To summarize our rules, AfD is where editors discuss whether to delete an article, which happens if there is rough consensus to do so. To establish such consensus, if it is not obvious numerically, administrators do not count votes, but they determine which side has the better arguments in the light of applicable Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In this case, an administrator determined that a such a consensus to delete existed. This determination is what is challenged here at DRV. The rules at DRV are that there needs to be rough consensus to overturn the closing administrator's decision (to find consensus to delete, in this case). That's what I have to determine now. If there is no consensus for overturning the decision, it remains in place.
Here at DRV, numerically, it's roughly 20 overturn to 15 endorse. That's a majority, but not clear consensus for overturning. This means that I could find a consensus to overturn only if either the arguments to overturn are really strong, or those to endorse are really weak. I don't think that is the case. Most arguments here on both sides are well-reasoned and defensible. I do have to discount the "overturn" opinions by Sharouser (just a vote), Chocobisc (very new account) and Pincreate (makes an AfD argument), as well as the "endorse" opinion by XOR'easter (just "per above"). But this shifts the balance of the DRV discussion even more into "no consensus" territory.
Highly contested AfD with 54 participants was closed with the following reasoning: Although the numerical tally is about even between those who want to keep and those who want to delete this article, the arguments invoking NOTNEWS (and, to a lesser extent also BLP1E), in combination with BLP concerns lead me to close this as delete.
This reasoning is entirely subjective to the closing admin. There was no consensus for deletion, and choosing the following arguments from delete! votes was poor judgment. BLP concerns do not apply when
The Guardian,
The Times and
The Herald among others covered it. Or are you going to rev-del links to The Guardian as BLP violations?
WP:NOTNEWS isn't a strong argument either because it's a case setting sort of a precedent in transgender rights and ethics in the
British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal - hence many medias discuss it. Furthermore, I was surprised to see it tilt towards deletion at this phase because there has been
WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE during the case and the article got better sources as it was being discussed.
(involved) comment all of these sources were discussed in the AFD.
WP:BLP applies to information about living people, and the Tribunal hasn't made a decision, so the argument that this case has set a precedent is implausible. I don't see any evidence of new or continuing coverage from reliable outlets.
Endorse. The closing statement is "the arguments invoking NOTNEWS (and, to a lesser extent also BLP1E), in combination with BLP concerns lead me to close this as delete." For me that's not really the point. The point is that very few people on the keep side engaged with that argument. A remarkably large number of keep !voters did little more than say sources + coverage = article. That's clearly not the point when regard is had to NOTNEWS and related policies and guidelines. That means a closing admin has no choice but to give less weight to !votes like "Keep. This got enough coverage to be notable", "Keep since subject easily, and for some unfortunately, passes the relevant notability criteria.", "Keep the article passes WP:SIGCOV & WP:GEOSCOPE", "Keep.This article absolutely passes notability" and "Keep. In the UK, this event has received significant mainstream coverage". Those quotes were the opening sentences of the final five keep !votes. The nomination was addressed at an entirely different matter. Those five !votes, and others, are close to irrelevant. --
Mkativerata (
talk)
22:14, 10 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Let's look at the 4 criteria for not-news: (1) There was no original reporting in the article, as all statements were sourced. (2) There was no routine news reporting of announcements, sports, or celebrities; on the contrary, the sources ranged from August 2018 to August 2019 and included non-Canadian media such as The Economist. (3) Who's who was about the bare minimum to explain the facts of the case. Much, much more was deleted under WP:BLP arguments (i.e., note the material not deleted certainly passed the constant and immediate BLP policing, and credit should be given to those editors who spent hours day and night ensuring any cites which might even be tangentially BLP issues got deleted within minutes, if not seconds). (4) Diary: "news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to over-detailed articles that look like a diary. Not every match played or goal scored is significant enough to be included in the biography of a person." A review of the article will conclude it is not a diary. Conclusion: claims that the article did not pass WP:NOTNEWS are not correct.
XavierItzm (
talk)
07:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment for now - the talk page that was deleted contained significant evidence for
this case at ANI. Eighteen editors have spoken in favor of a topic ban for the editor in question prior to this article getting deleted, starting
here. The editor in question was one of the delete !votes in the AfD discussion (they later crossed it out just to change it to speedy delete right below) and they commented extensively throughout the discussion.
-Crossroads- (
talk)
22:17, 10 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn - Involved - I really don't understand how the closer came to their conclusion. Per
WP:AFD, If consensus seems unclear the outcome can be listed as No consensus (with no effect on the article's status) or the discussion may be relisted for further discussion.. This means that the only way the article should have resulted in Delete is if consensus supports delete. Absent a consensus for delete the article is either kept or can be renominated for deletion. My question for the closing editor is how can they view this as anything other than no consensus? Clearly on the number of opinions this was no solid consensus.
24 editors favored keep (I'm including all forms of keep including merge unless the editor said "delete or merge")
20 editors favored delete (no merge, the article and talk page are salted).
4 favored "delete or merge" (the article goes but the discussion and possibly content stays available)
Based on weight of numbers this is clearly no consensus. What about strength of argument? The closing editor offered scant details of their thinking only stating that they were swayed by NOTNEWS and BLP1E. Perhaps but that means they felt that 24 editors couldn't come up with a reasonably convincing counter argument. Given the bits spilled that seems unlikely. Notnews isn't convincing given the possible ramifications the case could have when people talk about balancing the rights of protected classes vs the rights of otherwise uninvolved individuals. This case is getting extensive coverage so "not news" seems weak to me. Same with the BLP1E. If nothing else the closing editor must provide a far more detailed justification to explain why the "keep" arguments were not only not sufficient to result in a "keep" based on weight of argument, but were so poor as to fail to establish "no consensus". When 54 editors opine about a topic and seem to be evenly split the closing editor must offer some very strong closing case if they are going to say, in effect, "slightly more than half of you were so wrong as to not even warrant a no-consensus decision".
Springee (
talk)
01:22, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Why
wp:NOTAVOTE isn't a reasonably reply: Yes, consensus isn't a vote but weight of opinions logically does matter. Consider a hypothetical case where just one editor favored delete but offered an argument that was the sum of the best of those in favor of delete. Now how many here can honestly say they would accept delete if the actual tally was 53:1 for keep? Certainly at some point weight of numbers matters. NOTAVOTE protects from the deciding firmly for or against in a case where the numbers are roughly evenly split. What it does not do it allow us to ignore the no consensus option.
The following from NOTAVOTE apply here
Polls may be helpful in coming to a consensus and in evaluating when a consensus exists, but consensus can change over time. Editors who disagree with a consensus opinion may continue to civilly disagree in an effort to change community consensus. Editors who appear to be in the majority should make an effort to continue discussions and attempts to reach as wide an agreement as possible within Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
If a straw poll is inconclusive, or if there is significant disagreement about whether the question itself was fair, then no consensus results from the poll. The solution is to seek wider input or use alternative means of discussion and deliberation.Springee (
talk)
18:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm including all forms of keep including merge unless the editor said "delete or merge" That's a silly way to total !votes. When assessing consensus in a close situation, you have to look at their actual argument; in those situations, it's far more common for merge !votes to get counted as delete than as keep, especially if they echo the arguments for deletion (as most of the merge comments in that discussion do.) --
Aquillion (
talk)
21:16, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
It's a perfectly reasonable way to group things. "Merge" and "Keep" both retain the article contents and edit history. "Delete" removes the article and talk page history from Wikipedia. That is why I chose that way to break things up.
Springee (
talk)
21:27, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn -uninvolved- Just looking at the numbers should have resulted in a non-consensus which should have been a keep. There is no BLP issue, the subject is in the news and the sources are well sourced and RS, not tabloids. It's also not a BLP1E because this is indeed it is getting far and extensive coverage and the fact that it had gag orders, worldwide news, etc. Further, I just want to echo many of Springee's points above, there is a current ANI discussion about one of the editors who took part in the AFD, and further to that, the numbers of the editors, while, yes, we don't vote, but to delete with the numbers of people opining was not correct or based in sound policy and should be overturned.
Sir Joseph(talk)02:03, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn on two grounds: (1) the closer is wrong that the arguments on the delete side were stronger, and (2) due to behavior issues by a participant and edit warring, the AfD should be considered a "mistrial." (1) Counting the !votes, the nominator, disregarding the sock and the SPA, and counting the "or merge" !votes with their primary preference, I count 21 for keep, 2 for merge, and 20 for delete. The vast majority of the keep !votes say specifically that it is notable. Obviously, this should be taken as them saying that it meets
WP:GNG and
WP:NEVENT. These are not irrelevant at all. On the delete side, we have a fair number of weak arguments. One said it was POV, one called it tabloid nonsense. Some stated that being an ongoing or single event was a problem, but that is not necessarily so. Some invoked
WP:BLP1E, but this has to do with whether a person is notable aside from an event; for the event itself,
WP:NEVENT is what we go by.
WP:NOTNEWS is also being misused. That is from the page "What Wikipedia is not"; the point there is that "not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia", we do not engage in original reporting, and we do not note every detail. In other words, we are not a news service. But at the top it does say, "Editors are encouraged...to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events." NOTNEWS does not mean we do not cover any recent or current events. The relevant notability criteria are GNG and NEVENT, and far more keep comments than delete ones engaged with that. (2) As I referred to above, at
ANI, and especially beginning
here, there is a very relevant discussion going on involving an editor who !voted and who commented heavily in this AfD. The accusations involve bullying and driving away other editors from this topic area. The outcome could easily have been affected by this. 18 editors wish to see that editor's topic ban reinstated; if that editor had not participated, the outcome, again, could have been different. What is more, there was significant edit warring going on during the AfD, and some participants may have seen an unnecessarily expunged article missing important RS. With these factors, it seems the AfD did not take place fairly. Because of both the existing AfD arguments mentioned earlier and the irregularities in the process, this deletion should be overturned. I did !vote in the AfD, but did not comment otherwise, nor was I involved in the article itself or its talk page.
-Crossroads- (
talk)
02:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment (involved) - Most overturns invoke vote counts but this is !vote. I maintain NOTNEWS and NEVENT apply and the deletion was correct. I fear this is more about the users involved (Fae, Rhinocera) than the article itself.
EvergreenFir(talk)04:28, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn - One person shouldn’t have deleted a whole article completely when there was such a high amount of evenly split !votes. Looks like a no consensus/keep according to me.—NØ08:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment This is going to be a difficult DRV to close since the AfD was well-attended and there's already a number of !voters here who were involved. I won't be !voting here since I voted delete in the AfD, but there are some odd procedural concerns I want to point out to the closer: we just closed a DRV on the person's former name
here, and there have been several attempts to create an article about the individual involved in the past. I actually think the best course of action here is what
S Marshall (
talk·contribs) suggested at the original DRV, which is to cover this as neutrally as possible in
Transgender rights in Canada (but without any redirects in terms of name) as the event itself is notable enough to cover based on the international press. As I believe I noted in my !vote, the article here has been more about the person involved with the case than the actual case, and as the article itself noted, commentators believe it is unlikely to set wide precedent since it's so unusual. Based on that, I don't think the close was procedurally incorrect, and there's other better places for this information to exist.
SportingFlyerT·C08:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I'd also like to add that in a close review of the AfD, the Keep !voters arguments can be concisely summarised as "this event received enough coverage to be notable," and the delete !voters arguments can be concisely summarised as "this fails
WP:NOT." As a result, whoever closes this now a bit off the rails DRV needs to look at the arguments here which look specifically at whether the closer's arguments
WP:NOT were satisfied as a justifiable conclusion.
SportingFlyerT·C22:30, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment - I participated in the AfD so I think it's customary that I don't vote in this deletion review, but I have to say - I would have posted this on DRV if someone else didn't get to it first. This was clearly an AfD that favored Keep (or, at the very least, no consensus) , but it was summarily closed without explaining why in any detail. The article is actually quite good and well supported by citations from The Economist, Canadian Broadcasting Company, PinkNews and more over the last year. The closing admin also failed to consider that the article was nominated for deletion only 30 minutes after it was created. The closure was clearly a super vote.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
12:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
To be honest, I doubt the fact that it was nominated for deletion 30 minutes after creation mattered at the closing phase, since much of the discussion took place after the article was improved. But yes, I'd agree that it looked like a weak "keep" or "no consensus". But it's the classic problem: if you think the article should be deleted, "no consensus" is not enough because it defaults to status quo which is that the article stays. --
Pudeo (
talk)
16:37, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I think the fact that it was nominated for deletion only 30 minutes after it was created matters because many of the initial Delete votes were cast when the article was nothing more than a stub. This means that early Delete votes should carry much less weight than they ordinarily would because the article barely existed at the time they voted. By the end of the AfD, the article was well-supported with citations from many reputable publications like The Economist. It's a notable court case. The situation drew a lot of controversy because the plaintiff is controversial in their own right, but the fact remains that the article is well-supported.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
00:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment: That the article was taken to AfD within 30 minutes did not at all figure in my close because it is absolutely irrelevant. The state an article is in is not important for an AfD, AfD is not for cleanup. The question at an AfD is not "is this a good enough article" but "should this subject be included in the encyclopedia". As such, a one-line unsourced stub might well get a "keep" at AfD, if sufficient sources exist and there is enough of encyclopedic interest to be said (whether that is in the article or not). Also, you keep repeating like a mantra that NOTNEWS was debunked in the AfD. I obviously disagree, which is why I cited it in the close. Just repeating it over and over doesn't make it so. And no, this was not an "AfD that favored Keep (or, at the very least, no consensus)", otherwise I would have closed it in that sense: numerically there was no clear majority for any solution, but (for the umpteenth time) AfD is NOTAVOTE, it's the arguments that count.
I don't intend to make more comments about this matter here (but then, I usually don't make any comments at all during a DRV and see what happened here), I feel that my close was clear enough. --
Randykitty (
talk)
21:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I don't think that reflects the reality of AfD, though. We both know that many AfD participants will quickly skim an article and make a decision based on that. Not everyone is going to put in the diligence to completely research a topic before they vote. I have no doubt that if the article was listed in its final state, it would have garnered many more Keep votes. It's clear that the start of the AfD was Delete-heavy and then moved to Keep-heavy about midway through. That's because the article improved immensely in the span of those few days.
Cosmic Sans (
talk) 21:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC) And yes, I know you cited NOTNEWS in the close, but I would expect a better justification than just linking to the policy - especially when your close runs against the result of the discussion.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
21:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse - I'm seeing a lot of headcounts here, but this seems like a good example of why consensus != numbers. Especially problematic considering this AfD saw off-wiki canvassing. The disruption caused by some of the participants may take up space, but doesn't obscure the central arguments, already summarized by RK, et al. (Since others seem to be doing this, FYI I supported deletion). — Rhododendritestalk \\
16:03, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn The votes were evenly split, the reasons for deletion are debatable, the article itself was valuable, with unbiased information about a significant case from reputable sources such as the Economist and Canadian Broadcasting Company.--
Chocobisc (
talk)
16:27, 11 August 2019 (UTC) —
Chocobisc (
talk •
contribs) has made
few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
I'm not a sock, I've been watching this article because of the marked for deletion notice on it. I signed up because I wanted to add to it or at least contribute on the talk, I was observing and learning the way things work. The article was deleted before I felt confident in how to contribute. I understand my vote probably counts for less because I'm new though.
Chocobisc (
talk)
17:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Hurting this cause is the last thing I want to do, I'm sorry. I don't want to derail this any further, please do an investigation if needed. I live in South Australia though, not Germany, and my IP should show this.
Chocobisc (
talk)
18:33, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn. There is no evident consensus in the discussion, and the overwhelming majority of the !votes on both sides are policy- and guideline-based. However, BLP1E's primary purpose is to distinguish between situations when an article should be written about an individual and when coverage should be to an article about the event from which their possibile notability arises; it has its weakest, if any, force in assessing whether an event receiving extensive RS coverage merits an article. Similarly, BLP concerns are weaker when an individual purposefully injects themself into a central role in a public controversy where negative responses are both foreseeable and inevitable. Therefore, the article on the case should be undeleted, with the individual name article be retained only as a redirect.
The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (
talk)
17:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
EvergreenFir: Yaniv. He's basically turned it into an extortion racket - anyone says or does something he dislikes, he screams "Transphobic! Human rights violation!" and rushes to set up a complaint. He's gaming the system.
HalfShadow19:38, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
"Off Wiki Canvassing" as you characterize it, can also serve to alert people who are active and semi-active Wikipedia editors (like myself) of issues that are significant. After reading the original AFD discussion and this Deletion Review, I don't have enough information yet to make a definitive comment here, but second hand (on Wikipedia) information does make the AFD close sound questionable. (It does seem bizarre that there are no copies of deleted articles restored somewhere for people to look at in the event of a deletion review.) Unless you are seeing evidence of obvious sock puppetry, I would suggest—as the banner on the top of this discussion urges—to assume good faith.
Carl Henderson (
talk)
21:43, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Carl Henderson:
WP:APPNOTE lays out the appropriate ways to notify editors of a discussion. Notifying people off wiki (particularly in the forums and formats I'm seeing) is not one of them. Your good intentions don't change the fact that you are coming to this discussion because of inappropriate canvassing efforts.
Nblundtalk22:30, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Nblund: Wikipedia does not operated in a cultural vacuum; when Wikipedia deletes an article about a controversial case it often becomes a newsworthy item in and of itself. It is not necessarily canvassing for people to report on or comment on such issues. I found out about this issue via
Instapundit, a very old blog (now a group blog) with a conservative to libertarian slant that functions as both as a new aggregator and a point-of-view comment platform for the bloggers. Where I learned about the issue should not serve to discount any well reasoned (I hope) comment I make on the issue.
Carl Henderson (
talk)
23:08, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
This is a disappointing response. So
this post, presumably.... The problem for us isn't that people write about Wikipedia. The problem for us is the extent to which normal consensus-building !votes are affected by off-wiki canvassing to people likely to !vote a particular way. We can't stop (and shouldn't stop) people from writing about Wikipedia, but if a large group of Wikipedians can be mobilized based solely on ideology by off-wiki sites, that's problematic for our model of decision-making/conflict resolution, and why closing admins need to take it into account. — Rhododendritestalk \\
00:55, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
The AfD was linked off-wiki but that happened in (give or take) the last 24 hours or so of the deletion discussion. There were many reasoned Keep votes beforehand and even after. If there are random IP editors showing up after it was linked, then perhaps that's a consideration but a link off-wiki is not a reason to discard the many Keep votes and arguments set forth by plenty of established editors.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
01:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse An article passing
WP:GNG does absolutely not indicate that it passes
WP:NOTNEWS and
WP:BLP1E;
WP:GNG itself includes a statement that makes clear that
WP:GNG is no reason to keep an article that does not pass
WP:NOT. The comments by the "keep" side apply the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia incorrectly by ignoring
WP:NOT and focusing on
WP:GNG and have been appropiately given little weight.
Lurking shadow (
talk)
20:43, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse. The discussions attracted heavy external attention (putting the numerical totals in doubt); more generally,
WP:NOTNEWS and
WP:BLP together are a strong argument for deletion and one that requires serious arguments in response - this article essentially threw a spotlight on a non-notable individual based on a single news cycle worth of coverage for a relatively low-profile event. Simply passing
WP:GNG or having coverage (arguments which the vast majority of the keep !votes relied on) is insufficient per
WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE, and almost none of the keep !votes even attempted to address the obvious
WP:BLP issues. Deletion discussions are not a vote; especially in a situation like this, where there has been substantial external lobbying, it's important to look at the relative strength of the arguments being made. --
Aquillion (
talk)
21:16, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Nitpick: Maybe you didn't mean it literally, but "a single news cycle" doesn't seem accurate. According to a comment from XavierItzm above, the article had sources going back to August 2018.
Colin M (
talk)
15:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
The full citations for the August 2018 and October 2018 coverage in magazines and newspapers across the Atlantic are included in the AfD. Unlike many other refs which were contested and deleted from the article (some for good reason!), these 2018 refs were never challenged and remained with the article all the way to its erasure.
XavierItzm (
talk)
05:51, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
WP:GNG is a guideline that does have no effect on an article meeting
WP:NOT.
WP:NHC says that arguments that contradict policies or are common fallacies are discounted. Comments that answer with "Is notable" to the assertion "Doesn't pass
WP:NOT" contradict
WP:GNG because that guideline clarifies that it is not sufficient for a topic to meet its requirements to deserve an article if
WP:NOT is being violated.
Lurking shadow (
talk)
22:10, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Lurking shadow It is very clear from this deletion review, and from the 54 editors participating in the AfD that you are reiterating the minority position that did not have support from the majority of editors here or in the AfD. I of course disagree. In any event it
WP:NOT is a guideline.
Lightburst (
talk)
22:26, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
a policy that the majority of editors believe does not apply here. Wikipedia is full of contradictory policies. And policies which require reasonable editors to interpret. The majority interpret differently that you on this AfD. Here is guideline for you.
WP:GEOSCOPE We disagree maybe we can leave it there.
Lightburst (
talk)
23:26, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse. That was a proper justification by the closer because the page is indeed an obvious example of NOTNEWS. That was clearly a kind of content that appears in newspapers, but not an encyclopedic content. Are we going to record here every incident that was published in several newspapers, regardless to enduring notability? I hope not. That is the essence of "Wikipedia is not a newspaper" and "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". Yes, sure, a closer should exercise judgement in such cases, and that was good judgement.
My very best wishes (
talk)
23:03, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Cosmic Sans: How is that any more relevant than when the AFD "keep" !voters do the same? Of the first seven "overturn" comments above, five (including the sock) are from people who already !voted keep in the AFD, and you didn't write such comments under any of them. You don't seem to have done that anywhere under the "keep -> overturn" !votes, but you've done it twice for the other way (the above, and the Here come the parade of delete !voters comment). Honestly, I find it interesting that when an AFD is justifiedly closed as "keep" and then a delete !voter tendentiously opens a DRV, chances are a lot higher that at least one of the "delete" !voters will switch over and endorse the close as within policy than the same thing happening in the opposite (this) scenario; on top of that, in this particular case, it seems the majority of the "overturns" are from those who !voted "keep" in the AFD, while those of the ten "endorses" (including my own) six are from previously uninvolved editors and four are from "delete" !voters (with you underlining that fact in the case of two of them).
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
22:55, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Hijiri 88: I'm pointing it out because the editor did not disclose it. I'm not saying that AfD participants shouldn't participate here, but that it should be disclosed. We aren't here to re-do the AfD.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
13:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Cosmic Sans: Yes, and I'm pointing out that you do so for those on one side but not the other. Why is it apparently only a requirement, in your view, for those who !voted "delete" to disclose that fact here? (And for what it's worth, your own disclosure only consisted of saying you had "participated" in the AfD.)
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
17:36, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Hijiri88::
WP:AGF please. I'm not going through the list and calling everyone out. It just so happened that I recognized a couple names who !voted in this discussion and who participated in the AfD but did not disclose that fact here. As for me, I did not !vote in this Deletion Review, but I nevertheless disclosed that I participated anyway.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
17:47, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
You recognized almost all the delete !voters who happened to endorse the close, but none of the keep !voters who favour overturning it. There's AFD and there's refusing to call a spade a spade. As for you, I don't really care, but you can't pretend your main purpose here isn't to overturn the original close.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
20:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Cosmic Sans: You've made ~28 comments on this deletion review today in the last two days. This is getting a bit close to
WP:BLUDGEON - perhaps you should back away and do something else on Wikipedia for a few hours.
Simonm223 (
talk)
18:02, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Simonm223: Untrue. I have made five comments on this DRV today, not 28, and most of them were because I was pinged in a reply. In fact, I think only one was added that was not in response to a ping, although I didn't count. I'm honestly very confused as to why you posted this.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
18:07, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
(
edit conflict)I was counting within a 24 hour period, not within a calendar day. You know, since we're probably in different timezones and so the actual start and finish of the day in our time zones is relative. And regardless, the point remains that you've been doing almost nothing but commenting here since this deletion review started. I'd suggest you need to step back.
Simonm223 (
talk)
18:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Simonm223: - At least you corrected your count - you were only off by a factor of two. But your math is still flawed as you appear to be counting every single edit I've made - as you can tell from the revision history, I have many minor edits where I'm correcting my indentation as I often screw that up. The vast majority of my comments on here have been answering replies that other people have left for me. I see no problem with that. Thank you for your suggestion, though.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
18:16, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
What's more striking is that you appear to have about as many edits to projectspace pages about this article than you have ever made to articlespace in 4.5 years of editing. That's a rare statistic. — Rhododendritestalk \\
00:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Only as a follow-up to Simonm's observation. I tend to be more wary of [a high degree of focused activity that could be construed as] bludgeoning from users that seem particularly interested in a single purpose/topic/outcome than I am of users who engage with Wikipedia policy (and Wikipedia) more broadly. YMMV. — Rhododendritestalk \\
01:21, 14 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn and re-close as no consensus. The discussion had a very high level of participation with solid WP:PAG based arguments on both sides. There is no way a consensus exists for either deletion or keep. I am generally a fan of RK and appreciate admins who are willing to take on lengthy and often complicated discussions in need of closing. But I have to disagree strongly, though respectfully, with this close. [Full disclosure: I did not participate in the AfD. However if I had, I'd have called this a weak delete based on NOTNEWS and the likely minimal long term significance of the subject as well as the WP:10YT. But all of that is immaterial. There were very credible PAG arguments on both sides in roughly close proportion to one another.] -
Ad Orientem (
talk)
23:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn I found a copy of the "Jessica Yaniv waxing case" article on a site that mirrors Wikipedia dated 08/09/2019, and have reviewed it. Based on my review and the conversation on Wiki, I believe the decision to close the AFD with a "Delete" was in error and should be reversed. The deleted article is well-sourced, and clearly covered newsworthy events. The article about the cases that Yaniv brought; not Yaniv herself, and seems scrupulously neutral in its characterizations of her. Thus I don't see
WP:BLP or
WP:GNG as applying. The "International Attention" and "Commentary" sections serve to establish that this case is having a demonstrable impact on the discussion of Trans-related issues both inside and outside of Canada so any application of
WP:EVENT or
WP:NOT in my opinion is dubious. Further complicating the issue of
WP:NOT is that Yaniv just made the news again—as the AFD was being discussed—after being arrested for brandishing a stun gun on a streamed debate (about her Human Rights Commission complaints) with YouTuber and conservative trans activist, Blaire White
[1].
Carl Henderson (
talk)
23:29, 11 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment It would be nice if people making vague appeals to
WP:BLP (including the
WP:BLP1E portion) and
WP:NOT (including the
WP:NOTNEWS and
WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE portions) could explain specifically what statements apply to the article such that those should override the
WP:GNG. Otherwise, such a statement is entirely subjective, could be applied to literally any article, and seems to mean nothing other than
WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Also, the possibility of off-wiki canvassing cuts both ways.
-Crossroads- (
talk)
01:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
This has been a persistent problem on the BCHRT article as well as the associated WP:BLP/N entry for the Yaniv section of the BCHRT article. It has been reviewed many times, I don't even know how many times, by admins for BLP violations and there are none. It survived an arduous slog on BLP/N. We've tread that ground over and over again but nobody can actually articulate exactly what the problem is. Summarily dropping a link to a policy is not sufficient, especially when a majority of editors favor Keep and disagree with that interpretation. This is just
WP:IDONTLIKEIT wearing a BLP/NOTNEWS hat.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
01:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
No, it is exactly the opposite - per policy. According to
Wikipedia:Notability (in a nutshell), "Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are
not outside the scope of Wikipedia". Therefore, everything
WP:NOT does not belong to WP, no matter how notable (like the page/subject under discussion). WP:NOT overrides the WP:GNG.My very best wishes (
talk)
01:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
This is an example of the problem I referenced in my last comment. Is there a word for citing inapplicable policy without detail, as if that was enough? Maybe we should call it "Drive-by policy citation." Anyway, that's precisely what most of the Delete !votes did, and precisely what's going on now. WP:NOTNEWS does not apply. This is not "routine news reporting" of a court case. BCHRT cases are rarely discussed in the news even within Canada, but this case has international reach. Over the last year, it's been covered by international publications like The Economist (UK), The Australian, The Glasgow Herald, and US publications as well. This is far from routine and as far as anyone can tell, only one other case in BCHRT history has ever generated even close to this much international attention. The case has been considered in legal policy debates in Australia and Scotland. It continues to generate new reliable sources by the day. This is far from your routine BCHRT coverage.
Cosmic Sans (
talk) 13:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC) This, by the way, is why I invoked
WP:IDONTLIKEIT. For example, on the BCHRT Talk page, I asked any user claiming a BLP problem to actually cite the portion of the BLP policy that's at issue. Nobody could. So I assume that BLP/NOTNEWS is being used as a more palatable argument than just IDONTLIKEIT.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
13:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
You say this is something of a long-lasting significance. I do not know. After reading the WP page under AfD, there was a clear impression that the subject has no long-lasting importance and just a minor incident reported in press. Hence the votes to delete and closing.
My very best wishes (
talk)
14:18, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
My point is that no cogent policy rationale has been set forth to support this deletion. The idea that NOTNEWS applies has been thoroughly debunked on this page and, it seems, nobody is even attempting to refute that. To make matters worse, the closing admin summarily deleted the article with only the most minimal of explanations despite the fact that the discussion favored Keep or at least no consensus. Now, if people want to claim that it was only a "minor incident", all I can do is point to the plethora of international discussion to prove that wrong. BCHRT cases do not get this kind of coverage. This case, though, was cited in legal policy discussions in Australia and Scotland. It was covered all around the world. Pretty far from a minor incident. But that's really beside the point, because I'm not seeing a clear policy rationale for deletion. It seems to be more or less that people don't like the article, probably because the subject is a drama magnet.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
14:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Crossroads1: I disagree that this event meets the requirements of
WP:GNG, but even if it did, this is a necessary, but not sufficient justification for creating a standalone article. @
Cosmic Sans: the justification has been explained, even if you disagree with it. To reiterate:
WP:BLP, in essence, just says that BLP content must strictly adhere to core policies. The sourcing here is so weak and non-neutral that we can't write an article that conforms to those requirements.
Nblundtalk14:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I'll have to disagree with you about the courses (I don't consider The Economist, The Canadian Broadcasting Company, and The Australian to be "weak and non-neutral"), but the point is that the discussion favored Keep or No Consensus. Nevertheless, the closing admin decided to override that with a one-line summary devoid of any real rationale. I think that if an admin wants to override the result of the discussion, they should set forth a very good and detailed reason. Instead, we got a closing rationale that looks like a supervote and was, in fact, less detailed than some of the delete !votes. The closing admin has made it clear on their talk page that they will refuse to provide more rationale than was used in the close. Even if you want this article deleted, surely you can appreciate the problem with an admin swooping into a discussion and closing it the way they'd like to see it closed without providing a detailed rationale for that.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
15:15, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I usually stay out of DRV discussion of a close that I did. However, you need to read more carefully, because there's nothing on my talk page that says that I "refuse to provide more rationale". FWIW,
Hut 8.5 gives a very good summary that I could have written myself (if less eloquently than they do). --
Randykitty (
talk)
16:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I would expect that there would be a more thorough close statement if an admin wants to close an AfD as delete even though a majority of editors wanted the article Kept. That's only compounded when you consider that the article was nominated for deletion within only 30 minutes after being created, so many of the Delete !votes only saw the article when it was in a stub state. Those votes should be given less weight, or perhaps not considered at all. (I'm willing to bet that many good articles on Wikipedia would catch !delete votes if they were judged only by their state of affairs 30 minutes in.) Specifically, I'd want a more detailed application of NOTNEWS. As explained in this discussion, none of the NOTNEWS criteria actually apply. There's no way this could be argued as "routine coverage" of a BCHRT case when it appears that this is only the second time in history that a case has received substantial coverage in outlets outside of Canada as well as factored into legal policy discussions in Australia and Scotland. Summarily closing the AfD against the wishes of the majority of the editors without a detailed and well-justified reason seems inappropriate, and should be grounds for this AfD to be reclosed as No Consensus.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
17:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse and close. Per application of IAR, I believe it would not be productive to have this BLP drama-magnet on the wiki, regardless of whether the coverage meets our criteria. While it might be possible to write an article that isn't
WP:NOT, I think it would be much easier to postpone such efforts to after we export all the drama to the dramaboards. Restoring a non-violating revision under an appropriate level of protection would probably be acceptable.
Alpha3031 (
t •
c)
02:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Hear, hear!. !voted in AfD. This probably will merit an article down the road - at the moment it is below the belt in
Signal-to-noise ratio, multiple BLP concerns, and drama over multiple Wikipedia boards. There's very little that passes the 10-year test at the moment.
Icewhiz (
talk)
13:41, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn. At best this was a no consensus. The delete votes did not adequately refute the importance of the tribunal as a test case (as described by various international news sources).
Polequant (
talk)
08:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Question/Comment for DRV closer: How "not a vote" is this particular "not a vote"? If the numbers matter at all here, then I think it's appropriate to notify the other AFD participants at the very least.
Nblundtalk14:06, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I would caution against this discussion becoming AfD Round 2. The question here is whether the AfD was properly closed and whether it should be overturned or endorsed. The opinions of those who were not involved in the underlying AfD are quite honestly more valuable than the people who were involved, you and I included.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
14:10, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I would caution against that as well, but considering the number of participants who are reiterating arguments from the AFD it looks like "selective AFD round 2 + some additional off-wiki canvassing". This DRV shows up all over reddit, but it hasn't been publicized at any of the relevant noticeboards where it might actually draw in a (non-selective) group of uninvolved editors.
Nblundtalk14:31, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse the Keep comments in that AfD are largely some variation on "the subject passes the GNG", followed by links to sources and arguments about the reliability of particular sources. None of that addresses the central argument for deletion, which is that the subject's notability derives from short term media coverage, i.e.
WP:BLP1e /
WP:NOTNEWS. Those policies deal with cases where subjects get substantial coverage in reliable sources, sometimes a lot of coverage, but are nevertheless not suitable topics for articles. Pointing to recent news coverage does nothing to counter those arguments. A few Keep comments do discuss these arguments but not in much detail and mostly by bald assertions, so I don't think they are enough to make it a no consensus closure. Hut 8.514:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
WP:BLP1e applies to articles about people, not about events (or tribunal cases). I can see a
BLP case for eliminating info irrelevant to the bikini-wax case and unnec. info about Yaniv - but I don't see how this can be dismissed as routine news. A number of women in a major liberal Western country, have been taken to a court-like tribunal (under threat of financial penalty) for refusing to even countenance handling male genitalia as part of a service they normally only offer in one-on-one, non-medical situations in their own or in the client's home, to biologically female people. They lack the skill, training or willingness to provide the service asked for. This situation has come about because of laws supposedly ensuring dignity and equality of treatment to both sexes and all gender identities. How can that not be extraordinary? How frequently are women threatened with fines for not wishing to handle someone's gentitalia? Yaniv is almost certainly going to 'lose' the tribunal case of course, and whatever ruling is given will serve as a 'interpretative qualifier' of the bare regulations - but, even so, the significance is established already.
Pincrete (
talk)
16:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
We're not interested in how "extraordinary" the situation is. What we care about here is whether the subject has enduring notability or not. Will people still be writing about it in a few years time? If not then we shouldn't have an article on it. There are several different policies and guidelines which say versions of that for different topic areas, but that's the main issue. This is obviously a hot-button topic which has provoked a lot of heated commentary because it involves gender issues people have strong opinions on, but that doesn't mean in itself that the subject will get lasting coverage. News stories usually have a very short shelf life and the subject may well fade into obscurity as soon as the news cycle moves on. It might get lasting coverage if it gets cited as a landmark case or as precedent, but I don't see much of an attempt to establish this (e.g. by comparing it to similar cases which happened long enough ago that we can see whether they got lasting coverage). Hut 8.517:07, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
It is already being quoted in relation to discussions about similar laws in Scotland and Australia - that's significant already. It already has many months (12?) of reasonably informed, high quality coverage. Very possibly this case will only serve as a cautionary tale about excessively ambiguous wording in such legislation, but the case is as yet unsesolved so it's significance is still unclear. The case is already being cited by a wide spectrum of 'biases', including 'feminist-y' opinion pieces claiming a total disregard for non-trans-women as well as by anti-trans activitists and a few people saying the case detracts from the real issues. I hesitated about voting on the AfD because the one issue on which I was uncertain was whether long term notability was yet established, finally I decided that it was, and that given the 'extraordinary' situation of a court potentially punishing a number of women for being unprepared to handle the male genitalia of a complete stranger, effectively because that stranger had recently declared themself to be a woman - it would be unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.
Pincrete (
talk)
18:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)reply
This is
WP:CRYSTAL right here. You are assuming, based on speculation about the shape of the subject's privates, that there will be a lasting impact when none is yet demonstrated.
Simonm223 (
talk)
15:06, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn -uninvolved, who meant to ivote but didn't have time - Just looking at the numbers should have resulted in a non-consensus which would have been a keep. There are some potential BLP considerations (naming Yaniv? Accusations of inapt online conversations with underage girls. Mentioning previous attempts at suing 'waxers'?) - but these are all solvable by sticking to necessary info about this case. IMO Yaniv will almost certainly 'lose' the case, but it has already acquired notoriety and will serve as a cautionary tale about well-intentioned, but carelessly framed legislation.
Pincrete (
talk)
17:04, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn The keep side made far better policy-based arguments and they had a mountain of articles from newspapers of record backing the claim to notability. They also formed a majority of those who voted, which makes the outcome even more unusual.
Patiodweller (
talk)
18:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse Involved editor Canvassing off-wiki is definitely a problem here considering the multitudinous far-right blogs currently claiming that we are trying to make Yaniv "disappear from Wikipedia"; and canvassing was definitely a problem during the AfD. However AfD isn't a vote count, and the closing statement was consistent with everything that led up to the AfD. Including the fact that the article was created by a
user who was subsequently blocked as a sock puppet of a Wikipedian who was
indeffed for making transphobic statements. And hello, look at this, people are misgendering Yaniv in this deletion review too.
Simonm223 (
talk)
18:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I agree with this. As you say, the closing statement was consistent with everything that led up to the AfD, which is what a DRV is supposed to evaluate (rather than being a rehash of the AfD). It was a tough close, but a fair one.
XOR'easter (
talk)
00:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Sigh - Here come the parade of delete !voters to Endorse the closing of this AfD without actually commenting on the propriety of the closure.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
18:54, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm not saying they shouldn't participate, but
WP:DRV states that "Deletion Review should not be used... to repeat arguments already made in the deletion discussion." It's not a re-do of the AfD. The question is whether the deletion closure was appropriate as handed down.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
20:31, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Well, the specific question we're looking at is, was the delete !vote reasonable? There have been a number of overturns which are keeps and a number of endorses which are delete voters at AfD, but this is turning into AfD part two, which isn't acceptable. It's going to be a very difficult DRV to close, because there are a lot of new voters to DRV here who may have been canvassed from off-wiki.
SportingFlyerT·C20:40, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I agree that it will be hard to close. I hope that this DRV, however it turns out, is closed with a little more explanation than the underlying AfD. I, for one, put in a lot of work into this article (as many others did) and to have it deleted despite a Keep/NC result based on a conclusory statement was a little disheartening to say the least. Especially when the WP:NOTNEWS argument was so easily deconstructed, as XavierItzm did in his 8/12/19 edit which is at the top of the page. It just smacks of a supervote rather than a good reason for deletion. I think out of respect to the editors who wrote the article, if the discussion favors Keep or NC then there really ought to be a very good rationale presented to delete it.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
20:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn Article is notable, and it's obvious that there is no consensus to delete. Then again,
LOBU also had no consensus to delete and it still got deleted, so I guess consensus really doesn't matter. Just my two cents. I feel like the deletion rationale was basically
WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --
Rockstonetalk to me!20:06, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse AFD is consensus based, not numbers based. The closer did the right thing in weighing the arguments, not the numbers. To those trying to re-argue the AFD, DRV is to examine the closer's action, not rehash the debate.
Captain EekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓21:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Who here is saying that keep side wins by vote count? A few of us tallied up the !votes; this was to show that it really should be a no consensus, since both sides had strong and weak arguments, and saying that delete's arguments are stronger is subjective and questionable (as is, arguably, the reverse).
-Crossroads- (
talk)
22:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse We can't run an encyclopedia where decisions are supposed to be made by discussion and consensus, and then every time a discussion happens in which half the editors !vote one way and half the other, but the former don't have a decent policy-based rationale, and then the closer closes in favour of the latter, members of the former en masse complain that since the !vote was 50-50 (more or less) then weight of arguments doesn't matter. Either those arguing to overturn have not read or understood
WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, or they understand that they are (clearly) wrong now but were themselves "keep" !voters guilty of non-policy-based !voting and so have a vested interest in not having the consensus statement be that they were wrong.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
22:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Your argument fails because both sides had policy based arguments. One side may have been stronger but since the closing editor didn't elaborate as to why they felt one was stronger than the other the process was undermined. Esentially your argument is "the closing process doesn't matter so long as you are happy with the results".
Springee (
talk)
00:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
As I've noted above, one side's policy arguments were "it passes
WP:GNG," the other side's arguments were "it fails
WP:NOT." These two arguments directly conflict - this isn't your run of the mill DRV where the sourcing is absolutely borderline and there's no consensus on whether
WP:GNG is met, so the closer has to weigh the
WP:NOT arguments.
SportingFlyerT·C00:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
That is certainly your opinion. Others in the discussion offered reasons why that view was wrong. However, for the closing editor to fulfill their obligations to the process they are required to properly explain their reasoning and explain why it shouldn't be seen as no-consensus. They have offered no more explanation than you. You aren't obligated to. As the closing editor RK is and if they can't then the discussion should be reopened and closed by an editor who can. Per
WP:NHC the closing editor If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not personally select which is the better policy. Certainly RK did not follow that last bit.
Springee (
talk)
00:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
This is no different than virtually every DRV I've been involved in: disruptive "keepist" editors and random people who just happened to think the article should be kept claim that because there was theoretically room for a cowardly "The votes are split -- no consensus" close that is always what should be done. This happens all the time -- honestly I wouldn't be surprised if most AFDs that turn out this way come to DRV -- and it's really disruptive.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
08:16, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Hijiri88: - There is nothing disruptive about this DRV. It was clearly a NC or Keep result. If the closing admin wants to override that, I would expect a more reasoned closure than simply a citation to policies that arguably do not apply.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
14:07, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
It is disruptive to claim that every time an admin closes against one "side" despite most or even just half of the "votes" being on that side their close must be undone. This is disruptive here, it was disruptive when it happened two days later
here, and it was disruptive back in May when it happened
here and
here.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
17:36, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Hijiri88: - I never claimed that. My point is this, as I stated in another comment: "In a highly-contested AfD that numerically favored Keep and had
WP:PAG-based arguments on both sides of the aisle, a Delete closure should be well-supported by policy and well-reasoned. Simply citing to policy in a one-sentence closure without actually discussing those policies or providing rationale is not appropriate under these circumstances. You might expect that out of an anemic Delete !vote but not a closure. Nobody has a problem with an AfD being decided on policy, but a supervote closure is not that." And whatever objections you have to past deletion review entries are really not relevant here. I did not participate in them and I have no idea what they're about.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
17:49, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I never said you claimed it; you just jumped on my comment and assumed that you were the target, when I honestly have no idea who you are. Doing this to everyone, as you apparently have been, is the definition of WP:BLUDGEON.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
20:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Hijiri88: - Given that you were replying to my comment, I thought it was a fair assumption that you were talking to me. If you meant to respond to someone else, you should fix that.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
00:29, 14 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment as if this thread needs another one... As others have said this shouldn't be AfD pt2, rather it asks if the closing of the AfD was conducted correctly. The closing editor's job is to assess consensus and decide Keep, Delete or no consensus. If they feel the quality of the arguments were heavily in favor of one side or the other then the editor must explain their reasoning so others can review it. If the quality of the arguments are roughly on balance then either no consensus or perhaps weight of numbers should decide. In this case I think all agree that weight of numbers was a no-consensus.
Randykitty's ultimate conclusion might be right based on the arguments but the offered explanation was inadequate to allow others to understand why. Randykitty cited policies by name but failed to provide any meaningful detail. This is critically important in a case where policy based arguments were offered by both sides and Randykitty didn't say either side was wrong, only that one side was more convincing. Again, they might be right but it is the responsibility of the closing editor to provide that detail.
I find the arguments about canvasing to be ironic if we are also going to say the approximate parity in views doesn't matter (ie we didn't declare a no-consensus). Canvasing is about getting out the vote. However, if quality of argument is all that matters then why get concerned about a number of "I agree" responses. Along the same lines we shouldn't dwell on the involvement of sock editors. If the argument made by a sock is strong then someone else will endorse it. If not, well NOTAVOTE. The fact that the article was started by a sock also doesn't matter since, per EVADE, a legitimate editor can endorse the edit as if it was their own. Regardless, the problem with this closing is it was done incorrectly. Incorrect closings, even if we agree with the direction of the closing, should be a concern for all editors as they undermine our trust in the system and discourage people from putting their time into editing. I supported keep but will accept delete so long as the process is done correctly and in a way that we can all feel was fair.
Springee (
talk)
00:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I'd suggest that
WP:DENY should take precedence when a transphobic sock creates a
WP:ATTACK page to smear a non-notable living person. And when the presence of that article leads to several Wikipedia editors speculating as to the shape of her genitals.
Simonm223 (
talk)
12:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I do get your concerns. I believe you and I have observed this on other topics where a blocked editor added content to an article and IIRC even started an RfC. However, if editors in good standing take over the edits then DENY and/or EVADE no longer apply and the attack aspect could be/was corrected. Non-notable person is your opinion and not without merit but others disagreed and again, not without merit. per
wp:EVADE, reversions of contributions of blocked editors is allowed but Editors who subsequently reinstate edits originally made by a blocked editor take complete responsibility for the content. Once editors in good standing took over and "make it their own" it's no longer a sock edit. I don't know what the article was like when created but that doesn't matter once other editors correct those issues as was the case here.
Springee (
talk)
13:26, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Considering the circumstances, there would be effectively no way to create an article that would be at all useful to the project, demonstrate lasting significance and be compliant with
WP:BLP1E - contrary to some of the assertions made, being an activist does not make one a public figure. I do a fair bit of activist stuff. I do doorknocking campaigns for issues of significance to me, write letters to politicians, call politicians, sit on citizen advisory boards, attend protests and counter-protests and write to newspapers. I am absolutely, completely, not notable. Likewise, the article subject is not notable for anything except that postmedia decided her activism was controversial enough to stir up the transphobic vote for the Conservatives ahead of the federal election in October. Once that's in the rear-view, I am pretty certain, based on my knowledge of the Canadian media landscape, she will be entirely forgotten by the press. So while I understand that you believe this page can be revived per
WP:EVADE, despite its inauspicious origin as an unambiguous example of
WP:ATTACK against a non-notable activist, but I am not convinced it can be while still being extant.
Simonm223 (
talk)
17:19, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Your arguments around NOTE are those of the actual AfD. My comments here related to was the closing process followed properly which is the question that should be answered here.
Springee (
talk)
17:31, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse the deletion rationale (I also commented in the AfD): isn't the reason we have policies like
WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, the reason decisions are more complicated than just mechanical counting, that content is supposed to be based on policies, for consideration of things like
notability beyond one event and
encyclopedic relevance rather than 'newsworthiness', and not on "votes"? (Doesn't the presence of "votes" canvassed off-wiki which, as noted by others above, often didn't engage the relevant policies, highlight the reason for this especially well?) As others said above, this is just turning into AfD Pt.II, with users who wanted to keep the article favouring overturning a close that picked policies over their headcount. (For as much noise as we make around here about decisions being based on policies and not headcounts, people always dislike when it actually happens.) (I would also like to say I found it bad that at the same time as AfD was proceeding with 'merge' as one option, a separate merge discussion was proceeding on the article's talk page, which was just inviting confusion.)
-sche (
talk)
17:29, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
In a highly-contested AfD that numerically favored Keep and had
WP:PAG-based arguments on both sides of the aisle, a Delete closure should be well-supported by policy and well-reasoned. Simply citing to policy in a one-sentence closure without actually discussing those policies or providing rationale is not appropriate under these circumstances. You might expect that out of an anemic Delete !vote but not a closure. Nobody has a problem with an AfD being decided on policy, but a supervote closure is not that.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
17:35, 13 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Uninvolved endorsement: while the discussion was hairy and just counting !votes might result in a close shave (sorry, couldn't resist), the closer correctly applied policy, particularly NOTNEWS.
Jonathunder (
talk)
15:19, 14 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Endorse The closing Admin made a reasonable assessment, and came to a reasonable conclusion and decision based on policy (including deletion policy). This decision is well within their purview and discretion as one of the duties carried out by Admins. Their explanation was sufficient and further explanation is provided in the relevant policy pages.
Also, the closing Admin provided further explanation in this discussion by pointing out
WP:NOTAVOTE. Another editor noted that NOTAVOTE usefully comes into play when "delete" ivotes and "keep" ivotes are essentially evenly distributed. Just like an umpire, the Admin called it as they saw it - and that is their job. ---
Steve Quinn (
talk)
16:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
The closing editor did not provide provide sufficient explanation of their thinking, especially given then all but ignored the views of over 20 responding editors. That is the issue here. While they pointed to policies, others have pointed to the same policies and reached different conclusions. Thus the closing editor either needs to provide additional justification so their logic can be reviewed or the closing needs to be reversed and a different editor can properly close the discussion. This isn't a question of what the "correct" answer is, this is a question of not short changing the process.
Springee (
talk)
17:00, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Closing editors routinely close contentious AfDs with "the consensus is X" and no further explanation at all. In this case, the closing editor paid special care to describing their reasoning. I think your characterization is inaccurate.
Simonm223 (
talk)
17:04, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Please cite an example where so many editors replied and both sides offered policy based arguments yet the closing editor's explanation was so limited.
User:Springee has made the same argument over and over again in this DRV. I think once or twice is sufficient for whoever closes this DRV. I never said anything about a correct answer so I don't know what that is about. Others reached a different conclusion in the AfD (the Keep ivoters) but that is not the issue. The issue is that the closing Admin did their job within their purview and discretion. Also, as I said before, further explanation is provided in the policy pages. We can pretend this is not what is indicated if someone is inclined to do so. ---
Steve Quinn (
talk)
17:18, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
You say I've said it more than once. I guess that's true. However, I haven't seen anyone who says the closing was correct actually try to address the concern. You say further explanation is provided in the policy page but that is really a poor answer. When both sides cited policy it is the obligation of the closing editor to provide a proper explanation rather than something that looks like little more than a supervote. As I said, RK's thinking may be right but we can't know given the limited explanation. That's bad as it leaves those who see this as a clear, no consensus, understandably feeling that the close was based on the editor's personal opinion rather than a true read of consensus based on policy. This is why I talk about respecting the process vs just being happy with the answer. Your answer, Simon's answer and others suggest that you are happy with the outcome vs you can argue the closing was handled correctly.
Springee (
talk)
17:36, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
I think we're on the same wavelength,
Springee. I can say, as someone who opposed the deletion of this article, that I could have accepted the deletion if it was done with clearer rationale. When there are policy arguments on both sides, and when the numerical tally favors Keep, I would expect the deleting admin to perform a deeper dive than just linking to policy and calling it a day. For an admin to say, essentially, "I looked at both arguments and found delete more persuasive because of (some policy)" is nothing more than a supervote. A closing admin is not an arbitrator or a supervoter. In other words, if a policy-based close is going to override what appears to be a clear example of Keep or No Consensus, that should be explained in some detail.
Cosmic Sans (
talk)
18:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC)reply
You're a bit confused about what a supervote is. If an admin closes an AfD by saying "I went to see the article and I feel that if violates policy XYZ, well, that's a supervote. When I closed this AfD, I actually didn't have a close look at the article, exactly because I didn't want to cast a supervote. What I did was weighing the different arguments brought forward, without counting !votes. That's not a supervote. That's a closure. You may disagree with my closure, but I strongly object to you calling that a supervote. Could you now please stop wikilawyering and badgering and leave this to the closing admin to decide? I really prefer to stay out of DRVs of my closures, leaving it for others to evaluate whether the close was proper or not, but your accusations are not leaving me much choice. --
Randykitty (
talk)
20:40, 15 August 2019 (UTC).reply
Comment (involved). Like others, I wanted to highlight the canvassing that has gone on. The conservative blog
PJ Media has blogged and tweeted about this, and they have over 65,000 followers on Twitter. The anti-trans Reddit r/gendercritical, and the "Toxic Hotbed of Transphobia"
Mumsnet, have also made noise about it. Some corners of the internet are very eager to get this page undeleted, in spite of the basic principle that Wikipedia is not a newspaper (let alone a tabloid newspaper.) I'll also note that, by contrast, I'm not seeing canvassing from the other side of the debate in my searches.
Anyway, I won't comment on whether the close was proper or improper, necessarily, but I will repeat a point I made during the AfD, that I think a small entry on the
BC Human Rights Tribunal page about the case, instead of either a whole article or nothing at all, could be a good middle ground between the two sides.
WanderingWanda (
talk)
22:42, 16 August 2019 (UTC)reply
weak endorse NOTNEWS does apply and a close based on it here isn't crazy. I think NC would have been a better close, but it's within administrative discression IMO. That said, nothing in this AfD/DRV should be considered to be limiting the creation of
Jessica Yaniv. It seems as if there is pleny of coverage for such a BLP. The only argument against seems to be the existance of a AfD from more than 3 years ag and under a different name.
Hobit (
talk)
00:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Overturn The close lacked the analysis or reasoning one would need to ignore such a large number of !votes and so appears to be a
supervote contrary to
WP:DGFA as it did not "respect the judgment and feelings of Wikipedia participants". For example, the arguments of the delete !voters were repeatedly rebutted. They said it was one event, but it was shown that it was multiple events. They said that it was a short burst of news, but it was shown that there was continuing coverage. It's for the !voters to assess these issues and they were clearly divided. This was not consensus; it was the exact opposite.
Andrew D. (
talk)
08:47, 18 August 2019 (UTC)reply
The above is an archive of the
deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.