User talk:Flatscan/RfC draft: Restoring to merge after deletion at AfD

Previous instances

 * 1) WP:Deletion review/Log/2011 March 21
 * 2) * User talk:Jayjg/Archive 35
 * 3) WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 61
 * 4) * User talk:Jclemens/Archive 7

I have made the list here, not on the draft itself, because I think the specifics of each case are less important and may be distracting. Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I updated the links to their archived locations. Flatscan (talk) 04:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:Deletion review/Log/2012 January 3. Flatscan (talk) 05:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Two restores, no merge or redirect: Flatscan (talk) 05:08, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Last Res0rt, WP:Deletion review/Log/2013 January 15
 * 2) Observe Hack Make, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive783

Wrong focus...
The issue as posed is WP:CREEP. The issue isn't who restores a deleted article, but rather:
 * 1) Why should it be done or not done?
 * 2) What are best practices for doing it? (e.g., userification vs. mainspace)
 * 3) How does an admin doing so who has not decided to challenge the deletion decision at DRV best demonstrate that the merge is not a challenge to the DRV outcome?
 * 4) How does licensing play into recreation of deleted content?

More fundamental is the notion that DRV is an optional stop. Any editor can recreate any article at any time without penalty to themselves or the article, provided they've eliminated (or at least made a demonstrably good faith effort to eliminate) the problems that led to deletion in the first place. AfDs do not foreclose topics, just individual instantiations of those topics. Jclemens (talk) 05:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have replied with a mix of answers aimed toward the RfC draft and personal opinions.
 * 0) I agree that who is a lesser issue, but I included it as a measure of how "controversial" an action would be. Using WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 61 update link to archive Flatscan (talk) 04:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC) as an example, most of the respondents commented that WP:INVOLVED applied due to your participation and advocacy of merging. Off2riorob, Ponyo, and Kww opined that your restoration contravened the delete outcome of the AfD. It's not clear which is more important to them. The separate items help distinguish between them.
 * 1) I think why is irrelevant insofar as an editor shouldn't be able to override an AfD consensus unilaterally. If I participated at a follow-up discussion such as DRV, I would weigh the value of the content against the demonstrated consensus. A well-sourced article deleted per WP:NOTINHERITED may get a merge, while an entirely unsourced article with multiple "delete, don't merge unsourced content" (WP:Articles for deletion/Phyrexia) should not be merged. Sourcing is not the only value that content has, but it's a convenient comparison.
 * 2) I should work this distinction into the draft. My opinion is that WP:Userfication is generally uncontroversial, so it should be preferred over restoring in place. There may be contention if userfied pages are moved back into article space rapidly.
 * 3) An editor may contact the closing admin, but it's neither required nor a guarantee. See (5).
 * 4) The relevant guideline is WP:Copying within Wikipedia. Since it's difficult to undo attribution dependencies introduced by copying, there has to be some give-and-take: restorations should be allowed if merges are done well.
 * 5) An editor who recreates or restores an article without consulting WP:Deletion review runs the risk of getting it deleted per G4, which may be challenged at DRV after the fact.
 * I have had success with this RfC format – brief prompt/question, background, and numbered list of options – in the past, so I am reluctant to alter it to add any of these subtopics. Flatscan (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * re: 5, G4 only applies if something is restored unchanged. It's not at all clear to me that restoring deleted content under a redirect makes those revisions eligible for G4, since the "article", at the time that was done, was turned into a redirect.
 * re: 1, as long as the result is encyclopedic content, IAR applies. Processes exist to shepherd content creation, not thwart it--there is pointedly no rule, nor will there ever be, that prohibits any user from creating good, encyclopedic content.  Placing barriers to using material deleted solely because it was unsourced as the foundation of that content is an anti-encyclopedic outcome. Jclemens (talk) 04:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) The page is WP:Ignore all rules, not "Ignore all consensus". I described above how I would weigh the content against the consensus. Great content → let it slide, marginal content → note/warning, etc. The was not great, and the AfD had come down strongly against merging anything.
 * 5) You have a point that redirects are often created after articles are deleted at AfD and are usually not G4'd. I can stretch the wording of G4 to fit (page history is the same, redirection is not an improvement), but I doubt that would pass scrutiny at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion. In practical terms, there are admins who are willing to use G4 in situations like Phyrexia, and those re-deletions will probably stand.
 * Flatscan (talk) 04:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)