Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Read this before proposing new or expanded criteria

WP:NEWCSD

Contributors frequently propose new (or expansions of existing) criteria for speedy deletion. Please bear in mind that CSD criteria require careful wording, and in particular, need to be

Objective: Most reasonable people should be able to agree whether a page meets the criterion. Often this requires making the criterion very specific.
Uncontestable: It must be the case that almost all pages that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to consensus. CSD criteria should cover only situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Remember that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect, unless you word it carefully.
Frequent: Speedy deletion is intended primarily as a means of reducing load on other deletion methods such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. These processes are more discriminating because they treat articles case-by-case, and involve many points of view; CSD sacrifices these advantages in favor of speed and efficiency. If a situation arises only rarely, it's probably easier, simpler, and fairer to delete it with one of the other methods instead. This also keeps CSD as simple and easy to remember as possible, and avoids instruction creep.
Nonredundant: If the deletion can be accomplished using a reasonable interpretation of an existing rule, just use that. If this application of that rule is contested, consider discussing and/or clarifying it. New rules should be proposed only to cover situations that cannot be speedily deleted otherwise.

If you do have a proposal that you believe passes these guidelines, please feel free to propose it on this discussion page. Be prepared to offer evidence of these points and to refine your criterion if necessary. Consider explaining how it meets these criteria when you propose it. Do not, on the other hand, add it unilaterally to the CSD page.

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New CSD i9 proposal

NOTE: The beginning of this proposal was removed and archived: Archive - "Important I9 add needed". Soundvisions1 (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Based on various comment I must be way off with my 30 plus years of dealing with copyrights and I.P in the real world. Stifle explained it the most clear - "From WP:CSD: CSD I9 "does not include images used under a claim of fair use". No mention of credible, valid, or otherwise. Therefore the tagging was incorrect. It's there in black and white." So here:

CSD I9: Blatant copyright infringement. Images that are not used under a claim of fair use and where a URL, or other indication of where the image originated, can be found. Blatant infringements should be tagged with the {{db-imgcopyvio}} template. Non-blatant copyright infringements should be discussed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images.

Discussion

More clear, Direct and to the point. Not in any way confusing. No mention of the fair use claim having to be credible. No mention of any sort of "Stock" or "press" photos being excluded as long they have a FUR attached they are fine. Cheers. Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from removing the "stock photo" sentence, I don't think this is an improvement. I9 is written so that users don't have to know how our fair use regime works in order to upload material or so that some presumption of good faith remains (in the "credible claim of license" bit) for the uploader. We want to be able to accept a fair use claim that is a sentence or a sentence fragment, so long as it is accurate and made in good faith. I think the language of I9 can be clarified but that the meaning shouldn't be altered. Protonk (talk) 21:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- (ec with the comment below) I'd agree to remove the stock photo part, mostly because I think the disagreement in the section above came from the interpretation of that sentence ("This includes ...") as an explicit inclusion which extends the actual criterion "Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case". I don't see how the "stock photo" sentence adds or clarifies the criterion. They can still be speedily deleted if they have an obviously incorrect free license.
  It should also be made more clear which part is the actual criterion, and which part is clarification/explanation, if only by a line break. --Amalthea 13:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment:I have not see anyone (in three locations now) make any mention of Photo agencies as they are currently included in this criteria. All that has come out is that any image tagged with a FUR does not ever get tagged with an i9, which changes the meaning without being written. The meaning of i9, to me, has always seems very clear - if an image is a blatant copyvio is should be tagged as such with only one exception - if the image is a legit NFCC image and tagged as such. How this all came about is because of three images that were not legit NFCC images. Because i9 says it can be used on images images of this sort it was used. There has been quite the backlash against my use based on how the policy is currently written it did not alter anything. However the comments and indication that my use of the tags was wrong "the meaning shouldn't be altered" becomes a somewhat null point as it has already been altered. According to a high percentage of comments the one thing that can prevent any image from being considered a blatant cxopyvio is to slap a FUR on it. But for the sake of really breaking this down:

Define what makes an image a copy vio. If an editor takes an image created by someone other than their selves and uploads it under the guise of being a "self published work" is that a copyvio? I would think that it is. Does i9 cover this? Because it is claimed to be for "Blatant copyright infringement" I feel it can be used.
Define what makes an image not a copy vio. If an editor takes an image created by someone other than their selves, has received permission to use it via some means (release form, email,source listing image as PD or allowable CCL) and uploads it is that a copyvio? At face value I would say no. as long as the upload process is done correctly there should not be any issue and it should pass any sort of review if the sources are clearly laid out. Does i9 cover this? Yes it does but there would be no need to ever use it as long as the permissions were in place and can be verified.
Define what what makes an image a copy vio but safe from being deleted as a copy vio. If an editor takes an image created by someone other than their selves and uploads it under the guise of "fair use" is that a copy vio? My real world experience says "It depends". For example in real world if a picture of Times Square ran in a newspaper most everything you see in that image, that may be under a copyright, would fall under "fair use". The image itself could be used under "fair use" if it were part of something in itself. Such as an article on the newspaper that it ran in where the page the image was used on was being used an an example of the paper. If that image were taken from some other location than the direct from the copyright holder for "featured" use it becomes more clear it is a copy vio. However as real world is not wiki-world I must look at existing policy. A good place to start in this case would be the Licensing policy of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is short and to the point but does not offer a lot of specifics but one could safely deduct that, in my given example, the image itself would not fall under any "Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP)" because, with an image of Times Square, "we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose". But would it be an i9? The core purpose of i9 is to deal with images that are a "Blatant copyright infringement" so I would say yes. But if you read it this would seem to not be the case because the image would have a FUR attached thusly making it exempt for being deleted for "Blatant copyright infringement". However, the full criteria defines at least one genre of images that fall under i9 - "This includes images from stock photo libraries such as Getty Images or Corbis". So now, if my example image was being reped by a photo agency it could be removed as "Blatant copyright infringement", irregardless of any FUR. An editor can also look at Non-free content - Unacceptable use and they will find a lits of 12 items, one of which is number 6 which says "A photo from a press agency (e.g. AP), unless the photo itself is the subject of sourced commentary in the article."

So where do this leave us? Well we have editor comments such as "The source is irrelevant - the images you tagged are clearly labeled as Fair use, and therefore not covered by I9", "There are many press agency images used with a claim of fair use here", "It may be that we should not be using some specific fair use image due to copyright, but it isn't a situation for speedy deletion, it's a situation for IfD..." and of course Stifles one line reading of i9 that really prompted this proposal. So, as I have stated already, if the consensus is that, as long as any image has a fur attached, it does not qualify as a copyvio and if images from photo agencies are included, rather than excluded as the current wording implies, in this blanket FUR exemption than I say just remove that wording all together from i9 because it is irrelevant to the criteria. Soundvisions1 (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. Yes, if the image created by that third person does not also have a free license, per I9: Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case"
2. See I11. I9 does not cover it, because it's not obviously incorrect if it is (credibly ;)) claimed that the creator has released it under a free license.
3. ~~tl;dr~~ See my comment above yours for what I think might be a reason for this disagreement. Also, please understand that many images can be copyright violations and still not be speedily deletable, simply because they are not blatant enough. Those follow-up processes (WP:PUI, WP:IfD) are there for a reason. Also, I5 and I7.

Yes, if an image has FUR, it's not an I9. It might be I5 or I7 though. If it isn't any, it should go through IfD.
Amalthea 13:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's kind of strange to say that having a fair use rationale means something is fair use. It clearly does not. Fair use is defined by US law, and the inclusion of this image in our article is clearly against US law as well as against Wikipedia policy. I'm not sure how something like this could be captured in a CSD, but maybe it is an IAR issue where there is no reason to keep an image on WP where it is clearly illegal. I almost speedied this image myself rather than nominating it at IFD. In any event, I think the notion that a FUR negates I9 makes I9 kind of worthless. The whole point is to delete blatant copyright violations. To anyone who knows anything about copyright law, our use of this image was a blatant copyright violation. Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, it makes I9 the wrong tag, it should be I7. If it's a "clearly invalid fair-use tag" then it can be deleted right away, otherwise after 7 days.
  I realize now that the gory details of fair use seem to be far more eluding to me than I thought: to me it's not clear cut at all that the embassy image doesn't pass WP:NFCC. But I'll swing by at the IfD page for that. :) --Amalthea 13:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree w/ Amalthea here and I'd like to add something I've mentioned above. Our image deletion policies are written to give the benefit of the doubt to good faith attempts to tag something. Bad faith fair use tags or obviously improper fair use tags (like placing the logo fur on a stock photo so it doesn't trigger the bot) can be speedied. Images without any fair use tags can be speedied (Assuming we know they are non-free). For the rest of the images out there, we can use the pseudo-speedy deletion (the timed specific categories) process and the discussion process (which usually results in 99% of the images deleted without discussion and 1% garnering lots of participants). Wikipedia has a standing policy about coyprighted images that it follows pretty well. What we should understand as long term editors is that new users don't understand that policy at the start and their first introduction to it can be a rough one. Our guidelines and CSD criteria should be written to grant them some leeway for good faith attempts and I think the current image criteria do a passable job of that. Protonk (talk) 02:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and removed the stock photo sentence, per my first comment here. There was no crystal clear consensus for that change here, but Protonk, Soundvisions and myself seem to think that it was more confusing than explanatory. --Amalthea 21:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have gone ahead and, using the same wording already included, made it "blatantly" clear this criteria is not mean to be used on images already tagged as fair use. I also added a line about seeing CSD i7 if the image is tagged as fair use. Soundvisions1 (talk) 13:52, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What the criterion said after your change is this: "Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses and are not used under a claim of fair use". So basically, all free images. :) --Amalthea 14:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be clear from the discussion that any image in the self published category that is not marked as fair use is allowed to be an i9. However if any image, in any category, has a FUR attached it is not considered copyvio and should be not be tagged i9. In other words, yes, as you said, "all free images." But rather than revert, in the spirit of "assume good faith", lets go back to how the entire criteria was before this discussion and leave everything alone until we get a clear consensus about new wording. This means I am requesting that you self-revert your edits from December 7 that were done without any "crystal clear consensus for that change". (And for the record I am opposed to that specific change. My indication was not of support, but rather of possible confusion between the term "stock photo agency" and "press agency" or the general term "photo agency". As discussion progressed the indication, as I said above, seemed to be that images from any photo agency were exempt/excluded from being a copyvio, in which case these types of image should be excluded from being i9's and have their own set of criteria) Thanks. Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done.
Which parts of the discussion are you referring to when you say that any image in the self published category without FUR is to be regarded a "blatant copyright violation"? It's certainly not in any comment by Protonk, Calliopejen1 or myself. While I said "If an image has FUR, it's not an I9", the reverse "It's an I9 if it has no FUR" is certainly not true. How could it be non-controversial to delete an image I create, upload, and release into the public domain? --Amalthea 16:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not those exact words - I did say "So, as I have stated already, if the consensus is that, as long as any image has a fur attached, it does not qualify as a copyvio and if images from photo agencies are included, rather than excluded as the current wording implies, in this blanket FUR exemption than I say just remove that wording all together from i9 because it is irrelevant to the criteria." And others have said like statements - that, if a FUR is placed an on image it exempts it from being a copyvio. Protonk said "Images without any fair use tags can be speedied (Assuming we know they are non-free)." but also said "Bad faith fair use tags or obviously improper fair use tags (like placing the logo fur on a stock photo so it doesn't trigger the bot) can be speedied." and while it does not says that 19 can not be used it is because they said they agreed with your comments, one of which which was "Yes, if an image has FUR, it's not an I9. It might be I5 or I7 though". There was never any deduction on my part that all free images are to be removed as copyvios unless they have a FUR attached. Not even close. But rather than discuss here - look below at the 2nd proposal and lets comment on that wording. Thanks. Soundvisions1 (talk) 16:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New CSD i9 wording (2nd proposal)

(Changes in red)

CSD i9. Blatant copyright infringement. Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses , but are not sourced to the uploader, and do not include images used under a claim of fair use. ~~when this is obviously not the case~~. A URL or other indication of where the image originated should be mentioned in the nom. This does (MOVED THIS LINE EARLIER = "not include images used under a claim of fair use") ~~nor does it~~ not include images with a credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license. ~~This includes most images from stock photo libraries such as Getty Images or Corbis.~~ Blatant infringements should be tagged with the {{db-imgcopyvio}} template. Non-blatant copyright infringements should be discussed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. For any images tagged as fair use please see CSD i7.

2nd proposal discussion

Support with an "if": I will support this, with the removal of the line about photo agency's, provided there is a new criteria established that directly deals with these types of images, fair use tagged or not. Outside if this talk page there have been, and continue to be, discussions about images that originate from A.P, Corbis, Getty, Reuters and other like photo agency's and how they should be dealt with. If consensus shows they are not to be dealt with as copyvios via use of i9 than the specific mention of them needs to be removed from this criteria. If, however, these types of images should be dealt with as copyvios via use of i9 than the wording needs to be made clear that "stock photo agency's" can also be "news agency's" such as A.P or Reuters. A better all around wording might be "photo agency's". Either way the issue needs to be dealt with. Also the proposed removal of "when this is obviously not the case" wording has been done as the use of "obviously not the case" as a rationale goes against the concept of "assume good faith", but more directly it borders on the whole "fair use" argument. If an image has been uploaded and is found in the "self-published work" category and it clearly indicate its source is someone other than the uploader and if it was taken from a listed source that does not have a free use license, would that qualify as "obviously not the case"? What about if the image has a url or photo credit on it that is not the same as the uploader? If these are the only images allowed to be nominated under i9 we must find a better wording than "obviously not the case". How it borders on fair use arises from two scenarios - an image is tagged as a potential copyvio and 1> the uploader or 2> another editor, places a FUR on the image. Based on the discussion above when this happens the image is no longer considered a blatant copyvio and therefor not eligible for i9. If that is the case than the wording should be along th elines of, as has been proposed, "Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses, but are not sourced to the uploader, and do not include images used under a claim of fair use." It is plain, direct, simple and would not be open for discussion. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This would make Image:Nuvola apps edu languages.png an I9 CSD. Uploader claims it's a free image (LGPL), but it's not "sourced to the uploader" (it's from [1]), and of course it has no fair use claim.
I don't see why the source of the image should get into this at all, other than as an evidence or indication for a copyright violation, we have I4 for that. The meaning of I9 should not be changed, IMO, and the basic I9 criterion currently is:

“

Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case.

”

That's it, and it is good. It excludes images with a fair use claim (not a free license), and unacceptable licenses are already covered by I3. The rest are bells and ribbons, and need rewording, but the criterion should remain as it is. --Amalthea 19:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well aside from the image being at Commons, you said it comes from [[http://www.icon-king.com/projects/nuvola/ which states "Nuvola (from Italian “cloud”) is a free software icon set under the GNU LGPL 2.1." So there is not any issue with that at all. The most confusing thing in all of what you said was this comment: "I don't see why the source of the image should get into this at all, other than as an evidence or indication for a copyright violation, we have I4 for that." First of all how can we determine if an image is a copyvio unless we have a source? If we can not consider any image tagged with a FUR to be a copyvio and if we are not allowed to consider the source of an image it negats i9 all together. And if we can only seek out a source "as an evidence or indication for a copyright violation" in relation to i4, it makes less sense. As currently written, i4 has nothing to do with copyvios. i4 says it is for "Lack of licensing information" which would seem to cover any image that did not have any licensing information. I have no idea what you are really saying now other than perhaps combine i9 and i4, saying that if an image has no licensing information an editor is allowed to seek out a source and if one is found, and it does not have a license compatible with WP you either add a FUR or claim is as a copyvio. Which, if that is the case, I am against. I feel that i4 should not be used in place of i9. We need an i9 and there needs to be zero quesiton if it is to be used for all copyvios or only those without any FUR attached. Secondary is to determine if photo agency image are copyvios in your eyes or if they fall outside of the scope of i9. (P.S - one the other hand you said "The meaning of I9 should not be changed, IMO, and the basic I9 criterion currently is: “Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case.” That's it, and it is good." So if this all we need than make a proposal where all else is removed. But I would oppose that as well because, as I said, the phrase "obviously not the case" is too vague and wide in scope. Where would we draw the line? At this: Image:IMG 2945.jpg? or this: Image:BRITNEY SPEARS VMA08.JPG? Image:Britney Spears Belive.png? Maybe Image:Rumors - CD Cover.jpg which says "A self-made cover of my own CD" or Image:Albert-hall-cd-cover.jpg which is from Rhino Records but is sourced to Christina Lynn Johnson, MagnetLoft - Vistadeck ID 4507523 because that user took the cover photo. Or how about this one: Image:Cheap trick.jpg? That last one is from an uploader who has uploaded many other images form gving credit to the same photographer, however in this one case the uploader claims "sourced from Vicious Kitten fanzine - photo gallery www.viciouskitten.net". Are these all "obviously not the case" of being the uploaders work or being claimed under a legit free license? Of do we just tag all of these with an i4 per the suggestion that covers the license issue?) Soundvisions1 (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CSD T1

It seems to me that CSD T1(divisive and inflammatory templates) is redundant to CSD G10 (attack pages). Can anyone give me a potential example of a T1 that isn't a G10? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the same thing at all. The original example for which T1 was created was a user template by which a Wikipedia user could identify themselves as a pedophile. It was placed voluntarily by users only on their own pages, so it wasn't attacking anyone, but an outcry nevertheless ensued. T1 was decreed by Jimbo Wales, purportedly to avoid needless conflict. I'll leave out the arguments about the motives of those using the template, or the arguments of those opposing its use, but I'm no advocate of T1. Dcoetzee 19:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

T1 was next on my hitlist. How is this -

Pages that serve no purpose but to disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity (e.g., "John Q. Doe is an imbecile"), or that are divisive and inflammatory. These are sometimes called "attack pages". This includes legal threats, and may also include a biography of a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to. Administrators deleting such pages should not quote the content of the page in the deletion summary, and if the page is an article about a living person it should not be restored or recreated by any editor until it meets biographical article standards.

The addition of "or that are divisive and inflammatory" fits nicely, and also clearly includes anything T1 covers. Thoughts? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 19:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but no. We've got pages that are "divisive and inflammatory" within the community, but that an admin would have to be insane to G10. Nationalist edit war hot zones, pseudoscience edit war hot zones, and quite a few essays in Wikipedia: or User: space, as examples (WP:ROUGE). I'm not at all comfortable extending T1 outside of the Template: namespace in this way. lifebaka++ 19:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)To further clarify, I don't think any CSD should be overly-specific when it can be used for other similar situations. What about a personal essay in user-space "Why I like sex with small children"? Or category "Wikipedian rapists"? Just because it is usually templates is no reason to exclude everything else. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 19:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realize until this thread that T1 was different than G10. "Divisive and inflammatory" is obviously a judgment call. Then why do we have T1? I don't care who created it, it seems that matters that can't really be much more than personal opinion show be an MfD. Would something like Template:User Fox News Sucks count? Template:User Gay Pride? If this is a call an admin should make, it overlaps G10. If not, it should be deleted and sent to MfD (which is where I'm leaning). ~ JohnnyMrNinja 20:04, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The situation Dcoetzee put above is certainly T1 but not G10. At the same time, it's sufficiently obvious that an MfD would close very quickly or WP:IAR could be invoked to speedy it. I'm all for removing it, preferring these avenues instead. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially since most user boxes of the kind would be in user space these days, and it would already require WP:IAR to delete as a T1. --Amalthea 20:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And obviously, g10 would still cover "This user hates the Irish" or whatever. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 20:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in favor of removing T1 in favor of a combination of G10 and MfD. T1 seems to exist on the principle of stymying moral panic - if we don't make a fuss and talk rationally about the value of these things in deletion debates, there won't be a problem. Dcoetzee 23:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion seems to have died down - is there still support for eliminating T1 in favor of a combination of G10, MfD, and IAR? If I don't hear any objection in the next day or so I'll remove it myself. Dcoetzee 02:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion tags

Would there be any opposition to changing the wording of the "your page has been tagged for deletion" messages to make it clear that copy-and-pasting those messages to the article/talkpage will not help? Ironholds (talk) 10:37, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What did you have in mind? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

well the db-spam warning would become:

A tag has been placed on [[:{{{1}}}]], requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising that only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam.

If you can indicate why the subject of this article is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of [[:{{{1}}}]] and leave a note on [[Talk:{{{1}}}|the article's talk page]] explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself or copy this message on to the article, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would help make it encyclopedic, as well as adding any citations from independent reliable sources to ensure that the article will be verifiable. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this.

... or something. I'm not sure on the wording/placing but I've seen a lot of new users who seem to sign up to some kind of cargo cult mentality and assume that because the big shiny message made the article go all funny, posting it again might make the article go all un-funny.Ironholds (talk) 12:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this happening a whole lot? I worry about confusing some of our new contributors, some of whom seem to find it difficult enough to follow the directions as it is. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say one in thirty CSD's, maybe. Ironholds (talk) 20:06, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea, It seems to happen quite often to me--Jac16888 (talk) 23:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strange. Maybe you could ask one of the authors why they thought that would help? I'd be interested to know what gave them the idea (besides blind panic that their work might be deleted). Can "please add {{hangon}} on the top" be misinterpreated to copy the whole message there? --Amalthea 23:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try and remember to do that next time I come across one--Jac16888 (talk) 23:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to autofill?

Hi, are any other admins having the problem where the deletion reason stays blank when you try to delete? It used to be that if a page was tagged for deletion, and I clicked the "delete" tab, that the delete reason (A7, G9, etc.) was automatically filled in to the deletion box, so I just needed to doublecheck it and confirm the delete. Now, it's always blank, so I have to manually choose the reason again. I'm not even sure where to look to find out why this happened, so any pointers on how we can get it fixed? --El on ka 17:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is certainly related to this discussion, but I'm not sure exactly how. Happy‑melon 18:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see it's also being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#CSD automatic dropdown broken. --El on ka 18:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blitz deletions

This section was started a bit hastily by me, and unfortunately I used an admin who was acting in good faith as an example. Consequently, the section got so messed up that nobody wanted to write anything here anymore. It got restarted by the below subsection, which enjoyed some participation. Since I regret having contributed to cluttering this page, and since I believe the bot will not archive the parent section as long as the subsection does not meet archive criteria, I am archiving this section here. The section contains a number of open issues and unanswered questions; If you would like to discuss them please repost them here; I am not trying to dodge any questions, and I will answer them.

One question should be answered here already: What does "blitz deletions" mean? I meant this to indicate deletions of articles that do not meet CSD criteria, and/or that are done without considering if the deleter can improve the article, instead of deleting it. (I used the word "blitz" to indicate my impression that they are often done hastily, but I now realize that may distract from the real issue, which is if our criteria are met.) An example would be the G10 deletion of an article of a minister that contains, among some relevant information, the statement that she was a defendant before a certain International Criminal Tribunal. Such an article could be improved by (1) searching for the documentation about that tribunal and then (2a) if the person is listed there: adding the link or (2b) if not: removing the sentence. Also, it does not meet G10, because (1) the article does not only exist to disparage or threaten their subject as the article contained other information, and (2) articles about ministers exist because to document a notable person.

For the sake of peace on this page, please do not ask for specific examples. I think we don't need them because, even if this were only a hypothetical situation, I feel we need to think about how to address it. — Sebastian 08:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing the issue, not an individual admin

(title renamed from "Removing Fram from the Equation")

Ok, I have questions about the two articles Fram deleted, I mentioned them on his talk page... IMHO, they shouldn't have been deleted as G10, but had sections deleted. I think our CSD'ers sometimes need to actually edit the articles rather than delete the wholesale---which is why I don't support admin candidates without article building experience. That being said, the two cases in question were not the most egregious mistakes that I've seen---while I disagree with them, they are defendable. I'm also not as outraged about them because the articles had been tagged for a while and my big concern about CSD is biting newbies as they are writing articles... not deleting articles that have been around for a few months. That being said, I've done a couple of reviews recently how CSD criteria are applied. You can see my analysis at CSD A1 Survey, CSD G1 Survey, and CSD G10 Survey. You can also see how others have interpretted the same results on my talk page. There are two admins who have caught my attention during these reviews---one of them deletes almost everything he comes across A1 immediately--his deletions on both the G1 and A1 summary are somewhat obvious, simply look for the most egregious mistakes! I do think it is clear that CSD criteria are being used too liberally and it is a fairly widespread problem.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 17:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was indeed not helpful for me to bring up Fram. (More about this here.) So how can we get out of this mess now? I learned a lot from people's replies, and I feel it may be best if we archived this discussion now, and when I have time (maybe in a week) I could write something similar that addresses the problems and questions raised; maybe in my user space, as you did. — Sebastian 18:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that most proposals to "fix" speedy deletion suck. As a result, people generally take such proposals with a grain of salt. Some suggestions based on what I've observed from previous proposals:

Minimal extra bureaucracy. Many proposals try to "fix" speedy deletion by throwing in a ton of extra checks and balances with the end result of a system that's more complicated than AFD.
Focus on all the problems. The problem is not just careless deletions. Many careless deletions are caused by careless tagging, which is caused by the massive amount of bad pages created 24/7 and a lack of people to adequately patrol them.
Don't just shift the work. A lot of proposals try to just push the more subjective deletions onto other deletion processes. About as many articles are speedy deleted in an hour or 2 as are AFD'd in an entire day. Dumping the load on another system is not a solution, its just creating a different problem.
Non-admins cannot see deleted content. This is basically straight from the foundation's legal counsel and is pretty much non-negotiable.
Look at the problem in perspective. 5 bad speedy deletions (a completely made-up number) per day sounds like a lot, but bad speedy deletions probably make up about <1% of all article speedy deletions and maybe <0.1% of all speedy deletions. A complete overhaul to fix the corner cases is overkill.
Look at implementation costs. A new policy that requires dozens of people to radically change what they're doing, and requires massive infrastructure changes is much more likely to fail simply because it would be hard to implement, regardless of how good an idea it really is.

While I'm not saying "don't try," I wouldn't get my hopes up about a new system replacing CSD anytime soon. Mr.Z-man 20:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Balloonman, for providing some facts. (That they happened to mirror my gut feeling about CSD was a bonus. *grin*) I wonder how many of the "bad" speedy nominations get correctly declined. Some days I feel like I'm declining half the noms I come across. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best education here is pointing out mistakes. I can imagine an automated tool that goes through deletion logs and allows an admin to, in a single click, undelete a page, and tell the deleter why it was undeleted and offer an alternative course of action. They're not going to be more careful and less rash just because you suggest they're not spending enough time reviewing articles, but they may be inclined to take more care after a string of embarassing errors pile up on their talk page. Dcoetzee 01:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And what if the undeletions are in error? Is there going to be a one-click undo system for that? As the above discussion has shown, one person's "article needing refs" is another person's "blatant BLP vio." Many of the CSD criteria are by necessity somewhat subjective, personal interpretations will always vary somewhat. In any case, discussion before action (especially when many people support 0RR for admin actions) is generally a better idea, especially when it comes to things like BLPs and copyvios. Mr.Z-man 02:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CSD exists for uncontentious deletions, not as a way of quietly cleaning up damaging articles as quickly as possible. If at least one reasonable person disagrees with a deletion, chances are it's not a speedy deletion and should be reviewed by additional people in PROD or AfD. Dcoetzee 02:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP is quite clear on this:

“

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

”

BLP vios and copyvios put the project and its contributors at legal risk and reflect very poorly on the project. They should certainly not be restored just because one person disagrees. Mr.Z-man 05:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, BLP/COPYVIOS are by definition, the two types of CSD that by definition should be done the quickest... and restored the slowest. They should never be restored without discussion.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 05:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sebastian and I have worked out our problems amicably. I am glad that this thread is no longer about me :-) I agree that speedy deletions, just like every tool and policy, does occasionally gets seriously misused, and that admins (or other editors) who have a really bad track record should be warned abot this, and if needed action should be taken. But I do also believe that CSD in general works well and is one of the most needed tools / options in many cases. I'll now leave this discussion, so that my personal actions don't get confused with the general discussion any more. Fram (talk) 08:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Fram! I renamed the title accordingly, and I won't touch the section before that headline. If anyone wants me to reply to any of the questions I left unanswered there that are not related to Fram, please just point me to it and I will reply to it here. Otherwise, I will hold myself back here for a while. — Sebastian 18:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A10

How about adding "A.10 Non-article material, such as essays, rants, tributes, link repertories, etc...". I know this is stating the obvious, but right now I don't think there's a speedy criteria covering them. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Linkbombs are covered under A3, rants (at least if they attack a living person) under G10, and tributes under G11/A7, but I do like the idea in terms of pure editorials or personal essays. In reality, they frequently get IAR'd. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean rants against people, but rants in general, such as "You know, 'insert sujbect' is pretty neat. The fun fact about said subject is that altough most people disagree on most of things about culture and religion, all people would say that this is cool. 'Insert religious/pseudoreligious/metaphysical commentary on subject'. "Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) I do not see how we can phrase such a criterion so it does not lose us important content. As Seraphimblade says, link-lists, rants and tributes are usually already covered by other criteria already, so that would only cover essays mainly. But that conflicts with our current taggings of {{OR}}, {{essay-like}} or {{SYN}} which are reasons for rewrites and cleanups but not deletion. We cannot on the one hand say that written like an essay is worth keeping when cleaned up and on the other hand say it's to be deleted. Also, I do not think there are many cases where such a criterion would be needed. Regards So Why 08:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay I'll quote something that'll probably be deleted soon: Exceptional Universe Now deleted under what I propose to be A.10 :P ... . For archiving purpose, here is some excerpts from it (the rest of the article is like that).

We live in a ‘Exceptional Universe’
We live in a universe which is perhaps not comprised of just space and time but space-time-observations creating an observed event-line. Our universe is a series of observations of events made and thus may be called a Historical Universe that must not be confused with history. History as we understand today also consists of the unobserved history which is open to all possibilities.

Historical Universe is sum total of all observations to date.

Observing events creates the Historical Universe. (Top-down Cosmology[[2]])

Event-line generated is random and might be made of active(transversing) or passive observations.

...

Who are we ?

Each of us are unique observations in the Historical Universe which create new event possibilities and provide a view point in the Historical Universe for the observations to happen for the observer.

...

Implications for the real world

So what next how do it save the world and africa ?

World must observe ‘exceptional’ technology to help save Africa and control terrorists. The event-line must be managed to the right possibilities.

R&D in dual-use technology must be banned.

‘Exceptional’ management must be put in place to prevent proliferation of existing WMD.

All possible risks as currently being done should be mitigated by ‘exceptional’ interventions.

This is not an "essay-like" article, or an article with essay-like parts it is an essay. Wording can be argued over later, but that's the sort of things that would be covered by "A.10 Not an article", as well as other things covered by WP:ISNOT, such as article that are nothing but Usage guides/How-to's/Opinion pieces/mere collections/etc..., Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about something like this, to address SoWhy's concerns? "A10: An essay or opinion piece, written at a title that is not and is unlikely to be an appropriate title for an article, containing no content of an encyclopedic nature." I do see SoWhy's concern, I ran across an issue like that at Hyblaea puera, where someone was initially writing a long essay-style piece. Upon finding it nominated for speedy, I did find that it was a real insect and was able to put a stub in its place rather than deleting. However, as I said above, the "Exceptional Universe" type material, as noted above, does tend to get frequently IAR'd when it's obviously unsuitable. In this sense, we'd be having policy more codify an existing practice than suggest a new one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much yeah. But it's not only about essays, it would be sort of a catch-all thing for things that are not articles (including essays amongst others). And as always, things that are not clear-cut should go to AfD instead. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) Well, but we do have a section titled Wikipedia:CSD#Non-criteria where it says that reasons derived from WP:NOT are not speedyable, so creating a criterion like this A10 actually contradicts our current policy. Those IARs you mention are breaches of policy, nothing more. The policy clearly says that essays should not be speedy-deleted - if they are, the deleting admin should be told about this. I do not see how "we do it already anyway" is a good argument to create such a criterion. Generally I think IAR should not be an exception to CSD as it contradicts the very reason we have a strict set of criteria.

That said, I think the non-criteria are quite a good idea and we should not turn them into criteria. Essays may be quite useful as Seraphimblade points out and there is no harm to PROD them instead. To take Seraphimblade's example above, if we had such a criterion, there is a real possibility that valid articles will be tagged and deleted on sight instead of trying to salvage them into something useful. Regards So Why 09:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would be very hesitant to say the deletion of Exceptional universe as noted above is a "breach of policy" in any meaningful sense. If you were to take that to DRV, I believe you would see the decision quite ringingly endorsed, and there is certainly always this policy, not to mention this one. It is not a breach of policy to take an obviously and uncontroversially correct action just because one did not have the correct forms signed in triplicate. Also, many of our existing criteria are based in some sense on WP:NOT. G11, for example, is based on the fact that we are not for advertising, A7 on the fact that we are not a directory, and so on. As to my example above, I realistically could have probably speedied it, and the essay was rather useless in writing the article. It just happened that an article was possible there. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re to SoWhy. WP:CSD#Non-criteria's raison d'être is to prevent stuff like an article about a movie containing nothing but a plot summary to be speedied, for example, because that's something that's salvagable, or something that's written like a scientific paper obviously shouldn't be deleted, but rewritten (for obvious reasons listed in WP:Jargon). But you'll have to admit that many of the things are defacto submitted under WP:ISNOT, and get deleted very uncontroversially. What of WP:ISNOT should be admissible for speedy deletion under A.10 is debatable, sure, but let's have that debate.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Point is, we have got a list of things that should not be speedied. It exists for a good reason and that people do it does not mean the list does exempt those cases. Some people would delete anything under IAR if they think it should go, that's why we drafted a set of strict criteria in the first place. We could just create a G1 that reads "everything the admin thinks should not be in Wikipedia" and leave it to the admins to decide. As I said, I do not contest that speedy deletions like that happen, but I for one decline any request based on non-criteria and there are many admins who do the same. That some decide to invoke IAR in those cases is correct but makes a travesty out of the idea of having a set of strict circumstances in which admins are allowed to delete a page without discussion. But I digress...

My point is that there are exemptions to the WP:NOT-non-criterion but they are strict and justified. G11 only applies to blatant advertising, A7 only to articles where importance is not even claimed, etc. Creating a new criterion that basically says "if the admin does not think it in encyclopedic" allows every admin to freely decide what is encyclopedic. A deletionist admin might go ahead and delete an article that he/she thinks is "fancruft" and be well within this criterion. I think any criterion based on WP:NOT that does not currently exist is very likely to become a WP:IDONTLIKEIT-excuse for deletion, probably losing us usable content to the admin's interpretation of encyclopedic content. So Why 16:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be very difficult to create an effective CSD for articles like this, because in many cases an article that is nothing but an essay can still contain enough content about the topic that it can be trimmed down and moved to get a decent encylopedia article. I guess you could say something like: "An article which makes no attempt to describe a topic." Dcoetzee 01:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

there is no really clear distinction between an essay and a potentially acceptable article. A change in wording to the proper encyclopedic style, and suitable referencing, can rescue many an article. I don't think any one or two of us is qualified to decide definitively whether or not this is possible--it depends more if someone of the ten thousand or so active editors is willing to take an interest. Except in extreme cases, there will often be disagreement--as shown by instances that are bought to afd. There's no real need for this--the sort of essay that one would have in mind here is well dealt with by PROD. DGG (talk) 05:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with DGG — PROD can manage this; there is not the volume of articles that would require a speedy criterion. Stifle (talk) 12:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BLP

Which criterion, if any, can be used to tag an article for deletion which violates the BLP policy? I refer to "summary deletion" described on Wikipedia:Blp#Deletion and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff#Summary deletion of BLPs. Thanks. Martin 22:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usually {{db-g10}}, {{db-blp}}, or {{db|your reason here}}. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

zzuuzz is correct - if it is such a violation of BLP, it is almost always disparaging and thus a reason for WP:G10. Otherwise it has to be handled like any other BLP violation, e.g. reverted to a neutral version and, if needed, the vandalising edits removed from the edit history. So Why 22:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate mistitled articles

Resolved

I'm surprised to find no criterion for duplicate articles? I just tagged Congress of the People (COP-SA) with a custom db template. In this particular case it was a duplicate of content found at Congress of the People (South African political party), but with no obvious use as a redirect to the original article (FYI no-one anywhere has ever used COP-SA as an acronym for the party, the correct acronym is COPE). There were no incoming links except from bots. The only criteria that is relatively close is for duplicate images. I feel that in this case a speedy was justified even though it doesn't fall neatly into one of the CSD criteria. Perhaps a new criterion should be added. Zunaid 08:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it is non-controversial and a mistaken creation, removal is maintenance and G6 covers it. You can also turn it into a redirect and then R3 it. I would not propose a new criterion for this, as mostly those things can be turned into good redirects and for those few which can't, G6 or R3 should cover it nicely. After all, in most cases they are good faith creations by new users, potentially including good, new content and we should give people time to merge that information to the existing article before deleting it (and people usually redirect and (sometimes) R3 it when they have done so). Regards So Why 08:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In this particular case it was created mid-November, compared to October for the better-titled article. I did initially turn it into a redirect but then db'd it after some thought. I see it has been deleted as R3. Zunaid 08:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CSD notifications

There's a discussion about making the CSD notices fit the "uw-" style user warnings at WT:UTM#UW templates for CSD, which would be a good opportunity to unify the three different notices (manual, Twinkle, Huggle) we have a the moment. --Amalthea 14:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possible new criteria CSD G-13

CSD G-13 for jokes. Example: Erko Lopskanen is a ski jumper born 9738. He has the world record with 394778 metres. I think we need a joke criteria. The Rolling Camel (talk) 20:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This would be covered under G1, G3 or A3. Happy‑melon 20:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly not G1, this in no way fits G1. A3 possibly. G3 yes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Balloonman (talk • contribs) 17:30, 2008 December 16 (UTC)

I can't think of anything that would qualify for a "joke" criterion, but not for one of G1, G3, A1, or A3. I also would point out that we explicitly don't have a criterion for obvious hoaxes, which seems to be more what The Rolling Camel is looking for. Attempts to propose a "hoax" criterion in the past have always failed because some surprising topics look like hoaxes without context, but actually aren't (e.g., Exploding whale). If I understand this proposal, I don't see it as something that's likely to gain consensus. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A joke like the one above is probably a A7 - after all, we cannot say anything about the notability of someone yet to be born ;-) So Why 22:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I mean that we schould have an criteria for articles that is a joke/hoax so we dont need to take them to to prod or afd. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elin Sen is a good example of why we need CSD G-13. The Rolling Camel (talk) 11:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's completely different from the example you gave. The article in question gave a realistic sounding age, and (to someone not familiar with the metric system) a realistic sounding achievement. Such pages are explicitly not covered by CSD. In many cases, they turn out to be true. Mr.Z-man 01:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am taking at least three hoax articles to prod and afd evrey day. We need an criteria for hoaxes that is simply hoax and nothing to say about it. for example Elin Sen with not a single hit on google or something else. The Rolling Camel (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google is not the ultimate source of all information, especially about obscure and historic subjects. Its perfectly possible for something to sound like a hoax and have few google hits but still be true. And your contributions don't seem to back up the statement that you are nominating at least 3 hoaxes every day, the only AFD I saw that you started for a hoax in the past several days was the one for Elin Sen. What you are proposing has been proposed and rejected many times in the past. You're going to need a better reason than "we need it." Mr.Z-man 20:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Screenshots of software that was stolen

Here's a fun one I'm currently in the midst of trying to figure out what to do about.

On Windows 7, we have a couple of essentially single-purpose editors, one of whom writes like this, who are insisting on including a screenshot of what it known as "build 6956" of Microsoft's upcoming operating system. Now as we know, any screenshots of Microsoft software are generally done so under fair-use. In this particular case, however, "build 6956" was actually stolen from Microsoft at a trade conference by a Chinese hacker, and the build was placed on Bittorrent sites. Microsoft never intended for this build to be distributed to anybody, so it is essentially theft. Everyone who is reviewing this build on popular tech news sites is using this illegally-obtained build.

(As an aside, there are people who are pursuing the belief that this leaked build of Windows is somehow a "release"... yeah, sure, and if I were a musician, an invited friend of mine came over to my house, made a copy of an album I was working on without telling me, then posted it on the Internet, that would be a "release". Right. Of course.)

But what really concerns me is this: Wikipedia is hosting images of software that was obtained illegally, and we cannot be certain that Microsoft won't pursue legal action against the Foundation for doing so. The counter-argument to this that I'm getting is, "well, other web sites are showing these images, therefore we can too"... but when it comes to copyrighted material, that's not the measure by which we decide what to include in the encyclopedia, is it?

In short, I want to see File:Win7 build6956.png deleted, but we don't have a clear CSD criteria for it. Any opinions on the matter would be welcome. Warren -talk- 02:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that crimes were committed in order to obtain an image does not make it any more illegal. If I trespass to take a picture, or get kicked out of a museum for taking a picture, I am still the sole copyright holder, and I can use or license the image in any way I want without penalties. This is no different. There's a question of whether we "encourage" illegal action by accepting these type of images - we certainly shouldn't be requesting people to go out and do illegal things to get pictures. But once the picture is available, the damage is already done - often by someone who knows nothing about Wikipedia and was not motivated by a desire to upload it here. This image might get deleted if it goes to AfD - this is a grey moral area - but I would vote keep. It shouldn't be speedy deletable. Dcoetzee 02:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly, in this case, the software is copyrighted by Microsoft, the person who pirated the copy and made a screenshot has no copyright as there is no creativity. Everything except the upload itself is Microsoft's work. Mr.Z-man 05:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like IFD is the way to go. Illegality of an image is a bit beyond the CSD, I'm afraid. As for the legal concerns, it'll go through the OTRS if anything's going to happen of it, so unless one of those guys comes along with a ticket I wouldn't worry about it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 04:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IFD is the way to got, yeah. As Dcoetzee put it, the picture does not become illegal because the software it depicts was obtained illegally. It is not the copyright of the one taking the screenshot, true, but the screenshot itself is not bound to the legality of the product it shows. So it should be treated as we treat all screenshots - copyright owned by Microsoft and it's just a question of fair use. I dare say that this should even qualify as fair use, especially if it aids the article which describes the theft (like "picture of the stolen release's desktop..."). Regards So Why 09:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Screenshots of this build has been published by Paul Thurrott (editor of Windows IT Pro Magazine), the same who public the current "valid" screenshot. Anyway... I dont think is illegal Sotcr Excuse my English (talk me) 23:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Revising wording of CSDi7c to deal with borderline NFCC#8 cases

There has been ongoing discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content about editors using subjective opinions to speedy delete large amounts of borderline WP:NFCC#8 violations. Recently, for example, one editor decided that all music video screenshots fail WP:NFCC#8. Per CSDi7c here, that editor then mass tagged those images for speedy deletion. Because WP:NFCC#8 seems to be open to hugely different interpretations, this leads to lots of heated conflicts. The people who maintain those criteria refuse to change the wording of the criteria, however, for fear of setting the bar too low. They respond that borderline cases should not be speedy deleted, but should go to WP:IFD instead. Per that idea, I would like to propose that CSDI7c be changed from:
"Invalid fair-use claims tagged with subst:dfu may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid non-free use rationale is not added."
to:
"Clearly invalid fair-use claims tagged with subst:dfu may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid non-free use rationale is not added."
Kaldari (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that if the image has everything that is normally required for meeting NFC (license, all required parts of the FUR filled out) and the only issue is that an editor thinks the provided purpose or reason isn't satisfactory, CSD cannot be invoked - that would be like CSD'ing an article that one thinks is borderline notable. These cases should always be discussed in some venue (IFD seeming to be the best place, even if this is just removing one use of an image that is valid on another page). Obvious if the rationale is missing a required part such as the source, then CSD is appropriate after the 7 day warning, as that's an objective metric. --MASEM 18:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

agreed,anything, for which a reasonable good faith argument can be made, does not belong in speedy. And if any established Wikipedia contributor disagrees with an admin, the it's a goodfaith disagreement, and that the community should decide. Masem';s analogy to articles is exact, and on encountering deletions by any admin thinking otherwise, the first step is to bring each clear instance to Deletion review. DGG (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the existance of CSDi7c is problematic, in that it always involves a judgement call. If NO use rationale is given, that falls under CSDi6. If an obviously incorrect rationale is given, that falls under CSDi7a. The item in question is explicitly used when a rationale is given, and another editor finds that rationale inadequate (look at the referenced template. It appears to me that Masem is actually arguing for the elimination of CSDi7c (I agree with that elimination) by saying that if "an editor thinks the provided purpose or reason isn't satisfactory, CSD cannot be invoked". Do I misunderstand this issue? Cmadler (talk) 15:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that CSDi7a and CSDi7c are slightly different, as CSDi7a deals with fair use tags and CSDi7c deals with fair use claims (which could entail a lot of different factors). Kaldari (talk) 20:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so you're saying that fair use claims that are patently invalid (can you give an example?) should be speedy deleted, while if there may be a dispute it should be sent to IfD? I'd accept that, but I'd like to see examples of what might be acceptable versus unacceptable speedy deletions? Cmadler (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One obvious example would be a fair-use image that is only used on a disambiguation page (as it fails NFCC#9). Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support this change, per Masem, DGG, and Kaldari above. But I worry (like Cmadler?) that even with the word "clearly", the clause may still get abused. Jheald (talk) 01:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If a non-free use image appears only on a disambiguation page, wouldn't it be sufficient to 1) remove it from the dab page per NFCC#9 and then 2) CSDi5? I wonder if part of the problem is that NFCC is based on usage, but the fair-use claim(s) is/are placed on the image page? Image deletion seems like a poor solution except when, as in the above example, after removing all inappropriate uses, no use remains and then CSDi5 applies. See, for example, the heated discussion on WP:NFC talk regarding the use of logos for sports teams. Such a logo might be clearly acceptable in one place but clearly unacceptable in another place (NFCC#8 in that discussion); image deletion is not an option here. Cmadler (talk) 15:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have appreciated being informed of this discussion and would like to clarify the situation as to what I have done with the music video screenshot category. Having discovered that a number of images in that category are used for illustration or decoration only, with little or no critical commentary, I have decided to "audit" this category for compliance with the non-free content criteria. It is my intention to go through further categories in turn once I am finished with this one.

On an alphabetical basis, I examine the files in that category one by one
If the image is obviously not a screenshot of a music video, I delete it under I7a
If the image has no source, no copyright tag, or no fair use rationale, or is orphaned, I tag it accordingly and move on
I look at each and every page where each file is used (most are used on one page)
If the image is being used in the article about the artist where the artist is still alive, I tag it as replaceable (unless it obviously is not) and move on
If the screenshot is used in the context of a "music video" section, there is any commentary on it, and it is more than just an image of the artist in no context, I ignore the file and move on
Otherwise, I tag the image as possibly failing NFCC#8 with the disputed fair use rationale template
For images I tag, I check back a week to ten days later to see if the image has been de-tagged, deleted, or if a rationale has been added, and act accordingly

However, there are several incorrect assertions that I wish to correct:

I have not decided that all music videos fail NFCC#8
I have not mass-tagged all images in that category, or any category for deletion
While I am tagging the images using Twinkle, this is solely to perform three edits (to the image, the article where it is used, and to notify the uploader) expediently. I am manually looking at each and every image.

Whenever any editor has contested the tagging of an image, either by messaging me or removing the tag with any explanation (and you can check my talk archives for this), I have sent the image to IFD for discussion.

It's worth noting that this process gives seven days for anyone who opposes the deletion to save the image — the uploader is directly notified, and anyone who views the image or article is also put on notice of the deletion — which is more than an IFD, and images are deleted at IFD anyway if there is no opposition.

I don't think that this change is desirable, and I am very concerned about the attempt to put it through behind my back. I also agree with Cmadler's point that this is effectively trying to abolish the criterion, and that may even be ultra vires for us because of the WMF's rules on exemption doctrine policies. I suggest that discussion of this significant change should be put on a subpage here and listed on WP:CENT for a wider audience.

If, after proper discussion, the consensus is that this third part of NFCC#8 should be abolished, I will of course respect that consensus. In this case, I would anticipate listing the images at IFD instead, or in blatant cases (for example, where the screenshot is included with no section or discussion whatsoever about the music video) removing the image from the article and tagging it as orphaned. Stifle (talk) 11:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For completeness, during this process I also tag album/single covers for failing NFCC#3a if there are multiple covers used in an article where one would suffice. But that's tangential to this discussion. Stifle (talk) 11:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And finally (for now), if this does pass, I propose deferring it for (say) ten days, so that images tagged before it comes into effect are grandfathered. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

G6 - proposal from "archive"

(This was still active - "new i12"?)

Proposal

How about this: (Changes/additions in red)

G6 - Technical deletions. Non-controversial maintenance, such as temporarily deleting a page to merge page histories, deleting dated maintenance categories, deleting images categorized as "Self-published work" where the parent article has never existed or has been deleted and that are non-encyclopedic, or performing uncontroversial page moves.

I have been experimenting with the {{db}} tag per lifebaka's suggestion along with the reason of "Orphaned image from "deleted article". (See CSD G6 or G8)" which sort or works but I think Skier Dude hit the nail on the head with their suggestion. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further Discussion

That reads okay to me. Have you publicized this suggestion elsewhere? It can help get enough participants to reach consensus. :) A good location might be WT:IUP or even WT:IFD. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I came here from the post at WT:IFD, read the proposal, and thought "WTF does that mean?" After reading the above discussion, I'm still not quite sure. It seems the original discussion was to address images uploaded for self-promotion that don't quite meet WP:CSD#G11, but then it changed to address orphaned "unencyclopedic" images in general. I don't really see the point of the latter (that's what WP:IFD is for, and IFD gives anyone who cares a chance to find a use), and if the former is really a problem perhaps G11 should just be clarified with respect to orphaned images. Anomie ⚔ 18:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

reply: This discussion (and proposal) is/was not solely about "images uploaded for self-promotion" at all. It is/was about any user created image that is orphaned, or otherwise un-used, that is "blatant" in it's unencyclopedic-ness. Questions were asked, examples of images given, and over the course of the discussion this has gone from a new CSD concept to simply adding wording to an existing CSD. There are many examples given above and as G11 only deals with "Blatant advertising" it does not cover all user created images that turn up at IfD. And G11 is already used for images that fall under that criteria. Images can still be sent to IFD if there is a question about them being encyclopedic but this would prevent, for example, the "becky" images that were orphaned when the user page for Girl-Fix-Er , was deleted from being sent to IfD. Soundvisions1 (talk) 18:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid using the word unencyclopedic, I suggest changing the proposal to read something along the lines of "...and that cannot be used in another article." WODUP 20:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

reply/question: We use "unencyclopedic" for describing images already, why would it be different in this case? Soundvisions1 (talk) 20:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<facepalms because it doesn't say unencyclopedic> I think that whether or not something is encyclopedic is more subjective than if something can be used in another article. WODUP 02:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am dense right now I guess. You said "To avoid using the word unencyclopedic..." In the comment I thought you were replying to I said "...that is "blatant" in it's unencyclopedic-ness" and "Images can still be sent to IFD if there is a question about them being encyclopedic..." but now you say "facepalms because it doesn't say 'unencyclopedic'". Or are you suggesting to just remove the word "unencyclopedic" from all the existing criteria, tags, guidelines, policy and so on? I would be against that as the word is as common here as "notability" is. Take a random look at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2008 November 16 and see how many images are listed as "Unencyclopedic" as part of their IfD description/reason. Soundvisions1 (talk) 04:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, no, no. I facepalmed because my first post was to avoid the word unencyclopedic, but that word isn't used in the proposal, non-encyclopedic is. I goofed. I'm not suggesting to remove the word from where it already exists in criteria, etc., but with this proposal, I just think that the meaning is more clear when it's replaced with wording that mentions the image's ability to be used in another article. WODUP 04:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't believe that any changes are necessary, but if we really want them I'd highly suggest making the adjustment to G8 instead of G6. G6 is for technical uses of the deletion tool, nothing else. Deleting any page, except to merge histories or similar (the common cases are listed in G6 already), under G6 is simply not acceptable. The nature of the proposed addition is more in line with G8 than with G6. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

reply:G6 or G8 makes not matter to me as I think either of them basically fit now, and G6 was the suggestion above so I went with that. If there is consensus for adding to G8 instead cool beans by me. Soundvisions1 (talk) 20:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

← Just checking in on this. Does the phrase "deleting images categorized as "Self-published work" where the parent article has never existed or has been deleted and that are non-encyclopedic" get inserted into G6 or G8? The suggestion was G6 and however one editor has said it should be inserted into G8. other opinions? Soundvisions1 (talk) 12:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like adding such a precise image-specific prescription to a general criterion. Could this be an extension of I10? Happy‑melon 14:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't seem in the spirit of G6 to me. My interpretation of G6 is that it should be something that everyone involved, even the people who originally created the deleted content, are likely to see as routine maintenance: just a little messiness to be cleaned up. E.g. I used it this week on a malformed AfD nomination that had been replaced by a proper AfD with a better name. The criterion itself lists history merges as another such case: nobody minds that you're temporarily deleting something to do a history merge, because it's only temporary. By contrast, a self-published unencyclopedic and unused image is still likely to be something the self-publisher wanted to put there. It's reasonable to put this under a speedy category, but I don't think G6 is the right one. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Double articles?

Do we have any criteria for double articles? See this case San Carlo (Poschiavo). The Rolling Camel (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can just redirect or merge such things, as I already did. There's no need for deletion. — Gavia immer (talk) 17:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... But i can't redirect pages. The Rolling Camel (talk) 17:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, establishing a redirect is usually preferable to deletion, because it makes it less likely that the duplicate article will be recreated. To create a redirect just replace the redirecting article's text with #REDIRECT [[Insert text]], replacing "Insert text" with the name of the article to which you want the redirect to point.Cmadler (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CSD G5

Is G5 (Article created by banned user) really still needed? Cause my about 6 months as new page patroller, I have not one case of G5 (although maybe it is because I focus on n00b's pages instead of established ones'). So do we really still need CSD G5? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC) [reply]

It isn't the kind of thing new page patrollers will have to deal with, since they aren't familiar with the habits of many banned users. There is a longstanding rule that banned users' edits can be reverted on sight and without discussion and this should extend to creating new pages too (which normal users can't "revert"). There were about 140 G5 deletions in September of this year. Hut 8.5 12:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Ok. I get it. but why do we have G5 in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)~~ [reply]

~~See WP:BAN#Enforcement by reverting edits. Hut 8.5 12:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

Oh, my bad. Just forget it, end this now... Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of A7

This conversation at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Remove_A7 may be of interest. Dloh cierekim 00:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in my latest survey on CSD'd articles per A7.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 07:27, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed clarification for A7

I would like to make what I hope is a con-controversial change the wording of A7 a bit to emphasize the core criteria: No mention of any claim to notability and the limited article categories it applies to. The implicit "this does not apply to school articles" will become explicit. I also added PROD as an option. The underline and ~~strike-through~~ are for comparison only and will not be in the final version. If making "no schools" is a hangup I'll remove it and re-propose with a trimmed down version.

Change from:

A7. An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types, including school articles, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at articles for deletion instead.

To:

A7. An article about a real person, an organization other than a school (e.g. band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. A7 does not apply to any article that makes any non-trivial claim of significance or importance even if that claim is not supported by a reliable source. Other article types, including school articles, as well as articles that make any non-trivial claim of importance or significance, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If ~~controversial, as with schools,~~ there is any doubt thtat there is a non-trivial claim of importance, or if there is an obvious claim of importance that can be easily added, improve the article if you can propose deletion of the article, or list the article at articles for deletion.

Without the markup it looks like this:

A7. An article about a real person, an organization other than a school (e.g. band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. A7 does not apply to any article that makes any non-trivial claim of significance or importance even if that claim is not supported by a reliable source. Other article types, including school articles, as well as articles that make any non-trivial claim of importance or significance, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If there is any doubt thtat there is a non-trivial claim of importance, or if there is an obvious claim of importance that can be easily added, improve the article if you can, propose deletion of the article, or list the article at articles for deletion.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rationale: I've seen comments on talk pages and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to the effect that A7 is overused and administrators are too quick to delete rather than checking if it's a validly-applied tag. This should reduce that somewhat. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The new wording, allowing claims of notability to provide absolute immunity against A7 deletion regardless of their sourcing, seems too strong to me. I don't want to allow A7s for articles with valid but unsourced notability claims, but sometimes articles make claims that are blatantly false and that should not prevent deletion. Also, I think "non-trivial" may be too low of a bar. The likely consequence I see of such a change, if followed, is a lot more pointless AfDs such as this one that I initiated last night because an article did not meet the strict letter of the A7 criteria. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am conservative when it comes to A7. PROD and AFD, even one that is closed quickly due to WP:SNOW, is preferable if there is any hint of notability. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the reasoning behind the suggested changes, but am concerned the suggested text is too long and repetitive. Also, although you want to make its meaning clearer and remove ambiguity, as said above by David Eppstein, people will now be making their own interpretations of "non-trivial". For example, an article says, "My brother Joe Bloggs is the best skateboarder in the world", and a quick Google search shows no mention of this guy or his skateboarding expertise. Is this a non-trivial claim that could qualify under A7? Somno (talk) 04:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would either be a hoax claim, which qualifies under a different criteria, or a not-easily-verifiable claim, which should be discussed at AFD. "My brother was the best skateboarder in the world in 1923" would ether be a hoax if the best skateboarder or even the major skateboarders of the day could be identified easily and it wasn't him, or a claim that needs to be discussed either on the talk page or at AfD if there's no easy-to-lookup evidence to support or refute the claim. Who knows, maybe this guy was the best skateboarder and he got significant dead-tree national press for it. I would vote DELETE on any AFD for any article like that which didn't provide verifiable sources. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't My brother was the best skateboarder in the world in 1923 qualify as nonsense? Gnevin (talk) 16:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You mean because skateboards didn't exist in 1923? Maybe, but it's a stretch, and this illustrates exactly the problem with tightening what passes as A7: there ar a lot of articles that clearly do not belong in Wikipedia, and the more we make A7 not apply to them the more we will end up with the other categories being misapplied to delete them anyway, because the reasoning behind the tagging is not "does not make an assertion of notability => let's delete it", it's "this is a bad article => let's delete it => which speedy category applies". If we let a lot of articles escape A7 deletion that were previously deleted that way, we're still going to have to delete most of them (because the vast majority of A7-deleted articles really do deserve deletion) and it's a question of whether they can still be speedy deleted somehow or whether we're setting ourselves up for more work in AfDs. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<ec>Clearly, we have a conundrum. Of course, A7 does not apply to the above. Some delete such as nonsense or vandalism-- false claims. The conversation @Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Remove_A7 might interest you. The article mentioned in the third heading was tagged under G10 originally. I trimmed it down. I researched. I found no WP:RS. The only possible claim was hopelessly entangled in BLP. It was not a reliable source. I retagged as A7 for another admin to look at it, and it was deleted. There are some articles that should obviously, incontravertibly be deleted that do not meet a strictly interpreted CSD category. Policy needs somehow to reflect that, unless we are willing to continue to rely on admin judgment as the sole arbiter of when to use common sense. Cheers, Dloh cierekim 04:27, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally, I prefer credible claim... 'credible claim to notability.' This gets rid of the 'my brother is the greatest skate boarder alive.'---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 04:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also would prefer credible or plausible to nontrivial. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<ec>Somno, your points about length are well-taken. Do you have suggested wording that would achieve the desired goal: Fewer incorrect A7's, with correspondingly more correctly-tagged CSDs, and where no CSD legitimately applies, more PRODs, AFDs, and articles not nominated for deletion? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:30, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree w/ David. Swap credible for "non-trivial". This change is fine. I prefer that CSDs be narrow, precise and descriptive. I don't think this will fix the problem of borderline A7 tagging but it will allow for a clearer "this is how you are messing up" message. Protonk (talk) 04:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Good clarification, bad change in the exemption for schools. Take that out and it's great. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about this?

A7. An article about a real person, an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content, people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. A7 does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. If the claim's credibility is unclear, list the article at articles for deletion.

It's shorter and removes the PROD option, because if the claim to importance may be credible, then the article's deletion would not be "non-controversial". Somno (talk) 05:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure removing the PROD option is needed. PROD is intended to say "This isn't speedyable but I don't think anyone will disagree with deleting it." Anyone during that point can come along and say "Yes, I do disagree", and require a full AfD. Basically, it's an AfD where even one keep argument stops the process and requires a full discussion. It's entirely appropriate in a case like: "This article claims that this person invented several different breakthrough medical techniques, but I can't find a single source to support that." Articles like that go through PROD all the time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's true. It's up to the editor to decide whether it could be controversial, so it should spell out both options. How about this then?

A7. An article about a real person, an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. A7 applies only to articles about web content, people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. A7 does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.

Includes PROD and improving the article yourself as options again. Somno (talk) 09:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's still got the schools bit. A school is an organization, and "Foo School is a school in Barville. John Baz is a student there and is the coolest kid in the world." is still speedyable. "Foo School is the top rated school in Bar" is not, as it contains an assertion of significance, but that's already covered. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I left that there because it seemed to be a large part of the changes davidwr was proposing. My aim was to shorten his suggestion, but leave the schools part there for further discussion. Somno (talk) 09:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The existing A7 criteria already says "Other article types, including school articles, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion.", making it clear that school articles should not be deleted using A7 criteria (that does not stop it being deleted under other criteria which I think your above example could be.) This has been in the criteria in various forms for a long time because schools are very rarely actually deleted at AFD (merges and redirects are much more common and many high schools are kept) and are usually controversial enough to not be the uncontroversial case that speedy deletion is meant to be for. Davewild (talk) 09:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I think that's what davidwr was trying to make more obvious to CSD taggers. Somno (talk) 13:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like the above changes but have a question. An article was deleted which a DJ claimed to have 15000 listens . Too me this is a assertion of notability. Should be define or quantify what is a assertion of notability Gnevin (talk) 16:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's impossible, and kind of the "I know it when I see it" type thing. Without any context, "15000 listens" or any form of "That number is large" without context aren't any form of assertion of significance—we live in the Internet era, you could get something listened to 15000 times by pure mistake. On the other hand, if it asserted he's had five good reviews from major sources, there's a contextual assertion of notability. If it asserts that he's sold 15000 albums...maybe, very borderline but maybe. These still of course has to be backed up eventually, but would render it non-speedyable. There's got to be context for a number to have any meaning. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another issue for A7

If we are going to discuss A7, I have another issue to bring up. Most of the criteria are fairly straight forward: An attack page is clearly an attack page, a copy vio is clearly a copy vio, and while G1 is the most misapplied tag, it is also fairly clear. If somebody is writing an attack page, they can expect it to be deleted quickly. There are a few tags that can result in premature speedy deletions. The problem that I see with A7 isn't that it is misapplied, but rather it is applied too quickly. One of the big problems that CSD'ers face is that they delete articles before giving another person a chance to salvage it. EG the author saves the first draft of an article on somebody they KNOW is notable, and it is deleted before they have chance to even make a second edit. This can be fairly frustrating. I would love to add some criteria to the effect of, "articles whose presence on wikipedia that will not harm the project should be prodded first rather than speedied." This gives the author a chance save the article.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 10:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not, that guts A7. Garbage articles with no assertion of significance do harm the project by making a farce of it, and prods can be removed by anyone whether in good faith or not. If someone can't even answer that most basic of journalistic questions, "Why would anyone possibly care?", with the first edit, they should be drafting in userspace, learning to write better, or learning what this project is and is not for. If they won't do either of those, and will instead leave in a huff, well, sorry, but good riddance. Sure, we want editors, but we should want good editors. Not everyone is suited. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not in anyway talking about the articles that say, "I'm the best person alive." I'm referencing the one's that are "John Smith was the Republican candidate for the Ohio Senate." That article may not meet our notability requirements, but it does no harm being on the project for 5 days while a PROD expires. The ones that people may be working on. As for creating in user space, guess what, most newbies don't think to do that. Heck, I often forget---and I've had several articles speedily deleted because I was saving my work. There is a reason why CSD has a bad rep, and it is because there are overeager admin's who will delete an article 2 minutes after it was created. This turns people off big time to the project. We need a way to curb those types---it is that type of CSD'er that gives CSD a bad name and why CSD'ers find it increasingly difficult to get the bit at RfA. Having an article on Wikipedia for 5 days saying "John Smith was the Democratic candidate for the Ohio Senate" will not hurt the project. Plus, who knows, John Smith might actually be notable for something! The claim is weak, but it is viable, and it could be something that could reasonably be expanded into something. As for removing it, yes it can be removed, which is why you watchlist the page---and if it is removed you can then tag it for speedy. Or you can explain that the PROD gives them 5 days to assert notability, or it could be speedily deleted.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 10:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we are going to fix that by changing the wording. I would just spend more time at CAT:CSD and use {{Hasty}} where it applies. We can't instill an editing philosophy through template changes. Protonk (talk) 10:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy having Hasty Built into A7. That would take care of my concern. My concern is really to prevent CSD'ers from deleting works in progress. Or similar language---"Articles that meet the criteria for A7, but are written in an encyclopedic manner should be given an hour for the author to assert notability."---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 10:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just think since that the template is physically incapable of distinguishing between genuine works in progress and joke pages (my brother is so awesome...), we shouldn't bother trying to force this into the wording or the template syntax. Admins and other CSD patrollers are the methods to protect against that. Technical means will just create headaches and overhead for the 'good guys' while only mildly inconveniencing poor taggers. Protonk (talk) 10:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does {{Hasty}} actaully create a template/hold on the article so that it doesn't show up on admin pages? If so, then the wording could be guidance to consider adding it to articles!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 13:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) I would personally view candidacy for a major public office as an assertion of significance (though not by any means an ironclad assertion of notability, but that's outside the realm of speedy to determine). But as the recent farce with BLP has suggested, "harm" is highly subjective and has no place in consideration here. "Hasty" similarly has no place, speedy deletions are meant to be, well, speedy. If something is appropriate for speedy it should go as of right now, if not it should go through PROD or AfD. A speedy does not prohibit an appropriate article being written at the same title. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think removing A7 would be a net negative, and amending it would not solve the perceived problem, which is that admins (and I hold my hands up among the guilty) may be deleting articles which don't strictly meet the criteria. In this case, the policy is right, but the enforcement needs to be tweaked. Stifle (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing A7 would completely overload the other deletion processes. More articles are deleted under A7 than though AFD, PROD, A1, A3, G11 and G12 combined. Hut 8.5 13:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is not about getting rid of A7.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 13:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are proposing to completely change the purpose of A7. Right now it aims to weed out articles which don't have a chance of surviving other deletion processes. You are proposing to limit it to the much smaller group of articles which actively harm the project by their existence, which in practice will be the articles on the lines of "Fred is a 13 year old who goes to Somewhere Secondary School". The resulting criterion will be nothing like the current one. This will, as I said above, have the side effect of hugely increasing the load on other deletion processes, and the only systematic study of the correctness of A7 I know of found that very few articles deleted under A7 would have a chance at AfD, so there would be very little gain for the extra effort involved. Hut 8.5 14:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A7 as it stands now is not for articles which would would not survive the deletion process this is a totally incorrect interpretation. It's for article which make no assertion of notability . I like the above addition of makes no credible assertion of notability Gnevin (talk) 16:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Er, not at all. What I am proposing is common sense and should in reality already be followed---but isn't. If an article shows any value, then put a minimal pause on it. Articles about "Fred goin to somewhere middle school" is still vanity article with zero redeeming value. "JAne Do was the republican nominee for the Texas state senate" The Jane Do article won't survive an AfD as is, but who knows there might be a notable article behind that one... keeping it does zero harm to the project.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 16:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Balloonman I think has it fundamentally right, but we would need to find some way of wording it that will not be overused, and persuade people to do more of the new article patrol not on the most recent page of articles. I am not sure we can. It is often clear from the very beginning of an article whether or not there is any potential, and, for somewhere between ¼ and ½ the people deleted in A7, there is very clearly none. For bands and companies, it's much harder to tell, because the next part might perfectly well talk about notable recording, or business accomplishments: "X was founded by A and B in B's garage" can lead to quite a number of things, some of them very highly notable.. Obviously, if no more is said very soon the article will be deleted vlidly under A7, but the authors need a chance. DGG (talk) 20:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They already have a chance. Well, many of them. They have the chance to read the advice the article creation page provides and get it right the first time. If they don't, they have the chance to read the advice the speedy warnings give. They have the chance to place {{hangon}} and explain what's going on. They even have the chance to recreate an appropriate article if the first one that made no assertion is deleted. There's no lack of chances here even if we leave speedies being speedy. Speedy is commonly flooded, and it's one of the best quality control mechanisms we have. The last thing we need is some type of mandatory "waiting period". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The better way to approach this if you're concerned is probably too just spend some time at CAT:CSD at this point. II | (t - c) 23:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]