Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles: Difference between revisions

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Comment by Triona

I think that in general this is both a good idea and a good precident, but I would like to see it require a tag be in place for some period of time, similar to how we do with prod, only removing the tag without correcting the problem would be prohibited. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 22:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two more minor issues. Unreferenced should be defined better, so that articles we'd have to completely gut of meaningful content under WP:V are deletable. A specific tagging template should be made, which will come into use after the addition of this criteria, and will be similar to orphanbot tagging or prod tagging in that it gives the date for deletion if the problems are unresolved. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 23:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia does not state clearly which sources are considered acceptable and which are not. Some people don't accept non-English language sources, although on many subjects I'm interested in English-language sources do not exist in principle. The only consequence of this proposal, if implemented, will be the proliferation of fake and univerifiable "sources" appended to the end of the article. Those who is active in mainspace know that such activity becomes increasingly common. If you want to eliminate unreferenced articles, the easiest and most effective way is to create a bot renaming "external links" to "online references". --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you're right. I don't think this will be a cure-all. But people can game our other CSDs too, by putting in an untrue assertion of notability, by adding a fake fair use rationale or source or license, but the vast majority of pages these affect are ones with editors that add their work and never edit again. There is potential for gaming, and they'll have to go to AfD, but I expect the benefit to outweigh the bad. Dmcdevit·t 18:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't deny the merits of this proposal: 90% of newly-created articles is cruft. Nevertheless, we should clearly say which sources are considered reliable. Today, I had a lengthy discussion with a guy who is persuaded (citing WP:RS) that directly quoting chronicles in an article about a 10th-century ruler is not appropriate and that only secondary sources (read, biased interpretations by modern writers) are appropriate for Wikipedia. In my opinion, an 11th-century chronicle is a more reliable source than an early 20th-century interpretation. Another example. An article about Chumbo-Yumbo is translated from unsourced Swahili Wikipedia article. Although the translated material might be first-class, the trans-wiki translation should be deleted, no? Or perhaps the Swahili Wikipedia should be considered a reliable source, in the absence of English-language sources on the subject? In short, the proposal needs to be discussed at length, which I'm sort of uncapable now, having just been called an idiot (twice) and "Russian NeoNazi skinhead" (once). Regards, Ghirla ^-трёп- 20:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - A historian writing in the 11th century is little different, in terms of the nature of the source as a secondary source, from a historian writing in the 20th century. But a wiki is not a good source, and Wikipedia is not a source at all. See User:Uncle G/On sources and content#Evaluating_sources. Uncle G 16:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Grafikm

Mmm, I have mixed feelings about this. Referencing is clearly an ultra-major problem (as User:Worldtraveller stated on his user page) and I'm all for dealing with unreferenced articles, deleting them if necessary.

However, what bothers me is a very vague definition of reliable sources. An outstanding amount of work is needed to get these world mean something precise. For instance, I never write an article without adding links to places I got information from, as it is a basic principle of WP:V. However, what is a "reliable" source? How do I know that. And on some things, there are no "reliable" sources in an academic way. BZflag, for instance, used to be an FA, yet by definition, it only has links to online forums and stuff? Should we delete it? Heck no.

In short, a lot of discussion and caution should imho be applied :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 11:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about, once references are added, their reliability would have to be judged at AfD for wider exposure. (Trying to make this like images. Images with no source or copyright info are CSD, while images with possibly defective copyright claims are IfD'd.) Suggest the same procedure here. No references=delete+14; any reference=keep or AfD. Thatcher131 18:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a lot of new articles are created hit-and-run by editors who never show up again. Editors who stick around, even newbies, should have no problem with this. However, we must be especially careful not to bite newbies; the RCP is already pretty rough on first articles. Thatcher131 18:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The intention is to skirt the whole problem of reliable sources or not. That is a gray area, and a content dcision that should be worked out by the article's editors. However, any CSD-patrolling admin can objectively distinguish between an article with no sources and one with them. Dmcdevit·t 19:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

100% agree on that one. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amazingly good idea, I'd give you a barnstar for it if you'd not already got one. Stifle (talk) 13:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Dragons flight

This is one of the things that WP:PROD and WP:AFD are for. Those processes give the author and other interested parties a chance to correct the problem (which they may not have appreciated was a problem). By contrast speedy is intended to deal with urgent problems, while in most cases unreferenced content is not an urgent problem. Dragons flight 05:42, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've found this impossible. References are erroneously regarded as a "cleanup" issue at AFD and PROD, and nominations for lack of sourcing are consistently shouted down, since they should be fixed, not deleted. This leaves us in the position of deciding to keep articles for which we idea or proof of their accuracy, neutrality, or existence. This is precisely not the reason that things like poor writing are not reasons for deletion, but our current deletion mechanisms don't handle this problem. Honestly, try nominating a recent article for deletion solely because of sourcing, regardless of its notability, and see what yu get. Note, this criterion is also designed to give the author a chance to fix the problem: AFD can't do that, since it ends in a "keep, but cleanup" decision, with no binding enforcement of that. It remains kept even if it never is cleaned up. Dmcdevit·t 06:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Well if people look at it and say: "Yes, Wikipedia should have an article on this", then broadly speaking, I don't think it should be deleted. At the same time, I don't generally believe that always passing the buck is a good thing either. If there is going to be some process that deletes works solely for being unreferenced, then I think it needs to be such that it provides a substantial waiting period from the point at which the content was identified as problematic (not the point at which was created). That would give people, who might not otherwise appreciate that there was a problem, a chance to correct it. It would also give helpful minded Wikipedians a chance to peruse those articles looking for things to save. Like {{nsd}} and {{nld}}, it's not that we want to rush to delete the content, it is that we want to identify problems and have them be fixed without lingering on indefinitely. Also, I think "delete unless sources added" is a behavior we should strongly encourage over "keep and cleanup" when dealing with AFD. Dragons flight 07:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - The struckout bit is because I misread the proposal to be 14 days after creation. My bad. I'll go away now. Dragons flight 07:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Antandrus

My initial reaction is positive. We have been tightening up our standards here for a while now, with regard to things like WP:BLP, WP:CITE, WP:RS, to the point that most of the articles as they were three years ago would just not be acceptable to most of us now. This CSD addition is another step towards overall reliability. As a side note, if you take something to AFD just because it has no references, the probability of its being either deleted, or repaired with addition of references, is not all that high. You are likely to get lots of "no consensus to delete" unreferenced articles flooding through. I personally trust a CSD on this more than AFD.

As long as there is sufficient time given for referencing, I like this proposal. Antandrus (talk) 05:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:KillerChihuahua

I support this, with the addition of the tagging and wait period (currently tag and wait 14 days). It seems to me there may be objections that this is too much like Prod; thus perhaps the difference - that sourcing is required, not merely protest - should be more emphasized. KillerChihuahua^?!? 06:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Dijxtra

My opinion is that Wikipedia needs to be pragmatic at this point. Sure, if we enact this rule, Wikipedia will lose some of it's important additions because they were unreferenced. So, yes, we loose some potential content and contributors. But, what we get is that in another few months when we reach 2 million articles, we will have half a million new referenced articles. Maybe poorly referenced, but we will have a starting point. Which of the two is more valuable for a encyclopaedia?

I have seen a lot of plain text articles which are probably copyvio just copy/pasted into Wikipedia (I've just checked the newly created pages: of 10 new pages 3 were unwikified, unsourced plain text). Sure, even this articles have potential. But, after having 1.5 million articles, do we desperately need those? Or do we desperately need referencing?

Sure, some of the contributors might try to game the system. But, it's not like the system is not open for gaming at this moment. And, we do not see all that much of gaming. Sure, it happens once in a while. But not all that often (at least from my perspective). I do not see why this rule would be an exception. We'll get some false references. But, again, we gain (1 - some/all)*100% of (poorly or not) referenced stub articles.

Some newbies might decide to leave Wikipedia feeling bitten by this rule. But, again, it's not like we don't have AfD or prod or copyvio to bite newbies... this new rule will be just one more on the list.

So, these are the potential drawbacks of the rule. Potential gain form this rule is a complete shift of perspective. I think that Wikipedians need to start referencing their articles. Not just new ones, but the old ones too. When people create a new articles, they always think of wikilinks, of categories and of wikifying. If a semiexpirienced contributor encounters plain text article, he will wikify it, categorise it and add wikilinks. We have to change a state of mind of Wikipedians to accept referencing as another thing you routinely do to articles. And, I feel that this rule is a an excellent way to start. --Dijxtra 11:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You make a great point about the balance and this being in the right direction for the right reasons. I've said for a long time, we don't need just any material anymore, we need good material with references. I'm not sure we could get this through, but it is well worth a shot. It fits well with Jimbo's desire to improve articles over adding new ones. - Taxman ^Talk 04:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Dalbury

Yes! We need this. We really need to change the culture on sourcing, and this would be a good tool for doing that. One problem with 'prod' is that anyone can remove the tag and the only choice then is AfD or tagging as needing citations. We all know how AfDs go, and we have editors that are insistent on removing requests for citations without providing any, or who insist on putting back material that was deleted because it was unsourced. This proposal will hopefully be a tool for educating editors on the need for good sourcing. -- Donald Albury 12:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Wknight94

Fantastic idea. One dumb question: is this going to stop at requiring sources which prove accuracy? Or is it going to require sources which prove notability? One of the most common new article types I see are for local companies, etc. which include a link to the subject's web site. One could make a case that the article is sourced and probably accurate but it doesn't go anywhere to demonstrating notability (i.e., no secondary sources). —Wknight94 (talk) 14:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Lar

Good idea but the devil is in the details. If I put up a big unsourced article, but add one source for one small part of it, have I dodged this criterion? It's got "a source" even if most of it is not sourced. What about if half the stuff in it is sourced? Judgement will be required, and what I like about speedies is that for the most part they are cut and dried. Good idea though. ++Lar: t/c 14:22, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good bare minumum, though. Once judgment is required, when a source is questionable or the total sourcing is small, then we'll have to deal with it as we do now. But this at least, is a useful addition to the effort. Dmcdevit·t 20:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of references as a cleanup and deletion issue

Yes, lack of references is viewed as a cleanup issue at AFD. This is in part because although we do have an expanding culture of strong sourcing now, we have several years' worth of articles to deal with that were created when we had no strong sourcing culture at all, and articles being created now by editors of long standing who have become accustomed to never being required to cite sources. If we had had a culture of strong sourcing all along, as Wikinews has, then the fact that an article cited no sources could be used by itself as a deletion criterion. But we have to deal with the legacy of not having that culture, which means that it is incumbent upon editors at AFD to check, using a range of search tools, that there are in fact no sources. "Fails WP:V" cannot be synonymous with "cites no sources".

But that doesn't mean that one cannot get unsourced articles deleted via AFD. It is simply necessary to show that the second condition also holds. It is necessary that editors show that, in addition to just reading the article, they themselves went looking for sources and couldn't find any. In other words: It is necessary that nominators and other contributors do the research.

We in fact came close to this proposed criterion for speedy deletion for one class of article with Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/2. That was based not upon whether a biographical article "asserts notability" but whether it contains any source citations. The basis for that was very much the same argument as put forward above. An administrator can far more easily determine from the article content alone whether an article cites any sources than xe can determine whether an article asserts notability in whatever field the person may be involved.

Ironically, with the later adoption of Wikipedia:Biographies of living people as an official policy, allowing for the speedy deletion of "biographies that are unsourced and controversial in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to" then if one substitutes the (ironically more widely encompassing) qualification of "currently alive" for the (ironically narrower) qualification of "not provably born more than 25 years ago" the aforementioned proposal is effectively a de facto speedy deletion criterion (it already being a requirement in all speedy deletions to check the article history for prior good versions).

Although lack of references is not by itself a reason for deletion, it is definitely a reason for not creating articles at Wikipedia:Articles for creation. So we've already introduced strong sourcing into article creation.

On the subject of biting newbies, I suggest that always handing out to newbies advice such as User:Uncle G/On sources and content#Always_work_from_and_cite_sources, which explains how if one cites sources one avoids a range of difficulties, from questions of notability to unstable content, works when handed out to the kind of editors that are going to benefit Wikipedia. I most recently gave this advice to Sullivan.t.j (talk · contribs), for example. Xe went through many of xyr past articles, and they now have references and should remain far more stable against major content fluctuations and proof against nomination for deletion.

Similarly, liberal, and insistent, use of the {{unreferenced}} notice works. See Template talk:Unreferenced#Effect_when_used_by_New_Page_Patrol. Uncle G 16:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by John Broughton

I think this is a good idea. I think that for every article "incorrectly" deleted by this policy, a hundred junk articles will be identified. And if an article is really needed, someone else will again create it, with at least one source.

I'd actually prefer something stronger: an automated block to prevent an article being CREATED without at least THREE sources within the article. I just don't believe that (a) there are a lot of needed articles still missing which (b) only an inexperienced/anon editor is interested in creating and (c) if the system warned the person creating an article that it was unacceptable without sources, he/she wouldn't - if the article was really needed - be able to quickly find them and get the article added. This is 2006 (about to be 2007), not 2004 - wikipedia's problem is now much more with junk articles than it is with missing articles. John Broughton | Talk 17:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Practise, principle and extent

When considering a new CSD it is worth wondering how it will be misapplied, for it surely will be. It might go something like this: X writes a shortish article, and does not include any sources for they do not know they should. In short order, the obligatory tag (presumably pink, black, bold, italic, blue, linked, uppy-downy linky, block-for-removing, red-octagonal stop hand tag) is applied. Huh, they think, and copypaste a link from e.g. a Google search on the end of a sentence somewhere, but leave the tag. Eventually, this minor article passes the 14th day guillotine and an admin, largely ignorant in the field of the topic comes along. Sees the link, sees that it is with reasonable probability a link to a forum, blog etc. Decides that is unreliable, and by a misguided application of the new WP:CSD and (when asked for reasoning) WP:IAR, deletes it. Hmmmmmm. It's not long before there is a de facto "...and the source must be reliable" clause in the policy, in a twistedly descriptivist way.

This entirely plausible scenario has to be balanced against the principles of the thing. Wikipedia articles are little use to a reader without their sources (even if the reader is unlikely to check the sources if they just want a quick answer). Is it really true that no article is better than one without a source? Or was that just Jimbo on the mailing list doing what he does on the mailing list? I suppose this relies on the assumption that in some sense Wikipedia probably has most all the articles it ought to have (it really doesn't, though, particularly in specialist areas) and that we can therefore justify the removal, rather than the editing of poor work. I'm personally not sure that I'm persuaded of that balance yet.

Extent: some things don't need references. 1+1=2 doesn't, and neither does the entirely less obvious $\int x\,dx=x^{2}/2+c.$ (WP:V used to be congnisant of the point but has been masticated to pieces.) It is entirely possible that an entire shortish article could be written out of facts that are fundamental to a field and really only need a section for a "bibilography" rather than a set of references for things like "grass is green". Is the argument then that we already have all, or nearly all, the articles like that?

In short, I haven't made up my mind on this yet, but I really want to stress that is vitally important to consider factors relating to the benign ignorance of many editors, old and new, and to consider that the success of this project is due, at a fundamental level, to the very low bar to lending a hand. Every raising of that bar should be done with caution aforethought. And not, in the tone of some comments on this talk page, in the mindset of knowing better already because we benefitted from that same low bar to entry. Splash - tk 23:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That integral most definitely does need a source. Wikipedia should not aim to be less than ISBN 1584883472, where every single article has references. Furthermore, I can look out of my window right now and see grass that isn't green.
Once again, the chosen examples in fact prove that there are no exceptions to everything. Uncle G 00:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't really agree with the commentary on your subpage in its entirety, and I do think that the integral is as much an 'exception' as the addition (both statements are elementary once you know how to either add or integrate), because I hope noone would insist I sourced the fact if I used it in part of a derivation in an article. Green grass is an easy target: the alternative statement that "grass is not green" does not become acceptable if I find a news report of brown grass. It is merely a weak statement, lacking in generality, just as is the "grass is green" reciprocal. I am off topic some distance, now, however. -Splash - tk 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Just looking in Integral finds a source for the integral, http://www.lightandmatter.com/calc/calc.pdf (it's at the bottom of page 51, stated in a slightly different form). As for 1+1=2, try looking at page 4 of http://www.math.umn.edu/~jodeit/course/Peano.pdf. As you can see, it's not too hard to find sources for trivial statements such as these. --ais523 09:23, 14 November 2006 (U T C)
To address your first point about the probability admin misapplication to include reliability, I intentionally skirted the issue of reliability of sources (the question is "sources: yes or no?") because that's murky ground. Reliabilty of sources is a content issue. An admin has no more discretion over that kind of judgment call, and shouldn't really be making that decision. We might move in that direction in the future, but I'm more skeptical than you that the first people who tryit won't be skinned alive and made examples of. In any case, as Radiant! suggests we could easily put a clause in to specify that an article with any source at all should be evaluated by the community at PROD/AFD, not speedied.
- Yes, and I agree that the lowest bar is the only one that should be applied. However, those who are fans of Common Sense, The Right Thing and related euphemisms are not known for particularly caring about such fine details, and nor are they particularly concerned with being skinned alive. (Witness the speedying of the cookie articles under G11 just recently.) Still, misapplication would remain a problem just about however the wording were worded. -Splash - tk 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have an interesting point regarding the potential that there could be articles that don't need sources. I would point out that no admin must speedy an article that fits any CSD criterion, but that that they must read the article and then they may do so if necessary. I guess I'm still curious whether, if we assume that fundamentally sourceless statements exist, "It is entirely possible that an entire shortish article could be written out of facts that are fundamental to a field". Could you really construct an entire article that way, and not just statements within an article? Surely an assertion of notability still needs a source in every case? Dmcdevit·t 10:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The proposed Wikipedia:Attribution, which is envisioned to replace WP:V and WP:NOR contains several notes to "use common sense". It contains explicit exceptions for simple calculations and trivial deductions that do not present a novel viewpoint. There is consensus that we don't need explicit sources for every facts that only a troll would dispute.
- I prefer to think of the situation discussed above as an instance where potential sources are so numerous and obvious that citation would serve no purpose. I find it hard to imagine the utility of an article that consists only of such material. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - You are probably right. I am worried about articles created today without sources being ok and kept on their value (which is non-zero whatever Jimbo says) compared with the same articles created 14 days from now having somehow zero value. -Splash - tk 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, probably not, no, it was more a thought experiment to clarify the questions of extent and effect. A halfway-house is Scalar-vector-tensor decomposition in which a reasonable number of the textual statements probably don't appear in the source, and that source, whilst fundamental, is more a token gesture. Would we want to delete that in its earliest form? This raises an important procedural point: the reference that is required need not be inlined. -Splash - tk 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Radiant

Given Jimbo's request that we focus on quality rather than quantity, I believe this is a good idea. It shouldn't be too hard for the creator of any article to find a single source somewhere. Personally I would remove the grandfather clause, because it's overly judicial and it's already covered by the fact that a page must be found and tagged, and because I'd prefer not to get people arguing that something was "out of process" when its intent was clear.

However, there has been a recent controversy at WP:RS debating what exactly constitutes a "reliable" source, and there has been discussion at the new WP:ATT about how articles about fiction can be attributed. I think therefore that it's wise to make clear in this criterion that any reference counts, and that AFD must be used if it is disputed whether a reference is reliable - just like for A7, any assertion counts, and disputed assertions are thrown on AFD. (Radiant) 09:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the issue of reliability should be skirted entirely. Aside from the ambiguity of the concept, I'm also wary of giving admins the authority to make deletions based on content judgments of source reliability. Admins have extra tools, but no more power when it comes to content decisions. Dmcdevit·t 10:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: See also WT:CSD#Suggested BLP Criterion. (Radiant) 11:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with Dmcdevit on this point (and I wholeheartedly endorse the proposal as written). We already have mechanisms for dealing with sources which may or may not be reliable. A lack of sources is never reliable. Mackensen (talk) 12:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. That keeps it simple and clear. This proposal is not a cure-all, but it should make the job of getting Wikipedia properly sourced a little easier. -- Donald Albury 14:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Robert A West

Ignorant of this proposal, I proposed something of the sort for the specific case of articles about living persons. While the current BLP phrasing allows obviously defamatory articles to be deleted, any unsourced biographical information can be harmful. In biographies, we use unverifiability as a proxy for determining what information is private. If it has been published in a reliable source, we use it on the grounds that it has been vetted for both truth and privacy concerns.

Consider a few examples. Assume in each case a colorable claim of notability, thereby evading CSD-A7 as a reason to delete. The harmful information in each case has no reliable source, either because it is not true, or because the subject has successfully kept the matter private.

A GLBT activist is biographied without source as an "Active volunteer for the Family Values Coalition." The assertion is not prima facie defamatory, as the FVC has many proud volunteers, yet the subject would rightly regard the falsehood as harmful.
An attorney, not a public person, worked her way through college as a stripper. In the absence of evidence that she performed illegal acts, this is not a crime, and it can be argued is not defamatory. Nevertheless, she reasonably feels that this information would scare off certain clients.
An unmarried man is biographied as married. The assertion is not defamatory, but I think everyone would understand the potential for inconvenience.
Person X has a biography that lays claim to the actual accomplishments of person Y. Person Y has been harmed without even being mentioned.

I don't have evidence that Wikipedia is being used for mischief. I know without a doubt that it is being used for self-aggrandizement, which is just the flip side of the same impulse, and in the last example is itself harmful to a living person. If we want to apply this policy gradually, we could quite sensibly apply it to bios first.

That said, I am heartily sick of seeing AFD votes, "Keep. All this needs is a reliable source, which I am sure must exist." The person with the best clue where to find a source -- if one actually exists -- is usually long gone.

Whatever we do in this regard should generate a warning when creating new articles. "Articles with no sources may be deleted. Articles with unsourced defamatory content may be deleted without warning." Robert A.West (Talk) 15:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mangojuice

I like the idea. A couple of notes: I wouldn't want to see people trying to get articles deleted by using this criterion along with removing sources (even ones they feel are unreliable). This should be made clear somehow, but I'm not sure of the best way. Also, why 14 days as opposed to any other amount? I would figure 7 would be enough to find one source. Finally, this should come with an automatic undelete clause, sort of the way WP:PROD does. If any user wishes an article deleted under this criterion to be undeleted, and has a source, any admin should be willing to undelete it. Though work without sources isn't valuable enough to keep around anymore, it should be made available afterwards if people start working on it. Anyone who deletes a page under this criterion should watchlist it, and if a new version appears with sources, they should make the deleted version available. Mango juice^talk 15:57, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Be wary of adding that much instruction creep to the proposal. Keep the proposal short, or it won't be sweet. CSD already comes with an auto-undelete (after a sanity check), it's just that fewer CSDs actually pass said sanity check. Consider your new version of the proposal:

Check if the article is 14 days old.
Check it hasn't been vandalised.
Check it has no sources, nor any that can be reverted to.
Delete the article.
Watchlist it.
Check every edit to it subsequently.
Delete if no sources.
If sources, undelete history.
(implicitly)Leave a talk page note somewhere, probably on both the article and user pages.

It approximately doubles the load. -Splash - tk 17:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on WT:CSD

Just highlighting what Radiant noted above, discussion of this is now basically live on the criteria for speedy deltion talk page. Might as well take care of it now and keep it in one place there. - Taxman ^Talk 21:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this page should be moved to a Wikipedia space page, where there can be more directed comment from the entire community. The CSD talk page, at any rate, seems to be contemplating the idea of such a proposal, without ddressing an actual proposal. Dmcdevit·t 23:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd think that would be appropriate unless you think more discussion is needed before a formal proposal is launched. How were the other CSD expansion proposals named? Just do similar after updating it for any improvements suggested so far and perhaps incorporating options so that any individual drawbacks don't sink the ship. - Taxman ^Talk 23:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For lack of a better idea: Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles. Dmcdevit·t 08:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Pmanderson

Jimbo's quotes relate specifically to unsourced articles on living persons; one of them explicitly. We should indicate this.

I agree that this is a well-meant proposal; but I foresee, if it is implemented, a repeat of certain recent unpleasantnesses. All it takes is a handful of admins to construe this as "Delete all unsourced articles now; Jimbo said so!" to produce vast deletions. If one of them belongs to the "The only real citations are in-line citations" movement, it will be much worse. We should take steps to avoid this misunderstanding before doing anything to make this discussion more official. The present notes are a good start, and confirm that the intention of this proposal is entirely sensible. Septentrionalis 00:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first Jimbo quote may be less on-topic, but he states "This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information aboutliving persons" so it's not as if he's misquoted, I think. You're free to edit the page, by the way. It seems there is already developing support on this talk page for the notion that admin overextensions are not welcome. Ambiguity in the form of any source at all that an admin questions should be taken to AFD or PROD. Dmcdevit·t 08:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Shreshth91

I fully support this idea. With increase in the size and popularity of Wikipedia, we'll be overrun with poorly referenced articles, which may be hoaxes, and sorting through them would take mind-numbing amounts of time. I also agree with the specifics spelled out in the proposal, and the 14 days grace period. --May the Force be with you! Shr e shth91 08:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by ais523

I proposed basically this on WT:CSD after reading the discussion (link permlink to current version), without even realising the benefits to AfD closure. As Robert A West says on the CSD talk page, the person who writes an article is usually in the best position to source it, and if there is a deletion system in place we can put warnings in interface messages telling people to provide sources if they don't want the article they created deleted.

By the way, I've listed this page on policy RFC to get more feedback about the proposal (in a case like this, it's pretty important that the wording's reasonable to begin with).

We still need an article tag and a usertalk warning template; I'd be willing to have a start at creating these so that there can be a proposal with all the details filled out. --ais523 09:12, 14 November 2006 (U T C)

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 *That integral most definitely ''does'' need a source.  Wikipedia should not aim to be less than ISBN 1584883472, where ''every single article has references''.  Furthermore, I can look out of my window right now and see grass that isn't green.<p>Once again, the chosen examples in fact prove that [[User:Uncle G/On sources and content#There_are_no_exceptions_to_everything|there are no exceptions to everything]].  [[User:Uncle G|Uncle G]] 00:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 **I don't really agree with the commentary on your subpage in its entirety, and I do think that the integral is as much an 'exception' as the addition (both statements are elementary once you know how to either add or integrate), because I hope noone would insist I sourced the fact if I used it in part of a derivation in an article. Green grass is an easy target: the alternative statement that "grass is not green" does not become acceptable if I find a news report of brown grass. It is merely a weak statement, lacking in generality, just as is the "grass is green" reciprocal. I am off topic some distance, now, however. -[[User:Splash|Splash]] - [[User talk:Splash|tk]] 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
+**Just looking in [[Integral]] finds a source for the integral, http://www.lightandmatter.com/calc/calc.pdf (it's at the bottom of page 51, stated in a slightly different form). As for 1+1=2, try looking at page 4 of [http://www.math.umn.edu/~jodeit/course/Peano.pdf http://www.math.umn.edu/~jodeit/course/Peano.pdf]. As you can see, it's not too hard to find sources for trivial statements such as these. --[[User:ais523|ais523]] 09:23, 14 November 2006 ([[User:ais523|U]][[User talk:ais523|T]][[Special:Contributions/Ais523|C]])
 *To address your first point about the probability admin misapplication to include reliability, I intentionally skirted the issue of reliability of sources (the question is "sources: yes or no?") because that's murky ground. Reliabilty of sources is a content issue. An admin has no more discretion over that kind of judgment call, and shouldn't really be making that decision. We might move in that direction in the future, but I'm more skeptical than you that the first people who tryit won't be skinned alive and made examples of. In any case, as Radiant! suggests we could easily put a clause in to specify that an article with ''any source at all'' should be evaluated by the community at PROD/AFD, not speedied.
 **Yes, and I agree that the lowest bar is the only one that should be applied. However, those who are fans of Common Sense, The Right Thing and related euphemisms are not known for particularly caring about such fine details, and nor are they particularly concerned with being skinned alive. (Witness the speedying of the cookie articles under G11 just recently.) Still, misapplication would remain a problem just about however the wording were worded. -[[User:Splash|Splash]] - [[User talk:Splash|tk]] 17:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)