User:Aiken drum/CSD

This is an attempt to reorganise and simplify the CSD criteria so that it is less unwieldy and long-winded for admins to follow and understand. The current system is organised on a namespace basis - i.e., all speedy deletion that applies to articles is together, as it is for templates, files etc. Each criteria has a shortcut name - e.g., A1 means the first article deletion criteria. In some cases a number is missing - this is because there was a criteria at some point, but has been removed and the numbering has been preserved.

Many of the current criteria can easily be merged together - for example, there are two separate criteria for dealing with copyvios. One is G12, the other is F9. There is no need for these to be separated, when they deal with the same issue. This proposal is not removing any criteria, merely consolidating it and making it easier to follow and understand, with less rambling and more concise instructions.

Rather than splitting the criteria up by namespace types, there would be four different types of speedy deletion:

1. Highly inappropriate content - this consolidates G3, G10, G11, G12 and F9 into two simple criteria. This deals with the worst content, which should be the priority. It includes vandalism, attack pages and copyvios.
   • Content added in bad faith - vandalism, hoaxes and attack pages

   • Any content that consists solely of vandalism, misinformation, or libel, legal threats or completely negative and unsourced material about a living person

   • Other content - spam and copyvios

   • Any content that consists solely of spam or a copyvio.

2. Good-faith contibutions - consolidates G1, G2, A1, A3, A7 and A9 into three criteria. This deals with articles that users, usually new ones, create in good faith but are unsuitable for the encyclopedia. This is usually the area where most NPP users trip up, and it's where there's the most risk of newbie biting. Patent nonsense and test pages are different from vandalism, in that vandalism is a deliberate attempt to damage the encyclopedia, where as testing or typing randomly are not.
   • Patent nonsense and test pages

   • Any page consisting solely of patent nonsense or test pages made in good faith

   • Lack of content or context

   • Any page that lacks encyclopedic content, containing only features such as headers, tags, images, categories or external links, or any page that lacks context to determine the article topic

   • Lack of importance asserted

   • Articles about real people, individual animals, organisations (except schools), web content or a musical recording where the artist lacks an article, that does not indicate any importance or significance

3. Files - F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F10, F11, U3. This covers most issues with files, as they involve different time limits to the other areas. In addition to files themselves, galleries containing files are also under this criteria.
   • Lacking or invalid license

   • Media marked with non-commercial use only, no derivatives or Wikimedia use only. Files which lack a license may be deleted after seven days.

   • Lacking or invalid fair use claim

   • Non-free files may be deleted immediately, if they have an invalid fair use tag or contain subjects which are not the subject of sourced commentary. If they are replaceable they may be deleted after two days. Disputed claims may be deleted after seven days if a valid rationale is added.

   • No evidence of permission

   • Files which lack evidence of permission to be used may be deleted after seven days. Files for which the uploader would have no reasonable expectation of gaining permission can be deleted immediately.

   • Unused unfree files

   • May be deleted seven days after being identified, or immediately if its only use was on a deleted article and it is unlikely to be used anywhere else

   • Non-free galleries

   • Galleries in userspace consisting of non-free images

   • Useless files

   • Files which have no encyclopedic use, that are not images, videos or sound

4. Uncontroversial deletion - G4, G5, G6, G7, G8, G9, A2, A5, A10, R2, R3, F1, F2, F8, C1, C2, U1, U2, T2, T3, P1, P2. Basically, this is everything else that is not covered above. This is generally deletion that is almost impossible to contest as it is done in order to maintain the encyclopedia. Criteria such as G7 and U1 are merged into one as they are essentially covering the same thing.
   • Pages deleted via a deletion discussion

   • This does not apply to pages that are substantially different to the version deleted, the reason for which they were deleted is no longer valid, were moved to userspace for improvement, were undeleted via deletion review, or were speedily deleted or deleted via a prod.

   • Pages created by banned users

   • Applies only to pages which the banned user is the significant author of

   • Technical deletions

   • Housekeeping deletions, such as of unnecessary disambiguation pages, maintenance categories, page moves or corrupt files.

   • Author requests deletion

   • Applies only to pages which the requested is the significant author of, or it is the requester's userspace, but does not apply to user talk pages

   • Pages dependent on a deleted or non-existent page

   • Applies to talk pages, subpages, empty file pages, redirects to deleted or non-existent pages. Excludes user talk pages, archives and file talk pages for files hosted on Wikimedia Commons.

   • Office actions

   • The Wikimedia Foundation may need to speedily delete a page in exceptional circumstances, which should not be undone without permission.

   • Foreign language articles that exist on another project

   • Does not apply to articles that don't have a corresponding article on another project

   • Transwikied articles

   • This applies only to articles that have been transwikied and the author information recorded

   • Duplicate content

   • Recently created articles which duplicate an existing topic, that do not improve or expand upon it, and that have a title that is not a plausible redirect. Applies to unused duplicated or lower quality copies of files in the same format. Files which are available on Wikimedia Commons may be deleted, if: they are in the same format, they are of the same or higher quality, they have a suitable license and source information, the author information has been transferred, the image is not tagged and the image is not protected. Duplicate templates, or templates which are not used may be deleted after seven days.

   • Redirects from mainspace to any other mainspace

   • This does not apply to shortcuts, nor to redirects to category, help, portal, project or template namespaces.

   • Implausable redirects

   • Applies to recently created redirects of implausible typos or misnomers, but not to articles that have been changed into a redirect page

   • Unpopulated categories

   • Applies to categories that have been empty for four or more days, but does not apply to disambiguation categories, category redirects, featured topic categories, categories in a current deletion discussion or categories that become empty because of their nature

   • Fixing categories

   • Applies to correcting spelling and capitalisation errors, punctuation fixes, renaming per conventions or to follow the category tree

   • Non-existent users

   • Userpages of users who do not exist, except for renamed users and common misspellings of established users

   • Inappropriate templates

   • Templates which misrepresent policy

   • Inappropriate portals

   • Portals which contain only a stub header article, or fewer than three non-stub articles.