Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2013 July 20

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20 July 2013

  • Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa – Deletion endorsed. A redirect has been suggested as an an alternative to deletion, but this has not gained consensus as a basis on which to overturn the closure. At any rate, nothing here seems to prohibit creating a redirect in lieu of the deleted article; that redirect can then be challenged at RfD if deemed inappropriate. –  Sandstein  21:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

There seems to be a willingness at AfD to discuss and even delete articles whose redirects IMO would be routinely kept at RfD.  This AfD is a case in point.  The alternatives to deletion were not considered in the nomination and not mentioned in the closing.  The response from the closing admin included an unqualified statement that "Notability is a reason for deletion", which IMO is at the core of the problem here.

This is almost a policy and evidence-free discussion.  I did a search for "Wikipedia:" and "WP:" and found only one policy mentioned, in which the mention itself was speculation as to what another editor meant.  Only one editor has presented enough evidence about the sources to allow for the possibility of repeatable results.  I made an argument for wrong venue, but I did not cite WP:ATD.  I opened a discussion with the closing admin at [User talk:Secret#AfD closed as delete], and noted that there is no possible theoretical delete result, even with a raw !vote count.  The raw !vote is 4 delete and 5 don't delete.  The response is that there is a "clear" consensus here.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse with only
    WP:ORG. Nothing in the article or debate suggested this one was any exception--indeed, the article itself was especially bad, 32K+ of trivial text outlining the club's activities in great detail, a list of past presidents, an unwikified timeline, and overall having the feel of a brochure or advertisement. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:38, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Endorse. Deletion review is a venue to call attention to instances where the deletion policy has not been followed correctly. It is not a place to attempt to advance new arguments that could have been made at the deletion discussion, nor to re-advance old ones. In this instance, the deletion policy was correctly followed, in particular the custom of giving a higher weight to arguments based on the extent to which they conform to Wikipedia policy. Linking to, or quoting, policy is not necessary. Stifle (talk) 14:52, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see this as quite a nuanced one. I would endorse Secret's close of that debate and deletion of that specific article. I certainly would not endorse everything Secret says to justify that deletion in your subsequent talk-page discussion, and I think some discussion at the in-principle level about notability may be helpful here; but it's right that this particular material was deleted.

    It complicates things that we sometimes use words loosely. At AfD and DRV, "delete" strictly means "make into a redlink", so "merge", "redirect", "keep" and "no consensus" are all flavours of "keep", while "delete", "userfy" and "incubate" are all flavours of "delete". However, the debate participants may not always appreciate this distinction. The closer's role is to read the comments at the AfD in context, not just the bolded words, and interpret them. For example, at this AfD, Ryan Postlethwaite correctly decided that what the "delete" meant was "do not have a separate article", and closed the debate as "redirect". I don't think any of our more experienced DRV participants would have an issue with that kind of decision. Unscintillating's argument is that the subject debate should have been interpreted in the same way.

    I don't really agree; notability is a tool. Its main purpose is to enable us to detect and remove marketing spam. Here it's being adapted to deal with content completely lacking in encyclopaedic value without wasting too much volunteer time. This is within Wikipedian norms and I don't see any benefit to disturbing the outcome. Chapter and verse about notability for the intelligent inclusionist is here, and the section on dealing with non-notable things is particularly relevant to this discussion.

    However, in my view Secret's bald declaration that "Notability is a reason for deletion (despite some claims to the contrary)" is a troubling thing to read from a sysop and I take a fairly dim view of that. Notability is not a policy and it does not by itself justify deleting content. The misuse or overuse of notability isn't unconnected with our issues with editor recruitment and retention----because the guy who spends three hundred hours writing articles about individual TV show episodes might just be the guy who goes on to write Fauna of Spain, providing we don't drive him off with harsh and weird decisions. In other words, notability exists in tension with other important considerations and it's much better not to overstate the case.—S Marshall T/C 22:27, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn to redirect Per
    WP:LOCALCONSENSUS was not policy based, and should not have been blindly implemented by any administrator. Jclemens (talk) 02:51, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • There was no option to redirect here. Secret account 05:01, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wouldn't want closers to start reading "redirect" arguments into a debate where none were presented----I think DRV would quite rightly view any such close as a supervote. Jclemens, what do you think Secret should have redirected that title to?—S Marshall T/C 08:17, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There were two comments regarding "merge", one being a !vote to merge to University of Moratuwa, and the name of the topic identifies itself as a part of "University of Moratuwa".  And as has been also argued, "Delete non-notable" may sometimes be understood to mean "don't keep as a stand-alone article", which is another path to find a redirect/merge.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with S Marshall's supervote comment. A closing admin could delete and – as an ordinary editor – create a redirect, depending on how strongly the consensus was against one. A potential closer could also participate instead of closing. Flatscan (talk) 04:51, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, a supervote is when an admin imposes his or her own views. A policy-based outcome need not have been mentioned to be chosen, and choosing a merge or redirect option when none has been advanced by the participants, but the decision is in line with the policy-based outcomes expected is far from a supervote--it's an admin implementing policy, just as much as weighing a rough consensus is. Jclemens (talk) 05:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Supervote#Advice to admins facing a defective debate: "If a person feels strongly that the opinions expressed in an XfD are contrary to policy then it is better to comment instead of close." Flatscan (talk) 04:28, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Admins are not mindless robots. Judging a
WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS demands that the admin view the opinions expressed in AfD through the lens of what actual policy says--the same authority that is granted admins to weigh appropriately options that are expressed in a discussion entitles them to consider the policy-based outcomes that should have been expressed. Jclemens (talk) 05:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
I agree with your first clause, but I disagree entirely with the second. It implies that an admin would be entitled to waltz into a well-attended and unanimous discussion and summarily close it in the opposite direction. The participants might all be wrong, but it is unnecessarily provocative. If the counterargument is overwhelming, simple participation should turn the debate. Regarding the definition of "supervote", I quoted directly from the essay. You are free to propose changes to the existing essay or write your own User:Jclemens/Supervote or WP:Judging consensus is not a supervote. (I usually prefer to describe the particular situation over using "supervote" due to differing interpretations, but it was convenient after S Marshall used it first.) Flatscan (talk) 04:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In my mind a "supervote" is where the sysop closes a discussion according to principles or criteria that aren't favoured by the participants in the discussion that's purportedly being closed. If we allow or worse, encourage such behaviour then we're implicitly downgrading the discussion from a consensus-reaching attempt to a sysop's suggestion box, and we should probably start handing out crystal balls on passing RFA.—S Marshall T/C 07:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do you find a local consensus from 33% writing down "delete" plus the implied !vote of the nomination?  What happened to the "local consensus" of the 55% viewpoint of "preserve"?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • (1)Correct WP deletion process requires the deletions to be in accord with WP policies and guidelines, and to take account of the arguments submitted and the consensus, and to use good judgment. Therefore any closure that fails to do any of these is a mistake in following WP Deletion process. A error in evaluating the evidence or in presenting it is as much improper deletion process as ignoring the guidelines, for the goal for all admin actions including deletion is to act reasonably in the circumstances. If there are reasons that were not advanced that might plausibly affect the decision, altho we usually do not determine them here, we send it back to AfD . Therefore this, and any closing that is asserted to not be in accord with correct judgment, or with the facts of the matter, can and should be reviewed here. There needs to be a way of considering new evidence after something has been deleted, and this is the only place available. The guiding policy is NOT BUREAUCRACY. If any statement on this page or elsewhere is inconsistent with that, it is not applicable. I'm not necessarily saying it should be considered plausible here, but it can be considered DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • While you are welcome to have a view as to how DRV should work and what its policy should be, you should not express your personal points of view like this as though they are actual policy, and you do not have the right to declare policy "not applicable". Stifle (talk) 16:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • (2) Redirection is for most types of articles at least a possibility (sometimes after deleting the present contents), though in many cases there may be good reasons not to use it. In any contested case where it might be plausible, if I close for delete I try to say something about why redirection is not suitable, whether or not it was raised in the argument, for it's something a closing admin should always consider it if seems relevant. I'm not necessarily saying it's appropriate here, but it has to be considered. DGG ( talk ) 05:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • temporarily restored for discussion at Deletion Review so we can all see and consider it DGG ( talk ) 05:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, closing admin obviously read the weight of opinion correctly. A redirect to the university article would have been of little or no use to the reader, as the target contains nothing about this topic beyond a mere mention of its name in a list, and it would be extremely doubtful whether it would be appropriate (under
    WP:WEIGHT) to insert more coverage of this very minor subtopic within that parent article. The suggestion that the alternative option of a merge would have been so obvious and so compelling that the closing admin would have been obliged to consider it and supervote in favour of it even in the absence of significant support for it in the discussion is absurd. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • The "wrong venue" recommendation indicated that no administrative tools were needed for the discussion.  Allowing the discussion to proceed at AfD opened the door to the potential for a wrongful deletion.  The fact that I hadn't studied the topic enough to know whether to keep, merge, or redirect, was immaterial to that determination.  The "wrong venue" !vote is not based on an RfC, it is a guideline-based !vote.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Convention is that – unless nipped in the bud or containing serious problems – AfDs are allowed to run. "Keep and consider merging to the university article or a list of clubs" may have been more effective, especially if backed by specifics. "The fact that [you] hadn't studied the topic enough" is very relevant to the weight that your recommendation received. Which guideline? Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is a curious contrast, in which you reduce the weight of my WP:ATD policy-based argument for wrong venue because I didn't report what I would have said in the correct forum, but you give full weight to !votes for delete even though no policy-based argument for deletion was presented.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My weak endorse notes that all arguments were not especially good. The deletes are somewhat more than
WP:JUSTNOTNOTABLE due to the club being associated with a single university. No one explicitly linked WP:Notability (organizations and companies)#Non-commercial organizations at the AfD, but it is consistent with their arguments. Flatscan (talk) 04:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
Arguing for merge or redirect would be easier if there were an obviously appropriate target like your proposed
WP:WEIGHT issues with merging anything substantial into University of Moratuwa#Student organizations or Rotaract, where the club's significance is lessened, so a proposal should be specific (WP:Merge what?, essay). The principle that "deletion is a last resort" was also covered in the linked RfC. Flatscan (talk) 04:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
  • And let's put those four delete arguments back up front:
  1. Non notable chapter of an organization at a single university.
  2. student club at a single school, contents almost entirely trivia. Wikipedia isn't a free webhost.
  3. per [#2]
  4. Basically, per [#1]. Non-notable organization that has not generated relevant coverage.
Numbers #2 and #3 don't make a notability argument.  Unscintillating (talk) 06:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see #2 as an anti-
WP:VAGUEWAVE: it does not even mention notability, but it has a rationale. The assessment "contents almost entirely trivia" implies that removing the unencyclopedic trivia would leave nothing behind. Flatscan (talk) 04:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
The examples given are between different XfDs, and the last sentence of that paragraph is "This does not strictly count as a speedy keep, since the page still remains nominated for deletion." User:Hobit recommended wrong venue at WP:Articles for deletion/Obad-Hai (June 2013), and the discussion was allowed to proceed. The AfD search results for wrong venue were cluttered with referrals to RfD and MfD. I saw old AfDs from 2008 and 2009: Josh Romney, Zeituni Onyango, and Aston Merrygold (none closed especially early); plus Reversible express lanes in Seattle, Washington and Golden Alternate School closed as merge. More recent examples, Patamon (December 2011) and Bob the Dinosaur (July 2013), qualified for Speedy keep #1. Results for wrong forum were similar, with the addition of Korean maritime border incidents, Civilization (Justice song), and The Beach Boys solo discography (the proposed split is not common) closed by User:Sandstein in 2010–2011. Flatscan (talk) 04:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • In looking at that RfC, I noticed a comment by Jc37 that explains the supposed "localconsensus" here better than anything else I've seen.  It is done by counting just the delete !votes and the keep !votes, which in this case gives 3 for deletion and 1 for keep.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unscintillating (talk) 04:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • So how much weight should be given to arguments from WP:Arguments to avoid?  Wouldn't that be zero weight?  I only see one !vote in the entire AfD that shows that the editor has looked in detail at the 21 sources in the article, and zero editors show that they have done a minimal Google search.  Admins are allowed to make bold redirects after closing no consensus.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have looked over the sources:
    • I skipped over the University of Moratuwa, Rotary International, and project websites as self-published sources about themselves, which are excluded by the general notability guideline's "Independent of the subject". "South Asia Districts Winner 2011 of the Most outstanding Rotaract projects" is verified,[1][2] but there is no evidence that this award is notable or confers notability. The ShelterBox press release only mentions that the club is involved.
    • The numerous Sri Lankan newspaper sources reminded me to consider WP:Systemic bias. The The Island source[3], credited to Sandamali Devadithya, is obviously written by a club member with its frequent use of "we". One of The Sunday Times articles[4] about "Handz" is co-written by Devadithya. A closer inspection reveals that most of the articles have a suspicious press release tone and no author credited. The 2000 article[5] about the "A Glimpse of Heaven" project has comments from the club president, but nothing about the club itself.
    • The Ministry of Education source[6] does not mention Rotaract, Rotary, or Moratuwa.
Flatscan (talk) 04:46, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our article at The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) shows that the Sunday Times has a circulation of 330,000.  As shown at WT:Deletion review/Log/2013 July 20, there were five references from that one newspaper at the time of deletion.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I just wanted to look at the WP:GNG notability issue, I'd note that Wikipedia editors are not at liberty under WP:GNG to object about WP:RS that "they didn't apply Wikipedia policies when they gave attention to the topic".  I'd note that there is evidence that the club has attracted attention from Germany, Turkey, India, and Australia, as well has across Sri Lanka.  I'd also note that just because a topic is wp:notable doesn't mean that we have to have a stand-alone article.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I wrote in the essay WP:Inaccuracy, "Ultimately, with allowing for due weight considerations in how the material is presented, and notwithstanding copyright violations, the only reason to exclude verifiable material from the encyclopedia is because it is insignificant."  What this means for a deletion discussion is that editors are not at liberty to ignore reliable primary sources.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Yes, I looked up its circulation. I read all five articles and found that, except for the 2000 "A Glimpse of Heaven" article I mentioned above, they all read like press releases. Press releases are covered by Note 9 in WP:Verifiability#Self-published sources.
    2. I don't understand your first sentence. Is that a quote from somewhere? Is your argument that The Sunday Times is reliable, end of story, and my impression of the articles' press release tone should be discounted? Please provide those international sources for examination.
    3. What are you arguing? That every
      reliable source in an AfD'd article must be considered for use elsewhere? Even if a source is reused, the article may still be deleted. WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Where attribution is not needed allows reuse of "Bare references" without attribution, just as you copied them to this DRV's talk page. Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
      ]
  • The
    Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002."  The article at University of Moratuwa says that the school, "is the most sought-after technological university in Sri Lanka."  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Opinion  Our article at Commonwealth of Nations states, "Most recently, international pressure has been mounting to suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth and to change the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from Sri Lanka to another member country, citing grave human rights violations by the host country."  My point here is that responsible future leaders of Sri Lankan technology, which this club is, have reason not to jump into a conversation here; and that rashly deleting their work, telling them that their work is "wasted effort", calling their work "especially bad"; is insulting and hurtful.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak endorse. Having reviewed the sources and disagreeing with Sionk's assessment of "apparently reliable", I believe that the delete outcome is correct. The arguments presented lack specific detail, but deletion is within admin discretion. Flatscan (talk) 04:25, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
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