Talk:List of Strawberry Shortcake fillies

This article was nominated for deletion on May 12, 2008. The result of the discussion was merge and redirect to List of Strawberry Shortcake characters.

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A new header has been added to the top of the article, explaining that there is a "consensus" to merge this to List of Strawberry Shortcake characters. I am baffled at this conclusion. There were nine delete votes, six keep votes, four merge votes, and one keep or merge vote. By what logic does that translate into a consensus to merge? There was no consensus here; none of the positions even received a majority, let alone a consensus. I would suggest that, since a majority of participants—11 out of 20—were in favor of keeping the content (either independently or as part of another article), we should thus exclude the delete votes from consideration and decide whether to keep or merge based on which of those two positions got more support, in which case we should keep this as an independent article. Everyking (talk) 10:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, AfD is not a vote. (And a correction to your vote totals. It was five keep, four merge, and two keep-or-merge. And one of the delete !votes was delete-or-merge). It is the resposibility of the closing admin to read each opinion, look closely at what each person is saying, and also consider how it fits in with precedent and policy. If you read the keep !votes again, several of them cited the 32K limit as a reason for not merging. However, as I noted in the closing statement, the 32K limit is no longer a hard and fast rule, so it won't prevent a merge. While several of the keep !votes argued that the fillies have real-world notability, no one offered sources to back this up so there wasn't a strong argument made that the article meets WP:N.

Merge and keep are two flavors of the same thing -- all the information is preserved and available to readers, and often the original article is left as a redirect. Later any editor (not just an admin) can come along and change it back, although it's generally considered bad form to do so without getting some consensus first or addressing the issues which caused people to feel a merge was appropriate.

I do understand you are frustrated that I didn't close the article as keep, which is how you !voted. If I could offer some friendly advice, it would be that most admins when closing AfDs tend to discount !votes that are of the form "per User:xxx" when that !vote offers no additional insight, well-reasoned argument, or rationale. The most helpful !votes are ones that (correctly) cite policy, complete with links to the policy and reasons why the policy applies. Hope that helps. --Fabrictramp (talk) 15:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When a closing admin argues that "AfD is not a vote", what they are actually arguing is that they should be allowed a wide degree of discretion over the outcome. As a result, it doesn't help your argument, because the fact that you are asserting discretion doesn't change what people actually said during the AfD. It isn't appropriate for you to discount votes because you personally think it's OK to merge articles into an already long main article; the 32K limit is still a perfectly valid grounds for opposing a merge, and subarticles are always being split out of larger articles for this reason. Furthermore, your response makes it clear that you don't believe there was a consensus to merge, despite the notice you added to the top of the article; you just personally think it's the best solution. Let me also note, since you're offering me advice, that merge and delete isn't an option under the GFDL and the original article must be redirected (not just "often"). Everyking (talk) 19:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry if my response wasn't clear enough -- I do think there was a consensus to merge. Also, please note that I never said merge and delete was an option. --Fabrictramp (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can a minority viewpoint represent a consensus? Everyking (talk) 22:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reading through all the text, I didn't see it as a minority view.--Fabrictramp (talk) 23:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merging had the support of five out of 20 participants. My math skills may be a little rusty, but I think that's a minority. Everyking (talk) 23:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to be an an impass. You count votes, while I don't. (From WP:AFD: "Remember that while AfD may look like a voting process, it does not operate like one. Justification and evidence for a response carries far more weight than the response itself.") Neither one of us is convincing the other of anything.--Fabrictramp (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of whether we "count votes", a minority viewpoint cannot represent a consensus in any sense of the word. That's simply not what a consensus is. Good arguments don't make a consensus unless other participants agree with them. Five people who are "right" don't represent a consensus even if the other 15 are "wrong". Everyking (talk) 01:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have went ahead and merged the article into List of Strawberry Shortcake characters. Of course I had to make some sacrifices to keep within the 32k rule- characters that are not relaunched as of the 2003 series have been moved to List of minor Strawberry Shortcake characters, which was severely lacking in content anyway. RAM (talk) 03:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]