30 January 2011

Surfer hair

Surfer hair (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Consensus was to keep. Closing administrator said he didn't check the sources mentioned which almost everyone there stated seemed reasonable, but instead simply agreed with one guy who said delete. Discussed it on his page at User_talk:Spartaz#Surfer_Hair_had_ample_sources_found. Consensus was clearly to keep, based on the WP:GNG being met, as most agreed it was. To totally ignore the entire discussion and just trust the opinions of one dismissive editor seems wrong. Dream Focus 20:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• No word in bold from me yet, because I'm still making up my mind whether it was reasonable to read that debate as a "delete" consensus, but Spartaz is definitely right when he says it's not his job to assess sources. The debate participants are supposed to do that.—S Marshall T/C 20:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Thanks for misrepresenting what I said Dreamfocus. It strikes me that I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't here. You appear to be asking me to form my own opinion of the sourcing rather then relying on that of the discussion. As the AFD closer I'm supposed to assess the votes and the state of the discussion and not reach my own conclusions. The quality of AFD votes has been declining for some time and this is a perfect example of what can happen when the majority of one side of a discussion fail to use policy based arguments to back up their positions. As closer I'm supposed to assess votes against policy and weigh them to reach a consensus. The case here was that one side, the keep side had multiple invalid or weak arguments that did not address policy. The delete side had a detailed analysis of the sourcing that exposed as inadequate the two specific sources put forward in the only specifically well founded keep vote and showed due diligence in checking the other sources. The remaining votes were either non-policy based, superficial or both - for example you based your keep vote on a page of googlehits and don't appear to have examined any sources in detail to establish how extensive they were and whether they addressed the subject of the article specifically or tangentially. In other words not a compelling refutation of the delete argument. The only other keep vote that wasn't a me too noted the article was encyclopaedic but didn't address the delete argument of notability with any specific policy based rationale. Since you chose not to challenge the demolition of the sources put forward my snottywong I'm perfectly entitled to assume that the keep side accept the argument - especially as you immediately went off to find new sources. The close was well within my discretion and based on analysis of votes against policy and applying appropriate weighting. If there is any weakness in the discussion I submit that the fault lays in lazy keep votes that don't address the deletion arguments but I'm not supposed to guess or assume what the voters mean and need to go directly on what they write. I will put my detailed analysis of the individual votes below. It would be interesting to see your analysis of exactly how you think the votes should be weighted against policy. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator - declares no reliable sourcing and indicates that a search was made. Nom is an experienced editor but does have occasional lapses with their due diligence. I was aware of that when I closed.

• Blofeld then counters with two sources :- [1] and [2] and then points to 14,000 WP:GOGGLEHITS. The validity of the argument depends on the quality of the sourcing provided.
• Col Warden then says Bravo! - that's not a policy based vote and gets discarded. At best its a me too since it add nothing to Blofeld's vote.
• Then an IP keeps with the comment good job, another worthless me to that adds no value to the discussion. Discarded
• Tony the Tiger says that it need encyclopaedic content and that it now has it. That's not a policy based argument and carried very little weight although the opinion that the content is encyclopaedic is noted.
• Snotty weighs in. He responds directly to the two sources provided by Blofeld. He challenges them both arguing that the sources are tangential and not substantially about surfer hair. He points out that the second source has a whole sentence about surfer hair but no more. The further comment was that they had reviewed every source in the article and found them equally lacking - with the exception of a how too article in a source he isn't sure is reliable. The detail of the examination is clear and the reasonable due diligence is also evident from acknowledging the one decentish source - although personally I accord online only sources much less value then published sources especially when they are articles with no byline.. That's a compelling policy based vote in my book.
• Your contribution is that the google summaries sound like something notable. Its quite clear that you haven't looked at the sources in detail and that you have not established that any of the articles are in detail about surfer hair by close examination. Youu link to goodgle but that's pretty much another WP:GOGGLEHITS and very low value. The only source you actually cite from the google search is meridian magazine and that doesn't come up in my google search - understandable since I'm geographically searching from a different part of the world. I did not consider your vote significant in so far as you failed to link specific sources and the tenor of the comment was that the summaries suggested the sources were there. That's pretty close to assertion and not a powerful argument in my book.
  • Snotty then challenges the depth of the sources you provided and then DGG queries on what basis he is interpreting the GNG. I note that DGG did not vote, which is a shame since he is good at sources and generally I find his contributions telling.
• Now in overall terms we have a weak nomination and a number of keep votes that are either me too or discarded for not having a policy background. I am not supposed to make my own mind up on the sources or the article because then I would be accused of supervoting so I'm only left with the valid arguments. I felt that Blofeld had a decent argument but that snotty's analysis more then outweighed it. Your challenge with sources did not produce anything detailed or specific and you did not sway snotty who reviewed the arguments. The clincher for me was the detailed analysis by snotty and the clarity in which he showed by policy grounded arguments why the article lacked adequate sourcing. This analysis was not challenged by any of the keep voters and per WP:SILENCE that means I should give it significant weight. Overall the delete votes were policy based and the few keep votes that were actually based on policy were either refuted or did not demonstrate any significant attention to detail and seems rather superficial to me. Overall I could have gone no consensus or delete and it was well within my discretion as the closing admin to go delete. What I do hope is that this analysis shows you that the close was carefully considered and the individual votes were weighed against policy. As I said source it or lose it. I'm always happy to review my closes and would be receptive to reviewing any specific new sources that you wished to bring forward. Spartaz Humbug! 20:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Macacawitz

Macacawitz (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

While I do disagree with the decision to redirect instead of keep, given the keep arguments there were, I will accept that part of it for now. What I am appealing though was the decision to destroy the edit history. This article should have been merged while preserving the edit history, thereby allowing access to older versions. This way, if someone finds more information at a later date, it can simply be added to an older version. Xyz7890 (talk) 16:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• The closer has failed to copy the edit history to the target article's talk page (see WP:R#KEEP) and if the consensus at this DRV is not to restore the history, then this oversight should be corrected.—S Marshall T/C 18:12, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The redirect don't require attribution since the close was redirect to where there was already material. It was not to merge the material in the article. I'm curious why the close was discussed with me but not the issue of the history when that is the point of the DRV now in front of us. I actually don't case what happens to the article history so this could have been resolved amicably without a DRV but, meh, let process run its course... Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I forgot to add that the history obviously shouldn't be restored if there's some copyright violation or BLP issue in it that would justify its deletion. Oops.—S Marshall T/C 20:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• overturn deletion, neutral on redirect Because the material was deleted and not just redirected, this is a matter for DrV (otherwise it would just be a matter for the article talk page). The only real delete arguments were "not notable" while the keeps provided sources. I don't see a delete outcome here. Redirect may or may not be just fine, but deletion was not given that discussion. Hobit (talk) 23:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]