Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

Formal merger proposals

Is there a way of formally requesting a merger like there is to formally requesting a deletion where the results are binding and overseen by someone independent. The only way I can find is to request an article or group of articls for deletion and give reasons why it should be deleted. Only to say actually I dont favour deletion I favour merging of the article. This is because lots of petty arguments can be bought up in a merger request which would be avoided in a more formal merger procedure.--Lucy-marie (talk) 13:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there is - WP:MERGE. Tevildo (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

AFDs Guantanamo detainee articles

I don't follow AFD as well as I should, but have any AFDs been submitted for the articles in Category:Guantanamo Bay detainees? While some of them may have a some limited notability, and WP:V can be satisfied by the reams of reports the US Government has been turning out, I fail to see why someone like Nasrullah belongs in an encyclopedia. It runs afoul of WP:BLP1E off the bat, and would suggest that every individual person that the US has imprisoned under questionable circumstances (Japanese internment camps, Indian Removal) is notable. Burzmali (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Many. Many. See User:Geo Swan/working/Guantanamo related articles which have been nominated for deletion and Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Guantanamo Bay detainment camp for most of the deletion discussions. GRBerry 18:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I missed that. Looks like an entire category being use as a memorial to those folks. That's depressing. Burzmali (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

as more sources are found, as more people notice and write about them, I expect to see all the articles justified and restored. I think every individual one of them will in their own country be considered notable; and we cover the world, if we have the editors to find the sources and write the articles. There are things that are merely "questionable circumstances,"--but then there are also international prominent outrages. If we in the US are forced to witness the loss of our nation's claim to civilized behavior, we have the obligation to at least bear witness--though if we do so here, we must do it within the standards of WP. DGG (talk) 08:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Bearing witness sounds an awful lot like WP:MEMORIAL. Also, that still doesn't justify the WP:BLP1E violation. Let's face it, this guy was a tailor (non-notable) that got recruited by the Taliban (non-notable) and who got captured and held by the US (possibly notable). It seems difficult to have an article devoted to him that isn't just a WP:COATRACK to hang attacks against the US governments' behavior in this situation. Burzmali (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I see a lot of evidence of bad behavior in that list, including nominating articles with "NN" as the only explanation, nominating articles minutes or hours after creation, speedy deletion after {{hangon}}, and nominations by sock-puppets. Dhaluza (talk) 15:22, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion after a {{hangon}} tag isn't necessarily bad behavior. It's up to the deleting admin to weigh the merits of the speedy request against the merits of the hangon request.--Fabrictramp (talk) 16:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC). Yes, many people creating (for example) what they know to be junk articles about their schoolmates add hangon as a matter of course, and of course any admin will simply ignore that. But if a serious hangon gets ignored, start by asking the admin to reverse the deletion. Admins generally do so if there is any merit at all, and then they just nominate the article for AfD if they think it should nonetheless be deleted. DGG (talk) 12:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

So who decides whether it's "keep" or "delete"?

I read the WP:CON, I still don't get it in regards to AFDs though. Who is it who has the finally say in whether it's a keep or delete? Do they have to read the whole discussion then decide on the quality of the argument, not the quantity of votes. Coz "consensus" means majority, but it says on this page that it's definately not a vote??? Ryan4314 (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The best summary of determining how AFDs should be closed is at Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus. Davewild (talk) 17:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

So is it just one admin who decides an AFD, or do they have a group discussion about the AFD as well? Ryan4314 (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It is the one closing admin who makes the decision, however if anyone believes that person interpreted the debate on the AFD incorrectly they may take it to Wikipedia:Deletion Review, if they are unable to resolve it with the closing admin first. Davewild (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Please go re-read WP:CON because consensus is definitely not majority rule. Neither is it supermajority or unanimity. Consensus means that everyone has been heard and, while we may not all agree with the answer, we can all live with it.
More than that, Wikipedia recognizes that beyond a certain critical mass, it is impossible as a practical matter to achieve pure consensus, therefore we only seek "rough consensus" (which is best described at the link Davewild offered above). Rossami (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have read WP:CON, I just said I did up top there, so please don't jump down my throat when I ask for help understanding it.

I don't understand what you mean when you say "Consensus means that everyone has been heard and, while we may not all agree with the answer, we can all live with it". Particularly the "we can all live with it" bit, this implies there's some sort of middle ground in an AFD, but all it actually boils down to is "keep" or "delete" (merging might not always be appropriate). One group gets their way and the other doesn't, both sides "can live with it" coz they have no choice but to.

Besides my original question was answered by Davewild with the "rough consensus" link. I haven't come here to argue how Wikipedia works, I just simply wanted to know how it works. Ryan4314 (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The practical way to find out is to join in Deletion Review yourself; we need more people to get a more representative range of views. . It isnt all keep or delete or merge--articles can often be modified to reach a standard of acceptability, and many Deletion Reviews end in such a compromise. DGG (talk) 08:11, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the point is that most reasonable editors recognize that many articles should be deleted, and would never get deleted if we required strict consensus on every one, because a few extremists could always block consensus in each case. So there is a broad consensus for the concept of a deletion process, and we live with the individual case by case mistakes, since they can always be fixed eventually. As DGG says, join in the deletion discussions, and the reviews, to help prevent and fix the mistakes. Dhaluza (talk) 15:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

2nd nomination

If an article has been nominated previously and then nominated again the link goes to the old nomination. What do you do about this? --Neon white (talk) 02:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

On the article, use the {{afdx}} template (with appropriate parameter: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ... 15th ...) instead of {{afd1}}. GRBerry 03:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Article Recreation

An article that I nominated for deletion successfully was recreated. The new one is WORSE then it was before. Am I able to renominate and lock the article? wiki_is_unique (talk) 15:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If the article does not address the reasons why it was deleted via an AFD discussion previously then you can nominate it for speedy deletion via WP:CSD#G4. To quote from the speedy criteria "Recreation of deleted material. A copy, by any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion, provided the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version and that any changes in the recreated page do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted." If you feel it does not fit this criteria then renominating the article is probably sensible. Davewild (talk) 19:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are talking about Hood Surgeon, an administrator speedy-deleted it today as a G4, and protected it against re-creation. (A smart move, since it's already been deleted and re-created seven times). EdJohnston (talk) 02:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And it was also logically salted meaning no one other than an admin can recreate it now. --67.68.152.170 (talk) 01:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

HELP

I tried to create a deletion request for Squacketball. This is the second time the article has appeared, it was deleted after the last deletion request. But I think I screwed up the entry on this page for it. I can't make it appear.Archer3 (talk) 15:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you did, but it doesn't seem to be listed. Generally, recreated content shouldn't be listed on AFD, and seems there was a clear decision in the debate, so I retagged it as speedy deletion. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It all looks fine to me. Can you give us more details on what isn't appearing correctly? --Fabrictramp (talk) 17:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

And FWIW, I've deleted the article, as it hasn't addressed the notability issue from the AfD.--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a DRV would be pointless. Bearian (talk) 17:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Backlog

I'm wondering if the the current backlog in AfD is a function of not enough users voicing their opinions on articles or a lack of admins closing them once consensus is achieved. From the articles I've seen, it looks more along the lines of users not contributing, but I'm not certain. Mbisanz (talk) 06:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawing a nom when delete !votes are present

Is this allowed? In my understanding, an AFD isn't closed because of a nom withdrawal when it does not result in a speedy keep. shoy 02:53, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks incorrect to me. You could ask the original nominator to undo his close and re-open the AfD for additional time. Due to the confusion, relisting for another five days seems advisable. When the AfD does close, an uninvolved party should do it. If the nominator declines, you could take it to WP:DRV as a procedural error and ask for a new AfD. EdJohnston (talk) 04:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It's flawed on two counts. It was closed a day early and it's not up to the nominator to close it: withdrawal of nom does not invalidate an AfD. That said, it was a very confused debate. The article was wrongly named and at least some of the deletes seemed to be on the basis of therefore misunderstanding the article. I recommend accepting the status quo re this AfD, and, if it is still felt that the article should be deleted, someone else should nominate it again and have a new clean debate on the matter. A rapid re-list would be justifiable because of these circumstances, but no need to open a new debate just for the sake of it. Tyrenius (talk) 14:03, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a case where it's better to close and open another debate if necessary. Technically cogent delete arguments would supersede a nominator's withdrawal (i.e. not just delete per nom, or per <editor> who said delete per nom, as the first few comments were). But in a case like this where the nom was in error, and several editors commented delete based on that error, it would be difficult to find a proper consensus for delete. Also, since suggestions for improvement were made, it would also be reasonable to allow editors to try to improve the article, since that is the preferred outcome per policy. If there are valid reasons to delete despite the improvement, a new and more on target AfD can always be started. Dhaluza (talk) 15:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The real question is why after an AfD and a whole page of snarky debate is the solution still not clear to everyone that it should just be merged with existing List of restaurant chains. -Bikinibomb (talk) 16:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Because of the size of it, it may well need to be its own article, linked from the main one, but that is a matter for editorial discussion. Tyrenius (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

"Old XFD" templates

I asked this on Deletion debates, but that page doesn't seem to get much traffic, so I'm re-asking here.

Two things:

• Is adding the template,such as {{oldafd}}, to an article's talk page part of the discussion closing procedure, or is it up to the people who work on the specific article to add it? If it's not part of the procedure, could it be added? There are quite a few articles that don't have the tag, probably just because nobody thought to add it. It is very helpful to be able to point people to/refer to the old debate(s) when someone brings up the acceptability of the article, or if it gets renominated. (Yes, I know consensus changes so it's not a discussion closer, but it is nice to have the history to refer back to).
• Should we bother adding the tag at all if the result is speedy keep? It would seem to me that pages are speedy kept when the nomination was pointless and just a waste of people's times. Therefore tagging the article as being speedy kept really serves no practical purpose aside from record keeping. Additionally many debates that are speedy closed are because the nominator vandalizing/editing to make a point/trolling, so slapping the tag on the debate only serves to keep it going.

- Koweja (talk) 04:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

To see the full process for closing deletion debates, go to Wikipedia:Deletion process where you'll find that, yes, it is part of the process to add a note about the deletion debate on the article's Talk page (perhaps using the template but perhaps just using text). However, that's a relatively new part of the process. If you're looking for many of the older discussions, they're not noted. Those links also tend to get archived off or flat removed by partisans who are offended that their page was ever nominated for deletion in the first place.
It's also a somewhat optional part of the process. (In a volunteer-run operation, everything is optional to some extent. This just a bit more than most.) If you see one missing, go ahead and add a link on the Talk page.
To your second question, I don't think anyone has ever explicitly addressed the issue of "speedy-keeps". Leaving it up to the closer and/or the page editors seems to work. Rossami (talk) 06:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Eileen Hayward

I found Eileen Hayward from clicking on "Random Article", and decided it could be nominated for deletion. Then I noticed in the template on the page that theres lots of similar pages for Secondary characters in Twin Peaks. I think all of them could be merged into one page, especially because some of the characters are played by actors who dont have their own wikipedia articles. But although Ive done some editing here before I got a username, I dont think I could nominate all the different pages without getting something wrong. And I dont know if what I'm thinking (merging) should be done at Articles for deletion or somewhere else. Can anyone suggest what to do? Horsesforcorses (talk) 20:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:FICTION has the relevant guideline. Probably the majority of the characters in Twin Peaks aren't notable enough for their own article, so merging them into a single article on the characters would be the way to go. If you're feeling brave, you can create the article on the characters, copy the information from each character into the new article, and then change the individual character's article to a redirect. If you aren't feeling brave, you can add a {{merge}} tag to each article and leave it for someone else to do. If you need more help, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page, and I'll be glad to step you through it. --Fabrictramp (talk) 21:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

but do not be surprised if you get some opposition if you do all the characters. The major characters in that series are probably notable. DGG (talk) 12:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

AMP Credit Union

I created a page AMP Credit Union yesterday. I think it was speedily deleted. Is there any place where I can see why it was nominated and why I wasn't informed? I like to think that given my experience if I have created something that wasn't upto scratch, I would be told......Todd^#661 02:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It was deleted at 15:28 on 31 December 2007 by user:Keilana with the explanation "CSD A7 (Corp): Article about a company that doesn't assert significance)". Looking at the page at the time it was deleted, I can understand the concern. Do you have evidence that the company meets any of our generally accepted inclusion criteria? Rossami (talk) 05:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

it should not be speedy deleted if it even asserts some importance, but the article did not clearly do so. The nearest was to say 'Only employees of AMP and GIO are allowed to join.",and a category putting it among companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. If you explain the importance of those two companies,and put the Stock Exchange statement in the article, it should pass speedy. But as Rossami says, it may not be enough to prevent deletion of the article at WP:AFD. Some financial information might help. DGG (talk) 12:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Template issue

Whoever's responsible for the template code might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Toa (2nd_nomination) - something needs fixing here, I think. Tevildo (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

See also WP:Articles for deletion/Concerned (2nd). Tevildo (talk) 22:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Bar on instant AfDing?

I have become concerned, recently, about pages being AfD'd within minutes of creation. Often this takes place during the initial article creation and causes understandable frustration amongst editors and sometimes loses us new editors. It also wastes the time of the Community as, with the addition of sources, a snowball keep becomes apparent.

I am well aware of the theory that articles should be written in user space until they are fully developed and ready to be sprung upon a surprised and delighted world. However, this is an ideal and council of perfection that very many newish editors will be unaware of. Generally they create a page and then develop and source it over the next few hours helped, no doubt, by various editing tags. Placing unreferenced, wikify etc tags are the way to guide authors through article development not using the sanction of AfD. Now, if this guidance goes unheeded then of course an AfD is the way to go for articles that don't meet notability guidelines but not as a first resort.

What I am suggesting is a policy that pages cannot be AfD'd within 24 hours of creation. Really bad articles will, of course, get speedied so those pages given a 24 hours grace will be articles that are potentially redeemable. TerriersFan (talk) 03:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What about some sort of software solution that puts a warning up when an editor uses subst:afd1 that lets them know when the article was created and suggests they undo their action if it is a young article? Then they could keep going, but will have to think about what they are doing. AnteaterZot (talk) 03:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

That certainly sounds a neat idea. However, I think some period of grace would help both article creation and save time all round. These two suggestions are not, of course, mutually exclusive. TerriersFan (talk) 03:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

TerriersFan's proposal makes perfect sense to me. In just the past week or so I've seen two AfD nominations made within 60 seconds of the creation of the article. These nominations were based on calling the article "non-notable" although it is obviously impossible to know that in less than a minute — and in one case I was able to determine that multiple, independent, reliable sources providing substantial coverage existed -- and do it within a minute. Hair-trigger AfDs are wasting the time of multiple editors. We lose nothing by waiting a day, and by not waiting we potentially lose newbie editors whom we shouldn't WP:BITE. We also offend editors participating in AfD, and those discussions don't need to be any less civil than they too often are.Noroton (talk) 03:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be opposed to this as a hard rule. I have prodded articles that do not meet CSD, such as hoaxes, which were quickly deprodded by the original author. The proper next step is to list the article on AfD. Waiting 24 hours to do so is a problem because such articles should not, in my view, be required to persist for a certain period of time without a deletion tag. In cases when an editor lists an underdeveloped albeit legitimate article from a new editor on AfD, the nom should be thanked for their good intentions and be asked to read WP:BITE. I would not, however, be opposed to AnteaterZot's idea. Accurizer (talk) 03:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

First off, I have massive empathy for you over hoaxes. IMHO they should be speediable but that is a different issue. At the moment we have AfDs that are eight days old. I am not sure, in that context, that a few extra hours of life matter and I think that the benefits well outweigh the downside. The answer to your issue is, I would suggest, a better and faster way of dealing with hoaxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TerriersFan (talk • contribs) 04:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Terriersfan. This has become quite a disruption lately. AFD processes initiated within 10 minutes (some less than 3!) after creation. It seems impossible for an editor to perform their due diligence and seek additional sources for the article in such a period. Having said that, if the normal procedures are followed, PROD/ CSD, then people object and attempt to improve the article, then an AFD, and our time is well spent. But as of late it's getting kinda rediculous. The creator of the article has to stop what (s)he is doing, respond to talk page templates, get familiar with AFD (no small task for a new editor) all-the-while not able to continue to improve the article. So the result is that the article gets improved during the afd, and it gets speedy-kept or kept after much needless conflict. The 24-hour AFD waiting period seems reasonable, and also seems like a task that could be easily be handled by one of the bots (removing the AFD and warning the nominator if the article creation was less than 24 hours ago). JERRY ^talk _contribs 03:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I like anteater's suggestion--we should be able to implement it--it would at least serve to deal with some of t he instances where the tagger did not realise. I think just giving the alert is enough a a first step. DGG (talk) 04:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

For some reason I was having a real hard time seeing anteaterzot's post. Now that I have read it, I also agree that this would be a reasonable first step. Perhaps set the timer to 6 hours. I also think it should append the text "this nomination was posted x:xx after the creation of the article" in cases where the user posts it anyway, to emphacize the need for the nominator to explain the rationale for the rapid nomination. So how can we proceed from here? Do we rush to the developers or do we have some formal process to follow? JERRY ^talk _contribs 14:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not a new problem. Nor, from what I can tell, has it suddenly become worse. Yes, there are inappropriate and/or premature nominations and those should be soundly shouted down. But I share Accurizer's reluctance about making a ban on nominations into a hard rule. Some pages are clearly not and should never be speediable (hoaxes are a good but not the only example) yet should not be suffered for more than a very brief period. Any hard rule that you make will be used by the vandals to game our own processes against us. I could support a grace period measured in minutes, even up to an hour - but 24 hours is too long for some pages. Rossami (talk) 04:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, who's going to remember the page after 24 hours? The people AfDing new articles are almost certainly going to be NP patrollers. Do we have to make them keep a list of every article they intend on sending to AfD, to resolve 24 hours later? -Amarkov moo! 06:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not? Why not expect them to accept some kind of responsibility for their actions? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 06:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

We can already hold editors responsible by established practices. If the admins who monitor AfD and Speedy notice that an editors is regularly, persistently or continuously nom'ing in bad faith, we have recourse. a formal warning, then RfC or Arb if needed. Often occasional clusters occur when dealing with vandals, but if every day, or once a week, an admin sees User X has nom'd 5 or 10 brand new articles, they'll be caught and rebuked quickly. Making editors start keeping logs and lists is an awful lot to expect of volunteers, and I'm sure many editors will take an 'i'm a volunteer, someone else can take that hassle on' attitude. ThuranX (talk) 12:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The real problem is that we have editors nominating articles for deletion without addressing their concerns on the talk page first. Particularly with new articles, dropping a note on the talk page should be a prerequisite to an AfD. You can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't judge an article by its first edit, and you can't vet the subject of an article in a few minutes. These knee-jerk noms not only waste the community's time, they annoy productive editors, and WP:BITE newcomers. I agree that setting arbitrary time limits for starting an AfD, and keeping logs, or other forms of bureaucracy are counterproductive. But this is a Wiki, and we are supposed to work things out through discussion. It should be common courtesy for a nominator to try to address their concerns with the article's creator through the ordinary means of the talk page, before bringing it to the community through the extraordinary means of a deletion discussion. It is appalling how many articles come to AfD with red talk page tabs. A simple rule requiring an attempt to address the issues on the talk page first will automatically impose a cooling-off period, and will prevent many unnecessary AfD's. It will also keep the deletion discussions that do start anyway productive by providing background for participants to evaluate before commenting. Dhaluza (talk) 02:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• 24 hours is reasonable. The urgent articles to delete are copyvio and some BLP-violations and those are processed in other means. I understand the patrolling of new pages and the concern that an article is "garbage" and, if not deleted now, will fester unnoticed but to bite contributors by slapping a "DELETE" notice minutes after a page is started is a "bad thing"™. There are many other good options: put it on your watchlist, tag it with helpful instructions on what is still needed for an appropriate article (which puts it in a category which can be combed later for clean-up), welcome the user with some helpful instructions on their talk page, put a {{todo}} list on article talk page, add it to a project assessment or watchlist. Perhaps you could even move an article to a user's sandbox and ask them to improve it before posting live? Perhaps a page can be created of a list of articles that looked unencyclopedic on the first look which can be reviewed the next day. In summary, the idea of an AfD delay has a great deal of merit. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of a 24-hour gap. It gives the article time to develop, and it'll help us be a lot less WP:BITEy to newcomers. Plus if a newpage patroller wants to delete it so bad, watchlist it and see what comes of it. Wizardman 04:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

But why should NP patrollers have to watchlist all the articles they want to send to AfD, and then remember which articles those were in 24 hours? Remember, AfD provides time for new information to be presented, and admins are supposed to relist if significant information comes along late. And if someone is going to quit because another person started a discussion on deleting their article, do we really want them here? -Amarkov moo! 04:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

On the main AFd page there's a list of steps to take before AFD'ing an article. I'd ask why NP patrollers feel they can ignore every single one of the steps, Is some cases i'd suggest that includes even reading the article (i.e. a 1 minute existance delete).--Cube lurker (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. And don't you need to watchlist the AfD discussion anyway, because you may need to withdraw the nomination if it proves to be unfounded? Or is this another step that can be left to others to sort out?

By placing a note on the talk page with an easily recognized edit summary, you can quickly reference the pages you have flagged on NP patrol by going to your Special:Contributions page and selecting talk namespace entries. Then you can check back daily to see if your concerns were addressed, and either leave follow-up comments, or AfD if it's a hopeless case. Instant AfD's are not just unnecessarily disruptive, they are also a sign of laziness. Dhaluza (talk) 22:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than a ban on instant AfDs, it sounds to me like the issue needs to be addressed with individual editors, for several reasons. One is, as was mentioned above, there are times when a deletion discussion is appropriate even after just one minute. (Hoaxes, especially where there is reason to believe a prod will be contested, are an example). Another reason is that some NPPers are simply far too enamored with deletion, whether it's speedy, prod, or AfD. Yes, I know that a lot of crappy new pages are made -- I do a lot of NPP myself, so I see what's out there. But I also see a lot of promising pages get tagged with a speedy for nonsense or lack of notability within minutes of creation, and I also (sadly) see admins going ahead and deleting them. Yes, it's more work to educate individual editors, but the only other alternative is to take valuable tools out of the hands of responsible editors. Nobody wins that way.--Fabrictramp (talk) 23:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Well put. This issue doesn't seem amenable to a blanket rule. On the one hand, blatant nonsense shouldn't have 24 hours grace (even if it doesn't meet any speedy criteria), and on the other, it seems awfully bite-ish to tag a page whose poor newbie editor didn't know about all the rules in advance. I think we have to evaluate each one on the merits. --AndrewHowse (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The one situation that occurs with addressing with the individual editor is that if you do it in the AFD you get "ADDRESS THE NOMINATION, NOT THE NOMINATOR!!" which is valid per policy, but if you leave it on the talk page it's easily ignored.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'd suggest that unless the nom believes there is a hoax or other issue that requires immediate attention, there should be a 48 hour wait time from article creation during which time the article should have been tagged. If an article is brought to AfD in less than 48 hours without such a justification (clearly mentioning the time since article creation) then it is procedurally kept speedily. Thoughts? Hobit (talk) 02:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest moving this discussion to Village Pump. The discussion has gone stale here, and is still quite unresolved. Any takers? JERRY ^talk _contribs 18:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

This is clearly a problem with nominators not reading the 'Before nominating an AfD' section. Maybe it should be made more prominent. It isnt mentioned in the lead of the page. --neonwhite user page talk 18:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm happy with either the Village Pump or changing the lead. Pump is probably best. Hobit (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• The problem is, and always has been, editors not doing what everything — the Wikipedia:Deletion policy, the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion, Wikipedia:Notability, and even User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage — tells them to do: search for sources themselves first. The solution is to get editors to do that. Software solutions are bad solutions. Bureaucratic "You may not nominate an article that is less than X hours old." solutions are bad solutions. This is a behavioural problem, usually based upon ignorance of what the editing, content, and deletion policies actually are, for which editor education is the solution.

  Pointing out that a rationale, be it the nominator's or someone else's, is not according to policy is perfectly proper, and a legitimate part of AfD Patrol. If a nominator persists in making poor nominations, then Wikipedia:Requests for comment is the way to go. This has happened several times before (e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ComCat). The goal is to get editors to search for sources themselves before making nominations. It isn't to get them to wait N hours and fiddle with watchlists, or to click little "Are you sure?" boxes in forms, or to jump through whatever arbitrary procedural hoops you map think up. It's to get them to actually do the work that (a) makes for a proper nomination and (b) makes the encyclopedia better.

  If you want to edit something to encourage those New Pages patrollers with bad habits to change their habits, edit Wikipedia:New pages patrol and Wikipedia:WikiProject New page to discourage zero-work AFD nominations and (in the case of the latter) outright assumptions of bad faith. Again, see User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage. Uncle G (talk) 13:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Uncle G: You are my new hero! I am so very impressed by your triage document. I agree that putting a link to this document in the hands of offending patrollers would be much more helpful than some software gate that we would ultimately just come back here and complain that they were bypassing or ignoring. As well, any essay that manages to include a reference to Leopold Lummerstorfer really gets points in my book :) Would you consider putting this document in project namespace (eg. WP:TRIAGE) and then we could include a link in the lead of the 'Before nominating an AfD' section of WP:AFD and WP:CSD, as well as other appropriate places like newpage patrol, etc. Of course we could use a link to it in its current location, but a project location would offer several benefits: it would encourage collaboration to expand and refine it over time, it would give the initial impression as being more than one person's view, therefore being more likely to be read. JERRY ^talk _contribs 03:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Critical Information Studies, IP nom

While sorting AfD's, I came across a debate without a nomination. An IP, 24.167.198.159 (talk · contribs), added the AfD nom to the article here, on 29 December, but apparently failed to actually nominate the article by creating the subpage. An editor created the debate subpage with a comment in favor of keeping the article, and Dumbbot later completed the nom. Given no rationale for deletion, and the fact than an IP nominated the article without comment, I'm inclined to non-admin close - BUT, reading the article, I'm not 100% sure that the article would survive an AfD debate. I'm mentioning it here for additional input. If the article is to be nominated, I'd recommend re-nominating or re-listing it, which I am happy to take care of. Thanks, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting close of AfD I started

I started an AfD on an article which didnt have any sources at the time. People have found sources for it now so I'd like to withdraw the AfD if possible. If anyone wants to close it, please go ahead. We have two reliable sources talking about the site in a non-trivial way ([1],[2]) so this qualifies for WP:WEB now. Otherwise we can wait for the normal process with whatever the outcome is, I am fine either way. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 02:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Strike the nomination out. <s>Like this</s>Marlith 03:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion before deletion?

Is there any objection to establishing discussion before deletion as a part of this policy? The basic idea is that there should be some attempt to engage the article creator(s) prior to starting an AfD. Even in the case of a possible hoax, is there a problem with tagging the page with {{hoax}} and dropping a note on the talk page to the effect of "Is there any evidence to show this is not a hoax?" first. If there's no answer in a reasonable amount o f time (and there does not need to be a fixed limit), then go ahead and start an AfD. But if there is an answer, then evaluate the evidence before proceeding. Isn't this a more reasonable approach than the current practice that anyone can start an AfD discussion, without any prior attempt at discussion? Dhaluza (talk) 00:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed. I also proposed something a bit less radical above for new articles. But yes, this is a good idea IMO. Hobit (talk) 02:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree - An afd is a discussion. It doesn't require the creator of a page to determine if it is a hoax or not. If it is clearly not a hoax then contributors to the afd will easily be able to research and determine that. I think this makes the mistake that the creator is the owner of the page. --neonwhite user page talk 18:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'll buy the hoax and similar "need to remove now" issues, but for notability issues, I'd say it makes sense. thoughts? Hobit (talk) 02:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• Should AfD be the very first discussion of the issues in the article? Wouldn't it be better if two editors could address the issue on the talk page without unnecessarily involving the entire community in a discussion when there is a simple misconception of misunderstanding (for example fixing a fixable problem, or getting an author to request speedy delete)? There is no issue of ownership--it's common sense (not to mention common courtesy) to see if the author can address the objection. Dhaluza (talk) 03:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Have to agree in general. A blatant hoax is one thing, but there are too many articles that just need a simple google search to properly source on AFD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cube lurker (talk • contribs) 03:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
• I don't see the need to change the current practice. Theer is of course no opposition to discussion, but it shouldn't be required. Many of the proposals here will probably keep out some bad AfD's, but will also discourage many good AfD's by implementing more and more steps and bureaucracy before you can AfD anything. Deleting articles shouldn't be too easy (and that's one of the reasons you have to be an admin to do so, even though that is of course no guarantee against haste or mistakes), but nominating articles for deletion should be relatively easy. Everyone can edit, and any registered user can create articles and nominate them for deletion. As long as the creation remains as easy as it is, the opposite should get the same treatment, since they are both essential parts of cooperative encyclopedia building and maintaining. Fram (talk) 14:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The thing is, it's not new procedure. Check the main AFD page under what to do before nominating an article. It's just that many feel they can ignore this section.--Cube lurker (talk) 15:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
    • It's sromthing you should consider when you are not certain, it is not obligatory. In general, it is better if people repeatedly nominate articles for AfD in error (articles which were about notable subjects but which didn't get any time to establish that before the AfD), to just suggest to them to be more careful (to first look for sources, or when in doubt to discuss first). But to make this a requirement before every AfD would be too harsh. Similarly, everyone can create articles, but when people repeatedly create articles that get deleted anyway, it is better to suggest that they familiarize themselves more with our policies and guidelines. But we don't restrict the creation of articles for everyone because some people are a bit clueless. It's best to have as little fixed instructions as possible, and to guide those editors who make mistakes repeatedly so that they can avoid them (and the rare cases which are unwilling or unable to change their ways can of course be blocked for disruption eventually, but that is a last resort). Fram (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
      • I probably should clarify, I'm not 100% sure mandating is the way to go. However many editors who AFD completely ignore the concept that they have any obligation to do anything other then glance at the article, make a snap decision, and then fight to the bitter end that the subject should be deleted. Any suggestion that they should have done more is treated as a personal attack. As I said, I'm not sure mandating is correct, but perhaps a stronger emphasis on the suggestions, adding a little weight to them in regards to salvageable articles, might make it more useful in guiding those who need direction in this area. Just a thought.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Oh, I agree there. An AfD nomination which only says "it looks non notable" is quite a disgrace. Nominators should at least perform some minimal effort to check that the article is not about a notable subject (except obvious hoaxes), even if it is only a simple Google search (which is sufficinet for a lot of subjects, but obviously not all). When one doesn't knows a lot about the general topic of a subject, more effort should be made to be informed before nominating. But on the other hand, when I come across an article in a topic I'm particularly interested in, it is often very easy to judge on the spot if the subject is notable or not. However, when I nominate such a subject, I must take care that my "obvious" reaction is explained in more detail to editors without that background. Fram (talk) 10:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Template indicate with AfD closed?

I asked this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), but thought I might as well bring it up here, too: is it possible to do something with AfD closures so that it indicates in the AfD TOC when the AfD is closed, or does the fact that AfD uses transclusion prevent that? I know it's considerably simpler at the BLPN noticeboard, which I frequent, given that the tickets are on the actual page, but I don't want to presume it's impossible to do with transclusion without asking. People who do technological stuff (I do not) are constantly impressing me with their ingenuity. :) It would certainly make it easier to close if we could simply look at the TOC and see what's outstanding. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It's possible by changing the section title on the AfD subpage itself. I can't think of an easy way to make {{at}} do that automatically, though. --ais523 21:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

{{at}} could substitute a new heading using {{SUBPAGENAME}} if closers are told to remove the existing heading as well as the REMOVE template, and the closing rationale would have to be typed completely within the first parameter. But this would take getting used to. –Pomte 05:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you suppose this would make things easier to use or be more trouble than it's worth? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixing AfD: step 2

We now have articles listed latest-first, which has, I think, improved things a bit (or at least reduced slightly the number of AfDs getting tiny numbers of !votes). I'd like to suggest that as a next step we rename this as "Articles for discussion" (as with Wikipedia:redirects for discussion). This is to recognise current practice, which may result in keep, merge, redirct or delete consensus; three of these are not delete. Additionally, "keep and improve" is often advocated but the second part of this is frequently omitted. Eventually I would advocate having an "expedited cleanup" close, which gives, say, 14 days for the major problems with an article to be remedied - bands that look notable but lack independent sources, say - after which time if the article is not properly fixed according to set criteria it would be treated as a {{prod}}. But that's an aside. Articles for discussion is closer to RfC and other processes, recognises the non-delete closes, and also lacks some of the stigma of "This article is teh suck, we nuke!" in the Big Reg Infobox at the top of the article; WP:BLP subject in particular find this quite hurtful. Guy (Help!) 23:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

But the purpose of listing an article at AfD is to argue for its deletion. Merge/redirect and redirect are both in effect keep or delete, depending on context. "Articles for discussion" suggests that people can propose merges and cleanup tasks here. "Articles nominated for deletion for discussion" would be more precise, but that's too long and we can safely go for the more abrupt title, with an explanation at the top of WP:AfD. There are potential BLP concerns for every scenario: a subject may not realize the potential severity of "Articles for discussion," and feel hurt when the result is unexpectedly deletion. –Pomte 01:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

No it is not--the purpose of listing at Afd is to suggest the possible deletion of a article, and ask for discussion on it. The best end for an AfD is an improved article, kept as a result of the discussion. The point of the entire process is the community discussion. DGG (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. By focusing on discussion, rather than deletion, we also remove some of the contest aspect of winners and losers as well. What we want is community input in the discussion, not any particular outcome. Dhaluza (talk) 03:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree with Guy's excellent suggestions. I would like to see them implemented. - Neparis (talk) 04:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to believe that, if an editor writes an article that ends up under Discussion at an Articles for Discussion "debate", the editor might not realize that the article is at risk of being deleted. With Articles for Deletion, that risk is front and center. From an improvement of articles standpoint, the knowledge that the article may be deleted has spurred many an editor to make good, solid changes to the article in a short period of time. With an Articles for Discussion issue, however, I think some editors will see the discussion as no real threat, and will not make the improvements necessary to keep the article. tl;dr: Keeping the name as Articles for Deletion acknowledges that deletion is possible, while discussion may not necessarily do that. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 04:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Good point. We can fix that with the user talk notification templates. Guy (Help!) 14:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• We don't want all discussions to come here. AFD is already high-traffic. Wiktionary has a centralized article discussion pages in the project namespace, with talk pages rarely being used, and for some time it has been showing signs of collapsing under the load. Individual article talk pages are where most discussions should occur, with Wikipedia:Requests for comment being the place to draw outsiders to those talk pages. The discussions here have a specific focus: whether an administrator hits a delete button or not. Yes, sometimes merger or redirect are the outcomes. But they should not be the initial intention. Articles should not be brought here unless an editor actually wants deletion as the outcome. Uncle G (talk) 13:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think they would. They should come here only if the article has serious issues - the result of the discussion should be firmly focused on making the encyclopaedia better either by improving the article, by merging to a better article, or perhaps by deleting it if it does not and cannot meet policy. Guy (Help!) 14:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
    • But that's what nominating the article for Cleanup or merger is about, both of which use the article's talk page for discussion. Is the problem that you are addressing here that it is difficult to get focussed attention of a large number of editors on a cleanup/merger discussion? AFD isn't the solution to that, because it will confuse the object ("Are we discussing deletion or cleanup?"), introduce far too much pressure into the cleanup process (World Conference against Racism 2001 (AfD discussion) has taken me far longer than the 5 day AFD discussion period to write.), and conflict with our Wikipedia:Editing policy that it is not required that articles be perfect by a particular set time otherwise the Big Deletion Hammer Will Fall (the Wikipedia is not Citizendium, q.v., policy). Uncle G (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
• You know, on second thought, I like the idea of an "Expedited Cleanup" result. Once a debate is closed as Expedited Cleanup, the article is added to a category (Articles under Expedited Cleanup, perhap) and tagged as such. Editors (maybe WP:RESCUE?) would then be able to see all such articles and focus cleanup efforts. 14 days later, the article shows up on a list to be renominated. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Cleanup is an ordinary editorial action. And keeping articles and sending them to Wikipedia:Cleanup has for a long time been an outcome of AFD (although less now than it used to be, because people simply apply the cleanup tags themselves directly, now). Sending bad articles that have come out of AFD with a consensus to keep and to cleanup to a focussed cleanup area, where they live on a short list for a week, could certainly be done. That's just a matter of making more regular use of {{cleanup-afd}} and some extra mechanism with an extra category associated with that template perhaps.

    Coming back if an article doesn't get cleaned up within a specific period of time is not appropriate, though. Neither is sending an article to AFD if deletion isn't what one actually wants. This is in part because, per Wikipedia:Editing policy, there is no deadline, on this volunteer project of ours, for articles to be cleaned up to (although, of course, we'd all like it to be sooner rather than later). Additionally: If an article's problem is lack of cleanup the first time around, it will be lack of cleanup the second time around, too. AFD is not cleanup, and shouldn't be used as a Big Hammer to get cleanup to happen.

    On the gripping hand: I think that it's probably a good thing that we have less "keep and send to Cleanup" than we did. It is better that editors be willing to be bold and actually clean an article up themselves directly, if they want it cleaned up, rather than simply wave it away to somewhere else where the cleanup is Someone Else's Problem. Uncle G (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

A seriously bad article on a marginal or good subject can legitimately be subject to "keep and clean up" only so many times, in my view. It all comes down to whether we think a bad treatment of that subject is better than no treatment, once it becomes obvious that nobody has the resources (or can be bothered) to fix it. Guy (Help!) 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

there are editorial ways to deal with this.. I've sen many articles get improved even after years of neglect. In the extreme, articles can be stubbified. The forced removal of an article makes it very hard to have a good one reinserted. DGG (talk) 05:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

9 January log

isn't there a bot that automatically creates the next day's page with all appropriate headers? it's now 30 minutes after midnight UTC and the 9 January log isn't created yet. Corvus cornix_talk 00:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about outcomes

I'm a new admin (I mean, really new. As of 16:00 UTC yesterday), and I was wondering the proper procedure for closing AfDs as Merge. Do I perform the merge? Is there a category I can add it to? Thanks, J-ſtan^Contribs_{User page} 04:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• You are encouraged but not required to carry out the merger. A "merge" close is a variation of "keep" since the edit history is retained. If you choose not to carry out the merger, any other editor can come behind you and do so using the content from the edit history. That said, 1) you should at least convert the merged page to a redirect and 2) it is courteous to explicitly say in your closure whether or not you actually merged any content (and to qualify that part of the action as an ordinary-editor action). That lets the other participants in the discussion make their own ordinary-editor decisions about whether there might be additional material worth moving. Rossami (talk) 14:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • But would that be a cut and paste merge, identifying in the edit summary the the info was copied from the candidate page? Also, would a Redirect close just involve turning it into a redirect? or would you need to merge page histories. J-ſtan^Contribs_{User page} 22:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Cut-and-paste of content is how most mergers are carried out (whether the result of an AFD or an ordinary action). A merger of pagehistory is the rare exception, not the rule. When you merge pagehistories, remember that it merges all versions and sorts them by date, not by the original source or content.
      Consider the example where two pages had histories of incremental and non-controversial edits (1→2→3→4→5 and A→B→C respectively) which are later merged. The merged history could become 1→2→A→3→B→4→C→5 giving the impression that there was an edit war with large undiscussed changes back and forth. Keeping the histories separate lets future editors see how both pages evolved. The comment in the edit summary that you suggest is the best way to provide tracability of the editors' actions.
      For the same reason, a redirect close just means execute the redirect. You don't have to merge the pagehistories there either (and usually shouldn't). There are, of course, exceptions to these rules but this is the general practice. Rossami (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
• As Rossami says, closure as either merger or redirect does not involve you using any of your administrator tools at all. That's why they are both simply variants of keeping. Requirements for history mergers usually arise from places other than AFD. Such closures don't even involve the extra tools that you get for being an editor with an account. Merger after AFD closure is performed in the normal way that all mergers are performed, with all of the appropriate edit summaries for GFDL compliance. If it's a quite complex merger, then you can just initiate it (After all, presumably there are other editors interested in doing and then cleaning up a complex merger: the editors that opined that the article should be merged in that fashion.), by applying the tags and pointing to the AFD discussion, or do a simple redirect and note in the closure that editors can pull content out of the source article's edit history (with appropriate edit summaries for GFDL compliance) if they think that extra content should be merged. See also Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Closure and the pages that it links to. Uncle G (talk) 03:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to view the history of a deleted article?

Apparently, we cannot view the history of a deleted article. However, this feature could be useful for identifying vandals later on. Styrofoam1994_Discussion^Contribs 23:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Administrators can see deleted articles, and their history. Ask one to help. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

At your service! What help do you need? J-ſtan^Contribs_{User page} 23:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to find the history of Ms. menna, but I can't find it in deletion review because it was speedily deleted. Styrofoam1994_Discussion^Contribs 23:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there something specific I need to check? J-ſtan^Contribs_{User page} 00:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know since I'm not an admin, but I can't find a log for creation and it's not on deletion review, etc. Styrofoam1994_Discussion^Contribs 00:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

This request is being answered at Wikipedia talk:Deletion review#Viewing a deleted page. Rossami (talk)

Revise AfD closing procedures?

I asked above if it is possible to alter the closing procedure so that the index of an AfD day indicates which AfDs are closed. (For an example, see Wikipedia:BLPN.) This would allow admins to look at the TOC and quickly navigate to AfDs that are not. User:Pomte indicates that it can be done by substituting a new heading, removing the old heading and adding the closing rationale to the first parameter. It sounds like it would be a simple matter of learning a new procedure. If it's that simple, would asking admins and non-admin closers to learn this new procedure be more trouble than it's worth? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

What would you think of switching to the closure templates (and process) used at WP:DRV? That has the advantage of collapsing the closed discussion but leaving them easy to uncollapse by anyone who wants to read the result. Rossami (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It would address my concern, which is that it's more difficult to scan down the page looking for open conversations rather than looking at the TOC. I'm not really technologically clued in, however. :) How would that work with the article transcluded? Would it be an extra step for the closing admin, or could it be written into the closure template in some way? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you noticed that Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#Old_discussions often shows a list of numbers, each one linking to a debate which is still open? It's not showing the numbers now, as I think it only kicks in when a small number are still remaining open. Maybe the trip point could be raised. That would provide an easy index without the need to change anything else. Tyrenius (talk) 16:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I have noticed that. While I think that having the TOC reflect open/closed might be useful, raising the trip point of that number would help, too (particularly if it is too difficult to implement the former). Is it difficult to raise the trip number? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

If every individual AfD were put into a collapse box, so that AfDs became visually like DRVs, I think it would be annoying. (Currently, links to old AfDs work very well, but links to old DRVs require patience to use, since each link takes you to a page full of collapse boxes, and you need to figure out which one to open). I notice that editors at WP:BLPN appear to like the collapse boxes. They are going to the trouble of making a collapse box for every archived item, after the bot archives it, which seems counter-intuitive. Please leave our closed AfDs out in the open. The idea of raising the trip number for the still-open discussions seems like a good idea. EdJohnston (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with all that. Who knows how to raise the trip number?! Maybe as soon as the dated page becomes "old", all the open ones could be on display via a linked number from the outset. Maybe BLPN deliberately makes it more difficult with collapse boxes because of the more sensitive subject? Tyrenius (talk) 21:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why BLPN uses the collapse box. (But I do quite well know that they're collapsed in archives, since I've primarily been maintaining that, since I proposed making archival automated. :)) The collapse box is not an issue for me; I like the bit about it being labeled "closed" in the TOC to ease overview; it seems to me it would make it a lot easier to quickly locate AfDs that need closure. However, as I said, raising the trip number would still help with more quickly locating open AfDs if the alternate method suggested by User:Pomte (which did not collapse box the items) is too difficult to implement. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Where did the tally bot go?

There used to be a bot which would create tables for each day's list of articles for deletions. Anybody knows what happened to it? Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)