Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2024 May 31

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31 May 2024

  • Tamil genocideEndorsed. Clear consensus is that Liz closed this AfD correctly and convincingly as "keep". As she noted, neither the AfD nor this DRV are about the question of whether a Tamil genocide occurred (that should be a subject of the article instead, if reliable sources question it). Instead. the AfD was about whether the topic has sufficient coverage in reliable sources for us to be able to write an article about it. And this DRV is about whether the closer correctly assessed consensus to that effect. Many people here and at the AfD misunderstand this. Sandstein 15:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Tamil genocide (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

First of all, the closing admin has failed to address the problem with their closure and told me that they already expected a DRV.[1] This is contrary to the fact that admins should be so confident about their closure that they should not expect a DRV with regards to their closure.

A major argument that was made on this article was that there has been no genocide against the Tamils, thus the article is spreading disinformation. It also makes sense because there is not a single country that recognizes any genocide against the Tamils. However, this argument has been admittedly rejected by the closing admin.

Another major argument was that this article provided nothing that hasn't been already covered at War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War and List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. This was ignored by the closing admin. Similarly, the quality of sourcing was also disputed[2][3] but this has been also rejected by the closing admin.

Article was created by a sock. It attracted many participants this article was already being discussed on WP:ANI before it was nominated for deletion. However, many of the "keep" supporters were totally canvassed given their suspicious editing history and that they edited Wikipedia, after staying for more than 1 year - 3 years, for the sake of making a "Keep" vote on this AfD.[4][5][6]

The AfD result could be in favor of deletion or draftification, but there was no consensus for "keep". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Overturn (involved). My jaw dropped when I read the closing comments. Since when is the closing statement allowed to be a WP:SUPERVOTE? The closing statement – by the otherwise respected admin Liz – even failed to provide such an elementary item as the summary of the points raised by the respective camps. For the Keep camp, the statement fails to present the key argument of the (limited) existence of the term in literature. For the Delete position, it does not mention the red flags being raised about sourcing quality and quantity, the apparent violation of WP:NOTADVOCACY, and the fact that much of the content overlaps, and indeed has been copied from, another, more aptly titled article.
Instead, the SUPERVOTE reads: "The first 2/3 of this discussion isn't very helpful at all in terms of determining a closure but in the latter 1/3 editors brought forward actual, accepted reliable sources that can verify that this subject, which might be in dispute, is indeed notable." However, the sources brought up in "the latter 1/3" were mostly the same as those mentioned in the earlier part, and met with an identical challenge. Interestingly, the closer failed to name the source(s) that convinced her to cast this supervote or explain what was so unhelpful in the most of the discussion.
Not very helpfully, the closer suggests to "start a talk page discussion on a possible article page title change", apparently failing to notice that such a discussion was closed barely 7 days ago.
Finally, the closer takes an issue with tagging certain accounts as SPAs or canvassed. Regretfully, that's what we have these tags for, and El_C explicitly confirmed this.[7] If the closer is unable or unwilling to consider participation patterns at AfDs, perhaps they should reconsider closing discussions? — kashmīrī TALK 06:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What remains certain to me is that there was anything but consensus in that discussion. If anything, the close should have been that of "no consensus". Calling the heated debate "consensus" is a blatant misuse of the term. — kashmīrī TALK 14:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved and it would be nice if other involved editors would mark their comments likewise). El_C made an excellent close and gave clear reasons why a large number of delete votes weren't policy based and therefore do not form part of any considerations on what consensus was. TarnishedPathtalk 06:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved) In reply to Abhishek: \\Another major argument was that this article provided nothing that hasn't been already covered at War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War and List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces.\\
This is patently false. The latter page is a simple list of attacks and does not cover the topic of genocide at all, whereas the former focuses on the topic of war crimes (and that too only for the final stages of the war). The topic of Tamil genocide spans several decades, and includes the 1983 Black July pogrom which was described as genocidal. Oz346 (talk) 10:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved) - the closing admin made valid points that the article can be reworked than be deleted. The claim that no country recognizes Tamil genocide (does the head of the Canadian state commemorating "Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day" not count?) is immaterial since as the closer noted there's enough RS literature discussing the topic. The claim that this article provided nothing that hasn't been already covered in other hyperlinked articles is baseless, since the scope of this article is much broader than 2009 and a list of government attacks targeting all Sri Lankan citizens cannot really include analyses of Tamil genocide. Keep-supporters being "totally canvassed" is just an accusation that can also be levelled against many Delete-supporters who were just repeating each other's non-policy based reasons without possibly even having read the article. WP:POVDELETION states: "there is usually no need to immediately delete text that can instead be rewritten as necessary over time." The closing admin's decision is in keeping with the policies and as an uninvolved party is qualified to deliver neutral judgement unlike users with a conflict of interest as amply demonstrated by their lack of due diligence as per WP:BEFORE.---Petextrodon (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (uninvolved). The appellant hasn't brought forth any valid argument for this appeal.
    • Their claim that This is contrary to the fact that admins should be so confident about their closure that they should not expect a DRV with regards to their closure is baseless. "Confident"? I think a better adjective would be naïve. Anyone who has been closing AfDs for over a month knows that this type of politically-charged AfD invariably ends up at DRV, no matter how you close it. We hate closing such discussions, but someone has to do it, and I'm glad it was Liz who took care of this one. I would have closed it exactly the same way, albeit with a somewhat harsher closing rationale.
    • The question of whether the referenced events in Sri Lanka qualify as genocide is not one that Wikipedia needs to--or even may--answer. We may only go by what secondary, reliable sources tell us. Whether or not sources call it a "genocide" could be relevant in a move review, but not in an AfD. For an article to meet our inclusion criteria, it suffices that the topic is notable. Neither a bad title nor poorly written content are valid reasons to delete an article. If no country recognizes any genocide against the Tamils, that should be mentioned in the article, with appropriate sourcing. "Misinformation", if such really exists in the article, should be fixed editorially.
    • As for the claim that the article provided nothing that hasn't been already covered at War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, I observe that none of those who brought this up !voted for Merge or Redirect. If their concern was truly one of a POV fork, then a redirect or selective merge would have been the obvious remedy. The fact that they all opted for "Delete" tells me their vote was motivated by politics, not by encyclopedic interest.
    • Yes, there is clear evidence of canvassing in this AfD - on both sides. Once you discard those votes, you are left with a clear consensus to keep the article.
I don't see any "supervote" here. I see a meticulous analysis of over 40 views expressed there, judicious categorization of each view into legitimate, relevant one or one that falls under WP:DISCARD, and a detailed closing rationale that provides transparency well beyond our usual standards. I also see an attempt here to relitigate the case by rehashing every argument already brought up at that AfD and hoping something sticks. Owen× 11:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved): Like OwenX, I believe this is just an attempt to relitigate the AfD, that Liz proffered an indepth analysis of her closing decision, and that the proponents of Deletion belabored irrelevancies such as "There wasn't a genocide." The nom's assertion that no country recognizes a Tamil genocide is equally irrelevant as well as blatantly false, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the nom is hellbent on ignoring facts they don't like. Yes, we get that the editors fervently trying to get this article deleted dispute its sourcing. Perhaps, however, we could mend the nom's accusations of canvassing by making sure that no one is acting under nationlist/ethnic motives of some fashion, and automatically discount the views of any participant with a history of editing South Asian articles; would the nom prefer that? Ravenswing 13:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (uninvolved). Close absolutely within reason and with such a charged topic, there was no question about DRV. That's not a lack of confidence, that's understanding the reality of this project and human editors. There's a reason it's covered by CT. Star Mississippi 13:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: There's strong evidence of off-wiki canvassing to the deletion discussion: www.reddit.com/r/Eelam/comments/1bzd8bg/an_english_wikipedia_page_for_tamil_genocide_has/ The sheer number of newly established or unused accounts that commented "Keep" in the discussion is very likely to have influenced the outcome, given that the closer refused to consider off-wiki teaming. — kashmīrī TALK 14:55, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kashmiri, I can't see the deletion discussion referenced once in that Reddit discussion. Perhaps my eyesight is going on me. Can you please provide specific evidence for your allegation against these Reddit users. Secondly I believe this topic as been addressed by Owen×, who stated that they saw canvassing on both sides. Can you please address their comments if you think that there was only canvassing on one side. TarnishedPathtalk 15:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The very first thing in the post is a link to the article, which had the afd tag at the top. —Cryptic 16:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cryptic, firstly it's a link to the article, not the AfD. The specific allegation is that people have been canvassed to the AfD. Secondly that Reddit thread was from two months ago, well before the AfD started. At the time when the Reddit user started that thread there was no AfD tag on the article and wouldn't be for some time. TarnishedPathtalk 16:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a more recent post that had more inflammatory wording. Here was the text before it was deleted:
"Tamil Genocide is nominated for deletion by Indians
Indians and an Indian Muslim along with the Sinhalese are trying to delete this page:.
Here is a discussion on this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tamil_genocide"
There were also comments on the post before it was deleted, one of which was asking how they could address the issue. SinhalaLion (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SinhalaLion, thankyou for that. Above another editor has stated that there was clear canvassing on both sides. They stated that if they were closing and disregarded the clearly canvassed votes on both sides, along with any votes that didn't address policy, that they would have come to the same close decision. TarnishedPathtalk 16:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Read the last post:
I reached out to some keyboard warriors on insta who usually comment on insta pages about Eelam and their responses are as follows:
::::"Bro my english is not Good"
::::"Not good bro, msg this guy: @@@@@ . he may help you"
::::"I work 9-5 and I don't have time to concentrate in this. But still look into it"
::::"I would not be able to personally write due to time insufficiency"
::::"It's most likely get deleted. So I don't wanna waste my time"
::::"I’m kinda busy now, but let me get back to you on it" (been a week since this reply. lol)
::::So this is the capability of these keyboard warriors. Useless people. Just fit to type random comments and curse at other ethnic people rather than doing something useful for their own community!
From this post it's apparent that the OP there tried to canvass others. — kashmīrī TALK 16:29, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, that post wasn't asking people to opine in the discussion but to develop the page. However, that post was very canvas-like and the users could have turned into WP:MEATPUPPET very quickly if needed. SinhalaLion (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This one then? https://www.reddit.com/r/Eelam/comments/1d3tenm/tamil_genocide_is_nominated_for_deletion_by/kashmīrī TALK 16:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's the one I brought up already. SinhalaLion (talk) 16:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Both of you have either wrongly accused or insinuated without explicit evidence that particular individuals outside Wikipedia have attempted canvassing to shape the AfD consensus here, one of you going so far as to quote their statements out of context. Is this even allowed on Wikipedia, considering the legal consequences? As for @Kashmiri's claim of "sheer number of newly established or unused accounts" voting Keep, this is baseless as there's literally only one (an IP) account that potentially fits the former while your definition of "unused accounts" is highly questionable. You marked pro-Keep Anonymouseditor2k19 who made last edit on 21 May 2024 as possibly canvassed but not pro-Delete JohnWiki159 who made last edit on 14 April 2024. It would have been preferable for an uninvolved editor to have done this task. All other newly created accounts voted in the wrong sections or even page and unlikely to have been counted at all. All of this is beside the point anyway since it's the quality of the arguments that admins look at and not the number of votes. There simply isn't a good case for complete deletion and the admin correctly treated non-responses like "it didn't happen" or "no one recognized" for what they were.---Petextrodon (talk) 20:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I might have missed one or two accounts, but I tried to tag all the suspicious accounts irrespective of whether they voted Keep or Delete. — kashmīrī TALK 21:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What are the legal consequences? Is it illegal to canvas people for Wikipedia arguments? Have I revealed any PII of the user? Have I called for harassment of the user? No, I'm calling a spade a spade. Go around saying that "Indians and an Indian Muslim along with the Sinhalese are trying to delete this page" on a strongly ideological forum and, yes, I think there are reasonable grounds to think that there was implicit canvassing, and there could have been meatpuppeting. Note that I haven't accused a single Wikipedia user of being a sockpuppet or meatpuppet. SinhalaLion (talk) 01:52, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SinhalaLion As far as I know, you aren't allowed to throw around unproven accusations against individuals outside Wikipedia either, although user Kashmiri is more openly guilty of this than you are. What reasonable grounds are there when that Reddit post is 2 days old and most of the Keep votes were cast before that? The implication is that one of the Keep-voters in that timeframe could have been canvassed although they are all old Wikipedians who had been active before that Reddit post.---Petextrodon (talk) 02:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There’s nothing “unproven” here — the user employed such inflammatory language that implicit canvassing is not an unwarranted accusation.
FYI, this wasn’t the only one. Beastmastah had done another round of posts on Tamil-dominated or left wing subreddits, using the term “Sinhalese fascists” when the rename discussion was taking place. Though that wasn’t directly related to the AfD, it certainly attracts a lot of attention from users of a certain ideological leaning — attention that could prove quite useful when other discussions arise.
Even if it turned out that no one was canvassed or meatpuppeting, this behaviour can and should be called out. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. SinhalaLion (talk) 02:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SinhalaLion We aren't discussing "Beastmastah". You also wrote: "There were also comments on the post before it was deleted, one of which was asking how they could address the issue."
It's obvious which user you were referring to and they made that comment on May 30 at 9:54:55 AM UTC . The likelihood that this user voted Keep and they even had any Wikipedia editing experience at all is very low to nil. That line didn't serve any good faith purpose and again the issue of lack of due diligence. I believe even banned users here are given the benefit of the doubt and individuals outside Wikipedia more so.---Petextrodon (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In any case, we should be careful about linking to external social media profiles and connecting them to Wikipedia users whether explicitly or implicitly. User Kashmiri was warned about WP:OUTING attempt which is a serious crime.---Petextrodon (talk) 03:01, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I never said that the user asking for instructions on what to do (on May 30 at 9:54:55 AM UTC) contributed to the AfD discussion. I brought their comment up to show that there had been interest in contributing by at least one person in the post, hence it's reasonable to see the original post as a canvassing attempt. Whether this particular user or someone else ended up joining the discussion is irrelevant - if it was because of the post, then it's canvassing at the very least and possibly meatpuppeting (if the OP has an account on Wikipedia).
I would give the benefit of the doubt to the OP, but that all went down the toilet the moment they said "Indians and an Indian Muslim along with the Sinhalese are trying to delete this page." Sorry, one doesn't get to use such ethnically charged language and then ask for "benefit of the doubt" (not that they've asked anyways). SinhalaLion (talk) 03:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have misunderstood me. Ethnically charged Reddit posts are none of our concern here. I'm saying Wikipedia should not be a place to level unproven accusations against particular individuals outside it as it's forbidden. There's no reasonable grounds to suspect a 2 day old deleted Reddit post affected the final outcome in any way. It has just cast unnecessary aspersions on Keep voters.---Petextrodon (talk) 12:27, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s the extreme inflammatory language, lack of good faith and lack of civility in conversations is possibly why the closing admin said what he said. Sometimes you have to let the evidence speak for itself, any neutral observer can see clearly see the un-encyclopedic behavior.Kanatonian (talk) Kanatonian (talk) 01:40, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Keep was a reasonable close for this discussion. No consensus would have also been a reasonable close, and possibly a better close, but that has no impact on the end result. Many of the delete votes focused on the the article having an inappropriate title or a non-neutral point of view. Those are WP:SURMOUNTABLE problems that can be addressed via editing. Merging may be an appropriate outcome as well, and a merge discussion is already in progress. Frank Anchor 18:37, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (uninvolved) as the right close to what the closer acknowledged was a messy AFD. By my count, the headcount was 18 Keep and 13 Delete. AFD is not a headcount, but the headcount cannot be ignored, and, as the closer noted, the later contributions were stronger and were trending Keep:
  • Endorse and commend Liz for an excellent close. Liz has accurately discarded irrelevant arguments, and--despite not being required to--identified potential fixes for the things many !voters find objectionable but are fixable by editing and hence not deletion criteria. Jclemens (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Activity on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Tamil genocide strongly suggests it's being actively canvassed right now. —Cryptic 21:50, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The appellant, User: Abhishek0831996, should get some sort of low-quality prize for one of the sillier arguments that I have seen in years at Deletion Review. They said: This is contrary to the fact that admins should be so confident about their closure that they should not expect a DRV with regards to their closure. That makes no sense with regard to contentious topics. I think that a closer should be sufficiently confident of their closure that they should be reasonably sure that their close will be endorsed by DRV. But that isn't what the appellant said. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:53, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely agree. The closer is so experienced that they know any close they would have made on this topic would likely have wound up here at DRV. SportingFlyer T·C 07:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 ... quite aside from that no closure is proof against rejectionists who refuse to accept a decision that goes against their preference, as we've seen many times at DRV, or indeed on Wikipedia generally. (Never mind contrary to what "fact?" I don't myself phrase my own suppositions or wishlists as inerrant fact. They've ignored me before when I asked this question, but User: Abhishek0831996, how about you show us a link stating your phrasing as official guidance to closers?) Ravenswing 09:19, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely agree with your sentiments. Kanatonian (talk) 01:36, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Robert McClenon, SportingFlyer, Ravenswing — FYI I requested the applicant return to DRV to justify that statement, see User talk:Abhishek0831996#DRV_follow-up, Thanks, Daniel (talk) 20:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And judging from the reaction on their talk page, they've no plans to do so. Not that I blame them: there's not a lot to gain by "Okay, so I made it up / I was just airily tossing up any charge I figured people would swallow." Ravenswing 20:53, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Daniel, User:Ravenswing - I have given them the low-quality prize that I said they should get. I have added their argument to Arguments to Avoid at Deletion Reviews. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:32, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (uninvolved) I spent some time on this difficult discussion as if I were closing it on my own and came to basically the same conclusion as Liz: as flawed as this article's creation process was, considering that it was close to a WP:G5, those wanting to keep the article made it pretty clear the topic passed WP:GNG, and no specific version of WP:NOT to override the GNG argument was really argued anywhere in the discussion. I also wound up conservatively completely discarding a lot of keep !votes and came to the same conclusion. Good close. SportingFlyer T·C 07:10, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn (involved in Afd) There is enough evidence provided above that a lot of off-wiki canvassing happened to keep the sock's creation.[8][9] Closing it as keep is totally over the top. Azuredivay (talk) 09:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do delete voters think mentioning it was created by a sock is of any relevance, given that a lot of other editors who aren't socks have worked on it since its creation? TarnishedPathtalk 10:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    For the same reason they're shouting Canvassing! Canvassing! and ignore the many Keep proponents who are veteran, neutral editors. If you have facts on your side, argue the facts. If you don't, hammer on any point you can grasp. Ravenswing 07:59, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There were very few established editors who argued for keeping. The majority was a canvassed mass. — kashmīrī TALK 10:03, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You're joking, right? Sportsfan1234 has been around ten years and has over 88,000 edits. Oz346 has been here four years and has over 6000 edits. Pharoah of the Wizards has been here 18 years and has over a hundred thousand edits. Kanatonian's been around 18 years and has over 26,000 edits. Obi2canibe's been here since 2008 and has over 56,000 edits. Simonm223 the same, with over 13,000 edits. TarnishedPath? 2007, with over 11,000 edits. Parakanyaa has over 20,000 edits. Me? This is my twentieth year on Wikipedia, and I have over 59,000 edits. Perhaps you might want to retract that absurd assertion.

    (And whaddaya know. I just thought I'd take a peek at how many veteran editors advocated deletion. There were exactly four, other than yourself, with more than three thousand edits. It might have begged the question how many delete proponents were canvassed, were this not a close overwhelmingly endorsed by numerous veteran editors with the better part of a century of Wikipedia experience and several hundred thousand edits among them.) Ravenswing 12:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Now do the DRV participants for good measure? Jclemens (talk) 15:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jclemens: as requested. I only did the "uninvolved" DRV participants, as the "involved" ones will be duplicates of Ravenswing's work above:
    • (endorse) OwenX - 19 years, 29,000 edits, administrator
    • (comment) Cryptic - 19 years, 40,000 edits, administrator
    • (endorse) Frank Anchor - 17 years, 24,000 edits, DRV regular
    • (endorse) Robert McClenon - 19 years, 192,000 edits, DRV regular
    • (endorse) Jclemens - 18+ years*, 45,000 edits, DRV regular and former administrator (* could not find an account creation date)
      Yeah, I don't actually remember when I created my account. It was some time before my first edit, may have been a year or two, so I've just been using the first edit date to measure my longevity, because I didn't participate before then, even if I said "Oh, cool, I should sign up now before my username is taken" at some earlier point. Jclemens (talk) 20:02, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      27 February 2005, best I can reconstruct. —Cryptic 21:53, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Nice! I now know my Wiki-Birthday, that has been lost to me for almost two decades! Seriously, it's totally off topic, but thank you very much. That's been low-grade bugging me for years. Jclemens (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • (endorse) SportingFlyer - 18 years, 30,000 edits, DRV regular
    • (comment) Daniel - 18 years, 74,000 edits, administrator
    I think it's fair to say the statements around "very few established editors" arguing to keep and/or endorse at the various stages of this deletion process, have been categorically debunked to the point that the individual(s) making them should really come back and consider striking and retracting them. Daniel (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Quite. When I see some of the same names I've been seeing for the better part of twenty years at AfD, various noticeboards, ANI and too many talk pages to count, such accusations are absurd on their face. Ravenswing 18:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm in the mix too. I'm not sure my creation date is right due to the rename and went inactive for a while, but I've been around a few years (2008?) and a few thousand edits.Guess I'm canvassed though. :shrug: Star Mississippi 01:16, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Must have been. We're disagreeing with the partisan take on the issue. Therefore there must be some chicanery involved. Obviously it's impossible for neutral, experienced editors (or DRV regulars, or those who went to the AfD after the ANI thread) to judge an issue solely with Wikipedia policies and guidelines in mind. Ravenswing 07:10, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Compared to the 16–18 spas or canvassed users, the 9 established users preferring 'keep' were a minority. Besides, I don't like your trick with the threshold of 3000 edits. Why not e.g. 1500 edits, which would already exclude SPAs and resurrected accounts? Is ir because that would show that the majority (12 to 10) of such editors have preferred deleting/draftifying? — kashmīrī TALK 18:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Some advice here: quit while you're behind. The vast majority of editors here, several some of the longest standing veterans and admins Wikipedia has, think that Liz -- herself an admin, a veteran of eleven years and with over fifteen times your edit count -- delivered a good and valid close. You are not yourself a rookie. You cannot be unaware that you are doing yourself no favors here, and that we're unmoved by arguing for the sake of arguing. Ravenswing 19:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Edit count of some editors does not absolve mass canvassing and it does not hide the fact that the article was created by a sock. In fact, your obsession over edit count is rather useless. Ratnahastin (talk) 02:00, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    None of this has anything to do with creating encyclopedic content, which is our main focus. We are here to determine if the article uses reliable sources, is written in neutral language, and maintains a balanced format. These are the criteria for deciding whether to keep or delete articles. Everything else is simply deprecation.Kanatonian (talk) Kanatonian (talk) 11:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved) clear and fair close. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 22:12, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (involved) That is one of the clearest, most precise, and accurate closing statements I have ever encountered.Kanatonian (talk)
  • Endorse (uninvolved) as a reasonable summation of the discussion. There has definitely been brigading of the discussion and article in general, this can be seen elsewhere online. But the discussion comes down to the content of reliable sources, and this was correctly identified in the close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:59, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - What the user analysis by User:Ravenswing and User:Daniel, as well as the comments from the peanut gallery show is:
    • 1. Established editors have both voted to Keep and to Delete. There appear to be more Keep than Delete votes. In any case, the claim that no or few established editors voted to Keep is sufficiently nonsensical that it should be viewed as disruptive editing.
    • 2. There was canvassing, apparently on both sides. The deleters have not made a case as to how the canvassing should affect the outcome, which, as we saw, had substantial Keep participation by established editors. Investigating the canvassing might be in order, but as a separate action, not tied to this DRV.
    • 3. The uninvolved DRV participants have ALL either made comments or made Endorse statements, and are all established editors. No uninvolved DRV participant has supported any sort of an Overturn.
    • 4. User:Liz was sufficiently justified in closing this AFD as Keep that some of the Overturn arguments are disruptive editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No evidence of canvassing regarding the "delete" supporters has been provided while significant evidence exists for the "keep" supporters including the fact that the article itself was created by sock as POVFORK of War crimes during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. You need to read WP:AGF and WP:ASPERSIONS, and stop falsely accusing valid arguments as "disruptive" only because you disagree with them. Ratnahastin (talk) 04:59, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You arguing that it was created by a sock has exactly no basis in policy for this discussion given that plenty of none sock editors have edited on the article since its creation. The argument of a WP:POVFORK is also lacking, as this appears to be a valid WP:SPINOFF. TarnishedPathtalk 05:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    User Obi2canibe has provided compelling evidence of delete supporters being canvassed, which is now in the "Hidden wall of text unsuccessful unblock request" section:
    User talk:Obi2canibe#Block And there is evidence of delete users calling on each other in the past: [10] Oz346 (talk) 10:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Close was correct. Decline to consider whether no consensus was also an option. Decline to reconsider POVFORK issue raised during the AfD at this forum, I don't see consensus there that any such issues were unresolvable. If there are user conduct issues preventing resolution, WP:AE is thataway. Feel free to renominate in 6 months. Alpha3031 (tc) 06:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kashmiri I came to this article directly from a Google search because I wanted to become more informed on the subject, and saw that there was a deletion discussion. I had never even seen this Reddit thread you're referencing. I did more research on the topic outside of wikipedia, read the discussion, and decided that it makes sense for the article to stay up but get heavily edited and potentially renamed, and yet you left a note saying that I have been "canvassed to this discussion". It's reasonable to be concerned about potential canvassing, but making baseless accusations against other editors makes you look bad and undermines your claims. Also, my suggestion to potentially rename it and heavily edit would be reasonable to someone who has a neutral point of view on the subject. Rayanblaq14 (talk) 23:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse (uninvolved). Deletion discussions on politically charged topics tend to generate disputes on DRV regardless of the close, and the best that the closer can be expected to do is provide a policy based rationale. Liz's made an excellent summary of the discussion in her closing rationale, based on the available sourcing and the content of the arguments made. OwenX has provided a convincing defense of her closure further up in the discussion. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn (uninvolved) The closure's argument that the subject is notable only because it has been covered by the sources is not sensible. With that logic we can have pages about Hindu genocide, Muslim genocide, Sikh genocide (a disambiguation), Baloch genocide and more because these subjects have veen also covered by many reliable sources. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 10:00, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, yes. That's the fundamental premise of WP:BASIC: that a subject is notable enough for an article if it has received "significant coverage" in multiple independent, published, reliable sources. There are hundreds of thousands of articles on terribly obscure sportsfolk, places, animals, battles, and so on and so on and so on, extant because they meet the GNG. I note that you're another editor with a history of editing South Asian articles suddenly showing up to overturn, but at DRV, outcomes aren't judged on WP:IDONTLIKEIT reasoning, but on whether the close was in accordance with settled Wikipedia policies and guidelines. If you'd like to argue that the GNG itself is not sensible and ought to be abolished, starting at the WP:N talk page is a start. Ravenswing 15:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:BASIC is not a part of the GNG, it's in the WP:NBIO SNG and only applies to biographies. Doesn't apply to roads, schools, battles, genocides. Furthermore, BASIC is explicitly a waiver of SIGCOV. A source can be more than a trivial mention but not amount to a source with significant coverage according to most people, and while such a source could not be used to demonstrate notability if the topic had been a darts tournament, it can, potentially (if there are multiple other such sources, and it's possible to write an article based on them) be used to demonstrate notability of a biographical subject. Maybe it's a single paragraph—and many people in an AfD would find that not to be SIGCOV—but maybe it's three highly condensed sentences highly packed with meaning about someone's life and works, so it's not trivial coverage either. BASIC allows multiple such sources to be used to substitute for a lack of sources that would relatively uncontroversially be considered SIGCOV for the purposes of determining notability. And this applies to biographies only, and is a more relaxed path to notability, more permissive than GNG, like a GNG-lite. —Alalch E. 15:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. After a tendentious merge proposal, a hopeless RM,[see thoughts] a desperate AfD, the only thing left is a ridiculous DRV. That exhausts all the tools in the "get rid of bad topic" arsenal. Hopefully.
    Thoughts:
    Try an RM again in the future to move to "Tamil genocide accusation" or similar if the coverage supports that formulation of the topic (a notable viewpoint as opposed to a notable event or series thereof).
    The RM wasn't that bad (too much of an emphasis on legal definitions which does not work, but the comparison with "Palestinian genocide accusation" seems possibly appropriate) and should, maybe, be tried again, but before it is tried again the content must speak strongly in favor of applying this definition of the topic.
    "Genocide" is an inherently WP:CONTENTIOUS term and it is not enough that some reliable sources speak of Tamil genocide. The majority of reliable academic sources that describe the events discussed in the article should be describing them as a genocide or constituent parts of a genocide.
    The only way forward is a future RM. An RM on this topic should be closed by an administrator. It's alo possible that any RM about involving contentious terminology in a contentious area that has seen canvassing should be allowed to last more than seven days as "other reasonable measure" on a discretionary basis under WP:CTOP.
    WP:ECR should apply to articles about genocides within any contentious topic.—Alalch E. 13:27, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.