Misplaced Pages

Paradise Valley Mall (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

The article Paradise Valley Mall needs to be reinstated on the same grounds as the below request concerning Metrocenter Mall. I disagree that any of the articles on the Phoenix Westcor malls qualify as spam, regardless of whether or not they were originally created or intended as category lists or spam or marketing. I made substantial edits to the article Paradise Valley Mall over the last six months, using period magazine articles as supporting materials, which in my opinion make it much more encyclopedic in tone than the original and therefore appropriate for Misplaced Pages.

I feel that the individual articles on ANY and ALL shopping malls merit enough cultural and economic significance in the USA and (arguably internationally) to be totally and completely appropriate for Misplaced Pages, regardless of whether or not they were created as part of a directory. These articles serve the exact same purpose as (completely acceptable and included) articles on major skyscrapers, sports teams, colleges, universities, companies, etc. Are we to assume that these topics are taboo on Misplaced Pages as well? I respectfully continue to disagree with deletion of ANY shopping mall articles and will repost specific ones I have edited (as I have time), or otherwise take an interest in, and escalate complaints to senior personnel if they continue to disappear. My intent is to provide articles of general interest and relevance, and the articles you deleted more than fit that bill. I'm sorry to be a pain, but in my opinion this is too important of a topic to accept any decision to speedily delete.

What is the criteria/standard for articles on shopping centers? Are any such articles considered appropriate at all on Misplaced Pages? It would be unfortunate if not. I have come to understand that the whole subject itself has been a serious point of contention among Wikipedians. A clarification of criteria I believe would serve as valuable guidance.--Msr69er 00:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

On the talk page for Westcor I posted a comment about this dispute, some of which reads:

It is generally known, by laypeople and scholars alike, that shopping centers are places of strong social, cultural and economic significance, especially in the USA. In the case of the Westcor properties, these malls are the economic engine that literally provides life or "death" to whole neighborhoods and communities. Neighborhoods in Arizona, as well as much of the Western United States as a whole, thrive or decline based on the health, or lack thereof, of their malls; such a critically important social (and economic) phenomenon alone justifies the relevance - and unbiased inclusion - of such articles on Misplaced Pages. Many "multiple non-trivial published works" are generated on a regular basis through the news media to document historical and timely news developments concerning these malls. All of them can, and have been used in several cases, as reference material for these articles.--Msr69er 04:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

A statement of doctrine. Where is the multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject? A book, for example, on the history of this mall? Even a book on the history of malls in the area with a chapter on this one? Guy (Help!) 10:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of books (other than possibly locally or regionally published works) that would cover these facilities. However, several articles do exist in locally-published newspapers and magazines. There may even be studies from Arizona State University or governmental agencies discussing economic impact and importance of these malls locally. It sounds like Misplaced Pages is moving towards eliminating ALL individual articles on shopping centers as they do not fit notability requirements as stated. If you speedy delete the articles I have questioned, you must do the same to about 75% of the rest. If that is the case there could be hundreds of articles so targeted. You have quite a workload ahead. Is there a place where such announcements are made to all editors? Can editors have the option to relocate such articles to other wikis or other resources on the Internet that may be a more appropriate home?--Msr69er 11:39, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

A lot of things are generally known, and many of them far detached from reality (urban legends for instance). Verifiability is the key --pgk 10:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and list on AfD if notability is being questioned. bbx 10:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, unless a reliable source asserting subject's notability per the corporate notability guidelines can be established. Seraphimblade 11:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion per the policies cited above. Eusebeus 11:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Request. What is the notability claim for this mall? Why (in a sentence or two) should anyone who isn't a local care about it? What is there to say about this specific mall that differentiates it from others of its class? I am only looking to see if there is a colorable claim that should be evaluated on AFD. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn/undelete and pursue other avenues if required. This article has a reasonably long history and was not written in a spammy tone. It was unreferenced, but that's what cleanup is for. JYolkowski // talk 19:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn, per JYolkowski. Titoxd 19:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion. Whenever someone attempts to create a new article, there is a clear notice at the "Create new article" page that says, Articles that do not cite reliable published sources will be deleted. I'm in agreement with the concept of giving an article some time to improve, but in the case of an article about a commercial entity, that makes no claim to notability, and provides no reliable sources, a speedy-delete seems clearly justified. I see nothing improper here. --Elonka 21:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete JzG seems to be an administrator on a rampage. He has deleted multiple such articles, in many cases abusing the WP:CSD process to delete articles without bothering to attempt to have the articles improved or trying to achieve consensus on the subject via the AfD process. As stated as WP:CSD, the speedy delete approach is to be reserved for "cases of patent nonsense or pure vandalism. Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, please consider whether an article could be improved...", a policy that simply does not fit this, or the overwhelming majority of the other articles he has deleted in this manner. As JzG seems to have extremely strong views on the subject that are way out of the consensus reached on this matter, and has consistently demonstrated that he will impose these views, regardless of consensus, it is hard to justify his continuing adminship. As a start this article should be undeleted, and face AfD, only if and AfD is appropriate. The bigger issue is dealing with an admin out of control who has made himself judge, jury and executioner. Alansohn 04:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse (my) deletion. Process was followed. It is most assuredly not the responsibility of Deletion Review to determine broad-ranging policy with regards to whether or not "... individual articles on ANY and ALL shopping malls merit enough cultural and economic significance ... to be totally and completely appropriate for Misplaced Pages". DRV handles queries and issues regarding the correct execution of policy, i.e., whether process was carried out; it is not AFD II. Proto::type 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion. I concur with Proto. From what I've seen, the proper policies and procedures were followed. Ad hominem attacks or assumptions of bad faith against the admin don't help either. Agent 86 22:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn. Not spam, and if it looked spammy, it could be edited. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion. It's a mall. Not notable. --Improv 23:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I disagree with the above endorse deletion. Malls ARE indeed quite notable, at least many of them. Please see my arguments above. To say thay are not, without any explanation or even citing guidelines, reflects bias on the part of an editor and not on the merits of the article or even the mall itself, which IMO is highly unfair. I further disagree that Misplaced Pages should be governed solely by personal bias of individual editors and admins, but rather on the objective criteria available here, as seems to be the good faith intent even of the admin who made the speedy delete. I can agree and accept that many malls are not notable and probably deserve a listing on AfD, but IMO (and especially after reading WP:CSD) a speedy delete is an overreaction. I would 100 percent agree with Alansohn's above interpetation of the intent of WP:CSD and would hope that in the future, articles be thoroughly vetted at the admin level, and carefully measured against all the criteria before a decision is made to delete...with the user notified on his/her talk page of the decision to speedy and given the opportunity to state his/her case here on DRV AND given a chance to rewrite the article and resubmit, even if it is a resubmit to AfD itself (and even if someone different than the original editor makes the changes). I had to hunt around for DRV when a quick note and link on my talk page would have been helpful... After reading CSD, I still feel that a speedy delete of the two articles I listed here was not justified. The articles were:

• neither patent nonsense nor vandalism.
• not blatant advertising, at least in the manner I attempted to edit the articles
• and IMO most definitely notable. According to the "non-criteria" at the bottom of WP:CSD: "Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If the article gives a claim that might be construed as making the subject notable, it should be taken to a wider forum..." I would strongly argue that both of the articles I submitted to DRV made basic assertions to notability which could have been futher supported by inclusion of "reliable secondary sources" of a "non-trivial nature" such as newspaper articles on each mall. In fact, for Paradise Valley Mall I used a locally produced lifestyle magazine as a source (I may not have cited it but that is easy enough to do); the article was produced by the magazine staff and was not an advertisment produced by the mall developer/owner. And again, I maintain that on a basic level, in at least half of the cases, malls ARE notable in and of themselves and their notability in many cases can be proven.

In the long run, a larger debate and consensus on whether articles on individual malls should be allowed at all on Misplaced Pages, as a matter of policy - not just a guideline - IMO needs to happen or else these arguments will continue to arise. Please see my request for clarification of the criteria on WP:CORP as it specifically relates to malls. It seems like I have become an advocate for the inclusion of malls on Misplaced Pages, and I don't think I mind that role one bit. But if they are not allowed, policy needs to be clear about that so editors have no "leg to stand on" to challenge a speedy they disagree with.--Msr69er 21:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete per JYolkowski, bbx, and Alansohn. Silensor 23:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Seriously! (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

This article was speedily deleted despite valid protest. The protest was not sufficiently examined before the page was speedily deleted, and as such, should be restored. The reason for speedy deletion was that the page was non-notable. However, there are numerous other websites with pages on Misplaced Pages that are much smaller than Seriously!. The site has been home to the official message boards for the entire Serious Sam franchise for approximately the last 6 years, and combined with its 14,000+ members and 750,000 posts, this is hardly non-notable. Additionally, it's the biggest website out there for the half-dozen Serious Sam games, and is the first non-"official" website in a Google search for "serious sam" (4th overall, above even Microsoft's Xbox.com listing for Serious Sam). These should be enough reasons to have the page restored and have content editors continue to add content. If there is still need for discussion about deletion, this can be done through a non-speedy process with actual discussion instead of instant deletion.

--SamFan64 21:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• List on AFD. Minor procedural nit, is that WP:CSD G4 does not apply to speedies, so the re-deletion was technically not per policy. A case could be made that the original article did assert importance, so the original A7 speedy is questionable as well. I don't believe it will survive AfD (and I'll argue for its deletion there myself), but it deserves its day in court. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I felt the article was an A7; putting G4 in my edit summary was something that I didn't put much thought into. There's no point in having the community argue over an article they can't see, so I will undelete it so that it can be listed on WP:AFD. _JD 21:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I was unaware of specifics on deletion of articles and all of this until after it was deleted and I read some of the policies. I was planning on adding more and more details one step at a time. If the article is restored I could go ahead and add more details that make the page notable instead of going into mundane details on other topics first, and could also have others familiar with the site (people on the message boards) add notable details as well. --SamFan64 21:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse status quo. Giving it a chance on AfD was a good call. Chris cheese whine 00:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Allow AfD to continue, source citations are an assertion of notability, which prevents speedy under A7. From there it should be left to the community to decide. Seraphimblade 11:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Gaming World (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

I would like to have the deletion of this article reviewed because I believe that the reasons stated on the original AfD are untrue. It was speedily deleted due being about a non-notable website, which I find a bit strange. The submitter said that it isn't notable in its field (which is amateur RPG creation); the site was rather large, however, with over 30,000 members and high-ranking Google results (for example, by far the most popular software for the creation of RPG games is RPG maker; while results for this software are mostly limited to product information, Gaming World is the first actual community site listed for a phrase such as "rpg maker game", which yields 1,730,000 results). The submitter also said that the site cannot easily be found when searching on Google for its name, Gaming World, but this also seems to be untrue; it instead shows up as the first result. I think that this website is easily sufficiently notable in its field to warrant inclusion. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 20:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Alexa rank of 72,010 as of this timestamp. (aeropagitica) 20:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, website doesn't meet the notability guidelines for web content. NeoChaosX (he shoots, he scores!) 21:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Deleted per web guidelines. Eusebeus 11:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'd like to add that while perhaps the site may not be notable (all the while it is quite notable in the field of amateur RPG creation, as Google points out), it does concern me that the AfD was closed with an untruth among its reasons (namely, the fact that searching for the name of the site does not yield that site as result, which is simply false). Is anybody (the closing admin) going to clarify this? function msikma(user:UserPage, talk:TalkPage):Void 21:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse. Again, you mistake "notability" for "some people know about it". WP:WEB actually talks about multiple non-trivial third-party reliable sources. How large a site is and how many members it has is irrelevant. ColourBurst 20:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Metrocenter Mall (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

For the past few months I have been editing pages on shopping centers in the Phoenix, AZ area, where I live, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where I grew up. Today I found that the page "Metrocenter Mall" was deleted by admin JzG citing (WP:CSD G11, spam,) as a reason. I would beg to disagree with his conclusion as 1) Metrocenter is a major shopping center in Phoenix, one of the USA's major cities and 2) using such criteria would arguably (and unfairly) disqualify several dozen articles on shopping malls. Shopping centers are a topic of great social, cultural and economic significance in the USA and worldwide and deserve coverage on Misplaced Pages. Articles on them should not be deleted. This was a legitimate and infornmational article which maybe needed some references and historical notes to improve it. I am asking for the article to be reposted. If not, I will create a new article to replace it, and will make every effort to ensure that it reasonably follows the proper guidelines, and submit an escalated complaint if it is also deleted. The deletion was unjustified in my opinion.--Msr69er 20:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the below suggestions/decisions to overturn the deletion and I will await the repost before undertaking a complete repost of the article on my own. I am a private citizen and am not employed or otherwise associated in any way with the management company in question (they do indeed seem to have a near monopoly on major shopping center management in Arizona); if employees of such company did indeed originally post the articles (I have not checked complete history of any of them) they did so long in advance of my becoming a Wikipedian.--Msr69er 23:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• This is one of a large number of directory entries I deleted, most of which were the work in whole or in part of a single user, who is evidently associated with a property company which operates many of the subject malls. I posted on WP:ANI at the time. WP:ITSAMALL does not trump WP:NOT or WP:N, I think. Guy (Help!) 22:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn this specific one but not necessarily any others, this article has a history going back two years and was written in an encyclopedic fashion. JYolkowski // talk 22:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn (keep) - better written than most of its kind and not a speedy candidate as I see it. Jonathunder 23:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Still a directory entry, though. The primary notability criterion which distinguishes encyclopaedia articles from directory entries is having been the subject of multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. I did not see these in the article. None have yet been cited here. I have no problem with articles on provably notable subjects, as long as the definition of notable is somewhat more objective than "all foo are inherently notable" :-) Guy (Help!) 00:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• After reading the guideline on directory entries, I would assert that the entire classification of shopping centers, if this guideline were to be strictly applied across the board, may indeed be considered inappropriate for Misplaced Pages. I am a relatively new Wikipedian so I'm still learning the rules. There should be a long and hard debate on this as it would theoretically mean the deletion of dozens upon dozens of well wriiten individual articles on individual shopping centers, many of which denote places of strong and significant cultural, social and economic interest - and for such reason I would always argue for inclusion. Again I ask, what would make the shopping center category appropriate at all, if it is not at this time? Let's have a debate among Wikipedians on it, Tell me where to post my opening statement (if there is another forum besides this to have such debates on basic appropriatness of articles and/or whole topics).--Msr69er 01:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• JzG, you (and the official, yet disputed, guidelines on notability) say "the primary notability criterion...is having been the subject of multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject". I disagree with your above-mentioned implication that shopping malls are not notable on their own inherent and individual merit. Have you ever visited Arizona? The Arizona malls have been extensively coverered for decades in the local news media, and are considered a vital (some would probably argue critical) part of the regional economy. Everybody goes to the suburban malls in this area (really throughout the USA, even in areas like metropolitan NYC and SF that still have strong downtown retailing districts). That alone seems to fit the definition of notable as it relates to the economy of Phoenix and the American West. Would the remedy for reinstatement simply be the inclusion of more footnotes?--Msr69er 04:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Please read User:Uncle G/On notability for the reasoning behind this. Misplaced Pages is not a directory (of malls or anything else), or indeed an indiscriminate collection of information. Proof of existence is not sufficient, and arguments along the lines of "all foo are inherently notable" are statements of doctrine, not arguments from policy. Guy (Help!) 10:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• It sounds like Misplaced Pages is moving towards eliminating ALL individual articles on shopping centers as they do not fit notability requirements as stated. If you speedy delete the articles I have questioned, you must do the same to about 75% of the rest. If that is the case there could be hundreds of articles so targeted. You have quite a workload ahead. Is there a place where such announcements are made to all editors? Can editors have the option to relocate such articles to other wikis or other resources on the Internet that may be a more appropriate home?--Msr69er 11:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• First of all, WP:NOT violations are not speedies. The issue here is whether it was spam. Secondly, the article contained text along the lines of "The mall was built in 1973, making it one of the older malls in the Valley. When it opened as the first two-level, five-anchor mall in the U.S. it was considered one of the largest shopping centers in the United States.", a list of its tenants in 1973, the mention that "Metrocenter was featured in the film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, as the San Dimas Mall", and its history over the last three years. In my books this is neither spam nor an A7. JYolkowski // talk 19:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete and list on AfD if notability is being questioned. bbx 10:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion I agree completely with JzG's reasoning. Eusebeus 11:35, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn and list on AfD. A colorable case has been made that this is not a speedy, so I don't see the harm in evaluating the article on its merits. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, no relist. When looking at the article through Special:Undelete, the article was not an advertisement, by any means, so the CSD deletion did not apply. Also, as it has been brought up above, the mall is a part of regional history (and I know that, I live in the area), and was featured as part of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, so it does have at least a stronger sense of notability than many other structures we have kept. Titoxd 19:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• AfD it. It seems there's some contention as to whether the article qualifies as spam or not, so we should let the debate proceed. I quite agree with Guy regarding WP:NOT, but that's not a speedy criterion. I'm also not terribly impressed with "repost it or else I will" threats, but an AfD resulting in deletion would allow for speedying recreations, so that's that taken care of, too. Shimeru 19:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete JzG seems to be an administrator on a rampage. He has deleted multiple such articles, in many cases abusing the WP:CSD process to delete articles without bothering to attempt to have the articles improved or trying to achieve consensus on the subject via the AfD process. As stated as WP:CSD, the speedy delete approach is to be reserved for "cases of patent nonsense or pure vandalism. Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, please consider whether an article could be improved...", a policy that simply does not fit this, or the overwhelming majority of the other articles he has deleted in this manner. His talk page is littered with requests from users to explain his deletions and arrogant responses patronizingly ignoring the requests. As JzG seems to have extremely strong views on the subject that are way out of the consensus reached on this matter, and has consistently demonstrated that he will impose these views, regardless of consensus, it is hard to justify his continuing adminship. As a start this article should be undeleted, and face AfD, only if and AfD is appropriate. The bigger issue is dealing with an admin out of control who has made himself judge, jury and executioner. Alansohn 04:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Send to AFD. This was not a valid speedy; WP:ITSAMALL is not (sadly) a policy. Proto::type 09:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per above, notability is questioned and should go to AFD if necessary. Silensor 23:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

A Bad Dream (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

(Single by Keane) I firstly started this article a months ago before exactly knowing the Music guidelines on this Misplaced Pages. As it was not a single release it was soon redirectered by RasputinAXP, thing I finally accepted. A week ago, I recreated the article though it wasn't an official release yet but a rumour. The Mekon created an AfD process in order to delete the article. Though I firstly strongly opposed finally I accepted his AfD. However, on November 22 the Keane official page gave official details for the single release so now there is an official source and a reason to keep the article here: . I'd only wish a quick consensus to remove protection for the page and create the article as now, as I've told, there is an official source. Fluence 16:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete - premise for deleting the article during the AfD was that it was crystal-balling, which might have been the case back then. However, seeing that an official reliable source has confirmed release date of the single , I think there is now a valid raison d'être for this article to be undeleted. Kimchi.sg 17:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete per Kimchi. As an aside, Fluence largely knows more about Keane stuff than anyone I've encountered, and I'd suggest giving him a little more credit on the Keane stuff in the future. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Undelete, however (badlydrawnjeff), please don't give the user free run to recreate articles as he has been. The article WAS speculation, it WAS poor quality (and recreations still are, IMHO), and the user needs to learn how Misplaced Pages works and what belongs here. He also needs to understand that it isn't a game, and isn't about "winning". Nphase 10:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, AfD was clearly in favor of deletion. Only "source" currently cited is primary-when someone besides the artist's own site has seen fit to comment on this, it can be considered notable and reliably sourced. Seraphimblade 10:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment, in fact, Keanemusic.com was the second source to publish this, a couple of hours after the first one in spite is the artist's official website. Please Seraphimblade check the Music guidelines on the Misplaced Pages where every official single released is notable, of course if it has been officially announced.--Fluence 00:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Undelete, existency has been confirmed. (Sorry to have made another request, I did not see this one, as is wasn't indicated on the talk page.) Jo9100 02:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Professions (World of Warcraft) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

From what I can gather in the delete discussion absolutely no consensus could have been made. Most of the delete votes where challenged, and the people who voted delete gave no explanation as to why it should be deleted, only clamming things that had no substantial merit. As far as I can see, the article doesn't break WP:NOT as claimed, seeing as it does not tell you how to play a game, only what each thing is. Closing admin also seems biased in his decision. Havok (T/C/e/c) 14:34, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment as closer. Havok, assume good faith, please. The views of the majority of contributors were that it failed WP:NOT. Your own vote did not countermand this; it simply made vague insinuations about the nominator having bad faith, and that the article wasn't a game guide. The other keep votes (which were, note, in a significant minority) were "the information does not automatically qualify as game guide material" (no reason given to keep); "too big to go in the main article" (not a decent reason to keep); another one making vague mentions of a conspiracy (" ... seems to me that there is a group of Wikipedians that want almost zero game content on Misplaced Pages .. ") and saying that it's useful so it should stay (not particularly valid); and, um, that's it. There were a lot more deletion arguments, and they were (mostly) sound. Proto::type 14:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Overturn Deletion Deletion arguments such as "It's fancruft" and "It fails WP:NOT"? Those aren't arguments, those are statements. It was Proof by assertion. Also, saying "This is not a game guide" IS a reason to keep. The article was nominated for breaking WP:NOT. If it doesn't break WP:NOT, then there is no reason to delete it! Additionally, nobody but the keepers actually attempted to defend their claims. It seemed to me like most of the deleters basically said "No you're wrong" to any challenges and then promptly forgot about the article. As fun as it is to assume good faith, it's getting REALLY hard lately. -Ryanbomber 15:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Ryan, but if you're characterising the 'delete' arguments as being "It fails WP:NOT", at least this referred to policy. The 'keep' arguments (Which we can similarly reduce to "This is not a game guide!") didn't even manage to find evidence that the article didn't fail WP:NOT. Burden of proof was on the 'keep'ers to prove the article didn't fail WP:NOT, and instead, they settled for flat out insisting it did not, with no evidence to back this. There was evidence provided to back the article failing WP:NOT provided - quotes, and suchlike. As fun as it is to resort to ad hominem insinuations, they're not the best way to ensure an article is kept on AFD. Proto::type 15:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

You're citing proofs or lack thereof in an argument that is completely subjective. Also, you're ignoring the fact that several examples HAVE been given of what the difference between game guides and examples of games are (I recall giving an example of Mario and jumping to be exact.) Also, your burden of proof is on the wrong side. The accusation was made without any real proof other then "it fails it because I said so." We gave examples as to how it's not a game guide, and they completely ignored us, stating "no, it's a game guide." -Ryanbomber 19:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Articles at AfD are assumed to fail all requisite tests in the absence of specific evidence to the contrary. NPOV is the exception - as one can only demonstrate the existence, not the absence, of bias. Chris cheese whine 23:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Providing instructions on how to be the best miner, or crafter, or alchemist would be a game guide. Describing mining, crafting, or alchemy in the game is not a game guide, any more than describing how to move a rook in chess is a game guide. And several of the delete arguments like "100% fanboy cruft" and "excessive coverage of a topic on which we already have a supersufficiency ofarticles" are hardly valid. Frankly, I can't find any deletion arguments I consider genuine, but eliminating the totally invalid ones (such as the fanboy cruft ones), puts the keep and deletes at the same level. Not a significant minority. AfD's are not a vote anyway, but it seems to me that you are giving far too much weight to insubtantial arguments. The fact is, professions are a completely valid part of World of Warcraft, a key and integral component to almost every character. Mister.Manticore 16:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Upon further reading, I can't even assume good faith here. I am quite concerned that the closing admin possesses and anti-Warcraft bias and was unable to evalulate the discussion fairly. See User:Proto/gc for " *Warcraft. Just, all of it. Characters, places, items, everything". Anybody who writes that should not be acting as an admin in any discussion related to World of Warcraft. It's one thing to express an opinion, it's another thing to have such a blatantly negative feeling and then use the tools of authority granted by the computer to spread it. Mister.Manticore 07:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm beginning to agree with the idea that the people making the decision may not have the right approach to take it. And having looked over Proto's page I find some very strange things. The most obvious problem is the following reasoning, so I'll focus on this, but there are other problems there. "Divide the world into precisely two groups: those who own and play Game X, and those who don't: Those who own Game X: already have the game manual which contains all this information. Actual usefulness of article for this group: none. Those who do not own Game X: have no possible use for, need of, or interest in, the information in the article. Actual usefulness of article for this group: none. Total segment of world population that this article is actually useful for: none. The only possible group left would be those who lost their manuals and those who pirated their copies of Game X: the former group is very tiny and the latter group - whatever their size - can find assistance in their piracy elsewhere." Lets try illustrating this with the following example which would apply if we wanted the get rid of the sciencecruft which currently infests wikipedia, I'm going to choose Zonohedron#Zonohedra_from_Minkowski_sums: "Divide the world into precisely two groups: those who need to know about Zonohedra from Minkowski sums, and those who don't: Those who need to know will be able to read papers from other mathematicians giving a much better explanation than wikipedia can (or if it is simple enough to explain on wikipedia it will be in text books and on maths websites). Actual usefulness of article for this group: none. Those who do not need to know about it have no possible use for, need of, or interest in, the information in the article. Actual usefulness of article for this group: none. Total segment of world population that this article is actually useful for: none. The only possible group left would be those who cannot afford textbooks and don't have access to a library (and all universities have libraries and will possibly recommend websites on the subject) - this group is tiny." Perhaps this isn't a very obsure topic, but there are much, much more obsure topics on maths and the sciences on wikipedia. I think they are a good thing, evidently Proto doesn't. (This isn't an attack on Proto, just on this concept.) If this sort of argument is why Proto believes the page should be deleted then perhaps he should step back and think. "Articles must be useful" isn't even a wikipedia policy. Raoul 17:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The argument is a http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html fallacy as well, I think. There could be people who are looking into the game for fun, to waste time, or because they may want to join it. I do it all the time for the most random of topics, and I usually explore all of the sub-articles on said topic. -Ryanbomber 00:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion. Keep proponents didn't even try to explain how this aspect of the game is notable outside the game itself. Even aside from that, the article is unverifiable - information gained by playing a MMORPG is not reasonably repeatable by the average reader in the same way that we can reasonably expect readers to buy a book and open it at page 94, so that doesn't count as verifiability even within the limits of using primary sources to write an article. Comparisons made with articles on games such as chess and football are invalid, because people have written hundreds of articles and books (i.e. secondary sources) dedicated to their rules, gameplay and strategy. WoW has no such corpus of research which we can use to write an encyclopaedia article. --Sam Blanning 18:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The article isn't notable outside the game. It's not claiming to be. It's describing the game in greater detail due to the overflow from the main article. As for verifiability, that can (could have been?) arranged if someone had brought it up at the right time. A bit too late now, unless this gets reversed. We could have cited worldofwarcraft.com, thottbot.com, and (ironically) strategy guides. As for "lack of research," your analogy is just as invalid considering Chess is around two thousand years old and World of Warcraft is around two, not to mention the fact that World of Warcraft is much more linear then Chess. Everybody starts at level 1 and climbs all the way to level 60 in World of Warcraft. The only things all chess games have in common is the starting point and Checkmate (and even then, there's Stalemates...) There's not much to write in terms of topics that require hundreds of pages and several books from different authors to explain. Oh, and even though you say people haven't written many books/articles/what have you on Warcraft, there ARE a few out there, so this discussion is moot anyway. -Ryanbomber 19:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

If you can find these sources and use them I doubt there will be an issue with recreation. JoshuaZ 15:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

But it needs to be notable outside the game for its own article. There is a lot more to finishing a chess game than checkmate or stalemate. Chris cheesewhine 19:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I don't know of any policies that says anything like that. Second of all, the checkmate/stalemate thing is exactly my point - Chess has a ton of info on it because there's so much to study because it is such an open-ended game. Warcraft is not. This does not make Warcraft an inferior game, this just makes the topics to actually study smaller. This doesn't invalidate Warcraft's meaning, it just states why there is no real "research" on it. You might as well start looking for someone's Thesis on "The Flintstones." -Ryanbomber 20:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? This isn't verifiable? The information is available for anybody to view. One of the persons commenting on it even made that clear in the very beginning. Sure, to confirm it, you would need a World of Warcraft account, but to confirm most of the information about say, Pluto you'd need a telescope. But if you just want to find it elsewhere, try Google. It's easily verifiable. Sources were not, and never were the problem. Bringing it up as an objection does not make sense. Explaining how it's notable outside the game itself isn't really necessary. World of Warcraft is unquestionably notable. That you play a character in World of Warcraft is a given, thus explaining a major component in your characters is the way to do it. Furthermore, the comparisons to chess do not stop at checkmate or statemate. I'm rather more concerned about chess openings. How does the Latvian Gambit matter to anyone who doesn't play chess? The Two Knights Defense? There's a whole 174 entry category ! I can understand describingthe concept of openings in chess. It's the same thing as this article really. But does every one of those openings really qualify? I don't think so. Fortunately, there's only the one World of Warcraft article about. Mister.Manticore 22:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Ok, there are a variety of issues with your comment above but the most substantial is that the Pluto article references reliable sources so one doesn't "need a telescope."JoshuaZ 15:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, clear consensus was indeed to delete. This is not a rehash of AfD, and the closer's read of consensus was clearly correct. Seraphimblade 20:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

If it were "correct" then this review would not exist, would it? -Ryanbomber 20:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can come here and put something up for review, if merely listing it here indicated incorrectness in the closure then we wouldn't bother having any discussion. --pgk 20:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Neither side is "correct" just because they exist. Heck, neither side is really "correct" anyway. This isn't a yes/no discussion. -Ryanbomber 02:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

No that's just playing with words, Seraphimblade is expressing his opinion that the closer made the right call and to him is wasn't a close call. --pgk 09:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain which user's comments you believe that consensus was based on? Was it the people saying it was fancruft? Mister.Manticore 22:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

My personal evaluation is delete wins 5-0½, hence the debate was properly closed. Endorse deletion. No reason there can't just be a short list in the main WoW article. Chris cheese whine 23:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain that conclusion? Where do you get your numbers from? Why are you dismissing the keep votes arguments entirely? And the reason why a short list in the main article isn't sufficient is that it's woefully incomplete at merely a paragraph, and any longer would create article bloat. Mister.Manticore 23:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

What votes would those be? AfD isn't a straight vote, and if you read that page you'll see my evaluation doesn't do a straight vote count, but rather is a points system. If you're desperate, I can do a blow-by-blow. Chris cheese whine 00:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You're the one who came up with numbers. I thought of them as votes. If you don't want to call them votes, fine, call them whatever you want, but yes, the full analysis would be helpful, not just random numbers you're making up. Calling them votes at least has meaning, but if you're just saying "these are some points" then you should explain your system. Otherwise, how can anyone else understand it? Mister.Manticore 00:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Calling them votes is misleading. They are recommendations, to be supported by reasons. Administrators are to disregard blind votes ("Keep ~~~~"), and weigh up the reasons. The means for calculation is shown on the page describing the evaluation, but I have taken the time to summarise the arguments as presented here. It is my personal points system, and I use it to evaluate AfDs others have closed. It is not an official guideline, but a tool based on established procedure, taking into account the fact that one strong argument can defeat a non-point with 50 me-toos. It is not perfect by any means. Chris cheese whine 00:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I have no problem if you want to consider my wording changed to "Why are you dismissing the keep opinions entirely" . Heck, since it seems to bother you so badly, I'll go back and edit it myself. If you must, consider it a poor choice of words. However, I do object to your failure to explain your evaluation. It's really just as bad as the concern you're expressing about votes. In fact, I'd say your overwarranted focus on one chosen word is making it worse I didn't put any thought into the word vote, and believe it or not, I know what you're talking about. I am familiar with the idea that AfD is not a vote. However, you came up with points. You didn't explain them. You still haven't. Why not? Mister.Manticore 00:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You may notice these little blue things called "links". Try clicking on them. I have a page outlining my method, and have posted my calculation. Chris cheese whine 01:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but your link was obscure. I totally missed it. My apologies. Perhaps if you'd just posted that, instead of concentrating on a single word it would have been easier to see. In any case, I do not find your reasoning on that page persuasive to deletoin, in fact, I find your analysis convincing that you aren't giving the other side a fair shake. For example, you've included arguments like "100% fanboy Cruft" (Which is nothing more than WP:IDONTLIKEIT and "original research, indiscriminate collection of information, excessive coverage of a topic on which we already have a supersufficiency ofarticle" as positive factors. You do know that the claims about original research are false, right? Not to mention indiscriminate collection of information. It's not indiscriminate to cover an integral aspect of a game. As for supersufficiency, there's hardly a huge number of World of Warcraft articles, even if did violate policy to have more than one article on a subject. So, why is that a reasonable argument? And the way you count points against people for one argument, but don't for people with similar positions on the other side? Seems unfair to me. Sorry, but your analysis is just too flawed. Get back to me when you correct it for that kind of bias too. Mister.Manticore 03:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I count points for a show of support for a strong argument. Most of the keep comments were irrelevant to Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, things such as "this isn't a game guide" (without stating why), "we have articles on X" (irrelevant), and "WoW is a notable game" (does not justify minute detail). They are non-issues, and were not relevant to the debate. Your own argument had some grounding in process, therefore it scored. It didn't appear to have any other support (most people preferring to pursue the non-issues above), hence it didn't get marked up on a lg(n) basis as the two delete arguments did. Nothing unfair about that - the two delete arguments scored more than the keep arguments because they carried more relevance and thus more weight. As for the truth or falsity of the claims of original research, DRv simply does not care - that is AfD's job. DRv exists as a court of appeal, and where articles have been to AfD it merely endorses or overturns the decision reached there based on whether process was followed, and relists articles where new information has come to light. Chris cheese whine 20:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't concur with any measuring standard that doesn't bother to consider the truthfulness of an argument, nor one that doesn't weigh against fancruft statements. That bias alone convinces me that you aren't being fair and honest. Mister.Manticore 21:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, the article in no way covered the subject in minute detail. It was an overview of the concept within the game, and avoided an excess of details, such as detaining where to gather things, growth in experience rates, and the like. Mister.Manticore 22:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I realize I'm being hypocritical when I say this, but please try to be civil. I know I'm not the most civil person but I'm trying hard to be, so I'd appreciate it if you remained civil too. Anyway, you said "User:Ryanbomber - argument turns on use of the word "playing" rather than "joining". No score." Am I reading this right when I think you're completely invalidating my argument when I said it should remain for people interested in joining the game? If we deleted everything in the Wiki if people had vague interests in it, then we'd lose basically every sort of pop culture article, including TV shows, books, games (video and non,) etc. Please tell me I'm reading this wrong. -Ryanbomber 02:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You're reading this wrong. For a start, WP:INN. Your argument was nothing more than saying it didn't count as a game guide, because the wording in the relevant policy was "playing". Hence, yes, I am invalidating it for that reason. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopaedia first and foremost. WP does not cater for people "interested in joining World of Warcraft". WP does not provide "interesting" or "useful" information. It provides unbiased, well-known, verifiable information. In my estimation (that bit is important), the point that the information might be useful to those interested in joining the game does not have a grounding in our policies, therefore it carries little weight, regardless of how many people bring it up. Chris cheese whine 20:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Semantics are hard. Alright, replace all times I said "playing" with "playing or learning about the game." Also, WP DOES cater for people "interested in joining World of Warcraft." It caters to ANYONE interested in learning about World of Warcraft. It caters to people interested in learning ANYTHING. It's an Encyclopedia. It provides information. But I guess "useful" isn't important. So the problem is bias (How is an explanation of game mechanics biased? Is it even possible?) the fact that the game is ], and the ] ] ] Where is the problem? -Ryanbomber 00:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse Closure- Keep Deleted Editors need to recall that DR is properly a place for contesting process, not a second shot at an AfD debate that has already been duly considered. Nothing in the initial AfD was out of process and the closing admin was perfectly right to conclude that consensus was in favour of deletion. Eusebeus 11:39, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

A biased admin who ignores the arguments of the position he or she doesn't like is within process? Mister.Manticore 13:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't, but that's not what we have here. What we had here was an admin who quite rightly discounted most of the irrelevant detail, and found what was left was two good arguments to delete which had explicit support, and one weak argument for keeping it which didn't. If the keep arguments were somewhat more substantial, you'd have a case. Chris cheese whine 20:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently, "but instead if you think the debate was interpreted incorrectly by the closer" is a valid grounds for Deletion Review. That is what I believe. I believe Ryanbomber and Havok concur. If this is the wrong way to deal with that concern, would you suggest a better way? Mister.Manticore 14:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome to file for a review on those grounds-but you must accept that consensus may go against you. Admins are given some degree of latitude in interpreting an AfD debate, generally their decisions are not overturned unless they are obviously and clearly wrong, biased, or otherwise out of line, or if new evidence that was not known at the time of closing comes to light. I don't see any of those happening here, so I voted to endorse. Seraphimblade 20:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

And did you look at the closing admin's own statements on such things? I'm afraid I can't give any latitude to somebody with that attitude. Mister.Manticore 21:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, could you answer my earlier question as to why you think the closer's decision was clearly correct? There was no explanation in it, so all we can say is that he decided to delete. Not why. Did you consider that? Mister.Manticore 21:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Alright, that's a very valid request. Here goes then. Firstly, if we go by the pure counting method (which I never advocate), we've got 9 delete recommendations to 5 keeps-an awfully solid majority in favor of deletion. Both the delete and keep recommendations covered and went back and forth over whether or not it was or was not a game guide and/or unsalvageably OR. Finally, one of the keep arguments was quite weak ("this is too big to fit somewhere else" does not imply "this should be in Misplaced Pages at all"), and many arguments centered around comparing WoW to basketball, chess, and others similar, which is wholly inaccurate-these are old (in one case centuries old) games with literally tens or hundreds of thousands of secondary sources available. If WoW's still getting played a hundred years from now, that comparison might become appropriate. Chess' individual strategies are highly notable because they have been written about. The same for basketball-one can easily reference what a technical foul is or what's the penalty for a double dribble. This is simply not the case with WoW-yet. If it becomes notable enough that people start writing magazines, and books, and newspaper articles, and the like, outside of strategy guides and similar, the article could be written with those sources-but "I played the game and found that..." is original research, information must be verifiable through reliable secondary sources. One of the "keep" arguments states that "the game itself" could be used as a source-this is clearly incorrect and the closer did well to discount it. In sum, many people recommended deletion for many very good reasons, and, while I think the closer could have interpreted it as a keep, it appears the evident consensus was to delete and that discretion was not improperly exercised. Once again, DRV is not a rehash of AfD, it is to analyze two questions-"Was the closer obviously and clearly in error or out of line when (s)he interpreted the debate?" and "Has new evidence not known when the debate was closed come to light, and is there a substantial chance that this evidence would have swayed the outcome?" As far as I can see, the answer to both questions is a "no"-the closer exercised a reasonable and proper amount of discretion, and no new evidence has been presented. And this is true even if we presume that each and every keep argument was a good one-those arguments simply weren't the consensus. Seraphimblade 07:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

If you go to amazon.com there are 80 book results for World of Warcraft. Some of these results will be repeated results and many will not mention professions, so that severly reduces the number of relevant books, but there are still going to be 15-20+ books which mention this information. Many magazines have made articles on WoW generally or specific aspects of it which will include professions information. This is plenty of secondary sources - if we include game guides. If we don't include game guides then you are correct as there are very few or none non-gameguide secondary sources. However I don't see why these can't be included. Also WP:OR says an article can use only primary sources if "(1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims". Facts about professions are easily verfyable using primary sources such as the blizzard website and are not claims. WP:OR is there for a reason: "to prevent people with personal theories attempting to use Misplaced Pages to draw attention to their ideas", this article doesn't do that. Now WP:V does say "If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it", but the topic does have 3rd party sources, so I don't see a problem unless you can show that game guides don't count as sources. Dragging up Latvian Gambit again all the sources are guides as to how to use it and advice regarding it - game guides. Now these game guides were probably written by experts, but there are people who are experts on WoW, so I don't see the distinction. Raoul 09:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, since you brought up the counting method, then please at least show the decency to factor out ones that say things like "100% pure fanbody cruft" . By my count, there are three that say that, or make no argument at all other than "per someone else". Which means nothing in terms of their own rational thinking. So it'd be down to 6-5, not a majority, and possibly 6-5-1 if you consider the merge vote. Of the delete arguments, at least 3 provided nothing in the way of support for their claims, just bare, unsupported assertions that were disputed at the time. However, treating AfD's as a vote is a bad idea, so let's not, and pretend you never brought it up. Anyway you don't seem to recognize that information about professions in World of Warcraft IS being kept in Misplaced Pages. It's right there in the main article. The question is, is more detail approrpiate than can be fit in the main article? I think so. Article size is still a problem, and that paragraph just isn't expansive enough. Complaining about sources is also mistaken. There are sources about the professions, even the help files of the game itself. I don't know about you, but to me, that IS a good source, and it isn't original research. It's like reading the credits to a movie and seeing who is in it. Do you think that's a problem? I don't. But if you want secondary sources, there are plenty on World of Warcraft. As I already said, Google. This isn't new evidence btw, this is evidence that was clearly ignored by the closing admin, who made no effort whatsoever to represent the discussion, and based on his or her stated prefences, wants to delete Warcraft related articles. And your comments about chess and basketball don't really seem to recognize something. We aren't talking about a single article on chess openings but a category with around 150 entries. How do all of them meet any of the thresholds for inclusion? Have any of them been written about outside of specialist literature? I don't think so. It's not like this article was advising one take up fishing, or blacksmith, or telling folks what to do. Just describing it, in the same way one might describe a chess piece's movement. Does that really constitute a game guide? I can't see how, but if it does, then we've got a lot to get rid of material. I think that's a bad idea. Mister.Manticore 17:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you admit an admin could have interpreted the consensus as a keep though, and I ask that you consider whether the admin in question, who has stated that they want to delete Warcraft content, was the proper one to make the decision, without any explanation, whether they were truly capable of giving a fair and honest consideration to the keep arguments at all. I don't think you can honestly say that happened. Mister.Manticore 17:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Overturn deletion I'm going to try and answer claims that people who voted keep didn't provide arguments to back them up. This could be quite long. I may repeat arguments (and even an example or two) already given (I suppose repeating things not already given would be difficult), but I want to give a list of all the arguments in one place. I may not deal with all arguments perfectly, so if there are any specific points you disagree on then feel free to point them out. It is a bit pieced together so the order may seem a bit strange.

The first reason given for deletion was that the article was a game guide. To quote WP:NOT "Misplaced Pages articles should not include instructions or advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s." Facts about professions are not instructions, advice, suggestions or "how-to"s. A game guide is something which guides you about a game, not something which gives you information about it. The definition of "game guide" and "indiscriminate collection of information" are not technicalities, they are the entire policy.

The next reason was that the information is available elsewhere. It is wikipedia policy that all the information posted is available elsewhere - that's what makes it verifyable and stops it being original research. Now wikipedia is not an indiscrimatinate source of information as stated in WP:NOT, but professions information is not indiscrimate as shown by WP:FICT: "Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be merged with short descriptions into a "List of characters"." Since WP:FICT applies to all fictions and professions is a concept within the game they should be put together as a list with short descriptions into a separate article (the main WoW article being already too long). So wikipedia policy says that this page should exist.

The article was verifyable and was not OR. The Blizzard website gives all the information as do several books which have been published about WoW. This means we have a primary source and several published secondary sources (as well as thousands of online secondary sources).

So the article is verifyable, isn't OR, is allowed by WP:NOT and is not an indiscriminate collection of information, so there are no real arguments for deletion. WP:FICT says that this article should exist, so there is a real argument to keep. There are still some minor arguments to cover however.

The main article is too long. Therefore all profession information should go in a separate article (if it is included at all, though I'm sure you don't want me mentioning WP:FICT again). This isn't a particularly strong argument, but it is still a minor reason for keep.

"It's fancruft". No it's not - it is verifyable information about a notable (compared to most wikipedia articles anyway) topic.

"Keep proponents didn't even try to explain how this aspect of the game is notable outside the game itself." Most things aren't notable outside of the area they are notable in. The crystal structure of calcium chloride is not relevant to the vast majority of people (that's not even an obscure topic - it's a common chemical), but the information is still on wikipedia. Other examples such as the Latvian Gambit are more relevant: it is completely useless information and is of interest to fewer people than professions in WoW, but it is and should be on wikipedia. Of course chemicals and chess aren't really relevant to this discussion, but policy is - the same policy which makes that information available on wikipedia should make this information available.

"What we had here was an admin who quite rightly discounted most of the irrelevant detail, and found what was left was two good arguments to delete which had explicit support, and one weak argument for keeping it which didn't." The two strong arguments were it is OR (despite it being easy to find primary and secondary sources) and that is is a game guide (because we say so - no evidence necessary). The weak argument was "it is not a game guide because" followed by specific references to the definition of a game guide.

"As for the truth or falsity of the claims of original research, DRv simply does not care - that is AfD's job." So we did the wrong thing before and must therefore do the wrong thing again? Surely it is DRv's job to make sure that the AfD was fair?

I can't remember any other points made so I'll stop now, but I think that shows all the arguments for delete are not supported by wikipedia policy while there is at least one reason for keep.

Just one more thing: I don't realy understand Chris' scoring system. Why does the comment "100% pure fanboy cruft" register a score? It does not give any arguments rooted in policy or any backup for the statement. Also why do "me too"s count at all? There would have been quite a few "me too"s if people hadn't refrained from repeating arguments already given, so it means that arguments are not scored based on quality but on how many people posted the same thing. Repeating an argument should not make it more valid, a lie is a lie however many times it is repeated even if it "becomes the truth" in that most people believe it.

"Your own argument had some grounding in process, therefore it scored. It didn't appear to have any other support (most people preferring to pursue the non-issues above), hence it didn't get marked up on a lg(n) basis as the two delete arguments did." Let me understand this correctly. An argument was posted. It was correct (in my view and that of most other people who think the article is a good idea) therefore nobody bothered to repeat it as it wasn't necessary and it gets less points because of this? Raoul 22:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur with you, and thank you for your time. Mister.Manticore 22:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You have argued this better then I could ever have in my entire life. Thank you. -Ryanbomber 01:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that Raoul, sums up everything very nicely. Havok (T/C/e/c) 08:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion per Sam Blanning. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion as I see no evidence of abuse of discretion by the closer, and no keep arguments in the AFD based on overriding policy. GRBerry 03:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I see an excellent argument not about overriding policy but why the policy isn't applicable in the first place. -Ryanbomber 11:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Overriding policy" is a policy that overrides a consensus for the opposite result. A keep argument based on overriding policy would be a one that arguing from policy says that keeping is required despite a consensus to delete. The canonical example of an overriding delete argument is a copyright violation - if the article contains text violating copyright in all versions it would need to be deleted no matter how strong the consensus to keep. Arguments that WP:NOT doesn't apply are not overriding policy arguments, they are instead arguments that a particular policy is not relevant, not an argument that the policy applies and requires a specific outcome. GRBerry 14:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Minor characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be merged with short descriptions into a "List of characters." This list should reside in the article relating to the work itself, unless either becomes long, in which case a separate article for the list is good practice. The list(s) should contain all characters, races, places, etc. from the work of fiction." This is a quote straight from WP:FICT saying that the article should exist (unless you consider WoW to be real or don't think professions in the game are a concept, etc.). There is no space in the main article for a list of professions with short descriptions. Raoul 16:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:FICT is a guideline, not policy, so no argument based on it can be an argument from overriding policy. GRBerry 18:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought the P in "WP" stood for policy, but you are right - it is a guideline. What about Misplaced Pages:Deletion_policy/Minor_characters then? That appears to be a policy to me (even though it doesn't have the box saying "This page is an official policy on the English Misplaced Pages"). Raoul 18:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The P in WP is from Wikipedia, as WP: is a shortcut to the Misplaced Pages: name space. That page explicitly says it was a discussion page searching for consensus, and that the resulting consensus was memorialized in WP:FICT; it has therefore a lesser status that WP:FICT, which reflects the current status of it. See point 5 of Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy/Minor characters#Conclusion. GRBerry 20:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The only problem you seem to have with this still is with WP:FICT. I think I should remind you that guidelines are policies with exceptions. They've been agreed on by the majority. They're completely kosher. I don't think anyone's proved that this is an exception, so by guideline it should be undeleted. Also, I did not get a chance to respond to your first reply, about "Overriding Policy." Isn't this exactly what we're arguing (not to put words in anyone's mouth?) Policy/Guidelines were followed incorrectly and the article should be reinstated because of it. We're overriding policy by actually listening to it instead of distorting it. -Ryanbomber 22:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

A guideline, because it allows exceptions, does not override consensus. Consensus is how we measure whether an exception should be made. Consensus for article deletion is measured at AFD, and I see no abuse of discretion by the closer in their evaluation of the consensus. GRBerry 22:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Touche. The problem with that argument is the fact that WP:FICT was not sourced at all in the AFD, except one person complaining about the lack of a real-world perspective, which seems to have been shot down. Most of the argument was based on WP:NOT, people claiming it was a game guide, and ambiguous calls of "fancruft." Why it shifted all over the place, I have no idea. -Ryanbomber 00:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse Deletion - Didn't read the overly long semantics tapdancing on this page after the first 5 paragraphs. Looking over the AfD, I fail to see an improper close. I see a article that is clearly important to people who play WoW, but that doesn't mean that they are the best qualified to determine how to interpret policy. Regardless, the closing admin went on actual arguments and thus deletion. --Elaragirl 08:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Lunacy of not reading arguments and voting anyway aside, how are WoW players NOT best qualified to determine policies? Does playing WoW make someone inferior in some way? Not at all. Playing WoW and interperting policy have nothing to do with eachother. Keep the ad hominems out of this. -Ryanbomber 12:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Simple. In any debate where a number of people are direct participants in the subject of an article, I tend to distrust their ability to neutrally observe. It's just for this reason that I don't edit the things I'm heavily involved in, like articles on China, Neverwinter Nights, or much of the LGBT movement. I read the entire mess above all the way down to the post by Angus McLellan, and all I got out of it was a sense that people 'felt' it was closed improperly since it wasn't done the way they wanted. The fact remains that there were two deletes, with reasoning, and one keep, with reasoning, and a bunch of pile-ons on both sides without. For clarification, I'm not attacking the WoW players instead of their argument. I'm suggesting that WoW players who want to keep this article are unlikely to look at it in the neutral light (not caring either way) that is likely to see ANY AfD decision resulting in delete as valid. That's all. --Elaragirl 14:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with you that anybody wanting to keep an article that didn't follow policy is a fool. The problem is that this article DOES (did?) follow policy. We've said that several times and explained how the policy is worded and why it was misread. This isn't a matter of proof, this is a matter of semantics, which is something that you hinted at loathing. Does that mean you should stay out of this review? -Ryanbomber 16:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Not to sound uncivil here, but Elaragirl, you are the reason I have come to find Misplaced Pages flawed. Voting and commenting without reading the whole discussion, and basing votes on others without trying to come with your own reasoning. Specially when it comes to AfDs, not talking about you here, but people tend to just follow the flow. If there are 2 delete votes and 0 keep, people are more likely to just vote delete, regardless of subject matter, or even knowing what the article is about, or even reading the article. I find all this a real shame, and my thoughts about the matter really come into fruition in this flawed AfD in my eyes. It's a shame, it really is.. Again, I apologize for any uncivilized remarks, I'm just tired of the whole debacle. Havok (T/C/e/c) 13:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I could say the very same think, Havok. More often than not, and the point of my post, is that there is some article that clearly violates a policy and should be deleted. Someone nominates it. Some pithy soul throws "Ilikeit!" up as a rationale for keep, and there's a mass of delete and keep votes presaged on one or two policy arguments. The whole thing is then shut down as 'no consensus', the article is not improved, and the whole thing starts again. As for your assertion, as I responded to Ryanbomber, I read a majority (five paragraphical sections, down to the post by Angus McLellan) and came away with nothing that convinced me to keep such an article. I don't care if I'm the reason you find Misplaced Pages flawed. Interjecting that into this debate simply reinforces my opinion that most people voting keep here could care less about the Misplaced Pages's goals or policy and only care that the articles they find useful , interesting or worthy stay. To answer your incivility, I read the Misplaced Pages without joining as an editor since 2003, and people like you have created the attitudes of people like 'me'. Good day. --Elaragirl 14:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that is the reason I started this review, the fact that the article - at the time of closing - did not break any policies at all. Closer has even stated himself that he hates, what he likes to call "gamecruft", and that he finds articles like this trivial and silly. The article didn't even break WP:NOT when it was nominated because me and several other people cleaned out all the game guide information that broke NOT. Hence the closing of the AfD looked to me as a act of bias, which again, is the reason I asked for a review. But I find our attempt feeble, and as such I do not want to spend any more time with this. I have started an article to try and set a consensus for what would break WP:NOT or not at Misplaced Pages:Game guide. Havok (T/C/e/c) 14:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion with no prejudice against recreation if it becomes sourced. The most serious issue seems to be sourcing and that may be able to be dealt with. If someone wants me to I'd be happy to userfy a copy for them so they can work on sourcing it. I'd also like to register my concern at the closing. Admins who have strong opinions about not having certain classes of articles should refrain from closing those AfDs unless the AfDs are clear. JoshuaZ 15:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

ChefMoz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

No discussion of deletion; Insubstantial basis for deletion 22:36, 21 June 2006 User:InShaneee. I think this article was deleted without proper cause. This was an article that I created in June 2006 (although for some unknown reason it does not appear in ) in order to provide content for a pre-existing link in to point to. The article should legitimately have been labeled a stub (I don't recall if I labeled it as such), but I do not see a basis for its speedy deletion. Apparently it was deleted the same day it was created; I was not notified of its deletion (I think the fact that it took me 5 months to notice ought to be convincing evidence that I was not engaging in nefarious self-promotion). I added this article as a stub because I did not have sufficient information to flesh out a complete article -- this is because I hoped that another Misplaced Pages user would stop by to flesh it out. My recollection is that the content I added included both an external link to the ChefMoz website and an internal link to the wikipedia Open Directory Project article. Articles about ChefMoz (a website, at ) have been deleted twice, apparently without discussion, as logged at . The content of the first article probably was the same as appears on http://chefmoz.quickseek.com/ . I think that the deletion was unjustified, for several reasons: (1) If the topic of "ChefMoz" is noteworthy enough to have a link from another wikipedia entry, the topic probably merits its own wikipedia entry. (The link to it has been in place for a very long time, suggesting that it was not controversial.) (2) Regarding notability, ChefMoz content is freely available for use by other sites and is used on many other sites, including the sites listed at http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Tools_for_Editors/ChefMoz_Editors/Sites_Using_ChefMoz_Data/ . Traffic data for ChefMoz at http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=&url=chefmoz.org substantiate the website's significance (Traffic Rank for chefmoz.org: 30,763; other sites that link to this site: 1,443; Online Since: 28-Mar-2000). (3) Documentation that I had not looked up when I created the stub, but that could be used as a source for the article includes http://dmoz.org/newsletter/2001Mar/chefmoz.html . That webpage says (among other things) "the directory got a nice mention in Industry Standard's Food, Wine, and Web newsletter with the heading of ChefMoz: The Web's Zagat", but (unfortunately) I cannot follow the link to http://www.thestandard.com/newsletters/newsletterBottomframe/0,3679,115-2335,00.html . There are many other articles about ChefMoz on dmoz.org, and many completely independent search-engine hits exist, but most are fairly insubstantial; for example, http://forums.seochat.com/open-directory-project-13/http-www-chefmoz-org-16584.html, http://www.webmaster-forum.net/showthread.php?t=2503, http://iandavis.com/blog/2002/12/chefMoz , and http://rdfweb.org/pipermail/rdfweb-dev/2001-May/010217.html . -- orlady 02:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted as a valid A1 and A7. No claim of notability and precious little of anything else. Guy (Help!) 09:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with JzG. It appears orlady wrote a stub on the subject after a previous version was deleted a few months before. The stub in question only tells us what it is, not why it should be included. - Mgm| 12:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• The first deletion was a PROD; its recreation makes it a contested PROD. The second deletion does not cite a reason (although I suppose one could make a case for some CSDs). (Radiant) 12:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Note, also being discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/web directories. Thanks/wangi 12:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Ooops, that's MusicMoz there! Still related, and that AFD is for four "non notable" websites also deleted under speedy on the 22nd and then recreated on request... Thanks/wangi 13:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• It is stated that "The first deletion was a PROD; its recreation makes it a contested PROD." Where was the first deletion proposed or discussed? (I cannot find a record.) --orlady 14:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• See WP:PROD - in uncontested deletions there is no debate, if nobody challenges it after five days the article gets deleted. It can be contested, in which case it gets kept but should probably go to AfD. Guy (Help!) 15:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

XPLANE (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) — (AfD)

The rationale for deletion of this article, as provided by the deleting admin: "The article was deleted as the multiple votes to keep were from people who had not contributed to Misplaced Pages before (which is always very suspicious)" This is an ad hominem rationale.

Many of these votes to keep came from respected authorities in the field, including a published author and people with industry experience ranging from 10 to 20 years. The authorities supplied relevant credentials and reasoned arguments.

None of the people voting to delete offered any relevant experience or expertise. Few offered reasoned discussion beyond saying "non-notable" and/or pointing to Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines.

The article underwent several revisions in an attempt to address perceived problems. Requests for the accusers to assist in improving the article went unheeded.

I must disclose that I am the founder of the company. However I also wish to make it clear that I did not write the original article, and only the only reason I contributed to the article was to attempt to improve it after it was proposed for deletion.

The original article and an attempted improvement are both posted at User:Dgray xplane/XPLANE. Dgray xplane 15:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• It is legitimate to give less weight to the opinions of those editors with few or no contributions outside of the debate at hand, because it is likely (due to their evident inexperience) that they will have a thorough working knowledge of policy and practice. You state that it is your company. May I interest you in our conflict of interest guideline? Guy (Help!) 15:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• I read the conflict of interest guideline. The article was written and up for two years before I contributed. The field (information design) is narrow and unlikely to be known to most Misplaced Pages editors. An appeal to industry experts on my blog was frowned upon. Given the five-day period for discussion I felt that my action was justified, primarily since it was an attempt to improve the article based on issues I saw as legitimate. Remember it is also Thanksgiving week in the US and many relevant opinions may have been unavailable. I have fully disclosed the conflict and have made every attempt to be neutral in my edits. My understanding of a Misplaced Pages guideline includes "is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." Again, this appears to be another example of an ad hominem argument which questions the person making the assertion rather than the assertion or argument itself.Dgray xplane 15:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • There are two things going on here, and you falsely characterise both as ad-hominem arguments (which is incivil but I will let that pass as this is a subject on which you have a deep personal involvement). First, the issue of what are often termed single purpose accounts in the deletion debate. We cannot tell the difference between people who have beeen reading and possibly editing anonymously for ever, but register to participate in a debate; people who are asked outside of Misplaced Pages to contribute to the debate; and accounts created by a single person to boost a subject. Routinely, we ignore arguments from such individuals, not least because they very often constitute variations on WP:ILIKEIT, which is not policy, and do not address issues of WP:NPOV and WP:V, which are. Second, the issue of your own involvement. Experience indicates that the more impassioned the defence of an article by its subject (which in this case you pretty much are), the more apt we, the hardened, cynical and suspicious bastards who haunt these community pages, are to consider it vanispamcruftisement. Things which work include a measured statement of information not considered at deletion, evidence of being the primary subject of substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources, attempts to engage in dialogue and establish what the problems are with the article. Things which do not work include talk page spamming, arm-waving and threatening to climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man. There is no deadline to meet here, and the existence or non-existence of a Misplaced Pages article should make no difference at all to you as a company. Having an article does not imply that you are better than anyone else, it is not a platform for advertising. All it does is hold your own website off top spot in the Google results. External canvassing is pretty much guaranteed to be counter-productive. Esp
    • I apologize for any incivility (absolutely unintended). Any misunderstanding of ad hominem on my part is not intentionally false. I am of course an interested party. However I hope you will consider the article on its merits alone. I believe a look at the original and the proposed improved articles at User:Dgray xplane/XPLANE will demonstrate both new information (not available at the time of deletion) and evidence that the Misplaced Pages review process did result in significant improvement to the article. In other words I think the process is working. Dgray xplane 17:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse closure, closing admin was entirely correct to discount single-purpose votes, especially given that "meatpuppet canvassing" had been shown during the AfD. Seraphimblade 16:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn deletion and resubmit to AfD The arguments given by the editors with little to no contrib history to Wiki should at least be read and evaluated for what they say and not just wholly ignored. I think that it may have been more appropriate to have relisted the AfD in order to allow for more discussion among members of the Wiki community. --Strothra 16:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn deletion and resubmit to AfD I think that the closing admin was correct in giving less weight to new users who were sent to the debate by the company's blog. There are very legitimate concerns over the amount of non-trivial third-party coverage that this company has received and I'd like to explain again that an article that contains the phrase "such as the company XPLANE" does not constitute what we call non-trivial coverage. In this particular instance however, I think it's also true that the delete opinions were all rather weak and "no consensus" would probably be a better assessment of the debate. At least one of the new users claimed that he wrote a book chapter on the company's work. Of course it's fair game to question whether the book truly exists (it does) and whether the author is independent enough of XPLANE (that one I don't know) but surely it makes no sense to completely discount that as meatpuppetry. The AfD should be restarted and solid references added to the article so that a more illuminating debate can take place. Pascal.Tesson 17:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Send rewritten article back to AfD. The original deletion was correct: 1) of all the arguments provided in the discussion, the only ones which referenced policy recommended deletion; 2) if single-purpose accounts are discounted, then only one editor recommended the article should be kept. Deleting the article as it stood was the correct action. On the other hand, while the article developing in userspace appears to be a significantly better article, I'm still not convinced of the existence of multiple non-trivial references to the company in published media, so let's trash it out again at AfD. Cheers --Pak21 17:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• One of the things that I try to encourage novices to do in AFD discussions is to cite sources to demonstrate that the notability criteria relevant to the article's subject (WP:CORP in this case) are satisfied. (I've just asked five times in Qpawn (AfD discussion) for sources to demonstrate that the WP:WEB criteria are satisfied.) Dgray xplane states that the opinions in the AFD disscussion "came from respected authorities in the field". We don't accept "Trust me. I'm a doctor." here. Misplaced Pages has no mechanism for verifying the credentials of its editors. To everyone, Judyofthewoods (talk · contribs), for example, is just a pseudonymous Misplaced Pages editor.

  The argument that works is citing sources to demonstrate that the WP:CORP criteria are satisfied. Not a single one of the low-contribution new accounts that contributed to the AFD discussion did this. Instead they presented unsupported bare assertions such as that the company "is an inspiration to anyone and everyone", that the company is "widely regarded as not just a leader but a unique entity that has essentially defined the space", and is "rare and exceptional", expecting other editors to simply take the words of someone editing Misplaced Pages under a pseudonym for these. We don't work that way here, and such arguments regularly fail. It was quite right to discount those arguments. (I'm sure that Proto did not ignore them, as implied above. They were almost certainly given low weight because they were invalid arguments that are not based upon our policies and guidelines.) Indeed, we have no way of distinguishing such arguments made by "respected authorities in the field" writing under pseudonyms from the very same arguments made by (for example) people wanting articles on their pet discussion fora kept, also writing under pseudonyms. In both situations, a whole load of new accounts appear that make all sorts of bare hyperbolic assertions about the importance of the subject, without anything backing those assertions up with anything other than "Take my word for it.".

  What distinguishes such discussions from discussions of notable subjects is that for notable subjects it is easy to rise to the challenge of citing sources to demonstrate that the criteria are satisfied. It was only at the very end of the discussion that anyone arguing that the article be kept actually attempted to do this.

  It is true that "Few offered reasoned discussion beyond saying "non-notable" and/or pointing to Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines.". The nomination was, indeed, a poor one, that didn't follow the advice at User:Uncle G/On notability#Giving_rationales_at_AFD. However, simply pointing to the guidelines, which was done after four days, was not wrong, contrary to Dgray xplane's implication above. Indeed it was right. It actually spurred action. Moreover, if the nominator had pointed to WP:CORP right from the start, the discussion would have come to the point of citing sources far sooner.

  After WP:CORP was mentioned, Dgray xplane finally started citing some sources and addressing the PNC. Veinor challenged several of them for being trivial, i.e. only mentioning the article's subject in passing. Right at the very end there were several more things cited that went unanswered. Reviewing them, it is possible that they might have changed editors' minds. Pak21, Capitalistroadster, and Movementarian all based their rationales upon WP:CORP, and certainly would have discussed things like this and this had they been cited. It is because the discussion finally came around to people citing published works right at the very end of the 5-day period, and because there was inadequate discussion of those published works and whether the WP:CORP criteria were thus satisfied; and not for entirely wrongheaded and bogus reasons about "authorities in the field", the purported "relevant credentials" that new Misplaced Pages editors claimed to have and expected everyone else to trust, and the "reasoned arguments" that were not in any way based upon our policies and guidelines; that this article should be relisted at AFD. Relist. Uncle G 18:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  • A masterful summary, vastly better than Dgray xplane's talk page spamming campaign deserved. I have recommended that he have a chat with my favourite reformed spammer, User:Stephen B Streater. Guy (Help!) 22:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn deletion and resubmit to AfD: The article needed fleshing out, but there was no reason to delete it - as I said before. A few notes: (1) I am an editor of the Misplaced Pages and I did vote to keep the article. However, deletionist policies are about to change MY policy on this; overexuberance is quite notable. (2) The article itself could be improved, as could many others. No attempts were made to flesh this out by deleting admin, indicating a lack of knowledge on the subject at hand. These deletionist arguments typically center around 'guilty until proven innocent'. With lack of demonstrable knowledge in an area where a deletion is flagged, admin is suspect. It's time admin started taking some accountability instead of running to the vague (and they ARE vague) policies and guidelines involved. There is much room for speculation, thus there is *discussion*. Discounting discussion because people are 'new' indicates that there is a quarantine time for people to not be called meatpuppets. What is the guideline on that? (3) The 'meatpuppet' discussion is becoming less and less of an argument as more and more people use the Misplaced Pages. Are we discounting users as far as what they wish to see in the Misplaced Pages on the basis that they haven't written an article? This policy needs help. (4) Every time people (human beings) are discounted from discussion regarding Misplaced Pages in *any* regard, it is a debasement of the community and creates the perception that people have no say in the Misplaced Pages. I find that revolting. Stop it, those of you doing it. Everyone on the planet has a right to have a say in these issues, and if that is not the case - let it be said now. --TaranRampersad 18:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "Are we discounting users as far as what they wish to see in the Misplaced Pages on the basis that they haven't written an article?" — No. We are discounting arguments that are invalid, because they are not based upon our policies and guidelines. Ironically, your argument here is invalid. See Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry#Meatpuppets. Your argument at the AFD discussion was invalid, too. Your sole argument for keeping comprised exactly 5 words: "It is a notable first company.". You cited no sources at all in support of that, and expected everyone to just take your word for it. We don't accept "Trust me. I'm a doctor." here. Uncle G 09:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, and turn redirect into a dab page See my later comments below. Wow, it took a while to sort through the whole history here. From what I can see:

1. The original AfD was conducted properly. The closing admin correctly discounted keep votes from numerous sock/meatpuppets. No procedural worries here.
2. The RfD was also conducted properly. No procedural worries here either.
3. The original XPLANE article does indeed fail notability and wp:not (advertising, self-promotion, vanity, etc).
4. The current redirect and cross-pointers in X-plane and X-Plane is very confusing. I suggest turning xplane into a dab page pointing to X-plane (aircraft series) and X-Plane (flight simulator), move the current X-Plane and X-plane to those two titles respectively, and make all unadorned variations of hyphenation and capitalization of XPLANE, x-plane, etc, redirects pointing to the dab page.
5. And, I'd delete User:Dgray xplane/XPLANE too. wp:not advertising applies to user pages too. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion. Review proposed by someone involved heavily in the subject at hand. My personal scoring method gives 4 points to deletion, and -1 point to keep. Chris cheese whine 20:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  PS, also delete the recreation and rewrite too. The rules about reposts and advertising apply equally to userspace. Chris cheese whine 20:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Overturn deletion, and/or put up the new article
  I think the history of this event is important. The article sat there for two years and no one complained. Then Dave added a link to the company. Now that there was a fresh edit, it popped up on someone's radar, and he decided it was some sort of self-serving advert (apparently) based on the fact that Dave did the edit. An AfD fires, and in order to get the article "keep" (and lets face it, everyone on the planet would do the same) he starts asking around about how all of this works. Oh, a voting process? Ok, so he gets some friends to vote keep. And even though the AfD clearly votes to keep, it was deleted it anyway by discounting all the votes to keep while counting the ones to delete. I find this absolutely astonishing.
  And now we see a series of equally astonishing arguments continuing above. Let's see, we have Guy complaining about Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest, apparently once again failing to note that Dave didn't write the article. Then he supports the claim that it's ok to ignore votes because Dave asked people he knew to vote. Well who else is he going to call on Guy, he's a newbie, he doesn't know anyone here yet. Should he ask people he doesn't know? That seems to be the logical conclusion I guess. Oh, but no, because when he does goes looking for some support that's held against him too! So he can't ask people he knows, and he can't ask people he doesn't know, so... ummmm... whatever. Bad enough as that is, we then move on to Uncle G's ironic argument that because we can't verify the people involved that their votes can be automatically discounted... hmmm, "Uncle G", I assume that's your real name? And then of course there's Chris's note, where he scores AfD's based on quoting policy. Dave's a newbie right? So how exactly is he supposed to cast a "good" vote? Here, let me quote some policy at you, Don't bite the newbies. Considering your AfD eval automatically scores against them, you might want to consider updating the criterion. And as is that weren't bad enough, when admins, including myself, get the page restored to his user space, that is turned turn that into a claimed example of linkspam. Wow. I'm thinking of another policy... let me think... oh yeah, Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith. I see very little of that going on here. Every attempt by Dave to simply return things to the way they are is being interpreted as a craven attempt to linkspam the wiki. Nice!
  There are thousands of much less notable company pages here on the wiki, hundreds of them are outright linkspam, and yet the only reason this one ended up on AfD was because someone tried to improve it. Every argument for keeping it was and is being twisted into a argument to delete, and Dave's pleas are simply shouted down by the admins. This is an example of everything that can go wrong with the wiki.
  I think we should either put up the original page or the modified one, which seems even better. Put a section at the top pointing to x-planes (the series) and x-plane (the game).
  Maury 22:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Where to begin?
    1. "Oh, a voting process?" - No, not a voting process, but a discussion process, as is made clear in various places on WP:AFD amongst others. If someone adds simply "keep" or "delete" to an AfD, we ignore it, as we've no idea why they want us to keep it.
    2. "Dave didn't write the article" - Indeed he didn't. However, he did initiate this review. Typically, if something is genuinely worth keeping, then someone unconnected with the subject of the article will find themselves motivated to act.
    3. "Then supports the claim that it's ok to ignore votes because Dave asked people he knew to vote" - This is called "stuffing the ballot-box", and we've already established that AfD is not a vote. We eschew the mere number of recommendations in either direction in favour of the reasons behind them.
    4. "Well who else is he going to call on" - If an article or its subject have merit, then he doesn't need to call upon anyone.
    5. "where AfD's based on quoting policy." - No. Not based on quoting policy, but on being relevant to policy. If a newbie comes along and says "Don't delete this, important in the field, several books published about it (links to references)", that's a good argument, and grounded in policy, though they may not know it. I find your petty comments an example of being dense.
    6. "Every attempt by Dave to simply return things to the way they are is being interpreted as a craven attempt to linkspam the wiki." - I assume you mean the way they were. I would expect every single candidate for adminship, successful or otherwise, to know that past performance is no indication of future returns. That an article survives for so long is not to say that it gets to stay here.
    7. "There are thousands of much less notable company pages here on the wiki" - This is where another oft-used bit of policy comes in - WP:INN. This follows logically from the previous point.
  • No offence intended, but I am frankly shocked that someone successfully achieved adminship while apparently knowing almost nothing about Misplaced Pages's policies and processes. Chris cheese whine 23:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ho! You're going to impugn my credentials now? Chris, your scoring system is obviously stacked against newbies, and using that scoring in defense of this thread simply illustrates how unfair it is. Anyone, anyone, following their natural tendencies in order to "save" an article would act in precisely the fashion Dave did, yet all of these behaviors are scored against them. So if you do nothing the article disappears, and if you do something the article disappears. That pretty much defines unfair in my books. But anyway I've said my bit, and I see it has received more than enough support below, I'll bow out for the moment. Maury 15:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The scoring system is not stacked against newbies (as you'd know if you had read my comments above). It is stacked against behaviour that has for a very long time been considered unacceptable. We do not keep articles because someone ran off and got all their friends to come and vote "keep". We keep articles because people fail to make reasoned arguments for their deletion, or because people make arguments for keeping them which are compatible with our policy. If it appears to be stacked against newbies, it will be because of the tendency for newbies to make hasty comparisons, or appeals that they/their best friend/their band/their hobby is clearly worthy of inclusion. Whether an argument comes from someone with no idea of the subject matter, or someone with 20-30 years of experience in the field, is irrelevant. I also doubt that absolutely anyone would act in the same way, since (I will repeat, since you didn't see it last time) if an article has merits, then the author need not call on anyone for support. At AfD, we deal in reason and argument, not popularity and head-count. At DRv, when an article has been to AfD we concern ourselves only with the propriety of the decision that is reached. There is nothing to suggest any impropriety here. Chris cheese whine 20:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• • "Uncle G's ironic argument that because we can't verify the people involved that their votes can be automatically discounted" was not what I wrote at all. I suggest that you first read our policies and guidelines and familiarize yourself with them, and then you read what I wrote again, properly this time, in particular where I explained, with emphasis, the reason that the opinions were discounted. Uncle G 09:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn deletion and resumbit to AfD, and/or put up the new article. Pascal.Tesson and Maury have said almost everything I would have said on the topic at hand. To Chris quasi-attacking Maury, I have to say that seems uncalled for and off-base in several places. Maury certainly knows that AfD is not a vote, but newbie Wikipedians generally do not, which was his point (he wasn't espousing a view, he was describing what he believed to be explanatory of the criticized user behavior). Asking a small number people who are likely to care about an article to weigh in on an AfD is not canvassing nor meatpuppetting, it's perfectly normal; the only objection here really is that they were newbies who had not been involved in editing, which is irrelevant since there is NO evidence of a history of sock/meatpuppeting or canvassing on anyone's part here. Cf. Don't bite the newbies. I agree with some of your other points (INN, and relevance to rather than quoting of policy). Lastly the objection that the review requester is connected to the article is pretty moot; I'm declaring right now that if I'd seen this happen live I would have made the request myself, and I have no connection to the subject of the article. I believe the process to have been abused as a consequence of overzealous enforcement of WP:SPAM and its ilk. If this article really is about something genuinely non-notable then it will legitimately fail AfD on WP:V, WP:NPOV and other non-Notability grounds. — SMcCandlish ツ 00:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• I believe the deletion was proper, but that the article has been sufficiently expanded since then that it should address most or all concerns expressed in the deletion. Incidentally this shows that adding to an article is generally more productive in "saving" it than arguing on AFD. Thus the article should be moved back into mainspace. I see no need for a new AFD but if people want to renominate the new article, let them do so. (Radiant) 00:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• I thank Maury for reminding us all not to bite the newbies. I also agree with Radiant that another AfD would do no harm, but would strongly urge User:Dgray xplane to do some reading about wikipedia policy to gain a better understanding how how things are supposed to work, and why his own actions (intentional or not) were largely the reason so many folks have reacted in the way they have. For example, he should realize that "getting out the vote" in the form of meatpuppets will generally incline people against his cause, rather than for it. He should also understand that arguing strongly for an article about your own company will similarly tend to stir up negative emotions. If he could bring himself to stand by the sidelines and let a new AfD run its course without interference, the article might survive on its own merits; if that were to happen, that would resolve the issue once and for all. But, but the same token, were the article to go down in an open AfD, he's got to live by that decision. If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be. In any case, I still think (see my comments above) that whatever happens, xplane should be a dab page, with pointers to X-Plane (flight simulator), X-plane (aircraft series), and XPLAIN (consulting company). Differentiating article titles just by capitalization and/or punctuation is too confusing. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse status quo, but allow recreation if sources are provided The AfD was handled appropriately, and the article as it appeared in the original form was inherantly deletable; and as already copiously noted, if one discounts comments that did not refer to wikipedia policy (regardless of where they came from) the consensus was clearly delete. HOWEVER, if the article can be recreated in NPOV with appropriate third-party references from reliable sources, I see no problem with recreation. The disambig problem will also have to be addressed, but that is a technical issue that should not interfere with the existance or non-existance of an article on this subject. --Jayron32 05:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn and relist at AfD I hate talk page spamming, but in this case the decision should be rethought, and the article as proposed is well worth another discussion as IMO it fits all of the official policies (even fitting the notability 'guidelines' if users wish to reference them objectively). It may help this time to not be hasty about the rejection of opinions just because they are not "part of the community". The behaviour which treats some users as more equal than others is possibly what annoys me most about wikipedia, however, it won't defeat me. Ansell 08:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • It's arguments that are rejected, not people. It just so happens that it is common for novices to make invalid arguments that are not in accordance with our policies and guidelines, as every single new user did in this AFD discussion. But it has always been the case that valid arguments, based firmly upon our policies and guidelines, are welcome, whoever the user. The Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion explicitly says this, in two separate places no less. Indeed, the basis of the argument for relisting this article at AFD is that one of the novices, Dgray xplane (talk · contribs), finally made a valid argument, but it wasn't discussed because it was made right at the end of the 5-day period. (And as I pointed out, the poor nomination is in large proportion to blame for that.) Uncle G 09:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Why is it that bad nominations (not bad-faith, just bad), such as "non notable company" are not chucked out on the spot? If a nomination does not fit inside the deletion policy, then there is no basis for continuing a discussion. On the valid arguments. I do not see how the discussion can continue to the outcome it did. Perhaps this is not the place, but I do disagree with the refusal of "expert opinions." Ansell 03:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Then I suggest that you think long and hard about how exactly you are determining that these people are in fact experts in the first place and read User:Uncle G/On sources and content. As for the nominations, I and a few other editors regularly try to encourage people to turn bad nominations into good ones. (I point to User:Uncle G/On notability#Giving_rationales_at_AFD.) More editors doing this will help. Feel free to encourage any editors that you see making bad nominations to turn those nominations into good ones. (Of course, also set an example in the rationales that you give yourself.) Uncle G 11:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Will do that thinking about how to deal with experts. One comment that I definitely don't agree with in relation to the matter is "The problem is that the 'peer review' that you're likely to get is going to have a disproportionately large amount of people in favor of keeping the article." That just destroys the notion that the thing is not a vote. Proportions in discussions being bad because experts are involved, that certainly makes Misplaced Pages the most unique encyclopedia ever. :-( (not in a good way) Ansell 05:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Restore and relist or just restore or just recreate. It seems likely that an article can be written from appropriate sources, now that we've clarified what that means, so let's see it. I don't find it important whether it's an edit of a restored article, or a fresh start, unless someone wishes to use content from the moved article. If any of that is usable, then restoring would be best, to preserve its GFDL history. -GTBacchus 08:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - it's precisely because of episodes like this that we've been working on making the notability guidelines more objectively well-defined. I would invite other Wikipedians to consider a reading of the guideline wherein "notability" means nothing more than "non-trivial coverage in multiple independent published sources." Feel free to drop in on the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability. -GTBacchus 08:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion I can't understand all the handwringing above. 1) the AfD was not out of process; (2) the subject fails WP:CORP and even in the rewrite it looks to me like self-promoting guff. Everything else is a canard. The extensive publications record is a no-go since that is the company's field of business. Comments from the initial AfD such as The fact that such a tiny company commands 30 of the Fortune 500 as clients within such a short period speaks for itself has Delete written all over it. Come back when this passes WP:CORP Eusebeus 11:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Relist rewritten article per Uncle G. Lean heavily on the St. Louis Business article, that is a genuine article about the business itself. Don't sweat the passing mentions. AnonEMouse 14:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Relist rewritten article per Uncle G, and pay particular attention to Guy. For well debated reasons, Misplaced Pages has become hostile to taking authors on trust and conflicts of interest. Rewritten article should stick to verifiable facts quoted from reliable (independent) sources, and steer clear of opinions of the contributors. A period for learning the system prior to relisting would probably result in an article more appropriate to WP. Also, contributions from multiple authors, not including the owner, always makes for a better article, even if it is not strictly on message. Stephen B Streater 18:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn and relist at AfD, closing arguments was that it failed WP:CORP. If the rewrite passes WP:CORP, then no argument for deletion has been presented. Relisting will allow for a new deletion argument to be formulated or for the article to be kept.--Rayc 20:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn - It looks like the article has appropriate sourcing, and the AfD looks like deletion was of dubious consensus. While new users were ignored (whether or not they had good arguments), old/non-new users who were not ignored didn't have very good arguments either. I don't consider "NN" or "Delete non-notable" to be any sort of argument - it doesn't really say anything.. Pak21, Movementarian, and Strothra were they only ones that cited reasons it broke NN, which was WP:CORP - and now the article has sourcing - which meets CORP criteria. Fresheneesz 08:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment as closer. No issues with the (vastly improved) article being relisted at AFD, as it is substantially different from the article was deleted. Still suffering from a conflict of interest. Proto::type 10:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: quite a few people chipping in now, so this will help NPOV. Stephen B Streater 09:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Overturn - per GTBacchus, Radiant, RoySmith, and Fresheneesz —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ATren (talk • contribs) 19:04, November 27, 2006 (UTC).
• Overturn and relist on AFD given that the article was substantially rewritten. Silensor 23:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)