Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 8

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Archive 8

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What in the world is going on to the project page

Why was the merger text reverted with the edit summary "rvv" (which, to me, stands for "revert vandalism"). I mean, there are some real questions as to why this merger may not have been proper, but lets hash them out rather than reverting things left and right. Protonk (talk) 19:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

So many times I have attempted to herd cats. This involves inflating egos, giving empty compliments, etc., to attempt to get things changed.

Today I figured I had two choices:

1. wait months to get glacial change, in which time I would have probably lost interest, or
2. be bold and make those changes.

I love the concept of wikipedia, but I hate what deletionists are doing to wikipedia. I didn't choose my user name on a whim. I wrote essays about deletionists and argued with deletionists for years because I believe in inclusionism. That is why I made these radical changes.

If I offended anyone, I am deeply sorry. I sincerely believe that these changes are for the better, as I outlined above. If needs be I will try to rectify any concerns that anyone has here. Inclusionist (talk) 19:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not here to accuse anyone of thoughtcrime, but you seem to have a pretty dim view of the consensus method and the inertia it begets. As I pointed out above, I'm sure the WICU merger would have been relatively uncontroversial if you had pressed for discussion. The AIW/Incl merger, maybe not so much, but this is a work in progress.

On the other hand, this pretty much exemplifies the WP:BRD process. Now that you've stirred the hornets nest, we all have to talk about it. So let's talk about it. Protonk (talk) 19:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for Merger Reaction

So, we've been merged now. Reactions currently seemed mixed, and it's difficult to figure out how to respond since the normal process at WP:Merge wasn't followed. Since it looks to me like this took a whole hell of a lot of work, I think we should be very careful about not undoing things that really should've been done. We don't want to have to repeat the work, and this seems like clearly a good faith effort. Anyway, I want to propose the following:

Unmerge Wikipedia:WikiProject Inclusion and meta:Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians

ARS has a long history of declaring itself to not simply be a project of inclusionists, and in fact has members who identify as deletionist. This has been because the project has held that its goal is not to change policy or argue on talk pages, but rather to improve article pages. While it is probably a fair assumption that inclusionist members would support the ARS, it is not fair to assume that ARSers support inclusionism. ARS is not the same thing as an association of inclusionist members, and it should not be lumped in with them. Vickser (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Vickser (talk) 20:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
2. Protonk (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
3. I also find this alarming. We should revert this and ask those wishing to merger to start that process instead. Banjeboi 21:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment

• As far as I can see, the meta project has already completely reverted back, so discussion on this seems moot. I don't think a cross-project merger would've been appropriate anyway. –xeno (talk) 20:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
  • You're right. Both inclusionist pages opposed the merger enough that they reverted themselves back to their normal pages. So, in practice it seems as if this proposal has already happened. Vickser (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Oh the legalize argument, I was waiting for that. No one has yet discussed why these changes would be beneficial, this discussion was lost after the idefinetely banned sock started posting and the WP:ANI. Inclusionist (talk) 21:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
      • As far as discussion of "why these changes would be beneficial," I think you're going to have to lead the way on that one. Personally, I don't think these changes are a good idea. Seemingly, most others don't either. Vickser (talk) 21:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggest {{rescue}} be mentioned in the AfD Deletion policy article

I would have added it myself, but I'm not sure how you would want to position rescuing after AfD nomination vs. using improvement templates as an alternative to nominating for deletion. Once an article has been AfD-nominated, would you add two tags to rescue it? For example: "{{rescue}}{{npov}}" rather than just "{{rescue}}". Anyway, good luck with your work ...I rescued Bed management from AfD recently so I have some idea what the task involves: I knew nothing whatsoever about the subject until I decided to rescue it! - Pointillist (talk) 22:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Since {{rescue}} is tied directly to the AfD procedure, the page to mention the template would be Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Since that is the page documenting the procedure. However the template is already mentioned at that page. Taemyr (talk) 22:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

And nice work on Bed management. Taemyr (talk) 23:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Terry Ananny

Please see talk page of article re: Terry Ananny Canadian UNICEF Artist which states that Terry Ananny is a Canadian artist with notable collections such as Ottawa Senators Hockey Club, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Ottawa General Hospital - Riverside Campus, CTV Television Corporation, Global Television, Canada House (Canadian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium) and Canadian Medical Association. Her work has illustrated the cover of Canadian Health Services Research Foundation 2000 Annual Report Cover [1] Her work has been selected by UNICEF [2]for greeting cards in the years 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004 (three cards), 2006, 2007, 2008 and just recently selected for UNICEF's Christmas in Canada 2010 greeting card collection. Her work has appeared on Canada Save the Children cards in 1999, Children's Wish Foundation cards [3] work selected 2006, 2007 and 2008, Mount Sinai Hospital card [4] work selected 2007 and Canadian Greetings card [5] work selected 2006, 2007 and 2008. Her work was chosen by the Quebec Ministry of Education for their 2008 video "Art Speaks", which was distributed throughout the English school board in Quebec. Cornerstone 52 Foundation - Cards Helping Kids[6] [7] has selected Ananny's work to appear on greeting cards in 2006 and 2007. Large corporations have also selected Ananny's work to appear on corporate greeting cards; Amway 2004, Reynolds Mirth Richards and Farmers 2005, Blake, Cassels and Graydon 2007. Her work has appeared on the CD cover "Chantons Noel" 2005 (CPM Distribution). Her work has been collected by Jean Charest, Quebec Liberal Party Residence, Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Terry Ananny is listed in the following government libraries: Artists in Canada - National Gallery of Canada[8] Art Gallery of Ontario[9] Musee d'art Contemporain de Montreal [10]. Ananny has also attained notability through having over one thousand paintings in corporate and private collections world wide... User:Jane Rushmore June 23, 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 04:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Update. This was deleted and looks like we could have saved it per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Terry Ananny. Banjeboi 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Rescuing the Warhammer and Ace Combat stuff

Alternatives to rescue the articles themseleves would be to merge and redirect some of them into character lists and other articles. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles I will be AFDing

In the spirit of co-operation, I've been asked to give you a heads up on the other warhammer articles I will be AFD'd in the next future - this is to give you an opportunity to "rescue them" and avoid the process. I'll check back in two weeks. The articles are:

• Adeptus Custodes
• Age of Strife
• Alien Hunters (Warhammer 40,000)
• Astronomican
• Dark Eldar
• Daemonhunters
• Deathwatch (Warhammer 40,000)
• Ecclesiarchy
• Eldar Harlequins
• Genestealer
• Goge Vandire
• Grey Knights
• High Lords of Terra
• Immaterium
• List of Space Marine Chapters
• List of Chaos Space Marines
• Malal
• Nero Vipus
• Nurgle
• Psyker
• Saul Tarvitz
• Slaanesh
• Sisters of Battle
• Squig
• The Lost and the Damned
• Tyranid genetics
• Tyranid Titans
• Vehicles of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)
• Vehicles of the Space Marines (Warhammer 40,000)
• Vehicles of the Tau Empire (Warhammer 40,000)
• Warrior Genus (Warhammer 40,000)

--Allemandtando (talk) 09:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I am going through them today for the quick grammar and format fixes to get the ball rolling. I have also notified The Intensive Care Unit to seek additional help. --Happy Festival of Castor and Pollux! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that edit summary is to get plenty of attention - see here. --Allemandtando (talk) 21:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You know, to be honest I'm not convinced any of those articles are about encyclopedic topics. With all due respect to LGRdC and others who believe those articles are rescue worthy, articles that get tagged for rescue will only get rescued if individual members of ARS agree with the initial assessor and decide they want to put in the work to source, wikify and expand the articles. Personally, I'm not a big believer in putting too much fictional in world stuff on wikipedia because it tends to be relatively thin on third party sources. I'd rather save things like Anchor store, New Jersey School Report Card and GayNZ.com, to name some recent examples of rescued articles. I'd say, if you do want to try out an ARS perspective, don't blindly try to save articles you otherwise believe should be deleted. Instead, take a look at things as they get listed, find one or two that interest you, and hit up some databases to see what sources you can find and improvements you can make. Just as ARS isn't about stacking keep votes, it's also not about saving things that you don't think are encyclopedic. Look at the ARS list not as a definitive "this is encylopedic and should be saved" but rather as a helpful reference of some topics that others thought fit that criterion, and then apply your own judgment. From what I can tell, that's what the other ARSers do, and if you want to try looking at things the ARS way, that's what I'd recommend you do as well. Vickser (talk) 22:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure - It's unlikely that I'm going to become an inclusionist (as we define the term here) on the issue of a lot of the fictional articles but frankly my current course of action was going to lead to lots of drama and maybe this is a way of avoiding that - I have access to a lot of very good databases and sources and was an academic researcher before I decided I liked driving a real big car with really shitty mileage, so while I'm not going to be flapping around at AFD saying "keep! keep!" - it does mean that I might be able to find some RS that will keep a notable subject/and or article alive or indeed try and add some real world commentary or scholarly analysis to article where you might not expect to see it --Allemandtando (talk) 00:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I have listed Goge Vandire and Nero Vipus for deletion, and prodded Saul Tarvitz. Since I consider these as obsucere enough that I fail to imagine any secondary sources giving significant coverage. Taemyr (talk) 01:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

New project talkpage template

I've created a wikiproject permanent and talkpage template for us to go on articles created for this project - like our template and category pages. This isn't for Article to be rescued. Banjeboi 00:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Swimming with dolphins

Update. this one was saved! Woo-hoo! Banjeboi 12:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD Questions

How come WP:AFD is within the scope of this project? I asked this question at WT:AFD and was directed to come here. Protonk (talk) 16:01, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you think the ARS aspires to rescue articles from? Where do you think ARS volunteers devote their intention? The preceding questions were rhetorical, the antecedent is not: as an editor quite familiar with AfD and ARS, and who ought to understand the function of each, what is the motivation behind your question? Sincerely, Skomorokh 16:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

that's kind of snide. Sure my question was bent at an aim but you could have just said so instead of asking questions like that in response. I asked the question why rather than made the statement "I don't think it is appropriate for the ARS to declare AfD to be in the purview of the project" because I wasn't sure what the reasoning for the banner decision was. I didn't want to crap in someone's cornflakes only to find out that there was some really cool reason why.

but I'll try to answer your questions on face. Obviously ARS rescues articles from deletion (the template instructions make that explicit). Presumably ARS volunteers devote their attention to rescuing articles nominated for deletion. But WP:AFD is a process page. It isn't a project page. To me ARS is there to rectify errors made in deletion nominations by improving the article. The process itself and discussion therein are not related to the rescue squad any more than any process or policy page is. Protonk (talk) 16:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if I came off as snide, but the question did seem disingenuous. If you are wondering why the banner was placed, you could asked Benjiboy who added it. Wikiprojects routinely tag pages (including non-article pages) within their scope, and AfD is certainly seems within the scope of the ARS. The tag doesn't doe much except categorize the page; no big deal I figure. Is it the possibly territorial nature of the claim which worries you? There is consensus that WikiProjects don't need outside permission to tag pages they feel to be within their scope (a recentish ANI thread I think).Skomorokh 16:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so much looking to grant permission as much as I am looking for a reason. I'll ask benjiboi but I'm sure he'll (?) be along eventually to respond in this thread. Also, if this was a consensus decision someone else should be able to provide an affirmative reason. If not, I'm inclined to propose that the tag be removed. Protonk (talk) 17:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Tags don't need consensus or affirmative readings, this is overly dramatic I think. An project participant deemed a certain page to be within the remit of the project, and tagged it accordingly; this is how 99% of tagging takes place. Project tags are cheap and without negative ramifications (unless placed on irrelevant pages). Skomorokh 17:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I know. I'm not trying to stir up drama. I just don't think it is appropriate to be there but I'm happy to be told why I'm wrong. Protonk (talk) 17:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, not to speak for Benjiboy, but as the general mission of ARS is to rescue articles proposed for deletion (otherwise, it's not much of a "rescue"), I would think that AFD~=the scope of ARS. --Rindis (talk) 17:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Protonk here, it's extremely difficult to see how the project page WP:Articles for deletion, is within the scope of the project. Taemyr (talk) 20:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm a member of the ARS and actually also thought it was a little off-putting when I saw the tag up on AFD, for what it's worth. That said, it is vaguely connected, and I don't think it does any harm. While I wouldn't put it there myself, I don't think it's a particularly big deal one way or the other. Vickser (talk) 20:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

This project only exists because a number of editors here seem to believe that the AfD process is flawed, being abused or most likely both. Likewise a number of editors feel AfD is clean-up; appropriate instead of tagging for clean-up, fixing it themselves or otherwise improving articles through regular editing which the AfD says should occur. I believe it still says that "if an article can be improved through regular editing, it is not a good candidate for AfD." Agree that there are many borderline cases but we aren't seeing a lot of thoughtful discussions prior to AfD, instead the vast majority are simply nominated and too often AfD becomes a battleground which makes editing here unpleasant. Outside our wikiverse are regular reports and examples how people get around what they see as deletionism or simply note the fighting. Quite a few articles are deleted not because they aren't notable content but because too few people are putting out AfD fires and there seems little let-up in this flow. Unless the AfD process starts requiring more rigorous steps be followed; like editors go through a few steps to verify that they have made even a cursory search for sources (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fag stag for example), that editors demonstrate that they have engaged to discuss their concerns in addition to slapping a tag, like notifying wikiprojects on each article, then we are going to be here for a while. As for the project tag I feel it's totally appropriate, we exist solely because the AfD process isn't working for various reasons. If there is a "Delete the Cruft Wikiproject" I would support them having their tag as well. We're all here to improve Wikipedia and have different styles of doing so. Anyone willing to improve the AfD process so this project no longer has any articles to rescue would seem like a good thing to me. Banjeboi 21:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) My 2 cents We, as article rescuers have an inherent requirement to be aware of what's in AfD. We may be the final liferaft for those articles. We may edit the during their time in AfD, and bring them up to par. For that reason alone, AfD falls under the scope of ARS. We don't OWN it, we don't SPONSOR it, we're just AWARE of it. I'm note sure why the connection isn't obvious. But hey, then again, I'm Canadian :-) BMW(drive) 21:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I have a different impression of what the ARS is meant to do. Delete the cruft wikiprojects have been rejected by the community (at MfD's) as canvassing projects. Likewise if this becomes a project motivated by the impression that the AfD process is fundamentally broken such that worthwhile articles are deleted regularly, we should look to dissolving it as well. I won't press this issue further because I'm unlikely to convince you that the AfD process functions reasonably well and I don't have the fight in me to argue about it for pages. Suffice it to say, if your understanding of the purpose of ARS is to fix the "broken" AfD process I think it might seem a tad polemical to put the ARS tag over WT:AFD. Protonk (talk) 21:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

While I would not have added the tag on that page (I actually think the relationship is the other way around), I feel a need to respond to this. Are you suggesting that articles about encyclopedic subjects are not deleted as a result of the current process on a regular basis? No minimum time beofre nomination, no requirement for nominators to at least have tried to fix the article by editing it, no need to show that policy and not guidelines are violated as a legitimate reason for deletion. The process may not be broken, but it is certainly bent. There are numerous examples of ARS doing exactly what every editor should strive to do - compile and preserve properly sourced and written articles on every subject that can have an article written about it. You write above that any project based on the idea that AfD doesn't work should be eliminated for pointing out that opinion. I have to disagree. It is a valid opinion, and eliminating the dissidents is not the way to deal with the issue. Jim Miller (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

In a word, yes. I'm suggesting that the "failure rate" (here only considering false positives) is much lower than we guess anecdotally. I've made this argument at WT:AFD but I'll repeat it here (shorter, I promise) for clarity. There are strong structural and procedural safeguards against deletion of a compliant article. The AfD is open to all and available from a central location. the AfD lasts five days (honestly more than enough time). The nominator must present an affirmative case for deletion (or, barring that, a commenter must). Benefit of the doubt leans toward the article. Review exists for process problems. These are non-trivial protections against deletion. If you don't believe me watch what happens when an article that meats WP:N/V/NOR gets nominated (happens all the time). The usual result is a snow keep. NOW, if you mean notable topics, I'm sure that happens. That also doesn't worry me. If a topic is potentially notable but the article doesn't have sources and no one in five days gets off their ass to look for sources, I don't have a problem with deleting the topic. Once someone clicks that red link and creates an article that meets policies and guidelines it is good to go. As for the merits of the project, I agree with you specifically. The goal of the ARS should be the goal of all editors: to improve articles so they can be retained. However that goal has nothing to do with treating the AfD process as adversarial, which seems to be the case here.

You mention this: "You write above that any project based on the idea that AfD doesn't work should be eliminated for pointing out that opinion. I have to disagree. It is a valid opinion, and eliminating the dissidents is not the way to deal with the issue." I'm not sure that is a fair characterization of my opinion. I noted that "fancruft" projects were rightly rejected by the community because they were effectively canvassing efforts aimed at deleting content. I then moved on to note that projects whose primary goals are to treat a community process as fundamentally flawed and thus (presumably) to work against it ought to be treated with suspicion. Some projects are very helpful, but some are not. If the ARS turns into a project that treats AfD as hostile and pushes for a practice of broad standards of inclusion through AfD debate, there is a serious issue at stake. ARS should work on the presumption that AfD is working fine but lacks editors willing to provide sources. in other words, you should be able to assume that articles deleted that have your badge would have been saved but for lack of effort. What I'm seeing here are editors who feel that articles which have had sufficient effort put into them are being deleted anyway. That's not a problem. That opinion isn't my concern. I'm not interested in eliminating the dissidents. I'm interested in the reasoning behind the banner addition to WT:AFD and the responses are certainly intriguing. Protonk (talk) 22:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest that this project exists to fix AfD but that this project exists because AfD is not working quite right. If AfD is fixed to the point that this project is no longer useful because articles that shouldn't be deleted aren't then I would move on to what I was doing before - building and improving articles. Frankly the problem may be even further upstream where new articles need to be vetted with a minimum of content and sourcing by more experienced editors before even seeing the light of day. I doubt such a system will be readily embraced but it may curb much of the problem as we are amongst an article's very last chance. Banjeboi 23:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think a big part of the problem is that the tag says that AfD is under the "scope" of the ARS, which is a bit disingenuous. AfD is a community process. This, more or less, is a WikiProject specializing in improving articles at AfD. Saying that a community process is under the scope of a WikiProject implies that AfD is part of ARS, regardless of what the original intention was. If the tag was changed, then I think that would resolve some of the problems here (perhaps say that the ARS participates in AfD or similar). Note that I'm not saying the ARS is a bad thing; on the contrary, I think it's a good venture to possibly improve would-be-deleted articles, but the tag itself probably should be modified. sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 01:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Our tag is based on other wikiproject tags so that particular wording is widely in use. Certainly tweaking the grammar a bit could help here though. I'll have a look at some other wikiproject tags and see if there is some more NPOV wording. Banjeboi 19:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Lol. well that didn't take too long! Quite a few do use "within the scope of _____", others use "___ is a part of _____", a third option seems to be "supported by _____". I'm not sure any of these is terrific but does anyone have suggestions of what may work better? If not I'm inclined to simply switch to "supported by" as being the least problematic towards this issue. Banjeboi 19:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, the banners there are now nested and i feel this is somewhat resolved as, ironically, the multibanner heading reads "This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:" so "scope" is just a readily used term so perhaps all project banners should be rewritten instead. Banjeboi 17:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)