User talk:DGG/Archive 0.2

this page is an archive of talk worth keeping around about Speedy Deletions and Proposed Deletions, See also the New Page Patrol archive                                        ARCHIVES

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Barnstars, Awards, etc.

Reminders

Topical Archives:
Deletion & AfD,      Speedy & prod,        NPP & AfC,       COI & paid editors,      BLP,                              Bilateral relations
Notability,               Universities & academic people,       Schools,                       Academic journals,       Books & other publications
Sourcing,                Fiction,                                               In Popular Culture      Educational Program
Bias, intolerance, and prejudice

General Archives:
2006: Sept-Dec
2007: Jan-Feb , Mar-Apt , M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D 
2008: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2009: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2010: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2011: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2012: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2013: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2014: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2015: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2016: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2017: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2018: J, F, M , A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2019: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2020: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2021: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2022: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D
2023: J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O

 

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2007

reply, criteria for deletion

(re-posted here for convenience--answered at Forsfrom talk.) I did recheck the criterion on speedy, and I of course find it as you say, and, in my view, incompatible with every statement about notability everywhere else in WP. And I do check speedies, and for things I recognize as notable and think can be clearly demonstrated as notable I go to the trouble of putting in a appropriate statement in what seems to be the expected language, and often do some editing to the article as well (I make no attempt to do this systematically unless I recognize something & think it can be defended, which is about 1 per day.)

I do not always get all of the procedure right yet, but I try. I notice some of the others in the debate were also unfamiliar with the provision. Perhaps those who have been editing a very long while learn to accept the odd parts and even the incompatibilities as part of WP life. I hope you're glad that new people are becoming active. If you will look at my edits you will see that they tend to compromise. I dislike the intensity of many quarrels here & have no intention of getting involved in them unless I can help reach a solution.

I recognize the usefulness of speedy in obvious cases, but I see it also being applied to non-obvious cases, and I will perhaps make some comments on that. I also plan to collect & analyze some data about the consistency of deletion practice, but not for a month or two when I'll have the time. I know some others are also looking at how well the various procedures work from a variety of angles. I have some background at that sort of analysis. That will of course be OR, and treated as such.

I intend this as a start of a friendly discussion, and if you have any suggestions I will be interested,and I even hope perhaps that you'd feel like joining the analysis. Two judgments are better than one, especially from people of different backgrounds. I like doing this sort of thing as a group.. which is one reason I'm here. Which talk page should we continue at?DGG 16:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

DGG, btw Master of the Playing Cards was speedily deleted, after about 5 mins, by the over-enthusiatic User:Firefoxman, who in the same session had also managed to S-delete Rede Lecture by User:Charles Matthews which was already in a quite advanced form. Oddly enough, CM got an apology; I did not! Quite a few of his SD's around then were thwarted one way or another Johnbod 17:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi DGG!

Thanks for your note. I agree there are many Wikipedia policies and guidelines which seem to completely conflict with other policies and guidelines. Regarding your question, of course I am glad that new people become active. Even with 6,000,000 user accounts, most of the work is done by a few thousand people. As users go on Wikibreak or suffer from burnout, if these users weren't quickly replaced, Wikipedia would soon become a mess.

I agree SPEEDY has often been applied to articles which don't really apply. At the same time, I've speedy deleted hundreds of articles I felt didn't meet the assert notability criteria; most of these were just trash. We get a lot of people that add "articles" about themselves like "Trisha Smith is a girl at Jones High School and she is soooo sexayyy!" or "MySpace.com/ThatOneDude is a great web site. You should go there." Articles like this aren't only about non-notable subjects, they don't even assert notability, and thus meet the requirement for (A7). I'm not sure there's much consistency when it comes to deletion, because WikiPhilosophy varies from editor to editor. I'm not sure I have time to work on an analysis of the data, but would be interested in the results. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Speedy

Speedy deletion means just that - it can be deleted at any time. Articles are always retrievable if there has been a mistake, or the creator can redraft to address the problem, if that is possible (notability issues might be insoluble for obvious reasons) jimfbleak 18:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Most speedies are obvious junk/copyright violations/nonsense, and genuine objections tend to come from the creators, who obviously know the content. I don't know if the list of deleted edits is accessible to non-admins. Any article in mind? jimfbleak 18:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand the point you are making - the flip side is that even with the present situation the list of articles tagged for speedy deletion is typically 200 items. Put a time limit on, even if it's restricted to sensible articles (and remember many junk articles are deleted before being tagged}, and I fear that admins will be overwhelmed. jimfbleak 20:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:overspeeding

I very much agree, DGG. Speedy delete should be within 24 hours, not a matter of minutes or an hour (since AFD is a week or two weeks, I think). Wikipedia policies are becoming way too serious and nuts and its literally ruining the place. — Wackymacs 18:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning to Jimbo Wales. — Wackymacs 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I have the time to gather lots of stuff together - I think I might be spending too much time on WP to be honest... — Wackymacs 19:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

deletion in general

In general (and thanks for encouraging me to write it out in full)

1. When I know or strongly believe something is notable (more exactly, encyclopedia worthy in general) then I don't put on a deletion tag, or if some one else has, I remove the tag altogether. If anyone really disagrees, they go to AfD.
2. When I know for sure something is not notable, and fits in a speedy, I speedy. If anyone disagrees, they can remove the tag or "holdon" if they're fast enough, or go to AfD or Deletion Review. I don't do this much, because I rarely do new page patrol, so the obvious stuff has already been deleted by others.
3. When I don't know for sure, which is pretty often, I usually put it for prod so other people can see for themselves. If nobody feels its worthy of keeping, it gets deleted and there's no fuss. If anybody wants to keep, they remove the tag, unless they wrote it, when they have to ask someone else to remove it. I see that on my watchlist, and depending on what they've said, I usually defer to them but sometimes send to AfD.
4. For shopping malls and schools, I never speedy, because I know that they will all be contested & I don't like to speedy in hope of avoiding a discussion. When a number of malls or schools are in question, I may well prod them all, and let other people decide what's worth saving.

• • But, as for Country Club Plaza (Arden-Arcade, California) I thought it an almost empty article, and probably not notable, but that it was possible you or another editor would know of something more to say. I hoped that you would either add enough to make it notable, or let the article get deleted. That's what prod is for. But of course if you think it is notable as it stands, just nominate it according to WP:AFD, and I will go by the consensus as always. I'll nominate it for you if you prefer. So it's up to you. (Some eds. I know would just have speedied and not even notified you, but I don't like to do things that way.) Further discussion welcome. DGG 05:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Speedys and DRV

You may be right. I have discussed the over use of speedy delete (and A7 in particular) on the CSD talk page several times, as you may know if you follow that page. In the past such complaints have been not infrequently dismissed as theoretical in default of sufficeient examples, and when i did point to a particualr example i was told "That's what DRV is for". I am hoping to build up a list of several examples on which there is celar consensus that a speedy was not warrented, and then use them together in a discussion on the CSD talk page, or perhaps at the pump. Do you think this plan worth while?

But it is also true that I don't feel that it is proper (except in an emergency) to reverse another admin without some form of discussion, and FRV is the sanctioned palce for this particualr topic. DES ^(talk) 03:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

2-user speedies

Yeah, personally, I'd be in favor of a policy that said that admins should not speedy article unless tagged by someone else. Checks and balances and all that. With reasonable exceptions, perhaps, for G10 and G12 since the very existence of those articles is damaging. — Coren ^(talk) 16:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy and PROF

You are quite correct that the edit summary bordered on WP:BITE. However, allowing an article to not be considered under speedy deletion when it violates WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR (shall I continue?) is mystifying. A professor at a university is non-notable in and of itself. Please respect the process and allow the community to decide. Regards. Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 04:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

please read WP:SPEEDY, at this time, RS, V and NOR are none of them reasons for speedy. I did not make this policy, but of course as an admin I follow it. If you want to change the policy, WP:VP is the place. DGG 00:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:SPEEDY, criteria exists i.e. "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote a company, product, group, service, or person and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic." Are you stating that the article in question was encylopedic. Because according to Wikipedia guidelines, which you are well aware (or should be), an article that violates WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS is not encylopedic. Unless we have different criteria in place for university professors, perhaps WP:UP? And even admin DGG states the following on an article s/he marked for speedy deletion: "some encyclopedic information and sources were needed". Glad we both agree after all. :)Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 05:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

we are in total agreement that many articles should be deleted, and I do my share. The article for that comment was about a product with 1 sentence saying where it is made and another saying where it was sold. Clear advertisement. The one prev. discussed gave a sober description of the career and the chief accomplishments, and just needed proper references and the addition of supporting content. Clear not A7 or G11, and unref is not a speedy. Unencyclopedic articles should be deleted, but not all of them through speedy. Nominating that page for PROD or Afd would have been totally appropriate--I generally nominate such pages for prod myself. . Please recheck WP:DELETE. And before citing rules, read them: WP:UP is not the p. about University Professors. WP:PROF is, and it was asserted that he developed a notable theory. But there is no point in arguing further here about single articles--there are too many articles waiting that need deletion.DGG propriate for Wikipedia. That's all. Happy adminning! :D Tdmg 08:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

CSD A3

About a comment of yours while removing a Speedy Deletion tag, "lists of internal links are not among the things to which A3 applies": Actually, wiki links are not excluded and thus are included by CSD A3. Here is the text: "No content whatsoever. Any article consisting only of links elsewhere (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title. This does not include disambiguation pages." Note that the text has to explicitly mention hyperlinks because wiki links are the basic kind of "links elsewhere" and are implicit to the definition. Hu 23:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I stand my my interpretation that the CSD criterion is not intended to eliminate an article which is a list composed of people or things, each linked to their individual WP pages. Such lists are a standard and well accepted part of WP, and using CSD to delete lists on this grounds is not reasonable. Indeed., list pages are frequently opposed on the opposite ground--that they include items that do not have a WP article & are therefore non-notable. You might want to propose at the VP the elimination of such articles from WP altogether, if you think that is what the community will want. DGG (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability clarification

A week or so ago I posted a follow-up question on an AfD discussion you commented on. If you missed it, I'm still interested in any clarification or elaboration you might have. On the other hand, if you saw it and chose not to respond, I apologize for re-opening the issue and I'll drop it. -- MarcoTolo 02:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC) Since this would likely fall under your userpage comment that you have "a very strong dislike for deciding matters by technicalities rather than the merits" (and, in retrospect, my question probably falls into the former), I withdraw the query. Thanks. -- MarcoTolo 02:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't withdraw the question, I'm in the middle of answering it: as you guess, my view is that it does not depend on the wording, but the meaning. It depends on what is being asserted. The way I think of it is that if it is anything that the author of the page could reasonably have thought notable, it escapes speedy. For the article given, the person posting the article could and did reasonably believe that the position of Dean of that school was notable. It isn't, but that was another matter. Anyway, this is a matter that comes up from time to time at WP:CSD talk. My rationale for why it's better this way is that if there is any chance, it's better that the community look--it's more consistent, and it saves time in getting the junk removed fast without needing to discuss it or deal with appeals. DGG (talk) 03:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much for the clarification - much appreciated. -- MarcoTolo 03:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

A7

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it agrees with the language of A7. I think it's quite a stretch to assert that Kurt Hellmer explained how the subject was important or significant. I really think the mere fact that KH was affiliated with a notable author for an unstated time period does not do it. Would the notable author's lawyer have been automatically significant? Are all of the author's works important? What about his family? Anyway, if A7 is refined or abolished, that would moot all of these fun debates! Take care! -- But|seriously|folks  16:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

my idea of an acceptable assertion is one that a reasonable newcomer to WP could make in good faith, thinking it might possibly be considered important here. Saying someone is the son of a famous man is not--at least as far as anyone outside the family is concerned, thought there are some good editors here who think it might be. enough, & I am open to argument. Saying that someone is a famous writers agent, that is. Most of the stuff suitable for A7 speedy is much lower then the son of a famous man category. Nobody can reasonably think that to have formed a band that has not yet recorded anything is notable by any standards. DGG (talk) 18:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Re:CSD

Thanks for the information. I reviewed the non-criteria for speedy deletion shortly afterwards. Also, I've prodded another article by the same user, Hellsing Death Nether, that is more or less a copy paste of the aforementioned article with a different name. Could you simply delete that, or should we wait for the prod to finish? Much appreciated. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 06:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Delete a talk page?

The article associated with this talk page (Talk:Aidan Baker) was speedy deleted a few days ago, but talk page still exists - and has been modified by a bot since. Since there is no article, can the talk page be deleted? If so, what tag goes one it? Or don't worry about it at all? Jauerback 13:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The tag would be {{db-talk}}; sometimes these pages are deliberately retained to provide information on why the article was deleted--that was not the case here, so I just now deleted it. DGG (talk) 13:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

CSD Message

You left a notice on my page regarding a CSD. Which article are you referring to? Usually if I see some sort of reference or citation or something that can be considered notable, I either tag it for cleanup, prod if I think it is a most likely delete, or ignore it. usually I reserve the CSD tag for something blatant or something that screams PR piece (one of my biases unfortunately...). Spryde 19:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, now I see the intersecting edits on Pirkle Jones. The doctorate info was added after I saw the page. That makes it notable. Spryde 19:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC) (our postings just crossed- DGG)

Hoaxes and CSD

Hi there. In declining the speedy on Fahad Ahmed you said that hoaxes can't be speedied. However, I'd always been under the impression that particularly blatent hoaxes qualified as pure vandalism, and WP:CSD#G1 says "(Patent nonsense) does not include poor writing, partisan screeds... or hoaxes of any sort; some of these, however, may be deleted as vandalism in blatant cases." Of course, what counts as blatant is open to interpretation, but I'd have thought an article largely cut and pasted from Stephen Hawking and Paul Dirac with the names changed would be something that nobody could take seriously. I'm not partcularly bothered about the specific case though - just wondering if you could clarify the policy. Best, Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 22:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

well, I noticed that too, and I admit you do have a point there. (I also see from the AfD that the creator's page about himself was properly deleted a few days as nn). But the article was already at AfD, and once an article is , I think it much better to let the AfD continue (except for copyvio and BLP), and the article will be out of here soon enough--I just went there and suggested WP:SNOW. And AfD has the further advantage of enabling G4 to prevent re-creation. Looking at history of deleted edits, I'm going to suggest salting. Getting rid of something before AfD, that can be another matter, as it saves considerable work for people. DGG (talk) 22:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Once Thomjakobsen had noticed that it was a pastiche of fragments I thought that it was best to stop bothering AfD, especially on a day where it was already swamped with 50-odd lists of ethnic types, but you're right that snowballing was probably a better option than a plain speedy - and I see Mike Rosoft has gone ahead and done that. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 09:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedies

Thanks for the comments. Firstly, I placed that speedie on a normal article page, however an admin subsequently moved it to their userpage taking my speedie with it. Then I removed it. I actually did know that you can't speedie a user page; that would be rather stupid as it *is* their user page. But nonetheless thank you for the heads up. Phgao 14:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok I'll take your second point into account, I've just started tagging, so my mistake, and yes I did think that they had to show WP:Notability. Furthermore, can I offer you a small suggestion? Your user talk is getting really long, and it would be nice if you could archive it. Phgao 14:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a speedie that has been up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_was_meclenburg_founded Phgao 14:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Got it! From now on i'll leave the professors alone. *writes it down on hand* ^_^ Phgao 14:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Another random article that makes no sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bazley Phgao 14:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

And another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Land Phgao 14:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Explanation; with regard to that speedie on userp, I was in the act of putting it on Stephen Leslie (an article), when Sam Blacketer (admin) moved it. (moved Stephen Leslie to User:Steve45: Forced userfication of personal page.) And therefore my speedie landed on the userpage. Phgao 14:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:Common outcomes seems to be red link to me. Phgao 15:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Meclenburg; that article wasn't an article really on the city/town/place, it was a test edit/ nonsense as.. But I'll keep in mind that all inhabited places are notable. I'll try to PROD more often! Phgao 15:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Henkelman

Was there a reason that you changed a perfect Speedy tag on this page into a ProD with "proper tag" as only explanation? It seems a bit bizarre, since the article made absolutely no claims to notability, there is no other evidence that the person has any notability, and the tag that was on the article was perfectly "proper"... Oh, and perhaps you could archive your talk page, it takes quite a while to load (almost 300K!) Fram 10:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

"Unencyclopedic school essay" was the reason given, and that is not a reason for speedy, though it is for prod. The article may have been titled Andrew Henkelman, who apparently wrote it, but the article content was not about him but an essay of his about a poem by Longfellow. You chose to delete it as if it were actually on Henkelman, giving a reason of CSD A7 non-notable--this is a reasonable interpretation, and I did consider changing the tag to A7 myself, but the tag that was actually on the article was not a reason for speedy, and I wanted to send the message to the ed. who tagged it. If I had changed the tag, by the way, i would have let someone else delete the article. Except for obvious vandalism and nonsense and G10, I do not delete articles that I tag. It is permitted to do so, but I think it should not be. I would certainly not have done it after a fellow admin had removed the tag, for whatever reason. If you disagreed with what I did, you should have asked me, not just reverted. But since the article did need to get removed one way or another, no harm has been done from any standpoint, and I'm not complaining. . DGG (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks (for archiving as well, by the way). I don't see what you mean, actually. Mentifisto only added a db-bio tag, without comments[1], so "unencylopedic school essay" was not the reason given (it was the reason given by you to prod it, but not by the original tagger). If you see it as an essay, you should have either deleted it as A1 (no context to understand the title of the article), or have moved the page. Anyway, it's not that important, I just couldn't understand why one would decline this quite obvious speedy. For your other points: I often delete articles without tags, but this was a case where it was already tagged by someone else... As for reverting another admin: on serious non urgent issues (debatable block lengths or so), I discuss first. For rather unimportant things (the method of deleting, since we both wanted it deleted anyway), I don't see the harm. I wouldn't redelete it if you undeleted it, for example, since then I would start a pretty pointless revert war. Fram (talk) 08:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

according to current consensus at WP:CSD, school essays-- or anything -- can only be deleted as nocontext when there is so little is impossible to tell what the article is about & cannot be used for non-encyclopedic stuff of this sort. I do not intend to undelete, since it would in any case be removed sooner or later. DGG (talk) 13:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

re:CSD

I've been helping out with vandalism patrol for quite a while. Now I'm trying to help out with New pages patrol. I have read policy but some things are a judgment call, which takes time to develop. As a relative newcomer to this job I will make mistakes and try to learn from them. So to help me learn could you please answer two questions: 1) Do you agree that A7 includes a "group of people" or an "organization" not just a company, and therefore my nomination of Quintana Roo Speleological Survey was appropriate? 2) Where in WP:CSD does it say that an editor should not restore a CSD request that has been mistakenly removed?

My thinking based on your edit summary was that you removed my CSD simply because it was not a company. I knew it wasn't a company, thought that it qualified as an organization, so thought that your removal was incorrect. Now I think the article is about something the organization created rather than an organization. If your edit summary had pointed out that the subject was not a group of people, company, or organization then I would have understood your objection and not renominated for deletion.

Please realize that regarding New pages patrol I am a relative newcomer and I suggest that WP:BITE should apply. The tone of your note to me implied that I knew I was doing wrong. But I did not know that it was wrong to restore a CSD that I thought had been mistakenly removed. E.g. if the creator had removed it or a vandal had removed it I would have been correct to restore it. I still do not see anything in WP:CSD or in the CSD template to say that an editor should not restore a CSD that he thinks was mistakenly removed. So I did not think that what I was doing was wrong. I've learned better and won't do this in the future.

I suggest that your tone toward me could have been milder. Look I'm just trying to help out - to improve the encyclopedia. Before I added the {{db-bio}}, I made minor edits to that article to improve it in case it was judged worth keeping. I know you're pretty busy as an admin but a minute extra time writing a gentle note to a user who is trying to be helpful might avoid driving away a helpful editor. Frankly, I just don't need the hassle that Wikipedia sometimes produces. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

SD

Replied at my talk page. Could you also archive your talk page, it's insanely long, with a load time that rivals the Soviet Union article. Not to mention the slow typing. Thanks KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 22:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Did you even investigate half of the "questionable" deletions I made? you are telling me that is not spam? Maybe you should review this page. Happy editing. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 17:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

still working on it. I want to consider carefully and do full justice to your arguments. Be aware of the distinction between SPAM and the criterion for Speedy, which is "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic" If they are fixable, not speedy. DGG (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Golden Gate Handicap

I sent this to the person who added a "speedy delete" to an old article, one you responded to. I thought you might be interested.

"I don't understand. I did not create a new article. The race article has existed for some time. All I did today was go into the existing article's discussion page and add a thoroughbred tag to indicate it was part of the Thoroughbred horse topin on wikipedia, and a California tag to indicate it's a part of what interests Californians. The information on the race page is as much as can be found on many race pages. I spend quite a bit of time time trying to find the winners and winning jockies on some race pages, but when I do, I add them. Or if I find some bit of history pertinant to the race, for example: an very famous racehorse made his or her first start in this race. Other than that, the article is there and added to as things come in. It is not a new article and was never before considered for speedy deletion. I think there is some confusion here about the actual article and its discussion page which has the only two tags I added today."JiggeryPokery (talk) 01:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you...and forgive the above idiot errors. I wrote too fast. JiggeryPokery (talk) 02:04, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Earlier today, I went into a number of horse races in order to add a tag on their discussion pages indicating they were part of the Thoroughbred race horse topic here on wikipedia. The article called Golden Gate Fields Handicap existed at that time. It was created quite awhile ago. I clicked on the discussion page to add my Thoroughbred race horse tag and for good measure added the wikiproject California tag. The next thing I know is that Golden Gate Fields Handicap is to be speedily deleted. And now that we've gone round a few times, I've gone back to look and the original article is gone, but the discussion page is there. How odd. But it does explain why it got hit with the speedy deletion tag. It's only a sort of back page without any article. If I did something, then I stand guilty. But I have no idea what I did. JiggeryPokery (talk) 02:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

i will work on it. We will find it. But if you happen to have a local copy, just add it back--its quicker. DGG (talk) 02:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your continued interest. The article has now completely disappeared. I suppose I could research it again and replace it, but best perhaps to leave things in the hands of those who might find it hiding somewhere, like you. It's possible the whole thing was "speedily" deleted by the person who first tagged it. Meanwhile to appease an irascible editor/contributor? I went through every Thoroughbred horse race in extant at wikipedia and added a tag on their talk pages. None of these, thank blot, disappeared. JiggeryPokery (talk) 18:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

2008

Speedy tags

Hi there - having remembered this and recently seen this and this it struck me that we may be destined to forever disagree! Believe me, I'm not trying to make a point, but it is relatively rarely that my speedy tags get rejected, and it tickled me that it was your path and mine crossing again! gb ^{(t, c)} 20:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

A lot of the time I speedy something, I also get challenged. There are two people just above that I've offered to undelete, if they want to write something, but where I think the speedy was nonetheless justified by the rules. It's satisfying removing junk and rescuing the good--it is not satisfying either removing or keeping the borderline. I do not like making these decisions either way. I know on the one hand I am keeping things which will not really ever be satisfactory, or removing things that just might be. I am particularly bothered by db-corp--there is really no clear dividing line on these. We do not accept most ministers at AfD, yet most of them have a vague claim at least to some notability--in his case, if he can document the hospital it would pass--but we both know perfectly well nobody is likely to actually do the work, & Ghana is by and large still a print culture. I would be quite surprised if the prod were actually challenged. I would have thought Anthology record similar--it is very hard for such a republisher to prove notability. But I just looked at their web site, and they have a/ been going since 91, b/have a NPR story about them and c/have a much larger list than the article indicated. I'm telling them to add all this. So for one you are probably right on the ultimate fate, and for one i probably am. (I've made & will make again the suggestion that any speedy challenged in apparent good faith and with any plausible reason should go to AfD.) Lately there are a few more admins who seem to do things as i do, or even more literally. DGG (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Speedy

Oops, my bad. The only reason I added the csd tag, was because the article seemed like someone was writing about themselves. Only reason. But, I'll be careful next time and thanks for the warning. --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 22:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

in fact there were a group of them, some quite dubious, and i expect an interesting discussion at AfD. I wouldnt be surprised at all if they were being deleted, but there seems to be an ongoing disagreement about which teams count for notability.DGG (talk) 23:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

CSD vs. AfD

The articles in question don't fall under "local chapters" - that was a slightly different yet related item. The articles concerned consisted of two lines, (name and address), and external link to a page where the name appears in a list of related groups, and/or a link to a dead or non-informative homepage. That does indeed give no indication of importance (no sources), unless something being called "Grand" implies importance (which it shouldn't). I am certain that I had to start 4 AfDs that I really didn't need to because of baseless claims of supposed notability "because of the name" or "because this other thing (which also had no independent sources and thus didn't assert its notability) was important."

I also discovered that some of the articles were informationally wrong, and referred to entirely different groups than what the sources were pointed at. Yet I'm the one supposedly "gaming the system" and with a "personal bias" because I don't think we should have articles that remain unsourced for months at a time with no editorial changes and no reliable sources. MSJapan (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

MSJ - the CSD system is not meant for questionable cases, which is what you've been doing. JASpencer (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

If an article is wrong, fix it.

If it is downright vandalism, and the vandalism would be unquestionably clear to anyone even if they knew nothing whatever about the subject, tag it for speedy

If it is downright vandalism, but the vandalism would not be immediately clear to anyone ignorant of the subject ,list it at Prod or AfD

if the article is unsourced, try to source it. The proposal that articles that remain unsourced can be deleted for that reason alone, even at AfD, has been repeatedly and decisively rejected by the community. If you want to challenge it , try the Village Pump. If you nominate for speedy on that reason it is disruptive, because you are deliberately going against established policy and instead following what you think the policy ought to be.

If for a particular article, you think either the facts or the notability is unsourcable, nominated for Prod or AfD. It helps to have a good reason, like the result of a search, because if others can source it, they will probably consider that you have made a careless nomination.

For the minimum requirements to keep an incomplete article, see WP:STUB. Again, by repeated decision of the community , it does not have to be sourced.

It is considered unsuitable and a violation of WP:BITE to nominate within a few minutes after it has been written an incomplete article for not indicating any nobility -- instead place a notability tag. If after a few days it indicates no notability whatever, then place a speedy tag. If it indicated anything that any reasonable person could think might possibly indicate notability, use Prod or AfD--see below for the advantages of doing it that way.

If however, it contains too little content to tell what the subject is even about, it can be nominated for speedy as empty.

The amount of work involved in trying to recover from an improper deletion , or argue about a questionable speedy, is even worse than the tedious mechanism of Afd. Therefore, if you think there will be any opposition, use AfD. It has the additional advantage that the article can be prevented from re-creation. This is especially valuable if someone is deliberately creating bad articles. DGG (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

(This does not imply any view of mine on any of the articles or on the topic. I !vote to delete a lot of things at AfD, and I might well !vote to delete the articles in question. And I do a lot of speedy. We need speedy, and I have no hesitation in using it when it is unquestionable.) But there's no point arguing individual article deletions on personal talk pages. that's what Afd is for. DGG (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

yes, I understood that. DGG (talk) 20:55, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Question as to your comment at JASpencer's talk page... that "If there is any reason to think the article's deletion would be challenged, even for inappropriate reasons, it is necessary to use AfD."... doesn't that negate the entire concept of speedy deletes? Your approach would allow one disruptive editor to "exempt" an entire topic area from speedy deletes... all because he thinks that anything to do with the topic is notable. Blueboar (talk) 21:52, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I misworded it there, and have corrected it to even for reasons which would not save the article at AfD. Objections that are clearly disruptive should of course be ignored, objections based on good faith are another matter entirely. When I encounter disruptive addition of articles I have no hesitation to warn or even block the person involved. But some of the afd criteria are matters of judgment, and if in any reasonable doubt, I prefer the community's judgment to my own. DGG (talk) 22:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you... that does clarify things significantly. Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

And thanks, I am always grateful when people point out if I've gotten something wrong, or worded it too broadly. I know I will make mistakes, and I must rely on others to correct them.. DGG (talk) 04:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Michael Birawer

We edit conflicted on this speedy delete, saying exactly the same thing (both declining the speedy). Good to know I'm still in line with your thinking every once and a while :-). I'll get in contact with the article creator shortly and see if I can't help him/her out. Keeper ǀ 76 21:43, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we'd agree with each other 95% of the time, with almost all the others being matters that we both would consider equivocal. Obviously the remaining few are the ones that stick out. All we can really do there is stay polite and let other people judge. If I've pushed you too hard on any of them I apologize, and I certainly never intend to let an argument on one thing carry over onto another. You might be interested in some of my recent comments today at WT:CSD. DGG (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping we agreed more like 99% of the time :-). I read your comments at wt:csd, very well worded. I support them. I personally, with rare exception anyway, have never "speedy deleted" something that was untagged. Probably because I don't do "new page patrol" and rely on others to patrol properly. I wish there was an easy tool to see my ratio of "agree with patroller" versus "remove tag". I think I'm about 1 of 5 that I "decline" for one reason or another, maybe but hopefully not more like 1 of 10 (I spend a lot of time at C:CSD). In the last few months, I think the "speedy taggers" have gotten more careful and less bold, which is a good thing. I attribute it to this: Many "speedy taggers" are doing NPP because they foresee an RFA in their near future. It is well known (and appropriate) that if an editor is sloppy as a speedy tagger, they will be sloppy as a speedy deleter, therefore those taggers with "aspirations" of "finishing the job", which seems to be all of them, are reluctant to tag borderline articles. Encouraging, in an ironic sense. Anyway, I'm not an article builder, never pretended to be one, I'm no good at it. I've asked another editor, who I know to be an excellent article rescuer, to take a look at this specific article that you and I both agree isn't speediable. Seeing as this particular artist lives (purportedly) about 5 miles from my home, I don't quite feel right about doing much more than copyediting myself. Thanks for your input and insight. See you 'round, Keeper ǀ 76 22:19, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Ecclesiastes 12:12

"the assertion that someone has written a non-self published book book in any subject is a clear assertion of importance" - oh, dear Lord, that makes my heart break just to read! I'm an author, book reviewer, bookseller and long-time member of the National Writers Union; do you have any idea how many new books come out every year, even when you screen out the self-publishers? Most of us harmless Grub Street hacks will never be notable; and certainly most of my one- to three-book friends are not, nor would they assert themselves to be. This concept, if accepted, would open up the gates to endless floods of vanispamcruftisement! I cannot accede to your request. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC) (yes, Dave, I know you're a librarian [weren't you a Wombat at one time?]; but librarians aren't subjected to as much of the petty end of the spectrum as booksellers and reviewers are, and see less of the dross and more of the substance)

I never said it was enough to be notable, just avoid speedy, at least in the case of an apparently significant book, and certainly in this case when supported also by published articles. Speedy is deliberately worded very loosely to permit any good faith assertion of notability to pass and be judged by the community. I agree most of the people who have written a single book wouldn't pass notability, but the point is that this is most of the people -- some would, and no one admin should be able to judge that for the same reason we don't speedy books themselves at afd. someone in the field at least should have the opportunity to check for reviews and citations and library holdings and spot things by recognition that need further checking. As for librarians, we get junk enough but of a different sort. I'm not sure I catch the reference to wombats? I invite you to find a suitable wording for what counts as passing speedy, but in this case, since there was material besides the book, I am probably going to Deletion Review, not to support the article particularly, but to establish that your standard of "indication of importance" is too high. DGG (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree. Ah, well; certainly not the first time! (As to the wombats, that's a Stumpers-L reference.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG - I completely support your position. The point here is not to have an exercise in the use of rhetorics but to operate on the basis of evidence and community feedback to make sure Wikipedia remains true to its purpose of providing useful information written by open and transparent consensus [2]. I'm disappointed to see Orange Mike continue to ignore the feedback from the community. I hope it's not the case for other articles he's been reviewing. Were you able to take the "Deletion Review" action you mentioned?

Alex Omelchenko (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Creighton the Cretin

Just to clarify ... Creighton the Cretin was tagged for SD because there was no assertion of notability, which seems to be covered by WP:CSD. Am I missing something? Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:CSD A7 --such deletion can only be done for the types of articles specified there--real people, real groups, companies, & web content--not for books, no matter how trivial they are. Use WP:PROD, or if that is contested, WP:AFD. the rationale is that somebody might recognize it as significant , so it needs to be looked at. Check first there are no book reviews that might show importance, though it does seem unlikely. DGG (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

Articles must establish their notability and verifiability clearly and objectively. If someone is creating an article, it is just as in adequate to write the first paragraph of what may become a ten paragraph article as it is to create an article containing nothing more than the reiteration of its title and then reject claims that the subject is not notable. Editors who cannot or will not create articles with substantiating references from the start must be ready to have these articles deleted, or they should create them as userfied articles. Patrollers of the new articles page cannot be expected to check the HTML of all the nonsense articles they see to verify whether or not references were indeed placed and it is only the lack of a reflist markup that keeps them from being revealed. While your intentions may be excellent, your position is essentially defenseless. I therefore respectfully reject your your comments and ask that you instead direct your efforts at informing new editors that new articles must establish their own merit prior to them figuring out how to use Wikipedia, or they risk speedy deletion of what appears to be nonsense, unverified un-notable refuse, hoaxes and vandalism. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, articles must establish their notability and verifiability clearly and objectively to be kept, but they merely have to give some indication of it to pass speedy. Please reread WP:CSD and WP:STUB The first policy that you suggest, that an article must have references to be kept at speedy,. has been suggested from time to time, but repeatedly rejected. If you want to propose it, try the WT:CSD page But first read its very long archives. That an article must be complete or even tenable at the first edit is also not policy, though I do warn people that they would do well not to make too fragmentary a start, because some admins are a little trigger-happy. What I said on your talk page, that it is not appropriate to speedy an in process article the first few minutes of its existence, is standard practice. You are not currently prevented from placing such a tag, but if you do, be aware that I and others will criticize you for it. What I am saying is not my eccentric way of doing things, but standard here. Please read or reread WP:BITE and WP:Deletion Policy.If an article can be improved by normal editing, it is not a candidate for speedy.

However, we do have a way to accomplish the sort of challenge to an article you have in mind. That is the WP:PROD process. You might want to consider it in the cases of patently incomplete articles.

I know you've been here about one year longer than I have, but I don't think what you have been suggesting has ever been the policy. And I notice your top userbox, so I think we might have some common ground after all. We do have common interests. Perhaps we will meet at one of the NYC meetups. DGG (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

2009

A true CSD survey

Well, I've gone through a number of CSD nominations from the past month and found about 40 that I thought might pose interesting questions on how people perform CSD's. Basically, I'm asking people to review the article in question and answering the question, "how would you handle this" with one of four options:

1. Agree with criteria for deletion. 2. Disagree with criteria for deletion, but would delete the article under another criteria. 3. Disagree with the criteria for deletion, but this is a situation where IAR applies. 4. Disagree with speedily deleting the article.

(by who??)

2011

Sandusky (automobile company)

While I normally appreciate your CSD work, I have to bring up a few points with Sandusky (automobile company), specifically the edit summary you used.

• "probably notable" - notability != significance. You know this. If you meant "probably significant", that's not the same as "actually significant". If you meant "probably notable" you should have some, y'know, sources, which it might be helpful to provide to Fluffernutter.
• "First look for sources, & if not found, only then nominate for deletion" - Fluffernutter is an experienced contributor - she doesn't necessarily need stuff like this thrown at her.
• "See WP:BEFORE" - again, she doesn't need this thrown at her, but more importantly, it's optional. If you're trying to give advice, fair enough; if you're using it as part of your rationale, you should probably take a look at the guideline/policy pages on the subject.

As said, I appreciate the good work you do. But if you were basing it on "I think", notability is not the test. If you were basing it on "I have found some evidence that it is", you should have provided the sources. A failure to follow optional due dilligence guidelines does not exempt somebody seeking for others to follow them from doing so himself Ironholds (talk) 00:58, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

One this was proposed as a speedy deletion. Speedy is for unquestionably necessary deletions. Any doubt anyone (except of course the contributor) may have about the appropriateness of a speedy deletion is cause to remove the speedy, though it should be explained, if only to guide further action. (But the removal is valid even if not explained properly or at all). I remove speedy tags based on thinking, guessing, or whatever. What I do not do on the basis of mere guessing, is delete (or undelete, or any other admin action). Removing a tag is not an admin action: anyone may do it. I would not have closed "keep" at an AfD on a reason such as I gave here. Of my declined speedies, probably one-third end up deleted. That's perfectly reasonable--speedy is not the only deletion process. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Two any of the pioneer automobile manufacturers are possibly notable, and that's enough reason to look further. Not necessarily to keep, but certainly to look further. If it needs looking further, it's not a speedy.

Three WP:BEFORE is just a restatement and amplification of WP:Deletion Policy, which says unambiguously that deletion is the last resort. It's a suggestion of things to try, not all of which will be appropriate in every case.

Four It is relatively difficult to find wordings to separate advice from requirement in the space of an edit summary. I shall try to reword this one a little, since it's a message I frequently use. You're correct that I probably could be clearer.

Five I explain what I'm doing, even to experienced contributors. Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars is an essay that, by and large, I disagree with. I treat all editors equally, as I want to be treated. (And the edit summary is furthermore intended as information for whomever might look.) If I think someone has placed a tag in a way that is demonstrably very wrong, I leave them a personal message, adapted to the person. This was not that sort of a blunder, & there was no need for instruction or remonstrance. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

DGG, the problem I see here now is that you removed the speedy tag but left the article in a state where it still very clearly doesn't assert any importance. I mean, I find A7 extremely vague, and very rarely dare use it for that reason. And it's clear even to me that this article doesn't assert any importance. If there is importance to be asserted, which there well may be, was the correct action on your part not to assert it, rather than remove a valid tag and leave the article in a state where, unless someone is inside your head to see what importance you know of, it has no validity as an article according to our inclusion guidelines? I mean, a NPPer could come across it tomorrow, see that it asserts no importance, and tag it again. Would you then re-remove the tag, again asserting that it's "probably" important? How long would the article need to stay in a doesn't-meet-inclusion-criteria state before you would allow it to be deleted? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:55, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

A Deleting a speedy is optional, except for things like copyvio and BLP violation. . ANYONE can stop the process. Speedy and Prod are processes deliberately designed so that any one person can object. Otherwise, they're too dangerous. That's why I don't do single handed deletions unless it's something really harmful and completely obvious (or, I must admit, if I get really impatient.)

B In any case, I consider any historic company at the development of an industry notable. I consider saying so and having evidence for it not just an assertion of notability , but a proof of it.

C If a NPPatroller or anyone replaced or retagged any removed speedy for the same reason, I'd remove that tag and warn them, because it isn't permitted, according to WP:CSD. If an admin were to deliberately do it, it's close to wheel-warning. The recourse is AfD .

D One of the good things here is how looking at any one article can lead to a long bypass. I've spent some amusing hours finding the various sources for old automobile advertisements & resolving some inconsistencies. I haven't finished, but a good magazine chose one of their cars to be in the 50 they listed in 1904. I have been working on the article. I just didn't do it immediately, DGG ( talk ) 02:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

• "In any case, I consider any historic company at the development of an industry notable. I consider saying so and having evidence for it not just an assertion of notability , but a proof of it." - three points:

1. What is this evidence of notability in the article as it was when tagged?
2. What allows what you "consider" to constitute notability, without reference to any policy or guideline, to be the rule?
3. Can you explain how a company which existed for two years, the article on which was referenced to a single source of dubious reliability, can be considered to have evidence of notability with relation to our actual guidelines? Ironholds (talk) 13:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't you get it? You don't need any reason to remove a CSD or PROD nomination. Any editor's own idiosyncratic notions are enough. If you think the topic is not notable, there is a way to test that where each editor's view is counted—it's called AfD. It so happens that DGG's views here are probably within the mainstream, but who cares? If you don't like the article, use the process and make the editors who feel it should be kept justify their views—something they are not obliged to do when removing PROD or CSD templates . ^Bongo_matic 15:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for Ironholds (and I'm quite sure I don't in this case, because he knows what he's doing far more than I do), but I guess I (as someone who is not a regular NPPer or CSD tagger - I kind of stumbled onto this article in the course of my normal non-deletion-related editing) figured that because CSD had strict criteria, an article that met the criteria persistently (as opposed to while under construction, etc) would be deleted. I don't think I was aware that CSD tags function like PRODs and can be removed for any reason or no reason. So, to make sure that I understand this now, someone could equally well remove a CSD tag on a gibberish article, or any other CSD-criterion-meeting article, even if they made no improvements, and that article would then have to go through AfD to be deleted? That's how the process works? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

All Wikipedia actions are only valid if they are performed in good faith. A removal of a CSD tag to be disruptive could be reverted, but sometimes even these are taken to AfD for the sake of getting a definitive judgment, as the community judgment is always stronger than that of any individual administrator, and serves better to prevent further disruption. However, if the tag was in regard to unsourced negative BLP or libel or vandalism or undoubted copyvio, it will almost certainly be directly reverted, but such material is deleted immediately even if not tagged. I've seen AfD tags as nonsense incorrectly placed on articles, that are not nonsense, but if it were true gibberish and there were no prior version, it might well simply be deleted also. I am not aware that anyone in good faith has ever truly removed a CSD tag placed for undoubted nonsense. (Some tagging for hoaxes has been disputed from time to time.) A person doing disruptive tagging or de-tagging for deletion processes (or anything else) on a continuing basis would probably find their actions being discussed at WP:AN/I, and if continued after a warning would probably lead to a block. Several such instances of possibly disruptive nature have been discussed there in recent months, and resolved in various ways, but there has often been no clear consensus on what is disruptive, with mass inappropriate tagging or de-tagging more likely to be considered a problem.

CSD has strict criteria, yes, but any criterion needs judgement and interpretation, and the CSD criteria being strict means that they are interpreted narrowly.

If you consider my detagging disruptive, discuss it there, but I think the evidence that I was able to improve the article, as people there know that I rather frequently do, will demonstrate my good faith. If you want to change the rules, discuss it at WT:CSD, but I think my improvement, and the frequent improvements many editors have been able to make on similarly weak articles, will show why it and similar articles should not be deleted, and why any good faith objection is sufficient. If you question just this article, use AfD. AfD is unpredictable, but I estimate there's only a 30% chance it will be deleted there even if not further improved. Or perhaps you will think it now strong enough. DGG ( talk ) 18:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

DGG, I don't intend to say that your detagging was disruptive in the slightest; I'm sorry if it comes across that way. I'm just trying to understand why the way I thought the process worked is not actually the way the process works. Yeah, it seems kind of counterintuitive to me, but if that's the way things work, that's the way things work. I'm still a little skeptical that the company will turn out to pass notability requirements, but I'm perfectly willing to wait and see what you turn up in your expansion before I make that call. My main issue was with the removal of the tag with no concurrent work on the article, which objection is now moot, since you are working on it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

i'm seeing an increased use of the speedy, when references "are not good enough". while the intent may not be to circumvent consensus AfD process, this is the effect. badgering users who take down speedy's is bitey. there seems to be a lot of restatement of positions, and motivation through deletion, rather than working with good faith editors. we have a list here of hundreds of defunct auto manufacturers, not much better than this one: will we now speedy or mass delete them all? Slowking4 (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I object to my questions here being characterized as "badgering" or "bitey," Slowking. DGG took an action that I didn't understand, I asked him to explain it, his explanation raised another question in my mind, and I asked that. Is it now considered rude to try to ask for explanation when something happens that I don't understand? I've made no attacks on anyone, I've not claimed that DGG's actions were unconstructive, and I've not implied that anyone was operating in bad faith. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I certainly do not regard any of the questions asked me as improper, and I appreciate Fluffernutter's comments. I like having an opportunity to explain how I see things, and if people doesn't agree, it's good to try to narrow down the area of disagreement. DGG ( talk ) 19:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

i apologize if my comments were taken as bitey, i'm less interested in the present case than the trend: article improvement via speedy. Slowking4 (talk) 21:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A7 Speedies for referencing problems can & should be brought to Deletion Review, but there is not all that much point in doing so unless there is some chance of making an article. The only times a speedy for referencing problems might be valid is negative BLP and re-creation of an afd'd article if referencing problems were the reason for deletion at AfD. Mass AfD nominations are strongly deprecated. The way to go is to test the waters with one or two of the weakest articles. But the real thing that needs doing is finding good sources for this material, There must be books, and the advertisement and articles in magazines of the period are increasingly available at Hathi Trust and Google Books. For everything in the US before 1920, these PD sources are really a wonderful way of increasing both the breadth and depth of content here. If people spent as much time on improvement they spend on deletion, we'd get somewhere. For one thing, we'd be able to concentrate of quickly getting rid of the real junk.We must have a few thousand articles , some in here quite a while, that could qualify for speedy. The other thing that needs doing is more people monitoring speedy and prod--it is not necessary to be an admin to remove a tag, and, in fact, it's excellent preparation for adminship. DGG ( talk ) 19:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Avaya

• Opinion needed: as you've been involved in the messy Avaya MfD's, do you think there's a better way to handle them? Like freezing the similar MfD's and link them to one general? I don't know. I'm just guessing, OR is the matter that each product needs to be viewed separately to see its individual notability? Thanks is advance... ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 20:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC

Re blp prod at Sulev Kannike

Hello DGG. Having read your statement above I'd like to point out that for one I see nothing wrong in prodding unsourced BLP articles and thus informing the author of the relevant WP policy – even though I could have searched for sources myself. That way the authors of such articles who are most often new to Wikipedia are told in a friendly but consequent way that there are certain standards to obey. By inserting missing sources myself and afterwards telling the author that such sourcing is actually required there is always the risk that new editors regard this as a free service and won't care too much about writing profound articles themselves. Moreover I like to think that I'm experienced enough as a WP editor to decide what to prod and what to accept without comment while patrolling new pages.

The real problem in this matter are automated scripts like Twinkle or Huggle that regularly keep missing non-standard sections like "Sources" or "External links" in BLP articles and slap a prod on it even though such articles may have valid sources. Regards, De728631 (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Response

1 I absolutely see a good deal wrong in BLP Prodding unsourced articles when the person is specified as a public figure of sufficient importance that they will have easily findable sources. (This man is Latvia's ambassador to NATO, & there were dozens of excellent sources under his name as given, in English, in Google News Archive, which is as easy as it gets in finding sources ) This is especially true because some admin feel they have no obligation to check , either, before deletion. This reduces the human work on BLP prod to the dimensions of two particularly dumb bots, checking an article for the presence of formal elements without reading it, let alone understanding it. That's fine for placing a notice; it is not fine for deletion. WP:Deletion Policy applies to all deletion procedures: deletion is the last resort. The very best alternative to deletion for unsourced articles is to source them, and everybody working here has a obligation to help in doing this at least a little as occasion offers when they see an article, and as resources and time permits. I don't consider everyone has anything like the obligation to do this the way I do: it is the main thing I do here, and an important one of the purposes for which I joined in the first place was to improve WP's referencing; I have access to a little more resources than some people; I can work at least minimally in a number of languages; I have greater skill in using even elementary resources than most and certainly have greater patience in using then; and I have the librarian's ability to make an accurate guess whether or not sources are likely. An appropriate minimal effort anyone can do is looking in Google News Archive or whatever similar search engine might be appropriate under the name given--it's even built into the automated notice.The way I work on the problem BLPs:

In some fields I no longer attempt to source some fields because they interest me less, and a very large percentage of the unsourced articles in those fields are in fact unsustainable even if sourced: popular entertainment, and sports. At the start of BLPO prod i tried to do them all, but I found myself without time to do anything else.

People writing an unsourced bio are often here to add the one article with no intention of doing anything else. They;'re not even likely to see the notice, and if the person is important, but not very important, it offers our one practical chance to get the article . If someone looks like they intend to continue, or their edit history indicates they intend to continue, they need instruction. Instruction is best administered in a friend but firm manner, not by threatening people. The automatic template does an altogether wrong job of it--though it makes an attempt to be informal and positive,it is still obviously an automated notice,with the expected negative connotations, and people have learned to ignore them beyond grasping the general import--I doubt anyone ever reads it through. If I think it will be of any actual value, I leave a message explaining that while I did it, they must do it properly in the future, telling them what is needed, in terms focussing on their particular article to show I have indeed read it personally, and making it clear that otherwise the articles run a considerable risk of deletion otherwise--it seems to communicate properly about half the time, which is pretty good for any sort of notice. For sever cases I have something stronger, for example:

Advice and Warning

As the reviewing administrator for these deletions, I need to offer you some advice. We are very glad to have articles about footballers from all countries, but they MUST have references. If they have appeared in games on the highest level national league---which is the basic requirement for them to have articles in Wikipedia-- there should always be references in the relevant national newspapers --usually easily findable in Google News and Google News Archive. There should also be a discussion or at least a listing of them in the web site for their team, and a listing in the general football web sites. These references need to be added, and they need to be added at the very beginning.

Sometimes I have been able to check articles like these before deletion and add at least one necessary reference, but I cannot promise always to have the time to do so--and football is not one of the subjects in which I have the most personal interest. It is not my responsibility to do this, nor the responsibility of anyone here but yourself. If you can write the article in the first place , you surely have the references in front of you when you are doing so, in order to get the names right and add the key statistics. That's when to do it! It is unfair to expect others to fill in what you can do so easily. I expect that you will start doing this, otherwise you may find that you are wasting your efforts, because the articles will get deleted. I have other responsibilities, and it is taking too much of my available time here to do your work for you,when there are so many other things that need fixing. In particular, I am not going to work further on the currently nominated articles. If you want them kept, work on them yourself.

Sometimes it doesn't work and they continue. Then I'll give a formal 4th level warning, which usually stops them. If not, I have blocked if they add so many that it amounts to disruption.

2. I am also concerned with developing new editors and removing the barriers to increased participation. One of the foundation priorities this year, at general request, is increasing the number of editors, Not discouraging them at the initial entry is critically important--the foundation's research surveys as well as individual complaints have shown that having an article rejected is extremely likely to prevent any further attempt, no matter what reassuring messages are sent. It is unreasonable to expect most new editors to get everything right initially. Therefore they must be taught, but taught in such way that everything practical is done to get their articles improved if improvement is possible—and in cases where it is not, that personal non-threatening actually helpful advice is given. The existing BLP Prod process , and all other deletion processes, is neither friendly nor helpful. In cases where it appears an article is possible, the new editor needs help in doing it properly, not just a warning to do it. In cases where it appears the article is hopeless, the editor needs an explanation why--with respect to that particular article, not in general terms--and guidance in finding more useful work to do here,

I find, as do most teachers, that a very good way to provide help is by example. In case of unsourced articles, that means adding at least one reference and explaining that more are needed., and where to find them. Nobody can be expected to understand initially either why we need sources, or what we consider acceptable sources, especially for biographies. Those of us with experience here need to share it. This is a community project.

The problem is primarily the people here. We can expect bots to be stupid. DGG ( talk ) 18:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment

Thanks a lot for explaining your thoughts on the BLP process. It seems that we have two oppoosing views on the benefits of templates here. Let me note that in my opinion the current BLP prod template message is by no means a threatening "warning" like the standard vandalism messages ("please stop or you will face consequences"). Instead the BLP prod message is a neutral notification that has even a disclaimer included not to take anything personal but to improve the article in question and how to do it. It has also an icon which makes it more noticeable than a text-only message written by an editor. Therefore I see it absolutely fit to serve as a helpful means in improving the skills of new editors. Of course we can address anyone without any templated messages but as you put it I mostly "find myself without time to do anything else." My approach is to mark problematic new articles while patrolling the new pages list and then leave the rest of the work to the experts and/or the author. Of course not without giving advice to the new editors but mostly in form of the standard template message. And I have in fact gotten feedback to various template messages where people asked for further guidance. That's the usual point where I start "personal" communication. Speedy deletion messages on the other hand are something else. E.g. for insignigicant bands or recordings I tend to add an explanation to the template message in the line of "WP has certain rules on the importance of musicians and albums. Please see WP:Music" etc. And from my experience this is either understood and people do come up with sources (of any quality) or they choose to ignore every communication. De728631 (talk) 17:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

In many respects we are both trying to do the same thing. & often use the same methods. We both often personalize the existing messages, which is a reasonable solution in many cases; I wish more people would do this, and what you say encourages me to try to personalize them more often--and to do it by shortening them--the longer the message, the less of it people read. Improved ways of communicating like sre important but are not what this discussion is basically about.

What I said I find myself without time to do, is to personally source all the new unsourced BLP articles--another order of magnitude entirely. The only good solution, as we all agree, is for people to source their own. Responsibility aside, they usually have the source in front of them at the time they write, for they usually add specific details that nobody really memorizes except when doing shameless autobio. Nobody else can match this later--what would take anyone else time to find, they have immediately. And even if they have only an inadequate source, it's at least a good starting point. Where I differ from you is in two areas fo emphasis:

First, we need not to reject articles on really important people, even if unsourced, but to source them. I usually patrol 24 to 48 hours before the ending time. The ed. has had 8 or 9 days, and if by that time they haven't done it I decide whether it's worth trying--which depends upon the stated importance. So you might have a point in giving them the window first--but this would only be so if all admins actually checked and sourced where important or necessary at the end; however, of the ones who patrol BLP prod, most do not--they work mechanically. using justifications such as yours. There's a level of importance where I do not take the chance of that happening--where if I find an article on someone important enough at any point, I add at least a single decent source to keep the article alive. I do not want to miss such people: they're too important to our users. I yesterday added an article on an exceptionally distinguished member of the National Academy of Sciences who had received a major appointment, but nobody had written an article about. This does not surprise me any longer, but right after that I saw an article on BLP Prod about another member of the NAS reach the 8th day.

The 'second point is even more important: more critical than having or not having any article, is retaining a contributor. More basic even than educating them, is to keep them around long enough to be educated. Surveys have shown that most people who get a negative notice never return again, and I think it would almost as bad if we had the politest possible negative notices. This is spiraling us downhill into disaster--at least the disaster of stagnation, though we should have enough people to avoid total extinction. True, it's necessary to eliminate junk--but it is so much easier to remove junk than to retain a contributor. I've deleted 12,000 articles so far in 4 years as an admin, and saved only about 10% of that, while all that time I've been able to rescue at most 100 ,(about 1% of that number) of contributors, contributors whom other editors and admins have discouraged. I work in outreach also, but my chapter is happy when we can reach the goal of one new active contributor per meeting. And only a few percent of those who take classes in the Ambassador program continue, And that's with most teachers having their class write offline in order to avoid the negativity. Such is not a method of communal writing, and does not teach the wiki way of working, where the goal of communal writing is everyone who sees an article doing something to improve it, not just to tell someone else to improve it.

My priority is people: first the people already here, because being here we must cooperate, and second the newcomers, and only then articles and article content.I think for too many people its the other way round, that they think tolerating borderline articles to keep the contributors so they'll stay with us and write better articles to be improper. I must live with them here, because they are unfortunately a majority, no matter how destructive i think them. The hope is that new people will be increasing aware of this and dilute those. we won't be able to eliminate.

I accept there are more than one valid way to make an encyclopedia , and to look at articles. No one has to agree with my way, & I think none the less of them. But I do not accept working in a way that discourages newcomers for the sake of quality, which will eave us a nice clean fossil, and those who would do that I cannot agree with and I will try as hard as hard as I effectively can to diminish their influence. DGG ( talk ) 13:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion tag removals

Hi DGG... perhaps I'm being overly sensitive but:

1. "I and other admins" must be untrue since that suggests three or more removals, when I only placed two speedy deletion tags.
2. I have read WP:CSD on several occasions and have re-read it now. While it mentions the criteria for speedy deletion, it doesn't mention the criteria for tagging something as SD. There is a short outline of what to tag as such on WP:NPP but does not mention any specific procedures. In particular, it does not state that it is required "that when you do place a speedy or other deletion tag, you indicate this in the article summary." However, I will do so in the future.
3. "president of a major company" - there is no article for that company on WP and I was also unable to find any reference to it via a major search engine.

On the other hand, I accept that being head of a major bureau of a major newspaper is clearly indication of importance and I was hasty in marking that article for speedy deletion.

New page patrolling is not the most interesting part of editing on WP - although occasionally I learn something interesting from new articles - but it is absolutely necessary. The tone of your note is a little abrasive, as though I'm trying to damage your website. Perhaps a little encouragement for people doing thankless tasks might not go amiss.

Incidentally, I'm never sure whether to respond to a comment on my talk page directly after the comment or on the commenter's own talk. Which is best?

FunkyCanute (talk) 13:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:CSD, section 1, 2nd paragraph.

"Immediately following each criterion below is a list of templates used to mark pages or media file for speedy deletion under the criterion being used. In order to alert administrators of the nomination, place the relevant speedy deletion template at the top of the page or media file you are nominating (within <noinclude>…</noinclude> if nominating a Template: page). Please be sure to supply an edit summary that mentions that the page is being nominated for speedy deletion. All of the speedy deletion templates are named as "db-X" with "db" standing for "delete because". A list of the "db-X" templates can be found at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Deletion templates."

I added the boldface., Perhaps we should make it more prominent in the text, and say it on Deletion Policy elsewhere. I understand "be sure to" as meaning "it is required to". That wording can if necessary be clarified. And yes, it's a problem all over Wikipedia finding procedures and policies because they are spread out in multiple places.

I don't own speedy. No one admin does most of it. Discussions about it go on WT:Speedy, where you will see the general trend is towards making the requirements narrower, with which I heartily agree. An article wrongly deleted at a speedy can in principle be restored, but it almost always costs us both the article and the editor. Someone else may eventually write the article, but an editor who has a bad experience here will discourage others from even starting. An article not immediately deleted by speedy, will be deleted or fixed by prod or AfD, and if kept by these processes by chance or error, will have attracted enough visibility that someone will get back to it.

NPP is interesting, but difficult. The job of NPP is not just to remove junk, but to remove hopeless junk, nominate the dubious for prod or AfD, tag everything that needs fixing later, and explain clearly and personally to new editors who show any signs of becoming useful what they ought to be doing--not just posting the standard messages, which are over-detailed and non-specific. How quick one can go depends on what one works on. I can do one a minute if it's stuff that I don't have to write personalized messages for or carefully check contribution histories, or confirm in google, but anything else takes longer. I do a little sometimes at the end of the day to keep in touch with the incoming stream, and I've learned to do only a few at a time because otherwise the amount of trash inclines me to start deleting too much. I normally tag, not immediately delete, & I think it should be the rule for admins, but since it still isn't I do sometimes just remove. But normally I find problems in patrolling by catching the incorrect deletion tags. I became an admin quite specifically to do this, so I could check on what had been deleted also, as well as dispose of somethings quickly.

I think my message was terse, but neither rude nor condescending. Part of the terseness was due to just the effect I mentioned above in patrolling--I had previously dealt with a person doing considerably more errors, and it affected the way I was thinking. And I was influenced by the nuisance of having to check everything you edited to see the ones that were deletion tags, because of the lack of edit summaries. Anyone else who sees this is welcome to check & correct me on this.

as for the articles, I probably should have said, head of a possibly major company, going by reported size. "possibly" is enough to defeat speedy. And true, I should have said me and another admin. Usually when I comment it's with >2, so I just routinely typed it. It's not a prebuilt message, but my brain can work a little too much on internal automatic pilot without outside devices to accentuate it.

I probably should routinely say to answer on my talk page. Like many who have been here a while, my watchlist is too long to be useful. DGG ( talk ) 18:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for response. Appreciate the clarifications. FunkyCanute (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

2012

I'm looking for your advice : Speedy / deletion on request

Hi, DGG. I came across a A7 speedy tag at James E. Wise, Jr. and declined it as the subject looked notable at a cursory glance. A7 makes no mention of notability and I don't understand why. Are we to ignore notability if the other conditions of A7 are met? I may be overlooking something basic, but I don't see the utility in deleting articles about notable subjects because the creator requests deletion. (In this specific instance it wasn't a request so much as it was acquiescence). Anyway, thanks for your time...I hope things are well with you. Tiderolls 05:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC) I considered posting this at WT:CSD but was sure the subject had, most likely been discussed there previously and I was too lazy to search the archives. Mea culpa.

1. The rule for speedy is that the article will be deleted in the subject shows no indication of importance of significance, which I think of as meaning that nobody in good faith who understood the purpose of Wikipedia would think there should be an article. Notability is more than this. Any subject that is notable will certainly be important or significant, while a great many things that may have some good-faith importance will still not be notable. When I first came here, I asked the same question you are asking, and suggested clarifying this by saying importance or significance or notability. The answer I was given by those of more experience is that it is better to avoid using the word "notable" entirely in defining A7, because it will inevitably lead to people asking an article be deleted because of no demonstration of notability, which is asking too much--only the community can decide notability, whether passively at WP:PROD or actively at AfD. Admins have views on this that are too diverse for them alone to be trusted, and notability can in many cases be pretty nebulous. But if something is totally insignificant, we pretty much all agree, and speedy A7 is therefore limited to the types of things we all normally agree on.
2. Personally, I think we should never have ever adopted the word "notability". It operationally has a meaning peculiar to us, what is called a "term of art", meaning only the question whether there should be a separate Wikipedia article; I think we should be deciding how much coverage to give the subjects that are of different grades of importance: varying from none at all, to a complex set of related articles. But people here like what might appear to be simple yes-no distinctions——but then they find themselves quarreling endlessly about everything anywhere near what they thought was a clear the borderline.
3. As for deletion by request of the author of the article, although Wikipedia contributions are licensed irrevocably, sometime people change their mind, and it is good practice to show understanding. If the reason is not immediately obvious to me, I ignore such requests or ask for a reason. Very often though it makes sense, and we don't want to embarrass people by a public discussion. Sometimes it's because the author realizes the difficulty of writing an adequate article, and doesn't want an inadequate one to stand. Sometimes, the author is not convinced it will hold up at AfD, and would rather avoid a very public process about it--our AfD process is apt to make a mountain out a a molehill. (In this case, guessing from the author's talk p., I think both reasons apply.)
4. As for the article in question, he's an author of multiple books that have been published by a reputable publisher and are fairly widely held in libraries-- see WorldCat Identities; if they have substantial reviews, he meets WP:AUTHOR. However, depending on the extent of the reviews, the books seem rather routine, and that publisher, while often publishing books of very high quality and significance, also sometimes publishes works of quite minor importance. If someone brought it to AfD, there are others things I'd think better worth the effort of defending. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Illwinter Game Design speedy deletion question

Hi DGG,

I just proposed my first two speedy deletions this evening and I'm afraid I may have misunderstood the criteria. I had thought that notability of created works did not necessarily confer notability on the company that created them, and that since there didn't appear to be any reliable sources writing about the comopany (as opposed to their products), the article was ripe for deletion. Would wp:prod have be a more appropriate choice, or is the article sufficient as-is?

Thanks much,

GaramondLethe 03:53, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The explanation of this is at WP:Deletion policy.

The criteria for keeping an article at speedy are deliberately set to be very undemanding. It's an "indication of importance or significance", which is much less rigorous than WP:N. The idea behind this is that anything that might possibly be notable--even if the article itself does not make much of a case for it-- should not be judged by an individual admin, but by the community. The only articles that an admin can delete via speedy are the ones that unquestionably can not possibly be considered to belong in an encyclopedia. In the absence of the production of the games, I would normally have considered that a very small company like that gave no indication of possible importance, and speedy deleted it. With that information, it needs to be properly considered to see whether references can be found that will more clearly show the notability. I remind you of the general notability standard, WP:GNG, which is a widely accepted guideline, under which it will depend upon what sources can be found. The extent to which the sources write about the company rather than the games is a matter for discussion--the decisions here are often very much disputed interpretations.

As for whether the company is actually notable, the community will decide. In practice, based on experience here, I think it will probably depend upon both the sourcing and on the importance of the games. After all, what makes a company notable except producing notable products? Authors are notable because of the importance of what they write, musicians by what the perform, companies by what they produce. Our practice for authors and painters are fairly clear: two notable works = notability; one work, even, if it is important enough. In practice, for companies we tend to be more restrictive. For companies of this sort, that make intellectual products, it is to some extent a matter of judgment. I don't do the judging. No admin has the right to. Only if we are certain the community would remove it can we act for them.

If something indicates possible good-faith significance and you think it not notable, nominate it for prod if you think nobody is likely to disagree. If the prod is challenged, or if disagreement is likely, then AfD is the way to go. For this one, Id use AfD-- after first looking for additional references. DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I really appreciate taking the time to give me such a complete response. I particularly take you point about judgement being reserved for the community. There are bits of nuance of editing practice that I'm only going to pick up by making mistakes, and I now have a much better idea where this particular line lies.

Thanks for treating a newbie gently.

Best,

GaramondLethe 05:33, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Your comment at WT:RFA

I've been piled up at work, and just now catching up on an excellent discussion at WT:RFA – far better than the usual "the sky is falling, what are we to do".

I did want to quibble with one observation you made; I'll do it here because no one seems to expand on your thought, so I don't see much need to insert it into the thread. Plus I'll use it as a point of departure to make another point, which I may add to the thread, after I've finished reading it.

You remarked, "I typically decline about 1/3 of the Speedy deletions I see, but some admins close essentially everything, Either I or they must be doing it wrong." I say, "not necessarily". To make an extreme example, suppose there are 1000 xSDs, with 100 of them badly tagged. If some new admins poke around, and delete 700 "easy" ones, that leaves 300 left of which 1/3 ought to be declined. So it is possible both can be right. Now, I'm not saying that 100% closers are always right, but we'd have to check some of the close lists to be sure. Which brings me to my pother point. When I was a new admin, I half expected someone would be assigned to follow me around for some time, just to make sure I was understanding the rules correctly. Either that didn't happen, or they were very, very quiet. (I'm even more surprised it isn't SOP at OTRS, but that’s a different issue.) I think we should have a more formal review system for new admins. I know there's the ability to check with someone else, but I'd like to see something more formal.

Having made my point, I'm not sure it belongs on the thread at this time, because my suggestion isn't going to help the problems that are being discussed at the moment, so maybe I'll think some more on it, and formalize a proposal later. Maybe after getting some thoughts from people like you.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You are quite correct--I was oversimplifying. Sensible new admins do only the ones that are totally obvious while they are starting--it must be very discouraging to have people revert your first admin actions, and I've seen that happen. And it is true that I will make a point of checking speedy nominations others have thought it wise to pass by, and AfDs that people don't seem to want to close; I know some others do just the same, which is how we keep long lags from developing. But I had in mind also a few long term admins who actually do decide almost all equivocal cases as delete. To expand on what you have said , in a direction of my own,

I have occasionally checked a new admins deletions if I think from the RfA there is likely to be some problems, and I suppose others do similarly. But I do not know if any people systematically reviews the admin logs the way people do new pages--if anyone does, I've noticed no sign of it. The only thing I've seen checked systematically is the very long-standing page protections. It might be a good thing to do. The AfD closes are very visible, the prods have been checked by several people before they get to the top of the list, but speedies and blocks and unblocka and protections and unprotections don't get looked at, unless someone suspects a problem. I have sometimes thought of doing it, but I have always stopped, because, to be frank about it, I don't want to see the errors. I can't pass over a clear error I do see, and I am fully aware that some admins use the tools beyond the proper limits. Some of these are my friends, & I can mention it to them from time to time quietly. But for obvious reasons most of the ones I would disagree with are by people I often disagree with, with whom relations are often not all that friendly. I don't want to spend all my time quarreling and navigating sticky situations; though I may get the errors corrected, it is not likely to improve mutual relations. (I am also aware that I too make both errors and borderline interpretations, & I suppose I even sometimes interpret things the way I would like them to be, & if I have any enemies here, I do not really want to encourage them to audit me with the utmost possible rigidity. I expect I could be able to very well support my interpretations, but as Samuel Johnson put it, nobody however conscious of their innocence wants to every day have to defend themselves on a capital charge before a jury.

When I started here, I wondered how a system with a thousand equally powerful admins who could all revert each other could possibly exist. I soon learnt the subtleties of wheel warring--there were some major arb com cases on it during my first year here which pretty much defined the limits. But more important, I also learned that even the more quarrelsome spirits here understood the virtues of mutual forbearance--and that even the most self-sufficient people do not really want to look publicly foolish. Our balance is I think over-inclined to protecting the guilty if they are popular enough, but it is not as bad as it could be, or as it often is in human societies. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I smiled at your closing comment. I had the same, thought, although for the project as a whole, rather than just the admin function. I'm more recent to the project because, when I first heard about it, a few years before actually joining, I thought about the model and decided it couldn't possibly work. Oddly, I still feel that way, intellectually. If there were no such thing as Wikipedia, and I heard a proposal to create, my instinct is that it will fail miserably. I actually can't quite put my finger on why it hasn't failed.SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Lyon Smith

Excuse me, but you seemed to have deleted Lyon Smith. I was going to add a source that he was nominated for an award. Can you please explain why? Thanks. Martinc1994 (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2017 (UTC)