User talk:Sgerbic/Archives/2011/09

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Sgerbic. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

DYK for James Underdown

On 12 September 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article James Underdown, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that James Underdown (pictured), an investigator of fringe science claims, once declared himself Poet Laureate of Calumet City, Illinois, and toured Midwest comedy clubs under the name Jim U-boat? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/James Underdown.You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Orlady (talk) 16:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Steve Allen Theater

Hi, I wanted to let you know that the new article The Steve Allen Theater (nice work BTW) links to several disambiguation pages (specifically, Crom, Exodus, Jim Turner, John Ennis, John Reynolds, Pat Healy, Peter Hayes, Rancid, and Variety). I was hoping you could help fix these; sometimes it's difficult to figure out what the original author intended. This tool is a great help in finding and fixing the links. Thanks, --JaGa^talk 16:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I'll get on it, I linked to so many people that it was a bit overwhelming. The tool you gave me is kinda scary looking to use. I'm still not that great of an editor, I know my basics but have not learned to use tools. Sgerbic (talk) 18:07, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

All done! Sgerbic (talk) 20:34, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much. I've found that, since there's no easy way to tell a disambig link in an article from a correct link (short of clicking each and every link to test), many editors accidentally create disambig links and never know about it. IMO the best solution would be to make disambiguation links a different color (maybe green?) but that proposal always gets shot down. As a next best solution, I've been considering making a bot that would notify people when they add disambiguation links to pages. Of course, fixing such links would never be required; it would just be a message to make people aware of the dablinks.

So, I'm wondering, do you think such a bot would be useful, or would similar messages in the future be unwelcome? I don't want to stress people out, but I've found that editors are usually happy to fix dablinks once they've been made aware of their existence. --JaGa^talk 21:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for asking my opinion (just like I'm a regular editor). I had never even heard of disambiguation links as a problem before a couple months ago. I am still really uncomfortable with anything "bot" related. I love the idea of creating a different color when it leads to a disambiguation. I think the editor could just quickly right-click or double-click to turn the color back to blue once we are aware of it. The environment I'm running into on WP is that everything is designed for those people who already understand all the editing features, newbies beware. I think anything to make it simple is best. And I didn't have a problem with changing the links. Sgerbic (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Your deletion debate

You chose the wrong deletion method. (Not a surprise. There are a gazillion of them) WP:TFD is Templates for deletion. You were wanting an article deleted. So you wanted one of the three deletion systems that can delete articles. WP:AFD, WP:PROD, and WP:CSD. Those are Articles For Deletion, Proposed Deletion, and Speedy Deletion. The one closest to the TFD that you tried to use is AFD. Your TFD debate was removed from TFD soon after you entered it, but was started as an AFD discussion for you. (Wikipedians can be quite helpful when they want to be. :) ) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jackie Barrett is the link to the full AFD discussion.

For future reference, the differences in the three article deletion methods are: CSD is Speedy deletion. It is for extremely limited criteria. If the situation does not exactly meet one of the CSD criteria, then speedy deletion *cannot* be used. OTOH, it is the fastest criteria. Admins like me can apply it at will if we find an article that we think meets the criteria. And anyone can tag for speedy deletion, and an admin will deal with it fairly rapidly. This is what you saw in the older history of the article you want deleted. Someone thought that the article met a speedy deletion criteria, tagged it as such, but someone else (usually but not always an admin) came along and disagreed and declined the CSD deletion.

In this particular case the reason was Notability. The bar to avoid speedy deletion is much much lower than the bar to avoid it in a full debate. An article really only needs to assert notability in some vague way to avoid speedy notability deletion.

Next deletion method is WP:PROD. Prod is intended for uncontroversial deletions. You can use (almost) any reasoning in your PROD deletion request. The key though is that it only takes a single protest of a PROD deletion to invalidate PROD deletion for that article. PROD is thus fairly simple, but if anyone disagrees, they are free to remove the PROD deletion notice.

Last is AFD. Articles for Deletion. This is where you launch a full deletion debate on the article. This is what you tried to do with your deletion attempt. Except for using the wrong system, I think you made a pretty good deletion argument. :)

There are also deletion systems for Templates (WP:TFD), Categories (WP:CFD), Redirects (WP:RFD), Files/Images(WP:FFD), and Misc (WP:MFD). I likely missed a few in this list. So there's no real surprise that you missed the correct one on your first try. :) - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I am overwhelmed with WP every time I try something new and have to read the directions. Its like math word problems for me. I'm saving all this and will refer back to it, maybe soon. Just want to see how the process works with the Jackie Barrett. Sgerbic (talk) 23:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

How many people have to vote on this deletion? Or is there a time limit? Sgerbic (talk) 08:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Debate length varies with the different deletion mechanisms. I believe that AFD is normally 7 days. There are definitely exceptions to that. WP:SNOW (for Snowball's chance in Hell) can occasionally be used to close early debates that are overwhelmingly going in one direction or the other. To the other side, if a debate is getting absolutely no feedback, or is pretty much deadlocked, a closer can "relist" it for another seven days.

There is no real minimum number of opinions needed. At closing time, the closer will evaluate the discussion. If there are too few responses (in their opinion) they may relist. Or they may go through with a close if they feel one side or the other has presented the stronger policy-based argument. - TexasAndroid (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Another mechanism to be aware of in the deletion process is Deletion review. WP:DRV. This is where you go if you want to protest a deletion action. Be aware, DRV is focused much more on whether proper WP procedures were followed, as opposed to if you just disagree with the outcome of a debate. The one situation that comes to mind for DRV that is not process-centered is if you think that the situation surrounding the deletion has changed. This most commonly comes into play with Notability. Notability status can change. Someone who was not notable a year ago may have received major media attention in the time since. A band that was unknown a year ago may have had a #1 hit since then. Or you have simply found good sources to show the notability of someone who was previously deleted for lack of notability. But these types are the exceptions at DRV. Much more commonly, for DRV debates that actually go somewhere, they are about process. Did the deleting admin correctly apply Speedy Deletion criteria? Did he/she correctly interpret the results of a contentious deletion debate. In these cases you are supposed to first take a shot on the admin's talk page at persuading them to change their mind. If you were to search through my talk history, you would find plenty of times that I've been persuaded to change my mind by a well worded argument on my talk page. But ultimately, if the admin will not change their mind, and you think that they are incorrect... DRV. - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)