UESPWiki:Deletion Review/Oblivion:Punching horses

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There's no reason for this page to exist. It's simply a method of raising Hand-to-Hand skill and should be included on the Increasing Skills page, or on Hand to Hand, where it can be explained in about two lines instead of an entire page. In addition, the article is written in an un-wiki-like and very silly style; it couldn't be saved without a total rewrite. Lastly, there are lots of problems with the technique itself. Some of these are already described on the article; others (such as wandering NPCs walking by and witnessing your acts) also spring to mind. This is a clear case of a page that needs to be deleted. –Rpeh  07:00, 16 January 2009 (EST)

 
Keep - There is no reason for this page to be marked for deletion.  While the individual who marked it obviously disagrees with the writing style and believes it should be merged, neither is an appropriate reason for marking an article for deletion.  Most of the content is very straight-forward and mechanical.  The few instances of light-hearted wording add to the creative quality of the article, but nonetheless can be easily reworded without major changes to the content itself should that be the consensus.  In any case, it is not appropriate to slap a deletion tag on an article simply because of stylistic disagreements or feelings about possible merging. Sir kris 07:18, 16 January 2009 (EST)

::There's every reason for this page to exist.  It is a viable levelling strategy that is time-tested and proven.  Your comments, Rpeh, are self-contradictory.  You say that it can be explained in two lines, but then you admit that there are complexities (such as wandering NPCs-- which ARE described in the article btw) that need explanation.  This article explains these caveats in a concise and straightfoward manner.

::Assuming the steps listed are followed, this strategy is extremely easy and more useful than any other levelling technique I've seen listed here in terms of efficiency and overall effectiveness.  Given how quickly you marked this article after it was created, you clearly didn't even bother to attempt this for yourself before judging it invalid.  There are no serious problems with the technique, especially when compared to other techniques already listed.

::I would be open to discussing a merge, as the only reason I created this as a new article was because I could not find any suitable existing article to put it in.  So long as all the essential content is preserved so the strategy can be successfully duplicated by the reader, then the rest I really don't care about.  But simply attempting to censor this method altogether by slapping a deletion tag is just unacceptable.  Don't knock it till you've tried it.

::In the meantime, I would be happy to discuss fixing *specific* instances of wording that you object to as well as a possible merger if you feel this would be better served as part of another existing article. Sir kris 07:21, 16 January 2009 (EST)

::: No other leveling tip has a whole page devoted to it. There's no reason for this to be an exception. –Rpeh  07:25, 16 January 2009 (EST)

:::: You need to re-read my comments then.  I've already said repeatedly that I'm open to merging it, and that I only created a new article because I couldn't find an appropriate place for it.  So long as the essential content necessary to duplicate the strategy is preserved, then the rest is just semantics to me.  However, the appropriate tag would be merge, not deletion.Sir kris 07:32, 16 January 2009 (EST)


Delete - Have to agree with the reasons provided already, no other levelling tip has a whole pgae to cover it, also the articl contains a large amount of personal opinion (phrases such as "This is a fun (albeit horribly inhumane)strategy for levelling up a character in a relatively short period of time." and in theory, also encourages cruelty to animals (with only one short line at the bottom advising otherwise). Also a number of speeling and grammar mistakes have cuught my eye, Chorrol being spelt as corral, The lack of capitals in the title. Article seems completely unnecessary and beyond cleanup --Volanaro   12:43, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Delete — Nearly all of the content is redundant, and the article is also misleading in various ways.
Ways to increase combat skills are already discussed at .  That article already includes a section specifically on "Use your horse for target practice", which covers the basic points of this article.  Adding a bullet to that section stating "Similarly, you can use horses in the corrals at stables" would basically take care of the "new" information added by this article.
The Increasing Skills article is where wiki readers already look for information on this topic. The Hand to Hand article's section on Skill Increases already links directly to the General Combat Strategies section of Increasing Skills, as do countless other articles that discuss related topics.  Information is only useful to readers if it's read by the readers, and therefore new information should be added in locations where readers already look for it, not on a new, separate article with no links to it and with a title that readers will only find if they already know exactly what the article is discussing.
In response to some of the above comments, I really don't think that much more than one sentence would need to be added to the General Combat Strategies section.  "Merge" implies that a substantial amount of the existing article needs to be incorporated somewhere else, but I really don't see that to be necessary in this case.  This wiki assumes that readers are smart enough to take a suggestion to "attack a horse in a stable" and work out all of the individual steps necessary to to do that action.  They can read the Stables article themselves for details on where stables are located; they can figure out how to heal themselves if they get injured; they can figure out that they can come back later and repeat the suggestions.  This "article" is long enough to be an article primarily because it states a lot of obvious facts and also because it repeats many of those obvious facts. 
The article's emphasis on hand-to-hand combat is misleading.  Although the article states a couple of times that this technique should only be used for hand-to-hand combat, the only aspect of the article that is specific to hand-to-hand is the article's title, namely the word "punching" in the title.  Otherwise, everything is equally true of any combat skill — which is why the Increasing Skills article doesn't have a section on "Increasing Hand-to-hand" but instead has a section on "General Combat Strategies".
Several other aspects of the article are essentially based on the writer's personal experience and don't hold true for all players.  It assumes that Hand-to-hand is a major skill (which at least is stated as an assumption, but still limits the usefulness).  It assumes that the player has "overlooked" the Hand-to-hand skill, even though there are players who choose to use that skill for combat.  It assumes that the player has a low Hand-to-hand skill (comments about how quickly the skill will increase will not be true otherwise; also comments about how little damage the horses suffer are only true at low skill and attribute levels).  It assumes that readers would not want to attack his/her own horse.
The overall approach taken with the article limits its usefulness to readers.  Because it is written so specifically from one writer's perspective and because the information is disconnected from all related information, the suggestions are only useful to readers who play the game the exact same way as the writer.  On the other hand, the  is written to be useful to almost anyone who plays the game.  By presenting multiple options side by side, readers are allowed to compare the alternatives and choose one that suits them.  Points that are similar for any approach are discussed together so that readers know that the information is generally true; information that is specific to just one technique is separated out.  That is why we don't have dozens of separate articles ("Stabbing Peryite worshipers", "Clubbing mud crabs", "Attacking Everscamps", etc.)  And the ideas in "Punching horses" are not sufficiently novel and are not really any better than all of the other techniques, so there is no reason for this one technique to be treated differently. --Nephele  12:55, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Delete - This page is both unencyclopedic and borderline nonsense.  I find it hard to take any written work seriously when every sentence is a run-on, every paragraph ends in an exclamation point, and every line is written in first person.  I’m sure Rpeh and Nephele have professional reasons why they didn’t but the reason I didn’t delete your page the moment I saw it was out of courtesy to you being new to the site.  While I’m sure you mean well, any credibility you might hope to gain is surely to be lost with your foul language, poorly worded statements, and childish antics of taking everything as a personal attack.  Before I finish typing I would also like to point out that every IP being accused of you happens to have the same writing style, grammatical errors, and format as you. (Gadianzero 06:02, 17 January 2009 (EST))

Delete - This decision really doesn't even require much discussion. A quick scan of the page realizes it really is not written in a serious manner. It contains plenty of redundant and unnecessary information, many of which are just an attempt to make the article a big joke. Lines such as ''"It's a fun activity for the whole family, so let's get started!", or "Follow these simple steps and you'll be well on your way to having the ASPCA kicking down your door in no time.", which are in the first paragraphs in the page, further prove my point. This, in my opinion, was made ready to be deleted.-Puddle   18:19, 17 January 2009 (EST)

Merge''' — Okay, lemme through my two cents in.  This page... how can I put this nicely?  This page "isn't up to wiki standards."  It uses slang, it's written in a very "social" tone, and it's plain weird.  Seriously, punching horses?  If you really want to train hard-to-hand, which I never have because I find hand-to-hand horrid, there's much better, and less creepy, things to practice with.  I think maybe, MAYBE merge it.  Else, delete faster than the horse running away.  

Delete - I agree with most other comments, that this is a specific page devoted to a leveling strategy, too casual, should, if necessary, be merged with another topic, and doesn't need that much explanation. Hand to hand practice: punch horses till they run away. That's how I would clean that up. One sentence. Not to mention the only way I came across this page is through the Deletion Reviews, not out of necessity. I think that it would even benefit the page to be merged with the skill increasing pages or the combat strategies so that the information can be more easily found. I've never had to search for "Punching horses" when I wanted to know about how to increase hand-to-hand. This page has too much information about too specific a subject. Not useful. Chunk of Ham 04:11, 18 January 2009 (EST)

Comments  
Both of the following comments were posted by anonymous IPs that trace back to China and are therefore more likely to be open proxies than actual reader ISPs.  Although anonymous IPs can comment on discussions, there is nothing to prevent the same person from voting more than once by logging in repeatedly from different open proxies.  Therefore, votes from anonymous IPs cannot be meaningfully counted. --Nephele  15:15, 16 January 2009 (EST)
Keep - i tried this and it worked for me great, you guys jus dont have a sense of humour.  i found it very useful, and of course its hand to hand only because using a sword on a horse would kill it befor you gain any meaningful points.
i do think maybe it should be merged and trimmed down a little tho.  but just deleting it outright would be pointless, just take the useful information and merge it with the main article and be done with it already.121.9.242.226 14:38, 16 January 2009 (EST)
Re "of course its hand to hand only because using a sword on a horse would kill it befor you gain any meaningful points."  Not true.  If you use a damaged sword, or a poor quality sword you will only do one point of damage per blow, and can therefore gain just as much experience using a sword as punching.  Furthermore, if your blade skill is less than your hand-to-hand skill, you are likely to do less damage with a sword than by punching -- so again, the bias towards hand-to-hand reflects the playing preferences of one particular player.  --Nephele  15:15, 16 January 2009 (EST)
Keep - Very funny stuff, well written sirkris!  But they're right it's not in keeping with a Wiki style and there is a lot of bulk.  I agree though delete tag is not appropriate, this is clearly a merge.  Albeit a relatively minor one since most of the content can be discarded or condensed.  116.52.155.237 14:48, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Keep - I know I am very new here too but please forgive my presumption in saying I am concerned about how this seems to being managed.  The last set of comments concerns me very much.  I am from India but I do a lot of development work for outsourcing firms in various countries including China, and I'm sorry but I must take offence to the remarks I just read about people connecting from China.  ISPs in China are often routed through proxies so that content can be monitored and filtered by the government.  Belittling the last two 'keep' votes simply because they're from anon IPs in China is something that bothers me.  Also the fact that this was done by someone who has already voted to delete and expressed strong opinion on the matter is a conflict of interest that would not usually be tolerated on Wikipedia in my experience.  Without evidence of foul play those votes must be considered valid whether you agree with them or not.  I think this article is childish but I would like to try the method it offers and judge for myself, and it sounds appropriate for a merge.

:I have restored the two keep votes as a matter of principle, though I'm sure you'll just reverse them, but if that's the case I will take my leave of this site and you can do whatever you wish then.  I've barely been here ten minutes and I already see what could be racism, if that's true then I want nothing to do with this.
:DaNaeu7 15:35, 16 January 2009 (EST)

:* The reasons given were because the comments were made by anonymous IPs, one of which has been identified as an open proxy.  That's not racism, but basic logistics of how to ensure that voting is done fairly.  Furthermore, the fact that the IPs are from China is relevant for various reasons, including for example the fact at the time the comments were posted it was 3:30 AM in Beijing.  Disallowing anonymous votes and open proxies is also the same practice as followed on wikipedia:
:**  One of the advertised benefits of creating an account on wikipedia is that it gives you eligibility to vote.  
:** Individual policy pages on voting at wikipedia explicitly prohibit anonymous votes.  For example, at Requests for adminship it states "Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, but IPs are unable to place a numerical 'vote'."
:** Wikipedia's policy on deletion has an entire section describing why "Sockpuppeting is not to be tolerated".  It includes statements such as "Other Wikipedians will draw attention to such facts and may even recommend deletion simply because apparent sock- or meat-puppets piled in with "do not delete" or other similar comments." And "opinions offered by new or anonymous users are often met with suspicion and may be discounted during the closing process."
:** Wikipedia's policy on open proxies explicitly states they "may be blocked from editing for any period at any time," and that "open proxies are often used abusively".
:** Wikipedia's blocking policy states that "Open or anonymous proxies are prohibited from editing by the Wikimedia Foundation, and should be blocked on sight."
::Yes, I may have already voted in the discussion.  But placing a vote does not mean that I am prohibited from upholding policy in the remaining discussion.  Determining that a comment was added by anonymous IP does not require any type of subjective decision-making, and therefore whether or not I expressed an opinion elsewhere on the page has no relevance to my ability to identify the comment as being made by an anonymous IP.  --Nephele  16:45, 16 January 2009 (EST)

:::DaNaeu7's vote has been moved to the comments section as the account was banned for being a sock puppet of Sir kris.--Ratwar 16:53, 16 January 2009 (EST)

::::WTF??  This is the first time I've been on since yesterday morning!  I don't know who that person is but it sure as hell wasn't me.  I just read all that crap above, and this is ridiculous!  I come back here less than 24 hours after making a good argument for keeping, and suddenly there's a bunch of crap about racism and accusing me of creating duplicate accounts??  News flash people, I'm not in China!  Since you obviously know how to scan ip numbers, you'll see that I'm in USA, not China or India.  I think it's kinda sad that you'd resort to accusing me of creating foreign spam accounts-- without any evidence to support that-- just to discredit everyone who voted to keep my article.

::::You know what, go ahead and delete the damn thing.  I was trying to contribute something you'd find useful, but I don't have time for this nonsense!  And I'm not gonna waste my time having to prove what location I'm connecting from every time somebody else votes to keep this article.  It seems like you're just gonna do what you want to do anyway regardless of the votes.  So if you don't like the article, then don't use it.  It's your website, so you don't need to make excuses for your decision by making false accusations against me.  Don't worry, I'm not gonna waste anymore of my time on a site that is this unprofessional and aggressive toward newbies.  I just hope anyone else who may be thinking about voting to keep will read this before doing so, unless they want to be accused of being one of my alter-egoes as well lol.  Have fun.Sir kris 04:54, 17 January 2009 (EST)

::::: Please stop pretending - it's getting tedious. To summarise: as soon as two "Delete" votes appeared, two anonymous posts appear voting to "Keep". Both IPs came from China (in the middle of the night, as Nephele has already pointed out). One of these was definitely an open Proxy and it's not unreasonable to assume the other is too. Since these are open proxies you can easily be using them to hide your normal IP. After these votes were removed due to their anonymous nature, a brand new account is created and immediately goes to vote on this page. On Wikipedia this sequence of events would be taken as a clear sign of either sock-puppetry or meat-puppetry. 
::::: Wikis work by consensus, and if you are determined to get around that by faking votes to keep articles wanted by nobody else, then perhaps it is indeed best that you go elsewhere. –Rpeh  06:26, 17 January 2009 (EST)

Followup: It has now been a few days since this started, and Sir kris has not shown any interest in trying to add information from his article to the appropriate wiki article.  Therefore, I have taken the liberty of doing it myself: I have added a one line summary of Sir kris' article to the section on General Combat Strategies.  I honestly can't see anything else in the article that is novel or is not already covered in the appropriate place on the site.  For example, the fact that your armor skills will also increase is already covered in the section on General Combat Strategies.

Now that the suggestions to merge the information have been addressed, I cannot see any remaining reason why this article should be kept.  The only other argument for keeping the article was that it's "funny," but that has no relevance; UESP articles are supposed to provide information, so being humorous cannot be the sole reason for keeping an article.  Furthermore, I do not see any reason why the article should be turned into a redirect; other contributors to the discussion appear to also agree that nobody is going to search on "punching horses" to find leveling tips.  --Nephele  21:37, 21 January 2009 (EST)