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Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 March 13

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The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
French Federation of Undersea Studies and Sports (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This redirect, which is a made-up translation of the name of a French organisation, was closed as 'Keep'. Despite a relisting, there was only one objection to my nomination. The objection rested on a mistaken assumption that a reader would use the made-up translation as a route to the article, which is patently a very weak argument, since the translation does not exist anywhere in the literature. The closer incorrectly assessed the strength of that argument in reaching his decision to keep. As "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy", I have attempted to simply renominate and refute the earlier objection. However, the original closer has now objected to my renomination and closed that as a "Speedy keep", I'd like to see the issue debated properly, and I request that the decision be overturned. RexxS (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, the reason that your second RfD was closed as "speedy keep" was due to you nominating the redirect for discussion less than 24 hours after the previous discussion closed. The closer of the first RfD did not "incorrectly assessed the strength of that argument in reaching his decision to keep". One person said it should be deleted and one person said it should be kept. The first discussion was not closed as a consensus to keep, but as no consensus. MarkZusab (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I have struck out text above after learning that Travix had gone back and changed the result of deletion discussion. I had been going off of the most recent edit to the closing discussion. MarkZusab (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Translations that are commonly used are not regarded as "made-up" in the way that this one is. It's not a literal translation. If you input the French name into Google translate, you don't get "French Federation of Undersea Studies and Sports"; you get "French Federation of Studies and Underwater Sports", so your assertion is wrong. You are technically correct that the phrase does exist on the web, but leaving out mentions on Wikipedia, there are 412 Google hits. Compare that with 63,800 Ghits for "Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins" and 1,520,000 for "FFESSM" - which is what any English reader would use to search. the redirect is clearly not a plausible search phrase and the redirect is worthless, as well as a magnet for well-meaning gnomes to move the correctly-titled article to a made-up translated name.
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and common sense says that renomination in order to discuss the unresolved issues is more sensible than jumping through hoops here. The closer clearly did assess the strength of the sole objection incorrectly in reaching his decision to keep.
You need to check the history before asserting "The first discussion was not closed as keep, but as no consensus." I'm not stupid and I'm not lying. The discussion was closed as Keep, but Travix changed the close after telling me to go to DRV and while I was composing the DRV. --RexxS (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize, I was unaware that Tavix was going back and changing the results of deletion discussion with possible malicious intent. I was going off of the most recent edit to the closing discussion. MarkZusab (talk) 23:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I see where that "possible malicious intent" comes from. As far as I can see from Tavix' talk page, he changed his close apparently as a conciliatory gesture. – Uanfala (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS' comment gave me the impression that Tavix had changed the result of the discussion while RexxS was in the process of creating this DRV with an intent to deceive people reading the original comment by RexxS. After looking at the discussion on Tavix' talk page, I agree with you that it appears to have been a conciliatory gesture. MarkZusab (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse this and the following one. The bar for deleting redirects is usually quite high: to get deleted, a redirect needs to be either misleading, or getting in the way of searches, or just plain silly (like having a series of implausible typos). Conversely, it's easy to find reasons to keep a redirect: if it's useful at least to some people and it aids in searches. Even if this name weren't present in sources, it would have been an easy keep: we can't assume all readers will know the exact title of a foreign organisation, or that they will know the native name of that organisation. English translations like that would be quite plausible even without exactly following the wording of the native name. And also, if one of the premises of the nomination is correct – that editors might be tempted to move the article over the redirect – then this is a clear indication that the redirect is plausible, and its existence will actually prevent editors without advanced permissions from making such a move. Yes, at the time the discussion was closed, it hadn't received a lot of participation, so if you, RexxS, had simply asked the closer to reopen it to give you the opportunity to advance your argument, chances are that might have been granted. But even then it's very difficult to imagine the discussion arriving anywhere other than "keep". – Uanfala (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with these redirects is that they are creating an artificial neologism. WP:NEO warns us ""Care should be taken when translating text into English that a term common in the host language does not create an uncommon neologism in English." Over 99.9% of Google hits are for the actual French/Spanish names or their common abbreviations (FFESSM/FEDAS). Those abbreviations are the obvious search terms, and we don't need to have a redirect for searches like "French underwater federation" to find our article.
    I don't agree that going to the closer and asking for a re-open would have been successful, judging by the response when I actually did that. Is it a good use of my time to argue with the closer to re-open the discussion, and then have to make the same argument again in the RfD? Surely, a simple renomination is the least bureaucratic and most efficient way to debate the pints I was able to raise? I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it's less hassle to leave these useless redirects and clean up the consequent recurring problems every time they happen, than to try to explain that the redirects are a net negative to the encyclopedia. --RexxS (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    We're not talking about articles for neologisms, but about a redirect from a plausible translation that's also actually attested in sources (as MarkZusab's links demonstrate). If this name is not commonly used, then that's an argument for not mentioning it in the article (or for mentionining it with less prominence), not against the redirect. There are widely used classses of redirects that are less "correct" than this one (from misnomers, or wrongly disambiguated titles, or misspellings, to name a few). And again, simply asking the closer to reopen is quite likely to work, but ignoring the close, immediately opening a new discussion (without notifying anyone involved) and, after the inevitable speedy keep, posting an indignant message to the closer, is much less so. – Uanfala (talk) 15:26, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yet I am talking about neologisms for article titles. What you seem to be missing is that the very presence of such a redirect is an invitation for the article to be moved to the title of the redirect. How many times are you willing to see other editors have to clean up after that before you understand the issue? Simply asking the closer to reopen is not at all likely to work, no matter how many times you suggest it. --RexxS (talk) 18:07, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to confirm, simply asking me to reopen the discussion was going to work until you decided to ignore the close and immediately opened a new discussion. -- Tavix (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, redirects are cheap. Stifle (talk) 12:12, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    They are, but editors' time isn't. --RexxS (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Then why are you wasting it on two of the most pointless discussions I've seen at deletion review? Phil Bridger (talk) 09:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Certainly because he believes he is saving (lots more of) future editor time, no? - Nabla (talk) 11:48, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse No consensus is a reasonable close. Could've have relisted again, sure, but after 2.5 weeks, there's a law of diminishing returns; nobody else opined and we already relist enough. The change from keep->no consensus makes this a clear endorse, in my mind. ~ Amory (utc) 14:10, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Clearly no consensus. Relisted once, which is also reasonable. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 04:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I was going to close this as SNOW Endorse (which I suggest somebody else should do), but wanted to say some things. First, this is a waste of time. Redirects are WP:CHEAP. The idea that you want to delete one because maybe somebody in the future might take that as an invitation to move the article is just plain silly. Wikipedia is a huge project. In all huge projects, trivial little issues will come up all the time. If every single one was litigated to this extent, we'd never get anything done. Don't sweat the small stuff, concentrate on the main mission. I also want to give a very small minnow to Tavix for this edit. If you want to update your close, better to strikeout the previous material rather than remove it entirely. That leads to less confusion, of the sort we've seen here. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:09, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PS, if you're really worried about what somebody might do to the redirect in the future, ask for it to be protected. I don't think that's necessary, but it would be a more reasonable way to achieve your goal. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:12, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's good advice to use strike when updating the close. I had realized I should have done that when reading the exchange between RexxS and MarkZusab. -- Tavix (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's probably self-evident that I endorse both of these closes. I'd just like to add that the idea that these redirects could encourage editors to move the articles to those titles is wildly spurious. If the redirects were deleted, any autoconfirmed user could move the pages to those titles. As such—given that they're redirects with page history—an administrator needs to be involved. --BDD (talk) 15:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
or a page mover if they do a round-robin move. -- Tavix (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is really far from being a plausible search term, folks. To me, it looks like a clear example of WP:RFD#DELETE ground 8. Surely anyone who has the French to translate the very specific title so accurately would just look it up in French?—S Marshall T/C 00:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, somebody might have been reading this book, seen "French Federation of Undersea Studies and Sports" mentioned in the text, and wanted more information. Or this website or this one, or read this paper which gives the abstract in both English and French, and was working off the English version. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:07, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I doubt any of those I cited above were machine translations. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:03, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse the (second) closing. Though I would have voted to delete, with the discussion as was (one nomination, one objection), closing as no consensus is just fine - Nabla (talk) 11:53, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Spanish Federation of Underwater Activities (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This redirect, which is a made-up translation of the name of a Spanish organisation, was closed as 'Keep'. Despite a relisting, there was only one objection to my nomination. The objection rested on a mistaken assumption that a reader would use the made-up translation as a route to the article, which is patently a very weak argument, since the translation does not exist anywhere in the literature. The closer incorrectly assessed the strength of that argument in reaching his decision to keep. As "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy", I have attempted to simply renominate and refute the earlier objection. However, the original closer has now objected to my renomination and closed that as a "Speedy keep", I'd like to see the issue debated properly, and I request that the decision be overturned. RexxS (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse. The translation is as made up as all translations are. It is a literal translation, and is also what a user would find if they inputted the Spanish name into Google Translate. The statement that the translation does not exist anywhere in literature is also false. This specific translation has been used in various online sources and newspapers. This redirect is a plausible search phrase and useful to users. MarkZusab (talk) 22:13, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence of use in online sources and newspapers: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Many more can be found with a simple Google search. MarkZusab (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, the reason that your second RfD was closed as "speedy keep" was due to you nominating the redirect for discussion less than 24 hours after the previous discussion closed. The closer of the first RfD did not "incorrectly assessed the strength of that argument in reaching his decision to keep". One person said it should be deleted and one person said it should be kept. The first discussion was not closed as a consensus to keep, but as no consensus. MarkZusab (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I have struck out text above after learning that Tavix had gone back and changed the result of deletion discussion. I had been going off of the most recent edit to the closing discussion. MarkZusab (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Translations that are commonly used are not regarded as "made-up" in the way that this one is. You are technically correct that the phrase does exist on the web, but leaving out mentions on Wikipedia, there are 234 Google hits. Compare that with 29,600 Ghits for "Federación Española de Actividades Subacuáticas" and 293,000 for "FEDAS" - which is what any English reader would use to search. the redirect is clearly not a plausible search phrase and the redirect is worthless, as well as a magnet for well-meaning gnomes to move the correctly-titled article to a made-up translated name.
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and common sense says that renomination in order to discuss the unresolved issues is more sensible than jumping through hoops here. The closer clearly did assess the strength of the sole objection incorrectly in reaching his decision to keep.
You need to check the history before asserting "The first discussion was not closed as keep, but as no consensus." I'm not stupid and I'm not lying. The discussion was closed as Keep, but Travix changed the close after telling me to go to DRV and while I was composing the DRV. --RexxS (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize, I was unaware that Tavix was going back and changing the results of deletion discussion with possible malicious intent. I was going off of the most recent edit to the closing discussion. MarkZusab (talk) 23:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.