Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

why are the "delete discussions" not done on the article talk page?

I am guessing that the non "article talk page" used is so a record of the discussion is retained after a deletion event. Maybe there is some administration/bureaucratic advantage. But is there an "official" reason posted anywhere? (And backed by a wide consensus?)

As a bit of transparency logic on my half... It appears to me that:

1. Just maybe this is a form of WP:CAN biased toward "contributors" that hang out in AfD.
   • (This is difficult to research as AfD has a scorched earth MO where even the history of the page is scorched, this makes it difficult to review (and appeal) an article's using content prior to execution.}
2. Taking the discussion away from the article is to (deliberately/accidentally) preclude input from actual article contributors that would (otherwise) have been watching the article's talk page.

Maybe it is time to:

• implement Selection by lot for AfD participant - this would eliminate hang outs.
• a lot would be valid for a month(quarter?) only.
• The lot is drawn from (maybe) the top 10% of active article contributors.

(Also for the record: I have been previously tagged "Troll?" by PKT(alk)

Leng T'che (talk) 00:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head for why a separate page is used (for tracking old AFDs). But given that articles nominated for deletion get a big box on the top that points editors there, there's no need to call it out as a way of isolating the process from the article page. Plus Delsorting helps to attract wider numbers. --MASEM (t) 01:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

re: "Plus Delsorting helps to attract wider numbers.

I am not sure I agree with you here. AfD looks, more like a cul-de-sac to me. "Indeed posting there could be akin to canvassing for the Status Quo. e.g. Round up the usual suspects."

Besides, even if the article page is cut, then talk page can be retained.

Futhermore, even "articles nominated for deletion get a big box" then contributors that have selected "watch" on the article will only get one notice, and are forced to "opt-in" with watch on the AfD deleted discussion. This is a clear attempt at exclusion.

Leng T'che (talk) 02:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

DelSort is not canvassing, otherwise it would have been closed down long before. Nor is it what you think. --MASEM (t) 03:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The funny thing is I had not even heard about Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting. Maybe the members of this club should identify themselves as such when they "contribute" in AfD. Note also that the DelSort members are self selecting. Statistically: self selecting samples are biased! Leng T'che (talk) 03:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

When AFDs are delsorted, whatever delsort lists the AFD is added to are listed in the AFD. It's pretty darn transparent. --MASEM (t) 04:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup. Can you offer any evidence whatsoever that Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting are doing anything improper - or are you in fact trolling, as your short contribution history might lead one to suspect? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not just the delsorts, but who did the sorting and when. This is a volunteer project; everyone is "self selecting" what they do. VQuakr (talk) 04:08, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll repeat the question: Why are AFD discussions held on some subpage of WP:AFD, and not held on the article's talk page? Is there any valid reason? I ask this as someone who has been around for over 6 years, and has done extensive reading on the history of AFD. I look forward to hearing substantive reasons. - jc37 04:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

As for how the decision was arrived at, I've no idea - not been around that long. What would be the advantage of putting them on a page that was potentially about to be deleted though? And why should we make things more complex for those less familiar with deletion discussions by potentially including a lot of irrelevant material (the remainder of the talk page content) in a discussion? What is actually wrong with the way we do it now? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If there is no reason to not change to the article talk page, then, due to our want for transparency, we should. requested move and merge and split discussions (and RfCs) all happen on talk pages, there is no reason I know why we can't have AfD discussions on talk pages as well.

And you touch on another interesting question: Is there any substantive reason that we delete talk pages of articles which have been deleted? One would think that keeping such talk pages might be helpful to those editors who might wish to create a new version of the page. If someone sees the discussed deficiencies of a previous version of a page, that can be learned from, one would hope.

So to repeat: Any substantive reason to not have the deletion discussion on the article's talk page? - jc37 04:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I could think of a lot of reasons. The question is what the advantage would be. AfD is a large complex sub-system of Wikipedia and trying to do it on the article talk page seems like trying to balance a boulder on top of a pebble. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 04:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"a lot of reasons" - list them please.

"AfD is a large complex sub-system of Wikipedia..." - If I accepted that assertion (and I'm not sure I do) that's a reason to get rid of it per WP:NOTBURO. - jc37 04:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it more transparent that AfD discussions persist after the article is deleted, rather then having the deletion discussion deleted along with the page? Monty₈₄₅ 21:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"Eliminate hang outs." Uh, no. People who regularly contribute to AfD often have a higher degree of rules expertise and very often make the most solid contributions towards saving articles from deletion. They often have access to the tools needed to research and find difficult sources such as commercial databases. We should be rewarding the "hang outs". AfD participation is already too low. Unless you are suggesting enforced participation like jury duty, we need and want the volunteer "hang outs". -- Green Cardamom (talk) 04:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"People who regularly contribute to AfD often have a higher degree of rules expertise..." - I'm sorry, but I call that BS. We are all Wikipedians here. Discussion is open to the community. And those who edit a particular article should be considered those who might have some idea about the topic under discussion. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons we template the article to alert about the discussion. Remember, policy and guidelines are to reflect the community's wishes, not the other way round.

And we have all sorts of bots and del sorting to alert those same people you note. So that's still not a reason to not have the discussion on the article's talk page. - jc37 04:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I am defending what you call "AfD hang outs" which is a pejorative description, and your suggestion to change the system and implement a "selection by lot" to "eliminate" users. That is non-egalitarian because it banishes users who might otherwise wish to participate (vs. the current system does not prevent anyone from participation). You are also saying the regular editors of an article should be given some "consideration", which is again non-egalitarian, the current system does not give consideration to anyone, but everyone. In the end, your suggestions are non-egalitarian and attempting to shift power to the creators of articles who are not always that neutral when it comes to reviewing their own content. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 09:20, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

First, I think you are confusing me with the person who started the thread above.

That aside, I hope you do realise that AfD is merely a discussion page, and that it, like most discussion pages, is open to everyone. And that that doesn't change, regardless of venue. Talk of "shifting power" makes me nervous as it suggests that there is any power to shift. And this inclusive-ness you suggest is all the more reason to move such discussions away from being sub-pages of WP:AfD. If being here is in any way suggesting that editors are in any way unwelcome to contribute to the discussion, then it definitely should be deprecated. - jc37 10:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The thing I see in AfD discussions is some people know the rules more than others, and knowledge of rules is an advantage, as it should be. Wikipedia is egalitarian, but it's also a meritocracy - we are fair, but not to the point of being equally stupid. Further, in the real world, people who write content don't peer review their own work! We allow it on Wikipedia, we even go out of our way to notify key content creators when an AfD is opened. My guess is if you go back to the early days of Wikipedia there were discussions about banning content creators from AfD discussions, since that is how the real world works, and that was perhaps when these discussions were moved off the article talk pages to a separate peer review process (just guessing). However, that doesn't mean the current process treats content creators as second class citizens or unfairly, just the opposite, it gives them an equal say which is unusually liberal compared to other peer review processes. In any case, no matter where the AfD discussion is held it is completely irrelevant to any of this. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 17:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that I have not yet seen a convincing argument why having the discussion on the article talk page would be better, there is also the problem that AfD discussions are transcluded on other pages (like the daily log, e.g. this one), where people can read multiple AfDs in a row and only edit those that interest them. Having AfDs as sections of existing talk pages would make that transclusion harder (impossible?). Plus the argument that when articles are deleted, their talk pages are deleted as well, which would be problematic if the AfD was located there. Fram (talk) 09:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Fram.

Openness and transparency to start with. And from reading just a few of the comments so far, ending the appearance that anyone is unwelcome, or has more or less of a status in a discussion.

And Wikipedia space is a foreign land to some editors. There's simply no reason why a discussion about an article shouldn't happen on that article's talk page.

And convenience of transclusion doesn't trump that, sorry. Especially since we don't worry about that for RfCs or requested moves/merges/splits/etc. Though obviously there are simple solutions to that, like includeonly and noinclude tags, or if absolutely necessary, merely making the afd a subpage of the article talk page like is sometimes done for proposals. - jc37 10:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, how does placing the AFD on the article's talkpage make it any more inclusive? I honestly can't see how linking to a discussion on the talkpage is noticably different to linking to a discussion at a dedicated AFD page. The user sees the notice at the top of the article (which specifically asks them to share their thoughts) and follows a link - how does it change their experience if that link leads to an AFD page instead of the article talkpage? How is it any more open and transparent?

The main difference I can see is that listing article AFD discussions on their respective talkpages would reduce the likelihood that the "hang-outs" (as you don't call them, but Leng Ch'e does) would participate - given that such editors tend to have a far better grasp of AFD-related policies (particularly the more obscure subsections of the notability guideline, but also Arguments to avoid and the various ways that WP:NOT can be interpreted), their absence would mean fewer sound arguments (and possibly more spurious ones), not to mention reducing participation overall (meaning fewer !votes and therefore far more "no consensus" closes). I suppose a notification system (similar to the Feedback Request Service) could mitigate this to an extent, but I still can't personally see any advantages to moving AFD discussions to talkpages. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with others here, I fail to see how having the discussion at the article talk page would increase openness and transparency in any way. And the difference with e.g. RfCs, moves, merges is that those don't end in the deletion of the page, and thus not in deletion of the talk page, while AfDs obviously often end in such a deletion. Fram (talk) 10:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines "The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page (accessible via the talk or discussion tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject." IMHO: talking about the page at AfD is a form of "obfuscation" and potentially WP:CAN. It is also unfriendly to "fresh" contributors who watch just the article and then need to "opt in" to "watch" the AfD. Leng T'che (talk) 20:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

'talking about the page at AfD is a form of "obfuscation" and potentially WP:CAN'. Utter nonsense. Can I suggest that rather than making random misleading assertions about AfD discussions, spamming multiple template talk pages with nonsensical posts about how the "template defaces wikipedia articles", and generally making noises about how you think we should do things differently, you actually do something productive on Wikipeda? We are more likely to take note of genuine proposals from established contributors than from individuals who seem to delight in letting everyone know that they have already been described as 'a troll'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems like it should be possible to transclude the AFD discussion into the talk page (similar to how the AFD discussions are transcluded into the list of AFDs), which would increase the visibility, and seem to satisfy both groups somewhat? As a possible feature enhancement, we could request that articles get marked as updated when something they transclude is updated, so watch lists are automatically notified? Or that similar to how if you watch a page, you automatically watch its talk page - add any AFD discussion into the auto-watch as well? Gaijin42 (talk) 20:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If the goal is to increase user participation, send a notice to everyone on the article watchlist, via the watchlist mechanism, the same way page move notices are done (they are sticky ie. the notice stays in the watchlist even if later changes to the article are made), or the same way the SignPost sends out its notifications via watchlist. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 20:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this sounds like a good suggestion regardless of what else happens. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought of just transcluding the AfD onto the talk page as well, but the problem with that is that inexperienced editors may mistakenly add comments to the talk page, rather then the transcluded AfD discussion, those comments would then by missed by those participating through AfD. Monty₈₄₅ 21:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a custom transclusion template that tries to make that a bit more obvious (colored box etc) Gaijin42 (talk) 21:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

• Why would it be better to host the discussion on the article talk page (or a subpage thereof)? If it's done on the article talk page, then what happens if the article gets deleted at AfD? The article talk page will get deleted as well (via CSD G8) and therefore you'll no longer have a non-admin-accessible record of the discussion. If it's done on a subpage of the article (or a subpage of article talk), then there is no added benefit. It's still on a different page. You still have to click a link to get to it, just like you have to today. It's no more or less difficult to search for previous AfD's if you don't have a link to them (i.e. there's no difference between searching for "Talk:ArticleName/AfD" and "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ArticleName"). Also, if the article gets deleted, then there will be an orphaned subpage hanging around with no parent page. There are probably bots that go around and delete such orphaned subpages. The final reason for not changing the venue is that there are loads of bots and tools and scripts that depend on AfD's taking place where they do today. Changing the venue would require all of those bots and tools and scripts to be rewritten, which is a lot of work for no real benefit. Can we put this discussion to bed yet? ‑Scottywong| spill the beans _ 21:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thats the purpose of my transclusion idea above, as none of that other work would need to be done, the AFD discussion would be preserved, but we would still get the increased visibility of the talk page. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

To answer the original question, AfDs were at one point in the dim and misty past carried out on talk pages. There may even still be some stray deletion discussions around on some very old talk pages where the article was kept. I wasn't around then, but I believe the stage after that was something called 'Votes for Deletion' (VfD), which was later renamed to 'Articles for Deletion' (AfD). VfD, I think, used to be all on a single page (like discussions of templates, redirects and categories still are), but was then switched to a page per discussion basis. If anyone really wants to dig into the history of all that, see Wikipedia:Archived deletion discussions/2005 (the transition from VfD to AfD can be seen there) and also at the deletion discussions in page history bit for the pre-2004 history. For an example of old discussions held on article talk pages, see Talk:Engelsism. See also some of the red-links at Wikipedia:Archived deletion discussions/2003#December 2003 for more examples. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ambition seems to be an example of a debate that was moves from a talk page archive (I'm not 100% sure about that). That should give an idea of how things worked back then. Carcharoth (talk) 00:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC) To pick up on Scottywong's bit here: "Also, if the article gets deleted, then there will be an orphaned subpage hanging around with no parent page. There are probably bots that go around and delete such orphaned subpages." That is exactly what did happen. There was a big tidying up of those orphaned subpages at one point, though I don't think all of them were caught. Has all this history really been forgotten?

There are many disadvantages with a talk page discussion and some of them haven't even been mentioned yet. It already seems clear the idea lacks support so rather than beating a dead horse, let me offer a suggestion for one of the concerns of the supporters: Post the AfD banner to both the article and the talk page. Talk pages of articles at AfD are rarely edited so the nomination edit will not be replaced by other edits for users only displaying the most recent edit on their watchlist. And if the talk page is actually edited afterwards then the edit summary will often reveal a deletion has been proposed. The banner will also take care of cases where interested users view the talk page without discovering the article is at AfD, although that may be rare. I don't think nominators should be required to do the double tagging (AfD nominations are already hard enough for many users), but a bot could check for it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• @ PrimeHunter|, with all due respect, I do not agree with your above statement that this proposal clearly lacks support. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit

Ok, so I've read and re-read the above.

And I think you all seem to have forgotten something.

This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Not just editors who we think may have read some policy pages, or who may be more experienced with how some bureaucratic venue that has been built up over time currently operates.

We do not disenfranchise anyone from a discussion. That includes everyone from IPs to red linked accounts to the first time editor, through editors of various experience, and all the way to people like User:Jimbo Wales.

If you want to appraise some new editor of current consensus, current policy, or current common practice, in a discussion, then do so. But an editor's lack of knowing the vast miasm that is Wikipedia policy does NOT prevent them from commenting in a discussion. And if this venue in any way is supporting that perception. then this venue needs to be deprecated and deleted. Period.

There have been major discussions of late concerning editor retention, and you all have the unmitigated gall to suggest that we should exclude content contributing editors from any discussion, much less a deletion discussion? Seriously? I'm surprised that content editors aren't screaming at that suggestion right now.

I suggest that you all acquaint yourselves with a bit of Wikipedia policy and precedent. Wikipedia:Esperanza comes immediately to mind. No venue may become closed off to any part of the community.

And as for the talk page deletion arguement, it's simple enough to deprecate that part of CSD. After all, originally it was supposed to be for talk pages of no content (or just merely having templates/banners). Deleting talk pages with substantive discussion simply does a disservice to editors. We don't delete user talk pages, why in the world do we delete article talk pages? Yes, we've all done it, mindlessly following "per CSD". But that obviously should be changed.

And adding templates and/or transcluding discussions and other wiki-magic which can be a black box or unintelligible to some editors is simply not a solution. That to me just sounds like trying to come up with a way to protect a semi-walled garden.

Oh and bots exist to support the project, not the other way round. Every - Single - Bot - Is - Expendable. Period. If the bots are in any way assisting this violation of one of the most fundamental concepts of Wikipedia, then they should be shut down.

And RfC operates with bots from talk page discussions. there is simply zero reason that AfD cannot happen that way.

Deletion discussions are just that: discussions. The community in total is welcome to come discuss. Everyone.

And if anyone comes and says that AfD is that open, I will point them to the comments above which clearly show that that is not the case.

Or to put it another way, AfD is condemned by your own words.

I haven't decided yet whether this will be an MfD or an RfC, but I've started writing it.

AfD is violating fundamental policy in several ways (WP:NOT in particular in several ways), and apparently it's time it was deprecated. - jc37 04:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A simple question. Is it the AfD process you are objecting to, or the fact that articles are deleted? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A simple answer: Neither.

It's clearly the venue, and the mechanisms (and apparently the exclusive mentality) which have grown up around this venue which seem to be the problem.

We can have an "articles for deletion" process. It just should take place on an article's talk page. - jc37 05:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

AFD is open, since AFD pages are just like any other mainspace wikipage - any editor - including IPs - can edit. The complaints about are more about notification and visibility, but as been argued there are advantages and disadvantages to all available methods, and the current way it is done is the choice of community consensus. --MASEM (t) 04:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but no, I do not see any advantages AfD has over a discussion directly on the article talk page. If anything, the further we get away from the article, the more we disenfranchise. - jc37 05:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no disenfranchisment with the current system. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess I just don't understand what the perceived benefit is for switching discussions to the article talk page. Is there any actual evidence that suggests that an article talk page discussion is more visible or more accessible than a giant red banner at the top of the article with a link to a page that is devoted to a singular deletion discussion? Why would we want to force new editors to wade through a jungle of threads on the article talk page to find the latest deletion thread and then figure out how to contribute to it? Why should we be forced to search through talk page archives (which can be comprised of dozens of pages in some cases) to find previous deletion discussions, rather than just looking at the nifty "Previous AfD's" template on every current AfD? Is there any objective evidence that there is a problem with the current process, or is this just a solution to a problem that doesn't exist? ‑Scottywong| verbalize _ 06:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes actually. I believe they've been doing research concerning the learning curve to edit here. (For example, the various things that okeyes has been working on lately.)

So consider this. You're a new editor. you've learned to click a tab at the top of the page to edit. And after being reverted (as sometimes happens) someone explains to click on the talk tab, and edit that to discuss.

Compare that to the complexity of project processes. A big template may seem obvious to you, but it can look like greek to a newbie.

And there are those who think project space is like the "employees only" back room of a business, and aren't sure if they are allowed to comment, and are often afraid to ask.

And this, without getting into the nonsense I just read above about suggesting we should want to draw more of one kind of editor and less of another.

We teach new editors that discussions concerning an article happen on that article's talk page. We should stay consistent to that understanding. - jc37 10:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Jc37: "...you all have the unmitigated gall to suggest that we should exclude content contributing editors from any discussion, much less a deletion discussion?" I don't see where anyone suggested that. You appear to be making two assumptions in your arguments above, which I don't think are justified: firstly, that new editors are unable to find AFD, and secondly, that AFD is in some way an elitist cabal dedicated to excluding any editor who isn't steeped in its arcane law. I dispute both of these premises.

Firstly, I don't believe that new editors have any trouble reading a (very prominent) template message on the page they want to edit and clicking on the link which said message actively tells them to use. The very fact that we have to have - and regularly use - {{notavote}} and {{spa}} at deletion discussions speaks to the fact that new users quite capable of locating and contributing to AFD discussions; indeed, sometimes its their sole reason for being here. You say that we "...teach new editors that discussions... happen on that article's talk page", but if we have to teach them that, is it really so much effort to explain that deletion discussions happen at AFD?

Secondly, yes: there are rules to follow in AFD discussions, which contributors need to know. These can be found with minimal effort, but even if transgressed, all that happens is that the editor is advised of their error and pointed to the guidelines; exactly the same thing happens when someone adds unverified information, posts an article of dubious notability, or starts an edit war. Experienced editors are readily available to help out at AFD, just as they are in other areas of the project, and just as in other areas, can advise new users of the policies they need to know.

I didn't intend to end up writing more than a couple of sentences here, so apologies for the diatribe, but I take issue with your implied assumption that newer editors are either too incompetent or too cowed to participate at AFD: I believe they aren't. Most of all, I dispute your suggestion that we're all out to exclude new editors; on a project where universal participation is taken as a core philosophy, that's just offensive. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I should clarify. When I said "you all", I was referring to those making such assertions.

To just refer to your comments:

• "The main difference I can see is that listing article AFD discussions on their respective talkpages would reduce the likelihood that the "hang-outs" (as you don't call them, but Leng Ch'e does) would participate - given that such editors tend to have a far better grasp of AFD-related policies (particularly the more obscure subsections of the notability guideline, but also Arguments to avoid and the various ways that WP:NOT can be interpreted), their absence would mean fewer sound arguments (and possibly more spurious ones), not to mention reducing participation overall (meaning fewer !votes and therefore far more "no consensus" closes)."

You aren't the only one to express this idea, but you speak of offensive, I find this idea to be contrary and offensive to the sensibilities of anyone can edit. We should never look to have any discussion process to be such. Never. If you want more informed commenters, inform them. don't try to exclude them. And the idea that that leads to closes that you don't like sounds an awful lot like suppression. And suggesting it's better because of this, is not just offensive, it's repugnant.

I'm sorry if that offends you. But we are an open community, where we are all Wikipedians here. Everyone is welcome. - jc37 11:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) response to Jc37Deep breath - this is getting a little more heated than I'd like. Looking again at my comment that you've quoted above, I can see how you might read it like that, so fair enough; I withdraw my offendedness. Let me see if I can explain my thinking in more unambiguous terms (without writing a dissertation...)

The best way I've always found to inform new editors about AFD is - surprise! - at AFD discussions. For that reason, we need experienced contributors there, and the concern I was trying (and apparently failing) to express is that moving the discussions to article talkpages would lessen the likelihood of such editors stumbling across them. Wherever the deletion debates take place, the same policies will apply - is it more sensible to have the discussion in a venue where there are contributors who know these policies, or on a talkpage where such contributors are likely to be absent? Guiding new editors through the labyrinth of notability guidelines and what-Wikipedia-isn'ts is more easily accomplished at a page frequented by editors who've studied the deletion policies and sub-policies (and guidelines, and hell, essays; they get linked pretty often too).

I don't have any particular problem with No Consensus closes when it's evident that both sides have equally valid arguments, but most NCs occur because there aren't enough participants - one keep, one weak delete and three relistings isn't enough of a discussion to close as anything else. In such cases, I'd far rather see more participation than less, and I'm concerned that the talkpages of potentially deletable articles (which are generally fairly rarely frequented) will remain almost unnoticed by anyone other than the page's creator (obviously a Keep !vote) and the AFD nominator.

I hope that clarifies my position somewaht. Yunshui 雲‍水 11:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I dunno about heated, but when addressing our fundamentals here: This project is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit; WP:NPOV; WP:IAR; WP:CON; These are where you'll find my full-throated support.

Once upon a time this project operated without a Wikipedia namespace. Did you know that? Basic policies were listed at meta, and all discussions happened on talk pages. This encyclopedia project would still be a project even if we were to remove the Wikipedia namespace, remove all bots, all categories, even all redirects and templates. Would it be less easy to navigate? yes. But none of these are mandatory for the project. All we need is mainspace, and a talk space to discuss. (Once upon a time, even discussion was in mainspace, but that's before even my time as a reader.)

As for attracting policy-knowledgeable editors to deletion discussions, that doesn't need to change. Merely adjust the bots, adjust the templates. That big afd template and the template placed at the top of the discussion are what do most of the notification work, placing discussions in categories, which bots can then develop notification lists from (there are other things too, obviously). It's merely changing the target link from "some subpage of AFD" to the article talk page.

And keeping a separate venue just for the sake of the entrenchment that has built up would seem to me to be another good reason to ditch the separate venue. - jc37 12:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

AfD are well placed on a page separate to the article talk page because the talk page is meant for article improvement and AfD is not.

Merge and rename discussions belong on the talk page because they relate directly to article content. Deletion discussions are not directly about the content, they are meta discussions about the subject/topic, and whether the subject/topic belongs or not, in absolute terms.

The AfD tag on the article is good. An additional article talk page notification of the AfD might be a good idea.

I don't think much of DELSORT. To improve ease of access to AfD discussions, I wish someone could get User:Dragons_flight/AFD_summary or User:ArkyBot/AFD summary working again. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with SmokeyJoe. I don't see any objective evidence that new users are unable to comprehend that deletion discussions happen on a different page. I also strongly disagree that having those discussions on the article talk page would make them more accessible and easier to contribute to. In fact, I believe it would make them harder to find for the average new user, since there might also be 25 other threads on the same talk page. If this goes to RfC or MfD, I would strongly oppose it. ‑Scottywong| confer _ 16:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, you'll likely have that opportunity. But for now, I am working on a few other RfCs first. - jc37 14:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

While you have the right to open an RfC on this, one can wonder whether it isn't a waste of everybodies time when the above discussion has a lot of people disagreeing with you, and at first glance only one agreeing. Starting an RfC without at least a reasonable chance of success seems useless. Fram (talk) 14:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm amazed to see this discussion still going, honestly - consensus seemed clear that this idea did not have the necessary support to move forward. But since we're still here, I have to ask why a page with a bunch of unrelated discussions would be less insular and less arcane to a new editor than a page with no unrelated discussions and an extra "Wikipedia:" in the title. There are articles I won't touch because discussion at the talk page is entirely populated by dedicated editors of that subject and their detractors/opponents/whatever. Try putting a deletion debate there! Good lord man, move and merge discussions are contentious enough, and you want to throw deletion debates into that mix? I don't see how, logistically, such discussion could take place, nor how consensus would reliably be judged in such a setting - too much noise, not enough signal, so to speak. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:15, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You've been fooled.

Honestly, people, you don't half miss the glaringly obvious. Someone is outright saying "I've been labelled a troll." when trolling you. Go and read what's in Special:Contributions/Leng T'che. If there's a grenade to be thrown into a discussion, that person has thrown it, including a failed attempt to get people to rise to the bait here. I've just had to point out similar pot-stirring at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 December 10#Hansard of the Sarawak.

And no, the history hasn't been forgotten totally, Carcharoth. I am the person who moved VFD to AFD, and who went looking for orphaned deletion discussions on talk pages. ☺

Uncle G (talk) 20:31, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

We await the histories that will be written on this... :-) (failing that, a link to the right point in the archives would be a great help). I'm sure it has been mentioned as a key moment in altering the mindset from voting to !voting (supposedly). Carcharoth (talk) 00:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

In a serious manner, I would actually encourage someone to make a page documenting the history of the AFD process. We have a similar one for NFC and it has helped point confused editors on its original, and a process like AFD is just as contentious and could do with a similar set of pointers. --MASEM (t) 00:20, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually... no... You have not been fooled. The point of the original post was to highlight the notability of some articles in small (but notable realms) that are not notable as per WP:GNG. These notable relms articles are slow to evolve and may have few "connected" or "regular" contributors. So sadly these notable relms articles are "efficiently" "weeded out" by members of the AfD "hangout" who (may) have little to no grasp of the article topic core, and (in the case of Sarawak) may not even know which hemisphere the country is. I have seen many (arguably) great article stubs that fail the current WP:GNG policy slip through the gaps and purged with the AfD scorched earth policy (page, history and talk are purged).

Compare: I can draw a crude map of Sarawak, but I'd have little to no chance of doing the same with Nova Scotia. Indeed I suspect that there a more people can sketch a map of Sarawak, then can sketch a map of Nova Scotia. So which is more notable? In yet there is only a handful of articles about the governance of Sarawak and ad nausium articles about Nova Scotia {AND (for that matter) ad nausium articles on Pokemon Characters (649 to date)}.

SOMEONE needs to define and defend the "minor realms". Or at lest give these stub article a bit more time to mature.

The AfD hangout has a plethora of WP:RULES (100+pages) that boggle my mind, and so many rules that (apparently/allegedly) mostly only the members are "experienced enough" to understand (Lawyers/Barristers would be proud). Some of the members of the Afd hangout even have barn stars and brag bags on how many articles they have deleted to date, but sadly some appear to have little knowledge of the world as a whole.

I find many of the comments on Afd talk pages obtuse and distracting. At the moment I find Wikipedia:Canvassing is especially obnoxious as all delete requests are not done on the article talk page, but are diverted (away from the original contributors) to AfD talk pages. Not only is this ossification, but effectively the regular AfD crowd are being canvassed. (IMHO: the cry Wikipedia:Canvassing thus becomes a case of "The Pot calling the kettle black"). Worse still is the claim that the actual original article editors may not be notified/invited to AfD as this would be "Wikipedia:Canvassing"!!!

re: "I am the person who moved VFD to AFD, and who went looking for orphaned deletion discussions on talk pages."

Thank you for stepping up. Seriously... it looks like a mistake was made, especially as it left behind the contributors most likely to actually improve the article. Do you have a link to this ancient discussion? That way I can get a feeling for the original reasoning, and see if the impact of the move has ever been reviewed.

BTW: how did you find out about this current debate.... were you canvassed? (Note: this is not to say you sudden appearance is not welcome, just peculiar!)

Finally: I am outright saying "I've been labelled a troll", this because I am a bit tied of the name calling (and stalking) that goes on in AfD. There is a whole plethora of such "official" name calling used at the AfD hangout, these appear when (at the drop of a hat) when "someone" doesn't immediately get their way. Besides: If someone calls me a name, then it seems reasonable that I then have permission to take ownership of the name, just as the Yanks took ownership of Yankee Doodle.

Vote: Put the delete discussion back on the article talk page - that's my vote... Seems I am the first to vote.

Leng T'che (talk) 14:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not getting involved in the main topic being discussed here, but I feel I should remind you that polling is not a substitute for discussion. You are not the first to "vote" (and that term really shouldn't be used at all), as many opinions have already been expressed in this discussion. The merits of the arguments are what determines consensus, not vote-counting. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• Rule 99 WP:VOTE & Rule 100 WP:POLL, maybe "The AfD hangout has a plethora of WP:RULES (100+pages) that boggle my mind, and so many rules that (apparently/allegedly) mostly only the members are "experienced enough" to understand"
• But consider a topical quote on WP:POLL: "Polls lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to... suffering. - WikiYoda" with topical example Syrian civil war. Maybe WikiYoda is right! :-/

Leng T'che (talk) 21:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

If you aren't a troll, I'd suggest that you either (a) do something constructive for Wikipedia, in accord with policy as it stands, rather than telling us that we've got it all wrong, or (b) be prepared to get blocked per WP:COMPETENCE or WP:NOTHERE. We don't change procedures and policies on the say-so of random individuals who show little evidence that they know what they are talking about. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough... I'll take some time and reconsider my position. (I still feel AfD is obtuse, but will desist from trying to justify it though debate. I also grow weary.) It may be reasonable to call my posts a WP:NTE (Near Troll Event). Please excuse my frustrations.

Note also: I like the quote you have on User:AndyTheGrump page... it is very recent too! (28 August 2012) i.e.

“ In the old days, I would have just personally blocked the troll on sight, and that would have been the end of that. One of the things that makes wikis work is precisely the ability of the community to tell people to knock off the nonsense or get blocked.

If you go back to the disastrous culture of unmoderated Usenet groups, you can see what happens if it is too difficult to block trolls from participation. What happens is that good people reach the end of their good humor and lash out. The social environment degrades to people screaming at each other and it becomes quite hard to tell the good people from the bad. If someone says that they "consider Wikipedia to be an intrinsically evil concept" then the solution is not to get emotional and lash out at them in anger, but to realize that telling them to fuck off is not nearly as satisfying as maintaining a good sense of humor while making them fuck off (with a permanent ban). We have better things to do!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

”

[1]

One important outcome for me is that "consensus" has challenges. However I can not bring to the table any (concrete) alternative suggestions. I can see why any important system must have it's checks and balances in place.

On the positive note: These discussions have led me to read the article about Athenian democracy. It records an assortment of methods the Athenians tried. IMHO: reasonable "Grist for the mill". Has Selection by lot (allotment) been trialled anywhere on wikipedia? (I'm not saying it will work, but I am curious)

(An aside: I note that Athenian democracy has been tagged: {{Refimprove|date=September 2009}} for some 3 years! My first impression is the actual article looks fine. I'll take the time to understand the article's specific issues and (if required) make a more appropriate wikipedia contribution with the long term view to slowly getting the Template:Refimprove removed.)

Thank you all for your (collective) patience - Leng T'che (talk) 02:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• History volunteer: Just coming across this discussion and am relieved to see there is no real movement to put AfD discussions on talk pages. It would be bad for many reasons sprinkled about above. But I saw MASEM's comment encouraging someone to create a page on the history of AfD, and I would be interested in doing that if one doesn't already exist. When I researched the history of high school AfDs a while back I was fascinated when tracking down VfD discussions from 2003-04, it was difficult because ones not manually moved had to be dragged out of old revisions to the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page(s), and discussions would sometimes be closed with the close rationale in the edit summary[2]. Some of these old discussions can be found on talk pages (e.g., Talk:Kew_School), which they were manually transferred to from VfD. When 2004 dawned, Wikipedia had only 188,000 articles, so obviously it was a different smaller world, but the history can still be very interesting and informative. Discussions such as why the VfD discussion period went from 5 days to 7 days, and why people say "!vote", can reveal a lot.-Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there such as a thing as a "bad faith keep"?

I'm not sure what else to call it, but what I'm referring to is people who vote keep for "tons of reliable sources," give no links to any of them, and add none of the aforesaid to the article under discussion. To me, that means that no one really has any interest in working on the article in question, and that leads to a question of "is it really encyclopedic if nobody cares?"

I noticed this in WP:Articles_for_deletion/Tahoe-LAFS, which I nominated because it was overly reliant on primary sources, and I could not readily find any RS on Google. Both voters voted keep because of tons of sources. However, no edits were made to the article between my adding the AfD notice, and the NAC removing it. So I have a quality concern about keeping something that's been tagged as a problem by others for a while, but which people want to keep without wanting to work on it.

There's more to it than that, though. I checked the sources mentioned just now, and I really don't see the RS we need. The supposed GNews hits are 1-2 years old (and mostly not in English) as of page 1. The Scholar references seem to be mainly in footnotes and other throwaways (thanks, and the standard requirement of research to show that the researcher did work to understand the context of their topic, e.g., "X is similar to Tahoe-LAFS", "thanks to the open-source community like Zooko, the developer of Tahoe-LAFS"). There's maybe one good hit on the first page of results, and I'm not even sure about that.

Many times, the burden of proof for keep voters is subjective based on who is doing the close. We have policies and guidelines to address those issues (ILIKEIT, OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, BIO1E, and so on), but I think we are not enforcing the need for policy-based arguments on both sides of the AfD process (which is something that also came up at WP:Articles_for_deletion/Diamonds World Tour, with a totally different result).

Thoughts? MSJapan (talk) 04:27, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

At worst, if people claim "tons of sources from links above", they should at minimum link them in the AFD as examples of what they call such sources. That 1) at least satisfies WP:V/WP:N's requirement that sources have been identified (though not necessarily added to the article) and 2) allows others to review what they consider as the reliable sources. I would argue, in this case, the NAC closure wasn't appropriate since consensus was not clear, was less than 7 days, and a DRV is appropriate here. --MASEM (t) 04:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Sources must exist, and they should be reasonably referred to, for a keep vote based on sourcing as in the example above. Remember, though, that notability is not established by putting anything in the article or even in the deletion discussion--notability exists as the coverage exists, not as it's documented here. So if one can say "Look, the Google news archive source search link has tons of applicable links", that's sufficient, because any other editor can click the tool at the top of the page and see roughly what the editor did. Bad faith keeps would be for e.g. fabrication of sources, not simply for disagreeing with current policy: anyone is allowed to do that, and to articulate their opinion appropriately. And, when consensus is consistently against the existing policies... the policies are changed thereby. Jclemens (talk) 07:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I will point out that both WP:V and WP:N (the latter taking its cue from a rather recent WP:V discussion) that explicit sources have been identified by putting the link or basic source information into WP somewhere reasonable to be found - the article would be best, but a talk page note or even as a response to an AFD attached to the article. Adding that link/source to the article then subsequently become a cleanup act but until that point, that satisifies the minimum requirement for V/N in terms of sourcing. IF you claim notability exists "because there's lot of gnews hits", that can be challenged if its not immediately clear from gnews that there are article. --MASEM (t) 15:17, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• I used the rationale "A look at google books finds a wealth of references" for Adams dry fly, but that required a single click. I've seen bad faith keeps, where I knew the players and knew they were voting to keep just to goad one of the people on the delete side (back in the AFD wars of 08...) but often a "lots of references" might just be laziness, smugness or found in the search links above and not really malice. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Surely that NAC is inappropriate due to a lack of input in the AfD? It should have been extended by an admin, not closed as a NAC. The first keep was vague, and looks like a WP:GOOGLEHITS argument, the second keep is just a me too rationale. I fail to see how that is NAC territory. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the close is that unreasonable. If an AfD cannot find a single person to essentially second the nomination in a week, while it has attracted 2 keep !votes, closing it keep seems reasonable. Honestly, I think we are too quick to keep relisting AfDs that are far from a delete consensus. As to the titular question of bad faith keeps, they can happen, but there should be an extremely strong reliance on WP:AGF, if they misstate policy, assume they just misunderstand it, if they claim there are a lot of sources, maybe they looked somewhere you didn't, before you can really claim bad faith, the keep voter really needs to make a specific claim that is undeniably wrong, or to get really absurd. Monty₈₄₅ 14:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" - Napoleon Bonaparte Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict) Hello, MSJapan. I have been in Wikipedia for a while and I have never seen a person editing in bad faith. I have seen the stubborn, the uneducated, the paranoiac, the blunt, the impolite, the suspicious, the nervous, the protective, the arrogant, the narcissist, the shallow, the careless, the politically biased and vandals but not a single person who edits in bad faith. (Okay, maybe you can argue that vandals are editing in bad faith but I can argue that they are not "editing" at all.)

Admittedly, issues that I have seen are as bad as bad-faith editing though: Lack of competence, carelessness, error of judgment, etc. all damage Wikipedia as badly. So, before starting to think about bad-faith keep and aliens extinguishing humanity, think about error of judgment and the pollution.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 14:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• I never got linked to this discussion or the deletion discussion, so my apology for this late comment. Just to make it clear; I was the one who preformed this closure. Yes, the votes were tacky and unsourced but they were accurate. A quick search of Google Scholar resulted in finding eight references that were more than trivial mentions or throwaways. The age of the google hits make no difference. I feel that the close was appropriate but as stated here (got to love two of the same discussions eh?), "If you feel my closure was incorrect, feel free to undo it at your own discretion". Masem, "was less than 7 days" - This discussion was closed seven days after the discussion was started. -- Cheers, Riley 23:23, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

When MSJapan says "I'm not sure what else to call it" I think the right answer would be a decision that he did not agree with. To throw around accusations of bad faith when you merely disagree with the decision is a tremendously impolite thing to do and very bad form. JASpencer (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

JA, why you need to follow me around and comment on items you have no relation to just to bait me, I don't understand, but I would much prefer a) that it stop, and b) that it stop re-occuring every time you don't get your way on an article. It is a tremendously impolite thing to do and very bad form. I shall deal with the sourcing with Riley directly. He added references, but not one of them is actually used in the article, which I'm not sure solves the problem.MSJapan (talk) 01:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

MSJapan, any problems you and JASpencer may have should be discussed on your user talk pages, not here. I will start a discussion about the references on the article talk page. -- Cheers, Riley 01:43, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:SNOW covers this - next time search for sources before nominating several articles. Widefox; talk 11:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

• MSJapan, the wikipedia's policies on deletion used to be that we kept or deleted articles based on the notability of the topic. If I have understood your initial question you seem to be saying that there are instances when a potential nominator should feel authorized to nominate for deletion articles on topics that are in and of themselves notable, because they think the current instance needs work, and no one has stepped forward to do the work the nominator feels is necessary. Is this what you meant?

Now maybe I will be told I haven't been keeping up with our evolving standards. But it used to be counter policy to nominate articles for deletion merely because the nominator thought the current instance of the article was weak. We used to expect contributors who had a concern with an article on a notable topic to first try to address those concerns through less drastic measures, like:

1. trying to improve the article themselves;
2. voice their concerns on the article's talk page;
3. place tags that describe their concern on the article, possibly combined with explanations on the talk page;
4. looking at the revision history, and contacting people who have contributed to the article in the past;
5. bringing up the article in another fora -- like on one of a related wikiproject's fora. Geo Swan (talk) 22:37, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• I do think there is such a thing as a "bad faith keep". Fabricating or misrepresenting sources is one example. Attacking the nominator is another. I think going "keep, tons of sources" without providing any can sometimes creep up to the line of source fabrication. Reyk _YO! 00:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Line of succession to the former throne of Württemberg

Can someone take a look at this AFD from back in November that is still active, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Line of succession to the former throne of Württemberg, I'm assuming it was not listed at AFD correctly but I'm not sure what the correct procedure is whether it should be listed correctly now or can be closed. - dwc lr (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

 Resolved. The discussion was closed by user:User:Monty845 on 20 December 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. Northamerica1000^(talk) 01:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

how does an unregistered user nominate an article for deletion

I tried to get an article speedy deleted but that failed (and I was accused of vandalism) but the deletion rationale was legitimate, so I am trying to get the article deleted through afd. It appears that an unregistered user cannot complete the process of nominating an article for deletion so how can I get the article deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.90.216.96 (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The article is Most played rivalries in NCAA Division I FBS. The rationale is that the page was created by a blocked/banned user (User:Latish redone), as well as failing the general notability guideline, in that the topic of most-played rivalries has failed to receive non-routine coverage in reliable sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.90.216.96 (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for you Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Most played rivalries in NCAA Division I FBS. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

 Resolved. User:Hellknowz nominated the article on 20 December 2012 (UTC). Northamerica1000^(talk) 01:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Specific Products from Companies

Lately there have been a lot of specific products, mainly from the telecom sector, which have been nominated for AfD. The arguement is that these products do not meet notability guidelines. I see fault with this process for these products as a lot of them are notable and widely used but not widely published. We need to open up a general discussion about this. Wikipedia, IMO, should encompass as much knowledge as humanly possible. The telecom industry has a cult following, deep history and has become the modern day interstate highway system or even the early railroad. As such we need to discuss how relevant each product is and determine a consensus on how to deal with them. I will start below separate of this. Mike (talk) 18:35, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I propose that we eliminate specific product pages for products and merge them into a single table style article. We could provide some general information about the product line, specific models etc and also add content for specific issues, features etc.Mike (talk) 18:35, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe my little essay here can help? It was written with exactly that situation in mind. It recommends when to create a stand-alone article for the product and when to merge several of them. Diego (talk) 19:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

• Specific products from Companies should have to meet WP:GNG like everything else. These recent AfDs are all very appropriate in my opinion. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 04:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

AfD table

I've created a table that keeps track of some voting statistics for all currently open AfD's in a sortable table. You can find it at User:Snotbot/Current AfD's. It gets updated 3-4 times per day. Still a work in progress, so let me know if you find anything incorrect, or if there is anything else that should be added to it. Thanks. ‑Scottywong| converse _ 16:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Why would create a bot that made it easier to close AFDs improperly? The number of people taking one position or another is only of statistical interest, and shouldn't weigh heavily into any decision. I'd suppress all columns except the ones that show whether it's overdue or not.—Kww(talk) 16:58, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't intending for it to be used for closing purposes necessarily, there are already plenty of other tools that can be used close AfD's improperly (like this one). Sometimes it's nice to be able to sort open AfD's by certain criteria, and see which one has the least/most _______ . Are there other criteria that you'd find it helpful to sort by? ‑Scottywong| talk _ 17:21, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

This table seems useful. If a person had limited time, they might choose to drop into an AfD discussion where the votes seemed anomalous, so having the !votes listed seems to have value. Analogous to the decision whether to participate in an RfA where the predictable result seems like it is going to occur anyway. People would (presumably) rather go to an AfD where they can contribute some key bit of information or rationale rather than cast a me-too vote. EdJohnston (talk) 17:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

One particular use case for this that I like: while it's rare, I have come across a few AfDs that needed faster action (in particular, G10 BLPs) by keeping an eye out for AfDs, 24-48 hours old, with 7+ nearly or entirely unanimous Ds/SDs. Not every such AfD deserves speedy treatment (in fact, the vast majority don't), but a few do, and it's nice to have a tool that makes it a bit easier to ferret that out. The table should not be an excuse for poor closes, though. --j⚛e decker^talk 19:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

So you're looking for Scotty to give you an accurate SNOW forecast? Seems seasonably appropriate in the Northern Hemisphere. :-) Jclemens (talk) 20:23, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

• 'Thank you Scotty. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:31, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• If I were active at AFD this would be a very useful way of finding out which AFDs need contributions. The participation rate sucks. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:15, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• This is a very good place to find "almost definite" results - e.g for deciding whether any discussions should be SNOWed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 22:23, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

An interesting question/idea from an AN thread

I started this AN thread to a talk page request I got to provide a copy of a AFD-processed deleted article to an offsite location. Technically there's no problem with that but then we get into CC-By issues. The thread discusses that we should, at minimum, provide a list of contributors to any version taken this way, but when articles are deleted, external users may not be able to get this.

I wonder if this following change to AFD process where consensus is "delete" is feasible. That is, excluding cases of bogus information or copyright violations or other similar problems (where us retaining the information is of no value), the admin closing a AFD that is "delete" should blank the page, add a redirect template to a viable target, and then fully lock the page, giving the pretense of a deleted article. The redirect page should include a template that points to the AFD and can give the name of the admin that closed it, so that if a user wants to recreate a new page that is sufficiently new content, they can request the unlock from that admin (or barring that to AN). This prevents the "deleted" article from being recreated but allows anyone to review the history of it, including external users who may have linked to the article to provide the contribution history.

The redirect target is the tricky part; some cases will be obvious, some not. If there's no obvious redirect, I'd propose that we have some type of "WP:AFD/Log/YYYY" page that lists all the closed AFD discussions in this manner, which can be the redirect target. These pages can further list the instructions for requesting the unlock to edit further.

Note that this is meant to be different than a "redirect/merge" result. In that case, I'd expect the closing admin to redirect the page but leave the redirect page unprotected, allowing users to recreate the articles without admin assistance. The full protection of the redirect page in the "delete" is to make sure that the page is only recreated if the admin/AN agrees that the new suggested version is sufficiently different to merit that. --MASEM (t) 16:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

AN discussion archived to WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive243#Providing text of deleted article to offsite location?. Flatscan (talk) 05:07, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

And finally, someone who is not an inclusionist realized the problem created by blocking access to the history of deleted articles. Hallelujah! The world as we knew it has changed indeed! ;-) Diego (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

For the redirect target, if there is no plausible redirect, we could just send things to a holding page that explains how to access the history. Though this would actually make it harder to recreate an article then under the current system, where a title is only salted after repeated recreations, and someone must proactively request redeletion. Also, its important to remember that just because an article was deleted on notability grounds or for some other less serious policy violation, it doesn't mean that the history is free from more serious policy violations. Often, AfD nominators will focus on the clearest reason for deletion, rather then a less clear one that implicates a more important policy. For instance nominating for deletion based on a clear WP:N delete rather then a borderline BLP or Copyvio issue. We will also need to consider the impact on low visibility people who have had articles deleted for notability reasons, keeping the revision history could negatively impact their privacy. I think the idea has value, and may be something we want to do, but there are going to be a lot of things to consider. Monty₈₄₅ 17:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I can see a number of potential problems with this.

• This would make it harder to recreate articles deleted through AfD, because you have to get an an admin to unprotect the page. At the moment you can just restart the article.
• This would be seriously problematic for BLPs and any article containing material about living people, even if the deletion rationale isn't based on BLP. For non-notable living people we would have information sitting around indefinitely which isn't being improved and which isn't adequately sourced. BLPs would have to be treated under the existing system.
• The Foundation has in the past expressed strong opposition to proposals to allow non-admins to view deleted pages. They might not be happy about this.
• In cases where there is no obvious redirect target (the majority, I suspect) we would be cluttering the article space up with large numbers of self-referencing non-article pages.

Hut 8.5 17:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

• One thing that make this work a bit better on the BLP issue is revdel; of course we can always say that when BLP are deleted because of being nonnotable or no appropriate redirect target, we actually outright delete the pages for privacy issues.
• On the first point, I would think that given that our CSD allow for deletion of articles that recreate existing content, a simple admin check to unprotect is a trivial barrier.
• On the last point, where there is no article-space redirect target, we would redirecting them to some WP-space index/log page.
• The Foundation's take is a key point. I do note that at minimum we are supposed to provide a list of editorships to comply with CC-BY, and there's talk in the AN thread to have bots to construct these, but that means we need a place to store those lists for every deleted article. We also can have very specific rules when this mechanism can only be used (eg avoiding the BLP issue above), but yea, we would likely need the Foundation's approval for this practice. --MASEM (t) 18:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, let's quickly clarify a few points:

• This is a perennial proposal, and there are reasons for both why this has never been adopted, and for it resurfacing from time to time.
• IMHO it's more needed than ever given the sad state of AfD in general, and there are ways that we could make it work; not since not all possibilities have been explored in the past.
• The legal position of the Foundation was stated here (I'm not aware of any other place where they've stated their positions on this subject; if you know some, please post a link to it). It's only against the possibility to show all deleted content, not for selectively deciding to delete problematic content and keep the rest. It seems to be much weaker than what other editors have stated.
• This procedure of soft delete would be used only for articles deleted by an AfD where editors found that it doesn't create legal problems, such as deletions because of WP:NOT or lack of notability. This is no different than removing unsourced content from BLPs or COPYVIOs - those often remain in the article's history, and may or may not be selectively deleted by admins.
• I don't think blocking the article so that it can't be recreated would be needed in most cases. We could handle in the same way that we WP:SALT deleted pages, i.e. only if those are frequently recreated; otherwise, a speedy deletion is enough.
• Soft deletion has a lot of benefits and I'd love to see it success at last. Diego (talk) 18:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

There is still the issue that a delete for violating WP:NOT only says the article violates WP:NOT, and says nothing about whether or not the article also has legal problems. Monty₈₄₅ 18:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

That's why we would require the AfD to explicitly request a soft delete instead of a full one; editors in the discussion should make the decision. In any case, the legal status of such page would be no different than any other Wikipedia page that has not been through an AfD discussion. Diego (talk) 18:26, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Having the consensus be for a soft delete would seem to address most of my concerns. But it would need to be clear to closers that a soft delete would require an active consensus that a soft delete was appropriate, and should not be defaulted to as a compromise position less severe then a regular delete. Monty₈₄₅ 18:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I would expect that we would also have a list of explicit cases that no matter how much the consensus says to "soft delete" that we would still need a "hard delete" (such as attack pages or similar matter), but I am seeing the core of this idea being basically a "soft delete" option to be !voted on. --MASEM (t) 19:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

• In general, I favor this sort of outcome for unproblematic content, which is most of what I try to rescue: fictional elements that lack or have disputable independent notability. I agree that this is precisely the best sort of article to use this sort of an option on--not on BLPs, contentious articles, or the like, but just places where the notability becomes the turning point of the AfD. I have always been willing to undelete history on such articles that have been deleted-then-redirected so that redirects can be turned back into real articles and/or merged into the target article. The devil's in the details, of course. Jclemens (talk) 04:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I would not want to make access to deleted articles harder. Rev del is for limited cases, not every BLP issue--or even every copyvio, tho we certainly rev del copyvio when the holder insists on it. Privacy is a red herring--almost all of the time we delete a BLP in spite of the efforts of the subject or the subject's fans to get publicity, not to protect privacy. AfD is complicated enough already without adding additional options--admins can pretty much be trusted to be conservative with undeletion requests; I'm probably as flexible as any, but I certainly turn down most BLP undeletes when there's anything more troublesome than ordinary lack of notability, and I certainly never undelete copyvio. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

• When you use Special:Export it doesn't export the entire history anymore. It does the first so many edits, and nothing from recent years. You can also export just the current version without any history at all. I have saved numerous articles I saw at AFD by exporting them from Wikipedia with as much history as I could, and importing them to the appropriate wikia. Anyone with importing rights on an offsite wiki should be able to request a full history transfer of any deleted article, and transfer it on over. Thus people can find a more appropriate place for it. Dream Focus 09:51, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
• Strongly support this proposal. This soft delete is excellent compromise, and it is different from the standard perennial proposal of allowing access to deleted articles. --Cyclopia^talk 11:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

• It's also interesting the flip side: what is the legal status of deleting a page and blocking its history? All content is licensed under CC-BY and anyone can reuse it anywhere, provided it's properly attributed. The official recommended way is to place a link at the edit summary pointing back to the article. But if that article is later deleted, all the copied content will be left without attribution, which is an automatic copyright violation. So I don't think defaulting "Deleted" AfDs to block all history is a good idea at all; only content with other legal problems should be redwalled by admins, just like it's done at regular history pages.

So, given that the propose has received a good acceptance, what is the next step to keep the ball moving? I suggest an RfC at Wikipedia:Copyright violations. Diego (talk) 11:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you referring to content reused on Wikipedia (WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Reusing deleted material) or elsewhere (WP:Reusing Wikipedia content)? A list of authors should be available via WP:Requests for undeletion or the new Special page proposed at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive243#Providing text of deleted article to offsite location?. Flatscan (talk) 05:07, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think here (WT:AFD) is the right place, but an RFC advertized at CV, VPP, CENT, AN/ANI, and probably a few other places. However, I think there's a few details that we want to be sure about:

• Are soft-deleted pages fully protected - though can be unprotected if a user asks and has good reason to do so in recreating the article?
• How do we handle the redirection of soft-deletes that don't have a good target redirect page? And/or do we have a running log in WP where such pages are listed and provided as a redirect target? --MASEM (t) 16:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think protection is required. A soft-deleted article would be in a similar situation to a blanked article, only with a consensus after it - a bold revert would require better arguments than BRD. The page could be speedily blanked again if consensus doesn't change.
• For articles without a good redirect target, maybe a template similar to R with possibilities could be created? This would have a short text similar to the current deletion notice, pointing to the history and the discussion where deletion was decided. Diego (talk) 10:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

• See, I'm a bit worried about the protection aspect. If we don't put protection on the blanked article, this is basically coming down to, technically, "Redirect", which is never a reason to start an AFD. I feel that a nominator should be able to start an AFD with a "soft delete" when the material is otherwise not harmful to WP but otherwise should be blanked, and if there's no technical difference from a "redirect", this may not fly over since its long argued that AFD is not "Articles for discussion". The protection makes its use at AFD necessary since that's an admin action, but removing that protection should be a trivial request to the closing admin or otherwise at ANI. --MASEM (t) 17:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I still don't see the problem, nor the need for protection. Protection would have the negative effect of making the article *more* difficult to recreate after a soft deletion than a full one, which doesn't make sense. I see AfD as a vehicle to build consensus - admin action is only one of the possible outcomes, but (blank and) "redirect" is also a current common outcome; this proposal doesn't change the current procedure, only adds new information to it and would make that outcome more frequent. The difference is that a one-editor WP:BLAR can be reverted by anyone for any reason, and a soft delete would require having a new approach to recreate it - just like an incubated article, but dormant in main space and thus more accessible and less centralized. Initiating an AfD proposing "soft delete" would be a request for a "social" protection of the delete, instead of a technical one, a protection based on consensus to keep the content removed unless it's significantly improved. Diego (talk) 18:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the one thing I see as an issue is that if a soft delete is just a blanked redirect (maintaining history) but not protected, any anon user can undo that, while with a hard deleted article, it requires as least autoconfirmation (the ability to create new articles). If even we had a semi-prot to prevent "recreation" by new editors, that might make it sufficiently different from a redirect. Again, my concern in this proposal is to make sure this isn't just a glorified redirect process that would be rejected by the community because AFD is not "Articles for Discussion". I know there's other aspects that we can justify this with, but the process is just one of them, and I'm not seeing protection as being that hard a barrier to require removal to make it an issue as to differentiate the process. --MASEM (t) 21:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, a semi-protection for autoconfirmed users is a different matter. What didn't make sense was setting the bar higher and always requiring a request to an admin in order to re-create the article, when that's usually not needed for articles that were deleted. Diego (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Barry Stevens (wrestler)

The subject only appeared once on television and hasn't been heard from since, yet he has an article despite not being notable whatsoever. 68.200.222.137 (talk) 03:17, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think jobbing to Ryback is makes this wrestler notable.--70.49.81.44 (talk) 03:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I've completed this AFD, which can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Stevens (wrestler). I'm also the admin who removed the redlinked tag from the article, so I'm glad to see you came here and posted a rationale we could use. Thanks! UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

 Resolved: User:Ultraexactzz nominated the article for deletion on 3 January 2013 (UTC). Northamerica1000^(talk) 01:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Foil imaging

The article reads like an advertisement and only cites a single website/book. 71.167.144.223 (talk) 03:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

RFC

Should we have a time limit for relisting debates (especially ones that have not closed yet. Everyday I see people (mainly non-admins) relisting debates before they technically usually 1-2 hours before the next day rolls over so they don't get included in the new day debate (what I mean is someone relisting debate at 23:50 January 6, the debate doesn't get included in the January 7th list of debates). By doing this, it decreases the amount of participation because alot of people on look at today's AFD debates, so should we have a time limit for relisting debates, preferably only the first couple hours of the day. JayJay^{What did I do?} 00:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment That seems to be a reasonable idea, although there a number of users who live in different time zones across the world. TBrandley ^{(what's up)} 21:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• While that is true there are plenty of users on when the new day rolls over (for me its 6 o'clock) and what I mean by time restriction is from say 0:00 (UTC) to 2:00 (UTC) since wikipedia runs on the Coordinated Universal Time everyone it what be the same time for everyone. Get what I'm saying? JayJay^{What did I do?} 23:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Fair enough. TBrandley ^{(what's up)} 17:00, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think the larger issue is that discussions are also being relisted too many times. WP:RELIST discourages relisting more than twice, but some discussions keep staying open for more than three weeks! Perhaps this is why we should encourage people to use WP:PROD more often, or to treat AfDs with no comments as if they were a PROD nomination. Edge3 (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• That is very well true, alot of the AfD's that get no participation could just be deleted by PROD. JayJay^{What did I do?} 22:35, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• An easy technical method for this might be to get a bot to take all articles added to Category:Relisted AfD debates between, say, 22:30 and 23:59, and roll them forward to the next day's log. Might be a job for Snotbot, though that bot is already busy. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 16:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• That would be a great task! JayJay^{What did I do?} 23:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support - Non admins do a lot of things that create a lot of extra work for everybody. While this rule probably won't stop them from doing this (Just as a rule against reverting closed discussions doesn't stop them), it will at the very least create a toe-hold for nabbing the more prolific troublemakers. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 04:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Bruce Haigh

Can somebody please continue the deletion process for this page? Mr Haigh is not notable and the page is little more than an advertisement for his services as a commentator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.51.102.197 (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce Haigh. Hut 8.5 11:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

What is policy on AfD's started by a sockpuppet

Non admin User:LlamaAl has speedily kept several AfD that were started by a sockpuppet. Most of them are do have legitimate nobility problems such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antony Rea (which LlamaAl voted delete), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jason Ball (fighter) (which LlamaAl voted delete) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jean-François Lénogue. What is policy on AfD's started by a sockpuppet? Bgwhite (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Speedy keep is very specific on when the argument can be used. Under applicability, #3 is the pertinent item. Those AFDs that had good faith comments should not have been speedily kept. GB fan 21:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

A sockpuppet is only a sockpuppet if they are editing the same article/discussion under more than one name. A known sock that nominates an article, but only uses that single account to edit that discussion and related article is in fact not a sock. The AFD should probably not have been speedily kept, unless the socked user was blocked/banned. (In which case the new account is block avoidance, and all procedural actions are inherently invalid.) Gaijin42 (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Can they be undone then? I voted for delete in a couple of them, so I'd rather be seen as doing/undoing any results. Bgwhite (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I have reopened all 3 of those because they all have good faith comments in them. GB fan 22:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted all my edits. Sorry for the inconvenience. --LlamaAl (talk) 22:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Gaijin42, but that isn't true. Alternate accounts cannot edit AFDs at all. It violates WP:ILLEGIT, making the account a sock. Any such account can be immediately blocked. Unless the sockmaster is blocked, they can't be deleted, though. Normal practice is to close any AFDs that haven't received any good faith delete votes from other accounts.—Kww(talk) 22:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the sockmaster was known. I've reverted all edits that I reasonably could, and deleted the one AFD that had received no delete votes. Since the default of an AFD is to keep an article, it's generally not a problem to simply deleted the improperly started AFD. Once someone else has voted "delete", that falls afoul of the language that says that articles that have received substantive edits by other users cannot be deleted, so I've left the other AFDs intact.—Kww(talk) 22:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Can someone complete the nomination for deletion for the Marc Mencher article

I don't have an account, so I can't do it, but I think it fails the notability test and he is using the article to promote himself in the spam he sends from LinkedIn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Mencher — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.220.239 (talk) 06:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to complete it, as there appear to be several reliable sources in the references, providing notability per WP:GNG. I'll leave the tag on in case somebody else feels differently, though. jcgoble3 (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

You're not wrong - there are some decent-looking sources (nb: I have not verified their reliability). Nor do I see any evidence that someone spamming links to their article from Linkedin would constitute a violation of our policies, though the reverse obviously would be. But I usually lean on AGF in these instances. The IP would already have nominated the article, but for the technical issue that IP editors cannot create the necessary pages. If it's a snow keep, it's a snow keep, and if it's a clear delete, it'll be deleted next week. So I'll complete the necessary steps here, and including what I just said about sources and linkedin. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment on use of Speedy tag

On the article DistrictBuilder, while doing new page patrol, I struggled with adding a speedy deletion tag. Ultimately, my decision was based on the contribution history of Undantag (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Basically, he had created his account a week before the article, did a bunch of copyedits in that week and then created the article with no edits and very proper Wiki style referencing and has made no further contributions. If this were a more established editor, I wouldn't have bother with the tag as the article has good form, some references and sounds like advertising but probably could be fixed with notable outside sourcing. I have no issue with removing the tag. My question is about whether other editors and admins think it is proper to take account history as a factor as I did to use a speedy tag. I don't want to bite newbies but I also am not an idiot with blinders. Is speedy tags appropriate for these cases? --DHeyward (talk) 21:58, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

That tag seems inappropriate, regardless of the editor's history. It's not completely an ad, by any means. Just read the tag you placed: "This article may meet Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion because in its current form it serves only to promote an entity, person or product, and would require a fundamental rewrite in order to become encyclopedic. However, the mere fact that a company, organization, or product is an article's subject does not, on its own, qualify that article for deletion under this criterion. Nor does this criterion apply where substantial encyclopedic content would remain after removing the promotional material; in this case please remove the promotional material yourself, or add the tag to alert others to do so. See CSD G11." It seems a well written and referenced article, and while there is some promotional material in it (the Use seems a bit puffery), there isn't much. An awards section is perfectly fine. It is certainly not solely promotional, and would not require a fundamental rewrite. --GRuban (talk) 23:02, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The referencesfor the software were marginal (e.g. on of the references claimed it came in second fr some award but actually, it was the open source software that won. Sort of like if the wiki model won a prize and wikipedia claimed it.) I don't know how close the seperate entities are to flag it as a real problem or a semantics issue but it certainly weighed in the thr decision. Suffice to say the sourcing looks better on the page than it does when reading them. --DHeyward (talk) 07:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Chameleon (film)

I have nominated Chameleon (film). I can complete only step 1, because I'm unregistered. I want a registered, logged-in user to complete steps 2 and 3. 122.17.60.88 (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chameleon (film). Hut 8.5 13:18, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Afd Instructions

I've just messed up my first attempt at completing an Afd submission (resolved by the helpdesk)

I failed at Step II

(Removed wording, see WP:AFDHOW)

It was that OR that did it for me.

I thought it meant do either the 1st 2 steps OR the 2nd 5 steps. You can guess the rest.

Is it worth rethinking the wording?

SimonBramfitt (talk) 05:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I removed the stuff you had as it is acting like this is a page nominated for deletion, and replaced it with a link. CTF83! 05:19, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Clarification needed about Withdrawing AfDs - two points

Sometimes a nominator wants to withdraw an AfD: more information has emerged, or the article has been edited, so that the previous reasons for withdrawal are no longer valid, or it was a mistake in the first place, or whatever. It's obviously a good thing to allow this, unless anyone else supports the deletion, to save everyone's time.

It has been stated on an editor's talk page that they are allowed/encouraged to close an AfD if they withdraw it and no other editor has !voted for deletion.

But:

1. There is no mention in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, as far as I can see, of how to withdraw a nomination: does one just add "Withdrawn" at the bottom of the discussion, like any other comment, or should it go at the top just below the nomination itself? Are there any other procedures to comply with?
2. The AfD instructions, at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#After_nominating:_Notify_interested_projects_and_, state "Sometime after seven days has passed, someone will either close the discussion or, where needed, "relist" it for another seven days of discussion. (The "someone" must not be you the nominator ..." They make no mention of the above exception.

So I ask:

1. That there be some clear statement, perhaps as a new section "After nomination: Withdrawing an AfD", explaining how to withdraw an AfD
2. That, if it is indeed permissible for a withdrawing nominator to close the AfD, this should be stated as an exception to the above absolute rule.

Thanks, PamD 09:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The actual policy/guideline basis for withdrawing nominations is WP:SK. I agree we could include some mention of it in this page though. Hut 8.5 10:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:SK lists " The nominator withdraws the nomination" as a reason for withdrawal, without specifying what action the nominator needs to take to withdraw it. There is no mention there of any lifting of the restriction on who can do the closure (although this seems reasonable).

I'm not wanting to stop nominators from closing AfDs they've withdrawn, just wanting the written procedures to catch up with the practice, if indeed this is standard practice (as seems very sensible). And wanting clarity as to how to withdraw a nomination: I think I've added a note at the top immediately below the nomination, in the past; other editors add a standard !vote at the bottom. One or the other is presumably considered "the best/correct way to do it", so it would be useful to see that stated somewhere. (Or a link provided to the as-yet-undiscovered-by-me place where it's already stated!) PamD 11:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support addition of specific guidance. Having a reasonably experienced editor withdraw his/her own nomination by NAC'ing their own AFD seems sensible. After all, the point of WP:NAC (my reading, anyway) is that NACs are okay where there is expected to be no disagreement with the result. That would obviously be the case if the nomination is withdrawn and all !votes are keep. It shouldn't really matter, then, if the NAC is done by the nom (which strikes me as fairly good display of good faith anyway) or some other editor. As always, WP:COMMONSENSE should apply. Also, thanks, Pam, for bringing it up - worth discussing. Stalwart111 11:48, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support addition of specific guidance. When all the !votes say "Keep" and the nominator decides to withdraw the nomination, he or she should also be allowed to make an NAC closure. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 14:17, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• I've withdrawn plenty of AfDs I've started following new evidence of notability and when there have been no 'Delete' votes cast. I think it should be an admissible NAC as long as the closer is aware of all the physical steps a manual AfD closure requires. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
• Done  See this diff.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:42, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Well, partly done. Thanks for adding that clarification to the information for closers of discussions. There is still nothing at the main WP:AfD page, to help the person who has made a nomination and now wishes to withdraw it. PamD 10:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposed addition to WP:AfD

As section 3.6, add a new section. I don't know which of (a) and (b) should be included (or anything else?)

Withdrawing a nomination

If you change your mind about a nomination, you can Withdraw it. This might be because the discussion has produced new information about the topic, or you realise the nomination was a mistake for some reason. Withdrawing a nomination can save other editors' time by cutting short the discussion, if no-one else has supported the deletion proposal.

Either: Version (a) To withdraw a nomination, add "* Withdraw" at the bottom of the discussion and give a brief explanation and sign it.

Or Version (b) To withdraw a nomination, add a note saying "Withdrawn by nominator" immediately below your nomination statement at the top of the discussion, and give a brief explanation and sign it.

You may close the discussion yourself as a WP:Speedy keep if no-one has supported deletion of the article, or you may leave it for someone else to close the discussion.

---

Comments? PamD 10:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I personally prefer version (b) as a process; it makes the withdrawal more obvious. I'd also suggest reversing the order of the last sentence, thus: "If no-one has supported deletion of the article you may close the discussion yourself as WP:Speedy keep, or you may leave it for someone else to close the discussion." Some people might not read past the first phrase... Yunshui 雲‍水 10:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Withdraw

Can a user withdraw his/her proposal for an article to delete? Even if in the discussion many users have expressed their opinion? And what happens in this case? There is any provision in the policy about that? Xaris333 (talk) 17:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• As per the deletion guideline WP:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions, nominators are within the guidelines to close an AfD, "if you are closing your own withdrawn nomination as a speedy keep and all other viewpoints expressed were for keep as well."  Unscintillating (talk) 23:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

So, if i decided that my proposal is wrong and i decide to withdraw it, the administrators must close the discussion? Or, they can decide that the discussion must go on? Xaris333 (talk) 01:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The nominator can always withdraw the nomination, just like any participant can revise their !vote.  The nominator can close the discussion as a "Speedy keep" in some cases, but not in all cases.  In the current cases being considered, the closer should either have noted that the nomination was "withdrawn" and closed as "Speedy keep", or asserted "Keep WP:IAR".  Administrators can reopen any non-admin closure.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

AfD page creation request re. Eterniti Motors

Evening chaps. Could someone create an AfD page for Eterniti Motors- Cat O, reason "This article is based solely on recycled press releases from one 'concept car'. A stillborn 'tuner company' on which we lack reliable sources fails to meet any Wikipedia guidelines regarding notability". Cheers! 118.92.203.57 (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2013 (UTC)