Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/GeoSwan and AFDs

Reasons for creating this page
This is the largest ANI discussion that I've ever seen without looking in archives, and it's so large that it's dwarfing everything else on the page by a massive margin. Looking in archives shows me that some incidents in the past have grown so large that they were moved to separate pages, such as Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Betacommand 2011, so I've created this page on that pattern. Nyttend (talk) 03:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

User:Geo Swan and AfDs
Hi, AN/I. I'm concerned about the sheer number of deletion nominations that are taking place of material written by User:Geo Swan. Users unfamiliar with the history of this are invited to read Requests for comment/Geo Swan, but the gist of it is that Geo Swan is one of our most productive content creators—but many of the things he's written do not comply with Wikipedian norms. I have no objection to Geo Swan's material being nominated for deletion. When one editor nominates more than 60 pieces written by Geo Swan in the same month for deletion, then that's a potential problem because the guy's entire corpus is being destroyed faster than he can defend it. Basically, it takes time to defend stuff at AfD, and Geo Swan isn't being given a chance. In my view this is not fair. I expressed my concern to the user involved, DBigXray, here. Was that the most diplomatic phrasing ever? Probably not, and I'll take any lumps I've got coming to me for that. What I found was that DBigXray gives a very robust defence and may not have a very thick skin. So I left it there. What happened then was that in a separate discussion, a deletion review, I saw that the multiple nominations were causing Geo Swan significant distress. See here. As a result of the Deletion Review, the article in question was relisted at AfD, and I expressed the same concerns more forcefully in Articles for deletion/Muhammed Qasim. You'll see the same pattern, with the robust defence from DBigXray and an accusation from an IP editor that I'm "poisoning the well". Am I? I hate posting on AN/I and I always try to avoid it. What I would like from this is for editors to agree some kind of cap on how many of Geo Swan's articles can be nominated for deletion all at the same time.— S Marshall T/C 08:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Clarification, The deletion review has been wrongly portrayed above. The article was CSD G7ed by Author Geo Swan while an ongoing AfD was discussing it, Due to CSD G7 the article got quickly deleted, and the ongoing AfD (now moot) had to be closed. But another editor User:Joshuaism unaware that it was author Geo Swan had asked from CSD G7  started deletion review with WP:AOBF towards Bushranger for closing the discussion and deleting the article. After the discussion at Deletion review the AfD was reopened again and finally closed as delete-- D Big X ray   11:13, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * For further clarity: I did not delete the db-author'd article. I merely closed the AfD as "moot due to G7" as it had already been deleted. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think that there should be a special "rule" just regarding articles created by Geo Swan. One option would be to suggest a change to the deletion policy that would limit the number articles created by a specific editor that could be listed simultaneously at AfD. I don't think this is the ideal option, but I think it is better than having a "rule" just regarding articles created by one editor.--Rockfang (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That would probably need a RfC. What I'm looking for at the moment is a specific, immediate remedy.— S Marshall  T/C 09:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You need context to the poisioning the well comment I made. This was in relation to you insisting that loading the AFD with meta discussion on if someone should be allowed to nominate multiple articles must stay within the AFD discussion rather than being discussed on the talk page or somewhere like RFC or here. Your comments were nothing to do with the value of the article or otherwise. No admin should close the discussion based upon such opinions so the only impact could be to sideline the afd from the issue it is supposed to address. That isn't an issue of if the broader subject warrants discussion. I'd only see a cap on the number of deletions possible if we are also willing to impose a cap on the number of creations. If someone has created a large number of articles which don't have the sufficient sourcing etc. to stand up on their own but then take a significant time to defend each one, then I don't think we should be encouraging such large creation in the first place. Additionally if only one editor (the original author) is the only person who can or will defend an article at AFD, then there is quite a problem with those articles anyway. I#ll also note that you discuss DBigXray as apparently not having a thick skin being an issue, yet the very same thing about Geo Swan you seem to be something we should be sympathetic towards, you can't have it both ways. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 09:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it your position that user conduct is irrelevant to AfD closes?— S Marshall T/C 09:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Why should it be relevant? The decision should be made on the merits of the case - on our policies and guidelines. But the main issue for me here is that it appears that most of these articles have BLP issues, and given that, the faster they can be dealt with the better. Normally we might not care about how fast we deal with a large group of articles, but if there are BLP violations, and apparently there are, I'd definitely oppose a cap. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it your position that not using appropriate dispute resolution, instead just declaring in an AFD that there is a user conduct issue, is a constructive way of progressing things? Is it your position that content inappropriate to wikipedia should remain there, based on S Marshall (or any other editors) personal judgement that the person nominating it for deletion is not being "fair"? It is my position that user conduct issues are not the subject matter of AFDs, that's what we have dispute resolution for. Presupposing and judging that there is a user conduct issue is pretty much out of order. Your emotive summary of the matter on the afd "DBigXray is going through systematically destroying Geo Swan's entire corpus..." is not likely to be constructive in determining if the article is "useful" for wikipedia or not. It is unlikely to add any particular light to the discussion, just heat. Certainly if I had listed a set of articles for deletion beliving that I was doing the right thing clearing up BLPs etc, to have someone come to the discussions not comment on the substance of it the articles are valid or not. but instead declare my motivation as being to systematically destroy someone's entire corpus, then I'd certainly be annoyed (and I'd also question with who the user conduct issue lies) --62.254.139.60 (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This all seems rather tangential. If you really must continue this discussion, kindly take it to user talk page. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  10:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sixty nominations in a month is clearly going to overwhelm both the AfD process and the article's creator. It takes 30 seconds to AfD something with Twinkle and move onto the next, maybe five minutes if done manually—either of which is considerably less time than it takes to make a good case to keep the article. I think a formal cap would be instruction creep, but there really is no good reason for one editor (in good faith and employing common sense) to nominate more than one article by the same author every few days. Perhaps the discussions could be placed on hold somehow until GeoSwan has been allowed sufficient time to respond to the nominations and make the case for the articles? HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  10:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 30 seconds to AfD ? And what about the time that I spend trying to find sources and look about the notability of these BLPs and following WP:BEFORE prior to nominating these article for AFD, I feel in the above comment it has totally been ignored while it should have been taken into consideration. -- D Big X ray  10:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * DBigXray in the boilerplate nominations you kept placing you routinely asserted you had complied with the advice in WP:BEFORE. I am not going to speculate as to why you would make these assertions even when lots of secondary sources did exist, I will only inform readers that I think you routinely did so.
 * DBig, in one of your bulk nominations of half a dozen articles you decscribed them as all being about Guantanamo captives, when several of those captives had never been in military custody at all, at Guantanamo, or elsewhere. Rather they had spent years in the CIA's network of secret interrogation camps, that employed waterboarding and other "extended interrogation camps".
 * I regard this as a really telling mistake, one that demonstrates that, contrary to your claim above, you weren't bothering to read the articles in question prior to nomination, let alone complying with WP:BEFORE.
 * Ideally, no one participating in an afd should take the nominator's claim they complied with WP:BEFORE at face value, because nominators are human, thus fallible, some nominators are newbies, or have unconsciously lapsed and let a personal bias taint the nomination. Ideally, everyone participating in an afd should take a stab at reading the article -- at least to the point of reading beyond the scroll -- if it is a long article.  Ideally, every participant should do their own web search, even when the nominator claims they complied with WP:BEFORE.
 * Unfortunately, one often sees a lynch mob mind-set develop in the deletion fora. In my experience, when that lynch-mob mindset develops, only the fairest minded participants do more than read the nomination itself, before leaving a WP:METOO or WP:IDONTLIKEIT and this is what I believe happened here.  Geo Swan (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, per WP:AGF, you should assume that the nominator has attempted to comply with WP:BEFORE. You just shouldn't assume that their Google-fu (or JSTOR-fu, or whatever) is good enough to assure that their WP:BEFORE was adequate. - Jorgath (talk) (contribs) 14:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Not too much opinion on the overall conflict, but generally, if someone's Google/Jstor-fu is inadequate to research a topic adequately before starting an afd, they should refrain from starting further afd's until they have upgraded their google/jstor skills, per WP:CIR. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 14:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * comment First i have removed 10,000 from the title, this is an attempt to sensationalize this discussion.
 * For the record I have no history of editing or confrontation with Geo Swan anywhere on Wikipedia, and i have no malice against Geo Swan nor with his creations. I have no interest in Geo Swan's contributions whatsoever. I am active at military weapons, ships, History and terrorism related articles. I came across these articles via the categories on terrorism related articles . I have also created BIOs of few militants and militant organizations myself and I have also improved a number of articles on notable Guantanamo prisoners if they agree with the policies  "irrespective of who created it" . I nominate articles only when I am fully convinced that they are clear cases of policy violation  "irrespective of who created it" . AS the admins have access to deleted pages, they are free to check the deleted pages from my AFDs that I have also nominated several non-notable BIOs and articles created by editors other than Geo Swan if they do not satisfy the guidelines.
 * on Bundling I dont get any special joy in bundling these articles but I have started doing it as I was requested by AFD sorters and AFD contributors to WP:BUNDLE these AfD's for better discussion as single AFDs had to be relisted several times. I accepted that sane advice. Later on few editors protested  against bundling and I accepted that and started nominating problematic articles individually.
 * Finally we should always "remember" that it is not me but the community who decides what article to keep and what to delete based on the consensus at AfDs. I am only highlighting that these articles that have problem. Also note that the notability of these articles could not be established even after 6 years and even after extensive search I could not find any sign of notability of the subject and thats when i decide to AfD it, Many other AfD contributors have also tried and came to conclusion that these were poorly sourced WP:BLP articles violating WP:BLPPRIMARY. And ALL of these Biographies of living persons articles have either been deleted or redirected.
 * S Marshall above prefers to violate WP:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions,    making false misleading accusations of bad faith. He has never addressed the subjects of the article but only concentrated on making personal attacks on the AFD nominator on these AFDs. S Marshall falsely accused me of making   "quite virulent accusations"   here on this AFD. I have never made any accusation against MArshall ever, forget about "virulent" or "quite virulent".  On the other hand we can see SMarshall had accused me of a Crusade on an AfD which itself is a severe Bad faith accusation on his part to which i left a civil and sane reply on Marshall's talk page to stick to the content and stop doing WP:AOBF. And in reply to that I was threatened by Marshall to be dragged to ANI (Which he has done). From what i See, accusing me of making "quite virulent accusations"   is clear case of Lying WP:ABF and WP:AOBF by SMarshall opposite to WP:AGF.
 * -- D Big X ray  10:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your 60+ nominations of articles by the same editor in the same month, is the point you should be addressing here.— S Marshall T/C 10:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am more concerned about these poorly sourced Negative Biographies of living persons articles violating WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLP1E as far as I am aware, Biographies of living persons is something that Wikipedia takes very seriously. These articles should have been deleted while WP:NPP but may be it escaped the eyes of new page patrollers as geo swan has Autopatrolled/reviewer rights.
 * Also from the comments of Geo Swan on AfD i feel that he is still unaware of policies of WP:BLP or choses to blatantly ignore them, but then it is not something that i should care about. My concern is the Content not the contributor, I have already made my comment. and explained my position as clearly as I can. I have always followed community consensus and here also I will follow what the community decides to do with these problematic WP:BLPs, I dont have anything else to say here, regards-- D Big X ray   10:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Was it just coincidence that you nominated all these articles by the same editor, then?— S Marshall T/C 10:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, through AfDs I am pointing out problematic WP:BLPs irrespective of who created it now if Geo Swan has created all the problematic policy violating non notable WP:BLP Articles, then you are Barking up the wrong tree. It is not me but Geo Swan who should make a clarification about it. For the record I have already stated above an i am repeating again, I have also nominated problematic BLPs of other editors and the admins having access to deleted page history can go ahead and check it.
 * I will appreciate if you do not attack me on AfDs in future, AfD contributors should not comment if they are unable or unwilling to address the subject of the article but are more concerned in derailing the AfD debate by making ad hominem personal attacks against the fellow editors as you did on AFD here andhere
 * Also the fact that S Marshall wrote 10,000 AFDs as the section title in an attempt to sensationalize the discussion clarifies that he is more interested in WP:DRAMA than participating positively on Articles or AFDs. -- D Big X ray  10:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Was it a coincidence? An accident?  Or are you targetting one particular contributor whose edits have caused you concern?— S Marshall  T/C 10:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT-- D Big X ray  10:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Stop it, the pair of you. The issue here is not (or should not) be why we have all these AfD nominations, but what to do with them and how to give each article a fair hearing and ensure that the author can mount a defence of each one if he is so inclined. Bickering over motives doesn't bring us any closer to resolving that issue. If you don't have anything unambiguously constructive to say, then don't participate in this thread. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  11:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, that's only part of the issue. I'm trying to establish whether Geo Swan is being personally targeted—which does matter, HJ Mitchell, and isn't irrelevant at all—and if so why he's being targeted.  Sometimes it's legitimate to target one particular editor.  If they're a serial copyright violator, for example, then everything they've ever written needs to be investigated.  But as a general rule individual editors should not be targeted because of hounding and griefing concerns.  60+ nominations in one month is, prima faciae, damn good evidence of targeting, isn't it.  I'd like to start a discussion about whether targeting is justified in all the circumstances, in the light of the RFC/U.— S Marshall  T/C 13:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The RfC/U itself targets him. It isn't unreasonable for someone to look at it and come to the conclusion that he created a number of dubious BLPs, is it? And then to decide to do something about those BLPs? Dougweller (talk) 16:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Is that what's happened? I've asked DBigXray, repeatedly, to tell us whether he's targeting Geo Swan or whether this is a coincidence.  He won't answer (and accuses me of IDHT among other things because I keep asking).  If DBigXray would confirm that he's targeting Geo Swan because of dubious BLPs, then we'd be making some progress here.  In any case, the RfC/U does talk about the issue of targeting Geo Swan.  I think that what applies to Fram applies to DBigXray as well.  Don't you?— S Marshall  T/C 16:24, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well If you read my above reply again you should be able to understand how I got to these articles but for that one needs to take out the earplugs out of his ears. Everyone else here knows what the real problem is but as we see above Marshall seems to be hellbent on Getting me banned from WP:Terrorism BLPs. Assuming good faith, for you and your understanding I am explaining this one last time. As said above I am active in BLP articles specially terrorism related I have created several BLPs Abdul Rehman Makki, Yasin Bhatkal, Fasih Mahmood, Zabiuddin Ansari, Naamen Meziche, Iqbal Bhatkal, Riyaz Bhatkal, 2010 Bangalore stadium bombing, August_2012_Mansehra_Shia_Massacre, February 2012 Kohistan Shia Massacre and many more. As we know these gentlemen work in organisations that are often interrelated or work in tandem. Obviously I am expected to come across these terrorism related articles, which led me to these BLP violation articles   from the categories. I have tried and improved several of these BLPs and I have nominated  the non notable WP:BLPPRIMARY violations  Irrespective of who has created them . To be honest I am annoyed at these attempts of making imaginary relationships between me and Geo Swan, when there is none, If you dont believe me go and dig into my contributions and bring up a relationship if you are able to find one, until then STFU ! I hope this puts an end to the silly WP:IDHT statements that Marshall is repeatedly stating above, so that we can now concentrate on addressing the Real Problem of these BLP violations.-- D Big X ray   16:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I take it that you deny that you are personally targeting Geo Swan?— S Marshall T/C 17:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * (Later) Oh, and I'm not trying to get you banned from anything. I'm doing exactly what I said I was doing: I'm trying to get you to stop nominating very large numbers of Geo Swan's contributions for deletion at the same time.  And that's all I'm trying to achieve.— S Marshall  T/C 17:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I think Marshall has no confidence on our WP:AFD process and least confidence on the Afd contributors and Zero confidence on the AfD nominators. Could Marshall explain why he thinks only Geo Swan has to defend these articles ? do you feel all the AfD contributors are morons hell bent on deleting BLPs ? If the articles are notable anyone should be able to prove the notability and defend it at AfD if the consensus has a view that the article is non notable and/or a BLP violation, then its ought to be deleted. -- D Big X ray  17:18, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The articles you list are all related to Muslim terrorists in India, DBigXray. What have you done to improve the articles you nominate or that you considered nominating?  What edits have you made to save Guantanamo and other American terrorism related detainees?--Joshuaism (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * These are the articles that i started, the list of articles in which i have contributed is pretty long and I am not interested in giving another list of articles so feel free Dig into my contributions on Guantanamo and other terrorism articles and help yourself, regards-- D Big X ray   17:33, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It is an unfair burden to make me prove a negative. It is much easier for you to provide the evidence (if it exists) as you should have a better knowledge of your edits than I do. --Joshuaism (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * SMarshall and DBigXray -- given that this is supposed to be about GeoSwan, could ya'll stop the back and forth?
 * I'd like to hear from GeoSwan themself.
 * The linked RFC/U recommended a mentor -- did that happen? Nobody Ent 10:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't see any indication that it did. As I said, my main concern is the BLP articles, should we be asking for input from BLPN? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 11:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

As the guy that submitted the Qasim article for deletion review I feel I should share my concerns.
 * The ease with which an editor can defend his contributions should not be an issue in determining AFD - especially not in cases where a single user mass produces content that is substandard, and which includes blps. The problem is with the article mass creation, not with article mass AFDing. If a user creates a large number of dubious articles then he should expect that he will be implicated in a large number of simultaneous afds. That is how the process works. The alternative is to say that as long as you create enough substandard articles you get a get out of AFD free card. That's not the wikipedia I want to be a part of.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * DBigXray is submitting these AfDs at a rate that is too fast for any single user to review the merits of the articles. DBigXray states that he is performing this due diligence, but I have my doubts as all of his submissions consist of copy/paste boilerplate text, and I have not seen any significant edits on his part to shore up questionably notable detainees.Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The rate of nomination for deletion is a function of the rate of creation. If the Afd rate is too high, it's an issue of the creation rate. Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily true. DBigXray can nominate 17 articles in a week, while GeoSwan did not create all of these articles in the matter of one week. Salim Suliman Al Harbi was created over an entire year after Omar Rajab Amin and GeoSwan and other editors have worked for years at improving these articles. All of this research and time can be wiped out in a matter of days by one "industrious" editor so long as a small but dedicated set of voters support him. Meanwhile the creator is discouraged from canvassing for favorable editors and they likely cannot be found easily after many years anyways. Not everyone can be as vigilant as DBigXRay. --Joshuaism (talk) 18:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Consensus on these nominations seem to only be made by the same editors, Nick-D, RightCowLeftCoast, Anotherclown,The Bushranger, and Vibhijain. With such a small userbase showing an interest in these articles, can we be sure that this is the consensus of the entire wikicommunity, or is it just WP:LOCALCONSENSUS?Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There's no such thing as the entire wikicommunity; there are overlapping subcommunities. If those are the only editors currently interested in discussing Afds, that's the subcommittee that decides. (Exceptions would be made if there was evidence of canvassing or the like.). Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm currently investigating whether Vibhijain is a sock-puppet of DBigXray. Both share an interest in keeping topics related to India and deleting all of these detainees.  They also both have an odd habit of striking their votes (along with the entire attached comment) just before the close of an AfD and then voting to match consensus. (Vibhijain's AfD record)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, you should keep you suspicions to yourself until your investigation is over. If you conclude there's a reasonable chance they're the same editors, take to WP:SPI, not here. Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Done! Thank you for the recommendation! --Joshuaism (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Each of these nominations have a clear redirect target. but many of these editors vote to delete anyway. The Bushranger has recently started voting "Merge and Redirect", but the events surrounding the Qasim article made me worry he was actually acting contrary to his recorded vote. It appears that I was mistaken about that. Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * With such a clear redirect/merge topic, I don't know why any of them get nominated for AfD and it causes me to worry about efforts at censorship and WP:BIAS. Many of these pages include useful references that without archiving may suffer from linkrot, making research of their individual cases difficult in the future if the page histories are not preserved. Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * DBigXray claims he worries about BLP/BLP1E issues, but if that is the case, is he concerned about the lists of detainees as well? Could these lists be targeted on the same grounds? Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You dont need to be concerned about my concerns and how I address my concerns, as an AfD contributor one should be more concerned about finding the notability of an article rather than making personal attacks and random Bad faith accusations on AfD contributors. As for the concerns on "What if..." There is a community at AfD that is competent enough to address anyone's genuine concerns on the articles.-- D Big X ray  18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see comments on each of these individual issues I've brought up. I understand that it may be necessary to break up my long comment to facilitate this. Please feel free to interupt me between each bulletpoint as it will probably make for better readability. Thanks! --Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Question Would Joshuaism also Like to be blocked (if he is proved wrong at SPI) per WP:BOOMERANG for the shocking display of Bad faith you have shown above ?
 * Also you need to inform Vibhijain that you are implicating him and taking his name in this ANI case.-- D Big X ray  17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for allowing me to at least contact Vibhijain. It looks like you've already contacted everyone else mentioned. Thanks! --Joshuaism (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well if you are taking names of editors at ANI you are supposed to inform them yourself, Informing editors who are being discussed here is not Canvassing and your linking to WP:CANVAS above is yet another WP:AOBF towards fellow editors
 * What about my question above ? The Bad Faith shown above is extremely shocking, I think I have already said enough for any sane mind to get a clue, ill take a break -- D Big X ray  18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I make my accusations against you in good faith. I seriously think there are issues with your AfD history and am not trying to discourage good faith edits by actual editors. But this appears to be a crusade on your part and even well meaning edits can be detrimental when editors do not examine the consequences of their actions and the biases at work in their behavior that work to the detriment of Wikipedia and it's community. --Joshuaism (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that's a contradiction in terms.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well you have already given a demonstration of your good faith by filing a Bad faith frivolous SPI against me and Vibhijain at Sockpuppet investigations/DBigXray All the best -- D Big X ray  19:15, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And you have given a demonstration of your good faith at your talk page (archived). --Joshuaism (talk) 22:44, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * First you said I am a sock of Vibhijain then you said I am related to Nangparbat If you dont want to see/identify the disruptive misdeeds of this banned sock, then there is nothing much we can do about it.-- D Big X ray   00:06, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the outcome of any of the rest of this, you've successfully caused at least one editor to add the Guantanamo BLPs to the "list of Wikipeida things I won't touch with a 10 ft pole." - The Bushranger One ping only 23:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The Bad Faith SPI initiated against me by Joshuaism has been deleted as Blatant disruption. -- D Big X ray  11:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

(od, without reading the above) I've commented on quite a few of these AfDs, and I think that they're fine. Geo Swan shouldn't have created these articles in the first place and hasn't cleaned them up despite the serious concerns which were raised in the RfC over a year ago (despite being a very active editor in that period), so their deletion is long-overdue. I'd note that almost all of the nominations are being closed as 'delete', with most comments being posted as part of these discussions relating to BLP concerns. Nick-D (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I second what Nick-D is saying above. I had come across the GeoSwan Guantanamo-related articles before and I think the sheer number of these articles still sitting in mainspace (usually for years) represents a significant problem. These articles typically rely on a combination of primary sources (Guantanamo trial transcripts) and occasional few brief mentions in the newsmedia - almost always a far cry from satisfying WP:GNG or any other relevant notability requirement. The primary responsibility to do the necessary clean up lies with GeoSwan here. But since that is not happening, anyone else who tries, even to a small degree, to do the needed clean-up, deserves considerable credit. Redirecting some of these articles may be a possibility but in many cases even that is not the right solution and a straight delete is more appropriate. Redirecting is meant as a navigation tool for likely search terms - but many of the article titles in question are too obscure to plausibly qualify as likely search terms. Given the length of time most of these articles have been sitting in mainspace, I do not think there is anything unfair about the situation where a large batch of them gets AfDed at the same time. Nsk92 (talk) 23:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have been notified that I have been mentioned in this ANI, and one editor who is accusing another editor of misconduct have brought me up due to my AfD comments on a group of War on Terror related BLPs. First let me say that I am an active (off and on since 2009) editor within the sphere of military history, as such I have the Military DELSORT on my watch list, as well as other DELSORTs that relate to my participation in other WikiProjects and interests. I do not always make a statement in each AfD, however when I do I do research whether the subject in question meet the applicable notability guidelines, and see if the subject meets anything set forth in WP:DEL-REASON. In this case of these group of articles, I found them through one of those DELSORTs on my watch list, and have rendered my opinion (which other editors may or may not share) after looking for reliable sources that meet the criteria set forth in the applicable notability guidelines. I don't see anything wrong with my actions in this regard.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:14, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I must disagree with Nsk92 and NickD here. I think it is well established that trying to delete too many articles of the same type at the same times is abusive. It is easily possible to nominate more articles in a short time than can possibly be dealt with, and this gives an unfair direction to the process in favor of deletion, because no one can possibly do the amount of research to defend the articles that would be required in that time. I am not neutral in this matter, however, as I have repeatedly defended these articles when I thought it would do any good. I have only stopped, quite frankly, because I have gotten exhausted by the process of trying to combat what I think is the prejudice against them. anyone who pushes an issue at WP strongly enough can prevail over other editors with a less fervent devotion, and I think this is what has happened here. I think I'm pretty persistent, but i do not really have the fortitude to continue on the losing side forever. There are others here who are willing to keep at something till  they eventually win, and they will be able to defeat me. In this case, the opposition has been a succession of editors over many years trying to destroy these articles, and that can be especially difficult for a reasonable person to combat. (I am not saying it is concerted action--just that a number of different people have had very strong feelings against these articles quite independently.) I think Geo is pretty tough minded also, possibly more than I am. The two of us are not enough, and our opponents have by and large succeeded. It happens elsewhere in WP, and if i couldn't live with that i would have left long ago. I've had frequent occasion to explain that to other   people with valid complaints that are not going to be satisfied.   DGG ( talk ) 06:20, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If the articles are adequately sourced in the first place, shouldn't they be snow keeps? Nobody Ent 09:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am arguing they would be keeps if it were possible during the AfD to work on them to meet the objects, but at this speed of nomination it is not possible. I am also arguing, as I have in the past, that they would be keeps were there not a strong specific interest in trying to delete articles on  this particular topic.   DGG ( talk ) 15:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is to try and rule to limit the amount AFDable becomes a positive discrimination the other way, better an editor creates a lower quantity and hopefully higher quality such that defence is either easy or not required than create a whole ruck which are "questionable" then collapse under the weight of defending/fixing them. i.e. I don't think you can see the problem as one sided. Also I thought wikipedia was supposed to work by consensus without specific examples it's hard to judge but what you describe is to a certain degree indistinguishable from that, if you find yourself constantly fighting a large number of editors with different view, at what point do you think that actually the consensus is against you? It's the classic edit warrior who believes that it's everyone else who hasn't wrong and they are one of the minority which is righteous. To be clear here I'm not suggesting DGG is an edit warrior, merely drawing a parallel - it's always a question of perspective and the suggestion that we legislate against an apparent consensus to protect those who know the truth shouldn't be entertained. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As those regularly here know very well, I have from the start consistently argued for keeping articles when the reason for deletion is affected by religious or political or similar considerations (such as small political parties or religious groups or other unpopular positions) . Those are general areas where often the community, or that part of it which chooses to participate, can, like any other group of people on such issues, make it impossible for reason to prevail. I deliberately to try to counter this by an active effort for broad inclusion where these considerations might be a factor. That in many cases the inclination is in fact my own political or religious or philosophical view is irrelevant to my consistency in opposing making decisions influenced consciously or unconsciously by such considerations. As I do this regardless of the particular politics or religion or other standpoint, I don't see how this makes me a zealot for anything but free expression for minorities and the unpopular. Nor do I think I am consistently found arguing in general at WP against a large majority.   Often at XfD I am, because I am willing to do so, and express views regardless of the degree of opposition--most editors try to avoid that.  I have had the satisfaction over the years of seeing some but not all of these positions become the accepted consensus, because I and a few others are willing to stand up for unpopular positions and take a long term view of it.   Sometimes I do not succeed,  but i succeed often enough to keep going.  Anyone who thinks WP does not sometimes exhibit some  religious or political or philosophical prejudice is either not paying attention, or blindly following any majority.    DGG ( talk ) 15:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment I don't have the time to read the whole discussion, but I saw some false sock-puppetry allegations on me. From my side, one is free to ask a checkuser if these allegations are true. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛  Talk Email 06:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Also I must point out that almost all of these problematic BLPs were created en masse in 2006, Even After 6-7 years their notability is not established. Even if you take 6 more years the situation will still remain the same, The only source where you find a mention is Primary sources, or at best a passing mention of name in news. As we can see from the RFC also,  the problem with these BLP violations has been raised several times, and the author was asked to do something about it.  But fact is the author cannot conjure up reliable secondary sources for few of these non-notable biographies to prove the notabilty, as a result not much has been done and the situation remains the same even now.  -- D Big X ray   12:20, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * One is free to make a WP:CHECKUSER request against Vibhijain but do not be surprised to be openly mocked by his coterie of friends and then have the request deleted (not closed!) by a friendly admin. --Joshuaism (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to understand the difference between closing and deleting an SPI page.An SPI case page is usually archived if there is some evidence to prove the point..and if any CU/Patrolling Admin/Clerk makes some comments on it.In the recent SPI page started by you yesterday, you were reporting a well established editor who has been an administrator in over four wikis.Morever, you haven't produced any diffs or any sort of evidence whatsoever..leave the behavioral match!.If you wish to still pursue a RFCU on DBigXray and Vibhijain...make sure you get enough evidences to prove it...not behavior matches! Thanks  TheStrike  Σagle   16:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Like a number of others, I am strongly opposed to GeoSwan getting any more of a free ride than any other editor. Not only is there no requirement that an AfD ought to be held up until such time as the article creator chimes in, hundreds of editors chime in at AfD, surely enough opinions to get the job done.  If an AfDed article of his is worthy of defense, then someone will defend it.   Ravenswing   12:41, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, wait, that's not what I said. I never asked for special treatment for Geo Swan.  If someone came along and nominated 60+ articles that you, or anyone else, had written in the same month, then I would be here saying exactly the same thing.  This is what HJ Mitchell said earlier: More than sixty XfDs in the same month is bound to overwhelm both the user and the AfD system.  It's abuse of process.  Whether aimed at Geo Swan or not.— S Marshall  T/C 12:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's "abusive" to file lots of AfDs? Truly?  Are you alleging that these are bad faith nominations?  Are the nominations purely on specious grounds?  Is there, in fact, anything wrong with these AfDs among the hundred-plus filed every day other than that the articles were created by a single editor?  Sorry, I'm not seeing it, and I'm certainly not seeing any reason to fling the "abuse" slur.   Ravenswing   08:23, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * To answer those questions in the order that you raise them: (1) Yes. To file 60+ XfDs on one user in rapid succession is an abuse of process. (2)  No.  Whatever DBigXray might think or allege, I have never accused him of bad faith.  I presume he is doing this in a good faith attempt to improve the encyclopaedia.  Nevertheless good faith actions can be unreasonable. (3) Yes.  There is something wrong with filing so many AfDs at once, which is that it'll overwhelm and demoralise the relatively prolific content contributor who started them all, and also put pressure on our XfD process which is, nowadays, so ill-attended that it mostly consists of discussions that have been relisted for extra input.  We get discussions nowadays that have been relisted twice and still nobody independent's had anything to say.  Frankly, XfD was already creaking under the strain of Wikipedia's steady decline in active editor numbers, even before this. I see this issue as analagous to the old X-Y relations disputes we used to have in 2009, except that the Guantanmo BLPs do have sources and aren't just a massive case of WP:KITTENS.  But the X-Y relations thing was stupid.  We dealt with it stupidly.  We repeated what was essentially the same discussion hundreds and hundreds of times, because we couldn't find a better process.  Let's learn.  If this user wants to target the Guantanamo Bay-related BLPs as a class (which is clearly what he wants to do) then we can come up with better ways of doing it than all these XfDs all at the same time.  That might mean inventing an ad hoc process or just using an RFC, for example.— S Marshall  T/C 09:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Geo Swan here
First, I need to make a very serious correction -- I dispute I created a large number of articles that don't comply with the wikipedias standards.

Rather I created a large number of articles that measured up to the standards at the time they were created, that, for one reason or another haven't been updated or rewritten so they meet the more stringent standards current today.

I am on record, and I will repeat here today, I agree that all articles that don't meet the standards of today, and can't be updated or rewritten to meet those standards should be merged or redirected.

The first Guantanamo related article I started was that of Murat Kurnaz. Its original state falls very short of today's standard this is not evidence that I am serial creator of non-compliant articles, rather it shows how our standards have evolved. The Murat Kurnaz article has been updated and rewritten, so I think most people would agree it meets today's standards.

Why haven't I made sure every article on a Guantanamo captive I started was updated or rewritten, to meet today's standards, or that it was merged or redirected, if that wasn't possible? Short answer -- wikistalkers. Long answer, its complicated.

As others have reported, DBigXray has accused me of personally attacking them, in multiple comments, when all I thought I was doing was sharing what he had written to me. So, let me state that it is not my intention to attack his character, or try to read his mind as to his motives.

Having said that, DBigXray, in trying to defend the high volume of the afds on articles I have created has made statements which are just not supported by his contribution history.

He claimed he encountered me and my contributions "at random". In fact our first interaction was in June of this year, in the 2nd and 3rd Tfd for Template:Kashmir separatist movement. I thought it was a problematice Tfd for a number of reasons, like that the nominator had been edit warring and using inflammatory language in his or her edit summaries.

Here is a comment I made, where I said it looked like those favoring deletion did not seem to have been prepared to try collegial discussion, prior to claiming the template was hopelessly biased.

In his reply he claimed that if I looked at the templates revision history I would see those who favored deletion had tried discussion.

I did look at the revision history, and tried to explain how "discussions" of controversial topics that take place in edit summaries are triggers for edit warring, as the other party has to partially or fully revert you, to reply, and that it is far better to have a discussion that can be read later by third parties, on the relevant talk page.

Was what I saw in this discussion a small group of pro-India nationalists, trying to win their way in this template, without regard to the wikipedia's policies?

I just checked DBigXray's four edits to that template. His edits in the template itself seemed reasonable, and not instances of edit warring. But his comments in the tfd were defending the blatant edit warring of the nominator, who has a long history of being blocked for edit warring.

DBigXray's first nomination of an article I started was June 15, less than a week after that Tfd closed.

DBigXray has claimed he has shown no animosity towards me, and has not been harrassing me. This also not supported by his record. (See User talk:Geo Swan) In those first few afd DBigXray told me that I was knowingly violating policy, and was in a conflict of interest, because I had not explicitly noted that I was the contributor who started the articles in question.

An uninvolved third party came along, and explained to DBigXray, that I was not in a conflict of interest, and wasn't violating any policy -- but not before DBigXray's demands became extremely unpleasant.

With regard to DBigXray's original point -- they wanted the articles to be redirected to the articles on captives of their nationality. On July 11th, 12th and 13th I redirected 300 articles to the articles on the captives of their nationality, with an edit summary of "redirect as per User:Geo Swan/Redirecting Guantanamo captives articles to the list articles on their nationalities".

In that note I explained that I thought some of those articles could be updated to meet the current standards. But, if so, they would require multiple hours each. I said I would seek opinions from others, prior to turning any of them back from a redirect to an article. Geo Swan (talk) 12:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you Geo Swan for finally making a comment on the discussion about the articles, but rather than addressing the content and lack of notability that needs to be explained you choose again to point the fingers at the Nominator, Please note that your opinions/accusations with out proof have no relevance. As for the change in policy, I am not familiar with the old policies but i believe there cannot be a dramatic change between the BLP policies of then and now. WP:GNG is something that needs to be satisfied anyhow. May be at the time of creation it was thought that more sources will be added as newer sources come, out, but we should accept the fact that many of these were examples of WP:BLP1E and I am not sure how waiting for more time will get you more sources.
 * Also I should point that Geo Swan had declared about the benefits of making a Fake show of good faith while harboring bad faith. I hope the admins will see how non-related things are being connect with imaginary explanations. Connecting the template discussion with Guantanamo articles that too after so many days is something I would call as ridiculous. I have never targeted Geo Swan in my AFDs, but Geo Swan has made slant remarks of bad faith at both the nominator and the contributor. Even in his above comment we see the same has been done. What I see here is a  case of, "when there is no way to prove a BLP violating articles notability through fair means then go around making bad faith accusations against the Nominator and implicate him however you can." and a few great examples of this have been presented above in the thread.
 * I am not going to make any more comment on the WP:AOBF above and below, I believe I have already said more than enough about my stand and I leave it for the admins to decide-- D Big X ray  13:00, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You ask us to assume good faith of you a lot, I notice. You're targeting one particular user, aren't you?  With 60+ AfDs in the same month aimed at the same person, it's completely obvious that that's what you're doing.— S Marshall  T/C 12:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I dispute I counseled "faking good faith". I think a fair-minded reading of my comment is that I counseled continuing to struggle to give the appearance one was still assuming good faith, when one felt one's correspondent had shown bad faith, because: (1) in spite of a heated suspicions, they might merit the assumption of good faith after all; (2) continuing to show the appearance of good faith, in the face of what seems like bad faith, can make your correspondent return to good faith behavior.  I didn't say, but I could have added, it is better for the project overall, when at least one party to a discussion can continue to show good faith, than to have all parties ignore WP:AGF.  Geo Swan (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Replies and comments from other users

 * Anyone who nominates this stuff should be given a barnstar. At this point, Geo Swan should be topic-banned from any military/War on Terror/Guantanamo-related article.  We've been cleaning up his mess for, what, a year now?  Either we're sifting through dozens and dozens of primary-sourced prisoner BLPs at AfD or addressing the junk still leftover in userspace via MfD.  Enough is enough. Tarc (talk) 13:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The barnstar of wiping an entire topic off of Wikipedia? I don't think I've stumbled across that one yet. --Nouniquenames (talk) 05:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * as you say, if one is determining on not having articles on an issue, a good course is to prohibit their proponents from even speaking up. I said above why I will defend unpopular positions, and this suggestion is an illustration of what will happen if at least some people do not do so.  DGG ( talk ) 15:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Similarly if one is determined on having articles on an issue, a good course is to prohibit proponents of that from even speaking up, by (say) trying to limit their ability to have deletion discussions on them, or by persistently badgering them about their motives - all of which can be witnessed above. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 16:25, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I would encourage Mr. Swan to start a website with the prisoner bios. I think this is valuable material that needs to be "out there," even if WP might not be the place for it. Ironically, such a website of scholarly bios might provide the basis at some future date, when more is published by others, for a restoration of these biographies to WP in a form compliant with current BLP standards. I also would like to add that I think Tarc's tone is out of line and unbecoming. Carrite (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - First of all, I have no idea where assuming good faith has gone and went, as a colleague of mine would say. I completely agree that, when Geo Swan started his mini-project on detainees, it was certainly within the parameters of normal editing for general notability.  Some people need to give him a bit of slack.  Well, as we know, consensus can change around here, and in this case, I see that it has.  Even I, often accused of inclusionism, have moderated my practices and idea(l)s, as documented in April 2011 and May 2011.  In fact, I detected a growing consensus in the spring of 2011 of a tightening of the outcomes of debates at AfD.  We also saw that ion the massive clean-up of unreferenced BLPs a while back.  So I think you can't blame Geo for being upset that the Project is changing around those issues.  It is particularly cruel to post 60 AfDs, which overwhelms the deletion process -- especially when so many North American Users are on vacation!  Geo has been a perfectly fine editor, and remains so.  I would not topic-ban him in such circumstances, and like DGG, I defend his right to a minority viewpoint.  Geo's work has, on the whole, been of great benefit to the Project, and it would be awful to lose another useful User.  On the other hand, we really need to construct a more specific guideline or to clarify written consensus that we have been merging the merely or barely notable BLPs on detainees into groups of articles - such as Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay -- leaving individual articles only for those detainees who are most clearly notable.  I hope this comment is helpful for the discussion. Bearian (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is a diff in which two editors tried to talk to DBigXray, and he/she removed the discussion with the word "badgering". The issue which Geo Swan was trying to address is relevant to this entire discussion, because the diff shows that DBigXray removed material from an article seven minutes before bringing it to AfD.  This is a situation which makes it easy to read consensus from the mind of the nominator, which is that the deletion nomination was insufficient on its own merits and needed help .  The deletion discussion for Habib Noor stipulates that there was reliable primary material, but there was no WP:BEFORE analysis as to what to do with the reliable material as per WP:ATD alternatives to deletion.  Each argument in the AfD discussion is consistent with a merge result, and the most efficient way to have brought feedback into this system was for an administrator to have closed the discussion as WP:SK#1, no argument for deletion, WP:NPASR, early on July 2.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And here we have another WP:AOBF, You are not able to see the content removed yet you assume that it was obviously my cardinal sin to do that, with complete disregrard to WP:AGF. The content was a violation of WP:BLPPRIMARY&  WP:COATRACK and had been removed by several other editors in past also but Geo Swan (for whatever reasons) had reverted the problematic content back into the article. -- D Big X ray   23:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a note that the diff where "...DBigXray removed material from an article seven minutes before bringing it to AfD." had no bearing whatsoever on the subject's notability, being general material about the tribunal. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That doesn't explain why the material was removed. And it doesn't change that the nominator saw the article as something to be edited, not as something that would soon disappear.  However, I have redacted three words that are not helpful.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I know that I have started to edit an article, removing badly sourced material, unsourced promotional stuff, whatever, and only then realised that the problem was simply that the subject of the article wasn't notable anyway and then took it to AfD. Dougweller (talk) 05:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, and mileage may vary and people are not perfect; but such truisms are not helpful or relevant; for example, you wouldn't have re-thought your position and had the article at AfD seven minutes later, would you? Unscintillating (talk) 08:47, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment by uninvolved editor OpenFuture: The argument here is that it's hard to defend many articles being sent to AfD. Instead it should somehow be hard to keep Wikipedia policies in place regarding articles, and that you should be able to "override" WP:N etc by creating many articles at once. That of course doesn't make any sense. The problem here is the assumption that it is hard to "defend" articles. This is false, articles does not need defending at all, and you need to spend zero time defending them. Several editors take a look at the AfD and if the article has merit, then it stays. The article creator needs to put no time on defending the article at all.
 * What takes time is not defending articles, but creating good articles that can survive an AfD. If Geo Swan is creating articles at such a high speed that he does not have time to make the articles good enough for Wikipedia, then he should slow down the article creation, and instead put his time and effort into making the articles good enough that they survive an AfD or even better, don't get AfD'd at all.
 * As such there can be no limit to how many of an editors articles get an AfD per month or day or hour or year. If the editor creates good articles that fulfill basic Wikipeda requirements, then this is simply not an issue. If he get's 60 articles AfD'd per month, then he needs to slow down article creation and concentrate more on quality and less no quantity. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course, if that was what was happening you'd be right. But what is happening is years of work are being attacked by a couple of users in a very short time frame. The same thing happened a few years ago, and one of those two users later tried the same tactic on me.  (The other is banned.)  And I can tell you that it is not fun seeing someone combing through your contributions for things to revert, delete or report.  Geo Swann has been very open about his work, and very amenable to making changes, merging articles and other improvements, and for this he should be commended.   Asking the "deletionists" to behave colligially is a good idea, and should be responded to positively. Rich Farmbrough, 06:12, 25 August 2012 (UTC).


 * From an editor who has had nothing to do with any of these articles: That many AfD nominations that quickly for articles (apparently) in those conditions is absurd and, further, disruptive.  I would love to see a proposal to prevent DBig from nominating absolutely anything to AfD for a time, but I won't suggest it here.  After all, the damage has already been done.  When created, these articles passed the standards of the time.  --Nouniquenames (talk) 05:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * We need to keep article creation somehow accessible to everyone. There must be other ways to stamp an article, other than AfD. When I read articles, I do notice the warnings on attribution and original research, and I do take them into account, readers are not dumb. But articles need to be able to have their existence awarded even in their rough form, even if it takes five years to get the article in it's final accepted form. I thought this was what WP was al about. I just hate seeing entire articles gone, even if they start out as all original research. Jdesmet (talk) 00:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Fundamental problem of Wikipedia
At the core, good faith supports all the positions expressed above. A fundamental problem of Wikipedia is the incoherence between Notability and Verifiably. The former says articles can exist if the subject is notable, even if entirely unsourced; the latter says unsourced material can be removed. But you just know that turning a totally unsourced article into the blank page (per V) is going to bring the wrath of WP upon you (Pointy!) (because of N). Likewise burden says the writer should be sourcing the stuff, whereas before says that noticing an article might not be encyclopedic suddenly makes the noticer responsible for fixing it. Nobody Ent 22:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * wp:BEFORE does not make the person who notices that an article "might not be encyclopedic" responsible for fixing that article. Before doesn't even kick in unless you decide not to fix an article but to delete it instead. If you doubt whether the subject of an article is notable then we have tags for that and if you consider that a fact or even a whole article needs sources then we have tags for that as well. Only if information is contentious or blatantly wrong does it need to be summarily removed, and in such circumstances there is no obligation on the remover to check first to see if it can be sourced. Most of the time Notability and Verifiability work well together, they only start to seem incoherent if you take an overly deletionist attitude and especially if you treat verifiable as the same as verified.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Which essentially invalidates WP:BURDEN's alleged You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source. Because sticking a tag changes an unsourced article or section into an unsourced article or section with a four year old tag on it. Nobody Ent 16:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Checking for reliable sources doesn't really take that long. Google News, Google books and Google Scholar, and if you can't find anything there, then I think an AfD is acceptable. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the main issue is that a topic can be notable (WP:GNG isn't the only guideline) when insufficient sources exist. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to slow down a bit at AfD
I'd propose that DBigXray be asked by the community to nominate no more than 2 or 3 articles week by Geo Swan. Issues of socking, ABF, etc. aside, there is no rush to get these removed (and if BLPN feels that in fact there _is_ a hugely pressing need to remove articles that have been 6 years we could redirect them I suppose).
 * Support as proposer. There is certainly debate about bad faith, BEFORE, socking and notability.  But no one seems to disagree with the notion that high-speed AfDs make it difficult to fix these articles before they get deleted (which I think we'd agree is optimal if they are fixable). Hobit (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - - I believe that this is a reasonable proposal that I might even consider supporting. But AfD is not clean-up and I believe that there are few detainee articles that require deletion as nearly all of these articles have a good merge/redirect candidate list. Has anyone considered nominating these articles at Proposed mergers? It will allow DBigXray to address his concerns while giving Geo Swan and other interested users time to fix keep-worthy articles as well as transfer usable references and information into articles that they will eventually redirect to. They currently have a backlog of 3 months, and so long as these nominations are limited to two or three a week, these detainees and detainee lists should be workable without being overwhelming. Limiting nominations to three a week would also limit any disruptions caused by False consensus or local consensus and without the threat of deletion, my worries about censorship would be alieved. So long as no other users are nominating detainee articles this should be workable. Thoughts?--Joshuaism (talk) 05:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope. Speed limits do not address problems of "bad faith, BEFORE, socking and notability". This is just another attempt to stymie the AfD process through the introduction of arbitrary barriers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose: I'm with Chris; if these nominations are on specious grounds, if they are poorly executed, if the subjects are discussed in significant detail by multiple reliable sources, as the GNG enjoins, then there are grounds for speed limits. I am, however, unalterably opposed to the AfD process being changed to suit a single editor's convenience.  If the articles pass policy muster, there will be people defending them at AfD, as is always the case.  If they do not pass policy muster, then any one editor's presence is irrelevant.   Ravenswing   08:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support On the 14th Aug BigXray notified GeoSwan of eight AFDs and MFDs in under an hour, including two in one minute. Slowing down would give DBigXray more time to properly look for sources, and take some of the heat out of the situation.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Chris and Ravenswing explain it well. Should he slow down the rate of his nominations out of courtesy? Perhaps. Should he be forced to slow down through sanctions? No. - The Bushranger One ping only 09:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per Chris,Raven and BushRanger.Enforcing sanctions on a user who creates legit AfDs' only to reduce the work load(back log) of AfD process seems ridiculous.  TheStrike  Σagle   09:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Look at the RfC linked to in S Marshall's opening statement. Geo Swan was (or should have been) aware of the problems with his articles after some 200 or so were deleted through AfD and the like. When left alone after the RfC ended, he basically did nothing to correct the problems with his articles. The problem is not the speed of the current AfDs, the problem is the existence of these articles for many, many years, and the reluctance of Geo Swan to clean up his articles and his userspace. The desired outcome of the RfC was "User:Geo Swan voluntarily refrains from creating anymore BLP-related articles (broadly construed) in the mainspace or in userspace until both his existing articles in the mainspace and in the userspace are checked and made fully compliant with BLP (and other policies) or deleted." Geo Swan still does not understand or accept that his view on sourcing (reliability and independence), notability (and the fact that it is not inherited), and BLP is different from the generally accepted Wikipedia norms. I don't only oppose this actual proposal, but would prefer this counter-proposal: Topic ban Geo Swan from all BLP related articles and from all Guantanamo related articles. Fram (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Unless I'm missing something, the 134,000 hits argument was made by a different editor. Kanguole 10:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, struck out the comment for now (reading too many AfDs and mixing things from one with another). Will look for a better example. Fram (talk) 11:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Striking out doesn't work as I would like it, have removed the comment now instead. Fram (talk) 11:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose, and support Fram's counter-proposal above. Nsk92 (talk) 10:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support - the mad rush of AfDs have overwhelmed the system. As Joshuaism points out, much of this can be done through the ordinary merger and editing processes.  Furthermore, as Wier Spiel Chequers notes, we need to take out time for non-urgent deletions.  I also strongly urge editors please do not censor minority viewpoints by way of topic ban; it will not only create further hassle/discord/incivility, but will do great harm to the Project by driving out productive editors. Bearian (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What "minority viewpoint"? Do you mean content-related, or policy-related? When someone has created hundreds of articles over years and years that need deleting, most of them for WP:BLP1E reasons, but continues to maintain that they should be kept, then there comes a point that one has to conclude that he is so far out of sync with our policies that some other way to enforce these policies should be found. A topic ban (from article space only perhaps) is one way of addressing this. A mentor was also suggested as a possible solution in the RfC, but I don't believe that the message of the RfC has had any effect, apart from me staying away from Geo Swan for a year. Not really the result most people at that RfC saw as the most urgent or necessary... Fram (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Errr ... exactly how "overwhelmed?" Are you seriously asserting that a process which receives between 70 and 120 AfDs a day is "overwhelmed" by sixty AfDs filed over the course of two months? This is absurd hyperbole at the level best.   Ravenswing   12:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the system is overwhelmed too. Many people only follow AfDs in areas they care about.  That there are 100s of others isn't relevant if many are showing up in the same area at the same time.  And the cut-and-paste nature of many of the votes and nominations implies that even those responding are overwhelmed (or at least not looking case-by-case very well).  Also, a bit of AGF would help here.  You may disagree with people, but it helps avoid terms like absurd hyperbole and the use of scare quotes just because you disagree with something... Hobit (talk) 13:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * AGF is not a suicide pact. If you want to be treated seriously, don't make bogus arguments and use them to try to enact sanctions on editors to push your ideological agenda. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Weird, because all I'm doing is pushing for content to have a fair shot at being fixed before being deleted. I'm not pursuing ideological goals (or I don't think I am, not sure if you mean wiki-goals of trying to keep articles that can be fixed to meet our guidelines (true) or wider geo-political ideological goals (false)).  I'd not considered this a saction before but clearly it is.  I'd be quite happy with just agreeing that in general we should limit the number of AfDs to some reasonable count when a single author is involved if that removes that concern. The problem I'm having is that you seem to be seeing motivations which just aren't there (or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your statements).  I feel I've proposed something fairly reasonable.  I don't mind losing the debate (ok, well a little) but the ABF coming from you all is just odd and seems to be really overkill.  I'm not quite sure where all the heat is coming from, but the rage some of you appear feel for this issue seems to be coloring your view.  Thre are valid views on the other side the debate.  Please acknowledge that and move on.  Hobit (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Weird, because all the Oppose advocates are doing is rejecting the notion that AfD needs to be changed because some people (heaven knows why) finds an average of one extra AfD a day to be an onerous imposition. As far as a "fair shot" goes, some of these articles have been hanging fire for years.  If neither GeoSwan nor his supporters have sought to bring these articles up to notability standards, nor seem to find the time to do so in the week an AfD usually lasts (as opposed, for instance, to discussing the matter at length here), I can't see why they ought to be given special consideration ... especially since the community, by and large, feel that they do not satisfy notability guidelines.  (After all, if you believe that the subjects are notable, what prevents you from recreating any article for which you've done the research after the fact?)  That aside, for someone urging AGF and opposed to terms you don't like, you are quite quick yourself to put words in the mouths of others and impugn "heat" and "rage" to those you oppose.  Why is that?   Ravenswing   05:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You are right, I shouldn't have used those words. I couldn't see any other explanation, but AGF says I should assume one exists. Hobit (talk) 16:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose there's no reason to stop these perfectly valid AfDs (almost all are closed as delete), and as Fram notes Geo Swan has been given heaps of time to fix up this mess involving BLPs he created but has failed to do so. A topic ban for Geo Swan as proposed by Fram has a lot of merit (especially as he's still been creating highly questionable articles on Guantanamo-related topics in recent months), but that should be considered as an entirely separate process. Nick-D (talk) 11:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support, for the moment. We should create some kind of task group or sub-process that can take all these articles together as a class.  Spamming AfD with them all and watching the same users copy/paste the same !votes into all these different discussions is inefficient and impracticable.— S Marshall  T/C 11:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: Is there some other means of deleting these articles other than at AfD? Were such a task force to conclude that the articles did not pass muster, would they not have to go to AfD all the same?  Would not, in fact, those AfDs have to be considered piecemeal, because bundling a mass amount would never be acceptable?  In short, no change ... other than creating another bureaucratic layer, which is what I would call "inefficient and impracticable."   Ravenswing   12:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If I've read DBigXray's point #2 up-thread accurately, then originally DBigXray created multiple noms only to be told that this was unworkable and that they needed to be nominated individually. Catch-22. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The task group would presumably pop everything within scope into an unindexed space such as the incubator, then merge everything that can be merged, redirect everything that can be redirected, and whatever residue is left over could be removed with CSD G6 or G7.— S Marshall T/C 15:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose - No reason for special treatment, nor reason to stop valid AfDs. Kierzek (talk) 14:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per Chris Nobody Ent 16:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Getting these god-awful embarrassments off the project needs to be encouraged, not tied up with wiki-red tape. Tarc (talk) 16:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose as I think I've made clear above. If we have a load of articles that need AfDs, then we get a load of AfDs. It's not the fault of the nominator that these articles exist. We need to consider Fram's proposal also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 19:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Chris nails it. It would be helpful if DBig voluntarily slowed down by half or more, just out of a sense of fairness, to allow others the opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff here, but imposing it is a non-starter.  Dennis Brown -  2&cent;    &copy;   Join WER 01:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * SupportThese AfDs are an abuse of process, and unfair to sensible consideration of the articles. I don't see why a pause is a non-starter--I think it's elemental fairness. No afds conducted at this frequency can be valid--only fair treatment with time for work and consideration makes a valid AfD. I note the hostility against Geo for his work on this topic. There seems to be an animus here which I find hard to justify on either political or personal grounds. If it is on political grounds, I think it would be motivated primarily by a desire to avoid articles on the topic, regardless of possible ways to rescue them; the attempt to enact a topic ban would then be  downright suppression of ideas which are temporarily unpopular or uncomfortable, and shows a total incomprehension or disagreement with the concept of an objective encyclopedia. There's another so-called encyclopedia that does in fact work that way; it  should serve as a warning against any  similar tendencies here.    If it is personal, then it is   necessary for those with this sort of feeling   to stay away from anything involving Geo.  Who they are is obvious enough without naming them.   DGG ( talk ) 04:04, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow. Deletionists = Conservapedia. Well, that's me told. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ambivalent as to practicality, but endorse the spirit of the suggestion. I don't have any great desire to see most of these articles kept on Wikipedia, and I suspect I would agree with most of DB's nominations on a case by case basis, but I agree that the current approach isn't working out. Nominating dozens at once, which effectively overwhelms the ability to individually defend them regardless of quality, is problematic. A topic ban as initially suggested is definitely not suitable, but bear in mind that deliberately limiting the rate of deletion doesn't work out very well either.
 * If the material is in fact inappropriate for Wikipedia, we would want to remove it sooner rather than later - saying "you can't delete that this month, there's too many AfDs already" is definitely undesirable. We could try grouping AfDs into a joint nomination, but especially where BLPs are involved it doesn't work very effectively - the variation between one case and another usually derails the discussion, and ends up with them all relisted individually to get a better discussion. (I believe there has been at least one bulk-AfD in the past with this topic.) Andrew Gray (talk) 12:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Strongly Oppose as being in direct opposition to fundamental Wikipedia values and policies. See my longer comment above. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:29, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose First my decision on AfD Solely depends on the notability and its adherence to the wikipedia policies and my WP:BEFORE not becuase an XYZ user had created it. The proposal wants me to check the article creator first which is simply ridiculous and will give a wrong message and set a wrong precedent, one should be more concerned about the content rather than the contributer. Its the over-emphasis on contributer that creates so much WP:Drama  D Big X ray   12:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Fram. The problem is the person who creates the articles after than they can defend them, not the person nominating for deletion. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 12:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose If articles aren't encyclopedic need to go to AfD we shouldn't be forcing people to hold back. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:40, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose with comment It seems to me that placing an arbitrary restriction on a user is a very slippery slope indeed.  Any user should have the right to attempt to improve Wikipedia.  However, it seems to me that a blitzkreig style nomination to AfD is problematic.  Therefore, why not make it so that the creator or a significant contributor to an article, in combination with an established and known non-sock puppet user, can delay an AfD or the closure of an AfD upon request.  Therefore, if a user needs more time to defend or improve his work, he can get it within reason.  67.0.130.248 (talk) 05:16, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support as the most logical proposal I can currently see here. Also strongly against Fram's proposal as illogical given the facts in evidence (specifically article age). --Nouniquenames (talk) 05:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support and a harsh trout to every opposer. I think there is a serious misconception and I've never been more disappointed in my fellow editors.  These articles were created over a span of years at a time when they were in line with policy.  Not that this justifies keeping the articles.  What it does justify is time in deleting them.  It will take time to bring these articles in line with today's standards if they can be.  Nominating these articles for AFD all at once amounts to WP:GAMING the system.  It is impossible, literally impossible given the hours in 7 days, to fix years worth of work.  Every one of you needs a trout for not seeing this.  AFD is an effective process because editors on both sides are given time to discuss, research, and come to a consensus.  Targetting an editor's articles and putting them all up for AFD in a short amount of time is going to give you a biased consensus because the effort needed for the keep side is substantially greater and literally impossible to reach.  Your going to be deleting articles that can be improved.  And FYI, I fall greatly on the deletionist side and even I see how wrong this is.--v/r - TP 14:52, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * BLP trumps ANY claim of "gaming" and such issues must be addressed IMMEDTIATELY upon being discovered. -- The Red Pen of Doom  14:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You've lost your mind. Gaming is the use of policies such as BLP and AFD in bad faith and requires a STRONG attention to what is going on.  You need to look at what is going on before you blindly adhere to policy.  Otherwise you're falling victim to exactly what they want you to do instead of using your noggin--v/r - TP 14:59, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Addressing problematic BLPs should not be delayed. Geo Swan or anyone else who wishes to develop the articles so that cease to be problematic should be allowed to request up to two or three articles to be userfied in their space at a time. As and when they develop these articles to a state where they can be placed in mainspace then the users can request copies of further articles to be made available for them to develop.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Please look at the table below. DBigXray nominated 16 articles for deletion in a span of 7 days.  What would you do if it were you?  Fix them or tell the project to go fuck itself? The hounding nature of these AFD noms is going to hurt the project more than improve it.  The task is made impossible to fix.  Perhaps every one of these articles could be kept if given the proper attention.  Perhaps Geo Swan might even be amiable to doing the work themselves.  The delete and then ask questions later method isnt a viable method for a massive deletion of 6 year old articles that don't adhere to today's standards.  If your concern is BLP, then point out specific BLP concerns to be addressed.--v/r - TP 20:42, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Two or three nominations per week seems generous. Why does he need to nominate so many? It is unreasonable to swamp the process with such frequent nominations. Everyking (talk) 17:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I have more of an issue with the fact that these problematic articles were created in the first place. Onus is on the creator to make sure those articles are reliable, prior to submitting them to the article space. If that was in fact done in the first place, I don't think this thread would exist. -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 06:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The rules on BLPs were strengthened to deal with the potential legal threats Wikipedia (or, strictly speaking, its editors) risk for potentially libellous material. These BLP changes have put the onus of better sourcing and verifiability on the articles' creators/maintainers. I don't see that quasi-batched deletions of Guantanamo inmates are an abuse of process. I have in the past batch deleted or had merged many articles that were part of a category, type or formula, and feel that under certain circumstances that tool must remain available. Articles should stand or fall on their own merits, and I would welcome anyone to put up for AfD any article I created or contributed to in the past. Articles get created far more easily than they can be deleted, and many get created for the wrong reasons, and are below specification. There is no need to place limits on nominations – the process is sufficiently transparent and enjoys adequate scrutiny. What I would like to propose GS and DBX to cooperate: let them, and anyone else who would wish to inject themselves into the process, work together instead of nominating for deletion, to merge or userfy all the 'offending items'. They would consider whether to merge or userfy, thus allowing GS to work on those inadequacies in his own time and at his own pace whilst getting problematic articles out of mainspace (reducing the risk both to GS and WIkipedia). As a last resort and for a small minority of remaining articles, and only where the parties cannot agree, should the article be taken to AfD (with all the inherent risks of that course of action). -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 07:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Overwhelming the process means "victory by exhaustion", and is a bad faith tactic. While I actually would have voted to delete most of these had I seen the debates, a better way of doing it than this would have been to have a centralised discussion about the entire class of articles and what bar should be set (like an AfD, with a time limit, but without a deletion outcome.) Then a few editors classify them based on this, and the ones that fail that check can go to AfD in one batch nomination. (I'm just thinking aloud here.) Orderinchaos 09:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

No special treatment for Guantanamo captives
I don't think the Guantanamo articles should get "special treatment", nor do I think my contributions should get "special treatment".

With regard to blp1e whether some of these articles are instances of it, and whether I have ignored or don't understand it -- what constitutes an "event" is a highly subjective judgement. As someone noted above the participants in these afds who favour deletion are disproportionately contributors who have self identified as military experts. And, those who self-identify as military experts don't recognize that when captives were charged before unprecedented Guantanamo "military commissions" were no longer individual known only for one event. The self-identified military experts don't recognize that when independent third parties report captives were arrested, tried, convicted or acquitted after they were repatriated to their home countries were no longer known for one event.

That other contributor above suggested that the opinions of the self-identified military experts represented a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, an overall minority view, and might not reflect a project wide view.

Those who disagree with covering Guantanamo captives expressed a lot of impatience here. Hundreds of hours have been spent on afd for these individuals.

I am going to propose a topic-specific notability guideline -- but not to get special treatment for Guantanamo captives. We have topic-specific notability guidelines WP:POLITICIANs, and WP:CRIMINALs. Those who self-identify as military experts want us to have a topic-specific notability rule for WP:SOLDIERs.

I am not proposing a topic specific notability rule for Guantanamo captives, but rather for everyone captive who is held in some kind of extrajudicial detention. Bowe Bergdahl is also held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. If he had never been captured he would be no more notable than the less notable Guantanamo captives. That female South American politician Íngrid Betancourt who was held by guerillas for half a dozen years, then freed in a daring rescue was also held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. Waterborne Iranian guards captured a small boat with a half dozen Royal Navy ratings, a few years ago, they too were held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. Íngrid Betancourt was just one of about fifty political captives the guerillas were holding. I would see the topic-specific notability rules for extrajudicial captives applying to all of those fifty.

I suggest that adopting topic specific notability rules here would avoid anyone thinking afd closures were instance of mere WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and could be specific as to what should or shouldn't class an individual as someone known solely for one event.

Here I suggest some topic specific notability criteria for extrajudicial captives, for comment. Geo Swan (talk) 17:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * BLP is a tricky business at WP, as you know. I'd suggest you start a site called guantanamowatch.org or some such to make sure that biographical information is not lost to those searching for it — and as a reminder of ongoing American human rights abuses with respect to the Bush-Obama regime's illegal detention program there. Carrite (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a start, although currently too targeted towards Guantanamo detainees at the moment. There are some very good ideas in here regarding having a book written about them (surprisingly not already a part of WP:ANYBIO), being tried in a military commission (should probably be broadened to anything described as a kangaroo court), being named on a most wanted list, multiple incarcerations by different countries, and compensation. Have there been any notability guidelines proposed for POWs, Political prisoners, Prisoners of conscience, or just prisoners (other than criminals) in general? --Joshuaism (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No, we don't set up special notability categories for living people who are considered to be the victims of injustice by editors as you're basically proposing here. To be frank Geo Swan, you seem to be trying to use Wikipedia to further some kind of campaign against the Guantanamo Bay regime. The notability criteria you propose are hopelessly biased and fundamentally inconsistent with WP:BLP (for instance, you suggest that detainees become notable if the US Government labels them a "recidivist" as (in part) "This meme has been strongly challenged by legal scholars and human rights, who found, when one looks closely at the named individuals, it seems that for some of them all they had to do to get listed as "recidivists" was to agree to be interviewed about conditions in the camp."). Nick-D (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, wait, wait... Nick-D, are you saying that people who are declared recidivists, terrorists, and/or enemies of the state by the US government are not notable? --Joshuaism (talk) 02:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What's being said here is that they are not made notable simply by being declared those things. Being declared a recidivist, terrorist, and/or enemy of the state =/= automatic notability. They still need to pass WP:GNG, WP:BLP1E, WP:SOLDIER, WP:NPEOPLE, and/or whichever other guideline is relevant. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hear hear. It is a staple of people attempting to save non-notable articles to hotly declare, "But X makes them notable!"  No, meeting the requirements of the GNG and the pertinent subordinate notability criteria is what makes them "notable," as Wikipedia defines the term.  So far, WP:USAHATESHIM is not a valid notability criterion.   Ravenswing   05:59, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Wrong! I'm saying that the initial capture and release is a separate incident from the declaration of recidivism. If there are reliable third party sources that report on these two separate events then the suspected terrorist is not a WP:BLP1E and the remoteness in time between the two events show continued interest and coverage.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that even if WP:BLP1E doesn't apply WP:GNG does. Appearing on a "list of people we don't like" doesn't confer squat. (Also note that if it did it would, ironically, make Wikipedia's systemic bias situation worse...or do we start assuming that Soviet Enemies of the State are notable? What about India's? Ecuador's? Grand Fenwick's?) Note also that "continued interest and coverage" =/= "significant coverage". - The Bushranger One ping only 19:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You forgot to mention China. And Singapore. And this list has a number of enemies of various states. Not all of those listed were imprisoned, many are of unquestionable notability, but others could be ripe cadidates for AfD if they were scrubbed as hard as these detainee articles have been. Would you recommend a strait down the list mass AfD of these articles? I would not. It would be more helpful to have a guideline to point to when we encounter non-notable imprisoned activists and freedom fighters. --Joshuaism (talk) 23:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "When we encounter non-notable imprisoned activists and freedom fighters" - we need to do the same thing we do with any non-notable person who has an article - delete the article, Q.E.D.. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting concept you have there. So how many separate sources do you think it takes to meet GNG for a detainee? Because your history on BLP AfD's shows you hold detainees to a higher standard than voice actors(AfD - 0 sources), footballers(AfD - BLP1E), African government officials(AfD - 4 tangential mentions), and um... random people tangentially related to JFK?(AfD - BLP0E). These were all from the past two months while you've been happily voting to delete and merge Guantanamo detainees for failing GNG and BLP1E. I could not find one single detainee that you have voted to keep. How much continued coverage and how many secondary events will it take for you to consider any of them as notable?
 * But at least you have shown consistency when it comes to deleting local political nominees. It would appear that you hold these secondary guidelines for WP:ENTERTAINER, WP:NFOOTY, and WP:POLITICIAN in higher regard than GNG. Is this why you oppose a guideline for prisoners?--Joshuaism (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In cases where there is not a list to be merged to, I err on the side of keep. When there is a list to be merged to, I err on the side of merging. In those cases, as far as I know, there is no list or other article to merge-and-redirect to, which there is for detainees and political candidates. If there was a m+r target I had been aware of for those, that would have been my !vote, as there was not (that I was/am aware of), I !voted to WP:PRESERVE. As for "how much continued coverage/secondary events" - if they get arrested for something else, or become outspoken public figures, by all means; otherwise let's respect their privacy after their traumatic experience. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * exactly-- Guerillero &#124;  My Talk  03:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. These mass AfDs are tenditious. We should work together to hash out a guideline that will separate the wheat from the chaff in these detainee articles and will prevent contentious AfDs.--Joshuaism (talk) 03:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ...you seem to have completely missed the point. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you follow the links? I think you are looking at 500 Watt sarcasm.  I'll admit I'm not sure what direction it's pointing or if it's directed at us all. Hobit (talk) 05:14, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it can be said with certainty that it is pointing squarely and only in Geo Swan's direction. Hundreds if not thousands of stubs on Guantanamo detainees and relates articles over several years, which btw are also being exported to other wikis such as wikialpha and guantanmo.wikia.com. This is an editor on a clear-cut agenda here. Tarc (talk) 12:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry Bushranger. I don't see Wikipedia as a Zero-sum game.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment in regards to new notability essay. Anyone can write an essay; additionally it has been my experience that getting a new notability essay passed is very difficult. Also, the weight an essay receives is determined by the weight given to it by the community. The reason why certain essays, such as WP:SOLDIER carry weight is because of how it came to be, and has evolved, and it's continued use and support.
 * Therefore, if one wishes to create an essay regarding notability of terrorist I suggest that WP:TERRORISM is the best place to find a group of editors interested in the subject, create a WikiProject consensus on what above and beyond WP:GNG would be considered notability within the scope of the project, and host the notability essay in a subpage of that wikiproject. As with SOLDIER, GNG comes first as it is the paramount notability guideline that all others spring from.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And if I saw the editors who participated in these AfD's at WP:TERRORISM (members list) I would move this discussion there. Clearly the community that is commenting right here is the one that should participate in shaping this guideline. It should be something we can all hold each other accountable to.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:21, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This isn't solely about Guantanamo captives though. Take an article like Jeffrey Groharing, which was prodded back in 2008 by an editor wholly separate from the RfC or the current AfDs (as far as I am aware). It has the same problems, i.e. a total lack of notability (hidden in part by the inclusion of pure trivia like "finished 1048 out of 9629 in a Marine Corps marathon"), and the counter-arguments are again cases of what Geo Swan thinks is notable, not what RS have found notable, like "I'd like to ask nominator, how many other lawyers can he name who have acknowledged withholding exculpatory evidence?". Or things like Articles for deletion/Bagram detainees' uniforms or Articles for deletion/Starbucks at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which makes for interesting reading. Or Articles for deletion/Amy Bechtold (2nd nomination) and the accompanying DRV at Deletion review/Log/2012 July 8. Fram (talk) 13:44, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Jeffrey Groharing ia one of the worst articles I've ever seen. --OpenFuture (talk) 19:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * We all know that you have an involved history with Geo Swan, Fram. Please do not try to bias this discussion by pointing out other problematic articles by Geo Swan. Wikipedia has no deadline and WP:OTHERSTUFF can be addressed at another time. This section was created to discuss the possibility of setting a guideline for the notability of Guantanamo detainees and other prisoners. Geo Swan also created the article for Bowe Bergdahl and look at how it has blossomed! While, Bergdahl does not meet the standard for WP:SOLDIER, I doubt anyone would propose an AfD on that article now, even with its such humble beginnings. Perhaps that same magic can be worked on some of these detainee articles Geo Swan has made. But no one will be willing to put in the work if there is little certainty that the article will be preserved. Let's establish which one's are candidates for notability by creating this guideline. --Joshuaism (talk) 23:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That reasoning is backwards. If they put in the work, the article will be preserved. Therefore, claiming that no-one will be prepared to put in the work if there is a risk the article is deleted is not true. --OpenFuture (talk) 05:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is unreasonable to view a person's captivity at Guantanamo Bay as a status (like a career in music) which can generate multiple independent events of news coverage (capture, trial, protest, lawsuit, deal with Palau to resettle...). Wnt (talk) 20:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to topic ban Geo Swan
The proposal (made informally above, more formal here as a separate section) is to indefinitely topic-ban Geo Swan from all BLP-related articles and from all Guantanamo-related articles, in article space and in the userspaces. He would be allowed to comment on talk pages, in AfDs, and so on.

The reason for this proposed topic ban is that he is the only editor I am aware of who has had hundreds of articles on these sensitive topics deleted through AfDs and Prods, has had an RfC on the same topic, and is after more than five years still doing the same things and still arguing in favor of these articles, ignoring policies, guidelines and consensus, preferring to create a new guideline to be able to keep most of these articles. He has had ample time to clean up his act and clean up his many still existing articles (main space and user space), but instead it comes down to other people to find the problems and get them removed. After the RfC, he continued creating BLPs and Guantanamo related articles of very dubious notability, e.g. Camp Five Echo, Hamidullah Khan (Bagram captive), Ehsanullah Ehsan (Taliban spokesman) or the already deleted David Conn (judge). An article like Mansour Nasser al Bihani would not fall under the ban, but whether it should have been created is rather dubious as well. User:Geo Swan/tm was created as a copy-paste move of Tariq Mahmood (detainee) at the time of Articles for deletion/Tariq Mahmood (detainee), and kept around since then, in violation of WP:STALEDRAFT.

There is also something like User:Geo Swan/Abdul Razik, one of the many abandoned articles in his user space, which seems to be a clear violation of WP:BLPCRIME.

WP:TLDR version: Because too many of his creations are problematic (at least with regards to notability, and often also for WP:BLP reasons), because he should by now be well aware of the consensus that many of his articles shouldn't have been created and that many of his userspace pages should long ago have been deleted (cf. the many successful AfDs and MfDs), and because he continues to create and edit articles and userspace pages with the same problems anyway, I propose the above topic ban. Fram (talk) 12:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Support: if BLP is really a serious policy, it needs to be dealt with seriously. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 12:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Does it need to be this strong? Would simply banning the creation of new articles on the subjects in question suffice? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. The wider topic ban would also prevent edits like this one (see the rest of the history and the talk page discussion for what was wrong with it), but I agree that preventing the creation of such pages is the main argument for the topic ban. Fram (talk) 15:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose -- Are you serious??? So many of Geo Swan's articles have been deleted (some too soon) only because there was a change in the Wikipediet temperament about the depth of this subject.  Before that, many of these articles had been there for years -- and I've seen someone on C-SPAN praise Wikipedia for its GTMO coverage.  It's not his fault that the sensitivities here have changed toward deletionism.  And what are you going to do when those sensitivities swing back again? -- Randy2063 (talk) 18:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: Quite aside from that Wikipedia's ongoing trend over the last several years has been to tighten notability standards - something at which opponents looking for a cheap slur wave the "deletionism" flag - not to yoyo back and forth, I daresay that should sentiments change and GeoSwan wants to revisit the issue, he can raise the issue and seek relief.   Ravenswing   14:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose -- I obviously oppose this topic ban. I am not really familiar with the wikipedia's precedents for imposing topic-ban -- but surely it should be triggered by a record of terrible judgment or terrible bad faith?


 * I've listed all the BLP articles I started since the 2011 discussion here. I suggest there that a topic ban on starting BLPs should be based on looking at the record of BLP articles started since the 2011 discussion.  My challengers seem to be claiming that I have ignored those discussions, and created new articles that use the kinds of references that are no longer considered satisfactory.  I don't think my record shows that.


 * My note has a subsection -- does the record of BLP articles I created merit a topic-ban? I encourage anyone considering weighing in here to look at a handful of those articles and reach their own conclusion as to whether I genuinely show a pattern of starting articles. Geo Swan (talk) 20:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have noted at the talk page there that at least six of those pages are not BLPs. And you haven't included pages in your userspace either, like the now deleted User:Geo Swan/tm. Fram (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Support On the basis of his statements and the problematic nature of the articles he's created since the RfC, Geo Swan is continuing to use Wikipedia to push his personal views, regardless of core policies such as WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. Nick-D (talk) 08:40, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Don't use a sledgehammer where a nutcracker will suffice.— S Marshall  T/C 13:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Conditional Support: I agree that a strictly construed topic ban against creating such articles is merited, given GeoSwan's ongoing fervor in pushing articles which plainly fail of notability under current standards. I don't see that a ban against editing such articles is warranted; such should be reserved for persistent vandalism or edit warring, sins of which GeoSwan has not been guilty.   Ravenswing   14:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment It might make sense to issue a ban on creating articles of this sort directly in mainspace, while leaving it OK to edit existing articles, and also OK to submit proposed new articles through WP:AFC for approval/import by other editors if the articles meet standards.  On general principles, I do like the idea of leaving AFC available as a filter, in cases of good faith but excessively enthusiastic article creation, where there's still reasonable likelihood of something of merit coming out of it.  I'm neutral on the suggestion in this specific case for now, since I haven't (so far) examined the disputed editing enough to be sure it's the right thing.  Note: This is revised from a !vote to a comment. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 20:45, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * oppose Yet another self-destructive wikilynching 8-(  Andy Dingley (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Holding something against a user for something created years ago doesn't even stand up at RFA applicants, but to honestly try and topic ban a user for something that was made back in 2011 should meet with a procedural close as the window on such matters has long since expired. Considering that the proposer of the current topic ban has a history of being involved in the matter, the opportunities for such things presented themselves long ago. A storm in a teacup perhaps, but these AFDs and much of the content already deleted or removed cannot be personally verified by a majority of users and the issues within do absolutely nothing to address the changing culture of Wikipedian's interpretation of notability guidelines. The matter is unfair to GeoSwan, regardless of a years old RFC, to address the concerns. A new RFC should be done, and from the events after THAT RfC bear reason to topic-ban, only THEN should such a proposal be brought forth. AGF still stands and much of this dispute falls under disruptive editing. GeoSwan should be given considerable time and leeway to address the matters in a formal setting and context that is not ArbCom. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I am "holding something against a user" for creating similar things over years and years, right until now. I have left Geo Swan alone after the RfC, to make sure that any continuation of the problems wouldn't be caused by or blamed on me. This was requested by a number of people at the RfC. The result of this is not only that the problematic pages have stayed on Wikipedia for much longer (and have been joined by a few new ones), but also that aapparently any resolution I'm trying to find now is impossible because "Considering that the proposer of the current topic ban has a history of being involved in the matter, the opportunities for such things presented themselves long ago." Nothing has changed since the old RfC apart from me staying away from him for over a year, so there is no reason at all to request a new RfC. He has had all the time anyone could reasonably need, giving him even more time before any action is taken is not productive. Why did I need to point out two examples of problematic pages in his userspace, one from right before the RfC, one from afterwards? Didn't the RfC and the countless MfDs send a clear enough message about what is acceptable and what isn't? Fram (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As you say, the RfC did not change things. The appropriate response to that is for you to stay away from him indefinitely. To the extent there is a case to be made, you are too involved to make it.  DGG ( talk ) 01:52, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No, not at all. Some people at the RfC indicated that if I left Geo Swan alone, the problem would magically disappear. Surprise: it didn't. There was no agreement that I did anything wrong, I voluntarily stayed away to give him a chance to clean up his act without even a semblance of any pressure. The result was that basically nothing happened, until a new round of AfDs by other people indicated that the problems with his articles (including some new ones) persisted. The solution is not to chase away the messenger. As for your invocation of "involved": I know of the problems that existed and exist, having first hand experience with them. I have tried to solve them by different means, while all you have done is stalling and trying to protect and serial BLP violator. If there is anyone who should stay away from this, it is you, not me. Your intervention in the RfC only led to dozens of poor articles on non notable subjects staying in the mainspace for a year longer, and BLP violations lingering around in userspace as well. Please don't lecture me on what I should do, and turn your attention to the actual problems instead. Fram (talk) 07:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose as an unnecessary wrecking ball. Might be willing to support a topic ban on creation outside of AfC.  This, however, is ridiculous.  We would do better to limit the number of GeoSwan's articles that can be deleted in a given time period.  Absolutely absurd and not in any way called for.  --Nouniquenames (talk) 08:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Support - Obviously. This usr has caused nothing but time-wasting grief for the project in this topic area. The majority of these detainee BLPs have had to be deleted over the years. Tarc (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose You've got to be kidding me. This is just is disgrace.  Do we, as adults, hold no better problem solving skills then calling for the other parties head?  It's like a fucking game of "who can call for desysop first", "who can call for topic ban first", "who can call for site ban first."  Really, I'm just sick at the way Wikipedians are handling this issue.  No historical perspective at all.--v/r - TP 15:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose The analysis below indicates that the problematic articles are old. Unless people show that there Geo Swan is currently producing crap articles, then the past issues are irrelevant.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I see no basis for a penalty. Everyking (talk) 16:59, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I would think that this thread has served as a wake up call for Geo, and a penalty, especially at this rate, is innapropriate. -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 06:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose GS should be obliged to follow WP:BLP in any new article he chooses to create on any present or past Gitmo inmate. We don't need any more unsubstantiated junk in mainspace, so I would further suggest that all such creations be done first in userspace, and moved by consensus to mainspace only when the criteria have been fulfilled. He should also be ordered to either bring up to spec or db-user any article he has created that he does not see any prospect of being brought up to standard. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 08:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to refer to Arbcom
We're stuck. We've already been to RFC/U stage, and AN/I isn't solving this.— S Marshall T/C 13:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Worth more consideration. Unscintillating (talk) 03:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Worth dropping altogether. -Nouniquenames (talk) 08:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * What issues should be referred? I agree that it's the next logical step if further dispute resolution is needed, but the AfD process is working well at the moment in relation to these articles, and there is was little support above for the proposal that the nominations slow down, so ArbCom probably wouldn't accept a case on that basis. Nick-D (talk) 08:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The issues that I see are:- (1) Is Geo Swan being singled out and targeted?  Assume that there is no evidence the many AfD nominations are retaliatory or vindictive.  (2)  If so, is it a problem that he's being singled out and targeted?  Are any actions necessary to protect him?  (3)  Noting that there's very significant overlap between those who participated in the RFC/U and those who participated in the AN/I thread, are the AN/I thread's (lack of) conclusions reliable? I also have two related questions which would probably be outside the case's formal remit, but per curiam, opinions would be welcome: (4) is it possible to overuse the AfD process by making many repeated nominations in a short period?  If so, how can we identify overuse? and (5) Should prolific content contributors enjoy any special rights or protection in the AfD process, or is it the inalienable right of all users to AfD material they consider unencyclopaedic?— S Marshall  T/C 11:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1-4 I'm not sure of, but I'll comment on (5) and say absolutely not - that would be another version of the whole "vested contributor" thing that makes some editors 'more equal than others' and 'above the law'. If "anyone can edit" - which WMF has defended come hell, high water, or even editor consensus - then "anyone can delete", and creating a special caste of "AfD-proof" editors - which would be the inevitable result, regardless of good-faith intent - isn't something Wikipedia ever needs. - The Bushranger One ping only 17:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Slippery slope arguments are a kind of informal fallacy. I'm not proposing to create a caste of AfD-proof editors.  My opinion is merely that one person shouldn't have more than, say, ten pages created by another person at XfD simultaneously provided the creating editor is a good faith editor in good standing (i.e. not a known sockpuppet or under investigation for copyright violations or whatever). It's true that this means that if someone was a prolific content creator, it wouldn't be possible to eradicate their entire corpus at once.  To that extent our most productive editors, provided they're in good faith, would enjoy some measure of protection.  That seems right to me because the purpose of all Wikipedia processes is to help productive editors in good standing to get on with what they do best, and to protect them from vandalism and excessive amounts of bureaucracy.— S Marshall  T/C 18:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I completely understand you're not proposing that; I don't doubt your good faith in the least, don't worry. It's just that, unfortunatly, from my observations on Wikipeida behavior that would be what such a measure would, inevitably, turn into - in perception, if not in fact, an in a way the former would be even more toxic than the latter. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My concern is that if it's okay to play this AfD-bombing game with Geo Swan, then it might very well be okay to play it with others. I mean, let's imagine someone vexatiously or retributively nominated everything ever written by S Marshall at AfD; I could defend one, two, or three articles.  I couldn't defend sixty.  In the circumstances I'd simply quit Wikipedia in disgust.  Letting people XfD very large amounts of material simultaneously is an invitation to hounding and griefers.— S Marshall  T/C 06:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, let's imagine someone started nominated everything written by User:S Marshall, at the rate of 2 per day. Even if they skip the GAs, after the snow keep of Agriculture in the United Kingdom and Badger culling in the United Kingdom, and the strong consensus for keep for Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 and Antje Boetius, all without any need for defence from you, someone will be here at ANI asking that the nominator be banned from AfD, and it will be unanimously carried (if they haven't been blocked already).  That is not the situation here.  It's about the content, not the numbers, and that applies both in creation and deletion.  Kanguole 11:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As Kanguole said, WP:POINTy AfDs get sniffed out in a hurry and result in speedy closes - this has actually happened at AfD a couple of times in the past year. They get detected and dealt with under the current process just fine. - The Bushranger One ping only 11:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, and it's up to AN/I what constitutes a disruptive pattern of nominations? I don't like that idea very much.  An AN/I thread can be fair and constructive, but it's often a highly subjective popularity contest.  I'd rather have some sort of heuristic or objective way of assessing what's disruption and what isn't.— S Marshall  T/C 12:09, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course, when you have 200 or 300 articles you created deleted afterwards, one can wonder whether they still are "in good standing" or whether creating articles really is "what they do best". AfDs (and MfDs) are not "vandalism" and not "excessive amounts of bureaucracy", they are in some cases the only way to get rid of massive amounts of sub-par or non-policy compliant articles. He was given the chance to go through his articles and clean them up (delete or redirect the problematic ones, improve the other ones with better sourcing and so on), but he didn't. He still wanted to keep things like the Starbuck's at Guantanamo article, wasting time on "excessive burocracy" instead of just G7 deleting it. Perhaps, instead of giving extra protection, we should create a process that after let's say 50 successful AfDs of anyone's articles, a CCI-like process is started to check all their articles instead? Fram (talk) 20:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have already brought your attention to Articles for deletion/Habib Noor. This one AfD deleted four articles where the nomination does not analyze the WP:ATD alternatives to deletion, and the nomination and every argument is 100% consistent with a merge.  Likewise, current community consensus is to merge, not delete; so if it is really true that there are 200 to 300 Guantanamo AfD deletions, the fact that they were deleted seems to mean that the community now needs to run 200-300 AfD discussions through DRV.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Just becasue consensus changed doesn't mean past AfDs need to be DRV'd. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * We are here to build an encyclopedia. How are we going to restore these articles if not through DRV?  Unscintillating (talk) 10:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * By writing fresh content based on the reliable sources and inserting it in the articles that the articles deleted under the old consensus would have been merged to under the new consensus? - The Bushranger One ping only 11:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no purpose to writing "fresh" articles here. Please restore the relevant deletions to the incubator so that they can be merged.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Er, you misunderstand me. I'm not referring to writing new articles. I'm saying to write new paragraphs in the merge targets that the previously-deleted articles redirect to. And I honestly have no idea how the incubator works. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Incubator is described at WP:AI. I think the idea is just to get the old material back so that it can be reworked into the redirect targets.  Userfying it would work as well as incubation in this case. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 07:54, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Going to Arbcom would also give Fram the opportunity to express his grievances. But I see little appetite for the idea.— S Marshall  T/C 06:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that unfortunately it may be time to involve arbcom. This is esssentially a behavioral issue, or possibly several behavioral issues, and as such is within their perview. Previous attempts at dispute resolution, including this one, have failed to resolve the situation. Dropping it, like permanantly dropping it by all involved parties, or taking it to arbcom seem the only remaining alternatives. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:45, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If by "dropping it" you mean that people like me don't interfere one way or another, and simultaneously that people (not me if you like) are allowed to continue to nominate articles for AfD (or MfD) like they are doing now when they feel it is needed, then I have no problem to drop this. I would much prefer if this could continue the way it was before this ANI discussion, without involvement from me and without any special rules protecting Geo Swan or his articles beyond what is applied to all other editors. Fram (talk) 21:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That appears to be the outcome of the discussions above: there's clearly no consensus for the proposals that a) the AfDs slow down b) that Geo Swan be topic banned or c) Geo Swan's suggested special notability criteria. As such, there isn't really much to take to ArbCom (who are likely to reject a case as the community appears to have sorted out the above proposals), and things can keep on going as they were before. Nick-D (talk) 00:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Again we are stuck. I think that the reason this needs to go to Arbcom is because the administrators are disempowered.  Multiple opportunities have existed for individual admins to intervene.  DBigXray left no ambiguity regarding his/her WP:INCIVILITY, no diffs are needed.  Yet we are still one admin short of the number of administrators needed to respond to this issue.  Next, it only needed one administrator in early July to see that DBigXray was not analyzing the WP:ATD in nominations, and to issue procedural closure WP:NPASR for correction.  Next, it appears that we have 65 to 300 deletions that need to be restored so that they can be merged because we are here to build an encyclopedia and this is current consensus.  Yet no administrator has so far picked up the slack given one administrator's declination or inability to start the process.  There is something disempowering the administrators that is stopping the improvement of the encyclopedia.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not just inability. I would not consider myself able to do it, because I've been involved in a good many of the discussions. What I do see is a great reluctance of most people to get involved with articles or debates on this general subject--it must overall be a matter of general embarrassment to anyone sympathetic with the need of the US to defend itself to see it defending itself in this manner. I speak on the basis of my own feelings--I consider it much too upsetting a topic for me to actively help geo with these articles, though I have consistently defended his right to work on them. For after all, that is the best  solution: adding sources. I consider the claims of BLP 1E as misconceived, and   an attempt to avoid serious work on them by rejecting even the possibility of sourcing--I cannot see how people do not realize that  they are already regarded individually as martyrs--very wrongly in some cases, not unreasonably in others, and that this will be of continuing historical importance. Especially do I see the frequent argument of DO NO HARM as absurd beyond reason--as if anything WP could do could harm them more than they have already been harmed. If we truly care about lessening harm, we would cover them in detail. When BLP is used opposite to its purpose, then it warrants examination of why we let it happen. I apologize for going back to the actual issues underlying this, instead of an immediate solution, but I think only by doing so can we clarify the situation.  DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Could someone look at some of the articles mentioned in DBigXray's post of 16:52, 18 August 2012, and check whether they appear neutral? Are we seeing some kind of POV dispute between DBigXray and Geo Swan, playing out at AfD?  Maybe there should be an interaction ban, which would stop these AfD's.  Here in this thread, per Unscintillating's comment, I'm finding DBigXray's approach to be unhelpfully aggressive, if that matters.  I'm also not understanding what the problem is with userfying or incubating the deleted Geo Swan articles.  Is there a list of them somewhere? 69.228.170.132 (talk) 08:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to allow Geo Swan To slow down the AfD process
I believe that if Geo Swan is intent on improving an article that was nominated for AfD so that it meets all guidelines that it was nominated for, then he should be able to do so. The common user, when faced with a single or a couple AfD's on articles that he created, can try to improve the article(s) to meet wikipedia's standards.

However, when faced with a large number of such AfD nominated articles, it is almost impossible to defend your work in the allotted time. What I propose is that:


 * 1)  The article is resolved according to a normal AfD if Geo Swan does not post asking for this extension.
 * 2)  The article is still resolved according to AfD if Geo Swan's post is not seconded by an established user in good standing.
 * 3)  If such a request is seconded, but improvements and/of a thorough defense have not been made in the allotted time, and the result of the AfD is otherwise delete, then the article is deleted, BUT the AfD discussion remains open until the granted period of extension has passed,or until Geo Swan or another user has made the required changes to the article or the creator of or a significant contributor to the article has posted a thorough defense of the article. A copy of the original (deleted) article will be in the AfD discussion during this time.
 * 4)  At the end of this period of extension, an admin reviews the AfD discussion, and either closes the AfD discussion if no or insufficient defense/changes were made, and reopens the discussion if the changes/defence substantially changed the argument.
 * 5) This resource is only available if a large number of articles by the same author are simultaneously nominated.
 * 6) This is unavailable for speedy delete nominations, which likely seek to resolve a legal issue rather than a content one.  This prevents a libellous unsourced BLP from hanging around on Wikipedia.

Note: I am a relatively new and inexperienced editor in wikipedia, so if this looks insane, it probably is.

Tazerdadog (talk) 05:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * With all respect, I think that you misunderstand the problem here. Most of these articles are being deleted as the individual's only claim to notability is that they are one of the hundreds of people to have been held in Guantanamo Bay and gone through its associated legal system(s). As such, they are being deleted per WP:BLP1E, and no amount of 'improvements' to the article can get around this fundamental notability issue. Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As per Notability (people) "When the role played by an individual in the event is less significant, an independent article may not be needed, and a redirect is appropriate." Ordinary editing includes merges and redirects, and merges and redirects are considered to be improvements to the encyclopedia.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * User:Tazerdadog, thank you for your interest in these afd. You may be a newcomer, but I think you put your finger right on one of the key difficulties of DBigXray's 100 Xfd.  Two minutes prior to nominating Hozaifa Parhat for deletion DBigXray excised over 17 kilobytes of material, with the justification "per WP:BLPPRIMARY".  That 17K of material contained over a dozen perfectly valid third party references that there is no question were secondary sources anyone but DBigXray would consider WP:Reliable sources.  If you meant to suggest that we are all volunteers here, working on articles in our spare time, and that no one should be expected to try to respond to dozens of xfd at the same time I wholeheartedly agree.  On July 11th I went on record in User:Geo Swan/Redirecting Guantanamo captives articles to the list articles on their nationalities with plans to redirect all Guantanamo articles that I thought did not measure up to our current standards.  I then redirected over 300 articles, as documented in here.  I said I would look at these articles, one at a time.  I said when I thought I had prepared a new draft that I thought would meet today's standards I would seek the opinion of trusted senior contributors, and would only turn the article from a redirect back to an article, if they concurred.  I thought this was a perfectly reasonable compromise.  Geo Swan (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * User:Nick-D Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that every single one of Geo swan's articles should be deleted per WP:BLP1E, and that these articles cannot be saved.  I believe that this compromise is still a good idea.  Geo Swan would develop a sense of why the articles are inappropriate for Wikipedia in this case, and the whole situation would be defused in an uncontroversial manner.  However, if any of the articles can be improved to the point where they no longer are candidates for deletion under WP:BLP1E, then Geo Swan should have the time and opportunity to do so.

Tazerdadog (talk) 18:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This situation is a little bit unusual, but my general advice (maybe not a good idea in this specific case) to someone trying frantically to save an article before an afd deadline is that they should just save a copy of the content offline or in userspace, let the deletion close, and continue to improve the saved copy at their leisure. Then once the saved copy is up to standards, they can recreate the article.  It's generally no big deal if a low-interest article is temporarily offline.  69.228.170.132 (talk) 08:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It is good general advice, however Geo's working notes in user-space have also been attacked in the past, he has been denied refunds by one of the admins who have gone for his pages, and of course the advantage of on-wiki notes is the linkage, particularly in this very complex but specialist field, of which Geo is probably one of the worlds top ten experts. The advantage of allowing Geo to change them redirects, is that the putative problem is solved.  The fact hat he has already dealt with hundreds of them shows that it can work.  No one else need then worry about makin AfDs etc etc, and if, perchance, someone other than Geo wants to recreate the article, the work that has been doen to date isn't thrown away.  It seems a good solution, my only quibble is that even so we are loosing a lot of useful information, due to muddled thinking about BLP.  Rich Farmbrough, 20:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC).


 * The "working notes" that were mainly copies of deleted articles that stayed there for years? And the "denied refunds" for copyright violations and actual BLP violations (like linking completely unrelated names to a list of "suspected jihadists")? Hey, there's a thread where Fram is involved, let's jump in and give our own version of the truth? You did the same just days ago in User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 113, where you were rather absolute in your claims but lacking in any actual evidence or convincing arguments. Please stop wasting everybody's time with such posts. Fram (talk) 07:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You have given a very good argument for not deleting those articles that geo moves to his userspace, but the same people who are supporting the deletions in mainspace are doing just that. I think I would accept a solution where all the afd'd articles in this batch get moved to userspace, and all the ones in userspace deleted by MfD are restored. It is possible to rescue a just passable article in about a half-day if one is doing nothing else, but I find it takes me considerably longer to make an article good enough to stand up against a multiple determined challenges on a controversial subject. I'd allow normally about a week each for these articles, but since on the one hand geo works on other things also and will have other challenges to deal with, and many of the sources are very difficult to find; while on the other hand geo is a faster writer than I am and many of these articles have very similar problems, he should be able to do about two a week. That allows him a year for this batch of a hundred, and proportionately for others--if he does not have to defend additional articles at AfD or MfD. We have in the recent past at MfD allowed somewhere  between a month and 2 months for a single article (which would come to over a decade for the present articles)--but that's usually for a beginner who needs to learn how to do it, so it shouldn't need take anywhere near that long.
 * More generally, it is possible to fix a single article in time to rescue it at AfD. I have done it maybe 50 times here, and some true experts here have done many more than I have. So the proper and obvious general rule at AfD is not to nominate articles faster than they can be fixed. Not everything is of course fixable, but if there is any chance at all for a good faith editor, more than 7 a week is not realistic for anything that would pass speedy--it is biasing very strongly towards deletion, and the WP deletion policy is to save whatever is savable.   DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

This is probably not the right place to dump these articles, but the incubator at least deserves a look...Tazerdadog (talk) 21:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

If somebody has a list of the deleted articles, I can try to scrape them from a wikipedia mirror. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 04:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose. No justification for special treatment. See my proposed solution above. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 08:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Analysis of DBigXray's AFD nominations
I am compiling a list of DBigXray's AFD nominations and the results so far are going to change the outcome of this discussion. Please hold all judgements until the table is posted.--v/r - TP 15:30, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * NOTES: I did not save date created and result data when the article creator was not Geo Swan. Also, this is a list of AFDs started by DBigXray and not an all inclusive list of articles created by Geo Swan and sent to AFD.  List generated from this tool.  Also note, the numbers on the left are generated by that tool and some numbers are missing.  There are 84 articles in that list, not 88.  4 pages DBigXray created in Wikipedia: space were not AFDs and were removed from the list.
 * My analysis:
 * 1) There is a strong argument that Geo Swan has not learned his lesson.  However, it appears to me that all but 5 of the articles nominated predate 2010.  Of those 4 that were after 2010, they were all kept.  This shows me that it's not that Geo Swan hasn't learned a lesson, it's that policies have changed and he never went back to update these articles.
 * 2) It appears that DBigXray has focused on Geo Swan.  83% of DBigXray's AFD nominations have been Geo Swan articles.  In my opinion badgering behavior.  I suggest DBigXray be banned from creating AFDs on Geo Swan articles for 6 months or limit the rate to 2/week.  If DBigXray's nominations are purely coincidental, then why such the huge lean toward Geo Swan?  Why are there not more articles mixed in there while he randomly searches Wikipedia for articles to delete?  Not all of these articles are the same subject area.  Some of them are boats or judges.  So how did DBigXRay stumble on those if his focus was on Guantanamo detainees?
 * 3) At one point between 15 Jun 12 and 22 Jun 12, Geo Swan had 16 articles up for AFD.  It is impossible to address the concerns raised in an AFD for 16 articles in a span for 7 days.  Most editors take several days to even write 1 article.  There is a lot of research involved and not enough time given to properly weigh an article.
 * This is why I feel the above is a huge misconception. User:Fram's proposal for a topic ban is just plain nonsense.  Are we really going to topic ban a guy for articles created 6 years ago that don't adhere to today's standards?--v/r - TP 18:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I do think this analysis supports my position, folks.— S Marshall T/C 19:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The analysis focuses on DBigXRays nominations, not on Geo Swan's articles. No conclusions about his articles since 2011 should be drawn from this analysis. An AfD like Articles for deletion/David Conn (judge), for a page created in April 2012, did result in deletion (and redirection of two similar pages). Two pages in his userspace, created after the RfC, were only deleted after I pointed them out in a section above here. Then there are Olienny Valladares Capote and Adolfo Pablo Borraza Chaple. If one out of ten of your BLP pages created the last year have been deleted or redirected, plus some pages in your userspace, plus some pages that are of very dubious notability like Ehsanullah Ehsan (Taliban spokesman), then there still is a clear problem. Fram (talk) 07:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Examining those few articles you support indicates you have a criterion of "very highly notable" for this subject, rather than the ordinary standards elsewhere. Your own analysis reinforces my view that you should avoid the subject, because it is one you do not judge fairly.  DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Those few articles I support"? I gave examples, based on a very unclear question you asked. As for whose standards are the more correct here: my AfDs, before you shut me up in this area, were nearly all supported by the broader community. Your opinions on them were not supported by the community (or policy), and your opinion to keep sometimes blatant BLP violations in this area (or from this user) don't make you the best person to decide who should or shouldn't avoid this subject. Your opinion is noted (and was well known before this) but will not be taken into account by me. Fram (talk) 08:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Plus of course, one fatal flaw in your analysis and conclusions: the DBigXRay AfDs for articles created after the RfC were not about BLPS or Guanatanmo related articles, so their keep results tell nothing about my proposed topic ban at all. My proposal may be "plain nonsense" or not, but drawing that conclusion from this analysis is plain nonsense, as it doesn't address the issue at all. Fram (talk) 07:50, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, hang on a moment, Fram. When you say "it doesn't address the issue", which issue?  I accept that it doesn't address the issue that you've been exercised about, relating to the many BLPs created by Geo Swan.  The issue that I've been exercised about is whether DBigXray is targeting (or indeed stalking or hounding) Geo Swan.  This is why I find TParis' table very telling indeed.  I'm not saying that Geo Swan's contributions shouldn't be brought into line with Wikipedian norms; I'm just saying that I don't think this is a fair way of achieving that end.— S Marshall  T/C 11:55, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I was basically replying to TParis, and his comments about my proposal ("the issue" in my post). The other issue, of DBigXRays AfDs, is obviously directly addressed by the above table, so while we may disagree on the conclusions one may draw from it for "your" issue, it is correct to use it in that discussion. Apologies for being unclear about what I was referring to. Fram (talk) 12:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You're right. The scope of your proposed topic ban would be better argued had I focused on Geo Swan's AfD'd articles rather than the articles DBigXray nominated.  I striked that part and I'm sorry.--v/r - TP 13:03, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! We all make mistakes, most of us don't admit it though, so this is much appreciated. Fram (talk) 13:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, well, here's my analysis: I see a string of AfDs that have resulted in the articles being removed or redirected ninety percent of the time. Those decisions weren't made by DBigXray; they were made by the community.  The concerns raised was that the subjects were not notable, and the easiest way for those concerns to have been allayed was for GeoSwan to have written them to an acceptable standard in the first place.  I argued this uptopic, and I'll restate it now, but there is no part of deletion policy which requires decisions to be put on hold until the article's creator chimes in with a personal defense of his or her work.  If the community determines an article does not meet acceptable standards, that is the measure of their research. Moreover, TParis' assertion that you can't possibly defend sixteen articles in seven days is nonsense, and suggests ignorance in how things go at AfD.  I've seen some of our more prominent inclusionists defend that many articles in a single DAY, and oftentimes with a good bit of legwork.  Unlike TParis - I daresay - I've spent considerable time at AfD, and have voted on several hundred AfDs, and *I've* chimed in on as many as twenty AfDs in a day.  Do I spend a ton of time on researching them?  Probably no more than five minutes apiece for the most part, but five minutes is all most AfDs take.  Defending sixteen AfDs at that rate takes an hour, including time spent typing.  Some people might consider that a monstrous imposition.  I do not. Finally, I've been in the same position as DBigXray -- finding a couple suspect articles written by the same editor, going over the editor's contribution history, finding several more, and then grimly determining to go through the entire contribution history, and finding out that almost everything the guy wrote was illegitimate.  The end result was the AfDing or PRODing of over forty articles and an indef block on the creator.  This isn't "stalking."  This is the due diligence we all should be doing as Wikipedia editors, if we find an editor who consistently writes articles which do not meet Wikipedia policies or guidelines, or about subjects which fail of notability.   Ravenswing   02:04, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You might want to do more research before saying I have no AFD experience.--v/r - TP 02:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ravenswing, if anything, you show that you do not currently grasp the effort that can be required to defend articles when in AfD (and possibly do not realize that life outside of Wikipedia can also consume time). This list supports slowing down the AfDs, and likely supports banning DBig from going anywhere near nominating an article for deletion.  That would be due diligence.  --Nouniquenames (talk) 04:40, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me get this straight. I've got a bit over 5,000 edits at AfD, spanning seven years.  You have about 120 edits at XfD, spanning three months.  You may want to reconsider critiquing me or any other editor as to what effort is or is not required for defense at AfD.  With what experience do you make any such crack, never mind as uncivilly as that?   Ravenswing   08:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My apologies, Ravenswing, as I did not mean to be other than civil and I was. The edits at XfD have taught me (including through my own mistakes) that an article worth saving may take significant expenditure of time to defend, particularly if using something other than GNG to establish notability.  Once an initial defense has been mounted, it can be easily evaluated (and often only takes a few minutes), but given that the author was tasked with mounting the defense of multiple articles in a short span of time, it seems counterintuitive to suggest that the same result is guaranteed as the more customary one to two at a time most commonly encountered.


 * In fairness, Ravenswing's rather endearing faith in our XfD process appears to be shared by DBigXray. These are users who honestly believe that XfDs will lead to reliable outcomes, apparently in the belief that there's an inexhaustible supply of people who didn't write the articles but are prepared to do the work involved in coming to their defence.— S Marshall  T/C 07:25, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * (Slightly later) That's open to misunderstanding and I should have spelled out the conclusion I was drawing:- these are good faith editors. There is no justification whatsoever for banning DBigXray from XfD as suggested above. All that's necessary is a request to slow down and stop targeting this one particular editor.— S Marshall T/C 07:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In response to the editors above, ahem. For one thing, we are all volunteers here.  We devote the time we wish to devote - sometimes quite a lot of it - and I'm the least person to cast stones at anyone who wishes to spend time outside of Wikipedia.  Feel free.  There are tens of thousands of editors quite ready to carry on without your personal presence.  For a second, sorry; I stand by my statements.  Defending an article at AfD doesn't require filibusters, rebuttals of every Delete voter or endless plunges into the Internet.  With very little effort, one can readily establish reliable sources and news reports on 99% of subjects.  If I can't find ANY reliable sources talking about a subject in the significant detail the GNG requires in five minutes' time, odds are that no such sources exist.  If I CAN find two such sources - and far more often than otherwise, finding such sources takes about thirty seconds, not five minutes - no other defense is generally necessary.   Ravenswing   08:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As Geo Swan's most recent work has been accepted by the community, I believe we cannot simply write Geo Swan off as an incompetent editor. Wikipedia's standards have changed over time, and those articles that were deleted under today's standards may have been (and probably were, although I do not have the experience to make that call)  acceptable under Wikipedia guidelines when they were written.  Additionally, it seems likely that Geo Swan could invest 4-6 hours in any given article to improve to the point where it could survive an AfD (Please correct me if I am wrong, Geo Swan).  However, asking him to do this to  16 articles in a week is unrealistic, absurd, and impossible.  (Note:  I am not talking about a simple defence of the article, I am talking about a substantial overhaul of the article).  Geo Swan needs the opportunity to do this work.  Therefore, one of two courses of action seem plausible to me:

1) Allow Geo Swan to "delay" the AfD process as per my above proposal

2) Move the controversial articles to the incubator so that Geo Swan has a fair crack at bringing them up to standard while keeping substandard articles off of Wikipedia. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Like I said above, you start from an incorrect statement and draw conclusions from there: "As Geo Swan's most recent work has been accepted by the community" is not true: the AfDs cited above are for ships, not for BLPs or other Guantanamo related articles. The one AfD for a BLP created since the RfC did result in a delete (plus the redirection of two similar articles), two other BLP articles have been moved from the mainspace to his userspace, and two userspace BLPs have been deleted after I drew attention to them here. Fram (talk) 08:50, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, as Fram notes, there continue to be serious problems with Geo Swan's editing. To add to the various post-RfC articles noted above, I'd also note his Night raids in Afghanistan article which, when created, was hopelessly biased - the entire article consisted of criticism of these raids (including the inevitable Guantanamo link) and presented them as US-only operations and there was nothing about the justification for these operations put forward by the US military (the US military has stated that they are a "critical" component of its tactics in Afghanistan; whether one agrees with this or not, it needs to be in the article) or the substantial Afghan military involvement. After I added some material on these topics to the article Geo Swan added yet more Guantanamo-stuff. This isn't incompetent editing; it's intellectually dishonest editing which is aiming to push his stated POV. Nick-D (talk) 11:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

@Nick-D Friendly reminder to assume good faith.

@Fram I contend that if Geo Swan wanted to, he could update most to all of his articled to the point where they would pass an AfD after putting 4-6 hours of work into them. (again Geo Swan, please correct me if I am wrong.) Therefore what I propose as a test is that you select three Geo Swan articles that are representative of his contributions to Wikipedia. Then Geo Swan can select one of those three articles to improve to the point where it can pass an AfD. If he can do that, then my proposal, or other alternative proposals will have solid ground to be considered on. If he cannot, then we can proceed with a clear conscience to remove most of his work from wikipedia, and contemplate things like topic bans. We must allow Geo Swan time to improve the article, I suggest 3-5 days, but that is a matter for consensus. 174.28.43.114 (talk) 01:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * AGF is not a suicide pact. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't claim that the following are representative of his contributions: many remaining articles he created are about notable subjects and will never be deleted at AfD, so no point in listing those. Many other, more problematic ones have already been deleted of course. I gave above a few examples of relatively recent articles of dubious notability, e.g. Camp Five Echo (from December 2011), Hamidullah Khan (Bagram captive) (November 2011), Ehsanullah Ehsan (Taliban spokesman) (December 2011) or Mansour Nasser al Bihani (December 2011). Older, remaining articles of dubious notability include articles like Abdur Rehman (Libyan) (April 2008) or Designated Civilian Official (March 2008). These are just examples, not the best or the worst of his articles. Fram (talk) 08:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fram, are there any individuals connected with this general topic whom you do think notable?  DGG ( talk ) 14:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "This general topic" being...? I'll assume for the time being that this is a genuine, not a rhetorical question, and that you mean the general topic of Guantanamo / Al Qaeda / ... Obviously, someone like Bin Laden is notable. But also people like Baltasar Garzón, Alberto J. Mora and Neal Katyal, or Omar Khadr, Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmad or Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak Janko. Why do you ask? You may have missed my statement right above yours, "many remaining articles he created are about notable subjects and will never be deleted at AfD". This includes some of the articles I listed here, and other on the same or similar topics. Fram (talk) 14:25, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Support S. Marshall's request. It's both reasonable and right. (Discussion of Fram's request is too confused for this forum. Maybe a new discussion on that somewhere). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Analysis of relevant AfDs is not complete without including AfD nominations by User:Vibhijain. Articles for deletion/Mustaq Aksari was nominated on 17 June, there were eight nominations on 22-23 June, and Articles for deletion/Abu Ubaydh Al Tunisi was on 25 June.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

A different tack
I think we're using hammers on screws here. It seems Geo Swan has created hundreds(?) of articles which some others feel don't belong on Wikipedia for notability and/or BLP reasons. Certainly, when many of these articles are taken to AFD, the consensus is delete. While Geo Swan agrees that some of the articles do not fit our current standards, there is disagreement as to what fraction need improving and what fraction just need to go. Unfortunately, this is being turned into a user conduct problem, with discussion of behavioural restrictions, when it is really a policy interpretation problem. Rather than user conduct RfC's, editing restrictions, or AFD nomination throttles, could we somewhere have a discussion on what are the right principles (based on content and sourcing, but fleshed out in more detail specific to this topic area) for which of these articles should be kept? Then, once there is consensus, there could be a time for interested parties to improve articles that can be made to meet the bar, followed by noncontroversial housecleaning of articles that clearly don't and never will meet the bar, and finally individual AFD discussions for the handful of articles where the answer is still unclear. I repeat: there is no user conduct problem here. Everyone is behaving reasonably according to their perception of the situation. It's just processes designed for evaluating articles one at a time or solving user conduct issues will not get the job done. That's why the issue is hanging around for years. Martinp (talk) 19:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for some common sense and perspective. As someone who has !voted on GeoSwan AfDs in the past, I've always Assumed Good Faith on his part, and on the part of those who were nominating them. Both sides are following guidelines and policies as they see them. There has been no bad behavior from either side, and I even notice that DBigXray has taken a break from nominating more articles while this discussion has been going on (without getting any credit for that)—only one in the last two weeks. Martinp, I'll repeat what you already repeated: "There is no user conduct problem here." All of the time spent discussing the editors should now go toward the broader discussion that you are recommending. First Light (talk) 23:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Close requested
I've requested a close of this discussion. Cunard (talk) 23:14, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Another issue
User:Geo Swan's userspace is a terrifying tangle of half-written articles, userspace drafts, userfied AFD casualties, and redirected nonsense. I had asked him (in October of 2010) to clean up his userspace. Whether it is because he is unable to or unwilling to deal with the mess he has created, he has over 80 redirects, and most of them predate my query to him about fixing them. Some of these are to new targets within his own userspace, and some of the them are to article space. Many of these redirects are redirects from mainspace to his userspace on WP:BLP targets, including some articles which were deleted at WP:AFD. I would propose that at the very least that he be prohibited from creating any new articles (in userspace or in mainspace) until he cleans up the mess in his userspace, and deals with the BLP violations he is currently harboring). On some of these, he has promised that he will soon request a history merge (this one is from October 2010; still sitting in userspace. Others have been moved back to mainspace (Farah Stockman was moved back to mainspace in July 2010, yet the redirect remains). On 14 April 2009, this link was moved from userspace to mainspace  and then to a new location in mainspace, and yet the old redirect remains within Geo Swan's userspace. Here is another article redirected to mainspace on 19 May 2009, with the redirect still in place. This redirect hasn't been edited by Geo Swan since March 2010, and hasn't had a substantial edit since 12 September 2008. This article has been lounging around in his userspace since September 2007 with no edits from him; I submitted the redirect target for deletion, and the redirect itself should be deleted at the same time as a CSD:G8. This page is the top result of a search within Wikipedia for a WP:BLP subject; the article itself was deleted in January 2011, and there have been no edits from any editor since October 2011, and no substantial edits since July 2011. (This is a WP:BLP issue, since it is the top result from the internal search engine in Wikipedia.) Here is another one, which he acknowledged is unsuitable for article space; the redirect target has not been substantially edited since October 2010. This BLP link was restored to mainspace on 3 August 2009, but the redirect still remains. This article was moved to mainspace on 8 August 2008; ignoring the likely BLP violation of the article (read the talk page, which notes multiple individuals with the same name), a cross-namespace redirect should not remain in place for four years. I won't bother listing all of the rest of the redirect nonsense; I trust that the sample I have provided is enough to make my point.  Horologium  (talk) 02:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirects from mainspace to userspace are a no-no, and speedy deletable, I believe. - The Bushranger One ping only 09:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * given the frequency of the attacks on both the articles and the userspace version, some confusion is inevitable. Expecting someone to clean up detail while the major work is being attacked at the rate it has been is even more unrealistic than expecting him to deal with all the AfDs at once.  DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * What about the long period between the RfC (and earlier requests) and the current "attacks"? He has had plenty of time, but didn't take any action then. He wasn't expected to clean up "while" defending articles, he was expected to do this much earlier already. Fram (talk) 08:15, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

why compromise is going to be difficult
Most of the compromise solutions above discuss making the deleted articles available in userspace. But I notice todays MfD, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/TalibanBounty. This rather reinforces the view that those out to attack the articles will attack any manifestation however harmless. There is no point in stopping AfDs by a move to userspace if the deletion attempt will be continued there. This insistence on using MfDs for the purpose has of course happened many times before to these articles. Whats distinctive here is doing this now, at the moment when this is about to close. This gives an indication that the unfairness of those opposing the articles is likely to continue unless those uninvolved step in to stop it.  DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The incubator is an alternative to userfication. The incubator is specifically designed for articles that were deleted at AfD.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * MfD applies there also. Tho perhaps I should not be giving people ideas.  DGG ( talk ) 13:20, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As the initiator of the MFD the is the subject of DGG's ire, note that I found that as the target of one of the over 80 redirects in Geo Swan's userspace. He has been aware of the redirect issue for quite a long time, as my initial post (in the section immediately above made clear); I asked him to fix the redirect mess almost two years ago, after the RFC had closed four months before the RFC was initiated. And as for my timing, I am sorry that classes started two weeks ago, and I have been spending much less time on Wikipedia as a result; I had a grand total of ten edits in the ten days prior to that post, and my last post to one of the dramaboards (AN or AN/I) was in June. I would have contributed earlier had I been reading AN/I, because I am aware of this issue, and think that something needs to be done. A lot of the material stored in his userspace is primary documents about individuals who fall under the threshold of notability, and always will; a lot of pages are simply userfied pages of articles which were deleted at AFD; there are reams of "draft" articles which will not reach the threshold of reliability, and there are all of those redirects, some of which are clearly non-compliant (as noted by Bushranger). I tagged the page for MfD because I found an essentially empty, disused page as a redirect target. It certainly caught someone's attention, because all of a sudden, after a five-year hiatus, it's getting used again. Maybe it was just lost in that sea of subpages.  Horologium  (talk) 14:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You're making DGG's point for him. The proposed compromises will not work because people who share your view will use MfD to undermine them.  I don't personally think that's an issue, provided there's some kind of speed limit on how many of Geo Swan's contributions can be at XfD all at the same time.— S Marshall  T/C 16:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to closing down that MfD early, but my point (although it was not the point about the MfD itself) is that Geo Swan has so many pages in his userspace that he has redirects to pages which had not been edited in five years, which is a pretty solid argument that he needs to do something about the mess. I'm have no problem with sandbox or other "storage"-type pages which get limited editing (that's why users can create multiple sand-box style pages, and I have a couple of my own that haven't received much recent love), but long-term storage of deleted article is prohibited, and the interesting Category:Stale Userspace drafts, which I just discovered, has over 400 pages from Geo Swan's userspace (they start on the first column of the seventh page, and continue through an entire page dedicated solely to his userspace, and into the second column on the ninth page). These haven't been edited in over a year, and most of them have no edits (other than bot edits) since well-before the RFC. Several of them (I didn't do an exhaustive list) have no edits since 2008 other than bot edits or adding userdraft templates. The issue is that there are MANY names in these articles, most of whom are private individuals and fall under the WP:BLP policy; the essay WP:HARM is relevant here about pseudo-biographies. Almost everything on these pages is supported by primary documents (usually legal process documents, which is problematic under BLP, and almost every single one of them also falls into the WP:BIO1E guideline, they fail meet any other notability guideline, and most likely never will. That is why this issue keeps coming up.  Horologium  (talk) 18:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I would support moving all of Geo Swan's work to the incubator temporarily (or at least all of his BLP articles. There they can be resolved by community consensus at our leisure. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll just (again) toss in my 2 cents and mention I think slowing the AfDs would be a good idea. Were I closing this, I'd consider creating a process where the BLPs in question were userfied, with a "may not take to MfD for 2 years" note.  As GS moves the articles into mainspace, they'd then be eligible for AfD.  Hobit (talk) 17:05, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A horrific idea. Quite aside from the completely arbitrary definition of STALEDRAFT at two years (which is at least four times longer than possibly practical), BLPs should be on a shorter leash than most content, and the significant history here means Geo Swan should be on a shorter leash than the average BLP writer. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Humm, I thought someone might object, but I really didn't foresee that strong of an objection. Let's assume, for a minute, that there is general consensus he should be allowed to fix these articles and needs a fair bit of time to do so (I'm not asking you to agree that _is_ consensus, just assume it is).  What way forward would you propose? Userfication seemed the least painful.  The incubator would also be fine with me.  But perhaps you have a better idea? Hobit (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, no. Let's not argue hypothetical situations here: let's argue the one we have in front of us. This is an editor with a long history of creating articles on topics that we don't deem notable, getting them userfied, and then leaving them there forever. As recently as yesterday, he reaffirmed his belief that his userspace is his to use as an archive for this stuff if he pleases. There is little to suggest that any of this will change if we officially endorse this strategy. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The discussion is just a bit split. Coming up with a compromise would be good.  Do you have one?  I've tried, others have tried.  But those who are really upset by Geo Swan's work really haven't come forward with any way forward.  Even if you think none of his work is possible to expand and make appropriate for Wikipedia (something that's plainly untrue) it's pretty obvious that opinion isn't one-sided on that.  What's the best way forward that takes that into account? Hobit (talk) 10:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The current situation already is a compromise. Until the RfC, the worst of his articles and user space pages were nominated on a regular basis. After the RfC, this stopped to give him a chance to improve the salvageable articles and delete or merge the others. This didn't happen (with very few exceptions). Now someone else starts nominating some of his pages for deletion again, and most of his nominations end in delete or merge as well. Now some people again want this to stop, to give him a chance to clean up. Nope, we tried that already, didn't work. We don't need to propose a compromise, we can just continue as before. That seemed te only thing that actually worked. Fram (talk) 10:37, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Support userfication -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 08:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * In addition to userification and the article incubator -- compromises suggested after this thread was opened, I am going to remind everyone that on July 11th I personally redirected approximately 300 of these articles.


 * I've acknowledged that by the wikipedia more stringent current standards many of those article no longer measured up -- although they did measure up to the standards current when they were started. I am repeating this as several contributors who have weighed in here have stated or implied that I am a serial creator on non-compliant articles. This has not been true in the past, and it is not true now.


 * For some of the individuals held in Guantanamo new good quality references exist, and for others they don't. I am not suggesting, no one else has suggested, that the wikipedia should keep articles that don't comply with our current standards.


 * I think that redirection of all the deleted articles -- with their full history -- is preferable to either userification or the article incubator.


 * Practically every single contributor has acknowledged that some guantanamo captives merit separate articles. But what distinguishes the individuals who merit separate articles different from the other captives?


 * In I suggested that rather than having special treatment for Guantanamo captives it would be useful to have a discussion over all individuals who are held in some kind of extrajudicial detention.  Other individuals are currently held without charge, or have been in the past.  I suggested the same criteria should apply to Bowe Bergdahl, Ingrid Betancourt as apply to the Guantanamo captives.


 * Ingrid Betancourt would already have been notable, as per WP:POLITICIAN, prior to her kidnapping. But Bowe Bergdahl was an ordinary captive, prior to his capture.  Many of the arguments put forward for deleting articles on Guantanamo captives would apply equally to Bergdahl.


 * A couple of contributors have stated or implied that my suggestion we have a broader discussion was tricky, or deceitful. Sorry, their comments were, IMO, unfair and disruptive.  I suggested a range of criteria, starting with being the author or the subject of a full-length book.  For all I know it may turn out that most people who read those suggested criteria stop there, at the full length book criteria, and don't go any further.  If that is the conclusion of a broad discussion over criteria for extrajudicial captives, I will cheerfully work within that.


 * Some contributors, in the sections above, have stated that the many non-keep closures from DBig's nominations should be regarded as proof that the wider wikipedia community doesn't support covering Guantanamo captives in separate articles. Well, a small handful of the same contributors showed up for those afd.  I suspect that, as others have suggested above, those closures included instances of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that would not be supported by the wider community.


 * For instance, DBig nominated for deletion articles on individuals who were charged with war crimes, as in Articles for deletion/Abdul Zahir (Guantanamo Bay detainee 753), and Sufyian Barhoumi, who he shoehorned into an omnibus afd of insufficiently related individuals. Barhoumi was charged three times under each different version of the the Military Commissions.


 * Articles for deletion/Muhammed al-Darbi is another of DBig's afd that I consider questionable. What it show is that DBig didn't even bother to read the articles, prior to nomination, so that he could write an accurate nomination.  He described all the individuals in this mass nomination as former Guantanamo captives, when three of them had been held in the CIA's network of secret interrogation camps.  It is an important distinction, and one DBig could not have overlooked -- if he had spent 20 seconds reading the article prior to the nomination.


 * What I would like is:


 * 1) Quality control volunteers to be careful not to nominate articles for deletion at a pace that can't meaningfully be responded to -- not just articles I started -- not just articles related to terrorism.
 * 2) Due to the problematic nature of many of these recent afd I request all the recently afd that were closed as delete should be changed to redirects, with the full contribution history.
 * 3) Due to the recent afd having a narrow cross section of the community participating -- a narrow cross section who I suspect do not reflect the position the wider community would make, it is important we have a wider discussion of the notability of individuals who aren't kidnap victims, and who aren't convicted felons, who are nevertheless being detained without charge.


 * I agree that WP:ANI is not the correct place to resolve which extrajudicial captives are notable. I am not sure where the appropriate place for the wider community to clarify these issues would be.


 * This is not an attempt to get special treatment for Guantanamo captives, as the same consensus that emerged from this discussion would apply to Bowe Bergdahl, Ingrid Betancourt, all the current political prisoners in Cuba proper, in China, formerly held in Chile and Argentina. I see this consensus applying to all the captives held, without charge, in western countries, like Mohamed Harkat.  Geo Swan (talk) 09:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I fail to see what "the same consensus that emerged from this discussion" is referring to. Which discussion, and what consensus? Fram (talk) 09:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe it's referring to a desired consensus from the current discussion, which died above for lack of any interest in there being a WP:NPOLITICALPRISONERS (as the only reason for there being a special notability guidline for political prisoners (which would, presumably, be more lenient than WP:NPEOPLE, WP:SOLDIER, WP:GNG etc) would be so that we could WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS by having articles on them), so it's being tried again after the de facto consensus from the previous try above was "current policies are adequate and apply". - The Bushranger One ping only 09:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, as a final comment in response to Geo's comments above - Geo, perhaps "the wider community" might or might not agree with what you believe is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, but you can't force people to !vote in AfDs, and the silent majority is not necessarily always on your side. - The Bushranger One ping only 09:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's what I thought as well, but it seemed a bit strange to use "the consensus that emerged" as if it somehow supported his proposal, so I hoped for a different explanation. Fram (talk) 10:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Geo Swan, I'm fine with the redirected article thing as a reasonable way forward. Redirects are cheap, and it keeps the BLPs out of search engines as well as deleting them does.  And with the history there, they can be improved and unredirected when (and if) they are improved to meet our notability guidelines.  But I agree with Fram and The Bushranger that it's not clear how the community feels about these.  It's plain the nominations weren't carefully considered on an individual level and the !votes were stock responses in many cases.  But that doesn't mean the outcomes weren't in line with consensus.  That said, does anyone object to just redirecting all the questionable ones (which is the vast majority I believe)?  I think they all meet the requirements of a redirect. Hobit (talk) 10:37, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also suggest that you go through your redirects and nuke the ones which link to articles which you have moved to mainspace. When you move articles, you can uncheck the "leave redirect" box, so that another cross-space redirect isn't generated.
 * I have no problem with redirects here; in fact, I was going along behind the AfDs that had closed as delete - before the merge/redirect option started being suggested in the AfDs, and largely accepted once it was mentioned as an option - and redirecting the deleted links to the appropriate lists before this teapot boiled over. - The Bushranger One ping only 02:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Status
What's the status of this? Does anyone care anymore? -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 22:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * People care. Unscintillating (talk) 04:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * People care, but not enough to actually fix this long-term problem.  Horologium  (talk) 14:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * On balance I think you need an admin to close this one. But I will have a go at reducing the size of the rest of the list. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 16:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I have gone ahead and escalated this just a bit. He's had two years to deal with this, and it's time to actually deal with the problem. I will undoubtedly get flamed from a number of his enablers, but enough is enough.  Horologium  (talk) 04:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)