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Revision as of 17:37, 3 November 2013

3 November 2013

John Schlossberg

John Schlossberg (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This article had sufficient GNG sources. WP:INHERIT doesn't censor WP:GNG sources, rather it's an essay on arguments for Wikipedian's themselves to avoid making during an AfD eg. "I, Green Cardamom, believe this topic is notable because I, Green Cardamom, believe this topic is famous." .. rather in this case, it is the sources which express he is notable by virtue of newspaper articles about him. INHERIT is often misunderstood this way, it's not meant to censor reliable sources, rather original arguments made by Wikipedians. (Also INHERIT is an essay and not an established guideline. While it is often viewed as a guideline, it is not because there is no consensus for that, and probably shouldn't trump the guidelines when there is debate over INHERITs application.) Green Cardamom (talk) 17:31, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

List of unusual deaths

List of unusual deaths (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

The closing admin attempted to prevent any future AFDs of the article, which is beyond his reach.

No reasonable analysis of the input can justify a close as "keep." "No consensus" would have been reasonable, and "delete" is within reach, but not "keep", and certainly not "keep" with this extraordinary preemptive clause that prohibits bringing this thing to AFD again. The deletion arguments are summarized pretty simply: "unusual" is a highly subjective deletion criteria and there isn't any reliable source that allows us to deem any specific death unusual, the community has tried time and time again to agree upon an objective set of criteria and failed. On the "keep side", we have Dream Focus arguing that there is an objective set of criteria while he simultaneously advocates ignoring objective criteria at Talk:List of unusual deaths/Archive 8#no need to use the actual word "unusual", you can think for yourself, Edison arguing that the same objective criteria actually exist, without providing evidence that editors actually follow them. LM2000 and others argue for keep simply because it has passed AFD before, others arguing that Time Magazine coverage of the article mandates keeping it. This whole "objective criteria exist" argument fails to recognize that editors, on the whole, ignore the sourcing criterion and even take to the talk page to argue that requiring sources to describe the death as "unusual" is unfair and unreasonable. Does the criterion exist? Certainly. Is there widespread consensus to use it? Not really.

Colonel Warden even attempted to argue that the Fortean Times is a reliable source in his "keep" argument.

We also have "keep" votes that argue in favor of original research, like Necrothesp, and other keep arguments arguing per Necrothesp.

Making a troublesome AFD worse, we had Martinevans123 disrupting the proceedings in a determined effort to prevent reasonable discussion, making no fewer than 90 comments that generally consisted of snipes at other editors' comments. As for his actual "Keep" vote, it was not based on any Misplaced Pages policy, it was WP:ITSPOPULAR.

It's impossible to provide very much weight to "it's fixable!" for an article that has been to AFD seven times and never been repaired, and that's the majority "keep" argument here. It would be reasonable to conclude that there was no consensus here. It's probably a little early to conclude that the deletes finally have it and that the community is willing to recognize that the article truly is irreparable. Decreeing that the delete side has no foundation whatsoever for its arguments and is being disruptive is out of bounds, though. Sometimes it takes eight or nine passes before people start to see how weak the keep side of an argument is, and there's no reason to declare that this article is immune to future deletion discussion.

I'd love to see an overturn to delete, but I recognize that that would be as or more problematic as this close. Realistically, I want an overturn to no consensus and a removal of the language that dictates that no further AFDs can ever be started against this article. —Kww(talk) 16:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• Closing administrator comment: Please see User talk:Coffee#List of unusual deaths AFD for further context. I'll take more time to lay out my reasoning to the reviewers here, if/when that becomes warranted. Please keep in mind I'm sleeping throughout the day due to my current work schedule, so I may be late in replying to questions or concerns. — Coffee // have a cup // essay // 17:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)Closing administrator comment: One thing I find imperative to point out here (although any reviewer could easily see this by looking at my closing rationale) is that I did not state that an AFD could never be opened on this list again. What I stated, and with good reason, is that an eighth AFD based on the same arguments should not be started again, unless there has been a drastic change in current policy. This is the very spirit of the "Renominations" point in WP:DELAFD. — Coffee // have a cup // essay // 17:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Endorse very, very strongly. Actually, Coffee close is one of the best and most thoughtful I've seen on AfD in ages. But let's see a few points in detail
  • Delete !votes do not ever bring a cogent policy-based argument for deletion of the topic. Most delete !votes (e.g.TheRedPenOfDoom, Purplebackpack89, Obiwankenobi, to list three of the most active users in favor of deletion) argued that the list is inherently subjective. This has been (1)proven false since the list can be based on the objective criteria of sources calling the event unusual or a synonym of it (2)that sources have to deal with objective, monolithically consistent criteria for such an assessment does not exist in any topic (3)calls to WP:IINFO fail because the topic is eminently WP:DISCRIMINATE.
  • Attempts at changing policy mid-AfD failed overwhelmingly The delete !votes were actually acutely aware that their position was, at best, shaky policy-wise. So much that one of them, Purplebackpack89, started a thread on WP:VPP to change policy to backup their position. The proposal was met by practically unanimous opposition, calling for a WP:SNOW close. This shows that every delete !vote based on such an argument (that is, the vast majority of them) is pushing a non-consensual position.
  • That it has not been fixed does not mean it is not fixable This is a logical fallacy, that also forgets that we have no deadline. I do not deny that there are serious WP:OR concerns. That they are "unfixable" is instead false, as shown by the fact that inclusion criteria based on sources are being discussed right now, with good support so far (the more people want to participate, the merrier, by the way). Editors as Kww himself and TheRedPenOfDoom have also done lots of work to fix the article removing unsourced entries and asking for sourcing. To bypass our deletion policy one would have to show that the article is intrinsically unfixable, because of the topic. This has not been shown.
  • Reliable academic sources on the topic have been presented by both delete and keep !votes To present the discussion as if all the keep !votes pivoted around Colonel Warden's Fortean Times sources is disingenous. During the discussion, an important point has been the finding that medical and forensic academic journals actually regularly cite the concept of unusual death. Remarkably enough, a delete !vote has brought this to the table -that is, Obiwankenobi. That is a novel and important development in showing that the quality and quantity of sourcing for the article is actually strong, and it is a strong argument in favour of keeping the article.
  • The AfD closure actually covers the bad keep !votes To call for a deletion review could perhaps make sense if the closer actually completely discarded the fact that some keep !votes were invalid. This could bring credence to an admin supervote closure. Very honestly instead Coffee's closure actually remarked that !votes based on article popularity are to be discarded (I include myself in those making a variation of that argument). The point is not that some keep !votes were weak: the point is that none of the delete !votes has basis in any consensual interpretation of policy, while plenty of different kinds of reliable sources have shown that the article can satisfy WP:LISTN, WP:V, WP:GNG etc.
  • Discouraging further AfDs is policy-based and correct WP:DELAFD is clear in labeling multiple nominations as disruptive. Given that seven AfDs have all hovered between "keep" and "no consensus", it seems obvious that further nominations without a change in policy would be just a (probably hopeless) attempt at forum shopping until, by sheer statistical chance, the outcome gets the way the nominator wants. This is disruptive and tendentious, and at best a waste of everyone's time.
  • Numbers Well, yes: AfDs are not meant to be a mere vote count. Yet fact is that consensus, by head count, is leaning strongly towards keep, and almost all by established editors (no SPA or newbie accounts have been seen AFAIK). Most importantly almost all of last !votes are on the keep side and citing other keep !votes for their rationale, showing that the community has been reading, pondering and ultimately endorsing the keep arguments.

For all these reasons I think not only that Coffee closure is excellent, but also that this DRV is basically an attempt at WP:FORUMSHOPPING and a case of being hard of hearing. We have discussed this topic to (an unusual) death. People who have problems with the inclusion criteria are more than welcome to come to the article and help fixing it instead of endlessly argue again and again that they basically do not like it.--cyclopia 17:31, 3 November 2013 (UTC)