Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 60

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CAT:NN

Hello, I've been working in WP:Wikiproject Notability for years now, and feeling a bit alone on it. The backlog is 65,000 articles and almost 12 years long, which is a shame as about half of them are notable, it's just that it's hard to see that as the article stands. I think such an important issue shouldn't have such a crazy backlog, but don't want us to rush things and end up with articles being deleted unnecessarily.

Wikiproject Notability only has about 70 watchers, so about 300 less than this page, which I don't think I was aware of before today. I was wondering if any of you could add ideas for reducing the backlog without causing the worse situation of discarding articles without due care and consideration, at the Wikiproject's talk page. If you look at Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from February 2009 and Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from March 2009, you'll see many of the pages I haven't removed the notability tag from, I've taken to AfD, and I'd welcome comments on those, whether agreeing or disagreeing.

CAT:NN also has sections such as Category:Music articles with topics of unclear notability, which are great for those with a specific interest. I'd be really grateful if any of you did come to look at the project, share ideas and help evaluate the articles, which are nearly all in a poor state but not all non-notable. Thanks for reading, Boleyn (talk) 12:16, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• I have noticed and opposed some of Boleyn's nominations. Here are some observations:

1. Looking at CAT:NN, the two oldest entries are currently Innaiah Narisetti (an Indian atheist) and The Scholar (journal), a recent student journal. These have been nominated for deletion by SportingFlyer and Ravenswing. The next oldest batch has 42 pages, of which 27 have been nominated for deletion – almost all by Boleyn. I skim the next monthly batches and notice lots of those articles have been nominated for deletion and suppose that Boleyn has been busy there too.
2. Myself, I intercept such nominations by patrolling the queues at WP:PRODSORT, WP:AFD/T and WP:AFD/Y. I am usually looking for topics to be rescued and usually act on about 1% of the total. In my perusal of the topics above, my first choice was Newtown Hardware House and my second was Willie's War. The first interests me and the second was broadcast by a major network here in the UK and so is probably notable.
3. Boleyn feels lonely but she shouldn't suppose that the ARS is doing any better. While there may be hundreds of editors signed up to the ARS, few of them seem to be active. But it could be that they working in their own way, improving articles before they reach the end of the NN category or are nominated for deletion.
4. The general problem is that these are thankless tasks. We don't get paid, rewarded, thanked or even acknowledged. The work therefore has to be its own reward. I work on the topics as the fancy takes me and I'm inclined to stick to familiar activities because it is naturally what I'm best at. But it is good to explore such other activities to understand and appreciate them too.

Andrew🐉(talk) 15:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi, user:Andrew Davidson, thanks for your considered response. The very oldest are often really tricky but some from just April 2009 onwards are not. I have been going through Jan, Feb and March 2009, so a lot of those at AfD are from me. However, it doesn't show the many I remove the notability tags from or add references too - it's only if I really don't feel confident that either of those are working that I take to AfD. Thanks for your opinions on Willie's War and Newtown Hardware House.

I don't know if it's reassuring or dispiriting that ARS is also struggling to be an active, dynamic group! I've come back to CAT:NN repeatedly over the last decade, but mainly have worked on disambiguation pages, English MPs and New Page Patrol. All of these have a feeling of community and a group, too small and not with enough resources, addressing the issue. Wikiproject Notability has never felt like that, despite being so important. That's not to say there aren't people working away much harder than me in a quiet way that I've not been aware of, and there are a couple of other active editors. They tend not to last long (just as I take regular breaks) because taking anything to AfD is not only thankless, but often an invitation for others to leave critical comments for the nominator. I understand that as it's important to listen to all opinions, but it's wearying. I, yoo, tend to stick roughly in the same areas, though need to move between them at times as my energy for one project starts to flag.

Thanks again for taking the time to engage with my post. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 18:06, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Draft: Cooper Barnes

This draft needs serious attention to get into the article. I just needed a help to check if it is notable.Tbiw (talk) 17:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Tbiw: Not sure if you still need help, but he seems to be notable per WP:NACTOR (with the three notable shows), although just barely. All of the unsourced parts of the Filmography need to be removed, though, if reliable sources can't be found. - Whisperjanes (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay.Tbiw (talk) 06:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

RFC about verifiability and self published sources

Important discussion that needs your insight and participation. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:19, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of rumored video games

I don't know how to add an entry here but this seems fun enough that it could be added here. Have fun, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:16, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus It belongs at Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron – Rescue list. Cheers. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:02, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Deletionist bots?

See the edit summary here 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:35, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Attacking AFD nominators on the ARS page

Comments at WP:RSL right now like Massive attack (not the band) on Native American participants and The campaign continues and expands... are, in my view, inappropriate. I hope the members of this project won't allow the Rescue List to be used as a platform to attack AFD nominators. Lev!vich 21:06, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

And again, unfortunately. RSL shouldn't be used as a forum to attack closers, either. Lev!vich 01:05, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Just complaining

They just deleted Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees on a 3 to 1 vote. That wasn't the ratio, that was total ivotes. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American football players who died during their careers (just successfully kept as a "Procedural Keep") then shows how these minimal participation decisions can be turned into precedent to potentially take down swaths of content. Don't think there are not devious minds trying to do this right now. We ought to push for a minimum of participation for at least any precedent. Trackinfo (talk) 02:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Monitoring categories for AfDs?

Is there any way to monitor a category so that if an article in it is AfDed, it'll come up in my watchlist? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

You could put all the articles in the category on your watchlist. I'm not aware of a better way. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

An interesting discussion

Military History: having a military ship named after you proves notability Proving that if you load the question in the right way, you can elicit the answers you want. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 10:49, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Current link [1]. I voted to keep based on it being a significant award, just wanted confirmation since people kept arguing about it. Less than five hours after I posted, 9 others posted "oppose", no one else responding after that, so the discussion was closed. If left open longer and with more participants, maybe the results would've been different. Dream Focus 13:35, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Who can rescue the drafts?

I don't often see eye to eye with some of this project's members, but recently I've become aware of a problem related to deletion of very rescuable content that is 'too much' even for me. I refer to the mostly invisible problem of declining good drafts. While we have people reviewing PROD logs and of course AfDs tend to attract many eyes, I am not aware of any effort to patrol and double-check what happens with declined drafts. Case in point, I spend the last half a year slowly reviewing a series of 20+ declined drafts about modern Korean writers; I am pretty much finished and the conclusion is not good: over 80% of them were notable and needed just few minutes of copyediting to be publishable, but they were often declined with mind-boggling, likely generic and copypaste rationales like 'lacking footnotes' (where many footnotes were present!), being promotional (without any cited evidence of peacock language or like) or concerns about reliability of sources (where the real issue seems to simply be that the sources are in Korean and the reviewer wasn't willing to do any research on them). Bottom line, we might have lost 20+ long and reasonably well-written articles about notable authors because clearly, several draft reviewers acted in very irresponsible way, not doing anything remotely like WP:BEFORE and such. See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Korea#Reviews_by_Piotrus. The problem was first brought to my attention by User:Calliopejen1, who perhaps can update us on what happened afterward (I did lose track of other discussions). Was there any reform of the system? What can be done to prevent this from happening? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:23, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Of course you are right and feel free to post Drafts to the Noticeboard if you think it would help. Keep in mind only a handful of people are active in ARS so maybe 1% of AfD gets attention here, this is not a big tent. We need most of all more people participating. The Korean writers looks like SYSTEMIC it's a specialized topic. -- GreenC 14:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

User:Piotrus, thank you for all of your work on this issue - when I reviewed the WikiProject Korea Talk page discussion, it looked like there are a relatively small number of editors who may benefit from outreach and mentoring from more experienced editors, similar to how other Projects work with newer editors to help them with Drafts (the issue of newer editors was also mentioned during the September 2020 AfC Talk started by User:Calliopejen1). Maybe proactively offering support from WikiProject Korea to editors for when they are drafting articles could help address specific issues, and also encouraging them to ask for help if their articles are declined, so the articles can be reworked and resubmitted. Also, when an article is declined, editors are referred to the AfC helpdesk or the reviewer's Talk page or real-time chat, but I am not familiar with those processes and don't know if any of them include referring editors to subject-specific WikiProjects for assistance - but that could be a helpful triage to add if it doesn't already exist. Beccaynr (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Beccaynr, Part of the problem was (is...) that all the Korean articles in question were 'gifted' to us by some fly-by-night editors or editors, related to some Korean outreach project that never clearly disclosed who they are. They just drafted a bunch of articles (mostly biographies) from few accounts over a short period of time, then all said accounts went dormant and haven't been active one way or another, so they never checked on the status or attempt to fix even the smallest problems. Hardly best practices on the contributor's side, but the issue is that we can't always expect submitters to fix their entries. And if the entries were in mainspace, nobody would care as the topics are generally notable and reasonably well written and formatted (for start/C-class). But they were instead submitted to drafts and run into reviewers who had overly high standards for what's acceptable while also adhering to very low standards of reviewing themselves (I mean, when several drafts are declined due to 'no footnotes' while having dozens, and then nobody else except me bothers to check stuff and catch such a simple mistake - this is a serious problem). Anyway, one of the points I am making is that sometimes rescue can be just as simple as catching a bad draft review and publishing the article in the mainspace after minor, if any, technical fixes (as sometimes the articles are 100% ready - they were just rejected by a reviewer for a bogus reason like 'no footnotes' where footnotes are present). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:26, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, this is definitely a problem, but I don't think the solution can be to just have people patrolling for bad rejections. The number of AfC submissions is already overwhelming as is (and yes, there's a lot of junk), so I don't think it's feasible to add more patrolling on top of that. We need to get to the bottom of why reviewers are rejecting passable drafts and somehow change our system to influence their behavior. That's what I was trying to speak to below, although I don't have any silver bullet. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:32, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb, Not enough manpower is always an issue. The easiest solution I can think of is to not delete drafts until three editors have endorsed the deletion. It's not like we can't afford such drafts to wait for more rewiews, even if takes years, they are invisible to readers so spam is not an issue. Ping User:Jclemens who mentioned G13 below. Btw, is there a way to review all drafts in a given topic area, let's say Korea, Poland or sociology? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:43, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, Category:Draft-Class sociology articles and analogous categories will help, although that depends on articles being properly tagged. You could also try a search like this. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:46, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we could ask AfC to add relevant Wikiproject templates to the Talk pages of declined articles that aren't hoaxes/spam - maybe it should become a standard part of AfC when an article is declined, so relevant Wikiprojects would be alerted. If Wikiprojects are involved, articles could be improved and/or reviewers contacted to further discuss why the article was declined, which could influence future behavior. I think mobilizing the community to help review the AfC process, and asking AfC to implement a change to the procedure to assist with that, might help, and at minimum help rescue articles. Especially for very new editors, this could be a major improvement to the process and possibly help with editor retention. Beccaynr (talk) 06:09, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Beccaynr, Yes, that's a very good idea. I for one would be happy to review all declined sociology- and Poland-related drafts, and maybe try to help with Korea too. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I currently monitor AfD for Women-related discussions and would do the same for declined AfC articles. My question is how do we ask AfC to implement such a change? Beccaynr (talk) 06:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure how well that'd go. For one thing, most WikiProjects are inactive. For another, we're faced with a problem of how to sort articles between two categories, so I'm not sure it'll help to split to create a third category based on "hoax/spam or not". {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:57, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

The request could be tailored to ask for the addition of active WikiProjects. My general thought is the request could help address the concerns raised by User:Piotrus about new editors (which I empathize with, because when I was very new, it was not obvious to me as to how to add a template or why it might help with the drafting process), as well as editor retention, and article rescue, and it might help improve the AfC process generally through advocacy and education by more experienced editors. My thought about trying to have some sorting is related to sending articles to WikiProjects that are within the concerns raised by User:Piotrus (e.g. notability, tone, sourcing, citation format), so maybe criteria could be developed to focus on what is most feasible for WikiProjects to review, to help keep the workload manageable. Beccaynr (talk) 15:32, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Beccaynr, I wouldn't worry about inactive WikiProjects, that's a different problem. I like the solution of adding assessment templates - then we could just have a list of drafts in the relevant cleanup categories and they could be included in a listing like this. It would also be very useful if drafts which are being close to deletion (let's say, within a week or month or whatever) could be listed in the WP:Article alerts like Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Article alerts. I find the AA feature great (it can be wachlisted too), and I try to check AA for WPs of my interest every few weeks at least. If I would see 'drafts soon to be deleted there' I could try to help rescue many more that I am simply not aware of otherwise, and I expect many other folks here would do the same. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:05, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

And there's the rub, of course: Voting is easier than fixing, and the latter does not carry appreciably more weight in any discussion. I'll note that I and many others predicted G13 would cause exactly this outcome. Jclemens (talk) 18:46, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• AfC reviewers declining drafts they should accept is not a new problem, unfortunately (we were talking about it the other day on WP:DISCORD), but the 80% metric you got is particularly egregious. The issue is that the incentives are misaligned: accepting a draft that gets AfDed will typically get you blowback from established editors, whereas declining a notable draft rarely does. There is also a WP:Deletion is not cleanup issue; AfC is supposed to be about only whether a draft would survive AfD, but reviewers typically seek to resolve major cleanup issues before accepting, even though that's supposed to be the job of NPPers. Some AfCers do a good, thorough job, but the ones that don't work at a faster pace, magnifying their impact. The process needs structural reform; hopefully we'll figure out a better solution at some point. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• I don't have any good ideas for fixing this but I have added a section on rescuing abandoned drafts to this project's front page. ~Kvng (talk) 14:34, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Mercy dog

"Here I am, send me!"

The new article about the Mercy dog is on the main page currently as a DYK. I'd not heard of these before and so found it quite interesting. The article is well written and so doesn't need any help but, as our mission is a another sort of rescue, other members may appreciate reading it too. And having dogs around is always a good thing, right? Andrew🐉(talk) 14:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I tweaked it and linked it (in and out). Didn't know about these dogs. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:38, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

150,000 page views. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:23, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• They tried to delete Kristoffer Domeij. They tried to delete his picture. But they failed and both appeared on the main page where they were seen by over 30,000 readers. In the top hooks of 2021, he joins the Mercy dog at the top of the chart. An inspirational team for the ARS!

But now the Mercy dog is being threatened again. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Laura Hoffmann

Seeking Germany-based editors with a subscription to WAZ to assist with clarification in AfD discussion regarding Laura Hoffmann Hmlarson (talk) 18:41, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Try WP:REX likely would get a response. -- GreenC 19:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

ARS in the discussions

Talk:Performance (textiles) SOSDD. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion that concerns WP:ARS

I received notice of a discussion. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_is_getting_problematic 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:15, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

It's possible, ARS may end up like WP:MEDCOM & WP:RFC/U, which would likely require an RFC at the appropriate Village Pump page. GoodDay (talk) 19:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:ANI continues

Sigh. Here Riding a rail. A story attributed to Abraham Lincoln has him quoting a victim of being ridden out of town on a rail as having said, "If it weren't for the honor of the thing, I'd just as soon it happened to someone else." Seriously. Walls of text on this project and various editors. An existential attack on WP:ARS. Review and comment if you will. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:44, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

References

• • Maybe if you hadn’t been harboring a personality cult around perennially disruptive and uncivil user Andrew “The Colonel” Davidson we wouldn’t be discussing this. Dronebogus (talk) 18:30, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Collegialithy and respect is a two way street. Just food for thought.

But we have not asked to discipline or disband or silence you or your compatriots. We did not go to WP:ANI.

You've already said your pieces at that page.

But censorship is something I oppose on principle. So feel free to contribute here, as far as I'm concerned. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• • My “compatriots” are an imaginary wiki-cabal. Yours are running this very project which everyone’s fighting about. Dronebogus (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The ANI report, is the first time I've heard about ARS. I sometimes participate in AfD, MfD etc, etc. Personally, I've never felt any hostility (to my memory) from any editors, who didn't 'vote' the way I did. GoodDay (talk) 07:07, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Not winners and losers. Full discussion and review helps. And when there is an outcome, one lives with it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:41, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Redirecting the Article Rescue Squadron

Recently I have spent most of my time on Wikipedia 'rescuing' articles that have been put up for deletion too hastily. During this time, I have been aware of the ARS but I have not joined the project. ARS seems to just focus on responding to WP:AfD discussions, with participants highlighting the discussions that they feel warrant attention. There are of course already compilations of pages up for deletion on Wikipedia and putting the spotlight on specific discussions seemed a little pointless.

The current debate at WP:ANI has revealed that this approach is problematic and has given some editors a negative impression of the project. I think that this project could be used in a much more positive way.

Proposal

Remove most if not all of the deletion related (particularly AfD) content from the main project pages. ARS should be about rescuing articles about notable topics that require attention. Whether the article is up for deletion does not need to come into it.

In the future it would be great if the ARS could become part of the WP:BEFORE process as an WP:ATD, where editors who find an article that is not good enough in its current form, but that might be notable, could nominate it for improvement instead of deletion. There are plenty of articles that are nominated for deletion solely because they don't have sufficient references or are written badly. If this project collaborated with nominators more effectively articles could be sent here directly.

If there is consensus for this course of action I would be happy to join the project and help to enact this proposal! SailingInABathTub (talk) 23:46, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I self censor my votes. If I run across an AFD nomination, and I can't add sources and/or don't think it should be kept, I do not vote. My voting record will support that, and actually prove that most of the articles on which I vote are in fact kept. And it ordinarily is because the articles were improved, which is the basic point of WP:ARS. That it was kept and improved is a net plus for Wikipedia.

Purging the article improvers for a tactical advantage at AFDs is not in the long term best interests of Wikipedia.

Purging those who vote Keep at AFD and provide reasons (e.g., Andrew and Lightburst at the discussions; and 7&6=thirteen by improving the text and sourcing in the article itelf, and then linking at the AFD to to the improvement) does not help the AFD process produce a principled result.

If there is a consensus ot delete or merge, so be it. reasonable minds may differ. YMMV.

Stifling voices with a prior restraint and purge of those with whom you disagree is bad for the encyclopedia. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:56, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposal - part 2

It may also be good etiquette for ARS members who find an AfD through the project, and go on to improve the article, to not vote in the discussion. They could just leave a comment that the article has been improved by the ARS. Improving an article normally triggers a vote 'reset' at AfD anyway and significantly improved articles are often kept. SailingInABathTub (talk) 00:20, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

A lot of the complaining involves articles that were not listed at WP:ARS. When it is not listed, there is no requirement for anyone to put the discussion listiing template in at the AFD.

Because of the sabotage of ARS listings by trollish behavior of some editors (they made the same arguments at the AFD pages) the number of listed articles has been in steady decline.

Listing at WP:ARS is like ringing the dinner bell for the Great White Sharks (Chumming the water so to speak) who then pounce on an AFD they might have overlooked. And thus seek to delete the article. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:36, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

AFDs should be open to anyone who's not topic-banned from them. Best to let the closing editor evaluate the 'keep' and 'delete' votes & discussions. GoodDay (talk) 06:29, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion 3

This is brainstorming. Find articles that were deleted months or years ago (eg. Deletionwiki) and redo from scratch -- if warranted. Advantages: gives time for the old AfD to cool off. Essentially same as HEY during an AfD, but doesn't trigger ire in the middle of an AfD. Doesn't require AfD participation which has negatives for attendees when done too often. Gives unlimited time to work on draft no 30-day window. Can have 100s open and working on at once. Could optionally work offline and move into Wiki if ready. Optionally use AfC for neutral approval. In the end, achieves same result as current ARS, only change is process. Only works if new article is HEY-level improvement. -- GreenC 03:12, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Recommend waiting six months after an article has been deleted, before starting a draft to re-create said article. If draft article is accepted & becomes an article, but later 'again' deleted via a new AfD? then wait 12 months, before repeating draft process. Each rejection, increasing waiting period by six months. GoodDay (talk) 06:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion 4

One thing I've never understood is the interest in "rescuing" deleted or about-to-be deleted articles. Like Big John (dinosaur). Who cares about Big John? Why do people put so much effort into an article like that, yet those same people don't put effort into an article like Dinosaur or Triceratops. Many, many more readers read the Dinosaur article (100k page views) than Big John (dinosaur) (less than 2k). Who gives a damn if Big John has its own page, or is just listed on a list of fossils... why put so much effort into something of so little notability and interest while ignoring the much more important related article? It makes no sense to me. There are so many articles that aren't deleted that need improvement.

Nothing important is lost when these marginally-notable articles get deleted. Deletion doesn't erase knowledge, it just moves it to a different page. If Big John (dinosaur) were deleted, it's not like Wikipedia would not cover Big John, or some meaningful information about dinosaurs would be lost to the world. It would just be on a different page. Why fight it so hard? Editors get themselves sanctioned fighting to save a tiny hill (Big John) but totally ignore the giant mountain (Dinosaur). The thing everyone can do to help is to improve articles that people actually read, instead of being so focused on stopping or undoing deletion.

In other words, stop trying to rescue articles as if "articles" were something special. As if a web page merited rescuing. That it's a separate article, or a separate web page, is just a feature of an organization system. It's the content that matters not the web page. Instead of rescuing articles, rescue content, no matter what page it's on. Did Big John (dinosaur) get deleted? Then let's make sure Big John is covered well on the appropriate page. Don't fight tooth and nail with your colleagues over how the encyclopedia is organized (what info is on a separate page and what info is merged on the same page): instead, work to preserve the content itself rather than the organizational structure of the content. Levivich 14:08, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Conversely, who cares that there is an article at Big John (dinosaur), so that these deletion discussions go on for days and pages. One thing I've never understood is the interest in deleting articles when there are lots of WP:RS sources and there is interest in the readership communnity. Easily meets WP:GNG. WP:Preserve. AFD notices have links to all those souces for a reason. WP:Before should be done well, not pro forma. And article was improved substantially, showing the noncompliance. The weight of the verbiage on this "tiny hill" was posted by those favoring delete. And they put in a lot of effort to do it, and engaged in WP:Personal attacks. There was no harm in having this article. You should have given in to reason and effort.

Article was kept. Ignoring the article's improvements and turning this all into the Wikipedia equivalent of trench warfare accomplished ... a lot of wasted editor time.

Take your own advice. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:44, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

For me the problem with articles like Big John (dinosaur) is that they get to down into the weeds with minutiae, often to the point of being hard to read and dull. All just so some ARS member can get a win against the other side. Articles should be a summary of the topic. Not a mini dissertation on nonsense that no one outside of a paleontologists cares about, like how complete each individual bone of the dinosaur is. Otherwise, there's nothing that separates the Wikipedia from the original source and your just going through the motions of creating generic articles to score points. Like the Big John article says "The skeleton measured 3 metres high and 8 metres long" and the reference the information comes from says "Those bones form a skeleton 8m long by 3m high." At that point there's literally zero difference between the Wikipedia article and the original source, but at least there's an article "shrug." --Adamant1 (talk) 18:57, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I feel your pain. But WP:I don't like it is not a reason to delete. Too many notes.

The honorable thing for a deletion nominator to do when an article was improved and the nomination proves to have been improvidently made, is to withdraw the nomination. See here. There is no shame in admitting a mistake was made, or that your view of the world has changed now that you are better informed. Not dig in. There is good lesson there. If that happened more, there would be reciprocity. Instead, we are treated to walls of text repeating and repeating and then echoing and reechoing the same arguments in a single discussion. Why?

We are all on the same team. This is not a win/lose Zero sum game; wikipedia is enhanced by artile improvement, even it is done as the byproduct of an AFD. We have a symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately, there are those out there who believe that dissension deserves a WP:death penalty.

Nobody from WP:ARS has invoked WP:ANI. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:07, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Both sides in a WP:AFD ought to say their piece, and then move on.

Both sides in a WP:AFD ought to remember that WP:AGF is essential.

I would explain that mentioning WP:Before is not a personal attack. To be sure, a nominator may have done a search, but a failure to uncover/discover extant sources (perhaps because of ineptitude, incompetence, laziness or other distraction) is fair game. This becomes relatively self evident when the article has been vastly improved.

Likewise, when an article and its sourcing is improved, WP:HEY can be used. Obviously, not everyone may agree on its applicability, so that can be discussed.

We will not all agree on anything. Diversity of viewpoint and perspective is one of Wikipedia's strengths. You should revel in it, and foster it for the betterment of the encyclopedia. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:21, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

A lot of the ANI stuff could have been avoided if specific ARS members had of admitted to their mistakes from the start. Lightburst did, but it was a little to late. Although I still commend him for doing so. Even though he went off the rails later in the ArbCom complaint, but I understand where he's coming from. In the meantime it's nonsense to say nobody from WP:ARS invoked WP:ANI. That's because no one from ARS has the social capital to. Andrew was blocked due to a 25/4 "vote." So no one would have taken an ANI complaint from him seriously if he had of filed one. That said, he did lobby for me to be blocked and for my edits to be revert several times. So it's not like you all prefer the moral high ground or whatever. Also, WP:Before is a personal attack when the nominator said they did one and you are still calling them out about it. Either way though, there's zero point in even bringing it up the first place. It makes absolutely no difference to the AfD and just makes things needlessly contentious. Even if that's not your intent. So why even bother with it? --Adamant1 (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Invocation of policy does not amount to a personal attack. You may have thought you did it, but it was poorly done. I have been personally attacked for mentioning WP:Before. The subjective reaction by the draftor of a poorly considered AFD is no reason to expunge that fact. Noncompliance with WP:Before ought not to be censored.

I would be the first to acknowledge that an AFD nominator may have tried to do a search before the nomination, and have a good faith belief in the righeousness of their cause. But whether they did if effectively or not is a straight question of fact and appliction of the policy to the evidence.

Sorry that you are that thin-skinned, even at its mention. I was not here directing it at you. This was always context dependent. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:46, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about me. That said, I find it pretty funny that your calling me thin skinned considering how your attitude has been about this and the friends you keep. Anyway, it depends on how it's done. For instance in Articles_for_deletion/Daniella_van_Graas you were pretty harsh to the nominator about them not doing a BEFORE. Even after the nominator and another user told you multiple times that they did one. Nowhere in that conversation were you just saying the WP:Before was poorly done and no one is trying to censor you by saying such behavior is disruptive to the process.

If you want my honest opinion about it, I just see the whole WP:Before thing as a petty, lazy, and infective tactic to try and poison the well. Ultimately its just nonsensical noise. Which seems to be the point to it. Since I think a lot of ARS member's tactics revolve around adding noise to AfD discussions in order derail them. Anytime there's a contentious 6 message long back and forth about the minutia of certain policies it's a discussion that is much harder to read over and isn't about the article. Which is usually a win for you guys. At least in the short term. In the long-term it leads to ARS members being blocked, but such is life. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:14, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

So you say that Daniella van Graas shows that they did an effective search? You have your opinion. I have mine. Truth ought to have some relevance here.

And yes, you are showing us your power. Not good judgment. Bad policy. Own it and live with it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:40, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

No I'm saying that you acted disruptively about it. Own it and live with it dude. It's almost like you think you and other ARS members don't have any social agency in any of this. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

No point in disputing the opinion of the true believer. We will have to agree to disagree. The article was kept. Over and out. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:27, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

What exactly am I true believer of? Or are you saying your one? --Adamant1 (talk) 21:31, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Figure it out.

I was trying to make suggestions and react to suggestions to fix the problem, not fix the blame.

This dispute has been going on for years. Penalties, threats and confrontation have not worked.

We need to try Alternate dispute resolution, and mutually find an agreeable solution that will address the full panoply of the problems.

If you think that WP:ARS was the only part of the problem that needs fixing, you need to think again. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 01:03, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

(Levivich) As we 'now' know, Big John survived his AfD. I 'voted' for his deletion, but it ain't bugging me that he was kept. Perhaps that's the key, when participating in an AfD. Be cool, ignore any bludgeoning against you & don't let it faze you, if the AfD doesn't turn out the way you hoped it would have. GoodDay (talk) 04:55, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

AfD is a good example of a modern day honor culture, which contrasts with cultures of law. AfD was meant to be a culture of law, but there is so much leeway over notability and reliable sources, plus inconsistency in closing and drv, it has become an honor culture. In honor cultures, reputation is everything, and anyone who besmirches one's reputation requires a strong response to maintain one's credibility. Blood and family feuds, duels, fights and wars are common. Law enforcement has trouble dealing with it. The solution to honor cultures is strong law enforcement, something that seems beyond the capabilities of admins due in part to the large number of AfDs (a territory hard to enforce, due to geography or other reasons, is another characteristic of honor cultures). -- GreenC 05:38, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

That's a pretty coherent analysis. I put it as much on the ambiguity of the notability guidelines as I anything else though. There's to many topics that either don't have specific notability guidelines or they contradict themselves and the wider ones. The way to make AfD a sane process is for both sides to come together and clarify the notability guidelines in a way that deals with the their ambiguity. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:01, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

• Quite Frankly I’d support any and all alternative outlets for ARS to pursue that don’t involve AfD participation, which is how this whole fiasco got started. Everything that can be done to veer this away from ultra-inclusionist canvassing antics is a net positive in my view. Dronebogus (talk) 06:35, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not to concerned with ARS being involved in AfDs, but it just shouldn't be their main thing. There's merit in having a non subject specific article improvement project. I don't see why ARS can't do it. There just has to be some reforms first. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:01, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

"Whatever happens. Your toes are still tappin". -- GoodDay (talk) 07:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

AN/I thread regarding User:7&6=thirteen

There’s a discussion that involves you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#7&6=thirteen%E2%80%99s_behavior_hasn%E2%80%99t_improved Dronebogus (talk) 14:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

The firearms are on the table for all to see. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:17, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment: And the section heading of Lovenote from User:Dronebogus involving me and WP:ARS I suppose is being repeatedly deleted. I think this is wrong. In any event, I own this comment. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:28, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

The section heading has been renamed, not deleted. And you do not "own" the heading: WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN. MrsSnoozyTurtle 23:01, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

This additional discussion deserves mention here. The continued hostility evidenced here by all the participants speaks for itself. They get to say what they want, but it deserves memory. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:10, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Remediation of problematic deprods by Andrew Davidson

The recent ANI at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1083#Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_is_getting_problematic was closed after discussion died down. One of the outcomes was to topic ban Andrew Davidson (talk · contribs) from deletion-related activities due to chronic problems at AfD and deprodding low-quality articles without explanation. The one who proposed this sanction, Piotrus (talk · contribs), provided a handy link that lists all generic deprods by Andrew D on articles that haven't been deleted. I'd recommend going through this list to identify pages that could be sent to AfD after that; I've already identified List of largest megalopolises, Strange but true, and List of Algonquin Chiefs among the most recent ones. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:52, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this. Would there be a way to copy this into a project subpage so we can mark the ones that are already checked, deleted or redirected? –dlthewave ☎ 04:55, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

As a side to this, I was just looking through the old AfDs that are listed at ARS and also ended in no-consensus. A large amount of them have completely nonsensical block voting and bickering over clearly trivial sources by ARS members. So it might be worth relisting the more contentious ones to see if there can be clearer outcomes with them now. --Adamant1 (talk) 14:10, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Amidst a daily flood of AFD nominations, you want do-overs when you did not get the result you favored. Try improving the articles. You are at WP:ARS, and that's what we do. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Re-listing articles that are closed as no consensus is pretty uncontroversial and happens all the time. If the articles were actually notable and worth keeping then there's zero reason you would care. If anything re-listing articles is just another opportunity for them to be improved. In the meantime, trying to use no-consensus outcomes as de-facto keeps is blatantly gaming the system. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:55, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Likewise, taking articles to AFD that were 'Kept is blatantly gaming the system. Waste of valuable editor time and effort. Articles should be given time to develop. The telescope has two ends. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It depends on how long it's been since the original AfD and if the guidelines have changed in the meantime. For instance it's perfectly reasonable to relist articles about schools now that the community has decided they aren't de-facto notable anymore. That said, I agree that re-listing articles that closed as keep is a waste of time in 99% of the cases and from what I can remember it's not something I've done myself. That said, if someone re-lists a keep then your free to take it up with them. That people do re-list keeps when they shouldn't be doesn't mean your behavior in the meantime isn't gaming the system though. Two wrongs don't make a right. There's a point where "well, other people do it though" isn't a valid excuse for bad behavior and ARS members (including you) are long past it. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:44, 22 November 2021 (UTC)