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Purpose of the workshop

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

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• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

1)

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2)

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3)

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1)

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4)

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Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

1) Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The various nuances of what this means have been refined throughout Wikipedia's existence, and our current self-understanding as a project is summarized at WP:WIAE, which in turn references pages that are the result of community discussions.

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2) "Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome." WP:NOTPERFECT, emphasis added.

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It depends heavily on the reason for why an article is poor. If it's poor because it's incomplete, or has spelling/grammar errors, or doesn't have enough images, then it's welcome. But if it's poor because it's entirely a copyright violation, or it's about a clearly non-notable subject, or because no sources can be found to substantiate anything in the article, then it's not welcome. Not all "poor" articles are the same, and not all are welcome. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 04:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It also depends on whether it can be improved. If some editors argue that it cannot be improved to correct the aspect that currently mandates deletion while others argue that it can then those who believe it can be improved need to present evidence of this, either in the form of sources that can be used for such improvement, or through actual editing. For an example of a discussion along these lines, resulting in "no consensus", see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dying of the Light (Heroes).BilledMammal (talk) 04:33, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The only actual proof of improvability is actual improvement. "Surely there are sources" is an age-old bad argument in AfD. Mangoe (talk) 01:21, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

3) When a Wikipedia project page refers to policy or policies and does not explicitly include guidelines or essays, it means only those principles accepted by community consensus as policies, rather than including guidelines or essays, per WP:POLICIES. This specificity clearly applies when a Wikipedia project page refers to policy or policies in one or more places, and more inclusively includes guidelines in others (e.g., WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS).

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I added rebuttal evidence at "There is no bright line between" policies and guidelines. This proposal was previously posted as an overturn recommendation by Jclemens at WP:Deletion review/Log/2022 May 23#Katie Nixon, where it was challenged by four other participants. Note his mention of excluding notability guidelines from closer review in an obvious contradiction of practice: as a group, they are among the most cited and evaluated pages at AfD. Flatscan (talk) 04:24, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can see where the line (and there is one) between our core policies and subsequently developed guidelines often blurs - this is understandable especially at AfDs since WP:N is a guideline and this is the commonly used yardstick by which to examine a topic's notability. Some topic categories also have SNGs which should be considered at AfDs. But essays don't even come close to the same amount of consideration - and shouldn't. Often an essay is the creation of a very small number of editors and while it is useful on occasion, it should really be treated as auxiliary notes and assistance which are opinion and not the fermented/distilled/baked content of Ps & Gs. HighKing⁺⁺ 12:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that this has ever been an accepted norm. In casual conversation, talking about "WP policy" often implicitly assumes the set of all policies and guidelines. In other words, "policy" is often used as shorthand for "the rules". Project pages don't need to explicitly refer separately to both "policies" and "guidelines" in order for them to be bound by both policies and guidelines. Policies and guidelines apply to all pages, all the time. There should never be a time when a policy and a guideline are in conflict with one another, and we need to ignore a guideline in favor of a policy. Even WP:POLCON says, "If policy and/or guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so all the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice." In other words, if there is a conflict between a policy and a guideline, it's a problem with the policy and/or the guideline that needs to be fixed immediately, it's not an opportunity to use that conflict to win an argument on a technicality. One has to wonder if the specific guideline that this proposal is trying to find a way to ignore is GNG. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 04:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is a guideline; guidelines apply generally, but exceptions are permitted by consensus. Policies are non-negotiable. Notability has remained a guideline ever since I've been here; I'll note Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Upgrade GNG to policy status.

As far as "policy" being interpreted as "policy and guidelines" I agree that this exists, and I believe that it is a problem in that it fails to distinguish between them and flattens what should be hierarchical.

I think you're still missing the point of the whole argument. When DGFA says something like "Arguments that contradict policy, are based on unsubstantiated personal opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted." if policy means policy and guidelines it makes the meaning of the directive very, very different. Jclemens (talk) 05:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I naturally read Wikipedia project page as meaning something with a level of "official" status, e.g., not a userbox or a random reply in a Talk thread, even though these do technically appear on pages hosted by the Wikipedia project. In more casual conversation, editors may mix up the terms "policy", "guideline", and "essay", but When a Wikipedia project page refers to policy or policies, it means policy or policies. Essays are evidence that an opinion has been articulated, not that it enjoys any level of wider acceptance. The essay that claims the absence of a "bright line" coexists with one instructing us not to cite essays as if they were policies or guidelines. XOR'easter (talk) 19:22, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A small distinction: the first is linked prominently in a {{See}} at the top of WP:Policies and guidelines#Role (policy), while the second isn't linked from that policy page. It has consensus to be linked, and the link makes it more likely to be read and watched. (The watcher count isn't wildly different: 65 versus <30.) Flatscan (talk) 04:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jclemens: Can you give examples of the project pages you are referring to? BilledMammal (talk) 05:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See immediately above. Jclemens (talk) 05:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at your quote from WP:DGFA, I don't believe that the intent is as you described. First, it goes on to state that Per "ignore all rules", a local consensus can suspend a guideline in a particular case where suspension is in the encyclopedia's best interests, but this should be no less exceptional in deletion than in any other area. This is the exception that proves the rule; it allows guidelines to be suspended under exceptional circumstances, which means that under all other circumstances guidelines apply and arguments that contradict guidelines should be discounted.

Second, if your interpretation was correct it would result in notability guidelines having no more weight than an essay. This lack of weight doesn't match the effort the community has put into crafting the notability guidelines or the importance they believe they hold, and I believe that any proposal to turn the notability guidelines into essays would be overwhelmingly rejected. BilledMammal (talk) 05:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I said no such thing and reject that as a logical conclusion. Fact is, since notability IS a guideline, it CAN be overridden by consensus, even if that's a rare occurrence. Saying that it can doesn't imply that it often should, but overridability (is that a word?) is the distinction between policies and guidelines. Verifiability, to pick on a different policy for a change, cannot be overriden by local consensus. Jclemens (talk) 05:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies; if you are not saying that closers cannot discount arguments that contradict guidelines, then can you clarify what you are saying?

In regards to your response, I think it is important to note that while guidelines can be overridden (as can policies per WP:IAR) this should only be under exceptional circumstances; I take that to mean those who support overriding them cannot simply !vote Delete, per WP:IAR; the encyclopedia is better if we don't have any articles related to platypuses, but instead need to justify why these circumstances are exceptional and could not be accounted for in guidelines. BilledMammal (talk) 06:03, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

4) The Wikipedia manual of style WP:MOS does not describe what content should be included or excluded from Wikipedia, but rather how content should be presented. As such, content not complying with the manual of style is not eligible for deletion solely on the basis of that style variance.

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5) Per WP:EDIT, editing, (sometimes referenced as "ordinary editing", e.g. at WP:DOM) includes any modification to the text of an article, to include being "rewritten or changed substantially" that does not require the use of administrator tools.

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Why should this definition of editing, which apparently encompasses literally everything a non-admin can do to a page, be enshrined as a principle? WP:ATD clearly separates "editing" (WP:ATD-E) from the other ATDs, shouldn't that be an indication they are not all considered "ordinary editing"? JoelleJay (talk) 22:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The comment on editing is at WP:ATD and global in scope; it encompasses all of the subordinate alternatives--merging, redirecting, etc.--including those as simple as adding missing citations to an article. c.f. the similarly expansive list of alternatives at WP:PRESERVE, also part of our editing policy. Jclemens (talk) 22:47, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

6) Per WP:DGFA (at WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS) administrators are to determine consensus in deletion discussions not "by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policies and guidelines (if any)." This excludes arguments based on essays, except to the extent that essays may correctly summarize actual policies and guidelines, and manual of style variance.

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Essays certainly can't overrule PAGs, but I think this proposal as written goes too far. If at AfD I write out a detailed explanation of my interpretation of policy and how it should apply to the discussion at hand, I would expect it to be given some weight if it's a reasonable view – even if the closer would have interpreted policy differently. If instead I wrote it in an essay and linked it at AfD, my view should be accorded the same level of weight. It shouldn't be down-weighted simply because it's in an essay and not spelled out explicitly in the discussion. (Can you see the perverse incentives that would arise if we did downweight those downweight those essays?) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:09, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a difference to be had here between the kinds of essays that L235 and several editors are talking about below - that is longer explanations about how policies and guidelines should be applied and essays that suggest specific notability standards for a topic area that don't have community consensus (obviously as they are an essay and not a guideline). An example of the first kind that is commonly linked to at AfD would be WP:THREE. An example of the later, which has now been deprecated by the supporting project, was NSOLDIER. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:33, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Yes and no. Some essays are simply one editor's personal feelings about something, others represent a strong community consensus, many are somewhere in between. Thryduulf (talk) 16:02, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I was shooting for with "except to the extent that essays may correctly summarize actual policies and guidelines". For example, WP:HAMMER is so well regarded hardly anyone even bothers citing it any longer, because it accurately reflects the underlying policies and guidelines. At the same time, there's recently been a discussion about whether WP:MANDY is at all in line with our BLP policy. Jclemens (talk) 22:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The function of essays is to summarize policies, guidelines, MOS variations, and other norms that have some level of consensus here. They are often used as shortcuts, so that an editor can quickly link to a popular viewpoint instead of having to type out a long explanation. Of course, essays can't override a policy or a guideline, but to say that "essays are not to be weighted in deletion decisions" is basically saying that admins must ignore certain types of speech in deletion discussions. This would directly lead to encouraging arguments at deletion discussions that we have long discouraged, per WP:ONLYESSAY. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 04:52, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Summary is necessarily creative, and essays can be and are used to push a particular point WP:NOTTVTROPES is a particularly good example, authored by one of the parties in this case, mainspaced two months ago, and used as a basis to argue for deletion of plenty of improvable IPC content. Essays which function as shorthand for established/customary process and an intro for newcomers, such as WP:ATA, are qualitatively different than essays created for purposes of achieving desired outcomes across multiple similar articles. Jclemens (talk) 05:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Essays come in a wide variety of quality levels. But I don't think that means the solution is to mandate that all comments including links to essays must be ignored by an admin closing a deletion discussion. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:07, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Excluding essays entirely isn't the way to go about it, but "administrators are to determine consensus in deletion discussions not by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policies and guidelines (if any)" should be expanded upon. Emphasis should be placed on ensuring that policies/guidelines are applied correctly, for example many of our notability SNGs simply tell us that a topic is "likely to meet GNG" or "SIGCOV sources are likely to exist", so in those cases "meets [relevant SNG]", while technically correct, is not sufficient to establish consensus to keep unless SIGCOV sources are actually provided. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mamata Kanojia would be a prime example, where the closer mentioned "...strong policy based arguments, all in favour of keep" despite the fact that the article did not actually meet NSPORTS. I do think that the closer's statement at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shabana Kausar, "Whilst I am entitled to give lesser weight to contributions that don't have basis in policy, I am not required to write them off entirely" should be addressed. At the very least, closers should be expected to discard !votes that directly contradict or misrepresent the letter of our policies and guidelines. –dlthewave ☎ 17:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:ATA is an essay that is frequently given weight by closers. I mean, ATA is just a laundry list of things some editors think other editors shouldn't be allowed to say at AfD, and in some places its logic is very shaky. But if we pass this principle and decide it's got no weight, then out go WP:NOTCLEANUP and WP:NOEFFORT, which throws the AfD contributions of both TenPoundHammer and Johnpacklambert into a much better light.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are two problems here. The first is that most references to essays are arguments; they are simply shorthand for the points presented in the essay itself. Therefore, second, it ought not to be presumed that those arguments are bad because they haven't been promoted to guidelines, which seems to me to be the intent of this principle. As an example, a bunch of us wrote the essay WP:GNIS because we discovered that this government-authored source was partly misunderstood and was also plagued with inaccuracies. Yet we still get the occasional response that "GNIS is a reliable government source" in AfDs on placenames in arguing that they should be kept, to which we generally reply, "that isn't so; place go read WP:GNIS." The fact that we have never tried to turn it into a guideline doesn't make it incorrect, and having to spell out all the material in the essay every time we come upon the issue is a time-waster for all involved. Mangoe (talk) 01:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative to essay links would be templates to subst, which would clutter discussions. Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

7) Deletion of content from Wikipedia is permitted for reasons articulated at WP:DEL#REASON, but one of the guiding principles of the deletion process is that "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page" WP:ATD. Thus, WP:ATD is a behavioral expectation for administrators closing deletion discussion, and Wikipedia consensus does not require that a particular alternative have been raised in the discussion for an administrator closing a deletion discussion to choose it as the outcome.

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Are some people below actually suggesting that ATD is not policy? Because if the answer is yes, I'll explain why I disagree. But if the answer is no, then I would love more explanation of why ATD as a policy is merely a suggestion/recommendation at AfD rather than something that has wide acceptance among editors and describe standards all users should normally follow to quote WP:POLICIES. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:30, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that at least one editor below is advancing that because ATD doesn't use words like must that it's some sort of suggestion is out of-line with other other policies. But that doesn't seem to be the main crux of discussion here for which I am glad. Instead the real discussion seems to be "If there is a viable ATD what obligation does a closer have in considering it" with two specific cases being when that ATD is not mentioned at all and when it is mentioned but is a minority position when counting !votes. As someone whose pre-ARBCOM largest admin area was closing AfDs, my thinking fairly closely aligns with Scottywong's, which is unsurprising to me given that he is the only person in this discussion who currently also closes AfDs. Closes should be about reflecting back the consensus of participants of that discussion, as weighted by appropriate policies and guidelines. If an admin reads a discussion with an eye to closing it and they feel there is a perspective that hasn't been considered they should either relist (with a note in the relist about what may need to be considered) or participate rather than introducing something new in the close (with a small IAR caveat). If an ATD has been suggested it's still possible to close delete, that is there can be a consensus that the ATD is not appropriate in that instance. But sometimes a minority position on ATD may be the consensus because it can also encompass concerns of keep and delete !voters. But again that circles back to the core idea: the job of the closer is to reflect back the consensus reached by the participants of the discussion not impose their own ideas. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:14, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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There is no "behavioral expectation". Whether ATDs are improvements is itself decided by consensus: if ATDs are not raised in the discussion, or if participants don't think they're improvements, it naturally cannot be concluded that they are improvements without arbitrary closes and supervotes. There is nothing in policy that requires ATDs be given special status or even brought up, if the participants disagree with it. Policy-based consensus is what counts, and for simplicity's sake it's best left at that. Avilich (talk) 05:47, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any policy backing for this position, or is it merely your preference? I confess, I'm not seeing a reason for having ATD as policy--which it is and has been for essentially ever--if there's no preference for it. Wikipedia's policy has always been if there's something to do besides deletion, prefer that. If you disagree, I'd like to understand on what policy basis you do so. Jclemens (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing any evidence backing your position. The WP:deletion process guideline says that "outcomes should reflect the rough consensus", with no mention whatsoever of ATDs. WP:DGFA gives essentially the same idea. WP:Deletion policy#ATD just lists the alternatives themselves, it most certainly doesn't require that any of them be implemented or even taken seriously ("tags can be added", "a page can be blanked and redirected", "could be merged"). Avilich (talk) 14:19, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ATD is policy. "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Editing is defined in proposed principle 5. ROUGHCONSENSUS expects policies to be implemented even if not numerically preferred. Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ATD-E applies to content concerns, where other reasons for deletion aren't present. The only way "ATD is policy" would be applicable for disregarding !votes would be if someone was specifically arguing for deletion because they claim an article can't be merged or whatever when it actually clearly could. An admin could ignore that argument because it's factually incorrect. ATD does not empower closers to implement an outcome that wasn't discussed and is only a suggestion. JoelleJay (talk) 22:21, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ATD is policy. Closers are to implement policy. If AfD input fails to consider relevant and appropriate ATDs, they are not policy-based, and are appropriately accorded less weight by a policy-savvy closer. This is what ROUGHCONSENSUS is all about. Jclemens (talk) 22:49, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Closers are to implement policy". Nope, only those that require some sort of action, which ATD does not. Avilich (talk) 23:53, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You keep saying "ATD is policy", but "list of ATDs on a policy page" != "considering all ATDs is required". Your reading of ATD would also license admins to delete based on their personal belief that the article met any of the reasons in DEL-REASON -- another list on a policy page -- regardless of what consensus said.

There is absolutely no requirement that each or any of the ATDs be addressed in an AfD, and zero policy-based evidence that a closer may implement them based on their own assessment of the article. JoelleJay (talk) 00:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I made the leap with you on admins deleting stuff based on their own personal belief. IAR deletions are a real thing, but speedy deletion criteria pretty much already cover the vast majority of circumstances in which an administrator is expected to act alone to fix a problem by deleting an article. Jclemens (talk) 03:54, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49, there's no dispute that ATD is on the policy page, or that it governs aspects of the deletion process as a policy. What is in contention is what it means to say "ATD is a policy": there is no directive on WP:DELETION that suggests "all users considering deletion must exhaust all the ATDs before nominating/!voting/closing", or even that doing so is generally expected. And there is certainly not a suggestion that closers can override consensus and implement an ATD that was never discussed, the way they can for violations of core content policies. Both ATD and DEL-REASON read as informational rather than prescriptive. JoelleJay (talk) 03:50, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with this comment from @Barkeep49. I think most of us are on the same page now? JoelleJay (talk) 23:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with Avilich. ATD is just a list of options one can consider, no policy mandates they must be considered. And certainly not unilaterally implemented by a closer. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I need to spell it out more: every ATD is "[regular] editing" per principle 5. Therefore, any ATD is preferred to deletion, and thus if there's any legitimate ATD, deletion is, by policy, off the table. Jclemens (talk) 22:12, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If your proposed "principle 5" includes all ATDs, then why is "editing and discussion" in a separate section (ATD-E) from the other ATDs? There is still nothing in deletion policy remotely suggesting ATDs must be used regardless of whether there is consensus to delete. JoelleJay (talk) 22:33, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, ATD is regular editing, but not every regular edit is an improvement, and deciding on that is the whole point of an AfD discussion, hence consensus. Again, ATD is carefully worded with "can" and "could", not "must", so the correct way to apply the policy is to simply acknowledge that ATDs exist, nothing else. Avilich (talk) 22:44, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which is encompassed by the "absent a compelling reason to not do so" clause in my proposed remedy. Obviously, if an ATD is inappropriate, it's inappropriate, but when a non-notable book from a notable author is deleted, it is expected that the closer will redirect the title to the author regardless if anyone brought up the possibility in the deletion discussion or not. That is the alternative expected by policy, and I'm unclear why this is at all at issue: we are here to build an enecylopedia (principle 1) and each sort of ATD reflects better encyclopedia-building than bare deletion, which is why they're policy. Jclemens (talk) 22:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What is "compelling" is up to the participants, not supervoters. The former cannot be forced to state from the outset every single thing they don't agree with, but instead should be allowed to simply go with what seems most natural. There's no conflict between encyclopedia-building and deletion, otherwise it wouldn't be allowed. Avilich (talk) 23:51, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When an appropriate ATD exists, deletion is not encyclopedia-building. That's what the policies say. Jclemens (talk) 03:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly dispute that preferring any alternative to deletion is policy, and it is commonly the case that articles are kept because, supposedly, they can be "improved" rather than because they have been improved. Mangoe (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your dispute is at odds with principles 2 and 5. Do you have an issue with either of them, or just this conclusion that I believe directly follows? Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If a closer believes there is a suitable WP:ATD, they should !vote, rather than closing the discussion. There cannot be a consensus for an ATD without discussion of the alternative, both as a general principle and because it doesn't give editors who might oppose the proposed alternative time to express their opposition. BilledMammal (talk) 00:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ROUGHCONSENSUS emphasizes getting the right, policy-compliant discussion rather than simply nose counting. If everyone says "delete" but there's a redirect target and a closer chooses to redirect, a closer saying "redirect" rather than closing as redirect would be the right thing to do iff the next admin who comes along will privilege the ATD as the policy-based outcome even if it's not numerically superior. Are we there? I'm not thinking so. Jclemens (talk) 01:54, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If we aren't there then the solution isn't requiring closers to supervote, the solution is a finding of fact that discussions have been closed based on nose counting rather than strength of arguments.

So far, we have had evidence presented suggesting that some discussions have been closed as "keep" or "no consensus" based on nose counting, and that evidence would support a narrower finding of fact focused on that result. However, if you can present evidence that suitable alternatives to deletion are rejected by the closer based on nose counting rather than adherence to policy then that would support producing a broader finding of fact. BilledMammal (talk) 02:03, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Barkeep49 as you can see from this discussion, there are certain editors who believe that ATDs only apply if they are raised in a deletion discussion and/or have numerical consensus within that deletion discussion. I think the discussion here in this section is a fair representation of those I've had with these editors and others elsewhere. The reason I brought this discussion up is that I believe those interpretations are improper and needlessly contribute to a win-vs-lose mentality at AfDs. If we were all on the same page with what the policy says, I believe it would lead toward more collegiality. For example, if 6 deletes, two keeps, and one merge is closed as a merge, that incentivizes editors to propose ATDs, which, in the hands of experienced closers, should yield more encyclopedic results than just the boolean of keep or delete. I believe ATDs merit the same priority as other policies: if 23 people say "keep it!" and one editor conclusively proves it's a copyvio, it gets deleted, because policies trump numbers in deciding outcomes. If 23 editors said "delete it" and one editor said "Actually, we can redirect it..." a closer choosing to redirect would likely find their actions questioned at DRV. Jclemens (talk) 03:45, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That assumes any proposed ATD is always appropriate! How is it remotely "more encyclopedic" for an outcome that would normally require actual discussion, e.g. at WP:PROPMERGE or WP:RFD, to bypass consensus if it's raised at AfD? Just because a merge is technically possible doesn't mean it is automatically the correct option; and if it's not automatically correct then how can it be unilaterally imposed by a closer? JoelleJay (talk) 04:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It has nothing to do with boolean logic or whatever. To use your example, if a discussion has 6 deletes, 2 keeps and 1 merge, and someone wants to close it as merge, the correct reason is that the merge voter made a compelling case for preserving the content and copying it elsewhere, and not simply because "merge" is listed as an ATD. Avilich (talk) 04:11, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jclemens: - can you give some examples of this? I believe it is relatively common for closers to implement uncontroversial ATD's despite !votes for those ATD's being a minority, and I believe it is rare for those closures to be brought to DRV.

As for ATDs only apply if they are raised in a deletion discussion; that is not my position. My position is that closers cannot supervote; if there is an alternative that the closer believes is better supported by policy but has not been discussed, then the closer should raise that option instead of closing, because consensus is not determined by the closer's own views about what action or outcome is most appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 04:19, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The "win-vs-lose mentality" that you describe is at least in part the underlying reason we're here - people getting emotional because of deletion discussions. Anything that helps to resolve that part of the issue is probably helpful - but then I'm generally a proponent of ATD these days unless there's an overwhelming reason to delete. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: Giving considerable extra weight to merge or redirect when closing AfDs does not have consensus. Consensus was established for equal weight at WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 61#RfC: Merge, redirect (2011). I have found no discussion that overturned it. It was listed at WP:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines and WP:Centralized discussion and had many participants. WP:ATD and WP:PRESERVE were mentioned explicitly throughout the prompt. I plan to present this as part of my evidence. Flatscan (talk) 04:24, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And yet the deletion policies say something different. Why is that? If I recall that discussion correctly, it was part of the evolution of AfD towards being able to implement non keep or delete outcomes. But it's been eleven and a half years, and I'd rather rely on the current wording of policies than a closely but not entirely related discussion from over a decade ago. Jclemens (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC outcome differs from your interpretation of ATD, which is facing substantial opposition here. The version of ATD at the end of 2010, before the RfC, is quite similar to today. The diff to today is a bit messy, but I see no major content changes to the ATD section. Editing and Discussion were combined, Tagging was split from them, draft space was added to Incubation, and the ATD-* shortcuts were added. Regarding the discussion's age, I acknowledge that WP:Consensus#Consensus can change (policy), but it doesn't expire spontaneously, as far as I know. Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is arguing that WP:ATD isn't part of a policy. That's a straw man. What we're arguing is that it means no more than the plain text on the page.

"A variety of tags can be added to note the problem." "Articles that are short and unlikely to be expanded could be merged into larger articles or lists." "A page can be blanked and redirected if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not inappropriate." "Recently created articles that have potential, but that do not yet meet Wikipedia's quality standards, may be moved to the draft namespace". "Some articles do not belong on Wikipedia, but fit one of the Wikimedia sister projects. They may be copied there using transwiki functionality before considering their merger or deletion." Emphasis, obviously, all mine.

The word "must" appears nowhere in WP:ATD, except in the not-relevant-here sentence "Incubation must not be used as a 'backdoor to deletion'." Nor does any synonym. Even "should" - which is very much not the same thing - never appears unqualified, except in "Deletion should not be used for archiving a page." Editing should only be done instead of deletion "if editing can improve the page". Nowhere is it so much as implied that editing can always improve a page if it's not explicitly argued against. Do you want it to become common practice to cut and paste "Delete. Unsalvageably pov ad, no sources except their own press releases, abjectly fails WP:GNG. {{Tagging won't help, no sources exist. Don't merge into a list, it'll be unsourceable there too. Don't redirect to the generic article for their product, it's not and won't be mentioned there and that's still a second-place SEO prize. Don't draftify, no one's ever worked on it in good faith, and nobody's said they would. Don't transwiki, not even Wikiquote wants this.}}"? Because this is how you get that. Forcing one side of a debate to preemptively argue against positions nobody's advanced is abhorrent.

Whether a page can be improved instead of being deleted is inherently subjective. It has to be resolved by the consensus-building process, every time. If everyone says "delete" but there's an inappropriate redirect target and a closer chooses to redirect, that closer shouldn't be closing debates. If they say "redirect" rather than closing as redirect, the next admin who comes along should assess whether that position has consensus, and if it doesn't and they think it should be redirected too, then they should say "redirect" too.

The biggest problem with AFD is that there's not enough participation - so much so, that they regularly get mechanically relisted for three or four weeks - by people who are experienced enough that they should be commenting on them - and then still get closed as either no consensus npasr or soft delete. And the more it gets treated as a closer's suggestion box, to be ignored in favor of whichever section of policy their political party favors, the more you discourage people from participating. —Cryptic 04:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What part of "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." is unclear? Should is obviously not must, but you're ignoring the first sentence of the whole WP:ATD policy section--the one that guides how the specific instances are to be interpreted. Obviously ATD is not a must: If we find a copyvio, we don't merge it anywhere. Like most things on Wikipedia, it relies on common sense to work effectively. Jclemens (talk) 05:42, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Who decides whether it's an improvement? —Cryptic 05:48, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In a perfect world? Everyone discusses reasonable ATDs throughout the discussion. Bottom line? The closer already does, even if simply by dismissing the possibility and closing without serious consideration of ATDs. Jclemens (talk) 05:54, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Should is obviously not must, but you're ignoring the first sentence of the whole WP:ATD policy section That's the first sentence of the ATD section WP:ATD-E. It doesn't govern all of ATD. JoelleJay (talk) 23:09, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The crux of the issue here is: when considering the deletion of an article, who decides whether there is a viable alternative to deletion? When it comes to deletion discussions, Jclemens' proposal appears to be arguing that the closing admin has an obligation to ensure that the voters didn't miss any ATDs, and if the closing admins believes they did, then the closing admin is obligated to ignore the consensus of the discussion and implement that ATD instead. I think this view is highly problematic. ATD is not just a policy that applies to administrators, it applies to everyone, including editors arguing at an AfD, or editors applying a PROD template to an article (i.e. even the users that aren't directly pressing the delete button). When it comes to closing deletion discussions, the closing admin's job is to judge consensus, and trust that the editors who participated in the discussion considered everything and got it right. The closing admin is not expected to second-guess the discussion's participants and make judgments about whether or not they considered all alternatives to deletion. An admin shouldn't be viewed as a "super-editor" who knows more than "regular editors" and can override their judgments. Just because an editor doesn't explicitly say, "I have considered all possible alternatives to deletion, but ultimately concluded that the article should be deleted" doesn't mean that they didn't consider all alternatives, and we shouldn't assume that they didn't. If everyone votes to delete an article and the closing admin thinks there is a viable redirect target, they should delete the article, and then create a redirect in its place. Similarly, if 10 editors vote to delete and one editor votes to redirect, and the closing admin finds consensus to delete, then the other editor is free to create a redirect in its place, which requires no admin tools. And, even if 10 editors vote to delete and one editor votes to merge, and the closing admin finds consensus to delete, I can't imagine that any admin wouldn't be open to restoring the article to userspace if an editor asked because they wanted to attempt to merge some content. There's a difference between finding consensus to merge (which essentially forces editors to find a way to merge the articles) and finding consensus to delete but otherwise allowing an editor to do what they think is right with the content. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 05:21, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Closers are expected to use common sense; they get trusted with the tools for a reason, and a failure at ATD can always be challenged at DRV. However, you are mistaking how consensus works with respect to policies: If 10 editors say "delete" and one says "merge" and the merge is evaluated by the closer as an appropriate ATD, the consensus of the discussion is to merge the content, because if there is an appropriate ATD, the opinions of the deletion voters aren't policy-based. That's what WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS is all about: policy basis, rather than head count. Jclemens (talk) 05:30, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming the 10 delete voters have a valid (policy- and/or guideline-based) rationale, the closing admin should assume that these 10 voters considered alternatives to deletion and didn't find any that applied to the article, which is why they ultimately concluded that it should be deleted. Just because the 11th voter suggested a merge doesn't mean that we can or should immediately invalidate all of the other valid opinions by the other voters. What you're suggesting is that we should assume that anyone that votes "delete" necessarily did not consider alternatives to deletion, and therefore their votes can be overridden by anyone voting redirect, merge, etc. Essentially, this proposal boils down to: "assume bad faith by anyone that votes to delete an article". —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. This seems to take the ethos that "consensus is not about counting noses" and run so far with it that it turns the idea of consensus itself upon its head. XOR'easter (talk) 21:23, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

because if there is an appropriate ATD, the opinions of the deletion voters aren't policy-based Since when is DEL-REASON not a policy?! JoelleJay (talk) 23:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

8) Deletion processes such as articles for deletion function best when a finite number of articles are evaluated by the community at once, such that editors may spend more time per article proposed for deletion. This is simply the committee's previous principle at WP:FAIT applied to deletion nominations rather than edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I would suggest the more appropriate principle is "Wikipedia process perform poorly when overloaded". We manage to get a lot done but in the end are a volunteer project and there are any number of places where demand for that process may overwhelm the volunteer capacity for it. The solution to such processes being overwhelmed is going to be different in different cases, though the concept that I can infer from the discussion below that a similar solution may be appropriate when creation and deletion processes are overwhelmed is an interesting one. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Yes. While group nominations can be appropriate in some situations, if you feel a large group or set of articles should all be deleted (or similar) it is much better to have an explicit, well-advertised discussion about the group or set as a whole in an appropriate location rather than by nominating them for deletion individually. Iff the group discussion arrives at a consensus that all of the group of articles are not encyclopaedic then nominating them as a single group or a few closely related groups may be appropriate; if the consensus is that some or most are not encyclopaedic then nominating them individually or in small groups may be appropriate - as long as editors are given sufficient time to analyse each article/group individually. Thryduulf (talk) 16:11, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe this principle is appropriate. First, it moves the issue; the fait accompli occurs when large numbers of non-notable articles are created, as such creations are extremely difficult to reverse. Second, it would increase the difficulty of reversing those creations, thus expanding the existing WP:FAIT issue, as it would suggest that there is a limit to the number of articles that can be nominated for deletion. BilledMammal (talk) 00:07, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Two wrongs do not make a right (any type of action can be a fair accompli), and there is no deadline. There is no limit on the number of articles that can be nominated for deletion, but there should be a limit on the number of simultaneous discussions on similar articles. It is reasonable to require those in favour of keeping an article to find suitable sources to demonstrate notability in 7 days, it is not reasonable to require them to find sources for 20 articles in 7 days. The line between reasonable and unreasonable is variable and fuzzy, depending on things like how accessible sources are for the topic, e.g. sources for contemporary American entertainers are much easier to find online than sources for 18th century German poets so the reasonable number of simultaneous AfDs for contemporary American entertainers is greater than for 18th century German poets. Thryduulf (talk) 01:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The issue with any proposal to restrict the number of nominations that can be made is that it increases the issue we currently have with editors creating articles on non-notable topics, and it increases the issue with the tens or hundreds of thousands of articles we currently have on non-notable topics.

If there is an issue with the deletion process, whether related to WP:FAIT or not, then it needs to be resolved in a way that doesn't make the past and current article creation issues worse, or those issues need to be resolved first. BilledMammal (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any issues with that at all. I'm much more concerned with us not throwing away potentially usable content than I am with making it easy to create articles; our primary problem is not that we lack enough articles, it's that we have too many that are important enough but need serious work. Jclemens (talk) 01:51, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why you believe it is so important to throw away potentially huge amounts of work because some subset of it might not be notable? The creation of lots of articles on non-notable topics is an issue, but the deletion of lots of articles on notable topics is an equally important but more urgent problem given that it is far easier to delete than to create. There is no deadline, so it is always better to proceed with caution - it is more important to get the right result than to get a quick result. Thryduulf (talk) 10:19, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it is far easier to create than to delete. For example, the 19 Nielsens. Lugnuts created these articles in less than an hour, with only minor differences between them.

To delete those articles, I would need to spend more than an hour doing WP:BEFORE searches, determining whether a redirect could be an appropriate result, and writing the nomination. On top of that is the time that other editors will need to spend !voting on the nominations and doing their own searches for sources, as well as the time that the closer will need to spend determining consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 10:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nominating something for deletion on the basis of a policy or guideline that is in the middle of an active discussion is never going to be a good use of anybody's time. Once consensus regarding that is clear, then is the time to assess articles against it. Small batches of similar articles are fine, as long as you explain why they are similar enough. If you want to do more than a few, then start a discussion about the class and the commonalities first. No, the articles should probably not have been batch created, especially not when the notability guidelines are unclear or under active discussion, but once they have been created there is no justification for hastily deleting them. Thryduulf (talk) 11:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that was the point of BilledMammal's comment. He was just demonstrating how lopsided the time and effort needed to create versus delete an article is. A microstub on a real but non-notable topic will just about always take longer to delete than to create. JoelleJay (talk) 23:19, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to put a speed limit on deletion, then what is the limit? How many articles can a single editor nominate for deletion per hour, per day, per week? If the AfD log for a particular day gets more than 100 articles nominated for deletion, shall we just auto-protect the page and say, "sorry, we're full for today, please nominate your article for deletion tomorrow"? While it's admittedly true that deletion processes work better at lower volumes, there is no practical way to enforce a speed limit without causing much bigger problems. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 05:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I favor a situation where if an editor nominates an article for deletion, and the article is kept and suggestions for improvement (e.g., sources) appear in the AfD, the nominating editor would be required to implement the improvements before making more nominations. Thus, no rate limiting at all on people who AfD only things guaranteed to get deleted. Jclemens (talk) 05:33, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is rather extreme, in my opinion. Good luck finding consensus for that. The problem is that while Wikipedia deletion processes do work better when they're not overloaded, I (and many others) believe that Wikipedia as a whole works better when deletion of inappropriate articles happens swiftly. Putting an artificial speed limit on deletion or imposing sentences on editors that nominate an article and fail to find a consensus for deletion only serves to slow down this important clean-up process for the project. Imagine an editor stumbles upon a terrible article on a clearly non-notable band, and they can't nominate it for deletion yet because they haven't served out their sentence from the previous nomination. How would it help Wikipedia in any way to allow garbage to pile up? The problem with most of Jclemens' proposals is that they seem to approach Wikipedia from the perspective that deletion is inherently a bad thing. That is not a view that is shared by all (or even most) editors. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:31, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think most (not all) of Jclemens' proposals are best summarised as the kernel of a good idea taken too far towards the extreme, while much (not all) of the opposition to them is too far towards the opposite extreme. Deletion is not inherently a bad thing, but deleting the wrong things is. Creating low quality articles is not inherently a bad thing, but creating too many of them is. Getting rid of garbage is a good thing, throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a bad thing. Thryduulf (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well put. As always, balance is the key. However, I don't find an abundance of balance in most of these proposals. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 20:52, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I explicitly said above there is no hard and fast limit, but if an editor is regularly nominating a dozen articles for deletion an hour then I have serious doubts that they are doing an adequate WP:BEFORE. The total number of articles nominated in a single hour/day/whatever is not relevant, what matters is the number of simultaneous deletion discussions about similar topics and what is reasonable is not something that can ever be expressed as a single number because it depends on the degree of similarity, the accessibility of (potential) sources (see my earlier comment), the quality of the nominated articles (it's much easier and quicker to asses for notability the online English-language sources already provided in 5 short stubs than it is a single unsourced (but plausibly sourceable) article about say a 1980s Peruvian politician). It all boils down to giving other editors a reasonable chance to find sources and/or otherwise improve every article nominated for deletion. An article about a 1980s Peruvian politician is unlikely to have significant overlap of editors with an article about theoretical mathematics but is quite likely to have overlap with an article about a 1980s Peruvian army general so in this situation you should be more cautious about nominating another an article about a Peruvian notable in the 1980s than you need to be about nominating another article about theoretical mathematics, and you should be more cautious about nominating the latter than you need to be about nominating an article about tigers in Tamil Nadu. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree, but I can't see a way to formalize this into some kind of rule. It's not possible to determine if an editor followed WP:BEFORE simply by analyzing the speed with which they nominated articles. An editor could have spent hours digging around for sources on 5 different articles, and then nominated all 5 articles at the same time. We can't simply look at the timestamps and say, "hey, you nominated 5 articles for deletion within a span of 5 minutes, clearly you didn't follow WP:BEFORE on any of them." —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed you can't look at any period of time in isolation, you need to look at patterns of behaviour over time (similar to what I did at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth/Evidence/Analysis of speedy deletions by Thryduulf). 5 articles in 5 minutes could indicate either no WP:BEFORE or the result of a combined WP:BEFORE on all five articles - the more closely related the articles are the more plausible it is that it's the latter (e.g. 5 footballers who played for the same team at the same time is highly likely that a combined BEFORE has been done; 5 people whose only connection is being sportspeople and a combined BEFORE is much less plausible). Of course you also need to look at the actual nominations - 5 articles nominated in 5 minutes where they all have a detailed rationale that notes what the nominator has found and not found is far superior to five articles in 50 minutes which only say "Doesn't meet NFOOTY".

As I've said, you can't summarise this into some kind of bright line rule, but that doesn't mean it isn't an important standard of behaviour that editors should seek to abide by. Thryduulf (talk) 15:32, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• There's custom and practice we could usefully consider here. When presented with a workload that exceeds our processes' capacity to cope, the community has passed special provisions, such as speedy deletion criteria X1 and X2 which were passed at short notice using accelerated RfCs (link). Other speedy deletion or speedy redirection criteria could exist.—S Marshall T/C 17:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

1) Administrators closing deletion discussions are encouraged to carefully avoid assigning inappropriate weight to arguments solely or substantially based on manual of style compliance or citation of essays.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This is completely out of scope. With very few exceptions, ArbCom decisions cannot bind people who are not party to the case; you cannot ask ArbCom to impose restrictions on all administrators (effectively creating policy by fiat.) If you think specific administrators are ignoring policy, add them as parties as individuals. If you think most administrators are ignoring policy, then that would generally indicate that your interpretation of policy is in the minority and lacks consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 08:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per Aquillion. This isn't within ArbCom's power. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom can encourage anything that makes sense and is in line with policy. Obviously, given the proposed wording or other reasonable alternatives, this guidance lacks any direct force--no blocks or logs--but rather prefers a gentler, guiding hand to keep practice in line with policy. Jclemens (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is already outlined in ROUGHCONSENSUS, where admins are encouraged to discount !votes that aren't compliant with P&Gs. This should of course also include arguments invoking inaccurate, mischaracterized, or incomplete interpretations of guidelines. JoelleJay (talk) 22:50, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Policies, not policies and guidelines. Jclemens (talk) 05:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts: Administrators who close discussions should do so as they see fit. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to bring it up on the admin's user talk page.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Like a !SuperVote? Why bother with AfDs at all then? Or guidelines even? HighKing⁺⁺ 17:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify--Administrators who close discussions should do so as they see fit based on the content of the discussion. I apologize for the confusion I created, I never meant to state that closers should ignore the discussion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:37, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Still sounds awfully like a !Supervote. An admin's close must reflect the AfD discussion and the only caveat/discretion is that they must do so with regard to appropriate policies and guidelines. If they're not familiar with or not comfortable with the appropriate Ps/Gs they shouldn't be closing those AfDs - not even to clear a backlog. The suggested remedy here shouldn't need to be stated. HighKing⁺⁺ 21:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I'm trying (and failing) to articulate.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:34, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2) Administrators closing deletion discussions are expected to select alternatives to deletion, if any exist, absent a compelling reason to not do so.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

As above. It is completely outside of ArbCom's purview to give broad, general instructions to administrators on the interpretation and enforcement of policy; they cannot grant this remedy. They can sanction individual administrators for ignoring policy, and can even use findings of fact that strongly suggest specific things they'd sanction individual administrators for in the future, but they are not able to give instructions to all administrators, at once, by fiat. You could potentially request this, with minor tweaks, as a finding of fact to justify sanctions against a specific administrator who routinely violates it, but you cannot ask for it as a remedy. --Aquillion (talk) 08:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Did this go out of style at some point after I left the committee? I confess, I do not regularly follow arbitration currently, but reminding people of policy was well within the customary behavior of ArbCom. Jclemens (talk) 22:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This "remedy" isn't anything but an attempt to have ArbCom create policy, which it can't do. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you think this is something that should happen, then you need to propose it as a policy. I personally don't think you would find it would gain consensus, although lesser things like "if there is no consensus between deletion and an alternative to deletion, then the alternative should, in the absence of a clear reason not to, be applied by default" and "if an alternative to deletion is suggested late in a discussion that otherwise has a weak to moderate consensus for deletion but gets little attention then the discussion should normally be relisted so it can be further considered." might, so it could be worth workshopping them (the wording is terrible) and bringing as proposals to see if there is community consensus for them, but even these are not something that is within arbcom's purview. Arbcom cannot and will not create policy, the closest it can come is suggesting that the community should consider creating a policy to cover a given area. Thryduulf (talk) 15:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It already is a policy. Or rather, it is the result of multiple parts of our deletion policy. All I ask is that the committee take the opportunity to point it out. Jclemens (talk) 22:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even if this was something that was within the scope of ArbCom to do, I disagree with this. In a deletion discussion like AfD, the discussion participants are required to consider alternatives to deletion. If a participant votes to delete, that implies that they found no viable alternatives to delete (unless we're going to assume bad faith that they know an alternative exists but chose to vote for deletion anyway). The closing admin's job is to judge consensus. Unless there are serious problems with the rationale of delete voters, or unless there is evidence that delete voters intentionally didn't consider alternatives to deletion for some reason, the closing admin should assume that alternatives to deletion were considered by editors voting to delete, and should avoid second-guessing the participants or assuming bad faith. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is confusing to me. If an admin closes as "delete" they should seek an alternative? Or if they close as "keep" they should seek an alternative? Or no consensus? Closed is closed, and anyone can seek an alternative to deletion if they want to.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:48, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't a consensus of !voters to delete already a "compelling reason" not to take an alternative action? XOR'easter (talk) 19:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is another make-work bureaucratic proposal on the one hand, and an invitation to supervote on the other. Administrators should not be making up their own arguments outside the discussion process; they should be assessing what is written by the participants; likewise the latter should not be forced to discuss every possible alternative when history shows that they won't be taken. Mangoe (talk) 20:03, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Closers are meant to think about the discussions they close in the light of policy, and you'll find WP:ATD right near the top of the deletion policy, where it's been for a very long time. If during an AfD someone proposes a reasonable, workable alternative to deletion, then the closer needs to upweight their suggestion in the close. But in my view it's the AfD participants who should exhaust exhaust the alternatives to deletion. It's not actually the closer's role to do that. In other words, if Wikipedians reach a thoughtful, considered consensus to delete, then it's not for the closer to undermine that with the closer's own interpretation of ATD. I offer no opinion on whether it's Arbcom's role to say this.—S Marshall T/C 23:03, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • It may be helpful if I link some relatively recent community thought on this.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's subtly different than what Jclemens seems to be proposing. Sure, if one or more participants in an AfD suggests a valid alternative to deletion (like redirect, merge, etc.), and there are no significant, valid objections by the other editors, the closing admin certainly has the option of closing the AfD in favor of that alternative. However, what Jclemens seems to be suggesting (unless I'm misinterpreting) is that closing admins have the obligation to exhaustively search for and implement any conceivable alternative to deletion, even if none of the AfD participants voted that way or mentioned it in any way. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 18:00, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Personally, I wouldn't characterize that as "subtly" different. I think it's bigly different.—S Marshall T/C 20:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Outside ArbCom's purview, but without waiving that objection, it's also against WP:CON. Admins need to implement the consensus at a debate, not unilaterally decide that the consensus is wrong and should be something else. Stifle (talk) 13:44, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

2) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

1) In matters of deletion, it is more important to reach the right result than it is to reach a result quickly.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Thryduulf why did you write this principle only in relation to deletion, where as with FAIT you note both creation and deletion at various points? Barkeep49 (talk) 02:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

The speed at which we need to reach a result varies on a continuum from attack pages, through copyvios and undersourced biographies of living people, down to biographies of people who're no longer alive, before we get to the kind of album-tracks-that-were-never-released-as-singles articles where we can ethically sacrifice speed on the altar of accuracy.—S Marshall T/C 17:56, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In all of those situations it's still most important to reach the right result. The right result for attack pages and copyvios is deletion - but it is important that we first determine it is an attack page/copyvio. When it is obvious we speedy delete the page, when it isn't we spend more time checking, removing attack portions/blanking suspected copyvios where appropriate before a deletion discussion. It is important that we delete copyvios as soon as we are certain that it is a copyvio but it is equally important that we don't delete things as copyvios that are not copyvios, and the same goes for every other sort of deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to disagree here. In almost every case, deletion is a safe result, and while it may be inaccurate in terms of the meta-decision of worthiness of inclusion, deletion is never inaccurate WRT content. This is really the burden of work issue under a different guise: it is OK to write lots of crap stubs, but people tryi9ng to clean them up have to do the research which the creators didn't bother with. Mangoe (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Strenuously disagree with this per the above. This varies contextually; for pages that were eg. mass-produced using a script and have had no significant edits (or have even never had a manual edit), I think it's absurd to suggest that there is some requirement for a slow deliberative process. Nothing is lost by deleting an article like that, since it could be effortlessly recreated by running the script that originally created it. Articles with more history require more deliberation, but those are not generally the sorts of articles that this discussion focuses on. I'd also argue extreme caution for anything that would functionally make it easier to create large numbers of articles than to delete them; a lack of parity is a problem because it risks leading to WP:FAIT situations where people can create tons of articles that clearly fail our notability guidelines, effectively rendering those guidelines moot because no scalable way of challenging them on that exists. --Aquillion (talk) 23:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  For pages that were mass produced by script it is still more important to get the correct result than a fast result. In that situation though the way to determine what that answer is is to have a discussion about all the articles collectively (or sets of them, depending on the specifics) rather than flooding AfD with individual nominations. If there is truly nothing worth saving about those articles then consensus will emerge to delete them all (or specific sets of them), possibly as a temporary speedy deletion criterion, possibly as a small number of large AfDs. Consensus could of course be that all or most should be kept. Thryduulf (talk) 01:59, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• We've tried. When we put up group nominations of dubious places, rather often the nomination fails because one or two members may have to be excepted and soon enough someone calls for a procedural close to force each to be nominated separately. We have managed to get a few mass creations undone but again, if there's much resistance we're back to individual nominations. Also, the notion that there's much of a loss in deleting a poorly sourced stub is not credible, in my view. Really, it would be less work overall if such an article were to be summarily deleted and then recreated as a properly sourced article with a clear claim to notability. As far as I know, only one article I've written or heavily edited has ever been deleted, and in that case it was an attempt which I had reason to believe was likely to fail; I have almost never written stubs, and I almost always leave a clear claim to notability in the lead. It is far more of an issue that an article be "inaccurately" kept or redirected than if it be deleted, because the former can only be remedied through another trip through AfD, whereas the latter can be fixed the way it should have been done in the first place: by writing an article that is obviously not a candidate for deletion. Mangoe (talk) 04:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed. If a deleted topic is truly notable and encyclopedic, wouldn't it be recreated at some point anyway? It's not like Wikipedia is the only repository for such information (it explicitly must not be), so if it's actually worthy of a standalone there will be enough interest in the subject for someone else to write it. And it's not like the articles we're talking about here contain such incisive prose treatment that their deletion would be an immeasurable loss to scholarship; most are at best a few lines and a template auto-filled from a database. JoelleJay (talk) 05:26, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: I think it's that I don't see (or at least don't perceive) in the evidence that rushing to create as many articles as possible is the motivation for creating the articles in the manner they are. I don't think anyone disagrees that articles can be published as soon as they are ready for mainspace, regardless of how long it takes for that to happen, the disagreement is about what constitutes being ready. In contrast the perception I get from the deletion side is that "there is a firehose pointed right at us, if we don't bail out [by deleting the 'garbage'] quickly enough we will be underwater". In contrast, both sides perceive the other's actions as being a fait accompli (intentionally or otherwise). A parallel principle to this one for creation (I can't think of a wording that succinctly encompasses both, "result" in particular feels wrong for creation but spot on for deletion) would be appropriate if the goal is to have principles for all aspects that could be relevant in a situation like this in future, but I'm not sure it would be if the goal is to have principles only for those aspects that are actually relevant to this specific situation (both are valid approaches). Thryduulf (talk) 02:48, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2) It is important that editors have a reasonable opportunity to find sources and/or make other improvements to an article that has been nominated for deletion. Large numbers of concurrent deletion nominations in a topic area can make this harder.

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Giving reasonable opportunity to improve articles is one reason why deletion nominations last 7 days. Thryduulf (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

3) Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits or nominations, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume to present those with different opinions with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the changes or nominations. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits.

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How is nominating lots of articles a fait accompli situation? I understand that mass nominations can be disruptive for other reasons. And I understand why normal editing can create a fait accompli situation, because it can be more hassle than it's worth to revert 10,000 mass edits or whatever. But initiating deletion discussions seem very different from that situation? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Based on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine#''Fait_accompli''. Thryduulf (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, does "edits" include the act of creating new articles? If so, it would be preferable to explicitly state that. In order to have balance, it's important to note that both high volumes of deletion nominations and high volumes of inappropriate article creation can constitute a fait accompli, and are equally disruptive. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 20:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with ScottWong per my comments above. It needs to be emphasized that creating many articles at once is also a potential WP:FAIT situation, and that to reduce the risk of that it is necessary to allow people to challenge them at the same rate that they are created. --Aquillion (talk) 23:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Aquillion @Scottywong creating articles is covered under my proposal #Fait accompli (3). Thryduulf (talk) 01:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@L235: Imagine a scenario in which a large number of articles (say 20) about a similar topic are all nominated for deletion on the same day or over the space of a few days, and 2-3 (or more) other editors (in good or bad faith) !vote delete on the basis of the nomination without doing their own detailed research into the topic. An editor/editors who believes that the subject is notable has just 7(ish) days (assuming they see the nomination on day 1) to find at least 40 high quality sources, note them in the afd or (ideally) add them to the article, defend them if anyone questions that they demonstrate (sufficient) notability, etc. at the same time as any other work they have to do (on or off Wikipedia). This can be an extremely difficult ask, especially if good quality sources are mostly offline, mostly not in English or even just drowned out in search results by low-quality or irrelevant results (e.g. the person has a very common name) - and these are the most likely cases where a good faith, highly thorough BEFORE search by the nominator will fail to find the notability-giving sources (and not every nomination is preceded by a BEFORE search of that standard). It is highly likely that most of these articles will be deleted, regardless of whether the subjects are or are not notable. We rightly strongly discourage individual nominations that list many articles in one that require individual searches to determine notability, even when the subjects are quite closely related. Nominating those same articles in individual simultaneous or overlapping nominations presents many (but not all) of the same issues. Thryduulf (talk) 10:56, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to write something similar to this ^. It's even more the case if the level of sourcing relies on multiple sources rather than just one or two higher quality ones - I still haven't finished working through all the possible sources that could have been used in this case, for example.

Fairly recently a list of 100 articles was put forward at the VP as ones that would need to be taken through the deletion process (specifically "should either be prodded or taken to AfD") - and those were just a start on a large number of stubs created by a long-banned sock who was prolific in creating stubs years ago. We're talking a perceived need to send that many through the deletion process "every day for years". That's clearly not sustainable if there's any level of doubt at all about notability. On that list there were maybe 3 or 4 that were possible candidates for clear-cut deletion (or more likely redirection as it happens). The rest were all arguable (beyond the couple of ones which appeared on the list in error). I've worked on some of the ones on that list since - I don't want to link to any as this could end up getting too personal, and I have no wish for that. It can take me hours - even when I have the sources on the bookshelf behind me. Unless there's really no doubt at all it's a much, much quicker to nom them for deletion than it is to work on them, and nominating anywhere close to that many articles is simply forcing deletion through. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:51, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

4) Editors who are collectively or individually nominating multiple similar articles and/or articles in the same or closely related topic areas for deletion must take care that they do not overwhelm the ability of other editors to find sources and/or otherwise improve articles. This includes having consideration for the number of similar or related articles currently being discussed at AfD, the general accessibility of sources in the topic area, and the number of editors currently working on the topic in order to allow a reasonable opportunity to find sources and/or make other improvements to every nominated article.

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This and the following one (or better versions of them) should I think be considered together for balance. Thryduulf (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

4) Editors who are collectively or individually creating large numbers of similar articles, and are apprised that those articles are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion before continuing to create more. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume to present those with different opinions with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the articles.

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5) Inappropriate behaviour driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive.

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Taken verbatim from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals#Good_faith_and_disruption. Thryduulf (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) According to Wikipedia:Notability #Notability requires verifiable evidence, "there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability." This means that the presumed existence of sources is insufficient grounds to keep an article; any assertion that sources exist must be supported by specific sources.

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So does that mean that if I know that a book exists that deals with the subject but that I don't have access to a copy of, I can't point out that it exists? Or are you suggesting that we shouldn't make an assumption that there are likely to be plenty of sources even when we can't access them? For example, I can find excellent sourcing from the period before the 1950s on New Zealanders at PapersPast. But I can't access the more up to date articles because they aren't available in other parts of the world? e2a: that's a guideline, yes? Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:14, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would interpret that guideline as "If you can name a specific book/article, Yes; If you think there's coverage but you can't find it, No". Access isn't a dealbreaker but it depends on the context: A biography is obvious SIGCOV, but a news article could be anything from a dedicated profile to a single mention in a broader piece. –dlthewave ☎ 19:18, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There exist situations where the extent of coverage is unclear until the source is accessed. There are many more situations where whether something is or is not verified by a given source cannot be determined until accessed. When someone says, "from what I can tell it is likely that there is significant coverage in $source, but I can't access it yet." what should happen? Imo it depends how long it will take to get an answer - a few days, just wait (relisting if that makes things easier), a few weeks then either keep it for now and revisit in a few months (in cases where this source providing what is needed for verification/notability is more likely than not) or draftify/userfy (where that isn't the case). Thryduulf (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:PUBLISH covers this. You do not need to personally have current access to the source provided you are completely confident it backs the point you're relying on it for; but someone must be able to access it. That is, you have to be able to identify it unambiguously enough that someone with eg. a JSTOR account or the time and energy to go to the correct library or whatever could potentially dig it up and verify it. Naming a specific book (a chapter or page would be ideal, but a book is often enough unless someone is specifically doubting that the book actually supports your statement) is fine; saying "I vaguely recall some book" without enough information for anyone else to follow up on it is not. --Aquillion (talk) 00:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What about where press coverage is not held in accessible archives but almost certainly exists. I'm thinking specifically about non-English language Indian or Pakistani newspaper coverage from the 1970s, for example. Or New Zealanders from the 1970s where there is no access to archives but coverage is all but certain if there were It interests me that we'll end up keeping articles about people just as notable simply because we don't currently have access to the archives. If they're cases right on the edge of likely to be notable, then fair enough, we can find ATD often, but there are other cases when there is clear notability but it's difficult to provide those sources. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Almost certainly exists" is the same thing as "doesn't exist": the alleged source cannot be produced in either case. In any discussion featuring this sort of argument, the article being discussed should have never been created, and should only be created when confirmation of the source is available. Avilich (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But they were created. Things were different back then - and NSPORTS certainly didn't say what it does now. I didn't create articles like the ones you're probably thinking of, but they were. So we have to live with it.

Now, regarding the existence of sources: absence of evidence is not, of course, evidence of absence. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone already lives with it, but that they shouldn't have been created is something closers should take into account when closing discussions. In any case, verifiable evidence means that sources need to be shown to exist to have any bearing on a discussion. "Evidence for absence" is irrelevant. Avilich (talk) 21:25, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Verifiable" does not mean "Verified". For example, in a recent AfD, references were found (analyst reports with a published table of contents) but were behind a $5,000 paywall. I think in those cases we need to make some assumptions that the references are likely good. HighKing⁺⁺ 21:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2) (Copied from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine) An editor must not accuse another of inappropriate conduct without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. Comments should not be personalised, but should instead be directed at content and specific actions. Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions can be considered a personal attack. If accusations are made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate dispute resolution forum.

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1) Editors are accountable for their conduct. As such, they are expected to respond appropriately to queries about their actions and to justify them where needed. Where the Arbitration Committee, the community or other authorised person imposes a sanction, editors are expected to comply with both the letter and spirit of the sanction (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Accountability for conduct)

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2) Inappropriate behavior driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive. (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Good_faith_and_disruption)

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3) Users who have been sanctioned for improper conduct are expected to avoid repeating it should they continue to participate in the project. Failure to do so may lead to the imposition of increasingly severe sanctions. (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Recidivism)

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4) In deciding what sanctions to impose against an administrator or other editor, the Arbitration Committee will consider the editor's overall record of participation, behavioral history, and other relevant circumstances. An editor's positive and valuable contributions in one aspect of his or her participation on Wikipedia do not excuse misbehavior or questionable judgment in another aspect of participation, but may be considered in determining the sanction to be imposed (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Sanctions and circumstances)

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Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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1) Have only administrators close & render the decision in AfDs & MfDs. The closing administrator, should also referee behaviour in deletion discussions. GoodDay (talk) 03:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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This feels beyond the scope of what ArbCom can decide as it feels like it would be setting policy. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Oppose - Non-admin closures of uncontroversial deletion discussions (as long as the result doesn't require admin tools to implement) have long been established practice, and are mostly unproblematic. They also give editors who aspire to adminship a chance to practice closing deletion discussions in relatively low-stakes environments, and gives the community a chance to see how they fared before deciding whether to make them an admin. Furthermore, admins have never played the part of "referees" or babysitters. It's assumed that editors here can police themselves and behave in a civilized manner (or otherwise be sanctioned). I'm not sure what problem this proposal aims to solve. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 17:44, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Scottywong and Barkeep already made great points, but I feel like if closures of XfD were only done by administrators, the backlog would only grow and grow. Just look at CfD. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 17:57, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a non-administrator (who will never even try to become one under the current system), I've closed the occasional deletion discussion so that nobody else would have to take the time. Non-admin closes keep the backlog down and are typically fine. I do not know what it would mean to "referee" behavior, particularly since the admin who closes is not supposed to be involved in the discussion before closing. XOR'easter (talk) 21:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's a suggestion. If it can't or won't be adopted? so be it. GoodDay (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) Regrettable, but it does appear that 'some' editors get too emotionally involved, in deletion discussions. GoodDay (talk) 03:21, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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• Not sure this is quite right. Some sort of "tempers are heated" thing might be worth mentioning as a way to explain what's going on (and in particular as a reason to confine sanctions to that one topic area, for people who are fine elsewhere), but being emotionally involved itself is not against policy and is not something ArbCom sanctions for, provided people are able to be civil, avoid battleground conduct, maintain NPOV, etc. Sanctions should be based on specific, demonstrable stuff like incivility or battleground conduct, not on "you're too emotionally invested in this." --Aquillion (talk) 19:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Being too emotionally involved, tends to be the basis of any breach of WP:CIVIL, WP:BATTLE, etc. GoodDay (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

1) If any editor(s) can't control their behaviour in deletion discussions? Then perhaps it's best to topic-ban them from deletion discussions, beginning with a six-month t-ban. GoodDay (talk) 03:24, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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When the case opened, some kind of DS felt on the table in my mind. This was based on what editors said in their preliminary statements. While I have not completed my deep-dive into all submitted evidence (in other words I have not yet clicked and read fully everything) from what what I have seen the evidence does not justify DS, even a narrow one like this one. The fact that we didn't add any parties to this case during the week we set aside to do so is another indicator that a topic remedy may be less appropriate than remedies for individual named parties. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:14, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JoelleJay: I would need to see evidence of a dispute that the community in general, and administrators specifically, are unable to handle issues using normal tools and processes. So one example of this could be statements by administrators saying "I tried here, here, and here and was unsuccessful, for these reasons". Another way to demonstrate this would be examples of dispute resolution not working. For instance, Levivich gave some evidence during the case request stage around the prevalence of deletion discussions at ANI. More substance and development of that could be evidence for this second category. On its own "goes to ANI a lot" isn't an issue for me. It would have to be "goes to ANI a lot, there's consensus there's a problem, and it's not getting solved." For instance, if it goes to ANI a lot and there's not a consensus there's a problem, I'm not saying I would never vote for DS but I would be a lot more skeptical. If it goes to ANI a lot but the problems normally get solved (or get solved outside of a few editors) that would suggest normal processes are working and DS would not be appropriate. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:16, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Barkeep49, what kind of evidence would convince you DS was a valid option? There are many other prolific AfD participants whose AfD conduct is regularly called out as disruptive. However, adding potentially 50+ editors to the case would be a disaster. One of the reasons I decided not to add the two editors I named was because there are several other editors just within NFOOTY AfDs whose behavior is substantially the same, so it seemed unfair for just two of them to risk sanctions. But including all of them in evidence would require well beyond the word/diff limits, and would also bring in many-fold more comments in the case. JoelleJay (talk) 23:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One of the major issues, which I touch on in my prelim statement and evidence, is that repeated egregious mischaracterization of guidelines and sources in AfDs doesn't receive any administrative response. Here are some common situations:

An editor misrepresents the applicability or scope of a notability guideline (e.g. by stating a subject meets some SNG sub-criterion but not mentioning that other criteria are actually required for the SNG to presume notability, or by quoting a deprecated criterion), another editor points out these other criteria are required, but the first editor just responds "I disagree" or further misquotes the guideline, making it look like a mere interpretative dispute unless the closer is actually familiar with the guideline. If more editors who "disagree" jump in with the same faulty argument, it becomes hard to close against them even if the closer knows they are incorrect. After all, DRV participants can claim those !voters were actually making an IAR argument, or that by invoking that sub-criterion they were really saying GNG was extremely likely to exist (and that that is somehow valid in every circumstance), or any number of post hoc justifications for not discounting their !votes.

Even more frequently, an editor will link some sources they claim show the subject meets GNG, but that on inspection are clearly unreliable or non-independent. This forces other editors to dispute each link. Then subsequent participants come in affirming GNG is met with those sources, prompting another round of responses explaining why they are not sufficient. If the disputing editor doesn't sustain their objection forcefully enough, or if no one else backs them up, they are overruled, and a standalone is retained based on entirely faulty sourcing.

This is the case with just about every mildly contentious sportsperson AfD. There are at least a dozen editors just within football and cricket who routinely participate in this way and/or go along with an editor who does. It doesn't matter how often they are called out by other !voters, how often they are directly shown the guidelines, how poor their success rate is, or even how often the close statement explicitly says it discounted their !vote; they never get sanctioned because the only admins who would even recognize their arguments are disruptive, let alone persistent, are the experienced closers in the area or are fellow participants. And those admins are extremely reluctant to give out even warnings due both to being INVOLVED, and to the appearance of outcome preference such a warning could have. JoelleJay (talk) 22:24, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Following English Wikipedia decision-making tradition, closers are evaluating the consensus of the discussion participants, and thus judging strength of argument based on how convincing they've been to each other. In cases where the participants are disputing the consensus support behind a guideline, Wikipedia's guidance on determining rough consensus doesn't require that priority be given to current guidelines (some closers may, some may not). Editors can express their dissenting views non-contentiously and in recognition of what the current guidelines say (even if they disagree that a sufficient consensus was attained for those guidelines). It's not clear to me that authorizing any administrator to impose sanctions at their discretion will be able to resolve this tension between both sides. For better or worse, the "guidance follow practice" principle combined with the current practices for determining rough consensus means every deletion discussion is another potential venue to revisit guidelines. isaacl (talk) 00:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) If disruptive behaviour continues, via breaching topic ban(s)? Then escalating blocks, should be handed out. GoodDay (talk) 15:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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1) Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits.

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2) Filibustering, by requiring those who wish to reverse fait accompli actions to commit more time or effort to doing so than was required to implement the actions, is disruptive.

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3) Editors are expected to ensure their edits are a net positive and do not create work for the community that is disproportionate to the benefit of the edits.

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1) It is not the role of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.

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Duh, But it seems to need to be said.—S Marshall T/C 21:00, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) This case relates to behavioural issues at Articles for Deletion and Proposed Deletion.

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@ScottyWong: I agree that the scope of the case allows for MfD, DRV, etc to be part of the case. However, I would suggest that based on the evidence submitted so far that those areas have not been shown to be the locus of the dispute. This is also not to say I agree with this wording exactly - I am continuing to examine new evidence and we have 10 more days for evidence to be submitted. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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While the bulk of the behavioral issues with individual editors occurred at AfD or in the midst of a PROD, I don't see why this case needs to be limited to those two areas. "Deletion-related editing" could apply to any XfD, PROD, speedy deletion, as well as DRV. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 15:51, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2) Use of the AfD and/or Proposed Deletion processes by good faith editors, no matter how prolific, is consistent with and permitted by all four limbs of section 3.3 of the Universal Code of Conduct. Good faith use of AfD and/or Proposed Deletion never constitutes "Hounding" under section 3.1 of the Universal Code of Conduct. But sarcasm, mockery or aggression in deletion discussions could amount to a breach.

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I think it's important to get this point firmly nailed down.—S Marshall T/C 21:00, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a general comment, I don't think there will be much appetite to cite UCOC for points that can be covered by our local policies and norms. In any event, the assertion that any number of deletion nominations could "never" constitute hounding is overstated. I'm not saying the AfDs and PRODs discussed in this case constituted the wikihounding of anyone, but I can certainly imagine circumstances in which an excessive and retaliatory targeting of a particular editor's contributions could do so. Thus, the "in good faith" qualification is important to the proposed second sentence as well as the first. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Tweaked.—S Marshall T/C 21:43, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A relevant question is when it would be appropriate to "target" an editors creations; WP:HOUNDING creates exceptions for correcting related problems on multiple articles, but it is disputed how it applies here. For example, I have recently been targeting BlackJack's creations; while this is uncontroversial because they have been indefinitely banned since 2017, but would it still be uncontroversial if they were an active editor in good standing? BilledMammal (talk) 14:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling for WP:HOUNDING has always been that if an editor makes many substantively similar edits across multiple articles, taking exception to any one of them is sufficient reason to go over all of them (reverting, nominating for deletion, etc.) Otherwise we end up with WP:FAIT problems. If someone adds the same text to twenty articles, or creates twenty similar stubs on the same topic, you can revert / revise / nominate all of them at once in the same way, and can use their history to find them all, without it being hounding - you're going after that one action across multiple articles, you're not going after the editor. However, this requires that the edits or created articles be extremely similar, such that the underlying reason you're going over them is because you're treating them as one "action" being disputed - going over every single edit or article an editor ever made with a fine-toothed comb with an implicit underlying premise of "these need to be reviewed because they were done by a bad editor who has WP:COMPETENCE / WP:POV / whatever issues" is a bigger deal and would usually require some discussion reaching the conclusion that the editor themselves is the problem. --Aquillion (talk) 19:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

3) In biographies of living people, Wikipedia policy requires editors to "Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources."

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3) Editors are asked not to use the Articles for Deletion process where the article they're considering could, with sufficient effort, be brought into line with content policies. There is no deadline for this to be done.

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Noting one exception: there is a deadline for adding at least one source to entirely unsourced BLPs. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a pedantic point, but we still don't want people to use afd for those. Blpprod is faster and more consistent. —Cryptic 21:41, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And no less pedantically, editors are meant to insist on high-quality sources (plural), so the deadline to add at least one source isn't greatly helpful. The stressor articles here are sourced to sports databases which, by and large, give minimal biographical information.—S Marshall T/C 21:47, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

4) In practice, in many cases where an article could theoretically be improved, any editor trying to "be very firm about the use of high-quality sources" can be put off indefinitely. Some parties to this case are working on backlogs more than a decade old.

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5) Because of infinite deferral and the not for cleanup rule, no venue exists where editors can effectively "be very firm about the use of high-quality sources".

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Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

1) The committee thanks TenPoundHammer for his diligence in working through old backlogs, but asks him to moderate his use of AfD while doing so. TenPoundHammer is restricted to a maximum of three AfD nominations per day.

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In the AN/I thread I proposed a cap of one AfD nomination per day, but the community didn't really like that. This proposal is deliberately toned down.—S Marshall T/C 22:01, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does it include other XfDs or DRV? Also, would April Fools' Day joke nominations be excluded from the count? Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 18:35, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As written it doesn't include other XfDs or DRV, but does cover April Fools' Day joke noms (which are a pain in the behind but someone other than TPH can do the cleanup). Have I missed evidence that would justify a broader scope?—S Marshall T/C 19:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@S Marshall: As someone who has participated in Wikipedia's April Fools celebration, I believe if TPH follows the rules for fools then their joke XfDs should be exempted from the three-per-day limitation. However, April Fools is just minutia in the broader scheme of things - for MfDs, you might want to check out Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Content assessment/A-Class criteria, while I have no comments for other venues. Thanks. NotReallySoroka (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2) All four parties to this case are banned from the following behaviours:

2a) Using the ping feature in deletion discussions.

2b) Using any individual editor's talk page to attract attention to an ongoing deletion discussion, except that the party may write about and link to a deletion discussion on their own talk page.

2c) Using Wikipedia space or Wikipedia talk space to attract attention to an ongoing deletion discussion, except that the party may place a brief, neutrally worded note on appropriate places in the relevant WikiProjects. For the purposes of this clause, the Article Rescue Squadron is a relevant WikiProject.

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Clumsy, I know. Sorry. Struggling with phrasing this.—S Marshall T/C 22:12, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about the ping point. I have tended to stop adding AfD to my watchlist (let alone anything like ANI pages) and have quite often asked to be pinged if I need to check back on something. I think editors such as GiantSnowman ask for pings fairly often as well. I get the point of what you're suggesting, but I'm not sure what the best solution is. There's a difference between canvassing and simply making someone who you know is going to have experience, knowledge or something to to a debate. I don't have a solution for better wording this, but I would be concerned that a users talk page could turn into something it's perhaps not designed to usually be - JPL already seems to use their talk page in an unusual way, for example. Would this simply lead to a lot more of that? Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:05, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For 2b: How about the customary notification to notify an author that one of their articles is sent to AfD?

For 2c: No opinion, but suggest re-wording to ...brief, neutrally-worded note on appropriate WikiProject locations, including the Article Rescue Squadron.

NotReallySoroka (talk) 18:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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1) Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a collection of knowledge about diverse topics.

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2) Wikipedia is not, amongst other things, a sports almanac nor an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not intended to capture absolutely every piece of information known to humanity.

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2.1) Wikipedia is a reference work, not a battlefield. Each and every user is expected to interact with others civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation. Borderline personal attacks and edit-warring are incompatible with this spirit. Use of the site to pursue feuds and quarrels is extremely disruptive, flies directly in the face of our key policies and goals, and is prohibited. Editors who are unable to resolve their personal or ideological differences are expected to keep mutual contact to a minimum. If battling editors fail to disengage, they may be compelled to do so through the imposition of restrictions.

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3) Editors who make many similar edits, contrary to clear advice that these edits are controversial or incorrect, must pursue discussion and dispute resolution. Repetitive or voluminous edit patterns – which present opponents with a fait accompli and exhaust their ability to contest the change, or defy a reasonable decision arrived at by consensus – are disruptive.

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4) Administrators have the ability to delete articles and other Wikipedia pages from general view, and to undelete pages that were previously deleted. These powers are exercised in accordance with established policies and guidelines, and community consensus.

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5) With the exception of a very few policies with legal implications, policies and guidelines are not intended to be applied with strict rigidity. They may – even should – be ignored if doing so would improve the encyclopedia. Where the interpretation and application of a policy or guideline to a specific situation is not clear, it is appropriate to discuss how to do so and come to a consensus.

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I think you're missing some words from the last sentence of this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 14:10, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Fixed. Stifle (talk) 15:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

6) It is not for administrators closing a deletion discussion to discount contributions which the closer perceives do not correspond to one or more policies or guidelines unless the contribution is completely at odds to the policy or guideline; closers should always consider that the contributor has taken the policy and guideline into consideration and is attempting to apply it to the situation at hand.

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What is "completely at odds"? You incorrectly kept this article despite the keep voters being quite completely at odds with NSPORT's clear requirement for significant coverage. Here you incorrectly labeled the closure a "classic supervote". Your low standards entail ignoring the policies and guidelines themselves: you can't have those and near-equality of votes at the same time. Avilich (talk) 20:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

7) Participants and closers of deletion discussions should assume that nominators and other participants have had regard to WP:ATD and WP:BEFORE unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.

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8) It will rarely if ever be appropriate for an administrator to close an AFD with an outcome which none of the contributors to the discussion has suggested, whether or not the closer cites WP:ATD or anything else when doing so. If an administrator in the process of closing a discussion considers that some alternatives have not been broached, they should resile from closing the discussion and participate in it instead.

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9) Whilst it is acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion may be considered disruptive. Both the content of the message and the location where it is posted can be assessed when considering whether a message meets these criteria.

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10) The burden of proof that content is verifiable and/or a subject is notable falls on those seeking to include or retain content, and not on those seeking to remove it.

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11) It should not be assumed that editors are familiar with every last guideline or the current versions of them; equally, once on notice of a change to a guideline, it is disruptive for editors to persist in referring to old or deprecated guidelines or versions of them.

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Yes, sure, although it seems reasonable that different people might interpret a guideline rather differently at times. And that difference in interpretation could easily lead to conflict. Particularly where guidelines contradict each other: for example, WP:SPORTBASIC and WP:SPORTSPERSON contradict each other to an extend - one suggesting we're looking for people who have "achieved success in a major international competition at the highest level" (whatever "success" means), and the other that we're looking for those who have "won a significant honor" (and these are really not the same thing all of the time btw). Both of these seem more restrictive than WP:BASIC as well. All of which seems to be leading to people having their preferred flavour of guideline - which is sort of reasonable, until they start putting other people on notice that their interpretation or their favourite guidline is the one that really, really, really matters most. It's also very confusing and is really starting to do my head in fwiw. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

12) Giving administrators the right to apply discretionary sanctions in a topic area is useful when there is a clear understanding of what is disruptive. The less clear this is, the less effective and accepted discretionary sanctions will be.

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1) The Article rescue squadron was established in 2007 with a stated goal of improving the encyclopedia and "rescuing" articles listed for deletion. It maintains a rescue list of articles which are currently undergoing consideration of deletion, which is by a considerable margin the most heavily-edited page in its project – and as such, the only main function of the group is to canvass keep !votes to open AFDs. It formerly used a template {{rescue}} before this was deleted after two TFDs (here and here) in 2012. Two of its most prolific members have been topic-banned from the deletion process. 93% of articles listed on the rescue list have received at least one keep !vote from a project member, and over 60% have received two or more !votes.

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Please refer to this statement from the drafters about ARS and this case. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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2) TenPoundHammer's contributions to the deletion process are a net negative, due to their battleground mentality, bludgeoning, closing inappropriately whilst involved, and nominating so many pages – an average of four a day in April 2022 – as to make it difficult for those seeking to retain them to argue effectively for their retention.

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When dealing with the size of the backlogs we currently have, four nominations a day is not a lot. In my evidence I give the example of BlackJack creating 12 articles in 6 minutes; those 12 were part of a broader group of 75 articles created on the same day. The majority of them need to be deleted, and requiring editors to spend weeks doing so compared to the day they took to create would enforce fait accompli. TenPoundHammer's contributions may be a net negative - I have not looked into them - but if they are it is not due to the number of articles that they nominated. BilledMammal (talk) 13:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The size of the backlog is completely irrelevant. What matters is that editors must be given a reasonable opportunity to contest the nomination of an article for deletion by providing sources and/or otherwise improving the article. When a large number of articles related to a single topic area are simultaneously being considered for deletion, editors are not being given this opportunity. There is also no consensus that "the majority of [the mass-created articles] need to be deleted", indeed if anything I would say that there was a consensus that many of them probably should not be deleted because the subjects are notable. Thryduulf (talk) 14:32, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On the evidence page, only two were named - I hadn't seen them until I happened to catch this reply. Of those two, Thomas Morley (cricketer) appears in some detail in a book I plucked from the shelf behind me on Norfolk cricket and he has a Wisden obituary. Took two minutes to find them. The other one, William Marriott (cricketer), was described in a contemporary newspaper: "no one who witnessed Marriott’s stay at the wickets and who knew anything about the game could doubt that he possesses capabilities of a very marked order. In the first place his batting is distinguished by confidence and when, to this, is added the possessions of admirable defensive powers that freedom of style and a very considerable judgment, there is not much wanted to substitute a first-rate cricketer". So, although I disagreed very strongly with BlackJack about any number of things, including the creation of stub-like articles, those two have a good chance of having pretty good sourcing associated with them. I'd need to dig back through his creations to identify the other four; maybe all four lack any notability. That's possible, but I wouldn't like to say for certain without checking. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:31, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having just looked at them, I'm sure that a handful need to be considered. The rest need improving. As I say, not my style to produce stubs and then get other people to improve them, but it happened because it was deemed acceptable at the time. I bit like flares in the 70s. Most of those 70-odd articles aren't causing a problem. There are more important fish to fry. Trust me: it's not worth the stress. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

1) For excessive canvassing and vote-stacking, the Wikipedia:Article rescue squadron is disbanded and deprecated.

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Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Despite these editors being right on each side of this pesky ideological divide, I believe they're both at least trying to be productive. However, they both can't help themselves when it comes to deletion related issues. I believe the evidence provided by Ritchie333 (about JPL) and by Beccaynr (about 7&6) are both the most relevant here, and don't come from anyone obviously with an axe to grind (there may be others, but I'm picking these two as the most straightforward as to why ArbCom need to take action). I don't have a particular view on the other two editors. Comment by BlackKite. Moved from evidence page by Barkeep49 17:29, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

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There is one significant deficiency in the keep vs. delete statistics which needs to be kept in mind: participation in discussions is utterly voluntary, except for the nominator. Therefore one potential meaning of the voting ratio is that a user may prefer to vote in cases where they would vote "keep" or "delete" rather than that, for any random discussion, they would vote one way or the other. Also, most of us (I imagine) tend to reserve our participation to certain classes of subject. For example, I rarely vote in biography or band or album/song discussions. I haven't tried to run the numbers, but I have to think that the success ratio for nominations in different subject areas varies considerably.

Rather than focusing on who is a deletionist or inclusionist, I think it is more worthwhile to look at the accuracy. From the table I compiled it's clear that there is quite a bit of variance in this, and that some editors have fairly poor accuracy, while at least one editor whom I did not list has a 95% accuracy. I note that Mr. Lambert is reasonably accurate on voting but has a poorer record on nominations, as an example. I am hard pressed to believe that someone who mostly votes delete, accurately, is doing anything wrong in that respect. Mangoe (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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I have been thinking recently a fair amount myself about the topics Aquillion Diff/1094738138 and Paulmcdonald Special:Diff/1094789297 discuss below (even before this case). When someone is in the minority of community consensus are there (or should there be) right places and wrong places to advocate for your point of view? So, for instance, in this case if you know (or should know per WP:COMPETENCE) that you have a minority view about the notability of topic Foo, is it ok to vote that way at AfD anyway? If the answer to that is yes, what expectations do we have for closers about weighting such viewpoints? If the answer is no, just what kind of discussions are appropriate to join in an attempt to convince others so that consensus changes? These are not rhetorical questions for me, but ones I've been struggling with and ones that may have some bearing on how this case is decided. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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There is nothing inherently wrong with voting keep or delete in nearly every AfD that you participate in. However, analyzing an individual's voting patterns helps to provide additional insight into the potential motivations and agendas that some voters bring to AfD. This voting analysis can be combined with a behavioral analysis of an editor at AfD to draw additional conclusions. In many cases, an editor might simply be searching out a certain type of AfD, and that could explain their innocent tendency to vote one way more than the other. However, if you see that someone tends to vote one way nearly all the time, and you simultaneously note that this person also demonstrates a pattern of behavioral problems (like getting overly emotional/argumentative at AfD, or nominating tons of article that are unlikely to be deleted, or trying to cite dubious sources in attempt to artificially inflate the notability of a subject, or canvassing other editors who are likely to vote the same way as them), then you can start to piece together the clues and understand that this editor has a problematic battleground mentality. Looking at the keep vs. delete ratio is not itself an indicator of a problem, but it's one of many signs that can be viewed simultaneously to put together the bigger picture.

Apart from that, I absolutely agree that the accuracy statistic is another critical stat that needs to be included (which is why I originally built that stat into the afdstats tool in the first place). If I had more than 500 characters to use in the evidence phase, I would have devoted some to that. Thanks to Mangoe for including that in their evidence. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 22:43, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The comments and discussion about "accuracy" to me should not be considered. I disagree with the named parties (and others) from time to time or even quite often in AFD discussions. But I should hope that there would be no harm in just disagreeing--worst case scenario is the editor is "wrong" and I can't think of a single reason to take action against someone for that. Now--for civility, that could be something that violates the Five Pillars and that would be a different story. But just... making a mistake? Disagreeing with consensus? I just don't see it. I hope that there is more being considered than just "accuracy" here.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with having a low "accuracy" statistic at AfD. There's obviously no policy that says you'll be blocked or topic banned if your accuracy falls too low. But this is just another indicator among many. If an editor has low accuracy, that means they're frequently going against the mainstream view of what articles are generally kept or deleted around here. That could be a sign that they fundamentally misunderstand notability and WP:NOT policies, or that they disagree with the policies and are attempting to battle against them one AfD at a time. It's just a data point, not necessarily a sign of a problem in all cases, and certainly not actionable on its own. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider that data (in combination with all of the other available evidence) if it's available. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 13:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Although I appreciate your view that alignment with outcome is one data point to consider, in my view, it's more relevant for identifying cases to be investigated further. But since we're already here, I feel we should just look for battleground behaviour being exhibited in discussions. Undesirable behaviour can and does happen independently of alignment with outcome. As you noted, disagreement with others is not a problem in itself. How editors express their disagreement is what's key, no matter what viewpoint they are supporting. isaacl (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Conversely, if you have a very high accuracy stat, it could be a sign that you're just "piling on" to discussions that have already reached a consensus, not contributing anything of substance. – Joe (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A close look at civility and policy/guideline compliance tells us far more about an editor's conduct than statistics ever could. The evidence I presented regarding Lugnuts shows four AfDs [1][2][3][4] where articles with no SIGCOV sourcing whatsoever were kept based on spurious votes such as "meets NCRIC". These would show as "accurate" votes in the statistics despite running counter to what the guideline actually says. This also reflects either a lack of familiarity with the relevant guideline or an unwillingness to go against the numerical vote count on the part of closing admins, which is another issue that should be addressed here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:59, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This also reflects either a lack of familiarity with the relevant guideline or an unwillingness to go against the numerical vote count on the part of closing admins, which is another issue that should be addressed here. 1000x this. We get like 1-2 DRVs a week on sportsperson closes that apparently failed to consider !votes by weight rather than number and/or were completely unfamiliar with NSPORT. This is exactly why it's problematic we have zero consequences for editors who consistently push non-guideline-based rationales. JoelleJay (talk) 04:42, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I share the nervousness some editors above express about focusing on accuracy. Being in the minority (that is, holding views on the subjective aspects by which we make decisions, or holding good-faith interpretations of policy that are reasonable but uncommon) is not against policy, and we should not sanction someone for that alone. If someone is constantly in the minority in discussions, it might be a reason to look carefully at their arguments and how they conduct themselves in order to ensure that their positions are at least defensible, but as long as their arguments clearly pass WP:COMPETENCE, are made in good faith, and are based on at least some plausible interpretation of policy then I don't think it's appropriate to sanction someone for consistently holding a minority position, not even if they are a constant AFD participant who is in the minority in every single discussion they take part in. Constantly creating AFDs that go nowhere is mildly more concerning (because unlike just participating, they could be wasting the community's time), but even then, the underlying reason for sanctions needs to be something more basic like WP:COMPETENCE or an WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT / WP:DEADHORSE / WP:BLUDGEON refusal to admit that some specific interpretation of policy they hold isn't widely enough shared for their repeated discussions to go anywhere. That requires looking at the actual arguments they make; simply being wrong a lot isn't sufficient. --Aquillion (talk) 07:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • One more thought and I'm done entering: remember that consensus can change. So if we sanction someone just for being "wrong" against consensus, and the consensus changes later so that they are now "right" -- do we "un-sanction them" ?--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Just remember that when we're talking about accuracy, only one or two editors may comment on a particular AFD -- this is the case in several of the ones I linked to on the evidence page -- so their votes may not reflect the consensus of the wider community. -- Vaulter 14:43, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I'll also note there's an issue inherent w/re "accuracy" when multiple members of ARS all !vote the same way. That can affect outcome and make all of them look "accurate" for that AfD. So even "accuracy" stats need to be looked at with care. valereee (talk) 16:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I review many more AFDs than I comment in. Sometimes, they're being kept, and I don't !vote keep because I agree with that outcome. Sometimes, they're trending towards deletion, and I think that's the right outcome, so I say nothing. I have a real problem with "AfD Accuracy" being used here or in RfA, because while it might accurately describe when editors have opined, it cannot ever encompass what has been seen but not commented upon. Jclemens (talk) 03:14, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Accuracy matters. If an editor is popping up in multiple AfD's over a longish period of time, a low accuracy stat usually shows that the editor's voting pattern is based on a minority view of policy/guideline interpretations. If the editor is ignoring the consensus on how the policy/guideline is being interpreted, that is IDONTLIKETHAT and IDONTHEARTHAT. If a guideline needs clarification or changing, there are better places to bring about a change. AfDs should not be a constant revolving BATTLEGROUND over policy/guideline interpretation. HighKing⁺⁺ 21:07, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To add, in some (exceptional and rare) circumstances, local consensus might be established among a limited group of editors but local consensus cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. Aquillon describes a situation above where an editor may hold "good-faith interpretation of policy that are reasonable but uncommon" and further points out that this "is not against policy and we should not sanction someone for that alone". Over a long period of time though an editor must realise and accept that their interpretations/views go against community consensus. Continuing to make the same point/interpretation in multiple AfDs over a period of time becomes disruptive and is essentially a refusal to work with community consensus. HighKing⁺⁺ 13:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, absolutely THIS. JoelleJay (talk) 23:51, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I were one of the participants in the AFDs referenced here, I'd be somewhat peeved with the insinuation that Lugnuts misled me. We have no reason to believe those editors didn't arrive at the same opinion on their own because, believe it or not, the push to deprecate (or whatever term you want to use) sports notability guidelines does not enjoy widespread community support. -- Vaulter 14:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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The drafters have already decided that conflict about the RfC is out of scope. The question that is relevant for this case is whether there is evidence at AfD of local consensus overriding global consensus which the committee has addressed in previous cases (3 times according to the linked page). Barkeep49 (talk) 15:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Vaulter does it mean that editors who cite a current sports notability guideline are at risk of sanction? No. Does it mean that editors who cite a previous sports notability guideline that no longer has community consensus are at risk of sanctions? Well that's trickier for me which I elaborate on more above. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:26, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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@Barkeep49: Does that mean editors who cite a sports notability guideline in an AFD are at risk of sanctions? -- Vaulter 15:20, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The version of NCRIC that Lugnuts, and others (including in part myself), would have cited at those AfDs was established at this discussion started by RandomCanadian and which was contributed to by only two other editors - one of whom is now banned. Lugnuts wasn't one of them - and there wasn't really very much discussion about it. The proposal was then taken to NSPORTS and discussed briefly before being imposed - again without input from Lugnuts. To be honest, none of the people who would typically have input into major changes in terms of the cricket project had any input whatsoever - so this really isn't a case of a wikiproject gathering local consensus for anything at all - I'd argue that it's more a case of a "solution" imposed on a wikiproject. All that the editors who contributed to those AfDs were doing was taking what was given to them as an SNG - I don't think any of the editors involved in the drafting of NCRIC contributed to any of those AfD did they?

Compare the two discussions linked about to this one from 2021 if you'd like to see what I'd expect to have been the level of discussion.

Fwiw I'd also argue that Lugnuts' position at those AfD is rather more nuanced than is being suggested here. In none of the cases do they "vote" as Keep: passes NCRIC by itself. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:35, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: just for the absence of doubt, the version of NCRIC being cited at those AfD was the current one. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:36, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's really not accurate either, though. It wasn't some tiny local consensus that decided to remove large parts of NCRIC, it was the gigantic NSPORT referendum that found consensus to deprecate all participation-based criteria and change "presumed notable" to "presumed SIGCOV". RC was just implementing this consensus in a way that allowed NCRIC to be listed on NSPORT in the first place. JoelleJay (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, which part isn't accurate? NCRIC had to change. It did. But it did with very little discussion and the version that was put forward wasn't drafted by anyone really closely associated with the wikiproject. Was it? All that editors such as Lugnuts are doing now is using what they were given. That's fine, NCRIC is perfectly usable - but when editors using it in the way it's meant to be used are then characterised as "misleading", that's, well, a bit unfair really. Isn't it? Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was disputing the implication there was little discussion overall leading up to the NCRIC changes. There wasn't much discussion on exactly how to make it comply with NSPORT, but the majority of the actual changes to the guideline should be attributed to the broader discussion rather than the one for the hasty temp solution. And anyway, the issue wasn't that Lugnuts et al was citing NCRIC, it was that the !votes presented NCRIC as if it still presumed notability rather predicted SIGCOV, and therefore superseded GNG (which you and he and everyone know it never did in the first place). JoelleJay (talk) 22:30, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I think an awful lot of people are really confused by what exactly is being looked for these days. I know I am. I honestly have no idea what is or isn't significant coverage anymore, how much is needed, whether anyone who hasn't had success at international level can ever be considered to be notable or not. The ways things have been written make this worse, not better (fwiw, I'd do away with the entirety of NSPORTS and revert to just the GNG - at least that would avoid contradiction). Perhaps this case can actually determine what it all means now. But, y'know, I think that's out of scope. Blue Square Thing (talk) 23:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe the issue here is Lugnuts misleading editors; I believe the issue is editors rejecting broader consensus. Looking at the 39 AfD's on cricket biographies that were opened since the NSPORTS RfC closure we see that this has happened in eleven of them, resulting in five articles being kept on that basis (Sarah Forbes, Subroto Das, Shabana Kausar, Mamata Kanojia, and Bradman Ediriweera).

I also believe that this rejection is disruptive; editors have a responsibility to respect consensus, and just as ignoring consensus in articles is disruptive, so is ignoring consensus in discussions. This aligns with principles from past ARBCOM cases; ten years ago, ARBCOM found that editors must accept any reasonable decision arrived at by consensus and last year it found that individual editors have a responsibility to respect the outcome of dispute resolution.

This doesn't prevent editors from challenging consensus, as consensus can change, but it must be challenged at a location where policy permits it to be changed, which means at the same level it was formed or higher as to do so elsewhere wastes editors time and can produce a result that the broader community would reject. BilledMammal (talk) 11:59, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My concern was not whether the article in question met NCRIC, but that meeting NCRIC only tells us that "coverage is likely to exist" - It does not override WP:SPORTBASIC ("Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject") or the very first line of NSPORTS, "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." Editors should not be voting Keep based solely on meeting NCRIC or its criteria, and they should not be voting Keep based on potential for SIGCOV when none has actually been shown to exist. –dlthewave ☎ 12:23, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"I don't believe the issue here is Lugnuts misleading editors" but you started a section titled "Lugnuts has misled other editors" - so which is it? And why is the personal attack tolerated? Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 08:34, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I said the line you quoted, not dlthewave, although I can see how you got confused; the separation between their comment and mine is not clear. BilledMammal (talk) 08:45, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of local/global levels of consensus, I can recall several RfCs and ANI threads where there was strong community consensus to mass-delete an editor's thousands of sports- or geo-stub creations, but the actual deletion process proved difficult because the editors most active in those topics favored inclusion and would revert redirects or outvote others at AfD. And yet, when stricter standards for article creation and notability are proposed, they often don't pass because the community believes that our current notability policies are sufficient and should simply be better enforced. I think the moral here is that many editors express their opinions in community-level discussions instead of directly at AfD, and they have the expectation that consensus will be followed/enforced by those who are active in those areas. –dlthewave ☎ 16:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, community-level discussions can be hard for people to follow. WP:NSPORTS2022 contained 13 different proposals plus additional discussion sections. At nearly 120,000 words, it's roughly the size of Pride and Prejudice or Homer's Odyssey. -- Vaulter 16:51, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly gave up trying to follow that RfC. Of course, that then seemed to lead to all sorts of debate about when and how to implement them as well. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that the RfC was difficult for some folks to follow while it was in progress, but its consensus is summed up in the closing statement and for AfD purposes you can simply refer to the current version of NSPORTS. –dlthewave ☎ 19:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I meant that such a voluminous discussion can be difficult to participate in while it is ongoing, not to read after the fact. -- Vaulter 19:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That was my point as well - I, and I think a fairly large number of other editors, gave up trying to contribute to it as it sprawled massively and became difficult to follow. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• At least when it comes to Lugnuts, I feel like the key questions are... First, did Lugnuts know about the giant sports notability RFC? Second, if they knew, do their comments represent a reasonable interpretation of it (even if others might disagree with that interpretation), or was they straight-up ignoring it, or even misrepresenting it, and encouraging others to do the same? Evidence on these points might be relevant (as well as perhaps comments from Lugnuts themselves regarding how they see / saw the situation; an "oops I was wrong, I misread / misunderstood the RFC and will avoid doing so in the future" might be sufficient, especially if nobody has poked them about this specific issue previously. And if someone has, that should be in evidence.) --Aquillion (talk) 00:34, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Over the years, comments at AfD of "keep, meets NXXX" (or, indeed, "delete, fails XXX") have been commonplace. Given that and the recent nature of changes to sports notability guidelines and the understanding that people at XfD tend to use short-form arguments that other people are likely to understand, I'm not sure that anyone using those arguments is all that far from the mark anyway, even now. Fwiw, in the AfD threads linked originally, I'm not sure that Lugnuts ever uses *just* that argument as such, and in one of them I don't think they do at all. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I have stated at the evidence page, I believe that Lugnuts had also mis-represented other editors' words, for instance at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 27#Walter Engelmann with BilledMammal. Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 07:38, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This "requirement", as @Aquillion: says, has been a sore point for those of us trying to clean up the messes made by mass stub creation efforts. The creators of these articles didn't have to do the work, but we have to do it for them, and we get called out when our work isn't good enough by someone's personal standard. And while there are some people who respond not just be citing sources we missed, but by putting them in the article as well, there are plenty who do not.

I know it is a proposal that would never pass and would subject me to a great deal of invective and tl;dr which I would be expected to read and respond to, but it seems to me that almost all the drama around the remaining geostubs could be disposed of if we would just delete the lot and expect them, if created, to be fleshed out to the point where their notability was obvious. Mangoe (talk) 04:43, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that there is a more succinct way to put this: if there is an article writing version of WP:BEFORE, it is largely if not overwhelmingly disregarded. Mangoe (talk) 02:15, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Question is WP:BEFORE a "requirement" or "policy" ? I agree it's a good thing to do--but the page states "This page explains what you should consider before nominating" in the second paragraph. Note that it says "should" and not "must" -- I don't believe that we should take any action against editors for failing to do something that isn't required.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:38, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BEFORE isn't even indirectly mentioned in any policy articles, including WP:DELETE or WP:PROD. JoelleJay (talk) 20:49, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This remark of yours was spot on, it's worth showing here. Avilich (talk) 21:04, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not correct. WP:AFD mentions WP:BEFORE; WP:DELAFD directs editors to "Follow the instructions at the top of the relevant process page." Still, having said that, I would favor hightening the profile of BEFORE. Jclemens (talk) 03:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why editors are free to consciously ignore "should" and "strong encouraged" when done at scale and with habit over time. A rule means you should not do it ever, even once. A strong suggestion means if you do it sometimes no one's going to stop you, sometimes things are imperfect the system allows for that; but if you do it all the time, intentionally ignoring the suggestion, at large scale repeatedly over time, that's a problem. -- GreenC

I would say that is because "should" is not the same thing as "must" -- now, if that needs to be changed from "should" to "must" then there is a mechanism to change it. But as it sits right now, it's not "must" -- make sense?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• To me, a "should" or "encouraged" makes something contextual; it means that you can skip it if you feel there's a specific reason to do so, and can skip it repeatedly if that reason applies in many cases. The example here would be eg. not doing it for articles that were mass-created, since doing so would impose a burden that would make it hard to challenge mass-created articles and would turn them into a WP:FAIT; as I said above, I don't feel it's reasonable to impose a minute-long search on the nomination for each of tens of thousands of articles cranked out automatically by a script. Some degree of parity is necessary in conflict-resolution in order to get everyone to the table. --Aquillion (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem is that this is assuming bad faith of the article creation, when I've not seen any evidence that this was the case. Spending less than a single minute checking to see whether the subject of an article is notable before nominating it for deletion is far below the standard that should be reasonably expected of an editor acting in good faith to improve the encyclopaedia, especially when done at scale. Just because these articles should not have been created in this manner does not mean that it is acceptable to delete them without regard to anything else. Thryduulf (talk) 14:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't require bad faith. The simple fact is that if people reviewing new articles are required to spend a minute doing WP:BEFORE before nominating, while people creating new articles are not required to do the same thing, this results in a situation where article creators can crank out tens of thousands of automated stubs - far beyond our ability to perform individual source-searches on - and then demand that minute of review for each of them. That is an unworkable WP:FAIT situation, whether people intended it or not. As you say, we need to make sure that that search is ultimately done, eventually, for every article, by someone. And per WP:BURDEN, the ultimate requirement to do that one-minute search rests on the people who created or want to retain an article, not on whoever happens to nominate it - if you think that that search is not a big deal then it should be no issue moving the requirement to the correct place. Purely from a practicality standpoint, the people who want to create or retain the articles are the ones most incentivized to do it, the ones most likely to know where to search, and the ones who essentially put that (necessary) work in the queue in the first place by creating the article or objecting to an uncontentious deletion; obviously, they are the ones who should have to do it. Whereas foisting that requirement off on nominators - beyond being unequivocally contrary to WP:BURDEN - results in a chilling effect that discourages objections and results in huge numbers of unsourced stubs being created that nobody has any incentive to (or even the time to) search for sources for. If you create ten-thousand articles, you must be willing to commit to doing ten-thousand one-minute source searches; if you refuse to do so, and nobody else steps up, then they should all be deleted as soon as anyone objects. --Aquillion (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BEFORE is a recommendation, it is not mandatory nor a policy. In line with WP:AGF, it should be assumed that it has been performed in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary. If there is a suggestion that it should be made a stricter or mandatory requirement, those seeking to change this should attempt to gather a consensus to that effect on an appropriate talk page. Stifle (talk) 13:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are many comments on this page that explicitly state that performing even the tiniest BEFORE is unreasonable, when combined with the volume of nominations this is clear evidence that at least some editors are not performing it. When something is strongly encouraged you should have a good reason for not doing that thing, it preventing you from nominating articles for deletion as fast as you want to is not a good reason. Thryduulf (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, you might disagree, but clearly there's plenty of people who think that it is unreasonable to apply BEFORE as a hard requirement before nominating mass-created stubs, especially given the unequivocal conflict with WP:BURDEN and the WP:FAIT situation this would result in. To be completely clear: I think that, yes, being able to review and nominate new or unreviewed articles, at a speed comparable to the rate at which they are created, is a core and necessary part of our process; and, therefore, it is entirely correct to disregard the BEFORE requirement when nominating auto-generated stubs or similar mass-created articles, which would break the process if it was not disregarded. No further explanation is required; the simple fact that a stub was mass-created is sufficient reason to skip the source-search recommendation in WP:BEFORE. That sort of thing is why it is merely a suggestion and not a requirement. Not only that, but I do not think you have (or can point to) a consensus otherwise, nor do I think that policy backs you up in asserting that BEFORE is a requirement for mass-created articles. Based on that I don't think it's reasonable to ask ArbCom to impose sanctions premised on your controversial interpretation of BEFORE. In practice, that request is asking ArbCom to decide an active policy dispute. If you disagree, the appropriate thing to do is to add things to evidence showing the consensus on policy you're referring to, not to argue with me here; I've pointed to several things that I think show that the relevant policy is in dispute. --Aquillion (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Just as an example of what I said above (for people who feel that their proposal to make BEFORE mandatory even for automated or mass-created articles) - according to the evidence, Lugnuts has created 94,367 articles - largely automatically or semi-automatically, often with minimal or nonexistent sourcing. To review those articles and search for sources for them, at one minute an article, would take over 1572 hours; working full-time, 8 hours a day, five days a week, entirely to search for sources for Lugnuts' articles, at one minute each, would take you the better part of a year. If Lugnuts (or people who want to retain those articles) feel that it is important that we retain them, then they can put in the time to do the necessary searches themselves; but insisting that a search is necessary before merely challenging such articles via AFD plainly contradicts WP:BURDEN, contradicts WP:V (which requires sources once a challenge has been made), and has the practical effect of putting the bulk of Lugnuts' contributions, collectively, beyond any reasonable challenge. And Lugnuts is not the only person producing huge numbers of auto-generated stubs, merely the most prolific. This is the sort of unusual situation that policies with suggestions rather than requirements exist for; more specifically, I do not think that anyone has any requirement to perform a search - not even a brief, cursory one; not even the easiest, simplest ten-second one - when nominating such mass-created articles for deletion. It's cool if they do, but eg. TPH flatly deciding that the prolific way such mass-produced articles were created means that they're going to decline to do the search for sources before nominating them is a valid exercise of editorial discretion. --Aquillion (talk) 00:29, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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