Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

This is a proposed policy. The ideas and wording of this proposal have been discussed at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load, and on this page's talk page.

This proposal is open for voting, as described below. Voting will close on July 18, 2005 15:11 (UTC). Please do not change the wording of this page.

---

Explanation

Votes for Deletion has tripled in size in the past year, and there is no reason to suppose it will shrink back again. This is a logical result from the growth and increased popularity of Wikipedia. Because deletion of an article is a drastic measure, it is important to be able to get feedback from as many people as possible, to ensure that no article is deleted without consensus. However, the sheer size of each day's VfD page makes it impractical for people to join the debate.

There has been discussion for the past month on Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load to see if this load could be reduced. One of the suggestions was to convince people to make fewer nominations, and effort has now been made to make inexperienced users aware of alternatives such as merging and common dispute templates. However, looking at past VfD results shows that about 70% of the nominations end up deleted per consensus. It follows that most nominations are appropriate.

Further looking at recent VfD discussions, it has become apparent that certain categories of articles appear frequently on VfD, and always get unanimous or near-unanimous votes to delete. Since the consensus about these articles is obvious, it would make a significant reduction in VfD load if they could be speedily deleted. The main question is whether a definition for the category can be cleanly worded to avoid false positives. The intent of this proposal is to do just that.

Some statistics

June 1st	115 nominations	22 kept	80 deleted	13 other
June 3rd	117 nominations	24 kept	81 deleted	12 other
June 5th	105 nominations	17 kept	79 deleted	9 other

(for comparison, January 1st has 50 nominations, January 3rd has 64, and January 5th has 62).

(more statistics, at Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load/Analysis)

Vanity by any other name

Vanity pages are among those most frequently nominated for deletion. Each day, there are up to several dozen articles about obscure people, bands or websites appear on VfD. The vast majority of these end up deleted. However, these are precisely the kind of articles that attract sockpuppet keep votes (example). Also, the fact that a vanity page will remain on Wikipedia for at least a week, and can attract a lot of attention in the process of removing it, could well serve as an incentive for people to create more vanity pages, which is hardly beneficial.

However, the term 'vanity' is ambiguous at best, and downright controversial at worst. There is not, nor should there be, a proposal to speedily delete vanity articles. There is, however, a proposal below using a far stricter wording than that.

Abuse

An important concern would be whether these criteria would be abused. To answer that, one should look at the current speedy criteria. It happens occasionally that the Template:Delete is wrongfully applied. However, it is exceedingly rare that an admin actually deletes something inappropriately, as the deletion log indicates. We have the Votes for Undeletion process to deal with errors, and VFU gets less than one request per day, on average, and in most of those cases the deletion is deemed valid.

Presently, CSD criteria are somewhat bent by some administrators, and this bending of the rules is seldom contested. The problem with bending rules is that it blurs the border between what is and is not covered by the rules. This proposal is meant to put an end to that, by putting a strict definition to cases that are currently vague or borderline. It is drawing the line. Anything not covered by the strict definition is off limits, and any administrator crossing it should be censured.

People are expected to use common sense before deleting anything (and in fact, someone lacking common sense would not become an admin, and thus would not be able to delete anything). If an article may be speedily deleted by these or any other criteria, that does not mean that anybody must do so. If the subject is noteworthy, it can instead be tagged for improvement.

Worthy subject

An oft-asked question is, what would happen if someone created an article of which the content would fall under one of the proposed criteria for speedy deletion, but of which the subject is notable. People may be afraid that deletion will keep the subject out of Wikipedia. There are a few things to consider here...

1. This actually only happens very rarely; by far most people, when writing about a worthy subject, include a couple of words why the subject is worthy, even if they only write a stub
2. Admins are never obliged to delete an article. They may always opt to rewrite it.
3. By the present CSDs, such deletions already happen. If one creates an article about Julius Ceasar, with the only content being "tomatoes are delicous!!!11!!", then that could be speedily deleted as patent nonsense.
4. As you can see from the above example, it's no big loss - no actual information is deleted.
5. And of course, the article can always be recreated. There are objections to recreations of deleted content, but not to creating new content at a deleted title. One of the proposals below seeks to clarify that further.
6. Finally, we have a lot of recent change patrollers that can and will fix a poor article on a worthy subject. Usually, adding one sentence or reference will ensure it will not be speedily deleted.

Proposals

Those who follow Wikipedia:Votes for deletion (WP:VFD) may notice listings for pages which should obviously be deleted, and faster than the five-day VFD process allows for. This proposal is an attempt to expand the cases in which a page can be speedily deleted.

• This proposal is really a group of proposals; rather, it is entirely possible for one of the sub-proposals to fail and others to pass. As such, please treat each sub-proposal as a separate issue.
• Voting on these proposals has started, and will last for two weeks as indicated at the top.
• Voting is done on sub-pages only. Any votes on this page will be removed.
• Each sub-proposal will require 70 percent support ("Agree" votes) to pass, as with the earlier Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD.
• Anonymous votes will be discounted, as will votes cast by any user that had less than 250 edits when this vote started.
• The wording of this proposal is fixed, since voting has started. Please do not edit this page (except for fixes to typo or formatting). Any major changes will be reverted.
• If you wish to add a new proposal here, please do so on the talk page to get some initial feedback.

To view the current situation, you may want to visit Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Log/Yesterday.

Proposed Amendments to WP:CSD

Procedural

Test Run

• Any changes to the criteria for speedy deletion that are made as a result of this proposal are subject to a test run. One month after they are instated, a revote will be called on any of them for which three or more registered users request it.
• Click here to vote

Articles: changes to criteria

A1 (deprecate)

Speedy deletion criterion A1 should be deprecated.

• Presently, the criterion reads "Very short articles providing little or no context."
• The problem is that this criterion is subjective, and tends to vary wildly in application.
• Several of the proposals below are intended as replacements.
• Click here to vote

A2 (foreign languages)

Speedy deletion criterion A2 should be reworded to "Any article in a foreign language that has been listed on Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English for fourteen days, and has not been translated".

• The criterion presently reads "Foreign language articles that already exist on another Wikimedia project, as a result of having been copied and pasted into Wikipedia after their creation elsewhere, or as a result of having been moved via the transwiki system."
• Presently, such articles go to VFD after seven days. However, most people on VFD do not know what to do with it since they cannot read the language. This isn't speedy deletion per se because of the two-week delay; this proposal places the power to judge the article in the hands of whoever can read it.
• WP:PNT is heavily frequented. After two weeks, someone has almost always made a start with the translation. If not, then it's likely that they find the article not worth translating.
• Remember that admins are never forced or obliged to delete anything. If a user indicates the translation is being worked on, that would be a good reason to keep it. If need be, it can be temporarily stored in that user's userspace.
• Click here to vote

A2-b (foreign languages)

Speedy deletion criterion A2 should be reworded to include Any article which is an unintellegible attempted translation from another language.

• Several web services such as Babelfish allow for some form of translation, with wildly varying results.
• Such articles are easily identified by their identical structure to the foreign article, tortured grammar and word usage, and occasional untranslated word or phrase. They are generally illegible unless you speak the original language, and it's usually more work to clean up these articles than it is to rewrite them from scratch.
• Click here to vote

Articles: new criteria

1 (unremarkable people)

"An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead." should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• About twenty nominations per day fall into this category. For an example of a lot of them, see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Bob Burns.
• For instance, "John Doe is good at chess" does not assert significance. "John Doe has won the UK National Chess Trophy in 1994" does. If people argue that winning that trophy is not significant enough, they should take the matter to VFD, as the assertion prohibits speedy deletion.
• For a definition of importance and significance, please see the relevant entries in Wiktionary. Administrators are expected to follow common sense. For instance, if the person's profession is cited, a reasonable guideline would be how many people have the same profession: there are tens of thousands of porn models, but very few senators.
• Some people argue that verifiability might be a better criterion. However, an article such as "John Doe is a student at Albuquerque high school" is verifiable to anyone who holds the school's yearbook. Yet the article would be highly likely to be deleted if nominated for VFD.
• Click here to vote

2 (unsourced biographies)

Biographical articles that do not explicitly cite a source; and that are about persons who now are (or now would be, were they still alive) aged 25 or under, or whose age is not given and cannot be inferred from the article to be over 25 now. should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• Citing sources should be interpreted broadly in this context, and include informal citations. An external hyperlink to a web site about the person, a pointer to news coverage of the person, and an ISBN reference to a book written by the person (which is presumed to contain an "author autobiography" of some kind) all count as citing a source of biographical information, for example.
• Where a date of birth is not given, reasonable inferences should be drawn from what is given in the article. A subject who has been married for 30 years and a subject who was elected to public office 15 years ago both must be over 25, for example.
• The age limit is somewhat arbitrary, but has been proven to eliminate a substantial number of false positives.
• For a case study, please read User:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies.
• Click here to vote

3 (unremarkable bands)

"An article about a musician or music group that does not assert having released at least one album, nor having had media coverage. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• This is a subset of the guidelines WP:MUSIC. It is not possible to pass the music criteria without releasing an album or receiving media attention.
• The point of this proposal is that minor garage bands and high school music groups frequently create articles about themselves, despite them having no fame whatsoever. Such articles tend to receive unanimous delete-votes on VFD.
• It is possible (though highly unlikely) that a stub article is written about a famous musician, without the article asserting an album release or media coverage. However, it is likely that such a stub will be improved rather than deleted by well-meaning admins or RC patrollers. Also, if it happens to be deleted, it can easily be recreated with actual content.
• Click here to vote

4 (unremarkable websites)

"An article about a website that does not assert having had an impact beyond its core group of interested people, nor having had media coverage, nor having at least 5,000 users. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• For instance, a web forum on any particular hobby is generally not interesting to people outside that hobby group, and would be better off as an external link in the article on that hobby.
• Articles on such websites are frequently added to Wikipedia, and if about a forum are prime targets for vote distortion through usage of sockpuppet and meatpuppets.
• Any of the major forums (e.g. Slashdot, Something Awful, Wikipedia) have significantly more than 5,000 users. Any of the major sites (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN) have had extensive press coverage.
• Strict limits for Google hits or Alexa rankings were considered for this criterion, but rejected as being impractical.
• Click here to vote

5 (unremarkable clubs)

"Any article that claims to be about any local club (but not a chapter of a larger organization) and does not assert having influence outside the local community, nor having had media coverage" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• With some regularity, people write articles about their high school debating club, or their home town cooking circle. Such articles tend to be not verifiable unless you're part of the local community.
• Any local sports team that is part of a competition will have had media coverage.
• Click here to vote

6 (fan fiction)

"Any article that states that it describes a character or story from fiction, that was never published except on the internet or in a fan magazine, nor written by a published author" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• Any verifiable encyclopediac article about any kind of fiction would have some mention of publication, or a reference to the author.
• Fan fiction generally refers to people who take an existing fictional setting and write their own stories in there - for instance, people who write their own story about Harry Potter and a self-imagined faerie or two. Such stories usually get little or no recognition outside their niche, and Wikipedia should not be a vessel to promote them.
• This definition specifically excludes any kind of published (fan?-) fiction, such as the parody Bored of the Rings.
• Click here to vote

---

Take a break :)

If you are have been reading all of this up to now, you should consider taking a break. How about some laughs, or something cute?

---

7 (RPG characters)

any article that states that it describes a character (but not a race, or type of creature) from any roleplaying game (including MUDs and MMORPGs), that is not also a real or fictional person outside that roleplaying game should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• Perhaps surprisingly, people frequently write articles about their character from Everquest or Dungeons & Dragons. Whenever found on VFD, these articles get unanimous votes to delete, possibly excepting a vote by the article's creator.
• Quite simply, no matter how high-level, how powerful or how well-equipped, a character from a roleplaying game is not encyclopedic.
• Characters from popular fiction, such as Elminster or Pug, are covered by the exception since they appear in written books. This also serves to exclude people who use Buffy or any existing person as their role-playing alter-ego.
• Click here to vote

8 (duplicates of Wiktionary)

"Any article that has no content beyond that in Wiktionary" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• "Foreign language articles that already exist on another Wikimedia project" is already a criterion for speedy deletion. That criterion was added before the sister projects existed.
• On average, four or five such articles pass through VFD each day. While an article that is also in Wiktionary may be a valid topic, as long as the article has no content beyond that in Wiktionary it is not encyclopedic. An article can be both in Wikipedia and in Wiktionary, but they should not be identical.
• In particular, many of such articles can never be expanded beyond a definition. This is particularly true if the article is about a saying, phrase or name.
• Click here to vote

9 (duplicates of Wikibooks/Wikisource)

"Any article that has no content beyond that in Wikibooks or Wikisource" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• "Foreign language articles that already exist on another Wikimedia project" is already a criterion for speedy deletion. That criterion was added before the sister projects existed.
• The existence of those sister projects is precisely to host content that is informative but not encyclopedic - such as source texts. If an article is a source text, it should never be in Wikipedia (per WP:NOT). An article can be both in Wikisource and in Wiktionary, but they should not be identical.
• For instance, an article on the history of paella would be encyclopedic. A recipe for creating paella would belong in the Wikibooks Cookbook.
• Click here to vote

10 (transwiki cleanup)

"Any article that has been discussed at Votes for Deletion, where the outcome was to transwiki, and where the transwikification has been properly performed and the author information recorded" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• This is to prevent a transwikied article from having to pass through VFD a second time.
• This is a weaker form of proposition #8 and #9. In the event that all three pass, #8 and #9 shall be implenented.
• Click here to vote

11 (no content beyond title)

"Extremely short articles which contain no information other than a rephrasing of the title" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• An earlier proposal, "Extremely short articles which add no information beyond what is obvious from the title," gathered ~60% support.
• This can be a replacement for criterion A1, which is proposed to be deprecated above, and which presently reads "very short articles with little or no context". If criterion A1 is not deprecated, this criterion can still stand as a separate case, that partially overlaps A1.
• This is meant to prevent non-encyclopedic articles such as "A Belgian duck is a duck from Belgium". Since there's nothing special about Belgian ducks as opposed to ducks anywhere else, this can never feasibly be expanded.
• This also covers articles such as "578357439 is a nine-digit number".
• Click here to vote

12 (one sentence or less)

"Any article that contains one sentence or less of text (not counting external links or category tags)." should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• This is a replacement for criterion A1, which is proposed to be deprecated above, and which presently reads "very short articles with little or no context".
• Even if the topic would be encyclopedic, the single sentence isn't going to help in writing the full article.
• Recent examples include Platinum single (which read "more than 400.000 copies in USA") and Medical Academy of Latvia (which read "medical").
• Click here to vote

13 (attack pages)

Short articles that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject

• This proposal reflects actual practice. Such pages are generally deleted with no objections, thus the proposal is to reword policy to match reality.
• This is to get rid of attack pages. That may sound redundant with deletion criterion G3 (vandalism), but it isn't obvious from either WP:CSD or WP:VAND that creating an attack page is a form of vandalism. That may explain why attack pages tend to end up on VfD.
• For example, "Susie is a dirt ass trick".
• Click here to vote

14 (copied from the web)

"Articles consisting entirely of material copied from an existing web page, if such text is an advertisement, or unverifiable." should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• This is not just about copyright, although it also catches such violations.
• This proposal does not specify copies from other sources (such as books) because such are harder to check, and because it happens more often that someone copy/pastes content from a webpage, than that someone types in pages from a book.
• See also User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage, an essay on the New Pages patrol.
• The clause on verifiability rules out, among others, deleting pages copied from the online public domain Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Click here to vote

General

G4 (reposted content)

Speedy deletion criterion G4 should be reworded to the following: "A substantially identical copy, by any title, of an article that was deleted according to the deletion policy. This does not apply to content in userspace, content that was speedily deleted, or to content undeleted according to undeletion policy."

• Presently, the criterion reads, "Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikipedia deletion policy. This does not apply to content that was undeleted according to undeletion policy."
• This reflects actual practice, in other words the proposal is to reword policy to match reality.
• The intent is to specifically allow a new article to be created if a non-article with the same title was earlier speedily deleted. This has been marked as 'proposed' on the CSD page for a long time.
• Of course, if the new article falls under any other speedy deletion criterion, it can still be deleted for that reason. Just not for being a recreation.
• Administrators can (and should) read deleted content in order to verify that it is an identical copy.
• If circumstances regarding the content change, e.g. an otherwise unremarkable person suddenly becomes the center of media attention, then the added facts will ensure that the article no longer is a 'substantially identical copy'.
• Click here to vote

Images/Media

I1 (images on WikiCommons)

Speedy deletion criterion I1 should be reworded to "Any image that is a duplicate of another image on Wikipedia or on WikiCommons (if allowed on WikiCommons by their license), in the same file format and the same or better in image size and quality, but only if all content on the image's description page is included in the description page on WikiCommons"

• Presently, the criterion reads, "An image which is a redundant (all pixels the same or scaled-down) copy of something else on Wikipedia and as long as all inward links have been changed to the image being retained. This does not include visually similar pictures, such as PNG versions of JPEG images. For the time being, this also does not apply to images that exist on the Wikimedia Commons."
• Specifically, WikiCommons does not allow 'fair use' material, while WikiPedia does, and the WikiPedia license allows for 'disclaimers' while the WikiCommons license does not.
• Links to the image should be changed before the image is deleted.
• Obviously, this does not apply to a different image with the same subject, e.g. a picture of the Big Ben from a different camera angle. If you feel an image is redundant, please take it to WP:IFD.
• Click here to vote

Categories

C4 (duplicate categories)

"Any newly created category that serves the same function as an existing category (after all articles from the former have been moved to the latter)" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• The reason is that if you want an existing category renamed, you should discuss it on WP:CFD. People sometimes incidentally create categories such as Category:Mozart symphonies, unaware of the existence of Category:Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• Note that in present Wikimedia implementation, a category cannot be redirected to another.
• Click here to vote

Templates

T1 (prose templates)

Templates that without any doubt masquerade as article content, other than list boxes or series boxes should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.

• Such text should be copied into the related articles prior to deletion of the template.
• Wikipedia:Template namespace says "Templates should not masquerade as article content in the main article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article".
• Click here to vote