User:Milowent/History of Wikipedia Article Deletion Processes

This page documents the history of Wikipedia's article deletion processes.

Patent Nonsense and BJAODN (January 2001 - October 2001)

The question of which articles should exist on Wikipedia is as old as Wikipedia itself. Though the earliest Wikipedia editors and its founders wanted to embrace the wiki concept and let it develop organically while the serious work of Nupedia was conducted. But it was recognized from the outset that letting anyone edit meant that some edits would be less than worthy.

• 15 January 2001: "Wikipedia.com" launched. (see History_of_wikipedia#Founding_of_Wikipedia)
• 21 January 2001: Larry Sanger creates the "Patent Nonsense" page to guide deletion of nonsense. [3]. Material defined as not nonsense includes "Really badly-written stuff. (So correct it.)"
• 26 January 2001: The page "Bad Jokes And Other Deleted Nonsense" is created by Sanger, writing "We need a page where bad jokes and other deleted nonsense can rest in peace." It starts with one bad joke removed from the Poland page.[4]. The acronym "BJAODN" is used in later years for a growing compendium of nonsense content. Ultimately though, this page was for parking amusing content that had to be deleted. (E.g., someone added "I played the Recorder when i was in 6th grade -Zed" to The Recorder on 26 January 2001, it was moved to this page). The BJAODN page grew and grew into multiple pages of jokes and nonsense until its content was mostly moved off-wiki around 2007, but the legacy of the original page still exists as of January 2013 at Wikipedia:Silly Things.

Page Titles To Be Deleted (October 2001 - May 2002)

• October 2001: In October 2001, the true precursor to what is now Articles for Deletion was created by User:Manning Bartlett. The project had grown to about 15,000 articles by this time, and Bartlett created a page called Page titles to be deleted for the listing of, well, page titles to be deleted. The page is referenced in a Wikipedia-l discussion list post as early as October 18, 2001.
• By mid-November 2001, the page was being used by editors with basic procedures already in place.
• The directions for PTTBD were simple: "Add links to stupid, incorrect, or otherwise unwanted page titles to the list below so an admin person can find them, check to see that they are indeed not legitimate pages, and delete them." There was no provision for discussing of a listing, it was simply a list, with a short explanation for why it needed deletion. Mundane things like misspelled article titles, blanked pages, nonsense pages, were common listings.
• Although administrators had the power to delete articles, in November 2001 only Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, and Tim Shell, were permitted to delete articles, though "In the future we might add a small number of particularly trusted, responsible members to this list."
• Some basic rules on deletion policy were created by Larry Sanger in early November 2001 to complement PTTBD. His suggestions included "When in doubt, don't delete," "Do not delete anything that might in the future become an encyclopedia topic." See Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages
• Originally this page was literally at "Page titles to be deleted", in what we now call the "mainspace" of Wikipedia. On November 5, 2001, Bartlett proposed that community pages should start with the word "Wikipedia".[5] This was adopted, and is the origin of all "WP:" pages.
• January 2002: Sanger updates the deletion policy page with a link to PTTBD "for examples of pages both deleted and not deleted by admins"[6]. First recognition that what is deleted or not deleted can provide guidance in future cases. Later the link is changed to a list of deleted page titles, the precursor to the deletion log.
• May 2002: The "Page titles to be deleted" page is superseded by "Votes for Deletion".

Votes for Deletion (VfD) (May 2002 - August 2005)

• May 2002: "Votes for Deletion" page is created. It was originally given that name because the new "Phase II" Wiki software added a "voting" function. See Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion/title#History; see also [7]. Instead of what was apparently considered a big chore -- remembering the name of "Wikipedia:Page Titles To Be Deleted", and editing it to add a listing, VfD began as an automated process of clicking a button to add something to the list. See [8]
  • Like PTTBD, VfD consisted of a single page where all pages nominated for deletion were included. Snapshot - 19 May 2002
  • When an admin removed a listing, they might leave a comment in the edit summary explaining how they resolved it. E.g., "removing High speed rail w/o deletion (passed the Google test -- What more can we ask?)" (15 June 2002), August 18, 2002 - removals explained in summary
  • List entries were originally not dated.
  • No notification that the discussion was happening was put on the article itself.
• By August 2002 the automatic voting feature which led to the name "Votes for Deletion" had been removed, and the page had to be manually edited to add entries.
• 1 January 2003: 96,500 articles on Wikipedia, growing from 19,700 on 1 Jan 2002.
• 14 May 2003?: "Votes for Undeletion" (the predecessor to Deletion Review or DrV) is created. [9]
• July 2003: Standardised text for listing an article for deletion was added to Wikipedia:Boilerplate text. This text was moved to its own page in December 2003 in the MediaWiki namespace, which used to function like the template namespace.
• September 2003: The VfD discussion period was reduced from 7 days to 5 days (which it would remain until 2009). Concerns included 7 days being too long for listing, and creating too much of a backlog (all VfDs were on one page and some people thought the page was too long.) Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_7#Reducing_VfD_lag_time.
• 1 January 2004: 188,800 articles on Wikipedia
• January 2004: A separate page on the criteria for speedy deletion was created, as a fork from the votes for deletion page, noting exceptions to the normal 5 day rule for VfD discussions. See [10] (Original CSD page).
• December 2004: VFD was divided into subpages for each day.
• January 2005: The Proposal to expand WP:CSD was voted upon, resulting in the creation of speedy deletion criteria for articles with very little content, mistakenly created articles, and articles that consist only of someone attempting to correspond with the subject. See the relevant Signpost story.
• May 2005: The main VFD page, which previously transcluded all the deletion discussions from the last week, was simplified. See the relevant discussion about the change.
• July 2005: A second poll on expanding speedy deletion was conducted, among other things resulting in the creation of speedy deletion criteria for articles that do not claim any notability of their subject, serve only to disparage their subject, or simply rephrase the title of the article. See this Signpost story.
• August 2005: Discontent over the functioning of VfD was high. On August 1, Ed Poor temporarily deleted VfD in protest. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-08-08/Deletion deletion. See also Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. By the end of the month, discontent over VfD as well as its title leads to the creation of "Articles for Deletion"Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_31#Name_change_.28again.29
  • List changes.

Articles for Deletion (AfD) (August 2005 - Present)

• Discussion
• February 2006: WP:PROD process is implemented, and became policy on April 4, 2006. see [11] See original proposal by User:Radiant! (January 27, 2006). See Wikipedia:History_of_Wikipedian_processes_and_people#Deletion

• April 2009: AfD discussion period is extended from five days to seven days. Primary rationale: "AFDs should be extended to 7 days to gather more opinions and because some people can only access Wikipedia on weekends." See Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Archive_52#Proposal_to_change_the_length_of_deletion_discussions_to_7_days and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive189#Articles_for_Deletion_time_extended_to_7_days.
• April 2010: New WP:BLPPROD process, requiring at least one source on all BLPs created after March 18, 2010, with a 10-day waiting period, is implemented. This "sticky prod" process developed out of massive drama caused by mass unsourced BLP deletions in January 2010. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-01-25/BLP madness
• October 2010: Relisting straw poll to deal with lack of participation in AfDs

Topics to include

• "!voting"
• DRV (started as VFU?) (see Wikipedia:History_of_Wikipedian_processes_and_people#Deletion)
• relisting / limits on relisting

See also

• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/History_of_wiki_deletion_process
• User:Pixelface/Timeline of notability guidelines
• Wikipedia:Milestones
• 1st 10,000 edits to Wikipedia (first six weeks): [12]
• 2001 backups to Wikipedia: [13] and [14]
• nostalgia.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes/Archive ("precedents" back to 2002)