Wikipedia:WikiProject Transformers/Proposed centralized transformers discussion

Centralize discussion (<--click to go, posting this at every open AfD) A lot of transformer articles have been put to AfD lately. This may be a bit unfair to the entire franchise as most of the experts in the area are stretched beyond their abilities to expand and rescue the articles. It's easy to vote delete en masse, but far harder to rescue article en masse and make good arguments for keep. I vote to move this to a centralized discussion on transformers. Transformer articles at AfD:
 * Articles for deletion/Alice (Transformers)
 * Articles for deletion/Airazor
 * Articles for deletion/Ark (Transformers)
 * Articles for deletion/Bad Boy (Gobots)
 * Articles for deletion/Dirt Rocket
 * Articles for deletion/Coby Hansen
 * Articles for deletion/Poison Bite
 * Articles for deletion/Primon
 * Articles for deletion/Scattor
 * Articles for deletion/Shokaract
 * Articles for deletion/Thunderblast
 * Articles for deletion/Wheelie (Transformers) (2nd nomination)
 * As well as various articles at AfD recently (list incomplete, I don't know them all):
 * Articles for deletion/Jungle Planet — Code Hydro  13:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a terrible idea. Just because they all happen to be articles about the Transformers universe, doesn't mean they all warrant discussion together. Some may warrant being kept, some may need to be merged, some may make good redirects, some will need to be deleted. Having some kind of ridiculous "central" discussion will achieve nothing. Each article needs to be judged on its own merits. J Milburn (talk) 13:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this at least demonstrates that many of them can be merged. also, please feel free to add any to list if necessary. — Code  Hydro  13:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Why do we need to open this discussion to "demonstrate that many of them can be merged"? If you want to merge them, hop to it. I have reverted your transclusion of this page to the AfDs. Transcluding "centralised" AfDs on currently open AfDs is an utterly terrible idea. J Milburn (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you think posting a link to this discussion page on every AfD might be worthwhile at least? Merging them all is not easy and I certainly lack time and expertise in transformers to do so myself. — Code  Hydro  13:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No. We do not need any "centralised discussion", we do not need any kind of merging. These articles should be judged on their own merits, not all thrown into one discussion because they cover related subject matter. J Milburn (talk) 13:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll just post a note at every AfD with a link here and let the community decide to centralize or not. — Code  Hydro  13:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There's absolutely no precedent for opening discussions like this, and there's a good reason for that... J Milburn (talk) 13:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ever heard of the word innovation or experiment? Precedents have to establish sometime. — Code  Hydro  13:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not the way to do that, and, as I have explained, this is a bad idea anyways... J Milburn (talk) 14:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * He's right, this isn't the right way to do it. The right way would have been to do a single, bundled AfD nomination which included all of the articles.  Now that each article is being discussed individually, you can't just start another centralized discussion on top of that.    Snotty Wong   communicate 18:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, the bulk of these things have been around for several years, and our verifiability policies are hardly anything new either. Pretending to be put-upon because you need to find sources so suddenly is silly bordering on dishonest. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, I am non-partisan to transformers... having hardly watched it myself. I am merely looking at this as an article writer and article rescuer who was appalled by the sheer number of articles flagged for rescue. — Code Hydro  13:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Then you should realise that not everything someone slaps a rescue tag on can or should be rescued. Someone adding a tag doesn't override our core policies of being a source of information verifiable by reliable sources. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There are plenty of articles that simply should not exist. J Milburn (talk) 14:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And tagging each article for rescue in an attempt to bring a bunch of keep votes to the discussion could easily backfire by bringing unwanted attention to the discussion. In fact, the only reason I was aware of all of these articles was because they were rescue-tagged, and I ended up voting to delete each one of them.    Snotty Wong   confer 18:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: As each of these articles is currently nominated for deletion anyways, and there has been plenty of response to each one, could we please have this closed? J Milburn (talk) 14:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Maybe the deletion discussions for some of them should be postponed and relisted at a later date due to the sheer number of articles up at the same time. I sincerely believe that it is unfair to those who specialize in this topic to work on referencing so many articles at the exact same time. There may not yet be a wikipedia policy on this yet, but perhaps there should be. This discussion may be worth keeping open were its focus shifted to the concept of centralizing discussions in general, or to create a new AfD !vote called "postpone and relist" at a later date. — Code Hydro  14:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * AGAIN, "those who specialize in this topic" have had YEARS to source these articles, in some cases going back to 2005(!!!) Keeping our information encyclopedic and verifiable is NOT a new requirement that just popped up this week, and your continued deliberate ignoring of reality is making it increasingly difficult to take your actions as good faith. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  15:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No need to "postpone" their AfD discussions. It's not like the community here can't handle that much work. As Starblind mentioned, editors have had quite a long time to properly source some of the articles, and they still never did. Some of these topics proposed for deletion are just really obscure anyway. NotARealWord (talk) 15:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's also telling that many of them have been tagged with cleanup notices for a time. Either nobody cares about them, or they simply can't be improved. Either way, I'm not confident they will become decent articles any time soon... J Milburn (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * There's a really simple solution for all of Codehydro's concerns. If you or any other editor think you can make a decent article out of something, userfy it and sort it out. If no-one can be bothered to do that, they're unlikely to be bothered enough to work on it in the mainspace. Otherwise, this is just an excuse for keeping cruft. Claritas § 16:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want an article to work on in your userspace after it has been deleted, I'll restore it for you myself. J Milburn (talk) 16:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Despite being a fan of Transformers, I will vote against this whole enterprise. As a general encyclopedia, most Transformers characters/concepts won't be notable enough for inclusion. The reasonable thing to do is to start a dedicated Transformers wiki. Oh, wait, there's already at least TWO of them. --Khajidha (talk) 17:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Close this ill-advised discussion. The various Transformers AfDs are getting enough participants. As has been pointed out, many of the articles have been unsourced for years and years despite concerns from various editors so to suddenly claim there hasn't been enough time to work on them rings a bit hollow. You don't suddenly declare various discussions to be invalid, in favour of a new centralized one, just because you don't like the way they are going. There's something a bit "forum shoppy" about this whole thing. Reyk  YO!  19:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've moved it from AFD to a subpage of WikiProject Transformers. There's no real need to close it. Ignore it, and let it die. Claritas § 19:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * On principle, I believe sending people to other wikipedias is not a good solution because 1)wikipedia has far greater resources and is more likely to preserve information for future researchers in the long run and 2)the existence of other wikis is really irrelevant to the need to improve our own wiki. Nonetheless, I will be withdrawing this nomination, though I have an alternative proposal that I will post elsewhere. Thank you for participating in this discussion and your time. — Code Hydro  19:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)