Male Escort Awards – There doesn't seem to be a huge groundswell of support here for an overturn. No consensus due to limited participation. – Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Male Escort Awards (talk`\|`edit`\|`history`\|`logs`\|`links`\|`watch) (XfD`\|`restore) Majority of !votes were delete, and were policy-compliant. Keep !voters confused the "Male Escort Awards" (given out c.2000 by the non notable "Male Escort Review" with the "International Escort Awards" (given out c.2006 and later by the notable Rentboy). Redirecting the name of one award to an entirely different one is simply introducing an error. If we're going to to mention these two pseudo-honors (a separate debate) we ought to, at the very minimum, be accurate. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse - no consensus close redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. The redirect has been around since 25 November 2009‎ and has been nominated for deletion twice (RfD1). World Public Library[1] indicates that the following awards are Male Escort Awards: GayVN Awards, Grabby Awards, Hard Choice Awards, and The "Dave" Awards. Each of these are listed in List of gay pornography awards. The Redirect for Discussion challenged redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. BDDs closed the discussion as no consensus. As of this post, Male Escort Awards redirects to "List of gay pornography awards#International Escort Awards." International Escort Awards is included in the List of gay pornography awards along with GayVN Awards, Grabby Awards, Hard Choice Awards, and The "Dave" Awards. Reviewing the RfD discussion, there was no consensus to delete and there was no consensus to redirect to "List of gay pornography awards#International Escort Awards." I endorse the no consensus close redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. Comment It's an alternative name for the list and a possible name under which the list might be sought. It should not be directed to a particular section of the list and none of the reasons in WP:R#DELETE seem to apply. -- Jreferee (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Comment. That "World Library Association" source is just a mirror of the Wikipedia article with the redirect heading incorporated in an odd format. It has no substantive value whatever. The phrase "Male Escort Award", apart from the redirect page, is never used in Wikipedia to refer to any award listed on the target page. It refers only to an award not listed on that page (which apparently was not given out to gay pornography). It is the simplest and most basic standard for an encyclopedia that it should not deliberately include factual errors, and this redirect breaches that standard. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:33, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

Male Escort Awards – There doesn't seem to be a huge groundswell of support here for an overturn. No consensus due to limited participation. – Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.

Majority of !votes were delete, and were policy-compliant. Keep !voters confused the "Male Escort Awards" (given out c.2000 by the non notable "Male Escort Review" with the "International Escort Awards" (given out c.2006 and later by the notable Rentboy). Redirecting the name of one award to an entirely different one is simply introducing an error. If we're going to to mention these two pseudo-honors (a separate debate) we ought to, at the very minimum, be accurate. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse - no consensus close redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. The redirect has been around since 25 November 2009‎ and has been nominated for deletion twice (RfD1). World Public Library[1] indicates that the following awards are Male Escort Awards: GayVN Awards, Grabby Awards, Hard Choice Awards, and The "Dave" Awards. Each of these are listed in List of gay pornography awards. The Redirect for Discussion challenged redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. BDDs closed the discussion as no consensus. As of this post, Male Escort Awards redirects to "List of gay pornography awards#International Escort Awards." International Escort Awards is included in the List of gay pornography awards along with GayVN Awards, Grabby Awards, Hard Choice Awards, and The "Dave" Awards. Reviewing the RfD discussion, there was no consensus to delete and there was no consensus to redirect to "List of gay pornography awards#International Escort Awards." I endorse the no consensus close redirecting Male Escort Awards to List of gay pornography awards. Comment It's an alternative name for the list and a possible name under which the list might be sought. It should not be directed to a particular section of the list and none of the reasons in WP:R#DELETE seem to apply. -- Jreferee (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. That "World Library Association" source is just a mirror of the Wikipedia article with the redirect heading incorporated in an odd format. It has no substantive value whatever. The phrase "Male Escort Award", apart from the redirect page, is never used in Wikipedia to refer to any award listed on the target page. It refers only to an award not listed on that page (which apparently was not given out to gay pornography). It is the simplest and most basic standard for an encyclopedia that it should not deliberately include factual errors, and this redirect breaches that standard. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:33, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

Praise and veneration of Muhammad – Decision endorsed – T. Canens (talk) 01:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Praise and veneration of Muhammad (talk`\|`edit`\|`history`\|`logs`\|`links`\|`watch) (XfD`\|`restore) I believe the closure broke WP policy which states: Discussions which fail to reach rough consensus default to "keep". The discussion clearly failed to reach consensus, with roughly half of the respondents supporting each position. The closing admin chose to focus on only one of the arguments given for keeping the article, ignoring the others: that the subject is notable and there are scholarly monographs devoted to it and that the article contains encyclopedic content and should be improved rather than deleted. I've brought up the issue with the closing admin who referred me here. Eperoton (talk) 16:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse even if it is true that the discussion had "roughly half of the respondents supporting each position" (there was a lot of sockpuppetry) that makes no difference. When determining rough consensus the closing admin has to consider the weight of arguments put forward to advance each position, how strong they are and whether they are reflected in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Here the weight of argument was heavily in favour of deletion, and so the article was deleted. The Keep argument discussed in the closing statement was by far the most popular, and to bring up notability is irrelevant. That a topic is notable does not mean Wikipedia has to have an article on it, it only means that the article can't be deleted because the subject is non-notable. There are plenty of other valid reasons for deleting articles, including those brought up here. Hut 8.5 16:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Closing admin's comment: I remain of the view, expressed in the closing statement, that the "keep" opinions must be given less weight because most of them did not address the policy-based opinions for deletion, and that we therefore have a consensus for deletion after considering the opinions expressed based on the strength of their argument. Sandstein 16:50, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse based on the understanding that this was a WP:TNT deletion -- that while the underlying subject may be notable, the deleted article failed key policies so badly as to be unsalvageable, and the option to blank-and-stub would result in an essentially meaningless/useless article. No prejudice against recreation of a policy-compliant article under this or a similar title. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse. The weight of policy-based argument was on the "delete" side and there was no attempt to counter those arguments by those wishing to keep the article. I base this conclusion on my analysis of the AfD, which together with my hypothetical closing statement can be found here. Thparkth (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Mostly endorse, but allow for recreation if someone can write a good article There was consensus of policy-based comments that _this_ article was problematic. But the closer seemed to hint at the fact that there shouldn't be an article of this title at all, and I don't think there was anything near consensus on that. I felt this was more of a WP:TNT situation. Hobit (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I wouldn't rule that out completely, but such a rewritten article would need to very convincingly dispose of the argument, also made in the AfD, that it can't be anything but a content fork of Muhammad in Islam – which covers his role in the religion and therefore also his position as an object of praise and veneration. Perhaps it could be a subarticle (per WP:SS) of that article, if the subtopic of "praise" can be usefully distinguished from Muhammad's other religious significance, and expanded upon in a non-hagiographical manner – but I know too little about the topic to be able to determine this. Sandstein 22:55, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Religious scholarship is nothing if not detail-oriented. I would strongly suppose that the topic "praise and veneration of muhammad" has been given substantial treatment by both partisan and neutral scholars over the years. It will have a history, and controversies, and different views and practices prevailing among different groups in the present day. It will have inspired art and poetry. For this reason I believe that it is hypothetically possible that a neutral, verifiable, and useful article on this specific topic might someday be written. I also believe that the decision as to whether a particular subtopic is large enough to merit a separate article is a decision best left to the editors working in that topic space. See for comparison our rather good article on Veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism which is usefully separate from our Mary (mother of Jesus) article. But I did not !vote "endorse without prejudice to recreation" because anyone proposing to start this new article ought to write a draft and obtain consensus for its recreation in mainspace first - the odds of a recreation just being another hagiography are rather high. Thparkth (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Yes, the analogy is apt, and an article similar to Veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism could work, but I agree that it would need to be drafted in userspace first. Sandstein 15:45, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I agree that there was some sense of the discussion that no such article could exist, but it didn't have consensus IMO. Hobit (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Request temporary courtesy restoration of article history - I can certainly understand and anticipate the NPOV problems inherent in this topic, as well as those arising from contributions from self-selected contributors who do not understand NPOV and our other relevant policies. That said, would an uninvolved administrator temporarily please restore the article history so non-admin DRV participants can make intelligent comments informed by an understanding of the deleted article's content? Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:07, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Really an involved administrator would be just as good. Any chance @Sandstein:? Thparkth (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I'd rather not, I'm opposed to the practice of temporarily restoring articles. What this is supposed to review is the discussion, not the article. Sandstein 09:53, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] @Sandstein: Would you be willing to temporarily restore the history so that interested editors can salvage the encyclopedic content contained in the article for the purposes of creating an improved version? Eperoton (talk) 15:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Why not, if they're serious about creating an article that addresses the AfD's concerns, and show that they are indeed able to to that – but I suspect that would need an editor who is versed in Islamic studies, or we'd just get a slightly rearranged version of the deleted content. Sandstein 15:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Sure, there's need for knowledge of the secondary literature, and good grasp or better interactive enforcement of policies, but that's not specific to the article in question. I think the priority would be to review the deleted text and see if it contains content that should be added to the relevant sections in other articles. More generally, isn't there a mechanism for archiving deleted articles? Making the history of an article unavailable might make sense in some cases, but here it doesn't seem justified. Eperoton (talk) 16:11, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] No, there's no such mechanism, because the point of the deletion process is to, well, delete inappropriate content. Some content can be restored to userspace on a case-by-case-basis, see WP:USERFY. Sandstein 17:18, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Great, thanks for the clarification. Since I seem to be the main (only?) advocate for attempting a salvaging operation in this discussion, could you userfy the deleted version under my user space and leave a link to it on this page? Eperoton (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Let's first wait for this review to conclude. Sandstein 18:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] That was a horribly difficult discussion to close, and one that raises all sorts of very complicated issues. Wikipedia is very poor indeed at covering anything related to religion and theology; the majority of our Christianity-related articles in the topic area consist of copypasta from far outdated sources such as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia, and the articles which aren't Christianity-related are in a truly woeful state. Wikipedians tend to be secular and uneducated in theology, particularly the non-Christian variety. So we get plenty of Dunning-Kruger effect, wherein people who know absolutely nothing at all about theology or Islam give their opinions in the emphatic declarative, even though they don't know what they don't know. This is not a good way to reach an intelligent conclusion. I see without surprise that Wikiproject Theology is defunct and inactive, and never had more than a couple of members anyway. We're way out of our depth here, and I would suggest opening a structured, multi-stage community RfC about how we can better organise and balance our coverage related to Islam.—S Marshall T/C 01:20, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] It's customary to restore the contested material during the DRV, on request from a good faith editor, unless it's unrestorable owing to copyvios, BLP issues etc. Sandstein's refusal to do this is perplexing and rather obstructive.—S Marshall T/C 17:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] If another admin wants to temporarily restore this for the DRV, they can go ahead, but I won't do it myself because I think it's a misguided practice: DRV is supposed to review the AfD and its closure, not the deleted article itself. Restoring the article all but invites editors to comment on the merits of the article, initiating the "second round of AfD" that a DRV is not supposed to be. Sandstein 18:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I would suggest that that view belongs on WT:DRV. In the meantime other sysops are encouraged not to allow Sandstein's unorthodox refusal to prevent them following our normal custom and practice.—S Marshall T/C 19:34, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Requesting Permission to view article history I would like to recreate the article, perhaps the closing admin User:Sandstein can incubate the article for me? FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Again: Let's first wait for this review to conclude. Sandstein 12:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse as an accurate reading of consensus, with leave to userfy. Stifle (talk) 09:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Endorse I felt the closer's reasoning as a good demonstration of a broad understanding of site policies and how to balance the reaching of consensus beyond a simple tally of votes. Even though I participated in the discussion, Sandstein mentioned something even I hadn't noticed (as I wasn't invested in the discussion beyond my own vote): that the keep voters didn't directly respond to the basis for deletion in a sufficient manner, and that seems rather significant for the closer who must make a tough decision. The AfD discussion got heated so there might be acrimony over that, but ultimately it seemed like a well thought out and well explained action. MezzoMezzo (talk) 06:58, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Can you specify "which part of the basis for deletion" the keep voters didn't respond in a sufficient manner!--94.58.148.217 (talk) 09:52, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I am not the person you were replying to, but in the deletion discussion arguments were made that the article failed the following Wikipedia policies and guidelines: WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:SYNTH, WP:QUOTEFARM, and WP:NOR. No one on the "other side" addressed those arguments. Thparkth (talk) 11:32, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Just because you or someone else said "blah.. blah.. blah" doesn't mean that "blah... blah... blah" is correct. Please remember to backup your claims with evidence. You and the delete voters didn't provide any evidence to support your claims that the article failed the policies and guidelines you mentioned. On the other hand, the keep voters provided evidence beside their claims. Firstly, WP:NOR says the following: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." Given that the material of the article was covered by reliable published sources (such as: this book, this book, this book, this book, and many other books), then the claim that it failed this policy of WP:NOR is ridiculous.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Secondly, WP:SYNTH says: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.". The article certainly didn't fail this policy at all as its material was a direct representation of its sources.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I have no idea whether the article failed those policies or not - I haven't seen it. What I do know is that in the AfD, the claim was made (by multiple editors) that the article did fail those policies, and no one even attempted to argue otherwise. Thparkth (talk) 15:05, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Veto deleting the article: As I explained previously on the talkpage of the deletion discussion, the closing admin seems to be an advocate of double-standard policy. He read the discussion with one eye opened and one eye closed. All the points raised by the delete voters were addressed and refuted by the keep voters. Deleting Praise and veneration of Muhammad while keeping Slandering of Muhammad shows clearly that the content of the English wiki is not neutral. While articles slandering Islam and Prophet Muhammad recieve continuous protection by the admins of the English wiki, articles like this article get deleted as quickly as possible. This problem comes from the fact that the majority of wiki's editors are either Christian or atheists and a systemic bias against Muslims is always inevitable.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 09:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] FYI: the article slandering of Muhammad was blocked in UAE few years ago, but it seems that the blocking is not working now. Perhaps we Arabs should follow China and block the entire website.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 10:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] A systemic bias against Muslims based on editor background seems out of the question, seeing that there are numerous criticism articles such as Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of atheism, Criticism of Jesus, and so on... The point of most delete-!voters was that positive views are/should be covered in Muhammad in Islam, since veneration of Muhammad is one of the basic tenets for (most) Muslims. - HyperGaruda (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] The article: "Muhammad in Islam" is comparable with the articles: "Medieval Christian views on Muhammad" & "Judaism's views on Muhammad" and similar articles, while the article: "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" is the one comparable with the article: "Slandering of Muhammad". If you think that the article "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" should get deleted because the article: "Muhammad in Islam" exists, then the article "Slandering of Muhammad" should also get deleted because "Medieval Christian views on Muhammad" and "Judaism's views on Muhammad" and similar articles exist. That was point one. Point two is that the topic "Muhammad in Islam" is a very vast topic . It deals with a great variety of subtopics and it is impossible to cover one single subtopic such as "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" under that topic. In addition, "praising Muhammad" is not exclusively related to Muslims. Many non-Muslims throughout the history praised Muhammad and showed their admiration of his character without converting to Islam such as Alphonse de Lamartine who said in his book "Histoire de la Turquie" (1854): "If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?" and many other non-Muslims.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] This point was raised during the deletion discussion. We don't cover differing views on some topic by creating two articles with one espousing each point of view. That's a WP:POVFORK. If you don't like the existence of Criticism of Muhammad then nominate it for deletion - its existence stand on its own and has nothing to do with the existence of this article. The existence of "Criticism of X" articles is in any case controversial. Note that you keep referring to "Criticism of Muhammad" as "Slander of Muhammad". Criticism can be valid or not, but slander is by definition false. I wonder where the real systematic bias is here. Hut 8.5 19:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] FYI, Criticism of Muhammad has been nominated for deletion a few days ago. - HyperGaruda (talk) 20:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] The continued use of the word "Slander" (False and damaging statements) in place of "Criticism" (Expressions of disapproval) is inaccurate and seems to indicate a strong POV, and for me at least detracts from the credence of the arguments presented alongside it, as many of them seem to be based upon this conflation.UnequivocalAmbivalence (talk) 22:27, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] I'm not sure what the right term for epithets like "devil and first-born child of Satan" would be, but in this case "criticism" seems to be a bit off the mark. Eperoton (talk) 18:21, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Comment This IP (94.58.148.217) is probably a sock who knows how wikipedia works and he is overtly sympathetic to the creator of this article. I would say that final decision regarding this review should really ignore comments made by this IP. Read Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Xtremedood. Capitals00 (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] That's an excellent point; there are a few signs in the language being used by this IP. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Please assume good faith and confine accusations to the investigation discussion until there is a verdict. Eperoton (talk) 04:24, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] No opinion on the AfD close itself, but I do want to make a meta-comment about the temp undelete issue. I agree that we are here to discuss the AfD closure. And, that restoring the article text shouldn't be necessary for that discussion. And, that it does encourage people to head off into the AfD-round-two weeds. That being said, temp undelete is established practice, if not actual policy. If you don't agree with the policy, you should argue to change it in an appropriate forum. Admins shouldn't be picking and choosing which policies to enforce based on what they agree with (insert picture of woman holding a mop and wearing a blindfold). -- RoySmith (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Well, the text just says "admins are routinely requested" - and not that they must accede to such requests, which I never have and never anticipate doing, much like most admins choose not to participate in one admin task or another. If others want to make such restorations, though, that's their call. As the admin whose deletion is being reviewed, it's better if I don't do admin-type stuff to the article during the review, anyway. Sandstein 23:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply] Agreed that an admin should stand back from a review of their own work. In my personal opinion, a better response to the original request directed at you would have been, As the subject of this review, it's not appropriate for me to do that. But, your response took a stance against the action. While another admin could have stepped in and done it anyway, I think most admins are (for better or worse) reluctant to reverse another admin on a decision. So, while you say that it's better that you don't do admin stuff when you're the subject of a review, in reality, you have, by offering an opinion and setting a bar which some other admin must overrule. I also agree that an admin doesn't need to get involved in everything, but if you choose not to do something, it's best to also not queer the pitch for everybody else. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:34, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

Praise and veneration of Muhammad – Decision endorsed – T. Canens (talk) 01:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.

I believe the closure broke WP policy which states: Discussions which fail to reach rough consensus default to "keep". The discussion clearly failed to reach consensus, with roughly half of the respondents supporting each position. The closing admin chose to focus on only one of the arguments given for keeping the article, ignoring the others: that the subject is notable and there are scholarly monographs devoted to it and that the article contains encyclopedic content and should be improved rather than deleted. I've brought up the issue with the closing admin who referred me here. Eperoton (talk) 16:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse even if it is true that the discussion had "roughly half of the respondents supporting each position" (there was a lot of sockpuppetry) that makes no difference. When determining rough consensus the closing admin has to consider the weight of arguments put forward to advance each position, how strong they are and whether they are reflected in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Here the weight of argument was heavily in favour of deletion, and so the article was deleted. The Keep argument discussed in the closing statement was by far the most popular, and to bring up notability is irrelevant. That a topic is notable does not mean Wikipedia has to have an article on it, it only means that the article can't be deleted because the subject is non-notable. There are plenty of other valid reasons for deleting articles, including those brought up here. Hut 8.5 16:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Closing admin's comment: I remain of the view, expressed in the closing statement, that the "keep" opinions must be given less weight because most of them did not address the policy-based opinions for deletion, and that we therefore have a consensus for deletion after considering the opinions expressed based on the strength of their argument. Sandstein 16:50, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse based on the understanding that this was a WP:TNT deletion -- that while the underlying subject may be notable, the deleted article failed key policies so badly as to be unsalvageable, and the option to blank-and-stub would result in an essentially meaningless/useless article. No prejudice against recreation of a policy-compliant article under this or a similar title. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The weight of policy-based argument was on the "delete" side and there was no attempt to counter those arguments by those wishing to keep the article. I base this conclusion on my analysis of the AfD, which together with my hypothetical closing statement can be found here. Thparkth (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly endorse, but allow for recreation if someone can write a good article There was consensus of policy-based comments that _this_ article was problematic. But the closer seemed to hint at the fact that there shouldn't be an article of this title at all, and I don't think there was anything near consensus on that. I felt this was more of a WP:TNT situation. Hobit (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't rule that out completely, but such a rewritten article would need to very convincingly dispose of the argument, also made in the AfD, that it can't be anything but a content fork of Muhammad in Islam – which covers his role in the religion and therefore also his position as an object of praise and veneration. Perhaps it could be a subarticle (per WP:SS) of that article, if the subtopic of "praise" can be usefully distinguished from Muhammad's other religious significance, and expanded upon in a non-hagiographical manner – but I know too little about the topic to be able to determine this. Sandstein 22:55, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Religious scholarship is nothing if not detail-oriented. I would strongly suppose that the topic "praise and veneration of muhammad" has been given substantial treatment by both partisan and neutral scholars over the years. It will have a history, and controversies, and different views and practices prevailing among different groups in the present day. It will have inspired art and poetry. For this reason I believe that it is hypothetically possible that a neutral, verifiable, and useful article on this specific topic might someday be written. I also believe that the decision as to whether a particular subtopic is large enough to merit a separate article is a decision best left to the editors working in that topic space. See for comparison our rather good article on Veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism which is usefully separate from our Mary (mother of Jesus) article. But I did not !vote "endorse without prejudice to recreation" because anyone proposing to start this new article ought to write a draft and obtain consensus for its recreation in mainspace first - the odds of a recreation just being another hagiography are rather high. Thparkth (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the analogy is apt, and an article similar to Veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism could work, but I agree that it would need to be drafted in userspace first. Sandstein 15:45, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- I agree that there was some sense of the discussion that no such article could exist, but it didn't have consensus IMO. Hobit (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Request temporary courtesy restoration of article history - I can certainly understand and anticipate the NPOV problems inherent in this topic, as well as those arising from contributions from self-selected contributors who do not understand NPOV and our other relevant policies. That said, would an uninvolved administrator temporarily please restore the article history so non-admin DRV participants can make intelligent comments informed by an understanding of the deleted article's content? Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:07, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really an involved administrator would be just as good. Any chance @Sandstein:? Thparkth (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather not, I'm opposed to the practice of temporarily restoring articles. What this is supposed to review is the discussion, not the article. Sandstein 09:53, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein: Would you be willing to temporarily restore the history so that interested editors can salvage the encyclopedic content contained in the article for the purposes of creating an improved version? Eperoton (talk) 15:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why not, if they're serious about creating an article that addresses the AfD's concerns, and show that they are indeed able to to that – but I suspect that would need an editor who is versed in Islamic studies, or we'd just get a slightly rearranged version of the deleted content. Sandstein 15:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, there's need for knowledge of the secondary literature, and good grasp or better interactive enforcement of policies, but that's not specific to the article in question. I think the priority would be to review the deleted text and see if it contains content that should be added to the relevant sections in other articles. More generally, isn't there a mechanism for archiving deleted articles? Making the history of an article unavailable might make sense in some cases, but here it doesn't seem justified. Eperoton (talk) 16:11, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no such mechanism, because the point of the deletion process is to, well, delete inappropriate content. Some content can be restored to userspace on a case-by-case-basis, see WP:USERFY. Sandstein 17:18, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for the clarification. Since I seem to be the main (only?) advocate for attempting a salvaging operation in this discussion, could you userfy the deleted version under my user space and leave a link to it on this page? Eperoton (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let's first wait for this review to conclude. Sandstein 18:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was a horribly difficult discussion to close, and one that raises all sorts of very complicated issues. Wikipedia is very poor indeed at covering anything related to religion and theology; the majority of our Christianity-related articles in the topic area consist of copypasta from far outdated sources such as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia, and the articles which aren't Christianity-related are in a truly woeful state. Wikipedians tend to be secular and uneducated in theology, particularly the non-Christian variety. So we get plenty of Dunning-Kruger effect, wherein people who know absolutely nothing at all about theology or Islam give their opinions in the emphatic declarative, even though they don't know what they don't know. This is not a good way to reach an intelligent conclusion. I see without surprise that Wikiproject Theology is defunct and inactive, and never had more than a couple of members anyway. We're way out of our depth here, and I would suggest opening a structured, multi-stage community RfC about how we can better organise and balance our coverage related to Islam.—S Marshall T/C 01:20, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's customary to restore the contested material during the DRV, on request from a good faith editor, unless it's unrestorable owing to copyvios, BLP issues etc. Sandstein's refusal to do this is perplexing and rather obstructive.—S Marshall T/C 17:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If another admin wants to temporarily restore this for the DRV, they can go ahead, but I won't do it myself because I think it's a misguided practice: DRV is supposed to review the AfD and its closure, not the deleted article itself. Restoring the article all but invites editors to comment on the merits of the article, initiating the "second round of AfD" that a DRV is not supposed to be. Sandstein 18:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that that view belongs on WT:DRV. In the meantime other sysops are encouraged not to allow Sandstein's unorthodox refusal to prevent them following our normal custom and practice.—S Marshall T/C 19:34, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting Permission to view article history I would like to recreate the article, perhaps the closing admin User:Sandstein can incubate the article for me? FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again: Let's first wait for this review to conclude. Sandstein 12:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse as an accurate reading of consensus, with leave to userfy. Stifle (talk) 09:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse I felt the closer's reasoning as a good demonstration of a broad understanding of site policies and how to balance the reaching of consensus beyond a simple tally of votes. Even though I participated in the discussion, Sandstein mentioned something even I hadn't noticed (as I wasn't invested in the discussion beyond my own vote): that the keep voters didn't directly respond to the basis for deletion in a sufficient manner, and that seems rather significant for the closer who must make a tough decision. The AfD discussion got heated so there might be acrimony over that, but ultimately it seemed like a well thought out and well explained action. MezzoMezzo (talk) 06:58, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can you specify "which part of the basis for deletion" the keep voters didn't respond in a sufficient manner!--94.58.148.217 (talk) 09:52, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am not the person you were replying to, but in the deletion discussion arguments were made that the article failed the following Wikipedia policies and guidelines: WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:SYNTH, WP:QUOTEFARM, and WP:NOR. No one on the "other side" addressed those arguments. Thparkth (talk) 11:32, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just because you or someone else said "blah.. blah.. blah" doesn't mean that "blah... blah... blah" is correct. Please remember to backup your claims with evidence. You and the delete voters didn't provide any evidence to support your claims that the article failed the policies and guidelines you mentioned. On the other hand, the keep voters provided evidence beside their claims.

Firstly, WP:NOR says the following: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." Given that the material of the article was covered by reliable published sources (such as: this book, this book, this book, this book, and many other books), then the claim that it failed this policy of WP:NOR is ridiculous.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Secondly, WP:SYNTH says: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.". The article certainly didn't fail this policy at all as its material was a direct representation of its sources.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea whether the article failed those policies or not - I haven't seen it. What I do know is that in the AfD, the claim was made (by multiple editors) that the article did fail those policies, and no one even attempted to argue otherwise. Thparkth (talk) 15:05, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Veto deleting the article: As I explained previously on the talkpage of the deletion discussion, the closing admin seems to be an advocate of double-standard policy. He read the discussion with one eye opened and one eye closed. All the points raised by the delete voters were addressed and refuted by the keep voters. Deleting Praise and veneration of Muhammad while keeping Slandering of Muhammad shows clearly that the content of the English wiki is not neutral. While articles slandering Islam and Prophet Muhammad recieve continuous protection by the admins of the English wiki, articles like this article get deleted as quickly as possible. This problem comes from the fact that the majority of wiki's editors are either Christian or atheists and a systemic bias against Muslims is always inevitable.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 09:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: the article slandering of Muhammad was blocked in UAE few years ago, but it seems that the blocking is not working now. Perhaps we Arabs should follow China and block the entire website.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 10:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A systemic bias against Muslims based on editor background seems out of the question, seeing that there are numerous criticism articles such as Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of atheism, Criticism of Jesus, and so on... The point of most delete-!voters was that positive views are/should be covered in Muhammad in Islam, since veneration of Muhammad is one of the basic tenets for (most) Muslims. - HyperGaruda (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article: "Muhammad in Islam" is comparable with the articles: "Medieval Christian views on Muhammad" & "Judaism's views on Muhammad" and similar articles, while the article: "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" is the one comparable with the article: "Slandering of Muhammad". If you think that the article "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" should get deleted because the article: "Muhammad in Islam" exists, then the article "Slandering of Muhammad" should also get deleted because "Medieval Christian views on Muhammad" and "Judaism's views on Muhammad" and similar articles exist. That was point one.

Point two is that the topic "Muhammad in Islam" is a very vast topic . It deals with a great variety of subtopics and it is impossible to cover one single subtopic such as "Praise and veneration of Muhammad" under that topic. In addition, "praising Muhammad" is not exclusively related to Muslims. Many non-Muslims throughout the history praised Muhammad and showed their admiration of his character without converting to Islam such as Alphonse de Lamartine who said in his book "Histoire de la Turquie" (1854): "If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?" and many other non-Muslims.--94.58.148.217 (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This point was raised during the deletion discussion. We don't cover differing views on some topic by creating two articles with one espousing each point of view. That's a WP:POVFORK. If you don't like the existence of Criticism of Muhammad then nominate it for deletion - its existence stand on its own and has nothing to do with the existence of this article. The existence of "Criticism of X" articles is in any case controversial. Note that you keep referring to "Criticism of Muhammad" as "Slander of Muhammad". Criticism can be valid or not, but slander is by definition false. I wonder where the real systematic bias is here. Hut 8.5 19:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, Criticism of Muhammad has been nominated for deletion a few days ago. - HyperGaruda (talk) 20:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The continued use of the word "Slander" (False and damaging statements) in place of "Criticism" (Expressions of disapproval) is inaccurate and seems to indicate a strong POV, and for me at least detracts from the credence of the arguments presented alongside it, as many of them seem to be based upon this conflation.UnequivocalAmbivalence (talk) 22:27, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the right term for epithets like "devil and first-born child of Satan" would be, but in this case "criticism" seems to be a bit off the mark. Eperoton (talk) 18:21, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This IP (94.58.148.217) is probably a sock who knows how wikipedia works and he is overtly sympathetic to the creator of this article. I would say that final decision regarding this review should really ignore comments made by this IP. Read Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Xtremedood. Capitals00 (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's an excellent point; there are a few signs in the language being used by this IP. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith and confine accusations to the investigation discussion until there is a verdict. Eperoton (talk) 04:24, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No opinion on the AfD close itself, but I do want to make a meta-comment about the temp undelete issue. I agree that we are here to discuss the AfD closure. And, that restoring the article text shouldn't be necessary for that discussion. And, that it does encourage people to head off into the AfD-round-two weeds. That being said, temp undelete is established practice, if not actual policy. If you don't agree with the policy, you should argue to change it in an appropriate forum. Admins shouldn't be picking and choosing which policies to enforce based on what they agree with (insert picture of woman holding a mop and wearing a blindfold). -- RoySmith (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the text just says "admins are routinely requested" - and not that they must accede to such requests, which I never have and never anticipate doing, much like most admins choose not to participate in one admin task or another. If others want to make such restorations, though, that's their call. As the admin whose deletion is being reviewed, it's better if I don't do admin-type stuff to the article during the review, anyway. Sandstein 23:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that an admin should stand back from a review of their own work. In my personal opinion, a better response to the original request directed at you would have been, As the subject of this review, it's not appropriate for me to do that. But, your response took a stance against the action. While another admin could have stepped in and done it anyway, I think most admins are (for better or worse) reluctant to reverse another admin on a decision. So, while you say that it's better that you don't do admin stuff when you're the subject of a review, in reality, you have, by offering an opinion and setting a bar which some other admin must overrule. I also agree that an admin doesn't need to get involved in everything, but if you choose not to do something, it's best to also not queer the pitch for everybody else. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:34, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.