Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:09, 27 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)

We don't count votes. Viridae 03:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That obviously isn't what he was arguing, anymore than it was what User:Hersfold was arguing in his closing rationale. One can say that "the keeps were clearly in the majority" and "the community feeling was clearly for keeping" without counting !votes. user:J aka justen (talk) 03:11, 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)

While I'm almost relieved the article shows up as a redlink at this point, I agree that two questioned closes for one discussion, in one day, is at least one too many. If we were going entirely for an "above the book" close, whatever the outcome (and I do not believe this outcome reflected the consensus at the article, even with the additional few hours), then it would have probably been best for an administrator who had not recently modified the relevant policy to have handled the closing. On a much less important note, it might also have been helpful for a completely uninvolved administrator to have handled the close, rather than an administrator who had prejudged the conclusion (while simultaneously arguing those last few hours were important). user:J aka justen (talk) 02:43, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

How ridiculously corrupt. Oh, Jake was so out of it and just happened to have voted to overturn the previous Keep result and to have modified language that allowed him to show up a few hours later and put in a Delete result based on no consensus. This guy played us all. I'm opening a DRV in the near future if no one else does. Varks Spira (talk) 03:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Jake Wartenberg needs to be removed from this issue: Look at his edit on the DRV at 18:10 and then his very next edit on a highly relevant policy/guideline page at 18:44. These two edits were one after the other. His edits are corrupt. It's astonishing. Varks Spira (talk) 03:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Note for those who aren't aware: Jake Wartenberg is a Misplaced Pages administrator who knows how to work around the system. It is amazing that he just happens to know about this loophole regarding AFDs and that he actually goes ahead between a DRV and an AFD and modifies the loophole to further support his intended purpose of playing us all. I seriously think that Jake Wartenberg should have his administrator powers removed for this. Varks Spira (talk) 03:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Jake is in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall, using the default process. Either submit that or drop the matter; there is no reason for you to post several times in a row trying to stir up drama. NW (Talk) 03:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I will be doing both, opening a request to recall his adminship and opening a DRV on the David Shankbone article. But I find these things take time to read up on so please give me a day or two to complete these requests. Varks Spira (talk) 03:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That's really rather extreme, wouldn't you say? Give Jake a chance to respond and the dust time to settle before threatening recall, please; we elect admins to use their discretion, and if they're wrong, they can be overturned. One questionable action does not necessitate desysopping people. –Juliancolton |  03:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've left the following on Jake's talk page. "Jake, would you please undo your closure (and your undoing of the previous closure)? You are clearly involved. You voted at the DRV to overturn at 18:10 Oct 25. At 18:44, you tried to change the relevant part of the deletion policy. At 00:40 Oct 26, you overturned the admin's decision to keep. That's clearly not acceptable. The policy and best practice is default to keep on borderline notables, unless the subject has requested deletion. And, regardless of that, involved admins, or admins with strong feelings in either direction, shouldn't be closing these debates." SlimVirgin 03:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It's important to point out that Jake was not the one to undo the previous closure. That "undo" was then undone (undid?) by another admin, and after a DRV started the original closing admin (Hersfold) voluntarily re-opened the AfD. So Jake had nothing to do with that. You seem to be suggesting we revert to the original close, but that's not really an option since the DRV led directly to this being re-opened, i.e. Hersfold's original close was also felt to be out of process since it happened too early. If Jake "undid" his current close the AfD would be de-facto open again and another uninvolved admin could step in and close it again (no doubt in yet another different way!). Probably your better option is to just take this to DRV, though that sucks too. Two consecutive closes that are contested by others = not a good situation, anyway you slice it. I'd say it's better to just let sleeping dogs lie, but I don't think that will happen.

Also I would note that the idea that "policy and best practice is default to keep on borderline notables" relates precisely to the point about which people are disagreeing, so simply asserting that is not necessarily convincing. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the various shenanigans, Jake was the admin who deleted the article, after voting in the DRV, and after trying to change the policy without discussion. It's in no one's interests (even if you agree with him about this particular issue) that this kind of out-of-process admin action be allowed to stand.

Big, can you give me examples of other BLPs that were closed delete even though there was no consensus to delete, and where the subject had not requested deletion? If this is now common practice, as Jake says, there should be lots of examples around. SlimVirgin 04:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Bigtime, aren't you embarassed that the very point of policy we were discussing at the AfD was made the subject of a policy edit by the same editor who then closed the AfD? You seem trustworthy. JakeWartenburg, the closing admin, simply does not. The closing looks like a fraud perpetrated on dozens of well-meaning editors. This kind of process needs to be seen as fair. It obviously doesn't seem fair at all. In fact, it looks like a farce. I'm not exaggerating or stirring up drama. It was stirred by Jake. JohnWBarber (talk) 04:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) I also left a request on Jake's talk echoing Slim Virgin, also using his involvement as a reason. I'm waiting to see what happens first before going on to DRV. Lets please hold off on talk about recall, blocking, and so forth. Give the system a chance to work. BTW as a side issue, the page flow gets totally bollixed up, and hard to read and follow, with more than a very few indents. Please lets keep it reasonable. Pretty please? — Becksguy (talk) 04:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I concur with User:SlimVirgin entirely, and I sincerely hope that User:Jake Wartenberg will objectively consider her recommendations, and I believe it would be appropriate to await his response before any further steps are considered in this "process." user:J aka justen (talk) 04:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

First to John, yes, I think Jake's close and the policy edit were very problematic, as I already said here (I was among the first to say this). I was quite surprised to learn the policy page had only been recently changed as I remembered something like that sentence being there and just assumed it had been around for quite awhile (I also thought there was relative community consensus that marginally notable BLPs can "default to delete" if there is no consensus, and right now on the deletion policy page we're discussing that issue). Technically I think there is a strong argument to reverse the close at a DRV, it's just that I have no idea what happens after that. Given the contentious nature of the debate, the too early (but otherwise legitimate, if to my mind somewhat flawed) close by Hersfold, and then the problematic close by Jake Wartenberg, we are now in a rather FUBAR situation. If we reverse Jake's close and let a third admin have a crack at it we're going pretty far into silly season and complete wiki-ridiculousosity (it's a techie term), but it's quite legitimate for people to want that to happen. Bottom line is this was poorly handled, but I don't think it's a matter of anyone being untrustworthy, rather just making poor decisions (AGF and all that). Probably an admin taking Jake's approach should have closed this as no consensus, reluctant default to keep, with a note explaining that this is where policy leads us, but with a strong enjoinder to discuss codifying a "sometimes we delete 'no consensus' marginal BLPs" policy, since this debate has clearly demonstrated (again) that a huge percentage of the community thinks we need to be doing that.

And to Slim, I personally never argued that it was "common practice" for people to close BLP AfDs as "no consensus, default to delete" and I don't know of any examples of that, though it may have happened (or not). You'd have to ask Jake if he had something in mind, but honestly I think he was simply mistaken, which frankly is not completely unsurprising to me, in part because I can say I myself had the vague feeling we had done this kind of thing before but had not actually put it into policy.

I think the best thing to do now (knowing that some will undoubtedly file a DRV but leaving that to the side) is to head over here, where we hopefully can come to consensus (if that's how folks feel) about giving more latitude for deleting non-notable BLPs when consensus is fuzzy. The Shankbone article is actually a rather trivial matter compared to that discussion, and if Jake's close is reversed and the article is ultimately kept but we strengthen policy with respect to borderline BLPs than this will have been well worth it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Bigtimepeace's description of the situation as FUBAR is nigh-well perfect. My opinion is that the administrator class at Misplaced Pages and the project in general would be best served if Jake reverted his closure at this time. The overall condition of AfD points out the odd nature of things here, where the administrator class exists as something difficult to describe, possibly a version of an oligarchy with aspects of the distinguishing term hegemony serving to illustrate the condition. Pardon the use of American terminology, but we at Misplaced Pages have in administrators trusted elected policy enforcers, akin to an Executive Branch, who also strongly influence the policy of editorial consensus in a way slightly akin to Senators, but that can also leap to the fore as Special masters or Judges to close discussions. Among this the non-administrator class are a much larger body who primarily travail in real life under Democracies (if not in their real life employment situations!). So the group as a whole lives under a long-time presumption of relative fairness and rights through representation in government that can be suddenly and severely jarred by unilateral actions here within the realm of Misplaced Pages. It would be best for Jake to lessen the jolt caused by the FUBAR complications of this twice closed AfD over a BLP of another member of the editorial group by reverting his closure and allowing another administrator to close, be it delete or keep. Sswonk (talk) 06:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Requested deletion?

Sorry, but AFAIK, David has not requested deletion. So I find the discussion of policy that is predicated on that assumption very misguided. The discussion seems like a "no consensus", or maybe a "weak keep", and I think the close as delete is a serious misreading of both policy and the discussion. I applaud Hersfold's carefully argued analysis. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

He was actually asked if he had an opinion on the deletion and declined to give an opinion. So no, he did not request deletion or even support it. Smart move on his part staying out of this fiasco of an AfD. Chillum 15:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Shankbone AfD closing timeline

To make this situation clearer, these are the relevant diffs, as near as I can figure out:

• 21:19, 24 Oct -- AfD -- Bigtimepeace -- *Delete. I won't quibble with the fact that this subject technically passes the general notability guideline. He does, but not by nearly as much as some are suggesting, and almost no one here is denying that Shankbone's notability is marginal. Were he to ask for deletion, we would almost certainly oblige him, I would also invoke the spirit but not the letter of the summary deletion of BLPs principle from a 2007 ArbCom case. There is a precedent for going somewhat out of process when it comes to BLPs and I think that should be applied here. I only wish he would request deletion for those same reasons, as that would likely make this AfD a foregone conclusion and save us a lot of trouble. I hope the closing admin considers factors beyond notability here, as WP:GNG is not the only community norm relevant to this discussion.
• 23:39, 24 Oct (as amended a few minutes later) -- AfD -- JohnWBarber -- "An admin delete against both the rules and the consensus is an abuse, and it's an insult to all the editors who took some time to come up with careful reasons."
• 00:19, 25 Oct -- AfD -- Scott Mac (Doc) -- "The rules are unenforcable, because they do not upscale to the number of problematic articles. Changing that on wikipedia is not done by legislating, it is done by setting new precedents. Deleting articles like this is exactly the way, and the only way, to change things."
• 01:01, 25 Oct -- AfD -- JohnWBarber -- Grab power contrary to clear policy, in this case deletion policy and guidelines and notability guidelines, and you make a joke out of AfD participation by anyone but the closing admin. Destroying Wikipedians' confidence that participation will be subject to the rules will hurt Misplaced Pages far more than help it. If a consensus of editors wants to do an IAR runaround, then fine -- IAR is a policy too. But you don't create a precedent that's worth anything if it's contrary to consensus. If it somehow became a precedent, it would be a chaotic, dangerous one resulting in admins ignoring these and eventually other rules. Real precedents are created by a consensus of editors that eventually gets put into policy.
• 14:52, 25 Oct -- ANI -- NonvocalScream -- starts a discussion at WP:AN/I with the subject title Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/David Shankbone. The entire post: "Due to close. Warmly,"
• 16:37, 25 Oct -- Hersfold -- closes the AfD as KEEP about six hours too early
• 16:41, 25 Oct -- ANI -- Hersford -- closes the AfD section and marks it "Resolved"
• 17:55 25 Oct -- DRV -- Jennavacia ("Lara") -- opens DRV discussion on Hersfold's closure. Part of Jennavacia's comment: "I fail to see how a strong consensus could be pulled form this discussion, much less in support of keeping"
• 18:04, 25 Oct -- DRV -- Majorly -- "Overturn BLP articles should be given special consideration, and discussion should not be stifled, whether for a few hours or minutes. Early closure was inappropriate. Additionally, it was clearly a no-consensus deal, which with BLPs defaults to delete."
• 18:05, 25 Oct -- DRV -- MZMcBride -- "Overturn: Strongly. In high-profile AFDs, there is a much stronger requirement to follow the letter of the policies. Try holding your breath for seven hours or going into work seven hours early. This wasn't a matter of minutes. It should be re-opened, and I'm frankly appalled that Hersfold didn't simply reverse himself after admitting he was in error."
• 18:09, 25 Oct -- DRV -- Nomoskedasticity -- "Endorse: whatever you make of the timing issue, there is no way to get to a different outcome here, as there was nothing close to a consensus to delete. And why do people keep saying that no consensus defaults to delete? It's not true, no matter how much some people wish it were true." (this was the comment immediately before Jake Wartenburg's, just below)
• 18:10 25 Oct -- DRV -- Jake Wartenburg -- "Overturn There is no way this was a valid "keep". More than a few valid votes were discounted that should not have been, and the fact that it was so early does not help - I'd support overturning just based on that."
• 18:44, 25 Oct -- DEL -- Jake Wartenberg -- in an edit to the Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy#Deletion discussion page and section, made without discussion and with the edit summary "rephrase", the language of the policy is changed in this way (Jake removed the parts I crossed out here and added the part I put in italics:

Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where especially if the subject has requested deletion and there where is no rough consensus may be closed as delete."

Note that the change to the exact part of policy I was referring to in the AfD and changed policy to reflect Majorly's 18:04 comment in the DRV. We can assume Jake Wartenberg was following both discussions closely.

• 18:58, 25 Oct -- AfD -- Hersfold -- reverses his closure (after MzMcBride first reversed it and Chillum then reversed McBride, telling him to take it to DRV) and reopens the AfD
• 22:44, 25 Oct -- AfD -- Bigtimepeace -- Trying to force things through without consensus almost never goes over well and should generally be avoided whenever possible. I'm not sure it's operative here though. I would argue that this debate could reasonably be closed as keep, no consensus defaulting to keep, or no consensus defaulting to delete. The former two are defensible if we think primarily in terms of notability and if we close "no consensus" AfDs in the traditional manner. However this section of the deletion policy specifically notes that "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." While Shankbone has obviously not asked for deletion, admins still have some latitude (and this is re-enforced by a couple of different ArbCom decisions) to close a BLP like this one as "delete". Would that be bold and controversial? Yes, of course. But I don't think it would clearly be contrary to policy, and it would be very much in the spirit of a steadily increasing consensus that we need to get a better hold on the marginal BLPs and make it easier to delete them—i.e. it would set a precedent that a lot of people believe needs to be set, and would not defile existing policy while doing so. I think this debate is, objectively, "no consensus," but the nature of the article and the debate here means that both defaulting to keep and defaulting to delete are legitimate outcomes. It's a difficult call."
• 00:40, 26 Oct --AfD -- Jake Wartenberg -- closes AfD as delete with this statement (later amended; boldface in original): "The result was delete. In cases of BLPs of marginal notability we default to delete when consensus is unclear. Further, some of the keep votes used weak arguments, and after weighing them together the delete votes were stronger. A lot of weight was given to those delete arguments that cited issues with uncorrectable bias (example Risker) and BLP concerns."
• 00:43, 26 Oct -- Wartenberg talk page -- RMHED -- Posted section title: ""In cases of BLPs of marginal notability we default to delete when consensus is unclear"" Full text of post: "Mind pointing out that policy to me?"
• 00:44, 26 Oct -- Wartenberg talk page -- Jake Wartenberg -- entire reply to RHMED: "See here. Best,"
• 00:49, 26 Oct -- AfD -- Jake Wartenberg -- amends AfD closing statement to add the word "often" to first line: "In cases of BLPs of marginal notability we often default to delete when consensus is unclear." This was done in response to Bigtimepeace's suggestion on Jake's talk page
• 01:39, 26 Oct -- DEL -- Chillum -- reverts Wartenberg's change in Deletion policy language. Chillum's edit summary: "This rephrase changes the meaning considerably making an important condition optional. Please get consensus on the talk page before changing this, or acting on it further"
• 02:09, 26 Oct -- DEL -- Lar -- reverts Chillum with edit summary: "Undid revision 322053800 ... policy is what we do, not what is written. The pendulum is swinging in this direction. Will take it to talk but this is the correct wording." Lar is then reversed by J, but discussion has been started on the talk page.
• 02:15, 26 Oct -- DEL talk page -- Lar -- creates new section on changing the wording of the policy. His comments include this: "Jake Wartenburg, rightly in my view, made this edit to codify what is becoming accepted practice... that a BLP that has no consensus defaults to delete, or at least that the admin has the option of so closing it. Chillum reverted it here. I've put it back, and am now here on the talk to discuss it. Policy is descriptive, for the most part, it describes what we do, and it sometimes lags practice. This is one of those cases."

-- JohnWBarber (talk) 15:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

DRV opened on the Shankbone AfD

DRV on the Shankbone AfD has been started JohnWBarber (talk) 00:06, 27 October 2009 (UTC)