Shooting of Ashli Babbitt – No consensus. There is substantial and well-argued support for an "overturn to redirect" outcome but it does not quite amount to an actual consensus to overturn.This is of course profoundly unhelpful because it means editors still can't decide what to do. As DRV closer one of the options within my discretion here is to relist the disputed discussion. I have thought about this hard, and I don't see how it could help, because we've already had such a lot of input at AfD and DRV.To make matters even more complicated, another thing at issue is Sandstein's evaluation of what the status quo actually is -- the longstanding redirect, or the recently-developed article? Editors consider this but I can't see that they reach any kind of conclusion.A "no consensus" outcome means that Sandstein's close remains in force for the time being, by default, but it most certainly does not mean that this discussion is over. In the circumstances editors are welcome to try alternative ways to resolve the dispute. A community RfC is very much still on the table, and it might offer the best chance of attracting views from other experienced editors who did not participate in AfD or DRV and who might be able to break the logjam. The longer time alloted and more expansive format of an RfC seem appropriate to a matter that's creating so much tension. I encourage the parties to consider this option and take enough time to draft a well-crafted RfC question before proceeding.I hope this helps. Any complaints, comments and questions about this close should be directed to my talk page in the first instance.—S MarshallT/C 00:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
The closer did not interpret the consensus correctly: There was rough consensus but the closer found no consensus. The closer found a significant majority of 11 to 7 but weighed that against the relative strength of arguments; contrarily to what would have been expected with such a close, upon which it could have been deemed that the majority had some failings in their position (downweighed/discounted !votes), the closer simply found that There are reasonable arguments on both sides ... So... "clear majority" plus "reasonable arguments on both sides ..." gives a rough consensus at least—not "no consensus". Further (not the main argument, but maybe worth airing): No consensus needs to be avoided when it can be. The closer needs to try and find consensus a little harder. No consensus really isn't a propitious outcome for almost anything. When there's no major significance here to how the content would be treated, seeing how it is covered similarly elsewhere (so not a real deletion or even the usual redirect ending on a brief mention—there's already a maximum-detail section in an indisputably relevant place), having a not-strictly-necessary no consensus close makes our processes seem more ineffectual and time-wasting than they really are. — Alalch Emis (talk) 22:51, 1 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse Weighing arguments vs. votes is almost essential in politically charged topics, and I have no issues with how Sandstein handled this one. Jclemens (talk) 23:19, 1 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Okay, this is not my original nomination case, but if we go that route, it's still a bad reading of consensus, because the closer weighed arguments against an isolated fraction of WP:N, visibly ignoring the caveat that notability doesn't guarantee a separate article, which hinges on other conventions (relating to content organization), such as WP:CFORK. In this way, the closer did not really assess the discussion in it's breadth and merits from a policy perspective. If he had done done so more thoroughly, he would have found that the keep side tactically avoided engaging with the critique of the raw notability case, to game out a traditional keep, despite the said caveat being highlighted to them multiple times (keep in mind that this is the same convention and so not a conflict of competing policies). This is what should have led to a downweighing of !keep votes based around a raw notability argument. — Alalch Emis (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect and swifly trout Alalch Emis for prematurely starting this DRV before the closing admin had a chance to respond to questions on their talk page. There is no rush here. As I explained on Sandstein's talk page, I was preparing to close this AfD but Sandstein got to it before I did. I read the discussion as having consensus to restore the redirect. The majority of the keep voters gave a rationale based on the notability of the event. However, no one was challenging the notability of the event, and just because it's notable doesn't mean that it is guaranteed its own standalone article, per WP:N, "This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page." Therefore, I considered many of the keep votes to have an irrelevant rationale, and gave them less weight. Additionally, none of the keep voters gave a compelling reason for why this event needed to have its own article, rather than covering the event within the context of the main article. It seems to me that the majority of the content added to the standalone article is biographical info about Babbitt, which is not necessary or appropriate since Babbitt is not a notable individual outside of this event (per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashli Babbitt), and therefore this amounts to an attempt to create a biographical article without actually creating a biographical article. Beyond that small amount of additional biographical information, the article is unquestionably a content fork and cannot remain in this redundant state. No keep voter successfully demonstrated that the article is not a content fork. Based on all of this along with the small numerical majority of redirect votes, I found consensus to redirect.
Furthermore, this page existed as a redirect for around 11 months before an editor decided to turn it into a standalone redirect. Two days after the split, an AfD was started and the discussion commenced. Therefore, it is my assertion that the "status quo" in this case is for the page to remain a redirect (and honestly, for me, that lowers the bar for finding consensus to redirect at AfD). So, even if it is determined that there was no clear consensus in the AfD, we should be defaulting back to the status quo of the redirect as it existed for 11 months, not to the status quo of an article that existed for 2 days before being nominated. Had there been a discussion on an article talk page to gain consensus for splitting this article before someone split it out, a no consensus closure would have resulted in keeping the status quo of a redirect. Just because someone boldly split the article out shortly before a discussion commenced doesn't suddenly change what the status quo is. —ScottyWong— 23:47, 1 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Who is to say that the previous status quo was truly reflective of consensus? The fact that the bold editor did the fork in the first place is one indication that it wasn't. Once that happened, it became the de facto status quo in relation to the Afd nomination, and that is all the closer needed to contend with. In reference to, It seems to me that the majority of the content added to the standalone article is biographical info about Babbitt, which is not necessary or appropriate since Babbitt is not a notable individual outside of this event (per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashli Babbitt), and therefore this amounts to an attempt to create a biographical article without actually creating a biographical article. I don't see the bio info as coming for the purpose of creating a bio article; I see it as explanatory background info, which is relative to the subject's later actions, which directly led to her shooting. And it is WP:OFFTOPIC in the parent article. StonyBrook (talk) 02:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would say that the rather lengthy discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashli Babbitt (along with other smaller talk page discussions along the way) set a pretty clear consensus for the status quo of covering the shooting of Babbitt in the main article (which is generally where it's been covered since the event took place), and redirecting all other alternative articles. If you truly believe that the simple act of copying and pasting content from one article into another article (without any discussion, and after the aforementioned AfD) is enough to create a new status quo, then I don't think you understand the definition of the phrase "status quo". —ScottyWong— 02:29, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Scottywong those discussions are old, the Afd specifically being from January, which was right after the event. Enough time has passed, and further events have occurred, that could have changed the consensus about this topic. StonyBrook (talk) 03:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
StonyBrook Yes, consensus can change, but that doesn't mean it necessarily has changed. I've provided discussions showing the prior consensus that established the status quo. If you're suggesting that consensus has changed, then it's on you to find a discussion that establishes that new consensus. That's the whole point: this split article about the shooting was created in the absence of any consensus. There was no discussion. Consensus can change, but there is no evidence that it has. Therefore, the status quo remains the status quo. —ScottyWong— 05:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
While it is true that the fork happened in the absence of discussion, the result of that was an Afd discussion, which apparently has demonstrated a shift in the consensus from a year ago, which determined at that time that a standalone article was not justified. That does not seem to be the conclusion of this latest Afd at all. StonyBrook (talk) 07:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not sure how you can interpret a "no consensus" discussion as evidence that consensus has changed. At best, it means that there is no consensus that the standalone article should exist. Therefore, we should revert to the status quo until a clearer consensus emerges. —ScottyWong— 07:54, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Scottywong: You're right on the essence of course, but regarding exact organization: The topic of the shooting was split from the parent article into Law enforcement response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack months ago (I'll find the diff, but I think it was summer [edit: diff]). Basically, the parent article has not been the home for this content for a while, but this, other, daughter article has. The here contested "restored" shooting article was created by simply replacing the redirect with content copied from the law enforcement article. This created the blatant forking situation. StonyBrook has argued that it is not just a content fork because some additional (very short) biographical information has been added. In my opinion this is the only relevant keep argument expressed in the discussion. The argument was opposed by several editors (I'm not relitigating by saying refuted, but it was not either ignored or conceded to); it was not noticed by other keep !voters who were only interested in climbing the GNG hill as if this was just any random AfD. — Alalch Emis (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect. There was no consensus for the split -- if there's no consensus for the article to exist, status quo is to go back to a redirect. There's a reason we don't just vote on politically-charged editing decisions, this article is it. Feoffer (talk) 00:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse I don't see how "clear majority" + "reasonable arguments on both sides" = "rough consensus". It is "no consensus" just as the closer said, because Afd is not a vote. And nom should have discussed this with the closer first. We don't need to be telling an experienced editor that they need to to do their job a little better. It is not helpful to second guess a closing editor in such a charged Afd, who was willing to stick their hands in such a mess and get them dirty. StonyBrook (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There being a clear majority with comments being weighed equally is something that is seen as a consensus forming discussion, and this has almost nothing to do with your cited WP:DISCUSSAFD. In all of the written conventions dealing with !voting you will see that the language is formed in such a way to allow numerical superiority to bear on the result. Actually all the formulations of !voting and how it isn't voting take for granted that numerical superiority is important, but try to stress how it isn't the only important thing. Typically these considerations conclude with a practical explainer generally conveying the message of "this means that !votes can be discounted if they're mere votes", NOT "this means that !votes as such are not counted". — Alalch Emis (talk) 03:53, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn and redirect. We're here to decide things, not throw up one's hands, just say it is a tie, and go home. 8-8, 7-9, sure, that's too close to call. Not-A-Vote notwithstanding, the further the scales tip numerically to a side, then there better be damn good justification to discard that advantage and still declare "no consensus". There wasn't a good justification here. Zaathras (talk) 04:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Vote count is not relevant. I want to point out that a recent, infamous, AfD was closed as "no consensus" despite having a vote count of 145 vs 35. So StonyBrook is absolutely right that "clear majority" + "reasonable arguments on both sides" can very well be "no consensus". So vote count is not a good reason to overturn the close.VRtalk 05:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree that consensus is not judged by simply counting votes, we weigh the strength of the arguments on both sides. In this case, most keep voters argued that the topic is notable (which was never in dispute). No keep voters provided a compelling rationale for why the topic couldn't be adequately covered within the context of the main article. No keep voters demonstrated that the article was not a redundant content fork in violation of WP:CFORK. Therefore, not only did the redirect voters have numerical superiority, they also had the stronger argument. —ScottyWong— 05:16, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I do think all the issues you listed were addressed. StonyBrook claimed that there is so much material that a spinout article is needed for reasons of size--that's a fine reason (and by far the most typical) to justify having two articles. In particular all the developments listed by StonyBrook argue pretty well that there is enough coverage (and enough events) to write a rather long article about her killing and the impacts there of. Hobit (talk) 06:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
StonyBrook claimed that there is so much material that a spinout article is needed for reasons of size. Claims are not facts. The fact is all this material is, or could be, contained in the pre-existing article. Feoffer (talk) 09:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And of course claims are not facts. Issues of style and how to cover a topic rarely revolve around facts. But there are facts provided. #1 Any topic, no matter how broad, can be covered in one article. #2 Not every topic should be covered in one article. #3 There is so much reporting on this and things that resulted from this (court cases, etc.) we could easily fill up the word count of more than one article. The opinion part is what level of depth this topic should have on Wikipedia. That's the same question that comes up with any topic. And here the consensus to redirect the article was borderline. Hobit (talk) 13:26, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect. Gauging consensus is not vote counting, and the policy based reasoning for restoring the redirect vs policy-based arguments to split was 1-0. VQuakr (talk) 06:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
endorse Either outcome was reasonable from a policy/guideline viewpoint. I'd probably have also endorse a redirect, though I think NC is a better reading--the discussion was close enough in terms of strength-of-argument. But I just don't feel anyone really provided any reasons to undo the spinout that wouldn't apply to nearly any potential spinout article anywhere on Wikipedia. Hobit (talk) 06:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Hobit: It's not a spin out as the section in the law enforcement article from where the content was copied was not removed or shortened by summarizing. Furthermore, it should not be removed or shortened as it's just fine there. No article was shortened by creating this content fork. The original parent article (Capitol attack) was shortened mid-summer when this content actually was split out from there to shape up the Law enforcement article. This was then taken from that original split to seemingly make a split-of-a-split (no problem per se), but unlike the original parent article, Law enforcement isn't too long, and the content is deeply embedded there and can't reasonably be removed. So when making the content fork and throughout this time, no one even tried to remove/summarize it. A summary is being had in the original parent article. So we have: (1) original parent article with summary, (2) original split with detailed coverage, (3) same detailed coverage copied over to make a content fork. This is what it meant when participants called it an obvious content fork as opposef to a valid split. The issue was quickly detected and two days after the redirect was made into the pseudo-split, an editor started an AfD to explicitly restore the almost year old redirect, and a significant majority of editors supported this, but the discussion was closed as no consensus, "defaulting" to the "status quo" of there being this content fork ostensibly cementing the problem which is frankly ludicrous.— Alalch Emis (talk) 07:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect for the reasons given by Zaathras and Scotty Wong. As an aside, this article would not have lasted a day if it had not been about a US topic. See WP:CSB. Stifle (talk) 09:16, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You don't think we'd have an article about the same situation anyplace in Europe, China, Taiwan or Japan? If someone got shot and killed trying to break into the legislature of any of those, I think there would be an article about it. And I think their should be. Hobit (talk) 13:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is such an article: 2021 United States Capitol attack. This was not an attack by Babbitt, she was simply one among the mass of people there. She was simply the unlucky one to get shot. The amazing thing isn't her death, but the lack of other such deaths. --Khajidha (talk) 14:10, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Amazing isn't a requirement for an article. WP:N is. Her death clearly meets WP:N. The question is if the organization of the material is better handled with or without an article about her death and its aftermath. I'd personally lean toward having one just because I think there is more "aftermath" then fits in the main articles. But I think either organizational method is reasonable. And the question here is if the closer correctly read the consensus (or lack thereof) at the AfD. There is no clear policy or guideline that dictates what to do here. So the split !vote can be pretty reasonably read as as lack of consensus on the issue. And on Wikipedia, NC on having an article means we have the article. Hobit (talk) 15:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Didn't say it was. But as her death and its aftermath is an inextricable part of the attack and its aftermath, I don't see how her death itself meets notability separate from the attack as a whole. It seems as ridiculous as having articles on every random person who went down with the Titanic. --Khajidha (talk) 15:29, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I disagree that this topic requires its own standalone article. The only thing we need to describe is the event of her death: how she entered the building, how she tried to climb through the window, how she got shot, how she was treated, how she died, etc. We don't need to know that she owned a small business in California, or that her Twitter handle was CommonAshSense; none of that is relevant. And there is no "aftermath" of her death that is separate from the aftermath of the Capitol storming itself. They are tightly intertwined, because they are all part of the same event. Any aftermath that needs to be covered is already covered in other articles. If I'm wrong, please show me the aftermath that is specific to Babbit's death and separate from the Capitol storming itself, which is not already adequately covered in another article. —ScottyWong— 16:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Khajidha: Your comment above about how 2021 United States Capitol attack is the article where this was already covered prior to the content forking is incredibly misleading. Can't you see that the shooting content is not located there, bar a short mention? How would it then be a content fork? When people call it a content fork they refer to the Law enforcement response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack. This is what Hobit was looking for when asking if there would be an article about it. You led Hobit totally astray. The correct answer is: "Yes there would be, and there has been since January, and now we have it duplicated". It's pure madness to get into a discussion about topic notability here. Notability wasn't disputed in the AfD. — Alalch Emis (talk) 18:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The event of her death was the Capitol attack. Whether that death is covered in the article about the attack itself or the one about law enforcement's response to the attack isn't really important. The point is that Babbitt's death was not an event of it's own that needs its own article. --Khajidha (talk) 19:21, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse as no consensus is the correct call here. Solid policy-based arguments were made on both sides, and there was no clear consensus despite a decent majority of votes supporting redirect. FrankAnchor 14:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect, the status quo for almost 11 months. The brand-new standalone article is a cut-and-paste content fork of a person notable for only one event, which is adequately covered in the parent article. Miniapolis 14:48, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is a fine AfD argument. In fact, I'd say a fairly strong one (though justifying why it's adequately covered would be handy). But it really isn't relevant to DRV. Hobit (talk) 15:04, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Hobit: There is a mix-up here. What are you even talking about by saying justifying why it's adequately covered??? Is it not clear from the AfD, and from the state of the relevant articles in the topic area, that Shooting of Ashli Babbitt was made by copying the longstanding Law enforcement response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack#Shooting of Ashli Babbitt section into the longstanding redirect page to make a content fork? It's still fresh in the nominated article's history (diff). This is notorious stuff. This topic had been covered in the same level of detail all along. I don't understand... I think you're missing a lot of key information here. I pinged you above to explain the same thing as you didn't appear to be aware of this, however it didn't seem to have any effect. Help me understand your perspective. — Alalch Emis (talk) 18:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think we're looking at this from two different sides. Do you agree there are things that could be covered in this article that would be inappropriate in the main article? Thanks like lawsuits involving her death for example. You seem focused on how the article came to be (as a copy), and I'm thinking mostly about what potential it has. The potential is what the keep !voters were arguing for. I'm not concerned about the cut-and-paste creation--many spinout articles start that way. It's potential that I think is the only real argument for having this article. And the only real argument for deletion is that such details are too minute for Wikipedia to cover. (And the way we usually make that call is WPN, which pretty much everyone seems to agree is met in spades). Does that answer your question? Hobit (talk) 18:54, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It helps a bit thanks. I'll reply to that from experience: I tried the hardest of anyone to improve the article and was initially curious regarding it's viability. I added the event infobox, gave it more structure, but soon I hit the wall confronted with the fact that the subject being the event, there's nothing really relevant to add. The level of detail regarding the event is already extreme. It goes well beyond the norm. The event was recorded on cameras, recounted from various perspectives and there is hardly more detail that can even be conceived. So everything would be mostly fluff. I mean look at the military career fluff I added now (diff), instigated by your comment. Is this what we really want? Apart from this type of expansion, any idea of real due expansion is purely speculative. So why would we retain a problem now (a content fork, which is something proven to be a bad thing in general, and which inevitably mutates to a POVFORK, albeit perhaps a subtle one in this case), for a speculative future benefit? — Alalch Emis (talk) 20:16, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I understand entirely. I'd argue the Aftermath section is that "now" benefit. And I think it will be able to be fairly expanded. But that said, I go back and forth on what the best way to present the material is. I suspect we're in the right place, but I'm by no means certain. But at the end of the day, the view that there is enough material to add isn't unreasonable--I mean there is a ton of coverage and a fair bit still ongoing. And I don't think consensus was build in that AfD that we are better off with just the one article. Both sides have reasonable points and the numbers probably weren't decisive. Thanks for the productive conversation. I certainly understand your view pretty well now, I hope mine makes a bit more sense. Hobit (talk) 02:01, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment From what I can tell, everyone agrees that this event satisfies our notability standards, and the only real question is whether it should be covered in its own article or in a different article. But unless I missed something, no one has actually cited any policies in this discussion except for WP:CFORK. Let's assume for the sake of argument that this article is not an impermissible content fork and so WP:CFORK doesn't apply. This leads me to wonder: do we even have any policies regarding when it is appropriate to cover something as part of its own article or as part of another article? Or is that purely a stylistic choice, in which case this argument revolves solely around personal opinion and so this discussion is unlikely to actually resolve anything? Mlb96 (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Cool and thought provoking comment but there was consensus to redirect. — Alalch Emis (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think it is somewhat relevant. It's at least the argument I'm making for why those arguing to keep were not wrong and that WP:N is relevant to the AfD and so !votes referencing it shouldn't be ignored. Hobit (talk) 18:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The redirect side also cited WP:N, pointing out the caveat that notability doesn't guarantee a separate article, which hinges on other conventions (relating to content organization), such as WP:CFORK. The closer did not seem to take this into account. Wikipedia:Deletion process#Consensus — Consensus is formed through the careful consideration, dissection and eventual synthesis of different perspectives presented during the discussion and is not calculated solely by number of votes (emphasis mine). So not solely, but also keeping in mind the number of !votes. Careful consideration. Dissection. Synthesis. — Alalch Emis (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Mlb96: that's a great question and I hope someone can shed some light on it.VRtalk 19:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse close. I agree with Scottywong that many keep votes argued for notability, which was not the main reason for deletion. The question is if the keep votes provided a good rationale as to why this couldn't be covered in the parent article. 3 possible rationales were given. 1st rationale was WP:ARTICLESIZE but this only applies to 2021 United States Capitol attack not Law enforcement response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack (which has room to expand). 2nd rationale was that a separate article allows for coverage of Babbitt's biographical details, but Feoffer rebutted that this can also be done in a parent article. 3rd rationale was that letting the section on Ashli Babbitt in a parent article expand too much will be WP:UNDUE, and WP:SPLITTING allows for that content to expand without creating weight issues. This looks like a compelling argument that was never responded to. Weight concerns aren't always justified, but in the absence of a coherent rebuttal, a closer can only assume that they are in this case. Ergo, both sides had valid arguments. VRtalk 18:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse OP clearly needs to actually read the WP:CONSENSUS policy. The "problems" they describe are literally how we do things around here. It is not a vote count. A 60-40 dispute is not an automatic consensus for the majority. We weigh strength of arguments relative to the larger community's existing views, rules, and norms. A "no consensus" reading based on strength of arguments with a 60-40 "vote count" is not egregious, it is a normal thing that happens. ~Swarm~{sting} 10:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I most certainly don't need to. Instead, you seem to need familiarizing with the arguments of overturn advocates here, probably by actually reading the discussion, including the nomination itself. 61-39 majority is enough support for consensus under condition that all !votes are weighed equally, and the deletion case has been discussed thoroughly and conclusively. That's my DRV case but there are other cogent reasons stated here why overturning is correct, all of which are congruent. If you read up on the archives here you will see that there is an overwhelming understanding that to close against the outcome supported by an appreciable majority (61-39 is more that that; closer said "clear majority"), some !votes on that side would need to be discounted/downweighed. The closer explicitly didn't do that. If he did that, the !votes which would have been discounted are several keep ones. — Alalch Emis (talk) 11:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You're not addressing my claim though. I'm explaining to you facts here. A 60-40 vote count is not necessarily a consensus, and closing such a discussion as "no consensus" isn't anything out of the ordinary. It's absolutely in the normal range where it could go either way depending on the interpretation of the closer, but it's a perfectly valid close here. People are free to disagree with the result and the closer's decision, but we're here to review whether the close itself is legitimate. Looking at this as an uninvolved admin, it's a reasonable close that involves a contentious topic and it's inherently going to piss people off because the majority didn't get their way. It's still reasonable though, and I see no convincing argument above that refutes that. You seriously need to drop the fixation with the vote count though, it's seriously out of line with the entire overarching self-governing system of the project. ~Swarm~{sting} 22:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Strong agree that vote counts aren't consensus. In the AFD discussion, one of the final comments was addressed to the closer. It argued "!votes that only address notability should be disregarded since they do not address the actual rationale in the nomination.". It's unclear from the rationale why the closer apparently gave full-weight to generic assertions of notability when notability was not under discussion. Feoffer (talk) 10:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is a circular argument. On the one hand you assert that vote counts in Afd cannot be relied upon, and in the next sentence you expect the closer to make a decision based upon the argument from one of the sides that that the other side's votes should be thrown out. Let us assume for a moment that that argument should have been taken seriously. The result of it would have left the closer with primary arguments only, and they found that on the strength of those there was no consensus to delete. StonyBrook (talk) 17:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We routinely discount !votes w/o relevant rationales. Feoffer (talk) 20:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect I think Sandstein got it exactly right until the end of their statement where it's clear they did not look at this as an article that had undergone a WP:SPLIT but as a stand-alone article AfD, which I think makes a difference in terms of result. If an article is improperly split, you upmerge instead of deleting, meaning this isn't a normal "is this topic notable or not" but "should this article stand alone or not" and I think consensus was clear enough that it should not exist as a standalone, noting there were a couple votes I'd discount on either side. SportingFlyerT·C 22:28, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
While I think there was a slight consensus to redirect, I'm also fine keeping this as a "no consensus" as long as the no consensus correctly reverts to the status quo of a redirect. SportingFlyerT·C 14:21, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn the assessment of "no consensus" was correct, but that should have been implemented as "no consensus to split" and the status quo ante of a redirect being restored. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 22:57, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The status quo is what we have in practice, where almost no one is questioning the notability of the event. --Mhhosseintalk 18:33, 4 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Mhhossein, the days-old status quo is the standalone article. The 11-month-old status quo was the redirect. Miniapolis 00:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
WP:WEIGHT, not notability, is the issue which the closer may have missed. Miniapolis 00:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
But you know Consensus can change, specially when you are dealing with a topic which is getting updates after almost 1 year. --Mhhosseintalk 17:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
When did consensus change in favor of the split? When you boldly content-forked wihtout moving the content out of the source article (you tried to move out a small part but were immediately reverted, which is evidence of lack of consensus) and when two days later this was contested in AfD? The consensus for what you did never had time to emerge in the sense of WP:EDITCON: you were contested from the beginning. You did a bold quasi-split, were reverted on the remove side of split, and on the copy side you got an AfD closed as "no consensus". The consensus never changed. — Alalch Emis (talk) 23:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
From the linked policy: An edit has presumed consensus unless it is disputed or reverted. Mhh's bold edit of splitting the article was presumed to have consensus, unless it was challenged. Should another editor revise that edit then the new edit will have presumed consensus unless it meets with disagreement. The bold edit was disputed in the form of an Afd nomination, so at that point, the presumed consensus was to have the article deleted. Following discussion however, Sandstein the closer made a bold edit, which determined that there was no consensus to delete the article. So at that point, the presumed consensus was not to undo the original bold edit. But then that consensus was challenged again with this DRV. The outcome is still pending, but the point is that I don't see that any aspect of these proceedings is not working properly as designed. StonyBrook (talk) 01:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You can try to spin the situation any way you like. Think about it this way: if this AfD discussion didn't happen at AfD, but instead happened on the talk page of the article, under the heading "Should we split the Ashli Babbitt section out to a new article?", and the exact same discussion occurred, and the exact same "no consensus" result was obtained, what would happen? We'd say that there is no consensus to split the article, therefore it should be reverted to a redirect, as it's been for the last 11 months. Just because the discussion happened on a different page (because an editor decided to not have that discussion before splitting out the section) doesn't change the what the status quo is. —ScottyWong— 02:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Point well taken. But we can only deal here with what actually happened, not what could have happened. If it is the latter, then you would have been the Afd closer instead of Sandstein. StonyBrook (talk) 02:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse: There was no consensus! Some said WP:Notability mattered with the others objecting this argument. I really can't see a strong comment favoring deletion given the provided rebutals. Even there's no consensus here as to what the status quo is. --Mhhosseintalk 19:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No one has ever challenged the notability of the event. That was never a focus of the AfD discussion. —ScottyWong— 18:30, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Endorse. There was no firm consensus. Discussions around redirecting can take place outside of AfD (a "no consensus" close does not prevent discussion of a redirect), or the article can be re-nominated in a few months once it's stabilised and opinions have had time to firm up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
WP:NHC: The desired standard is rough consensus, not perfect consensus. — Alalch Emis (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The closer's explanatory language included the phrase, ..not on its face clear consensus. That cannot mean that they found rough consensus, because rough consensus means consensus, not no consensus, which is what they actually found. StonyBrook (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, a mistake was made. There was rough consensus (sometimes called slight consensus) so consensus needed to have been found, not "no consensus". That's why this DRV has been started, it's one of the reasons to do so per WP:DRVPURPOSE (#1). — Alalch Emis (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I understand that is your opinion, but it is not what the closer found, and as can be seen from a few of the responses in this DRV, the closer was well within their rights. My bad, I should have quoted the closer's full sentence, which was Numerically, it's 11 to 7 in favor of a redirect, a clear majority but not on its face clear consensus. In other words, they are saying that Afd is not a WP:VOTE. They were not implying by that, that there is somehow rough consensus, because right after that they said, in regards to the actual discussion, There are reasonable arguments on both sides.. and then they went on to find that there is still no consensus to revert. StonyBrook (talk) 21:48, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Why would it have been a WP:VOTE? That's a red herring. It's a general premise that the discussion was not plagued by WP:VOTE issues. See WP:JUSTAVOTE to get of sense WP:VOTE in practical terms in AfD. It's about mere nominal advocacy as opposed to substantive advocacy—it isn't about numerically superior substantive support not counting for anything. All of these conventions serve to qualify raw numerical support as not being in and of itself consensus, but as something that needs to form around sensible reasoning. They try to arouse scenarios where the numerical superiority is legitimate, as opposed to merely imposing. They don't serve to replace one modality of imposing (by a majority) with another like you do (by an admin closer... with his "rights") This is what Numerically, it's 11 to 7 in favor of a redirect, a clear majority but not on its face clear consensus. means:
There is a clear majority of 11 to 7 (61-39% support).
There is no clear consensus.
Great, no problem. When no !votes are discounted/downweighed (i.e. problems such as WP:JUSTAVOTE are not present / not accounted for) 11-to-7, while not necessarily being clear consensus, it is certainly an average scene where rough/slight consensus in found. When seeing that in this case the closer has not found clear consensus, one would expect that they have found consensus of a lesser intensity, that is still consensus. So when one sees that in fact no consensus was found (despite The desired standard [being] rough consensus, not perfect consensus), one wonders, what the reason was. There can be reasons, naturally. Maybe the majority had some failings in their position (downweighed/discounted !votes). That would make the majority not in fact be the legitimate majority (or not even be a majority numerically as they are whittled down via discounting). We don't see any such reasons, in fact we see the opposite reasoning: the majority had a reasonable argument (no less reasonable than the opposing argument). Sooo... Not only do we have a pretty regular numerical support emblematic of consensus, we have a reasonable and therefore perfectly legitimate majority. This is exactly consensus. The closer described consensus while calling it not-consensus making the close illogical. Calling the discussion a tie based only on a personal adjudication of arguments, where one individual thinks they're matched in strength (Sandstein, for example), while another potential closer has a starkly opposite opinion (Scottywong, for example), is the thing that common closing practices have evolved around to avoid. Closing like this creates a strong perception of Consensus-reversal supervoting. — Alalch Emis (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The majority had a reasonable argument (no less reasonable than the opposing argument). Sooo... Not only do we have a pretty regular numerical support emblematic of consensus, we have a reasonable and therefore perfectly legitimate majority. Not so fast. Not everyone in the majority had reasonable arguments. There were flaws in other arguments as well. StonyBrook (talk) 02:20, 7 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn close and reopen discussion a week further Although I argued for a redirect, I feel that more views here can only help rather than hurt. If there's a no consensus at the time of extension, it makes more sense to continue the discussion so that when it's closed at the end of 21 days, the decision is sure and certain. Nate•(chatter) 21:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Overturn to redirect, closer and keep votes effectively failed to address WP:CFORK concerns, which is what the original nomination was based off of. Swordman97talk to me 03:09, 8 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
