Misplaced Pages

Francis Goya (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)

Challenging prod, which was closed almost a year ago. This musician has sold 5 million albums in Belgium (see List of best-selling Belgian artists.) Chubbles (talk) 21:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Just go ahead and write an article. The full deleted text was Francis Goya was an easy listening orchestra conductor and composer. Is that the same person as your subject? Spartaz 21:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

  Hah, okay. That's him. Actually, apparently it isn't! Go figure; the Belgian Goya was a guitarist. Article on the way.Chubbles (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Clearly no consensus, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ron Paul Revolution, yet closing admin decided it was delete. Many "votes" were also invalid "merge and delete", which violates GFDL Goon Noot (talk) 06:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC) Nomination withdrawn. --Goon Noot (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse closure. By a strict count of votes, there were 21 deletes (of which 6 also said merge); 15 keeps (of which 2 said merge), and 7 votes for merge. There were accusations of canvassing on the part of one editor, which certainly may have affected the number of keep votes. The closing comment is spot-on. — HelloAnnyong 07:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: Going by your count, that is 21 deletes vs 22 non-deletes. There is no consensus.--Goon Noot (talk) 08:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

    Of 42 opinions, I count 15 that include any sort of merge recommendation --- here's my tally. Of those 15, fully 11 express the opinion that there should not be a separate "Ron Paul Revolution" article when there's already a "Ron Paul Presidential Campaign" article. You are again making the mistake of assuming that the closing admin reads only the boldface type in the AfD. --- tqbf 08:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

    • I did not only read the bold-face type, I looked at underlying arguments etc. As you can tell from my edits before I closed the debate, it took me awhile to read through the entire debate and determine consensus. It is not a violation of GFDL to delete an article and restore the text that was in the split article; the history of that text is still there. Keilana_(recall) 22:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse closure --- A related article hit DRV a few weeks back, and I think it suggested a weird precedent --- that any opinion with both the words "merge" and "delete" was invalid because of GFDL. The GFDL issue makes sense, but discarding opinions doesn't: AfD is not a vote, and the closing admin is supposed to be taking the arguments into account, not just tallying the desired outcomes. In this case, (1) the overwhelming sentiment of the AfD discussion was that the article in question was superfluous and undesirable given the presence of Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 and Moneybomb, and (2) the closing admin properly observed that there was no "keep"-worthy content in the article that wasn't already present in the suggested merge target. An additional observation: throughout the AfD, proponents of the article aggressively shifted content between the constellation of Ron Paul-related articles into the nominated article, in order to justify its presence; very little of the content in the deleted article was unique, and what wasn't redundant was the same poorly-sourced OR content that caused the article to fare so poorly in AfD in the first place. --- tqbf 08:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

  Comment --- the DRV appellant's use of the word "vote" suggests a misunderstanding about the AfD mechanism that may be the root cause of this DRV discussion. --- tqbf 08:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn per my rationale expressed in my nom.--Goon Noot (talk) 08:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Overwhelming opinion is that there be no separate "Ron Paul Revolution", either by deletion or redirection -- and deletion seems simplest. --Calton | Talk 13:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse per tqbf. The intent of the community appears to have been to remove the article, and so, since a merger was not possible, consensus was properly read to delete. Strictly !vote counting is impossible, due to the canvassing issue (not that it should be done anyway), and the closure appears to go with consensus. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 15:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse; the concensus is clear even given the wide canvassing, and the close was proper. — Coren  16:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse Closure. Closing admin seems to have read the consensus on the AfD well, and correctly noted that there was no content worth merging that wasn't already on the destination page. No GFDL violvation, not an inexplicable closure. Pastordavid (talk) 00:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse closure, which reflects the balance of the arguments. BlueValour (talk) 03:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Seth Finkelstein and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Seth Finkelstein (2nd)

This article was nominated for deletion at the request of Seth Finkelstein (talk · contribs), and deleted in consideration of the allegedly marginal notability of the subject and his request for deletion. However, Seth Finkelstein (talk · contribs) requested that the article be deleted for the sole purpose of preventing malicious editing that might harm his reputation , a concern that was reflected in the statement by the administrator who closed the second AFD discussion. These concerns would be adequately addressed by retaining the article, but leaving it fully protected indefinitely -- the probability of would-be malicious editors being able to compromise an administrative account and insert defamatory information into a fully protected article is extraordinarily small. Though full protection greatly inconveniences normal editing, I claim that it is preferable to destroying the article completely. Moreover, leaving the article intact, but protected, would prevent it from being recreated in a defamatory form, which appears to have occurred once after it was deleted -- the deletion of this article seems to have facilitated the very WP:BLP violations that it was designed to prevent. The article could be protected from recreation at its current name, of course; however, with the article deleted, a WP:BLP violating version at a slight variation of the name could masquerade as the primary article. Ironically, though the article was deleted per WP:BLP, undeletion and protection would afford the best possible prevention of WP:BLP violations. Moreover, if the principle that consensus can change justifies the deletion of an article after multiple AFD discussions, it likewise justifies a substantive reconsideration of the merits of deletions that have already occured. John254 04:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn and restore There is no rule permitting the deletion of an article because it might be a troll magnet, and thus the closing was in stark opposition to policy. (Nor should there be, if we are to have coverage of controversial subjects.) I note that the subject of this article and a prominent figure in the WMF have posted attacks on each other in a number of very prominent places. This gives an appearance of COI to the removal of the article. An objective POV (we call it NPOV) requires we write and judge judge each article without using our personal feelings about the subject. We have a method of achieving accuracy: we can correct what appears in articles, and block trolls if necessary & protect content. It is time we repudiated the practice that the subjects preferences can be taken into account about whether to have an article. It gives that persons censorship over what is written about him. It comes in conflict with our basic principle of NPOV, and cannot stand. When policies conflict, we must support the one at the basis of the encyclopedia. And what's the point--at the moment the third highest item in Google for SF is a mean-spirited attack on him. Better that we have a proper article. DGG (talk) 13:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse closure (keep deleted). I concur with the closer's assessment that this person is on the fringe of our generally accepted inclusion criteria. The AFD discussions make that clear. The closer is also correct that in cases on the edge, WP:BLP requires us to consider the subject's wishes. Whether you agree with the subject's stated rationale is irrelevant (and it was the subject who raised the vandalism argument, not the closer). The subject wants the page deleted.
  As a side note, however, I will disagree with the two opinions raised above. While we never delete a page solely because of vandalism concerns, there are some pages that get deleted because they just aren't worth the trouble to maintain. Vandalism patrol consumes valuable resources. We spend the effort needed to watchlist and patrol clearly encyclopedic articles like GW Bush but for pages of only marginal value to our readers, we are certainly allowed to consider other factors when deciding to keep or delete a page. Rossami (talk) 15:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the administrator who closed the AFD discussion expressly stated that

The "notability debate" ended with "no consensus".

and that he was deleting the article for the sole purpose of preventing malicious editing:

Mr. Finkelstein's concerns are very valid; a Misplaced Pages article is a prime target for trolls who want to anonymously defame the subject. Now that Misplaced Pages has become one of the highest-visited sites on the Internet, we have to take into account that things said on Misplaced Pages articles can and will affect the subject's life. We've seen this happen before; only recently, a professor was detained in an airport because his Misplaced Pages biography falsely stated that he had ties to a terrorist group.

If the purpose of the deletion was to prevent WP:BLP violations, however, it failed spectacularly: the article was re-deleted on 02:32, 24 July 2007 because it had been recreated as an "attack page". So, the deletion actually encouraged a WP:BLP violation: with the article deleted, many editors likely removed it from their watchlists, and the "attack page" remained in place until it was re-deleted. Deletion of an article to prevent defamatory editing is not only needlessly destructive, it is also completely ineffective, since malicious editors can simply recreate the article in a defamatory form. If this article is at such great risk of malicious editing, and our RC patrol resources are so scarce, that we simply cannot afford to permit open editing, then it should be subject to permanent full protection. Editors may use the editprotected template to request that an administrator edit the article. While this is an inconvenient, un-wiki, state in which to maintain the article, it is far preferable to completely deleting the article (which wouldn't prevent malicious recreation anyway.) John254 15:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you contacted Mr. Finkelstein to see if he's amenable to this idea of recreation as a protected article in order to prevent malicious recreation? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 01:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn as no consensus, defaulting to keep. There was no consensus to delete in the arguement (but also none to keep). I don't believe that the subject's reason for wishing to not have a Misplaced Pages article holds any merit, since almost every single Misplaced Pages article can be vandalized (as stated in the AfD). As John254 stated, the deletion hasn't prevented the addition of malicious content. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 16:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn; there is no clear consensus in the discussion, and the subject of the article does not get a veto to delete a properly sourced article (which was not seriously disputed in this case). — Coren  16:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn First, I have grave doubts that there is in fact community consensus to give closing admins this kind of discretion. Second, the article is generally positive in tone and focuses on accomplishments. If there are serious vandalism concerns, protecting the article is a sufficient remedy. Third, the subject is a frequent columnist in The Guardian, so I see neither notability concerns nor legitimate privacy concerns that would warrant deletion. ~ trialsanderrors (talk) 18:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• overturn I was intending to DRV this article in a few months when I had additional sources which Seth produces regularly. I am unfortunately on vacation currently so I don't have the full list of additional sources that have either been written by Seth or which mentioned him, but the total was IIRC around 20 since this was deleted. Seth also won a pioneer award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which makes him notable by itself. There is thus no real claim that his notability is borderline or marginal. Furthermore, as I have previously discussed it is unreasonable in the extreme to allow BLP-courtsey deletions for willing public figures, since they have entered the public arena willingly and there is a definite public need to have information about them (indeed, this is the essential idea behind the legal notion of a public figure used in many jurisdictions). In fact, Seth did not object to an article about him on any grounds of privacy or such but as noted above purely over concern over vandalism. Thus, this does not even really fall into what would motivate consideration for a privacy deletion. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Finkelstein's contributions to the Grauniad are here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sethfinkelstein ~ trialsanderrors (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn - I see no reason to delete this page. The last version of his article was sourced and contained no breach of WP:BLP. Vandalism, potential or otherwise, is no reason for deletion; as admins we have the tools to deal with that. TerriersFan (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion we've no consensus as to whether this is notable or not. Since there's no consensus that we should have it, the subject's wishes can be taken into account. Closer said it all. Really, we've lived without this for six months and the wiki hasn't fallen apart. Leave the guy alone.--Doc 21:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, person of marginal notability at best (definitely not a shoo-in), who has expressed a clear preference against having an article. Not having it is not really a big omission for the project, and I'm all for letting people have at least some say in whether we cover them or not in cases where notability is limited or questionable, which it clearly is in this case. There's no need to have information on Finkelstein whether because he likes to have a go at us form time to time or for any other reason, it's not like he's in the running for the Pulitzer or anything, just a jobbing freelance journalist; I'm going to hazard a guess that there are more Finkelsteins without an article than with. It's six months since it was deleted, I'd leave it at least another six and see what sources are in play then which are biographical, primarily about Finkelstein the man, and provably independent. Misplaced Pages is not evil and should not do things just to thumb our noses at people. Guy (Help!) 21:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm a little saddened by this. Let us keep in mind, these are in fact real people. Mercury 21:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• What am I missing here? Seems open and shut to me... AfD and AfD2 give marginal notability? BLP tells us we should then honor the subject's wishes. It doesn't say "unless the wish for deletion is for reasons X, Y or Z," or "unless we think the subject is a poopyhead". Subject wishes article deleted? Delete. Matters not why the subject wishes it, only that it IS the wish. Endorse deletion ++Lar: t/c 23:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion as well-stated by Lar and others. Making a new class of perpetually-protected articles is an interesting idea. However, it should be discussed as a community-wide policy before experimenting with this marginally-notable BLP. Cool Hand Luke 23:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)