Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daniel (talk | contribs) at 11:49, 12 May 2007 (+). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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VandalProof moderation

Hello, I'm getting an error when trying to authenticate using VP. Could you make sure that I'm still listed? Thanks! Mikieminnow 19:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, sorry for the delay to now, and any further delays that will follow - I can't install VandalProof on this machine, and I'm not going to have access to any other PC for a couple of days, so I'm getting another moderator (namely Daniel C.) to have a look. He said that "I had some bug reports pop up saying the list was corrupt", so we'll wait and see. Cheers, and sorry again, Daniel Bryant 06:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Daniel C Oh, yeah, I had some bug reports pop up saying the list was corrupt

Daniel C lemme take a peek

Daniel B k, thanks

Daniel C Oh, looks like Prodego already fixed it

Is the problem fixed now? If it isn't, I'll have another look around. Cheers, Daniel Bryant 06:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks good now! Thanks! Mikieminnow 11:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No problems :) Daniel Bryant 06:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Signpost updated for May 7th, 2007.

Weekly Delivery

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Irish republican cabal

I have replied on my talk page. - Kittybrewster (talk) 11:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I still think you're wrong, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Thanks for not readding the template, though. Daniel Bryant 06:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Jon Cook Article

Daniel, Why did you not allow me to finish doing the appropriate offline research to complete the article and reinforce the published notariety of Jon Cook . I Clearly state that It is mostly offline reference material and that I would have limited time to work on this as I was attending a Wedding in the REAL world over the weekend, although I did get an opportunity to pick at it. I believe The delete without allowing further work was uncalled for. --Loganis 15:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion debates run for five days, and are closed as soon as possible after that. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jon Cook debate ran for >8 days. If you wish, I can provide a copy in your userspace (see WP:USERFY) for you to work on. However, it can't go back into the mainspace until it is distinctively better than the version that was deleted (see WP:CSD#G4). Would you like me to 'userfy' it? Daniel Bryant 06:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually that would be just fine, as it would allow me to continue to do the research on it. Is there a way to show you an updated version once completed? --Loganis 16:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Most certainly, you can. The article is now located at User:Loganis/Jon Cook. When you think it's ready, leave a message here and I'll have a look to make sure it doesn't violate WP:CSD#G4, and if it doesn't, I'll move it (and the history, for GFDL purposes) back into the mainspace. Cheers, Daniel Bryant 07:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Briantist

Thanks for your support, and I appreciate your comment on the length. --Steve _(Stephen) 12:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

No problems - the extension was totally appropriate. Daniel Bryant 07:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate your thoughts on his further comments, after your decline. --Steve _(Stephen) 04:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Let him rant :) Daniel Bryant 11:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Simultaneous close

Amusingly it seems we decided to close an AfD at precisely the same time . People will no doubt wonder why it took 2 of use to close such an uncontroversial debate :-) ... 09:56, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Especially when that debate has been going for 8+ days...why it seems that the good old 'propose a redirect on the talk page' method has been lost to AfD recently is a prominent reason why WP:AFD/OLD is getting bigger and bigger. Well, it's good to see I know at least that decision is correct :) Cheers, and thanks for the note, and all your hard work around Misplaced Pages, Daniel Bryant 09:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

IBM 1130/snoopy calendar

Greetings. I found mentions in Datamation and The New Hacker's Dictionary, both dead-tree published, and then you deleted the article as OR. Can you explain why these were inappropriate so that I can know better in the future? --Kizor 10:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you say what exactly did Datamation and The New Hacker's Dictionary say about the snoopy calendar? Did they just mention it in passing or did they elaborate?--Hq3473 00:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Daily India

Thanks for taking some recent criticism on board. That was a model close. Hornplease 13:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the support - a couple of recent incidents have taught me to explain my closes when I close it, to avoid a DRV listing wherever possible. Cheers, and thanks again, Daniel Bryant 00:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Fuller explanation please

I was shocked by your justification for closing Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Daily India as delete.

I would like a fuller explanation.

You wrote: "That's an argument for WT:N, and at the moment, notability stands sufficiently in the community as a reason to delete an article."

This is news to me. Your source for this assertion please?

I want to argue that notability should be deprecated. My experience of the use of notability as a criteria for deletion is that it is far, far too subjective a yardstick to be useful.

In my experience "not notable":

• often translates as, "If this is a topic I don't already know about then I don't consider it notable."
• is often used as an excuse for suppressing coverage of topics that people don't want covered, because it offends their personal opinion. I see notablility applied, a lot, to material that, in their interpretation, shows the USA in a bad light. When those patriots can't find any real policies, the material is in breach of, .like WP:NPOV, WP:NOR or WP:VER they fall back on asserting the material is "not notable".

When I went to respond to the {{afd}} it looked like a keep was in the bag. If I had realized that the closing admin would make an unpredictable result I would have made a much greater effort on the article's behalf. Frankly, I resent you making such an unpredictable stand.

About a year ago I saw an entry in an {{afd}} discussion that said (paraphrasing from memory):

"I was going to close this deletion discussion. But as I read the comment for and against deletion, I found that I felt so strongly that I am going to weigh in with my own comment for keep, and I will let another administrator close the discussion."

This principled administrator then offered some good, new arguments for preparation.

Was your unexpected decision the result of you feeling strong feelings yourself about the article? If so, do you think you could usefully have followed the principled administrator's example.

Have you and I ever participated in any other discussions at the same time? Your name looks familiar, but I can't place you. PLease help me out if you remmeber an earlier interaction.

I know some administrators don't react well when ordinary wikipedians ask for fuller explanations of their rulings. I hope you are not of one of those administrators.

Cheers! Geo Swan 10:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I've got to run in about 5mins, and I want to do your query the justice it deserves by giving a full and proper response, so you'll have to excuse the delay in responding until tomorrow morning (ACST). I will answer the question regarding 'strong feelings': no, I do not have any sort of feelings about the Daily Times article, and I will not close a discussion I feel even remotely-strongly about. Until tomorrow, then, and sorry again for the delay, Daniel Bryant 10:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, time for a reply.

My assertion for notability being in sufficient standards within the community as a reason to delete an article is WP:N#Deletion, and the fact that this is a guideline on Misplaced Pages. Whenever closing a debate, I generally apply the primary notability criterion where it is applicable, which is "a topic is notable if it has been the subject of coverage that is independent of the topic, reliable, and attributable".

I empathise with you that notability (or lack thereof) is sometimes misapplied. However, I wish to put forward to you that, in this case, it was not. Principally, the notability criterion which is primary (see above) is merely WP:V, a core policy which this encyclopedia is built around (and is non-negotiable). In the Daily Times article that I deleted, the one external link that existed was to "Daily India (official site)". This is the defintion of a "source" which doesn't meet WP:V or the primary notability criterion.

The reason I closed it as I did was that the article asserted absolutely no notability that was properly sourced. The statement "Founded in 2004, it claims 150,000 visitors per month" was attributed to the Daily India homepage link mentioned above, and the second and only other sentence in the article — The paper is notable because it provides extensive coverage of the conditions of the Guantanamo captives — was not sourced, and hence I must apply the arguments brought in the AfD that, when you consider what is sourced to what isn't, this article does not assert any notability whatsoever (in having no sourced content), and violates the foundation principles.

I replied to the involvement bit above, and I don't feel it needs further expansion. I do appreciate the source of your concern, though, although all I can do is offer my word as a gentleman that my above statement is true completely. Regarding my name and previous interaction, I'm not aware of any between us two specifically, although you seem like an intelligent and motivated kind of person that I'd want to come across on Misplaced Pages :) And in regard to responding to requests for further information about an AfD close, I realised how much worse a situation becomes when you don't explain an AfD close properly and fully due to a couple of past incidents, so I've learnt my lesson.

In summary, I closed this article as delete because the 'delete' arguments were fully correct when applied to the current state of the article, which had no statements which were unsourced. I appreciate your concern that notability is abused a lot, and this is especially when sub-guidelines (like WP:MUSIC etc.) are abused by interpretation to the letter, not the spirit, although I argue that in this situation the primary notability criterion, which is basically WP:V, was the one applied. I actually will rarely close an article where the sole reasoning is "doesn't meet the arbitary list of requirements listed at ", because doing so is often not applying common sense to the situation.

What'd I'd encourage you to do is recreate the article, witha number of notability-expressing statements that are sourced. Doing so will not result in the article being WP:CSD#G4ed, as it will address the reason for the unsourced article that existed previously being deleted. If you do this, and encounter any trouble, I will help you out because such a deletion would be unjustified (provided there is sources for the assertion).

I invite you to reply to this in any extent you wish, and encourage you to recreate the article regardless, as suggested above. Unfortunately, due to a real-life backlog in work, I may not be able to reply at any great length for another 48 hours. Thanks again for your patience. Daniel Bryant 11:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Mediation

Hey Daniel! How long does it usually take for the arbitration committee to reach a verdict? I have noticed that nothing has happened at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Sri Lankan Civil War for a long time. Thanks, Krankman 17:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be the Mediation Committee, and (as noted at WP:M and Mediation), the purpose of mediation is not reach a 'verdict' of any kind, but rather a comprimise between the parties. Hopefully a mediator will be along soon to take the case and begin — I would do it, but I'm currently extremely busy and sporadically-active, which isn't conducive for running a mediation. Sorry, good luck, and cheers, Daniel Bryant 11:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Qian Zhijun

First of all, my apologies in advance for what I suspect is going to be a long post. Had I not been occupied at work over the last few days I might have posted most of this at the AfD instead, but the closure has prevented me doing so. Basically, and as I'm sure is already clear, I disagree with your closure decision. However, reading WP:DRV it's recommended that a discussion with the closing admin take place before kick-starting any formal review, so here I am.

I'll deal with the simplest points first. I hope I won't get an objection to dismissing the original nomination's reasons, as the subject clearly passed both WP:BIO and WP:NOTE with flying colours, at least after User:Matt Crypto and myself tidied it up. User:Coolgamer gave no reasons, only a vote, and User:Bahamut0013 basically concurred with User:Newyorkbrad, so NYB's arguments are the only ones I have to tackle?

• "Either delete or redirect to List of Internet phenomena with omission of the subject's name, per BLP-related concern that giving massive Misplaced Pages-based publicity to this sort of "Internet phenomenon" has the potential to damage people's lives for little encyclopedic purpose. See generally, Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Doc glasgow#Outside view by Newyorkbrad."

My only comment on this is that he linked not to a policy or guideline, but to a self-authored essay on someone's RfC. I don't think this should carry any particular weight in an AfD, but I'll let that go.

• "Imagine you're a random teenager..." <remainder of paragraphs truncated>

I have a couple of problems with this. First of all, the scenario NYB paints isn't discussing Qian Zhijun, the subject of the article. It's discussing some entirely hypothetical teenager whose life of humiliation and suffering is clearly at odds with the realities of Zhijun's life as reflected in the various cited sources. NYB has no demonstration that his doomsaying will ever come to pass, and I'm sorry, but claiming that we're protecting a guy's privacy isn't going to work when Reuters has an video interview showing him making a personal appearance at what appears to be like a "look-a-like" contest where he and other participants pull the "Little Fatty" sideways expression.

NYB also argues of a future where Qian Zhijun can't get a job, scholarship or blind date because of his ongoing notoriety. But we can equally argue that in the future NYB envisages, where all the YouTubes and image hosts have disappeared but Misplaced Pages remains (although the fact that he'll continue to exist in the archives of the multiple news organizations which covered him is passed over), poor Qian Zhijun can't get a a job/scholarship/girlfriend because although he claims he was Little Fatty, everyone thinks he's a liar because Misplaced Pages has nothing to verify what he's saying. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- none of us are clairvoyant, and to delete an entire article on the basis of a hypothesis not remotely grounded in current reality seems a bit cavalier to me.

I also happen to dislike strongly NYB's comment that "people need to hesitate before responding 'enough Google hits, keep'", when the only mention of Google in the whole discussion was by NYB himself. However, it seemed typical of the AfD; full of straw man arguments against things that didn't exist or weren't happening. However, since they were his comments and not yours I'm not expecting any explanation or defence of them.

I also found it slightly disturbing to see an entire article wiped on the basis of citing WP:BLP when there was never a demonstration of any actual problematic content. As mentioned in the AfD, I specifically did not include his exact birthdate although it's available on his official webpage, and I agreed with the fact that despite WP:COMMONNAME recommendations, "Little Fatty" was a redirect and not a target page. The BLP recommends remov unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material in the first instance. The entire article deserved that? There wasn't a single sentence which could be salvaged? Even the section on WP:BLP#Private figures doesn't recommend any more than paring an article back to the bare minimum, and I'd argue that Zhijun's participation in news interviews, the littlefatty.cn website and so forth undermines any claim that he even wants the privacy we're thrusting upon him. Whether WP:NOTE should bluntly state that internet personalities are inherently unencyclopedic is open to discussion, but quite clearly right now that's not the case. And it's quite depressing to see this be deleted when AfDs like this have set the standard for internet phenomena inclusion so low.

My final arguments are a little more prosaic. First, as I'm sure we're all aware, Misplaced Pages is not likely to be a reliably available source for those near to Qian Zhijun who are seeking information on him (even if they could read English), unless he plans to move abroad. WP is the least of his worries, and NYB's hypotheses stumble in the face of these obstacles, in my opinion. Also -- and I think this is the most unfortunate consequence of all -- anyone Googling his name will still be led here. But instead of a short but fairly decent article on the guy, they're going to find a curt one sentence bullet point on List of Internet phenomena which says "Little Fatty — A Chinese high school student named Qian Zhijun had his face superimposed onto various other images and created an Internet fad." What a miserable epitaph by comparison. I can't speak for him, but if it was me, I'd prefer the article to that. That seems not to be "conform to the spirit of Misplaced Pages and its' policies", but flying in the face of them; delete the backstory and most of the cited information which seemed to add a bit of humanity to it all, and leave only the basic info which is the root of his "embarrassment" (at least in NYB's eyes)? I don't get how that serves any purpose at all.

Again, my apologies for going on at such length. Regards, --DeLarge 21:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I try not to view Misplaced Pages issues in black-and-white terms, and while I think the article was properly deleted in its current form, DeLarge makes some points warranting consideration and discussion, which didn't happen because of his time constraints. It would probably be more convenient if the consideration and discussion took place at AfD rather than DRV, so I'd have no objection to reopening and relisting the AfD. Newyorkbrad 21:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

If you had posted that argument at the AfD, it would have gone a long way to placing doubt in my mind that Newyorkbrad's argument for deletion was the best, to the extent that I would have closed it as 'no consensus'. However, that is of course excluding the fact that Newyorkbrad would have replied, and then I'd have to re-re-evaluate. I agree with Brad's suggestion that this argument would be conducive to AfD more than DRV as it focuses on content, not process (DRV is designed for process only, in most situations). As such, in light of this new information and the fact that time restraints on the close may have resulted in a potentially-wrong decision, I have undeleted the article, re-opened the AfD, relisted it for another five days, and added a link to this discussion. I'd encourage both of you to continue arguing the merits of the above at the AfD, because you both make logical arguments which would be best-suited to there, not here.

DeLarge, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I hope you appreciate that I closed this debate in good faith, and I acknowledge that your argument deserves to be discussed further before a definitive 'delete' result should be taken. I hope the steps I have taken, noted above, are sufficient. If they aren't, or need to be amended, please drop me a note and I'll be sure to listen.

Brad, thanks for the suggestion here — when this was first posted, I thought exactly what you did, although I tend to dislike overturning one of my own closes as a general rule. However, I slept on it, and I figured that it would be the best option to do so give the substantial new information, and your comment when I logged on today made me 100% sure :) Just as a note, I certainly won't be closing this debate after the further howevermany-day period it runs for, as I've had prior involvement. Cheers, and thanks for the message, Daniel Bryant 11:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)