Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-11-29/Deletion report

Most editors are familiar with the existence of Articles for Deletion (AfD), the process by which we determine the suitability of articles for inclusion in Wikipedia. Indeed, many of us have had direct experience with the process, whether we liked it or not: working your ass off on an article only to see it flushed down the drain is close to an official rite of passage around these parts. That said, there are plenty of articles that have no place on Wikipedia, and plenty of subjects that have no business getting an article written about them. Love it or hate it, AfD is one of the most publicly-known processes on Wikipedia; it's referenced often enough in mainstream publications for us to have an article about it. And it looks like the largest AfD of all time has graced us with its presence this month.

But what do we really know about it? Statistical analysis is rather hard to come by. Earlier in 2021, I wrote a piece of software that analyzes AfD logs, from which I was able to create a live dashboard of current deletion discussions. I was also able to analyze all 480,000 AfDs (statistics on which can be found here). There were some interesting revelations, including a sortable list of the longest AfDs of all time for the drama-minded.

The topic of this report, however, is what was going on with AfD in November 2021, including the monthly statistics and sortable tables of each AfD.

Overall statistics

 * These figures are current as of November 28. More detailed statistics can be seen at the monthly Oracle page for November 2021, including numbers and percentages for all closes in the month.

There were 1,767 AfDs listed in November, of which 1,172 have closed and 595 remain open. This is slightly below the 2021 average of 1,794 per month (and well below the 2005–2020 average of 2,400 per month).

This comes out to an average of 63.1 per day, with the least on the 5th (35) and the most on the 27th (92); the average for 2021 has been around 54 per day.

205 of the November AfDs were relists from October, meaning 1,562 new nominations have been made since the beginning of the month. Additionally, 15 were closed without a !vote being cast (one was withdrawn, one was deleted, four were speedily deleted, and the rest were closed as no consensus).

The most common outcome was "delete" (as has been the case for all months since August 2005); "delete"s and "speedy delete"s combined made up 61.8% of closes. Meanwhile, 19.2% closed "keep" or "speedy keep", slightly below the 2021 average of 20.5%. There was only one type of close that didn't happen a single time in November — the elusive unicorn of deletion, the "transwiki" close to move content to another wiki, has occurred only 324 times in nearly 500,000 AfDs.

Mass killings under communist regimes: The largest AfD of all time

 * The most !voted on AfD this month, and the largest by a wide margin, isn't even closed yet. The discussion for Mass killings under communist regimes is currently at a gargantuan 499 kilobytes, 172 !votes, and 1,096 total revisions by 204 editors. Even disregarding the 117 kilobyte talk page for the nomination, this is by far the largest AfD of all time.
 * Note: The discussion's final size was 510,874 bytes, with 174 !votes across 217 editors. It had the closing template added by Jo-Jo Eumerus on November 29; !votes continued to trickle in (reaching a maximum of 511,852 bytes) until post-close !votes were removed and the page was fully protected by Joe Roe five hours later to allow the closers to work. It was closed as "no consensus" on December 1, by a four-administrator panel consisting of Jo-Jo Eumerus, Joe Roe, Rosguill and Seraphimblade.
 * The previous champion (the third nomination of List of notable converts to Christianity in 2007) was a paltry 234 kilobytes. It is not the AfD with the most !votes, however: that would be the 60-article batch nomination at Esoteric programming languages in 2006, which garnered 301. Or at least, it isn't the one with the most !votes yet. It still has a few more days to run, and it's apparently been picked up by a few blogs and media outlets. It's had 65,696 pageviews so far, which probably puts it high in the running for the most-viewed AfD of all time.
 * This is the article's fourth stint at AfD: the first three discussions (one from 2009 and two from 2010) were no less contentious, weighing in at 31, 67, and 206 kilobytes respectively. Prior to that, the article was nominated twice in 2009 under its previous title, Communist genocide.
 * This Polyphemian (or, if you prefer, "huge-ass") discussion concerns a similarly massive article: currently 297 kilobytes, it's existed since 2009, and in that time has had over five hundred distinct editors. The talk page is festooned with twelve talk page headers, and links to 52 archive pages. In fact, the thread about the article at the dispute resolution noticeboard was so long it got moved to its own subpage (with its own shortcut, WP:DRNMKUCR, whose incomprehensibility seems apt for the situation). This subpage is, itself, 184 kilobytes. And it's on hold because the article is at AfD!
 * The current AfD, nominated on November 22 by cygnis insignis, has seen a variety of established editors coming down on both sides. In the interest of full disclosure, the writer of this article is one of them, and will do something smart for once in his life by refraining from giving further commentary.

Other discussions of note

 * The second most !voted-on AfD was the fiercely debated third nomination of ARS Public School, in which 30 !votes were cast in 51 kilobytes of discussion among 33 editors. Closer Daniel noted that "this debate obviously has caused fractures across the wider community, in other places than simply this discussion page". Indeed, this AfD featured in the latest in a series of content and conduct disputes over deletion at AN/I centering around the activity of the controversial Article Rescue Squadron. The article itself was about a school in Jharkhand, India. The third nomination for the page, submitted by Dronebogus, was made two days after a no-consensus close of the second. Ultimately, the ARS failed to save ARS; Daniel, in closing the debate on November 16, cited a clear consensus to delete, saying that "ultimately, it has come down to an interpretation of our relevant notability guidelines, and there is a strong consensus that this article does not meet those requirements".


 * The third most active AfD, with 23 !votes in 43 kilobytes, was Herbert V. Clark. The AfD, nominated by Mztourist on October 23, was closed as "no consensus" by Scottywong on November 11. Discussion focused on interpretations of what constituted independent and significant coverage, as well as whether Clark was independently notable in his own right or merely inherited notability from his status as a Tuskegee Airman.


 * Four discussions, each with 21 !votes, are tied for the spot of fourth most-active:
 * Irish actor Stephen Hogan had the second largest AfD of the month in terms of page size, weighing in at a hefty 66 kilobytes. Nominated by DGG on October 24th, this month-old discussion has so far spawned one very long thread at COIN, as well as a second and third at AN/I. With 21 !votes, it closed on the 26th as "no consensus" by Jo-Jo Eumerus, who said: "It seems like there are arguments on both sides of each side and no argument is clearly superior to the other. I note that the discussion was full of offtopic commentary, sockpuppetry and that some participants were sufficiently irritated by one participant that they struck out their !votes".


 * 106 articles pertaining to the ongoing Tigray War in Ethiopia were batch-nominated at 2020 May Kado massacre, the third largest AfD of the month (at 51 kilobytes). The nomination was made by WMSR on November 8, and closed as "procedural keep" by Vanamonde93 on November 15. Two days later, a second nomination was made by Dawit S Gondaria, featuring 25 from the previous batch. This time, all 25 were deleted; closer Missvain cited "a variety of reasons presented - WP:NEVENT, failure to present WP:RS and WP:SIGCOV and the looking sockpuppet investigation taking place around link spamming".
 * Wikimedia UK trustee and marketer Monisha Shah had her article nominated for deletion on the 18th; her close relationship to the editing community made for a fairly contentious deletion discussion, with a long thread on COIN running in tandem with the AfD. It was closed as "delete per consensus" by User:Doczilla on the 26th.
 * The biography of unsuccessful Buffalo, New York mayoral candidate India Walton, on its second nomination, was closed "keep" by Daniel after 21 !votes. Retention arguments mentioned the "historic" nature of her loss, and Walton's status as a "prominent example of a divide within the Democratic Party in 2021".


 * The largest unanimous AfD was Washington Football Team vs. New York Giants Game September 2021 (boy, that's a mouthful). Of fifteen !votes, all were to delete; most arguments invoked the notability guidelines at WP:SPORTSEVENT, which says that "regular season games in professional and college leagues are not inherently notable [...] games should be extraordinary and have a lasting impact on the sport". The article's creator, Wiki Ed student editor Pippalenderking, was sanguine about the experience, saying:
 * "'I just want to offer my thanks and appreciation for all of the advice on my article. This is the first article I've ever written for Wikipedia and I am grateful for all the suggestions you have provided! I am going to look into contributing to other related articles -- thank you for including me in this valuable discussion!'"
 * Well, Pippalenderking, here's hoping you find something good to write about -- there's always geostubs!


 * The shortest AfD was the second nomination of Pulock Deb Roy, closed as speedy delete when the article was deleted just an hour and thirty-seven minutes after being listed. It was not the quickest-closed, however: that honor goes to Habibganj railway station, a pagemove request mistakenly filed as an AfD and non-admin closed after a whopping five minutes.


 * The oldest AfD closed in November was L'Oreal Hair Zone Mall Tour, opened on October 7 -- although it was by no means the longest-running, being closed by Barkeep49 as "redirect" on the second day of November. The oldest article nominated was Right Livelihood Award, which was created in August 2002.


 * The longest-running AfD from November was a tie between two nominations with remarkably similar stories: they were both open for 39 days, from October 10 to November 18, and closed by Scottywong within an hour of each other. Relationship anarchy, with sixteen !votes, was closed as "no consensus". Hearns Crossroads, Delaware, a batch nomination of four GNIS-based stubs of alleged unincorporated communities in Delaware, was closed as "delete all" after seventeen !votes.