Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Archive 45

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Gaming the 3 panel admin selection process for controversial AfD closures

Hello, I'm very new to Wikipedia, and I'm trying to follow WP:BOLD by writing here. As I understand it the process for choosing admins when a panel is required for a controversial AfD closure is that a concerned user lists the AfD as controversial on the Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard, then the first 3 uninvolved admins to come along put their hands up for the panel (then go off and follow standard operating procedure on the AfD). It occurs to me that this leaves room for gaming the system. Namely that a biased user involved in the AfD (whose made friends with a couple of admins) might come along and message those admins (via whatever means necessary) to let them know the notice is going up (and hence let them put their hands up the quickest), allowing the panel to be rigged. I wouldn't cast any aspersions on Wikipedia's admin approval process (or on WP:UNINVOLVED, but I do accept that everyone is human and that humans can have strong views on controversial subjects (and that those views are sometimes apparent in edits/discussions). I was just looking for there to be some discussion on other possible methods of selection (perhaps a minimum number of admins putting their hands up, then the selection being randomized algorithmically?). It just seems like that would put another (better) layer on the swiss cheese model - and a layer that might be needed considering panels tend to result from already controversial/publicity prone subjects. Thank you for your time, and if I've put this in the wrong place, feel free to delete it and let me know what I'm doing wrong. --Jobrot (talk) 03:05, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

BLP deletion

The purpose of this phrase is lost to me:

Poorly sourced biographical articles of unknown, non-public figures, where the discussions have no editor opposing the deletion, may be deleted after discussions have been completed.

If nobody opposes deletion, then an article is to be deleted, BLP or not. What is the purpose of this extra rule? I.e., which hole does it cover? Staszek Lem (talk) 22:28, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not true that deletion discussions where nobody opposes deletion are closed as Delete. At AfD you do normally need an active consensus in favour of deletion for something to be deleted. Hut 8.5 22:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Not so fast, please

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.

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A few years ago my wife started an article on Calton weavers which was speedily deleted. She started again, but it soured her on Wikipedia. Today she pointed out a Huffington Post article that discussed a speedy deletion nomination for Natalie Smith Henry submitted one minute after the article was first saved. The incident was also picked up by the New York Times and the BBC in discussions on why there are so few women editors. If a new editor's first experience with WP is a speedy deletion nomination, we are likely to lose them even if the nomination is rejected. If potential new editors hear WP is a hostile place, they may never consider contributing. The publicity about the Natalie Smith Henry nomination may have caused significant and lasting damage.

Some new articles must be deleted fast because they are clear copyright violations, vicious personal attacks and so on. But if an article by a new editor is harmless there is no urgency to delete. There is no reason for a huge, angry pink notice that seems to tell the new editor they have committed a crime. There should be a process to politely tell the editor that there are issues with the article, explain what they are, and offer to help. If nothing happens for a week, then the article can be deleted. Once the new process, let's call it Newby help, is in place, editors who repeatedly submit speedy or proposed deletion nominations for harmless articles by new editors should be subject to admin action. The potential losses greatly outweigh the benefits. Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 18:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Scenario. The "Apsley Eagles" are a successful amateur sports team that merits a Wikipedia article. A high school teacher gives her class an assignment to write a Wikipedia article on the team. An enthusiastic student registers for a userid, then starts a first version of the article that reads, in its entirety, "The Apsely Eagles are the best team in the state." Two minutes later the article is nominated for speedy deletion. The class sees the huge pink warning message. While they are discussing it, the article is deleted. 30 potential editors are lost.

I am thinking of three templates. The first, for harmless new articles that may evolve into something useful but perhaps lack sourcing or evidence of notability, would be something like:

  Welcome! ... Please see talk:yourarticle for some helpful hints on ways this article could be improved.

The second template, for insertion on the new article's talk page, would be a basic introduction to the idea of notability and how to write an article. The third, for the talk page of editors who repeatedly flag harmless articles for speedy deletion using the standard angry pink notice, would be something like:

Warning! ... Please stop nominating harmless articles for speedy deletion, as you did with thisarticle. Your behavior may be discouraging new editors from contributing, and thus seriously damaging Wikipedia. Please read the policy on harmless new articles before nominating any more articles for deletion.

If you persist in nominating harmless new articles for deletion you may be banned from editing. Thanks, and have a nice day.

Is it practical to implement a change in process like this? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2015 (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.

Essay on "Need"

All--I put together a first draft of an essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia does or does not need that article and welcome feedback/discussion/utter destruction at that essay's page.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:16, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Why did you speedy delete instead of edit my page!!

Why did you speedy delete instead of edit my page!! How can I get it back so I can begin editing???

HMGMR (talk) 13:31, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• If you are referring to Robert C. Hilliard (lawyer), it looks like that was deleted under G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion. I didn't do it, it was performed by User:Deb. I'm confident you can visit with Deb on that user's talk page for more details.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
• I nominated it for speedy deletion as unambiguous advertising. I also deduced form the alleged references in the article that you have a WP:COI. Had you kept this as a draft and submitted it for review you might have stood a chance of getting it published. The WP:AFC route is not closed to you on this.

Our deletion process is designed so that an admin verifies requests for speedy deletion. It seems that they agreed with me. You should now relocate this discussion to that admin's talk page, please. Fiddle Faddle 15:21, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to clarify/change speedy deletion contesting policy

I propose that we either change the policy or clarify the wording regarding how users contest a speedy deletion. The current policy as it is worded only forbids the article creator from removing a speedy deletion tag, any other user can remove the speedy deletion tag in order to contest the speedy deletion. However, many times the article creator will simply log out and remove the tag or create a new account to remove the tag in an attempt to bypass this guideline. Many new page/recent changes patrollers already revert these "unexplained" removals of speedy deletion tags as disruptive. I would like to see the policy changed to state that any editor removing a speedy deletion tag, must also provide a reasoning for the removal in the edit summary (or talk page), otherwise it is considered disruptive and may be reverted. As I stated, many editors already practice this anyways as a matter of common sense. It's silly to allow article creators to simply contest a speedy deletion by logging out, and they clearly are not acting in good faith. It would waste time to have to take many of these articles to AfD. Experienced editors who contest speedy deletions normally leave an explanatory edit summary anyhow, so I don't see this change as being controversial, or that it adds undue weight to the deletion process. Thanks. -War wizard90 (talk) 05:49, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

• It is certianly best practice to leve an edit summary, or a note on the talk page, or both. I myself often use {{oldcsd}} on the talk page, plus a note to the tagger. Note that unlike prod, there is no rule forbidding any good faith editor from restoring the tag now, so I'm not sure that we need a policy or guideline about this, perhaps an esay would do. Avoid WP:CREEP. But if we do make this change, we should also say that when restoring a tag an editor is responsible for checking that it is a valid tag. When/if an invalid or improper speedy deletion tag is removed by an IP or other editor without a summary, it should not by restored in a knee-jerk edit. By restoring the tag, an editor should be stating a good-faith belief that the listed criterion does in fact apply to the page. I see many dubious tags when i patrol Category:CSD. DES ^(talk) 13:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, generally speaking, once a CSD tag has been properly removed, the article should not be renominated for speedy deletion, and definitely not under the same CSD Criteria (Except newly discovered G12s). Its really an exception to that general rule when we have a clear WP:DUCK of the page creator remove the tag, and then someone else restores it for that reason. In the absence of a reasonable belief the remover was a sock, it shouldn't be re-added even if you think its correct, instead bring it to AfD for discussion. Monty₈₄₅ 20:41, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we throw common sense out the window, if a tag is removed without an explanation, but the tag was clearly erroneous then it shouldn't be re-added just for the sake of re-adding it. However, I don't see it as problematic to make it standard practice that someone contesting a speedy deletion leave an edit summary explaining the reason why they are contesting it. Like I said, non-sock editors almost always do this anyhow, we should be able to warn editors who are "disruptively" removing CSD tags, even if they are not the author, and having a policy to point to that supports this would be helpful. Currently, all we do is point them to a policy that says, "log out and try removing it again." I don't think a change to the wording of this policy would somehow mean the amount of superfluous CSD tags would suddenly spike. It just means editors will be less likely to try and bypass the spirit of the policy. I want to avoid, unnecessary AfD discussion that don't have a snowball's chance in hell, I have no issue with "properly contested" CSD's being taken to AfD. Hope that makes sense. -War wizard90 (talk) 22:40, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

"Page is kept"

Sandstein undid my clarification about renomination: [1]. I don't particularly care about article vs page (I thought article was preferred) but the point is, this wording confuses some people. They see "page is kept" and think that refers to any page that is not deleted. I have twice been accused of being disruptive because I renominated for deletion an article that had previously been AfD and was closed as no consensus. Their argument was that the page was kept because it was not deleted, therefore, I should have waited before renominating it. One person accused me of being disruptive, demanded I withdraw the AfD and then reported me at ANI - multiple admins replied and explained why this was not disruptive, as did the closing admin on the AfD. (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive888#Disruptive renomination at AfD and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian Armstrong (diver) (2nd nomination). This happened again recently - obviously this needs to be clarified. In this part about renomination, it should clearly say, "Page closed as keep" instead of "page is kept" as apparently people think "kept" is not the AfD keep but any circumstance where it is not deleted. —Мандичка^YO 😜 12:03, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

How long is the result of a discussion valid?

Should an old deletion discussion be valid for all future, or is it possible to start to redevelop an article later on? Sure, in the case of Minneapolis Bandolier it has been only a little over a year since the discussion, but still, can't a discussion ever be considered to be outdated? Should it always lay a dead hand over the development of articles? Dammråtta (talk) 23:02, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Dammråtta, It is valid until consensus changes and no longer. It is pretty much always acceptable to start a new discussion if an editor feels that circumstances have changed, new facts have come to light, or new arguments might persuade the community to change its view. Although doing so too soon without clearly new evidence is often considered a bad idea -- in the past editors have often frowned on re-nominating an article kept at a previous AfD in less than 4-6 months, unless a good new reason is provided. In the case of an AfD closed as merge, when enough new info has been added to the merged article to justify a split, that can be a good reason to change the previous outcome. So can creating a new draft that is clearly notable on its own. Such a case came up at WP:DRV recently, and the old AFD result of Merge was overturned, largely because there was significant additional sourced content than there had been when the merge occurred. DES ^(talk) 00:38, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

It depends on why it was deleted/merged/kept. As long as that issue is still there, there is no need to resurrect the discussion. But if there is a reason to challenge the previous consensus, there is no time period needed. A lot of good articles now were once deleted. For example, let's say there's an article about an up-and-coming sprinter that is deleted because the athlete didn't have notable results and enough articles. A week after the article is deleted, the athlete wins the world championship and sets a world record. The article would immediately be available for recreation because there would be no doubt about notability. But if nothing has changed and there are no new sources or anything that would change the consensus, it should not be recreated. —Мандичка^YO 😜 01:00, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

NOTFAQ and NOTHOWTO

An RfC has been opened to see if WP:NOTFAQ and WP:NOTHOWTO should or should not apply to redirects. For the discussion, see WT:NOT#RfC: Should we add a footnote to WP:NOTHOWTO/WP:NOTFAQ stating that it does not apply to redirects? -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 04:55, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Template:recap

{{recap}} is nominated for deletion. This is an ancillary deletion template for processing long deletion discussions -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:47, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

#14. Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia

This is so open ended to be meaningless and is a deletionist gift from heaven. For example one editor claims that because an article contained some promotional content, the entire article should be deleted since it is "not suitable for an encyclopedia". This is not an isolated incident, this editor claims this rational has been used "thousands" of times at AfD. -- GreenC 22:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:14, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe and Green Cardamom: WP:NOT includes an extensive list of things that should not be included in Wikipedia. This is the policy that #14 refers to. Jarble (talk) 03:31, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

• No. WP:NOT may be long, but it is defined. If you cannot keep clear of anything at WP:NOT, then you are on dangerous ground. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:23, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

It is only a gift from heaven to a "deletionist" if said deletionist's idea of heaven an encyclopedia without non-encyclopedic content. These are not speedy deletion criteria and criteria under WP:NOT specifically do not fall under speedy deletion. Anything deleted under this clause goes through community review. This is working just fine, no need to fix it.

I am afraid the examples given are pretty meaningless without links. When only a second hand description of things is provided it often tends to favour a point of view. For example, how successful was this person at getting a whole article deleted because they thought it is "not suitable for an encyclopedia"? Where are these thousands of arguments using this part of policy? Chillum 13:02, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

A bit late but I would certainly like see some evidence that there have been thousand of AFD's in which people have argued that WP:NOT mandates that an article has to be deleted if it contains any promotional material whatever and that the argument is anywhere near successful enough to be a major issue. Perosnally I find it hard to believe that thousands of notable articles have been deleted solely due to containing a small amount of promotional material since it would be far simpler to just remove the material in question that wait 7 days for a deletion discussion to commence.--67.68.29.107 (talk) 03:04, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

what has been successful, and ought to remain successful, is the argument that borderline notability combined with clear promotionalism is an equally good reason. Sometimes the best way of expressing this is NOT DIRECTORY and similar policy. Frankly, this rule #14 is the ' actually relevant rule--people normally decide on this basis and then justify it by whatever more specific policy fits best. DGG ( talk ) 01:29, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Delete and redirect wording change

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.

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"Delete and redirect" should only be used when an article contains copyright violations or contains libelous statements about a living person. Deleting an article history to prevent it from being recreated in the future is not a valid reason for deleting the article history.

Support

• Support I think this wording should be included in the guideline. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:30, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• I support the principle of the second sentence of this proposal ("Deleting an article history to prevent it from being recreated in the future is not a valid reason for deleting the article history"), though I'm not sure the wording is perfect. James500 (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support Consensus can easily change, especially as discussions are so poorly attended. There should be no ratchet effect making it difficult to reuse the content in question. This is already our policy per WP:PRESERVE. Andrew D. (talk) 20:54, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

• Delete and redirect should be used whenever the only useful thing in the article is its title. For instance it is correct to delete the page history of an article on a non-notable individual if it's going to be redirected to a notable person with the same name. Hoaxes, unsourced cruft, articles where the entire content is already at the redirect target, and NPOV violations are also reasons to delete. Finally, this prevents people sneaking back to restore the article when they think nobody is still watching, which I have discovered times in the past. Reyk _YO! 15:45, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• I strongly oppose this. There is a far wider variety of reasonable and perfectly valid reasons for a standard "delete" !vote (i.e., delete with no redirect) or a "delete and redirect" !vote (i.e., delete, redirect, no article history preserved) than those stated above, and the burden on "delete and redirect" !voters to state their reasons for their vote should be no greater than those on "redirect" or "merge" !voters to state their reasons to preserve the article history. The ongoing efforts to bias the AfD process by effectively de-legitimizing the well-established practice of "delete and redirect" needs to stop. This has disrupted our AfD and DRV processes for the last year and a half and has led to numerous instances of gamesmanship and disingenuous requests for overturning perfectly valid "delete" and "delete and redirect" consensus outcomes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:58, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• D&R is a valid option for any type of content, though expected to be used more for copyright vios and BLP issues. There should be a valid reasoning given when this is expressed as a !vote as to why to remove the content, but it cannot be eliminated as an option save for limited cases. --MASEM (t) 16:16, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• According to established policy and practice, reasons for deleting content (whether in conjunction with creating a redirect or not) are not limited to copyright, libel and similar problems, but include any reason that results in a consensus for deletion, such as non-notability or material not compliant with WP:NOT.  Sandstein  16:48, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• "Delete and redirect" is an acceptable outcome if deletion is a valid result of the AfD and the title makes a good redirect. Reasons for deleting articles are certainly not limited to copyright violations and BLP violations. Hut 8.5 19:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• This is more than a wording change and, like Sandstein notes, based on a false assumption. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose There are plenty of good reasons beyond copyright for a decision to delete and then redirect. Reyk offers one, and others above offer several more. Also the comments above indicating that this would be a policy change, rather than a mere clarifying wording change are spot-on. It seems odd to me that this proposal is made while an RfC on this same topic is still open. I guess the proponent of the RfC has concluded the proposition is failing there, so it's time to open up a new front in the WP:BATTLEGROUND. David in DC (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
• No See my reasoning in the section below,. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per just about all of the above. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 14:23, 13 December 2015 (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.

Alternative proposal

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.

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"Delete and redirect" should only be used if every revision in the history of the page satisfies the criteria for revision deletion.

• Support This is not only desirable, it is existing site consensus, it is a necessary consequence of having criteria for revision deletion which forbid admins from indiscriminately deleting revisions, and is necessary to maintain consistency with those criteria. I have proposed this rephrase because I am not convinced Richard's proposal includes everything in REVDEL (eg pure vandalism at a valid title). This should prevent the page history of an article about to undergo redirection only on grounds that its topic is not notable being deleted for the purpose only of obstructing the future expansion of the prospective redirect into an article as that is not allowed by REVDEL, though I'm not sure how to word that part. James500 (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support Much better wording, but may still need work. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:17, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - There is absolutely no policy or historical basis for limiting "delete and redirect" !votes in this manner. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:32, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose for the same reason given above. Deleting an article as the result of an AfD can only be done if there is consensus for that outcome, so this has nothing to do with admins indiscriminately deleting pages. The normal outcome for pages on topics found to be non-notable is for the page to be deleted, so you can hardly argue that deletion isn't appropriate for such a topic. Otherwise we would have a rule mandating that articles be redirected whenever possible as an alternative to deletion. Hut 8.5 19:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per my oppose to the other suggestion. Reyk _YO! 20:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, that is in substance the same proposal as above, and it is based on a similar false assumption: we do routinely delete whole articles (as opposed to specific revisions) for reasons other than that their content is offensive or illegal.  Sandstein  21:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support This would be consistent with the empharic guidance of WP:DGFA: "When in doubt, don't delete.". Andrew D. (talk) 21:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• "When in doubt, don't delete.": refers to articles and article content, does not mention article history, and suggests that inadequate articles should be (a) fixed or (b) merged rather than be deleted. The guidance must be read in its context. There is no emphatic guidance regarding article history. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Dirtlawyer1 has it backwards. It is possible to delete article content simply by editing the article and removing text. The thing about deletion which makes it special is that it removes the history too, so that the change can't easily be reverted. So, the guidance about not deleting in case of doubt applies especially to the history. Andrew D. (talk) 19:53, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Okay, Andrew, for the sake of those watching this show at home, let's be crystal clear: I was referring to articles and the content of articles nominated for deletion at AfD, where a determination must be made what to do with the nominated articles and their content. The article and its content may be deleted outright, with no history preserved ("delete"); the article and content may be deleted and the article page redirected, with the history preserved under a redirect ("redirect"); the article and content may be deleted, the article page redirected, and no history preserved ("delete and redirect"); and the article may be deleted and the article page redirected, with some or all of the content transferred to a related article ("merge"). Both "redirect" and "merge" are supposed to involve the deletion of the article, but the replacement of the article page with a redirect, and the preservation of the article history under the redirect. As noted by you above, of course anyone may delete content from an existing article (subject to article-level consensus); that's part of the ordinary editing process, and has nothing to do with the treatment of articles, content and history as a consequence of the AfD process. Your argument above completely disregards the well-established AfD terminology which already distinguishes incrementally between articles, article content, and article history, as each of the AfD !votes and outcomes leads to a different outcome for the nominated article, its content, and its history. Please note that under this well established scheme that article, article content and article history are each treated discretely; hence article content and article history are NOT the same thing (as asserted by you). No new revelations or insights are required here; these have been the established AfD procedures for over a decade; please see WP:Guide to Deletion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:43, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• I've been patrolling AFD for about 10 years and had never heard of WP:Guide to Deletion before but it's just an essay and so I haven't missed much. It originally started as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion phrases. That title is now a redirect but I can still see all the original versions in the history. This is the importance of preserving the history; it provides a clear audit trail showing all the incremental changes which are quite helpful in understanding the provenance of current content. Take away the history and you destroy the institutional memory – it would be like a lawyer working without a library of decisions and precedents. This is not the way that wikis work. Andrew D. (talk) 08:51, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - I don't see this getting any support beyond the proposal above. There are reasons for deletion beyond the reasons for revision deleting. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is even more narrow than the previous case (not all BLP violations are necessarily revdel'ed). --MASEM (t) 04:10, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
• This is already covered at least with respect to explicit "delete and redirect" !votes: Such !votes are effectively saying "there is no revision to go back to that doesn't fit into Wikipedia:Revision deletion, including item #5, Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion, which includes its own #8 (lack of notability) along with a lot of other reasons." Yes, there are some occasional exceptions, such as when the few revisions that don't fit the above fit the essay known as WP:Blow it up and start over or the policy known as WP:Ignore all rules, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:46, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think criteria 5 of REVDEL applies criteria 8 of this policy to revisions, because it requires "valid deletion" under this policy. Revisions in the page history of a redirect cannot fail any notability guideline, as those guidelines, in their own express words, only apply to the existence of articles, not revisions. The deletion of such revisions for failure of guidelines strictly inapplicable to them under the terms of those guidelines would be invalid. James500 (talk) 05:25, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comments. "Delete and redirect" is practically exactly equivalent to revision deletion, so there is no practical reason for treating them differently. Treating "delete and redirect" as different to revision deletion would produce inconsistent outcomes in practically equivalent cases. Exactly the same content could appear in revisions at either location (ie the prospective redirect and its prospective target). It is difficult to see why its fate should depend whether it is in one place or the other. An article that is a suitable target for merger, which did not exist at the time of the AfD, might be subsequently created after redirection. The normal outcome for pages on topics found to be non-notable is for the page to be merged. The only case this does not happen is if content issues (eg problems with WP:V etc.) prevent merger. We do have a rule mandating that articles be redirected whenever possible as an alternative to deletion (WP:ATD, WP:R). If editors above want to effectively delete revisions in page histories of redirects for reasons other than reasons not presently authorised by REVDEL they should go to WT:REVDEL and seek the changes they want there. James500 (talk) 05:50, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. No better than the initial proposal. David in DC (talk) 21:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
• No Admins and users should be capable of parsing the commentary as well as the specific vote and the actual outcome is inevitably a synthesis of the meaningful parts of the discussion. Seeking to fetter such nuance seems to be trying to bind outcomes of discussions rather than allowing participants voices to be heard, Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. There are all sorts of valid reasons for deletion which don't justify RevDel. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 14:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:REVDEL has quite a narrow set of definitions for deletion. There can be many more reasons that would means no revisions are wroth retaining, such as test, nonsense, regular vandalism, blank or no context pages. The criteria for speedy deletion would be more appropriate. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:06, 27 December 2015 (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.

Proposed wording change for future AFD pages

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.

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I propose adding

:Help for editors new to deletion discussions can be found at Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Discussion and Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Recommendations and outcomes.

which displays as

Help for editors new to deletion discussions can be found at Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Discussion and Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Recommendations and outcomes.

to the top of all newly-created XfDs.

I've updated Template:Afd2/sandbox and Template:Afd2/testcases to demonstrate this.

Among other things, this will point to documentation that says exactly what "redirect" means, avoiding the confusion that sometimes happens at XfD or Deletion Review. Sidebar: For the past few years, that page has said that "Redirect" implies "Redirect and keep" but if the discussion immediately above this one changes things, then that document will need to be updated).

If there is an affirmative consensus to make the change or if there are no objections within a week then I'll make the "edit request" in a week or so. If a consensus becomes obvious sooner, I will make the edit request sooner (personally, I think this is a "no brainer" but I've been wrong about "no brainers" before). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support - David's proposal is a no-brainer. The meanings of "redirect" and "delete and redirect" have been well established by the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion since at least 2005, and the present argument over these meanings of these AfD !votes and consensus outcomes is more than a little pointless in the face of this history. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

  Just to clarify my proposal has nothing to do with the current wording of that document and everything to do with the fact that editors at AFDs and DRVs are either unaware of it or, as happened to me the other day, could not find the document when they were looking for it. In other words, I would make the same recommendation of the current wording said the exact opposite of what it says today if there was a similar level of confusion going on in AFDs and DRVs, and I would still consider it a "no brainer" proposal. The meaning of "redirect" is irrelevant to this section - editors who want to contribute to that discussion should look at the discussion that is already on this page and discuss away. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:44, 1 December 2015 (UTC) David, I would still support your inclusion of the links to the Guide to Deletion, etc., regardless of any changes to the Guide, etc. Making these links readily available should help alleviate the obvious confusion some editors have regarding the meaning of particular !votes and outcomes at AfD and DRV. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. (1) The Guide is an essay. (2) It isn't clear to me why the guide should be singled out over all our other policies, guidelines and essays. James500 (talk) 02:02, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

  I have no objection to a general header at the top of XfDs with links to all polices, guidelines, and essays or parts thereof which are specifically relevant to those participating in the deletion discussion, provided it doesn't become a link farm. Feel free to modify that sandbox. For convenience, here's a permalink to "my" version: Template:Afd2/sandbox. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• I doubt that a link farm could be avoided, so I oppose any additions. In view of the following comment, I think I should point out that, in general, the accuracy of information pages tends to be poor. New users may not even understand the difference between policies, guidelines and essays. If we must link to something, the deletion policy is the obvious choice. James500 (talk) 22:23, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support - I support providing people with information about our processes -- especially when people are about the participate (or considering participation) in that process. As we do not have a policy or guideline that provides the same kind of help as this information page, and the information page is both based on and defers to the policies and guidelines, this seems extraordinarily logical. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:58, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:19, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:BLOAT. The guide lost me at the point that it started talking about "multiple layers of swiss cheese". Andrew D. (talk) 20:46, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Perhaps someone got it mixed up with, "How to make a rueben?!" --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 03:28, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support instead adding "help" to the AfD template {{la}} (or to a new template) which will link to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_contribute. It is a problem that editors can find their way to individual AfDs without passing the instructions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:07, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support concept neutral on wording. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:45, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support the concept Now write something clear, concise, and direct. Use wording that's direct and not wording that's so open to interpretation that everybody comes up with a different answer! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 03:28, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment If you're going to ask people to read the guide, why not start by renaming it "Guide to Redirection or Deletion" — you're putting a lot of assumption on people reading up to the section on redirection. Assuming as you are that they don't know much about deletion in the first place. And in addition, probably need to change "Deletion Review" to "Redirection or Deletion Review" and AfD to AfRD and XfD to XfRD etc. Sbwoodside (talk) 08:07, 24 December 2015 (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.