Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 46

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Diffs for proposals

This page is prone to endless debates about proposals that fail at the first hurdle. Would people mind if I amended the edit notice to include at least point three from the section at the top of the page, by requiring proposers of new criteria to link multiple AFDs or MFDs from the last week that would have been speedied by their proposed criteria? ϢereSpielChequers 13:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The linking thing seems a bit wonky. I wouldn't mind anything that anyone could come up with to slow down the endless proposals, though. What about a specific sub-page? (Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/proposals?)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the benefit would be of a designated subpage, it wouldn't get the same watchers for a start and how would one steer proposals for new criteria to it? As for why diffs are useful, if someone can't find recent AFDs or MFDs illustrating their opportunity to add more speedy deletion criteria, then we know their idea won't fly. ϢereSpielChequers 15:58, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with WSC. If you cannot provide links to at least a couple of recent XFDs, there is no point of further discussing the proposal, so requiring those diffs to be provided might limit the amount of proposals to ones where the proposing user can actually demonstrate the need for the change. Regards SoWhy 16:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible change to G11 (spam)

I have a thought on revising G11 (spam) to be more objective:

A new article about a company, organization or product that is unsourced or whose only source was written by said organization, company, or product AND that said article provides a link or any form of contact information.

Since anyone using Wikipedia for spam will provide a link or contact information for what they're advertising, this should insulate well-meaning new editors. Consider this an early first zeroth draft. Any thoughts? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 19:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of making G11 more objective as currently there is a judgement call between promotional and excessively promotional. There is a problem with the written by bit as we usually don't know. Of course we assume and we may usually be right, but at present it doesn't matter whether the article is written by a company, a subcontractor of that company or indeed a fan. Even if we broadened "written by said organization, company, or product" to "written by said organization, or someone commissioned by said organisation" we'd still be creating a loophole which would allow editors to decline speedies because they were fans not current employees. As for the contact details aspect, it depends on the product sold. A G11 article about a cigarette or chocolate bar would be highly unlikely to contain any contact details as the manufacturer doesn't sell directly to the public. ϢereSpielChequers 20:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I also like the idea of making that criterion more objective. The second clause, however, would appear to contradict existing practice since the majority of our notable WP:CORP articles since a link to the company's website in the references section is routine. That reference arguably meets your "contact information" rule. I don't have a better idea, though. Rossami (talk) 20:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Adding that any negative information about the subject disqualifies the article from this criteria perhaps? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 21:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Some samples from the last couple of hours:

So, this criteria seems like it would stamp out most spam, but some might get missed. The American Unit, in particular had a lot of sources, but a lot of business journals and the like. Adding a business journal as a self-source would make things complicated. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 21:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

we will never find a criterion that stamps out 100% of spam, and simultaneously fails to delete promising articles. What I'm,much more concerned with here is the probability that this criterion would remove promising articles. First, as Rosaami indicated, calling something spam because it includes the web site is nonsense, because an article on a business or the like is supposed to include the site if there is one. And as for the street address, though it does not normally go in the article, there is a specific place for it in the infobox. Second, Calling it spam because it does not list third party sources is wrong, in both directions; very often the sources are perfectly obvious and can easily be added, so at the most this would be a reason for prod--and prod is what normally does happen in such cases. The Wikipedia rules for sourcing that seem so obvious to us are not that obvious to outsiders. Even for unsourced BLPs, something potentially much more dangerous to have around, we adopted the rule of sticky prod to provide 10 days for someone to find them--and about half of such do get found in that period. And very often just the company website is enough to indicate the very high likelihood of clear notability for a company. Nor will it remove commercial spam very well--the professional pr writers are very adept at finding ostensible 3rd party sources that nonetheless are not truly independent or substantial. Third, such an article if about a company or whatever that deserves an article can often be fixed--the current criterion includes that the article must be unfixable by normal editing--which includes removal of inappropriate material. The stuff that is G11 spam, is usually such because there is no core of encyclopedic content or that too much rewriting would be needed. Before we adopt any rule of this sort,we should examine it on a sample of not 4 or 5 , but several hundred cases. If we were to have such a rule, it would go much more on the nature of the content than such matters as unreferenced.
I'm as concerned about spam as anyone--I spend most of my time here dealing with it. But I'm also concerned at the variability of our G11 and G7 decisions for organizations. There are too many admins here who don't want to keep an improvable article, because they want in some way to punish the person with COI who did such a bad job of writing it. DGG ( talk ) 00:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The problem is when you get an article about a company that passes A7, but that is so promotional that there would be nothing left once all the promotional language was removed. When every sentence is full of flowery marketing speak, and there is hardly an objective word present, what choice is there? At that point it either needs to be deleted, or written from scratch thereby rewarding the blatant COI POV pusher... Clearly we shouldn't use deletion as a punishment, but its sometimes the only reasonable result. Protecting an article with a single reliable source, but where every sentence is blatant advertising doesn't seem wise. Monty845 01:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
My approach to this depends on the apparent importance of the subject: if the company is important enough, I will stubbify and rewrite. It's really quite easy: one or two sentences is enough for a viable stub, and a stub other than a BLP does not need sources. Extensive rewriting to make a decent article is of course harder--I used to aim at one a day, now I do maybe one a week because of the increased amount of promotionalism that needs dealing with quickly. DGG ( talk ) 01:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of established articles - should there be a time limit?

Lately I've stumbled across a number of articles that have existed on Wikipedia for many years that are suddenly speedy-deleted (in my view, typically inappropriately). For example, see True Religion. I restored this article and deleted two or three peacock sentences, but it has $360 million in annual revenues and stores in 50 countries and is an article that obviously should have been cleaned up instead of deleted. Thinking about this general problem, it seems crazy to me that an article that has been on Wikipedia for seven years is likely to be an appropriate, uncontroversial deletion target. Has a time limit ever been proposed for ad/non-notability/etc categories (as opposed to attack pages and copyright violations, which should be deleted on site) so that there is at least five days' notice through PROD before articles that have been around for years are deleted? Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:06, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Support as to G11. G11 is by far the most vague deletion criteria, and a time limit on that one would reduce the risk of it getting used inappropriately. Generally I think a better approach is to help educate admins on proper speedy deletion procedure so that they stop making inappropriate deletions. Has anyone left a note on that admin's talk page letting them know of the error and explaining why it was a bad choice for G11? Monty845 17:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support, except for U1, G6, G8 and G10. Copyvios can be blanked, with everything else the risk of incorrect deletions outweighs the occasional benefit of finding an old article that genuinely qualifies for speedy. I've caught fellow admins speedying per A7 articles that had survived AFDs before now, so yes I'd agree to this reform. ϢereSpielChequers 22:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
I would not be in favor of a firm rule. I do not see how these are any different from new articles, for which an equal effort should be made. For G11, Wikipedia is overloaded with promotional articles entered several years ago , when we were not properly looking out for them, that never would be accepted under current standards. Many of them can be rewritten, or at least improved considerably, and I have begun doing it as I come across them, but some of them are as hopeless as some of the new ones . (for the article you restored, you added no third party sources even though they are easily findable in GNews; this is not my idea of a satisfactory rescue.) A7 has a somewhat different problem: our standards of notability have changed in various directions for various types of articles, and something which seems to clearly show no importance may well have sources for them, so an attempt should almost always be made to find sources for notability. For copyvio, the advantages of blanking apply equally to new articles. That admins speed an article that has passed an AfD is a different problem--possibly we should find some of forcing the history to display before the deletion can proceed.
For the more general question of inconsistency between admins, the solution is education in public. We should abandon the rule that we must consult with the deleting admin, thus facilitating restoration when one of the two admins thinks it justified. We should still require notice, because the notices should appear on the talk p. both so the deleting admin can contest it at AfD, or that the message will be communicated visibly. But when it's a persistent practice of an admin, the only good solution is to bring the errors to deletion review, instead of just restoring them, and let us all see them. The reason this is so infrequent is because Del Rev unfortunately has often not overturned speedies on articles that would clearly pass speedy, but equally clearly not pass afd. The standards there can of course be changed the way any practice can be changed, by greater participation; in this case, participation of people who do not speedy deletion on the basis of I don't think its a supportable article at AfD. DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Hashtag ABJproblems

My article is intended to inform people about the Ultimate Scavenger Hunt and help my team gain points, please do not delete my article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by USHkris9 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC) Note: I believe this user is talking about Hashtag ABJproblems, THE USH! (Ultimate Scavenger Hunt!), which was speedy deleted under A7 earlier today. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

  • USH, thanks for joining Wikipedia. Could you please provide some background on the Ultimate Scavenger Hunt you refer to? Since the page was deleted, I obviously can't see it, so it would help to know what the page was about. Also, when you post, please place ~~~~ at the end, which will place your name on your post. Thank you, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Well, since I can see it I looked at it. It's an article about a scavenger hunt at a high school, with absolutely no indication of significance; it is indeed intended to promote participation by the eds.classmates. There is no way in which something like this is a fit subject for an encyclopedia , and it was rightfully deleted. I urge you to contribute more usefully, and I suggest you start by adding sourced material to articles in your field of interest. (And, btw, the place to have asked this is the p. of the deleting admin, User talk:Gogo Dodo, who would no doubt have given you the same advice; I've told him about this disucssion in case he wants to add something. DGG ( talk ) 01:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirects to itself?

I find it REALLY annoying when an article redirects to itself. Could something be added for that? If there already is something, and I missed it, I'm sorry... Youngril 23:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If an article redirects to itself, without an intervening redirect, the link is bold. If it points to a redirect it's a different issue. There are ways to catch that, but they're not automatic. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Circular redirects are already, well, not forbidden but an editorial problem to be fixed immediately when noticed. It should never happen but sometimes gets missed when cleaning up after a merger or other major change to the pages. Rossami (talk) 02:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Correct. They are certainly not a problem for CSD. Usually the problem can be fixed by redirecting it to the proper target and therefore this is the correct solution. Regards SoWhy 20:24, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
If page A redirects to page B, and page B redirects to page A, we could delete both under G8 if neither one could reasonably be redirected somewhere else. Nyttend (talk) 13:52, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Three new criteria for speedy deletion

I think that this new criterion should be added for speedy deletion, in order to deal with various issues on Wikipedia which result in many articles being PRODded when they should be deleted straight away. Here are the criteria:

G13. Unambiguous support of morally repugnant views.
Any pages which unambiguously:
  1. Condone, advertise, or support the views of individuals or organizations who perform crimes against humanity or acts of terrorism,
  2. Condone, advertise, or support the performance of crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism themselves, and/or
  3. Intend to incite the reader of the page to perform the said actions,
shall fall under this criterion. This criterion is not applicable to pages which cover the topics of terrorism and crimes against humanity in accordance to Wikipedia's policy on writing articles with a neutral point of view. The definitions of "crimes against humanity" shall be according to the definition provided in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal court, which is available in the lead section of this Wikipedia page, and the definition of "terrorism" shall be the one which has been mostly accepted by the international community with some disputes with regard to applicability to nation states, available here.
A11. Words, organizations, and religions which have been clearly been made up in one day.
Articles which discuss obvious neologisms, organizations, or religions, which have clearly been created and have existed for only a short period of time, for which the scope of knowledge of the concept is limited to an extremely small group, and in a fashion which makes it inherently impossible for reliable sources to give significant coverage (e.g. the word "kiurreqhdqq" made up by a small set of students in one fifth-grade classroom), shall fall under this criterion. Any articles which can credibly indicate why the subject of the article is important outside of the context of the extremely small group in which they originated shall not fall under this criterion and are eligible to be nominated for a proposed deletion, or, if criteria for the proposed deletion are not met, a full articles for deletion discussion.

:A12. Articles that state clear logical impossibilities.

Articles whose sole purpose is to advertise logical impossibilities shall fall under this criterion. "Logical impossibility" shall be defined as everything which contradicts established and uncontroversial common knowledge (e.g. "the Earth is round"), obviously false political offices (e.g. the President of Japan), false holdings of actual political offices (e.g. Ui Reqqq is the President of Mexico), false holdings of false political offices (e.g. Bob is the current King of Argentina) The definition expressly excludes religion, for which logical impossibility is extremely subjective and untestable. The domain of applicability for criterion shall specifically exclude all articles which treat logical impossibilities with a neutral point of view.

I believe that these will greatly reduce the load on AfD by eliminating all of the articles which can be caught by this broad net, and use AfD for its original purpose of bringing community scrutiny to more contentious deletion discussions. Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 19:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC) e.


And a fourth criterion

:G14. Mislabeled official-status pages.

Pages marked as policies or guidelines when they have no official status and are written with the aim to promote or incite vandalism, breaches of copyright law, misrepresentation the purpose of Wikipedia, divisive behavior on the encyclopedia, or violation of actual policies, may be deleted under this criterion. Bona-fide attempts by users to write policies do not fall under this criterion - the tag on such pages is to be removed and replaced with the more appropriate essay tag.

Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 19:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

A11 To the extent not already covered by Criteria A7 or G3 Hoax, Neologisms can be tricky to determine if they are notable, there is no bright line and so aren't a good candidate for a CSD criteria.
A12 Criteria G3 Hoax already adequately covers this.
G14 Criteria G3 Vandalism covers this, a proposed or claimed policy that doesn't rise to the level of clear vandalism should be discussed not summarily deleted.
G13 It seems like the applicability of the criteria would be in the eye of the beholder. It would be an invitation to delete potentially controversial articles. Is this type of article even a common problem? Monty845 20:11, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand what CSD is about. The policy explicitly is designed in a way so that the criteria are not "broad nets". Anything that needs an admin to make a decision that might replace a discussion at AFD is not a valid criterion for speedy deletion. As Monty says, G3 covers both the proposed G14 and A12; A11 was proposed and rejected multiple times, please consult the archives for very very very long discussions as to why that's not a good idea. As for the proposed G13, if they really only serve to disrupt, G3 covers them. But as Monty says, I really doubt those are a common problem and the top of this very page says that new criteria have to be for pages frequently deleted at XFD - to an extent that XFD cannot handle it anymore without the criterion. None of your proposed criteria fit the requirements laid out at the top of the page (G13 fails #1, #2 and #3, A12 and G14 fail #4 and A11 fails #1 and #2). Regards SoWhy 20:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I have retracted A12 and G14. However, as for A11, I know that neologisms in and of themselves have been discussed and consensus has not been found to support the issue of that becoming a criterion for speedy deletion, but my criterion is different. It specifically defines a line which a term has to cross (ability to be covered by reliable sources) which does not include the whole category of "neologism" but only a subset. As for G13, "crimes against humanity" are by definition covered in international statutes, and while the international community has not agreed on any set definition for terrorism, a good definition for the purposes of this criterion would be [1]. Both are clear-cut, mostly accepted by the international community, and are hence not a broad net for deleting everything. Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 20:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
An admin reviewing a speedy request cannot judge whether something might be covered by reliable sources - that's why we have discussions in the first place. I understand what you intend to cover with that criterion but the wording might encompass any term that the reviewing user simply doesn't know. If the term is clearly made up in a disruptive way, G3 covers it. The rest can be handled by PROD and AFD. Regards SoWhy 16:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

G13 is redundant to G11. Promotion can extend to POVs, see WP:PROMOTION. →Στc. 20:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose due to risk that these might become broad nets. Also once you start needing to check reliable sources to see whether something should be deleted then you really need to use AFD or prod, not speedy. "Unambiguous support of morally repugnant views." One persons morally repugnant view will be different to another, if we implemented this and then re-staged the image filter debate we would risk having both sides delete user pages setting out the case for the other's position. As it is we already do this sort of deletion for pages advocating paedophilia; If you are hoping to treat other views in a similar way you would really need to be specific as to which views should be unacceptable here. Consider the endless arguments as to who is or isn't a terrorist re various national and religious conflicts I think we need to be very cautious here. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the neologism one, but in practice we shouldn't do this as we've had recent and very contentious neologism deletion debates - speedy is for instances where it should be uncontentious for an admin to delete. ϢereSpielChequers 21:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I have changed the definitions. They are now extremely precise and based upon international law or what is almost international law with some debates on applicability. Remember, these are just draft proposals.Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 21:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Can you provide some examples of AfD discussions, which resulted in article deletion, that would meet your proposed criteria G13? Monty845 21:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
MFDs would also be acceptable as examples of things which would have uncontentiously have been deleted by these extra criteria. However I'd add that these various proposals entail a lot of extra complexity, and the speedy deletion rules are already too long and overly complex. Really we should be aiming to make them simpler, and at a minimum every change that adds a sentence should remove at least as much verbiage. So to add whole paragraphs you would need not just to demonstrate that such uncontentious deletions were indeed uncontentious, but also that they were already common enough to justify adding these clauses, and that there were less frequently used clauses which could be removed in order to make room for them. BTW AFD's role is not just "bringing community scrutiny to more contentious deletion discussions" Originally all deletions went through that sort of process in order to see if there was a consensus for deletion. AFD remains the default process for deleting articles. CSD is just there for some tightly defined types of deletions where the community has come to a consensus that admins can be empowered to delete such articles. That's why it isn't a problem that many AFDs are actually quite uncontentious. ϢereSpielChequers 22:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I have found AfDs which fall under G13:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wer900 (talk • contribs)
The first of those was in 2007, the title was kept as a redirect so that needed an AFD - speedy deletion rarely leaves redirects behind. The second was deleted in 2008 but could have been speedy deleted per G7. How many examples can you find so far this month? We are halfway through April 2012, if you can formulate a clear simple rule that would have enabled several April deletion debates to be pre-empted by a speedy then it might be worth seeing if we can incorporate such a change without making the rules as a whole more complex. But if the only effect would be to speedy one article every few years then it is much better to leave those sort of things for AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 09:19, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

This proposed G13 is unworkable. CSD criteria must be instantly recognizable by any responsible editor reading the page. They must be self-evident and not require detailed prior knowledge. We are not all lawyers who have a deep understanding of any statutes, much less the international definition of a "crime against humanity". Anything requiring this level of detailed knowledge also requires group discussion.
The proposal for A11 fails because as individuals we are remarkably bad at identifying things which "have clearly been made up in one day". A number of articles have been nominated for deletion on that basis and discovered to be legitimate, though obscure. This is the same reason why hoaxes are explicitly not speedy-deletion criteria. The only ones that are sufficiently obvious to qualify for this criterion already qualify for deletion as vandalism. Rossami (talk) 03:41, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

  • These are all way too subjective to be speedy deletion reasons. These are all excellent reasons to give for an AFD, though.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The proposed G13 is completely unsuitable. Leaving aside the issues of interpretation (it isn't reasonable to expect the reviewing admin to be familiar with international criminal law, for instance) this situation simply doesn't arise frequently enough to warrant a CSD criterion. Even the least frequently used criterion (A5, if anyone's interested) gets over 100 deletions a year. Pages supporting war crimes don't appear at a rate of anything like one a week. A speedy deletion criterion for made-up concepts would get a lot more usage and is frequently proposed, and I would support such a thing in principle, though I don't like the wording of this one. Hut 8.5 11:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Rewriting proposed criteria for speedy deletion

G13. Support of terrorism, violence, hatred, and crimes against humanity.
Any page which defends or condones terrorism (defined as "actions specifically designed to induce shock or fear") or crimes against humanity (defined as "systematized and non-tranient commission of violent acts for political aims") on account of racial, ethnic, cultural, tribal, political, and/or religious factors, defends or condones the organizations of individuals who commit these actions, or attempts to incite hatred or violence against a particular racial, ethnic, political, cultural, tribal, or religious group, shall fall under this criterion. Pages covering these actions with a neutral point of view shall be specifically excluded from this criterion.
A11. Words, religions, organizations, or concepts created in an extremely short period of time without hope of coverage by reliable sources.
If an article covers a subject of the title, knowledge of which is limited to an extremely small group in which it originated, and which clearly has no hope of being covered by reliable sources and which gives no indication of importance at all, shall fall under this criterion. If an article can demonstrate credibly the importance of the term, it does not fall under this criterion. No page, even technical or academic terms, falls under this criterion if it can demonstrate importance outside of the extremely small group it originated in or is attested to in reliable sources.

The new definition for G13 covers many, many more articles (at least a few hundred) and very likely even more PRODs. The new A11 definition is more constrained, specifically excludes technical terms, and requires a clear impossibility for a term to be covered by reliable sources; it does not just say "neologism."Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 22:36, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Even after rewrite, these two proposals fail to satisfy the requirements for a good CSD criterion. The proposal for G13 excludes itself by definition. The correct repair for a page that can be written in a neutral tone is to do just that, not to delete it. (Or, if the title itself is problematic, to redirect the title to a better, more neutral title.) The definitions of things which qualify are less specific and no longer require a law degree to recognize but at the expense of being more subjective. The current wording would result in speedy-deletion nominations for any page that someone thought positively defended the Gulf War, pretty much any page about Israel or Palestine and, well now that I think about it, almost any page on any armed conflict in the world. No matter how clear the situation seems to you or I or how neutrally the page is written, someone will accuse the side they don't like of those sorts of actions. It might be appropriate to delete the article but that does not mean that it should be speedily-deleted.
    A11 still fails for the same reason that "hoaxes" fail - as individual editors, we have a poor track record of making the kind of distinctions required. Too many pages are nominated at AfD for exactly this kind of reason and are discovered during the discussion to be real and significant, though obscure. Rossami (talk) 02:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
What of the pages which do now qualify as G1, G12, or A7, but still have political messages? If someone is creating a page which unambiguously supports terrorist organizations, Islamophobic organizations, or the like, and inciting terrorism, hatred, or crimes against humanity, should it have to go through the full AfD process or even be seen for a few days while it is nominated for a PROD?Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 22:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
If it does not fall under G10 (attack pages), G11 (spam) or G3(vandalism/hoax) and nobody performs an wp:IAR deletion, then such a page would indeed end up at AFD/PROD. However, this would only be a problem if it happened regularly, as somebody said we don't make CSD criteria for situations which arise once or twice a year. How many AFD's/PRODs of such pages can you find dating from 2012? Yoenit (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
  • why this is completely wrong in both principle and application
    • A11, original version, or in its revised version, "clearly been made up in one day" is too vague a criterion--clearto whom? there are 700 active administrators. The term we use otherwise is unambiguous, nd anything unambiguously of this nature is already deleted as vandalism or test page. Words, phraews, memes, jokes, etc. should not normally be deleted speedy as made-up, because made-up in cases like those tends to mean "I personally have never heard of it" Very few of these ever reach AfD, and they tend to have snow closures, which isn't much of a burden. Of all the things we have to concern ourselves with getting rid of, these are by far the l3east troublesome.
    • G13 no matter how worded is an offense against NPOV. A page about the purposes and goals of a terrorist organisation can both advocate their views, and describe them. All we need do, as for any promotional article, is remove the advertising--and it would be exactly the same as if they were out to advocate the brotherhood of mankind. Too many things have been called terrorist. some countries have a very broad definition of crimes against humanity, which tends to mean crimes against the part of humanity that they consider all reasonable people should affiliate with--which is a clear matter of bias. We already have far too many decisions showing some sort of bias, and a rule like this no matter how worded would encourage to it. Rossami gives a few, and I can think of others. It's the totalitarian definition of free speech--free speech for all except those who would destroy the established society. Articles intended as abusive of defamatory are already well dealt with by speedy, and whether what they abuse is good or bad is irrelevant to their unsuitability for an encyclopedia.
      • Describing terroristic views neutrally is different from supporting those views, which to some extent is already covered by G11 (unambiguous advertising or promotion). I completely oppose terrorism, but G13 would be too subjective and too open to interpretation. It also says that pages describing terroristic views neutrally are specifically excluded. ChromaNebula (talk) 13:47, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
    • The real problem at AfD is not those things which clearly need to be deleted. It's the ones that aren't clear. To the extent there's a burden of too many AfDs , it's the ones that are nominated for deletion when they could be improved. To reduce the burden on AfD , require WP:BEFORE--then the stuff that really does have no sources for notability & no hope of improvement or merging will be obvious & easily deleted, and the others won't be nominated. DGG ( talk ) 04:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Reforming AFD by making WP:Before mandatory sounds like a sensible move to me. ϢereSpielChequers 12:20, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed changes to the criteria for speedy deletion

I would like to propose some changes to the criteria as follows:

  1. Merge A9 into A7. The two are very similar, as they both deal with notability issues.
  2. Merge U1 into G7. The two are very similar, so why have a separate criterion for userspace?
  3. Expand G12 to include any page that could get Wikipedia into legal trouble, including files meeting criteria F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F9 or F11. Those F-criteria deal with copyright and licensing issues, just like G12. Oh, and there's something else the speedy deletion criteria need to cover so Wikipedia isn't on the FBI's Most Wanted list: illegal files. There are some things that are illegal to display (I think you know what I'm talking about) and must go quickly so Wikipedia doesn't get in legal trouble. Illegal files could be covered by G12 too.

And I propose 2 new criteria:

A11: Unencyclopedic articles with no valuable history, including dictionary definitions, how-to articles, essays, things made up one day and others. A11 would not include articles that could become encyclopedic with a reasonable amount of effort. I know this will be controversial, but please think about it before automatically !voting oppose.
G13: Content forks, especially disruptive ones, where there is no reason to keep. A10, T3, F1 and F8 could be merged into G13. Why have four separate criteria when one will do?

I have proposed these changes to help simplify the criteria, avoid getting Wikipedia into legal trouble and save time pointlessly debating unencyclopedic articles that wouldn't stand a chance of surviving AfD. Thank you for reading these proposed changes, and please share your opinion below. I need your opinions. ChromaNebula (talk) 16:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

  1. Oppose People would be confused and think all musical recordings can be deleted under that criteria, even if the artist has an article. Rather than simplify A7 it would actually make the criteria much more complex.
  2. Weak Support There is an important difference between the criteria, but I suppose these could be merged into one.
  3. Ridiculous Nearly all file criteria have a seven day waiting period, while G12 and F9 deletions should be done asap. In addition the uploader would have no idea what the problem is if his file was deleted under G12, so it would cover all possible problems. Adding "illegal" files (which I suppose refers to CP) to G12 is a solution in search of a problem. We deal with such material just through wp:oversight, which is outside the speedy deletion criteria.
And with regards to your proposed criteria, both of them are far too subjective. The first one has been proposed dozens of times, usually in much more restrictive forms and has always failed. Determining whether a content fork is appropriate or not is also not something with should be done with speedy deletion, this almost always requires a discussion. Yoenit (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I basically agree with Yoenit, with a couple additional comments. The merges reduce the number of criteria, but would make each criteria more complicated, and people already have trouble understanding the specifics of criteria. Second, outside really obvious cases like unambiguous child porn, what is and is not illegal is very much subject to debate, it gets murky very quickly and should either be dealt with via discussion or as an oversight/office action. As regular deletion is not sufficient for child porn, it needs to go to at least oversight anyway. Monty845 19:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
  • There is a major difference between A7 and A9. An article about an album cannot be speedied if there is an article about the artist and there is no corresponding caveat in the wording of A7. Similarly there is a major difference between G7 and U1 in that an editor can request the deletion of any page in their userspace even if they didn't write it. If we were to make changes to the criteria in the way you describe it would certainly reduce the number of criteria but since the individual criteria would become far more complex the result wouldn't simplify anything at all. With regard to the proposed new criteria they are both far to subjective for the speedy deletion process. Deciding whether something is or is not illegal is not at all straightforward, and if we need new speedy deletion criteria for legal reasons they should be proposed by the lawyers of the Wikimedia Foundation rather than individual editors. Hut 8.5 20:02, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I know that this will make each individual criterion more complicated, but it will also reduce confusion because editors won't have to stop and think "Is this an F5 or an F7 or a G12 or what?" With the simplification, they'll be able to tag and delete articles faster and more easily. ChromaNebula (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Speedy nominations are already done too quickly. Take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William H. Brackney, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. Michael Watson, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malcolm Warner and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marty Sammon - what these have in common is they were all nominated for speedy delete within 10 minutes of creation and every single one ended in keep. So, no, we don't need to speed up CSD nominations. Forcing people to think will hopefully make some change their minds. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 14:56, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose all. The proposer either does not understand, or does not agree with, important aspects of current speedy deletion policies. Describing A7 and A9 as based on notability is a common but conspicuous error. The "simplification" of the schema for file deletion would just make the process more confusing, and entangle files which must be deleted with those that might be usable. The new A11 pretty much covers almost any article that could be AFD'd, and amounts to a license to delete for admins, a proposal that clearly would not gain consensus support. The new G13 would gain nothing, as the four existing criteria would simply be replicated as subcriteria, while the general notion of content forks is particularly unsuitable for the speedy process; such nominations at AFD often result in particularly extended and contentious discussions, and often reflect editorial criteria rather than inclusion criteria. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
What Hullaballoo Wolfowitz said. As for merging G7 and U1, see what Hut said above: G7 allows you to request deletion of pages you created, U1 allows you to request deletion of pages in your userspace even if you didn't create them. Regards SoWhy 17:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Oppose all for the following reasons:
  1. A9 and A7 are similar in scope, but they are worded in such a way to make it clear when they are applicable; merging them into a single criterion would make it more convoluted, because A9 has an extra condition on it.
  2. U1 applies to nearly all userrspace pages, even if someone else did what may be considered a significant modification.
  3. "[A]ny page that could get Wikipedia into legal trouble" is too vague for any user who isn't a lawyer; and keeping all these criteria separate amkes iut clear to someone with no legal background what's going on. Note also that several of the file criteria have a delay built in - they can't be deleted until they've been tagged appropriately for X amount of time.
  4. Your proposed A11 looks too vague in my opinion. Deciding what's an article "that could become encyclopedic with a reasonable amount of effort" is too much for a single admin to deicde.
  5. Deciding "there is no reason to keep" is too much of a judgement call. Keep these criteria separate, where each one can get the attention it needs - with the specific rules, exceptions, etc.
עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose all. A7/9 is a practical objection, since they work different ways and wouldn't merge well. As someone else said above, U1 is meant to apply to pages in your userspace that other people edited (e.g. an article that was userfied) that you don't want anymore; most U1 cases are also G7, but it would needlessly complicate things if all current U1 candidates had to meet current G7 standards, and the wording of the new criterion would be needlessly complicated if we worded it to include all current G7 candidates and all current U1 candidates. While it often seems that our time-delay file-deletion criteria are needlessly numerous, your proposal really wouldn't help; copyvios really should be deleted faster than images whose uploaders simply forgot to claim authorship. I'm unaware of any current criteria that would currently cover illegal files, but (1) that's quite a rare occurrence, so we likely don't need a criterion, and (2) when a file is patently illegal for us to host, deleting it would definitely "improve or maintain Wikipedia", so we don't need a criterion. Finally, your idea for the completely new criteria is really good, but it couldn't really be implemented; your wording can easily be read in vastly different ways from person to person. Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Thank you, Nyttend, for reading my new criteria and considering them carefully before commenting. Many Wikipedians don't. ChromaNebula (talk) 01:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose all. I appreciate the desire for simplification of rules. However, the shorthand criteria exist not only to explain rules but also to communicate to the administrators who review and act upon speedy-deletion requests. Consolidating multiple criteria reduces their value as communication tools -- and ultimately reduces efficiency. Also, U1 needs to be separate because there are issues with user pages that might lead a page to be handled in a different manner than a "regular" page. Additionally, I oppose G13 as unnecessary duplication of existing criteria. --Orlady (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Need a Criteria for speedy deletion for multiple uploaded images

File:Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire.jpg, for example we need a better criteria then orphaned image as the image is technically not orphaned it's just got multiple resolutions instead of one. So can we make a speedy deletion for multiple images? Thanks! Please oppose or agree.

  • Agree it'd make tagging images like that a lot easier. Swifty*talk 17:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Not sure I understand, isn't that what F1 is for? - filelakeshoe 17:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh is that the one I need. I swear I had no idea still don't on how that works. LOL! Swifty*talk 17:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Retire F8

WITHDRAWN
It's obvious the community doesn't agree with me. Leaving the RFC up for a secondary discussion, but if you disagree, feel free to pull it. --NYKevin @879, i.e. 20:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As shown at this ANI discussion, and by the continued existence of {{keep local}} (with 2500+ transclusions at the time of this writing [2]), the community no longer automatically trusts Wikimedia Commons with "their" images. F8 as it stands is a nest of exceptions and special cases, and deletion at Commons often causes acrimony that could be avoided if the images were also kept locally. Although F8 requires that "the license is undoubtedly accepted at Commons," it's obvious that plenty of people feel this is not sufficient, primarily because the people judging what's acceptable for F8 are not the same people who decide whether to delete at Commons, so they won't always reach the same conclusions. And finally, Commons requires images to be "realistically useful", which is supposed to be a superset of "in use by someone," but their actual policy is a bit more complex than that. I submit that, while there may be some benefit to deleting such files, it should not be happening speedily. Rather, such deletions should go through either WP:G7 (author's permission) or FFD. Therefore, I propose that we retire criterion F8. --NYKevin @842, i.e. 19:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment: If that is your concern, I would prefer to just add a "seven days after notification" time limit like some of the other speedy criteria for files. Don't make the assumption that those on FFD are also the same people who decide whether to delete at Commons. Just merely moving them all to FFD might not solve these issues, and would just instead increase the backlog on FFD without any real benefit. Remember, as stated on the top of FFD, and rule # 8 of Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Administrator instructions, an image may also be deleted if "no objections to deletion have been raised". Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Holy crap no - There aren't even enough editors to maintain the file issues we currently have, and now we should triple the workload? The burden should be on the paranoid uploaders, not the editors who spend hours a day maintaining files. If users are worried about "their" files, they can use the template and watchlist them. F8 doesn't mean that uploader wishes will be ignored. I agree with Zzyzx11 about adding a "CSD after the file has been tagged for 7 days" clause, but this should be the most that is done. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • In case it is not clear already, most images that go through FFD get no discussion whatsoever. FFD is filled every day with images that are deleted without a single comment, for reasons like "orphaned" or whatever. Many of those images should not be on the Wiki, but some should. Unlike an article, nobody will recreate a photo after it is gone. Once it is deleted it is gone forever. Now you want to drown all of those images in a deluge of valid deletions because a few entitled editors can't think past their foil hats? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Add a week wait - won't significantly increase the burden on file workers, but will decrease the possibility of images being deleted when authors don't want them to be. Not all uploaders are aware of {{KeepLocal}}, so unless we want to add a note about it to the upload form, we can't reasonably expect them (especially newer editors) to take all responsibility. The issue of whether we should be moving files to Commons at all and under what circumstances is a larger discussion that will likely need to be had at some point, but not here and now. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • What? - no no no. If users don't trust their images or files to Commons, they can put the template on. F8 is otherwise very clear that the administrator should only delete a file if the licensing is unquestionably OK on Commons. If an admin is deleting images incorrectly (something which happens approximately 0.01% of the time), then the correct avenue is to take it up with that admin - just like every other speedy deletion subsection. It's not like, in the case that there is an error, it can't be undone (again, like every other subsection). To say this is throwing out the baby with the bathwater is a collosal understatement; this is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, then going and senselessly beating on the husk of the body until the baby lies dead. This would defeat the entire purpose of having Commons - to have a repository for free images which all the projects can use together; even the "middle ground" option mentioned above of waiting 7 days would create unnecessary and massive headaches. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, to point out the issue regarding Commons scope: English Wikipedia treats things the same way; we just don't have it codified. We don't treat users uploading gobs of personal images and not using them for a valid purpose either. If it's out of Commons scope, it certainly is out of English Wikipedia scope and would have been deleted at FFD (in fact, FFD is considerably more liberal in deleting images than Commons is). Again, is it worth gumming up a perfectly good system with all sorts of red tape (the 7 days) or completely axing it altogether (the eliminate F8 option) in order to save a few vacation pictures which would have gotten deleted here anyway? It's hard to even take this proposal seriously. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • No, but add a delay, a delay makes life for Commons admins a bit easier as they would be able to verify licenses at the source page in case of improper transfer or questionable/dubious sources. --Denniss (talk) 00:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If someone wants to keep a file locally there is a template for it. Otherwise, I do not think we need to discuss at FfD every single instance of a file transfer (for instance, we have file transfer drives every two or three months, and typically several thousands files are moved from here to Commons during every such drive - does anybody really want to discuss all of them at FfD?)--Ymblanter (talk) 09:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose This would slow down the "move to Commons" process enormously and it would make it very hard to find relevant discussions on the WP:FFD pages since they would be hidden between lots of F8 discussions. I don't see an issue with placing a notice on the uploaders' talk pages. This is already done at Japanese Wikipedia by requiring substitution of ja:Template:コモンズへの移動通知 onto the uploaders' talk pages and could be automated by WP:TW and similar tools. However, people who have uploaded lots of files in the past might not be happy to get hundreds of those notices on their talk pages, and users who want to be noticed about F8 deletions already get a notice on their watchlists about this. A 7-day delay before deletion wouldn't make things more complicated, but I don't really see any need for this. The Soviet claim above is wrong as Soviet files typically are copyrighted in the United States, so the file would also have been deleted if kept locally, unless an appropriate source had been provided. It is the uploader's responsibility to check that the file has an appropriate source, and files without an appropriate source are equally likely to be deleted on Wikipedia as on Commons. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, though Zzyzx11's proposed 7-day delay would be fine with me. cmadler (talk) 14:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In most cases there is no need to carry the same image on both projects. Where there is such a need, it can be marked with a template.  Sandstein  15:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If someone has a problem with their image being deleted locally, they can always just contact the deleting administrator have it restored. —howcheng {chat} 16:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Saying that the community as a whole is against Commons is very much untrue. Now, before everybody jumps on mine or any other similarly-worded oppose and says that we support pr0n and what other shit is over there, keep in mind that Commons is being used for other good purposes than what most of the "fuck Commons" crowd is trying to highlight and emphasize to everyone. We may be the biggest project under the WMF umbrella, but that doesn't mean that we need to unnecessarily bully the other projects (Meta being the latest one) around for solidarity's sake; we need to work together, and blatant separatism is not the answer (lest we ultimately desire to break off from the WMF completely). --MuZemike 17:05, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Hell no please don't add more red tape to a difficult process. Let us let commons do what it is good at: working with files. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I see no reasons to forbid deletion of files or introduce a delay. Wikipedia is not a personal photo gallery. Users can use Flickr or another website if they want to have the right to delete or keep files. Why should it be possible to upload photos and demand that we do not delete them or move them as we think fits Wikipedia/Wikimedia best?
What would you say if I introduce a "Do not delete"-template or a "Do not edit"-template and added it on articles and demanded than the article should not be deleted or edited? I bet everyone would say that it is a very bad idea and that authors should not have a veto to prevent Wikipedia from deleting out of scope articles or edit in scope articles. It is anti wiki!
The delay just make the process slower and does not help. Admins should not delete local files unless they are sure that the license and author etc. has been transferred 100 % correct. If we want to give Commons admins a chance to check files they should just have global bit to view deleted files and to undelete to create a correct "original upload log" and to delete the file again. --MGA73 (talk) 18:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
+ it is easy to watch the files on Commons. Just add them to your watch list and you will be notified if your files are changed (and therefore also if they are nominated for deletion). --MGA73 (talk) 18:32, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
But for that to work you need to add them to your watchlist on Commons, not here. So if someone rarely edits or logs into Commons, they might not know about changes until it's too late - even if they're active here. Are you really suggesting they should log into Commons, even though they might prefer to work only on Wikipedia, just to make sure their pictures aren't deleted? The "just add it to your watchlist" approach would be viable if a) we had a good system for cross-project watchlists (we don't) and b) we expect everyone who ever uploads a picture to know about things like watchlists and {{keep local}} (newbies don't). Nikkimaria (talk) 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
No I suggest you mark "E-mail me when a page on my watchlist is changed" then you get a mail if one of your files are edited. :-) --MGA73 (talk) 19:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't solve the newbie problem. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
No but we can help newbies if they ask for help. Question is if we want to find a solution. --MGA73 (talk) 22:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - why try to create more work for editors working with files? MGA73 is absolutely correct in the points they make above. Kelly hi! 20:22, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Even before I saw Magog's comment, my thought was "WHAT?" We already have a big enough backlog of files that should be deleted because they're on Commons; if we repeal the criterion, we're really going to clog up FFD. There is no appropriate way to delete a legitimate and copyright-safe file except through FFD or through speedy deletion. Moreover, the idea of a "keep local" template for articles is irrelevant — {{keep local}} doesn't say anything about quality improvements, and it ONLY is meant to prevent F8 deletions. Find me a blatant copyvio or an attack image tagged with this template, for example, and I'll delete as soon as possible. By the way, Nikkimaria's idea about Commons admins having global viewdeleted rights is impossible — there was an RFC on that idea some time ago, and WMF vetoed the community's support: not because of some crazy policy, but because the developers said that it couldn't be done. Finally, COM:SCOPE isn't supposed to be "in use by someone" — the whole point is that a file be usable for someone. For example, I uploaded File:New Harmony Workingmen's Institute.jpg five months ago and first used it in an article two months ago; it would have been rather awkward and quite inconvenient for it to have been deleted simply because I hadn't started using it yet. Nyttend (talk) 23:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • FYI, it was not my idea to give Commons admins global viewdeleted rights, and I think it's completely ridiculous to do so. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Oops, you're right. I'm sorry for misreading the comment by MGA73. Nyttend (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Pea-brained proposal. And

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

for User:NYKevin for even suggesting such a thing. -FASTILYs (TALK) 04:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose. There are some, limited, instances where {{keep local}} is useful, i.e. when the images applies to the English Wikipedia only, like when they are status graphs of English Wikipedia WikiProject operations. In cases where the uploader wants to control where the image is uploaded to, tough shit: you gave up that right when you freely licensed it. I also oppose any waiting period; this was in place before and was repealed. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 05:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Endorse - Commons is a dysfunctional and vindictive little world dominated by a clique of administrators with a frankly non-educational agenda, cloaked in educational phraseology. As a victim of one of these renegades myself, you'd better damned well believe that I'm looking to have my work protected from those jerks. Ditch F8 en route to ditching Commons altogether. Host images at the language projects. Carrite (talk) 06:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC) BTW Fastily, "Whack" has an altogether different meaning at Commons, y'know...
If the problem is that Commons is dominated by a clique of admins then why not just motivate 20 or 100 en-wiki admins to give a hand on Commons? That would end "the dominance" and make everything all right (asuming that all admins on en-wiki are all good editors that also know about copyright). Commons could need 100 good users to help so it is a win-win. Problem solved! --MGA73 (talk) 08:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Copyright, freedom of panorama, image quality and porn are not a very large part of what we consider in RFAs on this project, so our admins are not necessarily best qualified to help on Commons. Plus we have don't have as many admins as we used to and we can't afford to put a significant extra burden on them. ϢereSpielChequers 09:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
If one ignores sexually related topics then in my experience Commons works quite uncontentiously, and I rather like the idea that images are shared across all projects rather than reserved for the one they are uploaded on ϢereSpielChequers 09:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reset

Clearly everyone (well not quite everyone) thinks abolishing it is a bad idea. I noticed that several users were up for adding a seven-day delay. For a new discussion, vote seven day delay or keep as is D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose delay. We have delays for the license-in-question criteria because there's the possibility that things could be fixed; e.g. the uploader could add a source to an unsourced image or a link to a permissions statement for a no-permissions image. With these images, there's nothing wrong that could be fixed in that time. Nyttend (talk) 13:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, playing devil's advocate here, perhaps the uploader will come along and tag it with {{keep local}} during that week. --NYKevin @876, i.e. 20:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
We have delays for the other criteria to give uploaders the chance to make their images compliant with policy. A good candidate for F8 deletion is already compliant with policy (images not compliant shouldn't be transferred), and thus there is no need for a delay. Nyttend (talk) 20:27, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. A solution looking for a problem. No point in adding another process. —howcheng {chat} 15:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If someone think there is a problem with some files or admins on Commons we should look on that on Commons and not make things more complicated here. --MGA73 (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose A 7-day delay would only mean more bureaucracy with no gain. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose (original proposer) It's obvious that my original proposal has failed. Part of the reason I proposed this is that I feel F8 is too complex. Adding a waiting period certainly won't help that. I'm going to leave the {{rfc}} up for now since I think this secondary proposal has some (very little, but it's been less than a day) chance, but if anyone disagrees, feel free to take it down; I don't mind. --NYKevin @871, i.e. 19:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
    • If I could offer a suggestion that is beyond the scope of this page but certainly relevant, there are several (I think at least two) bots tagging files for upload to Commons. Perhaps they can be tweaked to only tag files that meet certain criteria. For example, maybe files using {{Information}} and lacking either or both of author and date should not be bot-tagged for transfer to Commons. Likewise, perhaps CommonsHelper could be set to give a warning (which could be overridden) when transferring such files. It's often easier to resolve such issues closer to the source (i.e. still on Wikipedia rather than Commons). Thanks, cmadler (talk) 20:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Fastily has retired, so I wouldn't expect his bot to do any more tagging. The other bot, operated by Sven Manguard, presumably depends on a blacklist in Fbot's userspace, but Fastily deleted all userspace pages before retiring, so that might not work. Anyway, an admin is supposed to check that there are no errors before deleting the file, and any errors like that are probably spotted by the admin. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
        • OK, now I'm very confused. Fastily commented on my original proposal earlier today (and trouted me for it!), and now (s)he's retired? (Apparently, that really is the case. Sorry!) --NYKevin @102, i.e. 01:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the reasons I stated above. To state this quite bluntly: if someone wants to break out their tin-foil hats about how Commons is supposedly hostile to images Wikipedia isn't, that's fine: they can use the template beforehand. But there is no need for us to encourage that behavior by leaving talk page messages and putting in another layer of process creep. Their images will be accessible here as they were beforehand. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose A solution in search of a problem. In particular, I agree with the comments by Nyttend and Magog. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Exclude moves and merges from R3

At the redirects from discussion, there have been quite a few users who have trouble understanding the idea of redirects created by moves and when they were really created. I propose that we therefore modify R3 to explicitly exclude all redirects created by page moves and merges (aside from vandalism, which is covered under blatant vandalism anyway). Comments? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 02:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Sounds good to me. Redirects of that nature that really need to be deleted can go through a non-speedy process. Jclemens (talk) 03:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Agree. I've seen too many of them incorrectly nominated here. DGG ( talk ) 21:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Can't say I delete many R3's, but I would have assumed that redirects created by the original title's having a typo etc is the purpose of r3 in the first place, as opposed to people creating W1k1p3d1a etc, so if you exclude move redirects would there be any point to this? --Jac16888 Talk 21:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the logs there are 5 r3s in the last 500 deletions (not including a file), 2 that were created as redirects, 1 that was a cross-namespace redirect so really should have been r1, and 2 that were caused by moves, Grimsby Town F.C. League & Cup achievements > Grimsby Town F.C. seasons and Ammhss edayaranmula > Abraham Marthoma Memorial Higher Secondary School, I'd call both legit deletions really. Although of course this is only a narrow cross section--Jac16888 Talk 21:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Grimsby Town F.C. League & Cup achievements is a great example of why this criterion is so badly broken. That page was moved in 2006. There is no possible interpretation of "recently created" that allows that redirect to be speedily-deleted even under the current wording of R3. Yet almost half the R3 speedy-deletions that get executed on any given day have to be restored because editors (and admins) are failing to check the page histories. Most of the other R3s are more recent moves but they are to correct minor manual of style problems with the title. They are not so "implausible" that deletion is deserved. To Jac's point above, redirects really are this cheap. There is no point in deleting the redirect that's left behind after moving a page to correct a typo in the title. Rossami (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with Jac. While I see the problem you describe, I think a too strict rule would defeat the purpose of R3. How about instead adding a sentence like If the redirect was created as a result of a page move, there is usually reason to assume that the redirect is a valid search term; if you nominate a redirect like that, you have to specify a good reason why this assumption would be untrue in that case.? Regards SoWhy 21:53, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Specifically...

R3. Implausible typos.
Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are sometimes redirects in other languages. This criterion also appliesdoes not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move (footnote) of pages recently created at an implausible title. However, it also does not apply to articles and stubs that have been converted into redirects including redirects created by merges (footnote), or to redirects ending with "(disambiguation)" that point to a disambiguation page.
  • Footnote: Page moves are excluded due to a history of improper deletions of these redirects. A move creates a redirect to ensure that any external links that point to Wikipedia remain valid. If we delete these redirects, it will result in dead links on these other websites, which reflects poorly on Wikipedia. Such redirects can be deleted if the page was moved very recently, but they must be taken to Redirects for discussion to do so.
  • Footnote: See Wikipedia:Merge and Delete for an explanation as to why redirects created by merges can not be deleted in most cases.

D O N D E groovily Talk to me 14:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  • I would support this tightening up. Also if we don't do this perhaps we could define recently as this is open to interpretation from hours to a year. And thirdly it should apply to images as well that are moved. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I've spoken on this topic before, and I still think that this would lead to a large number of entirely unnecessary RfDs. See the latest archive for a few demonstrative, but by no means exhaustive, list of utterly hideous page titles that have no business existing for any longer than the time it takes to move them and zap the redirect. There are a very large number of these pages that get created like that, and the solution here is to conjure something up that, when the tag is put on the page, will show the logs for the page so we can check everything; that would simplify the process to the point that it would eliminate many of the mistakes currently being made. New Page Triage is working on doing that now, and according to the devs it's not going to be difficult to implement. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
    • I review the logs as regularly as I can. I do not see many at all that are truly "hideous" - most are minor typos or violations of the Manual of Style - capitalization errors, extra words or honorifics, etc. The incremental load on RfD would be minor. Rossami (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Redirects are one area where "hideous" is OK, only broken or ambiguous are problems. Redirects are not just for instances where an article can have more than one plausible title, they also enable readers to find their way to the correct name for an article. I frequently move newpages to a better name, often correcting a capitalisation, but I almost always leave a redirect in place, even if the only person who might use it is the person who started the article. Sadly I often see that others will delete even the most plausible of redirects. The only real effect of deleting new redirects created by page moves is that the article author when they return to the page they created will find it deleted instead of merely having its title corrected. If we are going to review the speedy deletion of redirects my preference is that we restrict it to the only deletions that are worth doing:
  1. Redirects to deleted pages
  2. Offensive redirects
  3. Redirects from mainspace to elsewhere
Remember redirects are cheap, and if people are getting someone's name wrong a redrect is an effective way to fix that error. I think we should simply drop the idea of implausible typos as a deletion reason for redirects as it is hopelessly subjective. ϢereSpielChequers 06:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition to A7

Unremarkable film. There's a criteria for Unremarkable web content and Unremarkable club etc., but no criteria for films with no meaningful media coverage/no major awards/no notable actors/no notable associations/no assertions of notability/etc.. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 04:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

This concerns me. There is enough misuse of the A7 criteria as it is. How would you phrase this unremarkable film clause? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I think it's generally true that if the actors, producers, director, film studio, and distributor are all redlinked, the film is almost definitely non-notable. But there are two reasons I wouldn't use that as a speedy criterion: Firstly, most such films in recent times will be distributed solely via the web, and can already be deleted under A7; and secondly, I have come across films that are very old and/or foreign that would meet that criterion, but are actually notable. I have certainly found non-notable non-internet films and sent them through very uneventful AFDs, but I never had the impression that they were terribly common. Is this really a common enough issue to warrant changing the criterion? Someguy1221 (talk) 05:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree that if it is distributed in the physical world, a film is likely to deserve a discussion rather then summary deletion under a CSD criteria. Analyzing the notability of actors, awards, associations etc, is beyond the scope of what a CSD decision should be. Monty845 05:26, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Per New criteria criterion #3 "Frequent", can you point to a number of AfDs where such films are SNOW deleted? Do you find WP:NFF inadequate? Which films fitting "no criteria for films with no meaningful media coverage/no major awards/no notable actors/no notable associations/no assertions of notability/etc" do not fit under "undistributed films"? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • No thanks There is a grave danger of this being wildly misused. I've come across taggers in the past whose definition of an unremarkable film was "not from Hollywood". ϢereSpielChequers 06:55, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I did mention "etc.", the case I was thinking of was an article about a film with a stated budget of $1500 with no media coverage found anywhere, no concurrent coverage of any of the principals involved and no proven indication of web distribution plus WP:NFF did not seem to apply. It just kind of struck me as interesting that there was a named A7 option for all of the following: Unremarkable people/groups/web content/website/individual animal/club/company/organization but nothing for film. I admit it, I'm not all that familiar with the intricacies of CSD or PROD, was just trying to deal with what I considered un-encyclopedic content. I thought it would be useful to have an addition/update to A7 but I'll just use the "Custom" option next time I run into a similar situation if folks are so opposed.Shearonink (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, the reason is that with the possible exception of "animal", all the others in the list happen on a daily basis. The people who frequent this page are always hesitant to add new types of articles to delete unless it's a real problem. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
It's not just the prevalence of the topics within A7's reach but how often those topics are used for unremarkable articles that warrants inclusion in the list; this does not fall into that category. It's in the very nature of people to post about themselves, their pets, friends, groups, organizations and their webpages. It is not nearly so common for people to try to create articles on unremarkable films. In other words, if you looked at 1,000 of the last articles posted about people that did not indicate importance, and 1,000 of the last articles posted about films that did not indicate importance, you'd find that a much higher percentage of the films were actually notable, even if the people did not indicate the importance in what they wrote. That's a good reason not to add this to A7s ambit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:55, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Good point. Like I said, I confess my unfamiliarity with CSD/PROD but the subject came up in -help so I thought I'd ask about it here. Thanks for everyone's help. Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 00:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

A10 - Gx

Having quite recently had to send Category:Place of birth Detroit Michigan USA (living people) and Template:Principal cities of Czech Republic to XfD, I'm wondering why A10 isn't a general criterion; Articles which duplicate an existing article, categories which duplicate an existing category, templates which duplicate an existing template... etc. - filelakeshoe 15:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Template duplications can be deleted under T3. The category you linked is a bit of a weird case, it seems to be a misplaced attempt at creating an article by a SPA. I can't imagine that happens very often. If we were to extend A10 to all spaces it would need at least need an exception for user space (sandboxes) and probably project space as well. The benefit of doing it would also be quite small, as existing criteria cover most of the namespaces (P1, F1, G8, T3) Yoenit (talk) 16:22, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed change to CSD#F8

CSD#F8 is already incredibly long - the longest of any criterion that isn't broken into parts. However, there's an issue I see come up frequently in my NowCommons patrol (which is a lot: I have ~40K F8 deletions). The issue is this: the file is possibly unfree, so it automatically doesn't qualify for F8. However, there is no reason to keep it around English Wikipedia, so we must duplicate the deletion process that exists on Commons. My proposal is that we add another bullet under "the image's license and source status is beyond reasonable doubt...":

  • If an image's license or source is unclear or possibly unfree free on Commons but is unclear of possibly unfree on Wikipedia for the same reasons (e.g., lacking proof of permission), and the image unquestionably would not qualify for fair use, and the uploader at English Wikipedia has been notified about any deletion discussion on Commons, and all of the other criteria under F8 have been satisfied (e.g., it is not marked {{do not move to Commons}}), then it may be deleted. Please take care to avoid deleting an image that may be OK as free on Wikipedia but not OK as free on Commons (e.g., {{PD-US-1923-abroad}}, {{FoP-USonly}}).

This would save some of the headache of keeping an image around on Wikipedia just for the sake of process, which happens pretty often. Thoughts? Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Support the idea but text may need a tweak. I have also deleted thousands of F8 and I agree that it is duplicating the deletion process is extra work. It would be easier to delete the local file and take the discussion on Commons.
But why should we keep the file just because of the {{do not move to Commons}}? We should keep it if it is ok for en-wiki but not ok for Commons. But sometimes a {{do not move to Commons}} is added by a mistake. --MGA73 (talk) 19:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Because that's already one of the other criteria. If it was added by mistake, then we can just handle it like we always handle a mistaken add: WP:IAR and delete. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I mostly support the idea, but since I frequently propose fair use images for deletion for failing WP:NFCC, I know how difficult it may sometimes be to determine if a file qualifies for fair use or not. If in doubt, duplicate with a WP:PUF or WP:FFD process instead. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
    So which is it? If in doubt, have a single discussion, or if in doubt, duplicate? Magog the Ogre (talk) 05:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
    Sorry for being unclear. If it is obvious that the photo wouldn't qualify for fair use, I think that one discussion would suffice. Discussions saying "see Commons discussion" remove focus from other discussions, and sometimes images are discussed at both places, making discussions difficult to follow. If it is not entirely obvious whether fair use applies, consider duplicating the discussion by having it at two places. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

suggest a bot to fix image articles instead of having them all erased

This is now being used as an excuse by one user to go around and try to delete large numbers of valid image articles created years before this rule was here. Images that are already in a category such as Category:Comic book covers are obviously fair use, and have the exact same valid rational that could be pasted into them.

Description
cover of comic book
Source
(insert name of comic book article that has the image linked into it, and you thus get the name of the comic book) issue
Portion used
Book cover only, a small portion of the commercial product.
Low resolution?
yes
Purpose of use
to show the cover of the first issue of a comic book series
Replaceable?
none

Can we do that automatically to everything? Or the bot/program that people use to rapidly tag things, could they just include a tag for things like that? If its obviously the cover of a book, comic book, album, film, video game, or whatever, then just click which it is, and you can get the default rational appear. There are thousands of cover art images used in Wikipedia articles for years now, which don't have the rational yet, and if no one is around anymore to notice in time, then perfectly valid images will get deleted. Dream Focus 14:52, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not practical for an automated process to be able to determine if an image can be legitimately tagged with a non-free use rationale. But, that's not a big problem because I don't think that's what you're asking for. What I think you're asking for (and would be practical/easy) is if someone came up with a list of articles (either make your own list or just point to a category, if possible) and the bot would add a NFUR to each image. However, in order for this to work, there are two problems that would have to be overcome:
  1. We'd have to be reasonably sure that every image in the list/category actually has a non-free use rationale. There should be no (or very few) false positives.
  2. It will not be trivial to figure out the "Source" field as you've described it above. Not every image will be linked only to the article for the comic book series; some will be linked to multiple articles, some will not be linked to the article on the comic book series (i.e. File:Rulah2401.jpg). Either the source would need to be manually provided for each image (or at least for the images for which the source is not obvious via inspection of the article that uses the image), or some other text would have to be used for the source field.
-Scottywong| chat _ 15:43, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Also, it implies that all fair use is valid. In many cases, fair use is in fact invalid, see WP:NFCC. A bot would have to assess all of the points in WP:NFCC in order to be able to tell if the file should be proposed for deletion or if a fair use rationale should be added. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
This sounds too subjective and sensitive for a bot task. F6 isn't a recent innovation, it's been around for 6 years. Hut 8.5 18:18, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Anyway, if you are afraid of having files deleted, you could scan through Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale and add rationales yourself. As long as you do this within 7 days after the initial tagging, there's no problem. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:00, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
The problem is how you refuse to look before you tag. Common sense, if its the cover of a book, comic book, or game, then there is no reason to try to delete it. And since the articles don't tell people anymore that the image in them is up for speedy deletion, no one is likely to notice. Can someone make a bot to tell people that information? Doesn't it already do that if they are at AFD? Dream Focus 19:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Be careful with how you use the word "you". You made it sound as if I were the one adding the tags. The majority of the tags in the category listed above were added by a different user. I might have tagged one or two images, but definitely not many of them. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Whoops! My mistake. Both of you have names that start with the letter S and end with a number. Just this one guy is doing a massive amount of unnecessary deletion tagging. [3] Dream Focus 23:17, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
WP:CATSCAN can do what you're asking for, e.g. this will list all images in the comic book cover category tagged as having no rationale (there's only 6 at the moment). Hut 8.5 19:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think that this might be a somewhat decent idea, at least in a few cases that Dream Focus has brought up. If half of the work is already done by a human (i.e. tagged with a category like "comic book covers" that will need a NFUR in most cases) there isn't any technical reason why we couldn't, say, have the bot apply a default rationale and also apply a tag saying "This fair use rationale was added by a bot on X date, but it has yet to be verified/improved by a human." Such a tag would keep the page categorized in a "to-be-watched" category but would stop the seven-day clock (or, perhaps, trigger a longer clock, something like 30 days, for the rationale to be verified). This category could also be periodically checked to make sure it doesn't contain images which are uploaded and never used. The trick, of course, would be to define which categories could have a bot watch them and what the default NFUR would be.

This would have the benefit of avoiding instances of WP:BITE where new users are simply ignorant of the need to add a NFUR, and are upset when their image vanishes for some cryptic reason. It would also aid regular users like myself who are just plain forgetful sometimes. (I am always having bots tag my images for deletion on Commons because I type out the license in the description template but then forget to apply an actual bot-readable license template...) —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 19:18, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Can we agree to just eliminate the ridiculous requirement for images that are clearly cover art? Templates like Non-free game cover already list all the information that needs to be listed. Dream Focus 19:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Dream, from what I can tell, Stefan is notifying the original uploader of the images when he puts a speedy tag on them. The uploader then has 7 days to deal with it or ignore it. Although, I would have to agree that if an image has an obvious NFUR, it would be highly preferable for an image patroller to add the rationale rather than just to slap a speedy tag on it. -Scottywong| confabulate _ 19:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Note the formulation of F6: "The boilerplate copyright tags setting out fair use criteria do not constitute a rationale." A bot would not be able to write anything more informative than what is already provided by "the boilerplate copyright tags", the file use and the templates used in the article(s) using the image. It is also necessary to check for compatibility with WP:NFCC#3 (many articles contain multiple covers although only one is needed). If a file is used in multiple articles, it can only be a cover of the subject of one of them, but there may be no way to tell which one without a fair use rationale. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to mention one thing: if a file is proposed for deletion on Commons, User:CommonsNotificationBot adds a notice to the article's talk page, telling that the file might end up being deleted. According to the instructions, the bot places a similar notice on article talk pages if you tag with a fast speedy tag. Maybe the bot could be adjusted to also notify about DI tags and deletion discussions? When something is tagged as "no source" (for example), there might be no one around who watches the image, and so no one might notice the tag (except for the uploader who gets a talk page notice). Articles are watched by more people. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:45, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

How about in addition to posting on article talk, the bot could also post on the Wikiproject talk page? That way, a user would only have to watchlist their favorite wikiproject. Is that doable? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 01:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Most tagging is to my knowledge done using WP:TW, so you could maybe also request extra notifications at WT:TW. --Stefan2 (talk) 09:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Personally I do not like fair use but now that it is accepted I think that the process should be reasonable. If it is easy to add the relevant rationale it is better to do it than to tag the file. If uploader is long gone then tagging the file will probably mean that the file gets fixed without anyone noticing before the file gets deleted. So for files that has been used as fair use for 1, 2 or 5 years speedy deleting is a bad idea. Perhaps we should send those to FFD?

By the way there is much more than just the few files in Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale. Check out Wikipedia:Database reports/Non-free files missing a rationale (more than 2000). If files on that list is mass tagged then it will probably mean that files get deleted without someone checking properly. So it would be nice if more users helped fix the problem. --MGA73 (talk) 10:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say that notification rules should be adjusted by requiring notification on article talk pages if an image is in use in an article somewhere, at least if the uploader is inactive. This is probably useful for all types of file deletion requests, except for F8. Tools such as WP:TW could easily add extra notices without this requiring more work from the tagging user. I also think that any tagging of files for missing fair use rationales should be done slowly as people might not have enough time to write 2,000 fair use rationales in one day. It would be a problem if all files were to be tagged as having no fair use rationale on the same day. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Recent A1 addition is not quite right

This recent edit added to A1 an explanatory sentence after the criterion: "If you are able to search for sources, then the article does have enough context. This criteria should only be used when you have no idea what the article is about." I actually like the intent of the edit but the language begs for clarification. The problem as I see it is that if I post an article on Foo that entirely lacks context from the text, I may and very often will be able to still search sources to find context based on the uniqueness or relatively uniqueness of the title of the article. As I said though, I think the edit's intended guidance is good if it can be clarified/narrowed. I tried to think of a replacement and had no problem doing so, but not one that was economical. Your thoughts?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:23, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

While the change is well-intentioned, it is clearly inconsistent with the rest of the guideline. For example, any article about a named person would survive A1 under this standard, including one with the exact text of the example given in the criterion, as one could simply search under the article title. It's rather hard to envision a situation where searching would be impossible (as opposed to fruitless or unwieldy). Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
So how should we wordsmith it to make it more appropriate? I agree with both the intent of the addition and the criticisms of its current implementation... Jclemens (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, I don't like it, but I was thinking of something along the lines of: "A good rule of thumb is, if the text of the entry provides sufficient information for you to compose a search engine query to find targeted sources for the topic without using the title in the search, then context is probably not lacking."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:42, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I think that covers it, but it's a little wordy (Note: I added the A1 clarification being discussed) D O N D E groovily Talk to me 19:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I prefer the first - if the title is sufficiently unique to provide context, then A1 should not apply. Note: That does not rescue a title-only "biography" since multiple people share names. The fact that I can compose a google search for 'John Smith' gives me no context to understand which John Smith is intended. (It would also be deletable under A7 so the situation for biographies is moot.) Rossami (talk) 01:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
"are able to search for sources" is a poor criterion. If the title words are distinctive , one can search. even if it is impossible to figure out what what they mean. Nor is without using the title in the search a good criterion -- for a person or company, there is no other practical search term. "QRS is a the title of an English 20th century novel" cannot be found without using the term QRS, because the set of English 20th century novels is too large to scan, but it does indicate the context. Nor is the name example really a good one--of course multiple people share names, but if the name is sufficiently odd, as it might be for a musician, it may be distinctive. We should revert to the original wording, which has served us adequately. Not having context is too variable to be precisely specified in a single specific manner , but is nonetheless useful on occasion. DGG ( talk ) 02:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

F9

Hello.

I am entertaining the possibility that criterion F9 should be merged with G12, and for it to be stated in criterion G12 that it includes files. The general criteria apply to all content (unless otherwise specified), therefore, G12 should cover what F9 covers. 76.251.28.21 (talk) 19:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Full support There's no point having a separate criterion for files. ChromaNebula (talk) 20:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

There was a recent discussion of this subject. Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 45#F9. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

There were a couple of discussions on that subject (for example: [4], [5]). What Magog the Ogre said in the one Malik linked to is essentially most of the reasoning but unlike him I believe that merging both and trying to keep the caveats of F9 intact is much more complicated than just having a separate criterion for files. Regards SoWhy 07:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I have to support the proposal per the precedent of what we did with criterion A8. There's no real reason to duplicate our criteria. Nyttend (talk) 02:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Criteria vs. Criterion

Remember when editing this page that "criteria" is the plural form of the word and "criterion" is the singular - so you say, "this criterion" and "these criteria". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rainspeaker (talk • contribs) 23:44, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

We have a policy of using English, here, not Latin. In English, criteria has been a singular for decades. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 01:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Nope. "The word criteria is often treated as singular or even uncountable, but these uses are usually still considered incorrect; the standard singular form is criterion." Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. One criterion, many criteria. Jclemens (talk) 04:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I've never before heard anyone use "criteria" as singular except by mistake; what sources claim that it's been singular for decades? Nyttend (talk) 01:58, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I've never heard a singular criteria either (which is identified by being used with the word "criterias"). However, I have always heard it as an uncountable noun, thus no singular and no plural. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 03:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I believe Criterion is the name of the new villian in the next Transformers movie. -- Avanu (talk) 02:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

F2 tightenting?

F2 currently states that it applies to "image description pages for Commons images, except pages containing categories or information not relevant to any other project (like {{FeaturedPicture}})." I believe what is intended here is to point out that we make an exception for images that are tagged with featured picture categories and images that are tagged with DYK categories. But as currently worded, it sounds as if it applies to any image description page containing any category, which is not how this is applied in practice either now or historically. Currently, the only exceptions I know of are the ones for featured picture categories and DYK categories. Should this wording be tightened up? Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:10, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

There is also {{badimage}} and possibly other cases where a local file information page is used. Many projects use Commons to indicate featured images (see e.g. Commons:Category:Featured pictures on Wikipedia by language). Why does English Wikipedia need a local file information page for featured images? --Stefan2 (talk) 13:13, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand the logic of that case, but the featured picture categories have been one exception in practice. I agree with you that the {{badimage}} ones is another exception. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed change to A7

A7 currently states:

"An article about a real person, individual animal(s), organization (for example, a band, club, or company, not including educational institutions), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant [...]"

I propose we refactor this to make the educational exception clearer. I read A7 twice when proposing a school for speedy deletion and managed to somehow skip over the educational institution bit both times, with it being both under-emphasised and part of a list of things that are inclusive not exclusive.

I propose the following text instead:

"An article about a real person, individual animal(s), organization or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant, with the exception of educational institutions [...]"

...or something similar (better proposals + feedback v. welcome). -Rushyo Talk 15:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

  • The wording was changed to "educational institution" rather than "school" as a result of this discussion. Basically the word "school" has different meanings in different areas, and the reasons why A7 doesn't apply to schools also work for other educational institutions. Hut 8.5 16:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • It is a common mistake people make, I think this change would help avoid at least some of the inappropriate nominations of schools. Monty845 16:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • If it'll mean fewer mistakes in CSD tagging, then I'm in full support.--Slon02 (talk) 17:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Good idea. We already prohibit the deletion of schools under this criterion, and the proposed wording should make it clearer. Nyttend (talk) 20:54, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Gone ahead and made this change since there seems to be broad agreement after one week -Rushyo Talk 20:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Does this mean that articles about people serving in educational institutions (teachers, professors etc.) and educational websites — will also be exempt from A7? jfd34 (talk) 12:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

  • No. While there is consensus that there is no consensus about the institutions, it is because the educational institution itself crosses so many categories, generally being an organization of significance to the local community, a governmental (or quasi-governmental) entity, an architectural structure of possible historical significance, etc. There is no such debate about the people serving at the institution. They either meet WP:BIO or they don't. Articles which fail to even assert a claim that they meet WP:BIO are speedy-deletable regardless of their profession. Similar reasoning applies for websites. Rossami (talk) 13:09, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
  • No. The current exemption is ridiculous on its face, and I can't see that there would be consensus for expanding it.—Kww(talk) 13:10, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Question about A7

Does a shopping mall count as a business/organization/etc. for the purpose of A7? I ask because an A7 tag was removed from College Park Mall with the remover saying that malls don't count. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 20:00, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I would think a mall is a company that qualifies under A7. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:08, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I would hesitate to use A7 for a mall if there is any indication at all that it is a significant geographical feature, which they very often are. Thparkth (talk) 22:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I would say a mall is more likely to be property of a company. I think the remover was correct, but mainly because I prefer only to delete really obviously unsalvageable stuff under A7 and this isn't. - filelakeshoe 20:24, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I would consider a shopping mall to be more a building than a company, although it is partly both. Buildings generally aren't speediable, so I'd be inclined to agree with the remover. --Bongwarrior (talk) 22:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Myself, I consider it a business, and i would consider it speediable. The nature is analogous to a real estate development or a hotel--which in one sense is a place or a building, but is also a business enterprise. I consider them all suitable for a7. DGG ( talk ) 02:17, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
I find shopping malls have a reasonable chance of surviving AfD, and as such are not suitable for speedy deletion. Many are not notable but they deserve more consideration. Monty845 16:01, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the building/place interpretation. Malls are usually much more significant than the average business and likely to have material published on them. So I would think that being a mall is some kind of claim to importance. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:04, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Speediable business - I concur with that notorious deletionist DGG that these are merely businesses, and nowadays have no right to an assertion of inherent notability. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:11, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree that a mall should be treated as a mere business and should fit under criterion A7. The history of AfD debates, however, does not show a clear consensus on that point. Even when they are ultimately deleted, those debates frequently include good-faith arguments that the mall is either inherently notable (merely because it's a mall) or that the mall-as-building is architecturally significant. There is not (yet) the near-universal consensus necessary to support speedy-deletion of mall pages. Rossami (talk) 22:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Malls are business organizations, and so are eligible under A7 just as any other business and/or organization would be. Nothing is inherently notable, we've made enough of an error exempting schools. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Anchor tags

Hey guys

Just a quick heads-up to let you know I'll be adding anchor templates to each CSD criteria to allow people to link to specific ones. This is part of the New Pages Feed/New Page Triage project; the toolbar we're building needs a place to send people for more guidance. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Aha, the anchors already exist. This makes my job a lot easier :P. My thanks to whoever added them! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
They exist for years now. So do redirects btw, for example WP:A7 and WP:G11 (with a few exceptions where WikiProjects got them first like WP:F1 and WP:U2). Regards SoWhy 21:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

db-author and pagemove redirects

Should someone who renames a page, subsequently be able to claim db-author on the created redirect? It seems to me that they aren't the actual author, since the person who moved it to that location or created the article at that location would be the actual author of that pagename. 70.49.127.65 (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Short answer, no. While technically the user who moved the original page would be the only contributor to the redirect page, the text of speedy deletion criterion G7 explicitly states "For redirects created as a result of a pagemove, the mover must also have been the only substantive contributor to the pages prior to the move." However, it may be possible to tag the redirect page under speedy deletion criteria R2 or R3, or if the page that was moved gets deleted, under G8. Have a look at the wording of the individual criteria to see when each one applies. Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 05:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely not. In most cases, the redirect will not be eligible for speedy-deletion under any criterion. If content existed at the original title for any length of time, there is an increasing risk of inbound links that would be broken by the deletion. The negative potential for link rot must be evaluated at RfD. Mr Stradivarius listed a few exceptions that may sometimes apply but they are rare. Rossami (talk) 06:02, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd agree that they aren't the original author, and therefore G7 shouldn't apply. I frequently move new articles in order to fix capitalisation problems, as I leave redirects I don't see I need to inform the authors about the new page name. But I've noticed that others will routinely delete such redirects and I worry that the authors will lose touch with their article. Of course they can find it if they go through their own contributions, but how many newbies will realise that? ϢereSpielChequers 07:12, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I sure hope they're not deleting the redirects, which pretty much violates every redirect deletion criteria on the books. Talk page redirects, who cares, but the article redirects absolutely need to stay. If you see it happen again, take it to deletion review. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 16:56, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
it helps if such such moves are tagged with the template {{R from move}}, plus whatever specific tag explaining the move may be relevant from Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages. It might be friendly to talk to the relevant admins first, before going to Del Rev, but if they do not understand, it will be explained to them there. DGG ( talk ) 02:16, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

G7. Author requests deletion - does this apply to the talk page of an article/afd etc?

The wording of this can cause confusion. An editor created an AfD which is being heavily discussed. That editor then created the talk page and copied to it another editor's comment and a confused attempt to start an RfC at the AfD. They then put a db-g7 on the talk page and it was deleted. But the wording for db-g7 says " provided that the only substantial content to the page and to the associated talk page" -- which implies to me that talk pages should not be deleted unless the article was deleted. Please note this is not a criticism or comment on the Admin that deleted it, just a question as to what is meant here. If you can delete talk pages but not the main page under db-g7 we need to make it clear. Dougweller (talk) 14:08, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. Talk pages don't have associated talk pages, so that part of G7 can simply be ignored if the tagging is solely applied to a talk page. Regards SoWhy 21:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

DB-G10 template

Right now, {{db-g10}} implements the "This page has been blanked as a courtesy" message if the page size is below a certain level. Would it work to place <!-- at the end of the template code, so that it automatically blanked everything below the template? I'm guessing that this would not hide the deletion categories, since they're part of the template, and I don't think anything goes wrong with a page with an unclosed tag of this sort. Nyttend (talk) 20:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would work if the template was prepended to the page. Excellent idea. →Στc. 21:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
<!-- does not work, see User:Monty845/Sandbox2. Monty845 21:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
We could use the implementation from {{Copyviocore}}: <div id="copyvio" style="display:none;">. Why not apply it to G3 and G12 while we are at it? Monty845 21:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Strange how [6] works, though. Well, the div tag suffices. →Στc. 21:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
<!-- works on the page its used, but appears not to be effective when transcluded by a template. Monty845 21:59, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Applying it to G12 would be unhelpful unless I'm misunderstanding something — wouldn't it prevent the Duplication Detector from working? Nyttend (talk) 02:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
No actually, duplicate detector ignores the div hiding trick. For example this report. Monty845 06:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Oh, okay — in that case, I have no objections. Nyttend (talk) 11:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
After a week, there have been no objections. I've applied the change. →Στc. 06:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Blatant infringement, pages should not be blanked while applying the db-g12 tag. So the no-display div should be removed from G12.
I would guess that is so the duplicate detector still works, which is not an issue with the current implementation. Is there any other reason the content should not be hidden by the tag? Monty845 15:05, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Can we at least rewrite the tag so that it indicates that the page has been blanked? You threw me off there for a while. Hairhorn (talk) 17:53, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, that is a great point, we should also revise the blanked parameter for G10 such that it displays the blanked message by default, and then add that to the G12 template. It should default to blanked, and blanked=no could then disable the div hiding trick and remove the notice. The code would then be {{#ifeq:no|{{{blanked|}}}|{{mbox|type=delete|text=<big>{{red|Please [[Wikipedia:Courtesy blanking|blank this page]] so that it only contains the deletion template.}}</big>}}|{{mbox|image=none|text= This page has been [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Courtesy blanking|blanked as a courtesy]].}}<div id="AttackPage" style="display:none">}}}} That way it would allow a tagger to manually disable blanking, but would by default blank the page using the div hiding trick and leave a notice that it was blanked. Monty845 18:20, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I've added a demonstration of the code in my sandbox if anyone wants to mess with it. Monty845 18:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
The wording "blanked as a courtesy" works fine for G10, but it's not clear to me that it really applies here. Hairhorn (talk) 09:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
FYI - I've added the courtesy blanking message to the template. -Scottywong| verbalize _ 16:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I originally wasn't happy at all by this change, because it was taking me longer to process a g12. I've thought through my approach, and can modify it, so it only takes one or two extra steps, but even that adds up when there are thousands to deal with. Is it really worth it to cut back page views by a tiny fraction? It will now be merely a minor annoyance, so no biggie, but I don't think the gain is worth the cost.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:28, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately the new tag blanks all other tags, which can be a problem (for instance, it blanks AFD tags). Hairhorn (talk) 02:32, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Ah, okay, it only blanks content below it, that's an easy enough workaround. But I still contend that "blanked as a courtesy" is entirely the wrong wording in the copyvio context. Hairhorn (talk) 02:50, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I've reverted the change to {{db-g12}} for now, as it was breaking {{db-multiple}}. The notice that the page has been blanked appears in the middle of the template, not the bottom, and no blanking actually happens. The proper way to do this would be to add the blanking code to {{db-meta}} so that it could be passed through as a parameter. I've made a version in the sandbox over there - see my post at Template talk:Db-meta#Db-g12 blanking breaks db-multiple. However, I also think SPhilbrick might have a point about this change increasing the admin workload, so we should probably have a good think about whether this is necessary before we put this code back in. If this is obscuring AfD templates etc. as well, then that's even more reason to be careful. (On a related note, I already noticed an unintended consequence of the change to {{db-g10}} - half of the archive at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 37 has been hidden by it.) — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 04:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, db-meta is now updated with a few extra parameters for using the blanking notice and the div tag, so if we want, we can just call those parameters from the db-meta invocation in db-g12, and it won't break db-multiple. So the technical side of things isn't an issue any more - whether we implement the blanking tag for db-g12 just depends on whether people want it or not. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 15:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

new software in place

all the speedy deletion articles are now archived every 10 minutes http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Speedy_deletion_Wiki James Michael DuPont (talk) 14:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

eh, while I suppose anybody can start a new deletionpedia, I don't think it is compatible with wikia's terms of use and they would probably shut it down if they found out. Yoenit (talk) 16:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
A lot of stuff that gets deleted really does need to be hidden. Unless you're filtering the articles you retrieve your site is going to get loads of copyright violations, attack pages, libel etc that is probably going to expose you to huge legal risk. There's a reason we don't allow people to see deleted pages. Hut 8.5 17:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Wow, what a terrible, terrible thing this is. Malfeasance of the first order. We need to put a stop to this now. I don't think understand you understand the implications. I think you should voluntarily shut this down if you have control over it and are not just reporting it. If you are in control in any way and don't do so voluntarily, I think you should be indefinitely blocked as Wikipedia needs to distance itself as much as possible.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:42, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
That seems a bit of an overreaction. Looking at the type of pages it only seems to copy articles that are nominated for speedy deletion under A7 and hoaxes, so the intention is not to preserve the copyvio's/attackpages that get deleted. Nevertheless it took me no more than 20 seconds to find an attackpage which had been deleted under the wrong criteria. Yoenit (talk) 19:07, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
The intention can be as pure as the driven snow but it's not germane (as you've proved by finding an attack page immediately). It is very common for articles to be deleted under A7 or other criteria that were also unvetted, blatant copyright violations. I would estimate, though this is anecdotal, based on how often I find them, that 15% of A7 deletions (and a higher percentage of G11s) were also copyvios but never looked at since A7 was already involved. Go on, look at a few of the A7s on the site. I found a copyvio almost immediately: the entry on the site for this individual is a copyvio of this site.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
What's a block going to do? We don't have a way to prevent someone from reading the site, and you wouldn't need to edit in order to do a project like this. At most, you'd need the "View source" function to scrape the tagged for deletion articles with some kind of automated process. That being said, this is a very, very bad idea, and whoever's doing it would be well advised to shut it down. I handle the CSD queue an awful lot, and I've seen a lot of A7 tagged articles that were actually copyvios, and G3 tagged ones that were attack pages. And given that the site owner is also the one pulling the content in, they may not be covered by the same user-generated content liability exemption that Wikimedia is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
As I said, distance Wikipedia as much as possible by disavowal of the action. I am in front of judges weekly; they can and do take everything into account. This is a Siegenthaler-like incident waiting to happen, with the content of unsourced and unvetted articles on organizations and especially BLPs deleted under A7 preserved. We will never winnow out the copyvios or the incorrect and defamatory content because there is no winnowing process—it's a static archive—no one is or will be looking for verification, so an article may say may say something seemingly innocuous that is defamatory in context, or it may say something blatant like X was a Nazi war criminal when they are the head of the Holocaust Museum, or X is a career criminal when they are a federal judge and this will be scraped with no oversight to await it blowing up in Wikia's and possibly Wikipedia's face by association.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Where we can, we rev/del copyvio, and should be doing this when a page is obvious copyvio. Maybe some attack pages also? Dougweller (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree, but that doesn't solve the problem here. Whoever is running this "Deletopedia" site is scraping articles that are tagged for certain types of speedy (I think A7 and G3, and maybe some others), but before they actually get deleted. They're as far as I know excluding articles tagged as attack or copyvio, but I often see attack pages (especially subtle ones) tagged for A7 or G3 rather than G10, and copyvios tagged as A7 or G11 instead of G12. In many cases these criteria are valid (the libelous article also fails to assert notability, the copyvio is also advertising or about a non-notable person/company), but a script would still slurp them right up, and immortalize the copyvio/attack page on the deleted pages site. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
@Dougweller. Attack pages get deleted, which is the equivalent of revision deletion, it just deletes all revisions. In either event only Admins, devs and researchers can then see the stuff. Oversight is a bit more secure as only Oversighters can see it. The other risk for revision deletion is that if someone subsequently creates an article on the same topic and it gets deleted and then restored there is always the risk that deleted revisions can get restored at the same time. As for deletionpedia, Wikia is Jimmy Wales's Wiki farm and it has already been brought to his attention. I think one could have a harmless deletionpedia that just had uncontentious stuff that failed our notability criteria, but it would be irresponsible for someone to build that without vetting the contents. Perhaps whilst this is going on we should all be a bit more rigorous in communicating with taggers when we delete an A7 tagged article as G10. ϢereSpielChequers 23:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

 Comment: All of wikia:speedydeletion is in fact a {{db-g12}} violation. Even if the deleted Wikipedia articles were genuine, the Wikia project fails the attribution requirement of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence since the authors aren't named anywhere. You do at least need to provide a list of all authors in order to comply with the attribution requirement. Thus, the authors of the relevant Wikipedia articles could send DMCA takedown notices to Wikia. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:53, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the authors of articles which we speedy deleted will be more than happy to send DMCA takedown requests so they can see their contribution deleted yet again. It is also a rather pathetic way to attack them, considering they are working on fixing attribution and nobody gives a damn about the hunderds of commercial websites/books with improper attribution. The internet is full of stuff much worse then you will find any of those deleted pages, so stop acting like it is the end of the world. The only important thing is to make clear it is not associated with wikipedia itself and we can get back to discussing more important things, like whether we should hyphens or em-dash in article titles. Yoenit (talk) 23:56, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Db-notice-multiple

For those who are interested, I have just finished tweaking {{db-notice-multiple}} so that it can give messages about individual speedy deletion criteria. So now you can use something like {{subst:db-notice-multiple|SomeArticle|G4|A7}}, and it gives explanations of CSD G4 and A7 on the creator's user talk page. (Before it only left a generic message, and the user would be forced to check the deleted page and then read WP:CSD to find out why their article had been deleted.) I'd appreciate people testing it to see if there are any bugs that I didn't catch. Also, if you think any of the warning text needs copy editing then feel free. Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 15:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I just tested it. A great improvement and I saw no bugs. Thanks for taking this on (and it looks like it was a lot of work). I created a shortcut at db-nm and added it to the documentation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! Hopefully we can get it added to Twinkle fairly soon too. I've left a message at WT:Twinkle asking about it. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour (have a chat) 03:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
You know what's missing? I think the next step (for you, Mr. Template Wizard), is to fix {{db-multiple}} so that the suggested warning for the talk page ("Please consider placing the template: ... on the talk page of the author") passes through your new parameter scheme.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 Done. That was a lot easier than updating {{db-notice-multiple}} itself. There is still a redundant parameter in there, |header=1, but I can't remove it easily as it's hard-coded into {{db-meta}}. Removing it would require coordination with all the other notification templates, and possibly a few trips to WP:TFD. But the |header=1 parameter won't actually affect the working of {{db-notice-multiple}} at all, so it might not be worth worrying too much about. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 15:24, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
The fact that you can even use the word "easy" in relation to the template coding you did here makes me sick:-) I hope you don't mind if the next time I have a template coding issue, I drop by your talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:35, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Haha, sure. :) By the way, I just simplified a lot of the coding by creating the template {{csdcheck}} and using it in {{db-notice-multiple}} and {{db-multiple}}, so it's probably worth one more check to make sure that didn't break anything. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 22:45, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
And now {{db-notice-multiple}} is working in Twinkle. Huzzah! — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 11:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
One more thing required is a url parameter for pages tagged with G12 as one of the criteria. Since copyvio URLs are not included in the JavaScript preload deletion summaries of db-multiple (unless the deleting admimistrator manually adds it), the user must be notified where he/she copied the text from, as the page may be deleted before the creator sees the notification and hence is unable to see the source of the copyright violation. This often leads to declined requests for undeletion. jfd34 (talk) 07:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done. I've updated the template, although the |url= parameter will need to be enabled in Twinkle by default if it is going to be put in use widely. Do others think this is a good idea? I can't think of any disadvantages myself, but I thought I'd ask just in case. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 12:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Same thing needs to be done to F9, and an |source= parameter must be used for A2 for the same reason (Preload deletion summaries do not include it). jfd34 (talk) 13:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
That shouldn't be too hard to do, but hang on a second - aren't the preload deletion summaries created by {{db-multiple}}? We should be able to fix that from there. I might look into it tomorrow. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 14:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I've updated {{db-multiple}} to preload the deletion summary with the rationale, url, source, and article parameters if they exist. I can't test this properly, though, as I'm not an admin, so please keep an eye out for any bugs. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour (have a chat) 00:59, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
I've also updated {{db-notice-multiple}} with the suggested changes for F9 and A2. I couldn't quite work out how to word the A2 part, though, so it might look a little awkward. Help would be appreciated there. :) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour (have a chat) 01:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Ok, it looks like the preload deletion summary is working for db-multiple - have a look at this item from the deletion log. If anyone spots any issues, though, let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 09:55, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

NFT yet again

Well I have seen another article which was so obviously made up in one day, but since being an NFT article isn't a criteria for speedy deletion, it was prodded instead. Since NFT articles are created relatively frequently (possibly even more frequently than articles that fall under A9), can't an article which was so obviously made-up in one day be speedily deleted instead? I don't think it's a good idea for such article which don't have a snowball's chance in hell of lasting on Wikipedia filling up our PROD categories or piling up on AfD logs. I'm not suggesting a new CSD criteria (yet), but why can't blatantly or obviously NFT articles just be speedily deleted? Why is there no criteria for it? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The perennial objection to the 'made up one day' CSD criteria is that there is no clear objective standard for distinguishing a made up one day case from a new thing that may actually be notable. The one you linked is an extremely obvious case, but where do you draw the line? Just because the nominating editor hasn't heard about it doesn't mean its not a real thing, yet needing to do much external research to ascertain the legitimacy of an article is largely inconsistent with speedy deletion. (except HOAX, and G12 to a lesser extent) Monty845 15:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
It has been a perennial proposal, but I have a proposed criterion that I believe meets the standards, and also covers neo/protologisms and received some support the last time I raised it (though that may have been swallowed because it was part of a larger discussion on other things and also got bogged down in a squabble). I have included the language tweaks suggested there:
An article which plainly indicates that the subject was invented/coined by the article's creator or someone they know personally, and does not credibly indicate why its subject is important or significant. The criterion does not apply to any article that makes 'any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines.

I think WP:NFT and WP:NEO are really the last two frontiers for speedy deletion and this covers both in a way that is fairly objective, uncontestable, seen with some frequency, and is nonredundant with any existing criterion. Yes, it will miss some NFT articles because it requires the creator to have plainly indicated stated they or someone they knew made up the topic (which appears in these types of articles more often than you'd think), but that is a tradeoff to make is narrowly tailored and not rope in false-positives. This was apparently supported by User:The Blade of the Northern Lights, User:Σ, and User:Kudpung and of course myself at the time of the last discussion.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:16, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll still make the proposal that A7 should just state "The article does not assert why its subject is important or significant," with no "and is about a..., and is not about a..." restrictions. "Why should anyone care?" is an absolute minimum to answer in any writing. That would've solved this one, and it'd solve a lot of other ones. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Because CSD criteria are supposed to reflect near certain AfD outcomes, and there are many subjects where an article that makes no assertion of importance will be kept, or at least generate real debate at AfD. Picking a random article from Category:Chromosome 4 gene stubs, ENAM does not appear to make any real claim of importance, though it is well cited. There are plenty of other clearly encyclopedic subjects that are valuable but may not state their importance directly. Monty845 19:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Yet the proposed wording wouldn't apply to the incredibly obvious case that was used as the initial example, as there is no direct connection between the creator and the subject. Monty845 19:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
The solution for this article is painfully obvious. Drop the prod, send it to AFD, watch it snow, done. no need to kvetch that CSD doesn't catch every article that should be deleted.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes that's true. As I said the narrowing language, necessary to make this objective and not rope in false positives, will also miss some NFT articles because of that restriction, but it's not viable without something like it. Can you think of another construction with grounds that would make the criterion objective and uncontestable in most instances? We already know that just making it a judgment call about whether a topic is made up one day will not fly.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:17, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Why would I waste time worring about constructing criterion language when there's no issue that can't be solved by someone hitting the afd button on twinkle. I'd do it myself, but I'm on my work computer and it has an issue with that.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
My post was directed at Monty, as the indentation level would indicate. Meanwhile, responding to what you just said, the same argument can be made for getting rid of all of the speedy deletion criteria. They exist because we couldn't handle deletion of every article through the resource intensive process at AfD and we shouldn't tie up our resources on frequently created topics that a test can be devised for their deletion that is objective and in most instances will end in the right result. We are here about adding one more of these criterion, which many times has come up as a good target for a criterion if it could be made objective and false-positive robust.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
My mistake on the indent level (although that's not where I would of put it, but whatever). If you guys want to chat about it, that's cool. In the meantime, someone should send this one article to afd so it can be gotten rid of by the existing book sooner than the prod. I'll do it myself when I get home, but that will be a couple hours.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

My support for Fuhghettaboutit's criterion above hasn't wavered a bit; things like Dong Cup Ball or Beer tac toe are completely useless for anything except WP:DAFT, and that requires it be deleted. More seriously, though, I and many other admins delete these things per IAR as necessary, because they're a waste of time and people have better things to do at AfD than review "articles" like that. The outcome is predetermined, and any reasonably competent individual can immediately tell; I've never seen anyone inaccurately tag something "NFT, AfD would be a waste of time" or the equivalent. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

They're there. I think I've nominated a few from deletion myself, sometimes even by speedy, and found out I was wrong. Sometimes the stupidest appearing things do have decent references, although they are not in the article. I think we already trust far too much to the judgment of admins, for none of us has universal knowledge. It would take too much hunting to find them, but I have seen articles where people thought something was a neologism when they wrote the article, and it turned out there was a decent literature about it they didn't know about. And when it comes to games, how can I judge between the drinking games that were invented one day & nobody knows about and the real ones that I just haven't heard of? DGG ( talk ) 03:38, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
I have seen a large number of pages nominated for deletion with that kind of rationale but which further investigation showed to be real (though obscure) topics. For a while, I was even keeping a log of those kinds of 'surprising' decisions. It wasn't every such nomination or even most nominations. I'd guess less than 10% and maybe as low as 2-3%. Still far too high for a reliable speedy-deletion criterion, though. The burden of an AfD is not so great that we should accept the risk of the false-positives. Rossami (talk) 18:30, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
It's not clear to me in the two posts above whether you're both talking about the existence of articles that were thought to be NFT but that were found not to actually be made up one day and kept, which has happened (though it's quite rare), or whether you're addressing the proposed criterion language above which has false positive safeguards in place. To the extent it's the latter, I challenge both of you to find a single NFT article ever taken to AfD that would be deleted under the above proposed criterion but was kept at the AfD. I can't even think of a hypothetical article that would meet this criterion but should be kept.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Can't speak for DGG but I was speaking of the former - and it's not nearly as rare as your comment implies. Rossami (talk) 21:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

R2

A new editor made a redirect from Template:Brush Traction to Brush Traction. Obviously a 'newbie error' ? should this be added to the list for R2 rational, as it doesn't appear to be explicity in there, - is there any example when a template should redirect to anything other than a template.. Oranjblud (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Update - they fixed it http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Brush_Traction&diff=next&oldid=499141711

Probably so obscure that not worth covering anyway? If so then ignore this message.Oranjblud (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

You've got it right. Coverage in the criterion is for things that come up fairly frequently. This is a one-off situation so not a good candidate to be addressed.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

CSD apply for WP:AfC?

Recently, I came across an Articles for Creation request. It was obvious that the request was vandalism, however I was hesitant to tag it. I was wondering if CSD tagging applies to AfC requests to if it is a clear-cut case of vandalism or an attack page? -- Luke (Talk) 18:12, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The general ("G") criteria also apply to AfC. Attack pages in particular should be immediately deleted no matter in what namespace they are. —Kusma (t·c) 18:16, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
I was a little confused because AfC reviewers have their own instructions. Thanks for clearing it up. -- Luke (Talk) 18:18, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
I have modified the instructions and posted about it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Changes to reviewer instructions.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:45, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Alejandro Mayorkas

Please do explain how a .gov wikipedia : copyright_violations is possible.

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hopiakuta Please do sign your communiqué .~~Thank You, DonFphrnqTaub Persina. 17:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a mistake. Try contacting the deleting admin (User talk:Tone). Yoenit (talk) 17:56, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
I dropped the admin a note in case they want to drop by and respond. Monty845 19:10, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Huh, that was quite some time ago. Seems like a mistake from my side, yes, feel free to restore. Or I can do it. --Tone 15:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
While it is probably PD and thus not a copyright violation, it wasn't an encyclopedia article either (so not much harm done in deleting). I guess more sources will be needed to write one. —Kusma (t·c) 17:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

CSD Album for compilation albums/newly recreated speedy'd artists.

Two Questions:

1. Is there a consensus on the use of A9 for non-notable compilation albums? There are a number of albums in the "Now That's What I call Music" series, such as the newly created Now_That's_What_I_Call_a_No.1 that seem to me to have no chance of meeting the WP:GNG and which do not assert their importance (this one could also fall under CRYSTAL) but which compile songs by artists with WP entries, many of which are quite notable?
2. Can/should A9 be used for an article for a newly created album where the artist's WP entry does exist but which has been just created and has been CSD deleted in the past? Often a CSD-9 has been declined because the band article once again exists, but was deleted when the A9 was put on the album, and the band is tagged again for CSD. It seems that many of the CSD declines for albums happen because the band article is being rapidly recreated/deleted.

I know that this asks for an expansion of the CSD-A9 criterion and should be looked at closely. But if you look at Special:NewPagesFeed a high percentage of the new articles are for albums such as these. Thanks! -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

New criterion for redirects from Wikipedia space to article space

At Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Wikipedia:Nasirabad Govt. High School, the latest in an increasing number of redirects seen there that are from the Wikipedia namespace to the article namespace which arise from the new article wizard or something similar an expanded or new CSD criteria as been suggested. These pages were never meant to be in the project namespace and the redirects are always delted. While RfD isn't overloaded it does get backloged regularly and there is no reason these redirects should hang around for up to 3 weeks or occasionally longer, potentially in the way of content intended for project space. Occasionally some are speedily deleted under criterion G7 if the original author spots the error, and at least one admin has said they delete them under G6, which is a borderline fit at best imho.

I don't personally think that this would make a good expansion of R2, which deals with redirects out of (rather than into) article space and is already quite long. Accordingly I suggest a new R4, to read something like 'Redirects from the Wikipedia namespace to the article namespace that result from a page move and where the page content has always been intended as an article. This does NOT apply to subpages of any existing Wikipedia namespace page that is itself not a shortcut or redirect to the article namespace.'. It needs cleaning up a bit as we want to include pages started as userspace draft and things that were intended as articles even if the subject isn't notable etc (anything that gets deleted means the redirect is subject to G8 but we don't want to prejudice any discussion). Requested articles and similar should possibly be explicitly excluded but the subpages clause should get that I think. The 'existing' bit of the subpages clause is necessary as any title with a / in it would technically form a subpage in the Wikipedia namespace. If the article title has a / in it and the part before the slash corresponds to a Wikipedia space page won't be under this criterion, hence the 'shortcut or redirect to article space' caveat (as these won't have legitimate subpages), the resulting set are almost certain to be so infequent that trying to include them isn't worth the complexity. I'm not entirely happy with the subjective element about the intentions, but it is a clear 'I know it when I see it' and I can't think how to make it objective. A timelimit (as these are almost always very quickly spotted) for how long it was in wp-space and/or requiring 0 content edits (including citation needed, etc templates) while in wp-space might also be worth considering. Thryduulf (talk) 02:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a reason why such redirects should be routinely deleted unless they are in the way of a page move. If you want to replace the redirect in such a case with some other content, I think its easily within the realm of WP:BOLD, with no need for the redirect to ever be formally deleted. If there is neither a desire to use the title for another purpose, or move something into its place, I don't see how leaving the redirect will generally cause any harm, and if a few do, those can be taken to RfD. Monty845 13:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Certainly that is the normal operating philosophy of RfD, and one to which I normally subscribe. However these are routinely deleted when they come to RfD, even by the hardline inclusionist 'does no harm' standard. Partly this is because a redirect within the same namespace often has benefits, even if slight, but these do not. They were never intended to be in project space (a normal path is a move from userspace to wikipedia space followed by a move to article space as soon as it is realised that the original move wasn't what was intended. For similar reasons to those discussed at WP:CNR there are benefits to not confusing project and encyclopaedia pages. I can't recall a discussion at RfD about such a redirect that wasn't unanimously in favour of deletion, explicitly or implicitly, and at least some more are already being speedily deleted under other criteria they are shoehorned into. Thryduulf (talk) 17:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I think this kind of deletion is in the spirit of G6. You will notice that the criterion statement for G6 has intentionally been kept general, and (were I an admin) I would be happy to apply G6 to these redirects, which are supported by prior RFD consensus. — This, that, and the other (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:CSD#G6 already contains the text "This also includes pages unambiguously created in error and/or in the incorrect namespace". I think this covers the redirects you mention, which are technical results of fixing such an error. —Kusma (t·c) 12:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Straight G6 - no need to add another darned rule, when this is clearly the kind of accidental and inappropriate item which G6 is designed to cover. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  • If we're going to allow these as G6, then I think we should add this situation as an explicit example in the G6 description. G6 already gets bent beyond where it should be at times. Rossami (talk) 21:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
    • On the contrary I disagree; I think the current wording of G6 is more than sufficient to allow these deletions. The criteria are verbose enough as they are. — This, that, and the other (talk) 01:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
      • G8 G6 applies to every random situation that we haven't thought of yet, but for which no reasonable person would object. That is exactly why we have G8 G6. We don't need to write every possible situation into G8 G6 as that would really defeat the point. -- Selket Talk 02:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Assuming you mean G6 rather than G8 (the latter doesn't apply here as the redirects have extant targets) then that is entirely contrary to the principles of CSD. The criteria listed on this page explicitly list the only situations in which a page may be deleted without consensus in a discussion and only because there is consensus that the pages covered by the criteria would be deleted every time. Any page that doesn't fall into one of the explicitly listed, intentionally narrowly defined categories here must gain consensus before being deleted.
          G6 was intended for technical deletions, such as deletions of redirects to make way for moves and deletions required to merge page histories. Obvious and unambiguous errors were not unreasonably added to this - there is consensus that we don't need to discuss them. However history has shown time and again that what one person thinks of as impossible for any reasonable person to object to can actually be kept by consensus when actually discussed. So like all criteria, G6 does not cover what reasonable people won't object to, it covers what it explicitly says it covers.
          It does not explicitly cover redirects created by moving a page created in or moved to an incorrect namespace (the redirect was created in the correct namespace), hence why the RfD discussions about them exist and end with delete not speedy delete. I don't object to including them under G6, but if we do we need to explicitly include them like Rossami says and like we explicitly do with G3 and redirects resulting from cleaning up page move vandalism. Yes the criteria are verbose already, but needfully so as I've just explained. If we want to make these redirects speedily deleteable (and I personally think we should) then the only options are to include them explicitly under an existing criteria or to explicitly include them under a new criterion. I don't have a strong opinion over which - there are advantages and disadvantages to both a short list of long criteria and a long list of short criteria. Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
          • Yes, yes G6, fixed. And, it says "Uncontroversial maintenance, such as..." (emphasis added). It is explicitly open ended. Moreover it explicitly includes "pages unambiguously created ... in the incorrect namespace," which I think quite clearly applies to the situation described above. -- Selket Talk 15:10, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Jolla-Logo.jpg)

Just received the message (see subject). But my uploaded file Jolla-Logo.jpg is not orphaned. It is being used by the company's template (Logo entry) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla_Ltd. How can this issue be addressed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sledgeas (talk • contribs) 14:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

  • OK, it's Jolla Ltd., with a period at the end. It is possible that the bot which tagged the file may be functioning incorrectly; I'm going to shut it down and ask for input from more knowledgeable people than myself. Drmies (talk) 15:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk pages

A lot of new users create valid articles on the talk page rather than the article page by mistake. These have been getting tagged with a G8 (yes, I mean G8 this time) rather than just being moved to article space. Having articles, some of which represent considerable work and would be acceptable otherwise, get suddenly deleted smells of BITE. Can we add a note somewhere that people should just move them to the correct location? I'm not sure where exactly. -- Selket Talk 16:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

This is mostly an admin problem, so I was going to suggest Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators, but that has very little on how to deal with speedy deletion nominations. Probably nobody but new admins reads it anyway. —Kusma (t·c) 17:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, and I'm sure that most admins do it correctly, although a few clearly do not. Part of the problem, though, is that it takes a lot less time to tag them (or just do the move), than to un-tag, send a note, move, and remove the redir. -- Selket Talk 18:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Yep. I tell you, I've run into one or two such cases, Selket, but in all those cases they were clearly A7s (may just be the luck of the draw). IP editors have a habit of creating talk pages cause they can't create articles, but all the IP cases I remember have been of the hoaxy, vandalistic, or promotional kind. I wouldn't know where to place the note that you propose, but I do hope that the passing admins who read this keep a mental note. Also, I am quite confident that my colleagues will give proper consideration to the content and move it is appropriate. Thanks for bringing it up, Drmies (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

G5

This is a formal proposal to abolish or amend G5.

An issue has arisen, and now it is clear to me that G5 is not a good reason to speedily delete something. Perhaps, it is a good justification for an XFD, but not justification for a brainless automatic action. Please consider abolishing this policy, or amending it to have safeguards. It is perfectly possible for a banned user to make valid contributions. We shouldn't punish everyone for one person's actions. Furthermore, what is the moral basis of this action given WP:OWN? If we are saying that we should delete such things aren't we treating it as if the person "owns" the article? In what sense is this a punishment of that person? It seems to have all negatives, but no positives. We recently lost some valid, perhaps irreplaceable content for no good reason. Greg Bard (talk) 21:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

My own introduction to this topic was when I went to the Wikipedia's "Deletion log" today (for an unrelated reason), and saw dozens of pages deleted, all listing the same user (presumably the one doing the deleting? if I understand it). I went to the user's page to ask questions about it, since I didn't know why there were so many being deleted related to that user. (The user hadn't responded yet, but others did.) So I said "should dozens of a banned editor's articles and pages be deleted?? Is that similar to burning all of a heretic's works? :-D LOL. Or, Were all those added AFTER the person was banned? It would seem strange that a banned user could still be making pages, articles, or edits, especially dozens of them." (Someone suggested that all the dozens of pages deleted may have been by the same banned user. Really??) Be gentle. :) Misty MH (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
G5 does serve a purpose though, that of discouraging banned users from returning under a new username. What I do agree on is that this policy need not be applied uniformly. If quality articles are being added by a user with behavioral problems, but he is avoiding those, then the articles need not be nuked in addition to reblocking him. But certainly, if the editor was banned for serial copyright violations or serial hoax articles, then absolutely his contributions should be deleted on site. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
In answer to Misty MH's question, a banned user can always log in anonymously. Often this is very obvious. I certainly support that anon users should be allowed, as the results speak for themselves. However, I have always thought (and acted consistently) that one should be able to delete an *edit* made by an anonymous user for no other reason than its being contributed by an anonymous user. If they feel very strongly about it, they can log in or create an account. However I fail to see how this policy of speedy deletion is anything other than an institutionalization of the genetic fallacy.Greg Bard (talk) 00:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
A couple of technical points. First, it is entirely possible for a user to edit in violation of a ban. Remember that a ban is administrative rule that "you shall not" do something such as edit on a particular topic. Bans are enforced by monitoring by other users, not by technology. They are different from blocks which prevent all editing and are enforced by the software (but which can be evaded via sockpuppets).
If policy was followed in the example above, yes, all of those edits were made after the imposition of the ban or block. G5 may only be applied to those pages created "in violation of their ban or block" which, by definition, means after the ban was imposed. Pages created by a now-banned user before the ban are not eligible under CSD#G5. (Note, however, that if you are banned and create a sockpuppet account to evade the ban, everything created by the sockpuppet is in violation even if it takes weeks or months to identify and block the puppet. The ban dates back to the original violation.)
Second, specifically regarding the question of the compatability of CSD#G5 and WP:OWN, I would point you to the part of the CSD criterion which reads "and which have no substantial edits by others." If a user has edited in violation of a ban and there are no other users who have contributed to the page, then no one else's contributions will be affected by the deletion. That also is the integration point for CSD#G7. When you are the only editor to a page, the community does grant you some very limited rights about the page. You can simply decide that it was a bad idea, blank or CSD-tag it and no one will question your judgement. Once others have started editing the page, though, your limited rights are gone. So while I see your point about the philosophical tension between G5/G7 and WP:OWN, it's a carefully limited situation which acknowledges the practical reality of editing a wiki.
To the original question of "are we losing good content to G5 deletions", remember that the CSD criteria are allowed but are never required. If there truly is good content, the page will generally be left alone. And when admins make mistakes, that would be an easy argument at WP:DRV. Rossami (talk) 01:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
My theory is based on the same principle as one from medical research ethics. While it is obviously horrible that the Nazis experimented on people for reasearch, it would be very very stupid to throw all that data away with the notion of honoring the dead. Greg Bard (talk) 02:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to see some sort of additional element that requires more then the article just being created by a banned user. If there is really nothing wrong with the article, it shouldn't matter who created it. I don't want to restrict the discretion of admins to delete articles that are created by banned users, are problematic, but don't rise to the level of other CSD criteria, but there should be some restraint. What about changing it to G5 should not be applied to transcluded templates or articles with only minor problems? Monty845 04:49, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a banned user (Sheynhertz-Unbayg) who often creates a dozen of articles or categories in a single session (always with a new sockpuppet account, and he changes accounts whenever people attempt to contact him on his talk page). All of them are about topics that could reasonably have articles, but all of them need a lot of cleanup work. (Most are poor translations). Simply deleting the new pages and reverting all contributions is of course not as good for the encyclopedia as doing all of the cleanup necessary, but it helps to discourage the banned user from doing it again and again. Anyway, for a single article, deleting may not be the best course of action. The ability for admins to delete such articles without discussion is very useful, though, so oppose taking it away. —Kusma (t·c) 10:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's say that someone uploads a "File:Non-free image.jpg". Later, someone else uploads "File:Non-free image, better quality.jpg". "File:Non-free image, better quality.jpg" replaces "File:Non-free image.jpg" in all articles, and so "File:Non-free image.jpg" is deleted after a week per F5. Finally, someone realises that "File:Non-free image, better quality.jpg" was uploaded by a banned user, and so that file goes away per G5. This means that the article currently has no image, although the first image ("File:Non-free image.jpg") was OK. One could argue that "File:Non-free image.jpg" should be undeleted at this point, but the file might not be clearly indicated, so the administrator might not be aware of this file, so de facto the file would probably remain deleted.
It sounds as if we have a loophole: banned users can't add content, but they are perfectly able to delete content by uploading a better copy of a non-free file under a different name (at least as long as the improvements don't violate WP:NFCC#3b). The ability to delete content may be just as bad as the ability to add content. Maybe the requirements for G5 need to be more restrictive. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I haven't read the rule, but SOME kind of rule is needed. But the deleting of lots of material, hmm—I didn't see a way to even see the article after deletion, or who had written it after being banned or whatever; but I only spent a couple of minutes at the Deletion log. Personally, I think it might be good for Wikipedia to have a person's real name and contact info (other than email) be required for editing; though they could still have an online/screen name. I've seen some editors admit to having multiple accounts; maybe that's to avoid some kind of trouble from another editor who might otherwise keep changing, reverting, or deleting their edits? Hmm. Misty MH (talk) 20:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

But what prevents real-life information from being falsified? In other words, where would the buck stop? --MuZemike 20:59, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

G5 remains the only serious technique we have for discouraging socks. The primary problem we have is spotty enforcement by well-meaning individuals that attempt to preserve content. None of these sockpuppeteers have access to magic sources: if the article was truly worth having, it will be recreated by someone completely independent of the sock at some future date. In the meantime, combing through the contributions and attempting to sort the good from the bad only encourages the banned user to keep trying to add his content. In the long run, absolute ruthlessness works best.—Kww(talk) 00:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

So you are unclear that it doesn't, in fact, discourage socks, but rather results in repeated creation of the same articles over and over again? Greg Bard (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Kww: we can do without the articles added by people who are no longer welcome here. Wikipedia is large enough that there will be somebody else writing about the topic at some time. The goal of actually getting rid of a banned user is worth some mild content sacrifices in the short term. —Kusma (t·c) 07:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment -- I would propose that at the very least it be require that a proposer of speedy deletion using G5 should be required to read the article before proposal. This is very reasonable, and would satisfy my concerns.Greg Bard (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Greg, Would you mind if I changed the title of this section from G5 to "G5 – Formal proposal to amend G5"? Thanks! Misty MH (talk) 09:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment -- I would further Gregbard's comment by proposing to modify the G5 to read Pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and which have no substantial edits by others, and which do not meaningfully improve the encyclopedia. G5 should not be applied to transcluded templates. Although, it is worth noting that these pages could almost certainly be deleted under G3. So, I also see the argument that that G5 is redundant. -- Selket Talk 22:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

"Meaningfully" is not objective enough. Have you ever dealt with banned users? It is extremely frustrating, but really, the only way to show them they are not allowed to edit is to remove and revert all of their good edits. (That is precisely what "banned" means: you are not allowed to make good edits. Bad edits are reverted and deleted no matter if the user they originate from is banned or not, so it is really the good edits of banned users that we have to delete, or we never actually ban anyone). —Kusma (t·c) 07:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree completely. A number of banned users come back and the main thing they do with their socks is create new articles. These should be deleted - as is said above, if they are articles that we might think should exist, they will be created sooner or later. If we don't delete them we are encouraging banned users to return again and again, because they are succeeding in evading their ban. Dougweller (talk) 16:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

More points to consider:

  • If articles are deleted, is the deleted text (etc.) of the article – and especially citations – still available to the REST of us, in case we as editors want to RECREATE them? If so, How? Where? (I didn't see it at the Deletion log.)
  • If not, then THAT is a modification that needs to be made pronto. Agreed?
  • OTOH, LOL, Would that make US look like we're one of the banned?
  • If the article text and citations are no longer available to even be viewed, then all that work – whatever it was! – would have to be done all over again from scratch! So, I'd like to know that valid editors here at least have the ability to get and use the deleted text and citations. Are those available after it's been deleted?
  • Now, If some NEW account has been created, you'd think that Wikipedia would somehow notice if a ton of new articles were being added! A bot?
  • Another, related issue: Might the policy also HINDER valid articles/text from BEING created/recreated? because, maybe someone WANTS such text to be deleted, to keep it OFF of Wikipedia (at least for a while), and so makes a sockpuppet to keep adding it back in; and so when someone else wants to actually, validly add it in, they might end up looking somehow connected to the original offender. And all THEIR work could end up being deleted! It seems like this could be some sneaky method for keeping text off of Wikipedia, like sneaky sockpuppet IDs with just IP addresses that not only come to vandalize by adding nonsense but to DELETE things that are valid contributions!
  • One other thing: Wikipedia is so large, and some of our contributions are so many, that it's difficult for us to remain on top of all our own contributions. So it would be hard to watch for this kind of thing, and to protect Wikipedia.
  • Changes/Improvements apparently need to be made. And I hope that some of these points help. :)

Misty MH (talk) 01:29, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

A link to the G5 in question – and G3 is above it – so that anyone here can easily locate and read these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CSD#G5
Misty MH (talk) 02:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Greg, Would you mind if I changed the title of this section from G5 to "G5 – Formal proposal to amend G5"? Thanks. Misty MH (talk) 02:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

To All, Please see my bulleted points above. Thanks! :) Misty MH (talk) 01:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Misty MH (talk) 02:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

When a page is deleted (whether G5, some other speedy or another deletion process) it's deleted from view. The page history still exists, but viewing the history is restricted to researchers and administrators. The wikicode of each revision also still exists (unless it's been suppressed) and may be viewed by administrators, but not researchers. This is how WP:DRV is possible. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
@Misty MH. It used to be quite easy to become an admin, so a few years ago a significant proportion of our active editors would have been able to look at the deleted version and if appropriate restore it. One of the problems of adminship having become such a big deal is that the vast majority of our currently active editors are not admins and need an admin to review such deleted edits and restore them. That said if you want to write an article where something has previously been deleted you can just start, or you can always go to wp:REFUND or ask one of the active admins to check the previous article and restore it for you. Oh and yes the message that a previous article on that topic has been deleted probably does hinder the creation of new articles. But we don't have an easy way to fix that. ϢereSpielChequers 05:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Article subject importance or significance criteria is subjective and ambiguous, while it is still subjective, we can at least remove the ambiguity

I would like to add a sentence in the important or significant criteria stating what definition is used to determine importance or significance. If the definition used is the dictionary definition, then it should be stated in the criteria that the dictionary definition is used to determine significance or importance. Otherwise it is ambiguous as to what basis importance or significance is judged by.TeeTylerToe (talk) 20:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. (Your comment is related to this edit to A7, which was reverted.) (1) Stating that we use the dictionary definition immediately raises the question "which dictionary?", so next we would have to deal with that. The meaning of the terms "importance" and "significance", as with many terms used in Wikipedia, can be understood by reaching consensus. (2) In this context, the exact definition doesn't matter anyway. If an article makes a credible claim that the subject is significant or important, then A7 does not apply. The decision doesn't really turn on the definition of "importance" and "significance"; if anything, it turns on the definition of "credible", but now I'm getting off-topic. – Wdchk (talk) 01:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, there are several possible meanings of 'significant' and 'important', depending on how each dictionary chooses to split senses, and there are several different ways that a subject can be and can assert these qualities, any combination of which are fine for passing the A7 hurdle. For example 'Ian Smith was the first English chess champion', 'Unobtaniumite is the predicted product of the high energy physics experiment being constructed in Utah', and 'The intra-vocalic low-back-rounded affrictive is a sound unique to the newly-discovered Hmmunk language' are three (fictional) stubs that assert very different reasons for significance such that you'd struggle to find a single definition that covers them all simply. Thryduulf (talk) 09:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Query article

Is there any way of deleting this article, which is based on a book that doesn't (yet) exist and has no refs but for a blog post? Tony (talk) 13:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, two ways, Prod or AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 13:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but the refs are available, the upcoming book caused a controversy, which was noted by reliable media, see [7] (Techcrunch), [8] (CNET), [9] (Digital Trends) etc. etc. See also Category:Upcoming books. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 13:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I won't delete. But it seems like way premature to have created the article. Tony (talk) 15:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
You may be right and I partly agree, however, others could object that the subject (a non-published book :)) meets WP:GNG, though it's rather the incident than the book itself what attracted the media. The opinions may vary. The best venue to resolve that would be probably WP:AfD. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 15:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes I wish we could abandon the fiction that we can instantly tell the flash in the pans from the enduring sparks. There are loads of articles where notability is transient, they are currently in the news but may soon be forgotten. Upcoming books and films, players signed to a squad but who haven't actually played yet. I'm sure that half of them would be uncontentious deletes if we but waited until they'd dropped from the squad without a first team appearance, or upcoming films cancelled pre-production. ϢereSpielChequers 20:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

A7 person: let's not

I see that A7-person get's abused a lot. Much thought has gone in to the wording, to make it clear this criteria is meant for "my uncle Bob" (sorry uncle Bob!), or "Pete who works at the Butchers'". I'm strongly in favor of speedy deleting the above examples, but more often than not it gets applied to people who are beyond this low threshold. The problem seems to be that 'no credible claim of importance' is construed subjectively, and no matter how hard we tried to get the wording right, it still gets misapplied quite often. For BLP's, we have an alternative out: BLP-Prod's. The scope of a BLP prod is slightly different from the scope of A7, and theoretically, it would be possible for a BLP to make no claim of importance, and still have a reference that would invalidate a BLP-Prod. In practice however, this is exceedingly rare (examples would be welcome, I can't remember if I have ever seen one). Therefor, I propose to drop the possibility to apply A7 to persons. The drawback here would obviously be that an article on aforementioned Pete the butchers boy would exist for 10 days. This is sub-optimal, but no big deal either, and I strongly prefer this over the masses of misapplied A7-person noms we see now. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:11, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

A7 is by far the most popular reason for deleting articles. It accounts for nearly twice as many as AFD, PROD and BLP PROD combined. Consequently any proposals to substantially restrict the scope of A7 have the potential to substantially increase the workload of these other processes. There are several categories of A7 which don't qualify for BLP PROD. For a start A7 applies to dead people, BLP PROD doesn't. BLP PROD cannot be applied to any article which cites any sort of reference at all, even a link to the subject's website, Facebook page, et cetera. Without A7, an article on an utterly insignificant 14-year-old student which bothers to link to, say, his Twitter account could not be deleted without the full 7 day deletion discussion if the creator hangs around to remove a PROD tag, which would be a complete waste of everyone's time. I don't think it would be a good idea to enact this proposal unless we have hard evidence that a significant number of A7s are inappropriate or would stand a decent chance at AfD. Hut 8.5 15:55, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not going to dig for numbers at the moment, but if you honestly think that the tag is not massively mis-applied, I can get you some quick examples. If you look at CAT:CSD at any time, at least 25% (but likely more) of the A7-person tagged articles does not meet the criterium. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Last time I looked at BLPprod a substantial proportion were being rescued during the ten days. That was a few months ago, but I hope that hasn't changed. Flooding that list of unsourced articles on mostly notable people with humongous numbers of non-notable people is only going to make it more difficult to rescue the ones worth rescuing. I'm all for slowing the process of deleting goodfaith articles to a speed that makes us less bitey, but it is worth separating the potentially rescuable from the inevitable deletions. ϢereSpielChequers 17:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
What we need is "Criteria for Speedy Userfication" tags :-) --Surturz (talk) 04:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
That might actually be a good idea. I'll think on that some more.

Contesting speedy deletions

Hello everyone. You may have seen some of my CSD's lying around this place waiting for admin deletion. The portion of the day that I do spend on Wikipedia, I almost always do patrolling. Over the past couple of month's I have found an increasing amount of user's who are not the author's removing my speedy templates with a page summary of "contested deletion". When I return to the page to see their rationale, they have not contested at all in fact they just remove my template. Now I am all for removing a template because it does not fit the criteria or is in some way flawed. But I was and am under the impression that contesting a deletion involves the hang-on tag placed on the page and a discussion brought upon the talk page, not a removal of the speedy which seems to be a declining of the speedy in the first place. Can we please have a discussion on this? I would like a bit to refer to when I come across this again. Good day to you all!Keystoneridin (speak) 04:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

If someone removes a speedy tag, then it is contested. You should then raise an AfD. The onus is on you to prove that the page should be deleted. My 2c --Surturz (talk) 05:59, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
What Surturz said. However, if it's really a G10, G11, or G12, feel free to readd the speedy tag and bring the matter up on ANI for action: we don't want those hanging around. Jclemens (talk) 06:12, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
This probably comes about because of Nauman Syed Ali Kazmi; see a brief discussion on my talk page. The suggestion here is that removing a CSD template should be accompanied by an explanation which isn't a bad idea were it not for the fact that sometimes (as in my late-night session last night) as many as half the CSD templates are incorrect. Mind you, Twinkle is easy and does not require the CSD nominator to make their case, and I don't see why in the other case (the protection of content) it should be more onerous. If there is anything broke with the current system it's on the nominating side, not on the contesting or deleting side. Drmies (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Though the best way to work on the nominator side is to leave the nominator a good explanation of why their CSD nomination was rejected. I would also suggest we revise the CSD decline template to encourage more personalized explanations of the reason for the decline. Monty845 17:17, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
You can encourage that all you want--but as an admin who routinely declines CSDs I think that if a burden is to be placed in this process it should be on the nominator who should explain, rather than click a button on their automated tag machine. I have left such messages, and I and others do this on talk pages and also in edit summaries. In the case I mentioned, the original rationale was "Requesting speedy deletion with rationale "Conflict of interest: Username is the same as article name"" which is of course not an existing category. The template was removed by Sigma, who said "Speedy deletion contested. The reason given is not a valid speedy deletion criterion"--seems clear enough. The original nominator followed up with "Proposing article for deletion per WP:PROD", "Author's account name is the same as article name. Appears this article is headed for self-promotion of bio." Now, if the latter, it should have been tagged as G11; if the former--yeah, that's still not a reason to PROD something. If any PROD were appropriate, it would have been BLPPROD. Anyway, the final edit is by a helpful IP, "no need to prod, there's nothing there", and they stick an A3 tag on it, which is the rationale for my deletion. In other words, there was plenty of explanation along the way, and the first (and most important) one was actually read by the original nominator. In other words, I think you'll find that there is a lot of explanation given, though what is given in edit summaries is of course lost in deletion for non-admins. But Monty, go through the categories of CSD-tagged articles, and figure out how many you would delete, and then consider writing up talk page messages for all the ones that were wrong. I think you'll quickly find that you would have lost the gumption to look at those categories in the first place. Drmies (talk) 17:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
My experience also shows that a very high proportion of CSD tags are applied in error. While there is some reasonable burden on the declining user (does not have to be an admin) to explain the error, the time it would take to both explain in an edit summary and in notes on the tagging editor's Talk page would be excessive. An edit summary is sufficient.
Administrators are volunteers, too. Tagging editors share an obligation to ask if they don't understand what they got wrong about CSD. Rossami (talk) 15:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
my own practice too is to rely on the edit summary unless I see a pattern. And, naturally, some people when I remove a speedy & they do not understand why come and ask for an explanation--which however hostilely they sometimes word it I see as an indication of intention to improve and I always respond in as much detail as needed. I would like to educate people more frequently and in more detail, but we must deal with the articles. DGG ( talk ) 03:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

G7 question

I deleted an article under G7 yesterday, and an editor other than its author has asked me to restore it so she/he can work on it. Is this an appropriate request to grant, or should I tell the editor to write a new article? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 16:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Ask the primary author. Restoring without the author's permission is allowed (since deleted content is still CC-BY-SA/GFDL), but a really dickish thing to do. WilyD 16:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
    • D'oh! Why didn't I think of that? Thanks. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 17:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Note that G7 only applies if no one else has substantially contributed to the article, so if the requestor had actually done work on the article, it may not have been technically covered by G7 anyways. You don't say which, so I can't actually check to see if that applies, so just an abstract reminder. Jclemens (talk) 17:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
        • I recall one dispute at AN/I over a similar issue, the author wanted it deleted, and it clearly met the G7 criteria, other editors wanted it to exist. The conclusion was that the wishes of the original author get respected. (In that instance there were no other contributions other then from the author, so it was clearly G7 eligible) Monty845 04:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Portal criteria

Do we really need them? Deletions under WP:CSD#P1 and WP:CSD#P2 seem to be quite rare, and I haven't seen one in C:CSD for a while. I propose to remove the criteria as unnecessary (we should simplify policy as far as possible). —Kusma (t·c) 19:48, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I've not looked into the frequency of their use, but P1 could be done away with by simply stating that the article criteria also apply to portals (i.e. a portal would be deletable under A7 rather than P1) with the caveat that they go to MfD rather than AfD. P2 could in this situation be merged into A3, but whether that would achieve any net simplicity I don't know. So my gut feeling is that if P1 is seen as desirable but P2 not (or neither of them are) then simplicity is probably best served by making the A criteria cover portals. If both are considered desirable then it's probably simplest to retain the status quo. I can't imagine that it would be desirable to retain P2 but not P1, but if it is then either merging it into A3 or renaming it Ax may be the best. Whether either or both are still worth having or not I don't have an opinion about at this moment. Thryduulf (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
P1 was used 24 times in 2011, P2 was used 9 times. The P1 statistic is somewhat inflated by a deletion of 13 subpages of Portal:Biography in March. Hut 8.5 21:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Were those pages portals (i.e. a mixture of content and navigation) or were they articles that happened to be in portal space? Articles that meet the speedy deletion criteria should be deletable in any namespace (as long as they are not obviously drafts, like many articles in user space). Anyway, the statistics you gave makes me think that the criteria are used so infrequently that they wouldn't pass our tests for new criteria at this time. —Kusma (t·c) 06:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
List is here if you want to have a look. Hut 8.5 10:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the list. I'd say that the criteria are rather infrequently used, but nothing here was remotely worth bothering MfD with. Most of the subpage deletions are easily done also under G6, but that is getting a bit too much of a catch-all. For the sake of shortening policy pages (there should be some spring cleaning of policy at least once a year), we could probably get rid of P1 and send the P2 stuff to MfD, but it probably isn't worth bothering either way. —Kusma (t·c) 07:14, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
I use P2 from time to time. I find that usually P1 can be covered by the other CSD criteria. If portals are being deleted under P1 citing A7, then surely P2 applies as well. Although the couple of P1/A10 deletions I see are interesting; perhaps reason to leave P1 alone. It is not being used that much but it still seems to have a use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by This, that and the other (talk • contribs) 11:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but P1 is obviously redundant, and P2 is completely arbitrary, right? I thought there was a decision a while ago to mention that all article criteria could also be applied to portals and templates, as they are all user-facing. P2 should be handled at MfD. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:db doc

Hello everyone, I've started a discussion over at Template talk:Db doc#Too complicated? about the possibility of using {{documentation}} for speedy deletion templates rather than {{db doc}}. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 05:17, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

R3 has nothing to do with image redirects

I am getting super tired of talk page messages about file redirects being nominated for speedy deletion, and then seeing admins who should know better deleting them. R3 is about "recently created redirects", which has nothing to do with page or file moves, it has to do with how long people have been linking to that title. As [10], "Breaking preexisting links from the outside web or from offline or from emails or from books or from ANYTHING ELSE in the world is being a TERRIBLE web citizen and it goes against everything Wikimedia stands for." Wikimedia encourages usage of these images on blogs, etc., so deleting these redirects is a BAD idea and should not be done without valid reason. If someone is so offended by file redirects that they must destroy them on sight, there should be a valid criteria. Deleting a redirect simply because it is a redirect is counter-intuitive and counterproductive. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Something should probably also be done with Wikipedia:File mover, as some users are treating it like the guideline it is not. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
On Commons many users think that files should not be renamed without a very very good reason because files could be used outside Wikipedia. And redirects should ofcourse not be deleted if a file is renamed. --MGA73 (talk) 20:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
You're partially wrong; file redirects are no different from article redirects for the purpose of this criterion. If you create an article at an implausible title and upload a file with an implausible name, R3 will be equally applicable or inapplicable to both titles after the pages are moved to where they should be. The problem is that redirects are claimed as being recently created because the earliest entry in their histories is recent, while people ignore the fact that the filename has been a blue link for years. For this reason, if I find an implausibly named file that was uploaded yesterday, I'll happily delete the redirect, but I've recently gotten flack at my talk page for attempting to prevent the deletion of File:Pieratsunset.JPG (uploaded in 2005) and a few other redirects that have since been sent to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 July 21. Nyttend (talk) 21:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
I've just marked the filemover page as a proposed guideline, put a short rationale at the talk page, and am about to announce it at WP:VP/P. Nyttend (talk) 21:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Everything being said here is sensible. As files have no naming guidelines, I don't think that plausible or implausible should have anything to do with it. There should probably be a timeframe, a week or a month after the file was uploaded, where a file redirect can be deleted. It isn't just hotlinks, but also old article revisions that these redirects are useful for. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
An example of a file used outside Wikipedia is File:ClavenCliff.jpg that is now a redirect. It is used on http://www.yesfans.com/archive/index.php/t-70468-p-3.html and probably also other places. Delete the redirect and break the link --MGA73 (talk) 13:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
By your phrasing, I'm not sure on what side you landed there (I'm pretty sure you're against breaking links?). A few years ago I made a proposal on Meta to disable image hotlinking based on repeated server issues WP was having at the time. I asked Tim Starling for statistics, and the discussion went well until Tim Starling finally supplied those statistics, at which point people asserted it had always been a bad idea, because wikipedians are fickle jerks.</bitterness> At the time, image hotlinking was 2.5% of all image traffic, and 1.1% of all traffic, which isn't a lot as far as the servers are concerned, but that is still a whole lot of usage.
Angela also piped in with this "This discussion doesn't make much sense to me since I've always believed the Foundation wanted to encourage use (and discourage forking) of its content. The development of $wgForeignFileRepos not only allows hotlinking but encourages it by making using images from Commons as simple as using a local image (see Erik's blog post on this). This tool has the massive advantage of making sure that wikis using images from Commons are properly licensed, whereas if you force people to upload the image locally, there is rarely any hope they will even link to the source, let alone mention the authors or license. Even hotlinked images are preferable to local copies since you can tell from the URL that the source is Wikimedia and therefore find the author (though not easily enough)." So my proposal at least served the purpose of clarifying that we are in favor of hotlinking. Since we can never know if an older image is linked to on a blog or Angelfire or whatever, we should have a much better reason to delete than "typo". ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so admins are still doing this. You would think that lack of clear policy would prevent deletions, but it's the opposite. The problem is that no matter how many people are talked to, others are going to keep assuming that its ok. I don't want to call anybody out, but it was a redirect from a title that the image had used for years before being moved to Commons, deleted as "G8: Page dependent on a deleted or nonexistent page: unused file redirect". Can we at least agree that until CSD explicitly mentions file redirects these should go through RfD? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

A7 question

Do fictional clubs/groups fall under this guideline, or only real-life ones? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I would count it as so, fictional, hypothetical, made up one day, future, hoax, could all be deleted with A7 if there is no claim of importance. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
The wording is ambiguous here. It says "real person, individual animal(s), organization or web content", but it isn't clear whether the adjective "real" applies only to people or also to the other categories. Personally I would interpret ambiguities narrowly. Hut 8.5 11:15, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
If its fictional in the sense that someone is making it up a purportedly real club, and it doesn't really exist, then I think A7 would apply. However if the club/group is fictional in the sense that its in-universe as a part of some work of fiction it isn't so simple and shouldn't qualify for CSD. Monty845 12:56, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
I assume this is motivated by the CSD tagging of a James Bond universe social club this morning. WilyD 13:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
  • More or less, although I've seen a couple. Those which are fictional clubs in a piece of web content may fit in the wording as it is now, but literary? I'd count that as part of a creative work. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:48, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
  • In a Wikipedia article about a fictional club/group, the article is excluded from A7 when the fictional club/group is a creative work of a real person, such as might be set out in a book, album, software, or other creative work. WP:NOTCSD goes into extra detail on A7 to put strict limits on implementing A7. Web content would seem to qualify as other creative work. If A7 read something like "not to articles about their creative works such as books, albums, and software" instead of "not to articles about their books, albums, software, or other creative works," there would be more of a limit on the type of creative works excluded by A7. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
If someone is making it up but purports it to be real, then it falls under G3 as a hoax. Otherwise, clubs from fictional works do not fall under A7. Although, you can probably just redirect it to the work itself. -- Selket Talk 15:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Alright, that's what I did with the article in question. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Statistics

Have we ever kept data regarding the number of articles that are deleted via CSD per day. If so, do we break it down by deletion criteria? OlYeller21Talktome 20:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

If admins have selected (or otherwise filled in) the correct deletion reason, it should be possible to get the info from Special:Log/delete. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

F8 and protected images

The text currently says that "Deleting the local copy of an image used in the interface does break things." What does it break? As I see it there is a risk that it may break things if the file on Commons is not protected and someone decides to vandalize the file and it is not reverted right away. So unless someone can explain what it breaks I suggest to change "does" to "may" or "increases the risk that someone". --MGA73 (talk) 09:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe that at one point the MediaWiki implementation would not pull files used in the interface from commons. While things are better than they used to be coordination-wise, there is always some risk of errors of coordination where Commons is used to host especially critical images. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion notices discussion

I've started a discussion about whether the speedy deletion notice templates should include a header or not by default. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace#Speedy deletion notices if anyone is interested. Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 12:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

RfC on linking to attack pages

I have just started an RfC on whether we should link to attack pages from user talk pages when issuing speedy deletion notifications. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace#RfC: Linking to attack pages if you are interested. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 16:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Db-spam-notice and othes

We have two spam notices Template:Db-spam-notice and Template:Spam-warn, the problem with Template:Db-spam-notice is that it has userfy (we don't userfy G11, many G11 candidates are already in userspace) and that it just has "If you think that the page was nominated in error" instead of "If you can indicate why the subject of this page is not blatant advertising" and advice about adding citations from independent reliable sources. The problem with Spam-warn is that it links to WP:CSD#Article, which it shouldn't as G11 can apply to any namespace. I propose merging the first half of Db-spam-notice, with the 2nd half of Spam-warn. Begonia Brandbygeana (talk) 15:10, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

but we sometimes do userify if there's a good faith request to work on it. This does mean remembering to go back & check that it gets promptly improved, so it can otherwise be deleted. I agree that having two notices is a bad idea, but I'm not sure how to word the resulting notice. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I reverted the redirection of db-spam-notice to spam-warn, which was rather promptly done. {{db-spam-notice}} is part of a series of db-...-notice templates which are used by Twinkle and work by transcluding a single template ({{db-notice}} so they can be centrally updated. If you want to merge the two templates you should redirect {{spam-warn}} (which is outdated), not the other way around. Furthermore I think your arguments against the current text of db-spam-notice are rather weak and unconvincing. We do userfy G11 candidates sometimes as DGG points out, and otherwise we email them (as the message says). The other sentence amounts to exactly the same thing either way, it is just more general about it. If anything "blatant" has a negative ring to it, which is unwanted with such notices. Yoenit (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
My problem w/ G11 is that it is sometimes being tried on articles that are actually just trying to thoroughly describe the subject. They are sometimes amenable to rewrite, so a request for userfication is a good idea. Userfication can be discussed with creator on a case-by-case basis. We need to put the button to contest as well as the instructions for improvement on whichever is being used. Having your article tagged for speedy deletion feels like a brisk face slap, so the less negative the notice, the better Dlohcierekim 14:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

authors and significance

Twice I've been told since returning that being an author (with RS no less) is not significance. Has the pendulum swung back so far? Troy Townsin being the article in particular. Had I speedied an article like that in the past, I'd have expected an overturn at WP:DRV. I've always felt tat if the subject clearly would not pass an WP:AFD that it should be speedily deleted, but this isn't Mike-apedia. Thanks Dlohcierekim 01:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

(Note: I did the speedy) The problem is that it's hard to pass WP:AUTHOR. Writing books only takes you the slightest fraction of the way there; if an article doesn't contain anything that suggests that they might pass the criteria, then it's (imo) subject to CSD. In this particular case, most of the subject's works are self-published, which makes it even more unlikely that he'd pass. Dori ☾Talk ☯ Contribs☽ 01:45, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
No, CSD is a much stricter criteria. Being a published author, even a self published one means that someone may well be notable. Self published authors probably aren't, but it takes significant research and consideration to be sure. That is far outside the scope of Speedy Deletion. Look in another context, the CEO of a company is a claim of importance, even though the vast majority of CEOs are clearly not notable and will never pass WP:BIO, determining that reliably requires a discussion. You can't speedy delete something just because you are sure the article will be deleted at AfD, and if someone suggested that at RFA they would be snow opposed. Monty845 02:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. That was my interpretation as well. Dlohcierekim 03:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree also, except that I do not consider self-published authors where there is no specific claim to notability, such as having 3rd party reviews, as a reasonable claim. I do check first to confirm that all of their books are in no or almost no libraries, which has been the case in every one I myself encountered at CSD, though there have a few cases in Wikipedia where there has been material & library holdings, & a very few have even passed AfD. (Even for most ordinary A7s on living people I run a quick gcheck to see if by any chance something is there but was not said.) DGG ( talk ) 17:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Being myself on the verge of publishing a novel and having two more in the works, I would still consider any article about me to be worthy of speedy deletion at this point. After what I've been through to select a publishing house to send my manuscript to, I can say that merely having a book published is a far cry from WP:AUTHOR especially if the book only exists in PDF format. And if there's no assertion that the book got any third-party reviews, an A7 tag is to be expected sooner or later, though not necessarily justified. To me, now, A7 speedy deletion is for cases where one sees no reason to bother with the kind of basic check DGG mentions above. Some articles don't assert their subject's importance. And then, there are those which blatantly assert their subject's lack of importance. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 20:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

G3. Vandalism, Hoaxes. Includes trolling

Pure vandalism, pure and blatant trolling, and blatant hoaxes.

I think the underlined words above should be inserted into the definition of G3. I added them[11] but was reverted[12].

This comes from Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 August 10. Most people can recognize that trolling is very close to vandalism, or maybe even is vandalism. But it is not clear enough. G3's link in the definition, Wikipedia:Vandalism, does not define trolling as vandalism. The essay Wikipedia:Vandals versus Trolls explains well enough. In the DRV case linked, it can be seen that the speedy deleting admin, User:Elockid, doesn’t see the connection between trolling and G3 to be close enough to tag the deletion with WP:CSD#G3. Instead, he used G6. The nominator User:Incnis_Mrsi didn’t see the deletion as an obvious G3 mistagged, and justifiably complained at the use of G6 to delete a user_talk page. G6 is for deletions for technical reasons. G6 is sometimes used in as a white lie, but there is no white lie reason in a vandalism/trolling speedy deletion response. Three other commenters also seem to see a problem (none “Endorsing”), a problem of detail, and no one fundamentally opposing the deletion entirely. If Elockid mistags G3s, then presumably others do to. The problem here is policy/documentation ambiguity. Therefore, there is a reason to clarify. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Is this a large problem? If the perceived difference with the current wording of G3 is too great can't we not just delete out of proces in cases like these? Does anyone even care if userpages like these are deleted? (in this case, because it's an IP, deletion is a good idea, because someone else may be behind it at some other point. If it were a regular userpage, I counldn't really care less whether it is deleted or not, or which criterium, if any, is used) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
As a matter or principal, it is best to simply ignore trolls. The other problem is that trolling can be very subtle and in the eye of the beholder. To delete something that is not pure vandalism, or otherwise speedy deletable, based on the justification that it is a troll requires a type of nuance not appropriate for speedy deletion. Further, doing so is likely to give the troll a chance to turn the deletion into a controversy, which just feeds them. Monty845 16:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Sure. It would be the best to revert trolls from dynamic IPs, block them, ignore their trolling and delete their user_talk pages without any discussion, maybe even not immediately, but several days after. Notably, the trolling should not create a distrust among legitimate users. "Ignore" should be namely ignoring trolls' output, not hastily deletions of trolls' talk pages and revisions. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Blanking/deletion of trolling is probably not the real problem here. The problem is the use of G6 to delete user_talk pages. There is a strong "no consensus" that user_talk pages are deleteable, unless obviously covered by another specific criterion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:27, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
User_talk pages should not be deleted. They should be blanked if problematical. That way the content remains available and transparent to non admins. Dlohcierekim 20:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I re-did the edit. I know it is not a big thing, but a really can't read approval or disapproval here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Reverted again. I disagree with this change to G3 in very strong terms, because it is too subjective. It is almost impossible to reliably identify trolling, because trolling usually depends on some degree of deception or pretending to hold a sincere position in order to upset people (see Poe's law). During the ancient userbox wars, some claimed that the pedophile userbox was trolling, while others thought it was sincere, and there was an enormous debate over it. If such cases cannot be settled by a discussion involving hundreds, they certainly cannot be settled by a single user acting unilaterally. Moreover, the need for such a criterion has not been identified (all criteria for speedy deletion must be frequently encountered - see the criteria for new criteria at the top of the page). Because CSD sidesteps our usual consensus processes, it is absolutely critical that it be justified by practical considerations in all cases, and I don't see any links to a single relevant deletion discussion here. Dcoetzee 03:40, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Thank you Dcoetzee. I agree with you about new criteria. The question is whether this is a current undocumented criterion.

        Could you please review the deletion of User talk:182.178.24.34? Should this page have been deleted: (a) per G6; (b) per G3; (c) not at all; or (d) something else? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Trolling should not yet be a reason for deletion or blanking or blanking/WP:Revdel, due to the (presently) undocumented, unconsensed, and therefore subjective process of evaluating it. Let's see proposed language changes here in Talk and get consensus, before going public. I think policy/guideline pages should not be WP:BRD arenas, but consensus-first arenas. In the meantime, trolling usually goes against plenty of other reasons for deletion, so we don't have to panic and rush anything. --Lexein (talk) 05:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Dcoetzee’s stance looks as a liberal one, but in real Wikipedia it means little more than encouraging gross breaches of WP:CSD (as in aforementioned case) which lead our page deletion institute to distrust. Were all criteria strictly formal, we could delegate the speedy deletion to bots, but sysops are humans yet. I do not see anything wrong in a criterion involving a subtle psychological matter. If a sysop is experienced and sharp-sighted enough, then s/he will apply it, otherwise s/he will not. Why these CSD exist indeed, if one could delete any non-article page on a forged "G6" and this will not have any negative consequences because "s/he is a sysop, makes a lot of job…" and therefore has many friends/admirers among other sysops. This could ultimately turn English Wikipedia to a social network, like it occurred in several other Wikimedia projects. Please, read that "G6" and, then, look at this discussion again. The deletion of User_talk:182.178.24.34 is controversial, therefore it was not a legitimate "G6". Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
      • That's a ridiculous slippery slope argument. Deleting a page consisting of a bot-issued warning and a bit of childish vandalism is not going to result in the destruction of Wikipedia. Hut 8.5 13:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
        It is not deleting which is going to result in the destruction of Wikipedia. But some pseudo-liberal ideas ("undocumented, unconsensed, and therefore subjective process of evaluating [the trolling]", "the need for such a criterion has not been identified") together with practical tolerance to a blatant misuse of the criteria, I think, are going. Accountability and responsibility of sysops must exist. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

There will always be cases where a deletion is necessary or justified (in this case, per WP:DENY) but it will not be covered by "the rules". Fortunately, in such cases, we are encouraged to just ignore them and improve Wikipedia (in this case, by deleting the trolling) without following "the rules". I don't think it is necessary to write what happened here into policy. So to answer SmokeyJoe's question: (d) the correct deletion summary is "WP:DENY" and there was no need to have a long discussion afterwards. Blanking and not deleting could also have been appropriate, but ultimately in trivial cases as this one it is fine to leave this to the deleting admin's discretion. —Kusma (t·c) 12:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

False. Look at all discussion about wrongful application of CSD by Elockid and think, was it really denying of recognition or, contrary, just a recognition. Were the case unique, the IAR substantiation would be plausible. But since it was a silly dynamic-IP trolling, this conflict of the policy and the practice definitely demonstrates a shortcoming in the policy. If the deletion was correct, then there should be a rule. If it was not correct, then it has to be reversed. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
If the deletion was correct, then there should be a rule. Why? This is not a bureaucracy. Our rules are not perfect and are not meant to be perfect. Actually, there should be a lot less rules (currently, there are so many that nobody follows all of them). —Kusma (t·c) 13:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has told Elockid about this (and he should have been informed), so I have, Dougweller (talk) 13:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I do not think that there should be less rules. Nobody has to know all of these. Nobody even has to examine all relevant rules before any action. You do not need to read any rules before contributing to Wikipedia. You should read rules to explain that your given action is right, indeed. There are many dynamic-IP trolls and this needs an expressed community consensus on how to deal with, at least to avoid repeating this flamewar. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • A CSD for trolling might conceivably lead to the deletion of valid, unobjectionable encyclopedic content if the motivation for adding it was to annoy somebody. Only one example has been pointed to here and deletion in that case would have been obviously justified under WP:IAR if nothing else. IAR can always be applied in very uncommon situations where it is obvious that deletion is justified. Hut 8.5 13:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    What means "justified"? Is a lie "justified", by what and by whom? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    What on earth are you talking about? "Justified" means what it says: that the decision to delete the page was a reasonable one. Administrators can (and in rare cases do) delete pages under IAR, and this has community support given the policy status of IAR. I don't think it was necessary to invoke IAR in this case. I have no idea what "lie" you're referring to. Hut 8.5 10:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
    The current case of lie is presenting a political and controversial deletion as a technical and uncontroversial. What on earth suggested this sysop to choose this edit summary? Hut 8.5's reasonings about IAR have little relevance to this particular trouble, so I ignore it. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:53, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
    My reasoning about IAR is relevant to the question of whether we should have a CSD for trolling. There are plenty of rare situations where it would be entirely justifiable for an administrator to speedily delete something which are not included in the CSD criteria. That one particular situation belongs in this category is not in itself reason to add it to the CSD criteria, because IAR can cover such deletions. I do not see how the deletion of this user talk page is in any way "political", and the fact that you object to it does not make it controversial. Hut 8.5 13:04, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
    Technical implies "not motivated by content issues", and uncontrovesial means that the action does not generate a controversy. Probably, a half of Wikipedia needs to take part in this discussion to make the case, at last, "Hut 8.5-controversial". Sadly, Hut 8.5 is another sysop unwilling to learn policies (any relevant policies, not only those he likes) and impenetrable to arguments. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
    If you're going to resort to personal attacks I'm not prepared to have a discussion with you. Hut 8.5 15:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I have no idea what was on User_talk:182.178.24.34, but I can't see any reason ever to delete a User talk page. Any objectionable content can be replaced by a welcome message or vandalism warning as appropriate. The later are important as a record to justify future blocking. Every user that is contributing should have a talk page. More generally, I would oppose expanding CSD criteria absent multiple instances of clear cut situations that are not covered at all by the existing rules. --agr (talk) 13:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    Severe personal attacks or violations of privacy must not be kept around just because they happen to be in the page history of a user talk page. Anyway, as you can see from Special:Contributions/182.178.24.34, the person in question was not contributing. —Kusma (t·c) 13:52, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    By contributing, I mean making edits of any kind. This user should have a talk page with a record of successive warnings, so future admins feel free to block quickly. For personal attacks or violations of privacy, we have a separate mechanism WP:oversight. There is also a separate CSD category G!0. --agr (talk) 14:11, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    The only non-vandalism content in the page history was a level 1 warning from ClueBot. The IP was blocked for their behaviour, so there's no need to keep the warning around either. Hut 8.5 14:32, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    Of course, there's no need to keep. But there's no need to subvert the Wikipedia policy (even if not to mention the lie) too. WP:DENY, first, is not officially a policy. Second, it does not encourage people to override established procedures to hide page revisions constituting a trivial vandalism. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    I don't agree that there's no need to keep the user talk warning history. The idea that "anyone can edit" is central to Wikipedia. Blocks are an exception that requires both a strong reason and a transparent process. The talk page history is especially important when a block has been issued.--agr (talk) 20:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
    I mean, as clarified at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 August 10, that there is no need to keep this for a prolonged time. Dynamic-IP user_talk pages have no merit for future ages, and are deleted in ru.wikipedia, for example. For a static IP agr’s point would certainly be correct. In any case, the motivation for such deletion should be avoiding confusion for future IP-users, not sacral rites of purging the history of trolls ☺ Incnis Mrsi (talk) 05:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
    The warning was issued after the most recent edit and therefore could not possibly have played a role in the decision to block. Hut 8.5 10:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. User talk pages used only for trolling should be deleteable, but I don't think this needs a one-size-fits-all speedy deletion criterion. That invites abuse. However, userpages of indefinitely blocked users that have no history of contributing substantively to the project (e.g., vandals and trolls) should be deleted after some statutory amount of time (say six months). This used to be the case (CAT:TEMP), but apparently no longer. Oddly, this entire administrative process essentially vanished with virtually no discussion. I think that such processes do play an important housekeeping role that is essential for the long-term success of the project. I don't know whether there is currently a systematic effort to delete such pages. 198.144.156.144 (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

In conclusion

So, I think I read the above as a consensus for the following statements:

  • WP:CSD#G3 does not cover speedy deletion of trolling.
  • WP:CSD#G6 does not cover speedy deletion of trolling.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:10, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Bots marking pages for db-redirnone

I've requested a bot to mark pages for deletion if they qualify for {{db-redirnone}}; it's gotten good reception so far at WP:BOTR, and I expect it to be completed. Because solutions such as retargeting are often better for a broken redirect, I needed the bot-placed template to include a warning to admins to check for alternatives other than deletion. Since I don't know how to get a bot parameter for the existing template, I've created {{Db-redirnonebot}}; I'm fully aware that it probably will need substantial reworking, moving, deleting, or something else. Just please clean it up (and ask me to do it, if you think I'll be able) or do whatever else is necessary. Nyttend (talk) 03:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

This is probably too late to be useful, but there is a |bot= parameter in the speedy deletion templates that you can use. Would {{db-redirnone|bot=MyBot}} do the job you are trying to do, or is there another reason that you need a customized template? Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 12:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I couldn't figure out how to do it; I understand that the parameter makes it say that it was bot-tagged, but I specifically wanted the custom warning in big letters (since deletion isn't the best course of action in many of these cases), and I couldn't figure out how to do it. If you figure out how to get it to work and show it to me, I'll ask Legoktm to have his bot use your code, and immediately afterward I'll request a G7 speedy deletion. Nyttend (talk) 22:54, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I see. There's no particular parameter for that, but it could be done by putting some code in the |text= parameter of {{db-redirnone}} so that your warning message appears if the |bot= parameter is present. I can't think of any real reason that putting it in a separate template would be a bad idea, though, so it's probably just simpler to keep it as it is. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 01:35, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Consistency with G11

It's been a bit frustrating trying to figure out what does and does not qualify for G11 lately. Admin actions often seem to be quite varied. Perhaps there is some way to achieve a better consistency. Some of the main issues: is an WP:UNDUE article, mostly factual, but with a two-ton weight to one side, G11 spam? Some say definitely yes, others say no. We also have others who tend to delete when the article is mostly factual but clearly not notable. There are a few examples that come to mind; unfortunately, they're both deleted for other reasons. So, for the admins: this was G11-declined, and an admin said he would have deleted this (v. before 06:52, 30 August) under G11 if it wasn't at AfD. This seems to be a significant difference. NTox · talk 02:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

G11 is for anything that no editor in good standing would believe to be anything other than purely and totally promotional. Everything else goes to AfD. Some admins are trigger happy on G11, just like some are on any CSD reason, but that doesn't change the fact that CSD is supposed to be for the stuff no one disputes. Jclemens (talk) 04:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
If it is all about how wonderful the subject-- usually a company is-- and nothing about their notability, I'm inclined to look for a work around, look for a better version. Failing that, I'm inclined to delete. The test is always the notability of the subject. Sometimes it's better to start from scratch with reliable sources. Dlohcierekim 01:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
It is an interesting issue you touch on - notability and speedy deletion - how they relate. In fact it's probably more relevant in the context of the A7 and A9 criteria. What should we do with an article that is obviously notable, yet does not make a claim of importance/significance? This policy (in theory) emphasizes the point that notability should have little to nothing to do with speedy deletion (WP:NOTCSD, #5), but in practice I think we see things differently. I suppose some common sense comes into play, but I am inclined to suggest that these cases come up enough times that at least some guidance on this point would be useful in this policy. NTox · talk 01:21, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
For G11 in theory we don't care whether the subject is notable, if the article is purely promotional then it isn't a good start to an encyclopaedia article and it is best deleted. But in practice if we delete an article as G11 which was eligible for A7 we risk sending out the wrong message, and the author might try and come back with a neutrally written article on their kid's under 8 football team. As for the article that is "obviously notable, yet does not make a claim of importance/significance". Anything that makes the subject of an article obviously notable is a pretty good assertion of importance or significance. ϢereSpielChequers 07:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Unless what makes the subject notable or significant is not stated in the article. "John Doe is a cricket player." A page with only that, if it sits for an hour, is eligible for A7. Yet a search of John Doe would reveal quickly that he meets the notability standards. These are the cases I'm referring to. NTox · talk 17:09, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
When an article meets more than one criterion, it should be deleted using all of them. Promotional articles about companies where no significance is indicated should be deleted listing both criteria; in the rather frequent case where such an article is copied from their website, G12 should be specified also. Specifying G12 without the others, can lead to a situation where the person goes to the trouble of giving OTRS permission, and the article is speedy deleted none the less. This tends to confuse the new editor. If the editor appears to be in good faith, this is the sort of instance where it is often worth adding a personal note.
The more common case is a promotional article about a subject where the article indicates some plausible good--faith significance, but it is clear that the article will never meet notability. Here the only good solution is a personal explanation to that effect, explaining the rule--I say something like, please don't re-insert until you have substantial reliable independent sources, or the article will be deleted. (I say "until" not "unless", especially if it's a BLP of someone starting a career) DGG ( talk ) 15:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge a couple of F8 exceptions

What do you think of this? In my mind, it reduces complexity without any harmful effects. Nyttend (talk) 13:37, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

This only looks like an editorial difference. I don't see why it would change the deletion procedure in any way, but it makes the section a little bit easier to read. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
indeed, looks good to me. --j⚛e deckertalk 17:32, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
A step in the right direction. Like I said on ANI, F8 is too hairy. Additionally, the bullets starting with "The image's license and source status is beyond reasonable doubt, and the license is undoubtedly accepted at Commons. [...] please ensure the Commons page description has all of the following [...]" and "All information on the image description page is present on the Commons image description page [...]" should probably be together as well. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:43, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

{{di-no source}}

{{di-no source}} is an F4 template (it appears at {{Speedy deletion templates}} under F4), but its been advised that it does not take the {{holdon}}, and as the template itself does not have a check the talk page for objections notice, how do you contest these types of Speedy Deletion templates? It would appear that this is an uncontestable process, but there is a centralized discussion area for these types of deletions, WP:PUF, but there's no way to start a discussion, since the speedy deletion template doesn't allow for contesting it. There should be a way to convert a di-no source to a {{puf}} -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Single-use templates

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am closing this RfC per the request at WP:ANRFC. There is clear consensus that {{db-t4}} and {{db-oneuse}} should not be included in the criteria for speedy deletion. The CSD criteria should be specific. However, there is a small consensus into expanding the proposed deletion criteria to include this, therefore I suggest that a discussion be opened at WT:PROD, or continue to use WP:TFD. Some templates (for example, {{DR case status}}) are used only for a single purpose. Single-purpose templates are often kept. Therefore, these proposed templates should not be included in the CSD criteria. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to add T4 (Single-use template) as a criterion for speedy deletion. ❤ Yutsi Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 17:54, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

T4. Single-use template

Templates that are intended to be used on only a single page, or are otherwise too specific to be used on more than one page.

"Single-use template" is one of the most common reasons for deletion on WP:TFD, and I really can't think of a reason why it would be necessary to make and template and then transclude it, never to be transcluded again, rather than just insert the wikicode directly. I'd entertain any suggestions to reword it, as I don't really like how I wrote it. I was initially considering integrating this into T3, but thought that doing so would make T3 much too lengthy. The exact criterion above is simply my proposed wording. This RfC should concern whether or not to add a "Single-use template" criterion at all.❤ Yutsi Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 17:51, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment If a template like that is speedy-deleted, it's quite likely that the editor who created it won't have a copy, and will either have to get it temporarily undeleted or userified or else have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. Looie496 (talk) 18:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I think I see a way to make this work though. Some do the CSD for images have a built-in seven day waiting period. The image is nominated and after seven days it can be deleted. If we did this here it would alleviate the need to have needless discussions backlogging TFD and would also give any interested parties a fair chance to insert the code before it was deleted. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • If it were up to me, I'd generally replace deletion with userfication by default project-wide. This should be for speedy substing followed by userfication per WP:BITE, WP:AGF, and just being nice to editors who set out to learn templates. —Cupco 18:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I fail to see where AGF comes into it, nobody is suggesting that such templates are created maliciously. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - CSD criteria need to be very specific and bullet-proof. It is important that this criterion cannot be reasonably interpreted as applying to any template that has 1 transclusion. Language must be included along the lines of "This criterion only applies to templates that have no significant probability of ever being transcluded to more than one page." If that were the case, I'd probably support it. -Scottywong| gossip _ 18:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Some of our processes use highly specialized templates that may only be transcluded on the process page and have virtually no use outside of that particular page. This proposal as written would subject these templates to speedy deletion, and I can't support that. T. Canens (talk) 19:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Would you mind giving examples? I don't understand why you couldn't just hard code something into a page rather than make a single-use template. ❤ Yutsi Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 17:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
    • See my comment of 20:07, 14 September 2012 below. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per T. Canens. There are engineering reasons why you may not want a bunch of fragile wikicode dumped in a highly edited page for instance. It may be better in such cases to use transclusion in order to prevent both edit-window clutter and human errors stemming from that. A WP:PROD-like process for templates as suggested by Beeblebrox might work in the uncontroversial cases, but this seems to be wrong place to adopt/enlarge that. Update: I see that template prods were discussed an rejected recently. See also VPT discussion; it looks like a good number of single-use templates survive TfD. This set was given as a recent example and it's exactly along the lines I suspected it would be. Tijfo098 (talk) 20:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 April 3#Periodic table infobox templates for a list of over 100 templates, each of which is used on exactly one page with no potential for use elsewhere. There were several good reasons given in the ensuing discussion as to why these are a good thing. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I've seen many massive templates that were created to avoid overwhelming a specific page with large amounts of code; {{List of Registered Historic Places in Ohio topnav}} is a good example. It's a very bad idea for anyone to edit this code without meaning to (you could easily make a typo, not realise it in the mass of code, and thus mangle the clickable map without even knowing that you'd changed anything), and the template relieves this problem without causing any problems in return. Moreover, the proposed wording is so much more complicated than most of our criteria; this means that it's sufficiently complex to make speedy deletion an ambiguous situation and thus really not appropriate. Nyttend (talk) 22:49, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose CSD isn't the right way to deal with these, since it isn't always obvious what other uses the template may or may not have. There are also reasons why a single use template could makes sense, per Nyttend. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as AFD has frequently kept those templates. Agathoclea (talk) 05:37, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

More specific wording

Here is some more specific wording I came up with. This wording would permit templates like {{Infobox actinium}} (which have transclusions of other templates specifically designed for the purpose) while subjecting the two examples the proposer named to speedy deletion under certain conditions. PleaseStand (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

T4. Single-use template.
Templates too specific for more than a single use in a single article, when all relevant content (and proper attribution for that content) already exists on that article page, on its talk page, or on a subpage of its talk page. Attribution may be provided in an edit summary or on the talk page. This excludes templates that accept arguments (e.g. {{{1}}}) or consist of other than just hardcoded instances of text, images, and transclusions of other templates primarily intended for direct use in the main namespace (e.g. {{Commons category}}). This excludes templates for use in namespaces other than the main namespace.
  • How many templates fitting all of these criteria are actually taken to TfD? Also, "templates primarily intended for direct use in the main namespace" is a recipe for disaster until Special:ReadMind is functional. T. Canens (talk) 20:43, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Isn't there room for something like PROD to address this issue? —Cupco 20:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, no: the PROD process itself only applies to mainspace, and there are no comparable processes for other namespaces. Nyttend (talk) 00:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
  • We are here to discuss a possible improvement to our processes; the rules of PROD are not perpetual & immutable, any more than our list of CSD criteria is. bobrayner (talk) 09:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, there was a time when PROD could be used for userspace pages of users with no other edits, and I think there was a time when it could be used for fair-use images. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The problem of the first proposal is still here, so oppose. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 21:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The new wording is.... well a bit much for the rough and tumble world of speedy deletion. upon further thought I am also unconvinced this is a common enough problem to warrant a CSD. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Still oppose. Wordy, confusing, dubious usefulness and doesn't address many of the issues. I'm not sure how a big of a problem this is solving. I'm wondering if have a CSD category is a ten dollar solution to a one dollar problem. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I imagine such templates could be made as a learning excercise in action, and their speedy deletion being extremely unhelpful to the encouragement of new generations of users. I also don't see the new criterion criteria having been addressed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:01, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose speedy deletion for such templates, but support expanding PROD to include them (and yes, at times PROD did include some other namespaces). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Single use templates are too circumstantial to ever be a CSD criteria and rare enough that they don't unduly burden TfD. Monty845 15:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Whether a template is used once is objective; whether a template is "too specific for more than a single use in a single article" is very much a judgment call. Often a template that appears at first to have narrow application later proves to enable creative reuse. For example, a navbox that appears to suit only one article may suddenly become useful in multiple articles after that article grows and is split into sub-articles. The fact that the criterion as written encompasses templates which were kept at TfD suggests it is inadequate, and this kind of template is also not common enough to warrant a CSD. Dcoetzee 23:55, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm not convinced you're ever going to have a clear-cut segment of "unquestionably bad" single-use templates, TfD or an extended PROD would be a better fit, given the relative infrequency of the problem and the lack of any need for immediate action. --j⚛e deckertalk 15:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that PROD, or something PROD-like, would be a better channel than CSD if the concerns revolve around usage of templates. If you think a template is redundant because it's just for one article, and nobody else comes along in the next week to disagree, I think that neatly sidesteps the problem of how to word a relatively complex CSD criterion and how to judge usage and intent &c. Also, the template problem isn't an urgent one, so we don't need the very rapid response which CSD often permits. However, part of me wonders whether these templates are such a serious problem that we even need process change to deal with them. bobrayner (talk) 13:04, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: first, there are templates that are supposed to be used on process pages, and would become eligible for speedy deletion once this proposal is successful (eg. WP:DRN alone uses {{DR case status}}, {{DRN archive bottom}}, {{DRN archive top}}, {{DRN case status}} and {{Drn filing editor}}, all of which are specifically crafted for use on DRN and are not supposed to use elsewhere. Still, even if the proposal was reworded, CSD means that one may tag a template and it gets deleted, so that the code is not placed on a page, but simply removed, which is definitely unwanted. Last, as several TfD discussion about the templates in question were closed as "keep", this criterion is not as uncontroversial as it should be to be included. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 20:41, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Your first 2 objections could be fixed by rewording - we could require that there only be a single use, not a page, and that the template be subst-ed before deletion. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Can an Article for creation submission be speedied under an A criteria?

I speedied am article for creation submission under A7. The speedy nomination was removed under the grounds that articles for creation submissions are not yet articles and so cannot be speedied under any A criterium. This particular case Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Catherine Senor is not important, but the interpretation of the rules is interesting to me. There is nothing in the Speedy criteria (or even in Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations) that says that a draft that has been submitted for review cannot be speedied under an Article category. It seems an obvious enough possibility that it should have come up before, but I can't find it in a cursory search. If there is a consensus that A category speedy criteria can or cannot be applied to articles for creation then we should probably say so in Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Articles to avoid this problem. I suspect that I have previously speedied other articles for submission under A criteria and that admins have indeed deleted them. Meters (talk) 18:29, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

If you were to read the third paragraph of WP:CSD, it states: "Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation." What this means is new editors should be given a chance to experience the process of editing, including the AfC reviews. However, if the article in question continues to be re-submitted without any regard to the reviewers' comments, then, by all means, add the Speedy Delete. They must learn why they must add more than two lines before their work disappears. The editor in question had only two edits, both on that article within minutes. — WylieCoyote (talk) 20:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think you can Ax anything in AfC. There are several "decline" reasons that duplicate CSD criteria such as A1 (No context) and A10 (Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic). Technically, it's in the Wikipedia Talk space, so it's not an "article" in that sense, and plus one of the advantages of AfC (at least as far as I can tell) is that it allows people to learn policy before getting bitten by an unpleasant CSD. Hells bells, I could even, if I was feeling charitable, say that "Editor of T Magazine", provided I can get a good understanding on what T Magazine is with a few seconds of googling, just about pushes it over the "asserting importance" boundary to not be a valid A7. I would have declined the article on Catherine Senor on being of insufficient context. It then stays there, out of the way of article space, until it gets remedied. There is a valid question of what happens to AfC submissions that get declined and sat on - Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Lauren Victoria Skippen being such an example that springs to mind (and only because I thought the submitter was mucking about and threw in a silly joke in the process), but I would only recommend CSDing those if the page creator has clearly abandoned it and lost interest (which I'd measure in months of inactivity, not days). Now, the Gx CSDs are fair game - if you set up blatant spam or attack pages, even in AfC, I'll be happy to CSD those, and indeed I did three myself today. --Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
As I said, the particular article was unimportant. I have no problem with how the admin handled it. The uncertainty over the interpretation of the rules is my point. WylieCoyote seems to be saying that an Ax speedy could be applied, at least in some situations, but not User:Ritchie333. I'm OK with either interpretation, I just want to know what the concensus is, if there really is one. And I think it should be clarified on Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Articles so everyone is using the same interpretation. Meters (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)A prime example is Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/KIRKCOLM PARISH, currently the oldest article in the review queue. It has actually been reviewed but, for reasons unknown remains on the list. The author has already created and developed a duplicate article on the same subject. I tried to find some way of speedy deleting it, but because it is not an article, no criteria fitted. Sionk (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I've changed my mind and {{db-a10}}ed that article, as it's fairly obvious nobody will be working on it and the creator has abandoned it. I'm not sure what happens to declined articles if they stay declined (which something marked as "already exists" would unless the submitter can prove it's something different with the same name) - I'd be interested to find out. --Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:06, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Declined submissions join the thousands of others in Category:Declined AfC submissions and Category:AfC submissions by date (which will be for the most part declined submissions or those not submitted review). I can't see that any kind of CSD action is needed for these. France3470 (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
AfC:Catherine Senor, AfC:Lauren Victoria Skippen & AfC:KIRKCOLM PARISH are three of the finest examples for this discussion. One is only a few edits old, the second is just silly, and the last is circumventing. The latter two deserved Axing and the first just didn't understand the AfC rules. Ax Speedy should be used at all times for those that don't get AfC submissions. Those that do, get a process before it happens in hopes of newbie training. Perhaps some leniency could be mentioned, but no change in policies, once neglect/abuse and, of course, WP:CREEP is discovered. — WylieCoyote (talk) 23:52, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Since I was the one who initially spurred this discussion I should probably throw in my thoughts. I have to say I completely disagree with the above suggestion that Ax criteria should be used in these cases, and in fact at all. AFCs are not articles. They are not live and not indexed, which makes them less likely to cause harm than their CSD-candidate counterparts. For the vast majority of cases, tagging an AFC for speedy deletion is unnecessary. It's important to remember that the AFC system is geared towards supporting new contributors, who in most cases haven't much clue about what's acceptable and what isn't. When it comes to the submissions being an attack page, a copyvio or just plain vandalism we should speedy tag without hesitation, but apart from that a decline reason gets across the same message, without being so WP:BITEY. Yes, there are sometimes stubborn cases where a user may persist in resubmitting an unacceptable item without changes, and those might perhaps warrant an exception (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2012 3#Repeat submissions, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2012 3#G11ing submissions where this was discussed previously), however, I tend to find that after a number of declines the message gets across. So looking specifically at the individual criteria I would say G3, G10 and G12 absolutely apply. G11 may apply but perhaps its usage needs clarification (from my experience a huge portion of AFCs start off being very promotional). G1 and G2 shouldn't apply as these are easy declines and tagging is a waste of a reviewing admin's time. G4-G7 I doubt would apply. And since AFCs aren't articles I can't see why Ax criteria should apply when a decline rationale serves the same purpose.France3470 (talk) 00:01, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I had forgotten, but as I just came across it now, it might be worth pointing out that {{Afc cleared}} currently reads "Administrators: Please note that mainspace CSD criteria do not apply to Articles for creation submissions." France3470 (talk) 00:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
It also clearly has guidelines for reviewers for "Quick-fail criteria", which consist of: Vandalism or attack page, blank submission, nonsense or test, submission not in English, copyright violation, and already-existing articles. That covers it for me. Anything not AfC is fair game for the Ax, in my opinion as they also fall in that criteria. — WylieCoyote (talk) 02:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that declined AfC pages that would be deleteable in mainspace under the CSD#A criteria should be deleteable after they get old. I think old = 6 months would be agreeable.

    Reasons to delete:

    If CSD#A-failing AfC-declined pages were made in mainspace to start with, they would be be deleted;

    If they were made in userspace, then I am very confident that they would be SNOW deleted at MfD citing WP:STALEDRAFT;

    If it is very old, and fails a CSD#A, it is extremely unlikely to be useful;

    Keeping old useless stuff seems to make some very productive Wikipedians unhappy

    Why wait?

    It's not mainspace, and the user did the right thing in using AfC, and the user is very likely new, and quick deletion is very bitey;

    An early attempt at article writing may have unseen potential;

    There is little actual harm in having recent failed examples in project-talk space. There may be a current-affairs reason for multiple newcomers to want to write the same bad article, and there is no good in quickly hiding this fact. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Whilst we need to delete the badfaith stuff is there any reason to delete these? And yes I know that some people like to keep things tidy, but there are also some people who don't want to delete other people's work. We need to get beyond such arguments to work out whether it makes sense to delete these. No-one has yet quoted figures as to how many AFC declines get revived and reworked on after one two or three years, we need to know that before we can make a meaningful assessment as to whether keeping them is worth the few pence of electicity and server space required. ϢereSpielChequers 08:20, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Deleting articles does not save serverspace. In fact the additional log entry just needs more space. There is absolutely zero benefit to deleting an AFC submission that does not fall under the general speedy deletion criteria. If some editors feel the obsessive need to "clean up" wikipedia, perhaps they should apply themselves to areas where such efforts are actually useful, such as template space and non-free images. Yoenit (talk) 09:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

A9

The wording of A9 states, "An article about a musical recording that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the artist's article does not exist (both conditions must be true). " By "the artist's article does not exist," do obviously speedy-delateable (A7) articles about a band count as "semi-non-existant"? I find that waiting for an article about a band to be deleted before tagging a different page about their music for A9 is incredibly time consuming -- could the criteria not be modified slightly to say "and where the artist's article does not exist or is a tagged obvious case for speedy deletion"? I admit that isn't the best wording - and I'm sure someone else can come up something prettier - but I see no reason to have to sit around waiting for an article to be deleted before being able to tag non-notable musical albums by that band. (I may be missing a clause somewhere for this, and if so - I apologize) Theopolisme 11:18, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The wording is fine as it refers not to the tagging but to the actual deletion. The album should not be deleted if the artist article is merely tagged and we need to avoid instruction creep. With respect to tagging it's common practice to simply tag both the recording and the artist article. If there is a blue link on the album, the reviewing administrator will need to check in any case that page as well, also to see whether it has been meanwhile crated or recreated or a so far wrong link has been fixed. If the artist's article is indeed an obvious case for speedy deletion usually both will be deleted.--Tikiwont (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
I very much doubt that if the article about the artist is tagged for speedy deletion, that any admin would decline the A9 on the grounds that an article about the artist exists, unless they decline the deletion of the artisrt's article. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Allowing an A9 while an A7 is pending is likely to promote gaming the system by having people simply A7 a band's article they might not have tagged otherwise. You could always wait until the band's A7 is taken care of, or on the talk page of the band's page, simply point to the potential A9 album, as the patrolling admin should be reading the talk page anyway. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, the A9 was indeed intended to mostly take care of albums and the like that stay around after a deletion of some main article, and this logical order needs to be reflected in the wording. Waiting with the tagging for the A7 to be handled is therefore always fine. Whilst 'current practice' is actually too strong a word, it happens that people tag both, and this possibility was already ventilated when A9 was set-up, without the current wording really inviting it, so I'd leave it as is. What incites hasty tagging is still a good question, though. But I've had to ask that myself rarely with the situation described here or rather in the more general sense that people find one speedy candidate and then go on to tag related ones which are less clear. --Tikiwont (talk) 21:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I've never seen this as a problem; I did it all the time for about 2 years without a hitch. If a band was formed 3 days ago and has released an "album", there's no possible way either article is going to stay, so there's no point in holding fire. I'm all for caution, but let's not get overly dogmatic about this. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Dennis Brown, I doubt that gaming the system is likely to be a serious problem. If the band's article isn't A7-able, then it will be reviewed by an admin and be declined. Subsequently, an admin (possibly the same one) will, fairly quickly, decline the A9. Not allowing paralell tagging of both makes deleting A9s likely to take more time - and with the number of clear speedy pages where I have seen "Please leave this for an other hour/day/week", this time makes gaming the system more problematic, IMO. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

permissions-enwikimedia.org

This page appears to be the talk page for {{di-no permission-notice}}. Could the {{nospam}} template be dropped? It breaks copying & pasting of the e-mail address using some web browsers. I sometimes get complaints that a file I've tagged with {{subst:npd}} has been deleted, although an e-mail has been sent to "permissions-enwikimedia.org" (with no @ sign). The {{nospam}} template was dropped from similar pages on Commons following the discussion at Commons:Commons:Village pump/Archive/2012/08#OTRS email address: spam the "@" sign, and the need for a reliable email address, but remains in the Wikipedia talkpage notification template. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:35, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done MBisanz talk 17:59, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I made a proposal a while back to completwly get rid of the no spam email gimmick as it seems to cause more problems than it solves, but unfortunately very few users bothered to comment and it never went anywhere. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:CSD reference templates

I created all (or most?) of these six years ago under an old account, and they never seem to have gotten any significant use. A search uncovers very few substitutions or transclusions, although an admin did try to use {{csdref-g6}} in a couple deletion log entries. Is anyone still using or planning to use these templates, or can they be safely substituted and deleted? I would have listed these at WP:TFD, but that page said discussions about policy-related templates do not belong there. PleaseStand (talk) 03:42, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at your links and don't really understand their point. Could you explain a little about what you intended them to do? Nyttend (talk) 06:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes in an AfD, RfD, or other deletion discussion, an editor believes one or more of the CSD apply and the nominator could have just added a speedy deletion tag. Let's say an editor were to notice an RfD for "Temporary move". Here are a few possible ways to write the same comment regarding the matter:
  1. Speedy delete G6 Example (talk) 20:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  2. Speedy delete as housekeeping (CSD G6). Example (talk) 20:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  3. Speedy delete per WP:CSD#G6. This is just a leftover redirect from a (perhaps unnecessary) page move, and deleting it would qualify as "uncontroversial maintenance". Example (talk) 20:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
No. 2 uses {{subst:csdref-g6}} to create "housekeeping (CSD G6)", which is clearer than No. 1 to new Wikipedians unfamiliar with our deletion processes (as is No. 3). However:
Since use of the templates is extremely rare, there's no point in improving the wording, updating it to match the actual CSD. I also question my original premise that each criterion can be accurately summarized in a single short sentence. PleaseStand (talk) 20:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree we do not need them. TfD is pretty obscure, but there has to be some place--I've been saying for some time we should merge it with MfD, and perhaps Cfd, to get adequate discussion. MfD routinely discusses whether something affects policy DGG ( talk ) 05:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As obscure as TfD is, this talk page may be even more obscure, so I have gone ahead and nominated the templates there. I noticed the wording in the TfD header changed a while ago, seemingly without discussion, so cases such as these may be well within the scope of TfD. For those who believe these sorts of discussions must appear on this talk page, you can consider this section to be your notice. PleaseStand (talk) 22:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

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