Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2021 October 21

21 October 2021

List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation

List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This discussion had six delete !votes and seventeen keep !votes, including the last sixteen !votes in a row. There is room for closers to apply WP:NOTVOTE within reason, but to apply such an extreme against-the-numbers close here, there would have to be evidence of vote-stacking or an extraordinarily strong disparity in the quality of the arguments. Neither of those apply here—several of the keep !voters provided detailed, policy and guideline–based rationales for their position and every single !voter after them agreed. To say that the consensus of the community here is to delete is plainly incorrect. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• Overturn as nominator. This is a clear supervote, and the closer's dismissive attitude at their talk page gives me serious concern. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)^{Refactored on reflection (diff). Although the close was deeply misguided and did not respect consensus, the closer was attempting to do the right thing and I don't think this reflects on their overall competency. 19:38, 21 October 2021 (UTC)}
• Overturn per SDKB. NW1223(^{Howl at me}/_{My hunts}) 17:42, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• Overturn as there was obviously no consensus to delete. The close's reasoning was illogical as it first said that "we don't go by headcounts" and then, after discarding most of the !votes, it used a headcount. You can't have it both ways. If you're going by strength of argument then you consider only the arguments. If you're going by headcount, then you do just that. So, far as the argument goes, the close conceded in conclusion that the topic was viable; they just didn't like that version. But, as the article has a huge history of over 1500 versions over 15 years, it is not sensible to delete that long history which may well have contained better versions. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:46, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• Endorse Contrary to the nominator's assertion, WP:NOTVOTE is not something closers can choose to apply at their discretion, it's a fundamental part of how every single close is supposed to be made. Per our WP:CONSENSUS policy, Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. Principally, it doesn't matter if it's one person versus a hundred if that one person makes an argument in line with policy and the one hundred don't. Rather, I say kudos to the closer for recognizing that comments in favour of keeping that do not address the argument for deletion do not carry weight. Far too often (including in the AfD in question) have I seen editors arguing for keeping something because it's notable when the argument put forth for deleting it is something else, such as being an improper WP:CONTENTFORK or violating WP:NOT. To put it another way: if there is consensus against deleting a page for WP:DELREASON A and separately consensus for deleting that same page for WP:DELREASON B, consensus is in fact in favour of deletion. TompaDompa (talk) 18:03, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• Overturn The administrator who deleted the pages did not seem to carefully read through our explanations and arguments, in addition to not respecting a clear consensus to keep. Our explanations clearly and repeatedly refuted the arguments proposed for deletion, but the administrator chose to side with the one or two editors on the deletion side who continued repeating their own flawed arguments and, in my view, abusing/misinterpreting Wikipedia policies. As I have explained repeatedly in the deletion page that there is no original research or synthesis, as every entry in the list is confirmed by at least one reliable source. Notions like "academic affiliations" is universally well-defined, not made up by us. Universities have their own freedom not to use this universal definition but adopt their subjective criteria when they claim their own Nobel laureates, which has nothing to do with us. We are perfectly neutral. Editors like Ber31 also repeatedly explained these points in the deletion page, but the administrator simply ignored our explanations. Hence, the consensus to "keep" is clear and the administrator's "deletion" decision must be overturned. Minimumbias (talk) 18:23, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I would like to add a further comment: The administrator who deleted the pages only quoted the NOR policy and claimed that many editors who supported "Keep" did not directly respond to claim of NOR violation. This is plainly wrong. Editors like Ber31 and myself gave extensive explanations to prove we were not violating the policy. Several other editors like Gah4 and Tiredmeliorist also pointed out that there were no new conclusions reached, hence we did not violate NOR. Editors like Andrew and Mysterymanblue also responded to the NOR in their own ways, for example the latter said that "My response to the first concern is that every list and institution uses different criteria for what counts, so we should use the most expansive definition of affiliation out there." Other editors also stated that any argument they would use had been used by others. Thus, the fact is, we have many editors who supported "Keep" and who also responded to the NOR claim. The administrator either chose not to recognize this fact, or did not read the discussion carefully. Finally, the administrator did not ever explain how he/she still thought, after seeing our careful explanations and a majority vote of "keep", that we still violated NOR, as explained by Goldsztajn in the administrator's Talk Page [1].Minimumbias (talk) 19:25, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• Closer's comment: As explained in the closure, I closed the AfD based only on the opinions that discussed the argument for deletion: that the article is supposedly OR. In my view, if an article is credibly alleged to fail a core policy such as WP:NOR, opinions that ignore this argument altogether are no better than mere votes, which we routinely disregard. If OR is the issue at hand, an argument such as "keep because it's notable" makes no more sense than "keep because the sky is blue". Even if there were local consensus in this AfD to disregard the OR issue because people like the article or think it's useful, that cannot be determinative. Local consensus cannot derogate a core policy. It can determine that the core policy is not violated, but to do so it needs to engage with the application of the core policy to the article at issue, and most "keep" opinions here did not. I stand by my closure. Sandstein 18:41, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

  You are ignoring the fact that the primary keep argument, that the list meets WP:NLIST, was an implicit response to the OR argument for deletion. The main criterion of NLIST, has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, exists as a barrier against original research. Nearly every list on Wikipedia draws from multiple sources, in plenty of cases one for each entry; to call that SYNTH/OR would be an extreme interpretation of policy. You don't personally have to fully agree with that view, but in a consensus-driven project, the fact that sixteen editors in a row did should have carried weight. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:15, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Endorse I've read the discussion and come to the same conclusion as Sandstein: almost all of the keep votes say that the list is notable without making any attempt to refute the original-research argument, and thus were properly discounted in determining whether there was consensus that the article is original research. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• Overturn Closer is not applying WP:NOR properly in a deletion context when he bases a consensus to delete on what he reads as implicit consensus (failure to refute prima facie arguments) that there is OR in the article. To delete because of OR would mean that the subject / list topic as judged by it's title (and therefrom implicit reasonably formulated scope) is an original creation. Participants said that this cross-categorization is not an original creation, when they cited NLIST "because similar list exists in X (book, website, etc.)".
  Closer discounted such arguments saying that non-notability is not the reason for which deletion is requested, and that instead the nomination was formed around a WP:NOR argument. This could have been a good analysis in some other case but here it is not. If this is a notable list topic, how can it be OR already at the base level of the list topic? Notability of a list as argued here by keep advocates implies that someone else already created a list of this sort, so NLIST being (hypothetically) fulfilled for this list topic would neutralize the concern that it is an original creation. Further, it being fulfilled, but there still being an OR problem, would mean we are no longer looking for OR at the level of the list topic (which is relevant for deletion), but at the level of specific content issues in the article, however systematic and terrible they may be (which is generally not relevant for deletion).
  From this it looks like the delete NOR arguments and keep NLIST arguments were reasonably mutually responsive. So pro-NLIST comments should not have been discounted. When the comments that shouldn't have been discounted are not, it proceeds that there was no consensus to delete.
  I don't like the DRV nom's comments about the closer, they are over the top.— Alalch Emis (talk) 18:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Participants said that this cross-categorization is not an original creation, when they cited NLIST "because similar list exists in X (book, website, etc.)". I think the key word here is similar, which was a point brought up during the WP:AfD by XOR'easter: Establishing notability of a group requires references about that grouping, not a somewhat-related one. I'd argue that what we're looking at is an equivocation problem that has muddied the water considerably. I brought that up during the AfD: It's actually possible to construct a valid list with this title: a list of Nobel laureates by their university affiliation at the time they received the Nobel Prize. That list would not be novel, because sources do actually list Nobel laureates that particular way. But it would not be a different version of this list, it would be a fundamentally different list altogether. TompaDompa (talk) 19:25, 21 October 2021 (UTC)