Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Hugo Austin

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For the record...

The nominator of the several dozen articles listed for deletion here chose not to comply with the recommendations of the various deletion policies that he inform the article creators of the nomination.

I left three of the creators of these article heads-up: here, here and here

Another contributor voiced a concern over those three heads-ups, writing: ...some of your notices to contributors re this AfD border on WP:Canvassing and are shameful in their content

For the record, I don't agree that informing a contributor that an article they started was nominated for deletion is WP:Canvassing. The deletion policy recommends this.

As for whether some aspect of these heads-ups are "shameful" -- I believe it is important to own up, when we make a mistake. I don't see how my comments are "shameful". If the contributor who voiced this concern can explain what was "shameful", and I find that explanation convincing, I'll own up and apologize. If, on the other hand, the contributor with that concern doesn't explain how it is "shameful", I will consider that they have acknowledged they were mistaken, and take the lack of explanation as a kind of tacit apology.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 10:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notices to people to contribute to debates should be neutral in tone. Titling them "Bad news" and making egregious bad faith accusations against other contributors in them does not promote collaboration, it promotes conflict. It's the sort of view of Wikipedia which usually lands two sides of a dispute at ArbCom, and to be honest it's completely unnecessary here - the good faith inclusionists and those who want this thing fixed are not actually that far apart in some respects and trying to facilitate cooperation rather than aggression would be the correct way to go. I would say that your action here was borderline disruptive and I would caution you against doing it again elsewhere. Orderinchaos 13:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
User:Orderinchaos, you have called those contributing to these articles "vandals", offering zero substantiation. So, forgive me if your assertion that I am the one who is not promoting collaboration leaves me mystified.
I remind you that the nominator of these articles showed so little interest in collaboration that he didn't even honor the recommendation in the deletion policies that he leave a good faith heads-up on the talk pages of those who started the articles.
Unless you are going to be specific about what you regard as my "egregious bad faith accusations", I am going to assume this is an unsupportable comment, made in haste, that you would recognize was inaccurate and not in the proper spirit of collaboration.
I had spent a year contributing to the wikipedia, and had thousands of edits under my belt, before my first encounter with the wikipedia's deletion procedures. I liked working on the wikipedia, because, unlike the blogosphere, and the old USENET newsgroups I contributed to when they were still useful, the wikipedia project tried to cultivate a culture of collegiality, tolerance, civility and good-faith. So, my first encounter with {{afd}} was a shocking one -- what I found was a sub-culture of incivility had grown up in the deletion fora. I found incivility and lapses from WP:BITE so routine in the deletion fora that they pass without comment, and possibly even without notice.
The choice not to inform the good-faith contributors that their articles were being nominated for deletion, and your choice to characterize those who contributed material you don't think has a place on the wikipedia as "vandals", are the kind of lapses from civility and WP:BITE that routinely pass without comment in the deletion fora. Because this kind of incivility routinely passes without comment in the deletion fora does not mean I owe anyone any apology for commenting on it now.
You have asserted the authority of WP:IAR justified our nominator ignoring the recommendations of the deletion policy to inform the article creators of the {{afd}}. I re-read the very brief WP:IAR, and some of the essays that attempt to frame it. The opinion in those essays is that anyone who calls on the authority of WP:IAR should be prepared to offer a cogent, civil, meaningful explanation as to how their action was necessary to improve the wikipedia.
Not informing new contributors that an article they started was nominated for deletion -- so how did this improve the wikipedia? I suggest, this kind of action is extremely damaging to the wikipedia. All kinds of newbies want to come on board, and make contributions to topics they are interested in. Some of those contributions clearly, or questionably, don't comply with our policies. How are the newbies going to learn their contributions don't comply with our policies? We tell them they don't comply. We explain on the talk pages of articles they started, or are working on. We may leave them notes on their talk page. We use useful, meaningful edit summaries, that include wikilinks to the policies that support our edits. And, if it comes to the last extreme, where we think an article they started has no redeeming aspect worth saving, and should be deleted, we tell them. We tell them in a way where they can read which policies the article didn't comply with. When the nomination is an {{afd}}, we invite them to look at the deletion discussion, so they can see the opinions of other experienced contributors, as to how the article lapsed
When we don't tell newbies what they did wrong, to cause their articles they started to be deleted, they are likely to innocently repeat the same lapses from policy over and over again.
When we do tell a newbie how we think their contributions lapsed from our policies a number of things can happen next. The newbie might think:
  1. "Well, I wish the wikipedia well, but I had no idea it had so many rules. I am going to stick to writing about my favorite topics where I wrote about them before."
  2. "Geez, the wikipedia has more rules than I expected. But it is a worthwhile project, and those rules have been explained to me in a way that made sense. So, I am going to keep on contributing here, while working hard to comply with these new rules that have been brought to may attention."
  3. "Goldarn pushy rule-makers, and rule-enforcers. I'll be sneaky. Let's see how long I can get away with writing what I want, without regard to their darn rules!"
Please understand that your comments, and those of our nominator, strongly suggest you have jumped straight from reading contributions you don't think fit here, to acting as if those newbies had already jumped to the third position offered above -- that of conscious vandalism -- even though the record I read suggests that no one tried to explain to those newbies how their contributions lapsed from our policies.
WRT to the title "bad news" -- the "bad news" was not that the articles had been nominated for deletion. The "bad news" I referred to was the as yet unexplained decision of the nominator to not bother complying with the recommendation in the deletion policies to leave a heads-up on the talk page when making the nomination. You have overlooked that in two of the three comments I encouraged the newbies to try to address the challenger's concerns. And in the third I specifically drew their attention to what I thought was the most serious concern -- the lack of WP:RS. Geo Swan (talk) 17:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I don't think you fully and sufficiently informed yourself of the circumstances of this case before going full-tilt on the attack against hard working Wikipedia administrators and editors in your defence of vandal IP accounts who have no interest in collaboratively contributing and not a fig for the rules. The evidence is plain to see in the history of many of the articles, several of which had to be protected to stop the continuing disruption. It would seem that you didn't bother to research the article history of any of the articles that you notified on people's talk pages, or do any research to determine their real world value or potential conformance with policy (which, in the main AfD debate, you claim to take seriously - at least when people you *disagree* with are in alleged breach of it). On the other hand, the nominator, himself a confessed fan of the show who simply wants to see the situation fixed, went to some trouble to research and put together an AfD, and a good one in my view. I have genuine difficulty believing you are acting in good faith and are not simply trying to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. The red herring of not contacting people who wrote short articles years and years ago when they are neither involved in the articles today nor even remotely part of the problem, really shows what a ludicrous position this debate has reached - there was quite simply no logical reason to contact them, and beyond "it's (allegedly) in policy", you have not presented one common sense reason to follow on such an unlikely course of action, or utterly condemn good faith users for not doing so. (I wish you would treat vandalism with the vigour that you treat these "violations".) There is no reason for about 65% of these articles to exist, the remainder that could exist need to be rewritten from the ground up and it is going to be very hard to do so because of the constant attacks from the IPs and redlink editors. YOu can see situations where we have warned editors and patiently explained the policies (and even offered to help), they've continued on acting exactly as before without correspondence, they get blocked, the block lapses and they continue on as before. Orderinchaos 18:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe missing something from reading too fast, but Id say Geo Swan is acting in too good faith. What I mean is their sense of injustice is so strongly engaged by seeing this from the newbie editors perspective that they arent seeing the very valid POV you guys have , which I guess is there is so many passonate newbies that the few experienced editors trying to work collaboratively towards encyclopaedic standards are being overwhelmed. Hence the drastic measure of the mass AfD. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed - I wouldn't doubt it. If it's possible to do so, I would actually value an opportunity to work with good faith editors who wish the more notable subjects amongst these articles kept and are willing to help out. I live in Australia and although I've failed to find anything in a library (I did look - found one book from 1989 in a small town 300km away), I have access to academic and newspaper search engines that may turn up some stuff. There appear to be two active editors, Conquistador and Skteosk, who are fans of the show and willing to help, and Sarah, a fellow admin, has also offered to assist. Orderinchaos 18:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Havent watched any soaps since school, but if this is closed as keep I'll have a little go, might be delayed a bit as i have an article in prep for FA. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries :) Orderinchaos 19:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why informing contributors when their articles are nominated for deletion is important...

In the discussion above another contributor asserts I haven't explained why it is important for those nominating articles for deletion to comply with the recommendation of policy and inform the uploader of the nomination.

I find this assertion surprising, because I have explained this important point several times already.

Lots of new contributors find their way to the wikipedia, and a large fraction of those new contributors make innocent lapses from our policies. We have to tell them, clearly and politely, when we think they are lapsing from our policies.

When the newbies lapse from policy is so serious the only fix we see is to delete an article they started it is essential we inform them. Good faith contributors deserve an opportunity to be informed of when more experienced contributors think they lapsed from policy. They deserve an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

In the long run, and medium term, informing contributors when someone think someone else's efforts lapse from policy saves time. Many contributors, when their lapse is explained to them, refrain from repeating their innocent mistakes. Telling them of their lapse doesn't just save their time, by helping them learn not to repeat that innocent mistake, it saves the time of everyone who would otherwise have been involved in cleaning up that mistake.

Every contributor to the wikipedia is supposed to act accountably. We are accountable for the edits we make and the things we write. Because we are all human, we are all going to make mistakes. Being entrusted with administrator authority doesn't make a wikipedia administrator infallible. So it remains important for them to behave accountably. Sometimes a new contributors questions are going to help the experienced contributor realize they made a mistake. The new contributor deserves an opportunity ask administrator civil questions. Geo Swan (talk) 20:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You claim somewhere up there ↑ that I have failed to explain why I didn't bother notifying the creators of the articles. I did. Each article was tagged that it was up for deletion discussion, the AfD was listed in the July 1 AfD Log, it was added to three deletion sorting pages. Contributors do not WP:OWN any article they contribute to, whether they have put in all the work, or corrected only a typo. I didn't have to invoke or quote WP:Ignore all rules in not telling them. It's not a requirement, just a suggestion, and it doesn't have to be done. If you want the rules changing, WT:AfD is probably the best place to start a discussion, not tucked away on the talk page of one AfD.
The AfD has been closed as Keep Without Prejudice. Instead of continuing to complain about how the AfD was started/handled/progressed, why not spend your time improving the pages that were nominated? That's what I intend to do, and I have nothing else to say here. Best, Matthewedwards :  Chat  16:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When should civil questions be characterized as "attacks"?

Civil questions to another contributor should never be considered "attacks". Another contributor has described questions I requested answers to as "attacks". We are all supposed to behave accountably, asking questions about mysterious actions are not "attacks". They are particularly not attacks when a third party claims the mysterious actions are justified by WP:IAR. Geo Swan (talk) 20:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from close.

A keep close is a keep close. A delete, followed by recreation, followed by keep, then the status is keep,and a G4 in the circumstances is not acceptable. It's an insult to reasonable process. Would anyone say if an article had been kept once, then deleted, that it could be restored it based on the old keep? If you meant to close some as delete, you should have said so. DGG (talk) 02:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What part of: The result was Keep without prejudice to opening more controlled AFD's.... If you wish to open AFD's on individual articles, feel free to do so. I am closing this mass AFD without weighing the merits as to whether any or all of the articles deserve to be kept or deleted. did you not understand? I will change one word in the statement (keep to closed) but I think the closing statement was pretty clear that I was not closing based upon the merits of ANY of the articles.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 03:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstood. You closed keep, that was clear enough. You were 100% right to have closed keep, and permitted renomination individually--that is the general way of handling poorly conceived mass nominations. Absolutely right. I would have done the same here, or on something similar on any other topic. I thought it an excellent close, a very good way of dealing with the situation without preventing further action, and I never meant to imply otherwise. It was what you said afterwards, because a keep close does not permit anyone speedying the articles as having been deleted at AfD; they were kept at AfD. they may have been kept reluctantly, they may have been kept because there was no other way of handling the situation, but they were kept. Even had you closed non-consensus, they would still not be speedyable as G4. One can;t go back in history to superseded AfDs to find a delete in order to use G4. DGG (talk) 04:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the word for this is wikilawyering. The closer made rather clear that this was a rejection of the mass nom, rather than a "keep all" - a relevant quote from the close at the time was "I am closing this mass AFD without weighing the merits as to whether any or all of the articles deserve to be kept or deleted". Orderinchaos 04:35, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Though I think taking advantage of it for speedy is not a reasonable interpretation., At least a case can be made for that. We apparently each think the other wikilawering, customary in situations like this, and I I got too anry about it, I apologize. But what case can be made for subsequent deletion of fictional characters as A7? DGG (talk) 06:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If one was deleted A7, then that is clearly wrong. I personally have no problem with the articles that had previously undergone AFD being speedily deleted as most of these should be deleted. If they've already been reviewed, then that's fine by me. Making them go back through an AFD seems like a waste of time---especially when we have so many of these articles to go through. Personally, I look at this AFD as a non-entity. There was no discussion of any of the articles in any meaningful manner.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 06:57, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The one I deleted per A7 was demonstrably unverifiable - I couldn't find any evidence that he existed at all and it was a fairly recently created article by an editor who had introduced fake spoilers into other articles. A7 was probably an incorrect rationale to describe that situation. It was the only entry on the list to which that applied. Orderinchaos 17:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You deleted Jazz Curtis, who is certainly verifiable in an out of universe context as seen in such articles as this, which we can use for information on development/production, i.e. where the actress explains her role: "I’ve actually really enjoyed this role on Home and Away. It’s been a lot of fun and very glamorous because the role’s shiny on the outside but gritty underneath," etc. If you undelete it, I will almost immediately do what I can to reference it based on such sources and if you still don't like it, well, then at worst you'll have mergeable content for a character list or could just make a redirect. I could NOT find anything of substance for Elliot Gillien, and so have no issue with his article being deleted, but some of these like Curtis's do have coverage in interviews, previews, reviews, etc. that could form at least a start of an article and as a courtesy and to help for the sake of any possible merge, I would greatly appreciate a real chance to actually see what we can do sourcing wise. After all, Wikipedia does not have a deadline and we are not bound by discussions that happened years ago when new sources have emerged since the older discussion. It would be like having a discussion on say Napoleon Bonaparte back in 1770, a year after his brith and declaring him non-notable and then thirty years later refusing to allow for an article on him, because we have to be bound by the older discussion. "Notability" is not a constant. Some things increase in their verifiability and importance as time goes on. The article discussed years ago will NOT be the same one after I work on it. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Orderinchaos you took several very heated stands in this afd prior to your A7 deletion of Elliot Gillien. I am going to try to phrase this suggestion as tactfully as possible. Perhaps, since you are clearly identified with a strongly held emotional position on these topics, you might consider confining your participation in the eventual disposition of these articles solely to what an ordinary contributor is allowed, and leave those actions which require administrator powers to other, neutral, administrators who are not involved in this discussion? I think this would be good advice for any administrator who has taken a strong stand in any discussion, even if they, or their friends, thought they could isolate the emotional reaction displayed in their public stand from their exercise of authority. I would give this advice to a friend, even if I personally thought their could isolate the emotions expressed in a public stand from their exercise of authority, so long as a neutral, good faith observer might wonder if their previous involvement put their neutrality and objectivity at risk. It is my understanding that the wikipedia community has a right to expect those entrusted with administrator powers to exercise those powers in a fair, responsible, neutral and objective manner. It is not, after all, as if the Elliot Gillien article represented a WP:BLP risk of slandering someone. So, this was hardly an emergency. Geo Swan (talk) 18:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My stance was definitely not emotional - I have no attachment to the show besides once being a fan of it, and I have no antipathy towards it either. I got annoyed at the behaviour of a couple of people on the AfD and have referred some stuff on to be investigated, but beyond that, there was no emotion. Perhaps the fact it is a text medium and that you can't see or hear me led you to an incorrect conclusion - I take other things in my life, such as my overdue TAFE assignments, much more seriously. If that constitutes emotional involvement, then I'd suggest that users who have shamelessly canvassed (which distorts consensus) and users who have posted abusive emails (which drives people away) should have no further role in the debate either, and then we'd be even (but then I'd be wikilawyering if I insisted on that, as would you). As for Elliot Gillien, the reserve powers on speedy deletion always allow the removal of sheer crap, regardless of whether there has been a discussion or not - even Keep voters have agreed he didn't actually appear to have been a character at all, so it fit a unique case that none of the others did. Some administrators delete thousands of articles every day, and I stand by the one I deleted. Orderinchaos 02:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I still think you have misconstrued my comments as heated when I was being factual and honest (something one doesn't see enough of in debates, people calling a spade a spade). WRT your second point, where are the storylines contributions from named editors of which you speak? I couldn't find one - they were all added by IP addresses, right down to the last. While the articles created by the named accounts also lacked references of any kind, they were at least readable and not full of "ZOMG she's a LESBIAN!!" sort of crud. Judging from contribution history, it would appear the named editors actually disappeared shortly after the IPs took over several months ago. Vandalism is a formal description of behaviour and not at all emotional - it's the only way I could describe the running IP war going on on those articles. And I still don't see how you can characterise a user sending abusive emails to Delete voters and making bizarre claims such as "the worst AfD nomination in history", or your own bad faith "notifications" entitled "Bad news" with doleful tones attacking administrators for ignoring some uncited "policy" (while yourself breaking several) as not being emotionally involved - clearly you both were, and I note to this date although several other users have stepped up to the plate to try and improve the articles and I have done everything I can to assist them, neither of you have done one helpful thing in this process.
Oh and a general note - the best device in the arsenal of the dedicated Wikilawyer is the "you're involved" claim, it basically is designed to stop action which runs counter to the user's ideological orientation. I am here to improve things, not sit around and watch them decay. I got my blooding as an administrator in what is to date the worst dispute I have ever been involved in on wiki that led to my opponents, after *six months*, being indefinitely blocked and in effect banned. I restrained myself from use of the tools as an uninvolved admin, but had to watch 12 productive users being driven off the encyclopaedia. Today that area of the encyclopaedia (which includes many BLPs) is a wasteland, not edited by anyone except POV vandals, and a testament to the failure of Wiki policy to seriously adjudicate disputes - it assumes that there is an unlimited supply of administrators who will act. The history of *this* area of the encyclopaedia is that they will not, it takes proactive measures to fix it and giving into people who are fighting some wider ideological battle in which I have absolutely no interest has never been part of the way I do things. The community trusted me with the bit to use my judgement appropriately to resolve breaches of Wiki policy, I have a very good record of doing so and I shall continue to do so. Orderinchaos 21:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discuerssion has been opened at List of Home and Away characters talk page. I just wanted to say that I haven't speedied any of the articles, I haven't redirected any, nor have I put any back up at AfD yet, because the discussion seems to be achieving something. Matthewedwards :  Chat  03:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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