Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Proposed minor modification regarding G13

The rule for G13 says "that have not been edited in over six months (excluding bot edits)"

I'd like to propose a change. I will give two options, and at the moment I'm indifferent between the two.

Option 1. Change to "that have not been edited in over six months". In other words, remove the bot exclusion.

Option 2. Modify the bot which adds the template, so that it ignores bot edits.

Rationale— at present if an editor checks the edit history and finds that it has been six months since the last substantive edit they can nominate it for deletion, but the page will show up with the template with a big red bar through it. That red bar indicates that it has been less than six months since the last edit.

This will undoubtedly sound like trivial tinkering to anyone who does not work on removing these.

Let me explain my process so you understand why it is not trivial.

I helped with the development of the bot, and reached a significant level of comfort with the ability of the bot to get it right. If I open an article and it has a green bar, I will look at the identity of the editor who added it. If I'm not familiar with them, I will double check the history to make sure it qualifies. (It always does). Because there are only a handful of editors who work on identifying these articles, in 95% of the cases I am familiar with their ability to identify them correctly, and I can delete without double checking the history.

It takes less than a second, on average, in the case of articles with a green bar and an editor I recognize.

If it has a red bar, in order to delete it, I have to check the history and confirm that the offending edit is a bot edit. This doesn't take long, and I can probably do it in 15 seconds.

A 14 second gain doesn't sound like much but I've done many thousands, and it adds up.

There may be a good reason for the bot edit exclusion (it was added here and discussed here) but this means we have a mismatch between the criteria for deletion and the criteria for tagging.

Unfortunately, the bot creator @Hasteur: has a retired notice on their user page, but I see recent edits.

If you are wondering "why now?", on most days there are no red bars. At this moment, there are 21 items in the cat. That's less than a minute, if they all have green bars. But 10 have a red bar, so we are talking closer to 4 minutes. Still, not a lot of time but it adds up.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:15, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose 1, Support 2 - I am opposed to this because of the fact that bot edits would not help improve the article enough as to reclaim it from a state of abandonment. The second one does sound reasonable, although. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 23:42, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
• Note HasteurBot (talk · contribs) has not edited in 11 months. I don't think there's any bots working on G13 at the moment, it's all human editors. – Train2104 (t • c) 03:09, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I've been doing a whole bunch of G13s and now Crypic declined a few for what I assumed were exempted edits. In one case the page was correctly tagged G13 but an IP removed the tag less than 6 months ago. In another User:Northamerican1000 removed 7 random letters less than 6 months back on a page not otherwise edited for 11 months. According to an even narrower interpretation of G13 (I can imagine this being said) the act of tagging it G13 is an edit that invalidates the tag itself. If I see a 3 month old draft and post a review that says "this should be deleted" does that reset the 6 month countdown? Legacypac (talk) 05:01, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Summoned I respond. Been a little disenchanted with wikipedia for various reasons and reduced my focus again. The nominating bot takes the strictest interpertation of the rule that any edit less than 6 months prior to nomination resets the clock. Nominating for CSD doesn't invalidate the CSD criteria because it has to have lied unedited for 6 months 'immediately prior' to the nomination. Legacypac's comment on the page at 3 months will reset the clock. Rather than take the time to look at the list of most recent edits and work backwards throwing out bot edits, I decided (in conjunction with the community) to go with the assumption that any edit is enough to potentially spark interest from people who have it on a watchlist. I could go through and discard explicitly flagged bots, but the extra pages this would gather does not feel like a good investment of time. Hasteur (talk) 12:53, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support 1, Oppose 2 I personally think 6 months unedited should mean 6 months unedited. I'd rather not get into "6 months unedited, unless it's a bot, unless it's a trivial edit" because that gets us into dangerous territory with discretion. If editors want to get into discretion and considerations, that is something a set of eyes and brain can do (and administrators can evaluate). Hasteur (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
• Agree with Hasteur. The complications are not worth it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose 1 - There are two different issues here (1) What are the criteria for G13? and (2) What will the bot do? Pages can be deleted under db-g13 whether they have been tagged as such by a bot or a person or neither, as long as they meet the criteria. There are many bots that go around making changes to pages for a variety of purposes, but they don't demonstrate that any human editor is interested in the page. If it's complicated to make the db-g13-tagging bot make exceptions, then leave it alone and let it tag only totally unedited ones; let human editors look at the others and tag them if appropriate. As to having pages with trivial edits that don't actually change the text of the page be eligible, that would be okay with me, since, as Hasteur points out, administrators are expected to check first before deleting, and also because db-g13 is a "soft" delete, so it's easy to get back the draft.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:21, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose both - just dropping by with my perennial "G13 should be deprecated" comment; I oppose all changes to the criterion which are not deleting the criterion. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:35, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
• Trivial bot edit changing "Its to It's" currently resets the clock. Delinking of deleted pages resets the clock. It's a race to find the pages over 6 months before some trivial edit makes them non-G13. Otherwise we have to run it through MfD to clean up the declined garbage. Legacypac (talk) 15:04, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
  • @Legacypac: Do you know how often your examples of resetting the clock actually happen (Hint: it's on the order of about 1 page per 10k). It's not that competitive of a race to get all the eligible pages before a trivial change comes along Hasteur (talk) 20:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

No I don't know. I'm only finding the exceptions, I can't see the number of pages deleted. Legacypac (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with hasteur that "trivial edits" bring in too much discretion, and it's not worth it. However, whether or not an edit is a bot (defined strictly, as having undergone a BRFA and operating with a bot flag), should be a clear-cut distinction with no room for ambiguity. Anything else (AWB typofixes included) is not a bot per se, and should reset the clock, no matter how small. – Train2104 (t • c) 15:31, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support 1 If a page has been edited then it is not abandoned. It doesn't matter if that edit is by a human or by a bot doing work at the behest of a human. Thryduulf (talk) 17:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

− I've manually cleared a large backlog of pages categorized as G13 eligible but reviewing other categories I'm finding many more pages the template on the page correctly says it is G13able, but however the page is supposed to end up in the G13 able category is not happening. Anyone know how to fix this? Can a bot be run to find all G13able pages and CSD tag them regardless of category? Would save me a ton of work and help reduce the backlog.

• oppose 1 and support 2 Legacypac (talk) 18:19, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

There are 2 categories Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions and Category:AfC_G13_eligible_soon_submissions The first is pages that are 100% eligible for G13 right now. The eligible soon pages are ones that are between the 5 months and 6 months unedited. The eligible soon is designed so that people who want to try and save pages can go through and try to make effort on them. A random sampling I did showed no pages that are eligible at this time, so could you show an example of a page that should be eligible but isn't being nominated? Hasteur (talk) 20:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Nail_Art_And_Beauty_Nagelstudio_Schiedam Draft:Andrew_Watts_(countertenor) Draft:JOEpop Draft:The Never Content. (This last one got picked up today but was G13 elegable on the 11th)

There were about 1100 more before they started piling up on Sat. when I started this thread. Legacypac (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• I don't care about 2. This strikes me as an IAR situation; just make the tweak if you think it would be helpful, and don't worry about asking BAG for a little change. Oppose 1. Bots are irrelevant to the question of whether a page has been abandoned, unless you can show that a human picked a specific group of drafts as candidates for automatic editing, e.g. someone asks for a bot that will change all [[Foo]] links into [[ooF]], and someone else writes it. Beyond that, a bot edit we should ignore, entirely and absolutely. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose 1. Support 2. Seems pretty straightforward to me, if you want to streamline the process to delete stale drafts. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I figured out how to prevent new articles about notorious alleged criminals from getting deleted pursuant to G10

If you're writing an article about a guy whose claim to fame mostly consists of bad stuff he's alleged to have done, I think the way to do it is to just not include any negative information about him in the first revision. You just look at the articles about him and find everything you can that's positive and put that in the article instead. Here's an example.

The folks at NPP tend to have a hair-trigger mentality where they want to delete any article that says there's some controversy surrounding a living person, regardless of how well-sourced the article's coverage of these controversies is. So, just avoiding all mention of such things is the only way to prevent deletion. Compy book (talk) 01:18, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@Compy book: WP:IAR. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 01:20, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Template:no source under discussion

Currently, Template:no source and Template:nosource, both of which redirect to template:di-no source, are nominated for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 June 14#Template:No source, where I invite you to comment. --George Ho (talk) 03:57, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit?

Is changing a tag or adding a tag the sort of edit that prevents speedy deletion? See here, where the article speedy was declined on that basis (and even more - the editor declining said that the request for speedy was an "edit" to the article that pushes off a future speedy by an additional six months). I understand User:Nyttend has a view that is different from mine.--2604:2000:E016:A700:A00C:7F46:822D:9F12 (talk) 18:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

G13 of userspace drafts with afc template applied by another user

User:Example creates User:Example/X. The page bears no articles for creation template. User:Place holder either simply adds {{AFC submission}} to it or moves it to Draft:X (perhaps per WP:STALEDRAFT) and adds {{AFC submission}}. Six months later User:Place holder or another user requests it be deleted per G13. This seems like blatant gaming the system (or an end run if you will) to subvert the deletion process to me. Any thoughts? An exception stating something like "in the case of userspace drafts or drafts moved from the userspace to draftspace, the {{AFC submission}} temlate must be added by the creator to qualify for deletion" could be added; someone recently posted something related to this (I'm not sure whether or not they've used the practice in the past), and I've recently seen userspace drafts which bore no {{AFC submission}} template moved to draftspace and submitted to articles for creation by a user other then their creator. However, this probably isn't a common problem, so maybe a note at Help:Userspace draft would suffice. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 02:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Applying the AfC template to someone else's work would appear to be a dishonest end run around the original limits on G13. The limit on G13, to apply only to AfC created drafts, was, as I remember, because many pages, whether in userspace or draftspace, are not simply drafts. They may be notes, or something else. I don't attest to this logic, but G13 was created restricted, and if it is to be loosened, it should be loosened overtly, not by dishonest end runs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• I know at least one editor who will add the AFC template to draft-spaced-from-main-space articles (ping czar). Is that practice also questionable? --Izno (talk) 03:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Draft:Philippe Vachey for example. Translated from the French Wikipedia by the occasional editor Feor (talk · contribs). czar (talk · contribs) is enacting a back-door deletion process on Feor's new page. I was talking to User:Robert McClenon about this sort of thing, and I think we are in agreement that unilateral draftifications should be subjected to some documentation. Czar's marking them as G13-eligible raises the seriousness of the issue. As draftification and AfC tagging leads to auto-deletion, I wonder whether the criteria for draftification be that the page meets a CSD#A* criterion? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Question answered as previously discussed at Wikipedia talk:Drafts/Archive 5#RFC: Clarification over main-space to draft-space moves. I've moved new articles unfit for mainspace into draftspace and notified their authors appropriately and in good faith. Some new authors need help meeting basic guidelines and providing basic sourcing, which is the onboarding process AfC is designed to provide. I too help with these drafts and I don't mark anything for G13. Some drafts graduate and others are abandoned—same as if they were to languish in mainspace without anyone ever leaving comments, except one approach leaves junk in mainspace for others to cleanup-tag or otherwise neglect and the other attempts to socialize editors into better editing habits and our base level of quality. Don't malign my goodwill and moreover tell me the former makes the encyclopedia better.  czar 06:14, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

No need to get sensitive, but aren't you unilaterally deciding that Philippe Vachey is to be deleted. AfC/Draftspace is not a place for receiving help and socialisation. Sure, you provide nice author notifications, but are you comfortable with anyone doing the same as you do? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:42, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Czar, I hoping that we can continue this constructively at Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol#Clarification_and_guidance_for_draftification. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe, if that question wasn't rhetorical, no, I don't see how anyone would construe that page's move as deletion. Yes, I'm comfortable with my fellow editors exercising judgment as the community affords them the tools to do so. I don't see what needs further codification (e.g., that proposal), but feel free to ping me if you'd like feedback on something specific. czar 05:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Czar, just to be clear, you understand, and are comfortable, that by draftifying that article with an AfC tag, if no one touches the draft, it will likely be auto-deleted under G13 in six months? NB I don't intend to convey opinion or judgement on this, instead, if you are happy with that, then so am I. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:51, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• G13 was originally formulated to get rid of the pile of drafts that had been submitted, reviewed, declined and then abandoned by the author. Someone other than the original author adding an AFC template without ever intending to actually submit the draft for review is imho a bad faith act. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 05:21, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with that. I would further add that as far as I can see, adding an AfC template to a draft without doing or intending to do any work on it yourself can't really be anything but an attempt at a backdoor deletion. Are there any other reasons to do it? (serious question, not rhetorical) A2soup (talk) 06:17, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, if anything is in draft space for six months without being edited, it really is very unimportant. I agree that tagging someone else's draft with AFC and not working on it is an act of bad faith, but I don't care much what happens to drafts that aren't improved in six months. Maybe I don't understand the question. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:23, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I have come around to accepting (though not supporting) the deletion of stale and hopeless drafts, although I am more comfortable with 1 year rather than 6 months. I do think that such deletions should be carried out at MfD, though, where the hopelessness can be assessed (and debated if necessary), rather than by hacking an automated process intended to serve a different purpose. I think we're probably on the same page. A2soup (talk) 06:29, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that assertion is unsupported: something can languish for quite some time without being actively worked on, even in mainspace, and be both in a terrible state and unquestionably important. The real question is whether the benefits of keeping such around outweigh the costs (including risks) of doing so. Lots of people want to "clean up" wikipedia without realizing that we must tolerate gross imperfection to make any progress. Jclemens (talk) 06:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• I don't have much problem with this, so long as the original author is explicitly informed of what's happening, and the AFC template is well-formed so that he gets the automated AFCH messages instead of you. In particular, I continue to believe that it's perfectly legitimate to require an article to go through AFC (and hence eventual G13 if not worked on) as a condition of restoring a properly-deleted mainspace article. —Cryptic 12:27, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• When i move an article from mainspace to draft space, perhaps as an alternative to deleting something tagged with a CSD template, I invariably mark it as an AFC draft, and notify the creator of the text about what I have done. I do this fairly frequently, and I must have done it hundreds of many times by now. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

  Not as many as I thought. Checking my own conribs, i find 15 instances of this still in draft space, not counting any pages since deleted or promoted to the main article space. Conuting those would be hard, and i am not going to bother, but such placement of an AFC template (by me) is normally in a separate edit with a clear edit summary. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:19, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

• A few notes:
  1. G13 applies to any page that has {{AFC submission}} on it that has been unedited for 6 months
     • There is a debate going on of completely unedited vs "Unedited by bots". Your interpertation and mileage will vary.
  2. Typically the only pages that meet the above criteria are pages that are declined (i.e. it was submitted for review and found wanting) or Draft mode (submitted but wanted to be held back for more effort).
  3. I believe any page that is sent to Draft namespace over outright deletion should be forced to have the AFC submission template on it (and be subject to the G13 rules). An Admin has found it wanting, but sees potential in it, we'll AGF that the creator is going to make an effort to fix the significant problems. Treating the page like a softer delete to let the user fix problems.
  4. The UserPages RFC last year, I think, decided that we shouldn't be appropriating userspace drafts into AFC or draftspace. I personally disagree with this, but have to accept the consensus. Hasteur (talk) 02:30, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
• Opinions: G13 is easily reversed. Hopefully the request comes from someone that wants to improve the draft and resubmit. I don't think it is useful to request undelete for a political purpose to make a point. If the draft times out again and it is deleted, then if another person asks it can be restored, if it was improved it can be restored, if a good reason is provided it can be restored. AFC templates can be provided on request (I have done so) but they should not be added for no reason. People that add for no reason should be warned. Instead they whouild do the work themself's to get the draft up to the standards of an article. So overall I don't think there is any big problem. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Reasons for deleting drafts

Let's take a step back and consider the various valid reasons for deleting drafts. Unreviewed drafts may be attack pages, may contain libel or copyright violations. They may violate various provisions of the BLP policy or simply be spam. Such drafts must be deleted, and we have various speedy deletion criteria to get rid of the worst of them. Such problems are normally caught and dealt with in the AFC review process. Even abandoned drafts that do not have any of the aforementioned issues, or have never been through AFC, will at some point be regarded as violating the NOTWEBHOST rule, pages that do not in some way contribute to the improvement of Wikipedia.

The U5 Speedy criterion currently covers NOTWEBHOST pages only in Userspace. However such pages do not neccessarily exist only in Userspace, thus I think U5 could be changed to a G# criterion which would then apply to all namespaces. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'd probably be alright with extending U5 to pages "in userspace or draftspace", but I don't think it should apply to pages in the mainspace, as we already deal with pages of this nature well enough there. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I see what you mean Godsy, the G and A criteria have mainspace well covered, so extending U5 there is redundant. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Submitting an old page of AfC is a great way to bring it forward for possible promotion to mainspace. If one uses the AFCH tool one can submit on behalf of the creator who will be notified on wiki and maybe even by email. A good draft may be promoted immediately or someone else might touch it up. It's a service to users who may not realize they can submit for review or know how their draft will get to mainspace. Legacypac (talk) 02:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Other than actual problems, as articulated above, there is simply no reason to delete drafts. NOTWEBHOST was made for a very different time, and a problem that pretty much no longer exists. Wikipedia has plenty of money for server space to host draft content, but yet some people have the misguided notion that it must be cleaned up for some reason or another NOT involving actual problems, which are dealt with by applying existing methodologies to draft space just like anywhere else. Jclemens (talk) 07:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Do WP:ACSD criteria apply for set-index articles?

Do set-index articles count as articles in the context of AfD, i.e. can criteria for articles be used to speedy delete a set-index article? My understanding is that disambiguation pages are not treated as articles for CSD, but what about pages that mark themselves as set indices? feminist 10:36, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@Feminist: I just added set index articles as an exception to A3. What other criteria might apply to a legitimate set index page? —Guanaco 10:42, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Set index articles are not disambiguation pages, although some are very poor list articles that might have some superficial resemblance. older ≠ wiser 10:52, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, set articles are subject to CSD. An empty set article can be deleted under A3. There is no value in treating them differently than any other article.- MrX 11:43, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages can be deleted under G6 (presumably why they are exempt from A3). G6 allows for "Deleting a disambiguation page which either: disambiguates only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)"; or disambiguates zero extant Wikipedia pages, regardless of its title."- MrX 11:47, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

The majority of chemistry set index articles are nothing more than a list of compounds by that name. The only difference between these and disambiguation pages is that they usually consist of the same elements (cobalt oxide for example). I made this edit to WP:CSD#A3 because the criteron could plausibly be used to delete a large number of them. The edit I made was reverted, and I don't understand why.

If the exemption applies to disambiguation pages, shouldn't it apply to a set index that in truth is exactly the same thing? —Guanaco 11:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

How can A3 be used to plausibly delete a large number of them? If they meet A3, why bother keeping them and if they are not, where is the problem? I understand why the change was reverted in this case. As MrX mentions, G6 covers disambigs, so A3 is not required. Do you have any examples of set-index articles that could plausibly be deleted under A3 and shouldn't? Regards SoWhy 12:20, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

(after ec) This reflects a misunderstanding of the difference between a set index article and a disambiguation page. A disambiguation page is by design nothing more than a navigational aide to resolve ambiguity in existing articles. Set index articles may contain non-article entries and references. As described at WP:SIA: Fundamentally, a set index article is a type of list article. The criteria for creating, adding to, or deleting a set index article should be the same as for a stand-alone list. older ≠ wiser 12:25, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

The issue is that a large number of set indexes could be expanded, but right now they're simply relabeled disambiguation pages. Dimethylethylenediamine is one example. —Guanaco 20:43, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Are set indexes actually being nominated for A3 deletion? If I came across Dimethylethylenediamine, I would not nominate it for deletion under A3 or G6. However, if it only had one entry, and did not have the explanatory text and index template, I would assume that it was an unnecessary disambiguation page.- MrX 20:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think they are, no. This is all BEANS territory, but the question was asked, so I thought the criterion should reflect actual practice. —Guanaco 21:52, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Which A7?

Maybe this is a trivial question. I see a lot of stubs, usually with no references, about individual musical performers or rappers who have no particular claim to fame other than that they perform. (Nearly everybody performs at something sometimes.) My question is simply: Is there any particular reason to tag them as A7, person, or as A7, musician? If it is one person, they are a person and a musician. (If the article is also promotional, it is easier, because for a multiple tag, I just use a generic A7 and G11). Robert McClenon (talk) 00:47, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it makes any difference at all. Musician is a type of person, and band is a type of organization.- MrX 00:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Regardless of what Twinkle or Curator might say, A7 is A7, there is no multiple tag because there is no multiple criteria. The choice seems different in these interfaces because they are applying specific templates that relate to the portion of A7 they are referencing. But they're all A7. TimothyJosephWood 01:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Timothyjosephwood - Let me clarify about multiple. I was referring to a promotional article about a musician. In that case, the multiple criteria are A7 and G11. If I am using Twinkle to do a multiple tagging, A7 is just A7, with G11 being the other criterion, but if I use Twinkle to do a single tagging, I specify which of the A7 versions to use. Okay. I have normally used musician/band because that has its own notability guideline, WP:NMUSIC. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:54, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

That's the point of the multiple templates, to allow both creators and admins to know which subset of A7 you think the article meets. Plus, they are combined with sub-templates of the (horrifically misnamed) {{db-notability-notice}} that reflect the specific A7 templates (e.g. {{db-band-notice}}, {{db-bio-notice}} etc.). Regards SoWhy 06:23, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Pretty much this. Ideally the reviewing admin understands that the difference between musician and person is cosmetic. I suspect the original purpose for curator was more than anything to prevent generic A7 tagging for things that are categorically disqualified, like books. The patroller is forced to show that the subject fits into at least one of these specific categories. So if they look for the book A7 tag, and realize it isn't there, they hopefully go read the policy itself and realize why. TimothyJosephWood 10:27, 30 June 2017 (UTC

It is also true that the various clauses of A7 were added separately, and each tended to get its own template as it was added. But I must agree, A7 is A7. It can be helpful if the template indicates which clause the tagger had in mind, but if a reviewing admin can't tell the difference between a person and a band, either s/he shouldn't be editing, or the article has serious context issues. So use whichever A7 template seems best, and don't worry about it. My issue is taggers who put A7 on things that are unsourced or possibly not notable, but have pretty clear claims of significance, or who tag for A7 within minutes of creation, thereby WP:BITEing the creator. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:24, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

rehashing a perennial issue-- G5

I dislike <<euphemism for stronger expression>> WP:CSD#G5.Looking for a way to bring these back--> Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Virginia's 31st House of Delegates district. Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Innisfree987 is creating articles on all of the Virginia legislative districts. Maybe that will take care of this. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:45, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Consensus was clearly to keep them until it was revealed they were created by a banned sock. I could have improved them (and saved them from G5) if I had time before they were speedied, but I didn't. I probably will over the weekend, and could have done so then, but they're already gone. And it's a shame. Smartyllama (talk) 18:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

One alternative would be for me to salvage the content and recreate under my own name? Or restore versions not edited by the banned user? (Who turns out to be a sock of User:N I H I L I S T I C. One of the lot had been previously deleted on that basis.) Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be a violation of the Creative Commons License if you put it under your own name, though? I thought about asking to do that, then decided it would violate the CCL and decided not to. Smartyllama (talk) 18:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. You should have seen my mouth drop open when the user immediately recreated the article she had tagged for G5. She had, of course reworded. We have many smart people that watch this board, and I'm sure this has come up before.Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:47, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I suppose you could always open a DRV on your own deletion. I suspect that would be the bureaucratically "correct" way to go about things. At least that way it could take some of heat off you for unilaterally WP:IARing the living shit out of U5. But SL is correct, if they are restored, we need the revision history and not just the content. Admittedly it would be a fairly IAR application of DRV, but at least it would be more of a community decision. TimothyJosephWood 18:52, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Just an aside: With respect to recentism--if one is going to start an article on an election district, it is the reasonable and almost universal approach to add the most recent election, and then either add material backwards in time or hope people add the earlier material. They can more readily do it if the framework is there DGG ( talk ) 00:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't like G5, but I don't like sock puppetry even more. The content in most of those article was heavily biased toward WP:RECENTISM. I don't think it would be especially difficult to recreate them, but this time with appropriate content and, you know, sources.- MrX 21:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Late to conversation but indeed as Robert just mentioned, I am in the midst of working on them and it would be a dream if someone wanted to restore these--I'd love to spend the time actually improving the entries rather than setting up the stubs. There are still four dozen missing from the House of Delegates and it's pretty tedious work. That said, I understand the constraints in dealing with sockpuppetry and CCL... Not sure what to propose. (To be honest even in the ones that remain I have noticed some, well, quacking, but SPI is not at all my expertise so I've hesitated to report.) Suggestions on how to proceed, or anyone who wants to hop in and start fleshing out of my stubs very welcome! Innisfree987 (talk) 03:59, 1 July 2017 (UTC) (Heck, if there's someone who'd be motivated to do these for DYKs or whathaveyou, please feel free to ping me and I'll stop with my creations and just follow along behind you adding where I can! Innisfree987 (talk) 04:26, 1 July 2017 (UTC))

Well G5 deletion is supposed to be uncontroversial. If it is controversial, then it does not have to be deleted, and could also be speedily reversed if it is controversial. If someone wants to add content or take responsibility for the G5'd article then you should be able to have it back. In socking cases I suppose we have to make sure that the requestor is not the socker. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:29, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. But this depends somewhat on the nature of the socking as well. DGG ( talk ) 00:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Just an aside: With respect to recentism--if one is going to start an article on an election district, it is the reasonable and almost universal approach to add the most recent election, and then either add material backwards in time or hope people add the earlier material. They can more readily do it if the framework is there DGG ( talk ) 00:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Electorial districts are pretty much automatically notable so regardless of who created the pages, it should be ok to restore if an active editor wants to work on them. Not every creation by a sock is useless. Legacypac (talk) 22:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Legacypac just above, in this case restore as pretty clearly notable and beneficial to the project. Personally i would repeal G5 root and branch. A valid article is a valid article no matter who made it, and deleting it under G5 strikes me as no more than vandalism by consensus. I don't act on G5 speedys. But G5 does ahve consensu, and i don't expect to change that. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Exempt Draft space from G2 (test edits)

G2 Test edits does not apply to pages in User space. At the time this was created, there was no such thing as draft space. Now there is, and most of the reasons for exempting userspace from G2 also apply to Draft space. Initial attempts at a draft may well look like tests, and new users who have been told to start in draft space may do traditional sorts of tests there. Such pages harm nothing, and may, in the first case, eventually be beneficial. Pages can still be Deleted from draft space by MfD, but speedy deletion is for uncontroversial clearcut cases, and "test" pages in draft space are not always clear cut. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:40, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Leave that to patrolling CSD admin discretion - blatant tests certainly could occur in that name space. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:48, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• I support the G2-ing of old AfC blank tests in DraftSpace. Tests, as in experiments, are a personal thing and best done in userspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:58, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Tests do occur in Draft space. No one is targeting test edits in the first hours or days of a Draft's life but if it does not progresses beyond a few words or an info box or a single ref after a few months it's just testing. I recently CSD G2 a long list of pages were the content was just a repeat of the title. Do we want to tie up MfD over Draft:Joe Smith content Joe Smith. Legacypac (talk) 02:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I think what we mostly want to do is nothing, leave such pages untouced. In those few cases where there is actually a serious issue requiring deletion, MfD will do the job. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 02:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

If we want to delete these, then I disagree that bringing them to MFD is a good idea. Wiki maintenance only makes sense if it's less effort to remove bad content than to produce it - productive volunteers are rare, and clueless and/or malicious users numerous.

Slapping a {{db-test}} or a {{db-g6}} on these when the letter of the criteria don't begin to apply is a bad idea, too. If you want an admin to IAR delete something, then you write {{delete}} on it and leave it at that. If you think IAR speedies are icky, I agree, and we should work out criteria that apply specifically to drafts and user drafts. (I continue to believe transplanting the major articlespace ones, A1 A3 A7 A9 A11, with an added requirement that the authors haven't edited in X amount of time, is the way to go.) —Cryptic 05:05, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• I'm unconvinced that we've needed the criterion at all since around 2003. Unless you interpret it so broadly as to consider someone saying, "Hey, can I start an article about this subject on Wikipedia without anybody deleting it?" a test - which is really the only rationale I can think of for at least three quarters of the G2 tags I see - actual, unambiguous testing can be speedied as patent nonsense. People don't write articles saying things like "Will this really show up if I click save?" anymore; they mash the '''Bold text''' and <gallery>Example.jpg|Caption1 Example.jpg|Caption2</gallery> buttons. Anything less blatant than that is more likely to be an error on the tagger's or deleter's part than to be an actual test, like at the draft currently at DRV which prompted this. —Cryptic 02:30, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I thought a lot of G2 deletions in ProjectSpace and MainSpace were pretty uncontroversial deletions. I saw a lot of G2 deletions by Legacypac of draftspace AfC submissions with no content not even a meaningful page title. I guess we could and should ask Legacypac to not G2 anything with a reference. Draft:Hopf algebra of a graph has a pretty useless reference for others to pick up and run with, I would suggest userfying a page like that. Not that it was created by a serious contributor. I worry more about too much stuff being improperly deleted via G6. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:54, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
    • Meh, the Hopf algebra draft is harmless. About the most annoying thing about it is that, when admins pull the trigger on this and his other similar drafts, its author prefers to drag their name through the mud for a week at DRV instead of instantly getting the draft back at WP:REFUND.
      I've listed the hundred most recent deletions labelled "G2" at User:Cryptic/g2 and begun some analysis. I haven't gotten very far, since it's a bit late here and I'm tired, but so far I've found neither an unambiguous test nor a page that shouldn't have been deleted. Anyone else who cares should feel free to join in. —Cryptic 03:42, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't care if someone wants 8 words (which say nothing about the title) plus a link back. No need to DRV it, just ask the admin. Would have been better to keep it in their userspace, but whatever. User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report is so big it's hard to load. Cutting out all the content free pages helps the report load faster and makes it easier to dig out the attack pages, personal info on minors, copyvio etc. User:Cryptic's deletion of about a 1000 pages today helps a lot too. It takes time to check each page, and a useless deleted page is one less to check and recheck and recheck for users working the list. I'd hate to see the reaction if content free pages were listed at MfD by the dozens. Legacypac (talk) 04:05, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• DRV serves an important purpose of ongoing education. The DRV forum is a community discussion that serves to ensure alignment, or encourage alignment, between administrator deletion decisions and community consensus. If the page should not have been deleted, both the tagger and deleter need to take note. Check the opening line of WP:CSD, speedy deletion is meant to be very tightly contained. DRV is not primarily about achieving a particular outcome for a particular page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:58, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
• Testing is an ephemeral activity - once the test edits are done, the content is usually no longer useful for anything. Other than perhaps a short time delay, I see no reason to exempt draft space. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:01, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Blank submissions to AfC or essentially blank Draft pages are tests. "Oh look what does this SUBMIT button do? I'm going to test it" or Draft pages with a line of text where the user is evidently satisfied they figured out how to start a page and go off to build the same title in mainspace two minutes later. Tests take many forms. The common sense "test" for if it was a G2 Test should be "Was this a good faith serious effort to create an article on a potentially suitable topic or is it someone testing how to create a page or testing how to format a ref or testing what a SUBMIT button does or testing how to put their own name in Wikipedia or testing if they can in put something about their middle school crush in etc? We should also consider people's feelings. Having a page deleted as a Test is a lot friendlier than seeing it deleted as Vandalism or Spam. Legacypac (talk) 17:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support Anything that's truly problematic in draft space can be handled via other criteria. I would also Support deprecating G2 entirely, since a test page can be deleted by other criteria, but a test edit doesn't need G2 to be reverted appropriately. Jclemens (talk) 18:17, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Support for clarifying that G2 does not apply to draft space or user space. Weak Support for deleting G2 altogether. A test edit in article space likely qualifies for A1 and likely qualifies for G1 (nonsense) or G3 (vandalism). A test edit in Wikipedia space would likely be G1 or G3. And so on. G2 definitely should not apply in draft space or user space. Why not do a test in one of them? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:30, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose removal of G2, definitely oppose removal for main and project spaces. It would mean stuffing more stuff through G6. Ideally, most G2 would go via G7. Perhaps G2 should be restricted for creations by non-active accounts. Userspace is already clearly excluded frm G2, and should be. For draftspace, there is a lesson here that some tightning of the applicability of G2 may be in order. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

A12 - Watch This Space

We have discussed this before, but I am reasonably certain now that I will be submitting a Request for Comments to define criterion A12, articles with no text, consisting only of an infobox. The banner at the top of this page says not to propose any new criteria unless they are:

• Objective.
• Uncontestable.
• Frequent.
• Nonredundant.

I submit that articles with no text and only an infobox meet all of these criteria. The criterion is objective and nonredundant. It is obvious whether an article, in article space, has no text. If it has no text and no infobox, it is A3. It is uncontestable, because I have yet to see a single infobox-only article that had a reason to exist in that form. They are placeholders, a form of sub-stubs. They may be created so as to give the editor time to create the article, but placeholders should not be in article space. They are frequent enough, in that I see several of them in a typical week on New Page Patrol. I have two of them currently pending at Articles for Deletion. They are nonredundant because they are not the same as A1 or A3. They also do not always qualify for A7, because A7 doesn’t cover schools, products, or anything that isn’t covered by A7. The infobox does, at least often, provide enough context to pass A1. Some administrators have speedied as A1, A3, or A7, infobox-only articles that I PROD’d, and I won’t argue with that, but I don’t want to nominate something for speedy deletion that, in my opinion, doesn’t really match the criteria. So I am about to propose A12, infobox-only articles.

By the way, the heading "watch this space" is partly sarcastic because it is sometimes the content of placeholder articles (that I usually either PROD or A1 or A7). Robert McClenon (talk) 01:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

When I new page patrol, I sometimes see these infobox only articles. I use what's in the infobox to write a sentence or two of prose, tag it as a stub, and move on. I would probably oppose this idea. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:30, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• I see this as belonging under CSD#A3. Only an infobox? What is the content of the infobox. It is possible for an infobox to house an A7-passing claim of notability. If the infobox is only a template holding information, that if prosified, would see the article speediable under A3, then it should be speediable under A3. No? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:10, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

User:SmokeyJoe - Maybe I miss something. A3 is no content. An infobox does have content. I agree that it is possible for an infobox to house an A7-passing credible claim of significance. It is even possible for the infobox to hold a claim of ipso facto notability, e.g., to identify the team for which a professional athlete plays. So how can an infobox be A3? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:00, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

A external link or a category tag is content, too. "No content" is shorthand for "no substantial content". VQuakr (talk) 04:03, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Not according to some admins. Some editors question deletion of pages where the only content is a repeat of the title. Legacypac (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Good. Those admins are doing their job correctly. Jclemens (talk) 08:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually, Jclemens, A3 currently applies to articles (other than disambiguation pages, redirects, or soft redirects to Wikimedia sister projects) consisting only of external links, category tags and "See also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, a question that should have been asked at the help or reference desks, chat-like comments, template tags, and/or images. This may also apply to articles consisting entirely of the framework of the Article wizard with no additional content. So if the only content is a repeat of the title the article is subject to A3 as it now stands. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 13:18, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• I would support this proposal if formatted as addition to A3 (just add ", an infobox" to the list of examples of 'no content' items). As a stand alone CSD criterion, though, it is too specific. Any concerns with this proposal (such as Oiyarbepsy's above) would apply equally to a stand-alone criterion or a modification to A3, so default to the proposal that adds the fewest number of words to the policy. VQuakr (talk) 04:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• A3 curently says (in part): However, a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion. Similarly, this criterion does not cover a page having only an infobox, unless its contents also meet another speedy deletion criterion.(emphasis added( So this is not redundant. However I think it eould be poor policy. I would favor moving such pages to draft or user space. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 04:03, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• On further thought, i definitely oppose this idea. Consider an article about a musician that consists only of an infobox. such boxes may list the bands or groups that the musician has been a member of, and may cite sources for this. According to WP:NMUSIC, a performer who has been a significant member of two or more notable bands or ensembles is considered notable. Thus an infobox may contain all the info -- fully sourced info at that -- needed for the article to pas an AfD, yet still be speedy deletable under this proposal. But is someone simply copies info from the box into a single line of prose, with zero added information, the article would not be speedy deletable, not indeed deletable at all. That is a bizarre result, and shows that this proposed criterion would be a serious mistake. (A similar situation could occur with a scientist whose info box shows that s/he has won several significant awards, or with a sports figure who has played for a national team or on the kind of top level which WP:NSPORT says normally confirs notability.) I understand that most of these infobox-only stubs are not this sort of case, and that they frustrate NPPers. But once one agrees that judgement is required, and that not all pages meeting a criterion should be deleted, then it isn't clear cut, and should not be a speedy deletion criterion. I would favor a new consensus that any infobox-ony article could be moved on sight to user or draft space, and that to move it back without fixing it would be considered disruptive. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 04:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps if it was moved to Draft AND subjected to AfC. Otherwise we just build the list of pretty useless abandoned pages not subject to deletion after 6 months. It should not take one drive by editor 10 seconds to create unsuitable pages and 10 minutes and multiple dedicated volunteer editors to delete it. Legacypac (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose both as a stand-alone criterion and as a change to A3. First of all, A12 makes no sense, since A3 already covers this kind of pages - just mirrored. If anything, the above-mentioned exception in A3 should be changed. However, this proposal flies directly in the face of both WP:ATD and WP:PRESERVE, both policies that - despite what some people might think - fully apply to speedy deletion as well. If the infobox contains sufficient information to write a short sentence about an otherwise non-speedyable subject, just WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM yourself instead of tagging for speedy deletion, forcing another user (admin) to do it for you. So no if the problem is merely the style of the article - i.e. content in an infobox instead of as text - that's not something deletion is for. Just think about it. If such a criterion were created, we would have to rewrite both the deletion and the editing policy and toss out that "fix the problems" stuff. I don't think (and I sincerely don't hope) that we have arrived at such a point. Regards SoWhy 07:09, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, as information in an infobox is usually enough to pass A3. A good standard lead sentence can be assembled from the data in the infobox in almost every case, as mentioned above. But I would encourage the idea that creating such infobox-only articles is disruptive editing, and that editors who create them should be warned with formal warnings leading, eventually if they continue, to blocking. If an editor cannot be bothered to construct even a single sentence of text, or does not have sufficient knowledge of English language to do so, then they should not be editing in this encyclopedia. PamD 07:19, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per SoWhy. Jclemens (talk) 08:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Qualified support if we can instead make this a "criterion for speedy draftification". Articles which contain only an infobox, but in which the infobox clearly identifies a topic and that topic doesn't meet other speedy deletion criteria, shouldn't be rapid-fire deleted, because as you said, they're likely placed by editors planning to develop an article later. That's the most common definition of a draft and we ought to just move the pages into draft space and let the editor work on them in the designated place. I'm opposed to this as a speedy deletion criterion. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:28, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we need a new CSD criteria for drafting. If a non-admin can move but not delete, we can use G6. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Which we would need consensus for first. We just had the discussion with a user draftifying articles without consensus and it was clear that the policy currently does not allow users to move stuff into Draft-space without prior discussion or the creator's approval. WP:DRAFTIFYis pretty clear on this. Personally, I don't think it should be any different because draftifying is, despite usually done with good intentions, a form of "deletion light", seeing as drafts are removed from the public's eye and thus also from the vast majority of people who are not versed in Wikipedia's inner workings and just see that there is no article. So not only does the idea of draftifying such articles counteract the principle of WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM, it also prevents other interested editors from fixing it. This is not a discussion for WT:CSD but for VPP or WT:Drafts but I still wanted to record my objection. Regards SoWhy 15:31, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, WP:DRAFTIFY could be one hell of a lot clearer on that : It says, 'Once in draftspace, incubated articles have the same status as other drafts' and gives three reasons this could occur: 'Articles are incubated as a result of i) a deletion discussion, ii) an undeletion request, or iii) userfication.' The last point specifically says 'An editor moves the article or userfication into draftspace'- with no qualification on any of that. I just don't see 'policy currently does not allow users to move stuff into Draft-space without prior discussion or the creator's approval' in there at all- almost the opposite, surely. — fortunavelut luna 16:07, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually, WP:DRAFTIFY points to WP:USERFY in that last part which says "Userfication of an article will effectively amount to deletion of an article, as in general, the redirect left behind will be speedily deleted. Userfication should not be used as a substitute for regular deletion processes. Except for self-userfying and obvious non articles such as accidentally-created user pages in the main namespace, it is generally inappropriate to userfy an article without a deletion process. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (AfD) is recommended for this since, unlike proposed deletion or speedy deletion, the community often recommends alternate remedies such as userfication during AfD." (WP:USERFY#NO #3). Personally, I never thought userfication can happen without consent or discussion for exactly these reasons. Regards SoWhy 16:29, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

The problem with that is that it only really works in the rather Utopian and idyllic world in which all NPP taggers understand the deletion policies perfectly and all tagging is 100% correct. Since even a wrongly placed CSD tag can upset a new editor, I do sometimes move new articles into draft space (with AfC) where the subject can be worked on at a more leisurely pace than mainspace. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:36, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose as this gives NPP carte blanche to delete things that users are half-way through writing. If you really can't abide an article with just an infobox in mainspace, move it to draft instead. I strongly endorse SoWhy's position on this, and furthermore lament that over the last ten years, the WP:SOFIXIT attitude has given away to button-pushers who can't explain themselves out of a situation. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:50, 4 July 2017 (UTC)