Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:LGBT notice board

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

The result of the debate was keep per Snowball clause. --Tony Sidaway 17:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:LGBT notice board

As someone suggested in a recent MfD discussion, if we can justify deleting Wikipedia:Conservative notice board, then it would just seem logical to delete the GLBT notice board as well, a notice board created (IMO) to push the opposite POV in disputes. While I'm fine with the userbox, hell I even use it myself, it would seem that a noticeboard is just a step too far, and I don't really see any purpose for this noticeboard other than vote stacking. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• A noticeboard for related articles is OK, but for editors sharing an outloook is not. This says it is the former - but has the danger to be used as the later. Rename to Wikipedia:Sexuality articles noticeboard?? --Aoratos 07:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep Although this might (unintentionally) cause vote stacking, so do projects such as WP:CATHOLIC, where requests for article moves and the like are often posted. —Mira 08:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I just looked at WP:CATHOLIC and I don't see any xFD discussions listed on that page. (Maybe they have been in the past - I don't know - I've never been there before today.)
    • Did I say there were *FD links there? —Mira 02:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: let's be consistent and wipe vote-stacking off the face of Wikipedia. Pecher ^Talk 08:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: conservatism is a philosophy (WP:POV!); LGBT issues is a wide topic uniting people of many philosophies. That is why this topic is properly the subject of its own noticeboard. Sambo 10:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

And why should a philosophy not get its own board? Cannot anyone be interested in a particular philosophy? Cannot those who oppose the philosophy be interested in it? DavidBailey 20:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Pages which bring together people with an interest in a particular topic strengthen our ability to collaborate, and to produce good articles. Pages which bring together people with a particular point of view decrease our ability to build consensus on the basis of reasoned, sourced discussion, and increase our tendency to shout from established positions. The Conservative noticeboard was the latter, this is the former. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 10:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep LGBT and Conservatism, like Archaeology, Cetacean biology and Impressionist painting, are subjects; Conservative and "pro-LGBT" are viewpoints. A confused nomination. SP-KP 11:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• So Wikipedia:Conservative notice board was only three letters away from being appropriate? --Elliskev 13:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• I think if that were the case, it would have survived SP-KP 13:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep was not advertised to POV-pushers, has not been used to POV push, articles listed are appropriate for editors with special knowedlge as opposed to special interest - obvious example - Nuclear family - while there was a stupid edit war at this article over the inclusion of homosexuals in the nuclear family, and it was added to the notice board for a POV-pushing project, it does not appear to have been added here. This is a valuable resource for focusing and directing editors, much like a hypothetical conservative noticeboard that directed people to articles like Edmund Burke, as opposed to Partisan Slapfest WITH ROCKS. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Additionally, because fo the LGBT notice board, the LGBT portion of Judy Garland is the best-cited part of that WP:GA article. Davodd 19:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep per Mira. Computerjoe's talk 14:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as per User:Hughcharlesparker - Ali-oops^✍ 15:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - The notice board us useful for any editor who has an interest in LGBT issues no matter what their personal opinion. Davodd 16:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - I'd feel differently if it were called the Pro-LGBT notice board or some such. — Laura Scudder ☎ 17:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Just because the conservative board was incorrectly deleted is no reason to delete this one. If a board is used to do POV pushing it is not the fault of the board, it is the fault of the people who use the board in that way. Look through the history of this board and the discussion about it, you will find that this board is as useful to fundamentalist anit-homosexual activists as it is for LGBT activists. FYI, I started this board in response to the deletion of virtually all the LGBT categories at CfD. The categories were deleted without the awareness and input of most of the people who populated and used the categories. We recognized that there was not any effective mechanism for being informed about categories and articles we cared about. This page was created so that we would have a single place to watch what was happening, and anyone could post information about what was happening. There have been many issues that clearly do not have automatic support of the people who watch this page. One such example has been postings dealing with articles about pederasty. -- Samuel Wantman 19:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep with a keen eye on it. The keyword is "interested", its just a group focusing on improving certain articles in one centralized place. Maybe indirect vote-stacking may spawn, but "interested in LGBT" is not an NPOV bais, though perhaps a systemic one (which we ALL have), "Conservative" is.Voice-of-All 20:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Those who are merely interested, and those who are for or against the LGBT movement can all use this board to monitor articles that they may have interest in. Similarly, the Conservative board should also be allowed to exist. Anyone can be part of it. DavidBailey 20:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep by analogy with Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. If there is misbehaviour, bring it back here, with diffs. Septentrionalis 21:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete unless the vote-stacking portions are removed. Take a look at the xFD discussions indexed from that page. That's the definition of vote stacking. There's no problem with the rest of the content, but something needs to be done about the vote stacking. It is wholly unacceptable to interest-index xFD discussions, RFAs, or anything else where a vote or consensus is being taken. The rest of the page is fine and if those editors who maintain this notice board remove the sections dealing with deletion discussions, feel free to strike my delete. BigDT 22:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep No different from other noticeboards. Unlike the conservative one it has not been used as a recruitment drive but simply as a means of communication for members and has been used responsibly. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but rename LGBT topics notice board. Exploding Boy 00:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment this board is obviously going to get kept ... but I would STRONGLY advise those who use it to seriously consider removing the links to deletion discussions. It's only going to create a propensity for more WP:BEANS and WP:POINT noticeboards like the Conservative one that prompted this thing. Further, if you take a look at some of the discussions linked, there is clearly a voting bloc. Even if a topic deals with your pet issue, be it LGBT, conservatism, or in my case, Virginia Tech, Star Trek, and Christianity, it's important to put biases aside and consider xFD discussions on their merits, not based on a desire to push a POV. To that end, I would strongly encourage those who use this board to remove the deletion discussion links. If you don't want to do that, please at least consider putting a message up there that vote stacking is wrong, vote according to the merits of the particular article, not a knee-jerk reaction, etc. BigDT 01:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

  You could even remind people that deletion discussions are not votes and use language that reinforces their nature as discussions. I agree that refraining from advertising deletion discussions would be best. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

  I do feel that it was a terrible mistake of AmiDaniel's to try to equate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual noticeboard with the noticeboard for conservatives. The latter was blatantly and unashamedly created to assemble political partisans and it shall die. The LGBT noticeboard only assembles those diverse people who are, or have an interest in, gay men or women, bisexuals or transsexuals. There may be people who do not know the difference, but they shall not prevail. --Tony Sidaway 00:36, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  I must point out that this idea that editors, just by the fact of posting a link to a page which has been listed for deletion, are guilty of vote stacking, assumes bad faith. Wikipedia runs by building consensus. If people do not engage in discussion, and their participation is linked to vote stacking behavior, their "votes" can be, and should be discounted. But the limitation of free discourse and communication between editors to prevent such behavior is the worst possible knee-jerk reaction. Do you really think that pages should only be deleted by the people who hang out at AfD, CfD, etc...? Do you think the only way people should be informed is by putting a template on the page to be deleted? I have over 2000 pages on my watch list. It takes weeks to cycle through all of t's not a vote and thus not vote stacking, which was the main crux of my concern, and (2) Two-way POV pushing is still POV pushing. BigDT 18:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

  • • • I happen to disagree with Exploding Boy about his position about the word "homophobia", but that is besides the point. Let us assume for sake of argument that some posting is done in a non-NPOV way. What conclusion can be drawn from the posting? I conclude that someone posted to the board incorrectly, and that it should be reframed in a more NPOV way. You (BigDT) seem to conclude that no articles should be posted because of the possibility of them being posted wrong. Your conclusion does not assume good faith, and without good faith Wikipedia is doomed. -- Samuel Wantman 21:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
        • That is neither what I said nor what I implied. Please re-read my original comments on the subject ... "half of them include not only a link to the dispute, but the desired objective in the dispute resolution as well". That is the problem - including a desired objective. If, in the case of the above article, the comment had simply said, "there is a current content dispute about the definition and scope of homophobia", that wouldn't have been a problem. BigDT 22:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
          • Perhaps we are agreeing. I agree things should be posted in a NPOV way, but didn't you say that ALL xfD links should be removed? -- Samuel Wantman 22:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
            • Yes, but that comment and the ensuing thread weren't about xFD links - they were talking about article content disputes. There are two different issues involved. Indexing xFD discussions by topic, even without comment, is an invitation to vote as a bloc. The convenience of being able to quickly visit interesting xFD discussions is far outweighed by the possible use of such an index as a vote-stacking tool. On the other hand, indexing articles is fine as long as it is done without POV commentary. With articles, there are no binding decisions (there aren't on xFDs either, but article ones are a heckuva lot easier to overturn), so "POV stacking" isn't as severe of an issue. If you want to see vote stacking in action, wait until the next time an AFD comes up on any article that has "Israel" in it. 50 people will show up and, rather than evaluate it on its merits, they will simply post delete or keep based soley on how favorable they think the topic is to Israel. Having xFD links on this page is only an invitation for the same type of nonsense to take place over articles on this topic as well.
          • I look at the situation, see the same symptoms yet define the problem very differently. In my view, the problem is that people see all the xFDs as votes. They are supposed to be discussions. The problem with "vote stacking" is that people are trying to game the system with votes. Editors will communicate with other editors in reasonable ways or unreasonable ways either within wikipedia or by some external medium. There is nothing to stop people from organizing secret e-mail lists whenever something comes up. Banning all notice boards xFD listigs will just drive this underground. The way to stop the behavior is to render it ineffective no matter where it happens. There are three ways to do this. The first is to make the communications open to everyone so that it can be monitored by calmer, more rational, NPOV editors. The second is to totally discount "votes" that do not discuss the issue. The third, and I think most important is to work at building consensus wherever and whenever possible. We should never give the impression that there is power in numbers. One person with a well reasoned argument should always trump any number of mindless "votes". -- Samuel Wantman 05:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep of course. The study of LGBT topics is a recognized academic field, regardless of what this or that group may subjectively feel about it. I would suggest that the attempt to drag this notice board down into the wreckage of the one for conservative interests is exactly the kind of misbehavior that caused the demise of that board in the first place, and confirms the wisdom of its deletion. As for the LGBT board being a locus for making common cause, I have not experienced it that way. The LGBT scholars here have tend to be independent individuals with minds of their own (no aspersions indended against any other groups) and getting them to act in unison is like the proverbial herding of cats. To say nothing of the fact that the field of study is extremely wide, and we often do not know enough about each other's specialties to even have an opinion. Haiduc 02:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Samuel Wantman. — Nathan ^(talk) 07:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep See no reason to delete a page where people interested in the topic can find out about ongoing debates. After all, the purpose of this board never was pov-pushing; opponentes of LGBT-issues may just as well use it. It was not formed to POV-push, which is more than can be said for other boards, projects and similar. No reason to delete at all. --John Smythe 18:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per common sense and much of the above. Carolynparrishfan 00:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep All the xFD notices do prompt concern about vote stacking, but if the nominator can't muster any evidence of vote stacking taking place, then there's no reason to disrupt the board.--Chaser T 04:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment It seems to me as though we ought to distinguish b/t real-world politics and wikipolitics. LGBT issues and WP:CATHOLIC are obviouslessly not political in the real world. In WP they can be just as political as that other noticeboard in that they can be used (which is not to say this has happened) to stack xFD's. In that sense, they are similar and the analogy is not that outrageous, in my opinion.--Chaser T 04:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, per nomination. ―Linux|erist 10:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, I don't see anything wrong with it, board functions as a place for Wikipedians interested in LGBT topics. --Terence Ong _{(Chat | Contribs)} 17:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, per Samuel Wantman. It isn't 'vote stacking' if all interested parties are informed... only if notification is biased towards those with a particular viewpoint. Even if such were to happen here it would then be a reason to bring the board to the attention of more individuals with different views rather than a reason to delete the board. --CBD 12:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Sambo.--M@rēino 17:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

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