Wikipedia:Requests for comment/TenPoundHammer

The following discussion is an archived record of a user conduct request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.

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TenPoundHammer (talk · contribs · logs)

Users should not edit other people's summaries or views, except to endorse them. All signed comments other than your own view or an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page.

Statement of the dispute

This was first raised at WP:AN#Back_off_the_Hammer, the following section is copied from there:

TenPoundHammer (talk · contribs) is well-known for his huge count of edits. ~~Most of these~~ Many of these_{Incorrect claim that didn't recognise his article contributions to country music, withdrawn.} are deletions: either blocks of content, or articles. The article deletions are getting out of hand and are based on an increasingly dubious interpretation of policy. This post is as a result of this WP:CSD#G1 List of most highly populated countries, a 30k article with > 60 references. I make no comment on the quality, suitability or future deletion of this article - which is now at AfD. In fact, I've past history with the article's creator (this is how I saw the speedy notice) and I've called for many of their additions to be deleted on quality grounds myself. What is clear though is that articles of this size, on ostensibly appropriate topics, are not suitable for speedy deletion. They're just too complicated to judge so expeditiously. In this case, it's not only a speedy but a G1 as "patent nonsense". To quote the last summary point of that rationale, "In short, if you can understand it, G1 does not apply." There is no way that G1 can be applied to this article, even if we choose to delete it very soon. Nor is this a new editor who might not understand such things.

This editor calls to delete what looks like an article a day. We have no limits on such, there is no good reason to have one - a valid deletion is a valid deletion. Yet looking at this vast list (which I admit, isn't easy) they're an unedifying stream of dubious judgement.

WP:Articles for deletion/Wizard (band) (German heavy metal) seems to have been based on searching Gnews (relevance?) by one very common word and not finding the wheat for the chaff, thus claiming that no sources exist. It took me two minutes, and using a band member's name, to find sources. Perhaps WP:BEFORE was indeed followed, but in that case the Hammer's google-fu is clearly weak. There's also a mis-use of WP:BAND#1 to claim that interviews (any and all of them) are not sources, despite what WP:BAND#cite_note-selfpromo-0 actually states. We also see claims like, "If the band's article is deleted, the albums can be speedied via A9." I would remind the editor that the function of an encyclopedia is not to act as a score-keeping mechanism for how many articles an editor can manage to have deleted.
WP:Articles for deletion/Xargs seems to be a clear case of "If I don't understand the topic, it's not notable". Nor is "xargs" a terribly difficult word to search for.
WP:Articles for deletion/List of April Fool's Day jokes (2nd nomination) was one I expected to be a clear deletion as listcruft. Yet it's not - it's quite reasonably sourced (for most items at least) and even if we pruned heavily, there is obviously a list there of large-scale incidents with clear secondary coverage.

Does it matter? After all, the barrage of keeps for April Fool's Day shows the robustness of WP in action. Yes, it does matter - because for everything that happens openly at AfD, there are others like WP:Articles for deletion/Stained glass windows of St Pauls, Clifton that happen "under the hood" and invisibly. In this case, a speedy deletion was applied to an article already at AfD just hours after that AfD and with no time for any secondary discussion. Should that article have been kept? I would argue that its deletion was primarily WP:BITEy, where a new editor has created St Pauls, Clifton, Bristol (itself targeted for deletion) and because they created what should have been sections of an article as separate articles, these were deleted (and deleted rather than the rather more obvious merge). WMF tell us regularly that new editors should be encouraged, and this sort of response does nothing to encourage that. Incidentally, there are few Victorian churches in affluent areas that aren't notable, just on their architectural merits and the coverage that inevitably generates.

I'm bringing this to AN because RFC/U is both complex and toothless, but also because of the volumes involved. I consider that TenPoundHammer is acting outside of generally supportable behaviour, either through policy or consensus, and that because of the volume involved this requires a substantial and speedy response. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Desired outcome

TPH to raise Speedies, PRODs and AfDs only according to established policy, with some reasonable nomination provided to each one. This to include WP:BEFORE.
Some vaguely over-optimistic hope that the culture of WP might shift somewhat from the current points-scoring amongst administrative wannabees where an opportunity to delete something is seen as an opportunity to do "something" and rack up a scorecard of articles deleted, rather than our supposed goal of constructing an encyclopedia

Description

See paste above.

Evidence of disputed behavior

These are some recent (mid February to mid March 2012) deletion nominations I've all come across accidentally, I therefore believe this to be only the tip of the iceberg. —Ruud 14:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Failing WP:BEFORE on AFDs

Using WP:PROD for controversial deletions (i.e. sneaking stuff past a proper AFD)

Wizard (band)

Using CSDs inappropriately

List of most highly populated countries

War on templates (WP:DISRUPTIVE)

Nominating {{cleanup}} over and over again: January 11, June 2011, another attempt at DRV, February 2012
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 24#Template:Expert-subject (and the resulting Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 March 9#Template:Expert-subject)

AfD nominations that don't analyze the alternatives to deletion, WP:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion.: Specifically, nominations need to include an argument either that there is objectionable material in the edit history in need of removal, or that the topic as a redirect would not be kept at RfD.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Halifax, Nova Scotia

Nomination argues, "Just blast it to smithereens.", for a topic that was or is or is commonly known as the capital of Nova Scotia (est. 1749, re-designated 1996). See also, City of Halifax and Halifax Regional Municipality.

See also WT:Articles for deletion#Halifax,_Nova_Scotia

New one today on Pete Holly, [1]

An article on a musician of doubtful notability. Where in two edits TPH first removes all the ELs as "spam", then nominates for speedy deletion as WP:CSD#A7. This was contested (the article has previously been at AfD several times: deleted once in 2006, then kept as no consensus twice), but TPH applied and re-applied this speedy three times in under 24 hours, once even after it had been raised at AfD.

An editor who stretches_(sic) CSD to the point of 3RR, even after it has been listed at AfD, even while they're at RFC/U for their excessive zeal to delete, is failing to get it in quite a big way. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Block removal of Viz characters

Over 50 character articles from Viz (comics) removed en masse this morning, [2] These were converted to redirects without discussion or WP:BEFORE study of any notability and the blanket edit summary "not notable".

Comic articles are a problem. Primary-only sourcing is always a risk. On WP, this becomes a populism contest: anything by DC or Marvel can continue, but British articles are increasingly deleted en masse as they're held to a higher sourcing standard than US comics (See Redwall, Mortal Engines and most recently Judge Dredd). Now we see this applied to Viz. Nor are these bad articles - if you want one-line unreferenced crap about British comics, will someone please deal with the rafts of utterly trivial Beano and Dandy characters that refuse to die. The Viz articles though are substantial, surprisingly well-written and far from the usual fancruft (I don't know who wrote them, but it's a good piece of work). Was there any analysis of their notability? Of course not! 50 articles blanked in under an hour? That's three articles a minute at times. No wonder that things like the few external refs there already are here weren't noticed.

Should these articles go? I would contend not - Viz has been around since the mid-80s, it has had significant influence on UK popular culture - even the OED has noticed Finbarr Saunders. Many of these characters have made it out of the confines of the comic into commonplace figures of speech.

Will these articles go anyway? Probably - for the problem described above. What's clear though is that they should not be removed as a single decision by an editor who's judgement and over-fondness for deletion is already at RFC/U right now! Certainly not when they are refusing to use AfD, CSD or Prod and have now switched to simply blanking and redirecting articles on their own undiscussed whim.

These blankings are a problem on two levels: firstly they're bad edits, secondly this is yet more indication of TPH's editing behaviour and the reason for this RFC/U. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now back at WP:AN/I#TenPoundHammer.27s_article_redirections Andy Dingley (talk) 10:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Applicable policies and guidelines

{List the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

WP:BEFORE

General policy on AfD, CSD and the well-known issues involving deletion.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

See the AfDs.

Attempts by certifier Andy Dingley (talk)

Attempts by certifier Ruud Koot (talk)

Other attempts

Twice I've asked TPH to cease pretending that IINFO means whatever he wants it to mean, and neither has gotten a single word of response from him. While I would normally give him another chance before raising this as a separate issue, since this RfC/U has been raised and certified, I find it appropriate to note these efforts here. Jclemens (talk) 06:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other attempts, perhaps helping to demonstrate that this is not just a recent problem, but a long-term one

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TenPoundHammer 7 (September 2009) – much feedback here, as there was in his previous RfAs, about his behaviour around deletions
[3] – his replies are at User talk:Paul Erik/Archive 6#Mob Figaz (October 2009)
[4] (January 2011)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

User:Andy Dingley
—Ruud 14:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 06:05, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:08, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this summary

I'm not sure - I've probably suggested to TPH a different approach on many occasions over the past five years or so, but not recalled any specific in a whil - in any case I endorse this page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Unusually, I'm not in the "outside view" section of an RFC. This is because, like Calisber, I've tried to get TenPoundHammer to modify xyr approach over the years. Moreover I've been involved in several AFD discussions started by TenPoundHammer. Where Andy Dingley and I disagree, and where my endorsement falls short, is that I think that simply talking to TenPoundHammer, rather than talking past xem, and explaining things such as how I approach articles, might have an effect. It's something that I've not had the time to do, however. (On the other hand, there are things in the editors' index that show how to look for sources and work on article improvement, so there are already things for TenPoundHammer and everyone else to read on this subject.) But yes, nominations like that of Xargs (AfD discussion) and Flyover country (AfD discussion), which was renominated a scant few days upon closure of the prior AFD discussion, are problematic. (There are articles on this subject from other encyclopaedias listed in Flyover country#Further reading, notice. Those encyclopaedia articles themselves cite further works on the subject.)
It's unfair to single out TenPoundHammer as being the only one who doesn't do enough research before immediately reaching for a deletion request template. There are other editors who are downright lazy in their approach to building an encyclopaedia, thinking themselves to be in some sort of supervisory rôle while Somebody Else actually does the writing work; and that their task is to hypocritically go around pointing out where nobody, not even they themselves, have bothered to do any work. Their approach is in the long run a far more damaging one than TenPoundHammer's here. This is where I do agree with Andy Dingley's desired outcome, very strongly. But I don't want to make TenPoundHammer a poster child for that, since I don't see TenPoundHammer in that group.
I have the general, and somewhat vague, impression that TenPoundHammer's problem is one of having good intentions but simply not knowing how best to put them into effect. The administrators' noticeboard won't solve this, administrator action won't solve this, and even this RFC won't solve this. What will solve this is TenPoundHammer getting to grips with things like how to find books that discuss particular subjects, how to use other encyclopaedias as clues to how subjects can be covered, and how to make intelligent use of search engines. That's an education and learning issue: expansion of TenPoundHammer's skill set to be a better researcher and writer. A large amount of people piling on at an RFC/U saying "Yes, here's another bad deletion nomination that I was involved in." is far less useful than a few people going to User talk:TenPoundHammer and pointing out all of the search tools that are listed in Template:Search for (examples over there ⇗) and giving some pointers on their use. (Here's one pointer from me: Observe that searches don't have to be for the article title.)
Uncle G (talk) 13:37, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
TPH needs to be more careful with his deletion nominations. That there are many other editors making quick or silly nominations is not really a good counterargument here. Someone should write WP:OTHEREDITORS to mirror WP:OTHERSTUFF. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 18:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, though I've worked pleasantly with the Hammer and his otters over quite a few years now, I also think that too many of his CSD and AfD nominations are done erroneously or in haste. Drmies (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
TPH knows what needs to be done, but I think sometimes he decides he wants an article/template/whatever gone, and chooses to try to get rid of it by whatever means possible, whether corrrect or not. LadyofShalott 00:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Xargs (AfD discussion) is an important AfD to consider. First TPH deleted all but the first two sentences.[5]. This was reverted. Then TPH prodded it[6] with the reason "Notable? Not sure". This appears to go against WP:PROD, which reads "Proposed deletion is the way to suggest that an article is uncontroversially a deletion candidate..." It was deproded with evidence of notability in the edit comment[7] - evidence that TPH never disputed or even discussed on the article talk page. Finally, despite the evidence of notability that he never discussed, he filed an AfD[8] with the comment "Deprodded with primary source. Doesn't seem individually notable. Couldn't find any real sources." If he had discussed it on the article talk page, he would have learned that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is not primary source for xargs - a UNIX command that goes back to the first revision of PWB/UNIX. Finally, when I noticed the AfD on my watchlist, In the first few seconds of looking I found two excellent sources[9] establishing notability on the first page of the Google results for "xargs". It is difficult to believe that this is just poor Google-Fu. It really looks like spending less time looking for sources that establish notability than it takes to type "Couldn't find any real sources" into an AfD. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse the above summary: Every interaction I have had with TPH has left a sour feeling in my mouth. That is not what "Wikipedia community" is supposed to stand for. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.[reply]
Sounds about right. BOZ (talk) 16:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This RfC is about an established user who, for whatever reason, chooses to neglect the community standards. I recall no previous interaction except indirectly at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OxiClean (3rd nomination), but analysis of this one series of AfDs shows a long-standing problem and previous efforts to give feedback to TPH. My role was to look in a previous AfD, and quote a government report about Oxiclean targeted at educators for use in the classroom. This nomination stated, "Kept last time due to sources, but on further inspection they're press releases. Delete or merge to that big shouty guy. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 23:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)." It was not necessary to have this AfD to remind TenPoundHammer of sources that had already been reported at a previous AfD. The previous AfD nomination was, "HI! TEN POUND HAMMER HERE FOR OXICLEAN! ARE YOU TIRED OF SET-IN ARTICLES THAT SHOW NO SIGN OF NOTABILITY? SUBJECTS THAT SHOW NO SIGN OF COVERAGE IN RELIABLE THIRD PARTY SOURCES? THEN YOU NEED ARTICLES FOR DELETION!

(Seriously, I !voted keep in the last afd, but the sources are no good, and all I could find was press releases.) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)" Both AfDs reminded TenPoundHammer of WP:BEFORE. One of the AfDs was a Speedy keep and the most-recent was a Snow keep. This is a point of WP:ATD and WP:BEFORE, to properly prepare the community and not waste the community's time. Looking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OxiClean, the government reference I quoted in the 3rd AfD was one of the two that TPH explicitly cited as a reason to keep in the first AfD. I am also concerned by TPH's repeated attempts to rationalize his AfD nominations as justified because they sometimes result in article improvements. This rationale implies that TPH considers him/herself to have a Wikipedia role in scheduling the work of volunteers. There is plenty of work at Wikipedia without a special editor adding to the AfD workload. Unscintillating (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response

This section is reserved for the use of the user whose conduct is disputed. Users writing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section, and the person writing this section should not write a view below. Anyone is welcome to endorse this or any other view, but no one except the editor(s) named in the dispute may change the summary here.

~~First of all, way to not tell me about this RFC/U THIRTEEN DAYS into its existence. I feel like you guys are doing some sort of cloak and dagger stuff behind my back.~~

Anyway, yes. Some of my AFDs and PRODs and such have been misfires. For instance, Wizard (band), I honestly did google the band name + a member's name. Somehow, the first search found nothing but personal blogs and other unreliable sources, but a second search did find a reputable review which I added — I even pointed out "okay, I screwed up in my googling, I'll recant on my AFD". And yet it seems some believe that I never concede when a contrary opinion outweighs my own. I have admitted many times that my AFDs were in the wrong, and either withdrawn, or just let it be since I know it's going to close as "keep".

On Xargs, the reason I stubbed the article was because it had an arbitrary example farm and what looked to me like instructions on how to do something with it. Tell me why something like "Note that not all versions of xargs supports the {} syntax. In those cases you may specify a string after -I that will be replaced" should be kept in an article — is that not a blatant instruction guide written in second person, two things that directly violate how a proper Wikipedia article should be written?

Several times, I have been frustrated in AFDs — people will come along and say "Keep, it's notable." and then the article gets snowball kept because everyone's saying "it's notable, sources exist", but they do nothing to improve it. All they do is insist that it's somebody else's problem and as a result, we all sit on our asses and nothing gets done.

Is my work sloppy? Maybe. But I have seen many AFDs where I nominate a dire-looking article, someone argues that it be kept and — here's the biggie — actually IMPROVES the damn thing with sources. Hmm. Maybe AFD is cleanup after all. I bet not a one of those articles that got Heymanned after an AFD would even have had the dust knocked off it had someone not sent it to AFD.

WP:BEFORE, as mentioned below, is not a friggin' policy. I make sure to always do a source check before I nominate anything for AFD, and it just happens that I don't always dig deep enough for stuff. Very little of what I've AFDed seemed worthy of any alternative to deletion except maybe Halifax, Nova Scotia. But again, at least the AFD got something DONE there instead of continuing the six years of hemming and hawing. How much longer did we need to spin our wheels on that one, anyway?

Also, "the current points-scoring amongst administrative wannabees where an opportunity to delete something is seen as an opportunity to do 'something' and rack up a scorecard of articles deleted". Where the flying HELL do you think that I am an "administrative wannabee [sic]" anymore? I've not run for RFA in years because I honestly don't think I ever will be admin material.

And I love how you outright jump to conclusions that I nominate stuff for deletion just to make my e-penis bigger. As if I have a deletion fetish. As if I believe that I get some sort of prize for having the most successful AFDs. I don't. My main goal every time I AFD is "improve the wiki in some fashion". I know full well that not all of my discussions will be closed as "delete". That's not to say I'm abusing the AFD function as a sneaky way to get an article cleaned up. That simply happens to be a positive side effect that sometimes stems from my work. Sometimes. And it's not like I'm the only one who has ever made an AFD that had to be withdrawn or speedy kept.

tl;dr: I won't deny that my actions are somewhat blunt. But this whole RFC/U reeks of a witch hunt to me, brought on entirely by those who disagree with me in some fashion, and who are looking for only the negative side of my every move. I honestly feel that, even if I fluff an AFD or two or ten, I'm still doing far more help than harm.

Users who endorse this summary:

Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:58, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:00, 22 March 2012 (UTC). Comments in my own section.[reply]
Hipocrite (talk) 13:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:

way to not tell me about this RFC/U THIRTEEN DAYS into its existence.

Andy Dingley (talk) 02:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My bad, somehow I didn't notice that. The rest still stands. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:21, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "...then the article gets snowball kept because everyone's saying "it's notable, sources exist", but they do nothing to improve it." AfD is not the Article Improvement Workshop, it is essential a trial over whether an article topic is or is not worthy of inclusion in accordance with policy and guidelines. It is not an election — 15 so-called "votes" of "keep, it's notable" with no backing rationale shouldn't count for spit if a closing administrator is doing their job properly. On the other hand, if one is finding oneself proposing articles that end in Snow Keeps, one might want to consider why that is and to avoid nominating those articles likely to result in that outcome. I don't actually think that happens too often with Mr. Hammer's nominations — his somewhat exasperated comment to the contrary. Carrite (talk) 18:02, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "I make sure to always do a source check before I nominate anything for AFD, and it just happens that I don't always dig deep enough for stuff", I am having a hard time reconciling this claim with me being able to find three good sources by typing "xargs" into Google and looking at the first page of results. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Views

This section is for statements or opinions written by users not directly involved with this dispute, but who would like to add a view of the dispute. Users should not edit other people's summaries or views, except to endorse them. All signed comments other than your own view or an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" or "Response") should not normally edit this section, except to endorse another person's view.

Outside view by Logical Cowboy

{Add your summary here. You must use the endorsement section below to sign it. Anyone is welcome to endorse this or any other view, but do not change other people's views.}

I think this RFC/U is well-intentioned, and it makes some good points. But it's also somewhat one-sided. For example, it does not mention that the editor has already acknowledged mistakes. More generally, these comments do not reflect the totality of the editor's contributions. I don't think it's literally true that "most" of the editor's comments are "deletions." If anything, most of his edits are additions to music articles. Also, the editor has created more than a thousand articles. I have found most of the editor's proposed deletions and comments in AfDs to be spot on. Here are a few recent examples. There are many, many more.

[10] [11] [12]

The bottom line is that I have no problem with these concerns being raised, and I hope that the editor finds the comments to be useful. I make my own comments here in an effort to balance out the RFC/U.

Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Logical Cowboy (talk) 17:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, this user has made alot of contributions. Sure this user has made some mistakes, but doesn't everyone. I think this user has done more good a than bad JayJay^{Talk to me} 17:36, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein 10:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Eluchil404 (talk) 09:00, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree with his deletionism towards templates, and strongly disagree with his renomination of no-consensus template deletions, but cannot say this user has actually done anything wrong (in fact, I thought that I had supported one of his RFAs). Bwrs (talk) 05:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just like I said, this whole RFC/U seems like a witch hunt to me — as if the person who started it wishes to see me run off Wikipedia or something. The person who started the whole thing seems to be only focusing on the negative, and looking for negativity where it doesn't exist. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:27, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Danger ^{High voltage!} 02:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
One of the 50 most active contributors to Wikipedia, more than 175,000 edits. With this rate and volume of editing of course it seems like he is always proposing things for deletion. He also seems like he is always doing all sorts of other things for the same reason. Proportionally to his overall contributon I don't believe there's any evidence to suggest more than the normal bias towards deletion that about half of the WP population seems to have. QU ^TalkQu 23:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--Otterathome (talk) 10:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

single-issue view by Beeblebrox

There is a basic problem with point two of the "desired outcome" section, in that it expresses a desire for a community-wide change, which is outside the scope of a discussion of a single user. Suggest that point 2 be struck.

Users who endorse this summary:

Beeblebrox (talk) 20:29, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strictly speaking yes, however I've always had a problem with editors who concentrate on deleting or attempting to delete material as being somehow antithetical to the idea of (a) collaborative editing and (b) encyclopedia building, especially with such a low success rate. i.e. so the RfC can serve as a general reminder. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 22:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein 10:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
JayJay^{Talk to me} 17:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Even if point 2 were on topic it's too vague to be useful. Reyk _YO! 05:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I don't doubt that community-wide change is worthy goal, but it's not something that can be done by TPH (or by restrictions on TPH). bobrayner (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Sandstein

I have closed and commented in many AfDs, and I do not recall TenPoundHammer's opinions or nominations as particularly problematic. I am unimpressed by the vague nature of the problems alleged (and evidence submitted) in this RfC, and they do not convince me that they warrant an examination of the editor's conduct. In the evidence, the only edit that is clearly problematic is the faulty CSD nomination of List of most highly populated countries as {{db-nonsense}}. As to the alleged violations of WP:BEFORE, the evidence does not make clear, and it is not immediately apparent, how this step of the deletion process is supposed to have been violated in these cases. This also applies to the PROD. As to the template deletion nominations, the discussions apparently resulted in no consensus, so it is not clear why the repeated nominations are considered particularly disruptive in and of themselves. (I'm not saying that there might not be problems here, just that the RfC does a poor job of convincing me that there are.)

More generally, WP:BEFORE is not on a page that is labeled as a policy or guideline, and expecting deletion nominators to conduct a thorough search for sources beyond those cited in the article conflicts with the policy-based principle of WP:V, and specifically WP:BURDEN, that it is those who write or want to retain content who are responsible for finding and citing sources. On these grounds, I do not think that it is objectionable to nominate for deletion articles that do not establish their subject's notability without conducting a prior search for sources that goes beyond an initial Google search. Conducting detailed research is the responsibility of those who write or want to retain the article. Sandstein 10:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Sandstein 10:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, I am not finding the evidence or the explanation of the supposed problem very compelling. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A reasonable interpretation and I generally trust Sandstein's judgment of users from his experience. MBisanz ^talk 17:45, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
B music ian 01:16, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Spot on. Reyk _YO! 19:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely agree although I don't think any article should be nominated for deletion on notability grounds without a decent search for sources by the nominator before hand but BEFORE isn't policy and i too frequently used to attack the nominator as an alternative to addressing the concerns raised. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. TenPoundHammer is human and should be expected to make mistakes (the otters have no excuse, though). Pointing at a few deletions out of literally thousands as evidence of an ongoing problem seems shortsighted. If there were evidence that TPH's batting average were particularly poor, that would be something else, but as of now I see a prolific editor who makes an expected and acceptable percentage of errors. Danger ^{High voltage!} 02:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be the statement I most agree with. -- Zanimum (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As Zanimum. Hipocrite (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
People have been trying to make BEFORE mandatory, and when they can't make it mandatory for all, they try to make it mandatory for deletionists they don't like. Whereas TenPoundHammer may have made some errors, this RFC is overly punitive and doesn't give enough evidence p b p 03:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bulwersator (talk) 06:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--Otterathome (talk) 10:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 02:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there have been problems in specific deletion requests, but editors are only human. I'm not convinced that TPH's edits overall are way over to one side of the bell curve compared to other editors active in deletion-related areas (which are a prolific source of drama). bobrayner (talk) 10:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another view by Beeblebrox

The whole thing about the PROD of the Wizard article being deceptive is nonsense. The accusation that it was used for "sneaking stuff past a proper AFD" is obviously an assumption of bad faith. TPH is certainly aware that a PROD can be removed by any user at any time, so if there was any doubt that is what would happen, and what did in fact happen.

And then we see the AFD, which the certifiers are holding forth as an attempt to resolve this issue. What I see there is an AFD where the certifiers immediately began attacking the user making the nomination rather than limiting their comments to the subject under discussion. And then we see User:Warden, who is probably one of the most extremist inclusionist, coming to TPHs defense, so I'm having trouble seeing that incident as evidence of rabid, bad-faith deletionism as the certifiers would have us believe.

Rudd's post to TPH's talk page, also given as evidence of trying to resolve this issue, is so utterly condescending and dripping with accusations of bad faith that TPH should be commended, not censured, for just ignoring it.

Whenever one opens a discussion like this, they should be aware of WP:BOOMERANG. The behavior exhibited at and around the Wizard AFD is disgraceful, and using it as an example of supposed attempts at dispute resolution is about as ineffective a strategy to convince others as I can imagine.

And of course going to an admin board with a sarcastic attack on another user (back off the hammer? seriously?) cannot be regarded as serious attempt at dispute resolution but rather as an attempt to evoke an emotional response and get some sort of sanction on TPH.

As to the broader issue this shabby collection of evidence is supposedly trying to address, as others have mentioned, WP:BEFORE is advice, while WP:BURDEN is a subsection of WP:V, one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, so if we're going to get in a "my policy is bigger than yours" contest it's pretty obvious which side that would come down on. BEFORE is increasingly used like a blunt object in deletion discussions to disparage the opinions and efforts of anyone who dares to comment that maybe we should delete articles with poor sourcing. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Beeblebrox (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I particularly agree with your description of the execrable misuse of WP:BEFORE. Reyk _YO! 19:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--Guerillero | My Talk 18:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the idea of the PROD on the Wizard article being "deceptive" is unjustified. Though the deletion rationale for Wizard (band) turned out to be flawed, Hammer had a reasonable belief that its deletion would be uncontroversial and this is backed up by the fact that the article in question had not been edited for 3 months before the PROD. It would have been a good candidate for PROD if the deletion rationale was sound. Furthermore, he used a descriptive edit summary. It would have been different if he had used the edit summary of "spelling" and marked it as minor. However, he was wrong to suggest to the deprodder that he was not suppose to remove it without a rationale. That idea has been proposed and rejected multiple times. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Technical query/proposal by Casliber

I really hate RfCs with support and no comment/oppose sections. It (a) facilitates (to me) the impression of talking past not to others with opposing points of view, and (b) gives no idea of consensus - do the lack of supports mean neutrals, conditional supports or opposes?

Users who endorse this summary and are happy for the above to have neutral/oppose/comment sections:

Users who endorse the current layout:

Yes and no. I totally get what you are saying, but normally at these user rfcs this format is used and actual threaded discussion is done on the talk page. That hasn't happened yet, and actually this view and possibly my "single issue view" above probably should have been posted there for discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong preference either way - both forms have their disadvantages. I'll leave my responses in another view and/or on the talk page. —Ruud 01:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mu:

The current layout does encourage "talking past" each other, but I'm not sure that the proposed change is the right way to solve the issue. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 06:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So what would you suggest? Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
nice judo. It's very late and I've been re-installing Morrowind so forgive me if this is a slightly incoherent response. 1) Beeblebrox talks about the split between the talk page and the "cover" page, but it's a totally arbitrary divide. Why is it there? 2) An RfC ther are usually multiple issues brought by the, ah, complainant. As with this one, some of them will be outside what an RfC can cover. 3) RfC/Fae was another good example. How many different things were being discussed at one time? 4) What's the point of an RfC, anyway? While I'm pleased to see that my "desired outcome" edit stuck, the history of that template also is an example of what's wrong with RfCs, that people edit the form and expect that to change the behavior. 4) Maybe a short "warm up" where there's general discussion (on the talk page?) about what the actual issues are, then those issues get split out into sections on the main page. 5) Get the wonderkinds who do the signpost to do RfCs. Journalism like. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 12:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Jclemens

Ten Pound Hammer has been a fixture in deletion discussions for years. He should be exemplifying best practices in ways that we do not expect newbies to. Instead, what this series of concerns demonstrates is disregard for best practices: Contra Sandstein, it really makes no difference what WP:BEFORE is labeled, because editors who have participated in the area for as long as TPH has have generally developed an intrinsic understanding of its expectations and both follow them and describe how they do so in their nominations. Instead of an elder statesman, TPH comes across little different than a newbie, misquoting WP:IINFO (see my links above), and then, unlike a true newbie, failing to respond to advice and incorporate it into future nominations. Inclusionists who misquote relevant guidelines in deletion discussions are roundly taken to task for misconstruing those guidelines, and properly so. Turnabout is fair play, and TPH needs to demonstrate appropriate care in his nominations. If the atmosphere at AfD is to improve, then all long-term participants need to behave well and lead by example, engaging in the best interests of the encyclopedia, not deceptively or inaccurately citing policies and guidelines in an attempt to bias the outcome of a deletion discussion. TPH should know better, and should be encouraged to participate scrupulously in the future or face additional scrutiny and possibly consequences if he declines to follow best practices after being advised to do so in this RfC/U. Jclemens (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Jclemens (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Totally, Sandstein is missing the point above. Yes there are some unproblematic and straightforward AfDs etc., but there are also some ones that are clear keeps. When I get a chance, I'll try and find some. Essentially, if doing very minimal searching shows a nomination meets general notability guidelines, then it indicates the nominator is being lazy or sloppy, or dishonest in nominating. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:52, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is well-put. LadyofShalott 00:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
—Ruud 01:25, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there are some good nominations; if a person nominated articles by chance, there would be many good ones. I think TPH does somewhat better than chance. But there are so many truly problematic decision to be made at AfD that we need to concentrate on, and so many unnoticed older really impossibly promotional or copyvio articles that need to be AfD'd that wasting everyone's time including his own on nomination of which perhaps one-quarter at least are really unjustified -- and many not just in the sense of errors but totally weird-- is not productive behavior. It is true there are some other people who do likewise, but we need to approach this one at a time. Of course there will be articles where he & I will honestly disagree; they're not the problem and articles of questionable notability that are eventually found notable are not what this RfC is about. DGG ( talk ) 02:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC) .[reply]
In general, I adhere to this view. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
JayJay^{Talk to me} 17:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - TPH should be an exemplar of "best practice" which is where the problem certainly appears to fall. I trust he will acknowledge the problem and seek to be more judicious in the future. Collect (talk) 23:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 06:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. TenPoundHammer has a history of somehow not being able to find sources during deletion discussions that others are able to find in minutes or seconds.[13][14][15][16][17] He should be warned, and then if he fails to demonstrate an ability to conduct a thorough search for sources, he should be restricted from nominating or prodding articles. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse the above summary. I find that TPH does not engage in discussion as much as would be reasonably expected. His attitude appears more dictatorial than communal. His modus operandi is oftentimes not consistent with the spirit of a Wikipedia "community". My name is Mercy11 (talk) 04:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.[reply]
BOZ (talk) 17:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
These two AfDs seem to show that TPH needs to be a lot more careful in his nominations: [18] [19].--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Like many newbies, TPH appears to see deletion discussions as battles to be won at all cost. Greatly experienced editors like TPH should be seeing them as collegial discussions with the aim of improving the encyclopedia, and should be leading by example. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Too frequently TPH's nominations are problematic. I'm not here to improve only the articles TPH selects for me. 1 2 3 4 5 6. If he was more reliably right in his nominations, he would be much more valuable.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Unscintillating (talk) 03:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
" TPH comes across little different than a newbie". Yes, and if he were a newbie he would probably be banned for lack of WP:COMPETENCE. Fences&Windows 18:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. -- Zanimum (talk) 16:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The subject seems to have stepped up his defiance and contempt for best practise and consequences have started to flow as he has recently been blocked for this reason. Warden (talk) 19:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For years he's been one of the most prolific contributors to deletion discussions, and yet he still behaves like an impatient newbie. Even this week, he edit wars to reapply an incorrect speedy-deletion tag, even though he's been warned about doing that multiple times. His AfD arguments still misrepresent policies and guidelines, not just WP:IINFO as noted above, but also he does not understand (or chooses to ignore) the difference between arguing on the basis of WP:BLP1E and on the basis of WP:BIO1E. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I have seen that behavior a lot from him. Dream Focus 15:47, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Carrite

I somehow feel a close personal connection to TenPoundHammer, probably because he busted my balls over nothing not once but twice at ANI (ostensibly because of my self-proclaimed inclusionism and his committed deletionism). Yet, despite that, and despite being on opposite sides of more than a few deletion debates over the subsequent last couple years, I think we've gained at least a grudging respect for one another. This RfC is utterly improper, to my mind, and should be immediately closed. There is no evidence that Mr. Hammer has been abusive of Guidelines in his nominations, there is no evidence that he has been disruptive in intent. He does not misuse automated tools to shotgun nominations in a lazy manner. He is an individual who draws inclusion boundaries a bit more stringently than the majority of Wikipedians. I think he and others like him at AfD are a perfect counterbalance to Article Rescue Squad, who scramble to source out pieces and save them from deletion attacks — a yin and yang, if you will, or if you prefer dialectics to eastern philosophy: a struggle of opposites from which synthesis emerges. Certainly, some of Mr. Hammer's nominations are a bit sketchy. Still, it is good that he is there to call people on their marginal sourcing and to challenge their fuzzy logic in debates. What is the intent here — to burn the guy for believing what he believes? That's bogus. I disagree with the man, but I'll defend his right to bring the AfD challenges he believes necessary. Carrite (talk) 00:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

As bigmouth who said it. Carrite (talk) 00:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FASTILY ^(TALK) 00:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
TPH and I have been on opposing sides of an AfD discussion. While I disagreed, I could certainly understand the nomination. I think his perspective is useful. What's "encyclopedic" has been stretched beyond all reason on wikipedia. (There are certainly dozens of references in reliable sources that mention "wet hair" but does it warrant an article?) TPH's efforts I believe have improved the project overall- yes in part to the efforts of others sourcing the nominated articles. I wonder if his AfD nominations would even be at issue if he used a more civil tone in his interactions with other editors. Eudemis (talk) 10:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--Otterathome (talk) 10:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

Comment. It was mentioned above there are no comment sections, so I boldly start one. Carrite, you;ver missed the point entirely. RThe point of deletion process is to delete the articles that cannot be improved, keep the ones that are good enough, and fix the ones that can be improved sufficiently to be included. The effectiveness of this depends upon judicious selection; it is very difficult to improve articles in 7 days only, so this is practical only if the number of articles that need this treatment is kept to a minimum. This means that articles which are fairly sure to be keepable without improvement not be nominated in the first place, and that those that need improvement but can be easily fixed get fixed, rather than nominated (that's the point of BEFORE). To the extent people add unnecessary articles to the discussion, they are interfering with this process, and this holds equally if one is taking a deletionist approach: if I want to delete articles of a given type, I can do this effectively if I make sure that the ones I do nominate will be deleted; if I clutter the process up with those that will be kept, people will not trust me, will waste time trying to impugn my work even to the extent of looking for technical objections, and I will get fewer articles appropriately deleted than if I had been more selective about it. The attitude you're taking to it is the same as TPH's--that AfD is a contest. Just as Wikipedia is not a game, AfD is not a contest. It's a attempt by well meaning people not to score points, not to see how clever they are in argument , but to sort out articles. Nominating articles just to see what will happen makes a game out of it. Nominating articles so widely that nobody can properly considering makes it a coin-toss. DGG ( talk ) 22:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To the contrary, AfD is not the Article Improvement Workshop. It is where the rubber meets the road at Wikipedia, where consensus on what is kept and keepable vs. deleted and deletable is decided. Some, like Mr. Hammer, LibStar, and others, push an aggressively limited inclusionary line. Others, like Col. Warden, for example, push an alternative and more expansive vision. It is a living, breathing organism where policy is formed, the results of which directly or indirectly guides New Page Patrol. Nobody's calling it a game, least of all Mr. Hammer or me. It's a process. It's not where you drag articles to get fixed, it is where inclusionary and exclusionary lines are draw, with sweeping implications for multitudes of others on the books or to be created. Trying to knee cap the ultra-inclusionists of Article Rescue Squad — as some have been trying to do lately — THAT is a "game," as you call it. Trying to take out Mr. Hammer or any other hard-line deletionist is the flip-side of the same coin — THAT is a "game". It's a very POV-driven game, might I add — both campaigns are. AfD NEEDS free discussion and competing visions. This RfC is improper because it attempts to constrain debate and reduce the range of acceptable visions qualified for participation. Carrite (talk) 22:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seldom have I seen a statement with so many things in it that I feel should be addressed. That is not a criticism, BTW; one possible interpretation is that I myself am misguided in a lot of areas and the statement corrected several of them. Or not.

Re: "There is no evidence that Mr. Hammer has been abusive of Guidelines in his nominations"; I presented evidence that on multiple occasions TPH failed to find sources that other editors found in seconds. You can dispute my conclusion, but please don't say there is no evidence after I gave you evidence.

Re: "This RfC is improper because it attempts to constrain debate and reduce the range of acceptable visions qualified for participation"; not making any effort to find sources is not in the range of acceptable visions qualified for participation. It is not an acceptable vision at all. Again, you can dispute my assertion that he doesn't look, but please don't imply that not looking is acceptable behavior.

Re: "...ultra-inclusionists of Article Rescue Squad[ron]"; the code of conduct at WP:ARS and the name "Article Rescue Squadron" say that the goal or ARS is not inclusionism, but rather improving deficient articles -- if you don't improve articles, you aren't an article rescuer. The language you have chosen - saying that TPH is not a deletionist but rather "an individual who draws inclusion boundaries a bit more stringently than the majority of Wikipedians" and saying that ARS are not just inclusionists but "ultra-inclusionists" -- says more about your POV that it does about what you are describing. Again, the problem is that TPH does not do a proper search for sources, not whether he is inclusionist or deletionist.

Re: "It is good that he is there to call people on their marginal sourcing"; Please look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xargs where it literally took me seconds to find what TPH claimed to be unable to find. Are you prepared to argue that what I did there was marginal sourcing and what he did there was calling me on it?

Re: "Certainly, some of Mr. Hammer's nominations are a bit sketchy"; as Jclemens pointed out (and many editors have endorsed) TPH has been at this for far too long to be still making sketchy nominations. It this experience level he should be exemplifying best practices, not nominating without looking for sources.

TPH should be warned, and then if he continues to fail to demonstrate an ability to conduct a thorough search for sources, he should be restricted from any deletion activities that are based upon his inability to find sources. This isn't about deletionism. It is about being far worse at finding sources than pretty much anyone else. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:24, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TPH says in his response that he too is attempting to find sources for articles. Therefore he is not acting against ARS. And characterising them as "scrambling" to find sources is, perhaps, an unfortunate turn of phrase. Currently if an article can be sufficiently sourced it should be kept, regardless of who finds the sources. Moreover, should the article fail (which, if it is just for lack of trying, would be a shame) it still does not need to be deleted, there are other options. Characterising the debate as "deletion vs inclusion" is not helpful. And indeed, while AfD probably needs major reform, there is no reason that a more balanced spectrum of results cannot be obtained with the system as it is now. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]

View by Warden

TPH seems to understand that he's not very good at this stuff and it is commendable that this does not discourage him to the point of giving up completely. But the flip side of this doggedness seems to be that he often seems too stubborn and ornery. Typical behaviour patterns seem to include escalating straight to AFD if a PROD is removed or repeating an AFD if the article is not deleted the first time around. And, if an article is improved by other editors in the course of these repeated attempts to delete, TPH seems to want to take the credit for this improvement, even though he did nothing to help.

As TPH is weak at searching for sources and improving articles, he should please show more willingness to accept the opinion of other experienced editors that improvement is feasible. In particular, if a PROD is removed by an experienced editor, he should engage in local discussion at the article rather than escalating immediately to AFD. By engaging with other experienced editors in a collegiate way rather than a confrontational way, he may pick up some tips and the overall process is more likely to go smoothly.

Warden (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Warden (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, TPH is well aware of his problems in finding sources—for example, he has stated "I suck at googling" repeatedly once he has seen others' results. Yet he moves ahead with deletion processes (speedy to Prod to AfD) without pausing to discuss with others who may be able to help. A personal example: Without discussing it with me, he prod-ed an article I wrote. Once I removed the prod, he still didn't discuss it with me or bring up issues on the talk page; he immediately escalated to AfD. When I brought up other articles that supported my reasonings in the AfD, he immediately nominated those articles for deletion as well. This is an example of what Warden refers to as TPH's doggedness. (All of those AfDs ended as "keep".) Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:46, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes,,, I too endorse the above summary. In my interactions with TPH, I have personally improved articles in AfD considerably, just to discover that he would relentlessly continue to seek the article's deletion anyway. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 04:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.[reply]
BOZ (talk) 17:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good summary -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorsed if only because peaceful discussion is nearly always better than silent confrontation. ~~I'm agnostic as to whether this advice is particular relevant to TPH.~~ Danger ^{High voltage!} 02:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. -- Zanimum (talk) 16:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorsed. It's hard to work with TPH because of the impression (accurate or not) that he would rather delete content than work with other editors to improve it. I have asked him to notify relevant WikiProjects of proposed deletions, which I think would help a lot in areas where he may not have expert knowledge. (Doing it before the prod would be even better, but this may be unreasonable to expect.) GreenReaper (talk) 07:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Dream Focus 13:32, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by SmokeyJoe

I think this unfairly focuses on User:TenPoundHammer. None of the links provided are particularly troubling. TPH shouldn't be sanctioned for breaking rules that aren't written. Instead of focusing on a single editor, I think a policy discussion is required. Most likely, WP:BEFORE needs to be prescriptively written as required practice. Or a subset of WP:BEFORE, and probably prescriptive to longterm contributors in deletion, so as to not bite newcomers.

This RFC should be closed, with Desired outcome 2 spun into a new discussion, such as converting WP:BEFORE into a new policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

I agree that this RfC is unfair on TPH. You are absolutely right that TPH cannot be sanctioned for flouting WP:BEFORE since it's not a policy. But I very strongly disagree with your suggestion to upgrade it to policy. That has been suggested several times before and repeatedly rejected, and rightly so in my opinion. The reasons include that it is too subjective to judge fairly, many editors see it as an arbitrary and irrelevant hurdle, and it shifts the focus from discussing articles to discussing editors. I've seen it used as a weapon to personally attack AfD nominators, which is totally inappropriate. Reyk _YO! 04:52, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The nominators who tend to get criticized for failure to follow BEFORE--at least by me--are the ones who 1) Make an assertion of non-notability, 2) either fail to comment on sourcing, or assert "no sources found", and 3) I come along and trivially find adequate sourcing, generally using the links within the tools linked in the AfD themselves, such that any statement made in step 2 is trivial to disprove. I do not recall seeing any editors notifying nominators of such conduct in a manner that I would term a personal attack--surely you have some specific examples in mind? One thing we can certainly do is come up with some standardized language to inform editors that they have proposed a deletion which doesn't take easily discoverable sourcing into account. Maybe such language should be standardized into a conduct advisory template, to avoid variances in the way the message might be delivered? I'm guessing that professional, conduct-focused language, even if not used directly per WP:DTTR, would provide a way that editors can be appropriately and neutrally informed of their encyclopedia-harming conduct, which they would then presumably seek to correct in future nominations. Jclemens (talk) 05:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's trivial to find examples of WP:BEFORE used to attack nominators. Here's a few, all from discussions that closed as delete: accusation of POINTyness, "disruptive deletion spree", lazy and incompetent, accusation of everything under the sun. Reyk _YO! 05:50, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - What those examples say to me is that editors need to restrict their "Speedy Keep" !votes to applications of Wikipedia:Speedy keep criteria. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - Disruption is an appropriate reason for a Speedy Keep. One is raising a procedural point of order indicating that the motion is improper for this reason. Doing so is not a personal attack if if does not address the personal qualities of the nominator. Challenging the actions of other editors is a fundamental part of Wikipedia process and calling for a speedy keep is no different from calling for a speedy delete. Please see WP:SAUCE. Warden (talk) 17:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        My issue isn't with the "speedy keep"s. I just used that as a search phrase to quickly find a large number of very weak arguments, because in my experience wherever you get weak arguments you've got a good chance of finding ad hominems as well. The point, as I've said, is WP:BEFORE forming part of attacks on nominators. I think upgrading it to policy would just make that problem worse. Reyk _YO! 21:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reyk, of course WP:BEFORE can't be simply upgraded to policy. It is aspirationally written. It was allowed to become so because it is not even written as a guideline. It is just a recommendation. Attempting to write a version into policy would be a big deal. It would be challenging. It would probably be fruitful. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed--minimum expectations and best practices are two different things. If I were to write BEFORE into a policy, I would require 1) one Google Scholar, Google News, or Google News archive search as appropriate, 2) documentation of what search was done and what was found in the AfD nomination statement. There may not even be support for that, but it is what I would like to see from every nominator to minimize the chance of nominating things that are such obvious keeps that the nomination would be widely regarded as a waste of time. Jclemens (talk) 03:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree on "moar ploicy". Agree on admins being "moar bold" and speedy keeping where they see fit. Rich Farmbrough, 11:57, 30 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Criticism is not (though I can very well understand it can feel like) an attack, nor is RFC meant to be this. If users wish to express that TPH should do more WP:BEFORE, that's fine, whether it's a policy, a guideline, an essay, or something that is made up on the spot. We don't need a page to be stamped policy to ask other editors to follow it, we just need to ask. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I just did. I think both before and after is a problem - a lack of notification, and implementing discussion conclusions like "merge" by simply redirecting the title without adding any content to its target. It gives the impression that the primary goal is to remove the article, rather than to save all content that is of use. GreenReaper (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response to TPH's response above

I’ve barely touched AfD in recent years, but I see TPH a lot of MfD. I haven’t kept notes, but my impression is that his nominations and conduct are acceptable, and even that his demeanour and nomination accuracy has been improving.
TPH’s response above rings true to me, and as I said already, this RFC/U is misdirected. There is a problem with the ease Twinkle AfD nominations, and the lack of formal requirements for deletion nominations, but the solution is not to focus on a single editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:00, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Paul Erik

I know TenPoundHammer's edits fairly well, but putting together selective diffs for an RfC about him is very difficult given that he has well over 150,000 edits. I have a vague impression that while he has had some improvement over the years in some areas of deletion (such as less frequent faulty CSDs), in other areas things have been about the same (his AfD nominations and rationales) while some problems have worsened (his frustrations [20] becoming apparent in near-attacks and sarcastic comments in AfDs).

One part of the #Statement of the dispute I disagree with is that "most" of his edits are deletions. TenPoundHammer's main focus is on building content, mostly of country music articles. He does very well when he is building those articles. He is much more likely to get into trouble when he focuses on deletions. It's part of what I see as a larger issue of his impatience (or at least what comes across as impatience).

He gets impatient about poor sourcing in articles [21], and that seems a part of what drives his deletion work. He has been warned repeatedly about civility [22] [23] but the problems continue, and even this week his frustrations spill over into AfD discussions: [24] [25] And he is still yelling in edit summaries: [26] [27] and using other strange edit summaries: [28]

We don't want to lose TPH as an editor. What are potential solutions here? He has already tried slowing his pace and other tactics [29], but that does not appear to be enough. The difficulties have persisted for years despite years of feedback. Oddly enough, I think TPH himself identified what might be needed, a long time ago: [30] Staying clear of deletion work and focusing instead on his very good content building.

Users who endorse this summary:

Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
definitely Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:27, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't going to endorse this one, because TPH does often nominate things appropriately. However, the attitude displayed in his response, seemingly proud that some of his inappropriate deletion efforts have resulted in improvement, demonstrates an unconscionable willingness to damage encyclopedic content. The fact that he didn't even notice an RfC/U for two weeks, despite appropriate notification, is an unfortunate commentary on how closely he follows his user talk page. Jclemens (talk) 05:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
""most" of his edits are deletions." You're right, this is inappropriate and I was wrong to state that in the initial post. It ignores the area that he does create content in, that of country music (not my interest, but I'd recognise that he does create a large number of ref-robust articles here). My apologies, and I'll withdraw that from the header. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it's impatience, and I don't hold with any suggestions of bad faith. That impatience all too often turns to aggression, IDHT, etc, and I'd love to see it better controlled - certainly don't want to lose TPH as a contributor -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree more with his MfDs than AfDs though. Bwrs (talk) 22:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly dedicated editor who does a hell of a lot of work. I've always been supportive of his work, even nominated him for adminship once, and still feel he's a major asset to the encyclopedia. Taking some time away from the deletion sphere and focusing on content might just be the break he needs. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Rich Farmbrough

TPH has done great work with clearing out WP:CRYSTAL future albums. And I don't have a problem with a few errors, either of fingers or of judgement. I do see a pattern of "what else needs to go" - not just with TPH but with many editors, and it makes sense, of course, to batch work, and get speedies out of the way quickly. This does lead to a systemic deletionism which needs to be guarded against - notably deletes instead of merges, which are taken to support one another - for example albums are deleted, the artist follows because he has no "notable" albums, the record label has no notable artists and gets deleted, etc... Deletion should be coralled within the boundaries of policy, well within, doubt should mean "keep" or "keep for now" or "merge" or "let someoen else do it". Only then will we be able to see if policy works when applied, and make improvements. Rich Farmbrough, 11:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Additional view by Sandstein

On April 1, 2012, I noticed a number of XfD nominations by Ten Pound Hammer that I do consider to be frivolous and disruptive, namely, a number of nominations of articles and other pages for which clearly no reason for deletion exists. These include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nyan Cat, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Backwards, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tautology (rhetoric) (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jimbo Wales (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 April 1, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion (3rd nomination), Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Don't delete the main page and this. I understand that these were meant to be jokes, but nonetheless they disrupted the articles (readers see the AfD tags) and (especially in this quantity) they disrupted Wikipedia's deletion process, which is intended to be a venue for improving the encyclopedia rather than for attempts at humor. Sandstein 18:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this view

--Guy Macon I looks a lot like thumbing his nose at this RfC. (talk) 23:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that this was done while this RfC is open is doubly poor form. Jclemens (talk) 01:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. April 1 should not be relevant in this situation. It's nothing but pure distruptiveness. -- Zanimum (talk) 16:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That someone besides TPH has to do the work to clean up seems to be a pattern. Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this view

Oppose. On the rest of this RFC, I am neutral and have no comment, but on this particular view, I must oppose. Joke AFDs on April 1 are a long-running and well-established tradition on Wikipedia. On April 1, the thing frivolous and disruptive was not what TenPoundHammer did, but the behavior of users who targeted him. It escalated from intimidatory block threats by several users to an actual punitive (rather than corrective) decision by User:Timotheus Canens to block TenPoundHammer, a block for which TenPoundHammer requested a block review and which was immediately overturned after four separate admins (User:WJBscribe, myself, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights, and User:Beeblebrox) concluded that it was, to use User:Beeblebrox's words, "a bad, out of process block". On April 1, far from being the vandal which the above view describes him as, TenPoundHammer was a victim of abuse of admin blocking power. —Lowellian (reply) 20:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm forced to agree on this point; April 1st is April 1st, and it is helpful not at all to bring these jokes into what should be a serious discussion of this editor's conduct. UltraExactZZ ^Said~ Did 12:24, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose too. It's poor judgement, but it's unrelated. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a grumpy old bastard at times, and I found the excessive April Fool attempts exceptionally irritating, both in their quantity and in their banality (If nominating an article for "joke" deletion isn't funny the first time - and it really isn't - then it certainly isn't funny the tenth time!) But this kind of waste of time appears to be tolerated by the community, and so I cannot agree that TPH has done anything accepted as wrong here. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If you want to talk about the appropriateness of April Fool's jokes and how it got a bit out of hand this year, that is another discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- I don't understand the point of bringing this up now. April fools jokes have historically been tolerated by the community. If you don't like that, start a discussion regarding April fools jokes in general rather than singling out one editor. Reyk _YO! 21:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Guy Macon

~~I would like to float the idea of imposing editing restrictions on TenPoundHammer.~~

~~I suggest that restrictions be temporary (24 hours) and escalating (one week, two months, one year) if he continues his behavior.~~

I propose that the restrictions consist of a ban on tagging any page for proposed deletion or speedy deletion, listing any page at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, merging articles, blanking, or in any other way deleting articles, broadly construed. He should be free to suggest deletions or merges on article or user talk pages.

If I understand the rules correctly, this would require that this be proposed to the arbitration committee. I am not suggesting that this be done at this time. I am only testing the waters to see if there is a consensus for imposing editing restrictions. Needless to say, the actions and numbers above are just what I pulled out of my hat; feel free to suggest other solutions. ^{Suggestion withdrawn: the consensus is clearly against asking arbcom to impose editing restrictions.} --Guy Macon (talk) 23:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users opposed to this view:

Oppose - Since this is a call for sanctions rather than an opinion, I'll boldly start an oppose section here. There has been absolutely no serious evidence presented that Mr. Hammer has engaged in systematic disruption and no consensus with any of the above views indicating that this kangaroo court should impose some sort of punitive restrictions upon him. This page never should have been started; once started it should have been immediately closed by more level heads taking a more reasonable view, once the vapid nature of the charges became evident. Useless drama over nothing... Carrite (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 18:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on general principles You don't seem to get that a user RFC is an attempt to reach a voluntary solution, we actually can't do this so you may as well strike it out unless you think you can get TPH to agree to it, which seems pretty unlikely. It's a very vague proposal anyway, wouldn't support anything so open to (mis) interpretation no matter where you posted it. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just struck it out on the basis of consensus being against it, but I would like to point out that I never suggested that we could impose editing restrictions. What we could do (if there was consensus) is to send this to arbcom with a statement that we have reached a consensus that we would like them to consider imposing editing restrictions. As I said, this is a moot point because the consensus is against it, but I disagree with the assertion that I don't "get it" or the claim that I was suggesting some sort of kangaroo court. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New View by Guy Macon:

In the response section, TPH writes "On Xargs, the reason I stubbed the article was because it had an arbitrary example farm..." This completely ignores what pretty much everyone who has looked at it is saying, both here and during the AfD. The complaint is not about him stubbing the article. The complaint is that he nominated it for deletion[31] with the rationale "Deprodded with primary source. Doesn't seem individually notable. Couldn't find any real sources." All I had to do was to type the word xargs into Google and I found three excellent sources that demonstrate notability. On the first page. This stretches the assumption of good faith to the breaking point. I can see no other explanation other than TPH writing that without bothering to look for a source. And that is a problem. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Danger

After looking through the list graciously provided by Edgepedia below, out of 28 I count 5 "bad" noms (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of April Fool's Day jokes (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Carnatic instrumentalists (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of games with concealed rules, ‪Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of country performers by era‬, ‪Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/They Will Have Their Way‬), where the consensus was overwhelmingly "keep" and there was very little to no support for deletion/merger/redirect. An additional 4 of these noms seem to have been made on the behalf of other editors who pressed the wrong buttons. So, an error rate of ~20%. Yes, that's probably a bit high. I think the takeaway from this, TPH, is that Wikipedia likes lists a lot more than you do, so think extra hard when nomming them. (Wikipedia likes footballers much more than I do, so I try not to look too hard at those articles; we all have to make compromises to work together, no?)

You also seem to have a bit of a problem badgering "keep" voters. (I don't think this edit can be construed as anything other than losing your shit completely.) So, um... stop that. I frankly don't know how else to put it. Danger ^{High voltage!} 21:38, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this view

That diff is pretty concerning, and would be outright blockable if fresh. Jclemens (talk) 23:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the sentiment about needing to dial back the badgering. Just chiming in for that. I don't think in general, Mr. Hammer's nominations are too far off the mark, even if he interprets inclusion lines differently than I do personally. Carrite (talk) 03:11, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this view

Considering that 18.9% of AFDs close as Keep, I think a 20% failure rate from TPH is pretty well in line with community practice. Nor do I see anything hugely concerning in that diff; I've seen people "lose their shit", as you put it, and that frustrated outburst doesn't come close. Reyk _YO! 00:07, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1. Note that Danger is claiming 20% nominations that were massively opposed, not failure rate. Taking the last 250 participated AfD's before Aprils Fools day ( http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/afdstats.cgi?name=TenPoundHammer&max=250&startdate=20120400&altname= ), on participation, there is 55% with consensus, 33.5% against consensus and 10% closed no consensus. For the AfD's that TPH was the nom of, I count 93 AfD's initiated that have closed now. Of those 50 were keep, speedy keep or merge, the rest is a no consensus or delete. That's nommed against consensus on 54%. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just looking this whole RFC over real quick, and happened to look at the diff they you provided Danger. I read that and, while I'm sure there was some honest frustration there, it struck me as an uproariously funny comment. I wonder if what I perceive to be TPH's dry humor comes across as... something else, to many other readers.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dry, in this context, means subtle and understated. TPH's rant in this case was quite the opposite — more of a primal scream. Warden (talk) 08:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Reyk Bulwersator (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Bulwersator (limited to template:cleanup issue)

From "Evidence of disputed behavior": "War on templates (WP:DISRUPTIVE) Nominating {{cleanup}} over and over again: January 11, June 2011, another attempt at DRV, February 2012".

Renominating after more than six months is nothing wrong and resulted in a successful RFC that may fix part of the problems listed in TfD nom. I see nothing that may be called disruptive. Bulwersator (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by TenPoundHammer

Can't think of anywhere else to put this...

I think some people are getting out of hand with what they do to me. For instance, Colonel Warden in this AFD called my nomination "another ludicrous TPH nomination" — is that not an ad hominem attack? Immediately afterward, Miltowent makes a baseless argument ("Clearly ABC is a notable organization, this is simply an organizational issue, not an AfD issue.") — when I point out WP:NOTINHERITED, I get a snarky response of WP:HEREARESOMEOTHERINITIALS. Warden's comments in particular have me concerned that some editors are trying to run me off the wiki just because they disagree with me.

I will admit, as before, that my work is not the cleanest. But still, I feel people are focusing way too much on my mistakes. The comments above are borderline attacks, and as mentioned before, the tone of Dingley throughout this RFC/U smacks of "I hate Hammer's modus operandi, I'm gonna run him off". Does it not matter that I've made over 1200 articles? That I also fight vandalism? That most of my XFDs are problem-free, regardless of whether they result in "keep" or "delete"? I challenge anyone to show me any XFD I've made that shows bad faith (besides Xargs — I honestly don't know how I screwed up that one). I'm not afraid to admit that some of my actions are blunt, and that I do screw up — but certainly far more of my actions are in the form of "not screwing up". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You were recently blocked for making multiple bad-faith XFD nominations. Your most recent nomination — Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of lists of lists — seems to be yet another frivolous nomination and it seems quite foolhardy to be doing this during an RfC/U. If the bulk of your time here is spent doing good works then you should consider staying away from XfD altogether and content yourself with the other work. If you don't pull in your horns then there are likely to be consequences. You are yourself currently at ANI trying to get another editor run off the project on the grounds of competence. Per WP:SAUCE, you should not be surprised if the same happens to you. Warden (talk) 09:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was blocked not for bad faith XFD nominations, but for prank XFDs on April Fools' Day. Those are not the same thing. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As for the location of this particular discussion, I think the talk page might be technically best. That's what happened in my RfC/U - that dialogue was conducted on the talk page. Warden (talk) 09:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TPH, I've only commented once in this RFC, and as I said above, "If he was more reliably right in his nominations, he would be much more valuable." You can do better. I don't get as irritated with editors who are simply incompetent due to inexperience. (this can be moved to talk page if it all goes there.)--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Dream Focus

Time and again over the years I see this editor nominating things without bothering to do even a quick check for sources, as well as his habit of renominating things he had nominated before and failed to get deleted. I'll find some examples.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Micromechanical Flying Insect Everyone else said keep, and it was closed as snow keep. Sources were very easy to find. The Google news archive search button easily finds sources straight away, as I mentioned in that AFD.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1-up (2nd nomination) He started the first AFD which ended on 7 October 2011 with Keep. He nominates it a second time on 9 November 2011, it ending in Keep that time as well.

Can someone make a bot to check for AFD nominations he did which had second nominations initiated by the same person that did the first one? A clear pattern can be found with enough effort or just a clever bot. I promise you, this has happened plenty of times. Dream Focus 13:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The 1-up one was over a year old. Everyone was arguing WP:ITSNOTABLE the first time around and no one did a damn thing to fix the article. Even after the 2nd nomination the page is still dodgy. Somebody else's problem much? I think you can see my frustration. I've at least stopped doing rapid renominations. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:52, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whether you wait a year before trying again, doesn't make any difference. The same person should not be renominating the same article. And what about the dozens/hundreds of other things you renominated? We really need a bot to gather up the stats. Dream Focus 23:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The same person renominating is not always a bad thing. I see no problem with the same person renominating if the first AFD closed as "no consensus", was affected by sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry, or closed on an invalid rationale. I won't deny that some of my past AFDs are a bit tenacious, but I'm trying to be more careful lately about not renominating something I've done before unless I feel the prior AFD one of the aforementioned criteria. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How many articles does TenPoundHammer nominate for deletion or prod? How many of those are kept? Is there a currently working tool that checks these things? Dream Focus 23:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Why don't you try asking at WP:VP(T) LadyofShalott 16:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Never heard of that before, and looking it over, don't think they could help. And since he isn't denying this, no sense and looking for proof. Dream Focus 18:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Is the keep/delete ratio really that big an issue? If like, every one I made were a keep, then yes. I would say that plenty of return visitors to AFD submit stuff that ends up being kept. Not shrugging off my responsibility here, but just how big a ratio are you looking for from me anyway? As I've pointed out above, I can't think of any "rapid" renominations I've made in recent memory, barring anything that closed as "no consensus" the last time. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by DennisTheTiger

I've gone ahead and reviewed what's at hand a bit, and I'm chiming in as somebody who, I will confess, gets a little overenthusiastic about deletions sometimes when I'm combing through New Pages. (See my other account, user:Dennisthe2, for this activity.)

To be perfectly frank, as it was pointed out above, hey, we make mistakes sometimes. I'm going to be open here and note that I will sometimes use the notion of "seems legit" as a gauge for AFDs. The caveat, though, is that this is not me trying to use AFD to spur cleanup. (Granted, if I'm wrong and WP:SNOW applies, I'll close it as soon as I figure it out - usually, this is the next day.)

Frankly speaking, I'm pretty well willing to AGF on the part of TPH - quite frankly, we're human, we make mistakes. If anything, maybe chilling out a little is the Right Thing.

--Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 02:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to use the talk page for discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.

Should the "Comments" section above be moved to the talk page? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:48, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, leave it alone. Don't fix it while it is running. Instead, consider fixing the template for future use. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an easy way to seach for all AfD pages TPH has created?
Is there an easy way to count how often TPH's nominations result in "Keep", "Delete" or something else, and compare with community averages? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That would be this, but it stops at mid-March, due to problems with the server which generates the results. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 02:26, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to "pinch" of salt the results. Like any automated process analysing text it isn't 100% accurate (for example, it lists me as !voting keep in an AfD where I argued more than once for deletion) possibly because I put a further response indented under a keep !vote by another editor. QU ^TalkQu 09:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A list of AfD pages TPH created in March 2012

Edgepedia (talk) 13:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

No escalation to another forum or user sanctions have gained any consensus here. Instead TenPoundHammer acknowledges that some of his nominations to AfD are problematic and will endeavor to make nominations more in line with current community consensus (as proposed by Hasteur.) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.