Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 24

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why is context and content underlined??????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.232.194.229 (talk) 21:58, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I believe that it is to help ensure that users do not confuse or conflate the two, as the words are similar and occur quite close together. I do not know if there ever has been a problem with them being confused/conflated. SamBC(talk) 01:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up in the interest of brevity, clarity, and avoiding markup. Also shortened and simplified the example, which was the tiniest bit sexist (a man and his wife). In fact, while I'm at it I'm going to clean up several of the criteria. Wikidemo 17:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

A7 "No other types of articles are included"

I've reversed this change to A7, as it doesn't seem to realistically reflect current practice. I've seen A7 used quite frequently for articles which don't meet the technical definition of anything listed there, and it's rarely challenged. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Good point. It's also redundant phrasing. The longer a policy page gets, the less likely that people will read all of it. >Radiant< 07:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Avoid redundancy for sure...but if the phrasing doesn't reflect the current practice, perhaps one or the other or both should change so they're in accordance. Wikidemo 08:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• I would say that the reason that the practice doesn't reflect the policy in this case is misunderstanding (wilful or accidental - many people have said accidental). Given the previous debate on this matter, attempts to widen it here have failed on many occaisions. Thus, if the policy is going to say that it's narrow, it should probably be clear that it's narrow. SamBC(talk) 10:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It needs to be clarified one way or the other. Considering that allowing other types of articles would be significantly generalizing its scope, a motion that I do not believe would receive consensus support based on previous discussion, I think the statement should be retained. Dcoetzee 10:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that you're running into the codification fallacy that is common on Wikipedia. Debates on whether "something could become policy" tend to attract people who disagree with that. Hence, attempts to "write down current practice" also attract people who disagree with that practice, and who believe that by not writing it down they can somehow stop it from being current practice. If, as Seraphim alleges, A7 is frequently used outside these bounds without problem and without contest, then that is de facto policy regardless of whether people want to admit it or not. >Radiant< 11:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this is that it is that once the article is speedied, then the only record of it is in the deletion log. Given that the usually cycle of creation, tagging, deletion can take only a few minutes and rarely last longer than a day, then only way to know what is being deleted is to troll the deletion log. The vast majority of things deleted for A7 are apropriate. The only people who can see the deleted edits are admins. It is often not a productive use of an admin's time to troll in this manner. So an admin applying A7 outside of its scope qickly becomes convinced that they are doing the right thing because no one challenges them. The few times I have brought clear violations of the wording of A7 to DrV, the deletion has been overturned. Dsmdgold 14:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the one time I brought unilateral reversals of A7 to DRV, they were overturned and redeleted. I've seen plenty brought to DRV, however, where the outcome was "A7 doesn't technically apply, but it's absolutely clear the article would be deleted, running it through AfD would be process for process' sake and would still result in deletion." In effect, one can speedy anything, provided that the community's willing to agree it was a clear and unambiguous case for deletion. These here are just the most common cases where that happens, but there's always an uncommon case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to unilateral deletions outside the bounds of CSD, as long as those deletions are reviewed and the admin can be held responsible if they were overzealous. But if we add a clause to A7 permitting any article with no assertion of notability to be deleted, then admins deleting within the scope of that rule have more free license to delete without repercussions and would be less cautious. CSD is not supposed to be strictly descriptive. I support the position advanced when the CSD was first introduced, that topics which do not fall into the specific categories outlined in A7 may be highly specialized or otherwise unsuitable for an arbitrary admin to decide whether it contains an implied assertion of notability. Dcoetzee 22:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

After discussing this change twice on this talk page, and getting strong messages that it had always intended to be an exclusive list, and seeing other admins falling into the trap of assuming the list was nonexclusive, I thought the change was noncontroversial. I'm reinstating the change. --Alvestrand 09:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your desire for boldness but the change you make is not consensus at this point. As has been stated many times, A7 is used routinely to speedy items not on the list. Thus it is the de facto policy in place. A record is in place and is available for review at the deletion log. Some point to WP:SNOW and WP:IAR as a way to get around the specifics of A7 but there is likely a desire (although no consensus for it either) to slightly broaden the wording to at least include products that do not assert notability. I am not going to edit war with anyone over this but your change seems to me to be premature. -JodyB _{yak, yak, yak} 11:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll take that as a statement that consensus on what the rules are doesn't exist. And that it's probably hopeless at this point to garner consensus on what the rules were intended to be when last rewritten, so let's instead see if we can gather a rough consensus on what they should be going forward. I'm starting a poll below. (Note: if he conclusion is that the list is exclusive, I predict a number of debates about adding things to the list. But that's for later.) --Alvestrand 12:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

CSD should not be used for any controversial deletion

Someone deleted this excellent addition by Phil Sandifer because we "had to discuss it on talk" just to follow process (WP:SNOW anyone?). Does anyone have an objection to this addition, or does anyone think that it is not current practice/the intent of the policy that CSD should not be used for any controversial deletion? Melsaran (talk) 18:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agreed, deletions which are genuinely controversial should not be done by speedy. (Though "controversial" doesn't mean the creator screaming "WHY ARE YOU DELETING MY COMPANY'S AD????".) But application of speedy in genuinely controversial areas inevitably causes drama and wheel wars, it only inflames things. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. I've always tended to view speedy deletion as a specific, codified application of the snowball clause — even if CSD does predate the latter by several years. Essentially, the speedy deletion criteria are supposed to be a list of cases where the full deletion process need not be followed because the outcome is, or should be, obvious; thus, if the outcome isn't obvious, speedy deletion should not be used. Of course, Phil's rule really needs a corollary: "Not every uncontroversial deletion should be speedy." CSD is supposed to be a strict subset of all uncontroversial deletions. We have PROD for the rest. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

If an article about a person does not assert its notability, yet it would be controversial to delete, should we really keep it? What about a blatant copyright infringement that is controversial to delete? Should we really keep it? I am not sure that such a blanket statement would cover all the bases. DRV is always there if the deletion was truly controversial. I would say in some cases CSD'n a controversial article is a bad idea, other times it would make sense. I don't see the point in making it set in stone. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

If an article about a non-notable subject is controversial to delete, we shouldn't speedy it, but we should go through the normal processes. Notability can be a subjective thing. An article that clearly doesn't assert notability ("John Doe is 37 years old, and lives in California"), it won't be controversial. Likewise, deleting a blatant copyright violation that was copied from another website (a "textdump") is never controversial either. Melsaran (talk) 18:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What about BLPs? They can be controversial, but speedy deleting them is sometimes a good idea. Hut 8.5 20:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

A BLP shouldn't be speedied merely for the content being controversial. That would open things to a lot of abuse. Under BLP, poorly sourced derogatory material is deleted on sight. That leaves a presumably neutral article that can then be speedied (if nothing is left) or considered for AFD based on notability. If the very existence of an article is an invasion of privacy or is in especially poor taste then I think it should be speedied - I wouldn't call that controversial. Wikidemo 20:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that CSD is in essence a specific application of the Snowball clause. However, codifying on this page that it shouldn't be used for "controversial" issues is not such a good idea, because such a phrasing would primarily be used by pissed-off article authors who will assert that "I disagree with this deletion therefore it is controversial". Aside from that, several criteria exist primarily to get rid of controversial articles, in particular BLP concerns, attack pages, and contribs by a banned user. >Radiant< 07:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an objection to this clause, if informed people strongly object to a speedy deletion... that really gets away from the original intent of speedy deletion, to make it a painless process to delete articles no one who knows what they're doing would want kept, i.e. uncontroversial deletions, of articles with no useful content towards a good article. If only people (including those apparently trying to add it) would actually follow it... --W.marsh 13:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with the clause, speedy deletion should be reserved only for articles that have no chance of survival at all, and meet the criteria as written. If there is a body of editors that are likely to object then the article should have a more thorough review. This should be made explicit. Dsmdgold 14:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay to split G12 into A8 and I9?

I discovered something in process of copy-editing G12 ("blatant copyright violation") to get rid the blatant use of green text on theory that too much markup language and too many markup styles on the same page hurts legibility.

G12 is really two rules mashed together - one for articles and the other for images. The problem is the procedures, criteria, etc., are very different and don't share much language. As a result the article section states each sub-part of the rule and the image part in green states after most of the subparts that they don't apply. I think it would be much cleaner to take all the image stuff out of G12 and move it to A8 (where it seems to have been before), and create a very short I9. Article deletion for copyvio is rather complex because an article is edited, not deleted, if it has any usable content....whereas copyvio images are generally deleted on sight or after a speedy deletion notice, without any need to think, edit, try to save, etc.

Is there any objection to separating them out and putting them in the appropriate sections? I wouldn't change any of the operative language or meaning of the rules, just sort them out as described. Thx, Wikidemo 18:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

There still needs to be a "G" for copyright violations, since posting copyvio material is unacceptable anywhere, not just in articles, and in practice I've frequently seen copyvio userpages. However, I would have no objection to making G12 apply specifically to text, if we formulate a specific "I" criterion for images and media. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion. The green text severely hampers readability, and would be replaced just as effectively by a phrase in the intro to G12 saying to refer to I9 for images. --tjstrf talk 03:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we just do a better job of explaining the two main thrusts of G12? We don't need to create new criteria just because they've got green text in them, especially since most of the stuff in green is superfluous. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• Probably, yes. The image part of this page is hopelessly convoluted, but that shouldn't spill onto the text part. >Radiant< 07:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, done. In the process I found that for both images and text the criterion was incredibly redundant and overlapped with other sections. I attempted to eliminate all the redundancy and simplify (e.g. by collapsing the question of whether there is fair use, public domain, or a license, to a single question rather than a two-part question involving both the copy onto Wikipedia and also the place where the source got it from). CSDI3, 4, 6 and 7 already cover images with no license and with bad or missing fair use claims, so the new I9 only need cover cases where there's no claim at all of fair use, public domain, or appropriate license. Perhaps we don't need I90 at all. If anyone thinks I've actually expanded or contracted the class of items eligible for speedy deletion please fix or discuss. Wikidemo 09:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
    • In the future, we could also add a notes section (using <ref> tags) and toss specific examples there, so we could still get highly specific when needed, but without cluttering up the whole thing. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Going beyond the words of A7

I freely admit that I sometimes go beyond the words of the criterion A7. For example, I routinely delete articles about "whole new ball (or card) games", on the grounds that an article about a game you have invented (or your unpublished work of fiction, etc.) is essentially an article about you; and if an article contains no claim of notability about the game etc. or its creator, it should be gotten rid of immediately. Similarly, I don't accept gaming the system. If an article about X is an obvious A7 candidate, adding the statement "X is notable" (alternately, "X is notable for [something blatantly non-notable]") is not sufficient to save it from deletion.

As in anything else, common sense should be used. An award given by IEEE still doesn't meet the criteria because IEEE is clearly notable; and I have personally downgraded a speedy deletion request of Bossaball to WP:VFD (it was deleted anyway as a copyright violation and a re-created version survived the second deletion discussion/vote). - Mike Rosoft 11:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree for the most part with this. Although, in my opinion, it doesn't take much for an article about something like a ball game to escape being about the inventor. "The game is now widely played by in southestern Nowata" would be enough in my opinion. If I remember correctly, bald assertions of notability like "X is notable" were understood not to accepted as assertions of notability in the original discussions that lead to the creation of A7. Dsmdgold 14:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

There might be some demand for a speedy deletion criterion for things made up in school one day. Good luck coming up with a wording that's clear-cut, easily applicable and generally acceptable, though. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Poll: Should the A7 list of article types be an exclusive list?

Additional discussion about A7 exclusivity

I have an observeration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but admins have always been able to delete anything at any time, in terms of software permssions. It was, prior to CSD, simply forbidden by policy. The details of the history I'm a little shaky on, but here's what I think I understand. The CSDs were created, with much hoo-hah and thrashing, to outline the cases where an admin could use the power they'd technically always had, the situations where policy against unilateral deletion was relaxed. This appears, over time, to have created a feeling of greater and greater freedom for admins to use their own discretion in cases where they never would have if CSD had never come into being. Of course, if it hadn't come into being there'd be other problems, and I'm not suggesting that it shouldn't have. I just think it's worth considering the background, as arguments to use A7 for anything-and-everything-that-fits-the-gist are essentially the same as allowing unilateral admin deletion (subject to DRV), and there's a reason that CSDs were supposed to be limited. SamBC(talk) 19:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Are those who support the (implicit or explicit) broadening of A7, or tolerance of its being stretched, supportive of the hypothetical permission for admins to unilaterally delete anything they think would never survive an AFD? SamBC(talk) 19:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be the wrong place to draw the line. Better, any deletion that is so clearly appropriate that it does not lead to debate over the process is fine. In other words, speedy whatever you want if no one minds. But ones that stretch the CSD rules have the potential, if nominally challenged, to end up in AfD anyway, which is worse than having simply gone through AfD in the first place. They aren't always challenged, of course, but for some kinds of deletions, the risk of further debate isn't worth the advantage of the unilateral action. Mangojuice^talk 05:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you're effectively correct. I think one should be careful about stepping outside the technical bounds of A7, as I think in general they're good guidelines as to when it's easy to tell if significance is asserted or not. On the other hand, I'm not going to hesitate a second to delete "My dog Fido is the coolest dog in the world, even though he barks a lot" because the A7 criteria do not include dogs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. CSD shouldn't be a pair of shackles that prevents us from cleaning up the encyclopedia, it should be a guideline about what is and isn't appropriate to bypass the normal deletion process. Sometimes, things fall outside the stated boundaries, but are still good candidates for speedy deletion (such as the dog example, which I believe I've used 'round here before). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The original intent of A7 was that only articles about real people that lacked a claim of notability would be eligible. Over time, and after much discussion, the other items in the list were added. Given that history, I think that list in A7 must be treated as exhaustive. Dsmdgold 02:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already outlined my reasons for supporting a "this is an exclusive list" clause - it serves as mere clarification and is not normative. We have failed to effectively separate the discussion of "is A7 an exclusive list" (yes) versus "should A7 be an exclusive list" (debatable). Broadening A7 is a perennial proposal that has been shot down in countless forms countless times on this talk page, and I don't believe you could gather consensus to broaden it now. Dcoetzee 21:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of DRV opinions of the form "Overturn, A7 does not apply to articles on X". They don't always settle the outcome of the case, as many DRV regulars will consider whether the article has a shot at being improved enough to survive AFD, but they are regularly offered. Realistically, we've seen enough disagreement even for people about whether an article did contain an assertion that I would be very reluctant to extend A7 to topical areas where it isn't immediately obvious what is an assertion of notability. GRBerry 16:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Minor contradiction between I6 and I7

Criterion I7 can apply even if there is a use rationale, so I6 can't make the blanket claim that if there is a use rationale then the image needs to be put on IFD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I changed it back because I7 doesn't relate to the situation where a use rationale is provided but disputed. If that's the case it is a candidate for IFD. I7 is where there's some violation of NFCC. Of course something could pass I6 and be an IFD candidate for disputed fair use rationale, yet also a speedy deletion candidate for I7 or any other criterion at the same time, but no need to mention that. Things can always break more than one rule at a time and be subject to multiple simultaneous remedial options. That's a universal point about policies. While I was at it I changed the name of I6 to conform to current terminology. Wikidemo 05:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The difficulty is the ambiguous word "instead", which can be read as "instead of CSD" or "instead of I6". Remember that we do not use any nonobvious legal conventions for interpreting our policies (cf WP:WIKILAWYER). Our policies need to be understandable by users who don't know how anything about how policies are written in the real world, who don't speak English natively and who have no familiarity with Western legal concepts. So any of our policies that requires legalistic reasoning to interpret isn't written well enough yet.

I'll make another attempt at clarifying I6; since the only option for deleting an image that isn't a CSD candidate is IFD, we don't really need to explicitly mention IFD there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistency between CSD:C1 and {{db-catempty}}

CSD:C1 suggests that a category can be speedily deleted if it has been empty for four days. {{db-catempty}} however indicates that the category needs to have been empty for four days and [that] its only content has been links to parent categories. I had a category which had been empty for four days, but which had previously contained content, so I wasn't sure whether it could be speedily-deleted or not. (As it turns out, I got it deleted using {{db-author}}). DH85868993 02:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have modified the template to match the current wording. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I'm wondering how we can check that the category has been empty for 4 days. I usually stay away from C1 because of that. -- lucasbfr ^talk 10:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Generally, by watchlisting it for a few days. The reason that clause is there is (1) to not delete recently-created categories that are still being populated, and (2) to avert people depopulating something and deleting it immediately. >Radiant< 11:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a job for a bot - watch empty categories tagged for deletion and keep track of how long they are empty. I'll put that on my list. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:35, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd send you a box of cookies! -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyvios

I'm being told by User:Carlossuarez46 that I can't tag db-copyvio on an article if the creator claims copyright, even if they don't bother to follow any of the procedures to prove that they are the copyright owner. Is this correct? Corvus cornix 21:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Normally if there is an assertion of permission it is not speedy but should be listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. If then there is still no clear permission (OTRS) the article gets deleted. Garion96 (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, what I told you is that G12 says that we should not speedy delete articles if there is a credible assertion of permission. So I declined your speedy request. I would hope that we could use this forum to discuss changing G12 to permit speedy deletions upon copying of non-public domain or GFDL content and permit the permissions folks to restore those upon receipt of the permissions rather than granting the benefit of the doubt to the asserter of permission. In the case Corvus cornix mentions it was pretty clear cut that the article author was likely to be the copied content author too. Carlossuarez46 21:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, the procedures for WP:CP call for the page to be blanked after the copyvio tag is put on it. Should I do that in the middle of the AfD discussion? Corvus cornix 22:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say "yes", as it's still in the history for AfD participants to review. Deletion review works with even less available than that, so it shouldn't be a problem. -- But|seriously|folks  22:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• If the creator claims copyright but does not want to license his work under the GFDL, then Wikipedia cannot host it, and such content can be speedily deleted over licensing conflicts. If the creator claims copyright but it is unclear whether he accepts the GFDL, it should be discussed first. >Radiant< 09:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • If you believe clicking the Save Page button licenses your contribution under the GFDL, then you would think any contribution made via a page edit would be so licensed as long as the person making the edit is in fact the copyright holder, regardless of whether they just wrote the material or wrote it previously. But IANAL. Dcoetzee 09:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, that would appear to be the case. But I've seen some people who deny their GFDL licensing, or try to withdraw it later. These tend to be blocked rather quickly. >Radiant< 11:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
      • If we want to expand G12 to cover all apparent copyvios except those cleared by OTRS, we should amend G12 to explicitly remove the "credible assertion" exception to deletion. I also have hairs to pick with the way G12 is formulated: is the copyvio any less that a user copied 5 paragraphs with one edit and another user copied a further 5 paragraphs in a second edit? No. Then why is it limited to "material was introduced at once by a single person"? If the article is a verbatim copy of unfree web content that's apparent on its face what relevance does the # of edits or editors have unless the infinite monkey theorem sometimes plays out in the single digits. Carlossuarez46 20:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Add non-notable software products to A7

It arises with surprising frequency that I'm doing some sort of page watching, and an obviously non-notable software product is named. I will tag it db-web without thinking, but then it is rejected, because it is not actually web content. It seems like a fairly minor distinction to me. If web-content is speedy deletable, couldn't non-notable software products be as well (e.g., new patches that someone created and decides to write about on Wikipedia)? I truly believe this would be a good addition to the list, and is truly in the spirit of db-web. The Evil Spartan 17:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree often it is nn software from a nn firm, so the firm is speediable but its products linger? Like nn people and their pets and nn bands and their albums... I think a more liberal approach isn't the worst thing and the language of policy should probably be amended in all those instances to match the reality - these do get speedied often just depends (IMHO) who happens across it and how sensitive they are to criticism if it's challenged. Carlossuarez46 23:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I just speedy them if the firm is a good redlink, (which indicates that the firm is not notable), but I agree it should be added in there. Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 23:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Since A7 does not apply to articles that are "non-notable" but rather articles that do not assert significance, I have a question: what consitutes an assertion of significance for software? At the moment, I think that this is too difficult to codify, which would suggest that "software" shouldn't be added to A7. I'm not against the exercise of judgment in cases which are not technically covered by A7 (e.g. pets), but software seems to be an area where an unambiguous judgment is difficult to make. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • For software (and other computer-related issues), the google test works remarkably well. This is generally a matter of common sense. Some articles on software are both about the program and the person or organization writing it ("I wrote this gaem with my friend andits very kewl!!!1!") or are blatant advertising. >Radiant< 09:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The google test is unrelated to "assertion of notability" in the article. If we need to rely on a google test, then this topic area isn't suitable for A7. A7 qualification should be judgable solely from the article (and its history, due to (not explained, see WP:BEANS)). GRBerry 16:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
      • A Google test might be useful in the context of a {{prod}} or an AfD, but I don't see how it could serve as an assertion of significance. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
        • I object because I don't want to see people trying to add "claims of significance" to legit articles that don't need them. I mentioned above that I had to de-speedy Ballerium at one point. The article just described the game and mentioned who was making it, without anything that was explicitly a 'claim of significance.' I wouldn't want people to add one just to avoid A7: that would tend to create NPOV problems, and may push articles towards G11 deletions. Mangojuice^talk 16:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

But if there is no valid assertion of notability, should it be an article here? I think that unless there is some claim of notability an article on software should be speedy deletable. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

But what consitutes an assertion of significance for software? Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Given that we don't have accepted notability guidelines for software (Wikipedia:Notability (software) is rejected) I don't think we can say. Hut 8.5 17:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

An assertion of notability is just that, a claim that it is notable in some way. It does not have to be a good one, and it does not need to meet Wikipedia:Notability (software), just a claim. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but what makes software significant? That's the issue ... I don't think it's as unambiguous as with other topics. Take the article RealPlayer as an example. The software is without doubt notable, yet the first paragraph (which is the length of most software stubs) doesn't make an obvious claim of significance. Moreover, oftentimes a claim of significance is recongisable only to those who have expertise in computing and software products. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not for us to judge the value of the claim of significance, just if one exists or not. AfD decides if a claim is enough. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

My point is that with software it's difficult to judge not the value but the very existence or non-existence of a claim of significance. Given this difficulty, the addition of software to A7 is neither sufficiently objective nor uncontestable, which all criteria should be. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the article RealPlayer I would add something like "RealPlayer is one of the more widely used streaming image formats(ref)". I would not speedy an article that makes no such claim if it existed prior to the CSD rule, I would tag it as needed it or find it myself. Like other CSD requirements we could say "Articles before this date should be given X days notice first". ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a claim of notability from that article hehe: "In 2006 PC World Magazine named RealPlayer as #2 in its list of the 25 worst products of all time". ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That's why I pointed you only to the first paragraph. :) The vast majority of software articles are neither as long nor as well-referenced as the RealPlayer article. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me try my example. Can you tell me what is the assertion of significance or importance in this version of Ballerium? I certainly had a hard time explaining it to the user who marked that version for speedy deletion immediately afterwards. Mangojuice^talk 20:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's be clear about this: if a product is notable, and someone tags it because it doesn't make an assertion, that's a problem with every a7 category. So how would this problem be any worse with software and non-notable albums than with any other a7 category? And, if there's any doubt this might be a good idea, I suggest you all check out Ildjit and GenCOM Suite (both non-notable software, created by software author) - I just came across it, and I cannot pluck a speedy tag on it. The Evil Spartan 18:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not necessarily true. Let's look at the article Ildjit. Does it contain an assertion of notability? Quite frankly ... I can't say. For instance, it says that ILDJIT is an "extendible JIT compiler", a "parallel JIT compiler", and a "distributed JIT compiler". I have no idea what that means or whether the intersection of those three characteristics is important. (And I'm sure there are people who are less familiar than I with computing and software topics). If this article was about a person or a company, it would be far less technical/more comprehensible and it would be much easier to ascertain whether an assertion of notability exists. I share Mangojuice's concern that artificially requiring assertions of notability in descriptive articles about software products will encourage editors to introduce bias and a promotional tone. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Two thoughts. First, as long as A7 is not an exhaustive list I'm reluctant to add software products because as people have commented it is hard to tell what constitutes an assertion of notability absent a sometimes awkward boast about how many people are using it or how important it is. Not impossible, just more work and potentially more controversial than CSD is set up for. Second, I nevertheless would encourage people to make the best claim for notability they can because that puts the article in context and makes it more relevant and useful to the lay reader. Frankly, I'm a former software professional and I can't tell in a five second glance whether IDJIT or Ballerium or most of the others are things I should know about, worth reading, etc. Wouldn't it be better to introduce an article with something like: Ballerium is a massively multiplayer....game that, thought it never progressed out of beta testing, influenced the future course of game design by x, y, and z. I made that up of course, but if something is notable because it makes a difference in the world, isn't it best to say the difference? Software X is the leading software for task Y, a major function within the insurance industry. Software X obtained 300,000 pre-release orders, one of the top ten products of 2006....and so on. That would be a real claim for notability and article editors, if challenged, ought to be ready to make a claim like that.Wikidemo 21:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Temporarily suspending I6

I have made a proposal, by edit, that we temporarily suspend I6 because Betacommandbot, the bot that was tagging images for lack of a fair use rationale, attempts to have been restarted and malfunctioned, tagging many images that actually did have rationales. In addition, there has been some serious discussion about whether a written rationale should be required and whether it is appropriate to speedily delete legacy images for lack of rationale, given that the prior arguments that the Wikimedia Foundation was requiring us to do that turned out to be untrue.

Let's hold off on further deletions until we resolve this issue. Re-starting the large scale deletions would be a provocation at this point. This is a matter that ought to be addressed in a calm, sensible way. Also, the conversation should be had at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, not here. Wikidemo 03:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

No, all the images that where tagged have now been reverted and no where has there been consensus for your removal of the need for rationales. β^_command 04:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, "calm" and "sensible" in this case was stopping the bot and reverting the edits, not suspending the criteria. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 04:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for undoing the effects of yet another malfunction of this bot. I agree that if all the new tags have been reverted then "calm and sensible" is to let things stand as is; this was just a quick attempt by me to prevent any real trouble if these things stood. "Calm and sensible" is not to re-start the image purging program. There isn't any consensus to delete all these images. It would be helpful to get an agreement not to re-start the bot with respect to legacy images lacking written use rationale. The bot never got proper approval for this use. Starting this up again for old images is provoking a serious problem, and disrupting a lot of articles. It's best if we can discuss this issue in one place - WP:NONFREE is the policy page where all this springs from. This page and I6 are simply an implementation question. Wikidemo 05:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been discussed all over the place. The bot is fine, doing something that bots do well (despite the occasional malfunction), and is helping with a cleanup task far too massive for human editors to manually edit. And if deleting admins aren't looking at I6 images to see if a rationale is actually present, they need a troutwhack—malfunctioning bots aside, many editors who add a rationale forget to remove the I6 tag or don't know if they're allowed to, and leave it there, so it's extremely important for a deleting admin to look if a rationale's actually there. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot is just tagging images, which it was approved for (the bot goes by and say "do you have this or not?"). What you should be asking is for the admins who are doing the deleting to grant a grace period. In that sense, there would be more time, and we would know what images needed attention. If the bot stopped tagging, then we simply wouldn't know what images would be effected. -- Ned Scott 05:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the bot is not okay. It circumvented the normal approval process - it was approved with no discussion, no notice period, no disclosure about what it was going to do, speed of tagging, etc., like every other bot. There was no description of what it was going to do, and an obscure discussion for a few days on an administrator's board was taken for approval of a year-long program of image deletion. The bot approval process is designed to figure out what people are up to with their bots and whether that's appropriate. If the bot were approved on a promise that "I am going to tag half the non-free images on Wikipedia and rally administrators to speedily delete them" and peopel had a chance to comment on that it would never have been approved without oversight conditions. As it is, to paraphrase, it was approved in a few hours on an informal comment that said I would like to run my bot to tag images without fair use rationales. As it stands the whole process is now in the hands of a single editor who has been somewhat contentious about the issue to do whatever the editor wants, at the editor's speed, acting unilaterally without oversight. This has caused one of the biggest aggravations I have seen around here, iF all we need is a survey of the images without use rationales I think that exists already, or we could have the bot do that without posting warnings that the images are about to be deleted. Wikidemo 05:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

you know what? Ive created those list, posted them, and bent over backwards. I have a filed BRFA that is approved for tagging images, It as been brought up many many times on both AN and ANI along with the NFCC talk page. so stop making attacks against me and fix the problem of images that have no rationales. β^_command 05:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned the approval was irregular, not done with proper disclosure or process, and without reference to what the actual plan was. I have fixed a bunch of images, probably several hundred by this point and despite lots of contentious opposition managed to create some templates by which people have fixed a lot more. How many have you fixed? How about you help by working on bots to help fix images, not just delete them?Wikidemo 09:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How is this "in the hands of a single editor?" The single editor you're referring to can't delete a single image! Remember, these images always were subject to deletion if found and tagged. The process hasn't changed, the rules haven't changed, it's simply being done more efficiently, and still with oversight from others (the admin who reviews the image for deletion, at the very least). Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Specious argument. The bot triggers the deletions. The deletion process starts and stops when the bot runs. The schedule is up to a single person. Nobody asks me, and nobody asks anyone else, when it will run, how, with what notice, etc. There is simply no oversight and it's being done in a backwards way via a process singularly devoted to deleting images, not fixing them. Yes, the administrators deleting the images without spending the time to fix them are a problem too. If they would make the effort they might mitigate some of the problems with the bot. But the process is still not sensible. Wikidemo 09:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot does not "trigger" a deletion. It triggers an examination from an admin. If an admin is deleting an image only because a bot tagged it then the problem is not the bot. I think it is very sensible, and I don't see why you should be consulted before existing image policy is enforced. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean? The bot tags an image and seven days later an admin comes by and deletes the image. If the bot tags a thousand images, seven days later admins come by and delete a thousand images. Or 800-900, at any rate. I believe "trigger" is a reasonable word to describe that. The admins are organized and they follow behind the bot to delete images the bot tags. The reason it's not sensible is that they're deleting perfectly good images more or less on a random schedule without trying to fix them, so we end up with a lot of holes in articles. I should be consulted to the same extent the other millions of Wikipedia participants should be consulted. A program to delete 170,000 images, half the non-free images on Wikipedia, needs some discussion.Wikidemo 19:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And, once again, if a human tagged the images, the same thing would happen, because most of them aren't getting done. When I'm looking through CSDs, I'm looking for a rationale. I don't know what the uploader was thinking, I don't know why people think it's an appropriate nonfree use, and I'm not going to try to outguess them. If they want to reupload the image with an appropriate rationale, or write one before the week's up, either option is open. But the requirement for a rationale has nothing to do with the bot, and was required long before WMF even made its resolution. Images without rationales have always been subject to deletion, the bot is just bringing more to people's attention. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If you won't consider saving an image you shouldn't be deleting it either. It's not a matter of the uploader's state of mind, it's the use of the image in the article. That's usually quite clear. Wikidemo 07:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Using whatlinkshere rather than categories for maintenance lists

I've suggested we should convert most of the maintenance templates to use a "whatlinkshere" based mechanism rather than categories to keep track of articles needing maintenance, and have implemented an example using template:copyedit/test. If you have an interest in this, please comment at Wikipedia talk:Maintenance#Using whatlinkshere rather than categories for maintenance lists. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What does this change improve? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Maintenance, per the link above. The advantage is that we avoid cluttering the list of categories shown for articles with numerous maintenance categories. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Un-closing the poll on A7

User:Radiant closed the poll on A7 with the comment that "voting is evil", and drawing no conclusion.

I un-closed it, for 2 reasons:

• Polling is not voting. Asking people to identify themselves along a yes/no axis has given information that is useful.
• It's only been 3 days. I'm happy with closing the poll after 5 days as "clearly no consensus", but today seems too quick.

Comments welcome. --Alvestrand 15:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with not closing it, as I've stated in that section. Poll was probably a bad (or possibly inflammatory) term to use, but it's generated good discussion. SamBC(talk) 15:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, whatever you call it, it's a discussion. Though many people disfavor polls and the poll format can sometimes limit commentary by constraining it, closing polls on sight is rarely the constructive way to make that point. If polls are evil, so is marginalizing what people say. Having said that, most Wikipedia policy isn't appropriate to be voted on, and this question less so than others. If it were a vote the vote would have lost, and I find the argument for keeping flexibility more persuasively made than that for making a tightly defined list of types of pages suitable for A7 deletion. Nevertheless, people who do want to make the list exclusive make some good points about notability and inappropriate deletions that nominators and deleting administrators should take into account. We're close to beating a dead horse at this point. Wikidemo 17:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

• You miss the point, which is that Wikipedia policy is not created by voting on it. If you want an actual discussion, don't force people to be either "for" or "against" something. Pigeonholing is precisely what blocks consensus and compromise. >Radiant< 09:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think I missed that. I think we disagree on whether the poll format is useful or not. In this case, we have identified that neither of the two "simple" positions have any chance of achieving consensus without several people (among the 11 who have formed an opinion) changing their minds. I think that's useful to know, even though I don't have a suggestion (for now) for a text that COULD achive consensus. --Alvestrand 12:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

No, we already knew that in advance. >Radiant< 13:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to point out, xFDs aren't votes, and they still use that format. It seems in line with general practice on wikipedia. Personally, I dislike it until there's something concrete to talk about, and the "motion" for that "poll" was extremely vague, but in general it seems that this sort of pseudo-poll structure is beneficial as long as people know that it isn't a vote. SamBC(talk) 13:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• No, it is not general practice except in structured processes like AFD/RFA (and they're somewhat controversial even there). In general the problem with this sort of pseudo-poll structure is that it pigeonholes juxtaposes opinions, making a compromise harder to achieve. >Radiant< 13:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've also seen it used during informal mediations, to very benficial effect, and I have the feeling I've seen it used usefully elsewhere. In any case, there seems no reason to "close" the parts of the section that aren't poll-structured, so I've moved the end of the boxing back to where there are actually poll-style comments/responses/!votes. SamBC(talk) 14:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• The contradictions by making it exclusive are more odd than just letting practice differ from the policy (there is always WP:IAR) or just a more liberal interpretation: an article on a non-notable band's non-notable album is probably a db-band A7 target (it's hard to say that the album exists in a vacuum and hence an article on it is also in someway about the band, too) and I wouldn't blush at people interpreting A7 "real person" as including animals, and even "real" as broadly as it appears in WP so it's real enough to be A7'ed - otherwise, one could just say that an article about dog or the imaginary friend you made up in school one day is just nonsense and dispose of it that way. Carlossuarez46 22:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• I dont think the poll format was useful here. It has a very rare appropriate use--when a discussion with a great many participants has gotten particularly complicated and it is impossible to figure out what the current state of the consensus maybe. It then serves essentially as a re-factoring. The discussion needs to continue--this is the sort of discussion where it is particularly important for the participants to try to explain things to each other, because it would be extremely valuable to actually reach a common policy DGG (talk) 14:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no prohibition on conducting polls, and it's disruptive to close them summarily. I've added a comment to that effect in the "polling is not a substitute" guideline. People can and do conduct polls, among other ways of encouraging discussion and surveying opinions. When editors - usually outspoken and experienced ones - close polls single-handedly despite wide participation they are often simply disagreeing with and opposing the question being presented in favor of their own decision. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but nor is it autocracy by forceful editing. This is hardly the greatest threat to the consensus process. A much bigger issue is the walled garden created by aggressive editors who have their way on the policy pages, thereby establishing rules among a very small group of policy wonks that are out of touch with the vast majority of people who are actually writing articles. Wikidemo 16:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ah, so that's where you were coming from. You are incorrect - if polls can be summarily opened, they can likewise be summarily closed, and both are equally disruptive or not disruptive. Your assertions are incorrect; the point is simply that policy isn't subject to being voted upon, and we shouldn't be giving the appearance that it is. Given the high amount of talk page debate here, you can't seriously call this a walled garden. >Radiant< 09:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As much as I would like to respond, I don't want to hog WP:CSD with a discussion on polling. This has come up numerous places and seems to be a live issue, so I asked the question in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Yes, I agree that this page is not a walled garden but some others are - also a good thing to discuss...elsewhere. It's one of the healthier policy pages, I think. At this point the poll is long gone so it's a moot point here. Sorry for getting sidetracked. Wikidemo 09:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Question of I7 list exclusivity already addressed

See the non-criteria section, which I just tightened up and numbered. Non-criterion #6 says that articles that don't assert significance, but aren't one of the categories listed in A7, cannot be deleted under A7. That effectively makes it an exclusive list. If you've been reading this, I don't really think it should be exclusive so I almost got into an edit war with myself over this one. But in the end I figured I didn't want to delete anything that's already on the policy page, so I just tightened up the wording and left it in there. If you do want to weaken or delete it, please pay attention to the numbering so we don't get a numbering problem. Wikidemo 08:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

CSD G8

Maybe this criterion should be made an article criterion. I don't see how this criterion fits in with other categories. J-ſtan ^Talk_Contribs 19:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but if we do that we have to leave a blank placeholder so the numbers stay the same. That ends up being messier than leaving this one where it arguably doesn't belong. Wikidemo 08:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Deprecation of G7

With the swift approval of WP:REVOKE, CSD:G7 has become obsolete. It is no longer acceptable to request deletion of GFDL content because you are the author and you wish it removed. Doing so is a blockable offense. Thus, this deprecated criteria should be removed. 198.203.175.175 19:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think G7 should be removed because it doesn't only apply to GFDL content. It extends into other things such as hoaxes and test pages. If the author blanks them, that is covered under G7. J-ſtan ^Talk_Contribs 19:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

All material submitted to the encyclopedia is licensed under GFDL. Hoaxes, test pages, and nonsense have their own criteria. G7 conflicts with WP:REVOKE. 198.203.175.175 20:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, hoaxes are not covered under a CSD. G7 covers the original author removing content for any reason (not just GFDL), or requesting deletion. If the request for deletion conflicts with WP:REVOKE, then it is not covered. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 20:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Admins are not obligated to delete under G7; the criterion exists as a courtesy for users who realize their material is inappropriate and either request deletion or blank the page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

And this conflicts with critera #2 above. 198.203.175.175 20:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't follow. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

G7 does not obligate us to delete anything, nor does it admit deletions made in bad faith (see the non-criteria section for more explanation). As such it doesn't conflict with REVOKE. Its main purpose is for a user to request a deletion in a place where they screwed up and it makes sense, or for things like user subpages, etc. Dcoetzee 00:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

G7 absolutely must remain. A lot of users blank pages with the intent that they will be deleted; sometimes they'll even put a "delete" comment in their edit summary. This criteria is essential to clearing out old empty pages that were mistakenly created. --MZMcBride 01:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:REVOKE means that you can't demand that good contributions be deleted by revoking the GFDL license (or rather trying to). There's still no policy against asking for things to be deleted. -Amarkov moo! 02:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey! I was copy-editing the "non-criteria" section and noticed the issue is already addressed there. I reworded it some and threw in the reference to WP:REVOKE. That should settle it. G7 is not for bad-faith deletions, but is for innocent mistakes and people changing their mind. I've asked for deletions a few times myself when I misspell a subject name, write a new article only to find out that it already exists under a different name, etc.Wikidemo 08:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• I kind of fail to see the point of WP:REVOKE. It appears to have been written in a fit of moral panic, and does not appear to be necessary. >Radiant< 09:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Even if it's true it doesn't need a whole policy page - it should just be a paragraph on some other policy page, like this one. But what can you do? Wikidemo 09:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• edit it, of course  :) >Radiant< 09:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not that bold. It's a policy page, for goodness sakes. Someone might get mean. Wikidemo 10:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• • It was created and deemed policy two days later as a means to permanently ban people who question the legal interpretation of a few people. 198.203.175.175 16:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, we already had Wikipedia:No legal threats for that. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 17:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Going through the new pages log is depressing

New user creates non-notable/inappropriate article, gets deleted, user doesn't come back. The next minute, the same thing happens. Repeat ad infinitum.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 11:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes. What would you suggest? >Radiant< 07:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

A7 Edit-warringskirmishing on the A7 bit of non-criteria

Okay, I suggest we all talk before doing any more editing of this.

That said, I disagree with the current version as replaced by Radiant, and prefer the version by Cryptic, and here's why: The criteria for speedy deletion represent consensus-based exceptions to the normal process of deletion. They are based on a presumption of things not being allowed until they are specifically allowed. They were not created to limit the freedom of admins to delete anything they felt should be. Thus, consensus is needed to allow a deletion, rather than forbid it. Thus, we are confident that there is consensus to allow speedy deletion of the types of article enumerated in A7, but there is no apparent consensus to extend it.

Admins (or others) asserting that A7 can be stretched would seem to be thinking of CSD as a restricting policy, rather than a permitting one.

Now, maybe A7 should be stretched. Maybe it ought to have more types of article included, maybe it ought to say "any article", but there's no consensus been demonstrated for this. Thus, the policy stands that A7 only applies to those types of article listed, as the community has not given a consensus-derived consent to admins deleting other types of article outside the normal process. Admins always have WP:IAR and WP:SNOW (well, sort of) to delete things that really obviously want to be deleted, but don't fit the criteria. SamBC(talk) 12:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

And A7 has already been substantially expanded from the original definition, which barely gained community consensus. Trying to shift this again without broad community input is poor form. -- nae'blis 13:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"Admins always have WP:IAR and WP:SNOW (well, sort of) to delete things that really obviously want to be deleted, but don't fit the criteria." My thoughts exactly. CSD isn't either a restricting policy or a permitting one. It just lists certain types of deletions that are less likely to be controversial if they don't go through the deletion discussion process. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I rather expected my version to be more popular with the interpret-CSD-loosely camp than the -strictly one. (Inspection of my deletion logs will show that I'm well into the loosely side, and that I cheerfully label my IAR/SNOW speedies as A7s if they even vaguely fit.) My expectation was that the wording already implied that there wasn't consensus either to allow or to disallow these deletions, as Radiant objected to in his edit summary; this could be made clearer by inserting a whether (for "There is no consensus whether to speedily delete articles of types not specifically listed in A7 under that criterion."). —Cryptic 13:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a typical example of something that should clearly be A7'able, but isn't. None of the other CSDs apply (it is not patent nonsense, neither is it blatant vandalism or anything else), but it is obviously inappropriate and it doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving an AFD. Yet still, it isn't covered by A7. Why? The argument that "it's very difficult to decide whether articles on some particular subjects assert notability" isn't really compelling here. I think we could at least let A7 apply to Words, Animals, and Objects. Melsaran (talk) 18:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. However, this isn't what we're trying to talk about now. What should the bit on non-criteria actually say about A7, given the policy as it stands. SamBC(talk) 19:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Cryptic's suggested wording is the most accurate. The fact of the matter is that there is, at this time, no consensus to extend A7 to other types of articles. Since the speedy deletion criteria are worded narrowly and should be interpreted relatively narrowly (without prejudice to applying common sense when it comes to an article on Fluffy the cat), the burden of attaining consensus for a change lies with those seeking to expand the scope of A7, rather than vice versa. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• The present wording (of the non-criteria) is only partially accurate. While it is true that there is no consensus to delete items that fit the spirit, but not the letter, of A7, it is also true that there is no consensus against this, and that such deletions do occur and are generally uncontested. Note that the entire section of non-criteria is essentially superfluous to the actual policy. >Radiant< 07:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • It is superfluous, but it may also be necessary, since not everyone understands/accepts/agrees that the CSD criteria are worded and should be interpreted relatively narrowly and constitute (for the most part) an exhaustive list of when speedy deletion is appropriate. The sole purpose of the section seems to be to reinforce the idea. As regards A7, you may be correct that there is no consensus against expanding the scope of the criterion, but the relevant part (in my opinion, at least) is that there is no consensus for a change from the current (i.e. narrower) wording and interpretation. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Objective definition of "importance or significance"

While we're on the topic of A7, I have a few things to say and ask. Is it possible to objectively define whether an article "asserts importance or significance" of the subject? I'd say it isn't. It's also confusing to new contributors, who won't understand the concept of notability, and the fact that "importance or significance" is effectively synonymous with how much you can prove that other important or significant people or groups care about it, which the newcomer often does not realise. What do you say to this?-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 14:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I say that the wording "importance or significance" is used very deliberately, and they have their usual definitions. While A7 predates WP:N, if the criterion used the contorted Wikipedia-specific definition of notability, it would have been changed to specifically say "notability" by now. (And the failed proposal to speedy unsourced articles would neither have failed, nor indeed have been needed.) —Cryptic 14:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I have not had much trouble telling the difference. Of course it is not truly objective, that is why we have humans make the decision instead of a bot. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually, a bot would have trouble doing it anyway as it would have to recognise natural language, which computers tend to be incapable of.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 14:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, something I can do very well as a human. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It is absolutely possible to objectively define if an article fails to assert importance or significance. Whether it actually has those qualities is a question for AFD if such an assertion exists, but many admins take the additional and extra-ordinary step of defining certain assertions as "not valid" on their face. If this practice didn't exist, I'd be a lot more comfortable broadening the number of subjects that A7 applied to. -- nae'blis 19:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Cryptic. The wording is essentially like that because it lets people judge the article at face value, without having to look things up. If you are tempted to do research to verify parts of an article, that means the importance is already asserted. If said assertion turns out to be false, use AFD or PROD. >Radiant< 07:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Example of why hoaxes are not CSD material

Leck mich im Arsch. Enough said. I was so sure it was a hoax, I already had my finger on Twinkle's "csd" button before I noticed that it actually had legitimate sources. --Jaysweet 16:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted three times as a hoax, despite me repeatedly saying it wasn't, despite the fact that there was an interwiki link to the German article. I would hope I've been here long enough to be given the benefit of the doubt. Raul654 23:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal C2.6

I would like to propose a new speedy criteria for category renaming. I have come across 3 examples (in one day) that would qualify. Here is the scenario. Renaming in order to conform with the disambiguation found in the parent article. Look at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 September 4 for the examples: 1 and 2. We have Category:Mayhem albums yet Mayhem (band), and we have Category:Richmond City Council yet Richmond City Council (Richmond, California). Keep in mind that the renaming process requires users to tag, list and wait 48 before the process can go through, so there is oversight just in case. So what do others think about adding a new rename criteria, C2.6 "Renaming in order to conform with parent article disambiguation, i.e. x to x(y)"?-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Isn't changing article categories within an editor's discretion? Why not simply change the category without notice if you want to be bold, but if anyone objects or you think it might be controversial, or it involves a lot of work editing multiple articles, then put it up for a comment first? That can be done informally, without an explicit CSD process, no? And then if there is an old empty category page that can't be moved, it gets deleted in due course.Wikidemo 21:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a speedy renaming section at WP:CFD I think that's where it should belong. It sits there a short while so that others can object or second the nomination and if no one objects it just gets handled. I don't think we should open a second process because people may be expecting to see it elsewhere and it would be difficult for editors used to new page patrolling to recognize the conflicts that are the staple of the CFD world. Carlossuarez46 16:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Why can't CSD G6 be invoked in cases like these. This sounds awfully like housekeeping to me... Caknuck 15:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I8: wait one week

Why should we wait one week after {{NowCommons}} is placed on the description page when competent admins and/or MetsBot can evaluate if it meets the criteria in less than 30 seconds? It seems stupid to let an image already copied to Commons collect dust for another week before it gets deleted. Unless the copier forgets to add the required information as noted on the criteria, should this be changed so that admins can delete as soon as it meets the criteria? —O (说 • 喝) 19:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this was added when image undeletion wasn't an option, and people wanted to be careful about preventing accidents. Now that we have image undeletion, it's probably safe to just speedy the images right away. -- Ned Scott 04:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The bot's work makes the "waiting one week before deleting" rule obsolete. --Agüeybaná 01:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Tagging

Please see the thread at Template talk:Db-meta regarding changes that were made to all of the SD templates. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:25, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I missed this myself when I made a post to that talk page, but it looks like they're already working on the fix at Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation#Speedy templates. -- Ned Scott 05:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

U4?

Wikipedia:User_page#Inappropriate_content states that 'extremely offensive' user page content may be immediately deleted by any user. Likewise, various deletion debates have held that offensive templates which have been converted to user sub-pages will be deleted. Obviously, 'offensive' is a subjective term, but do we not essentially have here an already existing, but unlisted on this page, 'speedy deletion' criteria for user pages? Something like;

U4. Offensive content - User sub-pages which contain material which may bring the project into disrepute or which are likely to be found offensive by many people.

This follows the 'User Page' wording linked above. --CBD 12:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary; we have G10 for this. The G stands for general, as such, it applies to any namespace. Melsaran (talk) 12:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Bang on the money Melsaran. People need to remember that the "G.." section of the CSD actually stands for something that does not discriminate based on namespace. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

G10 is for 'attack' pages. The need I was thinking of was to avoid fights such as the recent Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:SteveSims/Userboxes/Pimp where neither T1 nor G10 apply. Unless we are expanding 'attacks' to include 'anything that someone finds offensive'. But then, because it IS 'general', that would have implications for article space which are not correct... we don't censor articles, but we do censor user pages. --CBD 12:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that a criterion for "extremely offensive" material would only have the potential for abuse. Attack pages are G10, vandalism is G3, the rest is MFD. What is offensive? That's very subjective, and therefore it is better to utilise MFD for controversial deletions. The MFD you pointed at was a controversial one, with various established editors arguing in favour of keeping the userbox in question, so it should clearly not have been speedied. Speedy deletion exists for uncontroversial deletions only, not for circumventing regular processes to enforce a deletion without consensus. Melsaran (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Does this mean I can go around and start blowing away every user subpage containing profanity, nudity, references to UVA football, or other things that tear at the moral fabric? Many people would find those offensive. --B 13:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think B hit the nail on the head with the "UVA football" analogy. What is and is not offensive is just waaaay too subjective. I, for one, do not find the idea of a "Pimp" userbox even slightly offensive... I understand why other people do and why it was eventually deleted, but it doesn't phase me at all. On the other hand, I really don't care for userboxes that proclaim a person's religion, because I'd just rather not hear about it. So which is "objectively offensive"?

The only thing I could see would be a very narrow set of criteria that can be applied objectively.. like maybe encompassing racial slurs or something like that. But even then, one can conceivably think of exceptions... what if someone was preparing to do an overhaul to an existing Wikipedia page about a racial slur and was staging the edits in their userspace? --Jaysweet 13:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I stated up front that I agree 'offensive' is, of course, subjective... but note that this is already the deletion standard applied at Wikipedia:User_page#Inappropriate_content. I suggested 'offensive to many people' because the stated goal of the various existing efforts to police user-page content is to avoid things which lead to lots of nasty comments and anger amongst the userbase - like that MfD discussion. That's somewhat borderline on the 'offensive to many people' scale, but if it had been speedied under something like the proposed U4 (rather than T1, which was incorrectly used to delete it) it could still have gone to DRV. Current practice is to encourage users to remove stuff like this on sight and block users who repeatedly re-add it to their own pages. Subjective it may be, but it's reality... and when the question becomes, 'will this cause alot of users to be angry?' it becomes alot less subjective. Indeed, no more so than many of the other CSD criteria.

For the record, my own philosophy is that 'free speech' should reign and people should be able to have any sort of offensive nastiness they want on their user pages so long as it isn't illegal. I argued as much when 'user-page policing' first came into existence, but the foundation, Jimbo, and other PTBs very clearly decided to the contrary. As such, I think that given the philosophy that user page content will be policed for 'offensive' material the lack of a proper CSD for that policing only leads to disruption and conflict when T1 or G10 are applied outside their mandate. The practice exists... ergo it should be properly documented to avoid the drama every time it is implemented. --CBD 13:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If merely deleting "offensive" things is the standard practice, that needs to be stopped. That's ripe for systemic bias as any minority would be subject to their page contents being declared "offensive". I keep an eye on several portals, including Portal:Bible and the daily verse is displayed on my user page so that if it hasn't been updated, I will see a nice lovely red link and can go fix it. There are many people who are bigots and offended by any mention of Christianity. Would you propose deleting my userpage? There is a famous rant (google colin cowherd uva football rant) that Colin Cowherd had about UVA football. I'm sure he is not the only one with that opinion and tha there are nany people hat agree with him. Should pages that mention UVA football be deleted? --B 14:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

To date, prior to the 'I am a pimp' userbox mentioned above, I've heard of this practice being applied to pedophilia, neo-naziism, anti-semitism, and suchlike. I recall someone saying that the satanists should go too, but as of now they're still uncensored. UVA football hasn't made the list that I'm aware of. --CBD 14:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• "Attack page" means "a page that has no purpose other than to disparage its subject(s)". That does include many offensive pages, and there will always be borderline cases that have to be taken to MFD. >Radiant< 13:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Proposal: There should be a listed CSD criterion for biographical articles with zero sources. This proposal fits the four stated guidelines at the top of this page (although it will often overlap with A7, it is distinct from it).

I've long thought that if there's any one thing that could sink Wikipedia as a project, a big WP:BLP disaster would be it. Requiring at least a minimum level of sourcing would help. Your thoughts? Raymond Arritt 04:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Like it or not, many BLPs are unsourced or poorly sourced. We have too many legacy articles in that category and most are completely uncontroversial, e.g. xxxx is the mayor of the town of yyyy. If the person is notable and the article has no contentious information let it live, fix it, attach fact tags, or if it doesn't convey anything useful nominate it for deletion. Deleting them ad-hoc would be too disruptive. If you're going to take the time, why not do a reasonable search for sources. If you can find one, at least add it as an un-cited "references" link at the bottom; if not, nominate for deletion as non-notable. Wikidemo 05:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• support as most original research should be deleted. This is especially true for biographical aritcles. Sefringle^Talk 05:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• I would support this, but I think it's going to be an uphill battle. More here. -- But|seriously|folks  05:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• It's not a bad idea per se. Note that just because admins can delete such articles does not mean that they will. Editors aren't idiots, and the many legacy articles that Wikidemo refers to won't actually be deleted like this. Alternatively, reword it to "new bio articles with no sources". >Radiant< 13:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with this idea. However pages older than the rule should have to be tagged for 5 days before deletion much like images lacking fair use rationals. This will give a good change to fix the article. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 13:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If we grandfather old articles that's better. But image deletion policy is a poor model for what to do about unsourced articles given the problems and contention over those. There are likely tens of thousands of articles that are worth having here and reasonably well written but lacking sources. If we embark on a massive purge of these old BLP articles it would be seriously disruptive and pointless. I question whether anything we can say or do on this page would establish a consensus to do this, as opposed to a rule handed down from the top. As for new articles we should definitely encourage people to use proper sourcing. But we've made a conscious decision to be inclusive by allowing stub articles. What's wrong with waiting in hopes that they get improved, then just deleting for notability reasons if they aren't? If the concern is unsourced contentious information, BLP already requires that the material be deleted on sight, not even speedied. In the time it takes to nominate an article you could simply blank out anything that looks controversial. I'm curious as to what kin of disaster Sefringle is contemplating out of this that could sink Wikipedia. Wikidemo 14:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• If a subject it truly notable, and nobody is watching the page and it gets deleted, then the article will be written again(this time with sources). The old content can be made available in such a case. We only have to lose those which we don't bother to save. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Disagree. We really can't do this on sight, and having a special process for this one type of article seems pointless when WP:PROD and WP:AFD work perfectly well already. And in some cases, we really shouldn't be deleting the articles: eventualism is deprecated for WP:BLP articles but not ignored completely. Mangojuice^talk 14:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• I strongly disagree. If an article doesn't assert notability, tag it with {{db-bio}}. If an article is unsourced and also looks like a BLP violation, tag it with {{db-attack}}. If it is just unsourced and nothing else, it would be a waste to delete it. Tag it with {{unreferenced}}, and try to expand/verify it. I don't really see what this proposal would accomplish. Melsaran (talk) 15:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• This has been proposed before, and while I would personally support it, it's probably unlikely to gain consensus. I proposed some time ago a modified type of prod which would upon expiration result in either deletion or userfication of a totally unsourced article, and may be removed only by providing at least one relevant source. As often as this comes up, maybe it's time to revive discussion of that. We supposedly require sourcing, maybe it's about time to start actually requiring it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I still have the proposal WP:PRODUS (formerly WP:CSDUA) watchlisted. For the record, I was in support of that proposal, but the way discussion was going it looked like the best thing to do was to break off discussion for a while and try again later. --ais523 16:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:V doesn't require sourcing; it requires verifiability. The word choice is intentionally made because references are not explicitly required unless or until facts are challenged. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
    • That's kind of the point. By placing that modified prod, you're challenging it, at which time sources are required. Sure, until and unless that tag gets applied, there's no challenge, so obviously there would be no deletion. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• I think the ordinary prod/afd system is sufficient for the problem being described. BLP articles are a particularly important thing to get right, but editors are given extra discretion in removing unsourced parts of BLP articles already. If the removal of content leaves the article with no assertion of notability, or otherwise leaves an unfixable article, then after a few days the article can be put up for deletion in the ordinary system. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral Comment. A prod tag on an unsourced BLP can be removed with no explanation. Rather than go through a tedious AfD for it, it might be helpful to create a CSD for it. However, if there is a CSD for it, admins might need to prepare for more undeletions than normal, as there might be more challenges of this kind of deletion afterwards. J-ſtan!^Talk_Contribs 17:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• I strongly disagree. The first source is quite frequently added by someone other than the original author, and requiring sources on any type of article on its very first edit is much too optimistic. Talking about a BLP incident sinking Wikipedia is just moral panic - that's what we have BLP and office actions for, and they suffice. If there's a serious libel issue, we should delete revisions, not articles, as we can still say plenty about anyone without inviting them to sue us. Dcoetzee 00:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• I also disagree. Most articles are started by relativly new people who cannot be expected to know the details of wikipedia policies. BLPs with only negative, unsourced information can be dealt with as attack pages already. If something like this ever does take shape it should be limited to BLP (as most of the discussion seems to assume). For example the first revision of Cenwalh of Wessex read "Cenwalh was the ruler of Wessex from 643 to 672, except for a brief period when he was driven out by Penda of Mercia. During this period, Anna of East Anglia convinced him to receive baptism.", and was unsourced. It didn't recieve its first reference until over six monthes later. It is now a medium sized article that is fully sourced. Under the article would have been speedied before it had a chance. Dsmdgold 03:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, the intent was to apply only to living people. Articles on historical figures are of far less concern with regard to sourcing. Apologies for the lack of clarity. Raymond Arritt 03:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Admins

Do admins have to place a speedy tag on something, or if they see something covered under a CSD, can they just delete it on sight? J-ſtan!^Talk_Contribs 14:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

On sight. -- But|seriously|folks  14:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I might add a tag if I want a second set of eyes to look at it(and will say as much in the edit summary), but otherwise click, boom, its gone. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, admins can delete an article that meets any CSD criterion without tagging it. They should note the reason in the deletion summary. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! :) J-ſtan!^Talk_Contribs 17:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wp:csd#Images_and_media says there should be a warning and a time lag in certain cases. Tyrenius 19:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

There should be, but it depends on the type of page. An article that says just "this guy I went to school with is cool" doesn't need any lag. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

In the case of images, the criteria includes the time delay... the image doesn't meet the criteria until it has been tagged for a certain length of time, etc. It's mostly on articles that there are "instant" CSD criteria. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Be careful in deleting articles about companies, organizations, products, business events, etc. Some admins. seem to have a bias against commerce, or at least the notion that it's a notable thing to talk about, and habitually tag and delete articles about companies by claiming that they are spam, advertisements, business directories, etc., without an opportunity for discussion, even though they meet notability criteria. It almost becomes a WP:AGF issue. If someone takes the time to write a sourced, competent article about something that claims its own notability, it would be best to give it a full hearing rather than aggressively delete. Wikidemo 23:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of such articles are not written to that standard, so they fall under G11, "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic." The key point here is "need to be fundamentally rewritten". The same goes for a lot of (auto)biographies for e.g. artists: it's not a prejudice against companies. Tyrenius 18:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Despite warnings all over the place, we do get a lot of vanity business and art articles. You wouldn't believe how many people paste in a verbatim copy of the "about.htm" page from their website and call it an article. -- But|seriously|folks  19:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're doing new page patrol, I notice some admins like to just tag non-obvious ones. A) it gives the author a bit more time to fix the article and B) it lets a second set of admin eyes look at the article. It's not required... but if the CSD backlog is manageable it's not a bad idea. As said above though, it's not required, you can speedy delete on sight. --W.marsh 03:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Wp:csd#Images_and_media

Could someone please clarify the wording of point 7 "Invalid fair-use claim". Does all the text after "For media uploaded before 13 July 2006" apply to just those images or also to images "uploaded after 13 July 2006". Presumably that is not the case, as the tags then given to use, {{subst:dfu}} and {{subst:no fair|Image:image name}}, give a 7 day warning, whereas images "uploaded after 13 July 2006" need a 2 day warning. I couldn't find the tags with a 2 day warning. Tyrenius 19:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Since July 2006 is quite a long time ago, perhaps we no longer need to mention this particular grandfather clause here? >Radiant< 08:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

That's protecting grandfathered legacy images. It should stay. -- But|seriously|folks  19:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know the answers to my questions? Tyrenius 20:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My interpretation would be that the "uploaded after 13 July 2006" applies only to the sentence it appears in, and the following sentences are supposed to apply to all images. The fact that the templates give a 7-day grace period for all images is presumably a problem that should be fixed (by an extra parameter to the template, perhaps). Or, of course, we could change the criterion to match what's currently being done, and make the grace period one week for all image.

Of course, personally I've always found these "slow speedy deletion" criteria somewhat silly. If there's going to be a mandatory waiting period anyway, why not just use an IfD-like setup, which would be both technically simpler and more reliable, and probably easier too. All it would cost is one extra edit per image. (Of course, I'm not advocating that we sent these images to IfD itself, that would just be a disaster. But a separate page, or a subpage of IfD, could make sense.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Should history merges go into CAT:CSD?

I've proposed a redesign of Template:Db-histmerge on its talk page. During the process, I started wondering whether it really makes sense for pages tagged with that template to be categorized into the main speedy deletion category, and not just into their own subcategory. Do people who routinely patrol CAT:CSD really do history merges if they stumble across one, or do they just clutter up the category for no reason? And perhaps more to the point, should we even be asking random CSD patrollers to do history merges, given that they're one of the very few admin actions that can not be easily undone? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps you should ask on the admin board, which appears to be followed by more NP patrollers than this page. Intuitively, I'd say they're clutter. >Radiant< 13:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• Better to keep them separate as they need additional work afterwards. Guy (Help!) 12:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed - clearly a different animal than your standard CSD stuff. Many newbie admins, myself included, get their feet wet with CSD because it's relatively straightforward. A more experienced admin who is willing to take on a hist merge is less likely to peruse the CSD category for them. -- Satori Son 13:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk redirects?

What about talk page redirects, such as after a page move, shouldn't they be deleted? --MrStalker ^talk 16:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

There could well be other pages linking to the talk page, so there isn't much harm in having a redirect. Hut 8.5 16:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there any compelling reason to delete them? They seem harmless to me, and can be useful at times. Melsaran (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If someone goes to the old talk page, then get sent to the new one. Redirects are useful. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Okey, I understand. But I find this a bit confusing:

Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User talk: namespace from the article space (this does not include the Wikipedia shortcut pseudo-namespaces). If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.

--MrStalker ^talk 18:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

That refers to if some creates an article but an admin userfies it, presumably because it didn't stand a chance as an article, but the user wants to work on it. The redirect from the article namespace needs to be deleted sooner or later. It wouldn't cover talk: to talk: moves. --W.marsh 18:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

reposts

Hi, I'd like to suggest that we add db-repost to speedily deleted articles. They're pretty much the same thing, right? Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 03:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

db-repost doesn't apply after a speedy simply because you can reuse whatever speedy criterion was used to delete it in the first place. --ais523 09:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Also because the repost criterion is meant to apply to actively community-endorsed deletions only. SamBC(talk) 10:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

navigation templates without targets

By analogy with R1 & C1, it seems to me that it might be reasonable to delete navigational templates which contain nothing but redlinks. This recently came up on TfD, where articles about a non-notable musician and his self-released albums had all been deleted, but speedy was refused (rightly) for the left-over nav template. This suggested criterion seems objective, uncontestable and non-redundant (although if I'm wrong about that last, please let me know, as it will be useful in the active discussion). I'm not sure whether it arises frequently, but I suspect that it will continue to become more frequent, as nav templates grow in popularity. So I thought I'd toss the idea out and see what sort of reaction I get. Xtifr _tälk 11:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support this as a criteria. It seems very strange that eliminating "Yung D." from Wikipedia is going to require an extra week because the author did a complete job of injecting the non-notable (and perhaps non-existent ... I suspect the whole thing is actually fraud) singer into Wikipedia. Once the artist article and all the records were deleted, the deletion of the template should have been automatic. Kww 16:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

If a navigation template contains only articles that have been deleted through a discussion, it may be speedied under G6. Just like when a template is deleted via TFD and the associated category is speedied. We don't need an additional criterion for this. Melsaran (talk) 16:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, that would be an excellent example of what G6 is meant for. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Leaves a loophole. What if all the articles were such garbage that they were speedied? Kww 16:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Where's the loophole? If a navigation template exists that only links to articles that were speedily deleted (regardless of the criteria used, but let's use A7), the template should be deleted under G6. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Melsaran specifically stated "deleted through a discussion." I read that as excluding speedies.Kww 17:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, missed that, my bad. I believe G6 would apply regardless of the deletion method (speedy, prod, AfD). EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Think there is a mixup with G4 and G6 :) _→AzaToth 22:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Statistics?

I am curious to know if anyone is attempting to keep statistics on the number of total articles that are created versus the number that survive CSD. It would be interesting to look at this long-term, to see if, over time, more and more or less and less CSD-worthy articles are being created, or if it remains relatively constant.

Something else that might be interesting to see is a plot of number of articles deleted against time - as in, how many articles are speedily deleted within, say, one minute, five minutes, 1 hour, and so on. Chubbles 03:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Newbie admin question

As a new admin, is it considered bad form to speedy your own subpages? Should I still tag this as db-userreq? Ronnotel 15:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually asked if admins could delete things on sight, and for the most part, it's okay (the exception being if you aren't sure, in which case, tag it and leave it to someone else). I wouldn't see any objections to deleting your own subpages, just so long as you explain that it was A7. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 15:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can delete your own subpages. They are called speedy criteria because any page that meets one of the speedy deletion criteria may be immediately deleted. A few of the criteria, especially for images, require that the image be tagged for a period of time before it meets the CSD criteria. But none of the article or general criteria requires a tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:19, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Just wanted to know if a second pair of eyes was expected on every delete. My take-away is that it is not, but to follow proper form. Ronnotel 16:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of User sandbox subpages

Maybe this has been addressed before, but if not, could a procedure be considered for users to request Speedy Delete en masse of their own sandbox subpages? It seems to me that a lot of wasted server space could be freed up in so doing (hundreds of revisions, in my case see [1]), without tagging every page {{db-author}} JGHowes ^talk - 02:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

How to deal with bad G4 nomination

A while back I re-wrote an article about IvyGate, a popular gossip blog devoted to Ivy League universities. I was quite surprised to find it gone because the site is clearly notable - it has two paid editors, it's in the mainstream press all the time for a string of incidents and for scoops they have uncovered, and it's very popular. The arguments in the deletion discussion are misplaced, and it was deleted with little discussion and no obvious consensus. However, rather than going through a deletion review I chose a more productive approach, to create a better article instead of fighting to restore the old one that was deleted. I rewrote the article, avoiding both issues that had been raised in the discussion: basing claim to notability on a single transient event, and references that mention it only in passing. It's a very different article than the old one, with new citations, new material, and (reliably sourced) updates on new developments. Sources that discuss the publication in detail include the New Yorker, New York Times, and a US News publication, with backup from the Gothamist and some Ivy League student papers. You don't have to look hard to find it. It gets 30,000+ google hits, and a search in google news has 8 new articles, one a couple days ago from the Washington Post.

Nevertheless, it keeps getting nominated for speedy deletion by anonymous editors based on a misapplication of G4, recreation of deleted material. G4 is obviously not for this kind of article - it's for reinstated old material in substantially identical form in a way that does not address the reason for the original deletion. This article is certainly not a recreation of that deleted material.

What's the best way to deal with this? It's a waste of time and effort to wait for the article to get deleted then go through deletion review. I've removed the deletion tags twice despite being the author, because I don't see a reason to deal with utter nonsense nominations, but now I see someone nominated it again. I would remove the tag yet again or ask others to do so, but then people will just keep nominating it. Should I propose it myself on AFD so we can at least have a legitimate deletion discussion? Is there a procedure for dealing with bad G4 nominations?

Bigger picture question. What can we do about bad G4 nominations. I've seen this happen several times - people nominate things on G4 when G4 clearly doesn't apply. It's as if they're offended to see an article back that's been deleted so they just ignore the rule.

Thx, Wikidemo 05:43, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear, but it appears that the decision at AfD may have been that the subject was not notable, not merely that the article was unsourced. It may be incorrect, but if that was the determination, you're stuck with it for now. Either way, it's probably best to take this kind of thing to deletion review to get community consensus on whether an improved version can stay.

Bigger picture: I agree that there are plenty of bad G4's based on prior speedies. It's up to the reviewing admin to decline the G4 at that point. -- But|seriously|folks  06:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any trouble with a new AfD given the substantial difference, but I'd still certainly argue to delete it. Most of that sourcing is "in-passing" or passing interest type mentions, I don't see anything of substance. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

So I can nominate it for AfD? I'm pretty sure it would pass AfD unless we have some new rule by which New York Times, New Yorker, and US News are not reliable sources when they write articles about the subject.Wikidemo 07:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the speedy tag. Wouldn't worry about nominating for AfD, let someone else do it if they want. The issues I see isn't a question of the reliability of the sources, but rather how substantially they cover the subject. It looks to me to be very trivial and fleeting, many are just name drops. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You'll find a couple of the major sources give extensive, in depth coverage of the organization, how it came to be, who is involved, etc. The claim is that this is a news-ish event because they did so only in the context of a single event. The other sources say that it's still up and running, and growing in influence. There's a discussion worth having - not here - on what establishes the notability of blogs and media outlets. Wikidemo 08:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, in my experience, bad G4's come mainly from 2 reasons: 1) thinking speedy or prod in past = G4 now (wrong, and I leave a message on the tagger's page - see {{speedy-decline}}); and 2) inability to see the deleted article's text (appropriate flagging IMHO; and up to the admin to compare the target with the prior afd deleted material and either delete or decline as appropriate, in the latter instance usually a note to the tagger will prevent a re-tag). Carlossuarez46 01:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

CSD I9?

Did I miss a discussion somewhere? When was this added? I'm not opposed to it, just curious as to what it accomplishes that G12 didn't. I've always used G12 for copyvio images... ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Here. I think the idea was to simplify G12. -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

As the link shows I did that after floating the proposal and some discussion. Hopefully it accomplishes the exact same thing as the old G12 and simply avoids what I called the catdog problem - two different rules mashed into a single section. To keep copyvio images straight from copyviotext, which has much different procedures and standards, the image part was tacked on in a way that became awkward and even necessitated Wikipedia policy's only use (to my knowledge) of green text. I was wikignoming on the policy page. Wikidemo 16:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha. No issues here, more curios than anything? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

question about A7

"No assertion of importance/significance. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not state why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of notability, verifiability and reliability of sources. If controversial, list the article at Articles for deletion instead."

Why is this a criterion for speedy deletion? What is the rush? --JWSchmidt 20:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I see it as more of a distinction that an article that says "My friend Bob is cool" doesn't need to sit around for the other deletion processes (prodding or AfD). Stuff like copyvios and blatant advertising are about the only ones that we actually "need" to delete immediately. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC) In general, the term "speedy deletion" does not refer to the amount of time involved, but rather to the lack of need for community discussion. Several thousand articles articles about real people, groups, bands, clubs, companies, and websites are created everyday, many of which are about subjects that are not notable. The presence or absence of an assertion of importance/significance is not entirely accurate as an indicator of notability, but it's a start. To require community input and discussion for each of the hundreds of articles deleted per A7 daily would unnecessarily consume much of the community's time and would effectively cripple the articles for deletion process. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Because nearly half of articles created on Wikipedia need to be deleted the same day. If every article took a week to delete, the backlog of crap would become overwhelming. The effort involved in voting on all of them would become overwhelming as well.Kww 20:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not questioning the FACT that the vast majority of pages speedy deleted with this criterion need to be deleted. I also would not want to create extra work that needs to be done before articles about non-notable topics are deleted; in particular, I never said anything about requiring community discussion for most articles deleted according to this criterion. However, I think most articles deleted according to this criterion are deleted rapidly, often several times in the same day. I've been thinking about the few cases where a useful article gets deleted before the community even has a chance to develop the article. I'm wondering if it would be possible to build an automatic 10 day delay into the deletion process before an article is deleted for no assertion of importance/significance. Maybe articles tagged CSD A7 today could go on list that could be reviewed later and not be deleted until 10 days after the main editor(s) of the page have been notified that evidence of importance/significance has been requested? That would allow time for good-faith efforts to develop new articles while not introducing any new work to get rid of the garbage. --JWSchmidt 20:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

not a chance - this would create an amazing bottleneck in the system, at best we need to modify the system so that the original editor gets a note explaining how to sandbox an article. This is just creating work for work's sake. --Fredrick day 20:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

We have the WP:PROD process for that. It's not a 10 day delay, but a 5-day one, and, of course, any editor is able to review & improve articles in Category:Proposed deletion. (Or simply remove the PROD, if it's felt to be misguided.) I believe that sometimes article are deleted prematurely under A7, but one of the reasons of only giving speedy tools to administrators is so that the community can attempt to ensure that the people who are reviewing the speedy requests understand the criterion and review the proposed pages to be sure the tags are appropriate. There is always Wikipedia:Deletion review if an author feels an article was deleted unfairly, and I know many administrators are willing to put the deleted contents of a page somewhere in user space for further development. Ultimately, if the subject meets notability guidelines, I think it's quite likely that somebody will write an article about him or her that will assert notability. :) I think it's good to keep the focus of A7 narrow, but as many times as I've seen it used to remove an article that says "Joe was born on September 1st" or "My boyfriend's name is Sam," I think a 10 day delay would leave far too many unencyclopedic articles around that would diminish the quality of Wikipedia overall. --Moonriddengirl 20:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

"this would create an amazing bottleneck in the system" <-- what does that mean? How is a delay of 10 days a "bottleneck"? It is a delay of 10 days to give good-faith editors a chance to edit, as was done at Wikipedia in the "good old days". "creating work for work's sake" <-- How is a delay before deletion creating work? I suspect it would decrease work by eliminating many of the silly dances that are done now when pages are deleted multiple times in the same day. I think "WP:PROD" is fine for some things but its use on bad-faith editors of pages normally deleted under CSD A7 would probably result in more work. "there is always Wikipedia:Deletion review" <-- true, but that is a poor excuse after you have already alienated a good-faith editor by pushing them out the door with a bad-faith speedy CSD A7. "a 10 day delay would leave far too many unencyclopedic articles around" <-- We could easily calculate the % increase in undesirable articles, I think it would be a tiny percentage. Since most of the articles would exist for an extra 10 days with a big ugly warning at the top, I do not see how much harm could be done, certainly not enough to offset the intended attempt to help Wikipedia keep its tradition of assuming good faith and letting editors have a reasonable amount of time to edit. --JWSchmidt 21:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

If I were going to change A7, I would broaden it to include slang terms and games. I suggest that you spend a month or so at new page patrol, so you become more aware of the truly horrible situation that Wikipedia is in with respect to new articles. Anything that slows it down or weakens it is a bad thing.Kww 23:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Out of all of the speedy deletion categories, Category:Importance or significance not asserted pages for speedy deletion is one that 95% of the time has a significant number of articles in it (in comparison with the other speedy categories). I can't imagine what a ten-day wait would do to it. --MZMcBride 21:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• "I can't imagine what a ten-day wait would do" <-- It is not that difficult to imagine. A ten day delay means that administrators would wait ten days before deciding if the pages will be deleted. This will give some time for good faith editors to work on articles before they are deleted. --JWSchmidt 13:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, it would multiply the size of the category by (10 days / usual time articles stay in category), or slightly less because it wouldn't lengthen the time rejected suggestions stay in it. I would expect that that multiplcation factor would be at least 20. SamBC(talk) 14:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Terrible terrible idea - I'd leave wikipedia if this came in - this would allow 1000s of article such as "Bob is a great dude" hanging around. I've done a lot of new page patrol and the system already has checks and balances because besides editors like me adding tags, there are others saying "hold on this does have notability, take it to AFD if you don't think so" - plus the deleting admin acts as a check when he/she looks the article over. This is creating work for the sake of creating work. --Fredrick day 14:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I see two problems with this. One is that a ten-day wait would permit a lot more time for article creators to remove tags from articles like "Bob is an office manager" and evade our quality control mechanisms. Two is that it fails to differentiate between articles like my example, and those that more genuinely assert notability: "This band won the Battle of the Bands competition in Toledo." that admins sometimes improperly speedy.--Chaser - T 18:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Would it make sense when considering an A7 to check out the creator of the article as well? An A7 can be a pretty quick way to upset new and expierenced editors if not managed properly. If the user appears to be an obvious noob (arbitrary, sure, but for example say <5 previous contribs or <2 weeks editing for example), speedy delete it and leave a canned speedy delete/Welcome to Wikipedia note on their user discussion page. If the user has more contributions than that but little to no track record of speedy deletes on their discussion page, infer good faith/knowledge of the rules and make it a WP:PROD or some other delayed delete. Otherwise just speedy delete it and don't leave a note. The exact rules aren't necessarily the important thing; just seems a quick check of the creator's background on an A7 could help understand intent and facilitate the proper decision. Jawsdog 21:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you have it exactly backwards. WP:BITE, man. Someone who is new may not understand why they are being deleted, or that the page can be recreated, etc. Whereas an experienced editor should know better than to create a page on a non-notable subject, and if the A7 determination is wrong, they should know better how to assert notability so that people don't make a false A7 determination. --Jaysweet 21:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think BITE, while a good rule, is often overused. There's no need to not "bite" a newbie by deleting obvious stupidity. If someone is going to get pissy because we deleted his "My friend Bob is cool" article and leaves the project, good riddance. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"My friend Bob is cool," you might be right, but I had an example once where I got somebody's article deleted that they had written about a local restaurant. The restaurant was so NN I couldn't even find it on Google, but I think the person was being well-intentioned and could have been reformed into a reasonable contributor, y'know? I took some time to try to explain to the editor why the article was deleted. Whereas if it was an established editor, I'd just be like, "Duh, you should know better." --Jaysweet 21:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree WP:BITE's my overriding concern, but mostly on an A7, not an A1 etc. so no disagreement there. Guess it would be more for non-power users who haven't fully developed the page yet, so the notoriety is still in doubt. Myself being in that middle ground between knowing what I'm doing and not at times, just thinking if there is some additional quick step to help assess if the page is a brand new work in progress. Could be more trouble than it's worth though, and honestly not even sure how many users would fall into such a catagory. Jawsdog 21:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:BITE is limited by WP:NOT#MYSPACE - 10 days of free webhosting for your A7, G11 stuff is too much to ask for - we are an encyclopedia not the world's bulletin board. If 10 days were the rule, then we'd have to change other things, like all the AFD debates should be "Articles for inclusion" that have sat for 10 days in user space and the community will decide whether they should be included in the encyclopedia in the first instance. Carlossuarez46 01:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

G11 is a different beast entirely; we should actively be biting editors whose only purpose for coming here is to abuse the "anyone can edit" system. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

G11, though, can be used just as over-enthusiastically as A7. If the subject is clearly notable, then in most cases the article can easily be rewritten by stubbifying it to remove the spam. DGG (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

db?

Hey, I'm just curious, what does the "db" in CSD templates stand for? Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 00:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it stands for "delete because". – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes - contradiction in page

Hoaxes are listed twice, once as criteria for speedy deletion (G1: "Patent nonsense [...] or hoaxes of any sort"), and again in Non-criteria ("Hoaxes. If even remotely plausible, a suspected hoax article should be subjected to further scrutiny in a wider forum.") Therefore the page contradicts itself. Just thought this should be pointed out. I would fix it myself, but figured there's a 50% chance of me removing the wrong mention of hoaxes, and I'm not a very lucky person. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 22:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Part of the text you omit in your first quote is "This does not include". —Cryptic 22:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) You're misreading G1. It says "[Patent nonsense] does not include... hoaxes of any sort" (emphasis added), so they agree that hoaxes in general can't be speedied. In practice, hoaxes so blatant that no reasonable person could believe them are sometimes speedied as pure vandalism (I once tagged a page about a medical syndrome where your bladder jumps out of your body and runs away as such), but yes, if there's any possibility that it might be true it should be discussed further (or at worst prodded). Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 22:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops, yes. Thanks to both of you. I think it's about time I got some sleep! :) --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 23:24, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

A7 wording again

The current wording is "No assertion of importance/significance. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not state why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of notability, verifiability and reliability of sources. If controversial, list the article at Articles for deletion instead." I propose to change the word state to indicate : it's being used to require a specific statement that X is important. rather than just presenting information of x that reasonably indicates some importance. That's not the intent, I think--it should not depend on the article matching the exact wording. Alternative wording state or indicate DGG (talk) 20:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I support your proposed change. The difference in meaning between "state" and "indicate" may be subtle, but I think that A7 requies use of the latter (or of the phrase "state or indicate"). The use of the word "state" implies that a particular word order (e.g. "[Subject] is important because ..." or "[Subject] is notable because ...") is necessary, which is/should not be the case. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this makes sense, although it does make it more subjective. SamBC(talk) 20:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand where DGG is going, but I have qualms. I remember one case where DGG voted to resurrect one of my speedies in a deletion review, and his argument was that the article had asserted importance because it indicated that the company in question had made international sales. I strongly felt (and still do), that no variation of "I sell stuff" can be considered an assertion of importance. If we loosen the wording, we need to include a few examples of what can never, under any circumstance, be included an assertion of importance. To my mind, those need to include "sells stuff" or "has an innovative musical style that is catching on in [region of your choice]."Kww 20:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a separate issue, arising from the fact that "assertion of importance/significance" is not an entirely objective concept. As I see it, the choice of 'state' or 'indicate' revolves mostly around whether we require any specific phrasing in articles (e.g. "[Subject] is important because ..."). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree in the case of "has sold stuff internationally". That could indicate an international behemoth of a company—or one that had an order placed from a neighboring country a few times. Technically, anyone who's shipped anything to another country that was purchased off Ebay has "sold internationally." That being said, I like just having "does not assert". If the article states that the company is the second-largest in its field, that is an assertion of significance. If they state that it sells stuff (regardless of where), they're effectively just stating "X is a business"—all businesses by definition sell something somewhere. Assertion doesn't sound like you actually must put in the article "X is important!", but you do have to show it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In fact, Seraphimblade has given what was my exact logic, as i would have said had you inquired. I agree with her criteria, in both directions. I have speedied many such articles when no indication of widespread or major sales is present. DGG (talk) 09:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

We ought to require some common sense on the part of the nominator, rather than magic language on the part of the editor. The problem with magic language is that even if you can find a source to say that X is notable, famous, popular, groundbreaking, first, best, biggest, influential, etc., people often give it a one-two attack, with the first simply deleting your statement even if sourced on ground that it's sourced or WP:PEACOCK, then the second claiming A7 because the first just removed your assertion of notability. That is perverse, and frustrating. The sentence required to explicitly assert notability isn't really appropriate for the article. You spend a lot of time defending that sentence to keep your article intact long enough to start looking robust. Which brings up a second point, people shouldn't be putting fully formed, sourced B or start-class articles of for A7 deletion. If anyone's put that much effort in it already, A& is almost an accusation of bad faith, telling them they're full of it. Those editors ought to at least have the courtesy of an actual discussion over their article. Wikidemo 22:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"""Consensus? Although there seems to be continued problems about the use of A7 in general, it seems there is agreement that the wording should be modified as I suggested above. I am about to do so. DGG (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

In case it's not clear from the above, I support the change. Not sure everyone else agrees, though. The point has been contentious in the past. Wikidemo 10:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I support your proposed change. -- Jreferee t/c 16:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Assertion of importance

I am not opposed to DGG's wording, but I think there's a broader issue here. Any wording about "assertion of importance" is going to be subjective to some degree... I think the better solution than aiming for airtight wording (which is impossible) is to instill an attitude that if a reasonable person objects to an A7 deletion, it should probably just go straight to AFD without all the kicking and screaming we see deleting admins sometimes put up. A7 speedy deletion wasn't meant for controversial cases, after all. If someone informed and unbiased says "that wasn't a good speedy deletion", we should see admins willing to undelete and send it to AFD just on the assumption of good faith. That happens sometimes... but not always. --W.marsh 16:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean someone other than the author, like a 3rd opinion, right? -- But|seriously|folks  17:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... A7 says "If controversial, list the article at Articles for deletion instead" so if an obviously uninvolved third party comes along and objects, it should just be sent to AFD without the resistance we often see. --W.marsh 17:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree with W.marsh that there is a broader issue. His statement is in my opinion exactly the policy at present, and it should be stated in no uncertain terms, because it is often ignored. And it applies not just to A7, but to all speedies, except for BLP. The only objection to doing so given in the past, is that people dont read the policy anyway--but it is good to have something to refer to. But one step at a time. Let's try to find a strong wording, and figure out here to put it. DGG (talk) 23:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I like "indicate". It's enough to say "The band had a #1 hit on Billboard" without having to say "The band is important because it had a #1 hit on Billboard." Not that I'd expect to see a band with a #1 hit up for speedy, but I have encountered less extreme examples of this as well. :) --Moonriddengirl 00:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Any admin who'd speedy an article that said the former but not one that said the latter, regardless of whatever the carefully-phrased wording on WP:CSD is this week, should be liberally spammed with links to WP:CLUE, WP:SENSE, and miscellaneous other capitalized links. —Cryptic 00:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL! No arguments from me. :D Personally, I'm thinking less about admins than the editors on new page patrol, who largely do excellent work, drop proper notices on author's pages and tag articles well within policy. The example coming to my mind was not nearly that egregious. And I can't honestly say that the editor would have refrained from tagging the article if the article had said, "This person is notable because he had a top 30s hit, which satisfies WP:MUSIC Musician or Ensemble criterion #2." But I do think that the change of state->indicate is good. Indicate is what's needed, and, sadly, wikilawyering does happen. --Moonriddengirl 00:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• "assertion of importance" might be better implemented if it reads "reasonable assertion of importance/significance". This would have the effect of making it more clear that unreasonable assertion of importance/significance do not comply with A7 and making it more clear that the overall posted content may be sufficient to assert importance/significance even if no one sentence stands out as asserting importance/significance. -- Jreferee t/c 16:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for new criteria

This section is silly, because many of the existing CSDs do not meet these criteria. I suggest modifying it or scrapping it altogether (or we could just weed out some unnecessary CSDs).

1. The criterion should be objective: an article that a reasonable person judges as fitting or not fitting the criterion should be similarly judged by other reasonable people.

   A7, T1, R1R3, and G11 are extremely subjective, G6, I7 and A1 are moderately subjective.

R1 and R3 are, however, not usually the least controversial. DGG (talk) 15:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

1. The criterion should be uncontestable: it should be the case that almost all articles that can be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus.

   T1 is very contestable, as is G5 (if it is a constructive contribution), and sometimes G7.

2. The criterion should arise frequently.

   G5, I2 and A5 do not arise frequently.

3. The criterion should be nonredundant: if you can accomplish the deletion using a reasonable interpretation of an existing rule, just use that.

   G1, G2 and G3 are possibly redundant to each other, as are A2 and A5 (those could easily be merged), and C2 and C3 are redundant to G6.

Melsaran (talk) 17:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all those are only guidelines, and the existing criteria are established by consensus informed by them. I originally wrote that section - and I would like to see the highly subjective A7, T1, and G11 all repealed, so it's no surprise. R1 is not subjective - I think you meant R3 (R1 is somewhat contestable). T1 is both subjective and contestable but was instituted by Jimbo's decree, so there's not much you can do. G5 may very well deserve revisiting - in practice, I'm not sure if a banned user has ever made constructive edits while banned. I2 does not arise frequently, but is sufficiently objective that I think review is unnecessary. In the case of A5, if it was the outcome of an AfD then the relevant discussion has already occurred - I'm less certain about whether dictdefs should be autotranswikiable. G6 is not terribly specific (the word "noncontroversial" is open to interpretation) and I think it helps to spell out the expressly legitimate cases C2 and C3. A2 and A5 are not the same thing, as in A2 the article may have originated on the other project and been copied here. Dcoetzee 23:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't like most things, but I like this "silly" section. In fact, every policy page should have a similar admonition to only add rules that actually change something, are enforceable, cover something that actually happens frequently enough to be important, etc. It's pretty solid. Wikidemo 11:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Knowing a bit of history is important here... A7 for example, originally covered only, very literally, articles about one person with no claim at all of importance. Groups, organizations, web sites, bands, etc. were absolutely not covered, and I recall seeing such deletions flatly denied or overturned, even if there were no claims of importance whatsoever, just because it wasn't an article about one single person. Even the original narrow A7 was quite controversial, with lots of people predicting dire consequences even then. The intent was initially just to let new page patrollers get rid of articles like "Bob is a student at North County High"... in 2004-5 that was genuinely all most people saw A7 being used for, if you'd shown those people what A7 is used for today, most would be quite shocked.

So A7 was originally intended to fall within the "objective, incontestable" range, and in the days when you actually needed to show consensus in a poll to change policy, such a limited scope was the only thing that could get enough votes. Things have changed though, anyone who tries to do a poll nowadays is called evil and policy is usually changed by bold actions that don't get noticed by anyone willing or able to fight it. Sorry if that sounds jaded... but is it really inaccurate?

Other policies, like divisive templates and BLP deletion, came down from on high... so there's no real way to expect that those implementing them would have cared what a suggestion on this page says. The suggestions at the top are pretty good, and directly reflect the original spirit of speedy deletion... we've drifted quite a bit from there, though. --W.marsh 13:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all that. Ideally, all the criteria here should be objective, uncontestable, arising frequently, and nonredundant; however, since most of them aren't, I thought the section was pretty void. Maybe we should weed out the CSDs instead... Melsaran (talk) 15:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I deal almost only with article deletions, so I can't speak to other areas. But as I said in the above thread, I think A7 can be applied in a nearly objective way, and effectively an incotestable way, that is, if a third party makes a reasonable objection, we should accept that and undelete rather than bicker, since undeletion/AFD is what A7 calls for when there's controversy. The problem with A7 has always been more with how it's applied in the field than the actual wording, which is generally conservative. The other article criteria are like that too, if applied carefully, there's little to object to... the problem is, a lot of people will try to apply A1/A3 to any short article, regardless of whether the meaning of the article is clear... and so on. But misapplications of a policy are really the fault of the people who mis-apply it, the wording of many of the CSDs actually is pretty hard to contest if applied carefully. What gets contested is people misapplying it. So my point is, as written on this page, article CSDs aren't really that far gone from the original intent... although in practice sometimes the application in the field do away from the "objective, incontestable" spirit. Not much we can do about that from a policy standpoint, though. BLP deletions are a whole can of worms I won't get into here... but that's just one of the many article speedy deletion criteria.

At any rate, the wording at the top of this page was, as I recall, added after a long serious of proposals for various impractical CSDs chewed up all the discussion on this page... the spirit was really to discourage perennial proposals that are unlikely to ever go anywhere. --W.marsh 16:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't be sure without checking the archives, but I believe R3 was mostly intended for redirects resulting from page moves. That is, if an article is originally created at an incorrect and unlikely title and moved to the correct one, the resulting redirect can then be speedily deleted. Of course, one might argue that this makes it redundant with G6 (housekeeping). Another use I can think of for R3 is the deletion of vandalistic or attack redirects: while these are also covered by G3 and G10 (I think R3 was created before A6 was broadened into G10), the availability of R3 can sometimes make the situation clearer for borderline cases. (That is, we don't have to show that a given redirect is vandalistic or derogatory in intent, we merely have to observe that it's unlikely to be useful.) Thus, while R3 is arguably redundant, it serves to clearly resolve ambiguity in cases where the applicability of other criteria might not always be sufficiently obvious. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

As for the others... I won't argue about the subjectivity of G11 and A7. T1 is, as stated above, essentially a decree mandated by Jimbo to resolve a specific dispute. Come to that, I don't see it used much anymore, and we could probably get rid of it if it wasn't for the fact that nobody much wants to reopen that can of worms. The reasoning for I7 is somewhat similar, even if it wasn't as directly imposed from above. I might argue that all the "slow speedy" image deletion criteria would be better served by a separate process similar to WP:PUI, but that doesn't really affect their appropriateness as such.

G6 is supposed to be a catch-all for truly non-controversial procedural deletions, and as such is of necessity vaguely defined. Even so, the requirement of non-controversiality should pretty much rule out any cases where people might disagree, since those would by definition be controversial. Of course, one could argue that it's redundant, since no-one's going to contest a truly non-controversial deletion anyway — unless they just want to enforce the rules for the rules' sake, and we have IAR for that. Even so, having it provides some conveniences, such as a a standard tag for requesting such deletions and a reassurance to new and nervous admins that making them is really acceptable.

A1 is indeed a traditionally difficult one to understand and apply. Its intended targets seem to be articles where the reader, even after a reasonable amount of searching (Special:Whatlinkshere, Google), is unable to tell "what the hell is this article about". The problem is that one is often tempted to stretch the rule beyond that strict definition. One could also argue that pages meeting the strict definition aren't all that frequent. This may reflect a change in the kinds of articles people tend to create; as the numbering shows, A1 is one of the oldest speedy deletion criteria.

G5 is indeed sometimes controversial, although this is really more of an extension of the controversy over the banning policy and its enforcement. As long as you accept the banning policy in general, G5 is no more open to argument than G9. As for G7, the only controversy seems to occur when someone tries to abuse it to force their pages to be deleted. A clear statement, since added, that the criteria give permission for speedy deletion but do not mandate it, seems to solve that problem (except for the person who wants their contributions gone, who tends to be pissed off to begin with).

As for the frequency argument, I'd argue that it really only makes sense for criteria (such as G1-3, A3, A7, G11, etc.) that are intended to take load off other deletion processes. None of the ones you've listed (G5, A5 and I2) really fall into that category; in particular, both G5 and A5 exist to allow specific other policies and procedures (WP:BAN, WP:TL) to be carried out, while I2 is purely a housekeeping issue.

G1-3 could indeed be merged, but I see little to be gained in doing so. In some ways, the specificity of those criteria dates from a time when the speedy deletion criteria were fewer and simpler; if we created them today, we might indeed well make them a single criterion. In any case, they're not redundant in the sense that any one could be fully covered by the others. Neither are A2 and A5, and I don't even think merging them would be a good idea — they're two completely different things, the only connection being that both are somehow related to content existing on other wikis. As for subsuming C2 and C3 (and A5, R1, I2, etc.) under the umbrella of G6, the problem is that, while G6 categorically allows speedy deletion in non-controversial procedural cases, it doesn't do a very good job of describing what those cases are. Thus, there's value in having specific criteria for those cases that we know exist and are non-controversial, and indeed there could be an argument for having more of them. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

A7

You should apply this criterion only if you know the article does not assert significance, not because you simply fail to understand the assertion because of lack of familiarity with the subject.

I proposed adding the above to A7 months ago. After a week in which no one objected, I added it. The someone deleted it without comment on this talk page.

Now in the last few days this irresponsible edit appeared, and someone deleted the article, saying it did not assert notability. It did assert notability. The persons doing this should have realized they did not understand the article and should therefore have left it alone. I'd have thought this was obvious. I don't edit articles on how to do heart surgery unless it is, e.g. to change "Dr. John Smith" to "[[Dr. John Smith]] if I happen to know that article exists, etc., because I don't know that subject. Michael Hardy 04:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Granted, I think redirecting it to the mathematical concept article might've been a better choice, and I wouldn't have speedied that if I'd been the reviewer, but I'm not sure it's "irresponsible". The assertion of biographical notability is pretty thin, and is determined by the amount of sourcing about the person. Most everything I can find is a name-drop of him as the inventor, that's insufficient for a biography. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) That language is not practical. This is a general encyclopedia. If an article does not assert importance or significance to an ordinary reader, then it doesn't assert importance or significance. No rule is perfect, but I cannot condone creation of a class of articles that are beyond a typical admin's purview. (At least not without significant discussion.) -- But|seriously|folks  04:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Sorry, forgot to respond as to your wording change. I do object to that. An assertion of importance is one that the average reader can understand as an answer to the question "Why would anyone care about this?" It shouldn't take specialist knowledge to comprehend an article in a general-purpose encyclopedia. If I were writing something about C++ in another article, I would say "the C++ programming language", so that even non-programmers can understand what's being discussed. Encyclopedic articles should always be geared toward the non-specialist. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

In practice we have plenty of technical articles and the "average reader" and "why would anyone care" standards don't apply to them. But no matter. This is a question for common sense, not adjusting the rules. In the case User:Michael Hardy mentions it's a simple biographical question. Is a mathematician notable merely for discovering a notable mathematical construct? Similarly, is a scientist notable merely for inventing or discovering something notable? Farther afield, is a company notable for being the first or largest producer of a notable product? None of these are technical questions. I don't know the answer - you tell me. But the answer can hardly be to require the lead of the article to say Dr. X is discoverer of [[y]], a mathematical principle that is extremely important becauze zzzz.. That's strained. Anyway, most editors have the common sense not to nominate such things for deletion, and the few times it happens they are usually saved. And even if deleted, if they're truly notable they can be recreated or reinstated. I spot checked the editor who nominated this particular article and he/she has been nominating about one article a day, mostly very solid nominations, not at all heavy handed or "irresponsible" or on a rampage. The speedy / afd rules are a filter to keep out bad articles while admitting good ones. Every test has false positives and false negatives, as well as questions of cost and efficiency. You could tweak the standards but ours is a fairly good compromise. In the case here, I don't think the objection is that a good article was deleted, but that an editor had to be bothered to respond to a speedy nomination. Sometimes you have to lift a finger to comply with policy, I'm afraid. That's the price of having standards, and having real, fallible humans to enforce them.Wikidemo 12:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The example cited above, George W. Whitehead, really illustrates the most common failure of A7 application: not understanding that a meaningful connection to something notable is a claim of a notability that prevents A7 deletion. I have no idea what J-homomorphism is, but I know we have an article on it, and that a person invented it is a very meaningful connection, so that's a clear claim of importance. Likewise, an actor who has had speaking parts in notable movies, a writer who has written articles for notable magazines, a producer who has produced albums for notable bands... these are all in the same kind of ballpark, and I've seen all of these nominated for speedy deletion.

I've tried to explain why these claims of notability mean we shouldn't speedy delete an article, but often hear back "notability isn't inherited". This just shows that there's some fundamental confusion here... A7 calls for a claim of notability, not notability... but many people, including admins, seem to think anything that they'd vote "delete" for at AFD that they should speedy delete. This is just incorrect, A7 only requires the claim of importance. The wording already seems clear to me, so it seems that some people just don't want to apply what A7 actually is... I'm not sure just tweaking the wording will ever fix that problem. --W.marsh 13:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that's more a flaw in implementation than in writing. If an article claims someone invented a mathematical concept, I would certainly consider that assertion enough to prevent speedy, and my response had I reviewed that would've been to remove the tag and advise prod or AfD. Still, given that our deletion policies are enforced by human beings, there will, no matter how well our policies are written, be errors, misinterpretations, and misapplications. Given the number of articles that are deleted under A7 against how many such deletions are challenged successfully, I don't think our current error rate is bad at all. The only way to never have an erroneous deletion would be to never have a deletion at all, and obviously that's not a sustainable strategy. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Having participated in quite a few deletion discussions, I find the process a little vexing, but the outcomes are amazingly fair and consistent. The process often improves the articles that survive by encouraging authors to bolster up their sourcing, add context, and expand articles. It's one of those things that functions pretty smoothly most of the time, but the human mind being what it is, you tend to only notice the rare instances that stick out for not working. Plus of course there's an understandable resentment about having to explain what you consider obvious to people who have no idea what you're talking about. But even some of the biggest debates, like Mzoli's, had a good outcome. Wikidemo 13:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed this language from A7 again, as I see no consensus in this discussion to add it. Quite the opposite. -Chunky Rice 13:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the extra sentence adds anything. I agree that the article Michael cites was incorrectly speedied, but it would have been incorrect with or without the expansion to A7. It contained an assertion of notability which should have been obvious even to the lay reader - he invented a mathematical concept. The fact that I might be unclear on exactly what that concept is or how important it is doesn't stop it being an claim of notability - if I think that the claim is invalid then it's a matter for wider discussion. A7 is sometimes stretched to exclude obviously invalid assertions of notability ("he is the coolest student at Smalltown High School"), and in that case the tagger and reviewing admin should obviously only speedy if they're confident that the assertion's useless - but that falls within the scope of WP:SENSE and does not require adding complexity to A7. Of course, for technical articles like J-homomorphism notability and importance may not be obvious to the average reader, but that's one of the reasons why A7 doesn't apply to technical articles but only to people, bands, websites and the like - for those subjects any competent reader should be able to spot whether or not the article asserts importance. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 14:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Would schools fall under A7: Unremarkable organization? I ask because someone was in favor of a speedy in a school AfD I nominated, and someone stated that A7 doesn't apply. I know it wouldn't work for high schools, but if a school article just says "This school is in this town, Ms. XYZ is the principle. It goes up to Xth grade", should it get speedied? J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 16:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing to say that A7 does not apply to schools. Any category so broad as "schools" cannot by definition ALL be notable, even high schools. Most high schools end up being notable anyways as they nearly all receive non-trivial coverage in reliable sources (such as newspapers), but noting past results is no promise of future results. Every article still needs to provide real assertions of notability, not just "John Doe High School is a school and it exists". As a practical matter, rather than a technical one, there are people who vehemently assert that all schools are a priori notable even WITHOUT individual assertion or proof of notability actually appearing in the article, so you can expect that any school will make it to AFD or DRV regardless of any actual adherance to any notability guideline. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, A7 does say "If controversial, list the article at Articles for deletion instead." School deletions are frequently controversial, so (as much as I'd like to see most of them go per WP:NOT#DIRECTORY), the better course is usually AfD. (There are always exceptions, of course.) -- But|seriously|folks  18:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 18:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

If the matter can conceivably be contested in good faith, then it isn't a valid speedy. The people who support all schools at AfD are not trolls, but a minority view. (I myself support that all high schools might as well be considered notable, to avoid the nuisance of discussing all the borderline cases, but certainly not elementary schools or junior high schools.) For elementary schools with very little content, I often use PROD-- if the person writing it doesnt bother fixing the article it gets deleted, which is half the time. The other can go to Afd.

but there's an alternate solution for many elementary schools or junior high schools Boldly merge the material given into the article for the school district. If there isn't one, into the article for the town. almost as easy.

Remember, people who write inadequate articles about their school can often be developed into useful editors, so they should be discouraged too sharply. DGG (talk) 18:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

CSD G8 needs more explanation

An administrator has been deleting Talk:xxxx/Comments pages giving G8 as justification. I have tried to explain to them how Comments pages work as part of the article assessment process and have asked them to undelete all and any comments pages they have removed.

However, I suggest that G8 is clarified to stop future admins' ignorance causing similar disruption.--Peter cohen 12:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Uh, if an article doesn't exist, what is the point of assessing it? Am I missing something here? --W.marsh 13:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• • The article being assessed is, as an example, Der Ring Des Nibelungen. At Talk:Der Ring des Nibelungen we (WP:Wagner) say that we reckon the article is B class. At Talk:Der Ring des Nibelungen/Comments we put why we reckon it is a B and suggestions on what to work on to get it to GA. Then someone deletes this last page and throws away our comments.--Peter cohen 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• This seems simple to me. If the article doesn't exist, the only form of discussion on it that we need to keep is a deletion discussion. Assessment pages that are specific to an article should go away when/if the article goes away. If the article "xxxx" still exists, then Talk:xxxx/Comments is a subpage, and G8 already says to keep those while the top level page "xxxx" exists. GRBerry 13:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• • Well, the admin in question has misunderstood that rule and used G8 to delete the subpage as above. Presumably reasoning that Talk:xxxx/Comments is the talk page for xxxx/Comments. There is, of course, no Der Ring des Nibelungen/Comments, but we do want our talk page with the comments back.--Peter cohen 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

G8 clearly says "except for (...) talk subpages (such as archives) whose corresponding "top-level" page exists." Melsaran (talk) 15:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Melsaran is right. I don't think the G8 rationale needs expanding; it's more a matter of educating the admins on CSD duty. We obviously shouldn't be deleting these "Comments" subpages anymore than we delete archived talk pages such as Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 1 (even though there is clearly no Wikipedia/Archive 1 article). -- Satori Son 15:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Now I've looked at the page again and understand it more clearly, I see that there is more detail under General criteria. I had just looked at the table to try to understand what this G8 was and the only place that code appears is in the table which lacks fuller explanation. If someone can suggest another route to carry out Satori Son's suggestion of educating the CSD admins, then fine. All I'm interested in is in getting our page back and stopping a repeat occurence there or elsewhere.--Peter cohen 15:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that the message you left for the deleting admin should be sufficient. IF you like, you might point him in the direction of this conversation. I suspect that as soon as he sees what happened, he'll reverse the deletion. Admins aren't perfect. We all make mistakes. -Chunky Rice 16:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I look at who deleted it, I think it was likely a simple mistake rather than needing "educating". When you deal with the CSD volume they do, even an extremely low error rate will produce a slip-up once in a while, but it's easily fixable. -- Satori Son 18:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

WHY are articles deleted and WHO deleted them?

When an article is speedily deleted, its well-intentioned creator often does not know why. I think some notice written by the deleting admin ought to appear when anyone attempts to edit the deleted title, stating WHO deleted it and WHY. That tells a new user who may be unaware of Wikipedia's conventions that OR or the like is not allowed and lets them know whom to discuss it with if they disagree with the deletion. One such case I saw recently was a clear case of biting newbies. The newbie user had (reasonably, in my view) assumed that any somewhat literate person would know what the visual cortex is, at least in "lay" terms, and got hit with a "no context" complaint. The deleting admin's talk page has a large number of complaints from various users about his frequent speedy deletions. Michael Hardy 02:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Well, the interface has improved a lot... if a user goes to a deleted page, they should be a very prominent notice that the page ahs been deleted, and why. Pretty hard to miss. So talk page notices aren't as critical as they used to be... they're still good though, but I leave it to people tagging the pages, most of whom use a script, it seems like, that makes it easy to notify. --W.marsh 03:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Another matter: A user who very very very frequently tags articles for speedy deletion is given to writing notices saying the article is "unquestionably" a copyright violation. Suppose an article is verbatim the same as some clearly commercial web page bearing a copyright notice. That is certainly reasonable grounds for strong suspicion that it's a copyright violation. Maybe that's a reason for speedy deletion in cases where the creator of the article gives no copyright permission information. But it would be stupid to leap from there the word "unquestionably". The person creating the article may be the sole creator and sole copyright owner of the commercial web page, or may have permission that he absent-mindedly neglected to mention. These hair-trigger deleters are also hair-trigger accusers. Shoot first and ask questions later. Michael Hardy 03:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You've got the burden of proof backwards. Copyright violation is a serious matter; if the material was copied from elsewhere with no indication of permission it would be irresponsible for an admin to leave it in place because the creator "may" be the copyright owner, or "may" have forgotten to post copyright info, etc. The creator can follow up with the deleting admin in such cases. I've been glad to work with people when they've done that. Raymond Arritt 03:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Please learn to read. I DID NOT SAY they should not delete it. I said they should not use the word "unquestionably". That is irresponsible. Michael Hardy 19:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've had the same experience, and have happily directed article creators to OTRS in cases where they claim to be the copyright holder and wish to release the material under GFDL. In some cases, the material does come back with an OTRS ticket cited. In many other cases, however, it never does, or the creator did not understand the full ramifications of a GFDL release and is actually relieved that the material was removed. If an article's text is clearly copied from a nonfree source, the only responsible course of action is to remove it as soon as that's brought to our attention, and reinstate it if and when it can be confirmed that the person who put it there is really the copyright holder and really wishes to release it under GFDL. Anyone can claim to hold the copyright to something, but without verification of their identity, there's no way to make sure they really do. OTRS is set up to perform those verifications properly, but your average newpage patroller or admin is not. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. When it comes to issues that are likely to expose the project to legal liability, we must act conservatively. And any deleted material can be easily restored once a proper GFDL release is confirmed. -- Satori Son 17:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I interpret the meaning of unquestionably is that there is an actual source found, not saying just -- "this looks like a copy-paste from some printed book I havent seen". DGG (talk) 12:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

An actual copyrighted source is not grounds for saying it is "unquestionably" a copyright violation. Michael Hardy 19:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

In that context, unquestionably has to mean that it is so close to an identified source that it cannot be coincidental. If the intent were to limit it to cases where we know for a fact that the use is not licensed, there could be no G12 deletions. -- But|seriously|folks  19:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Could we please get back to the topic (NOT copyrights)?

W. marsh wrote:

Well, the interface has improved a lot... if a user goes to a deleted page, they should be a very prominent notice that the page ahs been deleted, and why. Pretty hard to miss.

There should be, but there's not. Michael Hardy 19:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to be contrary, but, yes there is.[2] -Chunky Rice 20:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I see it. Displays deletion log when they try to edit it. It's nice. Dcoetzee 20:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that it doesn't display prominently until you try to edit the page. -- But|seriously|folks  20:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

That's true, but that's sort of in the spirit of deletion, for the same reason that we don't do deletion-by-blanking - a deleted page ought to look just like a page that was never created. Dcoetzee 20:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, the edit page is what you arrive at when you type the name into the search bar. -Chunky Rice 20:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No, there's not. (1) That notice is seen only by administrators. (2) It does NOT say WHO deleted it nor WHY they deleted it. Michael Hardy 21:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I'm not an admin, and I see this...

"Notice: You are re-creating a page that was deleted. You should consider whether it is appropriate to continue editing this page. Information is available on what to do if a page you created is deleted. The deletion log for this page is provided here for convenience: 20:03, 11 October 2007 Chunky Rice (Talk | contribs) deleted "Allison Hunt" ‎ (CSD:A7 content was: '{{db-bio}}Allison Hunt is a...

It clearly says who deleted it, and depending on what they entered in the log, why they deleted it. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 22:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It probably should display for IPs too (as far as I can tell, it doesn't now). While IP users can't create pages, new users often log out after creating a page, then come back and have no idea where the page went. Does anyone have a link to the mediawiki page that controls what anons see when they view a page that doesn't exist? --W.marsh 02:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Nocreatetext. Mediawiki:Noarticletext will be seen if following a link in from outside Wikipedia (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askknkkndsknknknknkkn). —Cryptic 02:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, you're talking about something other than the notice that says "view or restore 28 deleted edits". Michael Hardy 04:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)