Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 27

27 December 2010

File:SpywareProtect09block.PNG

File:SpywareProtect09block.PNG (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

Administrator closed discussion as keep (free), claiming that the text in the image was not subject to copyright protection because "malware is not afforded copyright protection." When I asked her to reconsider and cite authority for this, the administrator responded saying that "any person who claimed to own the copyright of this image would likely be prosecuted under laws regarding computer crimes." I am still not convinced that something along the lines of unclean hands allows us to disregard copyrights on images like this one or be compatible with CC-BY-SA. RJaguar3 | u | t 20:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• The closer may be right. In the meantime, let's not practice copyright-paranoia. Wait for a legal opinion, or a complaint from someone claiming ownership. At worst, I think a very strong fair use claim can be made to use this image. More likely, I think the owner lost copyright by fraudulently distributing the image. I think the owner holds no moral rights over the image. I think it is akin to a forgery. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Relist. While morally objectionable, it would be news to me that that somehow affects the copyright status of the image. --Conti|✉ 03:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Relist. It seems to me that the closing admin has asserted some premises that are tenuous at best. It would be better to have a "cleaner" close.. __meco (talk) 09:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn/Relist Maliciousness of the software has no bearing on its copyright status. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to delete. 14 days and no comment at PUF normally translate to deletion; closer's rationale is totally without support either in law or in our policies (though I'd imagine that the creator of such malware would be quite unlikely to actually try to enforce such a copyright, that is irrelevant), so there's no need for a relist. T. Canens (talk) 16:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Probably not the right place for this, but would this qualify under Template:PD-text? NW (Talk) 18:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • No. The text in the image is not a simple word, phrase, slogan, or title. I think it is sufficiently creative to be awarded copyright protection. Thus, the pd-text tag doesn't apply here. RJaguar3 | u | t 19:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn per T.Canens Edge3 (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to delete. I would have instead supported relisting, but the closing administrator ought to have raised the argument for discussion originally, instead of employing it without warning to close the discussion. Since the closing admin had a free opportunity to raise the issue, that ought to foreclose relisting it. --Bsherr (talk) 19:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to delete or relist - Closing admin's rationale is completely inconsistent with copyright law. Garion96 (talk) 19:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• 2 notes from closing admin #1) I honestly do believe that there is no copyright here based on there being no license for the software and the fact that this is malware. #2) As can be seen here at his talk page this image was already restored once in the past by User:Explicit who has far greater experience with image deletions than I. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 00:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I respectfully believe that the anon on whose advice Explicit relied in undeleting the image was mistaken. Just because the screenshot is part of "a virus program [with] no End User License" does not mean that the software "was released to the public with absolutely no restrictions," as the anon claims. RJaguar3 | u | t 03:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • EDITED TO ADD With respect to (1), the fact that the program was distributed without a license does not mean that it is in the public domain. It neither has a permissive license (like the GPL) to grant the necessary permissions needed to use a derivative work of the software on this site, nor does it have a restrictive agreement that purports to restrict the rights granted to the owner of a copy of a copyrighted work under US law. Thus, although there is no licensing agreement in effect, use of the software is still subject to standard copyright law, which binds everyone. RJaguar3 | u | t 03:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • For your point (1) it shows you are ignorant of copyright law, and certainly shouldn't be closing such debates. Copyright is automatic and implicit, when editors cut and paste text from a website displaying no copyright notice, we tell them the same, no copyright notice != PD and != no claim of copyright. (Wikipedia:COPYRIGHT#Using_copyrighted_work_from_others - "All creative works are copyrighted, by international agreement, unless either they fall into the public domain or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed." note the "explicitly disclaimed" i.e. they have to say they are not claiming rights). It was listed at FFD with only one opinion given, deciding how to close it based on the previous action of an admin not participating in the debate is ridiculous, there is no policy etc which says person X is always right no matter what anybody else says, if you disagreed then you should have participated in the debate, merely determining yourself to be correct and closing accordingly is not allowed. The easiest way to resolve this looks like just adding a fair use rationale. --87.112.87.182 (talk) 10:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn and delete, unfortunately this fails the Wednesbury test. Stifle (talk) 12:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• ????.

• Overturn to delete - With enough feedback, the admin should have reversed his own decision by now. But that hasn't been done. The closing admin is embarrassingly wrong. Even if it were true that "Malware is not afforded copyright protection", which it isn't and you are confusing patent protection with copyright protection (and in general there is no such sweeping intellectual property rule), the screenshot itself is not malware. It is just a screenshot. End User License/license for the software is contract law, not copyright law. The image does misuse that multicolored dot (which looks like something Microsoft would trademark) and Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" trademark name. OTOH, this image very likely is fair use of non-free media. However, since 14 days and no comment at PUF normally translate to deletion and there was no fair use reasons put forth, overturn to delete. Feel free to restore the image using a fair use of non-free media template. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn and Delete, not a valid image license rationale. Nakon 07:51, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Relist - Sorry, but our existing standards dictate that this screenshot should have a fair use rationale.   — C M B J   01:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• Relist, rather than overturn to delete. The pd-text issue seems quite arguable to me, and FfD is where that discussion should take place.—S Marshall T/C 09:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse The keep is correct. The idea that copyright applies is equivalent to saying that courts will enforce copyright on 419 spam emails. Copyright will not give protection to a document designed to defraud someone. In UK law (where fair dealing is weaker than fair-use in the US) copyright is not extended to wrong doing, you can read here in pages 14-18 how UK law treats such issues. John lilburne (talk) 10:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

  The fact that fair dealing is weaker than fair use is completely irrelveant. Fair Dealing/Fair use is a defence and has nothing to do with the actions of the person claiming copyright. The issue there was "The jurisdiction [of the English courts] to refuse to enforce copyright came from the court's inherent jurisdiction and was limited to cases where enforcement of the copyright would offend against the policy of the law" and is unrelated to issues of fair use. It is not saying no copyright exists it is saying in some circumstances (for the court to decide, not me or you) that the copyrights would not be enforced in English courts. However it's broadly irrelevant (1) The purpose of our copyright policy is not merely to defend the wikimedia foundation, it's about creating a free encylopedia (re)usable worldwide (including derivatives of images etc.) (2) Given 1 second guessing if a court would or wouldn't enforce the copyright is not an exercise we should be engaging in, maybe this case is "obvious" there are plenty of other cases where there would be lots of disagreement (3) On a similar basis to (1) we don't accept images where permission is given to just wikipedia it isn't helpful to our goal (i.e. if wikimedia is "safe" isn't the only issue) (4) There are many images we could republish as is without worry of the rights holder trying to enforce them, again we don't since again that isn't our purpose we are trying to provide a free resource for re(use) including creating derivatives of the images etc.

  The point of DRV is to examine the deletion process, is there a process which says "The closing admin chooses to determine if a copyright is enforceable and then ignores the discussion and closes according to the admins own understanding" - quite simply there is no such process. If as you the closer believed unenforceablity was a valid claim to make then they should have participated in the discussion.

  The whole thing is rather silly, if we think the image adds value there is a very simple fair use claim which can be made in this case. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 11:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

If considering whether a US copyright court would afford copyright protection to an image that is illustrating a scam, is second guessing then so is all those images of DVD and LP album covers, the images of book jackets, and the images of products in their packaging. All the images that are under copyright somewhere in the world, but not the US makes the encyclopaedia un-reusable elsewhere in the world. The use of this particular image is also transformative in that it is illustrating how malware presents itself to the user. Its not as if the image is being incorporated into a wikipedia malware package. John lilburne (talk) 13:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Your last sentence is a non-free content rationale. Irrelevant to the question if there's copyright or not on this image. No, copyright on album covers is not second quessing. Basically everything is copyrighted, it needs to be proven that this image is not copyrighted. Garion96 (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Put it another way: is copying an image of the text used to alarm someone into purchasing something they don't need, so as to inform the public of the scam sanctioned by law? If the answer to that question is YES then copyright does not apply. Is there a permissions market where one can license images of scamware so as to inform the public of the scam. If the answer to that is NO then copyright does not apply. One cannot use copyright to prevent the disclosure of fraud. John lilburne (talk) 14:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I do agree that such a usage might be fair use. However, (absent a court order), fraud does not place text associated with that fraud in the public domain. One problem with using images where copyright enforcement is likely barred by unclean hands is that if the copyright holder does purge themselves of wrongdoing, then they can enforce the copyright again, which means that we would have to remove all images and derivative works based on that image, plus other users of our content that relied on the image's public domain status could be in jeopardy. RJaguar3 | u | t 18:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

That is still second guessing how a court would respond and indeed how a court would respond in any of the many countries/jurisdiction we want the content to be freely available in. As I already said we can look at this and say it's obviously a scam and so obviously wouldn't be enforced if it ever came to it - that is however completely different to tagging it as PD - it's not and we don't have a tag for "We believe the copyright is unenforceable" which is what we would require. It also doesn't help us in billions of other cases where the underlying legality we disagree on. We aren't employed to make legal rulings and we shouldn't be doing so. Once again however we shouldn't really be getting into the situation where we are trying to make such judgements on the behalf of wikimedia or anyone else - there is a valid fair use claim, the same valid fair use claim we use for album covers and the like. Your noting it's a transformative use is of course one of the reasons we can make a fair use claim etc. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

List of deaths related to Scientology

List of deaths related to Scientology (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Faulty close. Clearly no consensus. Add to this closing admin's lack of rationale for the decision. meco (talk) 08:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn (for a more articulate close). Unacceptable explanation that insults the participants. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. Neither consensus nor no consensus can overrule Wikipedia policy, and the existing article was an unacceptable coatrack. This close was completely correct. The numbers added up to no consensus, but the arguments added up to delete. We don't make these decisions on numbers. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• A general comment on the idea that "consensus cannot overrule policy": this makes no sense, because what we do is determining how policies apply to a case. And that determination is made by consensus, as assessed by the closer. Consensus can be wrong: a later consensus may determine that policy directed another outcome, but it doesn't mean that the consensus overruled policy, it means that the consensus missapplied policy. A closer may also have missassessed consensus. AFD determines the applicability of deletion policies to articles. DRV is generally construed to determine if the consensus was correctly assessed, not if the consensus was correct in the first place (ie, it's not AFD bis), although it remains a grey area. (I'm not taking any position in the present debate.) Cenarium (talk) 01:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• If the arguments did add up to delete, then the closer should have explained why. And so should you, Heimstern, if you're endorsing, because "the arguments added up to delete" is, by itself, just a statement of opinion.—S Marshall T/C 10:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• I already have, mm goi. NPOV is the reason. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• NPOV is a reason to rewrite, or to rename. What's missing is the reason to delete.—S Marshall T/C 14:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn No solid consensus appears in the AfD discussion, and no reason was given for interpreting the narrow consensus for "keep" as "delete" instead. This is not the place, moreover, to now assert a policy-based reason for a closure which did not invoke the policy at all. We can not here use ESP to state that a reason was used which was not stated. Nor do I find WP:COATRACK to be labeled as "policy" - last I checked it was still an "essay." Has it been promoted? This is an "essay-based" deletion argument? And concerns raised by some are matters for discussion at the article talk page, not here. Collect (talk) 12:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Overturn - There is not even one policy- or guideline-based delete argument in the whole discussion, except for NPOV concerns. However NPOV is an issue of content and it is dealt within editorial consensus while editing the article: we don't delete articles because they're NPOV, we fix them. So this is not an AfD concern. That deaths related to Scientology exist is not a POV, is what sources present in the article said. Apart from that, the most cogent arguments brought called WP:COATRACK (an essay, even if a widely quoted one, which is highly debatable and prone to misuse, e.g. see here, where it basically reduces any criticism section to coat-racking) and then WP:WEASEL (a concern which I agree with, but that is a style issue that is entirely unrelated to deletion, per deletion policy). --Cyclopia^talk 12:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC) - clarified --Cyclopia^talk 14:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• This is the most baldly untrue thing I've ever seen on Wikipedia, and I've no idea whether to charge ignorance or dishonesty. There are many delete args with policy. Since when is NPOV not policy? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 13:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) You are right: NPOV has also been called into question. But this doesn't change the point: NPOV is a content/editorial issue, not a deletion issue, so it's again a moot argument in a deletion discussion. If an article about Barack Obama is biased, we intervene to make it neutral, we don't simply erase it. Read WP:ATD. So, thank you for your personal attacks and merry holidays. --Cyclopia^talk 13:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, funny comment style from someone who wrote editors often fail to deliver so much as a modicum of respect for the opinions of others concerning how issues should be resolved. Disagreement is fine, but the rude dismissals we see so often are contrary to the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia.. Cheers. --Cyclopia^talk 13:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are the one who broadly dismissed every single supporter of deletion as not based in policy, Cyclopia, so I'm afraid I think those words of mine apply to you at least as much if not more than to me. (Mind you, that essay of mine's ancient now.) The problem with your argument about deletion and NPOV is that the very nature of the article is POV, at least in the opinion of those supporting deletion. Under those circumstances, fixing is not an option and NPOV is not at all a moot argument. There you go. I do regret my initial reaction to this argument, though. Got angry that I was being accused of non-policy compliant arguments and got in a bit of a huff. Should have stayed away from that, that much is clear. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry and thanks for clarifying. I will clarify my comment above to reflect your observations. --Cyclopia^talk 14:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The analogous case would be an article called List of deaths related to Barack Obama (or even better given the Vince Foster mess, List of deaths related to Bill Clinton. How would you "fix" the NPOV problems with these hypothetical lists "through editing" (aside from the obvious editing decision to delete the attack pieces?)Bali ultimate (talk) 13:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse per Heimstern. --JN466 13:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn Closed as "result is delete" when there is no clear consensus. As Par Cyclopia there were many different arguments and neither side had a clear policy on there side within a deletion discussion. More explanation was necessary and not given.Coffeepusher (talk) 14:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse was a clear attack piece with BLP implications. "Related to" was a weasel way around "caused by" -- since deleted redirects to this page like Scientology kills made the reason for the list's existence clearer still. Inclusion was purely arbitrary, and there are BLP issues at play.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • In other words, there are fundamental WP:NPOV problems with the article, not merely the kind that can be fixed by editing, correct? Cyclopia makes a comparison to Barack Obama above. The difference is that it is possible to write a neutral article on Barack Obama, whereas the delete votes made a compelling argument that it was impossible to do so with this article, something that the keep voters could not refute (note that even after John lilburne made his comment, no one increased the number of entries on the list; in fact, the list shrunk). So Endorse.

    In addition, a troutslap to meco for not discussing the closure at all with LFaraone first, and a troutslap to the rest of us for discussing the closure anyway. NW (Talk) 16:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

    • • @NW Yes I believe the NPOV problems are fundamental and inherent to this list. The use of "related to" is meant to imply "caused by." We couldn't have a list that says "caused by" because that's obviously pejorative and judgemental (even in the case of McPherson reasonable people could object. i.e. was her death caused by scientology or caused by the various people involved with her treatment? Think of a nurse and doctor killing a patient through negligence or malfeasance in a catholic hospital. Would that death have been caused by Catholocism?) The list exists only to attack and disparage.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Comment I reject your troutslap, because the closure wasn't done because of a superior argument regarding WP:NPOV, it was done because "result was delete". that is what we are discussing and it is a serious problem with the closure because of reasons that are already apparent. Everyone is speculating on the reasons why, and no actual closure is available regarding this issue. Until we hear from the closing admin a more detailed reason on why they closed it, we are just going to rehash every argument that has already been discussed. THIS is why it is imperative, especially on AFD's that generate such a diverse range of policy arguments, that the closing admin MAKES IT PERFECTLY CLEAR why the AFD was closed in such and such a way. If anything, the diversity of opinions in both the AFD and this discussion makes it really REALLY apparent that there is no consensus regarding this issue.Coffeepusher (talk) 16:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • And perhaps the closer would have been able to come up a rationale if you gave them time to do so. That is the entire reason why the policy on notification exists. NW (Talk) 18:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You fail to address the procedural circumstances which should always be front and center at a deletion review. You are making arguments that belong at the AfD discussion. As such, your vote should be summarily disregarded. __meco (talk) 17:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • The policy is there for a reason, and you clearly failed to follow it. Do so next time please. And I am not making arguments that belong at AFD. I am saying that the closer appropriately weighted those comments above other ones. There is a difference. Would you like me to clarify further? NW (Talk) 18:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn - When a discussion is not lopsided heavily towards the keep or delete side, closing the discussion with no explanation is usually unhelpful. If there was some particular reason why the closer thought that the reasoning to delete was more sound than the reasoning to keep, then he/she should have let us know what that reason was. Reading through the discussion, I see equally valid arguments for deleting and keeping, although many of the delete arguments do focus on issues which can be solved with editing. I would have closed this as no consensus or keep. SnottyWong ^yak 18:26, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• overturn When there's no clear consensus and there's no overrding policy issue we close as no consensus. Closing no-consensus as keep or delete should only occur if there are strong policy reasons to do so. They don't exist here so result should be no consensus, defaults to keep. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn This a classic "no consensus", with both arguments and numbers pretty evenly distributed on both sides. There was no consensus for deletion and the absence of an explanation from the closing administrator as to why the article should be deleted where reasonable policy-based arguments were made for retention only complicates the issue further. Alansohn (talk) 20:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn There were legitimate arguments on both sides, and the closing statement inadequately explained the admin's decision. Edge3 (talk) 21:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse There simple was no viable list there to preserve. It started out as a COATRACK and as the days went by the list withered away until there were just 4 items left. In two of the remaining items the cause was that someone who ought to have been in a psychiatric hospital killing someone. Those sort of cases happen every year or so in the UK due to Social Services not acting fast enough, or mental health patients being released back into the community to early, but we don't make a list of List of People killed by Social workers as a result. John lilburne (talk) 22:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• As several before you in this discussion you too seem to believe that a DRV is an extension of the AfD. It isn't. Your arguments belong in an AfD. We're here now to discuss whether the closing admin made a correct call based on the AfD discussion, not to bring up arguments for keeping or deleting the page. __meco (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment As the closing administrator, I'm rather surprised that this was taken to DRV, as the guidelines indicate it's preferable to resolve the issue through a discussion with the administrator beforehand. Anyway, specific to this article, based on a reading of the arguments and references to policy presented, it was clear that there was a rough consensus for deleting the article. I should have explained more; I'm not opposed to having the article recreated, but in its current form all the examples provided had tenuous connections to Scientology. We might as well have a List of deaths related to Catholicism of all people who were related to / were themselves members of the Catholic Church. I apologize for not elaborating more in the closing, I just would have appreciated it if those nominating this to DRV had thought to engage in a discussion first. LFaraone 01:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Would you please append to the initial close your full rationale, for the benefit of future readers of the XfD? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Done. Its not the best explanation, probably, and might benefit from some expansion, but is a brief summary of the closing rationale. LFaraone 15:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse as per Heimstern. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. Deletion discussions are not a vote. While there wasn't consensus to delete, there was certainly policy in place regarding its deletion. I endorse the decision to delete, although the interpretation of consensus is sketchy. Bastique ^{☎ call me!} 01:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• And to be clear, the policy you refer to is NPOV? In other words, it wouldn't be possible to have a neutral version of this list?—S Marshall T/C 02:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• See my statement below The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Hmm. When I read your statement I see plenty of emphatic declarative and little recognition that there are complexities. Look, even the closer recognises that an article can exist with this title. (diff) And that's supported by a rough consensus at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 May 9#Category:Deaths connected to Scientology. Arguments that this is a slippery slope towards List of deaths related to Catholicism don't cut much ice with me; the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy (specifically an informal fallacy) and besides, precedent doesn't count for much on Wikipedia. Coffeepusher made this point strongly during the discussion.

  "NPOV" means "neutral POV". It doesn't mean "No POV at all". To the extent that there are reliable sources attributing the deaths to Scientology, it's reasonable to say it. But all the analysis of the sources that took place in the AfD was from the "keep" camp. Nobody who said "delete" showed much evidence of having examined the sources or dismissing them as unreliable—with the honourable exception of Scott Mac, whose arguments to delete based on WP:SYN strike me as far stronger than his NPOV ones.—S Marshall T/C 13:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse a lengthy explanation by User:LFaraone would have been preferred but I think when you look at the arguments its pretty clear case. If you look as a Votes then "no consensus" is apparent result. here are the apparent policies that seem to be used: The tittle of the article itself violate WP:NPOV with WP:WEASEL word in the title no Neutral Alternate tittle can be used. Thus Fails the most basic application of the policy of WP:NPOV. Additionally The entire things implies guilt by associating ‘’’ these Death with ‘‘Church of Scientology’’ thus again violating NPOV when really the CoS has nothing to do with the murders or suicides. Lisa Mcpherson is was the only person on the list where CoS had any involvement thus a neutral version of the article’s list would only contain her and that is covered at Her article The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse - No wrongdoing or missteps by closing admin, though a detailed rationale would've been nice. DRVs should not be filed because we didn't get our way at the AfD. Given the predictable "keep its notable!" calls plus the inherent NPOV concerns of such an article premise...a premise which it is impossible to ever write about in a POV manner, in my opinion...tilting towards the stronger delete arguments was within admin discretion. Tarc (talk) 02:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse Bad close, right outcome. The closing administrator came to the right conclusion in my opinion, however they should have left a closing note. Unfortunately, this article cannot ever be neutral. Resident Anthropologist and Bastique lay out the same arguments I would use quite well. AniMate 13:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse, as I cannot say that the closer was clearly in error. T. Canens (talk) 16:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse - as noted above, it's pretty well impossible for this to be a neutral article, no matter how it's rewritten. Therefore, the closing admin acted correctly by not doing a straight count.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn procedurally horrible close. If you can't explain the close, don't close it when there are legit disagreements on both sides. I agree that the WP:SYN arguments might be enough to carry the day. I don't think WP:NPOV does. If the sources get us there, we shouldn't shy away from a topic. We just need to be sure we cover it well. But the fact is I can't tell why this was deleted and I think deletion is a huge stretch from the discussion so there is no way to endorse this decision. Hobit (talk) 05:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Hobit, that's not a valid reason to overturn an AfD, but rather a quite good reason why it is suggested that one contacts the closing admin first before scurrying off to DRV. DRV is becoming the classic 2nd parent in the "parent #1 said no, so..." model. Tarc (talk) 15:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC) Moved comment to where I think it was meant to be--hobit
    • A) I entirely agree the nom here should have waited for a response. At the same time the closer really should know better than to close a discussion like that without any explanation. Ignoring both of those for a second, I think we have to assume the closer felt the discussion had an obvious result and that the main argument, NPOV, was the reason for deletion. Certainly many endorsing here seem to think so. Since I disagree with that and think the synth argument is likely fixable I don't see a valid reason for deletion. Hobit (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Now that a more detailed rationale has been provided, does your position change? Tarc (talk) 02:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I find this close as problematic than the last. There is nothing other assertions that this is a coatrack, so to complain that the keep side only asserted it wasn't is fairly bogus. If something is a coatrack or not isn't an objective issue (where as WP:N, or WP:RS often can be). In this case there was no consensus that it was, and the closer doesn't get to pick which side he agrees with in a war of raw assertions. Hobit (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Deletion-related disagreements can often be resolved by waiting for the closer to respond to your request to clarification before listing a DRV. Was there any particular reason you didn't give him/her a chance to respond? Stifle (talk) 12:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion, I concur with the conclusion in the closer's (recently posted) rationale, although I disagree that the title is a weaselly showstopper. The article was indeed a very poor collection of deaths only tangentially related to Scientology, and considerations of the article's merits were not addressed by the keep vote. Allow recreation as there was no consensus on the notability and validity of the subject. Indeed I believe that an article could be written here, for example the death of Kaja Ballo is one case which sparked a lot of controversy around CoS. (I know that problems which can be fixed by normal editing often are insufficient to justify deletion, but in this case, the content was of such a quality that it is better to delete it and start over again.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• endorse article violated neutrality, afd can't override policy, and the close was fair and well-reasoned.--Scott Mac 22:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Article as written, or the topic itself? Hobit (talk) 17:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse close, article is not neutral. As this is not AFD2, this article was validly deleted by the closing administrator. Nakon 07:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse per Scott MacDonald. Stifle (talk) 09:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

List of African supercentenarians and List of South American supercentenarians

List of African supercentenarians (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

List of South American supercentenarians (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

note: I'm not that good with Wiki-formatting; someone who is good at it, please fix. Thanks.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of African supercentenarians

The above AFD was closed with an incorrect assumption:

The result was delete. At "vote count" we have 5 delete vs. 3 keep (in a "normal" case with reasonable arguments on both sides this is borderlining on rough consensus), but what is compelling in this particular case is a lack of reliable sourcing for the list. It was well argued that the main source for the list, GRG, was not a reliable. The only keep voter who, to his credit, mentioned sources at all was Thecheesykid, but even he did not consider the reliability of the source. The arguments that this seems to be a regular almanac entry, and that the material is better in list form than individual articles seem rather irrelevant unless the sourcing issue is addressed. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

There are several problems with this AFD. I will start with the most-obvious:

1. "It was well argued that the main source for the list, GRG, was not a reliable."

This is FICTION! The GRG has been recognized by major sources, such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Tokyo Times, USA Today, etc.

For example, check out this article here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-12-26-oldest-man-christmas_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Note the listing of the Gerontology Research Group, along with Guinness World Records.

Thus, the above conclusion is wrong on two counts:

A. It fails to consider the availability of reliable sources B. It passes judgment on the reliability of outside sources, even though reliability of the GRG is also established by other notable outside sources. I doubt any of you would argue against USA Today or the Wall Street Journal being non-notable.

2. If this were the only issue. Sadly, it is not. JJBulten has indicated a plot to delete all articles on supercentenarians sourced to "scientific" sources, because he believes they conflict with his belief that humans can live to 969 because the Bible says that Methuselah lived to 969. Aside from the fact that many Christians argue that Biblical longevity is not comparable to longevity today, what is at issue here is not JJ's belief but whether Wikipedia follows correct Wikipedia policies, such as WP:V and WP:NOR, which mean that mainstream, reliable outside sources should establish or disestablish notability, not one's personal agenda.

3. JJBulten has argued, online, even on Wikipedia!, that he plans to delete articles such as this first, and then argue that the List of European supercentenarians is biased because there are no articles on "minorities." Talk about incredulity! So JJ targeted minority articles first, because they were easier to delete, then he plans to hypocritically argue that the European articles are biased?

4. Can anyone seriously argue that geographic organization by continent is a bad idea?Ryoung122 03:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• We need a better way of organising our material about centenarians and supercentenarians. This AfD, which is still in progress, is highly relevant. I think we need lists of centenarians and supercentenarians, but lists of what kind? Alphabetical seems better than by continent.—S Marshall T/C 03:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Marshall, you raise an interesting issue. I think, however, that a distinction must be made between "centenarians" and "supercentenarians," in particular, for a few reasons I state below:

A. Most centenarian articles are on persons who were already notable, but for whom great age conferred additional notability (such as Sir Moses Montefiore, 1784-1885). Most supercentenarian articles are on persons who are notable for great age only.

B. The USA, for example, has about 96,000 centenarians but only about 50-70 supercentenarians. Only about 1 in 1000 (if that) centenarians are 110+ at any one time. Thus, supercentenarians are several orders of magnitude rarer, and their age verification becomes paramount to both scientific and general public (Guinness Book) acceptance as "recordholders". Since age verification is tied to the system of recordkeeping in a given nation, it makes sense to organize cases by nation (much like a football team article will have a list of all the players on the team, by team). In this case, the "team" is the "national" team. As for continent-wide inquiry, it must be admitted that most of the cases come from Europe and North America, Japan and Australia. That said, it is incorrect to assume that validated cases cannot come from Africa or South America. Examples of verified cases from Colombia, Ecuador, or Cape Verde can help encourage a wider appreciation that, where-ever systems of recordkeeping are in good order, all humans live to the same ages (about 110-115, maximum, very rarely above that). A lot of this should be thought of as less of Wiki policy and more of reflecting outside sources. Consider, for example, that the field of longevity research into supercentenarians has had to battle myths of localized longevity, or the idea that certain groups of people live longer in certain areas. Thus, there is a stated need to show that, in fact, geography has relatively little bearing on maximum life span. Some have claimed that "mountain air" and "clean water" are responsible for people living to 140+ in places like Vilcabamba...ideas like that have been debunked. Instead, we find that genetics, not region, is paramount. Mitoyo Kawate survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to live to 114. Tase Matsunaga lived to 114 in the biggest metro area in the world, Tokyo.

If we take a look at the continent-wide records:

Europe: 122 (Jeanne Calment, 1997) North America: 119 (Sarah Knauss, 1999) South America: 116 (Maria Capovilla, 2006) Asia: 116 (Tane Ikai, 2005) Africa: 114 (Anne Primout, 2005) Australia: 114 (Christina Cock, 2002)

We find that there is a base minimum (114). Without Jeanne Calment, the outlier, Europe's record would be 115. Without Sarah Knauss, North America's record would be 117

I think Wikipedia needs to do a little more qualitative assessment here.Ryoung122 22:26, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• As the person who closed the AFD as a "delete" based on the source reliability, and having done a bit more research into what the GRG is, I now vote to undelete and relist and if this happens, I ask that Ryoung122 put forward, in a much more restrained fashion, the evidence that shows why the GRG is an authoritative and reliable source. I must say however, that you are doing no favors at all to yourself by attacking JJB's motivations here, statements like "JJBulten has indicated a plot to delete all articles on supercentenarians sourced to "scientific" sources" seem to breach the WP:NPA policy in that they are attacking an editor instead of addressing the arguments he is making. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Defer any action until the closure of the related arbcom case. I think that is the most prudent course here. T. Canens (talk) 16:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Overturn to either relist, or non-consensus. Actually Sjakkallei could simply revert his own close--I think that is always permissible. The arb com has no authority about the reliability of sources or the acceptability of articles, so its conclusions do not seem relevant here. . DGG ( talk ) 02:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

No, but it would hopefully filter out a good bit of background noise and make consensus somewhat easier to judge. T. Canens (talk) 04:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• (Reply to DGG:) I agree that undoing the closure myself is permissible, but I have chosen not to do that right away since I still feel that "delete" was the correct outcome based on the debate, where nobody there stepped up to defend GRG as a reliable source. The reason I voted to undelete regardless of that are new arguments which were not in the original AFD, but which merit attention. For a situation like that I prefer to have a bit more community backing before reversing the outcome. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse without prejudice to the ArbCom case outcome. I'm smelling original research here and the closure was not one at which no reasonable administrator could have arrived. Stifle (talk) 12:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Tase Matsunaga

Tase Matsunaga (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (article|XfD|restore)

The administrator who closed this (and similar) AFD's on supercentenarian articles (see, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asa Takii) Sandstein, listed a rationale for deletion that is contrary to the evidence presented in the AFD discussion. 1. Self-published sources: did Tase Matsunaga publish her own sources? Certainly not. She was covered in reliable, cited, outside sources. Therefore, the rationale for the AFD decision was incorrect. It should also be noted that this article was part of a massive 9-article "deletion" attack by JJBulten, who has confessed online to targeting supercentenarian articles for deletion, with an agenda. To call someone out for lying and cabalism, when those accusations are proven and sourced to online sources, is not "inappropriate conduct." A referee throwing a flag for a foul being committed is not the committer of the foul. Thus, this and similar articles need a second go-through. 2. Tase Matsunaga was Japan's oldest person and her final age (114 years 191 days) is higher than any verified supercentenarian currently living. Notability is not temporary; this is not a "one event." There were reports, for example, of her gaining the title, then reports of dying. That's two events, at a minimum. Thus, the second rationale for deletion is also incorrect. A third reason: JJBulten violated Wiki policies and decorum on AFD, including mass-spamming, mass-nomination of articles, voting for his own self, and recruiting/canvassing to get "votes." The article itself lasted for years and years. Does notability suddenly evaporate, like current events passing? I think not. A fourth reason: JJBulten has accused articles on supercentenarians of being biased in favor of Europeans, but this is after he targeted for deletion articles such as List of African supercentenarians, List of South American supercentenarians, and then supercentenarians from Japan. Thus, this person had nominated this article in bad faith, and got this through the process as if it were a 'vote'. It is not. Thus, the process needs to be reviewed. -- Ryoung122 02:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

*Deletion Endorsed - as correctly pointed out, at any given time on Earth, there is an oldest living person. As soon as they're dead, there's another oldest living person. While the other points may be valid ones, the deletion on this, in my opinion, is correct. BarkingFish 02:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC) Struck, see below BarkingFish 04:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment:

1. Did you know that the average world's oldest person keeps the title for 1.12 years? That's a lot more rare than, for example, a baseball player.

2. Yet, we have articles on ball players who had only 1 major-league at-bat, ever, and by default they are "notable". 3. The rationale behind the deletion was incorrect.

4. Another option, to merge to List of Japanese supercentenarians, was not considered. '

5. Notability for extreme age alone can be established by outside sources, not one's personal opinion of whether persons are notable by age.

6. Japan, with 127+ million persons, tracks 100% of their citizens and "confers" the title of "Oldest Person in Japan", thus establishing outside-source notability.

Ryoung122 02:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Replies: 1: Yes

2: Again, Yes. They may only have had one ML bat, but if they're covered in major sporting press, they're notable

3: I can't comment on that

4: Or that.

5: As I said, once they're dead, they're not the oldest person alive anymore.

6: See 5.

BarkingFish 18:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC) Struck, see below BarkingFish 04:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia "notability" has nothing to do with "fame, importance, or popularity" - the very things you keep arguing. Read over WP:GNG. Notice how none of it focuses on "fame, importance, or popularity"? You need to be using WP:GNG to support your Wikipedia notability position, not your personal view of what non-Wikipedia notability might mean. Your significant interest in the topic, significant lack of ability to add content to Wikipedia based on Wikipedia guidelines and policy, and your inability to refrain from accusatorial tone posts may cause others to endorse the deletion of a problem article that otherwise would be kept as meeting WP:GNG. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 03:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus/weak keep - The nominator and delete position requiring sources in the article's text is not based in policy or even a guideline. WP:GNG welcomes "ton of sources are available, in that her death was widely and internationally reported" and the deletion position that relied on and then disparaged her "fame, importance, or popularity" as a basis of notability was not based in policy or even a guideline. As for the last deletion position, the nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based on what other articles do or do not exist and the status of articles on other similar topics has no necessary bearing on a particular article. See generally Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#Individual_merit. Admittedly, the keep positions were weak as they relied on her "fame, importance, or popularity" as a basis of notability, which is not based on policy or even a guideline. In the end, using AfD to prod improvement of a topic that meets policy is not the way to go and following through by deleting the article for failure of anyone to improve the article is punative, not administrative. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 03:03, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion The closing administrator got it right. Nothing on the page established notability. In this whole bunch of AfD's (you can see a comprehensive table of noms and results on the WOP WikiProject talk page) I tried to source what I could (Theirs, Farris-Muse, Koyama). But the opponents of deletion of Matsunaga made no effort to do so and I could not. It's not enough to insist there are sources. They must be provided (and preferably cited), so notability can be verified. Here, none were. David in DC (talk) 23:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Defer any action until the relate arbcom case closes (or, close without prejudice to relisting at DRV after the arbcom case ends). IMO that's the best course of action here. T. Canens (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Move to Defer from Endorse - per T. Canens - I was unaware that an arbitration case involving the nominator here was in progress, I agree entirely that this should be deferred until any action is decided upon by the Arbitration Committee. BarkingFish 04:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: When I made this deletion review request, it was about the substance of the article, it was about the unfair practices applied to delete it. DavidinDC has been JJBulten's #2 man and i-voted in a lot of the deletion requests. He should have recused himself as this was seeking THIRD-party input, not biased input.

Please note that JJBulten, AFTER agreeing to cooperate/attempt to find consensus, underhandedly opened the ArbCom discussion when I said that I would be AWAY from Wikipedia for a month in order to concentrate on finishing my Master's degree in history, which I did complete December 15, 2010.

I see no reason to wait for the ArbCom results. The ArbCom was a political-religious vendetta that seeks to block/reduce the scientific position on supercentenarians on Wikipedia, in favor of non-mainstream religious fanaticism. Nominating sourced and vetted articles such as Tase Matsunaga of Japan, then claiming the sources don't exist when they do, or then claiming the sources are not reliable when they are, is typical of the inappropriate behavior that, indeed, should be discussed at ArbCom. But what can be discussed here is that:

A. Sources exist B. Notability is established by outside sources C. A compromise, "merge" option seems to often be overlooked by those who try to make this a chess game

Was Tase Matsunaga reported to be Japan's oldest person by the government of Japan? Yes.

Was Tase Matsunaga featured in continuing, multiple media coverage that existed outside of the local area of interest? Yes.

Does Tase Matsunaga rank in the top 50 verified persons all-time, as established by outside sources? Yes.

Was proper consideration given to adequately notify the article creator of the need to "upgrade" the article? No.

Were attempts made to tag the article before it became an article on a "hit list" by JJBulten? No.

Is clear and convincing evidence that JJBulten nominated this article for deletion in bad faith, as part of his plan to delete all supercentenarian biographies? Yes.

Therefore, the only fair thing to do is to undo the AFD, restore the article, and go through the process fairly.Ryoung122 20:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Expand

Template:Expand (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The administrator who closed this TFD has obviously put a lot of thought into their close, but the simple fact is that the !votes on it are pretty much a dead heat, I don't see how this can be a delete close when it is clearly a No Consensus. They've already stated that the deletes are between 65 and 68, keeps at 67 - that is not a delete close. No way. I ask for this Deletion to be overturned forthwith, it is not valid to close in this manner when votes are this tight. BarkingFish 00:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Speedy close The template is still in the process of being deleted. Too soon. (Also, I thought we went with consensus, not vote counting?) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 00:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The closing admin went with a head count and counting votes, so I go by what the admin did when they shut it. BarkingFish 00:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved admin who couldn't care less about the template, I'd have closed it no consensus, especially given its TFD history of non-consensus and overturned deletions. --slakr^\ talk / 00:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

... and the fact that it's being deleted en masse is not a valid rationale for quashing a drv, in my opinion. --slakr^\ talk / 00:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I still think that going by the reasoning behind each vote instead of vote-count — which is what we should be doing, and what BarkingFish clearly forgot — there's a consensus to delete. As the closing admin pointed out, the "delete" arguments were getting challenged less than the "keep" ones. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 00:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand that for a while you've wanted this thing gone, but the last DRV, which covered the exact same situation, was only half a year ago. --slakr^\ talk / 01:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note [1] ongoing in bulk by User:TenPoundHammer after "speedy" comment above. --Tothwolf (talk) 09:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse closure - Well thought out closure. Garion96 (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse close (having not participated in original discussion) – XFD closes, like AFD, are not mere vote counts. Weight of arguments matters and the closer is correct to try and assess those as well however difficult it may be.

  (Every article can be expanded and improved. Requesting more or better information gets added is the expected condition of all articles, so noting this is true of a given article is a bit pointless unless it's made very clear why. Most of the important cases already have specific templates (limited geographic coverage, omitted significant POV's, etc)). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• No word in bold from me yet because I need time to consider this, but I wanted to give pointers to where we've seen this at DRV twice before, here (delete closure overturned) and here (no consensus closure endorsed).—S Marshall T/C 02:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse close - I'm also uninvolved with the original discussion. I read through the all the comments and made a rough tally of the !votes. Although there may have been 65-68 keeps and 67 deletes, when I counted !votes based on the merit of the argument presented, the outcome was different. I threw out any !votes that had no rationale behind them, I threw out !votes that were basically arguing that {{expand section}} is useful, and I threw out any other votes that had other faulty reasoning (i.e. "delete because it's overused"). I recognize that this probably opened the whole thing up to a lot of bias from me, but I also considered !votes saying that it encouraged new users to edit or let users know that Wikipedia is not complete. I feel like a) the majority of readers are aware of the fact that they can edit and that it is not complete, and b) if users do need to be encouraged and/or notified of this, the expand template is not the way to go. Anyway, after going through, I've come to believe that there is a very rough consensus for delete. It is still divided, but it seems to me that, more or less, the consensus is either for deletion or for a major overhaul of the expand tag. I wonder if this overhaul wouldn't be facilitated by deletion and then starting anew anyway. Anyway, we need to go with Wikipedia:Deletion process#Consensus's rule of carefully considering, dissecting, and eventually synthesizing each side's argument, and not simply counting heads. I think if this is done, a more clear consensus to delete can be found. Addendum: Also, per S Marshall's reasoning below. — GorillaWarfare ^talk 02:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

So let me get this straight, GorillaWarfare. You think it would be easier to delete the template, creating an 18000 job queue, then making a new one and creating a new queue to replace it where it was taken from, than simply leaving it where it is and working on it live? That seems like an awful lot of hassle for a small template. Fix it, don't fry it. BarkingFish 02:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

With so many of the articles tagged with this template, it's nearly impossible to understand what the original tagger intended to have expanded. I feel like removing it completely and starting anew would be easier, yes. But I also think this point is not pivotal to my argument. If it's completely overhauled without an actual deletion, to me that's more or less accomplishing the same goal through different methods. — GorillaWarfare ^talk 02:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well I've had that one explained to me, via IRC. Apparently it was originally created for Wikipedia:Requests for Expansion which died a couple of years ago. It is still, however, used within resources such as Twinkle, as part of the combined {{articleissues}} template. It seems silly to waste time removing it, then rebuilding it. I would be happy if this could be overturned to at least halt deletion, so someone (even me) could fix it with an alternative. BarkingFish 02:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• After scratching my head for a while, I'm going to endorse this. It was a bold close, and it would be easy to find for "overturn to no consensus", but with this I think we need to prioritise the needs of our readers and newer editors over the wishes of maintenance taggers. Taggers are just going to have to get used to using templates that identify exactly what they think needs expanding.—S Marshall T/C 02:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Which means that some essential tools for the Maintenance Taggers, like myself, are going to have to undergo a major rewrite. Things like Twinkle simply don't carry the option to enter exact information on what you think needs doing to expand the article, simply that it needs expanding. What you're supposed to do is tag with {{expand}} and then post on the talk page of the article what you think is wrong with it. That is going to slow a hell of a lot of maintenance down and make our job harder, but yeah, forget about the people that make sure others understand what needs doing, do what the readers want. (Sarcasm) :) BarkingFish 02:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that makes things harder for you. Maybe some changes to Twinkle would help?—S Marshall T/C 02:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they would actually. But it's a case of getting Twinkle's creator to rewrite the scripts, and it would mean then we could use Expand, maybe with an extra section like other templates do, for example: {{expand|reason=Not enough info on blah, blah, etc, this section needs to be clarified}} and so on... It would mean there being an alternative to {{expand}} if this was to happen, or the template being left alone and requiring a reason for it to actually work. BarkingFish 02:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think it's accepted that Sjakalle's close has created work for the people who maintain automated editing tools. We need solutions so that maintenance taggers can continue to contribute to the encyclopaedia as effectively as before.—S Marshall T/C 02:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Also noting it doesn't really change anything. Even if a better template existed today, we'd still have to delete most current {{expand}}ed tags simply because there's usually no way to fill in a description of whatever the tagger felt was missing, or even to tell if it's been resolved since tagging. So best overall delete all, then if we get an {{expand|reason=...}} then start afresh with that. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The support for a reason was already there, but undocumented. Try {{Expand|article|Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}}. --Tothwolf (talk) 09:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn as No Consensus. On !votes, this was a clear No Consensus. Many of the Keep arguments (in an admittedly WP:TLDR discussion) were ignored in the closure, of which the role the template can play in inviting readers to become editors is just one example. On the arguments, this was a clear Keep, but make substantial efforts to address concerns over misuse (particularly over unnecessary application to stubs, and too little use of the reason parameter). See eg AN thoughts on what can be done. To the list of possibilities we could add changing Twinkle to require a reason be given (or at least, a very clear "are you sure?" warning if it's omitted). Rd232 ^talk 02:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to no-consensus. There really does appear to be no consensus about this template. My reading of the discussion would lead me to a different conclusion to the closer. People appear to be putting forward plausible reasons for keeping the template, and it is widely used. That there appears to be some division about this template suggests further discussion may be of some value. SilkTork *^YES! 03:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I would welcome further discussion, maybe including some of the people who would need to work with whatever came out from it, like the script writer of Twinkle, and page patrollers for example - yes, readers are affected, and I appreciate the issue it raises, so I would be happy if we could get the finer points ironed firmly out, then decide on how to fix it before we eventually dispose of this one - deleting it while having nothing to replace it serves precisely zero purpose. BarkingFish 03:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We've discussed it at great length and in enormous depth, at a total of (I think) four TfDs, one of which was subject to an RFC, and including this one, three DRVs. At some point someone's got to make a decision.—S Marshall T/C 03:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus It was almost evenly split between keep/delete, and there was not significant discussion regarding alternatives to deletion (i.e. changing the template). There were valid arguments for using the template in different ways than currently just slapping it on random pages, but we have yet to examine these. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse judging by the weight of the opinions. Many keep !votes were with no explanation or invalid arguments. There was misunderstanding about the future of {{Expand section}} too which the closing admin made clear. Perfect close. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to no-consensus as DRV is for consideration of whether or not the decision was a fair representation of the discussion, I don't think there was a consensus for deletion, and the default position is to keep. We're not here (DRV) to discuss whether it is right or wrong to delete the template, but only to judge whether the evaluation of consensus was correct; therefore - regardless of my opinion about the template itself - I have to recommend overturning the decision. I do appreciate the efforts of the closing admin to explain their rationale, but I feel that their opinions would have been better within the discussion, not as a closing reason, because it offered too much in the way of opinion instead of merely stating the facts and findings of the discussion itself. I fully accept that the template can be misused, and might be improved, but I simply do not see a consensus to delete it. I think that we're trying to discuss overall article tagging policy in the wrong place. Chzz  ►  03:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• I'll prepare a list of the keep arguments to prove that most of them were invalid. TfDs aren't a majority vote -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • After preliminary cleanup, they are 16,125 transclusions of the template. I removed it from all stubs and I fixed many referring to sections. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse: simple !vote counting on an XfD generating as many comments as this is clearly not conducive to good decision making. The closing Admin therefore summarised the arguments, and analysed their strength, in making the close. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 05:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Give up -- this is another failed proposal...with no consensus, closed based on a head count. If you want to try changing the way {{expand}} is used or phase it out, go ahead, but TfD won't do much. Mono (talk) 05:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse the deletion close - I am uninvolved with the original discussion and close. Such a well thought out XfC close is rare, but befitting a 130+ iVote discussion that established a policy RFC on how we convey the message that an article needs expansion. That close met every requirement in Wikipedia:Deletion_process#Consensus - careful consideration, dissection and eventual synthesis of each side's arguments. From the close: "[M]ost maintenance tags point to a specific policy or guideline concern" and "request that an article contain more information is not one founded in any policy." "The tag nominated on this TFD is general it asks for an expansion of the article but is vague on detail." Among other issues, this has lead to a "specific concern over the template is its misuse." "The stub-templates can fill the role of this template." Since these were points raised in the discussion and not adequately rebutted, the closer did not interpret the debate incorrectly. In addition, there was no showing in the TfD, either measured or otherwise, that this template in fact has resulted expansion sufficient enough to improve articles. The TfD closer was correct to find "the arguments against the template to be lopsidedly stronger." I endorse the deletion. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 06:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. I was in favor of keeping the template. But a final decision had to be made, and I will respect it, especially if the alternative is more repetative TfDs, RfCs and DelRevs. It took a gutsy, bold admin to interpret consensus in such a close race and come to a final conclusion based on the arguments. I trust the closing admin to judge the matter and I believe he did so fairly and adequately in this case. Even though I may not like it, I will accept it, as a display of faith in our system of decision-making. -- œ^™ 09:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus and a {{trout}} for both User:Sjakkalle and User:Mono. There is no way to close such as disjointed discussion as anything other than no consensus. The last two TfDs [2] [3] and last two DRVs [4] [5] should have made it even more clear for Sjakkalle that it would not be possible to close this any other way.

  In addition, the TfD discussion was unfortunately inappropriately influenced by the non-neutral language User:Mono used for an RFC tag on the TfD "The {{expand}} template is up for deletion, again, as obsolete." [6] While it would normally be perfectly acceptable to add a neutral worded RFC tag to the TfD of such a widely used template, the non-neutral language was inappropriate and violates WP:CANVAS#Campaigning. Such language gives the impression to the larger community that the template is "obsolete", which while that may be the opinion of Mono, is not a view shared by everyone. It is clear from the timestamps and wording of the later !votes that Mono's addition of the RFC tag did in fact inappropriately influence the TfD. (See also: [7] [8])

  While {{Expand}} can be used for non-article pages by defining the first unnamed parameter (|1=), the entire TfD discussion seems to have focused strictly on article usage. This included a lot of mistaken arguments that {{Expand}} was redundant to stub templates (we also do not use stub templates for non-articles), and I think this comment from User:Grutness probably refutes the "redundancy" fallacy better than anything I could write here.

  Based on discussion from the talk page and TfD, I did quite a lot of work on this template in the sandbox, including properly implementing {{Expand|section}} and adding support for a hidden tracking category should a reason or talk page section not be provided. That work along with more discussion on the talk page should help alleviate some of the other concerns raised during the TfD. --Tothwolf (talk) 09:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn to No Consensus. As much as I abhor this template the closing admin did what simply should not be done when closing XfDs: they went beyond looking at the discussion and weighed in their opinion on which position was the better one, which then became the closing result. I especially would cite the analysis of the validity of the five examples provided by one participant. That analysis should have been part of the TfD discussion, not of the closing rationale. __meco (talk) 09:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to "No consensus. For multiple reasons:
  • First, the closing admin completely ignored that a non-neutral RFC-tag was placed on the discussion by Mono (talk · contribs)[9] which most likely had a canvassing effect on the TFD. They also did not mention the notification sent by a IP editor to multiple people, including myself, although they used a neutral message, which is okay in WP:CANVASS. Still, multiple people mentioned it, so it should have been considered.
  • Second, as Meco points out above, Sjakkalle violated one of the most important rules in closing a XFD: He cast a super-!vote. The closing admin's job is not to review the arguments someone else made but to judge what consensus is about those arguments. What they personally think about those arguments is irrelevant and if they let their personal opinion influence the close, as Sjakkalle obviously did here, they become involved and thus are disqualified from making a call on the discussion.
  • Third, he weighted concerns of misuse as against the template, which directly contradicts WP:TFD: "If a template is being misused, consider clarifying its documentation to indicate the correct use, or informing those that misuse it, rather than nominating it for deletion." Also, in allowing such a close to stand, we would create a dangerous precedent, i.e. that one just has to misuse a template often enough in order to have it deleted. That's not the spirit of our policies: If someone misuses rollback, we warn them and if they continue, we remove their rights. If someone misuses Twinkle, he is warned and, again, restricted from using it, if they continue. There is nothing in the policies and guidelines that says that misuse of a tool should result in removal of the tool and there is no reason to treat this template differently than any other tool or template.
  • Fourth, he ignored a number of keep-!votes that provided specific solutions for concerns of misuse, in violation of the spirit of WP:PRESERVE (if we can fix it, we should keep it).
  • Fifth, a large number of delete-!votes were based on misunderstandings of how the template should be applied. !votes like "use stub tags instead" have been rebutted time and time again by pointing out that the stub system is not meant for those articles where this template is meant to be placed. Yet there was no mention why such incorrect !votes should be considered "lopsidedly stronger". The same applies to !votes like "states the obvious" which were rebutted as well but still were counted towards a "delete" close. Not to mention arguments like "eyesore" and "we don't want readers to think this is not completed". One !voter even argued that getting readers involved in editing as a goal of this template would be a bad idea!
  • Sixth, he claims that people have ignored that {{expand|section}} and {{expand section}} are not the same but he himself ignored that {{expand|section}} creates a smaller tag that many people find superior to {{expand section}} and which would still be deleted with this template, despite no argument being made in favor of deleting it. My mistake, sorry, I was going from memory. SoWhy 12:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Seventh, the closing admin ignored that a TFD can be closed as "keep but change" which would be a result that satisfied both those who feel the template is too general and misused and those who want to keep it. A number of people !voting delete, such as Conti (talk · contribs) and Joy (talk · contribs), agreed that the template can be kept, if the way it works is altered. Such !votes cannot be counted as "pure" "delete"-!votes, especially when people (including myself) showed examples of how it could be changed.

As such, I think the close, while brave, is faulty and should not have been made in this way. Clearly, there was no consensus for deletion, although there probably was one for changing the template. Changing does not require deletion though. Regards SoWhy 09:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• • • Well argued and convincing, and should be conclusive. Unfortunately the brave-but-faulty close requires an even braver admin to overturn the close, in the face of a likely attempt to rerun the TFD. Rd232 ^talk 10:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I have answered some of the comments on my close on my talkpage, and people may want to look at that. I make it a point never to endorse my own actions, but I would like to respond to the points made by SoWhy:
        1. The RFC tag was not as well worded as it should have been, and "obsolesence" was not the central issue. However, I believe people who participate in the debate are capable of independent thinking, and there was no indication that the message had gone out to a cherry-picked group of people who were likely to vote "delete".
        2. The second point concerning whether I supervoted is always bound to be a hot-button issue. On the one hand, the "head count" is an aspect which enters into the evaluation of whether there is consensus or not, but the WP:DPR page tells us that "Consensus is formed through the careful consideration, dissection and eventual synthesis of each side's arguments, and should not be calculated solely by the balance of votes." This consideration, dissection, and synthesis of arguments will to some degree be influenced by the closer's interpretations and opinions, and cause disagreement. I don't think I cast a "supervote" here, because my opinion was formed from reading the arguments, and not preconceptions I had over the template before I closed it.
        3. The third point concerns the misuse concern, but I think the interpretation of what I wrote is exaggerated. My comment on this in the rationale was: "It has been legitimately pointed out the abuse of a tag does not justify a template's deletion per se, but the concern remains valid if it is a template which lends itself to this kind of abuse." In other words, the problem is not that the tag was being misused, but that the tag was so easy to misuse due to its vagueness. Certainly, this close should not be used as precedent to delete all tags which can be misused by the clueless.
        4. I did not ignore the proposed solutions, per the penultimate sentence of my rationale: "Some of the concerns mentioned could be addressed by a different template (for example, a template a required parameter to specify what with the article needs expanding), but that would be a different template from the one being discussed here."
        5. I acknowledge that there were some poor arguments on the "delete" side as well, but I am not among those who make a tally of "good votes" and "bad votes", before counting up the "good", while ignoring the "bad". Instead, I look for the strongest arguments on both sides of the debate, and it is in this respect that the "delete" side came out on top.
        6. I am a bit unsure what SoWhy refers to in point 6, because the template's documentation says: "{{Expand|section}} produces the same result as {{Expand section}}."
        7. See my response to point 4.
      • Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Sorry about #6, my bad. I remembered the time when one of the tags produced a large banner in a section and I did not realize it has been changed so that one mirrors the other. Regards SoWhy 22:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You mentioned my alternative solution as an non-clear delete vote, and one that detracts from Sjakkalle's closure. The point of my argument was not simply to cast a vote, because a discussion is not just a straightforward poll, but to examine what can be done. The point of this argument seems to be to enumerate a number of legalistic, procedural ways to object to that otherwise a reasonable and lucid delete-closure. Yet, in the same sense, I'm discontent with how that closure disregarded my argument as if it dealt with a different template than the one discussed - that's a bureaucratic distinction. A template is defined most simply by its current content, but also by its overall purpose and all the nuances of its contribution to all the articles it is applied to. When we have {{expand}} placed in thousands of places in articles right now, that placement has become an asset that shouldn't be ignored. The delete option says "it's best to tell a bot to just get rid of all of those placements en masse". The keep option says "it's best to keep everything as is". But no option examines is it perhaps most worthwhile to facilitate for something else to be placed in there, and how exactly? If the discussion doesn't really answer that question, even though we all realize that it's a valid one, then we should reform the discussion in a way that does, otherwise we'll just keep spinning in circles. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Seeing Rd232's comment below, I think I should clarify that I don't actually object particularly to the deletion. Nothing particularly bad will happen if we just delete the current flawed template, maybe some duplication of effort after people re-tag some articles with another more appropriate tag. I just had to voice my discontent with all these matters of process. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:09, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

So on point 4, you didn't ignore the proposed solutions, you dismissed them out of hand in a totally flawed manner (see Joy's point above). An appropriate close would have been "no consensus to delete, but strong consensus to explore how to improve the template's usage, and no prejudice to renominating if after some time this proves unsuccessful". I would urge you to overturn yourself, because on the WP:PRESERVE issue your decision was completely flawed in the face of the range of possible options. Rd232 ^talk 18:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse Deleting this template improves the encyclopedia. Thincat (talk) 10:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • DRV is not a re-TFD. Whether you think the deletion is beneficial is irrelevant for the question whether there was consensus for it. Regards SoWhy 11:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Let's see: From those who said we have to keep this template:
  • 13 because is better than stub. There are non-stubs that need expansion
  • 3 per WP:NOTAGAIN
  • 6 just said keep
  • 5 per someone else with no further explanation
  • 2 "the fact that there are many articles that need expansion is no reason to delete the template"
  • 6 "template is addressed to viewers"
  • 1 "nom gave in in invalid argument"
  • 5 "it's useful" no further explanation or "as useful as any other template"
  • 3 because is better than expand section for more than 1 sections or for pages needing a general expansion
  • 5 because it's useful for general use when editor can't find a better template
  • 2 because it's useful for general use and talk page can be used to explain further
  • 3 because it can be used to sections (1 of them changed to "merge")
  • 1 because "1 million pages need expansion"
  • 4 because not all pages needs to be expanded and this tag shows us which need to
  • 6 because it helps find priorities
  • 1 weak because sometimes it works
  • 1 because it can be modified to explain further what is needed to be done -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Some things before deleting: We have to get sure that we replace Expand with {{Expand section}} inside sections. I am now running a bot to remove expand from stubs. Let's see how many page are left. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn (no consensus) That was not a consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• On further thought... This is not a case of deletion of content, which traditionally requires consensus. A decision one way or the other was required. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse the decision. The closer was thorough and accurately summarised the debate. Also, this is not a re-TFD, so let's not treat it a such, eh? - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 13:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse Tough close, but a good call. Although I opined a "keep" I see that most of my objections to deletion were rebutted quite well by other editors and the closing rationale. ThemFromSpace 14:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse Closing rationale is well thought through and convincing. Closer has dissected weight of arguments accurately IMO. –Moondyne 15:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse Although wholly unexpected, the closing rationale was excellent in its summary of the closing admin's interpretation of the weight of the various points in the debate, and I cannot find fault with the reasoning provided. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 15:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I'd like to see some responses to SoWhy's comments from people making this sort of Endorse comment. Rd232 ^talk 15:26, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't know if mine was "this sort of Endorse comment", but my response to it is in the collapse box below.—S Marshall T/C 16:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I can gladly expand on this, and to SoWhy's comments specifically. 1 - I never knew there was a biased tag on the debate. I came to the debate from a notice at WP:CENT which stated "TfD on the future of the expand tag". Seems completely neutral to me. 2 - I find the "super-vote" accusation unfounded based on the clear explanation in the close. 3 - Weighting concerns and measuring them against policy is the closing admin's job and WP does not stand on precedent - consensus can change. 4 - Keep votes offing the alternative of using {{expand|section}} were exactly equal to delete votes saying to use the {{expand section}} tag instead. They pretty much cancel each other out in terms of strength of argument. 7 - Keep but change votes are moot due to the existence of another tag that already provides the functionality that would be achieved by the change - see point 6. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 16:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

S Marshall's assessment of SoWhy's comments

First point: ... the closing admin completely ignored that a non-neutral RFC-tag... It's a fair point that the tag wasn't 100% neutral, and that certain editors were canvassed by an IP address. Fortunately, there was so much participation in that TfD, on both sides, that I think we can be sure that all the relevant arguments on both sides were raised and discussed. Provided that's happened, I think there's a reasonable basis for a close. Second point: ...Sjakkalle violated one of the most important rules in closing a XFD: He cast a super-!vote. Any close in which the closer weighs one argument as stronger than another inevitably leaves the closer vulnerable to a charge of super-voting, but weighing arguments is exactly what we expect closers to do. There's a fine, and blurry, line between the closer's thoughts about the relative weight of the arguments and the closer's personal opinion. The only evidence we can have about whether that line was crossed is the closing statement, and in this case we're fortunate to have a very detailed one. I don't see any evidence in Sjakkalle's close of a super-!vote. Third point (part 1): ...he weighted concerns of misuse as against the template, which directly contradicts WP:TFD: This is true, and represents a genuine error in the close. We should ask ourselves whether that error is sufficient to overturn all the other factors. Third point (part 2): ...Also, in allowing such a close to stand, we would create a dangerous precedent, i.e. that one just has to misuse a template often enough in order to have it deleted. This is not such a good point. The slippery slope argument is a kind of informal fallacy, and Wikipedia disregards precedent in any case. Fourth, he ignored a number of keep-!votes that provided specific solutions for concerns of misuse, in violation of the spirit of WP:PRESERVE (if we can fix it, we should keep it)... WP:PRESERVE says "Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't." (It then goes on to suggest that WP:PRESERVE relates to not removing text from articles.) In fact, I think that where {{expand}} interacts with WP:PRESERVE is in the latter's use of the word "flag": the template is there to identify problems with other people's text. Since WP:PRESERVE says to flag "problems", I think we may assume that the clearer and more specific the tag, the greater is the extent to which it complies with the policy. Fifth, a large number of delete-!votes were based on misunderstandings of how the template should be applied. That's true in itself but it doesn't lead to an overturn. The fact that some of the delete-!votes weren't very intelligent doesn't detract from the weight to be given to the others. I imagine that Sjakkalle disregarded a substantial number of !votes in that TfD, on both sides. Sixth, he claims that people have ignored that {{expand|section}} and {{expand section}} are not the same but he himself ignored that {{expand|section}} creates a smaller tag that many people find superior to {{expand section}} and which would still be deleted with this template, despite no argument being made in favor of deleting it. I don't see the size of the tag as centrally important to this matter, but even if it was, it's not necessary to overturn the close in order to alter the tag size. Seventh, the closing admin ignored that a TFD can be closed as "keep but change" which would be a result that satisfied both those who feel the template is too general and misused and those who want to keep it. A number of people !voting delete, such as Conti (talk · contribs) and Joy (talk · contribs), agreed that the template can be kept, if the way it works is altered. This is true. Sjakkalle came to a decision, not a compromise. That's why I described it as "a bold close" above, but it doesn't make it wrong.

Arbitrary section break (page getting too large)

• Endorse. I didn't participate in the TFD but i'm aware of the discussion and have been for a year or two. I used to be a deleter, started using it and became a keeper and now i'm back to a deleter. My rationale is that this is a crap templete and until we get rid of it a better more appropriate one won't be created to take its place. Closing admin had it pretty much right. Szzuk (talk) 15:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You fail to address the procedural aspects of the close which must be the focus of a deletion review. You basically state that you side with the close because it happened to land on your favored decision. I too want to see this template gone, however, the next time a closing admin crosses the border between XfD participant and closing admin the result may be against you. Are you then going to call for an overturn at the DRV? __meco (talk) 17:09, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • It is impossible to be objective when the decision requires a subjective personal opinion. The reasons given were thoughtful and appropriate. I was surprised because the decision was bold but the law of averages state sooner or later it'll be gone because its a popular template - but it isn't a good one. I'm willing to change my mind about the close but I've just read the following DRV comments and I can't see anything that points to overturn. Szzuk (talk) 11:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse closure as delete. Admin who closed this carefully considered the sides and the arguments involved instead of merely counting votes one per one. When so many people show up to vote without giving any rationale, and when there is rationale offered that deviates from Wikipedia policies, that is the correct thing to do. DreamGuy (talk) 16:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • But the closing admin went beyond looking at the discussion and weighed in their opinion on which position was the better one, which then became the closing result. I especially would cite the analysis of the validity of the five examples provided by one participant. That analysis should have been part of the TfD discussion, not of the closing rationale. __meco (talk) 17:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse I voted "keep" in this debate, but I can see now that the "delete" side provided more compelling arguments for deletion. The closing admin was very thorough in his or her analysis of the debate, addressing every major issue that was discussed. More importantly, we do not count votes. See WP:DEMOCRACY and WP:POLL. Furthermore, we must remember that the closing admin acknowledged the possibility of creating a new template to address the flaws mentioned in the TFD: "Some of the concerns mentioned could be addressed by a different template (for example, a template a required parameter to specify what with the article needs expanding), but that would be a different template from the one being discussed here." Edge3 (talk) 17:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • "Some of the concerns mentioned could be addressed by a different template (for example, a template a required parameter to specify what with the article needs expanding), but that would be a different template from the one being discussed here." - is Exhibit A for the close being faulty (see SoWhy's point 4). There is zero reason why making a parameter mandatory is possible in a new template but not an existing one. Rd232 ^talk 18:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • The closing admin was only providing an example of a different template. We could easily disregard his or her advice and just change the wording; if I understand the policies correctly, that wouldn't be a violation of the TFD decision. Edge3 (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment <redacted entirely> - Apologies to Sjakalle, I had indeed gotten confused over S Marshall's comments about them casting a super !vote. BarkingFish 18:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any !vote by Sjakkale in the body text; I think you're confusing some comments about Sjakkale's close being too much like a !voting opinion instead of a summary? Rd232 ^talk 18:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Question Did anyone ever address the argument that the {{expand}} template could be used to point out that a non-stub article as a whole needs expansion, with specific suggestions for improvement posted on the talk page? I know that this isn't supposed to be a repeat of the TFD, but if this argument wasn't adequately addressed in the closing comments, I would like to see how much weight it carried against the arguments for deletion. Edge3 (talk) 20:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, I did, very early on in the discussion.[10] I don't think anyone commented on it though. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • A number of people arguing "keep" did so and I don't think that point has been considered in the close at all. Regards SoWhy 22:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • So perhaps one could argue for overturning the TFD result because the closing admin did not consider this particular argument and explain how much weight it carried against the arguments for deletion? :/ Edge3 (talk) 18:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn very clearly a no consensus, and deleting is controversial. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn as no consensus - Per Meco, the closing admin espoused a point of view instead of gauging consensus. I didn't want the template to be deleted. But if it must be deleted, then I'd want it to be deleted because there was clear consensus to do so, not because an admin was playing court justice. --Jtalledo (talk) 22:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse - Closing admin accurately analyzed the arguments for consensus. As the number of !voters increases, the relevance of head-counting decreases proportionally. There are very few deletion discussions on which 100+ editors are going to agree in an overwhelming majority. We have to get away from the notion that there can be no consensus when too many people contribute to a discussion. There can be consensus, but you won't find it by counting heads. And anyway, if you liked using {{Expand}} so much, why not just use {{Incomplete}} instead? SnottyWong ^talk 22:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I'm fully aware that we work on consensus, not votes, but I felt that I needed to point out an error in the closer's maths. I agree there were 65-68 deletes, but there were actually 70 keeps, not 67, comprised as follows (just in case somebody doubts my math):
  • 59 Keep (includes 3 x Keep.)
  • 5 Strong Keep
  • 1 Weak keep
  • 1 Keep and speedy close
  • 1 Conditional keep (changed from a straight Delete.
  • 3 others (1 each "Keep per Tothwolf", "Keep, and piss off with your whinging", "Keep but modify slightly")
  • 70 - Total --AussieLegend (talk) 22:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Mine was the keep and speedy close, as I was hoping we could all avoid this drama. Magioladitis' "summary" above of the various keep !votes completely ignores the majority of what I brought up in the TfD discussion and only focuses on WP:NOTAGAIN, which seems counter to WP:NOTAVOTE. I think the "conditional keep" and a number of other arguments made by those who !voted delete are also addressed with some of the code currently in the sandbox. --Tothwolf (talk) 22:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• You seem to be obsessed with head-counting. Ok, the closing admin counted 67 keeps, you counted 70. Who cares? What does it matter? You might want to take a look at WP:CONSENSUS. SnottyWong ^squeal 00:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'm afraid your assumption is incorrect. I was simply pointing out the error made by the closer. It's relevant because it was something that was specifically addressed by him and indicates that the difference between the "keep" and "delete" votes was wider, and in the opposite direction, to what he claimed. Errors made by the closer are entirely relevant at DRV so who cares? Everyone should. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'm afraid your logic is incorrect. Ok, you pointed out an error. Congratulations. But the error makes zero difference towards the end result. The headcount went from being a boring 50-50 to an exhilarating 51-49. I say again, who cares? No one does. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 04:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• AussieLegend has presented an extra piece of information with a declared awareness of its potentially minimal impact on consensus. How much a person takes the information into account when assessing this situation is up to that individual. Does it suggest that the closer hasn't examined the discussion as closely as he might, and so adds weight to overturning the close, or is it an example of a simple calculating error, of which we are all capable, and is of little significance to the essentials of the close? As with all aspects of Wikipedia, we collect and present information, and let the reader decide. Snottywong regards the information as irrelevant. Fine. Others may regard it differently. SilkTork *^YES! 12:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's fairly relevant, if only to further emphasize that many are misinterpreting WP:NOTAVOTE to be a blanket authorization for admins to act arbitrarily when they can identify a certain subset of the community that feels the same way they do. Right, so we don't do votes, but how exactly do we determine whether consensus exists or not on an issue that affects all of Wikipedia? Maybe the appropriate middle ground would have been some sort of merge with another template, or modification, but now we'll never know because the discussion was shot down before anyone had the chance to consider others' positions carefully and change their mind or reach a suitable middle ground. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse - As Snottywong said, the larger a discussion gets, the more likely it is to tend toward a 50-50 split based on headcount. The closer did a good job of actually weighing the arguments along with the numbers. As Magioladitis pointed out, many of the keep arguments were very weak, and in a few cases, non-existent. Mr.Z-man 22:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • It's probably not appropriate to make such comment here, given that you voted to delete in the original discussion.[11] --AussieLegend (talk) 23:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • So did plenty of other people here. Given that you voted to keep it, its probably not appropriate for you to making such comments here. Mr.Z-man 23:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • The difference is that I clearly identified what I wrote as simply a comment, not as overturn, since the neutrality of a vote that supports your position at the AfD can be questioned. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I don't think there is any rule or convention where AfD !voters are discouraged from contributing bolded !votes at the DRV for the article. You're assuming that people can't separate their opinions on whether the template should be deleted from their opinions on whether the close was correct. In some cases, that may be true, but in many cases it is not, and no one should be discouraged from contributing in discussions. If that were the rule, then no one who participated in the AfD should be able to bring the article to DRV, because their neutrality could be questioned. SnottyWong ^gab 00:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
          • As per above, your assumption is wrong. I'm not assuming that at all. I meant exactly what I said. The neutrality of a vote that supports the position you took at TfD can be questioned. It's human nature to do so. We're not Vulcans. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
            • My main point was that while there's plenty of people here who have voted on the TFD, you did too, and you're singling out someone who voted contrary to your position – and no one else – suggesting that they should not be allowed to substantially participate. Mr.Z-man 03:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
              • I'm truly baffled by your logic, Aussie. So, you're not discouraging previous voters from contributing to the DRV, you're just discouraging them from expressing their opinion only if it matches too closely with the opinion they offered at the XfD. Do you expect people to change or suppress their opinions so that your perception of neutrality is preserved? No one is claiming to be "neutral" (whatever that means, in this context), we are expressing our opinions. Expressing opinions is inherently non-neutral. We are grown-ups, we can vote in an XfD and vote in a DRV for the same article without necessarily having some kind of conflict of interest. Also, discouraging editors who hold a view opposite of yours from contributing to a DRV is probably not appropriate, because of neutrality and all that. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 04:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
                • "...the larger a discussion gets, the more likely it is to tend toward a 50-50 split" - what is the rationale for this assumption? Where did this come from? This goes completely against the fundamental basis of WP:CONSENSUS because it assumes that discussion only leads to stratification in the opinions of the participating users. If it were true, there would be no purpose of maintaining talk pages at all because they would only cause editors to split themselves 50/50 into opposing camps. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to "No Consensus"  With all do respect to the closer, "No Consensus" really was the final outcome. There is no maintenance tag that can replace it. So instead of deleting this tag, wouldn't it be better to do an analysis of the "Delete" suggestions, similar to the closer's analysis, and use those suggestions to (dare I say it?) expand this tag just a little. This can be done with special emphasis upon what would keep this tag from misuse in the future.

 —  Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  02:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn to No Consensus. The comment by the user Magioladitis above and his subsequent list exemplify the problems with this debate: "I'll prepare a list of the keep arguments to prove that most of them were invalid." If someone with a strong bias towards "keep" took all of the "delete" arguments and rephrased them - inevitably making them weaker since the person doing the rephrasing doesn't feel the same way - then naturally most of the "delete" arguments would appear invalid as well. This is a textbook example of a straw man argument, and it is blatant fallacy to interpret this as a rationale for endorsing the closure. While my personal opinion on the parent issue (delete/keep the template) would be to delete, that isn't of issue here. The closure appears largely motivated by bias towards deletion, rather than objective moderation of the debate which is unfortunate. Split decision is not a consensus, and decisions are not made by vote, WP:DEMOCRACY etc. The spirit of the consensus rule is to allow the community to reflect, during which users review each others arguments, and some people even change their minds. This is never a quick process, but it needs to be given the appropriate amount of time to occur. When the discussion goes around a few times and people start gravitating towards one side or the other, users will change their votes based on how others' arguments have convinced them, and gradually that 50/50 split will trend towards a clearly one-sided viewpoint if people are listening to each other. Only then will consensus have been reached. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 02:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• 'Overturn;'. The closing admin said correctly that "* it is really more of a policy RFC". In the case of a policy RfC, the closing admin does not get to decide on their basis oftheir own view of what the policy ought to be. In a evenly divided vote--and I said "vote" not !vote", because policy RfCs are substantially in the nature of votes, a supermajority is normally required to change established policy. There clearly was no such here, and that should be the end of it. But let's regard it for the moment as straight XfD: the close was on the basis of what the closer thought the stronger arguments ought to be, and demonstrated it by making the arguments he thought should have prevailed. This is not appropriate--it was not a neutral close, he clearly had a particular position, and closed in favor of it. He should have joined the discussion instead, and let someone close who could ore fairly judge consensus. This was an attempt at a super-vote, and should be rejected. The closer gets only to decide what the responsible people present think should be the policy, buy throwing out non-policy arguments, not by judging which argument they prefer. They're in the role of a judge taking the decision of a jury; if the jury's decision is absurd, the judge does have the right in most cases to reject it & in some cases to overturn it. But the other arguments were not absurd, and then the judge doesn't really have a choice about it. They don't get the casting vote on hung juries. DGG ( talk ) 02:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • How was this a policy RfC, anyhow? I don't really see it. --Conti|✉ 03:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • It was tagged as such by Mono (talk · contribs) and not disputed, so it was advertised the same way. Whether this had any influence on !voter turnout is another question but one that should have been considered in the close. Regards SoWhy 08:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I see now that there was simply no better RfC category to choose, since most are about content. Still, it's quite strange to assume that this was a policy changing decision that somehow needed a supermajority to gain consensus. No policy was changed or involved here. --Conti|✉ 13:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Create RFC category for non-content/non-policy/"other" matters? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if this is the wrong place in the discussion to put this (I haven't edited Wikipedia in ages- I've forgot a lot of the procedures), but I have to say this needs to be an "overturn due to no consensus reached". The admin went on a vote, and not the merit of the points put foward, and keep would STILL have won if they counted IPs. The expand tag is one I use all the time, like many other editors, if I see something wrong with an article I just tag and let the hard-core editors sort it out. This means that now I (and many others) will have to spend ages doing what the average editor shouldn't be expected to do (go through the whole thing and analyse exactly what needs changing, you might as well just do it). Mod MMG (User Page) Reply on my talkpage. 05:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't about winning. I am puzzled on the other point you raise - "if I see something wrong with an article I just tag and let the hard-core editors sort it out". How does a hypothetical "hard core editor" work out what aspect you felt was inadequate? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I think Mod's statement wasn't written that clearly. I think he meant by "won" that there were more keep !votes - using "won" as "the majority" - such as "and keep would STILL have won [the majority] if they counted IPs". As regards the tagging - I suspect that Mod is saying that if he encounters a problem with sourcing or POV or copyvio or notability or need to expand, he puts on the appropriate tag to alert other editors more specialised and experienced in such matters. I both respond to and place such tags myself. Tags are a necessary evil. I would rather we didn't have them, but while we do, Mod's comment shows the appropriate usage of tags. SilkTork *^YES! 12:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay on the first, I'd like more thought on the second. Most tags explain what's involved - the geographic coverage is lacking, the tone is promotional, it has unsourced statements, etc. But when Mod tags an entire page as "expand" how does he expect others to read his mind as to what needs expanding, and how does he expect future editors to be able to gauge if his concerns have been addressed? Mod makes clear that in his view "the average editor" shouldn't be expected to figure out what's needed when he tags, because that's the "hard core editors" job. I'm not sure that's realistic. Editors don't divide that way, and if a tag is not obvious, you need to explain it. I use tags, but I'd expect to write them for following editors to understand the issue and agree or disagree, leaving a note or edit summary comment if it's not clear. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

He doesn't expect others to read his mind as to what needs expanding because he doesn't have anything specific in mind. Why can't the expand tag be general like the cleanup tag? Why can't an editor just tag an article because they just feel there is room for expansion in general? I can look at an article with an expand tag and decide for myself how I can best expand it without needing anything specific to go on. -- œ^™ 02:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

If the reason for a tag's placement on an article is not clear, I remove it with a comment that the tag's placement is not clear. I would agree with the essence of what Mod and OlEnglish are saying, that if someone feels there is something not quite right with an article I would rather they defaulted to alerting someone than simply passing on by. However, I would also agree with FT that tags which are too vague, and which are creating a huge, undealt-with backlog, are not that useful. I'm not entirely sure how I would have !voted in the TfD - I think that perhaps a wider discussion is needed, not just for this tag, but for others which are asking people to do something, where the action should be clear, and is not being done. It's a complex issue that a simple delete/keep vote is not quite addressing. SilkTork *^YES! 09:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse. Within admin discretion to read the arguments this way despite the vote count tie. Many if not most of the keep votes argued for keeping something slightly different than the template actually discussed, and there are separate templates for almost all of those mild variations. For intstance, the template that Edge3 asks for above (and DDG asked for in the TfD) exists as {{missing information}}. Arguably a redirect could be set up, but that requires someone to go through all the uses of {{expand}} and figure out what's missing. Not very practical at this stage. So "delete & possibly recreate" is more plausible. Another faulty argument also used in the overturn votes here is that {{expand|section}} and {{expand section}} produce different code. They do not; {{expand|section}} explicitly calls {{expand section}}. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  Thanks for finding that template! Editors interested in using a template to indicate the need for expansion should use {{missing information}} instead. I hope that would be an acceptable solution for everyone. Edge3 (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  I don't think it would be acceptable because it requires the tagger to input specifically what's missing. There's no option to be generic with that template. -- œ^™ 03:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear why "delete and recreate" would be better than just keeping the Expand template and improving it. D&r would solve the problem of the articles that have the Expand on them but don't really need it, however it would create the problem of losing the Expand template from articles that need it, then having to replace it on those pages. Seems like a monumental task either way. The Missing information template is a step in the right direction, yet because it is so specific, it might be too big a step. Some method to try to thwart misuse of the Expand template, such as being more specific about its proper usage directly on the template as succinctly as possible, is also needed.

 —  Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  20:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse closure I see nothing wrong with the way the admin closed the debate and it was within both expected boundaries and the policies. Personally speaking I have no opinion on the matter, other than that if tags are used sensibly, they're useful, and if they're overused or misused, their utility decreases. Orderinchaos 15:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. I say this as someone who participated as "keep" in the original discussion. My jaw dropped when I saw the closure, because I had thought it was a no-brainer as "no consensus". I then read the closing rationale, and found it to be reasonable, somewhat to my surprise. I've tried to carefully consider the arguments here, and for me it comes down to (1) was it a super-vote?, and (2) was WP:PRESERVE adequately considered in the closure? The answer to the super-vote question hinges on whether the closer decided based upon whether the delete comments were more convincing within the discussion, or whether they were more convincing to the closer. That's a tough call, and a very subjective one. My gut tells me there was some element of the latter, and I would ask the closer to think hard about that for the future. However, the closing rationale does make a valid and reasonable case with respect to how the discussion by the community had progressed. It's inconclusive (for me) how much this was or was not a super-vote. As for whether there's consensus for keeping the template, but in modified form, I note that there were quite a few "keep" !voters who did indeed argue for some sort of modification, and there may well have been a consensus for deleting the template in its present form. I think the closure leaves the door very much open for users to create a new and improved version of the template, taking into account the criticisms that have been raised. So, on balance, it was one heck of a bold closure, but one that I cannot in good faith argue to overturn. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse closure and award barnstar to closer for taking on such a massive and thankless task. Well within admin discretion. It seems that no matter what they do and how hard they try, closers will be either "super-!voters" or "!vote-counters". Honestly. T. Canens (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse it is within a closer's ambit to evaluate arguments by strength rather than by numbers. Tim! (talk) 16:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • But that is arbitration, which is not what we do here at Wikipedia. The closer basically heard both sides - which were equal in number - and said "I agree with side A's arguments more than side B's, and since I am all-powerful, my decision shall be reflected in policy and further discussion is moot." The point of discourse is for community members to share their ideas and convince each other, and the role of moderators is to mediate not arbitrate.
  • On a side note, if this thread gets closed prematurely, are we going to have a debate on whether the closing of the closure discussion should be overturned? 96.228.129.69 (talk) 18:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

On a tangent concerning this point, the problem is mainly structural. We are of a size where we usually cannot make "true consensus" work, or nothing will be done. A discussion in which all participants have to be given the years needed to consider all other views, and every last thread to be argued until finally some view gains an explicit endorsement that most or all could live with would be ideal, but is not going to happen in any practical sense. We need to make decisions in weeks or months, not centuries. The nearest approximation is that all speak their mind, and a closer tries to fairly assess from the views stated, the outcome that best covers the strongest points and is likely to be a good guess of pleasing more rather than fewer users. It's not "true consensus" but on this scale of community, true consensus may sadly be impractical for routine decisions. At the same time we (rightly) also want to avoid pure "count". Nobody considered a Wikipedia of this size when basic norms were created. T. Canens said it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that we are not talking about consensus, but a reasonable likeness of consensus. If that is the case, then we truly cannot consider this an appropriate close if it gives the appearance of no consensus. I'd say a 50/50 split in the opinions of contributors is pretty much the opposite of consensus, as far as appearances are concerned. In this case the closer is proclaiming that those who shared his/her opinion "won" the debate and no further participation is worth considering, even though no one's mind was changed up to that point.

Once again this was not an act of moderation but arbitration, and arbitration by someone who has a stake in the issue can never be a healthy thing. It's like a jury-less trial in which the judge is related to the victims - even if everyone's logic is flawless and the judge acts in a completely impartial manner, how could the public possibly perceive it as a fair trial. Do I have a better alternative for the process? Of course not, but instead of speculating on whether anyone on either side would have changed anyone else's mind, the debate should have been given time to observe if that happened. I think we're taking the fact that decisions are not made by vote at Wikipedia and applying that completely out of context to justify the closure of what was clearly an unresolved issue. Case in point, most of the "Endorse" comments here in this thread are people chiming in just to say things like "I agree" or "Admin's reasoning was well-thought out", comments which contribute nothing substantial other than a headcount of how many people feel a certain way. If we followed the same logic from the Template:Expand discussion (and a quick estimate on the totals), the majority of the "votes" here are to Endorse yet more of the Overturn "votes" substantiate their position logically. By the same logic that was applied in the former thread, this closure should be overturned, but I have no doubt that the closure will be retained because the Admin has the majority behind him/her.

Current Wikipedia policies have taken years to reach this point. I'd point out that the whole intent behind this process is to avoid an infinitely recursive RfD cycle...with that in mind, perception of administrators acting arbitrarily and without consensus whether or not that perception is true will ultimately hold back progress on this issue. A little more patience would have ultimately "got things done" faster in the long run. Yes, I wish we had an alternative decision-making process that wasn't so lengthy - if you have an idea there, be sure to pitch it to every major political state in the world because people have been trying to solve that one for quite some time. Personally I would have been in favor of deleting the template, but I also would have participated in the debate and listened to users on the opposing side. Unfortunately the administration appears to have been in such a rush to pass this decision quickly that only a tiny, minuscule portion of Wikipedia actually had a chance to participate before it was closed. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 02:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse. The closure should never be simply about counting the !votes, and the closing admin's analysis and reasoning are rock solid and well thought out.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 28, 2010; 18:13 (UTC)
• Comment: {{Missing information non-contentious}} covers the case of {{Expand|concern=}}. This whole thing is cockeyed, but rather than just deleting {{Expand}}, at least transfer Expand cases where a concern is specified, and maybe for cases where it isn't leave a note on the article's talk page of the alternative template that can be used if a reason is given. Then turn {{Expand}} into a redirect with no output if no concern is given. Of course we could avoid this nonsense if we were willing to fix instead of delete... Rd232 ^talk 22:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

As soon as we conclude to delete we ll find a way not to lose the information. I already changed Expand|section to Expand section and I am planning to do more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

From your phrasing, it sounds like the conclusion has already been reached this is just lip service. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 02:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• (ec) There is an extensive discussion regarding this at Template talk:Expand#Type. --Tothwolf (talk) 22:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse close. Well thought out decision.--EchetusXe 23:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse Although I wasn't overjoyed that the result was delete, the admin gave a reasonable and well-thought out analysis which was totally correct. —Half Price 00:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with Rd232 that we shouldn't lose info. For some time we have to mark the template as "deprecated" and find ways to replace it. I already did some things on this direction. Check User_talk:Yobot#Expand_tag_cleanup. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• While the users who voted for deletion have a point, I don't like the chosen procedure (repeated nomination nominations or deletion, until one administrator chose to ignore the [lack of] consensus and did what he believed was right). Furthermore, I don't think nomination for deletion is an appropriate way to stop an existing process. I would have preferred a different way: Make a request for comment; if/when consensus is established that the template isn't useful mark it as deprecated. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 09:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This is true. Something as widely used as the expand template, that has been put up for deletion several times in contentious, inconclusive debates, needs more than a week's review and input from a single closing administrator. Ideally, there should have been an RFC and several administrators should have weighed in to determine consensus. But it didn't happen that way. I think if you nominate almost anything enough times for deletion, it'll get deleted, depending on who comments on the discussion and who the closing admin is. --Jtalledo (talk) 12:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It was tagged and advertised as an RfC though, albeit obviously not conducted as one (with "View of User:Foo"s and lists of endorsements). --Cybercobra (talk) 07:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I am going to make this explicit: overturn as out-of-process closure. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse close A wise decision to get ride of a fairly gratuitous "I want more of this"-template. Peter ^Isotalo 09:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Doesn't really matter what the outcome is here, it'll go back and forth for ages. Had I been contributing to the TFD I would have been going for delete as all articles should be expanded. As for this DRV, I will apply my usual test: was the closure one at which no reasonable administrator could have arrived? The answer being in the positivenegative, I endorse. Stifle (talk) 12:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but if the closure is one at which no reasonable administrator could have arrived, wouldn't you be !voting to overturn? — GorillaWarfare ^talk 06:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Typo in the rationale; should have been the answer in the negative. Stifle (talk) 09:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse - So its contentious and split both ways and the admin essentially gets the deciding vote. Well I think he's right. He could have closed it as no-consensus, but then what would that have done? It'd be back at TFD in another few months when some editor spots it plastered gratuitously across multiple comprehensive articles. The TFD points out significant ways in which the template is flawed, the seemingly positive uses of the template turned out to be negative - those articles would be better served in other ways. No consensus would just mean doing nothing about it, carrying on as before. Delete is bold and means trying something else, let's try doing something else, and if in six months time, we don't have a better solution - then allow recreation. - hahnchen 14:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • A better solution to what? One of the main arguments against the template was that an article needing expansion in general is not really a problem to tagged, since every article needs expansion. We already have more specific templates for specific problems. Mr.Z-man 19:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Not every article needs expansion. This will allow those specific templates to be exercised more. - hahnchen 22:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Which articles don't need expansion? Mr.Z-man 22:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. I did not take part in the deletion discussion, because I couldn't make up my mind either way. However, this closure seems very well thought out and reasonable, accurately summarising the arguments of the deletion discussion. J Milburn (talk) 15:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus as there was none. Immunize _{Contact Me} Contributions 18:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse This is a very hard decision, but honestly, the closure is thought out and reasonable. WereWolf (talk) 19:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse I just came upon this issue today. I have read the decision and I have skimmed the arguments both at the original discussion and here. Had I been aware of the previous discussion I would have strongly supported deletion. The template is vague, misused and overused. What is worse to me is that this is but another template that enables casual editors, "drive-by taggers", to say, "Look, everybody! We have a mess here that needs to be cleaned up!" and move on without doing anything to clean up the mess. The project needs fewer means of indicating shortcomings and more editors who are willing to fix the shortcomings. JimCubb (talk) 21:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Once again, this is not a thread for discussing the issue. That thread was closed, and this discussion is for whether or not the closure was proper. While you have made some valid points that would have been a valued contribution in the RfD debate, that debate was shut down as "complete" after only 0.00001% of the English-speaking community of Wikipedia users was able to participate. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 14:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn no-consensus - The rational by the closing admin was interpretative and did not recognize both sets of arguments fairly, and misinterprets the purpose of the expand template, which is not used solely upon stub articles. Sadads (talk) 21:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• 30:16. I just counted 30:16 for the Endorse. I know we don't count, we weigh up arguments, but still it is interesting that the endorse outnumber the overturn 2:1. Szzuk (talk) 22:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse. I did not participate in the original TfD. The underlying fact is that the expand template is worse than useless. None of the keep arguments addressed this fact. Instead, they relied on "change is bad" and "consensus can't change" arguments. This template must stay deleted in order to disprove the validity of such arguments. Abductive (reasoning) 23:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, this seems to be a source of confusion for a lot of both "Endorse" and "Overturn" comments here. Per Wikipedia:Deletion review: "Remember that Deletion Review is not an opportunity to (re-)express your opinion on the content in question. It is an opportunity to correct errors in process (in the absence of significant new information), and thus the action specified should be the editor's feeling of the correct interpretation of the debate." In other words, it is not relevant to this review that you think the template is "worse than useless". What is being discussed is whether the closing administrator erred in the process of closing the deletion debate. --Jtalledo (talk) 00:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The paucity of the discussion from people who understand DRV perfectly says something - there was nothing wrong with the close. So we're just left with a rehash of the TFD with little new added. Szzuk (talk) 00:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The fact that a lot of people here misunderstand DRV doesn't mean that the close was right. The two things have nothing to do with each other. --Jtalledo (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse closure. I didn't participate in the deletion debate, but I've taken some time to look it over. I believe that Sjakkalle did an excellent job of weighing the arguments and counter-arguments. The idea that a ~50/50 vote split inherently indicates a lack of consensus simply isn't correct, and I commend Sjakkalle for investing the time and effort needed to properly analyze the discussion. —David Levy 02:46, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break two

• Overturn as No Consensus - I did not participate in the deletion debate, but it seems as though the template served a useful purpose of alerting other editors and Wikipedia users of the feeling that the article or section in question is very inadequate coverage of a topic. Racepacket (talk) 05:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • DRV is about procedural correctness of the close, not re-hashing the TfD arguments. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
    • That's very true. However, in evaluating the correctness of the close, it certainly seems apparent just from those users who erred in their interpretation of this thread, that the TfD discussion was closed too abruptly. A template deletion affects the whole of the encyclopedia, and yet we only had roughly a hundred people weigh in on it before it was closed. To make matters worse, the opinions were split almost 50/50 and the admin arbitrated that people on one particular side had made "better" arguments. Perhaps users on one side of the debate did make stronger points, and later on more users might have evaluated that and put forth an even stronger counter-argument on the opposite side, and maybe opinions on both sides would have changed as the community gravitated towards consensus. Now we'll never know, at least not until this questionable close is brought to light in a few months and the RfD cycle repeats, undoing any progress that might have been made here. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 13:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
      • a) 100+ separate contributors and 300+ comments is an abrupt close? How many is enough?
        b) Closing admin is supposed to arbitrate on which side made the "better" arguments. Szzuk (talk) 15:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
        • a) It's not about raw numbers, if it were the deletion would have been by vote which we don't do - for complex reasons. This went up for deletion, discussed, and closed as "consensus" very quickly, and we're all doing this in our free time. Even during holidays most users can't check on WP every day, and even when we do it's not every article that a user comes across the template in question. Personally I only came across the RfD on this template after it was closed and I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who didn't get a chance to participate - and ultimately keeping it open serves the interests of either side since no decision is going to "stick" until a decent number of editors have at least had the opportunity to contribute. As for how many is enough, deletion of the template affects all of en.wikipedia and there are hundreds of millions of English-speaking users, and even if 99.99% of them don't care, a relatively representative portion should at least have the chance to participate. Try this: one person says "hey I think this template kinda sucks", another person chimes in a minute later "good point", and an admin comes along and says "Ok consensus reached, discussion closed, implemeting." That's not going to stick, and there isn't even any disagreement. If it's called into question whether they had the chance or if this is the conclusion of a very minor subset who weren't even given enough time to go over each others' arguments, it was too soon. Not as a matter of headcount voting but as a question of significance, 70 people saying "keep" and 65 saying "delete" and no further deliberation isn't going to hold up very long, anyway.
          b) No, that is exactly what they are not supposed to do. "Sysops will not rule on content, but may intervene to enforce policy (such as wp:BLP) or to impose sanctions on editors who are disrupting the consensus process inappropriately." I don't see anything in there about sysops disrupting a discussion and declaring a consensus when the side that feels the same way they do has "won" the argument. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 03:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

a) Ok, any widely used template has to have 5,000 contributors and 15,000 comments before a decision is taken. Probably 3 years. Is that any better?
b) Closing admin has to interpret consensus - closing admin determined the keep arguments were weak. Szzuk (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn as No Consensus - Initially I have no comment about this but I oppose User:Sjakkalle's impose. If whether to found the discussion by pool or by discussion, or by consensus depends on what administrators' comprehension, Wikipedia can never run. (If you want to stress the importance of discussion you should use it in every discussion, not in just is one) Plus, when closing the discussion, User:Sjakkalle commented several "keeps" - this is simply too much! You may comment their "keeps" below their comments, but how can you impose your idea on the whole discussion?! In China, Mao put his own idea on the whold discussion and it leads to the Cultural Revolution! ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 07:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus The TFD debate was, understandably and admittedly, a tl;dr case – honestly, if I had closed it myself, I would've closed it without reading through the entire debate, and possibly closed it as "no consensus". Consensus of such debates are hard for anyone to judge. There were alot of mixed opinions in the debate – there was no clear consensus to delete the template. So I'm voting to overturn the close to no consensus. HeyMid (contribs) 18:28, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice but the closing admin did read the discussion and this is clear from the lengthly reasoning. As many people said it seemed to be non consensus unless you really read the whole discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I find the above rationale utterly astonishing. Because you don't care to bother reading the debate in its entirety (and wouldn't have even if you'd intended to close it), you want to overturn the closure of someone who did take the time to read it (and thoroughly analyze it), blindly assuming that consensus wasn't reached? Absolutely unreal. —David Levy 19:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe that even if the TFD debate had been closed as "keep", it would've still gone to DRV. Also, no, I never would've closed such a big discussion myself. HeyMid (contribs) 19:29, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Well your comment gave me a chuckle. I normally say things that terrible when I'm drunk! :) Szzuk (talk) 19:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand that you don't wish to read such a large discussion in its entirety, and that's your prerogative. You haven't explained why this fact justifies overturning the closure of someone who did (followed by extremely thorough analysis). —David Levy 20:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse As somebody already said above, this close is not one that no reasonable admin could have made. Yoenit (talk) 22:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse: Reasonable close. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn as no consensus per SoWhy and DGG. Discussion was divided and consensus was not definitively reached.   — C M B J   00:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• endorse closure: As someone who actually voted keep, I note that the closing admin made a reasonable interpretation of the bulk of the discussion, and the closure is thus valid. This discussion HERE at DRV is becoming "AFD Part II" which is not what it about. The admin acted within his remit, made a reasonable interpretation of the strength of arguements presented in the discussion, and closed appropriately. No need to overturn, even though I personally voted (and still believe) it should have gone the other way; I am man enough to concede to consensus over my own beliefs. --Jayron32 01:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
  • If this is becoming a deletion request rehash, it is because users keep doing exactly what you just did by basically "voting" and not substantiating. Saying that the admin "made a reasonable interpretation of the strength of arguements presented in the discussion" is effectively what most of the Endorse comments have said, and that contributes nothing more than where you turn up on a headcount. Why was the admin's interpretation reasonable, what were those strengths that were so powerful as to overwhelm the (slightly more than) half who felt the opposite way, and how exactly did the admin's decision to decision allow any further input benefit the attempt to reach a genuine consensus? Please just don't repeat what others have said because if the TfD discussion in question wasn't decided by a vote, this review certainly won't be.
    Talking about conceding your own beliefs in order to reach a consensus (and your manliness, apparently) is exactly what should happen in the discussion about the template, but that was never given the opportunity to occur because the admin acted like a referee in a sparring match, added up the number of blows, estimated how many connected and declared one side the "victor". Personally I would have contributed as one who believed in the deletion of the template, but I also would have taken the time to weigh arguments on both sides, discuss costs and benefits, and maybe work out some sort of compromise or even change my mind if logic warranted.
    Perhaps you're right and this thread is becoming "AFD Part II", but if so it's only because Part I was shut down before any real consensus could occur. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 03:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but dozens of people offered arguements, certainly enough to guage the strengths of those arguements, and the discussion ran the required seven days. I can't see where there wasn't enough opportunity to judge consensus. You're taking this exceedingly personally, to the point of trying to argue out every single person who votes differently than you want them too. That a sure sign that you are taking this far to personally, and its becomes clearer and clearer with every response you leave that the crux of your arguement is "this just didn't go the way I wanted it too". If you have confidence in the strength of your arguement, you make it once and leave it be. Berating every single person who makes a counterarguement doesn't display any respect for the process of consensus building as a means of solving disputes, rather it shows an intent win the dispute merely by being the loudest disputant. We know your position on the matter; there's no need to restate it every time someone has a differing opinion. --Jayron32 03:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus. As much as I respect admins willing to be bold and ignore all rules, I believe Sjakalle did so incorrectly in this case. This was a clear case of 'no consensus', almost as clear as it gets; I don't think any other close would have been reasonable. The fact that this template is so widely used, and its deletion will have a considerable impact, should have been all the more reason to place a high threshold on the consensus needed to delete it; such a widely-used template should not be deleted on a 50/50 split discussion. Sjakalle's assessment of the arguments was not appropriate here - the 'delete' arguments were not so much stronger than the 'keep' ones to overwhelm the lack of consensus. As an aside, had I commented in this TFD, I would probably have argued for deletion myself; but I just can't see the grounds for closing this discussion as 'delete'. Robofish (talk) 02:46, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. I was following the TfD when it was open, and didn't contribute due to a combination of the closeness of the opposing arguments and the fact that a number of people commented that it was bound to be no consensus. I believe the closer acted correctly and set out their arguments well. It is not the case that they used a supervote but they formed their opinion through "the careful consideration, dissection and eventual synthesis of each side's arguments", bearing in mind that consensus "should not be calculated solely by the balance of votes". (quotes from WP:Deletion process). Eldumpo (talk) 11:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)