Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 58

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Rescue list instructions

North tried to make a significant change to the instructions for listing articles for rescue, claiming it was a copy-edit. Milo has twice restored North's change. The change that North made significantly weakens the requirements for listing by adding the word "perhaps" before the statement that listings should include "how the content can be improved." Effectively the change would mean a listing can just be an editor saying an article should be kept, which is not acceptable under WP:CANVASS.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

[1] That has never been a requirement, just a suggestion. Not sure when it was added even. No other Wikiproject has to do that. I say change it to say "It is assumed that anyone posting wishes help in finding reliable sources that cover the topic, so there is no real reason to have to specify anything." Dream Focus 21:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't think NA's edit really did what DA suggests. His edit still instructed editors to "Specify why the article/content should be retained on Wikipedia, and perhaps how the content can be improved." Some things go to AfD that don't need much improvement, but the nominator blows it on WP:BEFORE. But I'm not too concerned with either formulation, because editors are doing a much better job of giving a more specified justification using the list system we now use than they did when we had the rescue template. When a newbie editor doesn't understand the instructions, long-term ARS members can examine the posting to see if it merits attention and add commentary about whether it does or not. Sometimes we serve to let editors down gently in that respect, and hopefully the project doesn't lose them entirely because at least we understand their emotions.--Milowent • hasspoken 21:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • If the nominator actually "blows it on WP:BEFORE" then that probably means there is article work that would serve to demonstrate as much.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
And "probably" = "perhaps". Thank you.--Milowent • hasspoken 22:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
No. "Probably" needs article work doesn't mean you don't need to suggest article work to avoid violating WP:CANVASS. Honestly, in order to comply with WP:CANVASS a listing shouldn't even be arguing for one position or another, but simply noting the dispute. This list should only be for suggesting ways to resolve that dispute through edits.-The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but saying "this content should be improved and kept!" is not an argument within the scope of CANVASS--it's a fundamental imperative of the encyclopedia-building process. To the extent that the rescue list serves to highlight articles that some editor has suggested would more appropriately be improved than deleted is not biased, except that it's biased towards our deletion policy, such as how WP:ATD states that regular editing (which includes all of the possible improvements springing from a rescue-list listing) is preferred to deletion. The differences over "is that sufficient improvement?" are legitimate areas for discourse and disagreement, and areas where editors could indeed be guilty of CANVASSing, but the goal of keeping content by preferring improvement to deletion is straight out of policy. Jclemens (talk) 04:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
J, you are simply mistaken. Arguing that an article should be kept is perfectly appropriate when it is done in the designated place, but doing so at a notice is not different than canvassing. Think of it this way, if one of these editors just went to a bunch of other editors saying "this content should be improved and kept!" would anyone really say that was not canvassing?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 14:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm saying exactly what I mean to say: "This content should be improved and kept!" should be everyone's basis for their !votes, to include "I've tried to improve it, and I can't see how it will ever meet our inclusion criteria, and there's nowhere appropriate to merge or redirect this, so delete it." Acceptance of inferior content and a gradual process (often more gradual than any of us would like) of refinement and improvement are Wikipedia's core business, our model of existence. Arguing for it cannot be canvassing, because it's supposed to be a shared value of everyone in the community. Jclemens (talk) 02:58, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Arguing for keeping an article that is at AfD can definitely be canvassing if it is done outside AfD in a notification to a large group of editors. Can you honestly suggest that is not the case when WP:CANVASS explicitly states such notifications are a violation?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Wait wait, sorry to budge in here, but if the article is only at AfD because the nominator fudged BEFORE and there is no proper reason proposed for deletion, how could it be a rescue candidate?--Yaksar (let's chat) 04:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Happy to have you budge in, Yaksar. I'm just saying in some cases there is very little to be done to confirm notability, so what needs to be done to rescue it is pretty obvious -- just add the readily available sources you find to the article (and sometimes there are already sitting in the external links to the article!). But improving the content in my mind is more than just adding sources to verify claims. It could mean expanding the article, adding nuances, adding more internal links, adding categories or applicable templates, etc. That's not required. An AfD is not a stick to force editors to improve random articles that get sent to AfD -- we could have 100s of thousands of article sent to AfD on a whim under that theory.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Deletions of wikiprojects?

I know people here normally do not like to discuss anything outside saving articles. But I wonder if anyone here would be kind enough to refer me to similar discussions about wikiproject deletions. Thanks in advance. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe only inactive Wikiprojects are ever deleted. Dream Focus 00:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Even those tend not to be deleted, but marked as historical or merged. --LauraHale (talk) 01:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Here is one case of a deleted WikiProject: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Nortel. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for adding info on the topic of wikiproject deletion everyone. For anyone interested in the deletion above there is some discussion taking place on the talkpage. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:16, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Those were somewhat exceptional circumstances though, not really representative of the normal reasons someone would want to delete a WikiProject. Or maybe not, since the Nortel one was for similar reasons. I would think a situation like that, where the project itself was incompatible with WP, would be the only time a project was actually deleted instead of just being marked inactive or whatever. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Please consider finding a suitable merge or redirect target for a never-very-active wikiproject. Have a look for broader, more active WikiProjects by looking at the tags on the talk page of the named main-interest articles of the inactive WikiProject. A WikiProject should not be deleted if it is likely that a future editor might be interested in trying the same thing. If the content of the WikiProject is so incorrect as to be misleading, or it was entirely a bad idea, then nominate it for deletion. If the WikiProject was ever decently active, then it should be left alone (nothing is ever perfectly finished), or archived, or merged. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you're preaching to the choir here Joe... Beeblebrox (talk) 03:30, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Popular Pages

If you are interested in the most popular wikipedia articles by viewcount, please see User:West.andrew.g/Popular pages for the current list (for the past 10 days, report to be updated every 10 days). Regular lists like this have not been reported since 2010. I think reports like this are very valuable for finding articles that merit improvement, as well as tracking the world's current interests. Please spread the word about this new report.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The sudden peak for a page like Elocution seems to indicate either a flaw in the count (also present in grokstats), or some bizarre off-line page view increase effort for this page. There doesn't seem to be a good explanation for this popularity otherwise (unlike e.g. Winsor McCay, which was linked very attractively from the Google mainpage for a day). Sudden extreme spikes like [2] also often indicate a glitch, certainly when the drop afterwards is so sudden as well. But it certainly is a useful and interesting list. Fram (talk) 13:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
stats.grok.se/en/latest/Elocution says it has 8,201,365 views now. That does seem very suspicious. Dream Focus 14:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, whether we call them "glitches" or something else, these events which inexplicably jack up some articles based on a one-or-two-day major spike do occur in the stats. This is not new, though I'm not exactly sure of the explanation. Disregarding those pages, you do get some real insight into what the most popular issues are on the internet. E.g., I knew Suicide of Amanda Todd must be popular due to the massive participation in its AfD, but I wouldn't have realized it was one of the most popular articles.--Milowent • hasspoken 14:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Hits, schmits. Just because something is hit a lot doesn't mean it passes muster with WP:GNG, WP:NOT, or the specific notability guidelines pbp 17:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Your comment is quite unrelated to the above discussion. But it would be interesting for you to peruse the 5,000 most viewed articles and identify which ones are not notable in your opinion.--Milowent • hasspoken 17:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Re: quite unrelated: The topic of this thread centers around an assumption that something that gets a lot of hits is likely to be notable (FYI, I'd keep elocution, but delete Amanda Todd) pbp 04:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I found one that wasn't. The fascinating case of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Athillas Thasos. But the "assumption" that something that gets a lot of hits is likely to be notable is not really an "assumption"; its almost always the case at the high end, if its not a flash in the pan. We're talking about the 5,000 most popular articles among over 4 million.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Rescue list organization and archiving procedures

Here's an overview of how I've been working to manage information on the Rescue list. Per the amount of traffic on the page, this seems to be working out thus far.

  • When entries are resolved (i.e. articles retained, deleted, etc.), they're moved down to the Resolved entries section of the page and a comment is added denoting each entry's resolution. This preserves entries on the list for a period of time to facilitate contributions to articles/content and to enable people to make further comments.
  • After around two weeks, entries in the Resolved entries section are archived, unless ongoing discussion is occurring. If the overall page becomes excessively long, or no discussion has occurred at all for resolved entries, I've sometimes archived them after around a week.

Posting this for people's perusal, and requesting assistance from others to help manage the list. Thanks all for your consideration. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:07, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

  • @Northamerica1000, (I hope it is OK to highjack your comment for something slightly different)
I have a question I have been wondering about for quite some time:
In Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Current_articles I see: "There are currently 515 articles tagged for deletion at Articles for deletion." Just wondering how it is automagically updated and whether the same method can be also applied to other pages up for deletion such as: wp:CSD , wp:Prod, wp:CFD and wp:MFD?
Keep up the good work. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Today's article for improvement

I've just come across Wikipedia:Today's article for improvement, which I'd not heard of before. The current target is Leopold Koss and I found that quite easy to improve. I'm not sure if that project has legs or not but it seems to be a good sideline for ARS members as similar skills will be useful there. I suggest that we cross link so that the article(s) selected for improvement show up in our rescue list too - perhaps as a sidebar or see also section. Warden (talk) 16:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I was also unaware of that project. Seems like a natural matchup with this one. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done. I've added this information as an addendum to the Template:Article Rescue Squadron Code of Conduct page, as this was the easiest way to format it to fit the page in an aesthetic manner. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Deleting (lots) of user pages

I don't know if this activity is unusual (I try to stay away from the deletion areas of Wikipedia), but I have just noticed a whole slew of user pages up for deletion at: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion.

Is this unusual? Ottawahitech (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I would say user pages are what gets nominated to MFD the most. The reasons are usually different than the issues the ARS deals with, in that notability has little to no bearing in userspace. Haven't looked recently, but a lot of times it is simply a case of WP:STALEDRAFT, where a user has a copy of something that may or not have been deleted from article space that they have not ever bothered to improve. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:17, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:MAD Mostly False?

Was Sjakkalle right to call my note about WP:MAD "Mostly False?" Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/You didn't build that I think I saw Warden use it before. CallawayRox (talk) 18:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

  • What you need to do in such cases is actually read what the shortcut says. Sjakkalle said "It is correct that we usually do not close as "merge and delete" due to the attribution requirements, but we can work around it by...". WP:MAD says "This may not be strictly true since attribution of authorship can be maintained in other ways, but it is troublesome and so a merge and delete is not usually done...". It therefore seems that their position is much the same. Warden (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
You might also want to tone down the way you particpate in AFDs. I see several comments about other users and leaving a note to the closing admin stating that "all delete votes are invalid" is a fairly transparent attempt to poison the well. It's better to stay on point than to attack other users or try to wiki lawyer the result you want. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • CallawayRox was quite right to point out that content had already been merged, if that was the case, because this would affect the actions that a closing admin might take. The conclusion that he drew from this was perhaps too strong and the word should would have have been better than must. What would have been even better would have been a diff, as evidence of the merger. Warden (talk) 19:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

chicken kiev speech

speedy deletion put up for Chicken Kiev speech, can i get some more eyes on this article? Thank you. Spoildead (talk) 15:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

  • This may have been a historic speech. [3] Need to find more sources that say it was important though. Highbeam gives 91 results. [4] Dream Focus 15:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
    • thank you sir, the article is great now. isnt there a new article award? I know there is. Spoildead (talk) 17:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, is it long enough? I,can't remember what the limit is but I know they have a minimum number of words they want to see. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
1500 characters, it is 2100. thanks. welcome to contribute: Template:Did you know nominations/Chicken Kiev speech. Spoildead (talk) 18:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I am saddened by the fact that nearly all of the "heroes" of this project's past have now been blocked for various kinds of unethical behavior. In case you missed it, the user who DF and I have been helping out in good faith here is apparently but on of many sockpuppet accounts created by Okip/Ikip/travb/inclusionist/whatever other names he may have used. What is really sad here is that he did find a genuinly notable topic and got an article going on it. Why that needed to be done with sock accounts is a bit obscure, but he apparently used his various socks to try and influence deletion discussions as well.
I hope we can all see this as the end of the time when this project was unduly influenced by a fee users like Okip and Anobody, now that we are all aware that they engaged in socking and other unethical behaviors in the name of the supposed ideological struggle they believe this project is at the center of. There is no such struggle. The purpose of this project is to find sources to verify content on notable topics, not to wage secret wars with sockpuppets or block vote in discussions. Let's all keep our focus where it should be, on improving content not scoring points against imaginary enemies. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Too bad Okip felt the need to do that. He knows how to source a stub. People come and go on wikipedia just like life. There is an ongoing ideological debate on wikipedia over content coverage, but ARS very much in the mainstream if you look at all wikipedia contributors.--Milowent • hasspoken 19:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
    Did he ever use more than one account at the same time or post in the same spot? And its only a two week banned, nothing permanent. His overall work is great. Lets give him a chance to explain. Did he fear others would be following his edits if he came back as Okip, personal grudges, did he forget his password, what? Dream Focus 20:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
See WP:SCRUTINYHe was using "good hand/bad hand" accounts to obscure things. That is manifestly dishonest and not the sort of thing WP as a whole needs and certainly not the sort of thing the ARS needs to be assosciated with. There are enough critics of the ARS without inviting more with something like this. If Okip actually cared about this project he wouldn't have done something like this. Look at his last post here as Okip, where he tries to re-inflame the spirit of unecessary confrontation that has so marred this project's reputation. The battleground mentality belongs in the past, a project focused on content should be about collaboration and working together, ironically demonstrated by the two of us working on the Chicken Kiev speech article while at the same time Okip was using the same account as a "bad hand" in a deletion discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Those who don't like the ARS, never have and never will. Most of the names of the haters are the same ones I've seen for years. We aren't here to impress people, we're here to help rescue articles that deserve to be on Wikipedia. I'll just wait and see his side of things before forming an opinion in the matter. Dream Focus 21:13, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Is this how far we've fallen? The great Okip is besiged by our detracters and we throw him under the bus? CallawayRox (talk) 20:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • See ya, Okip. No, seriously, we can't be defending this sock stuff, legend or not.
    --Milowent • hasspoken 22:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Yep. This us-vs-them mentality has got to go. Okip socked to avoid scrutiny. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what's more he didn't do a very good job at it, Fluffernutter and Coren figured out it was him fairly easily. That is not excusable, and making excuses for it will only further harm the ARS' reputation. I would say it is a matter of rising up not sinking down. Calling out unethical behavior from one of your own shows character and morals, traits that were apparently lacking in numerous "heroes" of the ARS' past. They were a pretty shady lot as it turns out. How many of them have been shown to have engaged on socking? That is not an ARS issue, it is a matter of Wikipedia policy and basic principles of honest behavior. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

ARS LIST nomination

Note Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Rescue_list_(2nd_nomination). IRWolfie- (talk) 18:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Dragonlance characters

First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not canvassing anyone – I am looking for sources, not votes.  :) I thought about adding these to the rescue list, but since there is no current deletion discussion, I figured I would come here instead. We have been getting a number of good sources for Goldmoon and Raistlin Majere over the last few days, so I think we have satisfied the WP:GNG at this point, but I think we could use some additional independent reliable sources to really strengthen these two articles up, so if anyone could come and help edit those two articles that would be super beyond awesome.  :) Thanks! BOZ (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I find in many cases that characters from any kind of fictional series are best covered by omnibus articles or lists. That way it will never be necessary to defend the independent notability of individual characters and everything is easy to find as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure, but the GNG is written such that many fictional characters do meet the GNG, and probably should have separate articles. I would not want to be "that guy" who nominated Gandalf for merger. Jclemens (talk) 02:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
No, I wouldn't either, and there are many more obvious exceptions like that. I am not real familiar with the Dragonlance series, just suggesting there may be merit to combining articles if the characters are not obviously independently notable, which is suggested by the initial post asking for help locating sources. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
It hasn't been easy finding sources, so merging might be the easy route, but easy is not necessarily better. The sources have been piling in, slowly but surely, which convinces me that I was right that they should have separate articles. What I'm asking for is help in finding more. BOZ (talk) 12:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Dragon Magazine should have some sources. Finding copies of them might be problematic. I suggest you make an omnibus article, then break out each character when you have enough sources. Then not only can you be sure, but you can put it back if one of the individuals is deleted. Best of both worlds. You can also put minor characters there that will never have a full article.  The Steve  05:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks - the list article already exists, actually, but right now it includes all characters, not just the minor ones. I was splitting back out these major characters since we have found some independent sources. You are right about Dragon and I want to check that when I find some time; that source won't help with notability, but it will probably be useful for just building the articles. I won't have any problem at all finding issues of Dragon. Book reviews in magazines from other companies would be golden. BOZ (talk) 13:22, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, the TSR thing. However, Dragon articles by other (non-Dragonlance) authors, especially after Weis and Hickman stopped writing for TSR should help notability. Tricky stuff, though, with the shared world and all.  The Steve  08:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

I changed the formatting for entries on the rescue list page to header 2, because it appears that Miszabot searches for entries to auto-archive that are in this format. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:02, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Update

It appears that the Resolved/dated entries section needs to be omitted from the list, because the bot will continue to archive this section header. It also appears that this will eventually occur with any headers, such as "December 2012," etc. Therefore, when closing threads, etc., perhaps just add a comment or a comment in a box, and move it below current open entries. Northamerica1000(talk) 07:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Albannach

Albannach has disappeared from the Rescue List and the Talk:Albannach page was deleted. I am puzzled by what has happened. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

  • After the first AfD it went to DrV, and though a number of folks moaned that the close was fine, Spartaz closed as endorsed but also relisted it at AfD because even he saw it had problems (not that he'll say that directly).--Milowent • hasspoken 01:57, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Now I am more puzzled. I can agree that it had problems, has been somewhat improved, but is still in an AfD discussion. Can I nominate it again for rescue on the ARS list? Can I properly reinstate the talk page? --DThomsen8 (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
The entry was archived to Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron - Rescue list/Archive 11. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
So I can nominate it again on the ARS List?--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure. Just provide rationale why the article should be considered for rescue consideration, and any ideas how it can be improved. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
The Talk:Albannach page has been restored now. I will renominate for rescue consideration, noting improvements already made and the possibility of more to be done. Partially I am pursing this effort to learn more about situations and procedures, especially the disappearance of the talk page, and the archiving of the rescue consideration entry here. Now my initial puzzlement is gone.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

New award for consideration: Midas awards

I know this has been kicking around for a couple of years now, but I've long held the idea of an award targeted at editors who 1) rescue an article from deletion, and 2) put it through the criteria such that it ends up in DYK, GA, or as featured content. Rather than a sometimes-updated "greatest rescues" list that is infrequently updated, I think it's time for a criteria-based award that serves two purposes: First, it exists to reward article rescuers who take content from presumably trash to treasure. By rewarding the activity, we're going to actively encourage it, and I'm fully intending that this will cause some award-collecting editors to look at article rescue that haven't before, looking for diamonds in the rough. Second, it creates a permanent list of good rescues: rescues where something wasn't just saved barely from the jaws of deletion and still ended up relatively lame, but where the editor who rescued it got it to the point where the content met one of our selected content criteria: DYK, GA, or Featured Content.
My proposal is at User:Jclemens/Midas. Unless I hear some resoundingly negative ideas about it here, I plan to move it to Wikipedia-space in a day or two. Your feedback is absolutely welcome at User talk:Jclemens/Midas or here. Jclemens (talk) 07:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Dragonlance novels

Maybe this will have better luck than the Dragonlance characters?

There is a mass merge proposal of about 40 articles at Talk:List of Dragonlance novels. If you can find any good sources for any of these, please help! BOZ (talk) 06:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I check Google news archive for the first 5 on the list, and find nothing. Of course Google news archive doesn't cover everything. What reliable source magazines review these books? Dream Focus 06:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
It seems to be a decently wide variety. For example, I'm assuming the nominator did not add Dragons of the Highlord Skies to the merge proposal because of what is already on that. Likewise, he removed Dragons of the Dwarven Depths because of the sources we found for that. I actually found a review for The Dargonesti in a gaming magazine. Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, Prisoner of Haven, and Wanderlust (1991 novel) appear to have reliable sources. The Magic of Krynn has a link on it that may have helped, but it is dead now. BOZ (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Holiday Cheer

Holiday Cheer
Michael Q. Schmidt talkback is wishing all ARS members Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Feel welcome to spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone with whom you had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings. - MQS

The history of AfD

For anyone interested, I've started a page on the history of wikipedia deletion processes, see User:Milowent/History of Wikipedia Article Deletion Processes. There's still much to do, including understanding exactly why AfD replaced VfD in 2005 and how that came about, and what the primary changes were. Also am looking to find out when notices were first put on articles at VfD/AfD, when it became required to notify authors of nominations, and similar things we probably take for granted today. Anyone should feel free to chime in on the article or its talk page. I've mostly started out at the beginning, I never knew there was a process before VfD in 2001-2002 called "Page titles to be deleted." In fact, it was originally put in "mainspace" because there was no "wikipedia:" space conceived of yet. The very first guidance on deletion occurred six days after Wikipedia started (12 years ago tomorrow), with Larry Sanger creating a page on "Patent Nonsense".--Milowent • hasspoken 19:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Renaming the project's subpages for consistency

Having had a look at your tabbed header, I suggest it would make more sense to move Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron - Rescue list to Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Rescue list and Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron Guide to saving articles to Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Guide to saving articles, in order to make the titles consistent with the other pages listed at the tabbed header. It Is Me Here t / c 16:00, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration request

I have requested arbitration regarding the ARS. Please see the case request for further details.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:15, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Quick update: It appears the arbitration request will be denied, its currently a 0-6 vote among arbcom.--Milowent • hasspoken 16:56, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Declined 7-0. Diff to discussion for future reference:[5].--Milowent • hasspoken 21:30, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Popular articles article

For anyone interested, I co-authored an article in this week's WP:SIGNPOST on analyzing Wikipedia article popularity.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Citations on Wikipedia and discussion at meta:WebCite

There is a discussion at meta:WebCite regarding citations on Wikipedia that may be of interest to the members of ARS and others that add citations to articles. For those who don't know, webcitation.org is used to archive newspaper articles and other reliable sources that disappear from the original websites. Regards. 64.40.54.47 (talk) 11:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Declined AFCs?

I am wondering if there are any patterns of declined AFCs that should have been accepted? Obviously there is lots of stuff that will never make it. But I also get the impression that there is a heavy deletionist bias at AFC and really, very high standards. Plus it sorta breaks my heart when some newbie busts his ass and has a decent sized article with lots of notes and such...and it still gets flushed.

Thoughs on AFC tendancies?

Do you rescue there?

Review there?

TCO (talk) 06:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I have a similar impression. My understanding is that AFC drafts stick around rather than being deleted but I don't know much about the details. If you have some particular deserving cases in mind then please feel free to list them for rescue. Warden (talk) 11:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
    • I see a few AFC drafts tagged for speedy deletion, most of those are the sort of stuff that we'd all happily have deleted - attack pages etc. But I'd agree that the place has stricter standards than speedy deletion, some of the regulars there seem to work on the basis that they don't want articles moved to mainspace until they are confident that they would survive an AFD. Definitely there is scope for people to go in and collaborate with the newbies there who are trying to create articles, I have an impression that many of the current regulars there are more interested in judging other people's work than collaborating and helping them. ϢereSpielChequers 12:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't spend any real time at AFC, but I have run across cases of articles being declined that seemed ok. I don't know how frequently that occurs. Usually the cases I see are when the creating editor or someone else bypasses the process at some point and creates the subject article. I think the nature of people who are active at AFC, like New Page Patrol, would tend to be more deletionist. When you are sifting through lots and lots of dirt, you are going to miss some potential gems.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I've just edit conflicted in declining a speedy on an AFC submission, not only did they try and get rid of it A7 but they blanked it as well. But Speedy deletion is at least as bad, I've just declined one on a chef whose restaurant is allegedly best in Asia, and in the best fifty in the world - and that was tagged A7! ϢereSpielChequers 14:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps you are talking about another article, but Yoshihiro Narisawa was not an AfC submission and matches the rest of your description, so I suppose this is the one after all. Obviously this was a very poor speedy (made by a very inexperienced user), but it has nothing to do with AfC. I've redirected it to the restaurant instead. Fram (talk) 14:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes I'm talking about another article, one at AFC that was blanked as well as incorrectly tagged. As for changing my BLPprod to a redirect, if you'd waited the ten days and nobody had bothered to source it that would have been sensible, but doing it the same day is somewhat hasty. If the chap is the chef who has won those awards then the article probably was rescuable. ϢereSpielChequers 14:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
What's the point of having a separate article on the chef and the restaurant, if his notability is purely due to his restaurant (which is even named after him)? Why can't the biographical information not be included in the restaurant article? It can hardly be for size reasons. It has nothing to do with BLPprod, if it had had a source it would still have been a good edit to turn it into a redirect.
Anyway, what is going on if some editor creates an article on a chef, and another editor creates at the same time an AfC on the same chef? Seems bizarre. Can you give a link to the AfC? Fram (talk) 15:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I never said that the AFC had anything to do with the Speedy - just two unrelated examples of problems for new article creators that I came across today. I'm reluctant to link specific bad tags to this page as one of the contentious things about wp:NEWT was that we listed the articles that had been incorrectly tagged, even though we were careful not to name and shame those who'd been doing incorrect tags. As for why one might have articles on both a restaurant and its chef, it isn't my subject area, but there are precedents, and if you put lots of biographical information about the chef into the restaurant article you'd just risk someone cutting it out as drifting off topic. ϢereSpielChequers 15:51, 25 February 2013 (UTC) restauranteer
I think I'll leave this conversation, as it isn't making sense anymore. " I've just edit conflicted in declining a speedy on an AFC submission" vs. "I never said that the AFC had anything to do with the Speedy" are not reconcilable with each other. And I never said that one can't have articles on both, but as long as both are short and the chef has no clear notability otherwise, it makes more sense to have them as one article: focusing efforts, no duplication of information, and you suddenly no longer have an unsourced BLP to boot. Fram (talk) 15:55, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Uno dato pointo

Here is the example I saw [6]. (BTW, no drama versus the approver...he was very nice with the submitter and just had a different opinion.)

I do wonder overall how that process is going (what percent of submissions make it through? And how many dreams are we crushing at AFC (or even with the long waits at AFC). We crush them too with the 10 minute speedy crowd. I don't know the answer as I don't want the Wiki awash in crap...but I also remember what it was like to be new here. And there are people VERY capable of adding expert content or even just good writing, but who don't know all the Wiki game yet. And we are really miserable at bringing them into the fold. TCO (talk) 02:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Just think, if you hadn't shown up to look for sources, the article may have gotten deleted. That happens at times. So many people just say keep without even checking, not caring about needlessly destroying someone else's work. Dream Focus 03:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
That's how we roll, DF; deletionists rejoice in the sound of crushed hopes and tattered dreams. Tarc (talk) 04:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps...

I understand that this request is a bit outside the ARS's usual purview, but here goes. There's something of an improvement drive over at this userspace page, regarding articles centered around the Chach Nama, a chronicle of 7th-century Sindhi history. Editors need no experience in this period of history to participate effectively; the issues in question are not factual, but grammatical.

Some of the articles currently skirt the realm of policy violations, and need further references to reliable sources that substantiate article content. Others are incredibly short and would benefit from expansion, while others still need assistance in further conforming to expectations for articles (conciseness, focusing on one topic, etc). Given that editors here are committed to maintaining quality content on WP, is anyone interested in helping with this type of maintenance outside of AfD? dci | TALK 23:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I saved info, but not the article

I participated in an AfD discussion for an article on a specialized laundry soap that clearly had next to no outside sources. Even I thought the article would need to be deleted. However, I and others argued to have the info in the article redirected to the page of the company that made the soap. A decision was made to make the article a redirect page, but the article's info was not put into the parent company page. I later took it upon myself to put a short description of the product into the parent company page. The redirect page is Persil abaya shampoo. Has anyone else run into a situation like this? I think we should save valid info if we cannot save the articles in question. Bill Pollard (talk) 09:46, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I very recently went through a similar situation with Sofalising. There are several guidelines and policies that support doing this - WP:PRESERVE, and the recent blank and redirect and WP:PAGEDECIDE. Citing them at delete discussions can help explain this desired outcome to other editors. Diego (talk) 11:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
It's a reasonable outcome. You keep the info and are being a "mergeist". In some cases, it really leads to a better presentation of the info anyway from a reader POV.TCO (talk) 03:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Bill, you proceeded fine, we need editors to be doing exactly what you did. AfD discussions sometimes get blinders on; even when a topic may not deserve a stand-alone article, some of the content deserves to exist in a "greater" article.--Milowent • hasspoken 03:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I seek advise from Rescue Squadron members

I am seeking advice concerning an article of my own that is up for deletion. As it is my article, maybe I am not looking at the issue objectively and want to put this matter on our talk page.

Here goes. Late last year I wrote Agenda: Grinding America Down. I tried to write an objective article about a very controversial DVD. In fact, the article has been plagued by persons who either have redlined accounts or have edited from anonymous computer addresses and not used registered accounts. Many of the edits have been what I consider inappropriate. This is a political right-wing film with a cult following and persons have been editing out valid info that does not support the premises of the film. I tried twice with no response to get some sort of protected status for the article to limit edits to Wikipedians with active user accounts.

Now it is up for deletion and I am not certain everything is being examined. If someone would do so, please look over the older versions and the article talk page to research all the issues involved.

Then please let me know what you think. I greatly value your input, even if you think the article does not deserve to be in Wikipedia. Bill Pollard (talk) 01:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

  • This didn't get a lot of news coverage, did it? I am not finding a lot in a quick check. Many documentary films are not notable by Wikipedia standards.--Milowent • hasspoken 05:29, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I appreciate your comment. No, there has been little actual news coverage outside of those who idolize the film. One user has made thoughtful updates to the article to improve it and there is currently some discussion on the AfD page for this article. You are doing what I think all editors should do, objectively examining the merits or dismerits of articles. Thanks. Bill Pollard (talk) 08:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Saved what I little I could in List of bus routes in Wakefield

The above was a very detailed list of bus route information in the City of Wakefield. Someone suggested putting a reference to the Wakefield Council website, so anyone interested in public transport could find what they needed, as a list put into Wikipedia gets us into maintaining ever changing and cumbersome information. I thought something of this nature would be done, but, instead, everything was deleted. I found information on public transport is in the Wakefield Council site, but I could not directly reference it, when I tried to put it into the City of Wakefield article. This seems to be a technical problem with the Wakefield Council website. Instead, I referenced the main page of the Wakefield Council website, thus saving something from the deleted article List of bus routes in Wakefield. In the main settlement (Wakefield) article some public transport information exists, but does not point to the Council website. Hope this entry is not too confusing, but there is a bit more here than meets the eye. Bill Pollard (talk) 12:39, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

  • The "list of bus routes in ..." at AfD is an issue I see from time to time, but never really looked into. They seem to always get deleted at AfD, though I could be wrong on that. Its not the sort of article I picture creating on wikipedia, but i can see why such articles would have value to some readers.--Milowent • hasspoken 15:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Created redirect file Bus routes in Wakefield to point to the City of Wakefield article, which references the Wakefield Council website. This should somewhat mollify those who put cumbersome lists into Wikipedia, since it really should be government website responsibility to maintain bus route information. Will do the same with two other lists that were deleted. I'm just trying to make improvements to this 'bus route list' issue. Bill Pollard (talk) 06:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The Silent Sea (Cussler novel)

The above article, I found, had been deemed not notable and was converted into a redirect page pointing to Clive Cussler. I looked into the matter and found there was a fair amount of indedpendent and reliable information about this book, so I resurrected the article. I don't know whether this qualifies as actually saving an article, but I think what I did was appropriate. Bill Pollard (talk) 07:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

You found three reviews, but I don't know if two of those are notable. I added two more reliable sources reviewing the book in print or audio form. Dream Focus 14:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your work at improving this article. As you noticed, I put some basic online reviewer information in the article. The rule against using it is not an absolute prohibition, so I sometimes offer it. I realize it does little or nothing to establish notability. I'm just happy someone else sees why this book should be considered notable. Bill Pollard (talk) 12:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Silk Route Museum

Hi, this article is at AfD but I believe there may be reliable sources, unfortunately I cannot speak Chinese. Could anyone who can look for a RS, as I know how many of our articles are notable but just don't have the english sources available, especially when it is for example a museum in north-east China. Thanks --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll try to look up sources later, but it may be tough to find them, as they may be in Japanese or Chinese, as you say. The musuem is probably called something totally different in those languages, but we can try using Google Translate in case sources are found refencing the Museum. Bill Pollard (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much. As you probably saw from the article or my talk page, I'm having a little difficultly with an editor who is trying to tie it to one of its sponsors and declare it all a fraud and accusing me of being "above WP:RS", but I have seen several articles before which do turn out to be notable just not solely based on english sources.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Although Gansu has a sentence of information on the Museum, it seems Jiuquan is the specific place where the Museum is located. I have a trick I have used to keep information in case the result is to delete. Copy and paste the Silk Route Museum article pretty much intact to your sandbox, just in case the information is not merged. I have had my share of bad luck with AfD decisions to merge not being carried out. All you have to do is go into edit mode, highlight the material, choose 'copy' and then go to your sandbox and go into edit mode. Then paste the material into the sandbox under the banner that should always be there and save. Bill Pollard (talk) 12:37, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Please don't do this, as it violates WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion, WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Reusing deleted material, and WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Userfication. If the article is deleted, one should request proper userfication (WP:Userfication#Userfication of deleted content) from the closing admin or WP:Requests for undeletion. Flatscan (talk) 04:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
I did not know that was a violation, so I won't ever do that. Anyway, based on new information that came to light in the AfD discussion, I am convinced this article should be kept and not merged with anything. I agree after examining this that one person is objecting to about all sources as fraudulent and we have more than enough info to know we need an article on this subject. Bill Pollard (talk) 08:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
I Waited some time to write a further response to this. I want to clarify what I have done in the past. I have never tried to insert material in other articles that came from articles that were deleted. However, at least three times I have been involved in an AfD discussion where it was decided to merge info from one article into another, resulting in the subject article's deletion or transformation into a redirect page. In these cases the person handling this failed to merge any info. What I did was take the info to be merged and properly referenced it to outside sources and then inserted it into the article to where it should have been merged. If I did something improper by doing this, please say so and I will want to take this up somewhere. When a decision is made to merge information, it is, in my reasoning, just wrong to completely delete such information. Bill Pollard (talk) 18:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Sometimes when admins close an AFD with a merge result, they don't feel it is their responsibility to actually perform the merge itself unless it is extremely simple, so they will just redirect the page. This action in no way precludes anyone from going into the redirected pages' history and retrieving content worth merging. {{afd-merged-from}} should be added to the target articles talk page in order to retain proper attribution for that content. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:33, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

New CSD

I've just come across a complicated series of proposals at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion which may be of interest. It's hard to digest all that but the general idea is to create new ways of speedily deleting draft articles. Warden (talk) 09:47, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Reliable Sources Search Engine

I noticed that in WP:Article Rescue Squadron Guide to saving articles, it mentions the Reliable Sources for Video Games under the Web search tips section. There's also a general purpose custom search engine named the Reliable Sources Search Engine that's also very helpful. I suggest we add it to this section (or somewhere). I would do it myself, except that I maintain that search engine, so I would rather have someone else add it if they think it's useful. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Do you have somewhere listing every single site on the list? Dream Focus 01:08, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Article without reliable refs

Just wondering if there is anything that can be done to save Balloon Experiments with Amateur Radio? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 14:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I added a reference to a Wired magazine about them. The two links in the Additional Reading section can be moved to a reference if necessary. I think all three of these things prove it gets ample coverage to prove its notable. Dream Focus 15:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
WP:WIRED would seem to apply, then. Jclemens (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this article to the attention of this talk page. I would never have known about it. I added my decision to keep it in the AfD discussion just now. Bill Pollard (talk) 11:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Bill Pollard, the purpose of this project is to encourage contributors to improve articles - it is not here to attract keep !votes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:01, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
My decision to vote to keep this article was solely based on the merits of the subject and I am not using this forum to solicit votes for articles. I simply mentioned I voted to keep this article. You can look at my contributions log and see that I vote as often to delete articles as I vote to keep them in AfD discussions, each time voting based on what I see as merits or lack of merits of subjects. Bill Pollard (talk) 06:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Hats off to participants. I did not think this article could be saved - but to my delight, I was wrong XOttawahitech (talk) 19:44, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New-adult fiction

Hi, need help rescuing New-adult fiction. The nominator claims it's not a category/genre but a 'neologism' which is not true at all. The article should be allowed to develop, as the category/genre is a legitimate one and is a rapidly growing genre in fiction. Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 15:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New-adult_fiction Malke 2010 (talk) 08:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

A short list of potential rescues from CSD

I'm digging through a Herculean list of declined-as-promotional AfC drafts, many from 3-4 years back. The vast majority of them are painfully promotional and more than half are strict copyvios, I won't subject to you the whole list. But as I sort through that list patiently, one by one, occasionally I find something that looks like it has a shot at being brought up to main space standards. I'm keeping a list of those at User:Joe Decker/SecondLook. All of them are eligible for CSD G13 at the moment, but to the extent that any of these could be rescued (or rewritten from scratch, if necessary) within Wikipedia standards (notability, copyright, non-promotionality, etc.), I'd appreciate the efforts. I'll continue to add to the list, probably at the rate of 2-3/day, for some time to come. Best, --j⚛e deckertalk 17:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

  • The first two linked are now in mainspace. Dream Focus 17:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Yeah, DGG has also been backing me up, I'd missed he'd gotten those two. He'll also be looking through the list as his time permits. --j⚛e deckertalk 17:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
      • ALso, for some of the others, you may have to go back into the history. --j⚛e deckertalk 17:47, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Aarvy Hospital

I happened to run across this hospital when examining the AfD listings for today. Please look at the article and the AfD discussion. Look at guidelines concerning hospital notability. My hope is someone can locate good relevant sources on this hospital, located in India. I have found in the past it can be difficult to find good sources for places in the third world, as fewer sources exist than in the developed world. Just check this out and see what you think. Bill Pollard (talk) 16:17, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

accusation against ARS members

[7] In the RFC for Folken de Fanel, Tarc has posted:

# This all smacks of pettiness and revenge RfC filing by the Article Rescue Squad and friends. Fortunately, attrition and banning have thinned the flock a bit, so these things run out of steam quickly. Tarc (talk) 03:47, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Note that you don't see all the regular ARS members there, and there are people commenting I don't recall seeing around here at all. Just another example of certain people attacking us every chance they get. Dream Focus 15:26, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

You have Jclemens to thank for that. The RfC was about to be closed any minute when he chose to publicize it here, and he was desperate for support... Folken de Fanel (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
No, there was plenty of support against you already, so he certainly not desperate. Perhaps he thought it relevant to mention in the context of the conversation. Dream Focus 15:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
You're clearly wrong. When we received indication from an uninvolved admin that a "no consensus" was probably on its way, Jclemens sure sounded desperate to me. In any case, I don't see how it would have been relevant in the context of the conversation (how members of a project I had never edited in before could provide any relevant input based my only message here is beyond me), except in giving credit to the view of ARS members that you want to denounce.Folken de Fanel (talk) 15:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
You obviously watch the project, or you wouldn't find your way here, and you regularly end up in AFDs mentioned here. So they could comment on your behavior they have noticed. Dream Focus 16:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough, but then why having waited until the RFC was about to be closed on a probable "no consensus" (to which Jclemens expressed strong disagreement, close to desperation), and precisely after editors that are assured to be hostile against me in any discussion (CallawayRox's "go away") showed up ? I don't see any "behavior" (positive or negative) that anyone could have "noticed" from my first and only comment here and that could have been discussed with relevance at RFC/U. On the contrary it was rather some ARS members who've been uncivil toward me. I merely explained everything that was wrong with a proposal, and denounced its likely consequences. Unless if you consider "disagreeing with the ARS" as "noticeable behavior" worthy of RFC/U, in that case the negative remarks that have been made about the ARS are completely accurate.Folken de Fanel (talk) 16:21, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
  • For the record, it was indeed JClemens' (we go way back) post above via which I discovered the RfC; I've had the Squadron page here on watch for quite awhile to keep abreast of interesting things. Quite honestly, "interesting" and "ARS" rarely go together these days, but an edit summary of "pointer to RFC/U" piqued the ol' interest. Tarc (talk) 16:53, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Another proposal

Hi there. Earlier this year I came up with a proposal for a process for finding sources and doing article improvement work. After some feedback, I trimmed it down to refocus it solely on finding sources for articles, and you can view it here. Unlike ARS, this would be a process for working on articles which are not currently facing the threat of AFD. Specifically, this would be for articles that don't yet meet the GNG, or barely meet it and need more sources to be truly improved.

I want to gauge if there is interest in a process which is strictly concerned with finding sources, with the aim of attracting users who are particularly skilled and knowledgeable in finding sources. Aside from already existing articles which just need sources, and potentially salvageable articles which have been deleted, this process can also look at articles which have been merged or just redirected due to notability concerns, failed Articles for Creation submissions, user space drafts, article incubator pages, or even articles that have yet to be started.

I know I am not the only one who has found articles deleted at AFD such as Flint Dille or T-Dog (The Walking Dead), and worked to improve and restore them. And sometimes articles like Matt Forbeck or Don Bingle get deleted by PROD or speedy, when it would only have taken a little bit of work to make them GNG-compliant or better. And that's not to mention the many articles out there which don't yet meet the GNG but probably could.

What do you think; is there some value in this? Would you want to make it maybe a subsection of ARS or would this work best as a separate process? Let me know what you think. BOZ (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Inviting discussion from some users with whom I have previously discussed earlier incarnations of this proposal, including: Jclemens, Casliber, Sandstein, Noleander, Webwarlock, Coin945, Kvng, and TheOriginalSoni. I would also like to invite Torchiest, Paul Erik, and JHunterJ as I appreciate their input on this sort of thing. BOZ (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
  • The WP:GNG is not a policy. The main policy WP:V only requires sources for controversial facts or quotations. Adding sources is therefore often just busywork which takes time away from more useful work. Another way to put this is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a search engine.
So, work upon sourcing should be focussed upon high-priority cases such as articles threatened with deletion and this is the ARS's specific role. While many hundreds of editors have signed up to this, there are few now who actually perform the labour. We therefore don't seem to have spare resources for the suggested widening of scope. Such activity should be left to other projects such as backlog drives. Warden (talk) 08:45, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree. This doesn't really have anything to do with the Article Rescue Squadron. You can just search for all those articles tagged for notability or having no references, if you wanted to find some to go through. Dream Focus 09:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose as too much power-grabbing from the ARS project, specifically per some of its prominent members holding fringe, non-consensual views on what exactly are the "reliable secondary independent" sources and "significant coverage" than can make an article worthy of inclusion as a stand-alone. The proposal holds a disproportionate number of opaque/sectarian restrictions that could, in the long-term, result in a complete reversal of the way article inclusion is handled, and in a complete redefinition of inclusion criteria themselves, without proper, community-wide discussion:
  1. A lot of space is dedicated to excluding people who "have violated the spirit of this process" and who aren't "interested in improving the encyclopedia", and "other editors under certain restrictions could be disallowed". Who exactly is going to define this "spirit of the process" or the "interest in improving", or even what constitutes "good faith"? Is there any plan to involve the community as a whole on this, or to restrict it to the ARS WikiProject ? Does that mean the ARS WikiProject can give itself the right to exclude anyone who doesn't share their interpretation of WP:GNG ? Anyone who is not "inclusionist" enough ? Anyone some ARS WikiProject members personally dislike ?
  2. Corollary to the above, given that all these user-restrictions are based on purely ideological considerations ("spirit", "interest", "improving"...), and not on any objective behavior policies violations, how does this proposal cope with the WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:OWN policies ?
  3. Other corollary, the proposal provides for the possibility to "topic ban" from "Article for Sourcing". Who will decide the sanction and carry it out, and on what grounds exactly ? Will it be an open process at a community-wide noticeboard, or will it be done at the discretion of the ARS WikiProject members ?
  4. What will be the exact scope and status of "Article for Sourcing" ? Will it simply be a subsection of the ARS WikiProject ? Or, if it is to be "kept in a log and/or transcluded to a larger list, similar to how AFD's are tracked [...] made to show up on the article alerts pages of associated WikiProjects", will it be a community-wide process, with as much power as AfDs with regards to inclusion threshold ?
  5. Corollary to the above, a successful AfS process can "make a deletion discussion unnecessary". But how can non-ARS members (and those excluded as "violating the spirit of the process") express a disagreement with the AfS findings ? Will a successful AfS be enough to block any future AfD nomination ?
  6. How will an AfS be closed ? Will it be subjected to the same WP:ROUGH CONSENSUS assessment by an uninvolved admin as AfDs (provided contradictory debate is even allowed...) ? All the proposal states is that "an article that has been successfully properly sourced can have its page closed and archived by an administrator".
  7. "Articles that have been merged or just redirected due to notability concerns could also be [...] restored if sufficient sourcing is found. If the article was merged as a result of a consensus discussion, a new discussion may be required to determine if the new sourcing has been sufficient before restoring" Emphasis mine. That a new discussion may be required (and not "should be" or "is" required) is blatantly contradictory to the WP:CCC policy stating that "an editor who knows a proposed change will modify a matter resolved by past discussion should propose that change by discussion". The charge from an obligation of a new discussion is reversed to a mere possibility of a new discussion. And who is going to assess the appropriateness for a new discussion ? Members of the select ARS/AfS club only ?
  8. Corollary to the above, what about users who did take part to a previous AfD/merge discussion and who have been deemed unworthy of the AfS club ? Will they be allowed to take part to the "new discussion" ? Where will this "new discussion" take place ?
I have nothing against a centralized mean of sourcing articles and some of your points are valid, but its vague wording, restrictions on users, and power to decide an article can escape deletion/merge (provided no satisfactory answer is given to my objections) make it look like a trojan horse for the minority ARS WikiProject to kill the AfD process from the inside, prevent contradictory debate and force certain interpretations of policies and guidelines on the community as a whole. If this is meant to be a process equal and alternative to AfD, with as much visibility and weight in the way articles are handled, then drop all the self-serving factional restrictions and discuss it at WP:RSN or any other community-wide noticeboard. Attempts at organizing sourcing are fine, but I will oppose any attempt from a minority Wikiproject to re-appropriate notability and inclusion threshold.Folken de Fanel (talk) 11:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
TLDR. Go Away. CallawayRox (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
If that's all you have to add to the conversation, you may as well have kept it to yourself. You can't order another user off this talk page just because you don't like what they have to say. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
It'd be better in people like Folken kept their nonsense to themselves. We do not "kill the AfD process from the inside", nor do we have a means to keep people out of the project, even when they do nothing but keep trying to sabotage and destroy it. Dream Focus 21:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
It'd be better in people like Dream Focus kept their nonsense to themselves. I do not "keep trying to sabotage and destroy" the project.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I was thinking of a few others for that bit. Still, you don't seem to be here for any possible reason other than to criticize and spread unfounded lies about us. Dream Focus 21:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not "spreading unfounded lies", I'm merely describing all that is wrong with this proposal and denouncing its consequences, and criticism is a good thing and fully part of WP.Folken de Fanel (talk) 22:35, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
WP:AGF failure when you said its a power grab. Now why does that sound familiar? CallawayRox (talk) 18:10, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't think this proposal risks fragmenting already thin resources. Better to spend the time patrolling AFD with WP:ARS and PROD at WP:WPPDP. And after that's taken care of :) there's always Category:Articles_with_topics_of_unclear_notability. ~KvnG 13:02, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Warden, I know there's nothing in the proposal preventing anyone from adding sources independently of this "AfS". However, one of the provisions is to make it, when "anything" is "improved enough to retain", "an alternative to an AFD" which could "make a deletion discussion unnecessary". Without further clarification from BOZ on whether the process could have the decisional power to keep an article (see #5) the proposal seems to be more of an "Article for Keeping" than an "Article for Sourcing", and does indeed seems like it is meant to replace the AfD process (or some part of it). However, AfD doesn't exclude anyone from participation on an ideological basis. Article for Sourcing does, and that's a huge problem that runs afoul of at least 3 major policies. Even if AfS had no decisional power that would remain a major issue, that will make it unlikely to receive community approval.Folken de Fanel (talk) 14:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Even if the many obvious problems with this idea were worked out I don't see it having much positive impact. The WP:INCUBATOR sure seemed like a great idea and it failed badly.

Hmm, I guess this one sounded better in my head than it did when I wrote it down.  :( BOZ (talk) 19:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

But since there is already something in place that kind of does this it's not such a bad thing. No discussion or new process is needed, you or anyone else can just dive right in at start examining articles that have already been identified as lacking sufficient sources. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I'll throw in my argument, as I have several times in the past. Many problems with lack of sources and inappropriate edits happen when edits are made outside of established user accounts. We have all seen edits made where only a computer address is listed in the edit history, because someone does not want to use a valid account. If we only allowed edits to be made from registered accounts, some of the problems would probably disappear. Bill Pollard (talk) 20:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't think you are going to find much support for that position around here, or most places on Wikipedia. IP users make many valid edits, registered accounts make many invalid or disputed ones. It's somewhat ridiculous to suggest that the act of registering a completely anonymous account somehow automatically makes a person more willing and able to contribute properly sourced content. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Then why do we have user accounts? People can edit outside user accounts from anywhere: a library, a work computer, a school, etc. True, many bad edits are made from registered accounts. However, if someone uses a registered account and commits an error, it is possible to send a message to that user's talk page. With edits outside of registered accounts there may be no meaningful place to direct a message. Bill Pollard (talk) 06:20, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree that it is very easy for unregistered users to abuse the system. But, to be fair, BOZ's proposal focused on articles not passing WP:GNG (ie they may have sources, but not enough/not the right ones to warrant a stand-alone article), and a large part of those non-notable articles have been created (and are maintained/defended/OWNed) by registered users. Banning IP editing will not solve the issue. What would really work in my opinion would be to exert tight editorial oversight on editors and WikiProjects associated with topic areas of unclear notability (for example fictional elements), and to be tougher against vote and canvassing issues in AfDs related to these topics.Folken de Fanel (talk) 09:11, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
  • The reason that editors don't provide sources is they don't have to and there's nothing about the editing interface which suggests that they should. Having an account is irrelevant. What would be more to the point would be a field, like the edit summary, where an editor would be expected to provide the source which supports the edit. It's the lack of this which enables and encourages editors to write entire articles without a sources. The Article Wizard makes a brief gesture towards this but it seems quite feeble and I'm not sure that it gets much use. Warden (talk) 10:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I have come up with a new proposal that uses some of my ideas above, which may be a lot more workable (hopefully). BOZ (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

looking for research on new article fates

Hi, can you all direct me to any research on new article fates? Maybe

  • overall percentage deleted by some time point
  • number of PROD, SD, AFD and % outcomes
  • changes before/after AFC submission process was widespread
  • percentage acceptance of AFC submissions to new articles

Thanks in advance and I realize different people may structure the questions differently, so whatever is out there, appreciate it.

TCO (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

P.s. Apologies for posting request at several venues. (first one got no feedback).

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Opinions please. Are all the Monty Python sketches on Wikipedia notable? There is now a merge discussion for some of them, with the nominator stating he plans on doing the same with the rest after testing this out first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Monty_Python_sketches#Merge Does anyone have any reliable sources talking about any of the sketches, that could be added to the individual articles to prove they are notable enough to stand on their own? Dream Focus 19:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Is this still up for debate? I improved The Argument Sketch some time back, discovering it was without doubt independently notable for reasons I put in the lede, but that wasn't anything to do with the merge proposal. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:32, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
The discussion is still open. Feel free to comment in it. Dream Focus 09:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
I've just added a comment. Incidentally, I mentioned this elsewhere but this page is also a good page to bring it up - I have seen AfD used in preference to a merge proposal (yes, I'm guility of this, but only once or twice), simply because the former can be over and done within 7 days, while the latter can drag on for months on end. I realise this runs contrary to "AfD is not cleanup", but sometimes the most effective way to cleanup is to use AfD. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:47, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
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