- Barack Obama on Twitter (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
In this and the previous AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barack Obama on Twitter) the widespread consensus to merge to Barack Obama on Social Media or Communications of Barack Obama were ignored by the closing admins. In fact all other X on Twitter accounts have been deleted or merged and a Village Pump consensus that these articles are NOT appropriate was not considered. LuciferWildCat (talk) 22:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse That's because merges and renames should be discussed on the talk page and not at AfD. The consensus of the AfD is that the topic area as a whole is notable. Broadening of the topic can be discussed separately, but it shouldn't be deleted or redirected to Barack Obama's page, because that is not the consensus. That's all it means. So arguing for a merge or rename close is kind of pointless. SilverserenC 22:17, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The correct finding in both of those debates was "no consensus". WilyD's close as "keep" raises an eyebrow with me, but there's no point overturning to no consensus because it makes no practical difference. I don't see how a village pump discussion is capable of overruling an AfD when making a decision about whether or not to delete, and I definitely don't see a consensus to merge.—S Marshall T/C 22:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- One has to put a substantial amount of weight in the !vote count to find no consensus, I think. An evaluation of the argument strength and applicability of policies has to conclude keep. Note that the first AfD, closed as "no consensus", includes pretty extensive comments by the closing admin about how the deletion arguments are all based on quoting policies that don't apply. The no consensus there appeared to come mostly from the !vote count being 60%/40% (which the closing admin opened with). How much weight to give the numbers is subject to substantial discretion, and yes, my closure did "Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted.", to quote WP:ROUGH CONSENSUS. The burden on people arguing to go against policy is necessarily higher than those arguing to apply policy. WilyD 06:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Where I agree with you, is that the meme "AfD is not a vote" should apply to everyone equally and not just to the Article Rescue Squadron. Where I disagree with you, is where to strike the balance between what policy says and the will of the community. This is fundamental stuff, enshrined among other places in the fifth pillar, IAR and NOTBURO. I find your closes very much on the inclusionist end of the spectrum and your closure statements are often very dismissive towards one side of the argument.—S Marshall T/C 07:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Policies and guidelines are important reflections of the will of the community, too. One can't disregard them without a compelling reason - they represent a longstanding, well established consensus that reflects the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of the entire community. How to balance that against a local discussion isn't set in stone, and in a lot of cases one can reasonably disagree. I'm not sure that's the case here - I'm hard pressed to imagine any line of reasoning that isn't fundamentally a straight headcount that could result in a "no consensus" closure.
- I'll keep the point about my closure comments being blunt in mind, it's a fair one. WilyD 08:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- For the record, I clearly outlined how I arrived at no consensus. There can be no mistake about my train of thought.--v/r - TP 13:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- In my time participating at DRV, I've done a fair bit of thinking about administrator discretion: where the limits are, and why. My starting point is that admins are elected to give effect to the community's will ("consensus"). Sometimes, there's a tension between the local consensus, and the broad principles agreed-on by the community; and in this case the amount of administrator discretion varies according to the circumstances. Certainly, if there's evidence of bad faith, or if it's a small and ill-attended discussion that reaches an unusual conclusion, then it's only right for the administrator to have discretion to discount !votes. Still, in such a situation the administrator is often better advised to !vote rather than closing, so that the next admin to come along will have a less flawed debate before him and can close it better.
But this kind of thing is very different. Here we have large numbers of experienced, established, good faith users participating in a long and well-attended discussion. Per policy, such a discussion has authority to suspend the rules. In this case, administrators are not given discretion to overrule the substantial number of experienced, established, good faith users and dismiss them with a simplistic summary. Totally not. That's never been within the purview of an administrator; their role is clerk to the discussion, not chairman.—S Marshall T/C 21:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Which is pretty much what I said - if you treat it as a straight vote count (for whatever reason), you can come to a conclusion of no consensus. The moment you start evaluating the strength of the arguments, you find that most of the delete votes either rely on factually incorrect premises (i.e., citing policies that don't apply, or asserting that sources don't exist when they do), or are mere personal dislike - the "delete argument" isn't an argument at all, it's just a position. The keep arguments are well supported by policy & precedent. The keep position has arguments (most important, probably, that it well satisfies WP:N). As a discussion, it's overwhelmingly keep. Only as a straight vote can it be read as no consensus. Any discussion can IAR, but it should have a compelling reason to do so - that doesn't exist here. WilyD 06:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I think there's fundamentally no consensus, across the whole encyclopaedia, about whether Foo on Twitter type articles ought to be separate from the main person's article or within it. I think both sides are perfectly arguable. I find it concerning that so many people (and not just you) appear to be of the opinion that the debate has a simple and obvious conclusion: it's indicative of a failure of our processes. I think that until the community has given you a clear steer about the Foo on Twitter approach, the correct answer is to close contentious debates on the subject as "no consensus".—S Marshall T/C 08:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The correct outcome of a close, contentious debate is "no consensus". The correct outcome of a massively lop-sided, contentious debate is either keep or delete. Merely being contentious is not a good criterion for no consensus, and every day we delete in contentious discussions where "not notable" is a much stronger argument than "I like it". "I dislike it" being a much weaker argument than "well established notability" is a much less common debate, but the process is the same.
- Beyond which, trying to treat all the Foo on Twitter articles as a class, that can have a class-wise conclusion, is a fool's errand. Barack Obama isn't a suitable target to merge all the daughter articles about him: Category:Barack Obama, Category:Ashton Kutcher may be. I don't think there's necessarily a clear consensus about whether there should be Foo on Twitter articles as a class. There is a clear consensus on whether there should be a Barack Obama on Twitter article. Those're two different questions. WilyD 08:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- But that's exactly my point. What policy does is to treat things as a class and seeks to enforce class-wide conclusions. So when you prefer "policy-based arguments" over discussion, aren't you doing exactly what you've just denigrated?
"Weight of the arguments" is a tricky case to make because in the whole history of DRV, there's hardly ever been a supervote that the closer didn't seek to justify on the basis of "weight of the argument", "not a vote", etc. From an observer's point of view, how do we distinguish these things from the closer's personal opinion?—S Marshall T/C 10:20, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No, I don't think so. Policies and guidelines guide decision making for articles individually; individual articles are all members of the class "articles", but when we make a conclusion about what to do about an article, we make a conclusion for an article, not for the whole class. Even when we consider a narrower class - say books. Some books are clearly notable, and should have encyclopaedic articles - other ones (such as the book I wrote), are not, and thus should not. Making a class-wise conclusion about what to do about all articles on books is a fool's errand - some should be kept, some deleted, some merged, some redirected - many things. Depends on the individual article.
- You can judge the merits of weight of argument for yourself (obviously, that's why we're here at DRV). In marginal cases, there can be a bit of surruptious supervoting (even if not deliberate) but in most cases it's pretty obvious. WilyD 11:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Break 1
- Endorse Within discretion, once the inapplicability of WP:TRIVIA is taken into account. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:34, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse It is about time someone closed one of these without saying reasons to delete should be given more weight just because. I have not been able to make any sense of the prior X on Twitter AFD closes.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Finally, one of these was actually closed per policy, as opposed to trying to hallucinate that NOT#IINFO covered Twitter feeds. Jclemens (talk) 04:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- When will you accept that not everyone on here shares your incredibly strict reading of IINFO? Saying that those you don't agree with are hallucinating is just uncalled for. ThemFromSpace 16:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- "To hallucinate" is to see something that isn't there. I'm not accusing anyone of mental instability or "hallucinations" in general, but seeing something in the title of "IINFO" that was never community consensus to begin with. Rather than look at the actual discussion that led to IINFO being used for a group of sections in NOT, people have assumed that there was a widespread decision that IINFO was a good idea, and that multiple different instances were called out. In fact, the specific sections and their examples were lumped together under one heading that was an attempt to find some commonality between the diverget parts of NOT. You and others can want things to be different, but that's simply not how they evolved, and the belief you have in the rightness of expanding IINFO to anything that is perceived to be un-encyclopedic is a belief in an illusion. Jclemens-public (talk) 19:46, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You are stating a difference of interpretation in an "I'm right, you're wrong" way and you are telling others that their interpretations are wrong. You're not right here. You don't hold any sacred keys to truth, even though you oftentimes act like you do. This has bugged me for some time and I want you to stop. There is no single correct interpretation of IINFO. Say what you believe but don't bash others for believing differently. The correct reading is the consensus of different interpretations, not any one particular individual's hard-line stance, and the consensus was clear in this AfD. ThemFromSpace 21:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, when I imply that you are wrong, I do so because I believe you are, in fact, wrong. To be specific, I mean that I believe your interpretation of what IINFO means is incompatible with how it actually evolved as a Wikipedia policy. So when you articulate what you want IINFO to mean, you are doing so absent the historical context under which that header was developed. Please see User:Uncle G/On the discrimination of what is indiscriminate for somewhat of a review of how that section evolved. Like WP:NOTNEWS, there are a large number of Wikipedia editors misusing WP:IINFO to mean something that may be congruent with the shortcut, but not the underlying meaning and evolution of Wikipedia policy. Like NOTNEWS, I fear the best solution may be to retire the shortcut based on the rampant misuse like we've seen here. I'm perfectly capable of articulating when my opinion differs from yours, or anyone's, but I do not see any reason to pretend that a fundamental misunderstanding of the evolution of IINFO is merely a difference of opinion. Jclemens (talk) 04:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Wow, I really thought better of you. Looks like we should move on, since there is a fundamental disconnect in our policy interpretations. Though my request to stop pretending you have the only valid interpretation stands. This is the last I have to say on the matter. ThemFromSpace 05:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Don't just assert that I'm wrong about it--demonstrate, historically, how IINFO evolved as an overarching premise, rather than a convenient shortcut for a bunch of differing topics. Do that, and I'll cede the point, but based on what I've seen, I don't think that's possible. That's not so say that the community might not adopt such a stance in the future, just that you've described IINFO in a way that is at odds with its actual development. Jclemens (talk) 06:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Should be "no consensus". Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 08:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - So just redirect/merge it anyways, such a decision is not dependent on an AfD outcome, as Silver Seren so aptly notes above. Cite the precedent of the other worthless "x on twitter" articles and begin a merge discussion on the talk page. Tarc (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Closure was a correct reading of the consensus. Due to the overwhelming coverage of Obama in general, including his online presence, this article is a good exception to our general rules. It shows that articles can be written about almost anything, provided the subjects have the necessary coverage. ThemFromSpace 16:27, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse The only close of the lot based on actual policy. CallawayRox (talk) 18:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment the village pump has broad consensus that these articles are not worthwhile furthermore merge is a perfectly legitimate action for an AfD and the majority consensus was to merge this article so that is what should have been done.LuciferWildCat (talk) 19:53, 25 July 2012 (UTC) You opening this DRV, there is no need to register a !vote.--v/r - TP 19:59, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- This article is the one exception to the Village Pump discussion, considering the "Barack Obama on social media" topic has had numerous full books written about it. SilverserenC 21:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Weak endorse: while the delete and merge comments are numerous, they're not very compelling. I don't think the admin was unreasonable in concluding that "keep" was the policy-based consensus here. Most of the delete arguments don't mention policy, or vaguely point at policies (like WP:TRIVIA) that don't really address the issue. That's not to say a better discussion would go the same way (and if I had a chance to chime in, I'd argue that this is a WP:CONTENTFORK that verges on WP:NOTDIARY, among other things.) But in this discussion, the delete commenters were largely baseless, and didn't refer to any best practice that would give their comments any weight. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I search for the word "merge" and find most people just said keep, not merge. [1] Then apparently after it closed a few days later someone started a new AFD which fewer people noticed or bothered to participate in. Should've been closed as "Keep", not "keep for now and start another argument on the talk page about replacing it with a redirect later". Dream Focus 22:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse, obviously. Sadly, this was to be expected. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Speedy endorse and close: This DRV has no merit.--Milowent • hasspoken 00:32, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Is Snow Endorse a thing? Tarc hates these articles and he's not even attempting an overturn. Darryl from Mars (talk) 00:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Hm, guess I've really hit the high life when I get name-dropped by random unknowns. I could count on one hand the # of times I've called to overturn an XfD, regardless of how I may have participated in the original discussion, as unlike much of the rabble that infests DRV, I don't treat this as Round Two of the original discussion. Tarc (talk) 01:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- What can I say, you strike an imposing figure of eagerness to cleanse the wiki of 'worthless' articles. Also, you're the only one that had bolded something that wasn't Endorse, and I wanted to justify the Snowy-ness of my position. Darryl from Mars (talk) 01:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment The neat trick that proponents of keeping this article have pulled is to conflate the notability of things that Barack Obama has said with supposed notability about the medium he said it in. While there are lots of notable things Barack Obama has said on Twitter, none of this points to the notability of his Twitter account. I might as well create an article titled Things Barack Obama said into his favorite microphone or Things Barack Obama said on a Thursday. None of the notability in the article comes from the Twitter account itself, just from the fact that Barack Obama said stuff. When ThemFromSpace writes "It shows that articles can be written about almost anything, provided the subjects have the necessary coverage", the absurdity of this kind of article is inadvertently revealed, and it shows how many editors have a deep misunderstanding of what notability actually means. Nwlaw63 (talk) 01:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The notability of his Twitter account is shown through sources like this. Though I do agree that the article should be broadened to his use of social media in general, because then sources like this and this can be utilized. SilverserenC 02:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You know nothing of my work. In all seriousness, though, this claim is repeated a lot, but is straightforwardly factually false. The sources provided do not focus on things said by Barack Obama, which happened to be in the Twitter medium. They (at least, a goodly number of them) focus on Barack Obama's (media campaign team's) use of Twitter. An argument based on a factually wrong premise cannot be given any significance weight. WilyD 08:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I'd say that "no consensus" is better, but DRV doesn't exist to micromanage AFD closes. T. Canens (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Twitter is significant enough in the life of Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher to support Wikipedia:Summary style articles. Twitter is merely a blip in the life of Barack Obama and the word "twitter" doesn't even appear in the Barack Obama article. Yet, the Bieber and Kutcher twitter articles were deleted and the Obama twitter article kept. The Bieber and Kutcher twitter articles should have been kept and the Obama twitter article should have been deleted. This isn't about consensus and I've come to realize that well thoughtout AfD arguments are not driving the close on these x-on-twitter articles. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:06, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Your argument seems to conclude that every person should have the same amount of coverage. While I don't doubt that you put a fair bit of thought into it; at least consider that the article in question here is much more connected to 'Campaign' and other Obama sub-articles, rather than the main biographical article of Barack Obama. A lot of people seem to be lead astray by the fact that most bio articles never have remotely the amount of relevant information Obama's does. Darryl from Mars (talk) 14:24, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No, my argument is that a fuller treatment of any major subtopic should go in a separate article of its own and that the original article should contain a section with a summary of the subtopic's article as well as a link to it. Merely becuase Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012 at the moment mentions the word "twitter" once does not justify the Obama twitter article. The main biographical article, in this case the Barack Obama article, is a good indicator of what is and is not a major subtopic. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That last line is where I disagree with you. While it works for most articles; our prescripts on article size and the shear amount of information means that Barack Obama does not and I dare say could not be an -exhaustive- directory of all the possible encyclopedic topics related to Obama without failing to be an article at all. Darryl from Mars (talk) 14:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I think they all need to be deleted, but as the disparate AfD results show, actually getting them deleted depends on how many fanboys/girls come riding to the rescue of a famous person that they like. If this is going to be addressed uniformly it will have to come via policy, i.e. putting some actual teeth into something like WP:NOTTWITTER. Tarc (talk) 14:31, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You are not alone in this line of thinking as that seems to be the primary argument put forth by those proposing to delete all x-on-twitter articles. However, I think that is more of a reactionary bias against fanboys/girls present or potential contributions to these types articles and how that makes Wikipedia look rather than whether there should be an article on the topic. Wikipedia articles are improved over time and deleting an article when there should be an article on the topic prevents that natural improvement of the article over time. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Break 2
- Comment Just noting for the record that I have closed the RFC on the talk page. The consensus there seems to favor renaming the article and broadening its scope. The closing admin of this discussion can take that into account and attempt to reconcile the results of the two discussions. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse I wasn't a part of the original AfD - was not aware it was happening - but had I been there I certainly would have commented that the article should not be deleted. Perhaps a rename and broadening to cover more social media, but not delete, and not merge to the main bio. There is no essential difference here between "no consensus" and "keep", so this DRV is a waste of time, in my view. Tvoz/talk 17:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse Overturn to "no consensus" WITHOUT prejudice to restructuring the article - The close rationale was accurate, although I voted delete. Nevertheless, this vote should not affect the RFC consensus. --George Ho (talk) 19:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I realize that I was wrong. --George Ho (talk) 03:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]- I endorse any action that prevents the Twitter article being merged with the summary style article Barack Obama, which simply hasn't the space for stuff like that. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Wikipedia is not paper, a paragraph on his public relations could have two or three sentences espousing his twitter usage.LuciferWildCat (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn - The closer ignores the argument about WP:NOT and instead focuses on WP:TRIVIA (which was discussed less frequently and which clearly doesn't apply to this article). Also, about 60% of editors voted to delete or merge. To close an AfD in the minority opinion when there is 20% difference between majority and minority requires a thorough explanation for why the minority's argument is far stronger and policy-based than the majority's. -Scottywong| chatter _ 21:17, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn to NC keep might be reasonable if you put the merge and keep !votes together, but I don't see consensus here. We have two sets of valid arguments with strong backers on both sides. I also don't feel the closing statement accurately reflected the discussion. Once the RfC is finished it will make sense to reevaluate this article and a NC close will make that easier to do, so changing from keep to NC actually has an impact. Hobit (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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