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Wikipedia editors may find articles, images, or other pages that they believe should be deleted, and raise these concerns in various deletion forums. Administrators determine consensus and examine policy to determine if there is sufficient justification for their removal from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia:Deletion review considers disputed deletions and disputed decisions made in deletion-related discussions and speedy deletions. This includes appeals to restore deleted pages and appeals to delete pages kept after a prior discussion.

If a short stub was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create a useful article on the same subject, you can be bold and do so. It is not necessary to have the original stub undeleted. If, however, the new stub is also deleted, you may list it here for a discussion. If you are proposing that an existing page be reconsidered for deletion, please place the template {{Delrev}} on that page to inform editors who may wish to join the discussion here (administrators may replace with {{TempUndelete}} where appropriate).

Before posting a deletion review request, please read Wikipedia:Deletion policy.

What is this page for?

Please consider the options below, and then follow instructions to add your request to the main part of the page.

Principal purpose — challenging deletion debates

This process should not be used simply because you disagree with a deletion debate's outcome for reasons previously presented but instead if you think the closer interpreted the debate incorrectly or have some significant new information pertaining to the debate that was not available on Wikipedia during the debate. This page exists to correct closure errors in the deletion process and speedy deletions, both of which may also involve reviewing content in some cases. Purely procedural errors may be substantive and result in an overturn (such as failing to tag a page for its XfD discussion) or irrelevant (such as closing 1 minute early).

The main purpose of the page is to review the outcome of deletion discussions, as described above. There are some ancillary cases where editors wish to have pages restored. These are also handled in main part of the page — please consider the usual reasons below and state clearly the basis for your request.

Temporary review

Request this if you want to use the content elsewhere (such as in other articles), you suspect the article has been wrongly deleted but are unable to tell without seeing what exactly was deleted, or if the full article history is needed to complete a transwiki properly. Please state whether you would like:

1. The article temporarily restored for all to examine during a review.
2. The article restored to your userspace so you can work on it to attempt to address the problems that led to deletion.
3. The source of the article emailed to you to review 'off-Wiki'.

Only uncontroversial revisions will be restored. Content that is moved back to the encyclopedia without being improved may be subject to speedy deletion, and content held in userspace without evidence of intent to work on it may also be nominated for deletion.

History-only undeletion

Request this to have the history of a deleted article restored behind a new, improved version of the article. The old, deleted revisions will sit harmlessly in the history of the page. 'History-only' undeletions can be performed without needing extended discussion on this page.

Contesting 'proposed deletions'

Request this if the article was dealt with as a 'proposed deletion'. A 'PROD'-deleted article can be restored by any admin upon reasonable request. Such an article may still be deleted at articles for deletion or under the criteria for speedy deletion.

Administrators restoring deleted articles should also restore the associated talk page if it exists and place {{oldprod}} on it. {{ProdContested}} (shortcut {{subst:PC|articlename}}) is available for notifying the original nominator that the article has been restored.

How do I do all this?

All requests go in the main part of the page below. Please state clearly your reason for requesting undeletion. If you want to review the debate or the cause of deletion, then these ancillary options are not appropriate, and you should request a full review.

Under no circumstances will revisions that are copyright violations, libelous or contain otherwise prohibited content be restored.

Instructions

Before listing a review request:

1. discuss the matter with the deleting administrator and try to resolve it with him or her first. If you and the admin cannot work out a satisfactory solution, only then should you bring the matter before Deletion review. See #What is this page for? (above).
2. please check that it is not on the list of perennial requests. Repeated requests every time some new, tiny snippet appears on the web have a tendency to be counter-productive. It is almost always best to play the waiting game unless you can decisively overcome the issues identified at deletion.

Commenting in a deletion review

In the deletion review discussion, users should opt to:

• Endorse the original closing decision; or
• Relist on the relevant deletion forum (usually Articles for deletion); or
• List, if the page was speedy deleted outside of the established criteria and you believe it needs a full discussion at the appropriate forum to decide if it should be deleted; or
• Overturn the original decision and optionally an (action) per the Guide to deletion. For a keep decision, the default action associated with overturning is delete and vice versa. If an editor desires some action other than the default, they should make this clear.

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.

The presentation of new information about the content should be prefaced by Relist, rather than Overturn and (action). This information can then be more fully evaluated in its proper deletion discussion forum.

Closing reviews

A nominated page should remain on deletion review for at least five days. After five days, an administrator will determine if a consensus exists. If that consensus is to undelete, the admin should follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Wikipedia:Deletion review discussions. If the consensus was to relist, the page should be relisted at the appropriate forum. If the consensus was that the deletion was endorsed, the discussion should be closed with the consensus documented.

Steps to list a new deletion review

Before listing a review request, please attempt to discuss the matter with the admin who deleted the page (or otherwise made the decision) as this could resolve the matter faster. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, or misunderstanding, and a full review may not be needed. Such discussion also gives the admin the opportunity to clarify the reasoning behind a decision. If things don't work out, please note in the DRV listing that you first tried discussing the matter with the admin who deleted the page.

Active discussions

3 December 2008

Jack Schaap

Jack Schaap (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

This page was deleted on April 18, 2007, almost two years ago, and salted from creation. I have now created a full length, non-stub, referenced, notability-establishing article im my sandbox here. I would like to have the page unprotected so I can move the article that is in my sandbox, as it is quite notable, into the Jack Schaap article. Thank you. American Eagle (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Seems fine, permit recreation. Stifle (talk) 21:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Allow recreation. A year and a half has passed so he may be more notable now. I can't tell from the AfDs why this was protected in the first place except for the OTRS point but there seems no reason to retain the protection. The proposed article has a slightly POV tone but that's no reason to stop it being put in the article space now. Unusual? Quite ^TalkQu 22:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Leroy Jethro Gibbs

Leroy Jethro Gibbs (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

• Relist. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leroy Jethro Gibbs (2nd nomination) was inappropriately closed after less than 24 hours without any clear consensus (views were evenly split) and on incorrect interpretation of the debate. The AfD was proposing deletion, per lack of real world notability and per precedent of related characters, not merger. The result of speedy keep. and reject nomination reflected the closing admin's view but there was no consensus on that result. This is a substantive procedural error. The AfD should be reopened and allowed to run its course. McWomble (talk) 08:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse closure. Articles should not be sent to AFD to force a discussion on merger, and that seems to be what you were aiming for. However, if you actually want to delete the article, then open a new AFD and say so. Stifle (talk) 09:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse my own closure. As stated in the AFD, the merger was discussed, but there wasn't consensus about it yet. Using AFD to get around a merge discussion and delete the material instead is even less appropriate than listing mergers on AFD. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I've reinstated the original redirect made by McWomble because the person who disagreed with it said "Undid revision 254919632 by McWomble (I want to read a detailed page about each main character. We should improve this article, not delete it." That is a personal opinion, not rooted in policy and mistakenly assuming the article was deleted when a suitable amount of material was kept elsewhere. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Additional note Since the material was already merged (by McWomble), removing the article history for the original character articles would violate GFDL rules. (this also applies to the other characters on AFD at the moment) - Mgm|^(talk) 10:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse closure- it, and the other NCIS character articles, were rather pointy nominations made after a merge discussion went awry. Closing it was the proper course of action. Umbralcorax (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

List of fictional swords

List of fictional swords (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

Bad Faith & very Disparaging Nomination. Charges of "useless" & "unmaintainable list of indiscriminate information" were completely unfounded. Undue weight was given to "delete" (without reasonings) & "delete per nom" !votes. Lack of any reasoning has led to further discussions on closing admins Talk page Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 06:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn I see an erroneous closing, but I don't see bad faith in the slightest. The closing did not take into account the changes and improvements and narrowing in scope of the article during the discussion. I think this needs either a relist of consider these factors, or a non-consensus close--which i suspect would be the result of a relisting. DGG (talk) 07:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Either relist of overturn per nom. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 07:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Relist or overturn to no consensus. Although I !voted to delete I do not believe there was a clear consensus. Nor do I believe there was any bad faith. McWomble (talk) 08:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse reasonable closure. Stifle (talk) 09:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Relist or overturn to no consensus. The nominator's reasoning was faulty, so all the !votes that said per nom should be discounted along with the votes that gave no reason. Then there's also votes that simply call the page ridiculous without giving valid reasons to delete. And per DGG, the closing did not take into account changes made to the article since the early delete votes were made. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse - despite incivility of nomination, reasonable closure.--Boffob (talk) 14:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus- There was enough argument and reason on both sides that it was clear no consensus was reached. Umbralcorax (talk) 14:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse although I would have closed no consensus. There is nothing to indicate that the closer didn't consider the improvements in the article when he closed the afd, and certainly there were numerous delete comments that came after the primary cleanup. I would, however like to trout-slap those editors who !voted "per nom" - that was among the least civil nominations I've seen. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 16:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• overturn Removing the nom and people who voted per nom makes this arguably a straight keep without any issue of it being no consensus. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• overturn to no consensus Nominations like that shouldn't be rewarded and arguably the article should have been speedy kept immediately. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Relist IF the nomination itself is the problem for some people that seems to be an easy solution. Protonk (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse despite the tone of the nomination, a delete close was a reasonable interpretation of that AfD. RMHED (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Apovolot

User:Apovolot (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|MfD)

{{{no consensus}}} Apovolot (talk) 04:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment by Closer - I guess the user is saying that he believes there was no consensus for deletion based on the number of !votes or the content of the comments. Editors who are familiar with MfD will understand that discussion is often pretty thin, especially on relatively inoffensive userpages, which may often bring in fewer of the more experienced editors than a highly controversial userbox. At the same time consensus isn't determined by counting the !votes and there are well established precedents at MfD for deletion of userpages that violate WP:USER based upon many, many, discussions of these issues. The close calls that generate a lot of discussion are those where an individual does some level of editing but spends most of the time in userspace and has a lot of personal information on the userpage - the borderline MySpace pages that arguably tell more than necessary about the user. I close a lot of MfDs and I always err on the side of the user; however, I am very familiar with community consensus on userpage material and the keep comments were not in line with policy or its past interpretation at MfD. This was a clear attempt (not necessarily in bad faith, more likely through misunderstanding) to use Wikipedia as a publishing medium for the user's own theories. A review of the user's edits shows that he has used usertalk for forum like discussions of these same theories and has spent a fair amount of space complaining of censorship when others complain that his pages should be deleted; although these are both beyond the scope of this DRV they further show his misunderstanding of the project. These theories as published on the user's page were not likely to ever result in an article because any such article would be WP:OR/WP:COI. If the theories were published elsewhere in reliable third party sources, someone else might have made a good article about them but the material on the user's page would then have been superfluous. If the user had published these theories and they had proved significant enough in the field to result in third party reports, awards, etc. it might be OK to note them on the user's page to indicate the level of expertise the user has in the field; particularly if he were an experienced editor. But that set of facts is not before us and I believe that it is recognized at MfD that allowing people to turn their userpages into OR publishing sites would violate policy and at some level eventually do real harm to the project.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 07:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn The keep arguments were the better based in policy. It was held , and held correctly, that an article on this material was not yet justified, being the first publication of original research. But the presentation here is simply a summary of the authors thinking on the subject--a sketch of ideas to be worked out elsewhere. Many of us have undeveloped ideas about fields we are interested in on our user pages --material which well might never result in a Wikipedia article, but none the less is relevant in showing what we are thinking about. I do not see what harm this serves--a user can speculate in a reasonable way if he chooses.This is well within acceptable content. Now, if he were to develop this into full scale proofs at the level of a potentially publisheable article, the it should go elsewhere on space of his own, and h could refer to it. But I don't see it as that far developed. Perhaps those who still have doubts would feeel better with it on a subpage? DGG (talk) 07:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Overturn to no consensus, as there wasn't a visible consensus to delete. I support DGG's suggestion of using a subpage though, because the main userpage should be about the user. Stifle (talk) 09:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse. The material violates WP:UP. A Wikipedia is not a free webhost for extensive material completely unrelated to the project, especially if it involves original research of the user. What was posted here is rather more than a few general throughts about "life, universe and everything" that are typically acceptable on a userpage in broader context. Per WP:UP, a Wikipedia userpage is for things that are related to the user's activities here, on Wikipedia, such as articles the user created or worked on, wikiprojects and general interests, barnstars, brief personal information and so on. Some general comments about one's interests are certainly acceptable, especially if given in broader context of what a user does do here on Wikipedia. But the sort of thing the user had on this page went well beyond that and into the realm of specific mathematical research: three very specific mathematical conjectures, due to the user himself, that, as the page indicated, he intends to publish elsewhere. Using a Wikipedia userpage for publicizing specific research of this nature is inappropriate. This belongs somewhere else: on an external personal webpage, or a newsgroup (such as sci.math.research), or a chatroom or bulletin board or a preprint server. The material is not suitable for a subpage either. As pointed out both by myself and by the closing admin in the MfD, there is no likelihood of this material being able to become a Wikipedia article any time soon. The material is unpublished and can only become notable, in the sense of WP:N, a few years after (and if) it is published. Nsk92 (talk) 12:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Overturn. I believe in, and feel both policy and common practice permit, giving considerable lattitude in user space. I think the concerns here could be addressed by making it a sub-page as DGG mentioned, and placing a {{noindex}} template on the page. If the user is agreeable to those things, there shouldn't be a problem. If the tag were to be removed, that could be an indication of a purpose inconsistent with permissible use here. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 16:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Rants like this one on Jimbo's talk page don't help the subject's cause. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done}
• {{{no action needed at DRV}}} Seriously now. Let's not be cute. Protonk (talk) 22:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

July 29 in rail transport

July 29 in rail transport (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

Overturn: In this AfD, I believe there was a consensus to delete but the closing admin closed it with a no consensus because he said as we weren't trying to get the article deleted, but trying to reorganize it, so it wasn't deleted. I feel like this call was made in error and deleting the articles would be best way to "reorganize" as it is just a bunch of trivia. The closing admin also has to keep in mind that this nomination was in good faith, and I don't find it to be flawed in any way. I saw an article that could use deletion, and I used AfD. Simple as that.Tavix (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• How about moving to portal space? --NE2 01:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to any of the participants to let the debate go on this long, with this much discussion, and then close it with "This debate is flawed, because WP:AFD is not the place to have debates about content." Nor is the closing admin's suggestion to start this all over again, somewhere else (WikiProject Trains), at all productive. The debate was never about trains, but about whether day-by-day articles of this nature are consistent with policy. The nominator tagged each of the articles and went through the nomination procedure, people discussed Wikipedia policy, and the admin even noted that "the weight of community opinion in this debate is substantially against this structure." Stating at the end of the debate, that it didn't matter -- that's not a satisfactory way to close this. Mandsford (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Exactly my point. It did take a long time to get everything nominated and to have it closed the way it did is messed up.Tavix (talk) 02:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn. Though I want to continue with "… and reclose as delete," which I think is the result justified by the arguments offered in the discussion (particularly the WP:NOT-based ones), I will not do so. It appears that the closer's "no consensus," instead of constituting an actual interpretation of the discussion, expressed a refusal to interpret the discussion, with a suitably noncommittal choice from the closure options. For this reason, the closure is flawed. Someone else should close this who is willing to engage with the arguments presented; whether the result turns out to be "keep," "delete," or "no consensus," at least the discussion will have been judged rather than brushed aside. (Note: I did not participate in the AfD itself.) Deor (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I now notice that the nominator here doesn't appear to have attempted to discuss the closure with Mangojuice, the closer, before bringing this to DRV. I wish he had, per the instructions at the top of this page. Deor (talk) 02:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oops sorry, I missed that part. This is my first ever Deletion review, so I didn't really know how to go though with it. I'll go talk to Mangojuice. Tavix (talk) 02:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn - as it's a clearcut case of non-encyclopedic cross-categorization (day and train related events in completely different years), but essentially I concur with Deor, it would be preferable to see what the closing admin has to say first.--Boffob (talk) 03:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse - Regardless of the closing admin's actual statement, a no consensus close is perfectly reasonable here. Opinions were well divided and many of the arguments on both sides were weak. Further, the full list of pages was added after more than a dozen people had already commented on the AFD. If anything is improper in the AFD, that was. Mr.Z-man 03:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Reply I already explained myself on the AfD, that I became busy right after I nominated it and couldn't get back on for a little while. If someone really would change their vote because I nominated the other articles (of the exact same nature), they had 4.5 days to do so. Tavix (talk) 03:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• That really has no bearing on "a no consensus close is perfectly reasonable here." The late listing was really just a side note. Mr.Z-man 03:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse my own close, because in the end there wasn't consensus either way. I was trying to suggest how consensus might be built in my closure statement but it seems people would rather continue the contentious route than seek points of agreement. "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorization" was the only remotely appropriate deletion reason. First of all, this isn't a category. Second, this is surely a cross-categorization of information, but what is non-encyclopedic about it is entirely in the eye of the beholder. There's an argument that organizing by date is uninteresting but clearly some disagreed, and it was pointed out also that categorizing information by calendar date is hardly arbitrary. So how about following my suggestion and discussing the matter with those who edit rail articles instead? Mangojuice^talk 03:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Sad There was a censensus, if you actually read the whole lot, the keep excuses are really quite sad and were all rebuffed. Its amazing that the closing admin does not seem to understand what cross-categorization is. The events have absolutetly NOTHING in common with each other, apart form having occured on the same day of the same month. The only keep argument is that its useful for browsing is nonsensical, who browses between events which are related only by the day of the year they happen to have occured in? No one. The average article has 3 or 4 enteries. I am sure some users have emassed many thousands of edits scrapping all this together. endorse because wikipedia is crazy, only the original article should have been nominated and it would have got deleted, because it wasn't we will now be stuck with all the articles, non of which we will be able to delete.--Dacium (talk) 04:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse and applaud Mangojuice's interpretation of AfD policy. Content or merge disputes need to be settled on the article's talk page or the talk page of the Wikiproject. There was a three-way debate at the AfD between people who wanted the article left as stood, who wanted the content moved elsewhere, and who wanted the article and content deleted. A three way debate like this is not what AfD is about and clearly no consensus was achieved from it. The content dispute should be taken up elsewhere first and that could result in a consensus to move the information elsewhere and redirect the article. If the article stands for some time after this decision then I have no prejudice against the article being renominated. Themfromspace (talk) 04:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse I wasn't and still am not convinced either way about the merits of the articles themselves. However, having followed the AfD closely, I'd agree that there was no consensus formed — much heat and not enough light. Additionally, the nomination was a mess, what with the bulk of the articles being added after the additional listing but not tagged until a day-and-a-half after the addition and with the nominator inappropriately removing another user's comments (mine) from the discussion. I agree with the closing administrator that opening a discussion with the Railway project would be a useful next step — if that doesn't gain any traction, then one of the articles can be renominated for deletion after an appropriate time has passed in an effort to both develop a consensus and establish a precedent that can be applied to the remaining articles in the set. Mlaffs (talk) 05:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Stop and talk I also looked at closing this but got distracted by RL before I could follow through. There was an overwhelming majority of policy based reasons given in the discussion to delete and most of the keep arguments were of the ITSUSEFUL and ILIKEIT type but, and here is the kicker, I wouldn't have closed this as delete either. Close reading of the discussion showed that many of the delete votes were variants of "this is badly laid out and needs to be merged somewhere but no idea where". There are far too many articles to summarily delete them without exhausting the merge discussions and I would have had closed this as "go away and discuss this with a wider community first and only come back if there is no chance of finding the right merge target". Please bear in mind that I am about as deletion minded as you can find in an admin and I absolutely would not have pressed the button. Please go and have a proper discussion with all stakeholders and see if you can come up with an agreed format for a merge target. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse closure, with some grumbling since I voted to delete these articles. I still think that the encyclopedic value of these articles is dubious, but while I think the reasons given to delete are solid, they are not so powerful that they will trump consensus or the lack of consensus. I concede that those arguing "keep" were not altogether unreasonable in pointing out that "this day in..." topics are of some interest to a layman reader, and that anniversaries are sometimes covered in media, although I disagree with them that this is the kind of topic which should make its way into an encyclopedia. If I were Wikipedia's dictator I would have these articles deleted, but since I'm not, there has to be a consensus for deletion, or some major breach of WP:V or WP:NOR, and that was not there in this case. I stated my opinion in the AFD, I stand by that opinion, but I am forced to concede that my opinion didn't enthuse everyone. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse. I do not believe there was a clear consensus either way therefore the outcome of no consensus was correct. McWomble (talk) 08:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• endorse No consensus expresses the situation. The community simply does not know what i wants to do with these articles. Since very general issues are involved, that could affect the creation of sets of 366 articles on many different topics, this really needs some what to be decided generally. My own suggestion would be by experiment: let these rail transport articles be created , and see what people thing of it as a prototype. Then we can have a general discussion on whether to extend the experiment. I point out that if we are not going to sustain the close, I could give arguments why it should have beenan outright keep, rather than an outright delete. I think we're best off with the actual decision, and I congratulate Mangojuice for making it.DGG (talk) 08:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse no consensus, as there was nonse. I'm disappointed with the result, but the closure was correct. Stifle (talk) 09:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• First, thank you to the editor who opened this discussion for informing me of it. The AFD closing admin suggested further discussion about the content organization should take place at WT:TWP. That discussion is now begun. Slambo (Speak) 12:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not surprised to see all of the endorsements of a no consensus decision by other administrators. But let's not endorse the practice of closing a debate with statements that the discussion was "flawed" and should not have been conducted in the first place. I don't recall that anyone has to ask permission before nominating an article; and if that's actually a valid reason to stop a debate, it would be nice if someone told us to "shut up" early on-- not at the end of the discussion. Neither should anyone endorse the odd suggestion that this be brought instead as a debate in the WikiProject on Trains. One might as well propose gun control ideas at a National Rifle Association meeting. No, the debate will come up again, and it will come up again at Articles for Deletion. Mandsford (talk) 14:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You've obviously never heard the old joke about how to get the NRA to support gun control. The NRA has 2 million members; take 2.5 million supporters of gun control to their next annual meeting, have them all join, and then vote support for gun control onto their platform.
Look, that's really not an appropriate analogy. When we need to discuss issues of general style on Wikipedia, we do it on the MOS talk page. When we need to discuss notability criteria for biographies, we do it on the WP:BIO talk page. When we need to discuss issues about infoboxes on movie articles, we do it on the Film project talk page. What's then so "odd" about the belief that the discussion about these articles should take place at the Trains project talk page?
Ultimately, you're making an assumption at the outset that there aren't people involved in that project who will be open to an honest critique of the articles, when I think there's ample evidence to the contrary. These articles were created by Slambo, who's a member of that project, that same creator has willingly and in good faith opened the discussion on that talk page as was suggested, and that same creator has also expressed some ideas about how to better use the information in the articles. If you want to have influence on that discussion, there's nothing to stop you or anyone else from contributing to that discussion, whether you're a member of the Trains project or not. Either way, I suspect the discussion will find a better home for the content, which would lend support to deletion of the articles, at which point we can proceed accordingly. If that suspicion is wrong, then a broader discussion will be appropriate, and it may need another kick at the can at AfD. But in the meantime, will it kill you to give a discussion without the drama that's implicit at AfD a chance at success? Mlaffs (talk) 15:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn as "Move to Portal: namespace". My rationale? As I parse it, there were basically four views:
  1. Delete
  2. Keep
  3. Merge with the "year in rail transport" articles
  4. Move to portal space

There was also some talk about merging with the general day articles (like July 29), but that didn't get much traction, so I'll focus on the main four that I saw on my read-through. As I see it, the "delete" arguments can be read as "get this information out of the article namespace" and the "keep" arguments can be read as "this information should be kept available for the readers". According to at least one editor in the debate, the "merge" option wasn't necessary as the information was already duplicated in the year articles. The "move to portal space" option thus acts as a default option for all sides: it removes the articles from mainspace, it keeps the information available to the readers (albeit not as an "article") and the information is still available in the "year" articles. I also note that some of the delete voters explicitly mentioned that the move to portal space would be ok.

I initially was going to endorse this close, because I can see how it could reasonably be seen as "no consensus". However, I think the closer's rationale of Afd not being the correct venue was not correct, because there were good-faith "delete" votes made during the discussion. If no one was actually arguing to delete it, then of course Afd would have been the wrong venue. However, even if the nominator was misguided in taking it to Afd, the time to close as "wrong venue" was before those good-faith "delete" votes were made. Once editors vote to delete in good faith, it becomes a deletion discussion, and deletion of articles is what Afd is for, and there is nowhere else to go.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• FWIW, I think moving these to portal space is the best solution. But I hardly think that was the outcome of the debate. And BTW, the debate was not flawed as a deletion debate, it just didn't reach consensus. It was flawed if it is to be looked at, after the fact, as a debate about how best to present this material. Mangojuice^talk 15:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse. Mangojuice has it exactly right with his last comment. There was no consensus to delete these articles, as he properly found. There is considerable disagreement about what else should be done with them, but this discussion failed to generate a consensus to delete. As he alluded to in the comment above this one, while frequently you can distill consensus about what else should be done with an article - merge, redirect, etc. - that's not the primary purpose of the discussion, and given the broad unresolved content issues, one that really was beyond the scope of what could be accomplished here. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 18:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

PART X of the Constitution of India (closed)

2 December 2008

Category:African American basketball players

Category:African American basketball players (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (restore|cache) CfD

majority of users seem to want this category page as a subcategory page for Category:African American sportspeople. The later cat page is incredibly long and subcategory page improves navigating. Moreover, there is Category:African American baseball players - it seems unfair to have one and not the other. The argument that African American baseball players of the first half of the 20th century have had historic significance but African American basketball players (like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan have not, apparently) seems rather too POV. There are others too in the same boat, one for each of the major sports Category:African American boxers, Category:Afican American professional wrestlers, Category:African American track and field athletes, Category:African American soccer players, Category:African American tennis players, Category:African American American football players, Category:African American Canadian football players (this last one was not even a recreation) all have been speedily deleted (almost as if to avoid discussion) despite their being able to be well-populated. I can see however with sports where there has been only one or two African American sportspeople, not wanting a subcat page (I don t know, like for dart players or nascar drivers or something). Mayumashu (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Link to the discussion please! Johnbod (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Original discussion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_October_27#Category:African_Americans_by_sport

• "Overturn" per [1]. --Kbdank71 21:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn The CfD used as precedent, Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_October_27#Category:African_Americans_by_sport, used as the original precedent to justify the speedy deletion, has to be one of the most egregious abuses of consensus I have seen. Precedent is a useful guide in considering other cases, in any legal system or in Wikipedia. The problem is that at CfD, conclusions of earlier CfDs are abused to mean that they had established binding precedents on any all future discussions vaguely similar to a prior case. The problem is that nothing in Wikipedia establishes the result of any prior XfD as binding. Editors are entitled to consider any item up for deletion and decide that a "precedent" offered is inapplicable or just plain wrong. Not only can consensus change, in this case it could not have more clearly changed. User:Kbdank71 abused discretion to disregard the clearest possible consensus in this CfD by insisting that a previous CfD set a binding precedent. Participants had the opportunity to consider the nominator's demands for the disruptive deletion and were near-unanimous in their rejection of the nomination. The Cfd Kbdank71 cited, Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_3#Category:African_American_baseball_players was a rather narrow decision that almost certainly should have been a "no consensus", for which clear and convincing policy arguments were made for retention, while IHATEIT was offered for deletion. In their zeal to impose arbitrary precedents, we have ended up with a nearly unusable Category:African American sportspeople that includes well over 2,000 articles, but no effective organization within that category. This is symptomatic of the Bizarro world at CfD, where a small handful of editors have sought to disrupt the category system by picking off a category and then using that precedent as a battering ram to justify deletion of any and all similar categories. As with Category:African American sportspeople, much greater flexibility and common sense is needed to allow articles to be organized in a manner in which those coming to Wikipedia can navigate and find similar articles. As Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_October_27#Category:African_Americans_by_sport, the CfD used as "precedent" was improperly decided in clear ignorance of consensus, as there is no policy that turns prior decisions into binding precedents, and as the current refusal to allow recreation only perpetuates the disruption to the category system based on an improperly decided "precedent", the underlying Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_October_27#Category:African_Americans_by_sport should be overturned and all associated categories should be recreated. Alansohn (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• Overturn per previous DRV on related category from the same CfD. This appears to be a housekeeping-type of correction that never seemed to be done after the other DRV—it really should have applied to all of the categories that were involved, but the others were never nominated. Let's not make the same mistake again—can this nom apply to all the categories in question? (I assume so, since the nomi