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.

this header: view • edit

New proposal - lack of inline referencing

Lack of ~~inline~~ referencing is a bit of a proxy indication of whether an article is speedily deleted. There are exceptions of course, such as new disambiguation pages. At present we keep unreferenced articles, except for BLPs which go off to become a BLPPROD. I would like to see a harder line taken on all articles that need references. The onus should be on the article creator to supply sources otherwise we will carry on with keeping unsourced articles cluttering up maintenance pages and dragging the quality of WP down - not to mention the time wasted by editors in fixing it all up.

I would like to propose a new criteria whereby if any new^(update) article does not have any ~~inline~~ referencing it can be deleted.

I am surprised that WP decided on the BLPPROD procedure after the Seigenthaler incident rather than creating the speedy deletion criteria that I am proposing. We have to be especially vigilant with BLPs. They are common new pages and if not referenced the contents is harder to verify. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This has been proposed often before and always rejected. There is no requirement in policy that articles must have inline references - they are only required for quotes and things that are challenged or likely to be challenged. So, since there is not even a rule that inline references must be included, it would be strange to delete articles for not following that nonexistent rule. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this is entirely a non-starter for the reason listed immediately above. Jclemens (talk) 00:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok what about any sort of reference? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - No references but benign -> BLPPROD. Contentious/negative without impeccable references -> G10. No references, benign, without any assertion of importance -> A7. Blatantly promotional -> G11. What else is really needed there? Jclemens (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - No references. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - You can PROD it. →Σ τ c. 00:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Then it gets removed, it goes to AfD as a contested PROD, and then it gets deleted. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        And the problem with this is...? Jclemens (talk) 06:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        A waste of time, the quality of new articles remains low, and the reputation of WP suffers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:59, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        So are you suggesting that articles that start out like this or a large number of the pages listed here should be speedily deleted? →Σ τ c. 07:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        For the first example that you give: yes, and for the second: no. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Could you explain why? This has no references. Wouldn't it fall under the criterion you proposed, or is that article only a false positive? →Σ τ c. 07:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I only checked some of the links on the template that you gave as an example. The ones that I checked had refs. Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic has no refs so it should be deleted. Alternatively it could be sent out of article namespace to user or project namespace. Obviously it is an article that WP should have but it needs refs. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 08:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        It's an article WP should have, and you want to delete it. →Σ τ c. 21:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Don't twist your words or my words. What WP "should" have is up to the WP community. I believe that WP should have articles on notable topics (and therefore verifiable with sources). -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed that the people who prod and speedy can't tell parenthetical or within text, "As Johnson says in his Dictionary...;" and have great trouble with general references already; resulting in inappropriate and rude deletions. I wouldn't trust them with carte blanche. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a very bad idea for many reasons. At the top of this page are several general principles that all speedy deletion criteria should meet, one of which is that everything (or almost everything) that can be deleted under the criterion should be deleted. That isn't the case here: an article which is sent to AfD lacking sources is not going to be deleted for that reason if someone can find a source. There is no policy or guideline which specifies that articles lacking sources should be deleted. If the article cannot be sourced that's a different matter, but the question of whether sources exist on a certain topic is too subjective for speedy deletion. We only bypass this principle in the case of BLP PROD because many editors believe those articles are actually harmful, that's not the case here. I should also point out that this proposal would result in the more-or-less immediate deletion of 230,000 articles, the vast majority of which are encyclopedic. (For comparison we only deleted about 260,000 articles in the whole of 2011 and the most frequently used deletion reason accounted for about 70,000 of them.) Hut 8.5 11:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I only meant the proposal to apply to new articles in the same way as BLPPROD. The existence of the 230,000 unreffed articles is another reason for my proposal. Note that some of them date back to 2006 and every subsequent month adds another couple of thousand articles. The rationale of my proposal is to avoid the waste of time with PRODs and AfDs. We should make the article creator responsible for supplying refs. Editors are busy enough running around fixing up stuff that is already on WP without having to sort out the daily flood of new articles. I could paraphrase Thomas Watson of IBM and say "I don't think there is a need for more than 4 million articles on WP".^joke -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - AfDs and PRODs are not a "waste of time" in this case. This proposal would make sense if being unsourced was a reason for deleting something and AfDs of unsourced articles always resulted in deletion. However being unsourced isn't a reason for deleting something and these AfDs do not always result in deletion. Deletion is for problems which cannot be fixed at all or which would require a complete rewrite to fix. Being unsourced is in the vast majority of cases a fixable problem and in any case we don't delete articles with fixable problems just because no-one has bothered to fix them yet. Hut 8.5 21:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - I did not imply that PRODs and AfDs were always a waste of time. Sure, being unsourced may be fixable but the onus should be on the editor who created the article - not on everyone else. Alternatively the new article can be shoved into project namespace so everyone can work on it. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - Being unsourced is, in the vast majority of cases, a fixable problem (and in any case it would have to be an unfixable problem in the vast majority of cases to justify a speedy deletion criterion). The fact that an article has a problem isn't a reason to delete it, even if the creator should have created the article without this problem. This isn't merely an issue with sourcing: we don't delete articles which are uncategorised, don't have links to other articles or which have NPOV problems etc, even though the processes which deal with such articles are usually heavily backlogged. Fixable issues are only considered justification for deletion when the article is being actively harmful, such as in the case of problematic BLP content, and content which is merely unsourced doesn't fall into this category. Hut 8.5 22:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, it may be a fixable problem but the onus should be on the editor who created the article. They wrote it so they must have sources so they should add them to the article. Your comments about uncategorised, orphan, NPOV articles is a red herring. My proposal is specifically for new articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        How are they red herrings, exactly? If an editor creates a (new) article which has NPOV problems, isn't categorised, isn't wikified, or is an orphan, then surely by your reasoning we ought to delete the page - after all the editor who created the page should fix the problems themselves and deleting new pages with these problems would help people trying to clear backlogs. Yes editors are expected to include references when they create articles but that doesn't mean that if they don't do so the page should be deleted. This is a wiki. Pages are not expected to be perfect and if a page has a problem which needs fixing then fix it. If it can't be fixed or we cannot wait for it to be fixed, then - and only then - can the page be deleted. What you're proposing here is a fundamental shift in that longstanding principle. Hut 8.5 00:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What Hut said. There is a vast difference between being sourced and being sourcable. Failure of the latter is a reason to delete, failure of the former is evidence of need to improve the article.
By the way, thank you for striking the part of the proposal that explicitly required all sources be included in-line in the first version. The choice of putting sources as in-line links versus links at the bottom versus within the text itself is purely a style choice and has nothing to do with the reliability of the source or trustworthiness of the content. Requiring new users (and even experienced editors) to become expert at the arcane formatting of in-line links is an unreasonable standard. Some editors find that format very easy, others would rather poke their eyes out than deal with that trivia. The power of a wiki is that volunteers can all contribute what they like, knowing that other editors with different expertise and preferences will continue to help move the page forward. Rossami (talk) 17:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why does the deletion of articles for lack of references (as opposed to BLP or copyvio problems) have to be speedy? I have seen no reasons for speed, and if the intent is to encourage sourcing then ample time should be allowed. WP:PROD seems quite adequate. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- As I stated in the intro: to improve WP, to stop time wasting, and to avoid another Seigenthaler incident. PRODs take too long. By the time we get around to deleting an expired PROD a dodgy WP article would have made news all round the world. And come to think of it why should we clutter article namespace with PRODs? Why not shift them to user or project namespace where thay can be worked on at leisure? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So if the article on coal balls was created in the state it currently is, but without references, you would speedy it under the pretext of preventing another Seigenthaler incident? →Σ τ c. 21:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is an unreasonable and hypothetical question so I will not grace it with a direct answer. If such a long and detailed article was created without references, and in the unlikely event that it did happen it would be a suspected copyvio or it will go to AfD, tagged with a stack of maint templates, hang around for many years and eventually it might become a respectable article. With my proposal the onus is put on the author to give sources. A much better idea all round. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Piling on, per what so many others have said, this is not a necessary or desirable criterion and contrary to the purpose of speedy deletion, which is to remove irredeemably bad articles, not ones that just need a bit of work. AsI explained to the user making this proposal just a week or so ago, perfection is not required at the instant an article is created, and many fine articles started out as unreferenced sub-stubs. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, bring it on!! I like a bit of the old argie-bargie!! What I am suggesting is a method to remove the bad articles. We will not improve WP if we only remove the "irredeemably bad articles". As for the Gajendra Ahire article which I had twice put up for a speedy, it is now sitting around as a BLPPROD. It is the very thing that supports my proposal. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - I fail to see how that supports your case; your new CSD template could have been remoed just as easily as the other two. Oh, and I've had to remove the BLPprod, as it contains one reliable source. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 20:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - But the speedy template will have to be removed by an administrator. And if the article does not have any references the admin will have to delete the article. One less poor quality article that all other editors don't have to deal with. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - No, actually, any editor in good standing other than the primary author can remove a speedy deletion tag. Jclemens (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Ah. Ok. Didn't know that. But an editor of good standing would not remove a speedy tag if there is justification. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - (edit conflict) So you're proposing new rules for this new criteria as well? Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 21:11, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Not sure what you mean. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I was referring to the rule that any editor can remove the speedy tag except for the creator, which I guess you were unaware of. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 21:34, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I think Alan meant is that noone will remove it if it's correct - that's most likely true but not the point. The point is: both speedy criteria and BLP-PROD can be removed by editors if they believe that they do not apply.
        That said, one should keep in mind that removing BLPs without sources is exactly why BLP-PROD was created in the first place - as a compromise and explicitly not as a speedy criterion. Since there was never any consensus to speedy delete BLPs without sources, proposing to delete any article without sources is unlikely to gain consensus - as this discussion shows. Regards So Why 21:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Consensus can change. Consensus is only a snapshot at one point in time by one group of people. I have yet to see an argument against my opinion that my proposal will improve WP. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I didn't realize you were still waiting for that, so here goes: many good articles would be lost, edit wars would occur between overzealous taggers and others who invoke IAR and common sense, and newbies would be lost (not the newbies who spam their company info over and over, but the good-faith newbies who have always believed that if they post a one line stub on a new medical condition, someone somewhere will add to it). Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 23:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I have been busy fighting spurious and fallacious arguments! What you mention happens anyway. I would argue that my proposal will drive away bad editors and bring in new ones - ones who see that WP is making attempts to become more robust and more accurate. There are sufficient warnings and sufficient methods for an editor to create a decent article so there is absolutely no reason for some of the rubbish that we see at WP:NPP. An editor can create an off-line draft, a user namespace draft or use WP:AFC. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't seem to even realize that what you are proposing is a radical departure from traditional purpose of speedy deletion. Look at the top of this page, point #2 for new CSD proposals: "it must be the case that almost all articles 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." Many unreferenced articles get improved during the course of an AFD and are kept, so there is no such precedent that would justify overturning the fundamental purpose of speedy deletion, which is to quickly remove hopeless articles. The other processes for more marginal or debatable cases deliberately take longer so that articles are given a fair chance at being improved up to WP minimum standards. You would need a much bigger forum than this talk page to affect such a substantial change to the purpose of CSD, which it is now clear you have an rather incomplete understanding of anyway. Your proposal has clearly been rejected, I suggest you find a better use for your time and/or come back with a proposal more in line with what CSD is intended for. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Less of the patronising tone please. I realise that I am suggesting a departure from what is "traditional" (BTW I dont know of any traditions in real life that needs to be kept). Whether it is radical is a matter of opinion. I am tiring of the beating my head against a cyber brick wall. I seems impossible to change the status quo in order to improve WP. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a case of institutional inertia blocking a new idea, it is a case of a proposal so grossly out of line with what CSD is intended for that literally nobody has as yet shown the slightest agreement with either the proposal itself or the stated reasoning behind it. Things can and do change here, but if you want to make a change as fundamental as this one you need a very compelling, quantifiable reason to do so. Not seeing that here, and apparently neither is anyone else. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Your cmt right above Beeblebrox's outdent: Sorry, but I simply don't agree with you (and given that not even BLP's were allowed to be speedied, I don't think many others do either) so I'll close with this: "bad editors" are not the ones creating one line stubs on topics that cannot be deleted via another CSD category. I agree with you about the...err..."trash" at NPP, but your proposal would simply remove many of the few decent ones submitted there. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 00:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to Alan's response to me above) Yes, consensus can change but (and that's the important part) you need to make a convincing argument why it should. And that would have to be one that would not only convince everyone who previously opposed speedy-deleting BLPs without references but also those who supported it limited to BLPs only. So far I (and apparently almost everyone else here) does not think your argument is solid enough. I understand that you believe it to be convincing but since you don't seem to have convinced anyone with it, you might want to reconsider whether it's really as convincing as you think it is. I'm happy to change my mind when someone shows me that my ideas are stupid (and I assume most people here think the same) but so far I have to agree that your proposal will be more harmful than good to the project. Regards So Why 09:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose the problem in the Seigenthaler incident was that someone introduced false information into the pedia. Some people have jumped from that to the assumption that reducing the amount of unreferenced information will protect us from having false information in the pedia. There is an alternative theory that the more bitey we make our processes the more retaliation we can expect. My preference is that we keep our systems as non-bitey as possible, and that we focus on problematic areas such as contentious BLP statements, death anomalies and information sourced from partisan sources. If we really want to reduce levels of vandalism in the pedia all we need do is introduce flagged revisions and at least make sure that every edit by a newbie or IP is looked at at least once..... Ϣere SpielChequers 17:48, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Another question. If the intent is force editors to cite sources from the start, are there possibly other ways of doing that short of threatening speedy deletion? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{unreferenced}} doesn't "force" it but points put the problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose It is a bad idea is as well stated by Hut and Rossami. It is not a good idea to chastise new editors by immediately deleting their work. Far better is to advise them on the importance of verification and to allow the Afd process to work, if appropriate. I have been looking at the list of unreferenced articles from October 2006. Of the first six that I looked at, five had good, easily found, references. (I admit that I avoided looking at the song titles and the Lusophony Games.) One article was more difficult, and I had to add a brief "History" section to get a reference that would apply well. But, if we have outstanding unreferenced articles from October 2006 for which it is easy to find appropriate citations, then finding those citations must not be a priority for Wikipedia editors. If any of you believe that this is a problem, I suggest that you fix a couple of those unreferenced articles. Many hands make light work. --Bejnar (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A question about G7

G7 currently reads:

G7. Author requests deletion. If requested in good faith and provided that the only substantial content to the page and to the associated talk page was added by its author. (For redirects created as a result of a pagemove, the mover must also have been the only substantive contributor to the pages prior to the move.) Note that this does not apply to user talk pages, which are not deleted except under very exceptional circumstances: see WP:DELTALK. If the sole author blanks a page other than a userspace page or category page, this can be taken as a deletion request.

However, as a former new-page patroller with about two years of experience, I can tell you that this is almost never the case. In those years that I was a new page patroller, I think I didn't encounter a single instance where the blanking of the page appeared to be a deletion request. In fact, when they did blank the page, it seemed to be for the opposite reason: they wanted to save the article by removing the CSD tag (by blanking). So why can blanking by the sole author be considered a deletion request? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've certainly marked articles as G7 in the past where it was clear that the reason for the blanking was that the creator wanted the article deleted. Indeed, it isn't a rare occurrence, and many new users seem to think that by blanking the article they are actually deleting it. It's not difficult to find cases where blanking is done to try and get the article deleted, after a few minutes searching I found Freedom, Inc from a couple of days ago. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But usually when this happens, it was already tagged under a different CSD tag, right? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:19, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not always but often, yes. But in most of those cases, it's usually correct to assume that they wanted to delete the article because they felt intimidated by the deletion tag or because they were informed that their page is not within our guidelines and they wanted to do the right thing. For me it's a part of AGF to assume the latter if I have no reason to believe otherwise. Regards So Why 09:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that many editors understand that there is a difference between blanking a tag and blanking the whole page. Blanking the very work you are trying to save seems like a very odd error to me. I've deleted lots of G7s and I've never had an editor come to me and say they just blanked it so they could start again and they didn't meant to get it deleted. I have declined a G7 where the author blanked, someone tagged it G7, the author then replaced that with a revised version of the article and the tagger restored the G7 tag. But thankfully such incidents seem rare and are best dealt with by declining the speedy. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When a blanked page is tagged G7, the reinstatement of the article in a "revised" version is a strong assertion against the G7 speedy, though other criteria might still apply. However, we need to wait for the article creator to reinstate the article after the G7 tagging to see that indeed G7 does apply. If no action follows the G7 tagging, then it's a clear-cut G7. Otherwise, nothing prevents the article creator from resurrecting the article, and since no talk page message is issued for a G7 speedy, the creator might not even know that someone manually deleted his article. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 15:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

F7

Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{di-replaceable fair use}} may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability. If the replaceability is disputed, the nominator should not be the one deleting the image.

What number of days is an appropriate delay if a justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability and the replaceability is disputed? If the answer is still two days, I suggest writing this more clearly as:

Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{di-replaceable fair use}} may be deleted after two days. If the replaceability is disputed, or if justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability, the nominator should not be the one deleting the image.

If the answer is seven days, I suggest writing this more clearly as:

Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{di-replaceable fair use}} may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability. Otherwise they may be deleted after seven days, and the nominator should not be the one deleting the image.

Regards, Martin (talk) 20:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Came looking for a criterian, didn't find it (turned out to be R1/G8)

Earlier today I discovered a redirect page whose target had been deleted (Southern Border (disambiguation)). "Surely," I thought, "there must be a speedy deletion criterian for this." So I came and looked. I found the section on criteria for Redirect pages. I noticed that there was no "R1" and wondered what it might have been. I was puzzled to find that nothing seemed relevant to the "deleted target" scenario. I checked the "invalid criteria" section to see if maybe R1 had previously been relevant, but had been stricken from the list of acceptable criteria. And then I had used up all the time I had to wonder about it, and I went ahead and put the page on RfD using Twinkle. Only after an administrator closed it speedily and cited G8 did I figure out what had happened. I see a lot of past discussion about this, so I can only assume that the current state of affairs reflects consensus. However, I will just say it would be a lot easier for someone in my position if the Redirects section could include some sort of explicit statement like "R1 depricated; see G8". At least then I'd have known where to go looking. Just one guy's two-cents' worth. --Rnickel (talk) 00:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We already have that information; it's in the "Deprecated criteria" section. I've gone through the existing criteria sections and added a little thing for each repealed criterion: "[criterion name]. Repealed; see the deprecated criteria section below." Nyttend (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Outstanding! That would have helped me a lot to find what I was looking for. Thank you very much. :-) --Rnickel (talk) 17:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unbundle delete for some U1 and G7s

Watchers here may be interested in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Allow_any_logged_in_editor_to_delete_their_own_U1_and_G7_cases it is similar to a proposed change from some time back that I think got consensus but would have required a bot. Ϣere SpielChequers 21:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(I am over 30k) How to use a speedy template?

I am over 30k edits, and still I have to search at least two pages to get a speedy template right. Why cannot I find the procedure & templates in a single page? WP, stop telling me I am stupid. -DePiep (talk) 22:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen WP:FIELD? →Σ τ c. 22:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mean: search three pages to get a speedy? No I haven't. -DePiep (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest Twinkle? It gives you an easy dialogue box on the page from which you can select the correct template, which is automatically added to the page. That's assuming of course that you have a basic grasp of the different criteria and can remember which one goes where with a one line description...very useful for me. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 22:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you may suggest Twinkle. And I decline the suggestion right away. I know you are in (A)GF, but this is not what I asked for. WP:SPEEDY should do the job, in single page. Is not TW an outside thing? Like AWB, HOTCAT, and every other app while I ask for a basic thing: how to do a speedy? The SPEEDY page cannot explain how to do a speedy? -DePiep (talk) 22:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh in that case I completely agree with you. The only policy-based page that is concise and informative enough for me is WP:VRS. I just wan't sure if you were looking for the template names, which Twinkle easily provides. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 02:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Never saw VRS, but usualy I look up WP:42. Or WP:UAUQLUE, as I remember it by easy mnemonics. Still, after some deep thinking, there is nothing speedy in there. -DePiep (talk) 02:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with the instructions at Wikipedia:CSD#Criteria? Assuming you know how to place a template on the page they should be clear enough. Yoenit (talk) 15:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The History of G7

I researched the history of G7 as part of deciding how to vote in a recent DRV. Because some might be inclined to do the same in the future, I'm posting this on this page to save those users the trouble. Of course, there are probably some regular readers of this page who will enjoy reading this anyway. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 03:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ratification and early development of G7 (2005-2006)

G7 was not one of the original criteria for speedy deletion. It originated as one of many potential criteria proposed for addition in January 2005. Of those, only three – the items which would later become G7, A3, and A4 – were ratified by the community. G7 was ratified by a vote of 156-21. The newly added criterion provided for the deletion of:

Any article which is requested for deletion by the original author, provided the author reasonably explains that it was created by mistake, and the article was edited only by its author.

On January 16, 2005, SimonP did the honors of adding the three new criteria, including the earliest version of G7. Our understanding of G7 can be informed by some of the instructive comments which were made around the time of the vote.

MarkSweep wrote, “If you see a valid article listed for speedy deletion, you can try to prevent its deletion by editing it (it may still get deleted for unrelated reasons). Also the original author nominating it is supposed to 'reasonably [explain] that it was created by mistake'. Ideally, trying to explain that a perfectly valid article should be deleted would not come across as a reasonable request, so it cannot be deleted under the proposed policy item.”
Dori wrote, “This is a matter of courtesy. Even if the article is perfectly good, if no one else has edited it, and the author regrets his decision to put it here, we should honor it. It's just a matter of being a good host of information. People should want to contribute here, it should not be trap of any sort. Once someone else has contributed to it, even if to correct a single spelling, then we can no longer delete it as a matter of courtesy. It doesn't have anything to do with 'owning' it. The author has the copyrights. Due to the GFDL we are legally OK with keeping it. I argue that it would not be morally OK.”
Thryduulf noted, “If someone else was going to add something to it, they can recreate it themselves.”
Skysmith explained, “If the writers realize their mistakes and want them corrected, all the better.”
Isomorphic noted, “Of course, we are not obligated to delete an article just because the author requests it.”

As these comments demonstrate, the crux of G7 when it was ratified by the community was the “mistake clause,” which read, “provided the author reasonably explains that it was created by mistake.”

Even in 2005, there were already complaints about the CSD being too byzantine. On November 24, Radiant! removed the mistake clause as part of his broader attempt to make the entire policy page simpler. There was a thread on the talk page about his changes, but it did not include specific discussion of the removal of the mistake clause. On December 20, 2005, David Levy restored the mistake clause, “the lack of which changes [the criterion’s] meaning to something radically different than what was intended.”

On January 9, 2006, R3m0t added a blanking provision to G7 for the first time, after this talk page discussion. This marked the end of the early development of G7; it would be static, with both the mistake clause and the blanking provision intact, for over a year.

Major changes without discussion (2007)

On February 11, 2007, Steel significantly changed G7 by removing the mistake clause. Steel did not explain or discuss this edit anywhere on-wiki, nor was the edit prompted by any on-wiki policy discussion that I can find.

I looked at Steel's deletion log to find an impetus for his edit. On February 11, 2007, he deleted the following pages under G7:

19:17, February 11, 2007 Steel (talk | contribs) deleted "Eric Grete" ‎ (CSD G7)
19:19, February 11, 2007 Steel (talk | contribs) deleted "Greenfield school" ‎ (CSD G7)
20:22, February 11, 2007 Steel (talk | contribs) deleted "File:Antigay.png" ‎ (CSD G7)

That last one preceded his edit to WP:CSD by only 13 minutes, making it the likeliest candidate. As best as I can tell without the ability to view deleted edits, the image was associated with a userbox which Steel was also deleting. At 19:49, he deleted Template:User homophobia under T1, “divisive and inflammatory.” He informed the userbox’s creator, User:PatPeter, of the deletion, prompting a hostile discussion. It appears that PatPeter recreated the userbox in his userspace (at User:PatPeter\User homophobia); Steel deleted it under T1 at 20:08. It appears that PatPeter then recreated the userbox a second time in the same location. What happened next I cannot say without access to deleted edits; however, at 20:22, Steel deleted the userbox under U1 (user request) and the associated image under G7. It’s possible that PatPeter tagged the pages for deletion; it’s possible that he blanked one or both; and it’s also possible that Steel interpreted this comment as a request for deletion. Regardless, after these deletions, Steel made no further edits and took no further admin actions before making his edit to WP:CSD. So why did he make the policy edit? My educated guess is that the file he had deleted did not strictly meet G7 because it was not “mistakenly created,” so he sought to change the policy so it would be less restrictive. His edit was not reverted, and thus it became ingrained in the policy.

On the next day, February 12, 2007, Ais523 added to G7 a requirement that deletion must be requested “in good faith.” According to his edit summary, he did this “to address the reason why the bit just removed from G7 was there in the first place using a different method.” It does not appear that this was discussed, but it was not reverted and thus became ingrained in the policy. It’s safe to assume that “in good faith” was meant in the standard Wikipedia sense of the phrase, i.e. without malice towards the project.

In a brief April 2007 discussion, an editor expressed concern about the removal of the mistake clause. Two administrators responded, indicating that they had no problems with the “in good faith” wording.

Exceptions to G7 are carved out (2008-2010)

Without the mistake clause, G7 was at least technically far more expansive than it had been when the community ratified it. In the period 2008-2010, five exceptions were carved out of G7.

On July 24, 2008, Rossami added an exception for redirects created after page-moves.
On August 9, 2008, Ned Scott added an exception to the blanking provision for pages in userspace, in the wake of these two discussions.
On November 20, 2009, Dank added an exception to blanking provision for categories.
On December 12, 2009, Davidwr added an exception to the entire criterion for articles with other substantial contributors to the associated talk page.
On May 27, 2010, JamesBWatson added an exception to the entire criterion for user talk pages.

During those years, there were a few discussions on WT:CSD which provide important clarifications of G7:

November 2008: A group of administrators concludes that admins can decline to delete under G7 articles which were not contributed to Wikipedia by mistake. They extend this principle to allow the undeletion of articles which were previously deleted under G7, upon request of a potential contributor to the page.
February 2009: There is a general sentiment that G7 should not be used in instances where deletion is contested. However, the examples used in the discussion are bad-faith requests, so the problem of contested good-faith requests is not really examined here.
March 2009: Again, there is some sentiment that G7 deletions are a “courtesy” that does not have to be extended to contributors. However, the ethical problems with “forcibly tying [a contributor] to a biography unwanted by the subject” are raised, and some editors acknowledge the appropriateness of deletion in such cases. This discussion is directly relevant to this deletion review.

Since 2010, G7 has been more or less static.

TL;DR The original intent of G7 was to allow contributors to request the deletion of pages they created but now regard as mistakes, and even though that clause was removed from the criterion in 2007 (by a single administrator, without discussion or explanation), it’s still an important undercurrent running through our understanding of G7. If an editor adds an article to Wikipedia and comes to regard that as a mistake, administrators are encouraged – but not obligated – to kindly extend them the courtesy of deleting it. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 03:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]