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Category:Persons convicted of fraud (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Simply put, there was absolutely no consensus to delete.

Four suggested merging to Category:Fraudsters, eight said keep, and 6 suggested a reverse merge from Category:Fraudsters. Closing admin suggested that no-consensus should default to the position before the category was created, which is unsupported in policy.

(This category was originally created because I and others objected to categorising people as "fraudsters" simply on the basis of convictions for expenses fiddling.)

I have discussed this with the closer see User talk:Black Falcon#Fraudsters. He has declined to undo the closure, but at the same time he's indicated he's willing for someone uninvolved to review it and reverse if they disagree. That leaves as with an admin neither standing by nor reverting his closure.--Scott Mac 23:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn deletion. Besides the fact that there was a consensus to keep the category there is absolutely no logical explanation for why a "no consensus" in this case should result in anything but the usual "keep". In the afore mentioned discussion linked to by Scott, I explained in more detail (to the closing admin) why I believe that is the case.Griswaldo (talk) 00:54, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn I would really appreciate a good explanation of what exactly the closing admin was thinking. This only reinforces my perception that CfD is under-watched and tends to have particularly bizarre outcomes on far too regular a basis. Jclemens (talk) 08:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Weak Overturn (no consensus defaults to keep). Where there are possible significant real world concerns, the participants consider that aspect. There was not a consensus that there are significant real world concerns requiring deletion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• This case is complicated, and I don't think I have fully comprehended what is going on. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• Sticking with initial impression, and the old catchcry "closer should have !voted". The close was a clever, and possibly correct, assessment. What it was not was a reading of consensus. It was a supervote in that the close contained argument not taken simply and directly from the discussion. It is not the role of the closer to adjudicate a complex case where it means that the closer gets ahead of the participants. It is far better for such an opinion to sit for a day or two, and then, if there is no substantial objection, for it to be accepted by a later-arriving independent closer. Where the closer said on his talk page, "I will not object to an uninvolved editor changing the close if he or she reviews the discussion and arrives at a different conclusion ", I see evidence that his close should have been merely a !vote.
• Suggest that the closer restrain his capable reasoning for !voting, and be more hesitant in closing, but as I would predict that a relist would lead to the same outcome, let's just leave this here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• But should others feel a different outcome should be discussed, as evidenced below, they should be encouraged to start a fresh CfD discussion. I suppose this is equivalent to a relist outcome here. If there are to be any changes, category deletions will be required, and to a fresh CfD is the way to go. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• To clarify, when I wrote that "at a different conclusion", I meant a different conclusion about the presence or lack of consensus in the discussion. As I have expressed at my talk page and this deletion review, the outcome which I implemented was not the outcome I would have voted for. Thank you, -- Black Falcon 18:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse, with a side order of "is this the right venue?"

  I certainly believe that "no consensus" in a deletion discussion should default to keep, and I've said so very vocally on a number of occasions, but I don't think the discussion we're considering was, precisely, a deletion discussion at all. Despite the header, the discussion was actually about whether to rename a category. As such it should have been treated not as a deletion discussion but as an editorial discussion that was closed by an administrator. Per policy, where the administrator finds no consensus in such a discussion, "restore status quo ante" is absolutely the right outcome. I find Black Falcon's reasoning impeccable and wholly agree with it.—S Marshall T/C 16:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

While some people were suggesting that the "fraudsters" category be renamed/merged, and I'd certainly have been happy with that outcome - others were suggesting that both be kept (and that's fine my me). The point is that the discussion was all over the place, and the status-quo was for both categories to exist (not for a deletion or merger that has no support) and there to be a later discussion on merging this (which I agree does need a consensus, and is an editorial judgement). Upholding the status-quo did not demand deleting anything.--Scott Mac 17:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• As a point of fact, the discussion was NOT about renaming a category. The discussion was about a new category that had been created, and the nominator suggested deleting it and merging all contents into another category. Black Falcon also repeated this misrepresentation of the situation in his explanations of why he did what he did. There was no proposed rename. Some commentators suggested a reverse merge, which might be like a rename of Category:Fraudsters, but keeping vs. deleting the category being discussed here had nothing to do with "renaming" anything. Can we please get this straight. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 17:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• As a point of fact, I think it was. Most people in the debate agreed that we need either a Category:Fraudsters, or a Category:Persons convicted of fraud or a Category:People convicted of fraud, or some combination of the above. The disagreement wasn't about whether we should have such a category or not. It was about which such categories we should have, and largely focused on which one should be merged to others—in other words, I think the basic issue here isn't about deleting the category, it's about what the category should be called. I see it as semantics.—S Marshall T/C 21:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• I personally am quite content for there to be two categories. Others voiced this view too. But one was deleted without consensus. The rest is semantics.--Scott Mac 22:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I count at least 7 such comments.Griswaldo (talk) 22:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn Deletion A close needs to reflect the views of the participants in the actual XfD, not be a deus ex machina pulling an opinion out of the air. The close would have been an excellent and well-thought-out vote if it had been cast during the discussion, but it has no connection to the actual discussion that took place. There was no consensus for deletion, but there was also no justification for "no consensus". Alansohn (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• overturn to no-consensus There was no consensus about what to do with this. There was considerable feeling that a merge was appropriate, but no agreement on what way it should go. (I have my own opinion, but I cannot claim there was really consensus for it more than any of the other proposed solutions) What is now needed is some discussion for how to deal with this, at a workgroup or the talk page. Closed on the basis that the discussion had not yet been closed after even after an extra 7 days & that some conclusion was necessary, but if there is no consensus, either the discussion continues yet further at the xfd, or we keep the status quo at xfd and the discussion continues elsewhere, or later. That no consensus defaults to keeping the status quo is a basic principle of deletion processes., DGG ( talk ) 17:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn as flawed implementation. In the deletion discussion, a fundamental premise of the conflict was "is cat:Fraudsters the same as cat:Persons Convicted of Fraud". The closure acknowledges a lack of consensus on this, however as implemented it presumes the premise is true. If they are the same, then reverting to a 'prior state' is just a matter of removing the newer category and reverting any articles that used it to the old one. However, if the premise is false, this action is actively deleting a unique category and miss-assigning articles to an improper category. This close, then, was more a !vote than an impartial decision (unintentionally so, I believe). A true 'no-consensus' close, to me, would have been to leave things as they were with two separate categories. Rather than reopening the whole discussion, I'd simply find another admin to take a stab at reconciling the multiple options (I suspect a merge or reverse merge of some sort will ultimately be it). --InkSplotch (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn' - Griswaldo went through the discussion and commented " Merge 4, Keep 8, Reverse merge 6. As we all know, reverse merge also entails keep. If you group them together you have 4 merge, 12 keep (since two people wrote both keep and reverse merge)" - I would say, there actually was something resembling a consensus to keep rather than delete and I agree with Inks comment about the closure appearing to be closer to an admin super vote than a weighing up of consensus. Off2riorob (talk) 18:24, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse own closure – No-consensus should default to the status quo ante in this case only because a substantially identical category (Category:People convicted of fraud) already had been proposed three times—in 2005, 2008 and 2009—and failed to gain consensus each time. My reasoning for restoring the original situation was along the lines of reversing an undiscussed move or forking of an article. If three proposals to move or split an article end with no consensus to move or split it, and then someone (in good faith) moves or splits the article following mixed discussion, then it does not seem unreasonable to undo the move or split pending the formation of a consensus.
  With regard to the distribution of votes, it is true that keeping Category:Persons convicted of fraud in some form was supported 12–4. It is also true, however, that keeping Category:Fraudsters in some form was supported c. 9–7. And, finally, having one category only instead of two was supported c. 10–6. Thus, there was a majority for keeping both categories and, at the same time, for having only one category.
  The fact is that a numbers-based approach ignores the substance of the arguments underlying the votes (consensus is not a vote-count), and it was on the arguments that I attempted to base my decision. Numbers do not reveal, for instance, that one "keep" assumed that all people convicted of fraud are fraudsters (all X are Y) whereas another "keep" assumed that not all people convicted of fraud are fraudsters (not all X are Y). Numbers do not address the fact that certain assertions were supported by reliable sources and others were not. And, finally, numbers do not tell us how to determine whether an article belongs in Category:Fraudsters or Category:Persons convicted of fraud, or what to do with all of the subcategories of Category:Fraudsters by nationality, or how to take into account people who are identified in reliable sources as fraudsters but never were formally convicted, because on questions related to scope there is, again, no consensus.
  Based on the discussion, I believe that the correct next step would be to nominate Category:Fraudsters for renaming or splitting and to try, once again, to form a consensus. -- Black Falcon 19:09, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
  • In response to the suggestion that my close was a "super-vote" of some kind, I'm happy to say this is completely off-the-mark. Had I voted, I would have voted to keep Category:Fraudsters, make Category:People convicted of fraud a subcategory for those who were formally and verifiably convicted and rename all of the by-nationality categories to the convicted of... format. -- Black Falcon 19:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
    • The problem is that only 4 people wanted the new category deleted. However you slice and dice the numbers, only 4 people wanted the category deleted. That was, far and away, the action with the least consensus. You point out things like 9-7 people wanted Category:Fraudster's kept. Great, but what doest that have to do with deleting this category, which was a separate category? Then you claim that 10-6 supported "having one category instead of two", but 16 editors did not comment directly on whether or not we need one category or two. If you were writing an entry, I'd say that was WP:OR. Once again, 4 editors wanted this deleted, and that's what you did despite the overwhelming number of rationales for keeping it.Griswaldo (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
      • I understand your perspective, and you seem to be approaching the matter from the standpoint that the CFD was (primarily or solely) about Category:Persons convicted of fraud. However, once reverse merging started to be discussed and Category:Fraudsters was tagged, the discussion no longer was about one category only. It was a general discussion about what to do with both categories.
        And, in this context, there was no consensus about what to do: keep Category:Fraudsters only; keep Category:Persons convicted of fraud only; keep both separately; or keep both, with one as a subcategory of the other. Some editors considered more than one option to be acceptable, but no two options could have been implemented concurrently. -- Black Falcon 23:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
        • Some of the discussion obviously became about merger or reverse merger. I'm not arguing against that. And there was no consensus on merger, I'm not arguing against that either. However, some of the discussion was also about keeping this category or deleting/merging it - and there was certainly no consensus to delete or merge it. Yet, that's what you did. You deleted it and merged the contents into another category - an action supported by only a minority.--Scott Mac 23:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
          • Yes, you're right, there was no consensus to delete or merge it. At the same time, though, there was no consensus to have the category. To be honest, I did not see a consensus (!= majority) on anything, much like in the three previous CFD discussions about "fraudsters"/"people convicted of fraud". To have kept Category:Persons convicted of fraud due to no-consensus effectively would have meant allowing the previous three CFDs to be bypassed merely because the category was created (albeit in good faith) outside of the normal CFD re-nomination process. Of course, this might not be an issue if both categories were allowed to exist but, unfortunately, there was no consensus for that either.
            Consider the following (hypothetical) situation. Over a period of a few years, there have been three proposals to split the 'Controversies' section within the article Silvio Berlusconi into a separate article. Each time, editors failed to reach a consensus and, thus, the split was not performed. Sometime later, following only 1–2 hours of mixed discussion, an editor (acting in good faith) carries out the split and creates Controversies surrounding Silvio Berlusconi. A discussion is initiated to undo the split and, not surprisingly, ends with "no consensus". Now, in this type of situation, defaulting to keep will mean allowing the previous three discussions to be bypassed just because the initiator has an unfair advantage.
            It is unfortunate that the end result was supported by a minority only, but each of the four possible courses of action (listed above and in my closing rationale) was supported by a minority, so that part was unavoidable. -- Black Falcon 00:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
            • Since when did one need a "consensus to have" anything on wikipedia. As for the rest, you are simply ignoring the default option of having two categories simultaneously. If people want to merge them in either direction, they need a consensus. What you did is merge without consensus - indeed against consensus.--Scott Mac 01:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
              • Since when did one need a "consensus to have" anything on Misplaced Pages? is a valid question, and my response for this case would be: when the existence or creation of that thing was discussed (multiple times) and not implemented due to a lack of consensus. I am not ignoring the option of having two categories simultaneously (which I identified as Option #3 in my closing rationale) but, due to the previous discussions, I could not consider that to be the "default option"—not to mention the issue of how to define the scope of the two categories (Options 3a and 3b), on which there was also no consensus. -- Black Falcon 03:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
                • Fair general point, but this situation was never discussed before. Having both this category and Category:Fraudsters was never discussed before. The consensus you keep on talking about is a phantom consensus. What was discussed was renaming Category:Fraudsters and that discussion, each of three times, ended in no consensus. Even that situation had "no consensus", but this one was never discussed. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 21:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse -- this was one of the most perceptive and intelligent administrative actions I have seen on Misplaced Pages. In effect, a change/renaming of categories was proposed, and looking at the various discussions together it is perfectly clear that that change lacked consensus, and so it has been appropriately rolled back. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Huh? Are we looking at the same CfD? A new category was created. There was, according to the closing admin, no consensus about whether or not to merge it into an existing category. The admin then deleted the category. That's what happened. No renaming was proposed. No change was proposed to any other existing categories. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Black Falcon has made it perfectly clear why he chose not to adopt that perspective. You're free to take your own view, but it's disingenuous to imply ("are we looking at the same CfD") that there's not a coherent argument there. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse as per Black Falcon and Nomoskedasticity. Sometimes the appropriate close is not simply a numbers game. Horologium (talk) 20:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. This result is a bit like the 1992 presidential election in the United States going to Ross Perot because neither of the other two candidates managed to achieve a majority of the votes. When a super-majority of commentators agree on one thing (that a category should NOT be deleted, let's say), it shouldn't be a surprise that they feel a bit bamboozled when that one thing is exactly what doesn't happen. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
• Procedural question. Is it proper to "endorse" one's own closure? I don't mean to imply that Black Falcon should be censored from the discussion. Not at all. Conceptually, however, it seems rather strange that someone would officially endorse their own closure in a proceeding like this, as opposed to simply "commenting" on the matter.Griswaldo (talk) 01:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Seems valid enough. The closing admin should comment and indicate if and why he stands by his close. whether he calls that an endorsement or a comment makes no difference. This isn't a vote. --Scott Mac 02:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. Just seems odd to me endorsing one's own actions. No big deal.Griswaldo (talk) 02:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse. The key sentence in Black Falcon's explanation is "Thus, there was a majority for keeping both categories and, at the same time, for having only one category." That is a situation where doing nothing is not advisable, because it's a self-contradictory state. So BF had to make a call. This rollback to the previous state is a valid result of that scenario.--Mike Selinker (talk) 06:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Why is deleting something, there is a majority for keeping, better than keeping two when the majority prefer only one? Why does one majority trumph another majority, when you need a super-majority to delete things, and nothign liek that to create things? When there's ambiguity, the default is to keep - not to "rollback" as a technicality to allow deletion on a minority opinion.--Scott Mac 18:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse The closure reflects that the actual status quo ante was not the existence of two categories, but the outcome of previous discussion on the matter.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
  • There were no previous discussions on this matter. There were no previous discussions on whether or not to have to two categories. NONE. Three previous discussions, all of which ended with no consensus dealt only with renaming "Category:Fraudsters" and did not touch upon the idea of having the presently discussed category and Category:Fraudsters. That there was a prior consensus, or status quo arrived at by discussion is plain and simply false. It really saddens me to see the claim repeated again and again in this manner. Here are the three prior discussions - 2005, 2008, 2009. As you can plainly see none of them touched upon the present scenario. Griswaldo (talk) 02:22, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Additionally, the deletion of this category sets a dangerous precedent. If an article or category is created, the "status quo ante" to that creation is always the non-existence of that category or article. If the current scenario is allowed to stick, it would mean that if that category or article is put up to XfD and there is "no consensus" a closing admin could always choose to delete the content based on the basic fact that before the content existed it didn't exist (that's the "status quo ante"). Everything I knew about our conventions and policies regarding the deletion of content made me think that this wasn't remotely legitimate as an argument here on Misplaced Pages. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe we can delete things from now on when there isn't a consensus. Let's rewrite the AfD guidelines to include the "status quo ante" argument that says, "when an admin chooses, no consensus defaults to delete".Griswaldo (talk) 02:27, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• Overurn the deletion of Category:Persons convicted of fraud. In the the 26 January 2011 propose merging Category:Persons convicted of fraud to Category:Fraudsters, the close was no consensus, restore the way things were before the 26 January 2011 propose merging Category:Persons convicted of fraud to Category:Fraudsters. Before the 26 January 2011 propose merging, both Category:Persons convicted of fraud and Category:Fraudsters were active categories and there was no 26 January 2011 propose merging. The deletion of Category:Persons convicted of fraud is in violation of the the 26 January 2011 CfD close. In otherwords, Black Falcon's own close of the 26 January 2011 CfD does not support Black Falcon's deletion of Category:Persons convicted of fraud. In the alternative, there was no consensus to delete Category:Persons convicted of fraud at the 26 January 2011 CfD. The CfD participants reviewed Category:Persons convicted of fraud while it was active and chose not to delete it. That is consensus to not delete Category:Persons convicted of fraud and the close and/or the act of deleting that category failed to give that consensus its authority. Whatever the conclusion, the admin deltion of Category:Persons convicted of fraud was without 26 January 2011 consensus authority and was based on a misunderstanding of the actual closing language and/or consensus of the 26 January 2011 CfD. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 07:02, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• Overturn and restore category -- I now see the point being made by a number of other contributors, and I see in particular the way this close risks re-opening the settled principle of no consensus defaults to keep. I prefer use of "Fraudsters" even for people like Devine, but consistency in application of the deletion process requires that this deletion be overturned. I still like the logic Black Falcon used, but again it is not in keeping with the usual deletion process. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• Overturn and relist A reasonable outcome, but would have been a much better !vote than close. Insert "supervote" language here. I largely agree with SmokeyJoe's reasoning other than his belief that the final outcome is clear in the event of a relist. Hobit (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse. Seems like something that is well within the discretion of the closer given the state of the discussion and the historical discussions surrounding Category:People convicted of fraud, which cannot be said to be substantially different in any way from this category. Good Ol’factory 21:42, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
• Overturn deletion and give the deleting admin a one-minute block for making the wrong decision so that it will be on his/her permanent record. Cla68 (talk) 12:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

  I've seen some pretty petty shit around here over the years, but that takes the prize. Tarc (talk) 15:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

  Ha! I've seen much more petty stuff around here. Guess I spend time in pretty petty places (say that 5 times fast). I agree though that it is very much uncalled for and Cla68 should really apologize. The closer tried to do the right thing and while some of us may disagree if it was the right thing, I see no basis at all for thinking it was done with anything other than the best of intentions. Hobit (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• Overturn per nom. --JN466 15:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse. As noted above, the discussion was a mess, with several apparently existing for several contradictory options. The close quite properly tried to unravel the chaos, and closed the discussion with a solution which produced the most coherent outcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Hamumu Software (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Notable company, deleted for no reason. 192I (talk) 02:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• No it isn't and no it wasn't.

  Hamumu Software is a Californian organisation of about two or three employees that has won no awards and received no attention from independent reliable sources as defined by Misplaced Pages. It isn't notable. The reasons for deletion were well explained at the AfD discussion and noted by the administrators who deleted it subsequently, and they are quite normal reasons to delete material from Misplaced Pages.—S Marshall T/C 12:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• Userspace draft time Previous AfD looks solid, but almost 4 years ago. It's possible to recreate a new article in mainspace, and I'd recommend that if an experienced editor who knows notability and sourcing expectations were to do it. If not, then drafting an article in userspace seems like the more appropriate response, just so the new article doesn't get dragged into AfD immediately based on a fixable problem. Of course, if notability is still not establishable, it should not be moved back to mainspace.... Jclemens (talk) 15:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
  • It seems irresponsible to suggest that a user create a userspace draft which, barring any unforseen and miraculous future events, will never be a real article. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:29, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse. 192I should first get a little editing experience, and only then consider pushing for content that the community previously rejected. Show us that you are not a single purpose account, here solely to promote your own interest. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse This AfD is four years old and there seems to be no justification to overturn it based on the results of this discussion. If it were possible to recreate the article in userspace and to establish notability using reliable and verifiable sources there would be no obstacle to recreating an article for this company. Alansohn (talk) 16:41, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse according to the last version of the article from 2009, which FWIW was written as an advert in first person, it's apparently a one-man operation with no notable products or any other notability to speak of. In other words, a million miles from meeting our WP:CORP guidelines. Unless things SIGNIFICANTLY change, this one just isn't gonna happen. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:37, 13 February 2011 (UTC)