I have been a fairly regular contributer to Articles for Deletion debates for a long time now (indeed, one of my first contributions to Wikipedia was a rather naïve attempt to save a vanity page I had created from deletion; this was before I really understood what Wikipedia was about, though, so please do not judge me too harshly). Overall, I vote delete slightly more often than keep, and would vote to delete considerably more if I contributed to every AfD debate. I am a stickler for what the Deletion Policy says, and as such am difficult to classify on the "Inclusionist-Deletionist" continuum (I would self-describe as a "policy-driven deletionist"). However, I have noticed a number of trends, some silly, others disturbing, that I think need to be addressed:
- The "others are worse" defense. A classic "keep" tactic, it involves saying words to the effect of "well Wikipedia has other articles that are less notable/verifiable/encyclopaedic than this article, hence keep". An example of my attempts to argue the invalidity of this tactic is this AfD, from September 2005. It is just wrong. AfDs are debates about one article's suitability, or otherwise, for Wikipedia. Except for the Deletion Policy, nothing else should be taken into account. If the article in question fails the tests of the deletion policy, regardless of what other articles there are out there, then it should be deleted. If there are other, worse, articles, people should nominate them for deletion as well.
- The "repeated nomination without new reasoning" tactic. People find it hard, I think, to accept the deletion of their own article. However, people find it harder, sometimes, to accept the keeping of their nominee. An example (from self-interest) was this attempt to delete an article I had worked hard to make NPOV and factually accurate. The nomination failed to cite any reasons that were different from the original - failed - nomination, and as such the second nomination failed too. The moral of the story is that repeated AfDs without new, better, reasons are unlikely to, and indeed should not, succeed. Indeed, I would go further and say that, even if I voted "delete" in the first AfD, if an article comes back having survived the first for a second AfD without any substantive changes, I will vote on principle "keep".
- The "autobiography is deletable" argument. A seemingly newer tactic (or at least it is being used more and more these days), that tries to claim that autobiographical articles should be deleted for the simple reason that they are autobiographical. An example was this AfD, which eventually ended as "No Consensus". The policy on this issue is that autobiography is strongly discouraged, but not forbidden. The major reason it is discouraged is that it is hard to be NPOV about oneself. However, NPOV issues are usually resolved by editting the article in question, not by deleting it.
- The consistent misunderstanding of "the instructions guidelines". To be honest, I am not sure where this one started, but it is now a fairly common deletion tactic when it comes to instructions pages. For example, this attempted deletion, which fell flat on its face, attempted to assert that a summary of the rules of an internationally-popular game (Magic: The Gathering) was breaching the above-mentioned guideline. This was not the case then, and it is not for the majority of such articles. Any game-related article must, surely, talk about the rules of said game. What often happens, though, is that the article expands, and sub-articles are needed. This is what is known as good practice. It is not deletion-worthy.