shown the right way to get plenty of hits, will usually adjust their stance; they may disagree the hits are appropriate for notability, for example, or in some cases outright withdrawn the nomination. Those nominators that do drive-by noms without checking BEFORE on a regular basis are also the types that refute any sourced discovered during the nom or never respond during the process, and that again is all behavior, not process. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, drive by nomming and !voting is a problem. IMHO anybody who nominates an article for deletion or !votes in an AFD should be willing to participate in the discussion. If you don't have the time then perhaps you are nominating too many articles for deletion. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • If we're going to talk about checks and balances in AFD, how about we address Northamerica1000's !voting habbits. Such as using the exact same copypaste rationale, using a WP:NOT rationale as inclusion policy, or simply looking at the AFD vote counter where his opinion only matches the close 57% of the time. When there are only two options (Support/Delete), 50% accuracy is easy to achieve. (Note, set it to ignore the last 2 weeks because too many AFDs weren't closed yet.) As an AFD closer, I give less weight to NA1K's rationale when I see this repetitive behavior. I rather find it disruptive to an AFD. Google hits don't confer notability and neither does WP:NOT.--v/r - TP 14:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • To be fair, a lowish percentage of opinons matching the close isn't necessarily a problem. Some highly respected admins like DGG (65.6%) and Karanacs (62.2%) have only marginally higher ratios, and there are AfD regulars like TenPoundHammer and FeydHuxtable below 60%. A high percentage can be easily "achieved" by only !voting in clear-cut cases where the outcome is pretty much decided without adding anything to the discussion. It's probably better if this isn't used as a metric for worthiness of contributions, or we could end up with a scenario in which competent editors avoid commenting in contentious cases to avoid the risk of damaging their record. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would prefer that the apparent abbreviation of my user name used above, "NA1K", be discontinued, as it requires people to decode my user name within comments, which may delay this discussion. It is more functional to use my actual user name, "Northamerica1000", in which people don't have to decode, or figure out the abbreviation. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) it seems to me that drive-by nominations are less of a problem than drive-by !voting. the afds i've seen where the nomination is really off the wall have usually failed quickly without a lot of time wasted, since the sources are easy to find. what worries me more is the borderline cases, where there are two or three potentially reliable but not obviously so sources hidden in a mass of junk, and the quality of those sources actually needs to be discussed by the community in order to figure out what to do. it *does* feel like a waste of time to have two or three serious discussants, surrounded by a bunch of "delete not notable" or "keep 23433 ghits", and then feel as if the closing admin spent more time counting than reading. of course, i have no examples right now, and i don't want to criticize specific closures anyway. we say that !votes with reasons will be taken more seriously. perhaps admins could be encouraged to strike !votes that didn't give some detailed reasoning in their opinion before closing afds, so that the community could see that they really weren't taking those drive-by votes into account? that's just an off-of-the-top idea, i've put very little thought into it, it may be unworkable, etc. drive-by !voting is an important aspect of afds to discuss, though. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 14:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The addition of a very simple check-box type of confirmation within the procedures of nominating an article for deletion, in which users verify that they've performed the required source searching per WP:BEFORE guidelines prior to nominating an article for deletion would be very functional, and is a reasonable idea (and is also my idea). Another idea is to require, or at least encourage users to state that the basic source searching has been undertaken in the edit summary when the article is nominated for deletion. Oftentimes, people continue to nominate articles for deletion that are actually topically notable, per the availability of reliable sources. For whatever reasons, people continue to refer articles to AfD under very basic rationales, which are often countered through simple internet searches for reliable sources. Sometimes people refer to entire pages of guidelines as a rationale for article deletion, which fails to qualify specific reasons for notability or lack thereof, and equates to referring to an entire list of multiple, specific rationales as a singular, generic rationale for article deletion. This equates to stating that an article should be deleted because of any reason on a guideline page, without actually stating any of the criterion on the guideline page to qualify the statement, which is illogical. In these types of cases, even when assuming the nominator is referring to the basic criterion section of a guideline page, oftentimes no specific part of the basic criterion are mentioned, which again is inspecific and ambiguous. Northamerica1000 (talk) 16:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Articles can't be deleted without a consensus. There's your check. Articles can be created without a consensus. If anything, there's an imbalance towards creation. But it should continue to be this way. Editors create a slew of articles, they're scrutinized by other editors, and we filter out the ones where there's a consensus that there's no potential. The system works. If we're going to prevent editors from starting an AFD without doing a google search, then we need to prevent articles from being created without more sources. Dzlife (talk) 16:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't the editor who wrote the article be responsible for finding those sources? Northamerica1000, are you suggesting someone can write an unsourced article and then demand that those who want to delete said unsourced article are responsible for finding sources for it? That's just crazy. If someone is suggesting AfD for an article without sources, and the editor who wrote it isn't prepared to back up the information with valid sources and then moans when it gets deleted, there's something wrong with the system! In the case that the article was written years ago by someone who is no longer active on Wikipedia, then maybe some sort of "rescue" should be performed first - but where an editor is active? That editor should be responsible for the sourcing. MeegsC | Talk 16:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Millions of articles were created before the notability guideline even existed, and even after it, people just ignored these suggested guidelines when they were mentioned in AFDs for quite some time, including closing administrators. Those times have changed. We do not go through and nominate millions of articles for deletion based on lack of sources. Often times a simple search on Google news will show something got coverage. Dream Focus 16:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Huh. It says there are only 253,307 articles that link to the unreferenced template. [6] It also says the tool isn't working properly now, so the results might not be accurate. Anyway, hordes of things go to AFD which have references, just people arguing if its notable enough. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tyler_Shields has a long time editor of Wikipedia commenting that the guy does meet the General Notability Guidelines but still says the article should be deleted, because he hates celebrities. Dream Focus 16:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
When you take to the policy pages to rescue an article so non-notable that even DGG says we should delete it, it's time to have a pause for self-reflection. Dzlife (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • In response to user thumperward/Chris Cunningham, I'd like to point out that deletion review gives random results. [7] List of Native American women was overturned to keep, while List of African American women was endorsed as staying deleted [8] despite there no valid rational for deleting it. The same articles, it just random guess who shows up and argues, and the opinions of whoever is closing the discussion. Dream Focus 16:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • In response to user thumperward/Chris Cunningham's comment "it is plainly obvious that Wikipedia has an extremely active community of hardcore inclusionists watching over AfD closely to attempt to block any deletion nominations perceived as being invalid", I'd like to point that since it is so easily for anyone to nominate things for deletion, there are always far more nominations than anyone can get through. I've seen certain people nominating scores of articles almost every day it seems, and if enough people show up to actually look for sources and comment, then its likely to be kept, and if not, it gets deleted. Its more of a game of chance than an actual functioning system. And if an article is kept, the same exact nominator can renominate it for deletion later on, multiple times even, until they get the result they want. Dream Focus 16:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Why does "[blocking] any deletion nominations perceived as being invalid" make you a "hardcore inclusionist"? Isn't this what you're supposed to do?!? And, as numerous posters are arguing that this is the only check necessary, the "hardcore inclusionist" slur implies that some are hostile even to this check! Also, a potentially destructive process that can very easily be set in motion, yet takes substantial energy to halt would not be approved by any engineer in existence. (Or was Chemical Ali an engineer?) Heavenlyblue (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • i agree with Dream Focus here about the chancy aspects of afd. i wonder if a policy of no more than one nomination per year per article might be useful, or some such time restriction (i'm sorry if this has been considered and rejected before, i haven't looked incredibly carefully). this would make the discussions feel as if they had a chance of having some lasting effect. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 16:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose a 1-year restriction on AFDs. It would create a method to game the system. I create an article, get a buddy of mine to nominate it for AFD, and a few other buddies to support keeping it. AFD closes as keep, my article stays on Wikipedia for 1 year.--v/r - TP 17:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
comment— good lord, of course you're right. it didn't even occur to me. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 18:00, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


  • Since you obviously have no examples of this alleged problem occurring, I fail to see why we should entertain this nonsense. I suggest this ridiculous axe-grinding be hatted. → ROUX ₪ 18:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Per the request for examples, please refer to my comment below in this discussion, examples of articles that may have been hastily nominated for deletion for specific examples. Thank you.Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Per Roux, I can find no cited examples where an article with appropriate sources was nominated for deletion via AFD, and was then summarily deleted without significant support from later comments. If the OP can provide examples of the problem, then we may have something to work on. It appears so far as though this is a hypothetical problem, and I don't see where we need solutions to problems that do not exist. --Jayron32 19:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Per the request for examples, please refer to my comment below in this discussion, examples of articles that may have been hastily nominated for deletion for specific examples. Thank you.Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I am sure that examples of such deletions can be found, but showing whether its a significant problem would be more difficult. Articles can be deleted with just a nomination and one or two delete votes, though often a relisting will occur in such inactive discussions. Typical deletions of articles on notable subjects revolve around stubs or badly written/sourced articles, that is, articles that could be improved but have not been. Some editors have no problem with such deletions, though at some point it clearly impacts on the "improve as you go" nature of the project. In my experience, if I lightly chastise an editor for a bad nomination, they may well be more careful the next time. I don't think a checkbox proposal would be especially useful, as WP:BEFORE should be adhered to in every case.--Milowent • talkblp-r 19:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It is quite telling that while we have this discussion here the most active AFDs today are those where all commentators execpt the nominator think they should be kept. Enough checks and balances. Would have missed that if it had not been for NA1K. Agathoclea (talk) 19:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment – Regarding remarks from user:Agathoclea directly above this message: I see no correlation with current events in a daily AfD log being associated with the ideas I have posited here. A further explanation regarding your stance would be helpful. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Obviously wrong nomminations garner far more interest than obviously correct ones. Proof that the system works. Agathoclea (talk) 06:35, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would prefer that the apparent abbreviation of my user name used above, "NA1K", be discontinued, as it requires people to decode my user name within comments, which may delay this discussion. It is more functional to use my actual user name, "Northamerica1000", in which people don't have to decode, or figure out the abbreviation. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 21:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree with Roux. This is just a lot of bawwwing. Regarding WP:BEFORE, there have been two recent discussions aimed at clarifying what its status actually is. The consensus reached was that it is not a policy, not a guideline, not obligatory, and so full of irrelevant checkbox-type hurdles that it has required an extensive rewrite. Reyk YO! 20:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment – Regarding remarks from user:Reyk directly above this message: Could you please provide links to the two recent discussion you mention, so they can be considered within this discussion? There is significant precedent in Wikipedia policies to avoid the hasty nomination of articles for deletion about topics that are actually notable. Please refer to Wikipedia:Deletion policy, section WP:ATD for some examples. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Certainly. The discussion regarding its status can be found here. The discussion regarding the rewrite is here; there are also some related threads towards the end of the last archive archive #62 of this talk page. Reyk YO! 22:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree that this is all meaningless unless we get hard evidence that there is a problem. I'm sure there are AfDs where wrong or inconsistent conclusions are reached but that's always going to happen as long as our inclusion guidelines depend in any way on editorial judgement. To actually show that AfD is frequently reaching the wrong conclusion someone would have to take a random sample of AfDs and scrutinise them carefully to check if the right outcome is reached. If a lot of these discussions resulted in articles being wrongly deleted then we can say that there is a problem and discuss solutions. Hut 8.5 21:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Per the request for examples, please refer to my comment below in this discussion, examples of articles that may have been hastily nominated for deletion for specific examples. Thank you.Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • You've given 5 examples of articles which were kept, one which was closed as no consensus and two that were deleted. The ones that were closed as keep or no consensus don't support your position that the process is flawed (because the attempts at deletion were not successful), and you're not alleging that the two that were deleted should have been kept. These examples (which are largely drawn from your personal experience and thus can't be said to be representative of all AfD debates) don't support your position that the process is flawed and needs adjustment. Hut 8.5 20:26, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The articles that were kept were nominated hastily, and in error, which is the initial problem. It seems prudent to at least consider ways to improve notable topics from being nominated for deletion, because people may base their decisions to delete upon personal reasons, biases and other subjective rationales. Each kept article in the examples cited shouldn't have been nominated for deletion in the first place, because the topic was actually notable, per Wikipedia notability guidelines. It seems functional to address these issues on a macro level, rather than briefly criticize the examples that I took the time to post here as insufficient, and therefore dismissive of the entire discussion. The AfD process is very subjective per each individual article. Research takes time. Could you (User:Hut) consider taking a few minutes of your time to provide examples to the contrary? Doing so would significantly contribute to the overall premise of this discussion. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Your argument is that the existing checks and balances in the AfD process are not sufficient to prevent notable articles being deleted. You've given examples of poor nominations that were shot down in flames. This is evidence that the existing checks and balances are adequate because they succeeded in preventing notable topics from being deleted. You are the one who wants to change the system and so the onus is on you to provide evidence that your proposed change is necessary. I'm certainly not going to do your research for you. Hut 8.5 10:44, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Research you declined doing would have been for this discussion, not for my benefit. This isn't my "cause", it's just a discussion regarding a topic to improve Wikipedia overall. I'm not interested, per your assumptive statement above, in 'changing the system', just discussing ways to improve it. As of today, many users have provided input, and some additional examples, which is appreciated. Northamerica1000 (talk) 15:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm another person who doesn't see a problem. Errors on Wikipedia are usually corrected through discussion. If someone nominates an article for deletion in error, you'll have at least three or four editors looking at it who will uncover the error. Otherwise, the AFD is relisted until enough editors look at it. It's literally impossible for one editor to delete an article, especially if they made an error. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:10, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
To see the problem I suggest that you need to stay focused on a Wikipedia resource: editorial time.  An editor at WP:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Higgins (2nd nomination) openly testifies that those wanting an article deleted have no responsibility to do any work, it is their job to point their finger at an article, at which point it is up to the rest of the community to justify having that article remain in public view.  IMO, this is a work imbalance that creates a bias, a bias to hide good material. 
[insert begins here]
That's not what it says at all. The onus is on article editors to properly source the articles. Which is policy. People saying delete are required to provide a policy rationale for their delete opinion. Keepers are required to show otherwise. If the article's editors did not do their job in citing reliable sources, it is not the responsibility of deletionists to go out and troll the entire internet to see if there might be something out there. Keepers may want to do that, but the question is never about what is out there, it is always about what is in here. What sources are cited? Does the article, as it currently exists, meet notability guidelines? That's the question; not "could the article be made compliant?, but "does it meet WP policy right now?". VanIsaacWScontribs 02:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
[insert ends here]
For example, at WP:Articles for deletion/Kippax Uniting Church, I invested 24 man-hours before posting a Keep vote.  If you look at the AfD, you will see the evidence that the first three delete votes did not read the references.  The final delete vote depended on two of the original three delete votes, so we have evidence that this article was deleted without any of the delete positions reading the references.  My estimate for the total time spent in preparing the four deletion !votes is one hour.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Let's be perfectly clear. You did not invest 24 man-hours in order to request a keep. You invested 24 man-hours to justify your keep. A big problem in these AfDs is that many "keepers" throw large chunks of spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks, and it sometimes makes the specifics of earlier deletes irrelevant, even if their substance still remains. For example, I go to an AfD for an ice cream store and see two references, each of which only mentions the subject in passing (ala, so and so got a grant from the local government to install an experimental solar-powered freezer), I would say delete on the basis that there is no significant coverage. Then along comes a desperate keeper who can see that it's not going his way - his favorite ice cream shop is going to lose its Wikipedia page! So he adds a dozen references from school bulletins, public access news shows, and local radio interviews. Well, now there is significant coverage, except that none of those sources are suitable for establishing notability. So my previous comment, although it is now technically not true, is still valid - the subject still does not meet notability guidelines, only its now because the sources themselves are not sufficient, rather than their coverage of the subject isn't sufficient. You see the problem here, don't you? Moving the goalposts doesn't help these discussions, and neither does putting up barriers to starting deletion discussions. I've still yet to hear of a single incident where a lone gunman somehow nominates an article for deletion, it gets deleted without anyone chiming in, and then others aren't able to get a simple REFUND when they've found resources that correct the problem with the original article. It just plain doesn't happen. Remember that people disagreeing with you doesn't mean the system is broken - it means the system is balanced. VanIsaacWScontribs 02:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Per the statement above by user:Vanisaac, your summary appears to be that the AfD nomination process and the AfD discussion process are at their optimal state, and merit no further consideration for improvement. The arguments above seem to be based upon an "us versus them" rationale of "keepers" versus those who nominate articles for deletion. Perhaps deletion discussions should occur before articles are nominated for deletion, such as in discussion pages for articles. The macro notions I have presented are to consider possible means to preserve articles based upon topics that are notable, per reliable sources, to therefore improve the Wikipedia project. It seems unlikely that most Wikipedia contributors are interested in working to contact administrators (per WP:REFUND) about deleted articles that aren't accessible to them, because only administrators can access deleted articles. All other users just see red links. However, perhaps one in 100,000 users might take the time to do so, and after considerable effort, perhaps manage to reestablish an article in this manner. It's probable that this won't occur very often whatsoever. It's notably apparent, in part from the examples I have provided for articles that were retained after unnecessarily being referred to AfD, that articles continue to be nominated for deletion based upon whatever reasons other than simple searches for reliable sources, which again, takes more time to accomplish than simply basing a nomination upon a generic rationale such as, "Doesn't meet GNG". I'm surprised that at this point nobody else has provided examples of articles that were unnecessarily referred to AfD which only actually needed improvements. I found some. A significant notion is to consider better checks and balances to prevent the wasting of user time debating about articles that don't actually deserve to be deleted, nor nominated for deletion in the first place. Northamerica1000 (talk) 23:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • One solution I think is that creating an AfD discussion should be a privilege, not a right, like the rollbacker bit.  This would in turn allow the admins to impose some feedback on the process, such as if a nominator is wasting the community's time with inadequately researched nominations, any admin could take away the editor's AfD privilege.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
This is already a possibility - haven't we banned at least one user from AfD nominations before? - if a user demonstrates that they are wasting community time. The trouble with your analogy is that rollback is granted, where the ability to nominate articles for AfD is a default. lifebaka++ 01:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes. Users do get banned from nominating AfDs because of abuse. It's not a bit that's set, it is a community sanction that can be backed with blocks for noncompliance, just like interaction bans. VanIsaacWScontribs 02:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
There are several inclusionists I think should be banned from AFDs including NA1K himself. Having a userright might not be such a bad idea. (last sentence is sarcasm).--v/r - TP 03:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would prefer that the apparent abbreviation of my user name used above, "NA1K", be discontinued, as it requires people to decode my user name within comments, which may delay this discussion. It is more functional to use my actual user name, "Northamerica1000", in which people don't have to decode, or figure out the abbreviation. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 22:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • About the "checkbox/template" thing – what prevents me from disregarding WP:BEFORE when nominating an article for deletion but still blindly check the box? It's like checking the "I agree to the terms and conditions" checkbox whenever you install software when almost nobody reads said terms and conditions. While I support following WP:BEFORE before proposing deletion, something like this is too easy to game and simply lie about. –MuZemike 01:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • hi after reading this i'd like to make two points:
  • (1) deleting an article can undo the work of a lot of people, while creating an article only creates the work of one person, so saying that deleting and creating are equally easy doesn't make sense.
  • (2) i saw some articles got deleted with PROD which has no checks and balances at all for low visibility but notable articles. i think this is worse than the other kind of discussions which i guess can still happen with only a few people noticing, not enough to really get an idea of whether the article can be fixed or should be deleted. Bouket (talk) 05:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I've participated in about a thousand AfD debates and the statistics I've posted on my user page show that I'm neither a deletionist nor an inclusionist. I do recommend that nominators follow WP:BEFORE and describe their efforts to find sources establishing notability. Three word deletion rationales bug me a bit. I think that everyone who participates - article creators, nominators and those who comment in the debates - should add good sources to articles if they can be found, time permitting. We're all volunteers here. I scan through far more AfDs than I comment on, and if I am on the fence, or find the topic entirely uninteresting and/or predictable, I look for another article where I can make a useful contribution to the process. I am proud to have expanded and referenced quite a few article I've stumbled across at AfD, and list those on my user page. All in all, I think the system functions pretty well, and I think that the right decision is made probably 95% or more of the time. I've only asked for one or two articles to be userfied, and that was an easy process. So, I see no evidence at this time that the process is deeply flawed. It would run better if a few more editors pitched in with open minds and a willingness to do research and to study our policies and guidelines. It's all about making this a better and more useful encyclopedia. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Here are some examples of articles that may have been hastily nominated for deletion, and possibly done so without the required source searching per WP:BEFORE. Please note that, importantly, these examples are in no manner, way, shape or form meant to be perceived as judgments against the respective editors who nominated the article or editors that contributed to the AfD discussion. I am providing these examples because people above requested specific examples. I was initially hesitant to provide examples, because my intention here is to enourage a discussion about ideas to improve the nomination for article deletion process, in the interest of conserving topics that are actually notable. Again, it is NOT my intention here to judge other users' behaviors, nor to promote any type of finger-pointing or blaming.

1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kaldor's Growth Model – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this article, but not to the AfD for this article.) It seems possible that the minimum required search for reliable sources may not have occurred to qualify this article's nomination for deletion. Note the basis of the nomination, in which the nominator stated, in part “no indications of notability or separate importance,” when stated topic notability does actually exist. It appears that the provision of several additional sources from another user likely influenced to overall decision to “keep” the article.

2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute for Gulf Affairs – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this AfD and also contributed to the article.) The verbatim justification for deletion was, “I can't find sources which discuss this institute in any great depth, which would give it notability for an encyclopaedia.” While the nominator did appropriately mention looking for sources, it appears that reliable sources were readily available per the minimum required source searching per WP:BEFORE policy, as indicated in the discussion below the nomination.

3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Mantis – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this AfD and also contributed to the article.) The rationale provided for deletion was (verbatim), “Clearly does not meet the notability guideline as per WP:POLITICIAN.” However, no specific points from WP:POLITICIAN were provided to qualify the statement. This is an example of referring to an entire list of specific guidelines as a singular, generic rationale for article deletion. Per the AfD discussion, other users pointed out that the topic passed notability guidelines per WP:GNG, which states, “If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list.” In this manner, the topic was demonstrated to pass the most basic of notability guidelines, a one-line sentence with subpoints that explain the intention of the statement. In my opinion, the article also already had several reliable sources already in it that satisfied the guidelines of WP:BIO, section WP:BASIC, specifically (per WP:BASIC), “ “A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.” If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.”

4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tiffany Page – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this AfD.) The rationale provided for deletion was (verbatim), “This is a non-notable artist and the page information is incorrect and I have found no sources to back up a lot of the information, such as if the artist is really dead or if her singles or albums really charted in all those different countries.” It seems possible that the minimum required search for reliable sources may not have occurred to qualify this article's nomination for deletion. In this example, it seems that the nominator was searching for sources to verify information already present within the article, rather than source searching to qualify topic notability. In this example, the availability of reliable sources established topic notability.

5. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OxiClean (3rd nomination) – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this AfD and also contributed to the article by adding a {{Rescue}} tag to it.) The rationale provided for deletion was (verbatim), “Kept last time due to sources, but on further inspection they're press releases. Delete or merge to that big shouty guy.” It seems possible that the minimum required search for reliable sources may not have occurred to qualify this article's nomination for deletion. In this example, it seems that the nominator was basing the rationale to delete the article based upon sources within the article, rather than upon the minimum required source searching per WP:BEFORE policy for available reliable sources.

Importantly, to reiterate, please note that these examples are in no manner, way, shape or form meant to be perceived as judgments against the respective editors who nominated the article or editors that contributed to the AfD discussion. I am providing these examples because people above requested specific examples. Please post comments regarding these examples below this message, rather than in between each example on the edit page. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Wait a second here... Let me get this striaght. Your examples for articles being improperly deleted is five articles that weren't deleted? Your evidence of the process needing to be overhauled is five examples where the process worked perfectly? I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. VanIsaacWScontribs 06:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment – In these cases, if nobody had come along to correct the hasty, faulty and unqualified nominations, the articles may have been deleted. Please note that it takes much more time to do research to disqualify hasty nominations for deletion than it does to post hasty nominations. These examples are absolutely relevant to my ideas presented at the top of this discussion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
A) If nobody comes along, there is no consensus, and it is kept, so saying that if nobody came along it may have been deleted is just plain wrong. B)Your assertion that these were "hasty, faulty, or unqualified" is not supported by the discussions. C)There is no evidence whatsoever in any of these discussion that those who !vote "keep" had a greater onus than the nom. D)Some of these articles were demonstrably improved because of their AfD discussion, and the attention that was brought to bear concerning references.
  • Comment – The above comment from what appears to be from user:Agathoclea is taken out of context. I stated, "if nobody had come along to correct the hasty, faulty and unqualified nominations...". Above this comment, I was discussing the examples I provided, not the concept of nobody coming along whatsoever and how a "no consensus" decision is reached. If other's had come along and provided, for example, simple "as per nom" votes, it is possible that these articles may have been deleted. Either way, my remarks were not about nobody contributing to the AfD. This seems quite apparent to me, anyway. Regarding the comment above, "Your assertion that these were "hasty, faulty, or unqualified" is not supported by the discussions."— How so? They are clearly stated and my rationales are also clearly stated. Rather than a general statement that refers to all five rationales as "unsupported", could you please explain your rationale further with examples, and/or further opinions? This would help clarify your stance about each, separate example. Regarding article improvements that occur during their AfD discussion: This further exemplifies how the articles were nominated hastily, while not actually deserving to be nominated for deletion because the topics were in fact, notable per the availability of reliable sources. Northamerica1000 (talk) 11:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
AfDs are not a battle between those who want to delete and those that want to keep, it is a collaboration in which you try to come to a consensus on what is best for the project. Those who disagree with you are not enemies, but I get the feeling of animus in your repeated assertions that those who !vote "keep" have to do more work somehow. For your information, it is nearly impossible to make a coherent "delete" (read, one that the closing admin will pay attention to) without checking over all of the references in the article. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and all deletion discussions are decided based on policy. If you can't produce a convincing policy argument about the current article that backs up your !vote, it will not be considered, whether you !vote "delete" or "keep". Understanding policy and applying it is just as hard for deletionists as it is for inclusionists. If you decide that a given article is worth your time, then put in that time. Otherwise, feel free to not participate in a given discussion. I troll ANI, and check out several AfDs per week, but I just plain don't care enough about most of them to spend the time to add to the discussion. Lastly, absolutely none of what you have posted takes into account that you can almost always get any deleted article userfied.
As far as #2 is concerned - the fact was mentioned that a banned user created the article and as such it could have been speedily deleted. Commendable for the nomminator to have second thoughts on that and send it to AFD instead. In probably all those cases the article even benefited from the nomination by being improved. On the other hand there are cases where some keep on nominating articles which clearly should be kept and then fighting tooth and claw against anyone stating so. I was thinking about an awards system: Bronze AFD Lemmon for 3 or more nomminations in a given day which are kept; Silver AFD Lemmon for the most kept nomminations in a month and the Gold AFD Lemmon for the year. Both ends of the spectrum are equally bad - those that want to destroy everything and those that want to horde any old rubbish. Agathoclea (talk) 06:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
These five examples seem to provide evidence that the process works well, not that it is fundamentally flawed. Disclosure - I participated in one of the above debates. I believe that the process works well the vast majority of the time, and we have deletion review and userfication available for the occasional case where a mistake is made. More neutral, thoughtful editors willing to chime in would reduce the already low error rate even further, in my view. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment – The process works well only when editors are willing to spend their time to disqualify erroneous nominations. This is concerning, because again, it takes much more time and effort to disqualify faulty nominations than it does to post them. Hence, there is room for improvement to increase checks and balances in the nomination process to prevent stated erroneous nominations from occurring in the first place. The five examples I presented above are quite relevant examples of stated hasty nominations that needed correction. If nobody came along to correct the problem, the articles may have been deleted from another person simply voting, for example, "as per nom." A significant problem is the ease in which stated hasty nominations occur, versus the time it takes for editors to correct them. Another significant point regards the desire of editors to spend time doing so, spending hours of time to correct stated hasty nominations that take seconds to post. As it exists now, any article can be nominated for deletion in seconds, while researching for the availability of reliable sources takes a considerably greater amount of time. It's very unlikely that a significant amount of editors will want to devote a great deal of their time correcting these types of hasty nominations for deletion, which again, take only seconds to post. Additionally, please refer to two additional examples I provided below about articles that may have been hastily deleted. Northamerica1000 (talk) 07:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
And this assumes that there are an inordinate amount of erroneous nominations out there - an assertion that I, for one, disagree with entirely. Almost all deletion discussions I have seen are based on a good, solid, well-reasoned nomination, even those that end up as "keeps". It also assumes that a "keep" comment is somehow more difficult than a "delete" - another assertion that I dispute, not the least in part due to the large number of coherent and well-researched "keep" !votes that many AfDs have. An "as per nom" really only works when the nomination is actually really comprehensive, and remember that admins are human - discussions can get closed before everyone's had a chance to respond. That's why we have deletion reviews. I think you assume that people just randomly nominate and comment on AfDs, and I've seen no evidence whatsoever that that's the case. I can tell you unequivocally that if you take hours to respond to a deletion discussion, you are doing something very wrong, or there was something very wrong with the article. If you don't assume that nominations are made in bad faith, basically your argument dies. VanIsaacWScontribs 08:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Per the comment above from user:Vanisaac, ..."I think you assume that people just randomly nominate and comment on AfDs, and I've seen no evidence whatsoever that that's the case."— Please refer to this example provided by user:Dream Focus above: ..."[9] List of Native American women was overturned to keep, while List of African American women was endorsed as staying deleted [10] despite there no valid rational for deleting it. The same articles, it just random guess who shows up and argues, and the opinions of whoever is closing the discussion." Thanks. Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I speak only for myself but I have been happy to do the homework and comment on hundreds of them. I've learned a lot, developed a better sense of how the encyclopedia works, and managed to improve quite a few articles in the process. I've also seen a lot of total junk get eliminated. Don't forget that. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Examples of articles that may have been hastily nominated for deletion, which were then deleted

It takes time to go through AfD logs to cite examples that I know to exist because they have been seen numerous times. Please be patient. Perhaps others can spend a few minutes doing the same types of searches, to improve this discussion. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC) Please note that these examples are in no manner, way, shape or form meant to be perceived as judgments against the respective editors who nominated the article or editors that contributed to the AfD discussion. I am providing these examples because people above requested specific examples. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Based on a quick review, I see no evidence whatsoever that Leo Goldseed is notable. I find passing mentions of two manufacturers a century or more ago called "Wooster". One made harnesses and perhaps went the way of the once-thriving buggy whip manufacturers. The other made overalls. Neither seems all that notable but I could be wrong.
If you think these topics have the potential to be shown as notable, simply ask an administrator to userfy the articles in your own userspace. Let me know if you do, and I will be happy to spend some serious time trying to track down sources. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
The "Wooster" that was deleted was about a "model airplane manufacturer" now owned by PPC Holland. The latter has more chance of being notable enough for an article than the former, it seems. As for Leo Goldseed, I also can't find any indication of notability. Mind you, there have been mistakes on AfD, both in keeping articles that should have been deleted and vice versa. No amount of checks and balances will prevent this, but the harder it is made to nominate anything for deletion, the more articles will not be nominated that should be deleted. The current system seems to work reasonably well. Fram (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
The "as per Nom" was after a relisting, in which nobody else participated, and note that the nominator actually noted a rather significant understanding of exactly what the article subject was. This is what is called an "uncontroversial deletion" and is absolutely within policy. Probably dozens of people took the time to check out this particular AfD, and didn't have anything to add to the discussion, so they simply left.
The single delete example, on the other hand, indicates that both the nom and the second commenter both did a significant amount of outside research to verify that conclusion. Although to be honest, I would have relisted the Leo Goldseed article for another week, just to see if anyone else might have had a music journal stuck in their closet, it doesn't change the fact that these were both destined for the dustbin as soon as someone knowledgable came around and cared enough to nominate them. VanIsaacWScontribs 07:35, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the "addition" you just posted to your original comment: please try to see this from an opposite position, by replacing "delete" by "create" in your text. For many articles, it has taken less time to create them than to research them sufficiently to make a nomination. Article creation is extremely easy compared to nominating anything for deletion at AFD at the moment. That doesn't mean that hasty nominations aren't made, and that some users don't need correcting (assuming they don't self-correct while going through a learning curve). But the truly hasty nominations don't take that much time to correct usually: if it takes hours to find the sources that show that a subject is notable, the original nominator can hardly be blamed for not having found them in the first place. Fram (talk) 07:43, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Currently, only registered users can create articles, while all users can nominate articles for deletion. This somewhat counters your argument that it's very easy to create an article, because for all un-registered contributors, it's impossible. Conversely, it's also much easier and quicker for stated unregistered contributors to nominate articles for deletion, because they don't have to complete steps two and three in "How to list pages for deletion", located at WP:AFDHOWTO. The steps to nominate an article for deletion are actually very easy to perform for registered users too. The following are basic estimates, and aren't meant to be considered as absolutes, because different users have different abilities, internet savvy and internet connection speeds: Copy and paste a template to an article, which takes about 5-7 seconds to do, copy and paste data to the edit summary, another 5-7 seconds, then click on the link to a pre-formatted AfD page and complete the simple steps there, which may take from 30 to 60 seconds, maybe more for less savvy internet users. Per many AfD treatises, the addition of rationale for deletion, if comprised of just brief noun-phrases takes perhaps 10-15 seconds to type. Then a copy/paste to the articles for deletion log page is done and some text is replaced in the copy/paste, another 10-20 seconds. Adding the deletion sorting template, if appropriate, and an edit summary takes perhaps another 10-15 seconds. There are some steps involved here, but they're pretty easy to accomplish, and it seems reasonable that savvy internet users with high-speed connections can accomplish all of this quickly, particularly if they have the steps memorized. Perhaps having a bot perform some of these tasks to automate the process further would be beneficial to the process, which could reduce some of these steps.
Additionally, and importantly, it appears that oftentimes the research to qualify nomination of an article for deletion isn't occurring, as evidenced by the many articles that are kept after AfD discussions. It's apparent that many articles are being hastily nominated, otherwise there would be very few articles that would be retained after AfD discussions are closed— almost all would be deleted if nominators consistently researched for reliable sources. Some people commented that the examples I cited regarding articles that were kept are invalid, when in fact, they are testimonial that article's are being hastily nominated without first source-searching, as per the rationale presented in my treatise at the top of this section. Some arguments in this discussion that the system "works" because the articles were kept are based upon partial analysis, as a hasty generalization, because again, in order for the system to work, people have to devote significant amounts of time to qualify article retention. It is plainly obvious that this system could be significantly improved, in which people don't have to disqualify nominations that are already erroneous, as evidenced by each and every article that is kept. How much time and energy do people realistically want to spend refuting inferior logic and hasty generalizations that are often present in article nominations? Again, every article that is kept is testimonial that this is, unfortunately, how the AfD system is arranged.
Unfortunately, oftentimes people voting to delete, as I've seen repeatedly in AfD logs, just state their rationale in brief noun-phrases, which doesn't require much analysis to perform. Sometimes people voting to delete qualify the deletion by citing entire pages of guidelines, with statements such as "non-notable topic," "no references in the article," and "doesn't meet _____" guidelines while not pointing out specific parts of the guidelines as a qualification for deletion, which equates to referring to an entire page of guidelines as a singular, generic rationale for article deletion (like holding up an entire rule book and stating that the article should be deleted because of any data in the book). Articles that are retained are retained because they were nominated for deletion in error. It would be best to correct errors in this process, if possible. In order for the system to be truly functional, most articles nominated for deletion would be deleted. Again, the manner in which many articles are retained after AfD discussions is testimonial to the matter of the system not working very functionally. Anyone who has spent perhaps ten to fifteen minutes browsing AfD logs will see examples such as this, they occur very often. As it is now, too often the burden is upon people spending their time researching and disqualifying nominations that were in error, as evidenced in every article that is kept. Conversely, there's much less little burden in the process of nominating an article for deletion, particularly when article deletion is based upon simple noun-phrases.
It's my general estimate that it's going to take more than 1-2 minutes for users to perform the minimum source searching alone that's required to refute an AfD nomination per topic notability guidelines. Thereafter, it takes additional time to formulate rationales while typing them onto the AfD discussion page, do all of the necessary copying and pasting involved to provide external links to sources, etc. Furthermore, research involves the use of cognition and thought formulation, and hence, energy. It takes much less cognitive energy to do copy/pastes and fill in templates. While some AfD nominations are thorough, more often they are rather brief, and often based upon very simple wording, such as "Doesn't meet WP:GNG, topic not notable". This also doesn't require a great deal of cognitive energy to perform. Per your message above, this can be considered as a compounding factor along with the comparison above regarding registered and unregistered users' ability to use Wikipedia. Again, all users can nominate an article for deletion, but only registered users can create articles.
The rationale presented here is intended to promote a discussion, and I request that users please refrain from taking this message and it's examples out of context. Ad hominen arguments aren't particularly constructive. For example, statements such as "this is the only way a person perceives", all-or-none absolutist statements, such as "You're wrong, therefore all of the ideas presented here are nullified", or "Since you want to change the system, and I disagree with you, there's no point to this discussion", statements such as "this is ridiculous" (appealing to ridicule), and other syllogistic and logical fallacies don't promote the notion of improving Wikipedia. These types of statements don't contribute much to discussions in any context, including Wikipedia. The information presented in this message are just examples, nothing more. I'm well aware of the concept of variances, and that it may take some users more time than others to do things, that people use cognitive energy to analyze articles prior to nomination for deletion and in formulating and typing AfD nominations that are actually composed of more text than just brief noun-phrases, etc. The comparisons here are only intended to be examples within the context of this discussion. Furthermore, this isn't my "cause", and I'm not seeking to change the entire AfD nomination and discussion system. It's just a discussion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 17:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Please place messages per my above treatise below it, rather than in between the text, to retain the structure of the treatise. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 17:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Another example, a problematic nomination: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cloud engineering – (Full disclosure: I contributed to this AfD and also contributed to the article.) Prior to nominating the article for deletion, per the history page for the article, the nominator removed all references from the article, many of which were tertiary sources, but some did serve to verify information within the article. After removing all references, the nominator then referred the article to AfD. Please refer to a prior version of the article here that had stated references, some of which served to verify information in the article and provide information about the topic, and the current version here, which currently has all of the references removed. In particular, note "Cloud Engineering: Somebody Has to Do It" (Requires subscription, but information is present that at the very least verifies information in the article), The Architecture Journal, MSDN Architecture Center, which at the very least serves to verify information in the article, and Cloud Engineering, Symposium. While internet-accessible sources are sparse, it is unfair for a nominator to remove all references from an article, and then propose its deletion. It appears at least possible that the nominator removed all of the references to improve the chances of the article being deleted.

I'd like to hear opinions about how people feel about these types of actions: the removal of all references prior to AfD referral, rather than comments about the quality of the references themselves that I've listed above. I'm already aware that the references I cited above are tertiary in nature, open to multiple interpretations of relevance, that one of them requires purchasing the article, and that one is from a symposium about the topic. However, this reference, "Engineering in the Cloud: An Engineering Software + Services Architecture Forged in Turbulent Times", MSDN Architecture Center seems to have significant enough relevance to at least verify information in the article. Why was it removed entirely from the article by the person who thereafter nominated the article for deletion? In the interests of focusing this discussion constructively, the reference from MSDN Architecture Center is the most worthy of further analysis.

While this particular AfD closed as "no concensus", there are several problems here:
1. The removal of sources that may have been done to promote article deletion,
2. The article now remains in an entirely unsourced state (as of the time of this writing),
3. Some of the sources that the nominator removed are worthy enough as tertiary sources to verify information within the article, which were, unfortunately, removed by the nominator for deletion

It's also worthy to note that the administrator who closed the AfD felt that it was acceptable for people to compare versions of the article, in which the administrator stated, "There appears to be significant concern that the article was trimmed prior to AFD. In my opinion, a link to a prior revisions is plenty to carry on the discussion. However, there is sufficient concern in this discussion to warrent a close with no prejudice to renomination especially after WP:PAYWALL has been clarified to the nominator."

This is concerning, because if nobody had come along and
1. stated that the nominator deleted all of the references in the article, and
2. provided a link to a previous version of the article,

the outcome of the AfD may very well have been an outright article deletion. Fortunately, someone took the time to clarify and correct the faulty nomination in this case. In other cases, unfortunately, this may not be occurring, which can lead to unnecessary article deletion based upon faulty nominations. Again, it appears that at least some improvements and checks-and-balances in the process through which articles are nominated for deletion would prevent these types of problems from occurring. As the AfD nomination process exists now, these types of problems in which articles are stripped of all references, nominated for deletion, and are then retained with all references stripped, which increases their likelihood of re-nomination for deletion, will very likely just continue to occur into the future indefinitely, until they are corrected.

I don't have access to deleted articles, and it is difficult and time-consuming to spend a significant amount of my time researching articles that have already been deleted. Perhaps administrators who have access to deleted articles can provide additional examples here, which would be much easier and would improve this discussion.

Please note that after posting this remark, I will be adding the link "Engineering in the Cloud: An Engineering Software + Services Architecture Forged in Turbulent Times" to the article, at least to the External links section.

Again, please note that these examples are in no manner, way, shape or form meant to be perceived as judgments against the respective editors who nominated the article or editors that contributed to the AfD discussion. I am providing these examples because people above requested specific examples. Please post remarks below this message, rather than within it, to retain the structure of this treatise. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 10:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I will refer you to in regards to the first point 1 to WP:AGF. If you truly believe that editor to have acted improperly, you should file a report. For the first point 2, those sources were removed for a reason. If you disagree with one or more of their removals, there is nothing preventing you from restoring them. For point 3, if you believe that the source for a given statement is reliable, then please add it to the article again. For your contention that the outcome of the AfD could have been different: A) It wasn't. B)So what if it were? C)That's why people investigate AfDs D)You continue to insist that those kind of checks may not be happening, but you have no reason to believe that because those things demonstrably DO get checked, and the above AfD is a perfect example thereof! VanIsaacWScontribs 11:37, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your input in this discussion. I cited the above example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cloud engineering to support my treatise at the top of this section, "Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process," regarding improving the AfD nomination process, to retain notable topics on Wikipedia. While I understand your comments about how I can personally improve the article Cloud engineering, it was simply cited as an example per my treatise. People above asked for examples, so I provided some. Northamerica1000 (talk) 11:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

NA1k. You don't get it. We absolutely disagree with the very premises of your argument. We disagree that a "keep" !vote is somehow comparable to nominating. We disagree that "delete" is easier to defend than "keep". We disagree that an unsuccessful nomination is an erroneous nomination. We disagree that deletion is in some way fundamentally more drastic than a keep. In short, every argument you make seems to be colored by your inclusionist perspective, but the perspective of the project as a whole has to be neither inclusionist, nor deletionist, but rather neutral. VanIsaacWScontribs 11:56, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment: I would prefer that the apparent abbreviation of my user name used above, "NA1K", be discontinued, as it requires people to decode my user name within comments, which may delay this discussion. It is more functional to use my actual user name, "Northamerica1000", in which people don't have to decode, or figure out the abbreviation. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, stop abbreviating his user name. Don't you know that you're deleting letters and deleting things makes them dirty.. dirty... AGGHH! Apostrophe! Must. Scrub. Hands. (ps. Get back on your meds) 101.118.51.252 (talk) 06:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Northamerican1000, it seems like the crux of your argument is "Nominators must perform BEFORE before nominating", as a means of checks and balance on the process. I think we can basically summarize what nearly everyone else is saying as follows:

  1. BEFORE will never be required practice for nomination of AFD. It's recommended, at best, but not a policy-level requirement.
  2. There are several checks and balances, during and post-AFD, that manage the process. In the midst of an AFD, there are means to deal with changes to the article, and allowances for speedy keeps and withdrawn nominations if things change. Following an AFD, there's Deletion review if there was a problem with the deletion process (though, as cautioned, Deletion Review is not "AFD #2"). And there is always WP:REFUND to retrieve deleted content.
  3. There are several checks and balances for editors that abuse the AFD process repeatedly, which is handled at WP:RFC/U or for more egregious problems, at WP:AN.

You seem to be looking for a solution that happens before the AFD, but this is pretty much impossible to put into place, not only for how it would impact AFD but also how it runs counter to article creation and editing. Wikipedia is designed on bold editing, making changes first and then coming back to fix them, instead of gaining acceptance first to make changes in the first place. This is necessary to maintain WP as an open wiki, and the AFD process cannot be counter to that. --MASEM (t) 12:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  • The notion of adding a simple check-box template to verify that users have based their actions in accordance with Wikipedia:Deletion policy, specifically Alternatives to deletion prior to nominating an article for deletion would be very simple, would serve as a reminder for users to at least refer to these policies, and would likely improve Wikipedia's retention of notable topics, which would improve Wikipedia overall. This addition wouldn't be a hindrance whatsoever, simply a very basic requirement to single-click on a check-box prior to nominating an article for deletion, but it's use could significantly benefit the overall Wikipedia project, to provide the sum of all human knowledge (for notable topics) in a digital encyclopedia. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
A person acting in bad faith in making a nom can fake checking the box claiming to have done the BEFORE steps and still make the nom; it becomes a triviality and doesn't improve anything. If the nom is clearly wrong because proper BEFORE checking would have revealed the lack of need to delete, then we task it to that user, not to the process. It is implicit that, since this is the first thing spelled out at WP:AFD, making a nom is predicated off of finding alternatives to deletion. It would not make a different on articles going to AFD. --MASEM (t) 13:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
That may be, but what do you propose to put feedback into the process to encourage better AfD nominations?  Unscintillating (talk) 18:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Probably every argument has been given already but I'd like to say that having nominated a few articles for AfD myself I've found it an incredibly difficult and painful process and have simply stopped doing it. The nomination itself requires research (per WP:BEFORE) and there is a complicated process of adding templates to several pages. Then as nominator I have been subjected to ad hominum attacks, and accused of acting in bad faith or of being too ignorant to understand the article. This is in addition to seeing every argument in Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions used in deletion discussions. Despite the fact that WP claims that Keeps and Deletes are not counted as votes, more than two Keeps, for whatever reasons, usually guarantee a "No Consensus" from the admin who closes the discussion and this is equivalent to a "Keep". Even with a "Delete" outcome, an editor can simply create the page a again and I've seen this happen; a page that was potentially libelous was finally deleted after several tries was simply created again and is as libelous as ever. Without a deletion process WP will eventually turn into a collection of MySpace pages which is why I have gone through this process in the past. The current process puts all the emphasis on WP:BEFORE and ignores WP:BURDEN which to me should be the overriding policy. I do occasionally add a vote to an existing AfD now but I've stopped nominating because at the moment I feel the process is broken and it's not worth the effort and frustration.--RDBury (talk) 14:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

In the interest of expanding this discussion, and hence making it more comprehensive, does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas regarding the improvement of checks and balances in the Articles for Deletion nomination process? Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Although I freely admit that I am unabashed inclusionist, a deletion process is an essential component of an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There’s no debating that. However, occasionally evaluating the outputs and mechanisms of the process are useful exercise. That’s what’s going on here. To that end, I have a different perspective on the deletion process than that being discussed here. First, our deletion process makes deletion decisions based on the consensus of the few, not the consensus of the community. That is an unfortunate by-product of a volunteer collaborative effort. The deletion process today for experienced editors is tedious, but manageable. As experienced editors participating either regularly or sporadically, we know our way around the process. In the spectrum of articles that might be considered for deletion, the inclusion oriented participants know how to argue and get articles over the appropriate hurdles and the deletion oriented participants know how to argue and create obstacles to those hurdles, often changing the bar to succeed at their deletion goals. There’s nothing unhealthy about this form of consensus generating debate for experienced editors, the assumption being that experienced editors understand the nuances of our policies, guidelines and expected community behaviors. However for a new or inexperienced editor, the process is an onerous one for two reasons. One, the process has literally no imperatives to consider the impact the process on a new/inexperience editor, editors who need mentoring and encouragement. A great many articles that reach AFD are created by this sector of our editor corp. This is a major flaw in my view. Second, for the newcomer, essays and guidelines like WP:ATA, WP:CANVASS and WP:COI are often invoked during AFDs as if they were the ten commandments. Those invocations are often terse without sufficient mentoring rationale. They confuse and discourage newcomers because the newcomers understand consensus behaviors differently. Take WP:CANVASS for example. Out in the real world of collaboration in business, academia, government etc, building consensus for any particular position requires the recruitment of diverse evangelists and stakeholders to weigh-in on your position. Yet, we typically hammer that rational behavior with invocations of WP:CANVASS. I could go on, but the impact of this type of behavior, the failure to take a the mentoring needs of newcomers and inexperienced editors into consideration during the AFD process is detrimental to the strategic goals of the Wikimedia Foundation, especially the expansion of scope and participation in WP. None of the guidelines mentioned above are ill-conceived, but they are misused during debates to the detriment growing the editor corp. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment Wow, I've had 4 AFD closures under scrutiny in this debate now. Does this mean I am doing something wrong...or doing something right? =) --v/r - TP 16:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I am someone who has been in front of this “court” on several occasions. In real life I am a law abiding citizen who has never been in trouble with the law. On Wiklipedia, however, articles I wrote have been removed on several, if not many, occasions (the last one was removed by TP whose name I happened to see here). To this day I still do not understand the rationale for some of those removals.
Oh yes, I must admit that I did not take the time to read all the references provided as reasons, but it seems to me that a system where citizens are expected to become experts in a convoluted system of laws, rules and regulations just in order to stay on the right side of the law is doomed to failure? Ottawahitech (talk) 17:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Curb multiple deletion attempts, facilitate undeletion. While the scenario of someone keeping an article by sockpuppetry and gaming, it is unlikely. By the time we've gotten to the third AfD, we should be done. A one-year interval for AfDs doesn't make sense because if an article degenerates over time it can simply be reverted to an old version! The only potential justification to argue further over such articles is if there's been an actual change in policy, in which case a more specialized review process would be in order. Another step we can take is to create a more regular process for allowing users to view the deleted articles. Right now you're supposed to ask some admin at random, see what if anything happens. Why not have a central noticeboard where people get quick service, or a bot that e-mails you the page? Wnt (talk) 20:18, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
It's called WP:REFUND. VanIsaacWScontribs 21:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
  • In response to user Dream Focus comment " I've seen certain people nominating scores of articles almost every day” – I would like to add that some of the people most active in such nominations are not present here to contribute to this discussion. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
I have brought the discussion here to the attention of a couple of Wikipedians who were involved in the wholesale removal of articles on Wikipedia. I hope they join this discussion. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately it appears that those who are involved in wholesale removal of articles on Wikipedia choose not to participate here? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
  • This was an excellect brainstorming session - but is anyone doing anything with all the information collected? Is it being tabulated and presented elsewhere at Wikipedia? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

We don't have a content problem

I still don't see a problem. NA1K showed me some AFDs where badly thought nominations were blocked with near unanimous "keep" arguments. NA1K showed me some AFDs where poorly chosen topics were deleted. I've also seen AFDs with no consensus which will inevitably be revisited until the article is improved. I just don't see how the AFD process is supposedly deleting all this good content by mistake. We don't have a content problem. We might have a community problem. No one likes to see their articles deleted, and new editors are at real risk since they haven't had time to learn our policies. There was a proposal to delay article creation privileges until an editor learned the basics, and most people supported it. But last time I checked it was shut down for reasons I don't understand. Dzlife (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The proposal passed but it was vetoed by developer supervote. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the link.  Where is the superveto being discussed on Wikipedia?  Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 23:32, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to know that too. (Additional commentary redacted.) --joe deckertalk to me 01:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Just wanted to note that, while I don't know if it's being discussed on Wikipedia, it has been talked about at mw:Talk:Article creation workflow. I understand that some of the contributors involved are engaging the Wikimedia Foundation directly as well, but I'm not really aware of where they stand with that. I've been cc'ed in a couple of community letters, but that's the extent of it. :) (People interested in the subjects of both creation and deletion may be interested in mw:Article creation workflow as well, as it is intended to help reduce some of the mistakes that new article writers make. Hmm. Wonder if this has been village pumped? (Off to check.....) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:03, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would prefer that the apparent abbreviation of my user name used above, "NA1K", be discontinued, as it requires people to decode my user name within comments, which may delay this discussion. It is more functional to use my actual user name, "Northamerica1000", in which people don't have to decode, or figure out the abbreviation. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000 (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Agree. We don't have a content problem, we have a process problem. When an article goes to AFD, it is reflective of our community failure to properly train our editors (new and experienced) on what is appropriate for the encyclopedia. Think about deletion as the process of cleaning up litter. You can hire lots of janitors to pick up the litter everyday or you can convince the populace to stop littering. Both take resources (volunteers in the Wp world), but which is more efficient in the long run? Imagine an AFD process whose primary objective was to educate editors on how to create good WP articles. Actual deletion being a secondary objective. The focus would be on using AFD articles as examples of the good and bad. Deletion could and should occur when appropriate, but the AFD itself would have been a step toward the long term improvement of the skills of the editor corp, instead of a sterile keep/delete decision.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Good idea. We still need AFDs to delete inappropriate material. But maybe we could have a special class of AFD, or a parallel process that flags NEW editors who have written articles that have been nominated for deletion. If we can help them get passed the initial shock of having their material deleted, I'm sure there are lots of great mentors who will help them understand our sourcing requirements. I personally believe the best approach would be to catch them before they create an article, by requiring that they practice some normal editing before trying something like creating an article. Creating an article is advanced stuff. We can't get mad that new users can't do it any more than new users should get mad that we have standards. Dzlife (talk) 20:43, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
An unabashed commercial: User:Mike Cline/Archimedes was deleted and User:Mike Cline/Imagining a new way to look at the question of Notability --Mike Cline (talk) 20:56, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I know "Articles for Discussion" is a perennial denied proposal, but the fact is, AFDeletion gets lots of eyes, but unless you issue an RFC, trying to get any outside input on a talk page of an article for non-admin actions (merge or redirecting) is near impossible. We should have a venue that says "Ok, this article is bad shape, and I don't think we need a separate article on it, and I want to get the community input on that, with a proper closure with possible need for admin action to complete the consensus". We don't have that, instead a loose structure of things like RFC, centralized discussion, wikiprojects, etc., all which generally fail to attract attention except by those with a strong interest in the article, and thus making merge discussions or the like difficult. It's just that the community continues to reject modifying AFDeletion to AFDiscussion, yes, for good reason, but maybe what's needed is a duplicate process, or managing all the disparate ones. --MASEM (t) 21:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I've never seen that one. I would support it. Any clue as to why it's usually rejected? Redirecting and merging are common outcomes at AFD already, and I see nothing wrong with making the process more amenable to those outcomes. Dzlife (talk) 18:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Admins refuse to enforce merge or redirect results of AfD right now, yet other admins force

so there is nothing wrong with objecting to a nomination that says "delete" and then quietly presents only arguments for a merge.

After my provision of examples regarding the improvement of the AfD nomination process, I was hoping to receive responses from User:Roux and User:Jayron32, since these users had requested them. Hopefully after some time occurs, they'll check back here and actually respond, in the interest of improving this discussion. It would be nice to receive further input from other users too, preferably that address matters regarding ideas within this discussion relative to each respective AfD discussion example I have provided, rather than statements that refer to all of them summarily. Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Response to user:VanIsaacs.  Here is the statement from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Higgins (2nd nomination), "...in order for the article to exist on Wikipedia, those requesting delete do not have to prove anything, it is upon the people wanting to keep the article to demonstrate it meets the criteria for inclusion. That is how AFD works and always has."  Unscintillating (talk) 14:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • 2nd response to user:VanIsaacs.  WP:N is not content policy.  The WP:Notability of a topic exists independently of either the existence of an article about the topic on Wikipedia, or the content of any such article.  Therefore, the absence of notability cannot be determined by only looking at the article.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Sure. The Wooster (company) article, which I used my super X-ray vision to look at, was definately an WP:CSD#A7 worthy article. It basically said "Wooster makes model airplanes" and had some basic information about their products, and the fact that they were eventually bought by another model airplane manufacturer. But nowhere did it give any indication of importance or significance that would have made it survive a CSD request had it gone that route instead of AFD. That is, AFD deleted an article that should have been deleted, regardless of how the discussion went. The Leo Goldseed article was in better shape; it at least had more text, but combing through that text there wasn't a lot to say to pass the (very low) standards of A7, that is there wasn't anything in the lengthy biography to indicate why the person may have been an important or significant person. Again, if someone had tagged it for speedy deletion, it was a clear candidate for that. Just because it went through AFD doesn't mean it shouldn't have been deleted. Your other ones didn't seem to get deleted. I still have not yet seen a systemic problem where lots of really good articles are getting deleted through AFD. Also, you should note that you may interest more people in reponding to you if every single post you make here wasn't a wall-of-text. Consiseness is good. --Jayron32 03:15, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that Northamerica1000 has brought up a genuine problem, which some other participants in this discussion have been dismissing a bit too easily. The problem is actually probably worse on PROD than on AfD, but that is a matter for another discussion. However, the suggestion that AfD nominators should be required to state that they have performed BEFORE is unfortunately, like many other apparently good ideas to improve AfD, misguided. While I see some AfDs where I am forced to conclude that the nominator skipped BEFORE entirely, more frequently it has probably been treated as a formality - quick check on first page of GHits, see no obviously reliable sources, move on to checking GNews, box ticked. But if there were three perfectly good sources on page 2, it can look as if BEFORE wasn't performed at all. Or if "Jim Kirk" produces pages of good results - I may easily conclude that the nominator only tested "James Tiberius Kirk".

Of course, the seven days for discussion should catch these, and I think usually does. But "usually" as in "over 50%", not as in "95% or more". I tend to scan rapidly through AfD pages (I have other things to do with most of my time), so I skim past at least as many debates as I look at. But even so, on several occasions, I have looked at a four or five day old discussion and found that a dubious rationale has not been questioned or potential sources not properly checked for. Like Articles for deletion/Abu Ishaq Shami, where sources were not difficult to find but I was the first to do so - over four days after debate had started. We may suppose that each article up for deletion is getting thoroughly checked but I suspect that, for a large minority of them, nobody checks further than a quick look at the article without thinking of the potential for improvement. Of course, not all - probably not even most - of such articles deserve to be kept, but some almost certainly do. PWilkinson (talk) 18:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Northamerica1000 states that "it takes much more time and effort to disqualify faulty nominations than it does to post them". This is not a flaw in the process. The criteria for incluson should be far more demanding than the criteria for exclusion.Hobson (talk) 23:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
And I disagree with that as well. Right now, we have a faily balanced approach. I think we need to break this down to describe who is responsible for what exactly:
  1. Article editors: sourcing; establishing notability; meeting editing standards (eg NPOV, V, etc.)
  2. Nominator for deletion: establish policy rationale for deletion; due diligence to determine whether current state of article is endemic to subject, or simply error of editors
  3. delete !voters: confirmation of nominator's rationale/research
  4. keep !voters: justify interpretation/provide evidence contrary to nom
  5. closing admins: investigate !votes to determine whether their conclusions are within policy
There is also a large number of things that are not the responsibility of certain people:
  1. Article editors: if they did their job well, there wouldn't be a legitimate AfD, so it' all on them.
  2. nominators: do not have the responsibility to search under every possible stone. If sources of notability can only be established by treking with sherpas to a mountaintop monastery's library, it probably isn't actually notable.
  3. delete !voters: also do not have the responsibility to search under every possible stone.
  4. keep !voters: also do not have the responsibility to find every reference ever written. A single RS is all that's needed.
  5. closing admins: do not have to say "keep" or "delete". If the nomination is not clearly supported or refuted, it can simply be a "no consensus".
I would suggest that deficiencies in #1 place an equal burden on everyone else, because unless a nom is spurrious, an AfD doesn't happen without there being deficiencies in the editing; deficiencies by #2 place an equal burden on #3 and #4, with a larger burden on #5; while deficiencies by #3 and #4 place a burden on #5. So if we are going to move forward, I think we need to look at the burden that is placed on the closing admin. He can't do his job effectively without the help of the !voters, so let's also take a look at things that are distincly not helpful in an AfD about notability:
  • !voters becoming article editors in the middle of the AfD. If you have a new source, place it in the AfD discussion so everyone can investigate.
  • delete !voters who bring in arguments about style, tone, neutrality, etc. in the middle of a notability AfD. An AfD needs to be about specific concerns that are expressed in the nom, not a hodge-podge of deficiencies, each of which may or may not be best solved by deletion.
  • keep !voters who bring in a dozen different sources, all of questionable provenance, to prove that a subject is notable. One or two good solid refs from unambiguous RS will establish notability, not 15 articles from high school newspapers, blogs, local radio station interviews, and church bulletins.
  • Any contributor who is personally involved with the subject matter. That's when deletion debates become about the subject, not about the article, and it is distinctly unhelpful.
These are my views. VanIsaacWScontribs 00:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Thank you for your input toward this discussion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 10:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I think I was tired, 'cause I kinda rambled a bit there... VanIsaacWScontribs 16:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • We have checks and balances. Someone nominates, other users check that the nomination is appropriate and make comments, then an independent user of good standing, usually an admin, checks over the nomination and the comments and makes a decision to keep or delete; further to that we have WP:Deletion review, in which, if someone feels the process wasn't followed appropriately, can raise the issue and experienced users look again at the AfD. We also, before all that happens, have a guideline, WP:Before, which gives guidance and suggestions. While it does happen that someone may not have read or followed the guidance in WP:Before, and that there were few people who commented in the AfD, and/or they did so in a perfunctory manner, and the closing admin was having a bad day and closed inappropriately, and that nobody noticed or cared enough to bring the matter to DRV, we still have the option of WP:Refund and WP:Userfy, along with the notion that someone can start a new article on the topic. In short, not only do we have sufficent checks and balances, but also, it doesn't matter if we don't, because if a topic is genuinely noteworthy, it WILL be created. It is of more concern that some of our most vital, most read articles are in need of improvement, than that a minor topic of little or no interest or significance gets deleted. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Some users above have stated that WP:Before is NOT a guideline, like it's just a suggestion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 15:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
"Guideline" has some sort of technical meaning on WP, so we're running into a collision of Wiki-usage vs. English-usage. I once had someone ask me whether a set of naming conventions was intended to be a guideline or not. I chose "not" when I saw the guideline process. VanIsaacWScontribs 16:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - Thank you for your input toward this discussion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 10:41, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I am a novice at this type of discussion, and have just started reading this humungous thread which I find most interesting. I actually printed the whole thing to make it easier for me to read when I am not logged on. However, I am afraid that by the time I finish reading this, or even before, this whole discussion will have disappeared somewhere into wikipedia archive's black hole. Is there a way for me to find this discussion later on? Thanks in advance. 71.227.221.41 (talk) 20:27, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Don't worry - Northamerica1000 is very keep at keeping things from being deleted :-) Even if this discussion does eventually disappear from this page, it will still be recorded in the page's archives, so as long as Wikipedia's servers don't burn out, you'll still be able to read it. Yunshui (talk) 20:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment My experience has been that articles are a nuisance to list for deletion, and non-notable articles are kept on the general and unsourced suspicion that they ought to be notable. I would therefore recommend a rule that if after an AfD discussion no one has come up with a source that definitely establishes notability, the person who closes can close as delete. However, there should be some mechanism whereby anyone who re-creates an article can check previous content unless the deleting admin has made it unavailable. This is not censorship. The burden is on the person who creates the article to source it and make sure it's notable. So here's another thing we need to do: we need to make sure every new user knows that material may not be kept unless it is sourced. Wikipedia is full of unsourced and possibly non-notable articles, and AfD is one of the few ways to find out if anyone actually has a justification for keeping them. So in general, the situation is exactly opposite what Northamerica1000 says above, but he does have a point. While the deletion process needs to be made easier, not harder, and the requirements for keeping material need to be stricter, we also need to take steps to make sure good material is not lost forever. But Northamerica1000 states "It's very unlikely that a significant amount of editors will want to devote a great deal of their time correcting these types of hasty nominations for deletion," which is an admission that these articles are actually permanently not up to Wikipedia's standards and would never be improved except they are nominated for deletion. RDBury said "having nominated a few articles for AfD myself I've found it an incredibly difficult and painful process and have simply stopped doing it." Me too. Be——Critical 15:09, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with people who say this isn't an issue. WP:BEFORE is already too onerous as it is; means that an AFD nominator has to do more work than the creator of a slapdash article. If something really is notable, it should either be able to survive an AFD or be recreated with more sources Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 04:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

AFD checks and balances - Response to those who think we don't have a content problem

I wonder why your experience is so different than mine. Have you ever had any of the articles that you started disappear without your knowledge? Have you seen any come up for debate at AFD? If so, what was your reaction? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I was upset. But I soldiered on. If your article is deleted, there are avenues to get it back...DRV, userfication, et.c. But the flip side of this is that if you make WP:BEFORE even more stringent than it already is, you make it very hard to delete something that probably should be deleted. We are already one of the hardest places to delete something among Wikimedia projects; we don't need to get even harder Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 14:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for responding to my question, Purplebackpack89. You use terminology that I am not familiar with (DRV, userfication, et.c.) even though I am not completely new at Wikipedia. How do you think a new editor who is not at all familiar with the lingo would react - I hope this is not an exclusive club? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
If you think this is an exclusive club, you should see what goes on at Wikipedia or some of the smaller Wikis. They are dominated by small cabals of editors who push anybody around who doesn't agree with them 100%. This doesn't even come close to that...it's among the most transparent and keep-ist AFD processes around Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 03:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry Purplebackpack89, I still cannot make any sense of what you said above, and yes, I feel that this is an exclusive club because a very small unelected minority is the only one participating in this discussion and in the decision making. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Are newbies encouraged to participate here?

I am a wannabe wikipedian who would like to contribute more to existing articles and to filling in the gaps by creating new missing articles. For me, the constant tagging of articles for deletion is a big distraction - so I thought I would contribute to the discussions here. However...

I have been attempting to get involved in these discussions for well over a month now. One obstacle I have found is the use of jargon I am not familiar with. I would think that others here would also recognize this as a general problem to open and fair discussion. Am I right? Ottawahitech (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Anyone is free to participate in any area of discussion on Wikipedia, but certainly some areas of discussion presume more familiarity with Wikipedia policies and guidelines than others. Please feel free to ask questions on my talk page at any time, and there are many other places to get help as well. WP:PRIMER is an excellent overview for beginners. "DRV" refers to Wikipedia:Deletion review or its shortcut WP:DRV. That is kind of an "appeals court" where deletions can be overturned if a mistake was made. "Userfy" refers to Wikipedia:Userfication. An editor whose article was deleted (or any editor interested in that topic) can ask an administrator to create a copy in that editor's userspace - a sandbox, if you will. There, shortcomings of the article can be addressed, and it can be improved and later recreated as an article in main space, or perhaps useful content can be merged into another article. Many administrators are happy to userfy material if it has any reasonable prospect of developing into an acceptable article. Hope this helps. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for trying to help me, Cullen328. I checked the links you referred me to and counted 78 pages (17+56+5) you suggest I read so that I know enough to join the discussion here? Ottawahitech (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I see that the articles that "may have been hastily deleted" were both nominated by me (I had a username change from Joe Chill to SL93). Nice. SL93 (talk) 00:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the preceding comment belongs in another section? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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