User:S Marshall/Essay2

UninvitedCompany said here:

“ There are three patterns to the way deletion process has evolved:

1. The criteria expand over time reflecting trends at xFD and actual practice, which often pushes the boundaries purportedly set by the criteria.
2. Over time the ratio of xFD deletions to CSD deletions declines, which means that CSD is increasingly becoming the deletion policy of the project. This is due in large measure to the fact that few Wikipedians find XFD participation to be a worthwhile form of contribution.
3. There is a tendency over time for administrators, as a group, to delete more and more qualifying pages under any new CSD that is adopted, without assessing the value created or burden posed by each article or considering WP:BITE. Over the course of years, we reach the point where all pages matching any one of the criteria are deleted. For a recent example the copyvio and advertising CSDs, which with both interpreted quite narrowly when first adopted.

”

CSD use is expanding rapidly, mainly because it's so much easier than WP:AFD and so much quicker than WP:PROD. This is a good thing, but CSD does need checks and balances in some form. The question is, what form should the checks and balances take? There is precedent.

WP:PROD says:

“ Note: To ensure independent judgment, an article should not be deleted by the same person who added the {{prod}} tag. ”

This essay says "As a general rule" for a good reason. There will be times when disruptive or promotional edits can be uncontroversially removed irrespective of essays or indeed guidelines. Never follow a rule off a cliff.

Users citing this essay believe that as a general rule, there should be some separation between the tagger and the deleter. In other words, for most deletions, there should normally be at least two pairs of eyes on the article.

However, an exception should certainly be made for content that is, or could be, harmful to Wikipedia or to a living person. So in terms of the CSD criteria, users citing this essay hold that those coloured red in the following chart could often be deletable with only a single pair of eyes, those in yellow sometimes, and the others only under exceptional circumstances.

CSD Criterion	Potential harm to Wikipedia	One-pair-of-eyes speedy
G1	No	No
G2	No	No
G3	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
G4	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
G5	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
G6	No	No
G7	No	Yes (only applies to admins deleting their own contributions)
G8	No	No
G9	N/A	N/A (not a matter for us)
G10	Yes	Yes
G11	No	No
G12	Yes	Yes
A1	No	No
A2	No	No
A3	No	No
A5	No	No
A7	No	No
A9	No	No
R2	No	No
R3	No	No
F1	No	No
F2	No	No
F3	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
F4	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
F5	No	No
F6	No	No
F7	Yes	Yes
F8	No	No
F9	Yes	Yes
F10	No	No
F11	No	No
C1	No	No
C2	No	No
U1	No	Yes (only applies to admins deleting content from their own userspace)
U2	No	No
U3	Perhaps	In cases of direct harm
P1	Varies	Varies
P2	No	No