- HMS Richmond helicopter crash (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
When I saw Hawkeye7 claiming that the article has "attracted sufficient coverage to write a substantial article about it, so on the face of it meets WP:GNG.", and then when I read his claim that "Per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS neither the existence nor the non-existence of similar articles is a factor", I'm afraid I only had conclusion - that he had, at best, just skimmed the debate and article, possibly taking the claims of the keepers regarding coverage and sources at simple face value. A detailed review would have surely seen the objections I had to these ideas, leading at the very least to some explanation as to how I was wrong. I had come to expect being ignored by some of the keepers, especially the ones who seemed to have little or no interest in either what the sources actually contained or the clear intent of rules like EVENT, but I don't expect to be seemingly ignored by the person tasked with making a ruling on the debate. My personal vanity aside, there's also the problem that he appears to be dodging the central issue here, whether or not EVENT is met, by effectively declaring it a 'draw' - an outcome which surely helps absolutely no-one at all, neither keepers or deleters. There were some pretty out there claims made in this debate which appeared to me to absolutely fly in the face of a common sense reading of EVENT/GNG (like the inquest issue), so they surely warrant addressing with a yes or no answer, for the benefit of everyone. Patrol forty (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - This is simply a rehash of the DRV nom's AfD arguments and their meta-discussion as to their own interpretation of WP:EVENT and WP:GNG (the DRV nom's arguments in the AfD used up more bytes than all of WP:NOTABILITY and WP:EVENT combined), which was way out of consensus in this case. Many users, particularly User:Mike Peel, very much addressed the DVR nom's interpretation and consensus was very much in agreement him. --Oakshade (talk) 23:23, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Oakshade is a keeper, so I hope his endorsement and claims of a rehash are ignored as being hopelessly biased. You've got a cheek even mentioning Mike though. I take great issue with what Mike has said, it is flawed, and like your own positions, ignores the contradictions between what you both seem to want Wikipedia to include, and what it actually does (so it can hardly be consensus). And I don't see where anyone agreed with him anyway; certainly if you did at the time, you kept awfully quiet. You had your opportunity to respond to my criticism of his first post, yet you apparently couldn't be bothered. Something about having a life. But I can at least now see that I wouldn't be wasting my time responding to Mike's second post (I didn't see it until after closure, otherwise I would have done). Unlike yourself, Mike is clearly someone who appreciates what a discussion actually is, and can treat people with respect even if he disagrees with them. The delay not withstanding, he has actually read what I wrote, and tailored a specific reply which leaves me in no doubt where he is coming from. He seems to appreciate exactly which parts of is argument come from the rules (without tediously copy-pasting it verbatim, as if the other person is an idiot), and which are closer to personal preference. I hope if he attempts to create articles for some of those other Lynx crashes, he'll get some perspective on how easy it is to write them when they do actually pass EVENT. Patrol forty (talk) 01:12, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. The task of the person closing an AfD is not to make a 'ruling'. It is to assess where the consensus lies, in the context of applicable policies and guidelines. That task often requires discounting !votes that are policy-ignorant. But it does not mean deciding that one or more contributors to the debate have 'won' the argument. Here, the arguments for 'delete' were not so overwhelmingly strong, and the arguments for 'keep' were not so overwhelmingly weak, that a delete outcome was appropriate. Hawkeye7 carried out the task correctly. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:23, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The policy context of EVENT is that Wikipedia does not want articles to be written on things like air crashes if the only thing you can put in it is a few facts scraped together from news reports - either at the time or as part of simple recaps after the event. The whole point of EVENT is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a newspaper archive, so having evidence of sources which provide an historical interpretation from a secondary perspective in enough breadth/detail to be able to write a proper (i.e. complete and reliable) article is vital. Therefore, if he really thinks the keep voters case was not overwhelmingly weak, he was clearly not even paying attention to the policy context, because not a single keep voter provided any evidence at all that the sources used here were anything but news reports at the time, or simple recaps. The only non news source [1], was a brief recap in a non-independent source, whose accuracy it turns out might not be all that good. Rather than winning by providing not weak enough arguments, the keep side appear to have won the argument by simply deciding not to see these sort of objections, in the apparent hope that the closer would take their claims as read and not even notice that in some cases they simply totally misrepresented what the sources actually were, in the apparent hope of a 'draw' outcome like this.
- This is why I expect a ruling, as it's not clear to me whether the article is still here because he thought that source I linked to really is an example of the crash being covered in depth by a reliable independent source as was claimed by keepers, or whether it has been kept in full awareness that it's a brief mention in a non-independent source, whose accuracy is well in doubt thanks to subsequent discoveries (ironically by Mike, one of the keepers). It's not going to help anyone who comes across this article in future and notices all the flaws, inaccuracies and omissions, as well as the serious problems with sources like that, to simply be told that the closer didn't think these objections were not so overwhelmingly strong to require deletion. They will look at that comment, look at EVENT, and quite rightly come to the conclusion Wikipedia's left hand doesn't know what the right one is doing. Those sort of objections clearly don't matter to people like Oakshade, but Wikipedia doesn't exist just to satisfy his personal desire to have an article on anything he personally thinks is 'notable' (but is entirely reluctant to prove it in any way), hence the need for outcomes like this to be reviewed, so others know where they stand. Patrol forty (talk) 12:51, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse, noting that I was both the first delete !voter and one of the strongest advocates for deletion. I still believe it should be deleted but there was no consensus in that discussion for deletion which is exactly what the closing admin concluded. Can't fault that. It was well and truly hashed out with strong arguments from both sides (toward the end; some at the start were just woeful as HJ Mitchell and I discussed). At the end of the day, the community just couldn't come together on this one. In those instances, the result defaults to "keep" (and rightly so). St★lwart111 06:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I can't seen any other outcome to such an approach other than Wikipedia being continuously filled up with articles which are extremely poor in quality, but which have no hope of being improved (because if the sources really existed to improve them, there wouldn't even be any disagreement in the first place). Patrol forty (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn to Keep - meeting WP:N doesn't always mean keep (nor does failing it always mean delete), but it creates a strong presumption that way. Combined with a strong headcount (about 15-5), and a pretty weak delete position that boils down to more or less "I don't find this particularly interesting" a no consensus close is unsupportable. WilyD 07:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Are we talking about the same discussion? That opinion never formed even a small part of the deletion argument and about half of the keep votes were completely valueless ("a woman was involved"), as detailed in the discussion itself. St★lwart111 13:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- As Stalwart says, I find it hard to believe anyone who actually reads that debate, could even begin to describe it that way. Not to mention that finding the topic interesting or not is neither here nor there - it doesn't count either way, per INTERESTING. Bar a few exceptions, out of that supposedly strong headcount of 15, the vast majority seemed to me to think the case for deletion was so strong that their best strategy was to just ignore it - after all, you can't lose an argument that you simply don't engage with. And on that score, for like, the hundredth time, the relevant issue here was obviously whether the article meets EVENT or not. Simplifying the issue to just satisfying WP:N ignores the rather important fact that, certainly under the rather loose definitions of breadth/depth/significance that seem to be in play here, every single fatal crash will always be presumed to be notable enough for Wikipedia purely by virtue of the news coverage they get at the time. I've certainly yet to see a fatal military crash that doesn't get the sort of news coverage this one did. Patrol forty (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe you ought to read the discussion. The delete "argument" isn't really engaged because there's not much to engage. Lots of classes of things always get kept; generally because they're rare or important (although professional athelete biographies, for instance, fall in there, which are neither). The delete position trying to argue against policy and against headcount with a weak argument (which even you say shouldn't count either way) can't pull this from keep to no consensus. A willingness to badger people because a position lacks both a policy basis and popular support doesn't make it stronger - it reveals it's weakness. WilyD 07:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That's twice you've claimed my argument was weak, and for the second time, you've declined to explain how or why that is the case (except to quite falsely claim the only thing behind it was a belief on my part that it was uninteresting).
- I'm sorry if you, like Oakshade, don't like being badgered, but it appears to be the only way to illustrate just how unwilling you are to actually answer what are some very simple questions - the answers of which would be incredibly easy to give if my position was as weak as is claimed. Such as, if EVENT says an article should demonstrate PERSISTENCE of INDEPTH sourcing in RELIABLE SECONDARY sources giving a BROAD overview of the topic, in enough DETAIL to be able to write a complete and well rounded article on the subject from a historical perspective, then why is it that the sources currently in it (and in Mike's draft) singularly fail to do so, unless we entertain quite ludicrous positions such as this idea that news reporting of inquests into fatal military air crashes is some how remarkably unusual and non-routine (which is a complete fantasy), or that brief mentions in MoD publications are somehow non-independent and examples of deep and detailed coverage (which is practically delusional).
- The only people revealing their weakness are those of you who continue to ignore these glaring issues, which all combine to result in an article which is frankly worthless, if the goal is to explain to readers how this particular crash, to the exclusion of all the other fatal Lynx crashes, was historically notable or significant. Take a look around, one of the classes of things that seem to get deleted with great consistency on Wikipedia are articles on fatal military air crashes which had no historical importance or significant impact on aviation or the military, or otherwise were largely forgotten, except as part of recap style reporting when things like memorial services or newer crashes occur. And obviously, for something to be considered historically significant, under Wikipedia's own rules, it's not enough for individual editors to simply say they found it INTERESTING for reason x/y/z, or to point out that it meets GNG (while completely ignoring EVENT), and then simply count their heads while pretending the other side's arguments never even existed (that's effectively what you're doing by claiming they're weak without a shred of evidence or further explanation to back up that claim).
- The sad truth is, I suspect the only reason the article was created was Harry noticed the train name (he has written at least one other article where a train is named), and he then simply assumed (without checking at all) that the depth and gender aspects which are briefly mentioned in sources, had been covered in enough detail by reliable secondary sources to make this crash notable enough for Wikipedia. Clearly, that's not true (or if it is, nobody here is willing to prove it any time soon), otherwise there'd be something more to say about it than what little is already there, and what little is said wouldn't be open to challenge on grounds of failing VERIFY/SYNTHESIS as detailed below. He seems to have paid absolutely no attention to EVENT or how Wikipedia has dealt with similar topics (i.e. by not having articles about them for reasons that are clearly not just effort related), and apparently nobody else cares that this is the case either. Right from the very outset he was making claims that the article's own sourcing doesn't support, and that nobody else has shown can be proven with more sources either ("the Royal Navy's first loss of a female pilot an aspect which generated significant media attention").
- Its retention seems to be down to nothing more than it fits an apparent desire in many of the keepers for Wikipedia to simply be one giant archive for every single detail that's ever been reported in the news, and leave it up to the reader to decide if the time it takes to interpret it (and indeed fact check it) is truly worth it - something which isn't much different to just pointing people to the Google News archives. Patrol forty (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse outcome. The expressed consensus was quite clear, there were no claims of content policy violations or any other disputes beyond application of the notability threshold. In such cases, it is hard to discern any basis for rejecting community opinion. And the OP here seems to be an SPA. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The clarity of the consensus is what I am contesting. I'd say that if this consensus was as clear as you say, I wouldn't be having such a hard time getting some specifics about what it actually decided, such as the whether or not a news report on a coroners inquiry is an example of PERSISTENCE, or whether or not that MoD source is an example of DEPTH. And on a point of order, having researched the article and sources thoroughly, I thought I had made it quite clear in the debate that I had found evidence of multiple other policy violations (which only exist precisely because the quality of the sourcing is far below what an objective observer would say was being asked for by EVENT). If anyone here needs a reminder, they are:
- 1. A crucial component of what would be considered a 'finished' version of this article, the crash investigation conclusion, can only apparently be sourced to the crash report itself (published in 2005). As these are highly technical documents, the likelihood of ORIGINAL RESEARCH occurring whenever an editor attempts their own summarisation of this PRIMARY source, is high. It goes without saying, this wouldn't be an issue for a notable crash, because the report would have been analysed and summarised by secondary sources.
- 2. The depth claim is sourced only to a PRIMARY source which is in no way independent of the subject (MoD). Its accuracy is in doubt since it contains other statements of fact which are later contradicted by other releases from the same source. So it can be argued that, by including this claim, the article fails VERIFY.
- 3. The true facts regarding the gender claim are not clear - due to the scarcity of sourcing there are two different versions of what this death might have signified in that context (either first RN pilot/observer killed in service, or the first female RN servicewoman killed at all). Both of those claims can be traced back to PRIMARY sources, with no independence to the subject. So again, like the depth claim, it can be argued this is another failure to adhere to VERIFY.
- 4. The article contains no proof at all, not even in a PRIMARY source, that the reason for the locomotive naming was as an act of dedication/memorialisation of the crash itself (the topic of the article), or by extension, the two dead crew. What it does contain are sourced statements that it was meant to memorialise only Lewis (who is not the subject), and to mark for posterity her love of trains/Devon (as opposed to marking for posterity her being the first female to die in this particular job). The article also makes it clear that the decisions was clearly not made independent of the subject (her father being a major donor). For all those reasons, if people are going to claim this crash is notable because of this train naming, this can be said to be a violation of ORIGINAL RESEARCH.
- 5. Keeping an article on an aircrash simply because 15 people claim it was historically notable, but which any actual reader of it is going to find out very quickly doesn't contain a single secondary source that's not simply basic news reporting, i.e. it contains absolutely no content from a source which has actually analysed and interpreted the crash, which happened 12 years ago, from a historical perspective, seems to me to be a very obvious violation of COMMONSENSE, since Wikipedia would clearly be improved by not misleading readers into thinking this is what it considers proper selection and curation of notable air crashes to record for all time
- Obviously none of 2-4 above is meant to be an assertion that any of the claims are actually false (I can't say they are any better than the next person), merely that they can't ever be proven in a way that adheres to Wikipedia's rules (due to the scarcity of sources, particularly RELIABLE SECONDARY ones). And to point out the obvious, if the 15 people claiming this crash was notable had nothing to say on these issues, either because they just never read them, or otherwise just ignored them, that hardly suggests the consensus is clear at all (I'm not going to go back and do a thorough review to be absolutely certain, but from memory, I don't recall a single keeper addressing a single thing about points 2 to 4, not even just to say I was just wrong).
- And lastly, having looked up SPA, I'd like to know precisely why you thought this was even relevant. On what basis are you seeking to dismiss my views on the basis that my only interest in Wikipedia is the issue of why this article was kept, despite being a pretty clear violation of EVENT. Quite apart from the fact that I have clearly benefited Wikipedia by ensuring that the Lynx article at least mentions some of the other crashes which are easily more notable than this crash, I'd like to know how anything I might have said or done in this matter might be considered to be engaged in pushing an "unsuitable agenda"? Patrol forty (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I note with some trepidation that Mike Peel, perhaps confident that nobody here is likely to waste any more time on the issue of debating whether or not the crash is actually notable in a robust manner, has already apparently begun working on the article, or at least on an alternate draft - User:Mike Peel/Richmond. As I feared, rather than being expanded with material from reliable secondary sources that would actually go some way to proving it meets EVENT, the main thrust of the effort appears to be:
- adding material directly interpreted/summarized from the PRIMARY source of crash report (not even for this crash, but a much later one) - presumably because that's the only one accessible on-line
- adding information from unreliable sources (unless someone can convince me the folks of the Wolverhampton Aviation Group, the people behind http://www.ukserials.com/, are to be considered reliable).
- adding yet more material directly from news reports at the time, bringing it ever closer to the point where the article truly will be simply a complete archival record of all the news reporting of the incident
It should be obvious by now that the only reason he is having to resort to this, rather than add anything from the sort of source that that would address any of the problems I just listed above, is because the crash is simply not notable in the true sense of EVENT - whatever looser interpretation (if not complete disregard) others, 15 or otherwise, want to apply to it. Patrol forty (talk) 01:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I've been spending a bit of time working through the existing material in the article, and the references that support it, to double-check that everything in there is currently verifiable. I've added a couple of refs I found by a quick google search to back up currently unreferenced material added by Patrol forty (thanks for adding that content, BTW!), and I've done a bit of work to track down the complete ref that I mentioned an extract from during the deletion debate that gives a summary of this crash in a crash report of another helicopter. The next step, once I'm happy with what's there at the moment, would be to do a more in-depth search for references to add new material in the article - I haven't yet got on to that. Please be patient and don't make assumptions. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:59, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I had already found the complete ref and linked to it in the deletion debate, specifically I mentioned it in the reply directly to you, while listing all the issues that using it would raise if you couldn't find anything better. If you intend to work on this article, then sooner or later you're going to have to deal with these issues, even if nobody here cares to. Since these are all issues which fundamentaly undermine the article as a piece of encyclopedic writing, these should have been addressed at the proposed deletion stage. And I really shouldn't have to keep repeating this - the very idea that you would even need to to an "in-depth search for references" to add more material, for a crash which was already claimed to meet EVENT ("easily" by some), is yet further proof that this crash isn't even close to meeting it.
- Given the time-frame, everything you would require would already be easily available on the net, or at the least the titles of the books you would need to go and find at a library would have been revealed by now. Rather than doing this, you should be looking for sources which actually fix the inconsistencies and omissions already present in it (listed above, but ignored, yet again) precisely because of how poorly sourced it was before, and would also give readers some reason to believe that this particular crash, out of all other fatal Lynx crashes, was indeed historically notable or significant (not just simply recalled now and then, for reasons which have very little to do with the actual crash).
- Just scraping together yet more of the same from all available news content and apparently unreliable enthusiast sites, as well as performing your own analysis of the PRIMARY source of the report, isn't going to do that. Not now, or in the future - which is why patience is not really relevant here. For me not to assume the worst here, there needs to be some recognition from you that you're approach so far has done nothing to improve this article's notability credentials or actual quality, except perhaps to move it yet one more step closer to being a complete archive of all the available news reporting on it, with a few more details added which even the news reports didn't feel the need to include (not a problem if they are being noted in reliable secondary coverage, but they aren't). Maybe that's what you believe Wikipedia should be, but as anyone can see, no matter what their opinion on the particulars is, that's not what it is supposed to be, if EVENT is to be believed. Patrol forty (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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