Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion

Rewrite of WP:BEFORE; what we really expect before nominating

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Result: BEFORE updated by Siltork: [1]. Further discussion is located below. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

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In a thread higher on this page, though other things were involved, I opined that the problem with WP:BEFORE is that it does not address what we are actually looking for. The most common bad nominations are those citing to notability but failing to perform any search for sources before nominating, and many users are seemingly unaware that notability (and verifiability) do not require sourcing to be present but to exist. A simple search for reliable sources before nominating is by far the most common thing people are looking for "before", that they are criticized for not doing, and which, when not done, results in nominations that cannot succeed, thereby wasting everyone's time.

I have never seen a nomination criticized for not checking what links here, not looking at interlanguage links, and others on WP:BEFORE's unprioritized list of things to do; have you? But the policy section currently lumps together a mishmash of pre-nomination suggestions without giving guidance as to what we are really looking for or any framework. I suggested some new language, which a few other agreed with, and promised I'd attempt a more complete rewrite to re-focus the policy section to address this issue. Below is my proposed replacement text. The front end is the new part. I have done little with the list below it (though there may be a much better ordering, cutting and rewriting to do there as well), except to remove items that have been folded into that prioritized front end. Without further ado:

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Rewrite

• The most important thing you should do before nominating an article on the basis of lack of verifiability, notability concerns, and any other bases where poor sourcing or lack of sourcing is at issue, is to make a good-faith attempt to confirm that sufficient reliable sources don't exist.
• The minimum expected is a Google Books search and a Google News archive search, which in most cases should take only a minute or two to perform. A good nomination where sourcing is at issue will describe what steps were taken to confirm that sufficient reliable sources are apparently unavailable. Many nominations have been criticized in the past where such explanation is not provided—especially where those coming to the nomination are easily able to find sufficient sources themselves.
• In the event you find that adequate sources do appear to exist, the fact that they are not yet present in the article is not a proper basis for a nomination. This is because both the verifiability policy and the notability guidelines do not require adequate sources to be present in an article but to exist, and it is well settled that AfD is not the correct method to seek clean up of an article or address lack of available sourcing. The general rule of thumb is that if the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD.
• What you can do in this situation is to apply an appropriate template to the page that flags the sourcing issue that led to you considering nominating the article. Common templates include {{unreferenced}}, {{refimprove}}, {{third-party}}, {{primary sources}} and {{one source}}. For a more complete list see WP:CTT.
• Although sourcing, or the lack thereof, is a common touchstone of many nominations, there are others, including those listed at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. For a general treatment of policies and guidelines upon which a nomination may be grounded, see Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines to cite in deletion debates.

Please consider also the following before nominating an article:

1. Read and understand the Wikipedia deletion policy (WP:DEL), which explains valid grounds for deletion. Some pages should be improved rather than deleted.
2. Read the article and review its history to properly understand its topic. Some articles may have been harmed by vandalism or poor editing. Stubs and imperfect articles are awaiting further development, and so the potential of the topic should be considered.
3. Read the article's talk page, which may provide reasons why the article should or should not be deleted; if there was a previous nomination, check that your objections haven't already been dealt with.
4. If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider turning the page into a useful redirect to an existing article – something you can do yourself without opening an AfD case – or proposing it be merged (see {{merge to}} and {{merge from}}). Uncontested mergers do not require an AfD.
5. If the article is not already tagged to note an existing problem, consider applying a tag, such as {{notability}}, {{hoax}}, {{original research}}, {{unencyclopedic}}, or {{advert}}; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
6. Check "What links here" in the article's sidebar, to see how the page is used and referenced within Wikipedia.
7. Check any interlanguage links, also in the sidebar, which may provide additional material for translation.
8. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines and policies on notability, reliable sources, and what Wikipedia is not. Related guidelines include WP:BIO, WP:COI, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, WP:WEB, and, for list articles, WP:CLN. See more generally, the previously mentioned List of policies and guidelines to cite in deletion debates.
9. If the article was recently created, please consider that many good articles started their Wikilife in pretty bad shape. Unless it is obviously a hopeless case, consider sharing your reservations with the article creator, an associated WikiProject, or on the article's talk page, and/or adding a cleanup tag, instead of bringing the article to AfD.
10. Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion or proposed deletion.
11. If you expect the AfD page will be edited by newcomers to Wikipedia (perhaps because the article is linked from some visible place outside Wikipedia), or if you notice this happening, you might want to insert the {{Not a ballot}} template into it.
12. If you are not logged in, you won't be able to create the AfD discussion page. You could either log in, sign up, or request an account first, or request that a logged in user complete the nomination on the article talk page.
13. It is recommended that you describe the steps you have taken to check that your nomination is appropriate. This may prevent duplication of effort and inoculate your nomination from being labelled as spurious or thoughtless.

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:50, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

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After reviewing the posts below (thank you for participating), I am going to implement some of the suggestions, but doing so directly above would leave the discussion logically fragmented, so I will do so below in a collapsed post (click show). All changes from the above will be colored like this paragraph, so they can be easily seen. I have not touched the issue of getting rid of any numbered points below the front end except 11 and 12 which I just removed, as multiple people agreed on them.

Implemented suggestions

• The most important thing you should do before nominating an article on the basis of lack of verifiability, notability concerns, and any other bases where poor sourcing or lack of sourcing is at issue, is to make a good-faith attempt to confirm that sufficient reliable sources don't exist.
• The minimum expected is some type of search that tends to concentrate reliable sources, such as a Google Books search and a Google News archive search

Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. Such searches should in most cases take only a minute or two to perform. A good nomination where sourcing is at issue will describe what steps were taken to confirm that sufficient reliable sources are apparently unavailable. Many nominations have been criticized in the past where such explanation is not provided—especially where those coming to the nomination are easily able to find sufficient sources themselves.

• If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating. However, if a quick search does find sources, this does not always mean an AfD on a sourcing basis is unwarranted. If you spend more time examining the sources, and determine that they are insufficient, e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic, then an AfD nomination may be still be appropriate.
• In the event you find that adequate sources do appear to exist, the fact that they are not yet present in the article is not a proper basis for a nomination. This is because both the verifiability policy and the notability guidelines do not require adequate sources to be present in an article but to exist, and it is well settled that AfD is not the correct method to seek clean up of an article or address lack of available sourcing. The general rule of thumb is that if the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD.
• What you can do in this situation is to apply an appropriate template to the page that flags the sourcing issue that led to you considering nominating the article. Common templates include {{unreferenced}}, {{refimprove}}, {{third-party}}, {{primary sources}} and {{one source}}. For a more complete list see WP:CTT.
• Although sourcing, or the lack thereof, is a common touchstone of many nominations, there are others, including those listed at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. For a general treatment of policies and guidelines upon which a nomination may be grounded, see Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines to cite in deletion debates.

Please consider also the following before nominating an article:

1. Read and understand the Wikipedia deletion policy (WP:DEL), which explains valid grounds for deletion. Some pages should be improved rather than deleted.
2. Read the article and review its history to properly understand its topic. Some articles may have been harmed by vandalism or poor editing. Stubs and imperfect articles are awaiting further development, and so the potential of the topic should be considered.
3. Read the article's talk page, which may provide reasons why the article should or should not be deleted; if there was a previous nomination, check that your objections haven't already been dealt with.
4. If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider turning the page into a useful redirect to an existing article – something you can do yourself without opening an AfD case – or proposing it be merged (see {{merge to}} and {{merge from}}). Uncontested mergers do not require an AfD.
5. If the article is not already tagged to note an existing problem, consider applying a tag, such as {{notability}}, {{hoax}}, {{original research}}, {{unencyclopedic}}, or {{advert}}; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
6. Check "What links here" in the article's sidebar, to see how the page is used and referenced within Wikipedia.
7. Check any interlanguage links, also in the sidebar, which may provide additional material for translation.
8. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines and policies on notability, reliable sources, and what Wikipedia is not. Related guidelines include WP:BIO, WP:COI, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, WP:WEB, and, for list articles, WP:CLN. See more generally, the previously mentioned List of policies and guidelines to cite in deletion debates.
9. If the article was recently created, please consider that many good articles started their Wikilife in pretty bad shape. Unless it is obviously a hopeless case, consider sharing your reservations with the article creator, an associated WikiProject, or on the article's talk page, and/or adding a cleanup tag, instead of bringing the article to AfD.
10. Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion or proposed deletion.
11. Removed
12. Removed
13. It is recommended that you describe the steps you have taken to check that your nomination is appropriate. This may prevent duplication of effort and inoculate your nomination from being labelled as spurious or thoughtless.

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:07, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

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• Support- I like it better than the current version. It makes it clear which steps are important, and also makes it clear that the less crucial steps (which may not be relevant in every case) are not mandatory. If we adopt this version BEFORE would encourage best practice in nominating stuff for deletion, but without acting like a shopping list of legalistic obstructions. Reyk _YO! 03:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Addendum- I suggest scrapping points 11 and 12, since they're not really related to the question of when to nominate an article. Reyk _YO! 03:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Support in principle. I like it, it may need some tweaks (it gets a bit wordy in places) but in general I like the idea. We do need to make it clearer when articles need to be deleted and when they do not. Good stuff. --Jayron32 03:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Looks very good overall. I agree with Reyk that points 11 and 12 can probably drop out. The most important thing is clearly emphasizing the reference check, which this does a great job of. Potential tweaks I'd suggest are that I'd like to see Google Scholar mentioned somewhere, though not necessarily alongside Books and News archive, and it might be appropriate to include a reference to the likes of WP:VG/RS's custom search engine based RS web search. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• Generally support with Reyk's caveats. Alternatively, would the meaning of the guideline suffer were we to include only the bulleted points and not the numbered points? Or some variation on the bulleted points? Protonk (talk) 05:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support and I can live without points 11 and 12. I can also see a few places where the wording can be clarified or tightened, but let's not let copyediting distract from the broad appeal here: this is a big step forward. Jclemens (talk) 05:49, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• The proposed text would mostly do well as a total replacement for the laundry-list below it. However "Before" is already disproportionally large, so I cannot support anything that makes it bigger. See below for details. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 06:28, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

point-by-point on the reasons why items should be removed

There is a bit of wishy-washy in between bullet points two and three. It's easily read as "if you get a bunch of hits in your two-minute search, don't nominate for deletion." A proper look at sources takes time, and even more so when there are a large number of bad-source hits. Remove bullet point three, or re-word heavily. Points 11 to 13 are clearly out of place in this list, and should be removed. Point 10 is nice, but if it's a clear speedy someone will tag it in the debate, the overhead there is very low. If editors are not familiar enough with AfD that they need this list anyway, I don't want them trying to figure out criteria for speedy deletion. Remove for clarity. Point 9 is purely philosophical, and there's no requirement to do it, and it is redundant. The points before all make it clear that "Unless it is obviously a hopeless case," it shouldn’t be nominated. Delete as redundant. [sic] Points 6 and 7 are blarney. They have little relevance to the actual article's state of being, and the number of times that an editor is going to be able to do anything with inter-language links is very small. Delete as instruction creep. Point 5 is also instruction creep. The slow-deletion-tags recommended are not any more effective than the deletion nomination tag. Delete as instruction creep. Point 4 is covered by the very first link on the page, to "Alternatives to deletion." Delete as redundant. Points 1 to 3 are all valid, but would be better as prose. Which prose mostly already exists in the lede.

• Support -- I also support this change. I anticipate proponents of calling upon WP:BLP may argue that for biographies of living persons, references that amply demonstrate notability are required from the moment the article is moved into article space. Half, or close to half, of the articles on the English language wikipedia were biographies last time I checked (when we were at about 2 million articles). Geo Swan (talk) 06:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that addressed by sticky prods to the point that AfD has no overlap?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Although in general okay, two points make me oppose it at the moment. The minor one: too much abbreviations. Shorthand is difficult to read and can scare beginning patrollers away. The big one The most important thing you should do before nominating an article on the basis of lack of verifiability, notability concerns, and any other bases where poor sourcing or lack of sourcing is at issue, is to make a good-faith attempt to confirm that sufficient reliable sources don't exist.. My opposition is 100% based on my opinion that it should be the article itself that has to proof its notability then a random new page patroller. Those articles should be send back to the original author to fix it (with a link to the coaching scheme) or be nominated as "has to be improved before it can be kept" but unfortunately, that last scheme does not exist (YET!). Night of the Big Wind _talk 11:14, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Night, the problem with your oppose is that verifiability and notability on their face do not require sources to be present in an article, so nominating an article at AfD because the sources are not yet present on the basis of either of them does not have a basis in those policies. Until those policies get changed (and they have been debated and honed for years), you need to concede that taking an article to AfD where sources may exist but you have not checked is a great discourtesy to the community because for every one where you didn't check, and the s0ourcing does exist, you will have wasted a lot of people's time on a nomination that cannot succeed. There are many things in policy I disagree with but recognizing how the community stands allows you to pick your battles. To put it another way, your problem here is not actually with our expectation of a source check, but with the underlying policies that make a nomination without doing so where sources exist, doomed to failure. By the way, regarding your first basis of too many shortcuts, there's only one in the lead I wrote. All the others in the numbered list are from the existing text.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I regard that as a severe mistake. Why should I check if somebody else did his job properly? If I can find sources on the internet, the original author of an article could have found them too. It is unfair to let random editors clean up the mess of others... In fact, and I'll put this a bit harsh, you guys are trying to enforce a rule that is not a rule, nor a guideline. It is just an advice! Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:03, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Why should you check? Because we prioritize being welcoming (another part of one of the five pillars you say you believe in) over your pique at another volunteer failing to meet your expectations. The status of WP:BEFORE may be ambiguous, but the status of WP:Notability is not, and it firmly establishes that citations are not required to be present for notability to be present. Nor is WP:Consensus less than policy. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but WP:Notability is a guideline, not a policy. And WP:Consensus clearly states Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus can change. Don't try to bite me of my different opinion. A lot the medicines I take are dangerous for others or considered doping. Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if WP:N is "only" a guideline. That page represents the community's actual views on this subject. You might benefit from reading WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays. Compliance with guidelines is not optional.

(It is true that consensus can, and does, change. However, the community just had a pair of discussions on that very point, and by the end of the discussion, there was no doubt left in anyone's minds that the consensus had not changed.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Not so strange, my friend. Everybody with a different opinion is hammered silly and shuts up... Night of the Big Wind _talk 15:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Things you are entitled to: 1) your own opinion. Things you aren't entitled to: 1) your own facts, 2) your own implementation of Wikipedia policy and procedure. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Please, take a mirror and look in it. Gagging orders are not in place at Wikipedia, as it is not censored. Night of the Big Wind _talk 10:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support - but would include Google Scholar in the second bullet as many article topics are not just current events and popular culture and will never show in Google News. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
  • What if we changed it to "Google Books, and at least one of Google News (by default or if a current event) or Google Scholar (if a topic of academic study)."? Jclemens (talk) 14:09, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree with the basic idea, but I feel that wording is still a bit too "checklisty", which this proposal is trying to get away from. How about just mentioning that Google Books, News and Scholar are good resources for finding references? Reyk _YO! 14:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
      • How would you propose to reword the sentence that begins "the minimum expected is..." to encompass the third, "core" Google search? Jclemens (talk) 01:10, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Often once we've read a thread up to a certain point, we don't see a new addition that is not added in normal thread order... I added a second section containing revision just below the original post that addresses a bunch of the suggestions here, including adding Google Scholar and making it less "checklisty".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:05, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
• I don't feel especially strongly about some of the changes, but overall I think it an improvement and therefore I both support the proposal and thank Fuhghettaboutit for going to the trouble of writing this up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support There is nothing in the changes and additional language that I am opposed to, as it all correctly describes community practice. The checklist, while a bit extensive, still contains good editing advice for any newbie to Wikipedia. ThemFromSpace 23:37, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• This is all very long, complicated and potentially discouraging to anyone who sees an article that they feels doesn't belong - in effect in an attempt to avoid biting editors who create unreferenced, poor quality articles (which may or may not be salvagable), this change will instead bite those who attempt to nominate articles and will act to discourage new or inexperienced editors for particpating in AFD. Certainly it would discourage me, and I'm not inexperienced - I don't know if this would be a good thing.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
• I think that Fuhghettaboutit is right to flag that BEFORE could do with a rewrite, and this is a great start. I don't think, however, that adding a weight of text to the list is the right approach. A lot of clarity has been lost, and the weight of text is such that it may not even be read to start with. I would suggest that the appended text is placed after the list, and that "4. Before nominating due to sourcing or notability concerns, make a good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources don't exist." is restored to the list. A footnote attached to that point could then lead to an abbreviated version of Fuhghettaboutit's text.

I think we should look into the order of the list. The deletion policy should be first - it all stems from there. The list of guidelines and policies should be moved up to point two. Fuhghettaboutit's point 13 is not something you do before nominating, but when you have already imitated a nomination, so that would go below the list, as it does now.

Mmmm. I'll look into amending some of Fuhghettaboutit's suggestions and post here. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I had the same thought about #4 until I realized that the first five bullet points are meant to be part of the new BEFORE. They are more detailed and more pointful than the one-sentence version of #4. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Before nominating an article for deletion

Before nominating an article for deletion:-

A) Please read and understand the following policies and guidelines

1. The Wikipedia deletion policy, which explains valid grounds for deletion as well as alternatives to deletion and the various deletion processes
2. The main four guidelines and policies that inform deletion discussions: notability (WP:N), verifiability (WP:V), reliable sources (WP:RS), and what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT)
3. Subject specific notability guidelines, which can be found at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines, with further related essays at Category:Wikipedia notability. Common outcomes may be checked to see if other articles on a specific topic tend to be kept or deleted after an AfD discussion

B) Please carry out the following checks

1. Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion or proposed deletion.
2. If there are verifiability, notability or other sourcing concerns, take reasonable steps to search for reliable sources. (See "Sourcing search" below)
3. Review the article's history to check for potential vandalism or poor editing.
4. Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with.
5. Check "What links here" in the article's sidebar, to see how the page is used and referenced within Wikipedia.
6. Check if there are interlanguage links, also in the sidebar, which may lead to more developed and better sourced articles.

C) Be aware that some pages should be improved rather than deleted

1. If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD.
2. If the article was recently created, please consider allowing the contributors more time to develop the article.
3. If an article has issues try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, and/or adding a cleanup tag, such as {{notability}}, {{hoax}}, {{original research}}, {{unencyclopedic}}, or {{advert}}; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
4. If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider merging or redirecting to an existing article.

D) Sourcing search

1. The minimum search expected is a Google Books search and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. Such searches should in most cases take only a minute or two to perform.
2. If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating. However, if a quick search does find sources, this does not always mean an AfD on a sourcing basis is unwarranted. If you spend more time examining the sources, and determine that they are insufficient, e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic, then an AfD nomination may be still be appropriate.
3. In the event you find that adequate sources do appear to exist, the fact that they are not yet present in the article is not a proper basis for a nomination. Instead, you should consider citing the sources, using the advice in Wikipedia:How to cite sources, or at minimum apply an appropriate template to the page that flags the sourcing concern. Common templates include {{unreferenced}}, {{refimprove}}, {{third-party}}, {{primary sources}} and {{one source}}. For a more complete list see WP:CTT.

OK. After playing around with that I've ended up with the same amount of words. It needs reducing further. I've essentially overhauled the links so that less useful pages are dropped, and more essential ones are added. I've organised the list into sets so there is more logic and cohesion to it. Even though I removed some duplication and wordage, I added links to pages so it's a swings and roundabouts situation. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 20:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I've trimmed back and removed some duplication. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 21:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Great job condensing it down to something workable! I tweaked three things: 1) Swapped sections D and E: I believe the sourcing comes both logically and chronologically before the miscellaneous advice. 2) I changed "could" to "should" in the heading for C: I believe that accurately reflects the sentiment of WP:ATD, and 3) I fixed a typo. :-) Further enhancements welcome! Jclemens (talk) 04:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Swapping D and E makes sense. It was "should" originally, and I changed it to "could" with some hesitation. "Should" implies an obligation, while "could" implies a possibility. Personally, as I am a volunteer, I dislike it when people attempt to impose obligations on me, though I react positively to being offered possibilities. There is actually no obligation to improve any article - that is something we do by choice. However, I understand the thinking that given the choice of deleting an article or improving it, it is better to improve, so perhaps "should" is more appropriate. And, yes, further enhancements welcome. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:08, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to "should", not "you should", or even "one should". To quote the governing policy, WP:ATD: "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion" (my emphasis) If "should" is in the policy there, why not here? Should expresses an outcome desired, not an obligation on any particular editor. Jclemens (talk) 14:59, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

"Should expresses an outcome desired". Yes, that makes sense. Anyway, to make it clear, I agree with should over could. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

A step in the right direction, but some comments and suggestions for consolidation:

• I don't E is necessary in BEFORE, as we are essentially at AFD when we get there; it should be moved elsewhere.
• D is sort of redundant to parts of B. D2 doesn't really explain anything else that one shouldn't already know.
• I would move the last part of section B to the first; especially with stuff such as copyright violations (which should be deleted), even if notability is established, you would still need to start over and rewrite it so that it doesn't plagiarize or violate anyone's copyright. Same applies for pure spam pages, attack pages, and pages created with the sole intent to disrupt. –MuZemike 22:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that Speedy takes precedence. Done. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:21, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that E) belongs in Wikipedia:Guide to deletion rather than in BEFORE. Done. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Expanding on the sourcing advice was a primary motivation for this overhaul. It is generally agreed that sourcing issues are a significant proportion of reasons for nominating an article at AfD, and there is some agreement that providing more advice to people on how to check sources might encourage the improvement of articles rather than their nomination for deletion. There has been concern raised, however, in a recent discussion, that simply stating that sources are not required by policy would lead to a discouragement to raise appropriate sourcing concerns, and/or a feeling that not sourcing articles is approved. Some expanded explanation is seen as appropriate. It is the nature of that expanded explanation that we are now working on. How would you word D2? D2 is dealing with the quality and significant coverage aspect of the sources - something that can lead to an article being deleted, but often overlooked not just at nomination, but also during AfD discussions. Sometimes people are either not aware or overlook that a trivial mention is not enough to establish notability. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

This rewrite of my rewrite misses the whole point; re-lumps the search check together with others and takes out the language, separate formatting and primary placement of sourcing to unpriortize it again.Fuhghettaboutit (talk) --22:23, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I was hoping that we were building on your suggestions and improvement. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

But Silktork, the main feature of the rewrite was to completely separate out sourcing from the rest of the pack, saying it first, in a separated out section, with separate formatting, and saying it is the "most important thing you should do before..."—all intended to make sure that if a person reads nothing else but the first sentence, they are informed of the one thing that is the chief problem we see with nominations; what people actually fail to do that wastes community time; what gets them in trouble with bad nominations. You have used some of the language, but your rewrite undoes all of the features that were meant to prioritize "what we really expect before nominating".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry for delay in response, I've been in France with limited internet access. I think some very positive things have come out of your initial suggestions, and there is consensus for the developments. I note that you have ongoing concerns, and I feel it would be appropriate to look into addressing those (I suggest by an examination of the logs of past AfDs to see what the main nomination problems are); though in the meantime it would be a shame to hold back on implementing the improvements so far. What I suggest is that we update WP:Before with the latest development, and continue to examine it and amend it as appropriate. We can work from the amended version better than the current version, as the amended version will carry the improvements we've all worked on. I will action that now, and start a fresh discussion below on how to improve it further in line with your concerns. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Deletion sorting proposal

Deletion sorting
Egypt - sorted by Example (talk) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC) Military - sorted by Example (talk) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC) People - sorted by Example (talk) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello all. I would like to propose an idea regarding the deletion sorting system. Firstly, a thank you for all those users who relentlessly keep our discussions meticulously sorted. Now, while it is important that sorted discussions are labeled as such to avoid double-sorting by other users, I think we may be able to label the discussions in a less obtrusive manner. In its current form, these labels seem to unnecessarily break up the discussion, especially when several are added (see example). It would not be difficult, I think, to simply place these sorting tags in a small floating box (see right) or a collapsible table by modifying Template:Deletion sorting. What are your thoughts about some type of change in general? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support this or any change from the current system, which sucks. I agree that the current system breaks up the substantive conversation unneccesarily, and segregating these notices, which are pretty meta to the actual discussion, is a Good Thing. --Jayron32 01:20, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• Previous proposal and discussion at WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 60#New format. Flatscan (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• I believe our most active deletion sorters use User:John Vandenberg/Deletion sorting tool. It would be very important for this to be included in the change if this goes into affect. Jujutacular ^talk 04:45, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• After looking it over, it seems that User:John Vandenberg/delsort.js uses {{subst:delsort}}, meaning we'd only have to modify the template. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 12:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• While I appreciate the sentiment, the delsorting tags do not "break up" the discussion, any more than not sorting by support or oppose. The deletion sorting discussion tags show roughly WHEN, chronologically, the DELSORT'ing took place. This is important: if DELSORTing happened early, then the discussion has been well advertized and probably need not be relisted, while a late DELSORTing accompanying poor participation would tend to support the appropriateness of relisting. There are other examples, but that should be enough of an example to illustrate why I support maintaining DELSORT and similar tags chronologically within the discussion flow. Jclemens (talk) 05:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Was that an intended effect or a side effect? Night of the Big Wind _talk 09:54, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Is that relevant? Many of our processes evolved organically, and emergent behavior can be as or more valuable than the designed behavior. Jclemens (talk) 17:56, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
      • • It is just a question. Nothing more. Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Well, the answer is... I don't know. To the best of my memory, DELSORT'ing was going on before I started participating in AfD's 3+ years ago. Jclemens (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Like Jclemens, I appreciate the fact that the delsort entries indicate approximately when the delsort listings were made. This information is helpful in evaluating the progress of a discussion. --Orlady (talk) 18:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• Maybe the bigger question here is, how valuable really is deletion sorting? I find it mildly intriguing that the page views of Delsort:Delaware are only some 250 less than that of Delsort:People, considering Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/People is updated nearly 130 times as frequently (compare revision count: 1, 2). Moreover though, do we get nearly as much out of deletion sorting as we put in? Is it a profitable system; does the time spent sorting outweigh the time spent using the result, noting that we already have several categories such as Category:AfD debates (Biographical) automatically in place? Therein, I suppose, lies the question of how much space delsort tags deserve. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 22:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I find deletion sorting very valuable. I have found that it's easier for me to comment on AfDs where I at least have some knowledge of the subject in question. I would estimate that 90% of the AfDs I vote (or "!vote") in are because they were sorted into the Australian or sportspeople delsorting pages. If we didn't delsort, I personally would contribute to a lot less AfDs. I think the same could easily be said of a lot of people, because I see quite a few regulars at either Australia or sportspeople, who comment frequently, but if I venture out into the big wide world of daily AfD logs, it shows that they are only commenting on discussions that have been sorted into their area of interest/expertise. Just as an FYI, I think People was a poor example because it is far too broad, which is the reason that users don't view it all that often. Jenks24 (talk) 04:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree. I wouldn't ever use delsort people, but I do use fictional elements, science fiction, religion, and other areas that align with my interests and expertise. Jclemens (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
      • This is understandable. I am comforted to know that deletion sorting is at least being used by some users. Checking the data, however, delsort:fictional elements has only 6 more views in the last month than delsort:people, while delsort:sportspeople has over 100 less. My concern is that the process spends more time than it saves, but admittedly, this would be nearly impossible to prove. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 13:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support I also find it a little awkward because I prefer to see responses to comments like this:

• Keep because this source covers the subject in-depth. --User1

No it doesn't. However, the possibilities are endless, and that is kind of awesome. --User2

As opposed to this:

• Keep because this source covers the subject in-depth.--User1

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Awesome-related deletion discussions. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 04:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Funky-related deletion discussions. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 04:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

No it doesn't. However, the possibilities are endless, and that is kind of awesome.--User2

So I think putting a separate box somewhere else would be helpful. To respond to the concerns that DelSorting may be not useful, I just received a message that someone helped keep an AfD because they were notified through DelSorting, so I think it does help bring attention to them. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 04:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• I want to see when items get put into various categories, as it does help in grokking the way the arguments emerge, and from where. Don't think that it breaks up the flow at all. So, that's "oppose" from me to additional overhead. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Don't forget you can also follow AfDes with Article Alerts, conveniently sorted by WikiProjects. </shameless plug> —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• • Yeah. Just tag the talk page with the relevant WikiProject Banners, and deletion discussions automatically gets reported directly to the relevant WikiProjects. It covers a lot more than AFD too. PRODs, MFD, TFD, etc.... are all covered. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Formatting change

What if we formatted {{delsort}}s to look something like this example? From above, some users feel that the current system inconveniently breaks up the discussion, while others find it very helpful to see how the discussion's mood has changed since sorting occurred. By floating the {{delsort}} everybody wins. Your thoughts? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 19:34, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support Sorry, guess I missed this suggestion. I think it looks good! It's non-invasive and addresses my concern about the old delsort tags interrupting discussion. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 02:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

BEFORE updated - what further improvements?

Following the discussion above, the amendments have now been actioned. There is still a concern that there is not enough attention paid to addressing the problem of nominations which are due to inadequate research on sourcing. I think there are several aspects to this concern:

1. The question that, are inadequate sourcing nominations really the main problem? Would it be worth conducting some research on past AfDs to confirm what the main problems are?
2. Is BEFORE the only, or best solution to problem nominations (be they inadequate sourcing or something else)?
3. As sourcing is a significant part of the AfD process, is there anything else we can do to assist in getting people to look for sources before, during and after an AfD?
4. What further improvements can we make to BEFORE?

I'm going to pick two logs from earlier this year and examine those nominations which closed early and which closed as keep, and see what emerges. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Did you also take in account the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Different opinion? I guess not, because the concerns I table there are not resolved.

I suggested the following addition (controversial!!!!): "Articles that are at least 21 days old and still give no hint of nobility in the article, can be nominated for deletion."

In my opinion and experience on the Dutch Wikipedia, articles that are at least three weeks old and are still giving no hint of nobility, will never be improved by the original author. (In fact: that is already the case after one week.) That means that the burden of improving the article will be put on the shoulders of rather random editors. In my opinion it is unfair when an author creates a sloppy article and then dumps it at the orphanage in the hope somebody will adopt it. Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

We don't care if articles are improved by the original author. We care whether the could be improved by anyone. The English Wikipedia has far more active editors than the Dutch Wikipedia. We do not have to rely on the original author to do everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

And who is gonna do that? Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Especially for you, WhatamIdoing: Sichuan Food (restaurant) Have fun. Absolutely valid article according to WP:BEFORE. Night of the Big Wind _talk 22:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The first version you created was an CSD A7 candidate. I could create an article that says "Havana is a Cuban restaurant in Atlanta" and repeat for every single restaurant up and down Buford Highway and they would all be deleted if that's all I said about them, no AFD or WP:BEFORE required. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

If there are verifiability, notability or other sourcing concerns, take reasonable steps to search for reliable sources. (See "Sourcing search" below) Night of the Big Wind _talk 02:47, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Nope, completely irrelevant. WP:BEFORE is not a deletion process, nor it is applicable to all deletion mechanisms. It is a description of what should be done before taking an article to articles for deletion. The article was a speedy deletion candidate, not an AfD candidate, and it met the criterion it was deleted under.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

So in fact you agree with my stance that an article that shows no sign of notability can be removed. Night of the Big Wind _talk 22:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

No. You're conflating completely different things. AfD and the CSD are different things. The criteria for speedy deletion define the bases under which we can delete an article immediately, based on its content alone. AfD is for things that do not meet any of the CSD. At AfD we consider deletion on the merits of the subject, not on the merits of the content. I know you wish that wasn't the case, but it is, pursuant to long-standing policy with bedrock consensus. A large portion of AfDs, for example, are on the basis of WP:V and WP:N. That is where the sourcing issues play out. Both policies, which have been debated and hammered out over many years, explicitly provide that the question they seek the answer to (for different purposes) is whether reliable sources exist, not whether sources are present. WP:BEFORE is not a content inclusion policy like these. It is a behavioral guideline that says on a meta level "when you are going to make a nomination on the basis of notability or verifiability, since those policies do not require sources to be present or to exist, you are wasting everyone's time if you make a nomination on the basis of these policies but don't bother to do a simple check for sources; you are passing the buck and making a nomination that cannot succeed; how little consideration do you have for the encyclopedia and your fellow editors that you would waste their time in this manner draining valuable resources like this?"--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL, twisting and turning to avoid admitting that you are wrong. Okay, Sichuan Food (restaurant) was a lousy article, delibarately made to expose the strange effects from WP:BEFORE. According to WPB it was a valid article, because you can find the sources that proof that it is/was a very notable restaurant quite easy on the internet (and on Wikipedia). The real article, that clearly proofs that the restaurant is notable, can be found here. Night of the Big Wind _talk 23:49, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That certainly quells further discussion (why would I possible waste my breath, given that response). I get that you don't understand, and now I see that you won't or can't understand. I will say one thing though: When numerous people tell you you are wrong about something where you are the sole voice for some position, it's wise to not only consider whether you might in fact be wrong, but whether you should at least drop the stick. That is you, here, now, per this and prior discussions on the same topic. -Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

My unchanged stance in this is still that articles that don't show any notability in the article itself should be eligable for removal. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

And as has been explained to you numerous times, that is not a WP:BEFORE issue, it is a stance addressed to WP:N, which says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject... The absence of citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that the subject is not notable." If you have a problem with the policy, go there and make a sound argument for change.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Then why on earth is the research demand in WP:BEFORE, as those articles most likely would have fallen for the speedy deletion criteria or fail WP:N?? The research is in fact covered elsewhere. Night of the Big Wind _talk 01:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Because our job is to write an encyclopedia, not to play games. There are a ton of things that are neither adequately sourced nor eligible for speedy deletion which, though deficient, add value to the encyclopedia. If you think something deserves to be deleted entirely such that no one but administrators can see it and improve it, then do what the community expects to demonstrate there's no easily added sources. Jclemens (talk) 01:55, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I really wish you'd actually read all these policy and project pages. It kind of behooves you when you speak about them yet obviously do so without knowing what they say or how they apply. WP:CSD is a deletion policy. It defines what we can delete without discussion, i.e., not on the merits. Go read it. It does not allow deletion of anything for being non-notable. It does have two notability-related criteria: A7 and A9, the former being the main one. A7 is for article topics that don't even credibly assert the importance of the subject. It applies only to sharply-defined topics as well, not just anything—real people, individual animals, organizations (but not schools) and web content only. Anything not meeting this list cannot be deleted speedily. If a prod is not applicable then the only place remaining is AfD, where we consider deletion on the merits of various policies and often WP:N. WP:N has a definition. That definition expressly states notability is met by sources existing, not sourcing being present (same with WP:V). So once again, if you have a problem with the policies, take it up with the policies.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like I have to adopt the policy Wikipedia:Ignore all rules in a few cases. All in the best interest of Wikipedia. Don't worry, it will only be a few cases I have to use this. Most (I guess at least 95%) of my nominations will follow the rulebook. Night of the Big Wind _talk 14:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm looking at logs Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2011 July 1 and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2011 June 1 and listing at: User:SilkTork/Cambridge. Both logs are fairly similar - 75/73 noms; 44/46 deletes; 12/17 keeps, etc. On the assumption that a delete/merge/redirect result shows an appropriate nom, it appears that people get it right most of the time. The July 1 log has 11 "no consensus" results, which is rather high. A number of those had been relisted twice, which was roughly in line with this discussion, though some had not been. The 10 "speedies" across the two logs suggest a cause for concern as they indicate inappropriate noms - though these include incomplete noms, mistakes, or disruptive behaviour which may be beyond what BEFORE can deal with. However, it may be worth looking more closely into "speedies" to see what we can do to cut down on the amount of inappropriate noms.

The "keeps" are the ones that are most pertinent for the view of should we highlight sourcing more prominently in BEFORE, as a "keep" might indicate an inappropriate nom made for sourcing concerns. While there were a variety of reasons given for the noms, and a good number seemed appropriate and led to active discussion, there were a few which could be classed as sourcing concerns which could have been resolved by an active source search beforehand. What is particularly interesting me is that in a number of those AfDs it was discussed that there were sources available, but the sources were not added to the articles.

I wonder if a number of editors find adding sources a little off-putting. In GA and FA nominations there are some reviewers who make fairly demanding and unnecessary requests for formatting of cites. While it's helpful to be neat and consistent, the main point is getting the cite into the article, and into the right place. For that purpose a bare url link to the website, or the name of the book and author, placed within <ref> </ref> brackets by the applicable sentence or paragraph is enough. Someone else who is good at / enjoys formatting can tidy up later. At the moment in BEFORE we link to Wikipedia:Citing sources, which is nearly 7,000 words, and is not easy to understand. The page Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners is easier, but even that doesn't give an easy example of how to get a website reference into an article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Another issue is that you sometimes have a situation where an article is either unsourced or none of the sources are supersources but a google news search shows that enough "supersources" exist to satisfy WP:N. However, none of them are needed to cite anything currently in the article. In a case like this should it be necessary to find a way to shoehorn them into the article? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:BLUE and WP:NOTBLUE have different views on this. I am in the NOTBLUE camp. I feel that we assume too much what others should know. Readers of Wikipedia come from varying cultures and have various levels of knowledge and experience. Even though we share a common language, people from the UK and the USA still manage to confuse each other. I live in Rochester, Kent and once almost made a booking for a conference for 25 people at the Holiday Inn near Rochester Airport when what I wanted was to book it at the Holiday Inn near Rochester Airport. It was only when the person on the phone gave me the price in dollars did I realise the mistake! To have a Holiday Inn next to a Rochester Airport in both the USA and UK is just one way that we can make errors. I assumed that there would only be one such hotel so I did a Google search for "holiday inn rochester airport". I wasn't aware of an American Rochester Airport. Just because we cannot see the need for citing something, doesn't mean there isn't a need. The basic facts in any article should have come from reliable source, and so the sources can be cited. If they came from off the top of someone's head, then that person has likely made some mistakes, and the basic facts need checking and citing. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Google News Archive

Up until a week ago the Google News Archive was a marvelous way to search for references. Now all of a sudden I can't get at the homepage, just "advanced search" which seems to miss a lot of material. According to Google News Archive "On August 14, 2011 without any notice, Google made the News Archives home page unavailable. Apparently, the service has been merged with Google News."

The link that comes automatically with an AfD discussion still seems to work, but trying to get at the archive directly has gotten both cumbersome and unreliable. Any idea what we can use instead, if we want to search for sources on a subject? --MelanieN (talk) 03:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

When doing a Google News search select "archives" in the left hand bar. jorgenev 03:36, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see. That does seem to give me a better result than the cumbersome Google News Archive Search I was trying to use. Thank you. --MelanieN (talk) 03:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm strange. Maybe it's something to do with a cookie on your computer? When I search I get the archive link in the left hand sidebar.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)

Google does a lot of live A/B testing constantly. It is possible that some people are seeing different UIs on google news simultaneously. Protonk (talk) 04:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

• I've had to give up on the buggy "Google News Advance search" as it is broken and not yet fixed. (See realated discussion HERE). And in doing the suggested regular Google News search as instructed above bu User:Jorgenev with with both IE7 and Google Chrome, I have no "archives" option in the left hand bar. It has evaporated as Google has apparently decided it is more cost effective for them to have readers stroll through the perhaps thousands of regular g-hits on a subject, and thus be exposed to the many accompanying ads. Sigh. Darn accountants.
• The Quandary is that I have now been seeing many well meant and honest assetions at AFD where someone would state "I have found no sources using a deligent Google News search". If the news archive search engine is broken, how can anyone use its lack of functionality as a reason to declare that no news sources exist? In the discussion I listed I explained how and even when armed with date, source, and article author, the advanced serch fails. While I have myself been willing to use a regular g-search and go page-by-page-by-page and item-by-item-by-item in searching for sources, to require others spend as much time arduously looking for sources page-by-page-by-page and item-by-item-by-item, will be seen as a bit of a burden. What can we do to adress the true but now flawed argument "I found no sources using a Google News search"?? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 20:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I followed your comment above and found the article you were looking for (the 1989) review via the news.google search term, ""Jeffrey Sanzel"+"Theater" author:Leah author:D. author:Frank", but only after hitting the left-hand column "Archive" link.[2] It looks like within the advanced search of news.google itself, while there is the time parameter this applies to when it was added to google's db, not when it was published (which can be far different). The only way to spell out the time is to hit the clarifiers on the left column after doing the initial search. (ok, to be fair, there's the start and end year parameters in the URL in the above ex. link, but they're not ones set via the advanced search interface). Thus, to AFD, it is important that users don't just type in the search terms at news.google and say "oh, no hits, therefore no articles", but instead have to hit the Archive button to look through those. --MASEM (t) 20:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I already had the article, and used it as an example of advance serach has failed me. I suppose then that my problem is that I do not find an "archives" link when doing the search as you described above. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• I am highly reliant on GNews searches and it seems obvious to me that you always need to use the archives search and not just the latest news search. As for AFDs, these use the archive search by default if you click on the news search given automatically by the {{Find sources}} banner added at the top of standardly formatted discussion pages. Fæ (talk) 20:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  Me too... but I no longer have a "archive link" on any google news search. For example, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Sanzel I had originally found numerous sources, both scanned and web pages, when using the news parameter of (Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL). But when trying it just now (PC with WinXP and IE7), I find nothing,[3] and there was no arhcive link on that news search page. Is my settings or is it my browsers? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  My browser. It's an IIE7 problem. Archive shows up with Mozila (I hate Mozilla) and Chrome (edit screen clunky). As much as I hate too, I'll update to IE8 and see if that cures it for me. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  Was about to say, I just tried Chrome and IE9 and its there. Mind you, Google does push out updates to its service to registered users without warning as part of beta testing and that could have been part of it... but I can't see them getting rid of archive searching... --MASEM (t) 21:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  Just did a "repair" of IE7 and it's still absent with that one. Now I will install IE8 and see. IE9 is for Vista or Win7, so I'll be crossing my fingers. I'd hate to slow up my machine by having to install Win7, as it is a resource hog (though not as much as is Vista). I'll be reporting back. I'm an admitted PC geek, and just hate it when things are taken away from me by the vagaries and avarice of acountants. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  Whew Okay... it's there with IE8. Now my own odd question at certain AFDs will be to ask another editor if they have themselves upgraded, as IE7 gives a false negative when performing a google news search. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC).

  I wonder if it would be wise to have a page WP:CHECKYOURBROWSER to describe known issues with certain browsers and WP and related fuctions... --MASEM (t) 22:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

  Brilliant idea Where can such a request be made? While I have no problem writing the occasional essay, as the discussion above shows, I am not versed in browser issues.. specially as there are soooo many available for editors, and some chose one over another for its speed or utility. . Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:47, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Some light relief

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of guests on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. Facepalm Black Kite (t) (c) 02:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I will admit to giggling at this. Although, that my have just been my, uh, altered state of mind. jorgenev 03:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

About the large number of SPAs who frequent AfDs

In a recent usertalk discussion I raised the issue of substantial number of low-edit-count users who show up in deletion discussions. I'm wondering if a sensible solution might make this less likely. I'm all about encouraging newbies, but this looks more like sustained blatant socking than mere coincidence. Am I way off the mark? Are there solutions that might work? Is this a frequently raised subject? BusterD (talk) 16:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Newbie editors are encouraged to participate in AFD discussions. The AFD tag states to everyone, including readers who don't edit: "Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page." If an AFD discussion only has a few entries from new editors, then there is no problem. If they make good coherent arguments, the contribution is positive. If there are many such comments, then that may be an indication of sockpuppetry. At that point we usually tag the discussion with {{Not a ballot}} informing people that the discussion is not a vote where ballott stuffing will work, and such "votes" are usually disregarded by the closing administrator. The problem pops up with some regularity, but I feel that our current processes are capable of handling them. Sjakkalle (Check!) 17:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I didn't know what was normal, but on a fair percentage of processes I'm seeing a succession of pretty obvious socks trying to move the discussion. It happens especially when there's some clear conflict of interest, like an autobio or promotion. I originally was curious whether there was some slang for the subset of user accounts and ips, but I guess the technical term (as a formal statement) is less likely to provoke unnecessary negative response. As it turns out, some COI editors can turn out to be pretty nice wikipedians. I know I made early mistakes as an editor, before I better understood the community and the process. BusterD (talk) 17:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • For instance, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Turner Author/Performer — frankie (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of recent articles for creation

Looking over the AfC submissions I've accepted in the past I noticed that a couple were deleted shortly after being moved to mainspace (from the project space, where AfC submissions are stored). WP:GD advises that "the good-faith creator and any main contributors" of AfDs be notified that the deletion discussion is taking place, and I think AfC reviewers ought to be considered in that group. Even if they haven't contributed much content to the article and might not have much of a direct stake in it (and therefore probably won't have it on their watchlist), they did previously assess it in much the same way as participants in an AfD discussion, and will presumably have some arguments in favour of keeping it. The AfC reviewer who accepted the article will shows up in the history as moving it from Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation/Article X to Article X, and more often than not some minor edits/cleanup after that (for example, here's one I did earlier).

So, if people regularly PRODing articles would bear that in mind I and I'm sure the other people who regularly review at AfC would appreciate it. Or perhaps an explicit reminder could be added to WP:GD? We are expecting that AfC will soon be handling a greater volume of articles as a result of WP:ACTRIAL. Thanks. joe•roe^t•c 11:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Fell through the cracks....

Unfortunately, the AFD formatting was corrupt from its July 30 nomination one month ago, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Lloyd Lewis apparently fell through the cracks.[4] No action for over 2 weeks due to the malformed AFD, but on August 17, one editor !voted delete,[5] For me, I swung by on August 30, and while surprised to find a 30-day-old nomination, took a quick look at the award nominations the fellow had,[6] stated that I felt he met WP:ANYBIO,[7] and then went to the article to do some expansion and sourcing so as to validate my opinion.[8] After being motified of improvements,[9] the delete !vote reversed himself,[10] and the nominator has not yet responded to the notification.[11] I suppose it is lucky that the AFd was malformed, else I might not have found it when I did.

But here's the thing... I returned to the AFD and tried to fix its broken formatting,[12] but do not know if my fixes were truly fixes. Could someone check to see if it is now correct? Or, if the point is now moot, could someone perhaps close this 30-day-old AFD? Thanks. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the AFD and closed it as keep. GB fan please review my editing 20:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Appreciated. Being involved, I could not do so myself. Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Honeyford

I got a strange error (nr. 231???) while processing this deletion request. So, did Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Honeyford come through correctly and everywhere where it is supposed to be? Night of the Big Wind _talk 01:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• It doesn't appear to be transcluded into the log for the day. I'll do that. Protonk (talk) 01:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
•  Done. here Protonk (talk) 01:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks! Night of the Big Wind _talk 03:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

List "mostly advertising" as a reason for deletion

In a recent (yesterday/today "Does this mean what I think? A Wikimarketing firm?") discussion at the pump, comments are that there's no statement that an article can be deleted for being mostly advertising/ spam. A poster-child case is where notability looks likely, but the article is all advertising, with a few encyclopedic factoids mixed into the sales material. Rewriting it would require hours of work by a volunteer. My suggestion is to list this under the criteria for deletion. North8000 (talk) 16:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

If it can be fixed, it should be fixed, not deleted. The case you're describing can always be fixed. Also, rewriting rarely takes hours, as it's mostly done by removing large portions of text. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It's already there - Speedy deletion criteria G11 ("Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic."). Black Kite (t) (c) 17:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The discussion at the VP made most of the points I would make here; I see nothing wrong with quick and somewhat ruthless gardening to reduce an advertorial down to a neutral stub rather than deletion. Such bold trimming is the work of minutes rather than hours though I would also leave some encouraging help on the creator's page which fosters dialogue rather than reverts. See User:Fæ/help/whyn as an example. --Fæ (talk) 17:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, written prior to the last post)

Black Kite, yes, but it's not clear that speedy deletion criteria apply to AFD. And this article makes it appear that they don't.

Lifebaka, how 'bout a real world example Wedbush Securities Looks like it was written by a wikimarketing firm. Volunteers just deleted the most spammy 3/4 of the article. The firm is notable. The remaining material is nearly all self-descriptive with promotional language. Is the only path forward for a volunteer to re-write it? North8000 (talk) 17:32, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't "written" by a wikimarketing firm, it was "hijacked" by one. The article was a stub before User:Wikimktg3 "spammed it up". If this is noticed early then the best thing to do is block the hijacker and revert to the last version before he touched it. In the case if Wedbush Securities, it was eventually fixed by here compliant editors. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I would be more concerned that practically the whole article is closely paraphrased from Wedbush's own website and this one. I would consider stripping it back to a stub (i.e. the first paragraph). Black Kite (t) (c) 17:43, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In a word, yes. If the company is notable, content issues are explicitly not reasons to delete it via a deletion discussion. Considering that it doesn't take me or others all that long to cut it back to a reasonable short article or stub, I don't see what the big deal is. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:02, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most of the respondents here. The best route (one which I take with these sorts of articles at WP:REFUND) is stubbing them and fixing tone problems. Often the accounts which created the articles never edit again and in other cases some are happy to see their article reworded to be a "neutral" entry (sounds weird but it happens). Only in rare cases (though not unheard of) do they persist in pushing advertising content. In those cases editing is still the best route but may not be the most practical route. As black kite says, exclusively promotional pages can be deleted on site. The rest should be dealt with via normal editing. Protonk (talk) 18:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you everyone. I (and I think other readers) have gained much useful insight (if not total clarity) from the above. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Criteria for speedy deletion to apply to AfD. In fact, often times AfDs are closed early as per CSD (not just SNOW). CSD are not only a method (template then delete), but also a criteria and I for one have successfully argued CSD in XfDs including AfDs. --Cerejota (talk) 23:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that what you said is logical. Speedy deletion criteria logically present a higher bar for deletion and so should also be grounds for AFD. But there is certainly no clarity or communication regarding this, and policy seems to say otherwise. (See Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion) Which is no doubt why it isn't happening. North8000 (talk) 11:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Then we need to update the policy for clarity. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of early close XfDs (not just AfDs) under CSD - just as there are speedy keeps and early SNOWs). CSD is simply a criteria for deletion with a bright line, but XfD cannot make an article who meets CSD criteria survive - we are not a democracy.--Cerejota (talk) 22:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I updated the Deletion Policy to make it clear that CSD is reason to delete, I also found this already in place at Wikipedia:Deletion_process#Early_closure "When the nominated page unambiguously falls under at least one of the criteria for speedy deletion, particularly criterion G10 (attack page) or criterion G12 (copyright violation)." I think the wording could be refined and will go ahead and do it, but wanted to make sure that people know CSD is indeed applicable to XfDs.--Cerejota (talk) 03:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice. North8000 (talk) 14:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Dominant group (XXXX) articles snowing delete?

Most of those seem to be snowing, can we get an admin to put them out of their misery? Not even the creator is commenting "keep" and he removed all the notification from his talk page so certainly knows the AfDs are going on, and participate in the (art) one... so takers?--Cerejota (talk) 23:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Please finish these AFDs

I am here to ask somebody to complete steps two and three of my AFD nominations for John Bradshaw (pastor) and Shawn Boonstra. (As it says on WP:AFDHOW, I have gone ahead and added the template to the pages and my rational on the talk pages so this is my request that someone else complete the process.) Thank you. 75.192.207.68 (talk) 16:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done performed as asked. I used the rationales from the article talkpages that you posted. I suggest you go the to the AfD themselves to confirm the rationales are correct.--Cerejota (talk) 17:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Would someone be so kind as to do the same for Mask (Mugbook)? Thanks. 75.192.15.137 (talk) 03:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Also done. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2011 September 2

I just restored 4 AfD's to the September 2nd log here that were accidentally removed just after their addition. Can someone verify whether there is any additional action needed to ensure these discussions get the requisite amount of visibility? Thanks! VQuakr (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Since those AfDs weren't listed under any log for seven days they ought to be listed under today's log instead of being restored to the old log. Hut 8.5 10:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Guido Penosi

The debate for this at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Guido Penosi does not appear to be transluded into one of the daily debates lists. Could someone take a look. Thanks. Keith D (talk) 17:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

(re)Listed on today's log page. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:20, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Deletion unjustified

I think the values ​​I've done that Ahad Azam, Niv Antman and Eli Elbaz are normal entries like everyone else and not have to delete them. Take for example the values ​​of Shadi Shaban and Eran Rozenbom that did not erase them and no one has these values ​​discussion. So please do not put the values ​​I presented at the beginning. (talk) 14:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't get the damn thing to work, either :-(

I'm obviously doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what.

I want to nominate Mozart: Violin Sonatas K. 301, 304, 376 & 526 for deletion - here was my proposed text:

Back on May 8 2011, using the reasonably common search term Mozart violin sonatas, this article concerning a single CD of four miscellaneous sonatas performed by Hilary Hahn was the first Search suggestion that popped up, rather than the listing I had expected to find. At that time it was then named simply Mozart: Violin Sonatas. To try to avoid this problem I "moved" the page to a new name, adding the specific K. numbers included on the disc. I also left a message on the article's talk page, which has never been responded to. However, even now, as soon as I type in the Search box no more than "Mozart v" this same suggestion continues to pop up as first choice.

The article is nothing but a bare track listing, containing no discussion whatever, or any other kind of useful information -- simply the track names, without even including their timings. It may or may not be a 2005 recording as stated; this is more likely to be the release (P) date.

I'm not opposed in principle to having separate articles on individual recordings, but surely there must be some justification for them, in terms of their notability and how informative the discussion is.

Maybe it's just me getting senile, but every combination I've tried just keeps returning a big red warning notice that I'm doing it wrong. Thanks in advance for any help with this. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The first AfD page doesn't exist, so I'm betting that you forgot to subst: the AfD template. Just add {{subst:afd}} to the top of the page and it should work fine. Cheers. lifebaka++ 12:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

No, the "((subst:afd))" was the first thing I did - that was the easy part; and then I followed the next set of instructions as best I could puzzle them out. As far as I could tell, it wasn't until I tried to preview my discussion above that the thing kept objecting. I did get the AfD box at the top of the article, but removed it since I couldn't complete it. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:53, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now I've saved steps as I've gone along, but don't know how to proceed from here. Milkunderwood (talk) 18:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

What I've saved so far doesn't look right, and in any case, I have no idea where it has gone to. ??? Milkunderwood (talk) 18:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sort of hoping that someone will be kind enough to come along behind me and try to clean up the messes I've been leaving behind everywhere. At least now I'm not getting the big red warning notices. The instructions seem to have been written for long-time Wikipedians who know how to interpret them. Sorry about that. Milkunderwood (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed it for you and listed the page on today's log (step 3). Not sure what the original problem was but it's fine now. Hut 8.5 19:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I never did figure out what I was doing wrong, but thanks very much for fixing it. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

TWINKLE is very good at simplifying this sort of stuff. Hut 8.5 19:41, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

You may want to keep a few notes about what seems most difficult. Once you feel confident with the AFD process, it would be good to revisit the guidelines and suggest some improvements based on your experience. Cheers Fæ (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: Thanks again. I looked at TWINKLE, but it was Greek to me. What confuses me now is that I did (I thought) list the page on today's log, at the top, but its formatting was all screwy.

@Fæ: You're quite right. This was the only such page I've ever run across so far for deletion. I've generally found that the best way to figure stuff like this out is to find an example and pull up an edit box to see what had been done. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

In the meantime, going now to the Hilary Hahn#Discography page and section, I find three additional such linked pages that are all exactly the same situation: nothing more than bare track listings, with no other details or discussion, that had all been set up years ago and never subsequently updated. All the other entries in the Hahn discography are just simple entries without links to individual articles, but these three pages do exist, and similarly ought to be deleted as being both misleading and useless:

• Mendelssohn & Shostakovich Concertos
• Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 1 / Spohr: Violin Concerto No. 8
• Schoenberg: Violin Concerto; Sibelius: Violin Concerto

I admit defeat here. This whole recommend-for-deletion process is extremely complex and time-consuming (unnecessarily so, it seems to me). In any case, so far these other pages have not yet led me astray like the Mozart violin sonatas did, and I'm not going to fool around with them myself. I do very much appreciate all the help I've received, but I'm afraid I just can't deal with the procedures. If anyone else cares to address these other pages, you would be doing innocent interested Wikipedia users a big favor. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Kleinzach has posted a notice saying that he has now PRODded these other three Hahn albums. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process

There needs to be better checks and balances in the process of how articles are currently nominated for deletion, to prevent notable topics from being deleted without actual qualification per Wikipedia article deletion guidelines. This is a significant problem, because it is very likely that notable topics are being injustly deleted. It's easy to nominate an article for deletion and then type five or six words and wait to see if an article will be deleted, whereas it takes more time to refute nominations. Perhaps there should be more sophisticated criterion to nominate articles for deletion. As it is now, anyone can nominate any article without providing a just rationale for doing so, and can instead simply base the nomination upon basic, generic and inspecific statements such as "doesn't pass general notability guidelines", while not specifically stating which parts of the guidelines they are supposedly referring to. If nobody comes along to correct an injust or baseless nomination, the article is then deleted based upon unqualified, general statements that don't actually correspond with the required source searching per WP:BEFORE prior to nominating an article for deletion. This definitely makes it very easy for people to censor Wikipedia, for whatever subjective reasons. Here's how it's done: an article is nominated for deletion and an AfD entry is created, a generic rationale is provided to misqualify the deletion without actually checking for reliable sources to establish topic notability. Afterward, if nobody comes along to correct the faulty nomination, the article is deleted. It's also easy for people to message one-another to delete articles, often per an "as per nom" rationale, while disregarding the actual notability of topics. If nobody comes along and provides an objective analysis to refute the deletion of an article in which the topic is actually notable, nominated per generic statements and without the required source searching prior to nomination, then the article disappears. Hopefully Wikipedia can introduce better checks and balances to prevent this type of easily accomplished, simple censorship. One idea is to include a requirement prior to article nomination for deletion in which the nominator has to state, or check-box on a template, that they've performed the required minimum search in Google Books and in the Google News Archive required by WP:BEFORE, and in Google Scholar for academic subjects, as suggested in WP:BEFORE. This would be a simple addition to the AfD nomination process that would add significant integrity to the process, and would also encourage users to follow the proper procedures.

Please place responses regarding this matter here on this Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion Discussion page below, rather than on my personal talk page. In this manner, other users can view and respond to responses. Thank you. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

(I have directed the other two pages where you started the exact same discussion to this one, no need to have the same discussion on three different pages) Fram (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

As longer as there are no checks and balances for the creation of articles, no more checks and balances are needed for the deletion of them? It is already more than hard enough for most users to get anything deleted, and there are a large number or articles that should get deleted but remain on Wikipedia because editors can't bring themselves to go through the steps to nolinate anything for deletion already. Adding more hoops won't make Wikipedia better. Fram (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Two thoughts occur to me: 1) I had not known until today that there are two separate processes for deletion: AfD, and PROD. (I hadn't know until two days ago that anyone could initiate an AfD.) And 2) personally, I tend to disregard anonymous posters who can't be bothered to register, unless their contributions are obviously worthwhile. But for deletions, by either process, I suggest that registration be required. Of course this still leaves the problem of puppets. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, a third thought: as noted in the section immediately preceding this one, "I can't get the damn thing to work, either :-(", I'm with Fram on the difficulty of using AfD - I'm not entirely a novice here at Wikipedia, but am by no means a very confident editor, and I found this procedure to be horrendously complex and confusing. I'm sure it could be simplified a great deal. But as to initiating a deletion request, by whatever procedure, it shouldn't be that difficult to require a minimum number of posts made by a registered user; and registration with no minimum, for voting. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Since you're obviously grinding an axe here, surely you must have countless examples of this happening? I don't mean one or two, here or there; I mean a significant percentage of deleted articles. Go on, show us. → ROUX ₪ 09:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)—

To reiterate, per my above treatise, one idea is to include a requirement prior to article nomination for deletion in which the nominator has to state, or simply check-box on a template, that they've performed the required minimum search in Google Books and in the Google News Archive required by WP:BEFORE, and in Google Scholar for academic subjects, as suggested in WP:BEFORE. This would be a simple addition to the AfD nomination process that would add significant integrity to the process, and would also encourage users to follow the proper procedures. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Undeletion is an incredibly lightweight process for pages where there has not been established a solid reason for deletion (i.e. a consensus based on debate). I've never understood why rescue types devote so much energy (and waste a collossal amount of that of other editors) on trying to prevent Wikipedia's most marginal content from being deleted when all it takes is one trip to WP:REFUND for any editor who genuinely thinks an article can be brought up to standard to resurrect it. Furthermore, like many of these rhetorical arguments regarding how deletion-heavy Wikipedia supposedly is it ignores the actual state of the project: it is plainly obvious that Wikipedia has an extremely active community of hardcore inclusionists watching over AfD closely to attempt to block any deletion nominations perceived as being invalid, and so the "checks and balances" are already in place. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 12:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC) regarding the comment directly above this message by user Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward):
  

Unfortunately, once an article is deleted, it is no longer available to any users except for administrators. All other users receive a message such as this, based upon a Wikipedia search for "123123"— "You may create the page "123123", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered." Users searching for a deleted article, unless they have administrative privileges, can't view it, and therefore, won't know about it's existence, unless perhaps they search through numerous AfD archives, which is unlikely. Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

If you click on the redlink, you get taken here, which helpfully has the deletion log in a pink box near the top of the page. Cheers. lifebaka++ 12:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for providing details about the deletion log for my "123123" search example, which provides more details regarding this matter. This also further exemplifies my point. Unfortunately, the deleted data remains unviewable (as a red link) for any users except administrators, and then a user has to ask an administrator to provide more information about deleted data. Despite all of this, users won't be able to access the data to ascertain the use of WP:REFUND. Northamerica1000 (talk) 13:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Making WP:BEFORE have any type of weight (a requirement before AFD nom.) should really be considered an unachievable WP:PEREN; it is way too easy to game, and way too bureaucratic. We must assume nominators are making the nominations in good faith with BEFORE in mind. Instead, AFD nominations should be seen as a behavior, and if one regularly puts articles to AFD that are readily, perhaps speedily kept, and which performing BEFORE would have not required the AFD nom, that's something to task the user at at WP:RFC/U or other behavioral problems.

As for articles where they are nominated and no one else responds to them, there's not much we can do about that - it either means they aren't on anyone's watchlist or those that have it there ignored the matter. Fortunately REFUND is very easy and provides the checks and balances on the matter. --MASEM (t) 12:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree as it's difficult to "prove" that the nominator did not follow WP:BEFORE. I have seen AFDs where a "keep" !voter has said something like "The nominator didn't follow WP:BEFORE or he would have found a zillion google news hits" when in fact he did and wasn't impressed with anything he saw there. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Or take the case where the topic being deleted overlaps with several other, likely more notable topics of similar name, and it is very difficult to tune the right set of search terms to find it if you are not 100% familiar with the topic. You can still make the BEFORE good faith effort, but still be critized "well, duh, you should have tried +x, -y, -z in your search, 100s of hits that way!". --MASEM (t) 13:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Also to add: most good faith nominators, if their ghits fail but later shown the right way to get plenty of hits, will usually adjust their stance; they may disagree the hits are appropriate for notability, for example, or in some cases outright withdrawn the nomination. Those nominators that do drive-by noms without checking BEFORE on a regular basis are also the types that refute any sourced discovered during the nom or never respond during the process, and that again is all behavior, not process. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, drive by nomming and !voting is a problem. IMHO anybody who nominates an article for deletion or !votes in an AFD should be willing to participate in the discussion. If you don't have the time then perhaps you are nominating too many articles for deletion. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• If we're going to talk about checks and balances in AFD, how about we address Northamerica1000's !voting habbits. Such as using the exact same copypaste rationale, using a WP:NOT rationale as inclusion policy, or simply looking at the AFD vote counter where his opinion only matches the close 57% of the time. When there are only two options (Support/Delete), 50% accuracy is easy to achieve. (Note, set it to ignore the last 2 weeks because too many AFDs weren't closed yet.) As an AFD closer, I give less weight to NA1K's rationale when I see this repetitive behavior. I rather find it disruptive to an AFD. Google hits don't confer notability and neither does WP:NOT.--v/r - TP 14:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) it seems to me that drive-by nominations are less of a problem than drive-by !voting. the afds i've seen where the nomination is really off the wall have usually failed quickly without a lot of time wasted, since the sources are easy to find. what worries me more is the borderline cases, where there are two or three potentially reliable but not obviously so sources hidden in a mass of junk, and the quality of those sources actually needs to be discussed by the community in order to figure out what to do. it *does* feel like a waste of time to have two or three serious discussants, surrounded by a bunch of "delete not notable" or "keep 23433 ghits", and then feel as if the closing admin spent more time counting than reading. of course, i have no examples right now, and i don't want to criticize specific closures anyway. we say that !votes with reasons will be taken more seriously. perhaps admins could be encouraged to strike !votes that didn't give some detailed reasoning in their opinion before closing afds, so that the community could see that they really weren't taking those drive-by votes into account? that's just an off-of-the-top idea, i've put very little thought into it, it may be unworkable, etc. drive-by !voting is an important aspect of afds to discuss, though. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 14:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from Northamerica1000 (talk) 16:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  

The addition of a very simple check-box type of confirmation within the procedures of nominating an article for deletion, in which users verify that they've performed the required source searching per WP:BEFORE guidelines prior to nominating an article for deletion would be very functional, and is a reasonable idea (and is also my idea). Another idea is to require, or at least encourage users to state that the basic source searching has been undertaken in the edit summary when the article is nominated for deletion. Oftentimes, people continue to nominate articles for deletion that are actually topically notable, per the availability of reliable sources. For whatever reasons, people continue to refer articles to AfD under very basic rationales, which are often countered through simple internet searches for reliable sources. Sometimes people refer to entire pages of guidelines as a rationale for article deletion, which fails to qualify specific reasons for notability or lack thereof, and equates to referring to an entire list of multiple, specific rationales as a singular, generic rationale for article deletion. This equates to stating that an article should be deleted because of any reason on a guideline page, without actually stating any of the criterion on the guideline page to qualify the statement, which is illogical. In these types of cases, even when assuming the nominator is referring to the basic criterion section of a guideline page, oftentimes no specific part of the basic criterion are mentioned, which again is inspecific and ambiguous. Northamerica1000 (talk) 16:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Articles can't be deleted without a consensus. There's your check. Articles can be created without a consensus. If anything, there's an imbalance towards creation. But it should continue to be this way. Editors create a slew of articles, they're scrutinized by other editors, and we filter out the ones where there's a consensus that there's no potential. The system works. If we're going to prevent editors from starting an AFD without doing a google search, then we need to prevent articles from being created without more sources. Dzlife (talk) 16:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't the editor who wrote the article be responsible for finding those sources? Northamerica1000, are you suggesting someone can write an unsourced article and then demand that those who want to delete said unsourced article are responsible for finding sources for it? That's just crazy. If someone is suggesting AfD for an article without sources, and the editor who wrote it isn't prepared to back up the information with valid sources and then moans when it gets deleted, there's something wrong with the system! In the case that the article was written years ago by someone who is no longer active on Wikipedia, then maybe some sort of "rescue" should be performed first - but where an editor is active? That editor should be responsible for the sourcing. MeegsC | Talk 16:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Millions of articles were created before the notability guideline even existed, and even after it, people just ignored these suggested guidelines when they were mentioned in AFDs for quite some time, including closing administrators. Those times have changed. We do not go through and nominate millions of articles for deletion based on lack of sources. Often times a simple search on Google news will show something got coverage. Dream Focus 16:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Huh. It says there are only 253,307 articles that link to the unreferenced template. [13] It also says the tool isn't working properly now, so the results might not be accurate. Anyway, hordes of things go to AFD which have references, just people arguing if its notable enough. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tyler_Shields has a long time editor of Wikipedia commenting that the guy does meet the General Notability Guidelines but still says the article should be deleted, because he hates celebrities. Dream Focus 16:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

When you take to the policy pages to rescue an article so non-notable that even DGG says we should delete it, it's time to have a pause for self-reflection. Dzlife (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• In response to user thumperward/Chris Cunningham, I'd like to point out that deletion review gives random results. [14] List of Native American women was overturned to keep, while List of African American women was endorsed as staying deleted [15] despite there no valid rational for deleting it. The same articles, it just random guess who shows up and argues, and the opinions of whoever is closing the discussion. Dream Focus 16:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• In response to user thumperward/Chris Cunningham's comment "it is plainly obvious that Wikipedia has an extremely active community of hardcore inclusionists watching over AfD closely to attempt to block any deletion nominations perceived as being invalid", I'd like to point that since it is so easily for anyone to nominate things for deletion, there are always far more nominations than anyone can get through. I've seen certain people nominating scores of articles almost every day it seems, and if enough people show up to actually look for sources and comment, then its likely to be kept, and if not, it gets deleted. Its more of a game of chance than an actual functioning system. And if an article is kept, the same exact nominator can renominate it for deletion later on, multiple times even, until they get the result they want. Dream Focus 16:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• i agree with Dream Focus here about the chancy aspects of afd. i wonder if a policy of no more than one nomination per year per article might be useful, or some such time restriction (i'm sorry if this has been considered and rejected before, i haven't looked incredibly carefully). this would make the discussions feel as if they had a chance of having some lasting effect. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 16:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose a 1-year restriction on AFDs. It would create a method to game the system. I create an article, get a buddy of mine to nominate it for AFD, and a few other buddies to support keeping it. AFD closes as keep, my article stays on Wikipedia for 1 year.--v/r - TP 17:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

comment‐ good lord, of course you're right. it didn't even occur to me. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 18:00, 22 September 2011 (UTC)