Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions/Archive 10

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{{SPA}} tagging

Should {{SPA}} tagging be added as something to avoid in deletion discussions? I frequently happen upon users tagging comments simply because they don't agree with the arguments made in that comment. It amounts to a nil-argument, poisoning the well against what may be a completely valid argument, and it serves zero positive purpose in any of the cases I've seen of the tag being used in deletion discussions. (Good humor virtually demands that someone tag this comment as SPA though...) --87.78.0.235 (talk) 17:39, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

SPA tagging is valid when it is used as intended - to mark accounts that have very few edits and thus a sign of someone only there to comment on the AFD. SPA tagging can be abused - tagging accounts that are clearly not SPAs - but that's remedied by dispute resolution, but it is certainly not an argument to avoid. --MASEM (t) 17:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

to mark accounts that have very few edits and thus a sign of someone only there to comment on the AFD -- Meaning a registered account created mostly or solely for the purpose of participating in that discussion. Ok, I can agree with that, although I have positively never actually come across such a use. If in doubt, simply refactoring may be preferable. Also, any user and especially the closing admin know how to find a user's contrib history. And lastly, if the arguments made from such an account are in and of themselves valid, what's the problem with those comments? Sockpuppetry is not a valid argument here, since if someone suspects sockpuppetry, they should just come out and say so, or shut up.

Also, what's the possible use of ever tagging a comment posted via a dynamic IP address? --87.78.0.235 (talk) 21:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, one doesn't have to mark an SPA as an SPA. The only times I've seen active marking of SPAs at an AFD is when there is clearly something external to the discussion drawing in such editors. And this is not meant to invalid a SPA's !vote that actually has merit to it. Basically, the use of the SPA tag is to help the closing admin out, recognizing which accounts are just there to try to swing the !vote by adding to numbers; yes, admins should be competent enough to figure this out themselves and discount the ones that are just meritless "keep" !votes, but this should help. --MASEM (t) 21:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

"possible use of ever tagging a comment posted via a dynamic IP address" It might be used to draw attention to similar edits by different IPs. E.g. this by 213.196.218.39 and this by 87.78.0.235 . Barsoomian (talk) 03:46, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Where would you even apply the tag for that, funny guy? --78.35.241.177 (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Yet another nice shiny IP. Those of us who sign in use watchlists, so your tagging my page is unnecessary, and unwelcome. Barsoomian (talk) 19:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

"Tagging your page"? You mean my innocuous and polite notification with {{Talkback}}? Also, please drop the innuendo regarding my dynamic IP address. I have already explained that my IP address changes without my control. I'm simply on a server-side DHCP connection. More importantly, I'm not trying to create the impression that I'm more than one person, as you're clearly implying. If veiled accusations are your best "argument", why did you bother to comment in the first place? --78.35.241.177 (talk) 20:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Nobody's working on it

I removed the following bad examples:

• Delete I gave them six months for someone to add cites, they didn't, and I have lost my patience. – My Way or the Highway, 01:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
• Delete This is not the first, not the second, but the tenth time I put this up for deletion, all because the problems were not solved. Each time, User:WantItKept promised they would improve it after the discussion was closed. But that never happened. And User:WantItKept keeps reneging on his promise. Last straw was long ago, 03:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

They are in direct contradiction of policy, specifically WP:BURDEN which states that the burden of proof is on those who want the material included. If the editor challenging the material has tried and failed to fix it, and the defenders of the material have not made the promised improvements, then this can be taken as evidence that the article's problems cannot be fixed. It's not a poor argument to point this out. Reyk _YO! 04:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Like it or not, surmountable problems are not reasons for deleting the whole article. The arguments above are direct contradictions of WP:IMPERFECT and WP:PRESERVE. If the article contains a lot of unsourced content, the correct action is either stubbing (removing unverifiable content per WP:BURDEN but keeping the sourced content, merging or blanking and redirecting, not to delete the article with all its history. Diego (talk) 06:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

You're missing the point, and your objections apply to deletion generally and not this situation specifically. We're talking about whether vague promises to bring the article up to an acceptable standard, in the absence of any evidence that's even possible, is reason to dodge our content policies indefinitely. The answer to that question is quite obviously "no", and saying so in an AfD is to be encouraged rather than avoided. Reyk _YO! 06:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I missed the point. You said failing for some time to follow on promises to improve is a reason to delete the article, but it's not; it's a reason to blank and remove everything that is not compliant with policy, never to perform a full deletion. Even if people promised to work on the article and failed, nobody's working on it still is not a reason to delete because there is no deadline.

Either there is some expectation that the article can improve, or it's not. In the first case, it doesn't disappear because nobody took the effort yet. In the second, the article shouldn't be kept only because promises are made to improve it. In any case, centering the discussion on whether someone promised to improve the article is not a good idea. Diego (talk) 07:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but the only way to tell whether the first case or the second case applies is to try to fix the problems. Ideally the argument should be phrased something like this: "Last AfD I argued that the article should be deleted because of reasons X, Y, Z. Others argued that those could be fixed, which I was skeptical of. Now some time has passed and the problems have still not been addressed. I think this is evidence that I was right to say the problems could not be fixed." Reyk _YO! 08:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the only policy-based way that matters is for the nominator to try to fix the problems and fail; that's what WP:BEFORE is about. "No one else has fixed it and it's obviously deficient" is not the same as "I gave it my best effort, and was simply not able to fix it." The only one actually entitled to nominate something is not the critic who says "it lacks!" but the content creator who says "I tried, but couldn't." Jclemens (talk) 08:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The nominator trying and failing would be one of "reasons X, Y, Z." And I see you're still trying to plug the discredited WP:BEFORE as though it's mandatory. It's not, we've been over this. Reyk _YO! 08:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

See, that's the problem with the argument: time is not a factor that should be usually utilized at deletion discussions, and individual effort is definitely not a requirement. Your case is mainly evidence that nobody took the effort after the AfD was closed, not that it can't be done. The discussion should center around the ways to improve the article, not how much time it would take to do it; wikis need time to grow. If there's no evidence at all the article can be saved, then the offending content can be deleted right now - no need to wait. But if some valid reasons are given as for why the imperfect article can be improved, time will not diminish their validity.

At most, passing time could be a reason to reopen the debate and see if consensus have changed, but shouldn't be used as a factor at the discussion itself. Our policies use time limits to control the discussion process, not the outcomes; particular time limits are always rejected as a criterion for deciding content, and there's a good reason to it. Diego (talk) 09:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record: WP:BEFORE is most certainly mandatory: it's explicit in the wording: Prior to nominating articles(s) for deletion, please be sure to:... I completely agree with Diego Moya on the rest. --Cyclopia^talk 20:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

BEFORE has never been mandatory. Strongly recommended, yes, and you will be trouted or worse if you nominate something that a simple BEFORE check would have caught. But there are elements of BEFORE that may have various levels of reasonable expectations that make it impossible to make BEFORE a required step. (Eg for source checking, an editor nominating an article for a topic may not find many sources to support it, but an editor well-versed in the topic knows exactly how to pare down the search to show the existence of many articles; it would be improper to tell the nominating editor that they didn't do a proper search for sources before nominating). --MASEM (t) 21:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

BEFORE doesn't ask you to be an expert or to do an unrealistic amount of search for sources: "The minimum search expected is a Google Books search and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. Such searches should in most cases take only a minute or two to perform." - That's it. All other requirements are also pretty basic. For the rest, practically everything on WP is mandatory at the level of "strongly recommended", apart perhaps BLP and copyvio stuff, which are seriously mandatory. If failing to follow a guideline results in "trouting or worse", I'd say the community considers it pretty much "mandatory". --Cyclopia^talk 21:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I've seen nominators put at task for not looking at page 20 of a Google search to find the proper hit, or adding a search modifier to their google search that "clearly" shows sources. Or even those that do a reasonably throughout search are derided for "ignoring" "obvious" sources that that nominator likely did see but considered unusable within the article (unreliable sources, or the like). What consists of a "Google search" is highly contested and too vague to enforce - hence why BEFORE isn't mandatory implying penalties for not following it to the letter. On the other hand, gross violations of BEFORE will earn that trout or worse. For example, if you nominate an article where anyone else could google search the article title and find a page full of viable hits on the first page, that's a trout right there; repeating this over and over in subsequent noms will likely lead to RFC/U or AN resolution on behavior. --MASEM (t) 21:24, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the phrase we're dancing around is "best practice"--and anyone who's been around at AfD long enough to be a recognizable participant should understand that following it reasonably and describing how a search has been done makes an AfD nom that much less contentious and likely to demonstrate to everyone's (well, except they hyper-inclusionists') satisfaction that due diligence has been done and there's really no point in arguing about the deletion. Jclemens (talk) 03:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The status of WP:BEFORE was discussed here, where the overwhelming consensus was that it is not mandatory. Reyk _YO! 22:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Point taken (even if discussion is quite old). But the consensus is also that it is not to be considered mandatory inasmuch it is not something you can enforce and thus punish people on-sight for it, nor it does automatically invalidates the deletion procedure. Yet it is also very much strongly recommended by almost all editors there. It's the best practice, and as such it should be followed unless there are very strong reasons not to. It is not something you can regularly ignore. --Cyclopia^talk 11:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

"Nobody's working on it" is also a bad example of a bad argument because of BLP. In fact it's a general problem with the way Wikipedia policies are phrased. They usually say something that amounts to "eventualism is good. But you can ignore that when removing unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material from a BLP." The problem is that BLPs can be bad in more ways than just that they contain unsourced contentious material. We end up supporting eventualism for other types of bad BLPs, which is a bad idea. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Example farm

It looks like this page has become a random farm of ridiculous arguments. Clearly, millions of idiots can put millions of stupid arguments, and there is not reason to list them here. A similar situation has been with the page WP:NOT. There are zillions of ways to screw up something, but only a handful of ways to do it right.

IMO this page must document only cases which present difficulty for common sense and repeated mistakes/laziness, from history of AfDs.

Therefore I suggest to restrict this list only to arguments which the contributor may demonstrate have been used at least half-dozen times. 22:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Searching for a half dozen examples of something is not easy. You are really looking for a needle in a haystack. There have already been hundreds of thousands of AfDs that have taken place in the history of Wikipedia (no exact number known, but there are typically around 100 new AfDs formed every day, give or take; multiply that by 365 to get in the ballpark of 36,500 a year, then multiply that by 8 (the number of years AfDs have existed), and you are already talking about several hundred thousand discussions (some with dozens of comments) that a human being must dig through individually to try to prove that such an argument has (or has not) ever been made. Try that yourself. Is that really what we want to put our precious wikitime into? If you really think this list is too long, perhaps holding a discussion considering splitting this page is possible. Sebwite (talk) 03:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to try anything myself. The page says: "The following are a list of arguments that can commonly be seen", and by wikipedia rules the burden to prove that your pet stupid example "can commonly be seen" is upon you. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Now there's an IP edit warring to keep the example farm. Reyk _YO! 23:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

lot of new additions, not all having any discussions first

[1] As long as a credible plan for improvement is sketched, No, you don't need that. In AFD you prove the subject is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, and that it. No requirement to make plans to improve the article. I reverted the addition of the part about 2-3 "per nom" votes extra, since that makes no sense at all. You can't determine how many votes you are going to get. Dream Focus 08:49, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

You do realize the "credible plan" part you removed was intended to protect articles from being deleted at AfD? It is not worded as a requirement, but as an explanation to make clear that articles must not be lost (per PRESERVE and IMPERFECT) even if they're not in good shape - i.e. that the current condition is not enough reason to delete. Would you agree to add that part without the initial "as long as a credible plan is sketched"? Diego (talk) 13:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Arguments to the person

Keep, nominator is a banned user trying to destroy Wikipedia. – Tenacious Defender, 5:18 am, 2 August 2008, Saturday (4 years, 10 months, 24 days ago) (UTC+1) 'If this was the case then the page would already have been deleted as G5' Can we include that or something along those lines in that part? MM (Report findings) ^{(Past espionage)} 19:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd recommend against it. Such complaints will either have merit or end up boomeranging on the complainant. Jclemens (talk) 03:27, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

History of TMBS

The following links show that "There must be sources" (TMBS) was posted on WP:ATA on April 22, 2011 and removed on May 1, 2011, following discussion in which the consensus was that TMBS was not compliant with policy/guidelines.  The links next show that Reyk approached JamesBWatson on May 2, 2011 with the purpose of creating an essay fork of the noncompliant material.  Reyk made the statement, "certain editors seem hell bent on excluding this from WP:ATA".

More than a year passed to 2012-12-07, when JamesBWatson again tried to add the exact identical material, claiming, "Restoring section removed largely at the insistence of one editor, when consensus was clearly against the removal."  This post was completely rewritten on Christmas Day, initially stating, "Remove MUST section that misrepresents policy and didn't have consensus)"

• Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions/Archive 6#Presumption_of_sources
• 2011-04-22 [2]
• 2011-05-01 [3]
• 2011-05-02 User talk:JamesBWatson/Archive 27#There must be sources! section
• 2012-12-07 [4]
• 2012-12-25 [5]

April 2013

• "[T]he consensus was that TMBS was not compliant with policy/guidelines."  Unscintillating (talk) 05:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• If you feel that WP:MUSTBESOURCES is so unacceptable that it should not be linked to from anywhere, take it to MfD. Failing that it is very difficult to see how a section of WP:ATA titled "But there must be sources", containing a non-negligible amount of the same content, should not link to an essay elaborating on that. Your unending obsession with censoring this essay has been correctly identified as edit warring, the first time when you frivolously and vexatiously took me to 3RR, the second time when you went fishing for a more favourable second opinion, which I only now realize was the tail end of a nagging campaign lasting almost three months. I've repeatedly asked you to stop trying to troll me on this issue and others. If you have a problem with WP:MUSTBESOURCES, take it to MfD. If you have a problem with me, and clearly you do because you've been following my edits and sniping at me for two years now, ANI is thataway. Or you could do the sensible and decent thing and just let it go. Reyk _YO! 06:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Note that the edit summary for the previous comment was, "(April 2013: - I think you're just trying to pick fights.)"  Unscintillating (talk) 13:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Correction, as there was an intervening typo correction, the diff for the edit summary cited is [6].  Unscintillating (talk) 14:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think people can read edit summaries for themselves. People aren't as stupid as you treat them. Reyk _YO! 21:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• No, one can discuss any link on the policy talk page without needing there to be an MfD discussion. There is not a black-and-white divide between "essays that are linked from policy pages" and "essays that do not exist." Jclemens (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Firstly, this is not a policy page, it's another essay. As I've said, it's hard to see why a section of ATA titled "There must be sources" should not link to an essay that goes into further depth on that topic. The two share a significant bit of common content, which refutes the idea that it was "removed"; much of it is still there. Anyway, I put the link back where it was and I think that settles the matter. Reyk _YO! 21:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• This has been here for a month and not a single editor has agreed that two things that have the same name are the same.  The consensus remains as stated on December 25.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:42, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

By claiming the two are unrelated, you withdraw your original claim that one is a fork of the other. This seems unusual, since you do not dispute that the two share a non-negligible amount of content. But let's assume that you're not just changing horses mid-race. What remains of your original objection? As you have withdrawn that, I see no reason not to restore the link. Reyk _YO! 04:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I have one objection for restoring the link - the MUSTBESOURCES essay is a one-sided view, only including "Keep" votes as invalid, and thus not aligned with the MUST section. If the link is included here, MUSTBESOURCES should be edited to include the other side of the argument - the paragraph that starts with "Perfection is not required" and the "Delete" invalid arguments. Diego (talk) 06:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• Well, of course you want that essay to reflect that "Perfection is not required" stuff, because you wrote it. Reyk _YO! 06:22, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. I haven't changed my mind since then, and WP:IMPERFECT is still policy. Diego (talk) 14:54, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

But you use it as a shield against WP:V, and that's not what it is. Reyk _YO! 21:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• Consensus remains as stated on December 25, I have removed the link at Template:Arguments.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

could there be a clear, concise section of arguments that are ok?

This whole thing is quite long. I never got to a part that had a concise and helpful list of suggestions of arguments to use. It's my failing but I just can't read these long essays that go on and on. How about just five points of ok arguments? Farrajak (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this essay could use a bit cutting down. Though it is less of a problem than one might think, as usually only single sections of it are referred to.

I can make that three paragraphs. Short enough?

Deletion arguments are usually based on two sets of rules: the general notability guideline (which is ultimately based on the verifiability policy) and the "What Wikipedia is not" policy. WP:GNG explains that a topic is notable if and only if there exist multiple reliable sources on which a reasonably long standalone article could be based. WP:V establishes that all articles must cite claims they contain. The sources should be reliable: there should be a reason for assuming that the research presented therein was careful and accurate; this requires editorial judgement. Medicine topics are covered by especially stringent rules. The per-topic notability guides only give some rules of thumb on whether such sources might exist; WP:V is the ultimate authority. If the "reasonably long" requirement is not met, the content may be merged into an article of broader scope; however neutrality and due weight may come into play here.

Arguments based on WP:NOT make claims on whether a topic or piece of information is the best of currently established knowledge, of interest to a general audience. The "knowledge" requirement bans gossip (WP:NOTGOSSIP), rumours (WP:CRYSTAL) and political propaganda (WP:SOAPBOX). "Currently established" excludes any previously unpublished thought (WP:NOT#OR). "General audience" bars excessive detail (WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTMANUAL, WP:NOT#FANSITE, WP:NOTREPOSITORY).

And this is pretty much it. To make a solid argument, address one of the above-mentioned issues; you will make the best kind of argument this way. WP:Arguments to make in deletion discussions lists a few more. And again, WP:42. Keφr 16:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, though all the above is correct, it is not quite that simple. Where there are no sources to be found or a clear violation of WP:NOT, the discussion is very straightforward even tif the article gets as far as AfD. Where someone has a prejudice against the article creator or the subject the discussion is equally so. Many disputes that warrant attention are about the specifics of the sourcing--whether they are sufficiently reliable, substantial, and independent, and here the details at WP:Reliable sources, and the discussions at its talk page and and its noticeboard explain the various factors. Some of them can be pretty tricky, but good faith disagreements generally can be resolved by careful analysis of the sources. Others are about the relationship of the subject specific guidelines to the GNG, or some of the specific provisions of WP:NOT, and these debates can be pretty intractable, as those working on the sorts of articles involved usually have firm opinions, and whatever the current consensus may be is frequently challenged, both in general and for a specific article. The most difficult debates are about some of the provisions of WP:BLP, where there are persistent differences in the interpretations, with very strong but incompatible views from experienced editors--not about the basic principles, which almost everyone strongly supports, but about the applicability to a particular situation.

The strongest arguments are usually based upon the careful reading of the article and its sources, and a knowledge of previous discussions. The way to learn is to follow the more contentious discussions, and then to express opinions and see how they are taken. DGG ( talk ) 05:41, 11 May 2013 (UTC)