Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 12

12 December 2007

Kevin_Kinchen

Kevin_Kinchen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)

In_What_Way_Does_Article_does_not_indicate_subjects_importance_or_significance? Castawayred (talk) 07:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC) >

• Weakly endorse deletion (there were two deletions, but the second was for an incorrectly placed {{DRVnote}} tag) - the article looks only barely speediable under A7, but if overturned and sent to AFD, it would likely not survive. --Coredesat 11:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Articles needing an infobox

Category:Articles needing an infobox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (restore|cache|CfD)

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 December 1#Category:Articles needing an infobox for the CfD of this and its subcategories. I don't think that this CfD had enough discussion before closing as all pages involved were not notified during the discussion. I disagree with the nominator's/closer's rationale and argument, which is essentially that the categories being named in the format as "X articles needing infoboxes" is presumptive and no one should be making a determination of what an article needs. I find the change to "X articles without infoboxes" unnecessary and incorrect, as there are articles that are without infoboxes but don't need them. The common usage of these categories comes from WikiProject templates, where WikiProject members use these categories as internal mechanisms, used by other members to know what the WikiProject has determined the articles need. On the contrary to the nominator's rationale, I propose that standard usage of infoboxes in many, many articles represents a consensus that most articles tagged by WikiProjects as needing an infobox do indeed need one and aren't just without one. It is similar in nature to that of Category:Articles needing attention and its subcats. Rkitko ^(talk) 01:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Just to be clear, I don't disagree with the singular vs. plural deduction from the CfD, just the rewording from needs/needing to without. --Rkitko ^(talk) 01:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

If that's the case, and this gets overturned, then all the newly renamed categories could easily be transferred into their "needing" equivalent. I'm not saying that's what I'd do, but now they're all named similarly and so they'd only need a one-word change.--Mike Selinker (talk) 07:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• Overturn and relist. Many of the categories in question still have CfD templates on them, and none of the changes that were aggreed upon in the closure appear to have happened. Category:Articles needing infoboxes links to the deleted category that it was supposed to be replacing, as well. I doubt the CfD was closed properly. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 01:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I did happen to interrupt the editor doing all the work mid-way, so I assume that's the reason it's not complete. I have a feeling that User:Mike Selinker would have finished and cleaned them all up soon. Rkitko ^(talk) 01:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, I've finished all the template changes but it takes a while for the talk pages to finish processing. When they're done, the original categories will be deleted, as some already have been. (I did miss the category redirect, though. Thanks for catching that.) So it is technically still in process, but no manual work remains to be done.--Mike Selinker (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
• Closer's rationale. There was complete unanimity for a change from "needing" to "without," and changing from the domains of the WikiProjects to the general topics (e.g., "WikiProject Schools articles" to "School articles"), as the projects do not own the articles. However, I can see that presuming that all the subcategories should change in the same way (not just the ones listed in the nomination) may have been overstepping. I expect almost all would pass on their own, but if there are some that people see as outliers to this principle, then I don't object to relisting those.--Mike Selinker (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

  Comment - I see four users participating in the discussion for a period of only three days (once the idea of "needing" -> "without" began) before it was closed. The section title did not indicate that the decision would affect all of the myriad subcategories, and neither did the initial discussion lean that way. The controversy comes on the one hand from a sudden shift in direction of the CfD, and on the other hand from the renaming/deletion of categories that were never put up for discussion. Those latter changes were made out of process, and should be restored regardless of the outcome of this review. They can then be put up for CfD, if that is deemed appropriate. We should not have to relist items that never underwent the CfD process. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• Uphold There is no requirement at Cfd that Projects are notified. I think, as Mike says, a middle course could perhaps be struck here, limiting the decision to those categories actually listed this time, with a further debate on the others. I understand what Rkitko is saying, but these days (thanks to the dreaded betacommandbot), most articles seem to be in multiple categories, and there are very often different views between the projects as to whether infoboxes are desirable, or which infobox is desirable. For example, the Biography project plasters all articles with "infobox needed" (meaning theirs), when for artists the Visual arts Project (to which the writing editors nearly always belong), do not support an automatic infobox, & often prefer a painting infobox to a biography infobox (partly because the artist infoboxes get filled in very inaccurately by bio people, and take up valuable picture space). There are many similar conflicts, so the appearance of prescriptiveness is best avoided. Very few projects are in fact so cohesive and organised that their views in this matter should be encouraged to override the view of the writing editors of the article anyway - Project Military history is perhaps the only one I can think of in this class. I wonder how many projects have actually taken a collective decision to use infoboxes anyway - I suspect often one or two people create it & then just go with it if no-one objects. I see Rkitko is from the science side, & I appreciate their boxes often seem much better than humanities ones. But at the end of the day, if you want to know what boxes are missing, either wording does the job fine. Johnbod (talk) 02:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Thanks for your thoughts! I can see the rationale for some projects and agree it might be appropriate to be more neutral for some as in the given example. On the other side, in all my time here I have only bumped into one user who has expressed disdain for the Tree of Life infobox (i.e. the taxobox). I haven't taken a complete consensus of all WP:TOL subprojects, but all of them seem to have no problem with the taxobox and they rarely overlap with other project like you describe - or if they do overlap, such as with a geographic-related WikiProject, there is no appropriate infobox that those WikiProjects would desire to put in place of the taxobox. Taxoboxes are pretty much standard on any TOL article, except for things such as Illiciales, where the taxon is pretty much no longer used and a page is only needed to describe it's treatment in the many systems that exist. So perhaps what I'm getting at here is at least the "needing taxobox" categories should be discussed in more length. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 02:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
• Overturn - The revised name is wholly inappropriate for TOL articles. There are many, many organism articles that have no taxobox and shouldn't. For example, the Fish article has no infobox, but it should not have a Taxobox because it is not a taxon. The same is true of Bryophyte, Algae, Marine mammal and countless other organism articles. These pages are not taxa, and so do not have a Taxobox as a result. However, there is also a desire on the part of all the various TOL groups to include taxoboxes on articles that are about taxa (formally recognized groups), as well as infoboxes on articles about important strains and cultivars. When these pages lack such a box, it is important that they receive one. Unfortunately, with the newly revised category names (e.g. Category:Plant articles without taxoboxes), the category name is nonsensical and useless to the project using it. There are many, many articles within the scope of WP:PLANTS that have no taxobox and never will. The plant physiology article will not (and should not) have a taxobox; it is a discipline, not a taxon. Likewise, the Leaf article should not have a taxobox, and neither should Algae, Bryophyte, Fish, etc. For all the TOL Wikiprojects, there is a clearly defined, and very important, distinction between articles that should have taxoboxes and articles that should not have taxoboxes. Whether an article is simply without such a taxobox is irrelevant and useless information. What is important is locating the articles that need such a box. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm definitely hearing strong reasons why the taxobox categories should not be treated the same way as the infobox categories, and so as the closer, I would support reverting those. I didn't see any difference before, but I'm starting to now.--Mike Selinker (talk) 07:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)