We really need a good policy on speedy closing AfD nominations where
the nomination contains obviously false claims and whacking votes
that are just plain idiotic. Case in point,
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cyrus_Farivar_%284th_nomination%
29 where the nominator proclaimed that the article was kept because
of the journalist's involvement in an Internet hoax. In fact, it was
kept because this is a freelance journalist who has written for
Wired, The Economist, and the New York Times. As anyone actually
looking at the previous deletion debates would quickly notice.
Equally fun is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Greenlighting_hoax_%282nd_nomination%
29, where we have people citing a disputed guideline as policy, and
people declaring an article that's sourced to Slate (a publication
owned by the Washington Post) as having no sources.
I'm only mildly invested in the second as an article to keep around
(although I think deleting the first would be appalling), but this
kind of sloppy voting and sloppy nominating needs to stop. It's far
too clear that people are voting without even looking at what they're
voting on, and that despite our pretending that AfD is not a vote, it
is far too often treated as one. (And don't even get me started on
the latest and greatest bit of deletion DoubleSpeak, the ever-
wonderful Categories for Discussion.)
Personally, I'd support a speedy-close policy on any AfD with false
information in the nomination, and a standard "comment removed due to
obvious inaccuracy" template to put into place on the "discussions"
for when people cite policies that don't exist, claim lack of sources
where sources exist, or otherwise flagrantly decline to engage with
reality.
-Phil