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{{duplicate}}

Is [1] an approved change to the wording of {{duplicate}} ? 76.66.193.69 (talk) 05:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. Do you disapprove? --Amalthea 09:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The comments below the template state "Only use for images that are exact duplicates!" Hence the wording of the template now better reflects usage so I sould support keeping this change. AndrewRT(Talk) 17:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

What is a "sourced article"?

Several articles which are not explicitly sourced, but still contain enough information to make the location of the source obvious. Take as an example:

John Cox is a chess player who has written several chess books including: The Berlin Wall: The Variation That Brought Down Kasparov, Starting Out: 1.d4, Dealing with d4 Deviations and Starting Out: Alekhine Defence. He holds the title of International Master and has a FIDE rating of 2367.

If something like this were submitted, the article is not explicitly sourced, except that if someone took a look at any of the books mentioned in the paragraph, they would see "John Cox" prominently written on the front cover, the back cover , the spine, and the inside of the book. A claim that someone has a FIDE rating is obviously sourcable to the FIDE rating list. Is an article like this "unsourced" for purposes of the speedy criterion people are discussing above?

Obviously, an editor ought to make a reference section, he ought to provide a link to the chess federations website to show that the person really has the rating the article says he has, but not doing so is precisely the kind of mistake novice editors often make. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:DELETE says improvement is always preferable to deletion. However I've seen deletion debates that have ignored such pointers to good sources and where there have been delete votes. I confess I'm in 2 minds about this situation. Such behaviour is a violation of the WP:DELETE policy, and some of the attitudes I've seen behind "delete" votes have not been pleasant. OTOH I have not intention of doing another editor's chores, and I've seen editors who create unsourced stubs by the lorry-load. --Philcha (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the simple answer to your question is yes, that would be unsourced. Sources need to be explicit. AndrewRT(Talk) 17:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Here's a source for Cox's books: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=john+cox+chess&x=12&y=18 .There are other sources, too, including the Library of Congress. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree. The publishing world is full of ghostwriters, pen names, collective pen names, "as told to"s, royalty-only credits, posthumous works finished by others, and all sorts of various strageness. To cite an example, Don Pendleton only wrote the first batch of Mack Bolan books, but his name still appears on all the subsequent volumes anyway, for what I can only guess is contractual reasons. I'm not saying any of this is good or bad or right or wrong, or whatever, but the bottom line is pretty clear that just because someone's name appears on the cover doesn't mean they wrote the text in side or even necessarily approve of the text inside. For this reason, a book cover alone cannot be considered a reliable source. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
This belongs at the RS noticeboard, not here. But since I imagine it is intended in view of the proposed change above, let me give my opinion: an article with a source is sourced, whether or not it is formally expressed. It should be formally expressed, but that's just a question of editing. I remove "unsourced" tags from articles with informal references and substitute one for "improve references". The question of who wrote the book is a detail that has to be settled, but i don't see what it has to do with the reference being informal or not. To speedy delete, in particular, because the reference isnt formatted, is absurd and unproductive. Justfixit. Some stats: checking 10 new articles on people marked unreferenced, I found that 3 of them were referenced somewhere in the text (including, for example, mention & quotes from a NYT obit.), and for 2, what was listed as external sources were in fact usable references. DGG (talk) 00:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • In the example you listed the sources are obvious and an editor wouldn't have to trawl through 1000s of Google hits to find the right information. So I'd consider that article sourced, even though it's badly formatted. Also, cases where external links are clearly the source of the information, I agree with DGG, it would be sourced. Bad formatting should not lead to deletion as it is easier fixed than almost all other issues raised in deletion debates. - Mgm|(talk) 08:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Philcha, what WP:DELETE actually says is "improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable ..." (bold added). We don't want to suggest that attack pages, spam or total copyvios should be "improved". - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Software

A7 doesn't currently cover software. Is there previous discussion I've missed about extending it to software (probably), and would it be time to consider (again?) whether it should? Rd232 talk 15:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I would really appreciate some help on db-spam for software, and from the point of view of helping with hard db-spam calls, A7 for software would be great if it's acceptable. Besides, these days, the distinction between software that's largely tied to a website (and might be db-web'd) and software that isn't doesn't seem like an important distinction to me. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 16:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Most recent discussion I found was Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_24#Add_non-notable_software_products_to_A7. There was also Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_33#Clarify_A7 a bit more recently, but that was only tangentially about software.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. The final comment from the first (Sep 07) discussion included this (which I think summarises that discussion): "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." The other one's a fairly unilluminating exchange about where online games fit in. Rd232 talk 17:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
The difficulty really is that so often software articles are just self-promotion. But there is some reluctance to db-spam them because it's not obvious whether there isn't something worth keeping - partly because we don't have accepted Wikipedia:Notability (software) guidelines. I don't know where to go from here, unless we want to try and resurrect/redevelop that notability proposal. Rd232 talk 17:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think A7 should cover software, because it's very hard to tell whether a software might be important/significant and it's usually a topic where there is much controversy. I don't see a reason to change this anyway, unlike people, companies or web content, new software articles are usually not very frequent and half of them are blatant spam anyway. New criteria need to address frequent situations, the same applies imho to expanding old ones. And I don't see those articles as frequent enough to get into this battlefield where there is much controversy. I doubt it would fulfill the "uncontestable" criterion as well. Regards SoWhy 23:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

    • There is no way that one or two people can properly judge. This is a field that requires an awareness of the subject, to see if suitable references are likely to be findable. Like other creative works, it is therefore not appropriate for speedy. The frequency with which software afds are contested vigorously makes it clear that the community needs to look at these. DGG (talk) 22:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Jack Horner (horse)

This one got a {{db-context}} 2 minutes after creation, I moved it to AfD. (The tagger does excellent work otherwise.) Many RFA voters are insistent that new articles not get tagged 2 minutes after creation for not having enough information. How long should taggers wait, and do we need a WP:FILTER or bot that checks to see if db-context, db-empty or db-nonsense are being applied too quickly, and if they are, it substitutes a gentler warning and only adds the db tag later? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 18:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

What harm does early tagging do? It ensures the problem isn't missed. It also makes it more likely the article creator will see the tag while they're still active. If the article is fixed, or the tag wasn't appropriate, then the tag can be removed by anybody. Sometimes an admin should wait before speedy deleting an article, but that's a separate issue. --Rob (talk) 19:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
The theory is that a tag two minutes after the creator's first edit on the article, maybe first edit on Wikipedia, that implies that it's so bad that it has to be deleted is bitey. It will probably be hard for a tagger to pass RFA these days if they've got a bunch of 2-minute db-context, db-empty or db-nonsense tags. But we could probably talk RFA people into accepting reasonable alternatives, such as recommending a milder tag, something like "here are the things an article usually needs to have not to get deleted"; and maybe that article would then automatically show up in the db-context or whatever queue 1 or 2 hours later (thanks to some WP:FILTER or bot), unless the tagger double-checks later, finds the article satisfactory, and removes the tag. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 19:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any indication that the author is going to add more. I would say this is an A7 because the article is pretty much about the person who raised the horse. I would say 5 or 10 minutes at least should be given since the last edit to make sure the person is not planning on adding any more content. Though in other cases like "I have a cat" or "I raised a horse", I would say the common sense allows us to just act. We really do need people to start with at least a basic stub vaguely resembling an encyclopedic article. Chillum 19:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
That's a great idea; my only hesitation was that I patrol all the non-image CSD cats except for A7, and I didn't want A7 patrollers to think I was dumping a really annoying article on them for no reason. But I guess you're right, and I'll suggest that at the AfD. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 19:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Even if the author never added more, I don't see this is eligible for a no context. I know nothing about horses or racing, and I can tell this is about a horse named "Jack Horner". And frankly, I'd decline an A7 also, because the only reason it appears to be about a person is unclear writing. This is a case where the NPP'er should have taken 30 seconds to research and either improve the article or prod it.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
What Fabrictramp said. It had context at creation and it's not an A7. The problem is that some taggers interpret "no context" very liberally, while it's actually a very strict criterion and fails if you can understand what the article is about. And that is clear here. Regards SoWhy 19:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
And it the spirit of taking 30 seconds to improve it, I found a different, notable horse named Jack Horner and wrote the article at Jack Horner (racehorse), which was redlinked at the Jack Horner disamb page.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Just a final comment here. The AfD just closed early, with a slightly incorrect summary that there were no keep !votes (I had said redirect, which is a flavor of keep). But since there's no prejudice against recreation, I'm going to recreate it as a redirect.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Redirect away! Old unrelated content being deleted does not disallow a redirect, and it certainly sounds like a good idea. Chillum 20:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Attack pages; also, salting

An article I just deleted began: "Laura Moore (also known as Snora, Lozza, Laura Snora Pants Like My Aunty Nora), is a human actor and historian. Work: Generally Very little, but there is evidence that suggests that Laura may have worked at pubs and Canterbury Cathedral". This was tagged as db-nonsense (G1), but it's an attack page (particularly since the page had been deleted 3 times previously, twice as an attack page). Are we agreed, and do you guys mind if I pass this information on to taggers who mistag as G1? Actually, I'm not a fan of the G1 criterion because it's a trap in so many ways for the unwary tagger, but if we're going to have it, I think it might be good to add "Pages that make fun of someone should be tagged as attack pages (G10), not nonsense (G1)."

Second question, regarding salting: unless there's a compelling reason otherwise, I salt (protect against re-creation) after a page has already been speedied twice, and I think that's roughly what others do. Laura moore was already speedied as an attack page twice, but the last time was in Aug 2007. Do I salt? My vote would be yes; otherwise we've got probably a teenage girl who never knows when she's going to be mocked in Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Salt as required. Salt more for zero notability. Rd232 talk 15:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd be careful about this; that's fine for attack pages, but if it's an actually notable person, you're preventing any non-admin from writing a decent article. It might be better to check first whether the person is notable, and if they are, watchlist it to get rid of any further garbage promptly. Rebecca (talk) 16:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
In my experience almost all attack pages are for non-notable people. We shouldn't salt unnecessarily, but it can be undone; non-admins can request it (though I'm not sure if there's a procedure, or if there's any particular help given in that regard when people try edit a salted page). Rd232 talk 17:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
At a minimum I add the page to my watchlist. I usually don't salt the first go-round, but I'm quick with the block-hammer if they recreate it. If I do salt one like this, I usually do it for a short time (a few weeks or months) so I don't prevent the creation of an article on a notable person.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why anything should be salted first time; it's for dealing with a demonstrated re-creation problem, as far as I'm concerned. Watchlisting is a sensible precaution, especially if it was a nasty attack. Rd232 talk 17:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure how helpful it is to salt, because they often get recreated with an alternate form of the name. Further, there may bne someone else of the same name who is notable. Like any full protection, it's not for use unless necessary. I do not use it until warning messages fail, and blocks fail because another account is used. DGG (talk) 21:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
This is one of the reasons I rarely salt the first time -- I'd rather know if they recreate the attack page than have them change it slightly and it slips through.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I can see occasions where first time salting would make sense. If someone created Ron Ritzman is a shithead (or any other name) it's extremely unlikely that a good faith article could be created under that title. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

That's one of the few cases where I'd salt -- if I just can't imagine any way a non-vandalism, non-attack article could ever have that name. Now that I've said that, watch, next week the band Ron Ritzman is a shithead will have a number one album... ;-P --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd expect this to be even less productive than salting a title like Ron Ritzman. People who create articles like that are dumb - delete it and indef block them, and if they still don't like him when they come back a day or a week later, they'll more likely than not recreate it at the exact same title, so it'll pop up on your watchlist and you can delete and indef again. Salting it just prods them into recreating it somewhere else like Ron Ritzman is a dolt or such, where you won't notice it. —Korath (Talk) 05:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Side note, I "got the t-shirt" :)
00:30, 16 August 2008 Exploding Boy (talk | contribs) deleted "Ron Ritzman" ‎ (CSD G10: Attack Page) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Another question came up today on attack pages; WP:CSD#G10 begins: "Pages that serve no purpose but to disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity." I notice on the talk page that there were questions about whether attacks on Stetson hats, or theories, constituted attack pages; "entities" doesn't make it clear. Can we say "people or groups of people"? That would include defamatory statements about businesses or ethnicities, but not hats. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 03:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I view the G10 criterion as covering all attack pages in general, not just people. If someone enters an "article" which consists of what is purely a rant against a company or product (including hats), it should be speedy deleted as G10. Usually these are fairly easy to pick out; even if G10 hadn't existed, the vast majority of those articles could have been deleted as G3 (vandalism). The opposite extreme, where the article consists of extreme praise are usually G11 (advertising) candidates, while good faith attempts at an article usually try to strike a reasonable balance, or at least cite their criticism or praise to some independent, and are usually not speedy deleted. Getting rid of these attack pages is especially crucial if the subject of the attack is a living person, but the criterion applies in general. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:34, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Deletereason-dropdown#"Blatant"

It turned into a fight, but incivility just gets my juices going. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Deprecating GFDL 1.2-only as a valid image license on en.wiki

A discussion at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en, which was advertised on the Village Pump and in the Signpost, has reached the consensus to deprecate GFDL 1.2-only as a valid image license on the English Wikipedia. (The German Wikipedia also did this back in November.) I wanted to advertise this here as well, to give everyone a chance to raise concerns before it is implemented. Our plan so far is to replace the existing {{GFDL-1.2-en}} and {{GFDL-1.2}} templates with the following:

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please raise them here. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify the relevance of this here - if the proposal goes through as above, then F3 will need rewording to incorporate images which have been tagged as GFDL-1.2-only for more than five days. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 17:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd deprecate all GFDL-only as image licenses, because it's terrible for reusing images. But that's another day's work. tfeSil (aktl) 08:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Well assuming the comunity doesn't go insane and vote down the new licensing scheme everyting licensed as GFDL 1.2 or later will soon be converted to GFDL 1.3 / CC-by-SA-3.0 per meta:Licensing update, after wich I do agree that new GFDL only material should be depreciated. --Sherool (talk) 20:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
      • There's no reason we have to wait until (or if) the license change goes through to deprecate 1.2-only. The German Wikipedia did it months ago. Assuming the license change does go through, we'll have less than 3 months to migrate everything. Not having to deal with 1.2-only images on en.wiki will make that process a lot smoother. Kaldari (talk) 20:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Here is the language I would like to propose adding to CSD#F3: "Also, files exclusively licensed under versions of the GFDL prior to 1.3 (without allowing for later versions) may be deleted." This will allow us to implement the final draft of the deprecation notice decided on at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en. Please see discussion there for more info. Kaldari (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Let us do this thing! There aren't any more of these photos on EN. If there is a great reason not to, let's discuss, but it's already been discussed at length to same conclusion. DO IT!! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 02:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Putting articles in limbo

A few years ago, as part of a brainstorming effort, I came up with the idea of creating a new namespace, "Limbo." You can see the discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion_reform/Brainstorming#Limbo:_New_Namespace. The general idea is this:

We can create a new namespace within Wikipedia. Moving an article to the new namespace is sort of like putting it in limbo. Articles in the new namespace will not go out to Google and Yahoo and mirror sites, and perhaps will only be visible to logged-in registered users. After entering limbo, an article will be considered for deletion or return to the article namespace by the normal procedures. Speedily moving an article to limbo takes some of the instant gratification out of posting an unwelcome article on Wikipedia, and so might discourage some would-be posters of unwelcome articles. People who voted against criteria for speedy deletion might vote in favor of allowing administrators to speedily transfer to the new namespace.

Would the Limbo namespace be useful for unreferenced biographies of living people? Fg2 (talk) 11:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

we have enough trouble with the present process, and so do the new users. The more steps and layers, the more intimidating--and probably the more chances of something going wrong. simple process, and careful people watching. And, perhaps, clever programming of the abuse filter. Judging by what it's catching, it might just make a difference. DGG (talk) 03:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
This is far too similar to userification for my liking. While placing an article in userspace does confer a certain air of ownership, it can still be edited by others. Perhaps a more expeditious route to enabling the kind of "Limbo" you imagine is a template to be placed at the top of userfied articles, inviting others to contribute improvements to them. Dcoetzee 02:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Revert instead of speedy?

If a page has been edited many times by many editors, and someone nominates the page as db-spam, I'm typically declining with the rationale "reverting to a non-promotional version is better than deleting". I thought that was standard, but I don't see that anywhere in this policy, and someone is questioning whether I should have declined their speedy on my talk page (User_talk:Dank55#Anantara Solutions). Shouldn't we mention this someone in WP:CSD, maybe under WP:CSD#Non-criteria? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 18:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm gonna boldly add something like this to the db-spam template, adding the "and there are no non-promotional revisions available to revert to" idea to it like with G12. ViperSnake151  Talk  18:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
WP:CSD#Procedure for administrators: "Before deleting a page, check the page history to assess whether it would instead be possible to revert and salvage a previous version."
And really, that goes without saying. --Amalthea 18:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Right, it seems clear to you and me, but it's certainly not clear to the taggers, I decline several speedies a day where there are clearly non-promotional previous versions. Perhaps the problem is that advice is in the "Procedure for administrators" section. I agree with ViperSnake that we have to make it more obvious to the taggers in some way. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 19:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
It seems sensible to revise the wording for G11 to perhaps add "where it is not possible to revert and salvage a previous version". This would not be a change of policy but would clarify the definition and hopefully reduce the incidence of incorrect nominations. Incidentally, is there a need for something along the lines of {{uw-aiv}} for editors who repeatedly mis-report for CSD? AndrewRT(Talk) 23:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
To be blunt - it's called laziness. They know they ought to, but they don't, because it would require too much effort and they have a lot of articles to go through. What we need ideally is an interface or tool that will facilitate (and compel) examination of previous versions when tagging or speedying. Dcoetzee 23:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

What is the template to put on userpages to alert them that an article they have created has had a speedy deletion tag put on it?

What is the template to put on userpages to alert them that an article they have created has had a speedy deletion tag put on it?. Please help ive completely forgot. ISmashed TALK! 16:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You can find the respective notice template on each db template, and they are also listed on the policy page (or some subpage?). By default, use {{db-<criterion>-notice}}, like {{db-a7-notice}}. --Amalthea 17:04, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks ISmashed TALK! 17:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

A7 issues

While all the other criteria seem reasonable, A7 seems like it describes reasons for non-speedy deletion. In particular, the way to meet A7 is to simply list why the subject is significant, which can't be done if the page is speedy-deleted. As a normal deletion criteria, such a reason could be added during review, or the lack of such a criterion could be verified. In contrast, most, or all, of the other criteria are not nearly so subjective. 173.57.58.83 (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

That's true (G11 is also pretty subjective - T1 was worse than A7, and has thankfully been repealed). What keeps A7 having support is that it's very frequently occurring, and is relatively objective, in that it only looks for "an assertion of significance" as opposed to evaluating notability directly. It's my opinion that this isn't a very effective condition - it's both easy to circumvent with an invented assertion of significance, and ineffective at detecting implicit assertions of significance that require specific background or experience to evaluate (for example, saying an athlete played for a certain team). Nevertheless, the burden is on the article writer to show that the subject of a new article matters at all - it would create overwhelming load for us to do a background check on every such article. Dcoetzee 01:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Isn't that what the standard deletion procedure is for though? The particular problem I think this suffers is this scenario: a page is created which technically fails A7, but could be made compliant with the addition of a single sentence. The page is speedy-deleted on grounds of A7. Now, rather than add that one sentence, either a deletion review is made (which might never pass if the significance is lost on people not in the relevant community), or the entire page is recreated (often ending in the page being redeleted for having been deleted before). 173.57.58.83 (talk) 01:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth G4 does not apply to recreation of speedy deleted articles. The primary argument against repealing A7 is that AfD wouldn't be able to handle the load. It's never been tried, but it does seem like quite a large number of articles. A lot of people do favor PROD in place of A7 though. Dcoetzee 09:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Some statistics: about 12-13000 pages are deleted every month under A7. This compares with about 2000 each for PROD and AFD, so if we repealed A7 the other deletion processes would be completely overwhelmed. What's more the vast majority of these articles would get deleted anyway, so the extra effort would be largely in vain. Imagine having a full 5 day deletion discussion on an article which said "Fred Bloggs is a 14 year old student. He goes to Someschool in Sometown. He is really cool." Hut 8.5 10:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok, good point. Is there any way that A7 could be rephrased to make it so that such pages can still be speedy-deleted, but pages that might have their significance lost on non-community-members but are otherwise still significant can't? Alternatively, A7 could be given a mandatory fix-it-yourself period instead of the normal deletion review. So anything tagged for speedy-delete by A7 wouldn't be deleted until the tag had been there for 5 days or so. No deletion review, just a chance to fix things. Hmm... actually I don't think that second idea would work, but maybe it can give someone else an idea of what could. 173.57.58.83 (talk) 16:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Of the articles deleted via A7, at least 75% are completely and irretrievably unfixable., eg. a current example I just deleted: "Peter Somename is a 16 year old male who's nickname is Doogie. This page is dedicated to the life, activities and rumors of so called 'Doogie'. this page needs heavy editing to come but will be great in the end." -- complete contents. There is no need for any elaboration of process to deal with this. Of the other 25%, the problem is that admin standards differ, and the deletion depends upon who gets there first. DGG (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
What DGG says. The problem with A7 is that many admins use it far too often on valid articles. I find it often that a page gets deleted while I was editing it to decline it. But no change to A7's wording will make those admins stop that. You need to tell them to be more careful instead. I'm a very inclusionistic myself but even I would not want to remove A7 (and funny enough, despite that stance, my main admin area is CSD^^). Regards SoWhy 19:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm glad (I think) that I'm not the only one that happens to. Even worse is when the page is deleted 5 minutes after I decline then speedy with an edit summary that indicates I'm working on improving it. Sure, I could just restore it, but the wall gets dents when I start banging my head against it. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Go to the admin and tell them to respect your decision. I'm fairly convinced that at least some of them are able to learn from their mistakes ;-) SoWhy 19:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not shy about that. (I figure if I goof or irritate someone, I'd like to be told in a nice, pleasant, constructive way). Results are mixed. ;-) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
See? Mixed means that at least some of them may learn from it. Take the rest to DRV every time until they do as well ;-) SoWhy 22:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
So there's no real way to prevent those 25% extra deletions, or at least reduce them? Ok, I know than of that 25%, a good chunk would end up deleted anyway, but what about the rest? 173.57.58.83 (talk) 06:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Only if you are able to change the way some admins think. A change to the rules (which are quite strict anyway) does not affect admins who break them anyway. SoWhy 17:57, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
You could enforce the existing rules more strictly. If a problematic admin sees a load of their deletions overturned at DRV then they are likely to be more cautious in future. Hut 8.5 18:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If you want a reform, how about userfication? Another possibility is a system like F4:If no assertiob of notability is added within 4 days, it is deleted.--Ipatrol (talk) 04:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Userfication rarely works. Most userfied pages are never rewritten and moved back to mainspace. Most A7 articles are unsalvageable anyway. Mr.Z-man 04:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

As said above, most A7 are clear cases, and cannot be made non-A7 by editing. But indeed, some are. We could use a delay for some of them; normally, they're tagged as A7, but there's an option to delay, with an associated tracking category where interested users can try to save articles and let the author a bit more time to assert notability, say 4 days. It would be used when the speedy tagger or reviewing admin think that the article may be salvageable, after making a google search for example. But of course, it would not be used for clear cases. A similar method could be used for A1, A3 or G11. Cenarium (talk) 14:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

"Unambiguous advertising or promotion"?

Okay, I think we've run out of steam at MediaWiki talk:Deletereason-dropdown#"Blatant". We're talking about G11, and whatever we choose, User:Rjd0060 would like for the drop-down edit summary of G11 deletions to match the first few words at WP:CSD#G11. User:DGG feels some variant of the word "promotion" is important. I don't like the negative connotation of "blatant", and User:David Levy says that "unambiguous" would be an acceptable substitute. Putting these all together, how do you guys feel about "Unambiguous advertising or promotion" for G11? No one has proposed a change in the rest of the G11 text, or any change in practice. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 23:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Either way is fine with me. Blatant does seem a little bitey, but the people who come here to promote themselves/their company/their band/their novel often strain my ability to AGF. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Do you have to say unambiguous advertising? Doesn't that fall under promotion? I would just stick to promotion. If it's unambiguous advertising then it is by definition promotional isn't it? Less is more? ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
"Clear and unambiguous"? –Whitehorse1 02:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Midnight, I agree with the logic, but I really rarely say "promotional" for G11, because I'm often deleting the ones that aren't advertising as A7 instead (or, sometimes, shuffling them over into A7 and letting someone else look at it). Any other objections to "Unambiguous advertising or promotion"? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 01:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, changing to "Unambiguous advertising or promotion", here and on the drop-down list. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 22:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

1-hour warnings

For db-context and db-empty, and maybe db-nonsense, could we either make it standard operating procedure (and automate this) to move the questionable stuff into a subdirectory of the creator's userspace and and then have the articles self-destruct if they haven't been improved in say 24 hours, or maybe leave the article in mainspace and give the creator a little time to add material? It's difficult to pass RFA these days if someone has a history of adding db-context or db-empty tags 2 minutes after creation, and I don't like the idea of CSD being a kind of trap for the unwary tagger. And the RFA voters have a point, you know: some current CSD practices come across as a little bitey. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 13:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it is important to keep our encyclopedia free of empty and nonsensical pages. Pages lacking context could be given some time, but if your article is at the stage of a blank page then it belongs in your userspace. If it is nonsense then it really does not belong at all. I am all for allowing time for people to add context when an article is lacking, but I don't think there should be a set time period as even with articles lacking context there will be times when it is simply better not to have it in the mainspace. Chillum 15:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Nonsense probably should be considered separately from context and empty. If people are applying the nonsense tag correctly (for an article like "sdfgdsfkgdyhkflmaololol;;'dsfg", instead for an article like See-through frog), I don't see a problem deleting it within a minute.
Context and empty are a bit different than nonsense. There I see two issues -- one is that the tags are often misused (or used when the editor could just as easily have added one sentence to make it a valid stub). A delay isn't going to help, although sometimes educating the tagger does. The other issue is that new editors often need a number of edits over a period of time to get even a valid stub together. (I blush to think how many edits it took me to add my first reference on Wikipedia). Assuming that the speedy tag itself doesn't scare off the new editor, then a delay might be helpful. Ultimately, the solution is to get the NPPers to patrol 50 articles or so back. I wish I had the magic wand for that -- my theory is there's an adrenaline rush in tagging that article seconds after creation, and working on articles that are a couple of hours old doesn't match that video game type of thrill.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, that was helpful. The first-person-shooter approach to tagging gets criticized a lot at RFA. On the other hand, right after the newbie editor has created their page is the most likely time you can catch them and engage them. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
the problem is to figure out how to engage them and teach them, and the same time you're saying -- as you must-- that what they;re doing is not going to be accepted.. Once you've said that, people tend not to listen to the rest. How about reworking all the templates and reasons to say something like This does not yet meet the standards.... and say specifically what is needed for that particular article. Even if the person is not in good faith, it makes things much clearer. DGG (talk) 03:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree that CSD bites newbies - who don't know about sub-pages / user-space, citations (it took me umpteen edits to add my first reference), wwatchlists, WP procedure, etc. - or even simple wiki-markup like headings. Hence messages to newbies about sub-standard articles must be both friendly and crystal clear in plain English, not the meaningless bland bureaucratese of most message templates. CSD tags w/o msgs on the editor's Talk page should be treated as WP:DE except for gross violations of WP:BLP and hate-mongering.

A5

A5 should be removed as it is better to replace them with soft redirects. Who supports or opposes this? -- IRP ☎ 01:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about it, that does sound rather logical. I don't know if that means A5 needs to be removed, since I guess there still could be situations where you would want something deleted rather than having a soft redirect, but for most of them a SR sounds very appropriate. Perhaps we should just amend the text to recommend a soft redirect as an alternative? -- Ned Scott 02:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
You can have soft-redirects with or without deleting the (prior) content. So, soft redirects aren't a CSD issue at all. A5 makes sense, as long as we wish to delete non-encyclopedic content, which I think we do. I don't like soft-redirects, since they means editors would see bluelinks where they should see redlinks to indicate there's no Wikipedia article on topic anymore. Wikipedia isn't a place to search for topics on other Wikis. If it should be, then that's a discussion unrelated to CSD. --Rob (talk) 03:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Soft redirects aren't a CSD issue, but deletion is. I think his point is not to say that the CSD policy should proscribe the use of soft redirects, but rather that the policy should not proscribe deletion when it may be preferable to simply redirect instead. As someone who always prefers keeping content in the page history rather than deleting it (where it is inaccessible to non-admins), this seems like a good idea to me. --causa sui talk 04:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


Also, search results give Wikipedia results and also since a few months, relevant entries from sister projects, so a soft redirect will give less information. Cenarium (talk) 03:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Another good reason for this is that it discourages spurious recreation. I'm all in favor. Dcoetzee 05:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We can NOINDEX soft redirect pages of that nature if this is the case. ViperSnake151  Talk  23:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

    • Bad idea. It simply takes an extra click to get from the soft redirect to the article and in a few months won't even do that. All this does is makes the job of the search engine spiders more difficult. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

db-spam or not?

Have a look at User:Joergkoehler, tagged as db-spam. Some people say "Don't delete an article as spam if you can get rid of 90% of it and leave a useful article", but my experience is that if I bring this to AfD instead, they're going to tell me that I should have deleted it as db-spam. Notability is difficult to assess from ghits; these days, companies like this can easily get hits on informationweek.com and msnbc.com and even reuters.com's press release section. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:02, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, now it's been deleted, so I'll make it a general question: an article is written "Our company makes X, X is the product preferred by many companies, here's a page of details on the product". Let's say I can't find out in 3 minutes of combing through ghits whether there's any notability and whether the claims are credible. Should I ask a wikiproject for advice (I haven't had much success doing this with software or business products), AfD because I don't know what to do, stubify it, or db-spam it for general tone? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
My experience is that if it's filled with positive adjectives and spin that make it look like they were written by a marketing department rather than by a disinterested third party, and if it is sourced to the corporation itself rather than reliable third party press coverage, it will be deleted via db-spam. Certainly the deleted page in question meets both of these criteria. You can delete the peacock prose, but how can you fix the missing sourcing by cutting it back? I would have deleted it. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Depends on your hope that the company is notable enough. If you think it is notable, and there is information which would make it at least a stub, then stub it (and probably tag it with {{notability}} and/or ask a wikiproject), if you think it is not notable, {{db-spam}} it, same if there is no information that can be resqued (or where it would need such a serious rewrite that a fresh start would be less work). If the article looks reasonable but notability may be an issue, then maybe AfD it (note that it does not make much difference where the article is, userspace and mainspace eventually end up in google hits ..). --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

If you think it's spam but are less than 100% sure, you can always tag it {{db-spam}} yourself rather than delete it yourself and let someone else either agree with your or not. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Add a time delay for G8

I propose adding a time delay for G8 - I see it being abused unintentionally in the middle of discussions with slow editors. Article is being edited by 1 or 2 newbie editors; it gets a csd tag slapped on it within hours (often for notability, lack of sources, &c), sometimes it's deleted before the author even understands what has happened. OK, we're not so friendly to newbies, no problem -- at least there's a talk page to have a steady discussion about whether or how to create the article properly, right?

But no, the talk page gets speedied also, almost immediately. This can be very confusing.

Proposed alternative : a talk page for a deleted article can only be deleted after the article has been deleted for [a week]. Admin-aware scripts can still find these pages automatically; and it's friendlier to new editors. If the talk page is spam or vandalism, as people seem to have suggested in past versions of this discussion, it can still be speedied under the appropriate criterion. +sj + 18:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I support this, for talk pages of deleted pages only (things like redirects to deleted pages can be speedied right away). –Drilnoth (T • C) 18:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, my rule for orphaned talk pages is orphaned + no talk page activity in the past seven days. (I also generate a report currently set to update twice weekly here: Wikipedia:Database reports/Orphaned talk pages.) The colored rows are the ones I used to bot delete. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I support retaining Talk pages for a while, but I'd say 4 weeks, to allow for illness, holidays, real life, etc. I also suggest a banner should be placed on a deleted article's Talk page to: link to the deletion discussion or other explanation of the deletion; tell the editors what they can do if they think the deletion was unjustified or they have found sources to show notability, etc. --Philcha (talk) 10:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, but if it would help get this through, why not use something like PROD instead of speedy deletion? Gives the editor a chance to get their act together if the material's legit, and still gets it off the project if they can't be bothered getting it referenced, or if the references don't exist. Rebecca (talk) 10:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

So when I close a TfD as delete, I can delete the template itself under the TfD, and the /doc subpage under G8, but I have to wait a week to delete the talk page under the same criterion? Happy‑melon 17:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

if there is significant content or discussion on a talk pages of an article I speedy, I either don't delete the talk p, or transfer the material to the author's talk p. (It would be nice having a script to do that.) DGG (talk) 03:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up, SJ (and great work with both OLPC and WP, btw), I had been wondering how to handle this. I didn't know McBride had something automated ... that's fantastic. I'm not going to make a list to delete something 7 days from now, nor am I at all happy about letting things sit around in the speedy queue, so that every admin has to review the same articles. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose as instruction creep. The tiny minority of such talk pages that are useful can be (and generally are) undeleted and/or kept as appropriate. Stifle (talk) 14:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't the deletion tag already say something like "Not all such pages should be deleted; some should be kept for administrative purposes"? If so, we should perhaps strengthen that notice, but no need to prohibit deleting the talk page immediately. Nyttend (talk) 16:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

What does sourcing on a project this size mean? Some stats (finally)

I commented on the above !vote, and by happenstance a nice bot runner answered a question I had asked at the bots page many moons ago. I wanted to know how much of WP is referenced. I recieved a partial reply today at User_talk:Peregrine_Fisher#Referencing_stats. Just something to keep in mind when saying we'll (speedily) delete XXX if it doesn't have a source, which is a slow process. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

From the comment, it is about articles with no <ref> </ref> tags. That is very different from having no references, or even from having no inline references. So I don't see it as being very informative. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:43, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
The actual numbers, but limited as David E says, are i think at User:Dr pda/Article referencing statistics. Even with the limitation,10 months ago stub articles averaged 0.14 refs per paragraph; those old ones are now at 0.24, and new ones now average 0.55, and the data for all other classes of articles is comparable. Incredibly rapid improvement, if you think of it. Half a million new articles in that period, and about 1.5 million new references. The way to improve the referencing process is apparently to continue doing things as we are now. DGG (talk) 04:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of indefinitely blocked user talk pages

I have raised the issue of deleting the user talk pages of indefinitely blocked editors at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Deletion of indefinitely blocked user talk pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome. --Vassyana (talk) 09:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Read this before proposing new criteria: propose Hide - Show option

When I want to access a certain topic=section here, the template "Read this before proposing new criteria" takes a lot of space. But new critera are not proposebd by new users. So I propose to give the box a Show - Hide option (default: Hide). -DePiep (talk) 21:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Seeing that many people still do not really read that "this", I do not think hiding will serve a purpose. Regards SoWhy 23:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Addressing problem editors, not imaginary problems

It's no secret that Wikipedia has slowly grown a sick little crop of people we might call "content removal specialists" — folks who obsessively look for new and sneaky ways to remove content from Wikipedia, often going so far as to attempt to formulate new policies specifically designed to remove information without attempting to keep it (quick: how many of these types will actually try to find sources for an article before sending it to an early grave?)...a horrifying offense in the eyes of any true encyclopedist. These people invent imaginary epidemics and go about fearmongering, latching onto any tool — BLP! BLP! — which looks promising as a new avenue to destroy information.

Just the other day I saw a Content Removal Specialist delete several paragraphs from an article, rendering it unreadable, with no attempt to source the information or even address the gap left by its removal. "BLP" was his justification. The article was about a man who had been dead for several years. Yup, that's about where we're at.

In view of Wikipedia's declining rates of increase in participation, article creation, and membership, I suggest that such problem editors are a burgeoning danger to the long-term health of the project, and that instead of constantly debating the newest demands of these Content Removal Specialists, we should be banning them, starting here and now. I propose a new Speedy Deletion Category for the deletion (meaning banning and salting) of all Content Removal Specialists. Sign below with your support. Mr. IP 《Defender of Open Editing》 09:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, how incredibly friendly of you. </sarcasm> --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Editors who act disruptively are already blocked. As for "content removal specialists" I would say that far more common than "deletionists" and "inclusionists" are people who have differing policy based opinions. I don't think it is true that we have a declining rates of anything here. I can't really support your idea as it is, it is not clear who you are talking about. Chillum 23:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
While Mr. IP's language is extreme, I'm afraid I know of a few editors who look very like the "content removal specialists" Mr. IP describes. It might be worth stating the problem and possible solutions in more moderate terms. --Philcha (talk) 01:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
How about we ban editors who treat Wikipedia as a battleground and would rather ban editors they disagree with than discuss things instead? (Also, you may want to remove the references to "fearmongering" in your post, its rather ironic looking based on the tone you use). Mr.Z-man 02:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand the motive of the proposal but I think the appropriate first step is to create and start using a user warning template along the lines of {{uw-aiv}} for those who misuse CSD, PROD (or indeed other deletionist tools). AndrewRT(Talk) 19:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, let's template those evil deletionists, that'll show 'em. Mr.Z-man 19:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

db-copyvio & db-spam

If the Wikipedia page is both recent and a copy of the named url, and there's no GFDL license on the webpage and no reason to believe the text is public domain, I make the assumption that the Wikipedia page is a copyvio. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 18:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, they are still copyvio in those cases. And a G12 deletion is much less of a judgment call than a G11 one, thus you can make less mistakes^^ SoWhy 19:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
On the other hand if the content was posted by someone from the company which owns the website and the page was deleted as a copyright violation they can get the material undeleted by relicensing it, if the page was deleted as advertising they can't. Hut 8.5 19:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
If the company or organization seems notable, I stubbify it, and that takes care of both issues. In practice, the likelihood of a web page copy being a usable article is so low that i do not think we want to routinely encourage licensing them. DGG (talk) 13:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Animals with no assertion of notability

I have been encountering here and there articles about animals, not species mind you, but individual animals that make no assertion of notability. Articles like:

Buttons is a horse that lives in a field outside my house. He likes to eat hay!

or

My cat is 4 years old and likes to jump onto the counter. His name is Timmy.

or

Michael Gleeson of Singland Stud farm outside Limerick, Ireland bred "Jack Horner" as a yearling.

Sometimes these articles go into great length regarding the grooming habits and the finer points of the animal's personality. However there is no assertion of notability. Often these articles end up in AfD sitting around for a week while everyone states how obvious it is that it should be deleted and ask why such articles are not speedyable.

I propose that A7 be amended to require that at least an assertion of an animal's importance is needed to avoid deletion. This does not of course cover articles about a species of animal. Chillum 20:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The first two cases I would speedy as a test page (or vandalism, if I knew the editor had a history that would warrant that assumption.) The last one I still say should have at least a quick search to see if a rewrite is in order. In this particular case, the article was easily rewritten to be about a different notable animal. But even if that wasn't the case, prod or speedying as a test page (with a nice note to the article creator, advising them that a bit more context and sources would be super) would still work.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Considering articles about people's pets are very common and do not fall under vandalism or test edits as defined by CSD then yes I do think it is needed. The problem is not a lack of context or sources, it is that the animal in question is often just a family pet with no encyclopedic value. CSD does not really apply as it is and calling them test pages or vandalism would be a misuse of CSD. Prod takes 5 days and such articles should not be up for that long. Most of these pages are A7'd anyways because admins just use common sense. I think that policy should reflect this practice.

I fail to see why we would require an assertion of notability from a person, but not a cat. Chillum 20:27, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Are we gonna have to start using the term "mammal" rather than person? Anyway, we're talking about like "specific" animals, not a species or anything.


This better? ViperSnake151  Talk  20:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Certainly an improvement in my opinion. It would allow these articles to be quickly dealt with within policy instead of using WP:AfD or WP:CSD#IAR as is done now. Chillum 20:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I doubt such articles are created frequent enough to warrant a change to A7 or a new criterion. Just prod those few that are created, it deals with it quickly enough. SoWhy 20:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The rewording also prevents A7 from being applied to dead people. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, I've seen 3 animals recently, and Chillum says he's seen a lot. I'd just add "animal" ... the fewer words, the better. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 21:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

SoWhy, articles about people's pets are very common, I would say even more common than garage bands. It is the first thing that occurs to many people to write about. Chillum 21:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Moo! Wikidemon (talk) 21:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Funny, in my experience bands outweigh animals by far. In the 1000 or so speedies I declined, I can only find two for animals tagged as A7. I doubt it's really that much... SoWhy 21:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Maybe animals just like Chillum better than us? (I'm in the bands far outnumber animals camp. Unless you're counting the pages about middle school students who are called animals... *grin*)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I also think that animal or specific animal would be better than all that added above. The part about living should not be there either. We can say at the end "This does not apply to articles about animal species" if "individual" is not clear enough. Chillum 21:23, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How about we just replace the word "person" with "individual", so we don't increase the word count. --Rob (talk) 03:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is common enough to change the wording over. I've done lots and lots of newpage patrol and CSDing and I haven't seen this come up really at all. If I did I probably had such an easy time figuring out another reason to delete it that it wasn't memorable (e.g. test page, as Fabrictramp says). I'd also be comfortable using common sense in obvious cases. If we have to I'd go for 'individual' so as not to increase the word count, but it still makes it murkier. Seems CREEPy. delldot ∇. 14:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Instruction creep is when rules creep in from policy. The fact is that many of these articles are just quietly A7'd anyways. I just thought policy should document this practice. Till policy reflects this practice we will just have to rely on WP:CSD#IAR. Chillum 15:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Just because some admins ignore policy if they don't like it, does not mean we have to change policy to reflect that. Quite the opposite, we should encourage those admins to use the proper deletion methods, i.e. WP:PROD or WP:AFD, instead. IAR does not mean "If you don't like a rule, ignore it". SoWhy 16:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
First off, policy is meant to describe our practices, not to proscribe them. This is a very important point. Secondly, nobody should ignore policy because they don't like it, rather policy should only be ignored when it prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. I would say that deleting "My cat is a tabby, it likes to eat birds. His name is Albert and he purrs" is improving and maintaining Wikipedia, and if a rule prevents me from doing that then I am allowed to ignore it. This is not for just admins, this is for all users. I welcome the scrutiny of the community for any such action, my contributions are open to all.
I would be silly to leave that up for 5 days. If it said "Timmy is a dog who saved a man from a fire and got on the news" then that is an assertion of importance and should be investigated. It is my goal as well to bring practice in line with policy, I would just rather move the policy than go around changing the actions of dozens of people. Chillum 17:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Policy is written consensus. It's what the community decided should be followed by all people. If you ignore it, you ignore consensus and you need a good reason to do it. "It would be silly" is not a good reason to ignore policy. There are tons of pages someone might find silly, ranging from userboxes to "secret pages". But still you cannot go around deleting them just because you think it's improving Wikipedia. The reason we have strict criteria is that there was no consensus to speedy delete anything else. Then you should respect it unless keeping them for five days really damages Wikipedia. Articles about animals do not harm Wikipedia, so there is no reason to apply IAR. Regards SoWhy 17:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm worried that we are going to wind up with endless lists of the stuff that can be speedied under A7. Why not just amend A7 to speedy anything where the notability of the subject, whatever it might be, is not asserted? --causa sui talk 19:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Mmm, can of worms, tasty... Could work if there was an easier way to userfy pages, as an alternative to speedy deletion - maybe with a change to Twinkle? But really such userfied pages would need some kind of auto-deletion, after a week say. Long enough to work on, but outside the mainspace. Rd232 talk 19:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd have a strong objection to changing the current "importance" to "notability". That will slam the door on a large number of good faith attempts to create an article because most new editors have no clue about what we consider notable. As to expanding A7 to cover anything, I don't think I'm comfortable with that. It's already misused (often through poor understanding of the criteria) on people as it is; if you expand it to include subjects where Joe Q. Editor won't know if there's a clear claim of importance (say, nuclear physics or Hindu religious festivals), it could become a deletion nightmare. (Take this with a grain of salt. I'm in the camp that thinks speedy should be for the most blatantly hopeless things and for the articles where there's harm to the 'pedia to leave it up for 5 days.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
SoWhy, I have nothing against articles about animals. It is articles that are not in the least bit encyclopedic that are the problem. If you have any problem with a specific use of IAR then I will certainly listen, but I don't think I can accept that policy is policy is policy and should not be ignored. Articles that are not encyclopedic do damage the encyclopedia. Chillum 19:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Can you explain how using PROD instead damages the encyclopedia? SoWhy 20:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
5 days of content that does not belong in an enyclopedia is in the encyclopedia. I would think that fact would be evident. Chillum 20:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
And how is that damaging? What gets broken/who gets hurt if it exists for 5 days? We keep a lot of pages for 5 days that are not encyclopedic under WP:NOT and use PROD instead and yet noone argues that this practice damages Wikipedia. Yes, I understand that those pages are not encyclopedic, but that does not make them damaging (like copyvio or attack pages). SoWhy 20:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I believe that keeping clearly ridiculous - as opposed to merely unencyclopedic - content (e.g. "Timmy is a five year old neutered tabby cat, and he is my pet and my friend") does damage Wikipedia. If I, as a new editor, had stumbled across such an article, I would have lost a lot of respect for WP and would have been less inclined to spend my energy here. Even a prod tag wouldn't minimize that reaction - I would be quite unimpressed that it takes five days to delete something like that.--Kubigula (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
What is the benefit of keeping it around for 5 days? Chillum 21:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
In the first two examples you gave, absolutely no benefit. In the third example, however, if this was a notable animal it gives people, especially the article creator, time to learn what arcane things Wikipedia requires, time to search them out, and time to add them. Sure, they could start from scratch if the article is deleted, but they've already been slapped down by deletion and aren't nearly as motivated to figure out what needs to be done.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

A7 isn't necessarily the criterion to use:

Buttons is a horse that lives in a field outside my house. He likes to eat hay!
Whose house? Where? The article doesn't say. How can editors expand it? They cannot. It has no context.
My cat is 4 years old and likes to jump onto the counter. His name is Timmy.
Whose cat? Again, there's no context. There's simply no way of identifiying the subject.
Michael Gleeson of Singland Stud farm outside Limerick, Ireland bred "Jack Horner" as a yearling.
This, in contrast, has context. There are names and places here. It's possible that this is widely-documented creature. Editors other than the creator can use the names given to look for sources, and find out. And, indeed, that's exactly what at one editor did at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Horner (horse).

Uncle G (talk) 22:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no indication that is the same horse. None of the other information in the original article was found, only a horse with the same name. It was created with sources that did not mention the facts in the original article. The original article was deleted, and another article about a documented horse was written. Chillum 22:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I suppose all that is a bit off topic. It does not seem that my idea is gaining much ground, so I will leave it for another day. Chillum 22:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't understand why animals weren't included when the rule was written. The policy doesn't mention it, but there is a clear consensus for it based on the existing AFD debates about such articles. - Mgm|(talk) 23:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd support adding individual animals to A7, provided this occurs frequently enough. Some individual animals are notable, like (say) famous racing stallions, or well-known zoo animals, but it's easy to back this up with an assertion of significance. If there's anything I feel strongly about, it's that these are absolutely not test pages - if this were a different wiki (say WikiPets) they would be totally okay. Dcoetzee 23:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Indisputable cases do not occur all that frequently. Most of what does not fall under other guidelines is in fact disputable and, often, ends up by beings ourced and found notable, or merged, Speedy is not to be used to shortcut what needs discussion. DGG (talk) 05:07, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think this comes up often enough to need to be added. Stifle (talk) 14:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I can't believe we really need a rule for this. If an article is really such patent nonsense as "Billy is a horse who lives in a field. He likes to eat hay!", does anyone think they would need authorization from policy to delete it? Seriously? If we are going to extend policy wonkery to such obvious cases, then think about this: you would also need policy to authorize you to delete articles about non-notable screwdrivers. The next time someone makes a bunch of articles about "There is a screwdriver located in Bob's Hardware Store on 14th and Main", will you rush to the policy page to gain consensus to delete these articles, just because the policy doesn't explicitly authorize it? --causa sui talk 21:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, he should. Or just PROD it and be done with it. If the policy says "Admins may only delete pages as authorized by policy", there was consensus to write it that way. So why should you replace that consensus with your own opinion unless it's really needed to avoid harm (real harm, not "someone might have a low opinion of Wikipedia because they see such an article")? SoWhy 22:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I have a better idea: If he's an admin, he should speedy it, and if he's not, he should {{db}} it. It is a grave misinterpretation of Wikipedia's core principles to think that we need policy to authorise every possible administrative action, or that any snippet of policy should be taken more seriously than building the encyclopedia (aside from those required by law). --causa sui talk 23:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
You don't really need to be authorized by policy to delete something. If the part of the policy that says "Admins may only delete pages as authorized by policy" prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, then you can ignore it. Chillum 22:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
True enough, but I don't think it justifies instruction creep to say "You could always ignore all rules!" The content of policy pages should reflect that they are not proscriptive, and I worry that the CSD policy suggests that it is. --causa sui talk 20:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

T1 deprecated and non-template templates

Can someone point me towards the discussion that deprecated T1, please?

At the moment, there does not seem to be any criteria to delete nonsense templates or clearly inappropriate content, without the wait of TfD. I've taked template:Occubox there, but surely there should be a speedy criterion for templates such as this? Should article criteria be applied, and if so, why are there seperate template criteria at all? I considered G3, but a slang term is not necessarily misinformation, maybe it really exists.YobMod 10:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I deleted it under G1 as encyclopedically meaningless. The discussion to repeal is here. Happy‑melon 10:25, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Also i found the discussion on T1, and most people agreed that it could be subsumed into G10, although i didn't consider this an attack page, just really supid :-).YobMod 10:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, this page was an article incorrectly placed in template space, so it could have been treated like an article. A duplicate also used to live at Fanny fraud, as you suspected, and was also deleted as G1 (which doesn't really fit). Amalthea 10:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Even if T1 were available here it wouldn't have applied, really - there's nothing "divisive" or "inflammatory" about the template in question - it's just a really confused attempt to use Wikipedia to coin a neologism. Dcoetzee 08:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced BLP and G10

At least one editor has taken a bit radical approach to BLP and tags some of them as G10 candidates. I want to notify all admins reading here to be careful with G10 deletions for "unsourced negative BLP". I just declined five such taggings because the sources could easily be added doing a 2 minute Google News search (amongst them Arno Funke, an article about an ex-extortionist which has dozens of sources in the de-wiki article, including the person himself who wrote two books about his crimes). I am all for removing negative BLP from the project but I think if the subject is clearly notable and sourcing is easily possible, we need to take care to prefer adding reliable sources to deletion. Just a heads up in case one of you encounters more such taggings. Regards SoWhy 21:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

If the material qualifies under G10 it should absolutely be deleted on sight. If you wish to save an article by finding the sources, feel free to do so. But, the tagger and deleting admin have no such obligation to look for sources, and suggesting they do, only discourages necessary cleanup. An admin would have been entirely justified in deleting Arno Funke before you sourced it. The editor who reverted the speedy tag, without providing a source, should be warned that they may be blocked if they do that again. --Rob (talk) 22:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
This version of Arno Funke? No. That page had purpose besides disparaging or threatening their subject, and it was not "entirely negative in tone and unsourced".
G10 is intended for very different types of articles. Amalthea 22:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
You're kidding right? It was completely unsourced, and every paragraph mentioned some criminal act. G10 was perfectly justified. Kevin (talk) 22:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Criminal acts that the subject confessed to have done in two books and multiple interviews. G10 is not for these situations were sources can easily be added, it's for those pages that are intended to disparage or threaten the subject, not good-faith omissions. Using G10 on them carries a huge implication of bad faith against all those who have edited the article for 4 years, which is much worse than just fixing it instead. SoWhy 08:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the spirit of the biographies of living persons policy is that when it comes to unsourced and potentially defamatory information about living persons, our policy is absolutely "Shoot first and ask questions later." It is far, far worse to have defamatory content on the encyclopedia than to lose 10 articles that could have been sourced. Removing defamatory content is a much higher priority than preserving any biographic content whatever. --causa sui talk 23:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The spirit of our editing policy is to try and preserve information, not delete it. Noone can claim that such articles that exist since 2004 or 2005 will have any impact on the subject at all if the reviewing admin takes two minutes to enter the subject's name into Google News and adding the necessary sources. Remember, before 2007, Wikipedia policy on sourcing was very lax, allowing almost all content to be added without sources. Such an approach is not the spirit of Wikipedia, not even WP:BLP and will cost us thousands of fine articles which can easily be fixed (some of them just unfinished translations from other wikis, like de:Arno Funke). Or to cite from WP:BLPDEL:

Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed. (...) Page deletion should be treated as a last resort, with the page being improved and remedied where possible and disputed areas discussed. (...) Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is disparaging and written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be repaired or replaced to an acceptable standard.

Where it's easily possible to fix the problem in a very short Google News search, not even WP:BLP says that deletion is necessary. Regards SoWhy 08:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I think there is a fine balance to be drawn. Of course, it's always better to improve the articles rather than delete them, but these BLPs are so backlogged that they are being created faster than they are being fixed. Who knows what percentage of them are libel and what percentage could be backed up with reliable sources if someone found them? I don't. So, though I obviously don't begrudge anyone who does the leg work to source them, I'll put it in these terms.
If you're an administrator, and you find a db-tagged bio that makes nothing but potentially libelous or defamatory claims without sourcing them, and you don't have time to check for sources yourself, you should delete the article. Really, I think that's all we want the CSD to authorize, since I and many other admins will be doing exactly that, regardless of what the CSD policy says.
--causa sui talk 19:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Ryan. The real-world effect that our articles can have on real people should definitely override the "spirit of our editing policy." Potential real-world effects should always come before ideals. Mr.Z-man 19:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
A lengthy article like the one on Arno Funke, which has been around for five years and four months, should certainly not be deleted without at least throwing the name at google, or follwing the interwiki link.
I do tend to support grandfathering in a SD criterion for newly created unsourced BLPs, but I seriously expect an admin to see the difference between an article like Arno Funke and your run-of-the-mill G10 attack page.
(Also, Ryan, unsourced BLPs may be currently tagged faster than they are fixed, but I don't think they are created faster than they are fixed).
Amalthea 20:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
By all means, exercise your common sense and take it case by case. That's what we were supposed to be doing, anyway. What the policy says shouldn't affect that. --causa sui talk 22:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Through the WP-logs just came across one article that got deleted via the above routine. Sources for the details were found in seconds. And further print references were identified in the online references. G10 should not apply to articles that can be sources that trivially and have been about that long. Agathoclea (talk) 23:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Another convicted criminal had his article deleted as being unsourced when a whole book was written about the case. Agathoclea (talk) 23:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
So the lesson is, that without a threat of deletion, nothing happens, but when there's a deletion, the article is restored and fixed promptly. --Rob (talk) 23:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Threat of impending deletion certainly gives incentive for immediate action. From the batch that SoWhy brought to attention, he declined and sourced 6 articles, Agathoclea restored and sourced one, I just restored and sourced another one, and the one that is still deleted has 30 google news hits and can almost certainly be restored and properly sourced as well. However, if the wrong admin is working those db tags, or if an admin deletes them right away, we lose them all with nobody the wiser.
So the real lesson to be learned here is that it is imperative to march those long-standing articles through a review process, and to not G10 them.
Hurried deletion without giving an explicit chance to rescue such an article (and I believe a majority of those old unsourced BLPs can easily be saved) is not the best course of action. If we want the best result for Wikipedia, there must only be a limited number of such cases so that an attempt can be made to save and improve them, an attempt by all editors and not only attentive admins. The proposal from above could do that. In contrast, tagging articles from the backlog without even making any effort of sourcing them is going to cost us good articles.
Amalthea 00:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The removal of appropriate articles is as wrong at the retention of inappropriate ones. The removal of material for being technically unsourced when it could easily be sourced, is an abuse of discretion. All policies are meant to be used with judgement, and IAR applies even to BLP. Removal of the article on Funke as unsourced would be a laughable triumph of blind literalism. Over-literal exact reliance of BLP policy is a wild overreaction--if the principle of do no harm applies, it certainly applies here, that no harm is possibly being done. We should fix everything, but we have enough real problems to be fixed, and using deletion policy to concentrate effort on what does not need to be fixed immediately prevents us from fixing what does need to be fixed. It is in that sense positively damaging to the encyclopedia , and does do real harm to the subjects of those article on which we need to concentrate our efforts. DGG (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The OP here is talking about tagging articles, and in this case the tag resulted in an improvement, so it seems that the tagging itself was a good thing. As for deletion, no-one is arguing that deletion is the best option, but if an admin's time or ability to find sources is constrained for whatever reason then deletion may well be the better of the remaining options. Kevin (talk) 06:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, if someone has the time to read and edit the page to add a deletion tag, they surely have the time to put the subject in Google News. I argued it in a past thread already, an admin deleting such articles has to go through dozens of revisions to make sure there is none without sources to revert to. Time, they could easily spend on just adding a source or two. Let's take the Arno Funke example: It has a German entry with sources and 39 revisions prior to deletion, each of them potentially containing the sources now missing. An admin has to check at least each of those 39 revisions and read them. Nobody can tell me that is faster than googling the subject's name and adding a source. I'm all for G10 to remove blatant attack pages and material added to harm the subject but it was not created to remove articles that were created in times before WP:BLP existed and WP:V was not enforced. Face it, 2-3 years ago nobody bother with sources like we do today but that does not make the articles from before that time G10-candidates. Articles that exist for 5 years will not do any more harm if kept a few days longer, which is the one point of G10: Remove those things before they can do harm (are indexed, linked to, etc.) If they exist for few years already, this has all already happened so a speedy deletion will not undo the harm - sourcing and editing will though. Because a deleted page will be cached in its "bad" version for years to come. An edited page will replace such a cached page. Regards SoWhy 06:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Equally honestly, I have speedy deleted a number of unsourced but probably sourceable negative BLPs (or potential BLPs): if no one in five years can be bothered to source it, even if in some cases it has been tagged as unsourced for years, then the article will be hardly missed. There is no deadline in having a complete encyclopedia, and it is better to have a good encyclopedia, with decent, well sourced articles, certainly when it is about living people accused of criminal or otherwise contentious behaviour, then to have as much articles as possible. There is no potential harm in not having an article for a notable subject for a while: there is potential harm though in having unsourced negative articles, especially on living people. I'll give one example: Saizo Kishimoto, an article which had existed for over four years. A Google search will probably indicate what the negative allegations were (I'll not repeat them here without reliable sources :-) ). This article was not easily sourceable (e.g. no Google news results with our spelling), and clearly negative. No one could be bothered to recreate it in the last three months, so apparently it was not a high priority article (also indicated by the limited number of editors after the initial creation). What negative effect has the deletion of this article had? Fram (talk) 10:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I think noone, not even me, would think such articles should not be deleted if they cannot be fixed with minimum effort (that's what WP:BLPDEL tells us after all). The point is rather that G10 should not be applied to those articles that exist for years and/or where the time to find some reliable sources (e.g. via Google News) is not or only minimally higher than the time it takes to thoroughly check the article and all revisions for a previous version that can be reverted to. That's what WP:BLP tells us: If the problem can readily (i.e. easily) be fixed, then deletion is the wrong answer. If one would have to have special knowledge or spend extensive time studying the subject to do so, then it can. Regards SoWhy 10:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems this thread has gone of the skids, and reverted to a prior discussion. This thread started with a discussion about implementation of *existing* G10. The question was, can an article with *all* negative unsourced claims be deleted without any attempt to find sources. Of course, I think it should be deleted. But above, we see people going to re-argue over the idea of deleting articles that aren't particularly negative, and prior proposal to give such articles some leaway, such as three months. That's a rehash of a discussion that had no consensus. The issue of this thread is if an admin finds an entirely negatie, as Arno Funke was pre-fix, can it be deleted. The obvious answer, is that an admin is welcome to search+fix it (nobody objects), but if they don't, it's better they delete it on the spot, rather then let it sit around with a request to fix. There are many articles that are simply of no interest to anybody, and will never be fixed (outside of a deletion threat). If they're entirely negative, they need to be shot on sight. Again, this thread is about *entirely* negative articles. Having unrealistic exceptions of speedy taggers and an admin deleters, effectively deters cleanup efforts. If we stopped welcoming problem material, we might actually solve the problem. What's worst: ultimately everything can be easily "sourced", due to the "feedback loop", where others use Wikipedia as a source, and we indirectly use those sources as our source, we we "fix" articles with "quick and dirty" google found references. --Rob (talk) 13:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

G10 talks about "purpose", and , in its pertinent part " that serve no purpose but to disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity.... material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced," It's not the negative contents alone, it's the tone. It has to be obviously unfair to fit within the criterion. DGG (talk) 23:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Essentially, your going back to the pre-Seigenthaler pre-WP:BLP Wikipedia. Wikipedia has always, from the very beginning deleted on sight blatant and obvious attack-only articles. But, since then, we've learned that there's a serious problem with negative unsourced material, that *looks* entirely plausable, that doesn't *look* like an attack, but in fact would, if untrue, cause serious harm to an innocent person. Actually, articles that look good, look well intentioned, but spread false negative material are vastly more dangerous than blatant attacks, because they are actually believable to the reader. --Rob (talk) 00:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Unsourced controversial content can be removed from the article, per our BLP policy, but it doesn't call for the entire article to be deleted. -Chunky Rice (talk) 00:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
If you follow BLP, remove all offending content, and the article is entirely empty or there's no claim of notability, then deletion is called for. Let's say somebody is notable exclusively for their criminal conduct, and every sentence is about the crimes they came, then deletion of the whole article is appropriate if it's wholly unsourced. But, if there's some other signficant non-negative/contentious facts, then stubification, not speedy deletion is appropriate. --Rob (talk) 03:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

User page criteria

I was thinking about adding this.. but it's been a while since I've update a policy page, and I don't know if this is one of those pages where people will revert-on-sight any updates that aren't previously discussed. So here I am. I believe that blatantly inappropriate user space content is delete-on-sight. This has been the standard for many years, and arbcom recently reaffirmed this over at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MZMcBride#Deletion. So I believe I'm on solid ground in suggesting that this is policy. Does anyone object, or have suggestions on specific wording? Friday (talk) 14:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Just so long as no-one tries to use it to circumvent a recent MfD. DuncanHill (talk) 14:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
(ec)Would that be "blatantly inappropriate" as in the WebHamster user page you have repeatedly tried to delete, to no avail, or would that be another interpretation of "blatantly inappropriate"? Fram (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Grudges and pitchforks belong on my user talk page, if you must. This page is for discussing changes to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Friday (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Would you agree to a wording that made it clear that using speedy as a way of overturning a recent XfD with which the deleting admin disagreed is forbidden? DuncanHill (talk) 14:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I solemnly swear that I would not use such a CSD on that page you're talking about. Can we pretty please stay on topic now? Friday (talk) 14:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Sure - tell us what you mean by "blatantly inappropriate". DuncanHill (talk) 14:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose as far too vague for CSD. Algebraist 14:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand that we've sometimes in the past relied on individual judgement, and thus vague things aren't often codified. However there's an large pool of people who tend to object to anything that isn't specifically covered by an explicit rule, and I wondered if this might be a way to help that situation. I'm open to suggestions on wording- that's why I asked. Friday (talk) 14:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
CsD need to be uncontroversial, so you need to define what you mean by "blatantly inappropriate" very clearly. If, for example, you mean "something which a thread at AN and an MfD have failed to get deleted but which I believe should be deleted", then the criteria will be unhelpful. DuncanHill (talk) 14:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Blatantly inappropriate userpages are already deleted on sight, so I find myself in agreement with Algebraist. More unneeded WP:CREEP, in my opinion. Moreover, MFD works just as well. –Juliancolton | Talk 14:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Blatantly inappropriate userpages are almost always tries to disrupt Wikipedia and are thus covered by G3 perfectly fine. Those who are good-faith creations or where the inappropriateness is open to interpretation (to think about that recent MFD) should never be covered by a speedy deletion criterion because as Julian points out, MFD works perfectly well in these cases. I fear especially that such a criterion would lead to another MZM'esque situation where an admin goes delete pages he/she thinks inappropriate based on such a criterion. No, there is no need for such a vague criterion which will really not be worth the trouble it will cause. Regards SoWhy 15:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Noindexing prods?

I see in robots.txt at WP:NOINDEX that pages at WP:AfD, WP:AfC and Copyright problems are noindexed, so that they don't appear in mirrors or in Google searches. It seems to me that automatically adding {{noindex}} to PRODded pages might cut down on the number of speedies that are done quickly (by a variety of admins) for lack of any better choice. I don't see in archives at WP:PROD that this has been considered. Is there any policy or technical reason to avoid noindexing a prodded article in mainspace for a few days? Another question: is there any reason not to add "This article has been added to the list of X-related deletion discussions" to prods? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

robots.txt disallows robots from the AfD discussions, not from the pages at AfD. And what does this have to do with CSD? Algebraist 14:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Understood about robots.txt. I don't understand the question. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
It's a simple question. This is the talk page for WP:CSD. What does whatever it is you're talking about have to do with CSD? Algebraist 15:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay I'll rephrase: some admins, including me, lean in the direction of speedying quickly because we don't want to incentivize spammers. Sometimes it takes less than 30 minutes for Google to scrape a new page, and once content gets out on the web, it doesn't die. The proof that this matters to spammers is that the ratio of indexed to noindexed db-spammed pages is something on the other of 1000 to 1 from personal experience; it seems reasonable to believe that if creating Wikipedia pages isn't a useful way to promote a product or group, we'll see fewer attempts. db-spam is not black-and-white more often than it is, and I'd like to have a friendlier option than deletion that's still an effective option. Before you object "but people don't sit there watching the CSD queue" ... actually, I do, and so do a lot of people. We are seeing a significant number of CSD-tagged articles within the first 30 minutes these days; but sometimes I leave them alone because I don't have a good option. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The no-indexing applies to the discussions, not the articles. {{NOINDEX}} doesn't work on articles. Personally, I feel that if an article is so bad that we don't want readers to find it, we should just delete it. Mr.Z-man 18:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't know has no effect on mainspace, but that makes sense. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 23:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

db-nonsense question

This article has just been tagged as db-nonsense: "Tokemon is more of a ritual than an object. It originated at North Avenue Appartments at Georgia Institute of Technology in Fall 2008. The ritual consisted of multiple students going into a back room of the appartment and smoking Canabis Sativa; after reaching the peak of their alteration of mind, these students would walk into the living room and proceding to watch episodes of Pokemon from seasons one and two. This ritual has been proven to stimulate the lack of motivation to do much other than throw a football, throw a frisbee, eat, make fun of room 713, or tokemon more." The case is often made at RFA that only gibberish should be tagged as gibberish, and there's a question whether this would be gibberish or not. Obviously it's a neologism, but that's not speedyable. It's puerile but that doesn't make it vandalism or a db-attack. I see a potential for conflict here. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It's obviously not content we can use. Call it whatever criteria you want- I'd just chalk it up to common sense. Someone already deleted it. Friday (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Should there be a speedy category for "content we obviously can't use"? Should we make it clear that vandalism can include anything that seems to be written for a laugh? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:16, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
From what I'm reading above, people still don't like trying to codify the obvious cases. I suspect the big objection is the same as it's always been- If we try to make the rules cover every case, we're only asking to get in an arms race against the ruleslawyers. It's probably better to just admit that the rules aren't meant to cover every case, and that human judgement is required. For people that really enjoy fitting things into categories, I bet there are ways to apply existing CSD to such content. Whether it's officially recognized as such, WP:NFT is a de-factor CSD. That's how I usually describe such deletions. Friday (talk) 15:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Hoaxes and things derived from WP:NOT are specifically excluded from Speedy - now is WP:NFT derived from WP:NOT? DuncanHill (talk) 15:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Just clarifying for bystandards: hoaxes are specifically excluded from WP:CSD#G1; blatant hoaxes are included in WP:CSD#G3. I'm sure you realize that, but I just thought I'd specify so that no one walks away thinking that blatant hoaxes can't be speedied. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Blatant and obvious hoaxes are indeed speedyable as vandalism (from the"non-criteria for speedy" section), thanks for the clarification - but anything even remotely plausible is not. DuncanHill (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Vandalism already does include things written for a laugh: WP:V, "Silly Vandalism": "Adding profanity, graffiti, random characters (gibberish), or other nonsense to pages; creating nonsensical and obviously non-encyclopedic pages, etc." Obviously, though, you wouldn't want to invoke that one too lightly. I would never haul it out on a page that seems to have been created in good-faith, no matter how "obviously non-encyclopedic" it was. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
That becomes a problem if you take it to extremes. If we take people's words for it, people create obviously non-encyclopedic pages in good faith all the time. Anyone who does new page patrol has probably seen this many times- people say "This is a legitimate thing- give me more time" even when the content is obviously unusable. It'd be a shame to clutter AFD with that stuff. Friday (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. "Seems to have been created in good faith", though, doesn't necessarily depend on the creator's own word. I've seen all kinds of vandalism committed with wide-eyed disingenuous protests of sincerity. :) (Note: I'm presuming wide-eyed. This is WP:OR and not WP:V.) As I assess such things, I consider whether a truly naive contributor might have thought the article appropriate—in which case I would discuss and hope for a friendly WP:CSD#G7—and also look at the contributors' other history. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
What Moonriddengirl said. We need to look at the intent, not the assertion. I typically have three boxes I put those types of articles into: not really in good faith, good faith but doesn't stand a chance, and good faith and might be viable with improvement. The first I speedy as vandalism or a test page, depending on the content and the editor. The second I prod and leave a friendly note for the editor, pointing out the issues, showing them where to look for more help, and suggesting a bit more wiki experience before creating an article. The last category I userfy and leave a note for the editor, pointing out the problems, letting them know they can't leave it in userspace forever, and showing them where to get help.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
It's not pure gibberish, there is context, it's not a blatant case of vandalism, I'd say take it to AfD as a hoax. MLauba (talk) 15:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
But see the section just above; if we take it to AfD, it will be a week before it's noindexed, so it will be on the internet forever, since Wikipedia is the most heavily copied and indexed website in the world. Doesn't that give jokers and spammers a big incentive to make us their top choice? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
This is the kind of page I really don't have a problem with an IAR speedy on or calling it a test page. While I rarely invoke IAR, this seems tailor-made for it.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Since it's neither a copyvio nor a BLP issue, I believe this is more Google's problem than wikipedia's. The project's concern should be with its own content rather than with any other search engine's result pages. I can get any random nonsensical term indexed within 24 hours using a custom website and rank first for a search query on that term. While Wikipedia offers a path to faster indexation and lower efforts, it also offers a cleanup process which will lead, one way or another, from the term vanishing from Google's index, whereas the self-made page will stay in there forever. I think it's a win-win situation with Google - higher risk due to lower barrier to entry is offset with quality control. I've been guilty of over-zealous CSD tagging in the past myself, but I believe speedy deletion because of what might happen in a third-party's search index is the wrong approach. MLauba (talk) 15:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The problem with calling this a hoax is that it's unfortunately very likely to be true, and I bet they could supply the photos to prove it. Perhaps it doesn't help that most admins would delete this as nonsense. In my book this type of thing would fall under "CSD A7: Article about a Pokemon ritual which does not assert significance". Think of it as a variation of A7: a group of students with no assertions of notability. I might also call it a test page or use NFT directly. But as Friday points out, this article will be speedied one way or the other. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
A7 is clearly the wrong critieria for deletion... as A7 only applies to things that are REAL.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
All of the criteria are wrong. Even G3 which includes misinformation (things which are NOT real). And yet it's still going to get speedied. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
G3 though is the closest to a valid reason and the only one that I think is defensible. Applying A7 to a fictional piece is stretching the policy too much, but a reasonable person can make a reasonable argument that in their opinion this article fit the criteria for vandalism. A reasonable person couldn't make a reasonable argument that a fictional article was real (A7) or fit G1 when G1 explicitly excludes articles like this.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I would be ok with this being deleted per G3, an AFD would not be inappropriate either. It would likely end up being deleted via SNOW, but it is not a G1 candidate for the reasons mentioned above.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, consensus seems to me to be that this is a G3. So I'll be deleting these per G3 ... but on some, an edit summary of "vandalism" seems just a little bitey for what I'm deleting; I'll come back when I have a list so we can discuss. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't call this a G3 - it's certainly WP:NFT but that's not a speedy criterion. I could imagine an encyclopedia where things made up in school one day are considered notable enough for inclusion. One could even imagine a topic like this being verifiable, if it ended up in a newspaper. For these reasons I would (seriously) consider AfD for an article like this. But I wouldn't care if someone just deleted it anyway. :-P Dcoetzee 20:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Agreed... AFD or PROD are probably the best options... but if you are going to speedy delete it, the only one that comes close to covering this would be G3. If I saw somebody delete this G3, I might say, "I don't agree with that decision, but I don't disagree with it." Any other rationale would be too much of a stretch.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 20:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree with IS! I usually tag them as prod with a link to WP:NFT. There is no rush to delete non-vandalism hoaxes immediately and it might be a good way to tell those creators that we do not assume the bad faith that G1 or G3 deletions usually imply. Regards SoWhy 21:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

New article category

Moved discussion to subpage on the proposed new BLP category.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Addressing unsourced articles, not just unsourced BLPs

The problem is not limited to BLP articles. Every day the category of unreferenced articles grows in size and despite my best efforts, it's like carrying water to the sea -- so I gave up. (I manage to reference 5 articles while 50 come in).

Unfortunately, the editing community can't agree. At the one side there are people who say there is no deadline and that existing deletion processes address these issues, on the other hand there are people who want to take immediate action. The ever increasing amount of unreferenced articles clearly mean something should be done, so we need to reach a middle ground that keeps both parties happy and does something about the problem. - Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Option 1: Speedy deletion

This option might be disagreed on by many, but it addresses something that is already codified as a policy. Articles must be verifiable.

At the bottom of the edit window there is a line that says: "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the GFDL*." Copyrighted material is regularly deleted by the speedy deletion criterion G12 and the rules about GFDL are applied whenever needed. Verifiability has no such efforts to enforce it. To encourage good encyclopedic practices and lift weight of AFD, we should discourage the writing of unreferenced material altogether. It's time to focus on quality rather than quanitity. To avoid serious loss of information this would only apply to newly created entries.

A10 speedy deletion applies to: "Any article that lists no sources or external links whatsoever and has been created after April 30, 2009." -- Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Support aside option 3. This is a strong interpretation of WP:V but I wholeheartedly accept it. Unverified articles have no place here and they should be eliminated. While the initial deletion spree might clear out some articles worthy of inclusion, chances are they'll be back here again if someone thought to write them in the first place. Coupled with option three this will improve Wikipedia a thousand fold overnight. Articles are only as good as their references. While some might want to cry that the sky is falling at this proposal, this really wouldn't do much immediate damage to the encyclopedia as most all of the major articles here have some form of sourcing. The longterm benefits of having a verifiable encyclopedia outweigh the minor immediate impact. If the reviewing administrator thinks the article deserves to be here, he/she can always source it and then decline the speedy or place a hangon tag on the page. ThemFromSpace 21:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - I'm getting tired of opposing this concept. Read my earlier responses for justifications. And those of all the others who oppose CSD when other policies already cover this stuff. CSD means that as soon as an admin sees it, s/he should delete it. Unlike most of us who login daily, there are many people who only edit here weekly. 7 days minimum AFTER adequate notification is the only fair thing to do. It's not like these articles are hurting anything other than the blood pressures of people who get sick of looking at an overflowing queue. Let them sit with notification for 30 days, then post a warning, and then I'd consider a CSD. But I don't see anything like that mentioned here. Just a blatant cutoff date that is completely unreasonable and arbitrary. No way. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Option 2: Projectification

To make recreation of potentially interesting articles easier for WikiProjects, I also suggest a change to WikiProject pages. Each project would get an additional page called a "draft board" or something similar where they can ask to have have pages "projectified" (project type userfication) for referencing. If this method is used, we can use an alternative prod format which has the criterion: "Any article that lists no sources or external links whatsoever, has been created after April 30, 2009 and has been tagged for at least 5 days." (removing the prod without addressing the issues raised would obviously be forbidden.) - Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Support Projectification

  1. I'll buy this. Hiding T 13:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Projectification

  1. oppose Not workable, as many articles fall in the scope of no WikiProject, many fall in the scope of several, and many WikiProjects are inactive. --Philcha (talk) 10:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  2. Strongly Oppose This is just a case of Somebody Else's Problem. Each WikiProject has its hands full enough without becoming a dumping ground for articles with a short deadline to completion. I faced that back in February '07. I spent the whole month frantically begging people to stop prodding and AFDing articles that fell under a WP. Most people eventually gave me a chance, but it was stressful as hell, because I knew that by the end of the month, a lot of good information would be lost if I didn't make the deadline. And most WikiProjects I've seen are really only a handful of people, not an army of drones willing to spend hours on articles they might not care about at all that got dumped on them. In case you are curious, the efforts paid off, and most of the articles were improved, merged, or otherwise dealt with in a productive manner. I then took the next several months off on a well-deserved wikibreak, and I swore I'd never go through that again. And I would never wish it on any other WikiProject team, either. So, all you people wanting to push the problem somewhere else should do as others have suggested and fix the problem, or put it up for AFD. Stop trying to avoid the responsibility of doing the legwork or giving the article a chance to be improved. CSD is a tool to eliminate serious problems. WikiProjects are groups of people interested in a topic, and willing to work at improving the encyclopedia at their own pace and on their own terms. Neither is a tool to be used to sweep articles with some usable information but no sources out with the real garbage. We have policies, they generally work--maybe not fast enough for some deletionists, and maybe too fast for some inclusionists, but they do work. Don't create new rules or pass work off to others and end up making more problems without dealing with underlying issues. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Option 3: Filtering

The new AbuseFilter can be set to disallow any article that lacks references altogether and give the user making the edit a friendly warning without the requirement for a bot.

This will clearly put more strain on AFD and other deletion processes because it will become less clear whether sources are reliable sometimes, but it does address the issue of articles being completely unreferenced by giving editors something to check for accuracy rather than wondering where the information came from. - Mgm|(talk) 09:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Can it work if the creator writes "Soorces: Some Book by a Guy" (sic)? I think it important to allow plenty of leeway in what constitutes a source. Kevin (talk) 09:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • No the filter would recognize commonly used tags and formatting used in references. Obviously bad sources would still need human assessment. - Mgm|(talk) 10:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't think WT:CSD is the right venue for such discussions... SoWhy 11:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I posted it here because it is an expansion on the BLP thread above. I'd be happy to move it if we can agree on a location and leave a link behind. - Mgm|(talk) 11:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose any such proposal, as it increases the barrier for new users creating topics. Most of us didn't learn how to format references properly for quite a while after we began editing wikipedia, and the fact that somebody can come here and start a new article with very little commitment (i.e., just by signing up for an account and waiting a couple of days) is one of our strengths. Adding new barriers to this should only be done when absolutely necessary, and I see this proposal as a solution without a problem. JulesH (talk) 12:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, I'm not requiring newbie authors to format the references with complicated formatting. That would pose unneccesary complications. I'm trying to encourage citing any references at all regardless of their formatting. - Mgm|(talk) 08:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
How do you recognise a reference absent some special formatting for it? A reference could just be a text description on a line by itself at the bottom of the page, or in a bullet point, or in brackets after the text it provides a reference to; it may be just a name and date in the case it's a reference to a standard well-known reference work (e.g. an article on some aspect of the C programming language may cite a reference as "Kernighan & Ritchie 1978" and this would be generally understood, but I fail to see how an automated system would spot it). JulesH (talk) 21:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Preternaturally Strong Oppose. This is, in my considered opinion, a terrible idea. I'm sorry to be so blunt, MacGyverMagic, but I just do not think this should be implemented. Ever. From the proposal's pushing personal preference of one referencing method over another, its disregarding factor many wikiprojects are moribund, plus apparent reluctance of proposer to continue help adding references (fine) and instead wipe swathes of new articles on sight (not fine); the idea a reward for a job well done is three new jobs, is not uncommon; even if one specific rewarded person decides to pull back for a while, that doesn't warrant measures like this. –Whitehorse1 12:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Machines should not restrict article creation like that on Wikipedia without any human oversight. –Drilnoth (T • C) 13:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a terrible idea and seems counter to the entire concept of Wikipedia. -Chunky Rice (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Support adding a filter for articles with a lack of references. Oppose blocking them completely. There should be a message containing some language pointing to resources on citing sources, but it shouldn't be disallowed entirely. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
If it could gather more support, we can set such a filter to warn rather than disallow the edit. - Mgm|(talk) 08:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I....um....I don't want to offend anyone here. But option three is fucking insane. That's not meant as an attack on the authors or the supporters. the option itself. Is nuts. Just take a tour of some featured or good articles today (even on some major figures like queens, kings, presidents, cities, states, etc.) and click through the history to the first avialable version. If all of them had references and inline citations I'll eat my shoes. Protonk (talk) 17:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Not just for the reasons stated above that this will discourage new articles, but also because it puts more barriers in the way of contributing to the project by new users — they would have to learn how to format filter-recognizable sources, a much bigger step than just learning wikiformatting. The long-term future of the project requires a steady stream of new contributors and this is not a constructive step in that direction. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
So you prefer an incoming stream of editors who are ignorant about sources, rather than an accurate encyclopedia? - Mgm|(talk) 08:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Note I already made a similar proposal over at WP:AbuseFilter and it was shot down as bitey and difficult to implement. -Senseless!... says you, says me 02:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose due to WP:BITE. Despite obviously now knowing what to do as a user of 3 years standing and an admin for two of those, for my first 4-6 months as an editor (and the 7 months prior to that when I edited as an IP address) I didn't know how to use ref tags and wouldn't even have known what to look for to find out. Agreed with David Eppstein. Orderinchaos 18:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I think that it has come to the point where we have to draw a hard line. Wikipedia was supposed to be a repository of sourced information, instead we have articles languashing away. I propose as A10: any article that is tagged as unsourced for 2 weeks and has been created after April 30. Older pages should be PRODed.--Ipatrol (talk) 04:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support alongside option one as the best way to turn Wikipedia into a legitimate encyclopedia. The backlog is impossible to fix. If anybody opposes this I recommend spending some time actually verifying some of these articles and judge how long it would take to finish. Wikipedia may never be a complete project, but what is already here should be the best work that we can do. With all the warning we give article creators to abide by WP:V, there is no excuse for creating an article that isn't verified, WP:BITE or no WP:BITE. ThemFromSpace 21:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support only as a warn I think a warn would be very useful. Mine is set up to warn if I dont' provide an edit summary - surprising how often that prompts me to add one! AndrewRT(Talk) 19:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support only as a warn - The first bright idea to come out of this. On Wikimedia Commons, if you try to upload a photo without selecting a license or including a description, you get a bright red warning and your browser focuses on that notice. It basically tells you that you need to indicate the licensing. Sure, most people just click "Self-created" (it's like jobs that only allow sick-leave, but not personal leave days, thus everyone calls in sick rather than being honest about needing a day off). I could see this working along the lines of a focused, red warning that reads something like, "You created a new article without citing any reliable sources using one of our handy reference templates. Otherwise, please reference the material you added before saving this article. Unsourced articles are likely to be deleted without warning. If you used inline citations, just press SAVE again and your new article will be saved as-is." Educational, helpful, and friendly, yet serious, too. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. A) Watching related filters suggests that many legitimate articles are started through a process that has multiple edits (and not a single completely prepared dump), with references added towards the end. This would trigger unnecessarily for those people. B) Even when an article is created without references, that isn't necessarily a cause for deletion. If it were {{unreferenced}} would be a speedy criteria. I've seen many legitimate stubs start off unreferenced. Yes, we delete things for lack of notability, but that isn't the same as like of sourcing. I am sympathetic to people wanting to discourage bad BLPs, but I think that dealing with that and related issues requires a higher level of judgment than simply asking if the first edit to a new article contains formatted references. Dragons flight (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Question

Do these options also cover things like the one-sentence stub articles about "this town in a country you've never even heard of" and "that one book that isn't even sold in bookstores"? I think that an important part of Wikipedia's expansion is coming from the people who quickly create large numbers of short articles, encouraging others to expand them... saying that these articles with 1-2 sentences, maybe an infobox, a stub template, and a couple of cats should be deleted or "projectified" just doesn't seem right to me. Certainly all articles should be references—these short articles are tagged with {{Unreferenced}} as is—but when an article is that short not having references is, in my mind, acceptable. Once an article gets longer and isn't stating the obvious (obvious being "[Town name] is a town in [the United States/Argentina/India/whatever], located at [Coordinates]", then it certainly needs to be referenced, but are you proposing articles like that sample be deleted or projectified due to a lack of references? If so and this gets passed, I can see a number of users severely cutting back on their editing time because what they focused on can't really be done anymore. –Drilnoth (T • C) 13:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no added value to a reader to have stubs or pre-stubs that are unreferenced. The reliability of our content is entirely based on good sourcing since our content is largely created by non-experts. We regularly find hoax or nonsense articles when deep reviews of references are done.
In my opinion, an existing inferior article will stop someone from starting a better article because they will not as urgently see the need to fill the gap if there is not a red link. So, there is a definite downside to a massive number of extremely brief entries. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
And hopefully these editors can be directed toward other ways to contribute if they are not using any references. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure about "they will not as urgently see the need to fill the gap if there is not a red link", because FA and even some GA reviewers object to red links. OTOH someone who enjoys a GA or FA may follow up a blue link, find a stub and perhaps improve it. --Philcha (talk) 23:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
This approach has not been success in producing high quality content, unfortunately. We have a massive number of stubs and pre-stubs and that number is not dropping because people are expanding them faster than they are being made. I see no advantage of a redirect over a stub, and there are definite disadvantages since we must have volunteer effort to maintain each entry in an updated manner (such as reverting vandalism, updating categories). FloNight♥♥♥ 00:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Just because an article is unsourced, does not mean it is unverifiable. While having sources makes it a lot easier to verify, indiscriminate speedy deletion of articles just because they have no specified source is foolish. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia's content is not written by experts, the content must be based on reliable sources. If the content has no sources then it has no valuable to the reader because there is no evidence that it is factual. Regularly, we find vandalism, hoaxes, nonsensical and malicious content mixed in with our good content. Our reader need to know that all our content is good. That can only happen if the content has reliable sources. Looking for sources for existing content is backwards. The content needs to come from a reliable source that is giving a broad unbiased look at the subject so we know that it is giving us a neutral point of view about the subject. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
That is absolutely incorrect. Verifying article content is much easier than doing research to begin with, making even unsourced articles valuable to readers. If I come across an unreferenced wiki article when doing research on something I would like to know the correct answer to, I type the wiki content into google and see if there is something there to back it up. It is much easier to google Joe Schmo 1958 to see whether Joe Schmo was born in 1958, for instance, than to google Joe Schmo birthday and hope something pops up . Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
But, maybe Joe Schmo wasn't born in 1958, and that result was never returned in Google, before the Wikipedia entry was made. Then, somebody makes an unreferenced bio in Wikipedia saying it is 1958. That gets copied to hundreds of our mirrors. Various blogs, forums, imdb, nndb, and other assorted web sites pick up this "fact", with everyone assuming it must be true, because it's so widely published. When somebody finally comes along to reference the Wikipedia article, they do a Google search, quickly find many Google hits confirming 1958, add references, and the circle of wiki-ignorance is complete. There is tremendous harm in publishing unsourced facts, because we ourselves are a source, and we have a responsibility to be a reliable source to others. Instead of expanding human knowledge, Wikipedia is actually contaminating it. --Rob (talk) 02:01, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Option 4

Continue the present policy that unsourced articles are not deleted for that reason alone. The proper course is to try to source them. If they cannot be sourced, they go to AfD or to Prod, depending on whether someone thinks it is going to be controversial. And remember an unsourced article is not actually any better than one that appears with some sort of a source that maybe inapplicable or irrelevant. We can delete for the sources being inadequate, if no better sources can be found. Not because they aren't on the article presently, but because a reasonable search shows there are not any.

If there is to be a change in it, it should be discussed in a more general place in a more general way. This is not a question that is actually relevant to speedy deletion specifically. If people want to delete them by speedy deletion, the first step is getting the agreement of the community that they should be deleted at all. The last time it was proposed, about a year ago, it was decisively defeated. If something like this is going to be proposed again, it needs general attention and a good deal of time to consider it.

Personally, I think it a very poor idea. We should be devoting our efforts to sourcing them in the first place, not to deleting them. It will be a sad day when the community changes its mind. DGG (talk) 00:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a great idea - everyone gets sourcing things and we don't have to delete anything, because everything is now sourced. However, unfortunately, after eight years of trying this we know it does not work. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I do not think that there is consensus that our current inclusion criteria is correct. The notability guidelines were not written by the majority of our active contributors and seem to be used mostly by a select group of editors that participate in Afd discussions. I have no idea how we got to this point, but it is not reasonable for us to have a growing number of articles without sources and no sensible plan about how to fix the problem because we are stuck with unworkable guidelines. Insisting that all content be sourced seems very reasonable. FloNight♥♥♥ 01:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
re: We should be devoting our efforts to sourcing them in the first place, not to deleting them. The A10 proposal does devote efforts on sourcing in the first place. The creator would be required to include sources from the beginning, when it takes very little extra time/effort (assuming the material is verifiable). It takes vast amounts of time to "prove" there are no sources for an article. All you can do is waste lots of time, and give up (How do you prove something doesn't exist). If the article creator provides their sources, then that gives reviewers something to review, instead of going on a blind hunt. --Rob (talk) 01:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Flonight and Rob. Rd232 talk 02:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Flonight, Thivierr, and Doc make a compelling case. DGG, I would agree with your proposal on one condition: freeze the creation of new articles so we can work on sourcing the existing ones. In the current state, it gets worse and worse every day. The only workable solution from my point of view is just to delete the unsourced BLPs. Staying with the status quo would simply result in a steady increase of unsourced BLPs because a lot of them are borderline, and good luck to anyone who wants to take them all to AfD and prove that none of them have any potential sources. Enigmamsg 04:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with DGG 100%- people wanting to delete something should first just google for WP:RS and add them if they exist- to add one only takes five mins. What happened to us being "the sum of all human knowledge?" Now we're going to delete articles because they're not perfect yet? We could just do a moment's work to improve the article instead. Or do you want to destroy knowledge which people have added? I'm a deletionist, that doesn't mean I (in the words of User:Kmweber) hate wikipedia.:):):):) I only want to get rid of the articles with insufficient notability- those subjects not worth an article; with the exception of those where a borderline-notability BLP subject has actively said they wish their article gone. Sticky Parkin 02:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

An important thing to remember is that the move to inlne referencing is gaining apace everywhere, and thus unreferenced material is alot easier to isolate and improve/delete/whatever than it used to be. Scott posted his figures on the PRODding he was doing and I think the current process is certainly feasible. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
It takes far more than a moment, if sources aren't easily found. No matter how much time is spent, it's almost impossible to ever say an article is unsourceable. People doing quick sourcing may do more harm than good, because the results are poor. They also tend to find sources to fit the content, instead of basing the content on the sources; which is the proper way to go. The sources we truly need, are the sources used by the person who added the information (e.g. article creator). Sourcing isn't like other "nice" editing, such as formatting, organizing, spell checking, grammar etc...; which can all be done by anybody, and often the combination of effort produces a result better than any one person. But sourcing is almost always best done by the person adding the information in the first place. Say where you got your info. It's simple and easier, if you're the one adding the info. It's hard for others, to guess where you got it. If you can't say where you got your info, you should not add the info to Wikipedia, especially if it's info about a living person. --Rob (talk) 03:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I did a little experiment with today's unpatrolled new pages. I took 20 BLPs that had not yet been examined & were about people doing things I could understand a little. I tried for recent ones, but the real junk was probably deleted right after adding, as usual. Of these, 9 were probably or certainly notable, and had at least minimal referencing. 4 were probably notable, and had no referencing (I tagged, and left customized notices for the authors). 5 were probably non-notable, but did have some referencing. i prodded or tagged, depending on how sure I was. 3 were non notable and had no referencing at all. I found good reason to speedy all of them under existing rules. I do not see we have a problem that this proposal will address. (if anyone is interested, my basic notice for unreferenced but possibly notable is:" ==alert about referencing== Do not create articles without references. If you have the information to write the article, you got it from somewhere. Say where . Articles without references are likely to get deleted. I advise you to do this the moment you create the article, to avoid problems.." In one case, it was a repeat offender, for footballers, & I intend to follow up. ) We have good policy already. We need good patrolling. DGG (talk) 04:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I obviously agree that sources should be provided by the creator. The trouble is that it is so rarely done. Think of the standards we've had at WP:AFC. Why can't those standards apply everywhere? If you can't provide a reliable source, do not create the article. I can list perhaps 50 repeat offenders who have created hundreds of articles apiece without sources. They're also generally terrible articles. Even with warnings about continuing to create the articles, they do not stop, and I have not had luck finding administrators willing to block. I'm sure you can guess at the result. Enigmamsg 04:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, half the dilemma would be solved if we could say "unless you are a total newbie, know that creating unsourced BLPs, or indeed adding unsourced material to a BLP is unacceptable. If you do it, your material will be rejected and you will be warned then blocked."--Scott Mac (Doc) 09:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
OK, let's see if we can agree on this--Scott Mac (Doc) 09:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd 100% get on board with that idea. The problem is finding administrators willing to lay down the law and enforce it consistently. Such a stance would eliminate a large portion of the problem. Editors should not be able to get away with creating hundreds of lousy BLPs. Enigmamsg 16:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
DGG: any chance you could put your standard message into a uw template (perhaps similar to the uw-aiv template? That way it could eventually be integrated into Twinkle in the way the AFD templates are. Cheers! 155.202.254.82 (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Not if it is going to be used as a reason for deletion/ I carefully worded it "are likely to get deleted" not "will be deleted". A perfectly correct statement of fact, but not masquerading as policy. DGG (talk) 21:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I favour the status quo as well. Most of our articles are works in progress, and it will always be that way. If this means having articles about people that may contain false information, that's perfectly okay as long as they're not actively screwing up those people's lives (which is what WP:BLP and removing contentious information is for). Unsourced biographical stubs, like all stubs, are not only permissable but desired, as they are the seeds that one day grow into good articles. Dcoetzee 02:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not against stubs. Referenced stubs have the same benefit and meet the rules. Why should we allow them to be unsourced when it fails a basic policy? - Mgm|(talk) 08:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Because articles are works in progress. Allowing articles to temporarily display serious problems enables us to share work, lower the commitment and level of technical skill required to contribute, and attract more content and contributors. This is the wiki process at work and fundamental to the continued health of the encyclopedia. If you want to talk about action against unsourced articles, let's talk about articles that have been unsourced for a long period of time with no interest. Dcoetzee 01:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Things are not getting worse each day. In the past 10 months, 4% more of articles contain the ref tag than previously. That includes the fact that wikipedia article count has gone up a bunch in that time. While at that rate it will take 15 years to ref all articles, we must remember that wikipedia is not built in a day. What concerns me is the decline in editors/editing, which I believe is due to our ever stricter rules. We should work on bringing in new editors who add refs, not deleting unreferenced articles. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

And this is just the ones with actual ref tags, to which must be added the ones that have refs in non-standard way in the text, or usable references as external links! DGG (talk) 03:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the best solution so far. I'm open to new ideas to clear up backlogs and to reduce unsourced articles, but only if they are fair to new users as well as those who know the system inside and out and check their talk pages and watchlists hourly. The notability guidelines are not outdated. They are tough, but I don't think they need to be loosened or tightened. I really think this is more of an educational issue than anything else. If someone is going around starting a slew of articles with 1-2 sentence stubs and no sources, that's disruptive behavior (and the articles are practically nonsense at that point). Deal with the disruptive behavior through coaching/mentoring or, if that's not working, through punitive actions. Don't make overly broad rules that disrupt the encyclopedia content once it's been created. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Backlogs

The problem is not limited to BLP articles. Every day the category of unreferenced articles grows in size and despite my best efforts, it's like carrying water to the sea -- so I gave up.

  • I am coming late to this whole discussion, but I feel the need to point out a few things. The above statement is true of all backlogs. Check them out. The conversation here seemed to go from "We must do something about all the unsourced BLPS, because BLP is and important issue and the backlog is insurmountable. We must do something about unsourced articles, because sourcing is an important issue and the backlog is insurmountable." There are a couple of logical problems I see with all moral panic. First of all we aren't even resolving every listed potentially problematic BLP at the noticeboard. Until the blind archiving over there stops and every listing of problematic article is followed up until resolved, diverting attention to backlog of very largely unproblematic BLPs is waste of effort and squanders the attention that problem BLP really do deserve on an area which bound have a low return in actual BLP problems. Second why pick up on "150,606 unsourced articles" which is clearly unmanageable? Rather focus 269 articles from August 2006 which is very manageable. And is sourcing really a bigger problem than NPOV? Why does Joyce Mojonnier require resolution any more than Miriam Defensor Santiago. The backlog at Category:NPOV disputes from May 2007 is half BLP (3 of 6). And three or six articles is manageable by even a single person. So why is everyone so focused on banging their heads against unmanageable backlogs and declaring that these bloody foreheads are proof the status quo must change? There are plenty of manageable corners to the backlogs that being are completely ignored. And many of those will bring in much better returns on rooting out real problems than unsourced BLPs. Is there actually any evidence that an unsourced BLP is more likely to be a problematic BLP than a sourced BLP? than a POV-tagged BLP? If I were going to focus on addressing BLP problems, I would start at the noticeboard and then focus on POV, accuarcy, clean-up, and rewrite categories. I have looked at alot of unsourced BLPs over a long period and it is a that area is a very low-return on problematic BLPs. If I were to focus stopping the growth backlogs, I would focus on finding a way to see that the patrollers who tag articles leave a note on the creators talk page explaining what they must do to resolve the tag and watchlist the articles they tag in order to remove the tags when fixed. The first lesson you learn in the backlogs is that people are very timid about removing tags when they fix an article. The backlogs are sodiscouraging because of the lack of any feedback within them and that absolutely no responsibility is asked of either article creators or those who tag articles. I don't think the discussion here is focused on the best questions let alone the best solutions.--BirgitteSB 20:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Bravo and well spoken, er, written! So what if the backlog is huge. There are more important things than this particular problem, and we already have tools to cure them--just not fast enough for some. Deal with the important stuff, and let niggling things get taken care of if and when there is a drop in more serious problems. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • ^^^ this. We are always on the lookout for some new rule or proscription that will allow us to draw a line in the sand and 'stop' whatever it is we don't like. In most cases, the encyclopedia is not suffering for want of such a rule. there are plenty of articles which need attention and time and that's it. and there are plenty of marginal articles which need help expanding but could arguably be disallowed through some reasonable rule. We keep searching for some rule or process which will allow us to ignore the "do lots of things that are hard" part of making the wiki better. WE WILL NEVER FIND IT Ever. The best we can hope for are things like the abuse filter (which stops us from having to watch for and revert certain kinds of vandalism), but it is entirely possible that the outcome of the introduction of the abuse filter will just mean reduced activity from vandal fighting admins, not a substitution of activity toward some other process. finding sources is hard. fixing prose is hard. Weighing a balance is hard. Clamoring to be the first to announce that we should "do something" about our problems is easy. Protonk (talk) 05:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this what flagged revisions is for?

Get to it. (PS: I would approve a new article that I know to be true even if unsourced, such as Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway.) --NE2 21:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really, actually. If the articles are unsourced from their creation, FlaggedRevs doesn't really help. It only helps prevent problematic content from being added to verified content. Mr.Z-man 19:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like something that could be added to flagged revisions. --NE2 06:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
How so? We can't flag a nonexistent page. Either an article has no flagged revisions and we always show the most recent one or there are flagged revisions and we show those instead. But if an article is bad from its first edit, there's nothing to flag. Mr.Z-man 05:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Couldn't the default view be nonexistent until someone flags the first revision as OK? --NE2 20:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I had thought of something like that, it would be as if the page were non-existent (not indexed in particular) until patrolled for the first time - in some sense. But it doesn't exist in the software actually, and I'm not sure it would be feasible, and may also introduce complications. I'm pretty sure the community wouldn't accept this actually. However, it may be easier and more acceptable by the community to simply noindex a page until it has been patrolled (in the WP:PLR sense). Reviewers are autopatrolled, so their pages would be indexed immediately. But then again, we'd need some time to evaluate the backlog before doing this. In the mean time, I think a simple template like {{BLP attention}}, indicating that a BLP may not meet the BLP policy, with tracking category et al, so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible by users, and optionally noindex could help. Cenarium (talk) 21:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
This is a much better idea. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding a more explicit note in MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning

See discussion at MediaWiki_talk:Copyrightwarning#.22must_cite_sources.22. Cenarium (talk) 21:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

All in one help.

I never can follow just one guideline (page) to propose a deletion, let alone a speedy one. Most of the time I get lost (guideline, criterium, right template on the page, three steps to do, goto the new discussion-section, notify editors). On the page here: I miss a written connection between a criterium, its code (A5) and the short templatename {{db-band}}. Involving a banned user, could it be {{db-band}} or {{db-banned}}?. Could not each criterium-description start with "A5." instead of just another "5.", and end with like "Use {{db-band}} here". -DePiep (talk) 09:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

  • If you forget the template you want, you can always use {{db|reason written in English}}. Stifle (talk) 19:30, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Thx, it would skip one step indeed, but I might be skipping guidelines too? The overall process is still uncharted to me. -DePiep (talk) 20:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
      • As an admin, I can say that we'd prefer if you tagged the page with whatever written reason you think is relevant, rather than leave it because you don't know the right tag. Stifle (talk) 08:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Well thank you, but the essence here is: how could I know that? And then, I don't mind diving into criteria and reading policies - great. Leave it to the administrator is not my preferred way of solving: it should be my fun! (Please understand I don't want to be tough on your reply, good faith & quality well received. It's just I seem to cannot get my point clear). For example (1): for this reply, I searched the for the proces for a speedy deletion. I know the description is three-staged I-II-III, and has these yellow bars on the left. (Really, this is what & how I search for in this). Could not find it. There is a page nearby starting with "This page is about how[!] to delete" etc. The the first section is called "Reasons for deletion". You see? Not how, but why. First section! I tried a lot of WP:guesses. I could think of: WP:DELETE :SPEEDY. SPEEDY does not clarify HOW to delete speedy, WHAT is speedy deletion, WHO does the speedy (clearly not :VFD, that's discussing but no criteria). Next example (2): I learned never to read a WP:HELP-page. These are in a separate universe for students who do a printed thesis on Wikipedia by reading. Like discovering chess by reading the rules. I did find example (3): -- but cant find it now for this illustration (true).
Do you get the point? On this talk's main page, I do not see the connection between G1 - 1 - :template:db-zzz [db ???] - "Article has no use" - etc. - Insert the template by Subst: or not.
I'll leave it here now, maybe getting carried away. Will be back improving. :-) -DePiep (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
You might want to see How wikipedia works, a book by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates, especially section 4.2 of chapter 7, available free online. (& downloadable as PDF, or you can even buy it in print). Great way to learn, or find out what you missed the first time, or the first few times. Or [[2]], by John Broughton, also free online, or available on print--some people prefer it-- see the chapter on deleting articles. I rely on them both when I want to understand, and then use the regular help system for details. Another good summary, now slightly out of date, is Wikipedia:Field guide to proper speedy deletion DGG (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

OMG! I can't believe a user with a very good point on a great way to fix Wikipedia would be given the advice to read a manual instead of using this as an opportunity to fix a glaring problem in the documentation of Wikipedia. DePiep has an EXCELLENT point. I don't tag things very often--mostly because it's so frustrating to remember all the hoops I have to go through to do it right. I like DePiep's idea, and here's how I would implement it.

  1. Create a page like, Wikipedia:How to delete something from Wikipedia (something could be specific to articles or leave it generic and discuss all possible deletion/discussion types on one page or on subpages)
  2. Offer a brief opening paragraph that points people to the pertinent policies and guidelines, discusses prod vs. AFD, etc., and links to everything.
  3. Create a table.
    1. Column 1 would list the WHAT (What the offense is causing you to want to delete it)
    2. Column 2 would be the WHAT described by CSD or other Deletion policy number (A1, etc.) linked to the appropriate definition and explanation.
    3. Column 3 (or maybe several columns if there is a progression) would be the templates to add to the article to start the process rolling.
    4. Column 4 (or maybe several) would be the template to add to the user talk page(s) of the creator/top contributor(s).
    5. Column 5 lists any waiting periods, delays, etc. Maybe other notes would be listed here.
    6. Column 6 explains what the next step is after completing that row (proceed to step #X or "An admin will delete after X days", etc.)

Something like that would be so very helpful to people who aren't intimately familiar with the deletion/discussion process and can't quote CSD criteria without looking at a cheat sheet. It would also help the admins out by better educating the users about the right way to do things. Nobody should have to go out an buy an instruction manual for the world's biggest encyclopedia that has built-in help pages and guidelines. Great idea DePiep. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 07:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Category speedy deletion

Something that I've wondered about for a long time is the usefulness of CSD C1: I have no complaints with deleting a category that's been empty for several days, but as an administrator I always hesitate to delete categories tagged this way, because I have no way of knowing whether they really have been empty for four days. Since the only way we can know that a category has been empty for four days is if we check the history of every article that is likely to be placed in it, this criterion doesn't seem very practical to me. As a result of the minor events leading to this Policy Village Pump discussion, I'd like to ask for a change in C1 — could it be made so that an empty category could have a C1 tag placed at any time, but would not be allowed to be deleted until four days after the tag is placed? Such an idea works with the image license criteria, since we delete a problematic image only after seven days of the tag being present. Nyttend (talk) 16:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Enthusiastic support! I never wind up deleting the cats for exactly that reason. And as an editor, it drives me nuts to have to put on my calendar to put a speedy tag on a category in four days when I empty out a maint cat. (And half the time I come back to find it had been speedied 3.5 days before.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
This was discussed at CFD recently, if I recall correctly. I don't have a problem with the proposal. --Kbdank71 16:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys, exceptionally good point by Nyttend. Personally I think especially if people have a very busy and tight schedule and have a great of work to do that remembering to tag the categories after four days is a likely pain for many editors. I would fully support the deletion of an empty category in the way than an empty articles can be deleted. However I would expect a realtered policy in place which means that the deleting admin must check the circumstances of why the category has been empty rather than taking it for granted. Sound reasonable? Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Gotta say I don't like it. CSD should be as black and white as possible. 4 days after tag posted on an empty category is a nice bright-line critereon. "Investigate circumstances" is just too vague. -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
How does one check the circumstances of why it's empty? You can't just check the history of the category. You would need to know if there were ever anything in the category and who removed it. --Kbdank71 16:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually I didn't think of that!. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Of course, it's nearly impossible to prove that a category has been continuously empty for any period of time. In practice, the process relies on spot checks, so in most cases C1 has to be a multi-step process.
I learned early on to blank the category and then wait four days for tagging. That way, there'd be evidence in the log that that admin could use to verify that the category was really empty four days earlier. Additional evidence can be obtained from the database reports, if necessary. I don't know how many admins actually check this sort of thing and how many simply assume good faith on the part of the tagger.
I do a lot of C1 tagging. Instead of putting categories onto a calendar, what I do put the word "empty" into the edit summary whenever I edit an empty category. (Blanking the page does this automatically.) I can then search back my Contributions for the word "empty", starting four days ago to find C1 candidates.
Most C1's are uncontroversial, but every once in a while, someone will depopulate a category by hand, as a sneaky way of bypassing CfD. Since categories are seldom on people's watchlists, the category creator gets little or no time to react, and this leads to complaints.
After I'd been doing C1 tagging for awhile, I got a suggestion to notify the category creator when I blanked the page, so I created a simple template so that I could do this conveniently. Recently I got I suggestion to put a tag on the empty category instead of blanking, so as to preserve users' ability to navigate to the category, so I created another template for that purpose.
Because I'm so conscientious, C1 tagging has become, for me, quite a complex process. The proposed change would make my job easier. However, I wonder if it will cause difficulty for the admins. Would they have to browse into each category to see how old the tag is, or is there some easy way to segregate C1 tags that are more than 4 days old?
If not, I suggest that there be two templates, rather like I use now: a warning tag to mark the category as empty and a db tag to mark it as eligible for speedy deletion.--Stepheng3 (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, if we go with my suggestion, we may have an idea of why it's empty. Many categories would be empty because the person who placed the tag had just moved the contents elsewhere; consequently, we could check the tagger's contribution list around the time that the tag was placed. Nyttend (talk) 17:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
And by the way, it wouldn't be that hard to figure out when the tag was placed: you just check the article history or look at the "This page was last modified on _____" bit at the bottom of the page. However, I compared this to image tags: while I don't know how the image tags work, I do know that they all have dates that say when they were tagged, so there's surely a way that this could be implemented. Nyttend (talk) 17:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
We could use some sort of subst like the PROD tag that would autmoatically insert the date that the tag was placed, as well as the date/time after which the category could be deleted. Of course, admins should really still check the history just to make sure. -Chunky Rice (talk) 17:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Support the idea of making like a PROD... considered suggesting that we retire the C1 and just use PROD instead, but that might mean that a cat gets tagged while it was empty. Then gets prodded. Then gets populated. Then gets deleted by an admin who doesn't realize that the Prod was only there to keep time and that the category should no longer be deletable. Thus, I think a new tag should be created OR use PROD, but include wording that it only applies if the category is empty at the start and end of the PROD cycle?---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 18:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

How about having whatever template we're using place the empty category into a dated C1 administrative category? That way you'll know exactly when the tag was placed without having to check the history for every empty cat. --Kbdank71 17:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting doing like with images? If so, this is part of what I've suggested, but I'm not clear enough on the technical side of things to be sure. Nyttend (talk) 17:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I also support some sort of dated prod-like tag for categories. I'm an admin and I've always found C1 confusing and impossible to administer. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

There are two categories that I am trying to keep as empty as possible, Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts, which will always have at least 15 members, and Category:Biography articles needing priority parameter replacement which should be empty. In a few months Category:Biography articles without listas parameter may also be empty. By their nature these three categories will continue to be populated, a few pages per day.
The priority parameter category has a note on it asking admins not to delete it if it is empty as it will be repopulated. Are such requests heeded? Should I leave a page unrepaired to prevent the category's being deleted or can I clean it out each time I log in (about twice a day)?
JimCubb (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I think those three are safe. Except in extraordinary circumstances, I'd assume that a category with "articles needing" or "articles without" qualifies for the "project categories that by their nature may become empty on occasion" exemption to C1. A note describing the category as C1-exempt should be respected or at least result in a discussion before tagging. And the good news about empty categories is that, if they do get deleted, they shouldn't be difficult to recreate. --Stepheng3 (talk) 23:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, C1 already excludes "project categories that by their nature may become empty on occasion". So the best way to deal with categories like that, which are populated by templates, is to place a note on the category page noting that "This category is populated by [[Template X]] and may not always be populated. Other examples of categories like this are CAT:EP and CAT:ESP.--Aervanath (talk) 04:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would be hard to alter the {{db-c1}} template to include a PROD-like date, with the dated template placing categories into subcats by date. I would support that change.--Aervanath (talk) 04:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Using C1 as an end run around CfD

I think we also need to discuss using C1 as an end run around a full CfD. Many categories nominated for a full discussion are not deleted. There has been an apparent increase in category name changes implemented without full CfD review and the cleanup is done using C1. I think we need to understand this problem before we make any changes. If the proposal winds up allowing more people to take a look and dispute end runs of CfD, then maybe it is a good thing. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Might want to give Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Speedy_deletion_criteria_.2F_Deprecating_categories_without_discussion a read. --Kbdank71 19:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Interesting since that was the apparent reason for the above discussion and this was the reason for the first discussion. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, funny how that happens. I'm not sure how to prevent something like this aside from constantly watching the Dr's contribs and reverting anything that is disagreed with per WP:BRD. Of course, that's a huge waste of time, which funnily enough, is the reason that was given for not going to CFD to begin with. --Kbdank71 19:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
If nobody says anything for 4 days after a category was depopulated, I think that we can assume it's uncontroversial in the vast majority of cases. -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
That would assume anyone knew about it. You can't watchlist population/depopulation of categories. --Kbdank71 20:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
But you can watchlist the articles in it. If you can make the category changes to every article in a category and nobody who has any of the articles has any objection, I think you're in the clear. -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Chunky Rice. If I see some sort of strange category change on an article in my watchlist, I check out the user's other contributions to see what they're up to. I think people will have adequate notice of this - if anything, the 20 or whatever edits it takes to empty a category probably attract more notice than the one edit required to prod a page. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that most editors don't watch the category changes. I watch quite a few, but if one is emptied and deleted, I don't know about it until the delete happens. I think that I only had one case where I saw an end run based on the articles I was following. I'm not sure that most users pay attention to category changes since these are generally marked as minor. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Tag-n-go.
Honestly, there's been confusion about this in the past, especially since most of the rest of CSD works this way.
Suggesting a CSD process that requires a certain length of time expire before tagging, with the suggestion that deletion can occur immediately after tagging seems contrary to most processes on Wikipedia.
Instead, suggesting that the time period (the durection before being able to act upon the tag, such as deletion) start after the tag is placed, would seem to match existing processes, such as nearly every other time-related CSD, XfD, and for that matter, PROD.
One concern that's come up in the past is that having the tag on the category for 4 days is needlessly confusing, and allows a backlog to begin, requiring extra work for admins to clear.
So in addition to this, since with tag-n-go we're adding a way to more easily check edit histories, we should be able to reduce the time duration to 2 days or even 24 hours instead of 4 days. (Something that often happens anyway, due to currently not knowing how long something has been empty...)
As for the concerns about "an end run", that might be avoided if we require more information in the CSD C1 tag.
For exmaple, if the category is emptied in order to merge/rename, then that should be noted on the tag, including the target thereof. - jc37 01:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It isn't really hard at all to determine if a category has been empty for 4 days or not, considering the existence of Wikipedia:Database reports/Empty categories which updates twice a week (3 days and 4 days between reports, respectively). I look at a 4+day old report and determine if the category is still empty since showing up, then delete if so. I've deleted literally thousands of categories via this process and adding an extra step-requiring that I tag it first, even though via the reports I can easily tell if it has in fact been empty for 4 days, seems counterproductive. Thus, this proposal would require a lot more work for me personally, and I'm guessing I do a lot more C1 deletions than everyone participating in this discussion (combined?). It would allow for some warning when a category is vulnerable for deletion, however, and I'm sure it would make it easier for admins who don't necessarily want to sift through the history of the empty category report to check if it has in fact been empty for 4+ days. Additionally, this assumption relies on the empty category report continuing to function as it has been indefinitely. In the end, I'd personally do less empty category work if this were implemented due to the extra work necessary to get them deleted, but there is a consensus to implement it I wouldn't mind too much. VegaDark (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the Database reports don't constitute proof of the C1 criteria as written. It's possible that a category got repopulated after the report was run and then depopulated again within the past four days. Some of the year categories, for instance, seem to pop in and out like fireflies. Without better MediaWiki support, however, it's almost impossible to be certain that a category has been continuously empty for any period of time. --Stepheng3 (talk) 18:00, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but leaving a category tagged for 4 days won't solve this issue either unless someone comes accross the category and de-tags it during a time when it is actually populated, which I estimate would be a rare occurance. VegaDark (talk) 04:06, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If there were tags on categories, as suggested above, it might one day be used for dynamicallly generating cat-trees, which would be extremely handy since it would cut down faulty and duplicated categorisation by page-makers. I tried notifying empty categories at "for deletion" and was told it was badnwrong to do that, but also do not want to delete what someone else has thought useful without admin agreement.... Redheylin (talk) 04:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a bot that would do hourly checks on cats tagged as empty, and remove the tag if the category was populated before the four days were up?--Aervanath (talk) 06:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

In listening to this discussion, I'm tempted to add a category for the C1 nominations like Category:Broken redirects for speedy deletion so that these can be more easy followed. Then list that category in the CSD heading with the suggestion to check on this and to move categories that should have been reviewed to a full discussion. While not a fix, it may help a little. If we add a delay after tagging, then this could work better. Another option for this approach would be to create the category and list it at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working in a speedy delete section and let the admins there review these. They would no longer be listed at the general speedy delete. This would move all of the category deletion activity into one place. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Wording

Reading the whole thread, it seems that this proposal has picked up a lot of support. Let's actually draft the wording that C1 could be changed to. To avoid the muddy issue of whether a category has been empty continuously for four days, I suggest we neatly sidestep this issue and stipulate that the category must be empty when tagged, and if it is empty after 4 days then it can be deleted. One suggestion to get the ball rolling: — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Unpopulated categories which have been tagged for four days may be deleted if they are still empty after this time. This does not apply to disambiguation categories, category redirects, featured topics categories, categories under discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for Discussion (or other such discussions), or project categories that by their nature may become empty on occasion (e.g. Category:Wikipedians looking for help).

Dividing long page

 Done This page is 329 kilobytes long, which is certainly prohibitive to comfortable use. Can we separate the long and complicated proposal at the top into a subpage and link to it, as I sometimes see done at ANI? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed... that section was EXACTLY 179,000 bytes by itself. Moved discussion to subpage on the proposed new BLP category.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

An oldie but a goodie

I'm frustrated not having an answer to this one, even though we've talked about it a lot ... how soon is too soon for a db-nocontent or db-context tag? (A7 can also be relevant, I think.) And how soon is too soon for the actual deletion? I'm declining a lot of tags within minutes of article creation for articles on what could be notable topics (such as Tihawali ... only content was "my village"). On the other hand, I often delete articles where the problem was that deletion was originally turned down for lack of information ... and no one looked at the article again, so we had a terrible article around for months. I've also become convinced that the good cop/bad cop approach is best with deletion; article creators, like everyone, are much more likely to respond to people they perceive as on their side; if I've just deleted their article, they rarely want to talk with me. If someone tags for deletion and I take the tag off, they get a lot more talkative. I think what I'd like to suggest is that I make more use of my holding pen ... let article creators know that I'm temporarily declining the request for deletion, to give them a few days to read WP:FIRST, and to give me a chance to ask a relevant wikiproject, if I think I might be able to round up some help. That's what I'm being paid for (hey, wait a minute ...) - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Tihawali warrants a speedy, easily. If you don't want to be deleter that's fine, but there's a serious problem to remove the tag, and not put any other tag, to indicate there's a problem. It's less likely anybody else will notice (but for the fact you mention it here). I see no harm in losing this article, which is so absurdly short. Put a message on the creator's talk, and they can re-create it properly. It's nice you want to be careful, but this seems like an absurd degree of caution. Finally, I'll add you seem to think your only options are "delete" or "decline". You also have the option of "leave alone" (along with appropriate talk page comments). --Rob (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Good point. Should I userfy it and leave a message saying "I'm not going to delete the article for a few days, but I'll move it to your userspace to give you a chance to read WP:FIRST" or something like that? And, how soon is too soon for the tagger? This one was tagged the same minute it was created. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 16:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
How fast is the tagger’s typing speed? –Whitehorse1 16:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Tagging quickly after creation makes it more likely the creator will see the tag before they leave wikipedia. Admins are still free to give a speedy tagged article time before deletion. Userfying is good for short harmless articles like this case. You can also the tell the user they can get their article undeleted on request. --Rob (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Tagging quickly after creation makes it more likely the newbie creator will up & leave Wikipedia though? (Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking of articles entirely consisting of "I did a weewee LOL!" or "$name is my best friend and I love her!!1" or "$possibleplacename, is my home".) –Whitehorse1 16:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm persuaded by the argument that tagging quickly means it's more likely the user will see it. We seem to have pretty good coverage of CSD during the day, US Eastern time (often handling requests within minutes), so if the warning on the creator's talk page is not too long and not too abrasive (I'd be in favor of shortening and toning down the A1 and A3 warnings), and if the userfication happens quickly with a nice note, I guess I'm in agreement that no harm is done. This article now moved to user's sandbox talk page. (I move to sandbox talk pages instead of sandbox page because any of these articles has the potential to be promotional, and if I move it to the sandbox page, I have to noindex it and then watch it to make sure the noindex tag isn't removed. If someone wants to write a bot to keep an eye on the {{noindex}} tag, that would be great.) - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Probably the reason we don't have an answer for this is that there is no one-size-fits-all-articles answer. It's all going to come down to each admin's common sense (which is why I place such a high priority on that trait at RfAs *grin*). How much of a chance does the article have of ever becoming viable? Was the editor making a good faith attempt to make a valid article? Can the article be easily rewritten into a valid stub (and then a friendly note left for the creator)? How likely is it the creator will improve the article if it's userfied? Personally, I do tend to lean more towards the AGF / let's save a potentially good article side of things, but I also get discouraged at how few of the articles I userfy ever get worked on again.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
All good questions, I'll write down potential answers as I go along. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk)

On userification, I think if it's very short, just put it on the user's talk page (not sub page), where they're certain to see it. If it's long, I think it should only be userified if there's a request for that, before or after actual deletion (the option can be given on their talk page). Otherwise, we risk having a lot content needing to be cleaned up later, that was created by one-day users. --Rob (talk) 01:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

if it has potential, I'll use an underconstruction tag (along with some hints about what to add--I find its some actual tailored-to-order non-templated hints that is most likely to help.) rather than userify. I agree with Rob that the odds of a article userified at this point ever being worked on is very low.DGG (talk) 03:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, about the only time I userfy is if there is some kind of implicit request (a hangon tag that says "I need more time to work on this" or multiple attempts to create the article with what looks like a good faith effort to improve it each time). Even then, rarely does the article get worked on after userfication. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding "per tagger"

There are roughly 20 reliable db-copyvio taggers (during my shift, anyway). Maybe 70% of the time, db-copyvio material is also obviously promotional. Given an article which is obviously db-spam-worthy, and given that I know that the odds of one of these taggers getting db-copyvio wrong are slim, it seems like a bit of a waste of time for me to pull up the target page and check every paragraph. On the other hand, I don't want to just delete per db-spam, because that discards useful information: that it's been tagged as a copyvio. I just started this morning handling these by adding G11 in the drop-down list, but keeping the G12 and inserting "(per tagger)" in front of it ... acceptable? lazy? thoughts? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:27, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I meant 20 non-admins, and I'm sure there are other reliable taggers too, just ones whose work I'm not familiar with yet. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I hope I'm on your reliable list. ;-) I appreciate when other admins double-check my tags, because once in a blue moon I do get that copyvio tag wrong. Otherwise I would have just nuked it myself.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Other way around, I hope I'm on your reliable list :) How do I deal with the temptation to simply mark the article as db-spam and let it go, rather than taking the extra time to pull up some pdf file that's going to crash my computer or some myspace page and then struggle to turn the volume down? Lead me not into temptation. (Hm. What if I ran a version of Corenbot as the double-check?) - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I've solved the myspace problem by never getting around to fixing my sound card at work. I also use that as an excuse not to open silly animated greeting cards sent by clueless relatives. ;-) I'm not sure I have a great solution for you. When I work on stuff that involves following questionable links (deleting copyvios, checking dubious sources, etc), I usually shut down other programs (so crashes aren't as annoying), use the safest browsers I can (preferably on my Mac at home), and "disinfect" afterwards (remove cookies, run spyware checks, etc.).--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:02, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I check every copyvio tagging. If I delete it, I'm the one responsible. In checking unknown sites I work like Fabrictramp: sound off, no other programs running, Safari on a Macintosh on a reasonably good connection, and either turn off cookies altogether or check afterwards. The worst that can happen is a bad pdf will restart Safari. (it's less likely to if you do not click on it) I use popups for Wikipedia, but it's safer to turn them off as well. But when I delete copyvio & it would also be a clear G11, I mark it for that as well in the hope of discouraging reinsertion. DGG (talk) 03:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Citing CSD is 'strongly' recommended?

For those who might be interested, there is a discussion on the Deletion Talk page about whether or not people should cite the deletion criteria or use "plain English" instead. If you wish to contribute, please feel free to join in at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_process#Citing_CSD_is_.22strongly_recommended.22---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed wikiproject, Requests for undeletion

Full proposal here. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Judgment call on redirs

The following 4 redirects have been tagged for speedy deletion as useless (and therefore promotional) redirects: Tony, Toni, TonA(c), Tony, Toni, Toné, Tony. Toni. TonA(c)., Tony. Toni. Toné.. This isn't covered at WP:REDIR or WP:SPAM; how many redirects from potentially different orthography and different alphabets, especially when created at the same time as an article about, say, a band, is "too many"? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

If they are created recently, they probably fall under R3 as implausible search terms for redirects. If they are older, they might fall under G6 as cleanup of things that have no value whatsoever but in this case, where they existed for 4 years, I think listing them at WP:RFD together would have been much wiser - no need to go outside CSD criteria without a real reason to ignore process. Regards SoWhy 21:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Why is it that we speedy implausible redirects? I wasn't around for that discussion. --causa sui talk 23:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Just because they're not very useful, I suppose. Stifle (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
That doesn't seem like a very good reason. Surely, there was something else? --causa sui talk 14:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't know of any. But it does seem kind of reasonable that we should delete a redirect from, say, Mr. John Anthony Evan Brian Smith, III to Brian Jones, if one were to exist. Stifle (talk) 10:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm with Stifle. Implausible redirects can be at worst a subtle form of vandalism and at best darned confusing to the reader. For an example of vandalism, let's say that our Mr. John Anthony Evan Brian Smith, III incorrectly redirects to Charles Manson. Assuming this really is an implausible redirect, it should be speediable either as an implausible redirect or vandalism. If Mr. John Anthony Evan Brian Smith, III redirects to teddy bear, it's harder to justify the vandalism tag (even though you could argue that), but having a category for implausible redirects makes it easier to delete quickly and without fuss.
That said, I'm a big fan of having plenty of plausible redirects. Readers don't always know correct spellings, correct diacritical marks, or just plain flub searches. When we can help them out so easily, why the heck not?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I get how it could be vandalism to have someone's name redirected to something potentially derogatory, humorous, or otherwise non-encyclopedic. But why do we delete redirects that are apparently there for the benefit of people who tried to type the article title but have a non-unicode character set? What is wrong with Tony, Toni, Toné? --causa sui talk 21:16, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Maybe I just don't have the right character set installed on my computers (fwiw, the redirect looks the same on my Mac and my PC), but Tony, Toni, Toné doesn't seem any easier to type than Tony! Toni! Toné!, the article it redirected to. (But I would have assumed I was missing something and tried to contact the creator, an appropriate wikiproject, or sent it to AfD.) We do have Tony! Toni! Tone!, Tony Toni Toné, Tony Toni Tone, Tony. Toni. Toné, Tony, Toni, Tone, Tony. Toni. Tone, Tony. Toni. Tone, Tony toni tone, Tony! toni! tone!, and Tony Tony Tony redirecting to that page, so I'm crossing my fingers that the reader is well served. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Honestly I don't know what the purpose is, but presumably whoever made it had an intended purpose, and it's not doing any harm, is it? --causa sui talk 22:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Why are we threatening to delete free content?

I object to the change to F3 which now claims that "Also, files exclusively licensed under versions of the GFDL prior to 1.3 (without allowing for later versions) may be deleted."

Since when is an older version of the GFDL an "improper license"? Why is it like this now? ViperSnake151  Talk  11:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, discussion was at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 34#Deprecating GFDL 1.2-only as a valid image license on en.wiki. Amalthea 12:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
(e/c) It was added on 13 April 2009 to the page by Kaldari with edit summary "Adding wording to CSD#F3 per talk page proposal and discussion at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en (which was widely advertised and seems to have rough consensus)." No comment on the rough consensus point—as I haven't reviewed the discussion (though have no reason to doubt the user)—but I believe the most appropriate option is to hold from having this clause while the dual-licensing debate is ongoing. That debate or 'vote', while not identical to this issue, is very closely related, conducted Wikimedia projects-wide, and has a definite endpoint (May), which is only weeks away. On that basis I'm reverting out that change and I'll let the above user know in a moment. –Whitehorse1 12:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 34#Deprecating GFDL 1.2-only as a valid image license on en.wiki describes a "consensus to deprecate GFDL 1.2-only as a valid image license". "deprecate" in the context of standards means "discourage further use of". It does not mean "ban further use of" nor "invalidate current uses of". Any rule change to CSD content with GFDL 1.2-only licences is therefore breach of the consensus, and should be undone. --Philcha (talk) 12:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
(e/c) Ah, it has already been undone. Thanks, Philcha. And you preserved the intervening changes as I was going to as well. Excellent. –Whitehorse1 12:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree with the revert. There was no consensus to change F3 in such a way, even if there was consensus to deprecate GFDL 1.2. Regards SoWhy 12:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I have also removed the reference to Template:GFDL-1.2. Stifle (talk) 13:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
There are currently no images here on enwp tagged with {{GFDL-1.2}}. But the documentation at {{GFDL-1.2}} currently says: "Any files tagged with this template are liable to be nominated for deletion"".
So does that mean we can't upload GFDL-1.2-only images anymore? I can understand discouraging people to create new content under that license. But what about old content from other sources that we want to reuse here on Wikipedia? Or is GFDL-1.2-only okay as long as it is only uploaded to Commons and then used from there?
--David Göthberg (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
That's another problem. It specifically uses the term "nominated for deletion", as opposed to "speedily deleted" (further down when uploaded to Commons). So that doc does not say those files can be speedy deleted. Whether they should be deleted at WP:FFD (although I see no reason why they cannot be uploaded to Commons then) is nothing we should discuss on this page. Regards SoWhy 16:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually there was consensus reached to delete these files. If the consensus was misquoted, so be it, but please read the discussion before reverting. It is at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en#Deprecating this template for future use. Why would you depreciate a license and then allow people to use it? It took me two months to sort through all of those files, and either delete or move them to Commons. I am a little thrown off by ViperSnake151 bringing this up here, as they were the one who nominated the template for deletion. {{GFDL-1.2}} and {{GFDL-1.2-en}} are not free licenses for media (please read free content), and are less free than CC-NC licenses which we also delete on sight. If this is not F3, then what do we do when someone uses this template? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah right. It allows commercial use, you just have to package a gigantic text file with it. Why would this be "less" free? Only GFDL I know what is non-free, is invariant sections for purposes other than moral rights. ViperSnake151  Talk  02:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
JohnnyMrNinja: I have read some of the discussions. You have misunderstood the meaning of the words involved, and that causes confusion. First of all "deprecate" and "depreciate" are not the same word, although they are related. We are talking about "deprecate" here, and in the computing world and the Wikimedia world it doesn't mean "may not be used", instead it means "we recommend you use something else". And that is a big difference. If a copyright tag is only deprecated it doesn't mean that it is invalid or disallowed, just that it isn't recommended anymore. But if the copyright tag was deemed invalid, that would be another matter. Deprecated things are kept for backwards compatibility. But when something is deprecated it usually means that it still works, but we might not support it in the future.
I see that some of the people discussing over at Template talk:GFDL-1.2-en#Deprecating this template for future use know the correct meaning of "deprecate", while some think it means "make invalid / may not be used". Thus that discussion is pretty confused.
As some mentioned: The "or any later version" clause in the other licenses is a sneaky clause. Since that means the copyright owner has no control anymore, since the license might change substantially over time. He just has to blindly trust the Free Software Foundation and hope they never screw up. That they now are thinking of automatically dual licensing images tagged with GFDL to CC-BY-SA just goes to show it. Those copyright owners didn't tag their images with CC-BY-SA, that isn't even "a later version" of GFDL. So it seems FSF now is screwing up the license. (But I don't think CC-BY-SA is better or worse than GFDL, and I see that it is similar to GFDL.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 03:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Anyone licensing an image using a license designed for software documentation, and who actually cares about such details should already know that they're intentionally using a sub-optimal license. The reason Wikipedia uses GFDL is mainly a historical relic. Creative Commons licenses weren't available when the first few projects were created and then we were kind of stuck with it. The FSF is allowing the dual licensing because they recognize that GFDL is a poor license for a project like this.
In computing terms, when something is deprecated, this means it could be removed at some time in the future and should not be used for any new code as its redundant to something else. Since en.wikipedia has no more images licensed as GFDL-1.2 only, I don't see what backward compatibility we need to maintain. Mr.Z-man 15:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
There is nothing sneaky about the "later versions" clause. It is an essential element of insuring that free content remains free even in the face of new laws or technology. In this case it allows Wikipedia to migrate to a proper license for its content, as the GFDL is NOT a free license for media files and was never intended to be used for such things as images, sounds, and videos. GFDL 1.2 should be listed as an invalid license for media on en.wiki, as was done a good while ago on the German Wikipedia. The outcome of the license migration proposal is irrelevant to this issue. Kaldari (talk) 16:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages of indef-blocked users

Are talk pages of indefinitely blocked users (who have been blocked for one month) eligible for speedy deletion under {{db-housekeeping}}? Cunard (talk) 04:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Below is [the discussion] at User talk:Dank55/Apr, which led to my post here.

User:IT BURNS, User talk:IT BURNS, and User talk:Woman Priest I provided a reason for the deletion of those userpages/user talk pages: CAT:TEMP. Userpages and user talk pages of indefinitely-blocked users, who have been blocked for 1 month, are deleted. See User:CAT:TEMP deletion bot for more information about CAT:TEMP. These pages are deleted per WP:DENY. Cunard (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding these to this page, but I'm not following. There are 20,545 pages in that cat, and the bot is no longer approved for use, and both those things suggest that these pages aren't being deleted now. Assuming they should be deleted, which rationale at WP:CSD would it be under? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dank55 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The rationale would be {{db-housekeeping}}. The common sense rationale would be WP:DENY. These users are the socks of Hamish Ross (talk · contribs), who has been banned for his vandalism and sockpuppetry. The user pages and user talk pages of HR's socks are routinely deleted because they serve no useful purpose to the Wikipedian community. Take a look at User talk:'Ey Gringo!, where several of HR's recent socks are listed. Specifically, the history of User talk:91.108.246.142 and the despicable things he has said about the deceased user, Jeffpw (talk · contribs). IMO, that IP's talk page, as well as all the other user pages and user talk pages of this banned user, should be immediately deleted and salted per WP:DENY. Cunard (talk) 04:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Maybe G5 could be interpreted to handle this: "Pages created by banned users in violation of their ban, with no substantial edits by others." It would depend on what that last part means. I would want to see some discussion at WT:CSD before I'd be willing to use G6 for this. I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying it's not something I've heard discussed. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 20:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't think every G6 subtype needs to be discussed. If an admin feels, in good faith, that a deletion is uncontroversial housekeeping they should go ahead and delete it; if there turns out to be an objection to the deletion of those pages, they can always be restored. Mangojuicetalk 05:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
As far as I know, CAT:TEMP deletions still occur, it's an extension of G6, but if there's a decent reason to keep a talk page around there's no need to nuke it. –xeno talk 05:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Xeno, AFAIK, all the issues surrounding CAT:TEMP were based on automated deletion and mass deletions with little review. I don't think there's any problem with small scale, manually reviewed deletion. Mr.Z-man 06:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
My interpretation as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to delete these pages, nor to not delete them. I wouldn't get too worried about deleting them as housekeeping. Stifle (talk) 08:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Many of them should not be deleted as they contain material relevent to the current state of mainspace articles. Note that the meaning of "indefinately blocked" is not even clear. Hot headed people often get indef blocked and later unblocked. Good contributors can take wikibreaks for more than a year. These pages need to be broken down into smaller categories. I do not want talk pages of once interactive, good faith contributors, to be deleted. Others say that accessibility to the records of actions of vandals is important for tracking and detection. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the user talk pages I listed above are useless to Wikipedia. They serve as shrines for the vandals who enjoy trolling Wikipedia. At Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Grawp, all the sock puppets of Grawp had their talk pages deleted. Hamish Ross (talk · contribs)'s severe vandalism on Wikipedia is on a similar level to Grawp's. See the history of User talk:91.108.206.142 for an example. Indef-blocked users who are actually good contributors have their pages tagged as Category:Blocked historical users. Trolls like Grawp and Hamish Rosh should have their talk pages immediately deleted per the uselessness of their existence. Cunard (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

On the subject of troll pages, someone else has said that they are needed for vandal tracking. I have no firm opinion on that, other than that the issues should be easily resolved. WP:DENY has strong community support. Why isn’t blanking good enough? Should vandal trackers collect data somewhere that is not publicly available?

I also don’t have a firm opinion on old barely used IP pages.

My focused objection to deletions is on the interaction history with once good faith contributors, and, in theory, users who may have been unfairly hounded off wikipedia. Such users have been put into CAT:TEMP before. The separation of CAT:TEMP and Category:Blocked historical users is a good thing, in my opinion. However, if pages are speediable, then they will be deleted with minimal or no review.

Do you propose that everyone should be asked to be more careful in putting indef blocked into CAT:TEMP, and will that be sufficient? Should a certain period in CAT:TEMP (one month?) be considered sufficient to assume that such pages are anonymously reviewed and judged to belong there? Should speedy deletion follow a two step process, with one admin blocking and putting pages into CAT:TEMP, followed by another editor attesting to the suitability, before allowing for speedy deletion (which I assume effectively means “automatic deletion”)? This sounds tedious. Should subsequently contested deletions be presumed to be undeletable (beware, some pages were deleted for very good, though forgotten, reasons)?

I sense vast majority support for the notion that routine speedy deletions should only occur as specified, and therefore, the onus is on those who would see such pages routinely deleted to add descriptions/criteria to this policy.

Note that CSD#G6 does not cover talk pages with non-trivial histories. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Blanking isn't good enough because I've tried placing {{indefblockeduser}} on several socks of Grawp but was reverted after several hours by an IP. The same thing would likely have happened if I blanked the page instead of putting the indefblockeduser template on the talk page. I don't want to want to watchlist all the talk pages I tag, so I would like to tag them for speedy deletion.
The pages I tag for deletion are nearly always old Grawp/Hamish Ross/Willy on Wheel socks that still have talk pages. None of these pages have useful conversations. The pages I tag for deletion contain worthless content such as that present in User talk:'Ey Gringo! or User talk:Furpillowy. I doubt that anyone would contest the deletion of these pages I tag because there is no historical content worth saving.
I agree that everyone should be careful when listing pages at CAT:TEMP; however, I'm not interested in that debate. My only wish is to clarify whether or not the talk pages I tag are qualified under G6. So far, the consensus is that G6 does apply. Cunard (talk) 04:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I think it qualifies as a G6. Simple housekeeping, sweeping up the old garbage sitting about. Of course sense needs to be used. If it is the uncontroversial deletion of some vandals talk page then go for it, if there is disagreement regarding a page then then speedy deletion is probably not best. Chillum 05:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Amending G4

Since the folks over at WP:PROD are extending the period for Prod'ed articles to remain to 7 days to be like AFD to allow more views and comment, we should treat Prod deletions as AFD and permit G4 to permit deletion of any re-created article that was deleted under either PROD or XFD. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Support I have seen many articles be deleted with prod for a very short time later recreated and then have to be sent to afd where consensus deleted the article again. If the prod last for 7 days that is well long enough for anyone to stop by and remove the template. 16x9 (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • PROD is meant to be completely uncontroversial. The length of time it remains open may help prevent premature deletion of articles that are not completely uncontroversial, but it doesn't mean that if a contributor notices 10 minutes after the PROD expires and is executed that the deletion was uncontroversial. The fact that somebody objects indicates otherwise. This would also put us into contradiction with WP:PROD, which indicates that any administrator may restore a PROD on request. This way lies wheel warring. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • what? No. I can't see the logic that turns a 7 dy prod into an afd. A prod is a deletion that literally no one contests. Once someone contests it, it is restored. If it is contested implicitly by a user recreating an article, we wouldn't G4 it. That makes no sense whatseover. Protonk (talk) 19:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. What Protonk said. Recreating is a belated way of contesting the prod and allowing recreations to be deleted under G4 would make this way of contesting impossible. There is a reason G4 is limited to XFD and we should not change it without a very good reason. A longer PROD time is no such reason. Regards SoWhy 19:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • oppose Protonk nailed it. --Philcha (talk) 19:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Illogical. Garion96 (talk) 19:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Most definite Oppose Protonk is completely correct. As for 7 days being enough time, not really. If you don't notice the change where a PROD was added, then you are unlikely to respond. At AfD, we have several controls in place that are missing at PROD: 1) you have a better chance that somebody will check to see if the primary author(s) have been notified 2) you have a better chance that somebody will make an edit to the article, thereby catching the original authors attention if they missed the initial PROD, 3) you (generally) have more than 1 or 2 people reviewing the article. An article that could be salvaged has a better chance of being salvaged if it goes through AfD than if it goes through PROD, 4) even if people don't explicitly look at the article, there is a chance at AfD that somebody might say, "Hey, I've heard of that." Articles at PROD are relatively ignored until their PROD period expires.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 19:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC) CEX2 5) G4 is allowed because it represents a minimal degree of consensus and is really designed to be enforced against those articles where the AfD action might be controversial---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 19:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Pile-on oppose. Others said it all. –xeno talk 19:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • oppose Entirely misses the point of PROD. -Chunky Rice (talk) 19:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Jump-on-the-bandwagon oppose Entirely per Protonk. Happy‑melon 20:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Move over on that bandwagon I have to fully agree with Protonk above. BigDuncTalk 21:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Protonk said what I thought the second I saw this thread. Add to that User:I'm Spartacus!'s explanation then you got it all covered. Agathoclea (talk) 12:29, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Agathoclea's adoption of previous opposes. AFD is a visible process, since the deletion discussion is located centrally; PROD is less visible, since the deletion proposal usually only takes place on the article itself, and so it is easier for contestable deletions to go through unopposed. Restricting recreation or undeletion in such circumstances would be inappropriate and would increase the workload at DRV for no real benefit. BencherliteTalk 12:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's bad enough that AFD discussion forbids re-creation of the article as it is. We don't need more ways for people to permanently delete anything. --causa sui talk 16:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
    I really need to read this board more often. Dlohcierekim 00:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
    AFD doesn't forbid the recreation of an article, that is a misnomer. G4/AFD is for the recreation of essentially the same article. If a rewrite addresses the concerns that originally lead to it's deletion, then it can be recreated without going through DrV. Now some issues may be better off goign through DRV (eg a subject deleted for not being notable---but even then, if you can provide sources proving notability, DrV is not required.)---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
    I don't think anything is permanently deleted. We now have Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion as well as WP:DRV. The former being much less formal than the latter. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 18:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Um... no. Stifle (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Neutral I can see the point that Protonk is making, however, there are some of these have-to-be-deleted articles which just don't have a CSD, for example nn video games. It is frustrating that it can take a week to delete them again. Guy0307 (talk) 09:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per Moonridden, Protonck, Spartacus A PROD repost should still go through AFD to make sure the subject it is truly deletable. It's too easy to make a mistake. Many eyes are better than one. Extending the time on PROD just reduces the likelihood of a mistake and gices more opportunity to save the PRODed article. It's a shame there are gaps in CSD, but this is not the answer to that. Dlohcierekim 14:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Triage

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most people who are doing CSD work these days tend to either delete, decline, or do nothing. Some of us do additional things, such mentioning the articles to relevant wikiprojects, taking them to AfD, and/or searching for and adding refs. As I go through the queue, I keep thinking the same thing: I'd like to do more, but I'm the last person to be making intelligent decisions about bands, sports, video games, or software. Is there some form of triage we could do that would useful? The usual thing is to take them to AfD; the trouble is that I know so little about bands, for instance, that if I had to make a quick call, I'd be shuffling a lot of them off to AfD, and the extra work at AfD might annoy people. How about if I make a quick Google news archives search for a band tagged with an A7, and for many of these, I would remove the speedy tag, prod the article, and (this is the new part) add a delsort tag on the talk page, and some bot would put these in a "music-prodded-delsorted" cat? (The delsort tags are the ones you see at WP:AfD that say "This debate has been included in the list of [whatever]-related deletion discussions.") Anyone could watchlist this cat for the same reasons they watchlist the regular music-delsort cat, but I'm thinking of this mainly as a way to let music-loving admins get in on the action without having to deal with the urgency of the speedy deletion queue and without wading through all the other articles in the speedy queue. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes add a cleanup tag. Stifle (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The deletion sorting pages already have a section for prods to be added. (In Dan's example, the prod would be listed at the bottom of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Bands_and_musicians). Perhaps some clever person could write a script similar to the delsort script I use at AfD? Or perhaps the deletion sorting could be added to the prod part of twinkle?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 20:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
What a great idea. Dlohcierekim 20:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Okay, it would be very nice to have a script anyone could use to help with this kind of work; we might want to select from a drop-down list to the section that Fabrictramp just mentioned; can anyone point me to someone who can help with scripts? - Dan Dank (push to talk) 15:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The thing I do with bands, since I do not understand them either, is to leave them for some other administrator--there are quite enough who do. I concentrate on the immediately harmful articles, and the ones I know enough to help with, such as articles on companies and educational institutions and academics. Improving prod watching prod , though , is a excellent idea--the WP:PROD talk page is the place to suggest it, though. DGG (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Probably the people who have written similar scripts would be a good place to start. WT:TW for Twinkle, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting for the delsort script. If no one bites there, there's always Wikipedia:SCRIPT#Scripting_requests.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll gather data for a few days and make a proposal on the Twinkle talk page. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 18:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:Update

The April update of all content policy, deletion policy and enforcement policy pages and all the general style guidelines is done, and I'll try to get the updates done on the first of each month from now on. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 03:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts?

User_talk:Dank55/Apr#Blog Quiz, User_talk:Dank55/Apr#KTechlab. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 05:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts are that Wikipedia is in no rush, and that the servers will not come to a grinding halt if something goes through AFD instead of being speedied. For borderline cases, AFD is usually perferable; if the reviewing admin has any doubt in his/her mind then there is no real harm in letting the article be vetted at AFD. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:20, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Blogquiz was subsequently changed to undoubted vandalism by an editor, and deleted by another admin as such. This was incorrect, as there was an unvandalized version to revert to. so I Boldly undeleted and reverted to it. Anyone wants to send it to afd, go right ahead, I havent the least idea whether it will pass. As to Ktech, I doubt it will unless someone finds better sources. DGG (talk) 17:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
On the basic question, I believe that "web content" of any type is covered. A7 also covers Youtube videos, for instance. But it doesn't cover "web concepts", which is what Blog Quiz is. If it were a single webquiz (say like one of my lovely Quizilla creations) that did not give any indication of notability, I would A7 it without hesitation. :) (No, I will not link. I will pretend it is because I do not wish to "out" myself, but in fact I am far too embarrassed to 'fess up.) I would tend not to delete a three-year old article speedily on "blatant advertising" concerns either if multiple editors had evidently not thought it blatant. I wouldn't speedily delete KTechlab as advertisement anyway; it's hardly that spammy. May not be notable. But it doesn't scream "BUY ME NOW!" --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
(P.S. I hope you don't mind, DGG, but I selectively deleted the vandalism based on how it was showing in history. I also restored the talk page, prior to the introduction of vandalism there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC))
I should have done that myself. My apologies. DGG (talk) 02:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the second, DGG, it's had at least 20 different editors and been around for almost 3 years with approximately the same (short) content. I'm trying to divide speedy tags up into "definite delete", "definite decline", "opinions are divided" and "I don't know yet". For an article that's been around for 3 months with 5 different registered editors, but appears to otherwise be clear db-notability or db-spam, I concede that either opinions are divided or I don't know yet. For 3 years and 20 editors, I'd like to make the case that the risk is too high that the deleting admin will create controversy and come across as unilaterally overruling everyone else, and that it's safer to take it to AfD. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 18:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Both declines were correct. KTechlab clearly is not blatant advertising as G11 requires it and it's about a software, so A7 does not cover it. Blog Quiz is about a concept, not about web content and is thus not covered by A7. WP:NOTDIC is not covered by CSD as we all know. Regards SoWhy 19:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

As the tagger of these two articles I thing the arguments for decline are not valid but here are the afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blog Quiz and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KTechlab 16x9 (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking them to AfD, and responding on my declined tags page. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 19:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
AfD is the proper thing to do. I would imagine that those two articles will either be vastly improved or gone within a week. :) I will suggest, though, that you might want to reconsider the philosophy of WP:CSD, particularly the part that reads, "These criteria are worded narrowly, so that in most cases reasonable editors will agree what does and does not meet a given criterion. Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead." While there's always going to be some inevitable differences in interpretation, when multiple uninvolved people feel that an article is not a good speedy deletion candidate, it probably isn't. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:27, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Moonriddengirl for actually pointing out some type of solution/clarification. But in this case only one involved person felt the articles were not candidates for speedy until it came here for questioning. I would like to reconsider the philosophy to not go so narrow that nothing can be deleted by csd just because some editor (likely the creator or current maintainer) might get their feelings hurt that their article was deleted. Most people here have comment that the articles will like be gone soon meaning we all know they are CRAP. 16x9 (talk) 19:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, article creators aren't uninvolved, which is why they can't remove tags. But I was really referring to your statement that "I thing the arguments for decline are not valid", which I took to mean in spite of the opinions of multiple people above. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The main thing you need to understand here is this: Speedies can be incorrect even if those pages are "crap" (as you call it). If they do not meet the criteria (and those two just didn't), then the speedy is incorrect. In no way does a declined speedy mean the page should be kept - just that it fails speedy criteria. Regards SoWhy 19:49, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The original decline was "Declining db-notability; this isn't a person, company or website." (emphasis mine) which is what I am referring to. CSD A7 says web content which I do not see limiting it to websites. And for KTechlab no were in csd does it say that articles were missed for three years is it still not spam. maybe my def of spam is too low. I get what you are saying Sowhy that decline is not a keep I just didn't agree with the decline reasoning and have now afd. It is not like I csd United States of America or Church I csd a made up definition web content and a non notable software product that someone was using wikipedia as free advertisement 16x9 (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
But it's a web concept. It would be different if it were a specific quiz; that would be a clear A7. You could delete pointlesswebsite.com (wonder if that's real) because it is "web content", but you wouldn't speedily delete website. You can A7 delete an article on AmyJoe's blog, but you couldn't A7 delete blog. One is content about the web; the other is about content on the web. There, in my opinion, is the difference. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
As Moonriddengirl says, there are differences and I'm afraid they matter. Things that are madeup fall under WP:MADEUP and that is WP:NOT which is exempt from speedy deletion. Products in general are exempt from A7 because that covers only people, organisations and web content. Dan might have used a bit vague wording but the declines themselves were perfectly valid. After all, any admin can decline almost any speedy if they think it should be subject to wider discussion (valid G10 and G12 taggings exempted). ;-) I understand the frustration when such things happen, I sometimes would love to delete some pages as well but if they are not meeting the criteria, we have to refrain from doing so, else we could just revoke the whole policy. Just be a bit more careful with such things, it's quite easy to avoid and just use WP:PROD for those uncontroversial deletion candidates that do not meet CSD. Regards SoWhy 20:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I think we are in agreement. Thank you SoWhy and Moonriddengirl for being so helpful. The bad thing with prod is that the article can be recreated and then it would have to be afd just wasting more time. 16x9 (talk) 20:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd say having to spend a few minutes at AFD for a dozen bad articles is a small price if it helps to avoid that a good article is speedy deleted. Regards SoWhy 20:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Can I come back to the other issue of avoiding abrupt deletion when it might be seen as brushing aside the opinions of others? That keeps coming up. The issue above was that it was a 3-year article with 20 editors. Another recent one was Royal Dutch Shell initiatives, which I declined because it had 6 registered editors in the preceding week and was then being discussed at WP:NPOVN. I didn't feel that the rationale for speedy was solid, but even if it had been, I think I would have declined on the theory that for one person to close off the debate and stop the editing would have been seen as presumptuous and could have led to a prolonged battle. Another one just came up: Trisk is currently at AfD with consensus that it's a hoax, and there isn't currently consensus for a speedy, but one editor tagged it for speedy on the theory, I guess, that consensus is overwhelming. I'm not comfortable intruding on an AfD except in cases of G10 or G12, and even then I need to be really sure. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 23:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, as for the opinions of others, we have to understand (taggers mostly who are annoyed when their taggings are declined) that CSD is for those pages where almost every experienced editor will tag it as such. If multiple experienced editors have not done so for years, we can assume that they probably thought about it and decided against it, thus making a later tagging not uncontroversial. I, too, tend to decline such taggings based on this reasoning and because another 7 days of AFD will not matter in any way if the page exists for so long already. It's always better to err on the side of caution when CSD is involved because wider input never hurts an article more than a speedy might. Regards SoWhy 08:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
You are assuming multiple experienced editors edited the page. In the case of KTechlab the two-three experienced editors did minor copyedits stub sort when the article was first created. The rest of the edits look to be SPA and/or IP edits. For Trisk I would let the AfD stand because the original nominator could have csd but took an alternate route. If the consensus at afd was specifically Speedy Delete then go ahead, but it looks many have so far said just delete - we cannot read their minds to way they didn't say speedy. 16x9 (talk) 17:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I will very occasionally speedy if its blindingly obvious that bringing it to afd instead was an error. this happens once every few days--someone will take a facebook-style page there. But almost always what I think is that once its gotten as far as afd, the simplest think to do is to let the process dispose of it.DGG (talk) 17:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Amending A7

A7 will include books, schools and software. Guy0307 (talk) 15:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

For books, it might be better to expand A9 by adding "or a book that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the writer's article has never existed or has been deleted." Or better, "any created work that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the creator's article has never existed or has been deleted. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 15:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I like the second of those two ideas, Dlohcierekim (interesting name, BTW!). Guy, are you aware of just how many times we've churned up the schools issue? Happy‑melon 15:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Rather, keep the correct policy, that A7 will exclude books, schools, and software. A7 speedies on books and software rejected many times for several good reasons, most important among them that 2 people alone cannot properly judge. There are too many instances of books where the notable author's article has not been made, and the first time something appears on Wikipedia is a naive article on the book. Obviously admins should check, but frankly, not all of them do. This is an area where the material needs to exposed for checking for a week. (this is different from popular music, where the articles on possibly notable creators are very extensive.) Similarly for software, people who know need to see for software, and here the "creator" argument doesn't really apply. As for schools, we simply do not delete them at all in most cases: high schools are 99% of the time kept at AfD, and lower level ones should be merged. Therefore speedy deleting under A7 them would never be correct. They remain speedy deleteable as copyvio or vandalism. DGG (talk) 17:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Good point on books as opposed to music, DGG; being often from an era before the internet, books often don't have the in-your-face coverage that may be required to satisfy a deletionist admin. And actually, in many cases, software is more notable than the company or organisation responsible for creating it. So in fact while I do still like Dlohcierekim's wording of the issue (generalities are often preferable), and if we ever did go down the CSD route, that's the way we should go about it, DGG is convincing that they shouldn't be covered, certainly not in A7. And the schools issue has been done to death. Happy‑melon 17:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with DGG on both schools and books and I think software should stay out of it as well, because some software can be perfectly notable without any internet coverage and we have no notability guidelines for software especially, so we have no standard to measure what might be an indication of importance or significance for software. Also, I fear an A7 for software will lead to tons of articles that exist for years being deleted without review outside any guidelines that cover the topic. Additionally, software articles are very rare compared to newly created bio, company, band or web content ones, so there is no need to amend A7 for them. Regards SoWhy 18:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Considering the amount of times I put an article on watchlist after patrolling and tagging it which later on gets deleted under A7 when they actually do make an assertion of notability, considering the amount of times I've myself tagged for CSD A7 because I mistakenly thought the assertion had to be sourced and that 80% of these erroneous nominations have been deleted under that exact same reason without questionning, and finally considering the amount of times a non-sourced article I send to AfD because it does make that unsupported assertion gets at least one "this should have been speedied instead of wasting time at AfD" when it is clearly not an A7 case, I'm clearly opposed to an extension to A7, now that I know better. --MLauba (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I've taken to including in my nom the reason it's not eligible for speedy deletion. That helps a bit (although one I recently sent that wasn't eligible got a half dozen instant "speedies" and was speedied by another admin. Go figure.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

We don't have the volume of software or book articles creations to merit including in CSD. Schools aren't normally deleted. I'm intrigued to find that I require "in your face" overage to decline a speedy. that sounds EXTREME! :) Protonk (talk) 05:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

By that I mean somewhere in the top-ten google hits is the phrase "nominated for", or similar. Blinking 50-pt high red text is useful, but not strictly required... :D Happy‑melon 16:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Broadening G9 A9

Fan films, self-published novels, etc can all be hit more precisely with G9 than current tools if the language were slightly broadened to deal with "media" instead of "musical recordings." Just a thought/no need to rush into anything, but I believe it would be beneficial. MrZaiustalk 16:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

G9 is Office Actions. I assume you mean A9? Happy‑melon 16:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I think he means that. However, A7 is usually cited to deal with them and so far, we always had consensus against including both books and films. See two sections above for the latest request to include books. Regards SoWhy 19:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I would not have a problem including "self-published" materials. 99% of self published material is not worth keeping, and the 1% that is, undoubtably has secondary sources to establish why that self published movie/YouTube clip is noteworthy.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC) OOPs, I thought Z-Man wrote the original proposal... apologies for my edit summary :(---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Have we talked about including self-published and vanity-press books and self-made films in A9 before, something along the lines above? I can't think of an objection at the moment. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 16:22, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
The only objection I can think of is that self-published books represent a very small fraction of CSD volume. For as specific as A9 is now, it covers a lot of articles. Protonk (talk) 16:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe change "web content" to "self-published content", since that's what most web content is. ViperSnake151  Talk  19:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I am very reluctant to extend A7 , but I think self-published material might be a good addition. They can be notable, but there needs to be something to indicate that. We need some wording to make sure that the article is checked to make sure it is indeed self published or published from a known vanity press. I'd add it as a separate criterion, though. DGG (talk) 23:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

GFDL-presumed = F3 or F11?

I'm planning to redirect the now deleted GFDL-presumed template to a speedy deletion tag, but where would this criteria fit better? Since it was a GFDL release with no evidence of permission, it could be an F11, but its also an improper license now. So, where should it go? ViperSnake151  Talk  18:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Depends on how many files are affected and which result we want to achieve. As it was a former valid license, I think it should go to F11 as it has the 7 days period in which the uploader can rectify the problem. F3 imho applies to cases where the license was improper from the beginning, rather than those were later changes made it so. Also, F3 is, from its wording, limited to "for non-commercial use only" (including non-commercial Creative Commons licenses), "no derivative use" or "used with permission" and no other improper licences. Regards SoWhy 06:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
{{subst:nld}} Stifle (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Add link to Wikipedia:First article to deletion tag user notfications?

I think it's good for creators to understand 1) why an article is up for deletion and 2) what articles need to survive. Would it be helpful to add the link to First article to to the CSD notice to nudge them in the right direction? Dlohcierekim 15:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think a better link would be to Wikipedia:Starting an article: very similar content, but does not make the assumption that every article that is subject to CSD is someone's very first article. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
If you use twinkle to do the CSD tag and the user doesn't yet have a talk page, it inserts Template:Firstarticle before the warning, which does have a link to WP:FIRST in it. Unfortunately, not many of the people warned bother to read the links in that welcome message. :( --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

@US. Good idea. Did not know that. @Fabric. Too true, but I see deletion notices on pages without a welcome. I think even with the welcome, it's good to give 'em another chance to see the links they need to follow. Too often, BE BOLD is all they see. I probably knew TWINKLE does that and forgot. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 18:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC).

FWIW, it isn't Twinkle, the notices do that themselves when placed on a non-existant page. Amalthea 19:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Good to know. I assumed it was Twinkle, as I'm hopelessly addicted make extensive use of it in tagging. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I usually add it, when appropriate. Sometimes, i also often link to Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia when I think its someone trying to write an article, but having no idea of what to write about. Btw, the content of WP:FIRST is almost exactly the same asWP:SAA, though one is supposedt o be more detailed than the other. DGG (talk)

"Importance" vs. "notability" (A7)

Shouldn't A7 be changed to require an assertion of notability, not importance? Importance has never been a criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia, and most articles on Wikipedia are not "important" – see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index. The criterion is given as "a lower standard than notability", but that isn't necessarily the case, since something can be notable without being important (Bam Thwok) or important without being notable ("confidence").

An assertion of notability could be an assertion of any of the points on the relevant notability guideline (music, etc.) without necessarily backing it up, which I assume is what the guideline is intended to mean. —Gendralman (Talk) 04:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

NO. You have it backwards. An article needs to indicate importance which is intentionally a lower threshhold than the Wikipedia definition of notability, which requires verfiable confirmation in substantial, reliable, independent sources. AN article does not need such sources to avoid A7 speedy deletion, it merely needs to indicate why a subject may be important enough to merit an encyclopedia article. For example, an article may note something like the following:

Jane Doe was three times elected to the town council in Smalltown, USA. She was a noted painter, having recieved several awards for her artwork, and having been her work shown in many important galleries. She has been published in several major newspapers as an art critic, and twice won "Citizen of the Year" from the Smalltown Rotary Club.

See, the above passage makes several claims to being important (town councilor, published writer, noted artist) but it does not actually meet the definition of notability set out in WP:N. There would need to be some discussion over whether or not these claims of importance ammount to being notable, and as such, the article should be discussed before being deleted. As such, though it may ultimately be deleted via an AFD discussion, it is not eligible under A7. It may not be a notable subject under Wikipedia guidelines, but the above passage clearly does not qualify under A7 because it makes some claims which COULD be taken as claims of importance. The word "notability" is specifically avoided in this case because of the weight that word carries at Wikipedia. Since it has a special definition, one must be careful when using it. A7 is intended for articles such as:

Jane Doe is an awesome chick. She's really pretty and sits in front of me in Spanish class. She's a great artist, and I think shes on the student council or something. I want to marry her.

The above is an A7 worth speedy deletion, because it makes no reasonable claims that Jane Doe has done anything important. Its not even worth discussing the claims in the article, because being "really pretty" is not the same thing as "recieving several awards for artwork and having been shown in many important galleries". One claim at least merits checking out, as it shows some indication the subject may be notable. The other is patently not worthy of an article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Can you read my post again? I think it was unclear the way I originally wrote it. —Gendralman (Talk) 06:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
This text used to be in the definition of A7. to avoid speedy deletion an article does not have to prove that its subject is notable, just give a reasonable indication of why it might be notable. It was removed due to a previous discussion because it was felt that it led to people confusing "importance or significance" with "notability". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 16:37, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I've read your post twice now, and I think I understand it. But if my answer makes it obvious I didn't, I hope you'll clarify. The reason that the lower standard of importance is used to avoid speedy deletion is WP:AGF -- we can't reasonably expect a new, enthusiastic editor who wants to make their first article to know all the intricacies of every subset of WP:N. So to avoid speedy deletion, we only ask that there's a reasonable, good faith attempt at showing why someone ought to have a Wikipedia article. "Jane Doe was three times elected to the town council in Smalltown, USA." is a reasonable attempt at this; "Jane Doe is an awesome chick." is not.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
can't support this change... if we word it with notability, then we start having people demanding that the article instantly make claims that meet one of the explicit criteria for WP:N. By wording it with importance/significance, we are setting a lower level of tolerance, and avoiding the wikilawyering that will arise with the word "notability."---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I think I'm Spartacus! nailed it. Imho the main reason not to have "notability" in their is to avoid wikilawyering, something new editors should not be confronted with. A7 uses a lower standard to, as Fabrictramp say, avoid scaring of good faith editors unfamiliar with the guidelines.
Remember that A7 only applies to articles where importance or significance (one of the is enough) is a reasonable criterion to judge inclusion worthiness at the first glance. So yes, there are notable topics that are not important - but then they are significant. Regards SoWhy 17:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
This discussion is symptomatic of changing standards and the evasive definitions of these terms, which each mean different things to different people. In a way I think an assertion of "notability" is more honest, because the entire point of this criterion is to delete articles that would be snowball deleted at AfD for not meeting prevailing notability criteria. If we decided tomorrow that, say, all painters are to be considered notable, then we would certainly want to stop speedy deleting painters under A7, right? Dcoetzee 10:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
No, the purpose of CSD is to delete articles that could be deleted uncontroversially at AfD. Speedy Close has nothing to do with why we have CSD. One of the key reasons for the distinction is that "notability" is narrowly and specifically defined. Whereas a person could make a claim to importance/significance, that is important/significant, but fail to adequately meet the guideline of WP:N and all of its derivations. By having an explicitly lower threshold for CSD, we ensure that (most) admins don't go off on their own. We also ensure that the author has the best possible opportunity to establish that the article is in fact notable.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't even say anything about speedy close. I know very well that A7 is supposed to be a lower standard than notability, the question is whether it is currently interpreted as one, because different people have different definitions for the words "importance" and "significance." As it stands, the rule is not responsive to changes in the notability guidelines. However, I'm not actually advocating any change - I'm just trying to interpret the original poster. Dcoetzee 19:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
OK, I understand why notability shouldn't be a speedy criterion. I guess my problem is the wording doesn't make it clear that proving notability is an acceptable alternative (e.g. "importance or notability"). It just says "importance, which is a lower standard than notability" (which it's not, as I've shown), so it's counterintuitive (to me at least). —Gendralman (talk) 14:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
You pointed to Bam Thwok in your description above. But saying that it notable without being important. The criteria isn't importance or notability, which you quote, but rather importance or significance. Bam Thwok makes a claim to significance/importance in its second sentence. It single debuted at #1 on the very first release of the UK Download Chart. That alone would be more than enough of a claim to importance/significance to avoid CSD. I din't even have to read any further to know that. Now, if that was ALL the group was known for, then the question might become "is it really notable enough to avoid AfD?" I mean, how important/significant is the "UK Download Chart?" Is it really a national chart of some sort or did your cousin vinney put it together last week over a few beers? Either way, that claim alone is enough to avoid an A7 deletion. Being number one on the first ever national chart is a claim to importance/significance. The claim can be unsourced and heck it could be a complete fabrication, A7 does not require that the claim is sourced/true, it only requires the claim (G3 is there for the hoaxes/vandalism cases.)---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
We have deliberately used a different word here, to avoid getting embroiled in the discussions of what is and what isn't notable. The intention is to make this a much lesser criterion. AfD shows very clearly that no one or two persons are reliably able to judge notability -- for any type of article. But to say that something isn't possibly important enough to even be worth evaluating for actual notability--that's another matter. But as said, when we say that we have in mind the various sorts of things which make up importance for the purposes of Wikipedia notability. DGG (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Amending or clarifying general criteria for books

See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 33 § G13 Books

There is a discussion at AN about deleting books in userspace. I objected to the use of G2 for empty or "test" books due to the fact that G2 is fairly explicit about not applying in userspace. The argument in response (which strikes me as compelling) was that G2's language intends to avoid deletion of drafts or sandboxes and that it isn't necessarily an appropriate analog to books. I know little about the books feature, but I figured we should hash out some speedy criteria or modifications to speedy criteria to deal w/ books neatly. Protonk (talk) 21:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Thanks UG. Should've checked the archives. My thoughts are along the lines of those in that archived discussions. We don't need another top level criteria, maybe just a change to G2. Protonk (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, the way I see it, there are two types of "test pages" here that we're trying to distinguish between:
    • Pages created as one-off tests - especially by inexperienced users - which we do want to delete.
    • Pages designated as personal sandboxes - often by more experienced users - which we're trying to leave alone.
  • If this is an accurate assessment, then all we need to do is extend G2 to userspace, then carve out an explicit exception for "sandboxes". Zetawoof(ζ) 04:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't see the point. Why do we have to speedy delete those books? Can't we just MFD them where needed and leave them were they are as harmless as a test-sandbox is? SoWhy 06:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
    • PS: I think Icestorm815's deletions of those books that Zetawoof tagged G2 were incorrect under current policy as it excludes userspace in general, not just for certain pages and has to be changed to allow such deletions first. I personally would rather propose extending PROD to books or a new PROD-like system because I find it quite harsh to delete people's good-faith tests in a namespace they were told they are allowed to test in. Expanding G2 to cover any bit of userspace contradicts this fundamental tenet of userspace. Regards SoWhy 07:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
      • MfD isn't practical, as there are way too many of them: there are over one thousand likely deletion candidates right now. This is probably because the Special:Book interface makes it incredibly easy for users to create books in their userspace, and even prompts unregistered users to create an account to save newly created books if they aren't already logged in. (Indeed, taking a look at the contributions of users who created these test books shows, in many cases, that creating the test book is their only contribution, or their first contribution.)

        With regard to why they merit deletion, take a look at the current state of Category:Wikipedia:Books: it's practically useless due to the proliferation of test books. Simply removing the category from existing test books is one solution, but given that they will pretty clearly never be needed - and obviously will never be used for their intended purpose of being printed! - deleting them seems like the correct long-run solution. Zetawoof(ζ) 11:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

        • Judging whether something is needed or not should be something we have to be careful in userspace. There are a lot of userpages I think they are not "needed" but they are not violating policy and thus allowed to stay. Just as a CSD-duty admin cannot judge whether someone needs their sandbox anymore or not, they cannot decide whether they need the saved books or not. If your only problem is the state of Category:Wikipedia:Books, then yes, removing the category is the correct way, not deletion. If we can achieve the same result without violating the basic tenet of userspace, we should not choose the way that does. Regards SoWhy 12:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
          • Agreed. WP:BOOKS is a new feature, and not our call, and if browsing the cat is impossible because IP editors are all invited to create books, we (CSD admins) didn't create the problem and it's not our job to fix it, that's up to the community. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 13:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
            • I've been deleting books as "inappropriate use of book feature" (among others). Feel free to restore any individual book that you feel should still exist. DS (talk) 21:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The state of Category:Wikipedia:Books is apparently the main problem, here. But recategorization doesn't in fact solve it. The reason for this is a simple one, that I discovered when Wikipedia:Books/Saiyans and characters in Dragon Ball GT (MfD discussion) was up for deletion. Saving a modification to a book using the book tool completely replaces the entire current contents of the page. (It thus zapped the MFD notice when I tested it.) The category is added to the page by MediaWiki itself, using the category specified in MediaWiki:coll-bookscategory. It isn't added by the {{saved book}} template. The consequence of this is that even if you recategorize every book in user-space (to, say, Category:Wikipedia:Userspace Books), as soon as an editor updates a user-space book it will be placed back in Category:Wikipedia:Books once more. Uncle G (talk) 22:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

@DS: Thank you. Feel free to work from the list in my userspace.

@Dank, SoWhy: CSD admins are just as much a part of "the community" as are all other editors. Moreover, while I'll readily agree that there are plenty of unclear cases here which shouldn't necessarily be made speedy candidates, the fact is that there are a ton which are plainly obvious test pages: for instance, "books" whose only content is the Main Page, or Portal:Contents, or something of the sort. It's clear to anyone that the creators of these pages were blindly experimenting with the feature, and that they are very unlikely to care (or even notice) if their experiments are cleaned up. Zetawoof(ζ) 22:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean that I'm not a part of the community, I meant that there are potential problems here that only the community can fix. DS is taking a whack at it, and he's great at this kind of thing; I'll wait for his report on the extent of the problem and what's needed before I make any recommendation. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 14:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
But that's not the point. They are allowed to experiment in their userspace and our criterion that is for test pages specifically acknowledges this by excluding this namespace. Saying people are not allowed to test books in userspace circumvents the whole point of G2 excluding userspace and thus is against the policy. I do not care whether people will notice or not, but I do care if they get frustrated that admins seem to go around deleting their pages after they were told they are allowed to create them. It's a contradiction that will make us look bad and rightly so. If we change policy to cover books as an exception, fine. But as long as we don't, we should acknowledge that policy says (and I quote): "New editors and experienced Wikipedians can use subpages to their user page to (...) test wikitext markup (...)". Books are a way to collect and store information, similar to tables, infoboxes etc. and thus certainly allowed to be tested in userspace. Regards SoWhy 06:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the right answer here is much simpler. Browsing Category:Wikipedia:Books is like trying to browse Special:Allpages - not a bad idea at first, but it rapidly becomes infeasible. Instead, we should be organizing useful books into some kind of permanent book category hierarchy. We could call it the "Shared Book Library," or something like that, and add and remove things from it as we please. Dcoetzee 07:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Very good point and once people get used to the feature, I think we will get many categories for books (like "World War II books" or "American Civil War books") that are useful. At the moment Category:Wikipedia:Books is not even useful if someone deletes test books because it would be an unorganized mess in any case. Regards SoWhy 10:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Courtesy blanking G10 pages

I have sometimes come across pages tagged G10 which has been blanked using {{cblank}} (or preferably, {{subst:cblank}}. I'd like to hear people's opinion on blanking attack pages in the article namespace. I was under the impression that the cblank template was mainly used for AfD debates etc. If so, should the page be left empty except for {{db-g10}}? Or simply no blanking at all (which is what I usually do). decltype (talk) 10:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The main reason to do so is so the text will not be cached by Google etc. if the page is not deleted quickly. I think that is a good use. I would propose to rewrite {{db-g10}} and {{db-attack}} to include <div id="copyvio" style="display:none;"> like {{subst:copyviocore}} does, i.e. having the blanking built-in as default. Thoughts? SoWhy 10:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. But that doesn't prevent the contents from being cached by a search engine, does it? I thought it was simply some CSS trickery to prevent the contents from being displayed. Would adding {{noindex}} help? decltype (talk) 10:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
True, you are right. Yeah, I'd support adding both <div style="display:none;"> and {{noindex}} to those templates to prevent both viewing by others and caching. SoWhy 10:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done by ViperSnake. But it still won't hurt to physically blank it. Amalthea 12:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I was told by one of the tech guys that {{noindex}} doesn't work in mainspace. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 13:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

← Meh. If it doesn't work it should be reverted, I think, because it will still give the appearance that it has been blanked, but will be indexed nonetheless.
What we could do instead is add a note like

#if:{{PAGESIZE}}>31. That should be enough to get most taggers to blank it, with only very few false positives or false negatives. Amalthea 15:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. If it doesn't work, it shouldn't look like it works either. But at least my initial question has been answered, as there seems to be some consensus to blank G10 pages, and the most straightforward way of doing so would be to replace the content with {{db-g10}}. decltype (talk) 07:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Meh, I added this, but stupidly enough it only really works after a purge, since the PAGESIZE parser function evaluates to the page size before saving. So even if you already blanked the page, it will still show the banner. I guess we can live with it though.
I've also built automatic blanking on G10 into Twinkle. Amalthea 10:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah I noticed. It seems that a lot of NPP's use TW to tag nowadays, so good work implementing it so fast.I probably would too, if it worked decltype (talk) 13:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Question about F4

With regards to speedy deletion due to lack of sourcing, does an image need to have literally "no source" to qualify for speedy deletion, or can a file be speedied it if just has very bad sourcing information? The current F4 criteria isn't very informative on this sort of matter... I've seen a number of images tagged for deletion as lacking a source which do technically have a source, but its something like "Bundesarchive" and no more (I just deleted one with that as the whole source earlier today). When I come across these in the deletion cats I sometimes delete them and sometimes don't depending on the other information on the page, taking things to PUF or FFD if needed. I was just curious what the policy on dealing with such images is, since they don't have the information discussed by WP:CITE#IMAGE. Is this a case where it it valid to ignore the rules, or should the letter be more strictly followed as "any sourcing information at all makes an image ineligible for speedy deletion due to lack of sourcing". I'll at least hold off on such deletions until this can be discussed. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Not an answer to your question, but "Bundesarchiv" is a pretty good source, see commons:Commons:Bundesarchiv. Hmm, of course most with a proper license should already be at commons ... Amalthea 10:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Oops; didn't realize that that was the name of that project. I'll undelete that image when I'm done going through my watchlist for the morning... it was just kind of odd because there was no other source information, which didn't make it very clear at all for someone who didn't recognize the name. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, the reason that the image isn't on Commons is that it's tagged as fair-use. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
It was uploaded here before we got the Bundesarchiv image upload, so it might be there now, in a better version. I didn't find it though, and the fair use rationale might be invalid now in any case since one of the images from commons:Category:Images from the German Federal Archive, location Charkow could serve as a free replacement. Amalthea 13:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

(At least) two discussions at WT:TWINKLE

Please see WT:TWINKLE#G8 for talk pages of deleted articles and WT:TWINKLE#Downgrading speedy to prod-nn. I promised to ask around for help with scripts when I had a better handle on what I wanted; I'll probably add a couple more requests within the next week. I don't have any strong feeling about wording or about when a speedy should be downgraded to a prod, so please weigh in. I do think that I'm going to be doing it a fair amount (It's averaging maybe 5% or 10% of the speedy requests I'm handling) and it would really be helpful to have a script (Twinkle script or not) to help add text to 3 different pages. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 18:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

User:CSDCheckBot at BRFA

I am presently developing a bot designed to provide notifications to people when a page they tagged for speedy deletion was kept or deleted for criteria differing from that for which it was tagged. It is currently up at BRFA and I would appreciate all relevant feedback on both the implementation I have chosen, and on whether or not it would be acceptable to have such a bot operate providing these notifications to all editors who have not explicitly opted out (via a subpage list or {{nobots}}/{{bots}}) or if it should only provide such notices to those who have explicitly opted in. Input from all editors is welcome, no experience with bots or automated tools of any kind is required.--Dycedarg ж 19:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

G1

Just a thought – G1 seems quite redundant to G3. I mean, when will we ever see incomprehensible nonsense that isn't blatant vandalism? –Juliancolton | Talk 21:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Look two sections up.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

On that comment: To say all nonsense is vandalism is quite an assumption of bad faith. Nonsence could be bad faith vandalism or a good faith test.--Ipatrol (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarifying F2

I would like to propose a change to F2, and request comments on whether it is desirable. The proposed insertion is shown underlined below:

Corrupt or empty image. Before deleting this type of image, verify that the MediaWiki engine cannot read it by previewing a resized thumbnail of it. Even if it renders, if it contains superfluous information that cannot be accounted for as metadata directly relating to the image data, it may be deleted. It is always possible for the uploader to correct the problem by uploading an image that contains only a good image plus acceptable metadata. An "empty image" includes an image description page that has no associated image on Wikipedia, even if an image with the same title exists on Commons. Such pages may not be deleted if they contain information about the image that is specific to Wikipedia, such as a {{FeaturedPicture}} or {{Picture of the day}} message.

The basis for this proposal comes from MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown, which clearly identifies "image page for an image on Commons" as one of the reasons for deletion under F2, although this page itself does not make that clear. The distinction between F2 and F8, as I understand it, is that F2 applies when there is an image description page on Wikipedia for an image that is actually hosted on Commons, while F8 applies when there are duplicate copies of the image hosted on both sites. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but: a lot of those images actually contain information, questions or comments that should be moved somewhere else, and not necessarily be speedily deleted. User:Radiant chains has assembled a pretty huge list of such images that needs reviewing. Most of the pages have been blanked and the page revision needs to be looked at, but for example the description page of File:Good housekeeping 1908 08 a.jpg was created here with additional information about the image. I've added the bit to the description at commons just now so it can now be F2 deleted, but I'd rather add such cases to the exceptions (as obvious as they should be). Amalthea 13:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

We have G8 for that, "Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page". We could amend that to say that if there is content worth keeping (such as discussions or such), they should be kept or moved elsewhere. ViperSnake151  Talk  14:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"This excludes any page that is useful to the project" should probably cover it. Amalthea 14:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Pages which just put a Commons image in a Wikipedia category—and there are a lot—aren't really useful to the project, though. Pages with actual content need to be dealt with some other way, but local pages for Commons images that are either empty or just have a few categories are kind of pointless, aren't they? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
No argument there. But please always have a look at the history. Amalthea 17:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay; that makes sense. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think categories are pointless, they might be quite useful to readers (like a category where all of Obama's speeches can be found). Most of them do not know about Commons and I see little sense in removing potentially useful pages. Regards SoWhy 17:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Categorizing Commons images should happen on Commons. It doesn't make much sense to duplicate the effort on all other Wikimedia projects, that goes against the point of a shared media repository. If the categories are found useful for readers here, then MediaWiki should be changed in a way to display them here as well. Amalthea 18:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

A7 Events

A7 does not specifically exclude events (movie screening, as distinct from the movie, for example.) Are events (poetry readings, movie festivals, concerts) covered? My understanding has always been they are. I would appreciate some community feedback/input into this. Thanks! KillerChihuahua?!? 14:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't recall ever seeing an A7 request on an event. And unless it was a pretty clear cut case ("The Westlake Film Festival is held annually in my living room and is well known on my block"), I'd be a lot more comfortable with prod or AfD.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
"Clear cut" is necessary in CSD regardless of which # is cited. I routinely decline speedy requests with suggestion to take to Afd, as does every other admin I've seen doing CSD duty. Your answer implies you do consider it a valid use of A7, in clear cut cases. Is that accurate? KillerChihuahua?!? 16:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
My answer does imply that, but I wouldn't delete it as an A7. I'd consider this more of an IAR deletion (and probably call it a test page).--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I have deleted such articles as A7 if they were about the group behind an event but have routinely declined them on events themselves. Events are more similar to places than to organisations imho. Regards SoWhy 18:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
{{db-web}} is an option if all they have so far is a website talking about their big (but dubious) plans for a festival. - Dank (push to talk) 18:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
So far, consensus seems to be leaning towards "maybe in clear cut cases, maybe borderline" and although an individual delete might be questioned, it would be for judgment and not inappropriate use of tools. That about right? KillerChihuahua?!? 16:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd say more like: "Not eligible, unless the article is actually about the company/corporation/organization behind the event, or the website of the event". decltype (talk) 18:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Such articles can often be deleted as G11 as an alternative, for they typically take the form of advertisements for a forthcoming event, with or without descriptions of past ones. DGG (talk) 23:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

A9 criteria

The bar is set pretty low for articles about musical recordings and this leads to a lot of articles about singles and albums with questionable notability. While it's reasonable to extend assumed notability to articles about albums by artists who already have articles, does it really make sense to extend this to singles? Why not require articles about singles to meet the same notability requirements as any other article. Singles which have charted or been reviewed will be easy to source.--RadioFan (talk) 22:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

  • They do have to meet the same notability requirements. A9 is just there because we could A7 non-notable bands but were in the stupid position of being forced by process to send their albums to AfD. We tried to make a CSD criteria that would solve that problem but be as narrow as possible (to avoid speedying what might be good articles on albums or singles). Protonk (talk) 22:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Its frustrating with articles on obviously non-notable singles to have to go to AFD. I wish there was some way we could clarify this a little tighter. The CSD bar is way too low for music. Just this week I've run across articles on garage bands with accompanying articles on their self produced albums and "singles" from these albums. Its all non-notable bordering on spam but cant be dealt with via CSD.--RadioFan (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry but CSD is not about notability and should not be. A single admin or a tagger and an admin cannot decide whether something is really notable and just misses citations or is not notable. A9 handles those cases in which the recordings are, like bands, without any possibility of importance or significance. If the band is notable then the assumption is for the notability of the recordings and nothing else is what CSD should handle. Regards SoWhy 18:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Template alteration

There is a question about the header language of Template:Db-notice at Template talk:Db-notice. Currently the title is "Speedy deletion of [[:{{{target}}}]]" The question involves whether or not that should be changed to "CSD nomination of [[:{{{target}}}]]". I believe the older language is more comprehensible to new contributors. The other individual has indicated that the purpose for the change is to be consistent with Template:AFDNote. Please weigh in at that discussion if you have an opinion on the matter. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Speedy decline of Swiftfuel

[copied from my talk page]: How is the number of editors working on an article related to whether or not notability is asserted in the article. The fact that so many have worked on it and it still doesn't say why it's a notable group of fuels is even more odd. See my notes on the talk page: there are no usable sources for this that I could find on google news. It's just an ad. NJGW (talk) 18:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The only discussion I've seen at WT:CSD was in the last part of Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_34#Thoughts? As much as I'd love to make all the decisions about what stays and goes on Wikipedia, I'm not allowed to do that. When a lot of people, either by silence or by actively working on the article, have indicated that they think the article is notable enough for inclusion, you need a community decision to reverse that. I don't have an opinion on whether WP:AfD would be a good call, but I have no objection if you want to AfD it. - Dank (push to talk) 18:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I was talking about my discussion on the talk page of the article. There's no notability asserted and none findable on google news. The previous AFDs ended in no consensus and promises of further development which don't seem to have materialized. NJGW (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
And I'm saying that one person can't overrule community processes. Take it back to AfD if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 19:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
What community process are you talking about? The one that created an article that fails the speedy criteria or the one that has no consensus on the suitability of the article to stay? I would see creation of the speedy criteria as a more important community process. I think maybe your personal interpretation of the speedy criteria may be keeping you from looking at the content itself. Do you mind reinstating the speedy tag and letting a different admin have a look? If they agree with you I'll take it to AFD. NJGW (talk) 19:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Better than having one more admin look at it, I'll copy this to WT:CSD and then a whole bunch of admins will look at it :) - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  • In general, speedies can be declined in good faith by someone not the author. If you feel Dan has a peculiar interpretation of the CSD criteria or inclusion, this line of discussion is perfectly reasonable, but I don't see it as grounds to put the tag back up. Protonk (talk) 19:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Dan stated that the number of editors who had edited the article affected his decision. That's what I was referring to. NJGW (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
And while outside the letter of the speedy criteria (WTE of G7), that's probably not enough to suggest that the page can be CSD'd again. Protonk (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it moot in this case anyway? The second paragraph of the criteria says If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it may not be speedily deleted, except in the case of newly discovered copyright infringements. — if there were previous AFDs that ended in no consensus, then it wouldn't be eligible for speedy. The only option would be to take it back to AfD, right? Mlaffs (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I didn't know about that stipulation. Is it generally accepted that a 'no consensus' is enough to fulfill this criteria, or is this understood to mean a 'keep' closure? NJGW (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
"survived a prior deletion discussion" typically means surviving either by "keep" or "no consensus". CSD is intended to be for non-controversial deletions. If a previous AfD ended in "no consensus" (meaning "no consensus to delete the article"), that's a fairly strong indication that the deletion could be seen as controversial, so another discussion would be warranted. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 19:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, this all makes sense. I'll be AFDing the article now. Those of you who have actually looked at the article please comment at the AFD. NJGW (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a related comment on the topic. While the number of editors on an article in no way gives notability, I sometimes decline speedies on articles with many editors (who add content, not just tagging and fixes) because I feel the deletion could be controversial (and thus ineligible for speedy or prod). --Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
NJGW, unless I missed it, I don't think the actual article that we're discussing here has ever been referenced/linked in this discussion. If you can tell us what it is, that might help :>) Mlaffs (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
D'oh! Added to section title. - Dank (push to talk) 20:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Link to current AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Swiftfuel (3rd nomination)‎ - NJGW (talk) 20:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

G3

Is G3 really necessary? My theory is that articles meeting is easily covered by either G10 and G1 among others, G10 for offensive content and G1 for "obvious" nonsense. In the past G3 has been used rather inappropriately towards Good Faith articles on internet memes. G3 is also found in "hoaxes" that may not just be hoaxes but an inside joke among friends. When a sysop places a G3 "obvious hoax" reason it's usually based upon factual inaccuracies and little to no info given by Google Search. Therefore no remotely plausible. Hoax meets Speedy deletion requirements as an explanation or link is required in the edit summary, preferably without G3. If a hoax is so incredibly obvious, delete it under G1 because there is no substantial content. Using G3 can turn away misguided or new editors. Seeing "x user's latest article" tagged as vandalism does not lighten his views of Wikipedia.

Keep in mind that this is just a discussion, not a vote or development of consensus. GoWman (talk) 08:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism isn't nonsense. I find that G3 candidates are (sadly) often reasonably well-written and far from incoherent. I do not quite understand what point you're trying to make about hoaxes. Blatant (or should I say unambiguous :) ) hoaxes are deletable under G3, but certainly not G1, unless you are in practice proposing to combine G1 and G3. decltype (talk) 08:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Another point: Blatant hoaxes aren't always vandalism... stupid and disruptive, but not vandalism. GoWman (talk) 09:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
The definition of vandalism includes: "[...] creating nonsensical and obviously non-encyclopedic pages [...]". SoWhy 09:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)decltype is correct. It's G1 that is misused often, not G3. G1 explicitely excludes "poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, poorly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes" (emphasis added). All three, G10, G1 and G3 carry an implication of bad faith, so there is no difference to the creator. Whether they are accused of vandalism or just being "too stupid to create an article", both might scare away good-faith contributors, which is why those criteria should be used as seldom as possible. G1 covers only two types of articles: Random letters (might be G2 - Test pages) and text that noone can reasonably be expected to understand. Hoaxes that are remotely possible (just remember Exploding whale) should not be tagged or deleted as G3 but through other means and they are not covered by G3 anyway. The only thing covered by G3 are those things where we can be pretty sure the creator knows to be a hoax. Regards SoWhy 09:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Ok then, so why are pages on internet memes deleted as pure vandalism? I saw one tagged G3 and it was encyclopedic, perhaps not notable, but but still encyclopedic. Articles about YouTube videos and XBOX Live accounts are deleted with an assumption of ignorance (which is relatively good) as opposed to ABF. So why does anything relating to the internet deserve different treatment? Not everybody who is interested in anonymous culture is a sockpuppet of "x infamous vandal". You see, one of my main issues with G3 is that occasionally causes assumptions of bad faith on the admin's part, which can cause disruptive and angry editing from disgruntled yet typically GF contributors. Why do I care? Because not every fan of 4chan is a page move vandal.
I'm not providing examples of ABF in Speedy deletion because I'm not here to attack sysops. I think (and hope) somebody understands what I'm getting at. GoWman (talk) 09:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Articles about youtube videos and such things are covered under A7 as web content. Yes, we got a bunch of admins who use IAR a little too often when it comes to speedy deletion and who use G3 incorrectly, same with G1. But that does not make the criterion wrong, just its use. An article which consists of "World War III was fought between Godzilla and Jesus in the Year 3058" is clearly a reason why we have G3 - an article about a internet meme that is remotely likely usually is not. If you notice an admin deleting things incorrectly, you need to tell them. If they are unwilling to listen, use deletion review. But no discussion of incorrect use of those criteria here will change anything, believe me, there have been dozens of those already. Regards SoWhy 10:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I would be much more willing to go along with getting rid of G1. I have never seen something that was G1 that couldn't also be deleted as G3. The only thing that G1 gives us is bad deletions because somebody reads "nonsense" and things "Hey that is nonsense, I'm going to delete it," even thought the nonsense that they are criticizing isn't WP:NONSENSE. G1 is, IMHO, redundant with the broader category of G3.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
G3 is valuable-- essential even. An article can lack attacks and seemingly make perfect sense and yet still be vandalism. G1 is also valuable. The problem is not with those criteria as written. So long as there is a gap where obviously deletable pages do not meet one of the criteria clearly, there will be shoehorning and IAR deletions. The remedies for inappropriate deletion are there already. I try to notify article creators of my deletions and leave them with my contact info and info on contesting the deletion, because anyone can make a mistake. Cheers Dlohcierekim 14:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed with that Spartacus dude. G1 does more harm than good in practice. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 14:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Can you give a scenario that would be G1 but not G3? I can give many examples of items/types of items deleted G1 that shouldn't be deleted G1, but can't think of anything that would qualify for G1 that wouldn't also qualify for G3.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
While you could certainly call a page consisting of "alkseroiscfsszzzzz" a G3, calling it G1 is kinder and less bitey. (But it could certainly be speedied as a G2).--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
A scenario of G1 which isn't G3: a G1 which could be classified as G2, the other replacement I'd see for G1 if this were to be deprecated, in other words a honest mistake instead of clear vandalism. MLauba (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Well here's something interesting-- The Day Of The Parakeet. (Does not support G1. Intended as food for discussion, not what Spartacus asked for.) Dlohcierekim 14:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Here is a cached version of Day of the Parakeet for non-admin review. That being said, that article should never be nominated G1 or deleted G1. It is clearly intelligble. I know what "Parakeet Day" is, what the traditions/rituals are, etc. It is not-nonsense in that it is totally and irrideemably convoluted. G1 also explicitly excludes vandalism, hoaxes, and poor writing, thus it doesn't fit those criteria. G3, which is how it was deleted, is the closest fit. But you already knew that.. you indicated that it does not support G1, intended for discussion. So my question is, how? What are you looking at to discuss?---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if G1 isn't becoming somewhat unnecessary too. The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/ImperatorExercitus has made me honestly slightly wary of using it.: accusations that it's "bitey" to tag a page consisting solely of "asa" or "a gfdg" as G1 lead me to wonder what there is that it should be used for. Surely almost any string of genuine patent nonsense could also be interpreted as a test page. In my view, G1 has caused both unfair criticism of RfA candidates due to overtight interpretation of it; and also many bad speedy deletions by people who interpret it far too broadly. If we're going to say that G1 assumes bad faith and should be used sparingly, we may as well get rid of it altogether: you either assume the page was created in good faith and G2 it, or have reason to believe it was created in bad faith and G3 it. ~ mazca t|c 18:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
What he said. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 18:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
G1 does not imply vandalism, just incoherence. We need to differentiate it from G3, which implies a deliberate act to put material that will harm the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
This is going a bit differently than expected... I still think we should keep G1 because it follows WP:AGF. Creators of G1 pages are usually acting under no faith to either harm or help the wiki, usually out of boredom, and therefore G3 is inappropriate. Perhaps we should reword G3 to "obvious hoax", because all other uses of G3 are covered by at least one other criterion. GoWman (talk) 00:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Wouldn't G2 cover the cases where we're still AGF-ing? Mr.Z-man 00:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
A G2 page won't suddenly become a G3 page after two identical recreations. It's still G2. You can still block users for repeated making G1 pages, or give them a short block if they keep making test pages and refusing to use the sandbox. I think a (mis)conception is that deleted pages have to be tagged G3 or G10 to warrant an long/indef block when this really isn't the case. GoWman (talk) 02:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
My point was that they both overlap with G1. If its nonsense and we're assuming good faith, G2. If its nonsense and we're not assuming good faith, G3. I'm struggling to come up with a practical example where a page would be considered nonsense, but somehow couldn't be considered vandalism or a test page. Mr.Z-man 02:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I just don't think SD is the place where you should good/bad faith at all. That's where user talk pages come in, i.e. "This is your last warning. Do not make any more nonsensical pages. Editors are encouraged to make constructive edits instead" for when you can't AGF. GoWman (talk) 02:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
If you're assuming bad faith with a user on their talk page, then you're assuming bad faith with that user everywhere. AGF is more than just the comment you leave on the talk page. But my point, as Spartacus sums up below, is that there doesn't seem to be any practical situation where G1 should be used, where neither G2 nor G3 could apply. Mr.Z-man 19:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm with Z here... I can't see a scenario where G2 and G3 would not apply... nor can I see a scenario wherein G1 would be a preferred option to G2 or G3! If it is vandalism, call it such. If it appears to be a test page "ADGSD" call it such. While G1 is not my least favorite criteria (that's A11---what is too much spam?) G1 is one that IMO gets abused/misunderstood the most. It's one where a lot of people make the most mistakes.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
G1 will sometimes apply when someone is trying to write an article but is incoherent. It wasn't intended as a test. it was intended as an article. But it certainly isn't vandalism. G2 is gentler--it means someone was trying to see how to do something, and didn't realise it would get saved as an article. Looked at another way, I will sometime deliberately use G1 instead of G3 to deny recognition. DGG (talk) 03:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
DGG seems to be saying that G1 is vandalism by another name, and that his experience is that those words are more useful at dealing with certain types of vandalism than the G3 tag. If people have found G1 useful for a long time, I don't want to disregard that experience. But we need to find a way to fix the problem that most G1's are mistagged, and that this creates biteyness and friction, including at WP:RfA; at the moment, I don't see a more straightforward solution than getting rid of G1, but I'm listening. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 13:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
And I'll sometimes use G2 instead of G3 (or similar wording while rolling back an edit) to deny recognition. I figure if the editor wants to step forward and say "No, I knew what I was doing when I made a page consisting solely of 'I like cheese'", that's on them. :)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm in favor of getting rid of it. While DGG may see G1 as a viable option to be less bity than G3 for limited circumstances, I would argue that in those circumstances G2 or G3 are still appropriate---and I would rather have the slightly stronger language. First, it may hold some people back from deleting an article that shouldn't be. Second, I would state that people who have articles incorrectly deleted G1 will find it more frustrating than having an article deleted G3 as compared to G1.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 14:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
There are different grades of unconstructive page creations. An article can make no sense but not be intentional vandalism. Or an article can just be a test page that the editor saved before it was really ready. Or the editor could have been experimenting with the interface without intent to vandalize. G3 should be reserved for clear cut vandalistic intent. G10 may be vandalistic, or it may be a good faith attempt that contains only negative material. Often, without being a mind reader, one cannot know which tag applies and different reviewers will nuance the reading differently-- so there is overlap where more than one tag applies. Some of us use G1 in place of IAR or SNOW. I saw the Parakeet thing above. Looked like nonsense or vandalism to me. I don't see where I deleted it, so I must have felt a doubt or discomfort. (stuck duh) We can't know every obscure potential subject, so sometimes we will make mistakes, especially if we exercise due diligence and search for RS from which to salvage and come up empty. I almost always notify the creator so that he can discuss with me, and have brought appeals to AFD. That said, G1 remains useful for non vandalistic articles that never the less make no sense and don't seem to meet any other category. The thing to do is not use it for IAR or SNOW. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 15:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

G1

The section started out as a discussion whether G3 is needed, and it looks like there is a strong consensus that it is, but questions arose whether G1 is needed. The possibilities seem to be:

  • Get rid of G1, because G2 or G3 can always cover G1.
  • Change the wording on G1 to emphasize using G2 or G3 when appropriate
  • Leave G1 alone because it's clear no one is reading the current wording and some people find it useful

Does that cover the possibilities?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the three possible options. Personally, I'm torn between getting rid of it and changing the wording. In the end, one can probably find articles that are not G2 or G3 but still nonsense. Something like "fish banana hunt alligator green sky great" comes to mind as not a test page (tries to tell something) and not vandalism (probably good faith edit). In article space, it would be replaceable with A1 probably but outside of it we would have to XFD it. Maybe the approach should be to merge A1 and G1 into a new G1 that is not called "nonsense". How about this:

No possible purpose or context. Pages consisting purely of incoherent text or text that does not allow to understand the purpose or context of why the page was created, where there is no useful content or history. This does not include poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, poorly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes; some of these, however, may be deleted as vandalism in blatant cases. This criterion does not apply in userspace and should never be used if the page is covered under another criterion.

This would remove the dreaded "nonsense" wording and make it much narrower if applied correctly (if the purpose can be understood, it would not be covered). Just food for thought of course. Regards SoWhy 16:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I think the main thing wrong with G1 is the dreaded "nonsense" wording -- everyone thinks they know what "patent nonsense" is, so few bother to read the rest of the definition. I'm sure some will argue with "no possible purpose" (emphasis mine), but at least it does away with "nonsense". :) I wonder if "no encyclopedic purpose or context" would be better? Or would that lead to just as much whining. Hmm.... --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
No encyclopedic purpose would allow MZM-style deletions of anything that is not strictly for building an encyclopedia, for example allowing to G1 every part of Wikipedia:Humor. No, "encyclopedic" is too flexible. The point of "possible" in my proposal was that the deleting admin does not have to think the purpose to be anything worthwhile - just that they can guess why it was created. If you have a better word for that, I'd be happy to hear it. Regards SoWhy 18:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Good point, and probably why I had nagging doubts about the word encyclopedic.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
If I'm reading this right, would it allow for what are now (wink, wink/nod, nod) IAR/SNOW deletions? Not necessarily a bad thing, but. . . . Dlohcierekim 18:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I think IAR is out because IAR is intended for exceptions that the rules can't be expected to cover; what we're talking about here is common, not an exception to all possible rules. I don't think SNOW could be a CSD criterion, but it does put a finger on the problem we're up against: if we throw out G1 and only allow G2, G3 and A1, and if we only consider AfD and not WT:PROD as an alternative, there are going to be a large number of articles that get a SNOW response that we should have found a way to speedy ... and a few derisive retorts that we're soft in the head. That leaves PROD; if the context is clear enough that A1 doesn't apply, it's complete enough that G2 doesn't apply, and it's not vandalism or an attack and doesn't have other obvious problems, then it's probably not causing any immediate harm to Wikipedia; what would be wrong with prodding it and tagging the talk page with the relevant wikiproject? That will add it to that wikiproject's WP:Article alerts, assuming they subscribe. Maybe someone would like to work on it. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 19:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It probably should be No possible purpose and context instead I guess. Point is, if there is a purpose for the page at least for the creator, it should not be covered. IAR/SNOW speedies get routinely applied (using G1's "nonsense" wording) to delete stuff that has no encyclopedic value etc. but strictly speaking has a purpose for the creator that can be guessed at.
I tried to propose a wording that serves to:
  1. Merge the 2 most mis-applied and misused tags
  2. Cover all namespaces
  3. Remove the dreaded "nonsense" from G1
  4. Remove "ghgfsdgfvsdapioh fp98"-type pages from it because they can be covered by G2
As with all proposals, it's of course great if the wording can be improved. I hoped it will be a start of a discussion because I think the idea itself might be useful and address some of the problems with both G1 and A1. Regards SoWhy 19:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks SoWhy; I don't have an opinion yet, I want to see what the reaction is. MBisanz wants to get his two cents in here, but he's on wikibreak and he wants me to do it for him :) He mentioned elsewhere, recently: "... we do need more admins who are willing to do work instead of showboat. For the last several months I've been cleaning out the File talk namespace, all sorts of nonsense vandalism, etc. For the last two months I've patrolled it nearly everyday to keep down the backlog. Since I've started my Wikibreak, no one has touched it. It would seem that soapboxing on ANI about how evil one's opponent is, is more sexy than helping keep the cobwebs out of the rafters." He's concerned about either getting rid of or modifying G1 too much because of all the sillyness in the file talk namespace where A1 can't come to the rescue. I suggested moving the A1 "not enough context" idea to G1, he said that would work for him. - Dank (formerly Dank55) (push to talk) 19:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I am very leery about as general a wording as this, for G1 even as is along with no context and no content is "not enough context" already tends to mean IDONTLIKEIT. It should be kept separate, and wording as narrowly as possible. I wouldn't object to removing the word "nonsense" if we can find an equivalent. DGG (talk) 16:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
In theory, we could keep G1 if we tweak the wording, because it's probably just that the wording is confusing people into misusing the tag. After a tweak, I'd be interested in looking at the results of Dycedarg's new bot to see if taggers are "getting it". - Dank (push to talk) 11:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that when people complain about G1 being seen as an ABF, mabye we need to change our opinion of users who make nonsense pages instead. Any rewrite of G1 should make it clear that nonsense means that it is impossible to identify the purpose of a page and so it is impossible to edit it. I might be able to see G1 being a non-article that does not have an apparent purpose (encyclopedic or otherwise) with articles being tagged under the much harder to abuse A1.--Ipatrol (talk) 19:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In practice, G1 is interpreted more broadly than the rules indicate. Evans' 1st law was just deleted by an admin; it was an obvious but reasonably written hoax by Geraint rhodri evans (talk · contribs). I'd found it, but interpreting G1 literally, I put a "prod" tag on it and a note on the talk page asking the user to please blank it. The rules for G1 indicate that "hoaxes" specifically don't qualify as nonsense. Some admin just came along and deleted it. This is strictly incorrect, but it was the right thing to do. Do we want to broaden G1 a bit to formally allow that? --John Nagle (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Question about R3

Got a question on my talk page, I think he makes a good point: "should every article/bio have an improper case redirect as in the case of Tony shore? I tried to clean this up because I think the search suggestion dropdown/autocomplete is so useful most of the time, but when it is filled up with double / triple redirects to the same articles" [then the dropdown box is less useful]. - Dank (push to talk) 03:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and more often than not, when a new user creates an article on an eligible subject, they fail to capitalize it correctly (Especially true for bios), leaving a useless redirect behind. I would certainly not object to those being unambiguously speediable. decltype (talk) 03:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, that's probably a problem that the current MediaWiki search does take different capitalisation into account, while it did not do so previously. Thus we have a lot of those redirects still but most of them will not be speedy-deletable under R3 because R3 needs them to be recently created and most are quite old. So this needs a bit more input before we go around deleting them but I think they would fall under G6 as housekeeping and cleanup then. Regards SoWhy 18:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
So then it sounds like it would be fair to speedy a recently created one. e.g. I was doing NPP and found Tony shore and moved to Tony Shore and tagged the improper case for deletion when it was less than 15 minutes old. How do we define recent? As long as it is in the unpatrolled backlog (30 days), or something shorter?    7  { talk to me }     22:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I declined the speedy again. This is the type of thing that affects such a huge number of articles that we should make a community decision regarding them. If that decision is to delete them, it should be done wholesale by a bot rather than clogging up CSD and/or RfD with tons of these every day. Oren0 (talk) 08:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, this should be discussed on with a broader audience because it affects a large number of pages on this project. Regards SoWhy 08:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Ok. I wasn't actually trying to do them en masse, just trying to get the one recent one out of the way as a precedent. But I fully understand your point. What's the next step to discuss with a wide audience? Thanks. --   7   | talk | Δ |   08:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd propose it at WP:VPP, then post a link to it at WP:AN so that people are aware of it. It really doesn't matter where the discussion goes, so long as a well-trafficked noticeboard like AN is told so that people will find the discussion. Oren0 (talk) 17:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
T18145 is relevant. I think these redirects are useful and should not be deleted; they should merely be hidden from the AJAXsearch prompts. Happy‑melon 13:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
But some terms have different meanings and different pages depending on capitalization; is there a plan for how to hide some different capitalizations and not others? - Dank (push to talk) 13:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not a doctor, but I don't see why it would be difficult if John smith redirects to John Smith, to hide the former. If it does not, show it. Oren0 (talk) 17:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Temporarily hiding the "create a book" interface

Following concerns raised in the Usability Study, and the proliferation of books of questionable utility, there's an ongoing discussion at VPR about temporarily hiding the "create a book" interface from the sidebar, until the system can be redesigned to be more user- and site-friendly. All welcome to the discussion and straw poll. Happy‑melon 17:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Nicely done, HM. - Dank (push to talk) 12:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Does G7 apply to category pages?

Recently, I was viewing Category:Alydar offspring, and the creator of the category page decided to blank it. I therefore tagged it for speedy deletion under G7, even though (unknown to me) it still had pages listed in it. However, the creator later complained that he did not want it deleted. So should the description of G7 be modified to state that a page blanking may be taken as a deletion request outside of userspace and category-space? RJaguar3 | u | t 20:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

R3 at DRV

This may be of interest: Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_May_15#Wikipedia:DONTQUOTEPERSONALESSAYSASPOLICY. Some of the arguments concern where we should draw the line on using R3. I've had a fair amount of involvement with discussion about redirects, and I can't ever remember a case where someone wanted a name that long (or hard to remember), so I R3'd it. - Dank (push to talk) 22:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

G4 when AfD result was redirect?

There's a discussion on my talk page of whether I should have deleted per G4; I decided not to because the AfD result was "redirect". Suggestions? - Dank (push to talk) 04:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

  • My personal opinion is that in the situation you mention above, where a new article is created after an AfD closes as redirect, the right way to go about it is to make a redirect out of the new article as well, and delete as R3 if it is implausible. It seems a bit odd if an AfD that ended in redirect would prevent you from creating new, plausible redirects to an article. But you do have a point about the second AfD not having consensus, I didn't catch that. decltype (talk) 06:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, the only truly binding outcomes at AFD are delete and keep, all else is suggestions. A "redirect" close really means to keep with redirection suggested. That does not make a qualification for G7. Besides, CSD says not to delete if you can revert to a non-deletable revision.--Ipatrol (talk) 19:54, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simple X Unlocked

Although the article appears to me to be a db-web, it was taken to AfD before the speedy tag. I believe when that happens that it's better to wait for consensus at AfD rather than taking action unilaterally, but if someone else wants to delete it, that's fine with me. My feeling is, the AfD nominator must have thought that AfD was better than speedy, and having a number of people say "speedy is better" will probably take less than 24 hours and will be the best way to get consensus about how these kinds of articles should be tagged. If people don't vote for speedy, then I'm not sure what we do. - Dank (push to talk) 03:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The way I handle this is that if an article is in AfD, but I would have speedied it, I speedy it and close the AfD. Simple enough. If you have any doubts about this, wait for a few votes to come in: usually they'll be "speedy delete" and you can close it right away. --causa sui talk 12:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll do it that way sometimes, or sometimes if I want a second opinion I'll add a db-xxx tag to the article and a speedy delete comment to the AfD and wait for someone else to actually speedy it. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
That works for me, especially if there is a developing consensus to speedy delete. Looking at the thing, I see no assertion of significance. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 18:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Layout and position of template tables

Maybe the templates could be placed in the section that explains them? In the current templates section, the (re-)wording is redundant, and it's still somewhat hard to cross-reference the criteria and the templates. Are there any problems with changing the layout to be as in the above example?   M  18:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The separation makes clear the distinction between policy and procedure. You can nominate an article for CSD however you like, you are by no means required to slap a particular template on it. If someone posts on WP:AN that they think an article should be deleted, then it will certainly be evaluated; ditto if someone posts on an admin's talk page or sends them an email. Yes, the CSD templates are the most common way of nominating, but they are far from the only method. Happy‑melon 19:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

A1 instead of G1 or G3

This one is typical: Outburts: "Outburts (singular Outburt) An uncontrollable expression of joy, glee or excitement expressed through a variety of activities." It was tagged as G3, on the theory that silly misspellings are most likely to be silliness. But it's a crazy world, and the English language generates new words all the time like this; I couldn't get through all the hits for outburt on Google; maybe it's catching on somewhere, how would I know? More to the point, even if there's no chance it's notable, maybe the article creator read it somewhere, in which case accusing them of vandalism wouldn't be smart. But I can use A1 on this, right? How can I know where this word came from, and which of the 1600 Google hits it might be connected to, if any? Also, to pick up a previous thread: why does A1 have to apply to articles only? As I mentioned earlier, Matt Bisanz would really like to use it for image talk pages, especially if we want to curtail or reword G1. - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Another one, Taste-It:
Taste-It is a slogan used by ITT Technical Institute Dearborn Michigan Lab Technicians. When they hear or see something that is "Like A Boss" you will hear them say "Taste-It".
I don't think we can know that the uploader understood "notability", decided this was non-notable, and posted it anyway. They might have thought this is starting to be a common phrase and that it should be in an encyclopedia; I would really rather not lump pages like this in with expletive-laden pages. I want G3 to mean something when I see it in the deletion history. Again, I think I can justify A1 because I'm in no position to know just how common this phrase has become and what it means. - Dank (push to talk) 19:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
How can A1 apply? Both of the examples presented say what they are, so context is there. These are clear cases of articles that fails WP:NOT#DICTIONARY, and failing WP:NOT is explicitly excluded as a speedy deletion criterion, but they pretty obviously deserve to have a WP:PROD tag slapped on them. Maybe someone else will have a look through those 1600 Google hits and find that the word has some cultural significance. Why the rush for speedy deletion? And, in the case of outburts, surely a redirect to outburst would be better than deletion? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
That's a good point, although not on the subject of A1 vs. G3. For greater than some number of Google hits, we should include the typo as a redirect, if so many people are mistyping it. I don't know if that number is 1600, though. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Even more telling than the Google web search hits are these 616 books, these 226 scholarly articles and these 215 news articles that use this "word". I makes one despair of the editing process that goes into such publications. At the time of writing there are six Wikipedia articles with this spelling, but I won't link the search as I'm about to correct them. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
If I don't speedy those, I'll get the stink-eye for letting apparent silliness languish. - Dank (push to talk) 19:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
And note that "outburts" gets 1600 hits and "taste it" gets a ton of hits, I'm sure, so I can't answer the questions "If this were an encyclopedia article, what would it be about?" and "Where would I look?" That, plus the fact that the article creator is giving me no help figuring out what it might mean, is what makes it A1 in my mind. If there were 5 Google hits, none relevant, then the fact that the article creator didn't even bother to see if anyone else in the world used the phrase makes me comfortable with G3 ... or, as some have suggested, G1, taken to mean more or less the same thing as G3, but gentler (but I don't personally care for G1 as long as the words "nonsense" and "gibberish" are still attached, even for mild vandalism. "Silliness" would work for me, but Dycedarg will have to get that bot working first so that we can monitor to make sure people aren't deleting useful contributions as "silliness".) - Dank (push to talk) 20:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't know which CSD would technically apply to this. When speedying articles like this I usually just write something to the effect of "neologism" is the reason box and forget about it. You don't always need to have a perfect fit to what's in the policy when doing an obviously good thing. --causa sui talk 22:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, I get it that that's gotten us by so far, and I respect anything that has managed to work, but it's very un-wikilike to invoke WP:IAR daily and even hourly. IAR is supposed to be for exceptions, not a way to avoid getting consensus on the rules. - Dank (push to talk) 22:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
My three cents (inflation). While they're probably just silliness, if there are so many ghits that I can't wade through them all, I'll usually prod. Sure, someone will whine that I let the article stay up an extra 4.99 days. But then someone always whines about something. I'd rather err on the side of caution if I'm not 100% certain.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I personally have no problem with Phil and Fabrictramp's position, but I get the sense that consensus across a cross-section of wikipedians is leaning the other way, and I don't want to get caught in the middle. I'll keep asking around and let you know if I see any firm consensus. - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
And just to be clear, I also don't get in a tizzy if someone else speedies these kind of things, either. (Hey, there's plenty of other bad speedies I can get in a tizzy about, if I'm so inclined. *grin*)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
There are no "rules". Policy pages are a distillation of broad consensus on what we think are usually best practices. I think that if you can think of a simple way of putting it that expresses the spirit of why we delete nonsense articles, that would be fine to add to the policy. But you don't need to think that you have to write policy in such a way that it explicitly authorizes every good thing you might have to do. CSD should be a page that guides our intuition about what sort of articles we think should skip AfD and go straight into the wastebasket; it is not, and should not, be written or interpreted to be an exhaustive list that authorizes speedy deletion, as if it were a bureaucratic manual. I think people pay lip service to the "ignore all rules" concept because they think it's policy and so they somehow 'have' to. It's much better to understand the spirit behind it and govern the drafting of other policies with that spirit in mind. --causa sui talk 02:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Improving the project is "un-wikilike"? Since when is "wiki" about creating and following rules? Mr.Z-man 03:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
As I use it, IAR means we can do what is most suitable if there are no codified rules, not that we can ignore the rules that might apply. The criterion for the validity of what's done using that "rule" is that all reasonable people agree. With respect to speedy deletion, experience shows that we should use it very carefully. Myself, I have never needed to use it here. What isn't vandalism but is hopelessly unsuitable I usually call a test page. And there's always routine uncontroversial maintenance. In Wikipedia in general the rules we do have are sufficiently self-contradictory and diffuse and complex that interpreting them can get us anywhere necessary. DGG (talk) 05:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Ugh, people shouldn't need to find a policy justification for everything they do. If it improves the encyclopedia, do it; if it makes it worse, don't do it; if you're not sure, look it up or ask – that's the purpose of IAR. Having rules that are so self-contradictory and complex that you can forgo common sense and interpret them to do anything is certainly not a good thing. Mr.Z-man 05:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll be happy to G2 articles like the two I mentioned above, if everyone is comfortable with that use of G2. - Dank (push to talk) 13:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Lead changes

Actually, I do think they're an improvement. Why do you not? Happy‑melon 20:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

For one I missed the link to deletion discussion although on second reading I see it has just moved. I still don't see much of an improvement though, but can't really pinpoint it anymore. :) Feel free of course to revert my revert. Garion96 (talk) 20:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
You can check out each change in isolation. I turned the changes into a sequence of edits so that they would be easier to follow. The first edit is this, and you can click 'next edit' to follow along. I don't think I've actually removed any content.   M  20:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


(As above, but Happy-melon got there first as I was reviewing my edits.) This sequence of changes is not a single change, and should only be reverted to the first disagreeable edit. The first edit is this. And for that change, what was the reason it was not good? (Besides 'not an improvement', which is not a reason, though it hints at one.)   M  20:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

See section above. Besides, you never heard of WP:BRD have you? It does not mean being bold, someone reverts, you revert back to your edit and then start a discusson. Garion96 (talk) 20:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Consider my revert a friendly request to review the changes and revert back only to the one you had a problem with :)   M  20:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

"has never existed or has been deleted"

Is there any situation that the above sentence cannot be expressed simply as "does not exist"? I've been reverted by User:Ipatrol so I'm coming here. I really can't see any purpose in writing this in a more complicated way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

There was discussion about this at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 31#Tweaking A9's language. "Doesn't exist" was one of the suggestions at the time, but I don't think there were any changes following that. It made slightly more sense at the time since it had three options "has never existed, has been deleted, or is currently tagged for speedy deletion". Rethinking this, I like the more concise "does not exist" better.
And no, I don't see ambiguity. Amalthea 10:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. This policy page is in desperate need of simplification, and every bit counts. --causa sui talk 10:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I stand by the original, but I'll throw it to you. Do as thou wish.--Ipatrol (talk) 21:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Question: Why was "is currently tagged for speedy deletion" removed? It's not so uncommon that someone creates articles on an utterly insignificant ensemble and their recordings in rapid succession. In those cases, it seems reasonable to just tag everything. decltype (talk) 22:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Would "either does not exist, or is currently being considered for deletion for not asserting significance or importance (see criteria A7)" be a good compromise? ViperSnake151  Talk  23:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
There has to be a way to put this that expresses the principle without relieving the editor of executing some kind of critical thinking or at least common sense on a case-by-case basis. We are drafting policy here, not law. --causa sui talk 00:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Nothing beats good old common sense, but it's still a good thing to strive to avoid ambiguity, if possible. decltype (talk) 00:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a tension when drafting policy between avoiding ambiguity and avoiding the appearance that policy is proscriptive, should be followed as if it were a manual, and that people don't need to use their critical thinking skills when they are applying it. The content of this policy is strongly reflective of the latter approach, and I think that's a very bad thing. I get the feeling that it has been drafted through a large number of small conversations like this one to sort out "ambiguity", and therefore that gradually amplified and complicated the policy into the monolithic, bureaucratic manual that it is now. I'm not (yet) advocating any radical changes to the policy, but I am going to resist attempts to further complicate it, even in the name of clarity. --causa sui talk 01:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I prefer the old wording on the basis that an admin, upon observing that the artist's article used to exist, may be uncertain about whether or not A9 applies. Dcoetzee 02:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Administrators are not robots. They should be able to determine for themselves what to do based on understanding the spirit of the policy and a dose of common sense thinking to tell them what is best for the project in the long term. Policy pages aren't supposed to make it absolutely clear what they should be doing in every case; they're supposed to be guiding our common sense by communicating to others what we've discovered are best practices for building an encyclopedia. It is not an objection to say that an administrator might have to think sometimes to know what the best thing to do is, rather than consulting the policy page as if it were a flow chart that made the decision for them. They should be thinking on their feet, in real time, on a case by case basis. Wikipedia does not have firm rules for a reason. --causa sui talk 03:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Policy should not attempt to remove all ambiguity. On a side note, I've never quite understood why we allow so much admin discretion in other areas (the protection policy couldn't be much more vague), but people get all up in a tizzy when someone uses IAR to delete something. Mr.Z-man 05:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
We're getting a bit off topic, but I think part of the problem is that people feel the need to cite policy at all to justify their actions. The spirit of "ignore all rules" is that common sense and the broader mission of building an encyclopedia is what governs our conduct here, not obeying rules as if they were commandments. Just as "You can't do [that good thing] because the policy doesn't authorize it" doesn't fly, "I did something dumb, but the policy authorized it" couldn't possibly be a justification for anything either; the justification would be some rationale for why what you did is better for the project of building an encyclopedia. For that reason I'm glad that the protection policy is vague (and if you look at the edit history you might find that I had something to do with that). I think the CSD page could benefit from drifting toward more of that kind of vagueness. --causa sui talk 06:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Would "does not exist or is tagged for speedy deletion" be an acceptable substitute? I agree that "has never existed or has been deleted" is unnecessarily complicated. Somno (talk) 05:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I like this one. It is less complicated than the old one, yet conveys more information. decltype (talk) 05:43, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The "is tagged for deletion" was removed following a comment in the old discussion, as linked above: "Me late here, but I think the band's article should not just be tagged before the album is deleted, but already be deleted itself. So i'd drop the five words at the end as already hinted at by Stifle. Common sense says that people could still tag the album together with the band.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)".
    Amalthea 06:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC) (Clarification: This quote from Tikiwont is actually in this section, which is a little further up the archive page. — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 18:51, 4 October 2010 (UTC))
  • Delete the band, then delete the album. Problem solved. Stifle (talk) 11:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

What about transwiki subjects?

Hello everyone.I hope someone can help me here. I noticed that under the transwiki title or CSD A5, there is no helpful links on how to warn the user in question at their talkpage if he/she creates a dictionary article. --Siva1979Talk to me 15:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

You can write it by hand, or create the template yourself. You don't have to warn people with boilerplate messages. --causa sui talk 15:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
The G5 category is primarily intended for articles that excist on other languages of Wikipedia, not on other projects. The dictionary definition, or WP:NOTDICDEF is a guideline that falls under the WP:NOT policy, a policy that specifically states that violating it is no reason for CSD'ing a page. Personally i just use WP:TWINKLE to add a prod template the the page. This will automatically warn the user about the tag, along with the reasoning you entered for the tag. Just quote [[WP:DICDEF]] and presto, your done Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 16:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, twinkle is very useful for this sort of thing. I'm so used to using it I didn't even think to recommend it. :-) --causa sui talk 17:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

current reversions

Ryan, you and i should not get into a revert war. You are trying to make a major change in policy. Please start a discussion at the VP or an RfC.DGG (talk) 17:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Good idea - even though we discussed it here and came up with (in my eyes) a good idea 6 editors is hardly consensus on such a major policy change. Let us know where it is located :) Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 18:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
The previous edit summary on the policy page said "rv all the way back", but that reversion didn't even go back before this brouhaha, to the morning of 2 days ago; I've reverted to that point per the above discussion that this needs wider discussion before any major change. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't take that edit summary to mean that I endorsed reverting back to the beginning of this "brouhaha"; I was referring to the minor sniping going on between me and DGG (talk · contribs). Anyway, I won't undo what you did, even though this revert got rid of a lot of M (talk · contribs)'s cosmetic improvements to the policy. --causa sui talk 19:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think anyone would object to re-inserting cosmetic improvements, but policy changes should probably get more discussion. - Dank (push to talk) 19:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

U2

Clarification: U2 says "Nonexistent user. User pages of users that do not exist (check Special:Listusers), not including IP addresses." Plausible redirects are okay though, right? For instance, Wikipedia won't let me register my old account "Dank55" because it's "too similar to Dank5s"; there's no problem with a redirect from User:Dank55 to User:Dank, right? I want to make sure before I reverse a decision another admin made this morning. - Dank (push to talk) 14:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I would definitely say such a redirect was legitimate. Happy‑melon 15:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, if you go to Special:UserLogin&type=signup logged into an admin or accountcreator account, you can check the "ignore spoofing checks" checkbox and register the account. Amalthea 15:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
... which is completely unnecessary if nobody but trusted users can register the account. (Beans aside.) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
... which is why I started the sentence with FWIW. :) Amalthea 18:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
It would make sense to register the account because it's his old username, and to prevent adminbots from deleting the redirect page per U2. –xeno talk 18:22, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks everyone, I've created that account and made a trivial edit to the redirect to indicate I own both accounts. - Dank (push to talk) 18:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Simplify policy RfC

(A user has requested comment on Wikipedia policy or guidelines for this section.) This has to do with the above discussion.   M  17:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

What about redirects-in-error?

We have a fairly specific SOP at WP:TOL as regards redirects: a taxon is not allowed to redirect to a higher-level taxon unless there is a specific reason to do so (such as monotypy). If a redlink is not desired, piping is the method to use; for example a species wikilink can be piped (but not redirected) to the species' genus, if the species page does not exist.

(See e.g. Alternanthera brasiliana, Gomphrena reticulata etc in List of plants of Caatinga vegetation of Brazil for a correct way to do it)

Many redirects have been created (and are still being created occasionally) that do not conform to this policy. Species-level taxa in particular are often made redirects to genus, even if the genus is nonmonotypic and the genus page holds no additional information about the species.

There is no criterion to allow for speedy deletion of such redirects. They need to be deleted however, because in taxonomy Wikipedia is bound by the Nomenclature Codes, and a hard redirect implies something that is untrue (in the empirical sciences, we might not have "truth", but we DO have "untruth"). Outside biological nomenclature cases, similar "vapid" redirects may occur, but they are rare.

It is tiresome to whip up a stub each and every time, because often such incorrect redirects are created en masse. It is also an impediment to more constructive work - it causes articles not being written during general makeovers of a higher-level taxon.

What can be done? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

But see the current DRV discussion on WP:DONTQUOTEPERSONALESSAYSASPOLICY. I thought it was a very implausible shortcut, but the consensus opinion at DRV is that WP:RfD is the place for making judgment calls on the implausibility of shortcuts. - Dank (push to talk) 13:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
If RFD is the place to decide whether a shortcut is implausible, then why is it is the criteria for speedy deletion? --causa sui talk 14:47, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
it permits not the deletion of implausible redirects, but only redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. those are in some cases very easy to judge, but perhaps we need to say something more specific. A redirect that is simply wrong is not a speedy, unless it is so wrong as to constitute vandalism. A person may be very sure that a redirect is wrong, but they may nonetheless not be correct in that. DGG (talk) 17:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I think such redirects have to be sent to RfD, because they are not unambiguously clear . Your argument may be correct, but it's well known that very little in biological nomenclature is undisputed, especially on Wikipedia. It may violate the private rules of your project, but please explain exactly what rule in the botanical Code it violates, and just how it leads to an incorrect implication. DGG (talk) 17:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I have made a few RfDs on such redirects time and again, but they were all turned down because no criteria are a good fit. That's the reason I started this topic.
Candidate RfD would be for example:

Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, now pick oner and explain why it is wrong. Then tell me why it is so obviously wrong that any admin would be expected to know it.DGG (talk) 00:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

A1 for vapor-songs

Unnamed fifth album (album) was tagged A1, and I decided to go with that. Entire content was:

According to an interview by ultimate-guitar.com, Trivium told them "We're currently writing for the next one but that won't be coming out for about a year and a half but it's going to crush everything we've ever done. Just like hopefully each record has done in the past."

It would have been deleted per WP:CRYSTALBALL and the WP:MUSIC notability guideline at AfD. A7, G1, G2, and G3 don't work. Some would stretch G11 to fit, but Trivium (band) is well-known; it's more likely this was posted by a fan than by a promoter of the band. Is A1 reasonable? - Dank (push to talk) 18:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, A1 does not fit it to be strict. Would it have been impossible to merge and PROD it instead? I mean, it took us some long discussions to get consensus for A9 and that has a specific exclusion for things like WP:CRYSTAL-articles by notable bands, so why use A1 or any other SD tag if there was no need to do it? Regards SoWhy 19:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't know as much as I want to about CSD and bands, but the impression that I'm getting is that people don't have a lot of patience for dealing with gossip about future albums. I'll try doing as you suggest, but I believe it might create some friction. - Dank (push to talk) 01:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we should have an A10 if this is the case...

10. An article on a future musical recording by any artist (even if they are considered notable per standards) that does not indicate or have enough information to assert why it is important or significant enough to have an article before its release. If there is not enough information for such an article, it should be merged into the main article on its artist.

Good enough? ViperSnake151  Talk  02:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Are you saying that these should be merged and speedied, or prodded, or redirected? I just asked on #wp-en-admins; vote of 1 (with many abstentions) was speedy. - Dank (push to talk) 02:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Unless I've completely missed a recent spree of such deletions, the proposal definitely does not meet criterion 3 above; no way are these frequent enough to warrant a new CSD criterion. Happy‑melon 08:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
There is no real need for such a new criterion. If there is information that can be useful, merge it into the band's article and turn it into a redirect. If the article name is useless as a redirect (like the example above), delete it as R3 afterwards. If there is no context or content, use A1 or A3. In all other cases, PROD does the job. Regards SoWhy 08:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
No. Too many good articles would be speedied under a bureaucratic application of this criterion. --causa sui talk 11:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed with Happy-melon, SoWhy and Ryan. - Dank (push to talk) 15:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion summaries

I've been writing my own A7 deletion summaries; I guess I really ought to ask or someone may raise an eyebrow. I usually start off with "No independent sources, no suggestion that they exist, and no significant hits at news.google.com/archivesearch", assuming that's all true, then I get as much of the default reason in as I can; I have to shorten some of them. Anyone have a problem with this? I prefer this approach to simply implying that the creators aren't stating significance, because that's subjective and they usually don't understand what that means; my 3 criteria aren't (as) subjective. - Dank (push to talk) 03:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you link to WP:CSD#A7? If not, please do, it's invaluable when searching, sorting, or writing scripts that parse, the deletion log. Other than that, I have no problem with the practice, it shows a healthy lack of the all-consuming urgency that to often afflicts CSD admins. Happy‑melon 08:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Always. - Dank (push to talk) 15:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, plain english with a Wikilink to any applicable policy (or IAR if none fits) is best. --causa sui talk 11:12, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I do remind you that lack of sources alone is NOT reason for speedy deletion--the person/group must be obviously of no possible notability, even if sources were to be found to substantiate the claims in the article. And one should never say lack of sources based on gnewarchive for people not likely to be within its scope of present coverage. DGG (talk) 23:27, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow your meaning, in the context of this conversation. --causa sui talk 00:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages, again

I noticed that there still exists a wrong-headed view that disambiguation pages qualify for speedy-deletion if fewer than two articles have yet been written. See Template:Db-disambig. I thought we'd been over this a couple times before. I'd like to know what's the big rush to delete, and what this would accomplish other than delaying the creation of the missing articles. — CharlotteWebb 15:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, if it's a page suffixed (disambiguation), then there is no earthly reason for having it if there's only one blue link. Stifle (talk) 15:43, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why it would matter whether the existing article is considered a primary topic. That is often subject to change anyway. Cannot [[This (disambiguation)]] list [[This]] and [[This (that)]] and [[This (the other)]] whether or not the latter ones exist yet? — CharlotteWebb 15:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I've seen a number of these come up at AfD where it was really a case of WP:SOFIXIT. Either a decent stub was written for the other entries in under a minute (I know, because I did it), or a very logical link to an existing article could be made. So I have to ask, what is accomplished by speedy deletion that isn't accomplished by the slower methods?--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it's generally a bad idea to delete disambiguation pages solely on the basis of redlinks. --causa sui talk 16:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
on the other hand, it would not be a great idea to force all of them to XfD. DGG (talk) 23:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, maybe the deleting administrator should use his discretion on a case by case basis. --causa sui talk 00:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
It ought to be obvious that disambiguation pages with red links serve as useful indexes of work that still needs to be done; they also serve to inform readers that the information they're looking for does not yet have an article. Removing useful redlinks, in general, is a very immediatist attitude that has been shown to damage the encyclopedia's growth. Dcoetzee 15:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. It is far more productive to put the redlinks into the appropriate Wikiproject where editors knowledgeable about the subject are more likely to find them. In a disambiguation page those most qualified to turn them blue are not likely to see them. I also dispute the "has been shown to damage the encyclopedia's growth" statement: reference please? UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I've had the experience similar to Fabrictramp above. Some examples of cases where the pages could have easily been speedied, but then ultimately benefited from having a more drawn-out deletion process include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Fish (disambiguation), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Davies, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GADS. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 18:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and full disclosure: In the past I have deleted some of these sorts of pages as db-disambig-G6-housekeeping. But I stopped doing that, as I learned from experience that these pages often will not be deleted once a few more people have laid eyes on them. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 19:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

G10: change "and" to "or"

What do people think about this? This would widen the scope so that any entirely unsourced but neutral, or any entirely negative but sourced BLPs are also speedyable. Which is the baseline we operate at anyway. Sceptre (talk) 04:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean that unsourced, neutral BLP's should be speediable by G10? Honestly, I don't think that's such a good idea. First of all, it seems very BITEy to put those article in the same category as "attack pages". And second, we already have A7 for BLP's that make no credible claims of importance. Not long ago, there were lengthy discussions about how to deal with unsourced BLPs, and in the end there was no consensus to make them speediable. See Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_34#Unsourced_BLP_and_G10 and Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive_34#Addressing_unsourced_articles.2C_not_just_unsourced_BLPs. decltype (talk) 04:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm sort of deletionist by inclination, but I definitely feel that this goes way too far. If it's not an A7, then the creator should have a chance to make their case. --Orange Mike | Talk 05:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not so vocal about deleting unsourced neutral BLPs, but I would really want to see entirely negative sourced BLPs speedyable. Stuff like Barack Obama substance abuse controversy, while clearly an attack page, would not have been speedyable under the letter. And hell, I think that the spirit of CSD and BLP does extend to deleting negative BLPs summarily. Sceptre (talk) 11:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
It's not an attack page. The article was about something the subject admitted himself and was covered in multiple reliable sources. It was probably pointy and not really a "controversy", but it surely was no attack page that had to be removed on sight. Regards SoWhy 12:20, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
It would be a very bad idea to speedy that article. It's the sort of article centralized discussion was meant to handle. --causa sui talk 18:21, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it would be a very good idea to speedy it. It's just obfuscated birther nonsense. Sceptre (talk) 22:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Doubtless, it should have been deleted in an AFD (as it would have been) and whatever useful content (if any) moved to Barack Obama. Being a bad article is not a reason to bypass discussion. Note that public figures such as Presidents cannot be subjects of defamation and we have an obligation to cover encyclopedic criticism of them. We should have had more eyes on it before we decided that it wasn't salvageable. --causa sui talk 23:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
But it isn't encyclopedic at all. Criticism of Obama is 60% "communist", 35% "black", and 5% legitimate. And that's being generous. Sceptre (talk) 23:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
All valid reasons to delete it at AFD. --causa sui talk 00:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
  • No. Too many good articles would be speedied by a bureaucratic application of this criterion. --causa sui talk 11:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    For extremely flexible values of "good". If an article is entirely negative, then it has no chance of being near par quality. Sceptre (talk) 15:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    A casual perusal of List of serial killers turns up many counter-examples. --causa sui talk 15:55, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    Those articles are going to be mostly negative, yes, because that's appropriate weighting of the sources. This is for cases where instead of saying, for example, "Gary Glitter is a glam rock singer-songwriter" in the first sentence, we say "Gary Glitter is a child rapist". Sceptre (talk) 16:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    It's possible that I'm misunderstanding your proposal. As I understand it, you want to speedy delete articles that have nothing but negative content even if that content is well sourced. I oppose this because I think people follow the CSD to the letter rather than to the spirit and so I want the criteria to be absolutely as narrow as possible. If you give people blanket authorization to delete articles because all the content is negative, then why won't deletionists use it as a cover to speedy delete articles about serial killers and other universally hated people? --causa sui talk 16:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but that would be against half a dozen of our policies. If it's unsourced but not negative, there is no rush to delete it because it can maybe be fixed through editing. If it's negative but reliably sourced, then it's acceptable for inclusion. We want to avoid attacks and negative, unsourced (and thus usually false) BLP, we are not tasked to remove negative material that reliable sources have covered. Point of G10 is to stop potential rumors and hoaxes that can attack a living person to be spread. If they have already spread through reliable sources, there is no reason to remove it. We are an encyclopedia, we report what others have written and we do not judge whether these things are negative as long as they are verifiable. Any other application would remove thousands of articles about murderers, felons, etc. because they are negative by definition. Regards SoWhy 12:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Well-sourced entirely negative articles are perfectly acceptable. NPOV does not mean "balanced positive and negative perspectives." Often such articles get merged out of concern that they represent poor organization of articles (for example, if all criticism is split out into a separate article), but this is an editorial decision and deletion is most certainly not the right response. Dcoetzee 15:11, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    However, the odds of every single possible source ever in the entire world being negative about a subject are virtually nil. By negative, I mean "negative to way beyond the level required by NPOV". Sceptre (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
  • No thanks. Unsourced neutral BLPs are no different to other unsourced articles; the unique legal and ethical situation of BLPs does not apply. Similarly for sourced negative BLPs, with the further point that they can probably be restored. Many such articles probably could be deleted. None should be deleted without appropriate discussion. CSD is an emergency blow-out valve, not a replacement, for XfD. Happy‑melon 16:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. There are lots of unsourced neutral BLP's where sources would be trivial to find and deletion at AfD would not occur, so why speedy delete them and let somebody start from scratch at some later time? An example recently discussed at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 May 13#Speedy delete, AfD, or prod is this harmless and easily verified version of a 2004 Olympic athlete (actually her third Olympics). And if no positive source about a pedophile serial killer has been found or added then I see no reason to delete a biography of a notable but universally despised criminal. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Fundamentals

It looks like I got reverted on a couple points, so let's get this party started. There's something I think I need to say first, to make sure we all agree on what we are doing here.

There is an easy pitfall that many, many editors fall into when attempting to understand Wikipedia policies: the temptation is to think that Wikipedia policy pages are designed to be a collection of rulebooks that justify behavior and clearly delineate authorities. There aren't many Wikipedia policy pages that do a better job of creating the false impression that it is a proscriptive set of commandments, a procedural rulebook that literally and exhaustively defines the boundaries of editorial conduct. This is not the case, and this is not how we should interpret this policy (or any other).

Rather, Wikipedia policy pages guide and inform our behavior as members of a community project to build an encyclopedia. Policy pages have strong consensus behind them because they are held to be representations of the general principles that most effectively promote the productive development of a free encyclopedia. In other words, policy pages say "We have learned through experience that this usually is the best way of doing things, and so you should probably be doing things this way too." This requires a somewhat subtle understanding of policy, because while it can be comforting to say "it's the rules, so follow them", Wikipedia philosophy requires us to be honestly an relentlessly self-critical and apply the rigorous criterion "Does it work?" to everything we do. Various attempts to codify this basic principle have cropped up over our history, the most famous being Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Understood properly, I firmly believe in the idea expressed by Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, and we all enjoy the irony of those who try to turn it into a firm rule. Imagine how we would laugh at one who spoke of a "WP:IAR violation"!

Of course, that is not to say that all policy pages should be redirected to Wikipedia:Ignore all rules! I want to be clear that I think policy pages serve a vital, fundamental role in all the Wikimedia projects. On this page, Mr.Z-man (talk · contribs) recently summed it up: "If it improves the encyclopedia, do it; if it makes it worse, don't do it; if you're not sure, look it up or ask." Policy pages serve the vital role of guiding our intuition and common sense by providing background and rationale for best practices, as the wisdom has been distilled from our experience of what works best in the field. In that way, policy is derived from common practice, not the other way around.

Based on the way the page was written and how I have seen it applied, it is clear that this policy has turned this long-standing and fundamental principle on its head. The current revision explicitly declares that it is giving us an exhaustive list of cases in which an administrator may speedy delete an article, and that these cases are to be interpreted literally. Contrast this against the idea that the page should explain the rationale behind speedy deletion and what is useful about it in terms of achieving our higher goal of building an encyclopedia.

No one should have to follow policy like it's a manual; no one should be relieved of having to use his or her critical thinking and common sense when making deletion decisions because the policy masquerades itself as a flow chart that makes all the decisions for us; no one should have to reread a policy page once he or she has read it and understood its main points. That people do not always follow this policy should indicate not that we need to make it more bureaucratic and authoritarian, but that it is already bloated and full of red tape as it is, and that many editors find that it gets in the way of their making an encyclopedia.

If we can all agree about this (and I hope we can), we can move on to figuring out the best way to express that in this article.

--causa sui talk 00:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll play the devil's advocate a bit. IAR is one of the more useless policies: it's meant to apply to .1% of all situations, and yet it's touted like some cure for the mess that our User:M/Policies are. There are apparently 160k active editors on this project. There are certain Practices with certain levels of acceptance. These include 'reverting newcomer edits' and 'deleting blank pages' - Bad and Good Practices. If you want policy pages to describe, then you must encode both. Policy pages than describe only Good Practices are by definition normative - they prescribe. Further, because people are cooperative, encoding a Practice informs them of community standards, and induces them to comply - thus they simply become normative.
The way that policies are invoked is weird too. "Use common sense, and if you're confused, look it up" doesn't get us far. Just have a small set of universal rules, and then a body of reference material for the special cases. IAR would be replaced with "don't do these 8 obviously stupid things, and do whatever you want until someone points you to a policy against it". Policies shouldn't be descriptive in the sense that you have to remember to follow them. They should be reference material used to quickly settle disputes. (And admins participating in speedy delete agree to remember these rules, too.)   M  01:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
See WP:NOCOMMON. We should do what Wikipedians want us to do, and there's a long history of people complaining when admins justify a speedy deletion by saying that they thought it was a good idea. - Dank (push to talk) 02:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


I think a lot of people don't like "ignore all rules" because they think it gives editors total license to do whatever they want, however destructive it might be. Occasions where irresponsible editors cite IAR (or common sense) to justify their stupid and harmful ideas doesn't help in this regard. It's intuitive, therefore, for some people to think that we need rules to explain why bad ideas shouldn't be carried out: we need rules, on this account, so that we can have a justification for stopping people from doing dumb or malicious stuff that hurts the project. If you let people ignore rules, then on what basis can you control unruly editors? Therefore IAR is acknowledged grudgingly, or we pay lip service to it; but we reinterpret it to mean "ignore the rules when they're wrong about what the rules really are" or something else incoherent.
Let's take a look at what the core Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia Is Not has to say about this:

Wikipedia is not governed by statute: it is not a moot court, and rules are not the purpose of the community. Instruction creep should be avoided. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. They represent an evolving community consensus for how to improve the encyclopedia and are not a code of law. A procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post. Similarly, do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy to violate the principles of the policy (see Wikipedia's guideline on gaming the system). If the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures.

— Wikipedia:What Wikipedia Is Not
It is a severe misconception to think that "ignore all rules" is unimportant on Wikipedia. First of all, IAR is not a useless policy, meant to apply to .1% of situations. It is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, and it was the very first of Wikipedia's "rules to consider", and so in that sense is the oldest and most foundational "rule" we have. If you don't like Mr.Z-man (talk · contribs)'s summary, how's this? "...we have a fair amount of policy ambiguity...to allow people with community respect to take sensible actions (and be prepared to defend those actions, of course)." [3] The interpretation of the policy that you are advocating here -- that policy proscribes how people must behave and that it induces them to "comply" -- is not only a radical revision to Wikipedia's fundamental philosophy that you brought to the table, but it is a very bad idea that "ignore all rules" was written to explicitly repudiate.
I know I'm coming off very decisive here, but this is important. I want you to understand not only the bare fact that the people who created this website knew that this rigid, bureaucratic interpretation of policy was a bad idea, but why they were right to think so. What IAR means, at the bottom, is this:
  1. If X would improve the encyclopedia, you should do X, whether policy authorizes it or not.
  2. If your doing X is challenged, you'd better have a rationale for why X improved the encyclopedia.
  3. That X was authorized (or required) by policy is not a justification for doing X if it harmed the project.
  4. That X was forbidden by policy is not a cause for concern if it improved the encyclopedia.
You seem to be arguing that this is infeasible since there are too many people on Wikipedia, and if you let them all think for themselves there would be chaos; and so we need firm rules to manage them. I want to point out to you that this is exactly the opposite of the basic idea of an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That doesn't mean that we have no recourse or rationale for handling people whose edits, either through ignorance or ill-will, damage the project. What it means is that what's wrong with bad edits is not that they are against the rules, but that they damage the encyclopedia. That should be obvious, but this kind of authoritarianism wants to rewrite the book and say that rules are justified as ends in themselves and that everyone had better follow them just because on the groundless assumption if we don't interpret rules rigidly and literally, then we would have no basis for undoing obviously damaging edits.
The idea behind "Ignore all rules" recognizes the fallacy involved in this kind of thinking by reminding us to keep our eye on the prize: though rules are often important and useful, we are here to build an encyclopedia, not to follow rules, and the rules are only a means to the end of building an encyclopedia. Even the perfect policy that is clear, simple, and concise will be subject to the occasional exception, and the real world policies might not be simple at all and will occasionally actually get in the way of doing the right thing. When that happens you should do the right thing, whether policy authorizes it or not. If we didn't trust you to be able to think for yourself, we wouldn't have given you access to the edit button. That does not mean that anything can be legitimately justified with "Well I was using my common sense" or "I was ignoring all rules." It only means that you can justify doing the right thing by making a persuasive argument that it improved the encyclopedia, even if it was "against the rules."
What I hope you will get from this is that we can still have editorial standards without the firm rules that Wikipedia was originally envisioned to obviate and transcend, and I really hope we can see eye to eye on this. I know that you are just as sincere as I am about wanting to help improve this project, but I don't want to see Wikipedia unnecessarily drift away from what made it what it is. We need to accept that Wikipedia's success is a product of its radical openness and flexibility, and we should be doing everything we can to remove every possible barrier to all the helpful contributors we get every day. CSD, as it is, is more of a barrier than it needs to be, and it could do with some substantial simplification.
--causa sui talk 02:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I think you're assuming my argument is the usual one you hear - it isn't. I'm not arguing for a normative interpretation - my argument is (1) that any interpretation is necessarily normative because a) we omit our Bad practices, encoding only the Good (if we make such distinctions, or use the word 'should', etc., we are behaving normatively) and b) cooperative editors are induced to follow community norms. My many-editors/much-interaction point doesn't say 'oh no, let's manage them'. The idea is that (2) widespread, serious, and inefficient practices develop in such a climate, whether you encode them as policy or not. The rules are already there(2), and they're normative(1a,1b). The source of our 'bureaucracy' is poor management of poorly-formed policy - poorly-formed by misguided applications of IAR, and the belief that making vague rules will stave off complexity. Let's admit that we have rules and that we enforce compliance, and get on with cleaning them up. (By the way, that's a lot of text to read - let's take this one point at a time if we need to.)   M  03:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
When it comes to philosophical issues like this, I do tend to prefer a more philosophical approach, rather than taking it point-by-point. It's important that we most clearly understand these ideas, and that usually lends itself to a more analytic approach. I apologise for the length, but please do try to read what I said, because I think it's all important. --causa sui talk 09:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
We most-clearly understand when we are terse and precise. I did read it, as I hope my above response indicates. If I missed something, let me know, but do respond.   M  09:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


Agreed on that. This page here is a way for the community to tell admins what is usually accepted as a deletion rationale. This states that these reasons are usually acceptable and all else may be subject to complaints. The broader issue you discussed probably best belongs on the mailing list ;-) --Ipatrol (talk) 02:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Except the page isn't being used for that. Its being used for people to tell users (non-admins do a good deal of the CSD work) what should be an acceptable deletion rationale. The page is being used to define what should be deleted, when it should be the other way around. As I said elsewhere, the problem is that there isn't much overlap between the people discussing and controlling the development of the policy and the people actually implementing it. Many of the new page patrollers are using the CSD policy like any other policy; they follow the general spirit and do what works for themselves and everyone else and they don't use the exact wording of the policy to guide their every action. The difference with this policy though, is that the people writing it expect them to follow the exact wording rather than the spirit. Mr.Z-man 02:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll admit I don't always CSD tag to the letter, sometimes I'll IAR shoehorn stuff that has no chance of surviving two days on AFD. What matters is that it helped the encyclopedia. The unique thing about deletion is that unlike edits, only admins can undo stupid decisions. The only way to ressescutate your article is getting a copy from an admin, and if they all think you're nuts, tough luck! Deletion is not like a normal wiki edit. Deletion can only be freeform if all users get the match, which is close to "fat chance." That is why admin actions all have strict protocals, deletion particular as deletion is often quite permenant. --Ipatrol (talk) 02:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

"Specifies"

The current revision reads:

  • The criteria for speedy deletion specify the circumstances under which administrators may bypass deletion discussion and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media that would rarely survive such discussions.

The policy "specifies" the situations where administrators "may" bypass deletion discussion. Announces right up front that this is a rulebook and you'd better follow it!

My proposed revision:

  • The criteria for speedy deletion describe the cases where administrators often delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion.

I'm not too attached to this wording, but what I am trying to communicate is that this page describes generally understood "best practice" and that it is not to be read literally or exhaustively. If there is some other way we could get this idea across, I'd be very open to other proposals. --causa sui talk 00:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion policy isn't like others, because it's not as easily undoable. If somebody makes an edit that the community objects to, then anybody else can easily revert. But, deletion can't be undone by non-admins. And, casually/regularly undoing a fellow admins actions, might get somebody de-adminned. So, deletion is a big deal, and admins aren't given a free reign to delete as they wish. If deletion was no big deal, we'd let everybody delete articles. With extra powers, comes extra restrictions. Admins who delete with the same ease they do other editing, should not be admins. --Rob (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Just to note, though that wording is pretty recent, the normative/descriptive thing has been around for a while[4]. I added it without being aware that it was the previous wording. I think that 'specifies' is correct, though we should probably keep major discussions at the top. I agree with the above point, since this is intended for admins.   M  01:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that is a fair point. I think it's a very bad thing that only admins can delete and undelete articles; I was and am still a supporter of pure wiki deletion, so my intuition is to think deletion should be treated like any other content edit. Given that it isn't, there should be some way to communicate that deletion decision should not be taken lightly without creating the impression that the policy is a rulebook. I want to be as up-front as I can about the rationale behind the policy, so that people can become wise editors themselves. That was part of my motivation in including the point that deletion discussion is usually handled with centralized discussion. How about something like this?
  • The criteria for speedy deletion describe the cases where there is wide consensus that administrators should delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion. Since deletion is reversible only by administrators, most deletion decisions are made through discussion, and administrators should bypass it only in the most obvious cases.
I think that communicates the seriousness of the policy without giving the impression that it's a commandment. The reason I want to include the rationale is that this orients the readers' thinking; it nudges them to consider the value the policy has in terms of its benefit to the project. The reason people should follow the policy is because they recognize and understand that it makes the encyclopedia better. The current revision sounds like "Do this because I told you to"; I want to move in the direction of "It's best to do it this way, and here's why." --causa sui talk 01:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that policy is not a rulebook (see above - it's normative whether you want it to be or not). I like your second sentence here, and I'll throw it in there now, but watch out for the word 'should'.   M  01:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a wide gap between saying it is "normative" and making it into a rulebook. We're going to have to get that point sorted out before we can move ahead. --causa sui talk 02:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
What do you think the distinction is? When a child plays chess, they often do not know en-passant, but are informed of it when the occasion arises - our policies, too, need not be read and memorized by new editors. After the 10th time someone reminds you to sign your posts, you are treated as being disruptive, rule or no rule - so great numbers of written and unwritten conventions are expected to be memorized regardless. This isn't like a game rulebook though, it's more like common law (actually, it isn't since it's so poorly developed/organized/executed, but it should be like it). I don't see the distinction.   M  02:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I think we should talk about this in the above section to avoid fragmenting the discussion. --causa sui talk 02:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes policy is a codification of current practice., Sometimes it is a codification of practice that is intended to be binding. This is the second. It says that this is what we have been doing, and what we intend to continue doing, and that people who have been trusted by the community with the power for deletion have been trusted with the express condition that they do it according to this policy. Any RfA candidate who said they thought this was not binding on them would surely be rejected, and it remains binding after they take office. Just as we have no right as administrators to engage in wheelwarring, just as we have no right to protect our favored version of an article we've been editing, we have no right to delete except under these limitations. And reasonably so: the potential power is so far reaching that I doubt anyone would or should be trusted to have the power to delete according to their own discretion--a large community can not run with hundreds of people taking the law into their own hands according to their own views of what it ought to be. This particular policy must remain a rulebook. In an emergency, yes, we can do what we need to do--but that is a power so open to abuse that it should be limited as far as possible Personally, i cannot imagine an emergency that would not be covered by A3 or G10: vandalism, or libel. . DGG (talk) 03:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Right now this policy is neither. Right now this policy is codification of what some people want to be binding and has only become somewhat reflective of current practice through the passage of time, blind enforcement, and the fact that policy is so hard to change. The policy attempts to elevate itself over common sense, attempting to forbid people from doing anything that it doesn't say you can do. We don't give strict criteria on when to protect pages and we don't have strict criteria for blocking, yet we don't have widespread abuse of those tools. But we have strict criteria for deletion because of some paranoid belief that if we didn't, the project would quickly descend into chaos. We put potential admins through a weeklong gauntlet of interrogation specifically so we only get the best people with the best judgment, then when they actually get the tools, we don't trust them to use them without policy guiding their hands. Mr.Z-man 04:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
What does 'binding' mean? The policy specifies no explicit penalty for violation, so it does not claim to be binding. It does claim to be prescriptive (normative), though. If we made the policy perfectly descriptive, then it would be merely tactical information, and dead as a policy. Luckily, it is not possible to perfectly describe practice, and we do try to encode only the good. We do this because there is no admin whose judgment comes near the sober, ongoing, experienced (and crippled) 'judgment' within policy pages. If the policy says 'the community damn well expects you to do this' (even with IAR yelling that the community won't care, as long as you use 'good judgment' in ignoring the good judgment of others) then people will be more inclined to act as the policy suggests. Which was clearly the intent of the policy in the first place - to impose obligation without imposing penalty.   M  08:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
No policy, not even the CSD policy, should ever be literally binding and therefore unchangable. Once a policy does become as of such i can guarantee you that the policy had failed to achieve what it was created for. Unfortunately, this policy is very near to failing what it was once intended for: Allowing an easy means to delete pages that would never survive a deletion discussion, therefore avoiding a time consuming proces.
The main issue with the policy is that it is carries a lot of weight - as it should be actually, article removal should never be seen as trivial. However instead of putting this weight onto carefully tagging and removing articles, we instead place on the wording of the policy, and not on the intent behind it. Its an article about a pet? Tough luck, try to sneak it under another category or start an AFD. An article about a band formed yesterday that claims they won some obscure price? AFD of course, as it is a claim to notability, which invalidates an A7. Put on an article about a company which might be notable but makes no specific claim? Delete it of course! We just bend, intrepret and stretch the meaning of the policy to suit us, and use the wording of the policy as an argument.
This is actually the main problem of the CSD policy - people use the exact wording as if it were a law. However, "Its written in that policy" is never be an acceptable argument. The reasoning should be that the goal behind the policy deems page X (not) acceptable. Remember, we are not lawyers trying to find mazes in the rules to make it seem we just follow policy/law. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 09:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't see the problem with editors deferring to others who are more familiar and have had more time to discuss. "Because 3RR says so, and if you don't like it, take it to Talk:3RR" is a perfectly acceptable argument. You can't expect every admin to study the long history of CSD and all of its related discussions just to use it.   M  09:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I was not talking about referring a policy in the average discussion. My point was that following a policy to the letter is something that should never be done. For an example: During vandalism patrol a user should have received "Sufficient Warning" (Meaning 4 warnings) before being reported to WP:AIV. In the case of a spambot (Which makes around 20 or so pages a minute and sometimes more) it is usual to report them before handing them a single warning to lower the impact of their actions - after all its clear the user is disrupting wikipedia. In one case an admin refused on the basis of the policy that "They had not been sufficiently warned". Result? If the admin had blocked at once there would have been 30 or so pages to remove. Now there were well over a 100. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 10:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
The policy is not binding because it does not enforce, nor is there an agreement ("as an admin I hereby commit to follow CSD"). I'm not sure what 'literally binding' means. Bindingness has nothing to do with malleability.   M  09:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think such a radical revision is really necessary. All that needs changing is the key words. Replace "may" with anything less forceful and you fix 90% of it. Mr.Z-man 04:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with this, but M (talk · contribs) is objecting to my proposal, "should". Do you have alternatives or do you agree with me that we ought to replace "may" with "should"? --causa sui talk 09:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
To play devils advocate myself: Will this chance in wording effectively change something in the reasoning, context or scope of the policy at all? The line that is suggested to be changed is effectively nothing more then plain descriptive text (Or a summary if you like). In other words: Aren't we busy trying to rename the spade to hammer, while it remains the same old spade? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 09:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, replacing 'may' with 'should' implies greater obligation.   M  09:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
To quote an excellent text written by Mr.Z-man 05:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC) at the village pump:
I think part of the problem is that there isn't much overlap between the people discussing and controlling the development of the policy and the people actually implementing it. The people writing the policy assume that the people applying it will automatically shift their behavior at every single change but the people using the policy aren't following the continuous discussions and wording changes, they're going by memory and whatever short notes the tools they use give. This all goes back to the idea that policy isn't proscriptive. The new page patrollers are using the CSD policy like any other policy; they follow the general spirit and do what works for themselves and everyone else and they don't use the exact wording of the policy to guide their every action. The difference with this policy though, is that the people writing it expect them to follow the exact wording rather than the spirit.
I think that statement reflects reality perfectly. Do i, as a regular new page patrol, care about a single word change that does not affect the policy or my patrol as a whole? No. I would only care if i suddenly had to tag differently. Does it affect the average (new) user creating a page? No, They just see that their page will be deleted, if they read the message in the first page. Does a policy, depending on how forcibly it formulated, affect the outcome of any deletion discussion? Unless we try following the policy's word as law (Which i already stated to be folly) the answer is also no. Does it affect the admin removing a page? "May" and "Should" are not the core words for the policy. What matters is if a page meets the CSD guidelines in the first place; If a page meets the guidelines, would any admin change their behaviour depended on "May" or"Should"? I doubt it. No offence, but what exactly does it change? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 10:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Since I'm the one who wants to find some alternative for "may" (though I'm not sure what the best alternative would be), I'll explain. In addition to my main objection here -- the degree to which this policy has become overly complicated -- I'm also unhappy about the way the policy is worded, because the language in the policy subcommunicates that it is a firm rule. If we believe that Wikipedia does not have firm rules, then that should guide our conduct in writing policy as well as reading and interpreting it. As such I am unhappy with "may" because I think it suggests that the criteria enumerated on the page are exhaustive. I admit that there is a positive and a negative way to read it: It could be read to say "You are allowed to delete articles in this case if you want to, but you're also allowed to delete articles if you have some other good reason that isn't listed here." OR it could be read to say "These are the cases where you're allowed to speedy delete articles, and no other rationales are ever acceptable." Right away you should see that I don't like either reading, because "may" implies that permission is being granted from ?somewhere?. Recall the original revision we had before my bold edits, which "specifies the criteria under which an admin may bypass deletion discussion..." To "specify" the criteria under which an admin "may" do X is about as clear a statement of proscription as you can get, and that's what I'm reacting to. Although I'm not sure that either alternative between "may", "should", or something else would directly impact an admins decision in any particular case (nor should it!), I do think it does something much more pernicious; it sneakily leads the reader into thinking the policy page is proscriptive, when it isn't. --causa sui talk 10:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Ok, so the wording should have less of a double meaning? One problem with the current wording is that you will always have to use a word similar to "May" in conjunction with the administror, thus always detailling an action they should take (with X amount of "force" behind it).
To avoid this, how about May be subject to removal by an administrator. or Will be reviewed by an admin to determine if it should be removed? For me those read as if those two explain that an admin will make a judgement, without forcing that admin to prefer a harsh or soft judgement. Any thoughts on those variations, even though they are a bigger change then the ones you proposed? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 11:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I think Happy-melon (talk · contribs) may have solved this. What do you think about this revision? [5] --causa sui talk 12:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I object to background/explanation in the definition ("wide consensus that"), but since I think 'should' is stronger than 'may', I don't object to that, though I thought you might.   M  09:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

A fair bit of TLDR in the text above, but I absorbed the general details. I disagree that this policy is either binding or normative. The CSD policy sets out forty distinct cases where there is widespread consensus that deletion without further discussion is acceptable. To claim that the policy is binding suggests that administrators must delete pages that fall into one of these cases. There is no requirement for them to do so; indeed the policy explicitly explains this. To claim that the policy is normative suggests that there are no other situations in which deletion without discussion is acceptable. The policy is less well worded in this regard, but it's not the word "may" that I have a problem with. "The criteria for speedy deletion specify the circumstances under which administrators may bypass deletion discussion..." the issue is the second "the", it does indeed imply that all such criteria are covered here, which runs counter to IAR. "Specify" is also unhelpful ("describe" would be better), but "may" is actually beneficial: "should" would be more binding. As such, if we're going to debate semantics, I'd recommend "The criteria for speedy deletion describe circumstances under which administrators may bypass deletion discussion..." Non-binding, non-normative. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 12:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

You know, I think you are on to something here. Removing that second "the" does makes it read much better. I'm still a bit uncomfortable with "may" but the way you put it definitely sounds acceptable to me. --causa sui talk 12:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and did it, and it's looking rather spiffy. "May" still grinds my gears just a bit, and I still wish I could think of something better, but I think it's terrific progress and I can definitely be satisfied with that, if you guys think so too. --causa sui talk 12:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree with the entire approach and the rationale for change here, I also object to the notion that a discussion on this kind of changes involving a mere 6 editors (myself excluded) in a time span of 12 hours constitutes any form of consensus. The whole affair looks to me like an intricate discussion boiling down to give admins a free reign to speedy delete under WP:IAR. There is a reason why the criteriae are strict and should be considered binding. Just like an AfD where no consensus defaults to keep, CSD is, by necesity biased in favour of keeping articles. It should be binding to admins to avoid them performing WP:IDONTLIKEIT deletions. The softening of the wording opens the door wide for both systemic bias in CSD as well as an "anything goes" approach to speedy, in particular the removal of the terms binding deletion decisions to the criteriae (removal of , as outlined by the criteria. in line 10). Too many editors mis-tag today. Too many admins mis-delete today. Too many articles correctly sent to AfD because they fail speedy criteriae get at least one "this should have been speedied" comment. Speedy is for uncontroversial deletions. WP:IAR-based speedies are a hotbed for controversy. That's why they should remain an exception and a strict application of the criteriae the norm. Last but not least I don't buy the whole argument centered about whether policies should be binding or normative or whatnot. WP:V or WP:RS influence addition of content. Can, should there be some leeway in interpreting these? As long as it doesn't fly into the face of the consensus behind them, absolutely. WP:CSD however deals with the summary removal of content, performed by administrators who are supposed to be the extended arm of the community to execute tasks according to the community's consensus, and I don't see how justifying use of admin tools under WP:IAR fits in this picture. MLauba (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding the (admittedly rather pedantic) terminology in use here. To make this policy "binding" would be to say "if an article meets one of these criteria, it must be deleted by the first admin to notice it, no discression is permitted to not do so". That's the last thing we want; I think we all agree that admins must have discression to not delete articles if they think it would harm the encyclopedia.
I find the comment "give admins a free reign to speedy delete under IAR" rather amusing: the whole point of IAR is to do exactly that. It's not possible to "give" this freedom, because it already exists. The problem is that this policy currently gives the general impression that it does not. "free reign to delete under IAR" is not the same as "free reign to delete", far from it. Thus the policy attempts to be normative: it gives the impression "this policy describes the complete set of cases where speedy deletion is appropriate, no discression is permitted to extend them". There are several policies on Wikipedia that are binding: WP:V, WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:NLT, etc. But only one Wikipedia policy is truly normative, WP:IAR, and that only because it explicitly encompasses everything (including, confusingly-enough, itself: if you can improve the encyclopedia by ignoring the instruction to break the rules, then you should keep the rules!). Happy‑melon 13:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
The point though is that I fundamentally disagree that there exists any single case where speedy-deleting under WP:IAR is warranted, instead of going to PROD or AfD. The re-wording and the entire discussion centers around more leeway to delete, not to decline a speedy deletion. The initial wording read like a rulebook and that is actually perfectly fine. Under the old wording, I ask you, what leads to regular discussion, that an article got speedy deleted or that a speedy got declined? Check eg Dank's talk archives. The declines often spill over to here because the speedy taggers tend to know their way around and complain to a broader audience. But far more questioning and arguments are created by deletions than declines. Broadening IAR deletions will only worsen the situation. MLauba (talk) 13:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
It's pretty funny how these debates work out, because I think we are talking past each other somewhat. I really don't think any changes of this policy are designed to increase the leeway given to administrators for speedy deletion. I happen to agree with you that speedy deletion is something that administrators shouldn't do without a very good reason, and that it's rather unlikely that anyone has come up with a very good reason that isn't already covered by something on this page. (I mean, look at how f%#!ing long it is already!) I want to make absolutely clear that I don't think any of that is disputed here, and that we don't want to revise the substance of the CSD policy to make out like its okay for administrators to speedy delete pages for whatever reason they want.
I tried to explain this is detail in the above section, but apparently I used too many words for most people to read it (:P) so I'll try to restate it briefly here. What I think we want to make clear in this article is that when we say (in conversation) "administrators should not speedy delete pages without a very good reason", we mean (1) by "good reason" that it's a compelling reason that it's better for the project of building an encyclopedia and (2) the reason administrators should so limit themselves is also because it's good for the project, and here's why.
You can rest assured that there is nothing about these proposed revisions to the policy that will make it less bad for an administrator to speedy delete an article for a bad reason, and there is no one here (or anywhere else) who is going to defend them if they do. I guarantee it. --causa sui talk 13:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, it suddenly makes a completely different sense. For some reason I read your initial post on this as coming from the complete opposite direction. I think the rewording of the lead section in its present shape does however no longer convey the notion that CSD should remain extremely narrow in scope by necessity, I got stuck with the removal of the as outlined by the criteria at line 10 . Thanks for clarifying. MLauba (talk) 13:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
The main issue now is that we are playing politics - talk, talk and more talk. By now we are talking past eachother because we wrote so much that it is not even clear anymore what we are trying to do (At least not for me, but that can also be a lack of coffee on my side). Im pretty sure each of us has different ideas and goals about this entire discussion already :) ! So:
  • WHAT are we(you) trying to do / accomplish?
  • WHY are we(you) trying to do that?
  • HOW are we(you) going to do that?
And for me that would give:
WHAT: Review and improve the effectivity of the CSD policy, and in particular the A7 (Notability) part of the policy.
WHY: The current CSD policy is a mess, which specifically shows in A7. Following CSD to the letter causes trouble with tagging pages. A7 applies to a limited amount of pages, which means that subjects as pets, furniture and coffeecups hav to be sneaked under other categories since A7 would not apply. At the same time we are allowed to remove companies, people and band, the subjects that are likely notable.
HOW: Redefine the policy: Broader scope on A7 to remove the senseless limitation, or at least allow more common sense. Also tilt CSD to having to prove something is not notable in order to delete, rather then the other way around. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 14:06, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
For me:
WHAT Improve the quality of CSD deletions (and ideally even tagging)
WHY I myself misread and mis-applied speedy tags when I started on NPP, but when I starting re-examining my stance on CSD, I also found it shocking how many of my mistakes where deleted without a second thought.
HOW Clarifying the language to try and avoid the confusion between notability and importance you find in A7, possibly deprecating G1, finding a way to formalize the dialogue some admins have when they decline a speedy with the tagger. MLauba (talk) 14:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's funny how much people are arguing about a minor wording change. Like excrial noted earlier, changing how something is worded won't change diddly squat. Absolutly nothing will change, regardless of the wording, people will just keep on tagging and admins will keep on deleting as if nothing has changed. People generally act as if policy is prescriptive because of several factors. We see policy as the total sum of general consensus. If we don't know what to do, we check the policy to see what most people would do without holding a massive RFC to find out. Second, we have historically reprimanded people who don't follow policy. Nearly every current and pending RFARB is a complaint of someone's use of IAR. IAR is usually used on moments where to do something a little off policy seems like a blinding flash of the obvious or where an obvious action can't be shoehorned to a policy. That's not all bad, however. I work on a wiki who's guidlines are truly descriptive. Decisions are made from common sense and a mutual understanding of commonly understood principles, not through policy citation. This may seem ideal, but it often causes problems where people have different ideas of common sense and principles. Occasionally the site erupts in chaos during a dispute due to lack of mutual understanding. The site normally gets over it due to everyone knowing everyone and small size, but Wikipedia would explode in that kind of situation. Case in point: Prescriptive policies are not always evil. --Ipatrol (talk) 02:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Current CSD Issues

A short summary of the items we have discussed for readabilities sake - feel free to add items.

  1. Lemming behaviour in administrators: Faulty tags are rarely corrected, instead articles are incorrectly removed.
  2. A7 policy is a source of confusion: No clear indication what is, and what is not notable under CSD policies. Also issues with it being limited to a category that would most likely contain notable entries, while restricting other categories.
  3. CSD policy is applied to literally: CSD policy is often taken literally, while other policies allow common sense or leniency.
  4. IAR policy used to often when tagging for removal The IAR policy is used much to often to remove a page that does not fall under CSD criteria. This may be related due to the restrictiveness of A7 (Notability)

Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 14:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

  • The only real problem is us administrators. If we actually followed the rules as currently written, it would work fairly well, except for the one ambiguous rule, which is G11 promotional which requires a judgment about whether the material would be correctable by normal editing. That CSD is taken literally is a strength. If all admins did so, it would be fairly consistent. That admins are tempted to go beyond the rules is inevitable with the power we are given. That we do so is our own fault. DGG (talk) 16:12, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
    • It would initially seem that way, and many companies tried to lay a strict framework of policies to manage daily operations - and all failed. The huge problem in this are exceptions; What should be do with an article that does not really fall into any CSD criteria but is certain to be removed? We can do two things: Report it under CSD anyway, or send it to AFD. If we report them to CSD anyway we undermine the framework again; If we send them to AFD man can wonder why we have CSD in the first place, if it does not truely lighten the load on AFD. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
  • On the overuse of IAR, I suspect the problem here is twofold: (1) A misinterpretation of IAR that leads people to believe that it gives them total license to do whatever, regardless of whether it is consistent with general consensus and (2) as a reaction to #1, an overly authoritarian treatment of policy that makes regularly invoking IAR necessary since the policy is so complicated and interpreted so rigidly. --causa sui talk 16:12, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I have speedy deleted about 8000 pages, and never found IAR necessary. Anyone who finds the policy complicated is not yet ready to be an administrator. That taggers find it complicated is inevitable since they usually start patrolling soon after they come here, and part of the purpose is to learn how the rules work. DGG (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
      • I am near page 9500 now (Not that that number really matters) and i assume i used IAR consciously on about 50-75 pages. Those were pages that only skimmed the CSD guidelines but were at the same time pages that would certainly never have survived an AFD. Did i need to invoke IAR on these pages? Of course not. I could have sent them to AFD or PRODed them; Hence, we could use AFD on every CSD page without a problem. But it would defeat the need for even having CSD as we would then just discuss every page. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Not the primary purpose, but, as I said, part of the purposes. Learning things takes practice. How else are people preparing to become admins to learn? After they becomes admins? It's the deletion, not the tagging , which is the dangerous part. DGG (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
If all we need to know is that people can follow strict criteria to the letter, why do we need RFA? We could replace it with a multiple-choice test and it would be just as effective. As I said elsewhere, the other admin areas do not have strict criteria and allow a good deal of admin discretion. Yet we don't have the widespread chaos and abuse with protection, blocking, and rights-granting that people claim would happen without strict criteria for deletion. One could argue that more rules makes abuse more likely, as its easier to abuse them. If we didn't have a rule saying that said "these N specific situations are the only cases that you are allowed to delete a page without discussion" then people wouldn't need to use IAR; they'd just be using their own discretion. Mr.Z-man 18:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My view

Solution to all the problems raised about are not simultaneous possible.

  1. . If the most important thing it have have predictable non-arbitrary actions, then there is only one way to do it : to have fixed rules (whether broad or narrow), and require arbs to follow them.
  2. . If the most important thing is to avoid arbs not following the rules, there are two solutions: persuade or compel them to follow the rules, or have only loose rules--which will result in arbitrary and unpredictable actions.
  3. If the most important thing is desire is to have nothing speedy deleted that is a mistake, or that can possibly be rescued, then there is no way except to have very limited conditions and follow them strictly.
  4. If the most important thing is to delete everything that might possibly be a problem or not make a good article, then the best way is to let anyone delete anything they think suitable

DGG (talk) 17:06, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Unless my reading comprehension fails me, only the 3rd and 4th point are mutually exclusive, but each of them is compatible with 1 and 2.
I wonder whether it could be feasible to reinforce the learning aspect you mentioned earlier by adding a feature to tools like Twinkle which places a short notice on a tagger's page when a speedy either gets declined or deleted for a different reason altogether, along the lines of "Hi, I reviewed your CSD on article but declined it / changed it to reason <optional rationale text><optional link to the crucial essays like WP:FIELD>". That would definitely help putting a more systematic dialogue in place when an article was improperly tagged. MLauba (talk) 07:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not descriptive

I skimmed the above, but I think that some of the points I've made have been ignored or misread in favor of the usual discussions.

I think you're assuming my argument is the usual one you hear - it isn't. I'm not arguing for a normative interpretation - my argument is (1) that any interpretation is necessarily normative because a) we omit our Bad practices, encoding only the Good (if we make such distinctions, or use the word 'should', etc., we are behaving normatively) and b) cooperative editors are induced to follow community norms. My many-editors/much-interaction point doesn't say 'oh no, let's manage them'. The idea is that (2) widespread, serious, and inefficient practices develop in such a climate [large project], whether you encode them as policy or not. The rules are already there(2), and they're normative(1a,1b). The source of our 'bureaucracy' is poor management of poorly-formed policy - poorly-formed by misguided applications of IAR, and the belief that making vague rules will stave off complexity. Let's admit that we have rules and that we enforce compliance, and get on with cleaning them up.
What does 'binding' mean? The policy specifies no explicit penalty for violation, so it does not claim to be binding. It does claim to be prescriptive (normative), though. If we made the policy perfectly descriptive, then it would be merely tactical information, and dead as a policy. Luckily, it is not possible to perfectly describe practice, and we do try to encode only the good. We do this because there is no admin whose judgment comes near the sober, ongoing, experienced (and crippled) 'judgment' within policy pages. If the policy says 'the community damn well expects you to do this' (even with IAR yelling that the community won't care, as long as you use 'good judgment' in ignoring the good judgment of others) then people will be more inclined to act as the policy suggests. Which was clearly the intent of the policy in the first place - to impose obligation without imposing penalty.

Policies are not descriptions of what actually occurs, nor is it possible for them to be. They are widely-accepted norms - ways in which editors should behave.   M  18:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that, realistically, its difficult to make good policies based entirely on actual practice and that policy does tend to form the practice. But the problem is not policy in general, its how this policy is being used. Its written based on how some editors want other editors to behave. Its not written to reflect best practices but to forcibly change best practices.
With most policies, all people need to know is the general spirit of the policy; the actual wording is less important. This works because creating or making major changes to a policy generally requires a significant amount of community input, so any change in the spirit of a policy will be well-agreed upon and well-communicated. This policy is different, as most of the emphasis is on the specific wording and following the general spirit (terrible articles and useless pages don't need a discussion to delete) will result in people complaining that you aren't following the exact wording. But changes to the wording are done with only the agreement of a handful of people. So changes to what's currently the "important" aspect of this policy are made without any verification that it still reflects the will of the community, rather than that of a handful of "power users." Mr.Z-man 23:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
We need an organized effort to manage policy. Perhaps a policy cabal. Unfortunately, such efforts are frowned upon due to IAR. But innocent changes to the wording can in actuality change the meaning in significant ways, and this needs to be watched.
I was under the impression that this policy was intended to be followed to the letter. Deletion is hostile, and could get admins into trouble for overstepping their duties ('minor uprisings against deletionist admins'). I'm not sure that it's the literalism of this policy that causes people to complain. I think that if the policy was something like 'carefully delete terrible and useless articles' then we would see some serious opposition to the policy as a whole, not just to the cases where admins overstep the literal warnings.   M  03:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
The claims that chaos will follow if we don't have strict criteria for deletion are nothing but FUD. We put admins through a weeklong gauntlet of interrogation so that we only promote the users with the best judgment. The protection policy and the blocking policy allow significant discretion in applying them. There is no policy for granting rollback/accountcreator rights. I find it rather strange that on a project that attempts to force AGF down people's throats and rehabilitate sockpuppeting trolls, we don't trust experienced users who were given tools to help the encyclopedia to use one of those tools without a policy guiding their hand. Comments about deletion being "hostile" and admins "overstepping their duties" makes it sound like we just appoint random people to be admins. Mr.Z-man 04:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
This is how I see CSD - deletion of articles is always a dangerous activity because of its ability to quell useful development and offend users, and so most deletions should be a community decision to minimize errors. There are two ways the community decides to delete an article: by specific deliberation over the article, and by specific deliberation beforehand about a class of articles fitting a fixed description, on this discussion page. Deletion of articles outside of these two methods is deletion informed only by the opinion of one person, and so more likely to be in error and do more damage; that doesn't mean they can't do so, but that there is a clear risk in doing so and that they understand that risk and take responsibility for the consequences. Saying "A7" in your deletion summary says far more than just the reason for deletion; it implicitly says "there has been prior discussion on whether articles on this nature should be deleted, and consensus holds that almost all of them should be, supporting this action." If a paragraph to this effect needs to be inserted in this policy for clarification, I'd be all for that. Dcoetzee 05:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I think what you said is basically right, but I don't think it's what the dispute is about. --causa sui talk 05:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe I'm being too indirect. My point is essentially that CSD is not necessarily to be interpreted literally or followed strictly - but to delete articles outside of its bounds is to do so at your own risk. It's not a set of conditions under which deletion is permitted, but a set of conditions under which the community has committed to backing you up if challenged. If you delete outside of these bounds, and are challenged, you bear the sole responsibility of justifying your own actions - and in extreme cases, facing disciplinary action such as desysoping. Dcoetzee 06:47, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that's a fair way of putting it. What changes (if any) do you think are necessary to make the policy reflect that? --causa sui talk 06:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
A problem is that boundries are flexible - where is the line between a non notable article and a notable one, or between advertising and informative? We are not just dealing with one's and zero's, but with any number of variations in between. Should i delete that company that has minor mention in a newspaper but no other hits on google? How about that company with two sponsored external reports? And that spam page, is it worth to keep it so we can rewrite or should it just be removed?
In other words we do not only have a problem of deleting articles that are clearly outside the bounds, but also an issue to determine what to do if something falls on the grey area. Do we send these to AFD en masse, or do we just CSD them? And what quality devides CSD from AFD? That is exactly one of the problem; No matter if rules are followed to the letter there is still a good portion of judgement involved in CSD, and judgements are different for every admin. Hence, i doubt that a lot of "bad" removals are done intentionally. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 07:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

On how you pointed out about "sole responsibility," admins are generally leery of deleting outside of process because in doing so, they rish their own skin far more than if they just use normal channels. MZMcBride's latest RFARB also shows that people are more sensitive about deletion because unlike protection and blocking, it imparts a sense of permenance. People don't like their work destroyed, it's like smashing a sandcastle, as opposed to encasing it in glass or removing the creator from the beach. That is why we posess strict criteria and RFARBs galore when they're not followed. --Ipatrol (talk) 03:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Burden of proof

[moved from below   M  18:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)]

  • The problem with the lead as originally worded is that this proscriptive interpretation of policy flatly contradicts the foundational principles of Wikipedia. You can read more about this above in the section titled "fundamentals." I hesitate to belabor the point since we've been having this discussion in every thread, and I created subsections in order to keep things organized, but it doesn't seem to be working. --causa sui talk 17:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
That's your position. I disagree, and I see Im not the only one. I have read the above section, and flatly reject your arguments. Some rules are prescriptive, and this is one of them. Even if it is seen as descriptive, only a few admins go outside the strict limits, so saying there are strict limits is descriptive. A few admins there are who feel free to violate policy, and we should be looking for ways to compel them to follow it, not condoning it. IAR is for when it is necessary, and nobody has ever given an example of any circumstance here where it might be necessary. DGG (talk) 17:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
We can say, "that's your position and this is my position and we just disagree." One of us is actually right about this though. It's really interesting since, as you said, CSD is the anomaly here; it's one of the few policy pages that is, quite bizarrely I might add, held up as proscriptive when every other policy plainly isn't, including those that govern this one: the five pillars and other foundational policies are absolutely clear that nothing in Wikipedia policy is proscriptive. Even the {{policy}} template at the top of the page says it should "normally" be followed with a wikilink to Wikipedia:Use common sense, which again says that it's occasionally okay to ignore a rule, although of course "you will need to persuade the rest of the community that your actions improved the encyclopedia." The Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy says that "Policies need to be approached with common sense; adhere to the spirit rather than the letter of the rules, and be prepared to ignore the rules on the rare occasions when they conflict with the goal of improving the encyclopedia." Jimbo Wales says that policies are deliberately vague so that editors can exercise their judgement in each particular case. It goes on and on. I mean really, does anybody read this stuff anymore? :-)
Given the literally mountainous evidence in long-standing Wikipedia policies and the statements of everyone involved in drafting it from Jimbo all the way down that Wikipedia does not have firm rules, including on this very page, my attitude is to say that the burden of proof is on the proscriptivists to show why there is consensus to have the CSD page the way it is, rather than the other way around. CSD has up until now been a den where Wikilawyers congregate and devise new ways to complicate the policy and work out how to "compel compliance" with the "literal meaning" and other such nonsense. Outside of this corner of our little globe the current runs completely against you, and now that some of us have noticed what a bloated and overlong manual of rulecruft this page has become, we are here to clean it up. Consensus isn't on your side, it's on ours. So this is the question: Why should we overturn almost a decade of standing consensus and make an exception for this policy? --causa sui talk 18:02, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
As I've stated above, I disagree (since I think this policy was a compromise against 'lone-judgment' deletions, which are against the spirit of consensus) but lets avoid further discussion for now, especially lengthly discussion that may prevent others from reading what has been said.   M  18:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think I follow-- How does lengthy discussion prevent others from reading what has been said? "I disagree" can't be an answer, but now both you and DGG (talk · contribs) are resorting to it. We do need more eyes, I think. --causa sui talk 18:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, sometimes it does, unfortunately - WP:TLDR (note that often this is invoked even when the writing is perfectly fine).   M  18:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it is the answer - your position is along WP:IAR, that CSD should have less rules, while the opposing position is that this policy is unique because letting admins 'exercise judgment' would be a clear violation of WP:CONSENSUS, which encourages discussions over one-person-judgements.   M  18:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Going back to the general question. Some policies are more prescriptive than others. Obviously, some places one can use IAR more freely than others. Even here, which i think one of the most prescriptive of policies, IAR could be used if a previously unforeseen case should arise that needed it . Nothing we say here would prevent it. I agree with you that the provision for IAR is fundamental., but that is I think the aspect in which it is fundamental--not as a first choice, but if nothing else applies that would meet the need. In a sense it is used here, by expanding a little on the definition of vandalism. We do that anyway in many places because of the urgent need to remove vandalism and the difficulty of defining all types of it, so it makes sense. As examples of things we do not use IAR on, we do not include copyright material beyond the NFCC, even if it would improve the encyclopedia. ArbCom has even ruled out using IAR in some aspects of BLP. On the other hand, a decision at AfD can use IAR if it really needs to, because there is community involvement. We frequently use IAR to correct errors at Deletion Review, because correcting errors is a place where it's likely to be needed--I have invoked it there myself.
I do not see it as descriptive vs. prescriptive, because what we should be describing is what we think to be the right way to do things. We cannot describe the full range of what we do and leave it as that, because there are a small number of admins who delete on the basis of what they personally think ought not to be in the encyclopedia. The great majority do not, and such deletions are always reversed if taken to Deletion review. We do wrong things sometimes, and sometimes they stand because they are not worth the difficulty of challenging them. There is no necessary conflict between prescriptive and descriptive, because we should not and do not write a prescriptive rule that does not match what is generally perceived as good practice. A descriptive rule does not say the wrong way is right because a few people do it. It's like a law saying merely "most people do not shoplift".
In some cases I favor explicitly descriptive rules. I joined with MASEM in trying to get WP:PLOT to merely describe the range of what we do, and say it was not being prescriptive, because there was no agreement about what we ought to do, but that approach was rejected there. I continue to think it was appropriate, because inclusion guidelines are inherently flexible, and there is no likelihood of abuse because each case would have a community decision. The rules for what admins can do are another matter: the possibility of abuse is there--and the fact of it is unfortunately sometimes there also. The only way to prevent it is to be restrictive. I prefer not to word it descriptive/prescriptive -- I was using these terms only because others were. The clearer way is restrictive/permissive, or fixed/flexible. I continue to think, and i believe it will be found that Wikipedian in general think, that there should be restrictive limits on what admins can do. In the nature of human behavior, they will go over the limits anyway, so the only way to keep it from getting abusive is to insist on it being narrow limits. Discretion is of course inevitable, as nothing can be applied unthinkingly. The way to keep discretion reasonable is for the policy to limit it. To actually say, this is what you should do , but you may do as you please if you really want to, is not going to produce good results here. The difficulty involved is that the bias should be towards improving and keeping articles, yet about a third of the articles submitted are hopelessly unimprovable. DGG (talk) 18:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The current revision

[moved from below]

I went ahead and added it. Let me know what you think. --causa sui talk 17:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Ehh, I tried adding something, but DGG (talk · contribs) immediately reworded it to make it even more bureaucratic than what was there before. So I guess we'd better stick to the talk for now. Here's what I'm proposing:
  • Administrators should take care not to speedy delete articles except in the most obvious cases. These criteria describe cases where there is broad consensus supporting summary deletion of articles and other content: speedy deletion in other circumstances is subject to strict scrutiny and should generally be avoided.
Sound good to you guys? --causa sui talk 17:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I will accept:
These criteria describe the only cases where there is broad consensus supporting summary deletion of articles and other content: speedy deletion in other circumstances is subject to strict scrutiny and should be avoided if at all possible.
  • Additionally, I do not accept the previous statement that it is intended for articles where there is LITTLE chance of survival. It is intended for articles where there is NO realistic chance of survival.
    Alternatively, let's revert all the way back to the version before this group of changes. Ryan, you and i will not settle this. It needs VP or RfC. DGG (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm more optimistic that we can resolve this through discussion than that. Announcing that you don't accept it doesn't move discussion forward; we need to talk about what's better or worse about which revision and what our reasons are. --causa sui talk 18:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
First step here then is to revert to the version of May 15 [6] before the experimentation started. As I do not think there is agreement on the basic principles (see below), I think it futile to discuss details, since the same points of principal will occur each time. But if people do want to,We can go clause by clause from there.Not by experimentation on the actual text, but on a draft policy. DGG (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be a bad idea to revert all the way back. Nobody thinks this is finalized, but it's a work in progress, and you don't make progress by going backward. --causa sui talk 18:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think a revert is appropriate, since I've done a bunch of non-policy-affecting cleanup there. Just change the words 'may' etc. to what they were before, then we can get on with getting more feedback.   M  18:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think a revert is appropriate, since I've done a bunch of non-policy-affecting cleanup there. Just change the words 'may' etc. to what they were before, then we can get on with getting more feedback.   M  18:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

-

OK, why don't you make the necessary adjustments you see, & I 'll comment here if there re any I think you've missed DGG (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


Towards resolution

I think what Dcoetzee and Z-man said above gets us close to resolving this. First, though admins have good judgment, even the best admin doesn't have better judgment in one minute than a group over a day, and will err more often. Second, deletions (except for copyvio, and slander) are not time sensitive like blocks, they have a chilling effect, they annoy editors, and so on. Third, perhaps there is some feeling that, whenever possible, decisions should be made through discussion and consensus, where even confused objections are allowed to be voiced, and not through lone judgment (I imagine someone bringing up Judge Dredd for this one). These three are reasons why this may not be FUD, but its actual status as FUD should be determined by a wide group, and this is presumably what happened back when CSD was established. So to say 'admins may apply speedy-deletion as they see fit' requires widespread consensus.
These criteria grant admins immunity from criticism, assuming they follow them to the letter. Should we introduce Dcoetzee's clause, which permits judgment-deletions, but states that admins are entirely responsible? This is a bit stricter than 'do as you please', but I think this too requires discussion. As it is now, it seems that the policy should be edited under the assumption that no widespread consensus has been established for either of these clauses, and that this policy was established to grant permissions (and immunity). Therefore, "may" is best-replaced by "are permitted to". So now, if this is incorrect, then links to prior discussions should be provided. Otherwise, we're 'stuck' with this until we can rally up consensus.   M  07:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Please add a brief statement of your position towards the "admins may speedy-delete at their discretion" and "...but they take full responsibility" clauses below.   M  18:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the proposed clause - it will give the admins some lenience for making their own judgement if they wish to remove a page not strictly under the guidelines. The wish part should be a strict requirement - Any admin should technically have to remove a page clearly under the guideline to prevent bias towards articles, but using the clause hsould be entirely be at the discretion of the administrator
At the same time we should indeed implement some form of fallback method so deletions under this clause can be monitored; While this clause allows for removal of pages at the administrators discretion we must be carefull that this will not be explained as a "Liscence to ki... delete" at will. I already mentioned that WP:Huggle has a feature that allows others to monitor edits made with it. Perhaps something along that lines? Or perhaps a patrol like feature that allows admins to flag ocent they agree with the clause based removal? I don't think merely depending on DRV would do in this case. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 08:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it's probably a good idea. If we can find some way to express this without making it too scary, then maybe we can ditch the "as outlined in the policy" thing you and I have been reverting each other over. :-) --causa sui talk 08:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
[discussion moved up]   M  18:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I continue to totally disagree with the proposed clause, or any clause that increases flexibility in interpreting the CSD policy. It is going backwards, and greatly increasing the chances for error. We should rather be think of ways to make CSD more specific and unambiguous, and decrease the amount of discretion and judgement that is involved in the process. Nobody has shown that there actually is any current problem: what doesn't get deleted by speedy and needs to be deleted will get deleted by the other methods,and no harm at all is done by that. We are introducing error without producing significant benefits. Setting up a procedure that will inevitably produce error and then adding a mechanism to monitor it is increasing both error and bureaucracy. I am returning to the original wording. DGG (talk) 17:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with DGG, but mostly because this is what the previous 'wide consensus' has left us with. It's also nice to have 'sorry that it got deleted, but these are so clear that the admin was obviously acting correctly' policies - I think these reduce a lot of negative backlash to admin actions. I also haven't seen evidence that non-CSD SDs are needed. Further, this might belong under deletions in general, and not CSD. I think that we've juggled ideas around sufficiently above, so it might be time to get some brief statements from involved parties in the manner of a straw poll (exactly as is happening now), and also the uninvolved. (edit conflict)  M  17:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Since I think this requires a bigger quarum than we have, perhaps we should reduce discussion/changes in this section for now until we can get more input from others. (And also solicit such input.)   M  18:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll work on drafting something up. Where do you think notices should be posted, other than WP:VPP? The mailing list? RFC? --causa sui talk 18:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
WP:CENT. I hope you don't mind it if I move the longish exchange above up to its own section, so that there isn't a 'freeze' on it.   M  18:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't mind really, but I don't understand the logic either. --causa sui talk 18:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
4~ editors have been having a rather long discussion about this, and I think we've done a great job of making our positions clear in this section. I think it's time to get more input, and huge exchanges here might TLDR the whole thing.  M  18:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
All right, I'm putting together a policy RFC that I'll then advertize on WP:VPP and WP:CENT. I'll also make sure everyone here gets a crack at it before it's publicized as well. Look for a message on your talk page. --causa sui talk 18:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
We should just advertise this discussion, since both the context and the proposal is already here.   M  18:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
M, it is possible that the discussion above is sufficiently complicated that it might be best to start over. DGG (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with DGG (talk · contribs). I think that we've gone around in circles a lot, and in so doing we've clarified the main points of our own positions. I'm currently drafting an RFC to which we could all add some statements before we publish it. I'll let you guys know when it's ready to go. --causa sui talk 19:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I go away for a week and come back to this... wow. I am in total agreement with DGG. This change would require a much broader input from the community as a whole and would not enjoin my support. CSD is already IMO one of the least respected (albeit most important) areas of the project. There are a small percentage of admins who engage in this area that I quite simply do not trust with that kind of power---and I do not support, in any way shape or form, an effort to grant these admins such authority.---I'm Spartacus! NO! I'm Spartacus! 19:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
We aren't granting anyone any power they don't already have. It's kind of baffling to me that anyone still thinks we are. If anything, we're taking power away; by reorienting our attention back onto editorial judgement, we are making administrators responsible for their actions, instead of given them a blanket to hide under whenever they speedy something that might fit one of these forty or so criteria. --causa sui talk 19:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


Backwards in time

There's another discussion emerging here, of whether the original intent of the policy was to grant administrators an (unusual) capacity to delete without discussion, or whether it served as a general guide to the sorts of articles that should be deleted without discussion. The way I understand it, CSD was a compromise between many editors, like I'm Spartacus!, who feel that letting admins singlehandedly delete articles without discussion and consensus is against, say WP:CONSENSUS, and XfD participants who were getting flooded with the same old banal stuff. So, the anti-deletionists said "lay it out in a way that doesn't let you 'interpret' policy on your lonesome" and the XfD patrol said "ok, here are some really simple and very common criteria", and thus, CSD was born (and thereafter disliked by both parties for not doing enough). So my question is, were the CSD intended to hesitantly grant powers that we would otherwise not want admins to have, or did admins go around deleting things at will back in 2004 which led us to "describe" this process in a policy? I think it's clear which of these I think is the case.   M  01:05, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I speak for myself when I say that's not what my objection is about. Nobody here thinks that administrators should feel its their prerogative to delete things willy-nilly, and I'm most definitely not a deletionist or looking for ways to get more articles deleted. If anything I think fewer articles should be deleted, and I think my proposed changes will lead to that result, by making administrators accountable for their actions. --causa sui talk 08:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Reader's Digest version

Uh, can someone summarize what this wall of text (currently over 13,000 words) is about? A sentence or two should suffice. Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 16:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Some people say the policy should be less restrictive, other people say its fine. Mr.Z-man 21:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Well clearly the right answer is to make it less restrictive. What's there to argue about? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Uh, because not everyone agrees with you? It seems to me if there's been this much typing, the answer is not clear.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
DFTT. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom's opinion

I think the following quote from the well known case is releveant for this discussion:

The policy pages for Deletion policy, Undeletion policy, and Criteria for speedy deletion together provide policy and procedure for deletion and undeletion of pages, including pages in userspace. Administrators are expected to use their deletion and undeletion abilities consistent with these policies. Administrators who wish to delete pages that lie outside the criteria for speedy deletion should usually list those pages at the appropriate deletion discussion forum, such as Articles for deletion or Miscellany for deletion, or apply a Proposed deletion tag. This does not negate administrators' ability to delete blatantly inappropriate content even if it falls outside the formal CSD criteria, nor constrain application of our policy on biographies of living persons.

So the purpose of CSD policy is to restrict the ability of administrators to delete pages unilaterally (with rare exceptions). The policy is prescriptive in the negative sense—it prescribes what administrators may not do (delete outside CSD). Ruslik (talk) 18:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can get that interpretation from that statement. With wording like "...should usually list..." and "This does not negate administrators' ability..." it would seem to suggest that the policy isn't as binding as it attempts to be and that some level of discretion is allowed. Mr.Z-man 19:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
No kidding. That's a perfect restatement of everything this policy, as written, isn't. Restricts administrators from deleting outside the CSD? Did you read the last sentence? LOL. --causa sui talk 20:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Er, as far as I can tell this settles the discussion. Perhaps you should paste this into the rfc. The statement is absolutely clear that admins should not delete outside CSD at their discretion, but only when it is blatantly inappropriate (which is extremely narrow) or has to do with bios.   M  21:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
You must be talking about a different debate, because nobody in that RFC is suggesting that admins should be speedy deleting anything but the most blatantly inappropriate content. Who on earth said that we should have admins speedy deleting "at their discretion"?--causa sui talk 21:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, "blatantly inappropriate" is something that can be quite "at their discretion". Some admins for example think that secret pages in userspace as blatantly inappropriate for creating an encyclopedia while others disagree (I don't want to single out MZMcBride and those who supported his actions, it's just the first recent example that came to mind). So if we do not write down what that content really consists of, we will have to face problems with admins interpreting "blatantly inappropriate" differently. Regards SoWhy 21:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe you should take that up with arbcom, because as you can see here, they seem to think that the CSD policy doesn't restrict administrators from executing the critical thinking to determine what it means. --causa sui talk 21:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Arbcom does not establish consensus and policy, they only offer their own interpretation. There's a reason "blatantly inappropriate" would never be a CSD - it's highly subjective. I still think the key to this whole debate revolves around highlighting that deleting outside of CSD is okay, but places increased responsibility on the deleter to justify their own actions independently, without the established community support represented by CSD. Dcoetzee 23:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I think that arbcom's wording was carefully chosen and represents what i think is in fact the project consensus. This does not mean, of course, that arb com makes deletion policy--they do not, and I am sure they do not think they do. However, they do properly have control over the behavior of administrators, including how closely they are expected to follow it and other policies. Their statement, is, as customary for them, somewhat ambiguous in detail, but I see nothing wrong with that. DGG (talk) 00:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

And we are caring about what ArbCom says why? All ArbCom does is interpret policy and apply it to incidents. We are however, free to make policies as we wish. Wikipedia does not rule by statute or precedent, we by all means as a community have equal powers to ArbCom. --Ipatrol (talk) 03:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Speedy merging?

I got an interesting idea, maybe we should have some sort of criteria for speedy merging of articles in select cases. I know this may start to seem a bit creep-y, but it could work if we did it right. ViperSnake151  Talk  13:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Why do we need it? According to Help:Merge, "Merging is a normal editing action, something any editor can do, and as such does not need to be proposed and processed. If you think merging something improves the encyclopedia, you can be bold and perform the merge, as described below." How would this differ? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, the last thing we need is a policy governing such basic editing. Wiki is "speedy editing". Just be bold and do it. --causa sui talk 23:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

That just smells of WP:CREEP, just use common sense. --Ipatrol (talk) 03:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

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