User:Milowent/DraftResponsetoThe Devil's AdvocatePatheticAnticipatedRfC

In re User:The Devil's Advocate/RfC

History
List all of DA's attempts to get ARS deleted in the past few months, including all the comments from evil deletionists telling him to go do something useful and drop the stick. He has not dropped the stick, he is as obsessed as Gollum was over the One Ring.

Examples

 * Stacked (TV film) was created by Androzaniamy on 13 Jan 2012, and prodded within minutes of its creation. Prod was removed, and it was then nominated for deletion on 16 Jan. It languished at AfD for 9 days, and Milowent noted the AfD upon it being relisted.  He then listed it at ARS, Article_Rescue_Squadron/Rescue_list/Archive1.  Milowent also worked at adding sources himself.  The AfD nominator started complaining about canvassing and acting skeptical about the obviously good sources now being found; Milowent and MichaelQSchmidt did primary improvements to article.  Devil's Advocate complains in his RfC that two other ARS members reviewed the new sources added and opined keep in the AfD.  This is ridiculous:  DA fails to note that the sole "weak delete" vote that the AfD had garnered before ARS' involvement -- a vote made by the original PRODDER -- was withdrawn in light of the improvements made by ARS.  Indeed, the AfD was closed after 17 days with, as the closer said, "No one except the nominator advocat(ing) for the deletion of the article."  DA now complains that the sources added to the article are simply routine, which is wrong and simply not advanced by anyone in the AfD.  Even the AfD nominator admitted some of the new sourcing was "very good".
 * Mail storage. Devil's Advocate complaints about ARS' involvement here is inexplicable.  First, he admits that the "the real issue is not questionable notability".  Indeed, that's true. The only issue was that the existing article was in poor shape, and there were other articles on similar topics, so that some sort of merge may make sense.  The close of the AfD was keep, noting that the merge discussions were beyond the scope of AfD.  After the AfD closed, an ARS member did a merge with Personal Self Storage.  DA's complaints about this AfD are absurdly petty:  "One of the sources cited at the list and in the AfD is deceptively claimed to be from "Fox News" (implying the cable news channel) when it was in fact a local Fox station in New York covering a local business."  Really?  A quick look at the linked source is how one judges its import, not whether its a national or local FOX affiliate.  Saying something is covered in The New York Times does not show notability if the coverage is one sentence in passing -- you have to evaluate the sources!  Anyway, what did ARS' involvement result in here?  The keeping of content that was already going to be kept anyway, the improvement of that content, and a logical merging of articles on similar subject matter.
 * Institute for International Research was nominated for deletion, apparently because the nominator thought it was too promotional in tone. Nominator made no apparent attempt to determine whether this long-standing large international corporation was notable.  One editor ever argued (in a lengthy comment) for speedy deletion at AfD rather than try to fix it!  User:Ipsign listed it on the ARS rescue list.   Multiple editors, notified to the discussion, then worked to improve the article and add sourcing.  The article was kept at AfD.  It would likely have been deleted otherwise.
 * Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, despite clearly being notable, was listed at AfD. It was speedily deleted as a copyright violation, see Articles for deletion/Pennsylvania Land Trust Association.  Altered to this AfD before its deletion via listing at ARS, the article was recreated.  Milowent and NorthAmerica1000 created a copyright-violation free version of the article (Milowent used the google cache of the deleted article as a start to understand what to write about and what facts needed citation.)  Without ARS, this article on a notable organization would have remained deleted.
 * Candace Gingrich-Jones despite being quite notable, was listed at AfD by a now-blocked nominator who apparently hates anything related to gay people. Though there was no question this would be kept at AfD (it ended up a snow close), the article did need improvement.  Milowent, NorthAmerica1000, and other editors worked to improve the article.  As a result, we have an improved article.  We would not have had an improved article without ARS' involvement.
 * The Leopard (newspaper) is the relatively new student newspaper at Goldsmiths, University of London. Infrequent editor Mr.Blonder created an article on it on 6 Feb 2012.  It was quickly nominated for deletion.  It was listed at ARS for consideration.  We vetted it and determined it was not independently notable, but should be merged into the University article.  That was the AfD outcome, and the content was preserved in the University article, instead of being unceremoniously deleted.