Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 11

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Interaction with BLP

Per the consensus at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people, I've made a note that BLPs prodded may not be de-prodded until references are added. There are two policies. They bang together and one has to take priority over the other. I think it is pretty clear that the community supports the position that BLP has priority.

Please don't undo this change unless the consensus at the RfC changes. Please do comment there and try to change people's mind if you disagree (or agree). Jehochman ^Brrr 19:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I support this, but am also fine with Fram's proposal linked in the section above. I think one of the two is the solution we need. ArbCom has at least in part endorsed the route of just deleting unsourced BLPs without any discussion or chance to find sources, and I think most all of us would agree that either keeping Jechochman's change to the prod policy or setting up a special "prod-like" system for unsourced BLPs a la Fram's proposal is a much, much better route. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that's a valid statement of policy. I, and most editors dealing with this, was not informed, and this appears to be an attempt to win a WP:BATTLE by rewriting disputed policy to favor one side. It certainly is not a measured approach to dealing with the larger problem. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people think it's a measured approach, i.e. not allowing editors to remove prods from unsourced BLPs, in fact the majority who have commented above. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think a separate process is far less likely to waste unnecessary energy (and risk failure) dealing with the quite reasonable fear that adding a special case for BLP risks subverting the original essence of PROD. Rd232 ^talk 20:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people agree with it but it's not a measured approach. It's all-or-nothing, immediate, and without any particular order for people to do mass-PRODDING, or mass anything regarding content. A measured approach would be to do it incrementally with an agreed-to procedure, say handling all of the BLPs alphabetically in batches 1,000 at a time, or the new project I'm going to unleash on Wikipedia soon if I can stop talking about this subject long enough to actually do something about it. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Jehochman, the point is simple: first get clear consensus in a closed discussion, after at least a week's debate (we allow AfD's to go for 1 week, shouldn't we have the same timeframe for changing policy? Last discussion on WT:DEL took one month!) , then let's change policy. Regardless of the outcome. Please. I understand that the concept of community consensus is agonizing under certain blows, but let's follow some kind of process at least here. Please. --Cyclopia^talk 21:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's fine, so long as editors of your (Cyclopia's) view are willing to get on board with an actual solution to the problem of unsourced BLPs (which you say isn't even a problem). If we don't come to a solution quickly the ArbCom motion seems to empower admins to delete unsourced BLPs at will, without warning, and without logging it anywhere. That's not a good scenario, so instead of just saying "no" to the very idea that there is a problem, either start advocating for one of the proposed solutions or drop out of the conversation so you don't block a consensus that could source (and save) most of these articles rather than having most of them deleted. Ironically it's the folks taking this hardline stance against any sort of change to address the problem that are most empowering the admins who went on their deletion runs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand your concerns in full, but in the last 48 hours this place is into high risk of becoming an an anarchy. I am seriously afraid of the fact that everyone here is rushing decisions one after another, chaotically, restructuring everything without giving the community (and bear in mind, the community is not just me,you and the other couple of dozen editors who are participating to this hell) a chance to participate. Maintaining process is even more important than the articles themselves, at this sad point, because if consensus and process are not maintained as necessary, every change you propose here will be in the end moot, since the slogan of the day seems to be "Do as you like, admin: consensus and process are irrelevant". Today it's unreferenced BLPs: tomorrow what will be the admin's pet deletion category? --Cyclopia^talk 21:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The last sentence is unduly alarmist to the nth degree, and part of the whole point of this discussion is that process is not more important than everything else, for example protecting BLPs from harm. There's lots of discussion happening so things are hardly as crazy as you make out, but we do need a solution and soon, presumably changing WP:PROD or creating a special type of PROD for BLPs. It's will be easy to adjust either along the way, but we need to get it up and running very soon for about ten different reasons. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Not alarmist, just realistic. Did you miss for example the repeated attempts of "default to delete" per BLP AfD's? Did you miss the voices calling for "dead tree criteria" when dealing with BLPs? If we begin to endorse the principle that process can be trumped for any supposed ethical concern, everything can happen. Process is here for a reason: to ensure that decisions are taken appropriately, with the approval of the community that, actually, is this project. It is not mere bureaucracy. When we discard process, we discard every hope of ruling with consensual discussion, and Wikipedia will just be the playground of who is better at twisting arms. Think about it. What will you do when an admin will ignore process, but this time against you? --Cyclopia^talk 22:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

When the inclusionist rhetoric boils down to First they came for the Jews hyperbole, your position is pretty much hopeless. Tarc (talk) 04:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

When Cyclopia lists actual policies that people have attempted to push through using highly out of process rough-shodding and then you proceed to trigger a law named after the project's lawyer I'm pretty sure that the problem is more extreme emotions rather than any problems with the inclusionists per se... JoshuaZ (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to the "Today it's unreferenced BLPs: tomorrow what will be the admin's pet deletion category?" bit. It helps when you read the entire thread, Josh. Tarc (talk) 04:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It helps when you assume people can't read your mind, Tarc. Especially when your comment is indented one over to Cyclopia's remark where he lists very specific problems of exactly this type. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry Joshua. Tarc has a weird obsession with me in the last period. --Cyclopia^talk 12:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Not reading the details of the drama here, just a general comment: While the RfC so far does indicate that we might agree on a prod-type solution, this is much too early to declare consensus and change policy. Close and evaluate the RfC first. We're not on a deadline of hours or even days here, despite the moral panic some appear to be in.  Sandstein  10:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A question

Is there a way of viewing an intersection of categories, for example articles which are unref'd BLPs and about US politicians? Seems to me that it would be easier to get people to improve these if they could be focussed on their own area of interest or expertise.   pablo_hablo. 21:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

There is: http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php (CatScan). Ucucha 21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. There's all sorts of useful goodies on that toolserver that could be better advertised!   pablo_hablo. 21:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Another question

Is there any way to track or log these deletions? Can someone make a procedure or template for it? We're probably going to have to undelete them all eventually to be incubated, so if there isn't a way we should come up with one quick, then ask any admin deleting BLP articles to log them accordingly. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

One of the deleting admins was asked about that, see here. Right now I think the deletions have stopped in the hopes that the community comes to a solution, so it's just a matter of looking at the logs of admins who did the deleting (I think maybe only three). If we actually set up a formal process as has been proposed, there would of course be logs so this would not be an issue. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If the deletions use some sort of identifiable deletion summary then it should be possible to write some sort of program to trawl through the database dumps and identify all the deletions. Hut 8.5 21:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Prod changes depend on the attitude of administrators

There are few if any policies on Wikipedia with more weight than Biographies of living persons. An article about a living person consisting of nothing but unsourced statements is at best useless and at worst harmful. There is nothing to stop editors from tagging such articles with PROD giving the reason that they are "unsourced BLPs". There is nothing to stop administrators ignoring all rules and deleting such tagged articles that have been hanging around unsourced for so long that it seems unlikely that they'll ever be sourced.

We don't need to change policy on this. Arbcom would back any administrator who acted reasonably and within policy to improve our compliance with the BLP.

What happens in three or six months is not my concern, but as of now we have vast numbers of biographies of living persons that have no references section and no embedded external links. Those articles can be tagged and, if unimproved, deleted. This is a priority, and what is really worrying is that it has remained a priority for four solid years and we've done little or nothing about it.

It's time to get moving. We should write bots to identify these articles, and administrators should use their discretion to delete them. Wait ten days, or twenty days if you think it's better, but do come back to those tagged articles. Do delete those unreferenced BLPs that once tagged have not been improved. Even if the tag has been removed.

Only administrators have this power. It's their duty to delete these liabilities to Wikipedia. After four years of sitting on their hands while the number of unsourced BLPs has grown day by day, it's time for them to act. --TS 23:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

How would that be better than my Proposed Incubation proposal? Rd232 ^talk 23:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Less bureaucratic. Just relies on editors tagging and administrators eyeballing and, if necessary, deleting. The process wonks will keep any proposed new process stalled forever. The solution is to use existing processes (tag, delete per BLP). Let the Arbitration Committee take the strain. --TS 23:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

"less bureaucratic"? it's just PROD with incubation instead of deletion, plus a plan to tag at a manageable rate. The idea of both is to assuage the quite valid concerns of some that lots will get deleted without proper review and meaningful attempt to source. Rd232 ^talk 00:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, you say "There is nothing to stop editors from tagging such articles with PROD giving the reason that they are "unsourced BLPs". " well indeed, and there's nothing to stop those who oppose this process to remove the PROD. Unless agreement can be reached that policy should be amended appropriately. Rd232 ^talk 00:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Once the tag has been added, the article can be deleted as an unsourced BLP even if the tag is later removed without addressing the problem. The important thing is that these very damaging and useless bits of cruft be identified and, once identified, examined by administrators and removed if necessary. --TS 00:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Then what's the point of tagging? How does it even help identify things? Mass tagging will result in mass tag removal. Rd232 ^talk 01:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

"damaging and useless bits of cruft" - what? Most unreferenced BLPs turn out to be fine when referenced. So some chance at sourcing them should be given. Simply letting them lie around isn't getting it done, but wiping them out immediately is hardly the answer - some middle ground is possible. And it does amaze me that incubation is not more widely seen as a solution - it's out of mainspace, out of the search engines, and allows anyone that wants (especially organised via wikiprojects) to try and rescue them. For mass incubations, the month guideline could easily be changed to something else commensurate with the volume (a year, perhaps). Rd232 ^talk 01:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Er, if I may speak for my fellow admins: you say that this is up to administrators but you don't actually make clear what you want us to do. Whether a mass-tagging bot would be acceptable would be up to the Bot Approvals Group. (There have been attempts before with middling success--one attempt fell apart when its operator turned out to be a sockpuppet of a banned user, but was not going terribly well anyway. Right now, User:DASHBot, which merely pings article creators, is the only one going as far as I know.) A mass-PRODing bot would probably not go over well, I suspect, but is also not an admin issue. The only admin-specific issue is deleting PRODs, which we do anyway unless they're challenged. It sounds like what you're really proposing is a policy that a PROD tag on an unreferenced BLP cannot be removed unless references are created. That might be a good idea and it might not, but it's a policy issue, not an enforcement issue per se. Chick Bowen 01:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Having read this whole talk page I now realize some of what I say is answered by the sections above. This is because Tony linked directly to this section from WP:AN, without context. My point stands, however--there is nothing here for admins in particular to do unless the community changes the process. Chick Bowen 02:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the community sets policy (and sometimes the Board or Jimbo decrees it, and occasionally Arbcom oversteps its bounds and does so). Administrators have discretion to enforce policy, but not to make new procedures to do so. That drifts off into unilateralism, lack of accountability, and improper use of tools. But let's not get all hypothetical about this. The real solution is going to be a process for dealing with these, in which admins and good content editors can work together. Remember, we are here to create an encycloepdia not to delete one. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Chick, no obviously you may not speak for your fellow admins. Those admins have spoken loudly and, I think, largely pointed the way to a solution to the long-running blight of unreferenced BLPs. After about four years waiting for something to be done, they have said "fuck process". And that is exactly the right tone of voice to use and the right thing to say in the face of blatant and longstanding neglect of Wikipedia's most fundamental policies. --TS 00:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Evidently you are right, and I misjudged the general feeling. I cannot help but feel that there might have been less abrasive ways to achieve the same result. But maybe I am wrong. I have gone through a number of the deleted articles, an interesting exercise. There were a number of bios that need to exist: significant political figures from non-western countries, for example. I saw two really bad statements, including one, a claim of a pending legal action (one I wasn't able to confirm through news archive searchs and that may have been false) that had been tagged "citation needed" in 2007--ouch. If this is only the way to get us to deal with such things, then it's necessary. But I rather wish it weren't the only way. Chick Bowen 05:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Chick, links please, for I have not seen any so far in the unsourced bios, though I see quite a few every day in the apparently sourced ones. --email if necessary. ` DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Answered at User talk:DGG. Chick Bowen 21:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• • there are many other ways to deal with these things. I agree with the deletion of "very damaging and useless bits of cruft", but I remind my colleagues who have succumbed to panic, most of the material involved is not in that category. For any article from the old BLPs or anywhere else that is in fact damaging, prod is not the way to deal with them: CSD G10 is the way. If i see such on Prod, and i sometimes do, I delete them by CSD G10, and so would any other admin. They don't stay around the 7 days. If there are articles that are merely useless, just as useful is not reason to keep an article, useless is not reason to remove it. The deletion criterion should remain unsourceable, and this has to be shown by a good faith reasonable and appropriate effort to source. We already have a way to deal with unjustified removal of prods, which is AfD (except that sometimes calling them to attention results in a justified speedy). DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The dreaded link to the infamous WR

Can we have some more eyes on Cyclopia's obsession with placing an "OMG TEH WIKIPEDIA REVIEW!" disclaimer at the top of the BLP discussion? I know his brief foray over there didn't go so well, but we shouldn't allow users to make pointy displays about it here. Tarc (talk) 15:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing pointy. I became aware that WR existed in the middle of a deletion discussion some time ago, and I didn't know that editors were allowed to discuss things off-site without incurring in WP:CANVASS. Since it seems that it is allowed, fine, but I believe that WP should be an open process as much as possible. Therefore, it is a nice courtesy to make readers and participants of discussions that there is further discussion elsewhere. I've tagged several AfD's this way and nobody objected. It has also nothing specific to do with WR -I was thinking to do the same with the Wikimedia mailing list archives or IRC logs, in the future. The point is simply give the reader the full picture of ongoing public discussion. --Cyclopia^talk 16:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Using WR to notify people falls under "stealth canvassing". But the canvassing guideline covers notification, not discussion. Of course people can and do discuss anything and everything at WR, that's why it exists. Frankly, I ignore WR and pretend it doesn't exist. -- Atama頭 17:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It is used often for such purpose (that's what I meant), but that's not the point. I simply find useful that, if a discussion on WP is also discussed by editors on Site X (being X the WR or anything else), then I can have a neutral link to such discussion so that the discussion process is open to everyone's eyes. --Cyclopia^talk 17:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with you posting the link, even though I have no interest in viewing that web site. -- Atama頭 18:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The discussion there seems uniformly in praise of ArbCom making bold decisions even when they go against established procedures. Those discussing there include a number of the more vocal proponents of "Kill on Sight". Collect (talk) 18:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

What we should do is ban those who seek to reduce this discussion to name calling, which only enflames the situation and diminishes its level of mature academic discourse. Blanket denigration of 331 editors and admins cannnot be considered productive. It is hard to take a discussion seriously when it descends into such levels of immaturity. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That's why I don't take such discussions seriously. Basically, anything said on WR isn't worth looking at. I don't care what kind of mudslinging takes place there, and I don't advocate blocking anyone for what is said there. Maybe having said all that, Cyclopia shouldn't be linking to it. -- Atama頭 21:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I am getting misunderstood I fear. I am far from being an advocate of WR -quite the contrary, I find it a rather poisonous group-think environment. But I have no particular trouble with its existence. The problem is that people discuss about all sorts of things there -AfD's, policy, etc.- and editors who are not aware of that/do not check it regularly, do not know that editors are also discussing there. It could be WR, it could be any other forum: editors and even readers should see as much as possible of the discussion process happening about WP, since it is an open project. --Cyclopia^talk 01:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, nobody is going to ban users who call people names on WR. It won't happen. It can't happen. WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA don't apply outside of Wikipedia proper. Even if they did, there's no way to verify that somebody is who they say they are on WR, so you'd risk banning the wrong person. Unless somebody is openly planning to destroy Wikipedia offsite, and then actually tries to do it on-wiki, they won't be banned. The Wordsmith^Communicate 02:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Allow re-prodding with consent of prior de-prodder

If a person de-prods an article, he should be able to "reconsider" and re-prod an article. Currently, speedy-ineligible articles have to go to AFD once deprodded, even if the original objector now wants the article deleted. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Varanapally and Talk:Varanapally for a current example.

The policy also doesn't explicitly recognized that tag-removals by banned editors can be reverted, editors unfamiliar with the whole of Wikipedia policy may conclude that such removals cannot be undone.

I would like to replace

“ If anyone, including the article creator, removes a {{prod}} tag from an article, do not replace it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. This excludes removals that are clearly not an objection to deletion, such as page blanking. If you still believe that the article needs to be deleted, or that the article should be deleted but with discussion, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. ”

with

“ Do not replace a {{prod}} tag in an article if anyone else besides yourself has removed it, including the article creator. This generally includes most removals that appear to be in bad faith. Tags may also be restored when other policies such as WP:BAN allow the removal to be undone. This also excludes removals that are clearly not an objection to deletion, such as page blanking. If you still believe that the article needs to be deleted, or that the article should be deleted but with discussion, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

Unless the tag removal is reverted within a few hours, you should complete the objection process and re-nominate the article from scratch with a note on the talk page explaining that you have withdrawn your objection and the original prod is no longer contested. Tag removals reverted within a few hours should have the dated prod time-related fields updated to add the "missing" hours to the countdown clock.

”

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The only objection I can see to this is that it opens things up to "gaming" - I can de-prod an article that I know will be contested by a particular editor, then re-prod it at a time when I know the editor is on an 8+ day Wikibreak. I think this risk is more than made up for by reducing the workload at AFD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned about instruction creep here. I think it would apply only in very few cases, but would cost everyone a little bit of the effort to read about a more complex process. It can also be argued that if a reasonable editor (being able to change one's mind is a good indication of reasonableness!) could even briefly think that the article is worth keeping, then it is enough of a corner case that it would be valuable to attract some more eyes searching for redeeming points, via the AfD process. –Henning Makholm (talk) 05:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the wording in the second paragraph, it is far too policy wonkish. I don't like the idea of a prodder badgering a deprodder into changing their mind. Prod is quick and simple, if it gets more complicated just AfD it. I agree with the bit about deprods by banned or disruptive users being revertable though. Fences&Windows 03:28, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I would say that it is fine for someone to change their mind about a prod tag and consent to it being replaced. I do however think that it needs to run the full time duration starting from scratch if it has been removed though. The spirit of the policy seems to be that if a page is publicly proposed for deletion for a full 7 days and nobody objects that it can be deleted, allowing someone to withdraw objections and reseting the timer seems to meet that spirit. Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Chillum here--if the objection is withdrawn there is no reason for the prod not to proceed. I'm not however sure about the wording. DGG ( talk ) 05:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

In a number of cases I've personally contested a proposed deletion, and then either changed my mind or realized that I had made a mistake and reapplied the prod. I don't think doing so goes against the spirit of the policy, and it also doesn't reset the timer. Now, I reapplied the tag minutes after removing it, if I'd waited days to do so I would think the timer should be reset. -- Atama頭 20:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we should simply make one little change: "If any other user, including the article creator, has removed a prod tag from an article, do not replace it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith." Hans Adler 20:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm a rabid inclusionist and have tried to prevent reproddings by putting {{oldprodfull}} tags on hundreds of articles, and I agree that the benefit is small, so the cost in wording complexity has to be weighed very heavily, but I think Hans Adler's wording change is ideal. Only two words more, practically invisible to any first time reader, but enough to clearly allow people to correct genuine errors.John Z (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Nominating process for Prods

Point 4 of the 'Nomination' sub-heading states that the nominator should only 'consider' notifying the creator/significant contributors that it has been proposed for deletion. Shouldn't this be amended to say that this should happen, with possible exceptions for obvious rubbish etc, or maybe if no one has touched the article for a long time. Any thoughts on this, has this been dsicussed here before? Eldumpo (talk) 10:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer "should make reasonable efforts to notify all creator/significant contributors who are still active editors." I'm leaving "active editors" nebulous on purpose, but common sense means you must check the user and talk page for "retired" or "blocked" templates or goodbye messages, and check their contributions history to see if it looks like they've disappeared. Note that you can't use a hard and fast rule to gauge if someone has disappeared - a person with bursts of editing only during school breaks may go months without an edit and not be retired, but someone who edits weekly then disappears for 6 months is much more likely to be gone for good. By the way, attempting to send email is not required as part of "reasonable efforts," as an editor should not be required to enable email in order to do a PROD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

As I have been urging for some time, it should be absolutely required, and the closed we can come to that wording the better. Attempts to do this by a bot have for some reason never been successful. there is no harm leaving an additional message, or one at the p. of a retired user. There is harm in the opposite mistake, in not notifying someone who has motivation to fix the article if possible. Removing articles without notifying can have the effect of trying to sneak something under the radar, though that is not usually the intention. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

How about this for suggested alternative wording for point 4:

"4. The article's creator or other significant contributors should be left a message at their talk page(s) informing them of the proposed article deletion, except for cases where contributors are no longer regarded as active editors on Wikipedia."Eldumpo (talk) 17:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyone got any further views on this? Eldumpo (talk) 22:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

DGG has said that he would like for notification to be required. The reason it isn't, is because it's very difficult to figure exactly out who should be notified when an article is being proposed for deletion (or, for that matter, nominated for deletion through WP:AFD). The creator should be notified, if the creator seems to still be active. I'd also say that notification should go toward anyone who has made any substantial improvements to the article (beyond adding tags or fixing typos), if that person is also an active editor. It's a totally subjective judgment at this point, determining who to notify.

I think there are two extremes that we can go to. One is that every person who has ever contributed to the article should be notified, whether their edits were minor, or they are a shared IP, or they haven't edited Wikipedia in 3 years. Per DGG, doing so would cause no harm. Doing this could be accomplished through some script, or perhaps a bot could do it. I don't like making that a requirement, personally; some articles could have dozens of contributors and if it wasn't automated it would be a ridiculous amount of work for an editor, especially when this whole process is meant to be easy. Even if automated, that could lead to a lot of "spam" flying around Wikipedia.

The other extreme is to say that notification isn't necessary at all. If anyone really "cares" about the article, they'd have it on their watchlist and should be able to respond to a prod tag within a week. I don't like that line of reasoning, in fact I'd prefer spamming everyone indiscriminately over never notifying anyone.

I think that it will have to be discretionary, that it needs to be optional but be sure that it is strongly encouraged that people leave notifications to appropriate editors. I think that the language you have above, about "creators and significant contributors" is correct. My only change would be to add something that says that it is "strongly encouraged" that notification be left. -- Atama頭 17:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

What about just a notification on an appropriate WikiProject page? That would reach a audience that is known to have an interest in the subject area of the article. Tarc (talk) 17:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Notifying Wikiprojects is a good possibility, but I don't know the proportion of articles covered by Wikiprojects (especially active projects). Maurreen (talk) 17:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

My own experience with notifying Wikiprojects isn't a good one. I've removed proposed deletion tags from articles that I thought had notable subjects, and notified related projects that the article was proposed for deletion once and was in danger of future attempts to delete because it didn't have enough sourcing, wasn't expanded, etc. But there was no response and no help. Individual editors who have spent the effort to create or expand an article are going to have a much greater incentive to respond to a proposed deletion tag than a Wikiproject. -- Atama頭 19:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for further responses. I have considered the points and made a change to the article. I have gone with using 'ideally' to try and address the above concerns. Not sure if this will work, but see what, if any, comments are made. Cheers. Eldumpo (talk) 22:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I like it. A very sensible change that I think accurately reflects the proposed deletion process. -- Atama頭 22:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Userfy or incubate PRODs instead of delete?

Here's a thought - why not userfy PRODs (after the 7 days are up) instead of deleting them? It would make it easier for newbies to see what they did (without having to ask for it - they may not even remember if it's worth the hassle of asking), and a tag like {{userspace draft}} provides guidance and noindexing. Probably userfied PRODs shouldn't hang around indefinitely; a bot could delete them after 30 days or something. If Twinkle had userfication (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication), it would be easy, and a good idea I think. Incubation would (in some cases) be an alternative, especially if there was a bot to delete unedited incubated PRODs from the incubator. Rd232 ^talk 10:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The theory behind proposed deletions is that the article being deleted is not "wanted" by anyone. Even the article creator. Automatically userfying PRODs will first imply that the person you are providing the article for didn't want the article deleted (which would invalidate the PROD in the first place), and would also be adding extra steps to what is supposed to be a very simple process. I just don't think it's necessary, especially since any editor who wants a PRODed article restored after the fact only has to take it to WP:DRV and it can be restored without discussion. -- Atama頭 18:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The current PROD process assumes that someone interested in editing the article has looked at it in the last 7 days. It's this assumption which I'm finding problematic, for the type of less-notable articles which are typical PROD subjects. Authors (and perhaps editors) of such articles may well not be Wikipedians in OMG-I-didn't-login-yesterday-what-have-I-missed sense. Result: some things get deleted which shouldn't. DRV is easy and non-scary, of course, if you're a reasonably experienced Wikipedian... what about those who aren't? Plus, coming back after a longer period, editors may not even remember what exactly they contributed or whether it's worth the hassle of doing anything about it, given that it was deleted once. Rd232 ^talk 00:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

How do you determine who gets the userfied copy of the article? The creator who began the article two years ago and hasn't made an edit since? The editor who made a dozen edits expanding the article but hasn't touched it for a year? The half a dozen editors who made changes in the last month? This is the same problem that came up when it was suggested that a proposed deletion require notification (who do you notify?) or that a bot warn people that an article was about to be or has just been deleted (who does the bot leave a notice for?). I still think it's completely unnecessary, but assuming I supported your idea in spirit I don't think it's feasible to do. -- Atama頭 01:11, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Where there's no obviously good target for userfication, incubation. And I don't see the problem with notifying multiple people of something userfied to one person, if by some reasonable metric there's a chance they may be active and interested (see eg related discussion, on deciding who to notify, at WT:BLP#Unreferenced BLP notification bot). Rd232 ^talk 01:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm very much in favor of the automatic notification if there was such a metric. I've always thought that was something seriously lacking from the PROD process. Also, if you are saying these just go into the incubator for a month, that's not as bad as what I had originally thought you meant (userfying for specific users), though considering the large number of articles deleted this way I still think it's unnecessary work. I'm not as opposed as I was though, you swayed me a bit. :) -- Atama頭 01:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Well good :). The reason I proposed it is because I thought with the addition of a simple bot and a tweak to Twinkle, sending expired PRODs to the incubator (or userfying if appropriate, which may not be very often, so perhaps just leave that to one side) would be as easy as deletion, and no additional work. Feel free to help out with thinking about the notification metrics at WT:BLP#Unreferenced BLP notification bot BTW... Rd232 ^talk 01:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Prod patrollers can incubate the article if they think it has potential but isn't ready for the prime time, I've done this a couple of times. Until the incubator has more articles I don't think we need bots to do any deleting, and I doubt using bots to delete articles in the incubator would receive approval. I'm against userfying all expired prods as there's already too many abandoned userfied articles. Fences&Windows 23:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot would only be necessary for the increased workload from PROD, and could probably be limited to those articles. Rd232 ^talk 00:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see any reason to userify or otherwise move a PRODed article. If the article has "potential" it clearly isn't (or shouldn't be) an "uncontroversial deletion" candidate to begin with and the tag should simply be removed. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
  • What should happen and what does happen are often different things, even when it's clear. But there is also a substantial amount of subjectivity, especially where the PROD concern is "notability". Take Bi chamd khairtai, tagged for notability, with the tagger taking no more than a minute or two to decide. It's a Mongolian film, who's to say it's that easily Googlable? Who's to say the reviewing admin will be better qualified (or bothered) to do a substantial WP:BEFORE investigation? Yes, there is much that is junk which just doesn't quite fit a speedy criterion, and where incubation or userfying is a waste of time from the point of view of immediate encyclopedic content; but not everything. Maybe some things could be incubated at the discretion of the deleting admin; which of course they can do anyway, but it would need to be encouraged and perhaps made easier. In addition, I was careful to say "a waste of time from the point of view of immediate encyclopedic content". Deleting non-notable apparently unimprovable junk is still not a friendly thing to do. It is still WP:BITEy, and pointing to WP:DRV etc is a woefully inadequate defence to that charge (just look at the number of people who don't remove PROD tags even though it says so right on there that they can, and use the talk page instead). It would be much better to incubate such junk, provide clear guidelines (eg via a template attached to the top), a notice to the creator, and try and help them achieve a genuine understanding of why it was removed, and what they might do better on that subject so it might make the cut, or do better on some other subject. And yes, I know PROD comes with user talk messages, but it's much harder to understand what went wrong when the content has already been deleted. This may be a factor in the phenomenon you point out of many userfied pages not being followed up - users just don't remember exactly what they did a few days or weeks later, so need it undeleted just to try and make sense of how the guidelines they allegedly breached relate to what they did. Keeping the content around longer (outside of mainspace) makes that education process easier and that has to be a good thing. Rd232 ^talk 10:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Plenty of articles that are deprodded will be snow deletes at AfD without immediate improvement. If you think the topic is notable, but you don't have the time, ability or access to sources necessary to bolster it, incubating it seems a very good idea, instead of leaving it out as a hostage to fortune. Fences&Windows 19:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• I put the discussion up at the [pump]. -kslays (talk • contribs) 00:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

De-prodding by banned user?

I came across Sara Khan, The prod tag says, "unsourced BLP, no references, previous PROD deleted by banned user."

Conerning only whether the article is eligible to be re-prodded as it has been, does it matter if the previous prod was deleted by a banned user? I understand why it might not matter.

But if it does matter, shouldn't there be solid evidence? Maurreen (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It's my understanding that banned users are prohibited from all activities, even otherwise legitimate ones. Shadowjams (talk) 01:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Shadowjams is right. In the case you're referring to, the proposed deletion tag was removed by the sockpuppet of a banned editor. Per WP:BAN#Edits by and on behalf of banned users, you can revert any edit made in defiance of a ban. Essentially, that editor no longer has the privilege of participating to Wikipedia in any way, including an objection to page deletion.

The funny think in the case of the Sara Khan article is that the person who had placed the original proposed deletion tag was a sockpuppet too. One sockpuppet proposed it for deletion, another one removed the tag. -- Atama頭 17:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

RfCs in userspace

Relevant discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#RfCs in userspace. Question was posed by User:Casliber: "...have we ever discussed how long is a reasonable amount of time to develop and/or leave a made-up-and-loaded RfC in one's userspace before it should be by rights deleted as an attack page? (i.e. "put-up-or-shut-up" rule?)" thanks, IZAK (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Precedent is that there is no set limit - cases have been filed at the six month mark, to be sure. And such pages fall into a special protected category of userspace usage. Collect (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

A helpful? suggestion

In light of the current flood of BLP prods, which will probably continue in the future, I think this guideline should urge prodders to give some indication of where the article should be delsorted - in the prod, so it will show up in WP:PRODSUM. Our best prodders already do this. Helping delsorting leads to both better quality decisions and a capacity for handling more prods, by making the prods more visible to the most knowledgeable eyes. This is in line with several proposals at the BLP RFC, but could be done immediately.John Z (talk) 06:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have for a longtime been asking prodders to at least indicate roughly the field of activity of the person, to make it easier to see which ones i cam capable of checking. DGG ( talk ) 21:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Expanding on the endorsements idea

We have a way of endorsing PRODs. Any endorsed PROD should have at least two people agreeing before it is deleted. (Update trying to clarify ... Endorsed prod = 2 people in agreement on prod, before admin. Just stating situation, as a prelude. Maurreen (talk) 20:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC))

I wonder how feasible it would be to list PRODs in three groups:

• Endorsed,
• Checked but unsure.
• Not yet checked by a second person. Maurreen (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that a proposed deletion must have at least 2 people agreeing to its deletion prior to an admin deleting it? That defeats the purpose of proposed deletions. Prods are for articles in which nobody objects, not for articles in which multiple people support. If you want a deletion process that requires input from multiple editors, we already have one: WP:AFD. The endorsements currently help out admins who are deleting prods to give us a bit more confidence. For example, if I run across a BLP with no sources, I'll usually do a quick Google search in a few areas (news, books, scholar) to see if anything comes up, but if the original proposer claims to have done so and someone else endorses it then that's enough for me. Admins should be using their own judgment when deleting proposed deletions, and not doing so blindly, so any deleted prod already has 2 people agreeing; the original proposer, and the admin doing the deletion. On average, in a batch of twenty proposed deletions I'll usually deprod one or two for some reason or another (the deletion is controversial, the subject seems notable, etc.). I don't delete willy-nilly and I hope most other admins don't either. -- Atama頭 16:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to add any more bureaucracy.

It wasn't intended to add any requirements, just to organize information better.

It was intended to help people who check PRODs to do so more efficiently.

If there was a list, category, whatever, of PRODs that had not been endorsed or checked, it would be easier for PROD patrollers to look there instead of the general category, or category by date, or to look back and forth between the category of endorsed, and the category that includes endorsed and not endorsed. Maurreen (talk) 01:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I must have misunderstood you then, the text I was concerned about was, "Any endorsed PROD should have at least two people agreeing before it is deleted." If you are just suggesting another way to categorize proposed deletions, I suppose it wouldn't hurt. -- Atama頭 19:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry if I did not word that well. Maurreen (talk) 20:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I normally add a prod2 on any article in my usual areas that I think someone might possibly have expected me to defend, to indicate to the closing admin that it was not that I overlooked it, but that I agree with the deletion. But otherwise, I try to check every prod in any area I feel able to look at--which means most fields except popular media figures and athletes. It would be nice to be reassured that someone is checking those areas also, because it is unfortunately the case that some admins sometimes seem to think it appropriate to delete any expired prod without checking the article sufficient to confirm that they agree with the deletion. (when I delete any conceivably non-obvious expired prod, I add to the deletion summary that I have confirmed it so anyone interested will know that I did look.) DGG ( talk ) 21:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposed prod removal limitations

What are people's thoughts on making prod removal limited to users who are either autoconfirmed or not the creators of an article. In other words, what if we do not allow new users to remove prods on articles they have written. First, has the idea been proposed, and second, would others find it useful? I know a lot of the AfD volume on snow-delete closes has to do with brand new accounts that create one article and remove any prods. Enforcement would be relatively simple, and could be supplemented through Abuse filter.

This would not only reduce the temptation of some users to re-prod articles, but would also reduce the AfD burden. It could also reduce the number of speedy candidates, allowing for more time and more development on non-problem articles, without the corresponding load on AfD.

I'm interested in people's ideas. Shadowjams (talk) 05:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll state the obvious; since a prod runs for a week, and autoconfirmed takes four days, this wouldn't actually stop any de-prodding if someone cares about the article staying up; and instead might cause a good deal of confusion. Secondly, those snowballs at AfD are usually pretty obvious, not taking up much time. (Maybe not even more than having to check if the author is autoconfirmed). Bradjamesbrown (talk) 05:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's part of the design. A new user who sticks around past day 4 to update the article is a good indication that there should be discussion. Contrasted with the rapid-fire removal that happens in the cases I'm talking about. It's a rather minor tweak. Shadowjams (talk) 09:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not a minor tweak, in that the purpose of PROD is for deletions that have zero controversy. It also would open a slippery slope. The beauty of PROD is in its simplicity. Maurreen (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The whole point of PROD is that anyone can contest the deletion and send it to AfD. Anyone. Powers ^T 13:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

We have proposed deletions because often there are articles that so obviously should be deleted that jumping through all the AfD hoops is a waste of time, yet they don't fit into any CSD criteria. To run an AfD on the article would clearly result in a snow of "delete" !votes, so why bother? So you put a PROD tag on the article. If anyone, anyone at all truly objects to deleting the article, whether they are a new editor, an anonymous editor, anyone, then clearly the assumption about that article was false. At least one person would have argued to keep the article, and therefore if the article is to be deleted there should be a discussion (in AfD). Changing the process in this way would defeat the purpose of why we have proposed deletions in the first place. -- Atama頭 17:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the above comments, and I find Atama's point compelling. I am underwhelmed by the argument though that the idea "defeats the purpose" of prod. That argument assumes its own conclusion.

The substantive objection I'm seeing is that removal indicates controversy, thus deletion is unwarranted in those cases.

I think that's a misreading for two reasons. 1) Prod has always deleted over some level of controversy. Every page will have at least one advocate, the creator (in most cases), and the fact that a prod succeeds at all means the creator did not see it. Prod has never scrupulously avoided all forms of opposition; instead it has avoided controversial opposition.

2) The removal indicates controversy point Atama makes is a good point, but as with the original creator, various degrees of controversy are indicated depending on the circumstances. Limiting removal to the same group of users, for a limited (as Bradjamesbrown points out above, not even the full prod period) time, only makes explicit what was already an understood part of prod. Prods have always been over the objection of one person: the original article creator. That's why I say it's not a conceptual leap to make that understanding a little more honest.

This is a lesser version of the removal rules that already exist on CSD, and it helps bring the deletion protocols a bit more in line. But if the instruction creep, increasing complexity, and lack of effectiveness outweigh the decrease in AfD volume, that's a valid reason to reject. Shadowjams (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The assumption that the article creator will always object to deletion is an incorrect one. Many articles deleted through PROD were created by editors who have long ago left Wikipedia. I know this because with every proposed deletion I delete, I first check the article history and see who the creators/significant editors are, and if they are active I check their talk pages to see if they've objected to PROD notices (which happens, sometimes, though it's rare). When they do, I consider the PROD controversial and decline it. But many times, I'd even go so far as to say more than half the time, an article that is proposed for deletion without objection for 7 days was created by an inactive editor. An editor who has no further interest in the encyclopedia clearly doesn't care what happens here, and that's as uncontroversial as it gets.

In addition, there are often cases where an article creator or significant contributor who is still active doesn't object to deletion. To give an example, I recently proposed this article for deletion. The article creator has been inactive for months, and I don't expect them to object to the article deletion. But one other editor, the one who moved the article to mainspace from user space and cleaned it up somewhat, is still a very active editor. I informed the editor of my proposed deletion, and my reason why. The editor agreed with my reason for deleting, saying "reading it now I think you are right". So you certainly shouldn't assume that even those responsible for creating the article necessarily want it kept. -- Atama頭 21:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I too have found frequently that when I explain to an editor why an article has been prodded, they will recognize that the article cannot be supported, and will either let the prod run, or ask for its speedy removal by db-author. DGG ( talk ) 21:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"Sticky" prod

Please join a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people‎#Next step(s).

Consensus has been reached to use "sticky" PRODs for new unsourced WP:BLPs. The "sticky" aspect means that the prod tag would be ineligible for removal without sourcing.

Discussion is now starting on the details. One option brought up is to incorporate the new sticky prods as part of the existing prods (this page). Maurreen (talk) 22:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

update: discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Sticky Prod workshop. Rd232 ^talk 20:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

update: any policy discussion concerning the development of the look and function of the sticky BLP PROD tpl is taking place at WT:Sticky prod policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kudpung (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia:Proposed deletion (books)

I think this is long overdue. I've proposed this adaption of the PROD process, but specifically for books. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that currently, proposed deletion doesn't apply to books at all. Books would need to be deleted either through a CSD category or MfD, because books aren't articles or disambiguation pages. I'm not sure if it's necessary to expand the scope of PROD for books, how many uncontroversial book deletions end up at MfD? -- Atama頭 20:43, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Reinstatement of PRODs

I have seen some instances of people putting prod tags back on with instructions that the tags not be removed unless references are added. Maurreen (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Even if those were BLPs, that's incorrect. A brand new process for deleting BLPs is in the process of being created, and the current PROD process is not supposed to be changed. When the new process is finished, only BLPs created after the new process is put into place would be subject to it. This is all based on the closing of WP:BLPRFC. To reiterate:

• Any article whose proposed deletion tag is removed is ineligible for PROD from that point on (with exceptions as listed in the current policy). This includes BLPs.
• Once the new "PROD-like process" is completed, the new deletion process can only be applied to BLPs, and only applied to new BLPs created after the process is completed. Older BLPs and non-BLPs are ineligible. The new process is separate from and independent of the current PROD process.

Anyone restoring PROD tags with instructions about references is probably doing so out of a misunderstanding of what came out of the RfC on BLPs. I'd recommend correcting those misunderstandings or we might have a real mess on our hands. -- Atama頭 18:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Those were my thoughts. I'm trying to correct the misunderstandings and trying to foster moderation on both sides of the issue. Maurreen (talk) 19:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Backdated prod

This prod somehow ended up with a prod-date five days earlier than the edit in which the prod was placed. Any idea how that could have happened? I replaced it with a new prod in order to make sure the article gets the proper 1-week waiting period. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The Prod tag was copied from here. Not the first time I've seen that! —SpacemanSpiff 07:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Belmont Club

The Belmont Club re apeared although it was deleted yesterday. Was it undeleted with a certain intention?#

Sorry found it on the undelete page, it is there three times.--Stone (talk) 14:18, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Prods are uncontroversial, and the restoration of prods is equally uncontroversial. Anyone should be able to request that a prod be restored without need for deletion review discussion, although there's nothing wrong with going to deletion review to make the restoration request (the policy suggests doing that, in fact). Any article I delete through prod I will restore if someone asks me to. The relevant text in the policy, under "Objecting", is: "Any deletion via this process which is taken to deletion review is implicitly a contested deletion, and the article should therefore be immediately restored by any administrator without discussion." Unlike other kinds of deletions, proposed deletions don't even need a reason to be restored, just a person asking that they be restored. -- Atama頭 16:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

PRODSUM down?

PRODSUM appears to be down again... 65.94.253.16 (talk) 05:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

XMB (forum)

I would like to object to the proposed deletion of XMB_(forum). Deletion is not consistent with existence of many similar articles. Miqrogroove (talk) 05:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You can ask for it to be restored at WP:REFUND. Maurreen (talk) 06:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Are articles previously deleted at AFD eligible for PROD?

If a previous version of an article on the same subject has been deleted at AFD, is the new version PRODable? Assume the new article is different enough to escape CSD G4. I can see 2 arguments here...

No, discussion at AFD is discussion at AFD regardless of the result.

Yes, different article with a different history.

--Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd say PROD/AfD are judgements on an article subject, not on the content itself (copyvios apart), therefore I'd say that no, it has already discussed at AfD, better to bring it again to AfD. In general, if there is any doubt, it means that it is not suitable for PRODding. --Cyclopia^talk 03:05, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right that AfD is supposed to be on the subject rather than the content. As such, a failed AfD should suggest that it is likely that the subject is not worth an article. Therefore, if a new article is created which isn't covered by G4, there's nothing wrong in principle with using PROD; it is, after all, a new article. I've seen this in practice a few times and it seems to work well enough. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. To the extent that the subject is the same as the previous article, it is a recreation of deleted content and can even be speedied. To the extent that it isn't, it's a new article and can be prodded. An article that is, say, 50% speediable and 50% proddable is not speediable, but it would be absurd if it wasn't at least proddable. Hans Adler 15:22, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

As such, a failed AfD should suggest that it is likely that the subject is not worth an article. - Usually true, but it depends. If new sources have came out for example, or if it was a WP:CRYSTAL violation that later became effectively true and sourced, perfectly good candidates for deletion can become perfectly good articles. It has to be looked on a case-by-case basis, and I'd say community discussion is deserved. Maybe it would be best if the OP tell us which article he talks about. --Cyclopia^talk 15:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I was inspired to bring up this issue by this article. However, I meant it as a general question and just wanted opinions. However, I do agree that in most cases like this, it's most practical to go to AFD from jump street and avoid the issue altogether. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It would be worth inviting Elnsbrook (talk · contribs) to comment here, seeing as it appears to be that user's misunderstanding of why PROD is disallowed on AfDs which is the problem here. That user also appears to have done the same on other articles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:26, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Anyone can contest a PROD simply by removing it. If there's a genuine case that tne new article is worth keeping then that will happen. Basically, there's no need to make an exception to the usual deletion procedure here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Could be, but why not discussing it at AfD directly? Seems the more honest thing to do. PROD is not the "usual deletion procedure", it is only an alternative (and an often misused one, in my opinion). --Cyclopia^talk 00:26, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Because there's no guarantee that it's any better than the original, or even related to the original. PROD is a lightweight process for when things don't need to go to AfD, and is perfectly suited here. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to write an article from scratch which won't be speedied within five minutes (I recreated the twice-deleted Gail McGrane the other day) and good articles do not typically need to be saved by red tape. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Gladys Dull

It may seem strange that some one who calls himself an inclusionist rather than a deletionist could call an article for deletion but - here goes! I have for some time being concerned about the accuracy of the article on Gladys Dull. Is it really true that she is the longest-lived person with Type One diabetes? I doubt it and would therefore call for the article to be deleted. What do others think of this proposal? Shall we have the conventional discussion on this before deciding whether it stays or goes? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

No, the whole point of a proposed deletion is that it's used for articles that don't require discussion. Deletion discussions are done at Articles for Deletion. As it is, the article is sourced so it doesn't seem to be something that needs to be immediately deleted for BLP reasons. If you do decide to propose it for deletion, be sure to inform Snoopydawg who created and developed the article, to see if they object to deletion. If they don't respond before the 7 days is over then the article can be deleted. -- Atama頭 20:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

An inclusioinist who occasionally helps out at WP:NPP or WP:AfD or comes across a hoplesspage by coincidence, is certainly going to come across articles that even he/she will recognise as deletion candidates. Maybe a look at such editors' contribs will show that for every page they have proposed for deletion, they have saved dozens of others! --Kudpung (talk) 01:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Lead section and contestability

The current lead paragraph tells us that prod is "for cases where articles are uncontestably deletable"; that doesn't really make much sense. The point of a prod is to propose deletion, but with the option to for any editor to nullify the proposal simply by contesting. By saying that prod is reserved for uncontestable cases only, it basically turns the act of contesting a prod into an accusation that the nominator failed to follow policy. Contesting a prod is nothing of the sort—it's just a normal part of the process, and is a light-handed way to inform an editor that you don't think deletion would be uncontroversial.

Further, the "no editor would disagree" test is unworkable as a policy statement. For example, it is clear that all sorts of bad faith editors might disagree, merely out of spite. That's simply got to go.

Also, I didn't recall that language having been there in the policy...and sure enough, it was added with neither controversy nor discussion, in early August 2009. I think the previous wording of the opening paragraph was much more succinct and sufficiently precise, but I'll assume that there was a good reason for lengthening the lead. Nevertheless, I've tweaked the wording to address the above items. TheFeds 21:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I'm sure I made that point some time ago about them being pointless if uncontestably deletable (isn't that what Speedy Delete is for? And even that can be declined); certainly the name "proposed deletion" should mean what it say. I have no idea how I might go about searching the archives for this (if indeed it was even here that I grumbled about it).

"no editor would disagree" I suppose could be put better as "no sane/reasonable/good-faith/disinterested/unbribed/etc* editor could disagree" (*delete the inapplicable) but I'm not worried so much about bad-faith editors just that even if a good-faith editor might disagree, it shouldn't make something ruled out of PROD. Otherwise PROD seems to have no legs at all, and everything might as well go straight to AfD. Si Trew (talk) 23:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed new section

Reyk added this, which I've reverted for discussion here:

"Since this is one of the few occasions where an editor can unilaterally perform an irreversible action, editors are strongly urged to exercise restraint and responsibility in doing so. In particular, editors should avoid deprodding a large number of articles in a short space of time as this can reflect a lack of consideration for the reasons for which the article was prodded and a lack of respect for the editor who prodded it."

My initial concerns with this include:

• Declining a PROD is not an irreversible action--it simply means the article must go through AfD where it will have a period of review and comment. In some cases, an article may be SNOW deleted faster than a PROD would seen it removed.
• The issues with large numbers of articles deprodded at once actually stem from the editor who nominated a group of articles at once. If there's a contested rationale that applies to multiple articles, why should there be any higher burden of caution expected on the deprodding editor? It might be interesting to explore some way to link PRODs like AfDs are... but then, maybe if a large number of articles share the same rationale and potential challenges, they should instead go straight to AfD? Haven't thought that one through entirely.
• Nothing about deprodding an article indicates any lack of respect for the person whose PROD was removed, just like any other WP:BRD action does not. AGF needs to go both ways on PRODs, just like anything else, and the focus needs to remain on improving the encyclopedia. It should be simple and straightforward to challenge a PROD or many PRODs without being accused of bad faith. Jclemens (talk) 03:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

My reply:

• Deprodding an article is irreversible because once deprodded it can never be prodded again. Textbook definition of "irreversible", in my opinion.
• I don't really want to fixate on your deprods but since they are what made this section necessary I'll use them as an example of what I'm talking about. Between 21:01 and 21:18 yesterday you deprodded twenty-one articles mostly with the same copy&pasted rationale "Decline PROD, consider redirect or merge". Among these were a bunch of minor Ugly Betty characters, nominated by a user in rapid succession several days earlier. Now, had you put the least bit of thought into what you were doing you would have noticed that the articles were all completely unsourced (making them bad candidates for merging). And if you'd actually checked the potential merge target you would have noticed that these characters are already covered there in sufficient detail, and that the editor had prodded them in the order in which they appeared on the list. In other words, he presumably started by considering a merge and only began to PROD when this was found to not be an option. If someone thoughtlessly obstructed my attempts to improve the encyclopedia in a robotic and rapid-fire way, and dismissively told to consider something I already had considered and rejected, I would feel pretty disrespected too. That's what I was getting at. Reyk _YO! 04:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Since all these minor characters are already on the list , why would you reject a straight redirect (without any merging) for these articles? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

So what I think you're really saying is that the person who places a PROD after considering WP:ATD on an article that has an obvious merge/redirect target should document their rationale for not merging or redirecting the article first, right? Because if a cookie-cutter de-PROD rationale is somehow unacceptable or inferior, that surely means that a cookie cutter PROD rationale is at least as lacking in the first place, does it not? Jclemens (talk) 20:47, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm saying that if you put as much time and thought into your deproddings as your rationalizations after the fact, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Reyk _YO! 23:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd be interested to hear what other editors, especially ones who are willing to focus on the substance of the disagreement rather than ABF'ing, have to say on the topic. Jclemens (talk) 04:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Something to consider

Not just this thread but the archives have other suggestions to add various other CREEPy obstacles to removing prods or making prods more "sticky". Consider that if any of these were done then instead of removing the prods, editors wanting such articles kept would just simply wait for them to get deleted and then either recreate them or request undeletion at WP:REFUND which has no such restrictions. This of course may be countered by suggestions for restrictions on what can be restored at REFUND. What we may end up with is a big ball of CREEP on what was once a simple and uncontroversial process. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Ron Ritzman. Reyk, it's very simple: PROD is for uncontroversial deletion candidates. If someone removes PROD tags, no matter how fragile the arguments, it means it is no more uncontroversial, and as such PROD does not apply anymore. It is irreversible? Yes, but obviously so: if you disagree with a PROD, it means that it is controversial, therefore it means that PROD is not and will never be appropriate for that article. However an unchallenged PROD is much more "irreversible", since it requires admin action to be reverted. If anything, we should ask editors to be more cautious in putting PROD tags, not removing them. --Cyclopia^talk 02:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

PROD objections

We really have to make it more difficult for editors to object to PRODs. I'm getting sick of prodding articles only to have to take them to AfD simply because some anonymous editor thinks it would be fun to remove the PROD tag. Most of them never provide any explanation for why they removed the tag, but I think that should be a prerequisite for a PROD to be removed. In fact, I think edit summaries should be mandatory for all edits, but that's for another discussion altogether. I know we have a policy here that anyone can edit Wikipedia, but it's definitely far too simple for PRODs to be contested! – PeeJay 22:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. And I also think the explanation needs to be more than "Nope. Take it to AfD", which I see all the time. Reyk _YO! 00:17, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• No, we don't need any bureaucracy added to an intentionally lightweight process. If you don't want to use a process that anyone can object to for any reason whatsoever, start off at AfD in the first place. Jclemens (talk) 00:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Sure, it was intended to be lightweight. It's intended to be a way of performing uncontroversial deletions without wasting everyone's time at AfD and, per WP:AGF, it was implicitly assumed that a PROD that was deprodded would be at least somewhat controversial and so AfD would be the right place for it. But one of the great things about this encyclopedia is that we can change and adjust our processes to respond to problems as they become apparent. And we are now seeing a lot of PRODs being declined on procedural or obstructionist grounds where nobody, not even the deprodder, could think the article has a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving AfD. People's time is being wasted and the whole point of the PROD process is being somewhat undermined. I think it's fair to revisit the question. Reyk _YO! 01:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
    • I really tend to agree w/ Jclemens here. My suspicion is that if we determine norms are insufficient to generate good outcomes we will substitute stricture. And stricture rarely solves problems of missing norms. A revamp of the PROD process aimed at mitigating spurious de-prodding would leave us with some checklist or 5 point plan to prod or deprod an article. That's a big tradeoff, especially considering it will usher in a 2-3 month long period where the rest of the editing base comes into contact w/ the new rules in the rudest of ways. Protonk (talk) 01:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
      • While I don't think anyone would object too much to having one of their PRODs removed if there's a genuine case to be made to retain the article, if there isn't a case it's just insulting and annoying. So what would you suggest as a means of mitigating spurious deproddings? Reyk _YO! 02:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
        • Don't Prod. Go straight to AfD. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
          • Not an option. The point is to not waste time on hopeless causes, remember? Reyk _YO! 02:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
            • well, I guess then you're stuck. I agree it's dumb that moron can remove it for fun, but this has come up several times... and it seems it ain't gonna change. *sigh* Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
            • I mean...if we could tell beforehand which articles were going to have objections, the prod process wouldn't exist. We would just have some automated system which would delete only articles without ex post objections and send all others to AfD. Absent a system like that, what do you propose? What is a spurious PROD removal? Who, as a matter of rule, can and can't spuriously remove a PROD (in other words, under what circumstances can the article author remove a PROD and it be considered spurious?)? Protonk (talk) 02:17, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
              • For starters (and objectively measurable) it's a removal w/o edit-summary, or one that simply says "no", "blah", "haha", "LOL", or "podsx*&%*&itbsdsf glbg" Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
              • (ec)I would think that one with no explanation or just "Nope. Take it to AfD" qualifies. After all, PRODers are required to give their reasons (you never see a PROD with no rationale at all) so I think a minimum requirement should be to return the courtesy if you object. Or even better, if you dePROD, you take it to AfD. Reyk _YO! 02:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. PROD is for uncontroversial candidates. If anyone removes a PROD tag, even if for the silliest of reasons, it means it is no more uncontroversial. So PROD cannot apply. It's that simple. As such, it does not exist something like a "spurious deprodding" unless made by a bot or by honest mistake. About the time wasted, I agree: people should be much less liberal with PROD tagging, and should think a lot before considering to put a PROD tag instead of seeking for community consensus at AfD. If people are sick of putting PROD tags that then are removed, why not simply be more careful in PRODding and post more at AfD? This would 1)reduce the WP:PRODSUM backlog by having less tagged articles 2)avoid putting at unreasonable risk reasonable articles. A statistics I am collecting shows that about 25% of contested PRODs that are then put at AfD is kept or merged. Notice that probably there is also a lot of uncontroversial dePRODdings: in my experience, about 30-40% of articles I remove PROD tags from are not even put at AfD later. --Cyclopia^talk 02:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - PROD is for uncontroversial deletions, and any reason should suffice to remove a PROD (although common courtesy should lead editors to provide a reason in the edit summary or on talk page). Jogurney (talk) 02:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of PROD. If it's completely uncontroversial then there wont be a removal. Any controversy will cause a tag to be removed, and AfD is there to determine if the controversy is legitimate. -- ۩ Mask 04:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, mass-deproddings by IP addresses without rationale seem reasonable to deal with as disruptive editing, but saying "No, take it to AfD" is entirely within the scope of the process. There are definitely some people, Reyk included, who would like deletion to be easier than it is. That's not a personal attack, mind you, since inclusionism needs deletionist challenges to focus on what's most important and high quality, and deletionism needs inclusionist challenges to focus on creating new and useful content. Having said that, PROD is not supposed to be a yo-yo--that is what AfD is for. Jclemens (talk) 04:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

• At the risk of turning this into a meta-discussion I want to point out a distinction between process and scope. We may agree or disagree on the scope of coverage wikipedia ought to provide, with inclusionists nominally hoping for more coverage and deletionists hoping for less (in a broad brush sense). But we could still disagree separately on the process by which we reach some preferred scope. I don't think it is a necessarily inclusionist stance to protect PROD as an uncontroversial deletion tool, nor is it necessarily deletionist to amend a CSD criterion. Protonk (talk) 05:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't agree with Protonk more on this point. I was (and probably still am, although my edit rate has fallen from the heyday of 2006) regarded as a deletionist, a label I regard with pride since it means I'm standing up for keeping the wiki, you know, an encyclopedia and not a collection of random crap. The label is in no way relevant here. PROD is a tool designed to do something, and it works well. The problem the proposer seems to have is that its not the tool designed for what he wants to do. This is not the fault of PROD, PROD works great at what it does. To put it in analogy, it sounds like getting mad a hammer cant tighten a bolt. -- ۩ Mask 19:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand my complaint. As people have stated, PRODs are for deletions that are uncontroversial; e.g. a violation of notability criteria. If a user who removes a PROD cannot provide a good reason for removing it, it should be reinstated just as if the removal were an act of vandalism. You may say this violates WP:AGF, but I think it would be fairly plain that someone who objects to a reasonable deletion is not acting in the best interests of the encyclopaedia. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make better use of the {{prod-2}} template; if someone adds {{prod-2}}, that should make it impossible for another editor to remove the PROD tag without reason. As I see it, {{prod-2}} doesn't have any meaningful purpose at the moment, so why not give it this purpose? – PeeJay 20:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you are misreading the nature of the beast. A PROD is for a deletion that is empirically uncontroversial. The actual deletion itself is guessed to be uncontroversial--not the reason. A PROD can be applied for almost any reason. Maybe you think wikipedia shouldn't have an article on subject XYZ or you think subject ABC has too few sources to support an article, or (most common) article NPQ is garbage and would take serious effort to recover and no effort is forthcoming. In those three cases you can make a guess that no one will disagree w/ you (hence, uncontroversial). If you guess correctly, the article is deleted (assuming an admin agrees w/ you). If you guess incorrectly, then the article stays or must be deleted via some other process. Now. The very nature of PROD as an effective effort reduction tool rests on norms--Reyk is 100% correct in pointing this out. If I wrote a bot which scraped User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary and removed the PROD tags I would have eliminated all effort reduction and forced editors down other paths needlessly. Social norms (and presumably, BRFA) stop me from writing such a bot. If Reyk is correct and norms are deteriorating such that even reasonable prods are rejected for frivolous reasons, then that may present a problem (I don't see a lot of hard evidence behind that claim). But to repeat my point from way above, writing rules to work in the absence of norms is a mug's game. PROD is supposed to be lightweight and friendly to newcomers (so that bob123pokemonfan doesn't have to know 12 criteria and weight 3 subject specific notability guidelines in order to just say "At least one person cares about this article"). How ponderous and unfriendly must we make it in order to stand in for missing norms? Protonk (talk) 21:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Prod is quick and easy, it's easy come, easy go. There are very few strictures on the application of proposed deletion tags, and even fewer on the removal of such tags. This ease of use is all that differentiates it from articles for deletion and is the only real reason why we have the proposed deletion process in the first place. Requiring explanations for proposed deletion removals, especially when such explanations must be "valid" (more than "take to AfD") means that you want a dialog about the deletion, even if the dialog only takes place in edit summaries. The place for deletion discussions is AfD, proposed deletions are deletions that require no discussion.

There's another reason, a more "political" reason why we make it so easy to remove proposed deletion tags. There are a number of people, whether inclusionist or not, who feel that it should never be easy to have an article deleted and to undo the work of another person, especially a new editor who may feel discouraged when they see their work being removed from the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". The defense against such complaints is that even though it's easy to propose an article for deletion, it's just as easy to object to that deletion. If we were to make it more difficult to object to proposed deletions, that strengthens the arguments of those opposed to the process as a whole. As the process stands, it works, I feel it works well, and it saves a lot of time and headache for people who want to delete an article about the 12th mayor of some obscure small rural village and sources it to a high school newspaper article. -- Atama頭 23:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I just don't understand how this will work. if theres an article out there that clearly doesn't meet the general notability guideline. It is clearly ridiculous, anonymous editor or not, they should at least post 1 reason to keep it. If there is "1" reason, then yes, maybe this would work. but if someone goes along WP:ILIKEIT or WP:DONTLIKEIT. This forces some to request speedily deletion.Bread Ninja (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

POV

This article is a POV thus it should be deleted. cheers!Wikitanoli (talk) 23:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion for userspace

I would like to suggest that we reinstate proposed deletion of pages in the User: namespace in limited circumstances. I know that proposed deletion once did apply to user pages, and I am familiar with the main arguments for removing PROD for userspace—namely:

1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion is not a particularly burdened process; and
2. Proposed deletion was (mis?)used to delete harmless user pages of editors who merely were inactive.

In response to the first argument, I would like to point out that MfD is still ultimately a bureaucratic process. MfDs for user pages, in particular, often serve as little more than rubber stamps for an outcome that is almost certain. If we can bypass the MfD process in certain cases without any adverse consequences, then there is no reason we should not.

To satisfy the second concern, proposed deletion for userspace could be restricted only to cases where the page is abandoned, not useful, and problematic. If a page fails any of these three criteria (i.e., if it "belongs" to a user who is or recently was active, contains potentially useful content, or does not contain problematic content), then it would still go through MfD.

I believe that allowing proposed deletion of user pages in these limited circumstances would help editors to deal with three types of abandoned pages in userspace: versions of articles which are used merely for long-term archival purposes; unsourced or poorly-sourced biographies of living people; and excessive unrelated content, including advertising which does not reach the level required for speedy deletion. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Notifications posted at Wikipedia talk:User pages and Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Thanks for accurately characterizing the main objections to the topic. Allow me to add another: a brief conversation and a resulting {{db-u1}} are more appropriate. PROD is challengable, essentially undoable after deletion though an admin may be needed to undelete the content, by any editor who objects. If there's no agreement with the page owner, then there's an inherent challenge to prod, and MfD is an appropriate venue to review the issue. If there is agreement, then no PROD is needed. I see no situation where a PROD of an inactive user's content would be any different than an uncontested MfD. Jclemens (talk) 00:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  A conversation, followed by a self-requested deletion, is undoubtedly the best option, but it is not always possible (unfortunately)—e.g., in the case of abandoned pages where the user is inactive for a significant period of time (criterion 1 of 3).

  I agree with you that PROD and an uncontested MfD produce essentially the same result, but I do see two differences: (1) PROD can be overturned without a deletion review, and so is more user-friendly; and (2) MfD is more time-consuming, for the nominator, the closer, and any other participants. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  I agree with you on point (1), but suggest that blanking such content in userspace could achieve a substantially similar result. On point (2), I am not a regular MfD participant, but as a regular AfD, DRV, and PROD participant--as an administrator, article rescuer, and occasional nominator--I don't envision this as a substantial enough benefit to justify the expansion of the PROD process to userspace. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 00:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  I can see your perspective, but I would like to suggest that perhaps it is not a problem at MfD because there has been no concerted effort, so far, to find and nominate problematic userspace pages. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I'll keep reading the discussion and see what others have to add. Jclemens (talk) 03:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Why do we need to make it easier to delete user pages? Most of them don't pose any problem. The few that do (and to which speedy deletion does not apply), MfD or blanking is capable of handling, no? For those of us who take breaks from the encyclopedia, why should we have to come back to find our unproblematic user pages deleted because we (the only interested party) weren't there to object? (In article space, the community has an interest in objecting to ProD, but in user space, only the user has any interest in objecting.) --Bsherr (talk) 01:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • You wouldn't. I'm suggesting that PROD be extended only to userspace pages which are abandoned, not useful, and problematic.
  • You are correct that most user pages do not pose any problem, but thousands do. We have over 1 million pages in the User: namespace, so even a 'problematic' rate of just 1% translates to more than 10,000 pages. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Ok, I guess it would depend on what you regard as problematic. How would you define it? --Bsherr (talk) 02:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I think we can rely on WP:UP#NOT, but my personal emphasis with this proposal was on: unmodified copies of articles being used for long-term archival, unsourced biographies of living people, and promotion or advertising. Any pages belonging to an active or recently-active (maybe in the last 2 years?) user, containing potentially useful content (e.g., a draft of a viable, new article), or containing no problematic content (as defined by WP:UP#NOT) should be left alone or put through MfD. Perhaps a few examples found using WP:RANDOM would be useful. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 04:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Long-term archival pages aren't problems, especially if NOINDEXed. Unsourced BLPs, promotion, or advertising should be handled through existing processes. Still not seeing how PROD solves anything. Jclemens (talk) 07:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • Long-term archival pages may not be as problematic as some other types of pages (especially if NOINDEXed), but they still do pose problems (of attribution and WP:UP#NOT, if nothing else; in addition, the archived version of the article itself may contain problematic content). Such pages are routinely nominated at MfD and deleted. I'm curious ... do you think that PROD for userspace, under the specific conditions I've proposed (abandoned page, inactive user, no useful content, and problematic content), will cause problems? Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
        • That's right. And long-term archival pages can be deleted under G6 as contraventions of WP:CWW. With the exception of unsourced BLPs, all of those problems already have speedy deletion solutions. So are we only talking about unsourced BLPs, then? --Bsherr (talk) 21:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • That's an interesting approach, but G6 based on WP:CWW may not work well with long-term archival pages in userspace, since insufficient attribution often can be repaired fairly easily. In other words, deletion is a quick and effective way to fix the problem, but speedy deletion seems a bit too quick for something that could be quickly fixed. As for advertising and promotion, speedy deletion applies only in blatant cases. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I doubt if would be anything like 1%, quite frankly. Reyk _YO! 03:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • To be honest, I think that 1% is a very low estimate. Of 50 user pages which I found using WP:RANDOM (see below), 7 were problematic (including 2 copyright violations), suggesting (very tentatively) a problem rate of approximately 10–15% (i.e., 100,000+ pages). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I stand corrected. I had no idea there were that many abandoned user-space copies of articles lying around. Reyk _YO! 06:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Analysis of 50 user pages found using WP:RANDOM

To qualify for PROD, a page must meet all of the following criteria: It is abandoned (no edits to the page in a long time and the user is inactive); It does not contain potentially useful content; and It contains problematic content, as defined by WP:UP#NOT. Problematic pages are listed in bold font. 1–10 User:CloseEvenn - fails criterion #3 User:Jeanniesminerva - fails criterion #3 User:Mickiefan07 - fails criterion #2 User:Exprealist/Eva Campbell - fails criterion #1 User:Cuckooman4/UBX/TV - fails criteria #2 and #3 User:Etincelles/The Vladimir Horowitz Barnstar - fails criteria #1, #2 and #3 User:IAMTHEEGGMAN/Box Bottom - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Antirikku - not sure... User:ChiragPatnaik/Census/Data by district - fails criteria #1, #2 and #3 User:Lotrgamemast/Past/The Black Parade - meets all criteria: abandoned page and inactive user, copy of a version of an article used for long-term archival purposes 11–20 User:Textangel/Awards - fails criterion #3 User:CheMoBot/Log/2010-07-25 - fails criteria #1, #2 and #3 User:Carmelized Onions - fails criterion #2 User:Patrick/5 - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:ImageResizeBot/List2 - fails criterion #3 User:Dvandetta - fails criterion #3 User:Judicatus/userboxes/tinnitus - fails criteria #1, #2 and #3 User:Falerin - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:69.4.121.216 - fails criterion #2 User:Dragonfire75 - fails criterion #3 21–30 User:Timbouctou/Dinamo records - fails criterion #1, and probably #2 and #3 User:Daanvdb - copyright violation, CSD G12 User:Revp - fails criterion #3 User:58.107.10.239 - fails criterion #2 User:Logoboy95 - fails criterion #2 User:TheDot - fails criterion #3 User:Changingvamp - meets all criteria: abandoned page and inactive user, advertising User:Agathoclea/Gallery - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Em79 - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Aggie girl 12 - fails criterion #3 31–40 User:Zapptastic/templates/chess - not sure... User:Akeemcaffee - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:YousefAB/Engineers United - fails criterion #1, possible MfD candidate as a promotional draft article User:Pvaughan - copyright violation, CSD G12 User:World/Guestbook/Signature History - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:BoogerD - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Ananny - fails criterion #2 User:CedarsBot - fails criterion #3 User:MuleTommy/Orphamatic - seems to meet all criteria, but probably MfD (long-term archival of a draft of a non-viable article) User:Yashtulsyan/LinkHead - fails criteria #1 and #3 41–50 User:Iakj 1 - fails criteria #2 and #3 User:BlanchardJ/Books/Unix - fails criteria #1, #2 and #3 User:NJA/customwarns - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Polemon/files/.dir colors - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Schism85 - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Octane/wikipedia - fails criteria #1 and #3 User:Nisthul.k.n - fails criterion #3 User:Nweni - not sure... User:Whelans Apple - meets all criteria, either advertising or a weblog User:Spqr1945 - fails criteria #1 and #3

• Support- I am now convinced that a quick and easy way to perform uncontroversial maintenance like this would be a good thing. Reyk _YO! 06:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support on the condition that a warning that the target page will be deleted must be given to the user (with certain exceptions such as pure vandalism) seven days prior to the PROD being applied. This will be the same as extending the PROD to fourteen days, since it balances between giving more leeway toward the user regarding his/her userspace and deleting it outright, as well as giving it more of a chance to try to survive it back to mainspace (since in userspace it is more "hidden" or recreated from deleted articles to try and give them better chances). :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 03:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - I'm sorry BF, but I really strongly oppose this. It's just waiting to be abused. And consider that the typical argument (that people interested would likely have this on their watch lists) doesn't apply well here at all. Especially for those who might not be constantly active contributors. And I would also disagree with the assessment of several of the examples in your 50 above. And finally, I don't like the idea of prod being used for anything but article space. That's what it was designed for, that's ALL it should be used for. If something should be speedied - speedy it but this, no thank you. As I seem to recall us (you included) saying in the past: There are very few pages that exist that there is any harm in waiting the 7 days for discussion concerning them. (And I would guess that at least 90% of those are BLP or privacy issues.) - jc37 16:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

  I appreciate your perspective, and I think that your ideas of userspace PROD or speedy deletion of problematic article drafts only (e.g., abandoned and unsourced BLPs) are worth considering. The issue of watchlisting could potentially be addressed by requiring notification of users whose pages are prodded, but I'm not sure how to address the other issue you raise (wanting to keep PROD for articles only). Out of curiosity, and to help me better understand your thinking, which of the 7 'problematic' assessments do you not agree with? Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 01:54, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

  No worries. And to be clear, any "tone" above is directly to the suggestion, not to the suggester : )

  I think it's better to leave prod for what it's good for, else there is a whole other can of beans waiting to be opened.

  But sure, a "soft speedy" of userspace articles sounds like a good idea. I seem to vaguely recall a discussion about courtesy blanking, for that matter.

  Seven? I meant the 50 above. Mostly those marked with criteria #3. Some of them would seem to fall under that "wide latitude" we tend to give editors in userspace. - jc37 06:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

  Whoa! I think you've misunderstood. The ones that fail various PROD criteria are ones that are OK. The ones in bold, that do not fail any of the proposed PROD criteria, are the ones Black Falcon thinks the proposed userspace PROD should apply for. Reyk _YO! 07:48, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose The proposal is inherently uncivil. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:42, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
  • In what way is it uncivil? Reyk _YO! 13:01, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
    • It would tend to be impertinent, impolite, insensitive, insolent, insulting, insufferable and irritating. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:48, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Alliterative assertions absent an actual argument are an annoying activity. Seriously, though, not everything that annoys or angers people is uncivil, and I think if you have the encyclopedia's interests at heart you can't always tiptoe around the hurt feelings of people who don't. Reyk _YO! 23:58, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
        • You acknowledge that this will cause hurt feelings, annoyance and anger. Q.E.D. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:11, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
          • What part of "annoying does not equal uncivil" did you interpret as proving "annoying equals uncivil"? Reyk _YO! 00:14, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
            • Per WP:CIVIL, "Incivility consists of personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviours that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict.". It does not seem that you agree with our policy but so it goes. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
              • And what does that have to do with this proposal? Is proposing a problematic page for deletion in some way a "personal attack"? Is it rude? It is disrespectful? Is it aggressive? Moreover, in what way is deletion via MFD different from deletion via PROD as far as an affected user is concerned ... except that it's much easier to request restoration of a page deleted by PROD? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
                • Proposing to delete someone's user pages is obviously an aggressive, personal attack. Such action should not be made easier and MfD is also better in that it provides more oversight and community consensus. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
                  • I think that your argument relies on an extremely loose interpretation (misinterpration would be more accurate, in my opinion) of our guidelines on civility and personal attacks, as well as of the concepts of "civility" and "personal attack". Certain types of user pages have been defined by the community as being "problematic", and pointing out this fact is neither aggressive nor an attack. However, suggesting that "proposing to delete someone's user pages is obviously an aggressive, personal attack" is a bit insulting to editors who have, in good faith, proposed problematic user pages for deletion. Nonetheless, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, and I thank you for clarifying your initial comment. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:43, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
• oppose MfD works. Collect (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, but only because there has not been a concerted effort to nominate the thousands of problematic pages in userspace—partly because, I would argue, MfD nominations are somewhat bureaucratic. Would MfD continue to work as well as it currently does if it had to handle an extra 20, 30, or 50 more nominations per day? Even if your answer is "yes", do you think that less-bureaucratic userspace PROD (under the very limited conditions proposed) would not work? Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 17:19, 7 November 2010 (UTC)