Hussein Awada – Unsalted by Hut 8.5. There was no issue with the original 2013 AfD close but consensus here is that circumstances have changed, the article is now free to be recreated (after which it can be judged for notability on its own merits), and there's nothing further to be discussed here. — Amakuru (talk) 10:28, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Allow recreation- nothing wrong with the original close but, if there are reliable secondary sources describing this player in detail, there should be no reason to forbid recreation. It's been over six years after all. ReykYO!06:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've just unsalted it, so feel free to write another article there. The deleted version was a very short stub which only mentioned the teams he's played for. Hut 8.508:01, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Race and intelligence – The consensus here is to overturn the close. There are something like 36 overturn comments against 14 endorse, plus the procedural concern that the close took place when there was already a close in progress and a standard closing notice on the AfD page. There is additional concern that the sparse close rational in relation to the length and depth of the AfD discussion, coupled with the closing comments that the close is on hold until the matter has been taken to DRV or endorsed in some other manner, was not appropriate. While closing rationales are useful and welcomed, they are not mandatory. However, given the comments here, it may be worthwhile including at WP:CLOSEAFD some advice that certain AfDs would benefit from closing rationales. There are a number of comments regarding relisting/reclosing the AfD, though the consensus regarding that is not as clear as it first appears, as there are around 14 asking for a relist or reclose, while there are around 16 who clearly state or suggest in their comments overturning to a simple No consensus. Given that this is a contentious topic, and that this is the fourth AfD, and as pointed out in the DRV, a No consensus outcome will likely result in a fifth AfD, and that at least two people felt there were procedural problems with the close (so joining with the 14 for a reclose of some sort so making 16 v 16) it would be preferable to reclose or relist. And of those asking for a relist, the consensus is for a team of experienced admins, with the names User:Jo-Jo Eumerus, User:SilkTork, User:Barkeep49, User:Mazca, and User:Scottywong being mentioned. And User:RoySmith additionally volunteering. Jo-Jo Eumerus was named a number of times. While concern was raised that Jo-Jo Eumerus has already drawn up a close rationale so is somehow involved, Jo-Jo Eumerus has not edited the Race and intelligence article, nor took part in the AfD, so is not involved. None of the other admins mentioned, including myself, have been involved in editing the article nor the AfD, though I have closed this DRV so consider myself involved, and withdraw myself from the blue-ribbon committee. Of those named, User:Jo-Jo Eumerus, User:Barkeep49, and User:RoySmith have indicated willingness. User:Mazca, and User:Scottywong would need to be approached. It is better to have a team of either three or five so we don't end in a stalemate, so if one or other of Mazca and Scottywong don't wish to be involved, then better to revert to the named three, or seek another admin rather than go ahead with four. As regards relisting or reclosing, the consensus is for reclosing the existing AfD, though if the blue-ribbon committee feel they cannot make a decision based on the AfD as it stands now, or feel it might benefit for being relisted, that option should be left to the committee. So: Overturn the close and reclose with User:Jo-Jo Eumerus, User:Barkeep49, and User:RoySmith on the committee and approach User:Mazca, and User:Scottywong to give the option to also be on the committee.SilkTork (talk) 12:32, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Overturn "X" is not a fork of "History of X". I think a lot of the deletes think this article is racist. If I believed that, I'd grasp at any reason to delete as well. But I think it discusses the issue neutrally. So, since it's incredibly notable and NOT CENSORED is still a policy (I think), it's clearly a no consensus keep. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
DGG made a good point down below. You overturn this delete, then you have a keep. Some people seem to be saying overturn this delete so we can get a better delete. Is that an option I haven't heard of? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:11, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good number of people who want to reopen, and then reclose with an admin who already said they want to delete it. I guess I'd be cool with a reopen and a reclose with an admin who wants to keep it. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to No Consensus. The closer's rationale makes no sense, but I appreciate the difficulty he had dealing with this AfD. (I voted Keep but realize that other points of view have their force also). Xxanthippe (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2020 (UTC).[reply]
Comment Above 2 participants participated in the AfD,[1][2] just like I had. I would like to urge all involved parties to allow uninvolved editors analyze the closure because this section is on the verge of turning the debate into another round of the AfD in question. D4iNa4 (talk) 05:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse- I didn't participate in the AfD. It looks to me that either no consensus or delete could have been justifiable, and I'm certainly not going to condemn an admin for correctly judging strength of argument over volume of prose. ReykYO!06:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse Didn't participate either. There was an AfD I was involved in a long time ago which ended similarly, basically a "I know this will go to DRV so what's the point?" and not thrilled the close wasn't that detailed. However, I do agree on the whole that there is consensus that this is a POVFORK and that the information is already neutrally covered elsewhere, and the onus on the keep !voters at that point would be to argue against it, which only a couple voters attempted. SportingFlyerT·C06:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn for procedural reasons, this doesn't rule out a deletion for a different reason. I didn't participate in the AfD. It cannot be a POVFORK of another article as it is the oldest article about the topic. It changed a lot over the last 10 years (especially in April 2010, when the history article was created) but there was never a complete rewrite of the article, I checked. In addition there is clearly no consensus to call this a POVFORK. Even among the "delete" opinions there is no consensus for it: People criticize the title, claim that the topic overall wouldn't be notable, are concerned about redundancy with the history article, or point out issues within the article. Apart from the notability (which is clearly there, given the countless articles about it) these are all valid concerns, but they do not give a consensus for anything. What I find particularly odd is the idea to have an article "History of X" without having an article "X". Imagine an article "History of Paris" without an article "Paris". --mfb (talk) 06:35, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Be careful not to confuse "procedure" for "bureaucracy". The specific age of the article is a technicality, and the status quo doesn't automatically need to be preserved. Treating this as an abstract concept which can be directly compared to "Paris" presumes that every article must be treated in a similar fashion, regardless of sources or context. This is absolutely not accurate. We have many, many articles on historical concepts, and we all agree that fringe topics must be handled with caution. Grayfell (talk) 08:05, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's a mistaken conclusion because our articles are mot set in stone. An older article can have its contents changed sufficiently to turn it into a POV fork of a younger article. --RexxS (talk) 20:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The age of the article isn't the only reason for my comment: The closing comment claimed a consensus that isn't there. I never said (or implied) everything must be treated in a similar fashion. Having an article "X" with a history section and creating "history of X" if it gets too long is a very common procedure across Wikipedia, however. @RexxS: Do you see a forking event in the history? --mfb (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do we need a "forking event" for forking to occur? I don't think that's necessary. Over time, an article's content can change gradually. The article in question's title has made it liable to accumulate dubious content that ends up turning it into a POV shadow of the history article, without that article's rigour. Nobody has given a satisfactory answer to the question of what reliable sources can be legitimately used in an article titled "Race and Inteligence" that can't be used in History of the race and intelligence controversy or Scientific racism. --RexxS (talk) 00:21, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. Spartaz was not obliged to follow that discussion. There is no policy which could enforce it. If any admin would like to comment on the closure then they can do it here. D4iNa4 (talk) 08:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
D4iNa4, I do not mean to imply that Spartaz was obliged to have followed that discussion, or that they mis-stepped by having closed it without input from others - it just seems like a way forward that people from differing positions might be able to get behind. In terms of policy, surely 'Overturn' and 'Relist' would allow for this to take place? GirthSummit (blether)08:59, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, per my !vote at AfD. A difficult debate to parse, but I think the correct result: nobody managed to rebut the central argument for deletion, which is that this is a POV fork that gives undue weight to a racist trope. Guy (help!) 09:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
User:JzG - please could you look at this again? The DRV is to review the close, not the debate itself. You say that the POV fork argument wasn't rebutted, but it was, perhaps in most detail by the IP 2600:1004:B11C:DD81:9097:4C1A:1A0B:AEA5, who looked into what POV fork actually says, and the nominator Sirfurboy agreed that their rebuttal had merit. I would say it's at best "no consensus" on the POV fork question, isn't it? I'm asking for your opinion as an impartial admin, not as someone who supported the deletion. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 09:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
JzG/Guy, yes, a number of editors rebutted the central augment including me when I wrote: "Unfortunately, it seems that much of the argument in favor of deleting this article is motivated by a sort of ideological science denialism. When you have two or more populations of humans that have bred largely independently of one another for thousands of years, the chances that those two groups will have same mean and distribution of cognitive/psychological traits is vanishly small. A similar dynamic is obvious and non-controversial to most people when it comes human psychological traits or any traits when applied any sort of non-human life forms. But the human brain has not been except from the same general forces of evolution. The subject of this article is area an of legitimate scientific investigation." The real POV push here is the trope you and some others have advanced, that any investigation or regard for this topic is synonymous with racism. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:32, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody rebutted the central argument that no connection between race and intelligence exists. There are almost no populations of humans that have bred independently for the amount of time necessary for significant genetic differences to emerge. Homo sapiens is one of the most genetically homogeneous species on the planet, and is more homogeneous now than it was thousands of years ago. The idea that two populations from the same species have statistically significant different means and variances of any measure of cognitive/psychological traits is laughable. Any differences in samples will down to random chance, and it's only the racists who have been pushing the view that differences exist. --RexxS (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is an argument why we should have this article, not an argument for deletion. The article contains your argument, and much more. --mfb (talk) 22:14, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What would be the reason for deletion? I interpreted RexxS' comment as "there is nothing to see here, we don't need an article". But the topic is notable, as the countless papers, news articles and so on show. Even the attention the deletion discussion got, and RexxS' concern that some argument wouldn't get enough attention, shows how relevant the topic is and how important it is to have an article about it. As long as enough people talk about it it is notable independent of what is right and wrong. Vaccines and autism, Homeopathy, Moon landing conspiracy theories, ... --mfb (talk) 23:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) @Jweiss11: What I don't need is another of your primary studies - especially not one that doesn't even address the point. I thought we were talking about "cognitive/psychological traits" not hip-to-waist ratio. You don't have a shred of credible evidence for your contention that measurable differences in intelligence exist between races. It's obvious that such a complex phenotype hasn't differentiated between populations in the short span of time that modern humans have existed. Here's one conclusion of a modern review among many: Research has found no significant genetic determination of race differences in IQ. Explain why the article doesn't start with that, instead of the pandering to the neo-racist speculations that the current lead provides. --RexxS (talk) 00:38, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@RexxS: The article that you linked does not represent the scientific consensus. A leading behavioral geneticist, James J. Lee, writes "the absence of decisive evidence favoring a genetic contribution does not entail the truth of a hypothesis attributing the entirety of the differences to environmental causes. In my view the evidence in its totality does not support either of these hypotheses clearly enough to bring closure to this contentious issue." The article you've linked is evidently not written by a geneticist and contains some non-sequiturs. For example, he writes, " Given so many genes determining IQ differences, and the fact that each of the implicated genes contributes so little, it seems unlikely that a large race difference in IQ could arise from the tiny DNA difference of only a 0.01%." Differences in traits between populations cannot be ruled out because of the number of variants that contribute to the trait. Moreover, his section on admixture is now outdated, with some recent results supporting the Jensen view. --Nstein86 — Nstein86 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
@Nstein86: The review I quoted does represent the scientific consensus. Just take a look at the references in Scientific racism and what we state in Wikipedia's voice: "Scientific racism employs anthropology (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, that might be asserted to be superior or inferior." This is what UNESCO says in its constitution"a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races". Your "leading geneticist" James J. Lee doesn't even have a mention in Wikipedia, let alone an article. You're citing a book review that he wrote criticising Nisbett, and you think that represents the scientific consensus? Ludicrous. You think you're equipped to dispute Andrew Coleman's peer-reviewed paper? Coleman is Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society whose published works have 2853 citations. And your credentials are? Your determination that differences cannot be ruled out is pure speculation and not supported by the modern mainstream view. --RexxS (talk) 16:14, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@RexxS: [James J. Lee] has 6272 citations and is an actual behavioral geneticist, . So I win this round of appeals to authority :) Nstein86
Yer, but Lee isn't disputing Coleman: you are, and you are not competent to make your amateur analysis of Coleman's work. Race is not a genetic phenomenon; it's a social construct. I think you'll find that a psychologist is far more competent to judge sociological issues than a biologist. --RexxS (talk) 16:48, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Of course he's disputing Colman (well, he's not in conversation with Colman, who has no knowledge of genetics or behavioral genetics): Colman is saying the evidence demonstrates there are no differences in intelligence between population due to genetics, and in addition we have a priori reason to believe there can be no major differences in intelligence due to genetics. Lee has reviewed the evidence and says the jury is still out. This is basic reading comprehension. I am also more competent than Colman to assess the claim that "Given so many genes determining IQ differences, and the fact that each of the implicated genes contributes so little, it seems unlikely that a large race difference in IQ could arise from the tiny DNA difference of only a 0.01%." This quote shows that he doesn't have even basic knowledge of complex traits and is unfit as a source to guide you on this matter. Nstein86
Of course he's not disputing Colman. Lee does not address Colman's work: you did. You're the one who is deluding yourself into thinking you can analyse a published author's peer-reviewed work. Come back when you have a clue about WP:PSTS. You are totally incompetent to assess Colman's conclusion "Given so many genes determining IQ differences, and the fact that each of the implicated genes contributes so little, it seems unlikely that a large race difference in IQ could arise from the tiny DNA difference of only a 0.01%." You have merely shown that you have no idea about Wikipedia's policies on original research and that your entire contributions to this thread amount to little more than trolling. --RexxS (talk) 18:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You are unhinged. I hope the resources I've linked to can be useful to others. Nstein86
Dlthewave is the one saying your vote should be discounted because you have not been here long, in case you are wondering. His edit's timestamp would be a little bit before my this edit if you want to check the history. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn I did not participate in the discussion, but I have 2 points. First, I agree with Peregrene Fisher than X can't be a POV Fork of History of X, because the second naturally follows from the first. Imagine saying that Basketball is a POV Fork of History of Basketball. Second, even disregarding the first point I find no consensus to be the clear consensus. On a final note, I agree that the article has racist fallacies, but these can be clearly documented in the article. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Per the AfD, this is an article of the form "X and Y" where there is no credible evidence of a link between X and Y, and where we already discuss the attempts to pretend there is in another article. Guy (help!) 09:34, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, this is simply a false assertion on your part. There is abundant, credible evidence that at least a correlation exists between race and intelligence (in terms of means and distributions of large groups of people). I think an inability or an unwillingness by many to acknowledge this fact is the principal reason why were are in this mess. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:38, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen no credible scientific definition of either race or intelligence, so how do you manage to come up with one for a correlation between race and intelligence? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jweiss11: that is patent nonsense that you're spouting, and dangerously close to racism. There is absolutely no credible evidence that any sort of link, correlation or association exists between race and intelligence, and you've failed consistently to support your stance with a single modern reliable source. The reason we're in any sort of mess is that you and others have been pushing that myth to the detriment of the encyclopedia. We should not stand by and allow disinformation to be spread like that. --RexxS (talk) 00:44, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm damned sure you're confused. The paper was published in 2013, so you're looking at the wrong conference. Nevertheless here's what New Statesman reported in 2018:
The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field. Yet Richard Lynn, who has called for the “phasing out” of the “populations of incompetent cultures”, serves on the editorial board of Intelligence, along with fellow director of the Pioneer Fund Gerhard Meisenberg, who edits Lynn’s journal Mankind Quarterly. Two other board members are Heiner Rindermann and Jan te Nijenhuis, frequent contributors to Mankind Quarterly and the London Conference on Intelligence. Rindermann, James Thompson, Michael Woodley of Menie and Aurelio Figueredo, all heavily implicated in the London Conference on Intelligence, helped to organise recent ISIR conferences. Linda Gottfredson, a Pioneer Fund grantee and former president of the ISIR, famously authored a letter in the Wall Street Journal defending Charles Murray’s assertion that black people are genetically disposed to an average IQ of “around 85”, compared to 100 for whites.
You're arguing in circles. The people you quote are highly controversial because of their publications on race and IQ, so dismissing out of hand the evidence of race/IQ gaps because they're controversial is a bit silly. However you may find Achievement gaps in the United States relevant. Nstein86
The people I quote are controversial because they advocate racist views that are unsupported by the mainstream view. Pretending that you can identify a group of people taking IQ tests with a race, and then claiming that one race has inferior intelligence to another has been the bread-and-butter of racists throughout history. Research has found no significant genetic determination of race differences in IQ does the dismissal without my help. No I don't find Achievement gaps in the United States to be relevant to the issue of race and intelligence. That article confirms my belief that children of rich parents achieve more academically than poor kids who don't even get a square meal each day. It's a good indicator of how important the environment is in academic performance, but does nothing to bolster your mistaken belief that one race has inherently greater intelligence than another. --RexxS (talk) 19:18, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(redent a bit) This is the kind of conversation we need to be having on the non deleted articles talk page. Anything that doesn't meet RS should be removed. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:18, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS, you're being hostile and your threat here is way out of line. I merely quoting sources presumed to be reliable because they're been in the article for some time. I didn't put any of them there. Is Hunt, Earl (2010). Human Intelligence. Cambridge University Press unreliable? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:24, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's really disingenuous. The source is used in the article to illustrate that those mistaken beliefs exist, and you are now attempting to say that it proves they are true. They are advocating a fringe theory in violation of WP:UNDUE, and once more this shows how the current article can be used to legitimise racist views. Let me be clear: I don't know you and I have no hostility to you personally. I am hostile to the views you're promoting, and I will make sure that such disinformation is called out whenever it rears its ugly head. --RexxS (talk) 16:41, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
JzG (talk·contribs), perhaps a better analogy would have been Vaccines and autism. It wouldn't make sense to have an article talking about the history without first identifying the controversy. We should approach the race and intelligence article the same way - The vaccine article opens "Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism[1] has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise,[1][2][3] and that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism." It would make sense to open the race and intelligence article much the same. Mr Ernie (talk) 11:04, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus; arguments on both sides of the discussion were well-made and neither side prevails for me. Stifle's non-admin account (talk) 09:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and reclose by somebody else. I withhold judgment about whether the closure was correct on the merits; it may have been or it may have not been. But a discussion this long and complex, in a contentious topic area with active arbitration remedies, merits a more thorough evaluation of the opinions given, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
The closer(s) should make a headcount, summarize the arguments for and against deletion, explain which arguments are particularly strong or weak in the light of relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and then explain why, on this basis, there is or isn't rough consensus to delete. Only a closing statement of this kind could then allow DRV to properly scrutinize the closer's reasoning.
As it is, the closing statement makes reference to only one argument advanced in the discussion. This makes it difficult for us to determine whether the closer properly analyzed the discussion or just gave preference to an argument they personally agree with most.
The fact that the closer referred to the "inevitable DRV" indicates that might have been aware of the shortcomings of their closing statement. Closers should not expect DRV to solve complicated XfDs for them. Rather, they should attempt to close XfDs so convincingly that no review is sought, or that no DRV could succeed in overturning the closure. (Expanded, Sandstein 10:21, 12 February 2020 (UTC))[reply]
Speedy overturn and relist and then to be closed properly, with thorough analysis of the arguments. The sense I get from the closer's rather unusual closing statement is that they are attempting to hand the final decision on this AfD off to DRV, rather than closing it in the usual fashion. No detailed analysis of the discussion was offered, other than a glib one-liner "The argument that this.article is a POVFORK is clearly the consensus of this discussion" - which even those endorsing the close accept it wide of the mark. (There might be a rough consensus that it's a POV fork but the consensus, if any, on that point is very very far from "clear"). This sort of close, handing off the decision and responsibility for the decision to DRV, rather than by admin-close, is not how Wikipedia works and it is not how Wikipedia should work. As Sandstein says, DRV needs an admin's decision to analyse, it is not here to make the decision itself. — Amakuru (talk) 10:19, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Changing !vote to overturn to no consensus. The more I look at this, the more I think it's very clear that there was absolutely no consensus in the discussion at all. It's actually not even close to a consensus to keep or a consensus to delete. Both sides make completely valid points, most of the assertions were open to debate and interpretation and refutation, and frankly there is no conceivable way to close it any other way than no consensus. Per DGG below, who sums up the matter well, applying a panel to this show isn't actually going to help. Even though "no consensus" isn't the same as "consensus to keep", the outcome is the same, so "keep" !voters may end up happier, but that's the way WP works, and I think both the original close and suggestions that a TNT is self-evidently needed fail to fairly sum up the debate that took place. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 18:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and reclose by somebody else. Regardless of the final decision, this was not the right way to close this AfD. There was no "consensus" to delete (even the count was circa. 30 Keep versus 25 Delete; and got more Keep as the AfD developed). There was also no "consensus" for the close action taken, even amongst deletes. The policy argument is also is against the close (e.g. X is not a fork of history of X), and the topic is notable (per quantity of academic papers specifically on the topic). "Boldly closing" a huge – split !vote – AfD as delete, on the basis that it can be debated at DRV, is also inappropriate, as there will be an inevitable further split !vote at DRV that locks-in the bold close. The issue here is that while the subject is notable, the article is very problematic, and probably falls under the rare, but legitimate use, of WP:TNT for such cases. We have lots of very poor articles on notable subjects that are kept in AfD under NOTCLEANUP, however, this is a VERY sensitive topic, and I have a lot of sympathy for the outcome advocated by the closer of deleting it, and redirecting until somebody can write a proper one. Britishfinance (talk) 10:35, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, per my !vote at AfD. Regarding 30 Keep versus 25 Delete; and got more Keep as the AfD developed, during the AfD editors noticed 4 instances of off-wiki canvassing in support of keep, and at the same time (5 Feb) a huge spike in pageviews for the AfD and a sudden dramatic increase in the proportion of keep votes. There is no doubt that on the Internet generally there is much support for the fringe view that some races are genetically inferior to others, and so off-wiki involvement can especially skew the process on an article like this one. NightHeron (talk) 12:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
From reviewing the AfD !votes, there are plenty of experienced editors on both sides of the debate. We are all familiar with "canvassed AfDs" for "youtube stars" (that have zero GNG), that attract lots of IPs/SPAs. That was a much more limited effect here. It wouldn't alter the fact that from a participation perspective, there was "no consensus".
However, I do think that while "classical policy" would support the article (e.g. notable topic, not a fork, AfD not cleanup etc.), the article has problematic writing in a highly sensitive area. Some editors asked if we would have an article on Gender and intelligence, which we do in Sex differences in intelligence, but it is acceptable as it is a much more tightly written and specific article, rather than Race and intelligence, which feels like an essay/POV, and thus problematic (and per my TNT point above). Britishfinance (talk) 12:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion reached a different conclusion from several previous ones, and personally my sense is that the Wikipedia community hasn't reached cloture in this matter. I would suggest that the AfD route has failed, and we might benefit from referring to a more expansive debate format such as RFC instead. This isn't an "endorse" or "overturn", it's a recommendation to leave Spartaz's close undisturbed while we try something else.—S MarshallT/C13:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(Later) The sheer length of these discussions makes them singularly hard to close. I do still urge the closers of this debate to consider punting the whole matter to RFC, where it can be divided into its various component parts, each of which the community can dissect in a more structured way. This free-form rambling isn't reaching an intelligible and coherent conclusion.—S MarshallT/C17:56, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If anything was clear it was that there wasn't any consensus. However, I am more sympathetic than some here to the closer's remark about DRV. I don't think they mean that the closer needn't take their close too seriously because DRV can handle things. Rather, it reads to me that the closer is ruefully acknowledging that whatever their close – keep, delete or no consensus – someone will take the matter to DRV. Thincat (talk) 13:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn The close rationale reads like a WP:SUPERVOTE as it does not seem particularly connected to any reading of the breadth of the comments. At best, it cherry picks only those comments that agree with the closer. --Jayron3213:40, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to no consensus I disagree with the closer's reading of consensus. A team closure would have been better, but I believe no consensus would be the proper result regardless of who closed it. And yes, I participated in the AfD. Lepricavark (talk) 13:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and reclose by somebody else per Sandstein and others. I'm in favor of deletion, but this closing statement is far too brief and doesn't demonstrate that the closer weighed all arguments against policy and other factors such as possible off-site canvassing and IP hoppers. –dlthewave☎13:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To elaborate, it would be a massive process failure if the outcome of this discussion was "overturn as Keep because the closer didn't write a good enough closing statement". Nobody is explicitly making this argument, but it could be an unintended outcome. Closers don't need to fully explain their rationale although in this case I think we need a better explanation in order to fully assess the validity of the close. Jo-Jo's draft statement looks good to me. –dlthewave☎20:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Anyhow, while I agree with Sandstein and Amakuru that closing an AFD as "delete" and then putting it on hold is not a good idea as it leaves the article in a limbo with no clear conclusion, I am going to go by what I was planning to propose as part of a team close and thus endorse deletion (and not redirect). Crucially, and contrary to what some keeps in the AFD/overturns in this discussion assert, neither Wikipedia:Content forking nor Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion §5 imply that the first article on a subject cannot be a fork and this was pointed out during the AFD. If "it's the first article thus it can't be a fork" was policy, a "no consensus" close would have been warranted indeed.
Overturn (edit conflict) I agree with others who are concerned that this closing doesn't do justice to the depth of discussion. This is a case where, even if the "delete" answer is the correct one, the process looks to have been short changed. That's not OK and for that reason alone it should be reverted and a more thorough closing analysis performed. I did not participate in the original discussion. Springee (talk) 14:28, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong overturn and reclose by someone else – I think this may be my first "strong" !vote at DRV. I did not comment in the AFD. Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can endorse this close. Putting aside the entire question of whether the page should or should not be deleted...
It had a {{closing}} tag! The closing tag was placed 10 Feb 10:09 by JJ. When Spartaz closed it the next day, the page had the usual big closing notice at the top. There was discussion at AN forming a panel, a closing tag was placed, and then someone else closes it with four sentences. How could you not notice the closing tag, and if you saw it, why would you close it anyway?
The close was "delete and redirect to History of the race and intelligence controversy". What the heck is "delete and redirect"? Put aside whether there was consensus to delete, or no consensus, or consensus to keep... one thing we can all agree on is that there was definitely not consensus to delete the page and recreate it as a redirect to a specific target. There was no consensus to redirect. There was definitely no consensus for a specific target. Very few editors talked about redirecting, and those that did, did not agree on a target. "Delete and redirect to [target]" is a supervote, and a very clear one if you ask me.
58 !votes and 160kb of text... and we're going to close it with four sentences–and I'm sorry to be pedantic but, four typo-laden sentences? Come on! That is such a dismissive slap in the face to the amount of time that was put in by 58 editors into this discussion. If you're going to close a 160kb-, 58-editor discussion, you really need to be writing a detailed closing rationale that fully addresses all major arguments put forward in the discussion. If you're not going to do that, at the very least take a moment to proofread your four-sentence supervote.
This close was a punt to DRV, which is wholly improper. It was basically, "I'm not even going to bother writing a close, let's just let DRV decide." That's extremely counterproductive. A thoughtful and "real" close, such as the one Jo-Jo posted on the talk page here, may very well have avoided a DRV altogether. If there were a DRV from such a close, it would make DRV participants' jobs a lot easier if there was a real close to analyze.
This close should be overturned, and re-closed. At AN, there was talk of a panel of admin to close, which is a great idea, and there were already two admins (BK and JJ) who volunteered, and they were looking for a third. Spartaz could be that third if everyone involved is on board with that (or someone else can be the third, or it can just be closed with a panel of two). Even if the close JJ posted on the talk page (which also has a delete result) were posted to the AFD to replace the existing close, that would be a huge improvement, and it would be very quick and easy to do since the close is already written (thanks JJ). (And if someone wants to, they can take the new close to DRV.) But this close is so poor it cannot stand, even if it has the "right" result. But I'm not commenting on the result, I'm just saying overturn because it was so far below what the minimum required close for this discussion should look like.
To all the comments about "heat" – it's the dismissiveness and the laziness that generates the heat. People feel better about disagreeing, and they feel better about not getting "their way"–meaning, consensus is stronger–when people feel like they've at least been taken seriously rather than ignored or dismissed out of hand. Levivich16:41, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and re-close by Jo-Jo Eumerus and co. This was already being closed. Closing it despite that is, I'm sorry to say, discourteous. This should be closed by the group of admins that was preparing to do so. That this close may be problematic in a number of other ways is less relevant to me at this time. El_C17:09, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and re-close by Jo-Jo Eumerus and, optionally, by a team.. Full disclosure: I am the original nominator, and do wish I could just endorse this closure, which I clearly think is right. Yet it is not enough that a decision be right. It must be seen to be just. Perhaps many will never agree that is so in this case, but a close statement that is carefully explained, showing how the admin has followed and concluded the result from the debate, should go some way to demonstrating that the process is fair and in the best interests of the project as a whole. I had no prior indication of Jo-Jo's thoughts on this topic but believe that they should be allowed to close based on the fact that they had begun the process, and spent over an hour reading the whole thread. Barkeep49 (talk·contribs) has also read the whole thread and either a team close or an admin close by Jo Jo, having discussed as appropriate with other admins would both be fair. I will make no other comment on the arguments - arguments are all in the thread. This discussion is merely about the fairness of the process. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 17:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist close was low effort, the closer did not even take time to read the whole page or he would have seen the plans for a multi-admin decision already in progress. The current discussion clearly looks like no consensus for me, so I would like to have it listed for discussion for another week. I tallied up all editors who made a boldfaced !vote. Among all editors there were 32 keep and 26 delete. People are correct though when they say that there were several canvassed SPA accounts that voted keep, but a very small percent of all editors who participated in the AfD came to it naturally (i.e. by browsing AfD listings) so its hard to say what distortions were going on. I tried to quantify this by making note of edit count when I collated !votes. This of course is very crude, but if we exclude users with low edit counts we can mostly remove outside people with low commitment to the project. Among editors with more than 10,000 edits there were 15 keep and 16 delete. Either way it reads like no consensus to me. (see spreadsheet) Antrocent (♫♬) 17:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and close by Jo-Jo et. al It was abundantly clear that any close would need to be ironclad...which was why Jo-Jo was assembling a team of closing admins, as evidenced at AN and on the page itself! Spartaz's close was far too short, didn't explain adequately, and looks like a WP:SUPERVOTE. Combined with being full of grammatical errors, and assuming, defeatedly, that the article was heading for DRV anyway, it is a close that lacks teeth. I think Spartaz created a self fulfilling prophecy: by not putting in the proper time to a close, and just assuming it would go to DRV, voila! it sure did end up at DRV. But if it had been closed, as was the original plan, by a team of admins, then we wouldn't have needed to head to DRV. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓18:21, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I voted keep in the AFD, so I won't vote again. Instead, I'll ask a question: if the discussion is re-closed by Jo-Jo Eumerus, does that amount to the same thing as upholding the decision to delete, except with a different closure summary? Jo-Jo Eumerus has already stated in his comment above that his intention is to uphold the decision to delete. I understand everyone's desire for the correct process to be followed, but it seems somewhat pointless if it is a foregone conclusion that the outcome will stay the same. For the reason explained by Antrocent, I think a "no consensus" close is the correct decision here, along with possibly relisting it. 2600:1004:B15B:2EA6:B81C:E7DF:7B3C:DB13 (talk) 19:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Phil, for a number of years there was only one article, Race and intelligence. History of the race and intelligence controversy was developed in 2010 as a sub-topical expansion. "Race and intelligence" should cover more or less everything about the topic that is outside the controversy, namely the straightforward investigation and evidence of these group differences, and theories and investigations into environmental and genetic forces driving them (sections 3, 4, and 5 of "Race and intelligence"). Unfortunately, many editors will conflate that entirely with Scientific racism. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By that reasoning, there clearly should not be an article titled Race and intelligence. There are no "group differences" to investigate, much less any test "groups" that can be shown to correlate with the social construct of "race". Once the modern mainstream scientific view is accepted, we can completely reject the attempt to give credence to the discredited myth that a connection exists between race and intelligence. --RexxS (talk) 20:33, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS, it doesn't serve anyone or this project well to advance that sort of denalist argument. That sort of denialism is the main reason we are here in this mess. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The accusation of "denialism" against User:RexxS and other editors by the OP of this DRV is deeply troubling, because it shows the frame of mind that seems to be behind the passionate desire to keep the article and overturn the delete closure. The term "denialism" (as in climate change denialism or Holocaust denialism) is used for a fringe view. But RexxS is correct that the modern mainstream scientific consensus is that there are no intelligence differences between races. To call that a fringe view is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that some races are genetically inferior to others that is the fringe view, which is covered in a WP:FRINGE-compliant way in the articles Scientific racism and History of the race and intelligence controversy. NightHeron (talk) 23:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The denialism of human biology (which has been summarized as blank slate mythology by Steven Pinker and others) that you see largely on the political left is rather analogous to the climate change denialism you see largely on the political right. Wikipedia gets the later correct. What we are seeing in this episode is more or less a litmus test of this community's own bias. Let's hope it doesn't get the better of us. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:59, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
NightHeron and RexxS are promoting the fringe theory that science sees no difference in IQ between races. Let's be clear here— there is complete consensus amongst scientists that the differences in IQ are real, as the data has been produced in hundreds of studies, over hundreds of years. It so mainstream that it is taught in Psychology textbooks such as Earl Hunt's Human Intelligence, and Nicholas Mackintosh's IQ and Human Intelligence. The only controversy in science is about whether the cause of the difference is nature or nurture. The theory that there is no difference is willfully ignoring hundreds of reliable sources citing hundreds of studies, and is entirely WP:FRINGE. It does not belong here. --Toomim (talk) 10:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Toomim That's pure fiction and typical of the misinformation that is spread by racists. The fringe theory is scientific racism, that is the "pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority. It is typical of the sort of closet racism to point out that groups of people perform differently on IQ tests. The place where it deviates from mainstream science is when you decide without any justification that you can classify a study group as representative of a race, and you pretend that performance on a particular IQ test is a perfect predictor of intelligence – without any consideration of all the confounding factors. Using your methodology, a researcher could apply an IQ test in English to two groups, one who spoke English and one who didn't, and because the English-speaking group naturally did better, then declare that people who spoke English were more intelligent than those who don't. That's the sort of lie that you're promoting. --RexxS (talk) 17:06, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS, you aren't even following the logic of this argument. If you want to comment on this issue you'll need to distinguish between the scientific consensus that there are group differences between self-reported races on IQ scores and attempts at racial discrimination or racial superiority. The first is just data. There's tons of data. It's extremely robust and reliable. It's been developed over centuries. You simply can't argue against it, without finding new data-- and you'll need mountains of it. That is like arguing global warming doesn't exist. Thus far in the debate, you and NightHeron have failed to show an ability to distinguish between data and theory. That's the distinction between reality and your own POV. And now you're trying to censor the data, gathered from real experiments, because you can't distinguish it from a POV.
As for your unrelated claim on racial bias in IQ testing -- perhaps you're not aware of the science on this issue. This claim has been examined in-depth, and many scientists who believed that the difference in IQ scores could be explained by test bias tried to prove it by designing reverse-biased tests, where e.g. blacks would perform better than whites. But they failed. No scientist has been able to come up with a reverse-bias test. And as for your specific example of the English language -- the actual data shows that blacks perform better on verbal skills; not worse. And the data shows they perform better on American cultural tests; not worse.
But since you are ignoring the data, and trying to censor it, you remain in ignorance, and make these WP:FRINGE claims to hide the data that challenges your POV. That is classic science denialism. Toomim (talk) 21:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Toomim, you're attempting to do the usual trick of looking at data and imposing your own interpretations on it. Data shows nothing; it's the interpretations of the data that produce conclusions. Here's the logic you're proposing: there is data that shows some people do less well on IQ tests than others; so if the ones doing less well are assigned to a particular race, the conclusion can be drawn that a given race has inherently inferior intelligence. Feel free to deny that's what you're suggesting. Or even better, give a concrete example of this robust and reliable data that shows a difference in IQ scores between races and we'll all be able to see what a house of cards you build your POV on.
We all agree there's tons of data, and some real conclusions can be drawn from it: rich kids achieve more academically than poor kids, for example – cast-iron and incontrovertible. But we don't feel the need to have an article on Wealth and intelligence, nor seek to find the gene that differentiates the rich from the poor. And that's exactly analogous to what you're arguing for here. You simply want to give oxygen to the myth that blacks have less intelligence than whites. Again feel free to explain your position on that myth if it's different from what I've stated. After all, there are only three choices: (1) blacks have less intelligence than whites; (2) blacks have the same intelligence than whites; (3) blacks have more intelligence than whites. Which one of the three are you claiming is the mainstream scientific view? Or do you want to duck the question and tell us that you don't know what the mainstream scientific view is? --RexxS (talk) 22:39, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close the closer correctly interpreted the strength of the arguments in the AfD debate, and closed it within the range of their admin discretion. They were quite entitled to give much less weight to arguments that mistakenly insisted that meeting GNG meant that the article had to exist. They were also entitled to give more weight to the arguments that whatever content could legitimately be placed in an article titled "Race and intelligence" was already present in other, related articles. Those asking for the close to be overturned need to show that the delete arguments were refuted, and that the closer did not see that. I do not believe that either of those happened. --RexxS (talk) 20:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious Overturn Per the majority of editors here as well as Levivich. Also it is good to remember just because you agree with the outcome does not mean it was a well reasoned close. PackMecEng (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If the outcome of this DRV is overturn the close in some way I would continue to be willing to be part of a group close (with Jo-Jo or others). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and close as no consensus. First of all, there was no consensus to delete. Second, the closer said the problem was POVFORK. However, the article under AfD is several times bigger than article History of the race and intelligence controversy where it suppose to be redirected. If the content should be merged on one page, a much better course of action would be to start a "merge" discussion on the page. Third, the previous discussion was clear "keep" [3]. What has changed? The only thing that has changed was the internet being extensively used for various propaganda and disinformation (as several people noticed during the AfD). This is not a valid reason for deleting the page. Finally, looking at the draft of closing by Jo-Jo, it tells: "On balance, it looks like we have a consensus that the topic is notable and that being contentious isn't a reason for deletion ... but it's not clear if it should be covered at Race and intelligence or in the various sub-articles mentioned w/o a central race and intelligence article.". Well, covering a subject without having a central page on the subject is ridiculousMy very best wishes (talk) 23:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and reclose with a team of three admins, not including the previous closer. The close was clearly very hastily done and did not address many of the points made. While there were keeps from SPAs, some delete votes were dubious political arguments (even though it is better to show that RS do not agree with racists' claims) and irrelevant claims that the title is POV. Crossroads-talk-00:47, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. It's clear there was no consensus. This was a classic example of a supervote. I don't see any point in reclosing by a team (has this ever been done at AfD--it's needed sometimes at AfC, because there's not standard review mechanism of a close, but it is not needed at AfD because that's exactly what this Del Rev procedure is for, because we can just as well clarify right here that it was non-consensus. DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Deciding the close here would be rewarding the "punt to DRV". I think it would encourage other admin in the future to do the same thing (write a close guaranteed to be brought to DRV) in similar circumstances (a contentious discussion they think will be brought to DRV anyway). Rewarding undesirable behavior reinforces it. Levivich04:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich, why would a closing admin want to "punt to DRV". No admin is compelled to close any particular XfD, correct? Why would they volunteer only to punt? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW when I saw Jo-Jo's initial post at AN my reaction was "a closing panel for AfD seems like a bad precedent". Then I read the discussion and it has far more in common, in my opinion, with a really knotty RfC where panel closes are done but are not required, than with even contincious AfDs. The discussion convinced me that Jo-Jo was right and a panel close would be best for the encyclopedia and is why I then volunteered. But I agree with you that this should not be the norm even for well attended contincious AfDs. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, let's scrap this panel idea. They've been tried a few times, and the only one that's really worked quite well is Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request, where the panel spent a good chunk of time talking to each other off-wiki, and came to a conclusion that they could all jointly sign off. I don't see that happening here, the participants being talked about for the panel have already been far too involved in the matter, including Jo Jo who's already made up their mind and posted a "decision" before the panel is even convened, and without any discussion with their fellow panelists. That's no way to approach such a thing. As DGG says, and per my amended !vote above, the discussion didn't reach a consensus and it's time to move on. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 18:14, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm clearly with DGG on a overturn to no consensus here and now and let's all be done with it. Jo-Jo Eumerus has already filed a draft of his close on the talk page here, and while he clearly put more thought and effort into it than Spartaz did with his, ultimately his close delivers the same unsatisfactory result that fails to properly assess the consensus (or lack thereof) in the AfD in favor of his own supervote. If Jo-Jo Eumeru had closed instead of Spartaz, I still would have initiated this appeal. Also, since we are thinking about precedents, is there a limit to number of times a particular XfD can be appealed? Are second appeals frowned upon or considered to be Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass? Because we could be engineering a sort of moral hazard here, whereby a hasty or poorly-formed close could be issued to burn up the first appeal, only to be replaced with a more thoughtful second close that delivers the same result. I'm not suggesting that that sort of strategy was employed here, but thinking about precedents, that's something to consider for down the road. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You do realise that an overturn to 'no consensus' would result in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and intelligence (5th nomination) very soon after, don't you? There's no prospect of a 'no consensus' close resulting in "let's all be done with it". Incidentally, a DRV is not the appeal against the decision you think it is. A DRV is a request for an uninvolved admin to assess whether the AfD was closed properly, and all the re-litigating of the original AfD has no bearing on that whatsoever. --RexxS (talk) 22:56, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS, I understand what the DRV is. It's an appeal/review of the AfD's close, which was obviously wrong. When I said "let's all be done with it", I was referring to this deletion episode. I was not suggesting it would be an end the controversy around this article nor the end of AfDs for it. If we need to do AfD #5, then so be it. If it happens soon, I see no reason to believe it won't result in another no-consensus (if properly closed). Jweiss11 (talk) 02:50, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and close by Jo-Jo et. al I argued for deletion in the previous discussion. The rather bewildering closing statement cannot be very satisfactory to anyone, whatever you think of the decision. Agree with Levivich on this one. Ewulp (talk) 03:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse per Jo-Jo Eumerus. (I participated in the AfD.) The closure here was clearly suboptimal from a procedural standpoint. But it reached the only viable conclusion (AfD is not a vote, etc., and [remainder of sentence removed]). There's no point in creating additional work for the sake of mere formalities. -- Visviva (talk) 18:00, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It hadn't occurred to me that simply calling the reader's attention to your comments would be interpreted as a personal attack, but I did not intend to create a distraction. I cheerfully withdraw the characterization. Henceforth I shall endeavor to keep in mind that your comments do not speak for themselves. -- Visviva (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It was not your calling of attention to my comments that I have a problem with. It was your malicious mischaracterization of my advocacy for honoring facts, reliable sources, and logical coherency as evidence that I'm a racist. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:26, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I hope the closer(s) will clearly explain why the arguments against this being a WP:POVFORK did not apply. According to the project page POV forks are created to avoid engaging with the opposing POV, which is clearly not the case here. Also, I hope for a better explanation about why the fact that this article was created first does not apply. WP:POVFORK reads: "another version of the article [...] is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first". If anything Scientific Racism is the clear WP:POVFORK here: it was later in time, its title clearly assumes the conclusion and it does not engage the opposing viewpoint. 165.225.64.74 (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2020 (UTC) (anonymous since there is a lot of accusations about racism here, which I expect to heavily influence how many and which people contribute. I hesitated a long time before deciding on leaving a comment).[reply]
Comment: inasmuch as various participants here have pointed to the numeric totals as evidence of dissensus, it's worth pointing to the proverbial elephant here. Intentionally or otherwise, Wikipedia in general and AfD in particular has provided a safe space for white supremacists for a very long time, with predictable consequences for the makeup of the community. In the interest of not creating further distractions, I'll refrain from citing specific examples here; I'm sure we've all seen these processes at work many times over. Any effort to use the raw numbers as a proxy for consensus/dissensus (a questionable enterprise at the best of times) must take that background into consideration. I think the actual closure, as well as the draft team closure, dealt with this issue appropriately. -- Visviva (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think I should also say that I have no objection to it being closed by someone else, unfortunately Jo-Jo Eumerus has already made clear their position, therefore any closure by Jo-Jo or a team with Jo-Jo in it can be seen as prejudicial, therefore the closure would be best done by a team without Jo-Jo if that is to be route taken. Hzh (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And I believe that as Jo Jo was undertaking the close at the time, had expended the effort and was willing to submit his analysis thus far constructed to a team, that the only case for a re-close is if Jo Jo carries it out. If Jo Jo does not carry it out, then it is of note that the closer thought this was a delete, and that you are opposing Jo Jo because you believe Jo Jo is minded to view this as a delete. If Jo Jo does not reclose this, I would say this is a clear case for endorsing the close, as two admins would then be deemed to have found a case to delete, independently of each other. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really sure if I follow your argument. Anyway, the point is that someone else ignored Jo-Jo stated intent to close the argument, and did it in an unsatisfactory manner that warrant being overturned. Some people are arguing that it should be re-closed by Jo-Jo, the problem is that Jo-Jo had already stated their intent, whether the intent is to delete or keep is no longer relevant, because it's it being already revealed that is the problem, you can't really ask someone to act as an impartial arbiter when their intent is already known. It's not Jo-Jo's fault that it happened, but it did. Hzh (talk) 12:57, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But the result is not already known, as we do not know what the team will discuss. Yet, if you are adamant that Jo Jo cannot close this, then my view would necessarily have to move from "overturn" to "endorse" based on Jo Jo's stated rationale alone. This would be based on the fact that we now have clear evidence that two admins believe delete was correct, and that further gerrymandering of the close team looks remarkably like an attempt to keep objecting until you can find an admin that agrees to keep the article. This comment is not just directed at you. Two other editors have spoken elsewhere of their desire to exclude Jo Jo (who, I repeat, was already carrying out the close), simply because Jo Jo made a statement that we requested. To my mind it has to be Jo Jo or else there is simply no case to overturn. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:30, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you understand what I said, which is that any admin, however many there are, who have already stated their intention, then they should not close or assess any closure be it individually or as part of a team. You cannot use anyone with a declared intention to keep or delete to be an impartial judge. This is true whether they want to keep or delete and whatever the outcome maybe. If you want to characterise other people who have a different opinion from you as gerrymandering, then there is nothing further to discuss, and I should say nothing more apart from restating that my original opinion, which is to overturn to no consensus. Hzh (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and close by JJE and friends per El_C and friends. Yes, clear consensus that was POVFOLK, SR/M, and all that, but my concern is that Spartaz' action was out of process and would not have happened if Template:Closing had told admins "Unless you are Jo-Jo Eumerus do not close". ミラP00:00, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Overturn and close by JJE et al So the closing statement was suboptimal to put it mildly, and it shouldn't have happened because there was a group close in the works and ignoring the ongoing efforts of others was at the very least impolite, and the punt to DRV was completely unacceptable, and continueing to relitigate the AFD dispute here just rewards that kind of behavior which will encourage future similar action by others, and the best way to prevent that in the future is by requiring a reclose now and every other time it happens. Yet it pains me to say this, because I find JJEs draft closure convincing. We don't need anymore bureacracy than we already have, and this is just going to come right back here for another review with just as much acrimony. And yes it was always going to come to DRV regardless of the closing statement. I've always hated process for process sake when we know the outcome will be the same, yet in this case the negligence was such that a reclose is the appropriate action. 2604:2000:8FC0:4:68BA:3B32:8613:8B6D (talk) 04:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse or Overturn and close by JJE et al - I think either of these options are justified. Wikipedia is not censored, but is also not a dumping ground for inexpert analysis by Wikipedians of every study done on race and intelligence. Coverage has to be encyclopedic and based on reliable secondary sources with a NPOV. The original discussion was closed with the correct conclusion, though I agree the process was not properly carried out, hence my two positions above. I did not participate in the original discussion. Ganesha811 (talk) 04:40, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as no consensus per DGG. What was the purpose of the close if the closer states that it will not be enacted "until there is either a DRV or it is clear this close has been accepted"? That proviso is an admission that the closer knew such a perfunctory close could not stand on its own, either before the community or before a steward needed to perform the deletion. Why take on the responsibility of closing if you intend to immediately pass the buck? "Its seems pointless". Regardless, the reading of the discussion as forming a 'clear consensus' is wrong. Hrodvarsson (talk) 05:36, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse and salt or endorse and redirect to scientific racism. There's absolutely zero link between "race" and intelligence no matter how much a bunch of neo-Nazis want to feel superior to black people. There's no need to engage with a debunked racist theory, so scientific racism is a valid redirect target. EDIT to clarify, since people think my comment is directed to "overturn" voters: I'm not saying that people who want to keep this article / overturn the deletion are racists. I'm saying that this debunked theory is promoted by neo-Nazis, and we don't need to engage them in the slightest. (Ergo, concerns about presenting both sides are unnecessary, since we don't need to offer any of the pseudoscience that neo-Nazis try to use to argue that they are superior to black people other than to mention it and debunk it with real science.) Hence, delete or redirect are both valid outcomes. Reaper Eternal (talk) 06:02, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
even if this statement is a political opinion shared by all right-thinking people, I do not see how it is relevant in a deletion review. DGG ( talk ) 06:14, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Reaper has made a good comment. Instead of pretending in order to win a AfD/DRV, they are saying what they mean. Not many here have the b*lls to say whay they mean. I think "overturn" means your a racist, and "endorse" means your not in about 30 percent of people here. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:14, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I interpreted Reaper's comment to mean that we shouldn't engage with a debunked theory that is elsewhere promoted by neo-Nazis. I don't believe he was extending that label to anyone in this thread. Mind you, I don't agree with Reaper's stance, but I think we owe him the courtesy of interpreting his words as he intended them to be interpreted. Lepricavark (talk) 22:53, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think the source of the chaos in the AfD thread, now spilling over here, is that the formulation in the AfD nomination was defective for purposes of eliciting actionable views and consensus ----- and that because of that, having new judges carefully parse the conversation is fruitless and will not lead to a good decision (whichever it is). The Afd nom was long, confused and confusing. Instead of a few clear and well-understood grounds for deletion it put forth multiple intellectual ruminations that only made sense if you shared all of the proposer's assumptions. Theories included: that the word "and" in the title is inappropriate; that Everyone Knows it's impossible for there to be any correlation between the things in the title; a novel notion of "synthesized WP notability" based on this impossibility; that the whole article should be deleted (vs renaming) when the reasons given focused only the title; and more. Individually, none of the intellectualized arguments would have gained much traction by itself, indeed they seemed to lose traction as rebuttals were posted, and the arguments for deletion then kept mutating. But discussing the vagaries of those arguments diffused enormous time and energy that might have converged to a conclusion in a more focused AfD. The lone surviving mutation was "it's a POVFORK", not by conquering the opposition, but only in the sense that arguments about whether the article is a fork or not were stopped in the middle when AfD was closed. This somewhat explains the current state of things, but I don't see how putting a panel of new eyeballs on the same mess would accomplish anything. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 06:54, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As this is a criticism of my nomination, I shall answer: You were the second most prolific writer to the AfD thread, and fully one third of all your Wikipedia edits in total were to that thread. Despite this, you never mentioned that you were confused, nor that the nomination was confusing. You did say you thought it was misleading, but several editors answered that, and that is now a record in the discussion. AfD is not a vote, it is a discussion between editors. I think you had plenty of opportunity to challenge any confusion. At the time of closure, discussion had gone quiet for about 2 days. It does not appear to have been cut off in the middle at closure. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:19, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. All the arguments are in the AfD thread and can be reviewed there. The question for DRV is on process only. — Sirfurboy (talk) 09:40, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the aim of the question is not to re-argue the AfD but to point out that the nomination did not contain a specific WP deletion reason, only a cloud of vaguely deletionish rationales surrounded by philosophical argumentation. For example, not only was the current deletion reason POVFORK not mentioned, but you stated in a comment that the article is *not* a POVFORK... but is a (sort-of) content fork as you sort-of argued in the nomination (i.e., that it is similar enough to be a sort-of fork, and although the article has no apparent POV problem, it qualifies as some sort-of POV because of some philosophical or linguistic objections to putting the words Race and Intelligence near each other in the title. Or something). 73.149.246.232 (talk) 07:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In the AfD thread, opinions on the general structure of the nomination were less relevant than discussion of the particular arguments advanced for/against deletion, so I didn't pursue it. I did spend three words calling the arguments in the nomination "misleading" and "severely POV". Nobody (and certainly not "several editors") addressed the first characterization at all as far as I can tell, and opinions on the second correlated with opinions on deletion. The discussion had not gone quiet for two days, and the time spent on analysis of FORK had been mainly consumed by the questions of whether an earlier article can fork a later one, or a history-of-X can fork X. Those are, as several Delete voters argued, WP policy technicalities that are secondary to the question of whether the material in the article is inherently subsumed by the other articles, e.g., how much of the group differences stuff is there and how much more would fit there. The arguments and counterarguments about that were never explored much, probably due to 20 other things emanation from the aforementioned cloud having been argued to the point of exhaustion. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 07:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment 2 Seeing that History of the race and intelligence controversy has been raddled with missing references I discovered some of them in this article. I have therefore copied them over now(diff) in case this article is deleted. There are other referencing problems I can't resolve so I hope someone else sees to these. This all makes me deeply sceptical of the claim for the article's rigour (above) of the history article. Thincat (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse or recommend close per Jojo's rational - I am uninvolved here and I agree that this subject as a whole is a POVFORK of Scientific racism. Other than that, continued advocacy to keep the article while arguing endlessly on talk page every single day for more than a decade by some White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis also gives a bad taste in the mouth. Orientls (talk) 11:04, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure your POV makes sense, although in fairness I don’t watch list or edit in this area so could be missing something.... The controversial research into racial group and IQ showed that Jews and East Asians had the highest IQs while whites came out very average. Any evidence that any race, Jews in particular, are of superior intellect to whites is the exact opposite of the (anti-Semitic white supremacist) ideology of neo-Nazis and white supremacy and is a contradiction in terms, but anyway.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?18:33, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is because the aim of the bogus research was to show that those racial groups and their respected countries and communities are homogenous, that's why their IQ is high. The proponents and creators of the bogus report claim that Whites have very high IQ but average IQ is in decline due to mass immigration to their countries. For a name, Lynn's report include that Northern Spain has a very high IQ because of white people but Southern Spain has much lower IQ because of Africans and Arabians living there. This is why I said that this subject is nothing but a POVFORK of scientific racism used for advancing White Supremacist and Neo-Nazi agenda. Orientls (talk) 18:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Amazingly, white supremacists manage to use IQ scores to perpetuate harmful stereotypes against groups that score both higher and lower than themselves. –dlthewave☎22:21, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, and deleting race and intelligence article from Wikipedia will just remove this article from google and push curious interested people in the direction of white supremacy and other racist websites to seek out information on this subject matter.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?22:30, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed. If liberals and mainstream institutions like Wikipedia can't speak honestly about the how the constituents of various racial and ethnic groups score differently, on average, on IQ tests and other measures of intelligence, then the only people left to speak about it will be racists and right-wing fascists. And they will surely have that conversation for all us, loaded with all their distortions. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Literaturegeek (talk·contribs) deomonstrates one of the major problems of this article by saying "Any evidence that any race, Jews in particular, are of superior intellect to whites." NightHeron (talk·contribs) already refuted this in the AfD with multiple sources making the point that "that the consensus view among Jews is that Jews are not a race." The refutation was a direct response to this same claim from Literaturegeek there. Thus by repeating this here, we see demonstration that (1) their fuzzy definition of "race" allows equivocation in the article that appears unresolvable. Heritability of IQ is an important topic, but mixing it with talk of race just muddies the waters; (2) despite the refutation of a point we see it repeated again and again; and (3) some people seem to have mistaken a deletion review for an extension of the AfD. The question here is whether the close process was correct, not whether we can make new arguments - or repeat the same arguments - for keep/delete. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 23:38, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To add to Jweiss11's earlier point about how white supremacists will have this conversation if we don't, I should mention that white supremacists have already created a set of articles about race and intelligence at their own alternative to Wikipedia. I'm not going to post links to the articles, but you can find them if you look up "Race and intelligence" at Metapedia. That site's articles about race and intelligence are extremely one-sided, but I predict that if Wikipedia's article about race and intelligence is deleted, some people who want to read about this controversy will end up reading about it at Metapedia instead. By deleting the Wikipedia article, we would eliminate Metapedia's most important competitor in this area, and I think that's an outcome we should try very hard to avoid. 2600:1004:B15E:CAD3:5D7C:318E:D85D:4E77 (talk) 00:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sirfurboy. To the best of my knowledge NightHeron provided zero sources to back their position up. I informed NightHeron that claiming Jews are not a racial group could be considered very offensive to some Jews and to be anti-Semitic. NightHeron never replied to this. I think you are mistaken--Literaturegeek | T@1k?00:26, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Literaturegeek: Since you again are accusing me of making an anti-semitic comment, and you didn't read my reply to your earlier accusation made during the AfD (even though I pinged you), I have to reply to you again, hoping that this time you'll read it. Obviously none of this belongs in a Deletion Review, but I can't let such a scurrulous accusation go unanswered here. The following is the text of your accusation and my previous response (you can find the links to the 4 references in the AfD): NightHeron, actually your comment claiming Jews are not a race is one of the most anti-Semitic and offensive things someone can say about or to Jews. Although I am not suggesting you are anti Semitic, rather I think you are ill-informed of this subject matter. And Judaism and Jewish ancestry are not the same thing, although they heavily overlap, obviously.--Literaturegeek (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
@Literaturegeek: If you wish to become at least a little bit informed about issues of Jewish identity before you next express a strong opinion on the subject, that's not hard to do. A 1-minute Google search reveals many places that discuss this intelligently, such as: [1], [2], [3]. It's clear from the sources that the consensus view among Jews is that Jews are not a race. Moreover, many Jews consider the notion that Jews are a race to be dangerous, because it is a common view among white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, and other anti-semites. So no, I was not expressing an anti-semitic view when I said that Jews are not a race. Quite the contrary. NightHeron (talk) 15:39, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
From the publication "Confronting Anti-Semitism" of the Anti-Defamation League: "Today, anti-Semitism can be based on hatred against Jews because of their religious beliefs or their group membership (ethnicity), as well as the erroneous belief that Jews are a `race.'"[4]
The evidence on intelligence that shows "Jews" having a high mean is generally evidence about Ashkenazi Jews, a different ethnic group from the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. See also: Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Generally, the "flaw" in what you're calling "scientific racism" can became explained with straightforward mathematical logic. It can the case that Group A has a higher mean than group B on given trait, while at the same time a subgroup of B has a higher mean than a subgroup of A on the very same trait. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:33, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which evidence? "Tests conducted in the first two decades of the 20th century routinely showed Ashkenazi Jewish Americans scoring below average. For example, the IQ tests conducted on American soldiers during the first world war found Nordics scoring well above Jews. Carl Brigham, the Princeton professor who analysed the exam data, wrote: 'Our figures … would rather tend to disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent'. And yet, by the second world war, Jewish IQ scores were above average ... A similar pattern could be seen from studies of two generations of Mizrahi Jewish children in Israel: the older generation had a mean IQ of 92.8, the younger of 101.3." (source) Ewulp (talk) 03:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's cherry-picking of the evidence to disregard the early-20th-century scores and the Mizrahi scores. Pinker does this too in the linked article. The field of "race science" is rife with such sleight of hand. Ewulp (talk) 04:14, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mizrahi scores don't negate the Ashkenazi scores. And the more recent Ashkenazi scores that Pinker refers to are more robust than the WWI scores. It's also the case that environmental/cultural/educational factors influence an ethnic group's score over time (e.g. Ashkenazis in the US largely being poor immigrants circa WWI, but largely middle and upper-middle class a generation or two later). I'm seeing a recurring theme here from a number of the elocutionists. First they say there's no evidence. Then when you provide the evidence, the say it's racist BS. Blank-slate denialism is rife with this sort of tactic. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:09, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But I provided that evidence, remember? I quoted the article about the WWI and WWII IQ tests. And I'd like to know exactly what "evidence" you think I've denied. "Environmental/cultural/educational factors influence an ethnic group's score" – exactly, but the article under discussion is supposedly about "race and intelligence", not the well-known effects of education.. Ewulp (talk) 09:37, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
NightHeron, that is very weird, you formulated the ping correctly and I never got it, I even checked my list of notifications and it is not there (I never cleared them). I thought you had not replied as I checked, probably shortly before you did reply, and thought you had chosen not to respond. Anyhow, I apologise for not being more careful in how I worded things here and not checking more carefully into whether Jewish people regard themselves as a race, ethnic group etc. You are indeed correct that many Jews do not like to class themselves as a race for several reasons, although some do regard themselves as a race, it is controversial amongst Jews. Perhaps I confused race with ethnic group. Though there is controversy and debate amongst Jews about how to describe themselves. The Jerusalem Post says the following: “Jewish” was never a category for race in the US Census, Ostrer notes, even though genetic studies “would seem to refute this.... I will have to be more mindful about how I comment on this delicate subject matter, like I have said I am new to this topic area and certainly no expert, just an editor who saw a deletion discussion advertised on a wiki project page.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?08:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your apology. Please note that the article you cite from the Washington Post (which is one of the ones I cited before) does not say that whether or not Jews are a race is controversial among Jews. It says: "Ethnicity? Nationality? Faith? Culture? Heritage? Even Jews don’t agree on just what Judaism is." It does not list "race" as one of the alternatives. The article also explains why it doesn't make sense to classify Jews as a race. Another source I gave, from an official publication of the Anti-Defamation League (perhaps the leading organization in the US that campaigns against anti-semitism) specifies the erroneous belief that Jews are a race as a source of anti-semitism. I'm not familiar with Israeli sources, but I believe there are some Jews in Israel who interpret the Biblical concept of "Chosen People" as a justification for racial supremacist thinking and for the illegal settlements -- just as there are some anti-semites who also embrace the notion that Jews are a race. According to the Washington Post article you cite, "Early Americans commonly viewed Jews as a separate racial category...That perception became far rarer after the Nazis' racially motivated Holocaust." NightHeron (talk) 14:19, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article needs NPOV editors to edit against fringe extreme left and fringe racist right wing POV pushing in this subject area to bring about content and maintain content that reflects differing academic viewpoints, not just delete the article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?00:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn in favour of keep or at least no consensus Personally, as far as this article goes, for social, religious and moral reasons I really really WP:IDONTLIKEIT. And for personal reasons as I have started a relationship with a biracial woman recently. I do not like the idea that research, albeit conflicting, exists to suggest that one racial group has advantages over another, but we cannot ignore notable academic sources — what we can do is summarise the different theories (social deprivation, discrimination, educational standards, genetic, diet etc.) and make sure racists don’t skew the research to suggest genetic causes are proven or known to cause all or any of the deficits, the jury is out and debate continues in reliable sources. However, it is very notable as far as reliable sources go and if we delete the article then hundreds of thousands of readers over the coming years will turn to other sources, which will include white supremacy, racist and other fringe sites to get their information which will be far more biased, harmful and dangerous than a Wikipedia article which attempts to explain the subject neutrally (and can be improved upon, the article is not perfectly written). I believe the bizarre close as delete is basically a super vote that has thoroughly biased this discussion; the previous, at least, three deletion discussions resulted in a keep close, but now the debate has been skewed and biased the whole discussion to one of delete versus no consensus with no one putting forward a case that the article should be kept despite strong keep voters and arguments in the discussion (the keep people are fighting the unreasonable delete closure by arguing for the middle ground, hence the biased direction). The delete closure without summary could be seen to have acted as a calling to other admins who agree to back them up. I agree with @Amakuru: that JOJO’s proposed close is flawed and I agree with @My very best wishes: that JoJo’s posting of a deletion closure draft before the panel has convened is further heavily biasing this already problematic close process as I explained here and here. Now we have delete supporting editors advocating for JOJO to be the closer or to be on the closing panel as JOJO has written a draft to support a delete closure.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?01:00, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I got distracted focusing on what I was writing and forgot, thanks for reminding me. I am more than happy to state here that I voted keep in the deletion discussion.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?08:18, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong overturn. I am a Research Psychologist, and this deletion attempt is a clear POV-based attempt to censor data (with known scientific consensus) that disagrees with a political viewpoint. The editors in favor of deletion are openly admitting in this thread that their motivation is to stop "white supremacists", "Neo-Nazis" and other far-right conservatives. That is clear and compelling evidence of a biased POV. To accept this deletion is to give up on neutral POV in Wikipedia.
My argument for overturn is that this admin incorrectly judged consensus when saying that there is consensus that this article is a "POV fork" of "History of the Race and Intelligence Controversy". There is certainly no consensus there. Anyone claiming that consensus exists will need to respond to the obvious argument that this article is actually the neutral one. There is no POV in the data on "Race and Intelligence". The POV is in the interpretation of that data: the stuff in the "Controversy" article! These editors are trying to delete raw data and redirect everyone to their POV-filled arguments about the data, without letting anyone see the data itself! If they can hide the actual data from anyone else's view, then all anyone can see is their POV! Orwell warned about this kind of doublespeak in 1984. It happens when a single political orthodoxy gains authoritative power. It also happened in the USSR under the name Hypernormalization -- a phenomenon where everyone starts using words to mean the opposite of their actual meaning.
Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia's 3 "core content policies"-- all other policies and rationale come second to these. If you are voting to censor data because it feels racist to you -- that feeling is your POV bias. Data itself cannot be racist. Only people are racist. Racism is the result of ignorance. You won't help anyone become enlightened via censorship. That's only furthering ignorance.
Why you forgot to mention that you commented a few times on the AfD? Providing defense for ""white supremacists", "Neo-Nazis" and other far-right conservatives" while showing contempt for USSR is not going to put you in a good light at all. Such comments, if anything, serve as a dead-giveaway to acknowledge where you are coming from. Orientls (talk) 04:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You just did exactly as I described -- attacking POV and political affiliation, rather than addressing any substance in the argument. Orientls, you are totally off-topic with this blatant POV politicking. And for what it's worth, I'm a Berkeley liberal. So you're wrong, too. Toomim (talk) 04:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Orientls, are Wikipedians expected to look favorably or even neutrally upon the USSR's despotic information suppression and manipulation? Jweiss11 (talk) 05:36, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You did not listen or respond to anything I said, and you are talking about the wrong article entirely. We are talking about "History of Race and Intelligence Controversy", not "Scientific Racism." You are very off-topic. Toomim (talk) 06:05, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If there's a claim that you want backed, you need to say which claim it is. As it is, it looks like you aren't listening at all, which means you aren't trying to find consensus, and do not belong in the discussion. Toomim (talk) 06:07, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jweiss11, I would say neutrally but my point was that comparing all of those USSR's history with how we are doing things here shows contempt at least for USSR if not just towards Wikipedia.
Peregrine Fisher, the AfD mentioned a few similar articles though I agree most with Scientific racism being the correct page where this article can be redirected.
@Orientls: If there would be an agreement this page (and the AfD) would look different. No. A minority claims that there is consensus to delete this as POVFORK, which is a very strange view. Another minority wants to delete the article because they don't like its existence at all, and another minority wants to keep it. At least the first and third group has reasonable arguments. There is clearly no consensus, no matter how often you might claim that there would be. --mfb (talk) 08:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse I am biased as I !voted in favor of delete, but crucially deletion review is a judgment about whether the closing admin properly evaluated the policy based arguments in the discussion and properly assessed the informedconsensus. It seems the admin did exactly that. I do not see a good argument made that this was not the case. Counting !votes, making WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments, or claiming that this is some great wrong seems to the be the most common features of the opposing opinions here. That's not how discussions at WP:DRV are supposed to work. jps (talk) 18:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for helping to keep the dialogue on topic. However, there is still some lack of agreement about whether the closing admin properly assessed consensus. I don't see consensus that this is article is a POV fork. For instance, there is still an outstanding argument that (I just made above) that the article Race and Intelligence is actually from a neutral POV, and that the article about the controversy is the biased one. How do you resolve that? Toomim (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I resolve it by noting that the admin already took that into account and found your proposal that the racist version of the article was "neutral" was lacking serious plausibility. jps (talk) 20:30, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral in that the close appears to be a valid close that has reached what I consider a stupid result. The purpose of DRV is to review the close, not to second-guess the fact that the community has messed up, and there is a lot of re-litigating here. I would prefer to see a team close, but there is no reason to overturn this close except to get to a better answer. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as no consensus. Reasons: the chaos of the original discussion due to defective formulation of AfD; resulting failure to resolve or address basic questions around the current deletion rationale (e.g., is it a POV- or C-FORK? If so why is the core content, group psychometric differences, missing in the other articles? Aren't those article even more POV as a home for that material, and do they have enough space?); and the lack of confidence in the post-AfD process to date and unlikeliness of resolving that with a new review panel. The best course of action would be to restore the pre-AfD status quo, and either resolve the FORK questions on the Talk page, or in a second AfD purely about FORK. Deleting without resolution of surrounding issues will effectively create irreversible censorship of the group difference data on WP, which is a major decision to take with neither consensus nor announcement. Several of the Delete voters were explicit about wanting that outcome, but it should not be backdoored by proxy through this AfD (or even a second AfD) without a direct clarification of WP's position on such censorship in the future, in the event of a deletion. (Added: I commented extensively in the AfD thread and voted Keep) 73.149.246.232 (talk) 06:27, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As one third of all this IP editors edits to Wikipedia have been on this AfD process, I added the standard: — 73.149.246.232 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. as a note to the closing admin. The IP editor has reverted my edit so I am forced to make this an explicit comment. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:05, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It was pretty clear to anyone following the details of the AfD and attendant phenomena that Sirfurboy (the AfD nominator) was manipulating the discussion on a number of dimensions. Adopting a loose and ad hoc standard of what constitutes SPA so as to (in this case and possibly some of the others in the AfD, falsely) attach the tag, just to squeeze out another ounce of manip potential, is not a good look. Let it go already and allow people to reach a decision based on the issues. There are enough of those as it is without adding "nominator control-freaking the process" to the list of problems. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 08:21, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to confirm, I did not add the majority of the SPA tags there. You may want to strike your accusation that I was manipulating the discussion. Looks like a personal attack to me. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:47, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
i.e., you did add some SPA tags there, and now here, in addition to conducting forensic investigations of a number of Keep proponents in both threads (whereas blatant canvassing by a certain Delete voter did not seem to trouble you or cause any investigative fervor). You are not exactly an uninterested party in these questions as the AfD nominator, and if others were already pursuing the sockpuppets and SPAs, letting them continue on their own would have been enough. In addition, sealioning anyone arguing in the direction of Keep in the AfD; purporting to referee your own AfD (this was in effect the content of many of those voluminuous sealion replies); avoiding objections while giving the appearance of answering (your exchange with GardenofAleph in the AfD might be the easiest example of this for onlookers to parse); gladhanding; showing up on Jo-Jo's user page to "direct" what happens post-AfD, and on the Admin noticeboard of this case to tell people what they are and are not allowed to talk about are examples of steering, pushing and POV-ing the process. There is a difference between attacking persons and criticizing behavior and this is the latter. I can give as much detail as needed if you would like to continue pursuing this but I would rather just leave it at that and let the administrative decisions run their course. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 09:26, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was not going to get involved with relitigating any of the arguments, but as you have launched into all this, and I feel I need to make some kind of reply, I shall also deal with your arguments to overturn. You say that the "core content" on "group psychometric differences" is absent from the other articles. This is false. Scientific racism speaks specifically about psychometrics, following which there is much discussion of testing of group difference. It is also covered fully in History of the race and intelligence controversy. Heritability of IQ discusses this too (see section "Heritability and caveats" for instance). Thus there is no "irreversible censorship" going on here. The information is there. It is not going anywhere. Nothing is being censored, and censorship was never the purpose of the AfD.
Your reply being enormously long, I will take the liberty of interspersing indented replies instead of one super-answer at the bottom (and may add further interspersions as time permits; I cannot answer it all at once).
re: core content, I explained in the AfD thread specifically why Scientific racism and Heritability of IQ contain essentially nothing relevant from the race and intelligence article; and that the History Of article contains only a couple of sentences quoted in passing from other sources, not any exposition of such material per se. If the current article is deleted there will be massive opposition and edit-wars if any of its Jensen or Murray-Herrnstein style of data are copied into the other articles. Some of those articles very obliquely mention group differences on tests without saying what they are or which groups differ in what way, and only by way of making some arguments about what these unstated differences do not mean. I.e., the writing is enforced to remain at the level of Victorians writing about sex, in extremely indirect terms, and such restriction will be stronger, not weaker, if R&I gets deleted. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now, concerning the renewed personal attack on me. I have broken your observations down into individual bullet points, but these are all very off topic for the DRV. I have spent some hours trying to decide whether I should ignore it (as I have for your various other digs at me), whether I should write on your talk page or whether I should write here. I have decided that my reply needs to be here, but I will collapse the discussion as an off topic defense, that can be safely ignored by the closing admin and others. No discussion of policy reasons to endorse or overturn are found in the collapsed material.
Extended content
conducting forensic investigations of a number of Keep proponents
AfD is a discussion between editors. I think it entirely appropriate that one consider the arguments carefully.
In addition, sealioning anyone arguing in the direction of Keep in the AfD;
I had to look up "sealioning". It says it "is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity." I do not recognise that behaviour in anything I wrote, which is a matter of public record. I encourage you to raise a report against me at ANI if you feel I have crossed a line in any discussion there. Alternatively I invite you to retract the statement. Seriously now. If I have trolled or harassed, this needs to be dealt with at ANI. Put up or shut up on that.
purporting to referee your own AfD (this was in effect the content of many of those voluminuous sealion replies);
The only "refereeing" I recall was asking people to keep things civil when a personal attack was objected to by another editor and then a minor edit war broke out as other editors repeatedly reverted that editor's attempts to mark up the personal attack. Perhaps I should have fetched an admin, but I felt a calming word might work (and it seemed to, although it led to an attack on me from you, which you will notice I ignored for the same reason of keeping the thread on track). The issue can be observed at the bottom of this page, my intervention being at 8:03 on 8 Feb. I do not apologise for attempting to keep AfD discussion on track.
avoiding objections while giving the appearance of answering (your exchange with GardenofAleph in the AfD might be the easiest example of this for onlookers to parse);
My reply to that user was: "Thank you for your thoughts, and I agree it would be wrong for Wikipedia to delete any mention of psychometric instruments as measures of intelligence, but that is not the subject of this page. Wikipedia has pages on Psychometrics, on IQ and, crucially, on Heritability of IQ. Deletion of this page will not delete that information from Wikipedia (and neither should it). Deletion of the page is not politically motivated. As the nominator, I can assure you my motives are purely about the benefit of the Wikipedia project as a whole, ensuring our coverage is encyclopaedic. If we did not cover the information elsewhere, we would need to keep the page, but no encyclopaedic information will be lost if we delete this page. Thank you again for raising these concerns, and I trust this answer allays them." That seems to me to answer all the concerns raised, which included the accusation (also made in this discussion repeatedly) that my nomination was politically motivated. It was not.
gladhanding;
In your opinion. I am generally a friendly chap. I saw that you took issue with my attempts to be polite, but although you did say "it had to be said," I did not agree with you then and I don't agree with you now. I do not see a problem with being polite. I bear you no ill will, and I was completely sincere when I spoke of my respect for another IP editor in the AFD thread. Just because we do not agree on this is no reason why we should not agree on other things, and certainly no reason not to treat each other with respect. Don't you think?
showing up on Jo-Jo's user page to "direct" what happens post-AfD,
Jo Jo was closing the AfD and attempting to build a close team in response to my request for one in the AfD, when another administrator conducted the hasty close which is the subject of this review. I merely notified Jo Jo that this had happened and that it had gone to DRV. That has been my only contact with Jo Jo. In what way was it inappropriate? Notice I also pinged Barkeep at the same time. That does not seem anywhere near as underhand as an editor blatantly trying to persuade Jo Jo to step back from the process and questioning their politics. Wouldn't you agree?
and on the Admin noticeboard of this case to tell people what they are and are not allowed to talk about are examples of steering, pushing and POV-ing the process.
I pointed out on the admin noticeboard that discussion of the review of the close belonged here. I was correct. It does. It does not help when an editor opens multiple admin threads elsewhere when there is already a deletion review going on. My question to that editor was unanswered. What exactly did he hope the admins would do that was not already being done?
If you are inclined to continue this discussion about me personally, you are invited to my talk page. We can discuss further there. If you believe I have been harrassing, trolling, manipulating or abusing the process, the correct place to continue the discussion is ANI.
As for manipulating the process - that is a pretty astounding claim when I have said above that I would prefer that this close be overturned and handed back to Jo Jo, who was already doing the work to undertake a team close. I say that knowing that Jo Jo et al. could come to a different conclusion. Although Jo Jo has now presented a partial rationale that was already written at that point, it would have been and still will be subject to discussion by the others in the team close if we allow a team close. I have actually argued for something that could overturn the result I wanted here.
To be clear, if I wanted to manipulate this process I would simply endorse the existing close and fight to get everyone else to endorse it. A no consensus here would lead to the deletion being upheld. I have done the exact opposite of manipulating the process here. I have shot myself deliberately in the foot in suggesting that we overturn and reclose, and I argued for that because I believe it is important that we do this properly and fairly. You, on the other hand, have simply argued that the whole thing should be over-ruled entirely. It is pretty clear that I, at least, am not manipulating the process here, and I do think you should strike the accusation. That is an unwarranted personal attack that is not relevant to the DRV (as it was not my decision that is being reviewed, after all). -- Sirfurboy (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Over 50 edits about other topics before the AfD started, some more afterwards. For an IP that might change? That's a lot. Clearly not a single-purpose IP. --mfb (talk) 08:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And that is a determination the closing admin can also make, because edit history is visible to all, and the template merely asserts that editors have raised a concern that this editor has made few or no other edits when commenting here (in this case it is few rather than none). My comment above was correct about one third of the user's edits being on this process alone. I have looked again at the figures. The user had actually made 36 main space edits from their fixed IP since 7 November 2019 and prior to commenting on the deletion, but has now made 52 edits on the matter of deletion of this page. As I said, one third of all their edits are on this deletion. 61 of their edits are to talk pages. That is the information. I have raised it and it is up to the closing admin to decide whether it is relevant in their considerations or not. I also add that I was not the first person to apply this template to this IP. That was done in this edit by another user so I am not the only person to feel that this IP is taking disproportionate interest in this subject. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If this had been about merely providing data to admins, that was accomplished by adding the SPA template, signing the accusation and stating the quantitative reason ("one third of edits"). It doesn't actually look so neutral; all of the SPA notices were attached by Delete supporters to users arguing for Keep, and the same for the the sockpuppet investigations, with no corresponding interest in determining how many of the Deleters arrived due to canvassing by an activist editor. And if this really were just out of a neutral interest in the abstract integrity of the AfD and DRV, as nominator maybe you have some COI and should step back from trying to control things overmuch, but let's ignore that. In this pureminded quest for purest purity, it was obviously totally unacceptable that someone (Mfb) should contradict your data and give the admins the wrong (i.e., correct) idea by pointing to other relevant numbers. So we got another forensic investigation trying to prove the point with numbers fudged even worse than the first attempt.
Pretty obviously, counting *edits* rather than *number of comments* or *number of pages/topics* (this recent flurry of AfD, DRV, Talk pages, etc is all essentially one matter) will overcount discussion threads, in which replies are long, numerous, and multiply edited, compared to normal small edits of random WP pages. Another way to manipulate the data is to exclude non-AfD edits since the AfD, which of course artificially raises the fraction of "edits on this topic". Then, ignore the age of the account; if any of the most active participants in this topic had created their current account 6 weeks ago, and then decided to participate in the R&I threads, it would have been a large share of their WP use to date. Finally, when the numbers still do not point to SPA, keep lowering the standard to something ever looser, from "single purpose" to high percentage of activity (after data fudging) to the rather Orwellian-sounding "disproportionate interest in the topic". 73.149.246.232 (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Anyone can add an SPA template. The fact no keep supporters were so marked is perhaps because they all had significant numbers of edits. It is near certain that someone would have marked them otherwise. (2) The only identified/suspected sock puppet was Sprayitchyo. Yes, he supported keep. (3) All three IP editors who expressed a view were keep supporters, so again, does not look likely there was any ban evasion on the delete side. (4) The only canvassing noted is what is in the thread. 4 cases of off wiki canvassing on sites or feeds skewing strongly for keep. (5) I personally canvassed no one, and contacted no one. You may check my edit history to confirm. I also conducted no off wiki canvassing, nor even mentioned this to anyone I know. (6) There was permitted awareness raising on both sides. One editor from the keep side contacted all active editors who had previously expressed a view in a past AFD, one editor from the delete side left messages on related pages. These were both within the rules. (7) On wikipedia, edits is the preferred measure of activity. Yes, longer entries may involve more edits, but then that is also a fair indication of the time taken to construct them. It is not perfect but it is what we use. (8) My point, and the point of others who raised the issue is therefore that your contributions to this one debate are wildly disproportionate to any previous activity on Wikipedia. You did not start editing 6 weeks ago, you began 15 weeks ago. In your first 12.5 weeks of editing you made 32 main space edits. In the 2.5 weeks this issues has been going on, you have made twice as many edits on this topic alone. Although you are, of course, entitled to comment on the issue, it is the level of you activity and the influence you are trying to assert on the debate that makes you look very much like an SPA. New editors do not tend to get so heavily involved in Wikipedia admin so quickly. Can I just check - are all the edits on your IP since 7 November yours? and did you use another IP or account in the past? If you have other edits you can claim, then that could obviate the whole discussion. (8) mfb was perfectly entitled to say what he said, as I was to say what I said. (9) the SPA template says that you have made few or no other edits. WP:SPA says: "New editors have the right to be treated with respect and civility; but they should also be aware that, while courtesy and a warm greeting will usually be extended, they may be subject to more scrutiny in the early stages of their editing as other editors attempt to assess how well they adhere to Wikipedia standards." I believe I have treated you with respect and civility (to the point you complained about my politeness), but you should indeed expect additional scrutiny seeing as the greater part of your Wikipedia career is now demonstrably focused on this topic alone. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk)
Comment. The seemingly off-topic 'are Jews a race' is a great illustration of the downside of deleting articles like Race & Intelligence. All the WP Judaism articles heavily avoid the R-word (race), and Jewish race redirects to Jews exactly as proposed for R&I, instead of expounding the common question of whether and in what sense Jews are/aren't a race. The result is that total ahistorical nonsense along the lines "of course Jews are not a race, that is a complete misunderstanding and possibly anti-Semitic" propagates. Until 1945, both Jews and non-Jews uncontroversially used terms like "Jewish race", and similar language with "tribe" or "nation" (in the premodern sense of the term) to designate the very same thing that is now unironically called "the Jewish people", as though that were different (I admit "Chosen race" must have sounded bad even before WW2). It is true that after the war, some Holocaust-traumatized liberal (Reform) Jewish modernizers began to advocate for the idea that Jewishness be redefined based on religious belief independent of ancestry. Historically membership by belief is a Christian concept, and it is not exactly a fringe view in Judaism today, but it is very far from being a majority view among Jews. Surveys (e.g., Pew Research in the middle of the last decade) confirm that ancestry, previously known as "race", is the predominant concept if not the only ingredient in the soup as far as most Jews are concerned. In some ways ancestry is more predominant than ever because secular Jews need something other than religion as a basis for their Jewish identity. See for example this article in the Jewish Daily Forward or the article on Who is a Jew. The problem is that it's hard to write about this on Wikipedia, and impossible under an article of its own, because of the panic about all things "race". 73.149.246.232 (talk) 10:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For roughly the last 75 years since WW II there has been a consensus that the word race should be used carefully, and not interchangeably with such words as nationality, people, ethnicity, or common ancestry. This consensus is reflected in Wikipedia, as it should be. This IP-editor takes a mocking tone toward Wikipedia policy, takes a mocking tone toward the notion that categorizing Jews as a "race" is now viewed as anti-semitic (e.g., by the Anti-Defamation League founded by B'nai B'rith), and even takes a mocking tone about the effect of the Nazi Holocaust on our understanding of race and racism ("some Holocaust-traumatized liberal (Reform) Jewish modernizers"). Whatever the intent of this editor might be, the tone and content of this comment are anti-semitic. NightHeron (talk) 16:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's funny (I'm Jewish). This must be the tenth or twentieth time in the past two weeks here that you called someone or something racist, anti-Semitic, pseudoscientific, white/male privileged and so forth.
Literaturegeek was right the first time: many Jews would find it outrageous to be told, especially by Gentiles, that they, the Jews, are forbidden to think of Jewish identity in racial terms because it is "erroneous" and offends modernity. Jewishness is ancient and its internal worldview pre-modern in many ways. It's interesting that it's often enlightened Jews (in this case the ADL), and in earlier decades the reformers I mentioned, who promote the nonsense, but that does not change the reality that it is nonsense and that we can't easily upgrade the presentation on Wikipedia to have less of the nonsense and more of the reality. The educated consumer (e.g, a traditionally religiously educated Jew) knows that ADL is a political organization and hardly an authority on religion or genetics, and as surveys of Jews show it is not even speaking accurately of what most Jews think today. ADL did not provide sources for their statements and are speaking ex cathedra to an external audience, about interpretations of "Jewish race" that even 80 years ago weren't current anywhere outside Nazi Germany. The more ordinary common sense interpretations, of race as an extended tribe or clan (or collection of such) with many distinctive genetic, phenotypic, and cultural markers, matches up pretty well with how a majority of Jews talk and think about themselves, and although "race" is not the perfect description of the situation, it is closer to exact than any of the alternatives like "ethnicity", "religion", "nation". It looks like we can't document that on Wikipedia at the moment. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your venom (toward me and toward the Anti-Defamation League) is matched only by your contempt for sources. Your statement above cited the article Who Is a Jew?, as if it supported your POV. The word race occurs in that article exactly 3 times, all in the context of the Nazi classification of Jews. The article's lede says that Jewish personhood [has] cultural, ethnic, religious, political, genealogical, and personal dimensions.... Jewish identity is also commonly defined through ethnicity. Opinion polls have suggested that the majority of Jews see being Jewish as predominantly a matter of ancestry and culture, rather than religion. Nothing about Jews being a "race." This consensus is properly reflected in Wikipedia. NightHeron (talk) 14:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The IP does also seem to make the excellent point that neither "race", nor "ethnicity", "religion" or "nation" are quite right for this article. He is wrong to say nothing is exact though. The exact term he is looking for is heritability. I think he makes an excellent case for an article on Heritability of IQ instead of one trying to use a nebulous concept of race. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. The closing was premature. No clear or even rough consensus seems to have been developed at the time of closing, with policy-based arguments being made on both sides. The closing was done prematurely for such a big article, especially one that has hundreds of academic references, has been on the site for years, and has even been nominated for good article status; to make such a big change, a consensus made by a broad sector of the community is needed. The weakness of the consensus is demonstrated by the closer's acknowledgement that a deletion review was basically inevitable. Jancarcu (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as it is pretty unclear what direction it was going in. It looks to be a no consensus, but a team close should at least summarise arguments, what policies apply, and what a recommended action is. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:25, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn and relist in order for a clear consensus to develop. If one doesn't come about in a reasonable time, then re-close by blue-ribbon committee. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:36, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Peregrine Fisher I just realized you might not have been asking who might make up such a blue-ribbon committee, but rather what such a committee is. See blue ribbon committee—typically, it's a committee, usually appointed by governments, made up of distinguished academics, senior business executives, former heads of government or state, and current or former distinguished judges or lawyers, to examine large-scale issues and problems. I noted that blue ribbon committee was moved to blue-ribbon panel. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that's the WP:COMMONNAME. I think we should request to move that back. Doug MehusT·C15:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where SilkTork, Scottywang, and Mazca come in. Also I'll point out that should this DRV be closed suggesting there should be a group close, RoySmith is confirmed as part of the closing panel. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:49, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, yes, RoySmith would be great to include. My reason for suggesting any of the other three editor editors is because of their demonstrated ability to determine consensus in particularly tight, or at least highly controversial, deletion discussions. SilkTork for the Erica C. Barnett AfD (and others), mazca for the Megxit AfD, and Scottywong for his work closing many controversial and/or tight MfDs. Fair enough, though, to limit the blue-ribbon committee to those previously identified as wanting to volunteer for the group close. Doug MehusT·C16:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think @Jo-Jo Eumerus: is at all suited to be on a 5 member panel, as I explained here, because, I feel, they have behaved somewhat like an activist for the delete side. Spartaz’s close effectively acted as a request for other admins to back them up and then Jo-Jo seems to have pretty much straight away spent a lot of time drafting a backup delete supporting close and then publicly posted here a link to their draft delete as if to influence and bias the future panel. It was as if Jo-Jo could not wait for the team panel to be set up, that they themselves at the time requested to be set up, so they had to take a course of action that backed up Spartaz’s problematic close. Of course then many delete supporting editors inevitably saw what I saw, that Jo-Jo would fight their corner, and they started posting in support of Jo-Jo doing the close or being on the closing panel. Replacing one inappropriate or biased close with another inappropriate or biased close is not the way forward. One person who is experienced is Sandstein and I suggest he is asked to be on the 5 member panel — I do not know Sandstein personally, only interacted with them very rarely on-wiki and I’ve never communicated with them off-Wiki but have seen their closes before and was impressed by their in-depth knowledge of policies and their interpretation. So I have no idea how they would interpret this close except that they would do a high quality close free of bias or advocacy. I am not suggesting that Jo-Jo is a problem editor, I have no doubt they do very valuable productive work for the community and encyclopedia, just suggesting that in this instance they are not best suited.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?17:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To clear up some confusion, the reason why I posted here was because I thought that after Spartaz's close the panel question was moot. Not because I was expecting that people then would ask for a panel. The "as if" part is simply wrong. That said, I see there are at least three or four admins other than me who are volunteering to be a new panel, anyway, so I'll probably step aside unless the DRV close says otherwise. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply Jo-Jo. I am still confused because you posted publicly here on this page that you had requested — on the admin notice board — for other admins to join you in a team close. Is there any material difference between a ‘team close’ and a ‘panel close‘, or perhaps you have misremembered events?--Literaturegeek | T@1k?21:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Panel close=Team close. I think you are misinterpreting that comment; it was meant to say what I had done prior to Spartaz's close, not what I wanted to do after it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse per Jo-Jo Eumerus' close rationale: After spending over an hour reading the articles, the arguments here and at the AfD discussion, I believe that Jo-Jo reflects consensus far better than Spartaz's close. I am impressed with Jo-Jo's careful analysis of the discussion, and their representation of the arguments. I did not vote in the AfD. Waggie (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, after reading through the deletion discussion again, I see stronger and more consistent policy-based argument on the deletion side (discounting all the "IDONTLIKEIT" arguments). Both sides did offer policy-based arguments, but Jo-Jo's close outlines a more consistent case for deletion in the arguments, while keep arguments varied but seem to surround "it's notable on it's own" from the other related articles but couldn't really point out precisely how it differs, with arguments like "This article is about the correlation between IQ score data and self-identified Race data. Those other articles are not." - doesn't specify how they are not - (here) and "This is a notable, if controversial, topic, and it does not fit neatly into any pre-existing article." (here). I do agree that it's a narrow margin, but I do feel it falls on the side of delete, rather than keep or no consensus, based on the strength of the WP:*FORKing concerns which don't seem sufficiently refuted on the keep side in my view to make it no consensus (if, like Jo-Jo points out here, that the "first" article had some sort of precedence in policy, then things would probably be different in my view). I also found strength in the deletion argument that suggested we are (in Wikipedia's voice) suggesting that there was a link between specifically race and intelligence via the article title when there is not any reputable modern science that suggests a direct link (even some keep arguments suggested (here) and here) that there was no direct link and expressed concern that the title might imply as such). I have opinions on potential alternative outcomes, but this venue is for discussing the merits of the close only. Thanks for reading folks, I apologize for the wall of text, I just wanted to clarify my position and explain why I am endorsing per above. Waggie (talk) 00:21, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think it was a self-defeating closing argument by Jo-Jo Eumerus. In conclusion of closing they said: "On balance, it looks like we have a consensus that the topic is notable and that being contentious isn't a reason for deletion [this is certainly correct, but a reason to "keep"] ... but it's not clear if it should be covered at Race and intelligence or in the various sub-articles mentioned w/o a central race and intelligence article.", and so on. Well, but covering a subject without having a central page on the subject is simply ridiculous. My very best wishes (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Pinged to this discussion. Reading the above comments, I'll be available to reclose as part of a blue-cheese committee if required. SilkTork (talk) 17:21, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SilkTork: I would of course welcome serving beside you if there is a need for a closing committee. However, it might be more helpful now that you're here if you would consider closing this DRV instead. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah @My very best wishes:, the keep argument was actually strong but the inappropriate close as delete has biased most of the keep voters to argue for the middle ground as if the keep argument was not strong. This whole discussion is biased by Spartaz’s poor quality close.--Literaturegeek | T@1k?17:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I simply tink that deleting the page does not make the subject (that actually exists) go away. If we have numerous subpages on the subject, we must have main/central page about it (some sub-pages might be deleted if necessary). This is also not just a history, but something really existing in the modern discourse, whatever one might think about it. My very best wishes (talk) 16:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
At the point the original close really ought to be overturned for process reasons. The closing admin gave a weak, policy-free close that immediately punted to DRV, then has gone offline for over a week. We should not endorse that as a proper practice for difficult issues. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
