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Template summaries

It seems that a fair bit of the time when people come to CSD, they skim right down to the deletion templates. These provide a brief 'summary' of the actual criteria, and so people go off and use them. Often, they do so incorrectly, so we end up noting this and changing the detailed wording of the criteria - which is again overlooked by people jumping to the template. I think that we should avoid summarizing the criteria there. Are others open to finding some way to make the template listing informative, but without having it give a very shallow summary of each point?    M   20:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the people you mention are a minority, though - is it really worth inconveniencing those that do use the templates correctly by removing the informative summaries? I got the hang of what the common rationales were pretty quickly when I was learning, but it took a while longer before I could confidently remember which was which out of, say, A1 and A3. Adapting the page to cater to people who don't read things properly seems to me to be unlikely to help - we shouldn't be making things harder for everyone in the process. If there's some way of summarising them that solves your problem, great - but I can't think of one that doesn't involve a brief summary. ~ mazca talk 20:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting that we make this more difficult to read for everyone, I'm suggesting that we find a way to remove the summaries without making things difficult. One alternative is to find a way to move them up, so something like:
  1. No context.
    Articles lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article. Example: "He is a funny man with a red car. He makes people laugh." This applies only to very short articles. Context is different from content, treated in A3, below.
    {{db-a1}}, {{db-empty}}, {{db-nocontext}}
  2. Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project.
    If the article does not exist on another project, use the template {{notenglish}} instead, and list the page at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English for review and possible translation.
    {{db-a2}}, {{db-foreign}}
Of course, this might be improved, but it would mean that instead of reading each description in the table to find the one most relevant, people would simply go through our rather organized criteria, and the information about the templates would be right there. Including templates where they are actually appropriate, rather than in an index at the end is the standard for most other pages that describe a process and the details of its application. This would cut down the size of this page by one third.    M   21:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
The proposal to merge the template cross-references up into the listing of criteria makes sense to me. I don't think you'll reduce the page size by all that much but it would be more readable for both new and experienced readers. Since the proposal is merely a change to page layout, not a change to any meaning of the policy, be bold. If someone vehemently objects, we can easily revert to the old layout. Rossami (talk) 04:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Yup, I’d agree with moving the templates up to the main criteria headings. I agree that some of the summaries are inaccurate, and moving the templates up combines relevant information together. ~ mazca talk 09:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I moved some of them up, and will continue to do so. I think the way it is now does clearly separate the actual criteria from the suggested templates. I've tried to add a bit of gray, and also bullets instead of indents, so it's temporarily inconsistent. Which way looks best?    M   09:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles

"An article about a musical recording that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the artist's article does not exist. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability."

Lower standard? Really? Coulda fooled me. Once the previous sentence is fundamentally altered, perhaps it will be. Neither of the distinctions in the first sentence are in WP:N. The subject of any article is required to be notable, but it is not required to prove that fact within the article. That's hard enough to do at AfD, let alone within the text of an article. The fact that deletionists eyeing up an article don't know enough about the subject to tell whether it is notable is an argument for Citizendium, not an argument for a requirement that articles prove it to them. As for the second requirement, consider the author/artist of Kilroy was here. Instruction creep, perhaps? Either way, an absurd contradiction.

WP:N would have it that a subject is required to be notable, not that it has to prove it is within the article. A lower standard, I leave up to other editors, but an equally restrictive standard would sound something like this: ""An article about a musical recording that is not important or significant, especially if the artist is not also notable. This is distinct from questions of...etc"—Preceding unsigned comment added by Anarchangel (talk • contribs)

I do not understand your post because there is no absurd contradiction and A9/A7's language provides, objectively and plainly, a much lower standard. To avoid A9 or A7 an article must contain a mere "indication of importance or significance". This is a much lower bar than is required to show notability on the merits. We decline to speedy delete numerous a7/a9 tagged articles each week that are later deleted on the merits of notability at AfD or sometimes through prods. In fact, I can give you a few examples of article I declined to speedy delete which were later deleted on the merits: Pacific Northwest Lesbian Archives, later deleted through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pacific Northwest Lesbian Archives; Asyraf Awang, later deleted through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asyraf Awang Besar; and Siyavash Motamedi, later deleted through a prod.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Not that it answers my points, but you make a virtue of the necessity that articles are retained at Speedy that are later deleted at AfD; the requirements are different because this is -speedy- deletion. To say nothing of the fact that AfD could have been wrong to delete, or heck, you could have been wrong to keep them.
My point again, hopefully it will be plain to you this time: N only requires that a subject be notable, and therefore there does not have to be anything added to the article to indicate this; Speedy is requiring that the article itself demonstrate it, which is unwieldy, and an additional requirement. Anarchangel (talk) 09:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't see that Fuhghettaboutit is "making a virtue of the necessity": he/she is simply showing that it is common for an article to pass the test that it "indicate[s] why its subject is important or significant" but fail the test of establishing notability, i.e. that the one is a lower standard than the other. Of course in any particular case a decision may have been wrong, but it is not always so, nor even almost always.
It is not true that WP:N does not require the article to demonstrate notability: it specifically says "Notability requires verifiable evidence" and "it is not enough to simply assert that a topic is notable without substantiating that claim" (see WP:NRVE).
The essential difference is that to avoid the speedy criterion an article merely has to claim that it is important or significant, whereas to establish notability it has to provide evidence that this importance or significance has led to extensive independent documentation. There are therefore two extra requirements to establish notability which are not required to avoid a speedy delete under this criterion.
Having said that, I do think that there is a problem with the wording, which does not necessarily make clear the intention, especially to someone new to the CSD. It may well be a mistake to use the expression "important or significant" in these criteria; exactly what constitutes "importance" and "significance" is not made clear. I think that it is attempting to say something like "does not indicate that it has the qualities which might establish notability if reliable evidence were produced", but it is possible to read it otherwise. "Important" in particular seems unhelpful: it is easy to take this as a higher standard than "notability", as something utterly unimportant is "notable" in Wikipedia if a lot of people have published stuff about it. If the phrase is read in the context of the rest of the CSD documentation it is reasonably clear what is meant, but of course not everyone has read that documentation. I think simply "that does not indicate why its subject is significant" would be an improvement. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I think what you're doing is conflating the process with the standard. Notability is not a deletion process but an inclusion standard, which may be employed through our non-speedy deletion processes. The "standard" referred to when the criterion says it is a "lower standard" is not the process of speedy deletion under the criterion and meeting all its part, but just importance or significance. If we were to change A7 to require a notability standard, as opposed to importance or significance, then it would read "An article about... X... that does not indicate the notability of the subject...", and since we define notability (at least as the to GNG) as requiring "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", we would then be deleting articles that did not already contain "significant coverage in reliable sources." There is an ellipse in the clarifying language and I think that's where you're foundering—the language assumes that we understand that the standard is just the bit about importance or significance and not the whole criterion. So, if it said in the clarifying language, expressly, "the standard of 'importance or significance' as used in this criterion is a lower standard than is needed to show notability", would that clear up matters for you? That's what we're attempting to say, however imperfectly.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree, changing "This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability." to "The standard of 'importance or significance' as used in this criterion is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability." would be clearer, and it would need to be changed in both A7 and A9.
Anarchangel, what the criterion is attempting to state is more along these lines: That an article, in order to avoid being deleted, need merely show that there might (maybe, possibly) be something important enough about it for people to have maybe (possibly, sort of) written sources about it, but that those sources need not actually be in the article at the time. So, I think we can both agree that an article which contains text such as "Blah-De-Bink is a band from Chicago, Florida" or similar does not give any indication that there is any remove possibility of the subject being notable, whereas an article which contains text such as "Blah-De-Bink is a band from Chicago, Florida they won Sundance last year" does (assuming that my examples made sense). I hope this clears up the confusion, and if there's anything else we can do to clear up the language, we'd be happy to listen. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
"significance" does mean something different than "notability", and opinions vary on what it means, but what it can't mean is "editors think it's significant"; that's OR. For purposes of CSD, we're making a judgment call whether reliable sources will ever be found that support "significance", whatever "significance" is. - Dank (push to talk) 18:00, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
of course we use OR in determining notability--every time we check for sources and evaluating whether they are significant we are doing research. Of course we're using judgment--every time there's disputed notability we are offering opinions based on our judgment of the articles and the sources and the guidelines. Otherwise, it's just ILIKEIT. Significance or importance is less than notability. How much less, is open to interpretation. What constitutes a real indication is open to interpretation. Every admin here would I hope have judged those two examples of Lifebaka's just as he did" (assuming a quick search didn't show Blah-de-Blink actually was important). There are intermediate cases which are not as clear, eg., "They have made two recordings". (it obviously depends with whom, and, as I cannot evaluate this, I leave it for others). A great many articles are inserted here initially without references & without much information either, but that turn out to be truly notable. They deserve a decent chance to be sourced, by the author preferably, but then by other people also. I typically de-speedy and leave the author a message to do so right away to avoid regular deletion. DGG (talk) 18:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Right, but we're talking past each other. I didn't say we don't use judgment. Do you have a problem with my last sentence? Do you believe that the likelihood of finding reliable sources that support "significance", "notability" or whatever, isn't the question? If so, what's the question? - Dank (push to talk) 18:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have been convinced that you believe this is a lower standard. In the sense that sources are not required for the assertion, I concede it is. I don't know how or why you ignore the fact that N doesn't require verification of notability within the article ("If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." - note 'presumed') and Speedy specifically requires an article to ("indicate why its subject is important"). Throwing away V for an additional requirement does not equal a lower standard, it is a sloppily controlled higher standard.

If you are all dead set against removing the additional requirement, and in the light of the profusion of potential music articles, I can see why you might believe that to be necessary, might I suggest making it clear that the "indication" that the article's subject is notable is a distinction of the artist or work that is itself notable, per Lifebaka's example?

I also suggest that if evidence of distinction within the article remains a requirement, citing sources to verify the distinction be at least urged by the wording, and discard altogether the 'lower standard' wording, rather than discard V. Either way, 'lower standard' is misleading. Anarchangel (talk) 05:37, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

You're still ignoring the fact that the "standard" at issue is "importance or significance", and nothing else and conflating the deletion process of speedy deletion with notability, which are apples and oranges. When we say it is a lower standard, we are saying "importance or significance" is a lower standard than "notability". WE ARE NOT SAYING "meeting A7 of the speedy deletion criterion is a lower standard than notability". Again, if the criterion required notability it would require an "indication of notability" meaning it would require notability to be present in the article, and then we would be deleting article that did not already contain "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I assume you would agree that requiring an article to say something which implies importance or significance in order to not be speedily deleted, is a lower standard than requiring an article to contain significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject in order to avoid speedy deletion. Until you acknowledge that the "standard" referred to is just the part about "importance or significance", and not the criterion coupled with the process it appears in, you will remain perplexed.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 09:11, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Forget my last post. Sorry, you are right, I read the phrase as referring to the rule overall. The proposed rewording would fix that, I support it. Anarchangel (talk) 07:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Single user page warning template

We have way too many of these, can we make one in the form of {subst:csd-warn|a8|pagename}~ (where a8 can be any one of the existing csd)?    M   23:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, technically we could (I believe Simple English Wikipedia does this for their CSD template). But I don't see the point, lots of templates are okay, so long as they stay organised, there's a category for them here, and each {{db}} template has an example of a suitable warning. I can't see the problem with the current system, and the only problem you bring up is that there are "too many", could you be more specific please? What do you personally think is wrong with having too many? Cheers - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Sure - the problem with having a lot of them is that in addition to memorizing the csd numbers and templates, I have to memorize the various names for the templates - which I don't really feel like doing, so I'm not going to go look them up every time just to warn someone, which means I'm not going to warn them. The CSD page also has to spend a lot of time describing each one, when all we need is one instruction: "Add {subst:csd-warn|a8|pagename}~ to the creator or significant contributor's page to warn them". It also makes them much more difficult to manage, assuming that they don't use a single parent template (but I think they do). In general, any sort of redundancy, extra memorization, or extra steps in our policies should be approached with hostility, until utility is proven.    M   01:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Ahh, you're manually warning users. Many if not most CSD taggers and vandal fighters use automated tools such as WP:TWINKLE and WP:HUGGLE. For such users the convenience of having a menu of warning options just pop up on your screen can't be beat, and makes it simple to inform a user of what is specifically wrong with their page, which is important because it helps avoid confusing users as to what the exact problem is and avoids biting the newcomers. If you have a computer that is capable of utilizing one of these tools and you intend to do a lot of CSD tagging, I strongly recommend you install one of these tools. If you don't wish to do that for some reason, I would suggest you construct a user subpage with the templates listed along with brief descriptions of what they produce as a sort of copy and paste "toolbox," similar to what I have here for images I find useful when leaving talk messages. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
    I too do my NPP manually, but I just copy and paste from the CSD tag. And those warnings always seem good enough. However, I can't see a problem with creating Template:CSDwarnings, which would be the same as what M suggests, transluding the current templates. But keep all the old templates. So people can choose. - Kingpin13 (talk) 02:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
    Yeah, I agree with keeping the old ones of course, but basically as redirects. We should probably include a reference to twinkle and huggle, but we still need to place the user warnings on this page. I'd prefer to include only that line, rather than going through each criteria and copy-pasting the user warning for each. Another thing to consider is automated bot warnings - place a CSD tag, and a bot automatically places a warning on the appropriate page.    M   02:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any point or improvement coming from this since there's only a few high use ones and they are all intuitive to the criteria they cover. {{Nn-warn}} covers all A7s, {{spam-warn}} is intuitive to G11, {{empty-warn}} is intuitive with A1/A3 and covers both, G12 takes {{nothanks}} (which isn't perfectly intuitive but makes sense and is highly historical), {{nonsensepage}} (which has nonsense-warn as a redirect) is intuitive with G1 and that's really all just about all you need. Note that the whole series of notice warnings for each criterion and subsection of criterion, in the form db-name-warn, such as {{Db-band-notice}} were created by me for for Twinkle tailored automatic warnings and there's no need for anyone to use them manually. In short, there are very few to memorize and it's not difficult because they're named after the criterion they warn about. The same series are also has an admin counterpart, i.e., nn-warn is for warning of impending deletion under A7, while its admin counterpart, {{nn-warn-deletion}} is for admins informing of a deletion they've done under A7. The only other one I can think of that's important to know for manual warnings is the escalating series, {{test1article}}, {{test2article}}, {{test3article}} and {{test4article}}. It's really a very minor and unimposing memorization task and no more difficult and less intuitive, than knowing which section number to place in the {{csd-warn|section number}} you propose, which requires a person to memorize the arbitrary section numbering of the CSD. I just bet you there are many newpage patrollers that don't know the section numbers but know the tags since, for example db-spam being for spam is so invited, while knowing spam is numbered section G11 is completely arbitrary.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • You kinda lost me there, M. I don't see the point of replacing the specific templates with general ones when they are used all the time by literally thousands of users, and I don't know what you mean by "include a reference" to Twinkle and Huggle, I was suggesting that you use one of them to ease this process you seem to find so cumbersome, that's what they are for. Not only do they tag the page with the tag you want, but they automatically apply the correct notice to the creator's user page, and Twinkle even adds a welcome message if they don't have one already. There was a bot called User:CSDWarnBot that used to follow up if no notice was sent, but there were problems with it which it's owner refused to correct, and it was shut down. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I know about Twinkle and Huggle - what I'm suggesting is that on this policy page, instead of listing the 7 (or 20 or howevermany) user warning templates, we list just the one.    M   02:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I can't be alone in utterly failing to see what that would accomplish. If you only want to use one, no one is stopping you, but the list should be available to anyone who wants to be able to customize their messages. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
What do you mean by customize? The template would have both a field for which criteria was used.    M   03:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • As a sidenote, I dislike both Twinkle and Huggle because they make it much too easy to merely tag the page and tacitly discourage the escalation in warning that most vandals deserve. I can't count the number of times I've gone to a vandal's Talk page and seen screen after screen of auto-generated tags, each written in the gentle tone appropriate to a first-time user and collectively sending the message that our anti-vandalism threats are toothless. Mind you, the CSD reason-based tags suffer the same problem but at least when you have to add them to the page by hand, there's a chance that the tagging editor will see the pattern and choose a stronger warning instead. Rossami (talk) 03:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Seconded and don't use them. You know we used to actually get reports at AIV for users creating nonsense page after nonsense page? Now people rarely connect the dots, and that nonsense page creator or copyright infringer or what have you, who would have been warned by a human properly and maybe stopped after seeing that a human being was actually watching them, or would have been blocked after an escalating series of warnings, just get discouraged after their twentieth page creation gets speedily deleted, and has twenty of the same first level CSD warning templates on their page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
      Agreed, but to get back to the original discussion, I think it would be a great idea to have this template as an alternative, so I quickly put something together in a template sandbox, copying from the Simple English Wikipedia (I've only done the general CSDs at the moment, and only the ones which have warnings linked to from their templates). Feel free to test at WP:SAND by adding {{subst:X1|CSD (this can be "attack", "g10", "nonsense", "G11" etc.)|page_name}}. - Kingpin13 (talk) 04:20, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Just to reply to all this: I don't see any problem with creating the template or adding it to the list, but we should keep the old ones as well. Yes, some users of Twinkle and (especially) Huggle move very quickly and don't check to see what other warnings a user might already have, but that is a problem with those users, not the tools themselves. I have seen the exact same thing that Fuhgattaboutit describes and it bothers me too. If my edits are not the first ones to the user's talk page, I check to see what others they may have and add appropriate warnings, but sadly I am in the minority in that regard. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
    • You should have little worry in that regard because anyone trying to delete them will find that there are about 2,000 users who aren't aware of this discussion, but use them everyday and know them by heart, not to mention the fact that they are incorporated into each of the db templates as the suggested warnings. Maybe this template will be useful but if we are going to list it on the CSD page, I think it's almost axiomatic that it would be very skewed not to also list the existing high use ones that.are the bread and butter of a multitude of users--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:22, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

User:IHA DWM/International Housewares Association (IHA)

I declined the G11 speedy on this one and also User:PMInstitute/Sandbox today, but I wanted to discuss this since it's an important issue and also a close call that could go either way. I'm thinking the right way to go is to encourage them, see if they can find a way to follow our policies, and then go for MfD if there's no response in a couple of weeks. Both of these are long-established trade groups. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 15:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

You absolutely did the right thing Dan. These users are doing exactly what they should be doing, working on it in user space until it's ready to go live. Nominating them for speedy at all was very wrong and bitey. The only reason user subpages should be speedy deleted is if they are attack pages or copyvios. Anything else should have to go to MFD as far as I'm concerned, and these would have survived an MFD since they are new and the users have had almost no time to work on them yet. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Almost completely agree with Beeblebrox. G11 in userspace should be applied in those cases where it is evident that the user never wants to add the article in the article space, e.g. if they use their userpage directly as it were an article. In all other cases, MFD should be the way to go as deleting pages people might work on is simply bitey - nothing else. Regards SoWhy 17:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
But how do you guys feel about deleting these types as G11s if they have been sitting around for ages and the user is inactive?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Good question. For instance, User:Sultana(band) ... I just temporarily declined the speedy so we can talk about it. Only contribution was this page, about a year ago. Like the two examples above, it's not "unencyclopedic", all it says is:
"Sultana" is a post-hardcore/screamo/rock band from Miami Florida. The band consists of four members [and lists the members].
Unlike those examples, it's about a probably non-notable band. I could run it through WP:MfD, but personally, I don't think the advantage in "niceness" would be worth the time that Wikipedians would spend on the MfD. I'd rather that Wikipedians spend that time on something more likely to matter, such as the two pages mentioned above. - Dank (push to talk) 13:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
MfD is not that much of a burden on the community. If we start seeing hundreds per week, then it may be appropriate to revisit the question but till then, it's better to send the page there and let it have it's week of discussion than to endlessly revisit the issues because we are overstretching the 'speedy' boundaries. Rossami (talk) 16:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

References section

Regarding this revert - I don't think that there are many widespread community discussions. Most of the changes to CSD certainly don't involve the widespread community. The very minor cost of trimming such a section down if it actually becomes large is nothing compared to the hassle of there not being one when you're trying to figure out the sources of a policy, and whether or not consensus has actually been established. See for example the originalia section of WP:OFFICE. I've been going through the history of a fair number of policies, in the process of cleaning a few of them up (there's a short list on my talk page), and something like this is very useful in figuring out what the policy is actually supposed to say.    M   23:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that this page had been through countless discussions, many of which have raged all across the community. Discussions flash to Village Pump and back, get RfC'd regularly, spin off to other actions, etc. Anything approaching a comprehensive list would be huge and cumbersome. Worse, many of the historical references that you want no longer exist or are unfindable because we were not nearly as diligent about record-keeping and archiving in the early days of the project.
By the way, I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to compile such a list. Even if it's incomplete, I agree that it could be a useful historical reference and once-upon-a-time we attempted to sort the archives into just such topical threads. I just don't think the cross-reference list belongs on the policy page itself. It would be more appropriate here or, maybe better, on a dedicated sub-page. Sort of like the /documentation subpages that are created for some templates? Rossami (talk) 16:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea to toughen up on the endsections of all policy pages. Endsections shouldn't be used to introduce information which couldn't survive on the policy page itself. - Dank (push to talk) 18:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
It's policy that endsections (such as see also, etc. - see e.g. IAR) are not formal parts of the policy page proper. I personally am against linking any essay or opinion piece out of a policy.    M   23:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, keeping track of a policy's history, even directly on the policy page, is somewhat common: Admin details Jimbo's original statement; Office provides detailed source documents/discussion summaries. Is it just that you think it will grow too big? Perhaps we could simply let it do so, and then when it gets beyond a certain point, split it into a /References subpage. Voila, the archives summaries that we always wanted. Would there be much harm in trying it out for a while, and seeing what happens?    M   23:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I've watched this page since its first inception and yes, I am certain that any archive complete enough to be useful will be exceptionally large. That will be true of any of our deletion-related pages. On-page history, on the other hand, is 1) a relatively recent innovation and 2) more feasible on other policy pages which tend not to be as contentious or widely debated as those on the topic of deletion.
My concern is that this page is already intimidatingly large and verbose. For new readers, the sheer pageload time is daunting. If we can move second-tier content to a supporting page, we increase the likelihood that at least some new readers will read the page. That's why I thought your reorganization of the templates was a good idea. Anything to make the page more friendly to a first-time reader. Those wanting the detail can always follow the link.
The reason I feel strongly that you should start with a different page is that changes to the page are notoriously difficult to unravel (as many of the discussions here make clear). If we can start with a logical design, we can hopeful preempt problems later.
I'd also suggest that it will be closer to what our readers expect. If you wonder about the history behind the writing of a controversial article (such as Rorschach test), you look on the article's Talk page, not on the article itself. The vast majority of wikipedia-space pages still follow that same convention. On-page history remains the exception. Rossami (talk) 01:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Why not cap it at 5 references? I could be wrong, but pretty much none of the discussions I see in a couple of those archives belong in refs - I'm talking about things like RfCs that involve 50 people and the general community. It's important to cite this stuff (consensus discussions) for the same reason it's important to cite facts (authoritative sources). Right now the argument against this is "it might grow" - well, maybe it won't. Is it actually a problem now when it has one ref? Two? It isn't, and the potential harm is really both harmless and entirely reversible. If you're concerned about an extra heading, bold can be used instead. There's absolutely no harm in leaving it there and seeing what happens.    M   04:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

R3 - why only recent?

Criterion R3 refers to "Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers". I recently came across a case where someone justified rejecting use of this criterion because a pointless redirect had passed unnoticed for a while. Is there any good reason at all for not deleting the reference to "recently"? The word "recently" was introduced on 4 September 2007, with the edit summary changed wording order to match templates, but it seems to me that is letting the tail wag the dog: the template should reflect policy, not vice versa. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I have now checked when the wording was introduced to the template. It was added on 21 May 2007, with an edit summary which said add "recently-created" to match language on WP:CSD and WP:RFD; I keep finding these on redirects created in 2005. This is beautifully circular: in 2005 the CSD said "recently", so in 2007 the template was adjusted to match, even though the CSD no longer said this; so later in 2007 the CSD is adjusted back to fit the template, even though. In light of this I have decided to be bold. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted back, as searching through the archives seem to show there is consensus to keep this (see Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_30#WP:CSD.23R3_question and Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_29#Why_is_R3_limited_to_.22recently_created.22.3F). Some of the reasons for this only applying to recently created redirects are: So as to keep links from external sites working, and because RfD is a much better cause of action for redirects which are not harmful (unless it's harmful, it doesn't need to be removed speedily) - Kingpin13 (talk) 14:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
{e/c) The rationale I have seen stated in the past is that if a redirect has been sitting in place for a long time it may have incoming links from the web. I do not see that as a good enough reason because if it is truly an implausible typo or misnomer, it won't have a lot of incoming links for the very reason that it is implausible. It has also been argued that we are not good at recognizing implausibility, so we should limit it to only recently created to minimize the impact of bad decisions. I don't agree with that either, which is not an actual argument against the use of recent, but against the criterion itself. In any event, I support getting rid of recent, but see past discussions, here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Fuhghettaboutit: a typo so implausible that one is unlikely to type it by error must be even less likely to be created as a link and then be allowed to remain as a link in the unlikely event that it has been created. I also accept Fuhghettaboutit's logic that the difficulty in recognising implausibility might be an argument against the criterion, but not against "recently". JamesBWatson (talk) 14:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that your "implausible" is my "perfectly-reasonable". It may be a foreign translation - unknown to you but common to me and readers like me. It may be a typo that's easy to make on my keyboard layout but uncommon on yours. Implausible is too subjective a term to be useful when there is a possibility of harm. And, as has already been noted, when redirects are old, there is enough of a chance that it's in use externally that community discussion at RfD is the better choice. When the redirect is brand new, there is less such risk. That said, I would support the removal of the criterion altogether and sending such redirects to RfD. The clause is misused enough that I believe we should test the burden its removal would place on RfD. Rossami (talk) 16:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
There's always the stats tool. But yes, killing a CSD if there's no burden on RfD would be great.    M   23:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I remain unconvinced regarding incoming links for a number of reasons not the least of which is that I have seen no facts cited ever showing that it's true that there are many incoming links to titles containing typos and misnomers, and that is the only basis cited for keeping in "recent". Is there any data to support this contention? It seems illogical that it would be the case. A link that has a misspelling, for example, that is used a lot, would get corrected when the people using it reach a different target. If it isn't high use, it isn't very meaningful that it becomes an offline "red link" anyway.

But let's test this apparently untested premise a bit. Barack Obama is an incredibly high traffic page. A very plausible typo and which thus has a redirect, is "Barak Obama", which gets about 400 people reaching the article through the redirect per day by searching our site for the misspelling. Yet, while there are 1,460 external links to Barack Obama (and Google is pretty damn good at this stuff), there are zero external links pointing to the functioning redirect at Barak Obama. Or take the case of cemetery, which according to this site, is one of the 100 most often misspelled words in the English language, with the misspelling being cemetary. There are 197 external links to cemetery, but just 4 to the misspelling. Now, these are both plausible typos/misnomers, so you would expect that anything one might consider an implausible typo/misnomer to a page would have a much lower likelihood of being the target of external links. So I submit, based on the evidence provided, that where highly plausible typos/misnomers to high traffic pages have almost no external links pointing to them, external links to putatively implausible typos/misnomers are as scarce as hen's teeth. Out the window goes the argument based on incoming external links.

I have also never seen any data that admins are bad at judging the implausibility of typos/misnomers. Any data for this? Regarding getting rid of R3 entirely, judging by what I see, we get about 30 articles a day with their names in quotes, and the same for articles with unnecessary disambiguators, articles with disambiguators with no space between the title and the opening parentheses and so on, all of which, if they're not moved by admins, leave redirects in their wake. Getting rid of R3 entirely and taking all these to RfD is probably better thought, though I'm not sure if you were serious.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to attempt a statistical study, then you'll need to use a more reliable methodology. We have several times conducted bench tests and shown that the Google-links search frequently misses known inbound links. A positive google-link search is evidence of existence, a negative link search is unfortunately evidence of nothing. Furthermore, google-link searches only have the potential to find links which are currently online. They have no ability to find off-line links such as citations in print materials (Wikipedia is frequently cited especially in journals studying the emergence of social software), bookmark lists or cross-references that users might keep in spreadsheets or other formats. And that doesn't even begin to touch the places that google chooses not to search in deference to a webpage's robots.txt file, for example.
As for the data that individual users are bad at determining plausibility, you'd have to do a study of RfD nominations where the accusation was "implausible" and was not substantiated. I am not as active at RfD as I once was but my experience then was that there were a significant minority where the nomination was rejected and the redirect kept once the plausibility was explained.
And yes I was serious about deprecating R3 and sending those to RfD. Yes, those mistaken page titles must be corrected and the page moved, but there is exactly zero gain to deleting the redirect that's automatically left behind after the move. Mistakes like that don't need to be taken to RfD because they don't need to be deleted in the first place. Rossami (talk) 14:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Negative statistical results are actually useful. They are often inconclusive and they are certainly not persuasive, but they are not "evidence of nothing". For example, if Google or any other tool misses a certain number of results, it will do so consistently, such that there is an meaningful inferences to be drawn from the negative when we see from the positive that the tool is working. Even if Google misses 90% of all inconing links, there is meaning in the inference that for "cemetary", only finding 4 means even at a 90% miss rate there are only 36 links missed, and again this is a plausible misnomer to a common misspelling. We can use inductive logic to conclude that there are far fewer external links to less common misspellings than would also be considered implausible by reasonable people. In any event, you have the burden here backwards. You are asserting that there are more than negligible incoming external links to targets editors would delete as implausible. I don't think there are. I find it highly unlikely that there are anything but negligible numbers of URLs in print journals pointing at redirects that are implausibility fodder. I think that people are far more exacting when they are inserting URLs in online documents, and especially paper documents, such that there is little correspondence between the rate a redirect get accessed when someone casually searches Wikipedia, verses when they are creating a link to Wikipedia. I think people are far more likely to soon correct a link to a redirect when the redirect is used and it is seen that the page is at a different name than the link, and that this becomes more likely when the link is high use, and that the longer in time the link exists, the higher the likelihood of its correction, such that the older the redirect, the less old incorrect links there will be to it. But the point is that I don't need to prove the negative (that there aren't lots of these incoming external links). You assert they exist in enough quantity to matter and to targets that would be deleted if R3 applied to older redirects. You, then, have the burden to show that's the case in support. I will happily consider evidence but I will discount that rationale as an untested assertion until then. Of course, if I want to crusade to remove "recent" (which I can find little passion for, but I do love a good debate) I will have the burden of showing it should be changed. Not because that's my logical burden, but because that's the way changing policy always works:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
You've got several thoughts running together here. I'll try to address them in order.
Your analysis of negative results will show relative usage but can not say anything about absolute usage. I don't dispute that the incorrect spelling will in almost all cases be vastly less common. Deletion, however, must concern itself with absolute usage - is the link in use at all and what is the cost of maintaining it here. Even if there are only 36 links or even only 3, there is some small value in preserving those links and doing our part to minimize linkrot. We should delete a redirect only when doing so has some offsetting value to us or the community. If a link is in the way of a real article, out it goes. If it is actively confusing or harmful, out it goes. But if it's just sitting there, well, redirects really are that cheap. Deleting a link does not "clean up" the database and gets us no resources back.
On burden of proof, the burden at Wikipedia is always on those arguing for deletion. I'm not saying that's right or wrong - that's simply the Wikipedia way.
While it is essentially impossible to prove the assertion about offline links to any particular incorrect redirect, statistically the problem of linkrot has been well established. And while I agree that links tend to be updated in high-use, interactive sites like wikis, many other sources of hyperlinked content are not nearly so easily updated. Rossami (talk) 16:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I agree that speedy deletion of these redirects should be limited to those recently created and thus almost certain not to be linked anywhere. RfD should suffice for anything else; remember, CSD is supposed to be of limited application. Powers T 15:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I've always thought the word odd and think it should be removed. It's inherently subjective (how recent is recent?). And if it's a totally implausible redirect, any links from outside coming in should be negligible. --Dweller (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Dweller on this. Frankly, I've tended to define "recent" in rather broad terms. I'm not too much concerned with preserving external links to nonsense or mis-spellings. A problem, may be the very broad view some eds. seem to put on what counts as implausible, but I can't see why recency matters to this. DGG (talk) 20:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Why not replace "recent" with "orphaned"? Would that work better? There is a "What links here" button. Dcoetzee 00:42, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw this in the CSD of the German Wikipedia today

"Talk page of a dynamically allocated IP user with no recent activity." Given that one may receive a warning that was intended for someone else, should we adopt something similar? Or would that be a solution in search of a problem? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 18:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

We've had admins botting on their accounts to do this, (iar), but it was staunchly opposed (if I recall correctly) and the activties ceased. –xenotalk 19:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Solution in search of a problem. No IP user will check their talk page before the big flashy orange banner appears and if that appears, we can assume that 99% of them are capable of reading dates. Such deletions would inflate the deletion logs of the admins doing so with entries that are irrelevant (remember MZM's deletion log when he ran his script to delete those pages?) while gaining us nothing in terms of fixing a problem. If I recall correctly, MZM's activity was what lead to the deprecation of WP:OLDIP. Regards SoWhy 19:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Do you know where the relevant discussion is? Perhaps I'm out of step or am missing something, but it seems a fine idea to me, and I wondered why I didn't see MZM doing that anymore. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a bunch of discussion on that, let's see what I can find easily:
Have fun reading ;-) Regards SoWhy 10:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Your uum research on consensus

I'm pondering the irony that this article itself would seem to meet the criteria for speedy deletion. Lumenos (talk) 03:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

What would happen if I were so bold as to append the insolent "citation needed" to the opening statement? "The criteria for speedy deletion specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus support to, at their discretion, bypass deletion discussion..."? The source that I am inquiring about being the statical database containing the polling done to determine that there was broad consensus, the human samples queried, the exact questions and alternatives appearing on the polls. :) Lumenos (talk) 03:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone would (should) probably throw a ref in to one of the RfCs (I'd like to see such a link added). I encourage you to be bold and add it, 'as per talk'. We don't use polling databases to determine broad community consensus, we use RfCs.    M   04:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
You can ponder the irony all your want but it would be entirely misplaced since this is not an encyclopedia article. The consensus is vast and complex and years long and covers 36 pages of archives linked to at the top of this page and stretching back through prior discussion at the Village Pump, Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, and other pages. Moreover, you misunderstand the source of consensus when you ask the statistical database, etc. Consensus does not reside in and result just from the vast discussion available to you right here, but from the operational consensus of thousands of users applying the criteria every day for good effect. It is clear you have a bone to pick but I'm not sure what you seek to accomplish with misdirected insinuations.--68.160.248.210 (talk) 04:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Hum... so I guess the first thing I need to look for, is the debate... I mean harmonious conclusion... wherein we all decided that we need a reliable source for something like which Pokemon is this picture, but completely unsubstantiated (ie unsourced) original research is fine for self-serving advertisements such as that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy (right next to this list of bureaucrats) or that everybody generally agrees about all these policies that are used to delete all kinds of useful information. Lumenos (talk) 23:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Is there a particular criteria you think is not supported by the community, or are you suggesting the entire CSD process is unsupported? Actually it looks more like you have a bigger issue with the whole issue of consensus. Consensus is rarely perfect. Almost any issue is going to have persons who see it in varying ways. What we try to do is achieve a rough consensus and act on it. Centralized discussions, if you care to participate in them, are listed at WP:CENT. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe that there would be consensus as to the issues I mentioned in my last post, but at the moment, I'm not sure anyone has claimed that the "tradition" of not citing sources on controversial claims made in policy pages, was ever decided by consensus. If there is some discussion of that issue in some archive somewhere, I would like to see it. Lumenos (talk) 04:18, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
As was mentioned above, a policy page is not an article, and not subject to WP:RS. For example, the five pillars doesn't cite any sources, and those are the core policies on which all other policy is based. If there are controversial claims on policy pages, they usually get challenged on the talk page and discussion ensues. I ask again if you have a specific criteria you are referring to, or do you have a problem with the method used to craft policies here? (hint:one of those is a proper topic for this page, and one of them is not)Beeblebrox (talk) 05:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh... uumm it was the ppproper one, Sir. Lumenos (talk) 22:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Then go find it :) Yes, it's important (I think) to provide readers with references to discussions. No, material that lacks these cannot be removed.    M   18:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Argument against deletion of talk pages

Please see here. Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

  • My opinion is that talk pages should not be deleted routinely, speedily or even at MfD. Of course, deletion is OK (even important) if there is a good reason, and when it comes to good speedy reasons, there are speedy criteria already existing that should be used. db-u1 should never be used on a talk page where other users have made significant edits. At MfD, what constitutes a good reason is up for debate (indeed, is the point of the debate). "Of no conceivable benefit for the development of the encyclopedia" plus "violations of [some WP:NOT issue] are throughout the page" is a pretty good start for deleting any page, including a talk page. For example, this MfD is an example of a deleted talk page that I thought better not to delete, but yielded the debate on points. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I see now that the question was related to CSD#G8 talk page deletions, and my response was focused on talk pages which would not be G8 applicable (stand-alone project talk pages, talk subpages of existing articles, user_talk pages and user_talk subpages). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:36, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, you're talking about the talk page of an article that was deleted but subsequently restored to be userfied. In such a case, I see no reason why the talk page should not be undeleted at the same time as its parent page. There is nothing preventing you from requesting the undeletion/userfication of that talk page the exact same way its parent page has already been undeleted.
Other than that, I see no reason to do away with the G8 speedy criterion, since talk pages can be undeleted along with their parent pages. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 02:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I delete talk pages when it appears as though no real info on there is important apart from as a reference to the now deleted article. To date I have found maybe 1-2 talk pages where this is the case. I have never been asked to restore a deleted talk page, but it would be pretty uncontroversial for someone to do so. My feeling is that semi-automatic deletion of talk pages a la G8 is net positive for the project. Protonk (talk) 03:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • No user has a right to not have contributions deleted or to not have contributions deleted without their consultation. If you are a major contributor to a page then it is good manners to invite you to contribute to an XfD. However, if you are a major contributor to a G8-ed talk page, but were not a contributor to the page it depended on, then you could well be overlooked. If never heard before of someone complaining that G8 deletions were a problem. I expect that the vast majority are appropriate for deletion, as per Protonk above. If you disagree, I think that you should, be default, be entitled to have the page undeleted on request. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • It is, isn't it, a bug of the watchlisting system that deletion of a page doesn't show up on your watchlist? Is that bug an issue here? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that G8 deletion of talk pages for deleted pages is a problem; a possible solution would be a bot that copied certain comments from the article talk page to the talk pages of the people engaged in the conversation before the article talk page gets deleted. If we're talking about G11 deletion of user talk pages, that wouldn't work at all, user talk pages are the favorite targets of the promotional sock farms now. - Dank (push to talk) 02:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't see it as a problem in the least. G8 isn't mandatory. If an admin runs along a talk page with active commentary on it that pertains to something other than solely the article which has been deleted or contains information (e.g. link dumps) that might be used for a future userspace draft, s/he should not delete it. In most cases, where G8 is practically automatic, most admins should be open to reversing a G8 with little trouble. I agree that as a final disposition, the talk page of a deleted article isn't a good place to keep material, but I think that admins can exercise common sense in moving talk page archives to user talk space and what-not. Protonk (talk) 03:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
When I delete an article about which there is a protest on the talk p., I normally copy that comment over to the appropriate user talk and explain why I am deleting it despite the request. That's what the button for displaying the talk page is for. DGG ( talk ) 22:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • They should only be deleted when they contain no administrative information (no complaints about behavior, no deletion discussion, etc.). The article is gone from mainspace, which is 99% of what's important, so in my view deletion isn't particularly important anyway.    M   18:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Category for undefined speedy pages

There are oftentimes several pages that are tagged for speedy deletion with {{db}} only (no specific criterion). Since those pages only appear in the main CSD category, they sometimes stay unnoticed for a while, despite possibly being clear-cut cases. If it were possible, I personally would be interested in patrolling those articles specifically. So I think a new category, such as Category:Unclassified candidates for speedy deletion, would be useful if created. JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 01:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That would seem to be incredibly prudent, especially because it would be a great resource for users to cruise through and either give a reason if it's deserving or remove the template if it's not. I'd go for "Uncategorized," though. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 01:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Seems a good idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I think that someone could write a bot to just take all the articles in CAT:CSD and subtract all the daughter cats. Wikipedia:Bot_requests should be able to handle that and set up something that can be run on demand or we can get them to write something that can be run automatically (just has to go through BAG). Protonk (talk) 02:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
What benefit would that have over a category? –xenotalk 02:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
None, but it's a simple way to do it if we can't create a category. Protonk (talk) 02:22, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
We could also just add a minor sortkey that would put these "unreasoned" articles at the bottom of the list of the regular CSD category. –xenotalk 02:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Cool. didn't know it was that easy. :) Protonk (talk) 02:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Thusly. Check the category at the bottom (while it lasts =). –xenotalk 02:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Having a category directly integrated to the {{db}} template is much more simple than having a bot go through the candidates. I, too, have noticed that there are many newpage patrollers who do not bother using the criterion-specific templates, yet the pages they are tagging are textbook CSD candidates. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 02:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Thankfully Xeno intervened and we won't have my Rube Goldberg solution to the problem. :) Protonk (talk) 02:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Good idea, Xeno. :) My only concern is that outsiders might not understand the significance of "μ", so the extra category would probably still be helpful. Unless anyone objects, I'll probably create it soon as either "uncategorized" or "unspecified" candidates for speedy deletion. JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 15:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The good news is that those watching CAT:SD are rarely outsiders. But it is true that a new category could be implemented. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 03:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I would also suggest that users who do not provide a reason be advised that it is better to provide one than not, even if you write it yourself using {{db-reason|your reason here}} Beeblebrox (talk) 05:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
There are often reasons that are not valid db ones, that are sentences that explain why. I think a build in cat is a good idea, for those that delete in this way. Personally I just delete of the main category, others can take care of the higher priority jobs. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

We should make a category, it costs us nothing. The trick with the micro is great until someone can fix the template, but this should be used to sort, not categorize.    M   15:21, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

checkY Created the category as Category:Unspecified pages for speedy deletion. I decided to opt out of "uncategorized" to avoid association with article categorization. If anybody can think of a better title, it can be suggested some place like here and we can always move if others agree. Best, JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 16:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Question

I have a question on G11. I often see users adding their CV to their userpages. Would this qualify for G11? Triplestop x3 02:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to a Résumé. In a case like that, I usually just remove the offending content and replace it with a welcome note and/or a more specific message about the purpose of Wikipedia. I personally find that it's more productive than trying to get it deleted, as it gives you a chance to actually explain the problem as opposed to filling up the page with deletion messages, and can help avoid the user feeling "bitten". As recent conversations here seem to indicate, there are very few circumstances that will lead to user talk pages being speedied. --Beeblebrox (talk) 03:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
OK, somehow I thought you were referring to talk pages when your question is actually specific to user pages. My bad. I would say in that case that probably it would be speedy-able but you might try talking to them about it first and seeing if they would just change it themselves. Users are given some latitude in user space, but a résumé is essentially a form of advertising, just for a person instead of an organization. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Generally, I think that deleting or blocking (inc. username blocking) for relatively innocuous promotion, is, in the end, counter-productive. Deletion and blocking is bitey, and should be reserved for blatant and wilful promotion. If you are too quick to delete and block, then you risk creating a cleverer spammer under a fresh username. If you stick to removing inappropriate content by editing, and talking to the user, then you have a better chance of swinging them round to becoming a valuable contributor. --SmokeyJoe (talk)
Just blanking the resume and giving a kind note about what Wikipedia is and is not is fine. If it is a page dedicated to the resume, and not the main user page, then yes I think deleting it is a good idea. Best to ask them if they want a copy e-mailed to them though in case it is their only copy. Blocking should only be done if the person is persistent about returning it after warnings. Chillum 13:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A clarification on "very few talk page speedied" ... I speedy a lot of user talk pages, every day. Anyone who can find one in my deletion log that shouldn't have been speedied gets a gold star. Promoters are creating a lot of new accounts and advertising their wares on the user talk pages these days. I agreed with what you guys have said about CVs/resumes; those need something a little more personal than a quick speedy. - Dank (push to talk) 15:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I created {{uw-resume}}, does it look good? Triplestop x3 15:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Nice, I like it. That template looks useful, since I deal with spam/promotional material on a daily basis (especially company username accounts, or individual people, that have self-promoting contribs). JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 16:12, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I took up Dank's challenge. He seems to be accurately identifying pages placed by people who apparently are intending to use it as a directory listing (accurately = "I agree with him"), mainly on the nomination of User:Carleton, who has good judgment also, and says he is making a project of this. -- I think many times they are honestly ignorant of the nature of Wikipedia, and we could perhaps find a better way of communicating with them. (And there's another question--are other people doing it without equally good judgment, which is harder to spot), DGG ( talk ) 00:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Webkinzlover93

A little debate has emerged regarding a comment I made about an article nominated for deletion of a failed RfA candidate. The article, in total, read:

Webkinzlover93 AKA Christiane DOB removed is a age removed girl who created a webkinz youtube page with over 9000 subs and 1 millions channel views has become one of the most poplar person on youtube in over 18 month period

I called this a bad CSD because there is a claim to significance (1 million views IMO is more than one's circle of friends, you have to have significant following/interest to get there.) Is it enough to salvage it from Deletion? No, clearly not. But from CSD, I'd say yes. Two people have stated they disagree and that 1 million views is not a claim to significance. So, I open this up for discussion. The previous discussion can be seen in the link above.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

While I wouldn't fault someone who placed a CSD tag on such an article, I'd decline it myself. I try to look at it from the page creator's perspective -- can I see this as a good faith effort to make a real encyclopedia article? If so, I call it a claim of importance. That doesn't mean that a million views by itself will make me !vote keep at AfD, but that's a different standard.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, that's a claim of notability, albeit kind of minor, so it'll probably not survive AfD. The person who tagged the page was being pretty reasonable, but I would still decline it as not being A7 material, and try to briefly clean up the page (perhaps wikify and copyedit, add a stub tag) like I do with most CSD declines. Even though it most likely wouldn't survive AfD, speedy deletion isn't meant to determine that and I think I'd personally decline it. This is really the kind of case where another admin could interpret it differently and call it an A7, though, and I wouldn't be offended either way. Although I view it as a claim of significance and would rather save it, this actually seems like a borderline case. JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 16:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Just noting, but I've removed the girl's DOB and age to avoid unnecessary BLP concerns while this is being discussed. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 17:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, even the guideline for inclusion recognizes the fact that notability may be achieved through "a large fan base or a significant "cult" following." Of course, I do not need to remind any of you that importance/significance is an even lower standard than notability. That said, where do you draw the line for A7? What if the article was the same, except that it was 4k subscriptions and 200k channel views? 50k channel views? decltype (talk) 15:27, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Spam in userspace

Wikipedia_talk:Spam#Spam_in_userspace contains a disussion relevant to WP:Criteria for speedy deletion as well as to WP:Spam. A link here to it seems better than starting a second discussion on the same issue. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

C2.7

Suggest adding C2.7, sourced name change. If something for which a category is named changes names and the name change is sourced then the category should qualify for speedy renaming. For example, a company changes its name (c.f. Category:Court TV shows where Court TV is now TruTV) or the scientific community changes the taxonomy of a genus or species. It's unreasonable to expect that these would ever not be renamed so why keep inaccurately named categories for an additional seven days? Otto4711 (talk) 23:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Photos that violate BLP

This photo has an unsourced quasi-defamatory POV title and description. And I'm sure there have been much worse examples. There is no clear guidance in this article or WP:Files for deletion on what to do, besides stick in {db|reason}. I want to add this to the BLP page where we just had a big discussion on images like mugshots, now I find this. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Criterion G10 does apply to blatant attack images and negative BLPs, but this is less than blatant. I do agree that there are BLP issues - if this was hosted on Wikipedia, files for deletion would be the place to discuss it. It is, however hosted on, Wikimedia Commons and just transcluded onto this Wikipedia. You will need to pursue this via the Commons deletion processes as admins here at the English Wikipedia don't have any direct power to delete the image. ~ mazca talk 13:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Even though I put photos on commons it's easy to get confused. So will mention in BLP article the different links. Also just adding images to Criterion G10 and if someone thinks I did so incorrectly, please correct. I hope people agree it needs to be specified. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
There is no need to add it to G10, G10 covers all pages anyway, so it already does cover files. Regards SoWhy 14:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Why don't we just use the term "content" instead? It's an easier term to encompass these things. ViperSnake151  Talk  15:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't notice FILES section. Obviously an image of someone in very unfavorable light (zipper down, undies exposed, etc) or a fabricated image of someone being injured or killed would apply. Why not create:
F12. Files that disparage or threaten their subject
or some other entity, and serve no other purpose. Titles or descriptions of legitimate images that include slander, legal threats, or material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced should be changed.
  • {Plus add appropriate tag}
Thoughts on doing it and corrections to proposal? Especially, what is the policy on actual gore photos of people killed in war, accidents, etc.? I know I saw one up briefly that was removed for POV reasons, though I personally thought it was appropriate. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Heh. G10 already applies to files, so there would be no point creating this. All the "G"s apply to all namespaces (including files). But the rest of CSD (e.g. C1, F1, A3) only apply to specific namespaces. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, what he said. Also that image, WP:NOTCENSORED would usually apply. ViperSnake151  Talk  15:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
OK, so BLP deletion note on Images should forward to G10, as well as WP:FFD.
The question is ready usefulness for people who may only from time to time come to these pages. The issue now being that the intro to General' reads: These apply to all namespaces: Yes people can click on namespace and if they happen to look to right might see the listing of namespaces - or read down the page and see a more complicated listing and see that files include "image namespace."
Or to make it really simple for people who may only from time to time come to these pages it could read:
General' These apply to all namespaces (i.e., Main, Talk, File, Image, etc.):
Is that asking too much?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
  • BLP is a policy that applies to biographies of living people and relates primarily to unsourced negative information about living people. I think it is very hard to stretch the definition of "biography" and "unsourced" to most images.

    I do believe there is a place for discussion about images of living people, which are a problematic area, but CSD is not the place to have it and I would strongly oppose any expansion to CSD until such a rule has been trialled at FFD and shown to work.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. Just looking for the right place to deal with this issue. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I'm sorry. I should have pointed you to the right place rather than just telling you "not here"—how rude of me, and I apologise profusely.

The right place is Wikipedia talk:Files for deletion. Sorry again—S Marshall Talk/Cont 23:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem. After dealing with this for couple days did know what FFD was, just confused on which page most appropriate. But always good to make it a WP: link just in case.  :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion templates for CSDs F4 and F6

FYI, since it's just been relisted and needs more input: WP:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 August 23#Speedy deletion templates for CSDs F4 and F6.
Amalthea 11:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed CSD F12

I have a new proposed criterion for speedy deletion that will help clear away many of the orphaned images from from CSD A7 and CSD G11 articles that otherwise tend to languish through our Files for Deletion and Potentially Unfree Files processes (my comments in parentheses):

CSD F12: A file included on an article that meets a valid criterion for speedy deletion may be speedily deleted provided ALL the following conditions apply:

  1. The file is linked ONLY to the page meeting the valid criterion for speedy deletion. (This is for obvious reasons)
  2. The file was uploaded by the sole—or only substantive—author of the article to be speedily deleted. (This would prevent a vandal from removing a valid file from another article and adding it to a CSD-able article to get the file deleted)
  3. The file has no foreseeable encyclopedic value. (There is no sense throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we have a good file)
  • If the file has foreseeable encyclopedic value AND is reasonably believed to be under free license, it should instead be uploaded to Commons and deleted per CSD F8.
  • To avoid confusion, file deletions should occur before the article in question is deleted, and preferably by the same administrator.

Thoughts? IronGargoyle (talk) 02:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No foreseeable EV strikes me as an awkward test for an image. With text you can always do a google search, but one persons deletion of a 0 EV meaningless inkblot is another persons invaluable psychological test. ϢereSpielChequers 03:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
What if you just took that part out? Free images should be going on Commons anyway. They could sort out the scope through their deletion process. IronGargoyle (talk) 03:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't see how this isn't redundant to F5. We shouldn't be nuking free images with speedy, and this would only apply to, in effect, unused images. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
1. The singular form of "criteria" is "criterion." [In response, three instances of the word "criteria" were replaced with "criterion."]
2. This strikes me as substantially the same as the recently proposed "no parent article" criterion. As in that instance, the problem is that we cannot rely upon a random sysop to determine whether a file has foreseeable encyclopedic value.
A file used only in a deleted article differs in no material fashion from one never used in an article. If no current speedy deletion criterion applies, the correct course of action is to either upload the file to Commons or nominate it for normal deletion if it doesn't seem useful. —David Levy 03:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
I second that. (especially the grammar-nerd part) I don't see a need for this, it seems to fail most of the conditions at the top of this page in that it is neither objective nor uncontestable and it is redundant to F5 for non-free images and not needed at all for free images. (speaking of grammar and spelling, my spellchecker says "uncontestable" is not a proper word and suggests incontestable as an alternative) Beeblebrox (talk) 04:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

NFT Straw Poll

Seeing that this issue has been brought up so many times, I think it's time to have a straw poll to see if there is support for this proposal. The following is the proposed text:

A10. An article that asserts that its subject is not notable or was made up by the article's creator.

Voice your opinion below. Also, if you think you have a better alternate wording (or any other issues), please offer it in the "Comments" section. Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Poll (deprecated/on hold)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Support
  1. Support as proposer. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support, good wording. It's astonishing how often you get articles with a direct assertion of non-notability. ~ mazca talk 20:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support I and many others have been deleting articles on this basis for a long time, for obvious reasons. Might as well bring the policy into congruence with what's being done. ⟳ausa کui× 21:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support I've brought this up at the village pump myself before. Documents existing process, and removes temptation to put articles without a snowball's chance through AfD just because there's no CSD for them. Gigs (talk) 21:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support makes sense, little room for error with proposed wording. Icewedge (talk) 21:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  7. Strong support for something in this vein, but I have problems with the language proposed (see comments section below).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  8. Strong support - As having heard this idea in early stages, I think this rather modest proposal is a long-time overdue. Shadowjams (talk) 05:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  9. Strong support. It's annoying to have to go through AfD for obviously non notable subjects and hoaxes that don't fall under A7 or are just not blatant enough for G3. Malinaccier (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  10. Weak support If you made something up, obvisouly you have a strong conflict of interest with writing a Wikipedian article about whatever you made up. I am kind of concerned about making this speedy deletion, though. Maybe "We'll-delete-maybe-after-we-talk-to-the-article-creator-who's-new-around-here", or, in cases where the article creator knows what they're doing, taking it to PROD or AfD. I dream of horses (T) @ 19:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  11. Support. Seems logical. Cirt (talk) 00:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
  12. Support--although I've seen plenty of Admins bend G3 to include self-admittedly non-notable content. Jclemens (talk) 02:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
  13. Support -Very useful. Niteshift36 (talk) 09:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
  14. Stifle (talk) 10:41, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
  15. Strong support - If the author of the artice admits it shouldn't be here, why shouldn't we believe him? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
  16. Strong support' - This will be very useful. Mr.TrustWorthy----Got Something to Tell Me? 17:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  17. I support as well. Irbisgreif (talk) 20:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose. If a researcher writes about their notable original contribution to the field, should that be deleted? "Made up" is not a term that can be objectively defined to exclude these cases. And why should the original author's judgment of notability be trusted? If I created an article saying "Albert Einstein was the physicist who first described general relativity, but that's no big deal," I don't think the article should be deleted - other people should weigh in on the notability of the subject. Existing policy on reliable sources and verifiability, along with the existing AfD process, are adequate to deal with these cases. Dcoetzee 21:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  2. If it belongs, it belongs as a clause under G3:
    Pure vandalism. This includes blatant and obvious misinformation, redirects created by cleanup from page-move vandalism, blatant hoaxes, and articles that assert that its subject is not notable or was made up by the article's creator.
    We might want to give more scrutiny and polish the wording up a bit too. I oppose the creation of a brand new number that people have to learn for applying this. I'd also like to see some examples of articles that were deleted for this reason, and what their wording generally looks like.    M   21:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    Another reason for my objection is the assertion that this will 'document existing process'. This is not a valid reason for adding another criteria, since, as a recent RfC has made very clear, the only things admins may delete without discussion must fall explicitly under existing criteria, or have expired prod. Anything else is a violation of some rather strong community consensus. "Yeah, well, we ignore csd here anyway, so we should add it to csd" is a bad, bad reason. (Of course, several other reasons do have some merit, just not this one.)    M   22:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. As currently worded this proposal seems relatively impotent, unreliable, and likely to generate false positives. I offer my only two NFT deletions so far this year as evidence[1][2], neither of which asserted non-notability, nor were they created by their author. I may support some variation of this proposal, but this doesn't do it for me. I also note most of User:Causa sui's deletions mentioned below don't reliably match this criteria either. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  4. As per above, I'm worried about the very high possibility of false positives from the second part of the criterion. Just because the author made up, invented, or was creatively responsible for the subject of an article does not mean that the article should be summarily deleted (though it quite often is the case). I would like to see the first part (an article that asserts that the subject is not notable/important/etc.) added to A7 and A9, however, or possibly a more general version as A10 (adding to A7 and A9 seems the simpler choice, and is my preference). I also still don't believe these types of articles occur often enough for this to be an issue worth creating a criterion for; it seems as though PROD and AfD can handle the current loads on them just fine. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 22:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  5. See comments section for my reasoning --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
  6. Oppose. I have seen many articles where the nominator indicates a lack of notability, and the nominator is wrong. Over modesty is not that common, but it does happen. "This is is a little restaurant in my neighborhood. I don't think its very important" can in fact have major reviews and a good deal of fame the ed. did not know about. DGG (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
  7. oppose. DGG gives an example of why. WP:BEFORE should continue to govern proposals to delete on grounds of non-notability. --Philcha (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
  8. I'm not convinced that the number of cases that would meet a literal reading of this criteria are sufficient to outweigh the concerns about this being misused. 20:58, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
  9. Oppose, there's nothing at all wrong with AfD in these instances and the criterion as proposed is far too open to interpretation. I concur with zzuuzz's points. +Hexagon1 (t) 13:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. On the fence The wording seems good, but it would all come down to how this works out in actual practice. It could be a great CSD criterion, or as misused as patent nonsense.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  2. Supportive, but unsure. For many reasons, this would add a good dose of common sense to the CSD criteria if adopted. I actually side with User:Causa sui; I occasionally delete not-quite-speedy material (NFT/essays/"how to"s) that would undoubtedly snow at AfD. It saves everybody time. I'm careful at what I do, and I'm open to discussing my actions. Thus far, however, nobody has complained. My concern with this proposal is that people could easily misuse the criterion and/or misread it which might cause more trouble than its worth. JamieS93 be kind to newcomers 22:47, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
    Comment: Since much of the opposition is to the "made up" part, I've split it into two sections: NN (asserts non-notability) and NFT (asserts that it was made up). Therefore, please move your !vote to one of the sections above. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    I think this indicates that a poll is a bit premature at this point (so I removed the weird headings, until we have a chance to address some of the objections). Let's discuss things and come up with a proposed wording that everyone can get behind.    M   23:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  3. These pages are normally deleted as vandalism, and pages that assert NN fall under A7. However deleting such pages as vandalism is a bit bitey and I don't see why this can't be merged with G3 Triplestop x3 01:05, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion regarding NFT

  • Comment It might be nice to add wording like "...made up by the creator and lacks evidence of notability." Maybe that's sufficiently rare to ignore, but it may come up occasionally that User:AliceQScientist adds content about a well published biochemistry technique invented by Alice Scientist. Of course, policy need not be written like the law, but it might be worth considering. --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    It's kind of a depressing picture of human nature that we're painting if we are writing policy with the lowest common denominator of common sense in mind. If someone deletes an article like that on the basis of this proposed A10, that would be a mental defect in the person who deleted the article, not a defect in the wording of the policy. ⟳ausa کui× 21:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    (EC) You wouldn't say that Einstein "made up" his theory of relativity, right? Einstein "developed" his theory of relativity. While "made up" and "developed" have very similar denotations, they differ greatly in their connotations. And per WP:LAWYER, that's all that counts. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment – if, for instance, an article asserts that is not notable but is trying to gain notability via Wikipedia (through SEO), then wouldn't that normally fall under G11, anyways? MuZemike 21:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    From the way you described it, it could fall under either. What counts is that it doesn't belong here. So if you wanted, I suppose you could cite either rationale, or both. ⟳ausa کui× 21:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Another comment – if something like this is to be used, then we must disambiguate from A7, which are certain articles that fail to assert any notability of any kind (i.e. an article that says nothing but John Doe is awesome would qualify as A7, while an article that only says John Doe is not notable yet but will be someday would qualify as A10). Perhaps something like (added on to this A10 criterion):
    This does not include real people, individual animal(s), organizations, or web content that fail to establish notability yet does not explicitly assert that it isn't. Such articles may instead fall under the A7 criteria for speedy deletion.
    MuZemike 22:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    Why do we need to disambiguate? Some articles will naturally fall under either. Why is that a problem? ⟳ausa کui× 22:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    That was my thought, too. It is not a problem in my view if articles routinely fall under multiple speedy criteria - there is no profit in adding large sentences to prevent that. ~ mazca talk 22:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I propose that anyone asserting that something should be a CSD in an AfD provide a link back to similar articles, and a link forward from those, so that people can keep track of exactly how frequently these things come up.
  • Admittedly 'made up' things, where notability seems unlikely and the creator asserts that the thing, term, or concept was both made up by them or their friends, and lacks notability.
How about that wording? (we should have discussed more before going to the polls.)    M   23:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think both points should be required. If the creator just says, "We invented a game, blah blah blah," it's obviously non-notable, but does not assert non-notability. Moreover, an assertion of non-notability alone is enough IMO. This is an instance where WP:POTENTIAL does not apply; the article is not just poorly written, it's hopelessly written. If someone created Albert Einstein with the text "Albert Einstein," it can and should be deleted under A1. Likewise, "Albert Einstein is a physicist that nobody cares about" should also be deleted. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)M, regarding your opposition, when I said "documents existing practice" during the poll, I personally meant that they are always nuked at AfD if they make it that far, that the existing practice is to delete these articles (in one way or another), and that there is a very strong community consensus to do so. Putting a "Gigs Shooter" drink article through AfD is process for the sake of process. It doesn't look like you oppose making these types of article speedy-able in general, but I figured I'd clarify anyway.
Regarding your wording, I don't know about "Admittedly". If we narrow this too much, then we still put the "Gigs Shooter" through AfD just because I don't explicitly say that we made it up in a bar the other day. Also you lost one of the original criteria, "admittedly non-notable OR made up" seems to me to be a pretty different concept from "admittedly made up, and likely non-notable". You completely lose the class of admitted non-notable but not made up. Was that your intent? Gigs (talk) 00:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) reply to both. Well, first, I do think that process should be rigidly followed, even for the sake of process. The reason, though, is simply to ensure that the process that is documented stays up to date with actual process. Editors have a duty to keep track of and inform newer users of how policy works. Ok, how about: Admittedly 'made up' things, where notability seems unlikely and the creator asserts that the thing, term, or concept was made up by them or their friends.    M   00:24, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I have some problems with the proposed language but support the underlying idea strongly. First the word assert is problematic. It's always going to be by implication that whatever standard we use is "asserted". No one's going to say about what they're writing "is not notable" or "it has no reliable sources written about it" and so on. Instead it's always going to be some statement "indicating," like "has not yet caught on" or "will be famous soon" or something. Thus instead of assert it should be "indication" or probably, most accurately, "contains a statement indicating".

    Second, I do not believe we should use and the word "notable" and link it to the notability policy in this criterion. In a sense it's a non sequitur. To many we will be actually saying in the first part, by doing it this way, "An article that asserts (indicates) that it is not a topic that has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject... It's too attenuated from what we mean and I think we will cause much confusion down the road. Even if most admins will know what is meant, a person following the link to WP:N will say WTF? Think about how easy it will be for a new user whose article has been deleted under this criterion to post, in its wake: "this makes no sense! I didn't assert anything about sources at all", and they'd be right. We'd be left explaining that the language means something actually different than what it says. What we need is a statement in the article which tracks what we mean. We can simply use as the standard, consistent with other criteria, "importance or significance". Thus, I suggest for the first part:

    An article containing a statement indicating that its subject is not important or significant...

    Second, there is no reason that we should limit this to things the subject made up. I'd say half of the articles that are NFT candidates don't say (indicate) "I made it up," but that someone they know (often a friend) made it up. So I suggest, "...was made up by the article's creator or someone they know personally."

    Third, I think we are really here about NFT material than articles that indicate the subject is not important, which is far rarer, so I think we should switch the order, emphasizing first the NFT part.

    Finally, I think we can take care of some of the objections by a statement following the criterion-in-chief which does some defining of the criterion's scope, just as we do for A7 and others. Maybe something after the first bit like "If the article indicates that "made up" up material has been the subject of publication in reliable sources, or is well know among the general public, this criterion does not apply." Anyway, amalgamating everything above as to the main criterion, I suggest:

    An article containing a statement indicating that its subject was made up by the article's creator or someone they know personally, or which indicates its subject is not important or significant. If the article indicates that "made up" up material has been the subject of publication in reliable sources, or is well know among the general public, this criterion does not apply.

    --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Are we concerned about articles that claim non-notability as much as we are concerned about articles that claim being made up? I'm under the impression that made up covers a lot of non-notability, so we don't even have to include non-notability. Aside from 'the made up part will usually be sufficient', one reason we might want to exclude 'claims of non-notability' are statements like "...was a relatively unknown 34BC scholar who...", which some people might jump on as 'claiming non-notability'. I prefer my "Admittedly 'made up' things, where notability seems unlikely and the creator asserts that the article's subject was made up by them or their friends. " wording.    M   00:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
@"claims of non-notability": well said. However, I find Fuhghettaboutit's wording to more rigorous and precise. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't like the "indications" wording. It seems to imply that there need not be a claim in the article, but rather some "indication" of non-notability. No google results is an "indication" of non-notability, isn't it? Could be confusing. Assertion makes sense to me, and is already used in the CSD for "no assertion of notability". No one is confused by that. I'm mostly in agreement with Fuhghettaboutit's other points. Gigs (talk) 00:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)Actually, nevermind, after reading it three or four times, it sounds OK now. Just need to be careful not to lose the meaning.Gigs (talk) 00:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the disjunction. We can't state made-up or claims-non-notability, since this means that we can delete based on alleged claims of non-notability (the relatively unknown scholar). The second sentence (exclusions) covers just two exceptions to address this, when all we need to say is 'seems non-notable, and asserts that it was made-up'.    M   00:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


Another thing to address is +"which is a stupid made up" vandalism. So we should say "that the creator asserts..." instead.    M   00:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if we could do something like your conjunctive wording, but also add a disjunctive for "or neologism that asserts non-notability". That solves your little-known scholar problem, while not excluding a large class of admittedly non-notable neologisms. Gigs (talk) 01:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
"Is little-known [insert territory here] slang for blah blah" - yet here, the territory might be an entire city, which seems notable to me. Or at least, not uncontestably non-notable. Perhaps we could phrase it differently to avoid this problem. What do neologisms that assert non-notability typically look like?    M   01:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • The ones I've seen generally say something like "Frookle is a word invented by Jimbob Jones, he is the awesomest" or maybe "many teens on the west side of Potatoville Idaho call a really cool car a "turlingdrome" which is better than just cool, it's super cool or even just "chazzwazzer is a new word for a geek, nerd, or even a dweeb." Sometimes they make it easy by identifying a person by name like "Jill Sternbow is a perfect example of a shizzlefuster" then you can just delete as an attack page. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, but none of these assert non-notability. Some of them are borderline assertions of notability. Incidentally, none of these also assert that they were made up by the creator, so the new CSD would not apply. How about "Pages that contain nothing except the assertion that something that appears non-notable was made up by some individual or group that seems non-notable."    M   07:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

My fear with any criterion for "assertions of non-notability" is that people will interpret statements such as "Band X has not yet released any albums" as an assertion of non-notability, when in fact that band might be notable. It's much too subjective. Nobody writes an article that clearly says "This topic is unimportant." Likewise, with "things made up in school one day", it's not hard to imagine things made up in school one day that later became nationwide fads with significant coverage in reliable sources. How can you tell which it is? Research and AfD. There's a reason these things aren't on the list. Dcoetzee 08:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, see the earlier little-known scholar point. What's wrong with the "Pages that contain nothing except the assertion that something (which appears non-notable) was made up by some individual or group (which also seems non-notable)." This covers all cases of "X made up Y", where X and Y appear non-notable to the admin. Can you think of a case where this might lead to a false positive? "Joe Brumblestien made up Slinging Nubdibs one day in his garage" should be deleted if it seems that both of these are non-notable (a quick google check is sufficient), even if Joe is actually a little known scholar, or Nubdibs are on their way to becoming a fad. This almost falls under no-context: if there isn't sufficient uniquely describing info for either Joe or Nubdibs, kill it. (On the other hand, if it goes on to describe either of these in semi-coherent ways, this would be beyond the criteria and should go to AfD)    M   08:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that if we are going to go about a poll in the future, someone (and I would volunteer to do so if a few people supported the idea) should go trawl the archives and gather together the various language formulations that have been proposed in the past on NFT, post it one spot in a new thread, and we can then try to hash out some more firm language together before a new poll is opened.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd keep "A10. An article that asserts that its subject is not notable" and drop "or was made up by the article's creator" (because sometimes things invented by the article's creator are "significant"). Then, over time, we can add clarification to A10. I don't buy "This can't work because admins may misinterpret the drop-down summary"; surely, we can hold admins responsible if they don't read the part that says "See WP:CSD#A10". - Dank (push to talk) 13:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think any criterion should use the term "notable" at all. It's too easily misunderstood (like A7 is). And frankly, I don't think that we have situations often where an article says "XXX is a non-notable person/band/website". The suggestion is brief, yes, but it's also very easily subjective and misleading. Regards SoWhy 13:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Ideally, we will be able to come up with an acceptable wording for this. If not, perhaps we could make a rule that users in good standing can !vote "SNOW delete" at AfDs. They should only do this if they feel like GTBacchus when he deleted Religion against sea swimmers: "If there isn't a speedy criterion that covers this, it's just because we haven't written it down yet." If there are at least three such votes (not including the nominator), and no opposition based on policy, a SNOW close will be permitted. For PRODs, we already have a {{prod2}}; make a rule that if a user in good standing sees a prod and a prod2 and strongly agrees with the deletion (meaning, believes it falls under SNOW), they can tag it {{prod3}}, and then any admin can come and SNOW it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Please, NO!!! Premature closures are one of the worst problems in our deletion process, especially for pages which are tagged as hoaxes. While many of them do turn out to be hoax pages, a significant minority turn out to be poorly worded drafts about real though obscure topics. Our history here shows that as individual users, we are remarkably bad at making that distinction. As a group, however, we are remarkably good. But the group needs time to work. Premature closures shut off the process before some of the necessary controls and counter-balances have had time to kick in.
If I had my way, WP:SNOW would be deprecated as more harmful than helpful to the project. I know I can't win that fight but I will vehemently oppose any backdoor approach to escalating it into a de facto policy. Rossami (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Rossami. SNOW is not something that should be used at AfD. It is not needed. There is nothing gained from being impatient, and much that is lost. SilkTork *YES! 19:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not fond of WP:SNOW being used to delete a page, but there are times when it's useful to close an obvious keep (often for a pointy nomination). Just as an example from a past April Fool's Day, IIRC someone nominated Earth for deletion because there were no sources independent of the subject. Not sure there's a gain to the encyclopedia to keep a discussion like that open for 7 full days.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
And on the very same day, someone started a second joke nomination for Earth unaware of the first which was "super speedy double secret" closed. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
We have Wikipedia:Speedy keep for such things. We looked into the issue of using WP:SNOW in AFDs and the strong consensus is that we do not use it. So it was written out of the guidelines. If you see a Snow close it would be appropriate to remind the closer to read: Wikipedia:AFD#How_an_AfD_discussion_is_closed. SilkTork *YES! 11:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


I'm not sure, having looked at this proposal for A10, what is being covered in this request that is not covered already under the existing criteria. If it is "made up" then it is a hoax. What other sort of "made up" is the proposer thinking of? And "asserts non-notability" is a rewording of A7 and A9 but without the understanding and explanation that goes with those criteria. The notability of some topics are not immediately apparent - which is why we have AfD. SilkTork *YES! 19:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Made up ≠ hoax. Made up would be "My friends and I thought that this would be a cool idea to play this cool game." It's not a hoax; it's true, just that it violates WP:NFT. And an assertion of non-notability is different from failure to assert notability. If you will see, A7/A9 are limited in scope, but A10 would apply to everything (not just people, groups, albums, etc.), because a blatant assertion of non-notability establishes non-notability better than a failure to mention it. (If you would notice, the wording has evolved from "asserts non-notability" to "asserts that the subject is not important or significant.") -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
My concern is that very few articles indeed explicitly assert that their subject is "not important or significant" - not enough to meet the frequency requirement of CSDs. The ones that implicitly assert this are too subjective for an administrator to judge without further research (is a band with no albums insignificant? is a bill that has not yet been signed into law unimportant?). This is unlikely to ever be a useful CSD, unless people begin creating articles that say "Bob is a very unimportant person." Dcoetzee 22:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Scratches head. Doesn't "Pages that contain nothing except the assertion that something (which appears non-notable) was made up by some individual or group (which also seems non-notable)" cover pretty much all of the objections raised including false positives, while fitting the various csd requirements, not being redundant with any other criteria, and capturing nearly all of the pages we'd want to delete under this criteria?    M   22:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As noted in the first paragraph this is a bit of a perennial proposal and the reason it has yet to gain consensus is two fold. If the wording is vague it invites too many opportunities for false positives. A lot of things sound "made up", but actually aren't. On PROD, I routinely see articles tagged as WP:NEO that aren't actually Neologism (notable or otherwise). If an admin sees something that looks made up and deletes it, no one will really ever know and we possibly lose a notable, but poorly written article. On the other hard, if the criteria are narrowly worded (such as "article must admit to being recently invented and not assert notability") it applies to so few articles that it is rather pointless. Furthermore, having one's article deleted as "Made up" is potentially insulting and/or alienating.

In summary, the potential benefit of this category (a few less AfDs) is outweighed by the potential downside (chasing away contributors from false positives or otherwise). I would also like to point out that PROD usually works for truly made up games/words/etc. (as long as you don't tag it the second it is created at least) and that there is no real harm in waiting 7 days for deletion of this material. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Your post seems to me to ignore the part about the article itself indicating the thing is made up. Methinks that avoids the possibility of almost all false positives, and we do see many of these articles between neologisms, games, philosophies, and so on. It is surprising that so many articles do contain statements like "I made it up yesterday", or "me and my friends thought of this great new word on August 6, 2009 while bored in our basement", but they do. I guess it's human nature to want to take credit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
No a tight wording (as currently suggested) would fall under the 2nd part of my objection: "if the criteria are narrowly worded ... it applies to so few articles that it is rather pointless." Additionally, how does the suggested wording distinguish between "Sillyball is a sport invented in America by John Smith" and "Kiiking is a sport that was invented in Estonia by Ado Kosk." Take a look a Kiiking - even in its' current form it looks pretty "made up" to me, but a Google news search reveals it is notable. This is precisely the problem with a "made up" guideline. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. And while the original wording was imperfect, after a long discussion, there's actually a pretty good variant of the original wording: "Pages that contain nothing except the assertion that something (which appears non-notable) was made up by some individual or group (which also seems non-notable)". (just thought I'd mention it again in a quieter voice)   M   04:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I do not think the criterion should contain any form of the word notable, but I think we need to leave this fpor another day, to start over with a full recitation of past proposed language, and a clearer mandate and structure to any poll. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
you are probably right, though I think my wording works even without it. But yes, another day.    M   07:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I continue to object to the present wording, on the basis that a single administrator is not capable of distinguishing notable topics from non-notable topics, or notable contributors from non-notable contributors. Considering that most contributors are anonymous, such a rule would be impossible to evaluate in any case. Such a rule amounts in practice to "if you want to edit articles regarding your research, you cannot do so anonymously" - and that's not a precedent we want to set. Dcoetzee 04:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why my wording was "articles containing only the statement that someone made something up". You basically chop off the "was made up by X", and if you're left with something deletable under no-context, then goodbye. But perhaps this doesn't sufficiently cover things - someone needs to make a sample page with a bunch of these types of articles. Editors here should be on the lookout.    M   07:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
In the box at the top of the page it says that "CSD criteria need to be ... frequent". The proposal at the moment doesn't address this issue at all. If you want to change the CSD, you should first provide evidence of how big a problem it is, so we can judge whether a new CSD is the appropriate response. AndrewRT(Talk) 23:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • What makes me laugh is as we discuss how to word a proposed CSD to deal with hoaxes, the admin community continues to carry on and speedy hoax articles. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alfa-Tsentr is a great example. An obvious or subtle hoax, depending on your perspective. Sent to AfD after a post on AN/I reveal an attempted 'viral' video surrounding the article, the article was a carefully crafted hoax: online references were used for related content, offline references with some pedigree were pointed to, the article was free from outlandish claims. During the AfD, an admin stepped in and (against our deletion policy, I might add) speedied it as vandalism. And even though I'm a stickler for accurate CSD tagging and deletion, I won't contest it. Because it was the right decision. In practice these decisions are made and articles deleted near constantly (usually under A7 or G3 depending on how blatant it is). Why is it so difficult to recognize this and codify current practice? As an addendum, I can say that I probably won't let this discussion stop me from speedying hoaxes as necessary. Protonk (talk) 01:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

In other Wikipedias

I just went around to look at how foreign-language Wikipedias are dealing with this, in terms of whether this type of article would fall under their speedy deletion criteria:

  • German: Speedy deletion criteria there are not referred to by number, but the criterion, Zweifelsfreie Irrelevanz, could be applied to blatant NFT's.
  • French: The French Wikipedia never bothered with explicit CSD criteria, and the first item on the list, which translates as "blatantly aberrant creations made by others" seems to encompass nearly all of our own criteria.
  • Polish: NFT's there would be covered by criterion 3, item artykuły całkowicie nieweryfikowalne, wholly unverifiable articles.
  • Japanese: No CSD criterion there could ever be applied to NFT's.
  • Italian: Item 4, sub-item voci dal contenuto palesemente non enciclopedico, could easily cover NFT's. It should be noted that Item 4 in the Italian Wikipedia encompasses nearly all of our A- criteria.
  • Spanish: Criterion A1.3 explicitly calls WP:OR a speedy deletion criterion.
  • Portuguese: Criterion 20 calls for the speedy deletion of all articles with unquestionably unencyclopedic material.
  • Russian: Criterion С5 calls for the speedy deletion of all articles with unquestionably unencyclopedic material, but the commentary implies an application only equivalent to our A7.
  • Swedish: Criterion A11, Artiklar som uppenbart inte uppfyller relevanskriterierna, is like our A7 but not limited to certain types of articles. NFT's could easily be covered here.
  • Chinese: I could not find a speedy deletion criterion there that would encompass articles where the subject's notability is not asserted, so NFT's are clearly not speedable there.

These are just the 12 biggest Wikipedias, (the Dutch do not seem to have a CSD system - yes, they do; see below), and for the most part my analysis is based on machine translations of their CSD page. Looking at this, I'd say that implementing a new criterion to cover NFT's may not be necessary: perhaps it would be better just to amend existing criteria. A7 (no assertion of notability) and A9 (no assertion of notability - conditional) come to mind. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 20:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The Dutch CSD system can be found here : nl:Wikipedia:Richtlijnen voor moderatoren#Een pagina direct verwijderen JoJan (talk) 13:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
If anyone wants to propose replacing most of our CSD with the wording "blatantly aberrant creations made by others", I would absolutely support it ;) On a more serious note, we might want to encourage users, in big bold letters, to go help fix one random article before creating a page. Users who don't follow this rule and "create blatant aberrations" will have them deleted. Not to impose extra restrictions on creating, but it can't get much worse than needing an account, plus they'll get some experience with actually doing some proper collaborative editing. 2cents.    M   23:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
We have carefully worded it as no "indication" of notability rather than "assertion" About 2 years ago there was a period when it was labelled "assertion", and this was being used to nominate for speedy and even sometimes to actually delete articles where the author of the article did not specifically use language equivalent to "this is notable because". I even had some canned advice to editors urging them to put such a sentence prominently in the lede of their article to prevent such nonsense. You will still see some traces of this in articles by occasional contributors who are afraid their language will not speak for itself. And then it leads to such junk as "I assert that I am notable because I am the tallest person in my class" --as if we would be more likely to keep such an article because of the word "assert". DGG ( talk ) 23:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
The CSD for no.wiki (Norwegian Bokmål) are similar to ours. The relevant criterion would be H1 (equivalent to G1), which includes anything that's "obviously just nonsense or humbug". This covers WP:MADEUP articles. The nn.wiki (Norwegian Nynorsk) does not have CSD. As far as I know, there is no deletion policy either. There is a {{deletebecause}} template which is a combination of Speedy and AfD, since tagged pages will be immediately deleted at an admin's discretion, or discussed at the talk page. decltype (talk) 16:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is the poll truly deprecated?

I'm assuming the poll is meant to deprecated/on hold but there seems to have been some activity there since "holding" it, and it's linked directly from WP:CENT so I suspect more !voters are likely to be attracted. Should the link be removed from WP:CENT now? Or at least, the link there rewritten to make it clear that the poll is currently on hold? TheGrappler (talk) 21:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please explain to me how such an article would not be covered under A7? My concern about this proposed criterion is that it CREEPs a little further into the implication that "notability is importance, or things the majority of Wikipedia editors consider important". New users invariably get this impression when their articles are deleted, even though our guideline is that notability is not importance or popularity; it is simply the existence or likely existence of a preponderance of independent sources. I'm strongly opposed to any CSD that takes us further in the opposite direction by phrasing it in such a way that it misleads users. CSDs should be phrased in such a way that they follow naturally from our existing policies/guidelines.

I think A7 does this, by deleting any article that doesn't indicate some significance (i.e. potential notability). This is a good thing and gives the right impression. This new one doesn't. And I can't conceive of any case where an article would fall under A10 but not under A7. Noisalt (talk) 11:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Not so; A7 does not apply to products, software, books etc. or other entities that are not real people, organizations, bands, clubs, and more recently, animals. decltype (talk) 23:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

A7 notability vs importance, A7 for TV shows

Community, the following discussion does call for wider input. The topic was a request for restoration of Nature Walks with Mark Fraser which I placed with the deleting admin, the edit summary for the deletion was "A7: No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion: Bill Maher's next new rule: a television show whose article fails to mention what channel it airs on is almost guaranteed to be nn.". The relevant exchange for commentary:

Bearcat,

Another user has posted a request for assistance on my user pageregarding the above. Looking it over, I noticed that you have deleted it under WP:CSD#A7, which doesn't cover TV shows. Your deletion summary is further puzzling since you cite notability concerns. The bar for A7 is "no assertion of importance", not theWP:GNG.

Without any prejudice on whether the article is delete worthy or not, I believe the article did not fit any CSD criteriae, and would like to ask you to reconsider and restore the article. Thank you. MLauba (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The article didn't make an assertion of importance, merely one of existence. And importance and notability are the same thing.
Just to clarify: the article failed to even mention where the show airs (which is a basic piece of information that's rather critically necessary in a TV show's article), but looking at the show's website it seems that it airs only on a number of local public access channels (which doesn't make a show notable). And the article's only source was a local community newspaper (which don't meet our reliability requirements).
Bottom line: I can certainly restore it if necessary, but the article would get WP:SNOWed out on WP:AFD anyway.Bearcat (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
As I mentioned, I have no objections if this goes through AfD or PROD, but CSD is very narrow on purpose, and TV shows are not part of the eligible A7 candidates. Further, the notion that "importance and notability are the same thing" is quite disputed by precendent and overwhelming consensus at WT:CSD, but I'll be quite happy to bring this topic there for a reaffirmation of this.
That being said, thank you for the gesture of goodwill with the restoration of the article, it is appreciated. Further, if the AfD closes at delete, the article becomes eligible for G4 upon recreation, a net plus in such cases. Best, MLauba(talk) 16:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
What difference could there possibly be between importance and notability? It's impossible for something to be important but not notable, and it's impossible for something to be notable but not important — so how can they mean anything different from each other? Bearcat (talk) 16:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
— (refactored from two different talk pages, content unaltered)

Wider input on the matter would be appreciated. Thanks, MLauba (talk) 16:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a common misconception, since the English language terms do in fact mean nearly the same thing. As long as one remembers that "notable" means something different here, but "important/significant" has the same meaning (though with an explicitly low threshold, as stated in the criteria themselves), the confusion tends to be less. You are also correct that A7 doesn't apply to TV shows currently, though it might be worth looking at whether or not to expand it. My opinion is not to, simply because it isn't necessary. Anyway, I hope that helps. Cheers. lifebaka++ 17:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

COMMENT: Just because this article is labelled nature walks with mark... does not mean the article is about the TV show. This article is really about Mark and how he did a one man show... still the letter from the senator and the claim to being viewed by millions are both claims to significance/importance... both are weak claims and will proabbly not be enough to salvage the article, but this is a case wherein a case MIGHT be made for the article by somebody who really cares.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 22:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking the same. It's a vanity autobiography very loosely disguised as an article about a TV show. While I think this survives a literal reading of A7 via its assertions of importance, I don't think it really does so by virtue of being about a TV show, because it really isn't. ~ mazca talk 22:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
If it was about the TV show you would need to know what channel's it aired, when it aired, was a it a series/one shot, etc. None of these BASIC questions are answered... but we know where Mark grew up and all sorts of other garbage about Mark.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 22:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think A7 applies but for a different reason. Putting aside the issue of whether it is really a biography and thus is within A7's ambit, and putting aside the textual claims of importance or lack thereof, it is my opinion that any article that cites to putatively reliable, independent sources, as this one did at the time of deletion, is immediately rendered an invalid A7 candidate. The difference between importance and notability is that we have defined notability as meaning a bunch of different things that the dictionary does not. The swollen archives here, at WP:N and elsewhere testify to the time that has been spent coming to terms with what it means, and though we still have something of a muddle, the GNG is the main standard. Premises: 1) we have defined notability as meaning, at its most settled level, significant coverage in reliable, independent sources; 2) Importance is a lower standard than notability (as explicitly defined in A7) but has as its wellspring addressing the same base encyclopedic concern; 3) We refer to the standard of citation to reliable sources in A7 as not "even" being required to avoid deletion, thus invoking the GNG standard, even if we're not mentioning it by name. Result: the citation in an article to sources that are not on their face related to the subject, and require analysis to be found reliable or unreliable, is an implicit but absolutely fundamental "indication of importance or significance".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
This is a sticky one in my mind. If I came across it in NPP, without any previous tags, the first thing I would have done was moved it to Mark Fraser (naturalist), because that is really what the article is about. With the move, it could be eligible for A7, but I'd probably decline an A7 because of the presence of an independent source (which unfortunately is a deadlink). AfD, where it's at now, is probably the best route.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 01:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
A biography is a biography. An article about a show that also contains biographic information is not a biography. This could drift to include any article that contains such information. What an article is "really" about is a question for AfD. The deletion is totally invalid for that reason alone. Additionally, any article that gives sources that might indicate importance indicates importance. An article need not indicate sources to pass A7, but if it does indicate sources that makes it all the more certainly an indication of importance. Wrong on both counts. Any real question about whether something is a speedy must be resolved by sending it to AfD (or prod) DGG ( talk ) 11:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

question about A3

I'm curious about this part " Similarly, this criterion doesn't cover a page with an infobox with non-trivial information." Is that a new addition? It's been a while since I came across a case of this, and every other time it's been deleted, but this time it was brought to my attention that a page with an infobox does not qualify. Were the admins who deleted wrong those other times, or was this added in the recent overhaul and I just didn't notice? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

  • While on prod patrol, I've seen "articles" that consisted only of infoboxes, with no prose or explanation outside them. It would seem to me that in these cases, CSD A3 should apply as infoboxes are themselves not articles, but adjuncts instead. There must be at least an attempt to write something that could stand on its own without the infobox, even if it's simply summarizing the contents of the box.147.70.242.54 (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  • The statement about infoboxes was added as long ago as March 2008 and has been there pretty much ever since then. Any non-trivial infobox by definition provides "content", and hence generally is not a correct A3 deletion - if an infobox provides a few facts about the subject, it should be simple for someone to spin that out into a sentence or two of prose. Obviously if the infobox of the hypothetical article Horace Armpit (lacrosse player) just says "Name: Horace Armpit, Occupation: Lacrosse player" then there's no substantive content other than a rephrasing of the title, and A3 would apply. But much more info than that and the article's potentially salvageable - I would PROD it if it appeared to be abandoned, or delete under A7 if it applied to the subject, and not enough information has been provided to assert significance. ~ mazca talk 17:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I guess I just missed that detail in the past. Personally, I think it's a bit nuts to start an article if you can't even come up with one sentence, but you make a good point about pulling out the info and constructing that sentence, and indeed that is exactly what has happened to the article (National Aviation Museum) that led to me asking this question, although it's a pretty shaky sentence and the content is unverified, it's not an A3. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Yeah, absolutely. The main thing to remember is that an article with minimal content beyond an infobox is indeed a bad article - but not a dangerous one. There's no real harm in just PRODing it - either it will remain abandoned and be deleted without fuss, or the creator will suddenly wake up and perhaps finish what they started. A week's wait doesn't end up hurting anything in these cases; and other criteria also can apply in some others. ~ mazca talk 18:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Also, if someone adds an infobox but no text, we should assume that they are new users who have noticed such boxes on other pages and wanted to create an article providing the details in the infobox. As said above, that means there is content, just no prose text content and text can easily created using that information. Furthermore, the example you cite (National Aviation Museum, which I declined incidentally) has been expanded by the creator afterwards. Had I deleted the article, the creator might have felt bitten and left the project without doing so. Regards SoWhy 10:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

R2 criterion

Is there some reason why R2 excludes redirects from mainspace to Wikipedia namespace? I can't think of any situation where a reader would benefit from a direct redirect to project space. Jafeluv (talk) 10:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There are some redirects in main space that redirect to Wikipedia namespace because people assume it's an article topic while it's actually a WP related one. Since topics of interest for the common reader might be located in Wikipedia namespace as well where they usually do not read, it's a good idea to allow a select number of such redirects to be created. Unfortunately, that means we cannot allow some random admin to delete them, so they are excluded from R2. Usually, they will be caught by R3 in most cases when deletion is necessary and if not, RFD is not that hard to apply as well. Regards SoWhy 10:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, ok, I guess that makes sense. Do you mean redirects like Articles for deletion? In my opinion, those are completely unnecessary, but I can understand if some people do want to keep them. Jafeluv (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
For example. We have to remember that such redirects were created to aid newbie users, not experienced ones. Of course we think them as unnecessary but on the other hand, we do know what a namespace is. Your average John Doe casual Wikipedia user does not and as such, there is no reason to make it harder for them than necessary. For the same reason Help contains a hatnote for example redirecting people to the Help namespace. Regards SoWhy 11:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
You're absolutely right. Thanks for the clarification. Jafeluv (talk) 11:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

A3 A7: any credible claim of significance or importance.... The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible.

This is drift. First, "claim" should be worded as "claim or indication," because claim alone has been understood in the past to mean the article must explicitly say "HGe is significant because" in exact those words or the equivalent, even if the material would indicate some notability. Second, "not credible" is subject to almost any interpretation it should be "totally not credible" not "not at all credible" . I propose to make these changes if there is no objection. DGG ( talk ) 11:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean A7? Jafeluv (talk) 11:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Anyway, I think the "claim or indication" part is already covered by "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant". How would "not at all credible" be any less subjective than "not credible"? Jafeluv (talk) 11:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
to indicate that only blatant unlikelihood is a speedy. Still subjective, as are almost all criteria here, but helps discourage mis-use. DGG ( talk ) 02:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Most of the misuse is admin's misapplying the criteria imho, not the criteria themselves being unclear. Unfortunately, changing the wording to be more precise will not stop them making such mistakes. Regards SoWhy 11:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed additions to A7.

Should we consider adding a couple of things to A7?

I'd propose the following change:

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

I suspect that "a building or street" will be uncontroversial, but I can see why someone might oppose "product". Irbisgreif (talk) 10:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose both. Street and buildings are similar to locations and thus controversial by default. The addition of "product" has been suggested and rejected before many, many times. It's a WP:PEREN of CSD. Regards SoWhy 11:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree exactly with SoWhy. Products should not be added because it's: a) way too iffy of an area (with notability) to make part of CSD (which should be for blatant stuff), b) clutters up A7 with another subject that's not exactly well-laid-out, c) people could easily misinterpret what "creative work" means, and, d) adding "product" to CSD a perennial proposal. IMO, buildings and streets should not be subject to speedy deletion either; as it stands, they (especially roads) do not have very distinct standards for notability (besides WP:GNG), so there is not an easy line to draw for CSD. With real people, we frequently have blatant cases of "jason is awesome", so it's definitely worthwhile. On the other hand, locations/transport should be taken to AfD if there's notability concerns, and I can see somebody speedy tagging a bunch of one-line stubs about legitimately notable buildings, or state roads that have been deemed intrinsically notable. Best, JamieS93 12:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the perennial proposal then, "product" is out. However, with buildings, if the article doesn't give any indication of why the building is notable ([The Fandol Building is a building on the campus of University of Shyban] as opposed to [The Fandol Building is the centre of the University of Shyban, and it's oldest building.]), then is it really that hard of a line to draw?
I can see the concern with street. Perhaps it should be written as "local street" so as to make clear that state and national level roads should not be speedy deleted? I'm only proposing this because I came across Sala_Constantin_Jude the other day. Irbisgreif (talk) 23:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to sound patronising but an article with 50+ hits in Google News and where the PROD was contested by an experienced administrator does not really make a good example. In any way, both buildings and local roads are created so infrequently that there is no need to add them to A7 even if there was a reason to do so. PROD can handle those few occasions just fine. Regards SoWhy 07:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Another minor point: not everyone knows what "iff" means, it probably should be spelled out. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, old habit to leave it written that way. Irbisgreif (talk) 20:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

G11 question - is an event an "entity"?

G11 (unambiguous advertising or promotion) applies to "Pages that exclusively promote some entity..." (emphasis mine). The currently-running AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ISU 2011 Congress in The Netherlands is about an article that myself and the nominator (at least) believe is unambiguous promotion for an event. Although this article is not eligible for speedy deletion (having had a prod contested), I suggested that were it not for this I would have nominated it for speedy deletion under criterion G11.

Just now though I've read the criterion again and I am wondering whether or not "entity" covers events or not, particularly as the second sentence "Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion." (added, iirc, shortly after its introduction following the contested speedy deletion a dozen or so articles about biscuits) doesn't mention them.

If people are of the opinion that they are not covered, would they object to them being added as think that it would be completely within the spirit of the criterion? Thryduulf (talk) 15:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The entity wouldn't be the "event", but any organizers or sponsors of the event. An event like that isn't going to run itself. So there is an entity involved. You wouldn't want G11 to cover "events" in general, what if someone wrote an article about an impending solar eclipse in a manner that inflated its importance? That could be argued as "promoting an event" yet clearly isn't the kind of thing that G11 is meant to cover. Essentially, if there are people benefiting from the promotion in an article then those people constitute the "entity" in question. -- Atama頭 15:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
You can spam and promote some event without promoting yourself. We should just use simple 'dumb' language here, since it's most appropriate: pages that promote some thing, pages that promote something, or even pages that promote (perhaps multiple things).    M   21:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I've always interpreted G11 as applying to any page that is primarily spammy, which often comes in the form of company/organizations. Since it's an open-ended criterion (unlike some others), though, I use it to cover basically every other topic like albums, people, an upcoming event, products, public tours to see a historic building, and so on. G11 applies to most articles as long as they are blatantly problematic; the criterion does not need the kind of restrictions that notability-related guidelines do (A7 and A9). Technically an "entity" cannot be an event per se, but there are people behind an event who promote it, so to me it's a similar effect to promoting a group itself. JamieS93 22:01, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
General usage of "entity" seems to encompass pretty much anything that has a distinct existence, whether material or otherwise. I've never had any issue with an event being treated as an "entity" for the purposes of G11, though if the word is considered ambiguous, we should change it. G11's function is the speedy removal of any page that was clearly created for advertising purposes and is wholly unencyclopedic as a result - it can and should apply to anything that's being promoted, including events. ~ mazca talk 08:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps slightly changing the wording from "Pages that exclusively promote some entity and would need..." to simply "Pages which are exclusively promotional and would need..." would solve this. It's the "exclusively promotional" part that defines G11's intent, not the "entity" part which I suspect was always meant to be a catch-all noun. ~ mazca talk 10:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I think that wording change would make a lot of sense. Thryduulf (talk) 12:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. That's a good wording change, and fairly uncontroversial, too. JamieS93 16:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and made the change - I agree that it should be fairly uncontroversial as it doesn't actually change the intended meaning at all. ~ mazca talk 21:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
On an unrelated note, G11 should not apply where cleanup is easily possible. Took me at most 5 minutes to remove all grounds for "spam, delete!"-!votes, allowing people to concentrate on the subject at AFD instead of the way the article is currently written. Regards SoWhy 08:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Forgive me for replying to SoWhy's "unrelated note" and not to the content of the thread, but I am the nominator Thryduulf refers to ("myself and the nominator (at least) believe is unambiguous promotion"). Note that, in this particular case, my rationale for deletion was not spam. It was a combination of crystal, unreferenced, unencyclopedic, nonnotable, and content fork. I think Thryduulf, SoWhy, and I essentially agree on this case; certainly no one is suggesting G11 applies in this case. This has no particular bearing on the larger discussion of whether an event qualifies for G11. Cnilep (talk) 13:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I was referring to the !votes that refer to the spamminess of the article as a reason for deletion. I do not contest the missing notability. What I do say though is that even if events were eligible under G11, this article would not have been because it can easily be cleaned up. This also allows people to concentrate on the content rather on the way it's written. Regards SoWhy 19:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion to remove personal information

Noting the following example:

  • • (Deletion log); 22:29 . . Black Kite (talk | contribs) restored "User:<snip>" (167 revisions restored: restoring without personal info)
  • • (Deletion log); 22:28 . . Black Kite (talk | contribs) deleted "User:<snip>" (G6: Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup)

I think this deletion is not clearly covered by G6, or obviously by another criteria, but is non-controversial, and routine, and should be done without drawing attention. I thought to expand the explanation of G6 to cover these cases. However, ThaddeusB tentatively disagrees:

  • 09:53, 27 August 2009 SmokeyJoe (talk | contribs) (42,243 bytes) (→General: Also used for the removal from history of personal information that should never have been added.) (undo)
  • 14:25, 27 August 2009 ThaddeusB (talk | contribs) (42,144 bytes) (Undid revision 310335924 by SmokeyJoe (talk) - I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this practice was deprecated in favor or WP:Oversight) (undo)

So, how should Speedy Deletion to remove personal information be described at CSD?

  • G9/OFFICE? Should individual admins claim “OFFICE” authority? I think definitely not. Should such trivial cases be referred to foundation official? No.
  • Broaden G10, which already notes WP:BLP, to include removal of personal information that should never have been added?
  • U1/G7. Could have been applied in the above case, but this sort of deletion is equally justified beyond the limits of U1/G7 (i.e. not in userspace; someone else added it)
  • A new criteria?

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

    • How is it not covered under G6. Protonk (talk) 21:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I was under the impression that Oversight should be used. Not deletion. Irbisgreif (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict)Indeed, oversight should be used, but if an admin comes across such information is it actually incorrect for him to delete immediately? I think not. As far as I'm concerned this is a perfectly valid use of G6 - the existence of oversight does not preclude conventional deletion of revisions as a quick alternative - oversight can always be requested in addition. ~ mazca talk 22:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • (EC x2)If personal info has been maliciously disclosed then its an attack per G10, but should be oversighted not just deleted. If personal info has been innocently disclosed on their user page but the user now regrets this and wishes to retract then its u1 and might also merit oversight. On the rare occasions that don't merit oversight but do merit deletion then I see no problem with using G6. I think that redacting personal information revealed by users who've subsequently changed their mind is a non-contentious thing that we should trust admins to do, I don't think it happens often enough to merit changing the rules. ϢereSpielChequers 22:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Oversight takes time(much faster than it used to be though). First you delete it, then you talk to oversight. Chillum 22:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • I believe a clearer definition of "personal info" would clarify this discussion considerably. For some values of "personal info" I would agree that oversight is the way forward, but for others, I could imagine a G6 deletion would be equally appropriate.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • G6 is fine for this. Is someone going to raise a controversy over an admin deleting a revision containing personal information? No. So it's non-controversial. By the way, when are we getting WP:RevDel again?... –xenotalk 22:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Assuming "personal information" means "privacy-breaching content", I can't imagine any good-faith editor having a problem with it. But if the consensus is that a new CSD criterion is needed, I think the wording should be "privacy-breaching content" and not "personal information".—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't think it's necessary. I rarely even use a reason when deleting privacy-breaching content. (Because why call attention to it? Kindof defeats the purpose.) –xenotalk 22:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • On reflection, there's no harm in adding "privacy-breaching content" to G10.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 22:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
          • Yes there is. G10 is for attack pages. It is not an omnibus deletion criteria. We need to try hard to keep CSDs focused and uncluttered. Also, a lot of the pages deleted which have private info of younger editors may be uploaded by the young person themselves, so the logic behind G10 would not apply. Protonk (talk) 23:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I have done these under G6 and I sixth or seventh that it fits under that criterion without any stretch. I see no problem with adding this as one of the examples in the criterion but I think if we are that explicit, we need to mention oversight in accompaniment and then we're getting into a bit of clutter.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:15, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
To explicitly mark these deletions as being done for the purpose of maintaining privacy, you do the exact opposite. Remember deleted items may still be available from other sources depending on how aged the information is. –xenotalk 03:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with such deletions. I just thought they were discouraged unless there was an urgent need for it. I.E. if there is no problem waiting up to ~12 hours for oversight it is a waste of resources to delete & restore a page with many revisions. Also, such revisions should always be oversighted regardless so I don't want anyone to get the impression deleting is sufficient.--ThaddeusB (talk) 01:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, I had a page oversighted today and it took less than 1 hour to get a response. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
However, Google has been known to index pages as rapidly as every 30 minutes. MBisanz talk 03:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

F3 and GFDL 1.2 only

When did images licensed under GFDL1.2 become speediable? I vaguely remember a discussion, but I understood the consensus was to stop only new uploads under GFDL1.2. Stifle (talk) 13:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It was added by Kaldari (talk · contribs) 22 May 2009. His edit summary states to look in the archives, I think this is the relevant discussion. Not really much "consensus" there, I'd say revert it and start a new discussion per WP:BRD. Regards SoWhy 19:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I think there was some muckidy-muck writing about this on the mailing list a LOOONNGGG time ago. Protonk (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Reverted accordingly, but I am going to start a consensus-gathering exercise on a bigger change. Stifle (talk) 10:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean you don't remember the discussion? You're the one who insisted that the month long discussion about deprecating GFDL 1.2 at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en (which was advertised on the Village Pump and in the Signpost and dealt with the issue of speedy deletion) wasn't adequate and that I needed "gather a consensus to do so at an advertised discussion". Rather than complaining about the fact that I had already gathered consensus at an advertised discussion, I started an entirely new discussion here which received unanimous support. Seeing as how this issue has gotten consensus twice now, I'm going to restore the wording to the criteria and politely ask that you seek consensus before removing it. Kaldari (talk) 20:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

GFDL-only image and media uploads

I am proposing that images and media files uploaded after a cutoff date and licensed only under the GFDL be speediable. In all likelihood this will be an additional case of CSD:F3. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy (not here). Stifle (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

C1 and C2

For a while at WP:CfD it has been noticed that C1 and C2 have been used to bypass WP:CFD. Various discussions with several editors have confirmed that this happens. The issue comes down to wording of the two criteria. Someone who reads the current C1 definition says, if I want to delete a category, I simply remove the contents, wait 4 days and it gets deleted. Since there are no tools to detect changes like this, an editor has a clear path to bypass established guidelines. The same applies to C2 for renames. There is a process that deals with speedy renames and the bots that process the result delete the source category after everything is moved.

So it is questionable if there is any use use for C2 by most editors. The only case where I can see it being used is at a project level where the name of the project is changed. Since there is generally many eyes on that process, I don't see that as an issue with bypassing WP:CFD, however we should include this an exception to the guidelines at CfD. I'd also say that those deletions are better listed as G6 since they are really a house keeping issue. It also turns out that the vast majority of C1 nominations are in fact related to changes in the Wikiprojects.

Based on this, I question the need for keeping C2 since the guideline for category renaming (WP:CFDS) should be followed when a rename is needed. It allows for a review, and if not contested it happens in two days. In fact the reasons listed here are the reasons listed for having a discussion at WP:CFDS.

After reviewing the C1 nominations, it appears that the vast majority of the nominations are project related and, as mentioned above, would be better nominated as G6. What would remain for C1 at that point are for the most part categories that were never used, with no good way to verify, or categories that someone emptied without a WP:CFD discussion per the established guideline.

So what to do? I suggest that C2 be eliminated using {{cfr-speedy}} instead. C1 could be restricted to only categories that were never used. That should eliminate its use by editors who don't wish to have their actions reviewed under established guidelines. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

C2 is already covered by G6 anyway, so removing it has no real effect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I'll note that an admin rejected some of the above mentioned project categories since the current wording says it does not apply. They are now at full CfD. So it would be nice to agree on a direction with C1 and adjust the template wording as needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Just to note. One of the related discussions is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 August 17#Category:After War mobile suits were Vegaswikian claims the category was emptied "out of process," which is code for bad faith. The cat was emptied as the individual articles were merged into a list and the category was tagged several days later by another editor. However, Vegaswikian insists that the category must go through CfD instead of using the C1, assuming a tremendous about of bad faith in categories nomination. Effectively, what Vegaswikian is implying is that there is no legitimate use for the C1 criterion. If we can't use C1 as a form of cleaning up after such merging, then the criterion's usefulness must be questioned. --Farix (Talk) 19:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
If a category is simply no longer used, and nobody is upset about that, then there is no reason to have a CSD discussion about it. I suppose that is the reason behind C1 in the first place. Several other people have made the same point in the CSD discussion you linked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
The flip side of that discussion is that it is rather common for categories nominated for deletion to have a different outcome be it keep, merge, rename or listify. So the presumption that one editor can correctly determine consensus is flawed. C1 as currently written implies that you can empty a category then nominate it under C1. Clearly suggesting that this approach is a valid end run around the CfD process. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Since I am an admin, as things currently stand I can perform uncontroversial category renames without going through CFD or CSD at all, by just doing the necessary edits and deleting the old category pages once the new categories are populated. That's how things are intended to be. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

A new use of C1 turned up. Have a CfD that deletes a category. Take it to DRV and have the deletion overturned with the category recreated. Nominate it for C1 before it can be repopulated and bingo you override the DRV if it is deleted. Without doing some digging, most admins would miss this history. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I have 3 questions:
  1. How big a problem is this? i.e. how often in practice does an editor empty a category, wait 4 days, and propose a speedy delete?
  2. Vegaswikian tells us that "For a while at WP:CfD it has been noticed...". Can anyone give exact links to where this has been noted (e.g. diffs)?
  3. Would it be better simply to extend the time limit to something more than 4 days? If a category has been empty for a significant time and nobody has done anything about it then probably it is not needed, and a speedy delete is probably a good idea, but 4 days does seem rather too short a time to be confident that that is the case. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  1. Vegaswikian is making a lot of accusations of misuse, but so far hasn't documented a case much else that it is a wide spread problem. I would assume that any misuse of C1 will be clear.
  2. The only one I've notice making the claim that C1 and C2 are being used to bypass WP:CFD has been Vegaswikian. As evidence by the CFD discussion I linked above, it's clear that several other editors disagree.
I also doubt Vegaswikian's claim that it's common for there to be an outcome other then deletion when dealing with a category that were emptied or near emptied as the result of some form of cleanup. Can he/she directly point to these other outcomes so we can see how and why they occurred in the first place? --Farix (Talk) 01:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Other then the difs, which you can find, what you are asking for is proof of a persons intentions. That is not going to be available in most cases. The point is that the current wording for C1 makes it appear that editors can use it instead of using CfD. I do not believe that is or was the intent. That is what needs changing. That is a rather simple claim and an easy fix. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
In other words, you have nothing to really back up your claims that C1 is being used as a way to inappropriately bypass CfD. --Farix (Talk) 01:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Here is one for C2 where Category:HPA axis was emptied and the contents, or at least some of them, moved to Category:Hormones of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis. Not a speedy criteria and the move was not correctly done. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
For a C1 example look at Category:Remington Arms Company where it appears that the contents from Category:Remington Arms Company firearms were moved and the previous category was nominated for speedy deletion. After a discussion the decision was to return the articles to the old name since that was correct. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Nobody can "override" a DRV in this way. Even if you trick someone into deleting a category, if people complain it is trivial to undelete it. The idea that people would ignore a DRV because someone did some procedural maneuver to get the category redeleted is pure wikilawyering. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

SDPatrolBot task 3

Hi there, some of you may have run across SDPatrolBot, which at the moment does two tasks; replaces speedies which have been removed by the author of a page (adding {{db-g7}}, if the page was blanked), and secondly it notifies users when their PRODs are removed. I've had quite a lot of positive feedback about these tasks (which is very nice :D), so I hope you are all finding the bot useful.
The reason I'm here, is because I've had an idea for a third task. As you know, certain CSD apply to certain namepspaces, but unfortunately, users occasionally (by accident, or because they don't yet understand CSD) add a deletion tag to an article where the CSD they use does not apply (the most common example is where a {{db-a7}} is added to a userpage). My suggestion is, that for task three the bot check for these tags, and removes the speedy template if the page is in a namespace where that CSD does not apply. It will also notify the user who tagged, unless the page has been moved (for example, it was userified).
Please let me know what you think. You can read a bit more at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDPatrolBot 3. Thank you all - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 00:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree. I see no harm in doing so, it may help people use correct tags more often. Regards SoWhy 14:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Improper tagging of a new article?

I just created a new article, Mercy for Animals and User_talk:L0b0t speedy tagged the article {{db-club}}, Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#A7 which is for bands. The article is about a animal rights organization.

A7. No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organisations, web content).
An article about a real person, individual animal(s), an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people, organizations, and individual animals themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software, or other creative works. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.

Now, when the article was put up for speedy deletion,[3] I had added an associated press article, per A7,

The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source.

Isn't the associated press credible?

Am I missing something? Ikip (talk) 02:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You are not wrong that A7 did not properly apply, but you might be missing the context that anyone can mark a page for speedy deletion, including brand new users who may (and often do) have very little understanding of the criteria for speedy deletion and how they are applied, and that only an administrator can actually delete the page. Here, the reviewing administrator, Casliber, declined the speedy deletion nomination twenty two minutes before you submitted your post above. No administrator worth their salt would have speedy deleted the page in the stage it was in at the time of tagging so there was nothing to worry about. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

F7 issues with Di-replaceable fair use

An image on a page I watch was put up for CSD with the claim of being replaceable fair use (in this case, it could be the image can be described in text). I don't question that point for this image, nor am anything against better tracking of our NFC policy, but as I see what templates and CSD criteria are being used here, I think we need to consider some cautions that the CSD and template imply.

Specifically, F7 says right now: Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{di-replaceable fair use|old image=yes|date=August 31 2009}} may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability.'

I will note that there's nothing about free text replacement in the present language, so this may be an inconsistency with the CSD and the template {{Di-replaceable fair use}}. I would argue that for a select class of images, there's clearly patently obvious cases of replaceable use: living persons, public buildings and artwork (should they be free per the locale's Freedom of Paranoma laws), and the cases of logos that clearly fail the threshold of originality. Thus, this statement in F7 is needed.

What the worrisome factor to me is that if there is an ardent NFC enforcer that is aggressively trying to remove NFC content, the 2 days factor along with this "new" clause about free text replacement that is present in the template but not in F7, can give this person the ability to submarine-submit images for deletion and likely have them deleted due to the short time frame. (This is not to say if the person is right or not if the image is replaceable, just the tactics). Let's take a case of images of characters of actors in live shows (whether as part of the character, the show, or an episode page). To this NFC enforcer, they can probably look at the image, say "oh, that shows Actor X dressed in Y and at location Z, thus I've described it in text", and plop down the rfu tag. If this is done for pages that aren't watched, that image will likely be deleted in two days. Of course, there is a chance that this can be disputed, but I don't believe the intent of F7 was to catch images where the free replacement nature is subjective (indeed, most CSD criteria are mostly objective with some leeway). This is not to say that the questioning of a free replacement can't be made, but it needs to be a more appropriate process that allows for more discussion - FfD instead of CSD. At worst, it should be treated like a PROD to hopefully engage more discussion but with a larger window (7 vs 2 days)

Thus, I think a couple things need to happen:

  • We need to define what cases of "clearly replaceable by free content" that F7 should and should only apply to. I've identified a few above, but I'm not aware of much more. Again, this is when we know, 100%, that free content is there to replace, not based on one editor's opinion. In such cases, a 2 day warning time makes perfect sense; only when it becomes subjective do we need to have a better discussion process.
  • There should probably be a split of the rfu template warning into two parts: one for clearly replaceable free use as outlined above, retaining the 2 day deletion period, and one for likely replaceable free use that engages in more discussion and a seven day period.

That, or that F7 needs to be updated to include the free-text replacement concept to match with the template (though I believe this will create more trouble than its worth). --MASEM (t) 14:14, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we should just update F7 then, beeing replacable by text means the file fail WP:NFCC#1, any file that fail any of the criteria should be removed or deleted per WP:NFCC#Enforcement. Any desire to change that should be discussed on Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, not here. Yes there are borderline cases where it would be more appropriate to use a discussion based process, but there are also plenty of obvsious cases where speedy deletion is entierly appropriate, and anyone who object can add {{Di-replaceable fair use disputed|reason}} and start a discussion. This is where we must simply trust the judgement of the closing admin to either delete, decline or list on FFD for more debate as appropriate. --Sherool (talk) 15:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not denying the applicability of NFCC#1, my concern is that CSD should only be used in patently obvious cases (with an allowance for discussion). The claim that a non-free image can be replaced by text is nearly always going to be contested. There may be a select number of patently obvious cases where it won't but that's a very small minority. (Or in any way: those that are pro-NFCC are going to see the pool of images that technically fail NFCC#1 and thus meet CSD#F7 as much much much larger than those that could care less about the NFCC and will argue for image inclusion). I have no problem if we want to update F7 to include the text portion (in fact, it should) but I still argue that for the hard two-day that F7 gives, we better be focused on images that are clearly agreed by all parties to be replaceable, not just a portion nor putting that burden on admins. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
If you want to amend the non-free enforcement policy, please feel free to gather a consensus to do so. Speedy deletion is entirely appropriate to remove inappropriate non-free content from this free encyclopedia.
If an image is tagged as replaceable or disputed fair use, the template contains clear instructions on how to dispute the tagging, and the administrator reviewing the issue will make a judgment call either to delete the image, remove the tag, or send it to FFD. Stifle (talk) 08:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion for a particular kind of article?

I can't find an existing speedy deletion criterion that would cover the article that I've copied to User:Largoplazo/Is norton an anti-virus virus (which someone has submitted based on a supposed lack of content). The article has content, and context. It's about a notable piece of software. It isn't a hoax or vandalism: the author is sincere about it, and is only missing the point. But I can't imagine why anyone would want it to have a chance of being defended as a Wikipedia article. Can some CSD be created to cover this sort of article, which is obviously not an encyclopedia article? —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say PROD is the correct way per WP:NOTHOWTO. They don't happen too often to warrant a new criterion. It might fit under A3 as "chat-like comments" although it's stretching the definition of it. Educating the user instead and asking them to G7 it is probably the best way. Regards SoWhy 12:22, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I just don't see any point in leaving an article like this sitting around for five days, and leaving it open for the author to de-PROD so that it winds up having to go through AFD, when no "reasonable person" who understands the Wikipedia environment would disagree with its deletion. I agree with educating the user by posting a welcome block, but then to expect him to (a) read your note, (b) care, and (c) follow instructions for requesting G7 is still awfully iffy for something that there is as much reason to delete summarily as is an article about a non-notable local bocce team. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
The point is that speedy deletion of the article is BITEy and we can try to reach the user another way. WP:NOT is a part of the non-criteria for exactly the reason that such articles might contain useful information that can be turned into a real article or merged somewhere else. For example, in the case you mention, the content is relevant to Norton Anti-Virus#Uninstallation and the author can be referred to that article, thus gaining us a new editor who might have otherwise have left the project bitten. I think it is reasonable to expect an editor, who is sincere as you assume, to read and understand such a message and act appropriately. Everything else is an unnecessary assumption of bad faith that I think is unwarranted.
But as for speedy deletion, a new such criterion would the requirements #1 and #3 on top of this page and probably #2 as well. Regards SoWhy 08:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Another reason WP:NOT articles shouldn't be speedy deleted: they can sometimes to usefully Help:transwikied. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I occasionally stretch G2 for pages of that sort (anything that stems from a good-faith, complete misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is) - although always followed up with a message to the user. Generally though, SoWhy's recommendation of talking to the user and offering to userfy it and/or recommending G7 is the way to go. ~ mazca talk 10:11, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Needless disambiguation page CSD

Continued from Wikipedia_talk:PROD#Proposed_deletion_of_disambiguation_pages

Based on {{db-disambig}} being a bit excessively weak, I would like to propose broadening the template's criteria:

CSD D(isambiguation)1. Needless Unnecessary disambiguation.
Orphaned disambiguation pages that list 2 or fewer topics (regardless of which articles exist) and whose titles end in "(disambiguation)" (i.e. there is a primary topic).

Explanation:

  • The current {{db-disambig}} can only be invoked for disamb pages with 1 or 0 topics (which is few), yet WP:DISAM suggests a disambiguation page only when there are 3+ topics or for 2 topics when there is no primary topic. This change would let it cover more cases. I note that the template was not even listed on this page until my recent edit, which I believe helps speak to its comparative infrequency of use.
  • The second proviso of D1 is necessary to exempt pages in the two-articles-but-neither-is-primary case. In such cases, the disam page is located at the "vanilla" titled page and links to the 2 disambiguously-titled articles; this is entirely proper and thus needs exclusion.

Evaluation:

  • Objectivity: Only counting and suffix-checking skills are necessary.
  • Uncontestablity: This CSD is a simple application of WP:DISAM and builds off {{db-disambig}}, which already exists and apparently has consensus.
  • Frequency: This would increase the frequency of an already existing CSD/template, {{db-disambig}}.
  • Nonredundancy: {{db-disambig}} currently uses criteria G6, but I believe the increase in specificity, clarity, and searchability outweigh the slight redundancy entailed.

Alternately, I would also be okay with (although obviously prefer less) just broadening {{db-disambig}} to follow the D1 wording while still having it fall under G6.

Any feedback appreciated. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This looks reasonable to me. Irbisgreif (talk) 10:33, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Looks good to me too. Psychologically, I'd replace "needless" with "unnecessary" -- synonyms, yes, but people are funny. The "regardless of which articles exist" should be struck -- each entry on a dab page is to have exactly one blue link (WP:MOSDAB#Red links). If longer explanation is warranted, I'd make it end with and with no primary topic, i.e., whose titles end in "(disambiguation)". -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Modified per your suggestions. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't see the need. This is usually uncontroversial maintenance of pages created in mistake and thus covered by G6 just fine. Remember that not the wording of {{db-disambig}} is important but the wording of the criterion it invokes (we can simply agree that it's covered by G6 and change the template accordingly). I cannot think of any situation where this new criterion can be applied where G6 couldn't. Do you have one? Regards SoWhy 11:01, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
See my point for "Nonredundancy" and my second to last sentence. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
If we accepted this as an argument, we could argue for many many new G6 based criteria. The point of having G6 as it is is that it covers almost all uncontroversial cleanup related deletions without detailing every use. The "specificity, clarity, and searchability" argument would for example also require a new R4 for {{db-move}}. Point is, usually there is no need for such new criteria.
But maybe I misunderstand your proposal: You want a criterion for pages that applies to pages styled "xx (disambiguation)" which contain only 2 links but where one of those is the primary topic (and as such the secondary page can be linked using a hatnote from the primary), correct? Regards SoWhy 11:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
IMO, dab pages should be covered by a CSD for:
  • Primary topic (dab at "xx (disambiguation)") and two blue-link entries (primary and non-primary). These should be handled with a hatnote
  • Any dab with no blue links (no ambiguity of Wikipedia articles to disambiguate). Perhaps could be covered by the "no content" criterion.
--JHunterJ (talk) 11:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
The first example you cite is a prime example of G6 (it's uncontroversial cleanup), the second can be covered by G8 (page depending on non-existant pages - a dab relies on pages to link to after all, doesn't it?). Regards SoWhy 11:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
For that matter, why aren't both of the redirect CSDs just under G6? They could be classified "uncontroversial maintenance". I would conjecture locate-ability is the reason. --Cybercobra (talk) 12:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I'd say because they also apply to those redirects not created by mistake (it's not cleaning up if a redirect is not the result of a page move but created deliberately). In contrast, the dab examples above are in 99% of all cases created because someone a.) did not know about our policy regarding primary topics or b.) mistakenly thought that no primary topic exists, thus deleting them is simply cleaning up mistakes. Regards SoWhy 12:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Would you oppose changing {{db-disambig}} to match the proposed text (but leaving it under G6)? --Cybercobra (talk) 12:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Not at all. I think a new criterion is unnecessary but I quite agree that {{db-disambig}} needs to be changed to reflect possible usage of G6 in such cases. Although I would suggest you wait for some more people to participate here to see if my comments really reflect consensus. Regards SoWhy 12:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Of course. A few days at the minimum. --Cybercobra (talk) 12:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I tried to point out a minor pitfall to this on the original discussion, but explained myself poorly. I will try to make it more clear...

Lets say Some Guy is the primary and there is only one other person with that name Some Guy (artist). Now, the best way to handle this situation is with a hat note on the primary pointing to the other entry, but sometimes someone actually creates Some Guy (disambiguation) instead. Maybe this results from a third entry that was deleted or whatever. In any case that (theoretically useless) dab page is the only current tie between the two articles. As such, it shouldn't be deleted until the situation is fixed by replacing the {{otheruses}} hat note with a {{for}} hat note (or whatever similar change is needed for that particular case).

As such, for speedy deletion to apply I think the 2 entry disambiguation should have to be orphaned. This won't material affect the pages covered by the criteria, but will force the requisite cleanup to occur before deletion takes place. Thus I would suggest changing the wording from "Disambiguation pages which..." to "Orphaned disambiguation pages which..." --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This also seems reasonable. Proposal modified accordingly. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:26, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Looks fine to me. Stifle (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
On the one hand, I'd rather not see this as a CSD, since there have been a few occasions where disambiguation pages were listed for deletion for the reasons given and were subsequently found to be legitimate as additional entries were identified in the course of discussion. But those cases are the exception, so it is not a strong objection.
However, I do not understand why the phrase whose titles end in "(disambiguation)" was added as meaning there is no primary topic. That is completely opposite of current practice is it now? When a page ends in "(disambiguation)", that means there IS a primary topic -- otherwise the disambiguation page would be located at the title without "(disambiguation)". older ≠ wiser 20:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Oops. I was probably the source of that error. No intention to change the meaning intended; just tripping over my words. This CSD would cover cases where there is a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I have never understood why some users create pages like "subject (disambiguation)" and redirect them to the page on the subject when there is only one article. It seems pointless and unhelpful. However, when I tried to point this out, I almost got my head bit off over it, (luckily I have two) so I just dropped it. This was a while ago so I'm afraid I don't have any diffs to point to without doing some serious digging. In any event, while I find such pages useless, I don't think it's a common enough problem to merit another csd criteria. If a particular user is creating lots of them, they can be mass-nominated for normal deletion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Right, seeing no serious opposition, and having waited 4 days, I'm going ahead and modifying the template. WP:BRD if new opposition comes up. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:53, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Looks good. Do you think it might be worthwhile to have another db template for the G8 deletions of dab pages with no bluelinks? They can already be deleted under G8, I think, but a template might make that clearer to everyone. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:14, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Except you missed the misunderstanding about the phrase (i.e. there is a primary topic) -- see comments by myself and JhunterJ above. I have replaced that parenthetical phrase with (indicating there is no primary topic) Sorry, I misread the revision -- with the other strikethrough in the proposal above, I thought it was unchanged from what had beed presented previously. older ≠ wiser 20:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
  • As a note, dab pages are supposed to be near orphans, though pages with (disambiguation) in the suffix should be linked by at least one page in the hatnote (since no one is going to wikilink or search for "article XYZ (disambiguation)" accidentally. Protonk (talk) 20:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
      • does not look good to me,. because pages with two entries should be deleted only if the hatnotes already exist. This could be added here, but I think MfD can do fine with this. I also do not think it a very wise idea to over specify what fits into G6. DGG ( talk ) 07:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I strongly oppose the proposed CSD mentioned in this section. "Unnnecessary disambiguation" is a matter of editorial and personal interpretation and should be presented to the Wikipedia community as a whole. In addition, dab pages can be (and should be) turned into redirects without involving the deletion process. Furthermore, there have been many AfDs of two-branch dab pages that were either kept for having two valid bluelinks (thus indicating the need for review by the entire Wikipedia community as opposed to the editor who stumbled across it and one deleting admin) or quickly closed when bluelinks were added once the AfD discussion has begun (this also indicates the need for a wide review instead of a "delete first instead of looking for a possible third branch" mindset that some editors seem to have). In addition, the concept of "primary topic" is nebulous and very much POV as it seems that once one article was written about someone/something, it tends to be assumed that regardless of how regional the topic may be - or even if someone later writes about a "more famous" (which itself can be either regional or generational in nature). Thus in the spirit of WP:CONLIMITED, I oppose any disambiguation page deletion mechanism that goes beyond that of redirects (because of their similar nature) and plan to propose an extension of WP:RfD to incorporate dab pages. Despite the insertion to the contrary in WP:PROD by an author without consensus of approval, dab pages are not articles (and thus should not be prodded, either) but should be subject to community review. B.Wind (talk) 01:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
You are mistaken. Disambiguation pages are "articles" for the purpose of deletion classification, which is why they are handled at AfD. Also the addition of the language into the proposed deletion document did have consensus, via both historical precedence & talk page discussion. Dabs have long been deleted via PROD without objection, but since you raised an objection to adding the language to the document it was formally discussed on the talk page. Seven editors chimed in, all in favor of the "change". --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, there is now a proposal on village pump to reclassify dabs as types of redirects and force them into RfD. See this discussion--ThaddeusB (talk) 01:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Some examples of patent nonsense

I've proposed some examples to be added to the WP:NONSENSE guideline here. I'm posting this notice here to attract more eyes on advice from User:DGG since the guideline itself sees little editing. Pcap ping 22:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

PDF's

Clearly, a PDF is uploadable, I'm pretty sure it's just listed as a good example of a file that isn't an image, video, or sound. I hope that my "bold" revision to avoid any misunderstandings is okay. I just don't like the idea of criteria being modified by a editors who haven't been on the talk page about the removal at all. Irbisgreif (talk) 05:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like I was misremembering this discussion. PDFs should be covered by F10. My mistake. Cheers. lifebaka++ 13:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

CSD U1, user talk pages, and the right to vanish

Currently, CSD#U1 prohibits deleting user talk pages, however, in the past there has generally been an exception made for user talk pages of users who are exercising their right to vanish in good faith. Are there any thoughts on clarifying this in policy? --MZMcBride (talk) 15:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen the point of deleting user talk just because someone claims to be leaving. Most people who claim to be leaving are not really leaving, and even if they are, so what? People who claim to be leaving should simply be ignored. That said, if someone does delete user talk, it's not the end of the world or anything.. I just see is as an exercise in pointless button-pushing. And they very frequently get undeleted when the person returns. Friday (talk) 15:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
That's just it. They shouldn't be deleted if the user is going to return. And shouldn't be deleted if there is no way to be certain that the user isn't going to return... and there never is, so they should never be deleted. As WP:RTV says, unless the user is permanently leaving Wikipedia, the user talk page should remain undeleted (although it may be blanked). And "since there is no way to know if this is the case, it's best to not delete user talk pages on request". Although, I agree with Friday, deleting can be reversed, so it's not the end of the world if one does get deleted, - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't have a real opinion any longer about the pages, but I would like to see a clearer guideline in this area. Usually there are one or two taggings I see each day of user talk pages. We should have some sort of consistency. Currently it seems to depend entirely on who the admin going through the category is. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:17, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, it's fine to delete talk pages of indefinitely blocked users or those who have been here a short time and left. I'm a little bothered by the deletion of massive userpage histories of long-time users. Recently, an active editor who had been here for years, and been the subject of at least 1 ArbCom case, stated that he was leaving. His account was renamed and the old talk page deleted. That talk page contained numerous discussions of interest, some of which are linked from elsewhere on the project, and all of which are now inaccessible to anyone without administrative privileges. I'm not sure that's appropriate, but it seems to be standard practice. MastCell Talk 18:36, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with MastCell that the deletion of "massive userpage histories of long-time users" is bad because you remove the discussions that took place on those pages. This is precisely why talk page deletion should only be done on a case-by-case basis, not on some speedy deletion criteria. I would also point out that some indefinitely blocked users have a large talk page history as well. Deleting those merely because they are indefinitely blocked seems like revisionism to some extent. What admins should be doing is using the "historical" parameter in the 'indefblocked' template, as was done here. MastCell, I presume you wouldn't argue for the talk page to be deleted in that example? Carcharoth (talk) 11:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I usually just honor RTV requests when I see them without much question. If/when the user comes back, I restore the talk page immediately. If someone tweaks out and wants their talk page deleted, what do I care (aside from the concerns raised by mastcell above)? I won't delete talk pages under U1 (thought U1 excluded talk pages?) unless the editor says something about RTV tho. Protonk (talk) 18:51, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I actually don't see where in Wikipedia:Right to vanish it says that user talk pages should be deleted at all. In fact it says "user talk pages – these are generally not deleted unless a user is exercising a permanent right to vanish. Since there is no way to know if this is the case, it's best to not delete user talk pages on request." The only reason I can see to delete user talk pages as part of RTV is to remove any personal information that may be there or in the history; but I'm not sure how often that happens, and it seems more of a WP:Oversight thing. Rd232 talk 19:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Rd232, IMO they should never be deleted especially if there is any significant history of past discussions and/or is linked to from other pages, but may be courtesy blanked instead. Preserving history is more important (to me) than RTV unless there's WP:Oversight concerns, in which case the policy is clear. -- Ϫ 21:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Mmm. One solution then would be to strengthen what WP:RTV says about user talk pages not being deleted, but refer to Wikipedia:Requests for oversight as an option; and perhaps WP:MFD for exceptional cases. And leave the CSD as it is. Rd232 talk 00:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Oversight is very often excessive for the usual situation -- MfD would be the way to go most of the time, and this should be specified in WP:CSD. DGG ( talk ) 07:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed several comments along the lines of, "If they return, we can restore their talk page." Who is noticing that people have returned after having had their user talk pages deleted? Scenario: I'm a mischief-maker and I don't like some of what's in my talk page history. I say that I am leaving forever and ask to have it deleted. Two months later I return. My slate is clean. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Just going on what I've seen in my short time here, but I get the impression that deleting all sub-pages is fine, and even deleting the user page is fine. The talk page seems to run into some controversy depending on which admin. is working on it. I think most often I've seen the talk page blanked, and even protected in RTV cases, but a few have been deleted as well. One case that comes to mind are some of the many Peter Damian accounts. Some were "moved", some were "deleted", and some were simply left as is. I'm curious to see if we get a good solid "This is what we should do" resolution from this. — Ched :  ?  13:48, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I have been frustrated to find content related to policy and mainspace unexpectedly deleted from a talk page, but on the other hand there are sometimes good reasons to sensitively and discreetly remove content. I think the deletion of talk pages should not be routinely or easily done, but that "careful judgement" should be employed on each occasion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd suggest that we may actually have a consensus: user talk pages shouldn't be speedied; where deletion is required, they should be referred to WP:MFD. WP:RTV would be updated appropriately. Anyone disagree with that conclusion? Rd232 talk 01:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Fine by me, I don't mind playing by the rules ... so long as I know what the rules are. ;) — Ched :  ?  03:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I've tried amending WP:RTV accordingly [5] to see if anyone objects. Rd232 talk 10:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

seems fair enough. I agree that user talkpages are never speedies, they may be deleted in exceptional cases, but only when there is a rational justification of why they should be. --dab (𒁳) 12:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
I concur; user talk pages should not be deleted for RTVs. Stifle (talk) 08:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Please could you explain why not? I'm having trouble following the reasoning there.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 08:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:ATTACK

The only significant edit in August on that policy page changed "personal attacks against the subject" to "attacks against the subject" as speediable per G10. But consider: "The 2009 BMW Gashog has been trashed by every magazine that's reviewed it." It's clearly non-neutral; is it a speediable attack? Is it a "personal attack"? Should we go back to the old language of "personal attack"? One dividing line might be: it's speediable if you attack a person or an implied group of people, such as a country, company, organization, etc. It's not speediable if you attack the ideas or products of a person or group. - Dank (push to talk) 17:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well no, the article shouldn't be attacking anything at all, if a subject has been attacked by external sources, an article should describe said attack but make it clear that the source is the one doing the attacking--Jac16888Talk 17:31, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
If that is the entire content, and it is unsourced, I consider it speediable, unless you can quickly find those reviews. If that is the entire article, except that the criticism is sourced to a RS, then it should be upgraded with some information about the car, using the reference. If it is unsourced but contains neutral information about the car as well, then such unsourced criticism should simply be removed if the reviews cannot be readily found. Suppose the article had simply said., "Car XY is terrible, and a gas hog. " without anything further--this is the likely case,actually, and it is in my opinion clearly speediable. We also see "articles" that are consumer complaints sourced only to personal blogs. I speedy them as attack. DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 20:32, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Agreeing very much with DGG here. If it's a negative unsourced page, more focused on "attacking" the subject than citing criticism that could be legitimate, I'd actually call it a borderline G3. I would search to see if there were sources to back up the claim, or consider expanding the page to include a bit of basic/neutral info; otherwise, an entirely negative page is speediable. JamieS93 20:59, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Deprecate G9

This isn't actionable (note lack of template), and pointlessly duplicates what's already clearly stated in WP:OFFICE. Such deletions are outside the scope of CSD, and characterizing an office action as a CSD is simply incorrect and confusing - they are almost never objective, often-seen-at-AfD, and all that. Removing this will of course have no effect on office actions, but it will cut down the number of criteria (I heard there's one trying to make room for itself 'round these parts).    M   04:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it isn't actionable except by the office so of course there's no template. WP:CSD tries to describe all forms of speedy deletion and as far as I know, this is one. I believe the Office does occasionally speedy delete something so I don't see it as incorrect and I don't see how it would confuse anyone. I don't think it's redundant with WP:OFFICE which is in a backwater (it's the same reason we summarize at WP:NOT many policies that have expanded autonomous pages). Since it does occur, describing it in the one place where we gather together all the forms of CSD seen appears helpful. I certainly can see the argument that it's used so rarely that if removing it actually freed up a spot to replace it with another criterion, that might be a good reason to replace it, but we've never done that because reordering the criterion would cause massive confusion, broken links, etc., which is why whenever we've actually made a criterion obsolete, we've kept its numbering inviolate. Ah, I just noticed that someone removed the speedy language from WP:OFFICE. It used to actually say something about speedying articles.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
This isn't a place to list everything that might be related to CSD (instruction creep), but rather just the CSD and process. Office actions are office actions, and they are certainly not a CSD: they fail to meet all requisites for a CSD, from the top of this page: objective, uncontestable, frequent, nonredundant. The CSD do not empower office actions, and the office is not bound by the CSD process, so implying that they are is misleading. There's 0 need for it here, and these are great reasons against keeping it.    M  
Sometimes criteria are needed to exist even if they do not meet these requirements. As Fuhghettaboutit says, CSD should be descriptive as well and it's a form of deletion without discussion, which is what speedy deletion is. A number of criteria fail one or more requirements and still are essential: G5 for example is not one that is frequently used but serves as an enforcement of both WP:BAN and WP:DENY. A2 is misused often but very seldom really applies but is needed to avoid duplication of material from other wikis without translation. Same for A5. G1, which has a very limited scope if applied correctly, is failing the requirements "frequent", "objective", "uncontestable" and maybe even "nonredundant" (as G2 and G3 usually cover those pages as well). The requirements at the top of this talk page are for proposing new criteria, they are not retroactively applied to the old ones. Regards SoWhy 06:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
(Prod is also a form of deletion without discussion, and we don't mention it.) The main point here isn't that it fails the criteria for being a CSD, it's that it isn't a CSD (failure to meet all 4 criteria is just another indication of this). It may be taken to mean that its being listed as a CSD is what empowers office actions (which is false), or that the office is somehow bound by the CSD process (which is false). I think that removing G5 would be bad, but what makes G9's removal a bad thing?    M   07:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
The impression you mention can only happen if one reads CSD as purely prescriptive. If one assumes it to be partly descriptive (which is consensus so far I think), then it can and should also list forms of speedy deletion that are allowed by other policies. Like G5 is a product of applying WP:BAN, G9 is the result of another policy, in this case WP:OFFICE. I cannot recall a single incident in all my time here that someone believed G9 to be limiting or allowing office speedy deletions and as such, I see no indication for the risks you outline as possible. Regards SoWhy 07:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
G5 is not under the scope of WP:BAN, though, and G9 isn't something ever really executed by administrators. Again, my points about wp:office have little to do with removing or keeping, they simply show that this is clearly not a CSD - it fails all requirements, office isn't bound by the process, its basis/empowering is in wp:office, not here (if the CSD process was killed, it surely would remain alive). All of this demonstrates that it's not a CSD, so we need not list it. Unless there's a good reason to...? What do people lose if we don't describe it here? Might we link to it, but remove it as a CSD, instead?    M   08:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
G5 does stem from the blocking policy. It's evident in the very first revision of this policy page and from the language in a contemporaneous revision of the blocking policy. I still don't grok your argument. This policy is a mechanism to do work, not the result of deductions from first principles. Protonk (talk) 04:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any real point in changing this; if anything, it will raise more questions when people ask "why was this repealed"? Stifle (talk) 08:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Add a footnote. 'That's how it's been' isn't how we should respond to reducing what is essentially process creep.    M   08:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
It isn't "process creep" and it isn't listing "everything that lay be related to CSD". It's a description of an actual form of speedy deletion. You keep saying it clearly isn't a form speedy deletion without really explaining why you think that's true, other than citing to the process added at the top of this page that was placed to stop people suggesting new criterion that couldn't work, which has nothing to do with existing criterion. The Office deleting a page without any warning because of something they've been discussing with an apoplectic user and their lawyer offline to avoid a defamation lawsuit or any other possibility is indeed 'speedy and deletion based on the criterion of the OFFICE. I think maybe you are stuck on the fact that at the top of the project page we have for convenience's sake stated that the page lists "the limited places where administrators may..." which does clash, but not in a confusing way when you read G9. It is a criterion. It is speedy. It is deletion. It is informative. If you are very concerned we could discuss adding a short qualifier to the first paragraph to avoid an appearance of conflict between the opening language and the criterion, but that is no reason to get rid of an existing CSD.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G9 should stay. The office may delete things, and no one should be deleting things without discussion unless covered by a documented CSD criteria. G9 means that theory and reality don't conflict, and G9 is certainly not hurting anything otherwise. It is also useful to tell the newcomer that there is such as thing as the wikipedia office, and that they can do things. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

  • "no one should be deleting things without discussion unless covered by a documented CSD criteria" What about PROD? (and WP:OFFICE?) This is what I'm getting at with my point about people believing that CSD somehow empowers the other forms of immediate deletion. No, what we have are 3 forms of discussionless deletion: CSD, PROD, OFFICE. These should be outlined in WP:DEL, if they need to be outlined, and not outlined 'within' each other.    M   19:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with Fuhghettaboutit and SmokeyJoe. G9 describes a situation in which pages are speedily deleted. It would be much less helpful to have a page headed "Criteria for speedy deletion" which listed some, but not all, of the circumstances in which material can be speedily deleted. This one is different in some ways from the others, but that is not a good reason for not listing it. JamesBWatson (talk)

Indeed. If we removed the criterion, we would have to leave a placeholder. What do you propose it should say? (also)Happy‑melon 15:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Probably "out of scope", but I've been trying to make the criteria use a cleaner layout so we simply wouldn't have to leave something there. (By the way, I recall your point about making sure the process is kept out of the policy, which I've tried to do; the cause of the layout change is that it seems the policy is getting mixed up in the process)    M   19:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Has "CSD G9" ever been used in a deletion summary ever? Documenting Office actions is fine, but pretending as though anyone employed by the Wikimedia Foundation would look up the criterion (or care) is a bit wild. Why not remove it as a criterion and put a note somewhere else on the page pointing to WP:OFFICE? --MZMcBride (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

  • Some interesting points have been brought up here, I find myself generally in agreement with SmokeyJoe. Yes, it is different from the other criteria and does not exactly conform to the same standards, but WP:IAR very neatly gets us around that. It's a rarely used but important to retain criteria. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

This should be less a debate, I think, about what would happen if we do remove it (we can talk about whether its prudent to just leave it alone after we decide the core issue), but rather, removal aside, is G9 actually a type of speedy deletion? I think it's just a repetition of what OFFICE states. I also think that we should avoid:

  • G43: Expired PROD. Any page that has had 9 days, and you checked its history, and it's never been nominated. This excludes pages that have been undeleted, except those undeleted where they were speedy deletions, and etc.

for very similar reasons. G43 isn't really a CSD, nor is G9. They just happen to be forms of undiscussed deletion that can occur immediately, which not the same thing as getting speedied.    M   19:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I would support deprecating (or in this case removing) G9 and leaving descriptive text in the policy that states that "the office" reserves the right to delete pages without discussion. While the net gain of doing this is probably miniscule, it is still one less entry in the list of criteria those enforcing the policy need to familiarize themselves with. decltype (talk) 14:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a question: how often is G9 invoked? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 21:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Never. And the office never justifies its actions using CSD, since WP:OFFICE is the more appropriate policy. I don't think anyone here can imagine someone tagging a page with "I would like an office action csd executed upon this page". We don't need it, and should take it out.    M   04:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll pull it out and provide a more informative section on deletion types (office, prod, etc.) shortly.    M   18:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

  • G9 should stay in. The comparison to PROD is silly. should we take that one step further and say that AfD should have a CSD? no. CSD is for unilateral, immediate deletions. Having a deletion criteria for office action is fine. Protonk (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • M, I hope your not serious about "pulling it out" as consensus thus far is clearly in favor of leaving it in. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
    • BRD - actually, not even BRD, just a threat of BRD ;) Several of the issues presented ('what would we leave in its place') are no longer a problem, since I cleaned up the page. Consensus shouldn't be about counting though - recently, a few editors have brought up a very important point - has G9 actually ever been used?    M   19:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That question has essentially been asked and answered. It's a type of speedy deletion, whether "G9" appears in the edit summary or not. Really you are asking if there has ever been an office action that deleted an article. It seems more to me that you are just determined to get rid of at least one criteria, as you suggest with this remark: " Removing this will of course have no effect on office actions, but it will cut down the number of criteria". Beeblebrox (talk) 19:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, less redundant policy is a good thing, and every little bit helps. This "it's actually a speedy criterion because it's immediate and a deletion" line of thought is strange - it seems like pedantic categorization when what we should be concerned about is good, clear, non-redundant policy. Nobody is going to come running here after an office action, saying "oh look, it's not a CSD, you can't".    M   23:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
When I see a list of things I want a complete and accurate list. When someone asks "what are the ways in which speedy deletion can be done" the answer includes office actions. There's nothing redundant about it. As previously discussed, the fact that there is a dedicated page for office actions is neither here nor there. Complete information is a sanctified thing. We don't leave the Kakapo off a list of parrots because there's only 125 left in the world, nor do we say it's redundant because there's already an article dedicated to them. I see no confusion averted or simplification whatever achieved by removing this. It only would serve to reduce accuracy and completeness for no good end.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
So is a speedy deletion any deletion that's immediate? (Note that several of our CSD are not.) The best place to list deletion types is in our deletion policy. If you want to decide if it's a CSD, then ask "if the office said 'all CSD are revoked', would this include G9?" - of course not. But the best way to decide what a thing is in this case is to look at how it's used: G9 is unique in that it's never used, can't be invoked, doesn't even have templates. Lastly, a proper explanation of G9 requires a large and carefully-worded policy page.    M   04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Technically, CSD is a subset of the deletion policy, as are PROD and XfD (and the other deletion processes). I don't think that the semantics of what is and isn't a CSD are really important here. Protonk (talk) 04:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree, but if the objection is that it won't be a complete list, then it seems to become an issue. Also, sufficiently strange placement might be confusing: "how do I invoke this?", "why doesn't this give any criteria for identifying pages that are office actions?"    M   04:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

(Seems to have been here a while though not as long as I would have imagined. I understand the rationale that M is offering here. The office doesn't need us to have a CSD for them to delete something. It is neither necessary nor sufficient to justify an office deletion. I also understand the point that CSD need not encompass an exhaustive list of all possible deletions not taken under other portions of the deletion policy (though there is quite a bit of discussion to be had over how significant a point that is). Where I get off the train is the why. There isn't a shortage of numbers. We have to preserve numbering, so depreciating G9 would not give us fewer general CSDs to juggle. I'm just not convinced that changing it is worth the bother. Protonk (talk) 00:52, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Policies become shorter and clearer one sentence at a time. It would give us fewer CSD, though of course the names wouldn't change. Aside from the desire to stick to tradition, is there actually a bother here? It shouldn't be a Big Deal to remove it.    M   04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
True shorter policies are generally clearer policies, but depreciating G9 doesn't actually 'shorten' or clarify' the policy in any real sense. It removes a permutation of the policy but execution and interpretation of all other portions of the policy are practically unaffected. Protonk (talk) 04:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand - what do you mean by a permutation of the policy?    M   04:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Permutation may not be the right word. WP:CSD is executed piecemeal. I don't need to read or understand the F series to appropriately execute the A or G series. Removing one criteria is not immediately analogous to removing an extraneous sentence in Wikipedia:Consensus (for example]]. Protonk (talk) 04:31, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Sure, but it's an (out-of-place) substantive statement, and at the very least a reduction in words on the page. Plus, it's just weird - it doesn't even specify criteria. The more important question is, is there any reason to keep it?    M   04:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we're starting to move in circles. Consensus is against deprecation/removal.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus isn't something to be declared (especially when good points start being brought up).    M   04:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Maybe not but flogging is. I'm sorry M but that's what this appears to be. Please do continue. I've said my piece above (and this will be my last post on the topic).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Several important objections were addressed on 4 August, after which all 3 of the newly-joining editors (MZMcBride, decltype, Blanchardb) seem in favor of removing it ("Why not remove it as a criterion", "how often is G9 invoked?"). With some reluctance (and very respectfully) I disagree - I'd like the input of a few more editors.    M   15:11, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Protonk's summary of why M is, logically, correct about the criterion being unnecessary is spot on. Deletion through an office action is a process that should be described at WP:DEL, not WP:CFD. Speedy deletion could be abolished, or its criteria merged into one wider super-criterion, yet office action deletions would occur just as before. CSD does not explain the mechanism of office-action deletions, their underlying justification, or even the criteria necessary for one to be enacted. New editors who have to wade through our increasingly labyrinthine syntactopolicoguidewonkery (and frankly I have no idea how anyone new to the project copes with the complexities of wikisyntax, the MoS or even a small fraction of our underpinning policies) do not need to be presented with yet another unnecessary, confusing and best-explained elsewhere criterion on what is a particularly important page (I fear one of the first project pages that new editors are often directed to!). TheGrappler (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Are there any objections left that have not been addressed?    M   23:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

G9 should remain as is. It helps, and doesn’t hurt. It is not WP:CREEP to keep policy stable by default. Key policy, such as WP:CSD, should enable a quick understanding with easy pointers to related areas. At WP:CSD, there should be pointers to WP:DEL, WP:DRV, WP:XfD (in the lead), WP:PROD, & WP:OFFICE. Both “expired prod” and WP:OFFICE deletions should have placeholders. Yes, WP:DEL, WP:DRV, WP:XFD & WP:PROD should all crosslink to each other.
Speedy deletion is not going to abolished, but if it were, lots of things may or may not have to change as a consequence. BLP authorises deletion, but this doesn’t mean than it shouldn’t have mention at CSD. G10 doesn’t exist (even in part) to authorise WP:BLPDEL. These things exist collectively to facilitate understanding to help find what you want when you go looking. There are only a handful of deletion mechanisms, and the current level of informative crosslinking is not a labyrinth. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
The idea isn't to remove all mention of other deletion procs, but to remove it as a "criterion", since it isn't one. Do you oppose this? We will still mention it, and it will be even clearer if we mention it elsewhere.    M   00:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
OK, perhaps I am unclear on what you propose to do in total. Is this what you propose? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Yep, that would be great.    M   21:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I think it is clear that you are disagreed with. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
By who, exactly? If it's you and Fuhghettaboutit, I'm ok with addressing your concerns, but the recent level of support for removing G9 seems to support my proposed action. If you have no objection, then I will remove G9.    M   22:09, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
And by Protonk, Beeblebrox and myself, as well as others. But no matter what consensus really is, you should not remove anything anyway. You are involved and as such per definition unable to judge consensus impartially. Let an uninvolved admin decide what consensus is here and how to proceed. Regards SoWhy 22:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I should not judge consensus, but I am free to remove the rule. Someone who opposes the change would then revert it, and provide me with a reason which will either convince me that it should remain, or allow me to respond. The reasons presented above (what do we put in it's place? don't we need to mention OFFICE?) seem to all have been addressed. If they have not, please state which objection has not been addressed, and we'll work from there.    M   21:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but you are not "free to remove the rule". Being bold hits a limit in a case like this, where you would do something despite knowing that people disagree with you doing it. If you remove the criterion, you are effectively judging consensus and saying that it's in favor of removal. You might think that all reasons for removal are convincing and all against it have been addressed and/or rebutted but not everyone may agree with you and you are obviously biased to arrive at such a conclusion (after all, you wrote the reasons and the rebuttals). Since there is no pressing need to remove the criterion in a way that you have to do it, I urge you to request an uninvolved admin to determine consensus here. Because if you decide to do it yourself, it's much more likely to be disagreed with than if someone uninvolved decides to do it based on consensus. Regards SoWhy 21:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I understand that my change may be disagreed with, and this is the primary motive for making it. I don't know what the consensus is any more than you do, so my removal would not 'judge' consensus, but rather work towards it (WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS). I understand that people disagree, but I would like to know the reasons for disagreement. I've reformatted the criteria so that the removal of one is no longer an issue, and the other deletion options are now prominently listed. Which objection, in your view, has not been addressed?    M   21:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Again: There is no need for you to do the change rather than someone uninvolved, is there? WP:BRD does not apply because the discussion has already taken place. It just needs someone to impartially judge consensus of it and if needed, make the necessary edits. Regards SoWhy 13:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
BRD is for prompting a discussion. The discussion has not 'already taken place'. You object to the changes - could you do the equivalent of lifting up your hand up and pointing to the objection that has not been addressed? Copy-paste it if you need to. I've already repeatedly guessed what you might mean, but apparently this is not it.    M   20:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There appear to be no remaining objections to this proposal (they seem to have been addressed above, and once they were addressed, editors made supportive statements for the proposal), so I plan to remove G9, though I'll wait a couple of days in case an editor finds and can point out an objection that was missed.    M   22:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

No, consensus appears to remain against. Personally I think it should never have been a speedy, but now that it is, might as well leave it. Don't really mind. Rd232 talk 22:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
So we should avoid removing it because there is no harm in leaving it? I don't quite follow. Is there any harm in removing it?    M   06:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean M. As far as I can tell, at this point, me, SoWhy, Stifle, SmokeyJoe, JamesBWatson, Beeblebrox and Protonk have all to lesser and greater degrees voiced our opinions against the change, and have not retracted those stances, while you Decltype and TheGrappler have voiced opinions in support. You see no remaining objections? Policy debates are not a series of objectively determinable mathematical formulas presented and resolved by providing objective proofs. You made points; others made points. You *seem* to be saying that your subjective opinion of the adequacy of the pro arguments has resulted in the ability to tick off a column on the side of "adequately addressed" as to each anti-opinion, rendering all unretracted opposition points moot or irrelevant. We see things very differently. Though both of us are poorly situated to judge consensus, being participants, I see the anti points, including my own, as not addressed, inadequately addressed, unconvincingly addressed and consensus as being fairly clearly against the change. This idea of arguments having been "addressed", with you setting yourself up as the judge of that, confounds me.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm just asking you to point out the most salient objection so that I can think about it. Is there some remaining objection that I could think about and potentially address, or are we simply voting here?    M   06:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

New speedy renaming criterion

The last edit of August doesn't synch up with the list on the linked page, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. Which page is right? - Dank (push to talk) 17:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, the edit summary says "added non-controversial criteria per talk page", but I don't see any talk page edits by that editor or any on that subject, can someone point me to a discussion? - Dank (push to talk) 17:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
No clue. Feel free to apply the R of WP:BRD. Stifle (talk) 08:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Avoiding cosmetic changes

I'd like to request that people revert edits that make lots of small, cosmetic changes down the length of the page. Once or twice is fine, but this has been going on for a while, and it turns the monthly diff into a sea of red, making it nearly useless. Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 20:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:SNOW

User:Otterathome suggested to me, in the light of closings of many of AFD deletions per WP:SNOW by myself after five or six days to amend WP:CSD to include if I understand his comment on my talk page to include WP:SNOW thus a clear or unanimous consensus for deletion closed before the seven-day period of an AFD discussion as a criteria for speedy deletion. Wondering what would be your thoughts on that. But I had suggested on the talk page of WP:AFD to add WP:SNOW as criteria for early closures in both cases of deletions and keeps. JForget 18:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Userfication by non-admin new-page patrollers

There's a proposal to add a Twinkle option to userfy articles, to be used during new-page patrolling. This would basically encourage non-admin NPPers to userfy articles, and only leave an R2 tagged cross-namespace redirect. There are some open questions both about the criteria that should be applied before userfication, and whether it's desirable to encourage non-admin userfication in the first place. Your input would be valued at WT:TW#Adding userfication to Twinkle.
Amalthea 11:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

ip talk page

Resolved
 – it was removed from the category -- œ™ 05:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

User talk:129.11.29.16 has been nominated for speedy deletion for several days now, and nobody seems to want to screw with. Category:IP talk pages for speedy deletion is apparently not supposed to have anything in it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Good to go?

First, I added "under this criterion" to the addition to U1 ... we can delete user talk pages if there are no salvageable previous edits and they fit any of the G criteria, in particular G11 or G7, and user talk pages in CAT:TEMP are sometimes deleted (and sometimes they just sit there). Second, are we agreed that the current page version seems to have consensus, judging from the edit history and the talk page? - Dank (push to talk) 18:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can ever truly say a version of the page has consensus. It'll always change, even if for no other reason than that consensus itself does. So, while I'd tend to say that the current version has consensus for the most part (based largely on a lack of loud complaining about it), it's in no way immune to change. Cheers. lifebaka++ 02:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed criterion: G13

Proposed:

G13: BLP material with a high risk of harm that has been, or will be, uncontroversially reverted. Unsourced or poorly sourced material in BLPs must be well-sourced or removed, especially if negative in tone. While most BLP material can be simply removed, improper negative material that has an high risk of being harmful, very skewed, privacy breaching, or defamatory, may be removed from the page history as well as from the article, if necessary, under this criterion. (For ongoing disputes consider protection and deletion, or wait until resolved.)

Surprisingly, there is no clear statement that if a BLP has grossly unbalanced negative material added, or is based on poorly sourced negative content (an attack blog or the like), then it may be deleted from history as well as reverted. Is reversion enough? I think there are cases where admins can and should also remove it from the history too.

Caveat - if it's the subject of a dispute then deleting may just prompt reposting, so there's no point deleting except if protection is used or the matter is fairly uncontroversial. FT2 (Talk | email) 13:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

No need for a special criteria, esp. since the page itself isn't going anywhere. Just use g6 if you feel the need to specify a criteria. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
G6 is for routine noncontroversial matters - cleanup and housekeeping. Deletion of reverted revisions from a page history in these circumstances is right and it's also commonsense, but it's not a G6 in any way. There is surprisingly no current applicable criterion, even though it's a well defined privacy/defamation issue, and there probably should be. FT2 (Talk | email) 15:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I wouldn't sight a CSD but would instead use an real language edit summary. That said, removing libel shouldn't be considered controversial. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd be doing this a lot more often if this criterion existed. However, there's the problem that selectively deleting revisions of articles with long histories "will impact the overall performance of Wikipedia", and should be left to be oversighted instead. decltype (talk) 16:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
That's so for any deletion action, if an article has many revisions. Most of the articles this applies to wouldn't be of that size of history. If it is defamatory or privacy breaching then oversight's right, but a lot of the time the article is negative, unbalanced, unsourced negative... those aren't as a rule oversightable, because they just don't meet oersight norms. They should probably be reverted under BLP and, in a fair number of cases, the admin may rightly feel removal from public history is appropriate too. FT2 (Talk | email) 16:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I do think the criterion has some merit. Administrators already do this at their discretion, it is common sense, and the right thing to do, yet it has not been codified in policy. decltype (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the reason for such a criterion. G10 already covers articles that are entirely negative in tone. Removal of revisions that meet this criterion should be covered by that as well and don't need a new criterion to be covered. Instead, we need to discuss how our current criteria (also things like G12 or G3) should be applied if selective deletion is enabled for admins. But such a selective deletion is nothing we need a new criterion for, just a discussion how it relates to CSD. Regards SoWhy 20:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

No. G10 covers pages that "disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose" - so-called attack pages. That's not what we're talking about here. This proposal is for material that's strongly inappropriate under BLP and has been reverted, but still exists in history. For example a WP:UNDUE disproportionate section about one negative but widely journalled incident, or some speculative issue that made it into the tabloid press, is not "a page to disparage or attack" (G10) but once "removed" (BLP) then in some cases it might be appropriate to delete it from history too. At present WP:CSD doesn't endorse this even if the text is reverted, although it's the right thing to do in a range of cases, fits in with BLP and current views, and would often be good commonsense. This would formally endorse that improper negative (but not "attacking") material could be deleted from the public history if necessary. FT2 (Talk | email) 22:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand the need for this—that is, a speedy deletion criterion to cover these—I do see the reason to do the history revision and have in fact done this informally. This is not a form of speedy deletion. It's a temporary deletion that should take about one minute and the article's back. As such, it's akin to what we do with a history merge (deleting one article moving another one there and undeleting with the longer history). So I don't see this as speedy deletion at all. As for process, I think there should be a template and a category set up for this and maybe an explanation page on the process, but entirely separate from speedy deletion. Now, it's true that there is a deletion involved, just as there is with a history merge which takes {{db-histmerge}}, and a template set up for this process would refer to G6, but that invocation of G6 is not applying to whether or not the revision is uncontroversial; rather it is only to inform people that "X requires an administrator to temporarily delete this page".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I've created the template in the form I would think would accompany these requests. See {{db-revise}}.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:10, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Seems like this would draw an awful lot of attention to the inappropriate material. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
You do have a point. I can think of two ways to set this up to avoid that. First, "Wikipedia:History revision" or "Wikipedia:Revision requests" would be set up as a process page where the article and offending revisions would be listed, and we would use no request template on the article. That would only allow users studying the process page to be aware of the request and look at the alleged inappropriate material during the time window it had no yet been acted upon. Or second, we could go all the way behind the veil and set it up somewhat similar to oversight and use email. I think going with the second is a bit much for material that should be removed but is not worthy of oversight.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Isn't the first option just a duplication of WP:BLP/N?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
No, BLP/N is not set up for requesting revision deletion (though people can) but most don't even know of the option, and I would think we would want this set up on a dedicated page explaining what the prcoess is, how it's different from oversight, what it's for, when it's appropriate, and clear instructions on how to provide us the exact diffs/revisions we should look at and they want revised.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Fuhghettaboutit - Speedy deletion relates to any deletion of material from public view using the admin tools, that is decided on the spot by a reviewing admin. Even if it's just one revision that contained the BLP issue, and the rest of the page history was temporarily deleted and seconds later was back (except the one edit), that would still be a deletion of material. Deletion differs from oversight because administrators can see the deleted item and reverse it if needed, and because oversight is very tightly restricted (precisely because it removes material from even admin review) and only applies to privacy breach and defamation, not to this kind of issue.
The process might be as simple as "this page has had BLP material uncontroversially removed, can an admin delete those revisions". Same as any other deleted material, but the deletion tag (which might invisibly add the page to a category but not show up a big template to a reader) would need removing too once dealt with. FT2 (Talk | email) 06:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
If it's material that is sourced but undue negative, then that is not a reason for deletion imho. Since it's sourced, there is no harm that Wikipedia creates by having such a version of the page (since the harm stems from the source) and such a revision can be useful in further editing. WP:BLP does not say that such material has to be deleted, it only says that it should be removed and we are talking about situations where this already happened. WP:BLPDEL, the corresponding section, (as well as Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff#Summary deletion of BLPs) only allows deletion in case the whole article suffers such problems, not when only certain revisions do. So from our current policy, there is no basis for such a new criterion and I am afraid that creating it will be accompanied with large-scale purges of anything that might even be seen vaguely meeting those requirements. If someone reverts to a previous version of that kind, there is protection and blocking to deal with it. There is no need to remove potentially useful information because of it. Also, I think the proposed criterion fails the requirements #1 ("very high risk" is very vague at best) and #3 (I don't see this coming up often enough that consensus at WP:BLP/N or a place like the one Fuhghettaboutit suggests can't handle it) on top of this page. Regards SoWhy 06:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I generally don't understand the perceived need (which should be obvious from my comments above) and I'm not a big BLP person, but I am a big WP:C person and in that arena we frequently delete to the last clean revision and sometimes delete individual prior edits to create a clean version that complies with the law. Again, I don't really follow precisely what rules apply to BLP but I can envision such a situation for BLP where there might be material that is legally troubling (bordering on libelous) but not requiring oversight (say it deals with a US national politician who doesn't normally have a claim for libel). Maybe not a good example under our BLP policy. Just a thought.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 07:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
For copyright violations, there should be no problem. Previous, copyright violating versions can be removed with G12 imho. Regards SoWhy 07:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not really talking about whether it's allowed, I'm talking about whether it's necessary and whether there is an analog. There are plenty of processes for deletion of copyvios. There is no specific process for BLPs; I think the assumption has been that it either requires oversight or it's simply needs to get removed as an edit; I'm not sure that this actually holds water.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 14:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with FT2 that the CSD criteria cover all actions involving the deletion tool, whether or not a page ultimately remains at the page title. I think we've become increasingly reluctant to institute new criteria these days, which is no bad thing, but I don't think that should extend to 'bolting on' this as an extension to a criterion that it's fundamentally not equivalent to. There is no way, for instance, that this proposal qualifies as an "uncontroversial technical deletion" (G6); nor do they necessarily qualify as attack pages. If this proposal is accepted, it should be as a new criterion.
That said, I think that this is a valuable addition to the policy, for all the reasons FT2 and others have cited; it has my full support. Happy‑melon 16:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Adminbot - F5

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Orphaned image deletion bot - proposed bot will orphaned delete images per CSD F5 --Chris 01:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Chillum 22:57, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

On image deletion timing and WP:NFCC

Per the criteria: "A file in use in an article and uploaded after 13 July 2006 that does not comply with this policy 48 hours after notification to the uploading editor will be deleted. To avoid deletion, the uploading editor or another Wikipedian will need to provide a convincing non-free-use defense that satisfies all 10 criteria. For a file in use in an article that was uploaded before 13 July 2006, the 48-hour period is extended to seven days."

WP:CSD disagrees with this. WP:CSD#F6 and WP:CSD#F7 (point 3) each specify seven days as the timeframe, regardless of upload date. With July 2006 being more than 3 years behind us, would it make sense to update {{di-no fair use rationale}} and {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} to use a 2 day default, and have the oldimage parameter change it to 7 days? Alternatively, is WP:NFCC incorrect in its enforcement information, and it should really be 7 days all the time? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think 7 days is OK, but if an adminstrator sees there is no hope of a fair use, then delete as a copyright violation on the spot. 7 days gives the uploader the chance to read the warning and do something about it. An administrator should choose to add a FUR if it is obvious what it is eg logo or cover. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:06, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
It looks like a contradiction between policy pages to me, too, and I asked for help at WT:NFCC#WP:NFCC#Enforcement. - Dank (push to talk) 22:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Good idea; thanks. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
That was discussed a couple of years ago per Wikipedia:Fair use criteria/Amendment/Consensus, hence the date of 2006. I think the 7 days needs to be changed here to 24 hours. There is a reason non-free images are deleted faster then normal deletion. Garion96 (talk) 09:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Also, on WP:CSD#F7 it still says 2 days (48 hours). Only for replaceable images. Garion96 (talk) 15:54, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Misuse of G6 to delete user talk pages

I've found several user talk pages deleted based on G6. In each case the page was for an indef blocked user but in several it was a sock. It has always been my understanding that the pseudo-deletion procedure stated at CAT:TEMP and discussed often on WT:DEL, here, and on WP:AN, has never been formalized in policy nor considered a viable speedy criterion - although it has been proposed many times. In addition, even CAT:TEMP specifically excludes socks (it's supposed to anyway - the big problem with the cat is that it doesn't - but that's another issue). I still believe that G6 can be used rather more broadly than some but deleting user talk pages is most definitely controversial and deleting sock talk pages has never been endorsed anywhere that I'm aware of.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

normally, in fact, we need to keep the pages as a demonstration of the problem. DGG ( talk ) 23:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with DGG. Stifle (talk) 08:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

WT:BLP#Why qualify with the word "contentious"?

I think this edit might contradict CSD policy; please join the linked discussion if you can help us sort it out. - Dank (push to talk) 22:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Criterion, U5

Here, I proposed a new criterion, since other criterion often don't apply. Most of MfD right now is pages of this nature, and the all seem to be doing poorly, therefore, adding a new CSD criterion for "secret page game" pages seems like a good idea to me. Irbisgreif (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I worry it fails the third and fourth of the suggested criteria for making new criteria above. Namely, frequency and non-redundancy. Many of these pages could be deleted using G2 or G3 (more often the first). And I would very much like to see evidence that such pages occur often enough to warrant making a new criterion for them. Cheers. lifebaka++ 02:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
For frequency, check out WP:MfD. It's clear that there's quite a few of those pages up for deletion. As for non-redundancy, G2 explicitly does not apply to a user's own User Space, and G3 doesn't quite apply either, as it's not a hoax or blatant vandalism. Irbisgreif (talk) 02:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I was just about to post similarly to Lifebaka on the frequency issue. All of the criteria are geared toward pages that we see over and over with regularity and thus making a speedy deletion criterion covering them reduces load on other deletion methods. MfD seems to me to be well suited to these deletions and I think they are quite infrequent. Note that with regard to the current hidden game page at MfD, I was the declining admin on its speedy delete, but strongly supported the deletion at the MfD. The thing is that there are quite a few of these at MfD now because user:Roux searched them out all at one time, or at least that's my impression. Once these are gone, we might see another crop up a few weeks from now. Ergo, I think the fact that there are more than one at MfD right now does not speak to the frequency issue at all. Of course, if you show that these really are rather frequent that would be swaying. I personally don't think these are even a close fit under G2 or G3.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't really think it's a good idea. I agree with Fuhghett's reasons. This is simply not speedy material (at least right now), since a) it's still being discussed at MfD, b) this is not exactly clear-cut territory, especially the open-ended "game" part, c) the folks at MfD are dealing with most of the pages, and I doubt there will be a high need for this criterion. A lot of people think that the more blatant cases should be deleted per WP:NOTWEBHOST/MYSPACE, but the consensus is young and not totally clear-cut, really. There are a few users who object to mass secret page deletion. SPs never fall under G2 or G3 in my opinion, and I am also reminded of this from April. Consensus can change, but if anything, creating a CSD criterion now is a premature move and I'm not thinking that it's necessary in the long run either. JamieS93 03:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I see no problem with a "wait and see" attitude towards frequency. I assume, however, that the consensus is that such pages should be deleted and that G2 and G3 do not apply? Irbisgreif (talk) 03:37, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if that's consensus but I agree with it:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Well, I meant, everyone who's been talking about it agrees. Irbisgreif (talk) 05:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
No, it's not consensus, see Jamie's comment above. The previous drama that MZM caused in April (see Jamie's link above) when he deleted such pages reminded us that the community does not agree that such pages should be deleted without discussion but on a case to case basis and can well be allowed. The previous MFD on such pages closed with this as consensus and I think the majority agrees that those pages are not to be deleted without discussion and thus such a criterion also fails the requirements #1 and #2 on top of this page. Regards SoWhy 20:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm confused as to why such pages would be allowed at all, regardless of speedy status, what is the value of these pages to the encyclopædia? Irbisgreif (talk) 23:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Why do we have user pages at all? Why allow user boxes? Why barnstars? Why humor pages? Not everything we do needs to have a direct value to the encyclopedia. But such community-style pages make people want to spend time on Wikipedia and, following this, to work on the project itself. If someone uses 99% of their time here on secret pages but only 1% on articles, it's still a net positive compared to 0% work at all. The community has always been against those who use Wikipedia only for social networking but they have correctly allowed it to happen for everyone who does just a little bit else. This is, despite what people sometimes seem to think, a volunteer project and as such, we have to accept that not everyone likes to spend their free time only doing serious work without having any fun at all. Those pages hurt noone, they are not draining any real resources or damage the project but they provide the necessary diversion people sometimes need when they work on this project. If allowing such pages has even the slightest chance to make people want to improve Wikipedia, to spend their time here and to built up a "wiki-career", then they are of value to the encyclopedia. The value might not be self-evident for most people or even large in quantity of edits but it's there and in the end, the encyclopedia benefits. The real question is different: Why delete such pages that have no impact on any reader? Regards SoWhy 11:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I've asked if anyone from MfD would like to comment, just so that they're aware of the idea. Irbisgreif (talk) 06:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

This sounds to me like a WP:NOT issue. Reasons based on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not are explicitly not criteria for speedy deletion. Chillum 20:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with discussing if these pages should be deleted or not, just because WP:NOT is, at present, not criteria for a speedy deletion doesn't mean that consensus might not emerge that such pages should be deleted. Irbisgreif (talk) 23:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I am supportive of this proposal. Stifle (talk) 08:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this needs to be speedy, but if you were to amend wp:userpage to make it clearer that userspace is not a playground, I'd probably support a change along those lines. Gigs (talk) 13:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Images on commons with categories here

I'm seeing pages added here for images on commons solely to add the image to categories on wikipedia. Gnereally the added categories are not even intended for images. I'm thinking these can be deleted as A3 since they are really empty. Anything I'm missing? Vegaswikian (talk) 21:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If they're in the image namespace, they can't be A3 deletions. Powers T 12:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Even if there is no image? These pages only contain one or more categories. No image or other information. Vegaswikian (talk) 15:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the Ax CSDs are for articles and portals only. I believe F2 might be what you need, though. Powers T 15:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I use G8. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Any of F2, F8, or G6 would be applicable. The underlying point is that when an image is on commons, we should not attempt to categorize it here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:59, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

possible botting of speedy deletes

I'm thinking of requesting an admin bot to handle the following uncontentious speedy deletes, but I thought it best to start the discussion here and move to the bot requests if no-one spots any flaws in my logic.

If a page is flagged {{g7}}, {{u1}} or {{db-author}},
and has only been edited by one account, Or by a bot or bots on the whitelist for this bot.
and has not been moved other than a move from user space to mainspace
and is not in projectspace
and is not in templatespace
then delete.
Ideally this would be a continuously running bot that checked all new CSD tags

This would in effect allow non-admins to delete articles where they were the sole author, for example by creating an article in a sandbox and then copying it to mainspace. It would also help our admin shortages by automating a trickle of our very least contentious deletes. It would even allow the deletion of a user talkpage, but only where there had only been a single editor. It would also give a faster response to these particular tags. ϢereSpielChequers 23:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems like there are so few of these relative to other deletions that it wouldn't make any difference and in all likelihood an admin would hit these from the Cat long before the bot would run again.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
It'd have to run continuously to be all that useful, yes. But I don't see any inherent problems with it in theory. Cheers. lifebaka++ 01:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Good point Lifebaka I've added continuously running, though my experience in UK mornings is that it can often be over an hour before anyone clears out user requests at CSD. As for not making much diference, I agree this is a small improvement overall to the CSD process, but unless anyone can spot a flaw I suggest that it would over a few years perform thousands of uncontentious deletions. ϢereSpielChequers 08:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Main problem is the bot can't tell if the request is in good faith, for example, I recall seeing a user who was leaving Wikipedia tag all pages they had created with G7. Naturally most of these wouldn't have been deleted as they had probably been edited by other users, and we wouldn't have this problem with {{db-u1}} requests in userspace. I'd suggest making sure that the page is new (say 2 hours at the time of tagging). Also, the bot should check the deletion log of the page, to avoid a new user creating a page, blanking it by accident, a CSD-tagger adds {{db-g7}}, the page is deleted, and the new user (who doesn't want the page deleted) then pastes the last version of the page, with the deletion tag still on it. Best - Kingpin13 (talk) 17:35, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Do we usually consider motives in such cases? If an editor leaves and G7's several articles where they are the only editor, would a human admin decline those G7s? ϢereSpielChequers 11:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I would unhesitatingly decline them. The author does not own the article here. DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
  • A bot could be written to tell u1 and g7 pretty easily. Just check the history, if the tagging author is the only editor to the page (or maybe some threshold like 90%) then delete it. If the tagging author isn't, punt it off to the reg speedy queue and send a note explaining why to the tagger. Protonk (talk) 19:18, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
One suggestion - a bot couldn't distinguish legitimate from hoax requests and deletion's a powerful tool. It should check the user who posted the CSD request was in fact the same as the sole author or the user whose userspace it's in, or similar, so that others can't request deletion improperly. It should also perhaps be wary of deleting some kinds of older material. Try these for updated criteria:
  • Page only edited by one user and flagged bots (a range of bots make minor correctons, taggings, etc),
  • CSD request template (G7, U1, DB_AUTHOR) has been added by the same user and their conditions are met, and
  • For mainspace, projectspace, and templatespace, the "Whatlinkshere" list doesn't show significant dependencies (however that's defined) - ie the page hasn't been drawn on by others greatly, or used as a reference in other articles.
THEN it's probably fairly safe to delete. FT2 (Talk | email) 23:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the tagger must be the same as the author to avoid bad faith tags, and that's in the spec - almost all G7s by others than the author are good tags but I agree that automating this would make mischief possible. I like the idea about ignoring bot edits, but I'm trying to keep this very simple and straightforward, and there are some instances where we would decline a U1 if there were bot edits. For example a user talkpage that had only been edited twice, once by the user saying "This is my talkpage". and then the same user making a U1 request would be deleted by this bot. But a user talkpage that had one edit saying "This is my talkpage". a warning by cluebot and then a U1 request would not be deleted by this bot. I agree that whatlinkshere is a consideration, but I'm struggling to think of scenarios where we would decline a G7 simply because it created redlinks to article space. But I take your point about projectspace and templatespace and have changed the spec to leave them for admin consideration. ϢereSpielChequers 11:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Quick comments:
  • The reason for ignoring (some?) bot edits is that in CSD cases, bot edits are almost always purely administrative. They fix typos, correct links, remove missing images, add or amend stub tags, etc. Any page may have bot edits, and a page edited by "one user" will often have a bot edit as well. I can't think of many cases where a bot edit would make the difference between keeping and not keeping. Warning templates and such are usually posted on talk pages, and some might be bot-posted. If more examples were to exist, then perhaps have a whitelist of "bots which can be ignored for this purpose".
  • The point about whatlinkshere is this: Suppose I create an article, project page, or template. I don't WP:OWN it; but I'm well placed to say it should be deleted. Now, if that was a stub that's now been linked from multiple other articles, or a template used by many users or on many pages, or a project page repeatedly cited in discussions, then it's no longer quite so clearcut if I can simply say "I wrote it so I want it deleted", because it's now in effect communally endorsed and used. (The classical example is WP:COI, see WP:LUC.) Pages that have gained wider reference should be left to humans to assess their deletion.
FT2 (Talk | email) 13:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Protonk suggests "if the tagging author is the only editor to the page (or maybe some threshold like 90%) then delete it". I think it would have to be 100%: there would be occasions when the 10% by other editors would be very important. Also I am not happy with ignoring bot edits; I agree that in most cases they wouldn't matter, but there would be times when they would. For example, it might be useful to have a record of the fact that an editor had a history of likely COI editing. A bot would not be reliably able to distinguish such cases. By the time we have incorporated all the restrictions discussed, including check for what links here etc, I wonder whether we would be left with so few cases that the whole thing was not worth bothering with. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I've added the whitelist suggestion for bots that do typo fixing etc, I agree with James Watson that it would be safest to otherwise leave this as 100% sole author. I think that only leaves the possibility that someone could one day delete an article that no-one else had ever edited but lots of people had linked to. However if that happens I would anticipate such a redlink being rewritten very quickly. As for whether that would leave it as worth doing I would suspect that while this isn't going to transform CSD, it will over time make a very good return on the time taken to design and write it (today I've made three visits to CSD and 19 speedies would have been deleted by this bot). ϢereSpielChequers 13:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
100% is real nuisance. Someone makes a good faith typo fix in other editor's sandbox and now it can't be deleted, and cannot be taken to mainspace unless an admin finds enough time for a histmerge... letter of the rule should not be taken so far. NVO (talk) 12:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Well there would be no change for those speedies, the bot wouldn't decline them, it would, as at present, just leave them for an admin. I'm not proposing a change to the rules, merely an automation of a very non-contentious part of the rules. ϢereSpielChequers 15:26, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe davidwr posted to WP:BOTREQ a few months ago with an outline for a bot like this. It'd be nice if someone could dig up that thread and compare notes.

Having a single author is a silly requirement for pages in a user's user space (and the recent moves check is a smart one). Overall, though, I'm not sure if the cost is worth the benefit. These deletions are usually a dozen or so a day; it takes about a minute to clear any backlog.

That said, people often (ridiculously) put bot standards far above those of human admins. When considering the requirements for a bot, please be realistic. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

My proposal is at archived at Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_29#db-author_and_db-self_bot. I like the current proposal, although the "is there enough work to warrant this" concern has merit.
On higher standards for bots: Yes, we should have higher standards for automated processes.
One way to reduce the need to remove the continuous-operation requirement: Modify the templates so these SDs wind up in different categories. This would allow the bot to run daily or hourly, and as a bonus they wouldn't show up in the admin-monitored SD categories at all, which should be a big win. There would of course need to be a "rejected by bot" template which would put it back into one of the human-monitored categories, and a human would need to occasionally check the bot-category for evidence the bot isn't handling requests. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I do not necessarily remove a page db-author if it is nonetheless usable for an article. (this is not common, but it happens--an ed. starts off making an article, and stops when it becomes difficult--but its clearly notable and a ref can be found. sometimes, they realize it's a duplicate article, but it could be a redirect. an author has no inherent right to remove it. I think judgment is needed. DGG ( talk ) 01:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not just make a delete tab available for the author in the normal UI when such deletion would be possible? Many people who make test pages have no idea what a template is, and yet they want to clean up their mess. I think a delete tab that appears as long as no one else has edited the page would be a much nicer solution, and would encourage people to clean up after themselves. Gigs (talk) 14:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed criterion: A10

Hi there! I do the odd bit of new page patrolling. When finding articles that have been directly copied from another or an alternative of an already existent other, the deletion process for these articles takes seven days under WP:PROD. I propose that a new CSD (A10) is created so that direct copies and alternative articles can be deleted much more speedily.

Thank you,  Cargoking  talk  11:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I would be against this for new-pages, but would be in favor of this for pages where all version are substantial copies of an existing page and the most recent substantial edit is over 7 days old. Here's why: Sometimes people copy an article then change it up in the coming days to something useful. The best way to to this for new pages, and perhaps for old ones too, is to copy it to user-space, edit it, then move it into main-space, but sometimes people forget.
Perhaps a better solution:Create a template that says something like this This article appears to be a substantial copy of {{{sourcearticle}}}. Please rewrite it or move it into a sub-page of your user page and slap that on with the PROD. Alternatively, create a new PROD-reason. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Or, nine times out of ten, you should just redirect the copies to the proper title (moving one to the proper title as well, if necessary). Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Technically, any text copied without proper attribution is a copyright violation and can be deleted as such. Granted, simply redirecting the page to the original location is easier and also fine.
Sometimes people copy an existing article and then change only the subject's name in an effort to get an "instant biography" of a non-notable person (usually themseleves) that looks notable. Something like that can be deleted as vandalism. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, for those who talk to users about CSD a lot, you may have found it slightly annoying having to type out a link to the CSD you are discussing all the time (e.g. [[WP:CSD#A7|CSD A7]]). I do, so I've created a template at Template:csdl / sdl which does this for you (e.g. {{sdl|A7}} gives [[WP:CSD#A7|CSD A7]]). Hope you find it helpful :) - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, although of course most criteria already have short redirects like WP:A7. Good thing though nevertheless :-) Regards SoWhy 08:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Reminder for G12 admins: GFDL-only is no longer a valid free license

Hello, here's just a quick reminder, as it frequently happens that one of you declines a G12 I tag when working the backlog at WP:SCV when they see a GFDL-only source. Since the licensing transition on June 16th, GFDL-only text added after November 1st, 2008 is no longer licensed to use on Wikipedia. The content's source must be compatible with CC-BY-SA, and GFDL is not. For the non-legalese explanation, see WP:Licensing update#Content restrictions.

If you are unconfortable with this, the safest way for Wikipedia would be to tag the article with the {{copyvio}} template and list it at WP:CP for processing, ensuring potentially infringing content is no longer on display on the site. Cheers, MLauba (talk) 14:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I was going to make a {{db-gfdl}} tag or something like that, maybe I will. ViperSnake151  Talk  14:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I think that's a great idea, it will remove some confusion. MLauba (talk) 07:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Irish money speedy deletions

Category:Unspecified pages for speedy deletion currently has several images of Irish money nominated with the rationale that all Irish money is copyrighted. I'm inclined to think that we could come up with fair-use rationales for these images as opposed to speedy deleting them, but I thought I'd see what others make of this situation before taking any action. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest they're not speedies and should be sent to WP:PUI or WP:IFD; first off while the Irish Government has apparently retrospectively applied copyright to them this may not translate into being copyrighted in the US, especially for any which were public domain in Ireland in 1996 (I'm not 100% sure on this point, but see Wikipedia:Public_domain#Country-specific_rules) and secondly as you point out, many of them could be used under fair use regardless of their copyright status. Speedy is for obvious cases; these aren't. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 21:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree. I am not even sure if they are copyrighted. An image of a car does not infringe the copyright of the car maker, does it? I have sent the question to WP:MCQ though. Regards SoWhy 21:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
My knowledge of copyright is better than average, but still pretty weak. I know that in my photography classes in college they highly recommended avoiding pictures of distinctive car designs and logos when possible because of copyright issues. And yes, the car makers will pursue this. See this. :( --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
There's a general principle that if you take a photograph of a copyrighted work of art (such as a sculpture or building, or by extension a coin or car) then the copyright on the original work applies to your picture as well. However, there's an exemption in some countries which allows works on display in a public place to be photographed freely; see Freedom of panorama. This applies in Ireland, so I'd imagine (though I dont know for sure) that photographs of the coins would be OK. In any event, the matter is not cut and dried, so I'm going to remove the speedy tags - anyone who's concerned about the images can still list them at WP:PUI or WP:FFD. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 06:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Not quite. Functional ("utilitarian") objects cannot attract copyright, such as cars (useful link. Sculptures, stamps and others such as toys all can (because there's artistic endeavour involved in their creation), whilst currency is generally copyrighted for obvious reasons by nations, and the status of buildings varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. If you take a picture of a car, it's copyright-free. If you take a picture of a sculpture or coin (or stamp, or toy) it is a derivative work and the copyright remains with the holder, not you. Black Kite 10:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Not so fast on cars and other "mostly utilitarian" items. While the claim in Fabrictramp's link of Feb. 8 is probably legally dubious, a close-up of a purely ornamental part of a car, or a photo of a one-off/prototype design, particularly one that is just a display model not a functional car, or custom-paint-job car could very easily have copyright protections. Custom-painted race cars and other unique-looking vehicles probably have a stronger claim than your average showroom-floor vehicle. IANAL but I think courts would rule mostly based on "are you taking a picture of artwork, or of a functional thing." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
On re-reading, FoOrd's claim in Fabrictramp's link appears to be as much about trademarks as copyright - and whether you can claim an entire car as a trademark is a whole different question. However, my main question was about how freedom of panorama interacts with the principle Black kite mentions. In the UK at least (and Irish law is largelly modelled on UK law) a photograph of a "work of artistic craftsmanship", such as a sculpture, is not covered by the sculptor's original copyright, so long as the sculpture was "on permanent display in a public place". Assuming a coin is a work of artistic craftsmanship, this would certainly seem to apply to, say, a photo of a coin on display in a museum. Whether it applies to a coin I place on my table to take a picture of is another matter, but OTOH an argument could probably be constructed that by their nature, coins are expected to be in a public place for most or all of their lives. However, IANAL either, of course. Iain99Balderdash and piffle 14:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually, coins are the least controversial item here. Whilst a functional object in themselves, their designs are copyrighted, and so any image that is purely one of such a currency item is a derivative work. Obviously, a picture that happens to include part of an item of currency as incidental is unlikely to be covered. Cars are different. If I take a picture of a random car, it'sas a utilitarian object and thus not copyrighted - if you think about it, such copyright would cause major problems; the copyright of every photograph taken by a wedding photographer of the bride stepping out of the wedding car would be owned by the car manufacturer! However, if I take a picture of a particular part of the car that may attract copyright - for example, the logo of the manufacturer, purely as a photograph of that logo - then it would be derivative. Black Kite 19:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The one crystal clear conclusion from this discussion is that speedy is inappropriate because it's not an obvious case. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
A work of artistic craftsmanship is a 3D work, and the money was not permanently displayed in a public place. Whatever else, FOP is definitely not a runner for this. Stifle (talk) 16:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

These is the contibution log from the tagger: 

   * 11:33, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish £1 Millennium Reverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:33, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish £1 Millennium Obverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:32, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish £1 50th anniversary as member of UN reverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:32, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish £1 50th anniversary as member of UN obverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:32, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish 50p Dublin Millennium Reverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:31, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish 50p Dublin Millennium Obverse.jpg ‎
   * 11:30, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish ten shilling coin.png ‎
   * 11:29, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish coin 1p (1980).jpg ‎
   * 11:28, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish ten pence (decimal coin).png ‎
   * 11:28, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish ten shilling coin (obverse).png ‎
   * 11:27, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish shilling coin.png ‎
   * 11:25, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish penny coin.png ‎
   * 11:23, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish pound (reverse).png ‎
   * 11:22, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Punt - Series B - Ireland.png ‎
   * 11:20, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Punt - Series B - Ireland.png ‎
   * 11:20, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Punt - Series B - Ireland.png ‎
   * 11:18, 8 October 2009 (hist | diff) File:Irish pound (reverse).png ‎

The only thing User:Mvllez got deleted was a nomination on en.wikipedia for a file on commons, which was deleted with F2 (no file on en.) All the above had speedy delete declined, and other stuff that was still nominated as disputed ( I have removed the dispute tag as clearly invalid - all were fair use, MVllez made a claim they were copyrighted and therefore could not be used on commons. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

CSD log

Suggestion: to log disputed CSDs in one place, as examples of borderline cases where mistakes were made. That might be (a) educational, helping everyone understand consensus on interpreting particular CSD criteria; and (b) serve as a record where people making consistent mistakes (or consistently ignoring policy) might be identified, with a view to bringing the issue to their attention (or appropriate dispute resolution). Rd232 talk 14:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You mean like Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Overturned speedy deletions? Regards SoWhy 14:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I think DRV already serves the function of logging just the disputed and borderline. I think if this is to be useful we need to bite the bullet and do what we've never done (or not do it because it's too problematic): catalogue outright bad deletions, so we can start seeing patterns of admins who perform bad deletions over and over and once revealed confront them. There is no way to do this that will not be a public airing of dirty laundry. If done, it will inevitably be nasty and contentious and a dramafest. We've done many things to attempt to clarify the policies and reduce bad deletions through mistake and ignorance but never have we addressed the real problem: No matter how much we make the descriptions clear and restrictively worded, my impression is that the majority of bad deletions are by a limited subset of admins who don't care what the policies say. Occasionally a specific deletion and admin who performed it is skewered in some small way, but this would expose the issue far beyond such piecemeal matters. If we pussyfoot around the issue, not name names, make a bland list of deletions, nothing will happen. I do not relish this. Public shaming and making enemies and possible calls for dysysopping and so on is bad mojo stuff. (And I'm not volunteering to be at the forefront of such a process the coward in me prods me to say). But I do think if this is to go anywhere it would have to be down some rather in your face route, something that addresses the problem with a real and resolute mechanism for stopping what I;ve asserted is the real problem. I edit conflicted with SoWhy in writing this; his comment is directly on point: this will get us nowhere if it resembles Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Overturned speedy deletions and the proof is that that page doesn't address these issues. It is geared to do exactly the opposite of what I was saying. It states: "The deleting admins are not named here because the focus is on informing policy discussion and learning about common mistakes, not blaming users for their mistakes". Doing that, unfortunately, doesn't get us home. Maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe the benefits are outweighed by the negatives. But let's do something real or not bother.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
It depends on the spirit it's done in. To err is human. Without names, it's not much use - like the Overturned list. Rd232 talk 15:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree, if this is as confrontational as proposed, it will be a disaster. Irbisgreif (talk) 22:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Fuhgettabouit has hit the nail on the head. We can tweak the criteria till we're blue in the face, and analyze wrong headed nominations and deletions till the ends of the earth, but without directly confronting those who make these bad nominations and do these bad deletions, it will not stem the tide. That does not sound terribly fun, but it may be something that needs to happen in some cases. There is significant discussion about new processes for examining admin contribs and re-examining admins who may have made bad decisions at the newly formed Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator. Beeblebrox (talk) 10:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion

Prompted by a suggestion of user:DGG at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/new users, I'm making the proposal that "Admins should not be able to delete articles singlehanded except for abuse & vandalism." I've thought of this before, and may even have seen it discussed - but it doesn't seem to be policy. To be clear, I want to introduce the following line at the bottom of the "Procedure for administrators" section:

Admins who come across untagged, speedy-deletable pages should generally tag those pages, rather than delete them directly. This ensures that there is a second opinion involved in deletion. Exceptions should however be made for clearcut cases of abuse and vandalism. Dropped in favour of CBM's wording below, which is "An admin who encounters an untagged page that clearly meets a CSD criterion may delete the page without tagging it. If there is doubt about the applicability of a CSD criterion, however, it is preferable to tag the page without deleting it immediately, so that a second adminanother editor can review the tagged page and give another opinion."

cheers, Rd232 talk 14:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Could we solve this by removing the rather nebulous criterion A7. No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organisations, web content)., as well as G11 for that matter - which could be dealt with under WP:PROD? Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)This is practiced by a number of admins anyway, and so long as it's not required (i.e. admins can still delete immediately if they feel the need to (and that seems to be what your proposal is saying)), then I would support adding this "reminder" to the CSD page. </ec> In reply to Casliber, I don't think that is a good idea, WP:AFD would be flooded with removed prods, and the whole point of CSD is to cut out the process of PROD/AfD for cases where there is an obvious consensus that the page should be deleted, as with A7s - Kingpin13 (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
It would still be up to the admin to decide whether it's a clearcut case. The idea is to set a clear marker that a second opinion is a desirable part of the process. Rd232 talk 14:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) A7 and G11 have their place, they are just far too often (unfortunately) misapplied by admins but removing them will not help. As for the original suggestion, I don't think that is a good idea. Admins who know their CSD will also have the necessary knowledge to decide whether to delete or tag for a second opinion. For those it will just be WP:CREEPy to add that they should do so. For example, if I came across an article with "Jane Doe is the best girlfriend in the whole world", there is no point in tagging it instead of deleting, is there? And those admins who are bad with CSD will not care whether policy encourages them to tag instead or not anyway, so they will not change their behavior by such an addition. Regards SoWhy 14:28, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you could give the "admins who are bad with CSD" a little more credit. They're probably bad either because they're new(ish) admins or because they don't do speedy deletion tasks much. They probably recognise that, and a little guidance that says "hey, it may be a good idea to tag if you're not sure" may be helpful. Not dramatically When Harry Met Sally helpful, but a little bit. (And yes, it sounds obvious, but many things that sound obvious aren't, at least not to everyone; or even if they are, bear repetition as a reminder.) Rd232 talk 15:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
That quote is not what the proposal says, though. It says that admins should generally tag all CSD candidate pages (not only articles, and not only if there is doubt about whether they qualify). — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposal. The underlying principle of CSD is to codify certain cases where admins do often delete without discussion, not to set up a review system where one person places a tag and a second person reviews it. I don't see that there is a need for this change in general; the proposed change here seems mainly aimed at the A7 provision anyway. There are many ways to change A7 without trying to fundamentally rewrite the entire CSD policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not aimed at A7 in particular, though it probably affects that one the most. And in practice, CSD does work as a review system: most articles are tagged by non-admins, and deleted by an admin. All this change is saying is that this review approach has advantages that can be applied to those cases where the article is untagged and it isn't clearcut. The context here is Wikipedia:Requests for comment/new users where we're talking about how to be nicer to newbies, and reducing borderline errors (shouldn't have deleted) is one way. Rd232 talk 14:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
The context of that RFC is clearly articles created by news users, rather than pages in general. I doubt that many new users are influenced by whether I tag a page before I do a history merge, or whether I tag an empty category before I delete it. Really, the correct advice for admins would be: if you come across a page that should clearly be deleted, delete it; if you have some doubts, ask someone else. Over time, each admin develops a sense of which pages should clearly be deleted, and the CSD page lists some examples to give new admins an idea. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm confused by your first few sentences, and "if you have some doubts, ask someone else." is exactly the purpose of the guidance (using tagging as a handy way to ask someone who's probably good at CSDs). Rd232 talk 15:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
So I should "generally" place a speedy deletion tag on a page where I want to do a history merge, and then wait for someone else to come delete it? The proposal does not say anything about "if you have doubts", it says that even if you have no doubts you should "generally" tag the page even if you know it should be deleted. That seems like excessive bureaucracy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
OK, so it's a wording issue? The aim is that in cases where there is a substantial judgement required on whether a case is eligible for speedy deletion, admins are encouraged to get a second opinion (by tagging if the article is untagged). Where zero judgement is required (mere cleanup) or very little (blatant vandalism) clearly that doesn't apply. Can you suggest an alternate wording to embody this principle? Rd232 talk 15:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I see; I thought you were trying to encompass more than just when there is significant doubt. For the latter, something like this would be fine with me:
"An admin who encounters an untagged page that clearly meets a CSD criterion may delete the page without tagging it. If there is doubt about the applicability of a CSD criterion, however, it is preferable to tag the page without deleting it immediately, so that a second admin can review the tagged page and give another opinion."
— Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. That's fine with me, though I'd put "however" at the beginning of the second sentence, rather than in the middle. Rd232 talk 16:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
I like that as well. It allows for the many exceptions to the twice-reviewed system but still notes the importance and value of having two sets of eyes. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Encouraging a second opinion is a good idea. Speedy deletion runs contrary to the way things normally work on Wikipedia. That is, it is done single-handed and can not easily be undone by normal editors. Additionally, having one's first new article deleted is the most likely the easiest way to scare a contributor away. Given these facts, it only makes sense to encourage a second set of eyes when there is any doubt about whether a new article meets the CSD criteria or not. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I support CBM's proposal; it's what I generally do anyway. I would not accept a hard requirement to tag rather than delete, because there are some articles that quite clearly should be deleted for non-notability (the quintessential "John Smith is a student at Elementary School #45, Maine and has a dog called Max." comes to mind). We're not exactly blessed with excess sysops, and this would give the creator of the page extra time to remove the tag and avoid the deletion. Stifle (talk) 08:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • If you're saying that this should only be done if the admin has to make a value judgement, then you're effectively saying that the CSD criteria aren't clear enough, so this answer is basically answering a different question. (And I'd say that G11 is the biggest problem here, not A7). To Casliber - if you got rid of A7, you do realise that would mean that every single article like the one mentioned by Stifle just above would have to go to PROD, don't you? Which would mean complete overload of AfD when the PROD tags are removed... Black Kite 21:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of that...good point. In which case I support the idea of a second pair of eyes being good. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I certainly agree G11 is the worst problem--at least at present. It's easy to notice promotion, but it's hard to say whether it is "exclusively promotional," and especially hard to define "fundamentally" in deciding whether it "would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic". I know I am affected by the possible notability in deciding if a rewrite is worth it, and I would much rather someone checked what I did. When I do a deletion request another admin disagrees with, it's usually for G11
And I also agree we need A7. There is such a large number of utterly worthless bios in particular that it's really needed. Of course, it it weren't there we might start calling some of them vandalism, but it's better not to use that unless there is really outrageous abuse, as an indication of something really serious, not just stupid.
On the general question of single handed deletions, we can try to change the wording, sure. but if it does not do much good, I will be back here making the suggestion again, probably as an RfC so people in general will see it. DGG ( talk ) 22:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed that there has been a large increase in G11s since the New Article Wizard came into use; I'm guessing that previously people didn't understand how to write an article at all, and so they got deleted under other criteria, but with the NAW they're now writing articles that are flagrantly promotional, but otherwise hit the guidelines. I've found myself split about 50/50 between deleting and fixing (i,e, [7]) recently. Black Kite 22:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Support (edit conflict) I'm not sure how exactly this can be implemented, but except for the rare cases where keeping the article another hour is quite harmful (ie the "Joe smells and everyone hates him" type of article), a second set of eyes is always a good thing. I can't thing of a single admin, myself included, who hasn't had a brain fade at least once. Giving most speedies a second look is a net positive.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Wholehearted support. In response to Fabrictramp, I think the exact way it should be implemented is described here.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm misreading it (end of my work day and I'm fried), but it seems your essay is describing when (ie under what circumstances) it should be implemented, not how.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Hmm. Maybe I'm not understanding the question, then. By "[how can] this be implemented", I thought you meant "in what specific circumstances can this be implemented". To me, it seems like the actual process is trivial: it's a behavioural guideline, i.e. in the circumstances described, don't delete material unless someone else has tagged it first. If nobody has tagged it, then tag it and let another admin perform the deletion. What am I missing?—S Marshall Talk/Cont 00:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
It was more one of wondering about the technical aspects. Would something be added to CSD that admins who currently delete on sight could ignore without repercussions (and possibly without detection)? Would the deleted button be changed in functionality? Something else? To me it's really not trivial, because I've discussed this issue with several of the "delete on sight, second set of eyes be damned" admins, and polite discussion has been met with "you're an admin, restore it if you disagree, otherwise leave me the hell alone, I'll do what I like."--Fabrictramp | talk to me 13:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I think that's tending off-topic. The proposal is to add a line of guidance to WP:CSD. There is no enforcement envisaged (or easily implementable). If people ignore it, fine - unless they're too often making bad decisions, in which case that has to be tackled. Rd232 talk 14:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
"I'm not sure how exactly this can be implemented"... the proposal is to add a line to WP:CSD to guide admins on how to act. Possibly it can be added to related relevant places like admin school and such. So I'm not sure what you mean by "implementation". Rd232 talk 07:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
  • The way I'd put it is, policy pages should describe best practice. In other words, policy pages should be aimed at people who would like to know what's the right thing to do in a given situation. The page should assume the reader is visiting the policy page for guidance, and provide it.

    I do recognise SoWhy's point, which is that the people we need to reach with this won't heed the rules in any case. But I think it's tangential to the purpose of this page: to describe best practice.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 15:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Support, I'd however recommend an exception for G10 and G12. MLauba (talk) 07:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose (see below for strike reason). I don't think this is really a "second opinion" at all. When I come to an article tagged for speedy deletion I don't find a real "opinion" in place, just a tag someone saw fit to apply from the few possibilities that have sharply defined criteria. I then review the article de novo, little different than if I came across it at newpages. Sometimes I delete it in accordance with the tag. Sometimes I decline. Sometimes I delete it but for a different reason. I am not really providing a second opinion but reviewing articles segregated into a category so that I don't need to look at lots of articles that are not proper candidates to find ones that, more often than not, are. To put it another way, what articles would be speedily deleted would change little if taggers just placed articles into CAT:CSD without providing a specific tag. If we use a healthcare analogy, a second opinion is provided by a doctor after a first so that a patient can decide based on two opinions they received. Here there is no patient-third party. The first doctor has provided a diagnosis but it is a cipher diagnosis from a tiny list of possibilities and without the complexity found in medicine. The second doctor gets to decide what he or she will do, alone. Before I became an administrator I tagged a few thousand articles for speedy deletion and I don't think I had a single decline. Every one of those articles would have been deleted if I had had the tools and acted directly rather than middle man. Now I must go through the circumlocution of tagging? One of the reasons I became an admin was to avoid that inefficiency (note that I rarely actually do this; I spend little time at newpages, but that's not the point). Now, we all know that there are lots of bad taggings—anyone can place a speedy tag. When we went through RFA the community decided we had the experience to be trusted with the tools. Sure, there are admins who suck at making these decisions. But I think it changes nothing. Admins who review properly are going to delete the same articles they would have if they found it tagged and not delete those they would have declined if they found them in CAT:CSD. Bad reviewing admins will go on deleting articles they shouldn't, and they can as easily do that from CAT:CSD as they can directly. It's a wash.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
    • (I hate interlineating but there's no logical way to insert this at the end and have it properly relate). The new proposed language is 180 degrees from the original proposal. As RD232 notes directly below, I was responding to the original which referred to tagging in general. I do not think the revised language will have any significant effect— maybe no effect at all—but I'm neutral on it. Any admin who speedily deletes articles they have "doubts" about has missed something fundamental . I think that ignorance is unlikely. Those who speedily delete the "doubtful" don't care what the CSD actually say and won't care about this advisory change that is already part of the policy, if not quite this explicit. If we want to actually make a difference we have to go after those who ignore the policy in a public way that calls the community's attention to the handful of admins who ignore the policy over and over (for years) and makes them stop. No one that I've ever seen has been willing to make that stink by going to the effort of logging the evidence and calling out the admins in question by name in a public way (and I'm not blaming anyone, I haven't thrown down that gauntlet either).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
      • I appreciate from this discussion (didn't really before) that this is an issue. Maybe we could move in that direction by trying to log disputed CSDs in one place, as examples of borderline cases where mistakes were made. That might be both educational and serve as a record where people making consistent mistakes (or consistently ignoring policy) might be identified. Rd232 talk 12:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    I've just noticed that you wrote "Now I must go through the circumlocution of tagging?", which suggests you've misunderstood the proposal. What's suggested is guidance for cases of doubt; if you have no doubt in a particular case, than it's up to you. Rd232 talk 14:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Good point. Due to the nature of the process, there will always be a large number of incorrect taggings. As such, tagging merely serves as a way to call admins' attention to those articles who then review it and to inform the creator that deletion is possible to occur. If an admin is unsure, they can tag a new page themselves and see whether another admin agrees with them and I would strongly suggest every admin to do so. But that is moot because, let's face it, sensible admins already do so and thus there is no point in adding such an advice to the policy and of course, as I said above, those who "suck" (as Fuhghettaboutit puts it) at speedy deletion will not care about it anyway. So how will putting it there change anything at all? Regards SoWhy 11:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
      • You made the same point above, but didn't reply to my response. So I repeat it here: "Perhaps you could give the "admins who are bad with CSD" a little more credit. They're probably bad either because they're new(ish) admins or because they don't do speedy deletion tasks much. They probably recognise that, and a little guidance that says "hey, it may be a good idea to tag if you're not sure" may be helpful. Not dramatically When Harry Met Sally helpful, but a little bit. (And yes, it sounds obvious, but many things that sound obvious aren't, at least not to everyone; or even if they are, bear repetition as a reminder.)" I think that answers Fuhghettaboutit too, whose criticism of the "second opinion" metaphor is valid of course where the tagger is a non-admin, which isn't what we're talking about. Rd232 talk 13:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
        • It's also worth noting that there may well be a difference in the amount of attention given articles in different situations. Admins reviewing CAT:CSD hopefully do it carefully, as the primary task they're focussed on. Admins coming across speedy deletable junk may have their focus elsewhere, and may not give the same attention to it; they may not want to provide the effort to resolve a borderline case. Tagging here is preferable, and telling people that (some do it anyway) is not a bad thing. Rd232 talk 13:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
          • Sorry for not noticing the response. Unfortunately, not all those admins are new(ish) or seldom at CSD. There is a couple of admins who are both old(ish) (so to speak) and who do CSD quite often who simply are bad at it but who have previously proven unwilling to fix their errors. In fact, new admins are (since RFA became stricter in these matters) more likely to be better CSD admins than those admins who were promoted in 2004-2006. Again, I, too, agree that tagging should be preferred if an admin is unsure but I do also note that this already happens quite often. Regards SoWhy 09:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
            • Well, OK... so if it's generally a good idea and many people already do it, then there's little reason to avoid saying it's a good idea (as a signal to admins old and new). It may or may not have any impact on the bad admins you mention, but then it's so hard to do anything about admins behaving as you imply, especially when they've grown set in their ways. Rd232 talk 09:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Unnecessary complication. Ruslik_Zero 13:25, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
    • How is it a complication? It is merely guidance. Rd232 talk 13:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
      I opposed the first option. I, however, oppose the second option too, because it does not make any sense at all. A page can only be speedly deleted if there no doubt that it satisfies a SD criterion. If there is a doubt, the page can not be speedied—it should be proposed for deletion or nominated for deletion instead. Ruslik_Zero 13:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
      • In principle, yes. In practice, people are human. The guidance reminds people that when deciding whether to delete or not, if there is doubt ("probably meets the criteria, don't have time to give it enough attention"), there's no shame in tagging a likely candidate, and that's certainly better than either (a) walking away and doing nothing because you're not sure enough to delete or (b) deleting because it's "probably" deletable. Rd232 talk 13:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Support. Second opinions are always a good idea. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 15:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I support the original (struck through) proposal, and Oppose the version which replaces it (not least because it falsely implies that only admins may review/remove tags). DuncanHill (talk) 15:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Well the implication is accidental I'm sure. So if "second admin" were replaced with "another editor", would that be OK? Rd232 talk 16:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
      • That would be much better, but I do still prefer the original version (I think much of the disagreements and drama surrounding speedy deletions wouod be avoided by minimizing deletion without tagging). DuncanHill (talk) 14:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
        • Perhaps, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to try and prevent "deletion without tagging" and then make a list of exceptions when it's OK (inevitable definitional drama aside, it's hard to enforce, because of interpretability of exception criteria). I'm happy to just establish the principle that deletion without tagging is to be avoided if there is any doubt in the admin's mind, which is what it basically comes down to unless we ban "deletion without tagging" without exception. Rd232 talk 14:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
          • Thanks for making the change. As I see it, the only cases where deletion without tagging makes any sense are copyvios and blatant BLP vios - they expose the Wikipedia to legal peril and should go and go as quickly as possible. I don't see that othr CSD candidates are anything like as serious. The trouble with the "any doubt in an admin's mind" is that the admins who do entertain doubts are rarely the ones who make contentious untagged deletions anyway (and until we can monitor admins' thoughts remotely we can never question their decisions). It's the "I had no doubt about this" ones who seem to be at the root of the dramas. DuncanHill (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
            • That may be true, but if the principle is established as proposed, it should still make some difference in general, and perhaps, over time, make it slightly less acceptable to behave like that for the sort of people you're talking about. Rd232 talk 22:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Not particularly opposed, but unsure about the benefit. I find my comment (as a non-administrator) back in June is still valid: An interesting statistic would be how many [incorrectly deleted articles] were actually tagged, but I suspect most of them were. That is, they went through the proposed checking process ... Anyway, the fact remains that those deletions went against existing policy. If the deleting administrator decided to ignore (or believed they were acting in accordance with) the current CSD policy, why would we expect them to respect an even stricter policy? decltype (talk) 11:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC) decltype (talk) 08:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I certainly support this proposal, and very strongly, which should be no surprise since I';ve been trying to get in adopted for 2 years now. It will certainly save fixable articles--if we remove 1000 articles a day . & 1/4 are by admins alone, with the customary 10% error rate, we are probably losing 25 improvable articles for the encyclopedia-- a review would cut it to perhaps 2. thats 7,500 a year lost; this may not seem much in context of 3 million, but this is material that would expand our coverage--many of the unjustified deletions I see are in unfamiliar fields, which means they would make a considerable impact in correcting our systematic bias. But I am mainly concerned with saving editors: I'm guessing from long experience that half the editors of these articles will never return, and a loss of almost 4 thoiusand productive editors a year is something very important. If even half of them convert into regular contributors, thats a critical two thousand people added to our rolls. Additional, this will deal with a few major bad examples without the need to confront them, such as []http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=Orderinchaos&page=&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1], There are quite a dew others, nutthis is the latest to attract my attention.
the only cases that need instant removal are Defamation and Vandalism. (and deletes to do page moves, since that's bullt into the page move template for admins & would otherwise be exceedingly cumbersome).
I am going to be frank about it: any admin who opposes it has too high an opinion of themselves. DGG ( talk ) 16:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Well that's pretty all-guns-blazing... and I don't immediately see why you point to that particular delete log. Anyway I certainly think CSD is, in practice, one of the structurally WP:BITEiest parts of Wikipedia. I think there's rather more to be gained from helping new users not end up in that situation (eg, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/new users#Article creation, where requiring autoconfirmed status to create articles without going through the Article Wizard is discussed), but reducing CSD errors, as well as trying harder to save CSD candidates, is certainly part of what we can do. Rd232 talk 16:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I was led to that particular log because one item from it was queried on my talk page for a confirming opinion on undeletion just yesterday, so it was the most recent example I have. Though I have at least one or two from further back, it will take a while to find them, and I was reminded on my talk p. to contribute some more to this discussion. Anyway, that's the worst use of deletion rationales I can recall in the 3 years I've been here. If anyone knows of worse, let's hear of them.~
As I pointed out above, it would be absurd for me to tag history merges so that someone else could delete the pages before I merge them. If the concern is with particular criteria concerning pages created by new users, then change those criteria. But most of the CSD criteria have nothing to do with those articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Procedure creep that likely wouldn't result in any actual change, in part because its purely advisory. Mr.Z-man 04:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    Contradictory much? How can something "advisory" be "procedure creep"? This is an advisory note basically describing a best practice which is fairly widespread. I fail to see, really, how that can be opposed. Rd232 talk 10:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    Being required is not a prerequisite to being a procedure. The only people that this would lead to a change in behavior are policy wonks who do things because policy tells them to; but those people don't even come close to controversial for things like this, so that wouldn't make a difference. People using common sense are already doing this, and people who aren't policy wonks and don't use common sense will continue to screw up. I oppose putting things that are optional and unenforceable into a policy that people apply strictly by the letter. Mr.Z-man 20:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    So, basically it's a good idea qua practice, but it's a bad idea to put it in the policy as identified good practice. I can't quite wrap my head around that. Is there somewhere else this good practice might be recorded? Rd232 talk 21:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    The speedy deletion criteria are common practice, but they're also enforceable, therefore, they can be in a policy. Not deleting something if you aren't sure is common practice (or at least a good idea), but since we have no way of reading people's thoughts, is nothing more than an idea, unenforceable, and should not be in a policy. I don't think its necessary to record this anywhere. Nothing says that admins have to always delete if they think something meets CSD, or that admins can't tag pages. We shouldn't need to codify every common sense thing just because someone thinks to do so. This is really just a specific use of the more general idea of "if you aren't sure, ask." Mr.Z-man 01:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Will clearly cut down on the bad deletes, and badly bitten newbies driven away. It's the usual practice anyway, and a good idea to make a rule of it somehow.John Z (talk) 11:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment - I rarely delete pages speedily that haven't been tagged and would also recommend such. On the other hand a direct deletion may be completely appropriate also in cases where there is some other indicative context than a tag itself. One big benefit of the tag is that it usually comes with a notification to the creator either by good practice or automatically with a tool, which may allow for addressing the problem for which the article is being tagged (e.g A1, A3 or A7). While the deletion can still be explained afterwards, that is more cumbersome to do, and if not done at all, completely bewildering for newbies.--Tikiwont (talk) 20:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Do you do history merges often, or delete redirects to accomplish page moves? Deletion of articles created by new users is not the same as speedy deletion in general. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:12, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Sure, but which ones do we worry about here? Incidentally I pick up most of my speedies from CAT:CSD. That includes both tagged new articles and tagged housekeeping deletions e.g of redirects. As already said there are valid reasons to do a speedy without a tag such as for requested moves but also elsewhere. What I tried to highlight is the benefit of tagging and notifying with respect to communication to and transparency for the concerned editor where applicable. So when a user tags a page I'd of course expect him in most cases to notify the creator and point them to relevant policies and guidelines.
      • A different question is when the admin should make the judgment call alone. As already said above, in theory they shouldn't do so for controversial cases per the very idea of CSD. In practice that isn't true, but what would be an effective way to address it? Speaking for myself, if I consider a page too controversial to delete per CSD, I would in general not tag it either, but rather list it somewhere (e.g at the copyright page), or prod it or apply maintenance tags and see. Possible exceptions are those where tagging and notifying benefits the creator, pages that I had already deleted once as well as occasional sanity checks. Other admins might be more or less cautious but they may either way think that they do mostly uncontroversial deletions. If we add such a recommendation for admins we should also consider alternative places and e.g start a subpage Administrator instructions acknowledging the benefit to have such instructions even for speedy deletions and although no single admin seems to need them personally;)--Tikiwont (talk) 09:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Pointless CBM's wording is fine, but it seems like unncecessary codifying. It's always been the case that if you're not sure whether to delete something or not, then don't delete it. PROD it (thus ensuring a second opinion), tag it for improvement, redirect it, just remove the tag, or whatever. Surely this isn't a difficult concept? If there are admins that are continually IARing and deleting non-speediable stuff, they need to be told. (Note: there is a time and place for IAR speedies, but if you find yourself applying it more than very infrequently, you're doing something wrong). Black Kite 17:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Summary. The proposal was for providing guidance on good CSD practice, which is generally agreed to be tagging when an admin has some doubt about whether a page is speedy deletable. This is understood as an alternative to what might otherwise seem a binary choice, of deleting the page or of doing nothing ("never mind, leave it"), when the admin isn't quite sure (for whatever reason, including lack of time to properly judge). Admins might well focus on this binary choice for a variety of reasons, and the proposal was to explicitly point out the wisdom of the alternative. However, (a) tagging where there is doubt is common sense - so damned obvious it doesn't need saying. (b) all admins at all times apply common sense, by a sort of osmosis or by RFA preventing anyone without it being promoted (c) except that there are some admins who are not sensible and don't closely enough follow CSD policy. (d) something must be done about the admins in group c, but this proposal isn't it, therefore this proposal is a waste of time. (e) something must be done about the admins in group c, which might be an unenforceably strict version of the good practice, namely nothing should be deleted without prior tagging (except where obviously and immediately necessary). Conclusion: bah. I'm done with this thread. Wikipedia is frequently an exercise in herding cats... Rd232 talk 17:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Make Essay: Write it up and see if it's widely adopted. I think I can summarize the essay in one sentence: "Articles should not be deleted without two editors looking at it unless it is necessary for the good of the project." The essay would go on to explain what qualifies as "for the good of the project." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Are A7 and A9 about importance or a lack of significant coverage?

I think the wording of A7 and A9 is misleading are not really about importance per se, they are about a complete lack of significant coverage. The reason I say this is that subjective importance is not a valid deletion criteria, otherwise notable topics could be candidates for deletion. Rather, it seems to me that topcis that become A7 and A9 candidates not only not notable, but they lack significant coverage in the form of commentary, ciriticism or analysis that would make them suitable for inclusion as standalone articles. I think the wording must be changed to eliminate reference to subjective importance (or just importance) altogether. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:50, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

A7 and A9 have nothing to do with coverage. An article with no sources at all can pass A7 as long as it has a plausible claim of importance, whether or not that claim is backed up by sources. Mr.Z-man 17:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree that A7 and A9 say that have nothing to do with coverage, siginificant or otherwise, but the problem is that subjective importance a.k.a. WP:IKNOWIT has never been a legitimate reason for deleting an article, as aribitary claims of importance are not supported by any of Wikipedia's content policies. The only recognised criteria for deletion are a failure to meet these policies, as evidenced by a lack of notability, which A7 and A9 do on account of not being the subject of significant coverage a.k.a plausible evidence of importance. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
They say they have nothing to do with coverage because they don't. They only cover (some) articles which do not contain any reasons why the reader should, put bluntly, give half a shit about the subject. The reason A7 (and by extension A9) does not require that articles have sources it to avoid deleting things with even the slight possibility of being notable. If we deleted all new articles which lacked sources, we would lose many articles for subjects which actually are notable, since no one would have taken the time to search for sources. I hope this helps explain it a bit. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I think he means that they should apply when no sources exist. However, he's failing to consider that it takes much more time than CSD allots to determine this. The criteria should be left as they are. Irbisgreif (talk) 22:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I would still argue that at the core of A7 and A9 is that articles which do not contain any reasons why the reader should, put less bluntly, understand the subject is because of lack of significant coverage, rather than a highly subjective measure such as importance. Look at two examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MBSL is probably a good candidate for A7, because completely lacks significant coverage from any source other than the company's web page, whereas the article Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Endless Pools is the subject of some coverage, so A7 does not apply.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
As said above, A7 and A9 are to remove those articles which subjects are not in any imaginable way important or significant (high school kids, myspace bands, personal websites, small companies in small towns etc.) But they do not nor have ever required any sources or coverage to be applied. The existence of coverage can lead to declining an otherwise valid A7/A9, true, but never the other way around because that would be against the very spirit why the criteria were created. No, if an article passes CSD, it's problem can be assessed by other means and lacking coverage (i.e. failing WP:V or WP:N) can lead to PROD or AFD but no admin patrolling can assess whether coverage might possibly exist somewhere; for example you will not easily find sources for some guy who lived 1500 years ago, yet those sources can exist and if the article indicates why that guy is significant, then it stays so others can look for those sources. Regards SoWhy 16:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Your confusion might stem from the fact that most admins will decline A7s when there are sources present. This is because having a source means that the article could pass WP:N, and WP:N is explicitly a stricter criterion than A7 is. However, not all articles that fail WP:N are also covered by A7. The first reason, rather obviously, is that A7 only covers specific types of articles. The second reason is that the bar A7 sets is deliberately lower than that of WP:N, so as to avoid deleting things that could possibly be notable. By a "deliberately lower" bar, I mean that the article need merely mention anything which would indicate that someone somewhere might maybe sometimes care about the subject, rather than the somewhat strict bar WP:N sets of having significant coverage. The criterion, as written, might be difficult to parse properly for meaning (which is something we are always trying to work on), but it is not actually terribly subjective, since what it requires is so incredibly basic to writing proper articles. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Agreed with Lifebaka (both comments), Irbisgreif and SoWhy. I understand your frustration in what sounds like a subjective criterion ... "I think it's significant" isn't any better than WP:ILIKEIT, but that's not what A7 is. A7 is an assessment of whether at least one assertion is made that could in theory allow the article to survive long-term if it were sourced properly. - Dank (push to talk) 00:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is R3 limited to "recently created"?

It seems extremely arbitrary to not be able to R3 implausible redirects just based on their age. Can someone please explain how an implausible redirect somehow becomes more acceptable due to the passage of time? Does vandalism become more plausible if it is not reverted immediately? Do WP:NFT articles require AfD just because they weren't caught by NP Patrol? Sometime last year I stumbled across an editor who had created tens of implausible redirects that could only be described as childish vandalism. I was forced to take the whole lot to RfD simply because they were not "recently" created. I suggest that the "recently" criterion be removed (or alternatively that admins consider the word "recently" in terms of the age of the universe :P), unless someone can prove or at least demonstrate why it should stay? p.s. archive search didn't reveal a direct answer to my question, I know there is some prior discussion. Regards. Zunaid 16:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 36#R3 - why only recent?. –xenotalk 16:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
All I see is a completely inconclusive discussion. The best argument came from Fuhghettaboutit who tried to at least use some sort of scientific method to show why the word "recently" is completely useless (in essence, "implausible" is ALREADY a catch-all criterion), where opposing editors opined that "I believe we should keep recently" rather than any concrete arguments. The discussion did not reach any consensus before dying out so can we still consider it open? Zunaid 18:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
After a day or two an implausible redirect will not have garnered much attention, but after a month or three or 20 the odds of it being used is far higher. As Beeblebrox says below, there's no harm in having a redirect, no matter how absurd, so we might as well be on the safe side when it comes to deletion of potentially useful redirects. RfD defaults to delete, so the burden isn't too great. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Of course - my linking it was not meant to shut down your thread, but merely to point people to the most recent discussion on it so as to not have to go repeat old arguments. –xenotalk 19:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
FYI, WP:NFT is never a sufficient speedy deletion criteria. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • My take on deleting redirects is that there is only an actual point to deleting them if they are deceptive, offensive, or disruptive in some other way. Redirects are free, if they are not malicious and might potentially help just one user find the content they are looking for they are doing a good job. Not actually an answer to your primary question I realize, but maybe a reason why the previous discussion fizzled out. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I think one reason for "recently" is to avoid people going through lists of redirects looking for ones to delete. If an R3 redirect is created new and someone happens to notice it, they can deal with it. But some people have a very broad meaning of "implausible", which might apply to very well-established redirects (including redirects such as WP:Wai) that may make sense only to the people who use them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

notifying users

The last couple of days, I've have been running into this a lot. I often send a "follow up" message after doing a speedy deletion, explaining to the page's creator exactly why the page was deleted, working on it as a subpage, etc, and I'm finding that a lot of users are not being informed at all that the article they created could be deleted. Unfortunately all the main page says is that nominators "should consider" if they should notify the creator, so there's little that can be done about users who simply don't want to do it for whatever reason. We used to have User:CSDWarnBot, but the bot's operator was unwilling to fix certain problems with it, and it was shut down. I wonder if we could try to find a more sympathetic user who knows about bots to handle this. In the discussion that led to the bot being shut down, the operator repeatedly said he was unwilling to modify it, and that someone else should do it. The problem was that it was issuing notifications too quickly. For example, in some circumstances a user might wish to notify someone with a personal message instead of the usual template, but by the time they got the message written, the bot had already left a giant template on their page. The suggestion was that the bot hold off on notifying for ten or fifteen minutes in order to give users a chance to do it themselves. The bot creator seemed to think this was possible, but utterly refused to do it himself. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Original conversation is here: [8] Beeblebrox (talk) 20:10, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I think that's a great idea. For the nonce, I think it would be good if all were aware of the existence of {{SD warn-needed}} (which I wasn't until about ten seconds ago; I am tweaking the template now).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of that either, I wonder if we could get it added to Twinkle and Huggle? Beeblebrox (talk) 00:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't have time to write the bot right now, but I will note it is exceptionally easy (from a technical standpoint) to add a delay. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I see the bot is written in Perl, which is what I always work with. I will contact ST47 (via email since he isn't really active currently) and see if he can provide me the code - should be easy enough to modify from there. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I have just about given up on having anything added to Twinkle. You have no idea what I went through to get Twinkle to issue tailored warnings for speedy deletions (including a TfD of the generic template it was using in order to get the right people's attention). The past few schemes I've tried by posting on the talk page got swallowed up like a black hole. No response. No one home who matters (i.e., someone who can actually do the nitty gritty of tweaking the program). Anyway, yes it would be good, and good luck with that!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I just posted a request at the Twinkle talk page, but I'm not going anywhere near the Huggle talk page after my last encounter there. And yes, it seems that making those changes would be easy for anyone who has the slightest clue about bot programming, which I do not. That's exactly what was so frustrating the last time this came up, dude kept telling everyone that he didn't care if somebody else did it, and we all kept trying to explain that we'd be glad to if we had the know-how. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
The CSDWarnBot code will soon be available online linked from my PAUSE FTP directory. The filename is CSDWarnBot-1.0.1.pl. To operate it, replace the username in line 9 with your username and create a file 'pass' in the working directory with the bot's password followed by a newline, readable to the user which will be executing the bot. The code is GPL, creditable to "Dan Collins <DCOLLINS@cpan.org>". 155.246.122.77 (talk) (ST47 logged out) 03:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
As well as the time issue. There appears to be other problems with that code (although I don't know perl), it doesn't look like the bot even recognises {{db-person}}. I'd be happy to code a new bot to do the same thing as CSD-warn bot did, except with the time delay. - Kingpin13 (talk) 08:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Dan has indicated to me via email that he is now willing to make the modifications himself, so I think that it is best/easiest solution for now, and have advised him as much. I also said to let me know if he changes his mind so that we can make other plans in that case. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:33, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
This is all so far over my head, I don't understand a word of it. On that subject, it seems that the folks who manage Twinkle are amenable to adding SD warn-needed, but have asked for some minor tweaks to it, and again, I didn't even understand the question. I'm the same way with my car, I can drive better than anyone you ever saw, but I'm (deliberately) clueless about what goes on under the hood. (The thread is [[Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#{{SD warn-needed}}]].) Beeblebrox (talk) 21:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Whoa, what? I see exactly two times you came to WT:TW since 2007, WT:Twinkle/Archive 16#CSD warning notices and WT:Twinkle/Archive 17#Notification of templates, and both were answered and discussed. What are you referring to, Fuhghettaboutit? Amalthea 22:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Started responding here but pretty tangential to this discussion and large post, so responding at user talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Tell you one thing that would help: WP:VPR#Easier/better userfication. If you're userfying a CSD, it doesn't matter so much if the creator was notified. Rd232 talk 22:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you don't leave a redirect behind, there's not much point userfying a CSD unless you tell the author where it now is. ϢereSpielChequers 10:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
OK, "it doesn't matter so much if the creator was previously notified". :P Rd232 talk 11:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Definition of "test page" G2

Hi, friends! A question regarding "test page" G2. If I am new page patrolling and come across a page that says, "Can I really make a wikipedia page?" with no content or context, I think it's fair to tag it G2. However, let's say a brand new editor makes an article but it's not in very good shape. The code is all wrong, formatting is bad and they even signed it on the article page. There may be content and context, but the article isn't in such good shape. Is it then fair to tag it as G2 and have the admin move the page into userspace? I can imagine the conversation going something like, "I signed up with Wikipedia and tested out making a page, but I didn't understand the code and formatting and it looked really bad." So, can G2 apply to this? Thanks!! Basket of Puppies 19:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

If there is content intended in good faith to be part of an article, it should not be tagged as a test page. "Code and formatting" is very easy to fix, and someone's skill at picking up difficult concepts from the start should not affect the future of a page. Tests should be blatantly obvious, and will often include the example text, images, and links. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
IMO most cases that should be deleted G2 are the ones where the person made it fairly obvious that it was a test page (EG they make a statement to the effect.) Other cases that might apply would be if they have a bunch of different coding items that are not really related to one another... EG a picture of George Washington, a graph showing the the annual median income in venezula, a table of super bowl winners, etc. I agree with Amory, if it has content and is intended to be an article in full or part, it isn't G2. If it has content, but isn't intended as part of an article, G2 might be appropriate. G2 is almost a subcategory of G3, but assumes good faith.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 19:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Nod! It makes perfect sense to me now. Thanks!! Basket of Puppies 23:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I also use it for obviously incomplete articles that were clearly abandoned. It can be hard to tell, but it something breaks off in the middle of a sentence and is not returned to after a week or two, I'll consider it test. By extension, I also use it when I think the test is to see that editing is possible: "Hi! I'm John Smith and I go to Middletown High School. " could be called A7, but that seems bitey, and so does G3. I think G2 usually comes closest. DGG ( talk ) 18:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. Pages with "Hi!!" on them are usually likely G2 candidates in addition to whatever else. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Maybe a hard definition like "A page outside of the official Sandbox or userspace intended to be a good faith attempt at testing Wikipedia's editing functions" could help. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
If the test page is by a newbie then I would suggest simply moving it to their userpage or Sandbox as appropriate and putting a note to that effect on their talkpage. If you're not an admin then you also need to tag the redirect for deletion. It doesn't take much more time and is much less bitey than simply deleting it. ϢereSpielChequers 10:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding multiple CSD tags to one article?

Forgive me if this has been obviously stated somewhere that I have overlooked, but would it be appropriate to tag a page for speedy deletion under multiple criteria? For example, let's say I come across a page that is an obvious copyright infringement, yet is also promoting something. Would I tag the page under both categories, or is it more appropriate to only chose one, which in this case I would probably tag it for copyright infringement, as it is more serious. Of course, I doubt it matters as it will still be deleted, but just curious. Thanks, ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with giving two tags. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Great, thanks ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I usually pick the more serious one, but sometimes if one seems iffy to you (it shouldn't, but let's be honest we're all iffy sometimes) the more solid argument is also a nice way to go. That's assuming it's not something like a copyvio or attack that should be taken care of ASAP. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 02:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I think two tags risks being bitey especially if the article is by a newbie. I have certainly seen occasions where A7 is upgraded to G10, and would suggest that taggers think of the author when considering a second tag. ϢereSpielChequers 10:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
There's a flip side to that however. I often delete copyright violations as both a copyvio and blatant advertising, in order that the deletion log reflect both problems. Of course that doesn't require that both tags be on the article, but if there are multiple problems with the article, it may actually be less "bitey" to identify all the problems at once. Otherwise, they may re-create the article with one problem fixed, only to have it be speedy deleted again for the other one. Of course an easy way to avoid this is for either the original tagger or the deleting admin to actually go to the user's talk page and explain it to them, but sadly there don't seem to be a lot of users willing to do such things if they can't be done with automated tools or templates. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

This is one of the few situations where "rolling your own" speedy tag could be useful. Example... {{deletebecause|The article is blatant advertising (CSD G11) for an unremarkable company (CSD A7) and half the article is copypasted from www.example.com (CSD G12)}}. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The only problem with that is that the page is not placed in the relevant categories. The page may therefore elude administrators and others who specifically monitor the "non-notable" or "nonsense" (what awful names) categories, for example. decltype (talk) 16:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I usually compromise by tagging with one and noting both in the edit summary. Less bitey for the article contributor but still gives the full picture to the reviewing editor(s). As to whether or not this is helpful, I've no idea, but it seems to make sense. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:05, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I have thought about this quite a bit, ant there is no simple answer: there are pros and cons. However, on balance I agree with Beeblebrox: I feel that the first nomination being rejected and the page having to be nominated again can very often be more bitey than two tags together. Also I have found that if an article by an inexperienced user is speedy deleted as a copyvio then the author is likely to then rewrite it, carefully avoiding the copyvio, only to have it deleted again for another reason, and this is likely to be much more disheartening than having been told in the first place there were multiple reasons for deletion. I have sometimes tried to deal with this problem by a friendly note on the user's talk page, explaining "even if you avoid the copyvio it will probably still be deleted", but often this doesn't work: an "official" looking tag is more likely to get the message across than a friendly message from a fellow user. I consider each case on its own merits, and don't have a fixed rule, but I certainly think that, at least in the case of copyvio combined with spam, double-tagging is often the friendliest thing to do. Also let's not forget that we are not always dealing with innocent newcomers: in the case of a page created by a persistent inappropriate-page-creator I don't hesitate to double-tag. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
If a page is copyvio, and does not look important enough to take the trouble to rewrite, I will simply delete it as such since it is not disputable, and not worry about adding other tags--though I do not remove them if present already, Like JBWatson, I also try to explain on the new editors talk page about promotion, sourcing, and notability. However, I find a tag alone is often ignored as boilerplate, and an actual focused note referring to the specifics of the particular article is likely to get a better response. But for a page that could be considered both promotional and no evidence of notability, I will usually add both tags before I delete it. It tends to save a good deal of argument DGG ( talk ) 02:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

A7 and minor local political offices

I'm starting to notice a lack of consensus about whether A7 applies to a short article (usually one or two sentences) about a person who holds a minor local elected political office (i.e. elected member of a county commission). Specifically, there seems to be a difference of opinion about whether just holding such an office (with no media coverage, etc.) is a claim of importance or significance. (Clearly, it is not generally a claim of notability as per WP:POLITICIAN.)

Personally, my opinion is that it is not a claim of importance or significance. However, if there is enough debate about the issue, I wouldn't oppose the creation of some guideline that would indicate it should be dealt with by way of PROD/AfD. Singularity42 (talk) 01:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Elected officials should be dealt with via PROD or AFD, not SPEEDY. For the most part, they will have at least some coverage, even if minimal or trivial, in some published source. Such articles are likely to be created by someone who knows about them through information available to the public. It is unlikely they will be created by the subject him/herself or someone who knows him/her personally. Sebwite (talk) 05:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Sebwite here. Elected officials usually tend to have at least some coverage and as such should not be handled by A7. PROD and AFD can handle them just fine. Regards SoWhy 13:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Yupyupyup. In this day and age nearly every election will involve significant media coverage, so as long as it's not some student government any claim to election is enough to counter A7. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I'm a little concerned about articles designed as electioneering. I think they really ought to be removed quickly before they can serve their inappropriate purpose, but they do not really fit G11, because if the person were notable, the article could usually be stubbified and kept. Come to think of it, I suppose that's what to do: stubbify, and then AfD--saying of course there was fuller information in the history ,and to please look at it. DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

G8 - shouldn't the talk pages be archived, not deleted?

Regarding G8; recently a talk page I contributed to got deleted (after an image that was discussed on it got deleted), File talk:Map of Torun fortress.jpg. This is not the first time I saw that happen - a talk page join the main article/image in deletion. Yet the talk page was useful (it had, for example, links to possible free versions of the image that could be used to recreate the image). I also wonder how deletion of such content can be justified in terms of our GFDL/CC licences (I gave no permission for the content to be deleted). Hence I am wondering if instead of deleting talk pages, couldn't we start archiving them? For example we could create let's say Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/G8 discussion page repository and move such pages there; preferably this could be automated with a bot that would move such orphan pages (and inform all editors who contributed to the talk page of a move). If the talk page has just some templates and no actual talk (which should be easy to detect by a bot) there is no need to move it, of course (although it if is a project tag, the project could be notified...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Side comment, but I don't think you have to give permission for content to be deleted. Enigmamsg 16:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The reason we have talk pages is to discuss the corresponding page. If that page is deleted, the discussion is in 99% of all cases of no future use to the project and in those few cases where it would be, it can be restored easily. Your suggestion would create a huge amount of work to achieve an archive of pages that in almost all cases no one will need anymore. So where exactly is the problem in simple requesting undeletion in those rare cases where the talk page might still be useful? Regards SoWhy 16:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Nicely put, SoWhy. And the idea of requiring consent from editors before we delete their contributions is, erm, interesting... BencherliteTalk 16:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

CSD#G8 already says "This excludes any page that is useful to the project, and in particular: deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere, user and user talk pages, talk page archives, plausible redirects that can be changed to valid targets, and image pages or talk pages for images that exist on Wikimedia Commons." There may be an application issue - admins going "ooh, talk page for a deleted page, zap"... dunno. Rd232 talk 16:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Photoshopped Image files

I propose that there should be another category under Files for speedy deletion: Obvious faked photos (such as File:Megan Fox Latex Catsuit.jpg). Because it uses items from other sources it probably isn't fair use either, but I think in the most obvious cases, a quick deletion for these kinds of fakes would be prudent. As well, it would offer us the ability to flag and inform file posters with a more specific reason for the deletion. Ccrashh (talk) 13:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with implementing this category. An image being photoshopped/faked is not good justification for speedy deletion by itself. When multiple images are used in one, that doesn't necessarily mean they come from other sources. One author could combine his own photos, or can use other (free) photos on Wikipedia and the Commons. But even if the images are unfree and not sourced properly, tagging them under the tags we already have seems appropriate, such as what was done with the image you linked to. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:21, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
If they are obvious and blatant hoaxes, G3 covers them already anyway. There is no need for a new criterion. Regards SoWhy 16:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
So [{WP:G3|G3]] covers more than textual hoaxes and vandalism. The wording and explanation does link to hoaxes but the page simply discusses hoax articles or textual additions to articles - at least, that is what I am inferring. There is nothing specifically referring to hoaxes in relation to photoshopped images. Also, I think that a multiple image collage is one thing, cropping the head off a fetish model and adding Megan Fox's head to it is another. I agree that if G3 fits, we should use that, but then the description for G3 should be modified to explicitly mention photoshopped images that attempt to exhibit a person, place, or event that never happened. I would have thought it easier to add another File criteria, since this is a specific File issue and not necessarily a "General" one, but whatever. Ccrashh (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Disagree fully. "Has been photoshopped" a terrible indicator of encyclopedic quality: many of the images I upload are photoshopped to clean up backgrounds and colour balance, sometimes very extensively. Even an image such as this is by no means inherently unencyclopedic: sure it's inappropriate in the Megan Fox article, but in an article Techniques used in photographic forgery, who knows? Happy‑melon 17:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I believe that, now looking back, Ccrashh was referring to wanting a speedy deletion tag for when images are edited to show misinformation, such as that of Megan Fox. But as stated before, I believe G3 would be the best way to go. Looking at the explanation for G3, it doesn't apply only to articles and, while not stated directly, hoaxes include images, so it should be fine to delete per G3. I don't think a rewording of G3 is needed; "This includes blatant and obvious misinformation" covers images as much as it does to articles and other namespaces. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 17:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
That's exactly what I meant. So G3 it is. Where someone got any file that "has been photoshopped" is beyond me. Next, I expected someone to write "What it they didn't use Photoshop? What if they used Gimp or MS Paint?" Yikes. Thanks, will flag with G3 - though I thought an explicit file criteria would be more appropriate. 207.236.147.118 (talk) 17:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I just G3'ed it. This was "blatant misinformation" in image form; having badly-faked saucy images of celebrities is generally not conducive to Wikipedia's long-term credibility. A less clear-cut case is perfectly suited for WP:FFD, obvious ones can be G3ed - so I agree that a new criterion is unnecessary. ~ mazca talk 18:08, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

For historical purposes, could we explain what the deprecated criteria were?

Just to ensure a bit of historical information be included, what were the following criteria?

Listing what they were would probably be useful, yes? ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 00:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's see:
  • A4 was attempting to communicate [9]
  • A6 was what G10 is now, only limited to articles [10]
  • A8 was what G12 is now, only limited to articles [11]
  • R1 was redirects to a non-existing or deleted page [12]
  • C3 was categories only populated by a now-deleted template [13]
  • T1 was divisive and inflammatory templates [14]
I don't see a need to add that information to the main page, since the criteria were only rewritten or merged but the information not lost. What use is it to people though to know what A4 was four years ago? Regards SoWhy 11:22, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
PS: As far as A4 is concerned, it was merged with this edit but the talk archives reveal that it has never been discussed. Regards SoWhy 11:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Besides, the pattern is obvious/implied: CSD of articles existed, everyone realized it applied to not just articles, made general. Silly to have attacks for articles/cats/templates when you can just have G10. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:15, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Can a non-admin decline a speedy deletion request?

I recently noticed an experienced editor who is not an admin removing speedy deletion tags and using the wording 'decline speedy deletion' in the edit summary, giving additional (generally plausible) reasons. I assumed when I first saw this that the request has been reviewed and declined by an administrator until I checked the user's permissions. The policy says that an editor who is not the creator of a page can remove the speedy deletion template, but my questions are:

  • Is it misleading for a non-admin to put 'decline' in the edit summary?
  • Should a non-admin state this when removing a tag?
  • Should non-admin removal only be used to correct clear mistakes/misapplications of the criteria or bad-faith tagging? Cassandra 73 (talk) 09:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Any editor other than the article author is welcome to correct or remove speedy deletion tags. I don't see decline as being misleading if the tag was incorrect in the first instance. I wouldn't agree with restricting non-admin removal of speedy tags to "correct clear mistakes/misapplications of the criteria or bad-faith tagging?", not least because the most uncontentious non-admin declines of speedy deletion are where subsequent edits to the article have improved it to the point where the speedy tag no longer applies. ϢereSpielChequers 09:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Agreed - there's certainly no issue with anyone removing a speedy tag if their reason is decent and they aren't the page's creator. I sometimes think it's better for non-admins to use the word "remove" rather than "decline", but as far as the action itself goes there's no problem whatsoever. ~ mazca talk 09:55, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
In one instance I don't think the tag was "incorrect" as such, it was a spam tag added by another fairly experienced editor (not me). The article was obviously created with promotional intent by a user with a COI, and I think the decision would have depended on whether the article could have been cleaned up instead - I thought the decision was OK, I just think if it could be controversial it's better left for an admin. (I don't want to point out which article it was to avoid identifying the editor involved, as this isn't a noticeboard and I'm not suggesting any wrongdoing on their part).
One problem I think with the assumption that the person removing was an administrator is that it may affect a decision to re-tag the article. If a non-admin removed a tag I placed and I disagreed with their reasoning, I might consider re-adding the tag and giving my own reasoning in the edit summary but I wouldn't do this if I thought it had been declined by an admin. Cassandra 73 (talk) 10:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
The proper way to proceed is to nominate it for deletion after a speedy has been removed. — Edokter • Talk • 11:06, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Edokter. If an experienced non-admin removes the tag, then this is indication that deletion might not be uncontroversial in that case and that it should rather be brought to the appropriate deletion discussion venue. Regards SoWhy 11:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If you believe an individual, admin or otherwise, is incorrectly removing speedy tags I would suggest that discussion with them is probably the best route and the most likely to resolve whatever misunderstanding is behind things. If however it is debatable whether the speedy category applies then I would suggest you consider prod, AFD or a {{notability}} tag as the Speedy deletion process is only for uncontentious deletions. ϢereSpielChequers 11:22, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your responses. On reflection I agree that AFD is the best solution if someone disagrees with the speedy. Cassandra 73 (talk) 20:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I altogether disagree with Edokter and SoWhy that it should require going to AfD. An incorrect speedy can and should be removed by anyone. If they are in doubt, they can send it to AfD if they choose, but otherwise It is up to the original tagger to keep track, to see the reason for removal, and decide if they want to pursue the matter. An automated notification method for this would be fine, but otherwise we permit anyone to remove speedies and should continue to. If for no other reason, there are such a large number of totally incorrect speedy tags that the burden on AfD would be considerable. This has long been the practice, and for good reason: the bias is towards saving articles. Additionally, much of the time, when a speedy tag is placed for a bad reason, the appropriate procedure is a Prod--it is not necessarily being contested the article should be removed, but that it should not be removed by speedy. I see a lot of these non-admin removals, and almost all of them are fully justified.
And Cassandra, if anyone other than the author removes a tag, do not add it back--it is totally against policy. If you still think it should be deleted, the course is prod or AfD. DGG ( talk ) 05:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
In my last comment I agreed I should use AFD if someone disagrees with the speedy. Cassandra 73 (talk) 01:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggest new speedy. Abandoned archive of old version of a continuing article

A userpage that is an abandoned copy of an old version of an existing mainspace article. I suggest bright lines of: page is untouched for six months; the user is inactive for 3 months. The user must be notified on his talk page, on deletion, and is entitled to have the page undeleted for a reasonable reason.

Such pages should be deleted as they are either abandoned, but if not, they present a hazard to our copyright compliance.

It should be a speedy criterion because do, and shouldn't, populate MfD discussions. I guess that there are a huge number of such pages, all should be deleted as old forks from mainspace, but getting them deleted is more work than it's worth. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:50, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any statistics of how many pages of this nature are at MFD each day/week? I cannot imagine that there are really this many pages that MFD cannot handle them, especially since those kind of deletions are something that rather needs a case-to-case assertion and probably should not be decided by a single admin if there is no need. Regards SoWhy 22:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't have statistics, but I guess there are a few per week. I have been fighting a loosing battle to discourage the filing of such MfDs. The ones that meet these criteria, however, are snow deletes, and too trivial to be worth a discussion. Note the bright line tests. Just because MfD can handle them doesn't mean that MfD should handle them. It is wasting our volunteers' time for no good reason. After participating in most such MfDs for years, I am yet to see a good argument for not deleting an archived old version of an existing article in the userspace of an inactive wikipedian (other than not wanting to encourage the swamping MfD).
Some might think that these cases are coverable by G6 as uncontroversial maintenance, but I am sure that we don't want G6 to become routinely acceptable in other peoples userspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree with SmokeyJoe. If not many of them are currently nominated for MfD that is at least partly because, as SmokeyJoe says, it's more work than it's worth, but they really should be deleted; a speedy deletion criterion should solve this problem. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:47, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I support such a criterion as well. These do come up somewhat frequently, and the record at MfD indicates that they aren't simple housekeeping issues, but they nearly always snowball in one direction or the other depending on the general perception of abandonment. A "bright line" speedy deletion criterion would allow easy deletion of old, problematic archives, and at the same time it would likely reduce nominations of content that had been recently touched. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Support this idea as well. It seems straightforward, fairly uncontroversial, and it doesn't smack of "instruction creep" or the like. ---Irbisgreif-(talk | e-mail)-(contribs) 01:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't help noticing that this overlaps with the proposal I made as part of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication, if anyone would like to comment there. Rd232 talk 09:28, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is not a place for speedy. Many of these cases are somewhat controversial, and about half of those brought to MfD are kept. DGG ( talk ) 05:08, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It's true that many of the pages nominated at MfD are kept. However, there's a very strong correlation with the users' activity/inactivity, and with the age of the archive. The ones that are kept tend to be recent copies, or else nominations like "This guy that I'm in a dispute with has userpages, so please delete them", which of course should be dismissed with great prejudice. So long as the speedy criterion doesn't apply to active users or actively edited drafts, there should be no problem. — Gavia immer (talk) 17:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy nominator should not be allowed to remove hangon tag

Resolved

I'm archiving this now. The dogpile thread it created on a user's talk page was an utter disgrace.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 18:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In light of this edit, [15] which insta-zapped a hangon tag I placed, I would like to propose that there be a clear rule in the guideline that the nominator of a speedy deletion should not remove a challenger's hangon tag. This would be the sensible counterpart to the rule that disallows an article's creator to remove the speedy deletion tag, the idea being that there should be some due process rather than a mini revert war. Robert K S (talk) 15:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that removing a hangon tag is a somewhat unprecedented move, I'm not sure I've ever seen it before, and I don't see any good reason for doing so. It's the only way for the creator to contest the speedy deletion (short of DRV), after all. decltype (talk) 16:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Agreed. I can't think of any situation where it would be sensible for a user to remove a good faith hangon tag and not the speedy at the same time, regardless of whether the hangon rationale is correct or not (although technically the admin should check the page history before deleting). I'd support making this addition to WP:CSD - Kingpin13 (talk) 16:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This is already covered in the {{hangon}} template, which specifically says: This template should not be removed from a page still marked with a speedy deletion template. Singularity42 (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I know, but what the Template:Hangon page says isn't exactly policy, and adding it to WP:CSD keeps wiki-lawyers (i.e. me ) happy - Kingpin13 (talk) 16:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's just common sense and I am surprised that TPH reverted such an addition. This is something that should be discussed with TPH but in all my time as an admin at CSD this is the first time a user behaved this way, so I don't think there is a point in adding it to the policy. We should assume that taggers know that they could be wrong after all - if they feel infallible though, a change in policy will not fix it. Regards SoWhy 16:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Mmm, yeah, I'm with SoWhy. It's a user-specific issue rather than something that needs to be addressed in policy.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 16:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
    • In general I agree, but as long as it's not found in the policy, there's always the ignorance defense. It would only take one sentence. It wouldn't need to be bolded or pointed out. Look at it this way: if it were there all along, would any of the opposers be petitioning to delete it, on the basis that it is obvious? Robert K S (talk) 16:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, because it would also mean the user is ignorning the very wording of the template. If someone isn't going to be bothered to read the few sentences on the template, what's going to make them read through a page full of policy? If it's a single user-specific issue rather than a general problem we need a policy for (which I think we all agree on), and the user-specific problem includes not reading templates, then I don't see the need for ammending policy. Singularity42 (talk) 17:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A7 interpretation question

If an article names media outlets that have written about the article subject ("John Doe has been profiled in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Fox News...") but doesn't provide citations, is that an assertion of notability? To me it seems obvious that it is, since coverage by multiple reliable sources is basically the definition of notability and the article is asserting that such coverage has occurred, but this is apparently not uncontroversial.Prezbo (talk) 04:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is. Assert doesn't mean prove, so unless it falls under some other category as well, it is not speedy deletable. If the assertion is a blatantly false the article would be a G3/vandalism candidate. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

How Wikipedia regularly treats new editor's new article contributions

FYI: Posted on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion: How Wikipedia regularly treats new editor's new article contributions Ikip (talk) 05:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Applicability of A2 (db-foreign) when article on other project is different

Does A2 apply only when the article someone posts here is a copy (or substantially a copy) of the article on the other Wikimedia project? For example, if someone posts an article Stuvwxyz in French, and French Wikipedia has an article fr:Stuvwxyz, does A2 apply absolutely, or only if the article posted here is a copy, or near copy, of fr:Stuvwxyz? —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A2 only applies if the content is existing on another Wikimedia project, not if another Wikimedia project has a different page about the subject. Point of A2 is to cleanup copy+paste introductions of material that is found somewhere else and could be translated properly. But if the content is new to any project, it's irrelevant if different content about the same thing already exists, since said content might be improvable using the incorrectly added foreign-language material. In your example, it should be tagged {{notenglish}} and a French speaker should see whether fr:Stuvwxyz can be improved with this content and/or should translate it into English. Regards SoWhy 12:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Tintinnabulation

Does anyone know a script, bot or app that will give me an audible notice as soon as an article shows up at G10? If there's one category that pages shouldn't stay in long enough to get indexed by Google, that's it. I think I've seen apps that checked a webpage (such as the G10 cat page) for diffs and notify you when there's a change, but I can't remember where I saw them, don't know if they work, and don't know if they'd be much less efficient than some WP script or bot. - Dank (push to talk) 18:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Policy report for Signpost

The reaction to this report on recent changes to WP:SOCK was good. I propose we do the same kind of report on changes to CSD since maybe August 1; there are lots of changes every month, and I'm sure most people have a hard time keeping up. The monthly changes are available at Wikipedia:Update/1/Deletion policy changes, July 2009 to December 2009. Say anything you like in your report, and if you include at least a sentence or two that looks like a reasonable description of some change that no one else mentioned, I'll do my best to work it into the summary for the Signpost ... but hopefully many Signpost readers will follow the link and read everything you said. My summary will be available at least a day before the deadline so that anyone can edit it. Feel free to add your report below. - Dank (push to talk) 21:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The SOCK reports were quite good; if you're stumped for ideas, check them out. - Dank (push to talk) 21:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Responses by User1
Responses by User2
Responses by User3
Responses by User4
Responses by User5
Responses by User6
Summary for Signpost

'Delayed' speedy deletions

We've discussed here and at various other pages why the speedy deletion process should be more new user-friendly. Work has recently been done for before (creating the article) and after (the speedy nomination, and the potential deletion) to help users, but the process itself may need some minor tweaks to improve user-friendliness. This proposal aims to do this and also allow to take into consideration the difference between obvious and hardly salvageable speedy deletion candidates (broadly, 'first kind') and those that don't incontestably meet the criteria or could be improved to no longer meet it (broadly, 'second kind'). There's a current and persistent situation where articles of the second kind often remain flagged for speedy deletion for a long time, because most admins can't decide if they should 'go' right now, and so, intentionally or not, give it a 'delay', it can't really be helped and is vital to the process; we should at least try to take advantage of this situation to improve those aspects.

The idea is to create for certain criteria, mainly G11, A1, A3 and A7, an option in the speedy deletion templates, |delayed=yes, which would have the effect to modify the speedy deletion template to be more user-friendly and categorize in a specific category. That's basically it, then it's up to the tagger judgment to use the option initially, or to the reviewing user/admin to add it. It engages to nothing, just makes the template more user-friendly, so that the creator or interested users aren't 'afraid' by this but rather encouraged to fix the problem or prove it doesn't meet the criteria, and specific hints in the template are given to achieve this.

As with all speedy candidates of the 'second kind', I believe there's consensus that admins should give some time for improvements (delay), and in the end remove the speedy template if no longer justified, or delete the article if it has been given enough improvement opportunity but still meet the criteria. Policy mentions that admins shouldn't delete articles appearing incomplete too soon after deletion, and this perennial problem of incomplete new articles starts at the stage of speedy tagging; we should use the delayed option for those too, to be more user-friendly. Cenarium (talk) 17:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Strategy:Proposal:Speedy deletion - 24 hour pause for some articles is along the same lines. ϢereSpielChequers 18:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Has my support. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
G11, A3, A1, A7, and A9 (maybe) would be the only ones I can support for this, but, sure. Why not? It'll decrease the "Why was my page deleted???" requests on the various help pages...--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 18:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
As long as this doesn't concern G10 or G12, support. MLauba (talk) 18:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment - I would support this if anyone would spell out how it can be implemented technically. I agree that G10 and G12 nominations should not be delayed. EdJohnston (talk) 18:36, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
The strategy proposal outlines how it could be done and contains the phrase "That would enable articles that were one line but innocuous to be left for 24 hours". G10s are by definition not innocuous. ϢereSpielChequers 18:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
So how precisely would the templates be modified to be more user friendly (besides the different cat)? --Cybercobra (talk) 18:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Presumably by using less terse language, and including more instruction. Some drafting would obviously need to be done. --King Öomie 20:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Support general idea, would like to see draft. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if we should do this using {{db-meta}} - its appearance is not user-friendly, create a new one altogether or add a new template below the speedy template. I don't have time to create a draft for now.. Cenarium (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
We talked about this a bit in October of last year, following a discussion at AN. The page is User:Ultraexactzz/Time-delayed Speedy Deletion, though it never really went anywhere. The idea was that a PROD-style set of templates would hard-code a timestamp into a CSD template. After a specified amount of time had passed (30 minutes in the example, whatever consensus dictates otherwise), the code of the template would change to indicate that the article may be deleted without further warning. Essentially, the template would say "Hey, this article has issues that could result in it being deleted. Here's how you fix it. If it's not fixed after (TIME+30 Minutes), it may be deleted without further notice." UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 20:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't propose anything as strict as that; it could use the option |friendly=yes as well as |delayed=yes. The delay is informal. Cenarium (talk)

There are really two separate proposals here:

  1. A delay of 30 or 60 minutes, which seems entirely reasonable, if it can be easily coded.
  2. A delay of 24 hours or more; this really requires discretion, rather than an automated mechanism, DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
What about admins who open up CAT:CSD and then go marching down the page, closing out the articles they come to? Will there be a way of preventing the delayed deletions from showing up right away in CAT:CSD? If it turns out that you can't fix CAT:CSD, can you make an alternate mechanism like WP:PRODSUM that brings the well-timed deletions up for attention first? If so, will the new system need the help of a bot? EdJohnston (talk) 18:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
We can put them in a specific category; as for removing them from CAT:SD, we'd need support for this. Cenarium (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Think about how we do it for images. I can imagine a "dp-ni-person" ("deletable page, non-important person") kinda looking like this:
Of course it'd be more complete and have some links to resources but still. ViperSnake151  Talk  20:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

My preferred solution for this problem would be that new articles don't appear to anyone (including search engines, so being an attack page isn't an issue) except the article's creator for some small amount of time (15-30 mins perhaps). Under this system, there is no way a "let me just save the first sentence to see if this works" article will be tagged upon creation. It is my fear that any template will scare some percentage of newbies away before they finish what they would consider their first article attempt. Remember outsiders don't necessarily understand how the system works and may very well not realize their creation is released upon the world as soon as they hit save. The obvious downside of this approach is that it would require some significant software changes and thus is unlikely to happen in a reasonable period of time. Given that, I certainly support a "friendlier template" + "some guaranteed period of time to fix it" system. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

  • Not sure I really think this is a great idea. Speedy deletion is without prejudice to recreation if the recreated page solves the concern, and most admins will userfy or restore pages deleted for reasons like no notability assertion or promotion/advertising if the user indicates a good faith desire to address the problem. But it still is a problem. We have a WP:BEFORE that applies to deleting articles, and is horribly overcited in that regard. We next need a WP:BEFOREYOUEVERSTARTANARTICLE, covering things like finding appropriate sourcing before (that's before) ever making that first edit. Do that right, you'll never have to worry about speedy anyway. Do it wrong, and you may find the article up for deletion. Realistically, if the first thing a newcomer does is start up an article, there's a good chance it won't be appropriate. We should encourage them to edit for a bit first, and educate them on what's appropriate and what's not, but we shouldn't hesitate to say "This is clearly in the 'not' category as expressed at CSD, and it needs to go." Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
agreed that we need a systematic attempt to write better notices--but the best notice is personal specific advice about just what to do to make that particular article satisfactory--or specifically why that particular subject is impossible--advice that shows one has read the article. Newcomers who patrol should be encouraged to learn first about writing articles so they give good advice. Admins who haven't written an article in months might want to refresh their experience. I do not think BEFORE is overcited--I think it is underused. Much underused. DGG ( talk ) 21:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I am pleased by the support granted to this. Note that I intent to launch a 'community initiative' soon, which would be concerned with speedy deletion and study this in particular. Cenarium (talk) 02:26, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding additional comments onto posted CSD tags?

A major problem I've had while going through articles tagged for speedy is that I don't know how to add comment onto the original CSD tag, which isn't exactly very descriptive to start with. This could really help possible deleting admins by knowing a "second check" was already done and if that editor had anything of note to say. For example, say I research the name of someone with a weak A7 tag on and it becomes fairly obvious that the article is a hoax or destructive personal attacks. This is now far worse a situation than what looked like a generically harmless borderline A7 tagging and needs to be handled ASAP rather than semi-ASAP... I really wish I had somewhere to put in that info. The original CSD was put on with that not likely known and there's no edit summary, you see it as something that REALLY needs to be be deleted, but the admin that strolls by for resolution might decline the delete. What if they research less or miss some of my search results? Confusions like this wipe good articles and spare inappropriate material alike. It would make me feel a lot better if I could "add on" to the existing CSD and point out that there's an overwhelming piece of evidence that makes evaluation a lot easier, and odds of mistakes go down farther. Article talk page? That's a stretch to assume it'll get read. A second CSD tag? Confusing and generally frowned upon. De-CSD and Re-CSD to G3 or 10? Might get an auto-tag and confused. Even more confusing if a hangon gets added by author or another patrol after your discovery. But with specific evidence mentioned it could be seen through a bit. Well, you get the idea; There are a lot of times where clarifying even 1-2 points of an article would do a deciding admin good with an extra opinion and a focus of further research if it's needed on the trickier categories.

So... this would be less articles A7'd, more "questionable" articles lasting a full 7-day PROD if we put up newpage or construction templates with the generic "few days" language, the users having CSD tags placed on their articles could see far more detailed explanations of why, more incentive for the article authors to improve their page at least some when it's still new, a pretty easy chance to mark things as stubs to dissuade more jealous deletes in the immediate term, less new uses unhappy with the system. Fun? ♪ daTheisen(talk) 08:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Gee, if only there was somewhere you could discuss the contents of an article... Oh, there is, it's called the talk page! If you have comments on an article, including the validity of its speedy deletion, then add them to the talk page. Any admin who speedily deletes an article without checking the talk page is not doing their job properly. If you think that the article contains personal attacks, blank the content, add a G10 tag to the existing CSD tag with an appropriate edit summary – second CSD tags aren't "generally frowned upon", I assure you e.g. the copyvio article of a non-notable person – and explain on the talk page. If you think that the article has been improperly tagged, then de-tag and prod or afd if necessary. I'm not sure I see what the difficulty is. BencherliteTalk 08:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I don't think it's a "stretch" to assume that an article talk page will get read. I think almost every admin patrolling CSD will check the talk page (if it exists) for comments before deciding on the speedy tag since it might contain a comment by the article's creator. Regards SoWhy 08:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Ok, maybe not a "stretch" and especially for the closing admin. It would still prevent some disagreements between patrols about having it on or off, and CSD isn't usually something you'd want to sit around and spend extra time on in case it'd completed already. Even the author who should have left a message on the talk page but didn't would at least see in writing what a noted extra concern was. Reduced traffic to admin talk pages if people didn't write messages that had the same 2-line answer as was already in front of them there. Just trying to save everyone in the process as much time and frustration as possible. Another way to avoid that would be a message left to the publishing editor saying something was finalized and deleted and a description actually given to them. Categories that define themselves might not need it, but it's usually more complex than that. ...I'm just trying to save even a little workload, and if it makes the process easier on the new users that's even better. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
When I want to append a note to a speedy tag, I generally add a {{Notice}} tag below the speedy. I recently added that tag to Lake Jackson Palms murder, where I explained why the hoax article (possibly WP:BLP-violating) had been blanked. Cunard (talk) 09:09, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Aww! The easiest possible solution actually works? Well that kills my buzz. This seems like the sort of thing that would go on my list of "wow how could I have not thought of that?", though since there's a formatted template for literally everything else, something that simple might be laughed at :) ...Ok, you may return to discussing actual proposals now. More use of {{newpage}}, pretty please? ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Someone could make a {{csd-2}} by analogy to {{prod-2}}, but that only addresses part of what you mention. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:09, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Consistent availability of a "reason" argument

At least a couple of the speedy deletion tags ({{db-hoax}}, {{db-housekeeping}}) treat an unnamed argument as a reason that is included in the deletion notice displayed on the page. It would be a real convenience to have that feature on all the speedy deletion notice templates, and then, in addition, Twinkle could be updated to include a text area where a reason could be entered—just as it already does for the user warning and PROD notices. As it is, when I want to leave a note for the administrator, I leave one on the Talk page, and even for db-hoax and db-housekeeping I know I can manually edit the template to add the reason, but it would be nice to save a step or two. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

G2 as a catchall

This relates to INTELLTEXTUAL. The article was clearly not encyclopaedic but did not seem to match any of the other CSD criteria; I decided that a contribution that didn't match any of the other criteria but was not encyclopaedic could reasonably be considered a test page, and tagged it accordingly. The deleting admin seems to have agreed. But before repeating the exercise, I thought I'd get a view from here.

The author created two other similar pages: Homotextual and Metrotextual. Each of these two cases was tagged differently (one as A7, one prodded). I'm not sure I agree with the A7, but I can see the argument about the prod.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 14:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

My view is that any time you delete a page that does not meet any criterion, you should always cite WP:IAR coupled with a policy/guideline-based rationale, e.g. "WP:IAR deletion; expanding spirit of WP:CSD#A7 to cover article putatively about product but actually about inventor; not elevating process over substance" or "WP:IAR deletion: Wikipedia is not for things made up one day and is not a dictionary of slang—article states word invented in basement yesterday, so not elevating process over substance". I hate the practice of using a pretextual criterion that doesn't actually apply to fit a square deletion peg basis into a round deletion act hole. It is false and deceptive and doesn't hold up when scrutinized. G2 is used often to do this. If you have no reason to think the person was making a test edit, don't say it was. The tagging in my opinion should go the same route. That is, if the deletion summary would be one of those I listed above (similar to actual edit deletion summaries I've used), then the CSD tagging should be {{db|reason}} .--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
No, a neologism is not a test page and should not be deleted as such. PROD is the appropriate way for dealing with these pages. If the community felt they should be speedied, they would be included in the existing criteria. (This has been suggested many times & has always failed to gain consensus.) Stretching criteria/IAR deleting neologisms is inappropriate, as letting them sit 7 days does no harm but deleting them immediately weakens the legitimacy of the process. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
No, that's your take. I have and will continue to delete pages under IAR when appropriate (which is very rarely). When I come across an article that says "I made up this word yesterday with my friends in my basement", I will speedy delete it under IAR, and I will say why, rather than pretending it fits under a criterion it does not, as so many do. IAR is fundamental policy and this type of use is proper and appropriate and exactly what the policy is addressed to. Where we get into trouble is when IAR is misunderstood as an unfettered license.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
But how can you justify IAR in a case where the community has clearly and multiple times said that they do not want such pages to be speedy deleted? IAR is fundamental but it's for those cases where the rules are not useful for the case at hand but it's not for those cases where the policy says "do not speedy delete page XXX" and you go ahead and still do it. That's simply ignoring explicit consensus and imho not what IAR is made for. Regards SoWhy 20:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
More of a general observation than a response to this specific case: I have occasionally done an "IAR speedy" but not quite in the manner described. If you are making the deletion based on IAR, you shouldn't just go with whatever CSD the tagger was trying to shoehorn the article into, you should write a clear edit summary describing the specific reasons you are deleting the article. I find the over use of the test page criteria for any article that doesn't fit the other criteria really annoying in that it is often used for pages that are clearly not tests but just really wrong-headed ideas for articles. To tag or delete them as such is dishonest. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Just to respond to If you have no reason to think the person was making a test edit, don't say it was (Fuhgeddaboutit, above) I want to say that if someone signs up to contribute to an encyclopaedia and then makes an unencyclopaedic contribution, isn't it politest to assume their edit was a test?

    I would not have so tagged it if the matter had been even slightly ambiguous.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 20:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW, Metrotextual actually got some press coverage. Good night to you all (xxx)

  • No, the most polite thing to do would be to follow proper procedure. Failing that, the second most polite thing to do would be to explain why the article doesn't belong instead of mislabeling it as a test page. Labeling a good faith attempt at a bad article idea as a test page is more likely to confuse the editor as to what they did wrong than make them realize Wikipedia isn't the place for their made-up words. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
  • IAR is for cases where what you're doing would clearly be acceptable if it were questioned. If someone writes an article about a clearly made up word (which is, if nothing else, possibly eligible as a hoax), and you delete it, who would argue to overturn it? This is not a bureaucracy, and while there are times at which process is important, decisions which are clearly correct should not be overturned for the failure to correctly fill out Form 113115-Section B-Subpart 315.3. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
But since when is IAR for those cases where the community has clearly indicated that they do not agree with this? It has been proposed multiple times now that made-up stuff should be made eligible for speedy deletion and every time consensus was against it. If you still IAR speedy delete it, aren't you in fact deliberately ignoring consensus? Saying it's okay to do so because no one will challenge it is like saying stealing is okay as long as no one challenges you (I exaggerate of course but the point is clear I hope: Just because no one challenges you does not make it acceptable). Regards SoWhy 07:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Every rule has a consensus behind it, if it didn't then it could never become a rule in the first place. The only exceptions to IAR are rules from higher authorities (the WMF licensing policy, copyright law, etc.) Mr.Z-man 17:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
The problem with "catchall" speedies is not that it breaks some particular rule; it's that it requires a lot of faith in the admin corps' judgement. By strictly defining what is uncontroversial enough for speedy deletion, there's less risk of overstepping. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
the practical requirement for the use of IAR is the well-founded confidence that everyone who considers the matter in good faith would agree. (this is essentially a restatement of what Seraphimblade said above). Usually speedy deletion is not a very good place to make that assumption. I agree with Chris--I have confidence in admin judgment in general, but I do not have confidence in the judgement of every particular admin. But I have myself used test page a certain amount--I use it rather than the harsher A3 in cases where I think it better to deny recognition to the vandalism. This is especially the case if the article title names a victim. DGG ( talk ) 02:19, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles composed in foreign language and script?

Hi,

I'm a new patroller of New Pages. Please see Loser_(Great_Word). The complete text placed is in Chinese (?). It should be part of Chinese (?) Wikipedia.

Under what clause do I speedy delete it?

AshLin (talk) 14:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't merit speedy deletion, instead you can tag it as {{notenglish}} and list it at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. ϢereSpielChequers 14:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for the guidance! AshLin (talk) 15:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I know this is the policy, but doesn't that leave us open to awful G10 (or worse) articles being here with our blessing for an unknown amount of time until eventually they get translated and perhaps only then discovered to be what they really are? In other words, you can vandalize and post death threats as bring true Wikipedia articles so long as it's the wrong language of Wikipedia. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 22:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes. Although oftentimes one of us will quickly review an article in a language we can read or toss it into Google Translator otherwise and figure out whether it has a problem calling for deletion. It's also easy enough to copy snippets into Google Search regardless of the language to see if it's a copyright violation, which many of them are. —Largo Plazo (talk) 01:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

CSD Suggestion.

I would like to suggest a change in how we curently tag csds. I do not suggest changing the criteria however I do believe we should add a bit for a second editor to agree. When we open a Prod or AFD it is open to Community output. Maybe we can change this to allow us to show more the one editor agrees with a csd tag. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Why? \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 12:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree - why? Unlike PROD or AFD, it is irrelevant for CSD how many people agree with the tag since the tag can only be correct or incorrect. No admin will not decide to delete or not delete based on the number of people tagging an article. Regards SoWhy 13:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree - Why? Its irrelevant ! Danger^Mouse (talk) 13:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I just thought it might help if we can show that it is more then just one editor that supports the nomination. In reality it only affirms it likethe prod as CSD can still be removed by anyone other then the page creator. Sorry was creating a few pages in the interim. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
But why would it matter if more than one person supports the tagging? Either it is correct and gets deleted, or is not and is removed by the administrator. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 13:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Why would we have it for PROD? I am only suggesting that we consider making the tags more similar. If it doesn't really matter we could take it off Prods to make things more standard. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
PROD is something else. It can be used to delete any article for almost any reasons. As such, PROD, as a alternative to AFD when discussion is unlikely to be needed, has a discussion-style element, i.e. the prod2 template. CSD on the other hand is designed for specific purposes and a page tagged with a CSD tag does either meet the criteria or it doesn't - but multiple people claiming that it does does not make the tagging itself more correct, does it? Regards SoWhy 13:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes Yes and NO. If we allow the person to explain in a edit summary via twitter or the like why the article fits within the CSD guidlines and another editor concurs can head off some, not all disputes regarding deletion. If we do have the user spell out the reasons breifly we can also use it as learning/teaching experience to find out where the nominations are being made in error and how to fix. Say I argue that a article is spam and I detail why I think it is. An admin/editor can counsel me/others on why maybe it wasn't spam and shouldn't be deleted or should be but under different criteria. I understand that we do this somewhat now with our templates to "re-review" the csd criteria but this might help make things that are implicit, explicit. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
CSD criterion are the reason. And they are meant to be blatant, obvious. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 13:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree. That's what I was attempting to garner by getting the ability to add comments as to why it applies to that criteria and have another editor agree if Nec. What I suggest is help make it more explicit why it was nominated under that criteria. Also as mentioned above it gives Admin or other Editors a chance to show the user who may have nominated in error, why it was nominated in error. I've personally learned a few things from AFD after I nominated something in error. I've written out why I thought it should be deleted and in some cases these were wrong and other editors were able to correct me. It would be specifcally helpful with newer nominaters Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Back to the original point, I do think independent review of CSD tags is important. See my essay on this.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 13:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Well a quick scan of your essay does appear look like the situation has been debated before. Apologies if I wasted anyones time, only trying to help improve the pedia! :) Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I have sometimes seen a statement of support for a CSD from another editor on the article talk p., or the user talk. But the tagger + the admin should normally be enough. What we have yet to agree to, is that a single admin without a tagger is not enough, at least for most categories of deletion. That's a bigger problem. DGG ( talk ) 01:54, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

G5 question regarding speedy deletion of quality pages by banned users

I apologize for bringing up an old topic, but I wanted to get clarification of the G5 rule regarding quality pages created by banned users, especially in regards to the edits of Kathyrncelestewright‎. I do understand the reasoning behind the rule, but I tend to view WP articles as being wholly separate of user actions, and I have a hard time understanding why the project as a whole should lose articles such as Les_Fêtes_Chinoises because of the actions of the editor who created it.

I am saddened that such as talented editor would resort to such tactics for reasons I can not comprehend, but while deleting these articles might discourage other banned users from breaking the rules, I feel that the community should not be punished by having to rewrite the material. Not all of the pages she created are as worthy of keeping, but it seems counter-intuitive to say that no editor owns an article yet that quality material may be deleted due to an editor's actions. Mrathel (talk) 05:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I've declined speedy there, I see no reason to believe that the harm from keeping the article despite its creator would outweigh the harm from its removal, and also other unbanned editors have also edited there. I see G5 largely as a tool for removing questionable contributions from someone who it has come to light cannot be trusted or has been found to be a POV pusher, not for removal of articles that happened to be created by a banned user banned for unrelated reasons but others have worked with since and there is no question to the merit of. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I think deleting the article in this particular case is cutting off one's nose to spite the face. I agree with Seraphimblade. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
The {{db-banned}} templates were deleted at least once for almost all of the creations of this user, and recreated at least once, at which point, against the language in Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Speedy deletion at "Renominations", they were all deleted. I have placed a request on the deleting administrator's talk page requesting undeletion and pointing out this element of the policy. Bongomatic 11:02, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Usage of R3

As also touched upon in some thread above, R3 refers to recently 'created' redirects. That means they have either been created by an editor or automatically in case of a move. It does not include redirects that replace articles for the simple reason that they have not been created as redirects, have a possibly useful edit history content and our CSD in general advise to consider previous versions. A clarification of mine in that sense was reverted as not being discussed, so I bring it here, but I don't see this as a new addition but rather as something often. An alternative wording would consist in adding the phrase "does not contain nontrivial edit history" as this is the standard caveat at Wikipedia:RFD#HARMFUL and should not be bypassed here.--Tikiwont (talk) 14:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, R3 should not be used to delete redirects that would not be deleted at RFD. Regards SoWhy 15:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I have reinserted the change. My reason being that this should be common sense and/or application of the general principle that the page's history should be taken into account. However, I see no harm in making it explicit. (We obviously don't allow someone to convert a "bad" page into a redirect and then have that redirect deleted as "implausible" - any article could be temporarily redirected to an implausible target.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
So, if someone creates an article at a typo that's a duplicate of an existing article we can delete it as G6, redirect it, then, if its decided the typo is implausible, we can delete the redirect. But if we skip the initial deletion step, it can't be speedy deleted? I understand the reasoning behind the change, but the wording needs work. Currently it makes it sound like converting an article into a useless redirect makes the original content and the useless redirect immune from speedy deletion. Mr.Z-man 18:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Well the general reasoning is that if there is a CSD for the article and one for the redirect than it certainly can be deleted. One can simply quote both. There is above actually a related thread on duplicates dubbed A10.--Tikiwont (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Well articles that now seem spam or coyvios or empty are not eligible for G11, G12 or A3 if that is due to a previous change.--Tikiwont (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
The reason I reverted the change initially, is that many administrators, as evidenced above, use R3 to delete newly created articles that are redirected to an established article, of which the new article is a substantial copy, or provides no new useful content. It is already stated below that [r]edirect pages that have useful page history should never be speedy deleted. This, to me, is an indication that a wider discussion is warranted. decltype (talk) 19:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
To put it simply: If someone creates a mistyped redirect it can be deleted per R3 as useless. If there is edit history, it has to be clear that it is 'harmful' enough to also throw the content underneath away. That is not a new idea or addition. It is possible that administrators have misunderstood this. Discussion is fine, of course, as are suggestions for a better wording.--Tikiwont (talk) 19:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
To Decltype: Above I mean that we should delete redirects with page histories only if they that actually causes problems. See e.g. Wikipedia:RFD#DELETE. Directly above that section is the term 'harmful' that I borrowed here.--Tikiwont (talk) 21:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
As decltype points out, it is stated right under the R3 criterion that useful histories should never speedied - why bother repeating ourselves if it is already CSD policy, and therefore applicable to all redirects under any criteria? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm in general not a fan of policy creep, but the mere fact that other people see this as a new addition to policy makes me pause. I did initially not want to repeat the edit history part of the policy but append an explict clarification, as have many other CSD, for those who seem think that an fresh stub converted into a redirect is eligible.--Tikiwont (talk) 20:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of G10

Just wondering if someone can help me with clarifying the scope of G10. The criteria states that it applies to "pages that disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose." Does it apply to more than just attacks against a person or persons? Can it apply to unsourced attacks of an object or concept, such as Criticism of sikhism. Clearly, those type of articles will eventually get deleted for being an essay, soapbox, coatrack, etc. But can we speed up the process and tag it with G10? Singularity42 (talk) 22:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It's for pages which serve no other purpose than to disparage their subject ("subject" being inclusive of whatever the article is about), so, theoretically, we could apply G10 to an article created only to say "Calculus sucks!". Sometimes, however, we do have legitimate articles regarding criticism that can be written in a neutral manner. If the page only serves to disparage its subject, we can G10 it. In practice, of course, the quickest action is required for BLP violations, and generally something else could go through prod/AfD if there's any doubt. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Revised proposal for recreation

I have seen a lot of articles get speedy deleted just because they were "recreations." But often, the only thing they have in common is the title. In other cases, the title has changed, and it is the content that is identical of similar, and therefore, someone suggests it be speedied. Before anyone has a chance to protest this, the speedy request gets fulfilled.

The bottom line is consensus can change, even in just a few short hours. Nothing is in stone. Policies and guidelines can change, the notability status of a subject can change due to events in the outside world, and in some cases, even when neither of these two change, just making minor changes such as adding a source or two or changing a few words can address the issue. But this is overlooked and the page still is speedied.

Here is a new proposal for recreations of previously deleted pages:

  • Those that meet some other speedy deletion criteria (such as attack pages) can be speedy deleted
  • Those that do not cannot be speedy deleted. Rather, they must be proposed for deletion via AfD. During the AfD, a copy of the previously deleted page will be made visible (outside of main namespace, the best place is the creator's userspace) to anyone who wishes to comment. This will allow the Wikipedia community at large to determine whether or not the issues have been addressed, and even the creator to give his/her point-of-view. In most cases, following a 7-day discussion, it'll be closed like any other AfD. But if, after a shorter period of time, even several hours, if there is a clear consensus that the new version is like the old one, it can be closed as delete at that point. Sebwite (talk) 18:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't we have already existing procedures at WP:AfC and WP:DRV? Singularity42 (talk) 18:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
DRV is only for discussion of the original deletion - that is, it is not a measure of whether consensus or the article itself has changed, only of whether the original AfD was closed correctly. It's not the most user-friendly process either. DuncanHill (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
The relevant criterion G4 requires that the recreation is "sufficiently identical and unimproved", so the examples you mentioned are actually not correct speedy candidates anyway. And DRV is for any deletion, not only the original deletion. It can also be used to overturn a mistaken G4 speedy, although in most cases the deleting admin will restore the page on request anyway. Regards SoWhy 18:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
On multiple occasions, I have recreated pages that were previously deleted, and I thought they would be safe because I did indeed change them. But they were still speedied, simply because one editor just went ahead and marked them {{db-g4}}, and an administrator unfamiliar with that page's past went and fulfilled that request. The admin has then ignored my requests to restore the page, seeming to be absent altogether. The DRV has the problem in that it takes easily 7 days just to get the restoration fulfilled, and that will only happen if one manages to win over consensus there. Besides, most people commenting at DRV don't even have easy access to the page in question to see what it is like.
One change that should be made immediately is that any recreated page that does not meet another speedy criteria cannot be speedied, period, once a substantial amount of time has passed since its deletion. The real purpose for this reason is to have the ability to delete a page that one jumps into recreating moments after its deletion. Such recreations are often in bad faith, and are more likely to be the work of relative newcomers. In any case, most speedy deletions are made against pages created by newbies, and if a substantial amount of time has passed since the deletion, it is likely to have been recreated in good faith. Sebwite (talk) 05:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Such deletions are indeed bad but you say yourself that they were not speedy candidates. As such the problem lies with the deleting admins not applying policy correctly and I do not think that a change in policy, no matter of what nature, will influence such deletion decisions. DRV is indeed complicated for such cases (although the page can be temporarily restored for DRV purposes) but if the deleting admin is clearly not active, I think most other admins will fulfill a request for restoration as well if you can demonstrate to them that the page was not eligible for speedy deletion. Regards SoWhy 11:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
An AFD means there was an explicit consensus to delete a particular version of the article. Consensus can change, but it doesn't expire just because an arbitrary amount of time went by. Mr.Z-man 15:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
In some cases, we do know that consensus has changed. if an article about a village were from example to have gotten deleted at AfD for not being important enough, and someone recreates it exactly, it would not be a reasonable G4. Given the variability at afd--I don't think anyone would really claim better than a 10% error rate--it is not unreasonable to see what has happened subsequently to similar articles. But just time alone does not invalidate an AfD. If there is any doubt, the proper course is always AfD. After a clearly unmeritorious reinsertion,the close at AfD can and usually does call for salting, and then we're done with it. ` DGG ( talk ) 02:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

User pages and G8

Following this thread at AN, I removed the mention of user pages as particularly non-eligible under G8 (user talk pages remain). The clarification was added a year ago with concern regarding user subpages, but I think the more likely cases are for broken redirects as a result of a page move, most often seen in user space (as opposed to user talk). This is inline with the G8 templates, and hopefully avoids a whole mess of complex language. Feel free to re-revert and discuss. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

But those were simply examples, weren't they? I think no one really thought that broken redirects in userspace that are of no further use to the project were not eligible if deletion was requested. Regards SoWhy 20:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion - authors must be informed

One of the things we've discovered at Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at CSD is that frequently articles are being deleted without any communication with the author (it happened in 5 of our 36 tests and these weren't even articles that should have been speedied). Now I wouldn't propose that every time an article is tagged for speedy deletion the author must be informed (exceptions I can think of are G7 when the author has blanked their work, and ancient bad faith articles). But it does concern me that a good faith newbie can just have their article disappear with no feedback other than the log message they see if they try and recreate it.

Currently our policy is that:

Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets, and should consider notifying the article creator and any major contributors.

I would like to change this to:

Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets, and notify major good faith contributors to the article, especially the creator, but please avoid template bombing a newbie if they've created a group of articles which are all being deleted for the same reason.

I'm not totally happy with my proposed wording, but do people agree that we have a problem here, and if so what would be the best way to rephrase the policy? ϢereSpielChequers 15:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

That's what I was attempting to suggest above. I guess I wasn't totally clear and had a few extras but I'd be inclined to support. In my opinion helps reduce confusion and helps enable learning experiences. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
  • It's the default, even. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm still happy to write a program to take over from CSDWarnBot, but was told not to bother. The only disadvantage of that is I can't run it 24/7. But if anybody was willing to have it run on a computer they do have on at all times (unlikely), I'd be happy to email it to them - Kingpin13 (talk) 20:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Maybe it could be added to a currently running bot or a bot that runs from the toolserver? User:AnomieBOT for example already does deletion related tasks. Regards SoWhy 14:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I guess these means ST47 didn't follow through with restarting CSDWarnBOT... I'll try to take a look at the code he provided today and see if I can't get it up & going again. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
If twinkle can be programmed to send a warning, can not the template be so written also? DGG ( talk ) 01:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't work like that from a technical standpoint. A bot's the only way to do it. Editing one page can't magically affect another page (transclusions notwithstanding). --Cybercobra (talk) 11:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I used to have an AfD script that would pop open the appropriate pages and auto-insert the templates which I could then edit with my message and hit save. There is no reason twinkle shouldn't be able to open the users talk and append the notification and a welcome.--Crossmr (talk) 00:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I think we need more, to ensure that newbies are welcomed before they are warned. What I find horrifying in the WP:NEWT results, and in doing CSD tagging, is that often the first message a newbie gets is a warning template. I should like to add:

If it appears that the user is new or newish and has never had a welcome paragraph, then (unless the warning is for an attack page) it is important that one should be added to his talk page before the CSD template. This needs care: some warning templates, e.g. those for db-g3 and PROD, will automatically add a welcome if the user talk page is empty, so that adding {{subst:welcome}} in the same edit as a warning template may produce a double welcome; on the other hand, if there are existing edits such as previous warnings, even db-g3 and PROD templates will not add a welcome. The best procedure is therefore: examine the talk page; if it needs a welcome, add {{subst:welcome}}; then add the warning template.

I don't know how that would be managed with Twinkle and Huggle. JohnCD (talk) 21:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Going through the wp:NEWT results I suspect that this isn't so much a Twinkle issue as some Newpage patrollers who edit manually not considering that they need to inform the author whose page they propose to delete. So unless anyone objects or suggests a better wording I'll change the wording to

Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets, and notify major good faith contributors to the article, especially the creator, but please avoid template bombing a newbie if they've created a group of articles which are all being deleted for the same reason.

Alternatively we could leave it as being discretionary, but I don't think anyone here is arguing for that. ϢereSpielChequers 10:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

User:Sodam Yat has kindly offered to run a bot constantly for a while. So I'm going to go ahead and program it (I need to know how long a period between the tag and the bot warning there should be). If we do (or don't) make it policy for nppers to notify the creator, I could make the bot warn users who don't warn the creator. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Didn't ThaddeusB offer to run a similar bot above? I'd check with him before writing any more code or asking someone to run it. Thaddeus already runs several bots, so it would be simply another task added instead of a completely new bot. Regards SoWhy 17:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
While I am more than willing to do this, and should ThaddeusB not be able to take it on will gladly do so, I have never run a bot before and if someone more seasoned than I is capable of doing so I will gladly pass the task to them. Sodam Yat (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
It should be fairly easy for me to write, as I have a library which I wrote myself (for SDPatrolBot), which allows me to have the bot easily understand CSD. I should have something working today or tomorrow, so since this program will only take me two days work, I'll go ahead and complete it anyway. I will however talk to ThaddeusB about it before statring a BRfA. But I'm not sure if ST47's code will be worth trying to use, since (as far as I can see) there seems to be multiple problems with it. - Kingpin13 (talk) 08:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
ThaddeusB seems to be fine with me programming this. So I've started up a BRfA for this task (since the coding is 99% complete, just need to create the warning template since there were problems with CSDWarnBot's template), see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDPatrolBot II for the BRfA. I would really appreciate any input there. Best, - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Having been guilty of a few overzealous CSD's myself, and having shifted back and forth between regularly notifying users and just skipping it, I figure I'll add my 10.

There's always the question as to whether posting the reason on an otherwise blank user page will do any good, and thus whether it's worth the effort. That comes back to whether the original poster is a new user posting an article in good faith or they're just posting to see themselves post.

I'm not sure the expanded wording will have the desired affect, assuming the desired affect is to have editors more regularly notify posters when their article's been tagged for CSD. I would recommend keeping the policy short and sweet, rather then making it longer. For example:

"Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets and notify the article creator, and any major contributors, of the nomination."

Just my take. It strengthens the recommendation to notify the author, without making a lot of extra work. Might want to add a sentence about using discretion when posting multiple templates for repeat offenders. But having seen the typical repeat offender, they're likely of the "post to see themselves post" variety, and don't read their own user page anyway.

Oh. Thanks for the WikiBeer! Cheers. Bagheera (talk) 18:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Major contributor would cause an automation issue. Its easy for a script to figure out who created an article. It might not be so easy to automatically figure out who another "major contributor" might be. I think most times the creator is the only major contributor to an article that ends up tagged CSD but it would add a lot of work for NPP if they couldn't automate the notification.--Crossmr (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The request is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDPatrolBot II here, if anyone wants to chime in with advice or a suggestion. Sodam Yat (talk) 03:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

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