List of pedophiles ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( restore)

This was not sent to AFD, and there was no reason to instantly delete it. A simple rename to People convicted of child sexual abuse would've solved any problems, the article only listing people in that category. category: People convicted of child sexual abuse Dream Focus 00:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Note: The article was speedy deleted 16:16, 16 November 2012 [1] and "heavily endorsed WP:IAR deletion. Further discussion unlikely to generate additional benefit" was the close of a 16:23, 16 November 2012 AN discussion about the List of pedophiles article and its speedy deletion. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 13:28, 22 November 2012 (UTC) reply

Clarify: There was no valid reason for a speedy delete, it was just an ignore all rules action. A dozen or so people appear to have agreed with him in the discussion mentioned on the administrative noticeboard and it rapidly closed 9 hours later before anyone else could participate. Dream Focus 13:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion and trouting of nominator. Major BLP issues, and entirely inappropriate. -- Rs chen 7754 00:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • What BLP issues? There were sources for the five entries showing these people were convicted of this crime, and they all had their own articles listing that they did. Dream Focus 00:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • See comments below, this is turning into WP:IDHT. -- Rs chen 7754 08:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion, unsurprisingly, as the one who originally raised concerns about this page. Inappropriate, with no way it could ever be made appropriate.  Mogism ( talk) 00:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • How is it inappropriate? If they are identified as this by a category already, and through information on their Wikipedia pages, then how is this any different? Dream Focus 00:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#List_of_pedophiles for an explanation of why, although I'm sure you're already aware. The search engines and the mirror sites cache pages, but don't cache categories - so, when a kid adds their geography teacher to the page, it's preserved for years across the internet and shows up in Google searches on his name, which isn't the case when it's added to a category.  Mogism ( talk) 00:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • It won't last for years, because Google updates its cache. Any vandalism can easily be removed. Vandalism happens throughout Wikipedia, we don't use that as excuse to eliminate articles. Dream Focus 00:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion - See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#List_of_pedophiles. - jc37 00:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • You didn't even comment in that discussion. You need to state your reason here, not just link there. Dream Focus 00:39, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Treat it as:Endorse - "per the consensus results of that discussion". - jc37 00:43, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion - As demonstrated by the clear consensus at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#List_of_pedophiles, this was the correct call. -- Allen3  ^talk 00:43, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Deleting admin comment; (implicit endorse, obviously). That list's existence suffers from a number of fatal flaws that make its very presence inappropriate:
  • (a) Unlike a category, a list-article pops up prominently in search results. Having random names pop up a result named "List of pedophiles" or whatever other analogue titles is extraordinarily detrimental to anyone whose name happens to be on this list – whether they actually are the same person or not. Unlike an article which has enough context to quickly figure out that the result is coincidental even in the search engine extract, a list is devoid of context.
  • (b) That lack of context is also makes BLP compliance impossible. Even if every person on this list was primarily notable only because they had been convicted of such an offense (thus possibly barely avoiding UNDUE), the simple fact that a serial rapist/murderer on children might be associated with someone culpable of having had consensual sex with a partner just a few years younger is incredibly prejudicial and raises insurmountable BLP issues.
  • (c) The list is ridiculous on its face by its very definition (an argument, by the way, which also applies to the category): "child sexual abuse" (let alone "pedophile" on the original title) is a jurisdiction- and community-dependent term that means that someone may end up on this list because they were in one country that wouldn't have been 60 miles away. The inclusion criteria is just as variable as "List of people whose surname has more letters than the city they live in" and just as meaningless for encyclopaedic purposes. The list, if complete, would have to include together serial rapist of little children and the poor 18 year old kid that ended up in the tabloids for having sex with his 17 year old boyfriend in Texas. —  Coren  ^(talk) 00:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Inclusion criteria is often listed at the top of such list to avoid any problems. This list includes people notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles, who have been convicted of child sexual abuse. Dream Focus 00:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Which makes inclusion in the list UNDUE unless that is the sole reason they are notable; exactly like making the article primarily about that would have. —  Coren  ^(talk) 00:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
        • Everyone in the category is there for that purpose already category: People convicted of child sexual abuse. Otherwise they'd just be listed as sex offenders as Roman Polanski is. Write out at the top that the inclusion criteria is that they are known primarily for that reason. Dream Focus 01:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
          • You make a good argument that the category should go too. —  Coren  ^(talk) 01:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion In the UK the Director General of the BBC has just had to resign due to a programme taking seriously unfounded web allegations against someone claiming he was a paedophile. Such a list as this would be a magnet for spreading this sort of allegation. At least one of the British papers has argued that the libel resulted from a confusion between people of the same surname. We've had problems in the past with lists such as that of actors in gay porn videos in which there have been links to people of the same name that were not the actors in question. So, even if this list were renamed and accurately recorded the names of people who had been convicted, there would still be a major risk of libelling people who are innocent.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 00:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Anyone on the list would have their own article though. They could confirm it wasn't someone with the same name as someone else. The fact that someone screwed up badly on the BBC, doesn't have anything to do with this. He obviously wasn't qualified for the job if he didn't bother to check his sources as newspapers often do to avoid libel. Dream Focus 00:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Oppose. A posting on Wikipediocracy and the permanent decision to delete are one and the same act, as the site is Wikipedia's mode of governance; but theoretically, in terms of encyclopedic value and community governance, it is comparable to List of rampage killers, and the community was entitled to decide a controversial deletion. So far as I know, no specific claim was made that one of these people was not identified as a pedophile in reliable sources, though I see no point double checking as nothing will come of it. The value of open-ended lists of any kind, for any reason, might be debated; but in truth this is simply an "OMG this is too hot to handle" response - the same response that college and church administrators have shown time and time again to build up such a fine list to begin with. Coren makes a fair argument that perhaps it is time to put a robots.txt message banning Google indexing of anything on Wikipedia - maybe that is a way to end the site's fear to do what it is for, and reduce the impact of power warriors and spammers who are tearing it apart. Wnt ( talk) 00:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I have much better things to do with my time than monitor Wikipediocracy. I had no idea that thread even existed before it was mentioned in the AN thread, and don't particularly care what the people who frequent that forum see as a problem or not. That some people there may have noticed that list's existence was a horrible problem is just further proof that most people can see that this is the case. —  Coren  ^(talk) 00:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion The discussion at AN overwhelmingly endorsed the IAR deletion ( permalink). Pursuing ultimate freedom is not Wikipedia's role, and it would be a misuse of the encyclopedia to allow such a drama magnet to be hosted on WMF servers. Apart from the obvious issues (well, obvious to some), there are many mirror sites which scrape Wikipedia continually, and someone's brilliant joke about their teacher being a pedo would end up permanently on the Internet and in search engines. Johnuniq ( talk) 01:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • It would not be permanently on the internet or in search engines. They update their cache regularly so any vandalism would be eliminated rather quickly, if it lasted long enough in the article to be noticed at all. Dream Focus 01:21, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Overturn, renaming to List of people convicted for underage sex, and putting it -at the very least- permanent semiprotection. I want to answer Coren's arguments one by one:
  • Unlike an article which has enough context to quickly figure out that the result is coincidental even in the search engine extract, a list is devoid of context. - False. Lists can contain context: if they're not a mere list of names, but a table containing also information about the crime, the conviction, etc. Comparable BLP-sensitive examples can be List of disbarments in the United States, or List of rampage killers.
  • the simple fact that a serial rapist/murderer on children might be associated with someone culpable of having had consensual sex with a partner just a few years younger is incredibly prejudicial - True, it is. But again, this assumes a lack of context which can be easily avoided. Also I would avoid completely words like "pedophile" and "child sex abuse", and use the much more neutral "underage sex", which would make sense in the context.
  • "child sexual abuse" (let alone "pedophile" on the original title) is a jurisdiction- and community-dependent term - Agreed; however including geographical information in the list, along with a brief blurb about the relevant laws and the reason of the conviction would make this concern moot. Laws change in space and time, yes, but this doesn't make the list pointless.
• I agree such a list could be a BLP-vandalism magnet. Therefore it should be put under permanent semiprotection (if not full protection), with edits asked on the talk page. This would eliminate the rest of the concerns and still allow to provide a valuable navigational aid. -- Cyclopia ^talk 01:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • You're making a decent argument for a list like you've described (though I wouldn't support it, a list like that would not have needed an out of process deletion). The thing is, the page whose deletion we are reviewing here is nothing like that which you describe. I don't think the present deletion implies that no reasonable useful list is possible, only that the existing one was fatally flawed. —  Coren  ^(talk) 01:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I haven't seen the original list but I understand what you mean. This is an interesting case: we have a possible reasonable useful list which however needs to maintain very high standards before even being considered of inclusion. What should be done in this case? Userfying (with NOINDEX?) -- Cyclopia ^talk 01:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • There would be very little point in userifying that one anyways; there were about a half-dozen names on it, and absolutely no useful context. Personally, if you wanted to go about creating such a list, I'd start with creating a mock-up in userspace and seek community input before even considering bringing it live. Pretty much by definition, such a list is bound to be contentious and if you can fix problems before it becomes an article, the likelihood of it being valuable and staying there increase a great deal. —  Coren  ^(talk) 01:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion as an inappropriate black-list-esque page that serves no positive encyclopedic purpose as far as I can tell. Any decent article about a subject convicted of such a crime will cover the verifiable material with respect to WP:UNDUE anyway. ~ GabeMc ^{( talk| contribs)} 01:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse Entirely appropriate action given the BLP concerns expressed. Reso lute 01:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse I'm actually a bit shocked we're still debating good decisions like this. MBisanz ^talk 01:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Endorse deletion. An obvious gross vandalism magnet. Devoid of context, it is meaningless anyway. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 01:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion While the edit filter nowadays does a pretty good job of picking up "Mr. X is a p(a)edophile" vandalism, list-style articles make it far too easy to make malicious edits, and it is in any event more appropriate to use a category from a well-sourced biography. BLP concerns make summary deletion appropriate. Acroterion (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion. Coren and I agree on about three things a year. This deletion one of them. In this case, I disagree with Coren about creating or drafting anything along these lines even in userspace, because userspace is google-searchable. Massive BLP magnet. Risker ( talk) 01:54, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletiom As being required by Wikipedia policies and common sense. Collect ( talk) 04:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion Really? This needs discussion? Jauerback ^dude?/ _dude. 05:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion- a vandalism magnet and constant BLP nightmare. The existence of an article like this would be a net negative. Reyk _YO! 06:03, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse – Are you kidding me? -- MuZemike 07:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Relist at AFD This list had existed for years and there are comparable lists and categories which are in a worse state, e.g. Category:Pedophilia or List of serial killers in the United States. There seemed to be no pressing reason requiring immediate action and the deleter openly stated that their action was "out of process". Taking action in this way seems contrary to WP:CENSOR. Warden ( talk) 11:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • The page was created at the end of last month; I raised concerns on 11 November, after a couple of weeks watching it to confirm the author wasn't going to improve it (the creator of the article retired from Wikipedia a week after he created it); it was deleted on the 16th. Where have you got "existed for years" from?  Mogism ( talk) 13:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Thanks for clarifying the article's history. I'm not sure where I got a different idea from but suppose that that the references to it being a vandalism magnet have something to do with it. Was it ever vandalised or otherwise problematic while you were watching it? Not being an admin, I can't inspect the article's history directly as it is deleted. Warden ( talk) 14:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Absolute endorse deletion This was a BLP violation-magnet, and all the watchers in the world won't prevent teenagers who think they're funny from potentially destroying another human being's life. ( ✉→ BWilkins ←✎) 12:00, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • That's what semiprotection is for. -- Cyclopia ^talk 15:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • What parallel universe are you writing from, where jokers who think that they're funny are magically unable to get Wikipedia accounts? And is there a gateway to it from this universe? Because I could then point the Wikipedia editors who would love to inhabit a joke-vandalism-free Wikipedia in the direction of your magic parallel universe. ☺ Uncle G ( talk) 21:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Semiprotection works well, since blocking new users and IP addresses from editing potential problem areas, prevents any real problems. Jokesters aren't going to go around making legitimate edits and waiting for the chance to be able to edit there. Dream Focus 21:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• For general information: Colonel Warden may be alluding to List of self-identified pedophiles, which was variously named List of famous pedophiles and List of pedophiles and pederasts, and which was discussed on Votes For Deletion in 2003, having been nominated for deletion the same day that it was created. List of self-identified pederasts and pedophiles was created in 2004, discussed at Votes for Deletion, and also deleted. Unfortunately for Colonel Warden's point, that means that there are two prior consensuses for deletion at what is now AFD. And no, if you look at the 2004 and 2003 discussions you'll find all of the same points as put forward now were raised then ("troll/vandal magnet", "potentially libellous", "unencyclopaedic", "dodgy and innaccurate", "unmaintainable"), and consensus has not changed in nine years.

  One could well advance the argument that Coren was implementing past AFD consensus per speedy deletion criterion #G4, even though xe didn't know it. ☺

  Uncle G ( talk) 14:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• No, I was not aware of those discussions and they seem so old that they wouldn't count for much now. For example, see this recent discussion in which an old consensus to delete did not stand up. In that case, the nominating admin contemplated a G4 but "hesitated and went to AfD instead of speedy [because] the previous discussion was in back in 2006." Anyway, in this case, the edit summary for the deletion suggested that it was speedy deletion criterion #G10: "Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose." Warden ( talk) 14:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion. BLP, spam, and vandal magnet that does not build the encyclopedia. -- No unique names 15:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion, per above and my comments here. Herostratus ( talk) 16:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse - Proper use of admin tools to get rid of a horrendous article. Noting that the primary overturners are WP:ARS members, a prime example of out-of-touch this wiki-project is with the rest of the encyclopedia. Tarc ( talk) 19:02, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Speaking for myself, I'm not active on ARS at all unfortunately. But if by being "out of touch" you mean "dissenting from people who shoot articles first and ask questions later" and if you mean "people that solve problems destructively instead than constructively" then well, I take it as a compliment. Also, let's not confuse "the rest of the encyclopedia" with "deletion discussion regulars". -- Cyclopia ^talk 19:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Primary? What does that mean? Four people opposed to this action, and two of them are in the ARS? You just felt the need to take a swipe at a Wikiproject you don't like, which has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. Dream Focus 20:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Tarc might be pointing out that one person here wrote "Oppose", without seemingly cottoning on to the fact that that's confusing at best, not a DRV shorthand, and actually means, when read as if this were a poll rather than a discussion, that xe opposes you, Dream Focus. ☺ Uncle G ( talk) 21:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I'm sorry if either of you were confused. I understood that he meant opposed the deletion, and hopefully most others had the reasoning ability to understand that as well. Dream Focus 21:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I am pointing out the reactionary knee-jerkism of the Article Rescue Squad...Dream Focus, Cyclopia, and Warden...who never met an article that they didn't want to keep. Even one so blatantly stupid and ill-advised as this one was. Tarc ( talk) 23:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
        • who never met an article that they didn't want to keep. - Hoaxes, nonsense and unverifiable stuff I don't want to keep. Verifiable information yes, I want to keep. So far looks that this specific article had potential issues that I gladly acknowledged above in my response to Coren, but that in my humble opinion could have been fixed by using our protection mechanisms instead than outright deletion. What is "reactionary knee-jerkism" is the sense of entitlement that unfortunately leads some editors to feel they can teach our readers what they should be interested in or not. -- Cyclopia ^talk 23:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
          • Coming from someone who once strenuously argued to keep an article about a woman with a lot of rabbits, your opinion on BLP-related matters is essentially worthless. Tarc ( talk) 04:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
            • You mention an AFD from over three years ago about something totally unrelated. This is a totally different situation. We're talking about a list article, aiding in navigation, listing people who have Wikipedia articles about them already for being primarily known for being convicted of sexually abusing children. Dream Focus 08:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
              • An article I'd defend again, since it was about a notable subject. But well, I could also say that from someone who shows this on his user page and later brags about not following WP:BEFORE, any opinion on everything dealing with building an encyclopedia is essentialy worthless too. -- Cyclopia ^talk 09:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                • There's nothing wrong with saying BEFORE is not mandatory, because it isn't. Reyk _YO! 10:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                  • Funny, because our deletion process instructions explicitly say, at WP:BEFORE: "Prior to nominating articles(s) for deletion, please be sure to:..." [emphasis mine]. But that's not the point, it could very well be facultative. After all, a lot of things are not mandatory here. What I was noticing is simply that bragging about not even checking what an article is about before nominating it doesn't strike me as a constructive attitude. -- Cyclopia ^talk 10:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                    • BEFORE is discredited in the eyes of many because it has often been used as a tool to atack deletion nominators. Reyk _YO! 00:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                      • Discredited in the eyes of those who are too lazy to do a brief search for reliable sources before wasting everyone's time with pointless deletion nominations. You click the Google news archive search button at the top of the AFD, and if you find there are major newspapers covering something, then you know the person was to lazy to do a quick check on their own. Its shameful. Sometimes it takes some work to find things, but usually it does not. Dream Focus 00:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                        • More like, 'you haven't jumped through my shopping list of arbitrary hoops and you don't think my shopping list of marginal or unrelated sources is as awesome as I do, so I'm going to call you lazy'. Reyk _YO! 00:37, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply
                          • Reyk, sorry, but a brief search for RS is not a "shopping list of arbitrary hoops", it's the obvious thing to do unless you just want to waste everyone's time rejecting nonsensical nominations. And in fact it's explicitly indicated as something you have to do before a nomination. You don't like to do it? Excellent, then don't bother nominating articles and leave people with more specific competence doing it. -- Cyclopia ^talk 12:10, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Strongly endorse per the other endorsers' comments above. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion - good grief! >.< - Alison ^❤ 23:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strongest possible endorse per, well, everyone above. No further comment needed. Robofish ( talk) 23:25, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion per User:Rschen7754. Ripberger ( talk) 23:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strong endorse, speaking in fact as a rather strong supporter of the ARS, who should not be collectively blamed for this. @Cyclopia, readers are allowed to be interested in whatever they please, but that doesn't mean that this is necessarily the place they should find it. If it were proposed to censor such material from the entire web, then I think your comments might be more applicable. DGG ( talk ) 01:28, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply

  Do you have a problem with the category then? Or the articles themselves talking about the people listed in the list article or the categories? I don't see why most would be in fine with categories Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_November_18#Category:People_convicted_of_child_sexual_abuse while against a list article showing the same information. Should we delete the List of serial killers by country as well? How is listing all the articles we have for people known primarily for being convicted of sexually abusing children in a list article, a problem? Dream Focus 02:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• DGG, with that I was referring to the general rehash for the eternal inclusionism-vs-deletionism debate that Tarc has stirred. But I'm surprised to hear such a weak argument from you. After all we are here to serve the readers, not to build our little walled garden. The point is not that we should include everything -in fact, we shouldn't. We should only include verifiable, sourced information, at a minimum. We should not allow original research. But once we deal with verifiable stuff, we should not have any more significant biases in what we include. Everytime someone uses the infamous "editorial judgement" in such a decision, they're basically smearing our coverage with personal biases (or with those of a narrow community of editors).

But this is not the place for such a philosophical discussion. Regarding what is discussed here, I'd have simply put the article under full protection and double-checked all names listed were germane to the list. If IAR had to be used, it would be to keep the protection level high forever, so that no edit could slip before being triple-checked, and this I would have enthusiastically endorsed. Because that is literally all that was needed to avoid any BLP issues, still providing a navigational aid that could have been improved by third parties, and I've heard no argument that demonstrates this wouldn't be the case. That's the simple reason I recommend overturn. I understand consensus is agains this, and I acknowledge that (that's also why I didn't bring it personally to DRV, even if I saw the discussion on the WP:AN). But well, consensus in this case seems to have chosen the easier but more destructive route. -- Cyclopia ^talk 09:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion. The topic of the article is a BLP nightmare and a libel magnet. The deletion was out of process but completely appropriate given the circumstances. A solid application of ignoring the rules. elektrik SHOOS ( talk) 03:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion and close, as per Coren's well articulated explanation and others similar comments- Youreally can 04:22, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion and reconsidering my opinion of some folks here and endorse looking more closely at some of the pages/categories used as WP:OTHERSTUFF in this discussion. - UnbelievableError ( talk) 05:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• While any article at that title is going to be seriously problematic, I'm not persuaded that deletion was necessary to solve the problem. At the time of deletion the list consisted of five names, all high-profile cases of people convicted of child sex abuse (or related offences) who had served prison terms and where the incident in question was covered in considerable detail in the subject's article. I would suggest renaming to something like List of people convicted of child sex abuse, restricting the scope to people who have been convicted of the offence and where the allegations are covered in depth in their article, and applying protection if the list is used abusively. I see no reason to think that such a list would be any worse than, say, List of serial killers by country. Hut 8.5 16:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Overturn and fix The list is easily fixed by renaming to complement the conviction category. Such an obvious non-deletion fix being ignored is sadly indicative of the heavy handed trigger happy deletionism that passes for adminship these days. CallawayRox ( talk) 20:36, 19 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion This is one of those rare cases where WP:NOTDUP fails, as there is a significant difference between a category and a list in regards to this subject because of the BLP concerns. Keeping it as a category and not as a list would be a far better way to go about it. Silver seren ^C 05:11, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Not to pick on you personally, but this seems a convenient place to point out that the supposed superiority of categories for such information is false. As noted at WP:NOTDUP, categories have the following weaknesses which seem significant in this case:

1. There is no provision for referencing, to verify a topic meets a category's criteria of inclusion
2. Tracking changes to a category is effectively impossible because...
3. A category's edit history does not show when entries were added or removed from the category
4. Wikipedia's watchlist feature is useless for tracking changes to a category's membership
5. Gives no context for any specific entry, nor any elaboration

By contrast, a list is superior because it can be annotated, protected, referenced and watched. A list has a history and talk page and so is easier to manage and supervise in controversial cases like this. The technical claims being made here for categories seem to be quite false and this may be seen at categories such as Pedophilia which puts people like Jeri Massi and Michael C. Seto alongside Gary Glitter and Sidney Cooke without any citation or context. My impression is that lists get all the heat just because they can be deleted more easily by unilaterally using the delete function. Amending or removing a category seems more complex, requiring the editing of numerous articles. It's the law of the instrument. Warden ( talk) 19:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't often agree with Warden, but I do want to endorse his comments about the limitations of categories. Some of those limits (such as the lack of context) are probably inherent in the nature of categories, while others are probably limitation of the software ... but whatever the cause of these limitations, categories are probably more vulnerable to abuse than lists.

That's one of the reasons why I wish there had been an AFD discussion on the list. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Neutral. The discussion at ANI and review here have produced a set of very cogent reasons for deleting this list, so there is no reason to restore or relist it, but the arguments for speedy deletion are less persuasive.
  Firstly, the list as created was well-sourced, and the addition were also well-sourced. If taken to AFD, it would have been closely watched while under discussion, and any add-my-teacher-LOL edits would have been rapidly reverted. So I see no need to bypass our usual consensus-forming processes.
  Secondly, the arguments against this list raise a lot of wider issues which could have benefited from airing at AFD, such as a) the questionable merits of open-ended lists; b) our handling of terms with inconsistent definitions, particularly pejorative terms; c) the broader issue of how on earth a declining number of editors with declining activity can effectively monitor a growing number of pages. An AFD discussion could not have changed any of those wider issues, but it could have focused attention on them. That opportunity has been missed.
  So I hope that in future, we won't see pages like this deleted so rapidly. This wasn't some sort of one-off silliness, but an illustration of many of the established ways in which Wikipedia is built and maintained create vulnerabilities which could cause real damage to people's lives. Short-circuiting the discussion in this case has not helped us to resolve the wider structural problems. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:36, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

  I can see your point, BHG, but there is nothing that prevents that more deliberate discussion from taking place (and I agree it does need to take place) at some venue much better than an AfD that keeps the extant list up and findable through search engines during its course. —  Coren  ^(talk) 18:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

  As above, I didn't see any BLP problems with the extant list; the problem was how it would be developed. So the findability question was not a problem for the duration of AFD.

  I have often seen that the intense discussion of a test case brings an underlying issue to the attention of a lot editors. That leads to more productive wider discussions. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion - A wholly appropriate action beneficial to the encyclopedia, the kind of thing IAR was made for. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 04:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse speedy deletion, but neutral on the issue per BrownHairedGirl. She didn't see any BLP problems within the actual/extant "List of pedophiles". The article name "List of pedophiles" brings obvious, extreme BLP potential problems since the mere listing of a person's name on that page, even for a few minutes, could have been picked up by a blog/news source and remained a permanent black mark on that person's life. It would be nice to have something like Template:TempHidden (similar to Template:TempUndelete used at DRV) where an admin could have replace the contents the List of pedophiles with the Template:TempHidden (leaving the article history available) while the article was discussed at AfD. Making the article temporarily hidden from view while the AfD discussion was going on would have been a better way to address the BLP issue than a speedy delete. As for the topic, List of people convicted of child sexual abuse would not seem to have the same BLP issue. Oddly, we only have List of people convicted of treason and List of people convicted of high treason in England before 1 May 1707 in our "List of people convicted of" series, [2] So perhaps "List of people convicted of x" is not a favored article name lead. It seems to me that there should be a list article to go along with Category:People convicted of child sexual abuse and there would be a way to both give name to that list and describe an inclusion criteria that would bring that list in line with other lists. -- Uzma Gamal ( talk) 13:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC) reply
  • There's a lot more articles using "convicted" in the title than those two cases - List of Israeli public officials convicted of crimes or misdemeanors, List of crime bosses convicted in the 21st century, List of people convicted under Anti-Terrorism Act in the United Kingdom, List of professional sportspeople convicted of crimes, List of religious leaders convicted of crimes, List of American public officials convicted of crimes, etc. [3] Hut 8.5 15:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• IAR is never an acceptable deletion rationale. I find it frankly disgusting the number of comments in this discussion that are apparently advocating (or stronger) that anything to do with paedophilia must be deleted regardless of the content. Wikipedia is an uncensored encyclopaedia, and as such it is possible to write neutral articles and lists about all topics, including paedophilia, and there is never any reason to invoke IAR to delete anything. If it doesn't fit into a a speedy deletion criterion then there is no consensus to speedy delete it and the correct course of action is XfD (anything else is logically incompatible with the existence of CSD criteria). This is a topic area though where we do need to tread carefully with regards to BLP issues (but remember that "BLP" is not a speedy deletion rationale), and so a neutral name and objective inclusion criteria are absolute pre-requisites (just as they should be for all lists). A neutrally-titled list with objective inclusion criteria is possible here, and with information about the conviction would make a very useful research tool. I would recommend though waiting for the hysteria to die down before starting it though, as otherwise it will just lead to more out of process deletion by those unwilling to look beyond their own prejudices to evaluate the actual content. Thryduulf ( talk) 04:35, 23 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion - BLP and vandalism issues. Snappy ( talk) 23:45, 23 November 2012 (UTC) reply

  What BLP issues? If only those convicted of the crime were listed there, and it was renamed appropriately, wouldn't that eliminate that? Also, would doing permanent semi-protection to block all IP addresses and new users from editing not prevent any vandalism issues? That's what's done on other articles. I just had some IP address randomly replace words on an article on my Taylor Swift wiki with the word poop, and I didn't go and delete that article, I just hit Rollback and blocked all IP addresses from editing that page again. [4] Click click, it just that simple. Dream Focus 00:55, 24 November 2012 (UTC) reply

• Weak endorse Per Uzma and title/scope issue, although both Brownhaired Girl and Thryduulf are also correct. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 03:46, 24 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strong Endorse A mind-numbingly bad idea for an article. Endorse the use of IAR, endorse the use of salt, endorse the application of trout to the DRV nominator. Them From Space 05:19, 24 November 2012 (UTC) reply
• Endorse but suggest that there's a way to have a comparative article with permanent semi-prot, a strong requirement/definition for inclusion by sources to only those convicted, including only notable people where such details are already established on the individual person's article page. But until exactly how that should be done, this article was damaging to those listed and to WP's reputation. -- MASEM ( t) 05:58, 24 November 2012 (UTC) reply

2012-13 U.S. winter storm season ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

I believe the deleting editor did not take the time to read through all of the comments, because editors, including myself, clearly pointed out the flaws in other persons arguments for deletion. I'd like another administrator to please go review the comments, and please also look at the deleted page to see that it was well written. Also, regardless of this DR, could an administrator userfy the page for me? Bwilkins rudely refused to do so in a post on his talk page. He also has not responded to my complaints on his talkpage, just saying "go to DR, I don't want to go look at it" basically (not a direct quote). As I said, I'd request another administrator (or multiple ones preferably) to go back and look at the page itself and the arguments contained in the AfD and then review Bwilkins' close of the discussion. Thanks. gwickwire | Leave a message 00:02, 18 November 2012 (UTC) reply