Talk:Chinatown, Providence, Rhode Island

Contested deletion

@Binksternet: could you clarify the CSD for me? I'm not seeing just what the sock was blocked for such that this would be an extension thereof. Was this page previously deleted or is there some underlying agenda I'm not seeing? As G5 wouldn't apply if others made substantial edits, was the other primary editor on the page also a sock (I see he/she also edited another Chinatown page)? This subject may be of questionable notability, but at least a couple of the refs are legit. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  04:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

This article was created by sockpuppets of a banned user. The socks include User:Mfwo3df, User:RowEpict, User:Hateehateehateeho, and IP 96.227.233.121. Between these socks, they created 98% of the article. The socks are listed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/D62943 and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/D62943/Archive. Thanks for looking into this! Binksternet (talk) 05:04, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Binksternet: I see. Granted, I haven't gone through all of the spi archive there, but this page is connected to the reason the sock was blocked? Seems perfectly innocuous. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  05:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Contested deletion 2

This page should not be speedily deleted because in spite of its possibly questionable origin, the article seems relatively neutral, and has more footnotes than many stub articles. It also has been edited by a half-dozen editors from different backgrounds, and the original creator has not returned, so that much of the article content is from good faith editing by others. Reify-tech (talk) 05:02, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

If what you say is true, it appears that I was misled by the sockpuppeting. I haven't had to deal much with this so far (fortunately). Too bad. Hopefully somebody will legitimately start a new article on the subject eventually. Reify-tech (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I am absolutely in favor of having an article on this topic. There is a nagging tension between a G5 deletion (evasive contributions by a banned editor) and the expansion of the encyclopedia. Usually I'm all about expansion but this particular sockpuppeteer is getting under my skin. Binksternet (talk) 15:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm still unclear what the content-based substance of the sock master's ban was such that this would fall under that heading. (As it's not [it seems] paid editing, a hoax, a controversial subject, or something that's been deleted or otherwise via AfD or some other discussion venue). Given no non-sock has made substantial edits to the article, but the content is valuable, what about deleting it without prejudice to it being shortly thereafter recreated using more or less the same content (i.e. no "credit" goes to the sock and the burden is on the recreator to verify the quality of the content)? I mean it might not even be notable to begin with, but my interest was piqued and I'd be willing to look through what's here. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  16:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The account Special:Contributions/D62943 was blocked four years ago because of using multiple accounts to edit war on the article Interstate 80. Many other of the socks have engaged in edit-warring, especially Special:Contributions/Geoffrey100 with regard to San Jose versus San Francisco radio stations. If the person behind all these socks was to follow the advice of WP:OFFER, that is, to wait for six months without touching Wikipedia, own up to socking and edit warring, and promise not to do so in the future, they could probably be brought back into the fold. Binksternet (talk) 16:58, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

If you totally rewrite this article, then it's yours. However, if you re-use some of the text from previous versions then the original editors should be retained in history for proper credit. See WP:RUD (which I was pointed to earlier today, seeing it for the first time.) Binksternet (talk) 17:01, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't care about my name being there; it just sounded like you intended to proceed with the deletion despite this thread because of a general sense of not wanting a sock's edits to stand regardless of relationship between this article and the ban (which I know is not the way blocks work, but you would know better if that's what's supposed to happen with a ban of this sort). I would venture this one is safe to leave alone as no edit warring took place here and the content seems encyclopedic and uncontroversial. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  17:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

While we were talking the article was deleted. It must be rewritten from scratch. We are now talking on an orphaned talk page. Binksternet (talk) 18:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Binksternet: You say that as though there's nothing that can be done, and still haven't responded to most of the above except to say (a) the user was banned for edit warring and (b) if I want to reproduce this content the edit history should be preserved (and yet the CSD remained). Doesn't G5 require that it not only be created by a blocked/banned user but also that it be created in a way that connects to the block/ban (rather than just reverting every edit the user made)? --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  19:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The G5 guideline does not specify that the article should be kept if it is judged worthy of the encyclopedia. In practice, though, that is a commonsense response by some admins who will not delete such an article. Today, though, the Providence Chinatown article was deleted by Sphilbrick, part of a string of articles I nominated for G5 deletion which Sphilbrick deleted. There are two ways forward: the first way is for you to completely rewrite the article such that it is based on none of the wording of the previous article. (Of course there will be general similarities, but not specific copy/paste violations.) The second way is for you to ask that the article be undeleted, following which you could make any changes you wished. I'm not an administrator, so if you choose the second path, I will not be able to undelete the article for you. Binksternet (talk) 20:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)