Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Stephanie Powell Watts

AfD Motivations
In response to:    - With all due respect to Duckduckstop, you really need to get a thicker skin about AfDs. The AfD process is to address concerns and strengthen articles by drawing upon multiple opinions and editor knowledge as to whether or not an article is warranted for this site. The worst thing an article creator can do is start taking shots at the AfD nominator as you have now done no less than four times. Accusing a nominator of bad faith, stating that they will be a "laughing stock", stating you will speak to others about their behavior, have absolutely no place on an AfD page. This page is to simply discuss whether or not these articles meet the Wikipedia criteria to remain on the site. And since my motivations have been brought up (repeatedly), the reason why these articles were nominated was that I was contacted off-wiki with concerns that they might have been written to promote literary works of otherwise un-notable authors. -O.R.Comms 23:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, any active editor makes errors, and the more active, the more errors. The more experienced an editor, the more likely to work on tricky matters, and the more likely to get perhaps overconfident, especially away from their principal ares. People tend to assume things, and not actually read the full article and check all the references. Thinking back at some of mine, I find it hard to reconstruct why I did some them, but in most cases it was impatience, or working too long at the same thing, or just working when I was too tired.


 * This is especially a  problem nowadays when dealing with new editors. When at least half the new submissions are altogether impossible, and at least half of the new editors have a coi, even to the extent of undisclosed paid editing, it's all to easy to assume something that doesn't very clearly and immediate state notability is likely not to be, and it's very likely to assume the problems in the article can't effectively be corrected.  We also tend to assume that those that might have an off-wiki connection do have one, and about 90% of the times, we are indeed correct. When editathons and class work were still unfamiliar, there was a tendency to assume that any group of articles in the same topic was coi, rather than people working on a particular range of topics.  DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I see the points made above and, ignoring the personal attacks (which I agree are wrong and inappropriate), I agree with a lot of what was brought up by . Yes editors make mistakes. However, there are an awful lot of AfD submissions being created where the nominators obviously did not do any sort of due diligence before nominating. It's very frustrating that WP:Before is not used more often. It really feels like an act of laziness on the part of the editor doing the AfD. I don't think is wrong is worrying about these things at all and it doesn't help to tell someone to "get a thick skin." There is a problem with AfD. I've seen it and so have others. We've discussed it often on WikiProject Women in Red.


 * In addition, COI doesn't negate notability. It just muddies the waters. NPOV is, in my opinion, more problematic than COI. A person with a COI may be adding relevant material that can be verified by another editor. NPOV is much more difficult and a bigger problem. I think the COI is a strawman. I also think there are a lot of excellent articles being written at editathons. Going through New Pages every day has shown me two things: great articles are being written every day and that if you take a few minutes to kindly help a new editor, you have a made a world of change for Wiki.


 * This is the digital world: we can correct any article easily. If something or someone is notable, it's notable no matter whether the sources are in the article, or if there is a COI or if the article is poorly written. Wiki is better served by helping each other out than cutting down. I have a thick skin, but I see a serious problem going on here. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:02, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * One last thing: where are your numbers showing that half the submissions are COI? That sounds very high. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:03, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no direct evidence of paid editing or WP:COI violations. I was actually asked to look into this situation as it's been suspected by a few people that these articles are being written solely to promote the authors.  This is not my field, but on the surface the articles appeared to be written quickly with base information and a lot of them had links to "home pages" advertising the products of the author.  I think this is like WP:DUCK but there isn't going to be any action.  Ten years ago, Wikipedia would have been all over this but there just isn't any interest in that kind of thing these days.  That in itself is a good thing since I've seen plenty of legitimate concerns turned into witch hunts.  It look like the articles are all going to be kept, so that's fine as well. -O.R.Comms 23:58, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's interesting to read what you've experienced. I wonder if it's a new editor thing. When I was new, I improperly linked to Facebook and all sorts of dumb things. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:41, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * thicker skin, indeed. face facts: you nominated a granddaughter of a nazis who has a best selling book with references longer than your arm, "because children of nazis aren't notable". ridiculous, farcical, what a complete ignorance of notability. then when you did not like my strenuous response, you went and mass nominated four women writers with multiple reviews in reliable sources. ridiculous, farcical. (see user:DGG: it's not "anyone can nominate for deletion"; it's ignorant assholes nominate anyone who is not a porn star.) you were mendacious when you said references were "promotional"; official websites are consensus. you very well could have discussed on talk if you had any legitimate concerns. like donald trump, you are not man enough to admit mistake, but you double down on your ignorance, making quite a spectacle of yourself. don't think you can hide your naked parade on a side page, i will be proclaiming it widely at wikiconference usa. every one in DC and NYC will know of your stupidity. it's high time we made an example of the systemic cultural bias of this "community", and you just nominated yourself for poster-child. Duckduckstop (talk) 21:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * everyone has their areas they think important. Those people interested in port stars think we are altogether too eager to delete them. (And so on for every area. We live here by consensus, and the basis for good faith consensus is mutual tolerance. in this case, mutual tolerance of each other's interests. I may (and do) choose to mainly improve those potentially deletable articles  in fields that interest me, but I do not actively seek to preferentially delete those that do not, But I do sometimes scan articles in fa field I know subject to COI, whether or not the subject is one of interest.


 * The notability requirements for authors are fuzzy. In borderline cases, it generally depends on whether the reviews are considered substantial and independent, showing editorial judgement. In most such disputes, I could construct a reasonable argument in either direction. Different people will therefore come to different conclusions, and the result of any given afd will depend in large part of who shows up, and how well the case is argued. The basic requirement (besides literacy and the ability to look for sources) to work here successfully, is the realization that decisions may often go against you, no matter how right you may be. There's no way a site organized as we are could do otherwise, though I would certainly agree we could do better in terms on consistency., crusaders tend not to do well here. The more reasonable you appear, the more likely you are to have your arguments considered.  When crusadrs resort to invective, we tend to lose patience with them very quickly.    DGG ( talk ) 07:08, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Personal Attacks at AfD
Duckduckstop, please be more calm. While I do understand that you are upset and I can share your frustrations over articles getting brought to AfD too quickly, it is very inappropriate for you to make comments like you have here. Wikipedia is not censored, but it's considered to be poor form to use expletives while talking to other editors. In this particular situation your comments here are pretty blatant WP:ADHOMINEM attack against another editor. Whether or not the other editor was wrong in bringing the articles to AfD is irrelevant - what you're doing here is outright attacking them just to attack them. The articles are all being kept, so the point of doing WP:BEFORE has already been made very, very clear by other editors. You coming in and posting this does not help your case and I'll be very blunt: if you do not compose yourself in a more calm and rational manner you run a very strong chance of getting brought to ANI based purely for abusive behaviors. Just because one editor made some mistakes based on rash behavior does not give you the right to attack them. Period. Not only does it run the risk of getting you blocked for personal attacks, but it actually does the opposite of what you want: rather than make your point people are more likely to disregard it - and be more likely to sympathize with the other person. It also puts incoming editors on the defensive, since they now have to worry about receiving verbal abuse if they do something to set you off. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  05:45, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I am very calm. i win awards for collaboration. the time-line is very clear, this is a bad faith mass nomination. quoting a library friend: "Librarians have proven techniques for dealing with any sort of information or any sort of person: clear instructions for gathering, packaging and delivering information; clear rules and enforcement regarding disruptive behavior; and a commitment to upholding the standards of the profession and their institutions. By contrast, the rules on Wikipedia are not clear, the enforcement on disruptive behavior is arbitrary or non-existent. Online game players, vulgarians, and sea-lioning randos who congregate here can be as disruptive and outrageous as they wish, with impunity. They don't care, because they don't have to."


 * I've watched as DGG has attempted for many years to inject some librarian ethos to no avail; it is a battleground; i've seen far greater "incivility" winked at at Arbcom. if veteran editors will not listen to reason, maybe they will fear retribution. it is time for "daddy spank". maybe evil tendencies cancel the time for impunity is over, the time for a dunciad of wiki-losers is at hand. if i should be blocked for an imbalance of political power at arbcom, so what; there is no real leadership here, rather it is management by temper tantrum. Duckduckstop (talk) 19:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry you were so offended by this AfD. As I stated before, I was asked to look into this (which i did) and thought this was the best course (I still do). There were actually five other articles I did not nominate since they were notable and had good sources. At this point, the AfD will most likely be "Keep all" so I would apply WP:DEADHORSE since the comments above have little to do with the AfD, have bordered on WP:NPA, and are leading in a bad direction, especially "editors will fear retaliation", etc. I'm taking this page off my watch list; it was a great discussion and I in fact learned quite a bit. -O.R.Comms 20:26, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Duckduckstop, I'm not saying that some WP:BEFORE wouldn't have been nice in this situation, but that's not the issue here. The issue here is that rather than replying calmly you wrote an expletive laden remark that does not invite calm and rational conversation. The way you've posted here is extremely offputting and doesn't really give off the impression that you really work well with others - if anything, it makes me as an editor (let alone an admin) less likely to want to collaborate with you in the future. This is because you currently strike me as a person who would overreact to everything and would be unable and unwilling to calmly debate a manner if there was a situation where you had to compromise or admit any wrongdoing. You saying that you want to "daddy spank" other editors as "retribution" is probably the least appealing thing I've read on Wikipedia. As far as you name dropping DGG, I can honestly say that I don't think that he'd agree with how you've composed yourself on this talk page. If your goal here is to try to make people become less disruptive and nasty, the worst thing you can do is act disruptive and nasty. This does not solve the issue and if anything, will be more likely to break down communication and editing more than actually help. I don't see where you understand this, so I have to warn you: if you continue to talk to people like this in the future it will very, very likely lead to you getting blocked as a disruptive, abusive editor. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm forced to agree that Tokyogirl is very likely right about what will happen if you continue in this manner. Just discuss the issue in as calm terms as possible. When at all possible at afd, discuss the specific articles in question and only those.  DGG ( talk ) 07:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)