Misplaced Pages

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'and has not participated'

I'm not exactly certain this is the correct place. But recently there has been a conflict about the line

'An admin who is uninvolved and has not participated in the deletion discussion will assess the discussion for consensus. For how to perform this, see WP:AFD/AI.'

I won't mention names or places because I am not posting to extend that conflict but rather to make the same conflict less likely in future. I interpreted the line 'has not participated' to mean that any admin/user who has taken part in the conversation in any form should refrain from closing. I assumed that the line was there to stop any uneasily resolved conflict around what constitutes 'involvement' so that we had a clear point of fact that someone taking part in a conversation should not close it. However, it appears that the passage can also be interpreted along the same lines as 'involvement', as meaning that posting in the conversation previously is OK and does not constitute participation itself as long as, I think, they indicated no stake in the result (or something along those lines). It therefore appears that the passage is either redundant or insufficiently clear in expression. So what I think would help is either to remove the line about participation or be more explicit and leave less wriggle room about what participation is. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:03, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Context: @asilvering closed an AfD as redirect, after making a single post in the AfD: @Deacon of Pndapetzim, can you give us your WP:THREE best sources that would show that the subject meets the notability guidelines at WP:GNG? That would help bring this discussion back on track. Deacon then suggested that asilvering was unduly involved in the AfD and part of a bully squad because when Deacon was brought to AN over his conduct at the AfD, asilvering stated that Deacon's conduct was astonishingly poor.The second paragraph of WP:INVOLVED states that "an administrator ... whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits that do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that ... topic area". That paragraph also provides examples of actions that do not make an administrator involved, including "suggestions on possible wordings and approaches". asilvering's invocation of WP:THREE was quite literally a suggestion of an approach to get a discussion that had deteriorated back on track.I'm going to go ahead and boldly delete the phrase "and has not participated" since the obvious intent of that bullet point is to link readers to WP:INVOLVED. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I reverted. "has not participated in the deletion discussion" helps clarify what is considered "involved." SportingFlyer T·C 02:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think INVOLVED is pretty clear on what being involved means. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

INVOLVED says nothing about participating in deletion discussions, whereas what you boldly reverted does. It clarifies that participating in a deletion discussion is something which involves an editor. SportingFlyer T·C 02:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@SportingFlyer, does it? Because it seems to be introducing confusion here. I don't think that asking people for sources in the AfD body text is any different from asking people for sources in the relist note, which closers do pretty frequently without being considered to be involved participants. -- asilvering (talk) 02:06, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. Your involvement in that AfD was not a purely administrative function - I'm sure the mileage will vary on that - and I would have voted to overturn if this had gone to DRV and not to a talk page. SportingFlyer T·C 02:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

When I relist with the comment "a source review would be helpful here", is it your position that I can't close that AfD? Or, if I remind editors to remain civil, can I no longer close the AfD? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:11, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I have asked admins whose relist comments have gone beyond merely relisting to be careful in the past. Just because someone relists a discussion doesn't make someone involved, but sometimes relisting a discussion with a specific comment may make an admin appear involved. It's very frustrating as a participant. As to your examples, though, those would probably be fine. SportingFlyer T·C 02:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why my examples are any different from what asilvering did. If I can ask editors to do a source review, why can't a relister (or otherwise uninvolved editor) ask a keep !voter to provide their three best sources? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Because you start to blur the lines between an administrative role (relister) and a participant in the discussion. SportingFlyer T·C 02:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

How is asking a question blurring a line? voorts (talk/contributions) 13:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see it either. The exercise here would be to try to guess which side of the debate I would agree with, based on what I'd said. My comments were that Deacon's conduct was poor, and that it would be helpful to show sources. Does it follow from that that I am biased against Deacon's "side" of the discussion? I don't really see how, since conduct has nothing to do with the outcome of AfDs, and while asking for sources does imply that I don't presently see sources that would help (which would suggest I was "anti-keep"), it also throws a clear lifeline to the keep proponents (so how "anti-keep" could I be?) -- asilvering (talk) 17:49, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think rehashing this and editorialising like that does any good except to distract from its clarity of purpose. In any case, I didn't say anyone was part of a bully squad, I said this user posted along side it. Did you actually read some of the nasty things said towards me in that thread? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Nasty is certainly an overstatement. The focus of this discussion is whether the closer was defined as being involved or not. There's concerns by some about the intention of INVOLVED vs people reading too much into specific verbiage. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Contextually speaking, asilvering trying to help push the discussion in the right direction (away from the bickering to keep it on topic), while voicing no opinion or participating otherwise, does not at all come across as WP:INVOLVED from my perspective. Frankly I'm not sure how the discussion could have been closed any other way. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree with voorts and asilvering. The comment seems to be in the context of seeing assertions that may be valid, but feeling that more evidence is needed to close it that way. And so he is asking for that evidence. That isn't making him involved, it is giving the people making the assertions an opportunity to strengthen their case before closing the other way. Rlendog (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I do agree that discussion couldn't really be closed any other way, and that comment did not prejudice the deletion outcome. But I've also been in situations like this before - WP:INVOLVED says whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits that do not show bias, and it really does not take much for a comment to go from a minor administrative comment to being INVOLVED, and as I've mentioned before, this doesn't happen frequently, but I have reached out to admins after a closed AfD to let them know I've thought the INVOLVED line was in play. In this instance, a participant thought this showed enough bias to post here, and asilvering themselves just said that it may imply that they were "anti-keep." If that implication exists at all, it's very easy to let someone else close a discussion... SportingFlyer T·C 23:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

a participant thought this showed enough bias to post here Did you read any of the context provided about the conduct of this participant? voorts (talk/contributions) 23:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I did, and it hasn't influenced how I see this at all. SportingFlyer T·C 00:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@SportingFlyer, that's not a very fair restatement of my comment, which was decidedly ambivalent. In order to arrive at "may imply that they were 'anti-keep'", you'd have had to stop reading there, without continuing to the end of the sentence. -- asilvering (talk) 03:09, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering: I'm not doing a very good job of explaining myself then, and I apologise if I'm making it seem like you weren't ambivalent. The point I'm trying to make is that it may not come off as ambivalent if you're not experienced with the AfD process. SportingFlyer T·C 06:00, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that I am an administrator on English Wiktionary, which has a comparative dearth of administrators, and well-participated discussions, meaning that there are often discussions for which there is no uninvolved administrator to close. On that project, I frequently close discussions where I have been a participant (even a very involved participant), but where I can uncontroversially close the discussion because the outcome was very clear. Frankly, I see no reason why an administrator on this site should not be able to close a discussion in which they have participated if there is a clear and overwhelming outcome, and the close clearly reflects that outcome. BD2412 T 01:01, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I entirely agree with the above. It is perfectly OK for an admin to close a discussion, even if they had taken part, as long as the result is clear. Note that I was an admin but gave it up when I got old. but I am still clear about this point. Bduke (talk) 02:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

ONINVOLVEMENT I had no objection to Asilvering's actions on the AN thread, Voorts or anyone else interested. I came across as rude on a aritcle for deletion thread in regards to two of its proponents, and Asilvering voiced the opinion commonly expressed on the AN thread that she disapproved of this alleged rudeness. Asilvering is entirely in her right to disapprove of anything she wants to, I have no objection. The perception of involvedness from my part has more to do with the fact that she came across to the deletion thread with a group of associates, then asked a question that I interpreted as partly adversarial. She requested that *I* in particular, only one of the opponents of the deletion proposal, provide three sources, I presume to establish the article's notability, and hence to determine what !vote. I'm not sure I quite understood the point of the question, because the article already contained three sources. I also withdrew from the thread because of threats on the AN thread. The article appears to have been subsequently deleted because a number of users completely misunderstood what the proposer was saying about the provenance of the saint, confusing the fact that the saint (like Beowulf) is known only from one medieval source (which I'm not sure is true actually & has nothing to do with Misplaced Pages guidelines) with the extent of commentary about the saint in modern scholarship. Asilvering subsequently closed the discussion. Even on the basis of "Involvement" I don't think she was the right person. It's completely reasonable for me to see her as involved here. On the other hand, I WAS definitely heavily involved and a stakeholder in the outcome as the creator of the article. MY opinion on this bears weight accordingly. Asilvering and I have discussed this already, Asilvering for their part did not see asking that question as constituting WP:INVOLVEMENT. She does not care that I saw her as involved. I also accept that the wooley nature of the 'involvement' guideline isn't decisive here, and that means that her closure is reasonable and that also she is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. This matter is already solved and WAS ALREADY solved before I opened this thread. I do not seek to revisit the outcome of that discussion, if nothing else it is not worth it. It's a loss to Misplaced Pages but not a big loss.

However, in addition to the wooliness of Misplaced Pages 'involvement' guidelines, this page's own guidelines appear to list participation separate from involvement. Involvement is a wikilawyery concept, the meaning differs from standard English; participation is simply posting in the discussion. As a matter of fact Asilvering posted in the discussion. But the way its worded it can also be read as an oblique and redundant reference to 'involvement', and interpreted accordingly. I posted here because I am seeking to make the line clearer. I tried to keep Asilvering and her friends out of it by not mentioning them or the dispute. Part of the reasoning is that I thought it might be difficult for them to see the issue clearly because they would see it as tied up with Asilvering's closure rather than its own merit and might derail the discussion. They aren't tied up. When Asilvering closed the thread, the wording was ambiguous and fixing that ambiguity now would not make her action more or less judicious.

On the topic of participation as separate from involvement . The line 'has not participated' can reasonably be interpreted to mean that any admin/user who has taken part in the conversation in any form should refrain from closing. I assumed that the line was there to stop any uneasily resolved conflict around what constitutes 'involvement' so that we had a clear point of fact that someone taking part in a conversation should not close it. However, it appears that the passage can also be interpreted along the same lines as 'involvement', as meaning that posting in the conversation previously is OK and does not constitute participation itself as long as they appeared to have no stake in the result (or something along those lines). It therefore appears that the 'participation' passage is either redundant (covered by involvement) or insufficiently clear in expression. So what I think would help is either to remove the line about participation or be more explicit and leave less wriggle room about what participation is. As I indicated in the opening post above, I am interested in clarifying the line about 'participation'. Not by ad hoc interpretations of the line that may suit one party one way now, another future interested party differently another time. Voorts to his credit tried to solve the problem by fixing the ambiguity, but as I suspected he was opposed. SportingFlyer has posted indicating that they did not share Voorts' interpretation, though they have not said enough for me to be certain about how their view relates to mine. But where things stand nothing has moved on, the offending line is still open to reasonable interpretations that are potentially contradictory.

If you'll forgive me, as much as I've love to devote all my Wikitime to this topic (or even to correcting sidetrack editorialising), I also want to do other things. So if it has to be ambiguous because of opinion stalemates I'm just going to lump it as another part of the dogpile of chaos that makes Wiki guidelines.... but we'll all live. But if it can be fixed then great Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The line 'has not participated' can reasonably be interpreted... – The problem is you seem to think someone trying to ask a question as an impartial observer, to help steer the conversation in a productive way instead of allowing it to spiral, constitutes being involved whereas other participants in this discussion do not feel that way. They were not involved in trying to sway the discussion in any capacity. They were clearly a neutral party to any observer. As such, there's no issue, and we can argue about specific verbiage til the cows come home, but I think it's fairly clear what the intent of INVOLVED is supposed to mean. Don't close discussions you were involved in on either side of the issue. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:10, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

All I've got from this is that you haven't followed anything I've said, that you put a lot of more store in the concept of neutrality than I do, and that you think policy and guideline pages are 'verbiage'. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

When you dig your heels in and take a stance you sure do love to be dismissive of how others interpret and think of things. Must have some pretty long legs if you're able to do that from your high horse... I read it and I'm unswayed. I think INVOLVED as a policy is clear. I'm sorry that you feel my usage of verbiage somehow invalidates everything I've said. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not being dismissive, Josh, I'm not trying to put the 'involved' policy into consideration here, you can't have understood my posts if you think I opened this thread to invite opinions on the clarity of the Involved policy. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:34, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If you say so. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Should we remove the phrase?

I say yes, as it aligns with current practice, which is that we apply INVOLVED rather than asking whether a closer "participated" in the AfD discussion. The current language was added in September 2014 after a discussion in which the issue was raised that the guideline as then written was narrowing the definition of INVOLVED, rather than adopting that standard. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Seems fine to me, though obviously on this question I am myself Involved. We could also try for the spirit of what they were going for back in 2014 with "!voted in" or "offered an opinion in" or similar. -- asilvering (talk) 00:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kai Trump (2nd nomination)

Why is this still hanging around in the Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2024 November 21? Relist it or close it please.4meter4 (talk) 04:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@4meter4, the answer to that question is on the AfD itself. -- asilvering (talk) 08:31, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Redirects for discussion § Is RFD a valid forum to discuss cases of PTOPIC disambiguation pages?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Redirects for discussion § Is RFD a valid forum to discuss cases of PTOPIC disambiguation pages?. —CX Zoom 13:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

AFD request: Brenda Dervin

Stub page for a random, no-name college professor that has just 6 sources and a "Life" section that consists entirely of 2 paragraphs - the first 4 sentences, the second just one. In addition, the first external link (which directs to an archived page from 1997) admits it has outdated content. Finally, this page's creation was literally the only edit its creator, Dani4, ever made. 100.7.34.111 (talk) 18:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Passes WP:PROF criteria 1 with large numbers of citations for her works as shown here on Google Scholar, so it is very likely to be kept at AfD, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 21:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Making sure I understand this right

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.

The article states that: If a redirection is controversial, however, AfD may be an appropriate venue for discussing the change in addition to the article's talk page.

Does this mean that an AFD can be started by someone with the intent of redirecting instead of deleting? Plasticwonder (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Don't post things at multiple places. There's no reason to have two separate discusssions on this at VPP and here. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Request

I am the subject of this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/Terry_Blade. I don't think it meets the notability criteria for an article on Misplaced Pages. The article is semi-protected. I'd like to request that an editor nominate it for deletion please? BladeTerry (talk) 01:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Closes before 7 days

I have started a discussion at the Administators notice board about AfDs that are closing before 7 days/168 hours that watchers of this page may be interested in. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

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