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• WT:AFD

Archives

For discussions that have not been well-archived (before 2004), the page history of the Articles for deletion page has to be used as a contingency archive. One can look in the Deletion log to obtain date and time of a deletion, then look in the page history of VfD near that time to see which edit regards the unlisting of the page, then view the previous version. Misplaced Pages utilities/Page titles to be deleted – edit history before 13:45, 19 May 2002 (UTC) – also see its talk page), histories go back to November 2001 Votes for Deletion – edit history (22:22, 15 May 2002 (UTC) to 06:24, 28 May 2004 (UTC)) Votes for Deletion – edit history (04:53, 28 May 2004 (UTC) to 22:58, 20 September 2004 UTC)) Votes/Articles for Deletion – edit history (00:03, 21 September 2004 (UTC) to Current) Old VfD archive index (now AfD archives 1–31) 1, 2, 3, 4, 4a, 5 Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4, Z5, Z6 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Renamed Articles for deletion about this time. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48

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Not a vote tag

Why not make the notavote template (or a variation thereof) an automatic and standard addition when nominating articles? We could add it to the {{subst:afd1}} template. After all AfD really isn't a vote and there shouldn't be stigma attached to reminding people of that. Jasynnash2 (talk) 14:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe you mean {{afd2}}. The first issue I see with this is that it'd make the logs a bit bigger, since every AfD on the log would involve two tranclusions. Perhaps a text-based boilerplate reminder instead? It should serve the same purpose. Cheers lifebaka++ 14:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Participants in most AFDs don't need reminding that AFD isn't a vote. Only a minority of discussions need to have this tag. Stifle (talk) 14:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Stifle. It should only be used when needed.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE

I've been seeing a LOT of AfDs where sources are immediately found by doing a Gnews search. I mean whole ABC news articles on the exact topic (for example). I'd like to make the following change to WP:BEFORE

From:

• If the article lacks adequate sourcing, consider a quick Internet search to verify that no reliable sources exist.

To:

• If the article lacks adequate sourcing, do a quick Internet and News search to verify that no reliable sources exist.

Thoughts? Hobit (talk) 13:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Support I'd be in favor of making that a suggested/encouraged approach (and the word "consider" implies that). I doubt that it could become an enforcable policy (for how could you prove that one did or did not do it?) AND there are some notable topics that just aren't on the internet much. Personally, I can think of several articles I'm involved with that if the AfD nominator had bothered to do that, it would have saved a lot of efforts.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think this is enforceable. Most people do this, I think. But how do you know when they don't? "Trust me, I did a search." And if someone finds something on google that they didn't, maybe that just means they weren't 100% thorough. If an AFD starts, and it closes as no consensus or keep because someone found some good sources, then the AFD process is working exactly as it's supposed to. It's a discussion about how to save the article, or what to do with the article if it can't be saved. Randomran (talk) 13:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We just had this discussion at #Searching before nominating. Starting it all over again doesn't seem productive to me. Fram (talk) 13:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• In all honesty I missed that. I think the arguments against are largely hooey (passing off work to others because you can't be bothered to do a trivial search?) and not doing this creates more work overall. That said, consensus wasn't clear above, so I guess we run with the status quo for now and hope consensus changes... Hobit (talk) 14:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Too many AFDs are proposed on the basis that an article lacks sources. The presumption is that this is a reason to delete but this is the mistake - a lack of sources is not a reason to delete. We need to start pushing back on these AFDs so that nominators get the message that the onus is on them to show that sources cannot be found. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
  • That's not what WP:BURDEN says. Randomran (talk) 14:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Indeed, the situation is quite the opposite : the onus is on those adding information to back it up with sources, not those challenging the information. Shereth 15:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Sure, but CW is correct. An article not having sources is not a reason to delete per policy. WP:BURDEN is good and true, but also not a reason to delete. Hobit (talk) 15:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
        • Per WP:DEL#REASON which you link to : "Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following ..." Per WP:V, also policy (of which WP:BURDEN is a subsection) : "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed." If the whole article is unsourced it may be removed; we call this deletion. Shereth 16:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
          • That's a fairly long logical leap. If you think that is the case, please discuss at WP:DEL#REASON and get it added there in a more direct way. I don't think you'll find anything near consensus to do so. Hobit (talk) 17:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
            • WP:DEL#REASON has the disclaimer stating that it is not all-inclusive of every deletion rationale; therefore there is no pressing reason to add "lack of sources" to that list when it is covered already in policy, WP:V. Failure to meet any policy is a potential rationale for deletion. Shereth 18:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
              • • Again, I don't think this view has anything resembling consensus. Deleting article due to a lack of sources in the article has never carried the day at any AfD I've ever seen. That is, I've never seen an article get deleted where people agreed sufficient sources existed, but deleted the article because they weren't in the article. Have you? Hobit (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
                  • I think it has happened a few times, specifically concerning articles that have undergone multiple AfD's with promises of "we will source it" and no action. I don't really consider it to be a terrible idea. At some point we have to worry about just letting OR or uncited claims sit on wikipedia forever. Protonk (talk) 19:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
            • I also believe that the lack of consensus you refer to deals more with the proposed speedy deletion criteria for "no sources cited". Protonk (talk) 18:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
              • That certainly, but I've been involved in many deletion discussions, both in AfDs and talk pages about deletion, and I've never seen anyone seriously argue that an article having no sources is a reason for deletion when those sources exist. Hobit (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
                • I'll look for the archived discussion, but I've seen a CSD proposed as well as some "14 day, non removable deletion tag" for no sources. Neither were very popular. Protonk (talk) 19:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
            • I agree with Hobit that the lack of cited sources isn't a reason for deletion, but the lack of appropriate sources should be--That is, if there are sources out there, but they aren't in the article, the proper course of action is to always add them. If and only if no such sources can be found after a good faith search should an article be considered for deletion, in which case, it is to be deleted for failing WP:V. Jclemens (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose It's not practical in all cases to perform an internet search for sources, that is why an editor should be asked to 'consider' it rather than commanded to do it, practical or otherwise. --neon white talk 15:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Under what situation is it not practical? Hobit (talk) 15:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

For instance if the term contains extremely common phrases or words that would make searching almost useless. For example ]. How do you search a term like that to find anything relevant?--neon white talk 18:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Meh. This has been discussed before, recently. The answer there was no. The answer here is going to be no. It isn't a matter of practicality but a matter of irrelevance. What google search should I do? Should I put the article name in quotes? Should I filter wikipedia, wikia, and other mirrors? Should I search for common synonyms? Should I do a search in a news archive service? Should I search google books for related terms? At what point is it sufficient to call a search exhaustive? How do we prove that a search was done? If we change WP:BEFORE from a suggestion to an imperative, then we have to ask these questions. Blood Angels gets 600k hits on google. "Blood Angels" gets 249k. Yet you would be hard pressed to find a reliable source on the Space Marine chapter called the Blood Angels. It might exist, but I'm not sifting through 249 thousand sources to look for it. I am also not interested in just assuming that a reliable source exists because of the search hits for that text string. If I am required to search, what is the appropriate outcome? Do I list the AfD after that search? Do another search? Furthermore, what burning problem does this solve? An AfD is made on an obviously notable subject. Sources are shown at the AfD. The result is keep. Life goes on. If, for some reason, the result is delete, then DRV will reverse it. We don't need some procedural criteria which requires the nominating editor to effectively prove a negative. Protonk (talk) 16:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• It took me about 30 seconds to find a major reliable and definitive source for Blood Angels. Verifiability is not at all a problem for a topic of this sort. But nominators don't search for sources in such cases because they don't want to improve the article - they actively want to destroy it. Such nominations violate WP:BEFORE because there is no good faith attempt to consider improvement or other alternatives first. If a nomination provides no evidence that the multiple points of WP:BEFORE have been addressed then it should be speedily closed as inadequate. Deletion is too serious a matter to be made on a casual basis and that's why the process clearly indicates that it should be a last resort after all other alternatives have been tried and failed. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• ...Games workshops makes and sells the fiction, rulebooks and miniatures for the Blood Angels. They are not an independent source on the blood angels. I'm not sure what you mean to tell me by linking that. It certainly is possible to construct a search for the topic, however, as you have shown, your search reveals what you consider to be a reliable source and so my search would have been inadequate. Rather than discussing the merits of the source we would be discussing how I was violating some instruction. Protonk (talk) 00:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• The source in question is a reliable source per our guideline. Colonel Warden (talk) 01:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• It isn't intellectually independent from the content creator. This honestly isn't the place to debate whether or not it is an independent, reliable source, but I can assure you, it isn't. We can't really speak of Games workshop "reporting" on a games workshop creation any more than we can speak of Hasbro "reporting" on a new toy. It isn't reportage in any sense of the word. It is either exposition or advertisement. Games Workshop makes money selling figurines. In order to sell more figurines they invent a new army (or in this case, a space marine chapter). In order to fully use that army, I need to buy the figurines (From Citadel, a fully owned subsidiary), the guidebook (that codex you mentioned), and in order to get the whole package, I can pick up some fiction from Black Library (owned by GW). The source is at best the equivalent of a press release and at worst purely promotional. I really wish you would account for the possibility that I might know what I am talking about here. I have spent close to 25 hours scouring databases and news archives for pretty much every Warhammer 40K source out there. I understand which parts of that fictional universe have been covered by multiple, independent sources and the list is short. Blood Angels (to stick with this example) may actually be among them as they are the subject of a board game and a video game, which means they might be mentioned in some reviews. But again, back to my original point, I could have searched google using the string "Blood Angels" -Misplaced Pages -wiki -wikia and dismissed the IGN and gamespot reviews of the game (for the purposes of discussion). I could consider that a good faith look. But if you searched and said "this codex is RS", then we wouldn't be having this discussion. We would be talking about how the AfD should be closed because I obviously didn't do a good faith search. That's not an acceptable outcome. Protonk (talk) 01:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• It's a reliable source and if you don't understand this, you should read WP:RS until you do. You have subsequently introduced the concept of independence. This is largely irrelevant as, in this case, the codex is definitive canon which is a more important concept for verifiability. Anyway, my point is that you said that it was difficult to find a reliable source on this topic and it isn't - it is is trivial. In any case, such arguments are no reason for nominators to fail to make searches per WP:BEFORE as you can't tell what you're going to find until you look. Many/most editors don't even seem to take that first step. Colonel Warden (talk) 02:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Only independent sources contribute to notability. Anything published by Games Workshop is completely irrelevant in terms of whether the article should be kept.—Kww(talk) 02:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• We were talking about verifiability per WP:BURDEN which is policy. Notability is something else again - a lesser guideline to be used with common sense. If one finds that there are ~250,000 search hits for something then common sense indicates that it is notable. An AFD nomination in such a case is quite inappropriate since, at the very least, the title is a useful search term and so redirection would always be preferable to deletion. This is another point made by WP:BEFORE which a search will highlight. Nominators should not be shooting in the dark and it wastes everyone's time if they do. Colonel Warden (talk) 02:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• We can bandy about this all we want. You know as well as I do that the result of sourcing articles to those codexes was almost unanimously deletion. We can also quote WP:V if you care to talk about policy: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it." The point stands. If you somehow feel that I've introduced this foreign notion of "independence", then take a look at WP:RS : "Misplaced Pages articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources.". Either way, this is getting pretty tiresome. Protonk (talk) 04:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• No, on checking I find that the voting on AFD for that group of articles was 10-6. The AFD ought to have been closed as no consensus but a tiny handful of editors were allowed to delete a group of articles that got about a million hits a year. And we now see that Blood Angels is back as a blue link so the deletion was worse than pointless - it was an afront to all the editors that worked upon the material and is contrary to our principles: "Remember, whatever you write here will be preserved for posterity.". This example clearly shows that the current AFD process is broken, is being abused and that the bar to time-wasting, disruptive nominations needs to be raised. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think people who are trying to enforce WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS and WP:N appreciate being called abusive or disruptive, and you need to assume good faith. These are all considered reasonable causes for an AFD, by a consensus of Wikipedians. Randomran (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• I tend to forget that you treat WP:N as a triviality. However, both sides of this debate should at least learn how to get a true Google count. Try actually looking for the 250K hits ... they don't exist. Editing the "start" field in the Google search to "start=n" makes it list starting with the nth hit. It gets a little rough right at the end, because Google's algorithms for discarding duplicates isn't quite deterministic. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ja&lr=&pwst=1&q=%22Blood+Angels%22&start=580&sa=N shows pretty clearly that there are only 556 actual hits, not 250K. That's still a fair number of unique sources, but not overwhelming. I've never understood why Google bothers with such an unreliable estimate, but that field bounces all over the map, and rarely corresponds to the actual number of returned items. It seems worst when you have a quoted phrase of extremely common search terms.—Kww(talk) 04:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Kww, you are wrong (sorry!). Distnct google hits returns the number of distinct hits in the first 1,000 results. Repeat the action you just took for "Microsoft" or "Misplaced Pages", and you'll also get a few hundred results. DIstinct hits can never give more than 1,000 hits, even when there are millions of them. Distinct hits should only be used whene the number of hits is small to start with (below 2,000 or so), to weed out duplicates. IF you want to get a more accurate number of hits, and make it easier to find potentially reliable sources, narrow the search down: this gets it down to some 60,000 hits. Fram (talk) 07:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Agree it's been discussed. But when news articles on the topic show up at ABC or the NYT as the first or second news source, it is just wasting everyone's time. Can we make people look? Of course not. But when a simple news source search shows tons of notability, I want everyone to agree that the nom didn't do his job.Hobit (talk) 16:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Wait, huh? You want everyone to agree that who did a bad job? 16:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I think he's proposing something similar to what I had previously proposed a WP:UWT (since we seem to have one for everything else) that anyone can slap on the nominator's talk page that says "Thanks for your nom. Next time, try searching first"--politely, of course. Jclemens (talk) 16:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Correct. Thanks for saying it better than I did. Hobit (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support the wording change. We may not be able to make it mandatory, but I don't think making the expectation more forceful actually hurts anything. If it matters, I am the author of the current wording. Jclemens (talk) 16:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have no qualms with beefing up the wording as such, although I seriously doubt it's going to change things one way or another. Shereth 16:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

How about this

Rather than insisting on searching, how about this:

• When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing concerns, a good faith attempt should be made to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist.

Hobit (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no issues with this. Shereth 19:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this. ... even if it will be hard to verify that they did, indeed, make a good faith attempt. But at the very least, it's good advice. Randomran (talk) 19:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

This is fine. I don't relish the prospect of this snippet being used to send nasty-grams to editors (that way lies drama), but I'm never going to send one, so I won't object on that basis. Protonk (talk) 19:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it'd be better to point "sourcing concerns" to WP:V instead of WP:RS, but the text is great. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Particularly WP:BURDEN. Randomran (talk) 21:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I like this modification (it's a briefer version of advice at Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion#Nomination) and agree that it should point to WP:V rather than WP:RS. Paul Erik 21:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I seven this. ;) — ceranthor 23:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Woot, done. Please feel free to change if I didn't do what people thought I should have. I personally would have preferred WP:RS rather than WP:V, but I guess that works too. Hobit (talk) 01:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I too think it should point to RS - V is much too general. But otherwise a good start. DGG (talk) 00:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Policy has said to look for sources first for a long time

Asking editors to look for sources themselves before nominating things for deletion on grounds of verifiability is not a new thing. This idea has been in our policies for some several years. Before it was converted to prose form in February 2007, Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy used to look similar to what can now be found at User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do. See this version of deletion policy, for example. Earlier versions of deletion policy, such as this one from January 2006, said to "Follow the procedure at Misplaced Pages:Verifiability" and only if it failed to come back and consider deletion. At the time Misplaced Pages:Verifiability was where the procedure was, and it looked like this. Looking for sources onesself was step #4. Indeed, this step has been in the verifiability policy since Martin Harper's original formulation of it in 2003. Following that procedure before nominating articles for deletion has been explicit deletion policy since July 2004. This procedure has been in our content and deletion policies for several years. Uncle G (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a very important point and has to be reenforced and made as clear as possible in the relevant policies. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Ronald Presley for deletion

There are no third party references, seems more like an advertisement. Should be deleted.74.73.176.161 (talk) 18:07, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

There's currently an AfD for the article. If you'd like to comment in it, feel free. It's located here. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Did I break the afd3 template?

Something weird going on about adding Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Where do you want to go today?. Sorry if my fat fingers busted something, and I have no idea how to fix it... __Just plain Bill (talk) 23:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks to be working fine. {{afd3|BLAH}} resolves to {{Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/BLAH}}. Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

... and the log page entry now looks OK. All good. __Just plain Bill (talk) 00:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"Add a new entry"

Why does the "add a new entry" link even exist? It's out of line with the proper afd process, and many n00bs don't know how to file afds properly. They just click "add a new entry" and create a red linked discussion. And I seem to be the only one who ever notices red linked discussions, so I'm always the one removing them. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 20:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• You were doing such a great job, no one wanted to interfere. But seriously, that likely is a bad place for that link. It should point to the start of the process, not the final page. I can't see an instance where that link is useful, as a link is provided to add afd3 when you are filling out afd2. Worst case, an editor should know to simply to to the current days log (a couple lines lower) and open it up to add the afd3 part. PHARMBOY (TALK) 20:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Ack

Why is today's afd log showing up in a category? Can someone fix that please? I've gone through all the afd debates and I can't figure out which one is causing the category to show up at the bottom of the afd log. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 18:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Er, what's the category, and where does it show up? I'm not seeing anything unusual, assuming you are talking about Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2008 October 18. --MCB (talk) 23:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see anything either when I looked earlier. I assume whatever it was is fixed. Either that or the otters got some "funny" seaweed... ;-)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Unnoticed violations in AfD

While browsing through contributions I found one editor User:Painjoiker had apparently deleted delete opinions from an Afd on Rammstein's sixth album (an article it seems he was involved in editing) which at the time appears to have gone completely unnoticed. Anyone have any suggestions as to where to take this? In the past warning tags have proven fruitless as he also continuously recreates deleted material (even when the page is salted it is re created under a different name), removed speedy and AfD tags etc. Even if the indecent went unnoticed at the time I don't think it should be ignored. Rehevkor ✉ 12:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

• When you discover it, I would recommend making the notice on the Admin's noticeboard. Or you can drop a note to any admin active at the time. (This issue is taken care of for now.) Rossami (talk) 16:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Okey dokey. Cheers for the assistance! Rehevkor ✉ 17:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Old

MAy I urge people to not add new days to this page to soon? October 17 was already added, even though none of the discussions is at least five days old, and October 16 is already done, even though more than half of the discussions have not had their full five days period. From WP:DPR#AFD "Every day, the day page (i.e. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/Year Month Day) that is more than five days old should be moved here" (my emphasis). From WP:GTD#Closure: "After 5 days of discussion, a volunteer will move the day's list of deletion discussions from the active page to the /Old page." The last pages of the 17th had only 3 1/2 days of discussion, and the already closed AfD's of the 16th had only 4 1/2 days of discussion. Looking at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2008 October 16, the first discussion was closed after 3 1/2 days, the one for FwNES after 4days and 6 hours, the one for Peter Anthony after less than 4 days, and so on and so on. I have argued previously against the extension of thefive day period, but I think the least we can do (except speeies of course) is to wait until the five days are clearly over, i.e. only listing it on "old" when (today-afdday = 6), i.e. listing the 17th only on the 23th and so on. Fram (talk) 10:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way of having a bot do the move at the right time, instead of relying on a volunteer, in order to maintain consistency? --MCB (talk) 18:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

MathBot should do that already, if given a chance. Judging by the older page history he always adds them with his first edit after 16:00 UTC. --Amalthea 19:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

So we should just put a warning on that page for people to not add dates themselves? Fram (talk) 13:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Withdrawal of AFD

I see nothing on the page about the withdrawal of AFDs by the nominator. Can I make the following suggestion, that if an AFD attracts the interest of the community (say five other editors make their thoughts known?), that once it goes past a certain point, it runs regardless of the changed mind of the nominator.

Let me give a practical example - this lengthy and heated AFD was closed this morning because the original nominator withdrew their nomination. I then instantly renominated it on the basis that the withdrawal of the nomination seems to lead to an instant close of the afd but that seems to be an administrative action which takes no account of the debate - indeed, that type of close is one where, for all practical purposes, the AFD never happened because the community discussion becomes irrelevant.

This in turn means that an instant re-nom by another editor should be fine because the first AFD never actually happened in regards to determining consensus. If we are saying it's not fine to do an instant re-nom, we have a number of other problems. First, AFD could be used as a protective tool to protect non-notable articles - I (or more likely a meat-puppet) nominate my pet article, then withdraw the nom, thus protecting it for a number of months or I could let the AFD run until it looks like it's going against me and then I pull the nom, thus protecting me that way.

Maybe the process of withdrawal and renom has already been codified somewhere but I cannot find it. Suggestions? comments? brickbats? --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:13, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm missing something here -- looks like it was closed as a "no consensus", with the withdrawal just being mentioned as one of several factors in that decision.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

That was after it was re-opened by one admin (who redirected my 2nd afd) and then re-closed by the original administrator... anyway, that's just an example and I'm more interested in discussing the general principles and if we need to make a mention of it in the guidelines. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:04, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. In general, I follow what Rossami laid out -- if there's one contributor making a good faith argument that's not a flavor of keep (merge and redirect are flavors of keep in my mind), then early closure is not an option. If after early closure someone comes up with a legitimate reason for deletion, I have no problem reopening the discussion (and have done so on at least one occasion in the past).--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The general principle is articulated at Misplaced Pages:Speedy keep. If a nominator argues for deletion, then every subsequent participant in the discussion disagrees and the nominator withdraws the nomination, it may be closed early. If even one subsequent participant argues in good faith for a decision other than "keep", the discussion fails to qualify for early closure and should continue for the full 5 days. (Note: For the purpose of deletion discussions, "merge" and "redirect" are variations of "keep" since they do leave the pagehistory intact. The discussion about merger or redirect should then be completed on the respective article Talk pages.) In the example you cite, the nominator could have withdrawn and closed the disucssion right up until 16:27, 3 Nov when user:T-rex argued for deletion. From that point forward, early closure was out of order. Rossami (talk) 16:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Rossami's summary of policy. The AfD of Zeituni Onyango mentioned by Cameron Scott was discussed in a thread at the Administrator's noticeboard. Given the high public interest in Zeituni Onyango's immigration issue, and the recent expansion of the article, I think it would be hard to assemble a consensus for deletion any more. Check the further discussion at Redvers' talk. Beyond that, you could open a WP:Deletion review. Redvers admits that his procedure looked rouge but the end result seems to me within the realm of reason, since he provided a rationale and it's been reviewed on a noticeboard. Further discussion is possible either at DRV or at WP:AN, if you think he should not have done this, or if you want to start a new deletion debate. EdJohnston (talk) 17:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't - no consensus looks fine to me. My point was that, "withdrawn" is effectively "this never happened", which is why I wanted to clarify here what should be done in future. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I do love how option number one (take it up with the closing admin) is now almost always completely ignored in favour of DRV, bitching on noticeboards or opening a new debate. However, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to say that legislating on the basis of an exception never results in good legislation.

In this case, my closing summary was poor. The revised one (which all involved now conclude should have been done without reopening, I think) is my opinion all along, just with a bad shorthand in saying "withdrawn by nominator" as the reasoning.

To try not to base case law on exceptions: in general, since AfD is not a vote, the closing admin in a minority of debates (the vast majority are easy closes) must use a mixture of judgement, discretion, bare headcounting (but not actual tallying), common sense and precedent when closing a debate. This means we need to, and do, give latitude and also provide several oversight abilities, of which asking the admin in question is the first step, not the last. The withdrawal of a nomination pretty well sinks most AfD debates, especially if the nominator gives an argued rationale for why the nomination no longer applies. Couple that with a clear no-consensus debate and you've got a quick close. Actually, couple a withdrawal with almost any other reasoning to give up and you've got something cast iron. This is even more true when people aren't having a deletion debate but instead are talking content issues.

As for saying that a withdrawn debate in effect never happened, well, yes, I can see where you're coming from; but that assumes that the default state of WP articles is non-existent. In fact, the principle (which I don't altogether agree with) is that the default state for an article here is existing: the community has always argued that a crap, misleading, pointless article on a subject is better than a red link. This is insane, but has been true since time began. On that basis, we can't pretend that the debate didn't happen when it was closed because the nominator has withdrawn. A different rationale for a debate is needed to start over, but not 42 minutes later. That's where talking to the admin involved provides a useful delay; thence to DRV, where the debate can happen with the content part removed. If DRV overturns it, the debate can go again, but probably in the right venue or without the extraneous content debate.

Wow, that was long-winded guff, wasn't it? ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 20:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Mergers at AfD

Which best describes current practice regarding mergers taken to AfD?

1. An intention to merge is wholly incompatible with nomination at AfD. Due to GFDL attribution, the history must remain visible – deletion is precluded, and any such AfD should be speedy closed as disruptive, bad-faith, or WP:POINTy.
2. A good-faith intention to merge is an acceptable justification for filing an AfD in some cases. Merge/redirect is a valid AfD outcome. AfD attracts a wide range of editors who would not have seen discussions on the article's Talk page.
   • Taser controversy
3. Either party in a merge dispute may file a procedural nom, including those who oppose the merge.
   • Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations

My impression is that practice is somewhere between (1) and (2). (2) is generally discouraged, but happens infrequently and is allowed to run for the full duration. (3) was heavily opposed, but there was a lot of drama in that specific case.

I asked a related question at WP:VPP, received no responses, and copied it to Help talk:Merging and moving pages#Mergers at AfD. Flatscan (talk) 04:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

A disputed redirect might be appropriate for AFD in certain cases. But a disputed merge is probably something that should involve other WP:DR processes. I can't think of a situation where people disagree about whether to merge, so the compromise is to delete. ... that said, there are situations where the larger population thinks they should delete. But then it would still be odd, maybe even bad faith for someone proposing a merge to then propose deletion after their merge proposal is shut down. Randomran (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I know I've seen it, but can't think of the article: the nominator thought it should be merged, but after the article was analysed, every statement that could actually be verified was redundant, so there wasn't anything left to keep. As for the main question, I think a good-faith intent to merge or redirect is a valid reason to bring an AFD. I understand why people object, but it can be the only place that a community-wide, semi-enforceable consensus to redirect or merge can be obtained.—Kww(talk) 05:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom does think that a deletion debate is sometimes preferable to an RFC about an article... I'm of mixed feelings on this. Truthfully, I wish there were a way to solicit feedback from a wide range of editors on a merge, the same way we do for deletion. I think AFD gets a bad rap because it's "article for deletion", when really it's an "article for discussion" -- what the heck do we do with this article that seems to fail fundamental guidelines? Randomran (talk) 05:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's deletion processes have only one mandate - determining whether or not the pagehistory should be kept. If it's an unsuitable topic for the encyclopedia or if there is no redeeming value to the history, the page should be deleted. Otherwise, mergers and redirects and content changes are all variations on a "keep" decision. If there is no nomination to actually delete the pagehistory, Misplaced Pages:Speedy keep clause 1 would make the discussion eligible for immediate closure (though the implication above that the nomination is in bad-faith may not be supportable - most are new editor errors, not deliberate disruption). Nominations to merge, redirect or change content should be sorted out using other discussion processes. They are not proper topics for AfD. If the Request for Comment process is not working well, we need to fix that process, not bastardize the already overloaded processes here.
Incidentally, while AfDs do tend to get some degree of community visibility, policy and long-standing precedent is that a recommendation to merge a page is no more binding than any equivalently well-attended discussion on the article's Talk page. So a nomination here generally won't achieve the "decisive" end that the nominators usually want when they make these non-delete nominations. Rossami (talk) 05:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• I agree partially with Rossami but I've always felt that the concerns about mergers don't always match up with what we see. An example of a merger we would like to avoid at AfD would be a complex merge of one page into another (or several), like Celebrations of the September 11, 2001 attacks to Reactions to the September 11 attacks. That requires subject matter experts, deflecting SPA's and weighing presentation of content WRT WP:UNDUE. That's distinct from merging Eldar Harlequins into Eldar (Warhammer 40,000). The former should never be merged from an AfD. The latter, practically, can be. I don't think articles like that should, but they don't represent the reason why mergers are eschewed. Protonk (talk) 15:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree with Rossami. AFD is not fundamentally about the preservation of page history. It is about whether Misplaced Pages should have an article on a particular topic. AFD is neither about the current state of the article, nor about the technical requirements to preserve page history, it is only about the question whether a particular topic should have an independent article. All possible answers to "should we have an article on this topic" are legitimate, including "we should cover this topic as a section in that other article". If the AFD is closed with the consensus being that the topic should not have an independent article, then we can decide whether to delete the page entirely, or merge it into another page. In the latter case, we need to preserve edit history, but that's a technical issue. If we keep a redirect from the old page, then the edit history is automatically preserved. If we do not keep a redirect, then we can move the old page to a subpage of the merged page's talk page and then delete newly created redirect, which will have no nontrivial edit history. But GFDL requirements are just a technical issue for the closing admin to deal with, they have no relevance to the deletion discussion itself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Copy that. If only because we close AFDs with outcomes other than delete/keep all the time. Randomran (talk) 17:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree with Carl as well. Granted, merging and redirection aren't deletion, but they are ways of dealing with subjects that should not have a full page article. Since the issue is sometimes contested as to whether there should or should not be an article on a subject, and talk page discussion tends to attract those with a strong interest in the article, skewing the weight of a discussion, a wider discussion attracting more neutral and uninterested members of the community can be a good option. And in practice, people argue to merge/redirect at AfD all the time, and discussions are closed as such quite frequently. So to respond to the original question at the top, I think 1 and 2 are acceptable. 3 is disruptive, as nominating an article for deletion (or merger, redirect, etc.), when you don't really want it to be merged, redirected, deleted, etc., is pointy. Seraphimblade 18:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

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