Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2024 December 23

23 December 2024

List of health insurance executives in the United States

List of health insurance executives in the United States (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I request that the "delete" close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of health insurance executives in the United States be overturned to no consensus for these reasons:

1. There was no consensus that the list failed WP:NLIST.
2. There was no consensus that the list violated WP:CROSSCAT.
3. There was no consensus that "the list potentially puts people in danger" or that "the conspicuous timing of the list appears to at least celebrate this type of violence".
4. The closer was WP:INVOLVED through having asked a previous closer to reverse a "no consensus" close. The closer showed a clear preference for deletion when writing, "I don't think leaving this to stabilize is the right approach here. It's hard to dismiss the views on that AfD that this list, created four days after a highly publicized murder, is not here for encyclopedic reasons."
   • Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators says, "As a general rule, don't close discussions or delete pages whose discussions you've participated in. Let someone else do it." The closer participated in a discussion about the page by arguing with the previous closer that "no consensus" was wrong and advocating for a "delete" close.

Cunard (talk) 02:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Extended comment from DRV nominator:

  WP:INVOLVED

  Sandstein (talk · contribs) closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of health insurance executives in the United States as "no consensus" on 16 December 2024. OwenX (talk · contribs) posted on his talk page that he believed the close should have been "delete". OwenX wrote:

  1. "It was a tricky AfD to close, but after discarding the canvassed and non-P&G votes, I see a consensus to delete. I found two threads on Reddit canvassing for votes, and I'm sure others exist. What you said about NLIST is true, but I believe the Keep !voters did not adequately refute the issues of NLIST and CROSSCAT, which was nicely summarized by Dclemens1971 there. I'd be willing to re-close (and likely face the inevitable DRV...), if that's okay with you."
  2. "Two editors with 48 edits to their name, and one with 39 edits, among others with almost no AfD history, all show up suddenly after this and this were posted on Reddit. Note that until the canvassing began, there was a clear consensus to delete, with only one opposing view (from a non-XC editor). I don't think leaving this to stabilize is the right approach here. It's hard to dismiss the views on that AfD that this list, created four days after a highly publicized murder, is not here for encyclopedic reasons. As a minimum, relisting to get a few more non-canvassed views from experienced AfD participants would make sense."

  This sequence of events is similar to an admin starting a deletion review arguing that an AfD should be "overturned to delete", the AfD being reopened and relisted by the AfD closer, and then that DRV initiator later closing that AfD as "delete" before the seven-day relist period had finished even though discussion was ongoing. This would violate WP:INVOLVED as the argument for an overturn to delete goes beyond acting "purely in an administrative role".

  The closer explained:

  Firstly, with regards to the timing of the close, WP:RELIST clearly tells us that A relisted discussion may be closed once consensus is determined, without necessarily waiting for another seven days. The AfD had been open for 13 days and 9 hours. It was not closed early. Since I'll be spending most of tomorrow (Eastern Time) with my in-laws, I figured I'd take care of this tricky AfD now rather than leave it for another admin to struggle with (and with the DRV that will likely follow). There is no policy that obliges a closer to let the relist clock run out, but if you feel you've been short-changed here, I'd be happy to hear the rebuttal you were planning to post on that AfD, and will reconsider and amend my close, if warranted. That said, unless you bring up an argument that turns everything around, I don't see how your reply to Sirfurboy will change the consensus I read there.

  Secondly, I did not edit the article nor !vote in the AfD. To quote WP:INVOLVED, my role in this debate was purely administrative. I told Sandstein that I believe he erred in his N/C close, as I did see a rough consensus, after discarding non-P&G-based votes. That is exactly what an uninvolved admin is supposed to do when closing - or assessing the close - of an AfD. I never weighed the article on its merits, and have no opinion about it either way. My sole input here are the arguments expressed in the AfD, as they relate to our policy and guidelines. Sandstein's close was not overturned. He agreed with my assessment of his close, chose to relist it, at which point any admin--including him or me--was welcome to re-close. The situation you describe is materially different, as the DRV participant in your example was a side to the dispute. In this case, there was no dispute.

  I disagree that OwenX's involvement was "purely administrative". When he "assess[ed] the close of the AfD" by telling Sandstein he should have deleted the article, OwenX became WP:INVOLVED. When he wrote, I don't think leaving this to stabilize is the right approach here. It's hard to dismiss the views on that AfD that this list, created four days after a highly publicized murder, is not here for encyclopedic reasons., he became WP:INVOLVED.

  Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators says, "As a general rule, don't close discussions or delete pages whose discussions you've participated in. Let someone else do it." OwenX should have let someone else close the AfD because he initiated a discussion with the previous closer about how the AfD was wrongly closed and the article should have been deleted.

  WP:NLIST and WP:CROSSCAT

  There was no consensus that the list violated WP:NLIST and WP:CROSSCAT. Numerous established editors argued that the subject met WP:NLIST and did not violate WP:CROSSCAT. Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists says:

  One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been.

  I provided sources showing that "highly paid health insurance CEOs in the United States" "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". There are other sources that do not just discuss the grouping of "highly paid health insurance CEOs in the United States" such as President Obama meeting with them in 2013. This Washington Post article notes, "The White House hosted a group of health insurance executives this afternoon to discuss - you guessed it! - HealthCare.Gov." This Modern Healthcare article notes:

  Fourteen insurance industry heavyweights were called to the White House Wednesday to advise the Obama administration on how to fix the dysfunctional federal health insurance exchange. ... Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson, WellPoint CEO Joseph Swedish, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini and Humana CEO Bruce Broussard were part of the delegation that met with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Deputy Assistant to the President for Health Policy Chris Jennings. ... Other healthcare industry leaders participating in Wednesday's meeting were: Patrick Geraghty, CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida; Jay Gellert, president and CEO of Health Net; Patricia Hemingway Hall, president and CEO of Health Care Services Corp.; Daniel Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross; Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans; John Molina, chief financial officer of Molina Healthcare; Michael Neidorff, chairman and CEO of Centene Corp.; James Roosevelt Jr., president and CEO of Tufts Health Plan Foundation; and Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association."

  This article also lists the "health insurance executives" who participated in the meeting.

  Concerns about revising the list's scope to better reflect the sources should be handled through a discussion on the talk page per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion and Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required.

  "the list potentially puts people in danger" and "the conspicuous timing of the list appears to at least celebrate this type of violence"

  There is no consensus for the viewpoint that the list potentially puts people in danger or the conspicuous timing of the list appears to at least celebrate this type of violence. These are not policy-based reasons for deletion. This information is widely publicly available and well-sourced to high quality reliable sources, so the list does not violate Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. The list passed Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists before the killing happened. Deletion under this basis violates WP:NOTCENSORED. As one AfD participant wrote:

  Finally, I think it's dangerous territory to limit the creation of controversial articles based on timing. Was this page made in response to a terrible event? Yes. But at what arbitrary point would we then be allowed to create controversial articles? Who gets to decide what's controversial? Slippery slope. I think the timing of this needs to be taken out of the equation.

  Cunard (talk) 02:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse (involved). AfD is not a vote, but most of the keep voters treated it that way. I counted only four keep voters (including Cunard) who offered policy-based rationales for their !votes. The rest were some mix of WP:PERX, WP:ITSIMPORTANT, WP:WHATABOUTX and WP:ILIKEIT. The canvassed votes distorted the debate and the closer was right to discard them when discerning a consensus. As a result, the appellant’s first two points are incorrect. There was a delete consensus on those grounds. (Re: NLIST, Sirfurboy rebutted Cunard’s sources, and I will add that those sources are all about health insurance CEOs, not the broader category of executives, which was the subject of this list. At no point was NLIST met and no consensus existed there.) Point 3 I agree with the appellant; I and a few delete voters made comments on the propriety of this particular list, but I agree that a preponderance of the delete !voters did not discuss this. However, there was a consensus to delete on NLIST and CROSSCAT. Finally, the question of whether the closer was involved. As the other participant in the discussion on Sandstein’s talk page, I do not think so. OwenX expressed his view about whether a consensus had emerged, not what it should be. I think OwenX’s comments about not “leaving this to stabilize” plainly meant that he believed there was a consensus and that a N/C close when a consensus exists on a contentious subject is not the right approach. That’s an opinion about closing procedure, not a supervote or “involvement” that would preclude a later administrative action. Dclemens1971 (talk) 05:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn This is a tough one to assess for several different reasons, including the length of the DRV, so I copied and pasted the discussion into a word processor, eliminated canvassed votes, and came to my own conclusion before reading the full petition. I completely agree with Cunard here on both counts: that OwenX became involved when they petitioned Sandstein to relist their close, and that the close itself was wrong. I get a no consensus result, after the relist there is clearly no consensus when only looking at votes from long term users, and while I have sometimes disagreed with Cunard about whether the sources they find are good enough at specific AfDs, in this instance their detailed !vote does directly rebut arguments made by delete !votes and more discussion about those sources would be welcome. I think the best result is a relist to give some time to discuss those sources, but an overturn to no consensus would also make sense. SportingFlyer T·C 07:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse (involved). It is right that, per Dclemens1971, most of the keeps were non policy based and should be discarded. The closer correctly assessed the consensus. But I was involved so you would think I would say that. But come on. Someone creates a list of health care executives (not just CEOs. Not just the top 10 best paid. All and any of them) on December 8. Created when companies are removing the names of their executives on safety grounds. Created and grouped into a handy list. OwenX did err on one point: It was not just Dclemens1971 who argued for IAR in addition to the failure of this list to meet NLIST. I argued for that too. IAR is policy, and this is a clear and present danger to the encyclopaedia and to the people on the list. Note that we are not hiding information, because we have the information on individual pages. But we should - indeed we must - hide a handy collated list of healthcare executives created in the wake of, and clearly as a response to, the murder of one of the people on the list. We should hide it because the list is dangerous and we should hide it because it obviously brings the whole project into disrepute. I am sorry, but I sincerely believe everyone arguing to keep this list deserves trouting. Recently there were long discussions at ANI about sites that acted in harmful ways, and how Wikipedians should probably avoid them. Well, taking on board those arguments, if this were overturned and kept, I do not see how I could continue to participate on Wikipedia. And I do not say that lightly. IAR is policy. Now is the time to use it. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:47, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Keep deleted for a while. Strong hit list perception. Potential encyclopedic value doesn't justify. This topic should be censored for a while. WP:IAR.—Alalch E. 13:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Vacate close and allow an uninvolved admin to close the AFD. The closing admin requested the previous no consensus close be undone and the AFD be relisted , thereby making them an involved party (particularly when the new close differed from the original close). I don’t necessarily disagree with the delete outcome, based on hit list and BLP concerns, but there is a clear bias (albeit likely unintentional) in the current close. Frank Anchor 14:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Why would we vacate the close and re-close for the sake of it if we believe the close was correct? That is just a waste of someone's time. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

While I normally argue against process for the sake of process, there are some exceptions. An involved closer who publicly stated displeasure about a previous close is certainly one of these exceptions. Frank Anchor 17:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Vacate and reclose by an uninvolved editor On balance, it does appear that the closer became involved by questioning the original close. --Enos733 (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Comment (as closer): I find the whole "INVOLVED" thing ridiculous. When two bureaucrats discuss how to close an RfA, is one of them automatically "INVOLVED"? Are both? What about when several Arbcom members discuss a case before them? Should all but one recuse themselves?

This particular AfD received the attention of two closing admins, rather than the usual one. I don't see how that makes either "INVOLVED". Reading consensus isn't "involvement". And had my read of consensus--and my exchange with Sandstein--been about changing to a Keep close, I doubt Cunard would be here calling foul. Owen× ☎ 16:58, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• endorse because it's the right close for the right reasons but I'll be honest it doesn't sit well that the closer advocated for a different close to be undone. For those who are concerned about independence, I'll happily substitute my delete close for the actual closers, which I believe now ticks all the necessary boxes to endorse this close. To be clear I did read every word of the nomination but Jeeze Cunard I was really tempted to skim over it because life isn't that long. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)