I am concerned by the use of CSD, using template {{di-disputed fair use rationale}}, with a claimed deletion rationale of "fails WP:NFCC#8 as the image does not add significantly to readers' understanding of the article and its omission would not be detrimental to that understanding" -- often in cases where this is simply the nominator's opinion, where there is a validly filled-out rationale, and others might well see the image as validly adding to reader understanding.
Apparently, going via CSD causes fewer waves than IfD, [1][2], presumably because fewer people are likely to spot what's happening.
My understanding, on the other-hand, is that CSD is supposed only to be for non-controversial deletions.
WP:NFCC#8 by its very nature is a judgment call. CSD shouldn't be used to hide such deletions out of sight. IMO, the right venue for them is IfD, and use of CSD as an "under the radar" shortcut is not appropriate.
It is not a "speedy deletion". The mix of image deletion tags that proceed without discussion are referred to as "pseudo-speedy deletion". The purpose was to reduce some of the burden on IfD (a very different venue than AfD) but still protect uploaders (by specifying a timetable). Unlike speedy deletion, these tags set timers and categories (admittedly, categories linked to from cat:csd) are populated by date. They should be thought of as analogous to prods. The use of specific "I" criteria in the deletion log is for convenience. We could force administrators to note that the image was listed at a disputed fair use category for a specific time.
I'm sorry, but cynical advice to use CSD when IfDs are meeting resistance, as referenced above, shows that something is seriously broken.
I can see that it may be administratively convenient for people who just want images to disappear, but controversial deletions should go to IfD, for the whole community to look at. Jheald (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think I'm being clear. These are not mechanisms for speedy deletion. They are very much like prods. IfD is a different beast than AfD. 99% of the images that go there don't get discussed. It is common to see a page full of "delete: unencyclopedic, orhpaned, absent uploader" nominations with no response. To dismiss attempts to filter image deletion by type as "cynical advice to use CSD when IfDs are meeting resistance" is to miss the point entirely. These aren't "avoiding resistance". If there is resistance, remove the tag, add a rationale and demand that the image be sent to IfD. IT will go there. Alternately once the time expires on the image, an admin is still free to remove the tag and decline the "deletion" if they feel the image required a discussion. Protonk (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Did you read the discussion I referenced? Specifically the comment
Yes, it has stirred up a bit of opposition... I've tried your more passive suggestion - only 3 out of 30 contested so less feathers ruffled - and may try again in a few days.
I am not talking about images with no rationale at all, nor about orphaned images. I'm talking about images which do have a filled-out rationale, nominated for NFCC #8 because they conflict with somebody's particular personal agenda, and marked for CSD because chances are nobody will notice what's going on. That is not what CSD - even so-called "pseudo" CSD - is intended for.
And yes, it is a mechanism for "speedy" deletion, because it short-cuts the normal processes for community oversight and involvement. Jheald (talk) 00:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
There are multiple reasons for which "invalid fair use justification" may be an unreasonable criterion for speedy deletion. See Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Overturned_speedy_deletions#F7_-_Invalid_fair-use_claim for two that were overturned at DRV (they were, however, both subsequently deleted at IfD). Considering some of the heated debates I've seen over - for example - the use of logos under fair use, I think the use of NFCC#8 is particularly suspect. Let's briefly review which of the NFCC are actually objective:
NFCC#1 (no free equivalent) is non-contentious when a free equivalent of equal quality already exists on Wikipedia, but is contentious when it doesn't (the possibility and difficulty of obtaining a free equivalent must be taken into account, and quality may need to be traded off against freedom).
NFCC#2 (respect for commercial opportunities) is contentious because it's impossible to predict the effect of an image's use on its commercial use.
NFCC#3 (minimal usage and minimal extent of use): Not a basis for deletion.
NFCC#4 (previous publication): This one seems reasonable, as long as the uploader has time to explain it, in case it was only published offline.
NFCC#5 (meets content standards and is encyclopedic): Too fuzzy.
NFCC#6 (media specific policy): There's a whole page for these, but most of them are covered by other criteria or don't require deletion.
NFCC#7 (one article minimum): Covered by F5.
NFCC#8 (significance): Highly subjective, as noted above. Some images are purely decorative and pretty clear-cut, but frequently one person's decorative image is another's significant image.
NFCC#9 (restrictions on location): Not a basis for deletion.
NFCC#10 (image description page info): Already covered by F4, F6.
In short, nearly all the NFCC are not clearly valid criteria for speedy deletion. I suggest that F7 be rewritten in much more specific terms (for example, fair use justification is misleading or incomplete). Dcoetzee23:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
This is more of an argument for splitting off timer-based non-discussion deletions from real speedy deletions, and merge PROD into that grouping. Timer-based deletions would be anything which requires either a specific fix or simply an objection before the timer expires, but which does not require a discussion. Most image deletions fall into this grouping. Such a change would require an RFC and I'm not prepared to open one now. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The usual argument: "speedy" deletion has nothing to do with the time taken to delete, it has to do with the degree of scrutiny the deletion receives. As long as one person is making the call it's speedy. PROD isn't speedy because anyone has the opportunity to participate by removing the tag. It might be useful to distinguish timed CSDs from normal ones, but the real issue here is that a lot of F7s deserve wider discussion. Dcoetzee01:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Anyone but the original author can remove a speedy on articles. I de-speedy on a regular basis. For articles, speedy is like PROD bypassing the waiting period, due to the urgency of the matter e.g. copyvio/attack or the stupidity of waiting e.g. nonsense. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'll post the usual response then. Part of what a speedy deletion is lies in the number of editors who review the nomination and deletion. The other part (missing in all of these image pseudo speedy deletion tags) is the lack of a time constraint. By the logic that only number of editors involved determines a speedy, then prod==speedy, which isn't true. I'm really lost on what the fuss is. The image gets tagged, if some change (usually writing a fair use rationale or finding a source) doesn't occur within the specified period of time, it gets deleted. At any point along the way, anyone (aside from the uploader) can remove the tag and either send it to IfD or fix the problem. Protonk (talk) 02:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
What Protonk said. The {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} template and family are used when an editor feels that the image may not meet the fair use criteria. Any editor (other than the editor who uploaded the image) can remove it if he disputes it, at which stage the image can be taken to FFD. If nobody disputes it within a week, then the issue is clearly non-controversial, and it can be deleted.
Do be aware that this is policy. In fact, we are giving more time than the policy suggests (see WP:FU#Enforcement) — by rights, an image with a disputed fair use rationale can be deleted after 48 hours. If any editor feels that this policy should be changed, they will need to gather a consensus to do so, and even that may not be enough due to the foundation issue. Stifle (talk) 08:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
It is true that there aren't enough people to go around for image review. Maybe a full IfD would be overkill, but it would be nice if at least a couple independent people could review each image deletion for reasons of contested fair use justification. Dcoetzee09:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Quote: "If nobody disputes it within a week, then the issue is clearly non-controversial."
This is simply not true, and Stifle and Peripitus (talk·contribs)'s discussion of their recent attempts to indiscriminately delete alternate album covers gives clear evidence that it is not true.
- But with CSD, as Peripitus noted: "only 3 out of 30 contested so less feathers ruffled".
So more accurately, "If nobody disputes it within a week, quite likely nobody has noticed what's going on".
I don't have a problem with "pseudo" CSD if there's no rationale at all. But where a rationale has been put up, and it is a matter of opinion as to whether it is valid or not, that should go to IfD. Jheald (talk) 09:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Jheald, I really don't get your beef here. I tagged the image for the Image equivalent of Prod. You disputed them all and removed the tags....and the images are still there. This is a widely used, and well accepted process. It's used by bots to tag articles with no article link, used by editors to tag images where the rationale has nothing to do with its use and so one. We already prod lots of articles and this is simply the image equivelant. All my and stifle's conversation was ...involved the difference between AfD and PROD - not a controversial topic - Peripitus(Talk)10:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I removed the inappropriate tags I could get to, when I had time and I'd realised what was going on. As I've done for some more Stifle nominated last night. But there were a raft of images - perfectly legitimate, judging by the comparable outcomes at IfD - that I didn't get to in time, and had already been deleted.
And that is why I think CSD is not appropriate. This shouldn't be about whether people can sneak deletions through without anybody noticing. Where a rationale has been filled out, that prima facie may be potentially valid, the question should go to IfD for proper scrutiny, and a proper audit trail. Jheald (talk) 10:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Note also that, according to its own page, WP:PROD is only for "uncontroversial candidates for deletion".
The other difference, I think, is that PROD is overwhelmingly applied to very recent articles, where there is a very good chance that the editor is still around to respond. Most of the images, on the other hand, appear to have been happily there for years, and it may be months since their contributors last edited here. Jheald (talk) 10:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Non-removable?
I also note that Stifle has just edited the template to say that it is not removable by the uploader of the image (diff) -- again, unlike WP:PROD.
Self-reverted so as not to divert from the real issue. I would note, however, that the deletion templates are more in the nature of speedy than PROD templates, in that some other user should remove them. If the uploader objects, they should write out an explanation which the admin who comes to review the page will read. Stifle (talk) 11:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Is there a template for declines?
Just wondering if there's a nice, friendly template I can drop on the talk page of someone who's been notified of a speedy deletion to let them know the speedy's been declined. It occurs to me that a new editor who comes back the next day and sees the speedy deletion notice might be very confused when they go to the article and can't see a deletion notice there.--Fabrictramp | talk to me02:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I work up to trout in stages. The first couple of messages are very friendly and invite discussion. Then I get to guppy, minnow, trout, and finally killer whale. ;-)--Fabrictramp | talk to me15:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I made a family of deletion templates for this purpose a while back. You have {{sdd|article name|reason}} for speedy deletion reasons that are wrong, {{sdd2|article name|reason given|reason why it doesn't apply}} for reasons that are normally valid, but don't apply to this situation, and {{sdd3|article name}} if no reason was given. Each template also takes an optional extra parameter as to what process the tagger should use instead to delete the article; it defaults to WP:AFD, but you can put in WP:PROD, WP:FFD, etc. if desired. Stifle (talk) 08:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia's MediaWiki software falsely marks in-use unfree files as orphaned; thus, they get speedily deleted. Until that error is fixed, please check to see whether or not a supposedly orphaned fair-use file is actually in use before deleting. Thanks! -BlueCaper (talk) 02:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
The MediaWiki software does not tag any files, I suppose due to database lag or whatever that the File link list may not be 100% up to date at all times meaning a newly added image could maybe still show up as unused if a bot happens to check it just then or some such. In most instances however the image is in fact orphanded when it's tagged because the article was blanked/redirected and the article is then reverted putting it back in use without the tag beeing removed. Whatever the cause I naturaly agree that no one should ever delete a file as orphanded if it is in fact used, that much goes without saying. --Sherool(talk)17:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Mistaken move deletion.
I moved something from my sandbox to List of Delta Sigma Theta National Conventions. (note the period at the end) and then noticed that it wouldn't link correctly and figured out my error. I moved it properly to List of Delta Sigma Theta National Conventions (without the period). I would like to speedy delete the one with the period. What should I use for this? I added {{db-redirtypo}} but that doesn't show anything on the redirect page.Naraht (talk)
I have deleted it under G6, non controversial maintenance. G7 only author requesting deletion would also seem to fit. Davewild (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
The actual problem here is that deletion templates for redirects have to be placed at the very top of the page. Stifle (talk) 16:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
R4 or G6?
I recently came across WP:Userbox migration, which says that if userboxes are moved to User: space from Template: or Wikipedia: space, the resulting redirect can be deleted once it's been successfully orphaned, and transclusions on userpages have all been retargeted to the new title. Now, that page is not policy, but a how-to manual, but it seems to have the stamp of consensus on it. So, is there any support here for an R4 criterion to cover this, or should I just be calling it a G6?--Aervanath (talk) 07:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Even without a consensus, any redirect which has no incoming links and no plausible future incoming links falls under G6. Before speedy deleting it I'd make sure there are no incoming links at all though, including on talk pages. BTW, as of 17:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC) there is no R4. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but Stifle is correct. R2 is specifically limited to redirects from article namespace, so there is some indication that all other redirects should not be speedy-deletable. I think deleting them as G6, when R2 (which would otherwise apply) excludes them, goes against the consensus that created R2 as it is. If anything, such redirects should be added to R2 - but currently they are not. Regards SoWhy17:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
@Davidwr: Yeah, I knew there was no R4 yet, I was just wondering if there should be, or if this was already covered. I had no personal opinion before, I only came across this issue because of my closure of the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics by country; I hadn't really been involved in the issue before, and came across WP:UBM while reading that MFD and researching the issues involved. A significant minority of the participants there nominated several templates as part of the debate; however, there wasn't consensus on those and it wasn't primarily about the userboxes themselves anyway; however, that discussion gave me the impression that the userbox migration was the law of the land. Obviously, Stifle and SoWhy do not agree, so there's not as much consensus as I thought. What is the next step to reaching consensus on this? My first thought after reading SoWhy's comment was to take a few of these to RFD (after orphaning them) and see what happens. If all the RFD's close as delete, I think that would be a good indicator that there would be no need to run the rest through RfD, and count them as speedy deletions under some criteria; the whole point of CSD is to take the load off of XFD's by short-circuiting the foregone conclusion. If there is a better move to make to find consensus on this, input from all is welcome. Regards, --Aervanath (talk) 19:16, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
WP:UBM is not policy, it's just an idea. I think there was never consensus for it (we are not de-wiki no matter what people think) and I doubt there will ever be one. I think unless MFD/TFD decides a userbox cannot stay in template/wikipedia-space, there is no reason to move it to userspace. And if they do, then G6/R3 apply for the redirects created by moving them. After all, those deletions are only cleaning up the consensus of the deletion. But I do not see the need to move other userboxes if noone takes offense enough to take them to MFD/TFD. Also, I see no need for R4 or similar, RFD can handle those few cases perfectly fine. Regards SoWhy23:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Ok, so I think we're pretty much on the same page, then: if a userbox is userfied by an XFD, and the resulting redirect is orphaned, then it can be CSD'ed no problem. Am I reading you correctly?--Aervanath (talk) 06:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
If the consensus of the XFD was that the userbox should not be in template/wikipedia space, then all cleaning up the redirects should be covered by that consensus as well imho. SoWhy17:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
No CSD fits, so take them to MFD/RFD if you are really bothered; but why delete them? It's his userspace and I can see no harm by those pages, so why don't we just ignore them? SoWhy23:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
While archives of deleted articles are frowned upon, I can't see that they're covered under any CSD criteria. Since they're already being discussed at the MFD, and it looks like they'll be deleted anyway, I wouldn't sweat it.--Aervanath (talk) 06:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
The CSD's being asked about were for the redirects (i.e - R3 "implausible typos or misnomers"). The Archive policy violation I spoke of would be related to the articles and why I said that if they were archives the violated policy. I was referring to "Personal web pages" and "Wikipedia is not your web host" and the related User page guideline, section "Copies of other pages" - "this space is not intended to indefinitely archive your preferred version of disputed or previously deleted content or indefinitely archive permanent content that is meant to be part of the encyclopedia. In other words, Wikipedia is not a free web host. Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion." And for that, you are correct, there is no CSD that applies, but it is still a violation of policy. As I was once told, "We don't need a CSD for every policy". Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I guess I misunderstood your meaning. To parse out which CSD's apply where:
If the pages in question are deleted, then any redirects to them are covered under G8 (dependent on deleted page)
If the pages are not deleted, and the redirects are orphaned, then they would fall under R3; if they're not orphaned, then they could plausibly be follwed from pages which link to them, and therefore don't qualify.
The non-redirect pages themselves look like they're going to be snowed under pretty soon, so they're not technically speedy deletions.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Repeal speedy deletion criterion T1 and replace it with a direction to use G10 if applicable or take the template to TfD. Eluchil404 (talk) 08:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Following discussion on this talk page archived at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_32#CSD_T1, the criterion for speedy deletion T1 ("Templates that are divisive and inflammatory") was repealed for about six weeks, all associated templates were deleted, and it was removed from MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown. User:Slakr has raised legitimate concerns that that discussion may not have been widely advertised enough to establish clear consensus for such a significant policy change. I'm an opponent of T1, but I don't want anyone saying this change went under the radar, so I'm raising it again here, and advertising it at:
Many of us remember how contentious T1 was when it was first introduced, and this historical debate is summarized in detail at Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates. From that page, a summary of T1's early history:
T1 is shorthand for Criterion for Speedy Deletion (CSD) of templates, number one, and the divisive and inflammatory criterion applied by the owner of the Wikipedia site, Jimmy Wales, for speedy deletion. T1 arose regarding userboxes (small boxes placed on a contributor's userpage indicating their interest or belief in something). Such boxes began with strictly project-related themes, such as "this user speaks English" or "this user is interested in mathematics", but started branching out into more playful boxes. The so-called "Userbox Wars" originated with a user who created a userbox claiming an interest in pedophilia. An administrator who found this offensive banned the user, prompting cries of abuse of administrative power and leading to the Pedophilia userbox wheel war RfAR, which led to intervention by Jimbo Wales and the de-sysopping of several administrators.
In the wake of this notorious incident, on 6 February [2006] User:Sannse added the criteria T1 as "Templates that are divisive and inflammatory.", without using an edit summary or explaining it on the talk page. This was reverted out of and back into the page twice in the next hour. The first deletion noted that there was no consensus for adding it. The second restoration was by Jimbo, and also marked the first use of the talk page to discuss it. Although the community felt compelled to accept this addition by their "benevolent dictator", there was and continues to be considerable dissent over whether this rule for templates should exist, whether and how it should be modified, and how it should be interpreted.
That was nearly three years ago, and I believe we now have the benefit of hindsight and emotional calmness to evaluate whether this controversial criterion is useful. Moreover, today we have criterion for speedy deletion G10 ("Pages that serve no purpose but to disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity"), which did not exist in 2006 and covers some of the same ground as T1. Among the objections to T1 are:
Rarely used: speedy deletion criteria are required to occur frequently, because they exist primarily to reduce load on other processes; a discussion coming to a consensus is always more fair, as long as it's practical. CSD T1 was once used very commonly, in the days of the Userbox Wars, but today is rarely applied (about 2-3 times a month). Any case where a template is used to attack another user is covered by G10; if these cases are removed, very few uses of T1 remain indeed, and these should be given the careful consideration they deserve at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion.
Defunct following userbox userfication: The resolution of the Userbox Wars involved userfying (moving to user subpages) the majority of userbox templates. Today, most userboxes to which T1 could conceivably apply lie outside the scope of T1, because they're in the wrong namespace. There is currently no consensus around expanding T1 to a general criterion (see this thread).
Too subjective: What constitutes a "divisive and inflammatory" template? T1 is easily the most subjective criterion for speedy deletion, and the many attempts to make its wording more objective (described in the debates summary) ultimately came to nothing. There are many edge cases: for example, if a person expresses support for a political candidate, is that divisive and inflammatory? What if a person expresses support for a contentious policy like flagged revisions?
Implemented against consensus: There was never a consensus around implementing T1, with roughly even supporters and opponents; Jimbo forced the issue as an emergency measure. The emergency is now passed and if it is to stay, there should be a new consensus behind a long-term implementation.
Some arguments in support of T1:
Avoid needless conflict: A TfD discussion over a divisive and inflammatory userbox will arouse passions and cause conflict for no useful end, since they're only for community building. A quiet, quick deletion by a single admin avoids this.
Decreed by Jimbo: As our benevolent dictator, Jimbo Wales has the authority to modify policy as he sees fit, and so we are compelled to accept T1 until such time as he himself deems otherwise.
Wikipedia is not Myspace: Deleting userboxes does no real damage to the encyclopedia; productive users whose userboxes are deleted continue to be productive contributors.
The proposal is to return T1 to its repealed wording:
(Deprecated — placeholder to preserve numbering; use General criterion 10 or Wikipedia:Templates for deletion as applicable.)
I'm opening a straw poll here, and I invite you to express your opinion (Repeal or Keep) and bring any arguments I may not have considered. Dcoetzee03:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
In general I'm hesitant to remove criteria unless there's a compelling reason to do so. The argument about frequency of use holds little weight with me when there's one criterion (G9) that I don't think has ever been used (OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, yeah, yeah). If templates are divisive and inflammatory, personally I believe that using common sense covers their deletion. But people want to be able to point to specific policy, and so we have T1. I also see a strong distinction between "divisive and inflammatory" and "attack pages." A template with a picture of a man masturbating that reads "This user uses his left hand" falls under T1 in my mind, but does not fall under 'attack page.' --MZMcBride (talk) 04:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, there is a strong distinction (and even the original pedophilia userbox was not a G10). My argument is essentially that all non-G10 templates should be processed via TfD. Dcoetzee04:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Which is a valid view, but personally I favor simplicity over bureaucracy. I don't need five people at TFD to tell me what I already know. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Then what is the point of TfD? If we need "five people" to decide that something is not notable, or not useful, etc., then why should one person be trusted to decide that something is "inflammatory"? This criteria could never be objective. If something comes up that needs deleting like-nobody's-business, it should be the exception to the rule, never the rule. ~ JohnnyMrNinja06:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm reminded of the incident in March 2008 where a user had a userbox that said "This user thinks censorship and fair use bots are ruining Wikipedia" and it was summarily deleted for perceived violation of T1, with two administrators summarily closing the deletion review, blocking the user, and refusing to discuss it at MfD. The user has apparently left Wikipedia over the incident. —Remember the dot(talk)04:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
While I'll not pretend to have been a party to the series of incidents described above, it certainly would be nice to see T1 worded in such a manner that it wouldn't catch such benign and legitimate, if controversial, policy positions as the one described above, if it isn't removed and repealed. MrZaiustalk05:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal. I'm not convinced by the avoiding conflict argument: the less chance for discussion, the more likely people are to feel ill used. I don't care that it was decreed by Jimbo, and I think we tend to make too big of a deal of the Wikipedia is not MySpace thing. If it's really divisive and inflammatory it'll be deleted at TfD, if it's questionable it causes too much drama for someone to do it unilaterally. delldot∇.05:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal CSD is for uncontroversial deletions, if we're having this discussion then clearly it is controversial. --Tango (talk) 11:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal. Whether a template is divisive and inflammatory is a difficult decision, and should not be trusted to a single admin. Algebraist14:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal. Tango says it all. This criterion cannot possibly be phrased in an objective fashion, and so it should not be in CSD. Happy‑melon15:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal. It's hard to imagine a template that is so inflammatory and/or divisive that, if it can't wait through a TfD, isn't a G10 in any event, meaning this is redundant to existing processes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Keep it seems to be working - whether it is the unused weapon or not there is a deterrence effect. This is a solution looking for a problem. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal I don't think it is needed and without an objective criteria especially, I don't think such speedy deletions can be uncontroversial. Davewild (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal as hopelessly vague and subjective, and also pretty well useless as the template can just be posted in userspace instead, where it would have to go through TFD or MFD anyway. Anything which clearly serves no purpose other than trolling could still be deleted under G3 and/or G10, anything too marginal to fall under one of these criteria should really be discussed first. Iain99Balderdash and piffle23:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
remove? Maybe it is cool to say "repeal". This is a subjective decision. It isn't hard to take a userbox to MfD. Protonk (talk) 02:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
One of the criteria for a criteria (lol) is that it come into use frequently (see the talk of the talk page). If a CSD is rarely used, we should consider removing it or rolling it into another. Protonk (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal this criterion is very subjective and is rarely used. I have compiles a list of T1 deletions since Jan 2007, and it seems to be used two or three times a month, including on drivel such as "the anti-wikipedia army" and "This article is rubbish. You can help by completely re-writing it." TFD could easily handle the activity level. Hut 8.519:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal as subjective and infrequent. If the template really does attack people, it should be deleted under G10. Otherwise, it's not like TFD is overcrowded. Stifle (talk) 09:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal as per Stifle; subjective and controversial CSDs aren't good, and there's no claim that it's necessary or useful.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Repeal I can't imagine a situation so extreme that a template should need to be deleted immediately. The criterion is so subjective, that any deletion should be discussed. I would support a PROD sort of thing, but not a speedy. -Freekee (talk) 02:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
As there's been 24 hours without an additional opinion, I'd like to close this discussion. Having received 17 opinions in favor of repealing and 4 in favor of keeping it (>80%), and since the keep opinions largely amount to "it isn't doing any harm" rather than describing any active positive effect it's having, I'm inclined to close in favor of repealing. If there is any dissent with this conclusion please voice it the next 24 hours. Thanks! Dcoetzee10:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I'd recommend waiting for a neutral admin to close. And, out of an abundance of caution, waiting another couple of days to make sure it stays open a full week. Not that either of those concerns are really deal-breakers but given the history here I think we shoudl tread lightly. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer to get a neutral admin but I'm not sure where to solicit one's attention, could you make a recommendation? Maybe WP:AN? Dcoetzee02:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I can't think of anywhere better than WP:AN, but given the state of the discussion I'd be willing to make a close. I haven't expressed an opinion on T1 is a couple of years at least and don't think I'm particularly biased. I probably won't be able to do it before 1000 UTC on Februard 3rd, so if anyone else wants to do it, they should go ahead. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
G7 and long-standing articles
I've recently been informed (by someone quoting Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations) that criterion G7 does not apply to "long-standing articles". Yet the current wording on the policy page itself makes no mention of this. Are people supposed to guess at this? I'm quite happy to not tag pages blanked by the main/only author for speedy deletion if they've been around for a while, but remain confused as to why this isn't mentioned on the policy page. – The Parting Glass13:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that is what "in good faith" implies, but you are correct, I think it could be made clearer. As it's on /Explanations, we can consider it consensus and can just add it. Feel free to do so if you got a good phrasing, I tried but my attempts make it much too long and complicated. Regards SoWhy13:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Some clarifications: in this context "in good faith" means essentially "because they realized they made an honest mistake in posting the article." If the article is useful, it should not be deleted; if their reasons for requesting deletion have to do with frustration about Wikipedia, it should not be deleted. Most long-standing articles satisfy one or both of these, since other users have had time to review its usefulness, but it is conceivable that such an article may have been added and completely overlooked until much later (just terribly unlikely). Additionally, Explanations is non-normative, and I wouldn't introduce changes from there without discussion. Dcoetzee18:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, you did just say yourself that the long, detailed descriptions at /Explanations can be found in "in good faith", so the only question remaining would be if we should replace/amend "in good faith" with a phrase that is more detailed. I think we should SoWhy19:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I think the criterion is clarified enough when it says "provided the page's only substantial content was added by its author". If only one author contributes to an article over a three year span, and then wants it deleted, that would be perfectly fine under G7. Now, as with all of the criteria, it's up to admin discretion. If the admin looks at the article and says "This is encyclopedic and belongs here," then they can just remove the G7 tag and go on with life, just as with any of the other criteria.--Aervanath (talk) 15:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
"Blatant" copyright infringement
CSD lists "blatant copyright infringement" as a reason for deletion, and I recently saw an admin citing "blatant copyright infringement" in his delete summary.
The word "blatant" should not be used. It implies there is no uncertainty; that guilt has been established beyond all doubt. Clearly it hasn't. If a copyright owner puts his own material on the web and neglects to identify it as properly licensed, or himself as the owner, that's clearly grounds for deletion because of reasonably suspected copyright infringement. To use the word "blatant" is not justified. But the CSD criterion encourages it by using that word.
No. The word blatant performs the exact function you describe, so it should remain. "reasonable" or "suspected" copyvios are sent to Wikipedia:Copyright problems or WP:AFD. The possibility that a copyright holder added material of their own and neglected to change the source license exists. That's unfortunate, but we should err on the side of deleting the material and asking the editor to change the source license. If someone uploads text here that is copyrighted elsewhere (especially where this copyright is explicitly announced, though it is copyrighted automatically through publication), we (speedy taggers/deleters) should not be in the business of deciding which license takes precedence. If the bulk of the page is copied verbatim from a source with a license incompatible to wikipedia, we delete the page. Protonk (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
You misrepresent me. I never implied we should not delete things reasonably suspected of copyright violation. Quite the contrary: we should. But we should not call it "blatant copyright infringement" when we cannot be sure it's copyright infringement. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't misrepresent you. You are arguing a different point. If you want to argue that the admonition to taggers/deleters should remain "only delete what is blatant copyright infringement" and the label of the material should change, please do so explicitly. Otherwise when you suggest that we should change the "criterion" of G12 it says to me that you wish to change the instruction. If you want to make literal changes to {{Db-g12}} and {{Copyvio}}, please suggest those changes on the appropriate template talk page. If you want to make the semantic argument that we should insist on deleting only obvious copyright violations but refrain from tarring the uploader, then you are speaking to the choir. CSD tags should not be a badge of shame. But we don't undertake any of those changes by simply removing the word "blatant" from the instructions. Protonk (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Why are you confusing the issue by raising other issues and making it look as if that's what you're responding to?
I never suggested we should not speedily delete reasonably suspected copyright infringements!
I was raising a DIFFERENT issue: We should not label the deleted material "blatant" copyright infringement when we can't be sure it is copyright infringement. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
(ec) But Dcoetzee is correct: "blatant" just means "obvious" in this case - it's for the cases where we 1.) got a source and 2.) know the source is not GFDL-compatible. The creator might be the author of the source, but having it here is still a blatant violation of that copyright. Because as long as they don't prove that they released it as GFDL, we HAVE to assume that the content is not released as such and that's a violation of the copyright, no matter who does it. By posting it here the creator makes everyone who edits the article (and Wikipedia itself) copyright violators, even if he/she him-/herself does not violate the copyright. SoWhy21:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
It is true that we HAVE to assume it's not released when we haven't been told it's released, but it's NOT true that it's in all cases a violation of copyright. So we should not make that accusation. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Technically Michael is right - if they submit the content here, and they are the copyright holder, they've released it under the GFDL automatically, regardless of prior publication. Moreover, the content may have been released under the GFDL already but there's no public notice of this. It may even have been copied from an old revision of a Wikipedia article without attribution, which is difficult to detect with search engines. I think the word "blatant" should be avoided in deletion summaries, but in the criterion itself, it's effective at discouraging spurious G12 deletions. Dcoetzee21:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that's the wrong approach. Our policy is not to assume that material previously published and copied here is released to the GFDL. Mainly because I can make an account masquerading as an author and claim GFDL release by simply adding content to wikipedia, we require the external license (assuming it precedes the wp posting) to match ours or for there to be some specific release over a more trusted channel (e.g. OTRS). Protonk (talk) 22:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Partially because I'm simple. Slow, if you will. Partially because it isn't so much a straw man as a simple statement. Material posted here that has been previously published elsewhere under an incompatible license is copyright infringement. You are suggesting that we tone that "label" down (by changing the instruction to taggers rather than the label itself...curiously) because of the possibility that the copyright owner and the poster may be one and the same. I am responding by noting that wikipedia (in practice) doesn't care if they claim to be one and the same. Because we all edit through pseudonyms, we require some stronger confirmation that the material posted is actually released under the GFDL (not to mention that the vast majority of cases don't fit the "uploader=copyright owner" mold). If you want to replace the word blatant with obvious, be my guest. Otherwise I'm really not sure what you are on about. Protonk (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
"We all edit through pseudonyms"? Lots of Wikipedians use their real names and I'm one of those. I seem to recall that those cases of authors of books putting excerpts here that I have seen have used their own names, and they've been cases where it's been easy to ascertain that they are who they say they are. If they've been released elsewhere under an incompatible license, then the license granted by the author when he posts here can supersede that in some cases. The problem with the phrasing of the criterion is that it's causing admins to use the same phrasing in when they state their reasons for deletion, and it's inappropriate there. Also, we're not only talking about material that's been released under incompatible licenses. We're also talking about material that appears on the web and is presumed copyrighted, when in some cases it's been released under terms compatible with the kind of license we use here. You can't be sure it violates copyright. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't know that's your real name. I assume that it is, but I don't know. There is no check at account creation. Presumably you would run the risk of being caught impersonating someone, but there is no restraint in the code. If you want to change the messages admins use, I'm sure that you can edit MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown easily. I am supportive of changes to the template and the messages but I don't support changes to the criteria of the instructions. I'm not sure how much more clear I can be. Protonk (talk) 23:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, let's try this:
“
G12. Obvious copyright infringement. Pages that contain text from a web page that has no assertion that its contents are in the public domain or licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, with no non-infringing revisions in the page's history that could be salvaged. For non-obvious situations (such as where there is a dubious assertion of permission, or where free-content edits overlie the infringement), please consult Wikipedia:Copyright violations and list the page on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. A source website must be specified in order for a request under this criteria to be valid.
Remember to check that the suspected source of the copyright violation is not itself a Wikipedia mirror or from a deleted Wikipedia article, if the site is possibly owned by the contributor (which should be validated using OTRS), and to notify the page's creator when tagging a page for deletion under this criterion; the template {{nothanks-sd}} is available for this. For images and media, see I9
URL's work better for obvious stuff, since if you can easily find the passage online, its more "obvious" than if its in something only some people have. From a non-electronic source would be something more for WP:CP. ViperSnake15100:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm fine with obvious. But I want to note that it doesn't have to be a "web page" to be verifiable online. I find copyvios in google books quite a lot. I don't think we should limit it to "web page", since some might interpret that to mean the criterion is unusable against material that is previously or primarily published elsewhere, like books or magazines articles, that are also accessible online. --Moonriddengirl(talk)00:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you're talking to me, given threading, but if you are, I'm not arguing that it isn't good to give a URL. I'm not sure about revising the criterion to read "Pages that contain text from a web page...." from the current general "Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license...." Perhaps this is due to some idiosyncratic definition of web page on my behalf, but I worry that it will seem to limit the criterion when genuinely blatant vios are not from primarily web-based materials. --Moonriddengirl(talk)02:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
What on earth is the point of this discussion? This is all about changing the word "blatant" to "obvious" but not actually changing what we delete? Seriously, do none of us have anything better to do than argue over the semantics of policies? Mr.Z-man19:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I changed "Blatant copyright infringement" to "Copyright infringement" per the discussion at WT:CSD. The problem is that "blatant" appears to imply there can be no doubt. That is hardly ever the case and we need not wait until it is in order to delete, and we shouldn't be making accusations when doubts may remain. E.g. a new article is verbatim the same as a web page and the creator of the article did not indicate any copyright license. Clearly we need to delete for highly probable copyright infringement. But the creator of the new WP article may be the author of the web page and may have intended it to be public—that does happen here—so we shouldn't be making accusations.
He's probably referring to my general assent to the change in user-facing areas. I still don't understand why he is phrasing the way he is--we all agree that the word blatant means exactly what we wish it to mean. The vanishingly small number of cases where the uploader holds copyright to material published outside wikipedia in an incompatible license but means (solely through his uploading of the material) to release the information into the public domain don't really justify all of this sturm and drang. I'll repeat from above: I'm ok changing the deletion template, the user warnings and even the dropdown menu, but the instructions to editors should remain the same. Protonk (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, we need to clearly differentiate here: there's the proposal to change the wording of the CSD itself on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion (firmly rejected), and there's the entirely separate proposal to use less bitey languages in deletion summaries and in particular on MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown. I support this proposal, because in the event that the contributor of the article is in fact the copyright holder this may encourage them to license the work appropriately. However, I'd like to ponder more on what exactly it ought to say. Dcoetzee22:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Dcoetzee. Non-blatant copyright infringements should be taken to WP:CP (or WP:PUI for images), but it could be worth removing the word "blatant" from the default deletion reason to be less bitey. Stifle (talk) 16:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
If we remove the word "blatant" from the dropdown summary without replacing it with something similar, we're going to have sysops interpret this as an invitation to speedily delete anything that appears to be a copyright violation of any kind. —David Levy16:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been trying and failing to come up with a good word to use in its stead. I can't think of any way to express this without sacrificing brevity: something like "Copyrighted material, no assertion of permission" (or "no credible assertion", since the incredible ones don't bar speedy). The value of something like it would be that the solution is in the tag, since the how-to guide is directly linked. Is there a simpler way to convey "This is pasted, there's not enough not pasted that we can salvage, and there's no good reason to think we can use it"? --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
How have Wikipedians been introduced to CSD? Here's one way: one is vaguely aware that there's such a thing and one thinks it's for use on those rare occasions when someone writes an article that's incomprehensible nonsense and one gives it no thought. Some time later one sees a rash of completely irrational speedy deletions of well-written articles where an admin apparently thought "This article uses a word I never heard of; delete fast!" or the like. When one objects, one is surprised to learn that a fair number of people who have made it one of their purposes to clear out voluminous nonsense that gets added and they regard such activity as described above as a rare mistake, and moreover they are a community: they communicate with each other and various understandings exist among them.
That's how.
Could there be a better way?
One obstacle to any better way is that the deletion log is still not searchable, and nobody really knows what's getting deleted besides what they've seen themselves. If bots could search the logs for various words, phrases, or patterns, including things
Is writing a bot enough to make the log searchable, or would that require something in the MediaWiki (or whatever it's called) software?
The word "permission" seems sarcastic. My point was that members of the CSD community have reason, not to "permit" such a thing, but to support such a thing. I don't know anything about writing bots, and neither do most people in the CSD community, but a consensus of a number of such people supporting such a thing might be useful in influencing those who can do it. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
It was partially sarcastic, for the reasons you note. Such a task is both outside our remit and outside our sphere (usually) of competence. A bot may be written, without modification to the mediawiki software, to search Deletionpedia. It seems as though the deletion log entry and the contents of the page are saved there. See an example. I don't know if an adminbot is capable of searching deleted revisions on wikipedia or if WP:BRFA would approve such a bot. I think that some of the changes you suggest would require changes to the mediawiki interface. Some of them (searchable histories, users, etc) may be opposed by the foundation, who stopped the "view deleted" proposal in its tracks. My suggestion is that you take these suggestions to a forum where people will be able to answer them more appropriately. This will have the benefit of getting responses from people with more than a cursory understanding of the software as well as avoiding responses from people like me, who are more than a little willing to see this as an extension of the same Poisson hidden Markov model debate that we have been having for months. Protonk (talk) 19:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Obviously "Deletionpedia" has little if any relevance here. But you say "a forum where people will be able to answer them more appropriately". Can't you be specific? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
On the contrary, Deletionpedia is perfectly relevant. I presume that it would be easy (relatively) to write a scraper which would record time of deletion, reason, and title/content of the article and generate a searchable database. It might be easier to do that than to convince people on wikipedia that we need to make deleted pages searchable. If you are looking to gauge performance of deleting admins by some metric scrutable in deleted articles, that will work rather simply. As for better forums, you can try Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) to ascertain the feasibility of elements of this proposal, you can look at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval to determine whether or not a bot task like the one you will be describing will reach a consensus, and you can look at mw:Documentation for some background on the software constraints surrounding such a request. Protonk (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Presumably it would be possible to write an external tool to search for page titles, comments in the deletion summary, or page links since those database dumps are publicly available, assuming you can persuade someone to write it. Searching the actual content of the deleted page and the edit history would be much more problematic because the dump isn't public and deleted page content is restricted to admins (and so the search results would have to be available only to admins). Alternatively Deletionpedia might be able to help you. Hut 8.520:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Avoid jargon in the policy page - as the policy page itself says
I was looking for a rule for redirects, so I went to the Redirects section. I didn't find what I wanted, but found it under General section. It wasn't until I started looking for why my edit of 30 January was reverted, that the jargon in this policy page started making sense.
I think words like "(Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; superseded by Gxx.)" is not going to appear meaningful to anyone looking for policy, but only to the editors of this page.
Can it be replaced by "For redirects to non-existent or deleted pages, "See General#xx"". Also, how significant are "numbering" and "deprecation" to policy? Jay (talk) 05:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, preserving the numbering has two purposes: reading old deletion logs correctly and saving everybody a lot of time. When we look at the deletion log of an article, and the numbering is kept consistent, then a speedy deletion code from 2006 will mean the same thing it will in 2010. So if I see an old entry in the deletion log marked R1, then I still know what that means. If we change R1 to a completely new criterion, or we move the criterion up (say, switch R3 to R1), then I would be totally misled about the point of the deletion. The more minor reason is that it takes time to switch over all the templates from one area to the other. For what its worth, when I first started reading this page, I understood exactly what the wording meant, but if some find it unclear, then sure, change it. How about just change it to "Merged with criterion G#xx, see above"? (I don't really care, as long as its clear. If consensus is that the current wording is clear enough, then I'm fine with that, too.)--Aervanath (talk) 06:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I now realize that deletion policies have become extremely technical and tied to numbers, and the target audience of this page are largely the Administrators. I came to this page following the deletion of a redirect where the deletion log said "R1". I actually could not find what R1 is, and hence could not find a clause under Redirects under which it was deleted. On giving a search for "R1", I only got "{{db-r1}}", which led to Template:Db-r1. While the template page was clear, the policy page seemed outdated, not having this information.
What can be done:
At the top of the page, list out all abbreviations (including deprecated ones) used and link them to the appropriate item description within the policy page. Explain the significance of these abbreviations in the context of deletion summaries and deletion logs. Although the Criteria section does have an explanation, it's only after reading Aervanath's post that I understood where the abbreviations are used and what we should make out of them. Jay (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Rather than what has been merged with what, the emphasis should be on what the specific rule is. Hence, a wording like "Merged with criterion G#xx, see above", also will not say what Redirect rule it is that we're talking about.
Not sure I agree with that, Stifle, it's never the wrong approach to discuss proposed changes before making them. Having said that, I'm now going to be bold :DHappy‑melon19:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
R2
I think we're now in the position to be able to reword R2 to be exclusive rather than inclusive, and thereby be considerably clearer. There are currently large numbers of XNRs to the Category:, Portal:, Template:, Help: and Wikipedia: namespaces; many of these are either pseudospace shortcuts that we can hopefully eventually get rid of, but there are also a lot of complicated page histories that need to be handled with care. Redirects to every other namespace run to the following list:
Given this, I think we're safe in rewording R2 to the following:
“
Redirects from the article namespace to any other namespace except the Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help: and Portal: namespaces. If the redirect was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.
(ec) Wikipedia:Database reports/Cross-namespace redirects lists also redirects to Help:. Not all of those should be kept in my opinion, by they aren't candidates for SD either. The four exceptions you mention above are already marked with {{go away}}, and one has been through RfD already, which should be enough to exclude them. So, include Help: in the list and change "article namespaces" to singular and I'm all for it. --Amalthea20:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Comment: It would be nice to get software support for this. They could easily modify MediaWiki to not allow redirects like this to be saved in the first place. Ounce of prevention and all that. Dcoetzee23:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Just make sure that the automated prevention of CN redirects does not prevent the userfication of articles (which creates an Article :> User redirect, which then has to be deleted anyway). If no redirect gets created, that's perfect. But if the system detects the attempted creation of such a redirect and therefor blocks the userfication, we have a problem... Oh, I support the rewording as well, by the way. Fram (talk) 12:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Coincidentally, there was talk recently of enabling the feature allowing admins to move a page without leaving a redirect. Dcoetzee16:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
It occurs to me after working on speedies today that we need to add a new criteria, A10, for any beer pong variation or any drinking game made up within the last 5 years. (And I'm only half kidding here...)--Fabrictramp | talk to me00:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Alas, such a CSD would easily run afoul of false positives. It's entirely possible a drinking game might be invented one day that sparks a worldwide media frenzy and becomes notable within weeks of its creation. This might be considered as an A7 addition, but then you get the question of whether your average admin is an accurate judge of a possibly implicit assertion of significance for drinking games. Dcoetzee01:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Almost agree. Let's call it "A10 non verifiable". It could be for not quite blatant hoaxes, non verifiable protologisms or things WP:MADEUP. I say "almost" because occasionally these go to AFD and somebody else finds something. Therefore, it shouldn't be a normal speedy but just a rationale for speedy closing an AFD if it quickly becomes clear that nobody else can verify it either. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand why we need this criterion. In reviewing speedy deletion candidates I nearly always find that if an article has been nominated under this criterion it is because it has very little content, rather than no content - today's examples are [3][4][5] (the last one tagged by an admin). If an article genuinely has no content then it either has no context, so will come under WP:CSD#A1, or the title itself provides the context, in which case it is capable of expansion by other editors, and it is reasonable to assume that the creator will be coming back to add some content. Is it really necessary to speedily delete these, rather than use WP:PROD which gives the creator time to add some content? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Ah well, RHaworth may be an admin but he does make some real bad taggings, so I would not mention the "by an admin" as significant. The links you provided are prime examples of incorrect taggings. All three are plain and obvious mistaggings, nothing more. A3 is useful in cases when there is no real content: Articles only consisting of external links, of the article name, only of whitespaces or when people create articles to contact other users. It does not apply in other cases, so I don't think there is reason to get rid of it. Regards SoWhy20:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Then maybe the headline title of the criterion should be changed. It's not really about "no content" - it's about the type of unencyclopedic content identified in the text. I'm sure that with the way the criterion is currently worded at least 90% of articles tagged under this criterion are tagged invalidly. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
But that's the point: People tag articles that have content as no content - but that is not the problem of the criterion. It's a problem with taggers like those you mentioned and we have to tell those people to be more careful. People like PC78 or RHaworth are no newbies, they are clearly able to read WP:CSD, so it's not a problem with the headline title or anything. Changing it will not make the mistaggers understand the criteria better - only telling them might. SoWhy21:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I've been thinking further on the particular cases covered by this criterion. Articles consisting only of external links will be taken care of under other criteria. The most likely is that they are spam links (WP:CSD#G11), another possibility as that these links don't tell us what the article is supposed to be about (WP:CSD#A1) and otherwise these will be valid references that could be used to build an article, in which case speedy deletion would be inappropriate. A repetition of the article name, or white space, will either provide context or not. If it does then, as I said above, there's no reason not to allow a few days for editors to provide some more content, and if not it can be deleted under WP:CSD#A1. The other criterion is when people create an article to try to contact other users. Is this really such a big problem that we need a specific speedy deletion criterion to handle it? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why you want to get rid of it when there is no harm in having it. Yes, it's not applied as often as other criteria, but it's not worthless. If I create a page and the only content is "For more info see http://www.example.org", then it's not always G11. It's not A1 either because it has context, it's just no worthy context. I am a rather strict inclusionist, but even I think A3 has its uses here because there cannot be anything improved, you can just add it to requested articles with that source maybe. Same with repetition of the title or whitespace. A1 applies to "short" articles, not empty ones, i.e. articles which provide text but you cannot understand what it describes. It's deliberately different from no content and I advise against mixing A1 and A3 together, because they are for different cases of articles. SoWhy21:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with keeping A3. It's a criterion I use occasionally and it does cover articles that other criteria do not. It may be occasionally misapplied, but which criterion isn't? That should be discussed with the people using it incorrectly, rather than removing the criterion. Besides, the more the criteria are changed, the harder it is for people to keep up with the changes and tag correctly, therefore increasing the problem. Somno (talk) 23:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I genuinely can't remember when I last saw a validly applied tag under this criterion, but every day I see articles where it has been invalidly applied. This isn't "occasionally misapplied", it's misapplied almost every time it's used, and the few cases where it could be correctly applied are nearly all be covered by other criteria anyway. I don't see how removing a criterion that is abused far more than correctly used will increase any problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I think most A3s are A1s, and I have to admit, I'm having trouble thinking of an example that wouldn't be. Even in the hypothetical example above where it consists of nothing but an external link, that is enough information to expand the article. Just looking at the number of caveats that have been attached to A3 (disambig pages, redirects, soft redirects, stubs, pages with just an infobox...) indicates to me that its scope has been severely limited. On the other hand, it's objective enough that it has little potential to do damage compared to other criteria. Dcoetzee01:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Here's an A3 for you: Article name: "Jimbob (tv show)." Article content: "Does anyone know anything about Jimbob? Here's all the links I could find: [list of links here]. See also: [tv network, tv production company, actors, etc.]" There is context, but no content. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Or "Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to request a copy of [this publication]. Please send it to 123 Main Street". You know what it's about, so you have context, but you don't have article content. Somno (talk) 03:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
But why should such an article be speedily deleted? There's a good chance that the article creator will come back to add some content, and, because there is context, another editor may be able to do so. I would have thought that a WP:PROD tag would be much better suited to this case than speedy deletion. All that a speedy deletion achieves is to drive away an editor who may come back the next day to expand the article and find that it's not there any longer. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Still haven't got used to calling these "F" instead of "I"... This criterion has a complicated grandfather period for images uploaded before 19 May 2005, but all such images have now been given fair-use rationales or deleted, so there are no files for which this exemption is required. In the interests of simplicity the, we can reword F3 as:
We need someone to make list of all non-deleted pre-19-May-2005 images that shows each one has fair-use rationale, then link to that report in the edit summary when you make the change. This way, if it turns out something was not on the list that should have been, there's evidence the change was made in good faith. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
As best I can determine, the length of that list is zero: there aren't any non-com files left here, from any upload date. Or am I missing something? Happy‑melon12:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
If the "official report" says there are none, that is sufficient. Such a report should of course state how the search was done, even if it was a trivial search. It's called CYA. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
My primary objection is that determining whether an image satisfies the standards for non-free content is pretty subjective and in many cases requirements a files for deletion discussion. Also, minor quibble: you mean "no derivative use" not "non-derivative use." Other than that looks good. Dcoetzee18:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
We need to include the "for Wikipedia use only" (or similar) wording as well. Although not 100% sure about there being no files pre 2005 or uploaded in the "grace period". Or are you only talking about files in the fair use/NFC category? I am looking mostly at the Category:Self-published work when I come across such images and mostly never thought about re-tagging them as fair use. Soundvisions1 (talk) 02:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Not related to this, but why in the word do we even have the option of "for wikipedia use only" in the upload text? I see you get to it from the "Other" prompt. Why doesn't that kick the user back to the beginning and say "We don't want photos like that" rather than "Sure, you can upload it, but then some admin will delete it in .5 seconds and you'll get all bent out of shape about that"? Protonk (talk) 03:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I have actually asked this for several months - not the exact same way, but the options given are misleading in some cases and that is one of them. One the other hand I have seen an image with a "correct" license but text in the summary such as "Permission for use on Wikipedia, any other use contact..." and they are not tagged right away. Many slip through until someone comes along and reads the wording and sees it does not match the license. My feeling has been that if a user clicks on "my own work" they should be presented with another set of sub-options such as "For Wikipedia Use only" which, if selected, would send the user to to a "locked" page stating Wikipedia does not accept images of this type" While it may seem like hitting the user over the head it is no more so than the huge "Please consider creating an account or logging in at the Wikimedia Commons and uploading it there" notice found on the main upload page and the large banner on the next page of "my own work". Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it's a violation of AGF, but many users are so determined to make an upload that if they encounter an "invalid license" screen, they'll just choose another license at random. We really prefer that they be honest so that we can at least delete these. On the other hand, if they're making their decision at the very moment they upload, that's a different matter. Dcoetzee05:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
These "trap" selections allow us to catch images which are not free enough for use on Wikipedia. As Dcoetzee suggests, if someone clicks "permission" and the system says "no, you can't upload" they'll go back and click "public domain" or "GFDL" just so the upload will go through. The current system is definitely better. Stifle (talk) 12:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but can't such images still be used under "fair use" if they would otherwise qualify? If not, it would seem silly that there are circumstances where we could use a copyrighted commercial image in an article but not a wikipedia/non commercial use only license. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
You're entirely correct, this is the whole point of the criterion: it essentially says that NDUs are to be treated as fair-use, and deleted when they do not satistfy the NFCC requirements. Happy‑melon23:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I propose a system by which the mediawiki software reaches through the monitor and slaps a user upside the head should they do that. I think it will easily receive consensus for adoption. Protonk (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I can see a lot of possibilities for this mediawiki software extension. *rubbing hands with glee* But we may need to warn certain users to wear a helmet when they edit, just to avoid lawsuits. ;-P--Fabrictramp | talk to me15:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Outside of the obvious copyvio I have seen this more with self created work, in which case it is not that they went back and picked another license just so they could game the system, it is just there was no "secondary" option(s). In once specific case that I have mentioned here before (For another reason) a user created a logo for an article about their company. They uploaded their image under an acceptable license however, in the summary area, made their own additional statement that said it was created by the user for use in the specific article on Wikipedia and that any other use was not allowed. That is why I have suggested a sub set of options for the "my own work" section as well. The feeling I have is that, currently, once you are in the "my own work" section the software has already assumed it really is yours and that all is well. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Trawling through DRV, I recently came across Deadstar Assembly. This article was sent to AfD, where 20 minutes later it was tagged with {{db-band}} and speedy deleted. Later, when it was recreated, another admin invoked G4 to delete it.
This is within the letter of G4 (the article had been to AfD), but clearly not within the spirit of G4, since there was at best a consensus of two people here. How might we revise G4 to make it inapplicable in this sort of situation? I'm not confident that we want to exclude all articles whose AfDs end in speedy deletion from G4. Soliciting your ideas. Dcoetzee00:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
IMO the criterion already excludes this, perhaps not as explicitly as it could. I don't think this specific case needs to be proscribed: any other "speedy delete" close would have the same outcome. Perhaps all that's needed is to add "completed" to "via a deletion discussion"... Happy‑melon00:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Agree with happy-melon. G4 specifically excludes speedy deletion: "This does not apply (...) to speedy deletions". I doesn't matter if they were tagged after being sent AFD. SoWhy11:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Works for me. I wasn't sure if that phrase was normative or descriptive, but in that case the G4 that I mentioned does seem to be out-of-process. Dcoetzee00:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
If there are sufficient comments in favour of deletion at an AfD when the speedy is placed, I'll consider closing it as a mixed SNOW/speedy delete, thus allowing G4 to be used in the future. Doesn't always work, but there's sometimes no harm in declining the speedy and saying that AfD can administer the coup-de-grace. BencherliteTalk00:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I think this issue has to do with the fact some people are unaware that G4 has recently been reworded precisely to take care of this problem:
A copy, by any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion, provided the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version and that any changes in the recreated page do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted. This does not apply to content that has been undeleted via deletion review, deleted via proposed deletion, or to speedy deletions (although in that case, the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy criteria, may apply).
Not so long ago, G4 did apply to speedies, something which, according to the current wording, is not exactly useful since if the original criterion still applies it can be invoked again. It is not the law that needs to be changed here. It is awareness of it. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 01:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
If the original speedy was valid, and the new article is essentially identical, the new article can be speedied under the same criterion a second time. Quoting G4 is really sloppy, but there's no reason to allow or disallow it - the results are identical. WilyD03:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
It's a matter of responsibility - in using G4, you are asserting that you trust the opinion of the original deleting admin that it was a correct deletion. In re-using the alternate CSD, you're asserting that you have re-evaluated the article and determined for yourself that it meets the CSD. Dcoetzee18:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Editing section headers
Is editing a section heading like the "Non controversial" one above considered a case of editing others' comments (and thus forbidden). I fixed the glaring punctuation error above whereby "non" is treated as if it's a stand-alone word rather than a prefix, and someone took me to task for that. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm the one who took Michael "to task" for that. The main reason (which he isn't mentioning here) that I reverted and left him a note is that by changing section headers he would be breaking any links someone might have to the section. Otherwise, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. --Fabrictramp | talk to me14:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Editing section headers is specifically highlighted as an acceptable action in the guidelines. That said, doing so on an established thread without providing an {{anchor}} for compatibility with existing inbound links is probably not a good idea. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk16:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Should featured topics categories be exempt from C1?
There are now about 60 empty categories of the form Category:Wikipedia featured topics FOO featured/good content. Some of these categories are so narrowly defined (i.e. individual stars) that if brought to CfD I imagine they would be deleted. Like all empty categories, these are dead ends, more of a hazard than an aid when it comes to navigating the category hierarchy. Most of the 60 were empty four months ago, so it seems unlikely they'll be populated any time soon. Most contain nothing except a link to their parent; if needed, they could quickly and easily be recreated. What justification is there for creating or maintaining them? --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I do not think these categories are "a hazard when it comes to navigating the category hierarchy", as Category:Wikipedia featured topics categories and all its subcategories are not intended for user navigation, or even (generally speaking) editor navigation. Let me explain the point of these categories then.
The categories are used in {{FeaturedTopicSum}}, which in turn is used throughout good/featured topics to automatically determine if a particular topic is good or featured, and then take appropriate action. And this is calculated by counting the number of pages in various categories, and is determined by the number and percentage of articles that are featured in a topic (currently, this needs to be 2 or more, and 25% or greater). (I suggest you take a look at the code of the template.)
This process is used on the talk page for every good/featured topic, the talk page for every article involved in a topic, for the dummy wikiproject for good/featured topics, and on both the WP:FT and WP:GT pages themselves. {{FeaturedTopicSum}} currently appears in about 950 pages. The advantage of doing things with this template is that if for example an article in a good topic gets promoted from good to featured, and this is enough to make the good topic meet the featured topic criteria, then the good topic can automatically become a featured topic, with no editor intervention required (and obviously the same is true in reverse).
Often articles get a bit sticky and don't move between categories like they should, and it requires manual intervention to make them move. In fact this happens every time a topic gets promoted, and can sometimes happen afterwards too, eg if the talk page of an article gets vandalised. Being able to navigate between the categories and see exactly what page is in what category makes problems a LOT easier to track down. Also, to make another point, CSD C1 includes exemption for "project categories that by their nature may become empty on occasion". Admittedly it isn't a very regular occurrence, but these categories also can become empty, only to later be repopulated automatically.
The only reason to delete these categories is that they stick out like a sore thumb, but there are really not very many of them (so they don't take up much space), they're not growing in number very fast at all (60 in 2 1/2 years of featured topics), and as I have attempted to explain, having them makes maintaining WP:FT a lot easier. I don't think "they stick out like a sore thumb" is a good enough reason to delete them, and I don't think "they are a hazard when it comes to navigating the category hierarchy" is really true - rst20xx (talk) 02:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not concerned with whether the categories stick out; that can be easily remedied. My concern is whether we should maintain these empty catgories in the first place.
I don't have an intimate knowledge of template syntax, but I did some experiments in the sandbox. It seems that PAGESINCATEGORY handles non-existent catgories perfectly well. For instance, {{PAGESINCATEGORY:User c-N}} returns the number of pages that would be in Category:User c-N if it existed. Thus the categories themselves are superfluous -- {{FeaturedTopicSum}} would work fine even if none of the categories were instantiated. This being the case, I see no harm in deleting the empty ones. -- Stepheng3 (talk) 22:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's true, and notice that I didn't argue that {{FeaturedTopicSum}} needed the categories to exist! But, if the categories are deleted, it clearly makes it harder to navigate between them. And this is useful to be able to easily do for the reasons I outlined above (4th paragraph)!
Wikipedia categories exist for the purpose of navigation. The existence of a category implies the existence of pages that can be reached via that category in the same way that the presence of a door in a room implies the existence of accessible space on the other side. Users who click a link to Category:Roman roads in Egypt or Category:Wikipedia featured topics Saffron good content expect to find pages; if we have none, we shouldn't tempt them to go there. This is, to me, the essence of C1.
Based on the (lack of) participation in this discussion, I gather that nobody (except us two) cares strongly about the exemption. That being the case, I'm willing to let it stand. Let's give it a day or two more.
"The existence of a category implies the existence of pages that can be reached via that category in the same way that the presence of a door in a room implies the existence of accessible space on the other side." Yes, but it doesn't imply that the room behind the door has anything in it, does it? Having said that, on reflection, it might be a good idea to hide these categories, so that they do not even show up for the majority of users - does that seem sensible to you? rst20xx (talk) 11:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree that these categories should be hidden, though that doesn't address my concern about empty categories.
Any system that requires the use of dozens of empty categories to stay around, some even for months, is a bad system. I'd advocate changing the FeaturedTopicSum template to use some sort of different system since I share the same concerns as Stepheng3. As the encyclopedia improves and more and more content becomes featured, the number of "featured topic" categories will only increase. Eventually there's almost certainly going to have to be a new system for determining this. For instance, couldn't a page regularly update any FA/GA content, and someone simply manually reviews that to see if it affects any featured topics? VegaDark (talk) 08:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed that many threads on this talk page seem to suggest that speedy deletions be "non controversial". I would have to disagree with this wording because to me, "non controversial" means "nobody at all objects". However, when I have done new page patrol, I noticed that many pages that clearly fall under a speedy deletion criterion still have editors objecting to their deletion, particularly the creators of such articles which of course is the point of the prohibition against article creators removing speedy tags and the {{hangon}} tag. There are even cases where a number of editors object to a speedy. Some of these go to AFD and are quickly closed "delete" with the closing admin quoting a speedy criterion. However, they wouldn't have needed to go to AFD in the first place if their deletion was truly "non controversial". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The whole reasons we allow admins to delete pages without discussion is because we deem that these deletions don't need discussion. If a single neutral editor objects, then it's not uncontroversial anymore. And then we take it to PROD or AFD. I see no reason to change this just because some admins speedy-close AFDs even if someone advocates against deletion. SoWhy19:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I quite agree with Ron; the speedy deletion criteria are not required to be "non controversial"; anyone other than the article creator can remove the tag, but an admin can still delete the article if it meets the criteria. Of course, there has to be a consensus that the criteria are grounds for deletion. — Arthur Rubin(talk)21:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The distinction (and Arthur Rubin pretty much has it) is that the criteria are designed to be non-controversial, i.e. almost every article that meets one of the criteria should be deleted. It is not intended that the decision on whether an article meets the criteria should be non-controversial (with the exception of G6). Otherwise, we may as well tag this page {{historical}} and have 4000 AFDs a day, because there's virtually never a case where absolutely everyone agrees that a certain article should be speedied. Stifle (talk) 09:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Your general point is taken but there are exceptions. A7 has been at the center of more than one controversy, including whether "schools" that don't state their notability beyond "is a school" count as organizations failing to make a claim. Speaking of A7, there's a big grey zone of dubious claims of notability/importance: Is "Joe Shmoe is the CEO of a multimillion dollar company" a claim of importance? What if the claim was of a billion-dollar company? A 100-million-dollar company? A 100-billion-dollar company? Somewhere along the line it goes from "you've got to be kidding, buh-bye, A7 with extreme prejudice" to "dubious claim, A7" to "ok, this is iffy, A7-eligible but AFD might be better" to "ok, at least that's a valid claim, no A7" to "I'll be shocked if this guy hasn't been on the cover of Fortune magazine at least twice." Where along the line this meets A7 is a judgment call for speedy-taggers and admins to make, and that judgment will determine if the article is not tagged, tagged for speedy, or prodded or sent to AFD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 16:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
That's an excellent observation. A7 is easily the most controversial of the lot. That said, it is one of the most important tools in the speedy kit. Guess all we can do is refine it and police its use. Protonk (talk) 16:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
A7 is a reason I'm in favor of "slow speedies," where for certain categories, the speedy should not be processed until it's been up 24 hours. Obviously, undisputed copyvio and clear harrassment would remain delete-on-sight. We can implement this today by having editors put "request 24 hour hold to allow editor to fix problem" in HTML comments. I might start doing that for articles that might be notable but for which I don't have the time to research and see if it catches on. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
My take on it is that A7 should be used for blindingly obvious cases, remembering that importance is a lower standard than notability. Otherwise we have the option of slapping a notability tag on it, prodding, or AfD. FWIW, when I don't have the time to research, I slap the notability tag on it and add it to a list I keep to come back to later. This gives the creator time to beef it up, but keeps it in my sights for later research if needed.--Fabrictramp | talk to me18:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The fundamental issue with A7 is that what constitutes an assertion of significance is highly subjective, and sometimes requires information an average admin does not have. For example, if I say an athlete plays for a certain sports team, you'd need to know something about how significant that sport team is to decide whether or not that's an assertion of significance. We can't expect every new article to list awards and records and other blindingly obvious assertions of significance. Dcoetzee19:10, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I didn't make myself clear -- I think A7 is more for when the lack of importance is blindingly obvious. If it's not obvious, say in your example of the athlete, PROD certainly allows plenty of room for commentary on why the person is not important and not notable. I try to weigh the harm to Wikipedia of having an article on someone be up for five days versus the harm if we don't get it right (harm both to Wikipedia's reputation and the harm that comes from driving away contributors). Sure, it's a judgment call, but I try to fall on the cautious side. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me19:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion, wasn't responding to you and didn't notice I'd emulated your language. :-) Of course we are in agreement. Dcoetzee19:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree w/ Stifle. When this thread first came up I had a point along the same lines but didn't post it. Stifle said it better than I was going to. Non-controversial==>Uncontestable with regard to criteria alone. Protonk (talk) 16:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I've been directed to this thread by Stifle (talk·contribs), in connection with a discussion we have been having about whether CSD:I6 tags are appropriate that he has placed on some images which as far as I can see have entirely sufficient rationales; and more generally CSD:I7 tags for images where, in his personal opinion, the images do not meet the criteria. (Although a recent spate of IfDs, for some alternate album cover images he recommended tagging in this way, went strongly against him).
According to Stifle [6], "the criteria have to be non-controversial; whether an individual article meets the criteria or not is not always going to be non-controversial".
I don't agree. It has always been a principle that, if there is genuinely scope for controversy about whether an item meets the criteria or not, then CSD is not appropriate.
And there is a basic reason for that: where there is controversy, we have discussion. CSD tags don't get discussed. Particularly for images, things that get tagged get deleted, often at 5 edits a minute "to clear the backlog". There's no guarantee that a {{hangon}} tag will get considered, nor generally any discussion from an admin who chooses to ignore it. Of course, if it's not your own item, you could always try and edit war the tag, but that's not very constructive either.
At best, CSD is battlefield summary justice. The danger is that, if it becomes the norm, like any summary justice all too often it may turn into injustice, which is pure poison to the community spirit that makes people put their time into WP.
That's why the principle has always been, if there is genuine scope for controversy about whether an item meets the criteria or not, to take it to a community forum like IfD or AfD or NFCR where it will be properly discussed, and with luck get input from a wider range of editors. And it's why I would continue to question whether CSD:I7 is appropriate at all for images, except in the most non-controversial cases; and why it seems entirely appropriate to me, that people should be able to remove these tags and say, take it to IFD if you really think there's an issue. Jheald (talk) 23:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
WP:F talks about "an image which does not comply with this policy" will be deleted. That, to me, suggests cases where it is cut-and-dried, non-controversial, that the image does not comply.
Policy doesn't say "an image which some editors feel does not comply with this policy" should be deleted summarily. For the reasons I've given above CSD is not a well-formed process for images where it is not cut-and-dried, non-controversial, that the image does not comply.
Practice has always been that it is a good thing for deletions which may be debatable to be referred to a forum which encourages discussion and wider participation. That practice should continue. Jheald (talk) 10:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I have always interpreted "non-controversial" as that nobody reasonable could object, or that nobody who understands the issue could in good faith object. If someone puts in total spam or a article about a total nonentity & I remove it as G11 or G7, if they ask for it back so it can go to AfD, I will say no, because part of the purpose is to to save work at AfD. If a regular ed. here asks, and gives a reason, that's another matter & of course it makes it controversial and I'll let others decide. DGG (talk) 09:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Thoughts on G7 (was "non controversial")
In the above thread, Stifle pointed out that G6 was the only criterion that had to be truly 100% "non controversial". However, I would argue that G7 should also be uncontested. This post to WP:AN/I describes a situation where the original creator of an article comes back after 3 years and blanks "his" article because "he didn't want to be involved with WP anymore". (article later deleted via prod). I remember another case, can't remember where it was discussed, where an editor blanks 2 articles he created apparently because he "lost" an AFD debate.
It should be made clear to those who create articles that "courtesy deletions" under G7 are just that, a "courtesy" that may or may not be granted by the community and they should consider this before offering their contributions. If anybody objects (either by unblanking an article or removing a db-author tag) then the article needs to go through one of the normal deletion processes and articles deleted under G7 should be automatically restored upon request. Anything more goes against the spirit of WP:OWN --Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The odd thing about G7 is that the only case in which it ought to be invoked (in article space) is in a case where the article is going to be deleted anyway, because it's not useful to the encyclopedia; but then isn't it redundant? G7 only seems to make sense only in cases where the author provides information about the article that would inevitably lead to deletion (e.g. "this was just a hoax"), but you hardly need G7 in that case when WP:IAR will do fine. Can anyone give a reason not to eliminate this criterion? Dcoetzee19:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Because G7 applies to all namespaces, and so covers testpages, template cleanup, general self-maintenance, pagemove redirects, and other things that are simply good wiki-tidiness. I suspect that a large number, possibly a majority, of G7 deletions are where the admin is both "nominator" and deleter. This is IMO one of the most valuable criteria. Happy‑melon20:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Also, I don't think WP:IAR would do fine anywhere. CSD should be a IAR-free-zone, so it's a good thing to have strict criteria. SoWhy20:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
IAR is overused on speedies but there are occasions for it's use. A recent case was of an article called "Fuck you Joe Shmoe". (not the actual name) A G10 was declined on it because at the time it technically didn't apply to article titles. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I see no use for IAR even in that example. Even if the content is valid, the article could be moved and the resulting redirect deleted as R3. You see, there is no need to invoke IAR. And of course, there was never any doubt that G10 applies to article titles as well. It was just clarified, but as I pointed out, it could have been handled without invoking IAR with the existing criteria. SoWhy07:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the person who said that G10 doesn't apply to article names. The article name is part of the page, and thus if the article exists solely to disparage the subject, then it should be deleted. And while I agree with SoWhy that CSD should be an IAR free zone, I also recognize that we have IAR for a valid reason. We can't anticipate every scenario. IAR may be necessary on occassion, but if you are calling upon it repeatedly, then either the criteria need to be updated or your use of IAR needs to be tamed---most likely the later.---I'm Spartacus!The artist formerly known as Balloonman16:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
At the time of the "fuck you" incident, it apparently either didn't apply to article names or it wasn't clear. This led to two "declined" A10s on the page and it having to go to AFD. The incident prompted this bold edit to the project page. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Myself, I will not delete an article on a proper subject with good content at the request of its editor. (I basically agree with Ron R). But I think this criterion extremely useful in many instances. The purpose of this in article space is for content that is better rewritten completely, of deferred, or where the material should be presented somewhere else, or removed, or which the author realises cannot be supported. The typical case is a prod or an afd, where the author wants to say, OK, let it go. In fact, when I notify about the prod notification, I often suggest doing just that. Or I suggest it when I suggest rewriting a somewhat spammy article as an alternative to fixing it. DGG (talk) 09:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed... IMO, if an article has been around for 3 years, even if there is only one primary author, then the article has probably had scores/hundreds of eyes on it over the years. This means that deleting it would be controversial. G7 is for cases where a reasonable argument could be made that the original author "owns" the article. I know, nobody owns articles here at WP, but a G7 courtesy is really a request to get an article out of the main space before too many people see it/edit it. If it's been around for 3 years existing under the GFDL, then the original creator lost all rights to making such a request 2 years and 11 months ago.---I'm Spartacus!The artist formerly known as Balloonman20:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Template
See User:Dylan620/CSD/template. I have created a CSD template to replace the automatic one created by Twinkle, which is currently down. To use the template, substitute {{{1}}} with the name of the page being tagged for speedy deletion, and substitute {{{2}}} with your username. You must substitute the template. It is meant to inform users that pages they have created have been tagged for speedy deletion in accordance with the criteria for speedy deletion. Here's an example about how it would be used. Let's just say I tagged Dylan620 for speedy deletion. I would type:
I've made the heading a level3 heading, so that it's considered to be in the thread you started, when archived. My feedback is: You can still use the notification templates mentioned in the SD tags themselves, or the ones that Twinkle uses, e.g. {{subst:db-g1-notice|name of article}} or {{subst:db-a7-notice|name of article}}. They are all named like that. --Amalthea18:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
During a recent DRV Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 February 1 for a CSD G10 speedy deletion of a redirect (Saint Pancake) that resulted in the deletion-recreation-deletion in a short amount of time by three administrators, the closing admin accepted the argument that rather than reverting a deletion to then submit to XfD, the correct process for a CSD dispute should be to list in WP:DRV. I argued for this position, and I approached the nominating admin (User:Jclemens - who had also been the one to recreate the redirect after the initial CSD) to stress the point, he sustained that this was a wrong intepretation of policy, and that I should, if I disagree, try to modify applicable policy (please note I CSD tagged the redirect after St. Pancake had been CSDed without controversy a few days before and I found the Saint Pancake formula).
Since I believe this is an important point of process, and one that helps to keep wheel wars to a minimum, and I saw some community support for this, I think it is sensible to suggest that we discuss this as wide as possible to try and reach consensus.
My proposal is that we add the following line to WP:CSD:
If an article is deleted under any of the applicable Criteria for Speedy Deletion, this deletion can only be restored via WP:DRV discussion or via disciplinary discussion in the case of misuse of tools. Regular recreation of non-salted articles with new or improved content is allowed by any editors, and subjected to a regular process as if the article were entirely new, including further CSD if that is the case. Obvious mistakes and self-reversions do not require DRV.
I re-factored due to unclear status of non-restore recreation (ie with different content) and to clarify that no discussion is necessary for obvious mistakes and self-reversions.--Cerejota (talk) 13:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The spirit of the proposal is as follows:
Assumes good faith - It assumes no admin will delete a CSD tagged page without it fitting the CSD (only reason to undelete), and that if this was the case, it gets a fair hearing by the community in DRV. This removes the need for an admin to revert a "wrong" CSD (see #3).
Avoid redundancy between CSD and WP:PROD - If any admin that disputes a CSDed article can recreate, then CSD is a type of PROD, and we do not need two processes for the same thing. Of course, a result of this RfC could be recognition of this, and hence the elimination of CSD in favor of PROD or vice-versa. I hope not, but it can happen.
Avoid wheel-warring - If sole admins are able to undelete CSDs, based on their own criteria, they are essentially second guessing other admins. This can be misinterpreted as a comment on the deleting's admin judgement. To avoid personalizing an issue, and inviting wheel-warring, using the DRV process would prove more productive. Clarity removes the incentive for misinterpretation.
Clarify the Deletion Process and close a hole in the deletion paths - The deletion process in general has some clear paths: XfD->Discussion->Result->DRV or PROD->Waiting->Delete->DRV or PROD->Untag->XfD->Discussion->Result->DRV. CSD has its own path CSD->Hangon->Desicion->DRV?/XfD? and CSD->Deletion. There is no explicit path to resolve disagreements on result: there is an implied DRV recourse, but there is also admin discretion, which at least in the case that prompted this generated strong words. So I propose that we make an additional specific path explicit: CSD->Deletion->DRV. And that these paths be the only ones. Of course, other paths might be proposed, but this is what I am proposing.
Rather than being WP:CREEPy, I think this will fix something that was overlooked, and tha possible has to do with the days admins all knew each other and there where VfDs. Things have changed, and I think this is long overdue as a way to make the CSD process both fairer and less prone to any controversy. Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 10:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
There are a couple of things I don't like about that addition. Firstly it seems to say that even the deleting admin cannot restore the article even if they think they made a mistake. Secondly it does not allow any room for the 'clear mistake' - there was one case that I came across where an MP's page had been vandalised and then was speedy deleted as a G3 vandalism page. It was an obvious mistake so rather than wasting time as the deleting admin was no longer online I restored the page and then notified the deleting admin what I had done. They agreed it it was a simple mistake where they had forgotten to check the history.
Also the Deletion policy already includes the wording "If a page has been speedily deleted and there is disagreement over whether or not it should have been, this is discussed at deletion review, described below." This to my mind is a much better wording as it emphasises that deletion review should only be used when there is a dispute not when it is obviously non controversial. If you want to include that wording here as well then we could do but I don't really see the need for it to be in both places. Davewild (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
There is a key difference in this case: the redirect was deleted, the recreated, then retagged, then redeleted by third admin. Clearly, the Deletion Policy was unclear in this case. We need more clarity. Perhaps a rewording to accomodate "obvious mistakes" and of course "self-revertions" should be done.--Cerejota (talk) 13:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Surely if one admin thinks an article should be speedy deleted and another doesn't, then it should be taken to AFD? Re-deletion by the original admin, unless agreed between the two, seems like the action that should result in a disciplinary discussion. What about cases where the deleting admin agrees to undelete the article because someone presents them with additional information (e.g. sources, further information that indicates notability) that convinces them that the article should at least be given a chance to be improved? Insisting on DRV or some disciplinary discussion in such cases would not seem helpful.--Michig (talk) 10:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
To say it with Havelock Vetinari: "Si non confectus, non reficiat" - "If it's not broken, don't fix it". It is already policy that any contested deletion, not only AFDs, should go to DRV, if the deleting admin does not agree to restore the article himself. There is nothing to change. If another admin restores a valid CSD against the deleting admin's decision (or if he/she deletes an article after another admin declined to delete it), then that's wheel-warring anyway and not allowed. There is no reason to change CSD policy just because some people ignore existing policies - who says they will heed the changes? Also, I don't want anything in the policy that sounds like the only reason for the deleting admin to restore an article is "misuse of tools". Mistakes happen after all. Regards SoWhy11:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree the restoring after delete is pulling wheelies, but in the case that prompted the RfC, the restoring admin specifically says that is not the case. I think we need clarity in this respect. Something is clearly broken when we had the kind of DRV we had for what should have been a SNOWBALL CSD-G10. A little clarity never hurt anyone. --Cerejota (talk) 13:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
It's rare that I disagree with SoWhy, but in this case I do. The strength of Wikipedia, is that most actions can be reversed by another. The actions of one admin are not sacrosant above those of another admin, and thus, can and should be reversable. Especially when dealing with CSD. CSD should only be applied when the case is obvious and non controversial, the fact that another admin is willing to reverse the actions of the first, is a clear sign that the original deletion might not be obvious/non-controversial. Simply reversing the actions of another, is not wheel warring, it only becomes wheel warring when you get into a pattern of delete recreate delete... Plus, if an author is actually working on an article, and the article was speedied, then said author should be able to make a request that any admin can fill to restore the article. Any admin should be able (and willing) to restore articles that were speedily deleted. DRV, in my opinion, should not be required for an article that was deleted by a single user.---I'm Spartacus!The artist formerly known as Balloonman15:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
If someone deletes something under criterion "G6", they are stating that it's "non-controversial". But if another admin disagrees enough to undelete, that's no longer true. --NE211:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like that if we have the article Bob Johnson that is created and says only "Bob Johnson (1886-1959) was an athlete born in New York City and died in Los Angeles." This could be speedied as no assertion of notability. Now, in fact lets say Bob Johnson was not only an athlete, but a three time gold medal winner in the Olympics and Congressional Medal of Honor winner from WWI. So under the proposed guidelines, in order to re-create the article I would need to go through DRV and that process instead of simply re-creating the article with sourced information to address the problem that led to CSD. That would be a waste of time, time we could be spending writing articles instead of creating more CREEP. The current "if it was speedied or proded means you can re-create if you address the problems" makes sense. Sending these to yet another process does not. After all, if then get through the DRV, you may still face an AFD. More processes are not needed. Aboutmovies (talk) 11:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you are missing something. Unless the article is WP:SALTed, if the new version is significantly different to not fall under CSD, the DRV process is mooted. There are many cases of CSD article re-emerging a few hours later as full-fledged articles or even valid stubs. In fact, I have tagged articles, they have been deleted. That is not what we ar etalking about here. We are talking about how admins are able to restore the deleted version not a regular different content recreation. I was not clear. I will refactor the RfC for this purpose. --Cerejota (talk) 13:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
No, I wasn't missing anything. Your proposal outlined above has this outcome.
"So I propose that we make an additional specific path explicit: CSD->Deletion->DRV. And that these paths be the only ones." (emphasis added)
So, if my hypo is not the proposed outcome and you would like to avoid these situations (a situation which recently occurred to me that included a waste of time DRV force fed by an admin), then you do need to change your proposed outcome. CSD guidelines are not just for admins, they are for everyone. Aboutmovies (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
First to state my bias: I am an admin who reverses many deletions. Notwithstanding statements in existing policy, I believe AfD is the best venue to resolve disputes between admins about whether an article should be deleted, because CSD is fundamentally about noncontroversial deletions; if we had a crystal ball, we'd only need one criterion: only speedy delete articles whose AfD discussions would turn out "clear delete." Now I posit: if an uninvolved admin would restore an article, and they would vote "Keep" at its AfD, what are really the chances of its discussion turning out "clear delete"? DRV's charter is to review process; they cannot determine whether the article merits inclusion, and they cannot admonish the deleting admin. It's a waste of time. This is doubly pointless in cases where the restoring admin has new information to add that makes the article ineligible for speedy deletion.
Added note: I will generally try to discuss the restore first, but not with admins who make a habit of ignoring me, or admins who make poor deletions faster than the discussion can keep up with them. Dcoetzee11:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Dcoetzee. Speedy deletion was instituted in the first place with the justification of cutting out AfDs that would be obvious deletes and hence a waste of time. Any user should be able to restore speedy deletions. If someone does, then it's an indication that it's not such an obvious delete after all. Then the article goes to AfD if necessary. It seems the purpose of speedies has moved from anticipating consensus to power being vested in a single admin decision. That needs to be remedied. Ty11:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I meant "any user". Obviously a non-admin couldn't undelete, but could replace content, if they had a record, or restore an article with hopefully improved content. I recall it used to be said somewhere in the deletion guide that, because a speedy was the decision of one user without wider consensus, it was open to challenge by any user. That philosophy seems to have been eroded, but it, or some form of it, is worth considering for putting back in the deletion guide. Ty14:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
In some discussions over the past month, some editors said they believe ALL CSDs apply to non-controversial deletions. Of course, they didn't quite mean it in the G6 sense, but rather in the "the original uploader and his partisans may want to keep, but nobody else will." They recommended AFD for all deletions which were controversial. Others editors didn't go that far but did sat A7 and other "judgment required" categories should only be used for non-controversial cases, recognizing that copyvio and a few other things are almost always clear-cut. As stated above, if another administrator undoes a deletion, it indicates a possible controversy. In cases like this, the first step should be a pow-wow between the involved admins, the second step should be either AFD if the last action was to restore or DRV if the last action was to delete. I also don't see any problem with summary restores if there was a clear mistake, such as "article by banned user" if it later came out that the tagging as a banned user was premature or flat out wrong. Obvious mistakes like this should be summarily undone even if the deleting administrator has gone offline and is unavailable for discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Interestingly in the last 12 hours I have undeleted a few articles that were speedied as vandalism, which was correct because the intent was to create an article with a partisan alternate name to an existing piece (with all the problems of cut'n'paste to boot), so that I could make them redirects to the existing article on the premise that there would be those who would search under those terms - I also then protected the redirects so that it could not again be used for vandalistic purposes, a form of WP:SALTing. I did this as part of an exercise where I did the same for other pages which had not yet been speedied, denying the request and making them redirects. My point is that I was either BOLD or invoked IAR in doing this to resolve a matter of partisan vandalism, and a more hardline approach in requiring DRV would have been counterproductive; I took 100 minutes (manually) to affect all my changes, but needing to argue the case for each deleted page at DRV would have both expanded the time spent considerably and also left the situation in abeyance with the possibility that if any were left deleted then there would be discontinuity within the articles group (especially because the SD was correct on the face of it). Under the current wording, I think bold actions such as mine are far easier to justify and I would be against making it harder. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Had you simply created and protected a redirect, it would've been outside the scope of the original deletion, as the article would not have been undeleted nor the original content restored. Deletion and undeletion is about making or hiding the edit history and allowing or not allowing re-creation of material similar to what was previously deleted. Except for inappropriate article names, It's not about the existence of an article or redirect with a given name. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I suppose, but undeleting which keeps the edit history for future reference (which provides the understanding of why it was deleted and then undone as a redirect) is an option - one which might be more difficult with a more stringent wording. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
This is functionally redundant to WP:WHEEL. I don't want to have to go to DRV for every deleted article I restore. On the other hand, if I am obviously reversing a good faith admin action (the deletion or recreation in some cases), especially if I am doing it multiple times, that is a problem. E.g. Under this proposal, LHVU's actions (noted above) to reverse my deletions would have been forbidden--that despite the fact they are eminently reasonable. Protonk (talk) 14:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't want extra rules. I am sure people can reasonably disagree with my speedy deletions, and hope they will overturn them without unnecessary process. Admin actions are supposed to be reversible, and speedy deletions are not a big deal. Just do not speedy delete again without discussion after the action has been undone once. Kusma (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
As I fundamentally disagree with the rationale behind this proposal, I will rebut each of its primary points below:
Assumes good faith - It assumes no admin will delete a CSD tagged page without it fitting the CSD (only reason to undelete), and that if this was the case, it gets a fair hearing by the community in DRV. This removes the need for an admin to revert a "wrong" CSD (see #3).
We already make the first assumption: admins are given the authority to speedy delete in one step, and speedy deleting outside of the criteria is either ignoring rules or abuse. While assuming good faith is a good policy, it should not thwart the concept that humans can and do make mistakes.
Avoid redundancy between CSD and WP:PROD - If any admin that disputes a CSDed article can recreate, then CSD is a type of PROD, and we do not need two processes for the same thing. Of course, a result of this RfC could be recognition of this, and hence the elimination of CSD in favor of PROD or vice-versa. I hope not, but it can happen.
There is no redundancy between these processes. CSD is for "clear deletes" that come from categories of delete that we see all the time. PROD handles uncontroversial deletions that aren't typical enough, and takes 5 days to work, while speedy deletions can be actioned immediately. That both can be undeleted without a long, bureaucratic process does not imply that they are redundant to one another.
Avoid wheel-warring - If sole admins are able to undelete CSDs, based on their own criteria, they are essentially second guessing other admins. This can be misinterpreted as a comment on the deleting's admin judgement. To avoid personalizing an issue, and inviting wheel-warring, using the DRV process would prove more productive. Clarity removes the incentive for misinterpretation.
It is not wheel-warring if the deleting admin agrees with the undeleting admin. If a dispute begins, then deletion review, as a public forum for review and dispute resolution (regarding deletions), is applicable, in which case it is not strictly wheel-warring in that these admins should be willing to forgo reverts after the first, dispute-sparking one.
Clarify the Deletion Process and close a hole in the deletion paths - The deletion process in general has some clear paths: XfD->Discussion->Result->DRV or PROD->Waiting->Delete->DRV or PROD->Untag->XfD->Discussion->Result->DRV. CSD has its own path CSD->Hangon->Desicion->DRV?/XfD? and CSD->Deletion. There is no explicit path to resolve disagreements on result: there is an implied DRV recourse, but there is also admin discretion, which at least in the case that prompted this generated strong words. So I propose that we make an additional specific path explicit: CSD->Deletion->DRV. And that these paths be the only ones. Of course, other paths might be proposed, but this is what I am proposing.
While the process for this might be unclear, perhaps this one point is worth fixing, by simply explaining the current path, which is essentially CSD→Hangon→Deletion→Talk to deleting admin→DRV, where the steps Hangon, Talk to deleting admin, and DRV might lead to the page being left undeleted, assuming that the CSD criterion invoked is (initially found to be) valid. If the criterion invoked is not valid, then the tagging of the page will be reverted. I believe you're also crossing multiple paths: some processes are used in conjunction with one another where the nominator feels that the page should be deleted, but each process has a relatively simple flow. I'm sure someone would be willing to draw a flow chart for the current deletion processes that explains how processes can lead into one another.
I strongly believe that we should not implement a proposal that suggests that all undeletions of speedied content must go through a bureaucratic process. While community input is nice, too much community input means too much backlog. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 15:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I see it being useful in situations such as Bolero Lava where it was deleted, restored, deleted, restored and deleted (not yet restored), with the restores all coming from the same admin, who appears to be a fan. (related: Moral Lepers) As it relates to placing a tag - A non-admin has no way of seeing this "behind the scenes" stuff until after the article is deleted, nor does a non-admin have any way of knowing if a deleted version was different than a "new" article on the same subject. Likewise, if an article has been deleted, a non-admin can not restore a deleted article because they are a fan or they feel "this is a notable subject", they have to 1> ask to have it userfied or 2> ask the deleting admin to restore it or 3> take it to DRV. As I understand this is a suggestion about the "administrator's guide", in a sense, the non-admin element does not matter, but use of admin tools and the "behind the scenes" stuff does. If an article is deleted, and an admin looks "behind the scenes" and can see an issue such as this, than I would agree that "this deletion can only be restored via WP:DRV discussion or via disciplinary discussion in the case of misuse of tools". Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The PROD deletion of Bolero Lava the second time was out of process. Any article that has had a PROD contested must be deleted through other processes, per Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. Regardless of the speedy deletion & restoration, the first restoration was entirely within proper bounds, as any admin may restore a contested PROD. --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
But doesn't that raise a secondary issue? Anyone can remove a PROD - including an admin. However only admins can restore something that has been deleted. Say I create an article called "Moonriddengirl is a helpful admin" and it is deleted - for whatever reason. A non-admin can not decide "This should not have been deleted" and restore it, there is a process involved. However, you, as an admin, can come in and undelete it saying "Moonriddengirl most certainly is notable." Maybe that was a bad example but you can replace your user name with any name of a subject you personally have knowledge of or are a fan of. If we accept the "first" restore as being acceptable no matter what the reason given, repeated reversions should not be blindy accepted if done by the same admin for the same basic reasons - and that is where the suggestion would kick in. Soundvisions1 (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think the initial statement represents correctly what i tried to say in the closing statement. First of all i was only referring to deletions per G10 which are certainly not comparable to notability or housekeeping deletions. They refer to content that is problematic or at least deemed so by one administrator. In that sense they lie somewhere between an ordinary CSD and a special BLP motivated deletion. For the former case of standard CSD we have some leeway in undoing things, and should continue to have as long as it improves the encyclopedia. For the latter we have per Arbcom a clear statement that they shouldn't be restored at all and in case of dispute be evaluated at DRV. The second aspect is the state of the dispute and how it is best resolved, whether it is more about the application of the speedy deletion or about evaluating the potential of a page; XfD is best for the latter but we generally don't discuss there contested deletions as copyright-violation or spam. With respect to both points i understood the above mentioned DRV in the sense that if an administrator maintains that his deletion is a case for g10, then DRV is the right venue. That abstracted somewhat from the delete-restore-delete chain of events, so let me just add that personally i don't remember to have restored a g10 deletion or seen one of mine restored or re-delete anything after restoration. In general, i think, discussing early helps a lot including identification of the right venue to proceed if necessary. So I am against above rule. Nevertheless, if the g10 case is seen by many as more sensitive, it may be worthwhile to clarify that one further.-Tikiwont (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
What Stifle said. Moreover, one of the very first instructions at DRV is that you should try to work thing out without DRV first, so... — Gavia immer (talk)16:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with this proposal; like prods, if there is any question whatsover that the page shouldn't be deleted, it should be restored and go straight to XfD. If a CSD is controversial enough that it leads to the kind of wheelwarring you describe, it had no business being deleted under CSD in the first place, period. DRV is process-y and complicated, and not watched by nearly as many people as AfD; and the point of CSD in the first place as someone pointed out was to simply reduce the load on AfD by quickly deleting nonsense, etc. I don't like this sense of mission creep in CSD, and feel that the best way to assume good faith is always to turn an article over to the (slightly fairer) AFD process, when in doubt. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose - At times, it may be clear that the deleting admin made a mistake - such as an A7 deletion of a page which survived an AfD. What I think should be the rule - if an admin speedy deletes a page, an other admin undeletes it, and some admin (other than the undeleting one) re-deletes it for the same reason - then it shouldn't be undeleted except for DRV. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu15:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose. I have restored an incorrect speedy once in a while and never seen any reason they should go to DRV. However, I do drop a note to both the person who requested speedy deletion and the deleting admin saying (in a nice way) why I think the article didn't meet the criteria and inviting them to take it to AfD if they disagree with me. I can't remember a single time where they did so -- it's always been a case of someone going a bit too fast and not reading the article before hitting delete. Why tie up DRV if a minnow (or trout) will take care of the issue?--Fabrictramp | talk to me17:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Nice of you to have followed my advice. I would, however, prefer to have heard about your attempt to change policy from you, rather than from the Signpost. I still maintain that the fundamentally improper thing in that whole event was that User:BlackKite's re-deletion of the redirect constituted wheel warring. The proper process would have been to take the contested CSD to RfD while it still was live, once it was clear that G10 was contested, so that the matter could be discussed there. The redirect, as of this writing, has still never gotten a hearing in RfD. Jclemens (talk) 07:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose This is overly bureaucratic and rather pointless. Recreations should only go to DRV if they need to, not because of a creepy policy. I see no reason to assume that no admin will delete a CSD tagged page without it fitting the CSD. Some admins do not fully understand—or correctly apply—the criteria or will delete without fully assessing the article; all admins make mistakes. In cases such as these I fail to see why the two admins can't just talk it over in the first instance—going to DRV if there is no agreement to recreate. Rje (talk) 10:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose - It's easy enough to state that obvious mistakes would not require DRV, but then there would just be argumemnts over whether the mistake was obvious enough. And, per phoebe, if there is such a question about whether the page should be deleted, it should not have been speedied. Rlendog (talk) 02:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Questions
While it's clear that User:Cerejota's proposal does not have support here, based on the responses above I still have a great deal of uncertainty around the correct process for dealing with incorrect speedy deletions. Here are some of the questions I have:
In the case of a clearly incorrect speedy deletion, should the restoring admin still contact the deleting admin before taking action? For example, say an admin deletes an article on a well-known artist as a "hoax" or deletes a major S&P 500 corporation under G12.
If the deleting admin is nonresponsive, may an article be restored without their consent? What's a reasonable period of time to wait for a response?
If the deleting admin maintains that their deletion is correct, or does not respond, should they be responsible for nominating the article for AfD, or should the restoring admin do so on their behalf?
If the restoring admin has uncertainty about whether or not the criterion was correctly applied, should they restore or should they send to DRV?
Finally, should there be information on this page or on another page answering these questions for future reference and/or providing a step-by-step process for restoring speedy deletions?
Well, as with everything, reversing another admin requires displaying good judgement. If the deletion is clearly incorrect, I will just directly revert; their consent is not required. In this case I would notify the deleting admin after I had taken the action. If they maintain that the deletion was correct, then there are two paths open: if the deleting admin is willing to send it to Afd, then they can do so; if not, then it is the restoring admin's responsibility to take it to DRV, as they are the ones challenging the deletion.
If I am uncertain about whether the criterion was correctly applied, then I will ask the deleting admin about it. If they fail to respond after a few days, or if I see that they've been active after I left the message on their talk page and they still haven't responded, then I would consider that license to take whatever action I deemed necessary (straight undelete, undelete and PROD, undelete and AFD, or DRV). If I just undelete without taking it to PROD, AFD or DRV, then any further objection from the deleting admin would necessitate my taking it to DRV if I still felt there was a mistake. If I don't feel unsure enough to reverse it, even without response from the deleting admin, then I would probably get a third admin to comment on the matter, and then maybe take it to DRV if I'm still unsure.
As for any advice we put on the page here, it should be something like this:
To request the undeletion of a page deleted under these criteria, first leave a message on the user talk page of the deleting administrator. If they do not respond, or are otherwise unwilling to undelete the article, then please post a request at Wikipedia:Deletion review.
That's what a non-admin should be doing anyhow; it's only an admin that would have to worry about the things I outlined in my first two paragraphs, obviously.--Aervanath (talk) 07:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I think that the sensible way is to treat speedies like prods, which don't engender this kind of process controversy. The original proposal was exactly in the wrong direction. It's a reasonable reading of current policy to insist on taking speedies to DRV, but this is a rule that is usually and properly ignored, and should be changed. (Indeed, always using DRV can be unfeasible in practice - see LessHeard vanU above). Why should DRV ever be used instead of AfD for strongly disputed speedies? If the restoring admin (or editor) thinks there was a mistake, let him restore the article, and do whatever else she thinks necessary. Almost all the time when a speedy delete will be undeleted, the speedy will be a mistake, and it is a waste of time to take it to DRV. Maybe there should be more pro-deletion bias for articles which intrinsically don't belong - copyvios and attack pages, but those are not usual sources of disputes. Speedy deletions are different from most other admin actions in that they are done quickly and in great numbers. Errors, differences in knowledge which people base their judgment on and differences of interpretation are inevitable, and disputes don't show bad judgment or call for particularly good judgment by anyone. The right attitude should be that (non-attack, non-copyvio) speedies and their reversion are no biggie. The tiny fraction which continue to be disputed should just go to AfD.John Z (talk) 08:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Mcjakeqcool, it is very difficult to answer such questions when you don't specify which image you're talking about. If you mean File:Ancel_Miyamoto_Raynal.png, the reason for seeking deletion is specified on the filee page I have linked, which you can find by clicking on the image as it appears in the article. In this case, the image is used under a claim of "fair use", but it is asserted that it does not meet our non-free content criteria. Such images are deleted. If you mean some other image, the file description page associated with it should have similar information on why deletion is being pursued. There's no need to post in multiple places asking for this information, since you can find it yourself. — Gavia immer (talk)21:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Proposed change to A7
An article about a real person, an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significantand for which the subject is likely not notable. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people and organizations themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software and so on. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion. If the claim is missing but the subject might be notable, you should add a claim of importance.
The underlined text will be added sans underlining. This basically says to taggers "don't tag stuff A7 if you know it could be notable" and to admins "if you've heard of this subject, do a cursory investigation before speedying it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
A7 has a lower standard than notability for a reason. I appreciate your concerns but I don't think it's helpful to the problem at hand. "Important or significant" is already less than notable and if people do it wrong with the current wording, I see no reason to believe that they will do a better job at it with your changes. SoWhy20:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
This is unlikely to get support, partly because it requires the admin to make a subjective judgement call about notability, and partly because it requires the admin to do research, which could be prohibitively costly when handling many articles. Dcoetzee20:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The criterion as it stands already requires a subjective judgement call about importance or significance, so the subjectiveness is not a new requirement. Phil Bridger (talk) 02:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Maybe this is slightly different from what is being proposed here, but I think it would be good to change "An article about..." to "An unsourced article about...". This would help our enthusiastic new page patrollers to avoid tagging articles such as this, this and this. Phil Bridger (talk) 02:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Adding "unsourced" would completely change the way of A7. Newbies do not know about sources, they will usually fail to bring them. Your proposal would increase the amount of speedy deletions with no benefit in return.
No, your examples show something else: Many new page patrollers are deletionistic in their attitude towards new articles and they make mistakes - and they make them often. But there is no indication whatsoever that they won't make them if we change the text of the criterion. No, the phrasing is not the problem, it's the problem that it's ignored. The way to battle this is more complicated: Decline decline decline. And if you notice a user to make multiple mistakes, leave them a {{uw-csd}} and tell them how it's done correctly. That's more stressful than changing the wording but it's the only way that might work... SoWhy07:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose both changes as instruction creep. It's hard enough to stem the sewage flow at WP:NPP without taggers being forced to investigate articles (especially of the "hey, there's no article about me on Wikipedia, I should add one" type) for how they could possibly be notable. I also concur with SoWhy and Dcoetzee. Stifle (talk) 11:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Oppose while I think CSD'ers can distinquish themselves from one another by working on the articles they come accross, their job/interest is not write/rewrite the encyclopedia. Heck, in some cases, they might not be qualified to make such an assertation. Eg I lack the technical knowledge to make a valid claim to an article on String Theory. If I tried, my attempt may turn out to be the equivalence to vandalism! This isn't because I am dumb, but rather because I lack the knowledge to make a meaningful contribution to the article.---I'm Spartacus!The artist formerly known as Balloonman16:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
support though I m not sure of the wording. I certainly have always interpreted it this way, but weaker, essentially " and it is reasonably clear that the subject is not in fact notable" We';re not here to speedy delete articles about thingsthat actually are notable because people provide no indication. I doubt, in fact, if any admin actually doesdelete articles under A7 where he knows for sure the subject is notable. The approprate tag for notable articles with insufficient demonstration of this are one or more of {[expand}}, {{improvereferences}}, {{unsourced}} . That's what they are there for. DGG (talk) 05:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I use notability here as equivalent to "importance" not sourcing per the GNG. I see there can be some confusion about this, so I reword the proposal:
An article about a real person, an group of real people (e.g. band, club, group, company, or organization), or web content, that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and for which the subject is overwhelming likely to not be important or significant, and for which there is no suitable content to be merged into another article. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion applies only to articles about web content and to articles about people and organizations themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software and so on. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance' even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. If the claim's credibility is unclear, or importance uncertain,you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, list the article at articles for deletion, or propose a merge. This criterion does not apply to schools, or to products, or to non-human subjects.
The difference is that an "assertion" of significance is (somewhat) more objective than mere "significance" itself; it's identifiable text in the article that makes a claim that the subject is significant. This does not (ideally) require research. To give a hypothetical example, if I wrote an article that said "John Doe is a historical painter from Wales," your modified criterion would require the deleting admin to go out and figure out who this guy is and whether he's important before deleting - which may be impossible, because the only sources about John Doe may be in print. We can only objectively base speedy deletion criteria on the content of the article, not its topic. Dcoetzee07:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Proposed amendment of A7 to include Songs
I would like to amend CSD A7 to include the following text, underlined, and eliminating the struck through text (for proper grammar):
An article about a real person, an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), a song, or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion applies only to articles about songs, web content,and to articles about people and organizations themselves, not to articles about their books, albums, software and so on. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at articles for deletion.
I've seen a LOT of these popping up at AFD and PROD, and 99% of the time they are deleted. Nevertheless, new articles about songs are constantly being created. Songs are not notable in and of themselves, and songs without even a basic assertion of notability beyond mere existence should be speedy deleted. Every time i've seen one of these prodded, they have been either contested (and deleted at AFD) by the author, or deleted uncontroversially. I think it would make a good addition to A7. FirestormTalk22:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I suspect the original poster is unaware of A9. It represents the current consensus around speedy deletion of musical recordings. Dcoetzee22:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)It should, but A9 also has the clause saying that the author's article must have been deleted or never existed. Just because somebody with an article releases a song, doesn't make it fit for inclusion. FirestormTalk22:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
That's true - but it does make it unfit for speedy deletion, according to current consensus (there's a lot of past discussion on this, forgive me for not digging up links at the moment). Mainly, it requires too much specialist knowledge that a single admin does not possess to evaluate a (possibly implicit) assertion of significance in such an article. AfD is more appropriate for songs that need to be evaluated against notability guidelines like WP:MUSIC. Dcoetzee22:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I was unaware that there was a significant amount of discussion and consensus on this issue. My concern was that every time somebody (especially the pop artists that are popular with teenagers right now) releases an album, articles are created on all the songs on it. The way I see it, its becoming the new WP:Pokémon test, or it will shortly. If points like these have already been brought up, then I have no problem withdrawing my proposed amendments. I was aware of A9's existence, just not the consensus that had been built up around it. FirestormTalk23:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
If the artist does have an article and the song isn't notable, WP:MUSIC says redirecting to the album, discography article, or artist's article is appropriate. That's why A9 says the artist must not have a current article.--Fabrictramp | talk to me23:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
to figure out is a song or a book or other creative work is possibly notable takes a little work,and some knowledge of the probably genre. Since there are a number of admins who will routinely delete anything without clear referenced notability on the face of the article as submitted without bothering to check if it might be notable, and since this is the sort of article often written inadequately by beginning users who do not yet know how to do things so they'll survive our processes, it would be very dangerous to have such articles on speedy. I've never seen one that couldn't wait 5 days for prod. 06:54, 26 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)
I concur with DGG (note the date; that doesn't happen often :)). This seems like it's covered under our existing processes, viz:
Songs where the artist has no article or the article has been deleted can already be deleted under CSD:A9.
Songs where the artist has an article can be redirected to the album, discography, or artist, pet Fabrictramp.
Stifle, our agreement on things at Wikipedia is happening more and more--I think this may be the 2nd or 3rd time this week.DGG (talk) 15:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Action in case of wrong rationale
I'm new to this deleting thing, having just been "promoted". I was wondering what people generally do when they come across an incorrectly tagged article which would meet another criterion. For example, I have just looked at one labelled as G6 which is wrong, but it would satisfy R3. Do they decline it? Or just delete it under the correct criterion? Thanks, Martinmsgj10:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
You can delete any article that you come across if you conclude that it meets one of the CSD criteria. It doesn't matter whether it's (1) tagged correctly, (2) tagged incorrectly, or (3) not tagged at all.
That said, some admins coming across an article in categories (2) or (3) will tag the article with the tag they think applies, and wait for another admin to delete it. The main reason for this practice, I think, is that these admins recognize that they may sometimes be mistaken about the applicability of speedy deletion (everybody makes mistakes sometimes), and an incorrect deletion, unlike an ordinary article edit, can only be reverted by another admin. So these admins conclude that it's better for at least two users to agree on why speedy deletion is appropriate for the particular article before the article is actually deleted. 160.39.213.152 (talk) 12:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The IP is correct. The tagging is nothing but a notice, telling admins to review if the article meets CSD. And like most admins, most taggers will also make mistakes (you will come across at least one admin for example who is tagging a lot of things as spam that fail G11) and you need to review those cases. If you are sure they fit another criteria, delete them as such. If you have doubts, tag it and wait for someone else to review it.
PS: And don't be shy to remove tags completely if you think an article is mistagged. Many users are overeager when tagging and you need to decline those speedies. For example, I made a count and I have declined more than 900 speedies compared to approx. 3000 pages I deleted, so 25% (at least!) are mistaggings. Regards SoWhy15:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Normally, I retag and let someone else judge, but not always if it is totally unquestionable, such as if i check and find copyvio. I will also by myself change the reason for deletion when I think it impolitic, such as downgrading G10 (attack) to A7 (no indication for notability) or A7 to G2 (test page) or G3 (vandalism) to G2. (in these cases, sometimes on the basis of WP:DENY). DGG (talk) 16:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Like DGG, I retag and get another set of eyes on it, unless I see a lot of harm to the encyclopedia in leaving the page up for a few more minutes. (Attack and copyvio are areas where I'm more willing to unilaterally delete). While I have a good track record with my speedy deletions, IMO it's almost always better to have that second set of eyes on things. If nothing else, it shows there was some consensus for the deletion. I also tend to leave a friendly note (yes, I explicitly say "friendly note" in my note) for the original tagger. If it's a relatively new editor, or one with a history of mistaggings, I tell them what I did and why I think their rationale was incorrect. If it's an experienced editor, I invite them to tell me what they saw that I missed about the tagging, because they might have been right and I might learn something valuable.--Fabrictramp | talk to me16:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with all the points raised here. The reason I raised the question is that I thought it might encourage careless tagging if editors saw that the pages were deleted anyway even with the wrong tag. On another note I must say I am having difficulty deciding whether pages meet some of the criteria (for example, what does blatant actually mean in terms of advertising?) If there was a page somewhere with examples of pages which are considered to meet the criteria and those which do not, it would be quite useful to new admins. Martinmsgj17:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
As for G11, I like to quote WilyD: "In essence, if you blanked out the promotional/spammy bits, you should be starring at a blank page.". I think that allows a pretty clear application of G11.
As for mistaggings, I suggest you delete anyway if you are sure, the criteria apply. You can use {{uw-csd}} to tell the bad taggers about their incorrect taggings if you notice one making multiple mistakes. Regards SoWhy17:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Also note that you're not required to delete anything. It's quite common to come across what're technically A7s where you'll get a feeling in you're gut that they have potential. Feel free to fix up, move to PROD or AFD or whatnot if you're hesitant. C:CSD is often full of very borderline cases where no one wants to take responsibility and delete it, but no one wants to decline the asking either. That's just silly. WilyD17:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Enforcement of Speedy Deletion Template Removal via Bot
I have recently filed a BRFA as well as opened a thread on the village pump concerning enforcement of the speedy deletion template via a bot. Any comments or concerns about such bot would be appreciated at either page. —Nn123645 (talk) 06:14, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia-Books on its on (ie B1, B2)
I fully support the G13 proposal above (and most of the proposed amendments), but think, based on looking at the books that we could have additional specific criteria solely for Wikipedia-books:
B1 - Wikipedia-Book has no linked articles, but not empty. Doesn't apply to those in userspace.
B2 - Wikipedia-Book contains only one article. Doesn't apply to those in userspace.
Let me explain:
For both: While nonsense, tests and vandalic creations are covered by G1-G2-G3, there could be otherwise valid articles created in this space by inexperienced users, or even by mistake. So it makes sense to allow admins to delete with speed, and for non-admins to tag as such, so that MfD, or any other future XfD, doesn't overload with WP:SNOW cases.
B1 - There are a couple of examples I have seen that have no article but have editing as regular pages. These should be deleted, as the "Wikipedia-Books" are supposed to be collections of articles, not articles in their own right.
B2- This is to avoid being redundant. We have a handy "print article" link if one wants to print a single article. I see no valid reason why someone would want to pay to have a Wikipedia-Book printed of a single article.
And neither should apply to books saved to userspace, because those books are not explicitly community maintained, so they don't clutter the list and hence the need to have them speedy deleted is much less.--Cerejota (talk) 08:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Can we explicitly state to not automatically delete a talk page of an image moved to Commons? I don't know why you would want that, ever. ~ JohnnyMrNinja08:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I've seen this before, where newbies create a new "comments page" for something that belongs on the article's talkpage. I copy and pasted the comment at the article's talkpage and blanked this page. At one point there was something like a "maintainance category" within the CSD's, but it seems to have disappeared. If this was a whole drama, I don't really care, but what I would like to know is what to do with this page. Is is speedy eligible on other grounds?--brewcrewer(yada, yada)21:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Not really an R3, with a useful page history. I wouldn't redirect however, that would leave us with a transclusion recursion error on the talk page, in the WikiProject banners. I'd say both blanking or deleting are OK (it's a signed comment, so deleting it wouldn't get us into GFDL trouble. FWIW, the maintainance criterion you were looking for is still there, at WP:CSD#G6. --Amalthea22:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The {{maths rating}} banner uses "comments" pages like this to handle showing and hiding comments discussing why the article was given the rating it was given. They serve a distinct purpose from the general talk page comments. So please don't merge or delete them without paying attention to such uses. In the case of Wheeler, it looks like the comments were part of a similar system for Physics article ratings, which you have broken by your merge; please undo. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The content that was placed wasn't related to any sort of rating. It's a general comment that looks like any other comment that usually goes on an article talkpage. In any case, I never heard of this "comment format". If you say it's an accepted MOS format, then go ahead and revert me. Don't be shy :-) --brewcrewer(yada, yada)23:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Have you looked at that comment, David? It is disputing a fact in the article, as a direct comment about the article content, and I'm sure it was intended for the talk page. The comment wasn't related to an assessment. Users sometimes notice the "edit comments" link in a WikiProject banner and think it's the appropriate place to leave a comment on the article. I'm convinced that it wasn't intended to end up there. --Amalthea00:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I would think that a comment taking issue with the accuracy of the article would have some bearing on its rating. Regardless, if it's misplaced, that's one thing, but this discussion started here with someone not realizing that subpages of that type had a purpose at all. They do. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, David. Mea maxima culpa. But what should we do with the comment that is apparently not rating-related but just a regular comment? --brewcrewer(yada, yada)00:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
The one on Wheeler? I don't see a lot of harm in leaving it where it is, but if you really think it belongs better on the actual talk page I won't undo your moving it there again. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, you'd think this could fall under G1 as a hoax, but I wouldn't consider this to be "patent nonsense", anyway. I think we need a new image criteria for hoax images, including unofficial or "fake" versions of cover art, packaging, etc.
Blatant hoax, an image that is blatantly false or is a hoax, unless it is being used to illustrate the fact that it is a hoax. Examples include "fan-made" cover art for photographs and blatantly modified images.
Main issue is subjectivity. It can be difficult to distinguish a well-made hoax from a difficult-to-believe real thing. It can also be difficult to distinguish a poorly-made hoax from a... poorly-made real thing. And well, if we excluded modified images, all our magazine covers would be right out. :-P Dcoetzee03:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with SoWhy. If the fake cover is so obvious as to be clearly a hoax, G3 already covers it. If it might not be a hoax, it shouldn't be speedied. Stifle (talk) 12:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Name of policy
(unindent) Not to completely stir the pot, but ... should this page be renamed to something a bit more descriptive? We've had the whole "speedy doesn't actually mean quickly" issue for years. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
No, definitely not stirring the pot. :P I've always accepted "speedy deletion" to not mean "instant deletion" but rather "deletion done out of normal processes" (XFD, DRV, etc). Hence why OLDIP and CAT:TEMP make sense to be included here, IMHO. —Locke Cole • t • c02:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Good question, hmm. Looking at the first line of the policy - "Criteria for speedy deletion specify the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion" - I suggest "Criteria for deletion without discussion." Dcoetzee02:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Noting that CSD is an administrative method of deletion (XfD is community deletion), I did a thesaurus search on administrative, and further thesaurus searches on initial hits, selecting for words starting with “s”. This gave:
I'll !vote for "sneaky deletion" or "scheming deletion" myself. Certainly enough messages have been left on my talk page to that effect. ;-)--Fabrictramp | talk to me01:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Criteria for summary deletion (see summary judgment) would be my first preference were it not for the fact that it could lead some people to draw parallels between Wikipedia and a court of law or between deletion and extrajudicial killing. Of course, that being said, "speedy deletion" is also be misleading because for most people 'speedy' = 'quick'. By the way, does anyone know why this page is not at Wikipedia:Speedy deletion (a redirect)? What function does the "Criteria for" serve? –Black Falcon(Talk)06:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually that's a great name - the analogy is perfect, and we don't have to change the initialism. :-) The association of "summary" with summary execution is particular is unfortunate, but I don't think we'd find anything better. Dcoetzee07:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Oh no, not "summary deletion", people may well think that it is for the deletion of unwanted edit summaries. We should just redivide the deletions between "deletions without discussion" (which includes prod and all CSDs) and "deletions after discussions (which includes all the *fD pages). Fram (talk) 10:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Here's a relevant thesaurus entry. It lists: "summary, immediate, instant, instantaneous, direct, prompt, speedy, swift, rapid, without delay, sudden, abrupt, hasty, peremptory, without discussion, without formality." I think given the available options and the desire to retain the original initialism, we're either going to stick with what we have now or go to Wikipedia:Summary deletion (Fram's concerns about confusion are legitimate - my uncertainty revolves around whether the word "speedy" or the word "summary" is more misleading.) Dcoetzee21:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
If this thread had been started by Jimbo saying "find an alternative name for WP:CSD", then yes, maybe. How can the work of volunteers be busywork? If no one thought that a task here was worth doing, then it would never be done, simple as that. The fact that people are prepared to consider such a change indicates that those people don't think it is a pointless exercise. If there are valid objections to the proposal, that's one thing. Saying that it should not be done because you personally don't think it is important is another matter entirely. I agree that this is way down the list of Things That Are Broken On Wikipedia. The wonderful thing about being part of this community, however, is that we can work on anything we like from that list, no one can order us to start at the top. Happy‑melon13:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
To avoid getting sidetracked, yes, this is not the highest priority thing to do; the only purpose would be to avoid some confusion caused by the current name and I could let it drop. I think Stifle is well aware that volunteers will work on what interests them. Dcoetzee20:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Language affects the way that people behave, and the word "speedy" seems to create an impression that the speed of deletion is more important that whether it is correct. I remember recently seeing a disputed speedy deletion (I'm not sure whether it was at WP:DRV or on a talk page) where the admin said in defence that there were lots of pages in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion so it was necessary to go through them quickly. It's good that the word "summary" brings to mind summary execution, as it should help focus admins' minds on what they are doing to people's contributions. I support changing the wording to "summary deletion". Phil Bridger (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I could support "criteria for summary deletion", although I don't think we should necessarily worry about keeping the acronym consistent, so I also propose "criteria for administrative deletion" or "criteria for undiscussed deletion" (I especially like the last one, if only because WP:CUD sounds like we should take some time to chew it over before deletion. *grin*) Anyway, when I was a noob I was certainly under the impression that "speedy" meant "quick", as opposed to "undiscussed", and it took me quite a while, and a lot of poking through archives of old discussions, before I realized that CSD was invented to reduce the load on the XfD processes, as opposed to getting rid of stuff quickly.--Aervanath (talk) 02:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The various screenshots used in Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee have now been tagged to speedy deletion a total of three times by the same user, the first two having been undone by two different users. In neither the second nor the third instance of tagging did the tagging user leave a summary of why s/he was tagging the page after it had been removed. Is there some rule about this? It just doesn't seem right to edit war of a file's speedy deletion without explanation from the nominator... I tried to leave a decent explanation when I first removed the tags, and again at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, but there's been no response.
Reasonably disputed CSDs should go to AfD (for example, if the person removing it provides a good reason why it does not satisfy the criterion or otherwise should not be deleted). Unreasonably disputed CSDs should be re-tagged. I realize that's rather subjective, but that's generally how we do it. Dcoetzee22:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Dcoetzee has it exactly right. If the person removing the tag has given any kind of halfway reasonable rationale, it's no longer uncontroversial. AfD would be the correct way to go at that point. Now if we could just get more admins to look at the history, and not speedily delete an article 10 minutes after someone else declines the same tag... *sigh* --Fabrictramp | talk to me23:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec)That's the thing; when I'd removed the CSD tags, I said that it should be taken to WP:FFD (since there were at least two users who opposed the speedy), but the tags were simply readded without further explanation. -–Drilnoth (T • C) 23:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
About all you can do at that spot is talk to the individual editors involved. I find a friendly note gets about a 50% response rate of "*facepalm*, you're right, I should have checked the history" and about 50% getting ignored. So that's about 50% better than if I say nothing. :)--Fabrictramp | talk to me23:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Note that the images were not tagged for speedy deletion, they were tagged as disputed fair use rationales. If the tag had persisted for seven days, they would then have become candidates for speedy deletion. Stifle (talk) 11:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I've added this (boldly, hopefully this isn't a problem) as it's already codified at WP:OLDIP (also official policy) and in the interests of centralizing speedy deletion policy. If there's a problem with this, please say so here. =) —Locke Cole • t • c20:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
My reading of the OLDIP discussions is that there is not concensus, it was not widely advertised (i.e. here), and it is seriously disputed.
The U4 non-contributor idea relates to old, non-contributors with play subpages, or possibly just with userpages, and is connected to a series of userpage WP:MfD nominations for declined CSD tagged userpages. Unfortuantely, the cases include a high proportion of users who have edited in the last year. See WT:UP.
Given the now exposed routine out-of-process deletions that have been occuring, I propose the following:
No pages are to be deleted unless covered by a current CSD criterion or authorised by an accepted XfD process.
Exceptions to the above are to be reported here (or logged on a specificied page).
I've removed it for now. Though I think making G6 a broad stroke like this is a mistake and it makes more sense to have this as an actual criteria (since it will be an ongoing activity, and people looking for justification at CSD are most likely to look under the User criteria, as I did). I get the need to avoid instruction creep, but I think this is one case where it's a sensible and reasonable addition (if for no other reason than to reduce potential confusion). Then WP:OLDIP could be redirected here, and the verbiage at WP:USERPAGE could be significantly trimmed. —Locke Cole • t • c21:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I had not seen WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 32#Deletion of old IP talk pages. A new years eve discussion is not a point to develop consensus, but the thread established that there was not consensus. Moving the discussion and deletion authorisation to WP:UP was forum shopping in a policy backwater. WP:UP should not be used to circumvent CSD restrictions. I strongly disagree that deletion of userpages can be called "housekeeping", even if they are IP userpages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with you that the only things that should be speedy deleted are those things set out explicitly on this page, hence why I'm suggesting moving WP:OLDIP here to consolidate/simplify our policies. I note you've removed it from WP:UP, you may wish to reconsider after reading this discussion on WT:UP (which seems to indicate consensus support for this). —Locke Cole • t • c23:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Some subtantial things were done on the basis of unclear and fragmented discussion, all during a Christmas to New Year period. It doesn't look good, and it wasn't good. I don't agree that the discussion "seems to indicate consensus support", only that a consensus seemed to be forming. Wikipedia:Silence and consensus doesn't apply to things done in backwaters and while others aren't looking. The mass deletions are not easily undone. Discussion should have been broadler, and actions more tentative. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
In all seriousness, is there some sort of calendar for these things? Yes, it was during the late part of December. But generally there are more people on the site, not less, during these times. (Quite a few trying to escape family functions, I imagine. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Normally I prefer week or two week comment periods (RFC) so people have a chance to talk out any concerns they have. OTOH, I don't think this is a major issue given the ultimate criteria (the year of inactivity, lack of incoming links, etc). I think it's very unlikely you'll hit a false positive with those criteria. —Locke Cole • t • c01:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree strongly with Cole's motive. If there is not consensus around this policy, it shouldn't be policy, and it should be removed from WP:OLDIP. Otherwise, it should be listed here, for the sake of clarity, since evidently it is not "routine housekeeping" to many of the people who take issue with it. Other policies should not be permitting speedy deletion not expressly permitted here. Dcoetzee21:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. If there's consensus for old IP talk pages (and, personally, I agree with the reasoning behind it) then it should certainly be listed here. I dislike using G6 for specific things that could have their own criteria; and this is a specific reason that could use one. ~ mazcat|c22:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
My reading of this discussion on WT:UP shows me there's some consensus for this. Barring any major objection I'll be adding U4 to this and removing the note from G6. I'd also suggest we tighten G6 up to be limited to specific tasks, not open ended or subject to individual interpretation. As an aside, apparently there was a discussion at WP:AN on this subject as well; I haven't read that archive yet. But again, given the two discussions linked above, there seems to be existing support for this. —Locke Cole • t • c23:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I strongly oppose WP:OLDIP authorising CSDs at WP:UP. I would prefer that Old IP userpages were not deleted, as per others' opinions, but if they are to be speediable, then OLDIP deletions must be here authorised here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest not deleting old IP talk pages as it makes it harder to find patterns of abuse from an IP. Perhaps blanking after X amount of time of inactivity so that new users to the IP don't get greeted with a bunch of old warnings. Chillum01:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It occurs to me that while discussing these old IP talk pages, it may also be good to discuss this category, which also isn't documented on this page. Perhaps one new criterion covering both is possible? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
The routine deletion of old IP pages is another step towards forcing all editors to register. Am undecided as to whether this is a good or bad thing. I’ll admit that I dislike talking to IPs, or other unpronounceable handles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
The criteria that was agreed to back in late December wouldn't seem to have the effect you're thinking it would. The talk page must be inactive for a year. The editor must not have made an edit in the past year. And the talk page itself must not have any incoming links (which, if the IP leaves just a single message on a talk page and signs their comment, the incoming link will be automatically generated). I'm personally iffy on deletion of these pages, but I see the point and don't think many actual editors will fall prey to this. —Locke Cole • t • c01:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see all such pages just blanked, but if they are to be deleted, a new CSD criteria covering both is a good idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
WP:CSD#G6 covers this, it is just cleaning out old skeletons from our closet. We have always deleted these pages after enough time has passed. We usually leave them up for months before deleting, so it is really not a "speedy" deletion. It is just a way of denying blocked users a trophy page. Chillum01:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
G6 is much too broad IMHO. Criteria should be narrowly defined with little room for interpretation. I note that G6 currently calls out a number of specific instances (this is good), so either G6 needs to explicitly define the remaining valid instances of deletion under that criteria, or perhaps additional criteria should be created to address them. —Locke Cole • t • c01:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
As an aside, I don't think CAT:TEMP and OLDIP would work well in a single criteria. I think we're looking at likely U4 for OLDIP and U5 for CAT:TEMP; OLDIP just has too many criteria for it to merge well with CAT:TEMP I'd think. —Locke Cole • t • c01:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Fine, not G6. Also, not a speedy deletion, just an admin best practice. I don't think deleting temporary user pages of indefinitely blocked users after a long period of time is a CSD issue, nor do I think we need a special policy for what we have been doing all along. I only mentioned G6 because this is fairly routine maintenance. Chillum01:35, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I don’t think that any userpage cases are necessarily uncontroversial enough for G6. There’ll be false positives in the Old IP pages. There are bad blocks made for “inappropriate usernames”. For a non-experienced editor, finding their userpage deleted is a pretty confrontational rejection. To then find through the deletion log link that it was deleted as “general housekeeping” is incredibly insulting, for the rare false positive.
Temporary and IP pages should be inactive for at least one year. I think that this should be a strict requirement. We should make allowance for part time editors, etc. Denial can be accomplished by blanking. I don’t want to see routine deletion of userpages just because someone gave an indefinite block because he considers the username to have too many characters.
What “we usually do” is a very poor standard. Such standards of practice always degenerate until the problems become big. Better to have flexible documented procedures, and records with correct categorisations. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Please keep in mind that these users are both blocked and inactive for 30 days before the page is deleted. Also keep in mind that this is how we have done it for a very long time. It is not that "we usually do", it is that "it is the long standing best practice"(ie what policy is meant to reflect not direct). It is uncontroversial by the very nature that it has been a common practice for so long without issue. The have not been problems, big or otherwise. Lets wait for problems before seeking solutions. Chillum01:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I certainly do agree it does not belong on CSD. I also don't think it needs any special policy. This is already taken care of, there is a bot that deletes the pages when it is time. It became such a common and accepted practice that it is now automated. Chillum01:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Uncontroversial does not mean "longstanding best practice," it means "unlikely to be disagreed with by any reasonable user." We are reasonable users; we disagree. G6 does not apply, period. Admins always retain the option to delete at their own discretion, but they must take responsibility for such deletions, and I assert that other policies should never sanction speedy deletion; our policies are labyrinthine enough without spreading CSD over multiple pages in bits and pieces. Dcoetzee01:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
As I have already said a couple times here, yes this is not a CSD G6, it is not even CSD. Putting a page in a category for 30 days before deleting it is not a "speedy" deletion. This is the wrong page for this discussion imo. You can take any such deletion to WP:DRV and see what the community thinks of it. I am sure the deleting admin will take responsibility, though in this case most of the deletions are done by an admin bot so I suppose it would be the bot operator that would gladly take responsibility. Chillum01:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Many CSDs (e.g. F11) have waiting periods. "Speedy" means "with limited process," not "quickly." This is the right place to discuss them and the right policy to sanction them. Dcoetzee02:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
This is not a limited process thing. It first requires that a user be blocked and the users page becomes inactive for a long period of time. It has limitation on when it can be done, process if you like. This really have been long settled, and I see no new issues arising from these deletions. If a consensus springs up that we should do things differently then fine, but that would have to be a significant consensus. I really wonder why you some people think that indef blocked users deserve to have their content and history posted on Wikipedia? How does that help the encyclopedia? Chillum02:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not terribly concerned about the policy, just that it be documented in the right place. To clarify, "speedy" means "not via a process involving consensus, such as articles for deletion or proposed deletion." Every criterion imposes conditions; the conditions for F11 are actually similar to those proposed here. I do disagree with OLDIP personally, but I'm not interested in arguing about that - I'm much more concerned about centralized documentation of policy. Dcoetzee02:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay. Fair enough. I don't think it needs codification until there is a problem requiring it, but I am not dead set against the idea. It should reflect our existing best practices. That is not to say that consensus cannot alter it, I would suggest that 60 days inactivity would be better than 30 days. And it should be kept simple. Chillum02:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Proposed U4
Okay, so we need a criterion to talk about here, so here's what I came up with, off the top of my head.
4. Inactive user talk page. The user has made no edits in the past year, nor has anyone edited their user talk page. The user talk page has no incoming links and no unsubstituted templates.
It is a good start. I think a year is a bit long, we are at 30 days now. I suggest 60-90. I think the spirit of WP:DENY behooves us to deal with these things before too long. Chillum02:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Linking the unfamiliar terms seems to help people a great deal. "incoming links," for example. Or "no edits." Other than that, sounds pretty good. But it leaves out the never been blocked requirement. Should we remove that? (Others have argued that we should in the past.) Or perhaps say no blocks with the past __ years? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
People in this category are indef blocked. There should be a requirement that the user is blocked indef as well as not active. We don't delete the pages of users in good standing because they are inactive, we delete the pages of old indef blocked users in the spirit of WP:DENY. Chillum02:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, second draft, splitting this into two criteria for clarity:
4. Inactive blocked user talk page. The user is an indefinite blocked user whose user page has been included in Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages for the last 60 days. They have made no edits in the last 60 days, nor has anyone edited their user talk page in the past 60 days. The user talk page has no incoming links and no unsubstituted templates.
5. Inactive anonymous user talk page. The user is an anonymous IP user who has never been blocked and has made no edits in the past year, nor has anyone edited their user talk page in the past year. The user talk page has no incoming links and no unsubstituted templates.
I am all for #4, good wording which seems to reflect current practices. However I don't think there is a consensus for #5. It was briefly put in a policy by someone but has since been removed. We should not block IP talk pages because the reasons that we have for blocked users are not there. We don't indef block IPs, they sometimes change owners they sometimes do not. Deleting old IP pages makes it hard for admins to see the history of the IP and impossible for non-admins.
Blanking of old IP pages so new users don't get a page full of warnings when they show up is a good idea, but that can just be done by people, it is not really part of CSD as it is just blanking. Chillum03:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree, but some people e.g. MZMcBride are very staunch supporters of an OLDIP criterion and this is where I'd like to have that discussion. Mainly I'm just trying to figure what it should look like if it were enacted, so that we have something to talk about. Dcoetzee03:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I will make it official:
Support 4 and Oppose 5(versions posted 02:56, 4 March 2009) for the reasons I have given above. The wording of both are very clear. Chillum03:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
(e/c)Number 4 doesn't really reflect current practice for CAT:TEMP at all. 30 days with no edits has been the de facto standard for as long as I know. AFAIK, there's never been any check for incoming links. I've basically been handling all of these for the past month or so with User:CAT:TEMP deletion bot, the criteria it uses are:
No edits to the page in the past 30 days
The user is indef blocked
There is no sockpuppet-related template on the userpage or the user talk page
I would support that criteria. You can find if there are incoming links by loading the "what links here" page. Though I don't think it is a big deal if a username in an ANI archive somewhere goes from blue to red. Chillum03:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, next attempt. I also just realised it's redundant to say a blocked user has "made no edits in the last 60 days" since they can only edit their talk page anyway. :-P
4. Inactive blocked user talk page. The user is an indefinite blocked user whose user page has been included in Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages for the last 30 days. No one has edited their user talk page in the past 30 days, and neither the userpage nor user talk page contains any informational templates other than the "indefinitely blocked" template.
Chillum: Have you read the past discussions regarding OLDIP? If so, what do you object to? (Please, don't make me re-type the old arguments. My fingers, they ache. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
My arguments are above(scattered throughout the U4 heading), where are yours? I have not read them. In short it makes tracking the history of an IP awkward for for admins and impossible for non-admins. I also don't think much is gained by deleting when we could simply blank the pages. I certainly support blanking the pages because they a) could contain personal opinions of trouble makers, and b) could be full of warnings which a new user to the IP should not have to see. Chillum04:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Tracking the contributions is trivial, indeed. However, tracking if users with a certain modus operandi have been warned in the past is practically impossible (especially for non-admins) if the talkpage has been deleted. I would really be more comfortable with archiving and replacing with a newly designed re-welcome/blocked/archived template ('this account has been blocked indef, if you want to start contributing again, do this, your info has been archived here'). Friendly, and still the tracks are there for everyone to see. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we may be talking cross purposes. We are talking about two things, indef blocked users which are by definition not welcome back, there would need to be an agreement from the blocking admin or a consensus elsewhere to unblock before they were welcomed back. The other topic is IP addresses which generally change owners. I am all for blanking or archiving the content of old IP pages, but not deleting for the reasons you have given. Chillum13:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Can you give an example of a page that has been deleted where it would've been useful to have been able to see the page history? Most of these (the large, large majority from what I've seen) are ancient warnings by people using Twinkle or other automated, templated warnings of some type. Is there any evidence anywhere that deleting these pages is inhibiting vandalism-fighting? (And wouldn't other projects like the German Wikipedia not delete these if there were?) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Erm, perhaps I'm missing something really obvious, but that list is almost entirely user account pages, not anonymous user talk pages. And the few anonymous user talk pages I saw at the bottom you deleted as "user request."
Here's a partial list[7] of my several hundred restorations of recently deleted spammer talk pages. I finally despaired and gave up as the task was so large; I figured I had several tens of thousands of deleted IP pages to review for spam warnings. This was a big loss. Perhaps someone can develop an admin bot to temporarily restore all those deleted IP talk pages, look for a spam warning, then redelete if not spam-related. --A. B.(talk • contribs)19:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I clicked a random link from the page and saw that the user hasn't edited since 2004 (Special:Contributions/219.82.139.89). I'm still having a hard time seeing the benefit to keeping such pages around forever (and in fact we may be inadvertently calling people spammers when they're simply using an IP of someone else...). However, because I don't work in this area, I added the check and all subsequent pages have been skipped. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
No, MZMcBride, it is not that we want to keep to call this editor a spammer, I am all for archiving the stuff to a subpage, and replacing the page with a friendly welcome notice. But DELETING the data removes the track. See my example below with the 15 IPs. Did we sufficiently warn these IPs? I don't see ANY warnings. Still we decided to put the stuff on the meta blacklist. Why, because there are warnings. If the two editors that were warned had the stuff in an archive, but still the page revisions accessible, then all editors could immediately see which editors were contacted at some point. But that data is gone (for non-admins). And so for hundreds (if not thousands) of pages. You don't see the use, but we see the loss, does that also mean nothing? --Dirk BeetstraTC20:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Restored U4
I've restored the following text (which I originally added at the beginning of this discussion):
4. Old IP talk page. Talk pages of anonymous users may be blanked or deleted as part of routine housekeeping if they meet the following criteria: 1.) Never been blocked; 2.) Not using any unsubstituted templates (e.g., {{SharedIPEDU}}); 3.) No edits within the last year; 4.) No talk page activity within the last year; and 5.) No incoming links to the page.
I've also removed the OLDIP references from G6. I believe there's consensus for this based on prior discussions. I think CAT:TEMP should ultimately be a U5 criteria as I don't see a good way to merge these highly specialized deletions in to a single rule. —Locke Cole • t • c18:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure we agree totally on the boundaries, in fact, MZMcBride did add another clause (which gets it closer, but not there yet). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it could use some modification and refinement, but that proposal seemed to have consensus around New Years and has been enforced for three months without much objection (see WP:SILENCE, or WP:CON which also spells out silence as consensus). Again, not trying to discourage changes or refinements, just justifying the addition as-is. —Locke Cole • t • c10:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
The volunteers most involved with spam cleanup and blacklisting argued strongly (begged actually) that these pages not be deleted. Spammers tend to sockpuppet a lot, using multiple IPs and/or multiple user accounts, sometimes getting away with spamming for several years. Blocking is ineffective (they just switch accounts) and blacklisting their domains is the only way to stop them. At the same time, many non-Wikimedia sites running wikis using Media-Wiki software use our spam blacklists for their own spam filtering, so we are reluctant to blacklist a domain unless we're sure they know our rules and intend to ignore them indefinitely. For this reason, we need to know how many warnings they've received across their multiple accounts. Deleting talk pages really screws us up. If we're going to delete old talk ages, I'd like to see an exception carved out for accounts that have received spam warnings. --A. B.(talk • contribs)03:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. Looking for certain key words seems to be the best, most reliable method. (\bspam\b|\bpromote\b|\bpromotion\b) is what I use. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Strongly agreed here. I often times fight spam and vandalism and have seen a lot of pages on my watchlist deleted because they were old. Spammers routinely return after a set time and its important to keep the tags on their pages to identify the history of editing from that IP. Regular IP users shouldn't amass spam tags on their pages so the argument that IPs can be edited by more than one person doesn't hold up with spammers. If a person spams and returns a year later to spam, odds are likely its the same person. Themfromspace (talk) 05:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
While not currently active in that area I've dealt with extensive cross wiki spam for quite a period of time. It would seem utterly daft to delete such pages. I agree completely with A. B. --Herbytalk thyme08:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I am fully against any deletion of old talkpages or unsollicited removal of userpages (except if the userpages are meeting other deletion reasons, as being attack pages, only for advertising or similar), whether it are spammers, vandals or POV pushers. It deletes an active record of what happened in the past. I see that after some people complained about it, the active practice has changed a bit, but deletion goes on, while there was discussion on the content guideline talkpage. I still do not agree that these are deleted. And it NOT only spammers. POV pushers are just as bad, and no, they don't always get blocked, if they perform just 2-3 edits per account, then most IPs will not have had a block until admins get so upset that they start blocking an IP on the first edit, hoping the editor will see that, or if an editor get so upset that he starts tagging them all as socks. But they don't get tagged always or similar, often it is just one or two warnings. I have been handling such editors long enough to know how creative (and ignorant) spammers, POV pushers and vandals can be.
For IPs: yes, they change, but deletion of the page makes it appear as if a user has never been warned in the past about not abusing a link or pushing a POV (i.e. that we tried to inform the editor that his actions are unwanted). Yes, there may be now a completely different user on that IP, and the 'offender' may now use a completely different IP, but still, if the modus operandi of the editor is the same (and believe me, if they don't get it, they keep doing the same, and companies get payed for advertising for other companies, they don't change their way of operating, never, it is what they are payed to do!), then it is very likely that that user used the old IP in the past and attempts have been made to warn them there. Tracking which IPs have been used in the past to perform certian edits is easy (history tabs, etc.), but when the talkpages are deleted, tracking if the editor has been warned when they was using the first IP is quite some work (if there are 50 old IPs for a certain modus operandi, and 10 have been warned and then the pages deleted, then you have to go through all 50 deletion histories to see if the editor has been warned, and an admin has to do that, non-admins can not help with this task. So it appears that editors with this modus operandi have not been warned for their actions, so is abuse without warning enough to blacklist a link? And we do get critisised for blacklisting without warning!). A very bad situation, which can easily be avoided.
A similar situation is for users who make single-purpose accounts. Also there, users are creative, and the criteria can so easily be met, that it is likely (though slighly less likely) again to remove tracks.
I really don't see any problem with a bot going round, archiving old talkpages of IPs, and replacing them with a newly designed {{re-welcomeanon}}. That removes messages which are likely not for the new user of the IP, but could inform the editor of the past situation. That message can be friendly and welcoming, and it may even attract the editor more then not seeing 'you have new messages .. thank you, I get welcomed here when I first enter, this is a nice site!'. (And can we please get a bot undeleting all tracks that have already been lost ..). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I strongly Oppose deletion of IP userpages used for fraudulent, disruptive, deceptive purposes that violate and circumvent enforcement of Wikipedia policies. The use of an "IP" is not only the principle source from which spam origionates, it is the primary method used by spammers extensively is "stealth sockpuppetry" by quickly changing or using Multiple IP's. These records need to be retained as stated by others. Additionaly, these type if IP pages are an exception to deletion for the same reasons put forth on Wikipedia:User page#Removal of warnings;
“
Important exceptions may include declined unblock requests and confirmed sockpuppetry notices (while blocks are still in effect), or for anonymous editors, shared IP header templates. In these cases it may be legitimate in order to keep a user from gaming the system. Such templates are intended not only to communicate with the user in question, but to share important information about blocks and sockpuppetry with other users..
The community has strongly rejected deletion of these types of uerpages/IP's as a legitimate means of keeping a user(s) from gaming the system and to prevent future abuse.--Hu12 (talk) 17:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Did you read the specifics of this proposal? I think it alleviates most of your concerns (for example, any IP that has been previously blocked wouldn't have its page deleted). And there must be at least a year of inactivity both by the IP and on the user talk page. Does this address your concerns? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Many spam cases are multi-year SEO efforts and frequently use "one-time throw-a-way" IP's. Deletion after a year of inactivity or lack of a block makes it easy to game the system and exploit wikipedia further. The "block" or "one-year" criteria does not affectively help or prevent the most pervasive abuse (next to vandalism) on Wikipedia, spam. I have no issue with normal IP's for all the good reasons they should be deleted for recycling, however abuse accounts such as sockpuppetry and spam IP's should not be deleted.--Hu12 (talk) 18:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Personally, I scan the page for certain key words, specifically "spam", "promote", and "promotion" to ensure that the IP talk pages aren't spam-related. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you have been diligent with your communication, and have suggested various ways to detect these pages. I personaly thank you for that.--Hu12 (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I know, MZMcBride, and I thank you for that part (still, many had already been deleted), but no, it does not alleviate my concerns. There are often spammers who are warned with a vandalism remark. Still they are spammers, but the word 'spam', 'external link' or something similar is not on the page, and hence you would delete it. For me there still is no reason to delete them, there is no timelimit to vandalism, spam or pov pushing, and I don't see the problem with archiving, and replacing them with a friendly re-welcome notice. In that case we can see immediately that there has been communication with the editor, we can't see that from a redlink. --Dirk BeetstraTC19:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Funny, I came accross User talk:Kekkomereq, the user has some warnings from XLinkBot. The user runs into an indef block on the 23 of March, 2008, resulting in the talkpage to be on the 'temporary page list'. On the 2nd of April and 24th of May the user gets two warnings about images, and on the 2nd of August, the talkpage gets deleted. Then after that, the page gets recreated, as two new warnings on the 17th of September and on the 13th of December. I am sure that that is also useless, but since it is not tagged anymore, it does not get deleted. So in the end, possibly useful pages get deleted, and other useless crap does not (at least, yet). Too bad. Similarly, User talk:Theprominence, blocked for another reason, but spamming a link with a possible coi (on a blogspot). Possibly a useful track, as there seems to be a coi (and indeed there is a sock, also blocked etc.). Talkpage got recreated for another reason on the 2nd of october (over 5 months ago), after being deleted on the 2nd of August. I wonder how many cases there are which are less easy to follow. I'll have a look. --Dirk BeetstraTC19:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Our spam-related indefinite-block templates used to automatically categorize the talk pages as temporary. They now categorize them as indefinitely blocked spammers. I restore a few on my watch list after they were deleted as temporary; I would then go and remove the "temporary" categorization from the indefinite-block notice. Maybe those are the ones you saw. --A. B.(talk • contribs)19:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
15 spam IPs (who added a link), 9 are active here, 17 link additions, bot two have been warned for spam (well, one with the word spam in it, the other one a friendly message ..).... But which? I feel I become a bit pointy here. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Um, is this a trick question? Some of those IPs have never edited (e.g. Special:Contributions/213.59.221.175). How would anyone ever come across an IP that never edited? And all of the contributions relate to cube2007.com that I can see (as a non-admin).... --MZMcBride (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
It is a trick question, indeed. All 15 have added the link, here or on other wikis. But the track of the two warnings is lost .. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I find the above discussion a little difficult to follow. Is it agreed that WP:CSD#U4 "Old IP talk page" has consensus support? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we're still sorting it out. It's unclear whether there's support to scrap oldIP or to keep it. But then again, maybe I'm just confused, too. --A. B.(talk • contribs)20:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Didn't notice this section until just now. I added a criterion about pages not being spam-related. Personally, I think this ensures that nothing of value is ever lost with these pages (they're almost entirely automated, templated warnings). Though I'll re-read the conversation above to ensure I'm not missing anything. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
See the example above with the IPs. The link is blacklisted on meta, one of the two warnings would still be deleted according to the current rules, and it is a lost-spam track. And I don't think that spam is the only problem that suffers here. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Responded above. Where did that list come from? (More specifically, why do some of the IPs have 0 edits ever?) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I think there was consensus based on the old discussions at WP:UP and WP:AN. I think there's consensus forming here for it as well, but it's not as far along. I added it based on the old consensus, removal (if people seek it) should be established via agreement. I announced the restoration at #Restored U4, above (where seemingly nobody has responded, heh). —Locke Cole • t • c22:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Looking at this more broadly
Currently, we have vandalism fighters who patrol the RecentChanges feed and they warn thousands of anonymous users (IPs) each day. The warnings tell the user that they're behavior is inappropriate and explains it in a templated manner. It's almost like a game for some vandalism patrollers, which is fine, because the users need to be warned so that the behavior hopefully stops and the user can become productive.
However, most of these are "easy-on" taggings. They one-time deals. So in that spirit, deleting these pages should be no big deal. Easy-on, easy-off. And that's also why so many precautions are taken when looking at which pages to delete. If the IP ever commented anywhere, the page won't be deleted. If the IP has ever been blocked, it won't be deleted. If the IP has edited in the last year (or if their user page has been edited in the last year), the page won't be deleted. And if there are any helpful notices about {{SharedIP}} or the like, the page won't be deleted. And, in addition to all of this, the page text is scanned to ensure that the warnings are spam-related so that we don't inhibit spam tracking.
With all of these checks, the likelihood of deleting anything useful is nearly non-existent. An IP was warned with Twinkle six years ago for vandalizing Apple? Who cares? Easy-on, easy-off. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, some of us do care. It is part of our 'game' here. Twinkle etc. makes it easier to warn, still sometimes 'the wrong warning' is given (something that is spamming is tagged vandalism). Others don't like our pre-fab warnings (it did not take me too much time to come up with the 15 IPs above, one has a friendly remark from a user who did not use the standard template, still, the user did remove the spammed links). There is no quick scan for these things, and if I go through my list of deleted edits to talkpages, there are numerous talkpages which already have been deleted. Of the 3 editors who have been warned for these link additions 2 have no easily trackable warning history anymore.... If you would now give me that as proof for blacklisting, I would say 'pff, OK, many additions, and it is useless, but please first try to warn the editor a bit more, maybe they will respond ..'. Or on the other hand, if now some editor comes, asking me for de-blacklisting, I would say on this proof 'sure, this was a bit quick, the editor has hardly been warned'. It really cost me time to find the warnings again, only one is in my deleted contris. More, current, examples: "89.216.66.248 89.216.66.36 89.216.66.54 89.216.66.213 89.216.66.95 89.216.66.183 89.216.66.19 89.216.66.80 89.216.66.204 89.216.66.224 89.216.64.142", "189.92.76.100 189.92.12.25 201.23.160.73 201.23.160.1 201.23.160.80 189.94.29.19 189.92.5.106 189.92.60.137 189.92.94.127 189.92.112.79 189.92.20.131 189.92.24.114 189.94.61.53 200.169.124.131 189.94.18.243 201.23.160.67 189.94.18.187 189.92.29.233 189.92.30.189 189.92.62.202", "86.150.201.168 86.153.149.73 86.153.150.184 81.156.233.53 86.152.191.89 86.170.178.200 86.170.181.57". Have a look at m:User:COIBot/XWiki, most cases involve many, many IPs on many wikis.
I indeed do not care if someone was six year ago warned for vandalizing Apple. But how do you see from the warning, without a good look at every single edit the editor performed, that this user was not a rogue member of the feared associtation of stroopwafel addicts, who was using a large group of IPs with as a single goal: wipe apple trees from this very planet. Most of the time, it is just simple vandalism, but you don't always see that from the tag. With spamming it is pretty clear (though in cases of mis-warning or non-standard warning it is still unclear), but with POV pushing it does not have to be clear. You are right, MZMcBride, in by far the most cases, it is simple vandalism, but there are several cases out there which look like simple vandalism, but are actually much more than that. Easy-on, easy-off .. and then a lot of work in some cases (did you already find the 2 IPs which were warned for spam?). I again ask, most of you don't see the use, but we really do see the loss. Deleting is easy, undeleting the ones which should not have been deleted practically impossible. Please consider archiving again, it serves both purposes well, and please precede it by blanket undeletion of all those user talk pages which were deleted (except the ones which in themselves were blatant spam). It only increases the number of edits a bit, and the db is a bit bigger (but that is not our concern). --Dirk BeetstraTC21:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Just looking at the example you mentioned, "If you would now give me that as proof for blacklisting, I would say 'pff, OK, many additions, and it is useless, but please first try to warn the editor a bit more, maybe they will respond ..'." If someone came to you and said, "Hey this IP vandalized in 2007, got warned, and just did it again, please block." I think any admin would say, "You need to warn as we have no way of knowing if the IP belongs to same person any longer and the old warnings don't particularly apply over a year later." And, any contributions to any (non-deleted) page are still visible to any user, even though when dealing with IP addresses, it's always best to assume they've changed hands over the course of time, because that happens frequently with a lot of these IPs. So regardless of whether an IP was warned (for vandalism, spam, POV hoaxes, whatever), I simply don't see the relevance years later. A month later? Sure, I could understand. But if the IP hasn't edited in a year and the page hasn't been touched in a year, the account is very likely dormant or has changed hands. At which point all of the warnings mean very little (except in the case of spam tracking, as I've discovered and accounted for). --MZMcBride (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Not that it really needs to be pointed out, but those IP talk pages wouldn't be deleted because (a) they're far too recent (they don't meet the 1 year last edit or 1 year last page activity requirements); and (b) they would fail the spam requirement. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
If the modus operandi is EXACTLY the same and pretty unique, then I would block an editor who had a couple of warnings in 2005, and started again now. For many spammers and POV pushers, that is often true. The IP has changed, it is still the same company, user. --Dirk BeetstraTC22:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I think an important question here that MZMcBride has not addressed is why deletion is preferable to blanking in these cases. Dcoetzee22:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Blank pages on a wiki drive me insane. When I come across a blue link, I expect there to be content on the page. If not, my mouse nearly instinctively reaches for the history tab to see why there isn't. Red links indicate no content, not blue links.
But more than philosophically, there's no need to keep these pages around (a fact confirmed by other wikis deleting them), there's the issue that only bots can blank a page without causing the orange bar of death to appear, and (quoting from previous discussions) "we end up with thousands of blanked talk pages sitting around. Truly, if they're going to be blanked, they may as well be deleted. These things do add up when doing things like database queries. You have the thousands of revisions on the talk pages currently plus thousands of more revisions to blank the page." Further, "Assume we have 1,000 talk pages each with one revision. If you go through and blank them, you're now at 2,000 revisions. If you delete them, the revisions are moved to the archive table (essentially going from 1,000 to 0) and are no longer cluttering up the revision table or my SQL query results. ;-) And the fact that the revisions aren't truly gone is yet another reason why deletion is really no big deal, no? Blank pages really are simply annoying and if we can avoid creating blank pages, I would prefer that option. When you come across them, it's unclear whether a blank page is the result of vandalism, a right to vanish attempt, or whatever. "So just leave a note saying it was blanked by a bot." That seems rather unnecessary. A red link is much quicker and easier to understand than a blue link that leads to a note about blanking." (Apologies for the copy-pasting, but re-keying all of this seems unproductive.) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
MZMcBride, I would block if there were warnings to other editors with the exact samemodus operandi. If Grawp is changing IP, then you know that he has been warned, and you block regardless if this new IP is warned or not. Why, because a) you know he has been warned, and b) you know it is the same person, even if he is using another IP. There are very similar cases here, but not on such a huge scale as Grawp. The problem is not our run-off-the-mill vandal, the problem is not Grawp, it is the cases inbetween.
But I see we don't get any further, I have been sleeping over this (and thinking for some time while being awake), and I read the above message "it must be the case that almost all articles that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus. CSD criteria should only cover situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Don't forget that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect if not carefully worded.". This part of the speedy is contestable. Under the current wording:
4 Old IP talk page. Talk pages of anonymous users may be blanked or deleted if they meet the following criteria: 1.) Never been blocked; 2.) Not using any unsubstituted templates (e.g., {{SharedIPEDU}}); 3.) No edits within the last year; 4.) No talk page activity within the last year; 5.) No incoming links to the page; and 6.) Is not spam-related.
I contest the part 6 here. The following is getting closer:
4 Old IP talk page. Talk pages of anonymous users may be deleted if they meet the following criteria: 1.) Never been blocked; 2.) No edits within the last year; 3.) No talk page activity within the last year; 4.) Not using any unsubstituted templates (e.g., {{SharedIPEDU}}); 5.) No incoming links to the page; and 6.) all edits of the IP are 'simple' vandalism, i.e., does not involve spamming, POV pushing, self-promotion etc. (see notes). If the criteria 4-6 are not met, consider archiving and replacing with an appropriate welcome template.
Notes:
Changing the external link of a high-school to 'redtube.com' is not spamming (even if it warned as such), addition of a personal blog however can be spamming.
Before deleting, check also if there are deleted contributions for the editor which may not be 'simple' vandalism.
The warnings that are actually on the talkpage are not a reflection of what the editor has been warned for, or a reflection of what the editor has been actually doing; some editors use custom warnings, sometimes 'wrong' warnings get placed, and sometimes warnings get removed by the editor.
(can be expanded, reworded). Note now, that here talkpages which are tagged with a spam template can now be deleted, as they constitute not actual true spamming, but simple vandalism. And others should now not get deleted, as they are part of a 'bigger' problem (which may include possible cross-wiki problems, so they are not necessarily visible here!). I am sorry, but blanket deletion is simply deleting pages which are of use to some other editors.
I am against blanking, I think it is for a user (i.e. someone who is just coming here to read a page) very strange to see the orange banner, and then clicking to a blank page. That is very confusing, even more confusing then clicking to a page full of warnings which are not meant for this user (and as I understand, that is the main reason for deletion, it clears the message flag, and there is simple nothing there). Blanking also would make the page being subject to this same rule after another year, where it is then absolutely subject for deletion, so the U4 is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
I therefore also changed the order of the items and added a sub-clause. If the editor is likely to have changed (and now we can even say, after 2 months in stead of 1 year, which is quite long), move all warnings etc. into a subpage, and replace the contents with an adaptation of {{welcomeanon}}, which is 1) not directly focussing on possible contributions but on using the information (so not having a 'thank you for your contributions', but 'nice that you consult our database for more information'), b) discusses shortly and to the point that the IP was used (and maybe abused) before etc., c) friendly tries to suggest the editor to stay, contribute etc., and d) contains a convenience link to the archive. One could even consider a bot-run that does: 1) move the page to a subpage, 2) delete the redirect that is left behind, so the message flag is reset, and 3) makes a minor bot contribution to put the welcome-template and a link to the archive, so that the message flag does not get set.
I believe this takes away MZMcBride's concern about bitey messages on talkpages which are useless for the new user of the IP (who is maybe not even a contributor, yet!), and still leaves us with the track that we sometimes do need. I know, MZMcBride, you don't see the use of these tracks, and we keep telling that for some of us some of these are tracks that we do need, but apparently these concerns don't mean a thing here. For most of you, these pages are useless, and therefore a blanket deletion is applied. The current form of U4 is contestable, and seeing the above banner, therefore should not be applied in this way, even if it is just true for a couple of editors. I am sorry, but this deletion, as well as the deletion of the related case with the 'temporary user pages', is doing a big disservice to some of us, as A. B. said, he lost a lot of data, and undeletion is an almost impossible task. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I oppose the proposed U4, on the grounds that identifying "simple vandalism" is too subjective. There's a big grey area here. If someone posts text saying "JOHN DOE IS A PAINTER IN TEXAS" is that self-promotion, an attempted outing, or simple vandalism? If someone posts "FORD TRUCKS RULE" is that simple vandalism, or spam? You get the idea. Dcoetzee19:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Heh, Doetzee, that is the whole thing. See the header of this text "Uncontestable: it must be the case that almost all articles that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to general consensus. CSD criteria should only cover situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Don't forget that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect if not carefully worded.". The CURRENT U4 is contestable, as the criteria are wrong. It should not be there at all. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Even stronger, I think that Hu12, A. B., me and some other currently contest the U4 that we have (which is actually still actively used). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think creating IP subpages is a good idea, if a bot is to do this it should just add the {{older}} template or even a permalink to the page at the state of blanking (the way I do it when cleaning IP talk pages of older warnings). –xeno (talk)14:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I could live with that as well.
I have done some more research, here. The second case is the most problematic. 3 out of the 4 talkpages in this spam case would still be deleted (in the beginning of next year, if you ignore the now incoming link from this research page). I really would like this to be discussed further. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
An IP vandalizes Apple. Nobody blocks, nobody brings it up anywhere and links to the user, nobody does anything except hit a tab in Twinkle and leave a warning. Three years later, without any further activity from the IP or activity on the talk page, why does anyone care? There are six strong safeguards here (including checking page text). Other wikis do this without any issues. What is the big deal? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
No, for those, no-one cares. Yes, most can be deleted, the trouble is, which ones not to delete but to blank. The safeguards are not strong, they are too easily to get around. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
That's a problem connected to dynamic IPs. This won't solve that substantially at all. And if we did want to solve this by removing the warnings a bot blanking the page after a certain amount of time would work just as well without damaging transparency. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
We don't have to do everything with a reason. There doesn't have to be a benefit to it; if people want to delete such pages, they can, beneficial or not. We do not have to provide reasons for doing everything. Majorlytalk18:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually we should be doing things with the reason "build an encyclopedia". We actually do need reasons to delete things. That is what the little box you type your delete reason is for. Chillum18:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
1) Damaged transparency. The project is committed to openess whenever possible. This undermines that. 2) Increased log sizes which make it harder to find specific items in the log 3) Increased server use (deletion is a relatively expensive operation and deleted edits take up more room than undeleted edits). None of those are very strong reasons aside from the first reason, but even the last two mean that we shouldn't be doing this without something resembling a coherent reason other than people simply wanting to delete the pages. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
1) Openness for the sake of openness is as bad as any arbitrary rule, worse in some cases. 3) Don't worry about performance. A 5 MB image takes up about as much space as 2000 deleted edits, and we allow images up to 100 MB. Deleting them also reduces the size of the database dumps of all pages. Mr.Z-man18:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Openess for the sake openess isn't a bad thing as long as we don't give it that much wait. However, having the default situation be open and transparent is completely reasonable. That's the situation here. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I have said before, and I am going to repeat. Really, most of these pages can safely be deleted, as they are related to single vandalism. However, there are cases where there is more going on, it is coordinated, or ongoing, or long term vandalism, it is continued POV-pushing, or is widescale persistent spamming. Those pages get used in other wikipedia processes. Deleting these does not only hamper those investigations (we are not all admins here, and even for admins, it is still quite some work to find from a list of 15 'random' IPs which one were warned for this typical modus operandi of 'vandalism' if the talkpages are deleted, you have to go to all 15 of them, check the deletion history. The process becomes even worse if the pages get recreated, then you have to check behind the page if there are also deleted contributions. The problem is, that under the current settings, the criteria are sloppy and incomplete. And probably they will never be complete enough for a bot to delete them.
A second point is transparency. If we blacklist, and the editor comes with 'I did not know', then with the deleted talkpages we can't say 'you were warned' (with again looking them all up ..). If the histories are there, even a non-admin can do it, simple. If the situation is cross-wiki (and that is what some of us handle) the situation becomes increasingly more difficult.
As for the pages about continued POV-pushing, long-term vandalism, etc. Those pages will likely have links, categories, and templates on them, and many will be blocked. I don't see how you would be able to say "you were warned" if the talk pages weren't deleted without looking them up, unless you just assume that a blue link talk page meant that they were warned, which is about as bad an assumption as assuming a talk page that hasn't been edited in a year still belongs to the same person it did a year ago, or that you can connect it to someone else despite having no categories, templates, or links to track it. I think I said this before somewhere else, but never got a straight answer: Why is putting a template or a category on pages we might want to keep such a horrible idea? We've been doing it for sockpuppets for years. It'll make tracking and writing bots/scripts to aid in tracking easier and it'll allow us to more easily delete the pages that we don't want to keep. Mr.Z-man18:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Josh: Damaged transparency? All of the IP's contributions are still visible. The only thing that isn't visible are the templated warnings (that everyone seems to agree are often inaccurate). And, of course this only applies to IPs that have never been blocked, haven't edited within a year, aren't link to from anywhere, have no recent edits to their talk page, etc. So what transparency is lost? You can't see that someone warned an IP six years ago for petty vandalism using Twinkle? Who cares? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
My main complaint with the criterion as it stands is (6) "all edits of the IP are 'simple' vandalism." Not only is "simple vandalism" highly subjective, but this is likely to never be true - most IPs will have non-vandalism edits in their history somewhere, especially dynamic IPs. We are deleting these pages under the assumption that a good user may use the IP in the future - but won't that very act make it ineligible for deletion under this criterion ever again? This is not easy to fix - if you only consider a subset of their contributions, you introduce subjectivity in the choice of what contributions to include. Dcoetzee04:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Oi, you are right there, "all edits of the IP are at the worst 'simple' vandalism". The point is filtering out those which are POV-pushing, spamming, etc. If they are not that, they are simple vandalism, if they may be any of the other, don't delete, 'blank' (in whichever form ..). Behold, blanking SHOULD be done, the IP is indeed probably not the same user anymore. All I am arguing is, in case of doubt, make sure that the page history does not get hidden. That is the transparency that I mean. And even, that loss in transparency is often just a minor problem, but in some cases it certainly is not. We do get spammers saying 'we did not get warned' .. same goes for contributors: 'how do you dare blacklisting that, the editor did not get warned, why not try that?', the same is true for POV-pushers and some other forms of persistent vandalism. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I think Beestra has a very valid point that speaks against such a criterion. Blanking the IP's talk page using a bot will get the same result (new user with this IP will not be confused by old warnings) but will not lose the page history to non-admins. I have yet to hear a reason why only deleting will achieve an acceptable result. SoWhy20:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
New talk page categories for spammers
As of today, when new spam, advertising or coi warning templates are placed on spammers' talk pages, the template when substituted will automatically add the page to the appropriate new category below:
Can we include the coi template as well, and there may be more warning templates which point towards a more structural problem with the edits then 'simple vandalism'. And this still does not resolve the problem of editors warning with {{uw-vandalism}}, while the edit is clearly promotional. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Problems with the the proposed U4
If we want to see the contribs of the user, then we have already found him (those tracks are generally pretty clear). But has the user been warned for the actions? That is done by checking timing of warning and contents of warning against the contribs of the editor. If the revids of the talkpage are deleted, it comes down to admins to check these. Know, that if the editor adds exact the same piece of text 2 year later, then it is physically the same person, even though the editor has now a completely different IP and the old IP is now used by someone else. I see with XLinkBot often cases of some IPs spamming, me putting the link on XLinkBot, and then XLinkBot reverts and warns a couple of times. Then 3 months later suddenly an account comes up, autoconfirmed and all, who spams exactly the same articles. What happened? Their IP gets warned, they create an account, do some unrelated or minor edits or wait three months doing nothing, and start spamming. Timing of account creation only minutes after the last IP stopped spamming. No blocks yet, abuse stopped .... As I have given as example earlier, if Grawp comes with a new IP, you block on sight, why? Because you know his modus operandi, and know he was warned. These cases are often less bad, still for some, if they return after a week, a month, or two years ... we sometimes know it is the same physical person, and hence immediate block is often in place.
I know that speedy criteria are never complete, but if I check 4 existing talkpages and see 3 fail in a range of 256 possible talkpages .. and on the other hand, another range of 256 talkpages had some which stayed and could probably be deleted. But the first 75% failure rate, 50% on the other example I mentioned. I really hope that the error rate over tens of thousands of pages (I heard A. B. saying that he was getting tired of scrolling through pages with 5000 deleted pages) is getting way below 1% .. but I think it is going to be difficult to get it below 5% .. that is in the end also thousands of pages.
About incomplete:
Blocks: blocks includes rangeblocks (easy to check locally), and since some time also for blocks applied mediawiki wide (used nowadays while e.g. waiting for meta blacklists to kick in).
Blocks 2: IPs often don't get blocked, they change their IP and go on. Only if we are really fast, that makes sense. And some IPs we simply can't block or only if it really gets bad (those UK IPs which were used widely after the album cover image, government IPs?).
Incoming links 1, if the case is cross-wiki, there are not always local reports, but the incoming links are coming from other wikis (mainly meta).
No activity by the IP, that should include deleted activity.
Incoming links 2, not all actions require a signature (is that not omited for RFCs?).
Incoming links 3, especially IPs don't always know that they should sign. Sinebot is active since August 2007, pages before that were often not signed, are we sure that that criterium can be met? And then still, Sinebot does also make mistakes, I see it miss signatures. And some IPs sign by hand, not leaving a link to the talkpage. And where those IPs should have signed, those are often discussions that matter.
Tagging: Some of the deletions I saw had an IPsock tag on the userpage, not on the talkpage. Indeed, talkpage is not tagged.
Incoming links 4, some of our reports link to the userpage, or to the special:contributions (I do that with the XLinkBot log), or may just state the whole range and not link to individual user(-talk) pages.
Warnings: as mentioned, warnings are not always proper (vandalism warnings for spam, etc.).
Warnings 2: also mentioned, people use still custom warnings, 'Hi, I have reverted your edits, please don't insert your own links. Thanks. (sig)' .. still spam!
Users are allowed to blank warnings, under the idea that they have then read the warning. If the warnings for spam get removed by the IP, the word spam is not anymore on the talkpage, so it may be deleted.
On the other hand:
Some unsubstituted templates are just as confusing as a spam message which is not for the editor. Why keep it if the IP(-range) is hardly used)?
Talkpages with only a nice and friendly welcome message get deleted.
By far not all the 'spam' warnings for users are for spam, it may be plain vandalism where the user replaced e.g. the homepage of their school with a movie on redtube. Those get by XLinkBot tagged for spam (well, for inappropriate external link addition I prefer to think), but are just plain vandalism. Similar for taggings for inclusion of example.com. Difficult to distinguish!
Blocks 2: If the user has changed, then having had a block on the IP is not a reason not to at least blank the page. The user is long gone.
There may be more points of interest here, but this shows in my (humble) opinion, that automated deletion is dangerous. I have too many concerns, some of which already raised over a month ago, which under the current policy were not met, or which were impossible to check automatically (or which the current automated process did not seem to follow). I know the policy was discussed over and over, and was (apparently) carefully thought through, but I am afraid it was not done good enough. (copied from my talk). --Dirk BeetstraTC18:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
"... we sometimes know it is the same physical person, and hence immediate block is often in place." This implies a tracking system of some sort. And to my knowledge there isn't one in place.
The criteria were created the way they were because it provides an easy way to find users / user talk pages where there hasn't been any substantive activity. 365 days without any activity; 365 since the last edit; no templates; etc. I've asked you previously, but are there any examples of returning users coming back after years that also would have their user talk pages deleted? Some of the examples you cited in your /DeletedTalks page would not be deleted due to reports like Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/public-domain-image.com.
And I don't think you addressed the issue of why warnings matter when they're so often wrong. Contributions are still visible to everyone. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Tracking the users, not perfect, but yes, if the modus operandi is too similar, and the IP is in the same range, then that assumption is quite justified. And even if not so, it is returning abuse, so the pages are of interest.
I'll have a look for returning abusers. I know I blocked an editor not too long ago who 1) spammed as an IP, but never got blocked, 2) stopped spamming, but created an account immediately, and then 3) returned months later. I'll have a look.
The warnings are not wrong, the example with the 4 IPs of the public-domain-image were all four warned because what they were essentially doing: spamming (though vandalism warnings were used). That does not mean they were not warned. Indeed, these editors are covered because they do have incoming links, but as I said, some cases handled on meta do not get such local links, except if they are there for other reasons. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
So, let's look at one of your examples: User talk:89.216.66.107. It's a generic {{uw-vandalism1}} warning. It obviously wouldn't be deleted for another year. But what's the purpose of keeping it after a year? It's a generic template and as you say, the IPs often rotate for these spammers. And the contributions would still be visible to everyone. The only thing lost is a generic warning template. Why did you cite this as problematic? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
The template is a generic uw-vandalims1, but the actual action was spam. 4 Editors got warned for spam .. 8 editors adding it, I would say, blacklist locally. But now envisage long terms between the edits, or cross-wiki. And by the way, we have long-term POV pushers or vandals as well. Is it so hard to see that we have examples of editors who stay away for a year but keep doing the same edits (I'll come up with an example of one, though I am pretty sure there are enough tracks there not deleted, he is persistent)? --Dirk BeetstraTC20:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Examples: diff, diff, etc. etc. reverted many many times.
Page protected: diff by me on the second of August, 2007, expires the second of February, 2008, 6 months.
22 Feb, 2008, diff, editor is back, 20 days after the deprotection. In a couple of days we have one year after I reprotected it again (protection is indef now), but we can do the experiment, do you want to see if the same editor returns?
Here there are many, many talkpages tagged in various ways, and I am sure that there are discussions pointing to many of them. I don't think all of them will be deleted, but it is an example of 1 editor, always the same one, who does return after long times of absence. I have absolutely NO doubt that it is always one and the same physical editor. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
No, this case is indeed quite big, though some talkpages in this huge range of editors have already been deleted (will have trouble finding one, have to follow all the deleted revisions ...).
The purpose: we don't blacklist if there have not been attempts to warn the editor. The editor has been warned that these edits are unwanted, it is therefore support for us that we can safely blacklist: the editor persists after attempts to communicate. --Dirk BeetstraTC21:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Active on 15 September 2008, 17 September 2008, 5 October 2007 and 8 March 2009. Same link, 6 months and 15 days after first IP
OK, the first IP did not get warned, but while it is quite clear that these 3 editors are the same physical person (same link to same pages, close range, activity periods that overlap), it shows how persistent editors can be, they will return after months and months of inactivity. Deleting after one year (when warned on 29 February 2008) and having the bad luck of no incoming links (there are none!) would result in the old talk page being gone. I hope this shows to what length people go to spam. 2 of these editors do have incoming Now imagine a SEO being payed for links being added ... --Dirk BeetstraTC21:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I routinely deal with accounts that have spammed off and on going back to 2006. They often have multiple domains, too. So you get one IP adding one domain for a while, then another account taking the baton and spamming another domain for a few months, etc. We need to know who's gotten warnings and how many. Some of our volunteers are not admins. Likewise, most of the meta admins that deal with the Wikimedia global spam blacklist are not en.wikipedia admins, so they can't see our deleted talk pages either.
Do they have a policy for this, I'd like to see their reasons why they think certain pages are not necessery anymore (I will also ask them myself). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
They do, see de:Wikipedia:Schnelllöschantrag#Sonstiges (added 16 December 2004[13]). I cannot find any discussion on that in the archives. As with so many things, I think de-wiki should not be an example to us. They make a lot of stupid things we don't have to copy. Regards SoWhy10:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
See McMzBride's comment above under my comment "I think an important question here that MZMcBride has not addressed is why deletion is preferable to blanking in these cases." I don't find it terribly convincing myself - I think maintaining transparency and keeping notice history available to non-admins is more important than the cosmetic issues he raises, regardless of their merit. Dcoetzee10:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Reply to a question from MZMcBride above: The purpose is: the physical user, that is the person who performs this type of 'signature vandalism', was warned on the old IP. That is information which can be of interest later on. And we are still talking about vandals and spammers, there are also occasions where users discuss on their talkpage and do edits based on those discussions. They may not have been involved in other discussions, or those may not have been signed (yes, we NOW have Sinebot, but this deletion also deletes pages from 2005!). How are you going to detect if these users have been involved in other, possibly useful, discussions? You can partially catch them by loading their contribs outside of mainspace and see where they contributed, but then you still have the problem of deleted contris, you also have to scan these, and vandals may also vandalise outside of mainspace, so it again cuts both ways. Still .. There are a lot of scenarios thinkable which are very, very difficult to detect.
MZMcBride, you strongly give the feeling here, that because you (and quite some others) don't see the use of them, that we are really just moaning, and actually don't have a use for them. Can everybody here really say that by far the most of the old talkpages of IPs that fall under the current #U4 conditions are utterly useless, and that by far the most that do not fall under the current set of conditions for #U4 are useful, and that there are no alternatives to this? Seen the above set of arguments I posed, and the different examples that I have shown, what do we think the 'error rate' is? I hear that A. B. already gave up undeleting the ones which are of interest (to him).
However, blanking the page has the same non-bitey effect as deletion of the whole talkpage (I still prefer to 'archive' or replace with a new template: A bot could do that easily, record the current revid, and replace contents with a new template: {{subst:re-welcomeIP|oldrevid}} on it, a blank page may still be confusing). We might even be able to find a way to 'reset' the new messages bit. This all without us even having to discuss a) which to delete and why are they useful and others delete them as well etc. etc., seen that we can (easily!) come up with examples where the info is clearly related to old cases (I'd like A. B. to show a couple as well), and b) we have your deleted contribs, a bot could just go through them now, undelete, and recreate them as said with the {{re-welcomeIP}} and we are all happy (well, except for those who worry about having all these talkpages hanging around). Further archiving could be done by a (non-admin!) bot, with less detection problems. I don't care about the #U4#6 'involved in spamming' anymore, replace them; the time period could be 3 weeks for volatile IPs, 3 months for static IPs (not a year, a lot of users use some IPs in a years period, getting all those annoying messages!!), unsubstituted templates (which may also not be true anymore!), and one could even do this for blocked users (which IPs can also be used by new physical users or be assigned to other ISPs etc., block templates can be very, very bitey for the next user!). The only problem that I see is that you make 100.000 new revids in the database for talkpages (how many did you say you deleted?) but that is not our problem, we'll discuss about that if the developers have problems with it. IMHO, this is clearing out many, many MORE old IP talkpages then the current conditions, is much LESS bitey then leaving the ones that are still left, and is not 'destroying' useful information (whatever who thinks what is useful and useless), resulting in improved transparency! --Dirk BeetstraTC10:49, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
User pages eligible under G11?
I sometimes see user pages or user subpages (which often look like articles-under-development) nominated for speedy under G11. I cannot find any past discussion about whether user pages are even eligible for deletion under this criterion. The text of the criterion refers to articles, but it is in the G rather than A section. My inclination is not to delete things out of a user's userspace unless there is some clear harm to Wikipedia. Is there any established consensus on this issue? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
True. But G11 talks about "Pages that exclusively promote some entity and that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion." The two underlined phrases raise doubt in my mind. User pages are not supposed to be encyclopedic, so the first phrase does not seem to establish any meaningful criterion for assessing them. And the second, I think, is obvious. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree - we may want to delete spam user pages, but this criterion as stated makes very little sense for them (a user may reasonably ask, how do I fix it? It doesn't tell them.) I suggest rewording G11 to describe different requirements for articles and other types of pages. Dcoetzee21:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) The user pages that should be speedied under G11 are the ones that are blatant ads — either fashioned to look like an encyclopedia article but needing to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic, or in some cases just pure marketing copy using Wikipedia user space as a web host. The ones disguised as articles can be difficult to distinguish from sandbox works-in-progress, but only as difficult as it is to distinguish G11 and A7 deletions in article space. If you'd seen any of the pure marketing copy ones you wouldn't be so doubtful about why this applies to userspace (and sometimes user talk space) as well as article space. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, why not something like this?
Blatant advertising, any content that exclusively advertises some entity with no non-promotional content worth saving. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject or the introduction of promotional language into an otherwise neutral page does not qualify an article for this criterion.
Pages created exclusively to promote some entity and that would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Pages outside the article namespace fall under this criterion if they would be deleted as an article. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify a page for this criterion.
”
It takes the idea from P1, i.e. that it's not important which namespace is chosen to promote the entity. It's strict enough as long as admins do not see this as a free pass to self-promoting userpages and suchlike, which G11 never was anyway. An userpage with "I'm John Doe and I am the best user here!" is promotional but it's not a G11. "Buy Viagra now at www.fakeviagrastore.com!" would be deleted at Buy Viagra Now! and at User:Buy Viagra Now. Regards SoWhy11:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, as R'n'B points out, the current wording is a bit strange because for example user pages cannot be rewritten to "become encyclopedic". I think it needs a better wording to make clear that it's not only for articles but I admit that I am not very good at it. SoWhy09:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Content in any namespace has the potential to become encyclopedic. I could draft an article on my userspace then move it when it is done. The wording is accurate in that we use the likelihood of it ever being encyclopedic to determine if it is advertising regardless of the namespace. Chillum18:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The concern is that, for example, a user's user page may be deleted because it would "need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic"; but it may not need to be fundamentally rewritten just to be an acceptable user page. Dcoetzee23:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
You might adopt some wording from this User Talk template I use when tagging spam User pages ({{spam-warn-userpage}}):
A tag has been placed on your user page, User:EXAMPLE, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person, and which is a violation of our policies regarding acceptable use of user pages: user pages are intended for active editors of Wikipedia to communicate with one another as part of the process of creating encyclopedic content, and should not be mistaken for free webhosting resources. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam, the guidelines on user pages, and, especially, our FAQ for businesses.
If you can indicate why the page is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of the page in question and leave a note on this page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this.
we can't say why an article was created; I've never been happy with that part of the wording. DGG (talk) 02:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Adding a criteria based on duplicated material?
For example, if we had (hypothetically) a stub article created at ManUtd FC, or an article that completely duplicates Manchester United F.C., we don't technically have a criteria to cover this clear duplication. This would therefore require an AFD debate in order to delete it through the correct process. Therefore - and I'm just throwing this out there - perhaps a new criteria for "Articles with consist of content that duplicates that already available in existing articles". The problem I can immediately see is that it could interfere with expanding coverage of a topic, but if a topic is already covered on Wikipedia and an article does not offer anything substantive worth merging, a criteria for such scenarios could be an idea. Esteffect (talk) 00:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
In that situation, the new stub should generally be just made into a redirect to the article. If someone's ended up creating it, it's probably a likely search term. Algebraist00:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree or use {{merge}} if there is content that can be moved there. As Algebraist points out, there is no reason to delete it because it's a likely redirect candidate then. SoWhy18:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with what's been said above and will only add that if the duplicate page is located at an implausible search title (e.g. a duplicate article about Birmingham at Biggringham), either criterion G2 (test page) or criterion G6 (housekeeping) could apply. Criterion R2 (redirect from implausible typo or misnomer) could also apply once the page is redirected if there is no useful page history. –Black Falcon(Talk)06:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Ditto what's been said above. I'll only add that I try to be pretty generous in my thinking about what's a plausible redirect. Someone was probably looking for the article on Birmingham and typed Birrmingham by mistake -- it makes sense someone else might do the same thing.--Fabrictramp | talk to me20:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
U1 and user talk archives
I'm usually quite knowledgeable when it comes to CSD issues but sometimes I need help as well. Question today: Does U1 apply to subpages of "User talk:" like archives? It does not apply to user talk pages itself, I know that. But what about archives? I see multiple ways to answer this question:
It does apply because U1 just forbids the current user talk page to be deleted
It does apply only if the archive was created using cut+paste (like MiszaBot III et al. do it) but not if it is a moved talk page
It does never apply because archives are just user talk in a stale form and U1 covers the complete "User talk:" namespace as an exception
Option 2, I think - don't delete the archive if it was moved and has the page history, but if the history remains in the main user talk page, then I see no reason why the cut-and-paste archives shouldn't be deleted if requested. Somno (talk) 09:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
It's definitely 2. Talk history has to be preserved, but duplicates of it (such as c/p archives) are fair game. I got this one wrong a while back and was convinced otherwise after DRV. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk09:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I've restored my accidentally overwritten posted above. It doesn't change much as we all seem to agree. The linked DRV is interesting as it refers to a contested case where we had to locate the history in the first place but their preservation was indeed found to be the decisive criterion. Even G7 would apply to a page that the user has created. Actually it seems to me that while we grant good-faith requests to delete copy and page archives, there may be no need to make this more prominent in the policies either.--Tikiwont (talk) 12:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
G13 Books
At it's been pointed out that we need something to counteract abuse of the book feature for hosting vanity, spam, attack pages and general crap. As books are essentially lists of articles with a main subject, I propose the following criterion:
G13 - any book whose contents would be subject to speedy deletion as an article.
I agree. The userspace guidelines (and speedy deletion criteria) handle books in userspace fine. I think MER-C's formulation is the way forward for project-space books - they're a permutation of our article content, so article criteria should apply. The general criteria also apply to books in either namespace, of course. Also, let's keep in mind that many people saving books in either place simply might just not know what they're doing - so we should be willing to userfy content that would be fine in userspace, and provide instructions for saving local copies of books that don't meet userspace guidelines. — Gavia immer (talk)03:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I think since these could end up in multiple namespaces, we would need to look into creating a new category of CSD's just for Books. These could apply either in the Wikipedia:Books/ space or in User: space; basically anything that is appropriately stuck in Category:Wikipedia:Books; sort of similar how a Template CSD can apply to an inflammatory userbox in userspace.
MER-C, I like your idea of any book whose contents would be subject to speedy deletion as an article. I'd like to add a suggestion for another one: any book that does not contain an article, and whose contents do not assist users in using the encyclopedia or understanding its administration. This way, we avoid the creation of purely userspace books, but allow ones to remain that contain lessons for new users, related policies, and the like. For example, the user page design center is entirely in the Wikipedia userpsace, and my adoption lessons are wholly contained in my userspace; books of entirely these pages would be acceptable under this guideline.
All of the above was before an edit conflict; considering what Gavia said, perhaps any CSD's we do set up should be subject to a time limit as some of the image criteria are, in order to allow users the chance to export their books or otherwise resolve the problem. Hersfold(t/a/c)03:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I fully agree with the spirit of the proposal. The wordage and expansion should happen, but lets not lose focus: this is about a new type of content, which is already creating trouble, and for which we have no deletion policy. We need something rough and fast out there, now, and then we can polish. I commend MER-C for the initiative. --Cerejota (talk) 06:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I think that the existing criteria cover what we already have to the extent that they should, and we probably don't have enough experience yet with what people will create to know whether we have a reason to extend the criteria. It's a waste of time to focus upon making up rules for things that haven't happened yet.
For examples: Wikipedia:Books/Accademia Leonardo I suspect is already speedily deletable as a combination of "user test" and "advertising". It's a book that contains nothing but Wikipedia:Introduction. (The extra content on the page isn't rendered into the book, note.) Similarly, Wikipedia:Books/yeah contains nothing but Wikipedia:Upload and is probably speedily deletable as a "user test" as well. Clicking "add wiki page" on the book toolbox next to a random page (or a sandbox) and then hitting save is just as much a user testing the editing function as a user clicking on a random feature of the editing toolbar and hitting save.
As for Wikipedia:Books/new stadiums in Bulgaria: Remember that the extra content isn't rendered into the book itself. The closest parallel to this seems to be templates. We don't speedily delete valid templates because the <noinclude> text in them happens to contain irrelevant rubbish. We remove the irrelevant rubbish. We only delete the templates if they aren't valid as templates, and we don't do that through speedy deletion in most cases. It's probably best to think of books in the same way. That book contains one article that seems to be relevant to its title, and seems to be valid as a book. The spurious text can be edited out, and the bad title and subtitle can be edited too. If the book itself doesn't seem maintainable, or valid as a book, the correct forum is Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, just as it is for (say) WikiProjects or portals that don't seem valid. We don't need a speedy deletion criterion to cover it.
I suspect that we'll have to augment the speedy deletion criteria slightly eventually. I suspect that many editors would want Wikipedia:Books/sabina wantoch and anything similar to be deletable on sight, but currently there's nothing to cover it, since the page is in the project namespace. Moreover, Wikipedia:sabina wantoch with exactly the same content wouldn't be speedily deletable, and it is just as easy to create. On the gripping hand, it's currently a set with one element. Let's wait to see whether this actually becomes a problem. Such pages are not a particular problem for the project namespace (as a whole) at the moment. Uncle G (talk) 06:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I am CSD tagging all I see that can meet the existing criteria, and MfD those who don't. Wikipedia:Books/Accademia Leonardo was deleted after I tagged as spam, so it seems we have some protection until we can have a more formal policy.
Not to be BEANy, but my main worry is that once this feature spreads around the internet, and it becomes known there is community paralisys, we will find ourselves in a situation where the number of bad books is higher than those of the good books. There are all kinds of policies and guidelines that need to be modified to take into account this new content. I really wish this feature had a more wide community discussion so we could prepare (and if it was had, I apologize, but you guys overlooked a bunch of obvious stuff). For example, this thing should have its own Space, "Books:".
I think for example that we need:
Deletion criteria/discussion space - I am not sure MfD is enough. We are addressing CSD here.
MoS - I mean, in userspace let the people pig-out, but I would like Community Maintained books to be pretty and coherent - as well as compliant with core content policy like WP:NPOV
Editing policy - In articlespace, we have separate polices for the article and the talk page. In wikispace, we have the same thing, and also have levels from policy to essay, and include proposals and the wikiprojects. All of these covered by policy.
I hate to be a creep, but there is a reason why everything else is covered by such things: they make the result better and more coherent.--Cerejota (talk) 07:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I have proposed to disable the creation of books in project space from Special:Book, here. And instead, to have a few books created and maintained by the community (instead of just being created by any user without any control). Cenarium (talk) 15:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Support the general idea of this proposal: I'm really not the kind of person who works much with legalese, even here, so I'm not going to participate in a discussion of how-exactly-do-we-word-this, but without a doubt this is a reasonable proposal. No reason that this new feature should enable people to have things on Wikipedia that would never be permitted on here otherwise. Nyttend (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Comment Some recently created books (and many of those that will created in near future) may be deleted as test pages (G2). Many of these books are indeed test pages, and I just deleted a couple of them. I think until specific CSD criteria are agreed upon, the (creative) use of G2 can partially solve the problem. Ruslik (talk) 20:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we have too many criteria already. If something is in fact a "test page" the creator is unlikely to protest the deletion once they know whether the "test" succeeded or failed. Something like {{prod}} would probably be better. — CharlotteWebb21:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
If we create a namespace for books, we could use specific CSD criteria for them. We could replace G13 by a criteria similar to P1:
We don't need a new speedy criterion for such books. We already delete article drafts that wouldn't survive in mainspace and if the articles within a book are speediable, the links won't be working anyway. Let's first see if it's actually abused to the point we need criteria to battle it. - Mgm|(talk)08:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I think you miss the point that these are a completely new category of content, for which we might want to keep under circumstances that would be speedy delete or delete under circumstances that might not be speedy delete now. I do tend to agree with you to wait it out, but we just had some MfDs on books which should have been speedy deleted/userfied based on the purpose that books exist for, but required long discussion. I feel that is adding unnecessary bureaucracy. CSD is after all really an extention of WP:IAR, so all I am saying is we tell admins it is okay to delete that book.--Cerejota (talk) 21:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, my proposal to speedy delete Thing Thing Arena 3 got rejected because of someone's interpretation that online games do not count as web content per A7 (which says it doesn't apply to "software"). But, if anything, it should distinctly acknowledge this, so I propose a little tweak to A7:
An article about a real person, an organization (e.g. band, club, company, etc., except schools), or web content (e.g. a web site, blog, viral image or video, browser game, etc, except software) that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability.
It's pretty obvious that there are online games that are not web content (like pretty much any modern retail PC game). I'm hesitant even in the case of web-based online games to sanction this expansion. Dcoetzee14:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Certainly "browser game" is a better phrase to use, "online game" is a very general one. I'd agree with you that, given a reasonable interpretation of the current A7 standard, a small Flash-based browser game should be deletable under A7 (as "other web content") but a conventional computer game which is played online should not. Certainly specifying "browser game" is better if you want to change the wording here without consensus for an overall change of the scope of A7. ~ mazcat|c14:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't have any opinion on the wording change, but I wanted to clarify a misconception on ViperSnake151's part. I was the admin who rejected the A7. The article as it was at that time (I haven't looked at it for a couple of days) did not say if the game was a browser game, other online game, or a game you play entirely on your own computer. I assumed the latter, which would not be eligible for A7 even under this proposed wording. When ViperSnake151 complained about it on my talk page, I did a quick gsearch, saw s/he was correct that it was an online game, and apologized on my talk page for the error.--Fabrictramp | talk to me14:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree, no change necessary. A7's wording covers flash and browser games already and this was a unique case where Fabrictramp correctly declined the speedy based on the information in the article because it was not clear that it fitted A7. There is no need to change the wording as noone debates that those games are within A7's scope. SoWhy07:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I too agree that his was a came that I think substantial enough not to fall under A7, but that deserved the attention of the community, But many games submitted to Wikipedia are altogether to trivial & speculatice, in the same category of new garage band try-outs demos. DGG (talk) 08:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
When someone creates and article about their best friend's puppy, it's likely to get deleted. When someone creates an article and the text is:'ghvfjhbjhfuhjgjhvbjmv', it's likely to get deleted. When someone creates an article about a band/club/online group about three people know (two of which are in the band/club/online group), it's likely to get deleted. HalfShadow20:05, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
"""on the other hand, when someone constructs a page about a political or literary figure and makes it plain in the first sentence that it is going to be possibly be someone who might possible have a career, even though nothing is yet said that would indicate there will actually be notable career to justify an article, it is reasonable to give a certain amount of time for the second sentence to be written. My idea of what is reasonable to remove immediately depends on where it looks like the article is going. If it might work out, I wait a few hours or a day & ;leave a note for the editor. If its halfway there already, then a prod is often indicated. DGG (talk) 07:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Expansion of F2
I would like to make a tweak to F2:
Corrupt, empty, or infected file. Any image cannot be properly read, is empty, or contains harmful malware. Before deleting this type of image, if it has malware, first attempt to remove the malware form the image and reload, if the malware cannot be removed, then the file should be deleted. If it is empty, verify that the MediaWiki engine cannot read it by previewing a resized thumbnail of it. Even if it renders, if it contains superfluous information that cannot be accounted for as metadata directly relating to the image data, it may be deleted. It is always possible for the uploader to correct the problem by uploading an image that contains only a good image plus acceptable metadata.
Sounds like a logical tweak, although malware is probably already covered in G3 as vandalism. But it won't hurt to group it explicitly with F2. SoWhy21:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
This is okay, but is largely unnecessary because most file types that can be uploaded simply cannot contain malware. They may contain exploits for particular renderers, but I find it difficult to fathom an image for which the malware "cannot be removed" (if nothing else, you can screenshot and re-save it...) Dcoetzee22:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
It's also a lousy idea to put the concept in people's minds. Some of our sister projects accept a wider range of files, and some of those can contain malware - per WP:BEANS, it's not a good idea to remind people of this. — Gavia immer (talk)23:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree that this addition seems basically unnecessary - have we had any incidents of infected files needing to be speedy-deleted recently, particularly outside of blatant vandalism uploads? It seems that malware-capable file formats are few and far between on Wikipedia anyway (image, sound and video files are all generally immune) so this change to me serves little purpose other than to give naughty people ideas. ~ mazcat|c00:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. A genuinely infected file would be an unquestionable application of WP:IAR; no need for a 'mere' CSD criterion. And unless this is actually a huge problem that's been oversighted from all public view, a prescription for a problem that does not actually exist is pure WP:CREEP. Happy‑melon20:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems to fail the third pre-qualification rule (at the top of this page), as not arising frequently enough. Stifle (talk) 10:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The very first line of this policy says "Criteria for speedy deletion specify the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion." Everything in the policy details speak of admin review/process/etc. So why does the CSD template allow for anyone to remove a CSD tag without reason? Doesn't that make it no different from a PROD? -- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 02:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Only the page creator is prohibited from removing the speedy tag. Any other editor can if the article does not meet the speedy deletion criteria. I myself sometimes go through CAT:CSD and remove bad taggings. There was a previous discussion about this here. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Should the policy be updated to better reflect this then? That CSDs, like PRODs, can be removed by anyone, except the article creator, for any reason? -- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 05:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
PRODs explicitly can be removed by the article creator, while speedy tags cannot. That's the main difference, actually; if it weren't for that, PROD would likely just be a speedy criterion. The instructions regarding who may remove speedy tags are included speedy tags themselves (all of them), so I'm not sure anything more is needed. — Gavia immer (talk)05:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
They are included in the tags but not expounded upon in this policy, which implies that only admins should remove CSDs. As noted in my opening, the very first sentence focuses on administrators. If anyone cna remove a CSD (except the article creator) without reason, this should be clarified in the lead and in the article. If there is some minimal criteria for non-admin removal of a CSD, this should also be noted. -- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 05:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm ok with clarifying the policy to make this more clear. We've had some problems in the past with persistent misunderstanding of this policy. However, most of the speedy patrolling (AFAIK) is done by admins, because a bulk of the articles tagged for speedy deletion are generally bound to be deleted. Protonk (talk) 06:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Note that CSD tags cannot be removed "for any reason" - they can only be removed if the article actually doesn't meet the criteria. Mr.Z-man16:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Technically it comes down to the same thing since anyone can say "I disagree with its deletion" and remove the tag. So no real reason has to be given, only that they disagree with it. -- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 16:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, they can be removed even if the article does meet the criteria. If someone removes the CSD tag, they are saying it's a controversial deletion, which automatically disqualifies it from speedy. (And personally, I appreciate the non-admins who review the CSD taggings. It's pretty discouraging to try to clean out the CSD cat only to find 75% are bad tags.) --Fabrictramp | talk to me17:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I do not see any reason for clarification. The page begins with
“
The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead add {{hangon}} to the page, and explain the rationale on the page's discussion page.
”
Nothing in there says that only admins can remove them, it clearly says that any "editor" can do so. SoWhy17:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The part that anybody may contest the speedy deletion of a page by removing the deletion notice is the clear one. What may not be clear enough is what exactly this means and what is supposed to happen if there is disagreement about the reason for contention itself, since as the CSD evaluation is also about whether or not a speedy deletion criterion applies. Actually, while we say that admins 'decline' speedies, the policies do not use that wording. What it means is that admins decline a request to delete something for the tagger who can't do it. In that sense by removing teh tag non-admins rather prevent a deletion than decline one. If somebody re-enters then the tag which, as opposed to prod, is not prohibited by policy, or deletes it per CSD they'd better be sure that their call would stand in the light of a deletion review but I don't think it is automatically prohibited. My general take is therefore that the contention should be explained in the edit sumamry (and ideally even convince the tagger), especially but not only when done by non-admins, but re-inserting them needs an even better reason, and at that point it's best to wait for a third opinion which will often read 'already declined' or 'controversial' but sometimes amount to deletion.--Tikiwont (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
If that is clearly the policy, then the rest of the page should be adjusted to say so, because right now that note at the top is the only place that says that, and that's basically just what the tag says. Nothing in the entire rest of the policy supports, backups, nor clarifies why non-editors can remove CSDs. It also does not give any descriptive for non-admin removal without explanation. It also makes me wonder, what's the point of a CSD at all if, again, anyone except the article creator can remove it for any reason (or none) beyond "I don't agree". And if someone does just remove the tag because they disagree, but without actually addressing the tag's reasoning, can it just be replaced or must one then go to AfD even if its something like blatant copyright violations, personal pages that fail A7, etc. -- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 21:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
What would you suggest needs to be changed? It's stated right at the top of the page that non-creator non-admins can removed these tags, and I can't see anything that implies otherwise elsewhere on the page. It would help the rest of us in this discussion to reply to your points if you could point to any specific wording that does imply otherwise. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Phil, it ought to be clear enough, I think its clear enough, but it is frequently challenged nonetheless. Before I became an admin, when I did it people challenged me. I see people challenging it now. We need to reinforce this. DGG (talk) 07:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
To clarify what I said: Editors can express their disagreement by removing the tag but this does not amount to 'declining' the deletion. Also admins do essentially the same: they do not delete the article and remove the tag explaining why they disagree. The article is then not immune to speedy deletion but discussion has moved forward in establishing that somebody disagrees with a more or less convincing reason. To Collectonain: You shouldn't do an all or nothing argument here. Many pages are tagged and deleted correctly for speedy deletion. A number of tags are wrong and need to be removed and there is no reason to let that only admins do. (Non admins will mostly do so when it comes to their attention as most find that combing through the CSD cat is unproductive if you cannot to delete all the crap you come across while looking for a hidden gem.) Of those removed a few will have been removed incorrectly or without a clear or any reason (by admins or by non admins). So, while often AfD is appropriate, also talking or re-adding the tag can be the next step to resolve the situation. What is not appropriate is to reinsert the tag for the sole reason that it has been removed by somebody who isn't an an administrator. --Tikiwont (talk) 08:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
User talk pages of IPs
I'm going through the zero-byte page listing and seeing a large number of IP user talk and user pages in there. Is there a reason to not delete these pages under the theory that it is a blank page of an IP that probably is owned by someone else and doesn't show any useful information (zero-byte means they are blank), The User talk pages don't fall under any of the U criteria, but I think they might fall under a broad reading of G8. Any thoughts? MBisanztalk08:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Only that I wouldn't delete them lightly, due to all the controversy with MZMcBride's deletions of them. See above at #U4 and at WT:User page#OLDIP for some recent discussion about this, I haven't stayed on top of it so I can't tell you if there is consensus for anything. If the page has no meaningful history I'm sure a G6 deletion is OK, but that'll hardly ever be the case. --Amalthea08:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I was afraid that this would happen. I, for one, have strongly argued that though by far the most can safely be deleted, I strongly oppose blanket deletion of these pages! I would say, that if the user has not been involved in any form of coordinated, long term or structural form of vandalism, e.g. long term POV pushing or spamming (and note that some users who insert a spam link are actually performing run-of-the-mill vandalism, while other link-additions seem quite harmless but are part of a SEO campaign!), and the user (even under another IP) may return and do the same vandalism again (which is certainly true for SEO's), do not delete the (history of the) page. I have tried to write a script to see which pages would fall under that type of vandalism, and I see many problems coming up .. Please leave them there unless you are sure that the IP has not been used for any form of these .. thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC09:12, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I have to say that I fail to see the point of deleting pages like this. It seems like busywork. If you don't want IPs to get messages that were left for other users, I suppose you can blank the pages. Deleting them is a whole lot of extra work for no real reward. Stifle (talk) 13:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"No content"
Common sense tells me this should apply to talk pages with no useful content, especially those which only consisted of a banner template which has since been deleted, but the admin handling this is either colorblind or doesn't see the benefit of knowing before you click on it that a page has no content or refuses to delete the blank talk pages simply because there is no CSD for it. This could have huge implications for the Template:Talkheader discussion. If we are really willing to leave thousands of completely blank talk pages, there's no point to all of this, but personally I consider this tantamount running a vandal-bot which follows every red link and creates a page with invisible content in the order of
Talk pages that only contain the TfDed {{WPRedir}} template and have no meaningful history are being deleted as we speak, following a brief discussion at WP:AN#Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 March 6#Template:WPRedir. I wouldn't object to a general criterion that codifies that. "No useful content" is too subjective in my eyes though, I'd prefer spelling things out for now, to explicitly only match pages with no meaningful page history that only contain hidden comments, transclusions of non-existant templates, or no content at all. --Amalthea15:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed I would consider a talk page that consists only of banner templates and no signed comments to be equally devoid of "useful content", but that's just me and I really don't expect to win that battle. On the other hand it would be difficult to come up with an exhaustive list of scenarios, so vaguer might be better. — CharlotteWebb18:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
So your complaint against that admin was that they did follow policy? I see much benefit of talk pages with only banner templates, it's useful for WikiProjects to assess articles and group them into categories. I agree that in the case of the TfDed {{WPRedir}}, it probably falls under G6 to clean up talk pages where the template was previously used but I see no need for a new criterion and in no way one to delete pages with only (existing!) WP banners. SoWhy19:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
If everybody is OK with deleting such pages (blank page with no meaningful history) as G6 then it's just as well. Deleting a talk page with WP banners (even to a defunct WikiProject) is of course not non-controversial, but Charlotte already said that she doesn't expect do get her way there. --Amalthea20:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, forget everything else I said (as beside the point). I realize it sounds incredibly legalistic but if we need to define the terms "no meaningful content or history" and/or "non-controversial maintenance" so that users refreshing this list before taking action can figure out which bingo-ball gets used for "talk pages which contain (or are blanked because they previously contained) nothing more other template(s) which is/are/was/were deleted and/or is/are otherwise not currently applicable" let's go ahead and do that (unless you've got a better idea). — CharlotteWebb20:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Hrm, I don't know - I think blank pages in talk space are utterly harmless. Talk pages are rarely linked, and when they are, it's usually an attempted link to a past discussion from the history (which would render the proposed criterion inapplicable), so red/blue links are not an issue. What's wrong with simple blanking in this scenario? It would eliminate the need to waste time on history review, and allow any user to do it. Dcoetzee21:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
When you have the article open, the talk page tab is a red link if the page doesn't exist. I find it pretty useful. --Amalthea21:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Dcoetzee, nobody is trying to delete pages that contain "past discussion" (unless it was entirely trolling, etc), in fact I was arguing to delete non-discussion talk pages to make the distinction more obvious. Eventually I'd like some way to see at a glance whether any talk page does or does not contain discussion—using visual cues such as the link color and technical ones such as #ifexist (!)—but for now I thought we'd agreed to limit this to discussing which square on the battleship board is best for deleting "talk pages which used to have just a template or two, but now have nothing". — CharlotteWebb21:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think these can fall under "no content", since I believe that the Article criteria only apply to actual articles, not their discussion pages. I would say that this falls under G6 as uncontroversial maintenance. If the only history is the addition of a now-deleted template, then nothing of value is being deleted. If there is discussion in the history, but the page is now blank, then that probably means someone needs to be trout-slapped for blanking talk page discussions, and the page should be reverted to the state it was in before it was blanked.--Aervanath (talk) 07:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Alright, finally a meaningful reply. Can we count on the average admin to draw the same conclusions or must the policy page exhaustively spell them out? — CharlotteWebb08:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
You misinterpreted my argument - I was arguing in a roundabout way that blanking was preferable to deleting, because the only reasonable justification for deletion, creating red links, is irrelevant. Amalthea raises a good point though - and it's not a big deal either way. Dcoetzee04:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
And I've been arguing in what I thought was a straightforward way that blank pages are actively harmful because they appear to contain content when in fact they don't! — CharlotteWebb19:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
G7 concerns
I have a concern over G7 and its current application. As it currently stands it allows the speedy deletion of a page (in main space) at the request of the only author even if the page has been around for a long time and there is a community consensus to keep. Recently a page was taken to AfD at the request of the subject and although a consensus to keep was forming the original author saw the deletion request, tagged the page for G7 speedy and the page was promptly deleted (Steve Crane is the article in this instance). This irrated some of the 'keep' editors and has resulted in some problems (which aren't the subject of this debate). I feel that the deleting admin has done nothing wrong in this case (given the current wording) but feel the wider issue needs discussion to see if the community supports such deletions. In short "Should G7 apply even when a) the article has existed a long time and / or b) there is community consensus for the article to be kept?". Dpmuk (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
G7 does not allow users to revoke the release of the contributions under the GFDL. If it was kept at AFD, it should not have been G7'd. –xeno (talk)16:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The point of speedy deletion is to save everybody some time by allowing admins to unilaterally delete things which, if the matter were discussed by the community, would certainly be deleted anyway. If there is consensus that an article should not be deleted, then it certainly should not be speedied. Algebraist16:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I have to disagree. If he was indeed the only author of the article, it is fully within his right to request and be granted a speedy deletion irregardless of whether other people think it should be kept. The only exception if its a presumption of bad faith, and it seems like it was done because the subject himself also did not want the article. In this case, I see no valid reason for anyone trying to force both the original author and the subject to keep an article that appears to only marginally meet the notabiltiy requirements anyway. I also see its since been deleted multiple times for G12.-- AnmaFinotera (talk·contribs) 16:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"Deletion is not required if a page meets these criteria." If it was already at AfD and there was consensus to keep, then it shouldn't be deleted G7. The author has released his work under the GFDL, and even if we have deleted borderline notable BLPs on request before, if a topic is notable and the article is neutral and verifiable, and does no harm, then there's no reason to delete. The G12's were deletions for an undeclared (or, well, badly declared) repost of another editor's material. --Amalthea16:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I was trying to avoid discussion of the particular instance and was just using as an example. Hence the reason I did not mention the G12 deletions - Amalthea describes these correctly and these were definitely correct deletions. My intention by bringing it here was to have a discussion about the question I pose above and see whether it leads to a change of wording of the G7 criteria. Dpmuk (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The case comes with an additional enormous ethical concern though - forcibly tying someone to a biography unwanted by the subject is highly ethically dubious. In this case, we're talking about a start/stub article written in a single edit - such that the for the effort already expended, a new one could be written without forcing the original author to take responsibility for it. It collides matters of speedy deletion, not being a dick to our contributers and sensitive treatment of people chronicled in our encyclopaedia. If people are really desperate for the article, the best course of action would be to spend ~15 minutes writing a new one, not to drag WikiGull (the original author) through the mud. If he wants a small, unnoticed bit he's written deleted because he's concerned what he did was unethical, it's enormous dickery to force him to keep it on his conscience forever. WilyD17:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I see your point, and AnmaFinotera's above, and they seem to be quite good reasons for deleting the article. What I don't see is why they constitute reasons for speedily deleting the article, ignoring an ongoing debate, rather than things to post to the AfD discussion. Algebraist17:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The present case seems like an appropriate invocation of IAR, but more generally G7 should not trump consensus. –xeno (talk)17:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
It's not a case of IAR. G7 applies even if consensus is another way. AFD consensus does not trump policy. Amalthea correctly explained the policy correct way: No admin has to delete a G7, it's within the reviewing admin's discretion but they need to take consensus into account while making their decision. But if there are good reasons to fulfill the request, then it's a correct G7, not IAR. SoWhy17:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that seems to be the case with WP:CSD written as it currently is. What we are discussing here, however, is whether it should be rewritten so as to disallow this sort of deletion. Algebraist17:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Nominally, you're only supposed to speedily delete G12s that have survived deletion debates. The article had been going towards a keep when AFD'd only solely subject's request, when the original author showed up and said "delete", so it was tagged as G7. Whether it would've changed course or not, who knows? (Could have gone either way). So I can rules lawyer it out as legal (I can rules lawyer anything out as legal ;) ) - or I can invoke "the point of G7 is to not be a dick to contributors" - which has an IAR-ish feel (though it's technically allowed by policy). WilyD17:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
We shouldn't be speedily deleting anything that has survived a deletion debate without some compelling reason to do so. I also am of the opinion that this problem (G7 requests made in good faith where a reasonable admin would delete a page that the community would rather have kept) crops up so infrequently that I don't want to burden the criteria with a caveat for it. Protonk (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Dear all, as the original author of the article that prompted this discussion, I should probably add my thoughts, though I cannot really add to discussions of changing criteria etc. I whole-heartedly agree with WilyD's comments re the ethics of this though. Had the subject's request for deletion been put straight to me, I would have speedied it and this would never have happened (maybe that is the way forward for single author articles in this situation?). Yes, the page may be recreated, but at least then it's nothing to do with me, and as said above, no longer on my conscience as having done something that the subject, who played a couple times for the team I support, really didn't like. My request to the community would be that the deleted article is not resurrected (i.e. with my username still attached to it). It was obvious that the article would be recreated once I noticed that the user apparently most keen to keep the article had pasted the text into their sandbox. There's nothing I can do to stop that, and would rather they actually bothered to put some effort themselves into writing the article a fresh. However, that at least gets me out of this, having done all that I possibly can to go along with the subject's wishes. This whole experience and has put me off editing for good and I will be leaving wikipedia in as full a way as possible (fairly soon, and once I figure out how to). WikiGull (talk) 08:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
That's a pity, in particular since I think most see the wisdom in WilyD's reasoning in this particular case. As far as I can tell, in the end this situation has been resolved to your liking, and I'm hoping that you might return here at some point. Cheers, Amalthea12:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
There are two issues here. The first on G7s in general I've already addressed here. Here's the relevant paragraph...
It should be made clear to those who create articles that "courtesy deletions" under G7 are just that, a "courtesy" that may or may not be granted by the community and they should consider this before offering their contributions. If anybody objects (either by unblanking an article or removing a db-author tag) then the article needs to go through one of the normal deletion processes and articles deleted under G7 should be automatically restored upon request. Anything more goes against the spirit of WP:OWN.
On the second. I think that the subject of a BLP should be allowed to request that his article be deleted. That should not be automatic however. There needs to be a discussion on whether or not the subject is only marginally notable or "supernotable". (celebrity/public person) It would not be good to allow a Tom Cruise or a Michael Jackson to have their articles deleted on demand. However, that drama bomb is not a CSD or G7 issue. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The case in question is borderline, because the reasons for keeping the article at all were so marginal. Nevertheless, there's one thing WP:CSD is not, and that's a means for sidestepping AfD. The author and subject's opinion should have been discussed in the AfD discussion and taken into account by the closing admin. If there is active discussion with sincere Keep votes, the article should never be speedy deleted, regardless of what criteria it meets. Dcoetzee18:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Endorse adding Ron's wording above... I think it should be explicitly stated. This is perhaps the 3rd time in the past 4 months that this issue has made it to this page. Who knows how often it has occurred without the issue coming here.---I'm Spartacus!NO! I'm Spartacus!20:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Concerns about A2
Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project.
I think A2 is personally stupid. The way we should handle foreign language articles at all is to attempt to translate them all to English. Sometimes a foreign language article may have alot of good information, makes no sense to delete them all. ViperSnake15102:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
In a matter of hours I could dump thousands of foreign language articles onto the English Wikipedia (actually, in practice, I'd be quickly blocked but I'm making a point here). By virtue of doing so, under your take on the matter, I would place the onus on the project to properly translate them, rather than simply delete them as untranslated articles that already exist. The way we work here is that a user who is interested in a subject creates it, and for translations, the same is true. There's no effort involved in grabbing the text from an existing foreign article and dumping it here so we're not wasting anyone's time or effort in creation by deleting them. This is as opposed to foreign articles that are created here and here alone. We don't simply delete those because there is a creation at issue. On the other end, who's going to translate them? Oh, maybe with Spanish we'd eke by with your proposal, but what about Turkish? Walloon? Aragonese? Chuvash? I'm not even getting into the issue that the foreign Wikipedia article may be an attack, a copyvio, an unsourced BLP with controversial statements, all of which can't be recognized until actually examined by someone who speaks the language. I also shudder to think of the backlog we'd generate under this regime. It'd be years long.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The main issue here is actually a practical one: keeping multiple copies of the same content floating around leads to forking, with divergent content and other nasty side effects. If the content exists on foreign-language Wikipedias, it's readily available for translation. We can create a stub here to add the interwiki links to it, and use the facilities of WikiProject Echo to encourage translation. Dcoetzee03:59, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Note: talk pages of images deleted for this reason are not automatically subject to criterion G8 above, as the talk page is not moved to Commons, and as the image was not deleted for a violation of policy or per a deletion discussion. Technically this is still a talk page for an existent file.
Why shouldn't they be G8 deleted? If the talk page contains important content, it should be moved to Commons along with the file and its history; if not, it should be deleted as having no utility to en.wiki. (also)Happy‑melon17:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
They shouldn't automatically be deleted. Some have project tags, or deletion discussions that are specific to WP. Besides, by that logic all talk pages should be automatically deleted if they do not have "important" content. G8 for talk pages is not about utility as much as it is about propriety. If we decide an article does not belong here then certainly the talk page does not. These images weren't "deleted", they were "moved". And honestly I don't see the point in deleting them without a specific reason, they will still be taking up the same space on the server forever. I don't care all that much, but it does seem to go against the original purpose. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja05:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The perception of some admins notwithstanding, none of the CSD criteria describe situations where pages are automatically deleted; if they did, we wouldn't need admins. And you do realise that G8 already has an exception for "pages useful to the project", including an explicit example of "images pages or talk pages for images that exist on Wikimedia Commons"?? Happy‑melon19:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
CSD vs notability
Simple question, because I see these types of arguments in AFDs as well as reasons CSDs and PRODs are challenged: Does the existence of notability trump the CSD criteria? I understood that it doesn't. MuZemike00:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Which CSD criteria? For example, I'd say it trumps A7, because if the person meets the notability requirement, it becomes an editing matter not a deletion matter. (In other words, we just need to rewrite the article to explicitly say why they're important). But it certainly wouldn't trump copyvio.--Fabrictramp | talk to me00:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Notability pretty clearly trumps WP:CSD#A7, because that explicitly says that it is a lower standard than notability, and there are other criteria that couldn't possibly be met by an page that shows notability, such as G1, G2, A1 and A3, but I don't see how notability can trump other criteria such G10 or G12. Phil Bridger (talk) 00:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I mean, stuff like G10, G11, G12, even A3 (i.e. a page on a notable subject but is nothing but a linkfarm, copyvio, spam, attack page, etc.). MuZemike00:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
My personal take is that the copyvio and attack page should be deleted (or revisions deleted selectively from the history, as needed). Linkfarm, advert, spam etc could be rewritten -- often I'll take a chainsaw to the thing and just leave a sentence or two, if that's all that's good. So I'm a little more reluctant to delete those.--Fabrictramp | talk to me00:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Fabrictramp: If you know it's notable, cut it down to stub size instead of deleting. SoWhy20:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
It does not - I'd argue that notable topics should be added to Suggested articles when they are deleted, so we don't forget to re-create them later with proper content. Dcoetzee07:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Request for clarification - CSD A7
A speedy deletion request was recently declined by an admin as inapplicable to churches.
As is often the case, the article in question, St. Thomas of Villanova Church, is about a congregation and not about a building. In fact, there was never any mention of a building in the entire article history. Therefore the "church" here is a group of people, and therefore criterion A7 applies without further clarification. But when I pointed this out to the admin, he sticked to his guns.
There are plenty of instances (too numerous to list, as a matter of fact), where the word "church" refers to the group of people that occupies the building, and not to the building itself. Also, there are many churches (congregations, that is) that don't even have a building. Also, wherever the word "church" is used in the Bible, it never refers to a building, and exclusively refers to a group of people. For a building, the word "synagogue" is used if applicable.
Do we really need to have anything added to criterion A7 to clarify this? Must we add "churches, when the article is about a congregation"? -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 20:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a bit of a sticky subject but I could see how a "church group" (not a building) would fall under A7 as an "organization". but I wouldn't fault SoWhy for declining it, if he wasn't sure. –xeno (talk)21:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, I wouldn't blame him. Given that he is from Germany, I would expect that his mother tongue is German. In that language, a clear-cut distinction is made between the words "Gemeinde" and "Kirche", both of which translate in English as "church". As there are many English-speaking non-church-goers that cannot visualize this distinction, how much more should we expect that some foreign-language speakers will not have made that same distinction when reading something in English, in fact especially when their mother tongue does make the distinction. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 22:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The article gives a pretty precise location, and says "a school was built on the property in 1962", so it is pretty clearly not only about the congregation but about a place. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, but the article mentions only the location of the building - not its size, architectural style, etc. In essence, it only states that the congregation does own a building for its gatherings (and other buildings for other purposes). As far as I can tell, restaurants can be tagged {{db-corp}} yet they are buildings too. -- Blanchardb-Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 03:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
As I said in the AfD, I really think both sides of the argument have merit in this case - it is indeed correct that a congregation is a "group" rather than a "building" and hence logically applicable to A7, but when the article mentions a location and a date, it's certainly suggesting that a building is involved too. Speedy deletion really should be for deletions that no reasonable, uninvolved Wikipedian should consider incorrect - the very existence of this argument suggests that for this particular category of article that may not be the case. ~ mazcat|c12:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Church can indeed refer to a group and a building but if the article focuses on the group and doesn't mention anything specific about the building (even something simple as 'historic' or 'landmark') but merely refers to a bare location or place, I wouldn't see a problem in invoking A7. While WP:CHURCH is not a guideline, it proposed "The congregation building has particular architectural and/or historic significance." as notability criterion, so I' d say that that an article should at least indicate that there is a chance that this applies and mereley having property wouldn't cut it for me. --Tikiwont (talk) 14:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Non-free use tag?
Can someone please tell me what speedy deletion template should be used on an image uploaded under a free use rationale as a product of the US government that was in fact not a product of a US government organization? Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
I tag an article for G12, but I cannot put in the URL in the {{db-copyvio}} template because the URL is on the spam blacklist. What do I do from here? MuZemike16:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Just leave out the http or something, and it should be let through. And mention it in the edit summary that you did this deliberately. :) --Amalthea17:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
As I seem to have missed any discussion that may have taken place about this rename, I'll log my deep dislike of it here. "Summary" means several different things, and the meaning you're implying has unpleasant connotations, including lack of justice (not to mention death).
I'm curious as to what the problem was that prompted this "cure", where the consensus was sought and gained and how many users were involved in that process. --Dweller (talk) 14:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
There was a discussion here. It went for 3 days with ca. 10 people involved and ca. 3 people explicitly in favor. Imho that's not nearly enough consensus to rename a policy on. Also, see section above. Regards SoWhy14:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I said "explicitly". They way I rad it Black Falcon and Aervanath were not explicitly in favor of changing the name, just that "summary" would be okay if there was consensus to change it. SoWhy14:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Whatever changes are made need to encourage more thought going into each deletion.
Suggestions I recall from the past involve renaming CSD, adding a mandatory wait period between tagging and deletion (similar to PROD), and a mass campaign of educating editors and admins (which I can tell you from personal experience feels like trying to empty the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon).
Closely tied into this is the issue of admin accountability. While I personally think the recall process (or lack thereof) is a complete fail, I'm also uncomfortable with the fact that unless an admin really goes off the deep end, there's not much real accountability for things like bad speedy deletions. (And similarly, not a whole lot of incentive for editors to improve their tagging.) Sure, I can remove tags, rewrite, or restore articles myself, but for those of us who take the time to do that, there's a high frustration level (and probably a high burnout rate). Not to mention the high probability that potentially good new editors are scared off by getting a speedy notice 2 minutes after their article is created.
How about taking each and every incorrect speedy deletion to DRV and overturn them? Noone likes to be wrong and if an admin gets a dozen speedies overturned each week, they might be more careful. ;-) SoWhy16:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
My impression is there's broad support for all of these ideas. I started off always leaving a message on the tagger's talk page and keeping the diffs at the (unlinked) page User:Dank55/csd whenever I declined a speedy tagged by a registered account; these days, I always put the reason for declining the speedy on my own talk page, and leave a talkback on the tagger's page that links directly to the right section on my talk page, because some taggers were annoyed by the perceived wrist-slapping on their own talk pages. The goal is to provide anyone easy access to all my speedy decisions (you can see all the actually deleted pages in my logs and all the non-deleted pages on my talk page), and open up communication with the taggers, and (sneakily, I suppose) provide admins a quick way to see if taggers are really not getting it ... a lot of talkback notices to my talk page is a bad sign. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 16:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
So how do you handle taggers who don't get it? I don't get many taggers who are truly annoyed by my messages (I can only think of one, probably because I always explicitly say it's a friendly message), but I don't have a good strategy for the ones who ignore the messages and continue with bad tags.--Fabrictramp | talk to me17:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
These days, it's a different tagger virtually every time there's a mistake. The one tagger that both you and I were concerned about earlier has stopped tagging, it appears. If I run into another tagger who seems to be a problem, I'll discuss it with them privately first, and if that doesn't work, with other admins who work at CSD. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 04:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it does seem like the ones who don't get it eventually get bored with tagging and move on to something else. Which might be part of what leads to the emptying the ocean with a teaspoon feeling -- a new tagger comes along to replace them, and the education starts all over. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me16:44, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Fewer pages would be deleted if more care went into creating worthwhile new articles and more filtering to prevent new junk. That would set the practical standard higher for speedy deletion, maybe lead to cleanup/fixing more often; speedy deletion would be a bigger decision (hopefully) more carefully made; maybe even made redundant. The only way to do that (that I can think of) is to make it harder to create new articles. One could turn Articles for Deletion into Articles for Creation, and speedy deletion into speedy creation (both ideas would need a lot of elaboration and might be unworkable...) - it would be less bitey to newbies to have a suggestion rejected than work they've done deleted, and maybe frame debate in a more positive way. But I suspect such a radical change is virtually impossible to develop consensus for now, regardless of the merits of concrete versions of it that might be developed (probably have been somewhere...). Rd232talk17:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but its function is dependent on how hard it is to make new articles without going through it or some other process (speedy creation, to sustain the analogy). Rd232talk17:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
But it is, as I tried to argue above. CSD exists to get rid of "true junk", which requires admins to distinguish it from stuff that is worth saving (or which isn't and doesn't fall under CSD). Having a whole lot less true junk and a whole lot less terrible-but-ultimately-worthwhile articles would make CSD qualitatively very different. Rd232talk17:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I would want to argue that there is not really that much "true junk", just admins who delete terrible-but-ultimately-worthwhile pages as such. For example I got a track record of 25-30% declined speedy deletions. If people had instead tried to fix those articles instead of tagging, we would have a lot less work. Regards SoWhy18:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Maybe. But in borderline cases it takes a bit of work to judge whether something is worthwhile, never mind improve it. So if article creation were more consistently a collaborative process, instead of New Editor X starting something on their own (having at best a passing acquaintance with how to do it), there'd be a whole lot less articles being proposed for CSD, which would allow more attention on each one. And there'd be a whole lot less pissed-off New Editor Xs. Rd232talk18:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Just for grins, I popped over to CSD and worked on three articles. One was a true piece of crap that unfortunately didn't meet any CSD criteria. One has about a 50% chance of surviving AfD and made a clear claim of importance, but needs help. The third has about a 95% chance of surviving AfD, made a claim of importance (but I could see how someone could miss the claim), and was well written.
The idea of more collaboration on new articles is intriguing, but I don't think it should be mandatory. If I can write a well-written, well-referenced stub on a 19th century baseball player, should I be forced to wait until someone else is interested enough to collaborate on the article? Yeah, someone may come along and mistag it for deletion, but personally I'd rather take that chance. However, it might be a great place to point newbies who are having trouble writing that first article.--Fabrictramp | talk to me18:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I can't see how to make it effective without making it mandatory. For example - off the top of my head, so don't stake me for it - through a flagged revisions sort of thing just for new articles - anyone can create an article, but it only goes public when someone reviews it and OKs it. Combine that with prominent links to AFC for more organised collaboration/discussion particularly for newbies. Optionally could apply the mandatoriness only to new editors (however defined) since it's primarily aimed at forcing them into a minimum of collaboration/discussion. Or X zillion other ways to do it I'm sure, but without mandatoriness of some kind there's not much effect, as the existence of AfC since 2005 shows. (I'm not saying it's useless, it's just if it really worked CSD would be unnecessary.) Rd232talk18:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, it's that "really works" part that gets you every time. :) One possible improvement would be to make it mandatory only for editors with fewer than X edits, or the opt-out is only available upon request to experienced editors (along the lines of rollback). But then the problem comes in of who reviews? Can't be another new editor, or else the sock/meat puppets will figure out that trick in a flash. What happens when the reviewer isn't thorough, but instantly decides something's crap (along the lines of the current CSD problem)? Probably a dozen other issues, but it's almost lunch in my time zone, so my brain isn't cooperating with thought requests. :)--Fabrictramp | talk to me19:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Also, patrolling has a huge backlog already and that way we'd get articles that take days or weeks to be approved, effectively taking what peopel like about Wikipedia, i.e. that what you change appears immediately. SoWhy20:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
True, but by limiting the population of editors subject to new article review you limit the backlog; also such a system should reduce workload elsewhere (eg AFD, CSD). A disputed rejection can be taken to AfC for further debate. As to putting people off because their changes don't appear immediately (a) it only applies to new articles, they can make changes to existing ones; (b) people shouldn't be creating articles in order to get a kick out of Its Online Now! - WP:NOT a blog. Constructive additions can wait a few days for it to go fully public, and can see and edit the draft in the mean-time, and even tell friends to go look at the draft, etc. Well anyway these are the sort of ideas that would need hashing out if it seemed at all plausible that the community might agree to a sufficiently well-thought proposal (which this isn't!), which I'm not convinced of. Rd232talk15:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I've recently starting reviewing articles at AFC, and it is a pretty good "filtering" system. It not only catches articles that would be CSD'ed but also allows reviewers to place an article "on hold" and ask the newbie to try and find better sources, clean up the tone, or whatever else. In this way it not only filters new articles but educates new users, allowing a chance to show them how good new articles are created. I think it would be a good idea if all pages created by very new users went through such a process, but I also think we'd be in for a long, difficult struggle to make that happen, a lot of people will see it as "more bureaucracy" even though the idea would actually be to reduce the number of speedy deletions and educate new users. Some CSD'ed articles are made with deliberate bad intentions, but I think the majority of speedyable articles are made by new users who haven't taken the time to familiarize themselves with our most basic policies, and this would more or less make them aware of those policies in advance instead of after their article is already deleted. Of course, it's also all dependent on there being enough people willing to reveiw new articles, but there would be a lot less "newpage patrolling" going on, that should free up a few hundred users... Beeblebrox (talk) 19:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
"Broken" redirects
redirects to invalid targets, such as nonexistent targets
are considered fair game for speedy deletion. We should recall from time to time how this criterion got there. It was by bullying, not be consensus. It happened in the spring of 2005. Formerly there had been exceptions. There are some really obvious reasons for exceptions. But those who wanted to delete indicscriminately ALL redirects to non-existent targets (1) dishonestly denied that any exceptions had ever appeared in the policy; and (2) denied that they had ever heard of any reasons for exceptions, after those reasons had been repeatedly and patiently explained to them. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
An excerpt from the discussion of four years ago, in March, 2005:
For example, I know enough to know that Eastern Sudanic should redirect to Eastern Sudanic languages, but I could not posisbly write even a stub article about that. A Wikipedian could easily know, from having read a variety of instances, that coupled harmonic oscillator is not one of those phrases that are always plural, so the plural should redirect to the singular, but may not know whether the topic is physics or music or New-Age philosophy. Such a person could not possibly write a stub on that topic, but could easily write a valuable pre-emptive redirect.
I wouldn't think something like that would be hard to understand, but I found people denying that I had written it after I did. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Xe would like a more nuanced criterion. Ever since it was first added in 2004 the criterion has been a simple mechanical rule that redirects to non-existent pages are deletable on sight, if they cannot be fixed to point to an existing page. But the most common use of the criterion would appear to be the cleaning up of redirects pointing to pages that have themselves been deleted. If you are asking for an exact wording suggestion, please observe that Michael Hardy has had a proposal containing exact wording on the table since 2005. You can find it in the archives of this very talk page. ☺ You can also find the counterarguments, relating to the value of redlinks, the difficulties incurred by making simple mechanical speedy deletion criteria into subtle rules, and suchlike, there and at the discussions that it in turn links to. Uncle G (talk) 19:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi. A question about the use of the G4 speedy - the description states it's Recreation of deleted material. A copy, by any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion, provided the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version ... (my highlighting) - but for those of us who aren't admins and can't therefore see the previous deleted version(s) of the article, how do we know if there has been any substantial change ? Do we therefore assume it's unchanged, and leave the admin reviewing the erquest to make the decision on any changes made ? CultureDrone (talk) 11:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
If you have any reason to think that it would be similar to the deleted version, I'm sure tagging it for G4 would hurt anything. If it ends up being different, then it would be declined and then you would know that it is different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tavix (talk • contribs)
That's why admins review speedy deletions. You tag it G4 if you have suspicion that it might be a recreation, the reviewing admin has to check if the tagging was correct. SoWhy20:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Moved
I've been bold and moved and updated the page based on the discussion from a few weeks ago, which seemed to form a rough consensus for "Criteria for summary deletion", thus preserving the CSD acronym. If anyone is having an allergic reaction to it, please do speak up... :DHappy‑melon11:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Did you also plan to go through other policy and guideline page text, and change the word "speedy" to "summary"? Did you also plan to let everyone know that rough consensus to change a policy page means three people almost 4 weeks ago kinda said it was an OK idea? I'm not saying this was the worst thing ever done, but seriously, policy pages should be more carefully considered than this when a major change is under foot! --Jayron32.talk.contribs12:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, yes, but I thought it would be prudent to make sure the sky wasn't going to fall down before chasing down the title in other pages :D. And I count five, with one oppose and several "meh"s. Given that I just waved a huge flag on a thousand watchlists, if there is more discussion to be had, it should certainly start now :DHappy‑melon12:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I would say that five people supporting the change was nowhere near enough to actually make the change. I suspect the majority of people weren't even aware of the proposal. Changing the name of something that everyone's familiar with needs a bigger degree of community input in my opinion. RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter12:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
One of the drawbacks of a project this size trying to make decisions via "consensus" is that it's hard to get wide community input for anything. However, I would say this move was just a tad bit too bold for something just being "knocked around" on a talk page. I would recommend switching back and initiating an RFC on this. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
But what would you say in such an RfC? Rather, what would you say in an RfC that you can't just say now and be done with it? This is just as good a venue for discussing the move whether or not I stick an {{rfc}} template on top :DHappy‑melon13:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I also think the discussion was too small, should have been wider advertised, and should have had more consensus for such a wide ranging change. As far as I can tell it wasn't even mentioned on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, Wikipedia:Requested moves, or anywhere other than Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion (in a section called "Name of policy" with no move template at the top). I would have opposed if I had seen it. Search currently finds 24 categories [14] and 54 Wikipedia space pages [15] with "speedy deletion" in the name, and 13722 Wikipedia space pages [16] containing "speedy deletion". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Why would you oppose it? That's the only genuinely important thing. I run a bot that has 55,000 edits; the technical details of implementation don't scare me in the slightest, and I'm more than happy to take the time to complete them, including any notifications that will be required (renaming CAT:CSD, for instance, is sure to break a lot of bots if done unilaterally, although it is a trivial thing to avoid if done carefully). As Ron says, it's hard to get sufficiently wide community support for anything without waving big flags like this. Happy‑melon13:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
It looks moot now but here are some reasons. Risk of confusion with edit summary, plot summary, summary section, summary article. "Speedy deletion" is an old well-established and widely used term with no other meaning in Wikipedia. Insufficient reason to change it to anything at this point. "Summary deletion" has negative connotations to many. Searches show the term is usually written by people objecting to what they consider inappropriate deletion of pages or parts of pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I see no reason to tell you off other than process wonking for it's own sake. If anyone actually disagrees, rather than disagrees in principle, let them complain. Until then, we're just in step one of WP:BRD, and I see no reason to bother with steps two or three. WilyD12:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Well. I don't really like it as I think it's a change that's unneccessary and will cause confusion, but I'll give you that it is a better descriptor than speedy. -Chunky Rice (talk) 13:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Or just "CSD'd", which has always worked for me... :D I guess the grammar nazi would say it could be "summaried" but I agree that sounds a bit wierd. Happy‑melon13:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ryan and Co. above. It's not whether the move was a good idea (which it wasn't) but whether it was supported by consensus. I don't think there was enough discussion to reach a consensus needed to rename a policy that existed for years with this name. A "rough consensus" is worse than that, because all it says is "of those who were aware of that 3 weeks old discussion, the majority possibly did not object to a name change". Before you go ahead and change all pages mentioning CSD, we should have a discussion whether that is wanted. I for one prefer the old name and I think "summary deletion" is confusing to newcomers and an incorrect, too legal term for such a policy. I don't see why there was a need for a change...and I certainly see no consensus for it in a short discussion 3 weeks ago. I don't think boldness is a godo idea when it comes to such decisions. Regards SoWhy13:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Summary deletion also may make it seem that it was deleted on the admin's summary judgment alone, when it is the admin acting within the boundaries of years of past precedent. However the literal definition seems to be spot on: Performed speedily and without formal ceremony. FYI, I've left notes at WP:AN and WP:VPP pointing here. –xeno (talk)14:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
But that's exactly what's happening: a real summary judgment is a court making a decision on the normal basis of applicable law, precedent, etc, without as little fuss as possible. Summary judgments aren't where a court goes maverick and makes whatever decision they personally like; they're still just as observant of principles as ever, it's only the process that gets curtailed. Happy‑melon14:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I know that in the strict legal and literal sense "summary deletion" actually makes perfect sense but most laypersons think "summary judgment" is A Bad Thing™. –xeno (talk)15:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Just want to note my preference again for "straightforward deletion". Doesn't really matter to me though. --Ali'i14:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm perfectly happy to move the pages back, but only if someone can explain why the further discussion that we all agree is needed can only occur if that happens. Will me adding an extra 130 move log entries (and potentially another 130 if we then conclude that "summary" is better) somehow make it easier to come to the proper consensus? The wiki isn't going to explode if some people temporarily go "eh?" and then are drawn to the discussion to find out what's going on. In the meantime, I'll go spam some noticeboards... :DHappy‑melon14:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm a big supporter of Happy Melon's work, but this was a !fail. There was no consensus for the move, and renaming one of the most common and important processes on Wikipedia without consensus is a really bad idea. I prefer the name "speedy" because: name changes create confusion, "summary" already has a meaning on Wikipedia (edit summaries), most editors won't know this meaning of the word "summary", and the name "speedy" deletion helps deflect criticism from creators who in fact had their articles deleted quickly.
Unless someone can give me a reason not to, I'm going to revert the name change until there's consensus to change it. 5 people is not consensus on something this central to Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I won?!?:D As I said above, my only reason to object to a revert is that it gives the impression of "case closed": tried it, it was reverted, end-of-story-clearly-nothing-more-to-see-here. Which is not very conducive to future discussion. That and the fact that it bloats watchlists and logs and just makes more work if we then decide to move. But as I said, I'm not going to shout at anyone that does move them back, and I'll move them myself iff someone explains why it is 'necessary' or even 'beneficial' to do so. Happy‑melon14:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
See my comments in the next sub-section. I strongly dislike this move, on two grounds. Procedurally, I think this was groundless: no defined problem and no consensus for the solution. And in the implementation, it's very problematic: "Summary" means several different things, and the meaning you're implying has unpleasant connotations, including lack of justice (not to mention death). Please revert this as soon as possible.
Is there really a dreadful problem with "speedy deletion"? Is there consensus we should change it? If so, let's find a solution that also has consensus and one that works well. --Dweller (talk) 14:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I oppose the move. 'Summary' does not convey the reason behind a speedy deletion, if fact, it has a negative connotation. If anything, the only possible replacement for the word would be 'Immediate deletion'. But that doesn't fit the S... — Edokter • Talk • 14:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
How does it "not convey the reason"? Neither does "speedy", which has similar "negative connotations". If anything, "immediate" is even worse, as many CSD deletions aren't immediate, an many others shouldn't be. Happy‑melon15:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Not everyone sees the words the same way you do. For me, summary deletion brings up an image of a posse in the old west, hanging a suspect without any evidence of guilt. While that may be the practice of some editors and admins at CSD, it's not an image I want to encourage. Speedy has no such connotations for me, but it obviously has some bad ones for you. Could you explain what the problem with the word speedy is that we're trying to fix? That way we may get a better solution. --Fabrictramp | talk to me15:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
That's certainly not an image we want to encourage, I grant you! The problem I see with "speedy" is that it brings to mind an image of an admin in a race or on an arcade game, trying to delete as many articles as possible before the time runs out, with minimal thought to whether the articles actually warrant deletion. All admins will confirm that the article superficially meets the criterion, but not as many as we would like will do a more thorough check to ensure that we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Fewer still will think to consider whether there is a better outcome for the encyclopedia than to delete the page; the encyclopedia is often better served by a redirect, a rewrite, or a merge, but this is often, indeed usually, not done. This is the attitude to CSD we need to be cultivating: a methodical and thorough evaluation by a 'learned' editor; in exactly the same fashion as a summary judgment. If that results in greater backlogs at CSD, then we need more admins to patrol it, not to compromise our standards. Right now we are throwing out page after page of potentially useful content in a rush for efficiency, to "speedily" get through the category as quickly as possible. That seems to me the greater evil. Happy‑melon15:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that summary will solve that, especially since the initials will be the same -- the problem admins will still think "CSD" in their heads (not gonna address where else they'd be thinking! LOL), delete as fast as they can, and be done with it. :(
I think we're on the same page as far as the problem to be fixed. I've left a lot of notes to both editors who mistag and to admins who delete articles that shouldn't have been speedied. (Sometimes to educate them, sometimes to educate me). I don't think anything as simple as a name change will solve the problem completely. Mind you, I'm not saying that a name change might not help a little bit, but more fundamental changes need to happen. (Which might need a new section to discuss, so it doesn't get lost in this one.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me16:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I prefer "speedy". Wikipedia is full of jargon, and one might think this means it's desirable to use clearer terms for things. But in this case, I think I prefer the jargon. As others have pointed out, "summary" has many other natural meanings including another technical meaning on WP. Its use here has confusion potential. On the other hand "speedy"--especially when used as a noun ("This page is ripe for a speedy") or a verb ("I am going to speedy that page")--is obviously a term of art. The first time I saw "speedy" used that way on a message board, because of its peculiarity, it knew that it had to have a special meaning and I went off to figure out what it meant and what the rules might be for its use. I don't think that "summary" would have delivered the same message. By the way, for what it's worth, this is the first I've heard of this discussion (saw it mentioned at WP:VPP this morning).--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The lawyer side of me cannot resist making this follow-up note on the analogies to "summary judgment". I'd suggest that the AfD process is actually closer to summary judgment (under U.S. law, anyway) rather than CSD. In summary judgment, the parties put forth their arguments, and present a limited amount of evidence in writing, in an expedited but still somewhat deliberate fashion. CSD is more like the "motion to dismiss"--such as a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or what we still call a demurrer in California--in which the court is empowered to throw out a case based on weaknesses that are apparent on the face of the complaint, based only on specific legal arguments and without (in most cases) needing to look closely at the underlying evidence. For those of us unlucky enough to have had our brains polluted by law school or legal proceedings, this might be another argument against using "summary" in this context--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Please don't nag people who have given an opinion as I have here, and you have done above, its inappropriate. I gave my reason. Jenuk1985 | Talk15:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand where the confusion comes from. If 5 people decided that "Home Page" sounded better than "Main Page" and someone moved it, don't you think that might cause a problem or two? Ryan has moved it back; now we can discuss. I'm against it; I gave 4 reasons above, and I have another reason: the only people who can delete pages are admins, so if there's a problem with how fast admins are deleting, we can solve that problem by discussion with admins. Changing the name and avoiding the discussion sounds like trying to win with good marketing rather than by discussion. The word "speedy" is very important at deflecting the accusation by the attack-page-creator or spammer: "You deleted my article too fast, why didn't you give me a chance to fix it? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I meant "do you have reasons for preferring 'speedy' over 'summary'", not about the moves back and forth that have just been completed; sorry if that was misinterpreted. I understand fully (and somewhat agree with) the reasons some are unhappy with the way I moved it. As you say, "now we can discuss"; drawing in editors to such a discussion was a large part of my rationale for moving, as I explained below. Saying "I strongly oppose the move" without any further reason contributes nothing to that discussion. Happy‑melon15:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, much better, and we're on the same page (with the same name :) I promise to support a full discussion; I remember back when I was doing more work with style guidelines that I often felt tempted to do exactly the same kind of thing to generate discussion. But really, there aren't a huge number of admins doing speedy deletions; getting us all in a room to pay attention and talk about it should be doable. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 15:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Meh, all actual deletions are carried out by Admins, so that name would probably be even more confusing, especially to new users. TheSeeker 4Talk17:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
OTOH, many newbies think the person who tagged the article is the person who actually deleted it. Administrative Deletions might reinforce that it was done by an admin, and might convey that the article didn't meet some guideline.--Fabrictramp | talk to me17:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the rename, since speedy does sound a bit weird and informal and summary probably is better since it implies that the deletion is carried out without discussion (eg, summarily executed) LetsdrinkTea02:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not keen on either "summary" or "speedy": To me, "summary" implies an official ruling that can't be overturned, when in fact it is or should be easy to recreate an article if there's been only a speedy deletion and no AfD discussion. I agree with FabricTramp about the connotations. "Speedy" might give admins the idea of deleting too soon after article creation etc. How about "simple deletion" or "gentle deletion"? "Simple deletion" preserves the acronym, but people may not like having their article "simply deleted". "One-person deletion"? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
When "Votes for deletion" was renamed "Articles for deletion" the vote mentality didn't change, so I doubt any perceived advantaged of this move would work either. Also, it might confuse people who are actually trying to get an edit summary oversighted. - Mgm|(talk)10:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Userpage exception for G1 and G3
The policy gives a userpage exception for CSD G2 (test page). It should also give an exception for G1 and G3, in agreement with practice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.7.125 (talk) 23:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
not G3 and dubiously G1. A p. devoted to what amounts to vandalism can and has been done in user space. DGG (talk) 07:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree with DGG on G3 but it might be a consideration for G1. After all, userspace is a place for testing and sandboxing amongst other things and what is not making sense now might make sense if the user has some time to work on it. Deleting stuff under G1 in userspace seems like a stupid idea to me. G3 implies bad faith by the user and if they are using userspace nonsense as vandalism, we can still G3 it. But if they are acting in good faith, it would be silly to delete such pages and risk alienating a good-faith contributor. As with certain "secret page" deletions, the harm that using G1 in userspace can cause is much higher than the benefits of deleting a page noone cares about anyway. Regards SoWhy07:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think there's much of a need for this. Vandalism is vandalism anywhere (and in the case that there's a really good reason, I'm sure no admin would refuse a reasonable undeletion request when appropriate), and I suspect most admins would give more latitude about userspace pages than those elsewhere. Stifle (talk) 13:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
If a user wants to create a userpage full of patent nonsense or faux vandalism, that's their prerogative. If ANOTHER user creates someone elses userpage as vandalism or nonsense, then that is G3. Common sense prevails... –xeno (talk)13:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I wish that was true but recent experience with MZMcBride's deletions tells us that not all admins have that view about userspace and some like to use G1 as a carte blanche; so I don't think adding an exception to G1 would hurt but might be useful. As you point out, it's still G3 if someone else posts nonsense in your userspace so it would not really change anything but make a clear statement that you are allowed to post nonsense in your own userspace. SoWhy13:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
As difficult as it is to register an account and create a user page with "poop" and then leave forever, I see no reason to memorialize such nonsense. Sure, look for the elusive beast known as consensus all you'd like to, but throwing common sense out the window in favor of 'zomg policy' is unacceptable. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:23, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
March 20, User:Xeno added user pages as an exception to G1 [18]. Previously, G1 contain no reference including or excluding user pages.
Nine days later, User:MZMcBride took it out, I, User:SmokeyJoe, put it back, and User:CalendarWatcher put it back again, calling for wider discussion.
I believe that the userpage exception should be put back in (ie nonsense userspace pages should not be speediable) for the following reasons:
Judging patent nonsense is not uncontestable. There may be meaning in it that isn’t obvious.
Such pages are often kept at MfD, with the user educated in our expectations of userspace usage.
Patent nonsense is better dealt with by blanking, as a non-administrative action. If it was a mistake, the user can revert. If the user needs to learn, it is easier if the removed nonsense remains accessible for reference. If a user repeatedly posts nonsense, calling it CSD#G3 is readily justifiable. If correcting patent nonsense posting is routinely dealt with non-administratively, then general users will be better encouraged to clean up nonsense themselves. The simple task of cleaning up nonsense, following the non-simple task of identifying it, should not be delineated as an administrator task.
MfDs and blankings by another editor are more effective educationally. They involve inter-editor interaction, and do not involve administrator-newcomer power imbalance.
CSD criteria authorize mass deletions, and there is more danger of impersonal deletions intimidating new users than there is advantage in deleting nonsense pages in userspace (WP:PERFORMANCE)
I've no problem with that as long as we don't now get "it's been moved twice already" as a reason to oppose a move, which would be a little pathetic. Don't forget to 'unfix' the two double redirects (WP:CSD and WP:SPEEDY) that I updated; I left the other 70 (!) until we came to a conclusion. Happy‑melon14:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
That summary justice is really the genuine, and regular the counterfeit, is what any one, who has read the observations of Article 21 of the preceding Title has, I trust, found some cause to suspect.
Jeremy Bentham, Bentham's Draught for the Organization of Judicial Establishments
At this point it would be sensible to summarise from the previous discussion. As noted by MZMcBride as the OP, we regularly encounter the misunderstanding that "speedy" implies either "delete as quickly as possible", or "delete without thought or evaluation". Neither of these are true, but we have a minor but recurring problem of admins who work CAT:CSD believing that they are. There is also the issue that a number of the CSD criteria have time limits which make a total mockery of the "speedy" concept; with some tags needing to be left in place for a week before "speedy" deletion is allowed. Black Falcon proposed "summary" as a replacement to preserve the CSD acronym, with connection to summary judgment; "summary" has the very appropriate meaning of "Performed speedily and without formal ceremony". Happy‑melon14:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
"Summary justice" also means an absence of proper justice, it means vigilantism, not listening and a host of unhappy connotations for those who understand the term. For those who don't understand the term, there's the confusion of thinking it's something to do with precis. And I'm not sure I agree with the perceived problems with "speedy deletion" being really problematic. Can we do this a stage at a time, rather than rushing? I applaud your zeal, but for a useful process, start by discussing the problem. You may find there's no consensus that there is one, which would render everything else moot. --Dweller (talk) 15:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
If you define 'justice' for article deletion as a full AfD, then yes, CSD issummary justice. If you factor in WP:IAR, then yes, there is an element of vigilanteism. In the rather bizzarre quasi-legal structure that exists here, I think the phrase actually summarises the situation perfectly.
I guess I should have explained what I was doing better, but a big reason for being bold was to encourage further discussion; see for instance the rather better explanation I gave here on a similarly bold update of {{mfd}}. You can't deny that the move has encouraged that discussion! Happy‑melon15:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the move did encourage further discussion! :) I reread the archive just now, and I didn't see a lot of consensus -- I did see a lot of people not taking the suggestion too seriously. However, since we're having a serious discussion now, I'll chime in. I'm not a fan of "summary", because of the association with vigilantism. Yes, speedy has its problems, but summary is not an improvement.--Fabrictramp | talk to me15:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't really have a strong opinion either way. "Summary" is a bit ambiguous, but "speedy" also has its flaws. Kudos to Happy-melon for boldly making an attempt to get the ball rolling. –JuliancoltonTalk·Review15:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I think "speedy" conveys it quite correctly actually, except in those cases where the tags need to be in place for a week. But the point is that it's not "as fast as possible" but fast if compared to PROD or AFD. If an article is deleted after 12 hours, it's still 10 times faster than at AFD or with a PROD. So it's comparatively speedy. The only other word for it might be "criteria for uncontroversial deletion" because the only thing all criteria have in common is that they should not be applied when it's a controversial deletion. But speedy deletion has been established for years now and I do not think any change would be solving the underlying problem that some admins are too careless when speedy deleting. That won't be solved by a name change, if anything, "summary deletion" would encourage them to think that they are the "judges" of the deletion rather than just the janitors who clean up the mess. Regards SoWhy15:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I think speedy is the wrong word--the point of the process is not the time, it takes, but of clearing out the garbage without the need to discuss it, which more closely its "summary". I am not completely sure it's the best word possible, but it has an advantage in starting with the same letter. And it is the standard term for a roughly analogous legal process. DGG (talk) 16:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
And for executions without trial. I doubt people know the legal process, but they probably know "summary execution". And as pointed out above, summary deletion would rather be a correct name for AFD because allows involvement by both parties, not only one like speedy deletion usually does. I think speedy needs to be read as compared to normal deletion because it still is faster than going through deletion discussions. A replacement word would have to show that it only applies when there is no need for discussion, so the correct name in that case would be "criteria for deletion without discussion". Regards SoWhy16:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Not thinking of it in legalistic terms at all is a better approach. As noted, the legalisms are prone to misunderstanding and creative misinterpretation, always at risk of metamorphosing into arguments over actual law, and also subject to simple ignorance of specialist meanings of words in favour of general meanings. After all, Wikipedia isn't a court of law or a social experiment. Start renaming things to legalisms, and soon people will be quoting Jeremy Bentham at you to tell you why Wikipedia's "summary deletion" isn't the same as summary justice. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I oppose renaming to "summary deletion" - it has few identifiable benefits, and the new name smacks of quick legal proceedings, treating the subject with disdain. Basically, I agree with Uncle G above. We may not mean it in that way, but it gives that impression nonetheless. The current name is fine IMO. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢16:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think summary is a good word here. While it seems correct in juridical sense, most of people are probably unfamiliar with it and first thing a wiki editor would make a connection to is the edit summary. And this does not make much sense. My personal opinion is that the expression speedy is just fine - how fast does a bad article get deleted after being tagged? Speedy. Not to mention copyvios and BLP violations that actually should be deleted as fast as possible. By the way, a great deal of people would also think that Jeremy Bentham is in fact John Locke. :-) --Tone16:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I hadn't thought of the edit-summary confusion. I'll just offer up swift deletion since it fits the initials and I just thought of it, but it's no real improvement. Just leave it as it is, I reckon! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢16:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose - this renaming is a needless waste of everyone's time. Even if it would have been better to call it "summary deletion" originally (which I doubt, for reasons given by others above), changing it now can't possibly be worth the hassle. And even if it were, it's extremely unlikely to achieve a wide enough consensus to do it. So I'd urge those who wanted the move to reconsider and find something more constructive to do. Rd232talk16:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose. Whether the name of a well-known Wikipedia page needs to be changed depends on the intended audience. Who are we trying to convince that speedy deletions shouldn't be thought of as speedy? If admins, then we don't need to change a page name to do that, we can simply discuss it with the admins and tell us/them the decision. Taggers? No, I actually want them to think of the deletion as speedy; I want someone who's considering a WP:CSD G7 of their own creation to think "I better do this only if I'm certain, because if I do it, the page is likely to be deleted speedily." I want someone tagging for db-spam to think "I should only tag this page if the tone is so obviously promotional that it should be deleted speedily, without discussion." And as I said above, I don't want to be arguing with attack-page-creators and self-promoters about why I deleted their page so fast; "speedy" says it for me. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC) Oppose name change This is a solution looking for a problem. The name of Speedy Deletion is not an issue, and any minor confusion/ambiguity would be compounded by naming it "summary deletion". We already talk about "edit summaries" and such, so using the word for an entire category of deletion would simply confuse new users. At least with "speedy deletion" the word "speedy" means the same thing every time (at least close enough to avoid major confusion) it is used. I do not see a need to change it; no compelling problem exists. TheSeeker 4Talk17:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
This problem taxed the minds first of the cloning engineers, then of the priests, then of the letters page of the Sidereal Record Straightener, and finally of the lawyers who experimented vainly with ways of redefining murder, re-evaluating it and in the end even respelling it in the hope that no one would notice.
I have to flip my opinion - I think the current name is misleading, but that "summary" has its own misleading aspects - most importantly, many people are simply not familiar with the use of the word in that sense. I would support "Deletion without discussion" but that would change the acronym. Dcoetzee20:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
If you must have an 'S'-word to replace Speedy, I would suggest Simple. I think the important connotation here is that the deletion decision is a simple one: does the article meet the predefined criteria for what should be deleted? If yes, then it can be SD'd (sorry, no snappy verb). If no, then a more complex procedure should be followed. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK20:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
"Simplified" doesn't quite hit the mark, does it? That's actually an interesting suggestion. It at least has the dual advantages of (a) not being a legalism, and (b) not having the connotations of the other words immediately below. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Other S words suggested from before: "scheming, secret, sharp, shifty, shrewd, slick, sly, smart, smooth, sneaking, sneaky, stealthy, subtle, supervisory, surreptitious"... Instead of Criteria for Speedy Deletion, we can have Cabal Scheming for Deletion. ;-)--Fabrictramp | talk to me22:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with changing to "summary deletion". "Speedy deletion" indicates exactly what the process is; "summary deletion" simply does not. No need to change this so only WP policy fans get it intuitively. Townlake (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I also oppose the name change. While there could be a better name than "speedy", "summary" is not the way to go. What about "procedural deletion"? That embodies the hard-line attitude that's taken towards it, as a juxtaposition to the "discussion" style that AfD is supposed to be. ThemFromSpace03:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
This is another of many recent proposals based on the odd idea that re-naming something actually changes the way it will work. Playing a shell game with the name is not going to change anything, so I am also opposed to this idea. If you want to change the actual process that is a different matter. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
As someone with that account name, I'm surprised that you don't suggest "Criteria for page revocation". S-P-E-E-D-Y-D-E-L-E-T-I-O-N, revocation. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
No problem with the bold move of renaming the page - that's how Wikipedia has progressed. A shake of the head and a loud tut at all those who winged and moaned like old nanny goats when an experienced editor in good standing simply cut through process and made a bold edit. However, I see no gain from renaming the page, and much to be lost. It is a well used name, and conveys the sense of the job just as well as the proposed new name. If there are problems with the speedy deletion process, then those problems need to tackled directly. Renaming speedy to summary to prevent inappropriate tagging, is like wallpapering over the cracks of a house with subsidence. SilkTork *YES!23:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the suggestion that "deletion without discussion" is the best name for this process, and that's the one I'd vote for if we were creating this process from scratch. But "speedy deletion" does a good enough job of describing the process and it has a lot of history and general knowledge among our contributors. Changing it really is unnecessary busy-work; it makes little or no difference to the ultimate goal of actually creating an encyclopedia: how we execute this process is far, far more important than what it's called. ~ mazcat|c00:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose I never saw the problem with speedy, and honestlty after reading most of the discussions still don't see a problem with it. I will note that I had to fix a broken redirect to this page (encountered when clicking a link in a CSD template). I thought we had a bot for that? §hepTalk01:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose this is of very low importance, the status quo is acceptable, and there is no obviously objectively better alternative. honestly, find something better to work on. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Stop the wholesale Deletion of the Usepages of Indefinitely Blocked Users
The deletion of “usepages of indefinitely blocked users’, especially the talk pages, should stop until such deletions are properly described here at WP:CSD.
The policy problem is that these deletions are not covered by WP:CSD or any XfD. The actual problem is that the category is too broad and includes pages that should not be deleted.
For example. User_talk:posturewriter contains in its history a lot of material relevant to the development (and misdevelopment) of mainspace articles. To start to understand the history of the mainspace articles, this user_talk page is important.
It also contains records relevant to the development of WP:MEDRES. This guideline is important but causes problems with some new contributors, and deleting the talk pages of those who have the troubles is not a method for revealing shortcomings in the guideline, and improving on them.
This talk page contains material useful for the development of wikipedia mediation issues. Mediation, or education of the stubornly wayward, or how to cope with the pain and disruption of kooks, however you choose to look at these kind of problems, is definitely an area where we would like to do better. It is not helpful to delete the userpages of every constructive editor who had trouble with our rules, became belligerent, got indefinitely blocked, and didn’t proceed to appeal within one month.
I’m not wholesale against the deletion of userpages of indefinitely blocked users, such as vandalism only, or personal attack only, but the talk pages of users who made good faith contributions to mainspace should not be deleted out-of-process. The example page was even kept at MfD, before being deleted following a series of knee-jerk administrative decisions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:30, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Stifle. This is not the place for this discussion. Administrator's Noticeboard and the Village Pump are the place for this kind of discussion. --causa suitalk22:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I hate it when important policy matters are discussed and lost at WP:AN. This is clearly a matter of deletion policy. Deletion policy should be described, for the benefit of those doing it, or subject to it. Non-XfD deletions should be codified here. Cross-post at WP:AN and pumps by all means. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:52, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
This is how we have handled these pages for years. I think the harm associated with it is greatly exaggerated. Policy has yet to describe this long existing practice, it needs to catch up and our practices should not have to wait for that. Chillum22:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it only takes just one admin to do it this way for years. Unless someone questions it, as in the recent spate of deletions of "secret pages", we won't even know what the concensus is because many users (especially ones who can't see the deleted pages) won't ever see what was deleted. Just yesterday I was scratching my head over a "new" user talk page that appeared on my watchlist. After a bit of poking, I realized that I had watchlisted it before the user got indef'd, then someone deleted the user and talk pages, and now someone else had posted a sockblock template on the talk page, making it show up on my watchlist. Later, someone will come along and delete it, still later someone will template it -- how is this in any way productive? If you need to get rid of something on the user/talk page, delete it once and immediately put up some kind of template that says "indef'd and deleted", and then leave it the heck alone.--Fabrictramp | talk to me23:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
You might dislike the convention, but I can almost guarantee that you won't get the result you want if you try to confine the discussion to the CSD talk page. I understand that it seems strange that you would have to take a discussion about a CSD policy elsewhere (and, contrary to Chillum, I don't think that "We've done it that way for years" is a justification for anything at all). However, the reason this is CSD policy is (if I recall the history correctly) because it was being done so widely that someone thought it should be put in the policy somewhere. Policy pages on Wikipedia are not laws; they are summaries of "best practices" as they are figured out in the field, and thus are kept up to date with what is generally done, not the other way around. Reverting long-standing consensus requires many eyes; this page is not heavily trafficked enough for that. Therefore, forming consensus on this talk page will have the appearance of attempting to push through policy changes using procedural loopholes (forming "consensus" with only a few people who pay attention to this talk page, where others might have very strong dissenting opinions). As it happens, I tend to agree with your attitude about this, but you won't get any support from me (or most others, I would wager) unless you bring it to a wider audience. --causa suitalk23:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
There is a basic misunderstanding of wiki process here. It starts with discussion in the smallest group, not the largest. If no consensus is found here, then discussion, per WP:DR expands. The noticeboards are often used, but they are actually a bad idea; they are hot environments, with lots of editors making snap judgments, and the questions get easily diverted. (But there is no harm to a mention of ongoing discussion on AN, or the Village Pump, for that matter, but RfC is better. With a good RfC and if consensus isn't obvious at the conclusion, there are issues here that would be appropriate for ArbComm, and a good RfC helps to delineate the issues.
I dislike that anyone would withhold local consensus based on a wider group not having been consulted, it violates basic principles of deliberative process, i.e., objecting based on what you think some other imaginary editor might think. If any editor here thinks that any specific editor would have something to contribute to this, or would object to some new consensus here, the editor is totally free to inform that person, it isn't WP:CANVASS violation unless such a notification is widespread or designed to support the alleged canvassing editor's POV, and my objection is obviously only to what Ryan expressed: "I tend to agree," but "you won't get any support ... unless you bring it to a wider audience." Someone who thinks a wider audience is needed should take it to the wider audience, not reject a good idea in order to force someone else to do that. --Abd (talk) 18:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Having done it for years without any apparent problem is a pretty good indication it is not a problem. Some vandals have nothing better to do than stir up a bunch of shit on their talk page before during and after their indefinite block just to have this trophy page. We deny them that trophy. It has nothing to do with building an encyclopedia so we don't host it. This is simply a matter of housekeeping, crap piles up, we remove it. Chillum23:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
The thing is, it's getting done as a kneejerk reaction. If the crap needs to be flushed, then flush it, but think first. (And if it's just juvenile stuff, blank it). Unfortunately, a small number of admins think every indef'd talk page needs to be deleted.--Fabrictramp | talk to me23:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
[citation needed]. There's been tons of discussion on this subject and the pages deleted are generally checked against several criteria, in addition waiting at least a month after the last edit to delete it. Mr.Z-man05:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
In my example below, the talk page was deleted after slightly less than a month (but only 4 days, so I don't think that is a big deal). But what were the criteria for deleting it? There was absolutely nothing that needed to go, and there definitely was useful information for people keeping an eye on that sock.--Fabrictramp | talk to me15:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
It's not the vandalism accounts which are the problem - these have been happily deleted for years, but the talk pages of contributors with a 'meaningful history' in their talk page which is useful to the encyclopaedia. These were never part of CAT:TEMP when it started, for the same reasons that sockpuppets were pulled out of the category. Numerous discussions, for example at WT:UP have pointed out that these pages can be useful without being considered trophies. As the deletions are mainly done by bots looking through CAT:TEMP, the problem mainly lies in the blocking templates which puts them there, in particular {{uw-block3}}. -- zzuuzz(talk)23:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Chillum. No apparent problem? Did you look for problems? Was the editor effectively silenced with easy to find evidence of appeal? Was a potentially valuable contributor put off due to being treated harshly, with the ultimate door slam of DELETION of his talk history and ability to edit under his chosen username. What about our reputation for dealing with people? We are not talking about vandals and trolls. Vandals and trolls have little hesitation in creating new accounts. I am talking about the contributors of some good and lots of “good faith” contributions. These people are blocked. Why delete the talk history? Just because you can’t see a purpose, it doesn’t mean that there can be no purpose. Unless you already know everything that is useful to know? Have we nothing to learn (think communication effectiveness of guidelines, wikipedia mediation processes)? The costs of failing to learn can be incalculable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:46, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Valuable contributor? These are people that are indef blocked, by definition no longer welcome here. If there is a good reason to not delete a page, remove it from the category. If someone needs it for future defense they can ask for the contents. This seems like a tempest in a teapot here.
I see this is a passionate subject for you. For me it is a simple matter of housekeeping, I have no strong feelings on the matter. I do have a position though and I have explained it. Chillum23:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
This is about clarification of policy. Should every indef block lead blindly to userpsace deletions after one month? When looking into the history of things (controversial mainspace pages, policy effectiveness, guideline interpretation issues, development of how we do things, I don’t want to not find a whole section of our history because it was automatically deleted for no good reason, and if I do find out about deleted information on talk pages, I don’t want to have to ask for it, each and every time. People are indef blocked sometimes with an expectation that they may see the error of their ways, and apologise in an appeal. People are not always indef blocked because everything they have every done was without value. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:08, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
We're here to build an encyclopedia, not to keep a candle burning in the window for forlorn problem children to see the error of their ways. People must be held accountable for their own actions, and if their actions are so egregious as to warrant an indef, then, IMO, good riddance. Tarc (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
My point was that there sometimes is value in the past contributions of an indef blocked user, and that there can be material of use in the talk page history, and that the history of what happened with a now indef blocked user can be very important in our policy and process development. It is not about candles, or one last hope for rehabilitation. I am asking for the histories to be kept available behind the blanked pages of the blocked user. Is there a serious suggestion WP:DENY asks for talk page revisions to be routinely deleted for every blocked user? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I love reading the minutiae of Wikipedia operations, so I have several reasons to request that indefinitely blocked users with substantial contribution histories be kept: 1. Reading the history of such events is educational for new editors such as myself; 2. Where user pages have been deleted, the resulting lack of transparency will sometimes result in accusations of conspiracies and cabals; 3. Precendent is important in courts of law, so case details are always preserved; this seems like a fine principle for WP also; 4. A user starting afresh may unwittingly be tainted by the name of a blocked user. cojoco (talk) 04:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I have no particular opinion about userpages, but user talk pages should be left untouched unless it contains libel or slander something else that is illegal in the real-world sense. Deleting such pages makes it harder to compare edits of new vandals to old ones and let's them get away with things that would otherwise be easily handled. The speedy deletion criteria says that pages by a blocked user in violation of their ban should be deleted, but it doesn't say anything about other pages they created before they were banned. Obviously using userpages as a webhost after the block should be stopped, but there is no particular reason to delete talk pages. Admins can thrawl deletion logs. Any other user would be left in the dark if they tried to investigate the blocked user's history. - Mgm|(talk)10:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I cannot see any actual purpose in deleting most of these pages. It does not reclaim storage. It uses work of both the server and whoever is doing it. Andthere are many inactive users who return after a while. We need all we can get. DGG (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
You cannot return if you've been indef blocked. Pages of retired or inactive users don't get deleted. If there is anything of value on a blocked user's talkpage (not just vandal warnings and CSD notices) then you can add the historical tag to the {{indefblock}} template. Users with sockpuppet templates aren't deleted either. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 17:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Simply not true. I was indef blocked. Lots of users are indef blocked or even banned and return; indeed, we prefer that they return, if they do, with their original account. "Indef" means "blocked until unblocked," which might or might not mean forever. There is an additional problem. Sometimes editors are abusively blocked, but for various reasons the community never ends up looking at it or only looks at it much later. Later on, reviewing the actions of an administrator, it can sometimes be seen that there was inadequate warning, or no warning, the admin was in a conflict with the editor, or was even insulting the editor, I can think of an ArbComm case where bad blocks were dug up much later, and helped to show a pattern. Delete the page, only admins can see it, and admins are overwhelmed already. DGG is right. Deleting these pages is make-work that brings no value to the project; certainly many of these pages also bring no value, but others do. There is no harm in blanking the pages, and truly harmful pages can be deleted anyway because of the harm, not because of the indef block, and it's clear that sometimes Talk page deletions are done by admins in service of their own POV. This is rare, I think, but it can help cover the tracks of an abusive admin, and abusive admins can do a lot of damage before our extraordinarily cumbersome process catches up with them. --Abd (talk) 18:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The vast majority of the pages that are deleted for this reason are vandal-only accounts and username-blocks. Userpages of sockpuppets, banned users, and spammers are kept for tracking purposes. Even then, deleting the talk page doesn't make it impossible for them to appeal. Mr.Z-man17:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Vandal-only accounts, if it's truly vandalism -- that should be quite clear and not merely a matter of POV -- should indeed be grounds for deletion. But I've seen the temp category used to delete talk pages for editors who did make useful contributions, but who ran afoul of this or that administrator. I've seen an account blocked for alleged username violation that wasn't; being able to track the warnings and conversation helped me greatly to understand what happened; eventually, some justice will be done, but it takes one step after another, beginning with establishing that this editor actually made positive contributions, and that work should be done within weeks. (The proof will be that the contributions returned, more than a year later, with consensus.) Delete the pages, only an admin could do this kind of follow-up work, thus increasing workload on admins at the same time as concentrating ever-more power in their hands. Structurally, very bad idea. (However, expand the class of editors who can review deleted pages, make that an easily-granted privilege like rollback, then deleting such pages becomes far more reliably harmless.) --Abd (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Is any purpose served by deleting the pages? I can see several reasons, and some minor value, in keeping them. Among these are the need sometimes to review (often years later) what happened to an article and why certain edits were made, for example to track down a copyright violation or review a new suspicion of sockpuppetry. Deleting inactive accounts strikes me as problematic in the same way that deleting any historical records is - you lose your history. Inasmuch as ther is usually nobody to stand up for an indef blocked account, there is no check and balance on the deletion process. Rather than deleting, I suggest categorization, moving, templating, or some other way to flag a user as being of no value to the encyclopedia and kept only to preserve the record. Wikidemon (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely. Further, categorization or the other approaches is easily reversible and can be done by any editor. The wiki system allows individual editors to make decisions subject to review. Deletion makes review possible only for a small class of editors, difficult to join under present conditions. Deleting history is truly dangerous in the long run, there should therefore be broad consensus on the necessity of it. Nobody to stand up for an indef blocked account. Yes, often, and when the blocked editor simply goes away mad and convinced that Wikipedia itself is abusive, rather than merely the blocking admin, long-term, deeply-rooted damage is done. This happens particularly to experts, who are quite vulnerable. I'm working on an RfC right now which involves an expert, and I've seen other prior cases. Experts can easily become uncivil when confronted with tenacious disrespect from non-experts. It's a fault (I point out to them when I can -- it's not professional), but a common one, and we need to deal much more carefully with experts if we want to retain them, as we should. Instead, we insult them as "POV-pushers" (big surprise, experts often have a strong POV!), attack them as COI because they have published in the field, block them quickly for incivility, ignoring incivility directed against them, and generally treat them worse than vandals. This is a huge problem. I would not suggest turning the project over to experts, but we'd better welcome them, particularly in Talk, or we will continue to spread the reputation I have found common among experts that Wikipedia is hopeless. The expert editor I have in mind was recently blocked (February, I think), and the Talk page was rapidly deleted citing the speedy criterion discussed here. Eventually, I'll get this fixed, but it takes a huge amount of work to clean up one of these messes. --Abd (talk) 18:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Real numbers instead of random guesses
Rather than making random guesses about how many pages are in the category that shouldn't be, I decided to actually do some checking. At the time I started writing this, there were 2,529 User talk pages in the category. Of these, 9 (0.3%) have at least 100 revisions. On the other hand, there's 2,316 pages (91.5%) that have no more than 10 revisions and 479 (18.9%) that only have 1. Looking at the 9 pages with more than 100 revs:
User talk:Foxcow - 115 revisions, mostly vandalism warnings and random garbage like [20]
User talk:Cheers dude - 112 revisions, possibly useful, but there's a sock template on the userpage, so it will be kept.
So of the 0.3% of pages that have a significant amount of revisions, 2 would have been kept anyway under the current criteria (sockpuppet tracking) and only 4 (0.16%) of the remaining had useful history. In any case, since the query is fast enough, I'll be changing the bot that maintains the category (i.e. removing sockpuppet pages, and pages of users not actually blocked) to remove pages that have >= 100 revisions. Mr.Z-man19:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I tend to agree that even a 0.16% redunction in the false positive rate is a good thing given the uncertainty over what the rate really is, and the relatively low improvement to the encyclopedia on an incremental basis for each true positive. What are the numbers for 50, or 20 revisions? I would think that even 20 revisions on an indeffed account's talk page indicates that there may be a substantial history with something useful in it. Wikidemon (talk) 20:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why talk pages with less than 100 revisions should be automatically considered devoid of usefulness. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
In most cases it's just escalating warnings or block notices; nothing useful if the person's gone for good and shows every indication of such. -Jeremy(v^_^vCardmaker)06:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
They're not, if they have a sockpuppet tag or a spam warning they'll still be kept, because they have an actual, defined usefulness, rather than some hypothetical mainspace-related concern (why we're storing what's apparently critical details about article development on the talk pages of indef blocked users, I have no idea). As I said, over 90% of the pages have 10 or fewer revisions, suggesting a few warnings and a block notice. Even for the pages with more than 100 revisions, 4/9 are almost entirely useless. The pages are also kept for a month after the last edit before deletion. Mr.Z-man16:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Depending on the severity of behavior a new vandal / sock account is probably blocked within 5-20 talk page revisions. It would be interesting to see what the distributino really is. But we can't assume it is uniform over time or across different types of blocks / circumstances. Wikidemon (talk) 07:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
(I am splitting this section again, becomes quite big)
Can we please stop discussing whether these pages can be speedily deleted, it really does not serve any purpose, and though for most of us the damage done by deletion of user talkpages is minimal (most don't care, don't use and don't see the use of them), for some cases that damage is significant, and creates a lot of extra work (which then relies totally on (local) admins).
As Abd pointed out above, some indef blocked users come back, and then the talkpages have to be undeleted.
With editors who have besides a disruptive past also a productive past, the talkpage may contain in old revids discussions which have influenced policies, guidelines or page content. Deletion of that data hides the information from non-admins, and makes reconstruction of such discussions impossible
The editors were blocked for a reason, deleting the pages also hides the reasons, which may still be of interest somewhere.
In similarity with the earlier discussions about IP user talkpages, sometimes the editors are part of a, as yet unidentified, sockfarm. E.g. 213.59.221.0/24 contains 15 identified cross wiki spammers of cube2007.com (socks of Geri2), which ones were warned for that action here (admins, please log out before trying to find them)? Now do the same (cross-wiki) excercise on 89.216.66.0/24 .. Having a list of the accountnames in the latter quickly shows which are blue-links, and so can be checked if those page-histories contain warnings pertaining the issue we are checking.
On the other hand, editors who have not been indef blocked, but have left don't have their pages deleted? Even if they only have performed vandalism. So pages of editors who may have been useful in the past are deleted, and those of which users have long left and are nothing but useless edits are left there. While just those that are blocked are more relevant (in terms of why they were blocked) then those run-of-the-mill vandalism accounts.
It is easy to find which accounts did something, but if and when they were warned/blocked is a totally different issue. That is no matter of an edit count, a count of revisions of the talkpage, if the editors have been linked to somewhere (which count is for the IPs in the 213.59.221.0/24 range: 0; the case was handled on meta). They were tagged as socks (which did not happen with the IPs used by Geri2; again, the case was handled on meta). Etc. etc.
So, in conclusion, please, don't delete old user talkpages where the editor has been involved in some form of coordinated or larger scale vandalism, POV pushing or spamming. And as there is no real gain in deletion, and the pages may be useful to some people on wikipedia, and it is very difficult to decide or to put into rules which accounts can be deleted under a CSD, please do not delete them at all. These discussions are valuable to some of us, and deleting them a) hides them, and b) makes it completely rely on (local!) admins to do certain investigations. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I should note (again) that spam-related pages (anything with a spam warning template or in one of the subcategories of Category:User talk pages with spam warnings as of a couple weeks ago) is now kept. As are all the pages with a sock template (or any of these templates on the talk page or the userpage and any talk page with more than 100 edits (though based on the distribution above, this could probably be lowered). Also, indef-blocked IPs are re-categorized for further review. Mr.Z-man16:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
The problem is, spam related talk pages are not perfectly recognisable by the tags on them .. XLinkBot puts a warning for people adding example.com, which is often more a vandalism edit then spam, while many cases (see the talkpages of the spammers in 89.216.66.0/24, all the edits of this range that the range were warned for are spam-edits, though there is (last time I checked) only one warning using a spam-template!). I am sorry, whatever criteria you apply, all these editors should simply be scrutinised by eye. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, fine, people want to keep thousands of pages of garbage around every month? Whatever. I don't have time to keep repeating these arguments every time a couple people get a bee in their bonnet. The bot is now disabled. Pages won't be deleted and they won't be removed from the category automatically for any reason. If anyone wants these deleted, its fully manual review from now on. Have fun. Mr.Z-man11:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
User pages of once good faith mainspace contributors. Consensus?
I suggest that the above reveals a consensus that there is not a consensus to speedily delete the talk pages of once good faith mainspace contributors who were subsequently indef blocked. I think there is even not a consensus to speedily delete even the userpages of the once good faith mainspace contributors who were subsequently indef blocked.
The lack of consensus for speedy deletion means that speedy deletions of such pages should not occur, even if previously such deletions were routine.
There should be no insinuation read that any past such deletions were in any way “wrong”. It was policy, albeit unwritten, at the time, but things change. I suggest that things need to change because these unwritten policies have scalability problems, as wikipedia, its number of editors, and the number of administrators grows.
Existing unwritten deletion policy needs to be recorded, so that can be understood, discussed, and tuned. Obviously, clear CSD criteria will make it easier for the not-to-be-denied, and quite valuable, deletion scripts/bots.
A7 currently covers articles on people who are blatantly non-notable. It seems this should be expanded to cover lists whose only entries are people who, if articles were created about them, would be subject to A7 deletion. An example of such an article is Burswood guitar users (see also AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Burswood guitar users). This article seems to have been created by a non-notable person to list himself and a close relative who both have guitars manufactured by the same obscure manufacturer, hence it comes (as far as I see it) in the same vanity-article class as the other types of article listed in criterion A7. Any comments? JulesH (talk) 21:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm leaning against this proposal. I think of lists as a safe haven for information that doesn't belong in any particular article. For instance, it might be useful to have a list of schools in a particular school district, even if none of the schools was itself notable. Or a list of songs by a notable musician, even if none of the songs was notable enough to have its own article. --Stepheng3 (talk) 21:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I too would be against this. There's little harm to the 'pedia if we prod such lists instead of speedying them, and much benefit to having the extra time to really see if the list really has no encyclopedic potential. If the list is a blatantly obvious deletion, it can always be an IAR speedy.--Fabrictramp | talk to me22:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
We have many perfectly reasonable lists for which most or all entries do not themselves deserve articles. For example, lists of paintings by a famous artist (how many paintings have articles?). Likewise, one could imagine a list of - for example - minor league sports players, where most of them don't deserve articles but the list is just fine. Dcoetzee00:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I also would oppose this type of expansion of A7. Determining whether a list is populated with "people who, if articles were created about them, would be subject to A7 deletion" requires speculation, since we cannot know whether an article is A7-able until it is created. Let's remember that A7 does not judge the notability of a topic, but rather the presence or absence of an assertion of significance. –Black Falcon(Talk)02:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
this does not occur frequently enough to be worth the expansion, given the problems. It's hard enough to be sure one at a time. Anything really abusive can be dealt with by the provision for vandalism or test. DGG (talk) 16:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Done Happy‑melon 11:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
(unless you've got a better idea). — CharlotteWebb 20:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Resolved