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July 29 in rail transport (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore | cache | AfD))
Overturn: In this AfD, I believe there was a consensus to delete but the closing admin closed it with a no consensus because he said as we weren't trying to get the article deleted, but trying to reorganize it, so it wasn't deleted. I feel like this call was made in error and deleting the articles would be best way to "reorganize" as it is just a bunch of trivia. The closing admin also has to keep in mind that this nomination was in good faith, and I don't find it to be flawed in any way. I saw an article that could use deletion, and I used AfD. Simple as that.Tavix (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- How about moving to portal space? --NE2 01:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think it's fair to any of the participants to let the debate go on this long, with this much discussion, and then close it with "This debate is flawed, because WP:AFD is not the place to have debates about content." Nor is the closing admin's suggestion to start this all over again, somewhere else (WikiProject Trains), at all productive. The debate was never about trains, but about whether day-by-day articles of this nature are consistent with policy. The nominator tagged each of the articles and went through the nomination procedure, people discussed Wikipedia policy, and the admin even noted that "the weight of community opinion in this debate is substantially against this structure." Stating at the end of the debate, that it didn't matter -- that's not a satisfactory way to close this. Mandsford (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Exactly my point. It did take a long time to get everything nominated and to have it closed the way it did is messed up.Tavix (talk) 02:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. Though I want to continue with "… and reclose as delete," which I think is the result justified by the arguments offered in the discussion (particularly the WP:NOT-based ones), I will not do so. It appears that the closer's "no consensus," instead of constituting an actual interpretation of the discussion, expressed a refusal to interpret the discussion, with a suitably noncommittal choice from the closure options. For this reason, the closure is flawed. Someone else should close this who is willing to engage with the arguments presented; whether the result turns out to be "keep," "delete," or "no consensus," at least the discussion will have been judged rather than brushed aside. (Note: I did not participate in the AfD itself.) Deor (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I now notice that the nominator here doesn't appear to have attempted to discuss the closure with Mangojuice, the closer, before bringing this to DRV. I wish he had, per the instructions at the top of this page. Deor (talk) 02:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Oops sorry, I missed that part. This is my first ever Deletion review, so I didn't really know how to go though with it. I'll go talk to Mangojuice. Tavix (talk) 02:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - as it's a clearcut case of non-encyclopedic cross-categorization (day and train related events in completely different years), but essentially I concur with Deor, it would be preferable to see what the closing admin has to say first.--Boffob (talk) 03:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - Regardless of the closing admin's actual statement, a no consensus close is perfectly reasonable here. Opinions were well divided and many of the arguments on both sides were weak. Further, the full list of pages was added after more than a dozen people had already commented on the AFD. If anything is improper in the AFD, that was. Mr.Z-man 03:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply I already explained myself on the AfD, that I became busy right after I nominated it and couldn't get back on for a little while. If someone really would change their vote because I nominated the other articles (of the exact same nature), they had 4.5 days to do so. Tavix (talk) 03:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- That really has no bearing on "a no consensus close is perfectly reasonable here." The late listing was really just a side note. Mr.Z-man 03:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse my own close, because in the end there wasn't consensus either way. I was trying to suggest how consensus might be built in my closure statement but it seems people would rather continue the contentious route than seek points of agreement. "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorization" was the only remotely appropriate deletion reason. First of all, this isn't a category. Second, this is surely a cross-categorization of information, but what is non-encyclopedic about it is entirely in the eye of the beholder. There's an argument that organizing by date is uninteresting but clearly some disagreed, and it was pointed out also that categorizing information by calendar date is hardly arbitrary. So how about following my suggestion and discussing the matter with those who edit rail articles instead? Mangojuicetalk 03:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Sad There was a censensus, if you actually read the whole lot, the keep excuses are really quite sad and were all rebuffed. Its amazing that the closing admin does not seem to understand what cross-categorization is. The events have absolutetly NOTHING in common with each other, apart form having occured on the same day of the same month. The only keep argument is that its useful for browsing is nonsensical, who browses between events which are related only by the day of the year they happen to have occured in? No one. The average article has 3 or 4 enteries. I am sure some users have emassed many thousands of edits scrapping all this together. endorse because wikipedia is crazy, only the original article should have been nominated and it would have got deleted, because it wasn't we will now be stuck with all the articles, non of which we will be able to delete.--Dacium (talk) 04:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse and applaud Mangojuice's interpretation of AfD policy. Content or merge disputes need to be settled on the article's talk page or the talk page of the Wikiproject. There was a three-way debate at the AfD between people who wanted the article left as stood, who wanted the content moved elsewhere, and who wanted the article and content deleted. A three way debate like this is not what AfD is about and clearly no consensus was achieved from it. The content dispute should be taken up elsewhere first and that could result in a consensus to move the information elsewhere and redirect the article. If the article stands for some time after this decision then I have no prejudice against the article being renominated. Themfromspace (talk) 04:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse I wasn't and still am not convinced either way about the merits of the articles themselves. However, having followed the AfD closely, I'd agree that there was no consensus formed — much heat and not enough light. Additionally, the nomination was a mess, what with the bulk of the articles being added after the additional listing but not tagged until a day-and-a-half after the addition and with the nominator inappropriately removing another user's comments (mine) from the discussion. I agree with the closing administrator that opening a discussion with the Railway project would be a useful next step — if that doesn't gain any traction, then one of the articles can be renominated for deletion after an appropriate time has passed in an effort to both develop a consensus and establish a precedent that can be applied to the remaining articles in the set. Mlaffs (talk) 05:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Stop and talk I also looked at closing this but got distracted by RL before I could follow through. There was an overwhelming majority of policy based reasons given in the discussion to delete and most of the keep arguments were of the ITSUSEFUL and ILIKEIT type but, and here is the kicker, I wouldn't have closed this as delete either. Close reading of the discussion showed that many of the delete votes were variants of "this is badly laid out and needs to be merged somewhere but no idea where". There are far too many articles to summarily delete them without exhausting the merge discussions and I would have had closed this as "go away and discuss this with a wider community first and only come back if there is no chance of finding the right merge target". Please bear in mind that I am about as deletion minded as you can find in an admin and I absolutely would not have pressed the button. Please go and have a proper discussion with all stakeholders and see if you can come up with an agreed format for a merge target. Spartaz Humbug! 06:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure, with some grumbling since I voted to delete these articles. I still think that the encyclopedic value of these articles is dubious, but while I think the reasons given to delete are solid, they are not so powerful that they will trump consensus or the lack of consensus. I concede that those arguing "keep" were not altogether unreasonable in pointing out that "this day in..." topics are of some interest to a layman reader, and that anniversaries are sometimes covered in media, although I disagree with them that this is the kind of topic which should make its way into an encyclopedia. If I were Wikipedia's dictator I would have these articles deleted, but since I'm not, there has to be a consensus for deletion, or some major breach of WP:V or WP:NOR, and that was not there in this case. I stated my opinion in the AFD, I stand by that opinion, but I am forced to concede that my opinion didn't enthuse everyone. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I do not believe there was a clear consensus either way therefore the outcome of no consensus was correct. McWomble (talk) 08:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- endorse No consensus expresses the situation. The community simply does not know what i wants to do with these articles. Since very general issues are involved, that could affect the creation of sets of 366 articles on many different topics, this really needs some what to be decided generally. My own suggestion would be by experiment: let these rail transport articles be created , and see what people thing of it as a prototype. Then we can have a general discussion on whether to extend the experiment. I point out that if we are not going to sustain the close, I could give arguments why it should have beenan outright keep, rather than an outright delete. I think we're best off with the actual decision, and I congratulate Mangojuice for making it.DGG (talk) 08:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse no consensus, as there was nonse. I'm disappointed with the result, but the closure was correct. Stifle (talk) 09:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- First, thank you to the editor who opened this discussion for informing me of it. The AFD closing admin suggested further discussion about the content organization should take place at WT:TWP. That discussion is now begun. Slambo (Speak) 12:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not surprised to see all of the endorsements of a no consensus decision by other administrators. But let's not endorse the practice of closing a debate with statements that the discussion was "flawed" and should not have been conducted in the first place. I don't recall that anyone has to ask permission before nominating an article; and if that's actually a valid reason to stop a debate, it would be nice if someone told us to "shut up" early on-- not at the end of the discussion. Neither should anyone endorse the odd suggestion that this be brought instead as a debate in the WikiProject on Trains. One might as well propose gun control ideas at a National Rifle Association meeting. No, the debate will come up again, and it will come up again at Articles for Deletion. Mandsford (talk) 14:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You've obviously never heard the old joke about how to get the NRA to support gun control. The NRA has 2 million members; take 2.5 million supporters of gun control to their next annual meeting, have them all join, and then vote support for gun control onto their platform.
Look, that's really not an appropriate analogy. When we need to discuss issues of general style on Wikipedia, we do it on the MOS talk page. When we need to discuss notability criteria for biographies, we do it on the WP:BIO talk page. When we need to discuss issues about infoboxes on movie articles, we do it on the Film project talk page. What's then so "odd" about the belief that the discussion about these articles should take place at the Trains project talk page?
Ultimately, you're making an assumption at the outset that there aren't people involved in that project who will be open to an honest critique of the articles, when I think there's ample evidence to the contrary. These articles were created by Slambo, who's a member of that project, that same creator has willingly and in good faith opened the discussion on that talk page as was suggested, and that same creator has also expressed some ideas about how to better use the information in the articles. If you want to have influence on that discussion, there's nothing to stop you or anyone else from contributing to that discussion, whether you're a member of the Trains project or not. Either way, I suspect the discussion will find a better home for the content, which would lend support to deletion of the articles, at which point we can proceed accordingly. If that suspicion is wrong, then a broader discussion will be appropriate, and it may need another kick at the can at AfD. But in the meantime, will it kill you to give a discussion without the drama that's implicit at AfD a chance at success? Mlaffs (talk) 15:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- "all of the endorsements of a no consensus decision by other administrators" - Um, what? What does being an admin have to do with anything? I will assume that you simply meant that since admins are generally more experienced at judging consensus at AFDs that they are more likely to close things as no consensus. The argument to overturn based on the statement by the closing admin and ignoring the actual discussion (which had no consensus) is what's really flawed. We don't overturn otherwise correct decisions based on technicalities. Mr.Z-man 06:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OverturnWeak overturn See reply to Mangojuice's comment as "Move to Portal: namespace". My rationale? As I parse it, there were basically four views:
- Delete
- Keep
- Merge with the "year in rail transport" articles
- Move to portal space
- There was also some talk about merging with the general day articles (like July 29), but that didn't get much traction, so I'll focus on the main four that I saw on my read-through. As I see it, the "delete" arguments can be read as "get this information out of the article namespace" and the "keep" arguments can be read as "this information should be kept available for the readers". According to at least one editor in the debate, the "merge" option wasn't necessary as the information was already duplicated in the year articles. The "move to portal space" option thus acts as a default option for all sides: it removes the articles from mainspace, it keeps the information available to the readers (albeit not as an "article") and the information is still available in the "year" articles. I also note that some of the delete voters explicitly mentioned that the move to portal space would be ok.
- I initially was going to endorse this close, because I can see how it could reasonably be seen as "no consensus". However, I think the closer's rationale of Afd not being the correct venue was not correct, because there were good-faith "delete" votes made during the discussion. If no one was actually arguing to delete it, then of course Afd would have been the wrong venue. However, even if the nominator was misguided in taking it to Afd, the time to close as "wrong venue" was before those good-faith "delete" votes were made. Once editors vote to delete in good faith, it becomes a deletion discussion, and deletion of articles is what Afd is for, and there is nowhere else to go.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- FWIW, I think moving these to portal space is the best solution. But I hardly think that was the outcome of the debate. And BTW, the debate was not flawed as a deletion debate, it just didn't reach consensus. It was flawed if it is to be looked at, after the fact, as a debate about how best to present this material. Mangojuicetalk 15:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Right, but I don't think that's the best way to look at it. Yes, it didn't reach a consensus to delete, but that doesn't mean no consensus to do anything was there. Anyway, I don't think you made a horribly wrong decision. The debate could certainly have been read as no consensus by a reasonable admin (which you and the other voters above clearly are), so I'm not terribly chuffed about it. Cheers!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Mangojuice has it exactly right with his last comment. There was no consensus to delete these articles, as he properly found. There is considerable disagreement about what else should be done with them, but this discussion failed to generate a consensus to delete. As he alluded to in the comment above this one, while frequently you can distill consensus about what else should be done with an article - merge, redirect, etc. - that's not the primary purpose of the discussion, and given the broad unresolved content issues, one that really was beyond the scope of what could be accomplished here. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 18:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, but if a solution acceptable to all sides has been proposed, why mandate that the decision be repeated elsewhere? I agree that there was a lot of debate about what would be done with them, but I think I see the various sides as much closer to consensus than the closer and many other contributors here do. Just an example of something well within the area of admin discretion, I guess.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Because DRV isn't AFD round 2? Looking at the discussion, I see maybe 2 people supporting a merge to portal-space. Its an idea but not one favored in the AFD and DRV is not the place to have this discussion. No "decision" has been made anywhere yet. Its within the range of admin discretion I guess (pretty much anything is), but that's not how the admin closed it, and since there is an active discussion about this on the project talk page would probably not be appropriate as a close for this DRV (as it would basically circumvent that discussion entirely). Mr.Z-man 06:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You're absolutely right that DRV should not circumvent the other discussion, and that DRV is not AfD round 2. I didn't think I was saying that it was a place to repeat the arguments for/against deletion, I was commenting on my read of the consensus as compared to Mangojuice's.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- How does one see a consensus for a merge to portal space? As I said, only a couple people even mentioned it. Mr.Z-man 07:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- As I explained in my !vote above: as the one option that satisfied all sides.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- No one actually favored a move to portal space: Slambo asked for time to do such a move if his arguments were rejected, and a couple of the delete commentors said they wouldn't object, but didn't even change their !votes. This is much like a debate where about half the people want an article deleted, about half want it kept, and one or two people want it merged. It is tempting to say that a merge "satisfies all sides." Merge voters very often think they are being the mediators -- they think merging is acceptable to those favoring deletion because the target doesn't get to keep having its own page, and they think it's acceptable to those favoring keep because the information will somehow be preserved. In such a debate, "no consensus" is the right outcome: it's not like a bunch of people got together and agreed that merging was a good idea; they got together and couldn't agree... and what's more, the topic of discussion wasn't whether to merge or not. So although it might satisfy all sides, the debate doesn't form a basis for it. If that solution is chosen, it's the closer acting not as an interpreter of a debate, but as an arbiter. Mangojuicetalk 13:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment -- Whatever the outcome of the debate about a single day, this is one of a series of perhaps 100 articles giving rail-related anniversaries. Deleting this article by itself would be pointless, unless the nominator was willing to follow this up with a multiple nomination of the other 100 for AFD, tegether with the associated templates and categories. I am not clear what precedents there are for articles listing anniversaries; I am far from convinced of their merits, or of list-articles in general (except where they list redlinks to necessary, but missing, articles). Peterkingiron (talk) 16:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- If you look at the AfD debate, you'll see that all such articles were listed, not just this one. Mangojuicetalk 17:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. Mangojuice basically says it best. MickMacNee (talk) 19:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse, seems like a fair reading of consensus - or the lack there of. There's a bit of a black hole in terms of both policy and discussion when it comes to this type of list/article and I don't think that's a problem which can be solved at AfD. Guest9999 (talk) 21:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse, consensus was not established to delete the article (and thus all the other late-nominated articles too). TWP uses those articles in maintaining part of the portal - anniversaries - and their retention is therefore useful. Mjroots (talk) 08:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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