-
François Asselineau (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
Hello, I am not sure this is the right place to ask an explanation on the deletion of an article but the administrator that deleted the article, user:Coren brought me here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fran%C3%A7ois_Asselineau The conclusion is totally unrealistic. I quote:
The result was delete. This is one of those rare cases where the deletion process itself has become flawed enough that it is better, in the end, to close it before the full seven days have passed. At this point, this AfD has become little other than a battleground on which a dispute from the French Wikipedia is playing itself out again, to wit: the vast majority of comments come from anonymous or very new users and bring no argument beyond a "does not"/"does too" restatement of positions. This is the right there are many spam comments but also many users brought justified point of view such as mine. The worse thing is that the deletion is not a consensus. If I ignore comments from non wikipedian users, I count 6 regular users that voted for keeping the article (User:S_Marshall, User:Reaper_Eternal, User:Lawren00, User:Silver_seren, User:Comte0, User:Carrite) and 4 people for the deletion all coming from the French Wikipedia where they decided that François Asselineau should not have his page ((User:Gede, User:LPLT, User:Udufruduhu, User:French_Tourist). Is that a consensus?
I continue his quote: As far as the article itself is concerned, there is no doubt that an article about this person cannot be supported under our inclusion criteria. There is no significant coverage of this politician by independent sources to write a biography, and the very existence of the article (and the polemic around it) used as a promotional vehicle. Given that there isn't even verifiable biographical information to write a stub, the only reasonable course at this time is deletion, with no prejudice towards a properly sourced recreation should Asselineau get significant independent coverage from reliable sources in the future. The news coverage, 19 sources, are all coming from the most well-known French Newspaper such as Les_Échos_(France), Libération, Le Monde, Le Parisien and Le Figaro. Every single piece of information in the article are coming from those articles. Thus, there are enough pieces of information in well known French Newspapers to build a decent article. It proves the Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Verifiability of the article. In conclusion, I can not understand why the French native administrator, user:Coren, deleted the article without considering this above and with a wrong conclusion that is not reflecting the discussion that just happened. --Lawren00 (talk) 03:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Closer's comment; despite Lawren's misunderstanding about AfD not being a vote, the facts behind his arguments do not actually match reality. The sources provided are not significant in any reasonable meaning of the term (most of them are single-paragraph postings of minor functionary appointments, for instance) or even discuss the article's topic with any degree of significance. The assertion that "Every single piece of information in the article are coming from those articles" is, likewise, simply incorrect. Not even basic biographical information (date and city of birth, for instance) can be found there.
I should add that I find the implication that my native language biases me more than a little insulting— if anything, the fact that I speak French natively has allowed me to actually read the proffered sources and note how they did not, in fact, establish anything close to notability. — Coren (talk) 04:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
This is dishonest really. The source from Le Monde where you can read Né le 14 septembre 1957 à Paris. --Lawren00 (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Disclosure: As a "keep"-recommending debate participant, I received a Wikipedia email notifying me of this discussion, from a user account called "Lawren00". It's certain that I would have seen this nomination anyway, given that I've been a regular DRV participant for about two years, and it's certain that I would have said what I'm about to say regardless of the canvassing, but you need to know that the attempts to manipulate our deletion processes are ongoing.
With that disclosure made, Coren's close was more than just a supervote in which the closer substituted his own opinion for that of the community. DRV regulars will know that I'm not a man who's given to making strongly-worded statements about AfD closers, and it's not often I use this kind of phrasing, but this is the most egregious supervote that I've ever seen in my life. The classic test applies: The closing statement reads like a !vote. Coren has clearly examined the sources for himself, come to his own conclusion, and closed accordingly.
If we allowed this kind of behaviour from administrators then there would be no point having AfD discussions at all. We might as well simply nominate an article for deletion and then wait seven days for an administrator with a point of view to delete it or not according to their own personal judgment.
Administrators do quite rightly have wide latitude to disregard !votes in cases where there's bad faith and attempts to manipulate Wikipedia's deletion processes, and I have a long history of supporting them in this. They do not have the authority to combine this with early closures of contentious AfDs.
Overturn and relist with a semi-protected AfD.—S Marshall T/C 08:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn Oh, Coren, Coren, it was bad enough to have closed the AfD early but to then delete the article made things worse. Maybe the article could have been a PROD candidate but no article is a candidate for deletion by early closure if there are a few responsible "keeps". Now we have a debate about the closure process as well as the merits of the AfD and the article. S Marshall thought the article fixable by normal editing and pledged to help with the fixing if it was kept. Were you sure he would have failed? Thincat (talk) 14:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Relist. That said, I have to disagree with what I see as User:S Marshall's unwarranted asseveration. The debate had become a fractured mess, contaminated by SPA and IP stack voting. Moreover, while the fr.wiki has its own (rather higher) standards for notability which differ from ours, the suppression there provided at least some precedent for the closing decision and serves to explicate, at least to an extent, Coren's decision. One can certainly disagree with the close; I do. But sentiment of the order the most egregious supervote that I've ever seen in my life is unhelpful hyperbole. Eusebeus (talk) 19:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Relist coren was right when he said "This is one of those rare cases where the deletion process itself has become flawed enough that it is better, in the end, to close it before the full seven days have passed. " But he was wrong about his subsequent action--the response to such a flawed debate should be to close it as no-consensus and relist it, either immediately or after a few weeks to let people think it over. The solution is not to replace the flawed debate with own's own conclusion, be that conclusion right or wrong. (At this point, I have no opinion on the underlying issues of sourcing..) But I must say in Coren's defense that it was not at all one of the "worst" such cases--Coren, like the rest of us, is sometimes wrong, but an extremely unlikely person to be outrageously so, & in this case it was merely over-reaction to the quality of the discussion. (personally, I don't think such improper debates are all that rare, and I think closing and relisting should be used when they happen. Deciding that a debate is unconstructive is something that any reasonable admin should be able do.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 21:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist, better to let this have the full listing. Probably worthwhile to semi-protect the AFD too, and ban anyone who's canvassing. Stifle (talk) 21:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist, semi-protection is definitely the way to go with this. That should have probably been done earlier anyways, but things got muddled as it was. Casting aside the IP addresses and new accounts that voted, it seemed to me to be a solid no consensus leaning toward Keep opinion in the discussion at hand, as sources were provided by myself and other established users to show notability of the subject. SilverserenC 00:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn Agree with the above. 173.161.254.162 (talk) 07:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
You just voted, please do not vote more than once or try to game the system. SilverserenC 08:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist, I did also receive an email, however its content was about the same as the heads-up left on Coren's talk page. That being said, I need some time to analyse the sources given in his press book. He was also invited on a few radios, such as Divergence FM ([1]) and CHOQ FM ([2]). Other radios do not have archives on the web. These arguments, and the nature of the exchange between Coren and Lawren00 above, make me feel that most people approving deletion did not actually read all the sources available. As for semi-protection, the most sensible arguments against came from an IP, the facebook page now ask people to stop posting on the AfD, and the fact that the closer allowed his opinion to be tainted by the facebook people make him a bad admin IMNSHO. Therefore, I am not convinced that protection should be this important. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 10:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
I did not want to post here, but I guess the reference to an IP giving sensible arguments may be to me, so FYI, I gave my opinion about semi-protection of the AfD here. If you think you can handle disruptive IP's or that they are going to stop, fine, but please note, Comte0, that the Facebook message you refer to is: "The article has been deleted from the Wikipedia in english. Thank you to our members and friends to stop posting there", and I am afraid this means in fact "stop because it has become useless", so IP's might come back if the AfD reopens. Maybe I should just create an ad hoc account for the purpose of the discussion? :-) 109.128.125.198 (talk) 11:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Well, I did handle a disruptive IP there. As long as they don't try to game the system, I don't mind about them. On this topic, I'm concerned that none of the IP talk page are blue: those were obviously people new to wikipedia, who might not speak english very well. However, they did contribute, even if in a flawed way. I left a message to the Welcoming committee about that, but it went nowhere; now it's their business, not mine. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
I think there are enough good faith editors participating to this discussion to allow you to post through a message on their private discussion page. If I am not too far from a computer when the relisting takes place, I shall be glad to copy-paste on the AfD page whatever comments you'll post on my discussion page, and I am sure I am not the only person who can do that - the editors who don't agree with your conclusions also recognize you bring something constructive to the debate. Disruptive IPs caused an awful mess on our first try, and I also strongly recommend semi-protection when we'll start again, as I suppose it is now ascertained we'll do another round. French Tourist (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist. Closing a debate early is hardly ever a good way to bring drama to an end. The very fact of this DRV exemplifies that point perfectly. The seven day rule is there for good reason: a number of editors, such as myself, patrol the seventh day of the log to try to weigh into these debates to help them reach consensus. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist. S Marshall and DGG bring up good points above and I agree with them. Though not an admin, my reading of the debate was that, at the time it was closed, it was definitely no consensus (possibly leaning keep). A healthy number of users in good standing who regularly contribute to AfDs had provided sources that alleged notability and I therefore believe that an early delete closure was incorrect (although I can see where Coren was coming from). I also agree that semi-protecting the relisted AfD would be a good move. Jenks24 (talk) 10:20, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Overturn and relist - This is one of the worst closes of an AfD in recent memory — ill argued, illogical, and rushed. I don't know why the polemics over this individual are so bitter, but it's completely clear even to this non-French speaker that there ARE enough sources out there for an encyclopedic biography to be written and that this is indeed a notable public figure about whom a biography should be written. Let's try this again. Carrite (talk) 05:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-
Another, less obvious point is that the only people who have ever heard about him on this wikipedia are his partisans, who are engaged in some kind of political propaganda. This explain all the yelling on the AfD page but then, WP:IDONTKNOWIT exists for a reason... Regards, Comte0 (talk) 11:13, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
|
