Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 5

Letting submitters rm {{prod}}

It seems sort of dumb to allow the initial page author to remove the {{prod}} on their own article. I can see if it's had significant (i.e. non-routine) work done on it by other people, but not if the only person adding content is the original poster.

Clearly, the first author of an article thinks its worthy, or else they would not have added it.

An article can be clearly deleteworthy, have {{prod}} put on it, the author removes it, it gets put on AFD, and everyone at AFD votes to delete. This is the exact situation that PROD was supposed to alleviate. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 21:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It's possible this would be a somewhat controversial practice, but personally I have no problem with admins doing speedy deletes per WP:SNOW in cases like this. Friday (talk) 21:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

If something doesn't fit a speedy criterion, and its disputed, its reasonable to have a discussion (hence an AFD). The admins opinion of what's delete worthy, is not supposed to be more important than anybody elses. If we let admins delete things they think are obvious, despite a good faith dispute, we might as well get rid of AFD, and hand over everything to the admins. --Rob 21:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think we've already gone there. As it stands now, whichever admin happens to close the Afd gets to put their own spin on it, and their decision will generally stand as long as it's reasonably justified -even when others disagree. If anything, common-sense deletions would give admins LESS unilateral control, because they'd be more easily reversed. Friday (talk) 22:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Last time I read Wikipedia:Deletion policy it said something about consensus (not unilateral descretion). If an admin ignores what AFD participants indicated, its very likely that at least one of those participants will take it to DRV. However, an admin doing a "snow speedy" will not be seen by as many people, with the article creator being the only objector to notice it. The nice thing about an AFD is people have five days to actually view the content. With a speedy only the contributor, tagger, and admin view the content. So, the only independent oversight of speedies is generally fellow admin. That's fine for straight-forward deletes (defined by CSD or uncontested PROD), but not ok for contested cases. --Rob 23:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rob. · rodii · 20:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

So how would it work if the creator couldn't de-prod? I try to create articles in areas poorly covered by the internet in general: occasionally they get marked "nn - not much on Google" by some teenager in a highly connected country, who thinks if they can't find a person's shoe size from their bedroom then the person doesn't exist. This is Quite Annoying; having to run round looking for a de-prodder would be more so. JackyR | Talk 23:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the problems of AFD ignorance and regional notability. What I don't see is why we should let it be that prod actually prolongs the deletion process by allowing the author to do a "nuh-uh". I put a prod on an article, the author takes it off, I take it to AFD anyway. What did I save by using prod? Nothing, rendering it useless. Conversely, allowing the author to remove prod won't save a regionally notable article from an AFD campaign.

Authors can't remove copyvio and can't remove speedy, why let them remove prod? - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 23:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Because (duh!) prod is a process that tries to measure whether anybody cares enough to object to the removal; that is the price of having no objective criteria for when a prod can be put there in the first place. Prod is for cases that are suspected by the nominator to be uncontroversial but may not actually be. Speedy tags is a different case -- they are for objective groups of cases that are known by experience to always end in a consensus for deletion even if the creator may disagree. Yes, prodding articles fresh off the New list is usually not productive, but I have found that surprisingly often it works just to wait a day or two and then prod. Typically the creator will have lost interest by then. It takes a bit of extra administration on my part, but is more effective at reducing pressure on the AfD process. Henning Makholm 00:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It's laughable to suggest that its even remotely likely that the submitter of an article won't read the prod text, and remove the prod to save their own contribution. Sure, maybe it happens in extremely rare cases.

No, the only times prod doesn't get removed by the author is when the author is a hit-and-run and has either buggered off, or doesn't regularly use WP. In other words, the only articles that will actually get deleted by prod are those where the author has already abandoned it. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 19:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Authors can directly protest both a copyvio & a speedy. They do not need to find someone else to do that for them. For a copyvio, they can comment at the copyvio listing (Wikipedia:Copyright problems) and for a speedy, they can add the {{hangon}} tag. The instructions for doing so are listed on the copyvio & speedy templates. There is no equivalent for prod. And there is no reason to create an equivalent as that is what AfD is in the first place. Prod is for a specific case. If an author is actively editing an article, then use AfD to start with as one can be pretty confident that they're going to object. -- JLaTondre 00:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Neither of those examples alter the status of the article, they only provide a single argument to a status-related evaluation (status being e.g. "possibly speedy-deletable" or "possibly a copyvio"). Removing prod tag takes the article completely out of proposed-deletion status.

If I prod something, I'd better keep an eye on it, so I can see the author un-prod it. My point is, I might as well not waste my time, and just AFD it in the first place. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 19:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

If you nominate something for deletion, you need to watch it despite the process you use. Speedy tags are removed by authors all the time. You need to watch for that. If we didn't allow authors to remove prods, you would still need to watch it to restore the prod if they removed it. Not wanting to watch it isn't a strong argument for preventing authors from removing a prod. I have sent many articles through prod and only have had 1-2 de-prod’d by the author. Prod works well for older articles (by which I mean a month or two) that slipped through the new pages patrollers. It doesn’t work well for articles for which the authors are still active. That doesn’t mean prod needs to be changed. It means one should pick the right tool for the article. -- JLaTondre 13:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:SNOW is never appropriate. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 20:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The argument that the author wouldn't have created it if they didn't think it was worthwhile has come up a zillion times and is just an attractive red herring. The fact is that many authors are new users who are unfamiliar with the project and our criteria for inclusion and are often quite willing to let their article die if they feel like they're the one that screwed up. Besides which, a lot of these articles are one-shot deals - we can't sit around waiting for an MIA author to rematerialize. PROD is all about being an agile, lightweight process, and it does that very well. Deco 04:16, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Hear hear. PROD works best for abandoned articles, of which there are multitudes, or newbie mistakes (ditto). If an author thinks the article should be kept, WP:AGF dictates that we trust their reasons. If you want to discuss the reasons, AfD is still there. The argument that PROD extends the deletion process is belied by the huge number of prods that have gone to completion--continuing to AfD isn't the norm. And anyway, the point of the deletion process is not to delete as many articles as possible, it's to improve the quality of Wikipedia by determining which articles need to be deleted. When an article isn't deleted, that's not a failure, it's the collaborative process at work (though, like everyone, I admit to some frustrations about what's kept sometimes). · rodii · 14:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I can live with current policy, but a semi-automated way to turn a deleted "prod" into an AfD would be helpful. AfD really needs a technical overhaul; the same data has to be re-entered in several places, which is lame. That's what computers are for. --John Nagle 04:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm finding more than a few PRODs that are, dare I say, appear either totally daft or the result of utter laziness. It seems as if the person who put the PROD in there had spent a few minutes bothering to address the concern, they wouldn't be wasting a lot of other people's time looking it over. I don't fancy an automated method of turning those de-PRODed articles where the issue has been addressed go and waste still more people's time as an AfD. Kindly let the (singular) PROD-er do the work, rather than tossing it over the fence to the (plural) reviewers. At best a message could be automatically sent to the PROD-ers talk page suggesting how to proceed. :-) — RJH (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact is that many authors are new users who are unfamiliar with the project and our criteria for inclusion and are often quite willing to let their article die if they feel like they're the one that screwed up. Do you really think this is the rule and not the exception among new submitters? It's a flattering perspective on society, but it just ain't the norm. A submitter puts their content on WP specifically because they want to see it covered in the eminent web reference, not simply as a lark. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 19:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well... honestly, a lot of articles get created by people who show up, make one bad article, and then leave. If you prod too soon, they won't have left yet, and they are likely to object, and then an AfD is needed. If you wait just a little longer, they probably won't notice and prod will do its job. If someone DOES stick around, they're either trying to cause more damage, or they are actually interested in WP policy and might agree with deletion of their own work. I've seen it happen, it's not that rare, among authors of deletable articles that stick around. Mangojuice^talk 21:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the original author of a page should not be able to remove the prod tag. If the original autor is the only person in the whole wikiverse thinks that the article is worthwhile, then they can print it out and put it in a frame on their desk. It doesn't need to be here. However, I think that five days is not long enough to find out if anyone else wants the article to stay. I say: Change the policy to disallow original authors from removing the tags, but increase the timer to 28 days. This gives the community fiour whole weeks to find someone other than the author who finds it valuable... Even if the author is able to run a little campagn to try to convince someone else to remove the tag. If the original author thinks it's worhtwhile, but in four weeks cannot find anyone who agrees with him/her, should that article still stand? CB Droege 16:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Honestly? It's a little unfair. Suppose I created an article, say, Bon Jovi merchandise, and someone wanted to delete it via prod. If I wasn't allowed to remove the tag, who else would? If I went campaigning for the article, isn't that a bit illegitimate? At the beginning for most articles, no one but the author would even know about the article. So just because the author is the only one who removes a prod tag doesn't mean that no one else would support the article.. if they knew about it. And 28 days is much too long to wait. It's bad enough that companies that create spam articles on themselves get free publicity for 5 days: a month is way worse. Mangojuice^talk 21:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Waiting 28 days is waht wuold solve the problem of not being sure if there are others who would support it. If in 28 days no one, other than the original author finds the Bon Jovi merchandise article a useful idea, then it should be gotten rid of. Also, adverts aren't a problem. Obvious adverts should be speedied, and non-obvious adverts should be VfD. CB Droege 13:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Go on and propose a suitable speedy criterion, then. Henning Makholm 16:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

No, don't. It's been proposed, many times, and has failed, many times. Read WT:CSD to see the history. Anyway, a 28-day waiting period would be much worse than allowing authors to remove prod tags. And frankly, this is not going to change: this is much too big a change to make to an accepted policy. Mangojuice^talk 17:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandal removing a prod tag -- what now?

What should I do about something like [1]? This is a prod tag which was removed by somebody who appears to be a vandal. User:Fishmonk is a brand new account and all of his edits to date are vandalism. The rule says that if anybody removes a prod tag, you can't put it back, but does that rule apply if you think the removal was just plain vandalism? It sure seems like that should be an exception. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Just take it to AfD, I say. Anything else is instruction creep. A few months ago this was the first option, now it's the second. It's no big deal. · rodii · 20:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the only time a prod can be added back is if (1) it was removed by a banned user, (2) it was replaced by the user that removed it, or if (3) it's likely that the user removing the prod tag made a mistake (for instance, if someone removed a prod to add a speedy tag, and then an admin de-speedied it, it would be reasonable to readd the prod tag, I think). Mangojuice^talk 16:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

At WriteMark, a user replaced the entire article (including the PROD tag) with the text "this page should be deleted". I reverted this vandalism, but I do not construe it to be a contesting of PROD deletion, as he plainly wanted to delete the article. Accordingly, the PROD stays on. If possible, we ought to look at the intent of the person deleting the PROD tag when deciding whether or not re-adding it is appropriate. Sandstein 16:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Sanstein that context matters, but I'd always fall back on the rule of thumb: if there's any doubt, take it to AfD. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree (with both of the above). In the case of blanking or whole-page vandalism, I would say that hardly counts as a contribution. · rodii · 16:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

On a slightly related matter, what if an entire article including prod is blanked by an anon user? Should that be considered a prod contestation or just a simple revertible article blanking? Fagstein 04:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

If an article is blanked without comment, the best solution is to restore it exactly as it was before the blanking, including any tags. If there's an edit summary that raises a question (e.g. "this page should not be deleted!"), send it to AfD. BD2412 T 04:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

For a practical reason, I think we should allow the blanking / near-blanking of an article to be reverted even if this re-adds the prod tag. In most cases, such an action would be an endorsement of deletion (from someone who doesn't understand how deletion works on WP) or simple disruption (such as replacing an article with "penis" or something). The reason I say "for a practical reason" is that bots will revert that kind of edit, which amounts to them re-prodding something. I see no way in which this breaks the spirit of the PROD policy, so maybe we should explicitly allow it. Mangojuice^talk 16:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio vs. Prod

In my patrolling efforts lately, I've come across a fair number of articles that have been proposed for deletion on the basis of copyright violation issues. It's been my opinion that it's okay to use prod in this way, as long as the copyrighted stuff is also removed. Generally, I've been tagging such articles with {{copyvio}}, just in case the prod doesn't go through, but I wonder what others think about this. Also, I don't think WP:PROD is too clear on when to use prod vs. copyvio for copyright violations. Any thoughts? Mangojuice^talk 16:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio and worthiness of inclusion are two separate things. I don't think prod should be used for copyvio. If it's a copyvio, it should be marked as a copyvio (or the copyvio text removed if possible). If it's unworthy to be an article, prod should be used. If both, then both could be used, but as most copvios end up deleted (vs. permission given), I'd personally just use copyvio and then if it's resolved follow up with prod. -- JLaTondre 20:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Prod does not immediately remove content like the copyvio procedure. The copyvio procedure should almost always be preferred for copyvio, unless there's reasonable cause to believe that permission will be given, for example if the author appears to be affiliated with the source. Even then I'd probably stick with copyvio for uniform procedure. Deco 20:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Assumed that a template for use in a single bio could use this process

Although WP:PROD explicitly excludes this approach, I went ahead and marked Template:James Badge Dale for proposed deletion anyway. It was only used in James Badge Dale (which I just cleaned up a bit), and if you look at the template's contents, it wasn't structured in a way that would make it useful to include in any other article. That makes it a template in name only, thus I had no qualms about technically violating the policy. Whether others have qualms remains to be seen. :-) Thanks. 66.167.137.91 08:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC).

Posting as earlier date

I have a question regarding the prod template. What is to stop somebody from posting prod on a page but giving the template a different date? I.e. manually copying a prod from a different page that has the date set to the last day of the current cycle? I'm assuming, hypothetically, that the person in question wants to skip any reviews and just have the page automatically dumped, for whatever reason. (Not that I'd do that myself, of course. :) — RJH (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The closing admin is supposed to check the date of tagging, also because policy required the tag to stay for 5 days continously. - Liberatore(T) 15:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe there's a way to automate the check with a daily batch job? I.e. if the prod template revision date doesn't match the category date the entry gets flagged. — RJH (talk) 16:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I developed a script, indeed (see next section). I plan to run it once in a while (maybe once a week is enough), possibly posting the results automatically. - Liberatore(T) 17:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

On average, there is about 1 mis-dated prod a day. I'm taking care of it myself, but also requested permission for posting the list of these articles automatically, for when I'm not around. - Liberatore(T) 11:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Run-away prods

It seems that some prod'ed articles actually managed to escape deletion in spite of being tagged before five days ago. I run a script, which resulted in the following list (which is in a way surprisingly short!):

• A_Street_Downtown
• Headso
• User:Lucacolla
• User:Tumble-Weed
• User_talk:Tumble-Weed
• World_freedom_day

I'd not care much of the user pages, but there are three mainspace articles in this list. Two escaped because the prod removal was reversed (which should not have been done), and the remaining one had a date moved into the future. Formally, these three articles should be taken to AfD (since the prod was contested, in a way or another), but I am inclined to delete the first two right away (the prod tag was there for >5 days continously on them). - Liberatore(T) 17:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

World freedom day was a improper restoration of a prod after it had been removed. I fixed the article as it was a bogus, but the title was real. Someone who has the time should check the other two articles for prod removal & reverts as I bet that's the most likely reason how they got through. -- JLaTondre 19:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Tumble-Weed pages won't actually be prodded until almost a thousand years from now, according to the prod templates. All three user pages are just self-vandalism of a very low order--all the users' edits are of those pages, and all the edits on the pages are by the users. The other two (A_Street_Downtown and Headso are past their prod sell-by dates and might as well get deleted. I think the moral is, if you prod an article, keep it on your watchlist in case people dink around with the dates. · rodii · 02:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Prod is not for use outside the article space - user pages are dealt with through Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. BD2412 T 04:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. My point above was that the users prodded themselves, with bizarre dates (3000 AD in two cases). So, user space or not, they're not really prods, even though they show up in the prod categories. The other two (I'm not including World freedom day here), which are in mainspace, have had their dates changed but are well past their actual five days. · rodii · 20:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Relates to the above, but a serious policy question as well.

I prodded Suzuki Motorcycle Naming Conventions, five days elapsed, and the article was not deleted after that time. However, after the five days were up (i.e. after 120 hours), User:Spacepotato removed the prod claiming that WP:NOR did not apply, because it only applied to novel theories about science or history.

Ignoring the fact that it was misinterpretation (NOR applied because it was one user's clearly stated idea of what the letters meant from their own research, and that was in fact the main point of the article), the five days were up, and technically the prod was removed too late.

I sent the article to AfD, but in this (or any) case where the requirements for the prod to be successful have been fulfilled, would it then be appropriate to send it to speedy instead of AfD, or bring the deletion to somebody's attention? I will also note that said user who removed the prod has made no comment on the AfD as of yet.

In a similar vein, there seems to be a real issue with people removing prods and not giving any reason. In that case, can the prod be replaced? MSJapan 05:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The principle is that PROD is only for uncontroversial deletions. So any controversy stops immediate deletion, regardless of whether reasons are given or not, or whether five days have elapsed or not. PROD-deleted articles can even be recreated without being subject to speedy deletion. That's what the policy is - personally, I'd favour some more stringent rules such as discounting the creator's opinion. Sandstein 06:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Would you like to re-phrase that, maybe as "discounting the creator's 'vote'"? Establishing notability often requires a creator to state and justify their opinion, which may be deemed valid. If it's not valid, that too will be obvious. It's not necessary to debar the creator to decide this. Btw, have you seen [[#Letting submitters rm {{prod}}]] above?JackyR | Talk 15:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

120 hours?

Not to bang on about this, but I'm still confused as to how (using today as an example) the prod category for June 2 has vanished by 0230 UTC on June 7, when there should still be 21 hours, 30 minutes of prods from June 2 patiently waiting for their 120 hours to elapse. Who flushes out the cat at midnight? Deizio talk 01:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

People with time-zone difficulties I suppose. Or those that get confused when they count to 5...which is easier than it seems when you're quickly counting '5' days: 2 — 3,4,5,6,7, ok, I can delete it. (Obviously wrong.) -Splash - tk 01:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The most easterly zone on earth is still barely into mid afternoon at 0230 UTC. And admins should know the story with UTC (and be able to subtract 5 from x without using their fingers). I enjoy flushing prods as much as the next man, but it's been a while since I found a correctly tagged / dated one that had actually got to 120 hours. If only the speedy backlog was attacked with such zeal. Deizio talk 01:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The old system (on the toolserver) didn't have this problem because the number of hours remaining was explicitly stated. How hard would it be to make some sort of template to calculate this now? Ardric47 19:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I gave it a try. I think that using Template:Prod-jn (which uses Template:Dated prod-jn under the hood) instead of Template:Prod does the job. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely the difficulty in counting to 5. I had a discussion with User:Drini about this a while back when I had just started the prod patrol WikiProject; he had started deleting some articles that were prodded on the 4th day, just before it became the 5th day. I had a hard time explaining to him that he was, in some cases, cheating articles of more than a day in prod-time. Prod specifies 5 days: I would say that if an admin doesn't want to check the time of the original prod, they should wait until day 6 (ie, June 8 for a June 2 prod) because then even if the prod went on at the very end of June 2nd, it would be at least 5 days later. If you're patrolling prods, though, it doesn't really matter: it's best not to work on June 2nd category on June 7th: by then, at least some articles might be getting deleted, and it's better to look at the whole list. Mangojuice^talk 15:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does 5 days seem quite short? For people who spend every day on here it's fine, but many people have real jobs. We can't just come every single day to check that our articles are still here. Even if we can we might have real world commitments. One of my articles was deleted as few days ago. I understand why someone would have deleted it, but I didn't even have a chance to defend it. Finally, no reason was given for the deletion, other than that the prod had expired. --Joshd 09:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

All you have to do is ask and it will be undeleted, no questions asked. · rodii · 12:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

In all reality, the 5 days is completely arbitrary. 120 hours is doubly so. To get sticky on a countdown, to me, is a little pedantic. As a corollary of WP:SNOW and WP:IAR, to stick to an arbitrary number for the sake of sticking to that arbitrary number serves little purpose. I'm perfectly content with 5 days, plus or minus a few hours. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 23:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Letting submitters rm {{prod2}}

A proposal: Anyone can remove a {{prod}} by itself. But the article creator isn't allowed to remove {{prod2}}.

{{prod2}} indicates that a second editor concurs with the deletion. The article creator alone shouldn't be able to override that. It should take at least one third party who wants to keep the article. If there's any further disagreement, AfD is necessary. This would be enough to speed up the deletion of articles considered of value only by their creators. --John Nagle 16:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this would be all that useful. I'm not a big fan of endorsed prods, they're extra work for what's supposed to be a streamlined process. This just doesn't seem like it would get used often enough to bother, even though the principle is sound. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

If the article creator disputes the prod, just take it to AfD. No big deal, and no instruction creep.--Srleffler 22:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree with Srieffler. Prod is fine as a quick preliminary to AfD, but as a whole parallel system would be a nightmare. JackyR | Talk 14:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is yet more instruction creep. Let's keep it simple. If a "prod" tag is removed and someone still wants the article deleted, the proposal goes through AfD (or the article can be speedied, if it's speediable). --Tony Sidaway 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Tony. Don't let this get bogged down with more and more lists of things to do. I know it seems that the article's creator is always going to remove the tag, but look at any Day 5 list at CAT:PROD. There are around a hundred articles every day that have been PRODded and not contested by anyone--not even the creator. Joyous! | Talk 15:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• Agree. There is no clear need for this. We must endeavor to protect PROD from the bureaucratic fate of its cousins AfD and CSD. Deco 10:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It also strongly encourages sock-puppetry. — Edward Z. Yang^(Talk) 00:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need a "rule" either, but if I say I agree with a prod and someone removes that, I would just revert them. Has anyone actually seen this happen? Also, I usually use {{prod2a}} so I can give extra justification, and I wouldn't want to see that removed. Mangojuice^talk 15:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Small change proposed

Normally, I would have been bold, but as this is official policy, I thought I'ld check here first before making the change... In the "Nominating a proposed deletion" section, point 3: is it allright if I add four '~' after the tag? We have to add them anyway when using this, and I often forget it when copying a tag. It would make my life (and perhaps of other users as well) easier, and I can't see nany disadvantages. Fram 14:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You are not supposed to add the signature after the prod tag. (Liberatore, 2006) 14:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear: I don't mean on the prod tag, but on the Prod Warning on someone's user page. Fram 15:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Point 3... My mistake, sorry. I have no problem with that, then. (Liberatore, 2006) 15:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a subtle point, but auto-adding 4-tilde signatures generally screws up editing the page where they are added(i.e. they become real signatures when the page is edited), and if they are in nowiki tags, then they don't work when you want them to. AFAIK, no workable solution has been found so-far. Feel free to expirment in your user space, but please don't do it here until you have a working model that has been throughly tested as not having the problems older solutions have had. Thanks for asking. JesseW, the juggling janitor 04:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave it alone, as I don't want to screw up pages, but I assumed that, since it seems to work quite well at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (how to... point 2), it could be done here in a similar manner. But as I'm not good enough at this yet, I'll leave it alone. If someone comes along who knows how to do this in a reliable way, be my guest! Fram 07:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JesseW is talking about a different thing (adding the four tildes in the template, while you are asking to add them here). I have added them. (Liberatore, 2006). 15:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgotten to reply before, although I noticed the change. Thank you very much! It makes life a bit easier... Fram 10:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you - sorry about my misreading. Yeah, adding a nowiki'ed 4-tildes to a copyable "template" that should have a sig is nearly always a good and helpful thing. My mistake. JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

A philosophical quandary

Here's the problem:

• User A creates a dictdef substub.
• User B slaps it a speedy tag.
• I (user C) can't easily find the article's offense from CSD, so I put it on PROD instead.
• Then out of blue comes user D, who from all guesses isn't a professional vandal or anything (less than five edits over a longer time, all of them, apart of this one, seemingly appropriate), and goes on to blank the entire article. No edit summary, nothing.

So what exactly was that D was doing? Simple vandalism? Well, article blanking is that, right? But it also didn't seem like vandalism, just a half-baked attempt at hinting "this article should be deleted". Argh!

My "common sense" indicator here should peg this on "just revert the thing and let it get deleted", but I'm being bugged by the "removing PROD notice for any reason" thing. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Well my gut says revert it because it's a page blanking which is vandalism. BJK 12:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Previous discussion here (see Vandal removing a prod tag -- what now? above for one example) has pretty consistently said that blanking is not a vote for keeping the article so reverting the blanking (with an appropriate edit summary) is acceptable. Less experienced editors sometimes confuse blanking with deletion. On a related note: I have seen page authors blank their article after it has been tagged as a prod. In that case, I've tagged it as {{db-author}} with a comment of blanked by creator after prod. It's always been accepted as a speedy delete. -- JLaTondre 13:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I've been pretty hardcore about not replacing a PROD tag in any circumstances, but the page-blanking issue has pretty much convinced me that exceptions can be made. So I would say reverting a blanking is OK, and I like JLaTondre way of dealing with creator-in-a-snit blanking. · rodii · 15:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this is probably fine, but I'd ask that if the blanking is done and not reverted for any significant time, the prod tag should NOT be put back. The tag needs to be there for 5 days to give people a chance to look it over... and I don't think changing the date or time is appropriate. It should be no big deal to send something to AfD, anyway.. PROD still saves plenty of time. Mangojuice^talk 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion summary should state prod reason

Could the guidelines be updated to ask deleting admins to state the reason for deletion (as given by the nominating editor) in the deletion log? I see many log entries that simply read expired prod or similar, leaving no clue behind as to the reason (and with prods there are no AfD discussion archives or similar to provide the explanation). Linton 00:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It already says that, and that's what admin deletion guidelines already say, IIRC. Getting people to actually do it is a different story. NickelShoe (Talk) 05:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Linton here. I like checking deletion logs to find out why something got deleted, and it annoys me that with prods I have no way of finding out. Or is there a way? See my comment in a new post below. Carcharoth 23:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor edits

A case came up today in which an article was prodded (rightly in my opinion) but the edit was marked as minor. This issue had never occurred to me before, but it seems to me that marking it minor might be construed as trying to "sneak" the proposed deletion past people who don't watch minor edits on their watchlists. It seems more transparent not to do this. Not sure if we need anything in the guidelines about such a "minor" issue (ha), but I thought I'd toss the question out there and see if anyone has any thoughts. So, thoughts? · rodii · 13:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Like for AfD, the nomination edit shouldn't be minor and the edit summary should clearly state that the edit is part of the deletion process. However, some people have the "mark edits minor by default" flag set, so if the edit summary is clear, I'd assume that was a mistake. (Liberatore, 2006). 14:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not concerned about that particular edit, mistake or not, but endorsing the general principle you lay out there. If you do something like this, it should be as visible as possible. Does this need a note on the project page? · rodii · 14:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The project page already says "Use an informative edit summary.". But yes, I'd endorse making that more precise. (Liberatore, 2006). 15:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, added. · rodii · 15:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

PROD on redirects

In patrolling CAT:PROD, I've come across lots of redirects that are marked with PROD. Technically, PROD is not supposed to be for redirects (it says so right at the top!) but generally I've been letting them slide. I know it's outside of policy to delete redirects via prod, but can someone tell me if there's a reason it would be a bad idea? Could we change that part of the policy? Mangojuice^talk 14:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Does the redirect still work with the prod in place? If it does, we may miss out on people who like the redirect to exist, but does not notice that it was proposed for deletion. On the other hand, if the redirect does not work with the prod, I think it conflicts with the idea of prod as a low-disruption process. Henning Makholm 14:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

If the prod tag is added properly, above the redirect, the redirect will not work. But this is no different from what happens with the {{rfd}} tag. Mangojuice^talk 15:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

However, for an RFD to be valid, it has to be listed at WP:RFD so even if the {{rfd}} is applied after the redirect it still gets a review & mistagged nominations will get corrected. Those that aren't listed at WP:RFD will eventually get noticed in Category:Redirects for deletion and either get rejected as malformed or listed correctly. -- JLaTondre 19:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

If a redirect is a candidate for deletion, we might want to provide fair warning to readers that it's been called into question, so putting it above the redirect makes sense. I would not suggest expanding PROD to redirects though. Deco 15:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion on this - see Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 3#Redirects. I still feel my comments at that time are valid. WP:RFD is low traffic (even less than prod) and the criteria for keeping redirects is different than articles. Redirects should be left to WP:RFD. Especially if the prod deleter isn't aware of issues like keeping edit history of merged articles for GFDL compliance and orphaning deleted redirects. -- JLaTondre 19:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JLaTondre; redirects don't take the same amount of time at RFD to decide as AFD does, and keeping them in one place makes it harder to slip one "under the radar". Sure, there's been a lot of CNR bruhaha over at RFD lately, but otherwise the traffic there doesn't seem in need of this fix/expansion of scope for PROD. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

PROD is broken and should no longer be a policy

I thought that PROD was great when it was on the toolserver. But now, it's dangerous and broken.

With just the categories, you can't readily see the reason for the deletion nor how many editors have reviewed it. This is absolulutely critical. You also can't see the whole list at once, only by day, or who made the PROD.

The whole point of PROD was that it was easy to review. I have pulled several PRODs (mainly to send to AfD). It's very much harder to review now. You have to go into each article to see what its about.

PROD needs to be removed as a process unless some fix is found. Herostratus 05:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As someone who has patrolled prod mainly since after the toolserver went down, I can say it's not that bad once you get used to it. I have popups activated, so I can float over the articles and at least get an idea what the article is about, even if it doesn't always show me the prod reason. You can see the whole list at once: Category:All articles proposed for deletion. You have to go into the edit history to see who put the prod on, although occasionally some people sign their comments. As to knowing if other editors have reviewed, there are the {{prod2}} and {{prod2a}} templates. Also keep in mind every prod is reviewed by an admin at the end anyway. Mangojuice^talk 12:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly not a bad thing to actually look at the article before figuring to delete it or send it to AfD, is it? And you had to go into the article anyway to remove the prod. I'm patiently waiting for the toolserver to come back, too, but this hasn't been a horrible adjustment on this end. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I do miss the toolserver version, though. Any chance of a status update? · rodii · 15:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Even without the toolserver, PROD is valuable -- every uncontested deletion via PROD helps reduce the clutter in AfD and saves the time and attention of editors which could be much more valuably used elsewhere. --MCB 17:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, yeah, but the whole thing worries me quite a bit. I mean, I've worked on speedies and I think an appalling number of them, like easily 10%, shouldn't even be deleted at all, certainly without a vigourous AfD. I don't think the deleting admins even read them - I've had two speedied articles with ((hangon)) tags deleted while I was working on them recently. It's all well and good to reduce the clutter in AfD but I worry. But I'm glad y'all are patrolling so I guess it's OK. Herostratus 01:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Prod'ing an article that previously survived AFD

What happens when an article which has survived AFD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Everything Linux) - is then {{prod}}'ed (happened to be while I was away so I didn't notice), and deleted? Am I allowed to recreate it? -- Chuq 08:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That should never have happened. I've undeleted it. Mangojuice^talk 13:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism or contested PROD?

I'm not sure whether this would be considered vandalism, or an actual contested PROD. For the moment, I've just rolled it back, but I'd be happy to take it to Afd if necessary. Joyous! | Talk 19:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, he did sound like he objected to the deletion.... 16:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

List of Prod'ed article

I have generated a list of articles nominated for deletion at User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary. It's ordered by date of nomination, and the reason is reported in the list. If it is considered useful, I can keep it updated by a bot. (Liberatore, 2006). 14:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

This is almost identical to the toolserver one, which is neat. I personally like it - how often is it updating at the moment? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the script is run manually. It could be scheduled to be run maybe 4 times a day or once an hour, I guess. (Liberatore, 2006). 15:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'd check w/developer types before scheduling it to run because I'm not sure how much of a server hit something like this is, but I like it a lot. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Great. This is absolutely useful and my opinion almost essential to making Prod work properly. I would absolutely schedule it run as often as the developers allow. Thanks! Wow! Herostratus 01:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Two or three times a day ought to be sufficient, but this is a GREAT resource. I was able to rescue several things from prod this way the other day, and have put it on my watchlist for when it changes...

Thanks folks! I have requested permission to run this function on a scheduled basis at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals#DumbBOT, fourth function, and I am quite confident it will be approved (Liberatore, 2006). 14:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on Talk page

I have seen deletion discussion on the Talk page happen after a prod; should this be mentioned on this page here? If the people watching that article agree that it should be deleted, then we have the same situation we have before with the prod, but without clogging up AfD. With amicable editors, it would be better for someone to bring it up rather than just removing prod, and they can still ultimately still remove it anyway if they want, but they shouldn't do it hastily. This would also result in more discussion about how to improve the article, again without the work that AfD adds. —Centrx→talk • 08:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[2]

I must have done something wrong here, and now it's getting sent to AFD on a technicality. I would suggest that this process needs a bit more work before we allow people to blindly follow it. --CharlotteWebb 20:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You removed the prod tag; so the person who PRODded it accepted what amounted to a challenge and took it to AfD. One of you disagreed with the speedy, one with the PROD. There was nothing else left. (Perhaps a lesson in not removing deletion tags from things you want deleted?) -Splash - tk 21:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Um... Splash, I don't see why replacing PROD with SPEEDY could be interpreted as "I want this to sit on AFD for a week (if the speedy deletion is rejected)". I suppose it's sort of a gamble, but people should exercise a bit more common sense in that area. --CharlotteWebb 13:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want to speedy something when another deletion process is already underway, add the speedy tag without removing the other deletion notice. That way if the speedy fails, the other process hasn't been interrupted in any way. AfD isn't that much slower than prod anyway, and prevents tags from being switched back and forth--which restarts the prod date and makes prod take longer too. NickelShoe (Talk) 13:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A comment on the usefulness of Prod

I have seen in various places in the above talk page people claiming that Prodding new articles is useless since the article's creator will just remove the Prod tag. I have found just the opposite to be true. I tend to go through the list of newly created articles, I have Prodded hundreds of them, and in probably 90% of them nobody ever removes the prod tag and they get deleted.

However, I try to do a decent job explaining in the Prod message why the article is being proposed for deletion, with links to wikipedia policies like No Original Research, or the notability articles like WP:WEB, WP:MUSIC. This lets the article's author understand why their article is up for deletion. If you just type in something like "non-notable", the prod tag will much more likely be removed. --Xyzzyplugh 15:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

You know, a few weeks ago I would have agreed with you, but lately it seems like a lot more of my prods have been deprodded than usually happens. See Ol' Mexico, Career abuse, Rage Cage, Rough Guide to Bluehorses, The Meatrix (decided not to AfD that one), Mia Lee, Ian Howard Brown, Sarfraz. This compared with only four articles that still have their prod tags. This is sketchy data, but maybe someone could do an analysis? Am I just unlucky? Mangojuice^talk 15:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't frequently prod articles, but I spend a lot of time notifying article creators about prodded articles (particularly if the prod reason doesn't link to the relevant policy or guideline). Since my edit summary usually includes a link to the article in question, I can quickly browse my contributions to see an idea of how many prodded articles are kept and how many are deleted.

Looking at [3]:

1. From Beyond (album) was deprodded and sent to AfD.
2. George K. Broomhall was deprodded, and might should be looked at for AfD.
3. Piyapong Pue-On was deprodded
4. Amateur Radio Club was turned to a redirect
5. I turned Portuguese-American to a redirect
6. Quidco was deprodded
7. Rpoints was deprodded

I count twenty that were deleted. That doesn't look bad to me, especially since I think some of the deprods were correct. NickelShoe (Talk) 15:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The figures will always be largely guesstimate, but FWIW I commented at WP talk:AFD about two months after the introduction of prod - the daily numbers of items on AFD had dropped by about 20% during those two months. Numbers are up again to their previous level now, but given that there had been a steady increase at AFD over the previous year, I'd say that numbers are still considerably down on what they would have been had we not got prod. Grutness...wha? 00:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It also seems possible that we're deleting more total articles than we would have without prod... NickelShoe (Talk) 04:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is an opportunity for me to plug and update (as of 30 July) the following statistics, largely bearing out what Grutness says:

AfD nominations over time, with 7-day moving-average.

So PROD seems to have bought us about 5 months in purely numerical AfD terms. Splash - tk 04:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The percentage of articles tagged prod that are then deleted depends on the tagger, as some people are more conservative than others. I used this old summary of ten days ago for some stats, and found out that 91.3% of the listed articles are now deleted. This includes articles that were contested and then deleted via AfD, but I guess these a minor fraction of the total. Given that the target of prod was to delete articles more easily in the obvious cases, I'd say it is quite effective (Liberatore, 2006). 10:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been going through the orphan, short and dead-end page lists over the weekend tidying some up and prod-ing others, and it seems to me that the majority of obviously but non-trivially bogus pages are created by a user who's never done anything else and hasn't edited anything since: so the odds that they'll return and delete the prod tag for bogus reasons seem slim. Mark Grant 13:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

prod2 and prod2a

I think that the prod2 and prod2a templates should be mentioned on the main template page as usage or even within the template itself to "let the word out." — RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib} 21:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Concur. --A. B. 07:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems that it's {{prod-2}} that should be mentioned, since prod2 and prod2a have been merge/redirected there. -- SCZenz 07:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

PRODing copyvios

Of the hundreds of backlogged copyvios, many of them would not warrant articles even if they were not copyright violations or if they were cleared as having permission. Therefore, I propose that PROD be explicitly allowed for copyvio'ed articles, as there is no reason for the articles to wait and try to be checked as copyvio's or have claims followed up when the article is not encyclopedic anyway. There is no reason to have a copyvio wait 3 weeks, have editors examine the website and try to verify that it is indeed a copyvio, and have people write out messages and explain how to e-mail wikimedia (and then have the e-mail sent and received), when the article is going to be deleted in a week anyway, or even be speedy deleted for notability assertions soon after. If an article would have been deleted under prod had it not been identified as a copyvio, then that possibility should still remain even as the page is tagged as a copyvio. Whereas AfD is a deletion process that may involve equally or more work than copyvio, copyvio checking involves more work than prod. So, the proposal is to add to section "Conflicts": "Suspected copyright violations that are otherwise uncontroversial deletion candidates may also be tagged and deleted under PROD separately from Wikipedia:Copyright problems" or "Suspected copyright violations for which there is some other reason to delete may also be tagged and deleted under PROD" or "Suspected copyright violations that are deletion candidates for reasons other than copyright violation may be tagged and deleted under PROD" or some combination of those. —Centrx→talk • 22:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I support this, as I've mentioned a couple other times before. Mangojuice^talk 23:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be forum shopping. You've already started a discussion regarding something very nearly identical to this one at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#A8 changes. It makes i)it much harder to work out where the discussion is taking place and ii)move things off the radar of those involved in the discussion. Please choose your venue, and work on it there. -Splash - tk 23:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by forum shopping, but this is a flatly different proposal and I did not start the discussion at CSD, if you would please actually read it or don't make wierd accusations. —Centrx→talk • 05:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Me3. I've been putting in a 'copyvio' as part of the prod reason. Guess I've been wrong... — RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib} 00:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

But it won't do to continue displaying text we know or suspect to be stolen. If you can work up a proposal that avoids that, then this might be more interesting. In the past, we've tried taking some of the entries at CP over to AfD if someone thought they would just get deleted, giving a link to the prior version and leaving it blanked. That gets it deleted in 5 days, and requires not much more work than a PROD, but gets it checked more thoroughly. -Splash - tk 00:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, a prod tag can be too easily removed by an editor. Not every editor puts articles they prodded on their watchlist. With WP:AFD or WP:Copyright problems you don't have that problem since it's not just the prod tag but also the listing of the article in wikipedia space. Garion96 (talk) 00:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The article would still be tagged as a copyvio and if the prod tag is removed it would continue in the current copyvio process. —Centrx→talk • 05:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the wording is confusing people. The idea is, for copyvio articles that also don't belong on Wikipedia in the first place, to use both PROD and {{copyvio}}. That way, the copyvio text is immediately removed, and if the PROD works, no need to check the copyvio. Mangojuice^talk 01:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah ok, I must have skipped over that part in the original message, now it makes sense. Garion96 (talk) 12:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that prod already can be used for suspected copyright violations, if they are also non-notable or whatever. It's just that if you are simply tagging it because it's a copyvio, we need to use the correct process for that.

Certainly you can prod a blanked article, it just means having to check the page history to see if you want to deprod and let copyvio run its course. NickelShoe (Talk) 02:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

In practice, the copyvio system seems to work well. Usually, when I see an article that reads like a copy of something else, I'll take a non-obvious phrase from the article and put it into Google, in quotes. If I get a hit, and the page looks close to the article, I'll tag it with a copyvio. Usually that deals with the problem. Once in a while, someone objects, usually because they were promoting their band or company by copying advertising matter into Wikipedia. Then I'll try to talk them into a rewrite, or go to "prod" or AfD as appropriate. But that's rare.

If we're going to put work into something, fix AfD so that it doesn't require so many manual edits. "Prod" is convenient in that you only have to make one edit; AfD requires three, and a copyvio requires two. Some tool support there would help. --John Nagle 02:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

This does not require any work beyond adding a sentence to this policy, which I drafted above. All it is proposing is to explicitly allow the use of PROD alongside an existing copyvio notice. Copyvio's are easy to tag, but after it is tagged, at a minimum someone checks the website again and at a maximum there are claims of permission that result in explanations and an e-mail send to wikimedia. In the end, even after that has happened over 2-3 weeks, the article might still get deleted for other reasons, when it could have been easily deleted in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 05:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

But what about the fact that a deleted article through PROD can be restored, no questions asked. Obviously that can't happen with a copyvio. This proposal would perhaps save time explaining to people about permissions and all. But if they give permission or ask questions concerning that, they for sure will also remove the prod tag. Garion96 (talk) 12:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it can be restored, with a copyvio tag on it, and listed at WP:CP in that case. And they may remove the prod tag, but every time they don't it eases the load. Mangojuice^talk 04:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Deprod by author without comment, and AfD

After I had mentioned 'Deprod by author' in my AfD nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RNFFSHF, MarkGallagher and I had a discussion about whether or not this is relevant at AfD. With his permission, I'm copying the discussion here from our user-talk pages to invite wider comment.

Just to make matters clear, I wasn't protesting the author's ability to deprod the article (RNFFSHF); anyone can remove a prod. If I prod or prod2 something, and it's deprodded without comment or improvement (like this was), especially by the author or an anon, I usually take it to AfD with an explanation of what happened, in case anyone finds the information useful in making their vote. (I would have posted this to the AfD, but it's been closed as speedy-delete and closed AfD's shouldn't be edited.) --ais523 13:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

G'day Ais523,

thanks for your message. My primary concern with regards to PRODded articles is that some people seem to get upset when the tag is removed, and constantly mention it on AfD (particularly when it's done by the author, usually complaining or listing it as a reason for deletion). Since the whole point of PROD is that anyone, no matter who they are or what their motives, can de-PROD any article, I'm sure you can understand why stigmatising the act of removing a PROD tag would be a Bad Thing. As such, I'm jumping on anyone who seems to be complaining. In your case, I'm sure you were acting in good faith, but I'm not sure why the de-PRODding of an article is relevant to its AfD, unless the de-PRODder stated a good reason (but if he did, why are you AfDing?). fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 13:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

For one thing, the information helps establish why I'm taking it to AfD rather than just prodding it. Although 'deprod by author' clearly isn't a deletion reason, most such cases do eventually get deleted, especially when there isn't a comment. It also establishes that the author is likely to discover the AfD (if they took the trouble to deprod it, they're likely to notice the AfD notice). Finally, it lets me just repeat the prod reason as the nom (especially if someone else added the prod), and in the case of deprod2 shows that there were previously at least two people who agreed with the deletion and thought it was noncontroversial. Finally, I think that deprodding without comment possibly ought to be stigmatised; edit summaries should be used for major edits and edits which require explanation, and deprodding without a comment is much the same as going to AfD and writing 'Keep' without an explanation. AfD comments without explanation are often disregarded by closers; why should deprods be any different? --ais523 14:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

thanks for your reply. Frankly, if anyone's silly enough to argue that you should have prodded something without even checking to see if you did, that ought to be their lookout. Also, authors arguing on AfD is another thing that is often criticised by AfDers who don't stop to think; I don't see why an AfD subpage would need to contain a warning that the author is likely to show up. As for "should be stigmatised", well, PROD is designed to be light-weight: a PRODded article is an article that nobody, not even its author, thinks is worth keeping. Requiring a reason for removal of {{prod}} tags means, a) we're no longer respecting the process's original aim; and b) given the "Wikipedia as Nomic" fans around the place, someone will notice and worry that PROD is becoming harder to oppose than it was meant to be and try to write extra policy and process to counteract that ... and, well, yuck. Hope this makes things clearer. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

While it would be nice if users would check to see if an article was prodded, I don't think mentioning the prod/speedy tag is prejudicial. Excluding it might be, however. WP:NOT a court of law. -- nae'blis 16:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It is relevant. It says "I know someone disagrees with this nomination, but I don't know why". If you know someone disagrees with the nomination, you should mention it. Nominations should be balanced and present all the information available. Hiding information is not the right approach. Complaining that someone removed a prod tag is not correct either, but indicating someone removed the tag without an explanation is not the same as complaining. -- JLaTondre 14:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think a different wording might be helpful? I usually start the AfD off as "contested prod" if it's been deprodded or reprodded at all, which I don't think really takes a side in the issue so much as it points out that it's being moved from a discussion-less process to a discussion one. NickelShoe (Talk) 15:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's helpful to have as much relevant information in the nomination as possible. Mentioning that an article has been prodded, or had the speedy tag removed twice in the last two weeks, is relevant and (IMO) not prejudicial one way or the other. -- nae'blis 16:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I like NickelShoe's approach of saying "contested prod"; well, I like it better than "that mean ol' author removed it without explanation!", which is a) needlessly prejudicial, and b) gives the impression that removing PROD is a Bad Thing, rather than the entirely appropriate action. On the same day as ais532 and I discussed this matter (sorry for jumping in late; it's been a busy time), I saw one user re-add a PROD tag and then head for AfD saying his purpose in taking it there was to avoid the author's illegal removal of the tag. Likewise, a common problem with people removing invalid speedy tags is some clueless individual from CVU re-adding the tag and saying "only an administrator may remove this!". Misconceptions about the simple procedures that are supposed to remove the difficulty and excessive process from Wikipedia editing end up corrupting those procedures. I think people complaining on AfD (or seemingly complaining) can stigmatise the action of removing PROD tags without a reason the PRODder believes sufficient (and let's face it, if you want an article deleted it would take one hell of a reason to satisfy you), leading to misconception leading to corruption leading to the Dark Side leading to Ashlee Simpson on everyone's iPod, and that would be bad. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 11:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I always say "contested prod" in a case like that. I like doing that for two reasons: (1) it sets the example that I always use PROD first for cases where it should apply, and (2) it reminds people that prod exists, and that contested prods have to go to AfD. Mangojuice^talk 13:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Why do contested prods have to go to AFD. Did I miss the memo? Kim Bruning 13:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course they don't! It's just a question of, when they do, what do you say about it. Mangojuice^talk 13:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

:-) Kim Bruning 13:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll say it... removing a PROD tag without an explanation is a bad thing, even if technically you aren't required to give a reason. If the remover doesm't explain, it's usually unclear why they removed the tag, and though they might have had a good reason for doing it, that's no help since they didn't tell anyone. In other words, if I thought an article should be deleted, someone said "no it shouldn't" and wouldn't say why... well I still think the article should be deleted. Discussion is helpful, simple negation isn't. Anyway I figured mentioning that the PROD was contested and a reason wasn't given is perfectly okay behavior... it lets people know that prod should be tried first, and that it's helpful to explain why you're removing a tag. --W.marsh 13:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. That's exactly how I see it. This came up recently in an AfD I proposed. — RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib} 14:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

No, removing a PROD tag without explanation is not a bad thing, in the sense of evil and a reason to be prejudiced against an article. It's just a less-than-optimally-helpful thing, like forgetting to leave an edit summary. The remover may be able to give a perfectly good reason why, but didn't know where to (for newbie), or that it was required (it's not!). Giving a de-PROD reason might help you decide not to take an article on to AfD, but once the article is there it really doesn't matter. Eliciting reasons is what AfD is for. JackyR | Talk 14:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

PS Totally agree with mentioning as "Contested PROD". As said above, raise PROD profile without stigmatising removal. JackyR | Talk 14:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

But the whole point of PROD is to reduce the number of AFDs and the problems associated with that. If a good reason is given for removing the PROD, there's no reason for me to nominate at AFD. If no reason is given, why wouldn't I list it at AFD? And all PROD did was slow down AFD, rather than reduce the load on it. So I see giving a reason as an important part of PROD. --W.marsh 14:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Er, maybe we're saying the same thing. Are you saying:

a) Removing a PROD without giving a reason is bad, because it's inconvenient and PROD/AfD would be more efficient if people gave reasons for deprodding?

or

b) Someone removing a PROD without giving a reason is an additional sign that an article should actually be deleted? And this should therefore be mentioned at the AfD?

Because (a) I completely agree with, and could be tackled with better guidance for those who find PROD on their articles. But (b) is mission creep. It would also require the PROD guidance to include the line "If you remove a PROD tag without giving a good reason, this will be considered prejudicial to this article should it appear at AfD." JackyR | Talk 15:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh no, I sign on to (a) for the most part. I believe that articles should be deleted or kept based on their own merits as articles, not based on the actions of people who've editted them. My point though is that people who remove PRODs without a reason should accept that doing so makes an AfD likely, where giving a reason might avoid it; but this is not out of vindictiveness at the PROD remover, it's because the person who adds the prod still hasn't heard a good reason the article should be kept. --W.marsh 15:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

What about changing {{prod}} to say something like, "To avoid confusion or further attempts at deletion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion" (without the bold, obviously)? It could use a little clarifying, but I don't want to make the template too much longer... -- nae'blis 16:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I know I'm jsut waltzing into the middle of a conversation, but (a) above is my opinion and I think the rewrite is a good idea. To me, the blank deprod is kinda "I have no real reason to keep it, but I hope you prod'd because you had no real reason to delete either." — RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib} 16:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think (not 100% sure) that I wrote the current wording. Anyway I'd support your addition, I think... though sometimes you actually have to see these things firsthand to decide if they're too much instruction bloat. --W.marsh 16:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think "...deletion, please explain why..." would be better as it is more direct and simpler, while we are at it. —Centrx→talk • 17:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for ProDs - please put reasons in edit summaries!

Please, please, please can all admins closing ProDs remember to add the reasons in the edit summaries. And can someone make some noise about this, or put a big warning notice on the closing ProDs admin guidelines, or even watch some ProDers and slap the wrists of those that forget to use the edit summaries correctly. The reason I am asking is because of the following case:

• While browsing Wikipedia I (somehow) ended up at Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-07-05. While reading that, I came across the entry on that page for Transfersome, and thought "that's funny", it's been created but there's a red-link there". So I tried to investigate further.
• The deletion log had the edit summary "deleted Transfersome (closing prod)". This is less than helpful.
• From looking at the entry on the "Articles for creation" page, I guess that the article was a copyvio, but I wondered how to confirm this.
• I thought of several ways to find out what happened:

(1) Admins can view the history of the page and "see" the prod notice being added.

(2) Non-admins can only view the deletion log edit summaries.

(3) For AfD, the discussion can be found by sticking the article name on the end of Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion. I believe it is also possible to look in the page history at AfD and see the moment where the entry gets added, and hence gets clues to the reason there.

(4) For ProD, because it is based on a category, there is no page to look at, and (someone please correct me if I am wrong) no record of the process outside the history of the article being ProDed. This is a key point, because once the article has been deleted, the article history is only accessible to admins.

This last point makes it doubly essential that admins do not forget to give the reason for the orignal ProD. This reason is only recorded in the history of the article itself, unless there is a separate log kept somewhere. Can someone please confirm this either way.

Oh, and the reason for the ProDing of Transfersome would also be nice. I dread to think what the person who submitted it to "Articles for creation" must have thought (assuming good faith on their part). It was created and then disappeared 6 days later with a strange "closing prod" deletion log edit summary. If I was a new user looking for the article I'd just created, that would really put me off. Carcharoth 23:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hang on. To the above add:

(5) I've just realised I could 'contest' the ProDing and ask for the article to be undeleted so I can view the edit history, and then I could agree with the reason and reProD it. Hmm. Somehow I don't think that is really what "any contested ProD should be undeleted" is for! :-) Carcharoth 23:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Good points. I don't think I've ever deleted a prod (as when I've looked most admins seem to delete them after 4.x days rather than 5, so none left to delete), but if I ever do I'll try and remember to do that. The reason given on the prod template for that article was "Advertising for a company's non-notable product. Google search for "Transfersome" turns up only some 900 results, a lot of which seem to be solely understandible by the Medical community, or are in German." Petros471 23:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found a current medical trial involving the product. I'm not sure what the guidelines are on medical products still being tested (I know some drugs being trialled have articles), but the actual science behind it seems interesting. To avoid dragging out a debate here, I guess I'm saying I'd like to ask for this article to be UnProDded and I'll nominate it at AfD to generate more discussion (unless someone wants to take the article under their wing now, or AfD it instead of me). Carcharoth 00:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for looking up the ProD edit summary for me! I'd still appreciate some more feedback from others around here on the more general issue of making sure deleting admins use edit summaries properly. Thanks. Carcharoth 01:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to include the reason in an edit summary, but I for one think it's unnecessary. If anyone wants to know and doesn't have access, they can ask, and any article deleted via prod is supposed to be undeleted if anyone requests it anyway. There are loads and loads of articles to delete via Prod, and the code for the prod reason requires several extra clicks to add into the summary, and admin time is valuable: have you seen CAT:ABL? It's bursting at the seams! Mangojuice^talk 04:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like you need more admins. Are the admins organised so that the really important stuff still gets done? I was reading the Wikipedia Signpost the other day, and noticed that the percentage of admins is lowest here on the English Wikipedia, which is understandable given the larger number of users. But the downside is that this large number of users constantly finds things for admins to do! :-) Carcharoth 09:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The complete prod rationale of deleted articles can be (usually) retrieved from the history of WP:PRODSUM. I know that digging an history is cumbersome to new users, but this (or a similar report) could allow the closing admin to use a standard delete summary (such as "expired prod, see history of WP:PRODSUM on the day before {{CURRENTDAY}} for rationale") (Liberatore, 2006). 07:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like an excellent idea. Let me see if I can find the rationale for the article I started this thread with. Carcharoth 09:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I found it here. But only just. The history there only goes back to 13 July. Is there a reason why it doesn't go back further than that? I looked at the history of the redirect at WP:PRODSUM, but no luck. Also, I couldn't find Wikipedia:PRODSUM - is it normal for "WP:X" abbreviations to not have a proper "Wikipedia:X" page as well? Carcharoth 10:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a bot-generated list, so it only goes back since when I started running the bot to produce it. As for the shortcut, AFAIK there is no official rule (Liberatore, 2006). 10:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks. I'll bring up the shortcut thing at the Village Pump here. I looked at Wikipedia:Shortcut, which is silent on the issue, but I guess WP:WOTTA is an example of why having an expanded version of the shortcut is always a good idea - less jargon. Carcharoth 11:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

One other thing. Mango said above: "I think it's a good idea to include the reason in an edit summary, but I for one think it's unnecessary." - this directly contradicts the guidelines on the project page: "If you agree that the article should be deleted, delete it giving an informative deletion reason, such as that given by the nominator, not just expired prod.". Can you understand why divergent practice like this is damaging to the credibility of such guidelines? I am tempted to go and find a random sample of prodded articles to find out how widespread the problem is. Edit summaries must be informative when carrying out deletions, as deletions place the page and page history out of the reach of non-admins. Carcharoth 10:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Mongo here. There is a huge backlog of admin tasks, and very time-consuming to put unique reasons on each deletion. There are usually 120 + articles to delete per day. I think that it is ok for non-admins to message the closing admin (or any other admin) to ask what the reason for proposed deletion was.--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 13:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Then someone needs to build consensus to change the guidelines for admins on this project page. At the moment, just having people ignore the guidelines due to pressure of workload is not really respecting the point of having guidelines. Carcharoth 14:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Considering the finger-wagging we gave users encountering PROD for the first time (above), about how they must include detailed reasons for their actions (and nice outcome to that discussion, btw), it's hardly credible that we're now saying those who close PRODs needn't do the same. Apart from anything else, PROD-closers are a smaller, experienced group who hang out on this page, so it's easier to inform them of guidelines than WP at large.

WP's mechanisms are designed to be (fairly) robust given its "staff" are all volunteers who can wander off when they like, for as long as they like; these mechanisms should not rely on an editor being available to answer questions subsequently (although it's nice if they can).

Pasting the original PROD reason into the edit summary is both obvious and in the guidelines: if we want to change that, we should go back to the guidelines and re-discuss. And it won't take much more time than, ahem, reading the article and talk page before deleting. Which you all do, right? ;-) JackyR | Talk 15:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Ditto everything JackyR just said. If you don't have time to paste a deletion reason into the log, don't delete the page. Let someone else who has the time do it according to the guidelines, and you won't have confused users pestering you looking for the reason Page X is gone. How does that possibly save anyone time, except from the "harass them until they go away" model of customer service? -- nae'blis 16:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've done a few prod deletions, I have to agree, this is trivial effort. I haven't been going into the code for the prod reason, just copying it as plain text, which saves me two clicks and a page load, so that's good. But you still have to check the page history, and actually look at the reason and the article, in case the deletion reason is kooky anyway. Still pretty efficient, really. Mangojuice^talk 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Support -- Paste reason given for prod into deletion summary field required. John Reid 13:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This isn't a vote. —Centrx→talk • 21:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

What?? Who voted? Or isn't this a discussion, either? John Reid 21:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Problem with removal of prod

I noticed that God's own county a redirect to yorkshire was proded and I attempted to remove it because prods are for articles and not redirects. I also decided to move the redirect in question to the article God's Own Country due to them being very similar. I have done both and the history section as well as the editing section confirms that to be the case but the page for the redirect itself still has the prod and the old target. Examining the history has shown that the prod and the target were not changed back later so I have no idea why they are still there. Finally, I tried saving the changes I made again and they appeared as they should (no prod new target) but as soon as I typed the term back into the search box everything that I removed returned with nothing in the history showing that it was reverted. Can someone look into this. Its fine now. Maybe it was cashed on my end. --My old username 06:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Reprod

Endorse prohibition against reprod. Don't bash somebody who innocently prods something that was prodded a year ago but reprodding undermines the noncontentious nature of prod and robs it of value. John Reid 13:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Informing the creators is being ignored

Crossposted message. Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Informing the creators is being ignored Garion96 (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Proposed for deletion for over five days

Is this category broken or something? Today, Magnetic Events inc includes this category, but when you go to the category page - the article is not listed. (I hazard a guess, the same applies to other articles it's just that Magnetic Events inc is an article I prodded myself).

Any idea what's wrong? Garrie 00:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It's probably because the job queue was backlogged when you checked the category; it's fine now. (The job queue is sort of like a backlog for Wikipedia's servers; the categories don't change instantly, but have to wait for the servers to get round to it.) It's also possible that the servers didn't notice the change in prod-status of the page because they didn't have to reparse the page between when the article was prodded for less than 5 days and when you looked at it (most likely because nobody edited it and the cached version was used for views). Hope that helps! --ais523 16:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed policy: Template prod

From a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Templates for deletion I have created a draft policy for situations in which templates may be proposed for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion/Template prod and discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Template prod. Thank you. —dgies^t_c 17:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion after contested proposed deletion?

The policy states that a contested proposed deletion should be listed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if one sees a case, but also that Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion take precedence over WP:PROD, This does not explain clearly whether or not a page can still be nominated for speedy deletion after the prod tag has been removed. --Tikiwont 14:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, yes, the policy should say that articles where prod has been removed can still be speedies (in the same way an article on afd can still be speedied). Tizio 14:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge

As discussed on WP:LAP and the talk page of the deletion policy, said policy has been rewritten to clarify it and reduce redundancy and divergent policies. As a result, everything covered on this page is also covered there. Therefore, it is suggested that this page be merged and redirected. >Radiant< 14:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh... merged and redirected to what? I don't see a mention of WP:PROD on WP:LAP. Perhaps you meant to post this elsewhere? Puzzledly, --MCB 17:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The information in WP:DEL is lacking much of this page, and while I feel this page should be linked to from there, redirecting this doesn't seem practicle. As the recent poll re ATT has shown, there is not a lot of consensus about merging overlaping policies in to omnibus policies. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that WP:DEL lacks the information in this page; what in particular are yout alking about? I don't think that the WP:ATT situation is quite relevant here, since it's a very different issue. >Radiant< 08:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

So far as I can sew WP:DEL contains only a short summary of WP:PROD, nor do I think that merging all or most of Prod's content into del would be agood idea. i oppose any such merge & redir at this time. DES ^(talk) 20:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Are you missing anything in particular? >Radiant< 08:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the case of WP:ATT is very relevant here - another group of policies that are undergoing a merge despite a lack of discussion or apparent consensus. I can see no discussion on WT:LAP or WT:DP and indeed it took me a fair while to find the 'discussion' here supporting it. I would have thought that after the shambles that was WP:ATT people would have been more careful about merging important core policies and encouraging the widespread discussion that should occur with such a change. I don't agree with this merge at all. The information at WP:PROD about what to do in a conflict is much more specific. Aside from that, it's much harder to find information about proposed deletion when it's been condensed into a sub-sub-heading on the deletion policy page. Quite frankly, I don't see how the solution to your claim that there are '...complaints that the deletion policies were too lengthy, complex and convoluted...' is to merge everything. Funny, I seem to recall a similar argument with WP:ATT. If policies are indeed being complained about because of their lack of clearness, then the solution is to improve them individually to clarify them, not to mass-merge the smaller pages into a giant one (and I suspect in the process losing meaning and information). User:Veesicle 04:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• I do not think a merge is wise in this instance. There is simply too much information associated with each deletion process to merge them into Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Thanks to Radiant!, the latter underwent a rewrite not long ago that produced a page that is shorter, clearer, and more accessible. WP:PROD is only one out of a dozen deletion processes. Merging just one deletion process into WP:DEL would unnecessarily overemphasie that one process in the Deletion policy page. Merging all of them would bloat WP:DEL way beyond its previous (think February 2007) state. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 08:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

Hmm, so if an editor removes the prod tag, you mustn't add it again?-Empyrycal 06:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes; see the "Conflicts" section. Sandstein 07:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou ^^-Empyrycal 09:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we delete this policy

It would be better if we just use Afd instead of PROD. This gives non involved parties a chance to put their two cents into articles to try to save them. --Sefringle 22:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Non involved parties already have a chance, they can remove the prod notice and hopefully also improve the article in question. AFD is already overfull. Garion96 (talk) 01:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

This was created to deal with the simple, obvious cases and reduce workload on AFD. Anyone can keep an eye on prod and improve, rescue, or nominate for AFD cases that merit it; see Wikipedia:WikiProject proposed deletion patrolling and Category:Proposed deletion. GRBerry 01:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I just take comfort in the fact that prodded articles can be recreated. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

What would probably improve this process is listing these articles on the appropriate subject-specific deletion lists, where the specialists would see them and recognize who is important. This would be helped enormously if the people who prod'ed wrote informative summaries. Not something like "It appears to me that the subject of this article isn't notable enough" but "non-notable Andorran violinist". This is particularly true of some of the more frequently occurring areas, such as wrestlers: "NN wrestler" directs attention to those who know, and the rest of us know we can safely ignore. Probably at least 25% of the current AfDs would be appropriate for this list, as they involve only a small amount of discussion. DGG 05:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)