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Hoaxes - CSD G3 or AfD?

There is some confusion regarding how hoaxes are dealt with. I specifically refer to this AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Giovanni DonCara which got speedily deleted under G3 as a hoax, indeed Wikipedia:Vandalism states that hoaxes are vandalism. Yet G1 states that hoaxes are not candidates for speedy deletion and WP:HOAX guidelines state that hoaxes should be dealt with through AfD. These two contradictory terms need to be cleared up. So what is it to be in regard to hoaxes, CSD G3 or AfD? --tgheretford (talk) 21:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If it is clearly and unequivocally a hoax, it has no business being in the encyclopedia. Discussion is because sometimes it is not so clear, but blatant hoaxes are vandalism or nonsense. —Centrx→talk • 21:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
In practice, there are different types of hoaxes. The ones that are speediable, to my mind, are those that are so preposterous that no ordinary person would believe them for a moment, and are manifestly vandalism or nonsense (like articles that read something like "John Q. Subject was the 35th President of the United States, and was married to Janet Jackson") or where the assertions in the article are patently preposterous and refer to future or nonexistent events ("Jane L. Subject won the women's 100-meter gold medal in the 2012 Olympics"). Other hoaxes, which require due digilence because they are plausible enough to be believed, should probably have the {{hoax}} template added, be vetted by editors, and dealt with via PROD or AfD. There has been at least one article that was tagged as a speedy as G1 "nonsense" because it was a hoax, but it wasn't a hoax as such, and had some legitimate references (and was meant as a serious article). I sent it to AfD, where it was eventually deleted as insufficiently verifiable, but it deserved its day in court. In addition, I think Wikipedia:Vandalism's citation of hoaxes as vandalism is more of a warning not to create hoax articles, and that doing so will lead to being blocked. --MCB 22:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Only the most blatant of hoaxes may be speedy-deleted. The problem is that many articles have been tagged as hoaxes but turned out to be real though very obscure topics. Other times, they turned out to be references to works of fiction but the contributor had not yet added the necessary context. Complicating matters, these articles are often very poorly written stubs.
As individuals, we tend to be very poor at sorting out the true hoaxes from the false positives. On the other hand, the AFD process with its much wider audience and oversight is very effective at finding the real topics among the dross. For a while, I made a hobby of keeping track of such deletion discussions. There may still be a few listed at the bottom of my userpage. Rossami (talk) 00:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh, if only I learned to scroll down before writing... I addressed the issue of the G1-G3 discordance above in ignorance of this discussion (and, to be sure, at exorbitant length and excessively unclearly). In any case, I do think it clear that there is an inherent contradition between G1 and G3, such that I'm not certain that a reviewer of such criteria would think it plain that even those pages which are clearly and unequivocally hoaxes should be speedied. I can't imagine that most in the community would, the subjective qualities of clearly and unequivocally notwithstanding, disfavor speedying in such situations, but, because IAR should be at its nadir as regards speedy deletion, we ought to address the ambiguity. Joe 06:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I consider deliberate hoaxes under the same category as vandalism and would speedy them if clear. Stifle (talk) 19:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Except for the silliest, hoaxes are not usually clear. In most cases I would be unwilling to say something was a hoax on the basis of my opinion alone. Thus the advantage of AfD for them-in most cases.DGG 20:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure that that's "most" of the hoaxes here. In sheer numbers, I'm inclined to believe that "Joe is the Kiing of the United States of Europoe" is more common than the more subtle kind. NickelShoe (Talk) 22:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:CSD/Quick reference

I cleaned this up, as now-defunct criteria A6 was still on there (it is now part of G10). Shin'ou's TTV (Futaba|Masago|Kotobuki) 22:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

CSD-R2

If anybody has time, I ran a report of redirects that need to be deleted under CSD-R2. (these are from a month-old dump, so they can all be deleted) --Interiot 22:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you add a little &redirect=no in there. —Centrx→talk • 07:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It's finished. It's a bit surprising how many people intentionally create one (or more) links to their user page, and recreate them after they're deleted. It's basically a clear WP:VAIN issue after a certain point. --Interiot 20:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Expansion of C1

Category criterion 1, that of empty categories, should be expanded or clarified in that an empty category does not count as content for the purposes of establishing whether another category is empty, e.g. Category:A contains Category:B and Category:C, however, B and C are both empty. If A contains other articles or categories, it is clearly not empty, but if A contains nothing other than the two empty categories, it should be treated as empty (as a category containing only empty categories is about as useful as an empty category itself - administrativia aside). Any thoughts? Chris cheese whine 06:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think leaving it as-is reduces the likelihood of adminstrator error in deleting what s/he thought was an empty category. If subcats are empty, they can be speedied first at which point parent categories can go. If this is too slow, I suggest commenting out the category inclusion of child categories while you are marking them for CSD. All in all, I guess I'd say I weakly oppose the change to C1. BigNate37(T) 06:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. The subcats have to be deleted separately anyway. Then it'll be empty. Deco 06:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The main reason I proposed this was to be able to depopulate and tag an entire tree of categories, rather than wait for each to be deleted and then tag the parents, such as (hypothetical) Category:2026 and its children Category:2026 in sports, Category:2026 Winter Olympic games, Category:2026 FIFA World Cup, etc. (I would hope I don't have to explain why these need to go). Chris cheese whine 06:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
This situation would be relatively rare. The best approach would be simply to mention it at WP:AN, so that administrators are aware that they are dealing with a tree of empty categories. There's no need to change the criteria for this. --bainer (talk) 07:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I beg to differ on the point of rarity, having depopulated and tagged about 100 such categories (and passed over about another 50) just today. Chris cheese whine 07:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Page decided upon for deletion is still there

I've just put a regular (not speedy) deletion tag at Eric Devendorf, and found this page that says "The result of the debate was DELETE. -Splash 01:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)." The article is still here, and still doesn't seem particularly notable. --Tenebrae 16:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It was deleted, but seems to have been recreated again. Consider if {{db-repost}} (WP:CSD#G4) would be appropriate as a speedy-deletion reason. --ais523 16:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it wouldn't be appropriate; the then-deleted article is perhaps a sentence or two, whereas the current article is much larger.
That said, I still think it should be deleted, but it can't be speedied under G4 (maybe under A7, though being named Big East All Rookie Team strikes me as an assertion of notability). I'd recommend submitting a second AfD and then wait for it to pass. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I was being careful with my words, because as a non-admin I can't tell what the deleted article was, so I can't tell whether the new one's a repost. --ais523 16:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the "repost of deleted material" criteria is tricky; the people who generally flag articles as such can only guess if its a real repost or not. *shrug* EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I concur. The subject may still be non-notable but the article is sufficiently different that this does not qualify under the "repost" criterion. A new AFD is in order. I see that it's so tagged but will correct the tag to reflect that it's a second nomination. Rossami (talk) 16:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

speedy_deletion_user_page_warning_templates?

Template for notifying a user whose article I just tagged for speedy. See Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#speedy_deletion_user_page_warning_templates?. Where is it? and/or Is there a good reason for not having one? ∴ here…♠ 01:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They're actually at the bottom of the speedy notices themselves. NickelShoe (Talk) 02:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
So they are. I'll add a further reference from Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace , thanks. ∴ here…♠ 05:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

db-unksource and db-unfree templates

Do we need the {{db-unksource}} and {{db-unfree}} templates, which basically say "delete this now", when we have {{no source}} and {{orphaned fairuse not replaced}} to take images though our seven day queues? The problem with these two is that every so often, the main category of speedy candidates gets flooded with images when someone — who is trying to be helpful — goes through through the week-old subcategories of Category:Images with unknown source or Category:Orphaned fairuse images and retags the images for immediate deletion. ×Meegs 18:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would also prefer to use the 7 day category based system that most of the images go through (and delete these). I have notified a few users who did this that after 7 days we know they should be deleted without tagging them as speedy, and every time they were very nice and understood, but each time it seems like new people stumble on that idea independently. As far as the initial tagging I think it's always better to give the uploader/interested parties the normal 7 days by using {{nsd}} etc. - cohesion 19:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Technicaly they have some use for when a cat gets acidentaly removed or they fall out of the system in some other way but that is about it.Geni 19:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
True, but the dated ones can work in those cases too, either with a harmless additional 7 days wait or without (if you manually enter last week's date). I don't think it's worth keeping the templates around because they seem to attract those unnecessary mass tagging fairly frequently. I've seen three in the last few months. ×Meegs 19:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles lacking sources

I propose we permit speedy deletion of articles with no sources. This would also include articles with self written sources. For example, the Liberal Party of Canada article referencing the Liberal Party of Canada web site. Thoughts? Alan.ca 06:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

This isn't even a proper basis for an AfD nomination. You might want to bring your proposal to WP:DEL first. I wouldn't expect much support for it there, either, though. Simões (talk/contribs) 07:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
You may want to see Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles. There isn't much support for the idea. Titoxd(?!?) 07:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Extend G8 to include "needed" articles

Hi, I recently tagged two article talk pages as needed, with a high class importance. This is part of the Cricket Wikiproject. However, the needed concept was ignored, and the pages were speedy deleted under G8. I do not see this as valuable to the encyclopedia at all. The two pages were about national cricket boards, which currently did not have articles. [1] [2]

Would it be possible to extend G8 to contain needed articles as an exception to the rule where talk pages are eliminated if articles do not exist. Ansell 08:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not maintain a list of needed articles somewhere at the WikiProject? There is also Wikipedia:Requested articles. This would avoid having orphaned talk pages out there. --bainer (talk) 08:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
What's the problem with Orphaned talk pages? Mathiastck 14:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I think there is not much harm in keeping "orphaned" talk pages containing a "needed" or "missing" statement in a WikiProject banner. That would allow for missing articles to show up in bot-generated lists like Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Cricket articles by quality. In fact, I am surprised that people delete these tak pages. Kusma (討論) 10:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the primary concerns in this area have always been ease of navigation and maintenance, and in both respects I think a list has greater benefit in this type of situation. However if the system is properly maintained by bot, and not by hand, then it would probably be no big deal. --bainer (talk) 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I favor using a template on orphaned talk pages, thereby describing what they are, why they are orphaned, and putting them into a list automatically. Mathiastck 14:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to add "or information that is important for creating a legitimate page there." but I think it may need to be broader. For example, with repeatedly re-created pages (such as those which are deleted and protected), there is often information relevant to the deletion that will advise future editors why it was deleted in the past, which is usually relevant to whether it should be deleted in the future. Also, is the provision about deletion discussion that is not logged elsewhere still relevant? While there may exist extremely old pages that were on VfD, these discussions are not really important in the sense that future articles will probably go through an AfD, given that years have passed between the old article and the new, if they are re-created at all. —Centrx→talk • 11:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

G8 is for housekeeping, and should be used for nothing more. Take a look at {{futureart}} and see if that helps deter users who interpret G8 too widely. BigNate37(T) 15:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
G6 is housekeeping. G8 is about talk pages of deleted or nonexistent pages. —Centrx→talk • 03:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I realise that, and I regretted using the wording soon after making that comment. What I meant by it was that G8 is only for talk pages which are of no value, those for which an MfD (is that the right XfD for talk pages without articles?) would merely be a formality. G8 should not be used to delete talk pages which are still relevant despite the absence of an accompanying article. BigNate37(T) 04:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you're both right but some history might help others reading the thread. When we changed the rule to stop allowing anon users to create article pages, we still allowed them to create Talk pages. It slowed down the vandalism on article pages but many vandals simply started creating their nonsense on Talk pages - pages for which there never would or could be real articles. This criterion was defined largely in response to that problem - the need to swiftly clean up the bad-faith creation of a page which served no useful purpose except to waste other editors time and attention. We always expected that admins would use recognize the good-faith "orphaned" talk pages and use common sense. Rossami (talk) 05:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I have not seen it go down such in practice. G8 is poorly worded. It is commonly being interpreted as a mandate to delete any talk page that does not have an article, even talk pages clearly designed for the purpose of assisting in the creation of an article. I would refer you here for a point in case [[Template_talk:Future_article_talk_page]]. Mathiastck 14:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The ghost of T2 (keeping T2 reserved for historical interest)

I added a criteria T2, and noted it had been repealed by community consensus and was kept for historical reasons. My reasoning is this: A8 is kept, even though no longer applicable, to prevent another criteria from being added with the number A8. I submit the theory is that criteria numbers should be unique. T2 was listed for some time. Further, T2 is of historical interest, as there was a major comotion about it, before my time. There still exists a user category [[Category:Anti_T2_Wikipedians]]. As such, I believe that T2 should be kept for historical interest, and barred from being the number for a future, different criteria. I went ahead and made the change to WP:CSD feeling this will not be controversial, but I'm noting it here, just in case I am in error. I know it was contentious, and even resulted in protection of the CSD due to edit warring while under discussion. AubreyEllenShomo 21:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that Radiant! removed T2 as part of a copyedit, but don't see any discussion on T2 here. I still beleive that T2 should be kept for historical reasons, and since Radiant! didn't comment here on removing it, I can only assume he overlooked this talk section, and the reasons for my add of T2. As such, I feel it's appropriate for me to undo that part of his copyedit, and re-add T2. I did so with revision 97656411 (edsum Revision 95081296 by Radiant! edsum "copyed" removed historical reference to T2, without discussion. Readded T2.) AubreyEllenShomo 03:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Everything you've done is in good faith, no doubt, but I agree with Radiant!. It's not needed. Metamagician3000 03:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
So how do we explain all the debates about CSD T2 if T2 is replaced with something else? The pages will make no sense. -Amarkov blahedits 03:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
People who keep reverting this back in - as far as I know it was first placed there only a couple of weeks ago. It does not have consensus. On the merits, it is not necessary. There is no reason to enshrine the T2 episode forever on the face of one of our most important policies. On the contrary, it is a period that we should put behind us - the issue was resolved in another way that actually met the spirit of what the sponsors of T2 were trying to achieve but without the most extreme policies on userboxes prevailing. Please let this heal. If there is ever a proposal for a new T2 the debate will probably be ancient history. Metamagician3000 03:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
There are many things which reference it, which is a good reason to keep it. Do you have a good reason why it is harmful? -Amarkov blahedits 03:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[un-indent] Yes, but I think it would be difficult to explain unless you were immersed in the wars at the time. I haven't re-reverted you - I try to resist the temptation of editing in that way - but really think that leaving it like that is harmful to the healing process. Unfortunately, I know of no way to explain this concisely. Still, don't you think it would be better to defer to the wishes of people who feel that way? If a few others who went through it all come here and say they're okay with it, then that's fine, but I think it would take that before I'd be happy to see it in the form that's there. Metamagician3000 04:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Then what do you propose we change all the instances of "T2" on talk pages into? Common sense dictates that you don't give something else the name of an already entrenched concept. We would not, for instance, give the WP:NOTE redirect to the hypothetical policy Wikipedia:Notation methods, even if Wikipedia:Notability was someday rejected as policy. At the very least, there should be a note for T2 saying "For the historical T2 deletion criteria, see Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates. Especially if a new policy is put in its place. --tjstrf talk 09:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

CSD templates

There have been a number of revisions and reverts being made to a number of CSD templates for example Template:nn-warn. The problem is some people want there to be a headline in the template, and others do not because if you create a new talk page then you create a header at the same time. Either way a decision has to be made so that there is consistency, and that New page patrollers are happy with these tools. I assume this is a suitable place for this discussion, if not tell me. Lethaniol 14:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

For Heading:

I think headline is useful, it is easy to use. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 14:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Against Heading:

I think that if a number of new talk pages are being tagged with CSD warnings then better not to have the heading in the template. Lethaniol 14:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Some issues: Some templates have them, some don't. It's inconsistent. Also, often there are circumstances where you really want a custom header for a particular situation, or you want to include a warning under a head that's already there. The editor leaving the tag should decide whether a header is appropriate, and what it should say. Also, frankly, the standard header is a link to the article. Once it's speedied, some people find the red link an irresistable temptation to recreate it. Fan-1967 14:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think your last point about the red link is very good reason not to have it. Of course we could still have heading without link? Lethaniol 15:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
We could, and sometimes I use the article title without the link. However, often I just want to add the warning to an existing section. The problem with automated headers is that you can't adjust as may be appropriate. Fan-1967 15:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
We can easily change red-reason, just replace [[:{{{1}}}]] with {{{1}}} only. So you will get a headline without link. Or some more complex {{{1}}}[[:{{{1}}}|(link)]]. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 15:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree that could have an unlinked heading, as stated above, but the main problem is that when creating a new talk page you are obliged to put in a Heading - so clashing with the template one - how do we get round that Tulkolahten? IMHO better to have to put your own heading, and not have to waste time to editing the page again to sort out heading issues. Lethaniol 15:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You're mistaken. There is no obligation to put in a heading. When you go to a new Talk page, you're automatically in edit mode, and you can just start typing text with no header. On an existing page, click "edit this page" instead of "+". Again, you can just enter text with no header. Fan-1967 15:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
That's true, just leave Subject/headline blank and put template into text box. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 15:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry my mistake. Thanks Lethaniol 16:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I prefer no header (and I've removed the header on some of these templates); I like to be able to use the + tab to add a warning. (This is especially true on long talk pages, to save strain on my browser, but long talk pages tend not to get speedy warnings very often.) The lack of header also means I can customize a header to the situation and it simplifies the scripts I use for warning users. --ais523 16:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, no auto-header. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Even though I think it is somewhat useful, I still think it should be up to the warner to create the headline. None of the other warning templates autp include the heading. I do not see why this template is any different. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify - the AFD, PROD and a number of other CSD user talk page warnings do have a linked title - so this issue could affect a few templates. P.S. I know AFD and PROD are not being discussed here, but the same arguments are apparent, especially as they are used more heavily on new users pages too. Lethaniol 17:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't have an issue with a linked title in the warning. I just don't want it in 24 point type as a section header. Fan-1967 19:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand that the CSD warnings are different from the test warnings, but I think it will be important to make them consistent across all warnings. When i give a test, I know exactly what I am going to get, when i grab a new warning from the list at WP:WARN, i assume it will be in a certain format, and that is without the heading built into the template. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

If people want to check the list of AFD/CSD/PROD warnings see Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace#Deletion notifications Cheers Lethaniol 17:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

  • No header. When I warn people, I want to be able to start a new comment instead of editing the entire page. Yuser31415 19:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • No auto-header. If I want one, I can create one, whereas if I'm following up on an earlier discussion of the same topic/header, I don't want the template to try to do my thinking for me. it also can't handle third-level headers very gracefully, or comments added via the [+] button. -- nae'blis 21:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

People who couldn't care less, but just want it to be consistent and not changing on every other template every ten minutes

Having it both ways

We could have it no headline as the standard, but an extra template with the header, say the template's name was CSDNote, one with the header could be CSDNote-h. What does everyone think? (btw: don't bother with bringing up the amount of space of the servers, they've got tons). --WikiSlasher 04:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't you realize that if we make 5 extra templates, we will run out of server space? (Kidding, kidding.) In all seriousness, the one problem with forking it is that you now have two places you have to maintain the text. What about instead having {{xFDNote|header=0}} and {{xFDNote|header=1}}? (We can argue about whether it defaults to 0 or 1.) BigDT 07:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah forking it is a not-so-good idea, but I like your idea of using fancy code on the template to give the user a choice. --WikiSlasher 05:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
A second template set need not be an exact copy of what we've got now. Double transclusion might do the trick here, with the heading templates simply putting in the heading and then calling the original template. I'm reasonably sure that substitution gets all the levels of transclusion, and I read somewhere that transclusion shouldn't go past 10 levels so two should be fine. Comments? BigNate37(T) 07:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
A great idea, as long as the default is no header. Yuser31415 (Review me!) 07:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Substitution does not get all the levels of transclusion. Try {{subst:welcome}}, you'll get Hello, {{BASEPAGENAME}}, and in the edit window. The boldness was to make sure it would get read (I can imagine a lot of people missing a comment stuffed in the middle of text like this). --WikiSlasher 14:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Having two variants is a little bit tricky, works, but maintaining one text on two places is not easy. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 15:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
BASEPAGENAME isn't a template, but I tried substituting my {{User:BigNate37/TM/Status-online2}}[3] and you are correct. BigNate37(T) 13:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think having a second template set is the best of ideas, but the idea of some fancy code as mentioned by BigDT above is good - can someone write such a code for one of the templates (can then copy to the rest), set the default to no header (as most people want that from this discussion). I only ask because I am useless at coding :(:( Lethaniol 12:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Per a request on my talk page, I have mocked up a sample. See User:BigDT/sandbox for a mocked up version of {{nn-warn}} and User talk:BigDT/sandbox for the way it would look. Rather than do 1/0, the default is off. If you specify anything for header, that will turn the header on. You can use header-text to specify a particular header. PLEASE NOTE: it is important to gain a consensus before adding this code to every CSD warning template. BigDT 13:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I tested it out in the sandbox and it works. I wholly support it. --WikiSlasher 14:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree - everybody gets what they want with this solution thanks BigDT. Has anyone got any objections if I start adding them to all the CSD warn and deletion templates. Also do you think I should add to AfD/PROD or should I discuss elsewhere. Lethaniol 15:07, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Go ahead and add them to everything! Are we going to clap for BigDT? *clap* *clap* Yuser31415 (Review me!) 22:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

G8: Talk pages

Currently says: "Talk pages of pages that do not exist, unless they contain deletion discussion that isn't logged elsewhere."

I've seen a practice to keep talk pages also in cases when the discussion continues about the creation of a valid article (discussing reliable sources, etc.)

Should this option be codified as well? `'mikkanarxi 22:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I've always classified that as "deletion discussion", personally. I wouldn't be opposed to perhaps being a bit clearer on that, though. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
There's a template to tag these as being exempt to the deletion criterion: {{futureart}}. Obviously it should only be used for good faith discussions. -- nae'blis 23:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Obviously must be mentioned in the policy. Please, someone who had good English, do so, something like, "... or tagged with {{futureart}}" to indicate good-faith discussions of a future article". `'mikkanarxi 04:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I think whenever an article is deleted, the talk page should stay (unless of course the only thing on it is "This article is a part of WikiProject blahblah", then it can be deleted). Sometimes the discussion could be useful for some reason. --WikiSlasher 04:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really sure why we ever delete talk pages. We definitely should not do it until some time after the article is deleted. It still leaves me bewildered when I return to an article I frequent, to find it was deleted by some random process, and the talk page is gone too, making it very hard to understand why it got deleted in the first place.

It had been my practice to create talk pages before I create the article, storing there all the tools needed to quickly create the article: Urls, notes, comparisons to seemingly similar articles, etc. I was quite annoyed to see Template:Future_article_talk_page had been deleted, and worse yet so had it's talk page! I can understand someone disagreeing with the policy, but it was excessive to then also delete the talk page. Mathiastck 15:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It's entirely appropriate and accepted to keep such information in a sandbox area in your userspace. (or you can store it on your own computer, or somewhere with an easy HTML editor so you can link to articles... I personally prefer this, since I don't like people to be able to see me making sausage) --Interiot 18:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
That would serve the purpose of helping me later create the article, but would not serve the purpose of helping other people create the article. Mathiastck 14:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

A9

  • CSD#A9 - "Articles which make absolutely no attempt to be an encyclopedia article." Bye-bye fanfic. That would be good. Deizio talk 22:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Needless to say, that's extremely subjective. It's cruft/fanfic/whatever until it's something you're interested in, then it's encyclopedic. --W.marsh 23:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm talking about articles that start "This is a work of fiction I wrote myself. Captain Snickfuddler was bemused..." It's not subjective to say that is making no attempt to be an encyclopedia article, it's your duty. Deizio talk 23:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
        • But that particular wording is problematic, because only a small percentage of our articles are truly on encyclopedic topics to 99% of readers. A substantial minority of editors can always be found who think articles on TV episodes, computer software, websites, slang or related to sex will always be unencyclopedic right off the bat. As nice as it would be to avoid the animosity of those AfDs, I don't think speedy deleting them is a good idea. At any rate, stuff like you describe is somewhat uncommon and generally just deleted as vandalism or under WP:IAR speedilly anyway. --W.marsh 23:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
        • It should be reworded then in a concise way so it isn't subjective—you won't be able to explain it to everyone who reads the CSD page. Objectiveness aside, how does it compare with the rest of the criterion guidelines? Does it come up often? Would the way it is worded allow for the speedy deletion of articles that would not be uncontested at an AfD? Is it non-redundant? BigNate37(T) 23:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
        • What you're describing (My non-existant TV show or book) falls quite nicely under patent nonsense or hoaxes most of the time. --tjstrf talk 23:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, I know IAR and common sense make these things speediable anyway. Jus' sayin' is all, wouldn't it be nice :) Deizio talk 00:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Now who noxiously protected this? Suggest changes the "Test pages" example to something that we see ALOT more often the "Can I really...": 

'''''Bold text''[[[Link title]
== [[Image:Headline text]][[Media:<math>Example.ogg</math>--~~~~Insert non-formatted text here]] ==
]]'''

IE. The "hit all the buttons in a row" test. 68.39.174.238 00:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you think of a good example, then edit the page yourself? (Hint, hint.) Kimchi.sg 00:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The purpose isn't really to list every example from the field, I always felt like the "Can I edit this page?" example really quickly sums up the spirit of the rule in a way anyone can understand. It was quick and sufficient... and pretty trivial to change anyway. --W.marsh 04:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
When I suggested this, the page was protected. Thanx for the unprotect. 68.39.174.238 11:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
BLAST IT, someone removed it with a lame edit summary (Altough I've done that more then a few times... I wonder who I've got saying the same...)... 68.39.174.238 19:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Can we clarify I6?

I6 pertains to "image or media tagged only with a generic fair use template". My reading of this is that it is NOT applicable to media that is correctly tagged with {{logo}}, {{eventposter}}, {{tvscreenshot}}, or one of the other specific image tags, but, rather, should only be used with {{Non-free fair use in}} or one of the other generic image tags. Is this understanding correct?

I have seen, far too many times, logos and other images where the rationale is exceedingly obvious and stated right on the tag, tagged with {{nrd}}. This is obviously a bad thing. It either (1) gets a legitimate image deleted or (2) just creates work for someone to have to copy and paste the rationale off of the tag. What I would like to do is clarify what is already the policy right now by adding example tags and by suggesting WP:SOFIXIT as an alternative to deletion.

So my proposal is to modify I6 as such (my changes in bold)

Any image or media tagged only with a generic fair use template, such as {{Non-free fair use in}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded. Images tagged with a specific fair use tag, such as {{DVDcover}}, {{Albumcover}}, or {{tvscreenshot}} should not be deleted under this criterion, but may be deleted under I1 or I7, if applicable. If an image is merely mistagged, please consider correcting it, if possible, rather than nominating it for deletion. Images and other media uploaded before May 4, 2006 ...

Any thoughts? BigDT 04:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:IDP#Fair use rationale says "the following are just basic examples, you must write your own specific text, do not copy this text for that purpose". I take that to mean you're not supposed to just copy the rationale from the tag or from WP:IDP as you suggest. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
That text predates this CSD criterion and is substantially the same as it was in October 2003 [4]. The content-specific fair use tags didn't even exist at that time so I'm not sure how meaningful that text is for interpreting the criterion. BigDT 05:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The change was made after this "discussion" in Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive13#I6_needs_clarification. I would simply rv to the old version (discussion) as the change to the language change has opened a new can of worms and the original version was pretty clear. Perhaps a template could be made that simply categorizes other fair use images (with tags {{DVDcover}}, {{Albumcover}}, {{tvscreenshot}} etc.) without rationales. feydey 06:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely not. All of the generic fair use claims, such as {{promophoto}} or {{logo}}, have required a detailed fair use rationale for each use since well before I6 was introduced. This is the same situation that applies to claims using {{Non-free fair use in}}, and indeed to every single fair use claim: see Wikipedia:Fair use (the requirement is currently represented in #10 of the fair use criteria). Under the suggested change, a user could upload an image, and make absolutely no effort to provide a rationale, but the image would avoid speedy deletion if they tagged it with {{logo}} instead of {{Non-free fair use in}}. Does that make any sense?
Go back and read Wikipedia:Fair use. There must be a detailed fair use rationale for every single use of the image. "It's right there on the tag" is not good enough. --bainer (talk) 10:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
You're forgetting that we're talking about speedy deletion here. "It's right there on the tag" is plenty good enough to rise above the point where we should delete, let alone speedily. The wording I prefer would be "Any image or media tagged only with a generic fair use template, such as {{Non-free fair use in}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded." Mangojuicetalk 12:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
That's fine ... I'd love to see something in there suggesting correcting the problem rather than deleting the image, though. Take a look at Category:All images with no fair use rationale. I randomly picked five images. The first, Image:LaceyChabert17-8x10.jpg, just has issues. It should not have no rationale on it because it doesn't even have a copyright tag to begin with. The second, Image:Piper Perabo smile.jpg, is obviously a TV screenshot and what's worse is it already has the beginnings of a rationale. The third, Image:Dhoom2dhoom.jpg, is a movie poster. Again, the rationale is obvious and just needs to be corrected rather than tagged for deletion. The fourth was Image:Mischabartontrl2.JPG. This image is tagged as a TV screenshot when it obviously is not. It should be speedied I7 once the 2-day waiting period has expired. The fifth was Image:Garbo the painted veil.jpeg. This image is obviously a movie promo poster and what's more, it already has a rationale. (It's missing a source, but that has its own criterion.)
I offer this challenge to anyone reading this - take five images in that category and fix them. Unless I just got unlucky, this criterion is clearly being abused and most of what's in that category really shouldn't be there. BigDT 15:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't even make sense. If they tag it with {{logo}} and it really is a logo, then the rationale is (1) obvious and (2) it's already listed on the tag. Even if there is a pro forma requirement for someone to type "this image is used on the Virginia Tech article to identify the school in question", we certainly shouldn't be speedy deleting it. Rather, WP:SOFIXIT. On the other hand, if the image is obviously a photograph and it is tagged as a logo, it may be speedy deleted without the five-day waiting under I7. ("Any image or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted at any time.") I6 is ONLY talking about those images that are CLEARLY tagged correctly. In the case of I6 images that are CORRECTLY tagged with a content-specific tag (as opposed to {{Non-free fair use in}}), and doesn't have another problem unrelated to a rationale, such as replaceability, there is no dispute whatsoever that the image qualifies for fair use under Wikipedia's policy. It therefore has no purpose being speedy deleted other than to create work for somebody else. Tagging logos, movie posters, and DVD covers for I6 accomplishes NOTHING. In every case, the rationale is obvious and if you feel that one is needed beyond what is on the tag, you should fix it rather than making work for somebody else. BigDT 15:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The rationale is not obvious, and it is not already listed on the tag. A detailed fair use rationale (as described at Wikipedia:Image description page) must be provided for every use of the image, and the boilerplate tags have never been sufficient on their own. A rationale must establish why use of the image constitutes fair use, and why you need to use the image as part of the article. The boilerplate templates do not meet this requirement.
Go see the history of the templates; not only was the requirement for separate detailed rationales always there, but it was specifically listed on each of the templates long before I6 was introduced. --bainer (talk) 07:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
When we use the Microsoft logo, what rationale is needed other than, "to illustrate the organization, item, or event in question"? There's a detailed rationale here, but what of that rationale is (1) needed and (2) not already included on the tag? At any rate, whether the rationale was required or not, it was never speedyable and, as indicated above, the CSD change was a change with no consensus and intended just to clarify that not only {{Non-free fair use in}} but also {{Non-free fair use in2}}, {{Non-free fair use in3}}, etc, required rationales. It was never intended, as it has been used now, to justify the mass speedying of otherwise legitimate images. Except for the ever-controversial A7, with every single CSD, if it is permissible to delete the page, it is because there is no way whatsoever to fix the problem. But in the case of these images, the problem is pro forma and requires basically the same amount of time to fix that it does to tag it. Why should otherwise-legitimate images be speedied? BigDT 14:07, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
The rationale might be simple for many images (album covers, for example, are going to be simple in almost all cases), and will often be not much more complicated than the boilerplate on the tag. Nevertheless, the requirement for a rationale is also there to force uploaders to specify exactly which articles they are claiming fair use for - the concept of "use" being a very important part of "fair use". But there are many, many images for which the boilerplate doesn't even come close to a workable rationale. Try browsing through Category:Promotional images or Category:Promotional photos for example. Hundreds upon thousands of images with nothing but a boilerplate tag. These are a massive problem. The argument that other people should somehow be responsible for divining a fair use rationale for these sorts of images is completely at odds with the concept that it is the responsibility of the uploader to provide all the necessary information.
This proposal does seem like a good idea. Helping people to write a rationale is a good thing, and hopefully some people who are knowledgeable about fair use will help draft some guides on that page; as long as it operates as a help or how-to page and not a collection of more boilerplate. --bainer (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree that we all need to get on the same page for this issue. CAT:NR has a huge number of images with one of the tags that includes a rationale. It sounds like some delete those and some don't. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted Mangojuice's change. Several people above are saying that rationales should always be necessary, so there doesn't seem to be consensus that this just applies to {{fairuse}} and {{Non-free fair use in}}. I also suggest looking through the archives, as that's what it originally did, then, if I recall correctly, there was a discussion that decided it should apply to all fair use templates. --Rory096 01:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What we really need is a definition of "generic fair use template" here. While fair use rationales are always necessary, where do templates like {{tv-screenshot}}, {{albumcover}}, and {{comicpanel}} stand in reference to I6?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 01:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've changed it so it clearly applies to all fair use templates ([5]). Per discussion above, all images used under an assertion of fair use should have individualized rationales. --Rory096 08:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I still think that allowing this to apply to all fair use image templates is not good. The Microsoft logo example by BigDT is a good one explaining the problem; I noticed Image:7-eleven logo.gif tagged with NRD and looks like it was deleted - so should people in the same vein go NRD the Wal-mart logo? The original I6 language was good in defining the speediable images to {{fairuse}} images, the new language simply justifies the mass speedying of otherwise legitimate images. While rationales should always be necessary it shouldn't be speediable, like {{fairusereduce}} tagged images handled per Wikipedia's fair use policy are categorized, not just put to CSD. I still would suggest creating a template that simply categorizes other fair use images (with tags {{DVDcover}}, {{Albumcover}}, {{tvscreenshot}}, {{logo}} etc.) without rationales, helping people who want to write FU rationales to find those images easily and still makes uploaders aware of the problem. At least the I6 criterion language should be restored to the original, which was changed without consensus.feydey 00:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't without consensus. Nobody objected for several days, then nobody objected for the time between the change and when that section was archived, and nobody reverted afterwards. That's de facto consensus, if only by people not disliking it. (See Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle). Also, the rationale given in the Microsoft image definitely at least adds some specific information, so it's good. Having a speedy tag for these means that we can encourage people (albeit by force) to use rationales, which almost always at least add some good information. A regular template would do the same thing the {{fair use disputed}} template does- stick stuff in a category, then everybody forgets about it. There's no incentive for the uploader to actually add a rationale. --Rory096 01:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm still lost as to what the decision was/is. I've been tagging any FU image (from {{fair use in}} to {{albumcover}}) because I thought all fair use images uploaded after May 2006 needed FU rationale. Now I'm reading that is not the case. So what do we do about images with the more specific templates that do not have rationale? Ignore them? Every FU templates states that detailed FU rationale must be provided. I guess I'm just seeking clarification as I may have been incorrectly tagging images for the past month.--NMajdan•talk 15:55, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

For now, at least, if the fair use tag gives no justification whatsoever for its status of fair use, such as {{fair use in}}, tagging with {{no rationale}} (if uploaded before May 2006), or with {{db-i6}} if uploaded after, is correct. If the fair use tag gives some rationale, then I would say (1) if possible, write a rationale. It's not that hard, and most of the time the rationale is obvious. If the image is used in improper places, remove it. But (2) if you can't figure out the rationale, or especially if you think no valid rationale would apply, list the image on WP:IFD or WP:PUI, and bring up the issue on the talk page. IFD is slower than speedy delete, but yes, images should each have detailed, specific fair use rationales. Lacking one, IMO, means we should fix the problem. But if an image is lacking one and providing one seems impossible or extremely difficult, deletion is probably the best option. Mangojuicetalk 16:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Both {{no rationale}} and [[tl|db-i6}} both appear to be the same thing. They both state for fair use images (although the former specifies generic fair use while the latter does not) uploaded after May 2006. So putting the no rationale template on an image uploaded before May 2006 may not be wise.--NMajdan•talk 16:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Process - Contested speedy deletion

I placed a db/G11 tag on New Zealand Disaster Assistance Response Team, and the creator responded with a {{hangon}}.

Discussion ensued on the Talk:New_Zealand_Disaster_Assistance_Response_Team page. Still seems clearcut to me-- see bottom of the talk page.

So the question is, at what point do I change this to an AfD or a Prod? TIA, -- Mwanner | Talk 22:01, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

IMO, if you have to ask, it shouldn't be speedied. On their "about us" page [6], they say, "Conceptualised in August 2006, NZDART has an ambitious project to become a United Nations accredited international disaster search and rescue team by the end of 2007." Ok ... come back and make your article at the end of 2007. Still, though, speedies should only be used when it is obvious and I don't know that this one is obvious. BigDT 22:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. Remaining question though-- next step Prod or AfD? -- Mwanner | Talk 01:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
IMHO if you still think it should be deleted use AfD. From the talk page the user who created the page has some arguments why it should stay, and will likely want to raise them, so no point in PROD. Cheers Lethaniol 01:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Well apparently someone saw it my way-- before I got around to cluttering up AfD with it, the page is gone. Hosannah! -- Mwanner | Talk 16:07, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Use Addendum for CSD G3 - Vandalism-focused User Subpages

FYI: A discussion has taken place on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard under the heading "Consensus on vandalism user subpages" (<= that is a permalink reference) which argues for extension by consensus the application of CSD G3 (Pure vandalism) to user subpages that are advertised as being targets for invited vandalism. Regards --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for Additional Image CSD Criteria

See also discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Speedy deletion criteria for images?

Per What Wikipedia is Not Policy: ... not a free file host. -> File storage areas. Please upload only files that are used (or will be used) in encyclopedia articles or project pages; anything else will be deleted. If you have extra relevant images, consider uploading them to the Wikimedia Commons, where they can be linked from Wikipedia." (bold mine, should read article or project namespace) As such, any image uploaded that is not used in article or project namespace within 2 hours of its upload timestamp, and the image is deemed not to have encyclopedic value, shall fit under this criteria. If a user cannot upload an image and add the image within 2 hours of the upload, and the image appears to be UE, then they most likely are abusing the uploading capability. Further, users deemed to have uploaded a file that fits under this CSD criteria shall be warned with a template TBD. Uploading another file that results in this CSD deletion shall require a 1 week block of their uploading privileges. If it is not possible to just block upload privileges, a 1 week block on the account in general shall occur instead. If an image is tagged with this CSD, and by the time an administrator gets around to deleting it, it is included in the article or project namespace, the CSD template shall be removed. Warnings shall only be given by admins once the image is deleted. --MECU≈talk 00:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the 2 hour rule would lead to too much abuse - there's no way to know if this orphaned image that was uploaded six months ago has been orphaned all along or only just became orphaned. The big problem with patently unencyclopedic images isn't just that someone is using Wikipedia for free webhosting. The major source of encyclopedic images is that someone uploads 5 pictures of themself making weird faces for their vanity page. The page is speedied under A7, but the images are left out there. I think if we would simply specify that images that have no other encyclopedic use should be deleted when the article is deleted, that would be sufficient. BigDT 03:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
IfD handles this fine. Threats of blocks are simply absurd, quite frankly. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
It does, however when confronted with a few dozen some images it takes a good chunk of time to list them all properly on IFD, and so a lot of people just don't bother and the images stay. Personaly I do think that orphanded "personal photos" (pictures of non-notable persons) would be a good addition to CSD (I can't rememver ever seeing such a deletio beeing contested). As for threatening blocks, that depends. If someone re-upload useless "personal photos" and simmilarly useless images after they have been deleted I would give them a warning and point them towrds WP:NOT, if they then ignored the warning and uploaded more such images I would have no quams about blocking them, and I have done so in the past (especialy if I find evidence that the images are beeing used "off site", in one instance for example someone was using Wikipedia to host all the graphis used on his (dodgy) online shopping site, another user was using Wikipedia only to store screenshots and signature banners for use on a Habbo hotell webforum). --Sherool (talk) 13:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
This proposed criteria is too wide-open to abuse. Well-meaning editors who have a couple self-pictures and use them alternatingly will have one-week blocks threatened for reuploading their image? Unacceptable. Further, all one must do to legitimise the file-host usage is create a userpage or subpage thereof listing all the images. The intention is good, but the way it's worded now would do too much harm for too little good. IfD is not a complicated process, and we shouldn't be creating new speedy deletion criteria if we don't have enough people helping out with it. BigNate37(T) 18:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd be fine with adding a criteria for images that were only used on A7-deleted articles (and I'd do it even if there wasn't a criteria). That would take care of the scenario that BigDT mentioned above. Anything more could be easily abused. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale guideline proposal

I would like to propose Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline as a guideline to detail the necessary components of a fair use rationale. At present, it's kindof a moving target. Some pages have a detailed, bulleted rationale, while others have a one sentence "this picture identifies the subject". Patroling Category:All images with no fair use rationale, I've seen image pages that explicitly have something of a rationale that have been nominated for a speedy. So I would like for us to formalize what is required. I have also created Template:Fair use rationale that I am proposing we use as a template to assist users in creating an acceptable rationale. Please see Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline and the associated talk page to give your thoughts and ideas. BigDT 22:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

proposal for images in deleted articles

When an admin deletes an article with images through one of the normal deletion processes they don't necessarily delete the images (see, for example, this AfD, where the images remain). Sometimes they may be deleted in the spirit of A7 or IAR, but there's no policy or process basis that I can find to delete them, leading to some hesitancy. Such images could be listed at IfD as orphans and be deleted more slowly, but this requires extra time and effort from both the administrators handling deletion backlogs and reviewers at IfD. Instead, I propose to allow admins to speedy delete images from deleted articles.

The only counter-argument I can see is that images could be re-used in other articles, leading to disputes at AfD about whether to keep an image that might be useful elsewhere. That said, images on en-WP (as opposed to Commons) are often only categorized by license, meaning if one doesn't know the name of whatever image one is looking for, one wouldn't find it. Here's the current proposal:

I9: Images in deleted articles. Images used only in articles that are being deleted through one of the article deletion processes may also be deleted provided no one objects to their deletion or suggests an alternative use for the image.

I don't think this has any downsides, but people are suckers for their own ideas. Your thoughts?--Kchase T 01:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Right after I posted this, someone questioned whether there was any difference between deleting and leaving an unused image. I don't know if there is any difference in server-load between a deleted image and one orphaned to Special:Unusedimages. Anyone else know?--Kchase T 02:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
In terms of server resources? If you leave the would-be-deleted images out there, then someone can just use Wikipedia for free webhosting ... why use up your own bandwidth storing images - let Wikipedia do it for you. BigDT 02:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Umm, once you've made it free, Commons will happily store it for you. We actively encourage people to create free content, so it seems rather backward to get rid of it simply because we don't presently have a use for it. Dragons flight 02:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Commons doesn't store images that have no potential use on any Wikimedia project. See Commons:Commons:Project scope. --BigDT 03:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
The set of things that are potentially useful to some Wikimedia project is much larger than the set of things currently being used on Wikipedia. CSD's should represent criteria that are unambigous grounds for deletion. This doesn't do that since many of the things it would delete could still be useful to someone. Dragons flight 04:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the set of things people upload for their A7 deleted articles mostly includes photos of themselves taken with a webcam and poorly designed website logos. 99% of the time there is no possible use for them. A simple exception for items with a "possible encyclopedic use" would address that concern. Take a look at IFD - the bulk of what is there is pictures that someone uploaded for their speedy deleted article. BigDT 05:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
As I said above, I fully support this idead ... I think we should change "no one objects to their deletion or suggests an alternative use for the image" to "there is no other apparant encyclopedic use". The reasons are twofold (1) if an article is speedied or deleted as a result of an expired prod, it isn't necessarilly the case that anyone would have a chance to comment on the images and (2) prevent wiki-lawyering ... just because the creator of an A7 article objects to the vanity pics being deleted doesn't mean they shouldn't be. BigDT 02:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I agree with the principle, but the bit about someone objecting seems a little odd. Admins can delete an item on sight if they believe it meets CSD criteria without tagging it or warning anyone. How are they to determine if someone objects to its deletion? I suggest something like "...provided the image cannot be used in another existing article." Limiting it to existing articles keeps these images from sticking around forever waiting for someone to add them to an article that never gets created. –  Anþony  talk  02:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

How is this useful? Aside from fair use concerns, unused images are pretty harmless. Many get moved to Commons eventually, where they hopefully find a happy and well-organized home. I don't think leaving them lying around actually hurts anything. Dragons flight 02:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Right. If it is unfree and orphaned, delete it. If it is freely licensed, move it to Commons. Jkelly 02:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
It goes to Wikipedia is not a file storage area, mostly in consideration of vanity pages where the user uploads pictures of no interest to anyone beyond a small group. See Tournament of Champions for another example. Image:TOC_Chad.jpg may be freely licensed, but it's of no use to anyone but Chad Boase and his friends. Do we really need to go through IfD to delete that? –  Anþony  talk  03:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
We shouldn't speedy clearly/indisputeable free images, even for speedied articles. There's a huge difference between text and images: With text, if a person becomes sufficiently notable in the future, after deletion, its often easy to make new/better article text for the newly notable person. With images, it may well be impossible to ever make or find a free image of the person. Moving images to Commons ensures they can be found if/when needed. Also, its interesting how an image uploaded for one purpose, becomes useful for another purpose. --Rob 04:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps an IfD regular can comment on this issue? I see a lot of images listed there as unencyclopedic orphans. This would skip the listing.--Kchase T 04:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) This is ridiculous. We are talking about vanity images here. It is absurd to imagine that there will ever be a use for these images. Keeping them out there, or worse, someone wasting their time moving them to commons only encourages vandals to keep uploading this crap. Rob, do you really want to spend hours of your time moving this sludge to commons? Or are you suggesting that someone else, who doesn't have a life, do this? --rogerd 04:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
The language of the proposed criterion is a lot larger than "vanity images". Dragons flight 04:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
You are right, and I support the proposal. I was responding to Rob, who seems to argue that vanity images shouldn't be speedied. Yes, that is only part of what the proposal covers. --rogerd 05:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I realize I stuck the proposed language right in the middle of a comment, but feel free to edit it nonetheless (strike-through's would make the most sense, I suppose).--Kchase T 05:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this proposal is that it calls for overly subjective judgement on the part of sysops. One admin's idea of what constitutes "possible encyclopedic use" will vary greatly from that of another admin. That's why this sort of question should be posed to the community.
Image:TOC_Chad.jpg might seem like a clear-cut deletion candidate (and it almost certainly will be deleted), but suppose for a moment that this image (which appears in the Beard and Full beard articles) had been uploaded for use in a vanity article about its subject. I certainly wouldn't trust a random admin (or any one person) to make the determination that it has encyclopedic use. —David Levy 07:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In the case of the picture with the beard an administrator would see that it's used in other articles and not delete it. --WikiSlasher 07:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I was unclear. Suppose that the image had been uploaded for use in a vanity article and not yet added to the beard-related articles. Its suitability for this purpose is the sort of realization that might occur at IfD and probably wouldn't occur if a single person were responsible for evaluating the image. —David Levy 07:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Aren't there robots (or couldn't robots be made) that go around collecting images that have been unused for X amount of time and marking them for deletion? Is OrphanBot not finding orphaned images anymore? Wouldn't that eliminate the need for determining usability? If an image hasn't been used for <insert time frame here>, it can be automatically added to IFD. Then this question doesn't even need to be addressed anymore. If the robot is adding it to IFD and notifying the uploader, etc., then we don't need to be bothered with it. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, there's no "usage history" for images. If you find an orphaned image, you have no way of knowing whether it has never been used or it just became orphaned. BigDT 14:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Sounds like there should be, then. Perhaps someone more on the ball in terms of software updates can get brought up at the pump? Or has the issue of making the software track orphan status already been snubbed as impractical in terms of resource cost? BigNate37(T) 14:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Actually, this could work... the bot could scan images, and tag unused images with "unused per 3 december". Then, a week later, it could check if those images are still unused; if so, they have with a high likelyhood gone unused for a week. But perhaps it's better to word it like the "category from template" criterion. "If an image is only used on a single article, and that article is deleted per policy, the image may also be deleted without further discussion". That doesn't state the image must be deleted; we may need a common sense clause to clarify that if it has another use we shouldn't delete it. (Radiant) 14:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
    • If a bot can automatically add them to IfD, I'd have no protests against that - multiple human oversight is my top concern here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Though this seems to be straying from the proposal, I like the idea of tagging an image as unused, though 7 days seems short. There are images they have been on here since 2002 that aren't currently used and they may have good value. Tag them, 30 days later, it can go through IFD. If it has value by the IFD lookers, it is kept and put in whatever article. If not, delete. I don't think automatic deletion of unused is good idea (though it may seem like it) because some of the much older pictures could actually have some value. I found an image of a Sony Walkman and think it could be used in the article. See the list of unused images at: Special:Unusedimages --MECU≈talk 16:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I just had a better thought: New images would be given 7 days. Images before the policy goes into place would be given 30 days. --MECU≈talk 16:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
In the case of images used in vandalism, usually the license information will be omitted or invalid, which is grounds for deletion by itself. In the remaining cases, I think it takes more than one person to decide whether the image might be useful in other cases, so it needs to go through a channel involving discussion. You might choose to augment AfD to include discussion of the associated images used only in that article. Deco 16:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I support the notion of allowing Speedy Deletion for Orphaned Images which reside on Wikipedia. My understanding is that image undeletion is supported now and is not that much more difficult than article undeletion. If the situation were still that images once gone are gone and must be re-uploaded, I would be opposed and ask for a higher bar for deletion. Further, the argument that an image might be useful in another context is valid, agreed, and I think a guideline would be good that before speedy deleting one brain cell be expended to consider if the image is generally useful vs. specifically useful ... i.e. useful to another article vs. useful only to the article being deleted. The majority of images I have been sending to IFD in the past couple of days were associated with articles that were deleted due to notability deficits. My thinking is that if the subject of an article is non-notable, a picture of that subject is equally non-notable. Images associated with articles deleted under other circumstances might well be more complex to determine broader utility. As a follow-on question — does anyone know how stringently the 'utility to other wikimedia projects' criterion is applied on Commons, how eager/willing they are at Commons to delete orphaned images? Regards --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

1. As you mentioned, deleted images no longer are removed from the internal database. This means that they occupy the same amount of server space that they would if they weren't deleted. Thus far, the remote linking argument is the only one that I've seen to support the claim that it's somehow advantageous for us to delete freely-licensed images.
2. As noted above, an image's applicability to another article is subjective and not always obvious. Therefore, such an evaluation should not be the responsibility of a lone individual. (Please see my Image:Wheeler.jpg argument for an example of a "non-notable" subject appearing in a photograph that nonetheless is encyclopedic.)
3. After an image is deleted, it won't be seen by anyone unless a sysop makes a special effort to examine it. In other words, unless someone who remembers seeing the image complains, the determination that it's useful (and resultant undeletion) never will occur. —David Levy 18:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
About responses 1 and 3, we likely agree on there being technical deficits in the undeletion process (e.g. finding something to undelete), but I'd like to set aside the implementation-level disagreement (that the technical problems make the process unworkable or not) and focus on response 2 and your words farther up the page. Though it is not mentioned on WP:CSD, the entire Speedy Deletion process is predicated on it being a practical application of the WP:SNOW principle. You have a legitimate concern that there are many images that would potentially be deletable under a "Delete Orphan Images On Sight" CSD addition that would not pass a SNOW-test if the test were applied to encyclopedic content. *nodding* What this boils down to is an interpretation of the 'utility' clause in the image retention policies for Wikipedia and Commons; we usually think of 'encyclopedic content' as being text-based and images as embellishments to text, but I can see the validity of considering images alone as 'encyclopedic' in the absence of an associated article. However, this quickly grays over into the area of WP:NOT#INFO, which is distinct from the concern expressed above regarding WP:NOT#REPOSITORY. Hmmm, ok ... The way out of each of these would be to establish some kind of acceptance criterion for images outside of article association, likely something along the lines of 'orphaned images must be associated with an established article-centric category'. Category association would facilitate the usage of the images in articles ... which is the hope behind retaining them in the first place. What do you think about that ~ retention of orphaned images contingent upon association with an appropriate article category? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
What if an image that could be associated with an appropriate category isn't (which is likely if it isn't used in an appropriate article)? My point is that some images that currently are not being utilized for any valid purpose might have potential applications that aren’t necessarily obvious. The best way to hopefully arrive at such a determination is to ensure that the image is evaluated by as many people as possible before it's deleted. With no compelling need (in my assessment) to delete legal images—let alone to speedily delete them—I see no valid reason to reduce community oversight. —David Levy 01:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually agree with many of the points raised above that my idea won't work. I'm not going to strike my comments, as this is still provoking a good and important discussion, but I just wanted to register that I have abandoned the proposal.--Kchase T 20:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

CSD templates - HEADINGS

There has been a discussion above whether CSD templates should have a Header or not. It has been proposed by BigDT that we can have it both ways with a template that allows you to insert a header or not, and even what that header says.

Copied from above = Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#CSD templates

Per a request on my talk page, I have mocked up a sample. See User:BigDT/sandbox for a mocked up version of {{nn-warn}} and User talk:BigDT/sandbox for the way it would look. Rather than do 1/0, the default is off. If you specify anything for header, that will turn the header on. You can use header-text to specify a particular header. PLEASE NOTE: it is important to gain a consensus before adding this code to every CSD warning template. BigDT 13:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Now as this tool will likely be used in all the CSD templates I wanted to check there were no issues before doing this and that there was consensus. Please say yay or nay to this solution, and particular bring up any problems that need to be solved. Cheers Lethaniol 16:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

So far everyone thinks it is a good idea - have converted Template:nn-warn to use this header format. Please check my work - and any suggestions would be welcomed. Lethaniol 16:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Per the earlier discussion, I support this change as excellent backwards compatability. -- nae'blis 16:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Hold on - Why is there edit warring going on? It's because one crowd wants it with a header and another doesn't. Adding a parameter might seem like an excellent solution. It's not. It just changes the topic of the edit war from "Should there be a header?" to "Should the default have a header?". Both sides want it their way because otherwise they need to type more when doing new page patrol. As I see it, there are only two real solutions:
  1. Modify the speedy deletion templates themselves to provide both versions of the CSD notification for copy-pasting onto a talk page
  2. Get a consensus or majority opinion on header/no header and then enforce that by watchlisting the templates.
--Dgies 17:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Dgies there is no edit warring going on, the vast majority of people that have talked about this - see other section above as well - do not want there to be a header - consensus has already been reached. Not to mention the fact that the Wikipedia:WikiProject user warnings are going to soon remove all headings from such templates - see their tasks. So please can we change the default back to no heading. Lethaniol 23:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I want headers on templates, and I refuse to do CAT:CSD until they are on by default. The people that want to clear backlogs as quickly as possible are the people that need automatic headers. If people have enough time to write their own header, they have enough time to remove the text that adds one automatically. Why should I and others in my situation (you better be out there!!!) have to be slowed down by things like this? J Di talk 21:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds pretty immature. If you don't have the two seconds to add a parameter, how do you take the time to read an article before speedying? Unless you're being sarcastic and making the same point I am... I can't tell. Either way, I have no sympathy for the people who don't have the time to add a parameter. BigNate37(T) 23:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't care if it sounds immature, and I don't know what your point is, but I'm not doing CSD until headers are on the warning templates by default. You can say that it only takes two seconds to add the text that adds a header, but that two seconds is the difference between me doing CSD and me doing something else. The people that don't want headers should be the ones that have to spend more time on removing text from templates, especially if they don't want headers because they write their own. The people that don't want headers are the people that were already typing stuff on people's talk pages. Why should I have to start doing that as well? J Di talk 23:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not at all about wishing to slow you down, but it's about trying to create a harmonised system on wikipedia, so that all users will know exactly what will be produced when a template is issued. The work we are doing at the Wikiproject user warnings is to create a harmonised system throughout Wikipedia that will eventually cover all templates. The majority of templates that are issued are multi levelled warnings, and unfortunately these usually do not get issued singularly. Now if we were to include headers with every single warning issued I hope you can imagine the mess that would ensue. If you can explain your rational over at WP:UW on why no headers prevents you carrying out your work then I'm sure we can talk it through. But is another 2 seconds along time, when you are talking about the permanent deletion of an article from Wikipedia? Regards Khukri (talk . contribs) 17:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Right have added up the - Header versus no Header responses from this and the above section Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#CSD_templates. This includes people's thoughts before the on/off header was devised, as it is highly likely those in favour of a header would see that it should be on as standard and vice versa.

For Header: ≈Tulkolahten≈ Dgies J Di

Against Header: Lethaniol Fan-1967 ais523 EVula Chrislk02 Yuser31415 nae'blis WikiSlasher MER-C BigNate37

Do not care: BigDT

Am not sure: Bubba hotep

So that is basically - 3/10/2 - clear consensus for no header as standard and again not to push the point too much, WP:UW are also against. Anyone want to add their opinions/votes? Lethaniol 21:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Be careful in using statistics, fifteen isn't really adequate to estimate community opinion and it isn't fair to add up numbers without a formal vote. BigNate37(T) 21:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Fair point BigNate - but one of the challenges by Dgies, was that a consensus/majority was needed to make a decision. Now this does not represent the whole community, not by far, but it shows that, in those that were interested and willing to give their opinion, that the majority wanted No Headers. Therefore I believe the onus is on people to make a very good argument why there should be headers as standard (beyond J Di selfish response) or show there is a majority support for this position, and until then the templates should have no headings. Cheers Lethaniol 22:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
My "response" wasn't selfish. It's what I have to say about this, and there's nothing wrong with it. Try assuming good faith every once in a while and remain civil. If you've got a problem with what I've got to say, tell me on my talk page. J Di talk 05:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

drmspeedy - vandals are wising up

Since the {{drmspeedy}} template has been modified to only apply to the original creator, an anon IP or sockpuppet can now remove the tags as many times as they want. Ideas? Fan-1967 20:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

How about put it back the way it was? Why did that even change? I must have missed a memo. I almost ripped someone a new one recently and then noticed that the wording had changed... —Wknight94 (talk) 20:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It was reworded per a TFD discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 21#Template:Drmspeedy. A lot of people (most of whom, I'm guessing, do not engage in NPP) did not like the wording. Fan-1967 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Consensus should be ignored if it causes problems; I'm removing it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
No, it's just not consensus if they had incomplete or inaccurate information when making the decision. —Centrx→talk • 22:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe "incomplete" is the operative word. The issues raised there were the (rare, IMO) instances where a legitimate, experienced editor got hit with a db tag. I don't think most of those in the discussion have any idea of the nature and volume of what goes through CSD every hour. Fan-1967 23:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I actually came across this problem a lot before the change. Or are we talking about how the template was before the TfD? Bubba hotep 20:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, even before the change I suppose you could create a new sock for every four reverts. If none of them ever remove the tag a fifth time they can't get blocked for it. Never actually saw that happen, but it's possible. But what I'm seeing lately is one creator ID and then an IP or sock that endlessly removes the tag. Fan-1967 20:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, if they are trying to be clever, you could try and be clever and put the drmspeedy on their (the IP's) talk page - might make them think! Bubba hotep 20:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I've tried that. I get a note from the IP saying "I didn't create it". I can't disprove it. Remember we're not talking about clueless noobs; these are clearly deliberate actions. Fan-1967 20:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It's beyond me what they expect to gain out of it since you could take it to AfD and have it speedied there and then anyway. It's just a game to them, I suppose. Bubba hotep 21:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
FWIW, you can let me know and I'll delete it if I agree with you - tag or not. Of course there's no guarantee that I'll be around at the time but I'd guess most other admins would do the same. Speedy delete is not prod so removal of a tag doesn't mean the same as with a prod. (Unless someone changed the speedy guidelines so that it's like prod now - maybe I missed that memo too!) —Wknight94 (talk) 21:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, the other issue is that CSD gets so backed up it's often a while before an admin gets to it, so there's time for a lot of tagging and untagging. Fan-1967 21:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
In the end, I'm not sure it's so much different to have sockpuppets removing the notice than the author. It can still be deleted. The warning is just a warning and has no effect on the article at all. Even with the warning there can be a lot of untagging/retagging by the author under their normal screenname while CSD is backed up. NickelShoe (Talk) 21:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
If the author retags more than four times after warning, s/he can be reported at AIV and blocked. That option is not available for socks because they have not, in fact, done anything against the rules. They cannot even be warned per the templates. Fan-1967 22:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Did I once read somewhere that you can add the article to the [[Category:Speedy deletion candidates]] without worrying about the tag going missing? It will still be in the category and the author/IP might not notice? Bubba hotep 21:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I missed the memo about the headline going missing off the nn-warn template as well! Although, I did notice that someone has created a fully definable one now. There's a lot of memos going missing! Bubba hotep 21:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Check the section immediately above this one. :P EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was only made aware of the section above by the person above who I commented... er, below. To clarify, MER-C pointed me in this direction when I raised the question with him. Now I know where to look, I'll be 100% in the know at all times! :) Bubba hotep 21:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
There was a discussion on it at Template talk:nn-warn. The issue I had was for a few weeks the header kept coming and going. If I put one in, I ended up with two. If I didn't, there was none. Fan-1967 21:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I went there too. I was a bit bemused when I did one this morning and it merged and mingled in with the rest of the collection of warnings the user had amassed in the last few days. Guess we have to keep them on the watch list really. We have a phrase in England, goes something like "NN-warn headers are like buses, none for ages and then two turn up at the same time" - also called Sod's Law. Bubba hotep 21:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well the issue with headers in nn-warn and any other CSD userpage notification should now be sorted - you can have the best of both worlds. See section directly above. Also try it out - does it work (the nn-warn template), any comments. Feedback good. Nice to know before I add to all the other CSD userpage notification templates. Cheers Lethaniol 23:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
PS maybe we should cut and paste this discussion into the above one, its a bit in the way Lethaniol 23:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to let people know, the flip-side of this is that people angry about having their articles speedied sometimes put tags on articles that don't deserve it (example). A hard and fast policy or process that only an admin can remove a tag is probably not the best idea, but letting IPs and meatpuppets remove tags in general is (as the above discussion indicates) also not helpful. Frankly, IAR and common sense is the only balance I see between the two.--Kchase T 22:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


How about changing the "rule" such that anyone may remove a speedy that is patently unrelated to the page (eg, an article tagged with an image speedy, an article about a company tagged as db-vand), but that if it is disputed, a non-administrator should use {{hangon}} and leave a note at the talk page of the person who tagged it rather than removing it himself or herself. That's just good practice anyway - rather than reverting, discuss. BigDT 05:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. I don't think we should be ceding certain kinds of editing to admins except in the most important cases (such as deletion). Any editor can remove a maintenance tag, but certainly it's not always done correctly. That doesn't mean only admins should be given the power to judge whether a mainenance tag can be removed. Instead, restore the tags and inform the detagger as to why. Same with speedies. NickelShoe (Talk) 05:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with your disagreement (er... yeah, whatever). Admins are supposed to be only slightly higher than every other editor; I don't like the idea of some anon maliciously placing a db tag on an article and only an admin can remove it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

It takes three extra edits, but you can always AfD an article (which can't be removed unless it's a clear speedy keep), and vote speedy delete right away. (which isn't really POINT because if you prod it, they'll just yank it, so you'll take it to AfD eventually anyway). Alternatively, hop on IRC and post something with "!admin" it, noting that someone keeps removing a speedy tag, and an admin will delete it ASAP even if the tag has been removed. --Interiot 05:20, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Except, of course, that the whole point of CSD (thousands a day, now) is to keep from cluttering up AFD with crap that has zero chance of being kept. Fan-1967 05:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
We probably ought to be clear about the kinds of things we are talking about. If the page is "BOB IS A MORON AND I HATE HIM", there's no reason for anyone ever to remove that tag ... if a sock insists on removing it, it can always be reported at AIV. If we're talking about a band or person of questionable notability, and someone other than the author removes the tag, discussion rather than immediately retagging it might be a good thing. BigDT 05:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Now we're back to the template. How can we report it at AIV when, per the wording of the template, he's perfectly allowed to remove the tag? And yes, I am talking about absolute garbage, "John is the coolest guy in the world" kind of articles. Fan-1967 05:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
That's pretty legalistic. In any case, anyone is allowed to remove speedy tags if the article doesn't meet the speedy criteria. If it clearly does, that's a problem whether the detagger created the article or not (unless of course they're simply downgrading to prod or AFD). The wording of the template has no effect on the actual policy in any case...just because the warning used to imply that only admins could remove speedy notices doesn't mean that's what the policy page said. NickelShoe (Talk) 05:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
So any sock can claim he believes the tag doesn't apply and remove it. Not vandalism, and therefore not reportable at AIV. And we're not supposed to repost anything at AIV until the editor has been warned, but there is no warning template applicable to the action. Fan-1967 05:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I would say removing a tag without a valid, stated reason (for instance, via an edit summary or comment on the talk page) could be construed as an act of vandalism in itself and therefore merits a warning. Maybe the CSD tag could specify the importance of doing so – although it already does, in a way. Perhaps the word is emphasise the importance. Bubba hotep 08:16, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

{{drmspeedy}} shouldn't apply to an anon despeedying a newly-created page, even if it is a sockpuppet. On the other hand, edit warring over a speedy-delete tag is still edit-warring; it would seem to me to be grounds for an AN/I report, which can lead to a block much faster than a mere drmspeedy warning, especially if abusive sockpuppetry or vandalism is suspected. --ais523 10:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to chime in and say that if the drmspeedy template does not meet the situation appropriately, there is nothing wrong with writing a message by hand that gets the point across. It's called discussion, and it doesn't have to be friendly in every circumstance that doesn't include substituting a template. Of course, there's a line between a terse warning and harassment, and one must be aware of that when writing their own hand-crafted messages. Yes, it is better to have a standard template for a few different reasons, but in the mean time I don't see anything wrong with continuing on in the best interests of the project. BigNate37(T) 16:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

On another note, this might reach a point where tagging an article for speedy deletion and then fighting to keep it there against the creator's intentions becomes more work than having it speedied through AfD, which defeats the purpose of CSD. Since removing an AfD notice without closing the AfD is a no-no, perhaps by extension the CSD policy should be tweaked such that only those qualified to respond to CSD tags (i.e. sysops) should be removing the CSD templates which were added in good faith—in other words, except in cases of vandalism, user conflict, violations of WP:POINT, etc.? I would say that the only time a non-admin should be removing good-faith CSD tags is if they're permitted to close them per WP:CSD, that is to say it's a seperate issue that shouldn't be confused into this one. BigNate37(T) 16:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the simplest solution is not to fight over the tag but ask an admin on his/her talk page to delete it. ~ trialsanderrors 19:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Template for CSD-R2

CSD R2 is about "Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User_talk: space from the main article space"; however, the corresponding deletion template listed in the table is {{db-rediruser}}, "CSD R2: Redirect to user page.", and I could not find any other one for other spaces. Does such a template exist, or should this one be modified or a new one created ? In particular, I have a bunch of redirects from main space to Talk: which should be listed for SD. Schutz 00:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and modified the template.--Kchase T 06:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Excellent; and I have created {{db-redirtalk}} as a redirect to the template (and I have used it already !). Schutz 10:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I find that {{db-r2}} is a good wording-neutral form. BigNate37(T) 14:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved from top of page

I'd rather see a self rating implemented(every article should have some variables attached like thrustworthyness, joke , lie and vintage knowledge for example. readers who feel obliged to keep the wiki clean can then rate articles to their hearts content and others can choose if they like to filter according to those ratings by means of a slider that goes from commonly accepted to absolutely ridicullus, so readers can set theire own prefs.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ysvry (talk • contribs)

Slight modification to WP:CSD#G4

I notice that G4 allows for the recreation of deleted content in user space. I have seen cases where deleted content was recreated on a user's primary user page appearingly to spite the will of the community. The first that comes to mind is User:List of marijuana slang terms which was used to display the deleted content of List of marijuana slang terms. Now I see the primary user page of User:Patchouli is displaying content from the deleted Veil fetishism article. I see such utilization of primary user pages as done to have these user pages become defacto articles. I understand editor's need to utilize user space for developmental purposes but I think this should be done in sub pages. I'd like to update the wording of G4 to reflect this logic and was wondering what the level of support for such a change was? (→Netscott) 14:36, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree w/ Netscott. We'll end up w/ userspaces filled w/ deleted articles easily found via search engines. It is also an infringement of WP:POINT. -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 14:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I see no problem needing a fix. In the special case of "problem" users, an admin (or any editor) can remove the offending content, as was done with User:List of marijuana slang terms, without deletion. Editing (unlike deletion) preserves edit history, which is a good thing. Copyvio and attacks can alread by speedied, anywhere they occur. But I think in most cases, a user is just acting in good faith, and wishes to fix/save their work, and isn't familiar with subpages. I'm particularly confused as to why the main user page is so special. As for people finding stuff in search engines, if that's a problem, that can be fixed by robots.txt. I see great unfairness in wiping out content on a user page, when equivilent content on a sub-page would have been left alone. Also, why is deletion better than editing? --Rob 15:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
If an article is deleted because of notability or verifiability problems than of course we would be having problems leaving them at user namespaces as they would certainly appear on search engines listings. What would be the need of deleting an article if we can keep it on user namespaces? -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 15:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Article space consitutes the encyclopedia. User space does not. Notability and verifiabilty are problems that are very often fixable (but take more than 5-days). Sometimes, when I'm having trouble finding sources, I start an article in user-space, until I can find sufficient sources, which make it worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia. Its patently absurd to throw content in the garbage, for no reason. We both agree we should keep unencyclopedic material out of the encyclopedia. Keeping it in user-space is doing exactly that. Also, we've dealt with the problem of AFDs in search engines, by simply excluding them with robots.txt (we didn't have to delete the AFDs themselves). Also, simply blanking keeps content out of the search engine, while preserving history. Finally, is anybody seriously suggesting people are confusing user space with the encyclopedia?!? If anybody thinks that's an actual problem, than we should work on big warnings saying "THIS PAGE IS USER SPACE, AND NOT PART OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA. DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY!!!" for all the poor victims, lulled in to trusting user-page-articles. --Rob 18:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) While I agree that the cited instances constitute using the rules in a disruptive manner, I don't agree that speedy deletion is the correct procedure. Some deleted articles are appropriate user essays -- hence the vote userfy -- and those may be very appropriate on the user's main page. Other articles are appropriate in user space only for legitimate editing purposes. Moreover, the user page is likely to contain other material as well. All of this means that deletion is not necessarily appropriate (Any user can boldly remove the offending material, and a user page, unlike an article, can validly be blank) and that when deletion is appropriate, the matter deserves some consideration. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that this issue belongs here. There is hardly any userpage that doesn't have something that would fall under CSD if it were created into a self-standing article. This user has a bizarre interest, or perhaps sense of humour, but provided that the material that was deleted elsewhere is not divisive, inflammatory, or libelous, I think that he/she should be left alone. Bucketsofg 16:40, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
This should decidedly not be a speedy deletion criteria. Since there would be no way to really figure out whether the space was being used for improvement without discussion, it becoems highly subjective. No need for this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:58, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I, too, see no need for the proposed modification. As noted above, user space is not a part of the encyclopedia. Excepting copyright violations, there's no valid reason to worry about people finding these pages. If non-notability and unverifiability of user space pages were legitimate concerns, most people would not be permitted to write about themselves on their user pages.
Of course, the creation of an account specifically for the purpose of displaying deleted content (such as User:List of marijuana slang terms) is an obvious bad-faith act warranting an indefinite block, but this requires no policy changes. —David Levy 19:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see a need to change current policy. Articles re-created in the user-space are allowable only as a temporary measure while the user works on fixing the problems which led to the page's deletion. We are fairly generous in our definition of "temporary" but have deleted a number of such pages when it was obvious that no work was occurring or would occur. MfD deals with the problem reasonably well. A new speedy-deletion criterion would seem to be unnecessary. Rossami (talk) 06:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox-only articles

Infoboxes can be quite extensive and contain a lot of information. However, it seems that having an infobox only or an infobox alongside rewording of infobox content as the only text for an article doesn't seem to be representative of a reasonable article. Such an article couldn't really be deleted under, for instance, A1 or A3 (short+no context or no content) as the infobox provides the context and information in it can be extensive. Would you agree that A1 and A3 are not suitable for speedy deleting such articles? (example Dugway High School) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  • It depends on the infobox. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I find it really annoying when people can't be troubled to write a single sentence about a topic they think is important enough for an encyclopedia entry, but I agree that infoboxes frequently contain enough info to dodge speedy deletion under A1 or A3. Usually I write an intro for the article based on the infobox if I can make sense of it. If I can't, then it probably could be speedied. NickelShoe (Talk) 20:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with NickelShoe. It may take years, but stubs do get expanded where a casual editor would feel uncomfortable creating an article. Given how aggressive new page patrol has gotten, it's not unreasonable to write one sentence to turn it into a stub.--Kchase T 20:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with NickelShoe, it really depends. Sometimes it's appropriate to tag it with {{context}} to encourage someone to at least write an intro sentence at some point. And it's important to recognize that someone went to the effort of wikifying the data. But I've seen things that are more or less data dumps of pretty obscure topics... I suppose A7 is another one that could be used unless the infobox addresses the subject's notability. --Interiot 20:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Sort of as an aside, an infobox is not a replacement for an article. The person who created the infobox should have spent the time instead writing about it and foregone the infobox entirely. —Centrx→talk • 21:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. Sometimes someone will start with an infobox and fill in additional information later. Likewise if all someone knows about the subject are the basic facts that go into an infobox starting with that can inspire someone else to craft a prose article later. As an example; my biggest effort on the French Wikipedia to date is an article on fr:Columbus, Indiana. I have a lot of trouble composing things in French, and I have trouble with infoboxes. It took me several hours to get the infobox set up. Then I crafted an intro sentence that basically said, "Columbus is a city in Indiana which is famous for its modern architecture." By then I was exhausted and out of time to work on it so I went off and left it. I have gone back and worked on it some since then, and fully intend to eventually flesh it out into a longer article. I'd be pretty upset if it was deleted in the mean time. Perhaps the authors of these articles intend to return to finish them later. Perhaps they have difficulty with English (I doubt this is the case in the school example, but I'm sure there are many stubs on cities in non-English speaking countries where this may be the case). Perhaps the infobox info is all they know and they would like to know more and are hoping someone will expand the article for them. There are many reasons why someone would create such an article and it doesn't seem fair to say, "an infobox is not a replacement for an article. The person who created the infobox should have spent the time instead writing about it". Infoboxes provide useful information.~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 21:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
These sort of articles should definitely be speedy-undeleted if someone says they intend to expand them soon. Or they could be userfied in the first place. It's just that many readers would probably be surprised to run across such a page. Having even a single intro sentence along with the infobox improves the article significantly. If there were a way to hide articles that are being edited but not ready for general readers (stable versions maybe?), infobox-only articles would always be put in that state without needing discussion. --Interiot 22:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, there are a number of 'work in progress' templates, like Template:Underconstruction (see Wikipedia:Template_messages/Maintenance for more). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

{{No rationale}}

Please see Template talk:No rationale. I started a discussion there that no one seems to be interested in. Basically, CSD I5 originally applied only to images tagged with {{fairuse}} or {{Non-free fair use in}} but somehow the interpretation has been broadened to all fair use tags -- I don't remember any discussion on this -- but IMHO the wording is still confusing. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 00:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I just updated CSD I6 to apply only to generic fair use tags such as {{Non-free fair use in}}, and not to specific ones such as {{tvscreenshot}}. This was, in my view, the outcome of a discussion held earlier this month (a few sections back), but the policy was never updated. Mangojuicetalk 01:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
As I have said before, I fully support going back to the old language. See above discussion under "Can we clarify I6?". User:Feydey, in reply to my question, found where the language was changed - [7]. The intention was to clarify that not only Non-free fair use in, but also {{Non-free fair use in2}}, {{Non-free fair use in3}}, etc, required rationales. The unintended consequence was that people have started to speedy screenshots, even though that tag contains a rationale. Going back to the old language is a very good thing. Please consider taking a look at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline. This proposed guideline helps to clarify what should be in a fair use rationale. If we are going to be removing images that don't have a rationale, we need to describe what a rationale entails and I think a template - {{Fair use rationale}} - will be helpful in creating rationales. BigDT 07:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

New image criteria

I would like to propose that the following criteria be added:

  1. Images uploaded for the sole purpose of being used in a page which falls under another criteria for speedy deletion. The image must have been uploaded at approximately the same time as the page was written and be used only on that page.

This comes up often, as people write their own bio and include an image, or about a company and include a logo, etc. —Mets501 (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I could have sworn this came up not too long ago. Images must be discussed on their own merits, and just because an image is uploaded for a speedied page does not mean that the image cannot be used in other articles. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, this was proposed here on 18 December. The discussion has not yet been archived. —David Levy 20:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I really miss a db-bio for images. Frigo 01:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


Problem with automatic message templates for informing article creators

I'm still on a learning curve with new page CSD patrol, and I just started using the template tags recommended in the CSD boxes for informing the creator of the page. But I was a bit surprised and alarmed that the automatic messages from the couple of templates i just tried out 1) assume that the CSD nominator has made a totally valid CSD nomination, when in fact it this may be challenged and the nominator may be in error and 2) the message consequently goes against the spirit of WP:BITE which as I understand, is regarded as especially important for new page patrol. There should at least be a mention that the tagger may be wrong and that the tagging is challengeable. Furthermore, the tone of the messages is a bit too aggressive, I feel. (In the particular case I was just involved in, the user was creating obviously nonsense/possibly attack pages, so I'm not withdrawing the tags as they're somewhat appropriate, but what about more innocent newbies?)

I haven't looked at all the templates yet but here are the examples of the templates I just tried out:

  • For db-nonsense: Welcome to Wikipedia! We could really use your help to create new content, but your recent additions (such as "Ida heimdal") are considered nonsense. Please refrain from creating nonsense articles. If you want to test things out, edit the sandbox instead. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
  • For db-attack: Please do not make personal attacks on other people as you did at Stian Karlsen. Wikipedia has a strict policy against personal attacks. Attack pages and images are not tolerated by Wikipedia and are speedily deleted. Users who continue to create or repost such pages and images will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Thank you.

How do others feel about this issue? Bwithh 02:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC) "The deletionist with a heart of gold"

  • I think this wording is appropriate for the cases for which the templates were written. Remember that there are less-harshly-worded alternatives intended for cases where bad edits are less obviously intended as nonsense or attack. See the warning templates page, which attempts to help discern which level of warning should be used. Yes, the tagging editor may be wrong, but that's true with any edit or deletion or tagging. More important is for editors to assume good faith and start with gentler templates which include such can-be-challenged and non-biting phrasings that Bwithh suggested. The stronger templates should be used only where patterns of repeated activities continue. Barno 21:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for new Template CSD

We need a CSD for templates which are duplicates of other templates which serves no distinct purpose and/or serves the same purpose and has no transclusions. An example of this is Template:Vandlised, a near-duplicate of Template:Protected template. It has no difference, was created two days ago by a user with no edit summary, and has no links. Thoughts? -- Renesis (talk) 00:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. If you don't like the way a template looks or is worded, you're supposed to edit it or discuss it, not create a template with the same purpose but different layout or wording. Such templates do appear with some frequency, and do get deleted on TFD. >Radiant< 00:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I see no need for a speedy deletion criterion. Simply redirecting the page gets the job done and reduces the likelihood of someone duplicating the pre-existing template under that name in the future. —David Levy 01:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Solve it through discussion or be bold and make it a redirect. Speedy-deletion is unnecessary instruction creep. Rossami (talk) 05:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
There'd also be incessant arguments over which is the 'duplicate'. The natural assumption would be to keep the earliest, but in many cases the more recent template may be better in some way. For instance, I'd rather keep {{Infobox character}} than the dozens of nearly identical templates for specific groups of characters which preceded it. Or {{Taxobox}} over its less efficient predecessors... there was an effort to delete that form as a 'duplicate', but it failed when thoroughly reviewed - which might not have happened if it were just speedyable. --CBD 11:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Such a speedy deletion criterion is too easy to circumvent by simply transcluding it somewhere. Redirecting is more appropriate, unless it's not a useful redirect, and that's an issue for RfD. If the author doesn't believe it should be a redirect, that's a legitimate content dispute. Deco 14:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Seems good in theory, but templates can be substed, and are you really going to make absolutely sure they aren't before using this? And for duplicates, redirection is much better than deletion, because then you don't have to go through all the instances. -Amarkov blahedits 17:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that people circumventing this CSD is really the issue. This is a CSD to make admin cleanup more efficient, and not require this go to the template deletion discussion. I'd say that if the template is redirected or transcluded this doesn't apply. In a situation where it's simply a duplicate template, it should. A content dispute can be raised by making it a redirect, requiring a RfD discussion. Assuming a redirect isn't added, and there are no transclusions or other uses of the template, speedy delete is a good option. Redirect isn't needed if the duplicate template isn't used at all. If it is used, then redirect is a good option, but it wouldn't meet this criteria until someone changed all inclusions of the template. Either way, this is as good a CSD an any other, in my huble opinion. AubreyEllenShomo 03:18, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I would like to note that if such a criterion is added, it should be numbered T3, as I feel T2 should be kept for historical reasons. See my other comment. Everyone remembers the big T2 dispute. (Or so I'm told. It was before my time.) AubreyEllenShomo 03:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
No, as I recall T2 was proposed, briefly included, and then taken out. The only reason for having the "historical" entries is for deletion logs that refer to the CSDs by number. That is no problem here. —Centrx→talk • 04:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Aubrey: "everybody remembers it or so I'm told" implies that you don't remember it :) Other than bureaucracy, there is no particular reason to keep all historical issues on-page, except where this would mess up the higher numbers. >Radiant< 08:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Um... my point was kinda just glossed over. How can you tell the difference between a substed template and an unused template? -Amarkov blahedits 07:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You can't, basically. But I'm not convinced redirecting would work in such cases; the people who make template forks tend to undo such redirects because their template is prettier. >Radiant< 08:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Then take the matter to TfD. Speedy deletion is not intended as a means of resolving good-faith content disputes. It's a means of quickly eliminating material that already has been deemed unacceptable or unneeded by the Wikimedia Foundation (or someone representing it in an official capacity) or the Wikipedia community. Extraneous template forks are widely disliked, but it is not within a sysop's discretion to delete a template to which he/she has unilaterally applied this status. If someone believes that his/her template is better, perhaps it is (in which case a merger might be appropriate). —David Levy 12:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Redirection is generally better to avoid repeated good-faith recreations of variant templates. Content debates should be hashed out somewhere other than XfD, and certainly not via CSD. Any seriously pointed or bad-faith template forks can go to TFD, which is far from overloaded. -- nae'blis 17:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

what does one do with the following.

The "Patant copyright violation" bit has a field for entrance of the URL where the image was taken from. Now, If I know the image to be Patant copyright violation because I know where it comes from in a book, not a webpage, and I know that it was not legitimatly tagged as all rights released, what tag am I supposed to use? Thanatosimii 21:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I would do something like {{db|Blatant copy and paste from "To Kill a Mockingbird", Copyright 1994; Utterly impossible to have been released under a free licence}}. Granted, you'll have to substitute the book and copyright info, but I think it'll get the point across just as well. 68.39.174.238 23:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Expansion to SPAM

As a result of Template:Kaboohoo Network, I suggest this:

Pages which exist which solely as promotion for a company, product, group or service and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic to become articels or templates which are used solely to link to illegitimate external sites or are useful only on pages which also meet this criterion. Note that simply having a company, product, group or service as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.

Basically that template was a collection of internal links, all of which were SPAMs. The "illegitimate external link" thing should work for stuff like links to copyright violating lyrics sites, or the notorious 'AE SPAMmers. 68.39.174.238 19:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is G11 not sufficient? It's subjective and abused enough as it is, we don't need more advertising CSDs. Deco 03:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

What would everyone think about adding a criterion for news media photos?

News media photos are not acceptable for fair use unless the photo itself is famous or iconic. (See WP:FAIR#Counterexamples #5.) Search the image namespace for something like "news.yahoo.com" [8], "Associated Press" [9], or "Reuters" [10] and you will find a gracious plenty news media photos that cannot possibly be considered fair use. The way that news media photographers put food on their table is by selling their photograph. When Wikipedia uses the photo without paying royalties, we are using the image in exactly the way that they are trying to sell the photo and because of potential downstream use, it has a substantial "effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." There's no way that a media photo can be fair use for the purpose of illustrating the subject of the photo ... and these things are constantly getting re-uploaded. I would like to propose that we make it a CSD. At least that would keep us from having to go through the same WP:SNOW process of running them through IFD. --BigDT 04:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. All media photos shouldn't be deleted, only the ones which are not famous or iconic, and speedy criteria should not have the subjectivity that determining that entails. -Amarkov blahedits 04:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
We could word it, "news media photos where there is no assertion that the photo itself is famous or iconic". See the current discussion at WP:IFD ... I have this same discussion at least once a week. There really isn't any point when the answer is always going to be the same. News media photos that actually are iconic are so few and far between that it isn't going to come up that often. Maybe we could even restrict it further - only speedy images that were published within the last two years. That way, we would be able to get rid of the bulk of the blatant CV news media images, but wouldn't risk deleting something potentially iconic. (Older images would have to go to IFD.) --BigDT 04:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
We should be deleting these on sight, so it would appropriate to mention it here. Jkelly 05:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, if I had a delete button ... ;) --BigDT 05:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
If you'd like, I could write some javascript for a delete button that displays a prompt for the reason, and then does absolutely nothing. -Amarkov blahedits 05:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
LOL ... I have some buttons that actually do things already. See User talk:Howcheng/quickimgdelete.js - it's about the most handy library you can have and makes nominating these things much less tedious than it otherwise would be. --BigDT 05:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that didn't occur to me. That's a good idea, although, like A7, it's not going to cover everything that should be deleted, as assertions can be false. But it's definitely better than having to go out of process. -Amarkov blahedits 05:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I strongly support the idea of speedy deleting this kind of thing. However, do we need a new criterion? Maybe we could expand the wording of CSD I7 so that it applies to this situation. Mangojuicetalk 18:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure... can you suggest wording that indicates precisely the kind of thing we need to delete? "Images from commercial content providers not used in an article about the image nor the provider." is a little wordy. Can someone do better? Jkelly 19:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that we consider several things. (1) Commercial content provider is unclear to a lot of people. Most commercial websites could be understood (or misunderstood) to come under that heading. We probably should say, "news media websites". That way, it's unambiguous what we are talking about. (2) It's possible that an article may be predominantly about the subject of the photo, but contain a section about the photo itself. (Consider Kent State shootings. We want to make sure that photos like that are not deleted.) How about something more like, "news media photos where the image description page does not assert that the photo itself is iconic"? BigDT 20:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I suggest we need to rely more upon the good judgement of admins than upon claims of being iconic -- someone out there is almost certainly going to claim that Image:Saddam verdict.png is "iconic". Jkelly 19:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
That's a good point ... I guess my main concern is that the context of this discussion is going to be lost a year from now and we want to make sure that it is as unambiguous as possible. How about if we say, "news media photos where the image is used to illustrate an article or section on the subject of the photo and the photo itself is not newsworthy, notable, or iconic"? BigDT 20:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
"...the photo itself has not been discussed by third parties..."? Hm. I'm not really happy with this either. Jkelly 20:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know ... really, your first version is probably fine if we just change "commercial content providers" to "news media". "Images from news media websites not used in an article or section about the image nor the provider." How's that? --BigDT 20:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at WP:IFD, particularly at Image:Napier-Red-Tape.jpg, Image:Iraqi insurgents celebrate while riding through the streets of Falluja, May 1, 2004.jpg, and some of the images after it. I think that these discussions really underscore why we need an unambiguous policy about it. We obviously can't use these things, but I understand why some people are upset - the prohibition on media photos is pretty well hidden and if you've spent a lot of time working on an article, you don't like suddenly having your pictures taken away. I would strongly suggest that we move this along and come up with some text that will work and be mutually agreeable. I am linking to this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Fair use. --BigDT 07:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm surprised this isn't a CSD already. I agree, however, that there is a problem with crafting this as an objective CSD - if we limit to media images that don't assert iconic value, then pretty soon all media images on WP will be claiming they are iconic. (Just witness how "critical commentary" has become a meaningless phrase by being cited in practically every fair use rationale, regardless of whether the articles using the image actually comment on the picture.) Johnleemk | Talk 07:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused, in that Wikipedia:Fair use#Non-compliance says "Images that do not comply with this policy within 48 hours after notification to the editor who uploaded the image will be deleted". Older images, are given 7 days. So the only way of toughening things is to allow deletion even faster. But, I don't think that's what anyone is asking for. Also, is misuse of press photos worse than other fair use problems? I'm rather unclear why IFD is used at all. I thought the standard for bad fair use, is to tag the image, and have any discussion on its talk page. --Rob 14:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Misuse of press photos is a pretty frequent problem ... we see probably only 5-10 per day on average at IFD ... but that doesn't include the ones that are deleted with some other process (eg, PUI or no rationale). Search the image namespace for news.yahoo.com and you'll find plenty of them. The big thing about making it a CSD isn't that it matters how fast we can delete it - it's that making it a CSD is going to largely stop them from being uploaded to begin with. Most Wikipedians are well-intentioned and when it's printed in big bold letters that news media photos are deleted on site, they won't upload them. Is it the biggest area of abuse? No, not really, but most kinds of problems, there needs to be a waiting period as there is a potential for either fixing the problem (like a missing rationale) or for people to have legitimate disagreements (like replaceable fair use). Media photos, though, are completely unfixable and there is no real need for a waiting period. --BigDT 15:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I like this proposal. Images generated by media agencies shouldn't be on Wikipedia, except in cases of unrepeatable events (i.e. Elian Gonzalez). So the wording should be carefully scripted so as to permit fair use in 1 very exacting case.

  • Exception: When the press photo depicts an event involving specific individuals that will never be repeated.

This wording would allow things like Elian Gonzalez while disallowing the random usage of photos (like the celebrating iraqi insurgents). As an aside, though, I want to be absolutely certain this CSD has specific wording that says it has nothing to do with agency publicity photos. I think it needs to be very clear this CSD has nothing to do with publicity photos.--Jeff 19:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and we need to stay away from subjective nouns and adjectives like "replacable", "iconic", "equal", etc. Any wording put in as a CSD needs to be clear and concise as to the definition of what is and isn't acceptable with as little interpretation necessary as possible.--Jeff 19:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, "unrepeatable" is an extremely low threshold for an event to pass. Mangojuicetalk 20:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, precisely. The "unrepeatable" argument is that being used to defend those insurgent photos, so I think it is a rather subjective criterion. In any case, the point of having this CSD is that usage of such images is probably illegal in the first place, so any exceptions would have to show that the exceptions make the usage legal. Somehow, I'm not sure an event being unrepeatable would make press photos of it suddenly usable under fair use. We'd still be using an image that was taken by a press agency with the intent to charge people for the right to reproduce it, and this very action would thus be in violation of the law concerning fair use. Johnleemk | Talk 15:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, actually there are two facets to my example wording. Unrepeatable is just one of them.
  • Unrepetable event
  • Subjects are specific individuals or an event and the image is used to describe that event or individuals in the image
those two taken together are important. I agree, if it were simply unrepeatable, the bar would be too low.--Jeff 23:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I already assumed that the second was a given, since otherwise the image would be only decorative and clearly unusable under policy. The problem is that I think the second still sets the bar too low, because our purpose for using the image would probably be the same as that of the press agency - to discuss the subject of the image. What I think is important is that the image itself be the subject of discussion, because that makes it a very clearcut instance of permitted fair use under both law and policy. It would be ludicrous to discuss an image without including it, but usually not as ludicrous to discuss an event or individual without an image of said object. The acid test for all fair use images, IMO, is: whether the reader would say "Wikipedia stinks" after reading the article unless the image was included. We should err on the side against inclusion of unfree material unless their exclusion would lead to a situation where the comprehensiveness of the encyclopaedia was clearly jeopardised. The status of press agency images (in that they are specifically taken to illustrate an event or individual, and that the sale of the rights to reuse them are the livelihood of the press agency) only strengthens the case for raising the bar even higher for such images. Johnleemk | Talk 10:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I think we could be a little more lenient than that. As long as the image is famous enough to be an iconic representation of the subject (such as, for instance, Image:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg) it doesn't have to be specifically discussed. Although, in most cases, I would figure such discussion would enhance the article. Mangojuicetalk 15:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not. These should have discussion as to their worth as fair use, not speedied on sight. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
    • They are not fair use, unless there is something about the photo specificaly. Ever. The purpose of the photos is to illustrate the subject, so our using them to illustrate the subject would violate copyright law; it's not even a matter of our policies. -Amarkov blahedits 23:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
      • News media photos can only very rarely be fair use. One of the statutary tests of fair use is "the nature of the copyrighted work" (17 U.S.C. 107(2)), and these are works which were obviously created with a lucrative goal for the author. No admin is going to delete a photo with a properly argued fair use claim for it, but there are literally thousands of copyvios agency photos on WP with no better justification than "it looks nice". Support CSD. Physchim62 (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

(de-indenting) Technically, they are copyright violations; and copyright violations are already speediable under G-12. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem with {{db-nn}} templates

The various versions of {{db-nn}} ({{db-bio}}, {{db-band}}, etc.) all contain the wording: "does not assert the importance or significance of the subject" Even though the link behind the "importance or significance" phrase is to Wikipedia:Notability, the fact is that Wikipedia's definition of notability is not, in fact, a measure of "importance or significance." It is a measure of whether a subject has received significant public attention. This causes issues for new editors, who are frequently arguing that a subject is important or significant, when the actual problem is that the subject is practically unknown. Many may argue that a person or organization's activity is in an important area (because it's groundbreaking in some way, or addresses a significant problem), but the template doesn't tell them that Wikipedia requires that the subject be in some way well-known. Is there some way this could be better phrased? Fan-1967 20:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it should probably just be changed to notability. But it's not that big a deal, because the issue for speedy deletions is the mere assertion. NickelShoe (Talk) 20:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that they don't know what they're supposed to be asserting. "So-and-so is important because he's working on global warming." They think that satisfies the requirement, but the fact is they're describing a grad student no one's ever heard of. Fan-1967 20:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
How about changing it to something along the lines of "does not assert that the subject has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and each other." That nicely and neatly tells them exactly what they need to assert, even if it's a bit wordy. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
No way. The only way that such an assertion would be made in an article is if it is explicitly made, unless, say, there's a section in the article specifically about news coverage. That wording could lead to deletion of articles that actually do claim to meet, say, WP:MUSIC, but don't have references, and we should not be deleting such articles. Furthermore, the test for CSD A7 should be way, way lower than the full "notability" test -- if a subject has enough significance or importance that it can be explained, we can at least get community input on notability via WP:AFD or at least WP:PROD. What I think Fan-1967 is really talking about here is that the link to WP:N is misleading because that's not what needs to be asserted, and there's no clear page that explains "importance or significance" better. IMO, we just should drop the link, or link to the CSD page. (See "Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted" under WP:CSD#Non-criteria). Mangojuicetalk 21:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
How about something like the wording in {{ConflictOfInterest}}: "Some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia may not be sufficiently well-known to merit articles of their own"? That gets across the message about something having to get known first, which is at the heart of WP:N. Fan-1967 21:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Without offering an opinion on the rest of that text, please consider not using "you" in these things. When you say, "this article you wrote", rather than "this article", it can put the other party in a defensive mindset where they are more likely to feel a need to refute an accusation. --BigDT 21:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't specifically recommending that text in total, just I think it's an example of expressing better what Wikipedia means by notability. "Importance or significance" doesn't. Fan-1967 22:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
It does express it more clearly, but what you're suggesting is that we actually want articles to claim notability (in the Wikipedia sense), not just significance or importance, which is weaker. I don't think that change should be made. Mangojuicetalk 22:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I think a message like Does not provide solid evidence of importance or significance would be best. It clearly states the problem, and what needs to be done. PROD is better for this than speedy deletion because it gives the author some time to work on the article. -- Selmo (talk) 22:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Solid evidence? That's a reason for deletion--but only not asserting notability is a criterion for speedy deletion. NickelShoe (Talk) 01:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
An article that does not contain an assertion of notability but where the topic is clearly notable does not qualify for speedy deletion. The topic must first be "unremarkable" and then furthermore not contain an "assertion" of notability. An article that consists only of "John Smith was a composer in the thirteenth-century." is either a hoax or the person is notable—it is unlikely anyone would have information about him or bother writing about him if he weren't. There are other problems with such an article, but notability is probably not one of them. This does add up to "evidence" of notability, but "article that does not provide solid evidence of notability" may be too vague. —Centrx→talk • 07:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Nobody can reasonably expect "solid evidence" for a new article. This is much stronger than AfD practice, which usually expresses something like "reasonable evidence" That phrase may be OK for a process with many participating, but is enormously too vague for a unilateral process
But the present "asserts notability" is also improper, for it is sometimes interpreteted as literally requiringthe assertion of notability in so many words, and articles are listed for speedy based on the absence of the phrase alone. DGG 07:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Consider the hypothetical examples:
  • 1A. "The best high school in Mudville is Central. It is on Main Street. "
  • 1B. "The most notable high school in Mudville is Central. It is notable because it is on Main Street.
  • 2A. "INSPEC, prepared by the American Physical Society, covers about 250,000 articles a year from the various fields of physics.
  • 2B. "INSPEC, prepared by the American Physical Society, covers about 250,000 articles a year from the various fields of physics. It is the most important academic index in this subject.
  • 2C. "INSPEC, prepared by the American Physical Society, covers about 250,000 articles a year from the various fields of physics. It is notable as the most important academic index in these subjects.
1A & 1B are both worth a speedy. They usually get it. But they could just as well be deleted as {{db-nocontext}} or {{db-empty))
2A, 2B, and 2C are all equally the stub for an article. I've seen the likes of 2A get deleted by someone who doesn't realize the intrinsic importance. Once or twice I've even seen 2B get deleted because of carelessness--or possibly even overliteralness--as well. I don't expect people to always realize, but if it's there for a few days, it can be checked.DGG 08:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Now a real example, from today (I also have one from yesterday, though not so dramatic--I could probably find one a day): someone put a (CSD A7) on the article: :[11].
The author improved it to:
[12]
and the same person put the tag back. (I happened to be looking at CSD, noticed the name, for he has been for 40 yrs probably the most renowned developmental biologist in the world, and, not being the author, have further improved it to the present John Tyler Bonner and removed the tag. The author commented to the person who put the tag on

How can someone with 3 honorary doctorates and a former chairman of an ivy league college Department of Biology and is a fellow of the AAAS be nonnotable? --Filll 02:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC) John Tyler Bonner is the page. It is just a stub. Much more is possible if you will let me work on this. This guy had an amazing career. he got a PhD at the same time as serving in the air force! As near as I can tell he got it from harvard in 2 or 3 years, with the war in between. He is a very central figure in popularizing evolution. Many visiting professorships around the world and a long long list of honors aside from being a fellow and 3 honorary doctorates aside from his earned doctorate. And still very active at an advanced age. not notable?

He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, which is one of the automatic categories for scientists, but the author forgot that part. I have added it to the current version.
My conclusion is not merely that the editor involved made a mistake, but that
  1. the present criterion is untrustworthy, for it lend itself to ignorant misapplication.
  2. just as for sourcing, deletions for this cause need a few days so people can check them & are not therefore suitable for speedy in the first place.
  3. and I suggest that all proper cases of notability can be satisfied by the other criteria, and the simplest thing is to remove it altogether. If someone has an example of one that most be removed speedily but does not fit another category, we can surely craft a suitable criterion.DGG 08:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as the editor in question who started this article on John Tyler Bonner, I have had this happen a couple of times. It makes me want to build an article in private until it is very full before I put it on WP. Some tiny stubs have no problem, like those of a hamlet with 4 houses someplace and 2 sentences describing the community. Others like this are attacked immediately. I had another one that had 10-15 links to it from other pages already on WP and the guy had commercial collaborations with several big name musicians plus was a professor and a radio show host and had been involved in several art projects around the world. And still the judgement was nonnotable. And 3 people on the talk page as well as me claiming this guy was important and notable. I was stunned. I figured it was a slam-dunk. How hard do I have to fight here ? Good heavens.--Filll 07:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I will also point out that I contacted the editor who put the tag on directly on his page, as well as on the talk page of the article, with the notice DGG showed. The response was less than encouraging :
I just tag the articles, I don't remove them. If you feel that is sufficient reason to keep the article, put it onto the talk page, and an administrator will take a look at it.
SUFFICIENT REASON? I am stunned. I just do not get it. How can you be chairman of a department at Princeton and a fellow of the AAAS and not be well known? How can you get not one, not two, but three honorary doctorates from major schools and not be well known? You think they give those out like candy? It makes me want to scream. If you feel that is sufficient reason to keep the article... Well, if that is not dripping with sarcasm, I do not know what is. I am trying to be reasonable here, but...it really makes me wonder, when I see some of the other trash on here that passes with no problem (no offense to anyone, but really...) This is the kind of thing that makes many enthusiastic new editors just turn around and leave and never come back. I have seen a couple give up in disgust from being brutalized. Anyway, enough of a rant. But this just gets to me, especially since this is not the only time.--Filll 07:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Filll, if I'm reading correctly it seems that it was a slight violation of policy for you to remove the speedy tag, even though you left the {{hangon}} tag. Also I tried to find the source of the actual words of the editor that you quote from above, but did not succeed. I agree that it's puzzling he would not have perceived the notability of J.T.Bonner based on what you wrote. His comment that you found to be dripping with sarcasm is almost a literal quote from policy, so maybe he felt you were misunderstanding procedure by removing the speedy tag from an article you had created yourself. His tag was put on the very first version of the article, which was extremely stubby, and maybe that was his only evaluation of the content. (He may have felt that only the reviewing administrator, and not he himself, should remove the tag, so he wasn't going to do a new evaluation). Finally, I believe this is a page for policy debate. What are your recommendations for the future? EdJohnston 04:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct. I did remove the tag the first time, after the editor posted what seemed to me to be a sarcastic comment on my page at [13]. It was not clear to me if I could remove it or not and under what circumstances, when I tried to read the manual. You might make this point clearer in the manual and make it clear what you can do and shoulld do when you get flagged. I think that if those words the editor responded with are the exact words from the manual, then people might consider changing the words to something less dismissive. Also, I suggest a "form" for people flagging to fill out, perhaps by multiple choice or T/F. What did the editor check before flagging? Did they check links? Did they check the internet? Did they check the text? Make them certify that they did these things, and if turns out that they didnt, then that goes against them or on their record somehow. Otherwise, there is no harm in just flagging at will, the more the better. And I do not deny it was "stubby" at first. In the future I will be far more careful before anything gets posted to WP to try to avoid this problem.--Filll 18:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

another instance of nn abuse

I'd like to make it clear that what I gave is not an isolated example. This is slightly less clear cut, being an article about a commercial firm, and some of it does seem like advertising, anthough not blatently so:

Wine-Searcher.com provides a Google-like search for wines across the price lists of wine merchants, wineries, and wine auction houses world wide. Wine-Searcher started in 1999 and these days lists more than 7500 wine retailers price lists with over 2,000,000 pricing entries (as of July, 2006).

Wine-Searcher opened up the wine trade by providing full price transparency within wine retailing. Traditionally the pricing policies of retailers for older wines, and their availability and distribution of those wines, was hidden from all those outside of a very small group of international wine brokers. The prices charged by different retailers varied widely even within small regions.

Since 2002, Wine-Searcher has become the main reference source used by the wine trade to establish market value. It has also become more common for high-end wine enthusiasts to also act as collectors/traders of older vintages, that is, as well as purchasing wines for storage and later drinking many enthusiasts now also sell some of their older wines back to the market.

Wine-Searcher provides a free service for the casual wine drinker, and a comprehensive “Professional Version” for $29.95 (USD) per year. Other functionality includes a detailed breakdown of the world’s wine regions, a directory of wine stores by region, rankings of wines by search frequency, and the ability for collectors to advertise their excess wines for sale.

This was marked simply (WP:CSD#A7). It was by a different editor. Note the 1st sentence ofthe 3rd paragraph. This is as clear an assertion of notability as can be imagined. I doubt that this organization has the international significance that JB had, and I would certainly understand putting a tag on asking for removal of some of the advertising content, but not as a speedy, since there is objective content as well. But to mark nn (no assertion of notability) on an article saying "main reference source used by the [ ] trade"? I would ask for verifiability, but some people who place these nn tags do not read the articles. I think nn is too inherently controversal a category for speedy. DGG 22:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It seems quite reasonable that if an article doesn't even assert that the subject is notable that we shouldn't have it. But often people write articles trying to be objective and don't make the notability clear. And often even when notability is asserted, articles are still speedied. If we can't trust ourselves to be more responsible than this we should be talking about narrowing speedy criteria. NickelShoe (Talk) 22:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Semiautomatic deletions and inadvertent anti-Third World systemic bias

This just came through on wikipedia-l. Nominators and deleters are asked to take especial care to remember that not everything is on Google. And when some users are using a semiautomatic deletion bot to delete one entry every twenty seconds for an hour, it's easy to see many articles getting zapped inadvertently - David Gerard 14:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC) 

From: "Frederick Noronha" email address removed
To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World

Hi all, I'm from India, a contributor to the Wikipedia. In recent
times, the 'mortality' of new Wikipedia entries seems to be higher
than usual. While one can understand the need for abundant caution,
it's also important to allow for a diversity of concerns and issues in
this space.

Should we presume that because an initiative is not very visible in
cyberspace (okay, we are under-digitised societies!) that it is not
prominent or noteworthy? See as one example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikalp This is a campaign against
censorship of documentary film in India, one which has the
participation of about 250 documentary film-makers.

There must be some way out. Your suggestions would be welcome. FN
-- 
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
http://www.goa-india.org http://feeds.goa-india.org/index.php
While true that sometimes the Google test is misused, I believe these users are wrong. If you are from India, know your native language, and know the topic is important, first write it in your native Wikipedia and then in the English one, providing an interwiki to demonstrate the article is "accepted" in your native language. This is pretty useful when checking obscure topics: if the topic has been deleted in its native language, it is an indication the topic has been found to be non notable. Remember, the editor must prove the topic is notable, not us. By the way, I am from this third world, and haven't noticed any bias against Argentina, probably because articles written by our main contributors always have a good number of references. -- ReyBrujo 23:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
That all misses the point: there was a claim to notability and the article was deleted as non-notable. That's wrong, and Google searches shouldn't (and probably weren't) even used to determine anything here—non-notability CSD is being abused. BigNate37(T) 00:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the burden of evidence, The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. We can't send to AFD every article which claims notability without providing a source. By the way, Vikalp hasn't been deleted. -- ReyBrujo 00:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
That's absurd. You can't speedy an article which does not qualify for any of the speedy deletion criteria, plain and simple—regardless of any fancy logic which says otherwise. If you see an article which does not qualify for speedy, but does violate core content policies (such as the one you cited here) take it to AfD. If and when AfD gets backlogged and we lose our ability to delete content, I'm sure the community will expand CSD as necessary. BigNate37(T) 00:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
A7 is pretty simple: delete if non notable. If you claim notability but don't provide a source, it should go to AFD unless it is blatant (aka, "Mike Pin is the best soccer player in my town"). Again, since this has not happened, or at least, there is no proof that this has happened, it is all conjecture. -- ReyBrujo 01:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, my apologies. I was confused and thinking of the topic directly above this one when replying; this wasn't a case of abuse of speedy delete criterion. You'd think I would have realised earlier... whoops. Sorry again. BigNate37(T) 02:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Checking the mail thread right now, apparently someone tagged the article with a tag, and the user decided to send a mail. It is a good warning. Also, when the article was tagged there were no references to verify the information. I would have prod'ed it instead, in order to get those needed sources. -- ReyBrujo 02:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"We can't send to AFD every article which claims notability without providing a source." Yes, we can. CSD is for clear-cut deletions, and does not require sources. If there's dissent, even with an "irrational" editor, over the notability claims of a topic, it needs to be placed in a forum for discussion and given time. They need to be given a chance to provide sources. I'm going to optimistically assume that it is not the case as this person claims that some bot is deleting articles with low Google hit counts, as such a bot would never have been permitted. Deco 03:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • As I recall the criterion is "does not assert importance", not "has little or no google hits". An article that purports to be about a prize-winning Randomstani actor should not be speedied just because Randomstan doesn't connect to the internet much. >Radiant< 09:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

What is a "generic" fair use tag? (CSD I6)

I'm creating a category for generic fair use tags, so we can have an explanatory link in the policy. It will be Category:Wikipedia:Generic fair use tags. I think discussion should take place here, though, so it can attract the proper audience. In my view, the only tags that belong in this category are those that give such weak justification that it can never be enough justification for any image. My reasoning? We're defining this category for the purpose of speedily deleting any image marked with such a tag, with no further rationale. Despite what WP:FU says, a lot of the time a fair use tag comes pretty close to explaining the full rationale for the use of a non-free image, although sometimes it doesn't. But a template like {{Non-free fair use in}} is never enough without further justification. Although certain templates like {{tv-screenshot}} are very widely used, and generally require further explanation, they don't always, so we shouldn't be deleting those images (let alone, speedily without further discussion). Mangojuicetalk 16:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

See also: #Can we clarify I6?. Fair use rationales should always be used. While it may be possible that in some instances, a fair use template explains what needs to be said, in the vast majority of cases, it does not. We need explanations of why the specific image can't be replaced with a free one, how the resolution or size might have been reduced, why it doesn't compete with the copyright owner, etc, etc. I don't think that's covered by just a template that's stuck on thousands of images. Also, remember that we're not actually speedying these images right away, we're waiting a week. --Rory096 20:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I guess part of my problem with this is that no one pays attention to images. If we hard-coded it in the criterion that notice would have to be given for 7 days on the talk page of the articles the image is used in, as well as to the uploader, then at least I would actually believe that someone would notice the deletion tag, and have the chance to take action. THEN, we would be deleting images with no rationales that no one cares enough about to save from the ax -- without that, we're basically putting up for deletion a great number of images that should actually not be deleted (i.e., better would be to write a fair use rationale for them, and which someone would actually write), without honestly giving people a chance to save them. Frankly, this should probably be added regardless of the outcome of this debate. Mangojuicetalk 14:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Technically, the notices should be put on the article page itself, in the image caption, see {{speedy-image-c}}. The real point of this, though, should be to get the uploader to give the rationales, and to encourage people to add rationales when they upload, not just when they see something might get deleted. --Rory096 21:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, let me refer to the guidelines at the top of this page. A CSD must be uncontestable. Unfortunately, a screenshot marked only with, say, {{tv-screenshot}}, and used only for the purpose of, say, identification, marks a very contestable deletion request. See, for instance, Image:TCLogo2.jpg, which is a totally legitimate use, and for which the fair use tag pretty much says everything (and which had no specific rationale until just a minute ago, when I added one). Nor is this an "exception that proves the rule," either, most TV screenshots are used legitimately, for identification or commentary, just like the tag says. Also, I'd like to note that CSD I6 says "7 days after being uploaded", not 7 days after being tagged, which is an entirely different kind of situation. 7 days after being uploaded makes sense if no attempt at a rationale whatsoever is given (as in the case that {{Non-free fair use in}}, with no rationale, is all that is given). Mangojuicetalk 20:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That is probably one of very few exceptions. Even in there, you're adding information by saying it's the one thing that identifies the series. Also, it should be "tagged," not "uploaded," per current practice and common sense. The original "uploaded" probably refers to that being the minimum time after it was uploaded, since obviously it can't be tagged before it's uploaded. --Rory096 02:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Adding information is entirely beside the point. MY point is that the tag, alone, pretty much explains the fair use rationale. A clarification is helpful, and because of the FU policy, I added a rationale. But the image was already compliant enough that it shouldn't have been deleted, let alone speedily. And, I sincerely doubt it's one of few exceptions. I'm going to pick out 7 random images out of the first 2000 tagged with {{tv-screenshot}} just for an unbiased sample, and we'll see what comes up. From [14], I get numbers 657, 1077, 844, 1331, 684, 574, and 950. In order: 574 - a screenshot of a station ID, used for critical commentary on the station ID (a history of the logo itself), covered by the tag. 657 - a screenshot from Futurama, "30th century Fox", used in 30th century, specific rationale given, but not covered by tag. (And, fair use questionable, will nominate for deletion.) 684, image of a character on The Muppet Show, used for identifiaction, covered by tag. 844, tv screenshot of an important event on TV, use not covered by tag, but should not be deleted. 950 - just like the three's company logo shot, this is a shot of the title screen of a TV show, used for identification, covered by tag. 1077 - a screenshot of the main character of Static Shock. Used in several articles, but in each case either for identification or critical commentary, covered by tag. 1331 - seems to be used for identification in Knot's Landing, the one screenshot from the section describing a whole season, of an important character for that season. Here, clarification is necessary (so I'm adding a rationale), but still, its use falls under "identification or critical commentary", so it's covered by the tag. So, in 5 out of the 6 without a specific rationale, the {{tv-screenshot}} tag explains the fair use rationale, at least enough that the right thing to do is write a rationale rather than delete. Only in 1 of those 5 was clarification badly needed. In the remaining 1 where the tv-screenshot tag doesn't cover it, clarification is also needed but deletion is probably wrong. In the 7th instance, a specific FU rationale was given, so the criterion wouldn't apply. Mangojuicetalk 17:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome of this discussion, please see WP:FURG. I really think that if we're going to expand the list of images that can be speedied for no rationale, we need to specify exactly what needs to be on a rationale. --BigDT 02:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

modification of A7

Can we have a time rule on the notification, or what about stubs? There was an AFD at Nullarbor (demo party) It didn't appear notable from the first edit, so it was AFDd. Can we get a ruling that allows articles that are starting to have a chance without having to waste effort on an AFD? I was thinking, that you should give someone more than 2 minutes before AFDing an article. I then thought about stubs. Are all of them required to assert notability or else they are speedy deleted? The deltionists out there could just start picking Stubs and delete them just on their own whims, because they fail A7? So I thought I'd pick a stub. Just one at random, so I've got a t=0, but still Tiki fails A7. I think a7 needs some modification. Personally, I don't think that it should be a7 should be speedy worthy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mckaysalisbury (talk • contribs) 21:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC).

The latest edit to A7 makes it easier to delete stubs. The old wording said "does not assert" importance. The new wording says "does not provide any evidence for" importance and significance, which would be carte blanche to start deleting any and all uncited stubs. I don't think that's a good idea. Fan-1967 21:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would work the other way around, but apparently this is ambiguous. Have you a better wording? "provide any information"?DGG 21:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
How about "indicate"? That seems like it would cover "assert" without forcing it to be said outright in all cases. NickelShoe (Talk) 22:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I like "indicate", it's clear that it doesn't have to be a strong assertion. Mangojuicetalk 22:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I think we had best leave this as it is. To change this from "assert" to "provide evidence of" is basically covered in this proposal which doesn't seem particularly well-liked. >Radiant< 09:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I would point out that WP:CSDUA has a 14-day timeout built in, and many people currently in favour of it (including me) would disagree with using it as an instant-deletion criterion. (As I've mentioned on its talk page, the 'speedy' in its name is a bit of a misnomer). Apart from that, agree with Radiant. --ais523 09:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Do you intend the 14 day period to apply to every criterion for SD? 14 days for CDUSA is fine--or 10--but this is the general discussion page and I was referring specifically to N, & I think there is general agreement that for many of the items to which N applies 14 days would be too long.
Radiant might be right in a world of perfect WP editors, but in the present WP the term indicate in relation to N is used in an unfair way both for speedy and elsewhere--I would prefer to eliminate N as a condition for speedy altogether and devise more specific criteria, but for the time being surely the wording can be changed. What is wrong with indicate in this particular context? DGG 05:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)05:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It is my intent to narrow the criterion, to decrease its improper use. There is a wide choice of words.DGG 00:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Redirect Delete template

Would it be possible to put the "speedy" template on the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion page's infobox. Either under the "speedy" category, or under the "Redirect" category? The other article speedies are listed, but this one isn't. There isn't an easy way to find the {{db-r1}} template! SkierRMH 01:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

{{Db-r1}} is already in the speedy section of the infobox. Last one in the list. Rossami (talk) 06:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Free but unwanted images

Hi. I've noticed an unfortunate problem on Wikipedia. There are a fair number of free images on Wikipedia that are not used anywhere on Wikipedia (articles, user pages, talk pages, etc.). Yet, no one seems to care about them enough to move them to the Wikimedia Commons, often because they have been made obsolete by a PNG or SVG version.

Because Wikipedia is not an orphanage, I propose that free images not used anywhere on Wikipedia should be tagged with {{subst:ord}} and deleted after a certain period of time, say a week or a month.

I am very much open to other ideas. —Remember the dot (t) 22:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Move them to Commons, or nominate them at WP:IFD (although unquestionably redundant images can just be speedied as duplicates). We don't need yet another complicated time-dependent mechanism for images that aren't actually a problem for us. Jkelly 22:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, having an image available in a more efficient format is not a criteria for speedy deletion. Take a look at item 1 under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Images/Media. Perhaps we could have a time-dependent mechanism specifically for free but replaced images. —Remember the dot (t) 23:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Given that I've seen a grand total of 1 keep close at IFD, that nomming them there should work just as well as any timebased program. And be faster than a month. --tjstrf talk 23:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I understand your arguments now and I agree with you. I've updated {{Orphan image}} to be more clear about its use. —Remember the dot (t) 23:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. I reverted all the changes associated with this discussion that I could, and listed requests for the other changes that need to be made (i.e. deleting categories and templates, and moving a template back to where it was). —Remember the dot (t) 00:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Problems with {{hangon}} usage

I've noticed that many users remove the speedy deletion template when placing the {{hangon}} template. Perhaps we should include an additional warning that says something like "...but do not remove the template" in all CSD templates. I think it would clear up confusion and reduce the need for the {{drmspeedy}} series of templates. John Reaves 09:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

{{Hangon}} puts the page into CAT:CSD, so the article will still get looked at; I don't think there's a need to revert or hand out warnings if someone replaces a speedy template with hangon instead of just adding it. (And {{db-meta}} already says "do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself" in bold anyway.) —Cryptic 12:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Cryptic. I've deleted many articles that had only {{hangon}}, with no remaining delete tag. Mangojuicetalk 15:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I assume you have done it very carefully indeed. How long do you wait? Personally, i would suggest making a second effort to notify the apparent editor of the article.DGG 19:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Not necessarily. You see a lot of {{hangon}} tags on teenage autobios, or even on the high school attack pages against classmates or teachers. The template, and notes regarding it, quite specifically state that there are no guarantees it will delay deletion, and if the article is patently unfit, the tag should quite properly be discounted. Fan-1967 19:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I see them too & I agree about doing it. The problem is how to sort out the hopeless ones, because some people have a rather broad definition of hopeless, that seems to = I never heard of it. There is no way to avoid case-by-case. DGG 09:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Image fair use explanation.

I've spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to deal with an image that is claimed as a logo but probably is not; the source given is very vague (no URL). I suggest changing a phrase in "Images/Media 7. Invalid fair-use claim" from

may be deleted forty-eight hours after notification of the uploader.

to

may be deleted forty-eight hours after notification of the uploader with {{subst:badfairuse|Image:image name}}.

Assuming that this is the correct procedure. ✤ JonHarder talk 23:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for a corrolary to A7

I've had this in my userspace for a while, and I've used it a few times, but I figure that it's about time that I put it forward here:

User:Ryulong/MySpace describes situations where articles about non-notable individuals or groups include their MySpace page in the article, which may or may not be considered an assertion of notability. I have used User:Ryulong/db-myspace to tag such articles a few times, but it could be used in the wider area of deletion tags.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

We could have the same for YouTube, Blogspot, and several other sites. Most of the times, MySpace groups qualify as speedy copyright violation. I do not think this template is useful; however a template like {{nn-warn}} or {{nn-warn-deletion}} that states that would be welcomed. -- ReyBrujo 01:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
As your essay is worded now, it seems to be aimed at articles that contain nothing but a link to MySpace. If so, these articles already meet CSD A3. If your worry is that someone might see a link to a MySpace page in an actual article as an "assertion of notability", I don't see this as much of an issue. It's clearly not an assertion of notability to state that someone created a webpage somewhere. Should we be worried that I could write an article about you, link to your WP userpage to prove you're notable, and have the article speedy-proof? Geoffrey Spear 18:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I propose a new general criterion

G13
Auxilliary pages for rejected proposals, such as noticeboards and templates. This does not include things which were once accepted and now no longer are, only pages for things which never were more than a proposal.

So? -Amarkov blahedits 04:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, I don't think it's a terrible idea, but it does not seem to warrant a speedy, either. I would guess that it does not come up very often, and when it does, it can go to MfD, and people will have time to "rescue" anything that is worthy of saving or re-purposing. Actually, I'd support expanding PROD to pages like that before creating a speedy category for them. --MCB 05:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Concur. MfD or PROD are sufficient. This page is too hard to keep track of as is. Further instruction creep is a bad thing. Rossami (talk) 06:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Just use MfD. That seems like a criterion that might not be clear-cut either, since discussion could very well be on those pages. --tjstrf talk 06:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, oops, forgot about discussion. Ignore this now. -Amarkov blahedits 06:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Rejected project pages under G7

This proposal reminds me that I recently declined to speedy a rejected proposal that technically met G7, but had relevant talk page discussion about why the proposal was rejected. Is an exception to G7 necessary for this, or are other admins declining those speedies anyway?--Kchase T 12:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Rejected proposals should not be deleted. They should be marked as rejected, with the reasons given on the talk page or at an MfD, and then used to educate new users or anyone who comes up with the same idea in the future. It speeds enculturation and prevents people reinventing the wheel. Carcharoth 17:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Having said that, G7 needs clarification following this debate. Carcharoth 17:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#Prerequisites says: "Also note that even if a policy fails to gain consensus, it is often useful to retain it as a historical record, for the benefit of future editors." The 'rejected' tag should categorise all these rejected proposals anyway, and sometimes someone might gain some inspiration by brainstorming using all these rejected proposals. It does help to see where the limits are if the rejected stuff is also visible. Carcharoth 17:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Then they are edit warring. If they persist, protect the page and force them to follow a "re-opening proposal" procedure. We have this for requested moves, so why not have a formal process to move stuff from proposal to accepted/rejected back to proposal, even further back to user space, or even upwards to guideline or policy? This way, a lot of policy/guideline discussion, which is currently scattered over umpteen Wikipedia talk: pages, could be centralised and organised. You are active in patrolling policy pages. Is there not a central page or project to oversee policy pages? Carcharoth 17:37, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, technically if they're removing the tag then the admin that puts it back may not protect the page even if there is a clearly established consensus that the tag should be there (this, arguably, is a flaw in the protection policy). We don't actually have a formal system for making/accepting/historicalizing/rejecting proposals (although it's been argued that we need one, I haven't seen any workable proposals as yet) so I'm not sure how one would need a formal system for "un-rejecting". Basically, that would only encourage vexatious litigation, as in my experience a user who wants to re-open a rejected page (as opposed to a "historical" page) has always been wrong. There is no central page per se, but I use CAT:PRO and CAT:G a lot, plus I've been around long enough that I tend to know where to find stuff. Policy pages tend to be watchlisted by several dozen admins, at the least. >Radiant< 17:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Admin guidelines tweaked

I've expanded the admin guidelines as follows: "Please also check to see if there is ongoing discussion in progress on the talk page, and assess whether the talk page discussion should be moved or archived to a new location." - this follows from the reasoning that there is sometimes useful content on talk pages. Of course, most stuff deleted under CSD doesn't have talk pages, but that doesn't mean that talk pages shouldn't be checked when they exist. Carcharoth 17:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


Scope of G4

It is not uncommon for articles to be speedied as re-creations of deleted content, even when the original article was only speedied the first time (i.e., it never passed through XfD or any other formal process). Would it be OK to reword G4 to make it very clear that it does *not* apply to anything that has not passed through a formal deletion discussion? -- Visviva 06:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean something like "This clause does not apply if the only prior deletions were speedy or proposed deletions..."? I'm not sure how much clearer we could be. Rossami (talk) 08:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
We could be a lot clearer. I'm strongly in favor of rewording for the purposes of clarification both G4 and G8. I'm seeing radically different interpetatons of wikipedia's policies on deleting talk pages. Mathiastck 14:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

A7 criteria

Can we add other "unremarkable" items to this list, such as "objects and entities".

I'm looking at a speedy delete request for a fairly unremarkable object (a guitar model which has a particular given name because some musician uses it), but although articles on unremarkable "people, groups, companies and web content" which don't appear to establish importance are listed in A7, "objects" and "other kinds of unremarkable things" don't. Is this an omission? FT2 (Talk | email) 11:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No need to expand it further. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Jeff here. It's hard to judge that kind of thing objectively. I don't even support the "companies" or "web sites" inclusion for the same reason. Mangojuicetalk 14:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know. I've seen some very detailed and serious bios of people's pets. Clearly such articles should be speedied, but without an expansion (or very liberal interpretation) of A7, there isn't really a criterion that fits. It's not incoherent nonsense. Fan-1967 16:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
God forbid we have to AfD it, after all. Or prod! --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
If it means that a man-hour is spent on nominating, commenting, and closing each such AfD that is invariably deleted... —Centrx→talk • 17:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Then that's a "man hour" well spent. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Jeff. I understand the frustration when it feels like we're spending more time and energy cleaning up after junk than it took to create it. But we've learned the hard way that speedy-deletion cases are too often stretched and that whenever they are we spend many more hours arguing over it than if we'd just let the process run its course in the first place. Speedy-deletion cases are narrowly written and work best when we continue to interpret them narrowly. Send the rest to AFD. Rossami (talk) 01:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, it's worth reminding people about criterion G3 (pure vandalism). An article about someone's pet, to me at least, is pure vandalism: I can't imagine that I would stretch WP:AGF so far as to imagine that such a worthless contribution would not be vandalism. Mangojuicetalk 03:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't agree with classifying an article about ones pet with vandalism. Misuse yes, but for me vandalism implies something intentionally damaging, more than that. A bit like recklessness v. naivety maybe? My thought was along the lines that if we are saying that some things can be speedied for non-remarkability, why not just make that the criteria for A7 - "Things that are unremarkable and non-notable, and have a virtually zero possibility of ever becoming otherwise." Or, looking at it rhetiorically, is that a degree of judgement that one should not expect a reviewing admin to have? FT2 (Talk | email) 08:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I think G3 has an implied degree of judgement in it. It's a question of WP:AGF whether or not you classify a clear misuse like that as malicious. I think we can expect even a newcomer to understand the purpose of Wikipedia better than that. At best, such people probably think they're being funny. Mangojuicetalk 10:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
True, or they're trying to get away with it. Misuse either way. FT2 (Talk | email) 12:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Much of it, the bios of selves, family, friends or pets, or articles about the local softball team they're on, is not malicious. It goes back to new editors who frankly have no idea what Wikipedia is, and think it's a free-expression blog. They frequently have no idea that it's not appropriate. Fan-1967 16:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
No. A7 has already been illegitimately expanded several times despite the original proposal being extremely limited in scope, and misused on a regular basis for deleting new/small pages. Take it to prod if you believe it's a slamdunk; they still have a high "success" rate. I also an unconvinced by the "G3" option for pages made in good faith, if ignorance. Vandalism must show intent. -- nae'blis 18:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Contested speedies

Some people have been taking contested speedies directly to DRV. It is obvious that is a speedy is contested in good faith, reasonable doubt will exist, and the speedy designation should, in retrospect, not have been used. Not that the designator was necessarily wrong to list it, for it might have seemed obvious, but once it is contested it is no longer obvious. (There are also speedies contested in bad faith, just to slow things down, and I agree that if it is really clear that it is just that, it can still be deleted) Further, not all contested speedies necessarily need AfD, because the article might have been so much improved immediately that there would be no reason to delete it at all. But I think the wording needs to be changed, perhaps to say that after a speedy is contested, if someone still wants to delete it, the next step is prod or AfD. (unless there is an indisputable reason why that is not appropriate) . DGG 23:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is a very bad idea. To automatically undelete contested speedies (which is what sending them to AfD would mean) gies a veto to article creators and indeed anyone and makes CSD virtually indistinguishable from WP:PROD. There are plenty of obvious speedies which don't need to clog up AfD even if one or two people object. I see no reason why DRV (which is much less backlogged) can't consider them. The whole point of CSD, IMO, is that some articles need to be deleted even if some people want them kept (unlike prod and AfD). I would acknowledge that taking controversial A7's directly to AfD can ultimately save time, but I don't see why this should be demanded of admins rather than an orderly result of the DRV process. Eluchil404 18:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
How do you define "in good faith"? How many hundreds of bios do we get on high school kids, their friends or their teachers that get contested? ("But he's a really wonderful teacher!" or "But he really is a gay emo!") You want to take them all to AFD? (Prod is pointless here; it's only for uncontested deletions.) If we see a few contested speedies in DRV every day, we can handle that. If we see several dozen in AFD, as we would under this proposal, the deletion process would bog down to a standstill. Fan-1967 18:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I have nothing to add that hasn't already been written by Eluchil404 and Fan-1967. I'm just expressing my strong opposition for the record. —David Levy 19:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
The automatic undeletion of speedy-deletions which are contested in good-faith is the current rule and has been since the creation of the speedy-deletion process. Speedy-deletions which are contested in good faith may be immediately undeleted and a (then Votes for Deletion, now XfD) discussion opened. In fact, this rule was made a necessary condition of the speedy-deletion process when the concept of CSDs was first approved by the community back in late 2003. It was established as a check-and-balance against the misuse of the CSD process.
Eluchil404 misstates the point of CSDs. They are not intended for articles that "need to be deleted even if some people want them kept". Rather, they were created for those situations where there was never any reasonable objection during the deletion discussions. CSDs are available to us for efficiency, not as an end-run around the consensus-seeking process.
By design, CSDs are limited to only those issues for which essentially every reasonable admin would reach the same conclusion. If a second admin reviews the deleted content and comes to a significantly different conclusion about the applicability of a CSD criterion, then by definition the speedy-deletion was more controversial than the first admin thought.
The definition of "good-faith" has always been a judgment call left to the discretion of the undeleting admin but it has been more than sufficient to weed out the complaints like Fan-1967 describes. ILIKEIT is not a good-faith challenge.
Deletion Review is available for the appeal of speedy-deletions but is not the only channel by which the speedy-deletion decision can be elevated for community review. Rossami (talk) 20:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Can we make this explicit in the policy, then? --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
You've accurately described the current process, but this is not what DGG has proposed: the automatic restoration of a speedily deleted page—without any sysop discretion involved—upon a "good faith" request. For example, if a schoolchild creates an article about him/herself, it's speedily deleted, and the creator protests the deletion in good faith (under the honest belief that the article was appropriate), it's automatically undeleted and sent to AfD. —David Levy 21:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
no, that is not what I have proposed. I am aware of the pages that must be removed instantly, and if for some reason they are contested, then it is the job of someone to explain tactfully--especially if it seems to be a child. I have encountered a few pages that would be terribly embarrassing for the boy in later years, and I've asked an admin to delete immediately. Haven't run across any potentially dangerous ones yet, but I know that's because of the people who watch out for them. And there are lots of clearly non-good-faith pages, where the creator obviously knows that it will be deleted. And in the last week a few of them have been contested just to keep the game going, and I think there is a reason for the present rule that they may when really appropriate be deleted none the less.
what I suggest is a slightly slower process. I have only encountered a few pages nominated or sent for deletion in any pathway that were nominated in bad faith--and they are generally religious controversies--and I cant tell if it is in spite of WP's known standards or ignorance of them. They get a speedy keep, because everyone else realizes.
what I am trying to prevent is the deletion of salvageable pages, or the use of rapid process in disregard for the rules, in cases where there clearly is a reason that it might be contested--and then the pages sometimes get deleted within minutes. But any contest in good faith should trigger the full process, and the full time, and nobody should use a speedy if it might reasonably be contested. Probably the best thing for a conceivably contestable speedy is an upgrade to a prod, to allow time.
examples in and out of my field:
  • I think most high schools are non notable, but I am aware others think that most or all of them are. Therefore it would be wrong of me to speedy a HS, because if it gets to AfD, it will be debated.
  • A full professor who doesn't list any of his papers or give anything beyond his website address. Obviously this isn't N or V yet, but it probably would be if it did list all his accomplishments, Not speedy, because we want to rescue that article. Prod and a note.
  • A company which puts in an ad. This is harder, because it just might be a company which does justify an article, but i don't recognize the name. If its a corner grocery, speedy. otherwise prod, on the chance someone will. If someone recognizes the name, stubify and ask them to rewrite.
As I write this, it sounds like we need a process for saying, go back and try again, paying attention to [a more customized list than the current template] , but without the negative connotations of deletion.
Basically, we need protection against people who are careless about process, because the 10 or 20 articles a day that could be rescued are important to the content of WP, and their writers are important to WP as possible longer term editors. DGG 23:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
1. That isn't what you wrote in the first place. You plainly stated that any speedy deletion obviously contested in good faith should be reversed.
2. All of your examples either shouldn't be speedily deleted (and should be speedily undeleted if they are) or should be speedily deleted (but, upon request, may be restored to the user namespace and brought up to our standards). —David Levy 23:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comments: to DGG (conflict)
We don't speedy high schools, unless they're nonsense or attack pages, or practically empty stub-stubs with little more than a name, in which case there's nothing to salvage anyway.
On the professors, if someone wants the person in badly enough, they'll recreate with some actual citations. If they don't, they won't. Not worth our while to keep tons of stubs around just in case the person might turn out to be notable.
On the corporate ads, it's very easy to say stubify and ask them to rewrite neutrally. It's impossible to get them to do it, even if they try. Seriously, an employee of company X cannot produce neutral content about company X. We see this every time we tag an articvle as spam and they try to rewrite it into something that they claim (and sincerely believe) is neutral. If nobody outside Company X has ever felt it worth documenting, it's not that notable. Delete it until someone does. (Trust me, you can always tell if the author is from within or outside the company).Fan-1967 23:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that maybe the solution is to tighten up the policy a bit, rather than to introduce more process. A7 was intended to provide a method to speedy articles about the random high school band or 10-year-old kid. But it's almost become a license to speedy any stub about a person. The problem is that "importance" is too vague. People are speedying stubs about authors - but really, if someone is a published author of a real book (not just an internet book and not just some guy who wrote into the newspaper to complain about garbage collection being too slow), that is an assertion of importance in and of itself. The same is true of college football players, media personalities, etc. I've seen deletion summaries that say, "notability". Well, that's not a criterion for speedy deletion. Honestly, I think we need to draw the line a little more on the conservative side. Speedy the article that is about the band that hopes to publish a CD some day, the online toy store that has been in operation for six months, and the high school club of super-smart people. But if it's at all questionable, err on the side of caution and not newbie biting. --BigDT 01:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Relevant policy for undeletions is WP:UNDEL, which states:

If an article was speedy deleted, this may have been done in error. You may ask any administrator to undelete an article if it has been obviously deleted out of process (no justification under the deletion policy). See the "Exceptions" section below. An article undeleted in this way may be listed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if it still appears to be deletable under the deletion policy. If you cannot persuade an administrator that the deletion was in error, try Wikipedia:Deletion review.

Note that this is not simply Rossami's "any good-faith request", it requires an out-of-process action by the deleting admin. Since most admin's are loath to overturn another admin's action and the deleting admins usually stick to their prior call, speedies tend to end up at DRV. So the "contested speedies should get a full discussion" is certainly fulfilled under the current setup. The issue here is mostly one of status quo bias: Existing articles are not deleted unless there is a consensus to do so (ca. 2/3–3/4 under the old vote-counting scheme), deleted articles are not restored unless there is majority in favor. I'm not convinced that this bias is detrimental to the project, looking at the quality of speedied articles that are nominated at DRV on a daily basis. There's more of a problem coming from the fact that AfD's create a short window of high scrutiny for some very obscure articles, so the five days listed usually create the best opportunity for an article to be improved. Of course that's something that doesn't happen if the article is deleted or protected. ~ trialsanderrors 11:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I want to amplify and clarify my previous statement in two respects. I agree that if there is a substantial claim that a speedied article does not in fact meet the speedy criteria, sending it to AfD is a Good Thing™. However, I believe that it should be up to the deleting admin to make that call, rather than creating a substantive process. Secondly, I want to point out that DRV is quite willing to overturn improper speedies (as opposed to AfD's which are rarely overturned from Delete to Keep). I just don't see the problem that DGG claims to. Eluchil404 12:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the general sentiment here; many speedies are legitimately contestable (incremental edits can fail to establish notability before someone tags-and-bags it, apparent hoaxes that are unfamiliar to the deleting admin, etc), while others are pretty much unconetstable (copyvios in most cases, attack pages, most spamvertisements). I believe that most admins will review their own deletions in most cases, and DRV already deals with the some of the rest. -- nae'blis 18:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio templates

Ugh, what a mess. I used to find my way around templates much faster, but somehow now I can't find in which page the {{nothanks-web}} and related have been put, so I am bringing it here. Templates like that one must have been created thinking in the 14 days copyright timeframe, where an editor had 2 weeks to prove he is the owner of copyright. Right now, that kind of templates is being used when G12 is applied (blatant copyright violation). The instructions in the template state that the user should make a note in the article talk page to confirm he has the copyright permission. However, since the articles are being speedy deleted, this causes new users to create talk pages of deleted articles that will never be read. Can we have a full review of templates with similar problems ({{nothanks-sd}} comes to my mind) and consider a new approach to this issue? Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 19:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Time delays in image/media criteria

As you may have noticed, the criteria for speedy deletion for images or media are different to all the other criteria in that many of them include time delays, periods during which an image or media page must be tagged with some template or another for a certain number of days before the image can be deleted. This is in contrast to the criteria for, say, articles, which allow immediate deletion (hence "speedy deletion"). The reasons for including these time delays were historically sound: before June last year, it was not possible to undelete image or media files once they had been deleted. However, we now have this feature, which means there is no longer a good reason for having time delays in the criteria.

I propose that:

  • All time delays be removed from the image/media criteria;
  • Adjustments be made to the criteria if it is not desirable to make those criteria "true" speedy deletion criteria (that is, to allow immediate deletion), but rather desirable to replace them with WP:IFD or another process.

Discuss. --bainer (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

For some large category of images to be deleted, the time delay serves to allow the image uploader time to respond to a request for licensing (or other required) info. In those cases, the image should be kept for a little while (5 to 10 days), to allow the uploader to see which image has been tagged. However, if the uploader (or someone else) doesn't respond within a certian time, then deletion should be automatic. Argyriou (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Why should this be the case for images and not, say, articles? The upload form provides ample opportunity for the uploader to enter information about images, and the requirements for sources and licencing information have been in place for a very long time. In any event, since we now have image undeletion, if an uploader provides source or licencing information after the image has been deleted then the image can be undeleted and the information updated. --bainer (talk) 01:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
So long as we're going to allow users to upload images without licensing information, we should give them a reasonable chance to reply to copyright concerns. Speedy deletion is often too quick in borderline cases. If unlicensed images are that big a problem, then perhaps we could change the workings of the upload page so that the first three options don't allow the image to upload at all. Which I would support - better to not let those images onto Wikipedia at all, than to delete them after the fact. But so long as we don't mechanically require licensing info, we should allow users a reasonable amount of time to fix the problem. Argyriou (talk) 01:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
NBD either way
Articles deletion notifications are biased towards nomination of junk articles and hoping the 'kid' (sic) misses the edit and tagging. Historically, AfD would rather not have the battle over cruft and such since a groupie can ask his friends to join the affair, and etc. Frankly, this has always struck me as against the spirit of AGF and CIV, not to mention a few other high minded pillars of the community but it's a pragmatic compromise in place most of us cynically comprehend, if not like. Personally, I'd rather see a quorum requirement (30 votes min.) with qualified voting priviledges on all Xfd's and speedy deletion curtailed solely to articles, as there is little reason to bother departing from a deliberative process on other Xfd's. Pifffle on template redundancy, for example--if a more complicated template is difficult to use, we're supposed to get rid of one that's user friendly? How does that help the editor struggling for time enough to deal with article content? Same with empty or redundant categories--most of those would be better handled like the commons does--just tag them with a soft redirect using {{category redirect}} and leave a clue for others so the error doesn't get perpetuated, repeated, or become contentious. These things can all wait, as they aren't out in main space readily available to the customer-readers. <Shrug>. <g> I'm not the emperor of the universe, alas!
  On the images front, Jimbo himself set the policy in place with help, a rare but hopeful event. I'd suggest a five day speedy wait period provided the uploader is notified by email. Many of us get busy in real life and leave wikipedia for extended periods, so may miss a talk posting. Five days is a possibly not enough, but the gesture is there, and it's a reasonable compromise figure assuming a long weekend or other holiday factor. The fixed number might be modified by building an international table of holidays to add to the time span, but it'd be simpler to just stay with a long time period from the outset.
  OTOH, since undeletion is now available for images, it is a simple matter to have the page restored, as I have had done when one disappeared whilst I was off in RL last fall. // FrankB 05:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that Argyriou is on the right track; so long as we allow uploads without specifying a copyright status, there should be a time delay. And I suspect that requiring a specification would lead to an increase in erroneous specifications. In theory my suspiciion is testable, given a lot of effort. GRBerry 00:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Eliminate A7?

Can we eliminate A7 as a criterion for speedy deletion? Of all the criteria, this one seems the most subjective, and the most error-prone. Many A7s will qualify under other criteria; the rest should be prod'd or go to AfD. The definition of notability is fairly fuzzy, and the A7 criterion is just asking administrators to make judgement calls on their own which should be made by the community at large instead. Argyriou (talk) 20:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is a bit subjective, but I personally feel that it is an important criteria for speedy deletion. I think however it could be clarified a bit, as to determine which ones should go to afd and which ones should not. What I have in mind is clarifying it to say articles that assert notability (true or not) should be afd'd. Articles about john smith, born 5/14/1990 in anytown usa is the coolest kid ever could still be deleted under a7. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that an admin using their best judgement is a problem; after all, is that why admins are there in the first part (that is to say, their firm grasp of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines)? EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Do you really believe that most admins are actually that good? Where the rules are only slightly subjective, most admins make the right calls, but with something as subjective as A7, there are a lot of borderline cases which get decided wrongly. There's a structural problem, too - most people don't know to monitor the Category:Articles proposed for speedy deletion (or whatever it's called), and those that do are likely to be people with a strong bias for deleting articles - a bias which is generally justified for most criteria, but is extended to A7 nominations, and colors the judgement used to decide A7 deletions. Argyriou (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
While I trust our admins, I will agree that the cirteria leaves the door open for a few to slip through the cracks. I, as well as anybody, know that all wikipedians are prone to errors. I agree with Argyrious that a7 is subjective, I however feel that it should not be eliminated. There are those articles, that to me may seem like rubbish but to a physicist may seem important. I think Argyrious fears are not unfounded, the question is, is there a way to decrease the number of erronous deletions by refining the A7 criteria. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
A week-long stoppage of A7 deletions discussed above, but essentially rejected. There's probably a good deal of material that gets deleted under this criterion that does assert notability (in my subjective and fallible opinion), but very little of it would probably survive AFD. It's not perfect, but a necessary evil to deal with all the articles like "John is an accountant living in New York City. His garage band sold 27 CDs when he was in high school." I'd also agree that a guideline is welcome.--Kchase T 20:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Do not get me wrong, I agree, it is 100% necessary to eliminate some of the crazier additions. After reading the criteria really closley, I see it already says, "Non-notable biography / article about a person, group, company, or website that does not assert the notability of the subject. I think that is the key there. While some articles it might be great to speedy delete (there are some marginal company articles that claim to be an industry leader, etc etc[and are not written too much like an advert]). I have the tendancy to push those towards afds because they may be and I am unaware of them. There are actually several examples of companies that I afd'd as spam or nn which had a resoundning keep because of notability that I was unaware of (historic or present). The question is, how could A7 be clarified(if it even needs it) to seperate out articles that should at least go through AFD as opposed to A7. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
A7 doesn't need clarification, it needs administrators who are willing to actually read the criterion properly. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  • A7 is never going to be perfect, but administrators simply have to learn how to use it properly, because they aren't. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The biggest problem is that assertion of "importance or significance" is just plain bad as a standard, for four reasons. (1) It is largely ignored - I have frequently seen authors and athletes tagged for speedy deletion or actually deleted. In reality, saying that someone is a real author (as opposed to simply publishing an e-book) or a college/pro athlete IS an assertion of significance. (2) It's too easy to game. Add in some kind of fluffy title or claim and you've met the requirements of this criterion. (3) It fails to address the real problem. The real problem is high school kids, one-man websites, small business spam, etc. (4) Half of the articles in any stub category could be deleted under A7 if someone really wanted to make a WP:POINT. --BigDT 21:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I suggested eliminating A7 a month or two ago, and the comments I received caused me to take another look. (A7 besides being subjective is over-general, and can apply in many ways, but we'd need a replacement) Perhaps we can specify it. One very important class is the very brief 1 or 2 line "John is a sexy guy"& lately a few of them have known enough to try to game the system and add a {{hangon tag, which I think all admins very properly disregards. We should be able to take care of most of them with A1, little or no content.. We could even have an automatic method. I think 10 or 15 words would be about right.
Other instances of A7 could be dealt with instead as G1, patent nonsense. Corporate ads fall under G11.
There would remain some more difficult cases, and I think we might do this best with G7a, b, c, to get editors to be more specific--which would also help greatly in sorting. And in thinking, because there is a great conceptual difference between an A7 person, & an A7 organization, and an A7 website.
There's a small number of new articles which will continue to need really quick person intervention--such as children giving details of their lives, obvious libel, etc. so we will always need some way of deleting immediately, but if most of the material is dealt with objectively, admins can concentrate on getting rid of these immediately. DGG 21:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me propose the following simple change: restrict A7 to articles created in the past X days, where fewer than Y editors have contributed to the article. Some of the problems would still remain, but it would force us to take a more careful look at any article that had been edited broadly, or had existed on Wikipedia for a long time. Most speedy tags that I've seen are applied almost right away, but every so often, I find a very old article with an A7 tag on it. A lot of times, those articles have already survived a round of speedy deletion requests, so at the least, classifying them as A7 should be considered controversial. After an article has been around for a few days, it's been through the gauntlet of NP patrollers, and if it has passed, we should probably think twice about deleting it without any debate. The more important restriction, though, is the Y editors restriction: overwhelmingly, the articles that need to be deleted are only substantially edited by 1, sometimes two editors (and sometimes 3 or 4 if you count IPs). False positives may also fit this mold, but a lot of the worst false positives don't. Values for X and Y were difficult for me to choose -- perhaps 30 days and (fewer than) 4 editors? Mangojuicetalk 21:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if that solves the problem or simply makes it prone to more abuse. It'll keep long-standing articles from being speedied, yes, but won't it simply make people more aggressive in tagging? We can't afford more mistakes, we already make too much. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Mangojuice, I don't know if that will make anything better, though certainly some way to note that an article "failed" speedy would be useful. Part of the problem is institutional - the people who do the most SD tagging are those with the strongest deletionist sentiments. A stub article reviewed by one editor and not tagged might end up tagged by another; the probability of being deleted increases the more people examine the article, regardless of the merits of deletion. While those inherent biases in favor of deletion for obvious vandalism or nonsense or copyvio is worthwhile, it's much more problematic for a criterion as subjective as A7. Argyriou (talk) 22:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly support User:Mangojuice's proposal. A7 desperately needs a statute of limitations. I have now seen many articles that have been here longer than CSD itself being nominated for speedy delete. X and Y can be figured out by strawpolling. I also see Mj's proposal as orthogonal to other possible improvements to A7. — Kaustuv CHAUDHURI 01:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I also strongly support Mangojuice's proposal. Other changes are needed, but this ought to be in there somewhere. --BigDT 02:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The original proposal which created A7 passed with less than 75% of the vote; the arguments against passing it were stong enough that a responsible administrator would close such a discussion as "no consensus". The explanation of A7 states that the article may be speedied if there is

The current wording of A7 makes eligible for speedy deletion "An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject.". That wording makes the standard less clear, and more prone to abuse. However, as I've seen people arguing (or acting) that articles qualify as A7 when they clearly do not meet the criterion, I believe it is better to eliminate the criterion altogether. Argyriou (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I say kill A7. It's a very rare article that truly has no assertion of notability, and yet qualifies for no other speedy criterion. And if it doesn't, it should get an AfD. We don't speedy articles which don't have sources, since we understand that they might just not be included, so why should we speedy articles which don't have notability? -Amark moo! 01:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep A7. There are a very significant number of articles that come rolling in that meet anyone's interpretation of A7; to pick a recent example, 27 Left Over Nickles which read in part:
(27LON) is a punk rock band started in Tionesta, Pa on April 23, 2001.... 27LON was formed at a first drummer, Danny Cramer's, 16th birthday party. The band was listening to a Blink 182 CD when Danny Cramer decide it was a good idea to start a band. On the spot Danny decided to take the drums and Leviness the bass guitar...Danny and Adam have been tossing ideas around for the 1st album since the bands begginings but have yet compiled an album. Adam has written various songs for the band and is planning on getting into a studio soon. The band decided to go on hiatus after they decided funds were insufficient to start playing. Danny and Adam have made a pact that when they "make it big" they will each get 27 sepreate Nickle tattoos on various parts of their bodies to commemerat the occasion.
Don't create a whole bunch of instruction creep that would get in the way of deleting such articles. If someone wants to tweak the wording of A7, tweak it, but it's good enough as it is. No amount of tweaking will get around the fundamentals: 1) we can't eliminate the need for judgement on the part of admins, and 2) some administrator's judgements will always be contentious.
It's not very broken, and there's no particular need or obvious way to fix it. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Approximately one in four or one in five A7 speedies are incorrect, if we take Mangojuice's analysis and plop ourselves in the middle. It's very broken, and needs some adjusting if we can't abandon it outright. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
DPBSmith, your example obviously fails G11, and probably A1 (which is also in need of clarification). Argyriou (talk) 02:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
A1 also seems to be frequently misapplied. I don't know if any admins are actually deleting these or not, but on several occasions, I have seen stubs tagged as A1 that in no uncertain terms tell who the person is and what he/she did. I hope that nobody is actually deleting these ... --BigDT 03:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Quite. A1 is insupportable for an article like that: it's quite clearly meant for articles where you can't even tell what the subject is. The "very short" part could stand clarification, though; historically it's been used for items of substub length - ie, less than two or three lines. More and more, though, I find it turning up on articles like List of Rawalakotis, where it's about as relevant as {{db-[randomletter][randomnumber]}}. —Cryptic 03:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

An alternative

How about changing "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject" to "is unquestionably a topic that cannot meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines". There needs to be something in there so that an article about a high school kid can be deleted. --BigDT 02:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

  • An article about a high school kid will most likely qualify under A1, G11, or whatever the attack page criterion is, and articles which don't shouldn't be speedied anyway. -Amark moo! 02:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • "John Doe is the president of the Chess Club at Some High School. Under his leadership, the SHS Chess Club has twice won the city high school chess meet. Coach Michael Smith called John, "the best President a coach could ever hope for". Doe's record against archrival Other High School is 2-1." Without A7, can that article be speedied? Really, with the current A7, it shouldn't be according to the letter of the law because there is an assertion of significance (however meaningless). That's why I prefer the language "unquestionably a topic that cannot meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines". --BigDT 02:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • We aren't going to get very far in a discussion if you assume that I think things like that should be speedy deleted. I don't. -Amark moo! 02:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Well, that's me, just with names changed, so maybe I should write an article on myself. ;) (Kidding ... kidding ... in no way, shape, or form should I be included in any encyclopedia - I'm not at all notable.) --BigDT 03:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I like BigDT's suggestion: "unquestionably a topic that cannot meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines", though the wording could stand some improvement, too. Plenty of important people who have articles now might have rated the Chess Club article when they were 18. Argyriou (talk) 02:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The problem is that it's even more subjective than what we have now. In theory, it's going to eliminate all but the most obvious ones, but it's being widely interpreted now, imagine what it would be with that as the criterion? --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • The big advantage is that the new one places the emphasis on the topic rather than the article itself. The problem with the current A7 is that half of the company stubs could be deleted right now. But this moves it from being an issue of the current state of the article to being an issue of whether the topic is reasonable. --BigDT 03:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Understood, but that is even harder to demonstrate either way. There is no topic on earth that could unquestionably be shown to be NN. The silliest JHS kid, could have had a dramatic event in his childhood the article doesnt mention. Many company articles haves things potentially in there, which they dont know enough to bring out, etc etc. What we have to judge is the topic as shown in the article. For example, if I should take a lousy article andfind & insert some really good stuff to rescue it, this changes things. Cant go by potential alone.
I think we are making progress, but there is not real reason we need finish this tonight.DGG 03:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Well ... that's true, maybe, "there is no reasonable chance that ..." could be used instead of "unquestionably ...". I think we need to face it that we are never going to get it right 100% of the time ... but if we can get 99.99%, that's better than 80% and it's better than sending everything to AFD. I point to William Morva. There's no question that this article is appropriate. But you wouldn't have known it from the first edit [15]. Heck, I'll use my own deletion log as an example - I incorrectly speedied A True Church. But the key is that when comfronted about it, I restored it, took it to AFD, and apologized to the creator. That's the key with anything - be willing to discuss the issue with someone who offers a reasonable objection in good faith. --BigDT 03:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


I dislike constructions that elevate actions that require an agent, such as questioning the notability (or lack thereof) of a topic, to the level of objective judgements such as "unquestionable". What's unquestionable for the goose, etc. This is not a trival objection: judging the notability of a subject per WP:N can often be a non-trivial process. How many times have we seen articles rescued from the pits of AfD because the nominators mistakenly considered the subject to be non-notable? Second, the statement "cannot meet Wikipedia's notability guideline" is falsified if (in the future) these guidelines are relaxed. Furthermore, the subject can in principle become notable by, for example, doing great things, not to mention that even apparently minor actors and events can accrue notability in the historical view. The guidelines are also not self-justifying. It would be better to state what quality (notability) the article lacks, and point to the method one might use to judge the quality (notability guidelines).

To crystallise my objections, I counterpropose to change the phrase to "does not provide any evidence for the notability of its subject". It is easy to check whether evidence is provided or not. The quality of the evidence may be sorely lacking, but that can be judged at AfD. — Kaustuv CHAUDHURI 03:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

This wording is perilous. Such a rule would effectively elevate notability guidelines into policy, even if only in extreme cases. Also, the wording "unquestionably" assumes that admins can judge what other people would think - but they are no better a judge of this than they are of the notability of the subject in the first place, so it doesn't eliminate the problem of subjectivity. Deco 04:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "elevating guideline into policy". It isn't a two tiered system that way. WP:N establishes an inclusion guideline that may be used (and is routinely used) to exclude articles. Regardless, my wording simply states that the evidence for notability was not provided. The requirement to provide evidence is unquestionably policy. — Kaustuv CHAUDHURI 04:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

A second alternative

There are distinct problems as far as New Pages Patrol is concerned in A7 is removed or altered too much. At the moment, A7 is very much a fence at the top of the cliff stopping the ambulances at the bottom (AfD and prod) becoming so overloaded as to be unusable. I'd say that 10-20% of newly created articles are vanity articles or otherwise easily fail A7. Remove or alter A7 too much, and all of those articles - potentially hundreds per day - will haveto be deleted via other means. To solve this problem, I would like to suggest that perhaps a time limit be placed on A7, rather than any significant changes to the spirit of the wording. This could be achieved by simply making it something like "This article is less than one month old and does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If it can survive scrutiny for a month, chances are someone at least thought it was worth keeping, so should go through the AfD process. Grutness...wha? 03:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Your proposal does not address the problem that some significantly large percentage of A7 deletions are wrong, and that the criterion is impossibly subjective. New Pages Patrol draws people who are more likely to err on the side of deletion; we don't need to give them something which could be used against almost any article, particularly those written by newer editors, who may not know how to complain, and leave in frustration. Argyriou (talk) 04:01, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
If hundreds per day go to PROD/AfD, this may not be as big a problem as people think. Just my two cents. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

As much as I'd like to be amiable and think up a new rule that everybody can agree on, the essential goal of A7 is to delete non-notable topics, and notability is subjective. Our guidelines often find exceptions at AfD, and our standards are constantly shifting. Often a claim of non-notability in AfD is met with vehement and legitimate denial. I once rescued an article (Chan's algorithm) that someone repeatedly tried to delete as non-notable despite publication and wide notability in the field of computational geometry, variously claiming that it had no context or didn't have enough Google hits. You need multiple views to resolve notability in any meaningful way, and if AfD can't handle the load, we'll have to find some other way. Speedy deletion and notability don't mix. Deco 04:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The goal of A7 is not to delete non-notable articles on sight. I am surprised you think it is. — Kaustuv CHAUDHURI 04:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
A7 does not allow deletion of non-notable articles, but this seems to be the intention of its spirit, or at the very least its application. I've rarely heard anyone argue that the actual point of A7 is to force article writers to provide evidence of notability for the sake of article quality. Deco 14:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Can we please see some actual evidence for the perennial allegation that "some significantly large percentage of A7 deletions are wrong"? The occasional human error does not constitute "some significantly large percentage". Judged by the very low amount of A7's that actually get overturned, this allegation is entirely groundless. >Radiant< 11:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Not all mistaken A7s get overturned at Deletion Review. Plenty of others get overturned when the author contacts the deleting admin and makes a case. Probably more would be if fewer admins had a tendency to stick to their decisions in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Argyriou (talk) 16:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, Argyriou, I'm aware that that happens, but that does not constitute "some significantly large percentage". >Radiant< 17:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Having looked at Mangojuice's analysis, probably half the A7s (or more) could have been speedied under G11 (since most bandcruft is spam for the band), and that leaves somewhere in excess of 20% of the A7s as questionable at best. I've made another proposal to address what I hope are the other problems, below. Argyriou (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I can see that working for bands and websites, but perhaps less so for people in general (e.g. someone writing an article about his grandfather, such articles tend to be less exalting). But do you think that this would solve the problem, rather than the symptom? Wouldn't people simply cite G11 where they cite A7 now? Because the issue is actually about the fact that we have a steady influx of unencyclopedic articles, and people deleting them, and some conflicts and mistakes on the borderline. I don't think that moving the borderline around is not going to resolve that. >Radiant< 17:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
        • If I can find some outside references about my great-grandfather, I probably will write an article about him. My grandfather, too. (My great-grandfather would be notable were he in his position now, not 100 years ago; my grandfather would be notable had he died in the UK or the U.S., rather than in Colombia.) However, leaving that aside, I think the biggest problem in A7 deletions is with pure biographical articles. I doubt that I'd disagree with most A7 school, band, company, or vaporware deletions, but most of those also are G11. So eliminating A7, while providing a mechanism to keep deletion of unreferenced articles out of AfD seems to be the way to go. Argyriou (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Most band A7s aren't good G11 candidates. They typically state very direct simple facts, like the band members, some history, their genre, and so on. Nothing remotely spammy about it, except for its mere existence... and if we start G11'ing articles that are spam because they are articles on NN things that shouldn't have articles on Wikipedia, we're basically just changing the name of A7 to G11. And broadening it. Mangojuicetalk 23:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yet another option

I went and looked again at User:Mangojuice/a7. First off, I noticed that many of the A7s would probably qualify under G11. There seems to be one big defect that many of the non-notable vanity articles have, and that's a lack of source material. Articles may qualify under A7 by saying "Joe Blow is a champion cocaine snorter, and won the Lower Manhattan Snorting Championships in 1992.", but not actually providing any proof.

So, as I see it, the problems are:

  • AfD is too crowded already.
  • A7 is too subjective.
  • Speedy deletion makes it difficult to repair salvageable articles in time.
  • Speedy deletion of an article which isn't simply bandcruft can sour new editors on Wikipedia, as it is really not clear where to go to ask for help or complain.
  • Too many articles merely assert, but don't support, notability.

So, instead of a speedy delete for A7, we create something like {{prod}}, where in the case of a probably non-notable person, we require someone to add sources to support the assertion of notability. If no source is provided within one week, it gets deleted. Unlike prod, the proposed {{show source}} would not be removable (in the same sense an AfD tag is not removable). The template would do all the category and date things which prod does, so that admins could look for articles which hadn't provided sources and delete them without going to AfD.

Hopefully, a mechanism like this would take care of the four problems I listed above. I think we'd see a lot of band articles deleted under G11 instead, but that doesn't bother me so much. Argyriou (talk) 17:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I'm reinventing the wheel. I'd go for proposed text #1 or #2, but not #3 or #4, provided that A7 was removed from WP:CSD. Argyriou (talk) 17:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • G11 requires a "fundamental rewrite", and is probably more abused than A7 due to the propaganda about spam being a really really taxing problem. Most A7s aren't G11s based on that alone. Meanwhile, your idea is exactly where Radiant pointed you, but is unlikely to gain any consensus, thankfully. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
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