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Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions/Archive 17

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"Keep because GA/FA" should be added here

One thing that was very clear from the whole Lewis farago was that people felt that something being an good or featured article was, by itself, a good reason to keep it at AFD. We need to add something here (maybe under individual merit?) pointing out that this is a fallacy, guidelines change, not every FA/GA review is perfect etc. FOARP (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Except it's NOT a fallacy, and even if I missed an opportunity to say so in a topic I don't follow, every GA or FA should be de-listed before being considered for deletion. "GA/FA quality" and "eligible for deletion through XfD" should be mutually exclusive circles on a Venn Diagram. Jclemens (talk) 16:51, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Jclemens - Surely de-list and AFD can be done in one AFD discussion if the de-list reason is also a DELREASON? Why the need for the added bureaucracy? FOARP (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
If it is not notable, why bother we delisting? I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to delete a GA status article. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:19, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Because GA has more visibility and more defined process than AfD, and exponentially so more for featured content. AfD routinely gets things wrong, like it did in the Lewis case. A GA/FA should have to be delisted first because the article has survived two reviews to be created and elevated to that level (although the first layer is pretty perfunctory), it should have to fail two processes to be deleted. Jclemens (talk) 18:39, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Huh? GA is nothing like a high-visibility process. Quite the opposite: it's an intentionally lightweight process typically carried out by a single reviewer working alone; there are way more eyes on almost any AfD discussion than on almost any GA review. Notability isn't on the GA checklist, and it's easy to imagine a notability issue being overlooked if the reviewer's not alert. EEng 01:59, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you'd want to make it more difficult to delete non-notable works. If AfD gets it wrong, then DRV is the place. Our system of demoting articles is really lengthy, and it really isn't any a particularly visable process. All this does is delay an article from deletion because of its quality, which isn't what we should be doing. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:29, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Question- does this come up often enough to justify writing more legislation? The Lewis situation was AFAIK unique. I !voted keep but understand why the article ended up merged, and I don't agree that having been an FA is an automatic veto on an AfD. Stuff like this should be deleteable as well. Reyk YO! 16:27, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure that there has been any systematic analysis of this, but FAs that have been at AFD include Nude celebrities on the Internet (merged into Nude Celebrities in what was ultimately a deletion), Introduction to evolution, Goomba (deleted), Donald Bradman with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948, Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948, Ernie Toshack with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948, Neil Harvey with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948, Armament of the Iowa-class battleship, Fred Moosally, Bulbasaur, 2012 tour of She Has a Name (redirected to band and essentially deleted) and a review of the AFDs of each shows "Keep, it was/is an FA" was an argument made in every AFD. FOARP (talk) 17:16, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Right, so it seems like something that comes up fairly infrequently. I'm not opposed but I just think that if there haven't been any FA/GAs kept that shouldn't have been or deleted that shouldn't have been, this idea is a solution without a problem. Reyk YO! 17:27, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
The 'problem' is that those who hold a certain view on deletion processes love opportunities to silence or disregard minority voices. It's a problem across the inclusionist/deletionist spectrum, and it fundamentally ignores WP:CCC by reinforcing local consensuses as if Wikipedia had precedents. Jclemens (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
Reyk - Here's some FAs that were eventually deleted where the prime argument for keeping them was clearly their FA status:
  • Spoo (food) (three AFDs before deletion). The argument "Keep because FA/GA" was made multiple times in this process and was the main keep rationale. E.g., "'1) Currently a good article. No good article review has been proposed. 2) A former featured article ...".
  • Tropical Depression Ten (2005). The only opposing comment at AFD said "I'm not entirely comfortable with a long-standing featured article being summarily nominated for deletion by a user boasting 59 mainspace edits"
  • Tropical Storm Erick (2007). Kept at 1st AFD, the keep argument being mainly "If there were any major issues with notability I am sure those would have prevented editors from passing this as an FA".
  • Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948. Kept once at AFD because "As there were sufficient sources to develop this to FA status, the topic is clearly notable so there aren't grounds for deletion here."
I don't know how frequently FAs/GAs are discussed at AFD, but it is very clear that, nearly every time they are, their FA/GA status is used as a keep argument and can result in them being kept when they shouldn't have been. I think this is not a WP:CREEP case as if we follow Lee Vilenski's proposal we can cover this by a simplification/generalisation of "poorly written article". FOARP (talk) 19:18, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now, absent evidence of this being a frequent problem, and without careful qualification (which is to say, assuming that this is something that comes up frequently enough, it depends on the text) - Being a GA/FA isn't a reason for keeping on its own, of course, but it is a reason to be skeptical about a nomination, to look closer, to alert the author/reviewer(s), etc. If something has been promoted (especially to FA), multiple people have [ideally] looked more closely at the sourcing than we can reasonably expect of a typical AfD !voter. That doesn't mean their opinions count for more, or that they can't be wrong (or operated according to outdated standards), but being a GA/FA is a completely valid point to make at AfD -- it's just not a "get out of AfD free card". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:00, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
    • If something has been promoted (especially to FA), multiple people have [ideally] looked more closely at the sourcing than we can reasonably expect of a typical AfD !voter.‹The template Fake citation needed is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] Hard to prove or disprove this as all I have is anecdotal evidence but from the FACs/GACs and AFDs I've read I have the exact opposite impression. Levivich 16:14, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
      • There is a dedicated source check at FAC, but that is usually for reliability and style, not notability. It's also worth noting that the reliability of sources can change over time. The argument here is that saying that an article is currently at GA or FA isn't a great reason in of itself to retain an article. Sure, it may have been through a source check, but that's also potentially true of an article having previously been listed at AfD. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:02, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Support Don't really understand the opposes. Johnbod (talk) 16:53, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The reason people !vote against the deletion of articles that have passed quality assessment processes isn't because those quality assessment processes confer magick status on their subjects (God knows I've seen some atrocious GAs) but because of what our notability standards mean. GNG and functional SNGs (NFOOTY et al are outside the scope of this discussion) are not picked out of a hat because "idk, sounds cool I guess". They describe the approximate thresholds to write an article that doesn't suck; because Wikipedia articles are composed entirely of things that were written about a subject elsewhere, an article that lacks "significant coverage in independent reliable sources" will either be stubby, puffy, or untrustworthy. Stubby, puffy, and untrustworthy articles generally do not pass quality assessment processes (there are exceptions); by extension, an article that has passed them is unlikely to be in a situation that would only be possible if it had one or more of those qualities. The same arguments are made for articles that are not GA/FA (which not every writer goes through, or takes every article through) but nonetheless still clearly written to standards that would not be possible for an article lacking significant coverage in independent reliable sources under Wikipedia's content restrictions, and I've seen them succeed; the case is just made most often for GA/FAs because that's an easy benchmark.
Fundamentally, "keep per GA/FA" is a notability argument, and specifically an argument referring to the very roots and purpose of our notability guidelines. Notability is not formed in a vacuum; it's a construct developed to carve out the cross-section of subjects for which well-developed Wikipedia articles can be written. Yes, I know there are bits and pieces around GAN/FAC that say it "doesn't assess notability" -- there's no point arguing about whether an article that could only have been based in significant coverage in independent reliable sources is when the evidence is there on the page. There are times where GA/FAs shouldn't exist as standalone articles, I've specifically referred to that when explaining this to people (e.g. many of the Neelix articles weren't notable, probably including some that still exist). That doesn't take away from what our notability standards fundamentally mean, and what it actually is for an article to pass or fail them. Occasional abuse of the process does not mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater and going against the actual point of "significant coverage in independent reliable sources". Vaticidalprophet 21:39, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I agree with Vaticidalprophet's reasoning, and "keep because it's a GA/FA" isn't a frequently seen enough argument that this page would need to address it even if it were fallacious.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose since I also agree with Vaticidalprophet's reasoning. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 19:36, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Vaticidalprophet's smart comment. DFlhb (talk) 14:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I don't disagree this is generally a bad argument to use at AFD (per others), but it doesn't seem like closers of deletion discussions are particularly confused about that and these discussions happen very infrequently. For that reason, I favor the conservative action of not expanding an already-too-long guidance page. Suriname0 (talk) 19:20, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Should we speedy delete all the stubs that are only infoboxes and references?

Argue on this. 98.21.82.51 (talk) 22:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Clarify that "Individual Merit" is different across Wikimedia projects

I sometimes come across people who argue that if a source or article is accepted on another Wikimedia project then it should be fine here on enwiki. Here is just one recent example. It seems the best page to show those people is the "Individual Merit" WP:OTHERSTUFF section, but I think it could be worth clarifying more. There is a paragraph in the middle that talks about different projects, but it's easy to miss because the section is already so long.

I'm trying to decide between these two options:

  1. Just add another example in the list of examples at the top of this section. The example could be e.g. This exists on a non-English Wikipedia, so it should be here too.
  2. Split the previously-mentioned paragraph into another subsection that we can link to when needed. But, if we go this route, I'm not sure what the shortcut link should be - WP:OTHERSITES already exists.

Mokadoshi (talk) 21:01, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Add "Delete because humans might be extinct by then" and "Delete because humans weren't even around back then"

I've seen this said a couple of times in a few AfDs (most recently in a currently active one the Solar eclipse of July 16, 2186). As I and a few other users states there, Wikipedia should operate based on the basis that it will be around when these sorts of things happen (with the exception being things like the Heat death of the universe or whatever. I've never seen the second one in an actual AfD but I figure it could be used and would be a faulty argument. As such, I believe this should be added (though I suppose only adding the first one would be fine too.) Thanks! Poxy4 (talk) 02:01, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose it's not clear to me that an event being too far in the future isn't a good basis for WP:TOOSOON. BrigadierG (talk) 00:21, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Suggesting an addition: Arguments based on when the article was created

This is something I see frequently, which typically takes one of two forms. One is about "it's been around for a long time, so it's probably good". The other comes down to one side saying WP:RAPID while the other side says WP:DELAY, two opposing principles of the events notability criteria that merely express a personal philosophy towards keeping vs. deleting rather than provide any real argument at all one way or the other. Idea being, those principles can accompany concrete reasoning to keep/delete (sourcing, evidence that coverage will/won't be sustained, other reasons beyond notability, etc.), but on their own they're useless (like many of the others here). What do people think about something like this:

Examples:

How recently an article was created does not factor into the deletion policy. One common version of this argument regards the time an article spends on Wikipedia granting it a form of tenure, assuming that because it had not been deleted over the course of many years, it must exist for good reasons. However, there are many articles which attract little, if any, views or scrutiny over extended periods. Similarly, criteria such as notability can change over time, affecting older articles. Another version of this article is common in disputes over our coverage of events. The events notability criteria provides two opposing sections encouraging users not to rush to create an article and not to rush to delete an article. These are frequently cited by those advocating to delete or keep an article, respectively, but neither is a good reason for doing so unto itself. The underlying disagreement to focus on concerns whether the subject has received or is likely to receive sustained coverage over a period of time, as required by the notability guideline.

— Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:08, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe in the Article age section? Valereee (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
Ha. Somehow forgot that section (and "subject age") existed! — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
It's gotten very long. I'm wondering if we should start trimming the number of examples to those which provide actual additional info? Valereee (talk) 17:06, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
It does seem like some can be combined. Maybe the two existing sections and the parts above that aren't included can be combined into a single "age". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:ITSNOTNEUTRAL

Hmmmm, that is not mentioned here? I thought it would be. Should we add it? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Could certainly go into 'Surmountable problems'? Valereee (talk) 16:47, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
@Valereee Agreed. Can you add it? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:30, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
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