User:R. fiend/Why VfD isn't seriously broken

Here I will addres what are listed os "Cons" on the Wikipedia:Deletion reform page, and explain why most are not serious. A few new policies and clarifications are in order, but not overhaul. My responses are in orange.

• VfD promotes factionalism and strife among editors.
  • Unfortunate, but hardly a reason to scrap it.
• Hurts new editors with rough comments about articles.
  • Cry me a river
    • The above comment has provoked some controversy, so I thought I'd expalin it better. I do not wish to encourage rough comments to newbies and the like. The simple matter is that people will write highly deletable content, and some will get bent out of shape when it is nominated for deletion (take this guy for example). This is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. If we think this is a reason for a major change (keeping in mind that not biting newboes is already a policy) then we're going in the direction of saying to users "well, if you're going to cry about it I guess we can let you keep the article on your puppy". I do not wish to see this.
• It is too large to facilitate discussion between a wider variety of users.
  • As long as people add crap to wikipedia at an alarming rate (which will only grow as WP is used more) there will be many articles that need deletion. Speedies have been expanded as much as they likely can, and nothing else will really cut back, unless we make it harder for people to contribute (which I would not support until it becomes absolutely necessary, which I hope will never happen)
• Most articles are deleted unanimously, yet remain cluttering up the VfD pages for the full week.
  • "Most" are not unanimous, though many are. Again, speedies have been expanded almost as much as they reasonably can. One of the old Countdown- or Early deletion poropsals might handle this, but they've been shot down in the past. Besides, unanimous ones are usually closed the fastest. The lag of sometimes weeks is a real problem not addressed here.
• Sometimes too few people vote on an article.
  • Not too often, though a quorum of a certain number might be a good idea, with the article being reposted if it doesn't have enough votes. (The quorum should be lower for unanimous VfDs.)
• The current system cannot grow with Wikipedia, and as as result, there is usually a massive backlog of discussions waiting to be closed out.
  • Much the same as the "It is too large" argument above.
• The project-wide problem with sock puppets is particularly troublesome at VfD.
  • Unfortuantely, there is no real way around socks. As long as users have input into an article's deletion, there will be sockpuppets. Unless we have admin-only voting, which isn't a terribly popular idea.
• VfD voters tend to make confusing votes, such as "delete and redirect," "merge and delete," "keep and merge," that by their sheer diversity make it difficult for the closing admin to ascertain exactly what should be done.
  • This can be a problem, particularly when vote splitting leads to lack of consensus. Here things can be worked out, but within the context of VfD.
• Bad-faith VFDs often appear, and waste everyone's time.
  • These are reasonably few, and are usually de-listed pretty quickly, not wasting much time except the nomintor's. An official policy, or at least some guidlines, might be a good idea, though.
• A successful VfD makes it difficult to create a new article in the future. An unsuccessful VfD can potentially make a bad article undeletable.
  • This can be a problem, though I don't think it is terribly widespread. If someone re-creates a deleted page, but it is either different or the time elapsed has made a difference, and finds it speedied, they can argue on VfU. Most users are reasonable, and will accomodate if it is not seen as abuse.
• Double standards are applied to which articles are "unnecessary" "unencyclopedic" etc.
  • Not much of a way around this. Perhaps expanding WP:MUSIC and WP:FICT into other areas (politics would be great) can address much of this.
• The "keep" side automatically wins if a "no consensus" is determined. This is seen as unfair by some wanting to delete the article.
  • This is not a problem when 30-40% of the votes are "keep". When fewer, or none at all, are this is a problem.
• The VfD process re-hashes, badly, the same old debates about what we want to delete again and again, wasting everyone's time. Precedent and policy is never allowed to prevail.
  • Like the double standards argument, this can be addressed. And precedent has been known to succeed.
• The VfD process has become a mind-numbing series of pure votes and proceduralism. The original purpose was to invite debate about poor articles and encourage improvement of them. Now improving articles is actively discouraged by some VfD users because it disrupts the votes because people look at different versions of the article. This is tail wagging the dog at its worst and must be stopped.
  • Most users do not (and should not) discourage article improvements during VfD. It can be difficult for the closer, but thats why we have admins. Reposting should be encouraged when the article in the end is vastly different from the one nominated but not enough votes reflect this.
• VfD is centralized, which is unwiki.
  • I honestly don't care.
• VfD is so large that some users spend all their Wikipedia time on it, getting things deleted. They lose perspective on what it is the real goal of Wikipedia is - to create an encyclopedia.
  • Or getting things kept. Don't forget them. Either way, how people spend their time in wikipedia is their choice. For what it's worth, people who spend 90% of their time at VfD are unlikely ever to be admins.

Now, some issues with VfD:

1. Consensus: what one is and how they are determined. And how what votes mean impacts this.
   • A consensus is usually defined as somewhere in the neighborhood of 66%, sometimes closer to 75%. This is fine and all, but people have been known to arbitrarily raise it, but any slight lowering is often seen as abusive.
   • Combining similar votes to reach consensus. The guide to VfD defines "delete" votes as "delete", "speedy delete", "copyvio", "BJAODN", "userfy" and the various "transwiki" votes. If any combination of those votes reach what can be considered a consensus, the article should be deleted. 5 deletes, 5 transwikis, and 5 BJAODN should not result in a keep.
2. Merging following a VfD. When there is no consensus to delete, a merge/redirect can still be done. However, these can be seen by some as running counter to how the VfD was decided. While anyone can do any redirect at any time, this can be tricky and controversial. While the guidlines do not clearly state it, a consensus vote to merge/redirect is sometimes seen as the offical result. When there is not a consensus, but still strong support for such an action, closers should give this strong consideration. While it is not officially such, it is often seen as a good compromise between an keep and a delete.
3. The roles of closers. Some closers close VfDs without actually closing them. They announce what the action should be, but do not take it. This is obviously not a problem with keeps, as there is no action to take but to archive the discussion, but with other results it can be a problem. The matter has the appearances of being settled, but it is not.
4. Transwiki and deletion: a vote to transwiki is a vote to delete from the WP article space (though someone could vote "tranwiki but keep here too" this rarely, if ever, happens and somewhat defeats the purpose of a transwiki). However, if the article is deleted before tranwiking, it cannot be transwikied. This results in some articles having their deletion delayed, perhaps indefinitely, if no one bothers to transwiki (a problem sometimes when votes are closed but not closed). Are transwikis votes official policy, or a mere courtesy to other wikis? Can a vote at wikipedia be binding outside of wikipedia?
5. Renominations: there is purposefully no policy here, but there aren't even any real guidelines. Everyone has their own idea about if and when a renom should be made and trying to find the proper length of time in which to bring up a problematical result can be difficult. Factors should be taken into account: a majority, but not consensus for deletion should be given a bit more leeway than a pretty clear keep. New information coming to light (such as material facts about an article that were discovered to be untrue) should particularly be considered.
6. Bad faith nominations: These are few, but they can be disruptive and they add to an already bloated page. The "speedy keep" system is not well defined.
7. Contesting a result: people make mistakes. If an article is deleted and someone believes there was no consensus to do so, they can take it to VfU (probably the most civilived and reasonable debates on wikiepdia are there). If someone sees what they believe is an improper keep they have a few actions they can take, but none are ideal or official.
8. Quorum: Should an article be deleted if no one votes but the nominator? Are 2 votes enough if they are the same? If they are different?
9. Speedy deletes on VfD: pretty frequently articles are speedied after being listed on VfD. When is this allowed, and can they be removed in order to keep the size of the page more manageable?
10. Nominator's vote: sometimes the vote of the nominator is not counted unless they expressly say "delete". As they are listed the article on "votes for deletion" the assumption should be that, unles they state otherwise, they are casting a delete vote.

Alot of these are pretty minor (particularly the later ones), but they should be discussed. A substantial problem I have noticed is that at times the result of a VfD will depend greatly on who the closer is. While we have to rely on people to make judgment calls, and give them some room to maneuver, the sheer inconsistency can get out of hand. The voting and debating should be the real factor, not whoever happens to come along and close it.