Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 82

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G4 and draftified deletions

As G4 is only for deletions that follow a deletion discussion, how do we deal with the case where a page is recreated with identical content after being converted to a draft? Or do we have other recreation or copied content criteria?

The case here in point is Luther Greene (producer) which was moved to draft space by DMySon with reason Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace. The author did not work on the draft but requested its deletion 8 hours later. Before proceeding with deletion, I did check with the author at their talk page about their deletion request, however there was no response. The draft Draft:Luther Greene (producer) was then deleted. I see that the author had copied content to a new title Luther Greene (theatrical producer). Although it is a recreation, and it subverted the AfC/draft process, I cannot tag it as a G4. Jay (talk) 06:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:DRAFTOBJECT, "Other editors (including the author of the page) have a right to object to moving the page [to draftspace]", so what you (rightly) characterize as "subvert[ing] the AfC/draft process" is in fact allowed. Since the author could have simply moved the draft back to mainspace directly, there's nothing keeping him from doing that in the roundabout way he did. So: since G4 doesn't apply, I would just treat it the way I would any other article, sending it to AfD if appropriate. (In particular, you shouldn't re-draftify the article, per WP:DRAFTOBJECT.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

My legal friend is correct, though in most cases I'd say subversion of the AfC process is not that heinous a crime, given that it is fundamentally a WikiProject (in cases of COI and paid editing, that's where it becomes a bigger deal). Sdrqaz (talk) 11:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Leave it alone? AfC is optional, and the reviewer's opinion that the article belongs in draftspace carries no more weight than the author's opinion that it belongs in mainspace. Unless you have any evidence that they were deliberately trying to 'subvert' our processes, I don't think we should punish a new editor for trying to write an encyclopaedia article. – Joe (talk) 11:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with everyone above. There have even been proposals (although I cannot remember how well supported) to prohibit the unilateral moving of pages from mainspace to draftspace - such moves would require a consensus discussion. If you are really sure that the page doesn't belong in mainspace and you aren't able to improve it yourself then take it to AfD. If you don't think it should be deleted then there isn't actually a problem with it being in mainspace. Thryduulf (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Leaving it alone, as the purpose of this discussion is met, which is that for a Article > Draft > Draft deleted > Article recreated scenario, we don't have a CSD available. Although I would say that the "roundabout way" is the "evidence", in addition to the user removing from their talk page the feedback/objections regarding the initial article and my point about the self-delete request.

@Thryduulf: can you point me to the proposals? Jay (talk) 10:27, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 148#Workshopping: Integrate draftification into the deletion policy and (semi-followup) Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 148#Is lack of sourcing an accepted reason to remove notable subjects from mainspace? are two such discussions. They aren't the one I was thinking of, which was definitely more recent than 2018, but I can't remember where that is and my searches have failed to find it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at WP:AN

Please see WP:AN#Is it appropriate for articles to be deleted via CSD G5 while undergoing an AfD?, which has branched out to other types of speedy deletion during AfDs. Awkward42 (talk) [the alternate account of Thryduulf (talk)] 06:09, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

U6: User page created by someone else other than its owner without the owner's permission

Creating a user page for someone else is like interfering with their free will when the owner of the user page doesn't want to have a user page.

Evidence: [1] Faster than Thunder (talk) 00:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I've always assumed that WP:U1 covered this if the unwanted page is created in your userspace? Hog Farm _Talk 00:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

This request makes no sense. The provided evidence is a single incident on some wiki unrelated to any WMF sites, and as pointed out by Hog Farm, is already covered. -- Whpq (talk) 01:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Given 99.9% of scenarios where this is a problem would be covered by G2, G3, G6, or U1 (and the remainder could be safely managed by ignoring the rules), this proposal strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. --Jack Frost (talk) 11:27, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree U1 already covers this, this is the difference between G7 and U1 otherwise U1 would be redundant to G7. G2 or G3 could also be used or the page could be moved into the author's userspace and the resulting redirect deleted. I'd also note though that if the user page has had substantial interactions from others such as User:Crouch, Swale/Year DAB or has been linked to significantly like User:Grutness/One street per 50,000 people then U1 should generally not be applied. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@Faster than Thunder: Why have you brought this here? Scratch Wiki is nothing to do with English Wikipedia, or indeed any other WMF wiki. Each wiki is free to define their own rules, and that includes the CSD criteria. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

There are situations where it is perfectly fine for someone else to create a userpage without the permission of the user, e.g. if someone has been blocked for sockpuppetry then it's common for their userpage to be tagged as being a sockpuppet. But yes if someone else has created your userpage without your permission and you want to get rid of it then you can use U1. Hut 8.5 12:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

If the page is for a user that doesn't exist, U2 works. If it's for a user that does exist and doesn't want it, U1 works. A large exception is that SPI clerks frequently create pages to tag sockpuppets, although I could see this very easily becoming a pain for the folks there if some trigger-happy Twinkle users misinterpret it. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 12:18, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Blocked users cannot edit their user pages, so they wouldn't be able to U1 a sock-tagged page. Not sure what you mean about Twinkle, but there are a few clerks who remove templates from inappropriately-tagged pages. Primefac (talk) 12:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I assume what my hoofed friend meant about Twinkle were non-blocked users seeing a blocked user's statement to the effect of "please delete my userpage, I'm not a sock" and tagging it under U1. We see that sometimes with "retired" users making off-wiki requests or pleas in their "retirement" statements for all their user pages to be deleted. As U1 has already carved out an exception for "administrative need to retain the page", they shouldn't be deleted anyways (though I suppose other user pages are fair game). Sdrqaz (talk) 12:55, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

That or some people misinterpreting U6 and noticing that SPI clerks have been creating lots of userpages of other accounts, and tagging them as U6 since they would technically meet the criteria. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 13:33, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, right, forgot what we were discussing! Primefac (talk) 13:47, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

There is no such criterion as U6. I do wish people wouldn't invent codes for proposed new criteria, even worse to then refer to that code in discussion as if it already existed. If the proposal is agreed, the text of the criterion will be added to the WP:CSD page proper, at which point (and no earlier) the next unused code will be assigned. Otherwise, we run the risk that there are two or more discussions (which may be archived) proposing the same code for different new criteria. ==Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:37, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

And yes regarding sock tags, if a user page is created with {{Sockpuppet}} or {{Sockpuppeteer}} and it is determined that the tag was completely incorrect meaning the user was probably not a sockpuppet or sockpuppeteer then the user page can be deleted under G6 (which I've seen the 1st happen before) or it could be deleted under U1 if not. If a sockpuppeteer is only blocked temporarily or is later unblocked then they could U1 (but not G6) their user page when no longer blocked. With a sockpuppet if the account is unblocked due to it not being a serious misuse of an alternative account then again U1 (but not G6) could be used. However this could probably not be used for a sockpuppeteer who still has their socks blocked even if it can be used on their main account's user page. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Several years ago, I did see one sockmaster unblocked who requested to be allowed to use one of their sock accounts as their new sole account, which was agreed. The userpage of their old master account was, iirc, redirected to the userpage of their old sock/new sole account, which was made into a normal userpage that linked the accounts (I can't remember what was done with the pages of the other socks, but I guess they were left alone). Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of either account, but I do remember thinking that of all the account names they had to choose from, the one they made their new sole account would not have been my choice!. Anyway, my point was that simply overwriting the pages without deletion is going to be possible (and often preferable) in many cases. Thryduulf (talk) 20:30, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Preferably overwritten but I think we would honor a U1 request if the user was unblocked. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:01, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion idea

Hello, folks,

This is not a formal proposal, I just wanted to float an idea out here to see if it might have any support. I spend much of my time these days looking at and deleting expiring drafts and user pages that fit the CSD G13 guidelines. But what I see a lot of aren't drafts at all but what I like to term "Social media profile pages".

From the information supplied on the pages over the past 18 months, here is the typical profile of the editors who set these up: They are mostly male, between the ages of 12 and about 30 (although most are under 21 years of age), in middle or high school or at a first job, they typically include their name, date of birth, the names of their parents and siblings, the name of their school and home town/village and their hobbies or talents or what they'd like to do after education. Typically, the editors who set these pages up in draft space have between 1-3 edits in their whole editing career and they are all to set up "their page". It's very much like a profile page you'd see on Facebook or some other social media platform.

It doesn't seem logical to label these as G13 "drafts" because they aren't prose so much as a list of personal qualities or family facts and there is 0% chance of them becoming an article. Pages like these usually get tagged and deleted as CSD G11 "advertising/promotion" but they aren't like a pseudo-LinkedIn page, the editor isn't selling themselves or trying to publicize their career, they are mostly too young for that. The CSD criteria that seems closest is WP:NOTWEBHOST except instead of putting this information on their main User page, it's on a draft page with their name (or their pseudonym and it seems like these days so many young people create pseudonyms).

I see dozens of pages like these and I sense no bad intent here, it mostly seems like these young people do not understand what an encyclopedia is. Their school's libraries probably don't have physical encyclopedias any more, Wikipedia probably just seems like a website where everyone has their own page. So, do you think there is a chance of a speedy deletion criteria for "personal profile pages" or autobiographies? I know that autobiographies are strongly discouraged but they aren't grounds for deletion. Or should we just let them expire on CSD G13 grounds and hope that these kids don't return one day to ask for them all to be restored at WP:REFUND? Thanks for reading through this, I welcome your feedback. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

If they're all in draft-space, G13 seems fine? If they're in user-space but for some reason wouldn't be eligible for U5, I think that might be worthwhile -- but I think we can have a bit more room for "eh, it's not useful but it's harmless" in draftspace, especially given that almost all will be deleted within six months. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:07, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. G13 has the months-long delay during which these article fill the various queues. Also, sometimes it's minors adding personal information about themselves which is a concern. The main issue for such a deletion criterium is how to differentiate between one of these no-hopers and drafts with potential - I am thinking something like "no indication of importance" akin to the current A7 might work, but that would run into issues with drafts that aren't finished yet. Perhaps "unedited in a week and no claim of relevance"? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

If minors are posting personal information about anybody (whether themselves or anybody else), apply WP:REVDEL#Hiding oversightable material prior to Oversight and inform WP:OVERSIGHT immediately. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I know that, but if it happens very frequently it might be beneficial to delete the article immediately instead of going through that procedure. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

It's more work and thus draws more attention to oversight a deleted page than to oversight and delete at the same time, and most of the time only parts of the draft are problematic so should simply be redacted and old revisions oversighted. If the draft is actually causing problems then nominate it at MfD, otherwise just leave it. If the problem is with editorial queues then fix the queues. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Would userfying those kinds of pages be an option? Or would it then immediately fall under U5 ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

To answer some of these questions, I've seen "social media profiles", as I call them, from as young as an editor who claimed they were 9 years old. Their personal and business pages were revision deleted by another admin and it seemed to be part of a business project surrounding this youngster as they had other active social media accounts and, unfortunately, on YouTube, very young kids are huge business generators which, honestly, makes me ill. But draft profiles from editors who are 12 or 13 years old are not uncommon. But mostly, they announce birthdays during the 1999-2007 period, so we are talking 14-21 year olds, middle-school through college. They all include their social media accounts (mostly Instagram) along with providing biographical information.

As far as solutions, maybe they should be moved to their main User Pages or, I guess, G13 will take care of them, since these editors seem to rarely revisit Wikipedia once they set up a profile page...they seem focused on "grabbing" a page with their name on it before it gets taken. Once they set it up, they don't seem interested in maintaining or developing it which is good news for us (as opposed to those persistent self-promoters). So, I guess they aren't doing any harm. I think I was concerned because of how they have clearly misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia, because of their youth and because I did fear a lot of requests at WP:REFUND to restore these pages which will never become articles. But I have already gone to the few admins who regularly patrol REFUND and alerted them to this phenomena so maybe I'm just worrying about something that hasn't been demonstrated to be a problem yet.

And, I guess, since I see so many of these every day, I wanted to alert other interested parties about this pages in case they become a problem in the future. Like I said, I don't have a proposal, I just wanted to raise the issue. I appreciate all of your feedback and if I see anything that I think compromises the safety of children, like addresses and email accounts, I'll revision delete or simply delete these pages. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:08, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I realize this discussion is nothing without examples, so here are some that I just came across Draft:Prasmit Bugad, Draft:Amari Thompson, Draft:Geet, Draft:Muddasir Ali, Draft:Abu Taher, Draft:Numaan Sheikh, Draft:Shivam kaushik and Draft:Swayam kore. Some of these are more career-related but they popped up while I was looking for examples. Clearly, none of these will be articles. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

As stated by Redrose above, the best course of action when faced with private information ("anything that I think compromises the safety of children, like addresses and email accounts") is to forward it to the Oversight team; I've arranged for two of the drafts mentioned here to be suppressed. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

This never fails, every time I list pages on a talk page to show a specific problem, those pages get deleted which prevents non-admins from seeing what I'm talking about! I could have deleted the pages myself, that wasn't the goal, the goal was to be able to show what the problem is, how it appears. I have stopped mentioning specific pages with problems when I go to user talk pages to talk to an editor or admin about them. Every time, some well-meaning talk page stalker always ends up deleting the problematic page that is the focus of the discussion. I'm an admin, if I simply wanted these pages deleted, I could have done this myself! Well, at least two of these pages are left which can give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

I understand that oversight might have been necessary (though I seriously doubt the page that stated something along the lines of "Jacob is a 7 year old boy" is actually written by a 7 year old boy), I think that page was a hoax but I understand that oversighters have to take this stuff seriously. But all of the other pages didn't need to be immediately deleted once they were pointed out. It defeats the purpose of directing people to look at them before they hit the G13 expiration date. Well, thanks for leaving two of them untouched. Maybe I should have left a disclaimer stating, "Please do not delete these junk draft pages! They will eventually be deleted any way." Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Drafts aren't owned by their creators. Failing removal, feel free to edit them in every way that would be appropriate if you were genuinely working to improve the draft with a view to publication some day: remove inappropriate external links (WP:EL, WP:ELMINOFFICIAL); remove unsourced content; remove advertising; remove subjective content. Leave a kind explanation on their user talk page. If the creator takes issue with this, and subsequent rounds of explanation and protest lead to the the user acknowledging that their purpose is something other than service to the Wikipedia readership, then any subsequent inappropriate edits can be treated as they would be in article space, perhaps as disruptive editing, with a set of escalating warnings to ensue. Hopefully it won't often come to that, as I take as given from the overviews above that it's all meant quite innocently. Instead, I hope it would enlighten them or else frustrate them enough to cut down on this activity. Largoplazo (talk) 03:35, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

What if the entire article is nothing but subjective, unsourced, promotional content? The examples that Liz listed above seem to be those kinds of articles. Wouldn't deletion then be the sensible thing to do? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 12:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't making an argument for or against deletion. As I began my second sentence, I was offering a suggestion "[f]ailing removal", should deletion not be a supportable option. Largoplazo (talk) 12:35, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I do like the idea of a speedy deletion criterion for pages that primarily contain excessive personal information. It doesn't quite fit WP:G10; it's more a "this is for your own good, seriously" criteria when a 13 year old female posts their name, date of birth, interests and location - that should be obliterated immediately and without waiting for discussion as part of our child protection policies. In the example that Liz gives above, if the user objects I would give a response along the lines of "please tell your teacher to contact the Arbitration Committee" (or some other responsible body that can manage parent/teacher - child relationships) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:43, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how G10 comes into this, given that they aren't attack pages. I fear that the creation of this new speedy deletion criterion (and of course, its corresponding subcategory at CAT:CSD) will lead to a huge Streisand violation. The point of our child protection policy is that we do not give prominence to these things because doing so would harm the child in question. It's also why administrators are recommended not to bring attention to such information when they carry out RD4. Bad actors that watch this subcategory (which would of course be public, like any other CSD category) would easily have a list of "targets", defeating the whole point. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:15, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I still think we need a way of dealing with this. I'm not an Oversighter so I don't know if it's possible to "oversight delete" a page, and what a normal user sees (presumably the same as a non-existent page)? If that's not possible, perhaps we need a feature request raised? Even so, it would still be worthwhile speedy deleting the article and also contacting oversight, in the same way we revision delete edits now pending an oversighter turning up. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

When a page is suppressdeleted (Wikipedia:Oversight § Actions #5), there is no deletion log entry (§ Logging) – it's as if the page never existed. Going off what Thryduulf said, it's preferable to perform just RD4 without a page deletion. I think it's acceptable to delete such pages as an extension of RD4 (especially when there aren't any Oversighters online; there are certainly some black spots), as long as you don't bring attention to it by using a log entry of "private information" or "suppressible information", as some administrators still do when using RD4. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:52, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree fully with Sdrqaz. If you ever encounter a page where a minor appears to have disclosed too much personal information about themselves, please contact the oversight team immediately (e.g. via Special:EmailUser/Oversight). The oversight team has a longstanding practice of suppressing such pages when they are found (it is indeed possible to "oversight delete" a page). It is okay for administrators to use revision deletion per WP:RD4 to redact such content while an oversight request is pending. If the entire page needs to be deleted, then that's fine (you can also blank the page and redact the historical revisions under WP:RD4). One discreet delete reason I liked to use was WP:BLPDELETE, which allows administrators to "delete first, discuss later" when it comes to sensitive information about living persons—it covers a broader range of scenarios than WP:G10. Mz7 (talk) 11:25, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I do like the idea of a speedy deletion criterion for pages that primarily contain excessive personal information, yes, this is what I mean. Right now, I've been tagging some of these social media profile pages as "G2 Test pages/G11 Promotion combos" as a sign to admins at WP:REFUND that these weren't "advertising" as we see with pseudo-LinkedIn pages but that the pages shouldn't be restored. I do see pages like these as a kind of "test page" because it's clear that the editor doesn't know what they are doing or what a draft article is. But they aren't really promoting themselves either, it's really like a misplaced User page that, unfortunately, is in Draft space. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Even if it doesn't contain RD4 stuff, it's still obvious to me that this stuff should be deleted because it's not remotely related to Wikipedia's goals. I think it would be best and easiest to just make U5 a general criterion. It basically already covers these kinds of pages, just currently only in the userspace. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I think extending U5 to draftspace is a very good idea, although it's been rejected before on (of all things) the basis that it wouldn't be used often enough to make it worthwhile. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:32, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure any of these examples actually meet the letter of U5, which is to put stuff that isn't anything to do with an encyclopaedia or writing one in userspace - any user page with basic biographic information is okay (as long as it doesn't violate any other policies). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: which letter of U5 does it not meet? As far as I can tell the ony thing about it that would have to be generalised is where the owner has made few or no edits outside of user pages. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:22, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

That they are not user pages, but drafts. 🐔dat (talk) 11:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the point is to repurpose this criterion to apply to any userpage or draft (or maybe just any page at all). Yeah it'd have to be reworded a bit, but the spirit is the same: pages that are a blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a webhost, and not a plausible draft. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 12:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Expanding U5 to draftspace has been proposed and rejected multiple times. Please read the archived discussions before proposing it again. Thryduulf (talk) 14:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't the only reason for it being rejected earlier that it wouldn't be used frequently enough? I think it has already shown in this discussion that these kinds of situations do happen frequently. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

No that was not the only reason. In the most recent discussion there were concerns that most of what could be deleted using this criterion either can already be speedy deleted (G11 or G3 mainly), should just wait for G13 or should not be speedily deleted at all. Add to that the G10 and RD4 material brought up in this discussion and you are left with very little that is actually problematic, and that can be sent to MfD without overloading it. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that the U5 criterium is fairly subjective. That's already a problem in userspace but it would probably be amplified in draftspace as people would confuse poorly written drafts with NOTWEBHOST violations. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:50, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that if U5 was expanded to draftspace then it would end up being used by people to delete any draft they think is very poor quality, even if it is an attempt to write an encyclopedia article. U5 is widely abused in userspace. Hut 8.5 20:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you have examples of U5 abuse in userspace? SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This is getting a bit off topic, but if a new user tries to create a userpage with any autobiographical content then it is likely to be deleted under U5. E.g. User:Kumar Sagar 1177 consisted of 100 words about the user - where he lived, where he went to school, etc. It survived less than 10 minutes before it was deleted under U5. Hut 8.5 12:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I was heavily involved in the creation of U5, so I am interested to hear of problems. Autobiographies by non-contributors were definitely in scope for U5. Autobiographies by non-contributors were 100% SNOW deleted when nominated at MfD. The only real question about speedy U5 deletion of non-contributor autobiography posts was how long to wait to see if they would become contributors. I suggested a week, but many others said don’t wait, and I couldn’t find a single example of a contributor who began editing with a Userpage autobiography.

I don’t think your example is “abuse”, but is according to the intention.

Back to draftspace, I think that an obvious autobiography by a non-contributor, posted to draftspace, should be deleted, quickly and easily. The WP:NEWCSD question is whether it is already deleteable per WP:G11.

My actually preference is to prevent unregistered and unautoconfirmed users from creating draftspace pages. Newcomers should get mainspace experience first. The ones that seem to know what they are doing are throwaway WP:UPE WP:SOCKS. — SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The problem with using U5 in this manner is that it clashes with Wikipedia:User pages#What may I have in my user pages? which is explicitly acknowledged in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a blog, Web hosting service, social networking service, or memorial site: Limited autobiographical information is allowed Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) U5 explicitly cites that page though right? If something falls under Wikipedia:User pages § What may I have in my user pages? it automatically can't qualify for U5. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

And yet User:Kumar Sagar 1177 - the example cited by Hut 8.5 above - was deleted. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That's my point - U5 is being widely abused in userspace. SmokeyJoe asked for an example, so I gave that one. It wasn't hard to find either. Hut 8.5 17:52, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

But is the problem then with the criterion, or with the admins not even reading the criterion they are using? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 18:13, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I do not agree. As much churn as AFC has to deal with, there's a lot of very high quality page creations from new users that we would never get otherwise. Speaking from personal experience, I think Rockfall protection embankment is a good example of this.

Even though writing an article is by far one of the hardest tasks to perform, that doesn't mean it's impossible, and there is very little benefit to actually making it impossible. Perryprog (talk) 15:43, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, good point. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at WT:Deletion process

I have started a discussion at WT:Deletion process#Speedy deletion - "please verify" vs "must verify" about the language used on that page regarding verifying a page meets the speedy deletion criteria before deleting it. Please comment there rather than here to keep discussion in one place. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

A12: Long-term, completely unsourced article

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.

---

A12: Long-term, completely unsourced article [edit] Shortcut: WP:A12

This applies to any article (excluding redirects or disambiguation pages) that has existed for at least one year and has never had any sources of any kind, including external links, and in which a basic Google search provides no sources, including external links.

{{Db-a12}}, {{Db-unsourced}}

How about it? 🐔dat (talk) 12:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. If it’s long term, it deserves its week at AfD. If it’s long term, you are not even allowed to Draftify it. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - If there is no assertion of notability, then A7 sort of covers this. If there is an assertion of notability, then it should go to AFD. -- Whpq (talk) 14:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. Please give examples of this situation occurring that were not or could not be covered by other criteria. 331dot (talk) 14:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Most articles that this is true for are either the kind that no one would challenge a PROD on or the kind covered by some niche SNG or another. I'd happily join a discussion about tightening some of those niche SNGs, but CSD ain't the way to go about that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 14:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see why PROD could not be used instead. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Here's an example from my own creations: Primas Germaniae, unsourced since 2006 (it's how we wrote articles back in the Dark Ages). A "basic Google search" gives mostly Wikipedia mirrors and clones. (Of course GBooks or GScholar immediately tell you this is a notable subject). Yes, it should have sourced added to it, but there is absolutely no reason it should be speedily deleted. —Kusma (talk) 15:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. If it's lasted a year, send it through PROD or let the community decide what to do with it. —C.Fred (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose for several reasons:

• The scope is potentially enormous: Category:All articles lacking sources has 150,000 articles in it and the vast majority have been tagged for at least a year. Admittedly some of them are likely mistagged but the proposal would allow the immediate deletion of a huge number of articles.
• "a basic Google search provides no sources" is vague. It is highly likely that searching Google for the article title will find something, even if it's something which is completely unsuitable for inclusion in the article as a source (e.g. social media, blog/forum posts, Wikipedia mirrors, bot-generated clickbait junk, etc). If the existence of such a "source" disqualifies an article from this criterion then the criterion is essentially useless. If that's not the case then the criterion is expecting the reviewing admin to make a judgement about the reliability/independence of a source, which isn't a suitable subject for a speedy deletion criterion - editors often disagree about the reliability of a source.
• Speedy deletion is intended for cases where almost everyone agrees the article should be deleted. That's not the case here. If you took an unsourced article to AfD with no rationale other than "unsourced" then there's a fair chance it will survive, because what counts is whether sources exist, not whether they're in the article.

Hut 8.5 17:48, 17 January 2022 (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.

CDS-A3 notice: horrible text

About the WP:A3 notice {{Db-nocontent-notice}}. The boilerplate notice text is needless paternalising as if the author is a newby ("Welcome to Wikipedia"). IMO the text should be more generic, or at least allow an option (newby = non-default).

If it is me that is missing something: also its documentation is chaotic up to the point that it is useless (mixing up namespaces with text and parameters). I propose to at least split into namspace sections like ===Category namespace===.

-DePiep (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The page is not protected, so feel free to make the edits you feel are appropriate. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

A10 Question

I have a question about what I think is a good-faith misuse of A10. An article was created on an organization in article space. It was then moved into draft space by a reviewer as not ready for article space. I haven't reviewed it in depth, and so do not have an opinion as to whether I think it should be in article space or in draft space. The author then created another copy, which appears to be the same as the draft, in article space. It was then tagged by the reviewer for speedy deletion, A10, as duplicating the draft. The author is clearly trying to jump the AFC queue. The use of AFC is optional, only encouraged. It appears to me that the wording of A10 is that the article that has been tagged should duplicate an existing article. I don't think that the wording of A10 includes duplicating a draft. So, first, should the article in article space be deleted as A10, or should the A10 be declined? Second, should the criterion for A10 be clarified, or is it already clear? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

If the A10 is declined, then a review is needed to determine whether to approve the article or send the article to AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The A10 criterion only applies to any recently created article with no relevant page history that duplicates an existing English Wikipedia article (emphasis mine). Drafts are not existing English Wikipedia article, so the A10 deletion should be declined, and no clarification is necessary. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I stated this elsewhere yesterday: A10 is one of the most consistently-misapplied criteria. Looking at the last ten or so A10s, I'd say the vast majority are plain wrong, some are borderline, and none were unambiguously correct. Examples of bad ones include ones where the title were plausible redirects (1, 2, 3), one where the "article" it was duplicating was in draftspace (4), and two that were obviously incorrect on being both A10 and G12 (5, 6), as the titles were plausible redirects and being "unattributed copy" of another article just means you have to provide attribution, not G12 them. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is consistently misapplied - a quick check of the A10 category turned up this. Probably need to make it clear in the A10 instructions that drafts are not included in "existing Wikipedia article" (aren't duplicates of drafts/articles generally resolved with redirecting the draft to the article?). Hog Farm _Talk 19:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. That's the one I was azking about.McClenon mobile (talk) 21:15, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

We could edit {{Db-a10}} to show an error if the specified page is a draft which would hopefully discourage such deletions? Elli (talk | contribs) 21:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. However, {{db-a10}} already makes it clear that it only applies to an article that "does not expand upon, detail, or improve information within the existing article(s) on the subject", so administrators aren't reading the templates before deleting. I suspect that part of the problem is that Twinkle uses "duplicates an existing topic", which is a little vague in my opinion and the old wording of the policy. I think a change there would help too. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

So my question is: Are the criteria for A10 Objective, Uncontestable, Frequent, and Nonredundant? How frequent is a real use, and how often is it objective and uncontestable? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

What we actually have here is a conflict between an editor who is submitting an article, and is then jumping the queue, and a reviewer who wants to use review processes. There is no rule against jumping the queue. Also, many reviewers prefer to move an article back into draft space rather than either accept it or send it to AFD, for the simple reason that draftifying is quick, and AFD is hard work, as well as being unpopular. In this case, the article could no longer be draftified, because there was also already a draft that was the same as the article, so CSD seemed like another easy way to avoid AFD, but was an incorrect way. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I can answer that A10 is a useful criterion, definitely better to have it. My favorite example (an old one but a good one) is Beer belly causes; clearly not an article, no possibility it could ever be one, and no other criteria cover it. For a more recent example, INDIA : RELIEF FEATURES had no business existing for any longer than the time it took for someone to delete it. That people may not be using it right means one of two things, that the criterion just needs to be clearer or that people are using it to get rid of pages as a back door IAR; if the former then rewrite the criterion, and if the latter see (as was the case for A11) what other pages people are using it for and determine if that's worthy of its own criterion. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Looking through my CSD log, I've used it three times since April 2021 (for context, in that period I've apparently nominated ~670 pages). It's not frequently used, but useful. I'd say it's "objective and uncontestable" (certainly far more than criteria like G11 and A7) – the issue is administrators and taggers using it incorrectly. Perhaps a wake-up call in the administrators' newsletter is in order. As for "jumping the queue", I think current practice at NPP is out of sync with policy and it will come to a head soon. Sdrqaz (talk) 00:49, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Completely agree. It's unacceptable to draftify something more than once. If someone resists draftification, the proper thing to do is to take the article to AfD (or tag it with a relevant CSD). Elli (talk | contribs) 03:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I also agree that draftifying something more than once is unacceptable. If you and someone else disagree that a page is ready for mainspace (which by moving the page or adding a new copy in mainspace they are very clearly doing) then either leave it or nominate it at AfD - prod is not an option because (a) draftifying is essentially the same as a prod, and (b) deletion would clearly not be uncontroversial.

More generally, if admins are not reading the criteria associated with a speedy deletion criterion before using it then they have no business being an administrator. If they are doing this using Twinkle or something similar then their access to that tool should be revoked until AN/ANI is satisfied they understand deletion policy and will apply it correctly going forwards. Thryduulf (talk) 22:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

General A10 criteria

I suggest moving A10 to a new G15. A6 and A8 were merged with G10 and G12 and others like G5 and G11 etc also apply to all namespaces even though in practice they normally apply to articles. R3, which is what criteria would be used for articles an other pages if they were just created as redirects. See discussion with User:Thryduulf at User talk:Thryduulf#Redirected pages at RFD though that discussion also concerns if content can be deleted at RFD. If someone for example created Sufolk, county in England with "Suffolk is a county in England, its capital is Ipswich". This would be deletable under A10 since the title is implausible and it doesn't contain any mergable content not in Suffolk and if someone created Sufolk, county in England as a redirect it would be deletable under R3. If someone created {{Sufolk, county in England}} as a redirect to {{Suffolk}} it would be deletable under R3 but yet if someone created {{Sufolk, county in England}} it wouldn't be deletable and someone could get around R3, that doesn't make sense. As with G1 and G2 I'd exclude the userspace and possibly also the draftspace. It should also be noted that for things like templates and categories that admins should make sure the page is orphaned before deletion such as moving pages to the correct category or transcluding the correct template.

1. Objective, there is already a consensus that duplicate articles created at implausible titles that if created as redirects can be deleted and there's a consensus that recent implausible redirects in any namespace can be deleted under R3 so there's no logical reason it can't apply to duplicates in other namespaces that if created as redirects straight away would be deletable under R3. A10 already states "The title chosen for the vast majority of duplicate articles will be a plausible misspelling of, or alternative name for, the existing article, and a redirect should be created instead of deletion. This criterion should, accordingly, only be used rarely, and only for pages where the title could be speedily deleted as a redirect."
2. Uncontestable, as mentioned this already applies to redirects and there's a consensus we shouldn't have duplicates in any namespace.
3. Frequent, while duplicates are less common in other namespaces they likely happen often enough for a criteria, the same is relevant to other G criteria such as G11 rarely applies to templates but can.
4. Nonredundant, no criteria other than perhaps G6 could be used.

The wording would be the same as A10 currently is other than the fact the word "article" would be replaced by "page" and perhaps the thing about orphaning it first may be needed. It may need to be clarified if it would apply only to pages in the same namespace as the original or would apply if the page was moved to the correct namespace, otherwise G6 may apply.

We could also merge F1 with the new criteria but note that F9 (unambiguous copyright infringement exists separate to G12).

• Option A, have G15 like G12 while keeping F1 separate.
• Option B, have G15 and merge F1 with it. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose both options. As I explained on my talk page there is no consensus that every page this would allow to be speedily deleted should be deleted (let alone speedily deleted), indeed it was part of the reason T3 was deprecated. The nominator also notes that duplicates outside article space being deleted is not very frequent. The comments about redirects here, in as much as they make sense, are largely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• If someone creates an article in templatespace, and if moved to mainspace it would be eligible for A-series speedy deletion, doesn't that usually just get G6'd as wrong namespace? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Perhaps but I was talking about if someone creates a page in the correct namespace that is a duplicate of another in the same namespace. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose You have presented a single example, and it's a situation rare enough that I don't remember ever having seen it before, and if it really needs speedy deletion, it seems like G6 (obviously created in error) might cover it. That said, this doesn't seem like anything that our deletion discussion venues can't handle - it's just too rare of a situation. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:31, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Then why have R3 that covers all namespaces but not if the page was create separately? Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose this could definitely lead to undesirable consequences e.g. you wouldn't be able to have multiple drafts on the same topic, or potentially even multiple nominations of the same page for deletion. I also don't see much of an argument that this actually happens - do you have some concrete real-world examples of cases where this criterion would have been useful? Hut 8.5 17:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Hut 8.5: As I suggested the draft namespace should probably be excluded as G13 normally takes care of that but if one user nominates Whiteside, Northumberland for deletion and creates Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whiteside, Northumberland and another the creates Wikipedia:Articles for diletion/Whiteside, Northumberland or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitiside, Northumberland with no additional reasons then they should be deleted. If the correct title didn't exist the page would be moved without creating a redirect such as moving Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitiside, Northumberland to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whiteside, Northumberland without redirect and if Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitiside, Northumberland was created as a redirect to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whiteside, Northumberland it would already meet R3. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:27, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  All of those misspelling examples that you mention are probably covered under G6, as a page obviously created in error - or, rename to the correct spelling and delete the redirect as G6. If someone opens multiple discussions on the same article and the spelling errors aren't so horrible, you can easily redirect it to the correctly spelled deletion discussion. Once again, you haven't made a case that we need this. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, a mistaken title would likely qualify for G6 as a page obviously created by mistake, or G7 if the creator realises the mistake and tags it for deletion. But I can see this criterion being applied to genuine nominations. For example say an article is nominated for deletion on the grounds that the subject isn't notable, and then some time later another AfD is started, again on the grounds that the subject isn't notable (either the article survived the first AfD or it was deleted and then recreated). The second AfD is arguably a duplicate of the first, in that they both consist of nominating the same article for deletion for the same reason. Hut 8.5 14:22, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  The second AfD is most definitely not a duplicate of the first, but a separate discussion - Of course, if seeing the AfD prompts a G4 of the previously deleted article, before anyone comments on the AfD, then the AfD is a page dependent on a non-existent page and can be deleted for that reason. And, of course, a condition of A10 is that the title is not a plausible redirect, which almost never happens in deletion discussions. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  If an AFD was created after a different one is closed it should be taken as a new AFD and moved to the correct title if necessary such as with (2nd nomination) and allowed to continue or speedy close if appropriate. If an AFD is created for the same page while another for the same article is in progress and it doesn't include any new arguments than the older one it can be deleted under this and the author of the new AFD pointed to the correct location. So yes this would only apply to discussions when an older one is still in progress otherwise the newer one would be moved to the correct location without redirect. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:04, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

  How often does this happen? In the past year I've been aware of exactly one instance where duplicate AfDs were (sort of) created - the page was nominated twice but only the 2nd nomination page was actually created. On that occasion I created and speedily closed the first nomination page, pointing to the ongoing discussion and removed the first AfD tag. No deletion was required at all. If both discussions had been in use then the correct course of action would be to close one, point all participants and the other and mention this on the continuing discussion. The closed discussion should not be deleted. Indeed, I can't think of any occasion when deletion would be a good idea when G6 or G7 would not apply. Thryduulf (talk) 08:01, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Another idea

Should unsuitable (rejected) drafts be eligible for deletion sooner? – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 06:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe so. A rejected draft is no less amenable to sufficient improvement to be published than it would be if it had been published directly into article space and rejected from there into draft space. In both cases, rejection is the opportunity to communicate to the author what improvements might be possible. Largoplazo (talk) 06:49, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: Are you confusing rejection with declining? – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 07:18, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by "declining"? A person submits a draft to be considered for publication through AFC. Either it's approved or it's rejected. Right? If I misunderstood you, it might in part because you asked whether such drafts should be eligible for deletion "sooner" without having said sooner than what. Largoplazo (talk) 07:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: A decline means the draft can be improved and resubmitted (e.g. unsourced, notability not demonstrated, npov, etc). A rejection means the article is not suitable (e.g. not notable, contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia) – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 08:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

And I meant sooner than the normal 6 month waiting period (G13) – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 08:18, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

What is the benefit to the encyclopaedia of this proposal? Is the distinction between "decline" and "reject" used consistently by every reviewer? What happens to edge cases (e.g. WP:TOOSOON)? Is the distinction clearly communicated to draft authors? How will you ensure that, if enacted, this proposal will not WP:BITE? Thryduulf (talk) 11:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Thryduulf:

This is an example of a declined draft. It seems to have potential and can be improved.

...and this is a rejected draft. Rejected drafts are clearly unsuitable.

When a draft is rejected, there is usually no reason to keep it for 6 months. Also, I don't see how this would be BITEy. What I'm proposing is essentially a shorter G13 timer. – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't actually answer any of the questions I asked. Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

No. Six months is not very long. The rejected draft needs to stay live if the author is to be able to review what they did and why it was rejected. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• For a start I'm not keen on what seems like a steady flow of proposals to make it easier to delete drafts. The fact an AfC reviewer doesn't think a draft isn't suitable doesn't necessarily mean it can't be improved to make it suitable. AfC reviewers aren't infallible, especially when they're being asked to predict the future. Nor do I see any particular benefit to the encyclopedia from deleting these drafts sooner, especially if that means we have to invest more resources into draft deletion. "There's no reason to keep these around" is not a great reason to delete something in any case. Hut 8.5 18:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Set of articles using "title/version x" format

Hi, looking at another issue, I have come across a set of 500 plus articles in article space that use the format "title/version x" (or similar) eg:

• Beyond Good and Evil (book)/version 2
• Bi Rain/version 2
• Beslan school siege/version 2

I have looked at a small sample. They appear to have been made into redirects and appear to be abandoned drafts, material that has subsequently been merged into another article or have been created as a holding space for a particular version. As such, they would appear to be candidates for speedy deletion: G13. Abandoned Drafts and Articles for creation submissions. While some may have a small edit history of arguable consequence, others don't.

I am wondering what might be the best approach for dealing with these. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 08:49, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

X3. 🐔dat (talk) 11:13, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: Hope you don't mind, I've turned those unlinked titles into {{-r}} links for others' convenience.

It looks like these are from some earlier era of history-swaps/history-merges. @Anthony Appleyard: The three examples given above are all your moves. Can you provide any insight into them? Is this a case where the pages need to be kept for attribution? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 11:29, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and to the policy question, I don't think that this is at all covered by G13, but depending on Anthony's answer it may be covered by G6, although given the pages' age an RfD might be the better way forward regardless. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 11:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

This was a common way of working 15+ years ago. Some of these pages may have editing history that made it into the main article, or demonstrate interesting internal feuds. Best leave them alone. Alternatives are moving to Talk subpages (if they are for some reason disturbing people while in mainspace) or RfD/MfD/AfD if deletion is truly necessary. As you say "some may have a small edit history of arguable consequence", so these are not possible candidates for speedy deletion. —Kusma (talk) 11:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

It might have been best to have merged the history and is still an option in some cases (few) cases where there is some reasonable extent of history. They are really very hidden in terms of knowing how to find any history and they are generally quite old because they are using the forward slash to create a sub-article. There are perhaps 3 - 5 categories of these articles in respect to how they might be treated. I am quite prepared to go through them and classify them and present small batches (say 10) of each category to be considered. Not necessarily all categories would be for "speedy" but I think there will be a goodly proportion that are just cruft and would meet G13. For me, this will also be a longer-term project. Just looking for some feedback. 11:57, 24 January 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinderella157 (talk • contribs)

These aren't drafts, so they don't meet G13. Pages left over for technical reasons sometimes meet G6, but when it comes to the preservation of the history, that's a legal requirement. If a page merger or such leads to content winding up on one page, where the diffs were created on another page, then either the other page's history must be preserved, or a full list of the other page's contributors must be added to the new page's history or talkpage. Generally there's been a strong preference for the former option. (There's also the detail of the new page linking back to the old page in some way, but if that's been omitted it can always be fixed.) So usually what winds up happening if there's a page in mainspace at a deletable title, but with history that needs to be preserved, it either gets moved to a plausible redirect title or it becomes a talk subpage. That's the kind of thing RfD is good at figuring out usually. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 12:06, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I have not delved into the world of deletions before (except to comment on some). My view is that these articles don't belong in the main article space (if anywhere). I think I will assemble a set of say 10 that I think might reach the threshold and submit them for discussion here? Cinderella157 (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin: Back when I worked on these "version #" pages more, what was usually accepted was moving any edit history to a new plausibly-titled redirect towards the respective page which the edit history represents (not moving the edit history to a subpage), and then speedy deleting the "version #" title (that has no edit history) via WP:G6 as a technical deletion due to being a obviously implausible search term as an redirect. Steel1943 (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• These come up from time to time at WP:RFD, eg: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 April 25#(Version 2) redirects, and the easy way to fix most of them is by completing the round-robin move that the "version 2" redirect should have been an intermediate step of. In these cases, it would be moving (without leaving a redirect), to Beyond Good and Evil (book), Bi Rain, and Beslan school hostage crisis respectively. -- Tavix ^(talk) 12:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Tavix: So would it be all right for me to do such round-robin completions for all of these, in cases where they're overwritable or {{db-moved}}-able? For those that aren't due to significant history at the redirect that would be deleted, I can put a bulk request at WP:RFHM. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 12:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  They will need to be done by an admin, so I can tackle this project (it's been on my back burner for a while now...) Unless you're taking a trip to RFA soon, in which case I'll save some for you. -- Tavix ^(talk) 12:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  ... no comment. :P -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 13:08, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• ...For what it's worth, see User:Steel1943/VersionPageList/1; this list is outdated since I asked for it to be created almost 5 years ago, but there's still plenty on there (as well as a few false positives.) Also, Wikipedia talk:How to fix cut-and-paste moves#Discussion regarding titling standards for moving parallel histories is relevant to this discussion; trying to get these deleted (after their edit histories are moved [if relevant]) had been a task of mine for quite a while. This is definitely a repeat topic... Steel1943 (talk) 14:05, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Doing.... -- Tavix ^(talk) 23:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  Tavix I will have to do some manipulation on the spreadsheet I have but there are others that are likely similar to "/version 2" and have arisen for the same reason. I will get back to you. Let me know when you are done please. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:54, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  • @Tavix: I'm considering working on a few of those pages again soon, if/when my request for restoring my page mover user right gets approved. Steel1943 (talk) 21:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tavix:, I have created a list of the "version_2" articles at User:Cinderella157/sandbox 3. Some of these are already redlinks. Is this a help? Cinderella157 (talk) 05:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

No, that's not going to be helpful for me. I'm using Tamzin's link which is much better because it's dynamic and has links to the target. -- Tavix ^(talk) 13:13, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

R5: Redirect from user or draft namespace to mainspace page that was previously a draft

This criterion would be used on user and draft-namespace redirects to the associated mainspace page. Examples:

• If XXX were moved to mainspace:
  • User:YYY/XXX
  • Draft:XXX

The speedy deletion template would be:

Faster than Thunder (talk) 06:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

This was opposed quite strongly at this RfC, and I can't imagine proposing it again would yield a different result. (By the way, could I just gently suggest that you refrain from suggesting new CSD criteria until you have a bit more experience under your belt? We've been debating the speedy-deletion criteria for a long, long time, and the chances are high that any given idea has already been suggested and rejected at least once.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the enthusiasm behind this and § U6: User page created by someone else other than its owner without the owner's permission above, but what problem is this proposed criterion solving? If it's a promoted user page, the user can tag it under U1. If it's a promoted draft and there was a sole substantial author, they can tag it under G7. So there's only one use case I can think of (more than one substantial author), and I don't view the retention of that redirect as being a problem in any sense. Sdrqaz (talk) 07:12, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

When these redirects come up at RfD they are almost always kept, citing WP:RDRAFT, which is in turn based on the RfC Extraordinary Wit mentions above. This indicates that the community consensus has not changed since the RfC and so this proposal fails point 2 of the WP:NEWCSD requirements. Thryduulf (talk) 11:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Faster than Thunder, you would do well to familiarise yourself with WP:NEWCSD, and then verifying that your idea does actually meet the requirements before proposing anything else here, in addition to searching for any previous relevant discussion. While being bold is often encouraged on Wikipedia, proposals that are clearly not going to be accepted are just a waste of everybody's time. Thryduulf (talk) 11:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

• These redirects should be kept. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• @Faster than Thunder: What makes you think that we will assign code R5 to this? As I noted above, we do not assign codes until the criterion is approved and added to the main CSD page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: I don't see a problem with the section header. It is customary in such discussions to put the potential speedy code in the header. For example, look through the talk page history/archives for R4, and many sections appear for failed proposals for a potential R4 criterion. Steel1943 (talk) 23:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly. People who want to know how the present R4 was arrived at should not be given the impression that those old proposals were somehow connected to the discussion of the present R4. If this current discussion fails and in some months time somebody proposes a different criterion for redirects and again uses the code R5 in the heading, the existence of this proposal (perhaps in the archives, perhaps not) mentioning the same code will be confusing. Even more so if the new proposal succeeds - people searching the archives wanting to know how it was arrived at should not be misled by completely unrelated proposals. We do not reuse criterion codes: criterion A4 was merged into A3 some sixteen years ago, but there will never be another A4. Codes for criteria should not be assigned until it has been agreed to add the criterion to the policy. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed: The criterion is not assigned until consensus is formed supporting the new criterion. The header titles, such as this one, serve as the hypothetical criterion number in the event the new criterion is approved. And yes, of course, the proposed number would/should never be a retired number of a formerly-existing criterion since that would be confusing/misleading/etc. Steel1943 (talk) 06:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: I agree with Steel1943, the proposed criteria numbers are not problematic. Earlier today I searched the archives for two different discussions, the first where R4 was split off from G6 and the second where A10 was approved. In both cases my primary search term was the proposed criterion number, and the existence of other discussions using them actually helped me find them - e.g. a proposed A10 in archive 32 that was about something different made it clear that the discussion I was interested in was in a later archive so I knew the results in archive 20-something were not what I wanted without reading further. Thryduulf (talk) 00:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:RDRAFT. It helps keep a paper trail of the end result of the draft's location (both namespaces), as well as the fact that pages in the "Draft:" namespace are not indexed by search engines. Steel1943 (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per the above. Draft-to-namespace redirects are useful artifacts of the construction of the encyclopedia, and should be kept for as long as the sun shines. BD2412 T 06:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Redirects in draft space eventually fall under G13, G6, or can be PRODed. As such, it's probably not going to help if we delete them immediately. ☢️Plutonical☢️ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿᶦᶜᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ 12:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I think the marginal benefit of removing clutter is outweighed by the unnecessary confusion this would cause users who wander where their draft went. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

G3 wording

Is "misinformation" or "disinformation" the correct word here? – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 05:00, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, I suppose we don't want any of it, but "misinformation" refers to things that are simply factually incorrect (like hoaxes), which is why G3 uses it. "Disinformation" often connotes efforts (often by a government) to influence public opinion in a deceptive way: that's not something that we come across here on a regular basis. I think the wording is fine as it is. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:48, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Rethinking G14

Speedy deletion criterion WP:G14 ("Unnecessary disambiguation pages") applies to:

• Disambiguation pages that have titles ending in "(disambiguation)" but disambiguate only one extant Wikipedia page.
• Regardless of title, disambiguation pages that disambiguate zero extant Wikipedia pages.
• A redirect that ends in "(disambiguation)" but does not redirect to a disambiguation page or a page that performs a disambiguation-like function.

I've sometimes kept an eye on G14 deletions for the past few years, and I've always noticed a large number of oddities. I've now made a quick survey of the G14 taggings and deletions of the past 30 days, and the results are below:

Details of survey

The observations I can make are limited by the fact that I can't access deleted content and have had to rely mostly on log entries, extant page histories and content in Wikipedia mirrors. There was one page I wasn't able to assess). This covers 31 pages that got tagged for G14 deletion between 9 January and 8 February. Almost all of them got deleted. Incorrect applications of G14 (16 15 pages): more than the minimum number of articles disambiguated (12 11): Sebuyau (disambiguation), Zegarac, Sarvar, Reformed Catholic Church, Cypress Bayou, Agnes of Poitiers (disambiguation) (appears to have had several links; someone has since created a draft), NAMB, Arbeiter, Bauern (links to two different topics treated within the same article; could have been turned into a redirect if there are sources to support the name; at any rate, G14 clearly doesn't apply, and the issues verges on content matters so shouldn't be subject to CSD), Fougstedt, LMBO, Ghowgha, From the Outside) page not a dab (2): Draft:Binod Acharya (disambiguation) (that's more like an erroneously duplicated draft: other CSDs apply), Stephen Cornwell tagged when the dab page had recently been disrupted (2) [2], [3] (luckily, both were caught by the admins). Correct applications of G14 (15 16 pages): Dabs where all linked articles have been deleted (5): Steelhead, California, Hernreich, Granite Wash, Bis Ii Ah Wash, MobiCast (complicated history, though here G14 mostly masks an AfD outcome) pages not disambiguating any extant articles at creation (3): Sdala B (disambiguation), Nitin Pujari Salasar (disambiguation), Anabhitra (that should ideally have been left to the ongoing PROD the page had) redirects to pages that are no longer dabs (7 8): Agnes of Poitiers (disambiguation) Louis Maigret (disambiguation), Digitalization (disambiguation) (appropriate G14 at that moment as the page was a redirect whose target had just been turned into an article; within two hours of the deletion though, the article was turned back into a dab page), Howl-O-Scream (disambiguation) (several different articles that have since been merged into one; presumably dab got turned into a redirect, which was then eligible for G14), Verlag (disambiguation), Council of the Indies (disambiguation), Martin Nash (disambiguation), Nikos Politis (disambiguation)

About one half of the 30 or so deletions in the last month are inappropriate uses of G14, and that's a problem. One solution is to talk to people and encourage them to read the text of the policy more carefully, but I'm thinking that if reasonable editors are consistently misapplying that criterion, then we may need to change the text itself. (Forking out the widely used bit that applies to redirects into a separate criterion, and then simplifying the remainder may be one way to go.) But before getting down to the details for the way forward, I would like to hear what others are thinking about the issue. – Uanfala (talk) 15:58, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I've got three quibbles among your uncertain/incorrect examples:

• Draft:Illegal tackles was never a disambiguation page; Liz misclicked in the deletion-reason dropdown. The deletion log makes that clear even without being able to look at the page.
• Cypress Bayou disambiguated three unannotated redlinks (Cypress Bayou, Crittenden County, Arkansas, Cypress Bayou, Phillips County, Arkansas, Cypress Bayou, De Soto Parish, Louisiana) that shouldn't have been there by themselves per WP:DABRED, and had no bluelinks except for one partial name match (Big Cypress Bayou (Wetland)) in its See also section.
• Agnes of Poitiers (disambiguation) was never a disambiguation page itself, always a redirect to Agnes of Poitiers; though that had briefly been a disambiguation page, it was redirecting to non-dab Agnes of Poitou both when the first redir was tagged and deleted.

Separately, there's no reason for concern about incorrectly-tagged G14s that were declined. This happens all the time, for every speedy deletion criterion. —Cryptic 16:41, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the additional information. Big Cypress Bayou (Wetland) is eligible for inclusion on Cypress Bayou because – as the article makes clear – "Cypress Bayou" is the name of the place. So, excluding the ones you've pointed out, as well as the declined tags, we still have 8 incorrect deletions remaining (noting that some of the blue links above are due to recreation or restoration). For 2 of the pages I'm the one who removed the CSD tag, and I'm almost certain that they would have been deleted otherwise. Even assuming they would have been declined, that's still 8 pages out of 24: a miss rate of 33% is still an indication of a significant problem. – Uanfala (talk) 17:34, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think it should be kept, its commonly used enough and the pages it can apply to have no realistic change of surviving discussion and discussion is often not necessary. If people are using it incorrectly either it needs rewording or the people using it incorrectly need to be notified. As far as I can see the wording is clear enough. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:38, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
• Most of these "errors" are cases where the disambiguation page was disambiguating either one or no articles and therefore wasn't serving any useful purpose. Granted, the criterion says that they should be redirected instead, but I don't think it's a particular problem if they are deleted. Hut 8.5 17:49, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, if a dab disambiguates zero extant articles, then I haven't counted it among the errors. Yes, for some (many?) of those pages, deletion is the best outcome, but that's something that should be decided by a non-speedy process, like PROD. Even for something simple like deciding whether to redirect or to delete, there are several factors to take into account:

Example list of factors

is the article a suitable target for a redirect? are there other topics with the name covered elsewhere on Wikipedia? is the coverage of those topics significant enough to warrant including as dab entries? if no, then deletion is probably best: they'll still be reachable from the search results, and if yes, then the dab page will need to be expanded, not deleted, unless that article is a primary topic, in which case – depending on the number of entries, it may be preferable to list them in a hatnote and so have the dab deleted).... You get the idea. It would be a bit much to expect admins at CSD to go through all that).

Of the 9 incorrectly deleted pages, I've had 3 restored: Zegarac (no-one would now question its usefulness), LMBO (the tagging editor has sent it to AfD, which so far appears on track to result in "keep"), and Sarvar. The last one combines several issues that sometimes arise in dealing with dab pages.

Details about Sarvar

See what it looked like at the time of deletion [4]. Only one appropriate link, right? No-one would mourn the loss of that dab page. Well, it turns out that the redlink used to be blue [5] before an IP mangled it four months previously (that sort of disruptive edits are more likely to remain undetected on dab pages than when made to articles). Oh, look.. do a simple search [6] and you'll see there are also other articles that can be added to the dab page [7]. We're done now? No, wait, some things are less obvious. As is often the case with topics outside of the English-speaking world, names may have alternative romanisations that aren't always obvious. Here, Sarvar (or sarvāṛ, if you prefer) happens to be one common (though not yet mentioned in the article) transliteration of the Hindi name of the Indian town of Sarwar. So there goes one more entry for the dab [8].

There are also some relevant comments in the preceding thread: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#G14 speedy deletions. – Uanfala (talk) 01:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• This could use some mention that correct use of WP:DABRED and WP:DABMENTION are counted as extant pages, which would've more plainly disqualified LMBO and From the Outside. I don't recall, nor do I immediately see on MOS:DAB, best practices for linking foreign-language-Wikipedia articles in dabs, as on Fougstedt. All of the rest except Cypress Bayou (and including Fougstedt) were either declined or already plainly don't meet the criterion. We don't gain anything by writing "* Regardless of title, disambiguation pages that disambiguate zero extant Wikipedia pages.<br>** No, really, if it disambiguates an existing page, it doesn't qualify.<br>*** <big>HEY, WE MEAN IT!</big> Bluelinky means no speedy delety!" - if people aren't reading what's already there, repeating it isn't going to help.
  It's not surprising that bad pages get mistagged based on the summary in Twinkle, but deleting administrators are expected to expected to know the text of the criterion they're deleting with. Talk it over with the deleting admins, and if they dig in their heels, take them to DRV. Repeatedly, if necessary. Pages that really should have been deleted like the autobio at Draft:Binod Acharya (disambiguation), even if not by this criterion or speedily at all, won't gain much traction there, but I see no reason any of the others wouldn't. —Cryptic 20:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

  Well, I wasn't aiming for a stronger language, but a simplifying of the rules, so there would be less room for confusion. Something along the lines of forking out the redirect bit into a separate R criterion, dropping the distinction based on the page title and number of articles, and paring it down to something simpler, possibly as simple as "Dab pages where all linked articles have been deleted". That would still cover the great majority of current correct uses, while leaving a few rare cases (like dabs with no links upon creation) to be handled by PROD. Short of such a big change, a small improvement to the existing text would be to change disambiguate only one extant Wikipedia page to disambiguate only one topic with coverage in an extant Wikipedia page. And if the criterion doesn't change at all, then yes, going after the admins who do incorrect deletions is something that can be done (though auditing CSDs is not fun at all, and it's even less fun to have to repeatedly post on the talk pages of those admins who apparently believe dab pages are not important enough to discuss once deleted).

  As for interwiki links in dab entries (as at Fougstedt), they're in principle seen as appropriate (though there's disagreement about whether the entry should be required to also have a DABMENTION-style link to an English article). – Uanfala (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

F8 Images available as identical copies on Wikimedia Commons

On Commons I often see that a link, e.g. from "based on", leads to a page where i can only see that the file has been deleted because of F8. Not an admin, I cannot see propertiees as e.g. the original uploader of that deleted file. ​I preferred that files linked from commons would not be deleted - when the general policy allows to keep them. -- sarang♥사랑 07:30, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• Can you clarify what you're asking and give an example please? Stifle (talk) 09:11, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC on criteria G12 and F9

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.

---

Should we merge criteria F9 to G12? Since criteria F9 is the same as criteria G12. Vitaium (talk) 03:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• No. Archive search is ↑↑↑ up there. —Cryptic 03:49, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• No. There's no evidence anything has changed since Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 75#RfC: Merge F9 into G12 redux, and this RfC seems to be unmotivated, solving no actual problem. And I wonder whether Vitaium should be sanctioned somehow, since this is far from their first frivolous proposal. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per the people at the last RfC. Yes, they are the same pretty much, but splitting them up into separate CSDs allow for easier sorting and dealing with them. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 06:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per the last RfC and the lack of WP:RFCBEFORE this time. Thryduulf (talk) 11:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Last time I wrote A long list of short, focused criteria is much better than a shorter list of more complicated ones - the latter makes misuse (in good or bad faith) more likely and harder to detect and makes things more confusing. This was split for good reasons, i.e. we deal with text and image copyvios differently: Text may be salvageable by editing and/or reversion to a previous version - none of which is possible with images. On the other hand fair use is possible with images in a way that it is not with text - in some cases it is possible that a valid fair use rationale can be written for an F9 candidate. Nothing has changed since then. Thryduulf (talk) 13:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support just like we don't have attack or banned user files etc while still fall under G10. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:40, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose F9 was split out from G12 to make G12 easier to read, because of the number of caveats and special cases relating to images. We could merge it back in but the result would end up looking like this and would be rather unwieldy. Unless the OP is suggesting we get rid of the special wording in F9, but that isn't a good idea. Hut 8.5 12:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Files are a different situation (non-free files or other types) Thingofme (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The answer to "should we merge criteria?" is usually "no", per Thryduulf. Having fewer criteria is generally more confusing, as they tend to become longer and more complicated. No problem was identified that this proposal is trying to solve. —Kusma (talk) 10:23, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, solution looking for a problem. Stifle (talk) 09:12, 14 February 2022 (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.

CSD G4s

I think we need some more decisive guidance on CSD G4 and whether it applies to Draft space. As an admin who patrols CSD categories, I see draft versions of deleted articles that are tagged for deletion all of the time. But I know from talking to admins that opinions vary on whether G4 applies to Draft space. It varies greatly from admins feeling strongly that it doesn't apply who untag drafts to admins who consider Draft space an extension of main space and who delete recreated articles there.

My personal opinion is that I have recently started closing AFD discussions and, for the most part, they have very few participants, often one or two people suggesting that an article should be deleted. And sometimes they invoke WP:TOOSOON, implying that an article could be created at a future point in time. So, should drafts that then attempt to create better versions of these deleted articles be deleted automatically because 2 or 3 editors thought an earlier version of an article was crap? That just doesn't seem fair to me. I think that this criteria was intended to keep articles that are repeatedly recreated by persistent editor from being submitted to AFC over and over again. But those seem like extreme examples to me and I don't think policy should be decided by extreme cases but what normally happens which is that new editors see an article is missing from the project and go about to create an article on a subject. But I've seen drafts or articles in main space tagged for CSD G4 based on deletion discussion that occurred with a few editors in 2006! I don't think the power of an AFD decision should exist indefinitely into the future no matter how long ago or how recently it was decided. That just doesn't seem like it is in sync with what Wikipedia is for. The problem is that the guidelines don't specify recreated "articles" but recreated "pages" which allows CSD G4 to apply to Draft space...depending on the opinion of the admin reviewing the speedy deletion tagging. So, what do you think should be done? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liz (talk • contribs) 03:36, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• Without getting into your second paragraph too much, there's already adequate-seeming guidance on what to do with g4s in draft: It excludes... content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy). So basically it doesn't apply unless there's some sign of bad faith: copy-pasting the stored-untouched-in-draftspace version into mainspace, linking to it from mainspace (or perhaps conspicuously from offwiki), deliberately resetting the G13 counter with cosmetic edits of the sort that we'd tolerate if it weren't afd-deleted content, trying to get it indexed by search engines, etc. —Cryptic 05:09, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• As the criterion has a "G" prefix and does not have listed namespace exceptions, it is general and is not exclusive to the mainspace. However, G4 should not be used as a bludgeon to delete material that is "not sufficiently identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement". Often, non-administrator CSD taggers do not know how the deleted version looked. It is up to the reviewing administrator to see whether the tagged page actually fits the criterion.
  As for "should drafts that then attempt to create better versions of these deleted articles be deleted automatically", the answer is no. A "better" version, in most instances, is not "sufficiently identical", or "the reason for the deletion no longer applies". Under your example, if pages deleted at AfD in 2006 are being recreated and there are more sources available in the new page, it should not be deleted under G4. Sdrqaz (talk) 10:58, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• G4 does apply to draft space if the content was deleted at MfD. In that case the discussion would have been explicitly about whether we should have a draft on the subject. In cases where something was deleted at AfD and subsequently moved to draft space for improvement it doesn't apply, as has been noted. I would absolutely decline a request to delete something under G4 based on an AfD from 2006. Hut 8.5 12:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Should G13 be moved? (probably already asked 54 times)

Should G13 be moved? The only things this "general" criteria cover is drafts and userspace drafts. – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 13:32, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Given that G13 covers two namespaces, it seems appropriate to keep it as a G criteria; "G" might stand for "general" but it's also "more than one namespace". Primefac (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It could be split into what would in theory be U6 and D1, but that just seems like wasting everyone's time. It ain't broke, don't fix it. casualdejekyll 22:15, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• No per above. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

G5. Creations by banned or blocked users

• To qualify, the edit or page must have been made while the user was actually banned or blocked. A page created before the ban or block was imposed or after it was lifted will not qualify under this criterion.

That seems impossible. Blocking prevents a user from editing Wikipedia. Should this be deleted? AKK700 05:28, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@AKK-700: this usually refers to block evasion, where someone makes a new account when their first one is blocked. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:36, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@Elli: That's explained by the third bullet:

• When a blocked or banned person uses an alternate account (sockpuppet) to avoid a restriction, any pages created via the sock account after the earliest block or ban of any of that person's accounts qualify for G5 (if not substantially edited by others); this is the most common case for applying G5.

AKK-700 (talk • contribs) 05:38, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

However a ban is not the same thing as a block and a banned user still technically has the ability to edit. This allows for speedy deletion if they decide to create an article in the area of their active ban. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 06:19, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

G5 also applies to socking around a partial block, or at least appears to. (The criterion's wording predates p-blocks; I'm not sure if there's ever been an explicit consensus extending it to them, but a plain-text reading says they're covered, as does common sense.) I have on one occasion successfully requested an article's deletion under G5 for p-block evasion. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 07:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

G5 revision needed: Maximum allowable timeframe since creation?

Recently, I've seen a good number of pages at WP:RFD that were created by blocked editors using sock puppets. However, some of these have resulted in a close other than "delete" (which would be the default for G5.) I'm fairly certain these concerns apply to other pages as well. My point is it seems that in some cases, there may be some value to retain what sock puppets create under specific circumstances. So, I'll cut to the chase here: I believe the aforementioned points can be resolved by changing the G5 criterion in at least 1 of 2 ways in the following way:

• Add a maximum timeframe from when the page was created to when the page would still be eligible for G5. For example, after 6 months, if there was no other issue found with the page which would make it eligible for another CSD criterion, then it would probably de facto be considered an integrated part of the encyclopedia, and thus would need to go through alternative methods for deletion (such as XFD or a different CSD criterion.) Also, after a certain timeframe, it could be argued that WP:DENY could be considered inapplicable due to the page's longstanding integration into Wikipedia.

Add verbiage stating the page should not be deleted if the page has significant edits by non-sockpuppet editors. This would assume that other editors now have attribution to the status of the page, and thus deleting the page could potentially affect their edit attributions that were in good faith.

Either way, it seems that something about the G5 criterion needs to be tweaked somehow since the current state doesn't seem to accurately encompass all scenarios. Steel1943 (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

G5 already requires that the page "have no substantial edits by others", which I think takes care of your second suggestion. The six-month idea is an interesting one, and I'd be curious to hear what others think of it. In practice, are there really very many old pages being deleted via G5? It seems that after six months, most pages would already have "substantial edits by others", making them ineligible for G5 in any event. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

@Extraordinary Writ: Wow, I apparently can't read sometimes. I've struck out that part about the edits by others. Steel1943 (talk) 19:17, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

It's not at all unusual for redirects to go unedited for many years at a time so expecting significant edits by others within six months is unrealistic - especially as things like categorisation, refining to a section, updating after a page move or section renaming are not universally seen as significant edits. If a redirect is problematic it's going to be deleted or retargetted regardless of the creator, if it isn't problematic then very few are going to be deleted only so they can be recreated by someone else (WP:NOTBURO). So for redirects I'd suggest using the "recently created" language of R3 which is not defined but in practice is typically taken to mean weeks not months old, but I'd also support a six month hard limit. For pages other than redirects, I think six months is sensible - if the page hasn't been significantly edited by others in longer than that it's either very obscure or nobody has found any significant problems with it, in neither case will taking the time to get a consensus cause any harm.
TLDR: I support this for non-redirect pages, and weakly support this but prefer "recently created" for redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I did a database query and found a total of 625 G5 deletions of pages more than 6 months old in 2022. ~470 of them appear to be nuking of redirects created by Ssjhowarthisawesome, a sockpuppet of Endingsesame. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:AINTBROKE. I don't see what problem this solves, and it will weaken anti-sockpuppetry efforts for what seems like no reason at all. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:03, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. All this would do is abet socks. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Some sort of limit is a good idea: ideally, no-one should be using G5 for pages that have been around for years, but doesn't that apply to most other CSD criteria as well? I think the main issue with G5 is that it's sometimes applied more broadly and more stringently than needed. A defining feature of G5 is that it allows the deletion of a page, but it does not mandate it. Deletion is desirable in either of two cases. First, if the creator is known for problematic contributions (unsourced additions, misinterpretation of sources, blatant POV, etc) – the point of G5 here is to expedite clean-up and avoid having to spend a lot of effort investigating or improving on the subpar work of a bad-faith actor. A second use is for the contributions (whether good or not) of a small number of especially pernicious users – this is done to discourage them from returning here. If neither of these apply, then G5 shouldn't be used. – Uanfala (talk) 15:51, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. There are almost 6 and a half million articles on en.wiki. No-one is maintaining most of them. Even on watched and edited articles, garbage can stick around for months to years unnoticed. An arbitrary time period does not "integrate" something into en.wiki. If there is something that does integrate an article into en.wiki, it is substantial edits by a variety of editors, and this is already a reason to reject G5. I can not see what benefits this might bring, and the negative it brings is making cleanup of disruption harder, which is the point of CSDs. CMD (talk) 15:58, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, solves no problem but creates new ones. Fram (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Ivanvector and to underline that G5 is an essential tool to enforce that banned means banned. Banned users are not allowed to contribute, no matter how good their content is. —Kusma (talk) 16:01, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I fail to see the purpose of doing this. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:58, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• For redirects created by banned people, they can be deleted and then recreated with no attribution issues. If you think an older page is OK, then edit it yourself to add substantial content to make it G5 delete ineligible. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Like others above, it seems to me that this solution would be ineffective at preventing overzealous use of G5 and has the risk of being counterproductive. As I've mentioned in several recent discussions about G5, the key thing to remember is that G5 is not an inexorable command: its spirit descends from WP:BE and WP:BANREVERT, which state:

  Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule. This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor (changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.

  Along similar lines, if a redirect or article created in violation of a block or ban is "obviously helpful" to the encyclopedia, then administrators are not compelled to use G5 to delete. However, the determination of whether a page is "helpful" is often subjective, and the utility of G5 is that we can avoid the blocked/banned user from wasting community time. If you believe that an administrator has deleted a page under G5 that you believe was helpful to the encyclopedia, I would reach out to the deleting administrator and ask that they restore the page—either directly or into your userspace for further development. I believe that many administrators would be sympathetic to such a request. In the case of a redirect, it's often acceptable to simply recreate the redirect yourself without discussion. Mz7 (talk) 01:45, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Mz7: I think an issue is that speedy deletion requires only one admin to be in favor of deletion, when there might be 2-3 admins against it. Of course, the beauty of G5 is that it allows for the quick elimination of pages that nobody cares about, but it is often unclear at the time of deletion whether anyone actually cares about the page. So I think a corollary is in order: "Any admin may unilaterally restore a page deleted under G5. In doing so, they take full responsibility for its contents." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support if an article has been in mainspace for more than 6 months its likely its either been edited enough by other users to avoid G5 anyway or it was created as a good article to begin with and deleting may break external links to the page. For redirects its common for them not to be edited for longer periods and they don't tend to have as many links so it probably doesn't matter as much. I don't agree its likely to encourage block/ban evasion much as most socks (to my awareness) tend to be caught within hours/days/weeks rather than months or years so if no one has noticed the sock or at least tagged the article with G5 its unlikely there's a problem that AFD (or XFD) can't take care of. This may also apply to G7, with Ingatestone (disambiguation) that was over 7 years old that was deleted under G7 but that was a DAB and DABs are more likely not to be edited for long periods and are not normally linked as much from external websites. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• Mz7 has said most of what I would say, but just to comment on the redirect angle in particular, as someone whose two main projectspace venues are RfD and SPI: If I'm cleaning up after a sock, and I see redirects in their contribs, I usually don't touch them unless: they're the sort I'd otherwise be taking to RfD; there's a disruptive mass creation of marginally-beneficial redirects (only seen that once or twice); the sockmaster has a history of causing trouble in redirectspace (there's only a few like that); or, as Uanfala says, they're among a small number of users who just need to be made to understand that they're not welcome here (not always "the worst of the worst"; if someone's under the impression that they can keep contributing here as long as they're okay starting a new account every few days/weeks/months, they need to be shown they're wrong, even if they're relatively benign). For the most part, if a sockmaster wants to spend time creating a modest number of {{r from plural}}s or whatever, then I'm not going to tag those, just like for the most part I'm not going to revert copy-edits.
  At RfD, G5 is useful for, well, speeding up deletions. One person nominates for deletion, another notices it's G5-eligible, all done. There's been some disagreement as to whether G5 can be applied to a redirect that someone has !voted against deleting. I tend to think it does, but I recall Tavix taking the position that the redirect can be deleted but the RfD should stay open (and a "keep" would thus mean "recreate")... but I may be misremembering the exact line he drew. I'd say that the interaction between RfD !votes and G5 might be something worth clearing up, but, well, we've done fine with the ambiguity so far, such as it is. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 07:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  I've never done that nor advocated for that so you must be misremembering me, but it does make sense. What I have usually done if a redirect is eligible for G5 and someone has left a !vote to keep it is just leave a vote to that effect at the RfD with the hope that it would be "G5'd by consensus". Of course, there are exceptions to that for egregious sockpuppets or a perhaps there is already a flurry of delete votes against a single flimsy keep vote so it depends on the context, but I can't recall examples where I have acted differently on this. Redirects don't cross the threshold of originality for copyright purposes and they can be easily recreated so I am okay with someone G5'ing a redirect in this example and someone in good standing can just recreate it. However, if there is disagreement it will probably just end up right back at RfD so leaving the discussion open solves that problem. -- Tavix ^(talk) 12:32, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry for misremembering, Tavix. Yes, I agree there are common-sense cases where a keep !vote wouldn't stand in the way for G5 (say, if the !vote were "Weak keep. Borderline redirect but created in good faith by a new user who's trying their hardest.") Most forms of "procedural keep" also oughtn't stand in the way. In general, though, I support the "G5 by consensus approach". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 19:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: I know that I have advocated here and in other venues that any good-faith vote to do something other than delete means that a page is not subject to speedy deletion (with the exception of newly discovered copyright violations and office actions), and G5 being one of the weakest CSDs is absolutely no exception to that. If the XfD is ongoing then you should inform previous participants that it was created in violation of a ban, and they can change or withdraw their !vote in the light of the new information if they wish. If the XfD has already closed then you should renominate it based on the new information if you think it is important that it should be deleted, but for a redirect I think this would likely be a waste of everyone's time. If a page has been around long enough to have been kept at XfD then I'm extremely sceptical that deletion will actually teach anybody anything. Thryduulf (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: I'm not sure I agree with it phrased that broadly. I'd favor narrowing the current G5 exception in Pages that have survived deletion discussions, but to me it turns on exactly what's being said. A VAGUEWAVE !vote of "Keep. GNG pass," be that in a current AfD or a closed one, doesn't represent an endorsement of the article's content that would prevent G5. A !vote making clear that the commenter affirmatively endorses the article existing ("Keep. This is an important topic and one we should have an article on." / "Keep. She was a pioneer in her field." / etc.), on the other hand, amounts to the user taking responsibility for the article in the same manner as if they had made a significant content contribution. At RfD, that will almost always be the case (see my reply to Tavix above), but at AfD I'm not convinced that a VAGUEWAVE !vote amounts to that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 19:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  What counts as a vaguewave is something that needs to be considered in the context of the nomination, the other comments in the discussion, the article and any relevant previous discussions (not just XfD but talk page, etc). That, imo, is not something that is at all compatible with speedy deletion - indeed any weighting of the relevant strengths of arguments takes it outside the realm of speedy deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Perhaps VAGUEWAVE was the wrong thing to invoke there, although it coincides heavily with what I'm describing. It's not about the strength of the arguments. It's about whether the arguments merely addressed the applicability of policies and guidelines, or whether they addressed the article's fitness to be an article. "GNG pass" doesn't necessarily mean "I think this article should exist." It means... "GNG pass." This would, again, be a narrowing of the current rule. I would favor a wording like G5, creation by banned or blocked users, subject to the strict condition that the XfD participants were unaware that the article would have met the criterion and/or that the article creator's blocked or banned status was not known to the participants of the XfD discussion, and that all comments were of the form "this is not eligible for deletion" rather than "this page should exist". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 19:45, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  Again, that's the sort of judgement that should not be required for a speedy deletion criterion. Once you have to evaluate the nature of a comment it's well into subjective territory that has no basis being anywhere near CSD. Thryduulf (talk) 19:52, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  I know that's your position, Thryduulf, but I don't think it's really consistent with what this policy already says. Several CSDs require significant evaluation of complex fact patterns, including G5. Sometimes a page's G5 eligibility can only be determined by wading through a considerable number of diffs based on one's familiarity with prevailing norms about what is and isn't a "substantial edit". Or, for instance, some A7 calls may require reading a dozen linked references to see if any of them constitute a CCS, or if they're all just press releases or passing references in the local paper. And so on. I don't see why it would be an issue to narrow the applicability of a CSD on a basis that requires a reviewing admin to do an amount of evaluation. Hopefully if an admin is G5ing a page that's been kept at XfD, they're already looking closely at what was said in that XfD, as, per existing policy, a single "I know the author's a sock, but..." would prevent G5. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:33, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  That narrowing would be better than the current policy, but far better would be to make actually consistent with the WP:NEWCSD requirements and simplify it to the objective if it's been kept at XfD it isn't eligible for G5. If it's currently nominated at XfD it isn't eligible if there are any !votes for actions other than deletion that have not been withdrawn. None of this subjective weighing or categorising votes or predicting whose opinion would be changed by knowledge they didn't have. As for A7, if you need to do extensive reading then the page does not is not speedy deletable as CSD is only for cases where the page obviously meets the letter and spirit of the criterion as written. Thryduulf (talk) 20:50, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose the mere fact an article has been around for six months doesn't mean it's been integrated into the encyclopedia or that it's been edited by other people. Pages on very obscure topics can sit around for years with no substantial changes and no attention from experienced editors beyond automated or semi-automated changes. It also goes heavily against WP:BMB. Hut 8.5 12:44, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
• OpposeThe "problem" to be solved by that would create real problems. And 6 months would be far too short as a threshold, as has been mentioned above. Lectonar (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Remove "Typo" from Reword R3

This applies to recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are sometimes redirects in other languages. This criterion does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move, unless the moved page was also recently created. It also does not apply to articles and stubs that have been converted into redirects, including redirects created by merges, or to redirects ending with "(disambiguation)" that point to a disambiguation page.

I screwed up and erroneously contested a reasonable CSD over the redirect Mike Hart (outfieldr, born 1951), instead causing it to be sent to RFD, wasting other editors' time. I did this because R3 contains the phrase "Implausible typo", which leads to the idea that plausible typos (such as forgetting a letter, as was the case in the CSD I contested) should be kept, or at least sent to RFD. After Tamzin (talk · contribs) told me about what I did wrong, I cast my non-vote as Delete and then proceeded to type this up.

Overall, the word "Typo" in R3 implies that redirects that are NOT plausible, intentional search terms, but are still likely to be accidentally typed, should be kept. This is not the case, and as such, I think we should remove the term "Typo" from the page. This both reduces confusion and sets a clear precedent for dealing with such redirects, as they are now "Implausible Misnomers" and can therefore be deleted. ☢️Plutonical☢️ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿᶦᶜᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ 03:25, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

• I'm going to think on this for a bit, but for now will just share my thought that I don't think it's "typo" that is the issue, so much as "implausible". "Plausible" is a word for a potential event, so if an event has happened once, it's by definition plausible. While typing this comment, I managed to typo "typo" as "tyupo", so that is prima facie a plausible typo, but if I created Tyupo I would expect it to be R3'd. At the same time there are superficially very implausible-looking typos that get kept at RfD because those typos have been made somewhere notable.
  Just spitballing for now, maybe something like implausible misspellings or misnomers, or typographical errors that are no more likely than any other typographical error? I think that that would roughly capture the intent here. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) I thought the consensus was that one mistake is not R3able, but two mistakes is. More generally, there is much variance in how a misnomer is dealt with and the guidelines don't reflect current practice (or, should I say, current practice doesn't follow the guidelines). Back on topic, it is probably best to avoid using terms like typo, misspelling, and implausible. The first two don't mean what a lot of people think they mean, and the last is ambiguous (another redirect buzzword!) – i.e. does it mean not one person will search it up or not [insert number here as relevant threshold] will search this up. — J947 ‡ ^{message ⁓ edits} 04:03, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
• R3 specifies how to treat implausible typos and common typos, but gives no guidance on typos which are plausible but uncommon. I think the outfieldr falls into the latter group. Although there will always be special cases, do we think such typos should generally be (a) kept, (b) deleted speedily per R3 or (c) sent to RfD? Once we agree an answer, we can reword R3 to codify it. My opinion is that such redirects, which no one would deliberately create, should fall under R3 but currently probably don't (as R3 is silent about them). Certes (talk) 15:41, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  "outfieldr" here is a qualifier. We may be more inclined to delete typos in parenthetical disambiguation, which readers rarely type, than typos in the article's actual title. As Bison X kindly reminded me, this might also be a good place to standardise treatment of redirects from plausible but uncommon typos for "(disambiguation)" such as Blackneck (disambugation) and Authoritative (Disambiguation). Certes (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  We do have "errors in the act of disambiguation" listed as a reason to delete at WP:RDAB. It probably doesn't happen often enough to justify a new speedy deletion criterion, though. - Eureka Lott 23:22, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I've tried citing RDAB in the past but been told to go away because it's only an essay and, although it advises against creating them, it doesn't explicitly advocate deleting them. Certes (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  Do you think it might make sense to elevate it from the essay to WP:RFD#DELETE? - Eureka Lott 23:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'd like to see that happen, along with clarification that such errors can be deleted. I'm not sure whether it has consensus. Certes (talk) 00:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  Errors in disambiguation are more often not useful than they are useful, but more often is not always and so there is not a consensus that errors in disambiguation should always be deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 11:30, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think there's been consensus about some types of errors in disambiguation, and less so about others. It might be tricky to codify, though. Errors like Joe Smith (disambuguation) are typically deleted, likewise for redirects with unpaired parentheses or extra spaces in the disambiguator. There may be disagreement about the value of errors like Joe Smith (bassball). - Eureka Lott 15:24, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  "(bassball)" I could see going either way, "(base ball)" I'd probably recommend keeping. I know we had a discussion about "(sport player)" (as opposed to "(sport)") a while back that I think was kept, but I can't remember which sport it was.

  I also have a vague recollection of one from a few years ago where the "misspelling" turned out not to be one but a valid alternate spelling that is/was used in a variety of English other than the nominators. Thryduulf (talk) 17:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  Assuming you are meaning this one, it was actually in the past year FWIW. — J947 ‡ ^{message ⁓ edits} 22:45, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  That's a special case, with restauranteur being a variant spelling of restaurateur. No one has claimed that (disambugation) is a valid alternative. Certes (talk) 23:51, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

  The point is that the nominator thought that "restaurateur" (without the n) was a misspelling like "disambiguaton". Any rule, etc we come up with has to accommodate all of:

  1. Things that are errors and all of the following apply:
     • Consensus is that this is not a useful search terms
     • Have no significant history
     • Have no significant page views
     • Have no other reason why deletion might not have consensus
  2. Things that are errors but where one or more of the four requirements are not met
  3. Things that are not actually errors.

  For a speedy deletion criterion it must be possible for an individual admin to objectively and reliably determine whether a redirect falls into the first category or not. Thryduulf (talk) 00:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Though it's off-topic for this talk page, I'd settle for a documented consensus that Foo (discombobulation) redirects should normally be deleted at RfD if those four criteria are met. It's more work, but is that a reasonable compromise? (It's a shame we don't have a WP:PROD equivalent for redirects.) Certes (talk) 11:41, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

  Based on what gets nominated at RfD there is only a loose correlation between what editors who don't do a lot of redirect work regard as an uncontroversial nomination for deletion and what editors who frequent RfD do (e.g. redirects from plurals, different capitalisations, etc) so a PROD for redirects would not end up saving much time or effort. Thryduulf (talk) 23:58, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Still forming my thoughts on this as well, but I strongly agree that this is misleading/confusing and warrants revision, and I generally agree with what's been said above. Pointing to typographical error is a problem, which as defined encompasses both typing mistakes and spelling mistakes, but the cases where a redirect based on a typing mistake is desirable seem rather limited to me. As pointed out above, many typos are plausible, but that does not mean redirects should be created for them, and they should be speedily deleted if recently created. For now, I think Tamzin's proposal is definitely an improvement. I also wonder if the "implausible misnomer" should be separated out, since that even more so hinges on the interpretation of "implausible", since common misnomers make good {{R from incorrect name}} redirects, but obscure or made-up nicknames do not. This might be better as a separate criterion, or perhaps even removed from CSD altogether, since how implausible a misnomer is might not be readily apparent and warrant discussion to reach consensus about. Lastly, as I said at the RfD that spawned this discussion, once we resolve the CSD issue, we should then consider improvements to guidance about non-speedy cases regarding the same issues at WP:RFD#DELETE. Mdewman6 (talk) 18:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  I would support adding to RFD#DELETE something saying that disambiguators containing typos like (outfieldr) or nonstandard formatting like ( disambiguation ) are usually deleted, purely as a codification of existing practice. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:55, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  I also support that but see it as a change rather than a statement of existing practice. Whether Foo (discombobulation) gets deleted depends heavily on who turns up at RfD that week; some regulars would !vote Keep. Certes (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

  Some disambiguation errors are useful search terms, others are not. Even if the latter are the more common I oppose anything that implies we do not or should not look at them individually. Thryduulf (talk) 11:28, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• My approach on this is that "base" typos (e.g. Amercian, Outfeilder) are much more plausible than "compound" typos (Amercian Airlines, Bill Smith (outfeilder)). Thus I would certainly !vote keep at RfD for typos of the former type, and support R3 deletion for the any and all that are of the latter type. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:27, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't really follow the distinction. How does having an additional, correctly typed word make a typo less plausible, to the point of it being the difference between being kept at RfD vs. speedily deleted? It doesn't seem to me that's where we should draw the line, or even determine where to draw it. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:11, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Mdewman6 - "Americian Airlines" is exactly as plausible as "Americian" and I strongly oppose the suggestion that one should be kept and the other speedily deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 07:23, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Note: I've notified WikiProject Accessibility about this discussion. I don't personally understand the complexities of this discussion, but I can at least tell this will affect spelling and typing error redirects, which are generally most helpful to people with disability (thus relevant to accessibility). --Xurizuri (talk) 04:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Amendment to A7-web

I recently requested speedy deletion of an article Shadow of survival, about a videogame that obviously failed notability/importance criteria. I had to use {{db-web}} to tag it for deletion. But it wasn't an exactly appropriate criteria under the current wording of A7-web. Hence, I propose that Application softwares be added to A7-web & expand its definition. Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 11:10, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Software is currently explicitly excluded from A7 (very often articles about software meet G11, which is enough). When things don't fit any of the criteria, just use WP:PROD or WP:AFD if they need to be deleted. —Kusma (talk) 11:16, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma: The videogame is described to be an online-game. But, I think videogame still qualifies as a software. I'm not sure if my tagging the article with A7-web is a mistake on my part. Can you please review and revert me if I did something wrong? Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 11:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@CX Zoom: it has now been deleted as a G11, not as an A7, which sounds about right. Expanding A7 is wiki-politically tricky, as this is an ancient battlefield of the inclusionist-deletionist war. —Kusma (talk) 17:04, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

When you say "it wasn't exactly appropriate criteria under the current wording", it makes it sound as though using the term "website" was a clumsy choice of term made by a discussion group that really meant to include all software, or all online services, and that to interpret it not to cover all software or all services provided online is a technicality. Applications, whether installed locally or accessed online, are products or services, not websites, and products are intentionally excluded from A7. As for the question of "should we include applications in A7 coverage?", I'd say there's no reason to single them out from other products. Largoplazo (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Including software in A7 has been suggested many times before, indeed it's on the WP:NOTCSD list. The most recent discussion I found with a 1 minute search of the archives was from 2020, but this one from 2017 is more in-depth. This this discussion from 2007 shows very little has changed in terms of the arguments for a very long time, so it's unlikely that anything will change in the short term. The principle argument against inclusion is that it is not possible for a single admin to reliably determine what is and is not a credible claim of significance for all things covered by "software". Thryduulf (talk) 10:29, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think we'd need to specify what kind of software to include - computer programs, video games, anything else? Anything not to include? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:33, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Essentially all of the areas covered by A7 have subject-specific notability guidelines, meaning that there are indicators likely to be in the article of whether the subject is notable. (The only exception is animals and they're very similar to people.) We don't have a subject-specific notability guideline for software. Hut 8.5 12:43, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• The reason for not speedy deleting softare as A7 is the inability of a single admin to be able to tell if there is an realistic indication of importance. Software tends to be specialized, and people in the specific area need to have chance to say whether they thing references can be found. For most A7 companies, people and so on, it's easy for any experienced admin to see whether there is no chance whatsoever. If we included software, there would be too many errors. (At least, I would make too many errors). DGG ( talk ) 17:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Do these count as test pages...

...IP talk pages that consist of nothing but "hello" or variants and were posted years ago. I declined a bunch of deletion requests on these User talk:42.106.111.40, User talk:97.84.184.89, User talk:2409:4042:2292:27E4:D136:29EA:90B0:40B2, User talk:2600:1700:2761:4E0:9004:8F4B:DD76:3DEF, User talk:103.67.178.13, User talk:122.56.77.83, User talk:2001:16B8:55CC:4B00:211A:C69E:6DFC:4D54, User talk:2001:8003:20F0:E700:3CF6:D057:4BBE:81DD, User talk:2001:8004:C40:8D2:4CCB:743D:774:E523, User talk:2401:4900:2307:8E2:2DBD:EEFD:DD82:375E but I want a second (or third, fourth etc.) opinion here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

No. We generally should not be deleting user talk pages, even if the only posts are "test"-type edits. I have similarly declined a number of such requests in the recent past. Primefac (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Given that the purpose of that advice is to keep a record and to prevent evasion of scrutiny and there is no actual talk page content, what's the point in retaining those pages? I'm not so sure the blanket rule is that helpful in these circumstances. Sdrqaz (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll answer your question with a question: what's the point in deleting them? Doing nothing is easy. Of course, if you want to go down the prevent evasion of scrutiny route, by deleting those pages you potentially lose info about how they edit these "test" pages. Primefac (talk) 11:29, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with your implication that it is effectively busywork and sometimes the temptation of the politician's fallacy is strong (Special:Diff/1063626626 comes to mind), but if someone wants to delete them, I'm not going to object. As for "you potentially lose info about how they edit these 'test' pages", it doesn't feel like a great reason for retention – G2 applies outside of the mainspace and we routinely delete test drafts. Sdrqaz (talk) 12:16, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see the benefit to deleting them. If a user talk page already existed with routine content on it, and someone new writes "Hello!", you'd roll the addition back or remove it manually. That suffices as well for a page on which "Hello!" was the first entry. Largoplazo (talk) 16:51, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I deleted a few where the text was something like "Test" or a swear word. But if it says some variation on "hello" or "hi", I left an IP welcome template, even if it was a few years old. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:12, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Also, these all seem to be being tagged by MZMcBride. See this conversation on their talk page. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

They do indeed. See User_talk:Primefac/Archive_38#User_talk_pages. Primefac (talk) 20:04, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

It's absolutely true that if you look at an arbitrary and specific set of pages or edits, they will be arbitrary and specific. :-) I'm hardly the only person tagging test pages, vandalism pages, etc. for deletion. And instead of saying "thank you for helping keep the project free of spam and patent nonsense", you keep suggesting your volunteer time is being wasted. Please cut it out. A page such as User talk:24.69.40.254 serves absolutely no purpose and should be deleted. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:10, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Save everyone else some time, and just blank it yourself. Primefac (talk) 20:12, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

For context (Special:Contributions/24.69.40.253):

15:28, 13 April 2016 diff hist +4‎ N User talk:24.69.40.254 ‎ ←Created page with 'deez'
15:26, 13 April 2016 diff hist +19‎ Applied science ‎ Deez nuts.

We really do not need to host a page that reads only "deez" in perpetuity. This is silly. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:19, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

My view is that they're test pages (cf. "Hello, World!" program). You could take a less charitable view that they're vandalism. I don't believe anyone is legitimately trying to communicate to a user by creating these pages. We wouldn't hesitate to delete such a test page if it were in, for example, the article or category or file namespaces. For example, if someone created 2409:4042:2292:27E4:D136:29EA:90B0:40B2 with the contents "hey".

Outside of "hello"-type variations, I think there's real harm in allowing users to write "poop" or "cum" or "shit" on our project and leaving it there for years.

The "busywork" argument doesn't really seem to warrant a response. This is a volunteer project, nobody is obligated to tag or review these pages. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:05, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

nobody is obligated to tag or review these pages - and yet, if a page shows up in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as test pages (or in my usual decline-for-out-of-scope favourite, the G6 cat), someone is going to have to patrol the page, check to see if it's worth deleting, and then make that decision. If they decline, then someone else needs to do the same thing. Just like we don't talk about server kittens for redirects or PEIS, saying "no one is being forced to review these" is just nonsense.

And for what it's worth, I don't think we're discussing the actual "naughty words" cases here; we are discussing the ones you keep tagging where there is a generic welcome statement. Primefac (talk) 20:09, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The practice of using some kind of greeting as a test string predates the existence of Wikipedia and even predates the existence of the Web. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:24, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see much difference between this and this. If one is revertible, so is the other. If the page had no prior history, delete it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

This matches my view. Wikipedia is a very open project and that means we need more maintenance as a result. Tangentially, someone once asked me why we keep vandalism edits at all and it's an interesting line of thought. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:13, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

We don't delete pages where there is no benefit to deletion. Simple vandalism can be fixed by reversion and deletion brings no benefits over than reversion so we don't delete them. If you think we should delete all revdel all vandalism edits then WP:VPPRO is the place to discuss that. Thryduulf (talk) 09:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• There clearly is no consensus here that these pages should always be deleted, therefore they do not and by definition cannot meet the requirements of any speedy deletion criterion. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Hi Thryduulf. There's longstanding consensus that we delete vandalism, test pages, patent nonsense, etc. Do you think these pages should be nominated for deletion via a different means? Like a batch MFD? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:10, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

    Vandalism, test pages, patent nonsense, etc can and should continue to be speedily deleted. The point of this discussion is that there is no consensus that these old user talk pages count as test pages. Personally I think that doing anything other than completely ignoring them is a waste of time and effort, but I can't stop you sending them to MfD if you want. Thryduulf (talk) 09:52, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• There is a long-running and clear and unmistakable consensus that we don't speedy delete talk pages of IP editors, and continuing to nominate them is disruptive editing. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Hi Oiyarbepsy. I have no idea what you're talking about, we have and we continue to delete hundreds of user talk pages, both for IP users and not, every year. In 2020, we deleted about 6,939 non-subpage user talk pages. In 2021, we deleted about 6,183 non-subpage user talk pages. In 2022 so far, we've deleted about 898 non-subpage user talk pages. We delete them for all kinds of reasons, including vandalism (User talk:94.103.80.157), pages created by banned users (User talk:112.208.213.59), etc. Zooming out a bit, IP editors as a class appear to be going away. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:07, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
    • It seems like a great amount of time is wasted on all this deletion, in that case. We don't want empty articles, empty drafts, empty project pages, empty templates, empty categories, empty help pages. So we can't just delete the content on them and leave them empty, we have to delete them altogether. User talk pages? They can be empty. We even allow registered users to delete the entire contents of their user talk pages. So there's no reason not to just remove the improper content, leave the empty user talk page, and move on, without hooking an administrator into it. Largoplazo (talk) 12:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
    • ... and we also deleted thousands of pages for reasons that don't mention any speedy deletion criterion, including several for blatant non-criteria. "We did this before" is simply not a persuasive argument here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
• The ones I htink we should be deleting are the ones that give personal information, even relatively safe personal information. I've encountered too many people using them as jokes--if they mention a name, it might be a "friend". DGG ( talk ) 17:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

A7 and cryptocurrencies

Relevant polices and essays:

• WP:NCRYPTO
• Wikipedia:Notability (cryptocurrencies)
• Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies

(To help with the discussion below) Singularity42 (talk) 22:07, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure we're quite there yet, but I'm wondering what the community's thoughts are about expanding A7 to include non-notable cryptocurrencies. I'm starting to see these cropping more frequently in the articles, and then to only reference self-published sources, and sometimes a cryptocurrency exchange where it is listed. These tend to end up in AfD, as the authors usually contest any PROD. Given how it is becoming easier to easier to create cryptocurriencies, and how quickly newer editors go to create an article about said-cryptocurrency without including any independent reliable secondary sources with the article. Would the community support cryptocurrencies being listed in the A7 list of subjects? I'll alert Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptocurrency about this on their talk page. Singularity42 (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I support, however I must note that some people may argue that cryptocurrencies fall under software and therefore are already excluded, or may argue that cryptocurrencies fall under web content and are already included. Because of this confusing distinction, it's worth finding consensus on either including or excluding crypto. casualdejekyll 20:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Question what resources are there on-wiki to help admins determine what is an isn't a claim of significance in this area (remember that significance is a lower bar than notability)? For example, is there an SNG? Is there a list of publications in which coverage usually is or is not significant? e.g. I know there are a huge number of online publications where the only criteria for coverage is existence or announcement of intent (so coverage in them is not an indicator of significance) but I don't know which ones they are? Are there any exchanges that feature only notable or likely notable currencies? I'm leaning towards supporting some criterion (either A7 or possibly a dedicated one) but I'm not sure yet how viable objective application would be. If we do go for a dedicated criterion, we should explicitly exclude cryptocurrencies from A7 to avoid any amiguity of the sort Casualdejekyll mentions. Thryduulf (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I know we've been deleting in AfDs when the references are just self-published sources (these "white papers" on the website for the cryptocurrency) and an exchange listing of it's trading value. That tends to be what I'm seeing mostly in the new pages, although I'm interested what more regular new page patrollers are seeing. So I'm inclined to say that self-published sources and/or a listing of the cryptocurrency's monetary value is not on their own an indicator of signficance. Maybe someone from the cryptocurrency wikiproject could expand? Singularity42 (talk) 22:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Here's a recent AfD on a cryptocurrency: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Transhuman Coin. I'll see if I can find some others (or if anyone else has some to share that might help on what has or hasn't been accepted). Singularity42 (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I have added the relevant policy and an Wikipedia essay on the topic at the top of this discussion. Singularity42 (talk) 22:07, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I think a wider general point is that the software vs web content ambiguity in A7 should probably be resolved at some point. Regarding a cryptocurrency-specific CSD, how do we gauge "significance" for a cryptocurrency? "No independent sources" requires too much evaluation I think. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:48, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the history of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Cryptocurrency there don't seem to be that many AfDs related to cryptocurrencies, and a lot of what gets listed there is people or products related to cryptocurrencies rather than actual cryptocurrencies. I suspect the volume isn't enough to justify this. I would also like to see some suggestions of what kinds of assertions of significance are likely to be seen in cryptocurrency articles. The notability essay linked above purely talks about the kinds of sources which should be considered. Hut 8.5 10:20, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The currencies themselves are software, and software is a general exclusion I think we should keep. Web content has been interpreted fairly narrowly to mean creative content--it was intended as an exception to books not being eligible, and to the rules for music,, on the reasonable presumption that most of it is junk. But the various cryptocurrency people and companies are at this point more frequent article subjects, and they all get hype.Fortunately afd has been very conservative about accepting them. DGG ( talk ) 17:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't really see that there are so many articles like that that PROD/AFD cannot handle them. Remember, new CSDs (including expansions of current CSDs) need to fulfill the requirements posted at the top and "frequent" is one of them. Plus, as pointed out above, this is an area where a single admin is unlikely to correctly assess whether a claim of significance exists. Regards SoWhy 20:44, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I think a lot of valid points have been made above. As the person who raised this issue, I'm inclined to agree that the number of cryptocurrency articles has not reached the point for us to consider modifying A7 to include non-notable ones. Singularity42 (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with the above; the G11 (unambiguous promotion) and A11 (obviously made up) rationales are sufficient to speedily delete the pure crap, and the rest can go to AFD. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 00:43, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Does U2 apply to redirects on user SUBpages, when there was a rename?

User:اِفلاق/CSD log is a redirect that was created during an user rename, but the current text of the U2 criterium isn't entirely clear whether it always excludes such redirects or only when they are on the main userpage. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:50, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd say no under the "previous name of a renamed user" clause, but I'd say U1 is applicable here, or at least its spirit. Sdrqaz (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

RDRAFTs

Given that redirects from draftspace to mainspace page moves should be retained per WP:RDRAFT, are any CSD criteria applicable for such redirects? Draft redirects are frequently tagged for deletion as CSD G6. I understand that redirects can be deleted per G7 if requested by the substantive constributor, so can RDRAFTS be considered for deletion if requested? Jay (talk) 05:15, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

No, and deleting per G6 is not a valid use of that criteria. Primefac (talk) 09:08, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

So what could be the reason G7 is applicable for all namespace redirects, but not applicable for only the draft-to-main moves? What is special about drafts, is it because draft is the only namespace where a page can get into mainspace? Jay (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, I was referring to G6. G7 is applicable everywhere, because it's the page creator asking for the page to be deleted (I realise now that I wrote out an extra explanation regarding this in my initial reply but deleted it). I would argue, though, that if the page creator isn't the one moving the draft, then the page mover is not the page creator and thus should not be "G7'ing" the created redirect. Primefac (talk) 10:25, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Primefac. Unless the author of the moved page and the person who moved the page are the same person then G7 is not applicable. G6 is not a catchall and CSD should never be used to delete a member of a class there is consensus should generally be kept (per WP:RDRAFT redirects formed by moving pages from draftspace to mainspace are a perfect example of such a class). If there is anything actually (not just theoretically) harmful about a specific redirect from draftspace to mainspace then nominate it at RfD explaining what the specific harm is. Thryduulf (talk) 12:22, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I was trying to see if RDRAFTS are a special case of exemption from G7 (because of the namespace transition), but I see that it is not, except for the mover clause. For context, I initiated the discussion because of the undeletion request WP:Requests for undeletion#Draft:Polar Bear (film), where the mover (EpicPupper) was NOT the substantive contributor, but the deletion requester (Cardei012597) was. The undeletion requester was neither of the users, but an IP. The deleting admin said that the mover clause here is a technicality, and should not have come in way of her G7 delete. Jay (talk) 08:55, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

The request was archived without resolution and can now be found at WP:Requests for undeletion/Archive 372#Draft:Polar Bear (film). Jay (talk) 07:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Anybody who has had any interest in a draft should, after the draft has been published to main space without the person being aware of it, still be able to go to its draft space location and find it. Under what circumstances should somebody determine that one such redirect is an exception (unless the article has been deleted from main space, in which case G8 applies)? Largoplazo (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

A certain type of such deletions was recently discussed. Ping to UnitedStatesian, who may be interested in sharing their opinion. – Uanfala (talk) 16:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I agree that under current consensus G6 only applies to correct obvious errors (such as the G6 deletion of Draft:Move/Jannillea Glasgow). However, I think it is worth at some point having a clarifying discussion to determine the value of keeping multiple redirects in draftspace that all point to the same lone mainspace article (and where only one of those redirects matches the title of the mainspace article): by definition, only ONE of those redirects was the redirect resulting from the draftspace to mainspace move of the target article. A related open (AFAIK) question: if the mainspace article is moved, should the draft redirecting to it be moved as well, so the titles continue to match? And of course, both speedy criterion G14 and R speedy criteria R2 and R3 can apply to RDRAFTS as well. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

The last draftspace title the page was at when it was edited by those with a significant interest in the page (which will always be at least the original author, the main author(s) if different, and may include others in some situations) edited it/discussed it on the talk page should always continue to lead to the page in articlespace, regardless of what title it now has there. If those page had multiple titles in draftspace we should keep all the draftspace titles as redirects to the articlespace page unless there is evidence that everybody who who edited it at the earlier title knows about the newer title (in which case it may be nominated at RfD). If the article is moved to a different title in articlespace than it had in draftspace, it will sometimes be appropriate to create a new redirect from draftspace to articlespace (although this is likely to be uncommon). The reason for this is that the redirects from draft to article space have two purposes: 1. to enable those who worked on or had an interest in the draft to easily find the article (i.e. the same reason we almost always keep redirects from moves within mainspace), and 2. to discourage the creation of drafts that duplicate articles. See also WP:MOVEREDIRECT. Thryduulf (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@UnitedStatesian: for the additional criteria you mentioned that can be applied for RDRAFTS:

G14: How is it applicable, since an RDRAFT ending in (disambiguation) will be redirecting to a mainspace page ending in (disambiguation) or to a page that disambiguates?

R2: How is it applicable, since we are talking about RDRAFTs, not mainspace-to-draftspace redirects?

R3: Although typo redirects which are the result of a move are not to be deleted to avoid breaking external links, for draft redirects, given the discussions here, shouldn't we be able to track back to see where the article came from, regardless of whether the draft title had a typo or not? Jay (talk) 08:21, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

A11, G3, and draft space

Lately I've been noticing a lot of drafts tagged with G3 (blatant hoax), that, were they in article space, would more properly be tagged A11 (obviously invented). Think drafts with text consisting of "X is a micronation declared by (name) on (today's date)." or "X is a word made up by (name) to tell (other name) he loves her!" Or "X is a language made up by (name) to secretly communicate with their friends."

These aren't hoaxes. But they also are not viable drafts. So they are getting tagged with G3. And I've been declining them. Because they aren't hoaxes. And because A11 does not apply in draft space.

My philosophy tends to be that they'll be deleted after 6 months, or if it's that urgent to get rid of it there's always MFD. But the more of them I see - usually tagged by respected users - NPP patrollers, AFC reviewers, sometimes even other admins, the more uncertain I am.

Perhaps we should consider expanding A11 to cover draft space. That said, I wouldn't want it to be a G criteria - it shouldn't cover user space or project space. Thoughts? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:08, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think G13 or a different criteria (if possible) deals with them sufficiently and MFD can deal with the few that need deleting quicker or are being edited/submitted to avoid G13. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Unless there is harm (which would be covered by other G criteria) there is little reason not to let it a) sit for six months to be G13'd, or b) be MFD'd (if the creator is insistent on tendentious resubmission). Primefac (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Crouch, Swale and Primefac, and this has been the consensus every time things like this have been discussed: if they are actively causing harm they will either meet some other G criterion or should be nominated at MfD. If they aren't causing any harm then just leave them for G13. Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Taxonomy of G6 deletions

The above discussion about the scope of G6 made me think now was a good time for an updated repost of my previous taxonomy of G6 deletions. So, in 2022 so far, there have been 10,788 G6 deletions. Of those,

1. 1949 are of dated maintenance categories
2. 1488 are deletions to make way for a move. Note that moves over redirects of the sort that can be done by any autoconfirmed user, or page movers moving pages over single-revision redirects to other targets, don't get included in this table at all.
3. 1233 are in ClueBot III's userspace
4. 879 are deletions of single-author blank pages by Fastily
5. 490 are deletions of pages in the article talk namespace by Tassedethe. The typical context for these deletions is that they move an incompletely disambiguated page to a more disambiguated title, retarget the mainspace redirect left behind from that move to a disambiguation page, and then delete the talk page redirect.
6. 397 are deletions of duplicate archives, usually because the deletion tagger (usually Sawol) has condensed a large number of archives into a smaller number. It's not clear to me that all of these are actually uncontroversial, given User talk:Liz#Alleged uncontroversial deletion
7. 334 are deletions per a deletion discussion
8. 267 reference WP:PMRC#10
9. 193 are deletions per Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 16#Double redirects for user's scripts
10. 156 are deletions of subpages of Template:Infobox road (these all have the edit summary of literally [[WP:CSD#G6]]). There's a vaguely related discussion at Template talk:Infobox road#/translation subpages orphaned.
11. 137 use the default summary from {{db-error}}
12. 171 are per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1093#Can an admin move a leftover local description of Wikimedia Commons file?
13. 38 are deletions of subpages of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations
14. 88 are by Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT III 5
15. 2968 don't fall into any of the above criteria

* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I added a pie chart, because it helps me. Primefac (talk) 18:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

These are interesting data. I saw Sawol's deletion requests and skipped them because I wasn't certain whether they were valid "housekeeping" deletions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

How many of these G6 deletions are of pages that begin with Draft:Move/? These redirects are left over after incorrectly done WP:ROBIN pageswaps (if the swap is correctly done then the pageswap doesn't leave a redirect behind) and they get in the way if another pageswap is needed, so I've been tagging them with G6 whenever I've checked for them. Iffy★Chat -- 18:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

77. And none of them meet any other segregating criteria * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I know I sometimes move redirects holding up moves to Draft:Move first, then tag them with G6 as making way for a move. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper: Since you're an extendedmover, why are you doing that? Sdrqaz (talk) 18:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Sdrqaz! I think that page movers can't delete redirects with more than 1 revision; for example, I can't move Wikipedia:Sandbox/EP to Wikipedia:Sandbox/EpicPupper because the target has more than 1 revision. Cheers! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:38, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Please don't do that, it makes so much extra work. Either do a page swap or just wait for a {{db-move}} to go through; I make every effort to check that cat at least twice a day. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

See WP:ROBIN for what Primefac's talking about. While I used to do swaps manually (I would recommend it if you aren't too bothered by speed), there is pageswap.js. One of the points of having extendedmover and suppressredirect is reducing the workload for administrators, so it'd be better if you did it as a proper round-robin swap. Sdrqaz (talk) 19:31, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, this is cool data. So what are the ~3,000 "other"? Levivich 20:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Not in any of the other categories :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 22:38, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I listed them in "other" because I couldn't find any way of meaningful separating the mass into separate groups that were large enough to bother reporting. The entire table of ~3,100 (100 more happened since I started this discussion) "other" entries is now available at User:Pppery/deletions/G6 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:26, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

a7/a9

why are these seperate catergories? unless i'm missing something, a9 could be comfortably merged into a7. 晚安 (トークページ) 08:22, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

A9 has the additional requirement that the alleged recording artist must not have an article either. Stifle (talk) 08:33, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times previously. Have a look in the archives for multiple explanations of why these two criteria are different. Thryduulf (talk) 14:18, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

C1 and the seven day wait....

I was reviewing and comparing WP:C1 and {{Db-c1}} and noticed something peculiar evading the text in {{Db-c1}} that is not in WP:C1: Verbiage regarding a 7-day wait after the category has been emptied. So, I see a couple of issues here:

• The CSD criterion and template are not synced in their descriptions.
• How do/would we determine the exact date and time a category was emptied? As far as I know, we don't have the functionality to determine when a category was emptied since category links are placed on pages other than the category page itself, leaving no such timestamp on the category page.

So, I'm thinking these issues need to be resolved. It seems the most recent discussion regarding this criterion's wait timeframe occurred at Template talk:Db-meta/Archive 5#T3 and C1 categories and Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 78#CSD C1 concerns. However, since that discussion did not seem to answer or address the concerns regarding the discrepancies, I'm bringing this up for discussion and hopefully resolution. Steel1943 (talk) 07:06, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

The current practice is that {{db-c1}} is added as soon as the category becomes empty, and then remains on the category page for seven days before thre category is deleted. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 12:49, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

We should revise the template, so that when first placed it appears pink instead of red, and includes the text "this category can be deleted at (date)" Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

The 7 day wait starts when the category is tagged regardless of how long the category was empty before being tagged, the template says "This category may be deleted if it has remained empty for at least seven days". The 7 day clock restarts if a page gets added and later removed unless (perhaps) no one removes the tag, this gives authors and other uses time to populate the category, the 7 days is standard as opposed to just a day or 2 so that people who are busy on certain days etc have chance to notice/deal with it. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:18, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, what you said doesn't contradict my suggestion. My suggestion is to make things easier for admins by having the template tell them when the seven days is up, and to explicitly say not to delete if the 7 days is not over. You could even have separate categories, for those tagged, and those tagged for 7 days or more. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

• So ... with all this being said, in order to make the description in line with the intention, should the verbiage in the criterion description and template be updated to say something like "This category may be deleted if it is empty seven days after this tag has been placed." ? Steel1943 (talk) 20:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
• Is there anything actually broken here? Have you seen admins speedying empty tagged categories that are still in the wait time, or nonempty tagged categories when the time's up? My experience with C1s before they started getting instantly twinkle-deleted was that, since they aren't in CAT:CSD until they're eligible, admins didn't even see them before then. —Cryptic 22:34, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about what you are referring to, given that I'm not an admin, but that could very well be true. What's "broken" here is that what's done in practice doesn't match what is stated in the instructions of either the template or the criterion. Steel1943 (talk) 23:54, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Seems like process creep to me. Stifle (talk) 09:26, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is process creep, I think the OP is asking that {{db-c1}} contain the same message that {{PROD}} or {{Orphaned non-free revisions}} contains, namely a "this can be deleted after <date>". No process creep required. Primefac (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

This is exactly what I am asking. (Well, that and updating the WP:C1 criterion description to match.) Steel1943 (talk) 17:51, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

As a relatively uncontroversial change, I've added in a date statement to make it a little more obvious as to when the category could potentially be deleted. Wording or formatting changes are welcomed. I don't know if we want to make this a subst-only template now so that the revision in which the template is added gets hard-coded (since I added it to the unsubst call) but that's a different discussion. Primefac (talk) 18:07, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Guidance for use of A7

This may have been suggested before, and if so, I apologise.

• I'd like to suggest that guidance be added that if an article on a subject exists in other Wikipedias, it should be eligible for A7 only in exceptional circumstances.

  My reasoning is that, although standards in English WP may be higher, the fact that the subject is considered notable enough for another Wikipedia implies that deletion on grounds of no conceivable notability is at least controversial, and therefore it would be better to delete via a different route.

  This request is prompted by a genuine and practical issue, not a theoretical quibble. Yesterday an extremely experienced and competent admin (Bbb23) speedy-deleted Beno Koller on grounds of A7. Koller was a Polish soldier who remained in London after WW2 and became a theatre manager catering for the Polish immigrant community. There is an article about him on the Polish Wikipedia,[9] which provides sources including what looks to me like contemporary newspaper coverage. But of course this is all paper-sourcing, pre-internet, and it's in Polish. The English article was tagged for speedy deletion by an editor who cannot read Polish, and was therefore not in a position to evaluate the sources (at least some of which are scans, not machine-translated by browsers). Formally, it's quite conceivable that a theatre manager in London would be notable, and have good independent sourcing. In a case like this, it's obvious that assessing will take time and knowledge of Polish, neither of which is compatible with a speedy deletion. The article should have had the opportunity to go to AfD to allow time for someone able to read the sources to have a look. That there is a Polish article, obviously linked from the English site, is a clue. Incidentally, I wouldn't have argued had it been deleted on grounds of being an unacknowledged translation of the Polish WP (which it probably was), and whoever translated it messed up big-time and replaced the entire references with a list of non-existent templates, which may, understandably, have motivated Bb23 to delete. It may be that Bbb23 merely left the A7 explanation while truly deleting because the article was in a rubbish state.

  I am not quibbling with Bbb23 about this; I'm just suggesting a guideline that would help admins, with minimal effort, establish when notability is controversial rather than obviously missing.

Elemimele (talk) 12:05, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. I think that "article has sources that can't be readily verified but no claim of significance" is a bit of a gray area in terms of A7 eligibility. The policy itself leaves the question open. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

The fact another Wikipedia has an article on the subject doesn't mean they think the subject is notable. It certainly isn't the case that we think that every subject with an article on the English Wikipedia is notable, for example - we delete articles because we think the subject is non-notable all the time. While an article which cited a bunch of Polish sources which aren't easy to evaluate probably isn't a good A7, here the deleted article cited no sources at all. Editors should be including sources when they create articles. Hut 8.5 16:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

They should but they don't have to and A7 does not require them. In this case, I would have noticed that the creator pointed out that this was a translation of pl:Beno Koller which has a bunch of sources and that they noted it to be a work in progress, so I think A7 is not applicable because - like any CSD - it should only be applied in clear-cut cases. So the problem is less with A7 but with the admin applying it and it's okay to think they made a mistake. As for the suggested limitation, there is a lot of Wikipedias with varying levels of activity and different rules for inclusion, so simply having an article on another wiki is not a surefire way to indicate significance or importance. However, I would support adding a sentence to A7 like

If an article about the subject exists on one or more foreign language Wikipedias, the reviewing administrator should include these articles in their assessment (for example using Google Translate); if those articles indicate the significance or importance of the subject and the article can conceivably expanded by using material from these Wikipedias, A7 will generally not be applicable.

Regards SoWhy 16:54, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thinking about it, I should have specified sources in my wording. I was wondering about something along the lines of "If an article about the subject exists in a foreign language Wikipedia and is accompanied by sources that cannot be trivially dismissed, then the English Wikipedia article will generally be eligible for A7 only in exceptional circumstances", on the grounds that it's not fair to ask the CSD admin to do more than the most cursory of checks on sourcing. As soon as we hit the level of "sources exist but we don't know whether they're good enough" it should be out of CSD and into AfD or talk-page debates. The point about "trivially dismissed" is that if all the sources are quite obviously inappropriate then the admin should have the right to use their judgement. If admins are willing to look at foreign language Wikipedias in more depth, then I would certainly agree with SoWhy's approach, which is exactly what ought to happen if the article is nominated for AfD. Elemimele (talk) 17:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it's reasonable to ask the reviewing admin to look at articles in foreign language Wikipedias, just as it isn't reasonable to expect them to do a Google search. If you're going to use the existence of sources to get past A7 then you should at least cite those sources in your article. A7 does sometimes result in badly written articles on notable topics being deleted, and that's OK. It's intended as a tripwire to get rid of cases which generally don't deserve closer examination. Hut 8.5 18:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on a link in the languages box is not really the same as doing a Google search (personally, I would do both). I would also argue that any article lost on a notable subject, no matter how badly written, is a net negative for the encyclopedia because it might lose us both information we should have and a new editor. Regards SoWhy 18:19, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

To be honest that's an argument for getting rid of A7 entirely. Hut 8.5 18:51, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

My view is the opposite: poorly written articles are worse than red links. Filling a red link is fun, cleaning up terrible articles is a chore. —Kusma (talk) 19:19, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

A7's "indication of importance or significance" is supposed to be a lower bar than notability. An article that passes A7 may not demonstrate notability. When I'm evaluating something tagged as A7 I look for any statement that indicates why the article creator thought they should write about this (person, animal, organization, event, whatever). I don't look for the assertion of significance to be sourced - in fact, I find the presence of even a single independent sources to be an indication of significance in and of itself. If there are no sources, that's a matter for AFD, not A7. In this instance, I would have considered the assertion that he is a 2 time recipient of the Cross of Valour (Poland) to be an assertion of significance such that I would have declined A7. However, I do see how that was kind of buried and not the strongest assertion of significance - I don't fault Bbb23 for deleting it. I don't think the mere existence of an article in another Wikipedia to be an assertion of significance, as you don't know how long the other article has been around (could have been created same day or by the same person - especially in the case of corporate spam), if it has been reviewed, what their guidelines are like, etc. A7 is already a very low bar - just tell us why we should care about this. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:50, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: we should care because Bbb23, a good admin, deleted an article that might well have been about a notable subject. If that was a simple, honest mistake on Bbb23's part, I will happily drop this stick. But I took it to be an indication that the position of the bar was sufficiently unclear to allow Bbb23 to delete, which I felt to be wrong. I do agree that the article was in a rubbish state. Also I agree about the same-day-same-creator issue, which is another reason why I would word it as "exceptional circumstances" to permit the canny admin to use their judgement. I also agree that A7 doesn't mean "notable"; I'm not going to complain if Beno Koller lands up at AfD and a bunch of Polish experts say the sources are trivial and he's not notable; that would just be AfD doing its job. Elemimele (talk) 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Sigh, I've been pinged too many times. Ironically, the author of the article hasn't challenged the deletion. That said, I don't see a problem draftifying the article so that it can go through the WP:AFC process. I have no interest in doing that, but any admin here can do so if they think it's the "right" thing to do.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:12, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Bbb23: one last ping, just to apologise; I had no intention to cause you any personal stress. I thought, probably misguidedly, that I'd spotted a way to make CSD more robust, but seem merely to have stirred up general confusion. I will go and look for something more useful to edit! There are days that I look happily at my WP contributions, and days where I am less proud... Elemimele (talk) 23:10, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstood me - I wasn't saying we shouldn't care about the article being deleted. I was paraphrasing A7. A7="tell u.s why we should care about (the article subject)". I was also trying to do multiple things at once and could have been clearer. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:05, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: oops, my skills in reading comprehension seem to have hit rock-bottom here! Sorry! Yes, that summary of A7 makes sense. Overall, I am now thinking that the status quo isn't so bad; that the occasional controversy in speedy deletion is probably an inevitable side-effect of hard-pressed volunteer admins having to make a lot of decisions rapidly; and that extra text and instructions won't eliminate it. Maybe my suggestion wasn't so good after all. Ah well... Elemimele (talk) 17:38, 30 April 2022 (UTC)