Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2014 February 9

Veterans Today (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

The information in this article is taken from Reliable sources. If there are BLP violations, or if any of the information is improperly sourced), specific instances of this could have been pointed out (none were). The reliable sources certainly do not put VT in an positive light, but that alone is not a reason for deletion (There are plenty of articles in Wikipedia in which reliable sources portray their topics in an unflattering way) If there are specific problems with this article, they should have been pointed out prior to deletion. None of the editors of this page were notified that this article was up for deletion, and no attempts were made to inform them.

I have already brought this to the attention of the admin who deleted the article. Malik_Shabazz#Veterans_Today; he recommended that I bring this issue to the Deletion Review page. Hyperionsteel (talk) 00:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn: The material in this article is based on reliable sources. Attempts should have been made to correct any real or perceived issues prior to deleting the page.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 00:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)) struck vote - your nomination is taken as a vote and you don't get an extra vote. Thanks. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Kinda hard to judge an article that we cannot see, though what I see from looking online for sources seems to hit a lot of tinfoil-hat forums and blogs and the like, so it isn't looking very promising. Tarc (talk) 03:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am declining to restore this article for the purposes of this discussion. It has contained a BLP vio since its inception and there is no clean version to revert to. The sources referred to are below in the hat, but note that this was deleted as an A10 attack page. Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse. I've had a look at the deleted article and I think that G10 is about right. I concur with User:Spartaz that it would not be appropriate to restore the article to public view based upon its contents. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC).[reply]
  • Endorse. A bit redundant since I'm the one who recommended it for deletion. The reason I looked up the article in the first place was to find out who the folks at VT are and what their connections are because I had just read one of their articles and found some of it questionable. So I was coming already predisposed to not like VT. What I found was an article even more biased in the other direction. There have been notices on the page that it needed to be cleaned up for more than a year. Attempts to do that were almost immediately reverted to restore salacious material from biased sources. I'm a veteran and resent VT speaking as it does in my name, but restoring what amounts to libel is not the way to go about trying to counter its warped view. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 16:36, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• There are two key points here:- (1) It's extremely rare for DRV to overturn a G10. It's right that our admins are empowered to delete attack pages on sight. Of course, in some cases it may be possible to quibble whether or not the page was really an attack page; but if the case is borderline, then DRV won't normally censure an admin for using their judgment. Hypothetically, we might overturn a G10 if nobody can see how the deleting admin thought it was an attack page, but that's clearly not the case here and an endorse outcome is basically in the bag. But, (2), a G10 speedy deletion is one of the easiest things to overcome in the world. Just write a version that isn't an attack page. The fact that there has been a G10 in the past has absolutely no effect at all on the question of whether a non-attack page can be created. (Of course, if a fresh attack page appears you can probably expect this page title to be salted.) So the outcome we're looking at is a resounding endorse for the G10 but that's no obstacle to creating a page with this name.—S Marshall T/C 23:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn - The article was clearly within the realm of saving. I initially had put a lot of work into this page before it turned into a complete shit show, but it could have been pretty easily saved. If it is to stay deleted, is it somehow possible to access previous versions of the history of the page so I have somewhere to work from to create a new version rather than start completely from scratch when there was material already to work from...? Plot Spoiler (talk) 04:05, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I also put a lot of work into this page and I believe it can be salvaged - Access to a previous version of this page would be useful. However, if this is not possible, earlier versions of this page are available at the Internet Wayback Machine Archive. One suggestion: it might be a good idea to have any new proposed version be reviewed by an administrator before it is recreated; that way, we can avoid these delightful conversations in the future.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 05:11, 11 February 2014 (UTC))[reply]

• Unfortunately there are two foreseeable obstacles. The first is the systemic problem on Wikipedia of admins' inconsistent attitudes. In other words, even if one admin reviews the page and decides it should be kept, this doesn't stop another admin coming along later and speedy-deleting it. Because Wikipedia has approximately five trillion vague and semi-contradictory rules, each of which was designed by a small working party based on their experience of solving a particular problem a few years ago, so admins have to choose which of our rules they're enforcing at any given moment, and two different admins might come up with two different decisions. The second problem is that there are editors who have seriously offended, annoyed and inconvenienced a number of people by publishing complete lies about them. So the rules about offending, insulting or attacking a living person are extremely virulent, and admins are very leery of them. None of our admins will be willing to restore a possible attack page to public view. Because our current editing environment is such that protecting the lovely and admirable Gordon Duff is a far higher priority than reducing the workload for the scummy volunteers who're trying to write the encyclopaedia. You may be able to tell that I have considerable sympathy for you in this...—S Marshall T/C 08:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• It's true that the information in this article wasn't too flattering towards VT's founders and contributors. Unfortunately (or in my opinion, fortunately) there aren't a lot of mainstream sources that have positive opinions about this website.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 23:30, 11 February 2014 (UTC))[reply]

• Endorse deletion but allow recreation. You need a zealous champion of an admin to overturn a G10 and your acceptance that the original article "wasn't too flattering" suggests (deep down) you know why it was deleted and you've begrudgingly accepted it. That's the smart thing to do. Move on, start again and create an article that, while perhaps isn't flattering, is more respectful of BLP policy than your last shot. As S Marshall rightly points out, it's frustrating and a bit of a waste of time compared to the relative simplicity of the alternative. But it is what it is. You did it once before, I'm sure you can do it again (without the offending, literally, bit). Stalwart111 05:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn. This one is really confusing to me. I don't see our article as meeting G10 in the least. Clearly, the subject of the article (i.e. the Veterans Today website) is a bunch of raving whackos, and much of what's on that site is hateful. But, I took a look at Veterans Today (as of 8 February 2014, at 22:12) by Plot Spoiler (the last version before it was blanked, and then deleted). I don't see anything hateful about our article. It covers a topic which is uncomfortable to read about, but that's not any different from Ku Klux Klan or Hitler Youth. We need to distinguish between an article which espouses hate, and one which simply covers an organization which espouses hate. Veterans Today is the later, and G10 doesn't apply. It's quite possible Veterans Today would fail AfD for being non-notable or having no independent reliable sources, but that's a different story. It may be true, as S Marshall points out, that it's rare for a G10 to be overturned, but in this case, it was clearly mis-applied and should be. For the benefit of non-admins participating in this (and who, thus, can't see the deleted material), I'll quote the first paragraph:

Veterans Today is an American political website that describes itself as "an online journal representing the position of members of the military and veteran community in areas of national security, geopolitical stability and domestic policy."[2] Many of their contributors are veterans, and they state support for "the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic".[citation needed] The Anti-Defamation League ("ADL") and the Southern Poverty Law Center have criticized it for promoting bigoted and extremist viewpoints.[3][4] According to the ADL, VT's articles are reposted widely on the Internet, primarily on conspiracy-oriented and right-wing extremist websites.[3]

This seems like a pretty balanced and dispassionate treatment of the topic, and the rest of the article is similar. If the problem is that the article keeps accumulating inappropriate material (as suggested above), then the solution is more rigorous watching and possible protection of the article. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:01, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just found User_talk:Malik_Shabazz/Archive_44#Veterans_Today, which gives a little background to this, but doesn't really change anything. I'm a big fan of WP:BLP, but that applies to people. Web sites and organizations don't (IMHO) get BLP protection. In any case, if the problem is that the article is a mess, or subject to constant vandalism, or edit wars, there are ways to address those problems, and WP:G10 isn't one of them. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:31, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]