Eastern Alliance ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

As discussed with the closing admin here I believe the closer improperly considered the trailing delete votes for the following reasons:

• The nominator both cited a lack of notability in the nomination statement, and later acknowledged "no prejudice against merge".
• WP:ATD outlines a list of outcomes preferred by policy to deletion, and per WP:ATD-M "Pages about non-notable fictional elements are generally merged into list articles or articles covering the work of fiction in which they appear."
• Several sources were brought up during the discussion. After relisting, five delete !votes were added, only one of which addressed merging ("Most of the article could be into the episode lists...") and favored it. Two delete !voters, posting before sources had been added to the AfD, argued against a merge.
• In interpreting these, I believe User:Sandstein clearly erred in assigning weight:
  • To the extent that these delete !votes were interpreted as "don't keep as a separate article" there was no policy-based reason to interpret them as opposing a merge.
  • On the other hand, to the extent that these delete !votes were interpreted as "delete and don't merge a thing", they each failed to articulate a policy-based objection that would overcome WP:ATD-M

Either way, reading consensus as 'delete' when a merge argument had been advanced and never refuted is inappropriate. For this reason, I believe the proper reading of a policy-based rough consensus in this specific case should be merge, and ask that it be Overturned to merge Jclemens ( talk)

• Endorse I don't think there's any way that discussion could have reasonably been closed as a consensus to merge. It's also not especially clear where one might merge it to, as we don't seem to have articles on most episodes of this series. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 07:37, 17 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• Endorse- there's no way the discussion could have ended any other way. There was a relist, and opinion thereafter was unanimous to delete. I think the closer was right to give less weight to votes that merely asserted the existence of sourcing without being able to provide any. Finally, if someone wants to suggest a merge then they also need to suggest a plausible target- and I don't see one. Reyk _YO! 08:26, 17 May 2017 (UTC) reply
  • I'll also add that I don't like the idea of interpreting votes in a certain way when they did not say that. I'd be annoyed if someone did that to me. Reyk _YO! 09:02, 17 May 2017 (UTC) reply
    • Agreed. Trying to claim that delete votes should count as secret merge votes is unusually poor and nonsensical reasoning, even by DRV standards. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC) reply
    • The point isn't to reinterpret votes: the last several !votes, as posted, are contrary to policy. The two choices are to 1) evaluate them as non-policy-based and discount them, or 2) interpret them as something more nuanced, which would then include potential merging and be countable. Either way, Sandstein's close accorded them more credit towards a delete-without-merge outcome than is reasonable. Jclemens ( talk) 02:06, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
      • I don't agree that those votes were against policy. People are allowed to recommend deletion rather than merger, especially when nobody has been able to suggest a merge target or identify any content that should be merged. Those votes stand. Reyk _YO! 04:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
        • Multiple editors, including the nominator and a delete !voter, raised the possibility of a merge. There were two separate merge targets brought up during the discussion. I entirely agree that editors are entitled to !vote "Delete, and I specifically reject the merger of this content per XYZ rationale"... but that didn't happen in this discussion--if it had, I would have no basis to challenge the weighting of those !votes. Jclemens ( talk) 04:23, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• Endorse. The delete consensus in the AfD was pretty clear, just from the head count point of view. It became even more so when you consider that several people arguing to keep simply asserted that sources existed, but failed to produce them when requested to do so. A Google Search finds enough uses of the term Eastern Alliance in articles, that I could see re-creating Eastern Alliance as a WP:DAB page. We used to have a dab page, but it was deleted under Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eastern Alliance (disambiguation). The arguments put forth in that AfD made sense given the page that existed at the time, but that shouldn't preclude a new page with better entries. If such a page were to be created, then an entry pointing to some appropriate existing Battle Star Galactica article which discusses the topic would make sense. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:01, 17 May 2017 (UTC) reply
  • The issue here is not so much about the article, but about the process. Sure, anyone can recreate a better article, and no attempt was made to improve the article during the AfD, in large part because deletion was not, and is not, a policy-based outcome for an article with a merge target whose defect is simple non-notability. Per WP:ROUGH CONSENSUS, "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted." Sandstein's error is in according any weight at all to delete !votes that contradict WP:ATD-M. Jclemens ( talk) 02:06, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• Restore article's history per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Merging to facilitate a merge to Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series) as suggested by MichaelQSchmidt ( talk · contribs) in the AfD. Cunard ( talk) 06:32, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• Endorse the deletion, but restore history for merge as per myself and Cunard. Schmidt, ^{Michael Q.} 07:29, 18 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion. As one of the post-relist "Delete" !voters – I didn't !vote "Merge" or "Redirect" because I am unconvinced this fictional element is important enough to the work of fiction to actually merit a mention in any of the articles on this fictional franchise. A Wikipedia article on a fictional work should only cover major elements, and otherwise focus on critical reception, the circumstances/history of the work's production, influences from/to other works, etc. If this fictional element is too minor to be worth mentioning, then "Merge" doesn't make sense, since the content doesn't belong in any of the candidate merge targets. (And I'm honestly unsure which article should be the merge target – the franchise as a whole, or one of its particular incarnations, or some other subsidiary article?) I also don't agree with "Redirect", if the redirect target isn't going to mention this, since it is confusing to readers to redirect a term to a page which doesn't actually use that term anywhere. (And, even if someone adds a mention of this to one of the articles – how do we know it won't some time later be removed as irrelevant detail/fancruft/too much information? Then, we could end up in the situation of a redirect pointing to an article which doesn't use the redirected term.) So, that is why I !voted "Delete" instead of "Merge" and "Redirect", and I think it is a reasonable position to hold, even if admittedly I didn't make those reasons explicit at the time. SJK ( talk) 09:23, 19 May 2017 (UTC) reply
  • So do you think that your !vote was policy based with respect to WP:ATD-M? Were you basing your assessment on the state of the article at the time, or based on the potential as demonstrated by the sources brought up in the AfD? Jclemens ( talk) 23:32, 19 May 2017 (UTC) reply
    • I think it was "policy-based" with the relevant "policy" being MOS:FICT#Conclusions which says "Avoid creating lists of trivia; instead, incorporate relevant information into the body of the article, and discard what is unnecessary to the understanding of the topic." I interpret that as saying an article on a work of fiction should only cover major elements of the work, not every single plot twist or minor character. I am unconvinced that "Eastern Alliance" is a major element of the work; I would say that none of the sources presented in the AFD justify the position that it is a major element. The sources presented mention it in passing, mainly in the process of plot summarisation; there is no sourcing providing in-depth critical analysis of this element, which suggests it is minor (and thus we can do without mentioning it) rather than major. I don't think I am ignoring WP:ATD-M; while it says non-notable elements of a fictional work can be merged into an article on the fictional work, I don't think it excludes the judgement that the element is too minor for that course to be worthwhile. WP:ATD-M is not the only controlling policy here. WP:ATD-M is worded permissively (could, are generally), it is not an absolute and can be overridden when there are reasonable policy-based grounds for doing so and I believe I have articulated such grounds on the basis of MOS:FICT. (I'd also point to WP:FANCRUFT, which while only an "essay" and not as such "policy", does make clear there are genuine reasons for proposing to delete some minor fictional elements rather than merge/redirecting them.) SJK ( talk) 04:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC) reply
      • No MOS is a policy--they are all guidelines, just like notability itself. You're far from the only editor with this misapprehension, unfortunately. Even if there's nothing in a NN fictional element article worth merging, the next hurdle to overcome before deletion is an appropriate outcome is redirection. Since Eastern Alliance is not used anywhere else, that's not an inappropriate outcome. If the objection is raised that 'no article mentions it' per WP:R#PLA, I'll again counter that normal editing, such as adding a mention of the topic, is clearly covered by WP:ATD and opine that does not provide justification for failing to opt for a redirect instead of a deletion, again in the absence of other problems beyond simple non-notability. Jclemens ( talk) 07:43, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
        • You seem to be claiming that WP:ATD-M is a "policy", but MOS is just a "guideline", and that a "guideline" can't be used to overrule a "policy". I think that is an overly legalistic way of approaching things. Especially when the policy is worded in a permissive rather than mandatory way – which in my view means it can be deviated from when good reason exists, and that good reason might take the form of a "guideline" rather than hard policy. SJK ( talk) 08:24, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
          • My bringing up the dichotomy--as prompted by you implying that MOSes are policy--is not nearly as important as the crux of all WP:ATD: If regular editing can fix it, deletion is off the table. Everything, by definition, about an MOS can be fixed by regular editing, can't it? The unfixable things are core policies like V and NOT: if they can't be met, the discussion is over. So yeah, MOS is guideline that can't trump a policy, but that's not the biggest point: deletion is only for things that cannot be fixed with lesser means. THAT is policy, has been for years, and the other nuances like whether merging is required or optional pale in comparison to that elephant in the room. Jclemens ( talk) 08:33, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
• As closer, I'd just like to mention that I think that there was consensus to delete, not to merge, and would therefore consider a restoration of the history inappropriate. WP:ATD-M merely lists possible alternatives to deletion if there is consensus in the specific instance that they are preferable to deletion; this is clearly not the case here. Otherwise we'd basically never delete an article for non-notability - the practice, however, is that we regularly do.  Sandstein  12:51, 21 May 2017 (UTC) reply
  • That's a fair summary, and a good explanation of why the current process is broken: we shouldn't be deleting things for non-notability when there is a merge or redirect target and there's no other reason to delete it. At the very least, in order to count delete !votes to overcome ATD-M, part of deletion policy, those !votes should explicitly state why deletion is preferable to merging or redirection. We should also not be nominating things to force a merge, but that's never enforced in practice either. The resultant confluence biases heavily against appropriate curation of fictional topics--redirecting, merging, leaving edit histories viewable by non-admins for future improvement if so desired. And we wonder why the active editor base continues to decline... Jclemens ( talk) 07:36, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
    • "in order to count delete !votes to overcome ATD-M, part of deletion policy, those !votes should explicitly state why deletion is preferable to merging or redirection"–I thought I basically did that, although I could have made the case clearer. I hope you can see the continuity between the brief reasoning I provided in my !vote, and the more detailed reasoning I provide on this page. If you think the reasoning of the delete !voters in the AFD was invalid, may I ask why you didn't make that objection during the AFD? You are complaining that the closing admin should have discounted my !vote (among others), because in your view it contradicted policy, when I don't agree with that view, and you didn't raise your objection to it during the AFD itself. SJK ( talk) 08:30, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
      • I raised the objection to your !vote before it was logged, here in my first edit to the AfD. It was there for the latter respondents, yourself included, to rebut, or, failing that, for the closing administrator to review appropriately. Do you think I need to go around after every !vote and say "Yeah, but this still doesn't address my objection..."? I think that sounds quite badgering and pedantic, and I expect that the closing admin would look at the flow of the arguments and weight them accordingly. Jclemens ( talk) 08:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
        • You claimed that "deletion is not an option when there is an appropriate merge target". My position is and was that there is no appropriate merge target–this ficitonal element is too minor to be worth mentioning in any of the Battlestar Galactica articles–and hence merging it to any of those articles would be inappropriate. I admit I didn't make that position as clear as I possibly could during the AFD, but if we'd engaged there in the dialogue in which we have been engaging in here, it would have become clear. SJK ( talk) 08:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
          • Fair enough; you're one of a plurality of delete !voters who did not make that clear, yet were counted regardless as if the !votes were as policy based as mine. Had you or anyone raised that argument in the AfD, I'd've pointed out that the Eastern Alliance was already mentioned in List of Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series) and Galactica 1980 episodes under the episode summary for #22, to which a redirect would have still been more appropriate than a deletion. Jclemens ( talk) 09:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply
            • You think some AFD !votes should have been discounted by the closing admin because you think their reasoning was insufficiently clear–but, in that case, I think it would have made sense to ask the !voter to clarify their reasoning if necessary (and even delay closure a little bit longer to allow them an opportunity to do so) rather than simply discounting it. You also say the closing admin should have closed the debate as "Merge"/"Redirect", but there was no consensus on a merge/redirect target in the AFD–indeed, the merge/redirect target you now propose was never brought up during the AFD itself–so I don't see as a practical matter how a closing admin can be expected to close as merge/redirect when there is no consensus on the target. (Finally, I can make arguments why I don't agree with the specific merge/redirect target you are now proposing, but I feel like by doing so I'd simply be further engaging in the substantive debate of the AFD, instead of doing what DRV is supposed to do, which is to focus on process issues rather than the substance of the original debate.) SJK ( talk) 10:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply

• Just setting aside issues of process for a moment and looking for the right outcome, I think that someone who types "Eastern Alliance" into the search bar could plausibly be looking for a whole lot of quite disparate real world things, including but not limited to (1) the insurance company of the same name, (2) the Eastern Bloc, (3) the Eurasian Economic Union, (4) the Eastern European Group, or even (5) the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They could also be looking for something to do with Battlestar Galactica, although I think it would violate the principle of least astonishment for Eastern Alliance to redirect there.

  Overall, I think the right outcome of this whole family of discussions is to create a disambiguation page called Eastern Alliance, and once I got there, I was pleased to see that this can be done in a way that complies with everyone's position because it's not needful to disturb the AfD close at all. Any content merged from the deleted article to a Battlestar Galactica-related article should of course be attributed, but that can be done by one of the methods listed at WP:PATT (and I'd suggest the dummy edit with the list of contributors). So you get to a bluelink and a compliant content merge without an undeletion... because the outcomes the two sides are seeking here are not mutually exclusive.— S Marshall T/ C 20:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC) reply