Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:33, 26 October 2009

Don't revert closures

Don't revert closures. Speak to the closure or ask for DRV. To do otherwise is fundamental disrespect to the other volunteers. NonvocalScream (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Is a wheel war potentially in progress? Are those admins who are reverting the closure of the AFD? Varks Spira (talk) 18:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Original closure

This discussion was originally closed at 16:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC), however as this was approximately six hours before the seven-day mark would have passed, and there is clear support of the opinion that my closure was not appropriate at that time, I've reopened the debate. My original closure statement is below. Hersfold 18:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The result was very difficult to reach. For a large discussion like this, I will be honest and say that I count votes. However, I don't simply tot them up, see if one side has a majority, and call it that - were that the case, there is a 58-51 margin in favor of keeping, however with only 53% support by the numbers that would be no consensus. On the contrary, I count votes based on how strong the arguments are. In this discussion, the primary arguments seemed to be the following:

• For deletion: "This is puffery of Shankbone/Wikinews" "Non-notable, sources only give passing mention" "Sources explicitly state he's unknown" "If he weren't a Wikipedian, he wouldn't have an article in the first place" "Tinderbox for BLP problems" "Citations are poor"
• Against deletion: "Notable, sources cover him in enough detail" "The sources in question have a high enough reputation to confer notability" "He met with the President of Israel" "Notable outside of Wikimedian involvement"

These arguments, except those I'll note in a moment, I considered "valid" arguments. I also took count of the number of "invalid" arguments, these being comments that were simply "per XYZ" without adding additional information; additionally, some of the main arguments I listed above I consider to be invalid. "Tinderbox for BLP problems", for example, is not a reason to delete. Flagged revision is reputedly on its way, and in the meantime and even after that, protection can be used to stop any defamatory content from being added. What may happen is not a reason to delete. Similarly, simply stating "He met with Shimon Peres" is also invalid; that was a one-off thing and notability is not inherited nor passed off via handshake and photo shoot. That example isn't as strong, because many of these comments went on to discuss how it was well covered in sources, which is a valid argument. I also took note of "marginal" comments, which made up the grey area between valid and invalid; a "per XYZ" comment that added a small amount of personal opinion, for example, might fit here. Comments that stated simply "Delete, not notable" or "Keep, clearly notable" without providing any explanation why were marked as invalid or marginal depending on whether the user had commented previously or some other small points were made.

All this considered, my actual vote tally went as follows:

• For deletion: 29 valid arguments (at least 2 of which made particularly strong points), 11 marginal, 9 invalid, and there was one argument (and the subsequent per x) that was just so off the wall I didn't know where to put it
• For keeping: 46 valid arguments (at least one of which made particularly strong points), 8 marginal, 4 invalid

Counted this way, the keep arguments make up over 60% of all those considered valid, a clear majority in a situation where you have over 100 people commenting. The strong deletion arguments I reference here include the one first made by User:Kevin: " states " he's relatively unknown outside the Wiki community", so even they don't feel he is particularly notable." This, I felt, was a firm counter to the fact that the CJR coverage was very substantial; a reference claiming that someone isn't notable is unusual, however can be just as important as one supporting notability. However, User:Becksguy's analysis of the sources provided did a through job of demonstrating that there was additional substantial coverage elsewhere, and did appear to be a strong deciding factor in other comments. User:Bigtimepeace's deletion argument was also taken into account, being substantially separate from most of the rest of the discussion, and focusing more on the other aspects of keeping the article. However, as I note above, there are administrative measures that can be implemented to protect against defamation, and these points were similarly made in the discussion as well. Throughout the entire discussion, there were good counters to all arguments made, however deletion debates are based primarily on strength of argument, and in reviewing this debate it seemed clear to me that those in favor of keeping the article were making the better cases.

All of this taken into account, I feel as though there is a strong consensus here that, based on policy-related arguments including notability, neutrality, and verifiability, there is no reason to delete this article at this time, and should be kept and continually monitored for BLP violations and problems with citation. Therefore, I am closing this discussion as consensus to keep, and requesting that anyone who wishes to contest this please speak with me before going to DRV. Thank you. Hersfold 16:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I liked the first closure better. Funny how so little changed in those few hours and it was such a different result. Chillum 00:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Especially considering how the previous admin gave a wonderfully detailed and well-thought explanation of his decision, that was praised on his talk page even by several editors disagreeing with the outcome; while the current one only gave handwaving that completely disregarded the previous analysis (which by the way shows that consensus was heavily towards keep, with plenty of good arguments on both sides). I hope this goes to DRV as soon as possible, the current closure makes really little sense in light of Hersfold analysis. --Cyclopia 02:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Default is delete?

What is the source for the deletion rationale: "In cases of BLPs of marginal notability we often default to delete when consensus is unclear"? According to Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons:

• "Misplaced Pages also contains biographies of people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known."
• "Page deletion is normally a last resort." The guideline recommends taking extra care for accuracy, support for content by reliable sources, and compliance with other content guidelines. Objectively, Shankbone satisfies Misplaced Pages's relatively low standard of notability. —Finell (Talk) 01:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

• • I think this result is an abuse of a Misplaced Pages administrator's power to close deletion discussions (AFDs). I disagree that David Shankbone is of "marginal notability," so this loophole that Jake Wartenberg has found does not apply in my opinion. It is unreasonable to claim someone is of "marginal notability" when there were clearly hundreds of people involved in that last AFD. How often does that occur? DGG clearly stated that Shankbone was not a case of borderline notability and was actually clearly notable following the publishing of the CJR article. Labeling Mr. Shankbone of "marginal notability" is the opinion of one person, not a community. This AFD was even closed several hours ago as Keep. Now it has been closed as No Consensus with a loophole thrown in that makes it a Delete. The Keep closure was undone, and the Delete closure can also be undone. There is clearly No Consensus to delete. In other words, the community has not agreed to move forward in a new direction, so the status quo shall remain. That's what I think. Varks Spira (talk) 01:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If you think this was an incorrect closure, the place to go is WP:DRV. LadyofShalott 01:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Everything about this is LOL. JBsupreme (talk) 01:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

To Finell and anyone else, the source for the rationale can be found here in the deletion policy where it is noted, "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, especially if the subject has requested deletion, where there is no rough consensus may be closed as delete . One could have closed as "no consensus" and defaulted to keep, but current policy expressly allows a close of these kind of AfDs as "no consensus, default to delete." --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Except there was no current BLP issue, only theoretical ones, and the subject of the article did not indicate a desire for it to be deleted when asked. Seems to be a bit of a stretch to me. Chillum 01:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

My read of that policy is that no consensus debates about BLPs can be closed as delete regardless of whether the subject has requested deletion, so long as the subject is relatively unknown as is the case in this AfD. Kevin (talk) 01:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, and this is really interesting, this by Jake edit recently changed it from "where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus may be closed as delete" to "especially if the subject has requested deletion, where there is no rough consensus may be closed as delete". Make what you will of that. Chillum 01:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have changed it back and asked Jake to seek consensus for this change as I think it is an important condition for a default to delete. Chillum 01:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I wasn't planning on closing this when I made that change. My intent in making that edit was to modify the policy to better describe the intent behind it. — Jake Wartenberg 01:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I primarily brought it up because the section of policy quoted was only a couple of hours young and the distinction seemed so crucial to the issue at hand. I don't think you had any sort of nefarious plan behind it. Chillum 01:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Changing the policy page during a controversial AfD, claiming that the edit was a "rephrase" when it was clearly a change of substance (meaning) to broaden the grounds for no-consensus deletion, made with no pretense of consensus, looks like gaming the system to me. —Finell (Talk) 01:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Finell I can see where you are coming from, but surely assuming good faith is still within the realm of reason? Perhaps this was just a lapse in memory? Chillum 01:57, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you read Jake's post, he clearly says he "wasn't planning on closing this when made that change." In any case, policy is descriptive of community practice, and the community has certainly been more and more moving to the idea of no consensus default to delete for BLPs. NW (Talk) 02:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Sure, assume good faith, but it nevertheless was a change in the policy as stated. The change was properly reverted and I certainly hope that it will not be reverted back. Further, the change was inconsistent with the provisions of WP:BLP quoted in my original post. The delete of the article (which I had nothing to do with) is inconsistent with policy. —Finell (Talk) 02:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Jake behaved properly. The community feels that we need to be stricter about sourcing in biographies than in other articles. It naturally follows that biographies may be deleted more easily than other articles, especially when sourcing is questionable. Jehochman 02:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The community didn't feel at all that. Look at the previous admin analysis of the AfD. The keeps were clearly in the majority. We can argue as much as possible that AfD is not voting, but the community feeling was clearly for keeping. --Cyclopia 02:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

While I'm sure there was no nefarious intent, it's definitely problematic that the language at the deletion policy page was very recently changed to give a slightly more capacious take on an admin's ability to delete a marginal BLP than was previously there, by the closing admin no less. Personally I strongly support the language offered by Jake Wartenberg and think the community consensus is more in line with that wording, but it should not have been changed in the midst of an AfD where the policy in question was extremely relevant, and having made that change (and then implicitly invoked the policy when closing the AfD) Jake should not have been the one to make the close (I say this as someone who supported deletion). I don't think another DRV is a good idea though, as this AfD could have legitimately been closed several different ways and further discussion about it probably is not going to do us any favors. I do believe the change Jake made to the deletion policy will win consensus in the end (when I looked at it, knowing we said something about deleting marginal BLPs, I assumed it had already been there for awhile), but this could have been handled much better. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)