Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/List of Elite Four members

I am having trouble understanding the rationale for closing this AFD as "keep". As a matter of public record, it might be helpful if you updated/changed the closing rationale beyond "The result was Keep", and add in why you felt the 9 !votes for merge were less persuasive than the 4 !votes for keep. Let me know your thinking. Randomran (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AfD is not a head count, but head-counting is a good parameter to use for a discussion such as this one we are having to analyze the decision protocol of an administrator. As for pure numbers, I see the count as (1/7/3 del/keep/merge):

===Delete===

1. 1. Randomran (nominator)

• • MuZemike (first made a coherant argument for merge, then changed to delete based on his disagreement with an essay cited by a keep !voter (WP:SIZE).

===Keep===

1. 1. Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles (citing several policies, and providing sources)
   2. DGG (articulate and compelling arguments which also ratify GRC's comments)
   3. Nifboy (wants article condenced and reconsidered; requires keep outcome)
   4. A Man In Black (wants merge to multiple articles, which requires keep outcome)
   5. WikiScrubber (Notable, WP:Size)
   6. SunDragon34 (content is appropriate for separate article)
   7. Everyking (notable, content appropriate)

===Merge===

1. 1. T-rex (saying within scope of other article, and not justified as own)
   2. Salavat (non-notable)
   3. Ningauble (citing lack of notability)

• • Zerokitsune (saying article not good, list better)
  • Jelly Soup (citing Zerokitsune's invalid rationale)
  • UltraMagnus (first person to !vote merge, but provided no rationale)

===Non-participatory===

• • MrKIA11 (deletion sorting)
  • David Eppstein (added deletion category)

So out of 15 participants, only one made a valid argument for deletion. That argument did not stand against the 7 people who opined for keep. The merge proposals may or may not be valid, but this can be handled by bold editors outside of AfD. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 23:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not trying to be difficult. But I think you made a few errors:

• • • As far as I can tell, nobody found any sources -- and the google search only turned up primary our unreliable sources. One !vote had poor evidence of notability, and one had ZERO evidence -- WP:JNN.
    • AMiB and SunDragon34 actually !voted merge and you misinterpreted their !votes as keep.
    • Nifboy and myself didn't !vote merge, but we were supportive of one. So while I wouldn't subtract from the keep or delete support, I would certainly add some weight to a merge compromise.

Factoring Nifboy/my support for a merge, and properly interpreting AMiB and SunDragon34 adds 4 more support for a merge. That's 7 good arguments for a merge. On the other hand, properly interpreting AMiB and SunDragon34's !votes as merge subtracts 2 support from delete, resulting in 5 !votes. That's at least a "no consensus", by my measure.

Certainly, we should be cautious in discarding the 3 weak arguments for merge. But arguably we should knock down two weak keep votes too. Not that I'm 100% positive that's how we should interpret this AFD... but whereas I see "merge" or "no consensus" as reasonable, i see "keep" and "delete" as a real stretch.

I'm thinking out loud, though. If you saw it, took it into account, and rejected it, that's one thing. But it's important that you didn't miss it entirely. Again, understanding that we're all only human here. Randomran (talk) 04:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(dedent) Nifboy said:

I do not see how you could possibly interpret that as other than "unambiguous keep". He speecifically says:

• Edit the article and then make some determination
• Handle by editors not policy process
• The notability guideline that would apply to this article is in draft stage

He later said he understood the merge !votes, but did not say he agrees with them, nor that he was changing his !vote.

AMIB said:

While clearly a "merge" !vote, it is calling for editors to sift through the content and move it to several articles. This requires the article to be kept, for GFDL reasons, and to allow editors to go through that collaborative editing process. A closing administrator cannot be expected to perform such a complex merge.

You are right about Sundragon34; he made three separate comments that stated the article should be kept. I did not see his later comment where he changed his mind and went merge. He should have used strikethrough to make that clearer. That alone is not enough to change the outcome of the AfD, though.Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 08:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I really didn't want to retract those comments, though; I just decided the information could be incorporated into the character list without losing much of worth. The reason I posted those first three comments was that I wanted those three editors to provide reasoning for their statements: they offered conclusions with nothing to tell us why those conclusions were correct (Zero Kitsune especially). One of those editors, Ningauble, then elaborated on the reasoning behind his statement, which I thought made sense. SunDragon34 (talk) 02:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...I think you've radically misinterpreted what the participants at this AfD want you to do, which first and foremost slap a redirect on the mess as a short-term binding decision. Interested editors can then go through the history of the redirect and copy content over as necessary, which is viable so long as the edit summary notes where it came from (See: WP:MERGE). Nifboy (talk) 12:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can legitimately see why you would say that. So I don't think you made a mistake. But I'm not sure that most other administrators would have ignored the "secondary support" for a merge (+2 for merge), or reinterpreted the two merge votes as keep votes (+2 for merge, -2 for keep). And while I can see how you would ignore three merge votes as just votes, I think another administrator would have applied the same standard to the "justapolicy" or "sources exist" keep votes (-2 keep votes). On balance, this would be no consensus, with an outside shot at being a straight merge. I hope you understand that if I take it to deletion review, it's not because I think you screwed up, but because I would rather get a third opinion. Randomran (talk) 15:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]