Difference between revisions of "Wt:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 4"

Latest revision as of 13:17, 17 February 2023

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Wikipedia:Featured article review/British House of Commons

Template:Stale A bit off-topic for this project, but the skills are the same. This article was written by User:Lord Emsworth some years ago, and promoted, deservedly, to FA. But this was before the days of in-line citation, and the references (which Emsworth appears to have used in his usual scholarly fashion) are listed at the foot. Would you be interested in rescuing this FA status? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

A bit of a late response but you might do better to enlist the League of Copy Editors; although the skill sets are similar the motivations and therefore style is much different and they are experienced at such challenges. Benjiboi 05:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

AGF is backwards with AfDs; and vote stacking should be irrelevant

Template:Resolved I've been paying more attention lately to the AfD process, after I discovered what to me is an obvious sock puppet who has done nothing but propose AfDs or (delete content)(redirect) since registration, targeting articles in a particular field, removing information, often sucessfully, that might be used as arguments against his apparent POV. (From the original edits, the target of his ire was blatant.)

What I saw, reviewing the successful deletions, was that, apparently, nobody interested in the topic of the article had noticed the AfD. In the field involved, many articles have been created by experts, and, indeed, their work frequently does not initially meet Wikipedia sourcing standards. A standard and legitimate response is to place a citation needed or other tag on the article, not to propose deletion. This particular serial drive-by nominator would allege content problems, sometimes claiming that finding reliable source would be impossible. Most nominator claims were false; for example, the AFD on one particular organization's article claimed that its web site was the work of one single person, and solely original research, when any examination of that site would have found contrary information. (That organization was probably of marginal notability at the time. Now, more than a year later, it is clearly notable, in my opinion, and I've seen excerpts from a forthcoming book about it, published by a major publisher.) Anyone who knew the topic would have recognized the misrepresentations. Yet, apparently, many vote on AfDs with "Delete" without actually doing any research. They seem to assume good faith on the part of the nominator. That's an error.

Basically, the common-law principle underlying AGF is that testimony is presumed true unless controverted. With an AfD, we have *inherently* contradictory testimony, frequently. We should assume good faith on the part of the article creator and all those who worked on it as well, so the claims of a nominator should *never* be taken as accurate unless verified.

In a number of AfDs, there was the AfD and a "delete" vote within minutes, not nearly enough time to do any significant research. At a recent RfA, I voted against an administrator candidate because he had been such a delete voter; in the end, his was the only delete vote, because this particular AfD got noticed by people who understood the field. When he noted that this was not one of his finer moments, and said he'd be more careful in the future, I changed my vote to support....

The claim of vote stacking is particularly interesting. Wikipedia process generally suffers from what I call participation bias. That is, a particular controversy may attract partisans; plus participation in many AfDs is very small. The latter may actually be quite proper, if those who voted actually did some research trying to find evidence for notability. However, the number of votes is supposed to be irrelevant; rather, the standard is properly the cogency of the arguments presented. Frankly, twere it up to me, I'd remove votes from AfD pages that are, for example, "Delete per nom." Likewise Keep or Delete votes with no facts. Voters should be *responsible* for their votes; a "per nom" vote should be a declaration that the voter has verified every fact alleged by the nominator. What should be actual practice with AfDs would b to separate "votes" from arguments. There is still room for raw votes, but, properly, the discussion of notability should follow standard NPOV practice, though with greatly reduced verifiability standards. For example, someone might argue based on personal knowledge. That's testimony, and it would be admissible in a court of law, so it should likewise be in AfDs; however, the source of claims in an AfD should be stated. "I knew him personally, and X was true, I witnessed it."

In one ironic example, the AfD for Blood electrification[1], there was a delete argument: "Proven quackery" or something like that. Now, if Blood electrification was "proven quackery," -- which it might be, it is certainly quack medicine in my opinion -- surely the proof could be referenced in the article, thus confirming at the same time notability and removing possible POV bias by not having that material included. However, clearly, there is an organization of editors dedicated to removing "quackery" from Wikipedia, even where the quackery is notable. In the case of Blood electrification, I found an FTC complaint (followed by a consent decree) against a provider of equipment used for this process, that specifically mentioned "blood electrification." Reliable source, notable quackery. These editors, or some of them, are not concerned with improving articles, they are concerned with, effectively, censorship, protecting the public from error and misleading claims. And editing articles to balance out POV claims in them, and to remove unsourced claims if they cannot be verified, that's too much work. Much, much faster to run an AfD. Almost all delete voters in the Blood electrification AfD, who presented arguments, claimed that the article was POV. I went over the article, removing nonsense, but most of it was already balanced, not POV, though sometimes inadequately sourced. And I argued that if anyone thought the article was seriously POV, and beyond easy rescue, they could stub it to a definition and give the article some time. Frankly, I don't understand why that AfD was closed as Delete. I see no explanation except for the number of votes.

Again, some ironies: there was a canvassing warning posted in this AfD. Yet no evidence of actual vote-stacking in the keep direction. The nominator did not give any arguments at all. My own review of the evidence presented was that (1) most delete arguments were based on alleged content problems, (2) some were based on an opinion that reliable source would be impossible to find, and (3) few were based on non-notability. Given that, with about an hour's research, I did find some level of RS, and reported that back to the AfD, I'd have expected the admin closing to pay attention to this evidence. However, there was no explanation with the closing, just "The result was delete." I can say what this looks like to me: Neil counted the votes and/or followed his own opinion. What policy or guideline was followed? Mystery to me. I've seen quite a few AfDs like this. When an AfD is clear and there is little or no dissent, and policy application is obvious, fine. But that was not the case here. I did not, in fact, see a cogent argument for deletion. --Abd (talk) 02:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Really thoughtful essay! I added a link to it on my userpage as number 12: [2]. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:30, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

passing by, I think the specific source in the blood electrification example given is not a good one--the "FTC complaint (followed by a consent decree)" takes place in every complaint FTC carries through to a conclusion, whether or not important. a routine law enforcement action does not make something notable. It's like deriving notability from a police blotter. This is not a comment of the debate over that article in general, just the RS example chosen. Disclosure: i !voted Delete, and will again until there is a real source. At this pt, the major source of notability for it has been the articles inserted on its behalf in WP. Not that I am happy with the way we do AfDs. The simplest thing that could help them attainable at present is wider participation, to eliminate the cabal effect one way or another. DGG (talk) 09:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, DGG. The FTC complaint contains reports of the advertising content used by the defendant. While it's not conclusive as a fact, it is reliable enough to use with attribution, and what is in the consent decree is even more useful, though far less extensive (I did not look at it again to write this). My belief is that an NPOV, verifiable article can be written on the topic, but it's work. I excluded Wikipedia from my searches, as is proper. I also worked on the article, removing inappropriate material and some POV bias, but to do a good job of that would have required much more research than the hour or two I spent, total. The point is that there is such a thing as "blood electrification," there is some theoretical basis in experiment for it -- used way beyond reason, as is common with quackery -- and there are products being sold to do it. It deserves a stub, at least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 05:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

but everything is advertised, and not everything is notable. That's how the FTC came to hear about it. The content would be usable, if the subject were notable. DGG (talk) 20:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Rescue

Template:Resolved Template:Rescue has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Benjiboi 21:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep without restrictions. Benjiboi 03:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are you hurting Wikipedia? Stop hurting Wikipedia.

Template:Resolved You are bad for Wikipedia. Focusing on article rescuing at the expense of article deletion is Burkean Conservatism and based on the fallacious Precautionary principle. If there was a Wikipedia:Article Deletion Armada (an article I think we can safely say you'd support deleting), this wouldn't be a problem because the two philosophies would counterbalance one another. There isn't, however. You're an Inclusionist front organization and you know it. With your support for obscure internet memes, if you folks had your way, Encyclopedia Dramatica would not have been deleted and placed on the spam filter. Saving the blatant advertisement for Bawls is not something to be proud of, although the company that sells it likely appreciates your support. Zenwhat (talk) 09:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I hate children and rainbows.

Oh, wait, I don't.

I do like the idea of the Article Deletion Armada, which already exists in the form of people wanting to tell me what is, and isn't important. Some of them are well meaning, others, not so much, after their article deletions go from AGF to BJAODN.

Seeing as how the bar for including something in WP is so low, what the ARS(E) end is all about is fixing things that belong, for some reason, in WP, not some wild-eyed "we must include an article for each belly-button lint color I had on each day!"

hm. On a side note, maybe rainbows should be hated. Ronabop (talk) 09:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A couple of points Zenwhat. The Article Rescue Squdron does not stop the deletion of articles - we cannot! The ultimate decision rests with the closing admin. We simply bring articles up to the standards required to be in wikipedia. "Blatant advertisement" is no reason to delete an article when it has established notability and is sourced, as Bawls is now. "Blatant advertisement" however is a reason to clean the article up, as was recommended in the last AfD. Fosnez (talk) 11:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ronabop: Deletionists are like lone wolves. For some unknown reason (perhaps they are prone to some degree of elitism -- but it seems justifiable), they don't collaborate as much as they should. In a battle between one or two deletionists here and there and the squadron, the squadron generally wins. Bawls proved that, although I suspect you attempted to keep the article on Encyclopedia Dramatica up and failed because of how abundantly clear it was it was becoming a problem. You see the same issue from time-to-time with YTMND, when the internet memes article was often in horrible condition.

But there is further proof of the lone wolf nature of the deletionist: This discussion. It's just me, here. All the other deletionists are busy reading books on mainstream science, teaching college-level courses, and thinking intently on profound philosophical questions. Whereas Inclusionists are likely either--well--I dare not say. I'd speak freely but I don't want to violate WP:etiquette, especially not here where it would be suicide.

Fosnez: Yes you can, because you hijack debates through forcing a vote by appealing to the populist fallacy behind why WP:NOT states this place isn't a democracy. Frequently, in practice, Wikipedia works by WP:CONSENSUS where even spurious arguments hold weight. In practice, if there is a horde of users saying delete while citing as many unreliable and unverifiable sources they can rip from Google as they can -- if they are on an AfD, per Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators (which you guys have apparently mostly written), they are obligated to appease the mob's wishes. This is why this project has been a massive success at encouraging Wikipedia failure: It doesn't matter whether your arguments are well-founded. Just saying Keep - I like it is enough.

Saving articles in and of itself is not a good thing if they are bad articles. As a preemptive rebuttal to the question, "Who made you in charge of determining article quality?" I have three responses:

• I'm a Wikipedia editor. Removing nonsense is part of my job.
• Badness is not subjective. If it were, nobody would have any grounds to vote "keep," would they?
• A question, in turn, for you: "Who made you in charge in determining the quality of my determining article quality?" Sheer elitism!

Lastly, exactly how is Bawls notable? In conclusion, by supporting "wild-eyed inclusionism" and holding a monopoly of opinion on deletion policy you have harmed this encyclopedia. Zenwhat (talk) 15:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh and Think of the children, really do you need to repost your rantings / soapboxing so we all know you disagree with something. Wikipedia is not, despite evidence to the contrary a social-networking site. It's also not an appropriate venue to spin drama. Coming here to post knowing that this project is here to rescue articles sure seems to be baiting. If you want to improve articles please do so. If you want want to help this project please feel free. Benjiboi 20:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I can see your pissed about something, The ARS may have worked on an article that you personally deemed unworthy to be included in wikipedia. I am not going to change your mind on this subject, and you are not going to change mine. We have both had our little rants now. My final comment will be that the ARS is not responible for the keeping or deleting of articles, we simply edit articles to bring them into line with wikipedia policy. If you really want to put a stop to the "blatant inclusionism" I suggest you go and take this up with each admin that keeps an article that you personally think should be deleted or have the WP:N policies changed. Fosnez (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, of course saving articles isn't a good thing if they're bad articles. What the ARS is about is changing bad articles into good articles and saving those. --Zeborah (talk) 02:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Benjiboi, you're being uncivil. (frowny-face) Why does it seem to me that inclusionists are like hippies that suddenly turn into werewolves when inclusionism is attacked? Should Deletionists be deleted?

User:Fosnez, Assume good faith. There were a couple ArbCom decisions I've seen that were horrible and I've found it very difficult to fix Austrian economics and Eastern philosophy. Both cases demonstrate the problem of inclusionism: In both cases, my arguments were legitimate and the editors didn't even respond. In the former case, I firmly stood by my edits, in the latter case I let them go. Thus, on both articles, nonsense is still up but in the case of standing by my decision, I was blocked by an admin abusing their power.

It's not ARS, specifically: I just think you guys are a part of the problem.

You do have a blanket policy of saving pages. It's inherent in the project name and goal. You constantly scour Wikipedia for pages to save and, even if you claim to evaluate pages on a case-by-basis (which seems dubious, because of stuff like Bawls), that is nevertheless a blanket policy to save pages.

It's not any admins in particular I have a problem with, because as I've said, this is a problem with policy -- not a specific issue of mine. You seem to be assuming here that I am just some kind of POV-pushing troll that was upset because I couldn't violate a certain policy. That's understandable because there are a lot of people like that. But there are also a lot of good editors -- including experienced admins -- who listen to accusations like that and simply leave Wikipedia. This is what could be referred to as "Deleting deletionists" and inclusionists suddenly turn uncivil when it's pointed out.

You are responsible for deleting articles because you're an organized mob focused on AfD. The claim "but we're not wild-eyed inclusionists" is propaganda.

Now, if you expect me to help shift Wikipedia away from inclusionism by speaking to every admin on every article on Wikipedia that opposes an AfD for silly reasons -- come on, man. That seems unreasonable. I'm only human. If you can't expect one editor to watch their own pages for AfD tags, then it seems unreasonable to expect me to watch every page on Wikipedia that is nominated for deletion. I'm not The Flash. I suspect User:The Transhumanist is, though! Zenwhat (talk) 16:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you claiming that Bawls is lacking notability? Ie. there does not exist multiple independent sources for it. Because that is the extent of ARS involvement in the issue.

Taemyr (talk) 16:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat is blatantly uncivil here, and this whole section could easily be seen as trolling. Consider this from him, starting with the section head: "Why are you hurting Wikipedia?" with its incorporated assumption. Then, "You are bad for Wikipedia." I.e., personalization of the issue. "You're an Inclusionist front organization and you know it." So, not only are those involved with the ARS "wild-eyed inclusionist," but they are deceptive pretenders. "Who made you in charge in determining the quality of my determining article quality? Sheer elitism!" (If someone interferes with Zenwhat's doing his self-appointed "job," they are "elitist." ARS members are *not* in charge of "determining quality," but stand as equals before the administrator who makes the decision.) "...by supporting "wild-eyed inclusionism" and holding a monopoly of opinion on deletion policy you have harmed this encyclopedia." "Wild-eyed inclusionism" would be a philosophy of including every submitted artlcle. The MediaWiki software is, iu fact, inclusionist, for all ordinary deletion does is to hide articles from ordinary users. Any encyclopedia must create a hierarchy of knowledge, or it becomes useless. I favor allowing all users to see deleted articles (but not through the ordinary indexes), so I'm personally something close to a "wild-eyed inclusionist," in a sense, but most ARS members, I think, don't agree with that. They are simply trying to assume good faith on the part of those who write articles, and help them to create a legitimate article.

Zenwhat continues, "All the other deletionists are busy reading books on mainstream science, teaching college-level courses, and thinking intently on profound philosophical questions. Whereas Inclusionists are likely either--well--I dare not say. I'd speak freely but I don't want to violate WP:etiquette, especially not here where it would be suicide." This is a remarkable piece of text in which he identifies himself as "deletionist," and then communicates that his true opinion of "inclusionists" would get him blocked. Which is *almost* as offensive as voicing that opinion; he has, in fact, said quite a bit already that is uncivil, so I can only assume that what he has refrained from saying would be, perhaps, scatalogically offensive, worthy of immediate block. He imagines that the reason "other deletionists" aren't backing him up here is that they are busying rsearching; yet my observation of the true "deletionists" mass-marking articles for deletion is that they too frequently don't do the most elementary research, they delete from their own quick opinion, or, sometimes, from bias. There is a whole debate over where to draw the line with Wikipedia articles, and, I've predicted, that debate is not going to go away, because it is inherently arbitrary and almost unavoidably elitist. But "deletionists" are, properly, those who have a strong opinion setting a high bar for articles to clear, and who are active enforcing this. Some of them are quite clearly sincere and work hard for the encyclopedia; but others are pursuing some strange personal agenda. And what Zenwhat is pursuing by posting his offensive claims here is not visible to me. He has personally attacked the Rescue Squadron and its members, but to what end? What did they *specifically* do to him? He hasn't told us.

Then, when his blatant trolling is pointed out to him, he asks that we Assume Good Faith. About what? He has not stated his intention, all he has done is to claim that "we" belong in this or that offensive category. It's just about pure personal attack. Does he have policy changes to suggest? Does he propose that the ARS disband? Does he wish to change some piece of text, i.e., instructions to ARS members as to how to function? Does he wish to caution ARS members against rescuing "nonsense"? All this would be legitimate.

Instead, he tells us that we are not as represented. This is, in fact, An assumption of bad faith, when he claims: "You do have a blanket policy of saving pages. It's inherent in the project name and goal. You constantly scour Wikipedia for pages to save and, even if you claim to evaluate pages on a case-by-basis (which seems dubious, because of stuff like Bawls), that is nevertheless a blanket policy to save pages." Who is "you"? Every member of ARS? Some particular member? I can say that I personally am not going to attempt to rescue a page of nonsense or belly-button lint reports. I'm only going to rescue a page that seems sufficiently notable to me to have an article. I had nothing to do with Bawls, and, indeed, the article somewhat reads like a press release from the company. But that is a *content* problem, not a notability problem, and should be dealt with through ordinary editing, with the whole conflict resolution process available if necessary, not through deletion. The *sole* question for deletion should be, in fact, notability. If a topic is notable but the information in the article is useless, any editor can stub it! There is no need to seek an AfD decision, and, in fact, AfD is not intended to be a response to content problems, except in certain narrow situations.

And then we get to the point. Zenwhat is standing against consensus. "There were a couple ArbCom decisions I've seen that were horrible." I've seen some poor decisions, as well, but nobody is perfect. ArbComm is pretty solid, in my experience, and I read a lot of ArbComm decisions. Arbcomm does not make content decisions, they make process decisions, on behalf of the community; they are the only mechanism for doing that in the presence of conflict that is not simply the decision of a single administrator, in the end. (AfD, for example, may solicit much comment, but a single admin makes the decision.) Zenwhat then points to content issues, apparently, with two articles, and to being blocked: "I was blocked by an admin abusing their power."

Here we come to the crux. If what Zenwhat is saying is true, there is process for dealing with it, and the ultimate appeal is to ArbComm. Administrators who have abused their blocking power have been de-sysopped. However, given Zenwhat's behavior here, I'm not surprised that he might be blocked. He does not seem to know how to behave civilly, to cooperate with people of different POVs to build the encyclopedia. Rather, he is right and they are [censored]. Wikipedia attracts far too many people like this; ultimately, we will need process to deal with such far more efficiently. Above, several editors patiently try to explain that ARS does not make inclusion/deletion decisions, that ARS only improves some articles so that they are not improperly deleted for content reasons, or finds notability proof when such is needed. And the opprobrium from Zenwhat only increases.

He wrote: "You seem to be assuming here that I am just some kind of POV-pushing troll that was upset because I couldn't violate a certain policy." Actually, I didn't notice anyone saying that, maybe I missed it. However, reviewing all the above, I do come to that conclusion. The "POV" though, is not some specific position, it is the more diffuse -- and dangerous -- "I am right," vigorously defended, with "counterattack," even pre-emptive attack, against those he thinks disagree with him.

He then continues: "That's understandable because there are a lot of people like that. But there are also a lot of good editors -- including experienced admins -- who listen to accusations like that and simply leave Wikipedia. This is what could be referred to as "Deleting deletionists" and inclusionists suddenly turn uncivil when it's pointed out."

Again, who was uncivil here? Wikipedia is indeed losing experienced administrators, and, even more, valuable editors, because of the massive inefficiency of the system. Any admin, though, had better be prepared to be accused of this or that offensive behavior, it goes with the territory, unless the admin simply doesn't do much of the job. Who made an accusation against an administrator here? Only Zenwhat. So I decided to look him up. First statement on his user page:

"I'm a polemic reactionary and a n00b. But I'm humble. If I say anything ridiculously stupid, call me on it and I'll likely acknowledge it." Okay, Zenwhat, you've said a series of things that are ridiculously stupid, I've documented them above. Your move. --Abd (talk) 20:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, please, could you get a room so the rest of us can please think of the children? Benjiboi 20:47, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

A request for comment

Template:Resolved Your opinions, please:

Operation Hump.

And also:

Wolfie

Template:Quotation In the meantime, please see also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of asteroids/7201–7300. Zenwhat (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

All seem notable and perfect for wikipedia. Benjiboi 22:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

What should we be looking for? --Kizor 22:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Operation Hump lead to the first Medal of Honor being given to a black man since the end of the 19'th century. As such it is likely notable. Tone of the article could do with some work. I will either tag or nominate Wolfie for deletion as soon as I have read up on the notability criteria for bands. There is no real reason to keep the lists of asteroids, but earlier AfD's have ended with an overwhelming consensus to keep so I acknowledge that there is no good reason to delete either. Taemyr (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Not nominating. I am unsure about whether criteria 5 on WP:Music applies. Also, linked to from wikipedia is this [3] which is nontrivial, reliable is outside my ability to judge. Taemyr (talk) 23:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I think, from the quotation above, that Zenwhat was actually referring to Wolfie (disambiguation), and just gave us the wrong link to Wolfie. However, I can't see anything wrong with that, either, except the "d"s on the end of "nicknamed". Kizor asked the right question: what are we looking for? AndyJones (talk) 08:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) What is this asteroid AfD? WP:POINT? It would be insane to delete an article out of a middle of a numbered series. I did a little rummaging about, and Zenwhat was recently blocked (Jan 10, 24 hours) for edit warring on an article, where he may have been acting to keep fringe theory out of Wikipedia. He's been apparently sympathetic with User:ScienceApologist, whom I've encountered as a strong deletionist when it comes to what he considers (rightly or otherwise) pseudoscience, and who recently expressed his dislike of Wikipedia on Zenwhat's Talk page.[4] There is, indeed, an anti-pseudoscience or anti-quackery "cabal," which, besides being vigilant in keeping fringe theory out of articles (notable or not), often has used AfD to kill articles on alleged pseudoscience topics, claiming "quackery," for example. (Which is utterly irrelevant. Quack medical theory deserves an article if it is notable, AfD is not to be used to control content, it's a blunt instrument. People need to know about quack theories if they will encounter them, which is the core of notability: need to know. Useful knowledge. If it's quackery, call it a duck Anyway, this leads me to a theory of why Zenwhat was trolling here. He wants to get blocked again. Just a theory, and I'm not a mindreader. What in the world are you doing, Zenwhat? --Abd (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

To demonstrate to you all how I'm not a radical deletionist, I created an article that needs expanding, the inclusion of references, and protection from deletionists: Ball shagger. They sold this item at Wal-Mart, when I worked there and it is, so far as I know, the standard term for it, in America at least. I was surprised to see that the article didn't already exist. Yay for me being able to be the one to include the information! Your input is appreciated. Zenwhat (talk) 10:47, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read WP:POINT. Taemyr (talk) 12:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

As for the article, it already exists so I have taken the liberty of redirecting Ball shagger to Ball washer. Taemyr (talk) 12:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! Zenwhat (talk) 05:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, Taemyr: You misunderstand my intentions. It is not my intention to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point, but to help Wikipedia by making the point that this group's actions are disruptive. Zenwhat (talk) 05:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You will note that intentions is not mentioned in WP:POINT. Taemyr (talk) 06:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, you have neither made your point nor your intentions clear, I suggest you do one or both at your earliest convenience. By now you should have a full understanding that we rescue articles from incorrect deletion by merely following guidelines and policy and improving them to a point that they are up to scratch for inclusion in wikipedia. If you still feel that this is not acceptable, then I suggest you rethink your involvement in wikipedia, because It'll be a cold day in hell before I/we stop improving articles nominated for deletion with resolvable reasons. Fosnez (talk) 07:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother continuing this discussion with unsubstantiated accusations of bad faith being justified by the fact that WP:POINT "doesn't mention intentions." ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as well. We probably lost the possibility of a productive discussion on this matter two sections ago. --Kizor 02:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes to rescue template.

I have made this proposal on the talk page of the Rescue template; Template_talk:Rescue#Other_proposal. Discussion there has gone stale, is there anyone in ARS that has a problem with my suggested template; User:Taemyr/Rescue Taemyr (talk) 21:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
:As this talk page is active please post here whatever proposal you have and link to your proposed template. Benjiboi 01:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

On further look, you got plenty of response but I will second what Fosnez stated that I find no problem with linking the template to our project page and will oppose removing that link. Benjiboi 01:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

New addition

Template:Resolved I added our template to Me and the Pumpkin Queen and have begun a pretty substantial revision since its nomination. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Bawls still needs cleaning up.

Template:Resolved It's been over a month since Bawls was last nominated for deletion. WP:ARS isn't supposed to be just about wikidemocratic vote-stacking. It's also supposed to be about cleaning up bad articles as noted above, correct? So, can somebody here work on Bawls? Is anybody here working on fixing it?

An anonymous user accused it of being an advert and I agree. Attempts to slap an advert tag on it, however, have been unsuccessful.

I would work on the article myself, but I think it should be flushed and I have absolutely no idea where you would find sources on this energy drink, other than the company's website or the "'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information" described in WP:V.

As an example of "I heard it from somewhere pseudoinformation", from the talkpage: Template:Quotation

According to WP:V, users should base their edits on verifiable, reliable sources and not on, for example, what they concluded from a conversation with their boyfriend, which is entirely irrelevant.

There are a few articles cited as sources, but they appear to be puff pieces published by less than a handful of mostly obscure organizations as infotainment. That Wikipedia should latch onto this poor journalistic integrity for the lulz is not a good thing and certainly not in accordance with WP:V or WP:Notability.

Then there's the links to websites owned by the company that makes Bawls. Does anyone here believe these are verifiable, reliable sources? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course WP:ARS is not about vote-stacking. Articles are listed here to fix them & save them from deletion. And of course people will attempt to abuse this forum to save unworthy articles they wrote. However if people can't fix them, unfortunately they will be deleted.

As for this article, I had a glance at it & I'm not entirely the article succeeds in explaining why it is notable; I only learned which country this drink is sold in somewhere down towards the bottom of the page! I'm left with the sense that this is just another unsuccessful product after reading statements like "Due to the lack of sufficient market exposure, Bawls may be difficult to find in certain locations". Does this product have a cult following -- if so, then adding this information would help save it in my eyes. Otherwise, if this article is deleted I'll admit that I won't miss it. -- llywrch (talk) 07:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Your point is worthy of noting on the article's talk page, in fact I think this entire thread should be moved over there. Benjiboi 02:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources exist, that is sufficent to pass WP:NOTE. My problem with the current article is that it is written as an add. This ought to be fixable, although the fact that it's more than two years since this AfD indicates that it might not be. Taemyr (talk) 08:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

My point about the article wasn't to state that the subject wasn't worth an entry in Wikipedia -- nor that its problems aren't fixable -- but simply a critique of it in its current form, & a very subjective one at that (as the phrase "I'm not entirely the article succeeds in explaining why it is notable" ought to signal everyone). Unfortunately, this item has not attracted sufficient attention to rescue it so it might just get deleted, which would not be the end of the matter were it not for the uncomfortable fact that some Wikipedians find one successful AfD discussion for deletion as justification to keep articles deleted. :-( llywrch (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, your posts here seem to be baiting and although I have hope that you have familiarized yourself with ARS's structure and intent, which is pretty clear to most everyone else, let me state clearly that ARS is primarily to address articles that are slated to be deleted because they are in AfD process. Once an article is either deleted or saved then it is on its own. If you honestly are trying to help the Bawls article there are better ways to do so. If you want to re-nom for AfD I suppose that avenue is available as well. As for, yet again, stirring drama and accusing us of vote-staking, it's old and tiring, really I would hope you could find more constructive things then simply posting veiled attacks against this project here and elsewhere. If you want to discuss that article then take it there. Benjiboi 13:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not baiting here. I am assuming that your comments above about not being wild-eyed inclusionists were made in good faith. Based on that, I would like for you guys to fix Bawls, please.

At the very least, Bawls#References should not contain mostly numbered URLs to bawls.com. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, your concerns may be valid but they are misplaced. The atlk about improving that article please use that talk page. This project concerns articles within the AfD process. Benjiboi 08:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)