User talk:Spartaz

Spartaz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

I'm a long term user (first edit 2006) and have been an admin on or off since 2007. When we first started there was so much idealism and we really had no strong policies about inclusion except a desire to have some level of sourcing. As time moved on we became more structured and around the time I became an admin in 2007 we were grappling with the concept of collapsing non notable articles into lists which I was at the forefront of as a regular afd closer and constant presence at DRV. I had a lot of patience once and for that reason was regular DRV closer for a long time after GRBerry left the project. Sadly, my patience was degraded over time and getting involved in the long battle to remove poorly sourced porn performer articles that was one of the first cases of SNGs being deprecated in favour of obvious stuff like meeting the GNG. This pretty much washed out a lot of the good faith that policy and courtesy quite rightly requires us to show. This affected me for a very long time and I'm only recently getting my manners back, and able to contribute more extensively. If I say something you think is rude. Please tell me!

A BLP is a serious matter and needs to be properly sourced.

i am willing to userfy deleted articles for improvement as long as there is a reasonable likelihood that they can be saved.

If you are challenging a deletion, do you have three good sources?

Useful Links:

• Deletion Review
• Articles for Deletion
• Unblocks

Please don't leave talkback templates as I always watchlist pages when I edit and I'm perfectly capable of looking for a reply myself.

Hi Spartaz, I've just seen your close at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Darializa Avila Chevalier (2nd nomination) to delete and redirect. I've literally just come back from a wikibreak so I was unable to participate, but I do agree with your close and the Delete arguments in the AfD discussion. However, could you please restore the deleted article as a draft to Draft:Darializa Avila Chevalier? As many who participated in the discussion said, if Avila Chevalier were to win her primary election next week she would likely meet the notability guidelines, so having a draft prepared would make restoring the article easier. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 13:02, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

if she wins the general election just ping me. Primaries are not usually the trigger for an article. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:55, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Spartaz, could you please explain how you assessed the discussion and reached the conclusion that the result was delete and redirect? إيان (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Your closure note The result was delete and redirect to 2026 United States House of Representatives elections in New York tells us nothing of how you assessed the discussion and the validity of arguments and !votes with regard to Wikipedia policies, particularly WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV.

As for 3 sources you mention on your page, I believe these are probably currently the best for establishing the subject's notability: City and State, El Diario NY, and CNN. Thanks. إيان (talk) 17:15, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I want to echo Pretzel Quetzal's request for "draftify" to Draft:Darializa Avila Chevalier.

On the merits of the deletion closer: I mostly agree with إيان. (Disclosure: Both of us !voted "keep", so we may be biased.) By my count, there were 9 !votes for keep (Tiamut; إيان; BobFromBrockley; Chao Garden; Edittttor; CopyleftEverything; Tbrechner; Katt Wilm; Smgraves623), 6 for delete (CambridgeBayWeather; EaglesFan37; CharlesBluth; Cachedio; Stanloona2020; and Pretzel Quetzal would've !voted), 6 for redirect (Enos733; Cfgauss77; FantinoFalco; pburka; William.E.Goat; Biosketch). That's 9-12. Closing this as delete is not unreasonable. But there was NOT a clear consensus.

IMO the debate was essentially between WP:GNG through WP:SIGCOV (for "keep") versus WP:BIO1E (for "delete"). I think the sources, including those listed by إيان above, clearly meet WP:GOLDENRULE coverage of activity before & outside the election campaign. The election campaign itself is arguably notable in-and-of-itself -- the coordinated Mamdani-DSA-JusticeDem effort to unseat a powerful incumbent received an enormous amount of coverage. After the article's deletion, there is no coverage of this effort on Wikipedia.

To point to a recent AFD for a challenger candidate: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Graham Platner. When that article was listed for AFD, it had 6 sources. But it was kept, long before the election, because a few months later, it had 27 sources, the vast majority of which WP:RS with WP:SIGCOV. It is hard for me to see why that page should've been kept, but not Darializa Avila Chevalier, when DAC's article contained more sources and a similar amount of WP:SIGCOV.

To close with WP:THREE: 1. City & State's June 2026 profile of DAC; 2. NYTimes's May 2026 profile of DAC, 3. The City Reporter's January 2026 profile of DAC. Each discusses DAC's past activism, present campaign, and ideology in detail.

Draftify would be greatly appreciated, as would reasoning in your AFD closer message. Thanks for your work in AFDs. :) CopyleftEverything (talk) 20:38, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have expanded my thinking. Were these sources offered to the AFD?? Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:37, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Spartaz: Only City & State was explicitly raised at the AFD, I think. The sources were in the article itself, but maybe I & keep !voters failed to make them salient. CopyleftEverything (talk) 23:32, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There were citations provided in the AfD that, to my mind, clearly satisfied WP:GNG against many !votes that made no convincing argument with regard to policy whatsoever, so I didn’t bother to keep sources there updated. If the AfD close can’t be undone, I intend to file a close review. إيان (talk) 04:20, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't discuss under the threat of a DRV so go ahead. We are done here Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:54, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't a threat. Just a candid expression of my intention to file a close review if the close can’t be undone through discussion, which I don’t know whether or not it would possible to happen anyway. If I’m not supposed to be candid about that, I’m sorry. إيان (talk) 16:26, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

its a threat. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:24, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Spartaz: I didn't expect this to escalate. Thanks for hearing me out. If there is a way to re-open the AFD (?), that might be the simplest solution? I don't know protocol. Thanks for your work on AFDs, even if I disagreed here. :) CopyleftEverything (talk) 23:48, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

no. It's down to drv now Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:55, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

> I'll note the community has traditionally been wary of sending to draft space articles about political candidates (WP:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes#Candidates) to prevent draft space becoming a repository for campaign brochures. That said, as the primary is next week, we will quickly have a sense of the race. - Enos733 (talk) 21:52, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I think that this would be a better idea, based on @Enos733's message I can now see the concerns with keeping drafts of political candidates.

However, I do think that just winning the primary could be sufficient to establish notability: District 13 is very heavily Democrat-leaning with the closest election being won 84-16, and if Avila Chevalier wins it would likely be described as an upset and covered extensive in the media. Obviously this is all WP:CRYSTALBALL so I will look at the sourcing at the time and decide based on that. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 06:33, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Spartaz, We see that the page James Buckley-Thorp, British entrepreneur and reality tv star/music entrant for Eurovision has been deleted after a negative news article went public last week. I originally noticed people attacking the page, and started going through the process of adding the relevant inline links, and removing other information other people added which did not comply to the results. I believe there were votes on the page, and the page was accepted to be 'keep' status. I still had more work to do for it, as well as a few other pages. Is there a resolution for this page? I genuinely believe his page was targetted because of a negative news article, but besides that I thought we just have to work and find those references for the page, rather than it being deleted. Would you be able to look into this for me, and advise? I am still new and learning, and really invested in this page. UserbuilderUK (talk) 18:17, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is a resolution. It was deleted. If you still think there is an article to write than you can start a draft and go through AFC where an experienced editor will assess it's readiness for publication. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:28, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I’ll continue improving other articles. When I feel ready to take on a project like that I’ll think of that.

best ~2026-34474-60 (talk) 22:14, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Darializa Avila Chevalier. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. إيان (talk) 17:43, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Spartaz! Looking at your close of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Help:Buying Wikipedia, I read the consensus there as indicating that the main Help: Buying Wikipedia page (and its price subpage) would be more appropriate in projectspace, not userspace. There are also some issues with the moves of the other subpages, as I have never edited those and did not consent to having them put in my userspace and do not want them there. Would you be willing to adjust your close accordingly or object to me cleaning things up myself? Sdkb ^talk 14:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They are your pages and in the absence of any clear consensus either way, it makes sense to give them back to you. Why would you not want to host them?

It's entirely down to you what you do with them next, but imo the entire ecosystem of linked pages is too complicated to go into project space for something that is barely humorous. If you want to move pages into project space, I strongly recommend that you streamline what you move and maximise the humour. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:55, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They are your pages I neither created them nor edited them; the only page I created was the original Help:Buying Wikipedia. I stated this in the discussion, which closers are generally expected to read before making the close. Sdkb ^talk 20:25, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

let me have another look in the morning. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:45, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To follow up, @Ringtail Raider has inquired about this as well. If there are not objections, I will plan to move the page (and the price subpage) to projectspace. For all the other not-very-funny subpages, I could technically delete them with my admin bit under U1 as pages in my userspace, but that would be poisoned fruit of the decision to move them into my userspace in the first place. The spirit of U1 is that it's not controversial for users to have deleted pages they created for themselves, but as these are not pages I created, that spirit does not apply. I would prefer to see them orphaned by removing the links to them and then have them deleted later under G8. Until then, they should be moved out of my userspace (with no lingering redirect) and into the userspaces of the editors who created them. Sdkb ^talk 19:48, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

yes that's probably best Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:07, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I see that you closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Krupajal Engineering College, Bhubaneswar as redirect. I made this AfD, and I don't oppose a deletion or redirect as said in the discussion. However, the redirect is in a page with an active AfD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of colleges affiliated to the Biju Patnaik University of Technology, that could also lead in deletion. In the AfD you closed there were 4 votes for deletion, and one clear for redirect, while I had no problem for both redirect or deletion. However, a redirect may be misleading, since it is towards another AfD. You can leave it as it is, this is mostly for your own feedback, since I know how hard these deletion discussions are. Thanks! Chiserc (talk) 18:28, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

have a read of the drv about redirects as an ATD Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:39, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2026 June 13

Sorry for terseness, I responded quickly at work. DRV expects closers do prefers redirects over outright deletion. You can follow a discussion about this at the above link. Thanks. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:12, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand that. However, the redirect is towards another article with an open AfD, which may be deleted very soon in a few days. It seems unusual, but I see your point. In any case, thank you! Chiserc (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Hope you're doing well. I'm writing on behalf of Aqsis Bey, who requested that I approach you regarding the deleted article – Rakkhosh (2026 film).

Only one qualifying review could be located during both the AfDs for this film. Since then, another bylined review in the Dhaka Post has been found – [1], in addition to the Prothom Alo review that was already there during the AfDs.

As this constitutes new sourcing that was unavailable during the AfDs, would you be willing to restore the deleted article to draftspace so that the new review can be incorporated and the article can be reassessed? If, after reviewing the new source, you feel that direct recreation is appropriate, that would also be appreciated.

Thank you for your time and consideration! BhikhariInformer‬ 📮 ^{(Ping me or else I won't see it)} 16:03, 28 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]