Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 10

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Super fast deletion gives no chance for improvement!

I spent 1 month on travel. When I came back there was a msg for me, nominating one page I created for deletion. I hurried to look, but it was already gone! That was super fast! How could one expect to improve any page this way? I wanted to complain to the author of the nomination but this user no longer exists. How do I recover the data from the deleted page?? Vae victis 22:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Protected redirects

The page on Faye Turney was recently redirected (protected) to 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel although its content was not merged. This took place following the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faye Turney. Without going into details, I wish to contest this. I have two questions:

  • Can a deletion review be used for this situation?
  • If so, should this article be amended to make it clear that deletion reviews can be used for merged articles? Thanks. Greenshed 15:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes. Deletion review exists to review the outcome of deletion debates. If the outcome of the debate was something other than keep or delete, it can still be reviewed. >Radiant< 15:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in nine words

I just found Wikipedia in nine words and think the following should be place in the policy: "Wikipedia : neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable facts." -- Jreferee 18:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to eliminate the weasel words in the deletion reasons section

The "including, but not limited to" language besides sounding legalese is a horrible use of weasel words. So the policy says these reasons, and any other, so this list is just superfluous. Proposed rewording:

==Reasons for deletion== {{see also|Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion}} Reasons for deletion:


This limits deletion to the list which includes at the bottom legal requirements (whatever they may be other than defamation which is missing from the current list or copyvio), and violation of a WP policy. If an article can't be deleted under any of these provisions why are we deleting it? WP is not paper. Carlossuarez46 22:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Because sometimes it's still just not something appropriate for the encyclopedia. You may think that this is a comprehensive list but we've often thought that before... and then the vandals go and prove how creative they are and find something new to try to shove in that's still not part of an encyclopedia. Any attempt to create a definitive list will only tie our hands as we continue to react to the ever-adapting vandals and editors who just don't understand (or care about) the purpose of the project. Rossami (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
If it's not appropriate for WP, doesn't it necessarily violate some policy, such as WP:NOT? Otherwise, it's purely in the eye of the beholder: there are many who would say that articles on each pokemon character, sexual position, porn star, t.v. episode, or high school are not appropriate for the encyclopedia. Carlossuarez46 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The purpose of the list is to show the most common reasons for deletion, not enumerate all of them. If there was a strict enumeration, that would lead to replacing productive debate about articles, with meta-debate about whether certain deletion reasons match those in policy. There have been a few movements over the year to "speedy keep" everything that did not clearly and explicitly cite a rationale from the enumeration; these have been soundly rejected as instruction creep. >Radiant< 08:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
        • The we should say "common reasons for deletion". This is a problem when people try to initiate deletion for WP:POINT or POV reasons. It is implicit that we can ultimately ignore all rules, so I think we should strengthen the language of the list or moot it, but the ambiguity only serves to confuse.--Cerejota 08:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism - External Link

Perhaps would-be deleters should also study the following relevant commentary:

Not Notable: Wikipedia's Arbitrary Deletion Policy

--AVM 16:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The author of the commentary is obviously a frustrated person who just don't understand wikipedia yet, as seen from, eg. two his major items. Pokemon: it is a fictional universe, and it may be described as such basing only on Nintendo sources, as long as it is a description, and no conclusions are drawn. For conclusions you have to resort to secondary sources, of course. How to make your article kept. I don't know the intentions of the article (somehow I got an idea that the author thought of it as a kind of "subversion" of wikipedia or "gaming" its rules), but the advice is perfectly sound: as long as you manage to make a topic visible outside wikipedia in reliable sources, there is nothing wrong with having an article on the topic. And the author's advise "to make edits in a course of several months, bertter, a year" is absolutely perfect: the author obviously doesn't know that making positive contributions can become as addictive as vandalism and trolling, especially keeping in mind that in a year a person becomes a year older and often wiser :-). Mukadderat 17:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Tool to eliminate pointless nominations for deletion

Some of you may have noticed the pointless nomination for deletion of articles on Wikimedia projects. Though this will obviously result in a clear and fast "keep" there should still be a way to prevent trivial, yet disruptive nominations for deletions of clearly relevant articles that have been worked on for some time.

I suggest the following addition to Deletion policy:

A senior article may not be nominated for deletion unless there is support for doing so at its talk page.

Defining seniority for such an article would involve taking into account age, number of edits, number of contributors. Here is a first stab at some possible numbers:

A senior article:

  • is a full year old or more;
  • has been edited 250 times or more;
  • and has been edited by over 25 different registered contributors.

Perhaps these numbers might even be doubled (two years, 500 edits, 50 different contributors). Please feel free to respond to the idea. Dovi 17:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Strict numerical limits tend to be instruction creep. You have not demonstrated that this is actually a problem; generally the snowball clause takes care of such nominations. >Radiant< 09:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Further, many of the lowest quality articles in WP were the ones added in the the beginning, many of which have never had sources. There are further articles maintained by small groups of editors who actively resist any change on their talk page,and this will make them almost unfixable. A challenge to an article can be a very good way of getting sources when all else has failed or been ignored. I don't think there's any good dividing line. DGG 09:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I disagree with the proposal on principle, as an article should not be judged on its sseniority, number of editors, ... but on its contents and its potential contents (a bad, unsourced article may still be on a notable, encyclopedic subject). Furthermor, the AfD that was the reason for your proposal would still be allowed for Wikiversity, Wikijunior and Wikibooks in the strictest version, and all others except Wiktionary in the more moderate proposal. So it looks to me like your solution would not solvethe small problem, and may make it again harder for other, valid AfD's to proceed (see e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of nightclubs: article was over a year old and had more than 400 edits (I haven't counted the contributors, but there were quite a few registered ones). Fram 10:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I concur with DGG and Fram here, this change would be undesireable and have more negative than positive effects. DES (talk) 10:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed policy change at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

A modification to the deletion policy regarding biographies of living persons has been proposed. The proposal seeks to reverse the default retention of biographical articles that attain "no consensus" results at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. That is, it seeks to make deletion the default action for AfD discussions of biographical articles that do not reach consensus. Comments regarding the proposal are welcome and may be made here. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Deleting AfD and DRV pages

There is a discussion in WT:LIVING about speedily deleting AfD and DRV pages. See Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Blanked_or_deleted. Kla'quot 15:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Removal of speedy deletion tags

Can someone clarify for me why anyone except the article's creator can delete speedy deletion tags? My understanding was that these tags are messages intended for administrators so that they may judge whether the article should be deleted or the template removed. If other editors are removing these, they are passing judgment on the proposed speedy deletion and removing the possibility of administrative action. Beyond that, the language is open enough that anyone who might be the article's leading contributor can remove the tag if is not the article's creator. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's the intent. If a speedy deletion tag is disputed by someone other than the author of the article, speedy deletion is probably not appropriate. -Amarkov moo! 23:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Adding to what Amarkov wrote, speedy deletion is intended for cases where the page obviously should not exist. If someone without a vested interest in the article (i.e., anyone except the creator) contests deletion, it deserves further scrutiny (at AfD). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
That makes more sense to me now. The admin makes the deletion decision based on an understanding of what is generally accepted, and if someone unaffiliated contests a speedy deletion, that means it is possibly not generally accepted to be redundant and deserves further investigation. Still, I think the wording should cover not just the article's creator but anyone with a vested interest, including main contributors. Thanks to Badlydrawnjeff for pointing me here, and to the above for having this discussion, which has made all of this much clearer to me. --Future Fun Jumper (TIC) 00:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Conflict between Deletion policy and Verifiability policy

I would like to try to resolve an inherent conflict between these 2 policies and the way they are worded. Specifically, look at the nutshells for each of the two:

Verifiability

  • Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources.
  • Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor.
  • The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it.

Deletion policy

  • Deletion and undeletion are performed by administrators based on policy and guidelines, not personal likes and dislikes
  • There are four processes for deleting items, and one post-deletion review process
  • Pages that can be improved should be edited or tagged, not nominated for deletion.

The 2 sections which I have marked in bold seem to specifically contradict each other. I don't want to keep an unsourced article, so it would appear that it should either be deleted or sourced. However, the deletion process moves the burden of proof over to the person nominating it for deletion. From the AfDs that I have proposed and read through, this is a large part of the controversy that arises in many AfDs. How can we reconcile these 2 policies? Slavlin 18:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that they are perfectly consistent; one regards removing information from an article, while the other regards removing the article from Wikipedia. These are two different actions and thus have two different criteria. Calbaer 20:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Second that. Whether or not an article should be deleted depends on whether any reasonable article could be written, not just on the current state of the article. Unless the article needs to be deleted as a copyright violation or libel, if the a topic is good but the content is bad the right thing to do is cut the article back to a stub. CMummert · talk 20:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I have to disagree with both of you. If you don't think they are in conflict, look through some of the larger AfDs out there and you find quite a few going back and forth about the lack of sources. There is no distinction between the content of an article and the article itself in the Verifiabiltiy policy. If this is the case, it needs to be stated. But I don't think that the burden of proof should fall back on an editor who is trying to clean up Wikipedia. I am not a deletionist, but I do not think that having a poorly written and unsourced article, even a stub, is better than having nothing. Look at Thinking outside the box and compare it to Good old days. Thinking outside the box was nominated for deletion. Those wanting to keep it got it into shape because they felt it was worthwhile. If no-one is willing to take the effort to source it, including the creator, why should it be kept? However, if that IS to be the policy, I think it really needs to be stated in the polcies. Slavlin 21:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • They don't directly contradict, because one states that Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor and the other states Pages that can be improved should be edited or tagged, not nominated for deletion. You can challenge by tagging, or you can remove by editing, but you shouldn't generally nominate for deletion. I think you are misreading ever so slightly if you think that the Verification policy is stating that "Unsourced articles must be deleted at once". That's the only reading which would allow for any direct contradiction. Hiding Talk 21:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • No, I don't think I am. I am not stating that "Unsourced articles must be deleted at once." Yet again, you are only looking at PART of the Verifiability policy. Adding new material which is unsourced says it MAY be removed, true, but if you read the Burden of Proof section, which is bullet 3 from the "in a nutshell" it says that the person wanting to keep it is the one that needs to provide sources. If an article, once created, is immune from deletion should anyone feel it has promise, regardless of their willingness to provide sourcing, then I the 2 policies should say so. It would prevent a lot of the AfDs that people post from showing up on the AfD. But, regardless of that, I would really like someone to explain why we should keep an article that no one cares enough about to provide sources. I am not asking you to point me at some section of the policy and explain why I am wrong. I am asking why it benefits Wikipedia to keep it. Slavlin 22:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • One could equally well ask the benefit if we delete an article whose contents are correct, just because nobody has typed a reference at the bottom. If the content of an article is not "verifiable" even in principle, then deletion is likely warranted. But if the contents clearly could be attributed to some reference, but nobody as taken the time to do so, the right answer is not to delete the article. The key question is whether the article is useful to a reader even without references. Most of the unsourced articles that should be kept do not go to AFD, because it is obvious that they should not be deleted. We don't want to encourage process junkies to nominate them for deletion based on some new criteria. On the other hand, most of the articles that do go to AFD have other problems beyond a failure to list sources. CMummert · talk 23:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • (EC) Sorry, you've lost me. You're suggesting that an article which we know can be sourced should be deleted? And on what do you base your assumption that "an article, once created, is immune from deletion". I think you are arguing from a flawed position. Our deletion policy already states that articles for which All attempts to find reliable sources to which article information can be verified have failed can be listed for deletion. You seem to be suggesting that articles for which we know sources exist but can't be bothered to add to the article should instead be deleted rather than have those sources added. If you want to know what the benefit to Wikipedia is, I suggest you go and read Wikipedia:Introduction. Wikipedia grows through the collaboration of many editors. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia needs content. If Wikipedia has no content, the content must be created, otherwise Wikipedia cannot exist. I'm not sure how else to explain it. The benefit to having unsourced material in Wikipedia is that the material can be improved upon. Have a read of Wikipedia:About, it may help somewhat, especially these paragraphs:


  • Hope that helps to clear up any confusion. Hiding Talk 23:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't help clear anything up because, AGAIN, you are arguing part of the statement I made, in this case in a very condescending tone. You quoted "an article, once created, is immune from deletion" but left out the rest of my statement, "should anyone feel it has promise, regardless of their willingness to provide sourcing." That is like you saying "I like the taste of shitake mushrooms" but me just quoting you as saying "I like the taste of shit" and using it as a rebuttal to an argument about why mushrooms are good or bad. My point is, the 2 polices taken in their entirety conflict with each other. One says the person adding content has the burden to prove it is verifiable. However, the Deletion policy says that, once it is added, a future editor assumes the burden to PROVE it can't be verified, a dubious task at best, before they can even begin an AfD discussion on it. You have yet to address that and have yet to establish why, if the policy on verifiability does not apply to an article as a whole, the policy should not have a clarification stating that. Slavlin 03:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I apologise if you feel I am being condescending. I simply don't see the contradiction in the terms you do. One says that if material is challenged, the burden of proof is on the people who wish to see the content remain to provide sources. The other says that we should allow people time to provide sources by tagging articles for clean-up rather than simply nominating them for deletion. Our policies aren't equations, they aren't dictatorial and they don't demand things. Wikipedia is a collaboration and it works through editors discussing things and acting in good faith and assuming good faith of others and building a consensus. It is through that process that we build the encyclopedia, not slavishly following policy and quoting small portions of such policies and conflating them to create perceived contradictions. Information on WIkipedia must ultimately reflect information in a reliable source. There are various methods for making sure that happens before our deadline. I really can't see the value in tying yourself up in knots over something this minor. How is it impacting on articles? Is there a serious problem here, or can we really just sweep it under the carpet as just one of those things, a possible misunderstanding of the grammatical beuty of the English language which allows "may" to mean not all the time and "should" to mean in general, and not have absolute meanings and empirically measured meanings. I hope that helps. Hiding Talk 10:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The deletion policy does not require that the nominator prove that the article can't ever be verified. That is impossible unless the entire article consists of unfalsifiable statements. Rather, the policy states: "Pages that can be improved should be edited or tagged, not nominated for deletion." That statement only mandates that editors not tag for deletion pages which they think or know can be improved. As regards AfD, an editor should just make a good-faith search for sources (in an effort to improve the article) before nominating an article for deletion. The deletion policy does not, as you stated in your initial comment, move "the burden of proof over to the person nominating it for deletion". It just expresses the view that editors shouldn't nominate articles that they know or think can be sourced and that they should do some preliminary research before suggesting deletion. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 04:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
First, I don't see much of a conflict... I see the removal clause of WP:V as addressing individual statements, while this policy addresses entire articles. The scope of WP:V is very specific, while the scope of WP:DEL is broad. Also, the two policies use the word "delete" with two different meanings... in WP:V "delete" means the editor simply "edits out" the uncited statement (with the expectation that it may be returned with a citation at some point in the future) ... here "delete" means removing the entire article from wikipedia, an admin action that an editor can not do on his or her own.
Now, there are times when an entire article is unsourced... when an editorial deletion of unsourced statements under WP:V could leave the article empty, or so gutted as to make the article worthless. In this case, I do see a potential conflict. The editor is in effect deleting the entire article, a process which should be handled through AfD.
How do you resolve this? Easy... don't be so quick to delete (either manually or through AfD). First, see if you can improve the article by editing and adding some citations yourself. Second, either tag the individual uncited statements with a {{fact}} tags (makes the article look uglier than sin, but often gets people's attention), or slap an {{unrefereced}} tag on the article and mention your concerns on the talk page. Now the key part... go away for a month or two if the problem still exists when you return, start posting weekly reminders and warnings for the problem to be fixed placed on the talk page. Do this for another month. If the problem still exists (ie no one has bothered to improve the article), start removing the unsourced material. Leave it as a stub if you have to gut it .... now, go away for a while more. If it is STILL a stub when you return... then you can finally AfD it. Make sure you explain what you did at the AfD... and how long you waited between each step, and before you nominated it. This usually is enough to convince the admins that the article is un-fixable and worthy of deletion. Blueboar 13:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Another solution when you come across an article which is unsourced and looks after you have tried to find sources to be unsourceable: ProD it. If no one objects, it is gone after 5 days. If someone objects but doesn't improve the article (or indicate that he or she will do so shortly), take it to AfD there and then. No need to wait X months. Most admins will gladly delete an article after an AfD if it looks like the claims are unverifiable, and there are enough people around willing to look for sources for the dubious cases. If taking something to AfD is made so much harder as you propose (following through a number of months, with reminders and so on), then even less articles will be AfD'ed and even more crap will survive. 13:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Speedy for unquestionably harmful content

Content that is unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia is speedily deleted - in fact, it has been for quite some time. I believe such a statement should be made clear in this policy, and seek comment. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This is really untrue, and, with the recent HD-DVD key controversy, extremely controversial. If something is unquestionably unhelpful, WP:OFFICE takes care of it fine. No need to introduce more subjectivity into the mix, especially in response to a separate dispute. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
That is simply not true. Lots of content that is online is by any rational standard unhelpful, and If I saw a speedy for that reason, i would probably undelete as a matter of course. DES (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, so I fully understand - you would undelete an article that was unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia, if the only reason it was deleted was that it was unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Stepping in to help Jeff, I would like to point out that once someone questions a speedy, then that article isn't unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia anymore. But that's not how speedies work. Speedies stay gone unless they can get through a firefight on DRV. Vadder 20:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Content that is unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia should be deleted. Fortunately we have a way to do that. Speedy isn't it. Hippocrite's change should be reverted (and has been). Admins engaged in such practices should stop. Vadder 20:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Content that is "unquestionably unhelpful to the encyclopedia" usually falls under one of the speedy deletion criteria. If an article doesn't fall under one of the speedy deletion criteria, then it probably isn't "unquestionably unhelpful". {{Prod}} and AfD are far bettre alternatives in this case. I agree with the decision to revert the addition. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes are one case of content that is unquestionably unhelpful but doesn't fall under one of the speedy criteria. ProD and or AfD work here of course, but for obvious hoaxes, speedy is of course very tempting, as the other two only waste time (certainly an AfD, which is often spoiled by trols and sock- and meatpuppets of the original "joker"). Fram 07:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
The reason hoax is not a speedy deletion criteria is that the longtimers have seen too many things nominated for deletion as a hoax but on further investigation found to be merely obscure. Thus "hoax" is not a speedy deletion criteria, but "vandalism" would cover things like "Colepatra, second mistress of Julius Caesar, was the first woman to walk on the moon." GRBerry 13:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I absloutely agree about hoaxes. In more generaly terms, my position is that I doubt that the existance of an article that is not vandalism (already speedyable), does not fall under any of the specified criteria for speedy deeltion, and yet its unhelpfulness is so unquestionable that I am absolutely sure that no discussin on afd, or waiting time on Prod, has no chance at all of either establishing its helpfulness or improvingt it enough to be worth keeping. And even if in a particualr case i were so convinced, I think the increase in transparancey would be worth the cost. is AfD being flooded by articles that are so unquestionably unhelpful that everyone says "delete" but that don't fit any speedy? I don't see them. Is any article so harmful that we can't afford to wait 5 days on prod while we see if someone does question its unhelpfulness? Few are, and most if not all of those can be speedyed as vandalism or copyvios or advertising. DES (talk) 14:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Soliciting WP:Essay feedback

Please see Wikipedia:Categories are different from articles. -- Kendrick7talk 20:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

TINKLECOMM Mail

Please restore my artice called "TINKLECOMM Mail". I added all acuarate facts to the page and had it set up the way it is supposed to be, I even listed a website and everything! I know that my page was deleted because of the administrators ignorance and stupidity. I know that everything was the way it was supposed to be so that they wouldnt tamper with it or alter anything. You can even look and see for your self and check that everything is in place. Please restore my article.

Thank you

--Muriness 00:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

As you have been informed on your user talk page, Wikipedia:Deletion review is the place to request a review of a deletion decision that you feel has been taken incorrectly. Although I would suggest that "I know that my page was deleted because of the administrators ignorance and stupidity" is unlikely to be a well-received argument. --Stormie 04:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Multiple page AfD nomination

Can somebody give me an advice on nominating multiple articles for deletion as there is a total eight pages I am nominating altogether, I will be very grateful if somebody comes forward with any advice. Willirennen 16:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Sure. Nominate the first article as normal. In your nomination description, add links to the other seven. Then, put {{subst:afd}} on the other seven articles. Click the red link to "this article's entry" in the template. Make this a redirect, i.e. type #redirect [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NAME OF THE FIRST PAGE]]. There you go! >Radiant< 16:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
    • A more efficient way is to type {{subst:afd1|NAME OF THE FIRST PAGE}} on the other seven articles. This will not require you to create the extra 7 redirects. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Where does it list the steps for proposing an AFD?

I proposed two articles for deletion, Champlain Heights Annex, and Shapour Mirzadeh. The latter came up in the category, but the former is not listed on today's proposed deletions. I don't know where the speedy deletes are. Where is the list of steps of the process of AFD? Thanks. KP Botany 04:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi. You have tagged Shapour Mirzadeh for speedy deletion, which places the page in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. You have proposed for deletion Champlain Heights Annex, thus placing the article in Category:Proposed deletion as of 27 May 2007. Proposed deletion is a different deletion process than speedy deletion. AFD, or Articles for deletion, is the third process, and the steps for that can be found here. I hope that helps. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 05:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not helping. I put the AfD header on already, but it doesn't have any preloaded discussion page, which it did last time I did it (I realize and intended to speedy the one). I don't know what I'm supposed to do, replace the header I used that is listed on the page about AfD or leave it or what. Why couldn't I just find these instructions every time, where are they hidden, and why isn't there just a link to them on the AfD page? Well, I don't care about the article, someone is adding tons of non-notable elementary schools to Wikipedia, and I thought it should be deleted, and it should, but I don't have the time, energy or inclination to try to find which of the different instructions are the correct one. Thanks for trying. KP Botany 18:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Renominations

I've changed the following:

Most overturned deletions will go to a deletion discussion.

to

Overturned deletions may go to a deletion discussion if someone still wishes to delete and chooses to nominate.

By waiting for someone who actually wants to delete the article to nominate, we save time wasted on pointless "procedural" renominations where the nominator openly states that he has no opinion on deletion and abstains. This is a consequence of our well established policy that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. --Tony Sidaway 19:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems eminently sensible. It is quite possible that the keep arguments on a DRV have convinced everyone - in which case an AfD is pointless. Let people who want it deleted decide whether they want to proceed or not.--Docg 20:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Yup, winds back more instruction creep. Good call. Guy (Help!) 20:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Not to mention a demonstration on how consensus works; if no one renominates the page for deletion after the xFD has been overturned, then I guess we can tell what the consensus really is. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 04:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
There are some cases where it's patently obvious that discussion is needed, in which case a procedural nomination is fine, to stop any stray accusations of "OMG TOO SOON!" But there have been quite a few cases where people overturned something, and then listed on AfD despite the fact that nobody actually thought the article should be deleted. -Amarkov moo! 04:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's those latter cases that I think we can all (so far in this discussion) agree that we could do without. I do agree that we might tweak the wording to emphasize that it is quite good and proper to relist an overturned deletion, if you are in favor of deletion. We might term it "the relisting option" or something so someone could say: "I'm relisting this overturned deletion under the relisting option of the deletion policy because..." and then give his substantial and convincing argument for deletion despite the overturning. --Tony Sidaway 04:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I never quite understood the whole procedural nomination thing until now. They're only being nominated for AfD if people at the DRV are endorsing the deletion of the article - the assumption being that the article will head back to AfD anyway, so it saves a step. I don't disagree with this edit at all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
There's absolutely no call for procedural relisting. If a deletion is overturned, and no one want to relist it, then we keep it. Simple. AfD should only ever be used when someone actually wants to delete something.--Docg 18:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay. As I said... --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the original does seem a little silly. If I delete something, and another admin undeletes, shouldn't we just try to resolve the matter amongst ourselves rather than automatically heading to AfD or whatever? The current seems more sensible. Moreschi Talk 19:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. I invite Xoloz to discuss on the talk page instead of using the rollback. Mackensen (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The way I read the history, Xoloz is in effect, edit warring with Jimbo about this... that seems a bit off if you ask me. DRV seems to have become way too process wonky and votey lately and I think some movement away from that, as the recent changes are doing, is goodness. ++Lar: t/c 22:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Well it looks like there's substantial consensus in this discussion, though it's too early to say if this change will last the test of time. Would someone like to go to Requests for page protection and ask for the policy page to be unprotected? I don't think Xoloz is one to edit war against consensus, and he can come here and argue the case meanwhile. --Tony Sidaway 23:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I stongly disagree with this change. it has long been common if DRV is convinced that there were process problems with a prior fD or speedy, or if new information was presented, to opt for an action of "relist". If such an option is the modal choice, then the articel ought to be relisted, and the closeer of teh DRV discussion should do so as a matter of routine. Anything else means that DRV must make the ultimate keep/delete choice, which it is unsuited to do, adn makes DRV into a "2nd chance AfD" which IMO it should not be. DES (talk) 01:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    It's a wasteful and pointless bit of bureaucracy. If someone really wants the article deleted he will relist it himself, giving a rationale for deletion. Listing articles for deletion, explicitly stating that one has no wish to delete the article for deletion and not giving any deletion rationale, is very silly. There's no other way of putting it. --Tony Sidaway 01:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    I'm hopeful that we'll see an end to or at least a very great reduction in procedural nominations. It's indeed a wasteful bit of bureaucracy in almost every case. ++Lar: t/c 02:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    If anyone makes a deletion nomination following deletion review in which he says he has no opinion on deletion, or fails to provide a deletion rationale, just close it saying "closing pro tem without prejudice to the nomination being re-opened by someone wishing to delete and willing to provide a rationale for deletion." We don't and shouldn't accept nominations for deletion that don't actually cite a reason for deletion in the deletion policy. That a number of editors might have said "relist" but cannot be bothered to ake the nomination themselves, is obviously not a reason to list an article for deletion. The original proponents of deletion might well have thought better of it, but in any case if they're still interested they'll do it themselves. . --Tony Sidaway 02:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    What that deos is ignore the opnion that a relsiting is proper, which, by hypothesis, the greater number of those who expressed an opnion in the DRV discussion. That joint opnion ought to be respected, and the closer, in making a procedural listing, is simply acting as the agent for all thsoe who opted for a reliost action. The nominatiojn in such a case, is in effect a joint one by all those who expressed such a view. If such nominations are routinely speedy clsoed (and I would revert such a close authomatically as improper), or or disallowed, the effect weill be that no one can count on a relist option having any effect in a DSRV close, and thus DRV will wind up having to make keep or delete decisions in every case. This is bad, beacsue in many cases where there is a bungled AfD or an improepr speedy, there is nonetheless a case to answer, and DRV cannot honestly be sure whether the article should or should not be delted, unless it takes on the role of a second AfD. This it is not well set up to do, because while an article is at DRV following a deletion, non-admins cannot see the content, and no one can edit theat contet so as to meet objections and improve an article so that it need not be deleted, as can be and often is done during an AfD. This is fine when DRV is suposed (as it now is) to be reveiwing primarily the process, becaue to evaluate that, all that need be seen is the AfD discussion itself in most caases, and there is no need to work on the article content. But if DRV is effectivly forced to make the ultimate decision between keep and delete (which is what this change, by removing the effect of a relist action, will do) then it becomes imperitive that every articel on DRV be undeelted and not protected during the discussion, that, in fact, DRV become simply a second AfD. This is a bad idea. DES (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    Yes, it's certainly too much process that's causing problems at DRV. Wow, are people in an alternate universe here or something? Rank insanity. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If anyone still wants to delete the article, it will be relisted by that person. I don't see why it's necessary to have a procedure to do this, as long as we have a clause in the policy saying that after overturning the article may be relisted. If nobody can be troubled to relist it for deletion, then that counts as a keep without all the effort of a stupid and pointless relisting. --Tony Sidaway 04:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Good Christ. Is there actually a problem where 'no one at deletion review is saying "should be deleted through AFD", and Xoloz/the flying monkeys are relisting it sneakily without taking a firm stand? If not, leave well enough alone. This is a reasonable outcome of Deletion Review in which the initial speedy/AFD is questionable. -- nae'blis 16:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
      • As far as I can see, the problem is that when a majority, or at elast a very significant number, of those expressign a view at drv say "OVERTURN and RELIST" and Xoloz or anothe clsoer closes the DRV discussion as relist, and procedes to open a new AfD as part of the close, indicating in the nomination statement that he has no personal opnion on the matter, Tony Sidaway and perhaps Radient (if I understand his views correctly) are advocating that the AfD should be speedy closed because there wasn't a valid nomination. I would think we had had enough of speedy clsoes of AfDs stsrted from DRV overturns, but I guess not. I gather that Tony wants the AfD to wait until one of the DRV participants, or some other random editor, makes a "real" AfD nom, and that if no one does, there should be no AfD, regardless of what is said on DRV. I fail to see the point in insiting that two editors do what one has been doing just fine, thank you. Sounds like pointless process-wonking to me. DES (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
      • (to Nae'blis) I can think of at least one example where everyone endorsed undeletion, deletionist old me changed my opinion based on a huge wall of sources, and it was still relisted. -Amarkov moo! 23:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed compromise

I propose the following altered wording:

Overturned deletions may go to a deletion discussion if someone still wishes to delete and chooses to nominate. If the editor who closes a deltion review finds that there is a consensus to relist the page for a deletion discussion, or a strong view that the deletion should be overturned only on condition that a new deletion discussion take place, then the closer will normally start such a discussion on behalf of those editors who expressed this opnion during the deletion review, citing the review discussion as the reason for the nomination.

This avoids words like "must" or "shall", and makes it plain that a relisting should occur only if there is in fact a set of opnions in favor of it. It is unfair that if people opine that a deletion should be overturned only if a relisting takes place, that their veiws are taken into accouint in overturning the deletion, but not in reopenign the deletion discussion. DES (talk) 03:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

This is just so much procedural bollocks--precisely the nonsense I aimed to cut out when I made my brief change. Stop with the pointless procedural renominations! The deleters know whether they want to try again, and if they want to they'll do it. And moreover when they do so they'll give a proper deletion rationale instead of this loonytunes "this is a procedural nomination, I abstain" crap. --Tony Sidaway 04:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
God forbid a renomination occur when people still express a view that an article be kept deleted, after all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
If I see a DRV closed with "relist" and the article not renominted, or the AfD speedy closed, i'll nominate it myself. It is not "pointless" it is repspectign the views of the people who opined "relist" in the DRV discussion, and in effect made a joint nomination in that discussion. DES (talk) 04:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree with Tony. There's not much point in a "procedural" renomination; if somebody truly wants the article gone, they can renominate it just fine. The only semi-useful point of doing it "procedurally" is that it counters wonk votes like "keep because it was kept before", but those don't really have an argument anyway. >Radiant< 12:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

In general, I think procedural renomination is in order if there was a strong consensus that a relisting was in order. If all the people on DRV went ahead and said "Overturn speedy, list on AFD, there are issues here which need to be addressed there and we need to see the full article", then the pointless bureaucracy would be waiting for someone to nominate it. I also think procedural nomination may be in order if there were a reasonably strong and good faith endorsements of the original deletion which were nonetheless overruled by others. Now, one example where relisting is pointless bureaucracy is if something is inappropriately speedied, and there is a strong consensus that a) a speedy deletion was improper and b) the article should not be deleted, even on AFD. In that case there is no point in running a "debate", just to gather some 40 "keep"s. I think we should grant the DRV closer some discretion as to whether a procedural relisting is a good idea or a bad idea, and even if the closer makes the wrong decision in this respect, nothing really bad happens. If the relisting was superfluous, the process will run for five days, people will agree on a "keep", and the AFD be closed finally at that point, without any hard feelings. If a relisting was in order and the closer didn't relist, then the problem is remedied immediately by someone else relisting. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

  • That's true, but what I'm trying to avert is situations that I've seen a few times, that go "close, delete" - "DRV, process wasn't followed" - "overturn, we must have more discussion" - "new AFD" - "close, delete". That's a lot of wasted effort if you ask me. >Radiant< 15:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Sjakkalle. If no one, or almost no one, in the DRV discussion wants a relisting then doign one anyway would indeed be "pointless bureaucracy", whereas if there is a consensus to relist, or or a consensus to overturn with a significant fraction of thsoe wanting to overturn conditioning that on a relsiting, then it is "pointless bureaucracy" for the closer not to do the relisting, since s/he has the known wishes of multiple editors that there be a relsiting right there on-screen when the DRV clsoe is being done. An editor who closes an AfD as "delete" is normally expected to then do the actual deletion, even if that editor does not personally agree with the deletion, provided that there was a clear consensus (and no blatent policy violations along the way). It is not OK for an Afd closer to just mark the discussion closed, and say "if anyone now actually wants it delted, then can tag it for a speedy and cite the AfD as a reason" -- that would be "pointless bureaucracy". No one objects that the delting admin didn't supply a personal reson for the deletion -- "as per AfD" (with a link) is all that is needed or wanted. Similarly, if the editor who closes a DRV discussion closes it as "relist" (and not all DRVs should be so closed, but some should) should make the AfD nomination on behalf of all those who opted for relisting, and should give as the nominating reason "as per the relisting arguments in <link>", and possibly should summerize those views. DES (talk) 15:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • As to Radient's point, the sequence "close, delete" - "DRV, process wasn't followed" - "overturn, we must have more discussion" - "new AFD" - "close, delete". should indeed be avoaided if possible, but not that it genarllay follows an early or otherwise pretty clearly improper close of the inital AfD, and avoidign "snowball" closes in marginal cases whr it isn't truly a snowball situation would avoid a lot of these. The other common case is new info presented late in the AfD or after the AfD clsoe, and that new info probably deserves full discussion IF the DRV consensus was for relist. it may not change the outcome of the AfD, but we can't know that in advance. If we are sure in advance that it won't matter, then the response to new info should be "irrelevant, endorse inital closure". Note that if ther is no procedural nom, the sequence will be "close, delete" - "DRV, process wasn't followed" - "overturn, we must have more discussion" - wait - wait - someone notices that a relistign was called for but not done - new AfD with bitter or flame filled nom statment about "finally getting rid of this junk - angry 2nd afd - close, delete - accusations of bias or socking or what ever -- 2nd DRV -- close endorse. Or maybe even worse. This is not an improvement. And there is also the sequence "close, delete" - "DRV, process wasn't followed" - "overturn, we must have more discussion" - new Afd - "Oh yeah, that new source makes a big difference, put it in the article" - close, keep. If this doesn't happen, it may be that there is a new afd in 3 months, when the new source is forgotten/mislaid, and a potentially good (or at least acceptable) articel is deleted. DES (talk) 15:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Um... if no one can be bothered enough to actually bring the nomination to AfD that has an opinion on it, is the article actually in need of a runthrough again? It seems both sides are accusint the other of process wanking but I do find procedural renoms to be more wanky than letting the previous result stand because no one can be bothered. ++Lar: t/c 22:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

If people express a opnion favoring relisting in the DRV process, and the closer sees that they do, why insist on waiting until one of those people checks back to DRV, sees that the discussion has closed, and that the close favored undeletion and relsiting (as an immedite relsiting in defiance of the DRV consensus would be somehting of a WP:POINT, IMO), so that that such an editor can construct a "proper" AfD nomination. Why shouldn't the closer act as the agent for the already expressed wishes of those who opted for relisting, when the consensus favors relisting? DES (talk) 16:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Expression of an opinion on deletion review is not the same as nominating an article for deletion. There is absolutely nothing to be regained by a "procedural" nomination. If there is someone who wants to delete, he will come along and do it. If there isn't, the page will not be listed, at least for now. To list an article for deletion without a deletion rationale is simply bureaucracy for its own sake. --Tony Sidaway 01:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me put it this way, i think that there is enough value in such procedural nominations that I f I see a DVR discussiuon clsoed as relist, where the closer did not bother to do the relisting, i will. DES (talk) 22:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
As long as you give a good deletion rationale, that's just fine. The only problem we've had lately is with people robotically relisting articles for deletion saying they have no opinion on deletion and failing to give any reason for deletion.
Can we agree on the wording now? Protection should certainly be removed if we do. --Tony Sidaway 16:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think what we're trying to avoid here is deletion discussions wherein nobody actually wants the article deleted or has stated a reason for doing so. Other than that, if several people suggest relisting, there doesn't seem to be any harm in relisting. Radiant! 11:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. there's nothing in the change that means you can't nominate the article for deletion if you close the case. Just give a proper reason, and (in my opinion) it's silly to do it unless you think it should be deleted. --Tony Sidaway 21:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Biographies of living persons and "out of process"

The administrative undeletion clause (formerly the exception clause) of the policy currently reads:

  • If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed. If there is disagreement, or it is unclear whether it was out of process, it should be taken to deletion review.

This has been used by some administrators, unwisely, to mean that if they disagree with a deletion by an administrator who explicitly cites the biographies of living persons policy, the article can be undeleted without first discussing it with the deleting administrator and taking it to deletion review if there is disagreement.

I expect that the arbitration committee will have its own opinion on this. This is not a proposal for change, as yet, just a "heads up" for a discussion that we should probably hold after the Badlydrawnjeff arbitration to decide whether this clause needs to be clarified, or whether it should be sufficiently obvious to any administrator that undeleting a BLP without discussing the matter with the deleting administrator first is a very unwise thing to do. --Tony Sidaway 14:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That should be completely obvious. It's obvious to me, and I'm hardly a fan of BLP deletions. If something is deleted citing BLP, then before it is undeleted, a discussion must determine that it wasn't a BLP violation. Not a single admin. -Amarkov moo! 21:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
That is all very well, but if the deelting admin decines to discuss the matter, doing a temp undelte while the DRV discussion runs is perfectly appropraite under this clause, IMO. DES (talk) 22:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your reasons for suggesting this but really it would be a bad idea to have reasoning like "if the deleting admin declines to discuss the matter" because, well, if that happens we can go to deletion review and say "look, here is a deletion that the admin fails to justify properly." And if other admins look at it and can't see a problem, and Office didn't order it, and it wasn't OTRS, and nobody can see a good reason, it can be reversed by consensus. The undeletions I'm thinking about happened for the most part while the deleting admin was online, and after the undeletions it was the undeleting admin who acted evasively. I'm not suggesting that it might never happen the other way around, but on current evidence I think the problem lies with admins who just blithely undelete because they don't want to assume good faith.
But that's just my experience. Are there any particular situations where you think it would be beneficial to override the deletion? I really think we need a big warning buzzer here: "You are about to release information for publication that another editor has examined and determined to be damaging. Have you raised this on deletion review?" And so on. Because if we don't have that there will be wheel wars and those deleting will not be sanctioned unless the undeleter has very strong justification. --Tony Sidaway 22:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
If something is on DRV, it's definitely helpful to undelete behind the template, so that non-admins can actually give intelligent comments. I can't think of a case where it would be beneficial to completely override a deletion just because the closing admin won't discuss it, though. -Amarkov moo! 23:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely agree with Amarkov here. We need to remind people to assume good faith, and thus assume that the admin that deleted something under BLP had a good reason for doing so rather than knee jerk undeleting things. Ask questions, ask for more information, challenge the deletion, sure. But there is NO risk in leaving the item deleted, and there IS risk in undeleting. Hence, per Pascal's Wager, choose the less risky course. Undeleting BLP violations as a unilateral action is not to be condoned under any circumstances. Even if the "undeleting admin declines to discuss"... take it to DRV in that case, or if you suspect the admin is acting maliciously or capriciously, to AN/I and ask for other admins to look into it. BLP is not like other things, and needs special treatment. That should be crystal clear. UNdeleting unilaterally is the out of process thing here, not the original deletion. u++Lar: t/c 22:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that undeleting behind the template in cases of biographies of living persons (BLP) deletions is wrong, and that in all other cases it is right. You can look at the records: I pioneered the concept of undeleting histories during deletion reviews, at a time when it was not regarded as a good idea (I think I was blocked a few times, and counted it little harm for the demonstration of the concept). I'm still the same Tony Sidaway and I still think that deletion review in general should be an open debate taking content into account. But the BLP is different. I think we should be cautious. --Tony Sidaway 23:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Why? If it's behind the DRV template, no page-crawling bot will pick it up, so worries about being cached on Google or mirrors aren't a problem. And the mere existence of information that violates BLP is not a problem; as people on both sides point out, when we were a smaller project, BLP issues weren't a large problem, because we were just one of many random sites on the Internet. So if the information is hard to get, what harm is there in allowing everyone to discuss if there was a violation? -Amarkov moo! 00:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not committed to the idea, but I think we should probably have a bright line here. I expect that deletion policy will soon evolve to make summary deletions on this matter comparatively rare, but those remaining will most likely be cases of severely harmful content. In such case, even where open review is appropriate, it should not take place in a situation where, for instance, untrustworthy editors might publicise the content. As we've seen recently we've had a problem even controlling the profligate and damaging behavior of our administrators in this respect. --Tony Sidaway 01:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Could you give an example of this severely harmful content? I'm having trouble envisioning a situation in which something's mere existence for five days is harmful. As for untrustworthy editors publicising the content, why would someone who wished to do that not just make up their own harmful information to publicise? -Amarkov moo! 01:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
A strong example of harmful content that should not be undeleted would be, for instance, potentially defamatory content with no version free of the defamation (that is, no clean version to revert to). Articles that would bring Wikipedia into disrepute are another case. Articles fundamentally at odds with our humanitarian goals yet another. No review process can subvert those goals. --Tony Sidaway 01:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Potentially defamatory articles and copyright violations, I agree should not be undeleted in any way under any circumstances. (Note that I don't consider the recent WP:COATRACK deletions potentially defamatory, because they are not; that's a seperate issue). But things which would bring Wikipedia into disrepute, or are against humanitarian goals (whatever that means), I'm not so sure about. If it's clear that Wikipedia does not support the articles, and has in fact deleted them, what harm is there in presenting the content for review? -Amarkov moo! 02:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
No the coatracks are something different. They aren't difficult to get rid of in any case. The disrepute and goals things are matters for case-by-case consideration. For instance recent events have shown that the mere existence of articles about news events can be damaging, and we probably don't want to have the content of really unsuitable articles, such as the inappropriate ones about people involved in internet memes, available during discussion. Wikipedia isn't and never has been a repository for scandal, news stories and the like. It's unfortunate that some people have begun to treat it like one, and we're determined to act very, very forcibly to stop those misguided people who think they can force that rubbish onto us by abusing the review process. --Tony Sidaway 02:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
But I don't want to allow people to force rubbish on us. I want non-admins to be able to see the rubbish they are attempting to force on us, so that we don't get reactionary agreement with undeletion based on incomplete information. -Amarkov moo! 03:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Where it's appropriate I'm sure we shall. Where it isn't then only admins will see it (which used to be the case universally). --Tony Sidaway
Almost always these will be articles that have existed for quite some time and are in all the mirrors, and if they have been up for 10 weeks, 11 isn't going to do much harm. We keep to the rule that we do not report problematic things first. The only exceptions I think are unquestionably worthless articles which some people appeal from speedy in order to try to game the system, and since these are generally immediately checked and found not to be in good faith, that takes care of them. What else might there be that actually makes a difference? If we're considering it in good faith, it means it is not unquestionably harmful. But in practice we should be able to find some compromise wording, since if we ague all the possible cases ahead of time we won't get anywhere. I think this improvement is too important to let us hold it up while we debate the boundaries. DGG 02:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
We have it's true, unfortunately been very lax and allowed all kinds of rubbish onto the wiki. I want to await developments, really, so I'll leave it there. --Tony Sidaway 03:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, "rubbish" is a description that can be disputed in good faith. Not all challenges to speedies are just an attempt to game the system. Bryan Derksen 04:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Most number of Deletion Requests?

Is there a record for the article with the most number of deletion requests? I know State terrorism by the United States has had five nominations [1] and is heading for a sixth. Is this a record? ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 12:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A bit of searching has found 2 Six-time nominees Cleveland steamer [2] and LUEshi [3]. Can't find any Seventh Nominations. ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 12:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
[4] Wake up--MONGO 14:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
14! Thats incredible. Seems you have a long way to go yet, Mongo. ... Kafkaesque Seabhcan 14:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
14 is not the record. GNAA took 18 tries to finally kill: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/GNAA. There was even a pool on how many nominations it would take, and then the pool page was nominated for deletion. And then the pool page was nominated for the second time... --Tony Sidaway 23:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:DELETE#Reasons_for_deletion and WP:BLP

Recent changes in BLP allow for the article subject's wishes to figure in deletion discussions. It makes sense to refer to that policy in some way from this page. Suggest we add a line about that here. DurovaCharge! 17:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we probably should do a better job of addressing the old reasons for a BLP deletion. They get brushed past in the intro, and then neglected on the rest of the page. ("Reasons for deletion include ... and unreferenced negative content in biographies of living persons.") I think fixing this is more important than something that BLP describes as there not being a consensus as to what to do. GRBerry 19:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
That sounds good too. DurovaCharge! 00:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Durova brings this up here (I assume) because of my question at BLP Talk. Just for clarification, my original question centers on the "BLP Deletion Standards" subsection of BLP:Preventing BLP violations. LaughingVulcan 23:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't modify this page until there is more consistency and consensus about what the change in BLP policy will imply and how it will be implemented. JoshuaZ 01:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, would you mind a neutral statement referring readers to BLP? At least they deserve to be alerted that there's some relevant language at that policy page. DurovaCharge! 17:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. JoshuaZ 18:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hm, it isn't easy to find a good spot for a neutral reference. The structure of this policy page would seem to slant the link based upon where it's added. Any suggestions for something along the lines of When considering deletion for a living person's biography, please consult the relevant policy? DurovaCharge! 06:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
What about in "Deletion discussion", work it in as, "...head count, so people are encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy. Policies may also contain relevant deletion criteria, as in Biography of Living Persons policy. The discussion lasts at least five days..." Or alternatively at the bottom of Reasons for Deletion include a sentence, "Other policies may also contain relevant criteria for deletion, as in Biography of Living Persons policy." Just a couple thoughts... LaughingVulcan 12:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

BLP and summary undeletion

I've inserted a clause to emphasize that an administrator cannot summarily undelete a page deleted under the BLP. An actual consensus must be sought. --Tony Sidaway 03:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I copy from talk at WP:SPEEDY
"We have applied policy to a particular case. It is up to the community to determine if our interpretation can or ought to be stated as a general principle. Fred Bauder 00:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)"
Count me in the ought not camp. I've seen too many cases where BLP deletionists tried to prevent holding a discussion that might come to consensus for me to consider this an acceptable approach. Since both the BLP policy and the ArbComm's proposed findings explicitly require all versions to fail, it is safe to understand that unacceptable versions in the history are not forbidden by policy. (If totally unacceptable for history, they should be oversighted, under the usual rules therefore.) At the very least, a protected {{tempundelete}} plus a history restore underneath it during a DRV is acceptable, and probably advisable given that solution's track record of actually working to create a consensus whenever applied. GRBerry 03:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the clearest possible statement of the state of things. DGG 02:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for information.

Are there procedures in place to deal with possible abuses of user space? For example, if a user page was created to serve as a billboard, how is that handled?

Technically, it is not an article; as such, I thought it improper to take it to AfD. --Aarktica 20:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Blatant advertising can be deleted per speedy deletion criteria G11. I deleted the page in question. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if the account itself would be deleted outright, given the sole contribution was the page in question. Will {{db-bio}} suffice? --Aarktica 23:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
See the criteria for speedy deletion. Those beginning with a G prefix apply to all pages including user space (but G4 is usually not applied to userspace drafts that show evidence of being a work in progress and haven't been around long), and those criteria beginning with U are especially for userspace. There is a recent extension to WP:PROD, the details of which I don't recall, that applies in some circumstances. MfD is the right deletion discussion forum for userspace. If it rises to the level of a user conduct issue, please see dispute resolution. GRBerry 21:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Limits of summary undeletion

Administrators have been sanctioned when they undeleted without discussion and consensus in the Badlydrawnjeff arbitration, honestly believing the deletions to have been out of process and unmerited. The deleting admin had cited the BLP. I have updated the undeletion clause. It formerly said:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed. If there is disagreement, or it is unclear whether it was out of process, it should be taken to deletion review.

It now reads:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed. This does not apply where the deleting admin has cited the biographies of living persons policy: such deletions must never be undone without a discussion and consensus.
If there is disagreement, or it is unclear whether it was out of process, it should be taken to deletion review.

--Tony Sidaway 22:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for Wikilawyering just a little, Tony, but since that arbitration hasn't closed out yet, isn't it just a little premature to be editing the policy based on it? Granted, that's where it's heading (and I sure won't make a fooforaw about it if you feel differently,) but there's always the minute chance that the arbitrators will change their opinions on that finding prior to close. But I certainly could be wrong about bringing the matter up. LaughingVulcan 22:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
This is redundant. If BLP is clear enough then the deletion would obviously be within policy and a restoration would be inappropriate. OTRS would be a different matter, of course.
I [would] have reverted your change for this reason and because the arbitration you cite is not yet complete. violet/riga (t) 22:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I think clarity would help here, but it's fine with me if we don't update this particular clause. I think a lot of the crap we've had over the past month or so (which has, amid all the drama queenery, apparently caused several of our best OTRS volunteers to quietly burn out or take a wikibreak) could have been avoided if our policies had more accurately described the importance of the "do no harm" aspect of the BLP. How exactly we do that isn't my concern, I'm just making reasonable proposals to do that. Argue about it among yourselves for a bit until we have something that makes sense and hopefully won't get anybody else arbcommed. --Tony Sidaway 23:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the idea behind that entire section before is terrible. "If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately." is just an incitement to wheel war, Guanaco-style, and, while BLP concerns make it more imperative, we never want to give the impression that summary undeletions without discussion or consensus are acceptable. If it was clear it was a mistake (or misunderstanding, or whatever) then summary undeletion is fine, but where it is obviously an intentional deletion outside of normal process, and the admin would disagree with undeletion, we should never be encouraging undeletion without some sort of prior discussion and consensus (whether it be ANI or DRV).

If you need an arbitration case, and a closed case, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Guanaco,_MarkSweep,_et_al#Speedy_deletion should do: "In general, it is good practice to take disputed deletions to deletion review. The issue typically should be put up for review and consensus before a reversal is made, especially in the case that a deletion is clearly not accidental or an undeletion is clearly controversial. Persistently circumventing the review process with recreations, undeletion, or redeletions may constitute disruption." Dmcdevit·t 23:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

With the possible exception of BLPs, it is the original deleting admin who should have resorted to prior discussion and sought consensus. Of course, undeleting without first discussing the issue with the closing admin is a bad idea (or a lapse in judgment), but we should not set the default to deletion and forget who sparked the dispute in the first place. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's not my point. In the case where an admin has made a deletion outside of process, we should not incite wheel wars by giving automatic exemptions for summary undeletions instead of resolving the issue through discussion and consensus. I don't see how saying that "set[s] the default to deletion." Dmcdevit·t 23:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
It's saying that any page that was deleted out of process must have consensus support in order for it to be kept. Thus, it sets the default to deletion. Also, a wheel war occurs only when someone reverses the undeletion. I agree that undeletions without discussion are inappropriate, but we should also not give automatic exemptions for summary deletions. If the matter is controversial enough to require resolving, discussion should take place before the initial deletion. I understand (and share) the desire to prevent conflict by discouraging premature undeletions (often caused by overreaction), but I also wouldn't want to see a legitimation of unjustified summary deletions. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 23:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
No, I haven't suggested "automatic exemptions for summary deletions." I just suggested removing the sentence that implies that exemption for summary undeletion. That's all. Dmcdevit·t 00:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I've drafted an alternate wording below that I think addresses your concern, but I am still ambivalent about it. The reason is this: if the deleting admin did not bother to follow process, consensus, and/or common courtesy (which word is applicable depends on the specific deletion), why should the undeleting admin? That's not entirely a rhetorical question, by the way. In any case, I think the wording you're looking for is something like:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it without formal review. Except in particularly egregious cases (e.g., deletion of a featured article or the main page), this may be done only after attempting to discuss the matter with the deleting admin.

-- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:19, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I fear that a person who follows that wording to the letter may yet be sanctioned, for it mentions not the fact that one mustn't undo BLP deletions without consensus. --Tony Sidaway 00:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Whoops ... missed that. How about this:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it without formal review. Except in particularly egregious cases (e.g., deletion of a featured article), this may be done only after attempting to discuss the matter with the deleting admin. In instances where the deletion cites the Biographies of living persons policy, undeletion may not take place without the support of the deleting admin or a formal review.

-- Black Falcon (Talk) 00:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Very legalistic. "may and may not" are not good words to use in policy. ViridaeTalk 00:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Arbcom sanctions do not make policy. Rather, editorial policy consensus should inform the Arbcom. Also, cf. #BLP and summary undeletion above. Spacepotato 03:21, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Change "without the support of the deleting admin or a formal review" to "without actual consensus" and you have something alarmingly close to my original proposed wording, and slightly more flexible too. --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Without actual consensus is a pretty useless way of putting it. ViridaeTalk 01:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
We've got consensus on the policy. All we need now is consensus on wording. --Tony Sidaway 08:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Why do we still have "an admin may choose to undelete it without formal review."? If you disagree with a deletion, you talk to the deleting administrator. If you can't work it out there, then you take it to another venue like DRV for community review. You don't wheel war over it. Dmcdevit·t 08:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
"Changing it in my defense"? Excuse me? Tony is the one that is changing it - I am restoring it back to how it has been for a long time. violet/riga (t) 08:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Right, so I'm off to delete a few pages and then I'll go on a bit of a holiday. I'll come back to see the reviews that have been taken place. violet/riga (t) 08:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
No we haven't. Clearly any article that is deleted wrongly should be restored. Just because other policies are not clear about what is "wrongly" does not mean that we should remove that bit. violet/riga (t) 08:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a matter of how to restore. The clause as it stood was so misleading as to be dangerous (qv!) so I've removed it. --Tony Sidaway 08:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
So now you are edit-warring on a policy page. If you have a problem with a long-standing part of policy you should gather consensus - this has not yet been achieved. It may need rewriting slightly but it is a clause that we need. violet/riga (t) 08:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Two people does not a consensus make, especially when there are more people opposing the change than supporting it. We need to discuss this and not edit war on a policy page. The original state has been returned and we should now continue the debate. violet/riga (t) 08:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll just remark that it looks a bit bad when a person who is about to be sanctioned by the arbitration committee for undeleting without discussion and without consensus participates in what she proclaims to be an edit war to retain a clause that misleadingly states that she was entitled to do so. --Tony Sidaway 09:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Looks worse when a user comes along and starts changing policy when they have little to no backing to do so. And then they just try to defame a person rather discuss the issue. violet/riga (t) 09:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Back to the topic:
The BDJ arbcom have only mentioned the undeletion of articles citing BLP. Tony is trying to remove a clause that relates to articles being undeleted for any reason. This is significantly different. While we might wish to change the clause it should not be removed outright. violet/riga (t) 09:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with the removal of the clause. Even if it has been there for a year, I've seen a lot which indicates that the BLP policy is developing and that Wikipedians are coming to an increasing awareness of it, and that therefore some articles which might not have seemed inappropriate in the past are now seen as something we're better off (and truer to our principles) without. Similarly, deletions which might not have seemed appropriate in the past, are seen as more appropriate now. If a perfectly good article is deleted with absolutely no justification by an admin who has taken leave of their senses, it will be undeleted, based on just common sense. But having that clause in the policy is going to lead to wiki-lawyering. That said, edit summaries and talk page comments that make a little dig at an editor who is presumably upset by the way the ArbCom case is going is probably also something we can do without. It would be a shame, while we're developing our understanding of the basic human dignity of fat Chinese children and parents of dead babies, to forget the same thing in other editors. While I agree with the removal of the clause, if it really has been there for a year, putting it back when it's just been removed is hardly trying to change the policy in their own defence. ElinorD (talk) 09:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that not including such a sentence would equally lead to wikilawyering with people saying "you can't undelete because it doesn't say you can". It needs to be worded so that we can accept some restorations but advise against it. violet/riga (t) 09:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm very disappointed to see your reversion, which goes against BRD and the fact that the clause has been in policy for over a year (original as part of Wikipedia:Undeletion policy before it was merged in here). If you look at the comments regarding that clause you will see suggestions of rewording that still include the clause itself and this shows that nobody has consensus. Based on that we should stick with what we've had for such a long time. violet/riga (t) 09:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's another go at expressing what works and what doesn't. Before:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed.

After:

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the admin who deleted the page should be informed. However, such undeletions without gaining consensus are sometimes viewed as disruptive, so they should be undertaken only rarely and with care.

--Tony Sidaway 11:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

That looks good to me. violet/riga (t) 11:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Tweaked by Viridae to:
However, such undeletions without gaining consensus may be viewed as disruptive, so they should be undertaken with care.
I think that's missing the point, really. Undeleting an article without consensus is of course disruptive, doing so without checking for actual consensus is sometimes in itself disruptive. And here we have a case of an administrator about to be threatened with immediate desysopping if he ever does it again, by the body charged with resolving disputes. So "are sometimes" seems merited here. The intent is to say, in not so many words: "you could be desysopped for doing this thoughtlessly in certain circumstances." --Tony Sidaway 11:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
"Thoughtlessly" is a dangerous word. People can think about something at length and still act in an incorrect manner. violet/riga (t) 11:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
To clarify, I'm not proposing those words for the policy. I'm suggesting that changing "are sometimes" to "may be" is not a mere cosmetic tweak, but loses some important meaning. --Tony Sidaway 11:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I thought "are sometimes" gave undue weight to the possibility, where it is not always the case. ViridaeTalk 00:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure, I understand that. I just feel that when we're talking in terms of desysopping it's probably a good idea to use the indicative rather than the subjunctive of he verb "to be". How about "may be" -> "has sometimes been" ? I mean we're talking about two administrators here and ten separate instances of undoing deletions, a different article in each instance. --Tony Sidaway 03:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll answer this when i have time, I'm a busy student today - maybe tonight. ViridaeTalk 23:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't sweat it. The current wording is good enough for jazz. --Tony Sidaway 23:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Last edits

Uh, I just went to put the deletion tables back, but the edit came out rather moredrastically then I intended. Just to let you know I did it, seek consensus etc. I find the tables are extremely helpful when looking up whether an article should be deleted or not.

Also, can Tony et al please discuss on the talkpage and actually reach a consensual decision rather than constantly changing the article? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 07:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I've found that the best way to work stuff out on a wiki is just edit it. If someone doesn't like what you've done they can tweak it or simply undo it. Discussing things a length can actually get you bogged down in irrelevancies. "Be bold", as we say. --Tony Sidaway 07:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
A sentiment I entirely agree with. However, if you are involved in a five way edit war, as you seem to be, would it not be best to discuss the "irrelevancies" that others consider so vital? Dev920 (Have a nice day!)
Sorry if it looked like a war. I thought it worked rather well, although I suppose nearly everybody got in a revert and one or two look like they sneaked in two. It was fun and it worked. --Tony Sidaway 09:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, cool. On with our work then. :) Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 09:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I would suggest keeping those tables on another page if you're interested in having them, because the "deletion policy" is not intended as an exhaustive list of cleanup templates. However, note that we already have such a table at Wikipedia:Cleanup resources. >Radiant< 15:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
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