Wikipedia talk:Adding sources as a tactical maneuver/Archive 1

Archive 1

An opinion about the "minor character"

When it comes to the "local hero" I agree with you. However, I would argue that the "minor character" should never have been bought to AFD in the first place unless it's strongly suspected to be a hoax. In almost all cases, articles on fictional elements, (characters, TV episodes, video game weapons, etc.) if not deserving of a separate article, can always be merged or redirected somewhere and IMHO discussions in that regard should stay on article talk pages and in wiki projects. Bringing these to AFD is often itself a "tactical maneuver" from someone who is "losing" a merge debate "somewhere else".

As you probably know I relist and close a lot of AFDs and I've seen log pages littered with these and it draws attention from AFDs that need more attention such as BLPs. Your "local hero" would be an example of one of these. One day I might write my own essay on "AFD cruft".--Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

There are certainly "tacticians" on both ends of the spectrum, with a lot of reasonable users stuck in the middle. Of course sometimes a user will come to the reasonable conclusion that such an article should be redirected, only to find that others disagree and revert the redirect, and so it goes to AFD really more to find consensus on the redirect than actual deletion. Part of the reason I never moved this to mainspace is that I'm not entirely satisfied with the way I expressed the problem.Beeblebrox (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I use to be opposed to any deletion debate where the nominator actually doesn't want a delete button pushed and I still mostly am, except for BLPs. Check out the history of this article (AFD1, AFD2) for the reason why. This is only because I can't think of a better venue. "High risk" articles such as BLPs should be subject to "enforceable" decisions besides "delete". For "low risk" article, the editor who wants it redirected should consider if the "harm" of such an article existing is greater then that of the drama generated by his unwillingness to drop the stick. Remember the whole TTN mess? It generated RFCs, arbcom cases, and loads of drama. Most centered (as far as I can recall, correct me if I'm wrong) around "low risk" articles.

Ok, I think I soapboxed enough now so I'll let you get back to improving this essay. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2010 (UTC)