Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Archive

Propositions 1, 2, and 3

These look good, but I have some concerns. Getting some variant of 1 passed is to me the highest priority and its wording thus needs to be immaculate. I question whether it would pass in its current form. One concern is that it relies on the amorphous notions of importance and significance rather than something more easily defined such as verifiability. It could allow say an article on a random shepherd, such as that on Pierre Maury, to be deleted. Two avoids this problem with the mention of press coverage. That addendum will prevent bands like The Electras from being deleted. Three is also problematic, especially because the factors that make a website notable are ill-defined. Listings of websites certainly make up less than one percent of the deletion load so just dumping this criteria might be best. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• There is one problem with that. Most people treat the word "verifiable" as "something that can be verified", even if that is not entirely what it means by Wiki definition. For instance, an article that reads "John Doe is a student at Albuquerque high school" is verifiable by anyone who holds a yearbook. "Xargh473 is a l33t us3r at t3hforums.com" is verifiable by anyone who logs in to those forums. Both, however, are likely not encyclopedic. I'm afraid we're going to need an appeal to common sense somewhere, and wikt:important and wikt:significant are reasonably well defined for most people. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

For articles created by logged-in editors, maybe we could offer an intermediate step?

• Flag the article with a notice that significance has not been asserted/established. The notice (presumably a template) will include the date it was applied.
• Add a message to the talk page of the editor who created the article, requesting additional information. This too can be a template.
• After a short period (24 hours or so), templated articles that have been unimproved can be deleted per Props 1, 2, or 3.

The proposed speedy criteria can be applied immediately to articles without logged-in authors. I would suggest only applying them to articles at least an hour old, in case an editor is still working on expansion.

I'm not sure if this is too Rube Goldberg a process; any thoughts? At least it's less work than VfD, still. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I have no problem with adding another template that serves as a warning that speedy deletion will happen unless speedy cleanup occurs. Since the template text must allow user removal once repaired, I don't see a reason to wait even 1 hour. By putting these in one category, it would allow those who have concerns with these nomnations to review these articles and improve those that should be kept. Should the {{Speedy-cleanup}} template be included here since the wording of that template could make the speedy cleanup option more acceptable? Vegaswikian 18:14, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• In the earlier discussion, there was some significant opposition against speedy-cleanup (aka countdown deletion). As a side point, at the present situation, WP:VFD performs exactly the function you seem to desire for speedy-cleanup. I'd say any restrictions such as "one hour old" or "by registered users" are too arbitrary. On the whole I'd say speedy cleanup is not a bad idea, but is enough of a can of worms that it should be a separate proposal. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble with (article) props 1, 2, and 3. I don't like the "assert" wording, especially on 2 which, because of the music guidelines is very quantitative. Lets say there's no article on Elton John, (hypothetically) and I start it with article that says he's a really cool artist with bright clothes and distinctive glasses and he's really famous, etc. But never explicitly saying he's a signed musician. It could be deleted, despite the truth of the matter that he is. It should not be whether the article asserts it or not, but whether the subject is it or not. Now you may still say that the Elton John article is crappy and still deserves deletion, and I may agree with you, but it should go to VfD (where there's a high liklihood of cleanup for signed musicians), not be deleted without a chance for cleanup. I know this might add an exta minute of googling to the process, but I don't thik it's that big of a deal. Does this make sense? --Dmcdevit 20:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• That is true. However, it is exceedingly rare for a famous musician to get a substub like that. It is, however, exceedingly common for a random garage band to get an article. The latter occur often enough on VFD that a speedy might be appropriate (esp. because of socks). Note that 1) an admin is never obliged to speedy anything, and is strongly recommended to check sources. And 2) such a junk article is no big loss to begin with. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • I guess my example might have muddied it up, but think of it this way: There are actually plenty of musicians who qualify under WP:MUSIC but don't have articles. This is mostly because they're niche artists, and may not be well-known, but still notable. I can recall seeing plenty of musician articles put on VfD precisely because there was absolutely no assertion of album releases at all. But then, in the process, researchers have found their released albums and cleaned up the articles. Changing the phrase "does not assert having" to "has not" does not prevent the garage bands from being deleted at all, but hopefully would prevent the WP:MUSIC qualifiers from being deleted without cleanup. --Dmcdevit 23:33, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Please cite some examples? Radiant_>|< 10:59, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • A quick glance through my CDs turned up PopCanon and Tristan da Cunha, both of which meet the WP:MUSIC guidelines but lack articles. (Tristan da Cunha is about the island.) I'll see about fixing those gaps this weekend, but I'm sure there are many more. Factitious 12:34, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

And one more

And one more that crossed my mind... another regular source of vanity is people writing about their college clubs. Thus it may be useful to add a CSD for any article that claims to be about any local club (but not a chapter of a larger organization) and that cites no press reference nor influence outside the local community. Radiant_>|< June 29, 2005 08:37 (UTC)

Proposition 1

There may well be a way to dump this proposition #1 entirely. I am currently performing an initial study on a hypothetical speedy deletion criterion that does not rely upon concepts such as "vanity" or "importance" for precisely these reasons, but instead relies upon two metrics that can be applied objectively and that are relatively easily defined. The study is not complete (I want to run it for a few more days yet.), but the data so far indicate that this criterion would allow 75% of the personal vanity articles at VFD that garner a unanimous consensus to delete to be speedily deleted, whilst not allowing the speedy deletion of any articles that proceed to a definite consensus to "keep" or "merge". Pierre Maury would not qualify for speedy deletion under this hypothetical criterion, as a matter of simple subtraction. The proposal is at User:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies. See the talk page for the study in progress. Uncle G 19:13, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

• First question that comes to mind - why 25? Why not 30? Or 21? Radiant_>|< 19:21, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • It was an arbitrary choice. But a quarter of a century is simpler to remember, and less systemically biased, than picking any one country's age of majority. One of the things that the study is intended to study is whether it's a good figure to pick. Uncle G 23:08, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
• I'd drop the entire age criterion. Older people write vanity too. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:46, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • They do. But empirically (You can see the actual study data and discuss the proposal at User talk:Uncle G/Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Unsourced biographies by the way.) this turns out to be nowhere near as much of a problem. Moreover the study so far shows that the age limit prevents quite a few false positives, and that a criterion without an age limit would allow the speedy deletion of articles that in fact receive a unanimous consensus to "keep" at VFD (such as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nicholas Bachynsky, which cited no sources at the time of nomination but which was excluded by the age limit). Uncle G 11:25, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
• That is some really impressive work. I think it could really help reduce the load on VFD. Mybe it should be added as a choice to this poll as this appears to be a higher traffic one? - Taxman ^Talk June 28, 2005 18:43 (UTC)

My first thought on Proposition 1 was a recommendation to tweak the wording from "people such as college professors or actors are individually important in society" to "... may be individually important in society". Articles on actors should not be speedy-deletes but we ought not to accidentally imply that no article on an actor is deletable.

On reflection, though, I worry that we are further institutionalizing the bias in favor of pop-culture. I have always been uncomfortable with the belief that entertainers are inherently more encyclopedia-worthy than other business people. However, that's a bigger worry than this one proposal which is, by the way, a close description of the current standard. Rossami (talk) 20:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Well, entertainers do, on average, get more media attention than business people. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Which takes you to the question of whether "media attention" is a reliable measure of encyclopedia-worthiness. The more I work with Wikipedia, the less convinced I become of that hypothesis. But again, that's a bigger question than the recommended wording of this proposal. Any suggestions on where we should move this question? Rossami (talk) 16:20, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Although I too do not know where to hold this discussion, but I think that it needs to be addressed. Perhaps some wise old bird can advise us.—Theo (Talk) 00:55, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors are individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead. ... About twenty nominations per day fall into this category. As an extreme example, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Bob Burns. I don't see how Bob Burns is an "extreme" example, since he is a high school teacher, who would be (by virtue of his occupation) presumably less important than a college professor but more important than a student. If we want an extreme example, we should look for an article about a high school student with no notability claim; nothing comes immediately to mind but I'm sure we have several to choose from. Also I agree that college professors and actors may be individually important but are not automatically so as per User:Rossami above. --Metropolitan90 04:37, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
• I venture to suggest that no-one is encyclopedic solely by virtue of their occupation. Some achievements and some posts are encyclopedic so the associated achievers and post-holders merit an article. For example, an actor spending their career in geographically limited provincial repertory is probably an inappropriate topic. Likewise, a politician early in their term in local government.—Theo (Talk) 09:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Some occupations are more equal than others. There are tens of thousands of porn models, but only one President of the United States. Uncle G 11:25, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

• IMHO this needs to have "assert" unless you want to put the burden of proof on the deleter, which defeats the purpose of speedy deletion. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 05:59 (UTC)

Proposition 3

This proposition is arguably too vague. Any thoughts on what might substantiate a website's suitabilty for inclusion in an encyclopedia? This accounts for ~5 pages per day so it would be worthwhile to reword it. Radiant_>|< 12:10, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• It might be worthwhile to spin this off and develop some inclusion criteria for websites, fora and phenomena along the lines of WP:MUSIC or WP:FICT before jumping straight into determining what constitutes a speediable website article. I wouldn't have a big problem with discussing web-related articles on VfD if there were a clear set of guidelines for inclusion. Too often, the discussions for such things degenerate into "Wikipedia has an article on website x or flash animation y, why can't it have this one?" with an inundation of sockpuppets and new users. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:19, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• On another note, how reliable/useful are Alexa rankings? Would a hard limit on Alexa ranking be too draconian? AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:19, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Good idea. See Wikipedia:Websites, which has been linked from the Policy Consensus VFD list. Radiant_>|< 12:35, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics/Notability and inclusion guidelines. Uncle G 12:41, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)
• Alexa rankings aren't entirely reliable, just like Google hits, but including it as one of the possible criteria is a good idea. I much prefer inclusion guidelines than jumping straight into what constitutes a speedy deletable website - Mgm|^(talk) 19:49, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not comfortable with the idea of adding things like Alexa rankings or Google hits to the speedy criteria, even for articles on websites. The whole point of speedy is to get rid of articles that an admin can determine are deletable at a glance; if it requires research, it should go on VfD. — Gwalla | Talk 30 June 2005 03:44 (UTC)

How about if we slightly expand this one to say "any article about a website or a website's user..." (or some better word for user)? It seems to me I've seen a lot of obvious vanity pages about message board/forum users. As these tend not to be real biographies, but about their persona, perhaps this could clear up any confusion that might result from trying to apply the first criterion. --Dmcdevit 22:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• User/owner? Not a bad idea, but isn't that what proposition #1 is for? My rationale for the split was that you can use appropriate terms for people, bands and sites. BIMBW. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Adding "user" to the criteria, I think, doesn't make it any more controversial, but does simply add a clarification. Currently, B-Con is on VfD (with a unanimous "delete" vote so far). Since B-Con is not a real person's name, there could be hesitation to speedy it. This addition would just disambiguify the matter. --Dmcdevit 07:05, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposition 4

I feel that four has little hope of passing in its current incarnation. There are unquestionably some occasions where a Wikipedia page will duplicate a page in another Wikiproject. A dict def is very similar to a stub and various Wikibooks overlap all manner of Wikipedia articles. While this criteria could perhaps be reworded, these sorts of listings are again not a major burden at the moment. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• By my count, about five per day, mostly for wiktionary. A weaker version of the proposal would be, for instance, to not require a second pass through VFD for an article that had consensus to transwiki. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• I like the current wording. Don't weaken it. If the occasional dicdef-stub or Wikisource left-over is deleted, it can be easily re-created (cut-and-paste) by the person who wants to create a new non-stub article. I would, however, explicitly propose this as a revision to existing case A2, not as a new case. Rossami (talk) 21:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I don't like the current wording. It's too broad. According to Radiant! above, the real problem being addressed is people thinking that Wikipedia is Wiktionary. Wikipedia doesn't have a significant "wrong project" problem with Wikinews, Wikiquote, Commons, or Meta articles (albeit that Wikibooks and Meta have significant "wrong project" problems with encyclopaedia articles) and the "wrong project" problems with Wikibooks and Wikisource are best left to the normal deletion process.
• I suggest addressing this problem in another fashion, with this criterion:
  • Any article that has been discussed at WP:VFD where the consensus was to transwiki and delete, whose transwikification has been properly performed (especially that author information must have been recorded)
• and possibly this criterion:
  • Any article about the word or phrase that forms its title (see use-mention distinction and "refers to") that is (and always has been) formatted as a conventional print dictionary entry, with part of speech, pronunciation, and numbered lists of meanings for the word or phrase; especially one that gives an on-line or print dictionary as its source. (For example: skel (n.) /skel/ slang for skeleton) Please consider the ways of actively avoiding dictionary articles, such as making plural to singular, adjective to noun, and verb form to gerund redirects in preference to deletion.
• I also agree with Rossami that A2 should be replaced — by the first of the above criteria. It's unclear, simply doesn't match the way that things actually work, and embodies a view of WikiMedia projects (that the only other projects that exist are other-language Wikipedias) that is now outdated. "Foreign language articles" copied to Wikipedia should get the {{notenglish}} treatment. "Foreign language articles" copied from Wikipedia should have travelled the WP:PNT→WP:VFD→transwiki and delete route, and thereby qualify under my first suggested revised criterion. Uncle G 19:25, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)
• This proposition strikes me as an extremely bad idea. If another Wikimedia project has content that could become a useful part of Wikipedia, we should welcome it, not speedy delete it. Factitious 02:24, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Please give an example thereof. The existence of those sister projects is precisely to host content that is informative but not encyclopedic - such as source texts or dictionary etymologies. NOTE that this is about redundancy. An article can be both in WP and in Wikt, but they should not be identical. Radiant_>|< 11:02, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • What about Wikispecies? Everything in Wikispecies should, in theory, also be in the encyclopedia. - SimonP 12:06, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • What about Wikibooks and Wikinews? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Paella would be a reasonable article on paella, if we didn't already have one. And if we didn't have an entry on .xxx yet, http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/New_top_level_domain_approved would be a useful start at an article, though it would require rewriting. Factitious 12:40, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • Okay, good points. I'm unfamiliar with WikiSpecies, actually. WikiNews sounds like something that could feasibly have redundant articles. However, WikiBooks and Wiktionary should not; the WikiCookbook is a how-to guide, which Wikipedia is not. I could see an article about the subject paella, but not the straight recipe. How about if we reword this proposal to specifically refer to only WikiBooks, WikiSource and Wiktionary? Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
        • Not all Wikibooks articles are how-to guides. Something else that just occurred to me: what if somebody made a detailed encyclopedia-style entry on Wiktionary, and then someone else copied it here? Obviously that shouldn't be deleted — if anything, it should be deleted from Wiktionary. Factitious 00:12, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
          • I don't think that has actually ever happened :) I believe Wikt also has a transwiki process, and will send it to us as being "undictionaric". Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 15:06 (UTC)
            • Yeah, that possibility's pretty out there. In practice, deleting duplicates of Wiktionary articles should be fine, as with Wikisource. I'm still not sure about Wikibooks, though. Factitious June 29, 2005 23:43 (UTC)
• Proposed addition (per DES's argument on #12): "... and doesn't say why it is necessary." — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 05:59 (UTC)
• I could get behind 4 limited to Wiktionary, with a side of 4b for all projects. — Gwalla | Talk 30 June 2005 03:47 (UTC)

Proposition 5

"Extremely short articles which contain no information other than a rephrasing of the title" should be considered for the speedy cleanup template. I suspect many objections based on the article could have been fixed it there was time if it is an out right speedy. Vegaswikian 18:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Okay, could use some rewording. In particular, it is meant to prevent non-encyclopedic articles such as "A Belgian duck is a duck from Belgium". Since there's nothing special about Belgian ducks as opposed to ducks just about anywhere else, this can never feasibly be expanded. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Several of the current CSD cases use examples. I'd explicitly add your Belgian Duck example to the case's wording. Or your could use Vague_Rant's example from the last poll: ==Tezuka Yamazaki== with the content "Tezuka Yamazaki is a Japanese man." I might also add to the comment under this proposal that "The predominant objection in the previous votes was that use of the "obvious" allowed for too much ambiguity." Give a sense for why you think this version will convince the enough voters from last time to cross the aisle. Rossami (talk) 21:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, you could make an argument that this is already speedy-deletable under existing case A1 (very short articles with little or no context). The earlier proposal was actually intended to replace case A1 - tightening the criteria, not adding to them. Somewhere, that linkage got lost in the earlier vote. If it is your intent to replace existing case A1 (which I would support), you should explicitly couple it in the proposition. Rossami (talk) 21:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Any proposal that would clarify/tighten the meaning of short articles with little or no context could only be a good thing. As it stands now, that particular criterion varies widely in its application. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:14, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • Excellent point. See bottom paragraph for more discussion. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• This one looks reasonable. I'd like to get more of a feel for how it would work in practice — is there an example of something that would be covered by this, but not by the existing rules? Factitious 02:29, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • A recent article falling under this description? Hm, can't think of any off the top of my head. Such articles do appear on VFD with some regularity (e.g. "Iron forks" - "these are forks made of iron" or something like that). Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, someone creates a title with no content because they think an article is needed but don't know anything about it. For the sake of example, the title is George Washington. No one adds anything, but someone who does not believe there should be an article on george washington comes across it. What is to stop him deleting it? surely you can not delete a topic which has potential just because it has no content yet. Perhaps a time limit since creation would solve this objection. Article which has existed for 3 months without anyone adding to it?Sandpiper 08:34, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• • "surely you can not delete a topic which has potential": Sure you can! A noteworthy topic always has potential and doesn't depend on an article that is so bad that it doesn't even explain why its topic is noteworthy. Citing cases when people see the need to expand such an article is a broken window fallacy (because these people wouldn't otherwise just have sat around twiddling their thumbs). — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 05:59 (UTC)

wrong. There are indeed people out there who do not seek articles to write, but faced with one lacking which they know something about, then they will consider writing it, instead of doing something entirely different. Like me.Sandpiper 4 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)

• I'm sorry but this is not a good example. If people create an article on any famous person but the article has no content whatsoever, then deleting it is not going to harm anyone. The article can always be recreated with content. Or, an admin with common sense (e.g. all of them) would not delete it but instead add a couple of words. You have to look at the reality of the encyclopedia - people regularly make pointless or empty articles about unencyclopedic subjects. That is what we're trying to get rid of here. People only extremely rarely make pointless or empty articles about someone famous. Bottom line? Yes, it can be abused. It's a wiki. Everything can be abused. The relevant question is, is the tradeoff worth it. Radiant_>|< 10:53, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • When I have the time, a lot less with all of the VfDs and discussions, I will look at the new pages or canidates for speedy. On ocassion I have seen something there that sounded like a reasonable topic. My approach is to add a little more, go to the talk page and say being fixed and then work a little more on the article. On at least one ocassion, I was fighting other editors to improve the article, edits not accepted because of other changes. So, I think that there are editors looking at this an fixing articles that need to be kept. While not finishing the job, they do enough to keep them off of a speedy and VfD. Vegaswikian 19:07, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Then I think vegaswikian is supporting my argument when he says 'when I have the time'. I think I am arguing generally for a longer stay of execution for articles before summary action. I can see that there are significant difficulties with having to run a poll, but I am not convinced that simply delaying action to allow anyone out there to notice and write something would be a severe problem. What is the issue which this amendment is trying to address? Is it considered essential to get trivial articles out of view as quickly as possibly, or to provide a simple means of disposing of them. If the latter, then i think a compulsory time delay (with appropriate notification) would be the best way to further overall content. Sandpiper 10:19, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Vegas, like (I'd think) most RC patrollers, would not delete an article if they thought it was useful, even if technically they would be allowed to. The aim of this entire proposal is to provide a simple, quick, non-bureaucratic way of getting rid of them. And, I hope you agree, that an article with a valid topic but no content does not cause any loss of information if it is removed. There is a proposal for Wikipedia:Countdown deletion, however, which should be able to deal with articles with some content. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
        • This is not necessarily true. We have already considered the case in which a user creates an article named "George Washington" with the content "Washington, George. Nice chap, really." The problem with this and other examples of very important topics is that good articles already exist, or are likely enough to be recreated that speedy deletion will cause no harm. However, a topic that is marginally significant, yet nonetheless encyclopedic, is not certain to be re-created. Consider the example of a tiny municipality, or a barely-notable academic. If a newly-created article called John Smith (Professor) consists of the text "John Smith is a professor", the page would be speedily deleted. However, Prof. Smith might never become any more notable than he already is, and the person who created the page in the first place might not return to create it again. In this case, we've lost an article that could never be very, but would still merit inclusion in Wikipedia. NatusRoma 05:22, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One way to address this may be to set a minimum character limit – say, 150 characters - for new articles. If you can’t think of 150 characters on a topic, it’s probably not worth a stub. As a frame of reference, those last two sentences are 150 characters (spaces excluded). -- BD2412 ^talk 23:55, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

• That just means I can add all kinds of adjectives to increase the length of my 5 word article. I don't think that setting a minimum article length, would work or be supported in a vote. Vegaswikian 01:46, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Another disadvantage of such a rule would be that it doesn't take structural information in account. E.g. a small page that is useful is Wing Luke Asian Museum because it is at the intersection of two pertinent categories and it provides a link to the museum webpage and related articles in Wikipedia. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 05:59 (UTC)
    • Aha!!! But Wing Luke Asian Museum is 172 characters, not including the header, link, stub tag, and categories. I see your point, but I think a hard minimum (meaning the program refuses to even post a shorter amount in the article space unless it's a redirect) would discourage the posting of one note gags (e.g. "Brandon is gay"), and would make well-meaning contributors do a little more homework before making extremely short stubs on potentially notable topics. With respect to Vegaswikian's concerns about adjective-puffing, I am reminded of the scene in the movie Summer School where the boys who were required to write a 100-word essay concluded by saying "we admire make-up artist and creature creator Rick Baker very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much." I suspect that adjective puffery would make non-notable articles apparent. -- BD2412 ^talk June 28, 2005 20:01 (UTC)

I like this proposal, because it explicitly covers cases I see all the time of an article that consists of nothing but the title. For example, an article "Doug McEvoy" with the contents "Doug McEvoy" (and nothing else). As it is, I speedy these under case A1. "No substantive content other than that stated in the title" is another way of putting it. For example, an article "Grape soda" with the contents "Grape soda is a kind of soda" would be speedyable under this criterion, but the above "Tezuka Yamazaki is a Japanese man." example would not (it adds the fact that he is Japanese, which is not directly implied by the title: it's a Japanese name, but someone following a link may not know that, and there is the occasional case of someone taking a Japanese name, such as Koizumi Yakumo). — Gwalla | Talk 30 June 2005 04:01 (UTC)

Proposition 6

""Any article in a foreign language that has been listed on Pages needing Translation for fourteen days, and has not been translated""

I might be inclined to expand this one to include Any article which is an unrepaired machine translation of an article from another language Wikipedia.

Such articles are easily identified by their identical structure (to the foreign wiki article), tortured grammar and word usage, and occasional untranslated word or phrase. They are troublesome for a number of reasons:

• They are often worse than useless for someone trying to find out about a topic
• It's usually more work to clean up these articles than it is to rewrite them from scratch
• Often there is no credit to the original authors, in violation of the GFDL

That said, if the translation has been cleaned up and wikified to a close semblance of proper English and Wikipedia style this criterion won't apply. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Fair enough. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• If that "no credit to the original authors" objection applies, then it should be treated as a copyvio, and this proposition would be unnecessary. Factitious 02:33, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Two things: One, I'd also like to include something that covers articles in unsalvageably broken English. Two, I see no need to restrict this to things translated from other Wikis; in my experience, most foreign-language or gibberish articles don't come from other Wikiprojects. Perhaps Any article which is an unrepaired machine translation or unintelligible human translation of a source text...?

• Is there a pressing reason to take a short-cut around WP:VFD (where they currently go) for untranslated articles and make this a speedy deletion criterion? Uncle G 19:29, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

• With the fourteen-day requirement, this issue doesn't seem to have the sort of urgency that I'd expect for speedy deletion. VfD is a better fit. Factitious 02:33, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think its because of urgency, but because of a desire to reduce the load on VfD but allowing uncontroversial (unanimous delete votes) listings to be speedied. --Dmcdevit 06:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Are they uncontroversial, though? I'd expect that people who think the content is useful and encyclopedic (and this proposal could apply to useful, encyclopedic information, provided it's not yet translated) might vote to keep it and get it translated into English. Factitious 12:42, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • This has happened once in the last two months, and the user concerned was kind enough to do the translation (from Swedish) so that the nomination could be removed. However articles which are posted on WP:PNT do get a good deal of attention during their fourteen days, much more than they would have done on VfD: this is because the list is much shorter, and the delay is longer. This having been said, there are still some that cannot be dealt with, even with the best will in the world, and an article in a foreign language is usually of very limited interest to the user of English wikipedia. Physchim62 4 July 2005 08:24 (UTC)

Fourteen days is too short. Are people desperate to recover server space? It surely does not inconvenience anyone doing the proposing to wait a bit longer, the problem is the complexity and effort of having a vote not the time involved. There is no reason why there should not be a longer waiting time before automatic removal. My own computer use is rather erratic, i could quite easily miss something within 14 days. Surely you have to have a realistic chance for the article to be noticed by someone who both has the interest and the skill and the time to do something about it. something which has been badly translated, but nonetheless translated should have more time than something not translated at all. Sandpiper 08:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• No, people are trying to streamline process. Presently, such articles are deleted with quite some hassle in twelve days; the proposal is to delete them without hassle in fourteen. The translation request page is heavily frequented; if people there decide not to translate an article in as much as two weeks time, it is likely that the article is not worth translating. Radiant_>|< 11:04, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • If it's not worth translating for some reason, then that should be the reason for its deletion. Factitious 12:42, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Why is 14 days too short? If not 14 days, then how long? Schools have shown that by placing those articles in VfD will almost always get an improved article. We need to find a way to encourage editors to improve articles before they get to a delete. Time limits for me raise the focus on pages in this category. Vegaswikian 19:13, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Surely if it is currently possible to delete with hassle in 12 days, then a propoer alternative for no-hassle delete is to have a longer time limit. The point is surely not the time, but the hassle to be avoided. Time allows the entry a chance for someone to rescue it. Sandpiper 10:24, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Three weeks, then, as an alternative? I'd say it makes little difference... most 'process' pages (e.g. RFC, CFD etc) get a lot of attention to articles newly put in there; but if an article is not processed within the first three days, it is unlikely to be noticed again. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think this is an appropriate solution at all. In these cases, we should take care that it is part of the sister project. In most cases I've seen, people just copied it from there anyway, in which proposition #4 applies. June 28, 2005 16:23 (UTC)

• I don't see a problem with the policy as it is; after 2 weeks, someone has almost always made a start with the translation, and if it isn't finished by then, you can always move it down to the appropriate section (translated and could use some cleanup); a special 'speedy delete' doesn't seem appropriate (btw, I dont think there are so much ot these to be of relevance) Lectonar 28 June 2005 08:53 (UTC)

There is a slight error in the proposal page (and it's my fault): at present pages stay on WP:PNT for a maximum of fourteen days, but may be moved to VfD at any time (seven days is a rule of thumb for getting consensus that they are not worth translating). They may also be marked for speedy deletion at any time, and often are. Pages that have gone to VfD after seven days include marginal interest or duplicate articles in languages where we have difficulty finding translators (eg, an article on Sharia in Indonesian). The problem with the current system is that we often feel the need to translate articles just so they can go to speedy or to VfD. As a very rough estimate, a quarter of articles that come to PnT are copyvio, a quarter get speedied under current CSD, a third get translated within fourteen days (only one article in the last two months has needed an extension) and the rest go to VfD on the grounds that we can't do anything with them. The fourteen day deadline is useful for concentrating peoples attention, so that articles do not simply lie around on English wiki for want of translating: the place for that is Wikipedia:Requests for translation, once the article has been moved to a foreign wiki, but most of the articles we move we translate for English wiki as well... Physchim62 4 July 2005 08:24 (UTC)

• Concerning WP:PNT: There is also the problem that if the title of the entry is in say arabic, the listing on VfD does not work properly. The system doesn't seem to be able to handle foreign characters well if they are in the title. In the one case I remember, about one and a half month ago, the VfD-list then swallowed all further entries and the article that caused the problem had to be speedied anyway.--Fenice 4 July 2005 09:13 (UTC)

I want to express my support for this policy - the VfD process is not an appropriate venue for an untranslated article in a foreign language. However, I want to point to a complication: At present, there is an article in Chinese at Shen Qiong, which is short and which I could translate. However, I think the subject of the article isn't very noteworthy. Under the proposed policy, by leaving the article untranslated, it could be a speedy delete candidate. If translated, it would have to go to VfD. I want to make sure that everyone understands that this policy places the power to judge whether the article should be a speedy delete candidate in the hands of whoever can read it. The point of having narrow criteria for speedy delete is to prevent that sort of situation.

Now, I want to make clear that I am still in support of the policy, on the grounds that no one other than bilingual people can judge untranslated articles. Considering how often foreign language texts dropped into Wikipedia are marginal articles or outright copyvios, I don't think there's much risk of losing good materials here. But, this does empower a relatively small minority of Wikipedia user to make broad judgements about what to delete.

--Diderot 4 July 2005 09:28 (UTC)

Proposition 7

Any article that asserts to describe a character or story from fanfic

• I wonder if this is too subjective of a definition. Maybe if the text that follow explains that these should be included in the main article would help. Vegaswikian 18:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Fanfic basically means a story written by anyone who lacks the skill and connections to have it published. Thus, self-promotive articles (from a Mary Sue'ish Buffy spin-off, for instance). I'd also like to have this criterion include characters from MMORPGs and RPG campaigns. Surprisingly, this happens reasonably often on VFD. Radiant

_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• • Not always. Sometimnes fanfic is stuf that would be publishible, were it not for the implicit copyright violation. Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex(tm)" is Superman fnafic. In a very few cases, fanfic has beeen sdopted by the primary author and has become authorized collaberation. (See Eric Flint.) Granted this is a very rare case indeed. DES 15:43, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• The wording "asserts to describe" concerns me. How is that to be defined or interpreted? It's pretty clear that it would apply to an article that explicitly says "ABC is a character from my D&D campaign" but what about "ABC is a character from Dungeness"? Is that fanfic, a really minor character by an established author or even a historical (though obscure) person - all of which may share the same name and setting? Speedy-deletes are done by the first admin who comes along. What level of discretion are they to be allowed? What level of research is to be expected? How much proof is expected before they can decide that it qualifies for speedy? Or is the intent of the wording to limit speedies to that first scenario where the author explicitly says that it's from fanfic. Rossami (talk) 21:23, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, the present wording is indeed limited to cases where it is explicitly stated to be fanfic (although I'll reword it to include RPG characters), and for precisely the reason you indicate - for an outsider, it's impossible to tell a character from an obscure fantasy book, from someone's personal fantasy. Come to think of it, if no source was cited then the article should probably be deleted anyway - nobody writes about a book character without at least naming the book it's from. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • Your "no source cited" test may work for unsourced fiction but what about confusion with obscure (and possibly misspelled) historical figures? I am reminded of Karafuto Prefecture which was initially tagged for speedy deletion as 1) patent nonsense then 2) fancruft but turned out to be historically real (though very obscure). Rossami (talk) 16:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Player characters from pen-and-paper RPGs, CRPGs, and MMORPGs are encountered often enough that it might not be a bad idea to have a separate case for them alone. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• I would suggest something like unless the article asserts grounds for the significance and relatively wide awareness of the fanfic, including citing a media review or other non-fanfic source. Fanfic can be, and once in a while is (albiet rarely) a vehicle for parody, satire, or other significant comment on the original, and recieve enough notice to be truly encyclopediac. Articles that clearly claim to be wthin this limited case should go to VfD, not be speedied, i think. My wording could probably be improved. DES 15:51, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Could you give us an example please? Radiant_>|< 10:56, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • Bored of the Rings comes to mind off-hand. DES 12:14, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Okay, good point. Good book, too :) This should then be reworded to exclude anything officially published. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

• Given that I've heard people actually claim that Lion King 2 is fanfic, it seems to me that this proposal would just result in long arguments about which things count as fanfic, unless we provide an extremely clear definition. And since, as pointed out above, some fanfic is notable and encyclopedic, it isn't a very good place to draw the line for speedy deletion. Factitious 02:39, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

I am still unclear of the meaning of this proposal, on account of being unclear of the definition of fanfic. Is the explanation above to be taken as exact and become part of the proposal?. So we would be talking about JK rowlings and Harry potter, in the days before she managed to get a publisher. Ok, since no one would have heard about her, Or do you mean to include other stuff within the definition of fanfic? Sandpiper 08:55, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Fanfic. <= definition. Specifically, people who take an existing fictional setting and write their own stories in there. Obviously, neither Lion King #2 nor Harry Potter are fanfic. Radiant_>|< 10:56, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • But Larry Niven's Inferno is fanfic by that def -- it is a a new stroy written in the existing setting created by Dante. most "Shared world" fiction is also fanfic by that def. So is The Wind Done Gone. So are many published stories using the character of Sherlock Holmes. Reuse of an existing setting is something that fans do, but also parodists and other kinds of authors. Yes we can usually tell the difference, but i don't see the differerence in this proposal. Hmm how about Any article that purports to describe a character or story from fanfic that is unpublished except on the web, unless the article makes plausible and explicit claims for encyclopeadic status? DES 12:11, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • That's pretty good, but what do we do when the article doesn't mention means of publication at all? Factitious 12:44, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • Arguably, an encyclopediac article about any fiction would have some mention of publication. If not, a quick check of Amazon or Google would find if there has been print publication. DES 13:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • A good and complete article should definitely mention means of publication. A beginning article may not. Speedy deletion should not be used for articles that simply need to be expanded. I'm wary of trusting Amazon and Google on this; they don't even cover all books, much less all non-Web means of publication. If, despite that, we decide that the proposal should apply specifically to works that have no Google or Amazon results, that should be stated explicitly in the wording. Factitious 12:25, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Lion King 2 is an example of people taking an existing fictional setting and writing their own stories in it. I understand that that's not how you meant it, but we'd need a much better definition if we want this deletion criterion to be interpreted properly. It would be nice if the wording also made it clear that it doesn't apply to notable and encyclopedic fanfic, since we don't want people to delete that. Factitious 12:44, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
• I'd also like to see this include MMORPG characters.--nixie 14:48, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about that. Proposal 7-B: "any article that states that it describes a character from any roleplaying game (including MUDs and MMORPGs)" Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Proposed defintion/exposition: In this context fanfic is fiction published since 1970 without an ISBN (or unpublished) using the characters or milieu of a film, novel, television show or other media work. I choose 1970 because that is the year that ISBN was accepted as an international standard.—Theo (Talk) 17:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• A definition based on ISBNs will only be useful for classifying books. And what about odd cases, like Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, which naturally has no ISBN (since it's a short essay), but was included in the collection All the Myriad Ways, which does have an ISBN? All the Myriad Ways was first printed in 1971. Factitious 12:25, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Proposed rewording: "Any article that states that it describes a character or story from fiction, that was never published except on the internet or in a fan magazine, nor written by a published author". Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • That looks like a great characterization of non-notable fanfic. It puts a large burden on the part of the person trying to delete an article — he'd have to establish that the piece has never been published except online or in a fan magazine, and also that the author has not been published. Both of those require nontrivial effort, even with Google's assistance. Factitious 02:47, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)

• Instead of speedy deletion: Countdown deletion. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:14 (UTC)

• I agree with DES. We definitely need something like "...unless the article makes plausible and explicit claims for encyclopeadic status" or "unless the article asserts grounds for the significance and relatively wide awareness of the fanfic, including citing a media review or other non-fanfic source". There are only a few genuinely notable fanfic chracters, but they do exist (e.g. Marrissa Picard) and it would be a shame to lose them just because of a poorly worded CSD. — P Ingerson (talk) 28 June 2005 14:54 (UTC)

• Let me start by saying that I like everything about this new proposal for expanding/clarifying CSD. This one issue with fanfic characters, however, is of some concern. My first choice would be for this one to not fall under CSD. My second choice would be to go with something along P Ingerson's phrasing above. The current Any article that asserts to describe a character or story from fanfic is clearly too broad and unqualified. A bit of fanfic can be encyclopedic. func(talk) 30 June 2005 03:39 (UTC)

• This seems too subjective to be a good criterion for speedy, as nice as it would be to be able to speedy articles on The Beautiful Phantasma Laguna who rides a unicorn and is Harry Potter's girlfriend. — Gwalla | Talk 30 June 2005 04:08 (UTC)

Proposition I1

Any image that is already present on WikiCommons

• I concur. Vegaswikian 18:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• How about adding in the same format and at the same resolution to the end? AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:33, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Same format as in GIF vs JPEG? I don't quite see how that matters. Resolution is a good point... how about 'same or better resolution'? Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Because GIF < JPEG < PNG, except on drawings with few colors, where sometimes JPEG < GIF < PNG. Also, better "resolution" does not mean anything if the only thing done to increase it was to resize the image, which tends to worsen the quality (this assuming the popular meaning of resolution as "image dimensions" instead of DPI or dot pitch). --cesarb 13:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Yeah, what he said. :o) AFAIK, PNG is preferable to GIF and JPG for line drawings and the like; JPG is preferable to just about anything else for photographs and photorealistic renderings. Since GIF is no longer legally encumbered, the switch to PNG isn't as big a deal, but PNG is still preferable for all but those images that require transparency or animation. Back to the point, though: perhaps say ...in an equivalent format and the same or better in image size and quality to avoid making explicit references to confusing terms like resolution and DPI? AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 20:10, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • Got it. Okay, I agree. The 'equivalent' wording sounds good to avoid too-strict ruling. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• But people should take care in making sure, that image is allowed to be on the commons by their copyright and sourcing regulations. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:40, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• MGM - regarding your addition on licensing... isn't it true that anything disallowed on Commons would also be disallowed here? Copyvio and stuff. Radiant_>|< 23:00, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Commons doesn't allow fair use material; Wikipedia does. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:35, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

What is the definition of 'an image...already present'? Do you mean identical or similar? Could be two photos taken in quick succession, one of which might be considered superfluous? Or could this amendment be taken to allow deletion of distinct images of the same thing, which might not be desireable. Sandpiper 09:03, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• That's a good question. I'd say, identical. If there's ten pictures of the Big Ben, for instance, arguably five of them could be deleted but it's for WP:IFD to debate which five. Radiant_>|< 11:05, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

• I overlooked that this should be renamed to "I3". What is the difference between this and I1 and/or I2? — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 05:59 (UTC)
  • I don't know; this one was here first though :) I've moved this to I1 and removed the old I1 and I2 because of redundancy. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 08:32 (UTC)
• As long as it is the same (i check bit size) I assumed this was a CSD category allready and I have been cleaning NowCommons ocasionally. This link is Broken 30 June 2005 03:25 (UTC)

Proposition T1 (formerly 9)

"Any newly created template that serves the same function as an existed template, but has different layout or wording"

Would this include the four speedy delete templates? After all, they are exactly the same template, only with different wording. What about the welcome templates? They all serve the same function (to welcome new users) but offer different options (especially since more than one user may welcome the same newbie). The warning templates would fall under the same rationale; they all serve the same function (to warn out-of-line users) but use different wording: don't blank pages, stop inserting nonsense, bow down to Jimbo whenever the trumpet sounds. (Okay, maybe not that last one.)

I checked TfD, and it doesn't look like they have a backlog (between five and ten a day). I think this proposal should be abandoned (or at least, drastically reworded, to recognize that there are legit reasons for having multiple similar templates). -- Essjay · Talk 14:03, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit torn on this one. Essjay has a point about the multiple speedy delete templates, for example. I presume that it was proposed in response to the spate of "narrow" template boxes that were created because an editor felt the existing cleanup tags were too large/ugly/obtrusive.

In my experience, these templates aren't created all that often, so the expansion to SD criteria to account for them isn't worth the collateral damage. To take a current example, Template:Whedon-spoiler is about to be deleted as redundant with Template:Spoiler—but that TfD discussion has led to the creation of Template:Spoiler-other to cover a more general set of cases. The ?fD pages aren't just about deletion; they tend to result in informal article (and policy!) review, too. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I realize this is controversial, but I had seen it come up often enough to at least bring it up to discussion. Yes, the intent is opposed to "vfd-only-smaller" templates, not to the variative spoiler templates. Note that the criterion is more strictly worded than "redundant templates", but it could use some work. Or maybe it's just a bad idea. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea, I just think it's one that would be hard to put into an abuse-resistant policy. I didn't seriously think that any admin would acutally speedy delete the speedy delete templates, but I do think it could be used against the welcome templates, particularly since several users (myself included) have personal welcome templates (although advertised to the general population as well) that we use because the standard welcome templates don't serve our needs. My opinion is that if and when TfD becomes overrun with nominations, then we should consider this idea, but at the moment, I think we should limit the changes to relieving the burden on VfD. -- Essjay · Talk 21:03, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

This particular proposal I think is unnecessary. It may also generate some controversy. Templates for deletion is not overburdened by template variations, and not all of the nominations of template variations get deleted. Examples of kept template variations: Template:User-c, Template:Creationism2, Template:CompactTOC5. BlankVerse ∅ 14:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would object to this, at least as currently worded. If this had existed, it could and would have been sued to speedy Template:Spoiler-other and Template:Spoiler-about both of which i expect will have a keep result on TfD. Furthermore, and actual tempalte fork may be the best way to test a change in a comples template without possibly messing up many pages. There are too many issues here for this to qusligy fo speedy deletion. DES 19:27, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Withdrawn. The above comments show why it's not a good idea. Radiant_>|< 19:34, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Proposition T3

Not quite sure about the precedent for this, but it strikes me that single-use templates that have been subst'ed into their intended articles should be speedyable. After all, they are orphans, and unlikely to ever be used again. It seems like a waste of effort to have to list them on TfD. --Dmcdevit 22:48, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that every single use template that can be subst:'ed is an automatic speedy delete candidate. There are a few of those templates where the information changes fairly regularly, and editing the info going into a template is much easier than editing the the plain wikicode and html. BlankVerse ∅ 16:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What I mean is not single-use templates that can be subst'ed, but ones that have been subst'ed and are now orphans. Of course, before subst'ing, the relevant editors should discuss if its controversial. --Dmcdevit 21:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Concur with DMC. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Added now. Note that this overlaps proposal T2. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 08:39 (UTC)

I added an alternate wording for consideration - "Any template which is no longer used, 24 hours after it was removed from the last page. This does not apply to templates documented and used exclusively via subst:." Adding a 24 hour wait period after orphaning seems to have been working for categories. -- Netoholic @ June 28, 2005 15:11 (UTC)

• I object to this alternate form of the proposal. A category that is empty is clearly serving no purpose. A template currently not used is an available tool. If a week went by with no templates proposed for deletion, so that {{tl:tfd}} is not currently on any page, would that mean we could speedy-delete that template? A tool has value from being available, even if it is not currently being used, it might be used next week. Also, a valuable but not widely used template could be deleted if someone simply removed it from all the pages where it is used, and then marked the template for speedy deletion 24 hrs later. One can't count on such changes being reverted within 24 hrs if the number of pages isn't huge. DES 29 June 2005 14:49 (UTC)

• I would also object to the main proposal if it means that any template currently used on less than some small number of pages can therefore be deleted. I am not clear if that is what it means, particularly with the proposal including the words "if it was decided it would be better to substitute it". Who makes this decision, and how? DES 29 June 2005 14:56 (UTC)

Proposition C1 (formerly 9-B)

The same as 9, only regarding categories rather than templates. Arguably it is more applicable there. Radiant_>|< 11:56, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• How difficult would it be to allow category redirects? That would be a better solution, because the next person who tried to create Category:Mozart symphonies would find out about Category:Symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart automatically. Factitious 02:44, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Ask the developers. By present implementation, it isn't possible. It is unknown if/when this will be fixed. Radiant_>|< 11:06, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Proposition 10a

Speedy deleting articles that promote illegal activities also seems like a bad idea. In general Wikipedia should not have articles promoting anything, but the solution is not to delete them but rather to rewrite them in a NPOV manner. Any articles promoting illegal activities should simply be rewritten as neutral articles describing illegal activities. - SimonP 14:36, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Yep; the "illegal activities" umbrella is a bit too broad. The line between 'promotion' and 'discussion' will be placed differently by different admins who may have political axes to grind. Many of our admins may not be familiar with Florida or U.S. law—and I'd be concerned about the misunderstandings likely to flow from that. (To draw a random example mostly from thin air, an article about closed court proceedings might be subject to gag orders in one jurisdiction but not others.) Perhaps if the language of the criterion were tightened up–I can see where it's coming from–this could be okay, but I can't figure out how to write it. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can't get on board with this one. As SimonP said, the article should probably be rewritten rather than deleted. Anyway, how much do such articles clog up VfD, anyway? Joyous 16:03, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• What makes something illegal? Something that is legal in one place is not legal in another? Does being illegal in one place trump legal in another place? I lean to leaving this pulled for now and having more discussion at a future time. If the other propositions work to reduce the load then we might not need this one. It would be better to vote on this in the future without having a past rejection to deal with. Vegaswikian 18:21, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• It's a can of worms, I suppose. The point is that some of these articles are already deleted (e.g. a list of warez and where to download them would be deletable). Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• I share the concerns about this one. What's illegal in one jurisdiction may be perfectly legal in another. The articles on abortion or marijuana, for example, should not be deleted. I worry that partisans would attempt use this proposed clause as an argument to try to get controversial articles deleted. I would prefer to let this one stay an unwritten rule enforced as an exception and only done in the rarest and most egregious of circumstances. Salvagable articles should be rewritten as SimonP suggests above. Rossami (talk) 20:16, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I don't think these clog up VfD that much, and are mostly covered by other criteria (for example, a lot of the warez articles I've seen are being used as a communication medium and would be speediable under A4). AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:32, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Agreed that it's not a clog, and Rossami makes a good point. Unless we can think of a suitable warning, I don't think this is an applicable speedy. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• "promoting" even unquestionably illegal activites may well be protected free speech in the US unless it slips over the line into "express advocacy" and even then only if it fails the "Clear and present danger" test. Otherwise such expression is generally not itself illegal, so the comment that real world law trumps Wikipedia procedures deos not apply. As for articles that are "otherwise illegal" that is not a determination that can be reliably made by an admin considering a "speedy" candidate. If we get an actual legal order from a court, that is quite another matter -- until then, something like VfD is far less than the due process actual legal procedures would mandate. In short i would oppose this proposal strongly. DES 19:32, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some countries ban women taking part in public life, or appearing in public unless fully covered. Would this mean deleting an article on Hilary Clinton because it promoted breaking foreign law? Articles should only be deleted on legal grounds when this is compelled by direct legal action, or is about to be. Sandpiper 09:13, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposition 10b

A copy in article space of an article that is nominated for deletion, to prevent people from forking an article to save it from deletion

• Seems reasonable. Vegaswikian 18:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• This needs more work. This would have allowed the speedy deletion of what I did at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/College admissions and ranking shorthands in the United States, an article that went on to be kept. (I split the article, but covered both with the original VFD.) Uncle G 19:17, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
  • How about adding "iff the nominated article is deleted"? Radiant_>|< 19:22, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
    • Isn't the (substantial) recreation of an already-deleted article a valid speedy anyway? --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, but due to an apparent loophole, if an article is forked then the VfD doesn't automatically apply to the fork. At least that happens occasionally. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
        • What cases have slipped through this apparent loophole? Uncle G 12:11, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
          • Actually I can't cite you any; the idea appeared some time during the "reducing VFD load" discussion. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 14:46 (UTC)
• Make it an exact copy or somehow exclude valid attempts to do a rewrite to a truly worthwhile article, as opposed to simply trying to game the system. DES 15:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, exact copy sounds about right. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:58, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, I'd prefer substantially similar. Anyone could game this stipulation by adding in some extra punctuation or whatever. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 20:04, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes substantially similar would be better. A trivial one-word change or the like should not open up a loophole. How about A copy in article space of an article that is nominated for deletion, to prevent people from forking an article to save it from deletion. But if the article have been significantly altered from the version nominated for deletion, this criterion does not apply. DES 21:07, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • No, but a different criterion, the GFDL, does apply, even for small changes. If someone copies an article and creates a derived article from it, the requirements imposed by the GFDL enter into the picture. Administrators have had to restore deleted articles on occasion, in order to restore the author information in the edit history, because of this. Uncle G 12:11, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
• I'm not sure about this one. A few months ago, there were about a dozen brief articles about types of Daleks on VfD. Thesteve did an excellent job merging them all into Dalek variants, and everyone ended up happy. Would this proposition have applied to that? Factitious 02:57, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • presumably not, as presumably the articles were all different? Sandpiper 09:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a good example of a merge. We should reword this to make it obvious that merging the nominated article onto something else is not grounds for deleting that. Radiant_>|< 11:08, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • Great. As long as this won't accidentally apply to useful merges, it seems like a perfect fit for speedy deletion. Factitious 12:03, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • Merges may not be performed whilst VFD discussions are in progress. A wording that even implies that they may be would not be a good wording. Uncle G 12:11, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
• We appear to be refining a criterion without actually demonstrating a need for it in the first place. This is not something that should be addressed by expanding the speedy deletion criteria in the first place, as far as I can see.
  • If someone copies an article to a new main-namespace article during a VFD discussion, it should be placed under the umbrella of the existing discussion (as I did in the situation I referred to earlier). Any editor can make that addition, noting the fact of the split/fork on the discussion page.
  • If the copied article is only discovered after the VFD discussion has come to a consensus to keep, there's no problem that isn't already addressed by Wikipedia:duplicate articles.
  • If the copied article is only discovered after the VFD discussion has come to a consensus to delete, then as TenOfAllTrades says, there is an existing speedy deletion criterion that applies.
  • If the new article is a derived work and not an exact copy, then GFDL complexities arise and WP:VFD probably should be involved.
• If there's some other, fifth, case that I have missed that is a perennial problem in WP:VFD, please point it out. So far, there doesn't seem to be a need for this speedy deletion criterion. Uncle G 12:11, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
  • You omit the case where an article is forked before it is formally proposed for deletion, perhaps after someone mentions the possibility of nominating it for deletion, and the copy is not included in the formal nomination. I took this case to be the main point of the proposal. Mind you, I'm not sure your arguemnts don't apply to this case also, but you haven't addressed it explicitly. DES 28 June 2005 20:13 (UTC)

Proposition 10c

Short articles that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject

• I think this might also need to be a speedy cleanup to get enough votes to pass. I worry about it being too subjective. But then an admin can always move it to speedy cleanup or VfD... Vegaswikian 18:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• It is somewhat dubious. But occasionally attack pages appear, that are basically reverse vanity pages (e.g. that guy in the class that nobody likes). It would, however, plausibly be redundant with proposition #1. Radiant_>|< 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Seems redundant with the existing case G3 (vandalism). Rossami (talk) 21:27, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • All too often, though, they end up at VfD; whether that's out of ignorance or a strict interpretation of the speedy rules is unclear. Making a separate criterion for attack pages would help clarify the policy and would reflect what's being done by most admins anyway. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:29, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • This proposal should then be to amend and/or clarify G3. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • No, "vandalism" is described on its own page. You couldn't possible add all that to the CSD page. -- Netoholic @ 14:14, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

Proposition G1 (formerly 11)

This is a wiki, so I added a proposal. Many people mistakenly believe that once an article is deleted via VfD, no content may ever reside at that article name again. We run into situations where legitimate articles are speedily deleted because a previous article under that name was subpar. I propose that we clarify CSD to make this distinction clear. It seems odd to judge a completely new article based on the merits of an unrelated predecessor. Rhobite 16:12, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• This is a problem. Some VfD debates are judging the subject, and basically conclude that no article on the specified subject could ever be notable or with including. Others judge msotly the existign content, and a rewrite would change the votes, so logically a new articel with significantly different content should not be up for speedy deletion. How should these two cases be distinguished? DES 16:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • They shouldn't. People frequently vote to delete articles due to the subject's non-notability, only to change their vote when the article is expanded and rewritten. Many "non-notable" articles end up being kept due to a good rewrite. Rhobite 18:37, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

There's also a lot of people who assume that if something is speedy deleted it can be speedy deleted again for a second time. But when speedy deletion is arguably out of process, that isn't the case. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:05, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• This proposal is a great idea. I've seen good pages deleted because of misunderstandings about the reposted content rules. Factitious 03:14, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Any vote should always be considered to be on the existing content, not the title. How can you pre-judge something you have not read? Sandpiper 09:21, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• But a recreation of a deleted page with substantially the same content should remain subject to speedy deletion... in fact, vfd'd content should be speedied if recreated under a different name, unless the reason for the initial deletion was that it was under the wrong name. Example: Brandon Nerfenherfer posts a vanity page, which gets deleted. If he then goes and posts the same info under "Brandon G. Nerfenherfer," it should be speedied. However, if a completely different (or even the same) Brandon Nerfenherfer gets elected to Congress, then the re-created article should be kept. -- BD2412 ^talk 16:40, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
  • Let's see... "Any article that is substantially identical to an article deleted by VFD, even if the title is different. If circumstances about the subject have changed so that an article would be warrented, it may be recreated. When in doubt about the latter, please go to VFU." How's that sound? Oh, and by extension, the same applies to CFD,TFD and IFD. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • I think if we limit it to articles with similar content and nothing new, then the part about changed circumstances fairly goes without saying. Any article that is substantially identical to a previously deleted article. Period. Only problem is, if the old article has been deleted, how do we know whether the content is substantially identical? -- BD2412 ^talk June 29, 2005 14:39 (UTC)
      • Knowing whether the content is substantially identical is not generally a problem. Most of the re-creations happen very quickly. The article is deleted and someone (either disgruntled by the process, deliberately vandalizing or in complete ignorance of the deletion discussion) re-posts it the next time they log on. It's generally still fresh in everyone's memory. And if you're not sure, ask any admin to check the deletion history. They can call up the deleted version to confirm your suspicion. Rossami (talk) 4 July 2005 04:20 (UTC)

Proposition 12

Unenhanced copies: Unencyclopedic articles that have been directly copied from an existing web page.

This developed out of a discussion at User_talk:Cutler#speedy_garbage about an example of advertizement: CEO reputation.

The gray text is obsolete or not relevant to the proposal because it was based on an altered version of the original proposal.

Often true but not always. In a number of cases the person postign the info to wikipedia is also the person who wrote the text on the website, in which case there is no copyright issue at all, and the only question is the general suitability of the text. it may need rewrite, it may need to be wikified, but neither of thsoe are grounds for speedy delete. Besides as currently written, this would qualify all the 1911 EB articles for speddy deletes. DES 19:39, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe we should put it somewhere in the tutorial that people shouldn't forget to source their edit especially when the copy something that can be construed as a copyvio. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:01, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • A good idea, but this doesn't say "unsourced". For the matter of that I have seen copyvios on CfD that did indicate their source -- but not whether or not there was permission to post. The education needed is not so much to source articles -- we already tell people that in several places -- but that if copying existing text from a published or web source, with permission (for example by the author) the poster must explicitly state the permission and who it is granted by. DES 21:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I think #12 isn't a very good CSD, it's sort of redundant with copyvio policy. It's a good idea but requires substantial rewording. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• If an article isn't a copright violation, then it shouldn't qualify for speedy deletion (unless there are other problems with it), and if it is a copyright violation, we already have procedures for dealing with it. Factitious 03:38, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Wouldn't this make it possible to delete articles straight from 1911 EB? This link is Broken 30 June 2005 03:29 (UTC)
  • Er, yes. Also, from Project Gutenberg, government sites (such as Rambotted village articles) and whatever other public domain resources happen to be on the web. Hm. If we reword it to exclude PD, wouldn't that make it redundant with copyvio policy? Radiant_>|< June 30, 2005 15:24 (UTC)
    • This proposal is no good (and it definitely should be applied only to new articles) because i could go thorugh and delete many non-improved 1911 EB articles. If this passes I'll go through and slightly change them so they are no longer directly copied. Also, why does it only apply to web pages ? What if i copied from a public domain book or reference text? This link is Broken 30 June 2005 17:54 (UTC)

Proposition 12 (corrected)

• I corrected the altered proposal and subtitle that got this started on a wrong foot. I made out the following concerns. Some of them are fixed, but others may still apply:

Often true but not always

Based on altered version. I agree that a significant number of copied articles are no copyvios. Thank you for the examples!

the only question is the general suitability of the text

Please see corrected, specific criteria.

Redundancy

While we already have policies for original research and copyvios on (WP:DP) and advertisement (on WP:soapbox)), my impression is that none of these policies allow for speedy deletion. So I don't see any redundancy.

Is copyvio a good criterion?

Maybe we should leave this one out. I may be a bit biased because that is what I usually use in such cases (e.g. in Xanthone), even when I'm actually more concerned about the other points.

I really like DES's argument for stating permission; how about moving it into its own section as a proposed policy? I'd vote for it! — Sebastian (talk) 06:09, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

I argued that if an article was stated to be posted with permission, it should not be speedied just because it was a copy of a web source; and that people should be eduacated that if posting with permission they should so state -- i think this later is already policy as part of the copyright policy, but many don't know it. What do you have in mind as a separate policy? Neither of the above quite fits, i think. DES 19:28, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably wouldn't be a good policy for deletion (although I think it could fit into #4, see my comment above). I have to go, so I can't look up if it is already part of the policy; if it isn't it should be. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:49 (UTC)

• You are arguing that an internet copyvio or original research or whichever should become a speedy delete, wheras a book copyvio etc. should not? Why make such a distinction? How does the source being on the internet alter things? Sandpiper 09:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Because it is much easier to create, which means (1) the temptation to do it without thinking is stronger and (2) when it is deleted, there is less risk of people being dis-spirited.[1]. (This is what I meant by "appropriateness of the means".) — Sebastian (talk) 05:08, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
• I would eliminate the judgement of quality from this and recast it as: '"Unenhanced copies: articles consisting entirely of material copied from an existing web page."—Theo (Talk) 09:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • good point! I'll do that! — Sebastian (talk) 05:08, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
• There's no reason for this as a speedy deletion criterion. Please use all of the tools in the toolbox. If an article is a copy of an existing copyrighted web page, follow the Wikipedia:Copyright problems procedure. Copyright Judo has been and is a very effective way of dealing with advertisements. There's no need for a speedy deletion criterion. Uncle G 13:34, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
  • Thanks - that's a great page! We should de-userfy it. I love the idea of copyright judo (except that I'd prefer copyright aikido :-p )!
  • That said, I do see a clear reason for amending a good slow process with an equally good faster process. This slowness may well be the most frustrating aspect of "new page patrol". — Sebastian (talk) 05:08, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

I support Theo's changed proposal, but I'm concerned that some voters may find it too general. I therefore added #13, which is meant to be a restricted variant of #12. Some remarks to #12:

"This is not just about copyright, although it catches such violations"

I agree with this statement, but I don't think it should be part of a policy. I see it as an explanation, so I put it in parentheses, but I'd rather see it deleted.

"Copied text should always be associated with a cited source at the very least"

I'm not sure how this affects the condition for speedy deletion. Are you proposing to exclude text from policy #12 if it is sourced? (I hope not - in this case I couldn't say that #13 is a restricted version of #12 and would probably have to change it, as well.) (BTW, let's not forget DES's concern about permission above.)

— Sebastian (talk) 17:32, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

Proposition 13

• The term notability is heavily disputed, and I therefore think it's unsuitable for wording a policy. Radiant_>|< 19:20, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Very good point! Notability cases are much better covered by 1-5 and 7. Besides, they are less often just copied from the web. I removed this word. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:05 (UTC)

Proposition G2

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Or solve? And how can it be a policy proposal if it doesn't propose anything? And what about server lag? Radiant_>|< 19:10, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Good points. I'm withdrawing it. It is a principle for my decisions, but I don't want to impose my principles on others. But what is your question about the server lag? — Sebastian (talk) 07:28, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

• Well, if there's server lag, the deletion might take longer than it should, and then it breaks the principle that deletion of junk should take shorter than creation of junk. Radiant_>|< 10:47, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

What is CSD #1 ?

"short articles with little or no context". Okay. What exactly does that mean? The intent of some of the above proposals is to clarify it (thus also limiting it to prevent abuse). Could some people please give examples of articles speedied under this criterion (that aren't patent nonsense and such). Thanks. Radiant_>|< 08:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• Well, it wasn't speedied, but this was the original version of the Havoc (2005 movie) article. I tagged it for speedy, but changed my mind and turned it into an almost-as-useless stub. Should something as poorly-written and nearly content-free as Its this movie with anne hathaway aand other people be speediable? I think so. Sure, Wikipedia could use an article on this movie, but in writing that stub, the original contents of the article were completely useless. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 12:27, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

• I've got one myself, sort of. We sometimes get articles like 5478934 (number) or Binilnilium or septenquinquagintillion or even chemical compounds like 3,1 trichloro-ethene. Those names are all formed by a predictable schema and their (theoretical) existence can generally be verified. However, unless the article explains what's so special about this particular instance, it sounds pretty much like a short article with no context (e.g. "5478934 is a number, created by adding 5470000 to 8934"). Radiant_>|< 15:14, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• In my experience anything that's one sentence long is a likely speedy candidate. Yes, we could often use an article on the subject, but one line of text isn't going to help in writing the full article. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:03, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Funny you should mention that. In the older discussion I had 'any article of one sentence or less' as a CSD, but people objected to it as too mechanical. Still if we're going to deprecate CSD#1 (which seems good) then this is about as objective as you're going to get. Radiant_>|< 22:55, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
• I offer you a recent example: "Platinum single" (content was: '{{delete}}more than 400.000 copies in USA') --cesarb 20:31, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • And another one: "Medical Academy of Latvia" (content was: '{{speedy}}medical') --cesarb 20:35, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Hm, both are prime examples of <1 sentence. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Proposition T2

Proposed text is "Templates containing prose intended for use in articles. Such text should be copied into the related articles prior to template deletion."

Discuss. -- Netoholic @ 13:21, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

• Why not take the wording from Wikipedia:Template namespace: Change to "Templates that without any doubt masquerade as article content ..."? Note that Wikipedia:Template namespace says only "should" and it does not have a {{policy}} tag. — Sebastian (talk) 16:16, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
  • We should make it clear that tables aren't considered prose (which sounds obvious to me but I can think of people who would believe otherwise). Other than that, fine. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Proposition DP1: Userfy vanity page

• A vanity page created by and about a registered user can immediately be moved as a subpage under the user page, and the redirect deleted.
• Taken out because it's not an amendment to WP:CSD.

I see your point - we're discussing this on a subpage of WP:CSD, after all. But I see this as a minor concern: The discussion should focus on solving the problem; where exactly a policy will be written is a minor issue. The policies are closely related and I can't imagine anyone would be interested in one and not the other. There are many advantages in voting for all together.

I will announce this on WP:DP, where this discussion should have been announced to begin with anyway. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 16:34 (UTC)

Radiant proposed on my talk page: "Some people objected to the CSD proposal getting overly long, so I'll be removing some of them that are redundant or have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. Would you please consider if your DP proposal is appropriate here? I believe that, by its current wording, you could simply add it to DP since it's common sense, and a suggestion rather than a proposal."

While I don't share the concern of it getting too long (because voters can vote on as many suggestions as they like), I take it seriously. Adding it to DP as a suggestion seems very reasonable. Unfortunately, I'm unexpectedly very busy for a week or so, so that I only have time to check my talk page for now. But I don't want to hold up the process, so I won't object if DP1 were moved to the archive. — Sebastian (talk) June 30, 2005 15:21 (UTC)

• I've added text reflecting that to Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. For VFD it's less important since such articles get a lot of userfy-votes anyway. Radiant_>|< June 30, 2005 15:26 (UTC)

When will voting begin?

"Voting on these proposals will begin after some discussion on the wording ..."[2]

• When will this be? Who decides this? — Sebastian (talk) 17:42, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
• Does this mean at that time all proposals will be frozen?
• Currently, people are still happily editing other people's proposals. I would hate to see a proposal fail because it has been frozen to a variation not intended by the original poster or a majority. (Example: Expanding a proposal will likely create more opposition). How can this be avoided?
• Because I do not want to run such a risk I ask that all editors respect my concern and ask me before changing proposals 13 and DP1. — Sebastian (talk) 17:55, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
  • Well... voting will begin when the wording is pretty much stable, and when there aren't any new concerns raised on this talk page. Yes, during voting, proposals will be frozen (otherwise, if you reword anything, you'd have to ask everyone to check their votes once more). I think it only fair that the people who added a proposal would decide when it's stable; IIRC at the moment that means you, me and Neto. Radiant_>|< 19:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Now I'm torn. For the existing propositions, I feel that most is pretty stable. (BTW, my vote would be: 1+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+ 6- 7- 8+ 10a- 10b- 1oc- G1+ 12+ 13+ T2- .) Maybe we could agree to set Thursday, 19:00 UTC as beginning of voting.

Unfortunately, however, I just got a new idea :-] , which isn't well thought-out yet (see #Automatic deletion). Let me see what you think about that idea, maybe it could solve some of the problems of the other propositions. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:25 (UTC)

However, there exists a great alternative proposal: Countdown deletion. I feel that many of the rules here should rather be reasons for countdown deletion than for speedy deletion. I'll have to look at them individually but my gut feel is that I will have more nays than I said above. Now unfortunately, these two discussions are not coordinated. So people like me may end up voting against a speedy delete in hopes that the countdown deletion passes, and run the risk that that fails, too. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 16:23 (UTC)

• One of the proposals on this page is about a test run (e.g. try the criteria for one month, then put them up for a revote). I think the easiest process would be to accept those criteria, see what happens, and during that one month finish the debate at countdown deletion (since it requires quite some discussion yet, imho). At the end of the month we can then decide if something should be speedy, countdown or neither. Radiant_>|< June 29, 2005 08:30 (UTC)
• We should let these sit as long as possible so no one can say that they were left out of discussion or that they were rushed. This link is Broken 30 June 2005 03:31 (UTC)

General observations

A few points I'd like to raise:

1. This set of proposals is unwieldy to the point of unusable: is it really necessary to overcomplicate to this degree?
2. The use of the word "assert" in the first 3 proposals is unfortunate; I can assert anything I like, for an article to be encyclopaedic, I need to demonstrate the validity/importance/etc. of the subject. This is a very different thing.
3. Where is the mention of the need to apply common sense in the application of the criteria?

Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 08:38 (UTC)

• 1. Some of them will be removed in the next couple of days. But they're a number of individual proposals that can be voted on individually. The last CSD extension had 11 proposals.
  2. That is precisely the point. If an article doesn't even assert how it could be encyclopedic, then it may be a speedy candidate per the first three criteria. If you dispute the assertion, VFD may be appropriate.
  3. That's a good point, it should be added to the explanation at the top. Radiant_>|< June 29, 2005 08:54 (UTC)

• • 1. Good. But maybe some more could be consolidated, too.
    2. I still think that this is the wrong word. And even if the author does not assert the importance, I'd be nervous of that being sufficient reason for speedying. Imagine the first month of en, a long time ago now. Someone adds a stub saying "James Joyce was an Irish novelist." As this fails to assert the importance of the subject, and as I have never heard of Joyce, I stick a speedy notice on it. Admin X, who has also never heard of this writer, comes along and deletes the page. This sequence of actions fails to make Wikipedia better. I know that this is aan unlikely sequence, but it serves to demonstrate my belief that, in cases such as this, it is beholden on the deletor to demonstrate the lack of importance of the subject. This does not, of course, hold true for articles that say "Jane Brown is a secondary school student in Dublin." By default, these demonstrate the lack of importance of the subject. In short:
    3. Yes, the need for common sense over legalism needs to be highlighted.

Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 09:11 (UTC)

• This has been addressed before, both here and on the main page. The main point is that deleting the James Joyce you mention above does not cause loss of any information, since there isn't any in the article. Obviously the article can be recreated (in fact one of the proposals is clarifying just that). And as a side point, an article such as you describe would be an exceedingly rare occurence. Finally, note that nobody is obliged to delete anything, and if common sense dictates that an article be kept, of course it will be kept. Radiant_>|< June 29, 2005 09:25 (UTC)

Archive

I'm updating the proposal with respect to comments made here. Some of the parts have been taken out, so I'm archiving them here.

G2: Appropriateness of the means

• Deletion of any page should not take more than 10 times the effort it took to create that page.
  • Effort is measured in person-minutes.
  • This is meant as a general rule for deciding rules, not necessarily something that should be an explicity policy. (I'd like to have 2 votes on this: One if people agree with the principle, and one if it should appear on WP:CFD.)

Withdrawn. Not suitable as policy.

T1

• "Any newly created template that serves the same function as an existing template, but has different layout or wording" should be added to the criteria for speedy deletion.
• The reason is that if you want an existing template reworded, you should discuss changing it rather than creating a variant or "fork".
• Withdrawn. Talk page discussion showed it an impractical idea.

I1

Expand the images category to include an image uploaded to Commons.

I2

Expand the image category to images copied to Commons from Wikipedia.

• Both removed for being redundant with #8, which is now renamed to #I1. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 08:29 (UTC)

Automatic deletion

"I don't think its because of urgency, but because of a desire to reduce the load on VfD" -- Dmcdevit

It seems to me our main objective for most proposals is to make the process easier. (Exceptions are proposal #10 and possibly vanity and advertisement, as someone else said above).

Instead of deleting them right away, I therefore propose the following. This could be a general change or a change in selected individual proposals:

An article that fits criterium X will not be deleted right away, but after a delay of N days. This will be achieved by adding a tag that can be recognized by a bot.

The tag could read like this: "This page will be deleted on ______, because it currently fits criterium _______ for automatic deletion. If you want this article to remain, please fix the problems described and then remove this tag.

— Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 06:40 (UTC)

• Not a bad idea, and already under discussion at Wikipedia:Countdown_deletion. It is, however, too much of a can of worms to add to this proposal, since this is a clear and simple extension of WP:CSD. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 08:19 (UTC)
  • Thanks! That looks very much like what I had in mind. I'm moving this proposal to the Archive section. — Sebastian (talk) June 28, 2005 16:23 (UTC)

Comment by Tony Sidaway: VfD isn't broken, why try to fix it?

I think it's been over two weeks at least since I commented on this. I still see what I regard as utterly absurd presumptions being made:

• Firstly, that there is a serious problem with VfD. If people are listing too many articles for VfD (it's blatantly obvious that this is true of some categories, schools for instance--a 1% success rate isn't worth all that discussion) then the solution to this problem is to list fewer articles for deletion. If people feel that VfD has reached the stage where most people cannot read every single VfD nomination, then those people who think that they ought to do so should perhaps rethink their priorities. If people processing VfDs are finding it harder to get through them all, we can improve the process. Let's all set our expectations higher, for instance, and make it plain to would-be listers: "Do you really think this article is likely to be thought deletable by an overwhelming majority of people who read it?" Let's make it easier for editors to defer a VfD listing of an article that's less than six months old--if we give the article another six months then it will be easier to decide whether the article is capable of growth. If articles are harder to delete we'll get fewer VfD listings of articles that haven't been given the chance.

• Secondly, we're in danger of instruction creep. At the same time you say that administrators are expected to use their commonsense, you're saying that the rules should be tighter. Mixed signals.

• In short, what's so radically bad about the current situation that we have to put the life-or-death decision on an article into the hands of a single person? The figures show that we're getting a good hit rate out of Vfd, some 80-90% of articles are being deleted. The exceptions are in general nominations by people who mistake their personal ignorance for an absence of encyclopedic potential, and also by cases that genuinely do need to be fought ought by discussion on VfD, such as schools. VfD works. Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 00:40 (UTC)