Ancient TL (talk||history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

This was an unfortunate AfD featuring wall-of-text comments, COI meatpuppets, and a generally poor signal-to-noise ratio. My metaphorical hat is off to the closer, OwenX, for tackling this. However, that said, I do think he missed some crucial signal amid the noise.

During the discussion, three of us !voted to keep on the basis that papers in the journal are cited frequently in reliable sources including Science and Nature. See [1] [2] [3] for specifics. These arguments were founded on Criterion #2 of the WP:NJOURNALS essay, according to which frequently cited journals would count as notable. In determining consensus, the closer discounted these !votes on the grounds that C2 requires frequent citations of the journal itself, not of papers in the journal. See their closing statement and this clarification for details. However, this subsequent discussion on the NJOURNALS talk page resulted in a unanimous consensus that that C2 is indeed satisfied by frequent citations of papers in a journal.

So putting aside the COI !keeps, there seems to be an even split among the P&G-based !votes, which doesn't look like a consensus to me. Botterweg (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse: OwenX gave a detailed closing statement that says it all. (Disclosure: I was the nom of this AfD). --Randykitty (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse, you have completely skipped over the very salient point that NJOURNALS is not a guideline and GNG is the requirement for this journal to have a standalone. Therefore it is completely irrelevant what anyone's interpretation of NJOURNALS criteria is when the subject demonstrably does not meet GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 00:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For better or worse (and I have mixed feelings) the NJOURNALS essay is indeed used as the basis for closing as keep when there's local consensus. In this AfD, nobody cited the issues with NJOURNALS as a reason to delete, so I don't think that's a factor in determining what the consensus was. Botterweg (talk) 01:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Plenty of people cited the fact that GNG is not met, which, as an actual guideline, is what closers should be paying attention to over any essay. That this journal also doesn't meet the criteria of the essay (and there definitely is no indication that some articles getting hundreds or even thousands of citations elsewhere is enough for "frequently cited") is just further evidence against it being notable. JoelleJay (talk) 01:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse to my knowledge showing citation counts would be, as Headbomb said, through things like impact factors, not just individual instances of citations. We're on thin ice with NJOURNALS as is, I see no need to push it further. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn to Keep there are two possibilities in a 5 keeps vs. 3 delete situation read as a deletion. In this case, it's pretty clear that the P&Gs with respect to journals are unsettled. In such a case, outcomes must be held to be descriptive: a delete is a supervote assuming that the folks arguing based on the currently recognized inclusion guidelines somehow trumps the numerical preponderance. Journals are a particularly thorny example, because notability doesn't work well for journals. The best journals are read and cited, but essentially never talked about. That's why notability is not, has never been, and will never be a core policy. It's a guideline, and to the extent that reasonably well-cited journals don't meet the GNG or an SNG, we obviously need another metric besides notability to measure inclusion. The Procrustean, if conventional. answer that journals don't fit well into our notability guidelines and thus should be excluded has everything backwards. Oh, and a no consensus might have been a better way to handle this, but I still believe that keep is the correct outcome based on the discussion. Jclemens (talk) 08:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I stated in that discussion, the fact that a paper has been cited in Science or Nature is not an indication that the journal in which that paper appears is notable on en.wiki. Simply relitigating that discussion here as if it hasn't already been demolished is not bringing any additional light to the AfD. The point has been made, taken account and refuted. JMWt (talk) 09:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're entitled to your opinion. And I'm equally entitled to explain why I think it's suboptimal and doesn't serve the encyclopedia well. Jclemens (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For information, I was attempting to reply to the OP. I don't know why it appeared here, it might have been my ineptitude. You are entitled to your opinion, I was expressing mine about the OP using DRV to repeat points made in the AfD. JMWt (talk) 07:30, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And it my have been my error in indenting an unbulleted comment that appeared to me to be a reply to me, in which case you have my sincerest apologies. Jclemens (talk) 05:59, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Except that the keep !votes didn't even establish that this journal met any of the essay criteria either? Merely being cited in RS is not equivalent to "frequently cited", which necessarily has a higher threshold. And surely you're not giving any weight at all to the meatpuppet COI editors who offered zero P&G-based rationales......? That leaves 3 keep !votes, only one of which attempted to be based in any guideline, and their argument rested on a handful of one- or two-sentence passing mentions by non-independent sources. JoelleJay (talk) 01:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When there's no relevant guideline, how can we demand !voters adhere to one to have their voices considered? Jclemens (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a relevant guideline: GNG. The fact that most journals don't receive GNG coverage is a strong indication that they should not be covered as standalone articles, not that our guidelines aren't appropriate for them. JoelleJay (talk) 22:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse At the end of the day, GNG applies here, and there's no evidence in the discussion we're able to write a neutral, encyclopedic article on this journal. SportingFlyer T·C 02:12, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn to no consensus. Evenly split discussion. Keep arguments of Botterweg and other established editors can not be discounted. There was no consensus around the question on notability. Deletes claimed near-total absence of independent sources, stating that there shouldn't be an article without them, which is fine. But then a participant brought a handful of independent sources which clearly support some basic statements, and some third-party sources had also been added to the article during the discussion.—Alalch E. 12:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Alalch E., but merely independent sources are not enough to establish notability, and not even the keep !voters claimed they were anything close to SIGCOV, which is what is required. JoelleJay (talk) 23:23, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Serious and non-discountable reasons for why the page is suitable as an encyclopedia entry were given in spite of the admitted lack of notability under the guidelines. The content was described as encyclopedic and verifiable using third-party sources. This was not contested especially strongly. It's rare that such strong keep rationales exist when the topic doesn't meet wiki-notability criteria, but what underlies this is the fact that notability guidelines are imperfect, as they do not totally and definitively describe when it is possible to have an article (they do a good job, but they can't cover every scenario). —Alalch E. 11:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn to No Consensus - Sometimes when a discussion is lengthy, tedious, and inconclusive, there really is No Consensus. A major part of the problem is that we don't have a useful guideline on journals, because the SNG is not an SNG because the G stands for Guideline and it is not a guideline. The absence of an applicable guideline, and the misfit between journals and the general notability guideline, make it difficult or impossible to reach consensus. The closer made an effort to tease out a consensus, but unintentionally wound up supervoting. The community has not provided AFD or DRV with useful guidance on journals, and so there is No Consensus. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not sure I understand your logic here. Are you saying that any lengthy AfD about a journal should be closed as "no consensus" because we don't have an SNG? That journal AfDs should be closed by nose-count? When there's no SNG, we fall back on the default GNG, which would have seen this AfD closed the exact same way. I went out of my way to give some weight to NJOURNALS per the Keeps, but stopped short of accepting a minority interpretation of a criterion that would essentially see almost all journals qualify as notable.

  Yes, journal AfDs are tricky and often contentious, and community hasn't settled on an SNG. But that is no reason to retain them all under a sweeping "no consensus", as long as we have other guidelines that apply. Owen× ☎ 14:30, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I concur with this general reading of academic journal notability. If we are to accept that papers which are cited by other papers published in big journals like Nature gives notability then there is no end to this. Not only does the average Nature paper cite papers from many journals, in total over hundred of years of publication there must have been many many journals that have papers cited. Multiply that for the other “top journals” (whatever that means) and almost everything would be notable. JMWt (talk) 14:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse - This close seemed like a correct reading of the consensus in that discussion to me. While I think OwenX may have a slightly unusual reading of C2, I don't think it changes the reading of consensus in the discussion, where most Delete voters disregarded the arguments around NJOURNALS C2. Suriname0 (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lycée naval (talk||history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Administrator asilvering relisted this "don't delete" discussion requesting more evaluation of sources for the subject to determine between keeping the article or merging into a related topic. The non-administrator closer seems to have ignored that comment and only counted the bolded comments when closing as "merge" without any more comments in the discussion. The closer did not respond when asked about it and has not edited in nearly two weeks. This discussion should be relisted. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse close. The nominator makes a fair point that there were no further comments after the last relist, and a further relist might have teased some out, but there were no actual keep !votes on that discussion. The closest was my own, where I said I was leaning keep because I had found mentions (but not SIGCOV). I would have been persuadable to keep, but I could not find more sources myself, and my actual !vote was merge. Now the reason I think the merge close should be endorsed is this: the school sits within the Brest Naval Training Centre which also is home to the École de Maistrance and the École des Mousses. By merging these into a single article, we now have an article that is still poorly sourced, but is approaching a decent start class rather than a set of minimal unsourced stubs that had poorly machine translated names. On the back of this close I merged them all together into this article. Redirects exist so an interested reader will find their information need met, rather than finding a stub that tells them nothing. Overturning this close would mean demerger, and that would be a net negative to the encyclopaedia. I also presume that if the Lycée naval de Brest part of this article becomes more cleary notable in its own right, and the article section balloons as a result, then spinout is perfectly possible, and I marked the redirect as with possibilities and printworthy for that exact reason. Please also note that I renamed the Lycée naval to Lycée naval de Brest before merging under WP:MADRENAME. That is how it is known. You therefore need to view the history of the redirect at Lycée naval de Brest to see how the article looked prior to merge. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I personally would probably have read the lack of further input as "no opposition to merge" and gone with merge -- asilvering (talk) 20:35, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse - As noted, Asilvering had relisted to see if there were any other votes. When there weren't, a non-admin close of Merge was reasonable. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment to User:Mattdaviesfsic - When four of your AFD closes are taken to DRV at the same time, a lesson should be learned. When you resume editing, I suggest that your first task be to decide what the lesson should be. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse as a correct reading of a non-controversial discussion and suitable for a NAC. However, at the same time an AfD closed as merge should never be implicitly construed as a barrier to a spinout should more sourcing arise suitable to justify one. Jclemens (talk) 08:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse per Jclemens.—Alalch E. 13:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse close. I agree that there could have been a relist, but with engaged (and interested) editors suggesting a merge, and no pushback from the original nominator, this is a very reasonable close. --Enos733 (talk) 16:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zainal Arifin Mochtar (talk||history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

In a relisting comment, administrator Liz noted that the discussion should be closed as no consensus if there were no further comments. The closer, who is not an administrator, appears to have counted the bolded "keep" comments without reading the discussion nor the relisting comment, did not reply to inquiries on their talk page, and has not edited in nearly two weeks. Discussion has already been relisted twice and should be overturned to no consensus. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done - re-closed as no consensus, being an uninvolved administrator in my individual capacity per WP:NACD. Ivanvector, you can relist or re-close BADNACs yourself, assuming you are uninvolved. No need to bring those to DRV. Owen× ☎ 18:47, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stephen Barlow (conductor) (talk||history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Closer failed to observe WP:RELIST and closed this discussion on the basis of a single comment. Closer did not adequately explain their close, did not respond to comment afterwards, and has not edited at all in about two weeks. This should be relisted to give time for additional comment. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. I relisted the AfD as an uninvolved administrator in my individual capacity, per WP:NACD. Feel free to close this DRV. Owen× ☎ 18:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

International reactions to the 2024 United States presidential election (talk||history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Not only was this a WP:BADNAC per criteria #2 (this is covered under Wikipedia:Contentious topics/American politics), the close didn't explain why merge !votes were weighted more heavily that delete ones, especially given the technical considerations such as WP:TOOBIG. On a purely numerical basis, there were 18 !votes mentioning delete (14 of which were to just delete without merging), 15 !votes that mentioned merging (including an equal number of "merge or delete" and "merge or keep"), 9 !votes mentioning keeping, and 1 !vote specifically opposing merging. Since merging didn't have a strong numerical advantage over deleting, I have a hard time seeing a clear enough consensus to not have relisted instead of closing. An attempt was made to discuss this with the closer at User talk:Mattdaviesfsic#Recent non-admin closes at AFD, but the closer immediately stopped editing when that was posted and has not been active in the 11 days since. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• With this one honestly I think the thing to do is vacate the close entirely, and start a non-deletion discussion somewhere about splitting more lists out of that monster of an article. Enacting the close results in a 100+kB list being added back into an article that's already over half a megabyte; I said somewhere else that the resulting page would be in the top ten longest articles on Wikipedia by byte count, and I was already having problems loading the page on a gaming system that's less than a year old. More of the target article needs to be split off into companion articles and lists, not have more added back into it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:30, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn this is a BADNAC, fair and true, and should be quickly vacated. I have no comment on what should happen here. SportingFlyer T·C 18:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn to no consensus Relist. This is clear WP:BADNAC as there was nothing close to a consensus to merge, delete, or keep (or even to not keep with a delete/ATD split). These decisions are best handled by an administrator with significant experience closing AFD discussions. Relisting is an acceptable option as well, though I think it is unlikely any consensus will form based on the already high attendance. Frank Anchor 19:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC). There is possibly consensus building to not keep, with a delete/ATD split. In that case merge would be an appropriate close, though we are not there yet. The closure of this AFD, whether now or after another relist, would be best handled by an admin with significant closing experience. Frank Anchor 15:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Eh. Agree that this is obviously a contentious close, but given that the merge appears to already be in progress, I'd be inclined to leave this one. Normal editing can sort out whether all of the content is worth merging or just some of it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn This looks to me like a clear cut case of WP:BADNAC. There has been one try at merging already, but that one was reverted due to technical issues with size. Like @Ivanvector I am also having issues with the article loading without a merge of another large article, I am also on a Desktop Gaming PC. User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 21:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Overturn, but definitely not to "no consensus" as there was a clear consensus against keeping the article as a standalone. JoelleJay (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Do not overturn to no consensus which would serve the participants poorly where there was clear consensus that it should not be kept. The merge could be pragmatically upheld (the information would necessarily be pared back in a merge through editor decisions) or it could be overturned to delete. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Vacate BADNAC but I am torn between merge, relist, and no consensus. Delete !voters ignore ATDs and the NOTNEWS arguments are simply tired and wrong, so there's clearly no consensus to delete, nor any policy-based way for such to develop with a relist. Jclemens (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Reclose by admin as merge, as a formality, instead of vacating. The close is correct.—Alalch E. 12:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Not opposed to not doing anything as well. —Alalch E. 15:02, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• No action. They say even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while, and apparently, even a BADNAC can land on the right outcome every so often. I agree that this should have been handled by an admin, and the call to vacate is justified and well anchored in policy. But if the only purpose of reclosing as Merge by an admin is to rebuke the well intentioned but inexperienced closer, we've already accomplished that right here at DRV. Which is a long way of saying, I second asilvering's "Eh". Owen× ☎ 13:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• No action I agree with OwenX and others that merge (or possibly redirect) are the only real options here, and merge/ATD had the most support. As Sirfurboy points out, there is no consensus to keep the article, and there is also no consensus to delete the information. How a merge is performed is an editing decision. I do agree that this should have been closed by an administrator. --Enos733 (talk) 16:43, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn to No Consensus as a bad non-admin close in a contentious topic. I am counting Keep or Merge as 0.5 votes each for Keep and for Merge, and Delete or Merge as 0.5 votes each for Delete or Merge. By my count, we have 5 votes for Keep, 9 votes for Merge, and 15 votes for Delete. Merge would have been a reasonable Alternative to Deletion except that the parent article is already too big, a point that was noted by some Keep and Delete voters. There really wasn't any consensus, and sometimes a discussion that is lengthy and inconclusive really should be closed as No Consensus, which is unsatisfying, but any other close would be worse. A Relist after 31 responses is worth considering, but is worth considering and dismissing. After some of the other sections of the parent article have been split off, a merge might be in order, but it then might also be apparent that this page is another subpage like those that were split off. Sometimes the best response to No Consensus is to wait a month or two, and this is probably such a case. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The merger has been performed. See Special:PermanentLink/1259459012#International reactions. The content is commented out currently due to size limits, and it's up to editors to figure out how much to bring back, how to summarize, and whether to trim or spin off something else. There is no need to revise the AfD outcome. There was strong consensus that the stand-alone article should not exist. An administrator would not have closed this as no consensus. —Alalch E. 18:25, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn due to WP:PEIS and WP:BADNAC. I would additionally suggest that the article be re-instated, as there is precedent for having "international reaction" list articles. But as I am in the minority here, I will instead provide no comment on how the overturn should be handled. - Evelyn Harthbrooke (leave a message · contributions) 01:24, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• There was a very clear consensus that this article should not exist as an independent article. Accordingly, do not overturn to no consensus. Technical limitations should not overrule content decisions. I would have preferred deletion but as between merge and keep/no consensus, the latter is clearly wrong. Stifle (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• meh, do nothing I agree that it should have been closed by an admin but per WP:NOTBURO reopening it just to have an admin close it with effectively the same result accomplishes nothing but further flogging the inexperienced closer for their insurmountably severe^[sarcasm] transgression. DarmaniLink (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Given the merge has been appropriately completed (according to the above discussion), I agree with close DRV without action or alternatively reclose by an administrator as merge. This review has been open nearly three weeks, relisting at this stage would not be beneficial in my opinion. This is a BADNAC for me insofar as it should have been closed by an administrator, but I think it's probably the right outcome. Daniel (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]