Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Colonel Warden/Orville (cat)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was  Keep - The argument "no one is using this" is a weak argument in the face of the counter-argument "Hey, I'm using that". Given the existence of Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles, deletion only creates more work for everyone, and pages do make it out of draft years later. Wily D 07:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Colonel Warden/Orville (cat)


Deleted at AfD and hoarded without revision since (save for a mishandled move to AfC which doesn't seem to have been completed properly). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it really causing any harm? Per my prediction at Articles for deletion/Orville (cat), its still possible for Orville to enter the pantheon of everlasting fame.--Milowent • hasspoken  15:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It's the precedent (that it is the duty of editors to userfy and indefinitely hoard deleted articles) which is harmful. Absolutely no prejudice on this getting another chance if there's some work being done on it, but AGF is not a suicide pact in that regard. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - WP:UP. The I-never-met-an-article-I-didn't-want-to-keep mentality cannot be used to retain deleted articles in userspace perpetually.  Virtually untouched since deletion, ~6 months ago. Tarc (talk) 15:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I had a lot more respect for that opinion until I realised that Tarc was the original AfD nominator, removed it from AfC, yet never thought to mention either of those today.
 * Oh, and read WP:UP. It's quite clear that it doesn't apply to a userspace draft that an editor is intending to work on. Knowing, as claimed here, that Warden is instead intending to keep it in userspace perpetually requires clairvoyance that I'm afraid I don't share. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I nominated it because it was a one-event non-news story, an opinion supported by the consensus of those who also weighed-in.  As for the AfC thing, the user who tried to move it there has not edited since, and I do not feel that the submission of a previously-deleted article sitting in userspace is within the scope of AfC.  As for Warden and clairvoyance..no, it isn't that.  It is a judgement call.  UP#COPIES basically lays out two routes; "Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion" and "Short-term hosting of potentially valid articles and other reasonable content under development or in active use is usually acceptable". I believe that it is a reasonable no-need-of-clairvoyance conclusion to draw that a userspace copy that lies untouched for near six months falls under the former, not the latter. Tarc (talk) 16:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This was a news story six months ago and so the issue was "lasting notability". To establish this, we obviously have to let some time elapse.  If topics are attacked as news when they are fresh and then stale when just a few months have elapsed then we have a catch-22.  My rule of thumb would be to wait a year and then start searching books, as I'd expect it to take that much time for topics to work through the publishing cycle.  For example, see Articles for deletion/Bigoted woman incident which was asserted as a minor news event back in 2010.  Gillian Duffy now appears in over two hundred books and so the notability of the matter now seems well-established.  I am in no rush to overturn that AFD but have not forgotten it either.  In such cases, we have to work on a timescale of years. Warden (talk) 12:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * keep It's the precedent (that it is within the power of other editors to delete userspace drafts) which is harmful. This would be a bad deletion of this article, and a terrible precedent to establish that userspace drafts are subject to summary deletion at another's whim. That applies equally to user-created drafts and to, as in this case, adopted articles from AfD.
 * This is an article that was far from a clear deletion at AfD. Personally I'd have kept it, although renamed it as Orvillecopter. It's an interesting technical step for those of us with an interest in building quadcopters, with or without fur trim. It has plenty of sourcing and notability at the time, that was never a question. Instead it was deleting according to WP:EVENTS, rather a stretch of what an "event" is! Even then, it required a rigorous consideration of the long-term effects (or lack thereof) of this "event", to a level that is scarcely ever applied throughout the rest of WP.
 * Does WP:STALEDRAFT apply? That is the only credible reason I could support to delete a draft like this. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. WP:STALEDRAFT clearly applies. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep After considering SPhilbrick's argument that WP:STALEDRAFTdoesn't define long versus short, I am going to make a judgement call and say anything under a year is short. If someone hasn't touched a page in a full year, actions speak louder than intentions. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep While I think STALEDRAFT could be seen to apply, and I'm sympathetic to the "lack of development" argument, to remove this when there is recent coverage (that is, in the last two weeks) seems premature and counterproductive to the goal of building an encyclopedia. --j⚛e deckertalk 16:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As I suspected, nothing more than scant 2012-in-review type of press, nothing that is actually new or to suggest that coverage is ongoing. Tarc (talk) 17:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is, although I thought the selection by Reuters interesting. *shrug*.  --j⚛e deckertalk 07:02, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Confused: I'm not sure why anyone would care about this page enough to nominate it for deletion. User pages is kind of misguided in this area. If the page is a BLP problem, that's a different matter. I doubt the cat minds this page, though. What exactly is the issue here? The page being indexed by search engines? Something else? --MZMcBride (talk) 16:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The nominator has a history of making snarky comments about me and so it seems reasonable to suppose that this nomination is some combination of WP:POINT and WP:HARASS with a dash of WP:DTTR and WP:LIGHTBULB. The immediate trigger was this discussion. Warden (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, I've got a habit of making snarky comments about you, but over this issue, you're in the right! Andy Dingley (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "No harm" is rarely a plausible or acceptable argument in any discussion, no offense. Why even hold XfDs at all if this is to be the case.  Delete means delete.  Not maybe, not throw it to the AfC taskforce, not here's-a-copy-for-you-forever, and so on.  If someone did want a copy and expressed a good-faith intent to address the reasons why it was deleted it order to return it to article-space, that's perfectly fine, and is expressly permitted here, per link above.  But this isn't being done here. Tarc (talk) 17:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * User pages (and a user's user space) have historically been an area in which editors are given proportionate leeway to their contributions. That is, a user with five article edits will not be allowed to have 1,000 user subpages, while a user with 1,000 edits will be allowed to have five subpages. In this case, Colonel Warden is a user in good standing with over 27,000 edits and about thirty user subpages. I don't believe this ratio is unreasonable and I haven't seen anything to suggest that this page is exceptional (i.e., deserving of immediate deletion over the objection of a user in good standing). On countless occasions we have allowed users to retain deleted articles for nothing more than their own personal edification/whim. This is most certainly not a new practice. So, again, I ask: what am I missing here? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, what you are missing is that tradition or established practice should not trump policy our policies or guidelines. If you disagree with WP:STALEDRAFT, you should change it, not ignore it. Change the wording
 * "Userspace is not a free web host and should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles, old revisions, or deleted content, or your preferred version of disputed content."
 * to
 * "Unless a user is in good standing and has made over 10,000 edits, userspace should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles, old revisions, or deleted content, or your preferred version of disputed content. If the user meets the above criteria, such usage is allowed"
 * Either change the guideline to reflect established practice, or change the established practice to meet the guideline. ---Guy Macon (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It's amusing that you begin your response by calling User pages a policy, but end by referring to it as a guideline. It is a guideline, and it also includes the following section:
 * A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material A number of users have Wikipedia and sister project content such as (free use) pictures from Wikimedia Commons, favorite Wikipedia articles, or quotations that they like.
 * Keeping with Wikipedia's traditions and practices (and relying on common sense) is exactly what I'm trying to do here. If Colonel Warden had a trove of 10,000 deleted articles, there would be cause for concern. If these articles hurt living people or were spam or what have you, there would be cause for concern. As it is, there is a small subset of pages that a user in good standing would like to keep around. I see absolutely no reason to not honor that request at this time.
 * I don't see the problem here and nobody seems to be able to point to a problem. Consequently, I vote to keep. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Taking this to your talk, as quite enough trains have been wrenched off the tracks on this thread already. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:27, 3 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep I have definite plans for this topic and, as it's the most interesting one in the current bundle, I shall make a start with it. As I develop the topic, the MfD will become moot. Warden (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If you had, you would have by now. You don't get years to shit or get off the pot. Tarc (talk) 17:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You created a to do list back in June 2011 and I noticed Deteriorata on it some time ago because that's a topic that interests me too. But you don't seem to have done anything since - see WP:POT.  Warden (talk) 17:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You appear to have reversed the meaning of WP:POT. It says that pointing out that someone else did something does not mean that it is OK for you to do the same, but the above comments seems to say that if someone else did something it does mean that it is OK for you to do the same.
 * I'm not the one stirring the pot here. I was reading some comments of  Milo Yiannopoulos today, "It’s playing to the bad bits of human nature. It’s allowing our naturally bellicose, antagonistic sides to come out. It’s encouraging those dark bits of us that want to be spiteful, that want to be argumentative, that want to be hateful.".  How familiar, I thought ... Warden (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep User in good standing intends to work on article. CallawayRox (talk) 18:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm sympathetic to WP:STALEDRAFT, but that guideline doesn't formally define long versus short. My personal view is that six months qualifies as short. This is independent of the editors contention to develop this, which make it a slam dunk.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  17:56, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Update I'm still in year-end mode and have just archived and tidied up my talk page. In the course of this, I was reminded of multiple cases during the year when I discussed the topic with other editors.  Note that another enterprising editor created an article about the annual art show in which Orville appeared — KunstRAI — and so the worst case is that we would merge into that.  But I had other ideas too and, most recently, I discussed the topic with User:Drmies after seeing some fresh coverage of Orville in Time Out in November — a major magazine which covers such cultural events.  That was just a few weeks ago but these conversations had already become dim memories as I have many interests but now my archiving activity has refreshed them.  That's one reason that I maintain various notes in my userspace — it's quite easy to forget or mislay items otherwise.  You can see these conversations on my newly–distilled talk page.  More anon. Warden (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This MFD should have never existed. Chris, it would have been much better to have discussed with Warden about his subpages instead of plopping the whole lot of them here at MFD. Surely, as an admin, you should have had the clue to do so first. Deeply disappointed at how WP:AGF has been misplaced here.  bibliomaniac 1  5  07:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep for this and the other articles in the Colonel's workspace, per CallawayRox, Bibliomaniac15 and MZMcBride. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Blank during inactivity, replacing with Inactive userpage blanked. I think a merge to Quadrotor is reasonable.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.