Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Speedy deletion of Vasant Vihar

Moved to editor's user talk page

Pages of a certain age/edited by a large number of distinct users should be ineligible for Speedy deletion for promotion

Hi! I notice that Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles had previously been deleted for WP:PROMOTION. User:PrairieKid had tagged the article for such and User:Malik Shabazz had done the deletion.

I went ahead and made a clean start to the page. However I discovered that it had a very long edit history, and in fact survived an AFD back in 2007: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles. This is very worrying: a longstanding page could be hijacked by a new user/promotionalist, then speedy deleted by an admin who is unaware of the history of the page.

I believe that such a deletion should never have happened due to the long edit history and the disruption it could cause in other articles. In fact articles should be ineligible for "promotion/advertising" speedy deletion if they are of a certain age and/or are edited by multiple users.

BTW can I pretty please restore the edit history of YULA Los Angeles? :) WhisperToMe (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Done The deleted version was not all that promotional either. I don't think our rules need to change, as people should already check the history to see if there is a good version to go back to instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Graeme Bartlett, for restoring this article that (as I wrote on my Talk page) didn't qualify for speedy deletion.

But let me clear, as a former administrator who deleted more than 37,000 pages (nearly all speedy deletions), that the only reason it didn't qualify for speedy deletion is that it survived an AfD. I think the page I deleted was—and the current article still is—pure spam, and as a matter of policy I don't believe having a long edit history has any bearing on whether a page is, or ought to be, eligible for speedy deletion. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 07:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

• Without having looked at the article in question, I'd give a resounding oppose to any suggestion that age or number of editors should disqualify anything from speedy. We have a good net of patrollers, but things do get through, and loads of gnomes can make small grammatical edits to articles that are in fact blatant spam, copyvio or hoax. Yes, revert to a sound version if one exists, but I've seen quite a few articles that were clearly spam from Day 1. In the case of hoax, I prefer to take old articles to AfD to be certain, but spam goes, no matter how old. Peridon (talk) 11:44, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Having now looked at the article, I wouldn't have deleted it for spam - but I also wouldn't have detagged it. (One is not obliged to take admin action either way. Things clear as day to one are clear as mud to another.) I have tagged it now for relying totally on primary sources, and the corollary tag that referencing needs improving. Peridon (talk) 11:51, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Isn't there a way to distinguish between an article that merely "fell through the cracks" and may have been touched by a few Wikignomes, versus one that had been extensively edited/re-edited by different parties? WhisperToMe (talk) 04:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I can't think of one. One problem is that some articles are edited by multiple editors - or what appears to be multiple editors. They fairly obviously (to reasonably experienced eyes) are either one and the same, or at least working for the same company. There are quite a few regular editors that do great work on articles, but who fail to spot spam for what it is, or copyvios and so on - or who don't like tagging for deletion for one reason or another. They may be rabid inclusionists who are prepared to accept spam, copyvio or anything in order to increase the article total, or they may be simply not conversant with the notability criteria. And if an article has been spam from the start, does it really matter how many hands have touched it? If it's not fit for Wikipedia without a total rewrite, I for one am not prepared to do that. Let it go and let someone start afresh. If it's really notable, someone will do it. If not, it's no loss. Ancient articles newly spotted as A7 failures - I often prefer AfD for those as quite often someone comes up with the goods and they can survive. But whatever, age and number of editors should not guarantee a place in the encyclopaedia. Peridon (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

What I was trying to get at, though, is there may be an article that in fact was written decently, either by an experienced Wikipedian or by somebody else. Then a spammer/obvious promotionalist takes over and completely wipes away the good content. (Here's an example of an anon editor replacing content that I wrote with what seems promotional to me - I started the article like this). If an admin deletes without going through the edit history and seeing that in fact there was good content, then non-promotional, decent work gets flushed away.

"If it's really notable, someone will do it. If not, it's no loss." - I'm not as optimistic. A lack of someone starting it instead could mean that too many people are frustrated with Wikipedia - maybe they say to themselves "I want to write about my school (not as someone paid to do it, but as, say, a mere student or member of the community) If I try to write it somebody will delete it and I don't want to waste my time" - in other words, new people would be discouraged from joining/contributing.

WhisperToMe (talk) 13:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

The school wars indicate that this is a very unlikely scenario. Guy (Help!) 13:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles was deleted on June 10, 2013, and I didn't detect the scenario until 8 January 2016. Going through the edit history there were substantial edit from multiple parties (and it had survived AFD in 2007 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles). I find it curious that nobody recreated the article in a two and a half year span. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

A lot of articles about schools that get deleted are either crap (usually attack...) by pupils/students (or sometimes possibly by rivals), or spam by someone in the school office. They can't, of course, be deleted A7. Lack of an article here can often be down to lack of interest or lack of knowledge - I wouldn't have started an article about the Yeshiva schools thing because I have neither knowledge of it nor interest in it, and you wouldn't have created one about the Rover Scarab because till now you wouldn't have heard of it. (I saw a redlink, and thought, "Ah yes! I know that one!".) Peridon (talk) 12:34, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

In the case of the school article, people had interest in it as far back as 2006 and it had edits continuously until 2013. I wonder if sometimes seeing "this subject" was deleted scares people away (Now that it's back people are contributing again).

As for my feelings: If it's an attack article from a rival: delete. If it's a professional promotion: delete (AFD can take care of that). If it's a contribution from a student who in good faith wants to create an article but doesn't know how I would actually keep it and educate the student on what a good article should look like. Being too harsh on the third category can cause resentment and starve Wikipedia of possible good contributors down the road.

One reason why I like to create school articles is that there's always a "clean" version to revert to in case of promotion/spam/etc. Instead of deletion, it's simply reverted.

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

A few school article get created as attack pages, or just students playing around, but when one sees such an article, it is in m experience usally an addition or change or replacement of an adequate pre-existing article, and all that's needed is a revert and a warning. However, watch out for articles of schoolteachers, which are almost always blp violations. Extremely few of them will be notable or even pass A7, except headmaster of famous schools, and Presidents of major national-level professional organizations. DGG ( talk ) 17:36, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I went to a thousand-year-old school - founded in 948AD - whose alumni include probably the world's most famous living mathematician, the sedon most famous composer of West End musicals, and a former Pope. Most of the headmasters were decent men, but abject failures under WP:GNG. Make of that what you will :-) Guy (Help!) 01:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible

(WP:CSD, emphasis added) – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:36, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thirupuliyangudi Perumal Temple

Moved to User talk:Keegan (talk page of the administrator who deleted)

G13 Drafts

RfC added to CENT (and I also put in the RfC template).

--QEDK (T 📖 C)

The rule currently reads:

This applies to rejected or unsubmitted Articles for creation pages that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all WikiProject Articles for creation drafts in project space and project talk space, as well as any userspace drafts and drafts in the Draft: namespace that are using the project's {{AFC submission}} template.

This is now out of date considering the various permutations and changes in the AfC project. Some people are interpreting it as not permiting the deletion of Drafts that do not have an AfC banner, although that is now how most of them appear. I propose to replace it with the much simpler

This applies to rejected or unsubmitted drafts that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all pages in the Draft or Draft talk namespace, all project space and project talk space, all drafts in the Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/ naming system, as well as all userspace drafts.

This was the original intent, and the various ways of naming them shouldn't matter. I consider this just a technical change to avoid ambiguity. DGG ( talk ) 17:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support - I've been reviewing a lot of old userspace drafts recently, and I can't see a good reason why they shouldn't be covered by G13. Let's resolve any ambiguity.--Mojo Hand (talk) 18:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support - I have been reluctantly declining G13s on abandoned drafts with no AfC template, because I presumed the words "that are using the project's {{AFC submission}} template" must have been inserted for some reason during the debates when G13 was first set up, and I don't like to IAR speedies. But I don't see what that reason is, and I'm happy to remove the words from the definition of G13. JohnCD (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support as well, as I had recently been asked about that, if they were still G13 applicable even with no AfC banners and tags. Aside from that, I have had no serious troubles about this but simply clarifying it for future use would be beneficial. SwisterTwister talk 19:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support per all the above. STALEDRAFT should apply regardless of the way the page is formatted or where it is. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:08, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support A good clarification and updating. Without this, Draft: will get into the mess AfC did. Peridon (talk) 20:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

But to make it clear, I'm referring to Draft: space there, not user space. I wouldn't argue about two years inactive for user space, but I think one year is realistic. Peridon (talk) 11:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support - no reason why a draft must have {{AFC submission}} attached in order to qualify as a stale draft. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose many people have drafts in development that take longer than six months between edits. Such rules should only apply if the user responsible has gone inactive for two years. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:54, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• I'm willing to support if you drop userspace from the list. Userspace in most cases should be up to the user to manage, and we shouldn't interfere without good reason. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support I see no good reason to keep stale drafts in any namespace. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:37, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support. I'll be glad to not have to flood MFD with requests to delete all these old drafts. Category:Stale userspace drafts still has just over 40k pages and that's going back to 2004 so this will allow for much quicker resolution of those really old pages. However I do note that WP:STALE requires one year of inactivity before considering moving or deletion or whatever so it may be necessary to set stale to six months to harmonize these rules. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support but limit userspace ones if the user is similarly inactive for six months For reference, User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report is a report of all draftspace articles that are more than six months since their last edit but do not have a AFC tag and thus not G13 eligible (although a number have been deleted under G13 for some reason). There's similarly over 40k userspace pages that have not been edited in over a year just so people get the numbers involved here. This would actually restrict AFCs in userspace more but I think if the editor is inactive and the draft is inactive, six months is sufficient. They can always be restored. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Technically I'm voting below on the revision so no double voting. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - Many editors take wikibreaks or even temporary retirement for far longer than 6 months. I would also speculate that some newbies dabble in editing, get scared off, and then return much later. Both types of editors are exactly the ones we need to not annoy/antagonize by deleting their work just because... because why again? Userspace and draftspace are default NOINDEX and there is more than enough server space. I agree with Graeme Bartlett that two years of inactivity is more reasonable. A2soup (talk) 07:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - per A2soup and Graeme Bartlett. 2 years of inactivity is a much stronger sign. No need to be impatient with a slow moving user. Trackinfo (talk) 08:15, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Supporting changed version: [...]as well as all userspace drafts as well all userspace drafts involved in the Articles for Creation process or of users inactive for at least two years. Drafts that have a reasonable chance to survive in the main article space should not be deleted, but moved to the main article space instead.

There is no need to disrupt active users. And to delete drafts that could be articles in mainspace instead is not good for the encyclopedia. --Müdigkeit (talk) 08:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose per A2soup and Graeme Bartlett; whereas 6 months was ok for keeping AfC tidy, it feels too short for any and all draft articles. I'd support the change in wording if the time was, at minimum, one year. Sam Walton (talk) 09:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• strongly oppose Deleting any "draft" after 6 months in a user's space, even no matter whether is active or not seems a clear no-go to me. If anything it leads to needless aggravation of active authors (our most important resource) with providing any real benefits. In addition it is imho good practice and a matter of good collaborative climate not to mess with other folks user spaces, unless there is an important policy violation or another really problematic issue. An otherwise unproblematic text, which simply lacks edits within the last 6 months provides no such reason.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:28, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Per Kmh. In fact we shouldn't be deleting anything in userspace ever. I didn't realize G13 deleted those too, that should be reversed.

• Support if userspace part is limited to long-time inactive accounts with no substantial mainspace contributions. —Kusma (t·c) 10:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose: As worded the policy would catch rejected policy drafts in project space (WP:NLAW?) and provides no clear way of distinguishing between draft essays and essays in place (WP:NII jumps right out at me). Furthermore, active users with forgotten drafts in their userspace shouldn't be disrupted. Instead, they should be reminded that they have a draft-like page in their userspace that hasn't been edited in a certain period of time, along with the suggestion that if they are abandoning that work, they could tag it for deletion. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as written. We want to authorize people to speedily delete, without any discussion or review, drafts by active editors in their own userspace? That is completely inappropriate, not to mention unnecessary. Are these cases really so unambiguous that speedy deletion is appropriate? Is this such a big problem that speedy deletion is necessary in the first place? Thparkth (talk) 13:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose The policy was only made for a specific purpose, to filter stale mainspace requests from IPs. I see no reason why we're seeking to extend G13's coverage. This should be a community-wide RfC if it has to be accepted because it affects everyone at large. --QEDK (T 📖 C) 13:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support - but only if the draft has been untouched for over one year, in which case it's pretty stale. JMHamo (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - There is no good reason to delete userspace drafts for being stale, U5 and G11 already cover almost all unwanted content that can be created in userspace. Unfinished drafts in userspace should not be deleted for inactivity because it serves no purpose, you aren't de-cluttering a project space and you aren't saving space on the servers, you are just wasting admin time. Winner 42 Talk to me! 15:53, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - If the wording was a little more clear that it was only user space drafts that were created through the Articles for Creation process, and not all userspace drafts, that are eligible for db-g13, I would support this. Also, opposers please remember that these deleted drafts are easily refundable if the users return after a break, and that a large notice with a button to push to get the draft back is always left on the user's talk page. I agree that the draft shouldn't have to have an AfC banner on it, provided that it once did have one. I don't consider it a waste of time to delete these; I think it saves time in the long run for our active regular users, as many of these pages would otherwise end up at WP:MFD and have to be read over and commented on by several people. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per many of the above. Mucking about with the userspace is a non-starter. I might be persuaded to consider it in the other cases if the editor has been inactive (0 edits) for 2 years, and then only if they get pointed to WP:REFUND. If there's some draft that really does need to be deleted out of the userspace, it likely violates some other criteria that would serve. CSD is for unambiguous cases, and when we go about trying to figure out if cases are unambiguous or not - guess what? They're not. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 17:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support as proposed, and per Beeblebrox. The creator gets a warning about impending deletion just as they do for any other CSD criterion. For what I have seen of AfC (and that's quite a lot actually, having deleted hundreds of G13 already), many draft creators have little or no intention of returning to Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Speedy deletion of userspace pages without good cause is disruptive. For example, DGG has had the page User:DGG/smell in his user space for over 8 years now. I suppose that it has something to do with an article and so is some kind of draft or notes. Removing such content without any discussion would be impertinent and offensive. As 99% of the content in mainspace is well short of perfection and mainspace is our priority, we should let sleeping dogs lie. Andrew D. (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Userspace is absolutely beyond the remit of your proposal, DGG. I have a couple userspace drafts I was able to rescue from the clutches of AfD. I can't necessarily get them fixed up and published in six months, nor should I have to. Next time I would recommend wordsmithing your ideas before your request comment. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support all, removing clutter is good. Stifle (talk) 17:00, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Strong oppose as currently worded. I work with student editors who, more often than not, develop drafts in userspace and then copy portions of their articles (or sometimes the whole thing) into existing mainspace articles. When you have several editors working together to craft an article (or a portion of one), attribution history is only properly preserved in the sandbox edits. Given the current wording, I could see a lot of these sandbox articles being deleted, thus breaking the attribution histories. Guettarda (talk) 19:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I might be inclined to support the variations below which do not include userspace, but I see no reason to add a CSD which allows someone to delete pages in userspace. Protonk (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose for a start this is not some kind of correction to return to the original intention of G13, it's a massive expansion of the criterion. From a very early stage discussions about the proposed G13 consisted solely of AfC submissions, not other kinds of drafts. AfC is used by unregistered or very new editors who aren't likely to stick around for very long, if one of their drafts is inactive then it is very unlikely to lead to a usable article, especially if it's been rejected. This proposal on the other hand would allow us to delete drafts in the userspace of active experienced editors, which isn't the same thing at all. I know we don't allow article-like content to remain in userspace indefinitely, but six months is far too short to conclude this. Hut 8.5 22:29, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. I have no objection to the general idea (in particular, I'm fine with the proposed expansion as far as the Draft:namespace is concerned), but userspace pages shouldn't be G13 deleted unless they have the AFC template and got rejected or abandoned. Don't touch userspace drafts unless the creator has specifically put it up for AFC, unless it has bigger issues than mere abandonment, or unless you think it's important enough to warrant the time for an MFD. Moreover, who's going to decide whether a userspace page is a draft or not? Where's the line between a draft page and a tracking page? A quick check of the history of User:Nyttend/Pennsylvania NRHP/Philadelphia 2 will demonstrate that it's a tracking page (it's a group of sites with {{GeoGroupTemplate}}, and I remove sites that I've visited), but what about my sandbox? At points it's been a tracking page, at points it's held obvious drafts, and at points it's been ambiguous. Consider [1], which is similar to how it was for a total of a few years. Is this a tracking page, or a draft for a List of Something, or both, or neither? Is User:Nyttend/KY Courthouse Project merely a collection of images, or the draft for a list of courthouses? Having someone come along and tag these for G13 would be thoroughly unhelpful and rather starkly at variance with how we've always handled userspace. Nyttend (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose (for userspace drafts only) per Nyttend. While I kind of support this proposal for other kinds of drafts (and honestly I never understood why this wasn't done sooner), userspace drafts are trickier. For example: does this apply to drafts which are on user sandboxes; in fact, does this proposal affect user sandboxes? There are also cases where these user drafts, while not being actively worked on, could eventually be worked on in the future, and having it deleted just for the user to request a refund (if possible) is kind of a waste of time. Perhaps if this only includes userpage drafts which went through AfC, then maybe that would be understandable, but what about those that didn't? The proposal does not seem to differentiate between drafts created using the AfC process and non-AfC userspace drafts. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support. This is logical, and let's all remember that there is a really simple fast-track process for recalling deleted stale drafts - which, incidentally, shows that most of these deletions are uncontested. Guy (Help!) 00:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support. Cut the clutter. And: easily restored via refund. Lectonar (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose any deletion of drafts where contributing editors are still active or where the page could not be deleted were it in mainspace. WP:REFUND is useless to anyone except the original editor, as he/she will be the only one who knows the draft ever existed. SpinningSpark 15:25, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support DGG's change as written. Although I oppose existence of this criterion at all, there is consensus for it and it is sensible for it to apply to all pages which are clearly drafts rather than just those which happen to be in one particular space. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

but question - why would a draft be in project space? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

AFC drafts all used to be (and some still are) in the AFC project space. SpinningSpark 21:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• Comment As per the above discussion, the only place that it makes sense to extend G13 is in userspace where the user specified that the draft was to be guided by the AfC process.  In those cases, the article can be speedily restored with a button if the G13 speedy deletion was inappropriate.  Those who think inactive drafts should get more attention need to work together to do just that, as being inactive is not a problem with the draft.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't like the idea of using G13 for unsubmitted drafts, and this proposal would greatly increase the scope for speedy deletion of unsubmitted drafts. In my opinion, it would be better to write a bot which automatically submits all unsubmitted drafts (at those with AfC templates and those in normal AfC namespaces) if the draft hasn't been edited for some time. That way, the pages would be reviewed, and eligible for G13 half a year later if rejected and still abandoned. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose any application of this to userspace drafts. We are all volunteers and should not have arbitrary deadlines placed on our volunteer work. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  19:43, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support as written, though I wouldn't oppose alternative #2, either. Particularly, I would rather have more time allowed if we're going to somewhat expand/clarify the definition and intent of G13. Even though it doesn't "cost" us much to allow this stuff to remain, we really shouldn't have to be a collection of cruft from abandoned drafts and nonsense like "His hero is his grandmother. He is most likely one of the most influential characters of our time, with very little publicity. He will most likely go down in history as a lover, thinker, giver, mentally gifted young man." Or examples like this article that has been around since May of 2014, and the IP editor that created it hasn't touched it since. For Etamni, I think that if something shows potential or activity, someone isn't likely to CSD it. Anyway, that's my two cents. Chrisw80 (talk) 07:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Chrisw80: You are incorrect in saying "that if something shows potential or activity, someone isn't likely to CSD it". The whole issue with G13 is that the CSD nominations are made automatically by bot and are mostly deleted procedurally without review. If the page has had recent activity (six months) it is not even eligible for G13 so that doesn't come into it. SpinningSpark 10:43, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

That simply isn't true, Spinningspark. Look at Category:AfC postponed G13 which contains 2,167 articles that were tagged G13 and which an admin or editor decided to save or postpone for another six months. Some of these articles have been postponed several times. It is incorrect to say that admins delete G13 tagged drafts without review or this category would not exist. I know that I have postponed at least two dozen drafts that I thought had potential to be actual articles in the main space. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:17, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say that no article ever gets reviewed and saved, only that most don't. My experience of reviewing G13s is that currently 10% are saveable. In the days the backlog was being gone through maybe higher at 15%, especially the older ones which could be very badly reviewed. If every admin was reviewing at that rate there would be tens of thousands in that category, not a miserly couple of thousand. In any event, there is no requirement for anybody to review at any stage, either the proposer or the deleting admin. Which is bound to lead to good stuff being thrown out. SpinningSpark 01:04, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

• • @Chrisw80: Actually, they tag for speedy deletion or nominate at XfD stuff that should be kept, all the time. They also tag and nominate cruft that should be deleted. The Gilberto Neto article (linked above) can be (and probably should be) nominated for deletion at WP:MFD. Anything in user space that needs to be deleted can be nominated using the same process. The point is not to have one person nominating for speedy deletion, and one person with the bit agreeing, and nobody else gets a say, and the only recourse is WP:REFUND. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  11:34, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose G13 applying in userspace unless the draft is tagged with an AfC template. Draft-deletionist editors are not discriminating between userspace notes and userspace drafts, and userspace pages were never the monumental problem that motivated the creation of G13. In fact, I remember support for G13 being conditional from some on any editor being able to move their work into their userspace to avoid G13. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, and the author of the RfC is wrong saying that the original intent of G13 was to delete all stalled drafts; the WP:Draft namespace is not solely about Articles for Creation, and has never been. The wording restricting it to articles with the {{AFC submission}} tag was deliberately crafted through careful consensus so that the speedy criterion couldn't only possibly apply to articles that came through the AfC process, and not drafts from other sources such as decisions at Articles for Deletion. Greatly expanding the criterion in such way would run against this careful consensus that achieved at WP:Draft. As other have pointed out, drafts that really need to be deleted will fail some other content policy, and at the very least a formal discussion should be held, instead of allowing to speedily delete any possible kind of content regardless of its nature. Diego (talk) 10:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Alternative proposals

A1: DGG's original (see above)

A2: This applies to rejected or unsubmitted drafts that have not been edited in over one year (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all pages in the Draft or Draft talk namespace, all project space and project talk space, all drafts in the Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/ naming system, as well as all userspace drafts.

A3: This applies to rejected or unsubmitted drafts that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all pages in the Draft or Draft talk namespace, all project space and project talk space, and all drafts in the Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/ naming system.

Thoughts? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC) @Peridon, Oiyarbepsy, Ricky81682, Samwalton9, and Kmhkmh: Would either of these address your concerns? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose all as not adequately defining what a "draft" is when it lacks the banner. My main concern is what happens if someone tags a failed policy draft in project space (which for the most part are kept for historical purposes), or what to make of project space essays that often have the look of essay drafts. Unless the proposal clarifies that G13 applies only to "draft Wikipedia articles" (or some other language that would make it clearer that it did not apply to non-articles, such as policy drafts) regardless of namespace. Perhaps it sounds like I'm being unduly anal about wording here, but the nature of CSD as speedy and subject to the sole judgment of the admin who acts on the request, clear language goes the furthest towards ensuring consistency in application between admins. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 14:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose all for now - It's a CSD criteria that's not typically on my radar because I see it as exclusively the domain of AfC. It sounds like some people want a better process for cleaning up old draftspace and userspace content, but I don't think it should be CSD (except insofar as it would fall under one of the existing CSD criteria like G11). I find Ricky's suggestion of "Support but limit userspace ones if the user is similarly inactive for six months" and Nikkimaria's A3 to be the best options presented, but I'd prefer to see PROD expanded for use this way (MfD certainly seems cumbersome), rather than use CSD. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose all I still see no good reason for a CSD in the user space simply based on edits/(tempoarily) inactivity. It is even questionable whether there is any need to clean up inactive user space at all. That spaced is not getting released anyhow and doesn't required additional resources nor will it be taken over by another user, so there is usually no need for any cleaning. Micromanaging a user's "private" workspace absent of any serious policy violation is generally bad idea, that will aggravate some of our editors. In addition it seems rather questionable that request for streamlining the AfC process now expands to include users not participating in it and interferes with their workspace, which from my perspective is completely unacceptable (not to mention that such a step might require feedback from the larger community anyhow and sort of vialotes the Uncontestable criteria at the top of the page as well)--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose all. Oh dear. As a minimum we would need a highly non-contentious understanding of what a draft is (or is not) otherwise everything in userspace untouched for six months would be liable to speedy deletion. Would we think all these over six months old would be liable? Or how would we sort the sheep from the goats? DGG can see what has been deleted but suppose an ordinary user had created User:DGG/LG, would it be reasonable to speedy it? Thincat (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Conditional support for A2 - I will support this if project space is left untouched and anything in userspace is limited to those pages with the {{AFC submission}} template. The WikiProject might be working on something and decide to put it on the back-burner while concentrating its efforts elsewhere. Any deletion requests in project space should come from the project and should not be eligible for G13. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 16:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment I may be missing something here, but if something says Draft: in front of the title, how can there be any doubts about it being a draft? Peridon (talk) 22:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Weak support for A3 If the point of this exercise is to help AfC clear out drafts, unsubmitted or not, I can go along with deletion of abandoned drafts. That said, pushing editors into the AfC process and then deleting their unfinished drafts runs against the spirit of WP:DEADLINE. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support, in the order A1, A3, A2. WP:DEADLINE applies but so does WP:WEBHOST. If they haven't fixed it in three months I doubt they are going to, and a lot of these articles are, to put it charitably, not a great use of server resources. Guy (Help!) 00:56, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose any deletion of drafts where contributing editors are still active or where the page could not be deleted were it in mainspace. SpinningSpark 15:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose  For drafts where the community is identified as the champion for the article, inactivity is not a problem with the draft, but is rather a function of the editors available to work on the draft.  Those who think inactive drafts should get more attention can work together to do just that, and if not, might consider supporting the pace of those working on the drafts.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
• still oppose a s written Actually i have little to no objection to posted posted detailed clarification. However the clarification is not part of the policy suggestion and the text of the policy is not written in such a way that the clarification is or will be obvious to everybody. In other words with current formulation unintended(?) "misinterpretations" are to be expected and I see absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be formulation that explicitly states the affects (or lack thereof) on the user space and avoids any room for misinterpretation.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Explanation and Revision

The point of my proposal was not user space--the point was items in draft space that lacked AfC submission banners, because their removal under G13 has been challenged.

• Revised proposal

This applies to rejected or unsubmitted drafts that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all pages in the Draft or Draft talk namespace, all project space and project talk space, and all drafts in the Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation naming system.

The status of userspace drafts needs separate discussion. Are those who oppose the original aware that several people active at AfC, not including me, have been moving thousands of userspace drafts to Draft space giving the reason: Preferred location for draft articles? DGG ( talk ) 16:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

and other people have been moving other people's unready drafts to main space to try and get them deleted more easily. Thincat (talk) 17:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

That seems even more questionable and imho all the more reason to follow a general "hands off" rationale as far as the user space is concerned.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@DGG, your statement above; "...several people active at AfC, not including me, have been moving thousands of userspace drafts to Draft space giving the reason: Preferred location for draft articles?" is not accurate. The established AFC process includes moving only userspace drafts that have already been submitted to AFC for review, to Draft-space. The standard edit summary for such moves (built into the AFC submission template) actually says: "Preferred location for AfC submissions". AFC only becomes aware of, and interested in, the existence of drafts when they are submitted for review. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment this proposal I might support, efficient cleaning up of the project space (rather than the user space) is appropriate and something we need. However the question remains whether deletion should be merely on inactivity over a certain period. Suppose we have lengthy draft of good quality that is about 80% complete but for whatever reason has been inactive for 6 months. Is it really wise to delete such a case speadily? I would doubt that at first glance. However if all people actively involved with the AfC project see it that way, then that's fine with me.

As far as the mass moving is concerned, no I was not aware of that and it first glance it strikes me a bit dubious. Even more so if this becomes simply a tool to sideline opposition against CSD in the userspace. Simply moving drafts from the userspace to the project space, because you couldn't delete them there but you will be in the project space seems inappropriate to me.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Still oppose as written, sorry. How do you identify a draft in project space, if it is not clearly labelled as one? There is no objective, incontestable answer to that question, and as such, this is not a plausible CSD criterion. And are there really so many aged-out drafts in project space that they must be speedily deleted without review?

Everyone should remember that there is currently no project-wide consensus that drafts should even be deleted for mere staleness, not even in the relatively-new Draft: namespace. That alone should indicate how inappropriate it would be to even consider making this criterion apply to all drafts. G13 as written is specifically intended only to apply to drafts which are unambiguously part of WP:AFC, and not to any others. This is how it should be.

This is not the place to discuss AfC itself in detail, but there has never been a consensus for placing all drafts in all namespaces under the domain of AfC, and no consensus requiring regular editors to use or interact with AfC at all if they don't want to. That project's participants are overreaching if they are moving other people's drafts into its system without their agreement, or seeking to delete non-AfC drafts under AfC rules.

Thparkth (talk) 17:34, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I see I need to explain in more detail.

1. G13 was adopted in the first place in order to remove a backlog of many tens of thousands of hopeless discarded drafts that nobody was working on , and nobody was likely to work on. It was only approved on the condition that the people who had edited it would be notified one month in advance, as this is being done by Hasteur's bot. It also has the condition that any draft removed under G13 could be restored on request, the same as Prod.
2. I and 3 or 4 other people systematically try to rescue any such drafts that are potentially usable, or at least postpone their deletion for additional six month periods. I have done this for about 10% of the stale drafts I get to, & I think this has now resulted in at least thousand rescued or postponed drafts from my screening, and at least an equal number from others. Of these, about 1/3 of which have been turned into articles or redirects, or used for merges. The others have either been given up on and deleted, or remain as part of he backlog. We need more people examining these and willing to work on this.
3. These drafts were originally in Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ space as a kludge. There was consensus to replace this by Draft space, there was consensus to move the existing ones, gradually not in a mass, because it was realized most of them would end up deleted or accepted by normal processes. At least 95% of those present at the time have now been accepted, deleted or moved.
4. The question I sought to address now was what to do with the drafts in Draft space (or the old WT:AfC/) that have never actually been submitted. These are even more likely to be truly abandoned than those that have been submitted, and several people have been gradually listing them for G13 and the >95% of hopeless ones have gradually been deleted, by almost all admins who encounter them, on the basis that this was really part of the original intent. By proposal was basically meant to formalize that.
5. I agree there has never been a consensus for moving all userspace drafts to Draft space, nor in my opinion should there be. Someone who wants to work into an article can quite reasonably do this.Draft space is mainly intended for beginners and those with a coi, for which approval is desirable before they get into main space, as most of the ones by beginners and almost all the ones with coi should never get into main space. (The accepted standard by everyone at AfC is to move to mainspace any draft that would probably be accepted if brought to AfD; the usual interpretation is about 60 to 70 % probable, though essentially not a single one of the ones I have personally moved have been deleted except for a few cases where others caught copyvio that I had missed.)
6. It is accepted that stale drafts should not be kept indefinitely if nobody is going to work on them. They've been being removed for years, usually by MFD, sometimes by various speedy criteria. We've rarely deleted any by active editors. I personally almost always !vote at MfD to keep any which might conceivably become an acceptable article.
7. I consider moving them to draft space merely for the purpose of deletion improper. Moving them to draft space if the original editor is totally inactive so people can see and work on them is another matter, and I think should be encouraged.
8. I'm pinging other people involved who have not yet commented: Kudpung, Hasteur, Brianhe . DGG ( talk ) 19:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi DGG,

G13 was always intended to apply exclusively to drafts created through the AfC process, as the RFC which gave birth to it made very clear. My main objection to your proposal in its various forms is that it removes any language restricting the applicability of G13 to AfC drafts. That is a rather major change.

I think if you had included language like "drafts created through the AfC process" in your proposed change, you would not be facing much opposition. So I must ask, is that actually the point of your proposal - that G13 should apply to non-AfC drafts - or rather is this just an unintended side-effect of rewording G13 to include AfC drafts that currently don't meet G13 on a technicality?

Thparkth (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You've got it exactly:My point is indeed to deal with those AfC drafts that have not been submitted. Can you reword it to say just that? I'd be grateful. DGG ( talk ) 19:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose again: I'm still not seeing an attempt to address the problem of how to identify a draft Wikipedia article versus something else that shouldn't be G13'd. You need to define draft in a way that doesn't leave it to the reviewing admin's judgment. As I have pointed out twice already, there are so many things in project space (let alone userspace!) that can be called "drafts" that absolutely should not be CSD'd. I don't feel comfortable leaving that to the discretion of any hypothetical reviewing admin. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:55, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment Neither supporting or opposing any of the proposals, however several users are correct in that G13 and Draft namespace were created with the explicit requirement that the namespace and CSD criterion would not be applied to anything outside of AFC submissions. There have been several preivous attempts to put non-AFC members of Draftspace under a "Stale" speedy rule, but each time it has been thuroughly shot down because of the same initial promises about what Draft Space and G13 were going to be for. I have no problem creating a new CSD rule that explicitly calls out non-AFC draftspace articles (and willing to code a bot that processes them), but I strongly suggest that these have a longer stale-ing time because the users are not explicitly warned that their draft can be deleted if not worked on the way that AFC submissions are. Furthermore I oppose trying to jiggery-pokery the G13 rule to cover both cases as non-afc submissions do not have a way to procedural scan for a category of when they were created or last submitted, making it a absolutely large web interface query to run. I could use the same query that generates MusikBot Stale Drafts and fork forward on that if the community does endorse the solution to delete old non-AFC draft namespace articles. Furthermore Anne's mention above about drafts that have been removed from AfC, I have also proposed a rule that prevents drafts from being remove from AfC and had that shot down because nobody is compelled to use AfC for creating pages. And with that I'm going to vanish again because I'm supposed to be not here (See User page). Hasteur (talk) 21:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment (EC) - the drafts that we've been seeing at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion are old user drafts created by the article wizard - exactly the sort of thing that would probably be created through AFC nowadays. For an example, see User:Bekerhank/Noah Sennholz as one that did not qualify for G6 (though possibly could qualify for U5). This is not the most pressing issue for Wikipedia, but it does make it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff at Category:Stale userspace drafts.--Mojo Hand (talk) 21:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

MFD provides a better example of the drafts at issue here. Looking at the most recent ones right now, there are old drafts in draftspace like the one being discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Hodge spectral sequence and old userspace drafts (which doesn't seem popular to speedy) like Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Vassyana/Early Christianity right now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I think the editor who created Draft:Hodge spectral sequence, TakuyaMurata, is emblematic of the problems with this proposal. He seems to create many one-line drafts and immediately let them languish, but occasionally come back to them. Most importantly, he is highly aggravated when people try to delete his drafts for staleness. See his response to the (currently improper) G13 deletion of his Draft:Principal orbit type theorem. This prompts the deleter to lash back when another of Takuya's drafts arrives at MfD. These arguments are exactly the sort of thing that drives editors away. Why cause these frustrations? Wouldn't it just be better to let Takuya's drafts alone? A2soup (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely he should be left alone, and anyone messing with him should be given a severe trouting. This is exactly why I have been saying that any draft (AFC or not) that has an editor that is still active should not be eligible for a stale deletion. SpinningSpark 15:40, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support expansion to add non-AFC drafts in draftspace alone to G13. Draftspace is fairly obviously limited to drafts; no one is storing project pages or other things in draftspace or shouldn't be anyways. I think that would be sufficient for all parties as WP:STALEDRAFT would then permit the "adoption" of any page (after one year inactivity on both the page and the editor) with an adoption being conducting by movement to draftspace (with or without AFC) after which point if the draft is subsequently not edited for another six months from there, an admin can speedy delete it. I think that's a fair middle ground here since MFD is still always an option for old problematic drafts. We can add a requirement to WP:STALEDRAFT that notice must be provided before any such transfer (MFD clearly requires notification, movement doesn't) so the editor is notified at the time of movement and not just when G13 comes in play. I'd suggest that someone request an outside editor to close the prior proposals as rejected and withdrawn for the most part. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:05, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

No, the intent of the moving option at WP:STALEDRAFT is to allow other editors to complete a draft, i. e. such a move should occur if there is another editor available who want to complete the draft. It is not intended to simply move any inactive draft automatically to draft space to potentially delete it there later on. Taking a draft and completing it is clearly beneficial for WP and more or less follows the users original intentions. However simply moving a draft out of the userspace and potentially deleting it down the road, has no obvious benefits for WP.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say the point is to move a draft to have it deleted in six months; if you wanted it deleted, take to MFD today. That would be an odd passive-aggressive and not particularly productive thing to do. If people wanted to do that, they could be mass moving a lot of stale drafts right now. The point is that the original editor, after their own inactivity, and after the movement, has at least six more months before the draft is even eligible for speedy deletion. If someone moves it and works on it for even a month or two, then we're talking 19-20 months since the original creator hasn't touched it before we're considering it for speedy deletion (and that's even presuming it isn't mainspaced or moved again into someone new's userspace or a project or whatever else people do). That's why I don't think its necessary to extend the time limit at the start since there's so many stopgap requirements before a draft is even in this scenario. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes it would be passive-aggressive move, that's why it might be a good idea for the project rules not to sanction it or at least provoding the opportunity to formally justify such behaviour.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• Question: If the problem is that drafts created through AfC aren't tagged as AfC drafts, then shouldn't the project (or a bot if possible) be tagging these AfC drafts as such (ie, with {{AFC submission|T}})? Wouldn't this solve the problem without changing the wording of G13? - Evad37 [talk] 03:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

They aren't created through AFC. They are either directly created or moved there. The question is whether draftspace is presumably for AFC drafts or can it be a dumping ground of sorts for the thousands of pages like Draft:Burrill B. Battle that are there. Those are essentially the same as userspace pages in that there's no automatic process to review let alone delete them so it's all about finding them and taking them individually to WP:MFD. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Or simply leave them where there are. There's neither an objective need for the project to delete them nor a consensus.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment, since I've already opposed. An IP editor raised a good point, and I'm struggling to come up with an answer - what harm do old drafts in the userspace cause, exactly? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:36, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

There's no real "harm" in letting all drafts remain here eternally I suppose. I think the point is to give some tools to the people who go through the stale drafts to find ones that people might work on. It's the same reason G13 exists. That said, I see the point in the opposes in that userspace has a different uses and expectations, and it's not always clear was is a draft article.--Mojo Hand (talk) 15:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Well though the (deleted) IP comment was unacceptable in tone I do understand and to degree share its general sentiment, that is I neither really understand nor condone this urge to "clean up" other people's business (aka userspaces). The imho weak argument is, that some people want to comb through the userspace to salvage/complete articles and that this activity becomes somewhat "easier" if unsuitable drafts/articles in user space get deleted. While actually salvaging old stale drafts is certainly a desired activity, it is not clear however whether we really need to delete (nvm speedily delete) all the rest in the userspace. And what's worse this activity somewhat conflicts with traditional "hands off" approach for userspaces (as long as their is no abuse) und ignores that userspace and project space have different functionalities and requirements. Imho it is fair to assume that most editors will view a deletion in their userspace without their consent as a rather unfriendly act. This makes in particular some of original suggestions for G13 (6 months inactivity of the draft in userspace without even considering the activity of the editor) highly problematic. Now the revised versions do at least partially address that but I still fail to see a really convincing need for having these deletions in the first place or to paraphrase the IP: Can't you simply leave the userspace alone?--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:27, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

You're also ignoring the fact that certain content is deleted in mainspace because it's never sufficient for an article, say for example, articles on a rapper who's never released an album or say an obscure video game that doesn't have any sources about it. The problem is whether that same content (ignoring the U5 solution) just remain in a userspace version if it wouldn't survive in mainspace. That's ignoring the fact that it's NOINDEXed and the like. There's also numerous pages there that exist following an old deletion discussion so if consensus is to delete an article years ago, should the user then just get to keep it around forever in userspace? As to the "ease" of use issue, we aren't talking a few hundred pages; we are talking literally tens of thousands of userspace drafts that are identified because they are tagged which is likely a minuscule amount of actual userspace drafts out there. And there's never been a "hands off" approach when the user leaves, everyone is generally hands off for active users (even then, we had the userbox wars years back showing that it's not as hand off as people think it is). If the concern is that one year from your last editing is not enough to be considered inactive, that's a different matter. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

If you are concerned that the tagged userspace drafts are cluttering Category:Stale userspace drafts, wouldn't a better solution be to simply untag them? It accomplishes the same result (uncluttering the category) while being much less potentially aggravating for the author and it doesn't eat up valuable admin time. A2soup (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

First, do you propose that no one ever be able to take on the work that someone else started and improve it? Else, what am I untagging? Drafts that specifically aren't CSD material nor copies of current mainspace material nor ready for mainspace nor drafts that I think someone else could take on? Why not just propose deleting the entire category then so that I can't actually do anything if that's the goal? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It would be ideal for other people to take on the work, no problem with that. I'm not sure I understand your objection that you wouldn't be able to "do anything" - what is it you want to do? If you want to improve a userspace draft, go ahead and do so. If you want to make the categories less cluttered (and don't think the draft has much potential), untag it. If you want to start from scratch, you don't need to worry about it since userspace drafts, being subpages, don't block each other. This last situation might be an issue in draftspace, where names do block each other. In that case, you could just blank the page and start from scratch (who knows, there might be something useful in the old draft you missed and will be grateful to have in history), or you could go MfD if you're really concerned with your created articles count. But to answer your question, if all you want to do is delete stuff, I have no problem with you having nothing to do in userspace (or draftspace) outside of the AfC process. A2soup (talk) 00:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Conditional support and re-word. I think that as long as this specifies that it's meant only for drafts created via/for the AfC process, there should be no problem with this. There's a squidgy sort of area that needs to be discussed when it comes to userspace drafts, but that's a separate discussion entirely.

This applies to rejected or unsubmitted drafts that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits). This criterion applies to all pages in the Draft or Draft talk namespace, all project space and project talk space, and all drafts in the Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation naming system that were created via the AfC draft creation process. This would also apply to any articles that were declined at AfC, where the article was submitted for approval.

This would cover the following: anything created via the AfC creation process and anything that was declined at AfC. Now the reason I'm mentioning this last part is because I've moved articles to AfC and tagged them with {{AFC submission/draft}}. This speedy criteria would not cover articles that were tagged in this manner and not submitted via AfC, just the ones where the editor chose to submit it for review since that would be considered a tactic agreement that it was then an AfC draft. If that seems a little bit too much like wikilawyering, feel free to remove that last part. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't that more restrictive than what we currently have? Unsubmitted AFC drafts, regardless of creator, can be deleted via G13. You're requiring that the tagger and author must match, right? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:42, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• It's not intended to be - my thought is that it's going to cover anything that would be along the lines of an article that was moved to AfC to prevent mainspace speedy deletion. Basically, I mean that if the article was moved and not edited or otherwise submitted for active review, it could possibly fall under the veil of a userspace draft. That's a tricky area though. I've edited it to just say articles submitted and declined at AfC. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:40, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• This could also cover the ones that are in the userspace (ie, User:Tokyogirl79/Random quirky title) that were submitted for AfC but aren't at something like Draft:Random quirky title. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose as written - Any and all documents in Project space are the responsibility of the Project. If all language regarding project space is removed from this rewording, I can support it. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 17:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I would just like to see G13 (or something similar) extended in a fashion much like T3 so I can tag drafts (in userspace, etc.) for deletion when an existing article already exists. It seems detrimental to have many copies of an article's content floating about when one could just as easily work the content into the existing main page. If there is an existing speedy criteria for such I would like to know (I could not find it). I would like to get rid of things like User:Akash1806/Django (web framework) in light of Django (web framework). 50.126.125.240 (talk) 01:46, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose the premise of this discussion. No draft article should ever be deleted if it could not be deleted were it in mainspace. Deletion because it has not been edited in a long time, or because the editor has apparently left Wikipedia are both unhelpful actions. Those would not be valid deletion rationales for an article, they should apply even less to a draft. I am fine with nominating a stale draft for speedy deletion because the nominator thinks, for instance, that it is non-notable, but I am far from fine with deleting them just because they are old. I agree with user:DGG's assessment: about 10% of G13s I review are salvagable. Unfortunately, most of them don't get reviewed by someone trying to salvage. That means we have deleted tens of thousands of potentially viable pages. SpinningSpark 15:57, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support We aren't the place to host a page about your friend's band --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 21:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Guerillero: Nobody is arguing that we should be, that is a strawman. The question being addressed is whether drafts should be deleted because they are stale regardless of their content. SpinningSpark 21:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
    • Whether they should be speedy deleted regardless of their content. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support I can not understand complaints about these proposals based on perceived lack of clarity over what a "draft" article is. It is simply any article that is in Draft space, this is not an attempt to comb through editor's subpages and delete articles they are working on. These proposals are meant to cover stale drafts that reside in the Draft space that have never been submitted to AFC. That's all it is. I don't know whether it should apply to Wikipedia space or WikiProject space but I think the main focus is to clear out old, abandoned article drafts in Draft space. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem though. If this is really all that there is, why can't it be stated clearly to avoid misunderstandings? Why do we keep seeing where from the text suggestion as written it is not clear whether or how the user space is affected?--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:29, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support per Liz. I think this revised version is a very simple approach and that our sysops have the ability to use common sense to define what a "Draft" is. I can see from the previous proposal that there is a lot of contention over this applying in userspace. This proposal is better in that it takes userspace out of the equation all together. We can either get consensus for an alternative userspace criteria, incorporating some aspect of user inactivity, or we can just continue to handle userspace drafts at MFD. --Nick⁠—⁠^Contact/_Contribs 19:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Removal of STALEDRAFTs

Given the complete rejection of this concept, I've proposed deleting the entire idea of STALEDRAFTS at WT:UP. There is no support for deleting old drafts so we could get rid of the idea entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.171.121.147 (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2016 (UTC) This is a longtime banned user thus is of no benefits to this, see this for clarification. SwisterTwister talk 06:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• Delete G13 completely Stale drafts do no harm. If they don't do any harm, there's no reason to delete them. If there's some reason to delete a stale draft (BLP violation, copyvio, whatever), then fine. But, just because nobody has worked on it for a long time? That doesn't cause any harm, so there's no reason to delete it simply because it's stale. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:51, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Exactly so, see my post above. The proposer should be obliged to give a reason that would get it deleted if it were no mainspace. "Stale" deletions are entirely against the mission of Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 16:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Are you actually serious? G13 was built as part of the AFC project to allow some ability to clear out old drafts. The Article Wizard didn't have it, the prior userspace draft system didn't have it, it's necessary to simply the volume of new clearly inadequate pages that are created very single day. Even if you don't want it for anything else, throwing out G13 entirely is utterly ridiculous. Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions has over 2100 pages in it and without a speedy deletion method to get rid of them, it would just overwhelm and shut MFD down to a complete standstill. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:34, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
    • @Ricky81682: The problem is that G13, as currently constituted, does not just clear out old "clearly inadequate pages". Remember, the bot tags unreviewed AFC submissions as well, and there is no obligation on the deleting admin to do any kind of review (and most don't). SpinningSpark 11:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
      • @Spinningspark: I'm having a hard time figuring out how a draft can exist with an AFC template on it for longer than six months without having been reviewed (and declined) at least once. Even during the worst backlogs no draft that entered the AFC process was left unreviewed for as long as six months, iirc the backlog has never been longer than about three months. There is simply no way that an unreviewed AFC submission can get to be older than six months because a draft enters the AFC system only when it is submitted for review for the first time. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
        • @Dodger67: It's very simple. Drafts in the AFC project are initially tagged as unsubmiitted drafts. They only become unreviewed drafts when the author (or somebody else) clicks the submit button. Many drafts are never submitted, so never get put in the needing review category. However, the bot tags drafts for G13 regardless of whether they are unsubmitted or reviewed and declined. SpinningSpark 14:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
          • @Spinningspark: How does the draft become tagged but not submitted? The {{submit}} template puts the draft into the queue to be reviewed. There's clearly an error in the logic somewhere. The first "submit" should be what starts the clock, because it's only then that the review system actually "notices" the existence of the draft and shows it to the reviewers. Is it something that the article wizard does that tags the page as an afc draft without submitting it? I've never used the article wizard so I have no idea how it works. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:58, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
            • @Dodger67: Oh for goodness sake, try reading the documentation of the template you just linked. There are thousands of unsubmitted drafts in Category:Draft AfC submissions; just look at a few at random like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. Literally tens of thousands drafts in this category have been deleted that would have made perfectly usable articles, at least as a starting point. SpinningSpark 20:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
      • Perhaps the bot can be told to only tag those drafts for G13 which have been declined for reasons other than "already exists" (because then, a merger may be appropriate).Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
        • @Jo-Jo Eumerus: The bot scans the sub-categories of Category:AfC submissions by date. This category is sneakily added by the {{AFC submission}} and {{AFC submission}} templates. The bot trolls either the Day/Month/Year roll up categories and looks at every single member to see if the very simple condition "Has there been no edit to the page in at least 5 months". If it is, the bot gives notice to the creator of the page to let them know the page will soon be in danger of being deleted under the G13 rule. If not the bot moves to the next page. At the 6 month mark, the bot re-checks the pages to see if the page is still eligible and if so, perform the procedural nomination under G13. There have been multiple proposals in the past for the bot to do multiple nomination reasons, but I did not want to do that, because the bot cannot and should not be evaluating the decline reasons to see if the decline reason is accurate (and potentially add more rationalles to nominate). The bot does a simple check on the absolute last edit date to determine G13 eligiblity. Some editors enlarged G13's mandate to include "non-bot edits", however the bot and the template have never been changed to support such a workflow, making it much harder for the admins processing the G13 nominations to know if the G13 is valid or not. Because the Bot scans the category to find things it can potentially notify/nominate on, it does not pick up drafts that are outside the AfC workflow. Ideally, All AfC submissions should be in the Draft namespace, however not all pages in the Draft namespace belong to the AfC project. Editors are free to delist a draft out of the AfC workflow as they are not required to use it (which I've objected to on multiple occasions and proposed a rule to revert that kind of change). Overall this discussion is about how many pages live in the Draft namespace without any kind of oversight/evaluation/searchability. Finally, I note that Ricky's "The Wiki is burning down because of this crap" screams are grossly over-exagerated. Less than 2 years ago, we were at 40 thousand drafts that met the simple definitions of G13. It took us nearly 9 months to get the years (back to 2009) long backlog trimmed down to something much more reasonable. Hasteur (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
          • 40 thousand under the simple G13 definition with a speedy deletion mechanism took 9 months to reduce to basically 2k or zero even at times. There was still another 46k of userspace drafts which weren't under this system starting in November and which has been repeatedly rejected as a speedy option (which is fine) so it's going at a much, much slower pace. If there was no G13 system and the AFC system could only be reduced entirely by clogging up MFD, it would be a different discussion. That is precisely my point. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
• Keep STALEDRAFT partly because WP:NOT#WEBHOST and because stale drafts do create a large amount of distraction (e.g when looking through categories for stuff to work on or while policing for copyvios). I wonder if the issue is that some stale drafts can be salvaged (that is, turned or merged into articles eventually) and other can't but G13 by default assumes that "stale = unsalvageable", and reworking a potentially salvageable draft is much harder than pressing a delete button. Maybe this would be worth working on?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:19, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • That is precisely my objection. The proposer of a G13 should be forced to give a reason other than "stale"...but that would mean it could no longer be done by bot. SpinningSpark 16:27, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
    • Well, if the draft being declined (which, assuming the decline was correct, means that the draft is not suited to be an article) counts as a reason for deleting other than mere staleness, that would make it bot actionable still ... although some declined drafts may be mergeworthy.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:51, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
      • I have rescued numerous G13 proposals that have been declined for non-deletable reasons. People shouldn't do that, but they, do and drafts get deleted as a result. As far as I know, none of my rescues have ever been deleted from mainspace (although I can't be sure, I no longer watchlist all of them). But putting that aside, because it is not the central issue, G13 does not require that a draft has been rejected, only that it is within the AFC project. More than that, this debate has occured because some editors are assuming G13 can apply to other drafts that do not explicitly carry the AFC template, particularly those created through the article wizard, which will never get an AFC review. Pages can most definitely be correctly deleted under this process that are actually perfectly good articles. SpinningSpark 19:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Comment I usually do give an additional reason: no hope of a acceptable article. But that is not a formal speedy criterion by itself and should not be, as it sometimes needs discussion, especially if there is an active editor. But added to the fact that no improvement is being made on the draft, it is much less ambiguous. Remember that A7 specifically does not apply to draft space, because the article is still in progress and significance might be shown by a future edit--but if the article is abandoned, that's not going to happen.

declined drafts can still e rescued, and I , like SpinningSpark & others, have rescued a few thousand over the last 2 years, either by writing what has been given up on, merging, or simply accepting what should not have been declined. But I am one of the very few people systematically checking for this, and more people would do it if there were an easier way.

Though errors can be made, we have to balance this with a practical speed of operation--having hundreds of MfDs a day will not really improve things. The most important improvement I can think of is listing drafts by subject, so those likely to be interested can see them. The next one would be finding a way for people to find deleted ones if they search by keyword. (obviously this will have to apply only to G13--others should not be made visible to anyone) DGG ( talk ) 19:23, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that everything is sent to MFD, only that a rationale be offered for the speedy. This is especially a problem with unreviewed drafts, at least those with an AFC review have a decline reason that can be assessed by the deleting admin whether it warrants a deletion. Oh, I take it back, that's not the only thing I'm suggestion, I'm also calling for G13 not to apply to any article that has an active editor in the editing history. SpinningSpark 20:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• I don't like responding to proposals by banned editors, but the IP happens to have mirrored a sentiment I expressed in my essay User:Ivanvector/Drafts are cheap (which is itself a draft, how meta), that deletion of pages in draft space for the sole reason that they are old does not benefit the project. Sure there are plenty of pages there which are of no benefit to keeping, but I've always thought that this should not be a speedy criterion - if pages need to be deleted (copyvios, hopelessly unnoteworthy topics, attack pages, WEBHOST violations) there are already other speedy criteria to apply. I find G13 to be much too broad. To DGG's point above, yes, pages can be rescued via WP:REFUND and many users are keen on working on this, but then why delete the pages in the first place? It's a completely unnecessary hindrance to most users. It's nice to have the viewdelete glasses I'm sure, but most users have no way of seeing deleted drafts to be inspired to rescue one, if they were to be interested in participating. Maybe "rescuing abandoned drafts" is an avenue to attract new editors to the project. "Rescuing invisible pages of indeterminate content by applying to a bloated administrative review process and hoping for a favourable result before you get to edit anything" is much less likely to do so. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:39, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

And yes, I know there's a bot that notifies interested users about drafts which are about to be deleted. I see it as a ridiculous solution to an invented problem. It would be more beneficial to not have this path to deletion in the first place. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:42, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Ivanvector, viewdelete has the problem that it would apply to all deleted articles, and the WMF will probably veto this for anyone who does not have community approval in a process like RfA, so they might as well run for admin. I am not certain whether it would be feasible for a viewdelete to be programmed that would apply only to G13, but I will ask. As a practical matter requests for undeletion of G13s are almost always granted unless there is a reason why not. The problem is finding the deleted material, and viewdelete alone will not help all that much. Even for admins, there is no way I can scan for a deleted article except by title in the deletion log. To look at the content, there is no single click procedure; I'm fairly fast at the steps, but it takes 4 times as long as looking at undeleted articles (This probably could be fixed also.) DGG ( talk ) 02:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that many of the pages that need deleting, contrary to what you said, do not fall under a speedy criterion. The majority of these are non-notable people/orgs/bands and notability is not a speedy criterion. To a lesser extent, there are also promotional articles that do not quite make it to G11. What I am suggesting is that G13 should be more like PROD so that the deleting admin can see that at least one editor has assessed it as NN, NOT, ADVERT, or whatever. SpinningSpark 20:57, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

So there are reasons to delete which have nothing to do with the page's creation date. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

All reasons to delete have nothing to do with the page's creation date—because the page's creation date is not a reason for deletion. SpinningSpark 00:06, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I realize just now that where I said "page's creation date" I had meant to say "date of its most recent edit". Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@DGG: what you said above is sort of what I'm talking about. I don't think that the solution is to give more editors access to viewdelete (very bad idea) but the solution is to not delete stale drafts in the first place, unless there's some non-age-related problem which requires their deletion anyway. Each and every draft that doesn't suffer from such an issue is a potential future article; age alone is not a problem. What problem is it solving to delete drafts just because they're old? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

General discussion of G13 update proposal

@DGG: Is there a particular reason you have proposed this criteria to be updated to now apply to the "Draft talk:" namespace? From what I have seen, drafts are never stored in that namespace; that, and if its parent page in the "Draft:" namespace is deleted, then the corresponding page in the "Draft talk:" namespace would be deleted per criterion G8. Stating that G13 applies to the "Draft talk:" namespace seems like misleading instruction creep. Steel1943 (talk) 18:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

completeness; they aren ot supposed to be there, but I remember seeing one or two there, either by accident or deliberately. DGG ( talk ) 20:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Related question: do speedy criteria apply generally to pages which are put in the wrong space? For example if someone wrote a speediable article in Category: space, would we insist that the A-series criteria don't apply, or would we just get on with deleting it? Also, the G-series criteria apply everywhere anyway, so is the change redundant? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Nah, the fix for misplaced stuff is to move it to the right place. If the article that was misplaced in Category: is A7 eligible I'd probably move it to article space and tag it for speedy deletion there. Or I'd kick it to Draft space, depending.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:30, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I know this is just a bureaucratic nonsense line of questioning anyway, but if you were an admin and happened to come across an A7-tagged page in Category: space, and it is unquestionably an article with no claim of significance, would you just delete it, or would you move it to mainspace, then delete it, then G8-delete the redirect left behind in category space? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 22:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The distinction is mostly in terms of dotted i's and crossed t's, so I'd probably deleted as A7 and add in a note in the deletion summary about this being a misplaced article, in that hypothetical universe.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll respond here to a few comments to keep the above !voting clear of extended discussion: @Etamni: and @Spinningspark: Thanks for your reply! It's true that some editors are a little over-eager about pulling the trigger. That's why an admin is needed to actually delete the page. In my opinion, examples like the Gilberto Neto article is obviously abandoned, and shouldn't waste people's time at MfD. We give admins the bit in the hopes they will exercise good judgement. I understand the concern about deletion without proper review, but I think that's a larger issue better addressed elsewhere or with the specific admins. I also think it's still less laborious to do an occasional WP:REFUND following a CSD than it is to go through the whole MfD process for something that's most likely to never be undeleted. I'd be VERY interested to see the number of articles that end up getting completed following a WP:REFUND in these situations. I believe that the admins do a pretty good job, even if I don't always agree with them. I do support increasing the time from 6 months to 1 year, and would strongly prefer it. Again, thank you for your response! Chrisw80 (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

There is an awful lot wrong with what you have said here, and you clearly haven't read my response to you at your "support", or else you have taken no notice of it. G13 tagging is automated, there is not usually any question of being "over-eager", the requirement for G13 tagging is simply that the page has not been edited for six months and in the vast majority of cases it hasn't. There are next to no mistakes. That is not my objection and it is not the issue. Relying on the deleting admin to review the page before deleting is completely wrong-headed. G13 does not require the admin to do any review other than to confirm that the page has not been recently edited (and currently, it is within the AFC project, but this proposal wants to take away that check). Most admins do only that, confirm that the draft has been abandoned and then delete it. They may not have the time, or the inclination, or the skill, to review every article, and they are not required to. So a page could be a Featured quality draft, and still be tagged and then deleted perfectly in accordance with this policy.

REFUND is useless to anyone except the original editor since no one else will know the draft exists once it is deleted. It is more important for builing the encyclopadia to keep potentially useful material than it is to clear out the hopeless cases. It is even more important not to piss off content creating editors who may have just taken an extended break, or perhaps are still around but have just not got around to finishing off a project.

I have never said that every page should be sent to MfD, I am fine with the idea of clearing out abandoned rubbish with a CSD process. However, what I think is objectionable with the current G13 is that it requries no assessment of the quality of the material being deleted and we certainly shouldn't be extending such an authoritarian system into userspace generally until a) there is an assessment, b) there is a procedure to deal with the page if it is kept, and c) editors who have been active in the last two years have their userspace excluded. SpinningSpark 20:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

It's not wrong-headed at all to expect administrators to do a quality review - we're all here to improve the encyclopedia. I know I've done so for every G13 I've deleted, and I take second and third looks if it's Hasteurbot that tagged it instead of a human. Leaving something you're unsure about in unindexed draftspace for a while for someone else to inspect is less harmful than just about any other class of speedy. We may not subscribe to the overinclusive "if it might possibly survive AFD it should move out of draftspace right away" mentality some folks advocate; but show me an admin who intentionally speedies your hypothetical featured-article-quality draft on a technicality and I'll show you someone who should be desysopped for cause. —Cryptic 20:52, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, how about this: The admin looks at it. If it is obviously not suitable for article space, it gets deleted. If it would be an article of sufficient quality, meeting GNG and quality minimum standards, it gets moved into article space. If neither, it goes to XFD.--Müdigkeit (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Draft titles don't appear in search results for outside readers, but unless deselected they do for logged-in editors, so there is some need for an exhaust pipe to avoid clutter building up without limit. I'd give it 12 months rather than 6. The issue should be considered in conjunction with the open RfC on how articles get moved into draft space. Oh, and if deletion from user space is still under debate, that shouldn't normally happen; it's quite plausible to have a collection of rough notes and internet links kicking around for months until the user gets a block of free time to work it up: Noyster (talk), 12:08, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Fundamental question being asked

Because several editors are confused about what's motivating this, it's time to dispense with the cow feeces. Fundamentally this proposal is to retroactively give authorization for editors to nominate for speedy deletion any page that lives in the Draft namespace (i.e. Drafts:...) under a argument that "No edits to this draft are visible to the general editing public in a certain amount of time, therefore it's not useful and should be deleted".

This is a significant expansion of this CSD criterion because previously it was only applicable to drafts that were part of the Articles for Creation (AfC) process. Editors who used the AfC process were warned at the outset that they needed to make effort to improve their proposed article otherwise it could be subject to deletion on the stale grounds.

Draft namespace was specifically created with the understanding that several previous projects and initiatives (Abandoned drafts, Incubation, etc.) would be shut down and pages under their aegis would be centralized to pool all the collaborative drafts that people might be interested in. As part of the initial RFC and subsequent proposals, the consensus was that there should be no deletions of Draft namespace pages (excluding the previously mentioned AfC pages) on the grounds of the page being stale.

AfC is not a requirement for using the Draft namespace. AfC is recommended for new users, not required to be used. I have seen arguments both for and against CSD:G13 being applicable to pages that are in the AfC process that are in individual users space, but have taken the conservative view with the bot that User space shouldn't be touched. It's my impression that when AfC volunteer reviewers look at a pending submission (meaning the creator of the article asked for a review to determine if the page is ready to be promoted to mainspace) and determines that while the page has potential (but not enough to move it to mainspace) they will move it to an analagous Draft namespace title. If the draft doesn't show potential, then it will remain in the user's individual space and the bot will not consider it for speedy.

Yes this is very long, but it helps to understand where the proposers are coming from and what they're asking for. Hasteur (talk) 13:30, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Discographies of deleted artists

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

For a bit of background on this situation, three articles were recently created for the band C1N1K1LL: a band article, one of its albums, and a separate standalone C1N1K1LL discography. No genuinely substantive notability was shown or sourced under WP:NMUSIC, so the band article was speedied A7 and the album was accordingly speedied A9. When it came to the discography article, however, there was debate between two editors about whether it could be speedied under either criterion — and a third editor who insisted that because neither criterion specifically mentions artist discographies per se, no speedy criterion and not even the snowball clause was acceptable at all: the article simply had to go to a full AFD for process reasons.

Because of that objection, I listed it for discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/C1N1K1LL discography, and consensus did indeed favour deletion — in that discussion, however, I also raised the question of whether there should be a consensus established that the discography is eligible for speedy if the band and the albums listed in it are all redlinks or nolinks, and the consensus in that discussion did support that. Accordingly, I am hereby proposing the following addition to A9:

Separate discography articles are also eligible for speedy under this criterion, if the artist and the listed albums are all redlinks.

Alternate wording proposals are also welcome, and what I want to clarify is that the criterion would not be deemed to apply if any of the albums does still have an article: even if the album article has been taken to AFD instead of speedy and has no chance of surviving, the discography is not eligible for A9, but rather still has to go to AFD, if at least one album article does still exist.

Any input? Bearcat (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support the addition. I think it can be made more simple, just add "or list of recordings" immediately after "musical recording", so that it reads "... any article about a musical recording or list of recordings where ..." - that will also catch the case where a discography is called, for example, List of C1N1K1LL albums. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, good point. Bearcat (talk) 21:08, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

That shouldn't matter; for that is what a discography is isn't it, a list of albums or songs? Adam9007 (talk) 01:04, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes. But speedy criteria are often interpreted extremely literally. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Not when it comes to A7 it doesn't, I can tell you! I've encountered editors (including admins) who not just not take it literally, but seem to misunderstand it entirely! In fact, I've been told off and even threatened just for taking A7 literally! But anyway, "list of recordings" should be fine. Adam9007 (talk) 21:58, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support If the recordings are non-notable and the artist(s) is(are) non-notable, the discography can hardly be notable, IMO. At present, possibly G8 Page dependent on a non-existent or deleted page might apply, but this clarifies things. Peridon (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I am one of the editors to which Bearcat refers, and I thought discographies may be eligible under A7 because it really should have been in the band's article, which was A7-ed. Had it been where it should have been, the discography would have gone with it, but apparently it wasn't eligible due to a technicality (of it being in a separate page). As for G8, do discography article actually depend on a band "parent" article as such? Adam9007 (talk) 00:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

A discography depends on there being an artiste or artistes performing the recordings. If there's no articles about either performer(s) or records, there's nothing to depend on. 8-) Peridon (talk) 11:46, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support, though I might suggest a liberal reading of CSD:G8 to dispose of the discographies pages on the grounds that the Albums and artist pages were already deleted. Hasteur (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
• That liberal a reading of G8 would just as easily allow deletion of any list whose items were all redlinked. It's squarely in the spirit of A9, though, and we could probably get by with just adding a "(s)" after the first "recording" there. The situation doesn't merit more than that, it should be enough to appease the wikilawyers, and nobody else is going to care. —Cryptic 22:54, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support if the discography also has no credible claim of significance, otherwise we'd be giving A9 an additional meaning, which would be confusing. It would feel more like G8 or G6. Adam9007 (talk) 00:24, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support the addition and the specific language proposed by Ivanvector. Clearly this falls within the intent of A9 and common outcomes at AfD.- MrX 00:47, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support as an obvious and logical extension of G8. Guy (Help!) 00:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support - I think this is obvious: a discography list is just an article about the person/band's musical recordings; unless at least one of these recordings is notable (and the presence of a non-redlinked article is evidence of this, unless it's up for deletion), then the page doesn't show importance or significance. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the intention is to wait until everything is deleted before using this on the list - but how often is there a notable recording by a non-notable artiste? Peridon (talk) 11:49, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I certainly can't imagine any viable way for a recording by a non-notable artist to actually pass our keepability standards on any permanent basis — if the album can actually be demonstrated as notable enough to be kept, then it certainly follows as a direct corollary that we've misread the notability of the artist — but it is theoretically possible for a non-notable and deletable album's article to claim enough notability that its deletion would have to happen via AFD instead of speedy. Bearcat (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support Ivanvector's wording. JohnCD (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support, and that can be generalised to videography, filmography and whatever lists of tapes were called. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graeme Bartlett (talk • contribs) 11:09, 5 February 2016‎ (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orphaned Category:Cite doi templates

Would people consider deleting an orphaned old Template:cite doi subpage a G6 uncontroversial deletion? Template:cite doi has been deprecated in that it is just a wrapper for citation journal citing but there's been no consensus on deleting the 58k or so subpages at Category:Cite doi templates. They have never been considered under T3 although they are just hard-coded text of cite journal. For example, see Template:Cite doi/10.1001.2Farchneur.1971.00480340107013 which has no citations and I've listed at TFD. A number of the templates like Template:Cite doi/10.1029.2F2008GL034614 show up in lists like User:Plastikspork/Orphaned_templates/1#Cite_doi.2Fpmid and User:RussBot/Orphaned templates/003 (from 2009) so it will not be easy to find the actually true "orphaned" ones. There's also redirect of various citations to numerous ones so I'm trying to see if there's a more simple way of going through these than just mass TFD nominations. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:59, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• • Just for numbers, approximately 27.8k of these are orphaned along with 7094 of Category:Cite pmid templates (just four in use). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
• Why can't T3 be used? I wish the use of these had never started. The (weak) reason to keep is for historic version of articles that may have used them. I suppose a precedent needs to be set at TFD to see if they are always deleted, and then we can have a speedy delete criterion to get rid of the rest. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

  T3 was expressly rejected in this discussion. User:Dexbot began implementation by mass removal which was objected to and another RFC supporting it was done in November. As for discussions, this first TFD from June 2014 started this whole thing and even with the "unorphaning" it was still deleted. This discussion was a NAC "keep for now" which led to the second RFC with no real basis to do so in my opinion (and the RFC showed disapproval of that). This discussion was deleted. There's no consensus to unorphan these so I don't see where it would be controversial. There's a lot more of the template:cite ISBN deletions out there from this mass discussion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 12:04, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• Given that G6 expressly provides for "Deleting templates orphaned as the result of a consensus at WP:TfD." and given that these were orphaned as a result of a similar-strength consensus, I'd say this is okay. I'd also accept G8 as a rationale. --Izno (talk) 14:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
• I might establish a precedent by nominating ~10 in a bulk cluster and explicitly note that the TFD is being used as a vehicle to establish the uncontroversial nature of the deletions. Once you have that in hand a G6 job could be scheduled (assuming the template is truly orphaned). The other concern is that it will break page histories by deleting the template. Hasteur (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not proposing deletion of the template (or templates). Those are clearly historical. It's the orphaned subpages at a start which technically have nothing to do with deprecation of the templates. It's just pure clean-up work. I did the same thing with template:cite ibsn by getting the whole list, manually substituting the ones I could and taking the templates to TFD in one complete set. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• I often find reasons to browse old versions of pages. When I do, I often find the page screwed up by old version use of templates now deleted. This is very frustrating. I wish the deletionists would leave once-used templates alone, if there is no actual problem with their continued mere existence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

No one is suggesting deleting the actual cite doi template so I'm not sure what your concern is. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

"Actual" means current? You want to delete deprecated templates, like Template:Cite doi? The problem is that this template is used in old versions, and if you delete it it screws up the old versions. As there are many reasons to want to view an old page version, deprecated but once used templates should not be deleted. There is harm in deleting. What is the advantage in deleting? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

No, I want to delete the subpages created by that template. The 58k pages at Category:Cite doi templates of which 28k are basically like Template:Cite doi/10.4996.2Ffireecology.0701013 and orphaned. Is there any reason to keep those? I'm trying to ask if it's a G6 so I can just ask an adminbot to delete the orphaned ones for now. Template cite pmid has four in use and over 7000 not in use. I understand that you may enjoy reviewing old versions of articles but I can't find a single page currently that uses or refers to that doi so there's no history page that will be broken up by its deletion. If you want to make some strange demand that we can only delete orphaned templates when there's no evidence of a current article that used to refer to a deprecated template so that people can wander through old versions without a broken template, fine, it wouldn't be the oddest thing I've heard but the consensus has been to deprecate since April 2015 and it would be nice to at least start with deleting the orphaned ones, whatever the reason why they are orphaned. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Furthermore, although the display of old revisions that used the cite doi system would be broken, the actual information isn't lost, since the old wikitext still contains the DOI. I'd be in favor of G6'ing these. (For context, I closed the TfD linked above about orphaned cite ISBN templates and deleted the batch.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Ahh, OK, subpages. If it never was a template, then no objection to deletion. Oppose use of G6, this sort of G6 expansion is dangerous. Instead, start a TfD to cover everything you mean in a once off. It is a once-off isn't it? Or are these deprecated template subpages being continually created. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

You want a TFD for 28k pages? And for the other 7k? It's not a one off as there's still substitutions and the remainder to take care of. It seems like it's uncontroversially related to the deprecation of the templates to me. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Are they all written by User:Citation bot? Get agreement from the author of User:Citation bot and delete per G7. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll ask but I don't think the bot has admin powers so it may be circular. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

To the extent that I understand, what you are doing here seems entirely sensible. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Contest for speedy deletion

I have posted this page as a favor to my friend, Ron Holmstrom. He didn't know how to do it and asked me to put this up as a favor to him.

He is directing a play at the Anchorage Dinner Theatre - Lounge Lizards - and I am his Associate Producer. If you need to delete this, it is fine - we will just repost as different users.

It's sort of amazing how quickly someone that doesn't know me OR Ron would be so pathetic to delete something that has nothing to do with them.

Sad, really.

-Lisa Fox

Holmstrom333 (talk) 01:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lisa, well speedy deletion should not be related to the person who wrote the content, (unless the writer is banned) but only the content of the page that is deleted. Be aware that some topics are unsuitable to have their own article here, due to lack of other people having written about them. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:01, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that e have a policy against using multiple accounts - see WP:Sockpuppetry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 22:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

• @Holmstrom333: Hi Lisa and Ron, welcome to Wikipedia. I gather from your message that an article you wrote about your play has been deleted. If you would like to suggest it as an article for someone else to create, please take a look at WP:Requested articles. If you have a few links to where your play has been mentioned in reliable sources (newspapers, magazines, maybe trade publications, stuff you didn't write yourself) then follow the instructions to add a request there, and someone else who doesn't know you or Ron will be along to review it and see if it's a topic that we can write about. I hope that helps. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 17:43, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
• As an administrator, I can see what has been deleted. The only posting (other than here) by Holmstrom333 was a user page and it consisted of a CV. Please read WP:RESUME, and also WP:USERPAGE which explains what can and can't be put on a user page. Please understand that it is not a bit of free web space - a user page is for someone working on the encyclopaedia to tell us a bit about themselves. If you are wanting somewhere for people to know about Ron or you, Facebook or LinkedIn are there, and that is what they are for. Wikipedia is not the same thing. To have an article, a person must pass WP:BIO with reliable independent sources WP:RS to prove it. Peridon (talk) 20:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Delete Advice to Wait

The third paragraph says: "Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation." I think that this statement should be deleted. It encourages editors to build articles in article space. The building of the original version of an article, including the addition of the references, in article space should be discouraged. There is no reason for either inexperienced or experienced editors to build the original version of an article in article space. Inexperienced editors should use Articles for Creation to get review comments. Experienced editors who do not want to use AFC should build the article until it is "minimally complete" in user space and then move it to draft space. So I would like to remove that statement, which, first, implies that unreferenced articles should not be speedied until some time period has expired (and it doesn't say what that time period is), second, isn't universally honored, but is used by editors to complain about speedy deletion. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

First of all, "unreferenced" isn't a speedy criteria. Articles should never be deleted for that. Nor should they be deleted for being incomplete. It is very unWikipedia to discourage creation of articles in article space. That's how the encyclopaedia was built in the first place. That's why it's called a wiki. And that's why rivals who do insist on drafting first and then getting it approved have failed to keep up with us. SpinningSpark 01:23, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• I would strongly Oppose such a change. Indeed I would favor making the current language stronger, prohibiting rather than merely discouraging the over-hasty tagging of new articles for criteria such as A7, A3, and A1 (Copyvios and attack pages are a different matter). There is no policy or guideline preventing or discouraging creation of new articles in mainspace, and many perfectly valid articles are so created every day. While it is true that I and many experienced editors advise most inexperienced editors to use the AfC/Draft process, and I myself often use a Draft to start a new article, by no means is this an invariable practice, nor should it be. And of course Spinningspark is absolutely correct that being unreferenced is not in any case a valid reason for speedy deletion, and generally not for deletion at all unless a WP:BEFORE search fails to find plausible sources. I might add that the note in question specifically mentions a 10-minute delay as a best practice. Personally i would set it at 1 hour. DES ^(talk) 01:56, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

  It is a very natural thing for people to come here, see that it is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and start off by trying to create a new article. Often such attempts are ill-advised, with the new editor not understanding many practices, and particularly such policies and guidelines as Notability and the neutral point of view. But a rapid speedy deletion is often not the best way to handle good-faith attmepts to contribute -- it savors of WP:BITE. This is doubly true when the new editor who is actively working on an article is not even given time to finish the effort. Such deletions ar poor practice, and should not be encouraged. DES ^(talk) 02:01, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I would support a guideline highly discouraging the creation of article in main space. I would love to see the evidence that many valid articles are created this way every day, to see if they are beyond short stubs that may never get developed. If there is such evidence, it would modify my opinion, but I think we create more damage by leaving the impression that it is a good practice.--S Philbrick(Talk) 03:45, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, the new pages list shows that 125 pages were created directly in less than 22 minutes this morning. I haven't done the detailed checks on how many are stubs or might be worthy of speedy deletion, but that is a lot of articles (over 6,000/day at that rate), and my experience is that a significant percentage will turn out to be valid articles. DES ^(talk) 13:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@DESiegel: I looked at Leader_of_the_Christian_Democratic_Appeal and realized there may be a definitional problem, and it’s on me. I don’t think anything thinks that the editor opened up a blank page and typed this in. They likely composed it in an external editor, then copy-pasted. That’s fine. And that may qualify as an article initially created in main space, as opposed to Draft, User space or AfC. So I need to think through how that affects my position. However, I am curious. This— Barbara Stevens (basketball) is an article I crated in September. Had it shown up in new page patrol, how would you know whether it was initially created in main space or a user subpage?--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:54, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, had that page been moved from draft space or user space, that would show up at the log page. The easy way to display it is to view the page history, and click "View logs for this page". On my screen this is in the upper left of the history display. The display can be limited to the move log, but for a relatively new page there will be few page log entriers, so there is usually no need to filter. If the page had been under AfC, that would show up on the talk page and in the page history directly. DES ^(talk) 15:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@DESiegel: I always (at least the last few years) start an article in a user subpage, then move it to main space when ready. On the off-chance that I did the Steven one differently, I looked at the logs for the last four articles I created, and there is nothing in the logs.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Ah on further checking, Sphilbrick, the move shows up in the logs for the source page, for the target page it shows up in the regular page history. For example this is when you moved Sharon Dawley out of a sandbox. A search through the page history for the string "moved" should find all such entries. On a relatively new page, the history should be short. DES ^(talk) 17:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

So back to the original question, is it possible to look at a newly created page and know whether was created ab initio or moved (short of searching for a subpage created by the first editor?). I hope I am not coming across as contentious, I would just like to know how many pages we are talking about, and I am not yet convinced I know how to count them.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Sphilbrick, it is. For a given page, open that page's page history. Search the displayed history (Ctrl+F) for the string "moved". If no such string is found, the page has not been moved. This won't catch cut&paste moves, nor will it tell you if an editor worked in an offline editor and pasted the result in. DES ^(talk) 18:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if the creator of Leader_of_the_Christian_Democratic_Appeal did type it in directly in the edit window. There are only a couple of short paragraphs of text, the rest is links, table formatting, and images that makes it look large. DES ^(talk) 18:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

What problem is this trying to address? Is it that lots of new articles are getting A1, A3, or A7 speedied before they are complete? If so, addressing the problem on the writer's rather than the NPPer's side seems completely backwards to me. Even leaving wiki philosophy aside (and we shouldn't), newbies don't know the guidelines while NPPers do. A fix targeted at the newbies (like this one) would change nothing because they would not be aware of it. If you want to address the problem, you should target the NPPers, who read, understand, and apply relevant guidelines. This proposal would "fix" biting by legitimizing it with a guideline rather than by changing behavior. Also, I'm a bit worried by your description of adding references after article creation as being problematic - it implies that a lack of references is getting articles speedied. According to crystal-clear policy, lack of references contributes exactly zero to A7 eligibility. Deletion for WP:V problems of any magnitude must occur through PROD or AfD, in which case there will be plenty of time for the references to be added and the deletion avoided if unwarranted. A2soup (talk) 05:06, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

On further thinking, I can see one reason to advise reviewers not to speedy-delete an article too quickly. It isn't because the author may be still developing the article in mainspace. It is because the author should be given time to contest the speedy-deletion. Maybe the advice to wait should be revised. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:37, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

If the user is able to create in mainspace (i.e. confirmed or autoconfirmed) they are not compelled to use Draft namespace, AfC, or Userspace drafts to craft their article. Yes we'd like to direct them to one of these "safe spaces" to create their article, but it's not mandatory. I'm personally going to oppose this, but would agree with others above that ideally there should be an hour from page creation, or even better at least one hour of no edits by the author of the page, before nominating for a CSD. Hasteur (talk) 13:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly with the required one hour from last edit by author before CSD nom for A1, A3, and especially A7. No need for this in cases like G11, though. A2soup (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

it shouldn't be required for A7. We get each day several dozen postings from unsophisticated users posting the sort of information they would post on Facebook, or the sort of things they would send as text messages to the romantic partners, or businesses posting the name and address of their business without any explicit advertising. Currently, we remove most of them via A7. There are other possible options--the personal ones and possible the directory-only ones could be deleted as test pages. ( Some admins delete some of the most inappropriate personal ones as vandalism--I prefer not to in order not to dramatize the situation.) But the current definition of test page does not actually apply without stretching it a good deal. Furthermore, I don't see the harm in using a7 when it is obvious from what is present that no article is going to be possible no matter what gets added later. Except of course the need to rely on admin judgement ;). DGG ( talk ) 22:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, I see no harm in requiring it for A1 and A3. Except for making sure they don't get overlooked, if everyone is patrolling the pages immediately added. DGG ( talk ) 22:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The thing with A7 is that new editors don't know that they have to explicitly give a claim of significance. Often they just write some facts, and the significance is unclear. They need time to realize that this claim is required and to add it. I suppose the trick is that they don't find out the claim is required until after the CSD template is applied. So perhaps require an hour from tagging to deletion (rather than creation to tagging) in the case of A7? A2soup (talk) 23:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem with A7 I've encountered is that many editors don't seem to understand what it actually is; some think it's about notability or sources (I've seen admins tag articles A7 for lack of sources!), and many of those who do know only a claim is required think the claim must be of notability and not just significance. I've seen articles which clearly had a claim of significance (I saw one about a person which claimed right at the very beginning he was the CEO of Energizer, which is clearly a claim of significance) tagged A7, in some cases mere seconds after creation, which is utterly ridiculous. Some editors don't seem to be aware of its scope either. Adam9007 (talk) 23:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Don't forget it's not just a claim to significance - it's a 'credible' claim. If an 18 year old called Fred Bloggs is claiming to be the CEO of Bloggs Music, he probably is - but Bloggs Music is only stated to have two mixtapes (by Fred himself and available free on SoundCloud). Is that a credible claim to significance? I think not. (Can you be 'chief' executive officer when you are the only person in the 'company'?) CEO of Energizer? Maybe - if the rest of the article makes this credible. If the person concerned is 15 years old, definitely not. If they are of sufficient age and there are no indications of blatant hoax, yes, that would probably pass A7. As to leaving an hour from tagging, I usually do for A7. I make exception for things like articles about Year 6 school kids who aren't stated to have done anything that is of note even at school level, and first year university students who give their educational history in full but don't appear to have done anything else. If they really have done something, they'll be back with a complaint - and they shouldn't really be writing about themselves anyway. Quite often they're back anyway and have to be deleted again by someone. If I'm the second deleter, I try to point them at the relevant policies. I sometimes do this for first time ones if I feel that they're acting in good faith and not just trying to get their name on Wikipedia like so many do. And if I'm not sure about any case, I leave it alone, which is why I rarely delete things about Indian films or American sports. I'm waiting for an RfA candidate to have the courage to state that they wouldn't touch with a bargepole a case they're presented with. No admin is obliged to take action on anything they come across. When in doubt, don't - and if everyone else seems to be in doubt too, take it to AfD... Peridon (talk) 13:46, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I will agree that there is a problem with tagging that is too quick. I think people are afraid that if something isn't tagged it will escape notice later. There are articles that get through the patrollers, and we could possibly do to encourage the patrollers to use 'Edits by Recent Accounts' (I think that's what it's called) a bit more. That's where I worked before getting the mop. I was often tagging things 12 hours or more after creation. Yes, very new things need to be checked for copyvio, hoax, attack and spam. They need to be got rid of ASAP. There's less harm in the other deletion categories. Sudden thought - there is a 'school' for new admins. Is there anything for patrollers? As I never used the NPP or 'new edits by anyone' pages, I don't know if there is. It seems that just anyone (like me back then...) can go into patrolling without a way of learning about it other than the school of hard knocks. Perhaps more thought ought to be directed at creating something like the Adventure (only a little bit less Janet and John in appearance - no offence intended to the creators of the Adventure, but I find the invitation and the badges some editors display as being very off-putting). Peridon (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I think a NPP "school" would be an excellent idea. I browsed CSD tags for a time, and can say it is sorely needed. I would suggest raising the idea at the village pump. A2soup (talk) 14:33, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2016

Qais.Eshan 14:42, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Getting sick of this

A7 again I'm afraid. You may remember a big discussion a few months ago about A7 and what constitutes a credible claim of significance. I failed to get a straight answer from the community as a whole, so the editor's (I'm not mentioning names as I'm not here to report anyone for anything; my goal here is not to get anyone blocked or anything like that, but rather to (or at least attempt to) ensure it doesn't happen again) arguments when he challenged my tag removals basically boiled down to "You will interpret it the way I say it should be interpreted or else!". He even templated me over what turned out to be a legitimate tag removal after all, because he had simply decided I was wrong, and refused to consider any possibility to the contrary. I also notice he had a go at me for having "my" interpretation but not the admin who had her interpretation. Does "not being entitled to my own interpretation" as he said it only apply to those he disagrees with?

More recently (yesterday in fact), I removed an A7 tag from an article whose subject was clearly outside its scope. The editor who placed it there asked why, and I explained, politely, that it was beyond the scope of A7. He asked if it should be restored for an admin to judge, and I said there was no good reason to. He decided to ignore me and restore it anyway, along with a sugar-coated command for me not to touch the tag. When I legitimately contested it, he threw a wobbler, and insisted that there is no requirement to specify an A7 category, even though the template asks you to. He also implied I'm not worth listening to purely because I'm relatively new here. I think he knew deep down that I was right, because he eventually conceded defeat and changed it to a PROD.

My point is, these editors seem to be assuming ownership. And I'm not the only one who's encountered this sort of behaviour. Editors sometimes act as though they own an article (or at least the tag) once they've tagged it for CSD, and restore the tag without good reason because they've decided they were right and the editor who removed it is wrong. This has got to stop. Before anyone screams "Consensus!" at me like last time, I'd like to point out that the criteria is made by consensus (hence this discussion), so anything that doesn't fall into the criteria cannot be speedied because there's no consensus to do so. The reason the latter editor tagged the article for A7 was because, "This article is worthless", well maybe it is, but surely that's for the community to decide? He acted as though his opinion, and his opinion alone counted, and called me a "a bureaucratic pain in the ass" purely for following consensus, which is the one thing WP:IAR cannot override even if he had a good reason. I'm wondering whether to propose an extension of A7 to cover, well, anything. It would make life much easier for everyone; some people don't care about the spirit, some people don't care about the letter, and some people don't care about either, and tag things for speedy deletion just because they don't like them.

The other day, an admin encouraged me to be bold. This sort of behaviour is making me increasingly wary of doing so. Perhaps I should stop and wait for consensus before doing anything? After all, I don't own the article; someone else does, so surely I need their permission first? Ridiculous, as I'm sure you'll agree. Adam9007 (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

A7 is a narrow set of criteria, so there should not be that much of gray area for disagreements. It's hard to help you though without actual examples to examine. - MrX 20:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree: specific examples would help; I daresay that one might find out what happened where and when anyway by combing through your edits, so don't be shy...and actually I think getting the other user(s) involved into the discussion might have beneficial effects for everyone. Lectonar (talk) 21:01, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog on Office warranty? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: That's one of them, yes. I may as well admit it as you've posted it here. Adam9007 (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

JoJo, yep. Maybe Adam was correct, we don't know as I changed to PROD. So this is moot. To me the larger issue and what was unhelpful was Adam's bureaucratic insistence on what A7 is or is not for, rather than trying to solve the problem that the "article" is a piece of crap mostly likely written for pay that doesn't add anything to the encyclopedia. I got upset and didn't act too well. But as I said the point is moot now and I am uninterested in discussing this further. Jytdog (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Adam9007: Yes, Jytdog erred in that case and you were correct to decline the CSD tag. When doing so, it's a good idea to drop a note on the user's talk page letting them know why. - MrX 21:30, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Something about this conversation makes me think a talk page note wouldn't have helped in this case. A2soup (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

"these editors seem to be assuming ownership" - I'll go further and say there are admin shopping and also jerks. Anyone can remove a speedy delete tag for any reasons, and the only exception is copyright and attack pages. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

No, it is not quite correct that anyone can remove a speedy delete tag. The creator of a page may not remove a speedy deletion tag (and there is a template warning for doing that). Any other editor may remove a speedy tag. (The editor who initially applied the tag of course may nominate the page for a deletion discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:30, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I also review speedy deletion tags (not so frequently as I used to) and I know exactly what you're experiencing. A lot of new page patrollers think they understand the rules of the game - be the first to tag the new article as A7, quick or someone else will beat you to it - and don't really have a lot of understanding of the actual deletion policies. They are tolerated and enabled by too many admins who take basically the same approach. Too often they demonstrate a lack of empathy and interest in either the article topics or the editors affected by their actions.

I think it's very important to understand and acknowledge the other side of the coin - that the vast, huge, overwhelming majority of speedy deletions of new articles are appropriate and necessary. These people believe they are doing good and valuable work, and for the most part, they are. Then someone like you (or me) comes along and screws up their system. Why do we hate them? :)

If this is an area where you want to be active, I would suggest you develop the following:

• A deep understanding of speedy deletion policy, and also the reasons behind the policy. WHY are you allowed to remove tags from other people's articles? WHY aren't admins empowered to just unilaterally delete anything they think is a good idea? What sort of things ARE valid exceptions to the rules?
• A sympathetic and non-judgmental communication style with new page patrollers. They are on the same side as you - really. Find ways to talk to them that show respect for their work. Avoid sounding condescending or combative.
• Some big balls. You will find yourself explaining speedy deletion policy to angry administrators. This will happen often. Might as well get used to it. (Note that doing the previous two suggestions first will greatly help with this.)
• A thick skin. You will need it.
• A sense of perspective. I guarantee that right now there are articles in the speedy deletion queue that technically, per the letter of policy, should not be there. The tag that has been used is formally not applicable. You would be within your rights to remove it and make a fuss. And yet, when you look at the article, and the history of the contributor, you will find yourself disinterested in rescuing that particular article for one reason or another. Instead you will quietly let it go, and let it be inappropriately deleted as A7 or whatever. And you, along with the patroller, and the deleting admin, will feel that the encyclopedia has been improved as a result. If you NEVER have that situation occur, I would encourage you to take a broader view of deletion policy and WP:IAR.

(Edit to add, this advice is aimed at a generic "you", not at Adam9007 specifically, whose work I have not reviewed).

Thparkth (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I've seen admins misunderstand A7! But there's a difference between speedy and snow delete, although they may appear to be the same. Probably the best for such cases it to PROD it, and if an admin thinks it appropriate, he will invoke the snowball clause and delete it before it's expired. Though I have seen disagreement as to whether the snowball clause applies to PRODs. Adam9007 (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• if Adam had shown an inkling of interest in trying to solve the problem I was trying to solve, the conversation would have unfolded differently. I have little patience with people who seem to care more whether they are "correct" than improving the encyclopedia. If instead of removing the tag, he had come to my page and said "hey A7 is the wrong tag, but I see what you are trying to do and PROD would be more appropriate" I would have been very happy. Or when I asked him why he had removed the tag, if he had offered something like that along with the explanation, again the conversation would have unfolded very differently. Yes, I should have acted better and I should have asked him sooner how he thought I could accomplish my goal. I did eventually did ask him here and in response to his completely crap answer here, I asked again but by the time he answered I had already figured I could just PROD it

We need all kinds of people to make this place go. I work mostly on COI/advocacy/paid editing stuff along with my editing; Adam works on speedy patrolling. Great. Let's help each other. Jytdog (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

You made a mistake; he corrected it. At the point he restored the CSD tag with a proper edit summary, you should have went to WP:A7 and did some light reading. Instead, you reacted by reverting him. It's not the end of the world, but no one is obligated to "try to solve the problem" as explained in WP:CHOICE.- MrX 23:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I made a mistake, he reverted, I tried to talk with him about it, found an unhelpful person and got frustrated, reverted him, and later changed my own edit to a PROD rather than continue the drama over a trivial piece of shit "article". Adam, by the way is even now wasting yet more time wikilawyering around this trivial piece of shit "article".) That is what has happened. It is completely unclear to me why people are wasting time on this. I gave A7 a light read before i tagged it. I was not talking out my ass. Look. I think is what you want. 1) Adam was correct that A7 was not appropriate. 2) I was wrong to tag it that way. 3) I was wrong to revert him. There you go. I will not respond again here unless I am pinged. I do not expect to be pinged. Jytdog (talk) 00:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

How does asking a legitimate question constitute "time wasting"? Adam9007 (talk) 00:37, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• OK I am back. Adam9007 can you please justify this deletion of a speedy tag? The article is cited to two directories and a press release, and is so, so obviously an effort to promote the guy. I haven't reverted, but boy was I tempted. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

and this one too? Both of these are not technically wrong, like mine was. it seems to me that you are applying administrator-like judgement, that is not appropriate (and that I don't agree with). Jytdog (talk) 03:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Likewise this one. I know admins who would delete all three of those. Again I think it is fine to catch screw-ups like mine, but in my view these are over the line...Jytdog (talk) 03:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

(I am not Adam9007)

I personally disagree with the removal of the tag on the first article you linked to, and agree with Adam9007 on the second. But really, it doesn't matter.

Speedy deletion is for situations so utterly uncontroversial that no uninvolved editor would ever disagree in good faith.

As soon as you know that even just one other independent editor disagrees with the speedy deletion tag, that tag no longer applies. The deletion is no longer uncontroversial.

It doesn't remotely matter whether that independent editor happens to have administrator rights or not; it is well-established in policy and precedent that any editor (other than the article creator) can remove speedy deletion tags they disagree with. Any good faith reason for disagreement is good enough, and it is disruptive to revert their removal of the tags (because when you tag an article for speedy deletion, you are asserting that the deletion is uncontroversial, and now you know that is not true).

I think it's really important to internalize this idea; speedy deletion is a shortcut process that only happens under very particular conditions. One of those conditions is that no independent editor disagrees with the deletion. If they do disagree, take it to AfD to hash out how the wider community feels about the issue - never revert the removal of a speedy deletion tag (other than by the page creator).

Thparkth (talk) 04:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

That pretty much sums up my view as well. It can be frustrating to have CSDs declined, but it's merely one more step to take it to AfD. That said, I suggest that Adam9007 consider recalibrating his threshold for significance. The first article (linked by Jytdog, above) does not have a credible claim of significance, nor does the third. In cases where there is doubt as to significance, it's best to leave removal of the CSD to an admin.- MrX 04:25, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: The first article claims the person is a director of a notable company, and the third is about a band assigned to a label with a Wikipedia entry, which according to this is a credible claim of significance. Adam9007 (talk) 04:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Being the director of a small web design firm is not significant at all. Being a band signed to a minor record label is also not significant. This is why I think you need to adjust your threshold of what is significant if you are going to overrule someone else's judgement. - MrX 05:02, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Part of the problem with this debate is that one man's "director of a notable company" is another's "small web design firm". My gut feeling was to disagree with MrX, but on looking at the content, I would probably have deleted The Great American Beast, though that's more through a total vaccuum in sources including no hit on AllMusic or any regional newspaper. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:12, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: It doesn't say the label has to be major, only notable. If it's notable enough for Wikipedia, it's significant. In the absence of anything else to go by, that page is what I'll be referring to. Adam9007 (talk) 17:12, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Adam9007: Are you suggesting that there is a guideline that says listing a record label with an article, in an article about a band or musician, is a credible claim of significance as required by WP:A7? If so, could you please provide a link? If this is true, I've been doing it wrong for years.- MrX 19:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: That page, though an essay rather an a policy or guideline, says that it is, unless I'm misunderstanding it? Adam9007 (talk) 19:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Adam9007: That page is the opinion of one person. Frankly, the advice about a notable label flies in the face of WP:CIRCULAR, and in my experience, does not represent widespread practice or consensus. It's fine if you want to use it as a guide for how you mark articles for speedy deletion, but you should not use it as a basis for removing speedy deletion tags placed in good faith by other new page patrollers.- MrX 20:00, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: I don't think that applies as that's talking about using Wikipedia as a source in articles. This is entirely different, as I'm not adding or removing sources to or from articles; we're talking here about policies and guidelines. I've seen some of the reasons listed there as a basis for declining A7s, even by admins. And besides, by your logic, I shouldn't use Wikipedia policies or guidelines at all to justify my actions! Adam9007 (talk) 20:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

The principle behind WP:CIRCULAR still applies. Just because a record label article has been created, doesn't mean that it's notable. Also, notability is not inherited. A band or musician article needs to include a credible claim of significance about the band or musician (the subject of the article) to be exempt from CSD. The notabilty of other subjects is irrelevant. I can tell you that if you use this reasoning to remove speedy deletion tags, Jytdog is not going to be the only new page patroller upset by your actions. I recommend that until you have considerably more experience, you refrain from removing CSD tags. This is why we have admins.- MrX 20:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, you don't think being a part of a potentially notable label is a credible claim of significance, but that is your opinion. Editors can be upset all they like, but that doesn't mean they're right. I'm not going to let one incident stop me; that would violate the spirit of WP:BOLD. As for experience, how else am I going to gain it? Adam9007 (talk) 22:14, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• there was a 4th removal of a speedy tag that I didn't mention here. I just got done spending about an hour following where the editing of that article led me, and it led to the reporting of two socks of a prolific sockmaster WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Natly 88, and it led to this COIN posting. Jytdog (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if you are disputing this, but that tag removal is 100% appropriate. The article is terrible (although writing a detailed synopsis is an understandable newbie mistake), but it claims in the infobox to be about a TV show that ran 79 episodes on a notable TV network. A google search for the title's exact wording returns 351,000 results. I can't imagine how the tagging editor thought this was a viable A7. A2soup (talk) 07:17, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Deleting articles pisses people off. Speedy deleting articles really pisses people off. Speedy deleting articles and referring to the content in profane terms pisses people off to the point they set up "I hate Wikipedia" blog pages. If you have any doubts, don't delete. Unless the content has legal problems existing (generally G10 / G12, or has BLP concerns) it won't kill you to wait 7 days. If Jytdog is unable to evaluate articles on their own merits without referring to terms like "shit", "crap" and "socks", I suggest he finds another maintenance area to work on until he feels less emotionally involved. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest the following Actions:

@Jytdog:Adam9007 If you think Adam9007 has significantly broken the process, please raise it as a concern at WP:AN and give examples over a significant period showing how the concern is ongoing.

@Adam9007: Per WP:ADMINACCT you're supposed to explain and justify your actions when being questioned. If your actions signifcantly diverge from common practice, it's expected you change them to follow the consensus unless you wish to have your administrator privileges removed either voluntarily or via a knock-down-drag-out ArbCom case.

This discussion be closed down as there's clearly some issues with the speedy nominations and their declines. Keep in mind that Speedy deletion is not a automatic garuntee of deletion. It's simply a shortcut through burecratic red tape. If there's a concern that a nomination doesn't meet the criteria, it has to go to some other form of deletion (Prod/XfD). Hasteur (talk) 14:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Okay, but I'm not an admin; only a potential hopeful (it does say might on my user page). I also would have thought my edit summaries provided adequate explanation? Adam9007 (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I got both of you mixed up after the numerous arguing and accusations of malfeasance. Hasteur (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

G1 Proposed Change

(start quote)

These apply to every type of page, and so apply to articles, redirects, user pages, talk pages, files, etc.

G1. Patent nonsense

Shortcut: WP:G1

Main page: Wikipedia:Patent nonsense

This applies to pages consisting entirely of incoherent text or gibberish with no meaningful content or history. It does notcover poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, implausible theories, vandalism or hoaxes, fictional material, coherent non-English material, or poorly translated material. Nor does it apply to user sandboxes or other pages in the user namespace. In short, if you can understand it, G1 does not apply. (end quote)

Immediately after we say Gx applies to all pages, it does not. Why the carve out for Patent nonsense in user space? This should be a valid reason to delete. I support removing the struck words. Legacypac (talk) 02:31, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

G2 and G4 also have userspace-related exceptions. If there's a change, it should be to modify the text at the top to say something along the lines of "These apply to multiple namespaces". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually. Simpler solution - Change "these apply to every type of page" to "these are not namespace-specific". All of the other sections of the page refer to specific namespaces other than general. General doesn't refer to one in particular, but they also don't apply to all of them. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd rather avoid using the word namespace, since this page sees a lot of new editors who probably don't understand what that means. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• We have a carve-out for user space because we generally let users manage their own pages, and so there is not any consensus that any user page containing gibberish should be deleted. As far as the heading versus the specific, the meaning seems clear to me. Perhaps changing every to any would help? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose applying G1 to user sandboxes or other user pages. There are legitimate reasons why an editor might want to test the ability to edit what looks like patent nonsense in a sandbox. The most obvious example is that they are testing the ability to edit a language that is not written in the Latin alphabet. Two reasons for doing that might be to test the ability to render the native name of a place in a country that uses a non-Latin script or a person whose name is natively written in a non-Latin script, or if they have the need to explain something on the talk page of an editor who has English-competency issues. There are other reasons that a user might want to test the editing of what looks like patent nonsense. We should definitely disallow tagging of G1 on user sandboxes or subpages. Apparent patent nonsense, including non-English, is not allowed in article space, and is declined in draft space, but it shouldn't be tagged for speedy deletion. For that matter, apparent patent nonsense should not always be tagged for G1 in draft space. It might be a language that the reviewer doesn't know, in which case it should be declined with advice to translate, or move to the appropriate Wikipedia, not tagged. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Would just putting an "unless otherwise noted" qualifer a reasonable change? The carve-out is already treated as such in a de facto manner. ViperSnake151  Talk  22:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Thinking it over, I see no reason to change anything. I don't see any evidence that anyone is genuinely confused. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

In reviewing CSDs I have seen editors that mistakenly believe that all G criteria apply to all namespaces. In fact it was a decline I made of a G1 in the userspace that prompted this thread. I do not believe the solution given by the OP is the solution we should use. I think the problem is that the sentence under General is read and then the beginning of the individual criterion is read but not the whole criterion, so they don't read the exclusions. I think adding something to the general sentence would solve the problem. A couple of possible changes:

These apply to every type of page, and so apply to articles, redirects, user pages, talk pages, files, etc unless otherwise noted.

These apply to every type of page with exclusions in the individual criterion below, and so apply to articles, redirects, user pages, talk pages, files, etc.

-- GB fan 11:29, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• How about only applying this to the user space if the user is blocked or hasn't edited in a set amount of time, like 6 months to a year? That would mean that obvious tests would be safe, while gibberish by an obvious vandal or stale account would fall under this criteria. If the user is still active and the page is abandoned, you can always ask the user if they still want the page and use it as a teaching moment about user requested deletions. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:20, 23 February 2016 (UTC)