Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 59

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Clarification requested for G5

I have just come upon an article that was deleted, recreated and nominated for G5 because the creator is globally blocked. The rationale for deletion was an interpretation of G5 as "the main contributor of this article was a globally banned user, so all of articles s/he creates can be speedied"). Now, I think that deletion of a good article because the creator is blocked is ridiculous, but the G5 policy is not very clear: "To qualify, the edit must be a violation of the user's specific block or ban. Pages created by a topic-banned user may be deleted if they come under that particular topic, but not if they are legitimately about some other topic." Let's set aside the part about topic-ban, and focus on the case of an editor blocked or banned from all areas. Would G5 indeed read as "any article created by a banned user is eligible for deletion"? In other words, the policy seems to state "if the user is banned from area x, his articles in area x may be speedied", but it could also be read "if an editor is not banned from any specific area, any of their creations may be speedied." I certainly hope this is not a common interpretation, and if so I think G5 needs a clarification that it applies only to articles created by topic-banned editors within said topics. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:52, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

No, any article created by a banned (not topic banned) editor after their ban (through socks, obviously) can be G5 deleted no questions asked. As an example (and I have seen no evidence that this user has socked after his ban): Wikicology is "topic-banned from biomedical content", but also completely banned, partly because also his other articles were very problematic. If he returns and creates more articles, then we don't need to check them one by one, we can just delete them. Ban + G5 is made to simplify the defense against banned editors, and to discourage them from socking (what's the use spending a lot o time on an article if it gets instantly deleted once yu have been found to be a sock.). So no clarification is needed. Fram (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

However, can != must, if the article could have been created by anybody else and meets the inclusion policies for mainspace, it ought to stay. For example, I wanted to restore Samantha Steffen a few days ago as I felt it had at least a fighting chance at AfD, though I gave up because the deleting admin felt far more passionately about deleting it per G5 than I did about keeping it. Ultimately I feel this is one of the biggest arguments on Wikipedia amongst admins, but my personal view is we are here to write an encyclopedia and we comment on the content, not the contributors, and given that's two pillars out of five, it trumps the CSD criteria, which merely say "consensus is we tend towards doing this". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:01, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Ritchie333, for citing those relevant policies; I fully agree with you - in particular, everyone commenting here in support of G5 should explain how it is compatible with "we are here to write an encyclopedia". Because I, for one, think it is clearly incompatible with that most important pillar of this project. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:18, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

There must be a better example of G5 deletions which harm the encyclopedia than an article about a reality show contestant with very, very minimal notability and achievements, which read like a promo piece for her work more than anything else, I hope. You can always just write an article on her, no one will stop you, and it will be much better than what we got here. Although I would rather spend my time writing articles on more notable subjects... Fram (talk) 13:18, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I think this illustrates a major problem with G5. Deletion should not be used on articles that are genuinely constructive and within project scope because of who the creator are; that their deletion will discourage their creators is not as beneficial as denying the project a good article. Deletion of a good article is, simply put, vandalism. The purpose of deletion is to delete bad articles, not to serve as a tool of deterrence or reforming; this is putting a tool above its principle (creating good articles is the goal of the project, not deleting them!). The argument that a user's article's were problematic in the past is also lacking. This may be sufficient to warrant closer scrutiny, but WP:AGF should not be waived. Even Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations does not blanked delete articles of problematic users, they are reviewed and deleted case by case. I can see scope for some exceptions (users who routinely create hoaxes or copyvios), but just today I saw to G5 nominations for articles that do not appear to be either (Jan Pfeffer, World Deaf Championships). The latter may have notability issues, but neither should be speedied, they deserve proper attention at AfD. I am very concerned that they illustrate not an exception but a rule of how G5 is used, and therefore, that G5 may be commonly misused to delete good content in a misguided attempt to make deletions easier. I will once again restate that there is no justification in Wikipedia policy or common sense to delete perfectly good articles simply because of who their creator is. I'll ping User:DGG whom I noticed active above and whose opinion I value, and User:Kvng, with whom I often disagree on deletion policy, but whose inclusionist POV should certainly be worth hearing from here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:16, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

That's not "misuse" of G5, that's accepted use which you disagree with. Fram (talk) 13:18, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Accepted use, huh? Would you have anything to back that up except your POV that it is used commonly in this fashion? Also, would you mind showing us the discussion(s) which led to the introduction of G5? Was it subject to any wide community discussion? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:21, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

You're right, I made that up, in fact I sneakily introduced G5 and no one ever noticed it until now. You may start the ban discussion at ArbCom. By the way, the two examples you gave, and the one given by Richie: all nominations and deletions of those under G5 were all made by socks of me. In fact, all G5 deletions of articles by banned (but not topic-banned) editors ever made were made by my vast sock armada. Fram (talk) 13:38, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Very amusing. So instead of answering my questions, you seem to think satire and ridicule will reflect better on you? May I remind you of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA? I know they are half-joke, but as an admin you could at least pay lip service to them. Also, I see you have deleted Jan Pfeffer with the edit summary "Any attempt to circumvent an active global ban constitutes a violation of the Terms of Use". Any connection between deleting an article and meta:Terms of Use seems extremely far stretched. I see this rationale as a leaf fig for an excuse to delete content that would otherwise require a more serious discussion. In fact I think the deleted article might have been a hoax, but this decision should be based on review of the content (I just spend half an hour looking into the sources for the article, a process which was sadly interrupted by its deletion), not the person. PS. The user who spotted the article even started a proper AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jan Pfeffer, which you speedy closed, preventing any constructive discussion there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:47, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

And the user who started that AfD thanked me for my speedy deletion... Johann Pfeffer was a real sculptor active in the Kônigsberg at the time: whether the further info in the article was a hoax or not, I don't know. As for civility and snark, you have exactly the same means to look for discussions which lead to the creation of G5 a I do, and giving you the standard definition and use of G5 is not "my POV". So I was not really inclined to answer your questions, no, as they are the kind of answers you can find for yourself just as easily. I gave you my initial answer, you quite rudely didn't believe it, tough luck. Fram (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

G5 is very straightforward: "This applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and that have no substantial edits by others." If a sock creates an article in violation of their indef block, it can be G5'd. But restorations should be cheap with the caveat that the editor asking for the restoration takes full responsibility for all the content on the restored page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:52, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Considering that only admins can view such content, this raises the bar for restoration quite highly, since 99.99% of the community cannot easily review said deletions, absent anything but the most basic rationale in the logs which often boils down to "deleted because the creator is banned", without any indication how good or bad the article was. Coupled with the fact that there is no log (correct me if I am wrong) listing G5 deletions for review, there is no control over how widely this tool can be misused. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:00, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

This tool is not misused. Deletions are done according to policy. You might not like the blanket nature of the policy but your dislike in no way translates into admin misuse. Get the policy changed if you don't like it. And there's no specific log for any speedy criteria. By your definition, criteria such as G4 and A7 can also be misused. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:17, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Allowing blocked users to EVADE blocks is not a good idea. It would only tend to encourage sock puppetry, spamming, and other undesirable conduct. What's the point of blocking users if the blocks have no practical effect?- MrX 13:57, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

The point is that if a blocked user creates otherwise good content, it should stay per the basic policy cited by Ritchie333. Now, I see also the point that it would allow for some gaming of the system, but the fact is that if a sock makes an edit to a regular article, it may be reverted, but their edit is in the article's history visible to regular users, it is not oversighted or made visible to "admins only". But speedy deleting their article removes what little oversight regular community is. To build up on my proposal above, if G5 is not to be repelled outright (as violation of "we are here to write an encyclopedia", we need some balance and checks. A log of G5 deletions. A way for non-admins to review the content. Perhaps they should be moved to a special draft space, and nominated for regular AfD with a rationale explaining that the creator has been banned due to ??? reasons. Of course, obvious hoaxes and copyvios and such have their own, better speedy criteria and if such could be used, that's fine. But once again, a procedure that allows for deletion of otherwise perfectly fine articles because of who their person is is a bad policy. And saying that it will discourage others is plain foolish. A useful article benefits the world, and we should not delete it to stick it to a few vandals. It's like tearing down a building because it architect was imprisoned, with no regard to whether the building is actually safe or not, if anyone is living in it, if it is useful for the community, etc. In other word, G5 is a nuclear over-reaction to a small problem, hurting this project more (by leading to occasional deletion of perfectly good content) then it is benefiting it (from deterring socks - which we knows doesn't work well anyway - and removing bad content few hours faster). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

A far more frequent problem I get is simply with banned user's edits being reverted on existing articles, where I am strongly weighted towards "block and preserve", most notoriously with Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:13, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Many banned editors are banned because of hoaxes, copyvios, vandalism, and/or spam, often a combination of them and not always easy to spot. The ban usually comes after countless hours have been spent checking articles, comparing text with sources, generally doing a lot more cleanup than is needed for most good-faith editors. The G5 is an essential tool to stop wasting time on creations by editors who have been shown to be serial troublemakers and timewasters. The proposals above (AfD and the like) only make it easy for banned people to become more troublesome and disruptive again. That this means that the occasional good edit or article will be lost as well, too bad, but this doesn't outweigh the benefits of using G5 the way it has been used for years already. Fram (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

There is only one problem here: admins often do not link to pages with "ountless hours have been spent checking articles, comparing text with sources" and such. In the case of Jan P article, only the first admin deleting it (User:Vanjagenije) linked to a page that eventually redirects to meta:Requests for comment/Global ban request for Messina, you didn't (through I guess once in the log is sufficient). First, I'd strongly suggest that linking to a page explaining the reason for the topic or global ban for a given user becomes a requirement of G5. Second, I'll note that the meta page does not seem to say why the user's content is problematic, it seems to focus on their disruptive behavior (legal threats, socking). Therefore nothing there suggests to me his articles are bad, only that he is a troll. And if a troll creates a good article, I don't see why we should throw it away. If the article is not good, and if a user has a pattern of creating hoaxse, copyvios and such - I am all for G5 speeding them, but this needs to be made clear in the deleting log. What happens to often is that the log does not mention anything, and any editor who may be interested in asking for WP:REFUND has to spend a lot of time investigating the reasons. I don't see why the burden should be on such an editor; it should be on deleting admin who should spend a minute or two properly linking the reasons in his log edit summary. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I support the existing G5 policy. I purposefully don't have a lot of experience in this area I assume the system of banning disruptive editors is effective and that being able enforce a ban a part of its effectiveness. ~Kvng (talk) 14:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

• G5 is a bit different than other criteria, in that it is based on the editor being problematic... and not the topic or content. It may well be that Wikipedia should have an article on the topic... Just not the specific version of the article that was created by a banned user. Remember that it is possible for another editor to start over and create a new article to replace the one deleted under G5. Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

• • The pint of G5 is very simple: A user gets banned because (s)he has too much of a tendency to add bad content; we respond by assuming that any edits are bad unless we have reasonable evidence otherwise. If an admin, or an other user who saw the content before deletion, thinks it should be restored - it should be restored at the responsibility of the admin (or user who requested it); and if a user in good standing wants a copy if it to be able to decide, the admins should give it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
• For those that want G5 pages restored and take responsibility for them, they should then also improve the page, then it will no longer be eligible for G5 delete. You can ask for restoring from the deleting admin or at WP:REFUND. But some admins are not happy if their delete is reversed. We probably should update the policy to say that a G5 deleted page can be restored on request, if someone actually checks it and takes responsibility. On the topic of World Deaf Championships, a lot of work had gone into making tables, but there were no foot notes, a sea of external links, and only 1.5 lines of text. This topic could be notable. Socks became quite abusive after subsequent G5 tagging, and it is fair enough for that part to remain deleted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:43, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
• The spirit of G5 (but not the code G5 itself) appears in the original version of this page, as item 6. This was copied from the version of Wikipedia:Deletion policy that was current at the time. It first appeared in that page in the version of 18:06, 26 July 2003, item 4. At the time, bans and blocks looked like this. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:53, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

  Thank you for tracing this in the history, it does seem that G5 has been here for a while - but I will note that even back then it was the only policy which had a warning that "this is controversial". I think it is clear why: deleting good content because of who the creator is should not be done. I think we need to balance this somehow. If an editor is known for creating hoaxes or copyvios or such, I fully support speedy deletions, but the deleting admin should be required to clearly link to the page detailing the rationale for the topic/global/etc. ban which would show that due diligence have been carried out in the form of an investigation which determined that said editor creates hoaxes/etc. And if a user has been blocked for reasons unrelated to content creation, ex. legal threats, harassment, or for reasons unrelated to content creation in the topic of a new article (ex. a Scientology-POV-fighter blocked due to problematic editing in Scientology, plus harassment/edit warring, who then creates an article about a non-Scientology), their article should NOT be subject to G5. While the wording of my proposal above can be refined, I hope this should satisfy both the spirit of the project (good articles should be kept), and the need for a speedy tool to justify easily cleanup after serious hoaxers/copuvioers/etc. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:31, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: There was a discussion at the time, here; but it's kinda mixed up with other matters - WP:TPG hadn't yet evolved into its present form. It was later archived, initially to Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/2003, but a number of threads were moved from one archive to another since then, sometimes being split; it's now mostly at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 1#Skipping the "Votes for deletion" page and partly at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 1#"no useful content". There is a supplementary a few weeks later, now at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 1#banned users. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:50, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Since I am one of the admins who deleted mentioned article, I want to comment here. Simply speaking: no clarification is needed, articles created by banned user in violation of their ban may be deleted without further discussion. WP:G5 cannot be discussed alone, it's purpose is to support WP:block and WP:sock, so those policies must be discussed together. I agree that at the first glance it seems bad to deleted good article, but you have to look at the big picture. We are here to write an encyclopedia, but we are here to write it together trough collaboration. If we have an user (for example) who is impossible to collaborate with (makes personal attacks, legal threats...), that user gets banned. Now, that user registers a sockpuppet account and creates a good article. Now the question is: does our need to have good articles outweighs our need to exclude the user whose behavior is unacceptable? I think that on the long run, it is better to delete the article, because that way we send a strong message that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated. It is a loss to deleted such an article, but it would be even greater loss for the project if we would allow such an user to continue participating. They have to know that the only way for them to continue editing is to change their behavior and request unblock, and not to engage in sockpuppetry. Such situations are obviously loss-loss situations, and we have to decide what is a smaller loss. For me, the smaller loss is to delete the article, so I fully support standard interpretation of G% as explained by Fram and NeilN. Vanjagenije (talk) 11:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

"Now the question is: does our need to have good articles outweighs our need to exclude the user whose behavior is unacceptable?" - and that is Wikipedia's Schleswig-Holstein Question that we have only (and might possibly only ever have) personal opinions on, since what is unacceptable to one person may be viewed as harmless banter to somebody else. Just look at Eric Corbett's block log; he's almost the textbook example of why this question is so difficult. Or look at the group of admins who are okay in giving Kumioko another chance at editing, who got yelled at with an almighty force the minute they tried it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Why not filter editors, instead of edits? Keep that editor blocked, but allow their constructive edits to go through. The author should not matter as much as the content, we are building an encyclopedia, not creating profiles and dossiers for its authors - at least, we shouldn't focus on the latter as much as on the former. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:12, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If we didn't delete articles created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block (or by their sockpuppets), we would not be honouring WP:DENY. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:DENY is just an essay, so any policies or the mission of Wikipedia override it. So if the encyclopedia is improved overall we do not have to deny those troublesome editors. It depends on the ratio of trouble to benefit. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:01, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Deleting any article that can be helpful/useful to our readers, which number in millions (through for niche topics, let's say ~1,000 per year) to save some time for a few editors (admins) sounds dubious. Particularly as there is little proof that deny works - otherwise, there would be no sockpuppets and such. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:08, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Gauging opinion on a possible new criterion for templates

Hi folks. Recently, Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates was updated. It's a mess, to be blunt. The report found 50,698 templates with zero transclusions. Some of these are unused for legitimate reasons (substitute-only templates, for instance), but many were created by new users who didn't understand how templates are used. See, for instance, {{"Category: Career}} and {{(Karan parmar)}}. TfD has horribly low participation and usually a bad backlog, so if we shuffle these all through there, we'll severely overload that deletion process. Instead, I think a new speedy deletion criterion would help us out with the most obvious cases which would never survive TfD. I was thinking of the following:

T4. Unused templates created by inexperienced editors

Templates that have no transclusions and were created by editors with less than 50 contributions may be deleted after being tagged for seven days. This criterion does not apply to templates meant for substitution only, such as those which transclude {{Subst only}} on their documentation pages.

This is not an RfC or formal proposal, but I'd like some feedback on this. As the most active closer at TfD, I see no way to work through WP:REPORTS and find genuinely problematic templates (i.e. walled gardens of articles in the template namespace, which I've seen before) without such a criterion. We just don't have sufficient volunteers closing TfDs to make it happen. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:46, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sounds all good to me, but I don't like the "50 contributions" cut-off. No other CSD uses such a precise number. U5. Blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a web host talks about "few or no edits outside of user pages" to mean new users. I don't think we should go for a precise number here. Besides, editors who are experienced in other areas of the encyclopedia might be totally "new" to templates (me included). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:54, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I do agree that "few or no edits in the template namespace" would better define "new" here, but I worry that other people won't like the idea of a good-faith contributor with many contributions but no knowledge of templates having their stuff speedy deleted. I'm trying to balance effectiveness with the pragmatism of knowing that there are plenty of editors who will desperately try to oppose any new speedy deletion criterion. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:18, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

We already have WP:CSD#G2 for this. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:42, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

That's a rather generous definition of a test, and I'm not necessarily intending this to just cover tests (which possibly {{"Category: Career}} could be deleted under, but likely not {{(Karan parmar)}}). There's also things like navboxes that have never been used, created by new editors who don't realize we don't have a navbox for everything. Those aren't tests, but they are useless. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

As I said that, {{(Karan parmar)}} was deleted as a test, but I don't know that that's correct. I don't see all hardcoded text in a template as automatically a test, by far. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:52, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

To give an example of why this is needed, see {{人體溫度}}. It's unambiguously not a test, but it's also unambiguously useless. The author has four contributions on-site, two of which are to their userpage. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Other contributors for a translated page

Several CSD criteria refer to contributions by other editors. I'd like to know what people think about considering the contributions of Wikipedia editors at non-English Wikipedias, for pages that have been imported (or copied) and translated from another Wikipedia. I'm just hoping to get a sense of our general principle. AFAICT, this hasn't been discussed explicitly before.

So here's a simple example: If I write an article at the Spanish Wikipedia, and you translate it into English here, am I "a contributor" in terms of CSD, e.g., for a {{db-author}}? Always? Never? Sometimes? What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Db-author would not apply there IMO; a translation is too large a secondary contribution.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:13, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I feel that {{db-author}} implies "The person who put this here has changed his mind." I think that's a necessary interpretation, because of this scenario: X writes an article in Spanish on Spanish Wikipedia, and then posts a {{db-author}} tag every time someone creates a translation of it on another Wikipedia. If we deem those tags valid and the articles are deleted accordingly, that is giving X control over the reproduction of his work that he was supposed to have relinquished when he became a Wikipedia editor and created the original article. Largoplazo (talk) 13:46, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What about the other way around, if you decide to tag your translation as db-author? Is my contribution (at the Spanish Wikipedia) significant or ignored? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the person who created the article on English Wikipedia is the author on English Wikipedia for db-author purposes. He may have decided he's not happy with the translation after all. He may have realized that much of its content is covered by an existing article and have decided to start over, covering only the information that isn't already here and cross-referencing the rest of it. Someone may have questioned the article based on English Wikipedia's article guidelines, and he may have decided not to defend the article and just request deletion instead. There's no obligation to you to keep the article here if you didn't create it here. Largoplazo (talk) 20:20, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Or it could be editors who are angry with the community, and they want to take as much of "their" content with them when they say meatball:GoodBye. In that case, considering the contributions of the original authors might make a clear "policy-based" reason for declining the de-author request. I'm personally leaning towards "sometimes" on this question.

db-author isn't the only criterion affected by this principle; a translation by a banned user also involves deleting work substantially created by others (there was a case of that recently, and, given the WP:DENY issues, ignoring the contributions of the non-English authors might normally be the best net response in that case). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Since the Spanish author had nothing to do with the article being on English Wikipedia to begin with, and the person who put it there was under no obligation to do so, why does he have any less prerogative to have it removed than if he'd written it from scratch, regardless of why he's chosen to remove it? Where did this entitlement on the part of the Spanish author come from? If he wants it on English Wikipedia, let him translate it, or request a translation, himself. Largoplazo (talk) 00:05, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking less about the Spanish author and more about admins feeling like they're required to delete such translations, even when, in their opinions, doing so would be harmful to the project. (Obviously, if deleting it is a net positive, then we all want it done.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The question of whether an admin can deny a db-author request based on the admin's sense of the need for the article is an entirely independent one from the one you started this discussion about insofar as being a translation from another Wikipedia has nothing to do with whether one feels an article does or doesn't need to be on this one. Largoplazo (talk) 03:36, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The related discussion is at my talk page about whether G5 should apply as well (WP:DENY isn't the only rationale, it's also about making sure that blocking policy is actually followed and encouraging editors to actually come clean with problems). I still say that the person who created the English language translation is the author, for all purposes. The actual translated English-language version is itself copyrighted. The licensing across the project requires more than than though and so while a translation could fall under fair use, the GFDL requires the link to prior contributors. Nevertheless, even if you wanted to db-author and blow everything up, the actual sources used and the facts within them are not copyrighted and so anyone could in theory recreate an article on the same topic with the same sources later. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:26, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

That someone can recreate an article is true of any article whatsoever that is otherwise valid but that was deleted under db-author. Whether it was written by a banned user or was translated from another Wikipedia has no bearing on that. Largoplazo (talk) 03:39, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The first words in this section are "Several CSD criteria" – not "db-author only". I now regret giving the simple example, because people seem to have fixated on the example instead of the larger question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

The only CSD criteria whose application to articles depends on who the author is seem to be G5, G7, and A11. We've discussed G5 and G7. Did you have anything in mind regarding A11? A11 means that an article is something the creator, or someone who the creator knows, made up. It's virtually guaranteed that if an article is getting tagged, then it isn't remotely notable, so it will disappear whether through A11 or a deletion discussion. I'm not sure how useful it is to debate whether or not an article qualifies for A11 here because it's a translation of something someone else who had no connection to the translator made up on another Wikipedia. I doubt it's common for people to troll Wikipedias for articles about invented topics by people they don't know and then rush to translate them onto other Wikipedias. Largoplazo (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Only Admins Declining G4?

I reverted a generally well-thought-out addition to the policy here, limiting G4 declines to administrators, because it neglected the fact that any editor who adds significant new content to a previously-deleted article will also know, without needing to see the previous state of the article, that it no longer is eligible for G4. Do we want to say anything about this at all? I see a couple of options:

1. Leave it off and treat such behavior as a user conduct issue if it arises, per WP:BEANS,
2. Specify admin-only, overriding my objections, or
3. Specify anyone knowing that G4 does not apply may remove the tag. In addition to the exception I highlighted above, that could also include a user familiar with the previously deleted version of the article, or reviewing relevant content at Deletionpedia.

I prefer #3, assuming it can be collaboratively worded well. What does everyone else think? Jclemens (talk) 08:22, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem is, only an administrator can tell if an article speedied under G4 is the same as the deleted version. If someone adds a line or two but the article is otherwise identical to the previous version, its still eligible for G4 - but only an administrator would know that. Since it requires an administrator tool to resolve, like other areas of WP (AFD's where the result is delete etc) it should only be rejected by an administrator. If a non-admin rejects a G4 under recreation of previously deleted material, they clearly have been unable to see if it matches. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:24, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

That's why I specified significant new content above, although there wasn't really room for that in the revert edit summary. AGF would say that an editor in good standing who adds significant content AND deletes a G4 tag should be presumed to know what they're doing, and a user who disagrees can send the article to AfD, again, for reevaluation, where if CSD-G4 applies, it will be enforced and the offending editor trout'ed. Am I wrong here? Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 08:29, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

(I'll note that I'm assuming that topics where previous re-creation has been disruptive will have been WP:SALTed, so my objection isn't even relevant in cases of protracted disruption) Jclemens (talk) 08:30, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I hadnt seen that at the time I posted it :) See here for why this has come up though. The main problem is not where an editor has added significant new content, its that they technically have no way of actually knowing how much is 'significant' without access to the previous version. In the hypothetical case of a deleted version moved to draft/userspace, significantly added to, then moved back to main, we would hope no one would speedy it without looking at the revisions in the first place. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:33, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

While significant is clearly subjective, do we really want editors who think they can fix a G4 article locked out of the process by policy? I'm fine with saying "Don't remove a G4 unless you have a good reason to believe it doesn't apply, such as being an administrator", and I think that addresses the user conduct issue without creating more administrator bottlenecks. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 08:37, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Does the bottleneck exist? Most of the G4's I see are already handled by administrators except where its an obvious failing for another reason. I would be fine with spelling out the recreated material in more detail rather than requiring an admin to work it. As it stands its a bit vague and 'can be removed by any editor' is clearly not the best wording when not all editors can judge all criteria. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Not all AFD outcomes are content-related. If someone adds a G4 tag to a new article about someone who has become very well known in recent months, about whom there is scads of coverage in independent reliable sources, and the AFD found five years ago that he was then not notable on account of failing WP:GNG and WP:BIO, I'm going to remove the G4 tag without seeing the original article (and will explain why in my edit summary). Largoplazo (talk) 10:34, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

If talk pages had "up vote" buttons I'd be hammering it like crazy right now. Thparkth (talk) 15:49, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

+1Tazerdadog (talk) 03:01, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• The claim that "only an administrator can tell if an article speedied under G4 is the same as the deleted version" isn't 100% true. Anybody could have followed the RSS feed of the revision history to the article and have a pretty solid idea of what was deleted. Also, with content having been farmed out to wikidata & commons the veil of deletion isn't what it used to be. for (;;) (talk) 10:49, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

They may have got the pre-delete page content from an internet archiving service. At least, that's how I believe York & Selby Lines to have been recreated two years after deletion. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I remember tagging articles for G4 in my pre-admin days when the copyvio bots saw that an article was similar to an archived/mirrored version of a previously deleted article. Wikipedia articles are frequently mirrored or archived and I would not say at all that only administrators can assess the similarity of an article to a previously deleted one. So I agree with Jclemens' removal.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:16, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

• If all you have for comparison is the previous contents of an article at one particular point in time, that might be sufficient to tag for a G4, but it's not, in general, enough to untag. Not even if the article at that point had an AFD tag stuck on the top. For all you know, the article could have been heavily edited during the AFD and still deleted (the discussion won't always make this clear), the version you're looking at could be from near the start or end of the AFD, and the recreated one could be a verbatim copy from the other extreme; that's still a valid G4. It's even less certain if an article has been deleted more than once.
  I don't think this is worth worrying about too much, though. In almost all such cases, you're not going to be seeing a third party who's kept a stashed copy of the article or whatever; it'll be the person who recreated it, and they're already forbidden from removing the deletion tag. —Cryptic 15:37, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

• Absolutely cannot support that addition to policy. I have, as a non-admin, removed several G4 tags under circumstances where I knew that G4 did not apply. The wording of G4 specifically excludes "pages for which the reason for deletion no longer exists". The reason for deletion can usually be determined from the previous AfD discussion. For example, an article about a pre-release movie which was deleted entirely on WP:CRYSTAL grounds, cannot then be deleted under G4 after the movie is released. I had to argue very hard with an admin over this - he wanted to delete it. Thparkth (talk) 15:46, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

  Some people (admins or not) don't read past the summary heading "Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion" and miss the important bits. The attitude is "it must always be deleted whenever it gets recreated, now and for evermore". See for example User talk:T.seppelt#Persondata not orphaned. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:00, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion Notification

There is a discussion on the Administrators' Noticeboard regarding the criteria for speedy deletion. Everyone is welcome to participate. The discussion may be found here. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:36, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I have implemented the results of the discussion. Help with the wordsmithing is greatly appreciated.Tazerdadog (talk) 03:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Theoretical A2 question

CX 24 Nuevo Tiempo is an article about a Spanish-language radio station in a Spanish-speaking country, which had a chunk of Spanish text added to it a year ago but was not tagged as requiring translation until earlier today. Because there is an all-English version that can be reverted to, it does not require deletion. But while reviewing the article I noticed the potential for a curious situation to arise. Let's assume it is a new article written in Spanish. I couldn't find a corresponding article at the Spanish Wikipedia, but a corresponding article with essentially the same contents exists at the Croatian Wikipedia. The information therefore exists in a foreign language project, but not the same language as what has been added to the English Wikipedia. Does it still qualify for deletion under A2? AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 04:50, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The wording of the criteria is "If the article is not the same as an article on another project" I don't think that an article in Spanish and an article in Croatian can be said to be the same, even if one is clearly a translation of the other. In this case I would transwiki the content to the Spanish Wikipedia, then mark the local copy as {{not English}} and, if the Croatian article is significiantly more comprehensive than the new Spanish one, with {{Expand Croatian}} too. Thryduulf (talk) 10:16, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

X1 Redirects (Neelix)

A few days ago, the speedy deletion criteria X1 was created for Neelix redirects. When I check Twinkle, X1 (and X2) hasn't been added. How can I nominate a Neelix redirect using CSD X1 with Twinkle? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:37, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: Unless the Twinkle devs add support for it, you cannot. {{db}} can be used to tag the pages manually. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:52, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Declined AFC drafts in mainspace speediable?

I'm seeing a trend, primarily with editors with ulterior motives, of declined drafts being moved into mainspace after being declined at AFC. Draft:Alexander Asiedu was one that was declined, put into mainspace, put back into draft, accepted as a WP:POINT, AfDed twice, and as I see it's now been declined at AFC a third time within the last few days. Draft:Comint Consulting was declined July 26, and Comint consulting was put in mainspace July 29. In these cases, there were no substantial changes made except to remove the AFC declined template. I'm sure these are not the only instances, either - these are just the ones I've found. Clearly, if they've been declined, they've been reviewed and it was concluded they don't belong in mainspace, so they're being put in mainspace contrary to policy/consensus. Can these be speedied instead of running an AfD? MSJapan (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Speedyable? If any other criterion applies, such as promotion, copyvio, attack, unmodified/G4, absolutely. In other cases, I don't see a need to speedy poor quality articles, since anyone can make a new article in mainspace without *needing* to go through the AfC process. Do we really want to penalize people for using it? I think that has a lot of bad ramifications... Jclemens (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

In addition to what Jclemens notes, if the version put back into mainspace is essentially the version that was AfDed then G4 applies. If no existing speedy criterion applies then PROD it, AfD it or fix it. If an editor is giving you the run around then report the editor and they'll get blocked. If someone else then appears and does the same thing with the same article, then that's obvious socking and they'll get blocked. Thryduulf (talk) 23:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm an experienced AFC reviewer, it's not a simple issue. If the editor who submitted the draft for review moves it to mainspace after being declined, it's their right to change their mind about submitting the draft to AFC - but also to have the article suffer the consequences. However, if the person who moves a declined draft to mainspace is not the submitter, that's a bad faith act. The submitter is, by submitting their draft, entitled to a proper review of their work, by a properly qualified reviewer working in compliance with AFC's defined criteria and process. When a different editor comes along and removes the draft from AFC without the "due process" of an AFC acceptance, the mover is effectively sabbotaging the submitter's work. In such a case the correct action is to simply return the draft to draft-space, restore the AFC templates and allow the AFC process to continue. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:32, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Proper CSD tag for images that are OTRS received but not confirmed.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This is a continuation of this thread at AN: Proper CSD tag for {{OTRS received}} but not confirmed.

Some background for those that don't want to wade through the AN thread. I have been going through the old images at Category:Wikipedia files with unconfirmed permission received by OTRS, double checking the permissions ticket, and if the ticket has not been resolved I have been marking them for deletion. The current CSD criteria only mentions OTRS once and that is in WP:F11. However, this mention uses {{OTRS pending}} not {{OTRS received}}. The two are different. Pending is when the ticket has been said to have been sent but has not been reviewed by an agent. Received means the ticket was reviewed but did not contain enough information to {{OTRS permission}} the image.

Images that I have been marking for deletion have been sitting, waiting for a response, for well over a month. This is the cutoff that Commons uses (see c:template:OTRS received) and that is plenty of time to work out the permissions once responded to by an agent.

So the question here is, what criteria should these images be marked under for deletion? Since the policy of CSD is rather strict, this needs to be worked out in order to make the processing of these images easier for everyone. Two main options here. F9 or F11. F11 has the further caveat that normally it has a 7 day delay with it. So if F11, with or without the extra week notice? If you support F11 please indicate whether it should have an additional 7 day waiting period or not as well. The other option would be to just use {{db}} with a custom rationale and do away with the letter + number scheme for these images. --Majora (talk) 18:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

F9 support

F11 support

• I would suggest that these be handled in the same way as {{OTRS pending}} - give the user some time to file a response and if none is received then apply speedy deletion. F9 is intended for obvious cases of copyright violation where the image clearly isn't available for use under a free licence, that does not apply to more ambiguous cases such as these. While there might be other criteria which are applicable in special cases (e.g. if the contact is from the copyright holder requesting deletion) in the typical case where we aren't sure the contact comes from the copyright holder or the permission granted isn't sufficient I think this is the right approach. Hut 8.5 19:33, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

  @Hut 8.5: F11 immediate? Or F11 with the additional 7 day wait beyond when the tag is applied? --Majora (talk) 19:41, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

  There is no such thing as "F11 immediate", all F11 deletions have a waiting period. These should not be any different - it would be unfair to delete it without giving the uploader time to address the issues with the permissions release. Hut 8.5 21:07, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

• As Hut 8.5 said, and as I said at WP:AN#Proper CSD tag for {{OTRS received}} but not confirmed., all we need to do to align the bureaucratese with both common practice and common sense is to change "Files tagged with {{OTRS pending}} for more than 30 days" to "Files tagged with {{OTRS pending}}, {{OTRS received}}, or a similar template for more than 30 days". (Perhaps removing any mention of a specific template there would be better.) The wording of F11 already doesn't mandate an extra 7-day wait in such cases, so since {{db-f11}} - the common case - does, just tag them {{db|f11}} instead. —Cryptic 19:48, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support tagging as F11, notifying the user, and waiting the 7 days as policy requires for all F11 deletions. The policy page already specifies that this is what to do with old OTRS pending images. A good option is to tag them with {{NoOTRS}} which when substituted expands to {{di-no permission|source={{NoOTRS|days=85}}|date=7 August 2016}}. Since F11 deletion does call for the uploader to receive 7 days notice before deletion, the uploader should then be notified with a {{subst:di-no permission-notice|1=Saul G Bron.jpg|source=An OTRS notice was applied over 85 days ago, but no message at OTRS has been processed since this tag was applied}} (this is the option provided with the NoOTRS template) or you could alternatively use {{Di-no permission-notice-final}} to notify the uploader. I don't see any harm in waiting the additional 7 days, as we will occasionally have an uploader respond to these final tags. In fact I just had one today, at User talk:Ethersearch#Addressing file permission problem with File:Saul G Bron.jpg. — Diannaa (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2016 (UTC) Adding, ideally these steps should be undertaken by an OTRS team member so that they can have one last look for the missing email or one last look at whatever documentation has already been received to confirm that it is indeed inadequate. — Diannaa (talk) 20:26, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

  These are not OTRS pending images. These are OTRS received images. Completely and totally different things. And the example that you gave is also irrelevant to this. The image was marked F11, they said they were going to send in permissions to OTRS. If the permissions they send in are not valid, the image gets marked OTRS received. After a month it will be tagged for deletion. And you are saying after all that, that they should get another week? --Majora (talk) 21:00, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

  Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. The vast majority will be deleted after the week, but doing it this way does not generate any extra work, and it gives the uploader one last chance to respond. — Diannaa (talk) 21:35, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

• In most cases, F11 will likely apply so use that as a default. Sometimes F3 or F9 may apply better, depending on what the OTRS email says. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:04, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

{{db}} support

• Oppose {{db}} is almost as badly misused as {{db-g6}}, people use it to invent a "reason" for speedy deletion: if a suitable criterion cannot be found among the many listed at WP:CSD, the page should not be considered to be speedyable. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:05, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Ask the OTRS people to tag the file. All these tags cover different scenarios and not all "permission not obtained" OTRS outcomes merit the same tag. For example, if the copyright holder denies permission and complains about copyright infringement, F9 would be appropriate. If no permission can be confirmed, F11 would be appropriate. If it's too narrow a permission - say for Wikipedia only - F3 may be. It'd depend on the correspondence. Alternatively, one might use a new F12 for all "OTRS could not confirm freeness" cases. And instances where a WP:NFC use would be acceptable are a separate case still. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:04, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: I am an OTRS person. I tagged a file. I was declined. Not fully but I was told that the tag I placed was wrong and that the person had an additional 7 days to rectify the issue beyond the months they were already given. So "let OTRS handle it" is apparently not good enough. --Majora (talk) 19:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Majora:, which tag did you use? F11 does give another seven days grace period, it's only F9 (copyright infringement) and F3 and sometimes F7 that merit immediate deletion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:24, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: I used F9. I was told that that was wrong (by someone that could not view the ticket). They changed it F11 and the person was given another 7 days. Frankly, I couldn't care less what letter + number combination is used. But to let the image sit there for another seven days is completely and totally illogical. The customer has been given months to rectify the issues with their ticket. Most of the ones I have seen have not responded at all to the initial inquiry by an agent. F11, sure why not. But at least make it F11 immediate. --Majora (talk) 19:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

I've seen {{OTRS received}} being used to tag files with insufficient permission. I wonder if that template should be changed to contain a Db tag (which tag is what we are discussing here) when it's in the file namespace. I'll notify folks there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:02, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

The only issue with an automatic CSD tag is human error. It is possible that the agent responded that the permissions were accepted but just forgot to change over the tag. There has also been instances where an agent accidentally overlooked an attachment with the information they were asking for. I have no problem just doing a quick double check on the images that have been tagged received for over a month. I just need to know what to tag them with. --Majora (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Having seen such pages being tagged for deletion by non-OTRS folks, I think that OTRS received is treated as a "doubt" tag by human editors. Wonder if such error may be reduced by having a time delay appear for the auto-tagging. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

There seems to be general consensus forming that the proper tag for these is F11. The only difference is whether or not there should be an additional 7 day waiting period after the tag has been checked by an OTRS member. Would anyone be opposed to me changing around the RfC a little bit? The main question would be the 7 day wait on F11. I can split the section and move the responses or let people move their own responses. Pinging people who have already responded to get their opinion on this: @Hut 8.5, Cryptic, Diannaa, Jo-Jo Eumerus, and Redrose64: --Majora (talk) 22:37, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Ending RfCs: I think the best way to do it is to close off this RFC as resolved and start a new one on the new topic. — Diannaa (talk) 22:42, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Applications and A7

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should applications be deletable under A7? There have been many cases where the subject obviously isn't notable and would be deleted at AfD. We already have a criterion for websites and web content, why can't applications (whether it be a game or educational, whether it be for a computer or a phone) fall under the same criterion? Anarchyte (work | talk) 07:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes - A7 is, in my view, too narrow. The purpose of A7 is to have a way to delete content about unremarkable topics without the bureaucracy of a formal week-long discussion. A web application that does not make a credible claim of significance should not continue to be in the encyclopedia for the week-long discussion, and A7 can be extended easily to accommodate this. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:23, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Comment: I think it is worth noting that "software" is currently explicitly excluded from the scope of A7, while "web content" is explicitly included. Instead of limiting the question to applications, wouldn't it be better to expand the question to whether software in general should be moved within the scope of A7? AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 07:48, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to get at with this RfC, although it may have been worded poorly. I'm proposing that the "web content" section of A7 to be expanded to include any types of software or applications. Anarchyte (work | talk) 07:52, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd recommend removing this RFC, and updating the wording to include software on a new RFC while it's still early and the community hasn't put in a lot of effort here. This will minimize the potential for confusion, or a future RFC. Tazerdadog (talk) 08:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Oppose: This has been discussed many times, so it's been expressed by many other editors, but software is very broad, including things like programming compilers like Clang, user-facing software like VLC, and operating systems like QNX. Often, software is a creative work and is often debated in AfD. With the diversity of software and the number of software articles kept or debated in AfD, it would be very difficult and error-prone for even experienced editors to make a decision on whether an article about software makes a credible claim of significance. Anarchyte, I'd like to know what's different now compared to any of the previous times this has been brought up, as software is a perennial A7 scope expansion proposal. Appable (talk) 08:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We need a FAQ page. See for example Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 58#A7 for products, Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 58#A7 and applications. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Template:Db-fpcfail and policy compliance

• Template:Db-fpcfail recently came to my attention. Despite its current wording, this template is intended and used to nominate "image[s], hosted on Commons, but with tags or information on [their] English Wikipedia description page that are no longer needed... (For example, a failed featured picture candidate.)" for deletion. Presently it uses WP:F2 as the basis for this deletion; originally, however, it was WP:G6.

Although I understand why several editors would use this template and criterion, I am concerned that this template as used and originally written does not conform to current CSD policies. F2's exception covers "pages containing information not relevant to any other project (like {{FeaturedPicture}})", without any stipulation that this information be related to current Wikipedia processes and templates. As such, a substituted FPCfailed template, or valued picture template, would still be an exception. The template has a much firmer basis in G6 (if we have a consensus to point to, then it meets the "uncontroversial" stipulation), but "image[s], hosted on Commons, but with tags or information on [their] English Wikipedia description page that are no longer needed..." is not listed explicitly.

My questions are, 1) is there consensus that "image[s], hosted on Commons, but with tags or information on [their] English Wikipedia description page that are no longer needed..." meets the criteria for speedy deletion, and if so, 2) should we update the criteria to make this more explicit? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 03:47, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The template text is fine in my opinion - This also includes file description pages for Commons files, except pages containing information not relevant to any other project (like {{FeaturedPicture}}). covers "no locally relevant content". The title though of the template is a problem as it suggests that "Failed FPC" templates can be deleted under it, which doesn't seem obvious from the policy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:57, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

References

Waiting period for images tagged with OTRS received

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The consensus is that a file tagged with {{OTRS received}} may be deleted under WP:CSD#F11 30 days after the tag was applied. No additional seven-day waiting period is necessary. However, as Doc James and Majora agree below, images should not be deleted until OTRS completes their interaction with the uploader regarding the permissions issue. Mz7 (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

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Alright so, the RfC above with withdrawn after it became pretty clear that the correct tag for these types of images is F11 as the default. Now the question is whether or not the additional 7 day waiting period should be applied for these types of images. Note, it does not matter that the current F11 version does not include a type of "immediate F11". This is a question on whether or not the F11 criterion should be amended. The current practice with these images is for the permission holder to send in the proper permissions to OTRS. If the email has been reviewed by an agent but deemed not sufficient the image is tagged with {{OTRS received}}. After 30 days the ticket should be rereviewed by an agent and if no valid permissions has been received the image will be tagged F11. Should an additional 7 day waiting period be given after the 30 days have expired? --Majora (talk) 23:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Support 7-day waiting period

• Wait an additional seven days. The vast majority will be deleted after the week, but doing it this way does not generate any extra work, and it gives the uploader one last chance to respond. It also makes the procedure uniform with other F11 deletions. — Diannaa (talk) 01:09, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
• I find Diannaa's reasoning compelling. Jclemens (talk) 04:56, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
• Weak Support per Diannaa's comments, combined with the observation that leaving the images floating around for an extra week is unlikely to be harmful. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

  Moving to oppose upon further reflection. BU Rob 13's argument seems sound on multiple different points. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:51, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Oppose 7-day waiting period

1. Waiting an additional seven days after the 30 days waiting period for OTRS received is illogical to me. Almost every ticket that is not sufficient is resolved within 48 hours and the review by an agent after the 30 days will make sure that ongoing discussions with the customer are taken into account when applying the tag. --Majora (talk) 23:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
2. See my comment below. Nyttend (talk) 01:12, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
3. This does generate extra work, as it requires admins such as myself to nominate images for deletion and then another admin to come through seven days later and delete them instead of the first admin just being able to delete outright. More importantly, we're talking about images that the Wikimedia Foundation could reasonably be expected to know are being hosted without permission. This is a massive liability for the site, so there is serious potential for harm. Uploaders have had their notifications, as they will have received an email about the inadequate permission via an OTRS agent a month earlier. At some point, we just have to delete the images or we're creating Exhibit A in a class action lawsuit down the road to show that we systematically store images without permission with full awareness that there is no adequate permission to use them (which means we aren't covered by safe haven provisions). The 30 day time is already absurdly long given norms of response at OTRS. Adding another 7 days after notifying them about their previous notice of requiring permissions is stretching things way too far. If the desire is a uniform 7-day waiting period, this could be achieved by lowering the current 30-day hold on OTRS received to a 14-day hold and then tagging for 7 days. This keeps the uniformity of F11 while also lowering the time within which we're blatantly disregarding copyright laws. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:47, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
4. The point above about this making extra work for admins is very strong. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:55, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
5. Rob's got a point, you know. -- Gestrid (talk) 16:29, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
6. No need for the extra waiting period. Seconding Rob's excellent comment above. Regards, James (^talk/_contribs) 21:39, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Discussion on waiting period

At Commons, the OTRS agents periodically update a counter for the oldest not-yet-addressed permissions email; if you've processed everything that's arrived since 8 August, you'll set the counter for 8 August. Any {{OTRS pending}} files that were tagged before the date are automatically nominated for speedy deletion. That system seems to work quite well, without the seven-day waiting period for Commons:Template:No permission since. Why would we want to make the related {{OTRS received}} process take longer here? By the time it's tagged, it's already been waiting quite a while (waiting an additional 30 days is unnecessary), so there's no reason to require yet another week. Nyttend (talk) 01:27, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

NOTE: I have posted a link to this at T:CENT since it is a proposed amendment to the CSD policy and it needs a lot more community input to determine a firm consensus either way. --Majora (talk) 01:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

We need to make sure that images are not deleted before the OTRS folks get around to dealing with the OTRS permission. There are often long backlogs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:59, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

@Doc James: Permissions-en has less then a 10 day backlog nowadays. And this is about {{OTRS received}} which means the ticket has already been reviewed and deemed insufficient. --Majora (talk) 02:22, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes and at that point OTRS hopefully emails the uploader and they work on doting more i's and crossing more t's Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:25, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Of course. That is what the 30 days is supposed to be used for. We aren't just saying, "too bad, sucks to be you" and closing the ticket. We do what we can to get the proper permissions and 99 times out of 100 the issues get resolved within 48 hours. The 1% that doesn't is what this RfC is about. --Majora (talk) 02:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mere passage of time revalidates old (legitimately declined) criteria?

I have encountered many pages where CSD has been legitimately declined by an admin, and the CSD tag (of the same criterion/criteria) restored. Although in most cases it's probably laziness and not checking the history, I've seen the excuse of the decline being a while back and therefore doesn't matter. Seriously? Is it really the case that just because it was a while back, the decline it no longer valid, even if the article hasn't changed much since? I was under the impression that if a speedy is declined by an admin, the decision is final? Retagging (no matter how long ago the decline was) is WP:ADMINSHOPing surely? Adam9007 (talk) 03:18, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It will depend on the criterion. A declined A7 or G7 should probably not be added again. But a newly detected copyright violation may not have been known about before, and could be honoured. For some other criteria the history may contain better versions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:07, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:CSD is not like WP:PROD, declining is not final. This has been discussed before. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:31, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

However, this does not make adminshopping acceptable. If a CSD has been declined previously then there should be some qualitative change before nominating with the same criterion again. Thryduulf (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Where was this other discussion(s)? Adam9007 (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Most recently, Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 58#How to prevent professional video gaming articles from being nominated for speedy deletion? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Am I missing something? It wasn't really discussed there, but mentioned almost as an aside. Adam9007 (talk) 23:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

If the admin declined before, the article was not speedy-deletable at the time, so almost always the new nomination should be declined, and the article reverted if necessary. A newly discovered copyvio would be okay to delete as long as it has been in every single revision of the article; if not, again, revert not delete. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 14:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

What if an uninvolved editor declined before? I would still agree that the new nomination should be declined and consider putting the article up for deletion through PROD or AfD, but it might be worth discussing. Appable (talk) 18:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Oiyarbepsy: Actually, if it was declined, it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't speediable. Admins (indeed, any editor who is not the creator) are allowed to decline even if it did meet the criteria. Contrary to popular belief, meeting a speedy criterion or criteria does not mean the article must be deleted. But generally, you are right, as admins tend to delete pages that do meet the criteria. Adam9007 (talk) 18:11, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

To add to Oiyarbepsy's remarks, in the case of reverting copyvio an admin should be asked to revdel the reverted material, or oversight should be sought. Merely reverting leaves the copyvio still generally accessible. Oversight is best, but revdel may be quicker though it does leave the material viewable by an admin. Mind you, oversighters can probably view oversighted material... Peridon (talk) 19:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, Oversight is more for privacy/confidentiality violations; copyright violations tend to be more revdel stuff. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:14, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Remember that the default on Wikipedia is always to have a discussion and act based on consensus. Speedy deletion is for cases where it is so clear what the consensus would be, that the community has decided discussion would be a waste of time. Really, if there is a good faith dispute as to whether an article should be deleted, and its coming from a knowledgeable editor, it should pretty much always default to a discussion at AfD or another appropriate venue. As such, if an established editor removes a CSD tag, placing the same on again is probably inappropriate, and deletion should usually go to AfD (or PROD depending on the context of the CSD removal). Obviously if a new issue is discovered, tagging for that issue could still be fine, but that is mostly going to be G4/G5/G12. It wastes everyone's time to delete->drv->undelete->AfD when we could have just gone straight to AfD and had the discussion in the first place. Monty₈₄₅ 23:34, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Are articles created via AfC eligible for CSD?

I've seen speedies declined on that basis. If they are, it would defeat the whole purpose of WP:AfC surely? Adam9007 (talk) 03:10, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

They should be seen as ineligible generally, absent a content violation like G3, G4, G5, G10, G12. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 03:23, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

If it met any of those, it wouldn't pass AfC surely? Adam9007 (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no policy against tagging articles created via AfC for CSD. I don't think I've ever done this (either tagging or deleting), though. AfC is supposed to filter out CSD-eligible pages, if an article created via AfC is CSD-deleted, either the AfC review or the deletion were wrong. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:20, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

But there are always PROD or AfD for such concerns aren't there? If it passed an AfC review, someone thought it was good enough. Adam9007 (talk) 18:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

There are quite a few things declined at AfC on grounds of lack of referencing or similar that read as pure spam, attack, blatant hoax, or copyvio. Lack of referencing doesn't come into A7 (but does at prod or AfD). Spam, hoax, copyvio and attack are not allowed anywhere on Wikipedia (possibly excepting the discussion boards at times...) and need to be removed, whether they've been reviewed or not. Before G13, things like those were left around for years. In addition, not all reviewing may be as good as it should be. Same with tagging. I remember looking at one article tagged as attack, and then deleting it as spam... I'm not claiming to be perfect, BTW. I do my best, and don't trust people who think they are perfect (especially in politics and religion). And always remember that people can have off days. Also the cars built towards the end of Friday afternoon... Peridon (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Certainly "AfC is supposed to filter out CSD-eligible pages", but things don't always achieve what they are supposed to. Anyone can review AfC submissions, and although most reviewers know what they are doing, we do sometimes get submissions accepted which clearly and unambiguously shouldn't have been. I have seen submissions which have been declined by experienced and competent reviewers and then accepted by some new editor without a clue, sometimes the creator of the draft. Being created as AfC is therefore no guarantee at all that the article is acceptable, and it would not be at all helpful to have a policy which said, in effect, "any article, no matter how unsuitable, is exempt from the speedy deletion policy provided that someone or other has created a Wikipedia account and used it to accept the article from AfC." The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree that no page that is accepted by an experienced reviewer should be tagged for speedy deletion, with one exception, and that is WP:G12, copyright violation, which a reviewer can't necessarily detect. I will comment that pages that are submitted via AFC may be tagged for speedy deletion while they are still in AFC, either by New Page Patrol or by a reviewer, in particular for WP:G11, blatant advertising, or WP:G10, attack pages. A page that has been accepted should not be subject to speedy deletion, but it might have been accepted by an ignorant inexperienced reviewer, or the author might have decided to bypass AFC. Does the Original Poster have any specific examples? I think that we are in agreement on the principle. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:23, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

No, we are not "in agreement on the principle"; you appear to think that the mere fact that an article has been accepted by "an experienced reviewer" (however one judges that) should in itself be reason for not allowing a speedy deletion, whereas I think that articles should all be considered on their own merits, independently of who created them or how. In practice most commonly articles accepted by experienced reviewers are OK, so usually they would not qualify for speedy deletion, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be speedily deleted when they do qualify. Articles created by experienced editors, even by experienced administrators, can be speedily deleted if they satisfy one or more of the criteria, so why should reviewers at AfC be given some sort of special status that enables them to give articles immunity to speedy deletion? Peridon's comment above makes perfect sense. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:39, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that JamesBWatson and I do not actually disagree. I am saying that a page that was accepted by a reviewer ought not to be a page that could reasonably be tagged by another editor for speedy deletion. Of course, if the experienced reviewer blundered in accepting the page, another editor may need to tag the page for speedy deletion. But the reviewer ought not to accept a page that is likely to be deleted at AFD, let alone a page that should be tagged for speedy deletion. I was speaking of what ought to have happened before the fact, and he was speaking of what ought to happen after the fact. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

• If a page meets one of the criteria for speedy deletion, it can be deleted. That is, unless someone can provide a policy or guideline of which I'm unaware of, that states that isn't true for articles accepted by Articles for Creation.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 13:55, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Articles in mainspace should be treated equally no matter how they arrived there. Reviewers at AfC sometimes miss problems with articles, or misinterpret the text or the specialized notability criteria, etc., just as other editors sometimes do. Drafts are supposed to be accepted if they have at least a 50/50 chance of passing an AfD - so some are going to be marginal, even if everyone goes by the book, and will end up being deleted.—Anne Delong (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be reasonable to avoid tagging AfC articles with A7, since the act of accepting the articles means an editor who is not the creator feels A7 does not apply. But that's about it. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

If it's still at AfC, it can't be legitimately tagged A anything as the A group is only for article space. If it is in article space, it may be eligible no matter who reviewed it. A driving test examiner says that a driver is IHO ready for going solo on the public road. He's not stating that that new driver is fit to drive a Porsche Cayenne towing a 17 foot caravan at 60 mph down a winding and hedged Welsh back lane. The AfC reviewer is saying that an article is IHO good enough to be launched into article space. Once there, it takes its chance with along with any other new articles. Acceptance at AfC isn't a certificate of immunity. Peridon (talk) 08:33, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

G12 - is 95% "unequivocal" ?

In discussion with Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi about Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Desmond I was told "if you think that 95% copyvio is unsufficient for G12, then you should probably head elsewhere for clarification". So here I am.

Earwig had reported a 95% overlap with one particular source, although the article had been worked on for 6 years by many editors. Eventually I reverted the article to what appears to be the last good version before one particular copyright-ignoring editor's editing spree. I would hope that a deleting admin would have stopped and checked the article's history, and reckoned that the other 5% was likely to be worth saving (even if it had just left the article with infobox, lead, categories, succession box, image, incoming redirects, etc - all this work which would have been lost unnecessarily if the article had been speedy-deleted), but I believe it wasn't eligible for nomination for speedy deletion.

If a long-standing and much-edited article in its current version shows as 95% copyvio, should it be nominated for Speedy Deletion G12?

Any views from other editors? PamD 11:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: I've mentioned this discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#When does speedy G12 apply? PamD 11:54, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The percentages refer to how good the match of the article text and the compared-with source is, not how much of the article matches. In that case the article would not be eligible for G12 because it's not the whole article which is a copyvio. Also, one needs to always keep the possibility of {{Backwardscopy}} in mind, but I don't know if that is the case here. Finally, the way to handle a disagreement is not by edit warring over it - that also applies to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:59, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• If you can salvage some of the content, then G12 does not qualify. We shouldn't be banking on the machine-assessed percentages to determine if an article satisfies G12. There are other factors at play. Earwig might say 95%, but there might be a clean copy of the article in the history that Earwig didn't check, or there might be a little bit of content useful to reduce the article to a stub. G12 applies only when an article is so hopelessly unsalvageable that it would be better to start from scratch. That's something to determine using editorial judgment, not the automatically generated number. Mz7 (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• G12 only applies where there is no recoverable version in the edit history, which there is in this case. In most G12 cases though, the article is newly created on Wikipedia, in which case 95% is good enough for G12. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Concur, G12 is for when nothing is left after the copyvio is removed, regardless of the % Earwig throws. That % is relied on far too heavily for deciding something is/isn't a violation, when it is only the % of the sample taken vs the source. For performance reasons the bot doesn't search all the text in an article (unless is it very short), and I've seen a 90+ percent hit when one paragraph is a perfect match and the other 10 or so were not. It's just one more tool in our drawer. Crow^Caw 23:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• IMO, if anything can be left that would pass A7 or any hypothetical equivalent for things that are not eligible for A7, then it's worth removing and revdelling the copyvio. If all that's left would be 'BloggsCo is a company in Idaho' and an infobox giving date of foundation (2016) and Fred Bloggs as the CEO, CFO and CBW, then it's not worth keeping. Anything less than a viable stub isn't worth keeping. Apart from this, do the bots assess 'close paraphrase' where words (company instead of firm, for instance) are different but the overall thing could be regarded by a court as copyvio? I never look at the bot figures. I use my eyes and brain. The bots are useful for finding things, but the final assessment is human. Or whatever other species is capable of autonomously editing here. AI isn't up to it yet, dolphins lack fingers, and while coyotes apparently commute by bus, raccoons haven't yet been seen using tablets... Peridon (talk) 08:45, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Churches, hotels, hospitals etc. Are they buildings or organisations, and are they eligible for A7?

I have recently encountered a confusion regarding these and A7. It was insisted that Churches are eligible for A7 as organisations. However, I look through the categories, and they are definitely classed under Buildings and Structures, and I haven't yet found any indication of them being classed under organisations (unless I missed something?). Even the article about Churches explicitly identify them as buildings. Hotels and hospitals appear to be classed under both; what does this mean exactly? Does it mean that both WP:ORG and WP:GEOFEAT apply? If so, how does that work? And are they eligible for A7 or not, or both (???). This is all rather confusing because, if I go to (for argument's sake) Wexham Park Hospital, 2 of the 3 categories there are Hospital Buildings, and Buildings and Structures. No indication of it being classed as an organisation yet. Only after digging through the categories do I find that Hospitals are also under Medical and health organisations. Same with (again, for argument's sake) Imperial Hotel, Tokyo; categories include Hotel buildings, and of course, Buildings and Structures. No explicit indication of it being an organisation. Again, only after trawling through the categories do I find that hotels also come under companies. At face value, hospitals and hotels (or at least the two examples given here) appear to be classed under Buildings and Structures only. Does this mean they are primarily Buildings, and secondarily organisations? My query is thus: are these (for the purposes of A7) buildings, or organisations, and are they/should they be A7-eligible? And if they're under organisations, perhaps a note explaining all of this should be put somewhere (the templates perhaps?), or maybe a new (sub)category for A7 should be implemented? Adam9007 (talk) 01:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I will at this point just assess the church question, but the answer can probably be extended to more of the question. I see the possibility of three different answers, yes, no, and maybe. Don't take my examples as actually being eligible under a7 they are just examples. Yes, the article is about the congregation (an organization), example Citadel of Faith Covenant Church. No, the article is about the building, example Immanuel Episcopal Church (Bellows Falls, Vermont). Maybe, it is a hybrid of the two, it is about both the congregation and the building itself. If the building is non descript, no historical significance and there is nothing that shows significance I would say yes. If there is any question, no. The same could be said about your other portions of the question. -- GB fan 01:50, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I would go with that, and add that hospitals are usually organisations, IMO. The buildings are not usually likely to be notable, and the article will often be plugging the specialist toenail transplants they offer (or whatever...). A notable hospital building will be fairly obvious as being architecturally out of the ordinary, or definitely historically important. As the NHS here and the hospital trusts and companies try to keep the cost of new buildings down as far as possible, architectural adventure is not really on the cards, except in oil-rich states who have to spend the money on something... Peridon (talk) 09:18, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

@GB fan: @Peridon: I would have replied earlier, but wanted to see if others would comment. So you're saying that buildings are eligible for A7 if the building is used by an organisation? I suppose that's true for a lot of buildings. Adam9007 (talk) 18:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

No - buildings in themselves are never eligible for A7. The question is, is Little Twittering Cottage Hospital a building or an organisation? There will be few cases where an article is about a hospital's buildings as historically or architecturally important without the organisation being notable anyway. Many of the hospital articles that come to CSD are about hospitals that are not significant as organisations, and where they go on about the ultra-high quality and comfort of their buildings, they cross into spam - which is the reason for many of these articles in the first place. With churches, there is a greater chance of the building having a claim to notability (but simply being built in 1860 doesn't give significance, let alone notability). Basically, as pointed out by GBFan, the congregation is eligible, but the building isn't. With hospitals, unless the whole article is about an early building that is preserved, the 'hospital' can be taken to be the organisation occupying some premises, and therefore eligible. And very often spam eligible as well... I talk here about both notability and significance. Significance gives a pass at CSD, but when talking to creators of articles, it's notability that must be their aim for an article that will survive prod or AfD. There's no need to explain significance to an article creator - they need to understand notability. Taggers need to understand both, ideally. What applies to hospitals also applies to hotels, especially the spam intent in the creation. Peridon (talk) 18:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Given that "Church of..." articles can be about songs, separation of church & state, businesses, the church as an organisation, its local branch, or, if I could remember the relevant parishes, the foundation of a charity or an offshoot church or a newer strand within the church... any A7 criteria would depend on the nature of the subject. Church isn't a single pigeonhole.

I've also seen Hotel articles (eg The Grove Hotel) which as hotels would be A7/G11 but the buildings in which the hotel business operates have a historical significance. As with so many A7 questions, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. The article needs to be judged against the case for notability (significance) it makes. If no such case is clear, there are other CSD categories to cover that situation. Cabayi (talk) 18:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

If G11 is involved, then deletion can occur despite any significance aspect... Peridon (talk) 10:31, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Adam, I don't know how I left the impression that I thought buildings were eligible for A7 if it is used by an organization. That is no where near what I meant. Let me try again. An article about a building is never eligible under A7 no matter what. An article about a church congregation or the hospital organization is eligible to be considered for deletion under A7. If the article discusses both the building and the organization then I would say maybe, it depends on the exact article. -- GB fan 22:41, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@GB fan: If that's the case, how do we determine if it falls under A7? Are you saying if it's more about the organisation then it is A7-eligible, and if it's more about the building, it's not? Adam9007 (talk) 03:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

How do we determine if it falls under A7? The simple answer which is anything but simple, read the article and make a judgement call based on the actual state of the article. I am saying someone has to decide based on the exact article we are talking about, I can't give an exact answer unless we are talking about a specific article. -- GB fan 19:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

To Adam. An article is entitled 'St Frothwythe's Church, Much Twittering-in-the-Bushes', and starts off 'St Frothwythe's Church stands on Gaderene Road, and it was built in 1908.' Then it goes on for five paragraphs about the history of the congregation, and about the current vicar. The title and lead suggest that the article is about a building (as it's not something like 'The Anglican Church'). But the article is actually about a group of people that use the building. A7 or not? If the article has three paragraphs about the building (designed by Herpcy Swilcote, a Much Twittering resident who more often designed pigstys, but sometimes also did projects like the Neeldown Municipal Tramsheds), and three paragraphs about the congregation's history (yaaaawwwn), and one paragraph (suspiciously but not blatantly promo) about the current incumbent, what then? Some cases are instantly clear. The Revived Church of the Dancing Aardvark is obviously a group of people (and quite likely a hoax anyway...). An article about 'Cowish Abbey' is obviously about a building (since it is stated in the first line to have been dissolved by Henry VIII, and converted into a much more comfortable dwelling by Sir Roger de Logia). No matter how one tries to tweak the written rules (and this applies to the laws of a nation - 'the right to bear arms' etc), there has to be a human interpretation. A bot can go around to change [you'r] to [you're] - but what about when the [you'r] should just have been [your]? (Herpcy Swilcote's name comes from a meld of his two grandfathers in the interests of peace. One was Herpert, and the other Percy. It's not known if his surname influenced his architectural speciality.) Peridon (talk) 21:34, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

So we just have to use our best judgement? What if someone thinks the judgement is wrong? Adam9007 (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

@Adam9007: Most of the speedy deletion criteria are subjective to some extent, although some are highly objective and leave little margin for judgment. When a user applies a tag, and an admin deletes because of the presence of that tag, both of them need to be certain that the chosen CSD criterion really is applicable. If you believe that it wasn't, you should first discuss with the deleting admin; if that does not give a satisfactory outcome, WP:DRV. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:46, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Base on precidences I have come across with regard to churches, in respect of WP:GEOFEAT it seems there is precedence that if they are listed buildings or in other ways, recognised by national authorities then they meet notability of GEOFEAT. Therefore they would not fall under A7 for speedy deletion. If you want the organisation, I would posit that articles like Church of England or Church of Sweden would cover that as they are the organisations that run the church buildings. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:54, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

If they're ANY sort of building, they're NOT liable to A7. It's the balance of an article that appears to be about both building and congregation that's the trouble. Possibly in the case of a notable building occupied by a very non-notable congregation, the part of the article about them could be pruned down to a mention. Peridon (talk) 14:18, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

If someone thinks the judgement is wrong, they'll discuss it, or decline it. Don't forget that the actual deletion is done by admins who have been chosen by the community (OK, as many of them as cared to put an oar in...) as having experience, good track records, and good knowledge of the policies. They're not perfect, they can get things wrong. But they are chosen to do it. And they don't delete everything without looking at it. Some may IAR over the criterion chosen by the tagger - I prefer to change to the correct one when deleting. If I decline, I usually tell the tagger why (even if they've been here longer than I have - anyone can forget things). The recent fiascos about computer created articles and machine translations demonstrate that machine judgement isn't trustworthy enough yet to mechanise CSD tagging or execution. If the rules can't be refined to the point where a machine can decide, then human judgement is needed. And anyway, if the judgement was wrong, it can always be undone. It's not like a hanging or guillotining. Even an 'author request' requires judgement. Are all those edits by others in the history merely gnomish tweaking, detypoing and categorising, or are they adding 'content'? If it's content, is it important enough to invalidate an author request? Is that IP the creator forgetting to sign in? Does the blanking actually mean goodbye, as the author has done it three times already and restarted again within twenty minutes? It's a judgement that one learns to do, just like one learns when to change gear in a car, or how hard to throw a ball so that the fielder on the base can catch it. Peridon (talk) 14:18, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Holy Cross Church, Cockburn Town and Our Lady of Divine Providence Church, Providenciales are clearly about buildings, aren't they? Adam9007 (talk) 01:05, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, no. Both articles start off like they are about the building. The article says where it is located but that is all it says about the building itself with information about the island that the building is on that is not needed. The article then goes into information about the congregation. That is where the meat of the article is. I would disagree with you and say they are within the scope of A7. -- GB fan 01:34, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

To my mind, both are doubtful cases. I wouldn't A7 either one (but wouldn't decline), but I think they both fail on notability. I think AfD would be safer there. Peridon (talk) 09:00, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-x1

Template:Db-x1 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Safiel (talk) 16:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

• Note Template:Db-x2 is being discussed as well at that discussion. Safiel (talk) 17:01, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Clarity request for criterion U2

On speedy deletion criterion U2, the phrase "...except userpages for anonymous users who have edited..." seems a bit vague. As far as I've noticed, the only appropriate reason for there to be content on the user page of an anonymous editor is if the user page has some sort of notice on it (such as Template:Blocked user.) The current wording seems to hint that as long as the IP has made one edit, the IP's user page can be populated. Is that the case? Steel1943 (talk) 23:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

• I have no strong opinion either way, but to save others the trouble of looking for it, the first version of this wording was added in this edit, referencing this discussion. —Cryptic 00:08, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Looking at Cryptic's link, it would appear that that is the case. I would take it that the 'editing' done by the IP refers to editing other than on that user page, although in that case U5 would apply now anyway. Perhaps that should be added to clarify the condition. I must say that so far as I can remember I've only deleted under U2 where a move has resulted in a 'non-existent' user appearing. Peridon (talk) 09:12, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

IP users can't create their own user pages. I know some IP user pages have been created by established users for the IP user to edit. I'm also aware of some IP pages which have been created by a registered user at that address (without making unregistered edits), but that's pretty rare. Personally I don't find the phrase at all vague. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:37, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I believe this exception is to prevent deletion of user talk pages of anons who have edited, and for tagging their user pages with tags of sockpuppetry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:33, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

@Od Mishehu: That's more or less what I was thinking: The user talk pages should be retained regardless, not the user pages themselves. Steel1943 (talk) 23:00, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

• At this point, I think that criterion U2 may need to be revised somewhat. Though IPs cannot create their own user page, that doesn't necessarily mean that every IP (or even any) have a valid reason for their user page to be populated unless it is a blocking or a sockpuppetry notice. With that being said, I propose that the following wording in U2:

  ...except userpages for anonymous users who have edited...

  ...be changed to:

  ...except userpages for anonymous users who have edited if the page contains only notice templates (such as blocking and/or sock puppetry notices)...

  ...to clarify this distinction. Steel1943 (talk) 23:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe this should be restricted to pages containing "only notice templates", which is quite vague. One such is Template:IP address btw. There are various reasons for other messages such as those indicating the owner or nature of the IP address (see User:82.148.97.69), or records of good-faith people who have used it at particular times, or some other aspect of the address (User:127.0.0.1). We'd also be risking losing history (see User:156.34.142.110) and pages which contain more than a template (User:195.188.152.16 or User:144.138.154.241). Previous discussions have concluded there's no reason an IP user can't have a userpage, and I don't see why that should be changed. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:01, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to change the existing form of the criterion. A named user page should normally exist only if the named user account exists, but in the case of an IP user page, the equivalent is that someone has edited using that IP address. There are, of course, times when deleting an IP user page is justified, but this particular speedy deletion criterion is restricted to deletion because there is no such user, and if someone has edited from the IP address then there is one. If despite the existence of someone who has edited using the IP address the user page is considered inappropriate for other reasons, then it may be reasonable to suggest deletion, but that is the situation which this speedy criterion is intended to cover. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Change G4

As the deletion discussions may be outdated, G4 should be restricted to a short period directly after the deletion discussion (e.g. 3 months etc. )Wetitpig0 (talk) 11:22, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Imposing some arbitrary and fixed cut-off time limit would handle that situation much less well than the existing provision, which is that the criterion does not apply to "pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies". The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:34, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

But that means the subject of any deleted article can never be posted again. It is unfair to some articles which are not acceptable in the past but acceptable now. I.e. This rule will slow down the development of Wikipedia. Wetitpig0 (talk) 15:42, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

It does not mean the subject can never be posted again. It means you need to look at the discussion and determine if the reasons for the deletion still apply. Are there sources that were not available when the discussion happened? Has the policy that was cited changed? Each discussion deleted page has to be looked at individually to see if the reasons still apply. -- GB fan 16:47, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• I think there's a misunderstanding here. There is usually no reason why the subject or title cannot be written about after AfD has sentenced an article to deletion. That's not what G4 is about. G4 is for cases of reposting the same article or something as close as dammit is to swearing. The new posting has to be very close - and no improvement. Reposting an article with sound WP:RS sources that prove notability is an improvement. Completely rewriting is a new article. Both those are to be judged on their own merits, and G4 is out. In my experience, an old AfD may even be about an article on a totally different subject - Fred Bloggs the UK fakir as opposed to Fred Bloggs the Nicaraguan fish juggler. But if it's the same damn thing as was posted ten years ago, down to the last reference, G4 is applicable. Of course, unless a patroller had experience of the deleted article (and a good memory), he/she can only go by the title. It's up to the reviewing admin to look at both versions and tell the patroller why they admin took the course of action that they then did. Peridon (talk) 18:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• The background to this: Wetitpig0 (talk · contribs) created twenty or so templates between 05:02 and 06:07, 31 August 2016 (UTC) and put them all in Category:Articles For Deletion Voting Templates, which they also created in that timeframe; I noticed that category within hours, when this edit of 06:18, 31 August 2016 (UTC) appeared on my watchlist. At 08:54, 31 August 2016 (UTC), I started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#AfD voting templates and informed Wetitpig0 a couple of minutes later. They did not participate in that discussion; by the time that they started this "Change G4" thread at 11:22, 31 August 2016 (UTC), the "AfD voting templates" discussion looked like this and Wikipedia:Voting templates looked like this - notice the sentence "Any template created solely for this purpose may be tagged with speedy deletion criterion G4."
  During the "AfD voting templates" discussion, Wetitpig0's new templates, their redirects and the category were speedy deleted between 12:14 and 12:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC), mostly under criterion G4, by Cryptic (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• As far as I understand, the admin must ask 2 simple questions: What was the reason for the original deletion, and does the current article still have that problem. To take a recent example, an article about David Arshakyan was deleted because the article failed WP:NFOOTY. A few months later, a new article was written as a userspace draft, with one difference: the player had now played a game in a professional league, which means that he no longer fails NFOOTY. I decided that it no longer would be a G4 article, so I de-userfied it on request at AN (the title had been SALTed). On the other hand, if an article still has the same issues which led to deletion, it may be deleted even 30 years later. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
  • That's simply not correct. If the same REASON applies but the ARTICLE has changed, that's another AfD. If the same ARTICLE is put back (and hence the same reason still applies, because nothing of substance about it has changed), then it's speedyable. G4 is not designed to require (or even allow) any evaluation of the arguments, nor is any speedy criteria. Jclemens (talk) 18:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
• Admins already use their brains when evaluating whether some article meets G4 or not. If the "repost" contains new information (say, the previously non-notable actress had a role in a major movie, or some new sources have been found that demonstrate she meets WP:GNG) it does not meet WP:CSD#G4. If the repost is the same as was AfDd before, the only reason to evaluate it differently would be a change in Wikipedia's own inclusion criteria. While these have changed a bit over the last ten years (for example, the former FA Torchic is now a redirect), standards for sourcing and referencing have gone up. It is fairly unlikely that a simple repost without further information is going to pass a new AfD. For special cases, we have WP:DRV. —Kusma (t·c) 21:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

db-move and RMassist

Regarding {{db-move}}, I made some revisions of move how-to pages, explained at Wikipedia talk:Moving a page#Revisions on 16 September 2016. Please follow up there if there are any comments. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 00:27, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Change "article" to "page" in C2D

Criterion changed per proposal.

I propose changing the word "article" to "page" in criterion C2D of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. I think this is a common-sense change that would permit speedy renaming of categories associated with a certain template or project-space page. For example, the category Category:Free screenshots was created specifically for use with {{Free screenshot}}; including that template automatically puts the page in that category. If the template were uncontroversially renamed to, say, {{Screenshots that are free}}, then it should be possible to speedy-rename the associated category to Category:Screenshots that are free. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:12, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support - seems sensible. As another example, I have a speedy at the moment to rename Category:WikiProject Introduction members to match the parent WP Introductions, which is in Wikipedia namespace.Le Deluge (talk) 16:24, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support - the word "article" was probably originally used due to that being the normal use of this criterion, but I doubt that it was the intention of the community, at the time, to exclude other page types. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:55, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Consensus seems to be for adopting the proposed change. No objections have been raised, and no further comments have been made in the last ten days. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure says that even involved editors can close discussions where contributions have dwindled but the consensus is obvious, so I am closing this one. —Psychonaut (talk) 13:39, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

All necessary edits have been made to fully activate deletion criteria x1 & x2

Pursuant to the outcome of this discussion, Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_September_10#Template:Db-x1, where it was decided to keep templates {{db-x1}} & {{db-x2}}, I have made all the edits necessary to fully activate both deletion criteria. Categories have been created and any pages tagged with those criteria will show up in the appropriate categories. As I felt it was downright foolish to create those two templates but not the necessary supporting categories, I was WP:BOLD and went ahead and did it. Safiel (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Note that pages tagged for X1 deletion are not typically tagged with a template, but rather by moving them into the appropriate section of the list of redirects. See User:Anomie/Neelix_list/2 for an example of how this is working in practice. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criteria for books

I know that there has been talk about creating a speedy deletion criteria for books, but there's never really been any true consensus on this. I think I might have come up with something that could potentially be doable. My thought is that this would fall under WP:A9 for the most part, as that one of the main things I drew from, but it could potentially be a new criteria on its own.

The basic gist of this criteria is that it would only apply to books that are published through vanity or self-publishing outlets like AuthorHouse, Smashwords, and CreateSpace, where the books do not make a credible assertion of notability and the author/contributor(s) do not have an article. This would allow us to quickly get rid of the obviously non-notable stuff like some random self-published book by a non-notable author without having to go through a full AfD. There are too many articles that have to go through a full AfD, despite being so obviously non-notable that there's not even a question that they'll be deleted. This criteria would also apply to fanfiction posted to places like FanFiction.net, so that we don't have to have to bring something like this to AfD because fanfiction doesn't always cleanly fit into web content. I've included podcast novels in this since that's sort of akin to self-publishing, but I'm fine with that portion being removed since it's a bit of a grey area publication-wise.

The criteria would not cover any book that is published through a large, indie, academic, or small press. It would also not cover the deletion of any book where the author has an article, nor where any credible assertion of notability is made. This assertion would be considered to be things such as coverage in a RS (a trivial mention would suffice as long as the source is a RS), assertion of bestselling status, the book being adapted into a film/TV show/game, or a major award - the typical type of stuff that admins consider when judging A7 deletions. I am thinking about making the age of the book part of this criteria - if the book was published prior to 2000, it would not qualify under this criteria. People could self or vanity publish prior to this point of time, of course, but it was harder to do so and slightly more rare than it is nowadays. That would keep us from instantly deleting a book from say, the early 1900s or earlier, as there's the possibility that the book could be notable. I chose 2000 based on the date in the self-publishing article that stated that the 2000s were kind of a turning point as far as self-publishing goes. We could probably go later if anyone wanted, but I think that 2000 is a decent option that would cover the majority of self-published and vanity works without being too inclusive or exclusive.

Here's my mockup of the basic guideline, but feel free to suggest tweaks and alterations.

No indication of importance (books).

This criteria applies to any book that is either self-published or a vanity printing after 2000 and does not give any indication where the work is important or significant and where the author or contributors' article does not exist (all criteria must be true). Fanfiction and podcast novels would qualify under this criteria if there is no assertion of notability and the author does not have an article. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.

With new changes suggested by Graeme and Kevin (Updated again - and again, removing the podcast novel mention since that's a little loose and would likely fall under A7 criteria.)

This criterion applies to any book that is published to the self-publishers or vanity publishers CreateSpace, AuthorHouse, Smashwords, Lulu, Leadstart Publishing, or the publisher is the same name as the author after the year 2000 and does not give any indication where the work is important or significant and where the author or contributors' article does not exist (all criterion must be true). Fanfiction would qualify under this criterion if there is no assertion of significance and the author does not have an article. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.

My basic thought is that this is kind of overdue, given that anyone and their mother can put out a work through a vanity or self publisher nowadays. Again, this wouldn't cover anything put out through regular publishing arms or anything with even a remotely viable claim of assertion.

I'm going to ping the following editors, who were active during the bestseller as notability conversation at WP:NBOOK, are still reasonably active, and are editors that I'm fairly familiar with. @AngusWOOF, DGG, Coolabahapple, James500, Piotrus, and Dream Focus: I figure that you all run the gamut on how you approach articles, so we'd get a nice variety of input from all of you. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• I know that this might be a long shot to get this approved, but I figure that it'd be worth opening it up for discussion again. Also pinging I JethroBT to weigh in here. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:40, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• It looks like this was brought up a little bit ago, but my proposal is a bit more specific than the prior proposal and likely more so than any of the others that were previously brought up. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:47, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• Also to reference the last proposal by Largoplazo, the book discovered by Frimley (brought up by Peridon) would not presumably fall under this criteria because while the book itself was found and presumably published for the first time post 2015, the original work itself would obviously predate 2000 and the idea of an old manuscript being discovered in this manner would be something that would have a valid assertion of notability. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:54, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• My basic thing with this is that we've had a sharp increase in people trying to add self-published and vanity works to Wikipedia in the last few years and it's inevitable that we'll have at least 3-4 of them a week at AfD, possibly more. Sometimes we're able to slightly justify speedying them under criteria that doesn't really fit (like obvious promotion), but by large we have to take them to other outlets and the number of these is only increasing. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:56, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

For this to get up, there must be a very well defined way to tell if a publisher is a vanity publisher or not. Otherwise there will be too much room for argument. If we can stick with publisher = " AuthorHouse, Smashwords, or CreateSpace" or the publisher name = author name, then this could get my support. Otherwise you could have a list somewhere of vanity publishers. But Category:Vanity publishers is empty. There is however Vanity_press#Examples and Category:Self-publishing companies to get a handle on something definite. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• @Tokyogirl79: Quick question-- what differentiates a vanity publisher from a self-publishing company, and how do we identify vanity publishers? I'm pretty new to that term, so I'm just seeking some clarification. For now, I think I'm more or less in agreement with Graeme Bartlett; I think because the criteria depends on editors knowing what publishers are self-publishing or not, we probably should build a Category or a Wikipedia: namespace page enumerating the usual suspects. I think it is also OK to note on that page or category that "this is not an exhaustive list", but care needs to be taken about what publishers are added. The language of the mockup seems pretty good to me, but I'll come back to this next week to provide any suggestions I might have on phrasing tweaks. (Sorry, busy week at the WMF for me...) I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 08:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• There's not a huge amount of difference, but the main one is that authors pay up front for vanity publishing whereas they do not for self-publishing. The reason for this is that vanity publishers require the authors to name a specific amount of books they want printed up front and the author pays for these books. They're also typically expected to sell the books themselves after this point in time. With self-publishing they aren't asked to specify print amounts, as the publisher will print the book after a customer requests the work in question. Self-publishing companies also tend to offer store fronts (like Amazon with CreateSpace or Smashwords with their website) to sell the works. Many vanity publishers don't really offer this, at least not to the extent that you see with self-publishing. This is pretty much why most authors have eschewed vanity publishers as a whole. They're on the decline, but still exist enough to warrant mentioning here. You typically see them in other countries - I know that there are quite a few in other countries, like Leadstart Publishing. There's a better description of the differences here from the SFWA. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:08, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• I have no problem with limiting this to specific publishers for the time being - that's probably a good limiter to add as well. I'll add this to the criteria. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Don't forget Xlibris and PublishAmerica (and its variants for outside the USA). I'm in favour of this as it gives a bit more definition. Self-publishing outfits are fairly easy to identify - just drop their name and "self-publish" into your search engine of choice. The basic search is the book title and Amazon - you can get the 'publisher' by scrolling down the Amazon page for the book. If it's new, is from the Western world, and isn't on Amazon, it ain't notable. If it looks like a regular publishing house, a search will quickly reveal whether only that book or that author come from that 'house'. If you can't find the 'publisher' at all, it's the author masking self-pub through CreateSpace. A Category would save repeated searching, though. The vanity publishers often have something like 'a different approach to publishing' in their intro. (It's interesting looking at their charges - why the heck anyone does business with them is beyond me when it can be done at the new-style on-demand places. Sometimes they do include proof-reading in their services, though.) For the benefit of those who can't see what's wrong with self-pub (from the Wikipedia point of view), being published by a regular house doesn't mean instant notability. It does mean a proofed, editor checked and advised, and well setup product with a publicity machine and press reviews behind it. Self-pub means you have to do all your own publicity (apart from the self-pub site), get reviews (Goodreads and Amazon reviews don't count for tuppence) and get the book onto shelves (as the browsing market is still alive). One other point about self-pub and notability: if a self-pub book looks like it's getting sales, a regular house will snap it up. I can think of one case here (but can't quote it). Peridon (talk) 10:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• I can think of a few cases like in Peridon's last sentence, too, and it's not an argument in favor of this criterion. This criterion as worded relies on the tagger and deleting admin both doing their own research into who published the book, and if the self-published version was doing well and it was picked up by a small press with little marketing clout, it's the initial version that's going to dominate google results. The situation's worse if it's expanded to all vanity publishers instead of a specific list; while some are laughably easy to identify, the majority are not. "3-4 of them a week at AfD" isn't particularly compelling, either; 3-4 a day still wouldn't be. This fails the Objectivity and Frequency guidelines at the top of this page. AFD's the proper venue. —Cryptic 13:24, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

If it's "picked up by a small press with little marketing clout", it's not going to be any better off. It's only being picked up by a more major publisher that will make a difference. There's still no guarantee of notability or even significance resulting from the pickup. Peridon (talk) 16:26, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

yes, there's no guarantee of significance in such cases, but there possibly might be significance, so Prod or AfD is the place for it. And there have been cases, especially in SF and self-help books where the person continues to prefer self publishing, sometimes for ideological reasons. But there's no problem here, for such authors will be notable. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• My objection against speedy deletion criteria for books stem from this, which nearly got deleted before I actually figured out what the editor, likely a child, was trying to say. It's now a bit better. Given how other speedy criteria are routinely "loosely applied" by administrators, I would be hesitant to endorse any speedy deletion criteria for books that fails to assure the survival of such admittedly terrible articles for unquestionably notable books. Jclemens (talk) 17:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
• My reaction to that, Jclemens, would be: You should know, you used to be a sysop. But that wouldn't be very friendly. Nevertheless, I do think we should accord more trust, confidence, and good faith in the work of our admins - too many RfC have oppose votes based on simply not wanting to horizontally increase their mandate, rather than an arguments based on policy or guidelines or whatever else we're trying to get introduced to keep or encyclopedia clean. Whatever we do, there will be collateral damage, but that's also why around 20% of our 5 million articles have been passed through NPP to remain perma-tagged and get Wikipedi its reputation for inaccuracy and unreliability. WP:NBOOK is a clear, unambiguous set of criteria, and the language of Tokyogirl79's mock up seems OK. What we do need to do however, is to find a way of greatly, and I mean greatly, improving and insisting on much higher degrees of knowledge and experience on the part of RfA reviewers and NPPers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:48, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Kudpung, and it is from that fount of experience--I have deleted 14,000 articles, if memory serves, but there's no easy way for an ex-admin to see their admin stats--and seeing seen countless cases of administrators interpreting criteria their own particular way and deleting things in a way neither consistent with our stated policies, common interpretations thereof, or even any reasonable interpretation of improving the encyclopedia that causes me pause with any new expansion of the speedy deletion criteria. As we get fewer administrators, the relative workload increases, and the pressure to 'just do something' can overwhelm well-meaning individuals and cause them to shortcut good due diligence in order to rapidly decrease backlogs. Yellow Star is an example of a book that should have been kept, but if it had been speedied, almost certainly would not have been, thus my opposition to speedy deletion criteria for books, because I don't see how anyone can safely guard against that outcome. I have a far higher tolerance for things being in process, and prefer that shoot-on-sight criteria be limited to copyvio, attack, promotion, madeup, hoax, and a few other things where substantially no one can fix them and nothing salvageable remains. Jclemens (talk) 17:42, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    (Some admin stats for prior admins show up here, 19642 of them are deletions in your case) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:03, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    Oh, hey, cool, I'd seen that page before but missed that that stat was buried in there... Jclemens (talk) 18:13, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    Former admins also show up on the misguided local scoreboard at WP:ADMINSTATS. —Cryptic 18:22, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    No one can guard against admins making mistakes - I make mistakes, fortunately they are a very low percentage (41 restored out of 7,000 deleted articles) and I don't get all my AfD nominations right, and possibly 3 of my 1000s of CSDs have been overturned, but when I look at the stats of other admins, I don't find their error rates generally worse than mine. Problem is, when admins make an error, because we're held to be infallible it gets blown out of all proportion, the admin gets tarred and feathered (and in some cases will retire completely) and the entire corps of sysops gets a bad name again. I don't think that the error rates therefore, are a sufficiently significant concern to be taken into consideration when discussing the creation of a new CSD criterion. If we did, we would need to be reducing the list of deletion criteria rather than expanding it. On the other hand,however, having a highly granular set of criteria can add to the confusion indeed, but not to the bureaucracy. What we should perhaps be examining is how often do book articles come under fire, and is it essential to create a CSD for them? I can't answer that, but perhaps someone else can. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    As you are likely aware, I am personally aware of how a single controversial decision can lead to having one's livelihood threatened. CSD isn't that level of hating-on-admins, and by opposing this proposal, I'm actually advocating for a more limited set of CSD criteria that would, in my estimation, reduce the risk of such hating-on-admins. Wouldn't be the first time a couple of long-term editors have disagreed over the best way to implement shared values. Jclemens (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

    In the beginning, there were very few controls on Wikipedia - it would have been impossible to pre-empt every possible situation. As Wikipedia grows, more areas for control become evident. Wikipedia must introduce more controls if they are required. No one forces anyone to be an admin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:55, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

• I think that we might be able to help prevent a deletion like the potential one for Yellow Star by virtue of the requirements: no assertion of notability, not published by one of the specified publishers, and the author lacks an article. YS would've passed because it was published through a major publishing house - and admins should be at conducting a cursory check for notability before speedying if the article is unclear. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:43, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. At the very least, this proposal needs to be limited to books whose only form of publication falls into the self-published/vanity category. It's becoming increasingly common for authors (particularly genre writers) to revert rights to their out-of-print books and self-publish ebook editions while making hardcopies available through commercial POD publishers. Even authors as prominent as Lois McMaster Bujold have done this See July 13 blog entry. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll go along with that proviso. It should be common sense that if something has been regularly published first that it should not come under this criterion. However, I would point out that books by that author would not come under it anyway as they have an article. Whether this became part of A9 or a new A14 (or whatever), it would be a two part criterion. Self-pub book AND no-article author. Peridon (talk) 09:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that this proviso is warranted for the reason Peridon stated (a book by a notable author wouldn't qualify regardless of whether or not the work is self-published), but if it'll help get this passed and make it easier to get rid of the CreateSpace, Smashwords, and Lulu books that people toss up here, then I'm all for it. I think it's great that an author can put together a work, but it gets kind of old seeing them go to AfD when deletion is all but a foregone conclusion. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:06, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Weak support. I am not fully convinced we need it, but it seems like a minor helpful shortcut to deal with spam. As the revised version is worded, it should not result in deletion of anything notable, so if it can save us 1-2 AfDs a week, why not. Every little bit helps. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support I see a lot of books coming through new page patrol coming from new editors where there is no author article. Some are advert-csd'ed, others are afd'ed, while others are notability/advert tagged. It would be nice to have this option to clear up some clutter. It would be better to have a category of publishers though; it is almost as easy to make your own e-publisher (or self-seller) as it is to write a book.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 12:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• As far as publishers go, I'd say that any of the publishers on this page should be listed: List of self-publishing companies. I'll list them here for posterity but also because we will need to have a set list somewhere in case someone tries to remove one of the names in the hopes that it'll keep their book around.

• American Biographical Institute
• Archway Publishing
• AuthorHouse
• BiblioBazaar
• Blurb, Inc.
• Bob Books
• Books LLC
• CafePress
• CreateSpace
• Darkside communication group
• DiggyPOD
• Famous Poets Society
• Greyden Press[10]
• iUniverse
• Kindle direct Publishing
• Kobo Writing Life
• Lightning Source
• Llumina Press
• Lulu
• Notion Press
• Outskirts Press
• Poetry.com
• PublishAmerica
• Self Publish, Be Happy
• Smashwords
• Tate Publishing & Enterprises
• Trafford Publishing
• Vantage Press
• Wattpad
• Xlibris
• Xulon Press

If anyone wants to add to (or take anything away from) this list, feel free - just note what you're removing and why. I was only familiar with a few of these, but I figured that since these are the outlets that are known enough to warrant an article, that they'll be the ones we'll most likely see for an article. Offhand the article had all of the names that I was going to suggest adding. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:06, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

That list looks good to me. (And I've learned how to do columns too...) Peridon (talk) 09:23, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Same here - I really only learned to do columns via this one author's article, which I use as a "go to" for the column template when I'm feeling lazy. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:21, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

@Peridon and Tokyogirl79: {{Multicol}} isn't an ideal way of doing columns, the presence of {{Multicol-break}} splits one list into two (or more), creating an accessibility problem. It's better to use constructs like {{div col}}/{{div col end}}, which you can see in action at Wikipedia:Meetup/UK#Oxford. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:53, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Nice! That looks far easier to use overall. I changed it up to the version you posted here. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:42, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I have a problem with the wording: "does not give any indication where the work is important or significant and where the author or contributors' article does not exist (all criteria must be true). Fanfiction and podcast novels would qualify under this criteria if there is no assertion of notability". Which is it, significance or notability? Significance is a lower standard than notability. Lumping the two together would only increase the amount of confusion regarding them (as if there isn't enough already). Also, "this criteria" should be "this criterion", as we're only talking about one, and I'd suggest changing "all criteria must be true" to "all conditions must be true" to avoid confusion. I'd also strongly suggest that if this is passed, it is an extension of A9, not A7 or a new criterion. A9 already has a very similar requirement of no contributing artists, expanding A7 would make that criterion even more confusion than it is already, and a new criterion would make CSD in general more confusing, as we would have three criteria for very similar things. Adam9007 (talk) 15:37, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has seriously suggested adding this to A7, as it is a two part criterion. It can fit into A9 quite well for that reason. (I mentioned 'A15 or whatever' just in case anyone objected to adding to A9...) That 'notability' can be 'significance' instead, and I do agree about 'this criteria'. Should be 'criterion' and both changes can be made now by the proposer or later by the scribe of the rolls if this is passed. Peridon (talk) 18:01, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• I've made the tweaks in the updated version - feel free to make as many tweaks as you like - just note next to the updated text and/or down here that you added or changed something. I actually don't have a huge problem with this being lumped in with A9, since that's mostly what I modeled this after. By the by, should I open a RfC on this just to make sure I get more voices? (I probably will.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:39, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm bumping this for a bit more consensus, plus I have to say that I ran across another self-published book here, which I had to put up for AfD since speedy criteria doesn't apply here. This is essentially the type of book I'd like to be able to speedily delete, as this is obviously non-notable and has its author as its publisher, so it fits the criteria here to a T. Earlier I had to close this AfD on another self-published book and I want to emphasize that such books hit AfD on a weekly basis. There are so many articles up for AfD in general that I just think that it'd be nice to save at least some time for those that do monitor AfD or the other deletion outlets like PROD, time that could be spent on stuff that actually would potentially merit an article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Here are some other examples of things that had to go to AfD because they didn't fall under speedy criteria: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/One Awesome Girl, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The ultimate reality, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Channie Series, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FASTLANE(Zootopia). These are just a few of the ones that get nominated and this is only via AfD - I know that there are more that get deleted via PROD. Some of them were ultimately deleted because of other speedy criteria (like the author requesting deletion by blanking the article), but this was only after it was brought to AfD. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:16, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
• Here's another one. It's a Wattpad novel that was nominated for no context, however it does have context and doesn't qualify for any of the other deletion criteria. It's pretty obviously non-notable and otherwise has to go through an AfD. Even if it closes in a few days time, that's still more time than it could've taken if we'd had speedy criteria. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 02:30, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

RfC

Not sure if I'm doing this part correctly, but I'd like to have some comments on this potential addition of self-published and vanity books to the speedy guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:58, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• I saw the RfC notice, and my first reaction (after having read the discussion above) is that I'm a little uncomfortable about making something like this, where there is some judgment about notability involved, eligible for CSD. CSD should really be for pages where it is abundantly obvious that it is either an attack or is something that could not possibly be notable, and this seems a bit more subtle than that. On the other hand, I'm very sympathetic to what new page patrollers have to deal with, and I certainly favor dealing speedily with spam. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:45, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• The way this is written, the criteria wouldn't cover any book that could potentially be notable. It's meant to cover the obviously non-notable self-published or vanity books like this or this, where it's self-published, makes no assertion of notability, and the author has no article. If the article even remotely makes an assertion of notability like winning an award, getting mainstream coverage (ie, newspapers), or anything similar, it wouldn't qualify - the same thing where a musical album (without an artist page) would pass speedy criteria if it had an assertion of notability. The page wouldn't cover anything published via a non SP/vanity publisher - being published through one of those guys (Harper Collins or even an indie publisher) could be seen as a potential assertion of notability since those typically require that the book go through some sort of vetting process and there's the potential for some coverage. (Less so than with the indie ones, but a book published through Harper Collins stands a fairly good chance.)

In other words, this would allow for instant deletion of books like America Deceived while preventing instant deletion of something that could have received coverage like Hugh Howey's Silo series. I do think that I will remove the podcast mention though - that's a little too loose and besides, that's sort of already covered with A7. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:07, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm gonna oppose. I've done thousands of new page patrols and I'm not sure that I've ever encountered a vanity book. Most books I have encountered had a statement of significance, or were old enough that the authors were obviously deceased. So I'm not seeing a need for this. PROD can cover it. I'll add that I think it a bad idea to have a CSD rely on a list of publishers, considering that companies go in and out of business constantly and we would be forced to keep up with this here. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 14:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

• This is more for the self-published books nowadays than the vanity, as in most cases you're more likely to come across a book that is self-published. Vanity has fallen quite out of favor/ These still hit AfD with regular frequency, enough to where it's sort of a nuisance to have to clear them out. I've closed quite a few AfDs for books that are clearly non-notable, yet they still have to take up AfD time because they don't qualify for any of the various speedy deletions. As for PRODs, those aren't really a catch all because they do tend to be removed quite often, resulting in an eventual AfD. As far as the list of publishers go, the majority of these are ones that are relatively unlikely to go out of business any time soon, as they're run through fairly major companies like Amazon. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:03, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

• I added a self-publisher here, Archway Publishing, given that it's a self-publishing arm of Simon & Schuster. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:42, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
• Would this rewording be clearer than the first sentence of the current proposal? "This criterion applies to any book (a) published through the self-publishers or vanity publishers CreateSpace, AuthorHouse, Smashwords, Lulu, Leadstart Publishing, or where the publisher is the same name as the author on a book first published since the year 2000, and (b) where the article gives no indication of the work's importance or significance, and (c) where Wikipedia contains no biographical article on the author. Conditions (a), (b) and (c) must all be applicable.". AllyD (talk) 09:41, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Looks very clear, but the other self-publishing outfits should be in there (or as an appended list). CreateSpace seems to me to be the main one at present, having overtaken Lulu, but the others are all found here. Oiyarbepsy and I must be working at different times, as I do find quite a few self-published works. Vanity publishing doesn't come up as much, as with that the author is mainly wanting a small number of books for some purpose - family, local society or so on. Fortunately, quite a few more articles concerning self-published books come under A7 as they are nominally at least about the non-significant author. Peridon (talk) 10:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, I see them too, often as a complementary pair, one article on author, one on book: which may give a temporal problem in meeting condition (c) here, at least until the author article is deleted as A7. Expanding on that, I do wonder about the efficacy of this proposal. From countries that respect civil service we see a fair number of self-published books like "Forty Years a Penpusher" by a retiring under-secretary at the local transport department, often accompanied by a local press piece showing that the Minister attended the book launch and shook hands with the author; such coverage may be enough to defeat the new speedy such that it needs to go to AfD as at present? AllyD (talk) 11:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• To answer the last concern: a piece of local press would be seen as an assertion of notability for most topics on Wikipedia that currently fall under speedy criteria. For example, a sandwich shop would likely pass A7 because they've received at least one piece of local press. It's meant to be a weak bar to overcome overall. If the news article is accompanied by a photo as described then that'd also help it overcome speedy, just as a photo of the PoTUS (or the state governor) chumming it up with the shop owner in a news article would probably help it pass A7. The criteria here wouldn't be much different. Now as far as the position goes, minor positions (ie, the stuff that would get an article on someone deleted via A7) wouldn't affect the speedy much at all. If it's a very major position then this would be similar to an assertion where the person claimed the book was a best seller or that it was published via a major publisher. When it comes to the temporal problem, this would likely end up resolving itself much like how the current criteria for non-notable musicians/bands and their albums does on here. There's really not been much of an issue with people nominating a musician for deletion and then nominating the albums, honestly, at least not from what I've seen. Whenever there has been an issue I've just redirected the album to the applicable band/musician article and left it at that. I figure that can be the case with books and authors as well. The criteria is really meant to cover stuff like this.

As far as the publishers go, I'd like to have that appended list because there are a few on there that are reasonably common enough to where their inclusion would inevitably become necessary - especially as self-published authors are under no requirement to stick with one company and can easily publish under one of the competitors as a way of circumventing the speedy criteria. Other than that, I like the way you've rephrased this. If you have no objection I'll add/change this. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:33, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

That book you've linked has a great blurb ;-). That's why regular publishers have editors - to weed out stuff like that. Peridon (talk) 21:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello, my initial thought is: I would hate to see the best known self-published works - including My Immortal, or the various Wattpad works that were picked up to be turned into traditional multimedia - speedily deleted based on this new criterion. They are worth at least a bit of discussion. – SJ + 00:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

There wouldn't be a problem after they were taken up by regular publishers or made into successful films. This proposal is to deal with the stuff that isn't published by regular publishers, and isn't by anyone of note. A9 works. Think of it like people - someone like Prince George or Princess Charlotte is notable from birth (or even before...). They are, shall we say, not common. Someone like Susan Boyle was non-notable for most of her life, until success unexpectedly arrived. We don't allow articles on the basis that notability could possibly arrive. We wait until it has arrived. Peridon (talk) 09:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• @Sj: My Immortal wouldn't qualify under this criteria because it has a fairly good assertion of notability - looking at the page itself shows that it's been covered in multiple different places that would be considered reliable sources on Wikipedia. Any book that has coverage in reliable sources wouldn't qualify for this guideline any more than a person who has received coverage in RS would qualify for A7. That doesn't mean that the book/person couldn't qualify for deletion via some other method like AfD, it just means that they wouldn't qualify for speedy deletion. As far as the Wattpad stories go, none of those would qualify for deletion either because if they were made into a notable film (or other media) then they'd pass by speedy criteria as well. The bar for notability for this proposed guideline would be as low as the bar for the other notability criteria. It only has to make some assertion of notability in order to pass, so any book that has received coverage in a RS or has been adapted into something that seems even remotely notable would not be deleted even if they would otherwise fail notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
• Basically this would only cover fanfiction or Wattpad-esque writings like this one that was deleted at AfD. The work was never adapted into anything and it never received any sort of coverage. Under current guidelines it didn't qualify for speedy criteria because fanfiction falls under a grey area - it's not entirely web content because it's a written product and not a website. It also wasn't promotional or a copyright violation. As such, I had to take it to AfD for a week. This new criteria would enable us to delete something like this immediately and without any "but it doesn't qualify for speedy deletion" qualms. It's not meant to delete anything that might be even remotely notable. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:42, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support I do think it's a bit odd we don't have CSD for books, when we have for web content, people, companies, events etc. Seems logical that there should be criteria for books as well as they suffer from the same issues of self-promotion and occassional entirely inappropriate/unsourced articles. The restriction to just vanity/self-published works pretty carefully circumscribes the category. FuriouslySerene (talk) 14:42, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support per Tokyogirl79 and FuriouslySerene. I've gone through a few cases where this might've been useful. There are two paths Wikipedia could have taken: one was being flexible and vague with the CSD criteria so as to give editors a wide take on what needs to go; the other was limiting minutiously what can be deleted quickly and why. The community chose the latter, and as such adding another concrete mechanism to allow for the quick deletion of self-published junk without having to resort to more bureaucracy seems both prudent and advisable, as long as it is carefully worded and presented. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 15:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support as per my support in comments above.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 17:20, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - Frankly, this criterion is too complicated. We're asking an editor to verify that it is a book, that was self-published, after 2000, by a vanity publisher, which may or may not be on a particular list, but probably is there, and whose author does not have an article, where the book doesn't make a credible claim of significance and then we're asking an admin to confirm this by following those steps again. This doesn't seem to improve on an AFD by very much. So we have a criterion that would save a few AFD's a month by replacing them with a nearly-as-complicated speedy deletion criterion? No thanks. Tazerdadog (talk) 09:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

• Ideally an editor would be verifying whether or not a book is notable before nominating it for deletion, so all this does is skip an AfD that would waste far more time than verifying a speedy takes. Those can run for a full week for something that's painfully obviously non-notable, whereas a speedy criteria could deal with it in minutes. The verification process here wouldn't take much longer than the existing processes for A7 or A9 (either tagging or deleting) and this guideline is already fairly similar to A9, which deals with non-notable music works and requires about the same amount of criteria. Admin time spent on the article probably wouldn't differ much from an A7 or A9, as we're supposed to be looking for sourcing on an article nominated for notability to begin with. I'd also wager that any admin who isn't familiar with self-publishing outlets would become familiar pretty quickly - it's the way I learned about the non-notable music publishing companies, after all.

Add on to this that most self-published works are very obvious, as most tend to go through the same companies. Most of the ones I see go through places like CreateSpace, Lulu, or PublishAmerica, publishers whose names are synonymous with self-publishing. They're the Bandcamps of the publishing world. Vanity publishers might not be as immediately easy to see, but that's likely a result of vanity publishing falling out of favor. Some like iUniverse have outright changed their models to self-publishing outlets in order to keep up with the times. The ones published through an author's name is going to be pretty easily identified, as would something published through WattPad or FanFiction.net. Also, most book articles are usually identified as being about books, so that aspect wouldn't be entirely difficult. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:16, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose, largely per what Tazerdadog noted. Additionally, A7/9 speedy deletion is not a critical criterion. Hosting content on Wikipedia that has no credible claim of significance for a week or two until deleted or improved has a negligible impact on the encyclopedia. The A7/9 criterion, therefore, was put in place due to a lot of AfD nominations of articles that clearly had no credible claim of significance; A7/9 was intentionally limited in scope. After looking through the AfD queue for the last week or so, I do not see a significant problem with the number of self-published books on Wikipedia. Expanding A7/9 under this proposal sounds like a convenience rather than a necessity. And convenience is not the right justification for an expansion of a speedy deletion criterion.

Additionally, A7 is already difficult to interpret. Many articles are tagged for A7 but are out of scope, have a credible claim of significance, or otherwise do not qualify - some are caught by other editors or administrators, others are deleted despite not meeting the criterion. I agree with Tazerdadog that introducing a new criterion for music is likely to complicate the speedy deletion process even more. This procedure is far too complicated and it's unrealistic to expect that editors and administrators will all verify that each sub-criterion is true, if A7 is any lesson. Appable (talk) 17:46, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

• I've said my piece above, but the problem here is that each year we see more and more of these. There's a reason that this keeps coming up as a proposal and why each time support for it keeps growing, because the amount of people coming to Wikipedia to write about their non-notable self-published books keeps growing. I honestly think that a speedy deletion criteria for books is inevitable. One thing I can point out is that earlier this year we had a fairly big issue with people coming to Wikipedia to write about non-notable works that were self-published in India. Most of them were related to a non-notable guru whose article was deleted at AfD. Because they weren't clean fits for other speedy criteria, they had to come to AfD. Others were just works published through some of India's best known self-publishing and vanity companies, which again - had to come to AfD. I think that there were instances in both cases where people would nominate them for ill fitting speedy criteria (where the articles were neither all that promotional nor really contained copyvio beyond a couple of words) just so they didn't have to go through AfD for another work, and then holding their breath that they didn't take them to DRV. Basically, just because the number of self-published works that were recently at AfD were low doesn't mean that this is always the case. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:38, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

With respect to the 'difficulty' of assessing, I can't see that it should be. It's no harder than A9 is, and less subjective than G11. Something that says "The Insane Carrot is a book by Fred Bloggs. When Julius wakes up one morning, he finds he has become a carrot with arms and legs. This is the story of his adventures in a world that is not adapted to vegetables." and goes on to detail more of the plot is giving no indication of significance. A quick check on a search engine gives an Amazon link (if the creator of the areticle hasn't already linked to it as a 'reference'), revealing that CreateSpace are the publishers. No admin HAS to delete a tagged article - if they feel there's too much work in this, they can pass on to something else. A tagger doesn't have to tag it - they can just leave it unreviewed. If the example I gave was titled Fred Bloggs instead of The Insane Carrot, and started off "Fred Bloggs is the author of The Insane Carrot. When Julius wakes up..." and referenced nothing better than Amazon and Goodreads, it would be a clear A7. (Yes, I know that references don't come into A7 as such, but the presence of good ones can be an indication of significance in something otherwise apparently unpromising.) Peridon (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion for micronations

The NZRE Empire page recently got deleted, along with its position in the List of micronations article, even though NZRE is a micronation http://nzre.webs.com . Why don't any of the other micronation pages get nominated for speedy deletion, and we do? --Numberguy6 (talk) 20:25, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I've taken the ref tags off your link as using them on a talk page is a pain. Links are better just as straight urls in the text here. As to the other micronations, possibly they have articles because they pass WP:GNG with reliable independent sources WP:RS to prove it. But see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Peridon (talk) 22:16, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

The fact that one Micronation was deleted doesn't make others speedy deletable. Each must be judged on its own article's merit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:01, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Question on criterion R2

I have a question regarding the meaning of R2. An exact quote is below (bolding for emphasis):

This applies to Redirects, apart from shortcuts, from the main namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces.

It says that it applies to any outgoing redirect from the article namespace to a namespace other than the ones listed. Does this criterion also apply in reverse, for instance, in the case of a leftover redirect from the Draft: namespace to its article namespace equivalent? Thanks, Gluons12 ^talk 16:39, 5 October 2016 (UTC).

No it does not work in reverse. If a draft article is moved to the article space, the redirect left behind does not qualify under WP:R2. -- GB fan 16:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

@GB fan: Is there a reason that it's not? Are such deletions supposed to be covered by WP:G6? Gluons12 ^talk 22:58, 8 October 2016 (UTC).

Is there a reason it should be? Redirects from the main space to another space can make a link look like it has a valid article. The other way means nothing. I can not see any negative having a link from draft to the main space. No such deletions are not covered under G6 either, they are not uncontroversial. These redirects can actually be helpful. If an editor created a draft article and while they are away someone accepts it. It is moved and the creator has the draft page bookmarked in their browser. If the redirect is gone they may not know where it went. -- GB fan 01:35, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Article titles redirect proposal

WP:R4. Redirects not conforming to WP:ARTICLETITLE

Er, that's it, really. I know that redirects are not articles, but they look like that in a search, so the same rules should apply. I know I am in a minority on that stance. Si Trew (talk) 03:21, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• The idea of redirects is to commonly avoid restrictions of the article title rules. Instead they would have something that a person would type, but is not the same as the article title. Redirects can include POV, alternate spellings, arrangements, foreign name alternatives, etc, all good. The new proposed R4 may end up giving most redirects the ax. Blunders can already be scrapped with G6, and unlikely redirects with r3, so what problem are we solving? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Sure, Graeme, but this is exactly why I worded it this. I just tried to condense it down and in the end I got the rationale for CSD (or RfD for that matter) to be essentially "Page titles that do not meet WP:ARTICLETITLE". That is why we have {{R from incorrect spelling}}, {{R from other language}}, {{R from other capitalisation}} and so on and so on. Three-quarters of those redirects do not meet WP:ARTICLETITLE but are kept and tagged because they are useful for search, I have no disagreement with that. What I do disagree with is inventing another criterion which is either too broad or too narrow, where to my mind the existing criteria, with a bit of WP:COMMONSENSE, fill the gaps anyway. Most candidates for these things would get to RfD anyway, User:Godsy is a reg at RfD and you pop in occasionally, so I think if they went to a CSD they would be immediately just bounced to RfD anyway. So might as well take them there in the first place. Si Trew (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I should make it clear that I make a very strong distinction between "page" and "article". Others less make that distinction. Not everything in mainspace is an article, redirects specifically are not. Another useful distinction I forget who invented this, is "reader space" and "editor space", which is very handy when not having to talk technically what Wikipedia namespace somethng is in but does the reader see this or is this part of the plumbing? Categorty and Portal are in reader space, for example, but WikiProject and Template (and, of course, Wiklpedia:) are in editor space. That is why WP:XNRs are generally frowned upon over at WP:RFD, but occasionally are kept, it's not so much a problem if it is an XNR within "reader space" or "editor space" but across them is usually a bit iffy. Si Trew (talk) 10:29, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

For example at RfD right now we have Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_13#John_in_Islam, and I said that "The Baptist" after the name is essentially a disambiguator, and another editor agreed that it was (to disambiguate with John the Apostle). Now, that falls down with if you start to say disambiguations are things with parentheses, because often they are not, they are actually things that are in the WP:COMMONNAME article title to start with: John the Baptist, John the Apostle. We do seem to have John (Baptist) or John (Apostle) too, which are a bit ridiculous because nobody will search that way, but they would sail past the initial criterion proposed because they are well-formed article titles. I just don't see that this does any good except being makework. Si Trew (talk) 10:44, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Withdrawn by nominator. To make it clear, I was putting this in to explain my oppose to two others both wanting R4 here and at RfD. I suggested it simply as a barganing counter, well not quite, I want Wikipedia to be better as all the other editors do here, so I weren't bargaining me chips on it but giving it as an example. No more than that. I do not want R4 to be "Articles that do not conform to ARTICLETITLE". I don't want it to be anything. We're fine as we are, over at RfD, with the criteria we have. Si Trew (talk) 12:57, 14 October 2016 (UTC)