Wikipedia talk:Deletion review

The instructions should require pinging of all editors involved in the delete discussion

Either previously-involved editors should not be allowed to !vote, or they should all be notified, but allowing previously-involved editors to !vote without requiring that all previously-involved editors are notified of the discussion leaves the gate open to the supporters of one side of the discussion to be involved and !vote whilst the supporters of the other side may be unaware that the discussion is ongoing. You see this particularly where a well-organised group of editors fails to get their way at AfD and then brings a deletion review in which they all engage. FOARP (talk) 10:50, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

• I suspect that automatically pinging all AfD participants would lead to DRV becoming a second AfD where all the AfD participants turn up and say the same things again. Hut 8.5 20:24, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
• The point of DRV isn't to restate and rehash the original deletion discussion, with substantially the same participants and same arguments. DRV also isn't decided by a straight vote (or !vote) count.

WP:DRVPURPOSE is pretty clear that DRV is intended primarily to deal with serious procedural errors and oversights—something that doesn't generally require the renewed participation or inspection of all the original AfD's participants to assess. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:51, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

• Ideally the original participants shouldn't be involved in a DRV at all. The process is most effective when it's a discussion amongst uninvolved editors with experience of closing discussions and deleting pages. We can't enforce that, but mandatory pings should certainly be avoided as having the opposite effect. – Joe (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

In which case: forbid previously-involved editors from !voting. This is the best way of avoiding DRV becoming AFD 2. If that can't be enforced then at least prevent canvassing (e.g., notifying editors on specific projects etc.). If you see almost all the editors who voted on one side of a delete/keep split contributing here, but not the other side of that split, then that should signify that something is wrong. FOARP (talk) 14:33, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

• You seem to be suggesting that if the article was deleted at AfD, the creator of the article couldn't comment (or vote). It's wholly unfair if he can't ex[plain why he thinks the article should be kept, and any closer would discount his !vote a little, just as they would at the AfD.

But in practice, wha ideally happens in a reasonable DelRev, is that there is some compromise. This requires the people who care and understand the isusue to particpate again--the matters raised will usually be different than at the AfD. A second round of discussion is often very useful. DGG ( talk ) 01:45, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Wrap each discussion in a collapsable box by default?

When a DRV discussion is closed, it gets wrapped in class="navbox collapsible collapsed". I propose that we wrap all current discussions in a similar template which generates a box that defaults to the opened state. This would make things easier to navigate, especially on mobile. If there's two long discussions on the same day, it's too easy to scroll past the break between them and then it's hard to navigate back. If each discussion had it's own box, I could collapse the ones I'm not interested in. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Dealing with the markup for that will be irritating and confusing, especially for inexperienced users. In particular, we will continuously move new comments that are placed at the ends of discussions, outside the boxes. The process is already far too heavyweight and instruction-laden as-is: even admins, and the admins who are regulars at DRV who are trying to clean up after them, regularly get it wrong. —Cryptic 17:03, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I get where you're coming from about the complexity. As for the specific example you cited, I guess the best I can say is touché :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Should DRV participants be asked to declare their prior involvement?

Should DRV participants be asked to declare their prior involvement? Eg “!voted delete/keep”, “article creator”, “XfD nominator”.

This comes up in individual DRV discussions from time to time. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I'd have thought it would be obvious to anyone who did their due diligence before participating in the DRV. – Joe (talk) 22:08, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

It is not unreasonable on first pass of a review to read the nomination at face value. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm more versed with MRV then DRV, and I'd say it's a common courtesy to indicate which way you !voted, but not obligatory. If you want to make it obligatory you'd probably have to start an RFC.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

What Amakuru said. It's a courtesy but I wouldn't expect it. Maybe a supplementary note somewhere. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Talking "RFC" and "obligatory" is overkill. This has been mentioned many times over many years with no disagreement. It would be better practice, no need to talk about it being a "rule". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• I edited the instructions: "As a courtesy to other DRV participants, indicate your prior involvements with the deletion discussion or the topic." Let's see how that runs. This would be a simple improvement in habits. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

  I think that's a good idea, and if it came up for discussion, I would support a rule that AfD !voters can comment but not !vote at DRV. Having uninvolved editors evaluate the discussion and the close is better than rehashing the AfD at DRV. Levivich 23:48, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

  I would oppose that, firstly as a "rule" where no "rule" is needed, and secondly because a !vote is not a vote but a comment with a bolded summary that assists the reading of the discussion, and because the XfD !voters often say important things. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• The change to the instructions seems like a good thing. Not that I have any faith it'll do anything useful, since as far as I can tell, nobody actually reads the instructions :-( -- RoySmith (talk) 00:05, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Very few read the rules very often. Newcomers read the rules sometimes, and they sometimes express confusion over whether they are allowed to participate. I think it is good to keep instructions reflecting best practice, but changes to best practice here will result from the regulars leading by example. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:37, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
    • When people don't read the rules, the solution isn't to add more rules. —Cryptic 07:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
      • True, but not relevant, because there is no issues with not reading the rules. The existing rules are fully complied with, and they are not rules anyway. If you do not bold your “endorse”, your post is still fully considered. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. The main problem at DRV is people repeating AfD arguments rather focussing on the procedural issue(s). Getting this right is more important than providing a detailed history of one's involvement. Anyone assessing a DRV ought to look at the discussion in question and it will then be obvious who the participants were, if it matters. Andrew D. (talk) 00:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support I believe I am supporting the addition to the instructions above. This is something I do anyways - I feel uncomfortable !voting at DRV when I've participated in the Afd - and while the comments can still be useful, DRV !votes from AfD participants are really only useful in the rare event the DRV !voter agrees with the close when the close went against their AfD !vote. SportingFlyer T·C 00:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• This is instruction creep on a page whose instructions are already four times too long, has been rejected in slightly different forms many times before (example, example), and is useless and distracting in practice (example, example). If we're going to pretend it's best practice for people to declare supposed biases between their vote and their reasoning - you know, the part that actually matters - we'd be better off encouraging things like "(I always endorse keep AFDs and never overturn delete AFDs)" or "(I always endorse G11s of cryptocurrency-related subjects)". —Cryptic 07:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Not “slightly different”. Very different. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:07, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• I feel that although there would be advantages to this rule, there's also the risk of discouraging people from participating in the AfD for controversial subjects, because we've implied that not participating in the AfD strengthens their voice in the DRV. So on balance, I'm with Cryptic.—S Marshall T/C 21:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Occassionaly we see people say they hesitated to contribute to DRV because they weren’t sure they were allowed. If some said that, more didn’t say anything. I think giving the instruction on declaring involvement serves to give them, the worried ones, permission to participate. Note that the wording is not a requirement, big difference. For anyone who doesn’t (re)read the instructions, no harm. If it doesn’t work out, no harm, but on a number of occasions people have expressed issues with people commenting without declaring prior involvement/bias. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:29, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• DRV commenting instrcutions. New text: “Some consider it a courtesy, to other DRV participants, to indicate your prior involvements with the deletion discussion or the topic“. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• I would expect anyone participating in a Del Rev--and certainly any admin who closes one--to first look at the AfD. How else can they possibly understand what the appeal is about? DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
• I've removed this. Even aside from the discussion above, nobody does this, and the few who previously did did so only for a few days. —Cryptic 19:48, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I've added it back. I've always done this, and even though I'm not an admin/don't close DRVs, I also consider it a courtesy. SportingFlyer T·C 23:06, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
    • But not courteous enough that, despite 35 edits to individual DRVs since this change was made, you've indicated your own involvement or lack thereof. Not even once. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]. The guideline is WP:BRD, not bold, discuss, get fairly-solid consensus against, revert, then revert back anyway. —Cryptic 03:12, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
      • @Cryptic: We disagree on two things: I do not declare my lack of involvement in the DRV, nor is that reflected by the statement. A spot-check of the DRVs shows I didn't participate in any of those XfDs. Also, I don't think there's a "fairly solid consensus against." There's a consensus against a hard and fast rule, but the statement you removed isn't a rule. If you want me to gain consensus on the statement, I'm happy to start another thread so wires don't get crossed. SportingFlyer T·C 03:36, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
        • So when you said "users do often declare their previous involvement, including myself", precisely what were you referring to? Diffs please. —Cryptic 03:45, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
          • Maybe it is a truism. Some consider it a courtesy to indicate prior involvement when entering a discussion. The underlying motivation was to assure DRV newcomers coming from a contested XfD: Yes, you are welcome to participate. Not a huge deal, and not a frequent issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
            • Your underlying goal is accomplished by the very first two words of the relevant section: "Any editor may express his or her opinion about an article or file being considered for deletion review." If that's not enough, add something like "(even if you've already discussed the article)" to the sentence; don't add an entire new bullet point that A) makes first-time DRV editors feel bad if they only notice it after commenting; B) that nobody else ever, ever does; C) that demands courtesy to users who comment at DRV without reading the AFD under discussion. The amount of weasel-worded instruction creep I am willing to endure in order to accomplish C is very, very limited. —Cryptic 06:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
          • @Cryptic: This isn't one of my posts but is the most recent example I've seen, so I hope Rosguill doesn't mind: [36]. I don't think this should be mandated and I've never thought it needed to be disclosed in the negative, but I think it should be encouraged. SportingFlyer T·C 05:53, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
            • I am trying, very hard, to give you an opportunity to come up with a more charitable explanation for your words "including myself" than I can. —Cryptic 06:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
              • Feel free to drag me under the bus in case I've screwed up somewhere, but I almost always only comment (as opposed to !voting) on DRVs in which I've participated in XfDs. Examples: [37] [38] SportingFlyer T·C 06:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, the participants should declare their involvement per WP:AVOIDCOI and WP:AFDFORMAT--DBigXrayᗙ 05:26, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
  • This isn't about disclosing a conflict of interest with the article subject - that, I might support, if I didn't think it would be ignored almost all the time. This is about disclosing that you previously commented at a prior AFD for an article, which WP:AFDFORMAT doesn't demand. Anybody who has any business commenting at DRV already knows who edited the AFD, because they should have read it. —Cryptic 06:23, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• In an Ideal world yes they should have read it, but in practice what really happens is folks are regularly seen voting at DRV in a manner that is inline (or supports the outcome) with their AfD vote. There is no major reason why they should not disclose the fact that they have voted at the AfD and hence have a COI with the outcome of the DRV. --DBigXrayᗙ 12:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• That being said, someone who !voted in the AfD who !votes at DRV against their AfD !vote has traditionally been given a lot of weight. SportingFlyer T·C 16:27, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Should I not have done this?

IronGargoyle, whose opinion I very much respect, has said that he feels I should not have --- err, hatted --- Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 24. I would welcome other input, and if I was wrong to do this then I'm very sincerely sorry for doing it.—S Marshall T/C 14:28, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@S Marshall: You say it isn't a closure but, as IronGargoyle said, it really is. I would not say that the discussion has moved to ARCA, rather a related discussion has been opened there. If I were you I'd reverse the closure and leave the DRV open until the ARCA concludes. – Joe (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Very well: I've self-reverted. I'm disappointed to see that the ARCA is in the process of reaching the most poorly thought-out of the decisions available to them, in which any deletion can be inoculated against community scrutiny -- as soon as the deleter uses the "Arbitration enforcement" label, all supervision will be reserved to Arbcom.  :(—S Marshall T/C 19:31, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

S Marshall, I agree with you; perhaps there should be a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. Leviv ich 20:31, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree that closing/hatnoting/whatevering this was a sub-optimal decision. Thank you for self-reverting. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Page restrictions says:

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project.

The dispute is whether "any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary" includes the deletion of a page as part of the discretionary enforcement process. I would like to submit an RfC to the community asking a similar question to the one the arbitrators are answering at the clarification request:

Can AE admins delete pages under "other reasonable measures" as part of the enforcement process?

A) No

B) Yes

C) Yes, but only per deletion policy

The RfC would amend Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions or Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy to reflect the community consensus. I would follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Ratification and amendment about amending the Arbitration policy: "Proposed amendments may be submitted for ratification only after being approved by a majority vote of the Committee, or having been requested by a petition signed by at least one hundred editors in good standing" by asking the community to sign a petition to hold this RfC. Pinging current arbitrators AGK (talk · contribs), BU Rob13 (talk · contribs), Joe Roe (talk · contribs), KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs), Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs), RickinBaltimore (talk · contribs), SilkTork (talk · contribs) and former arbitrators DGG (talk · contribs), Doug Weller (talk · contribs), and Drmies (talk · contribs) who participated in the ARCA since you are more familiar with the arbitration process. Is this permitted and where should the RfC be held? Should the petition signing process start only after the ARCA is closed?

Here is my proposed wording for the RfC:

RfC about deletion under discretionary sanctions enforcement

Are admins permitted to delete pages as part of the discretionary sanctions enforcement process?

A) No

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Page restrictions is amended to say (inserted text underlined):

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. Discretionary sanctions enforcement does not cover deletion of pages. The enforcing administrator must log page restrictions they place.

B) Yes

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Page restrictions is amended to say (inserted text underlined):

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, page deletion, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. The enforcing administrator must log page restrictions they place.

C) Yes, but only per deletion policy

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Page restrictions is amended to say (inserted text underlined):

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, page deletion (only when pages are eligible for deletion under the deletion policy), revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. The enforcing administrator must log page restrictions they place.

The RfC's proposed wording can be improved. Pinging Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 24#User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles participants and closer: SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), Sandstein (talk · contribs), Rhododendrites (talk · contribs), RoySmith (talk · contribs), Hobit (talk · contribs), Pudeo (talk · contribs), GoldenRing (talk · contribs), Godsy (talk · contribs), S Marshall (talk · contribs), Serial Number 54129 (talk · contribs), Simonm223 (talk · contribs), Ivanvector (talk · contribs), SportingFlyer (talk · contribs), A Quest For Knowledge (talk · contribs), Levivich (talk · contribs), and Spartaz (talk · contribs) and ARCA participants Bishonen (talk · contribs), Black Kite (talk · contribs), RexxS (talk · contribs), Cryptic (talk · contribs), GreenMeansGo (talk · contribs), Xymmax (talk · contribs), and Wnt (talk · contribs) in case you have any thoughts about improving the wording or how to formulate the RfC.

Cunard (talk) 06:15, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• Cunard, yes, something like that. I think ArbCom should be left to make their resolution at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Gun control. Ideally, User:Jimbo Wales will comment too, as it is his reserve powers delegated to ArbCom that they are delegating to "AE Admins" to override policy and community practice. We can give them some time, because this is not an emergency. Indeed, it is the exaggeration of emergency that leads to hasty power grabs at the expense of a collegiate community working towards WP:PPP.

A follow up RfC is probably needed. As things are looking now, ArbCom is divided and is voting on whether ArbCom is claiming the power to ignore deletion policy with no external accountability. What is the limit of scope of ArbCom? Previously, ArbCom was very clear about steering clear of content and community policy. Recently, WP:ACDS has appeared as a wholesale rewriting of policy and practice on blocking, banning, page protection, etc. WP:ACDS is unashamed ArbCom written policy. ArbCom should not even have power to vote on its scope. A well participated RfC is needed. The answers may be complicated. ArbCom's ability to write policy to allow any admin to delete articles across a broad range of topics is obviously too far. The ability to delegate "AE admins" to protect pages, regardless of consensus at WP:RFPP, is offensive, though less so. The practice of thoroughness and transparency before declaring a WP:BAN on edge cases, that seems pretty reasonable. Does ArbCom has any responsibility to ensure that their practice is in harmony with Wikipedia:Banning policy, or is ArbCom sacrosanct regardless? Are we going to have to vet future ArbCom candidates on their interpretation of content policy in contentious areas? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:36, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

The "recently" comment is a bit confusing. Discretionary sanctions have been around since 2010, and similar but less well-defined concepts have been around since just about the beginning of the project. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:12, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

The ACDS page appears to date from 14:20, 15 January 2010. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• There is no functional difference between A and C. If deletion can be otherwise done under existing policy, then there is no need to tie a ribbon around the thing and call it an AE action, that is, unless you want to add that the appropriate venue for appeal is AE. Now that comes off as unnecessarily bureaucratic and at least slightly stupid, and in the current case, it seems there is general agreement that DRV was the appropriate venue for appeal. Beyond that, carving out some "super special" function of AE as a venue for review of a "super special" type of deletion functionally elevates the opinions of admins in a deletion discussion, which is to say a content issue, rather than a behavioral issue. (Rather than just casting one supervote, we'll get everyone together and cast a bunch of them and tally up which supervotes win.)

Of course we also could consider dropping the whole act as a community, maybe some time in the near future, and admit that the fact we have to debate whether AE can be used as an exception to policy indicates that in every possibly meaningful sense, that AE is a policy, and one that substantially rewrites actual policy based on community consensus, rather than carrying on with this whole bit about the transitive property of the divine right of ArbCom to unilaterally empower certain members of the community to do what they wan't and to hell with community consensus. GMG^talk 13:00, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• An RfC would not be an appropriate venue for a change to the arbitration policy, because such a change wouldn't be based on traditional consensus. You would need a "petition signed by at least one hundred editors in good standing" if you wanted to go the non-ArbCom route. You could start that petition here and advertise it wherever you care to. I would not label it an RfC, because opposition essentially doesn't matter: If you got 100 supports and 5000 opposes, it would still be submitted for ratification, by way of an extreme example. Having said all that, I heavily discourage a modification of the arbitration policy to restrict the Arbitration Committee from deleting pages or delegating the authority to delete pages to others. I think that is potentially harmful when you consider some very fringe things we occasionally come in contact with (child protection, for one). I'd recommend letting the ARCA run its course for now. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:43, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Actually, I just read your wording for the RfC, Cunard. That would not be a valid RfC at all, per WP:CONEXCEPT. In particular, you cannot directly amend Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, since it is an arbitration decision. You can only limit the scope of ArbCom by adding to or changing WP:ARBPOL. The change you're looking for is probably an addition to the section prohibiting creating policy by fiat, explicitly noting that ArbCom may not delete pages contrary to the deletion policy or authorize others to do so. I have a feeling you're about to get that result at ARCA in a much more organic way without setting a potentially dangerous precedent that would prevent us from acting efficiently in emergency situations, though, so I still encourage you to wait for that. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Yes, I believe this traditionally goes something like:
      • What about that policy you just changed?
      • ArbCom can't change policy.
      • But you just made a set of rules to follow instead of policy? Isn't that policy?
      • No.
      • Why not?
      • Because ArbCom can't change policy.
      • Proceed to step one. Repeat.
    • GMG^talk 15:41, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• Responding to Cunard, as I was pinged. I think the best way to proceed is as Joe suggested to the OP – suspend this discussion until the ARCA has concluded. AGK ■ 18:12, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• Responding to ping, thanks to Cunard for putting this together. I agree it should be Yes/No (just options A and B), and that it makes sense to let ARCA conclude before deciding if anything further is needed. Leviv ich 18:22, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• I agree, it makes perfect sense to wait and see. However, I also agree with Cunard's impulse that if this results in a change in deletion policy there should be community discussion as to whether it supports such an expansion. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 20:10, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
• I also agree it should be just A and B. Three-way RfCs have an unfortunate tendency to be inconclusive. .( I strongly suggest to arb com that it postpone its discussions until the conclusion of the RfC, and let individual members comment here instead. Discussing something at two venues is always a poor idea. If they insist on going first, we can move this discussion to arb policy.) DGG ( talk ) 23:12, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • If ArbCom were to take a formal vote to wait for this proposed RfC, that would be awesome, because this is policy and community process question, and ArbCom is not meant to write policy. At this moment, the ball is in their court, the RfC should not run while ArbCom is mid-deliberation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:04, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
  • My feeling is that if existing policy does not clearly support an option other than A, to the point where an RfC would be needed to clarify the issue, then this proceeding can be closed with the understanding that deleting pages is not part of AE at this time. Any further argument here is simply a behavioral question of whether the situation was unclear enough to excuse an admin's mistake. Arbitrators should be limited to "enumerated powers" delegated by the community, so lack of clarity should be taken as lack of authority. And if an admin is taken to arbitration, this shouldn't become a special opportunity to showcase a call for changes in policy to support how he was doing things. An RfC like this should be proposed (if at all) through the usual Village Pump mechanism by editors who support the change. Wnt (talk) 13:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't blame the admin in this case. Though I think it was reasonably clear already, it was nonetheless a possible misunderstanding. We deal with misunderstandings by clarifying, not by taking people to arbcom. I think this discussion is sufficient clarification. DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

• Although I can't think of any real world examples where this possible power to delete a page under AE could ever have been needed, I am able to come up with hypothetical scenarios where it might be. But in all these hypothetical cases that I can imagine, there would be an applicable speedy deletion criterion already and the sysop's decision would be resoundingly endorsed at DRV. I'd welcome counterexamples.

  Ideally we need to change the rules to say that all deletion decisions are reviewable at DRV. If we decide that there's some justification for an Arbitration Enforcement deletion criterion, then we need to say that in such cases DRV's role is to produce an advisory outcome for Arbcom to confirm.—S Marshall T/C 00:36, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Revised draft

Thank you all for the comments. I agree that any petition to amend the arbitration policy should wait until the arbitrators have concluded their discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Gun control: Arbitrator views and discussion (permanent link). Incorporating the feedback from BU Rob13 that the community cannot directly amend Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, I will solicit feedback from the community about two draft petitions that modify Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy. I am also incorporating feedback from Levivich and DGG that it should just be a binary choice of Yes/No.

Here are the draft petitions:

Petitions about the Committee's jurisdiction over authorizing deletion, undeletion, and redirect of pages

Does the Committee have jurisdiction over authorizing deletion, undeletion, and redirect of pages?

A) Yes

Petition 1: The "Policy and precedent" section of the arbitration policy is amended to add the following underlined text:

The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced. The Committee does not rule on content, but may propose means by which community resolution of a content dispute can be facilitated. The Committee has jurisdiction over authorizing the deletion, undeletion, or redirection of pages in any namespace.

B) No

Petition 2: The "Policy and precedent" section of the arbitration policy is amended to add the following underlined text:

The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced. The Committee does not rule on content, but may propose means by which community resolution of a content dispute can be facilitated. The Committee does not have jurisdiction over authorizing the deletion, undeletion, or redirection of pages in any namespace.

S Marshall makes a good point about holding an RfC to say that all deletions, including those made under Wikipedia:General sanctions#Community-authorised sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, must be reviewable at DRV. This RfC should be held to clarify whether deletions under community-authorised sanctions such as Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol can be reviewable at DRV. The RfC cannot mandate that deletions done under discretionary sanctions must be reviewable at DRV since it does not amend the arbitration policy.

BU Rob13 wrote that prohibiting the arbitration committee from deleting pages creates "a potentially dangerous precedent that would prevent us from acting efficiently in emergency situations". Like S Marshall, I cannot think of any examples where a speedy deletion criterion doesn't already exist to handle the situation. If it is an emergency like "privacy violations, child protection, copyright infringement or systematic harassment", the Wikimedia Foundation should be involved and can delete the page under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#G9. Office actions. If the emergency involves a WP:BLP, then the page could be deleted under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#G10. Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking. If an emergency is not covered under WP:CSD, an admin can delete the page under WP:IAR and request review at DRV where the community would strongly uphold the deletion. But I cannot think of any emergencies not covered under WP:CSD and like S Marshall, I welcome counterexamples.

Pinging editors who responded to my post: SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), BU Rob13 (talk · contribs), GreenMeansGo (talk · contribs), AGK (talk · contribs), Levivich (talk · contribs), Xymmax (talk · contribs), DGG (talk · contribs), Wnt (talk · contribs), and S Marshall (talk · contribs), to notify you of my reply. I welcome feedback about improving the wording of the draft petitions.

Cunard (talk) 06:37, 18 March 2019 (UTC) Removed "and any action must comply with the deletion policy" from petition 1 to match the "Yes" answer to the question. Cunard (talk) 08:36, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Cunard: I'd like to emphasize that even those of us who think the Committee should have discretion to require the deletion of a page (outside of mainspace, for obvious reasons - we do not rule on content) would not want a statement in the arbitration policy giving us jurisdiction over any deletion. That's a straw-man. We're saying that, where a page falls within the scope of the Arbitration Committee for other reasons, deletion is theoretically on the table in certain extreme scenarios. I agree that the WMF should often be involved in emergency situations. The reality is that they often do not act until it is impossible for them not to. One recent case comes to mind in particular where the WMF did not act where I could see the potential for an ArbCom deletion of a userpage, in a slightly different set of circumstances. Moreover, removing deletion entirely from our jurisdiction through a provision in the Arbitration Policy would make it impossible for us to oversee the Oversight team, since they have the ability to delete pages as suppressions pursuant to WP:OS, and we're currently tasked with their supervision. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:02, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

User:BU_Rob13, "removing deletion entirely from our jurisdiction"?

1. I feel you are creating confusion between Oversighters' authority to delete&suppress, and the role of ArbCom in reviewing complaints about Oversight actions. The role of supervision does not require the right to delete things unilaterally and unreviewably by others. Many supervisors are not authorized to do the acts of the people they supervise.

2. Although it is also my view that ArbCom has no policy-overriding authority to delete things (WP:CSD is meant to be exhaustive of good reasons), ArbCom voting in a resolution to delete some pages is a very long way from authorizing any "AE admin" to unilaterally delete a page, unreviewable by anyone but ArbCom. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: "Unreviewable by anyone but ArbCom"? False. All AE actions are reviewable by uninvolved admins at WP:AE or uninvolved editors at WP:AN. Any editor could "appeal" an AE deletion there. In fact, the chances of ArbCom overruling a community determination at one of those venues is vanishingly small. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:22, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't really aware of WP:AE aka Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Shouldn't that shortcut be WP:ARE? It's rules are written at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Enforcement, an "internal rules and procedures of the Arbitration Committee" that "should not be edited without the Committee's authorization". You really can't tell me that WP:ARE is independent, not under the control of ArbCom. These pages are perpetuating a shallow fiction that ArbCom has not created policy by fiat. It looks like a reasonable process page. I see User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles is under discussion there as well. Even if it is a good process review page, deletions should always be reviewable at DRV, and deletion should not be being used as an "enforcement" tool. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:47, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I think the proposal is overbroad. The issue recently was should a single admin have discretion to delete as an AE action, so the proposal should just address that: 'Arbitration enforcement discretionary sanctions by a single administrator do not include deletion, although they may include other forms of removal.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:12, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It is not overbroad. The defense of this by members of arb com includes their retention of the power to delete pages as an arb action, which can only be reversed by arb com. No need for this has ever been demonstrated, even hypothetically. Arb com should have the power it needs, but no more And among the powers it has and needs is the ability to do an emergency desysop, which can deal with any rogue admin actions. DGG ( talk ) 17:38, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

No. It is over-broad. Whatever the so-called defense, it is idiotic to make a bureaucratic rule about something that almost never occurs. On the other hand, it is a truism that things need to be removed from the pedia, as editing involves removal, and conduct, including illegal or just untoward conduct on the pedia is almost all in writing or image that sometimes has to be removed. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:38, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

It is not over-broad. There is a super-big land grab at play here, by some of ArbCom. Can ArbCom arbitrarily ride roughshod over community policy and practices, namely WP:DEL, WP:CSD and WP:DRV? Further, can they delegate their super-power to ride roughshod over policy to self-selecting "AE admins"? Further, can they insist that their own powers, and the actions of their delegates, are unreviewable by anyone but themselves? Each of these should be an emphatic "No". It is not even a border region. The border regions are the delegation of ArbCom power to AE admins to arbitrarily BLOCK, BAN and PROTECT, none of which hide information from the community. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: I'm going to just be blunt here. If an editor were to create a userpage with his contact information, and ArbCom received private information that they were a pedophile that the WMF would not act on because it was unrelated to anything on-wiki, do you think ArbCom should be unable to delete that userpage as an ArbCom action (with the intent of preventing editors who may be minors from contacting this individual)? An absolute prohibition on ArbCom deleting pages would keep such a user page live, because we have no way to use normal community processes to get it deleted. To be clear, this isn't a crazy hypothetical. This is not terribly far off from events that have occurred while I've been on the Committee. I would be far more amenable to a prohibition on deletion of pages where no private information exists, but at the very minimum, we need the ability to act on private information in extreme cases where community processes would be ineffective. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:22, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

User:BU Rob13, blunt is good. You are trying to usurp existing policy and practice into ArbCom, and for no good reason. It is already covered by WP:CSD#G10. Admittedly, policy documentation was lagging. See Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_62#Speedy_deletion_per_BLPDELETE_needs_documentation & Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_72#Add_mention_of_WP:BLPDELETE_to_WP:CSD. In the end, what was required was Added by User:SoWhy 14:44, 20 August 2018. Sensitive information gets deleted all the time per CSD policy. ArbCom is not needed for that. If Arbs are advised personally, they can act under existing policy. DRV includes regulars who understand sensitivities, and if a good faith request nomination for review was lodged, it would be competently handled. One or two DRV admins would review the history and give their opinion as to whether it was a proper deletion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: You are misunderstanding me. I'm not saying a page claims someone to be a pedophile (which would be an attack page). I'm saying an editor's userpage has their contact information on it, which they themselves put up there, as allowed by policy. ArbCom receives an email with private evidence that cannot be posted on-wiki (due to WP:OUTING) which indicates the editor is a pedophile. The WMF declines to act, because the editor hasn't done anything on-wiki related to advocacy, but WP:Child protection requires that the editor be blocked (which ArbCom could do). At that point, leaving the user page up with the editor's contact information could potentially lead to minors contacting them. Obviously, we do not want to keep that contact information up there, as a matter of child protection. What deletion criterion does that fall under? None that I'm aware of, certainly. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:14, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Someone is alleged to be an illegal and despicable person and has contact info (advertising? --> WP:CSD#G11), you want it deleted? MfD is the normal route. If you really want it gone immediately, you can use oversight suppression (they get fair latitude) or IAR-deletion. The IAR deletion could be reviewed at DRV, where probably no admin would temp-undelete, but instead state what the page contained. Reasonable DRV reviewers would believe respectable admins. Presumably, you have blocked the ability of users to email the pedophile's account? We are also long aware of the practice of discreet "G6" deletions for sensitive things. ArbCom is not well placed to be central in these things. ArbCom is too slow, even if much faster than the WMF. ArbCom creates email records. Any admin can solve these things. Any editor could blank the page. In fact, a quiet blanking is far less likely to draw attention than any process shortcut. Quietly dealing with these things is the way to go, because this pedophile account name is surely googleable and contactable in other ways. Blanking is the most effective way to get non-compliant mirrors to scrub the old content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Merely having an email on a user page is not advertising. If one cannot explain why the contact info needs deleting without outing the person or posting private off-wiki information, then MfD is entirely ineffective (and, in any event, likely to draw further attention to content that needs to be gone ASAP). Oversighters absolutely do not get wide latitude to delete anything not very strictly within the suppression criteria, which this would not be. An IAR speedy doesn't work, because if dragged to DRV, the arbitrator who deleted the page could only say "I can't tell you why I deleted this, because it was based on private information." There is simply no on-wiki process that would adequately deal with a deletion required due to private information that cannot be disclosed on-wiki. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:10, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

A corporate email on a non-contributor userpages is G11 eligible. Agree, MfD would not be suitable, self-defeating. Consider blanking. Non-editors do not peruse page histories. "If dragged to DRV"? You appear quite unfamiliar with DRV. Only the obstinate incompetents get "dragged" to DRV. DRV is a continuing education program, no one likes their errors put up in lights, but the objective is to correct errors. Unlike WP:AN, it is not a drama board. At DRV, an explanation of a sensitive matter for the blocked user would most definitely be accepted. In fact, "removal of personal information" in the deletion log entry would keep every happy, as long as it was actually true. An arbitrator saying "removed for sensitive reasons" would be accepted by reasonable people at DRV. The admins around will look, and unless it is clearly a lie, they will "endorse". Maybe you should spend more time at DRV? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

"Removed for sensitive reasons" would be accepted based on what, exactly? If the information were truly private, it would not necessarily be obvious what those "sensitive reasons" were on the page. In any event, individual administrators are generally not permitted to take actions based on private information at all. They're meant to forward that to ArbCom, because it's the main reason we exist. I seriously do not understand how you're advocating for allowing IAR deletions from individual admins based on information that could not be reviewed by other admins over allowing ArbCom to theoretically do an IAR deletion as a group, where the action is subject to consensus within a group of individuals appointed by the community to handle that task. I do not think you understand the type of stuff that crosses ArbCom's desk or the necessity to have a community-appointed body that can take action without providing a rationale in cases where that rationale simply cannot be given on-wiki without making the matter far, far worse. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

"Removed for sensitive reasons" would be accepted based on what, exactly? If the information were truly private, it would not necessarily be obvious what those "sensitive reasons" were on the page.

At DRV, the reviewers trust trustworthy admins. "Removed for sensitive reasons" would be accepted based on the consensus of the reviewers.

"In any event, individual administrators are generally not permitted to take actions based on private information at all"?

Did you not read the WPtalk_CSD BLPDELETE discussions. I read a consensus that G10 routinely applies to deletion of private information that should never have been posted. I also believe it is an acceptable REVDEL reason. Hmmm. "Private information" the rationale offered or the material deleted? Private information that certain information is offensive/dangerous? The offensive/dangerous information can of course be deleted, and if G10 doesn't cover it, we can fix WP:CSD.

Deletion of private information is NOT "the main reason we (ArbCom) exist". The main reason was Jimbo's inability to keep on top of the intractable inter-personal disputes.

You are proposing contrived scenarios. IAR-delete exists. "contact me for an explanation" is a typical summary.

The advantage of any admin doing a G10 privacy deletion, or a BLPDELETE, or a stretch G10, or an misleading G6 deletion, is that it can happen immediately, no emails, no appeal to reserve powers, and if disagreed with it is reviewable. DRV requires that the complainant first ask for an explanation, before filing a DRV nomination. I think that an IAR-deletion drama has ensued approximately zero times. ArbCom people telling DRV that it has no authority, that is a much bigger drama.

I think you do not respect deletion policy, and do not understand DRV. I think you have jumped into ArbCom with a huge miscomprehension of the scope of ArbCom, and that your previous associations with AE crossing into deletions biases your current perspective, although in your defense, the ArbCom scope creep began in 2010. User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles should have been sent to MfD, where it would have been kept. The BLOCKCHAIN pages should have been deleted per G11 or AfD, and reviewable by the standard DRV process. ArbCom deleting pages is probably fine, individual Arbiters deleting pages maybe too, but ArbCom authorizing self-appointed "AE admins" to unilaterally delete pages and then deny that DRV has scope to review, that is an unpalatable violation of deletion policy.

At DRV, we can understand that some deletions need to happen without regurgitating in detail the reasons for deletion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:13, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that under the situation envisioned by BU Rob13 there would be any drama if you, in your individual capacity, placed an Oversight block on the account, speedy the deleted the page as G5 (which I admit does not perfectly apply) and took the private information to the committee and/or functionaries list. Our policies are flexible enough to deal with such matters. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 17:56, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the ways to remove a page from the encyclopedia, and the appeal, are:

1. PROD/CSD/XfD → DRV
2. Revdel → AN
3. OS → Arbcom
4. AC/DS? → Arbcom

And the intent is to strike #4 from the list? If so, I would suggest adding to ARBPOL something like this: "Procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced" do not include deletion of pages in any namespace. Leviv ich 17:29, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

(1)The consensus here seems to be that 4 is already not included. The purpose of the RfC is to formally ratify that, and it is necessary to do so because of opposition from the people currently using or justifying it.

(2) The practice the last few years while I was on arb com was that oversight deletions are reversed by consensus of the oversighters as expressed on their list . This of course includes the arbs. If "supervise" gives the arbs any special power here, I have not known them to use it. DGG ( talk ) 17:50, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Break

• Oppose both as vague. On the specific issue I consider the deletion of User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles to be out of policy, and an incorrect application of WP:AE. Overall, my thoughts are this: Of course pages can be deleted under existing policy, regardless of whether it relates to Arbcom. Arbcom should be allowed to authorized enforcing admins to delete pages in a consistent and objective manner similar to WP:CSD; Arbcom should not be allowed to authorize admins to unilaterally delete pages based on their (the admins') discretion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:28, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
• Well, we have the "smooth functioning of the project" provision under WP:GS, and I would believe that unilateral deletion would fall under that category. I have serious issues with changing the WP:AC/DS deletion revision flow from WP:Arbcom to WP:DRV. Arbcom makes binding decisions, and while they may err at times (such as the User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles shows) I see no general reason to open up what should be a binding decision to the consensus of a group of users not involved with the conflict. In any event, if DRV were allowed to review this (isn't this a rare event anyways?), the only thing under review should be whether the deletion contributed to the "smooth functioning of the project." We could add something to the list of speedy deletions as well, but I think that would encourage deletion as a solution. SportingFlyer T·C 05:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
• I'm just at the comment stage on these. It seems to me that real issue is not DS, but to what extent ARBCOM can order deletions at all. I asked a question to that effect at WP:ARCA, but it thus far has not attracted a response. I wonder if an appropriate proposal would limit ARBCOM from making deletions in its dispute resolution/user conduct role, while making clear that the proposal does not limit it from taking any action it deems appropriate (including deletions) for OFFICE or private information cases? It seems that this would prevent DS deletions as ARBCOM would have not that authority to delegate to AE admins. It seems like this should also leave ARBCOM free to act in the sort of special case mentioned above. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 17:56, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

• Just to respond to my friend Cunard's question about the wording of the RfC. I think the question the draft RfC is explicitly asking ("Does the Committee have jurisdiction over authorizing deletion, undeletion, and redirect of pages?") implies a second question, which is "Should the Committee have jurisdiction over authorizing deletion, undeletion, and redirect of pages?" I feel that asking the explicit question is likely to lead to a discussion of the implicit one, so the closers (I use the plural because I feel this is a good candidate for a triumvirate close) are likely to have to divide the responses up. Do you think it might be kinder to them to ask both questions explicitly?—S Marshall T/C 22:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

• I think it would be better to ask the second question you proposed rather than the first question I planned to ask. For the RfC to be binding, it would need to amend Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy and follow the requirements at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Ratification and amendment. "Should the Committee have jurisdiction" rather than "Does the Committee have jurisdiction" is more suited for modifying Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy.

  Cunard (talk) 08:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• Both petitions include: "or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced". I dispute this clause as acceptable. If ArbCom can do this, it is creating policy. It has already gone too far, with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy being the most in-your-face contradiction. ArbCom has negected to have that policy ratified by the community. WP:N and WP:DEL are guideline and policy that ArbCom should keep a mile from. ArbCom must not appear to create an alternative AfD process. ArbCom must not denigrate or subsume the DRV process.

I think the draft petitions intermingle too much, and something simpler is needed.

I think instead a community ratification, and possibly clarification, of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Scope_and_responsibilities is needed.

Scope and responsibilities

The Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia has the following duties and responsibilities:

1. To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve;
2. To hear appeals from blocked, banned, or otherwise restricted users;
3. To handle requests (other than self-requests) for removal of administrative tools;
4. To resolve matters unsuitable for public discussion for privacy, legal, or similar reasons;
5. To approve and remove access to (i) CheckUser and Oversight tools and (ii) mailing lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee.

The clarifications might be:

* Do #1-5 authorize ArbCom to delete pages?

* Do #1-5 authorize ArbCom to authorize others to delete pages?

* Does ArbCom have the authority to expand the scope and responsibilities of ArbCom?

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, sure. 1 and 4 do, at the least. The committee can bind pedians to a judgement that a page represents a serious conduct dispute, or privacy/legal matter. (see, also WP:CONEXCEPT) Deletion is a possible remedy for that binding judgement, although in any given situation there may be better remedies, which would be the prudent choice for the committee. It's not at all far fetched that there may be (hopefully rare) occasions where there is consensus failure about a page, leading to all kinds of disruption. So, we have a gordian knot cutting committee. Again though, that does not, and should not extend to a single admin decision. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

The claim that the current arbitration policy has not been ratified by the community is perhaps the most bold of the many inaccurate statements on this page. See [39], linked at the bottom of WP:ARBPOL. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:47, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I looked for ratification, but obviously not well enough. I think a link to the authorisation of the “policy” should be at the top of the page, not the bottom. I think it is a good idea to bring up the Ratification referendum. Read it. In 2011, people were very concerned about the expansionism creep of ArbCom. The assurances of no no no, ArbCom does not touch content, were strident. How does the reading of those !voting comments sit with your preferred narrow reading of the WP:CONTENT exclusion from the scope of ArbCom? Note that I am arguing now at DRV that ArbCom *should* have deletion authority over the List of Banned Users, but the userpage heavily documenting gun content issues, and the several BLOCKCHAIN DS Speedy deletions citing authority deriving from ArbCom powers, they are definitely “content”, not “behavioural”, and this push back, even if not 100% researched, fact checked, and professionally written, is important. ArbCom slapping down DRV for talking about something (actually, admins speaking for ArbCom and slapping DRV down by proxy) is offensive to the concept that Wikipedia is a self-managed community, based on consensus. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom doesn't make policy, even when they design a special set of rules that people should follow instead of policy. Obviously that's not policy because ArbCom made it and ArbCom can't make policy. Don't worry your pretty head that the current interpretation of ArbCom's mandate means they could make a special set of rules for any user right that would allow them to operate outside of policy, because they're "delegating their mandate" to sysops, or rollbackers, or oversighters. Rest assured, whatever that is, it's not policy. That would be beyond their mandate. GMG^talk 23:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: WP:Blockchain are general sanctions, not discretionary sanctions. They were approved by the community, not ArbCom, and the community can certainly decide whether or not deletion under GS is appropriate. The sole deletion here under DS was the user page deleted by GoldenRing, currently at ARCA. I have taken the stance that deletions theoretically could be allowable under DS if they strike at the heart of a conduct issue. I have taken no stance on whether the specific user page deleted by GoldenRing should have been deleted or was/wasn't content. In fact, I explicitly said I would not answer that question at ARCA, because one of the fundamental principles of DS is that the actions taken by admins are reviewable by the community at AE or AN. ArbCom absolutely shouldn't make the final call on whether that specific user page should remain deleted under DS. There is a useful separation between ArbCom and those who enforce our decisions, and we try to maintain that separation as much as possible for obvious reasons. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:43, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

@BU Rob13:, General Sanctions and Discretionary sanctions are indeed confusing in their difference and it is still talking me some time to work it out. I'm starting to see that you as an Arb may feel fully justified in saying that General Sanctions are nothing to to with ArbCom. That may be fair. However, General Sanctions are a feature of ArbCom scope creep, although I can't find that ArbCom ever actually authorized it. BLOCKCHAIN GS was authorized here, with explicit reference to Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#Standard_discretionary_sanctions, whereby a group of admins at WP:AN assumed on themselves the ArbCom DS self-asserted right to delete (as read in hindsight) unreviewably at DRV. Consequentially, we had this DRV where several admins asserted an ArbCom-style right to override deletion policy, WP:CSD, and immunity from review at DRV. So not all ArbCom's "fault", but a connected problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Don't concern yourself with the fact that ArbCom is making policy. Instead debate the specifics about how ArbCom can make policy. GMG^talk 03:02, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

The Arbitration policy, ratified by the community, is what gives ArbCom the ability to set up things like discretionary sanctions. Additional policies that provide that authority include WP:CONEXCEPT, WP:BLOCK, WP:PROTECT, etc., all of which explicitly note the role that the Arbitration Committee has been given by the community within the contexts of those policies as a "final binding decision-maker" when the community has failed to handle serious conduct issues. ARBPOL, again, ratified by the community, explicitly notes that the Arbitration Committee can create procedures through which existing policies and guidelines may be enforced. That is what discretionary sanctions are. I'm frankly unsure what your point-of-view actually is, which is why I've been ignoring it. Do you think the Arbitration Committee shouldn't exist? Should exist but be entirely toothless without any ability to pass remedies in response to conduct issues? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 12:18, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

The Arbitration policy, ratified by the community, is what gives ArbCom the ability to set up things like discretionary sanctions. No, it is ArbCom's interpretation of ARBPOL that gives it the ability to write, by about an order of magnitude, more policy on blocking and banning than has ever been written via community consensus. There is nothing explicitly in ARBPOL that authorizes ArbCom to write several dozen pages of additional guidance that both overrides and is not subject to community consensus. If you write guidance that overrides policy, then you are writing policy, not enforcing existing policy. In cases where existing policy didn't match ArbCom's interpretation, ArbCom literally rewrote policy so that it did. You cannot claim that existing policy gives ArbCom this mandate, when ArbCom took the mandate, interpreted the limits on its own power any way it damned well pleased, and rewrote policy so that it fit its own interpretation of its own scope, claiming all the while that its interpretation is exempt from community consensus.

My "view", is that if the community intended for ArbCom to write several dozen pages of guidance that overrides existing policy, then it wouldn't have adopted language explicitly saying that ArbCom is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. In fact, I struggle to imagine any language we could possibly adopt for ARBPOL that would more explicitly say "don't write several dozen pages of additional policy". Fact of the matter is, ArbCom can very well write several dozen more pages of additional policy on deletion and the community can do fuck all about it. The best we can realistically hope to do as a community is to ignore ACDS, and carry on as if it didn't exist, which is the approach I personally adopted a long time ago. GMG^talk 13:49, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't mind what ArbCom does by itself, but what is troubling to me is that an admin can simply assert WP:AE and make their own action harder to overturn, regardless of whether they actually applied AE appropriately. Currently the AE policy says that decisions may only be reviewed by ArbCom or at AE/AN. In my opinion, any widely trafficked, neutral community page (such as DRV) should be adequate to overturn an AE action. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:25, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• If, as it seems at first glance, my !vote in 2011 is being taken as authority for Arbcom to arrogate to itself permission to overrule the deletion policy, then I do rather object to that. But I'm concerned that there's overreach on both sides here. We the community should not say that everything in the mainspace is content and deleting it is outside Arbcom's jurisdiction, because people who're hostile to Wikipedia do exist, they do read our rules looking for ways to screw us up, and therefore any rule that binds Arbcom's hands is likely to be used in ways we didn't intend. Axiomatically, hard cases make bad law. Let's not overgeneralise from this hard case to produce sweeping new rules. Let's make an incremental change that's in proportion to the problem we've found. I would be hoping for a final outcome that says something like "Sysops are discouraged from citing Arbitration Enforcement as grounds to delete pages. Use oversight where appropriate, or an applicable criteria for speedy deletion. If neither of these applies, consider nominating the page for deletion in the conventional way."—S Marshall T/C 20:18, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @S Marshall: I do think it's important to understand that nothing has ever been deleted from mainspace under ArbCom's authority as far as I am aware. Certainly nothing under the authority of DS. I personally feel it should stay that way. By and large, those claiming ArbCom is routinely overreaching to thwart community consensus are citing mainspace deletions performed under community-mandated general sanctions, rather ironically. There has been a single userpage deletion under DS ever, and if all of those crying foul simply went to AE and appealed it, I imagine it would be overturned by now, since the community has the final say on whether an AE action was an appropriate use of administrator discretion or not. (Then again, when have Wikipedians ever taken the effective path when the path of most drama remains available?) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
    • DRV has always been effective and drama free, except for the TWO occasions when some argued that the deletion was too special to be reviewable at deletion review. Also an answer to your parenthetical question is WP:MRV, which did wonders for the RM chaos deriving from bold page moves as challenges to preceding RM closes. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
      • @BU Rob13:, I don't think we're disagreeing on the outcome we want on this particular matter. I said I would be hoping for a final outcome that says something like "Sysops are discouraged from citing Arbitration Enforcement as grounds to delete pages. Use oversight where appropriate, or an applicable criteria for speedy deletion. If neither of these applies, consider nominating the page for deletion in the conventional way." I don't think you could get a cigarette paper between my position and yours as far as that's concerned.

        The opportunity here is for us all to hear and reflect on the sheer amount of concern the community is showing about perceived expansions in Arbcom's role and powers. And that's why I feel that my friend Cunard's proposed RfC should go ahead.—S Marshall T/C 13:02, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

        • I was commenting more on the fact that this "perception" is just simply incorrect, at least as articulated by some editors involved here. The evidence people have been pointing to that ArbCom is suddenly deleting a bunch of content has nothing to do with ArbCom; it's related to community-approved general sanctions. ArbCom has no authority over general sanctions. We did not create them. We did not approve them. We do not oversee them. We do not have jurisdiction to overturn or modify them. Perhaps ironically, we actually can't prevent the deletions that are being attributed to some massive increase in our scope precisely because we're staying in our lane and not getting involved with community-approved sanctions. Instead of fixing the apparent issue that these editors have identified – that community-approved general sanctions are semi-regularly resulting in GS-based deletions that some members of the community think are an overreach – the editors have decided to potentially place bright-line limits on ArbCom's ability to handle matters unsuitable for public discussion in extreme cases for ... reasons? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:20, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
• For ~six years straddling the ratification of the current arbitration policy, we had an arbitration remedy that explicitly authorized administrators to delete pages, subject to review only at AE and arbcom. Given the timing of that remedy and the apparent community acquiescence, I have no doubt that the committee is allowed by current policy to authorize admins to delete things and limit the review of such deletions. Whether it has done so as part of the current standard DS is a question for arbcom (I do not recall any discussion about it when I was on the committee and the DS standardization effort was in progress).

  Because good-faith content disputes are outside the committee's jurisdiction, and a dispute about the interpretation or application of a content policy is a content dispute, it follows that administrators cannot invoke authority derived from the committee (such as DS) to delete a piece of content unless there's no room for good-faith dispute over the propriety of the content. For instance, if a binding RFC in a DS topic area has reached a particular consensus, and someone creates a page contrary to that consensus, it would seem reasonable for an admin to immediately delete the page under DS, even if no CSD is otherwise applicable. On the other hand, if it's unclear how our substantive policies apply to a page, an admin deleting the page under DS would be effectively deciding a content dispute, which is impermissible.

  Under this interpretation, while a DS action cannot be appealed at DRV, nothing in the appeals provisions prevents DRV from discussing a deletion, and the content of a discussion can be powerful evidence of whether there is, in fact, room for good-faith disagreement. If the discussion reveals that there is indeed room for such disagreement, then that fact should be accorded determinative weight in any appeal of the DS action.

  Given how rare this issue arises in practice, it's not clear we need a special new rule for this, and certainly I do not see either proposal as an improvement over the status quo. T. Canens (talk) 04:10, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  I regard that as unnecessary WP:BURO though; if consensus is clear at DRV, what good does AE do? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:56, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  Let's restate that. If consensus is clear at AE, what good does DRV do? Is there any reason this can't be resolved by requiring any AE discussion involving a deletion to drop a note at WT:Deletion review informing y'all of the discussion? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:22, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Motion: Discretionary sanctions procedure

AGK (talk · contribs) posted a motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Motion: Discretionary sanctions procedure (permanent link) on 24 March 2019 proposing an amendment to the discretionary sanctions procedure: "For the avoidance of doubt, enforcing administrators are not authorised ... to delete pages". If this motion passes, a petition to modify the arbitration policy is not needed to address discretionary sanctions deletions. Editors may still want to amend the arbitration policy to clarify whether and in what circumstances the Arbitration Committee can delete pages or authorize admins to do so.

Two arbitrators have suggested the amendment be "For the avoidance of doubt, enforcing administrators are not authorised ... to delete pages outside of the deletion policy". This means that:

• Administrators will be desysopped if they temporarily undelete the deleted page for non-admins to review.
• Non-admins therefore cannot review pages deleted under discretionary sanctions.
• Wikipedia:Deletion review does not have the authority to review the page deletion. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment are the only avenues for appeal.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Modifications by administrators requires "the clear and substantial consensus" of participants to overturn a discretionary sanction, whereas DRV does not have such a high requirement overturning speedy deletions. Wikipedia:Deletion review#Closing reviews says, "If a speedy deletion is appealed, the closer should treat a lack of consensus as a direction to overturn the deletion, since it indicates that the deletion was not uncontroversial (which is a requirement of almost all criteria for speedy deletion)."

If this modified amendment passes, I will submit petitions to modify the arbitration policy. Before doing so, I will review and consider the feedback on this page and modify the draft petitions.

Xymmax (talk · contribs) makes a very good suggestion: "I wonder if an appropriate proposal would limit ARBCOM from making deletions in its dispute resolution/user conduct role, while making clear that the proposal does not limit it from taking any action it deems appropriate (including deletions) for OFFICE or private information cases". SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs) makes a strong point that this already can be addressed through an IAR deletion or "a G10 privacy deletion, or a BLPDELETE, or a stretch G10, or [a] misleading G6 deletion". Would editors support explicitly permitting the Arbitration Committee to delete pages for WP:OFFICE and private information cases and barring the Committee from all other deletions? Would there be harm in codifying this in policy?

Regardless of what the arbitrators decide for discretionary sanctions, I plan to start an RfC to modify Wikipedia:General sanctions#Community-authorised sanctions to clarify whether deletions under community-authorised sanctions are permitted and if so whether deletions like Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol are reviewable at DRV.

Pinging editors who responded to my most recent post: BU Rob13 (talk · contribs), Alanscottwalker (talk · contribs), Levivich (talk · contribs), SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), DGG (talk · contribs), King of Hearts (talk · contribs), SportingFlyer (talk · contribs), Xymmax (talk · contribs), S Marshall (talk · contribs), GreenMeansGo (talk · contribs), and Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs). Thank you all for your comments and feedback.

Cunard (talk) 08:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I think we need to pursue all avenues to make it unmistakably clear than arb sanctions do not extend to the deletion of pages. But I do not see how it follows that under the proposed amendment "Administrators will be desysopped if they temporarily undelete the deleted page for non-admins to review." Aince thedeletion would not be carried out under arb sanctions, but merely by the people who happen to be arbs deleting articles as they would if they were admins. DGG ( talk ) 08:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

DGG (talk · contribs), if "For the avoidance of doubt, enforcing administrators are not authorised ... to delete pages outside of the deletion policy" passes, an WP:AE admin can use discretionary sanctions in conjunction with a speedy deletion criterion like {{db-spam}} or {{db-bio}} to support deletion. Another admin cannot temporarily undelete the page to let non-admins review whether {{db-spam}} or {{db-bio}} is a correct conclusion for fear of violating Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Modifications by administrators, which says, "Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped." BU Rob13 takes this view here at the current WP:ARCA discussion.

Cunard (talk) 09:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I continue to think using or claiming AE is in my opinion outside deletion policy. It's claiming an exemption from the normal working of deletion policy. But since there is doubt, we do need to say specifically that the available sanctions under AE do not include deletion. It is also imo outside the jurisdiction of arb com to make a decision requiring deletion, but since that too is doubted, we need to say that also, though that means changing arb policy.

• Yes: any admin citing AE in relation to an admin action is claiming immunity from being reverted. If this motion is passed as "to delete pages outside of the deletion policy", then it permits admins to delete pages within the deletion policy and cite AE, thereby inoculating their own action against community scrutiny. That's a power that substantially duplicates what oversight already does, and I'm coming to sympathise with the view that it's a large increase in Arbcom's power and scope.—S Marshall T/C 12:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• Where exactly do you get "inoculating their own action against community scrutiny"? Not only can the community directly appeal any page deletion to AE or AN, which is far more community scrutiny than DRV, but it also can further appeal to ArbCom as a whole at ARCA, where an admin could theoretically be restricted from taking AE actions at all if they're using them as some form of shield against criticism. Further, AE actions are not "immune from being reverted". They require consensus to be reverted. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

More scrutiny? I think the catch there, is obviously review undeletion, which is standard in DRV, that is what provides more scrutiny. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) They may or may not get more scrutiny, but they have a far, far higher bar to being overturned than is currently in fashion at DRV, where speedy deletions require consensus to not be reverted. —Cryptic 17:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• I sympathise with the concerns above, but I still disagree. Admins in sanctionary areas need to have a full suite of actions available to conduct their work, and I firmly believe deleting pages necessary for the smooth running of the project to be consistent with our deletion policy. It's just a deletion action that can only be taken by a certain set of users in limited circumstances. As to whether it's reviewable at DRV, I'm not sure how I could vote to overturn an administrative action as someone without administrative powers. There's also a potential concern that an admin may necessarily delete a page for privacy reasons out of an arbitration decision, which I don't think should be reviewable at all (though I'm sure this is a generally unique situation.) I'm thinking perhaps the best way to do this would be to create a specific speedy deletion criteria for administrators to use, and then overturn only egregious deletions. SportingFlyer T·C 18:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Oversight is a separate issue. I do not think oversight has in fact ever deleted an article, tho I don't know if legal may have done so. Oversight is reviewable, btw, first by other oversighters as a group, then by arb com, and then by the Ombudusmen. It's not generally visible, but there have been many oversight actions reversed after discussion among the oversighters. Del Policy has always and properly been that admins do not have and should not have authority to speedy outside the defined parameters--there are enough problems already when they stretch them a little. DGG ( talk ) 00:55, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

As for non-admins voting to overturn AE actions, that is what already can happen with AE review at AN, so it's built in. Also, given how rare it has been that 'deletion is the solution' for AE, I just can't concur in your belief on 'smooth running'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I would argue the opposite - because it's so rare, any admin deciding to take that action would be doing so very specifically in order to promote the "smooth running of the project." SportingFlyer T·C 19:36, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

That an admin does not have to delete and deleting creates extended controversy is not smooth running. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

It's likely there will be contention before the point of deletion anyways. You're assuming there's no instance in which administrative deletion would be proper. I disagree, though I do agree this isn't something we should necessarily be encouraging. SportingFlyer T·C 19:59, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

SportingFlyer, aside from the "pedophile's email" example discussed way up above, can you think of a situation where deletion of a page would need to happen without XfD, but that wouldn't be covered by oversight, revdel, CSD or PROD? Leviv ich 20:23, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Levivich The page would need to be covered by discretionary sanctions and deletion should ensure the "smooth running of the project." I think the blockchain deletion was a valid use of power, but I also think that particular deletion should be reviewable (on specific grounds for egregiousness.) However I can also see a page that falls under discretionary sanctions that is a pure attack page, maybe something "G9-lite," as being something that shouldn't be reviewable by the community, but that could also be an oversight or revdel action. Perhaps procedure in that rare instance should be a "delete and send to oversight?" SportingFlyer T·C 21:04, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

The BLOCKCHAIN GS/DS deletions were arguably mistagged, they arguably could have been G11 CSD-ed. A list of cases included: User:Stifle/I need to DRV these.

"pure attack page, maybe something "G9-lite,""? Do you mean "G10-lite"? G9, light or otherwise, need to be done with a "(WMF)" suffixed account, reviewable at DRV to check that the account was indeed a WMF office account. Looking back at the pedophile's contact page, I think WP:DENY most strongly applies. Quietly BLOCK and blank his userpage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:24, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

(e/c) No. I am not assuming. Single admin actions need effective review, that's the way Admin action is suppose to work, accountability, and particularly for AE unlike eg., OVERSIGHT, AE is appealable to all editors. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• Well, thank goodness PMC and AGK are talking sense. Maybe a routine deletion won't be able to shelter under the AE umbrella after all.—S Marshall T/C 23:17, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you all for the feedback. I have posted a request for more feedback at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard before I start the petition to amend Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy. Cunard (talk) 05:58, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Timeline?

I've never paid much attention to ArbCom debates, so I'm unclear where things stand. The thread at WP:ARCA has been going on for over a month, with no obvious signs of wrapping up any time soon. How long does it usually take for ArbCom to figure out what they want to do? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 February 24#User:Dlthewave/Whitewashing of firearms articles, opened 5 years ago, was closed

  The clear consensus is that this deletion should be overturned per the deletion policy. It now requires arbcom to sanction this. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:58, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

5 years ago. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:19, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not a close ArbCom observer, but this does feel long. Still, it is clear that they genuinely lack consensus despite how obvious the issue appears to many of us, and I don't want to push them into a bad decision if there still is an opportunity to make a correct one. If nothing else, the level of feedback has made it clear that DS deletions will be met with (ahem) considerable consternation from the community. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 03:38, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

And that is a good thing. It is a matter of considerable importance going forward for Wikipedia deletion processes, and there is no time-critical issue. The page in question does not seem to be a problem. ArbCom seems to be ponderously coming around to a wise decision. One other thing I hope comes from this is that people will not be so quick to say "DRV has no right to review that deletion", as DRV continues to make exemplary timely community consensus decisions without drama. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:52, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The AE appeal is still open as well. Is there anything that would prevent the deletion from being overturned by consensus at AE without waiting for ArbCom to decide? –dlthewave ☎ 04:27, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

That appeal looks to me to be procedurally moot. The deletion review is complete and User:Sandstein withdrew your warning. The only ball in play is at WP:ARCA. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:02, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. The appeal was for both the page deletion and the warning. Sandstein withdrew the warning almost immediately, so the discussion now only concerns the deletion. An endorsement of Goldenring's action would depend on the outcome at ARCA, but AE-level consensus to overturn would be valid regardless. –dlthewave ☎ 12:12, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposed community general sanctions deletion RfC

I plan to start an RfC to discuss whether community general sanctions should allow administrators to delete pages. I will post the RfC at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard since discussions to start community general sanctions on topics happen there. I will post links to the RfC at Wikipedia talk:Deletion review, Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion, Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), and Template:Centralized discussion.

Community sanctions are independent of the Arbitration Committee's discretionary sanctions, so this RfC will be started independently of what the arbitrators decide for discretionary sanctions.

RfC: Should community general sanctions allow administrators to delete pages within the scope of the sanction?

Background: Universa Blockchain Protocol was deleted with the rationale "Covert advertising. Page-level sanction under WP:GS/Crypto". At Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol, the community was divided over whether community general sanctions permitted the deletion of pages within the scope of the sanction. The DRV closer wrote, "The community discussion needed to resolve the apparent policy conflict instead needs to happen in a wider venue, such as in a policy RfC, and any who are interested in this issue are invited to initiate such a discussion."

The current community general sanctions are:

1. Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
2. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
3. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
4. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
5. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
6. Wikipedia:General sanctions/India–Pakistan conflict

The outcome of the RfC will apply to all community general sanctions. This RfC will not apply to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, which can be modified by only arbitrators who are currently discussing whether deletions should be permitted under discretionary sanctions.

Related previous discussions:

1. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol
2. Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 71#Discussion of speedy deletion under WP:GS/Crypto at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol
3. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive300#Cryptocurrency general sanctions and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 July 9#Universa Blockchain Protocol

I welcome feedback about the proposed community general sanctions RfC.

Cunard (talk) 01:49, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

• Good idea. For me, the answer is a very strong NO. The policy on speedy deletion is at WP:CSD. If general sanctions require special speedy deletion (which they don't), then get it documented at WP:CSD subject to consensus. It would have been nice to have Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification_request:_Gun_control conclude first, but they are taking too long, as well as arguing that these are separate issues anyway. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:50, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
• The wording needs adjustment. They cannot delete pages with the restrictions on reversibility that would be part of the sanctions. They can still delete on pages that are within scope of a sanction if they meet the requirements for speedy, but such a deletion is an ordinary speedy deletion. (to eliminate loopholes, It should also be specified that page level sanctiona refer to limitations on the ability to edit a page, or to edit it in a parrticular manner, not to deleting a page . ) .

Incidentally, it is not correct that only the arbs have jurisdiciton over what their sanction may involve. The community has the ability to set limits to it , but only by modifying arbitration policy. Arbs may only act under Arb policy , and the comunity determines that. DGG ( talk ) 10:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• There is a longstanding consensus that pages created in violation of topic bans are eligible for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#G5. If the topic ban was imposed under a community sanction then that could be interpreted as the sanction authorising page deletions. Hut 8.5 11:20, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you all for the feedback. I have posted a request for more feedback at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard before I start the RfC. Cunard (talk) 04:22, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
• With respect to DRV, what I am looking for is: WP:Deletion review (DRV) is the forum for reviewing deletion, including the justifications for the deletion, the deleting editor, and the deletion process, subject to consensus at DRV. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
• I have created an RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: community general sanctions and deletions that proposes amending Wikipedia:General sanctions#Community sanctions to say that deletions under community general sanctions that bypass deletion discussion must meet the requirements for speedy deletion and be reviewable at deletion review. Cunard (talk) 09:05, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Statue of limitations

Is there a "deadline" on when you can no longer ask for a DRV on an article that was successfully deleted? Howard the Duck (talk) 06:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• No, but the answer may be: If it is that old, and you can overcome the old reasons for deletion, you may just recreate it. Preferably ask for undeletion of the old deleted version. If in doubt that you have overcome the reasons for deletion, ask at AfC. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:16, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
• The time elapsed isn't important; the reason you're asking for review is. If you think there was something improper about the deletion, always bring it to DRV. If it's because things have changed in the interim (e.g. the subject has become notable), then just go ahead and recreate it or ask for a WP:REFUND. – Joe (talk) 08:06, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks both. The AFD was decided in January, and no, nothing changed in the interim, but there was a person who "swung" the vote when it was relisted, and apparently this person votes delete every single time, and his/her edits are 90% deleted votes (with no edits aside from Wikipedia namespace). I wasn't able to reply to it in time since I was expecting it to be kept (it was a relisting of second nomination), so it was deleted. (Disclosure, the AFD was this one, and the last vote was from User:Sandals1, votes delete every single time with a basic misunderstanding what WP:GNG is.) Howard the Duck (talk) 12:49, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
    • So yeah, it'd be fine to bring that to DRV – but you should talk to to the closing admin about it first. – Joe (talk) 06:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
  • In practice though, WP:DRV is regularly used for appeals when new sources are presented even when not contesting the original AfD result, because such requests are summarily rejected at WP:REFUND. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:00, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
    • True, although I would say that in practice people err in coming to DRV too quickly. I think WP:REFUND should be tried first, and if they decline your request there, then come to DRV. I suspect that there is also an under-addressed ambiguity over whether the REFUND request for an old AfD deleted page is requesting REFUND to userspace, draftspace, or straight back into mainspace. I think at REFUND they are very hesitant to REFUND direct to mainspace, and much more willing to REFUND to draftspace where the expectation is that it will follow AfC processing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
      • At refund we normally would refer to the deleting admin, unless they are one of those that tell to ask at REFUND. I would normally action userfy or draftify requests if the requestor had some evidence it could make an article, but as SmokeyJoe says going straight to mainspace is not the norm. If the page is recreated and sticks, then history restore is possible too. At REFUND we would refer persistent people that have no chance of getting their page back. Usually they don;t try DRV. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
• Technically, yes, there is. Very old pages deleted before 8 June 2004 aren't easily restorable; see the second footnote in Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages. Files deleted before 16 June 2006 aren't restorable by any means short of finding them somewhere else and reuploading; they were erased entirely from the db instead of just hidden. —Cryptic 11:39, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
• The lead software architect said “Deletion means deletion. The deleted page archives ARE TEMPORARY TO FACILITATE UNDELETION OF PAGES WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DELETED and are subject to being cleared or removed AT ANY TIME WITHOUT WARNING. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
  • and our deletion policy says, rather more blandly, "deleted pages ... remain in the database (at least temporarily) ... unless they are oversighted". Thincat (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2019 (UTC)