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[edit] Upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline?

A suggestion that would, perhaps, help reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures and improve the signal-to-noise ratio at AfD?—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean it would reduce the number of WP:SNOW closures by switching them to procedural speedy closures? Seems CREEPy to me; individual nominators would be expected to essentially provide proof of their compliance with WP:BEFORE, and guidelines for evaluating such proof would be difficult to define at best. I just don't think this is what guidelines are intended to do- policies and guidelines are intended to be descriptive. I personally strongly believe in providing a detailed description of my research when making a nomination, and would encourage all editors to do so as well. If this becomes a trend (i.e., a large percentage of nominations give proof of WP:BEFORE compliance), then we can talk about guideline status. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, the WP:CREEP thing is a very good point.

The result I want is more compliance with WP:BEFORE from nominators. I think that more compliance would lead to fewer bad nominations and hence fewer speedy closes (whether under WP:SNOW or speedy). But it's a question of how to achieve it.

The eventual destination I propose is a new WP:SK ground: "There is evidence the nominator has not complied with WP:BEFORE" but I don't think we can get there without upgrading WP:BEFORE to guideline or policy status.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 23:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're absolutely right, that for a new speedy keep criterion, you'd probably want WP:BEFORE to be a guideline or better. The problem I see is evaluating compliance with the "good-faith attempt" to find sources; not only is there the issue of whether the nominator shows sufficient research, but you also have to define "sufficient research", preferably in an objective manner, to keep evaluating such compliance as quick as possible for reviewing admins. Plus, I believe someone made a point in an earlier discussion on something like this, that requiring such proof constitutes an assumption of bad faith in itself.
Now, what I would consider appropriate is to define serial failure to follow WP:BEFORE (as evidenced by a large number of speedily- or WP:SNOW-kept nominations on the part of an editor) as disruptive editing, and furthermore, loosely permit the "education" of users who don't do a good job of complying with WP:BEFORE. I don't mean browbeating or harassing such users, of course, but I do mean ensuring that such users understand that the Wikipedia community strongly encourages providing evidence of such compliance. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
As I've commented before, the devil is in the details. (For the record, I'm strongly in favor of WP:BEFORE.) How do we define compliance with WP:BEFORE? Make it mandatory to say "I did a search?" Make it mandatory to add a link to a search? (Links to searches, unless there are fewer than a dozen hits, are rarely useful). And how widespread of a problem is this really? If it's only a few editors, deal with the editor. If it's widespread, then we need to really put our thinking caps on to make sure this will really solve the problem.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
No, I think that's too strong. I think the starting point has to be an assumption of good faith that nominators have complied. It follows that all that's left is some kind of negative consequence when there's evidence of non-compliance, e.g. speedy closure of the debate. But baby steps... first thing would be to seek consensus to upgrade WP:BEFORE to a guideline. Without requiring evidence of compliance from nominators, of course.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time thinking of what would be evidence of non-compliance. Speedy closure alone wouldn't be, because someone can easily f-up their search without meaning to. Could you give me an example?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
If I may... Multiple occurrences of AfD nominations, by the same nominator, where people provide details of decent sources located through a quick Google search on the article title/opening words (there are other search tools of course). Those would serve as evidence, for a reasonable belief the nominator is not practicing due diligence in nominating articles. (By contrast, something like alternative titles for a 'foreign-language' film could reasonably cause a nominator to miss possible sources.) –Whitehorse1 00:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Common sense support. Excellent idea, becasue many articles that are kept or rescued could have been improved through regular editing. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 00:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Question: It's already a set of instructions on the Articles for Deletion page, will adding the "guideline" banner to those instructions have a positive benefit? Nominators should already follow the instructive‑guidelines for the process area in which they participate. –Whitehorse1 00:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Support While I support minimizing policy creep I think some improvements can be made to the afd process, upgrading WP:BEFORE is a good initiative. Considering that just about every participant is (hopefully) going to do a search on google and scholar.google I think it would be nice if the nominator would have the courtesy to link to those searches. Not as 'proof' but as a simple timesaving device for those involved. Sometimes ghits are ambiguous and do not constitute notability but that is what the discussion itself is for, no? Unomi (talk) 00:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Solution in search of a problem. If someone nominates an article that has sources, people find the sources, add them to the article, and the article is kept. Google searches in particular are rather useless as a form of pre-vetting as I've seen Keep comments that say "one of those sources must be reliable" and delete comments saying "it isn't on Google". The key is finding specific sources on the article that are reliable. Further, we just expanded AFD to 7 days on the basis of infrequent editors coming along to add sources, so adding a new reason why we can violate the rule we just created seems a bit odd.
Finally, it is too vague. SK 9and the other deletion guidelines) are for unambiguous situations. Would we really speedy close an AFD because a person neglected to put {{advert}} on the article (pt. 3 of BEFORE) or because it was a non-controversial deletion, but the person prefers AFD to PROD to get more input (pt. 11). If the concern is people being too lazy to copy/paste to Google, then we can easily add links to Google Scholar, Google Books, etc from the AFD page so anyone can click on them and document sources or confirm that it appears there are none. MBisanz talk 01:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • You want to make a section of a page a guideline? Why? Not sure what's going on here. I do think it would be incredibly awkward to have a guideline stuck in the middle of a page. And I think that we need to encourage fewer multi-day-long discussions for obvious deletion candidates. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose AfD is not a court system, this is going to lead to 'throwing out' or badgering AfDs that don't follow the 'guideline'. No. I've had many articles deleted with a one sentence nomination and a 10 second google (the answer here would be PROD, except we have people who go through the PROD category and force AfDs, making it a tad pointless). You aren't going to get me to follow this for obvious cases, not sure why you expect newcomers to. You don't even present the problem you're attempting to solve; how is a few people voting speedy keep any different from a SNOW close after 4 keeps? BJTalk 01:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Nope. Per my reasoning the last few times this has been suggested. Protonk (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Hell no.. Yet another Inclusionist hoop to jump through, providing a guaranteed 'bad faith' excuse to void any nom by asserting more loudly than the nom can refute that the nom didn't do enough due diligence in BEFORE. ThuranX (talk) 02:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I was going to add some comments, but MBisanz has beaten me to everything I wanted to say—particularly the part about linking to unanalyzed Google search results, which is becoming a bane of many AfD discussions. Deor (talk) 03:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Why should any deletionist mind saying "I searched and didn't find anything"? If you look at WP:SCISSORS the concept is explicitly referenced there. So if inclusionists and deletionists agree in principle, why can't we find a way to word it appropriately? As long as it doesn't modify PROD or CSD, I'm good with it. Jclemens (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • While I agree, it would be great if a simple statement of "I searched for sources but didn't find any" would be great, I doubt it would satisfy a great many people- despite WP:AGF. If a simple statement is all that's needed, it becomes a shibboleth to people unfamiliar with the process, and there's genuinely no way for reviewers of the AfD to confirm this search. But if the nominator needs to validate that claim... then we have WP:CREEP and need to somehow define what qualifies as an appropriate search. Like Fabrictramp said above- the devil's in the details. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 10:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
      • I can't speak to others' desires, only to my own. If someone says they conducted a good faith effort to find sources, they're asserting a fact that can be checked. If I found a nominator who said they searched for sources and found none, and there was either gross incompetence or outright falsehood, that would be at least grounds for closing the AfD as disruptive editing: we need to be able to rely on editors to report such things honestly--perspectives differ, but if the nom says "Google found nothing" and I repeat the search and find tons of major newspaper hits, then that AfD has been opened using a grossly innacurate premise. Jclemens (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment I think it's a useless endeavour, because compliance with it is nearly impossible to demonstrate. I'm tempted to support it just for the sheer joy of watching the waves of hypocrisy: those same editors that spend all their time arguing that WP:N doesn't have to be followed because it's "only a guideline" will spend their next breath screaming that WP:BEFORE has to be followed because it's a guideline!.—Kww(talk) 04:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Yes, BEFORE should be a good faith part of the process, and to just nominate an article without even bothering to check can be bitey, but unless we change WP:V's line that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material", this would be in direct conflict with established policy. If a editor is nominating tons of AFDs that do seem to easily pass a quick google test, that's cause for an RFC/U. --MASEM (t) 04:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Previous discussions (reverse chronological order): WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 51#Speedy close nominations, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#WP:BEFORE, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Searching before nominating Flatscan (talk) 05:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose For the many good reasons presented. Verbal chat 10:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • support I've seen AfDs with overwhelming "delete" majorities yet where evidence of notability was easy to find - no-one had bothered to look, and in one case I suspect no-one had any intention of looking, because that AfD looked to me like harassment as part of a personal feud. WP:V's "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" is not the only relevant policy, as WP:DELETE says improvement is always preferable to deletion. Reversing a dubious "keep" result is easy enough, just re-AfD in 6 months (BTW earlier to-day I !voted "merge & redirect" in a re-run of a Dec 2008 AfD), while reversing a dubious delete looks much more difficult - do AfDs closed as other than "keep" have to show a prominent link at the top to WP:DRV? RFC/U (MASEM 04:19, 12 May 2009) is not an adequate remedy for accidental or malicious misuse of AfD, as it's too slow and toothless. Making it hard to prevent improper deletion will add to the hassle in the short term, but will then take the bitterness out of AfD when it becomes clear that the process is fair. --Philcha (talk)
  • Neutral comment: I don't think it's a bad idea, because everyone definitely should check to see if an article can be fixed before they nominate it for deletion. But the real problem isn't the strength of the wording of WP:BEFORE, but how we tell if someone isn't doing it. Really, we should be dealing with this by judging someone's results. If people frequently start AFDs that end in "keep", that might be a sign they don't really care about article quality, and just want to stamp stuff out. Randomran (talk) 16:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Hell no - I've had many, many cases of where editors accused me of not following WP:BEFORE when all it was was that they dug up some nonsense blogs and trivial offhanded mentions in local papers and republished press releases and insisted that the topic was obviously notable and blah blah blah. Saying that it's a requirement would just be another verbal club for the rabid anti-deletionists to try to excuse keeping every last bit of nonsense they can come up with a half-hearted wildly inappropriate rationalization for. From the AFDs I've seen there are for too many keeps that have no reason to be kept, and no consensus defaults to keep in practice, so adding yet more reasons to keep bad content is the last thing we need. Wikipedia articles need to demonstrate notability on their own. If someone can claim that people should try to get sources before nominating something for deletion, we can just as easily say people should have made sure reliable, nontrivial third party sources giving some info that would demonstrate why anyone would care should be found before the article was made in the first place. That's where it should be. On top of that, it's difficult to prove a negative... notability is always going to have to be proven, not that something isn't notable. That's just the only way things can work, short of banning any editor who participates in an AFD making claims that sources meet notability standards when they clearly don't from ever participating in AFDs again. Keep voters should have to prove it, period, and if they can't then it deserves to get deleted. DreamGuy (talk) 16:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Clarification Needed Are you saying you followed BEFORE but didn't mention it, didn't bother following BEFORE and it wasn't relevant or necessary to do so in those cases, or that you did follow BEFORE and said as much but were accused of not doing so based on flimsy, potentially bad faith evidence? Jclemens (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
      • Typically it's some aggressive editor claiming that I "violated" BEFORE and therefore should be ignored because he found some personal blog or press release that he's going to pretend is a reliable source and how horrible it is that someone could dare to nominate something for deletion when there's some personal website or whatever out there mentioning this person in a trivial way. And so forth and so on. WP:BEFORE is already the latest attack club by people who can't come up with any real complaints. DreamGuy (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Break

I closed this, because it was obvious to me that Wikipedians are unwilling to accept that any burden of proof whatsoever should fall on the nominator. After reading the remarks above I'm extremely cynical about the prospects of requiring nominators to do any real searching for sourcing.

My position remains that a lot of articles are only at AfD because sourcing material is hard and remarks above show that certain editors think they should be able to get other people to search for sources instead. But I do not believe a discussion here can change this, because too many editors are very comfortable with AfD as it is.

However, representations on my talk page are asking me to re-open it, so as a politeness, I'm doing so.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 07:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

  • I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but this isn't the first time this has been suggested or debated and there are more issues at stake than the binary determination of whether or not we wish the burden of proof to fall on a nominator. Elevating before to a guideline or enacting some parallel policy which has the same effect impacts not only the intended targets, editors who make sloppy AfD noms, but also impacts any other AfD nominator in a fashion that we haven't sketched out here completely. It also affects editors who undertake a sub-par search for a topic (because they don't know anything about it). It affects editors who don't nominate articles for lack of sources (beyond the narrow exceptions noted above). It provides yet another site of conflict where editors can argue with each other at AfD about their behavior, not the article. It provides potentially another "tripwire" early close scenario which ends up at DRV or re-nominated. That said, the idea isn't bad. People who consistently back uninformed or underinformed AfD nominations should face some pushback. I'm happy to engage with people over a possible solution to that problem but I don't want to pick a solution that burdens everyone else unless we are completely sure it is the best option. Protonk (talk) 07:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Yes, it makes more work for nominators. It unequivocally shifts the burden of work and proof; it requires a higher standard of behaviour from nominators. That's the point.

      I do nominate articles at AfD from time to time, and I'm willing to accept some additional hoops to jump through. I see this as acceptable collateral damage from a needed change.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 07:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

      • I agree that shifting the burden of proof (as it were) is among the things that it does. What I'm trying to say is that the other things it does are also worth discussing, so distilling this idea to just a discussion of where wikipedians feel a burden should lie is not accurate. Protonk (talk) 08:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This supports my view so perfectly that I should probably declare here that I did not in any way engineer it.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

  • support the principle, and work out the details. Even now if there is an incomplete or botched nomination, someone straightens it out. Protonk, this unfairly burdens nobody. Everyone should be doing it in the first place. It's not punishing them--its asking them to either help the article get rescued or else facilitate the deletion. My prediction is that a good many of the times a proper search being done, and finding nothing relevant, will make for an easier agreement to delete, without people having to vote to keep or delete blindly or themselves search every item nominated. We're balancing the work one person does for one article with helping everyone else for them all. It will prevent things from getting to DRV, because we'll have better discussions at afd. I delete maybe 10 or 20 articles a day, and I check each one of them if there is any chance there might be information or a check would be relevant. Someone nominating a few articles a week can check them. Its a reasonable requirement. DGG (talk) 04:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Unfair burdens is one of the arguments against this. It isn't the only one so I'm disinclined to continue debating only the burden itself. Protonk (talk) 04:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Unfair burdens is one of the arguments for this. (Fixed it for me)...—S Marshall Talk/Cont 14:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment WP:BEFORE is already policy in that it forms a clear part of the deletion process. To make this clear, I suggest that we take some editors who make a habit of flouting it to Arbcom and get appropriate sanctions levied. This is already in my mind as its becoming a farce to have articles nominated when a search immediately reveals thousands of sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I think from the discussion above, it's clear that it isn't even remotely accepted as policy.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree that there are editors who do not follow it, just as there are numerous editors who are routinely uncivil and do not accept they they should be more polite. This does not mean that it is ok to deliberately ignore it and it is time to start enforcement per WP:DISRUPT. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Please see WP:KETTLE for the claims that people should be more polite (as you're one of the most uncivil AFD voters I've seen). And "enforcement per WP:DISRUPT" is just a joke. You already make more than enough highly aggressive and false accusations as it is without publicly stating your intention here to escalate such uncivil behavior. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a personal battleground. You need respect editors in AFDs more, not less, and what you are suggesting is just wikihounding every time you disagree with someone. DreamGuy (talk) 21:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Excellent - we have a volunteer. I shall explain the process in detail this weekend. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Based upon your recent post to my talk page all you've done is demonstrate exactly why you are a poor judge of what WP:BEFORE means and what counts as actual sources demonstrating notability and that you're willing to post comments on talk pages insisting people follow rules you've invented up in your head. If you keep this up all you're going to end up doing is get yourself blocked for harassment. DreamGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
So it is ok to treat people who violate BEFORE as disruptive but not people who violate N or NOT? Protonk (talk) 21:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Many of the people complaining about WP:BEFORE "violations" have already demonstrated that they don't understand what it means anyway. DreamGuy (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
  • support per DGG. Ikip (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose I have not seen where this would help the encyclopedia, and I have seenw ehre it can harm it. This is Rulescreep For Wikilawyers, and I for one am not interested in Yet Another Stick to Beat People I Disagree With being made a guideline, thanks. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose First, I haven't seen where AfD is occurng flippantly. I think the Good Faith guideline outweighs the need for a WP:Before. If someone is actually doing an AfD nominaiton because of an agenda, or has an axe to grind there are avenues at Wikipedia, where concsesus decides. No article is lost and can be resurrected if the AfD is shown to be in bad faith. Second, I think that it is good to question the notability of an article if it is in doubt, and AfD is a way to do that. AfD itself, as we all know, is a process of consensus. It takes a number of days and consensus is developed, one way or the other. AfD is not swooping in and deleting the article in a day or an hour. Even a Wikipedia Speedy deletion can be held up until consesus is taken. It seems to me there are many avenues open already and an effective process is in place. I think that the burden of proof should fall on those opposing the nomination (and I don't like saying that). And I have to agree with those who said that this is just one more way for the nominator to have to take heat. Anyway, this is from my limited experience here. Ti-30X (talk) 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • For a recent example, see the case of User:Tyrenon who was banned from AFD for spamming AFD with numerous frivolous nominations. This case demonstrates that the guideline is already operative - if an editor tries the community's patience then they are likely to be sanctioned. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
  • WP:BURDEN is consistent with WP:BEFORE as it states, "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors might object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references, and it has always been good practice, and expected behavior of Wikipedia editors (in line with our editing policy), to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them.". Failure to follow WP:BEFORE in this respect is therefore a failure to follow policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposed guideline is exceedingly vague indeed -- including having to make a specific judgement on whether the topic might "potentially" rate an article. Alas -- WP:CRYSTAL applies -- the requirement I think is relevant is notification of the primary author if still active on WP. Which is not in this proposal <g>. Collect (talk) 15:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose as unnecessary, as Rulescreep and per User:Allen3 above. Dougweller (talk) 16:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Creator notification

I've just noticed that User:LibStar who has nominated a plethora of International Relations articles for deletion recently, has not been notifying the creators and significant contributors of those deletions. When I raised the point on his talk page, informing him[1] that it's considered WP:CIVIL to inform the creators, under the guide to deletion at guide to deletion, ("It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion") he requested that I bring this discussion here[2] and told me not to post on his talk page anymore. (We also had an ongoing discussion about whether his repeated use of the notability tag on these same pages should obligate him to explain his reasons for using the tag on the article's talk page.) It seemed clear to me that he doesn't want to take the time to tell people he's trying to have the article they created deleted. However, this issue also raised a question of good faith to me that a willful refusal to nominate the creator could be intended to skew the results of the Afd. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In 99% of cases, the creator is either an editor who has been inactive for some time, or his blocked sockpuppet. Also, in very rare cases have any of the articles he's nominated been significantly improved since their creation. Indeed, that doesn't usually happen UNTIL it ends up at AfD. --BlueSquadronRaven 17:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
If they care, the page is watchlisted. I really can't be arsed going out of my way for people who create "articles" with nary a source in them. That's the highly disrespectful and damaging thing. There should be a requirment of two reliable, independent sources as a minimum for article creation, otherwise speedy delete. I know that will never happen, however.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
It is common courtesy to notify article creators and takes but seconds. While I agree that people should create articles with sources, not everyone understands such things when they first start out as Wikipedians and as such we should extend the courtesy of educating new editors by informing them of AfDs in which they can learn how and what to source. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 17:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
The two above arguments are pretty much why it isn't required to notify the creator or significant editors. But you are correct that it is still considered the nice thing to do. If you're concerned about a pattern of not discussing taggings and such, WP:RFC/U might be the right direction to go. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Erwin85Bot 8 is currently in trial. Flatscan (talk) 04:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
It's requested, but not required, that you notify creators of articles, and it's a built-in function of most decent user scripts. I think that's a reasonable position. Stifle (talk) 10:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment: Exactly....requested, not required. I, for one, am glad Libstar is doing all this work in trying to clean out so many of these articles. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Athlete notability

What is the wiki standard for minor league players? WP:ATHLETE says "at the fully professional level of a sport". But many minor league players have side jobs to support themselves. The article that made me notice this is Chris Cates, also see the template of red links at the bottom. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Minor league players fail WP:ATHLETE but they may be notable for other reasons. In one of my rare AFD nominations it was suggested that being a first round draft pick means you're notable but I would think that that means that there is a lot of press around first round draft picks so such subjects would have non-trivial mentions in regional to national newspapers. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
That means there's a plethora of minor league athlete articles to nom. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Whether minor league baseball players are fully professional has been much debated, with no real consensus acheived. On one hand, many of them do have off-season jobs to make ends meet. On the other hand, so did many major league players, such as Yogi Berra, in the days before free agency. Yes, the salaries are low, but they also get meal money and free room and board with a host family. But then, the guy working at McDonald's and living in his parent's basement also gets free room and board.
Ultimately, the problem is that "fully professional" is too vague for baseball. Does it mean you get paid $1? Minimum wage for the 4 months you're working in short season ball? The same as minimum wage year around? Enough to rent an apartment and live on your own? Enough to have a family? Each of these views has plenty of supporters, and even a few who say that no minor leaguer is notable, even if he has enough sources to pass WP:GNG (thankfully, that's a minority view.) There have recently been quite a few minor leaguer articles at AfD (thanks to a prolific editor who made over 200 of these in a couple of weeks, with next to no sourcing), and the various closing admins have usually just gone with whether the article could pass WP:GNG, and ignored the "fully professional" issue.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:40, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Also, FWIW, I did a quick bit of searching for sources to pass GNG on Chris Cates and am coming up far short. He's only in Single-A right now (most baseball editors would not call that fully professional), so the best thing he's got going for him are the all-star appearances (again, most editors don't put much stock in single-A all star appearances). I doubt this one would pass an AfD.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I think the debate over whether Minor League Baseball is fully professional or not (it is) is a waste of resources. The real question is whether a minor league baseball player is notable. WP:ATHLETE only reflects consensus, it does not define notability. If many low minor leaguers are deleted, then the guideline should be changed accordingly. Resolute 02:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Essay: WP:AfD and mergers

WP:AfD and mergers attempts to describe the interaction/intersection between AfD and the merge process. I wrote it a couple of months ago, but I held off on linking it due to the AfDiscussion RfC that was dominating this page then.

Comments and edits requested. In particular, I'm sure that I've unintentionally misrepresented someone's viewpoint in the Proposed modifications section. Flatscan (talk) 04:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

My opinion: Something like this should probably state clearly that a merge recommendation is effectively a keep recommendation, and should address, at least in passing, recommendations of redirect or more explicitly redirect and don't merge which I also see often enough. The one mention of redirect isn't enough; they often go together, but not always, and if you're only speaking about cases where merging is an explicit part of the recommendation, that should be clarified. Also, for a result of merge the closure could be by a non-admin. JJL (talk) 13:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. There should be a link to WP:Guide to deletion#Recommendations and outcomes, maybe as a {{see also}}. There is some disagreement on straight keep versus its variants (e.g. if comments are unanimously keep variants, but there is a developing consensus to merge or redirect, should the AfD be closed early as keep?) that should probably get a section. Redirects are much simpler and can probably be mentioned in passing. Flatscan (talk) 04:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Today is not 10 June

Just fyi. 76.14.34.115 (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Nvm, it fixed itself. 76.14.34.115 (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple relistings

There are several AfDs that end up being relisted multiple times due to a lack of input from other editors. In many cases, I suspect that this lack of interest could be considered equivalent to an expired prod. So why don't we treat these articles this way? If an article has been to AfD, and relisted, with little or no input, and no keep arguments, that it be deleted under the same rules for an expired PROD: restored if at any point someone requests it? It would help reduce or prevent cases like this, where an article would spend 21 days or more at AfD.

Perhaps, a little more extreme, AfDs that receive no attention after their one week should not be relisted at all, but deleted as the equivalent of an expired prod. Thoughts? Resolute 02:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

We had this discussion about six or seven weeks ago, see Proposal, treat AFDs with little or no discussion as "uncontested prods". There was little support for this. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, that's what I get for not reading the archives. heh. Resolute 20:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of relisting discussions with no comments a second time. I've tried closing them as "no consensus with no prejudice against a speedy renomination". I got yelled at for it. The nominator felt he was being penalized for writing sound nominations that nobody felt the need to add to and I agreed with him. I was the one who proposed the idea of treating AFDs with no comments as expired prods to deal with situations just like that. The idea was that the closing admin could delete the article if in his judgment the nominator's rationale is sound but we treat it as a "prod" because there actually isn't a consensus to delete. That is, the article can be re created without being subject to CSD G4 or it would be restored upon demand by a request to WP:REFUND or by asking any admin. However, it was felt that the idea went against the "when in doubt, don't delete" idea. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

And I certainly agree with that. Regardless, it is a waste of resources to be listing these articles for 14 days, never mind 21 or more. I'd say either way, we should codify what action should be taken and when. If nobody cares about an article after 14 days, why would anyone care on day 15? Another thought would be to have a bot move a nomination with no feedback to the current day's log. Most action at AfD is on the current day, so once one of these nominations goes a day or two with no commentary, they just get buried, causing all these relistings. Resolute 23:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
I think it's necessary to address the "nobody cares" phrase. I used it (or the variant "nobody gives a damn" in both versions of my proposal and I think it was a mistake on my part. Whether or not "anybody cares" should be used when choosing the venue for proposing deletion, PROD if "nobody cares" and AFD if it's likely that somebody does. However, no article should ever be deleted simply because "nobody cares". The decision on whether or not to delete an article should be made based on whether or not it passes our inclusion guidelines. An admin should not delete an article that has been prodded for 7 days if the prodder's nomination is not sound, ditto for an AFD. If an AFD has ran 7-14 days and nobody has given a good reason why the article should be deleted, it should be kept whether or not my proposal is in effect, whether or not anybody !votes "delete" or even !votes at all. Let's leave the "nobody cares" meme on Uncyclopedia. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
It may be loose language, but the question remains valid: What do we do with articles nobody has a desire to comment on? A default to no-consensus, a default to delete, a default to whatever the closing admin judges to be right are all fair. Resolute 13:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The fact that the article is prodded or is at AFD means at least one person wants it deleted. Ideally, whether or not it gets deleted, in the absence of any other comments one way or the other, should be based on whether or not the nominator makes a good case for deletion. If he says "this article sucks", then the prod should be declined or the AFD closed without deleting. If the nominator's reasoning is sound, the article may be deleted. However, as it stands right now, if it's an AFD with a sound rationale but no comments after a relist or two, it should be closed "no consensus" with leave to speedy renominate. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
We could always close it as defensive indifference. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
My action in such a case would be to judge the article on its merits--if speedy is a "summary judgment", then such a disposition would be a bench trial. Under no circumstances would I relist an article a second time--if there's no consensus by that point, I would close it as "no consensus". I'd be inclined to close an uncompelling yet uncommented AfD as no consensus, as well. Jclemens (talk) 15:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we could use you at AFD then. You could go through all the logs for the past 7 days and close any that have been relisted more then once. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I spend most of my deletion time on prods (few complaints) and speedies (more complaints, but more absolute rubbish to remove). I have been known to occasionally go through and do precisely that--relistings are good for when dialogue is ongoing, IMHO, and relatevely useless for combatting disinterest. DELSORT is a better remedy for the latter. Jclemens (talk) 05:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Cirt is being bold and doing this anyway. If this becomes a trend we should reconsider the "treat dead AFDs as expired prods" idea as a "safety net". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Admin's discretion. :P Essentially the AfD had the "delete" comment from the nominator and no one else, unanimous consensus to delete. Cirt (talk) 06:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Also, Jclemens (talk · contribs) said some good stuff, above. Cirt (talk) 06:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Request to list Verdurian language for deletion

Someone (u t c m l ) re-created this twice-deleted conlang article for the second time. I prodded it, which was promptly contested by the creator. Can someone with an account please AfD this article, as I am unable to create the debate page. Thanks. 98.232.96.150 (talk) 04:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Correction: it was only deleted once. The first debate resulted in a keep. My mistake. 98.232.96.150 (talk) 04:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 3rd nomination

I am having difficulty making a third nomination for the article Greenfinger I tried afd3 and afdx but either the tag doesn't work of directs to the second nomination. What am I doing wrong?Polargeo (talk) 14:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you making sure to specify that it's the 3rd afd, ie with {{subst:afdx|3rd}} ? Shereth 14:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Can someone please put this advice on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion because it is not there at the moment. Polargeo (talk) 15:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Artez Interactive

This AfD doesn't appear to have done right. Please fix. Thank you. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Y Done--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 9-5 2600

If there is a reliable source to prove that 9-5 for the 2600 was a concept of some form, it should'ent be deleted. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 10:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're referring to 9 to 5 (video game). If you wish to contest the deletion then you need to comment in its deletion discussion. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Relisting for changing consensus

Currently, per WP:DP, relisting is only allowed when there is insufficient discussion; otherwise, fuzzy cases are closed as no consensus. However, take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jak & Daxter vehicles. I felt uncomfortable closing this as either delete (because the consensus changed at the end) or no consensus (all in all, there was more support for deletion, disregarding sequence). Therefore, I boldly relisted the discussion; I believe this would be a reasonable idea for such cases (rare, but problematic when they do come up). I propose the following:

In an instance where

  1. the entire discussion comprises two blocks of consecutive !votes, one of which clearly supports deletion and the other of which clearly supports retention;
  2. the first block has more !votes than the second block; and
  3. the decision (keep or delete) with the fewer number of !votes has at least 25% of the !votes;
the discussion may be relisted. !Votes with invalid reasoning, from SPA's, etc. may be disregarded with discretion.

Any opinions? (I know this seems too much number/vote-based, but #2 and #3 are there for a reason: #2 is there because if the second block has more !votes, then the discussion should be closed. #3 is there because one !vote at the end is unlikely to change anything. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Should these be deleted?

The page on Stephen Grasso is an orphan page about a living person that contains peacock language ("honed his skills") and was created by a now-non-existant user named BarryKane whose only contribution to Wikipedia consists of creating the Stephen Grasso page. I suspect that this is a self-promotion page, and am not sure how notable the subject is.

The page about David Southwell is a joke -- the peacock language is obvious, as is the fictionalization of his grandiose claims. He seems to be a non-notable ex-employee of the British Retail Consortium.

I rarely edit here, so i am hoping that a helpful person who reads this will forward the information to someone of competence. Catherineyronwode (talk) 04:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Peacock language is an editing issue, not a deletion issue. Even though you rarely edit, you can add the appropriate maintenance tags or fix them yourself, whichever works better for you.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Too complicated

Getting an article deleted has become 2-3 orders of magnitude more complicated than creating a new article. This makes it almost impossible to protect WP against people who are dumping borderline nonsense. Please have a look at the activities of User:Logger9 who claims to be professor "at a four-year university": he has created an empire of articles controlled but by himself, linked mostly internally, loquacious, overcharged with footnotes nobody can check within reasonable time, and not free of copyright infringements. This has gone on almost unnoticed for months, and now it's terribly complicated to clean up. -- Paula Pilcher (talk) 17:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Walled Garden refers to what you are describing. The copyright issue is the easiest by far to use to get things deleted. We cannot have material on the project copyrighted elsewhere. If you are able to show exactly where sections of an article come from, and can show multiple sections from different sources in a single article, you successfully call into question the copyright of the entire article. Use WP:CSD, specifically the G12 criteria, to tag the article for speedy deletion. I have G12 deleted the one article you placed up for AFD already. Your listed sources were spot-on, and a quick check of them showed that entire paragraphs were indeed lifted from the external sources.
Find the sources of paragraphs in two or three articles from the same editor, and you are now showing a pattern. At this point, you will be bringing his entire editing content under suspicion. If you can show this much, it's likely time to file a report on the situation in general, and get additional eyes going through the work. There have been several serial copyright violators reported at WP:AN in the last few months, so that's one place to get more eyes involved. If there is a better place to report a serial copyright violator, I'm sure someone else will tell it.
While the other problems are not non-issues by any means, IMHO the copyright issue is the one that can most easily and most quickly get action going. - TexasAndroid (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Articles such as Glass transition and Crystal growth do not seem at all suitable for deletion and suggesting that they might be is not a constructive approach. The issue here seems to be the usual one of two cooks in one kitchen. Please see dispute resolution for better ways forward. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
If there are copyright violations at their core, then that trumps most other aspect of suitability. I'm not saying there is such, but the OP for this thread was already able to find such in one other article from the subject. One article does not make for a serial copyright violator, but such violations in 3-4, and it would be time for a serious look at them all. I already did Google searches for random phrases from several of the other articles, and found either nothing or scads of WP mirrors. So hopefully the one was an aberration. We shall see. - TexasAndroid (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

After removing some copyright violations, this problem seems solved for the moment; it's not at the core of the issue anyway. Of course the problem with User:Logger9 (and it is a massive problem) must be resolved elsewhere. Yet I maintain: it is so easy to bring material in - it should not be that difficult to get nonsense out. The deletion manual is terrible long; it lets the procedure appear more bureaucratic than it actually is. -- Paula Pilcher (talk) 09:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Automating more of the AfD process

I've suggested over at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Articles for Deletion needs more automation that the 3-step manual process for starting an AfD be reduced to one step. Wikipedia:Requested moves already has this; all an editor has to do is put the template on the talk page in question, and a 'bot updates everything else. "prod" has automation, too, but using a different mechanism. I suggest using the 'bot that manages requested moves to also handle AfD entries. We have the technology. --John Nagle (talk) 20:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on this. Here's what I said at WT:DELPRO when this came up...
IMHO getting an article deleted should be "hard". We are here to create articles, not make them go away. However, sometimes an article has to be deleted and we have policies and guidelines that state when we must do that. Having to learn those policies, guidelines, and what hoops to jump through to propose an article for deletion keeps the load on AFD manageable. If we had a convenient "button" for proposing an article for deletion that any passerby can push if they think an article "sucks", we'd likely have a thousand or more AFDs a day.
That being said, there are tools that make the process easier. Twinkle is one of those but even that requires one to create an account and activate the tool.
--Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:52, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. As Ron points out, Twinkle already automates the process. So there shouldn't be much harm in letting people who for some reason can't use a TW-friendly browser automate it. (It used to be that getting the courage to mess around in your monobook.js file was a bar to using TW, but since it's in Gadgets, that's gone away.) I don't see a lot of difference between a bot completing the process and a script doing the same.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:15, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
  • What's required is that the process described at WP:BEFORE is followed. An improved process should incorporate a checklist of these steps. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Technically, no, BEFORE is not required, just highly suggested. Discussion to make it required have historically failed. Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Process physics

I can never remember the steps to re AfDing an already AfD'd article. I someone would perform the steps for me, that would be appreciated, thanks. I'll give the grounds for deletion soon after the new page is set up. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It was deleted as a result of the previous discussion so it may be speedy deletable under CSD G4. I've tagged it as such. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:20, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Good enough for me. I don't have access to the old version so I couldn't tell if it was the same version as before.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Here's the old version --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Weird edit outcome

Resolved. thanks to Ron's patience and skill with a plunger.--Fabrictramp

Whenever I try to fix the formatting of this AfD [3] by changine the open ref that's hiding everything below it into a link, it auto signs everythign and vandalistic comments that look like they're coming from me pop up. I'm a little sleepy, but I can't quite figure out if this is some sort of booby trap that was set up or something? Very weird. I've never had anything like that happen before. Thanks for whoever can resolve whatever the issue is. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems like it's the ~~~~'s that are tripping you up. No idea how they got in there unexpanded, but the software thinks you are trying to sign things. Someone would have to track down all those comments and see who signed them -- I need to sign off in 5 minutes, so I may not get a chance to puzzle it out.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I see the open ref has been in there from the start, so that's why the ~~~~'s didn't expand from the get-go.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I think I've fixed it as well as it can be fixed. Also removed the "poop" comment. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you sir. Makes sense now. The way it unfolded with the vandalism and my signature made me nervous. But it all makes sense now. Thanks again for fixing it up. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Archives

The header template says there are two talk page archives (1 and 2, but they link to 32 and 33), which is clearly incorrect - there are 54 archives according to the box on the right hand side. Why is there a duplicate list of archives and how can we get rid of the broken one at the top? I tried looking through the header info, but was unable to suss out the exact location. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Deres (talk • contribs) 15:02, July 4, 2009

This is an issue with {{talkheader}}, which isn't recording the archives well. I have turned the function off as we have a separate comprehensive (and correct) listing of archives on the page. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Is that something I could have fixed myself or did it require Admin access? Matt Deres (talk) 15:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it didn't need admin access. It was just a matter of adding |noarchive=yes to {{talkheader}}. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I see what you did now. Thanks! Matt Deres (talk) 20:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, I've been adding the new archive links manually when I notice that they're needed. Does anyone know if there's a way to get the archive box to update automatically? Flatscan (talk) 05:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

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