Tony Sidaway wrote: The end justifies the means? -Rich

On 4/17/07, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote: Here's the AFD that prompted me to ask this question, the "keep" closure was upheld. [[Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fictional_portrayals_of_psychopaths]]

I think one of the problems is that DRV is closed by just one, ordinary admin, with fairly wide discretion, so it only takes two (one for the AfD, one for the DRV) to come along and say, basically, "the argument I agree with is so brilliant and unanswerable that it trumps consensus", and the decision is made, with no recourse whatsoever. -- David

Anthony wrote: I don't think DRV knows what it is. In October, we allegedly switched to a consensus-based system, but a discussion in Feburary or March indicated that closing admins were simply using headcounts again. There's no evidence that I'm aware of that arguments are weighted based on the facts surrounding the individual situations. -Jeff

Thomas Dalton wrote: But process is evil! We're not a bureaucracy! IAR IAR! Ahhh! -Jeff -- If you can read this, I'm not at home.

VFU and DRV are not the same thing. Just look at the titles - one is about undeleting articles, the other is about reviewing deletions. I wasn't very active when the move was made from VFU to DRV, but I would guess that that was when it became about process and not content. If you believe new information has come to light, then you should recreate the article and explain your point of view in the edit summary of the creation and on the talk page. If any admin speedies the article after that, then you go to the admin noticeboard and I'm sure you'll find someone willing to undelete it. (A full DRV is not required to undo a speedy deletion.)

It might well have been, I wasn't involved. I'm just guessing. I would have thought it would be gone from VFU to AFU if it was just a corresponding rename.

The idea of speedy deletion is that only articles where there is no room for debate get deletion without debate. If someone (esp. an admin) disagrees, then that is very clear evidence that the deletion was out-of-process. There should be no room for opinion or judgement in speedy deletions, so anything controversial is, by definition, out of process.

Just as there is a difference between reverting an edit to an article and edit warring, there is a difference between undeleting an article that's just been deleted and wheel warring. From my memory of the arbcom decision, only admins which deleted or undeleted more than once were desysoped.

On 4/16/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: To be fair, there's a pretty obvious difference between, "hey, you accidentally deleted the good copy while cleaning up pagemove vandalism, I'll undelete it," and getting involved in a large-scale, fast-paced wheel war over an issue being paid great attention by a large amount of editors, and overriding multiple ongoing discussions while you're at it, especially considering that said issue has one of the longest and most checkered histories of any I've yet become familiar with, on Wikipedia. The word "controversial" doesn't appear too significant, in the sentence, but it's the keystone of the difference. That's my thought, anyway. -Luna

On Apr 16, 2007, at 9:51 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: You mean like we can do on AfD with keep votes? -Phil

You make an interesting point. It is a widely accepted fact that consensus can change, yet we have no process by which to assess any such change for deletions. DRV is not intended to be that process, and it shouldn't be that process, but such a process is required. I think we should create an Articles for Undeletion (AFU) which would operate under a similar system to AFD. The article should be undeleted as a subpage of the deletion debate so people can make an informed decision (this is not required for DRV, but would be required for AFU, as AFU would be about content not process). There would need to be some eligibility requirements for an article to go through AFU. AFU would not be for speedied articles - they can be unilaterally undeleted by any admin, just as they were unilaterally deleted. I think some kind of waiting period would be useful - say 1 week after the AFD is closed before you can start an AFU, and 1 month after a failed AFU is closed before you can start a new one. A requirement that AFUs be started by more than one person (ie. they have to be co-nominated) might also be good - I'm not sure how many people would be the right amount. I know this idea involves creation of a whole new process, which may well be frowned upon by many, but I think it is necessary. At the moment, DRV doesn't really work because it is trying to handle two jobs - deletion review, and undeletion debate. Those are two different jobs and should be handled by different processes. They might be an argument for making DRV admin-only. AFDs can only be closed by admins, so only admins should review the closure (although one could be started by anyone, only admin opinions would be taken into account). I haven't thought this through fully, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I'll put it out there for discussion anyway and I'll let you know my opinion once I've formed one.

Non-admins can close uncontroversial AFDs. If it's going to DRV, it isn't really uncontroversial, is it?

There are plenty of uncontroversial AFDs. Yes, they probably should have gone through PROD instead, but they often go through AFD anyway. When we it decided that they could? Wikipedia:Maintenance is not part of the deletion policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_deletion#Closure calls the volunteer that closes the AFD the "closing admin" and makes no reference to non-admins closing AFDs. It is generally accepted that an admin isn't required for almost unanimous keeps, but I don't know of any consensus for any other AFDs to be closed by non-admins.